As they were in life, the enslaved are almost always marginalized in other people’s records, including wills, land records and court trials. This is true of a witchcraft trial that took place in 1606 among the first colonists in New Mexico. 
María de Zamora is the defendant in this witchcraft trial who was accused by her son-in-law, Diego Robledo and Lucía, his 12-year-old bride who was also Zamora's daughter.
Zamora was originally from Atzacoalco in Mexico-Tenochtitlan and the spouse of Bartolomé Montoya, common ancestors to many New Mexicans.
Lost to most in this drama are the notations of the Indigenous enslaved who are either identified in the unfolding narrative testimony or whose testimony was requested in the trial. Each of those noted will be entered into the database and are noted below.
María, is identified as the servant of Zamora. In her testimony, she provided her name, her age (16-years-old) and indicated that she was “otomita.” She also noted that she had lived in Zamora’s household since she was a young child.
Inés, servant of Ana Ortiz, who was the wife of Cristóbal Baca. Inés indicated that she was from Tuluca.
An unnamed servant is simply identified in the documents as “yndia loca de Juan de Medina.”
The goal of NBU is to recover these lives, which often requires identifying other documents. María, the Otomi for instance may in fact be the individual identified in a 1600 muster roll, but as a 10-year-old in service to this family is identified simply as Ysauel of Tecama.
Archivo General de la Nación, Méxicoramo Inquisición, tomo 467, expediente 78-79, fols. 342r-353r. Transcription and translation of this set of documents are thanks to the Cíbola Project, University of California, Berkeley.
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