page_title: Antonio José Martínez
section_title: Death and legacy
hierarchical_section_title: Antonio José Martínez / Death and legacy
caption_attribution_description: English: photo by Einar Einarsson Kvaran aka Carptrash 16:33, 4 August 2006 (UTC). The en:Padre Martinez grave, or at least memorial, in Taos New Mexico.
context_page_description: Antonio José Martínez 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 novel, Death Comes for the Archbishop.
context_section_description: Father Antonio José Martínez died on July 27, 1867.  Infirm and aged beyond his years, Martínez lived the last ten years of his life estranged from Bishop Jean Baptiste Lamy. By the spring of 1858, Bishop Lamy felt compelled to excommunicate Martínez not for moral failings, but for his "scandalous writings."  Bishop Lamy wrote his denunciation of Martínez in the marginal notes of the Baptism and Funeral Register of Our Lady of Guadalupe Church where he had served since 1826.  The writings in La Gaceta of Santa Fe were a critique of the Bishop's re-introduction of the system of tithing that Martínez since 1829 successfully advocated the government revoke.
  In 1826, he established a coed elementary school; in 1833 a seminary from which 16 men were ordained to the priesthood; and in 1846 a law school that graduated many of the earliest lawyers and politicians of the Territory of New Mexico.
  He produced a speller for the children of his family members, and later obtained the first printing press in New Mexico.  In 1838, he published his autobiography on his press, and the following year published the first book printed in New Mexico, a bilingual ritual—Latin and Spanish.  He published only six issues of the newspaper called El Crepúsculo de Libertad; published religious/devotional tracts and  texts for his elementary school, seminary, and law school.
  Martínez was a licensed attorney turned politician, and served five times under the Republic of Mexico on the legislature of the Departamento de Nuevo Mexico, and six times for the Territory of New Mexico under the United States.
  He was married before he became a priest: his wife died in childbirth, and his daughter died at the young age of 12.  Even after ordination, Martínez had other children that he recognized as heirs in his Last Will and Testament.  His eldest was Santiago Valdez (b. 1830) who wrote his 1877 biography, and the second to the youngest was Vicente Ferrer Romero (b. 1844) who became an effective evangelizer for the Presbyterian Church.
  Martínez has been accused of instigating the Chimayó Rebellion of 1837 and the Taos Revolt of 1847 with its concomitant assassination of Governor Charles Bent, but this is unlikely.
  After his tension and controversies with Bishop Lamy, it seems he flirted with becoming an Anglican.  However. he remained staunchly Roman Catholic as his Last Will and Testament testifies.
  In his Last Will, Martínez expressed a desire not to have a public ceremony, nevertheless there was a large funeral ceremony for him. Martínez requested to be buried in his Oratorio, dedicated to La Purísima Concepción, contiguous to and on the west-side of his residence.  This request was honored, and so he was buried in his own Oratorio that he had built on his property.  A quarter century later in 1891, his body was moved about two miles east the American Cemetery. The land, originally owned by Martínez, was deeded to Theodora Romero, and then came into possession of the Kit Carson park and cemetery in Taos.
  Inscribed on the Martínez tombstone are the words, "La Honra de su País" ("The Honor of his Homeland").  Martínez's peers in the Territorial Legislature pronounced this encomium in 1867, the year of his death.  Sculptor Huberto Maestas of San Luis, Colorado sculpted the larger than life-sized bronze memorial of Martínez unveiled at Taos Plaza on July 16, 2006.
caption: The grave of Father Martínez
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