On 9 January 1568 (the same day the Quesada brothers were executed), the prosecutor Francisco de Sande presented the summary of his evidence against Antonio de Carvajal to Muñoz and Carrillo. He argued that Antonio was an active and knowing participant in the conspiracy—not based on any explicit actions or evidence of rebellion—but on his pattern of conduct during the investigation: concealment, coordination with other suspects, manipulation of testimony, and deliberate effor

On 4 December 1567, Alonso Muñoz and Luis Carrillo—the two officials from the Council of Indies who had been sent to Mexico City to oversee the criminal trials of those accused in the rebellion—summoned Antonio de Carvajal to appear before them.  Antonio was sworn in as a regidor (city council member)   and resident of Mexico City, about 30 years old, more or less. He stated he was the son of Antonio de Carvajal and Catalina de Tapia and that he was married to María de Sosa,

Bartolomé Romero was a twenty-six-year-old alcalde ordinario  of Santa Fe when he testified before Friar Alonso de Benavides in September 1628—more than two years after the initial arrival of the Inquisition in New Mexico. He denounced Juana de la Cruz for witchcraft, providing more detail about incidents that Benavides had alluded to when collecting statements in 1626. He claimed that because of “something that had happened between the two of them,” Juana de la Cruz had vowe

The audiencia intended to proceed with the trials of Don Martin Cortés and his brothers but the new viceroy, Gastón de Peralta, Marqués de Falces , wrote asking them to suspend their deliberations to await his arrival. He arrived in Mexico City on 19 October 1566 and began his own inquiry into the conspiracy. Much to the chagrin of the oidores , he appeared to favor the side of the marqués , relaxing the conditions of his imprisonment and even allowing him to receive visitor

When Captain Juan Páez Hurtado recruited Francisco Montes Vigil and his family to enlist as colonists for New Mexico in 1695, he also recruited Montes Vigil as an accomplice to defraud the royal treasury. Governor Pedro Rodríguez Cubero uncovered the fraud in 1697 when colonists’ complaints prompted an investigation of former Governor Diego de Vargas and his right-hand man, Páez Hurtado. Since each colonist or family unit was given an allowance to enlist, Páez Hurtado’s schem

Having finished recording all the depositions of the colonists before the Inquisition, Friar Alonso de Benavides drafted a summary transmittal letter before sending all of the evidence to his superiors in Mexico City. This is the reason why any of these records survived, for less than sixty years later, the Pueblo Revolt would destroy much of the documentation of early 17th-century New Mexico.   Chief among Friar Benavides’ concerns were the denunciations of Don Juan de Eulat

In preparation for the criminal trial of Don Martín Cortés, Marqués del Valle de Oaxaca , hundreds of witnesses were summoned to give their depositions according to a list of 93 questions. The defense sought to paint the charges against the marqués as false accusations resulting from the rivalry between the late viceroy Luis de Velasco and his allies on one side, and the marqués  and his brothers on the other. They also attempted to show that the marqués  was a faithful and