Juan Peralta de Mestas

  Noted events in his life were:

• Background Information: ²⁵²
Juan de Mestas was described as a native of New Mexico, single, twenty years old, having a good stature, a fair complexion, a long face, and chestnut hair and beard. Juan returned to New Mexico with the Vargas Reconquest, having married during the 1680-1693 exile.

At his second marriage in Santa Fe he said that his parents were unknown and called himself "Juan de Mestas Peralta." The description of the two Mestas brothers shows the blood of the northern Spaniard who came with Governor Manso; the Peralta name suggests their mother's family origin, or else they were reared by a person of this name, perhaps the Sargento Mayor Andrés de Peralta who was killed at Santo Domingo Pueblo in 1680.

Anyway, Juan de Mestas, through his seven sons and numerous daughters, is the founder of a vast family of the next century which in modern times corrupted the name to "Maestas."

Origins of New Mexico Families: A Genealogy of the Spanish Colonial Period, Kindle Locations 3438-3446

Juan de Maestas returned to Santa Fe in 1693 with his wife, Casilda López de Osura, who died soon after and was buried in Santa Fe. When Juan applied to marry María Trujillo in November, 1695, he stated that he had been born in Santa Fe, but did not know who his parents were. By 1710 he had established himself at Pojoaque, giving his age as fifty-eight in 1714. In 1715, he and a son, Mateo, received permission to visit New Vizcaya, very likely to see relatives who had remained at Guadalupe del Paso.

The only son by the first wife was this Mateo, who married Rafaela Cortés in 1720.

María Trujillo bore Juan the following large family:

• María, born 7 Feb 1707, who married Lorenzo Inocencio Velásquez
• Casilda, who married Nicolás Sisneros in 1714
• Juana, who became the wife of Pedro Sisneros in the same year
• Antonio, who married María Luisa Montoya in 1728
• Joaquín, born 25 Mar 1713, who married Teresa Tafoya
• José, born 25 Mar 1715
• Manuela, born 1 Apr 1720
• Juan Manuel, born 17 Jun 1709, who married Francisca Martín
• Francisco Xavier, born 14 Apr 1711
• Josefa Micaela, born 18 May 1717
• Ventura, who married Catalina Jurado.

Origins of New Mexico Families: A Genealogy of the Spanish Colonial Period, Kindle Locations 9646-9669

Juan married María Trujillo, daughter of Juan de Trujillo and Elvira Sánchez Jiménez, on 29 Nov 1695 in Villa de Santa Fé, Nuevo Méjico, Nueva España.²⁴⁸ (María Trujillo was born about 1680 in Nuevo Méjico, Nueva España.)

  Noted events in their marriage were:

• Diligencia Matrimonial: ²⁴⁸

2 Nov 1695, Santa Fé, Juan de Mesta Peralta (38), native of Santa Fé of unknown parentage, widowed of Casila López de Osura, buried here, and Marí Trujillo (18, 20), daughter of Juan Trujillo and Elvira Sánchez, natives of El Río Abajo in New Mexico.

Witnesses: Bernardo de Chaves (20), Francisco Luján (25), Antonio Gutiérrez (29). The pair married 29 Nov 1695 with witnesses Miguel d Lara and María Rodarte.

~ Roots Ltd., Diligencias Matrimoniales, p. 1218