SPANIARD'S REPORT GIVES EARLY LOOK AT PUEBLO LIFE.

Byline: MARC SIMMONS

Some years ago while doing research in Mexico City, I acquired a copy of an interesting document written in 1793 by the Count of Revilla Gigedo II. At that date, he was the viceroy of New Spain (Mexico), which then took in today's American Southwest.

The document was titled simply Report of the Missions and included a lengthy section on the history and status of New Mexico's Franciscan missions.

Reading over it the other day, I plucked out several revealing tidbits that show the condition of both the church and the Indians just 28 years before the winning of independence from Spain.

According to the count, New Mexico in 1776 had a total of 29 missions ministering to its people. But when the great smallpox epidemic of 1780-81 ravaged the province, the deaths were so great, especially among the Pueblo Indians, that some of their villages were almost depopulated.

Then-Gov. Juan Bautista de Anza recommended these be consolidated to form new, viable communities. His superior in Mexico agreed, ordering that done and reducing the number of missions to 20.

The clergymen here were furious. They each received 330 pesos as an annual stipend, paid them by the Royal Treasury. So the loss of missions and missionaries cut deeply into their funding.

As a result, they brazenly ignored the order, kept all their missions open and appear to have gotten away with it.

A quarter-century ago, I published an article on the epidemic, but I'd missed this little squabble between the government officials and clergy that ensued in the wake of the disease.

Another curious situation is mentioned in the 1793 report. He declares the Indians possess the best irrigated fields along the middle Rio Grande. By contrast, some citizens have poorly watered lands on the margins. Thus, they are often obliged to rent productive plots from their more prosperous Pueblo neighbors, or even hire out to them when drought depletes irrigation water.

When I saw this, I recalled

an instance from 1753 that sounded quite similar. In that case, 12 Albuquerque settlers complained to the governor that, owing to the shortage of prime farmland in the area, they were unable to feed their families through the winter.

As a result, these men to survive had taken demeaning jobs at nearby pueblos, weeding gardens and hauling wood for the Indians. Hence, they asked the governor at Santa Fe for a land grant on the Rio Puerco west of Albuquerque where there was ample farmland and grazing.

The two parallel cases,

40 years apart, point out something that seems to be forgotten today. That is, the royal government after 1700 was working hard to preserve the Pueblo people's ancestral lands, even as their own settlers were in want.

Its dedication in that regard is now recognized by scholars as part of the Spanish struggle for justice on behalf of Indian subjects, a commitment seldom found among other colonizing powers in the New World.

Some other items of interest that emerge from the count's document of 1793:

u The Puebloans wore clothing of deerskin and buffalo hide for everyday use. It was cut and sewn in the same style used by wild nomads. All efforts, his excellency noted, to persuade them to dress like Spaniards had proven entirely futile.

u Similarly, although most of the Indians understood Spanish, they refused to speak it, since for their own reasons, they detested the language.

u The Count also observed that Pueblo children at birth were given Indian names in their own language. But they also received Christian names of the saints at baptism. Those, however, were ignored.

These examples of Pueblo behavior illustrate their subtle efforts to resist Spanish attempts to assimilate them. I am not sure how much the Viceroy was aware of that when he wrote. After all, he never saw New Mexico, and in composing his report, he depended upon official records in Mexico City archives.

A year after assembling his useful Report on the Missions, the Count of Revilla Gigedo died (1794). Historians have rated him as the ablest of the 18th century viceroys of New Spain.

Historian Marc Simmons is author of numerous books on New Mexico and the Southwest. His column appears Saturdays.