Rodarte

Juana Guerrero, the widow of Miguel Rodarte de Castro (from Llerena, Nueva Galicia; died circa 1691), enlisted at Zacatecas as a colonist for New Mexico on 22 January 1695. Although a surviving muster roll indicates she had two children in her household, Baltazar Rodarte and Catalina Rodarte, she actually enlisted with seven children. Her additional children were distributed among fake couples under the direction of Capitán Juan Páez Hurtado as part of his ploy to gain additional money from royal officials for transporting colonists to New Mexico.

Her son Bernabé Rodarte fled from the New Mexico colony and was captured and executed. In 1697, Juana Guerrero was still residing in New Mexico and was listed with seven children in the cattle distribution list of May. The children were: Nicolás Rodarte, Baltazar, Gabriel, Cristóbal, José, Catalina, and Juana de Dios.

An elder sibling, María Rodarte de Castro Xabalera (ONMF: 280) was a native of Sombrerete who identified her parents as Miguel de Castro Xabalera and Juana Guerrero during the prenuptial investigation proceeding in her marriage to Jacinto Sánchez (ONMF: 280).

It is difficult to account for the Rodarte family after 1697. For the early 1700s, documents relating only to Baltazar Rodarte (ONMF: 268) have been located in the Spanish Archives of New Mexico, and there are no early Rodarte baptismal records that have been located and extracted. By 1707, Baltazar Rodarte, born circa 1681, was married with Sebastiana de la Vega, born 1686. It appears that Baltazar had been previously married with Francisca García (ONMF: 268).

Cristóbal de Castro (ONMF: 351), a native of Zacatecas and a son of Miguel de Castro Rodarte and Juana Guerrero, was married at Santa Cruz in 1705 with Bernarda Gamboa. They became residents of the community of Río Arriba in the jurisdiction of San Juan. A daughter of this couple, Juana de Castro, was married at San Juan on 1 December 1731 with Lázaro Sáes [see Sáes].

Researchers: John B. Colligan and José Antonio Esquibel

Sources: John B. Colligan, The Páez Hurtado Expedition of 1695: Fraud in Recruiting Colonists for New Mexico, University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, 1995; 31-32, 95-96; SANM I: 169; SANM II: 63 & 87; "Census of the Parish of Santa Cruz de los Españoles," transcribed by Donald S. Dreesen in New Mexico Genealogist, New Mexico Genealogical Society, Albuquerque, Vol. 28, No. 1: 22.