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F I S C A L I M P A C T R E P O R T
SPONSOR Lujan, B
ORIGINAL DATE
LAST UPDATED
2/24/07
3/2/07 HM 40
SHORT TITLE Genizaros, in Recognition
SB
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
House Memorial 40 acknowledges the role and legacy of genizaros in New Mexico History. HM
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. HM 40 directs that a copy of
this memorial be transmitted to the office of the state historian.
SIGNIFICANT ISSUES
HM 40 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.
pg_0002
House Memorial 40 – 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