The Santa Fe County
CERRILLOS HILLS HISTORIC PARK
HISTORY OF THE LOS CERRILLOS MINING AREA
by Homer E. Milford
Part 3
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NOTES FOR HISTORY SECTION OF REAL DE LOS CERRILLOS
NOTE 1: Leagues
The literature indicate almost universal acceptance of the idea that one league
was the equivalent of 2.6 miles (the Mexican League). However, as unlikely as it
may seem, this appears to be too short of a distance for what was used as a league
in the early colonial period. Thus distances are given in "leagues" without a
conversion into U.S. miles in this report.
The longest and probably the best defined distance in early New Mexico is the
distance from Santa Fe to El Paso. The distance from El Paso Del Norte to Santa
Fe is consistently given as 100 leagues in the testimony of numerous witnesses in
the 1680s and 1690s. This being the longest distance for early colonial New Mexico,
its coversion to miles should be the most accurate. The distance from Santa Fe to
El Paso measured in miles during the 1840s is given by
Moorhead (1958, p. 107). The Camino Real in
many places had a variety of different paths that could be taken, leading to
variation in measurement of its total distance.
Manuel Alverez (circa 1840) measured the distance as 337 miles (3.37
miles=league), and Wizelizenus (1848)
measured it in 1846 as 345 miles (3.45 miles=league).
Carrera Stampa's (1949) paper on the
Evolution of Weights and Measures in New Spain gives 2.6 miles to the league, but
he qualifies it by saying "... the standards legally effective towards the end
of the colonial period."(p.10) and his sentence on the early colonial league
contains the qualifier "seems to have been" and that it contained 3,000 (sic.
5,000) pasos de Salomon.
In order to avoid the long discussion needed to deal with this problem, and when
the league was shortened, I have used the accepted distance (Mexican League) or
avoided making the conversion. However, it seems likely that the early colonial
league used in New Mexico was probably the 3.4 mile league. One old dictionary
(A Dictionary of Spanish and Spanish-American
Mining, Metallurgical and Allied Terms, Edward Halse, 1908, Charles Griffin &
Co., London) listed: LEGUA, league: in Spain = 5572.7 m. or 3.462 English
miles; in Mexico = 9120 m. or 2.604 English miles. I have not located any
discussion of the question, but it seems likely that Spanish officials coming to
the Americas would have used a "Spanish League". Thus, the league in use in Spain
in the 1500s and 1600s should be checked to see if it was then about 3.4 miles.
Hendriks (1994) also indicated that in the
retracing of one of Roque Madrid's expeditions in the early 1700s, the distances
measured indicate he considered a league as over 3 miles. The distance from Santa
Fe to San Marcos Pueblo is consistently referred to as 6 leagues and the distance
measured by the road in 1877 was 18.541 miles which gives 3.09 miles to the league
(Wheeler report for 1877, Appendix NN, p.
1229). Historic documents from the 18th Century need to be examined for
references to the distance from Santa Fe to El Paso to find the approximate date
of transition from the 3.4-mile to the 2.6-mile league.
NOTE 2: Cristóbal Oñate
Spain had problems with conquistadors trying to set themselves up as separate
independent rulers and after bad experiences with Cortéz in Mexico, and Pizaro in
Peru, a systematic checking of the power of conquistadors occurred after they had
conquered a new area (native kingdom).
The original powers granted to Juan de Oñate were severely reduced even
before the colonization occurred. The Oñates, Zaldivars, and other relatives
and friends invested much of their fortunes to finance the colonization of "Nuevo
Mexico". There was resentment by the Viceroys of New Spain over the autonomy of
Oñate from New Spain, and a desire to have New Mexico as just another
province of New Spain, the Viceroys down-playing the results of the conquest.
The New Mexico disenters in 1601 supplied accusations of misrule and poor results
wich supported concept that New Mexico could not fuction independently.
Oñate's ambitions were checked by the exhaustion of most of his fortune and
his increasing dependence on the Viceroy's financial support. Oñate was
unaware of secret orders to the Viceroy in 1606 to find a ruse to get him to come
to Mexico City so that a new governor could be appointed. In 1607, Juan de
Oñate thought he could force the Viceroy to send the aid he felt the colony
needed to succeed by threatening to resign if additional supplies and colonists
were not sent to New Mexico. He sent the Viceroy a letter of resignation if
additional aid were not sent. This was what the Viceroy needed to break the power
of this latest conquistador of a new kingdom and he accepted the resignation.
The Viceroy appointed a new governor for New Mexico, but the Cabildo of San Gabriel,
city council of the only town in New Mexico, rejected the appointment. The Cabildo
elected Cristóbal de Oñate as the new governor. In one legal sense,
the governorship was automatically his as it had been guaranteed by the Crown in
the colonization documents to the Oñates for two generations.
Cristóbal de Oñate is not on the lists of New Mexico governors
published by the State of New Mexico agencies. However, for a long time there has
been little doubt about his being governor from the time of his election by the
Cabildo in 1608 until Governor Peralta arrived in 1610, and he has been recognized
by some historians. He is entitled to a number of distinctions besides being our
second governor.
He was the first New Mexico governor of Native American descent. Though all colonial
governors are referred to as "Royal Governors", Cristóbal was our only
truly "Royal Governor". Cristóbal de Oñate is the only one that was
of Royal descent, and in a truly American way. He was the great-grandson of Montezuma,
the last ruler of the Aztec Empire, and thus of "Royal American" descent. He was
also the great-great-grandson of Cortéz. He also was New Mexico's first elected
governor. Thus, if one does not consider Popé (1680-168?, 1688-168?) and Luís
Tupatu (168?-1688, 168?-1693) as elected governors, then Cristóbal beats
his closest rival for the title of "First Elected Governor of New Mexico" by 304
years.
An argument can be made that the Viceroy did not have the right to appoint a
governor to New Mexico in 1608 when Juan resigned, as even the amended colonization
agreement gave the governorship to the Oñates for two generations. The
Cabildo, citizens of New Mexico, and even the governor the Viceroy appointed, Juan
Martínez de Montoya, recognized Cristóbal de Oñate as governor, and
thus he deserves to be recognized as such by the State of New Mexico.
NOTE 3: The Tlascalans and Santa Fe
A Spanish copyist miscopied the name "San Marcos" as "San Mateo". The responses
to question #15 makes it clear that the Pueblo's name should be San Marcos.
Hammond and Rey do not mention this error at
this point, but mention other probable copyist errors in the copies they translated.
The original Spanish documents translated by Hammond and Rey need to be examined
to resolve questions such as the above, and to get the 1601 testimony of the ten
individuals not given by Hammond and Rey (1953) for other comments on mining.
Copies from different sources, other than those used by Hammond and Rey, should
be checked to verify errors in the copies used by Hammond and Rey.
One peripheral question this hopefully would shed some light on is the possible
founding of a mining camp in the Santa Fe River Valley about 1601 by Cerrillos
miners. Several of the Spanish miners said the mines were worked with the help of
servants and households. Assuming that "servants" refers to Tlascalans, this, and
prayer wheels found in the excavation of a mine mill site from this early 1600s
period (Hibben et al, 1985), indicate that
Mexican Indians, probably Tlascalans, had a major role in early mining. They, and
a few European miners working in the Cerrillos Hills, may have founded a mining
camp south of the Santa Fe River around 1601.
In 1605 Governor Juan de Oñate authorized the founding of a community
called Santa Fe "solely with Spanish" (Morfi,
1782, p. 74). Morfi's decision to write, "poblando la y solos españoles"
indicates that he was aware of a community there before 1605 which was largely not
Spanish. The mainly non-Spanish residents of that community were probably Tlascalan
miners. The probable role of the Tlascalans in early colonial mining and the
founding of Santa Fe is discussed at length in the
AML Turquoise Hill Report (1994).
The documentary evidence for the founding of the Spanish community of Santa Fe in
1605 has been listed by authors on a number of occasions. Father Alonso de Posadas,
head of the Franciscans in New Mexico and a resident of Santa Fe, who must have
known many individuals present at the 1605 founding of Santa Fe, wrote just decades
later, "La Villa de Santa Fe ... descubriola en año de 1605 el Adelantado
D. Juan de Oñate,..."(Twitchell, 1911,
p. 233, note 336). Debate over the exact founding date of Santa Fe will
continue for some time. However, the preponderance of evidence seems to clearly
indicate that the purely Spanish town on the north side of the river was founded
in 1605, and that a mixed community existed south of the river prior to that date.
Hodge (Ayer, 1916, p. 234) was the
earliest-located proponent and collector of evidence for the 1605 founding date,
though earlier authors reference 1600s documents containing the 1605 date. The 1608
testimonial for Juan Martínez de Montoya gives himself personal credit for
founding the " plaza" (Spanish village) of Santa Fe, as well as finding the
Buenaventura mine (Scholes, 1944, and copies
are available from the Museum of New Mexico History Library). The Buenaventura
mine was probably not in the Cerrillos Hills, but it indicates that Juan was
interested in mining and very possibly had spent time with Cerrillos miners at
their pre-1605 Real (mining camp).
The origin of the Tlascalan community, later referred to as the barrio of Analco,
on the south side of the Santa Fe River is unknown. The theory that the origin of
this community may have been from a Tlascalan mining camp fits several old Santa
Fe legends. Joseph Brondate said the Pueblo of San Marcos (silver mines) was 6
leagues from the camp. However, Marcelo de Espinosa said they were "six leagues
from San Gabriel", so Brondate may have been referring to San Gabriel when he
said camp, and the distance was later transcribed wrong by a copyist. San Gabriel
is 37 air miles from San Marcos pueblo and the silver mines (using 2.6 miles=
(Mexican) league, that would be 14 leagues, and even by the longer Spanish league
(3.4 miles), it would be about 11 leagues). The distance is over 50 miles by
ground travel (13 Spanish Leagues). The question is, was 6 leagues a copyist
error? Later documents consistently describe Santa Fe as 6 leagues from San Marcos
Pueblo. The miner's testimony needs to be studied in the original Spanish to see
if it supports the argument for the predecessor of the purely Spanish plaza of
Santa Fe being a Tlascalan mining camp.
Though Tlascalan and other Nahuatl speakers (genízaro) had helped conquer the
Zacatecas area in the mid-1500s, many stayed there as miners. As areas were settled
further north, the shortage of mining labor was a constant problem. In 1579, the
officials in Durango petitioned for the importation of a thousand Tlascaltec and
other civilized Indians to relieve the labor shortage (
A.G.I., 66-6-22, Los officials reales de Durango al Rey, Durango primero de
marzo de 1579 in Mecham, 1927, p. 230).
Prior to the colonization of New Mexico in 1598 and afterwards, Juan de
Oñate worked with Tlascalan and other Nahuatl speaking Indian miners and
millers and developed a great respect for their knowledge.
Juan de Oñate's one request to King Philip IV in his 1624 acceptance of
the king's appointment as "visitado general de minas y escoriales de España"
to study how to improve the mines and mills in Spain was that he wanted the
assistance of six experienced Indian miners from the New World
(Simmons, 1991, p. 192). Oñate
probably had six individuals in mind that he had worked with around Zacatecas
(Tlascalans or genízaro?), and possibly some of them had even been with him in
New Mexico. King Philip IV granted his request, and presumably Oñate had
the six Indian miners sent to Spain to assist in the evaluation of Spain's mines.
This request indicates the great knowledge possessed by Native Americans,
especially Tlascalans, of mining and milling of ores at the time of New Mexico's
colonization. Their knowledge was considered the equivalent of, or even better
than, that of European miners. Tlascalan or other Nahuatl miners, though referenced
only by the term "servants" in Oñate Era New Mexico documents, probably
worked as independent individuals or in small groups (gambusinaje) for themselves
as well as for the Spanish.
NOTE 4: The Patio Process
Hacienda: "Hacienda de minas. A silver refining plant: more correctly and fully
termed 'hacienda de sacar plata por el beneficio de azogue' (or 'de fucdicion',
if a smelting plant')" (Bakewell, 1971, p. 269) but shortened by most writers in
one way or another. Bartolamé de Medina's great amalgamation discovery, which we
now call the "Patio Process", according to
Brading and Cross (1972) did not use the patio, open air, or outdoor patio
until the 1700s. They do not give evidence for this statement except that the
first printed reference to such an outdoor area is 1761. They state, "The moment
of transition (from vats to patio) remains obscure. Both West and Bakewell presume
rather than prove that the patio system was the normal method throughout the
colonial period." (Brading and Cross, 1972, p. 553). Without going into detail,
both vats and large open stone-floored patios may have been used simultaneously
from very early days (1560s), as a circa 1700 painting of a hacienda de plata at
Portosi shows the mixing of the ore and magistral in a patio and a small number
of vats. Vats were used to separate the amalgamated ore from waste rock after it
had aged in the sun, so early written documents sometimes mention only one of the
two even though both were probably present at mills. Early testimony about the
process includes discussion of sunlight speeding up the process (Probert, 1969),
which implies exposure in an open area to sunlight. Ramon Sanchez-Flores's article,
on the tools and technology of the Patio Process in the 1500s and 1600s does not
address the above questions (Sanchez-Flores, 1994).
For a detailed explanation of the Patio Process see Appendix 1.
NOTE 5: The Revolution of 1680
The Native American and meztiso uprising of 1680 is generaly referred to as the
"1680 Pueblo Revolt". In several respects this terminology seems inappropriate.
First, it was a successful uprising, and successful revolts are normally called
revolutions. Though the northern Rio Grande Valley was reconquered 12 years later,
the last towns, Hopi Pueblos, held out for a hundred years. Thus, the term
revolution seems more appropriate. There were also Apache and other nomadic tribes
involved in the revolution and the revolt spread to settled and nomadic tribes in
Nueva Viscaya and Sonora, so it was not just a Pueblo uprising in northern New
Mexico. Thus, a term like the "1680 Revolution" would seem more appropriate.
NOTE 6: Spelling of Names
People hundreds of years ago did not spell their names consistently and changed
them by adding or deleting terms. Of primary concern in this report is the man
who was mayor of Real de Los Cerrillos. His name is commonly given today as
"Alfonso Rael de Aguilar", but on the 1685 de Avelos Mine grant he signed his name
as " Alphoniso de Aguilar". His name is commonly converted to modern Spanish as
Alfonso. At some point he started using "Rael" in his name, and in
Kessell and Hendricks (1992) and
Chávez (1973), Rael is given in his
name. Kessell and Hendricks (1992) give his eldest son's name as Alonso where
Chávez refers to that son as Alfonso II. As people changed their names,
and there are different translations of names, it is a problem. Does one give the
name the way they wrote it, different at different times, and confuse the reader,
or use just one spelling? I have tried to give "aka" (also known as) for
individuals whose names I felt were a problem. Some signatures of "Hurtado" seem
to not have used the H in front of the name. Carvajal and Carbajal are the same,
as are Ulibarrí and Uribarrí.
NOTE 7: La Cienega & Cieneguilla
The Laboratory of Anthropology in Santa Fe keeps the official records of known
historic and prehistoric sites in New Mexico and still does not have a reasonable
entry for the Pueblo of Cienega (checked 12/20/1994).
Harrington (1916, Map 29) shows the ruins
(no. 22) on his map and correlated it with Bandelier's description of the ruins
of the historic period Pueblo of "La Cienega". Thus, the location of La Cienega
Pueblo was known at one time even if it is not in the official record system of today.
There is confusion in the twentieth century literature on the proper name for the
small pueblo that was a visíta of San Marcos Pueblo between 1598 and 1680. This
confusion started with the journal entry of Governor Vargas of September 12, 1692.
On that date, someone told Vargas that the name of a small pueblo he was at was
"Cieneguilla" and Vargas persisted in using this name for the pueblo in following
years. It was an abandoned pueblo in the lower Santa Fe River area (not the one
of the same name in the mountains above Cochiti Pueblo). Vargas did not record
who gave him the name "Cieneguilla" for the pueblo. One possibility, offered by
Larry Miller of the Vargas Project, was that it may not have been given as a
diminutive (-illa) for swamp, but as a term of endearment or as a possessive, such
as would be said in English "our little Cienega Pueblo" (our dear little town).
This would have been done by someone who felt La Cienega was their pueblo. Roque
Madrid II lived not far from the area and Alfonso Rael de Aguilar's wife may have
been from the area so either of them may have considered it their little pueblo.
This name confusion, started in 1692, later led to confusion over the location of
the Pueblo.
The name and location confusion has persisted to the present time in most writings
even though Bandelier resolved the question over 100 years ago. Vargas either was
given an improper name for the ruins of "La Cienega Pueblo" in 1692, or his route
of march was a virtually impossible one through "Cieneguilla" three miles northwest
of the site of La Cienega Pueblo. Bandelier covered the confusion in names by
referring to it as "the Pueblo of Cienega or Cieneguilla" as early as 1884
(Rich, 1885, p. 201), and in his field notes
as late as October 1890. However, by the time he wrote his report (1892) in 1891,
Bandelier had resolved the question of names and had visited the Pueblo of La
Cienega. Bandelier (1892) apparently did not
feel it was even necessary to discuss the name confusion and did not mention
"Cieneguilla", which may be a major reason why the confusion has persisted.
Historic references to the Pueblo of La Cienega start with the explorer
Castaño de Sosa in 1591, who gave San Marcos Pueblo its Spanish name and he
also said there was a small pueblo two leagues from it. Nelson said, "The additional
village, not named by Castaño but said to be situated two leagues from San
Marcos, we may fairly assume to have been at Cienega....".
(Nelson, 1914, p. 25). "The name San Marcos
also occurs (in Oñate documents), however, and somewhere near it is
mentioned Cienega de Carbajal, undoubtedly the unnamed pueblo referred to by
Castaño de Sosa as being two leagues distant (from San Marcos)." (Nelson,
1914, p. 27).
In the early colonial period, other than mountains or rivers, the only points of
reference (place names) that existed and could be used were Pueblos. Only after
the Spanish population started to spread by establishing ranches, did Spanish
place names come into existence for ranching or farming areas of Spanish settlement.
It was probably at some point in the 1630s or 1640s that a Spanish place name,
"Los Cerrillos," evolved for the Spanish settlement area around La Cienega Pueblo.
The 1632 reference to an estancia at La Cienega indicates that the name Los
Cerrillos evolved after 1632. The first description of the location of Los
Cerrillos is in the 1660s as "two leagues distant from San Marcos Pueblo" the same
location description as Castaño's small Pueblo (La Cienega).
The first reference to the little Pueblo by name is in 1598 as "Cienega de
Carbajal", which may indicate that it was at that early date given to Juan de
Victoria Carvajal, Gerónimo Carvajal's father, who was one of Oñate's
leading officers. Encomiendas were granted for three generations. Both
Gerónimo and one of his brothers had other Pueblos as encomiendas which
they probably inherited from their father. However, records indicate that in the
early 1660s the owner of the La Cienega encomienda was Francisco de Anaya
Almazán (Chávez, 1973). Francisco's wife's name was Juana Lopez,
which may be the origin of the name Juana Lopez for the mesa south of Alamo Creek.
After his death in 1662, the encomienda of La Cienega passed to his son,
Cristóbal de Anaya who was in prison in Mexico City.
A trustee (escudero) for an encomienda was appointed when an encomienda passed to
a child or a woman or someone else who could not perform the required military
service. The owner of an encomienda (encomiendero) was required to be on call for
military service or other duties at all times, and the tribute or tax paid by the
Pueblo was the means of payment for this service. Thus, when Cristóbal de
Anaya, who was in prison, inherited the encomienda of La Cienega in 1662, a trustee
(escudero) was appointed. The trustee appointed for La Cienega was Gerónimo
Carvajal's brother-in- law, Cristóbal Marquéz. The trustee got 1/2 of the
tax for providing the military service and the other 1/2 went to the owner
(encomiendero) of the ecomienda. Governor Peñalosa confiscated the tribute
from La Cienega and the two other pueblos Anaya inherited, causing a controversy
over who should get the payment. Gerónimo Carvajal was the alcalde mayor
of all the Tano pueblos in the 1660s, which probably included La Cienega. See
Chávez (1973) for Carvajal family history.
The documents written between 1598 and 1681 (
Millich, 1966, Hackett, 1937, pp. 228, 249,
261, Hackett et. al, 1942, etc., and
Vetancurt, 1698) consistently speak of the
small Pueblo considered part of the parish of San Marcos Pueblo by the name "La
Cienega" or "Cienega". The Pueblo of "La Cienega" was close to Gerónimo
Carvajal's Los Cerrillos hacienda, since his wife, Margarita Marquéz,
reportedly had a doll buried there (Hackett, 1937, vol. 3, p. 228) as her dead
child as a ruse so her illegitimate son could go with his father, Governor Manzo,
in 1661, to be raised in Mexico City. This indicates that the Pueblo of Cienega
was the closest hallowed ground for burial to her hacienda and that it probably
had a church (though Vetancurt (1698) does not list it with a church). The record
is confusing, but she had a double baptism, which was also a scandal, prior to 1662
which may relate to this ruse. Hackett (1937, p. 261) paraphrases the testimony of
ex-governor Peñalosa as follows: "Penalosa speaks of the pueblo of La Cienega,
wither Fray Nicolas de Freytas went [from Santa Fe] to await Father Posadas when
he was coming from Santo Domingo [Pueblo] with the auto for the arrest of
(governor) Mendizabal (in 1661)". This indicates that the Pueblo of Cienega was
close to the route of travel between the two places, and another document
(Hackett, 1937, p. 249), referring to the same incident, says the Pueblo of Cienega
was about half way between Santa Fe and Santo Domingo.
Bandelier in his letter of 2/15/1884 said the site of Cienega Pueblo was "on the
Peña-Blanca road." (Ritch, 1885, p. 201).
Vetancurt (1698) is as close as we have to an official list of 1600s missions in
New Mexico and their related Pueblos. He listed the Pueblo's name as Cienega (and
he does not list any Cieneguilla) and his wording gives both San Marcos and Cienega
as close to the Cerrillos mineral deposits. These references combined with no
pre-1692 reference to a Pueblo of Cieneguilla seem to be conclusive evidence that
the visíta of San Marcos was called La Cienega.
Only two maps of New Mexico prior to the 1680 revolution were located that are
relevant to the question of the proper name and location of La Cienega Pueblo.
The small map made between 1672 and 1685 called the Peñalosa (NM Governor
1661-1664) Map is the most accurate and has La Cienega at the correct location.
A portion of this map and further discussion of it are with the other maps before
this note section. The other is a map by Coronelli printed circa 1685 which also
took a major amount of its information from Governor Peñalosa, but moved
La Cienega to the east bank of the Rio Grande. Neither of these maps have a La
Cieneguilla Pueblo on them.
Bandelier (1892, pp. 91-92) describes the ruins of La Cienega Pueblo as the only
large ruins he knew of west and southwest of Santa Fe other than San Marcos Pueblo.
Though in his field notes he had not decided between the postrevolt name started
by Vargas in 1692, "Cieneguilla" and prerevolt name "Cienega", for the pueblo by
the time he wrote his report in 1891, he recognized that "La Cienega" was the
proper name. Bandelier does not mention the name Vargas started for it,
"Cieneguilla", which may explain why the name confusion has continued into the
literature of this century.
"We meet with a considerable one (ruins) at the Cienega, near
where the Santa Fe stream enters a narrow defile called the "Bocas". This is the
pueblo of Tzi-gu-ma, or Tzi-gu-may. Until 1680, this village, under the name of
"La Cienega", belonged to the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the mission of San
Marcos. It was abandoned during the time that the Pueblos were independent, and
an effort to repeople it was made by Diego de Vargas after the pacification of
New Mexico in 1695, but with little success. Tzi-gu-ma is therefore an historic
pueblo. Nevertheless, I am in doubt as to which stock its inhabitants belonged. ...
Until the question is decided by further researches among the Tanos of Santo
Domingo, I shall hold that the pueblo was a Tanos village."
(
Bandelier, 1892, pp. 91-92)
Bandelier's footnotes in this section (not included) pertain mainly to the question
of tribal affiliation of La Cienega Pueblo. Its proper name before Vargas, when
it was occupied, is without question La Cienega. Though Bandelier here describes
the ruins of Cienega Pueblo as "a considerable one" in his letter to Ritch seven
years earlier, he described the ruin as, "..., now almost obliterated,..."(Ritch,
1885, p. 201)
The only remaining question is the location of "La Cienega Pueblo". It appears
that it was located on the lower part of what is now called Cienega Creek (aka
Arroyo Hondo), on the south side of the creek, about half way between the modern
community of Cienega and the junction of Cienega Creek with the Santa Fe River,
in either T15N, R7E, (SE1/4?) section 1 or T15N, R8E, (SW1/4 or NW1/4?) section 6.
Hodge (Ayer, 1916, p. 231), in his note on
Cienega Pueblo, thought it was north west of here at Alamo Solo, but does not give
his basis for that opinion. However, Hodge probably based that opinion on the
native Tehua (Tewa) word Bandelier gave for the Pueblo of Cienega, "Tziguma",
meaning "lonely cottonwood tree" (Bandelier, 1890, p. 92), whose Spanish equivalent
term is "Alamo solo". The location term "Alamo" (or possibly Alamo solo as it was
later called) was already a separate place name by 1661 from Los Cerrillos and La
Cienega Pueblo. Ana Baca's (possibly the Ana Baca married to Francisco Lopez de
Aragon?) estancia of "El Alamo" was described in 1661 as four leagues south of
Santa Fe (Kraemer, 1994) and in the 1700s
"Alamo" is described as northwest of what was then called the Spanish settlement
of "Cienega". (Morfi, 1782).
The ruins described by Bandelier (1892, p. 91-92) are the ruins he was referring
to in his journal entry for October 26, 1890 (
Lange, et. al., 1984, p. 124). Bandelier wrote in his journal, "There are
ruins near Bonanza in the cañon. Nevertheless, it may be that they are the
ruins of the old Pueblo of Cienega, or Cieneguilla. (note) 797" Lange, et al. in
their note 797 give Bandelier's other references to the Pueblo. However, the
authors did not recognize that Bandelier was here referring to the town of Bonanza
rather than the Bonanza mine three miles southeast of the town. They also give
King, Jenkins, et. al. (1973, p. 29) comments
on "Cieneguilla" Pueblo. The name change by Vargas to Cieneguilla Pueblo led to
the modern assumption of its being in the wrong location. The prerevolt pueblo of
La Cienega was not by the post revolt Spanish community of Cieneguilla as King,
Jenkins, et al. (1973, II, p. 29) seem to indicate. The intended function of King,
Jenkins, et al. (1973) volume II was to simply list known sites that should be
preserved, and thus La Cienega Pueblo, whose location was and is still not in the
state record system, would not have been listed by them ,whether they were or were
not aware of its historic record.
Lang et al. (1984, p. 124) then gives another comment by Bandelier from (Lang et.
al, 1975, p. 107): "where he refers to a stone church with ruins at Cieneguilla
and later (p. 114) says, "church in canyon is recent, and there is no pueblo
there." (This comment in Bandelier's journal is referring to Cieneguilla not La
Cienega Pueblo.) Lang et al. (1984, p. 523) say "On the basis of the King, Jenkins,
et al. statement, Bandelier's latter statement (about the pueblo of Cienega or
Cieneguilla being in the canyon by the town of Bonanza) was incorrect, but his
first information was correct." Bandelier was correct and Lang et al. came to the
wrong conclusion based on King, Jenkins, et al., who were incorrect at least in the
sense that they helped perpetuate the confusion on both the name and location of
the visíta of San Marcos Pueblo.
No reference to a Pueblo named "Cieneguilla" south of Santa Fe was located prior
to September 12, 1692 (Vargas Journal), which is eleven years after the known
Pueblo there whose name was "La Cienega" was abandoned. Archaeological studies of
the Pueblo at Cieneguilla (Nelson, 1916,
Mera, 1940) indicate it was abandoned by
1490, and not reoccupied until the 1650-1700 period. This late 1600s occupation
may have been as a Spanish ranch before or after the revolt of 1680, and the site
may have been where Vargas tried to resettle some Tanos in the 1690s.
Vargas's description of the location of the Pueblo he saw on September 12, 1692,
is difficult to reconstruct from his journal. Looking at his journal entries for
the route of march on the 11th to 13th of September, 1692, to Santa Fe, it is
probable that his "Cieneguilla" was in the target area for "La Cienega Pueblo".
All of the following quotes are from Kessell
and Hendricks' (1992, pp. 386-388) translation of Vargas's Journal. On the 11th,
they left Santo Domingo Pueblo (old site on bank of Galisteo River?) and marched
3 to 4 leagues to "Las Bocas" where they camped on "the plain surrounded by
mountains". This would seem to indicate that they camped outside of the entrance
to the Santa Fe River canyon called "Las Bocas", in the vicinity of the Mexican
Period town of La Bajada. It is only about 6 miles from there along the Camino
Real through Las Bocas to the probable location of La Cienega Pueblo. However,
Vargas said they traveled three leagues from there to the abandoned Pueblo via
the Camino Real on the 12th. Vargas makes the comment about the travel on the
12th that, "Since the road seemed to have moved, because it was bad for 3 leagues,
eroded and filled with gullies by continuous rains...". This march took them most
of the day and Vargas apparently arrived at the pueblo ruins before the rest of
the army. Either the Camino Real that Vargas followed ahead of the army was
rutted enough that the course to follow was obvious, or someone accompanied him
and he did not mention them in his journal.
If Vargas took a route around the canyon (Las Bocas), such as what is called the
Juana Lopez-San Felipe Road System by Marshall
(1991), the route would be about 3 leagues. There were a variety of rutted
paths up the escarpment on that road and it may not have been commonly used in
the prerevolt period, leading to Vargas's comment that "the road seemed to have
moved". If they had followed the road up the Santa Fe River in Las Bocas, one
would think that Vargas would have mentioned the difficulty in the half dozen or
so fording of the stream, as he comments elsewhere about water in arroyos and
implies heavy recent rainfall. Marshall (1991) found no evidence of pre-1846 use
of this eastern route, and I have not seen the Mexican study of the Camino Real in
this area reported by a local land owner (Glen Hughes) as being done about the
same time.
The description Vargas gives of the march from what he called the ruins of
Cieneguilla (La Cienega) on the night of the 12-13th indicates that they followed
a route some distance east of the Santa Fe river to Santa Fe, and yet he also
referred to it as on the "Camino Real". Vargas does not give the distance and only
gives the time of travel across the plains from the pueblo to Roque Madrid II's
hacienda as from before vespers (sunset?) to 11 PM. Vargas's description of the
route is that they crossed a treeless grassland on the camino real, and arrived at
11 PM at the end of the treeless plain, on the banks of a heavily wooded arroyo
called "Arroyo Seco", where Roque Madrid II's hacienda was. Vargas said that there
was water in this arroyo even though it was named dry arroyo. Vargas left Roque's
hacienda about 3 AM and went ahead on a llano (plain) and stopped for the last
time and waited for the army. From that stopping point, Vargas describes the route
as "we again marched toward the bajada from the vega and open country where they
said the Villa would be, a quarter-league away." Thus, the approach to Santa Fe
involved a descent into the town. The only route that fits this description is
going northeast from Cienega across the grassy plains to one of the arroyos coming
out of the Sangre de Cristos before the water descends into the sands of the plain.
Which one of the arroyos Roque Madrid II's hacienda was on is uncertain, as none
of them go by the name "Arroyo Seco" today. It could have been any one of a number
of arroyos, but Cañada de Rancho or Arroyo Hondo are the major possibilities.
All we have to go on is the time Vargas was told it would take to get from Roque's
hacienda to Santa Fe, which was about two hours or a little less. Vargas stopped
once after leaving the arroyo for the final assembly, and it was only 1/4 league
(3/4 mile) from his stopping place to Santa Fe. Thus it seems most likely the
"Arroyo Seco" mentioned is the Arroyo Hondo, or a tributary to it. A northern
arroyo would also have made their route from Cienega the most direct to Santa Fe,
which it should have been as he said they followed the Camino Real.
This seems like the only possible route fitting: the crossing of a large treeless
plain, an arroyo with flowing water, another short stretch of plain, and a descent
into Santa Fe. The Arroyo Hondo may seem like a poor choice, due to it often
having water flow, as an "Arroyo Seco", but the section between the foot hills and
the area around the race track seldom has water flow. Roque Madrid II's hacienda
may have been in this section of the Arroyo Hondo or on a side tributary to it.
The night march had to be east of the Santa Fe river, as the plains west of it were
tree covered and the Madrid hacienda was south of Santa Fe, thus the descent into
Santa Fe must have been from the hill to the south of the town.
The only alternative route of travel for the 12th and 13th, and the only one that
would take them close to Cieneguilla, does not fit the comments made by Vargas
and other considerations. That alternative route would be their ascent of the
escarpment west of Las Bocas and the Santa Fe river. The arguments against that
route are the following: (1) The escarpment west of Las Bocas is about 500 feet
high and nearly vertical. Though armies often follow nearly impossible routes, it
is unlikely they would have avoided the dangers of going up the narrow canyon by
scaling the escarpment to the west when the grade was so much more gentle to the
east of the canyon. (2) No known road up the western escarpment existed until one
was built early in this century, and Vargas said he followed the Camino Real on
the 12th to the pueblo. We can be certain that colonists did not use developed
wagon ruts up the western escarpment prior to 1680.
The two reasonable alternative routes of march for September 12 are through Las
Bocas or up the escarpment to the east of it. Either of these routes would have
taken Vargas to the ruins of La Cienega pueblo. He would have had to ride past it
without noting its existence in his journal and gone another 3 miles to reach
Cieneguilla. There would have been no reason for Vargas or the army to go to
Cieneguilla, as it was out of the way of the route of march they followed on the
night of the 12-13th to Santa Fe. Though Vargas says his route of march on the
day and night of the 12th was on the camino real, his description of the terrain
they crossed clearly indicates they were on the plains south of Santa Fe and not
along the Santa Fe river, at least after the pueblo ruins. Thus, Vargas's
description of the location of "Cieneguilla" is compatible with the La Cienega
Pueblo site, and virtually incomparable with what today is called Cieneguilla.
Nelson (1914, pp. 25-29) in his study of
Tano Pueblos recognized that San Marcos Pueblo visíta's name was Cienega. However,
his field work in the area in 1915 included excavations at Cieneguilla
(1916a, 1916b) as well as at Cienega. Thus
his reports published in 1916 may have contributed to the confusion on names. His
field notes and Mera (1940) clarify the
ruins Nelson worked at as LA 3 by Cienega, a prehistoric site, and LA 16 at
Cieneguilla, the prehistoric site with a Spanish and Mexican village built on top
of it. Thus, neither of Nelson's sites were the historic La Cienega Pueblo.
The combined historical records give the location of La Cienega Pueblo as along
the Camino Real halfway between Santa Fe and Santo Domingo, about 4 leagues from
each. It also was close to the Marquéz Hacienda of Los Cerrillos and 2 leagues
from San Marcos Pueblo. This confines its location to T15N, R8E, section 6 or
adjacent T15N, R7E, section 1. The lower Santa Fe River area to the west,
"La Boca", is narrow and is ruled out on that basis and on Bandelier's (1892,
p. 95) statement that there were no ruins there. The main route of the Camino Real
turned north toward the Santa Fe river at the modern community of Cienega. Thus,
documents contemporary with the occupation of La Cienega indicate it was in one
of these two sections.
Bandelier, on 2/15/1884, said the ruins of the pueblo were "on the
Peña-Blanca road." (Ritch, 1885,
p. 201), and the common route of travel (road) in the 1880s did not go down
the Santa Fe River canyon (Las Bocas), but went east of it from lower Cienega
Creek across the Mesita de Juana Lopez and down the escarpment. In his final report
(Bandelier, 1892, p. 91) describes the location of Tzi-gu-ma (19th Century Tano
name for La Cienega Pueblo) only as "at the Cienega, near where the Santa Fe
stream enters a narrow defile called the "Bocas." He is not saying that it was on
the Santa Fe river, only that it was close to where the river enters Las Bocas.
No map of its location by Bandelier was located. However,
Harrington's (1916) map 29 gives its location
and his text identifies number [29:22] as the La Cienega Pueblo of Bandelier.
Harrington's number [29:22] is the one significant ruin in the area, though his
text for other items southwest of Santa Fe may have caused some confusion.
Harrington's number [29:22] is also shown at the same location on
Twitchell's (1911, p. 5) map titled
"Aboriginal Ruins Near Santa Fe NM" as the only significant ruins in the Cienega
area. The cartographer's signature on this map is hard to read, but could be
Twitchell. Twitchell does not discuss the ruins in his text. Harrington (1916,
pp. 468-468) only gives several quotes from Bandelier (1892, p. 107) on La Cienega
Pueblo. However, Harrington's quotes of Bandelier indicate he considered his site
22 to be the La Cienega Pueblo mentioned by Bandelier. Thus it is reasonable to
assume that Harrington, who often listed geographical features of ruins or towns
as "unlocated", must have had a basis for his location of Bandelier's La Cienega
in these two sections, which confirms the location of La Cienega Pueblo on the
south side of Cienega Creek about halfway between modern Cienega and the Santa Fe
River.
A ruin in this area was also reported by two 1800s surveyors of the area. The
survey crew doing the 1876 survey of the Mesita de Juana Lopez Grant reported
"Ruins of Church" in T15N, R7E, SE1/4 of NE1/4 of section 1. The "Ruins of Church"
were outside of their survey area (thus its location may not have been accurate)
and are about where an extension north of the east line of the grant would cross
Cienega Creek. The 1898 survey of the area, which is more accurate, recorded "old
ruins" on the border between the SW1/4 of the NW1/4 and the NW1/4 of the SW1/4 of
section 6 (T15N, R8E).
The location of La Cienega Pueblo was apparent in the late 1800s and until sometime
early in this century. For a description of the La Cienega ruins, all that was
located was Bandelier's (1892, p. 91) description of La Cienega Pueblo. All he
said was, "a considerable" ruins. No 20th Century description of La Cienega Pueblo
by name and in the correct location was located. Thus until a search of the area
for its remains is conducted, the most reasonable assumption is that it was
largely destroyed early in this century. No reference was located to it in Nelson's
reports or his field notes in the LA files, which may indicate that it was largely
destroyed prior to 1915. The general survey of prehistoric and historic ruins done
in the 1930s and reported in Mera (1940) located no major ruins in the area. Mera
(1940, p. 29) reported one L shaped building (LA 44) north of Cienega Creek in the
modern town of Cienega as of the 1650-1700 period. This location is obviously not
the considerable ruins reported earlier by Bandelier, Twitchell, and Harrington
as south of the creek.
In a quick search of the Laboratory of Anthropology (LA) records, two Pueblos
referred to as La Cienega Pueblo were located, neither of which is the historic
period pueblo that was the visíta of San Marcos. The Pueblo referred to by Nelson
as La Cienega Pueblo that he excavated in 1915 (LA:3) and he mentions in his
report (1916) is a prehistoric pueblo with no historic component. It is located
near the top of the hill, Cerro Seguro, north of Cienega Creek. The Pueblo of
"Cieneguilla" that Nelson also excavated in 1915 (LA:16) was a prehistoric Pueblo
with a "Mexican" (probably Spanish & Mexican) village built over the top of
it, including a church, and is located at what is called Cieneguilla, three miles
northwest of the target area. Mera (1940, p. 29) found some Period 5 Glaze at
LA:16 (Cieneguilla), indicating it was reoccupied in the 1650-1700 period after
having been abandoned since about 1490. Thus, none of the sites Nelson excavated
in 1915 were the historic Pueblo of La Cienega.
An anonymous note typed in the LA file (NMCRIS Report No. 42647) for LA:3 says,
"Not pueblo of La Cienega referred to in early Spanish documents --- which is LA
44 and apparently is located in valley west of the racetrack." The record sheet
for LA:44 indicates that both prehistoric and historic period sheds were found at
the site. However, its location is not compatible with the historic descriptions
of the location of La Cienega Pueblo. It appears that LA 44 was a small prehistoric
pueblo with a early hacienda built over it. What is currently listed in the LA
records as LA 44 is also not compatible with the original location designated for
LA 44 by Mera). Mera (1940, p. 29) said "LA 44. Lying within the confines of the
Village of La Cienega are the remains of an L shaped building that was inhabited
during the Group F (1650-1700) times." The current site filed as LA 44 would be
3 or 4 miles north of La Cienega. The current LA 44 file contains a few notes on
pottery types and a sheet of historic references to La Cienega Pueblo and a note
that his site was probably destroyed. It could not be La Cienega Pueblo and is not
the original LA 44 described by Mera and shown on his map 1006.
The Laboratory of Anthropology has several sites reported in lower Cienega Creek
which have not been excavated and which are not described in any detail. The two
sites listed in the target area where first described by Mera (1940) as LA 149
and LA 164. The pottery collected at LA 149 indicated it was occupied during
Period 1 (1350-1450) and was only a prehistoric site. The pottery collected at
LA 164 indicated it was only occupied during Period 5 (1650-1700). Judging by the
small amount of information in the LA files, and considering that shards were
collected from hundreds of sites, it is possible that LA 164 did not yield its full
spectrum of pottery types. If it is La Cienega Pueblo, it should have types from
Period 4 (1515-1650), as Cienega Pueblo was occupied from at least 1598 to 1680,
unless the pueblo shifted from one site in the valley to another in the historic
period. Mera's Map of "Tano-Towa Division, Period 5" (1650-1700) is in the map
section. "LA 164. On the east (aka south) side of the Arroyo Hondo a short distance
above its junction with the Santa Fe River there are the foundations of a building
inhabited at a time when Group F pottery was in use."(Mera, 1940, p. 30) and is
all the description he gives for the site. On page 34 of his report, Mera (1940)
does not list LA 164 or La Cienega Pueblo amongst the known historic Tano Pueblo
sites, which indicates he did not consider LA 164 as the historic La Cienega Pueblo.
Dickson (1979, p. 35) in his survey of the
entire length of Arroyo Hondo (Cienega Creek is the lower Arroyo Hondo) said,
"occupation apparently continued into the Historic Period at one of the pueblos
(LA 126), at the rock-shelter site (LA 4445) and at the undescribed site (LA 165)."
Thus, he did not locate "La Cienega Pueblo" and did not mention LA 164 as a possible
historic pueblo.
Mera describes LA 164 as the ruins of a single building, which is radically
different than Bandelier's description of a "considerable ruin". "LA 164. On the
east (aka south) side of the Arroyo Hondo a short distance above its junction with
the Santa Fe River there are the foundations of a building inhabited at a time
when Group F pottery was in use." (Mera, 1940, p. 30). The large ruin reported on
the south side of Cienega Creek in this area in the 1800s and early 1900s apparently
was largely obliterated in the early 20th Century. Its condition in 1915 apparently
did not attract Nelson's attention and the site LA 164 was small in Mera's opinion
in the 1930s.
Both sites (LA 149 and LA 164) are within 2,000 feet of the Marquéz
hacienda site (LA 20000). They both correspond roughly to the location given in
1898 for ruins, but are 1500 to 2,000 feet east of where "Ruins of Church" appears
on the 1876 map. The most plausible explanation on why "La Cienega Pueblo" or the
large ruins reported between 1876-1911 has escaped recording is that it must have been
destroyed or greatly diminished in appearance early in this century. Both LA 149
and 165 are on Mera's map No. 1006 at the Laboratory of Anthropology.
LA: 165 Record consists of a 3" by 5" card with a few notes on pottery types
(possibly made by Mera). " Arroyo Hondo, La Cienega -at junction of Mocho Arroyo
and (Cienega) creek on the south side" and no note on who wrote the card. The
notes on pottery type are "Tewa poly, Tewa polished red-black, Tsia poly, Mexican
Maioloca - indeterminate" That is the total of the report. A Report sheet was
later filled out and modified the name " Mexican Maioloca - indeterminate" to
"European" and also changed some of the other pottery type names. A later penned
note says that the site was possibly destroyed by a trailer park in the 1970s.
The pottery collected here is compatible with La Cienega Pueblo's known historic
record. A penned date of 8/29/32 in the remarks section may refer to Mera's survey
of the area for his Map No. 1006 which shows the site.
LA: 149 was reported by William Sundt on 6/17/1974. It has the pottery as Glaze I,
and Pueblo IV type. The file has notes to see also LA 12130-12132 and ARM Survey
No. 39568, which were not checked. The pottery collected was prehistoric and there
are notes indicating the site was burned. There is also a copy of the cover of
Mera's (1940) publication, which may have been how Sundt located the site.
An intensive survey of the target area might reveal additional pottery types at
the remains of LA 164 or LA 149, or a totally new site might be located. However,
the historic record indicates that the Pueblo of La Cienega must have been in this
area. Aerial photography of the area done by AML in 1993 showed one possible site,
close to a modern house, but this site has not been field checked.
NOTE 8: Real de los Cerrillos
Field work done in the Alamo Creek area in the past was done without knowledge
of Real de los Cerrillos and, therefore, interpretation of sites probably did not
consider the possibility of their being related to Spanish mining. There is a ruin
just east of where the interstate crosses Alamo Creek on the Sitio de Juana Lopez
Grant. It is named "Alamo Creek casa-corral", LA:80001, and was artifact dated as
late 19th Century. However, the site should be examined, as associated with it is
a large, masonry walled enclosure, "110 meters east-west, by 42 meters
north-south, ... in the well watered bottom land" (LA:80001). The stones should
be examined as possible recycled flooring of an earlier "Patio" mill process floor. If one side of the majority of stones contains more scratches than the other side of the stone, it is indicative of it being flooring for a mine mill patio. However, assuming that the 1750 and 1788 Los Cerrillos grants were based on the ruins of Real de los Cerrillos, its location should be by one of the springs on that grant. Oñate Period, and other time periods, may have had mining mills at other locations along Alamo Creek, and the sites along the creek should be reevaluated for mining content.
NOTE 9: Alonzo Catiti Marquéz
Gerónimo Marquéz came to New Mexico in 1598, and was one of
Oñate's Maese de Campos. In 1596-97, he spent six months with the rest of
the colonists at a silver mining camp, waiting for permission to proceed to New
Mexico. He brought with him five grown sons. His wife may have been Doña
Ana de Mendoza (Chávez, 1973), a niece
of Don Fernando de Oñate (Don Juan Oñate's brother), and first cousin
of Francisco de Zaldivar (if so, then, also a cousin of Vincente de Zaldivar the
major 1598-1602 promoter of the silver mines of Cerrillos). If Chávez is
correct about this family relationship, it is a possible connection between the
Marquéz family settling in the area and the early 1599-1602 silver mining
in the area. Other than a reference to a Alonzo Varela Jaramillo having an
estancia (ranch) at La Cienega in 1632 (Kraemer,
1994, Chavez, 1973), Gerónimo's son Diego Marquéz is the first known
hacienda owner in Los Cerrillos.
Diego Marqués was involved in the murder of Governor Rosas on January 25,
1642. He and seven other conspirators were beheaded on July 21, 1643. Thus, the
only reasonable assumption is that Diego must have established his ranch at Los
Cerrillos prior to his death in 1643. The earliest known reference to his hacienda
"Los Cerrillos" is 1660, when testimony was taken there at his widow's home. The
1660 testimony only mentions his widow Doña Bernardina Vasquez and her
daughter Margarita living there. Besides Margarita, they also had three sons,
Cristóbal, Pedro, and Bernabé. Only Bernabé Marquéz
is given in 1680 records as living on his father's or a separate hacienda in Los
Cerrillos in 1680. Bernabé's brother, Cristóbal, was reported as
being the trustee (escudero) for the encomienda of La Cienega Pueblo by Snow (1985),
meaning that he collected the tribute from the pueblo, but it is not known where
he lived. Margarita married Gerónimo Carvajal and had a separate ranch at
Los Cerrillos by 1663. Diego Marquéz also had a son with a Pueblo woman,
who was known to the Spanish by the name of Alonzo Catiti, after 1680. It was at
Bernabé Marquéz's hacienda that the residents of the area assembled
and held off the rebels until they retreated to Santa Fe on August 12, 1680, with
the assistance of troops sent by Gov. Otermin (
Hackett and Shelby, 1942).
In the census north of El Paso in 1681, Bernabé said he was 38 or 39, with
a wife, 6 or 7 half-grown children, and 7 servants. Chávez (1973) lists
two Pedro Marquézs, one 40 years old, "a cousin" of Bernabé's brother.
Chávez (1973) lists the Pedro who was 30 in 1681, and born (1651) 8 years
after Diego's death in 1643, as Bernabé's brother. That Pedro could not have
been the Pedro that was Bernabé's brother. Thus, Chávez has the two
Pedros reversed, and how much of the information given about the two Pedros is
assigned to the wrong Pedro is not clear. It is almost impossible to assign all
references to individuals centuries after their death when they have the same name.
Assuming that the Pedro Marquéz (40 year old in 1680) who lived at
Nambé at the time of the revolt was Bernabé's brother, he escaped
with his son, but his wife and daughter were captured by the rebels. When they
were rescued by Pedro's nephew in 1692, he said Pedro was living in Casas Grandes.
The testimony of Roque Madrid from the expedition to Casas Grandes, Nueva Viscaya,
in 1684 to put down the revolt there says that the silver refineries there owned
by the Lieutenant Governor of Nueva Viscaya were destroyed by the rebels
(Waltz, 1951). It is possible that some of
the Marquéz's went to work in silver mines or Haciendas de Plata (silver
refineries) in Casas Grandes, which was founded largely by New Mexicans.
Note 10 discusses what little was located on the Los Cerrillos
Carvajals and Marquézs after 1680. The only member of the entire
Marquéz family known to have returned in 1692 was a grandson of Diego
Marquéz, Francisco Marquéz, who rescued his aunt Lucia Marquéz
(wife of one of the Pedros) and her daughter, who were captives of the rebels for
12 years. This longstanding belief may not be correct if Alfonso Real de Aguilar's
wife, Josephina, was Margarita Marquéz's daughter.
Diego Marquéz also had an illegitimate son (coyote or half-breed) with a
pueblo woman, possibly from the Pueblo of Cienega, close to his hacienda, who after
1680 went by the name Alonzo Catiti. Alonzo Catiti was publicly recognized as a
brother of Pedro and Bernabé Marquéz, and was a rebel leader and the
individual that the Spanish expeditionary force into northern New Mexico, in 1681,
tried to negotiate with for the surrender of the Santo Domingos and Cochitis up
on the mesa (later referred to as the Cochiti refugee pueblo of Cieneguilla). He
stalled the soldiers until they withdrew back to El Paso.
The Spanish animosity toward Alonso Catiti Marquéz is demonstrated by the
bizarre story of his death, rewritten a hundred years later by Escalante.
Bancroft (1889, p. 185) gives a translation
of part of Escalante's story of Alonso's death. Escalante must have copied this
from some earlier writing of an elaborate tale of how Alonso received retribution
for his sins against Spain and God. Twitchell (1911, p. 357) considered Alonso
and Luís Tupatu as the major assistants of Popé in planning the 1680 revolt.
There are a number of secondary sources given in
Twitchell (1911, pp. 369-371) which indicate Alonso accompanied Popé
on his tours of Northern New Mexico Pueblos once the revolution had succeeded,
and Twitchell gave another bizarre condensation of Alonso's death. Considering
that the Marquéz's recognized Alonso as a sibling, he must have spent some
time at the family hacienda. Spanish commentaries after the revolution certainly
felt Alonso was a major instigator of, and responsible for, the horrors of the
revolt, and that he must have had some sort of terrible retribution at his death.
The real story of his death, or as close as we are likely to find it, is in the
report of Juan Moro, an Isleta Indian, who visited northern New Mexico in the
winter of 1684-1685. He testified on February 12, 1685, that "He was also told
that Catiti had fallen dead in his house shortly before the arrival of himself
and his companion (in northern New Mexico)." (Waltz, 1951, p. 180). Thus, Alonso
Catiti Marquéz had a normal natural death. The Spanish animosity was much
greater against Alonso than the other two revolutionary leaders, as they were Pueblos,
and Alonso was racially and culturally similar to the majority of those he helped
expel from the land.
There are some indications that the Pueblo of La Cienega was reluctant to join
the revolt (Bancroft, 1889, p. 175 and Hackett, et. al., 1943,), which if true
might have stemmed from its small size and the large number of Spanish settlers
close to it. Once the Los Cerrillos settlers evacuated to Santa Fe, the Tanos
were the first group to attack the town, and Governor Otermin specifically lists
Cienega as one of the first four pueblos to attack Santa Fe
(Bandelier, 1890, p. 92, note 1). After the
revolt was successful, the La Cienegas left their Pueblo. The records of what
happened are minimal, but Hodge gave the following scenario, "The inhabitants of
San Marcos and Cienega also abandoned their Pueblos (in 1680), the former joining
the Queres of Cochiti and San Felipe, the latter (Cienega) possibly joining with
their kindred at Santa Fe and the Cañada (Santa Cruz) or with the San
Marcos." (Hodge in
Ayer, 1916, p. 228, note 28)
The Cienegas were dispersed and probably decimated along with the other Tanos
during the reconquest of 1693 and the 1696 revolt, and then disappeared as a
separate Tano group. The Tanos that moved to the Hopi area in the late 1600s have
maintained a separate identity. The other Tanos have disappeared into the Pueblos
they joined in the 1690s, Laguna and Santo Domingo. Bandelier reported that some
Santo Domingos kept a Tano identity until this century.
Alonzo Catiti (Marquéz) is loosely described as "living as an Indian"
(equivalent English term, " going native") at Santo Domingo in 1681, and this,
with the exceptional Spanish hostility toward him, indicates he grew up not
living as an Indian. He probably grew up in or close to the Marquéz
hacienda in Los Cerrillos. Probably his mother was from La Cienega and/or a servant
in the Marquéz hacienda. His birth must have been before his father was
beheaded in 1643 and he died in late 1684.
NOTE 10: Where did the pre-1680 residents of Los Cerrillos
go?
The Pedro Marquéz that moved to Casas Grandes about 1682 may have been
Bernabé Marquéz's brother, and may have taken Luís Carvajal
(Bernabé's nephew) with him. Though Casas Grandes is not mentioned in
histories as associated with silver mining, it was in its early history. Except for
a New Mexican Franciscan mission that may have been there earlier, its Spanish
settlement dates from about 1661 (Gerhard, 1993,
p. 231). Most of its settlers were New Mexicans, and its population was
augmented by more New Mexicans during the revolution. A New Mexican, Francisco
Ramírez de Sálazar, was alcalde mayor of the area in 1684, but he had also
developed silver mines northwest of the town. Roque Madrid in his report on the
suppression of the revolt there, reported that the rebels in that area had burned
his three silver refineries (Waltz, 1951, p. 187).
"... me han quemado tres haciendas de sacar plata."
(April 14, 1685, to Viceroy, AGN, Provincias
Internas). Thus, it is possible that Pedro Marquéz and Luís Carvajal
may have been associated with this silver operation.
Kessell and Hendricks (1992, note 64, p. 119)
gives a partial list of the New Mexicans that moved from El Paso to other areas
around 1684 during the revolt. The emigrants are listed in groups by where they
initially emigrated. Three members of the two families that had haciendas at Los
Cerrillos before 1680 are in one group. "In the area around San Juan de la
Concepcíon (a silver mining camp), Las Cruces, and Valle de Torreón:...
(after 13 other names are), Bernabé Marquéz, and two young men called
Los Caravajal. ... List of former New Mexico Residents who left with Antonio
Otermin, Parral, 1684, AHP, 1684D." (Kessell & Hendriks, p. 119).
In the Sierra Madre mountains, about 45 miles southwest of the modern town of
Chihuahua, which was founded later in the 1700s, is the town of Cosihuiriachic.
It was the closest Spanish settlement of any size to El Paso, which was the
capitol of New Mexico at that time, other than the small villages of Casas Grandes,
Janos, and several along the Rio Santa Maria. It is about 190 miles south of El
Paso, and only about 130 miles south of the then-undefined border between New
Mexico and Nueva Viscaya. The border between the two provinces was defined in the
1700's. When it was defined, Nueva Viscaya was given a number of communities
founded mainly by New Mexicans from the 1640s through the 1680s. The Rio Santa
Maria starts in the mountains about 25 miles north of Cosihuiriachic and ends in
a salt lake 25 miles west of El Paso. When the border was defined in the 1700s,
the lower part of the Santa Maria river was part of the boundary between New Mexico
and Nueva Viscaya. Though laws were made to prevent New Mexicans from leaving New
Mexico, many did leave the El Paso area. The Rio Santa Maria valley would have
been a natural travel route (though the normal road, the Camino Real was far to
the east of it), and many New Mexicans founded small agricultural communities along
the river in the 1680s.
Only a few mestizos and mulatoes had settled along the river at the Franciscan
Mission of Namiquipa in the two decades before 1680, other than the mainly New
Mexican town of San Buenaventura (Gerhard, 1992, p. 190).
The earliest known silver mining around Cosihuiriachic was in 1678, but in 1683
a new rich silver deposit was discovered northeast of the town. The mining camp
at the small, new deposit was called San Juan de la Concepcíon, and miners rushed
to it in 1683-4. The exact location of San Juan de la Concepcíon is uncertain;
however, it was described as an equal distance between San Ignacio Coyachic and
Santa Isabel (Gerhard, p. 190), which would
make it about 25 miles from the town. The mining rush at San Juan de la Concepcíon
lasted only three years. In 1686, the main mine shaft collapsed and even better
silver ore was discovered closer to the town of Cosihuiriachic. The mining boom
persisted, and the town became the administrative center, alcaldia, of the west
central part of Nueva Viscaya for the rest of the colonial period.
Unfortunately, the group of New Mexicans with which Bernabé Marquéz
and his two nephews are listed combines three destinations: The silver mining camp
that was booming in 1684, and two agricultural communities on the Rio Santa Maria,
Las Cruces (68 miles south of the border) and Valle de Torreón (location
uncertain, there was a Torreón on the river 27 miles south of the border).
Thus, until other documents are located we can not be sure that they went to be
silver miners in 1684. What is certain is that some of their group of 16 New
Mexicans went to work silver mines in San Juan de la Concepcíon in 1684. If we
could be sure that they went to mine silver in 1684, it would be an indication
that the Marquézs may have had silver mining experience at Los Cerrillos
before the 1680 revolt.
The northern part of Nueva Viscaya was familiar territory for New Mexicans, as
they had colonized Casas Grandes in 1661 and San Buenaventura (Gerhard, 1992, pp.
230-231). Roque Madrid grew up around Santa Fe, and his hacienda was about half way
between Los Cerrillos and Santa Fe in 1680. Roque's father operated a mine in the
Cerrillos Hills before the revolt. Roque led the New Mexico Presidial troops to
Casas Grandes to put down the Indian revolt there in 1684, and reported that the
silver refineries (tres haciendas de sacar plata) of Francisco Ramírez de
Sálazar at Casas Grandes were destroyed by the rebel Indians
(Walz, 1951). The records located by
Chávez (1973) indicate that a Francisco Ramírez born in New Mexico moved
to El Paso in 1663. By 1680, he or his son of the same name was Alcalde Mayor of
Casas Grandes, and before 1684 developed the silver mines and refineries northwest
of the town. Though no contemporary documentary have been located mentioning
silver mining in New Mexico in the 1660s or 1670s, it is just as reasonable to
assume that it was New Mexican colonists that took this mining knowledge to Casas
Grandes, as it would be to assume that other settlers of the town had experience
in silver mining, especially since we know the silver refineries in Casas Grandes
were owned by a ex-New Mexican in 1684. New Mexicans not only settled in Nueva
Viscaya, but crossed over to the mining camps of Sonora, where there was also a
mining boom in the 1680s (Kessell &
Hendriks, 1992, p.119). New Mexicans were recruited by Pedro de Perea in the
1640s for his orginal settlement of Sonora in 1641 (Gerhard, 1993, p. 282).
Perea established his headquarters near the already existing silver mining camp of
Santiago Tuape. Silver mining was the basis of the economy of northern Sonora for
a century after the establishment of the area as a seperate political entity.
Though there are no clear records silver mining prior to the 1640s, New Mexican
played a major role in the are before then. There is a vague record of New Mexican
Franciscans working in Sonora as early as 1610 (Gerhard, 1993, p. 281, note 4.)
Though records are fragmentary, New Mexican Franciscans established at least
several missions by the 1640s. The Jesuits complained that the are west of the
Sierra Madre (the west coast), was their territory, and, around 1651, the New Mexico
Franciscans were forced to abandon their missions in Sonora (Gerhard, 1993,
p. 283, n. 16). New Mexicans were primary colonists of northern Nueva Viscaya and
Sonora, along with the New Mexican Franciscan missionary efforts in these areas
from about 1610 to 1650. Is it only coincidence that the primary initial activity
in these areas was silver mining?
NOTE 11: Clarification of Twitchell Number 14
14 JOSEPH de ATIENZA. Villa Nueva de Santa Cruz. April 14, 1722
(Twitchell, 1914, Archives of New Mexico,
vol. 1, #14). This often referenced entry number 14 of Twitchell discussing
the Cerrillos Land Grant is a combination of four different documents, one of
which does not relate to Los Cerrillos. At best, it is the combination of three
related documents with a number of unrelated, and some invalid, conclusions by
Twitchell. The document referenced in the heading is dated Santa Cruz de La
Cañada, 1722, and relates to a land transfer at Santa Cruz, 22 miles north
of Santa Fe, not to a tract of land called Los Cerrillos, 13 miles south of Santa Fe.
The 1722 date with which Twitchell heads his number 14 is of interest to New Mexico
mining history, as it is probably the source of the unspecified reference made by
several authors in this century without giving a specific reference that "there
is a document in the New Mexico archives dated 1722 talking about mining in the
Cerrillos" (Christianson, 1974, p. 17-18).
Twitchell created this false impression by combining two errors, his 1722 date,
and his unrelated comment later in number 14 that "... Captain Roque Madrid (II)
worked a prospect at Cerrillos... for lead for the guns of the Spanish soldiers."
Twitchell's 1722 date relates to a Santa Cruz, not a Cerrillos document, and Roque
Madrid went there in 1694, but did not mine any lead. Twitchell probably made this
statement about Roque Madrid (II) based on the Vargas Journal entry about sending
him to Cerrillos in 1694 to see if they could get lead from his father's pre-1680
mine, and has nothing to do with the date 1722. No document dated 1722 has been
located in the New Mexico Archives relating to mining in the Cerrillos.
Only the first short paragraph of No. 14 and one latter comment deal with the land
grant request of 1722 made by Joseph de Atienza for land previously granted at
Santa Cruz. That original document is microfilmed in the State Archives as
SANM, Land Records, R.1, f.171-.
Starting with the third paragraph Twitchell is paraphrasing the 1788 request for
the Los Cerrillos Land Grant, which, to the best of my knowledge, he does not cover
elsewhere in his two-volume work. However, the denied 1750 request for a Los
Cerrillos Land Grant is covered separately as Twitchell No. 796, vol. 1 (original
is SANM, Land Records, R. 4, f.1062-). The Land Grant's History and the U.S.
Government translations of the three original Spanish Documents: (1.)the 1750
forgery dated 1692, (2.) the 1750 grant request and denial, and (3.) the approved
1788 Grant, and testimony given on the grant are in the State Archives and copies
are found in the U.S. Surveyor General Report No. 59, "Los Cerrillos Land Grant"
(SANM, Land Records, R. 19, f.182-366) and Court of Private Land Claims, Case No.78
(SANM, L.R., R. 41, f. 1123-1231). Copies are also available at the BLM and
National Archives.
There is no real 1692 Land Grant. The document dated 1692 in the New Mexico Archives
is a forgery made in 1750 to create a basis for the 1750 Grant request. The
claimant in 1750 admitted that the 1692 document did not exist, but claimed it had
existed until about 5 years earlier. The claimant admitted that it was written
from memory, even though the Lt. Governor of New Mexico had purjured himself by
falsely testifying that it was an accurate copy of the original. Errors within
the document and other documents support the position that it was a complete
forgery and that a 1692 grant never existed.
Twitchell (1914, vol. 1, pp. 15-18) number 14 entry. In order to try to clarify
the confusion of Twichell's entire number 14, the portions coming from different
documents are given in different kinds of type, and his extraneous and partially
false comments are shaded. The five elements of Twitchell number 14 are as follows:
(1) So called 1692 Grant
Is dated only 5 days after the 1692 expeditionary force first arrived at Santa
Fe to Alonzo (sic Alphoniso or Alfonso) Rael de Aguilar. It
is in red.
(2) 1722
Grant problem of Joseph de Atienza on land near Santa Cruz. Apparently
accidentally included in T #14 due to its being referred to Alphoniso Rael de
Aguilar for government action. It is in
bold italics.
(3) 1750
Juan Rael de Aguilar's (grandson of Alfonzo I) 1750 request for a Los Cerrillos
Land Grant was denied. It is in green.
(4) 1788
The successful petition for a Los Cerrillos Land Grant. It is in regular type.
(5) Twitchell Comments
Based on other documents and his conjecture, in blue type.
14 JOSEPH DE ATIENZA. Villa
Nueva de Santa Cruz. April 14, 1722
[1722] A petition for land. It was referred on the same day to Captain
Alonzo Rael de Aguilar by Don Juan Domingo de Bustamante, governor and
aptain-general.
Captain Alonzo (sic see note 1 below)
Rael de Aguilar was one of the reconquistadores; he was secretary of
government and war. The tract known as "Cerrillos" was granted to him by
General De Vargas at the time of the first entrada, as appears from the
following archives:
[1788]
On the 20th of April, 1788, Josef Miguel de la Peña asked for a
piece of land called "Los Cerrillos" which said tract "when this province
was conquered belonged to Don Alonzo Rael de Aguilar, who was my wife,
Maria Rael's grandfather, and having left it so many years unoccupied,
and Don Alonzo having lost the right he had to it," possession was given
to the applicant and the other heirs of Don Alonzo de Aguilar by Don Josef
Antonio Ortiz under orders of the lieutenant-colonel and political governor,
Don Fernando de la Concha; the boundaries of the land being on the north
the Cañada Guicu and lands of Los Bacas; on the south by the Cerros
Altos; on the east by the road that goes to Galisteo. Mention is made of
lands belonging to Don Cleto Miera y Pacheco.(
note 2)
Joseph Miguel de la Peña, for the sum of $450.00,
in 1791, sold the property to Don Cleto de Miera. This property later belonged to
Colonel Manuel Delgado, who was second in command in New Mexico under General de
la Concha (note 3). Upon this property was a mine known as
the "Mina del Toro." (note 4)
[1750]
The heirs in the year 1750 of the conquistador Alfonso Rael de Aguilar
were: Eusebio de Aguilar; Juan Rael de Aguilar; Antonio Teresa Rael de
Aguilar; Francisco Rael de Aguilar; and children of the deceased Alfonso
Rael de Aguilar; and the children of Feliciano Rael de Aguilar. Don Diego
de Vargas granted the Cerrillos tract to the elder Alfonso Rael de
Aguilar.
In the year 1696 the elder Rael de Aguilar retired from Los
Cerrillos by the order of General de Vargas, where he had lived four years
and built the houses,the ruins of which were
visible in 1750. In that year Juan Rael de Aguilar, one of the heirs, was
in the city of Santa Fe, but he was then a resident of the city of
Chihuahua, but was willing to return "as soon as your excellency shall
deign to concede us the said grant." (note 5)
[1692]
The original grant to Alfonso Rael de Aguilar, the secretary of government
and war under De Vargas, was as follows:
"HIS EXCELLENCY THE GOVERNOR AND CAPTAIN-GENERAL: "I, Ensign Alfonso
Rael de Aguilar, a soldier and secretary of state and war of this
province of New Mexico, by appointment of your excellency, before whom
I appear and state: That considering that this said province of Mexico
is now reduced and conquered, it having cost your excellency much
watching, much care, and great expense, I enter a tract of land
situated from this city of Santa Fe from four to five leagues, and
called the Cerrillos tract, for which your excellency will please
make me in the name of His Majesty a grant, as one of the conquering
soldiers that have come with your excellency, which tract of land I
ask, with its entrances, and exits, uses and customs, as well as the
water, pasturage, and watering-places, as the same were enjoyed by the
former settlers of the tract. I ask and pray in due humility that
your excellency be pleased to concede and make me, in the name of His
Majesty, a grant for said tract of land, as I am a poor married man,
with children, and I trust that your excellency will grant me, as I
have requested; and I declare in due form of law that this my petition
and entry is not made in dissimulation, and as may be necessary, etc.
ALFONSO RAEL DE AGUILAR."
"At this fortified town and garrison aforementioned, of the city of
Santa Fe, in the province of New Mexico, on the 18th day of the month
of September, in the year 1692, before me, Diego de Vargas Zapata y
Lujan Ponce de Leon, His Majesty's governor and captain general of
this said province, and its domain and districts and castellan of the
forces and garrisons therein, the foregoing petition was presented by
the petitioner, who is a soldier at this garrison, and my secretary of
state and war, and in consideration of his services and of the loyalty
with which he has served, and the love he has borne His Majesty, I,
the said governor and captain general do, in the name of His Majesty,
make him a grant for the land, together with its pasturage, waters,
timber, watering-places, uses and customs, and the appurtenances, so
that at his will he may, 'God, the father willing,' enjoy the same
for himself and his heirs, as the will of our Lord, the King, in whose
royal name, and in consideration of the merits and services of the
party, I do make to him the said grant. In testimony whereof I signed
this with two witnesses, the same being the captain and ensign of
this garrison, and I returned to the party the said petition, and the
granting decree thereon, in the presence of Sergeant Major Fernando
de Chávez and Captain Antonio Jorge, residents of this said
province, and participants in the said conquest.
"DIEGO DE VARGAS ZAPATA LUJAN PONCE DE LEON
"ROQUE MADRID
"JUAN DE DIOS LUZERO DE GODOY"
[1722] Don Juan Domingo de Bustamante had been exercising the functions
of governor and captain-general a little over a month at the time this
petition was presented. He was governor during two terms, the second
ending in 1731. He was a great Indian campaigner and led all the campaigns
during his rule. It was during his administration that the controversy
arose between the Franciscans and the bishop of Durango. In this
controversy Rael de Aguilar took side with the frayles, while General
Juan Paez Hurtado, a companion in arms, was against them. Bustamante was
tried on the charge of "illegal trade" and found guilty.
This archive proves conclusively that the Estancia of Los
Cerrillos was occupied before the rebellion of 1680.
Diego Arias de Quiros, in addition to being an alcalde, was a
captain. All of the prominent soldiers also occupied civil positions. In this way
a great deal of complaint arose on the part of the Franciscan friars, although a
search of all available records does not sustain the charge that the officers
were brutal in their treatment of the Indians, although it is rather apparent
that the officers made everything possible in a pecuniary way out of their
positions, both civil and military.
F. Carlos Delgado in his Informe says that the alcaldes were creatures
of the governor, each one appointed on condition that he make all he can
and divide with the governor. It is certain that the Spaniards made the
Indians pay quite a tax in the shape of cotton cloths, working in the
fields, etc.
The father of Roque Madrid had a rancho near the Cerrillos.
Captain Roque Madrid worked a prospect at Cerrillos for the purpose of
obtaining lead for the guns of the Spanish soldiers
(note 4).
It was also said that the governors sent to New Mexico were
compelled to pay tribute to the viceroys to whom they owed their
appointments. See letter of Fr. Suarez where he says: "Pero, muy
católico Rey y Señor, como los que vienen son criados
de los virreyes, o compran los officios, &c."
In the beginning, subsequent to the conquest of Mexico by Hernando
Cortés, it seems that all offices were given more as favors than
as rewards for services to the crown.
General Juan Paez Hurtado had special charge of the colonists who came
back with De Vargas in 1693. When charges were preferred against De Vargas,
Hurtado was also accused. His arrest was ordered by Governor Cubero; he
was charged with defrauding the colonists of half the royal allowance to
each; after the death of De Vargas he served as governor ad interim until
the arrival of Governor Cuervo y Valdes, in the summer of 1704. Governor
Cuervo commissioned him as general. In 1715 he made a campaign against the
Apaches. In 1716, when Governor Martínez was ordered to report to the
viceroy at Mexico, Martínez tried to leave him in charge at Santa Fe as
governor; he probably filled the office for a short period until Valverde
assumed the office; he was lieutenant-general in 1724.
De Vargas's term of office expired in 1696, but he was still in office
that year; see archive No. 2.
Don Pedro Rodriguez Cubero took possession of the office of governor on
the 4th of July, 1697. He had a commission as juez de residencia; De
Vargas gave up the office unwillingly and Cubero became his enemy; the
cabildo of Santa Fe were enemies of De Vargas because he kept his
promises with the Indians and restored captives who were slaves and servants
of the Spanish settlers and officers; he treated De Vargas very cruelly;
found him guilty of charges of embezzlement. Cubero made a tour of the
pueblos of the province. In 1703, Cubero learned that De Vargas had been
exonerated and re-appointed and left the country without meeting De Vargas,
who was now Marqués de la Nava de Brazinas. He was afterwards made
governor of Maracaibo and died in Mexico the year after he left Santa Fe.
(Twitchell, 1914, v. I, pp. 15-18, Number 14)
Notes:
Not all of the errors in Twitchell's comments are addressed in these notes, and
they do not consider the probability that Alfonso Rael de Aguilar's wife was
probably Josephina, the daughter of Margarita Marquéz and Gerónimo
Carvajal.
(note 1) Twitchell uses man's name inconsistently. He
uses Alonzo here rather than the man's real name "Alphoniso", or the modern
Spanish Alfonso, as he did in Twitchell document number 1. Twitchell gives the
appropriate modern form, "Alfonso", later in document 14. The name Alonso has been
copied by others and led to confusion. The man signed his name "Alphoniso de
Aguilar" in 1685 (T#1, SANM, Roll 1, frame 83) and apparently started including
"Rael" in his name sometime between 1685 and 1692. Though there is confusion or
a difference of opinion the first name " Alonso" is best used as the name for one
of Alfonso Real de Aguilar's sons.
(note 2) "Cleto de Miera" (aka. "Anacleto Miera y
Pachco", Chávez, 1973) received a 1/2 interest in the Sitio de Los Cerrillos
Grant made at the same time in 1788 as the Los Cerrillos Grant. "Sitio" was an
adjective used in three large units of land measurement, but in this case "Sito"
is being used in the Latin-American sense of " small farm." In some of the
documents, the individuals receiving one of the two Los Cerrillos 1788 land grants
were mentioned in describing the boundaries of the other land grant, and that is
the basis of this comment. Cleto was a garrison soldier, and his family's political
power probably helped reverse the prior reservation of the area for the grazing
of the garrison horse herd. He was one of the sons of the famous politico and
map maker, Bernardo Miera y Pacheco. Cleto's second wife was a Piño, and
that may explain how the "Los Cerrillos Grant" ended up as the Pino Ranch of the
1800s.
(note 3) Twitchell's comments on the Grant sale were
not substantiated. However, Peña very likely did sell the Los Cerrillos
grant three years later (1791) to Don Cleto Miera y Pacheco. By early in the 1800s,
the four grants appear to have been in just two families as they are the only ones
mentioned in the Alamo Creek area from 1800 to 1879; the Pinos apparently having
both Los Cerrillos grants, and the Delgados, both Juana Lopez grants. The origin
of the term Juana Lopez for the mesa south of lower Alamo Creek is uncertain, but
may go back to the Juana Lopez of the early 1600s mentioned by Chávez
(1973) as the daugher to Francisco Lopez. Twitchell is in error on Cleto's selling
to Manuel Delgado, second in command to Governor Concha (1788-1794), as the
Delgados owned the lower Alamo Creek area (two Juana Lopez grants), not the Los
Cerrillos grants. The 1788 grants and subsequent grant ownership changes may have
all been prearranged to overcome prior government policy of reserving the area for
garrison pasture, and apparently the Mieras and their successor's, the Piños,
let the garrison horses continue to graze there throughout the Spanish and Mexican
Periods (SANM, Land Records, R. 41, f.1284 & 1287).
(note 4) The Mina del Tiro is 2 to 3 miles south
(outside) of the southern boundary of the Los Cerrillos Land Grant as stated in
all the land grant documents. Thus Twitchell must have written this without
thinking about it on the basis of just knowing that the Mina del Tiro was in the
Cerrillos Hills. The mine's name was often given incorrectly as Toro, rather than
Tiro. The southern boundary of the grant is given as the "Cerros Altos", the
highest hills, which are about half way between Alamo Creek and the Mina del Tiro.
(note 5) The 1750 Grant Request was denied, as no 1692
grant could be supplied, and the area was reserved as garrison pasture.
NOTE 12: Spanish & U.S. Mining Law
A land grant would not have prevented mining, as Spanish law kept all mineral
rights for the state. U.S. mining law, which comes from Spanish mining law, did
not recognize the value of this legal principal. However, the current discussions
in Congress on revision of the 1872 mining law indicate that the U.S. may finaly
adopt this principal of Spanish Mining Law.
NOTE 13: Fry Cristóbal Mountains
The basis of Ritch's and other translators' conversion of the name was not found.
Fry Cristóbal was the 17th Century place name for the assembly or camping
area at the north end of the Jornada de Muerto on the Rio Grande. When the name
was first used for the mountains that start ten miles further south is unknown.
Chávez (1950) gives some Nahuatl place
names, but no study of the gradual replacement of the early Nahuatl place names by
Spanish place names in New Mexico was located. The name of the mountains was
changed from the "Xgtonal" or " Xptoval Mountains" to the "Fray Cristóbal
Mountains" was obviously after 1685. The north end of the Fray Cristóbals
are about the correct distance north of El Paso, and the document indicates the
mountain was close to the river, and that is probably the translators' basis for
naming the location as such. However, it is also possible that the location was
the small hills or mountains north of the 17th Century Fray Cristóbal area.
NOTE 14: Past References Located to Real de los Cerrillos
The founding of Real de Los Cerrillos in 1695, at the same time that Santa Cruz
and Bernalillo were founded, puts it in contention for the title as the 3rd or 4th
oldest official Spanish settlement in New Mexico; however, it is virtually lost
from New Mexico history. No 19th-century reference to it was located. Two published
references to it in the 20th Century were found,
Espinosa, 1942 and
Turanzas, 1962.
John Kessell (1989, p. 59) had his
cartographer put it on a map as one of the four northern New Mexico Spanish
Communities of the Vargas Period but it is not mentioned in his text.
At the time this project was started, in 1990, I was not aware of the Vargas
Project, and one of the hopes for this project was to help revive Real de Los
Cerrillos in New Mexico history. John Kessell, Rick Hendricks,
et. al. will hopefully do this through the Vargas Project's
new translation of the 1695-96 Vargas Journals.
Published reports:
1800's: W.G. Ritch (Aztlan, 1885,
p. 166) had heard of it or seen some document mentioning it. However,
he only mentions the name "Real de Cerrillos" and says nothing about it.
1900's: Espinosa (1942)
is the only person to have published a discussion of Real de Los Cerrillos.
Turanzas (1962) published a non-Vargas
1695 reference to "Cerrillo". Real de Cerrillos is marked on a map in
Kessell, (1989), but is not mentioned
in the text.
Stanley (1964, p. 4),
in his book, The Cerrillos Story, has "Real de Cerrillos" only in his quote
from William G. Ritch's "Aztlan" (1885, pp. 166-167), but does not say
anything about it other than including the quote from Ritch.
Schroder (1979, p. 14) paraphrased
only part of Espinosa (1942, p. 224), "In 1695, an alcalde was appointed
for a proposed silver mining camp at Cerro de San Marcos. It was established
the next year at the former settlement of Los Cerrillos." However,
Schroder did not mention the name Real de Los Cerrillos for the mining camp.
In the "gray literature" of government reports it was found in two places.
In the unpublished Application for Registration of the "Los Cerrillos
Mining District" to the State Register of Cultural Properties by David
Snow and A. H. Warren (n.d., early 1970s), they give several quotes from
Espinoza (1942). Espinoza (1942) was also quoted by
Levine and Goodman (1990) in their
report for an earlier AML Cerrillos area project published by the Museum
of New Mexico.
No mention of "Real de Los Cerrillos" was located in the works of the three
major 19th and early 20th Century historians of New Mexico and the
southwest: Bandelier, Bancroft, and Twitchell. The only exception is
Twitchell's (1916) article translating
Vargas's Journals of this period titled "The Pueblo Revolt of 1696". He
gives Aguilar's first name as Alonzo (sic. Alfonso). Twitchell's change
in Aguilar's first name has been copied by other historians such as
Bailey (1940, p. 229), Schroder
(1979, p. 14), and others in spite of their giving his name correctly on
other occasions as either Aphonso or Afonso.
Twitchell translated Aguilar's alcaldeship (mayorship) of the Royal Mining
Camp of Real de Los Cerrillos as "senior judge and war captain of the Royal
Army over the hills" (Twitchell, 1916, p. 346). Twitchell's mistranslation
or misinterpretation of "Real de Los Cerrillos" as "Royal Army over the
hills" was copied by Bailey (1940, p. 229). Thus, the mining camp has
remained almost unnoticed by historians, except for Espinosa.
Bailey's (1940) book on Vargas's governorship totally ignores Real de Los
Cerrillos, apparently because he switched from using original documents
to using the works of other historians, starting about the year 1695 when
the mining camp was founded. He has one footnote reference to Cerrillos
mining, "... and third, the hope that the mining activities six leagues
from Santa Fe might prove worthwhile." (p. 216, note 36) which is from
the April 19, 1695 letter to Vargas, but either Bailey did not recognize
its context or did not see the other correspondences of 1695-96 related
to mining.
The reminder of this note consists of the quotes found in Manuel J.
Espinosa's (1942) book, Crusaders of the Rio Grande. This book is the
only located extensive discussion of Real de Los Cerrillos. Some of his
translation and statements may not be totally accurate and we will have
to await the Vargas Project's retranslating of the Vargas Journals.
However, Espinosa's comments are the only published chronology of events
to date:
p. 222-3: Vargas to viceroy, Santa Fe, January 10, 1695
"Also an alcalde already had been appointed for the proposed mining
camp to be established at the alleged silver mine of Cerro de San
Marcos, six leagues west of Santa Fe, which the officials hoped, would
make up for the disappointing Sierra Azul(43)." (43)Ibid. [Vargas to
viceroy, Santa Fe, January 10, 1695.] "Vargas claimed that good
silver ore had been found here. He said he would name the mining camp
after Viceroy Galve."
p. 227: Vargas to viceroy May 9 and May 27, 1695 and viceroy to Vargas,
July 29, 1695 "... officials who told him to make his settlements
compact for better defense(57)... without notifying Mexico City he
pushed his plans, and by the opening of the year 1696 a mining camp
had been established on the site of the former settlement of Los
Cerrillos..." (57) Vargas to viceroy May 9 and May 27, 1695 and viceroy
to Vargas, July 29, 1695.
p. 239: note no. 27 Vargas to the viceroy, Santa Fe, March 28, 1696
"Vargas to the viceroy, Santa Fe, March 28, 1696, ibid. ... He further
points out that he had been working three mines, hoping to obtain
results sufficient to attract settlers; that one showed silver ore
content, and that prayers were being offered to Our Lady of Remedies,
along with other pious acts, in the hope of better success."
p. 247: Vargas Journal entry of June 6, 1696
"During the course of the day, Captain Alfonso Real de Aguilar, alcalde
mayor of the Real de Los Cerrillos and the pueblo of Santo Domingo
entered Santa Fe with the families of the Real and surrounding
haciendas."
NOTE 15: The Spiegelbergs
The Spiegelbergs were major stockholders in the Montezuma Copper Mining Company
of Santa Fe approved by the Territorial Legislative Assembly on January 26, 1861
(Fierman, 1964, p. 27) and it may have been
this group that leased the Mina del Tiro from the Delgados.
NOTE 16: Mining Nonsense
Writers have tended to repeat without negative comment the nonsense put out by
the yellow journalists of the mining and regular press in the 1880's such as the
following:
"A single mine, the Mina del Tero (sic Tiro), paid in tithes
"to the Roman Catholic Church of Spain" more than $300,000 at a depth of
100 feet. Another mine, the Rue Alevia (sic Ruelena), paid $237,000 to
the Church of Spain in three months (Mining World, Las Vegas, v.3, no. 6,
Dec. 1, 1882, p.88) given in
Northrop
(1959, p.14).
The anonymous author did not spell either mine name correctly, but his story would
have helped sell the stock of the Ruelena and other Cerrillos Mining District
companies. Mines did not pay tithes to the church and most silver mines only paid
a 10% royalty to the Crown. Stories of this type were concoted at will by the
press in the 1880s. The production of the Ruelena proposed in this article is
preposterous. It would be a production for three months of $2,370,000 dollars
(10 x $237,000) or an annual production for the Ruelena Mine of over nine million
dollars. It was this kind of nonsense in the press, to which Bandelier was constantly
exposed for a decade, that prompted him to overreact and say there was no Spanish
mining in New Mexico before 1725 which is equally absurd.
NOTE 17: Tonnage
The starting date for this tonnage must be 1911, or else it means that there was
no production from 1905 to 1911, as the above yearly data table was constructed
from other sources and has the exact same total tonnage for the period 1911-1952
that they gave for the period 1905 to 1952.
APPENDIX 1
Silver Refining Techniques
There were only two basic silver refining techniques used until the late 1800s,
when new chemical and mechanical techniques were discovered. Both of these,
smelting and amalgamation,
were used at Cerrillos in 1600. The break-even point by smelting was ten ounces
per quintal (200 ounces per ton) (AGI, Probanza,
1562, testimony of Diego Ibarra, who financed the colonization of Nueva
Viscaya, to question 8, referenced in note 37 of
Probert, 1969, p. 96). Probert (1969, p. 110) said that the Patio Amalgamation
Process reduced the break-even point ten-fold (from ten to one ounce per quintal),
but that was probably a slight exaggeration. Rather, the Patio Process reduced the
break-even point from eight ounces (160 ounces per ton) to about two ounces per
quintal (40 ounces per ton). This 1554 invention by Medina revolutionized silver
mining and altered the course of history.
Selection of Refining Method
Smelting of silver ores required the presence of a large amount of lead. If lead
was not present in the ore, it had to be added. West (1949) was of the opinion that
the ore type generally dictated whether it was smelted or amalgamated. "Galena,
the main silver-bearing lead ore [in the Cerrillos], which was `rebellious' to
amalgamation process, was smelted; lead-free ores--argentite and the haloids--were
reduced by amalgamation with quick-silver"
(West, 1949, p. 25). Galena is in fact the
major silver ore type of the Cerrillos Hills. However, when mercury was in short
supply, and even when it was available, many miners chose to add lead (litharge)
and smelt the lead-free ores. Most mining districts of Northern New Spain, at
least those with lead-free silver ores (West, 1949, p. 26), used both refining
techniques. The nature of the ore, and the cost or availability of the ingredients
needed for the amalgamation process were the major factors in determining which
benefaction (refining) process was used. Thus, the nature of the ore did not totally
dictate the refining process, and amalgamation was probably used on galena ores
in many circumstances.
Benefaction or Refining Processes
The ore was broken out by bars or moils (pointed chisel) in the mine and hauled
to the surface in leather bags. Near the mine opening, the rock and ore were
hand-sorted and the good ore was then taken to the mill for crushing and refining.
If the ore was to be smelted, it was broken into one to two-inch-size particles
(large gravel). This was, and still is, done by hand in small operations using
hammers. In large operations the stamp mill was used, which was introduced into
New Spain about 1536 from Germany. These stamp mills had been in use in Europe
and a drawing of a three stamp mill is shown in
Agricola (1556), figure M on page 313 and figure A on page 314). The two
drawings from Agricola (1556) are combined together here.
If a stream was available, the stamp mill was powered by a 12- to 15-foot diameter
overshot water wheel supplied from a ditch coming off of the stream. Each water
wheel powered two sets of 6 to 8 iron-capped and banded wooden stamps (West,
1949, p. 27). If there was not enough running water available the stamps were
powered by mules. In Zacatecas, the home of Oñate and most of the early Cerrillos
miners, 33 mule-powered stamp mills were in operation by 1562 (Amador, 1892, pp.
215-216, referenced in West, 1949, p. 26) and 70 in 1605. Mota y Escobar toured
many of the Reals (mining camps) in northern New Spain around 1604, and recorded
that both mule-powered and water-powered stamp mills were used even in those Reals
that had adequate water for water-powered mills (Mota y Escobar, 1930, pp. 182-184,
referenced in West, 1949, p. 26). If the ore was going to be refined by
amalgamation rather than by smelting, it had to be ground to a fine sand. Though
it was done in stamp mills in early periods, by the late 18th century, this finer
grinding was done in a type of mill called an arrastra. When arrastras came into
widespread use is uncertain.
Agricola (1555) Stamp Mill and Refinery
Circa 1600 Patio Process Mill
Types of Furnaces
Charcoal (carbona), preferably made from oak or other hardwood, was the fuel used
for smelting. Colonial smelting of silver ore required two or three different
furnaces of different design. In the first furnace the lead and silver (and any
gold present) were fused into a metallic mass, and in the second furnace the lead
was separated from the silver (and any gold). A third type of furnace was
sometimes used to roast some types of ore (high sulfur) prior to their use in the
smelting furnace. Two types of furnaces were also used in association with the
amalgamation process. A furnace to recover the mercury at the end of the
amalgamation process was always used, and sometimes the magistral (copper sulfate
reagent) was cooked to lower its sulfur content prior to its use in amalgamation.
Smelting Process
First, the lead and silver were fused together in a blast furnace. The silver ore,
unless it contained a large amount of lead, had to be smelted with lead
(litharge, lead oxide) and other fluxes (West, 1949, p. 27). The lighter slag
was raked off and a lead-silver-gold alloy ingot was formed. The ingot was then
taken to a cupellation furnace. The cupellation furnace was lined with or had a
basin (cupel) made of bone ash in the bottom. Heating of the alloy in this furnace
caused the lead to take up oxygen and become lead oxide. The lead oxide was
absorbed by the bone ash, leaving only a mass of silver-gold in metallic form in
the cupel. This process is still used for metal assays, with the bone ash formed
into a cup (cupel).
Parral was the closest mining operation to New Mexico in the 1600s for which
furnace descriptions exist. Parral came into production in 1631 and quickly became
the major market for New Mexico exports. The smelting furnace used there was
the ancient slender, rectangular blast furnace called the
'hornos castellanos,' which tapered toward the bottom. Most of these were 4 to 5
feet high and 3 feet square, with a pair of blast holes about 18 inches from the
bottom. The furnaces were commonly constructed of stone or adobe. The cupelling
furnaces (fuelles, hornos de afinacíon) were usually small...
(
West, 1949, p. 27).
A third type of furnace, the "reverberatory" furnaces [hornos] were used
principally for roasting ores, mainly pyrites and lead ores of high sulphur
content" (West, 1949, p. 29) to decrease their sulphur content. This type of horno
was also used to roast the magistral (copper sulfate) to lower its sulphur content
in preparation for its use in the amalgamation process.
Amalgamation Process: Patio Process
The following description of the Patio Process combines information from a number
of sources, as well as opinions of the author not attributable to a single source.
Most authors give descriptions restricted to one time period or one place. The
major sources that should be recognized are
Mecham (1927), West (1949),
Probert (1969),
Gonzalo Gomez de Cervantes [1599 (1969, pp.
150-155)], Bakewell (1988), and
José de Acosta's 1590 description of the process as reported by
Sanchez- Flores (1994).
The proper name for a mill using this refining process is an "Hacienda de sacar
plata por el beneficio de azoque" (mill for the making of silver with the use of
mercury). Though the extraction of placer gold by combining with mercury
(quick-silver) was known in ancient times, the use of mercury to extract silver
on a commercial scale was not known until the 1500s. West (1949, p. 31) believed
that the precursors of the process may have originated in the German part of
modern Italy.
Bartolomé de Medina discovered the use of magistral which made amalgamation
of ores practical, and introduced the commercial scale refining of silver by
amalgamation to the world in 1554. Medina's process revolutionized silver mining
in New Spain and the world. His process, now called the "Patio Process", remained
the major silver extraction process other than smelting for over 300 years and was
not replaced until the cyanide process was invented in 1887. The historical
importance of Medina's invention is not appreciated by general historians or the
public. The Patio Process dramatically increased the profits of two silver miners,
Diego de Ibarra, who financed the exploration and settlement of Nueva Viscaya
(1563-1572), and Cristóbal de Oñate, whose fortune was used by his son to colonize
New Mexico (1598-1610). Without Medina's invention, European settlement north of
Zacatecas would not have occurred until centuries later, and New Spain would have
remained a small and relatively poor colony.
Medina's invention created the "silver aristocracy" which financed the colonization
of the north without the expenditure of government funds. The Patio Process'
dramatic increase in mining wealth changed the course of the New World and Europe,
and was the most important New World invention prior to the 1800s. The only
inventions between the middle ages and the industrial revolution with greater
effect on history were gunpowder, the compass and sextant, and printing. The Patio
Process lowered the break-even point in silver ore from around 200 ounces per ton
to 20 ounces per ton, producing a five to ten-fold increase in the profitability
of silver mining.
In the Patio Process, the silver ore, regardless of the climate and mill equipment
used, was mixed with a minimum of three reagents; mercury,
salt, and magistral
(generally copper sulfate). The salt and magistral ionized in water, promoting the
ionization of the silver from the elements it was bound to in the ore. The silver
ions were then free to bind (amalgamate) with the mercury. The process required
repeated mixing in a wet state (solution), separated by periods of days to weeks
of drying to allow the chemical breakdown of the silver compounds in the original
ore. The process was accelerated by heat. In cold climates it paid to heat the
mixture, but in warm climates it was cheaper to let nature heat and dry the mixture.
In moderately warm areas without a lot of rainfall, the open air patio with its
free solar heating had a triple advantage.:The ore did not have to be moved back
and forth from vats between mixing and drying, the solar heat was free, and there
was believed to be some advantage to the sunlight speeding up the process.
The mechanization of the Patio Amalgamation Process was proposed by Loman in 1556,
a little over a year after Medina's invention. Mechanization was adopted in one
form or another by many mills in the following decades. The Patio Process required
fine grinding of large volumes of ore, and most patio amalgamation plants were
built with a stamp mill. The drive shaft of the stamp mill, by using wooden gears,
could also be used to stir solutions in wooden vats. The disadvantage was the
cost of hand-carrying the ore back and forth between the vats and the drying areas
for each of the four to eight drying cycles. This was a highly labor-intensive
process and in the labor-short northern frontier, as well as elsewhere in warm
dry climates, Medina's original mixing on the patio floor was more economical.
The patio (stone-covered flat area), surrounded by walls for security to prevent
theft, eventually became the preferred mill design in all areas of suitable climate.
The use of the patio for both the mixing and drying stages of the process
dramatically reduced the labor involved in refining as it was no longer necessary
to move the ore. By simply adding water the mixture turned back into mud for the
next mixing cycle.
The question of when the two forms of amalgamation mills were in use in different
areas is still under debate and most historians avoid the question. The hypothesis
of this author is that, by the early 1600s, the relative advantages of the two types
in different climates led to the domination of the type appropriate to the climate
of the area in which it was built. The mills in cold but seasonally dry climates,
such as the alto plano of Peru (Potosí), probably had combinations of patio and
room drying depending on the seasonal climate (Figure 9). They probably used patio
drying in the summer and room drying in the winter, with only partial use of
mechanized vat stirring. In high rainfall climates, drying could only occur indoors.
With indoor drying, the ore was probably generally mixed in vats.
By the 1570s, mills using the hot amalgamation process, where the mix was heated by
fires during the drying cycle, were in use in cold and wet climates. Since hot
amalgamation mills necessitated moving the mix between the heating rooms and mixing
rooms, there was a labor savings involved in using mechanical power from the stamp
mill drive shaft to stir the vats. Thus, mills using vats were those using indoor
drying in cold or wet climates. Confusion in the literature over what design was
used in the 1500s and early 1600s may simply stem from the fact that both types
existed and that two well known 16th Century descriptions
(Acosta, 1590 and
Gomez de Cervantes, 1599) are by individuals
familiar only with the mills of wet climates.
In the Patio Process the ore was generally treated in 100 pound (quintal) lots.
In the mills that used vats, the vats were designed to hold a quintal. In very
cold places the mixing was done in heated brick lined tables or chests called
buirones. In cold wet climates (as Gomez de Cervantes
described in 1599) the mix had to be formed into balls and put in a furnace for
six days to dry. After it was dried it was again returned to the vats and mixed
with water into mud. This repeated mixing and heating required from four to seven
repetitions. Thus, the process required a minimum of 24 to 33 days using ovens,
and was even longer in cold weather or when ovens were not used to dry the mud.
In warmer or dryer climates the process did not require oven heating. The basic
mill design, as well as processing of each batch of ore, was dependent not only
on regional climate but also on seasonal changes. Judging the progress of the
process and choosing the appropriate formula for the magistral was an art. Mills
in the same area varied greatly in their efficiency,depending upon the skill of
the master amalgamator in charge of the process.
Before the process was started, a furnace assay of a sample of each quintal or
batch of ore was made to determine the total number of ounces of silver in that
batch of ore. Once the silver content was known, the amount of mercury needed for
amalgamation could be calculated. The process required about six ounces of mercury
per ounce of silver. The mercury was sprinkled over the ore, and then, depending
on the sulfur content and other properties of the ore, 10 to 25 pounds of salt per
100 pounds of ore were added. The large volume of salt needed for the process is
why all early explorers made special mention of finding salt deposits in their
explorations. Silver processing required 10-25 percent as much salt as ore, and
after mercury, was the most expensive supply cost for refining. After the three
ingredients were mixed with the ore, water was added to make a thick masa (mud).
It was mixed until the mercury was no longer visible, and then the first drying
phase occurred. The climate determined where the drying occurred. The number of
drying-mixing cycles needed depended on the nature of the ore and climate, and
was generally between four and eight repetitions. The process could take from
several weeks to more than several months.
Two Types of Mixing Cycles
In the open air patio mill the masa was mixed by mules walking around in it for
several days. The masa was then partially dried, raked into piles
(montones) and allowed to stand for weeks in warm weather
and months in cold weather. Water was added in the next mixing cycle and the
animals were driven around in the mud. It was not necessary to move the mixture
using this process.
The master amalgamator checked the progress of amalgamation by checking a sample
of the mix using a batea (a wooden bowl used similarly to
the gold pan of later years). Water was added to the batea and swirled around so
that only the heavy mercury was left in the bowl, similar to gold panning. If
virtually all the mercury was lumpy (curdled), it had picked up all of the silver
and the amalgamation was complete. Color changes were also used to check the
progress of the process. The furnace assay of the quintal before the process
started determined the amount of mercury that was added to produce total
amalgamation of the silver. Thus, when all the mercury was lumpy the process was
complete. If there was more than just a small amount of smooth, runny mercury
(pure mercury), the mixing-drying repetitions were continued to complete the
amalgamation.
When the amalgamation was judged complete, the mix was put in a vat or sluice to
separate the mercury amalgam from the sand. A sluice is a wooden trough with small
cross pieces (riffles) of wood similar to that used in gold placering. The heavy
amalgam was trapped behind the riffles and the lighter sand was washed out into
the stream. The amalgam and uncombined mercury were then put in a canvas bag. The
bag was squeezed and the uncombined mercury came out through the pores, leaving
behind only the silver-mercury amalgam.
In the 1500s and even later, men used their feet for small operations to mix in
the patio or vat. But labor costs caused the end to that practice in most areas
before 1600. When the climate permitted use of the open-air patio-type mill,
animals walked around in circles in mud piles on the patio floor to mix the slime.
The cost of construction and treatment was lower for the patio mill than the vat
mill. Very large patios are shown in drawings and photographs of the mills from
the 1800s.
The arrastra, by the late 1700s, had replaced the stamp
mill as the preferred grinder of the ore. Most English language literature has
criticized the arrastra as a primitive grinding machine. However, it is only
primitive in the sense of being mechanically simple. It did a better job of fine
grinding than a stamp mill. In the 1800s, when the literature was denigrating the
arrastra, many experienced practical millers, even though they used the improved
stamp mill (so-called California Stamp Mill of post-1850), often sent the ore to
an arrastra following its treatment by the stamp mill. The arrastra was often
powered by the same steam engine that powered the stamp mill (such as the 1858
mill at Dolores, New Mexico). The real disadvantage of the arrastra was that it
could not handle a large volume of ore. In the 1800s, mills were built with
several dozen arrastras in one building in order to treat large volumes.
Arrastras were recommended by the Canadian Bureau of Mines to small mine operators
as late as the 1960s.
Separation of the Silver from the Mercury
The treated incorporado (mud) was washed in
lavanderos (water tanks or sluices), and the lighter slime
was carried away by the stream, leaving the heavier amalgam and free mercury. This
residue was then placed in canvas bags and much of the free mercury was filtered
out. The amalgam was pressed into lumps and put on a tripod inside a bronze or
copper retort (closed vessel). The retort was placed in a small buitón (furnace)
and heated. The mercury vaporized and as the furnace outside the retort cooled,
the mercury condensed on the surface of the retort and pooled under the tripod.
(Larger mills had fancy retort furnaces.) Spongy masses of silver were left behind
on the tripod. The profitability of a mill depended on the maximum recovery of the
mercury, as it was not only expensive but at many times difficult to obtain. These
masses of almost pure silver were then heated in a cupel bowl (made of bone or
brick ash) in a small furnace with a little lead to make round lumps of silver.
These could then be sold or sent to the treasury.
These lumps of silver (which also contained any gold in the ore) were then used
to pay merchants for supplies. The mill owner, miner or merchant was supposed to
ship the silver to the nearest treasury office for taxation. The treasury
resmelted the silver into a bar with a tax seal and it was then ready for shipment
to Europe.
The tax commonly referred to as the "royal fifth" (mineral severance tax) varied
over the centuries from one region to another in New Spain depending on the profit
margin of the mines and mills. In the districts of northern New Spain