A Forged Commentary on Zárate’s Relaciones del Nuevo México
_ary 21, 1790, ordered to be copied and sent to Spain was the well-known work entitled Las relaciones del Nuevo Mexico by Geronimo de Zarate Salmeron, a Franciscan. This important source composed in 1626 by one who had accompanied Juan de Ofiate to New Mexico, was copied into the second volume of the Memorias de Nueva Espana. One of these copies of Zarate's account is preserved in the second volume of the section "Historia" of the Archivo General de la Nacion in Mexico City.' It was first printed in the third series of the Documentos para la historia de Mexico (Mexico City, 1856) and was reprinted from this edition in the Doctmentos para servir a la historia del Nuevo Mexico, 1538-1778 (Madrid, 1962). The handwritten transcript and the two printed editions append to Zarate's Relaciones a mysterious commentary, which is the object of the present brief study.2 The title of the commentary attributed to a certain Jesuit missionary-priest in Mexico, Juan Amando Niel, is given under two different forms: *The editor is a member of the Institutum Historicum S. J., Rome. 1 See H. E. Bolton, Guide to Materials for the History of the United States in the Principal Archives of Mexico (Washington, D.C., 1913), pp. 20-22. 2 In the 1856 edition Zdarate 's account is found oni pp. 3-55, and Niel 's commentary follows oni pp. 56-112; in the 1962 reprint they are on pp. 114-204 and 205-304, respectively. We shall cite both editions by paragraph numbers. Zarate 's Belaciones were divided into 138 paragraphs; Niel 's commentary breaks off abruptly in the middle of a sentence in paragraph 117; this corresponds to the third-last Relacion by Zarate, namely: "Noticias de la Nacion Mexicana que pobl6 esta tierra de la Nueva-Espafia." IRamnirez observed that his ms. copy went no further (see below, note 24). The two printed editions follow the AGN ms. that takes up folios 93r to 189v. The 1962 reprint forms part of a most valuable volume on New Mexican history; in fact, the entire collection (Colecci6n Chimalistac) of 14 volumes at the present writing is one of the most important series of documents and rare editions for Mexican history. There is a ms. fragment of Niel 's Apuntamientos in the Arcliivo Historico del Instituto Nacional de Antropologia e Historia, designated Ant. 226 (formerly 119), folios 339v-345r. Vetancurt also used a ms. copy of the Belaciones (see below, note 25).