Last Will and Testament of Juan Montes Vigil, 1682

Steven Perez
Jan 23
2 min read

Updated: 4 days ago

There are two known wills of Juan Montes Vigil III, native of Mexico City, the son of Juan Montes Vigil II and Catalina de Herrera Cantillana. He made the first one on 1 October 1682 in Zacatecas. In it, he named his parents, both natives of Spain (Castile), his sister María de Herrera Cantillana, and his “natural” son (born out of wedlock), Francisco Montes Vigil. He also named Carlos Vigil, a two-year-old orphan child who he and his sister cared for and raised in their household.

The other person he most trusted was a man named Nicolás Díaz Caballero, who he appointed as the executor of his will and legal guardian of his minor son Francisco. He also entrusted him with power-of-attorney to manage his sister’s inheritance. Toward the end of the will, he mentions Nicolás as guardian of his son and of “his nephew.” This seems to suggest that Nicolás is Francisco’s uncle—which would mean that he was the brother of Francisco’s mother. There are very few records for Nicolás Díaz Caballero (he had a brother named Diego de Benavides Caballero who lived in Puebla), but none of them provide any additional clues about his relationship to Francisco.

Juan also owned three slaves, one of which he was in the process of selling to Tomás Hernández, having received partial payment. He also noted a number of debts he was owed by various people in Zacatecas, Sombrerete, Irapuato and Puebla. Judging by the debts owed, it appears he made a living primarily from money lending.

I would like to thank Henrietta Martinez Christmas and Rob Martinez for helping track down copies of the wills, which were originally found in the Historical Archives of Zacatecas by Dr. Rick Hendricks. John B. Colligan published a short summary of the content of the wills and one page of the manuscript in the Journal Herencia, Volume 4, Issue 2, April 1996. Copies of the wills are at the New Mexico State Records Center and Archives Repository in Santa Fe, in the Stanley M. Hordes collection.

See this blog post for a translation of the second will, made on 25 April 1683.

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