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Demographic, Ethnic and Occupational Structure of New Mexico, 1790

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Alicia V. Tjarks
Alicia V. Tjarks*
Affiliation:
University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico
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Extract

Since early times civil and religious authorities of New Spain showed considerable interest in population statistics of New Mexico. Such an interest was directly related to the peculiarities of settlement in the province since the Reconquest, fourteen years after the bloody Indian uprising of 1680. From then on, control over New Mexico could only be sustained with great difficulty—final pacification could not be achieved until the late eighteenth century—for a purely geopolitical reason: keeping New Mexico for the Crown as a defensive bulwark in the northern approaches of New Spain against the penetration of hostile Indians and foreigners. In that sense, the Franciscan missions performed a decisive role in affirming the Spanish occupation of the territory.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 35 , Issue 1 , July 1978 , pp. 45 - 88
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1978 

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References

1 Although the present whereabouts of the local census reports of 1778 are unknown, they were prepared in the second half of that year (Royal Decree, November 10, 1776). In February 1778, the commander general of the Interior Provinces, Teodoro de Croix, authorized governor Pedro Fermín de Mendinueta to postpone the act of taking the census. The task was carried out by his successor, Juan Bautista de Anza, since Croix acknowledged receipt of the census reports and of the map of New Mexico, drawn by Bernardo de Miera y Pacheco. See New Mexico State Records Center and Archives, Spanish Archives, Santa Fe (herein cited as NMA), doc. 721 and 770, Croix to Mendinueta, Santa Rosa, February 11, 1778; Croix to Anza, Arizpe, December 20, 1779; Jenkins, Myra Ellen (ed.), New Mexico State Records Center (Santa Fe). Spanish Archives of New Mexico, 1621–1821. Documents. (Santa Fe, 1967, microfilmed edition)Google Scholar; Twitchell, Ralph Emerson, The Spanish Archives of New Mexico, 2 vols. (Cedar Rapids, Iowa, 1914).CrossRefGoogle Scholar Father Morfi seems to have used the summaries of the census reports of 1778 for his statistics of the New Mexican population. See Archivo General de la Nación (Mexico, hereafter cited as AGN), Historia, 25, ff. 92–251 v., “Descripcion geográfica del Nuevo México escrita por el R. P. Fray Juan Agustin de Morfi, Lector Jubilado e hijo de esta provincia del Santo Evangelio de México” (edited and translated into English by Thomas, Alfred Barnaby, Forgotten Frontiers. A Study of the Spanish Indian Policy of Juan Bautista de Anza, Governor of New Mexico, 1777–1787, Norman, 1932, 87–114).Google Scholar Morfi does not identify his sources, but probably he used the “Resumen de los padrones y noticias de Nuevo Mexico, enviado por Anza …,” 1779, Biblioteca Nacional, Mexico, (herein cited BN), Archivo Franciscano, caja 31, ms. 31/631.1.

2 NMA, does. 1110 a-c, summaries of local census reports, 1790. Cook, Sherburne F. and Borah, Woodrow, Essays on Population History. Mexico and the Caribbean, vol. 1 (Berkeley, 1971), 256–257,Google Scholar identify several areas within the vicekingdom, with ethnically mixed population, where the same criterion was applied.

3 Cook, S.F., “The population of Mexico in 1793,” Human Biology, 16 (Baltimore, 1942), 499;Google Scholar Cook, and Borah, , Essays, vol. 1, 44–45.Google Scholar

4 AGN, Padrones, 523, correspondence between intendants and governors on the taking of the census, 1791–93; Archives of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe (Albuquerque, hereafter cited as AASF), Loose Documents, nr. 6, Fernando de la Concha to Fray Pedro Laboreria, custodian of the province of the Conversion of Saint Paul (New Mexico), Santa Fe, September 1, 1790; NMA, doc. 1090 a, Fernando de la Concha to Francisco Xavier de Uranga, Santa Fe, September 7, 1790.

5 AGN, Padrones, 523, Fernando de la Concha to Revillagigedo, Santa Fe, November 20, 1790. The governor literally says: “son muy raros los sujetos que en este destino saben escribir y sin embargo de que siempre se han procurado elegir a los que tienen alguna tintura [de instrucción] para que sirvan los empleos de alcaldes mayores en ella, jamás se ha podido exigir de alguno otra cosa que la de formar muy mal un parte y echar la firma trabajosamente. Los religiosos misioneros en quienes debia concurrir otra mejor instrucción me parecieron más a propósito para que, acompañados de aquellos, formalizasen el padrón … para cuyo fin les expliqué el método con la mayor claridad, que está bien demostrada por los ejemplares que les entregué; pero ninguno supo ni acertó a completar esta última operación y echaron a perder los impresos que les entregué, por cuya razón van en papel delineado aquí los extractos correspondientes a la jurisdicción.” (“very few of the individuals at this place know how to write and, although we always have tried to elect those with some coloring (of education) to serve in the position of alcaldes, we could never demand from them anything more than to badly fill a report and laboriously sign it. I thought that the missionaries, who should be better instructed, would be much more fitting to take the census, accompanied by the alcaldes … therefore I explained the method as clearly as possible, as can be seen by the models I gave them; but nobody knew nor could successfully complete the operation and they ruined the printed sheets I delivered to them and for that reason we are sending here the summaries corresponding to each jurisdiction on regular paper”). There were more than enough reasons for such a just criticism; simply reading the local census reports justifies it. To give just one example, in Zuni they omitted the separate classification of the infant population, which was included in the unwed population.

6 AGN, Padrones, 523, Revillagigedo to de la Concha, Mexico, February 19, 1791; de la Concha to Revillagigedo, Santa Fe, July 12, 1791; NMA, doc. 1104, Provincia de Nuevo Mexico. Estado que manifiesta el numero de vasallos y havitantes que tiene el Rey en esta provincia con distincion de estados, clases y castas de todas las personas de ambos sexos, con inclusión de párvulos. Santa Fe, November 20, 1790 (copy). Corrections made after the viceroy’s request are clearly visible. On the importance of the handwritten report sheets in the volumes of Padrones, see Cook, Sherburne F. and Borah, Woodrow, Essays in Population History, vol. 2, Berkeley, 1974, 185–186.Google Scholar

7 AGN, Padrones, 523, summaries of census reports of jurisdictions and general census report of New Mexico, November, 1790; University of Texas at El Paso, Juárez Archives (hereafter cited as UTx, JA), microfilm, reel 23, census reports of Isleta and El Paso, September 30 and October 8, 1790; NMA, docs. 1092 b, 1092 e, 1096 a, 1110 d, 1110 c, census reports of the jurisdictions of Albuquerque, Zuni, Santa Fe, Tesuque, Pecos, Santa Cruz de la Cañada, San Juan and Picuris, October-November 1790. Albuquerque was divided in seven “plazas” or districts which, with four other plazas from Atrisco constituted the urban area. The rural population of the jurisdiction was scattered over the geographical area comprising Valencia, San Fernando de los Silvas, Tomé, San Andrés de los Padillas, puesto de San Isidro del Pajarito, plaza de San Antonio de los Lentes, Los Chávez, Belén, San Antonio del Sabinal, San Agustín de la Isleta and Alameda, whose census report is incomplete. The census report from Bernalillo is missing. The name plaza was given to small inhabited places, measuring from 200 to 500 yards in diameter, surrounded by heavy adobe walls with embrasures and defensive bulwarks.

8 El Paso del Rio del Norte included the town and mission of El Paso, Corpus Christi de la Isleta, Senecú, Socorro, San Lorenzo el Real and, until 1772, the presidio of Carrizal, founded in 1759 and later transferred with its garrison to the province of Nueva Vizcaya; Rio Abajo comprised Albuquerque and its jurisdiction, Zuni, Laguna, Sandia, San Felipe, Santo Domingo, Cochiti, Santa Ana, Jémez, Acoma, Pecos, and Galisteo; Rio Arriba comprised Santa Fe, Tesuque, Nambé, Pojoaque, San Ildefonso, Santa Cruz de la Cañada, San Juan, Picurís, Santa Clara, Abiquiú and San Jerónimo de Taos. In regards to seventeenth century demographic evolution see: Hughes, Anne E., The Beginnings of Spanish Settlement in the El Paso District (Berkeley, 1914), 313–323,370;Google Scholar Espinosa, J. Manuel (ed. and trans.), “Population of El Paso District in 1692,” Mid-America, 23 (1941), 61–84;Google Scholar “Noticias que da Juan Candelaria … ,” New Mexico Historical Review, IV:3 (1929), 274–281; Scholes, Frances V.. “Civil Government and Society in New Mexico in the Seventeenth Century,” New Mexico Historical Review, 10:2 (April, 1935), 96 Google Scholar; Hackett, Charles Wilson (ed. and trans.), Historical Documentos relating to New Mexico, Nueva Vizcaya, and Approaches Thereto, 3 vols. (Washington, 1937), III, 379.Google Scholar Albuquerque’s founding group was made up by 35 families (252 persons).

9 de Villaseñor, Jose Antonio y Sánchez, , Theatro Americano, Descripción general de los Reynos y Provincias de la Nueva España y sus jurisdicciones, 2 vols. (Mexico, 1746–48), 11, 409–428.Google Scholar For a discussion on the census reports of 1742–1746 and Villaseñor’s some “drastic” data alterations, see Cook, Sherburne F. and Borah, Woodrow, Essays in Population History. Mexico and the Caribbean, vol. 2, 183–184.Google Scholar See also Beltrán, Gonzalo Aguirre, La población negra de Mexico, 1579–1810. Estudio etno-histórico (Mexico, 1946), 223–226.Google Scholar

l0 Hackett, , Historical Documents, 3, 395–411,Google Scholar Declaración de Fr. Miguel de Menchero, Predicador y ex-Custodio de la Provincia del Evangelio de San Pablo de Nuevo Mexico y su actual procurador general al contador general de Azogues, Jose Sanchez Villaseñor, comisionado por el virrey Fuenclara para informar sobre la población del virreinato, Hospicio de Santa Barbara, May 10, 1744. Menchero calculated that 752 Spanish and 2,075 Indian families inhabited the province then, including those living in the missions of Junta de los Ríos, soon to be separated from New Mexico, and therefore not included in our statistics. Menchero took some of his data from the report presented to him by Fray Carlos Delgado, May 10, 1744. See Hackett, , Historical Documents, 3, 24–27, 395–413.Google Scholar

11 Hackett, , Historical Documents, 3, 369–372,Google Scholar report by fray Juan Alvarez, Nambé, January 12, 1706, with the first population data after the resettlement of New Mexico. Though he does not report on the Spanish and castes population, Alvarez estimates the Christianized Indian population to be 8,840 persons in 1706, a number which excludes the missions under the jurisdiction of El Paso. In 1726 the Christianized Indian population of New Mexico was estimated at 9,747 persons. See Robles, Vito Alessio, Diario y derrotero de lo caminado, visto y observado en la visita que hizo a los presidios de Nueva Espana Septentrional el Brigadier Pedro de Rivera (Mexico, 1946), 51.Google Scholar

12 Differences appear in Santa Fe, Santa Cruz de la Cañada, San Lorenzo, Carrizal, the missions of El Paso, Santo Domingo, Cochití, Zuni, and Taos. Bancroft was the first to point out that Villaseñor and Menchero offered both many coincidences and differences in data. See Bancroft, Hubert Howe, History of Arizona and New Mexico. 1530–1888 (San Francisco, 1889), 252–253.Google Scholar

13 Criterion already employed in other studies on colonial demography. See, among others, Carmagnani, Marcello, “Colonial Latin American Demography. Growth of Chilean Population, 1700–1830,” Journal of Social History, 1 (Winter, 1967), 181 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Tjarks, Alicia V., “Comparative Demographic Analysis of Texas, 1777–1793,” Southwestern Historical Quarterly, 77 (January, 1974), 296.Google Scholar

14 Gerhard, Peter, Mexico en 1742 (Mexico, 1962), 31–32.Google Scholar

l5 Aguirre Beltrán, La población negra de México, used ratio 4 to calculate the population on the bases of number of families given by Villaseñor. Aschmann, Homer, The Central Desert of Baja California. Demography and Ecology, Ibero-Americana: 42 (Berkeley, 1959), 134–136,Google Scholar uses the general ratio of 2.61; Cook, Sherburne F. and Borah, Woodrow, Essays, vol. 1, 168,Google Scholar estimate 3.71 persons per family in Texas in 1760; Tjarks, Alicia V., “Comparative Demographic Analysis,” 317–318,Google Scholar reduces the persons per family ratio to less than three for the Texan population in the late eighteenth century. In the case of the Indian population of the viceroyalty, Delfina E. López Sarralangue rejects the data of Villaseñor and adopts a ratio of 3.25 to 4.16 persons per family. See Sarralangue, D. E. López, “Población indígena de Nueva España en el siglo XVIII,” Historia Mexicana, 12 (1962–63), 517.Google Scholar To analyze negative factors, affecting normal reproduction in the frontier population, see among others: Cook, S.F., The Extent and Significance of Disease among the Indians of Baja California, 1697–1773, Ibero-Americana: 12 (Berkeley, 1937), 23–35 Google Scholar; Cook, S. F., Population Trends among the California Mission Indians (Berkeley, 1940), 17 Google Scholar; Alcocer, José Antonio, Bosquejo de la historia del Colegio de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe y sus misiones. Año de 1738 (Mexico, 1958), 172–174.Google Scholar Cook mentions the decreasing number of women (in age of conception) living at the missions, an observation which can be extended to those of New Mexico. On the use of contraceptive herbs in New Mexico, see Pino, Pedro Bautista, Exposición sucinta y sencilla de la provincia del Nuevo Mexico hecha por su diputado en Cortes Don Pedro Bautista Pino con arreglo a sus instrucciones (Cádìz, 1812),Google Scholar facsimile reprint by Carroll, H. Bailey and Haggard, J. Villasana (ed. and trans.), Three New Mexico Chronicles. The Exposición of Don Pedro Bautista Pino, 1812; The Ojeada of Lic. Antonio Barreiro, 1832; and the additions by Don Juan Agustín de Escudero, 1849 (Albuquerque, 1942), 254.Google Scholar

16 Due to the lack of precise information, in many cases Villaseñor used terms as “few,” “some” or “many” families, all useless for computation. Genízaros was the name given to nomad Indians, captured or bought by the Spaniards and converted to Christianity. Initially most of them became domestic servants of the Spaniards, but later they were allowed to live as part of the community in several towns and hamlets (Tomé, Abiquiú, the third plaza of Belén, in Pajarito and San Antonio de los Lentes in the rural district of Albuquerque, or in the barrio of Analco in Santa Fe). The census proves that it is a mistake to consider, as has usually been done, that they lived in those places completely segregated from the Spanish and castes population. Communal life and even intermarriage were very frequent. On genízaros see Bolton, Herbert Eugene, The Spanish Borderlands (New Haven, 1921), 184 Google Scholar; Adams, Eleanor B. and Fr.Chavez, Angélico (ed. and trans.), The Missions of New Mexico in 1776 (Albuquerque, 1956), 42, n.72Google Scholar; Simmons, Marc (ed. and trans.), Indian and Mission Affairs in New Mexico, 1773, by Pedro Fermín de Mendinueta, Governor of New Mexico, 1767–1778 (Santa Fe, 1965), 23, n.3Google Scholar; Simmons, , Spanish Government in New Mexico (Albuquerque, 1968), 151.Google Scholar

17 BN, Archivo Franciscano, caja28, ms. copy 28/553.1, Fray Andrés Varo to the provincial Franciscan minister, fray Bernardo de Arratia, Hospicio de Santa Bárbara, January 29, 1749. Summary and annex documents in BN, Archivo Franciscano, caja 28, ms. 28/552.1; Ocaranza, Fernando, Establecimientos franciscanos en el misterioso Reino de Nuevo México (Mexico, 1934), 145–146,Google Scholar reprints the census with several transcription errors. See also de Villagrá, Gaspar Pérez, Historia de la Nueva México, 2 vols. (Mexico, 1900), II, 95–98 Google Scholar; Kelly, Henry W., “Franciscan Missions of New Mexico, 1740–1760,” New Mexico Historical Review, 15:4 (October, 1940), 360–362.Google Scholar

18 Adams, Eleanor B. (ed. and trans.), Bishop Tamarón’s Visitation of New Mexico, 1760 (Albuquerque, 1954), 43,Google Scholar hints at the poor credibility of Varo’s data about Albuquerque, comparing them with Tamarón’s data eleven years later. See also Greenleaf, Richard, “Atrisco and Las Ciruelas, 1722–1769,” New Mexico Historical Review, 43:1 (January, 1967), 22–23, n.11.Google Scholar

19 BN, Archivo Franciscano, caja 19, ms. 19/407.1, fray Francisco Antonio de la Rosa y Figueroa, Personas y familias que habitan en la Custodia en 1750. On de la Rosa y Figueroa, see Canedo, Lino Gómez, “Estudio Preliminar,” in del Rio, Ignacio, Guia del Archivo Franciscano de la Biblioteca Nacional de Mexico, vol. 1 (Mexico, 1975), 74–78.Google Scholar

20 Hackett, , Historical Documents, 3, 459–468,Google Scholar report from fray Manuel de San Juan Nepomuceno y Trigo to his provincial, fray José Miguel de los Ríos, San Matías de Ixtacalco, July 23, 1754.

21 Tamarón, Pedro y Romeral, , Demostración del vastísimo obispado de la Nueva Vizcaya-1765; Durango, Sinaloa, Sonora, Arizona, Nuevo México, Chihuahua y porciones de Texas, Coahuila y Zacatecas, with bibliographical introduction and notes by Robles, Vito Alessio (Mexico, 1937), 327–360.Google Scholar Edited and translated into English by Eleanor B. Adams, Bishop Tamarón’s Visitation of New Mexico, cit.

22 Tamarón, , Demostración, 336,Google Scholar points out: “Habiéndose confirmado en dicha villa [de Santa Fe] mil quinientas treinta y dos personas, me persuado que estaba muy diminuto el padrón que me dieron y no dudo serán otras tantas más, a lo menos, las personas.” (Since I have confirmed 1,532 persons in the said villas, I am convinced that the census they gave me is very much on the low side, and I do not doubt that the number of persons must be at least twice that given in the census.) Adams, , Bishop Tamaron’s Visitation of New Mexico, 46.Google Scholar The count shows 1,285 Spaniards and castes. Speaking about the 664 Indians of Zuni, he expresses: “éstos fueron los que se pudieron matricular, oí decir que éste era el pueblo mayor del reino y así tendría más gente” (“these were all those that could be registered; I heard some say this was the largest town in the realm and therefore there should be more people”) ( Tamarón, , Demostración, 351).Google Scholar The family ratios resulting from Tamarón’s figures are 6.34 for Spaniards and castes and 4.17 for Indians in El Paso (556 families with 3,528 persons and 348 families with 1,453 persons respectively). The rest of New Mexico was inhabited by 1,517 Spanish and caste families (7,666 persons, with a ratio of 5.05) and 2,272 Indian families (8,783 persons; ratio 3.83). The resulting general ratio is 5.39 for Spaniards and castes (2,073 families with 11,194 persons) and 3.90 for Indians (2,620 families with 10,236 persons). See García, Luis Navarro, Don José de Gálvez y la Comandancia General de las Provincias Internas (Seville, 1964), 115.Google Scholar The figures given by Navarro García, based on Tamarón’s report, are 11,000 “non Indians” and 9,400 Indians, though they disagree with the bishop’s data.

23 de Lafora, Nicolás, Relación del viaje que hizo a los Presidios Internos situados en la frontera de la América Septentrional perteneciente al Rey de España, with bibliography and notes by Robles, Vito Alessio (Mexico, 1939), 85–105.Google Scholar Kinnaird, Lawrence, The Frontiers of New Spain: Nicolás de Lafora’s Description, 1766–1768 (Berkeley, 1958), 93–95 Google Scholar; Cutter, Donald C., ed. and trans., “An Anonymous Statistical Report on New Mexico in 1765,” New Mexico Historical Review, 50:4 (October, 1975), 347–352.Google Scholar

24 Thomas, A.B. (ed. and trans.), “Antonio de Bonilla and Spanish Plans for the Defense of New Mexico, 1772–1778,” New Spain and the Anglo-American West. Historical Contributions Presented to Herbert Eugene Bolton, 2 vols. (Los Angeles, 1932), 1, 207–209 Google Scholar; Adams, and Chavez, , The Missions, 42,Google Scholar n. 73, point out the mistake of Bonilla.

25 Adams, and Chavez, , The Missions, 15, XVIII, 12–217.Google Scholar

26 Domínguez arrived in El Paso from Mexico on November 4, 1775 and started the visitation of the jurisdiction March 1, 1776. Because it was not possible to find any known testimony of the ecclesiastic visitation of the jurisdiction of El Paso, the total population was calculated by geometric progression. AGN, Historia, 25, Descripción de las particularidades mas demarcables de la población del paso del Rio del Norte expuestas por un habitante de él, con 7 años de domicilio y es como sigue …, September 1, 1773, lists 9,363 adults and more than 500 children as inhabitants of the jurisdiction that year. The figure for the adults is quite exaggerated. See Hackett, , Historical Documents, 3, 506–509.Google Scholar

27 According to Domínguez, 1,114 Indians inhabited Acoma in 1768. Eight years later the population had decreased to 530 natives and 5 Spaniards ( Adams, and Chavez, , The Missions, 195).Google Scholar During 1773–74 the Comanches attacked Picurís, Nambé, Pecos and Albuquerque. The situation became so critical that governor Mendinueta proposed the establishment of a presidio in Taos. See Thomas, , Forgotten Frontiers, 61–62 Google Scholar; Thomas, , The Plains Indians and New Mexico, 1751–1778. A Collection of Documents Illustrative of the History of the Eastern Frontier of New Mexico (Albuquerque, 1940), 34.Google Scholar

28 See note 1. Thomas, , Forgotten Frontiers, 87–114 Google Scholar; Thomas, , “Antonio de Bonilla,” 209, n. 45CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Adams, and Chavez, , The Missions, 13, n.l.Google Scholar

29 Thomas, A.B., Teodoro de Croix and the Northern Frontier of New Spain, 1776–1783 (Norman, 1941), 105 Google Scholar; Garcia, Navarro, Don José de Gálvez, 406.Google Scholar The figures were provided by the general 1781 report of Croix.

30 AASF, Loose Documents, 1781, n. 8, Croix to the Custodian, fray Juan Bermejo, Arizpe, August 12, 1781; NMA, doc. 861, Croix to Anza, Arizpe, May 20, 1783; NMA, doc. 861, Jacobo Ugarte y Loyola to F. de la Concha, Arizpe, January 14, 1788, acknowledging reception of the census of 1787; UTx,JA, reel 23 (microfilm), census report of the jurisdiction of El Paso (1788); NMA, doc. 1074 a, summary of the population of the jurisdiction of El Paso, December 31, 1789.

31 On the demographic expansion of Santa Cruz de la Cañada and Taos, see Jenkins, Myra Ellen, “Spanish Land Grants in the Tewa Area,” New Mexico Historical Review, 47:2 (April, 1972), 113–134 Google Scholar; Jenkins, , “Taos Pueblo and its Neighbors, 1540–1847,” New Mexico Historical Review, 41:2 (April, 1966), 85–114.Google Scholar

32 NMA, doc. 1074 a, cited in note 30.

33 El Paso was the only place with a larger number of immigrants (55 men). Only ten were European Spaniards; most of the other 45 came from the Western Interior Provinces (UTx,JA, reel 23, census report from the jurisdiction of El Paso, 1790). The Albuquerque area report registers only eight immigrants of both sexes (not including eleven neighbors from El Paso). Three of them came from Mexico and five from the Interior Provinces. Santa Fe shows two immigrants from Mexico City, five from Chihuahua and one from Sonora. While the population of Santa Cruz was totally native born, there were two European Spaniards in San Juan. Among the neighbors of the mission of Isleta (Albuquerque) one is mentioned as “native of China,” but he was not recorded, as he was listed as absent from the province. Very probably he was a Philippine who came to Mexico through Acapulco and later migrated to New Mexico. See local census reports (1790), cited in note 7.

34 AASF, Loose Documents, 1795, n. 13, Noticia de las misiones … 1793 (excludes El Paso and Rio Arriba); ibid., ibid., 1794, n. 13. Certificación de las misiones … en que se declara su estado actual. Año de 1794. The data provided by the former were used in the report on the missions sent by Revillagigedo to the Court, late in 1793. Alamán, Lucas, Diccionario Universal de Historia y Geografia, 7 vols. (Mexico, 1853–1855), V, 441–442 Google Scholar; de Villagrá, Pérez, Historia de la Nueva México, 2, 98–99 Google Scholar; de Humboldt, Alejandro, Ensayo politico sobre el Reino de la Nueva España, 2 vols. (Mexico, 1941), II, 170–171 Google Scholar; Twitchell, , The Spanish Archives, 2, 323–326 Google Scholar; Simmons, M., “Problems of Research in Spanish Colonial Documents,” El Palacio (Santa Fe) 74:3 (1967), 34.Google Scholar

35 Swadesh, Frances Leon, Los primeros pobladores. Hispanic Americans of the Ute frontier (Notre Dame, 1974), 46.Google Scholar

36 Bancroft, , History of Arizona and New Mexico, 279 Google Scholar; Twitchell, , The Leading Facts of New Mexico History, 5 vols. (Cedar Rapids, Iowa, 1911), I, 455 Google Scholar; Coan, Charles F., A History of New Mexico, 3 vols. (Chicago, 1925), I, 257 Google Scholar; Reeve, Frank D., History of New Mexico, 3 vols. (New York, 1961), I, 311–332.Google Scholar

37 NMA, doc. 1830, census reports from Albuquerque, Rio Arriba, Alameda, Jémez, Santa Ana, Zia, Laguna, Acoma and Cebolleta, May 1805. Navarro, Fernando y Noriega, , Catálogo de los curatos y misiones de la Nueva España seguido de la Memoria sobre la población del Reino de la Nueva España (Mexico, 1943), 62.Google Scholar On the critical comparative analysis of the data given by Humboldt and Navarro y Noriega, see Lerner, Victoria, “Consideraciones sobre la población de Nueva España (1793–1810) según Humboldt y Navarro y Noriega,” Historia Mexicana, 17 (1967), 327–348.Google Scholar

38 Pino, , Exposición, 216.Google Scholar

39 Goubert, Pierre, Beauvais et le beauvaisis de 1600 à 1730. Contribution a l’histoire sociale de la France du XVII siècle, 2 vols. (Paris, 1960), I, 48,Google Scholar estimates that the decrease in marriages during crisis periods generally approximates 50 percent.

40 The age categories provided by the summaries (0–7 years, 7–6, 16–25, etc.) are deficient for statistical purposes, as it was pointed out by Cook and Borah. See Cook, and Borah, , Essays in Population History, vol. 2, 323–327,Google Scholar and Table 5.2 with reference to New Mexico. See also Beltrán, Aguirre, La población negra de Mexico, 239.Google Scholar On the decline of New Mexican population, see: Simmons, M., “New Mexico’s Smallpox Epidemic of 1780–1781,” New Mexico Historical Review, 41:4 (October, 1966), 319–326Google Scholar; Bancroft, , History of Arizona and New Mexico, 266,Google Scholar records the death of 5,025 Indians from the missions. This figure undoubtedly is too high. Nevertheless, the pestilence considerably affected the Northern tribes, which lived beyond the Spanish area of influence. In 1780 Anza only found 798 survivors of the 7,494 Indians mentioned by Escalante in 1775 ( Bancroft, , History, 265–266).Google Scholar On the effects of epidemics in Latin America and particularly in New Spain, see Rosenblat, Angel, La población indígena de América desde 1492 hasta la actualidad (Buenos Aires, 1945), 69–70 Google Scholar; Stearn, Esther A. Wagner, The Effects of Smallpox on the Destiny of the Amerindians (Boston, 1945), 42–51 Google Scholar; Cooper, Donald B., Epidemic Disease in Mexico City, 1761–1813: An Administrative, Social, and Medical Study (Austin, 1965), 56–85 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Florescano, Enrique, Precios del maiz y crisis agrícolas en México, 1708–1810 (Mexico, 1969), 129, 133, 148Google Scholar; Malvido, Elsa, “Factores de despoblación y de reposición de la población de Cholula (1641–1810),” Historia Mexicana, 23 (July-September, 1973), 52–58, 67, 96–101Google Scholar; Sanchez-Albornoz, Nicolas, The Population of Latin America. A History (Berkeley, 1974), 100–104.Google Scholar On the spreading of smallpox to California and Texas, see Cook, S.F., “Smallpox in Spanish and Mexican California, 1770–1845,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 7 (February, 1939), 154–155 Google Scholar; Packard, Francis R., History of Medicine in the United States, 2 vols. (New York, 1963, 2nd. ed.), II, 938 Google Scholar; Tjarks, A.V., “Comparative Demographic Analysis,” 301.Google Scholar

41 Tjarks, A.V., “Comparative Demographic Analysis,” 308–309,Google Scholar with similar conclusions for Texas. On the life expectation in Europe and the United States during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, see, among others: Gautier, Etienne and Henry, Louis, La population de Crulai, paroisse normande. Etude historique (Paris, 1958), 191 Google Scholar; Goubert, , Beauvais et le beauvaisis, 30 Google Scholar; Krause, J.T., “Some problems in American historical demography,” in Harsin, Paul and Helin, Etienne (eds.), Actes du Colloque International de Demographie Historique (Paris, 1965), 329.Google Scholar

42 NMA, doc. 1106, Fernando de la Concha to Jacobo Ugarte y Loyola, Santa Fe, November 20, 1790, mentions the numerous marriages within families: “por los enlaces que han tenido unos con otros, apenas se hallan individuos que no sean parientes.” (because of the inter-marriage, very few individuals are not related to others). Marriage among close kin required previous ecclesiastic dispensation, which generally could not be afforded (124 pesos). The distance to Durango delayed the procedures indefinitely, and therefore, as the governor thought, it was impossible to prevent the free union among such couples. See also Pino, , Exposición, 218 Google Scholar; Fr.Chavez, Angelico, Origins of New Mexico Families in the Spanish Colonial Period (Santa Fe, 1954), 18, 142–143.Google Scholar

43 Navarro, y Noriega, , Catàlogo de los curatos y misiones, 66,Google Scholar shows a 16.27 percent of marriages under 16 years of age per thousand inhabitants in the vicekingdom (1810). This acceleration, particularly among the Indians, was due to complex reasons, the most outstanding being the official and religious pressures on them.

44 NMA, doc. 1110 d, census report from Santa Cruz de la Cañada, 1790, registers a widow with nine “brothers,” ranging 1 to 36 years of age, the last one very probably her mate. There are many similar examples.

45 Scholes, , “Civil Government and Society,” 102–103 Google Scholar; Muñoz, Guillermo Porras, Iglesia y Estado en Nueva Vizcaya (1562–1821) (Pamplona, 1966), 635–636;Google Scholar Tjarks, A.V., “Comparative Demographic Analysis,” 310.Google Scholar

46 González, Elda R. and Mellafé, Rolando, “La función de la familia en la historia social hispanoamericana colonial,” Anuario del Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas, 8 (Rosario, 1965), 69.Google Scholar

47 AASF, Baptismal books.

48 Also called extensive families. González, and Mellafé, , “La función de la familia,” 69,Google Scholar adopt the name “familia social” (social family).

49 Tjarks, , “Comparative Demographic Analysis,” 320,Google Scholar gives examples for Texas, where the widowhood ratio is quite high.

50 Archive of the Bishopric of Ciudad Juárez (Chihuahua, Mexico), Marriage Book I (1775–1804).

51 See note 33.

52 Moreno, Wigberto Jiménez, “El mestizaje y la trasculturación en Mexiamérica,” in Mörner, Magnus (ed.), El mestizaje en la historia de Ibero-America (Mexico, 1961), 81–82,Google Scholar mentions the rejection of those originally from Mexico by the Santa Fe society, which for a long time considered itself as purely Iberian.

53 Borah, Woodrow, New Spain’s Century of Depression, Ibero-Americana: 35 (Berkeley, 1951), 6,Google Scholar in reference to ambiguities of classification during the eighteenth century; Tjarks, , “Comparative Demographic Analysis,” 322–326,Google Scholar gives examples of racial “migrations” observed in Texas, in comparing the data from census reports and parochial registers.

54 See, among others: Marshall, C.E., “The Birth of the Mestizo in New Spain,” Hispanic American Historical Review, 19: 2 (May, 1939), 161–184 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Konetzke, Richard, “El mestizaje y su importancia en el desarrollo de la población hispano-americana durante la época colonial,” Revista de Indias, 7 (1946), 230–233 Google Scholar; Rosenblat, Angel, La población indígena y el mestizaje en América (Buenos Aires, 1954), 133 and ss.Google Scholar; Castro, Rodolfo Barón, “El desarrollo de la población hispano-americana (1492–1950),” Cahiers d’Histoire Mondiale, 5:2 (1959), 341;Google Scholar Albornoz, Nicolás Sánchez and Moreno, José Luis, La población de America Latina, Bosquejo histórico (Buenos Aires, 1968), 91–100 Google Scholar; Sanchez-Albornoz, N., The Population of Latin America, 129–145, 136.Google Scholar

55 Mönter, , El mestizaje en la historia de Ibero-América, 30,Google Scholar outlines the need to study the peculiarities of race mixture in frontier and mining districts and the regional variations. See also García, Navarro, Don José de Gálvez, 116–117 Google Scholar; Tjarks, , “Comparative Demographic Analysis,” 326–328 on the ethnic structure of Texas.Google Scholar

56 The early and frequent adoption of Spanish family names by the Indian population does not imply racial “migration.” See Adams, and Chavez, , The Missions, 225, n.21.Google Scholar The parochial registers provide many examples in reference to this subject. On the predominance of mestizos and pardos in the bishopric of Durango, see Cook, and Borah, , Essays in Population History, vol. 2, 212.Google Scholar Beltrán, Aguirre, La población negra de México, 240,Google Scholar indicates 14,537 “euromestizos” living in New Mexico in 1793.

57 AGN, Historia, 25. Desórdenes que se advierten en el Nuevo Mexico y medios que se juzgan oportunos a repararlos papa mejorar su construcción y hacer feliz aquel reyno, f. 141 v. Generally attributed to Father Morfi, the memorandum is not signed and there are no other proofs to indicate it belongs to him. Some comments, like those about the moral dissolution, demonstrate a first-hand knowledge of the facts, which Morfi could not have. The author also points out that “even Mulattoes, Coyotes, Mestizos, etc,” were hiding under the denomination of Spaniards (ibid., ibid., f. 142).

58 NMA, doc. 1110 c, summary of the census of Taos, 1790; AGN, Padrones, 523, Estado general de la provincia de Nuevo Mexico, 1790.

59 Robles, Alessio, Diario y derrotero, 48.Google Scholar Rivera made similar observations about the composition of the population of Albuquerque: “españoles, mestizos y mulatos, que viven los más dispersos en diferentes ranchos” (Spaniards, Mestizos, and Mulattoes, who live scattered in different ranches) and Santa Fe (ibid., 51–52).

60 Cook, and Borah, , Essays in Population History, Vol. 2, 214–215, 220–223.Google Scholar Their tables 2.4 and 2.5 show a total of 65.55 percent of non-Indian inhabitants in New Mexico. 47 percent of this population was constituted by “Spaniards.” Coyote was the name locally given to the mixture of Spaniard and Mestizo. This cast was very frequently found in New Mexico, although the name more properly used for it in racial terminology is the one of Castizo, which was rarely cited in the parochial registers. The census of Albuquerque is the one where the term coyote is more frequently found. In Santa Fe they avoid racial accuracy adopting the classification of “color quebrado” (brittle or frail color); in most other places they are simply called Mestizos. The term coyote with its intrinsic meaning of racial mixture is still used in New Mexico, where many Spanish speaking apply it extensively and with some irony to individualize the offsprings of Spaniards and Anglos. Curiously enough, the term pardos as a racial classification never appears in New Mexico’s documents. It seems that Coyotes was more popular. This ambiguity in racial classification reflects the difficulty in applying the complex nomenclature used for the different castes during the eighteenth century. On different racial classifications see: León, Nicolas, Las castas del Mexico Colonial o Nueva España. Noticias etno-antropológicas (Mexico, 1924), passim Google Scholar; Beltrán, Gonzalo Aguirre, La población negra de México, 172 Google Scholar; Woodbridge, Hensley C., “Glossary of names used in Colonial Latin America for Crosses among Indians, Negroes, and Whites,” Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences, 18 (November 15, 1948), 353–362 Google Scholar; Mörner, M., Race Mixture in the History of Latin America (Boston, 1967), 53–70 Google Scholar and the more recent work of Navarro, Isidoro Moreno, Los cuadros del mestizaje americano. Estudio antropológico del mestizaje, Chimalistac: 34 (Madrid, 1973), 40–69, 134–147.Google Scholar

6l Pino, , Exposición, 243 Google Scholar; Bancroft, , History of Arizona and New Mexico, 288, n.12,Google Scholar points out the exaggeration. See also Adams, and Chavez, , The Missions, 244, n.5Google Scholar; Young, Brian Alexander, The History of the Black in New Mexico from the Sixteenth Century through the Nineteenth Century. Pioneer Period (unpublished thesis, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, 1969), 73.Google Scholar

62 Beltrán, Aguirre, La población negra, 230,Google Scholar table XV and 338, table IV; Lerner, V., “Consideraciones sobre la población de Nueva España,” 339.Google Scholar On the problems, methodology and prospects of racial analysis on a demographic basis, see Borah, W. and Cook, S.F., “Sobre las posibilidades de hacer el estudio del mestizaje sobre una base demográfica,” Revista de Historia de América, 53–54 (1962), 181–190 Google Scholar and “La demografía histórica de América Latina: necesidades y perspectivas,” in Florescano, Enrique (ed.), La historia ecónomica de America Latina, 2 vols. (Mexico, 1972), II, 82–99.Google Scholar

63 Pino, , Exposición, 219–223.Google Scholar A critical approach to this source in Simmons, Spanish Government, 216. See also Robles, Alessio, Diario y derrotero, 53 Google Scholar; Simmons, M., “Spanish Irrigation Practices in New Mexico,” New Mexico Historical Review, 47:2 (April, 1972), 135–150.Google Scholar The best sources on the economy of the province during the period 1760–75 are the reports of Tamarón, Domínguez and Morfi (see notes 1, 21 and 25). Moorehead, Max L., New Mexico’s Royal Road and Travel on the Chihuahua Trail (Norman, 1958), 33–45, 50–52Google Scholar, presents a very complete description of the financial state of the province during the colonial period.

64 Brading, David, “Grupos étnicos; clases y estructura ocupacional en Guanajuato (1792),” Historia Mexicana, 21:3 (January-March, 1972), 460–480,Google Scholar reveals the professional distortion in the census reports from Guanajuato, particularly among the mine workers.