Gómez & Rosales Family of El Paso, Texas

Taken from Silver Mining and Society in Colonial Mexico, Zacatecas 1546-1700 By P. J. Bakewell, page 96. (See footnote)

The decade of the 1580s brought various changes to the status and institutions of Zacatecas. It began with the arrival of the first corregidor. 1585 saw the granting of the title of City, and 1587 the conferring of arms on the new city. These honors were certainly a reflection of the growing size and importance of the town. The enhanced status and prosperity of Zacatecas made it a profitable market for the sale of offices. Certain positions began to appear lucrative. Several notarial posts were sold in the mid-1580s, and the sale of the depositaria general in 1588 has already been noted. This was the first sale of a voting office on the cabildo. Regimientos, which in other parts of the Empire had begun to be sold in small numbers before 1554, were not so disposed of in Zacatecas until the 1580s. But regidores ceased to be chosen annually long before that. As had happened in Mexico City as early as 1524, the Crown began appointing proprietary regidores in Zacatecas.......

Footnote The depositario general was the custodian of goods embargoed by the justices during litigation and also of the goods of people dying intestate. The sale of the office referred to here is recorded in A A.Z, LC 2, i 41-50, Guadalajara 1 September 1588. The post went to Diego Machon de Urrutia for 4,800 pesos.