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

A number of secondary sources claim that my 8x-great-grandfather Francisco Montes Vigil was one of only fourteen survivors of the ill-fated Villasur Expedition of 1720.

Detection of Forged Grant Papers   The first time that questions were raised regarding the validity of the Ramón Vigil grant was during...

The so-called Ramón Vigil Grant was actually granted to my 7x-great-grandfather Pedro Sánchez in 1742 by Governor Gaspar Domingo de Mendoza.

In the last part of the lawsuit, the royal audiencia  rendered its final judgment in the case on September 17, 1610. It upheld the...

In the third part of the lawsuit between Diego de Argüelles (plaintiff) and Bartolomé de Vigil (defendant), the two parties reiterated...

In the second part of the lawsuit, Bartolomé de Vigil responded to the complaint, followed by another petition from Diego de Argüelles to...

Document from 1602 reveals what happened to Juan Montes’ family and his motivation for leaving Asturias.