Estéban de Perea

Estéban de Perea was born in Villanueva del Fresno, in Extremadura, Spain, near the Portuguese border.

[1] Two witnesses testified that his mother's family was "tainted with new Christian blood", but the Franciscans chose to ignore this evidence.

[8] The Church assumed that the main objective in New Mexico was to convert the Indians, and the civil power existed only in order to provide protection and to support this goal.

[9] On 12 August 1613 the Franciscan leader Fray Isidro Ordóñez and his followers arrested the governor Pedro de Peralta and had him chained and imprisoned in the mission at Sandía.

[14] Tensions between church and state rose to such a level that in 1622 the Franciscans considered abandoning New Mexico altogether, and only decided to remain due to Perea's frantic pleas.

[15] In 1626 Fray Alonso de Benavides was appointed custodian and also commissary of the Holy Office of the Inquisition for the province, giving him power second only to that of the temporal governor (and at times greater).

[17] Benavides visited all the pueblos, found that the friars were succeeding in their efforts to convert the local people, and in 1626 asked for more missionaries.

King Philip IV of Spain, who valued the land mainly because of the number of souls to be saved, ordered the dispatch of thirty more friars.

[20] On 23 June 1629 Perea accompanied Silva on an expedition to Zuni with thirty soldiers, ten wagons, four hundred cavalry horses and a group of priests.

[19] The soldiers made a show of great respect to the friars, going down on their knees and kissing their feet, and told the Indians they should do the same.

One was established at Hawwikku, about 15 miles (24 km) down the Zuni valley, and another farther west at the Hopi village of Awatobi.

[19] Perea and Governor Silva gave Fray Juan Ramírez an escort further west to Ácoma.

[25] In 1633, Perea was serving as a missionary at Quarai, where he wrote that the governor was letting colonists encroach on the jointly owned fields of the Indians and of the mission.

[27] Opposed to forced conversion, as were most missionaries, he said: "With suavity and mildness an obstinate spirit can better be reclaimed than with violence and rigor.