Oñate Plans Response to Attack

By Miguel Encinias
For the Journal
At San Juan during late December 1598 the Spanish settlers were mourning the losses incurred at Acoma on Dec. 4.
The dead accounted for about 10 percent of the expedition's military force and included Juan de Oñate's nephew, Juan de Zaldivar.
The mourning and accompanying confusion put a damper on the Christmas season.
Three days after the holiday, Oñate launched an investigation into the Acoma catastrophe. The inquiry began with a review of the circumstances that led to the fight and an enumeration of the 13 losses suffered.
According to Hammond and Rey's two-volume book of documents, "Oñate, Colonizer of New Mexico," a total of nine witnesses out of the 30 soldiers in Zaldivar's overall force testified. Five were firsthand witnesses who had escaped death by sliding or jumping off the rock mesa.
All five gave approximately the same testimony, but the three soldiers who had remained with Zaldivar when the others were dispatched to search for provisions in the pueblo added that Zaldivar had initially ordered them to shoot into the air as the Acomans advanced, hoping to scare them off.
After the investigation, Oñate asked Father Commissary Alonzo Martinez for an opinion of what constituted a just war, and what disposition might be made of the vanquished and their property.
Martinez rendered a written opinion based on St. Augustine's writings on the subject. The report was endorsed by all the friars in the expedition.
The opinion stated essentially that a just war required a proper authority, a just cause such as protection of the innocent, and the punishment of transgressors of the law. As to the vanquished, their property was at the mercy of the conquerors in a just war.
On Jan. 10, 1599, Oñate issued a proclamation summoning all officials to discuss plans for a military expedition to Acoma. After long deliberation, they reached the conclusion that in the interest of security the expedition should not be delayed.
Sargento Mayor Vicente de Zaldivar, brother of the slain Juan de Zaldivar, was given command of a 70-man force with detailed instructions on how to proceed.
He was instructed to first ask the Acomans to abandon resistence, to surrender the leaders responsible for the uprising, and to deliver the bodies of the Spaniards killed along with their belongings. After compliance with these demands Zaldivar was to remove all the inhabitants, then burn the pueblo to the ground.
NEXT: Confrontation and battle

Miguel Encinias is an Albuquerque historian. His novel, "Two Lives for Oñate," was published this year by the University of New Mexico Press.