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11 chapter one FRAY ANGÉLICO CHÁVEZ: THE MAKING OF A MAVERICK HISTORIAN p marc simmons Cerrillos, New Mexico Of his many contributions to diverse fields of human endeavor, Fray Angélico Chávez probably will be remembered longest for his achievements in the writing of regional history. Like his other creative pursuits, this one bore the stamp of his highly individualistic personality—an anomaly in itself, since he came from the conservative and traditional Hispanic culture of northern New Mexico and spent much of his life as a Franciscan friar, bound by the rules of the order. From his initial experience as a historian Fray Angélico developed a personal sense of mission: he believed that the largely unknown Hispanic settlers of the upper Rio Grande Valley had engaged for centuries in an extraordinary enterprise and that the record of their activity was worth recovery and dissemination . In short, he aimed at telling the story of the early-day New Mexicans from his perspective as an insider. In assessing Fray Angélico’s career as a historian, it is worth examining the circumstances that led to his intense interest in his homeland’s past. From that, a review can be made of some of his more important works and of the standing accorded to him by professional historians. Growing up in the communities of Wagon Mound and Mora, New Mexico, where his first language was Spanish, Fray Angélico developed what would prove a lifelong devotion to his Hispanic heritage. Attracted by the intellectual and spiritual sides of life, he gravitated toward the Franciscan order, the one that had ministered to the people of New Mexico since 1598. Following a novitiate, he made his solemn vows in that religious body in 1933 and four years later was ordained a priest at Santa Fe’s Saint Francis Cathedral.∞ 12 Historical Recovery Shortly afterward he was assigned to the parish of Peña Blanca, south of Santa Fe, which included the Indian missions at Cochiti, Santo Domingo, and San Felipe. There he was pleased to minister to the rural folk, with whom he always felt a close a≈nity. But the isolated station also gave him the opportunity to pursue personal projects and interests, including creative writing and publishing poems and short stories, mostly of a religious nature, that were praised by critics. During World War II, Fray Angélico volunteered for the U.S. Army Chaplains ’ Corps and underwent basic training at the Chaplain School in Harvard University. He was sent to the Pacific theater and participated in the bloody assault landings on Guam and at Leyte, in the Philippines. Long afterward he would quip, ‘‘I wanted a Purple Heart, but I was too skinny for the Japanese to hit.’’≤ Upon being demobilized in 1946 with the rank of major, he returned to Santa Fe and took up new duties at the cathedral. During his years of service he had continued to write poems and, perhaps longing for his beloved New Mexico, had begun to think more seriously about its history. Once home, he conceived the idea of authoring a history of New Mexico’s Franciscan missions.≥ In the mid-1930s, Archbishop Rudolph A. Gerken had called in the scattered records of the Catholic Church that still remained in the individual parishes and had founded an archdiocesan archives at the cathedral. Upon examining this material in 1947, Fray Angélico found it in great disorder, and he started loosely organizing the documents in topical bundles. He made slow progress owing to his lack of training in reading Spanish paleography and in formal archival methods.∂ Before long, however, he was bitten by the documentary bug. As he delved deeper into the old brittle papers with their fading ink, he became fascinated with two new subjects: the genealogy and history of his own Chávez family and the other early families who had put down permanent roots along the Rio Grande, and the origins and history of the Marian image brought to New Mexico in colonial times and known as La Conquistadora. These interests soon absorbed him, and his original resolve to produce a general history of the local Franciscan missions faded, never to be revived. Chávez himself gave the reason for that abandonment: After several years of archival digging, he had discovered only scant information on the missionaries, while his notes on the lay pioneers drawn from baptismal, marriage, and death certificates, together with ancillary documents, had...

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