The Husbands of María Ortíz de Vera

Date: About 1624 to 1705
Location: Nuevo México, Nueva España
Surnames/tags: Ortíz_de_Vera Montoya Jorge

Contents 1 Who did María Ortíz de Vera actually marry? 1.1 Manuel Jorge 1.2 Diego Montoya 1.3 Felipe de Albizu 2 Conclusion 3 Sources

Who did María Ortíz de Vera actually marry?

When the Indians burned everything to the ground in New Mexico during the 1680 Pueblo Revolt, all baptism, marriage, and burial records were lost. Genealogists have had to depend on Spanish and Mexican archives to fill in this huge, gaping hole. This makes it difficult, and sometimes impossible, to determine the relationships of the early colonizers. María Ortíz de Vera is a perfect example. The unsourced story is that she had 3 husbands, Manuel Jorge, Diego de Montoya, and Felipe Albizu. She had three daughters before she married Diego but the father(s) is unknown. With Diego, she had from 2 to 8 children. She didn't have any children with Manuel Jorge or Felipe Albizu.

These are the facts:

1. María Ortíz de Vera, aka María de Vera, aka María de Abendaño, was born about 1624-25 to Diego de Vera and Maria de Abendaño.^[1] This information comes from her father's testimony at his Inquisition trial for bigamy in Mexico City, 1630.
2. María had a son named Captain Bartolomé de Montoya.^[2]
3. María had a son with Diego Montoya named Antonio Montoya who was born about 1646.^[3]
4. She was married to Felipe de Albizu by 1662.^[4] In his testimony, he called her María de Abendaño.
5. She was the stepmother of Pedro de Montoya, the son of Diego Montoya and Ana Martín Barba and the mother-in-law of Francisco de Trujillo, married to Lucía de Montoya.^[5]

Manuel Jorge

Chávez wrote that it was possible that the armorer and blacksmith Manuel Jorge may have been married to a daughter of Diego de Vera and Maria de Abendaño or as he called her, María Ortíz Baca.^[6] Their only living daughter was María Ortíz de Vera^[7] and her marriage to Manuel could explain the Jorge de Vera surname in New Mexico. However, Manuel Jorge was arrested by Governor Mendizábel in 1661 and was married at the time.^[8] Since María was newly widowed and married to Felipe de Albizu in 1662, she could not be the wife of Manuel Jorge. As for the progenitor of the Jorge de Vera name, Manuel Jorge Álvarez and Ana de Vera Delgado were a couple living in Parral, Mexico, in the early to mid-1600s.^[9] They had a son named Antonio Jorge de Vera who came to New Mexico about 1650, based on the birth of his oldest child.^[6][9] He is the progenitor of the Jorge de Vera name in New Mexico.

Diego Montoya

There is no doubt that María was the second wife of Diego Montoya but when did they marry and who were their children? Chávez writes of the marriage,^[6] citing a comparison of AGN, Mexico, Inquisición, t. 596, pt. 1, f. 75, AGN, Tierras, t. 3268, pp. 194-195, and Bandelier-Hackett, III, p. 249.^[10] He next writes that María Ortiz de Vera "had three daughters prior to her marriage to Montoya. These were Beatriz, Josefa, and Juana, who sometimes were referred to as 'Ortiz' and also as 'Montoya.'"^[6] José Antonio Esquibel writes María had six children with Diego:

"...doña Beatriz de Montoya, doña Juana de Montoya, doña Josefa de Montoya, doña Luisa de Montoya, and María de Montoya (also known as María de Vera), and at least two sons, Bartolomé de Montoya and Antonio de Montoya."^[7]

Why did Chávez believe they were not the daughters of Diego? He didn't explain, just as Esquibel did not explain why he thinks they are. If they were children from Diego and María's marriage, then the couple could have married as early as 1636 or 1637 when María was 12. If they are the children of an unknown father, then they could have married as late as 1645. Their only child with a documented age is Antonio who was probably born about 1646.^[3] As for María de Montoya (or María de Vera), apparently there is a source connecting her to Diego and María but I have not yet been able to locate it. There is no record of a María Montoya in "Origins of New Mexico Families," "To the Royal Crown Restored," or "New Mexico Roots Ltd."

There are two other men who could be their sons. Felipe de Montoya was born about 1652 in New Mexico and was married to María de Paredes.^[11] Felipe, and his wife also most likely, was dead before the 1697 Livestock and Supply distribution, since their children were named orphans.^[12] The second man is Diego de Montoya. He was born about 1658 and was married to María Josefa de Hinojos.^[11] They had seven children when they returned to New Mexico with Vargas and settled in Bernalillo. There are no primary source records that identify either man's parents. It is interesting that on the 1697 Livestock list, Felipe's orphans are listed directly after Diego and his family with Josefa.^[12]

Felipe de Albizu

Again, there is no doubt that María was married to Felipe de Albizu about 1662. What is in doubt is whether they had any children. The only evidence is the 1680 muster roll taken right after the Pueblo Revolt. Felipe claimed he had 2 grown sons and 6 "small sons and daughters."^[13] Since at this point they had been married about 18 years, it is almost certain that María is the mother of the minor children unless they were adopted, and possibly the two grown sons.

Conclusion

María Ortíz de Vera was married first to Diego de Montoya sometime between 1636 and 1645. Their children were Beatriz, Juana, and Josefa, who may or may not have been Diego's stepdaughters; Bartolomé, Antonio, and María Lucia; and possibly Felipe, María, and Diego. María married her second husband, Felipe de Albizu, about 1662, and they most likely had six to eight children in 1680, either their own, adopted, or her husband's natural children.

Sources

1. ↑ Esquibel, José Antonio, “Into a New World: The López Holguín-Villanueva Clan of 17th-century New Mexico.” New Mexico Genealogist, Vol. 58 (March 2019): 18-32, specifically 29; citing Archivo General de la Nacion (AGN), Mexico, Inquisición, t. 495, ff. 90v and 91r, Causa contra Diego de Vera Perdomo, 1630.
2. ↑ José Antonio Esquibel, "Diego de Vera and Doña María de Abendaño," Herencia, Vol. 22 (April 2014), p. 17; citing AGN, Tierras, t. 3268, f. 104r, Testimony of María Ortíz de Vera, 1661.
3. ↑ ^{3.0 3.1} Chávez, Angélico. New Mexico Roots Ltd: a demographic perspective from genealogical, historical and geographic data found in the diligencias matrimoniales or pre-nuptial investigations (1678-1869) of the Archives of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe. PDF image copy, UNM Digital Repository, http://digitalrepository.unm.edu/cswr_reference/5 : 1983, vol. 8, p. 1566; Sebastian Rodriguez Brito and Antonia Naranjo, 1689.
4. ↑ Esquibel, "Diego de Vera and Doña María de Abendaño," p. 17; citing AGN, Inquisición, t. 586, f. 173v-174v, Testimony of Felipe de Albizu, 1662.
5. ↑ Esquibel, "Diego de Vera and Doña María de Abendaño," p. 17; citing AGN, Inquisición, t. 596, f. 155r-155v, El Señor fiscal del Santo Oficio contra doña Teresa de Aguilera y Roche, 1663.
6. ↑ ^{6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3} 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. 51.
7. ↑ ^{7.0 7.1} Esquibel, "Diego de Vera and Doña María de Abendaño," p. 15.
8. ↑ 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. 51; citing AGN, Mexico, Inquisición, t. 507, p. 1319.
9. ↑ ^{9.0 9.1} Hordes Stanley M. To the End of the Earth : A History of the Crypto-Jews of New Mexico. Columbia University Press 2005, p. 141; Kindle Edition; citing Archivo Histórico de Parral, fols. 72r-74.r, microfilm, reel 1654B, Testamento de Manuel Jorge, Parral, June 7, 1655.
10. ↑ Bandelier-Hackett, Historical Documents relating to New Mexico, Nueva Viscaya, and Approaches thereto, to 1773. Collected by F. A. and F. R. Bandelier, and edited by Charles Wilson Hackett, Washington, 1937.
11. ↑ ^{11.0 11.1} Chávez, Origins of New Mexico Families, p. 78.
12. ↑ ^{12.0 12.1} 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. 1151.
13. ↑ Hackett, Charles W, and Charmion C. Shelby. Revolt of the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico and Otermíns's Reconquest, 1680-1682: Introduction and Annotations by Charles Wilson Hackett, (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1970), Vol. 1, p. 141.