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

THE CONSTRUCTION OF SAN BUENAVENTURA (continued)

The Second Church of San Buenaventura

In the winter of 1659-60, Santandér evaluated the site he had selected for the church and convento. The only good location, on the west end of the small mesa of Las Humanas, sloped rather steeply down to the west and south. Santandér developed a ground plan and worked out a construction method that suited the location. He apparently had some training in surveying and construction, but only a theoretical knowledge of the structural needs of a mission. The church he designed was a little large, but not unusually so. The sacristy, on the other hand, was huge. When it came time to roof this room, beams about thirty-five feet long would be necessary for the vigas. This was only a foot shorter than the vigas that would be needed for the nave roof.

Santandér's lack of design experience showed most clearly in the plan of the friary. He laid out all the rooms the same size, about fourteen feet square, with no provision for different room sizes for different uses. Among other things, he left off any provision for a porteria. He did not allow for the thickness of partition walls in the layout. As a result, these walls were built approximately on the line between units. Sometimes they were centered, sometimes offset so that one face or the other was on the line. The partition wall locations would not cause any real problems during the construction, but the lack of room size variation according to the intended use of the room eventually required correction.

About March of 1660, Santandér was ready to begin the layout of the plan on the ground. The crews cleared the brush and cactus from the entire hillside and began to mark out the lines of the walls and courtyards. The slope created a difficult surveying problem for Santandér, because with the simple procedures for layout available to him, the slope tended to distort his plan as he marked it out. In most areas Santandér was able to keep the errors small, so that they showed up only as minor irregularities in wall alignments. In the church Santandér apparently intended to set the nave width at exactly ten varas or twenty-eight feet. [53] However, he did not get the long walls exactly parallel, so that at the mouth of the transept the nave was twenty-six feet, ten inches wide, while at the front it was twenty-nine feet, ten inches. [54] Santandér probably used a method involving a measuring cord and vertical poles, so that the measurements could be made in a series of increments down the hillside. Under the circumstances, the layout of the plan was carried out in an effective, fairly accurate manner.

Santandér realized that the somewhat steep slope would require the construction of a higher platform than usual. The platform would need retaining walls almost eight feet high along the west side and part of the north side, and six feet high along the south. Such a high platform would require much more foundation stonework than was used on Quarai or the two versions of Abó, and would add almost two years to the time needed to construct the buildings.

Once the wall and courtyard outlines were marked out, the work crews began the labor of digging through the shallow soil on the hillside until they hit bedrock or fairly solid limestone rubble. On the south side of the building site, crew members continued to dig into the hillside, cutting into the rock itself in the area of the northeast half of the second courtyard area. Fortunately, the second courtyard did not need to be as level as the first; in fact, a slope to the courtyard area aided in drainage, helping to keep this stable and barnyard area reasonably clean. This courtyard excavation had to be completed before the masons could begin construction on the retaining wall along the south side of the first courtyard area to the north, because that wall was to cover the north face of the cut. Probably, in order to save time, the masons began construction on other parts of the retaining walls and foundations while excavation crews dug out the second courtyard area, beginning with the area where the wall between the first and second courtyards would be built. Rubble from the excavations was probably piled in the middle of the first courtyard area to be spread out later as part of the levelling fill. Depending on how many people were available to remove the dirt and stone, the excavation could have taken anywhere from one to two months. [55]

When the foundation trenching were ready, the masons constructed the outside walls of the first courtyard of the convento and the church. When they had raised these to the point where the west and south sides had reached a height of about four feet, they stopped construction and began the first episode of filling and levelling. Crew members probably spread the dirt and rubble removed from the second courtyard excavation and hauled additional fill to the first courtyard and church in baskets. Several people would have been assigned to spreading the fill evenly and packing it down. When the fill reached a depth of about three feet along the retaining walls, filling stopped and the masons returned. With the fill surface to stand on, the masons did not need scaffolding during the construction of the platform and foundations. [56]

The masons laid out the interior walls of the convento on the approximately levelled surface of the first layer of fill. They then built these walls up along with the main outside walls. When all the walls had built up another three or four feet, the masonry work stopped and everyone hauled dirt again for the second episode of fill. In the area of the friary, this fill episode brought the platform surface up to within a few inches of the intended final floor level. The fill was continued up to the tops of all the retaining walls and foundations. With the completion of the second levelling fill, the platform was ready for the construction of the new convento and church buildings. Assuming that Santandér was able to keep the work moving at the same rate as Fray Gutiérrez de la Chica had at Quarai or as Acevedo at Abó and Las Humanas, he would have completed the platform in the fall of 1661.

During the building season of 1662, Santandér appears to have had the construction crews concentrate almost entirely on the convento. Probably the old convento in the pueblo was deteriorating and much too small, and San Isidro was still in acceptable condition. The builders were able to complete the walls of the main convento rooms by the fall of 1662, including the rooms along the east, west, and south sides of the patio. Of these, the refectory, kitchen, and principal cell were probably roofed. [57]

Little work would have been done on the church during this effort. The church would have remained a church-shaped outline of walls level with the top of the fill within it, but eight feet high on the outside at the west end. [58] The surface of the fill and the tops of the foundations were probably three to four feet lower than Santandér's intended final floor level. He apparently intended to have several steps up from the convento to the sacristy, and perhaps another step or two from the sacristy to the church. [59]

Changes to Santandér's Plan

Santandér built the retaining walls and foundations as they appeared on his original plan, but when he began work on the above-grade walls he did not follow the original layout. By the time construction could begin on the rooms in the spring of 1662, Santandér had realized that he needed some rooms larger than others. He revised the plan so that one cross wall did not get built, doubling the size of room 3, and he changed the location of the door to allow for the new room arrangement. He may have rearranged the entrances to other rooms so that some communicated with an adjacent room rather than with the ambulatorio. Finally, he built a porteria on the east side of the convento at the doorway of the entrance wall, with its walls butted against the already-completed friary walls.

Even after the adjustments, however, Santandér's odd approach to construction, apparently the result of inexperience, still showed. For example, he apparently built a window in every outside wall of every room, even those that would not face outside when the church was completed. He built a window in the south wall of room 4, even though it would eventually face into the second level of the storeroom in the second courtyard. In room 15, he built a window opening onto the area that would become the sacristy when work on the church resumed. Either Santandér's planning was faulty in some details, or he was expecting a long time to pass before the sacristy and storeroom would be completed. [60]

The changes allow functions to be deduced for each room. Rooms 3 and 4 were a single suite, within which room 4 was the kitchen and room 3 was the refectory. Santandér built a fireplace in the northwest corner of the refectory to warm it, and two fireplaces in the northwest and southeast corners of the kitchen. [61] He set up two suites as cells: rooms 10 and 11, and rooms 12a and 12b. Rooms 14 and 15 may have been a third cell suite, but were more likely schoolrooms or the infirmary. Room 2 may have been the residence for an Indian sacristan or porter and had a fire place in its north west corner. [62] Room 13 was probably a storeroom.

When completed, these rooms looked very much like those at Abó or Quarai. The undersides of the roof beams of these rooms were at a height of ten feet above the floor of the convento and the tops of the parapets at about 12 1/2 feet, except in rooms 1 and 16, where the roof vigas were set at 12 1/2 feet and the tops of the parapets at fifteen feet. None of the roofing vigas had corbels. The vigas over rooms 1 and 16 were carved square, but the roofing over the rest of the convento used round beams. [63] The room walls were coated with mortar and finished with a white plaster. Some of the more important rooms, such as the principal cell, may have had dados and other decorations painted on the walls. Every room had a splayed window opening inward, closed by a wooden grill probably glazed with selenite. [64]

Rooms 1 and 16 along the south wall of the church may have reached a height of eight to ten feet during the construction of 1662. Room 1 was to be a two-story structure containing the wooden choir loft stairs, and room 16 was the same sort of ambiguous room next to the church as found at the other two Salinas missions. Its probable use was to be sacristy storage. These rooms could not be finished because their roofs were supported in part by the wall of the church, still at about floor level at this time. [65]

In the second courtyard, room 6 was probably finished. Santandér built it as the principal storeroom for the mission. When completed, it stood about nineteen feet high to the tops of the parapets. It had a large doorway approximately centered in the west wall, with a double splay opening inward. This doorway was 5 1/2 feet wide on the outside and 9 1/4 feet wide on the inside. The doorway probably had a height of seven feet. Such a doorway was designed for a double door with each leaf about 2 3/4 feet wide and seven feet high. At the north and south ends of the storeroom, Santandér built lofts supported by large vigas fifteen inches square and twenty feet long, running east to west across the room. There were probably six vigas at each end of the room set approximately three feet apart, center to center, with the first viga at each end set against the end wall. This made two loft platforms about sixteen feet wide. [66] The undersides of the vigas were about six feet above the floor, with the floors of the lofts about 7 1/2 feet above the floor of the storeroom. Each loft was probably reached by a steep, solid wooden staircase. The underside of the roof vigas were about 10 1/2 feet above the loft floor, or 18 feet above the storeroom floor. The room was designed to be a secure storage area and granary, with some supplies stacked on the lofts and others piled on the floor beneath. The doorway was probably wide enough for a wagon to be backed into the room and tall enough for its high-stacked cargo to clear the lintel implying a height of perhaps eight to nine feet high. Through the east wall Santandér had two narrow, ventilator-like windows built which were 1 1/2 to two feet wide with a single splay opening toward the outside. The windows were low enough that on the east exterior of the building, where the ground sloped up, their bases were only a little above ground level. They were probably closed by thick wooden gratings. [67]

South of the storeroom, three other rooms (7, 8, and 8a) ran along the south side of the second courtyard. These were probably stables and workshops, where blacksmithing and wagon and harness repair took place. These rooms were probably left uncompleted in 1662.

When the main rooms of the convento were finished, Santandér moved his residence from Letrado's old convento in mound 7 into the new building. Most of the old convento was turned over to the Indians for their own use. Soon after, Santandér's old residence in mound 7 (room 222) was dismantled and apparently converted to a porch. The roofing was removed and probably some of the wall stone reused elsewhere in the pueblo. The large doors in the south wall of rooms 221 and 220 were removed from their frames and apparently left leaning against the wall. [68]

The sacristy and robing room remained in the old structure, however, just as the first church of San Buenaventura (San Isidro) continued to serve the pueblo for services. The doorway between room 221, now a pueblo room, and the sacristy (room 215) was filled, making the sacristy and the robing room (room 214) a separate suite within the rooms returned to Indian use.

Other Events in 1661 and 1662

Meanwhile during 1661, a new custodian, Fray Alonso de Posadas, arrived in New Mexico to take the place of Fray Juan Ramirez, who had returned to Mexico City with the supply train in the fall of 1659. Posadas acquired a dislike for Santandér and several other of the young activist Franciscans such as Nicolás de Freitas and Diego de Parraga, who were deeply involved in the conflict with Governor Mendizábal. In the second half of 1661 he began a campaign of ridicule and opposition later described as the "persecution" of these men. [69]

In early October, Santandér was seriously injured while travelling or at Las Humanas in an undescribed accident. He never fully recovered his health after the injuries. Because of his illness, he was unable to act as notary during official enquiries of the custody in October, and, in fact, he never served as notary again. In spite of Santandér's illness, or perhaps because of it and Posadas's ill will, the young priest was transferred three times in the next four years. [70]

Santandér probably left Las Humanas in 1662, perhaps after the Chapter meeting about August. He was transferred to San Marcos in the Galisteo Basin. In 1665, probably also in August, he was transferred again, this time to Senecú in the southern Rio Grande valley. In late 1665 or early 1666 he was moved a third time, to Acoma where he was the second missionary under the guardian Fray Nicolás de Freitas. By this time he was so ill that he had to be carried up and down the difficult climb to the top of the mesa on which Acoma stands. Finally his illness forced him to leave New Mexico, probably on the supply train that departed in the autumn of 1666. He returned to Mexico City, where he died in 1667. [71]

Santandér had been at Las Humanas for about three full years, although he was seriously ill during the last year. During this time he was able to complete the foundations of the new complex of San Buenaventura, as well as most of the convento. On Santandér's departure in 1662, Las Humanas was assigned a new missionary. His name is unknown. [72]