By Rick Hendricks The following lists of presidial soldiers who served in El Paso were taken from pay records housed at the time at the William L. Clements Library at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. In 1993 these treasury records were returned to Mexico, to be housed…
by Grace Meredith Anyone not intimately acquainted with the history and teaching of the Catholic Church, will find it most difficult to understand the real significance of Spanish history during this early period, and to sense subconsciously much less consciously, the inner organism of the religious and political activities….
General Don Juan Flores de Sierra y Valdes, eleventh governor of New Mexico, was appointed to office by the new viceroy, the Duque de Escalona, in Mexico City in 1641. Because of the serious disputes between the civil and ecclesiastical jurisdictions and the confusing reports from both authorities, Valdes…
A Royalist in Transition: Facundo Melgares, the Last Spanish Governor of New Mexico: 1818‑1822 by Arthur Gomez In August 1818 Viceroy Juan Ruíz de Apodaca, the Conde de Venadito, received documents written by an anonymous visitor to New Mexico. These papers, intercepted by Spanish ambassador to the United States,…
By Rick Hendricks Born to Lorenzo de Samaniego y Jaca and Catalina Díez de Ulzurrun y Roncal in Estella in the Basque province of Navarra, don Juan de Samaniego y Díez de Ulzurrun Jaca y Roncal, donned the habit of the Order of San Juan de Jerusalén in 1637…
Transcribed by Gerald Mandell, edited by Rick Hendricks El Capitán Y Sargento mayor Don Diego Dionissio de Peñalossa Brize-/ ño y Verdugo feudatario Encomendado En los Reynos del Peru Al/ calde Probinzial de la santa Hermandad de la Ciudad de la Paz y Las Cinco Pro-/ bincias de…
Sometime during the month of March 1632, Captain Don Francisco de la Mora y Ceballos arrived in Santa Fe from Mexico City, and became the eighth governor of New Mexico. Old Spanish documents recently brought to light and translated, show that in so far as the antagonism between state…
Bernardo López de Mendizábal By Richard Flint and Shirley Cushing Flint Beginning as early as the 1540s, wars in Europe and the Mediterranean proved financially ruinous for the Spanish monarchy. Castile and the empire it controlled lurched from fiscal crisis to crisis throughout the end of the sixteenth…
On the Feast of the Ascension, April 30, 1598, Juan de Oñate took possession with the following excerped words: In the name of the Most Holy Trinity, and the undivided Eternal Unity, Deity and Majesty, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, three persons in one sole essence, and one and…
Governor Joaquín del Real Alencaster, 1803-1808 By Rick Hendricks Joaquín del Real Alencaster was born to Antonio del Real and María Antonia Alencaster in Cádiz, Spain, around 1761.According to testimony by his brother, Antonio, the family moved from Cádiz, where the brothers were born, to Algeciras where Antonio, at…
