Donaciano Vigil, The Gifted Giant–But Was He A Traitor?

Paul M Kraemer

The name Donaciano is derived from the Spanish word for gift,donación.1 Donaciano Vigil was clearly a gifted person. His parents had chosen his unusual but not unknown name with unexplained clairvoyance in 1802, but the name became somewhat common before Donaciano’s death in 1877, perhaps because of Donaciano Vigil’s fame,2 which rested partly on the fact that he was physically a giant, possibly 6' 5" at a time when the average New Mexican man was about 5' 4" tall.3 Hence, being instantly recognizable, he was known by almost everyone. But Donaciano was a giant in other respects as well. He could speak, read and write both English and Spanish and would translate documents in either direction with a high degree of competence.4 We also know from his speeches that he possessed a modern analytical mind.5 Thus, in 1846, when New Mexico was first annexed by the United States, it was not surprising that General Stephen Watts Kearney would want Donaciano in the civil government that he was forming under his“Kearney Code.” When Donaciano accepted the position of Secretary of the territory,6 he became a collaborator with questionable loyalty to the Republic of Mexico according to a conservative faction of the population, as at that time Mexico was at war with the United States.

Donaciano Vigil

There was, however, considerable diversity of opinion among New Mexicans. One viewpoint was offered by Donaciano’s cousin, Juan Bautista Vigil y Alarid, who was in charge of Santa Fé at the plaza after General Kearney had addressed the crowd on August 19, 1846. Juan Batista Vigil’s response included the following:

Do not find it strange if there has been no manifestation of joy and enthusiasm in seeing this city occupied by your military forces. Though the power of the Mexican Republic is dead; but no matter what her condition, she was our mother. What child will not shed abundant tears at the tomb of his parents?7

Later, when Colonel Munroe became commander of the U.S. military occupation, the colonel asked Donaciano what he thought of the Mexican government. Donaciano switched to a different metaphor for his response:

I felt very much as a son would feel toward a father who had given him little or no attention in his youthful days, except as he exacted his hard earnings, and left him to shift for himself when in trouble.8

His disillusionment with the Mexican government was described in detail in a series of lectures and proposals he delivered to the Departmental Assembly, of which he was an alternate member, in May and June, 1846, just before the American invasion. He said that as a young man he was very optimistic about the Mexican Republic and believed that the northern frontier provinces would be supported by the government under the federalist constitution of 1824. As he expressed it,“we saw everything through rose-colored glasses at that time.”9 But the ascendancy of Antonio López Santa Anna in 1833, followed by a series of conservative centrist governments, the abandonment of the 1824 constitution and instability that historian David Weber charact