The Lost Connection - A Journey of Heritage
My name is Donna S. Morales, and I am a Mexican American woman born and bred in America's heartland, Kansas City. I am as American as apple pie and my family is proud to be American. It's almost hard to believe that 120 years ago, my family was still living in Mexico, speaking the Spanish language, and working as laborers in the mines of northern Zacatecas and on the haciendas of Aguascalientes and Jalisco. But, like most American families, we came from another place, and we adapted to our new environment.
Looking Into the Mirror
But each morning, when I wake up, I look into the mirror, and I realize that I have inherited a unique legacy. When I look at my reflection, I see a person who has Indian features and I realize that, somewhere in my background, my ancestors were the indigenous inhabitants of Mexico. But I do not speak an indigenous language, nor do I practice any Indian customs. My family is American, and we embrace the culture and traditions of the United States because that is the only way we know.
But, when I look in the mirror, I realize that Mexican Americans have inherited a special legacy that makes them unique from many other American citizens. While the ancestors of many Americans came to the United States 200 or 300 years ago from England, France, Germany, Africa, Japan, Ireland, China, Syria, Lebanon, Norway, Finland, Italy, or Russia, Mexican Americans have lived on this continent– North America – for thousands of years.
The Source of Our Pride
It is important to understand that our Mexican American heritage is very multi-dimensional. Although most of us carry Spanish surnames and practice the Christian religion that was given to our ancestors by the Spanish missionaries, our genetic heritage tells a different story. Mexican Americans are the face of Native America. When you look at our hair and gaze into our faces, you can see the nomadic hunters who crossed the Bering Strait 15,000 years ago. Mexican Americans are proud because we know that North America has been our home for thousands of years. Whoever came to the Western Hemisphere after 1492 found us waiting on the shores of North America. And wherever we may live in North America, whether it be Zacatecas, Jalisco, Kansas, Illinois, Texas, or California, we know that our ancestors traveled through at one time or another in the last 15,000 years.
Where Did My Morales Surname Come From?
I carry the surname that my father's family brought to United States from Aguascalientes. The surname Morales is derived from moral, the Spanish word for mulberry tree, specifically the Black European Mulberry. The suffix "es" or "ez" in Spanish denotes "son of." So, I presume that a person who was called Morales in Medieval Spain may have been a person who dwelt near a mulberry tree.
It has been said that the surname Morales originated in Santander in northwest Spain sometime around the Eleventh Century. For many years, I wondered to myself, "When did my first Morales ancestor come to Mexico from Spain. And from what part of Spain did he come from?" I had thought that it would be very interesting to find out that some distant Morales ancestor had left some part of Spain, perhaps in the hopes of coming to Mexico to make his fortune. Since most of us Mexican Americans carry Spanish surnames that would be a logical presumption.
The Indigenous Origins of the Morales Family
However, family history research has determined that my earliest Morales ancestors on my direct paternal line were actually Indians from the town of Lagos de Moreno in the northern highlands of Jalisco. My great-great-great-great-great-great-grandparents, Miguel Morales and María de la Cruz, were Indian peasants who were raising their family during the last two decades of the Seventeenth Century in the Spanish colonial province of Nueva Galicia. And it is likely that the Spanish padre of their parish, at some point, gave Miguel the surname Morales. María's surname, de la Cruz (of the cross), was a surname frequently given by parish priests to their Indian parishioners.
I can say very proudly that the vast majority of my ancestors were indigenous people living in the states of Jalisco, Zacatecas, and Aguascalientes. However, I cannot trace myself to any one indigenous tribe because I am descended from many of the tribes that lived in Nueva Galicia four centuries ago.
A Social Transformation
When the Spaniards came to Zacatecas and Jalisco, a social transformation took place. The ravages of disease killed large numbers of Indians. The Spaniards, with their superior military tactics, easily overwhelmed the tribes that resisted. The great loss of life from disease or war caused a social chaos among the various indigenous groups.
Through this social chaos, existing social structures disappeared, and the cultural link that was usually handed down from parents to child was severed. A new religion, Christianity, replaced the old religions. And a new language – Spanish – became the language of the subdued tribes. Thus, my Indian ancestors – who had become God-fearing Christians – eventually took on Christian given names and Spanish surnames.
According to the historians, a great many Indian tribes inhabited the regions of Jalisco and Zacatecas. Some were peaceful agricultural people; others were warlike and uncompromising warriors determined to protect their native soil from trespassers. Collectively, most of these Indians were called Chichimecas, a derogatory term allegedly meaning "the sons of dogs," originally given to them by the Aztec Indians.
Indigenous Resistance
The Chichimeca tribes put up a terrific resistance to Spain's intrusion in the Sixteenth Century. The Mixtón Rebellion of 1540-41 pitted the Caxcanes and other Indian groups against the Spaniards. The Mixtón War was followed by a forty-year conflict, the Chichimeca War (1550-1590), in which the Guachichiles, Zacatecos and other groups made countless hit and run attacks against Spanish and sedentary Indian settlements and caravans.
But these wars did not represent a pure case of Spaniard versus Indian. In reality, the Spanish military employed many of their Christian Indian allies in their campaigns against the "uncivilized" Indians who had not yet submitted. The late historian and author John Wayne Powell discussed – in great detail – the Spaniards' use of Indian allies in various capacities: "as fighters, as burden bearers, as interpreters, as scouts, as emissaries." This use of Indians as soldiers and scouts led to enormous and wide-ranging migration and resettlement patterns throughout Jalisco, Zacatecas and many other parts of Mexico.
Dr. Powell wrote, "the pacified natives of New Spain played significant and often indispensable roles in subjugating and civilizing the Chichimeca country." In addition, the discovery of silver brought many Indians from southern Mexico into this area, seeking mining jobs (usually carrying ore). And, so, Dr. Powell continues, "This use of native allies... led eventually to a virtual disappearance ofthe nomadic tribes as they were absorbed into the northward-moving Tarascans, Aztecs, Cholultecans, Otomíes, Tlaxcalans, Cazcanes, and others... within a few decades of the general pacification at the end of the century the Guachichiles, Zacatecos, Guamares, and other tribes or nations were disappearing as distinguishable entities in the Gran Chichimeca."
The Land of War Becomes Fully Mexican
As the Seventeenth Century dawned, Dr. Powell explains, "the Sixteenth-century land of war thus became fully Mexican in its mixture." Thus, it came to pass that my ancestors, while appearing to be Indian in physical appearance, became Christian Mexicans, subjects of the Spanish king and his authorized representatives. This unique and remarkable assimilation was repeated across many parts of Mexico over a period of three centuries.
The Lost Connection
For most of us Mexican Americans, the connection to our indigenous ancestors has been severed or – if not totally severed – contains only small elements of the former Indian cultures. As a result, the journey through time for Mexican Americans has been a long and interesting one. We have gone from Indian warriors to Indian peasants, from Indian peasants to Mexican citizens, from Mexican citizens to American citizens. From generation to generation, the cultural elements have evolved, but the image of Native America remains.
© Copyright 2023, Donna S. Morales and John P. Schmal. All Rights Reserved.
Sources:
Donna S. Morales and John P. Schmal, "My Family Through Time: The Story of a Mexican-American Family." Los Angeles, California, 2000.
Philip Wayne Powell, "Soldiers Indians and Silver: North America's First Frontier War." Tempe, Arizona: Center for Latin American Studies, Arizona State University, 1975.