HispanicVista Columnists
Indigenous Mexico: A Lost Connection
- By Donna S. Morales and John P. Schmal
Special to HispanicVista
My name is Donna Morales and I am a Mexican-American woman born and bred in America's heartland, Kansas City. I am as American as apple pie and my family is proud to be American. It's almost hard to believe that a hundred years ago my family was still living in Mexico, speaking the Spanish language and working as laborers in the mines of northern Zacatecas and on the haciendas of Aguascalientes and Jalisco. But, like most American families, we came from another place and we adapted to our new environment.-
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Donna S. Morales and John P. Schmal, “My Family Through Time: The Story of a Mexican-American Family.” Los Angeles, California, 2000.
Philip Wayne Powell, “Soldiers Indians and Silver: North America's First Frontier War." Tempe, Arizona: Center for Latin American Studies, Arizona State University, 1975. - ___________________________________________________________
- Source: John P. Schmal and Donna S. Morales, Mexican-American Genealogical Research: Following the Paper Trail to Mexico (Heritage Books, 2002).
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- Contact John P. Schmal at: JohnnyPJ@aol.com
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John Schmal was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. He
attended Loyola-Marymount University in Los Angeles and St. Cloud State
University in Minnesota, where he studied Geography, History and Earth
Sciences and received two BA degrees. Mr. Schmal has been a
life-long history buff and is also a skilled genealogist. His
genealogical specialties including tracing lineages in Mexico, Puerto
Rico, and the Southwestern U.S.A. He is the coauthor of
"Mexican-American Genealogical Research: Following the Paper Trail to
Mexico" (Heritage Books, 2002). He has also coauthored three other
books on Mexican-American themes, all of them published by Heritage
Books in Maryland. He is an Associate Editor of
www.somosprimos.com and a board member of the Society of Hispanic
Historical and Ancestral Research (SHHAR). Presently, in addition to
writing weekly columns for HispanicVista.com (www.hispanicvista.com),
he is writing a book on the indigenous peoples of Mexico and on the
ports of entry along the Mexican-US border. Mr. Schmal has a
passionate love of Mexican history and has been writing short histories
of each state, which are being compiled at the following link:
http://www.houstonculture.org/mexico/states.html - © Copyright 2005, by John P. Schmal.
But each morning,
when I wake up, I look into the mirror and I realize that I have
inherited a unique legacy. When I look at my reflection, I see a
person who has Indian features and I realize that, somewhere in my
background, my ancestors were the indigenous inhabitants of Mexico.
But I do not speak an indigenous language, nor do I practice any
Indian customs. My family has become very American and we embrace
the culture and traditions of the United States because that is the
only way we know.
But, when I look in the mirror, I realize that Mexican Americans
have inherited a special legacy that makes them unique from many
other American citizens. While the ancestors of many Americans came
to the United States fifty, one hundred, or two hundred years ago
from England, France, Germany, Africa, Japan, Ireland, China, Syria,
Lebanon, Rumania, Norway, Finland, Italy, or Russia, Mexican
Americans have lived on this continent - North America - for many
thousands of years.
It is important to understand that our Mexican-American heritage is
very multi-dimensional. Although most of us carry Spanish surnames
and practice the Christian religion that was given to our ancestors
by the Spanish missionaries, our genetic heritage tells a different
story. Mexican Americans are the face of Native America. When you
look at our hair and gaze into our faces, you can see the nomadic
hunters who crossed the Bering Strait 20,000 years ago.
Mexican Americans are proud because we know that North America has
been our home for thousands of years. Whoever came to the Western
Hemisphere after 1492 found us waiting on the shores of North
America. And wherever we may live in North America, whether it be
Zacatecas, Jalisco, Kansas, Illinois, Texas or California, we know
that our ancestors traveled through at one time or another in the
last 20,000 years.
In November 1990, John Schmal and I met at an appraisal firm in
Koreatown, just west of Downtown Los Angeles. It was John's thirst
for historical information and my pride in and curiosity about my
Mexican ancestry that led us on a journey of discovery. In time, I
would begin to understand that I did, indeed, have indigenous
ancestors and I would understand why that connection was severed
centuries ago by the events taking place in Mexico.
I carry the surname that my father's family brought to America from
Aguascalientes. The surname Morales is derived from moral, the
Spanish word for mulberry tree, specifically the Black European
Mulberry. The suffix "es" or "ez" in Spanish denotes "son of." So I
presume that a person who was called Morales in Medieval Spain may
have been a person who dwelt near a mulberry tree.
It has been said that the surname Morales originated in Santander in
northwest Spain sometime around the Eleventh Century. For many
years, I wondered to myself, "When did my first Morales ancestor
come to Mexico from Spain. And from what part of Spain did he come
from?" I had thought that it would be very interesting to find out
that some distant Morales ancestor had left some part of Spain,
perhaps in the hopes of coming to Mexico to make his fortune. Since
most of us Mexican-Americans carry Spanish surnames that would be a
logical presumption.
However, our family history research has determined that my earliest
Morales ancestors on my direct paternal line were actually Indians
from the town of Lagos de Moreno in the northern highlands of
Jalisco. My great-great-great-great-great-great-grandparents, Miguel
Morales and María de la Cruz, were Indian peasants who were raising
their family during the last two decades of the Seventeenth Century
in the Spanish colonial province of Nueva Galicia. And it is likely
that the Spanish padre of their parish, at some point, gave Miguel
the surname Morales. María's surname, de la Cruz (of the cross), was
a surname frequently given by parish priests to their
newly-converted Indian parishioners.
I can say very proudly that several of my ancestors were among the
first Spanish settlers in the city of Aguascalientes in the late
1590s and early 1600s. I do have Spanish blood running through my
veins, and through my father, I am descended from the famous Ruiz de
Esparza family that left Pamplona in northern Spain for Mexico in
1593.
But I am also proud of the fact that the vast majority of my
ancestors were indigenous people living in the states of Jalisco,
Zacatecas, and Aguascalientes. However, I cannot trace myself to any
one indigenous tribe because I am descended from many of the tribes
that lived in Nueva Galicia four centuries ago.
When the Spaniards came to Zacatecas and Jalisco, a social
transformation took place. The ravages of disease killed large
numbers of Indians. The Spaniards, with their superior military
tactics, easily overwhelmed the tribes that resisted. The great loss
of life from disease or war caused a social chaos among the various
indigenous groups.
Through this social chaos, existing social structures disappeared
and knowledge of the past disappeared. The cultural link that was
usually handed down from parents to child was severed. A new
religion, Christianity, replaced the old religions. And a new
language - Spanish - became the language of the subdued tribes.
Because the Indians were now God-fearing Christians, they no longer
felt pride in or reverence for their old cultures. So, the names of
my ancestors were changed. In many parts of Mexico, indigenous
people - after being Christianized and Hispanicized - assumed
Christian given names and Spanish surnames. This was considered a
necessary part of their indoctrination into the new religion and a
rejection of the old pagan religions they formerly adhered to. If
one had chosen to keep his indigenous name, it would have been
construed as an attempt to retain his former culture and religion.
To help with the social and religious transformation, the Spanish
authorities brought peaceful sedentary Christianized Indians from
other parts of Mexico into the region. These "civilized" Indians
were given the task of helping their Indian brethren to adapt to the
new Christian way of life under Spanish tutelage. These Indians
groups - the Tlaxcalans, the Mexica, and the Purépecha, among others
- had all undergone the same experience several decades earlier. In
most cases, their loyalty to Spain and the Roman Catholic Church was
well rewarded, and they were given special privileges that most
other Indians did not have.
According to the historians, a great many Indian tribes inhabited
the regions of Jalisco and Zacatecas. Some were peaceful
agricultural people; others were warlike and uncompromising warriors
determined to protect their native soil from trespassers.
Collectively, most of these Indians were called Chichimecas, a
derogatory term meaning "the sons of dogs," originally given to them
by the Aztec Indians.
But, having studied the history of the Jalisco and Zacatecas, I now
realize that my Indian ancestors were the Cazcanes, Tecuexes,
Guamares, Zacatecos, and Guachichile Indians, among others. These
tribes put up a terrific resistance to Spain's intrusion in the
Sixteenth Century. The Mixtón Rebellion of 1540-41 pitted the
Cazcanes and other Indian groups against the Spaniards. The Mixtón
War was followed by a forty-year conflict, the Chichimeca War
(1550-1590), in which the Guachichiles, Zacatecos and other groups
made countless hit and run attacks against Spanish and sedentary
Indian settlements and caravans.
But these wars did not represent a pure case of Spaniard versus
Indian. In reality, the Spanish military employed many of their
Christian Indian allies in their campaigns against the "uncivilized"
Indians who had not yet submitted. The late historian and author
John Wayne Powell discussed - in great detail - the Spaniards' use
of Indian allies in various capacities: "as fighters, as burden
bearers, as interpreters, as scouts, as emissaries." This use of
Indians as soldiers and scouts led to enormous and wide-ranging
migration and resettlement patterns throughout Jalisco, Zacatecas
and many other parts of Mexico.
Dr. Powell wrote, "the pacified natives of New Spain played
significant and often indispensable roles in subjugating and
civilizing the Chichimeca country." In addition, the discovery of
silver brought many Indians from southern Mexico into this area,
seeking mining jobs (usually carrying ore). And, so, Dr. Powell
continues, "This use of native allies... led eventually to a virtual
disappearance of the nomadic tribes as they were absorbed into the
northward-moving Tarascans, Aztecs, Cholultecans, Otomíes,
Tlaxcalans, Cazcanes, and others... within a few decades of the
general pacification at the end of the century the Guachichiles,
Zacatecos, Guamares, and other tribes or nations were disappearing
as distinguishable entities in the Gran Chichimeca."
As the Seventeenth Century dawned, Dr. Powell explains, "the
Sixteenth-century land of war thus became fully Mexican in its
mixture." And, thus it came to pass that my ancestors, while
appearing to be Indian in physical appearance, became Christian
Mexicans, subjects of the Spanish king and his authorized
representatives.
This unique and remarkable assimilation was repeated across many
parts of Mexico over a period of three centuries. It had varying
degrees of success, but very few indigenous groups were able to
avoid some level of assimilation. In the southern states of Chiapas,
Yucatan, and Oaxaca, Christianity prevailed, but so did the cultures
and languages of several indigenous groups, and even today, many of
these states contain individuals who speak Indian languages.
But, for most of us Mexican Americans, the connection to our
indigenous ancestors has been severed or - if not totally severed -
contains only small elements of former Indian cultures. As a result,
the journey through time for Mexican Americans has been a long an
interesting one. We have gone from Indian warriors to Indian
peasants, from Indian peasants to Mexican citizens, from Mexican
citizens to Americans. From generation to generation, the cultural
elements have evolved, but the image of Native America remains.
© Copyright 2006, Donna S. Morales and
John P. Schmal. All Rights Reserved. Donna Morales and John Schmal
are the authors of “The Indigenous Roots of a Mexican-American
Family,” available at heritagebooks.com. They are also authors of
“Mexican-American Genealogical Research: Following the Paper Trail
to Mexico,” which contains a chapter about researching indigenous
roots in Mexico. This book is also available through
heritagebooks.com.