Genízaro
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Genízaros and their contemporary descendants were recently recognized as indigenous peoples by the 2007 New Mexico Legislature.[1][2]Genízaros were Indian slaves who served as house servants, sheepherders, and in other capacities in Spanish, Mexican, and American households in the Southwest, well into the 1880s. By the late 1700s Genízaros and their descendants, often referred to as "Coyotes," comprised nearly one-third of the entire population of New Mexico.
The term genízaro evolved from the word "janissary", which was used to describe the slaves trained to be soldiers of the Ottoman Empire. In the Americas, the category Genízaro eventually was adapted to refer to the Indigenous captives who served as slaves in Spanish, Mexican, and American households. Many of the captives complained of mistreatment by their masters and were thus freed and allowed to settle land grants on the periphery of the Spanish Settlements. In this way they served as a buffer communities for the protection of the Spanish towns from attack by enemy tribes. The settlements of Tome and Belen, just south of Albuquerque for example, were described by Juan Agustin Morfi as follows in 1778: "In all the Spanish towns of New Mexico there exists a class of Indians called genizaros. These are made up of captive Comanches, apaches, etc. who were taken as youngsters and raised among us, and who have married in the province…They are forced to live among the Spaniards, without lands or other means to subsist except the bow and arrow which serves them when they go into the back country to hunt deer for food…They are fine soldiers, very warlike…Expecting the genizaros to work for daily wages is a folly because of the abuses they have experienced, especially from the alcaldes mayores in the past…In two places, Belen and Tome, some sixty families of genizaros have congregated. (Morfi, Juan Agustin, " Account of Disorders in New Mexico in 1778."
Throughout the Spanish and Mexican period Genízaros were settled in several New Mexican villages such as Belen, Tome, Valencia, Carnue, Los Lentes, Socorro, and San Miguel del Vado. Genízaros also lived in Albuquerque, Atrisco, Santa Fe, Chimayo, Taos, Abiquiú and Las Vegas. Most Genizaros were Navajos, Pawnees, Apaches, Kiowa Apaches, Comanches, Utes, and Paiutes who had been sold into slavery at a young age and functioned as servants and sheepherders. Almost all of the more recent Genizaros in fact were of Navajo ancestry, as the source for Indian slaves during the Mexican and early American period (1821-1880) was the Dine Nation, thus they comprised the majority of Indian Slaves during the Mexican and American period. During negotiations with the United States military, Navajo spokesmen complained that over half the tribe were servants in Mexican households. Most did not return to the Navajo nation but remained as the lower classes in the hispanic villages. Today they comprise much of the population of Atrisco, Pajarito, and Los Padillas in the South Valley of Albuquerque, and significant portions of the population of Las Vegas in Eastern New Mexico.
In 1821 Mexico gained its independence from Spain and New Mexico became a political state of the Republic of Mexico. The Treaty of Córdoba enacted by Mexico decreed that Native Americans within its borders were citizens of Mexico. Under Spanish rule Genízaros and Pueblo Indians were often treated as second-class citizens. Officially, the Mexican government proclaimed a policy of social equality for all ethnic groups, Genízaros were at least officially considered equals to their Hispanic and Pueblo Indian neighbors. During this period, the term genízaro was officially dropped from church and government documents. In practice however, Mexico was far from egalitarian, and most Genízaro descendants remained at the bottom rung of the economic structure of New Mexico. Economic and Social conditions under Mexico were so bad that in 1837 Genízaros, along with Pueblo Indians and others revolted against the Mexican Government, cut off the head of Albino Perez, (the Mexican Governor) and killed all of the Mexican troops in Santa Fe. They formed a new government and elected Jose Angel Gonzales, a Genízaro of Taos Pueblo and Pawnee ancestry as governor. The revolt was often referred to as the Chimayoso revolt after the infamous community of Chimayo, in Northern New Mexico, which was home to Jose Angel Gonzales and many other mixed blood Indians. It was one of many revolts against the Mexican government by Indigenous peoples during this period, including the Mayan revolt in the south.
[edit] Further reading
- Bailey, L.R. Indian Slave Trade in the Southwest. Los Angeles: Westernlore Press, 1996.
- Brooks, James F. Captives and Cousins – Slavery, Kinship, and Community in the Southwest Borderlands. Williamsburg: University of North Carolina Press, 2002.
- Brooks, James F. “This Evil Extends Especially to the Feminine Sex: Negotiating Captivity in the New Mexico Borderlands." Feminist Studies 22 (Summer 1996): 279-309.
- Brugge, David M. Navajos in the Catholic Church Records of New Mexico, 1694-1875. Window Rock, Arizona: Research Section, Parks and Recreation Dept. Navajo Tribe, 1968.
- Demos, John. The Unredeemed Captive: A Family Story from Early America (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1994).
- Ebright, Malcolm. "Breaking New Ground: A Reappraisal of Governors Vélez Cachupín and Mendinueta and their Land Grant Policies." Colonial Latin American Historical Review 5 (Spring 1996): 195-230.
- Ebright, Malcolm and Rick Hendricks. The Witches of Abiquiú: The Governor, the Priest, the Genízaro Indians and the Devil. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2006.
- Gandert, Miguel; Lamadrid, Enrique; Gutiérrez, Ramón; Lippard, Lucy; and Wilson, Chris. Nuevo Mexico Profundo: Rituals of an Indo-Hispanic Homeland. Santa Fe: Museum of New Mexico Press; Albuquerque: National Hispanic Cultural Center of New Mexico, 2000, p. 58.
- Head, Lafayette. "Statement of Mr. Head of Abiquiú in Regard of the Buying and Selling of Payutahs, 30 April 1852." Doc. no. 2150, Ritch Collection of Papers Pertaining to New Mexico, Huntington Library, San Marino, California.
- Horvath, Steven M. Jr. "The Genízaro of Eighteenth-Century New Mexico: A Reexamination." In Discovery: School of American Research (1977): 25-40.
- ________. “Indian Slaves for Spanish Horses.” In The Museum of the Fur Trade Quarterly 143 (Winter 1978): 5.
- ________. “The Social and Political Organization of the Genízaros of Plaza de Nuestra Señora de Belén, New Mexico.” Ph.D. dissertation, Brown University, 1979, pp. 130-33.
- Jones, Sondra. The Trial of Don Pedro Leon Luján: The Attack Against Indian Slavery and Mexican Traders in Utah. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2000, pp. 132-33.
- Magnaghi, Russell M. "The Genízaro Experience in Spanish New Mexico," In Spain and the Plains: Myths and Realities of Spanish Exploration and Settlement on the Great Plains, edited by Ralph Vigil, Frances Kaye, and John Wunder. Niwot: University Press of Colorado, 1994, p. 118.
- Rael Galvan, Estévan, "Identifying and Capturing Identity: Narratives of American Indian Servitude, Colorado and New Mexico, 1750-1930." Ph.D. diss., University of Michigan, 2002.
- Simmons, Marc. "Tlascalans on the Spanish Borderlands." New Mexico Historical Review 39 (April 1964): 101-10.
- Swadesh [Quintana], Frances. "They Settled by Little Bubbling Springs." El Palacio 84 (Fall 1978): 19-20, 42-49.
- Pinart Collection, PE 52:28, Governor Tomás Vélez Cachupín, Decree, Santa Fe, 24 May 1766; PE 55:3, 1790 Census for Abiquiú.
- SANM I: 85, 183, 494, 780, 1208, 1258.
- SANM II: 477, 523, 555, 573.
