Diego De Vera

   Ancestral File Number: 2078.

  General Notes:

"Diego de Vera came to Santa Fe sometime before 1622, and on January 16 of that year he married Maria de Abendano, duaghter of Simon de Abendano and Maria Ortiz (Baca), both deceased. The witnesses were Don Pedro Duran y Chaves and his wife, Isabel de Bohorquez (Baca), aunt of the bride. Three years later, Fray Alonso Benavides came to Santa Fe as head of the Church in New Mexico, but also representing the Inquisition; as a layman he had been its sheriff in the Canary Islands. Now, Diego de Vera had a wife in Tenerife in the Canaries. The presence of Father Benavides finally compelled him to go to the Padre and disclose his bigamous status. When he left New Mexico in 1625, Father Benavides took him along to Mexico City, and there Diego was tried by the Holy Office. But because Benavides pleaded that he had confessed the crime voluntarily, and had been a good "encomendero" in New Mexico, personally teaching the catechism to the Indians under him, Diego got off with an easy sentence from the Holy Office. He was to return to his wife in the Canaries and never come back to New Mexico. He sailed for Europe in the company of good Fr. Benavides." (Origins, p.112)

Diego married Maria De Abendano, daughter of Simon Abendano and Maria Ortiz, on 16 Jan 1622 in Santa Fe, New Mexico.³⁰ (Maria De Abendano was born Est 1601 in New Mexico.)