Wednesday, April 29, 2015

INSCRIPTIONS AT MORRO ROCK - DON FÉLIX MARTÍNEZ


 
Don Feliz Martinez inscritption, El Morro, New
Mexico. National Park Service photograph.
 
One site that has seen much history is El Morro rock in Cibola County, in western New Mexico. This large rock outcrop has a permanent pool of water in an arid environment, and pre-historically had a pueblo built on top of the rock. Ancestral Puebloan rock art can be found on the cliffs and spires of El Morro, as can the inscriptions and names of later comers. One of the historic records found there is the Martinez inscription. This records that in the "Year of 1716 on the 26 of August passed by here the Governor Don Feliz Martinez, Governor and Captain-General of this Realm to the reduction and conquest of Moqui and (obliteration: possibly the word "conversion") by order of the Reverend Padre Friar Antonio Camargo, Custodian and Ecclesiastical Judge." (http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online)

This records an expedition sent against the Hopi in 1716. “In 1716, Gov. Don Feliz Martinez marched against the Moqui (Hopi) villages. With him were missionaries who intended to "convert" the Indians after they were conquered. Passing El Morro, Martinez left the following inscription: "Year of 1716 on the 26 of August passed by here the Governor Don Feliz Martinez, Governor and Captain-General of this Realm to the reduction and conquest of Moqui and (obliteration: possibly the word "conversion") by order of the Reverend Padre Friar Antonio Camargo, Custodian and Ecclesiastical Judge."
 
"But the expedition was not successful. Meeting strong opposition from the Hopis, Martinez merely destroyed their cornfields and returned to Santa Fe. He was later relieved of his office as Governor."

“The residencia, or judicial review of every governor’s administration upon leaving office, offered the Pueblos a means of expressing their grievances, that is, when the residencia judge was impartial, unbribed, or an enemy of the departing executive. In the case of the controversial rags-to-riches opportunist don Félix Martínez, whose residencia was held belatedly in 1723, there were Spaniards, including the aging Pecos alcalde mayor Alfonso Rail de Aguilar, who for one reason or another wanted the Indians to speak up. The Pecos demanded compensation from Martínez for the personal labor that had caused them to lose their crops, payment for two thousand boards he ordered them to cut, dress, and haul to “his palace or houses he built,” and two horses, the agreed-upon price, owed to Chistoe for an Indian boy acquired from heathens and sold to Martínez. In this case, the judge ordered Martínez to pay.” (Kessell 1979:321)

"The agreed-upon price for an Indian boy," in other words slavery. Another interesting record illuminating events from the history of the American southwest.

REFERENCES:


Kessell, John L.
1979    Kiva, Cross, and Crown, the Pecos Indians and New Mexico, 1540-1840, National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, Washington D.C.

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