Domingo GONZALES + Regina de VERA

Captain/Capitan Domingo Gonçalves/Gonzalez Fernandes born about 1590s- Tangiers-Portuguese enclave in North Africa/Tangiers. Norteafricano . "Domingo" means "of god," or "of the lord." The English equivalent is Dominic.

Regina/Rejina/Rexina Ortiz de Vera Delgado born about 1610s- Cuencame-Durango-Mexico "Regina" means "queen," as in the Queen of Angels. Cuencame is a mining town in eastern Durango, closer to the states of Coahuila, and Zacatecas than to Chihuahua. Many of the miners who were drawn to Parral came from Cuencame.

During the lifetime of Domingo and Regina the crowns of Portugal and Spain were united (1580-1640), so many Portuguese settlers arrived in Spanish territories that were previously closed to them. Most of the slaves that entered the Spanish and Portuguese colonies in the Americas came from Portuguese colonies in West Africa, Angola in particular. At this time Spanish retained the accented letter "ç," so Domingo's last name was spelled Gonçales. By about 1700 the Spanish language was completely reformed, and dropped several accents, replacing the cedille with an "s," or a "z." While Portuguese, French, Catalan and other romance languages retained the cedilla accent.

Regina de Vera, a creole married Captain Domingo Gonzales Fernandes about 1630 in Parral-Chihuahua.

Domingo was almost certainly Portuguese. When he was born Tangiers was a Portuguese possession in Morocco opposite Gibraltar. By the time of his death, Tangiers had passed to Spain. His father, Melchor Gonzales must also have been in the army posted to North Africa when Domingo was born.

*In Parral on January 8, 1633 Captain Domingo Gonzales purchased six negro slaves all under 30 years old from Angola a Portuguese colony in West Africa, from Captain Antonio Contreras for 3,780 silver pesos. Domingo purchased many other slaves, male and female, adults and children, mostly negroes but including at least one mulatto.

Our ancestor Regina Gonzales de Vera born: March 3, 1638 Parral-Chihuahua.

Juan Gonzales Vera baptised July 16, 1640 Parral-Chihuahua: Domingo Gonzales/Rejina Vera “godparents Alonso Munos and Dona Francisca de(illegible).”

Agustina Gonzales Vera Gonzales baptised October 3, 1641 Parral-Chihuahua: Domingo Gonzales/Rejina Vera “godfather Pedro de (possibly) Erbalejo.”

Josepha Gonzales Vera baptised October 3, 1642 Parral-Chihuahua: “I baptized Josepha, Spanish daughter of the late Captain Domingo Goncales and of Rejina de Vera his widow and legitimate wife, godfather Francisco de Lima, not of this realm.” (Se murio el papa, Domingo Goncales antes que nacio su ultima hija, Josepha. Padrino Francisco de Lima era bien rico Portugues.)

Godfather Francisco de Lima was from Portugal, extremely wealthy and possibly a converso. The de Vera family was also possibly converso. Domingo Gonzales was born in Tangiers, a Portuguese possession in North Africa. Jews in the New World were often called Portuguese because so many Jewish people came from Portugal during the union of the crowns of Portugal and Spain. Portuguese must have been the home language of the Gonzales-Vera Family. Their Angolan slaves probably spoke Ngolar, a pidgin Portuguese.

In 1661 Regina de Vera sold her slave of thirty years, Bartolome, to Francisco Correa de Silva for 400 pesos.

Regina de Vera Delgado verifies her birthplace, Cuencame, Durango in her June 2, 1673 will, her parents Gaspar de Vera and Maria Delgado, husband DomingoGonzales, their nine children: Leonor, Maria, Domingo, Melchor, Juan, our ancestor Antonia, Josepha and our ancestor Regina Gonzales in that order.

August 24, 1673 Regina de Vera death certificate "widow of Domingo Gonzales." Agosto 24, 1673. Regina de Vera and Captain Domingo Gonzales verified in the December 1, 1698 Parral will of their daughter, Antonia Gonzales de Vera.

Manuel Jorge was born about 1592, in Portuguese Tangier, North Africa, the son of Antonio Jorge and María Alvarez.17 He may have emigrated to the mining frontier of New Spain between 1615 and 1620, since, by the mid to late 1620s, he had become a merchant at Cuencamé. Sometime prior to 1632, Manuel Jorge married Ana de Vera of Cuencamé, the daughter of CAPT. GASPAR DE VERA(or Veira)18 and MARIA DELGADO. GASPAR DE VERA had been constable of Cuencamé in 1604. Antonio Jorge de Vera, the eldest child of Manuel Jorge and Ana de Vera, was probably born at Cuencamé, around the year 1633. Manuel Jorge, Antonio's younger brother was born about 1636.

The silver discovery at Parral in 1631 led the Jorge family to relocate, and Manuel appears on a March, 1633 list of Parral retail merchants. Manuel Jorge and Ana de Vera baptized numerous children in Parral; Antonio Jorge de Vera had at least 9 siblings. Virtually all of the Jorge children's padrinos were individuals of Portuguese ancestry. Manuel Jorge lived in Parral for about 22 years, from 1633 until 1655. He wrote his will on 7 June 1655 and was buried in Parral on 18 September 1655. Francisco de Lima was one of the executors of Manuel Jorge's modest estate. According to Manuel's will, Antonio Jorge was already a resident of New Mexico by June 1655.

At about age twenty, Antonio Jorge de Vera left Parral and emigrated to New Mexico during the term of Gov. Hernando de Ugarte. He had arrived in New Mexico by 1652 or 1653, at which time he married Gertrudes Baca, the cousin of Pedro Durán y Chávez II. Antonio Jorge de Vera, the younger, son Antonio Jorge de Vera, the elder, and Gertrudes Baca, was born around 1654 at El Alamo, four to five leagues south of Santa Fe. At some point prior to 1680, the Jorge family moved to Albuquerque's north valley, where they established a modest ranch in the vicinity of present-day Los Griegos.

In late November 1644, Francisco de Lima was married in Parral to María Gonzales, the daughter of CAPT DOMINGO GONZALES and REGINA DE VERA. Regina was the sister of Ana de Vera, Manuel Jorge's wife; therefore, Francisco de Lima was Manuel Jorge's nephew by marriage. Domingo Gonzales and Regina de Vera acted as godparents for Ana Jorge de Vera, daughter of Manuel Jorge and Ana de Vera in 1639. CAPT DOMINGO GONZALES, was born around 1592 in Portuguese Tangier. Some time before 1642, CAPTAIN GONZALES, became the business agent for fray Tomás Manso and fray Juan de Salas of New Mexico.

Mexico City agent for Manuel Jorge and DOMINGO GONZALES was Francisco Franco Moreira, the wealthy Portuguese merchant who was persecuted and expropriated by the Inquisition in the 1640s. Moreira and his associate, Amaro Díaz de Maturana, were among the many Mexico City brokers who exchanged refined silver for specie, which they shipped north to Parral.

Countless individuals emigrated to the New World between 1580 and 1640, when Spain held Portugal captive, many were part of the general Iberian emigration, others fleeing anti-Jewish attitudes and policies. More than forty adult males of Portuguese ancestry in the Parral district---including the two from North Africa, Manuel Jorge and CAPT DOMINGO GONZALES---were compelled to register by the government in 1642. In some sense this registration was evidence of a wave of Lusophobia that swept the Spanish Indies in the 1630s and 1640s that grew out of the marked tendency in seventeenth-century Spanish America to confuse Portuguese with Portuguese New Christian and crypto-Jews. In another sense, the registration was an act of allegiance to the Spanish grown in light of the Portuguese restoration in 1640.

Although the evidence is circumstantial, it seems logical to conclude that some of the Portuguese of Parral had New Christian ancestry. Some may have been crypto-Jews. Indeed, many of Parral's most conspicuous Portuguese demonstrated their loyal to the Church in overt ways. DOMINGO GONZALES and Gregorio de Carvajal, assumed responsibility for the completion of the church in Parral, which might have been an effective survival strategy... Nevertheless, in the minds of some of their Spanish neighbors, the simple fact that these individuals---Gonsales, Carvajal, Lima, et al.---were Portuguese made them suspect.

From: Commerce of the Camino Real: Trade Between Nueva Vizcaya and New Mexico Before the Pueblo Revolt By Rick Hendricks on http://newmexicohistory.org