A Look at Francisco de la Maza’s Genealogical Origins

Abstract

The article offers a historiographic review of biographical data on Francisco de la Maza and reveals a significant lack of information regarding his family background. Due to his middle-class upbringing, Francisco de la Maza was assumed by several authors to have been a Creole. The present text hypothesizes that, given his mother’s Mexican origin, a purely European lineage was questionable. It therefore traces the origins of the surnames of his four grandparents: Maza, Cuadra, Gómez and García. Research into the origins of these genealogies one of them back to Jewish converts established in New Spain since the 16th century. Likewise, collaboration with other researchers from the Instituto de Investigaciones Esteticas revealed the indigenous origin of another family line.