Honor Virtue

In the 18th century, Spanish colonists ventured to the New World. These colonists came to New Mexico for several reasons; they came to spread Christianity, to attain wealth, but most importantly to achieve the glory of an elevated status. The success of the Spanish colonists was predicated on the subjugation of all the indigenous people whom they encountered. The Spanish colonists arrived in the New World with forces that enabled them to decimate, transform, and control the Indians in order to use them as cheap labor. By subjugating the Indians, the Spanish gained recourses. Recourses were not always physical wealth such as gold or silver. One of the most valuable recourses were women. The Spanish imposed a moral system that was built on the concepts of honor and shame and prescribed strict rules of behavior for men and woman.

In Ramon Gutierrez’s book, When Jesus Came, the Corn Mother Went Away, he explains how honor and shame dictated the lives of men and women in colonial New Mexico. According to Gutierrez, “Honor was born of victory and dominion, dishonor of vanquishment and domination” (179). Victory and dominion belonged to the Spanish, while the Pueblo Indians became the targets of shame and dishonor. Honor was a value that was bestowed on the Spanish for subjugating the Indians. The Spanish enforced a hierarchy of social standing that defined the boundaries between the Spanish and the Indians. The honor of God was the highest, followed by the king, the church, religious orders, the aristocracy, the peasants, and finally at the bottom were the Indians and genizaro slaves. The Gente de Razon (People of Reason) saw the Puebloans at the bottom as illiterate, uncivilized, irrational and shameless.

In order to obtain the honor-status, one had to follow certain criteria. “There had to be a bestower of honor, a possessor, and observers” (Gutierrez 178). This meant that honor must be acknowledged in order to hold any meaning. To preserve their honor-status,...