5th Great Grandfather, Francisco Xavier Chavez, Was a Famous Guy

I found a famous person in the line... there has to be a little history with this story, which is like many stories in one. This is the 4th great grandfather of Grandma Sally.

Summarized from an article by Steve Gibson, 4th great-grandson of Francisco Xavier Chaves.   

Francisco Xavier Cháves (1762 –1832). The first member of the Cháves family in San Antonio was born in or around Albuquerque, New Mexico about 1762. His maternal grandfather was a Sergeant of the Royal Presidio at Albuquerque, who participated in Indian campaigns killing many Comanche’s and who was himself killed by Comanche’s.[1] His father, Ignacio was the son of Francisco Duran y Cháves and Juana Baca. The Baca Family of New Mexico also claimed to be descendents of the Cabeza de Vaca Family in Spain. His paternal grandfather was Francisco Duran y Cháves, son of Fernando Duran y Cháves, who became Alcalde Mayor of Villa de San Felipe de Albuquerque, and his wife Doña Luisa Hurtado, who he married in New Mexico. Don Fernando Duran y Cháves was responsible for putting down an uprising of Pueblo Indians and was subsequently rewarded by King Charles II of Spain with the Atrisco Land Grant in 1692. 

Francisco Xavier Cháves was the 5th great grandson of Pedro Gómez Durán y Cháves, forebear of the Cháves family of New Mexico receiving the name from his ancestors who were the keepers of the keys or “Llaves” of the Royal Household of the King of Spain. Pedro was part of the Oñate Expedition that settled New Mexico under the command of Juan de Oñate in the name of the King of Spain, Phillip II around 1600.

By 1626 Pedro was Maese de Campo, or Commanding General, of all royal troops in New Mexico, when he testified that he was sixty years old, a native of Llerena, and one of the founders of the Villa of Santa Fe. Don Pedro married Isabel de Bohórquez in Santa Fe, New Mexico and had two sons and a daughter. From this family descended many son’s and daughters who have proliferated the Cháves name. It was one such son, Francisco Xavier Cháves who came to San Antonio de Béxar and established the Cháves name in Texas. Francisco, along with his sons and daughters married into many of the original Spanish families that helped settle and build the city of San Antonio, Texas. 

The really interesting story of Francisco Xavier Cháves begins in 1770 when he is about 8 years old. Comanches who found him herding sheep on his family’s ranch south of Albuquerque took him to live as a slave and servant among their people.[2] He grew to manhood as an Indian, learning their language and customs, first among Comanches and them among Taovayas. According to Cháves family legend, a Indian woman who had recently lost her own child, adopted him, and thus saved his life. When the adoptive mother died, however, he was sold to the Taovayas. 

At the time of his return to Spanish rule he was twenty-two-years-old, little more than five feet five inches tall, dressed as an Indian, with eyelids lacerated for the traditional tattooing that would mark him as Toavayas to the end of his days, but still articulate in Spanish.[3] He escaped in 1784 when a raiding party he was with, gave up on their idea of attacking a city, and rode off without him.

He entered the presidio of San Antonio de Béxar, where he was taken at once to the residing governor of Texas. Because of his first hand knowledge of the Indian Nations, he was immediately helpful in explaining the situation among the Indian tribes to the governor. From that day on he made San Antonio de Béxar his home. His knowledge of the Indian languages became of service to many presidio leaders and visitors, marking the beginning of his 40-year military career, serving frequently as an interpreter in discussions and negotiations between Spanish officials and local Indian tribes in Coahuila and in Texas. 

On June 17th, 1785 Francisco Xavier Cháves and others were dispatched to Comanchería with gifts and proposals for peace. He did not return until some 4 months later with three principal Comanche chiefs who were authorized by their people to make peace with the Spanish. The result was the Spanish-Comanche Treaty of 1785, a document that Comanches honored, with only minor violations, until the end of the century. 

 In April 1788, Cháves applied to the Comandante to continue his services as interpreter, through enlistment in the regular army, to be stationed at San Antonio. Cháves re-enlisted for a period of ten years, as a regular soldier of the company of cavalry. In 1792, Cháves was granted a three months leave of absence so that he could return to New Mexico see his relatives for the first time since his abduction by Comanches. On April 1, 1794, he was transferred to the company of Coahuila, the Royal Presidio of San Juan Bautista del Rio Grande de Norte, where he continued in his capacity as interpreter. He remained there, re-enlisting in 1799 for a period of four years, until 1800 when he petitioned  and was granted a transfer back to the Presidio at San Antonio de Béxar. 

Francisco Xavier had started a family by marrying a descendent from one of the original Canary Island colonists. He married Maria Juana Francisca Padron sometime within a year or two of his arrival at San Antonio de Béxar, about 1786. Cháves had twelve children with his first wife, Doña Juana Padron. Juana Padron died in 1817 and Francisco married Maria Micaela Frangoso, the daughter of Jose Estevan Fragoso and Maria Ignacia Dolores Quinones. Francisco and Micaela had five children. Sometime around 1798-1799, Francisco Xavier Cháves ransomed from Comanche captors a Lipan woman and her little girl, baptized as Guadalupe and Trinidad, and where taken into the Cháves household. On May 10, 1811 not long after puberty, Trinidad gave birth to a son whom she voluntarily gave to Cháves to rear and educate. The child was christened Jose Maria Neopmunceno Almaguez. 

At about the age of 70 , failing in health he passed away in San Antonio about 1832.