Ruben Mendoza
San Miguel Chapel (401 Old Santa Fe Trail, (505) 983-3974) has a history running four centuries and ranging from a deep commitment to religiosity to that of outright violence. It was the first building targeted in the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, and the little adobe chapel has withstood more than nearly any other building in the Southwest.
As the chapel’s historian-curator since 2018, Julianne Burton-Carvajal is one of many helping keep the stories from the old building alive. Burton-Carvajal cites the efforts of chapel director Dave Blackman, the St. Michael’s High School Board of Directors and Cornerstones Community Partnerships, an organization which specializes in historic adobe restoration, as some of the key players in keeping the chapel functioning.
She also leads the newly-coined Hour With The Curator events and was critical in developing a new history center that documents the artifacts and histories of this old place. SFR wanted to know—if it’s so old, what’s the new?
Can you tell us more about this new history center at San Miguel?
We wanted to make it more informal and more dynamic than our usual open hours. It’s a kind of memory book for four centuries you can walk around in, with three dimensional objects that look like they’ve come to us from back in time. These tours are on Thursday or Friday afternoons during October. You can come review highlights of the past four centuries along with new discoveries during the first portion of the hour [of the tour], and explore the three new display areas during the rest of the hour.
What kind of things can people see or learn about, and how does that lend itself to the broader history of Santa Fe?
One of the key things is that we had the collaboration with a professional photographer, Thomas Dodge, who took any photos we needed. These photos help see a lot of the hard-to-see artifacts up close in pristine detail. One photo is of the gilded baroque statue of a very young Archangel Michael, the patron of the chapel probably chosen by the Native Americans. He [the statue] was here, we know, by 1709.
We know about the Christian Brothers and St. Michael’s (the brothers and the High School fund and operate the chapel, rather than the local diocese) and we know about the missionaries, but then there’s the Mesoamericans. That’s the missing piece—they’ve not been recognized as a key element in the creation of Santa Fe. Every time the Spanish came up from the City of Mexico or New Spain, they brought up a huge number of Indigenous peoples from Central America. They are the ones who built the chapel.
Things on display include a sword cross—a crucifix with a point at the bottom probably for planting it in the ground. Historians of Native Americans say it has the paint pigmentation of local Indigenous works. There’s also a painting of Archangel Michael painted specifically for the chapel by Bernardo Miera y Pacheco—it was only in the late 20th century that historians traced it to him, and a lot of Santa Feans are descended from him. It’s really surprising the number of people from different cultures and from different periods who’ve influenced this little modest chapel.
What makes San Miguel Chapel different from other similar structures within New Mexico, and why do so many pieces from it survive from over the centuries?
The most important thing is the untold story, that this was created by Indigenous people who were not from New Mexico. Pueblos had their own local churches being built—so [building the chapel] was a double responsibility that fell on them. It is on the best site in the entire area, one that is elevated and never flooded. Many historians think while Barrio del Analco [the historic neighborhood that includes San Miguel Chapel and the Oldest House] was settled even before Santa Fe was officially founded in 1610. See, the Spanish were amazed with what they found here. People were living in functional architectural urban designs—something the Spanish were all about and determined to build a labor force on.
But, of course, the Spanish being determined to conquer militarily and spiritually meant we had a two-pronged entrada. It was the soldiers and the friars [conquering]. This resulting architecture in San Miguel Chapel is the earliest example of this in the entire Southwest. There’s nothing that rivals it. As for what survives—really, we have what we have. The stewardship of the Christian Brothers and St. Michael’s High School was critical. Bishop Lamy, some centuries later, founded the first formal school here.
We’d love to have more locals. We outreach through concerts, lectures and public events. Now with the history center, it is an excellent place to bring visitors—and locals should come check out the site.
