The Rosas Affair. Donald L. Lucero

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      THE ROSAS AFFAIR

      Honor, Abuse of Power, and Retribution

      In Colonial New Mexico 1637–1645

      A Novel Based on a True Story

      Donald L. Lucero

      © 2008 by Donald L. Lucero. All Rights Reserved.

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      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Lucero, Donald L., 1935-

       The Rosas affair : honor, abuse of power, and retribution in colonial New Mexico, 1637-1645 : a novel based on a true story / by Donald L. Lucero.

       p. cm.

       ISBN 978-0-86534-681-9 (pbk. : alk. paper)

       1. Rosas, Luís de, d. 1642--Fiction. 2. New Mexico--History--To 1848--Fiction.

      I. Title.

       PS3612.U255R67 2008

       813’.6--dc22

       2008032778

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      In Memory

      of

      The Grandparents

      of

      The Rosas Affair

      Hernando Ruiz de Hinojos and Beatriz Perez de Bustillo

      Alonso Varela Jaramillo and Catalina Perez de Bustillo

      Asencio de Arechuleta and Ana Perez de Bustillo

      Antonio Baca* and Yumar Perez de Bustillo

      Francisco Gomez and Ana Robledo

      Alonso Baca

      Diego Marquez* and Bernardina Vasquez

      Antonio Jorge de Vera and Gertrudis Baca

      Pedro Lucero de Godoy and Petronila de Zamora

      Matias Lopez del Castillo and (Maria) de Archuleta

      *Those executed

      A fearless soldier, ruthless in his methods, and

      avowedly anticlerical, Rosas entered New Mexico

      [in the spring of 1637] with two objectives: to place

      civil government and secular authority on a

      superior footing, and to profit from his governorship

      —Gutierrez, When Jesus Came the Corn Mothers Went Away

      The precise chronology of events [regarding the

      Rosas affair] from mid-1639 to mid-1641 is

      impossible to establish from conflicting testimony . . .

      —Kessell, Kiva, Cross, and Crown

      1

      His Lordship the Governor

      MEXICO CITY, KINGDOM OF NEW SPAIN,

      JANUARY 1637

      A footman, acting in place of the duke’s equerry, stood on the path below the garden. “All’s ready, don Luis” he said to the man waiting on the tread of the terrace. “Do you wish for me to bring up the carriage?”

      “A moment yet,” replied the governor-applicant, Luis de Rosas, glancing at the landau awaiting him in the courtyard. A moment yet, he thought to himself, one further moment.

      The day was bright and clear, crisp winter weather under a brilliant sun. Behind him, the eaves of the two doors leading from a series of palatial halls onto the red-tiled terrace were bright in the morning sun. The eave’s porches of blue tiles and the walls up to the open-eaved roof were decorated with azulejo tiles and chiaroscuro frescos in the Italian design of fronds and foliage spilling from two-handled vases. Before him, his view swept over the walls of the courtyard to a high church and to the huge square façade of the viceregal palace almost transparent in the dazzling light. He could have walked to the palace, but protocol required that on this, his final meeting with the viceroy, he must ride in a carriage.

      Rosas, who knew the importance of symbols, bore himself with dignity. He was clad in a rose-colored doublet of rich material worked with rows of silver crescents that sparkled in the sun. In full court dress sans hat, sword, belt, and spurs, his dark, bearded face bordered in a small ruff, he showed only slightly the marks of the pox that had afflicted him as a child. He appeared handsome and rugged with the type of masculine vigor appealing to men. Although sickly in childhood, and suffering all his life with gastric troubles, he showed no outward sign of these ailments or of the tertian fevers with which he was plagued and appeared to be in the peak of health. His medical problems had perhaps impinged on the development of his personality, however. Imbued with a considerable sense of his own importance—although he was, by all accounts, only the son of a merchant—he had been difficult as a child, sullen as a young man, taciturn and stubborn as an adult. Now often rageful and filled with arrogance, his measured bearing on this occasion, would, he felt, show the curious and expectant assembly he was about to meet, that here was a governor possessing presence and energy worthy of their attention.

      Rosas knew it was imperative to arrive at the appointed hour. His actions would be observed from the instant his carriage entered the viceregal grounds. And when it did, as the lone occupant of the vehicle, he must appear to be in complete command of the moment. It was early, and, therefore, he waited. He stood at the top of the stairs examining the trappings of his horse, a prancing charger of the finest Spanish breed, waiting impatiently for him to spring onto his back. His horse would, instead, be led behind his carriage from the ducal palace where he had been staying while in negotiation with the viceroy, to the viceregal palace from which he would ride in triumph once he had the cedula (royal decree) confirming his appointment as governor of New Mexico. The preparations for his investiture were a pantheon of symbols, the symbols required of life—and death—in Spanish service. His 15 years of military service as a captain of cuirassiers (cavalry soldiers) in Flanders had taught him the importance of symbols. His attention to these, as well as his keen mind, had assisted him in his rise through the ranks, making him now the confidant and protégé to New Spain’s new viceroy, the Marques de Cadereyta, a knight of Sant’ Iago (St. James). Rosas, as one of the gentlemen in the viceroy’s train, had come with the marques from Spain in 1635. Now, almost two years later—and following the payment of a considerable bribe—his patience in awaiting a lucrative assignment was finally to be rewarded. With a final survey of the duke’s winter garden in which a myriad of rose bushes anticipated a welcome spring, he finished a mental tally of the preparations necessary regarding his horse and carriage.

      “You may bring them up now,” he said to the footman.

      * * *

      The defensive courtyard of the Patio de Armas into which Luis de Rosas rode was flanked on one side by the imposing stables of the viceregal palace containing 30 of