Fray Francisco Atanasio Dominguez, canonical inspector of the
missions of New Mexico in 1776, compared most everything in New
Mexico to Mexico City, "the delightful and alluring cradle of my
birth, for which no praise is ever adequate." And hardly anything
measured up. He disparaged the people of New Mexico and the
religious art of Spanish immigrant Bernardo de Miera y Pacheco.
Then, by an ironic twist later in 1776, Dominguez found himself on
a five-month vision quest with Miera and Fray Silvestre Velez de
Escalante. Dominguez likened New Mexican churches to hacienda
granaries, wine cellars, or Mexican pulque parlors. He found fault
with certain of his Franciscan brethren, calling them on their
drunkenness, insubordination, or public scandal. Yet all the while,
Father Dominguez maintained the keen eye and curiosity of a born
observer. From no other document do we learn so much about daily
life in raw and remote late colonial New Mexico. How much a nanny
goat cost (2 pesos), a fat pig (12 pesos), a trade knife (1 buffalo
hide), a captive Indian girl from twelve to twenty years old (2
good horses and assorted dry goods), or the funeral of a Spanish
child with tall cross and cope (8 pesos); how to prepare atole or
chocolate (not coffee); the resentment of the colony's merchants
toward their Chihuahua creditors and the fatalism of New Mexican
families living under constant threat of Comanche attack; or where
to catch trout-such details abound. Dominguez's superiors, however,
resentful of his unflattering wordiness and occasional wit, filed
his commentary away unceremoniously and forgot it. Since its
rediscovery in 1928 and now published in a new edition, the
unparalleled Dominguez report has often been compared to the 1630
and 1634 memorials of Fray Alonso de Benavides. The contrast could
scarcely be sharper. Benavides looked out hopefully upon a young
colony bent upon the Christian conversion of the Pueblo Indians,
and Dominguez saw realistically what an ever more secular world had
wrought. Whereas Benavides condemned Pueblo Indian ceremonial kivas
as dens of devil worship, Dominguez routinely inventoried them as
men's club houses. For their timely views, we are deeply indebted
to both men. The collaboration of Eleanor B. Adams-woman of
letters, editor, and historian of colonial Latin America-and Fray
Angelico Chavez-man of letters, priest, artist, and historian of
Hispanic New Mexico-could not have been more fortuitous. Together,
they polished for us this unique window on late-eighteenth-century
New Mexico, providing a seamless translation as well as explanatory
materials. It is more than fitting that by their art the words of
the uncompromising Father Dominguez live on.
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