Among the cities in Mexico, Monterrey has a mystique all its own marked by the enduring "Jewish question" regarding its founding in 1596. The historian, Vito Alessio Robles, made the statement that "all the citizens of Monterrey are descended from Jews." Includes chapters on early prominent founders and families, Alberto del Canto, Luis de Carvajal, Gaspar Castaño de Sosa, Diego de Montemayor, Founder of Monterrey, The Garzas of Lepe and Monterrey, Francisco Báez de Benavides and the Martínez of Marin. This book reviews the evidence.--From distributor information.

A revisionist account of the Tejano experience in south Texas from its Spanish colonial roots to 1900.

This book contains seven generations of descendants of Diego Tremiño de Velasco and Francisca de Alcocer. On June 13, 1538, Francisca along with her sons, Diego, Baltasar, and Alonso traveled to Cartagena and eventually end up in Mexico. The descendants of Diego are considered to be the progenitors of the Treviño last name in Nuevo Leon, Tamaulipas, and Texas.

In 1981, while working as New Mexico State Historian, Stanley M. Hordes began to hear stories of Hispanos who lit candles on Friday night and abstained from eating pork. Puzzling over the matter, Hordes realized that these practices might very well have been passed down through the centuries from early crypto-Jewish settlers in New Spain. After extensive research and hundreds of interviews, Hordes concluded that there was, in New Mexico and the Southwest, a Sephardic legacy derived from the converso community of Spanish Jews. In To the End of the Earth, Hordes explores the remarkable story of crypto-Jews and the tenuous preservation of Jewish rituals and traditions in Mexico and New Mexico over the past five hundred years. He follows the crypto-Jews from their Jewish origins in medieval Spain and Portugal to their efforts to escape persecution by migrating to the New World and settling in the far reaches of the northern Mexican frontier. Drawing on individual biographies (including those of colonial officials accused of secretly practicing Judaism), family histories, Inquisition records, letters, and other primary sources, Hordes provides a richly detailed account of the economic, social and religious lives of crypto-Jews during the colonial period and after the annexation of New Mexico by the United States in 1846. While the American government offered more religious freedom than had the Spanish colonial rulers, cultural assimilation into Anglo-American society weakened many elements of the crypto-Jewish tradition. Hordes concludes with a discussion of the reemergence of crypto-Jewish culture and the reclamation of Jewish ancestry within the Hispano community in the late twentieth century. He examines the publicity surrounding the rediscovery of the crypto-Jewish community and explores the challenges inherent in a study that attempts to reconstruct the history of a people who tried to leave no documentary record.

Traces the history of the earliest history of the Jewish people in Texas, Mexico and the Borderlands region. The Sephardim during the time period 1492 - 1600 have descendents still living in the region.

Three events transpired in 1492 in the Iberian Peninsula, which had tremendous ramifications for years to come. The first was the conquest of Granada, i.e., the last Muslim stronghold, by Castilian and Aragonese forces. The victory ended eight hundred years of Islam-ic rule. The conquest of Granada eventually also led to the conversions of many Muslims to Christianity, the phenomenon of Crypto-Islam, and the eventual expulsion of the descendants of these converts in 1609. The second event was the Edict of Expulsion, which ended a thousand years of Jewish life in the Peninsula. Jews were given a choice between exile or conversion. Those who converted joined the already significant ranks of the existing Converso class, which by this time numbered in the hundreds of thousands. The Conversos, i.e., Jewish converts to Christianity typically under duress, had been at the center of a religious and political crisis that had lasted for more than a century. Many Conversos had been met with discrimination and violence as their true loyalties were often disputed. The last event of note was the discovery of the New World by Christopher Columbus. The encounter ultimately led to the conquest of the New World and the rise of the Spanish empire. The New World provided many Conversos with a new frontier where many thrived, and others continued to practice Jewish observances clandestinely. Amidst the momentous events of 1492, the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon were looking to the future. The Crown endorsed Christopher Columbus' adventure and an uncharted voyage across the Atlantic ocean began. Columbus'journeys and the subsequent Spanish conquest of the New World included many Conversos who were at various times were legally ineligible to travel and settle in the New World. Despite the prohibitions, the history of the Spanish conquest in the Caribbean and eventually Mexico was full of Spanish adventurers, soldiers, and merchants whom all heralded from Converso backgrounds. Some of them were Juda-izers, while others were indifferent to their Jewish pasts. We must remind ourselves that we are only highlighting the cases of known Conversos. The latter were adept at hiding, and the falsification of documents and identities often became a requisite for leaving the Pen-insula.Spain's discovery and conquest of the New World provided a venue for Conversos to find refuge and avoid the Inquisitional authority, though this proved short-lived.

Tejanos make up a subculture within the Hispanic and Latino communities with whom they share many commonalities. But Tejanos have many of their own unique cultural and family traditions which set them apart. Their ancestral roots run very deep in Native American, Spanish, Mexican, Texan, and U.S American History. Unfortunately, because their history is often overlooked by American scholastic curriculums, too many Tejanos (including the author) have simply grown up unaware of much of it. As for the author himself, having essentially known only one of his grandparents, he also had limited knowledge of his own family history. For these reasons, he decided to write this book. Tejano Experience is a case study in Spanish-American and Mexican-American genealogy which resulted from the author's efforts to learn more about himself, his family, and his fellow Tejanos. It tells the stories of his maternal grandfather, Celestino Olivares Garza and his extended Garza and Olivares Families, by embellishing their stories with historical context. Having received land grants from Spanish Royalty on both sides of the Rio Grande River in the 18th Century, these families were some of the earliest pioneers and settlers of South Texas before the American Revolution ever happened. Many of the descendants of these families have resided in deep South Texas for over 140 years and remain there to this very day!Although the subject matter of this book is primarily genealogical in nature, it also offers an introductory glimpse into the history of South Texas and how its Tejano residents lived through and adapted to the challenges and changes that have occurred in this part of Texas over time. Furthermore, the stories of the families in this book are very representative of thousands of other Tejano family stories from South Texas. The author hopes that these stories will inspire others to discover more about (and record) their own respective family histories, and that this work might serve as a "how to" book for those desiring to do so.