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Hidden Shabbat
The Secret Lives of Crypto-Jews

Isabelle Medina Sandoval

The historical characters of Catarina Martín, Gertruditas Hurtado and Aida Medina are my ancestral mothers. As a student in public schools, I did not find authentic New Mexico history and contributions listed in textbooks. Marcos Medina, my maternal great-grandfather, wrote a journal in 1894. I researched family information in the journal for over forty years, which included reviewing numerous archival documents written in medieval Spanish. I also gleaned valuable information from interviews with family members because written documentation about specific information was not available in texts. This book is historical fiction because I do not know all the facts. I employed history as a framework to describe the lives of real New Mexico women. The epilogue is authentic and is based on family customs. I construct a “her story” and a “his story” of family. It was apparent that the traditions of my grandmothers and grandfathers were passed down from generation to generation. I am indebted to my maternal and paternal ancestors for preserving customs of our rich crypto-Jewish heritage.

New Mexico is home. From the White Sands to Wheeler Peak of the Sangre de Cristo Mountain Range, the geography of the land has encouraged or inhibited settlements. The rich customs of Native Americans have influenced the architecture, arts and languages of the state. New Mexico has charmed nations, entrepreneurs, royalty, politicians, scholars, artists and ordinary people. Geography, history, women, religion, crypto-Jews, genealogy and DNA results have influenced New Mexico’s historical and cultural past.

Native. Natives were the first citizens of New Mexico. The Pueblo Indians had developed highly organized entities in harmonious relationship with the land. Other Natives had established cultures that fostered a civilization of ecological appreciation. Water was a key aspect in establishing settlements and shaping enriching traditions. Natives have practiced the sacred religion of their ancestors.
Spanish1598. In search of lands and minerals, the Spaniards colonized settlements near water sources. Grounded in Spanish medieval feudalism, the first Spaniards modeled the Iberian encomienda system in New Mexico. Natives rebelled against serving as low-level peones, and Spanish officials abandoned this practice. The Spaniards documented marriages, births, land, decisions, deaths and religious events. As an equal partner of the Spanish government, the Catholic Church supervised religious and spiritual affairs. Under the scrutiny of the Church, the Mexican Inquisition monitored individuals and activities in Mexico and New Mexico. Although a Spanish colonial government was established in New Mexico to guarantee allegiance to Spain, the heat and the vastness of the Chihuahuan Desert isolated New Mexico colonists and Natives from Spanish rule in Mexico.
Mexican, 1821. Spain had established control over Mexico City in 1521. As Natives assimilated with the Spaniards, a new culture and a new people emerged. When Mexico gained independence from Spain in 1821, New Mexico formed part of the new republic. For two centuries under Spanish rule, New Mexicans had engaged in traveling the recognized trade routes to Mexico City, Durango and El Paso. Mexico was the axis of government and religious learning. Under the new Mexican government, the Church was removed from formal involvement with the government. Although church and state were separated, the Roman Catholic Church was still an influential force. To fortify the New Mexico border, the Mexican government gave land grants to attract settlers, but the distance and desert continued to isolate New Mexico from the Mexican homeland.
American, 1848. After the 1803 Louisiana Purchase, the United States extended the westward borders of the newly formed Thirteen Colonies of the United States. Under the notion of ‘manifest destiny,’ politicians justified their mission of expanding the country from the Atlantic seaboard to the Pacific Ocean. When Mexico gained its independence in 1821, it included all or part of the territories that today constitute the states of California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Colorado, Utah, and Nevada. By 1846, the United States declared war on Mexico and occupied Mexico City. The 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo ended the Mexican-American War, and all of the above territories were granted to the United States.
So, New Mexico became a United States Territory. Most citizens of New Mexico were Natives or nuevomexicanos. When American forces took control of the government in Santa Fe, they burned many official Spanish records. Overall, citizens were Catholic and spoke either Native or Spanish languages. Linguists have referred to New Mexicans as speaking a “fossilized” type of Spanish. The Spanish language reflected the medieval nuances of the 1598 Spanish colonists due to centuries of isolation and sparse interaction with formal oral and written Spanish. Although the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo guaranteed citizens the rights of owning property and maintaining the Spanish language, land paperwork was changed to English. On January 6, 1912, New Mexico became the forty-seventh state of the United States of America. The United States had no one designated religion, and the government advocated “freedom of religion” for the citizenry.
Within the history of New Mexico, men have normally been government officials, and women played a role that has been ignored in official records. Women were the wives, mothers, homemakers, financiers and partners of their male counterparts. Women have been essential by giving birth to children, boys and girls. Owning lands and supporting the family by caring for livestock and crops, Native and Hispanic women have been instrumental in enriching the state. Native and Spanish cultures permitted women to own land. The Church and government listed the maiden surnames of women on documents of official events. Not to be overlooked is the fact that Queen Isabel authorized the voyage of Christopher Columbus to explore the Americas, the motivation of one woman altered world history.
Religion has been important to citizens. Natives had practiced their beliefs until the Spaniards arrived with Catholic priests. Having the supreme responsibility for the accountability of spiritual souls, the priests coerced all persons into the Catholic Church. Natives were required to practice their home religion in secrecy. In an irony of history Christopher Columbus, who had close ties with Jews, sailed from Spain for the Americas on the same day Jews had to leave Spain as a result of the Expulsion Edict. For the next 300 years it was illegal to be Jewish in territories controlled by the Spanish crown, which led to the rise of crypto-Judaism, the practice of Judaism in secrecy. Having an opportunity to leave Spain, some crypto-Jews came to the Americas.
Crypto-Jewish families were settlers of the 1598 Oñate Expedition. Angélico Chávez, a former priest and renowned historian, first documented the Marranos or crypto-Jews in his classic book, Origins of New Mexico Families. Prior to the publishing of this book, crypto-Jewish families had discussed oral histories in the privacy of the family home. Crypto-Jewish families had preserved customs such as sweeping the floor to the center of the room and not eating pork—family traditions handed down from one generation to the next. Some families did not know why they performed these practices. Historians José Esquíbel, Stanley Hordes and David Gitlitz, have documented valuable crypto-Jewish data.
Recent genealogical information has contributed to a clearer picture of Hispanic New Mexicans. Archival information of marriages, births, deaths, land records, divorces, church records and other records have yielded important facts. The marriages of colonial families from 1598 to present have resulted in the manito culture, or brother/sister culture, recognizing the blood relationship of the early colonists marrying family members that extends into one large contemporary family.
DNA information has added an interesting genetic dimension to the understanding of descent among New Mexicans. Using DNA samples, the New Mexico Family Tree Project has identified that 67 percent of male Spanish surnames originated from the Iberian Peninsula. Fifteen percent of female ancestors were identified as having European origins, and 85 percent tested showed some Native American ancestry. This is explained by the fact that Spanish migration included few women. In addition to the New Mexico Project, individual DNA results have documented Ashkenazi and Sephardic maternal and paternal ancestors among some New Mexicans.
New Mexico is a diverse and complex state. People from all walks of life can find acceptance in this land of enchantment. Although some skeptics do not accept the crypto-Jewish phenomenon in New Mexico, many of us have lived it, and in this book I give the story of my family as best I can re-create it. Having freedom of religious practice, at least by law, over the last century and half, descendants of New Mexican crypto-Jews have been able to make choices about their religious futures.

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