There is some debate over the founding of La Luz, New Mexico. Some historians claim it was first established as a mission by Spanish Franciscan friars in the 1700s and called Nuestra Señora De La Luz (Our Lady of the Light). It seems plausible; Fray Diego de Santander was 110 miles north of La Luz in 1659 at the pueblo of Gran Quivira. The mission and pueblo dispersed in 1672 due to disease, drought, and Apache raids.
The Franciscans were diligent record-keepers and their archives are a dependable and important resource for historians; the friars documented their travels, geography, interactions between Spanish and Natives, births, baptisms, sacramental records of marriage, conversions, epidemics and deaths. No written evidence has been found that there was ever a mission at La Luz Canyon in the 1700s.
It can be argued that some of the first steps to establish the unincorporated village of La Luz may have begun with Juan Vázquez de Coronado, born as the second son into a noble family in Salamanca, Spain. The first noble son’s job was to preserve the wealth of the family; the second and following sons needed to either join the military, become priests, or seek their fortunes.
Coronado sought his fortune in New Spain (modern Mexico), and immediately found it on arrival by marrying the Governor’s twelve year old daughter. His mother-in-law was from a Converso Jewish family. During the Inquisition in Spain, Jews had three options: leave Spain, convert to Christianity, or be burned at the stake.
Coronado’s wife’s dowry was a large encomienda - a grand estate staffed with native workers who involuntarily labored for protection, food, and religious instruction. But the glory of being a wealthy landowner was not enough for Coronado.
Spain had become the richest nation in the world by forcefully taking gold and silver from the Americas. Coronado mortgaged his encomienda to hunt for the gold that was rumored to be in the north.
After encounters with the Zuni and Hopi pueblos, Coronado met a community of people in what is now the panhandle of Texas. They were nomadic Apache buffalo hunters and gatherers. They were not awed nor impressed by the Spanish, their guns, nor their "big dogs" (horses).
The hunters came out of their tipis to look at the men wrapped and hatted in metal sitting high on their “big dogs" and asked the Conquistadors who they were. The Apache encampment held several hundred tipis with more than a thousand people gathering together for at least this time of the year.
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| Plains Tipis |
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| Spanish Conquistadors |
Coronado left the hunters and continued toward the Seven Cities of Gold in the geographic center of what is now the United States. The big cows (buffalos) were never out of their sight.
The seven cities were straw-thatched villages with about two hundred houses near fields containing the Holy Trinity of corn, beans, and squash. A copper pendant was the only evidence of a precious metal the conquerors found.
Fray Francisco Juan de Padilla stayed in what is modern day Kansas to save souls and was eventually killed. Two other men who stayed with the priest hightailed it back to Mexico City and told the story of the Father’s murder. Fray Padilla became the first Catholic American protomartyr. Fray Juan de la Cruz, who stayed behind at Tiguex Pueblo near modern day Bernalillo, New Mexico, suffered the same fateful end.
Coronado traveled back to Mexico City where the royally titled and entitled “conqueror” continued to bankrupt his wife’s encomienda, the third largest in New Spain. He was the Governor of Nueva Galicia - present day states of Aguascalientes, Guanajuato, Colima, Jalisco, Nayarit and Zacatecas.
Coronado encouraged others to go north by writing his own travel brochure about New Mexico: “The soil itself is the most suitable that has been found for growing all the products of Spain, for, besides being rich and black, it is well watered by arroyos, springs, and rivers. I found plums like those of Spain, roses, nuts, fine sweet grapes, and mulberries.”
Horses also took on a military role: nomads could carry more gear, transport more food, and travois bigger tipis. The Apache, Navajo, Ute, Comanche and northern Plain tribes took to equines like teenagers to telephones. While the Conquistadors were back in New Spain after their “failed” expedition, the Natives spent the next few years perfecting their hunting, raiding, and warring equestrian techniques.
Alternately, King Phillip II was idly considering more ways to wring mass wealth out of the Americas. Too much gold and silver, apparently, wasn’t enough for the richest monarch in the world. He appointed Don Juan de Oñate as the governor, captain general, caudillo, discoverer, and pacifier of New Mexico, a territory that had not yet been conquered. Oñate understood he must pay for this endeavor himself.
Oñate Crest
Don Juan de Oñate married the granddaughter of Moctezuma, the Aztec ruler of Mexico, Isabel de Tolosa Cortés de Moctezuma, , who was also the granddaughter of Herán Cortés, conqueror of Mexico. Ironically, the etymology of the origin of the name Oñate is derived from the Basque word "oña" which originally meant “foot.”
Twenty-two years before the Mayflower left England, the entrada left for New Mexico to find riches for the Crown; 20% of any profits (the royal quinto) would be sent back to their blessed King. The promise of titles, encomiendas, land grants to settle New Mexico, and adventure enticed Oñate to finance 400 soldiers, 130 families, 1000 head of cattle, 1000 head of sheep, and 150 mares on a quest across the Chihuahuan Desert dunes and up the trail by the Rio Bravo River. Franciscan Friars accompanied the settlers to peacefully convert the Natives to Christianity.
The first capital of New Mexico spanning two years was San Juan de Los Caballeros near Ohkay Owingeh at the fork of the Rio Grande and the Chama Rivers, but in 1610, the capital became La Villa Real de la Santa Fe de San Francisco de Asisi. Oñate sent out scouting parties in all directions to search for gold and silver, but they returned empty-handed.
Without the gold or silver booty, the soldiers began to demand tribute from the Pueblos.
The Acoma pueblo refused to contribute the food they had stored for winter and Oñate’s hungry army, armed with steel swords and armor, guns and horses, killed over 800 Acoma people, enslaved 500, and cut the left foot off of all men over the age of 25.
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| Acoma Pueblo |
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| Acoma Pueblo - Edward Curtis photo |
The Franciscan friars got busy. By 1630 there were 25 Pueblo missions and 50 priests serving more than 60,000 Christianized Puebloans in 90 pueblos. Some of the outlying pueblos were abandoned because of Apache and Navajo raids. The conquistadors found the raiders on horseback difficult to control or capture to work on the encomiendas.
Around 1675, there were signs that revolt against the Spanish was impending. There was discord and quarreling between the missionaries and the military. The priests believed the soldiers were there to protect the missions and they weren’t doing their jobs because missionaries and whole pueblos were being wiped out by the Apache and Navajo.
The military believed its jobs was to encourage laborers to labor when they were reluctant, inspire Puebloans to feed them and provide them with female company, to search for their own gold or silver, and to look for new workers who would involuntarily enjoy the encomiendas’ protection and religious instruction.
The friars and the medicine men also became quite contentious with each other. It seems that most people were quite attached to their own native ceremonies and religion and not at all happy to see missionaries destroy sacred Pueblo objects and ceremonial sites. Medicine men were arrested, punished and sometimes killed for practicing “sorcery.”
The encomienda system seemed counter-productive.Brutal forced labor, exploitation, suffering, and pressuring Pueblos to work on their own lands to provide sustenance to their captors did not entice people to work well. There were crop failures and food shortages and the Pueblo people believed their misfortune was a result of not practicing their own religion.
It was becoming evident to the Governor that a conspiracy was afoot and he sent an appeal to Mexico to send more troops. Help did not arrive and the storm broke on August 10, 1680; the Pueblo Revolt was organized and led by Popé, a medicine man from San Juan Pueblo.
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Pope' with knotted rope
The Spanish settlers south of Santa Fe were warned in time to escape, but those in the north-east and west perished to the tune of over 400 people and 21 missionaries. Santa Fe, with its population of 1000, was besieged for nearly a week by 3000 Puebloans.
The Spaniards evacuated New Mexico and headed south to the Mission Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe del Rio del Norte de los Mansos in present-day Juárez near Paso del Norte, the pass between the mountains that led into New Spain.
On their way south, the fleeing Spanish took refuge at the Isleta Tiguan Pueblo near Albuquerque. The Tiguans had not participated in the revolution and many joined with the survivors on their journey to El Paso del Norte. Some historians argue that the Isleta Tiguans were hostages taken to insure the Spanish wouldn’t be attacked.
They stopped again in Socorro to regroup - the mixed entourage now included Spanish, Isleta Tigua, Piro, Tompiro, Tano, and Jemez Pueblo refugees and hostages.
Almost two thousand people were escorted down the trail that followed alongside the Rio Bravo by a Spanish supply train. Rebels shadowed the retreat from the north but did not attack the escapees.
The King of Spain gave the Tiguas a new home beside the Rio Grande, Ysleta del Sur Pueblo. They were under the charge of friars of the Church of Corpus Christi de los Tiguas en el Reino de la Nueva Mexico de el Distrito de el Paso Canton Bravos.
Likewise, the Piro, Tanos, and Jemez Indians fleeing the Pueblo Revolt in New Mexico were given a land grant at Socorro del Sur under priests at the Nuestra Señora de la Limpia Concepción de los Piros de Socorro del Sur.
The missions at Ysleta, San Antonio de Senecú, San Elizario, San Lorenzo, and Socorro were established for the pueblos and can be visited today. Although the tribe is federally recognized, the State of Texas has been contentious with the pueblo, removing their gambling license and implying they were more of a community than a tribe (for the last 300 years after moving to their present location).
Twelve years after the Pueblo Revolt, the King of Spain worried that the French might be encroaching on New Mexico and sent Diego de Vargas back in to re-conquer the Pueblos and re-settle the Spanish settlers. It was messy, people died on both sides, but concessions were made.
Spain’s best accidental weaponry was infectious disease; 95% of the indigenous population died or would die from smallpox, measles or influenza because of the lack of immunity in Native populations. The catastrophic death rates led to societal chaos and many tribes were completely wiped out.
The pueblos were also consistently raided by the Apache, Ute, and Navajos; the Spaniards and Puebloans developed an uneasy truce with each other to allow the Spanish soldiers to keep them safe. Most of the missions were reestablished; some of the people from the missions in the south went back north to their original homelands.
The presidio system began and individual citizens and territorial militias known as "vecinos," or neighbors, were common on the frontier. Locals armed themselves however they could with rocks, bows and arrows, lances, spears, or if they were lucky, a firearm. Their personal dwellings or a community building often incorporated some type of fortification.
Meanwhile, the King of Spain noticed that declining output and increased smuggling of gold and silver were affecting his bottom line. The price of goods from the colonies were cheap and goods made in Spain began to be heavily taxed to make up the difference.
Industries were not being developed since cheap imports were available. Entrepreneurs who became successful in New Spain returned and bought their way up the social ladder by buying titles from the King. They became wealthy enough to remove themselves from the productive sector of the economy.
Wages of craftsmen, builders, and food producers were at a stable low level causing the middle class in Spain to diminish. Their tax burden to keep the King flush led to the decrease of living standards and marriage rates decreased in Spain. Support for the safety and infrastructure of the New Spain colony was minimal.
Spain restricted New Mexico’s ability to do business with the neighboring United States and only allowed trade internally and with Spain. Smuggling was persistent. New Spain became tired of the Crown’s abuses and launched the Mexican War of Independence. In 1821, 300 years of Spanish rule ended and New Mexico became a territory of Mexico.
Farming communities developed along the Camino Real and Rio Grande and when populations grew too large, or when there were conflicts and disagreements, or there were ecological factors like flooding, drought, land or water scarcity, groups could petition the alcalde (mayor) to open new farmland for the spin-off group. This dynamic, known as "fission-fusion," is a flexible social strategy that helps balance cooperation with competition.
Some of the settlers were feeling the fission-fusion pressure and received permission to establish a community about six miles north of Socorro. Word of the good farm land spread and several families from Albuquerque, Belen and Tomé joined the new village of Lemitar. They were pioneer and conquistador descendants of Armijo, Chavez, Gonzales, Vigil, Lopez, Sanchez, Romero, and the Santillañes families.
Lemitar’s population in 1846 was a little over 400 residents. Governor Manuel Armijo was the last Mexican governor of New Mexico. After surrendering New Mexico to Gen. Kearny in 1846 during the Mexican-American war, when the United State stole 55% of Mexico fair and square, Armijo was arrested and sent to Mexico City for cowardice and deserting in the face of the enemy.
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| Lemitar Church |
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| Governor Manuel Armijo |
In 1860, Lemitar’s population of nearly 800 people outnumbered Socorro's 523 residents. Persistent flooding convinced a group of families to try their luck across the San Andres Mountains south of the new settlement of Tularosa. The families traveled across the Tularosa Basin to the mouth of a canyon where figs and fruits and black walnuts grew.
Jose Manuel Gutierrez was one of the men who led the families south and east. They built a defensive wall, La Muralla, to defend against the Apache who hunted in the mountains that shadowed them from thousands of feet above. The people who founded La Luz took 400 years to get there. Their DNA is a roadmap from Spain - thousands of miles traveled for God, Glory and Gold.
(note: I recently worked with a friend from Dona Ana, New Mexico on her ancestry. The twenty some generations we traced to Spain was a history lesson that included Spanish royalty, Jewish Conversos, conquistadors, ranchers, farmers, Lipan Apache, and Pueblo).
To be continued…
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