Biofile of Building Artisans who Worked on the Northern Spanish Borderlands of New Spain and Early Mexico Compiled by Mardith Schuetz-Miller The following inventory of professionally trained artisans, gleaned from both archival and published sources, was compiled as a research tool to help identify the men who may have been involved in the construction of monumental buildings. It includes not only masons and Royal Engineers, who were most often identified as the architects of the period, but also carpenters, tile and brick makers, painters, and metal workers - both ordinary blacksmiths and armorers. Metal workers might strike some readers as an odd inclusion, until one realizes these men often made, sharpened, and repaired the tools used by the others, as well as manufactured building hardware. Long experience taught me that building artisans were not always identified by trade in various records and it is helpful to have a basic list to check against. Nevertheless, this one represents only the tip of the iceberg. There are many more archives to be mined. Included are civilian artisans: men, trained in the guilds of central Mexico, recruited as colonists; men brought to the frontier provinces under government or ecclesiastical contract to construct mission churches, for example, and to teach their trades to mission Indians; and younger colonists trained under the tutelage of these professionals. Also identified are a few reredos constructors who never set foot on the frontier, but whose products ended up in borderland s churches. Further included are professional artificers from specific governmental branches. Royal Engineers, highly trained in Spanish military and mathematical schools, specialized in the construction of forts and fortifications. However, their skills were frequently put to use in designing, and sometimes overseeing, the erection of churches, public buildings, bridges, and water projects involving dams and irrigation ditches. Each presidio attempted to number a mason a carpenter, and a blacksmitharmorer on its roster. These men, with the help of their fellow soldiers, were frequently responsible for the initial buildings of new colonies and were often loaned out to mission establishments to train neophytes and help with their construction projects. The same can be said of the shipyard artisans from San Blas and its subsidiary maestranza at Loreto who played major roles in monumental building in the Californias. The entries record as much data as I could find on any given individual: their ethnic identity, origin, life span, parents, wife or wives, children, and professional engagements. Names are rendered with their variant spellings as used in the documents cited. At first blush, family relationships may seem trivial, but are useful in sorting out the artisans from men with the same name. They are also important because sons often followed their father s, or a related, trade. Family relationships also point to considerable bonding through marriages of the artificer class. The entries are uneven since they reflect my particular involvement in the histories of Texas, Sonora, and the Californias. Nevertheless, it is my hope that this starter biofile may spur other researchers to the possibilities of identifying artisans engaged in monumental building by knowing who was where and when. Mardith Schuetz-Miller Tucson, Arizona
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