Captain Fernando Durán y Chávez

  General Notes:

The Spanish settlers went to El Paso, which is present day Cuidád Jurez, after the Pueblo Revolt of 1680. Don Diego de Vargas lead the Spanish return to New Mexico between 1692-1696.

Herencia, Oct 1997 p16, 35
Herencia, Volume 3 January 1995 Issue 1

  Noted events in his life were:

• Background Information. ²⁵²
A captain by 1680, Fernando Durán y Chávez he fled the Indian Rebellion with the Rio Abajo people, but was the only one among the leaders who voted to turn back and help the Santa Fe colonist. Unlike the reset of the Chaves family, his uncle Pedro's family, and his first cousin, Fernando (the Sargento Mayor) of Taos, he did not try to impede the resettlement of New Mexico, nor did he ask to return to New Spain.

He passed muster in September, 1680, as a married man with four small children and two servants, and was described in 1681 as a settler willing to return, thirty years old, married, and having a good stature with a fair and ruddy complexion.

His wife, as learned from post-Reconquest sources, was Lucía Hurtado de Salas, who fled with him and their four little children in 1680. They returned with a much increased family in 1693. This is the most important Chaves family, being the only one to return with Vargas, and is thus the parent stem of succeeding generations in New Mexico.

~Origins of New Mexico Families, pp. 20-21.

During the 1680-1693 exile at Guadalupe del Paso Captain Fernando Durán y Chávez took part in the futile Otermín Expedition, and was one of the Regidores of the colony, and with the arrival of Governor Vargas he became one of his councillors. In the grand "Entrada" into Santa Fe, December 16, 1693, Don Fernando led with the Royal Standard as Real Alferez, but soon after moved to the ancestral lands at Bernalillo; here and at San Felipe Pueblo he maneuvered the colonists and Indians so as to forestall disaster during the uprising of 1696, though he had to disagree with Vargas as to tactics; subsequently he vanquished the Jemez Indians at San Diego Canyon, when they fled into the Navajo country. Governor Vargas, taken ill during an Apache campaign in the Sandias in 1704, was carried to Bernalillo where he made his will and die, presumably in the Chaves house, for Don Fernando and his eldest son, Bernardo, signed as official witnesses of the last will and testament.

By 1707 he and the family had moved to Atrisco, while Bernard and his young family remained at Bernalillo. At Atrisco Don Fernando made his last will on February 11, 1707, but he was still living as late as 1712. By 1716 he was referred to as dead.

His widow, Lucia Hurtado de Salas, lived with some of her sons until her death on February 3, 1729. Their ten children are named in their father's will in this order: Bernardo, Pedro, Antonio, Isabel, Francisco, Luis, Nicolas, Maria, Catalina, and Pedro Gomez Duran. The four eldest had been born before 1680 in the Sandia-Bernalillo area; the rest at Guadalupe del Paso.

Before his marriage Don Fernando had a natural daughter, Clara de Chaves, mother not known, who became the wife of Juan de la Mora Pineda.

Of his three daughters, Isabel, married Jacinto Pelaez, and then Baltasar de Mata; Maria, wife of Antonio de Ulibarri, died without issue: and Catalina became the wife of Matias de Miranda.

Origins of New México Families, pp. 160-161

• Land Grant, 1692, Atrisco, Nuevo Méjico, Nueva España. ²⁵⁰
From the Atrisco Land Grant: "Don Fernando de Cháves requests …the tract is also on the Rio Grande, commonly called Atrisco, also of agricultural land with its acequia madre and this one in from the bluff where there is an old house in which Juan de Perea lived going down the riverside as far as some corrals which Colonel Juan Dominguez, my brother-in-law, had and on said tract my father, Don Pedro Duran y Chaves, lived and also some other persons by permission."

~Beyond Origins, Vol. 2

Researchers: Gerald Mandell and Margaret Buxton

Sources: Spanish Archives of New Mexico, Series I, Roll 37, frs. 727-728 (U.S. Surveyor General records, Court of Private Land Claims, Atrisco Land Grant); Margaret Buxton, The Other Luna Family, privately published.

• Census: Don Diego de Vargas El Paso muster, Dec 1692-Jan 1693, El Paso del Norte, Nuevo Méjico, Nueva España. ²⁸⁷
Forty-Eighth household, six sons, three daughters, one female dependent, one boy

Captain don Fernando Durán y Chávez, married to doña Lucía de Salazar, with nine children named Bernardo, sixteen, Pedro, fifteen; Antonio, fourteen; Isabel, thirteen; Francisco, eleven; Luis, nine; Nicolás, six; María, four; and Catalina, one; a dependent, Francisca, twenty-eight, and a boy named Ventura, five.

Royal Crown Restored, p. 48

• Name.
The name Chaves comes from the Latin word Clavis. It is the old Spanish and Portuguese word for "Keys."

• Families. ²³⁹
Family 1 :
Clara Durán y Chávez

Family 2 : Lucia Hurtado de Salas
Marriage: 1673, Atrisco, Nuevo México
Bernardo Durán y Chávez
Pedro Durán y Chávez
Diego Antonio Durán y Chávez
María Ysabel Durán y Chávez
Francisco Durán y Chávez
Luis Durán y Chávez
Lucas Durán y Chávez
Nicolas Durán y Chávez
María Durán y Chávez
Catarina Durán y Chávez
Pedro Durán y Chávez

Family 3 : Ruíz Cáceres
María Luján (Chávez)

• Pueblo Revolt. ⁴⁸⁰
Don Fernando Chávez and Sebastian de Herrera were both sargentos mayores in the Taos district when the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 began. They were also the only two survivors from this district. Both of their families had died, and they fought their way south to Santa Fé. Once they reached Santa Fé, they found Santa Fe besieged by a large force of allied Pueblos. From here they traveled further south to join Lieutant Governor, Alanso García, and the other refugees of the Río Abajo at Isleta Pueblo.

~SW Historical Quaterly, Vol 15, #2

Fernando married Lucía Hurtado de Salas, daughter of Andrés Hurtado Captain and Bernardina de Salas y Trujillo, in 1673 in Atrisco, Nuevo Méjico, Nueva España.²⁵² (Lucía Hurtado de Salas was born in 1653 in Santa Fé, Santa Fé, Nuevo Méjico, Nueva España, died in Jan-Feb 1729 in Atrisco, Nuevo Méjico, Nueva España ²⁵² and was buried on 3 Feb 1729 in Alburquerque, Nuevo Méjico, Nueva España ⁵⁰⁹.)

Fernando next had a relationship with Elena Ruíz Cáceres, daughter of Juan Ruíz Cáceres and Unknown. (Elena Ruíz Cáceres was born in 1649 in Nuevo Méjico, Nueva España ³³¹ and died after 1682 ³³¹.)