Pedro Fermín de Mendinueta

Justice issues

Mendinueta became governor and captain-general of Santa Fe de Nuevo México province in 1767.

In October 1767, the rising Santa Fe River caused a flood in the town. Mendinueta called on the residents to build retaining walls between the riverbed and the pueblo to protect public buildings. Afterwards, the Palace of the Governors remained unharmed in subsequent floods.

In November 1767, Mendinueta established a law to regulate the hardest crimes in order to set an example. In addition, In early 1768 Mendinueta sent orders to Francisco Trebol Navarro (alcalde mayor of the city of Albuquerque) and Felipe Tafoya (alcalde mayor of Santa Fe) that they punish crimes taking place in their cities (gambling, concubinage, theft, prostitution, etc.) or else be fired. Indeed, Mendinueta considered Albuquerque to be one of the most dangerous places in New Mexico. In January 1768, Mendinueta was named a captain, so he led the Spanish troops that would participate in a military campaign against indigenous peoples. However, Mendinueta did not support all the requests from the residents of New Mexico. For example, he refused the citizens' request to replace Trebol as mayor of Albuquerque because they felt Trebol was incompetent. Indeed, during his administration, the crime rate increased in Albuquerque.

Mendinueta normally worked in civil cases. In the rural society of New Mexico, most of the cases were related to land and livestock. Many of the cases that the governor had to face were ones in which the defendants were Spanish persons who tried to incite the natives to, for example, attack other indigenous villages, something intolerable to Mendinueta and which led hid to punish the defendants.

Troubles with the Comanches

In the late 1760s, the Comanches traveled to the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, north of Taos, where, together with the Utes, they attacked the San Luis Valley, the Rio Grande area, and Santa Fe. To protect those lands, Mendinueta established the Cerro de San Antonio, just north of Ojo Caliente, in May 1768. The new garrison consisted of fifty men, which the governor considered to be enough to drive away the Comanches. However, they were not successful.

Therefore, Mendinueta established several new measures to strengthen the defense system in New Mexico. He proposed that all Spanish people of New Mexico settle in the most populated places of the province so that they could repel the attacks of the invaders, instead of along the Rio Grande Valley, a place vulnerable to attack, or in small towns and private ranches, away from the protected major cities. According to him, the Spanish settlements should be designed like the villages of Pueblo Amerindians, which were much more defensible than individual farms. This proposal faced against the traditional views that the Spanish and criollo residents in New Mexico had about their settlements. In addition, the governor said the Indians should leave their villages and settle in the cities inhabited by Spaniards, "for defensive purposes", where the Spaniards could also teach them the Spanish customs. However, according to Nicolas de Lafona, Santa Fe (which maintained the largest Spanish population, as it was one of the most important cities of the province), was attacked during the Spanish period.

Mendinueta also conscripted the people of Spanish origin and the Christianized Amerindians as troops through a law that required the Spanish should exercise military service for eighteen days, regardless of where they lived. Each resident was required to join the army, taking a horse and carrying any weapon they had (either a spear, pike, or any other).

However, the Spanish troops were always defeated by the Comanches. In addition, Madinueta could not stage a major military campaign against the Comanches and they continued to make depredations almost every day in northern New Mexico. Therefore, he ended up coming to terms with the Comanches to stop their attacks, signing a treaty with them in February 1771 in Taos. The treaty forbade Spaniards from moving into Comanche territory if they stopped attacking the Rio Grande Valley. The treaty was followed by good trade relations between the two groups. Mendinueta allowed the Comanches to return to the annual fair of Taos, from which they had been first banned in 1761 due to their behavior. This treaty did not last long because the Comanches preserved in their attacks in New Mexico until the second half of the 1780s. However, Oakah L. Jones notes that the Comanches did not continuously attack the Spanish and criollos throughout the 1770s.

Improvements in the defense of New Mexico

In 1772, following a visit of the Marquis of Rubí in the 1760s, Mendinueta developed a line of presidios from the Gulf of California to Texas, passing through Arizona and New Mexico, to incorporate a better defense system into those territories. However, the new presidios in New Mexico had little impact because Santa Fe was already a presidio and so New Mexico was already more or less defended. A civilian militia was established at El Paso del Norte and the troops of this presidio were placed at Carrizal.

In 1776, in order to enhance security in northern New Spain, the Spanish crown required a reorganization of all of the parts of the viceroyalty of New Spain, leading to a broad new policy for controlling the indigenous people in this province. A new administration subdivision named Provincias Internas (internal provinces) was established, to provide more autonomy for the frontier provinces including Santa Fe de Nuevo México and Alta California. Thus, New Mexico began to be more and more integrated into New Spain.

Later in 1776, Mendinueta did not obey the viceroy of New Spain, lost his position as colonial governor, and became a military officer.