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Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School
2010
Among the Pueblos: The Religious
Lives of Franciscan Missionaries, Pueblo
Revolutionaries, and the Colony of Nuevo
Mexico, 1539-1722
Michael P. Gueno
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THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY
COLLEGE OF ARTS & SCIENCES
AMONG THE PUEBLOS:
THE RELIGIOUS LIVES OF FRANCISCAN MISSIONARIES, PUEBLO
REVOLUTIONARIES, AND THE COLONY OF NUEVO MEXICO, 1539-1722
By
MICHAEL P. GUENO
A Dissertation submitted to the
Department of Religion
in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
Degree Awarded:
Fall Semester, 2010
The members of the committee approve the dissertation of Michael P. Guéno defended
on August 20, 2010.
__________________________________
John Corrigan
Professor Directing Dissertation
__________________________________
Edward Gray
University Representative
__________________________________
Amanda Porterfield
Committee Member
__________________________________
Amy Koehlinger
Committee Member
Approved:
_____________________________________
John Corrigan, Chair, Department of Religion
_____________________________________
Joseph Travis, Dean, College of Arts and Sciences
The Graduate School has verified and approved the above-named committee members.
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For Shaynna
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
It is my pleasure and honor to remember the many hands and lives to which this
manuscript and I are indebted. The innumerable persons who have provided support,
encouragement, and criticism along the writing process humble me. I am truly grateful
for the ways that they have shaped this text and my scholarship. Archivists and librarians
at several institutions provided understanding assistance and access to primary
documents, especially those at the New Mexico State Record Center and Archive, the
Archive of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, Archivo General de la Nacion de Mexico, and
Biblioteca Nacional de la Anthropologia e Historia in Mexico City. This dissertation
could never have been completed without the guidance of many professors who offered
their time and insights. Rodger Payne of the University of North Carolina at Asheville
first kindled my dedication to the study of religion as an undergraduate at Louisiana State
University and has continued to provide encouragement. At Louisiana State University, I
received the invaluable feedback and encouragement of the faculty of the Philosophy and
Religious Studies Department during the early stages of this project. I am grateful for the
scholarly example and mentorship of the faculty of the Department of Religion at Florida
State University. I owe a special debt to John Corrigan, Amy Koehlinger, and Amanda
Porterfield for inspiring and shepherding this dissertation to completion. It is my
sincerest hope that they may recognize the influence of their own scholarship in anything
redeemable in this work or in me as an academic. Immeasurable gratitude is also due to
Edward Gray of the History Department for his unfailing assistance and perspective. In
the process of crafting this dissertation, I have benefitted from the selfless attention,
conversations and critiques of several lifelong friends and colleagues who have enriched
my thinking and my life. To Kelly Baker, Michael Pasquier, Arthur Remillard, and
Howell Williams, I offer my heartfelt thanks. Nothing that I have said or done could
have been possible without the aid of my family. I thank my parents, Dorothy and
Stanley Guéno, for their inexhaustible encouragement and love. Finally, I have the
opportunity to thank my wife, Shaynna, to whom this dissertation is dedicated. She has
continually given more than I could ask, supported my efforts with steadfast devotion and
still somehow managed to fill each day with hope and joy. Thank you.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT …………………………………………………………………………... vi
INTRODUCTION .……………………………………………………………………... 1
CHAPTER ONE: BEHIND THE GREY ROBE ……..……………………………….. 14
CHAPTER TWO: BEYOND THE KIVA ……..…………………………………….... 68
CHAPTER THREE: BECOMING NEIGHBORS ..…………………………………. 125
CHAPTER FOUR: BETWEEN CONVERSION AND REVOLT …………………. 177
CHAPTER FIVE: BENEATH THE BLOODSHED ………………………………... 238
CONCLUSION ……………………………………………………………………… 306
NOTES ………………………………………………………………………………. 320
BIBLIOGRAPHY …………………………………………………………………… 411
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH …………………………………………..….….…...… 445
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ABSTRACT
Among the pueblos of Nuevo Mexico, Franciscan missionaries and Pueblo
Indians structured their perceptions of and relationships with one another within religious
frameworks. The history of cultural contact and interaction between friars and Pueblo
peoples of the Southwest borderland reveals the prominence of religion within the history
of the region and the lives of its inhabitants. The actions and reactions of Franciscans
and Native American colonists expressed the influence of the religious motivations and
behavioral norms that permeated their lives. Amidst patterns of social interaction that
were infused with religious significance, missionaries and Pueblo congregants developed
nuanced and fluid relationships. Residents of Nuevo Mexico engaged elements from
diverse religious traditions and evidenced conversion, rejection, hybridization, and
parallelism within their religious lives. The series of Native American revolts that
marked the seventeenth century history of the colony was an articulation of Pueblo
religious resistance that sought to redress the transgressions of New Mexican colonists.
During initial Spanish colonization, the Pueblo Revolutionary period, and the later
renewal of the colony, religion prominently influenced the cultural landscapes and
historical experiences of Franciscan missionaries, Pueblo peoples, and the colony of
Nuevo Mexico.
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INTRODUCTION
This dissertation explores the presence of religion within daily life through the
history of the Pueblo and Spanish colonists of New Mexico from before European
settlement throughout the wake of the Pueblo Revolutionary Period. Its approach and
interpretation grow from the insights and analysis of a broad range of primary documents,
theoretical methodologies, and scholarly research within the social sciences and
humanities. It attempts to present, insofar as it is possible, the religious worlds
constructed by the inhabitants of the region and articulated through the words and actions
conveyed by the archaeological record and archival documents. The text aims to broadly
illuminate the polyvalent expressions of religion within the experiences of historical
subjects by narrating the emotionally rich, religious lives of colonial residents. To that
end, it seeks to explicate the relationships created and navigated by the peoples of Nuevo
Mexico and shed light upon their complex and often contradictory motivations and
influences. Some portions of the document focus upon the insinuation of religion within
the cultural structures and experiences of Pueblo and Spanish communities. Elsewhere,
the narrative traces the prominence and prioritization of religion within the historical
events that shaped life in the colony of Nuevo Mexico.
Religion prominently influenced the perceptions and subsequent history of the
interactions between friars and Pueblos throughout the colonial era. The missionary
endeavor and desire to express their Franciscan identities compelled the friars into to the
northern territory and into Pueblo communities. The persistence and social dynamics of
the colony depended upon the evangelistic activities of the Spanish clerics. Pueblo
congregations understood and dynamically situated the foreign settlers within religious
cosmologies that they similarly reconfigured amidst increasing Catholic contact. Native
American communities demonstrated a spectrum of acceptance and resistance in reaction
to religious authorities and elements introduced by Spanish colonizers. Most notably, the
series of violent repudiations of Spanish rule that has long been the focus of traditional
scholarly narratives of the colony of New Mexico articulated the religious context and
aspirations of its participants. From the early instances of contact through the violence of
the Pueblo Revolution and the later renewal of the colony, Pueblo and Spanish residents
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in Nuevo Mexico continually constructed and reconfigured religious relationships and
worlds.
The argument expressed in these pages does not contend that the activities of the
Pueblo Revolutionary period or life in the borderland territory more broadly were
dictated by the doctrinal or ideological discourses of the colony. They were not. The
historical actions of Pueblo and Spanish colonists incorporated multitudinous economic
and political motivations and a varied history of personal and collective interactions and
abuses. However, when the populations of Nuevo Mexico met and initiated
relationships, they encountered and responded to one another through behavioral and
cognitive models steeped in religious content. The constituent peoples of the colony
infused their daily lives and grand historical actions with religious activities and
significance that intertwined religion with the experience of life. Seemingly quotidian
practices, colony-wide collective actions, cultural interpretations and even perception of
the physical landscape of New Mexico were set within and inextricably bound to the
religious lives of the colonists.
By foregrounding religious interactions and experiences, this narrative elucidates
the layers of influence exerted by Mexican cultures and peoples upon the colony of
Nuevo Mexico. The resulting history demonstrates and affirms the Spanish heritage of
the American Southwest. Far too much of the dominant scholarship upon the era has
diminished the relevance of the Mexican origins of the Franciscan friars and migrants
from Nueva España and minimized the significance of Spanish cultures within the
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American history of the region. The borderland territory participated within larger
Spanish cultural worlds and engaged broader social realms. Early twentieth century
scholarship upon the Spanish borderlands noted the importance of understanding Spanish
colonization in the Southwest. Such histories often concluded that Spain never
significantly colonized the Southwest but eventually failed, leaving a borderland absent
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of European influence until the arrival of American expansion. However, in granting
attention to the religious contours of the missionary experiences of Spanish Franciscans,
historical scholarship may more fully present the depth of historical actors by showing
the influences and nuanced motivations that permeated their lives as a result of their
Spanish and Mexican contexts.
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Any sustained look at colonial pueblo life cannot easily ignore the lives and
perspectives of the Franciscan friars that permeated the geographic and discursive space.
Unfortunately, many of those histories that have not flatly condemned and villainized the
Catholic religious professionals but rather desired a more nuanced presentation of the
friars have limited their discussion to ecclesiastical regulations on missionizing and the
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ever-present negotiation of power between the friars and the governors. Although the
tensions between the secular and ecclesiastical authorities in the province of New Mexico
during the seventeenth century have dominated historical narratives of the last century,
this focus has served as a means to diminish the broader significance and role of religion
in the colony. These accounts have often produced unilateral histories that are favorable
to Franciscans but overly critical of Spanish governors, or condemn draconian friars
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barely held in check by secular administrators. While such political histories unveil the
complexity of the relationship between the Franciscans and secular authorities, they have
not typically concerned themselves with the daily experiences of the colonizers or the
lives of Native Americans.
Increasingly, scholarly investigations within the last ten years have explored the
process of missionizing in order to understand the method in which Native Americans
came to understand Catholicism, but often leave the religious lives of the Franciscans
somewhat wooden and inadequately parse the complexity of their religious worlds and
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practice. More recent texts examine the institutional rulings and guidelines for
missionary activity and the lives of the priests, but do not consider the lived and felt
experiences of the priests or expound upon the layers of identities, cultures, or influences
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impingent upon them. Other historians have provided excellent details on the efforts of
friars to appeal to a “magician” niche within Pueblo religion but little analysis on the
ways in which the religious understandings of Spanish Franciscans shaped their behavior
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or view of the cosmos and other peoples including the Pueblo. Focusing upon the
religious experiences of Franciscan friars and Pueblo congregants illuminates the
significance of religious traditions in molding the identities and influencing the
relationships and activities that filled the days of life in Nuevo Mexico. Moreover, this
approach subsumes prior narratives of political contestation by recognizing that
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