Miguel Cordero and
Angela Nunez
(Cochimi)
Miguel
Cordero married Angela Nunez, a native of Baja, California.
Since the Spanish were at war with tribes south of Loreto,
Angela was most likely Cochimi, which is a designation for a
language group. Miguel’s marriage to Angela Nunez was most
likely his second. Miguel enlisted at the Presidio at Loreto,
Baja California prior to 1733. In the account given by Jaime
Bravo, rector of the missions of Nuestra Senora de Loreto,
Miguel received a salary of 300 pesos and two rations, which
indicated that he was married at the time. Ramon Nicolas Cordero
may have been an older son.
“Rosarito Baja California Early Indians.”
Image. Unknown. 19 May 2009. <http://www.yourbajaconnection.com>.
Segunda Cordero and Jose Antonio Ortega
(½ Nahua; ½ Chumash)
Francisco Narciso Cordero and Maria Rafaela Leyba
(
1/8 Nahua; 1/8 Chumash)
Segunda Cordero married Jose Antonio Ortega on 13 February 1817
at the Santa Barbara Presidio Chapel. Her grand-daughter,
Rafaela Leyba, married Francisco Narciso Cordero on 20 June 1878
at Santa Barbara. The narrative of the Chumash ancestry for Jose
Antonio Ortega and Rafaela Leyba follows. For information about
the Nahua ancestry, click here.
“Eleven
days before Christmas in 1783, Maria Rosa,
an eleven-year-old orphaned girl from Swaxil, became the first
person from the Channel Islands to be baptized and only the
twenty-seventh Chumash Indian to arrive at Mission San
Buenaventura. Upon reaching puberty, Maria Rosa married
Miguel Bartolome
Ortega, a servant of the mission, who came from
Aljojuca, Mexico (Edberg 1982). This couple had eight children
born between 1788 and 1800 at San Buenaventura and Los Angeles ,
but only three survived childhood (Figure 10.12). Ortega was
given a land concession at Rancho Las Virgenes in the Santa
Monica Mountainswhere his family settled. Maria Rosa and Miguel
Ortega served as godparents for Chumash Indians from native
towns in the vicinity of their rancho who were baptized at
Mission San Fernando. Maria Rosa died in 1805 and was buried at
Mission San Fernando. Ortega then remarried a Chumash woman from
Humaliwo named Anna Antonio Guataljiulelgeni (Edberg 1982).
“Three of Maria Rosa Ortega’s children eventually settled
in Santa Barbara. José Antonio Ortega, her first born, served as
a soldier at the Santa Barbara Presidio. His sister Maria
Toribia Ortega married Carlos Lorenzana, an Indian from a Mexico
City orphanage who had been brought as a boy in 1799 as part of
an early immigration program (Hernandez). The younger daughter
of Maria Rosa Ortega was Maria Agueda Ortega. She married Julian
Lara, who worked as a servant at Mission La Purisima. All three
of Maria Ortega’s adult children died comparatively young: Maria
Toribia died in 1830, Jose Antonio in 1832, and Maria Agueda in
the summer of 1844 during a major smallpox epidemic that took
many Indian lives at La Purisima.
“The only lineages of Maria Rosa Ortega’s descendants who have
been traced to the present day come from José Antonio Ortega. He
married Segunda Cordero, whose father was a presidio soldier at
Santa Barbara. It is interesting to note that Segundo Cordero’s
brother, the grantee of Rancho Las Cruces, also had a
half-Chumash spouse, Maria Antonia Jiménez (Northrop 1984:52-55;
Olivera 1986). The fate of their offspring is unknown, except
for two daughters, Manuela de la Resurreción and Josefa, who
married into Spanish California families.
“Manuela de la Resurreción Ortega married José Arellanes, and
Josepha Ortega married Raphael Leiva. Fernando Librado mentioned
these families in his recollections narrated to J. P. Harrington
and mentioned that they were of Santa Cruz Island descent
)Hudson 1979:116). Luis Arellanes, son of Manuela Ortega and
José Arellanes, left a manuscript account of early non-Indian
settlers and old adobe residences in San Buenaventura in the
1850s and 1860s (Arellanes 1982). He has many descendants living
in Ventura County today. Descendants have also been traced to
his first cousin, Rafaela Leiva, who married into the Cordero
family (Olivera 1986).”
Miguel Cordero and Maria Antonia Jimenez
(½ Chumash)
Miguel Estanislao Cordero married Maria Antonia Jimenez on 27
January 1822 at the Santa Barbara Presidio Chapel. The narrative
of Maria Antonia Jimenez’s Chumash ancestry follows.
Juana Maria, a neophyte of Mission
Santa Barbara, was born about 1750 and was baptized on February
8, 1787 at Mission Santa Barbara along with her sister,
Margarita de Cortona. Her native name was Engue. She was 17
years old at the time. Ignacio Moraga and Joseph Arguello stood
as sponsors.
Escolastica Maria, Juana' mother, was baptized at Mission Santa
Barbara on January 20, 1788 at age 40. Her native name was
Onejiguas. Escolastica married Andres Joseph, Juana Maria's
step-father, at Mission Santa Barbara on February 3, 1788.
Escolastica and Juana were from a Rancheria de Syuxtun near the
end of State Street.
"Andres Joseph was listed from Aguasna," according to John
Johnson. "This is the rancheria of Wasna, later the name of a
land grant (Huasna) in San Luis Obispo County. The marriage
connection between Escolastica Maria and Andres Joseph is one of
the farthest long-distance marital relationships that I
encountered in the mission records for the Chumash region."
In June 1787 Juana Maria married Hilario Jimenez, a mestizo from
Tepic, Nayarit. Juana Maria and Hilario Jimenez had several
children, of whom Maria Antonia Jimenez married into the Cordero
family. Juana Maria died in 1805 and was buried at Mission Santa
Barbara.
Escolastica Maria in the news!
Actually,
Escolastica Maria's mitochondrial DNA (DNA inherited only from
one's mother) has contributed to scientific theories about the
migration patterns of Native Americans. In a brief article in
the journal, Nature, researchers have found a match
between the DNA of a 10,000 year old "caveman" found in a cave,
of course, on Prince of Wales Island in Alaska and the DNA of a
descendant of Escolastica Maria in the Santa Barbara area. The
DNA link supports the theory of a migration from Asia to North
and South America, particularly along the coastal regions. For
more information see, "Caveman DNA Hints at Map of Migration" by
Rex Dalton in Nature volume 436, July 14, 2005.
Local Anthropologist John Johnson at the Santa Barbara Museum of
Natural History has also written an academic article on the
topic. See "Genetics, Linguistics, and Prehistoric Migrations:
An Analysis of California Indian Mitochondrial DNA Lineages" by
John Johnson and Joseph Lorenz. Journal of California and
Great Basin Anthropology, vol. 26, no. 1 (2006):31-62.
Escolastica Maria in the news, again!
Escolastica Maria’s DNA is in the news again! A short article in
the Los Angeles Times discusses John Johnson’s research on the
mitrochondrial DNA link between a 10,000 year old “caveman” and
Escolastica Maria. Information from this website was included in
the article. Click here to
read the article.
“Rafael Solares, a Santa Inez Chumash man, 1878.” Photo. 1878.
Contributed by Hayward & Muzzall, photographic artists, Santa
Barbara, Calif. 19 May 2009. <http://www.oac.cdlib.org>.
Vicente Cordero and Ana Antonia (Chumash)
Vicente Cordero, son of Miguel Cordero, married Ana Antonia on
28 March 1846 at Mission Santa Inez. Ana Antonia was born 26
July 1817 and baptized the following day at Mission Santa Inez.
Her father, Lino, was a native from Guaslaique, a village near
Mission La Purisima. He was baptized at Mission
La Purisima on 16 December 1803 at the age of 15. Her
mother, Maria Antonia, was a native from the Rancheria of
Miquigui in Santa Barbara County. She was baptized on 10 May
1803 at Mission Santa Barbara. Maria Antonia had been previously
married to Carlos, whose native name was Salinunhuit. He was
from the village of Cuyamu.
William Salvador Cordero and Frances
Valencia
(Ohlone/Sacalanes)
William
Cordero and Frances Valencia were married on 2 May 1914 at Santa
Barbara. Frances was descended from two different native lines
from the Bay Area. Frances great grandmother, Maria Leandra
Ramos, was Costanoan/Ohlone. Leandra Ramos' mother was from the
Saclan rancheria across the bay from San Francisco
and her paternal grandmother was from the village of Timigtac on
Calera Creek in Pacifica. For more
information please contact Jonathan Cordero.
“Dance of Native
Californians at San Francisco de Assis Mission, California.”
Choris, Ludwig (1795-1828), Russian, artist. 1816. 19 <ay 2009.
<http://www.oac.cdlib.org>.