The Other Slavery (58 page)

23. West,
The Mining Community in Northern New Spain,
chap. 3; Cramaussel,
Poblar la frontera,
chap. 4. Governor Lope de Sierra Osorio, based in Parral, wrote that the Tobosos consisted of twelve different Indian nations. Interestingly, he noted that they were “so desperate and valiant that they take or give no quarter, and they make slaves of all the women and children whom they capture.” Extract of a report by Governor Lope de Sierra Osorio, undated but subsequent to 1683, in Charles W. Hackett,
Historical Documents Relating to New Mexico, Nueva Vizcaya, and Approaches Thereto, to 1773,
3 vols. (Washington, DC: Carnegie Institution, 1937), 2:219. On Tobosos, see also Conrad, “Captive Fates,” chap. 3; and J. Gabriel Martinez-Serna, “Mobility and Ethnic Spaces in the Texas Borderlands: The Toboso Indians from the Seventeenth Century to Mexican Independence” (unpublished paper, n.d.).

24. In 1573 the Spanish crown issued legislation regulating how the new expeditions of discovery were to proceed in the New World. The changes were far more than cosmetic. Oñate was held to a higher standard than his predecessors in settling New Mexico, although he was still granted considerable freedom. For the legal constraints on Oñate, see Jerry R. Craddock, “La Guerra Justa en Nuevo México en 1598–1599,”
Initium
7 (2002), 331–359; and Marta Milagros del Vas Mingo, “Las Ordenanzas de 1573, sus antecedents y consecuencias,”
Quinto Centenario
8 (1985), 83–101. On the trial of the Indians of Acoma, see George P. Hammond and Agapito Rey, eds.,
Don Juan de Oñate: Colonizer of New Mexico, 1595–1628,
2 vols. (Albuquerque:
University of New Mexico Press, 1953), 1:477. John L. Kessell notes that no mention of one-footed Acoma Indians has come to light. Spaniards “may indeed have performed the maimings,” he writes, “but a close reading of the documents raises reasonable doubts.” Kessell,
Pueblos, Spaniards, and the Kingdom of New Mexico
(Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2008), 42. For a full biography of Oñate, see Marc Simmons,
The Last Conquistador: Juan de Oñate and the Settling of the Far Southwest
(Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991).

25. On early slaving expeditions into New Mexico, see George P. Hammond and Agapito Rey, eds.,
The Rediscovery of New Mexico, 1580–1594: The Explorations of Chamuscado, Espejo, Castaño de Sosa, Morlete, and Leyva de Bonilla and Humaña
(Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1966); and Michael V. Wilcox,
The Pueblo Revolt and the Mythology of Conquest: An Indigenous Archaeology of Contact
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009), 105–129. For the case of Diego Pérez de Luxán, see George Hammond and Agapito Rey, eds.,
Expedition into New Mexico Made by Antonio de Espejo, 1582–1583, as Revealed in the Journal of Diego Pérez de Luxán, a Member of the Party,
2 vols. (Los Angeles: Quivira Society, 1929), 1:30–31, 52. His life story and exploits as a slaver can be found in Chantal Cramaussel, “Diego Pérez de Luján: Las desventuras de un cazador de esclavos arrepentido,”
Meridiano 107
(Ciudad Juárez: Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad Juárez and Gobierno del Estado de Chihuahua, 1991), 12–45. The slavers of northern Mexico comprised a small, tight circle. Pérez de Luxán cut his teeth in Nuevo León and served under Luis de Carvajal, who also authorized Antonio de Espejo’s expedition to New Mexico.

26. On the Castaño de Sosa expedition, see Albert H. Schroeder and Daniel S. Matson,
A Colony on the Move: Gaspar Castaño de Sosa’s Journal, 1590–1591
(Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research, 1965); and “Accounts of Captain Juan Morlete,” in Naylor and Polzer,
The Presidio,
vol. 1,
1570–1700,
66–110. See also, more recently, Samuel Temkin, “Gaspar Castaño de Sosa’s ‘Illegal’ Entrada: A Historical Revision,”
New Mexico Historical Review
85 (Summer 2010), 259–280; and Samuel Temkin, “Gaspar Castaño de Sosa: El Primer Fundador de Monterrey,”
Revista de Humanidades
27–28 (October 2010), 321–378.

27. The proceedings against Castaño de Sosa and his men are in “Informaciones: Gaspar Castaño de Sosa,” Mexico City, 1592, AGI, Mexico, 220, N. 27; available online at PARES,
http://pares.mcu.es/
. See also “Real cédula del rey a la audiencia de la Nueva España, sobre que proceda conforme a justicia, contra Gaspar Castaño y los demás culpados por haber hecho una entrada en el Nuevo México y haber dado algunos indios de esclavos sin tener permiso; y que se les ponga en libertad a estos,” January 17, 1593, AGN, Reales Cédulas Duplicadas, n.d., vol. 2, exp. 540, fols. 331–332. Temkin dismisses all this evidence of slave taking on the grounds that it was obtained under coercion and focuses instead on the hostility of Viceroys Manrique de Zúñiga and Luis de Velasco II toward Castaño de Sosa. As I have shown in
chapter 3
, there is very credible information on the slaving activities of Governor Luis de Carvajal, and I see no good reason to dismiss all the evidence against Castaño de Sosa, even though the two viceroys were indeed ill-disposed toward him. Many frontier captains resorted
to Indian slavery, and there is little to suggest that Castaño de Sosa was an exception. In 1593 Castaño de Sosa was found guilty of all charges and sentenced to six years of military service in the Philippines. Although he was acquitted in a later appeal, it came too late, as he was killed during a mutiny on the way to the Moluccas while he was still in military service.

28. Hammond and Rey,
Don Juan de Oñate,
1:477.

29. Zaldívar inquiry, 1602, in Hammond and Rey,
Don Juan de Oñate,
2:815; Andrew S. Hernandez III, “The Indian Slave Trade in New Mexico: Escalating Conflicts and the Limits of State Power” (Ph.D. diss., University of New Mexico, 2003), 58. It is easy to locate various prices of haciendas and houses. Oñate’s yearly salary was 6,000 ducats, or 7,533 pesos. On Spaniards taking Indians out of New Mexico, see Oñate to Viceroy, n.p., March 2, 1599, in Hammond and Rey,
Don Juan de Oñate,
1:481. See also Hernandez, “The Indian Slave Trade in New Mexico,” 48. On the return to Mexico of Oñate, Zaldívar, and thirty other soldiers and their Natives, see “Conviction of Oñate and His Captains, 1614,” in Hammond and Rey,
Don Juan de Oñate,
2:1111, 1115.

30. Depositions of Friar Pedro de Haro de la Cueba and Friar Pedro de Vergara, August 18, 1621, quoted in France V. Scholes, “Church and State in New Mexico 1610–1650,”
New Mexico Historical Review
11 (1936), 149, 170 n. 21. Governor Eulate’s successor, Francisco de la Mora y Ceballos (1632–1635), continued the practice of issuing receipts, “which serve as a just title wherewith the bearer may go to any pueblo he likes and take away a boy or a girl from its father or mother.” Friar Esteban de Perea, Curac, October 30, 1633, in Hackett,
Historical Documents,
3:130. See also
Fray Alonso de Benavides’ Revised Memorial of 1634
(Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1945), 171. On Governor Eulate’s activities, see Rick Hendricks and Gerald Mandell, “The Apache Slave Trade in Parral, 1637–1679,”
Journal of Big Bend Studies
16 (2004), 61–62; and Zavala,
Los esclavos indios en Nueva España,
223, 325 n. 422.

31. This well-known anecdote can be found in Alonso de Benavides’s memorial of 1630, which has been translated and edited by Baker H. Morrow,
A Harvest of Reluctant Souls
(Niwot: University Press of Colorado, 1996), 76–78. Trade relations between New Mexico and Chihuahua were sporadic in the early seventeenth century, but the pace picked up considerably after the founding of the mines in Parral in 1631. Even though Parral was the northernmost silver-mining center, it still lay some seven hundred miles south of Santa Fe. New Mexican traders had to travel two months to get there. Yet once in Parral, they found a bustling market and a seemingly endless demand for items such as clothes and salt, as well as workers. Unlike the other large silver mines, such as those at Zacatecas or Guanajuato, Parral was too far north to be supplied easily from central Mexico. New Mexico thus became integrated into the silver economy as a net exporter of slave-made goods and slaves. See Jack D. Forbes,
Apache, Navaho, and Spaniard
(Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1960), 120; and Hernandez, “The Indian Slave Trade in New Mexico,” 52–54.

32. Scholes, “Church and State in New Mexico,” 300, 326 n. 7; Hernandez, “The Indian Slave Trade in New Mexico,” 55; Blackhawk,
Violence over the Land,
25. Governor Luis de Rosas exported buffalo hides and hundreds of textiles woven and decorated
by Indians in his sweatshop in Santa Fe. Lansing B. Bloom, “A Trade Invoice from 1638,”
New Mexico Historical Review
10 (October 1935), 242–248.

33. Certificate issued by Captain Juan Manso, Santa Fe, October 12, 1658, AHMP, Parral, microfilm reel 1660C, frames 1375–1387. For more background on this entrepreneurial governor, see Rick Hendricks and Gerald J. Mandell, “Juan Manso, Frontier Entrepreneur,”
New Mexico Historical Review
75:3 (July 2000), 339–365. Hendricks and Mandell rightly comment on the strangeness of this broad sentence against “the entire Apache nation” and conclude that Manso’s certificates were “essentially legal gibberish designed to legitimize and simplify the commerce in Apaches.” Hendricks and Mandell, “The Apache Slave Trade in Parral,” 67–68. Such legal fig leaves were actually quite common. In 1676 the governor of Chile employed virtually the same legal terminology to abet the traffic of Mapuche slaves.

34. Captain Andrés Hurtado, Santa Fe, September 1661, in Hackett,
Historical Documents,
3:186–188. The physical labor extracted from the Pueblo Indians of the Salinas area during the seventeenth century can be detected through analyses of musculoskeletal stress marker (MSM) scores. During the colonial period, MSM scores increased for adult men in ways that are consistent with bearing loads. MSM scores also increased notably for older adult women, who seemed to have been drawn more heavily into the labor pool than in pre-colonial times. Katherine A. Spielmann, Tiffany Clark, Diane Hawkey, Katharine Rainey, and Suzanne K. Fish, “‘. . . Being Weary, They Had Rebelled’: Pueblo Subsistence and Labor Under Spanish Colonialism,”
Journal of Anthropological Archaeology
28 (2009), 102–125.

35. Rick Hendricks and Gerald Mandell have compiled a list of New Mexican trade goods available in Parral. Drawn from dozens of estate inventories, the list includes Apache, Ute, and Pawnee slaves, who sold for 50 to 125 pesos apiece, easily the most expensive “item” one could purchase. Hendricks and Mandell, “Francisco de Lima,” 277.

36. The quote is from Fray Alonso de Benavides, who specifically wrote “a petition regarding tribute and personal service by the Indians.”
Fray Alonso de Benavides’ Revised Memorial of 1634,
169. Encomienda studies in various parts of colonial Latin America have gone from institutional and legalistic in the past to more nuanced examinations of the day-to-day workings of this institution today. Unfortunately, this scholarly revolution has not yet reached New Mexico. The few studies available leave an incomplete and contradictory picture. H. Allen Anderson’s study contains important information, but the analysis is thin. Anderson, “The Encomienda in New Mexico, 1598–1680,”
New Mexico Historical Review
60:4 (1985), 353–377. Based on a purely statistical analysis, David H. Snow concludes that the encomienda was not especially burdensome on the Pueblo Indians. Snow, “Note on Encomienda Economics in Seventeenth-Century New Mexico,” in Martha Weigle, ed.,
Hispanic Arts and Ethnohistory in the Southwest, A.D
.
1450–1700
(Tempe: Arizona State University Anthropological Research Papers, 1981), 347–357. Anecdotal information points to some abuses, however, especially encomenderos demanding labor instead of goods, a practice that was against the law. See John L. Kessell,
Kiva, Cross, and Crown: The Pecos Indians and New Mexico, 1540–1840
(Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1987), 186–188; Cheryl J. Foote and Sandra K. Schackel, “Indian Women of New Mexico, 1535–1680,” in Joan M. Jensen and Darlis A. Miller, eds.,
New Mexico Women: Intercultural Perspectives
(Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1986), 17–40; David J. Weber,
The Spanish Frontier in North America
(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1992), 124–125, 411 nn. 13 and 15; Baker H. Morrow, ed. and trans.,
A Harvest of Reluctant Souls:
The Memorial of Fray Alonso de Benavides, 1630
(Niwot, CO: University Press of Colorado, 1996), 25–27; and
Fray Alonso de Benavides’ Revised Memorial of 1634,
23–24. Osteological evidence also shows increased workloads for Pueblo Indians under the Spaniards. See Spielmann et al., “‘. . . Being Weary, They Had Rebelled,’” 102–125.

37. The entries come from Parral, baptismal records, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Los Angeles Family History Library, microfilm 162634, Bautismos 1662–1686, 1692–1744.

38. “Informaciones sobre los del Nuevo México y la saca que hacen de ganados en detrimento de los diezmos y venta de indios. Año de 1679,” Archivo Histórico del Arzobispado de Durango, Archives and Special Collections Department, New Mexico State University Library, Las Cruces, New Mexico (hereafter cited as AHAD), reel 3, frame 429. The quote is from the deposition of Antonio García, San Juan Bautista de Sonora, January 12, 1679, AHAD, reel 3, frame 430. Parral’s power to attract free as well as coerced workers was hardly unique or unprecedented. Mexico’s silver economy expanded at a torrid pace through the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, spawning mining centers small and large. Treasure seekers, merchants, and entrepreneurs of all stripes descended on all of these mining operations, bringing their own workers and turning to the surrounding Indians as a convenient source of additional labor. Local Indians were the first to be inducted into the mining economy, whether as encomiendas, repartimientos, servants of various kinds, convicts serving out their sentences, or salaried workers. When enough local Indians were not available to pull the silver from the ground, mine owners and labor recruiters simply extended their reach to more distant regions. Mines such as Zacatecas, Mazapil, Indé, Sombrerete, and many others tell the same basic story, as they drew men, women, and children, willingly or unwillingly, from large catchment areas. See Sempat Assadourian,
Zacatecas;
Bakewell,
Silver Mining and Society in Colonial Mexico;
Valentina Garza Marínez and Juan Manuel Pérez Zevallos,
El real y minas de San Gregorio de Mazapil, 1568–1700
(Mazapil: Instituto Zacatecano de Cultura Ramón López Velarde, 2004); and Erasmo Sáenz Carrete,
Indé en la historia: 1563–2000
(Indé: Presidencia Municipal de Indé, 2004).