The Doña Ana Sphere

The place once known as the Paraje of Doña Ana, which would become the Pueblo of Doña Ana in Nuevo Mexico (now called Doña Ana Village, New Mexico), was most likely known as the Paraje of Doña Ana before the Pueblo Revolt of 1680. ¹ In an archive file containing records related to a dispute between governors of Spanish colonial Nuevo Mexico, there are documents dated 1673 mentioning the Paraje of Doña Ana, which was located along the road north of Paso del Norte in the jurisdiction of Nuevo Mexico. ² These documents call into question some of the myths about when and for whom the place called Doña Ana was named.³

(Cite as: Sonja Sonnenburg de Chávez, “The place called Doña Ana was likely named before the Pueblo Revolt of 1680,” The Doña Ana Sphere, at https://donaanasphere.com)

1. “Paraje” means “lugar en el campo aislado y singular” or an isolated place out in the countryside.”  Diccionario de la lengua Española, Real Academia Española, at https://www.rae.es/.  Basically, a paraje was a remote place — away from a town or city — used as a rest spot or camp site along a traveling route.  A paraje was a place to stop temporarily before moving on. ↩︎
2. “Domingo de Villalengua, con poder del general Juan de Miranda, gobernador de las provincias del Nuevo Mexico, contra Hipólito de Castillega, por reclamo de géneros,” Nov. 4, 1673, Real de San José de Parral, Justicia, Reclamos, AHMP.FC.D48.003.072, Fondo Colonial, Archivo Historico Municipal de Parral (“Parral Archive”), https://www.rootspoint.com/fondo-colonial/.  ↩︎
3. See e.g., Elaine D. Briseño, “Telling a tale of two Doñas: The woman behind the county’s name shrouded in mystery,” Albuquerque Journal, Nov. 1, 2020 (summarizing myths of the origin of the name for Doña Ana Village and Doña Ana County in New Mexico).   ↩︎

Tomas Garcia, the son of Antonio Garcia and Dolores “Lola” Costales of Doña Ana, served with the 110th Infantry in World War I.   According to his military service record, Tomas participated in the battles of Chauteau Thierry, Vesle River and St. Michael in France.  At St. Michael, he was “badly gassed.” He returned home to Doña Ana, still suffering from the lingering effects of the gas.  

Reportedly, in 1858,  Pablo Melendres, the Juez de Paz of the Pueblo Doña Ana, purchased a child to be used as a peon.   For more, see here: https://linealist.wordpress.com/

Saturday, October 21, 2023 at 1:30 p.m., Village of Doña Ana, NM, De La O Visitors Centers, 135 Jose Gutierrez Street (at corner of Cristo Rey Street.)  This talk will not be live-streamed.

My aim is to reframe and reinterpret the history of our country by studying the inter-relationships between and amongst the Indigenous nations, Spanish and African peoples of the region of New Mexico.  For this talk, I will focus on the Pueblos of Paso del Norte and the Doña Ana Sphere.

Alejandro de la O, the son of Severo de la O and Nestora Apodaca, was born in 1880 at the Pueblo of Doña Ana, New Mexico.    He was my great-uncle.

Alejandro’s maternal grandmother Rita Pedrasa, an “adoptiva” from Paso del Norte, lived to a very old age in Doña Ana.

The de la O family moved to Doña Ana from the Pueblo of Senecú del Sur in the early 1850s.  Alejandro’s grandfather (Pascual de la O) and uncles were musicians by profession and brought their music to Doña Ana.

Alejandro’s family is still active in taking care of the historical village of Doña Ana; more than a few of them are talented musicians.

The citizens of Doña Ana, New Mexico established a school in an adobe building on Calle Principal — now Abeyta Street.   Descriptions of adjacent residential property in the 1900s still referred to the old school house:

In 1911, a Catholic priest at Doña Ana, New Mexico took an inventory of church property at Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria.[1]  He started his list:

1 adobe church with tower.

2 tower bells

one ladder. 

He noted a four-room adobe home at the rear of the church, and another adobe home once owned by a priest.

He listed handmade furniture in the church: an altar, benches, and a communion rail.

The priest described some objects in the adobe church and the rear residence as “cheap” or “Not in good order.” Yet, these objects were precious.  

One of these objects in the church — as described by the priest — was a “3 ft. statue of blessed virgin, indian stile, in dresses.”[2]  Yes, precious. 

Today, Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria still stands because of the skilled work and dedication of many people of the Doña Ana community, generation after generation.[3]  The church is the people. 

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[1] The church was built in the mid-1800s.  For background on the Candelaria tradition, see Sonja Sonnenburg de Chávez, The Candelaria Tradition in Doña Ana, New Mexico, Linealist: New Mexico History and Archive Projects, https://wordpress.com/post/linealist.wordpress.com/91862

[2] Rev. M. Gerey, Inventory, Doña Ana, July 1911, within Registra Baptismorum, Matrimoniorum et Defuntctorum, Doña Ana, New Mexico

[3] See About Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria, https://www.ourladyofpurification.org/history-1; Nuestra Señora de la Purification, https://www.cstones.org/past-projects-3/2017/9/1/nuestra-senora-de-la-candelaria-dona-ana-nm

 

In the late morning of December 16, 1846, United States military troops began arriving at Doña Ana, a small pueblo located in the Apachería, 50 miles north of Paso del Norte, Chihuahua.[1]  Although the arrival of the troops was imminent, it must have been shocking to the villagers.

Jose Maria Garcia, who had been watching the troop movement from afar, left Doña Ana in the early afternoon for Paso del Norte to alert authorities of the troops’ arrival.  Garcia reached Paso del Norte before 7 at night.[2]    

Garcia reported that 250 U.S. troops had arrived at Doña Ana, and more were on the way.  Sebastian Bermudes, the Prefect for Paso del Norte, immediately sent a letter to the Governor of Chihuahua, reporting the news.[3] 

A few days before, Commander Gabino Cuilty had sent an advance squad consisting of 6 soldiers and 24 residents of Paso del Norte in search of U.S. troops.  Now he wondered about the squad’s whereabouts.[4] 

By December 19, 1846, a Doña Ana resident safely reached Paso del Norte to report that now an estimated 800 U.S. troops were at Doña Ana.  In light of this, Commander Cuilty sent an urgent communique to Chihuahua asking that soldiers in Santa Rosalia be quickly sent North to reinforce the rear-guard of Paso del Norte.[5] 

On December 21, 1846, Luis Vidal took charge of the estimated 1000 member “vanguard section” of Paso del Norte, when Cuilty fell gravely ill.  Commander Vidal placed Paso del Norte in a state of siege or war (“estado de sitio”), and proclaimed, inter alia, that any citizen who sells food or goods to the enemy would be punished with the death penalty.   The same day, members of the advance squad returned to Paso del Norte to report that U.S. troops were shooting live fire at El Alamo Limon, south of Doña Ana.[6]   The U.S. troops were headed toward Paso del Norte. 

[Cite this article: Sonja Sonnenburg de Chávez, December 1846, U.S. Troops Invade the Pueblo of Doña Ana, New Mexico, The Doña Ana Sphere (December 21, 2021).]

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[1] Letter dated December 16, 1846 from Sebastian Bermudes to Governor of Chihuahua Joaquin Alvarez, printed in El Provisional Periodico del Gobierno del Estado Libre y Suberano de Chihuahua (“El Provisional”), Boletin N. 18 (Dec. 26, 1846).

[2] Id.

[3] Id.

[4] Id.  See also, Letter dated December 19, 1846 from Gabino Cuilty to Governor Alvarez, printed in El Provisional, Boletin N. 18. 

[5] Letter from Gabino Cuilty dated December 19, 1846, printed in El Provisional, Boletin N. 18.  See also, copy of Letters dated December 24, 1846 from Gabino Cuilty to Angel Trias and General Jose Antonio Heredia, and from General Heredia to Cuilty, Expediente 2341, at 19-20, Archivo Histórico Militar, Secretaria de la Defensa Nacional. 

[6] Letters dated December 21, 1846 from Sebastian Bermudes to Governor Alvarez, with Proclamation of Commander Luis Vidal, printed in El Provisional, Boletin No. 18.

In mid-May of 1841, Alvino Gonzalez and three other men left El Paso del Norte in pursuit of two youths, who fled toward New Mexico. By the 17th of May, the men reached Doña Ana at the bend at the river, twenty leagues north of Paso, where Apaches (or Comanches) ambushed the men and captured Gonzalez. The men who accompanied Gonzalez escaped; one of them hid in a bush by the river and returned to Paso the next day to report the attack. At the break of dawn on the 19th, a squad of men from Paso set out for Doña Ana, where they expected to recover dead bodies and punish the aggressors, but instead on the road they encountered Gonzalez and his companions alive. Gonzalez had suffered a slight chest wound and the loss of his weapons and saddle when he fled los indios by jumping into the river. The Prefect of Paso reported this incident (and others) to Chihuahuan authorities, who published the report in La Luna, the official newspaper of Chihuahua.