ABSTRACT
Any optimism about missionary work on the New Mexico frontier after the reconquest was cut short by another revolt in June 1696; pacification was only completed by November, after the murder of five missionaries. The friars had warned their custodian in Santa Fe of impending revolt but tension had been caused when the governor had taken only limited action in response. The report below of the custodian, Fray Francisco de Vargas, to the father provincial, Clemente de Ledesma, is a detailed account of the revolt and the state of the missions and include criticism of the performance of the civil power. However, with the final pacification there was a reconciliation between custodian and governor. The missionaries were a valuable source of information for the governor and without his support the custodian could not expect the missions to make even the modest progress they did in succeeding decades after this final defeat of forces seeking to eliminate Spanish Catholicism in the region.
