Talamantes
[under construction]
The Surname in Spain
[to come]
The Surname in New Spain
This author has not been able to find a reference to the surname in New Spain prior to 1648. Volumes I through VII (1509-1599) of the Catálogo de Pasajeros a Indias and the searchable, online databases of the Archivo General de la Nación and the Archivo General de Indias maintained, respectively, by the Secretaría de Gobernación of the Mexican government at http://www.agn.gob.mx, and the Ministerio de Cultura of the Spanish government at http://pares.mcu.es, are interestingly silent. Note that the Archivo General de Indias in Seville, Spain holds unpublished compilations of the records of the Casa de la Contratación for the years 1600 to 1701.
In 1648, Jacinto López de Talamantes and Pedro López de Talamantes, individuals who were probably brothers, christened their respective children at the church of Tlaltenango de Sánchez Román in Zacatecas. 1 The family of Pedro, at least, grew considerably and by 1665, already included the births of Antonio (1650), Nicolasa (1660), Agustín (1662) and Vicente (1665). 2 Between 1694 and 1709 at least eight more individuals were christened at the same church, most likely by the descendants of Jacinto and Pedro López de Talamantes. 3
The number of christenings and marriages in the Zacatecas region grew considerably between 1694 and 1800.
Christenings in the Zacatecas Region (1650-1800)
Church
Year of Earliest Christening
Number of Christenings by 1750
Number of Christenings between 1751 and 1800
Tlaltenango de Sánchez Román, Zacatecas
1694
21
15
San Juan Bautista, Tepechitlán
1738
4
56
Total
25
71
Marriages in the Zacatecas Region (1650-1800)
Church
Year of Earliest Marriage
Number of Marriages by 1750
Number of Marriages between 1751 and 1800
Tlaltenango de Sánchez Román, Zacatecas
1743
__
6
San Juan Bautista, Tepechitlán
1760
__
20
Total
__
26
By 1691, christenings had also been registered at San José del Parral (now Hidalgo del Parral, Chihuahua), and by 1717 at Valle de Allende (Chihuahua). 4 Gradually, the descendants of the original Talamantes families from Zacatecas, San José del Parral and Valle de Allende migrated to Coahuila, Sonora, Baja California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, colonizing what is now a great portion of northwestern Mexico and southwestern United States. 5
Christenings by Region (1650-1800)
Region
Year of Earliest Christening
Number of Christenings by 1750
Number of Christenings between 1751 and 1800
Zacatecas
1650
25
71
Durango
1675
3
27
Chihuahua
1691
46
114
Coahuila
1763
0
31
Sonora
1772
0
4
Marriages by Region (1650-1800)
Region
Year of Earliest Marriage
Number of Marriages by 1750
Number of Marriages between 1751 and 1800
Chihuahua
1706
14
59
Durango
1739
1
3
Zacatecas
1743
1
26
Coahuila
1762
0
10
Sonora
1769
0
4
Chihuahua, by large, and in particular Parral, Valle de Allende, and all the other mining towns that were established within the mineral corridor of the Occidental Sierra Madre between 1650 and 1900, had in the aggregate the highest number of birth and marriage registrations involving Talamantes families during such years.
Christenings in the Chihuahua Region (1650-1800)
Church
Year of Earliest Christening
Number of Christenings by 1750
Number of Christenings between 1751 and 1800
San José, Parral
1691
17
19
Cusihuiriachic
1714
1
1
San Bartolomé, Valle de Allende
1723
19
42
Santa Eulalia, Aquiles Serdán
1723
3
5
Sagrario Metropolitano, Chihuahua
1732
6
6
San Francisco de Borja, San Francisco de Borja
1753
0
1
Santa Cruz, Rosales
1755
0
3
San Lorenzo, Doctor Belisario Domínguez
1757
0
9
Santa Bárbara, Santa Bárbara
1758
0
16
San Jerónimo, Huejotitán
1775
0
2
San Francisco Javier, Satevó
1780
0
1
San Nicolás de las Carretas, Gran Morelos
1782
0
2
San Pablo Apóstol, Meoqui
1794
0
3
San Jerónimo, Aldama
1795
0
3
Santo Cristo de Burgos, Jiménez
1796
0
1
Total
46
114
Marriages in the Chihuahua Region (1650-1800)
Church
Year of Earliest Marriage
Number of Marriages by 1750
Number of Marriages between 1751 and 1800
San José, Parral
1706
3
16
San Bartolomé, Valle de Allende
1717
5
17
Cusihuiriachic
1746
1
6
Santa Eulalia, Aquiles Serdán
1723
1
1
Sagrario Metropolitano, Chihuahua
1733
4
10
Santa Bárbara, Santa Bárbara
1768
0
7
San Lorenzo, Doctor Belisario Domínguez
1780
0
2
Total
14
59
The evident northward migration of the surname is consistent with the manner in which the expansion of the American frontier developed after Juanes de Tolosa discovered minerals in the surroundings of Zacatecas sometime between 1546 and 1548. 6
Sources:
1. Christening of Ysabel dated 06 Feb 1648 by Jacinto López de Talamantes and Ysabel de Covarrubias, and christening of Mateo Talamantes dated 08 Nov 1848 by Pedro López de Talamantes and María Sáez de Soto; See Registros Parroquiales, 1630-1961 Iglesia de Tlaltenango de Sánchez Román, Zacatecas, México (LDS Film No. 0443799). Church records are extremely valuable from a genealogical and historical perspective, assuming that, as a general rule, records in the form of birth, christening, marriage and death registrations indicate an individual’s place of residence.
2. See Registros Parroquiales, 1630-1961 Iglesia de Tlaltenango de Sánchez Román, Zacatecas, México (LDS Film No. 0443799).
3. Christenings of Pedro dated 09 Apr 1694 and Ysabel dated 20 Nov 1697 by Francisco Talamantes and Micaela de Castro, christenings of Nicolás dated 16 JUN 1696 and Juan Vicente dated 06 Jul 1699 by Vicente de Talamantes and María de Miramontes, and christenings of Pascuala dated 11 Jan 1702, Bernardo Antonio dated 18 Apr 1703, Francisco Simón 08 Nov 1707 and Catalina dated 16 Dec 1709 by Juan de Talamantes and Ángela Rodríguez; See Registros Parroquiales, 1630-1961 Iglesia de Tlaltenango de Sánchez Román, Zacatecas, México (LDS Film No. 0443801 and 0443802) .
4. See Registros Parroquiales, 1632-1958, Iglesia de San José, Hidalgo del Parral, Chihuahua, México (LDS Film Nos. 0162529 and 0162530) and Registros Parroquiales, 1662-1957, Iglesia de San Bartolomé, Valle de Allende, Chihuahua, México (LDS Film No. 0162651).
5.Although the bulk of these individuals and families migrated north of Zacatecas, some migrated south to Jalisco and later to Nayarit, but the descendants of the latter migrants are, in the aggregate, considerably less in numbers than those present in northwestern Mexico. Cf., for example, the records in LDS Film Nos. 38309 through 38343 (Sagrario Metropolitano, Jalisco) against the records in LDS Film Nos. 064992 through 604833 (Papasquiaro, Durango) or LDS Film Nos. 162529 though 162543 (San José del Parral, Chihuahua).. Talamantes families were also present in California by the mid to late 1700’s. The earliest record thereof refers to Felipe and Tomás Talamantes, who settled La Ballona Ranch in what is now Culver City. For a descriptive narration of the founding of Culver City, see excerpts from W. W. Robinson at http://www.cheviothills.org/Ranchos.htm. See also Registros Parroquiales, 1643-1933, Iglesia de Santiago Papasquiaro, Durango (LDS Film Nos. 0654992 and 0654993).
6. “On the 8th of September 1546, Tolosa came to the sierra of Zacatecas with a few Spaniards, four Franciscan friars, and a band of Juchipila Indians, and pitched his tent at the foot of the Bufa mountain.” Bancroft, Mexico, Vol. II at 554. Juan de Saldivar Cortés Moctezuma, grandson of Juanes de Tolosa and Leonor Cortés Moctezuma (daughter of Hernán Cortés and Isabel Moctezuma), later identified his grandfather as the founder of Zacatecas in his informes to the Crown. See Información de Méritos y Servicios de Juanes de Tolosa, A.G.I., Patronato Real, 80, N.5, R.1. The modern and more accepted proposition is that Zacatecas was established as a result of the collective efforts of Cristobal de Oñate, Diego de Ibarra, Baltasar Temiño de Bañuelos and Juanes de Tolosa. See Mecham at 44.
The Surname in Janos and Casas Grandes, Chihuahua
The Towns of Janos and Casas Grandes
The town of Janos is located 30°53’19.65” North of the Equator, 108°11’33.31” West of the Prime Meridian and is nested approximately 39 miles (62.76 kilometers) northwest of the Paquimé ruins and a few miles east of the north-flowing Casas Grandes river. (See map) The altitude of the town is 4,467 feet (1,361 meters) above sea level and the weather extremely dry, with temperatures ranging between 111.2 F° (44°C) and -0.4°F (-18°C). The town took the name of the Janos Indians, an extinct ethnic group.
The name Casas Grandes means “big houses“ and is a reference to the abodes found by the Spanish at Paquimé. It is located 30°22’37.43” North of the Equator, 107°56’55.09” West of the Prime Meridian at an altitude of 4,900 feet (1,493.52 meters) above sea level. The town is just a mile north of Paquimé, 39 miles (62.76 kilometers) southeast of Janos, and situated alongside the west bank of the Casas Grandes river. (See map)
Historians believe Europeans, in the form of Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca and his companions, visited the area in 1536 (and in particular, the Paquimé ruins) during their six-year, epic journey from Florida to Culiacán, Sinaloa. His account, titled Naufragios, certainly suggests such proposition, particularly in the descriptions of settlements of habited, permanent abodes. Fray Marcos de Niza and Francisco Vázques de Coronado may have traveled through the Paquimé area during their 1539 and 1540 expeditions to present-day Arizona and New Mexico, respectively, but evidence thereof is scant.
The Mixton War of 1541 changed the landscape of Spanish exploration to the north of Nueva Galicia, no longer financed by the Crown but by the personal fortune of an adventurous and wealthy Basque family with connections to the Viceroy of New Spain: the Ibarras. Francisco de Ibarra and his chronicler Baltasar de Obregón reached Paquimé sometime during his fourth entrada in 1565.
“The date of Ibarra’s departure, as given by Obregón, was May 1, 1567. This date seems to be erroneous, for, according to Obregón himself, Ibarra first went to Chiametla in the spring or summer of 1564 and after a lapse of about eleven months he returned to Sinaloa; and then, in twenty days, he departed for the far north. That would place the entrada about the middle of 1565, which seems to be the more logical date.” 1
Mecham, who based part of his research on Adolphe F. Bandelier’s Final Report of Investigations Among the Indians of the Southwestern United States (carried on mainly between 1880-1885), indicates that Europeans, however, had traveled through Paquimé before 1565. He states:
“On the second day after reaching the plains, they were met by a great number of Querechos, who had heard of their arrival and had come to welcome them. They received the Spaniards with great enthusiasm. They sang and danced about the camp, employing the customary ceremonials when worshiping the sun, for they probably regarded the Christians as supernatural beings. In answer to queries put to them, they said that the settlement of Cíbola was farther to the north. They also said that, many years before, some Spaniards had visited that region and performed wonderful miracles and cures. Without doubt, they referred to Cabeza de Vaca and his companions. It is significant that none of the Indians spoke about Coronado, and thus we are to infer that Coronado did not pass through that region and that the pueblos visited by Ibarra were probably not those of the Gila region.” 2.
The native inhabitants of Paquimé, however, had left by the time of Ibarra’s and Obregón‘s arrival.
“We found paved roads. This great city and congregation of houses are not a unit; they are divided by 8 leagues down the river from the first walk of the great hills to the north, which Rodrigo del Rio and I saw and visited by order of the Governor. The city was followed by the river below and we did not lose sight of it, showing it was the longest and oldest settlement of all those we found. We found traces of the cows. Most of the houses were run down, eroded by the water and ruined, because it showed that many years ago their owners had left and abandoned them, although there were wild, rustic and welcoming people in the surroundings… .”3
The natives informed Obregón that the old inhabitants of Paquimé had gone down the river to the north, six days away, as enemies from another region raided their town and forced them to leave the city. 4 Researchers believe that the indigenous tribes who inhabited Chihuahua, Coahuila, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas in the 1500s were composed of or subsumed by Apaches who themselves were descendants from the Athapaskan linguistic family original to Alaska and Canada. 5 It is a known fact, however, that this family of Native Americans violently resisted the Spanish (and later United States) intrusion into the frontier for the next 350 years.
Sources:
1. Mecham, J. Llloyd. Francisco de Ibarra and Nueva Viscaya, Greenwood Press Publishers, New York (1968), p. 163.
2. Id., p. 183.
3. Obregón, Baltasar de. Historia de los Descubrimientos Antiguos y Modernos de la Nueva España Escrita por el Conquistador en el Año de 1584, Editorial Porrúa, S.A., México (1988), p. 185.
4. Id., p. 186.
5. See Griffen, William B. Apaches at War and Peace, the Janos Presidio, 1750-1858, University of Oklahoma Press, Oklahoma (1998), p. 1.
The Mission of Nuestra Señora de la Soledad de Janos
And alongside the Spanish and Portuguese conquistadores came the Franciscan and Jesuit missionaries.
In 1580, Agustín Rodríguez, Francisco López and Juan Santamaría, Franciscan missionaries, taught the Gospel at the Santa María de las Carretas mission, located approximately 35 miles (56 kilometers) southwest of Janos (See map). But shortly after their arrival, Apaches raided the area and killed them. 1 In response, the fifth Viceroy of New Spain, Lorenzo Suárez de Mendoza, ordered the formation of a military campaign under the orders of Antonio Espejo with the precise instruction to pacify the area. 2 During the course of such campaign, Captain Espejo entered the Carretas area in 1581, found the remains of the Franciscan missionaries and reentered them at the convent of Valle de Allende. 3
In 1680 the Taos, Picuris, Tewa and other pueblo Indians from New Mexico, Arizona and Texas organized and declared war against the Spanish miners who had enslaved them under the encomienda system. The revolt gained momentum under pueblo leader Popé and spread quickly to the Janos area, resulting in the destruction of the mission of Nuestra Señora de la Soledad de Janos in 1680.
After 1680 various nomadic Apache tribes of the region began to raid and trade with the Spanish colonists and semi-independent pueblo Indians on a more consistent basis. To protect against their attack and to protect mining and agricultural endeavors, the Spanish Crown established a system of military presidios alongside the missions, resulting in Juan Fernández de la Fuente’s establishment of the Presidio of San Felipe y Santiago de Janos [insert link to map of presidio] (Janos Presidio) on 16 October 1686.
Sources:
1. Arlegui, p. 217.
2. Id., p.217.
3. Id.
The Janos Presidio
Records of the Janos Presidio
The respective libraries of the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Texas at El Paso hold invaluable records of the Janos Presidio available for research today. The Benson Latin American Collection at the University of Texas at Austin houses correspondence and financial documents of the Janos Presidio, as well as records of marriages, deaths, baptisms, supplies, gratuities and rations to soldiers, rank advancements, censuses, actions in battle, crime prosecutions and other miscellaneous military activities. The collection is divided into 53 main folders, a number of which were indexed by Frederick Woods in 1954. In 1961, Rex Gerald, Director of the El Paso Centennial Museum at Texas Western College (now UTEP), found 37,000 similar documents in the sacristy of the Church of Nuestra Señora de la Soledad de Janos. The documents were microfilmed by the University of Texas at El Paso in 1969 into 37 reels which are available to the general public at the UTEP University Library and through interlibrary loan.
The Surname as reflected in the Records of the Janos Presidio
The detailed description of the records held by the University of Texas at Austin contains entries listing various individuals with the surname Talamantes. Click here for a description of such entries.
Sources:
Presidio of San Felipe y Santiago de Janos Records, Benson Latin American Online Collection, University of Texas at Austin. http://www.lib.utexas.edu/taro/utlac/00083/lac-00083p1.html#restrictlink.
Enciclopedia de Municipios de México, Estado de Chihuahua, Gobierno del Estado de Chihuahua.
http://www.e-local.gob.mx/work/templates/enciclo/chihuahua/Mpios/08035a.htm.
Mission 2000 Database maintained by National Park Service at: http://home.nps.gov/applications/tuma/search.cfm.
Our Talamantes Line
b = born
c = christened (or equivalent)
m = married
d = diedCurrent Generation
Talamantes
2nd Generation (end of Talamantes y-chromosome with respect to current generation)
Individual Parents Siblings Talamantes
Soriano
Talamantes
Talamantes
3rd Generation
Individual Parents Siblings Sabás Medardo Talamantes
María Salas
4th Generation
Individual Parents Siblings
Sabás Medardo Talamantes
b. 08 JUN 1900 Janos, Chihuahua, México
m. 14 AGO 1935 San Buenaventura, Chihuahua, México
d. 12 JUL 1987 Cd. Juárez, Chihuahua, México
Juan Talamantes
Margarita (Rita) Marrufo
Maria Talamantes
Pilar Talamantes
Rita Talamantes
5th Generation
Individual Parents Siblings
b. 27 JAN 1874 Janos, Chihuahua, México
m. 10 FEB 1898 Janos, Chihuahua, México
d.
Sabás Talamantes
Pilar Chacón
Porifirio Talamantes
Brigido Regino Talamantes
Lucio Alvino Talamantes
Jesús Talamantes
Paula Talamantes
Marcos Talamantes
Sabás Talamantes
6th Generation
Individual Parents Siblings Sabás Talamantes
b. 1839 Janos Presidio, Chihuahua, México
m. 25 APR 1863 Casas Grandes, Chihuahua, México
d.
Juan Talamantes
María Quirina Saens
7th Generation
Individual Parents Siblings Juan Talamantes
b. Est. 1810 Janos Presidio, Nueva Vizcaya, New Spain
m. 28 NOV 1834 Janos Presidio, México
d.
