Gómez & Rosales Family of El Paso, Texas

REVOLT OF THE PUEBLO INDIANS Pg 375, Part II

[My note: Gov Otermin had sent a letter to the prosecutor in Mexico City to try to make excuses for the failure of the attempt to retake central and northern New Mexico. His main commander Juan Dominguez de Mendoza had lead a group in advance of Otermin in which Dominguez had successfully met with the Indians but did not punish them as he had been directed. On the other hand, as Otermin followed behind he destroyed homes and crops as he proceeded north, which drove the Indians away and back into revolt. The letter and subsequent (unsuccessful) prosecution was partly to shift blame from himself onto Juan Dominguez.

Reply of the Fiscal, Don Martín de Solis Miranda. Mexico, June 25, 1682. (Fiscal is similar to a prosecutor.)

"Most Excellent Sir: The oidor fiscal having seen this letter written by General Don Antonio de Otermín, governor of the province of New Mexico, dated February 11 of this year in El Estero Largo, forty leagues from the camp of San Lorenzo, Paso del Río del Norte, says that in it he gives an account to your excellency of having arrived at the said place on his return from the entrada [invasion] which he made in virtue of your excellency's order to accomplish the recovery of the said province and the chastisement of the rebellious apostates. "

(Many pages about attempts to reinvade New Mexico. )

... "A most exact investigation and verification should be made of this matter by the person whom your excellency may be pleased to name, for it will serve as a most pernicious example for a crime of such large consequences to remain unpunished;

and for that purpose let these autos be added to the cuaderno of the indictment which the said governor [also] made against Maestre de Campo Thomé Domínguez, and against Francisco, Juan, and Diego Domínguez, his sons, and Sargento Mayor Don Pedro Durán y Chávez, Pedro Márquez, and their other associates for their having resisted receiving payment from his Majesty as settlers, and even for attempting to persuade the rest not to make the entrada [invasion north]. For from this there could have arisen the indifference, malice, and occasion for the enterprise not having made progress, these persons being the same ones who retired from the pueblo of La Isleta at the time of the uprising without orders from their governor, leaving him besieged by the enemy and not having assisted him; and the ones who, having brought out all their property, nevertheless received rations for the period of a year at his Majesty's expense, like all the rest who came out destitute; and their families being the largest, it occasioned a considerable outlay. And they being persons of highest position in the province, and with the largest number of relatives, and those who persisted in disobedience in refusing to leave for the entrada, it is very probable that therefore many of the people left dissatisfied by reason of their persuasions and that this would be the principal reason for its ill success and for disobedience to their governor."

..."As for the point that your excellency repeat the order and mandate to the effect that the governor of La Vizcaya and the alcaldes mayores of that kingdom compel and force all the creoles, both Spaniards and Indians, who may have left the province of New Mexico in the past ten years to come to these parts, to return and assemble at the said place of El Paso...

Your excellency, in view of all the autos, will resolve upon and order that which you may consider most fitting.

Mexico [City], June 25, 1682. Licenciado Martín de Solís Miranda (Rubric). Mexico [City], July 3, 1682. To the general junta. (Rubric)."