Tomé Domínguez

  General Notes:

From Juan Dominguez de Mendoza: Soldier and Frontiersman of the Spanish Southwest, Simmons & Esuibel, UNM Press, 2012, Tomé Domínguez was a merchant in Mexico City with a patnership with his brother Juan Matheo. Tomé and his wife had fourteen children, all born in New Spain. At least three of their sons and four daughters moved with their parents to New Mexico. Tomé was among the first to trade in New Mexico, as earlyy as in 1631. He also sponsed families who relocated from New Spain into New Mexico. He brought part of his family to live in New Mexico by 1660, possibly to avoid his creditors in Mexico City.

  Noted events in his life were:

• Background Information. ²⁵⁰
Fray Angélico Chávez stated that the Domínguez family arrived in New Mexico around the mid-1600s. One of the earliest documents of the New Mexico Archives is dated December 15, 1636, Pueblo de Socorro, and is the official appointment of Capitán "Thome Domingues" (Tomé Domínguez, the elder; ONMF: 24-25) as Captain and Squadron leader of a group of soldiers. The document verifies that with his appointment he received all the honors, graces, exemptions and liberties that by reason of his official position were now his. This information places the Domínguez family in New Mexico earlier that previously known, and indicates that the occupation of Tomé Domínguez was that of a soldier and military leader.

Researcher: José Antonio Esquibel

Source: "New Mexico Archives: Documents (Facsimiles of Manuscripts at Santa fe, 1621-1683)", located at the Southwest Research Room, University of New Mexico, Zimmerman Library (Call no.: 928.908,1421d, #1-8, 12-16).

• Background Information. ²⁵²
Tomé Domínguez came to New México around the middle of the Seventeenth Century, along with his adult children. His sons testified that he had died around the year 1656 at the age of ninety-six. His family had settled in the Sandia jurisdiction where they intermarried with the Cháves clan.

The Domínguez de Mendoza children, born in Méjico, played importqnt roles in the seventh-century New Méjico history. The sons were Tomé (the Younger). Juan, and Francisco. Their daughters were, Damiana who married Alvaro de Paredes in 1660, and later, Cristóbal de Anaya; Francisca became the wife of Antonio Márquez, then of Francisco de Anaya; Leonor was the wife of Cristóbal de Anaya; Elena married Don Pedro Durán y Cháves.

In April 1680, Tomé II was 54 years old, Damiana was 50, Juan was 46, and Leonor was 40, all living on their land south of Sandia Pueblo.

~ Origins of New Mexico Families: A Genealogy of the Spanish Colonial Period, pp. 24-25

Tomé married Elena Ramirez de Mendoza, daughter of Benito de París González and Mendoza Leonor Francisca de Mendoza, on 29 Aug 1616 in Puebla de los Ángeles, Nueva España.²⁵² (Elena Ramirez de Mendoza was born about 1596 in La Antigua, Veracruz, Nueva España and died before 1661 in Río Abajo, Nuevo Méjico, Nueva España.)