Came Men on Horses: The Conquistador Expeditions of Francisco Vásquez de Coronado and Don Juan de Oñate

Appendix B: Oñate’s Family

291 appendix B Oñate’s Family Considerable mystery surrounds the family of Don Juan de Oñate y Salazar: his wife, Isabel de Tolosa Cortés Montezuma, and their two children . Oñate’s biographer Marc Simmons states that “about 1619 or 1620, Oñate’s wife of thirty years, Doña Isabel, died at their home in Pánuco and was buried there.”1 Simmons does not give the source of his information ,but it is contradicted by Oñate’s statement in vouching for a bond on January 27, 1598: “Whereas I, Governor Juan de Oñate, in what concerns me as the legitimate father and administrator of the person and estate of Don Cristóbal de Oñate, my legitimate son, and of Doña Isabel Cortés, my legitimate wife, now deceased.”2 Oñate’s statement establishes certain facts concerning his family. Since Doña Isabel was deceased when Don Juan left on his expedition to New Mexico in 1598, both their son, Cristóbal, and daughter, María, were born prior to that date.The precise years of their births, however, are 292 A p p e n d i x B not altogether clear. It is possible that Doña Isabel died while giving birth to María. Simmons states that Don Cristóbal died in 1612 at age twenty-two, dating his birth to 1590.3 From this,Simmons reasons that Don Cristóbal was only eight years old when he was taken north as a lieutenant by his father in 1598. When Don Juan attempted to have the boy succeed him as governor of New Mexico, an official described Don Cristóbal as “a youth lacking in age and experience and of whom it is said that he hardly knows how to read and write.”4 On another occasion he was designated as a “mere youth, with little wealth and less experience.”5 During an inquiry in 1602, Vicente de Zaldívar, under whom young Cristóbal served during the New Mexico venture, made a statement regarding the young man: “Don Juan de Oñate took along a son of about sixteen years” on his expedition.6 Juan Rodríguez, testifying in regard to Zaldívar’s service, stated that “Don Juan de Oñate took along his son, Don Cristóbal, 14 years of age.”7 The latter statement, which is the more specific, would make the boy’s date of birth 1584. Before he died, Don Cristóbal married and sired a son. Despite the criticisms of Don Cristóbal as a youth, he was respected enough by the time of his death that a prominent Spanish poet composed a poem in tribute to him.8 Oñate’s statement regarding his wife’s death prior to January 1598 renders impossible the birth of daughter Mariá de Oñate y Cortés Montezuma in late 1598 or 1599,as given by Simmons.9 Further evidence lies in Oñate’s request on March 2, 1599, that his daughter be sent to him in New Mexico. Surely, to be sent off into what was still a wilderness, she would have had to have been more than merely one or two years old at the time. Nothing in available Spanish records, however, tells us her age. We do know that upon returning to Mexico with her father in 1610, she married Vicente de Zaldívar—within two years, according to Simmons—and soon produced a son.10 One of the more puzzling items concerning Don Juan’s family appears in the list of goods made by the Gordejuela inspection of the relief expedition sent to the New Mexico colony in 1600.Within the lengthy itemization of goods and equipment compiled on August 23, 1600, was this notation: Four carts, covered with canvas, bought at Peñol Blanco, together with thirty-two oxen to transport these goods to New Mexico . . . 130 pesos for each cart with eight oxen [520 pesos]. 293 O ñ a t e ’ s F a m i l y Further, there are in these wagons six boxes of gifts which Doña Maria de Galarza is sending to the wife of the adelantado [governor], Don Juan de Oñate.11 This statement is particularly curious, since the goods in the four carts were sent under the auspices of Don Juan Guerra de Resa, Oñate’s...