Antonio José Martínez

American religious leader

• Born: January 7, 1793
• Birthplace: Santa Rosa de Abiquiú, northern New Mexico, New Spain (now New Mexico)
• Died: July 27, 1867
• Place of death: Taos, New Mexico Territory (now New Mexico)

Martínez was a popular administrator of a parish in Taos, New Mexico Territory, a priest and educator who worked mostly independently of his diocese. However, after a series of conflicts with a bishop who had been appointed his superior, he was excommunicated from the church.

Early Life

Antonio José Martínez (mahr-TEE-nehz) was born on January 7, 1793, in Santa Rosa de Abiquiú in what is now New Mexico. In 1804, when he was eleven years old, the Martín family—as they originally were known—moved to Taos, which was the third largest settlement in the New Mexico territory at the time. When the family moved, they they changed their name to Martínez.

At age eighteen, Martínez married Maria de la Luz, who died giving birth to their first child, also named Maria de la Luz. After this tragedy, Martínez thought about becoming a priest. He wrote to the bishop of Durango, and in 1817, he entered the seminary. Martínez excelled as a student and was ordained a priest five years later. While he was away, his young daughter died. He returned to New Mexico, served in a few parishes in Santa Fe, then went back to Taos, where he became known as Padre Martínez.

Life’s Work

During Martínez’s lifetime, there were vast stretches of open land in what is now the states of California, Nevada, Utah, and parts of Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and Wyoming. These areas were sparsely occupied by a mixture of Spanish, Mexican, and Indian peoples. At the time of Martínez’s birth in 1797, the area was a colony of Spain. After the Mexican War of Independence (1810-1821), the territory was governed by Mexico, and it was not until after the Mexican-American War and the Treaty of Hidalgo in 1848 that the area was brought under the government of the United States. By the time Martínez died in 1867, New Mexico had yet to become an official state of the United States (1912).

Franciscan friars had come from Spain during the colonial period, starting in the 1500’s. These friars worked with the native people, and by the 1600’s, the New Mexicans had built churches and developed their own religious and indigenous art. However, when the area came under the control of the Mexican government, all Spanish citizens were expelled, including the friars. This left only twelve native-born Mexican priests to serve this vast area; Martínez was one of them. The diocesan center was in Durango, fifteen hundred miles away from Santa Fe, with no transportation except horses and mules. Many of the churches were neglected and fell into ruin. A group of laypeople known as penitentes took on the duties of the absent priests. This group would later be problematic for the future diocese.

It was in this atmosphere that Martínez began his life as a pastor in Taos. He opened a school for boys and girls with the idea of preparing the boys for the seminary. Because he needed books for the school, he bought a printing press and set about producing his own textbooks, catechisms, and missals. Since his superior was far away, he became independent and began to build up his own realm of authority. Martínez was popular and revered in the parish. People celebrated his birthday. He soon had a small library. Martínez was a close friend of Bishop Zubiría, his superior in Durango, who had empowered him to give the sacrament of confirmation, a power normally reserved for bishops.

Like most New Mexicans, Martínez opposed any authority that came from the United States. However, by 1851, the border between the United States and Mexico had been established and a new bishop appointed for the Santa Fe area. This was Bishop Jean-Baptiste Lamy, a Frenchman who had a different mind-set than the native-born Martínez. A culture clash ensued. Because communications were so slow, even Bishop Zubiría in Durango did not at first accept the new appointment.

As time went on, Lamy became aware of scandals in the Taos parish. Martínez had fathered children with a married woman. Lamy insisted that all parishes collect tithes from their parishioners, but Martínez refused, claiming that the natives were too poor to pay. When Martínez wrote to the bishop asking for a helper priest, Lamy sent Father Damasco Taladrid, a Spaniard who looked down on Mexicans, to replace Martínez as pastor of Taos. Martínez said that he had been tricked by the bishop, and the friction between Martínez and Taladrid grew. Finally, Martínez set himself up in a private oratorio and conducted services there. When Lamy ordered him not to do this, Martínez continued anyway, which forced Lamy to excommunicate him. Still, Martínez did not back down. He protested the decree and quoted church law, saying that excommunication had to be preceded by a certain number of warnings in order for it to be valid. Lamy tried to suppress the Penitente Brotherhood, but Martínez had been given faculties as chaplain of the Brotherhood by Zubiría, a task he kept for himself and did not share with Taladrid.

Throughout his years at Taos, Martínez allegedly became active in several minor rebellions against the United States government. He is reported to have been active in the 1847 insurrection in which New Mexicans along with Pueblo, Apache, Comanche, and Kiowa natives fought against the American occupation of northern New Mexico. At the time of his death in 1867, the New Mexico Territorial Legislative Council formally proclaimed Martínez as “The Honor of His Homeland,” and in July, 2006, a life-sized statue was erected in the center of the Taos Plaza in his honor.

Significance

Martínez lived at a time of crossroads and conflict in Mexican American history. The story of his life affords a brief look into the lives of the people of the time. These were people who were caught between Spain, Mexico, and the westward expansion of the United States. Martínez took up his duties in good faith, but forces beyond his control changed his plans.

Bibliography

Horgan, Paul. Lamy of Santa Fe: His Life and Times. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1975. The book is principally about Lamy but includes many references to Martínez.

Lavender, David. The Southwest. New York: Harper & Row, 1980. Recounts the history of Martínez and his efforts to defend the Indians and natives of the Santa Fe area.

Lucero, Donald. “Padre Antonio José Martínez.” In The Adobe Kingdom: New Mexico, 1598-1958, as Experienced by the Families of Lucero de Godoy y Baca. 2d ed. Santa Fe, N. Mex.: Sunstone Press, 2009. Brief section on Martínez detailing his life and his influence on the New Mexico Territory.

Mares, E. A. I Returned and Saw Under the Sun: Padre Martínez of Taos, a Play. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1989. A one-man play in which Martínez returns from the dead to defend himself against the accusations that have been lodged against him.

Peterson, Iver. “Priest Willa Cather Assailed Finds a Defender.” The New York Times, June 29, 1985. This brief article reviews Mares’s play and compares the man he finds there with Willa Cather’s depiction of him in Death Comes for the Archbishop.