Francisco Gómez Robledo

  Noted events in his life were:

• Background Information: ²⁵²
Francisco Gómez Robledo was most active in the civil and military life of his day, especially after his father's death. Family enemies accused him and his brothers, as also his deceased father, of Judaical tendencies, so that he had to undergo trial in Mexico City, where he cleared himself and the family name. Thanks to this trial, we know the family's story in great detail. Francisco declared that he had been baptized by Fray Pedro de Ortega in Santa Fe, with Governor Sotelo and Doña Isabel de Bohórquez, wife of Don Pedro Durán y Chaves, as sponsors; the same Governor was his godfather in confirmation, administered by Fray Alonso Benavides. (Part of the Judaical evidence in the eyes of ignorant accusers was an abnormal coccyx or "little tail" that Francisco and a brother had!)

Francisco was most devoted to the Confraternity and devotion of La Conquistadora, of which he was Mayordomo at the time of his trial, and perhaps continually after that until 1684, when he was still mentioned in this capacity. Together with his brothers, Bartolomé and Andrés, he served as member of the Cabildo of the Kingdom.

At the time of the 1680 Rebellion he held the rank of Maese de Campo and played an important part before and during the siege of Santa Fe. He fled south with Governor Otermín and the Santa Fe colonists; he passed muster in 1680 as Lieutenant to the Governor, married, with one grown son besides two small ones and five daughters, an unmarried sister, a sister-in-law with seven small children, and twenty servants. In 1681 he was described as being fifty-three years old, a native of New Mexico, married, of good stature and features, with red hair and mustache, and partly gray.

The grown son mentioned was a natural son, Antonio, twenty-eight years of age, single, having a robust body, plump beardless face and thick black hair. In 1663, his father had declared him, then five years old, and a sister María, five or six, as his natural children.

Francisco remained with the exile colony, but is mentioned as deceased by December, 1693, hence did not return to his pre-Revolt lands north of Santa Fe. Nor is it known who his wife was, or his minor children, or if any of them returned with the Reconquest. A María Gómez who appears in the following century could well be his natural daughter. (As for Antonio, a guess of Fry Ángelico Chávez [the author] is that he was the son of a López del Castillo woman; that he had certain natural children by Juana Luján at Guadalupe del Paso, 1681-1693, and these came to New Mexico as "Gómez del Castillo" Moreover, they were very close to the Roybal-Gómez Robledo clan in the Pojoaque area).

Origins of New Mexico Families: A Genealogy of the Spanish Colonial Period, Kindle Locations 1758-1788

Francisco had a relationship with Juana López del Castillo, daughter of Matías López del Castillo and María Ana Archuleta.²⁵² (Juana López del Castillo was born about 1641 in Nuevo Méjico, Nueva España.)