SALINAS "In the Midst of a Loneliness": The Architectural History of the Salinas Missions

THE MOUND 7 CONVENTO AND SAN ISIDRO (continued)

The Construction of the Church of San Isidro

Letrado probably began work on the church immediately. The first step in the construction of the church was the selection and preparation of a building site. The obvious choice for the permanent church was the large clear area at the west end of the mesa, west of mound 7, but for some reason he was unable to acquire this area. Instead, the pueblo gave him permission to use the space on the hillside south of the convento below kiva D, which continued in use through most of the seventeenth century.

Letrado decided to build a church much like the first church at Abó. He increased the length by 25 1/2 feet to 108 feet, but left all the other dimensions about the same. Letrado located the sacristy inside the church near the altar, and the baptistry inside the front of the church under the choir loft. This was probably typical of the earliest plan of any new church. [17]

The slope of the hill created a major problem. Letrado and his construction crew had to cut a deep slot into the hill about eighty feet long and thirty-three feet wide in order to create a level platform on which they could build the new church. At the west end, this slot was eight to ten feet deep. Along the north and northwest sides, the crew had to cut into bedrock. Fortunately, this was composed of poor-quality limestone and a coarse sandstone, both rather soft, making the labor relatively easy. Before work began on the cut in the hillside, the masons excavated a footing trench into the refuse from the pueblo that covered the slope. Into this they built a retaining wall about five feet thick and five feet high along the line of the east end of the church, and a shallower foundation about two feet thick and one foot high along the eastern half of what would be the south wall. When work on the cut into the hillside began, most of the refuse and stone removed by the crew went into the space inside the retaining walls, raising the top of the fill until the surface was approximately level with the bottom of the slot cut into the hillside. When completed, the platform sloped slightly downward toward the east, dropping about three feet over the 108-foot length of the church. Eventually the altars would be placed at the higher end. Cutting and filling for the creation of this platform probably took about a year. [18]

Construction work stopped during the winter months of 1630-31. In the spring of 1631, Letrado apparently continued on the church at Las Humanas and began construction on a visita church at Tabirá. Here he conducted the same negotiations for cooperation and a tract of land, with somewhat more success. He was soon able to begin construction on the church that would become San Diego de Tabirá. [19] Letrado worked out a plan and the pueblo provided workers to help him dig the foundation trenches for a church fifty-four feet long and twenty-six feet wide on the interior, with walls 2 1/2 feet thick. They began construction on the church probably in April or May of 1631, and soon the walls were two to five feet high. [20]

At Las Humanas, the platform for the interim church was ready in about May, 1631. The construction crews began work on the walls of the church and the campo santo at its east end. This was a cemetery area measuring about ninety feet by sixty feet, surrounded by a low wall. The construction crew did little to alter the natural surface of the ground inside the campo santo. By the end of September, 1631, the walls had reached a height of no more than thirteen feet. [21]

Letrado had succeeded in convincing some factions at Las Humanas to support his efforts there, making a work force available and allowing him to complete the temporary convento. However, by 1631 he apparently realized that the very limited resources of Las Humanas would not support a full mission operation at the pueblo. The critical resource was the water supply. The amount of water was limited, and the Indians lived in balance with the supply. The pueblo could not support large herds, additional large fields, or perhaps even a major new construction effort that would require large quantities of water for the plaster and adobe of the construction. [22] Letrado would not be able to put together the large, complex organization of buildings, fields, and herds needed to keep a Franciscan mission going. Faced with this inescapable conclusion, Letrado apparently recommended that Las Humanas be made a visita, and requested permission to move on to a more promising pueblo sometime in mid-1631. He was reassigned to Hawikuh, probably during the annual chapter meeting about August. If so, Letrado would have left Las Humanas in September, and arrived at Hawikuh in October of 1631. He was killed during a conflict there in February, 1632. Later testimony stated that the conflict arose because Letrado had called the Indians to mass on one of their festival days. [23]

San Lucas, however, probably stayed on at Las Humanas. In 1633 Fray Estévan de Perea, writing at Quarai, was probably speaking of him when he described the plight of "one poor religious who is in one of the most miserable and needy conversions describable . . . where there is not even water to drink, and whither food has to be taken to him from neighboring convents (one of which is this one)." [24]