But Time and Chance: The Story of Padre Martinez of Taos, 1793-1867

If you're only going to read one book about Padre Martinez, don't make it this one. It is difficult reading, but it is better researched than anything else out there that I've found. Fray Angelico is cautious not to create a hero where one actually exists. Padre Martinez gained an education when there were still no schools in New Mexico. He attended seminary in Monterey Mexico and excelled as a student. He returned with a dream of being a priest-leader like Hidalgo, protecting his people and instructing them in democracy, loving his understanding of American institutions. He found New Mexico without priests, the government in Mexico having expelled the Franciscans who were mostly native Spanish. Opening a seminary, he was authorized to ordain priests and by 1850 most of those in New Mexico were his former students. He sat in the territorial legislature under the Mexican government and under the American. He owned the first printing press and printed schoolbooks, tracts and catechisms and very briefly New Mexico's first newspaper. He was also the spiritual leader of the Penitentes. He defended the rights of New Mexicans and their traditions resisting the efforts of Bishop Lamy to vastly increase their payments to the church. Continuing to provide the sacraments over the Bishop's order to those who could not pay, he was eventually excommunicated. Padre Martinez got a very bad rap from Willa Cather in her Death Comes for the Archbishop.