Statement of Captain Francisco Pérez Granillo to the Inquisition, 1626

Captain Francisco Pérez Granillo testified before Alonso de Benavides in Santa Fe on 27 January 1626, describing an incident that took place around 1621. He had gone to Pecos pueblo to collect tribute on behalf of the governor, as alcalde ordinario, and discovered that a defiant local native, nicknamed Mosoyo, was encouraging his people to return to their old beliefs and not to attend Mass. Mosoyo had suggested that he did so by authorization of Governor Don Juan de Eulate. Pérez took it upon himself as a good Christian to upbraid the Pecos natives and told them to obey the Church and its ministers.

When he returned to Santa Fe and recounted what had happened to the governor, he was shocked that Eulate became angry at him for having interfered, rather than thanking him for upholding the missionary crusade of the Church. It’s curious that Pérez chose not to say anything about how Eulate had also reprimanded him and Tomás de Albizu for singing in the church choir, which had been recounted by several of the priests who later testified to Benavides. Afterwards, all laypeople had stopped singing in the choir for fear of invoking the governor’s wrath.

John Kessell describes the Pecos incident in detail in his book Kiva, Cross and Crown. An abbreviated version of this incident is also described in a footnote in France V. Scholes’ essay “Church and State in New Mexico, 1610–1650” and a paleographic transcription of Pérez’s testimony in Spanish is available in the Cibola Project’s “Cross vs. Crown in New Mexico, 1626.”

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Statement of Captain Francisco Pérez Granillo to Friar Alonso de Benavides

27 January 1626

Santa Fe

In the town of Santa Fe on the 27th day of the month of January in the year 1626, in the afternoon, before Friar Alonso de Benavides, Commissary of the Holy Office of the provinces of New Mexico, appeared voluntarily and without being summoned Captain Francisco Pérez Granillo, alcalde ordinario of this said town, and he swore formally to tell the truth. He stated he was around forty years of age, more or less, and, to relieve his conscience, he says and denounces that about five years ago, more or less, while going to the pueblo of the Pecos to collect certain tributes owed to Governor Don Juan de Eulate by the encomendero there, he found me, the present notary, who at that time was the guardian there, distressed because an Indian named, by an evil name, Mosoyo, who lived there, had sown a harmful idea, persuading the Indians not to go to church and to put up idols, of which, he declares that I, the present notary, broke many.

This Indian also conveyed to the others that the said Governor Don Juan de Eulate had ordered them neither to attend Mass nor Christian instruction, nor to pray, nor to obey the minister, and that the said governor was their friend and a friend of the Indian [Mosoyo]. I, the present notary, having shared with this declarant how deeply I was troubled as a minister and their guardian over the harm this caused to the other Indians, complained to him.

The declarant, being a faithful and Catholic Christian who since childhood has served God and the King in these conversions and in the protection and defense of their ministers and of this Holy Church, says that he felt in his soul such scandal and distress on behalf of the said minister. And thus, with the zeal he could summon, he gathered the entire pueblo in my presence, the present notary, and also had the said Indian Mosoyo, disturber of doctrine, brought forth. Through a trusted interpreter, he reprimanded the said Indian for engaging in such matters.

And although Mosoyo did not confess to them, the interpreters, captains, and the entire pueblo all cried out that this Indian had indeed told them these things and that it was the governor Don Juan de Eulate who had said them. Then this declarant explained to everyone that the governor could neither order nor permit such things, encouraging them instead to obey the Church and its ministers, and telling them that the doctrine taught to them by the friars was also taught to the Spaniards and was obeyed by them as they would obey their fathers and teachers. Concerning this, he gave them many reasons and examples, and all of them were satisfied.

When this declarant returned again to this town of Santa Fe, he went to the governor to speak to him about the tribute he had collected and also told him about the discord and new development he had found in that pueblo, and how well he had advised them, describing to the governor what was stated above. Thinking that the governor would be grateful to him for defending his honor and the cause of God, the declarant was disappointed to find that not only was the governor not grateful, but he became angry and scolded him, saying: “With what authority did you do this, or why? Who involved you in this?” At which this declarant became disheartened and formed a poor opinion of Don Juan de Eulate, feeling wronged.

And this is the truth, under oath, and he says that when Don Juan de Eulate said these words to him, it was in private and at night in the said Don Juan’s own house, because that very hour the declarant had just arrived from the said pueblo of Pecos. And when his statement was read to him, he said it was well written, that he did not say it out of hatred, he promised secrecy, and he signed his name.

Friar Alonso de Benavides {rubric}             

Commissary                                      Francisco Pérez Granillo {rubric}  Witnessed by

           Friar Pedro de Ortega {rubric}

          Notary

[Followed by an attestation by Friar Pedro de Ortega]

On the said day, month, and year, I, the present notary, under obligation and by virtue of the oath I have taken by office—and now renewed in verbo sacerdotis (by the word of the priest) before the said Father Commissary—declare that everything stated above by Captain Francisco Pérez Granillo took place in my presence in the said pueblo of the Pecos.

And although the said Indian always denied that the governor had given him such orders, all the others told me that the said Indian Mosoyo was teaching them and making them understand that the governor, who at that time was Don Juan de Eulate, was telling and ordering them not to go to church, not to obey the minister, and not to attend Mass. And because this is true, I signed it with my name along with the said Father Commissary.

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 Sources:

John Kessell, Kiva, Cross and Crown: The Pecos Indians and New Mexico 1540-1840 (Washington, DC: National Park Service, US Department of the Interior, 1979). Available at: https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/kcc/index.htm

France V. Scholes, “Church and State in New Mexico 1610-1650,” New Mexico Historical Review, Vol. 11, No. 2, 1936.

Viridiana Rivera Álvarez and Jerry R. Craddock, “Cross vs. Crown in New Mexico, 1626” UC Berkeley Research Center for Romance Studies, Cibola Project, 2019. Available at: https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0xq1g5b3

Archivo General de la Nación

Inquisición, Volumen 356, Expediente 107, fol. 264v-265r (Images 83388, 83389)

Available at: https://repositorio.agn.gob.mx/