Francisco (de Rivera del Castillo) Afán de Rivera (bef. 1673 - bef. 1725)

Born before 22 Mar 1673 in Ciudad de México, Nueva España

Descendants

Died before 2 Aug 1725 at about age 52 in Nueva Vizcaya (Chihuahua or Durango, México) [uncertain]

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Biography

Francisco was born in 1673 to Juan de Rivera and Josepha del Castillo.^[1] It is possible that sometime before he turned 16, he went to live with Andrés de Betanzos.^[2] When Andrés moved to New Mexico in 1694, he went with his two sons, Diego de Betanzos, Andrés' legitimate son, and Francisco de Betanzos, his "adopted" son. Francisco continued using the Betanzos name until about 1704 when he started signing his name Francisco de Ribera or Francisco Afán de Ribera (See Research Notes).

Francisco was not a good farmer. Like almost everyone in Santa Cruz at the time, he struggled to earn enough to survive.^[3] Unlike almost everyone, he was single with no family to support and either sold his property or never received any, so that he had to rent farmland. In 1705, the owner of the land, Tomás Herrera y Sandoval, sold it to Diego Jirón de Tejeda with the stipulation that the lands would still be used for tenant renting.^[4] In 1706, Herrera's daughter Teresa sued Diego for non-payment in attempt to get the land back.^[4] By this time, Diego had left New Mexico for a long period of time so his wife, María de Leyva y Mendoza, was trying to get the tenants off the land so she could farm it.^[4] There is no record of the end results of the lawsuit but it is almost certain that this is when Francisco began his affair with María de Leyva y Mendoza.

Diego Jirón de Tejeda was back in New Mexico by 1707 and in the census taken that year, María was not living with him.^[5] Francisco had four people living in his household but their names were not listed so we don't know if María was living with him or not.^[5]

Francisco began his career as a merchant and businessman about 1707, around the time he began his affair with María, and was very successful and quite wealthy by his death.^[6] He never married. When he wrote his will in 1721, he left his estate to his illegitimate children:^[6]

• Nicolasa del Castillo, mother uncertain, probably María de Leyva y Mendoza
• Francisco Xavier del Castillo, mother probably María de Leyva y Mendoza
• Josefa del Castillo, mother definitely María de Leyva y Mendoza
• María Jirón del Castillo, mother definitely María de Leyva y Mendoza

Antonia del Castillo, thought to be another of his children, was not included in the will.

In 1724, Francisco got into an argument that escalated into a physical confrontation, with two men being injured, one seriously.^[7] He was arrested and stood trial but the final verdict is not mentioned in the record. He may have been found guilty and exiled from New Mexico because soon after, he moved to Nueva Vizcaya where he died in 1725.^[6]

Research Notes

1. Chávez in Origins thought it likely that Francisco came to New Mexico in the party of Andrés de Betanzos as written in the opening paragraph above. That explanation was used by Esquibel and Colligan in The Spanish Recolonization of New Mexico.^[8] However, the evidence is circumstantial. It is also possible that he was not Francisco de Betanzos the colonist and instead came to New Mexico about 1704 under his own name as a merchant. There is not enough information to confirm either scenario.
2. Francisco never married María de Leyva y Mendoza.^[6]
3. According to Ancestors of María Alviria Mestas, Francisco was married to María Márquez de Carvajal.^[9] Someone with access to this book needs to check the source in order to confirm this.
4. In a prenuptial investigation in 1811 for José Antonio Vigil and Juana Martín,^[10] there was an impediment which was shown with a chart. The parent at the top is listed as Francisco Jirón, with two daughters named Antonia Jirón and María Jirón. These two women were the daughters of Francisco Afán de Rivera. After almost 100 years, the priest confused Francisco with Diego Jirón de Tejeda, the husband of the two women's mother, María de los Reyes (de Piña) de Leyva y Mendoza.

Sources

1. ↑ "México, Distrito Federal, registros parroquiales y diocesanos, 1514-1970", database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:N1MY-TY9 : 10 March 2018), Fransisco de Rivera, baptized 22 Mar 1673, s/ Juan de Ribera and Josepha del Castillo; Asunción Sagrario Metropolitano, Ciudad de México, México.
2. ↑ Chávez, Fray Angélico. Origins of New Mexico Families: A Genealogy of the Spanish Colonial Period. (Santa Fe: Museum of New Mexico Press, revised 1992), p. 148.
3. ↑ Vargas, Diego, and John L. Kessell. Blood on the Boulders: The Journals of Don Diego de Vargas, New Mexico, 1694 – 97 (Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press, 1998), Book 2, p. 644.
4. ↑ ^{4.0 4.1 4.2} Twitchell, Ralph E. The Spanish Archives of New Mexico: Comp. and Chronologically Arranged with Historical, Genealogical, Geographical, and Other Annotations, by Authority of the State of New Mexico. (Cedar Rapids, Iowa: The Torch Press, 1914), vol. 1, p. 122, no. 401; Teresa de Herrera y Sandoval vs. Maria de Leyba y Mendoza. 1706. Question of a piece of land at Santa Cruz.
5. ↑ ^{5.0 5.1} Esquibel, José Antonio. "Early Settlers of Santa Cruz de la Cañada, 1695-1715. " (No place: Self-published, 2015); PDF, Sierra Azul Monograph No. 1 (2015), Beyond Origins of NM Families, https://sites.google.com/site/beyondoriginsofnmfamilies/early-settlers-of-santa-cruz-de-la-canada-1695-1715, p. 68 and 69.
6. ↑ ^{6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3} José Antonio Esquibel and Robert D. Martínez. "Mexico City Roots: Jirón de Tejeda, Leyva y Mendoza, and Afán de Ribera Families, Part 4 of 4, Afán de Ribera (continued)," Herencia, Vol. 26 (April 2018), pp. 5-19.
7. ↑ Esquibel, "Mexico City Roots," p. 7; citing Spanish Archive of New Mexico, no. 330, 43ff, Francisco Afán de Ribera: Criminal Proceedings, 1724. Extracted by Robert D. Martínez.
8. ↑ Esquibel, José Antonio and John B. Colligan, The Spanish Recolonization of New Mexico: An Account of the Families Recruited at Mexico City in 1693. (Albuquerque, NM: Hispanic Genealogical Research Center of New Mexico, 1999), pp. 124-132.
9. ↑ Ancestors of María Alviria Mestas - James Rogers & Ron Maestas; Pg. 110.
10. ↑ Hendricks, Rick, and John B. Colligan. "New Mexico Prenuptial Investigations from the Archivos Históricos del Arzobispado de Durango, 1800-1893" (Las Cruces, NM: New Mexico State University Library, 2000), p. 91.

See also:

• José Antonio Esquibel and Robert D. Martinez wrote a four-part article about the Jirón de Tejeda/de Leyva y Mendoza/Afán de Ribera families for the Herencia quarterly journal of the Hispanic Genealogical Research Center of New Mexico. The articles can be found in Vol. 25 (July and Oct 2017) and Vol. 26 (Jan and April 2018).
• Great New Mexico Pedigree Database