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© 2004 by Donald L. Lucero. All rights reserved.
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A NATION OF
SHEP HERDS
A Novel Based On A True Story
The pure Spaniard has always been
an agriculturalist by necessity,
and a shepherd by choice,
when he was not a soldier.
—Miguel de Unamuno
Spain was essentially
a nation of shepherds.
—John A. Crow
Spain: The Root and the Flower
PROLOGUE
On April 30, 1598, nine years before the founding of Jamestown,
Virginia, and the Popham Colony of Maine, and 22 years before
the Pilgrims anchored in Cape Cod Bay, Spain established a permanent colony in the high country of New Mexico. A Nation of Shepherds, which was inspired by this historic event, commemorates the lives of the 129 soldier-colonists and their families who were among the members of this first successful colonizing expedition.
No one portrayal of a historic event can be completely accurate. History is inevitably compromised in any telling. This is especially true when the author is attempting to compensate for things that have been told badly or, as in the present case, to offer a point of view not included in the previous tellings.
Despite the loss of documents in Mexico City and in New Mexico, during the Pueblo Indian Revolt of 1680, we have a surprising amount of factual information regarding the settlement of New Mexico. Among the major sources there are the documents published by Herbert E. Bolton and Charles W. Hackett; the incredible archival research conducted by George P. Hammond and Agapito Rey; a tract on the entrada written by Fray Juan de Torquemada; and notes on the archaeology of San Gabriel, New Mexico’s first capital. Although this information does not rival that provided by the works of William Bradford, John Winthrop, John Eliot, or Cotton and Increase Mather regarding the settlement of the New England frontier, the information is sufficient to both inspire one’s imagination and to prevent wild and arbitrary speculation regarding the colonization. While these sources reflect a Spanish colonial bias, they seem to record the facts, both favorable and unfavorable, allowing one to draw his/her own conclusions from the information presented. The gap in the documentation, of course, is the total absence of Indian sources. The Indians of New Mexico did not have a written language, and their oral histories regarding some key events appear to be either lacking or of very recent interpretation. This makes the reconstruction of this history from an Indian perspective a very difficult, if not impossible, endeavor.
The task I set for myself was to take an amazing story about real people and, as accurately as possible, tell it in a blend of fact and fiction. My obligation to history was to remain true to the facts, and to ‘get it right.’ In recounting the story, however, I was forced to fill a complete void in my knowledge regarding the lives of the Robledo family in Spain and in New Spain. In building the lives of these people, and in providing a hypothesis for their emigration to the New World, I tethered my imagination to what is known about the social and economic conditions of the historic period.
The narrative, which is written in a semi-documentary style, is divided into three acts or periods similar to the manner in which a Spanish play would have been presented. Except for two people, each of the individuals depicted in Period III, “The Kingdom of New Mexico,” was a member of the New Mexico colony. Antonio de Godoy, fictional chronicler of the expedition, replaces Juan Perez de Donis and Juan Gutierrez Bocanegra who were the actual secretaries of the mission. Godoy is patterned after Diego de Godoy, the Royal Notary who served in a similar capacity with Hernando Cortes. The fictional Godoy is charged with keeping the diary, and acts as cosmographer, and as mapmaker for the New Mexico expedition. These were written, described, and drawn by him in this story for the purpose of promoting Spain’s most remote Northern Kingdom.
Although this narrative is based on fact, I have used fictional elements to add drama, detail and explanation. The following will clarify which is which:
King Philip II and Hernando Cortes are historical figures whose actions were as described. Elvira del Campo is historical. Her crime, torture and testimony were as presented.
The religious facts are historical. Brother Joaquin Rodriguez, Senor Mattos, and Teo Machado are fictional.
Statements regarding the beginnings of Marranism, Inquisitional procedures, and the religion of the Marranos are from A History of the Marronos by Cecil Roth.
The journals attributed to Pedro Robledo the elder, are fictional. To my knowledge, no private diaries, letters, journals, or notebooks from the ordinary colonists survive from this period except for the epic poem, A History of New Mexico, published by Gaspar Perez de Villagra at Henares, Spain, in 1610, the letter from Alonso Sanchez to Rodrigo del Rio de Losa, and the letter from the officials of the royal army in New Mexico to the king.
The Indian attack on the train of 60 wagons carrying $30,000 worth of cloth actually happened. The plague of 1544 and 1555 recurred in 1575 and continued through a part of 1577. The deaths from hunger, thirst, and the effects of the cruel disease, are said to have exceeded 2,000,000, and occurred as presented.
Lucia’s carta de arras, which in this story is said to survive among the archives at the church in Valladolid, is fictional. The names of Catalina’s parents are unknown.
The geological, meteorological, calendrical, and astrometrical events were pretty much as described. The ‘march across the sky’ referred to when Onate leaves San Gabriel for his ‘expedition toward the east,’ pertains to George A. Custer and occurred in 1876.
The letters and reports attributed to Juan de Onate are historical. However, some of the descriptions of New Mexico and of its native peoples, are from the reports of Antonio de Espejo.
The reports attributed to Antonio de Godoy are historical, although the author is unknown.
The building of the acequia, or irrigation canal, mills, and church at San Juan are conjectured, although based on archaeological evidence, the needs of the village, and the engineering involved in their construction.
The building of the outpost north of San Juan and of the finca de San Pedro are supported by vague references among historical documents.
The unearthing of the dinosaur fossil, although historical, did not occur until 1947.
Certain words in the text regarding “a newer world,” “knowledge,” and “the quest” are from Ulysses by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. Quotations regarding the gypsies are from The Gypsies by Angus Fraser. The poem, The Snow Man, is by Wallace Stevens.
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