I first heard the name Juan Domínguez de Mendoza in the fall of 1958. My first year in graduate school, I had signed up for a history course titled the Spanish Southwest at The University of New Mexico.

The teacher was professor France V. Scholes, a leading Spanish colonialist and renowned paleographer -- that is, a specialist in the reading and translation of early documents.

About the fourth week of class, Scholes reached the 17th century in New Mexico history, which began with the struggles of the Oñate colonists and extended through the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 and the Reconquest.

One morning he launched into a recital of the long and tempestuous career of Juan Domínguez de Mendoza, a major political and military figure of that period who had slipped through the cracks and today remained largely unknown.

In 1928, some 30 years before, while doing research in Madrid, Spain, Scholes had stumbled upon the personal service record of Domínguez, comprising 53 bound documents running from the 1640s to the mid-1690s.

As he told the class, thus far this was the first such service record to surface for a prominent 17th-century New Mexican and was rich in significant new details about politics, church affairs, bureaucratic squabbles and especially the wars with Apaches and Navajos.

Juan Domínguez, born about 1627, was the son of Tomé Domínguez, a successful Mexico City merchant who transported goods up the Camino Real to New Mexico, beginning in 1631.

Then in 1642, Tomé took up permanent residency in New Mexico, establishing a large estancia near Sandia Pueblo. Thus, Juan grew up with whatever few advantages were available in this rough and dangerous frontier province.

In the course of his life, he assumed charge of a number of Indian campaigns directed against Apache raiders who ravished the Socorro Valley pueblos of the Piros, the pueblos east of the Manzano Mountains, and Acoma.

He also led combined forces of Upper Rio Grande Pueblos and Spanish soldiers several times against a notorious Navajo stronghold, or Casa Fuerte,in the drainage of the San Juan River.

Over the years, Juan served three terms as lieutenant governor of New Mexico, but never attained the governorship, his most passionate wish. In addition, he headed a major exploratory expedition into west-central Texas.

Along the way, he founded his own Estancia de Atrisco on the west side of the Rio Grande. But his home and lands were lost in the massive 1680 revolt of the Pueblos. He and surviving members of his family fled south into exile in El Paso.

From there, he later went to Mexico, and in 1693 caught a ship for Spain, accompanied by his eldest son, Baltasar. He was hoping to persuade the king and royal officials to appoint him as governor of New Mexico.

Shipwrecked on the Spanish coast, father and son were rescued and taken to Madrid. He may have suffered an injury in the accident because he soon died, without having achieved his goal.

His precious bound book of documents, attesting to his long service to the king, passed into government hands. Scholes discovered it more than two centuries later in the Biblioteca Nacional, Spain's national library.

Obtaining photostat copies of the original book, professor Scholes in 1940 agreed to translate the documents therein, add a lengthy historical introduction and submit it for publication to the UNM Press by 1942. When he died in 1979, the manuscript remained unfinished.

Shortly afterward, his daughter contacted me to ask whether I would take over the "Johnny Domínguez effort." That was the pet name Scholes used for Juan, having been involved with his story for many years.

I replied that I had my own books to complete, but she insisted, so I took charge of a heavy box of documents, including translations made by Scholes' research assistant, Eleanor Adams.

More than 20 years later, in conversations with historian José Antonio Esquibel, I told him of the Johnny Domínguez materials.

He showed interest, so we agreed to work together to close out the project. The tardy book Juan Domínguez de Mendoza, Soldier and Frontiersman of the Spanish Southwest will be published in May 2012. That's 82 years after France Scholes found the documents in Madrid!

Historian Marc Simmons is author of numerous books on New Mexico and the Southwest. His column appears Saturdays.