Founding of the Presidio at El Paso del Rio del Norte
- Steven Perez
- Feb 2
- 2 min read
Updated: Apr 25
Documents from the historical archives in Zacatecas challenge long-held assumptions about the founding of the first presidio at El Paso in 1683 by Governor Domingo Jironza Pétriz de Cruzate. The Cibola Project has just published my transcription of these documents, filling a gap in the historical record.
The paucity of primary records has led to inaccurate assumptions about the origins of the El Paso presidio. Some historians have indicated that the initial troops at the presidio were New Mexico refugees who had fled the 1680 Pueblo Revolt. On the contrary, these documents show that the first regiment at the presidio was entirely composed of new recruits from Zacatecas. This followed the advice of the viceroy’s advisor, Martín de Solis Miranda, who recommended that New Mexico refugees be prohibited from enlisting in the new presidio, drawing instead upon recruits from Sonora, Parral and other districts to build up a larger presence of Spanish forces in El Paso. Most of the recruits did not stay for long in El Paso and were replaced by native New Mexicans in later years.
Genealogists will be particularly interested in the enlistment document, which contains the full muster list of the fifty soldiers along with their names, physical descriptions, birthplaces and paternal pedigrees. It’s interesting to see that the soldiers recruited in Zacatecas came from places all over New Spain and Spain, and even included one enlistee from Ireland.
Vestiges of the original presidio constructed by Governor Jironza survive to this day. Its walls are now part of the Centro Municipal de las Artes in Ciudad Juárez, which formerly was home to the city’s municipal government offices.
I would like to thank Jerry Craddock and Heather McMichael at UC Berkeley for their support in bringing this project to fruition. The complete transcription, including an introduction in English, is available at the Cibola Project.
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