Portal:Hispanic and Latino Americans/Selected Individual/33

Padre Martínez, ca. 1848

Father Antonio José Martínez (January 17, 1793) was a New Mexican priest, educator, publisher, rancher, farmer, community leader, and politician. He lived through and influenced three distinct periods of New Mexico's history: the Spanish period, the Mexican period, and the American occupation and subsequent territorial period. Martínez appears as a character in Willa Cather's Death Comes for the Archbishop.

Martínez was born Antonio José Martín in Abiquiu in 1793, when New Mexico was a very isolated and desolate territory of the Spanish Empire. In 1804, the Martín family, including his father Severino and five siblings, moved to Taos, a prosperous outpost, where they came to be known as Martínez. (more...)