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F I S C A L I M P A C T R E P O R T

SPONSOR Matinez

ORIGINAL DATE

LAST UPDATED

2/24/07

3/2/07 HM

SHORT TITLE Genizaros, in Recognition

SM 59

ANALYST Baca

APPROPRIATION (dollars in thousands)

Appropriation

Recurring

or Non-Rec

Fund

Affected

FY07

FY08

NFI

(Parenthesis ( ) Indicate Expenditure Decreases)

SOURCES OF INFORMATION

LFC Files

SUMMARY

Synopsis of Bill

Senate Memorial 59 acknowledges the role and legacy of genizaros in New Mexico History. SM

40 also addresses the important role of genizaros and their descendants have had in the social,

economic, political and cultural milieu of New Mexico and the United States and requests that

the House of Representatives formally recognize the existence and importance of this indigenous

group and the presence and importance of its descendants today. SM 59 directs that a copy of

this memorial be transmitted to the office of the state historian.

SIGNIFICANT ISSUES

SM 59 recites the history of captivity in New Mexico noting that indigenous captivity and

servitude were common in frontier society that became New Mexico. Various indigenous

peoples, including Apache, Dine (Navajo), Pawnee, Ute and Comanche, were captured; and

became part of New Mexican communities and households through capture in war, kidnapping,

trade fairs, punishment for crimes, adoption, abandonment and the sale of children. The

memorial notes that baptismal records reveal that at least four thousand six hundred one captive

indigenous persons were baptized between the years 1700 and 1880, becoming part of Spanish,

Mexican and territorial households. And, numerous primary source records document the

captivity, presence and experience of indigenous people displaced in this way, including

marriage records, court cases, wills and censuses.

Senate Memorial 59 – Page

2

The experiences of captives, while varied, included being raised and serving within households,

and sometimes remaining in a captor's home for a lifetime. The practice of taking Indian

captives lasted through the Mexican and into the American period in New Mexico, and there

were many terms to describe Indian captivity and servitude in New Mexico, including

"cautivos", "criados", "coyotes" and "famulos" but the most common used prior to 1821 and into

the Spanish colonial period was the term "genizaro".

According to the memorial, the term "genizaro" derives from the Turkish word "yeniceri" or

"janissary", terms used to describe Christian captives who, as children, had been forcibly

abducted, traded and trained as the nucleus of the Ottoman empire's standing army and genizaro

families could be found in various communities throughout the colony, including the major

villages of Albuquerque, Santa Cruz de la Canada, Santa Fe and El Paso del Norte. In the mid-

eighteenth century, many genizaros were again relocated strategically at the edges of Abiquiu,

Belen, Carnuel, Las Trampas, Ojo Caliente, Ranchos de Taos, San Miguel del Vado and Tome.

The direct result of the Indian slave trade was the emergence of generations of racial and cultural

mixtures often referred to in the colonial period with terms such as coyotes, colores quebrados,

lobos and mestizos; and many New Mexicans can trace their ancestry to these indigenous

peoples. Another result was the emergence the society now found in New Mexico.

LRB/mt