Like other colonialist countries, Spain has a history of slavery. In Nuevo Mexico the practice resulted in the
creation of a hybrid population group known as “Genizaros” who today make up a
significant portion of the populations of northern New Mexico, southern Colorado, and the South Valley of
Albuquerque. And Genizaros founded the
towns of San Miguel and San Jose, as well as Abiquiú – site of a witchcraft
outbreak and trial from 1756 to 1766, and two centuries later the home of
artist Georgia O’Keeffe.
The
definition of who is a Genizaro is however not precise.
Fray
Angelico Chavez, O.F.M. (1910-1996) – archivist of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe
and “oppositional historian” who wrote about the non-Anglo, Hispano roots of
New Mexico past’s – defined Genizaros as, “Indians of mixed tribal derivations
living among [Hispanos]…having Spanish surnames from their former masters,
Christian names through baptism in the Roman Catholic faith, speaking a simple
form of Spanish, and living together in special communities or sprinkled among
the Hispanic towns and ranchos.” In
practice the category came to be applied more generally to Indians who had lost
their tribal identity, spent time as captives or servants, and were living on
the margins of Spanish society.
The initial
legal basis for compelling such enslavement was the “encomienda” – a system
designed to meet the needs of the mining economy in the early Spanish colonies. As defined in 1503, an encomienda consisted
of a grant by the Spanish crown to a conquistador, soldier, official, or others
for a specified number of Indians living in a particular area. The
“encomendero” (or recipient of the grant) could then exact tribute from the
Indians in gold, in kind, or in labor.
In turn the encomendero was required to protect the natives and instruct
them in the Catholic faith. (The
practice was based upon a similar system of exacting compensatory payment from
Muslims and Jews during the Reconquista (“Reconquest”) of Muslim Spain in
1492.)
The
original intent of the encomienda was to reduce the abuses of forced labor
(repartimiento) that the Spanish colonists employed shortly after the discovery
of the New World. However in practice it
had the reverse effect and became a largely means of enslavement. The Spanish crown attempted to end the severe
abuses of the system by passing the Laws of Burgos (1512–13) and the New Law of
the Indies (1542) – but both failed due to heavy colonial opposition. Instead a revised form of the repartimiento
system was revived after 1550. The
Spanish government’s view of slavery shifted pro and con over time and the
encomienda itself was not officially abolished until the late 18th century.
When the
Spanish Conquistadors first came to New Mexico, Spanish law explicitly forbade
servitude. However an ambiguity in the
rules, the Recopilacíon de Leyes de Reynos de las Indias of 1681, allowed the
capture and enslavement of unconverted Indians for the purpose of
Christianizing them. This practice was
given further sanction in 1694 when a group of Navajo brought a group of Pawnee
children to New Mexico to sell to the Spanish.
When the Spaniards refused to purchase them, the Navajo beheaded their captives. After learning of this Charles II, King of
Spain, ordered that royal funds be used if necessary to avoid another such atrocity.
The Spanish
government had authorized this practice as a means of saving the souls of the
heathen Indians by converting them to Catholicism. However local government officials,
landowners, and some members of the clergy often placed more emphasis was on
the amount of work Genízaro servants performed, while teaching their servants
Christian doctrine was often ignored.
The
standard wage for a Genízaro was three to five pesos per month, depending on
the length of their service. And once
the process of Christianization had occurred and Genízaros had earned enough to
pay off their ransom, they were supposed to be freed. This part of the law was also not always followed
by the slaveholders.
Genízaros
were purchased at annual trade fairs held at Pecos, Taos, and Abiquiú where
they were considered one of the most profitable commodities; the “richest
treasure for the governor,” in the words of the Fray Pedro Serrano. The value of Genízaro servants varied: fifteen
mares (about one hundred fifty pesos) were paid for an Apache captive in 1731,
and eighty pesos were paid for Pedro de la Cruz who in 1747 was brought to
trial for planning to escape enslavement and escape to the Comanche. Pedro may have also fled (and been
recaptured) a year earlier with four Genizaro women. He is reported as saying at that time that
his destination was, “the infidel nation of Comanches.”
In the 1747
trial a servant name Manuel George testified that Pedro told him he was
determined to escape to “la Nacion Comanche” with Maria de la Luz – and then
“return in the company of Comanches and take out the Espanoles by their hair”
(i.e. scalp them). Other witnesses, among
them Geronimo Martin who was described as “a rational Indian with known good
intentions,” also said they knew that Pedro wanted to flee to the Comanche. De la Cruz was found guilty of planning to
“apostate to the Comanches” and
sentenced to five years of labor as a personal servant in the obraje (wool
cloth processing plant) of Antonio Tivurcio in the Pueblo of Nuestra Senora del
Socorro at a salary of three pesos a month.
Genízaros
were marked with a very low social status because they were neither Spanish nor
Indian; thus, it was difficult for them to obtain land, livestock, or other
property required to make a living.
“The primary elements of Genizaro status were servitude or captivity and
Indian blood. Within these two factors
there were numerous variations, the defining characteristics being quite
elastic. When the Genizaro category is expanded
to include mestizos (mixed Indian-Spanish) who were captives of Indians, and
then lived as Spaniards after their release…while retaining their mestizo
status, additional permutations of what constitute a Genizaro emerge.” Such a person was Juana “La Galvana”
Hurtado, who was able to leverage her experience and contacts in both the Hispanic
and Native American worlds to acquire land, livestock, and a substantial amount
of material goods, although still retaining her Genízara status.
Juana
Hurtardo was living as the daughter of Andrés Hurtardo and a Zia woman servant
of his at Santa Ana Pueblo, which he held in encomienda. Even though her father was probably an elite
member of Spanish Society, Juana still would have been considered a coyota, (mixed
Indian-Spanish) mestizo or Genizara. A
few months before the Pueblo Revolt in August 1680, at the age of seven Juana
was taken captive by a band of Navajo with whom she lived until 1692 when her
brother ransomed her. By that time Juana
had given birth to at least one and possibly two children with Navajo fathers –
and probably had been adopted into a Navajo clan. This close relationship with the Navajo
continued as members of that tribe made frequent trading tips to Juana at the
rancho where she now lived. Juana also
continued a relationship with a Zia man named Galvan (hence the “La Galvana” in
her name) with whom she had four more children.
The trade business
that Juana brought to the Zia, and her relationship with Galvan generated such strong
loyalty to her from the Zia people such that in 1727 when Spanish Official Alcaide
Ramon Garcia charged her with “scandalous behavior” and planned to put her in
stocks, the Zia “threatened that the whole pueblo would move to the mesa tops,
rather than have her mistreated.”
When Juana
died in 1753 she owned a ranch with three houses and extensive herds of cattle
and sheep. Her funeral costs – which
were paid from her estate – totaled 229 pesos, paid in-kind with: four
cows with calves; several goats with kids; several sheep; one “fine” mare; one
horse; one embroidered manta (cloth); and one cotton manta. The remainder was distributed among her four
Galvan children. The majority, 1,222
pesos including land and a house at Zia Pueblo, went to Lorenzo Galvan to whom
she referred as “her legitimate son and heir.”
Matias, Diego, and Juan Galvan received 1,101, 823 and 480 pesos
respectively. Fifteen-year old Juan’s
share was held by older brother Diego who was charged with teaching his younger
sibling the rudiments of the Christian religion – indicating that the children may
have been raised more as Zia than as Spanish Catholic. The balance of 1,855 pesos was paid to unmade
creditors.
Juana
Hurtardo was a woman with one foot in the world of her Spanish conquistador
father, and the other in the Indian world of the Zia and the Navajo.
The size of her estate and the amount of her funeral
expenses place her in the same category as other women of property in
eighteenth-century New Mexico. But Juana
Hurtardo was consistently referred to as a coyata
throughout her estate proceedings.
Some Genizaros
assimilated and became full-fledged Spanish citizens through marriage to
Spaniards. Others such as Manuel Mestas
and Pedro Lujan were able to acquire “vecino” (property owner, freeman) status by
actively engaging in the same business of slave trading from which they
came. But despite her success as a
mother and independently wealthy woman in her own right – in the end, as an Hispanicized
Indian, “La Galvana”, was still considered just a Genizara.
Sources:
The Witches of Abiquiu
by Malcom Ebright & Rick Hendricks, University of New Mexico Press
New Mexico Office of the State Historian – www.newmexicohistory.org/people/genizaros
National
Public Radio All Things Considered – www.npr.org/2016/12/29/505271148/descendants-of-native-american-slaves-in-new-mexico-emerge-from-obscurity
