History of Arizona and New Mexico, 1530-1888, Volume XVII, Part 4

Author: Bancroft, Hubert Howe, 1832-1918; Oak, Henry Lebbeus, 1844-1905
Publication date: 1889
Publisher: San Francisco : The History Company
Number of Pages: 890

USA > Arizona > History of Arizona and New Mexico, 1530-1888, Volume XVII > Part 4
USA > New Mexico > History of Arizona and New Mexico, 1530-1888, Volume XVII > Part 4

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HISTORY

ARIZONA AND NEW MEXICO.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS AND RÉSUMÉ.

THE ABORIGINES-NEW MEXICO AS A FIELD OF ANTIQUARIAN RESEARCH- CONCLUSIONS IN THE 'NATIVE RACES'-THE PUEBLO TOWNS AND PEOPLE -PRIMITIVE HISTORY-NO PREHISTORIC RELICS-NO AZTECS IN ARI- ZONA AND NEW MEXICO-A PROTEST-RESUME OF NORTH MEXICAN HIS- TORY -- EARLY IDEAS OF GEOGRAPHY-THE STRAIT-CORTÉS ON THE PA- CIFIC -- NUÑO DE GUZMAN-SAN MIGUEL DE CULIACAN-CALIFORNIA -- EBB AND FLOW OF ENTHUSIASM FOR NORTHERN EXPLORATION-MEAGRE RESULTS -- NUEVA GALICIA AND NUEVA VIZCAYA-OUTLINE OF NORTHERN ANNALS FOR THREE CENTURIES-THE NORTHERN MYSTERY-CONJEC- TURE AND FALSEHOOD-CABEZA DE VACA'S REMARKABLE JOURNEY ACROSS THE CONTINENT-HE DID NOT ENTER NEW MEXICO OR SEE THE PUEBLO TOWNS -- BIBLIOGRAPHIC NOTES.

IT was in the sixteenth century that the Spaniards first explored the region that forms the territorial basis of this volume. The discoverers and early explorers found there the home, not only of several wild and roving tribes of the class generally denomi- nated savages, but of an aboriginal people much further advanced in progress toward civilization than any other north of Anáhuac, or the region of Central Mexico. This people, though composed of nations, or tribes, speaking distinct languages, was practically one in the arts and institutions constituting the general features of its emergence from savagism. It was an agricul- HIST. ARIZ, AND N. MEX. 1

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS AND RÉSUMÉ.

tural people, dwelling in several-storied buildings of stone or adobes. All that pertains to this most inter- esting people, or to the other native inhabitants of Arizona and New Mexico, has been put before the reader in an earlier work of this series. My present purpose requires but the briefest repetition or résumé of matters thus presented in their proper place, and even that only in certain peculiar phases.1

This region offers for antiquarian research a field not surpassed, in several respects, by any in America; for here only we find a people, far in advance of the savage tribes if far behind the highest types, retaining many of their original characteristics, and living on the same sites, in buildings similar to, or in several instances perhaps identical with, those occupied by their ancestors at the coming of the Europeans, and for centuries before. These are the oldest continu- ously inhabited structures on the continent; and these Pueblo Indians so called from the Spanish term applied to their community-houses, or towns, in the absence of any general aboriginal name-are probably more nearly in their original condition than any other American tribes. It is therefore hardly possible to overestimate the importance of these tribes for ethno- logic study, unless, indeed, we adopt the extreme views of those who refuse to credit testimony to the" effect that the most advanced Nahua and Maya na- tions possessed any trait or custom or institution or degree of culture different from or superior to those found among these Pueblos, or even inferior tribes of the north.

In my Native Races, after describing the monuments of this peculiar people, I expressed a hope that the work might encourage further research and the pub- lication of much additional information on the subject,

1 See Native Races of the Pacific States: tribal relations, manners and cns- toms, institutions, general description, etc., vol. i., p. 422, 465-6, 471-556; mythology or religious customs, iii. 75 -83, 135-6, 1705, 521-8: language, iii. 568- 9, 593-603, 671-4, 680-6; antiquities, ruins, relics, and historic traditions, iv. 615-86; v. 537-8.

THE PUEBLO INDIANS.

at the same time predicting with confidence -- founded on the uniformity of data already accessible-that newly discovered relics would not differ materially in type from those I was able to study, and that they would require no essential modification of my con- clusions respecting the primitive New Mexicans. This hope and prediction have proved well founded. Dur- ing the decade and more that has passed since my work appeared, able investigators have directed their efforts to this field, with results in the form of accurate knowledge of the people, and their traditions, lan- guages, and material relics that probably surpass in many respects all that was known before; yet these results, so far as I am familiar with them, are con- firmatory of the general views which had been taken by me, and which it seems proper to embody briefly here, aboriginal annals being a fitting preface to the record of foreign invaders' deeds to follow.

In their sixteenth-century explorations, the Span- iards found from seventy to a hundred of the Pueblo towns still inhabited, there being much confusion of names in the different narratives of successive visits. Most of the towns cannot be definitely identified or located; but as groups they present but slight diffi- culties; and they covered substantially the same ter- ritory then as now. South of this territory, in southern Arizona and northern Chihuahua, and prob- ably north of it, in southern Colorado and Utah, though there may have been exceptions, similar wide- spread structures were then as now in ruins. In the next century, chiefly during the wars following suc- cessful revolt against the Spaniards, many of the towns were destroyed or abandoned, the number being reduced in that period or a little later to about twenty- five, the dates and circumstances of the few later changes being for the most part known.

It is only in the broadest outline that the history of this people is known by their material relics, tradi- tion affording but slight aid. Clearly the whole region,

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS AND RÉSUMÉ.

extending somewhat farther north and south than the bounds of Arizona and New Mexico, was in the past occupied by semi-civilized tribes, not differing among themselves or from the Pueblos more than do the lat- ter as known since the sixteenth century, and occupy- ing the most fertile valleys with their stone and adobe town houses, similar, but often vastly superior, to the later well-known dwellings of the Pueblos. Long, perhaps centuries, before the Spaniards came, began the decline of this numerous and powerful people. The cause of their misfortunes must be traced to wars with savage predatory tribes like the Apaches, and with each other, drought and pestilence contributing to the same end. All the ruined structures and other relics · of the long past were so evidently the work of the Pueblos or cognate tribes that there exists no plausi- ble reason for indulging in conjectural theories re- specting the agency of extinct races. Yet nothing is more common than to read of the discovery of prehis- toric relics of the long-lost race that once peopled this land. My work has had but slight effect to check this popular tendency to the marvellous.

It is also still the custom of most writers to refer to the ruins and relics of this region as undoubtedly of Aztec origin, and to adopt more or less fully the the- ory that the ancestors of the Pueblo tribes were Aztecs left in Arizona during the famous migration from the north-west to Mexico. As the reader of my Native Races is aware, it is my belief that no such general migration occurred, at least not within any period reached by tradition; but whether this belief is well founded or not, I have found no reason to mod- ify my position that the New Mexican people and culture were not Aztec.2 The Montezuma myth of

2 ' I can hardly conceive of structures reared by human hands differing more essentially than the two classes in question ' (New Mexican and those of Cent. Am. and Mex.) 'In the common use of adobes for building material; in the plain walls rising to a height of several stories; in the terrace struc- ture, absence of doors in the lower story, and the entrance by ladders; in the absence of arched ceilings of overlapping blocks, of all pyramidal structures,

NO AZTECS IN NEW MEXICO.

the Pueblo communities, so far at least as the name is concerned if not altogether, was certainly of Spanish origin. Monumental and institutional resemblances are hardly sufficient to suggest even contact with the Nahua nations, yet such contact at one time or an- other is not improbable, and is indeed indicated by the dialects of some of the tribes. Linguistic affini- ties, however, like institutional and architectural re- semblances, if any exist, do not indicate an Aztec base for the New Mexican culture at the beginning, but rather a superstructural element of later introduction. I offer no positive assertion that the northern advance- ment was indigenous or independent of the spirit that actuated the mound-builders or the architects of Pa- lenque and Uxmal; but I claim that any possible con- nection is but vaguely supported by the evidence, and may at least be regarded as antedating the period of traditional annals. The origin of this most interest- ing aboriginal people is a legitimate subject of inves- tigation, and there are many more competent than myself to form an opinion ; yet I feel justified in pro- testing against the too prevalent tendency of most writers to accept in this matter as fact what is at the best but vague conjecture.

This chapter is intended to include all that it is necessary to say in a preliminary way, respecting the history of this territory, before beginning the chrono- logic narrative with the first coming of the Spaniards. An obviously important and necessary feature of this introductory matter is the annals of Spanish progress

of sculptured blocks, of all architectural decorations, of idols, temples, and every trace of buildings evidently designed for religious rite, of burial-mounds an:l human remains; and in the character of the rock-inscriptions and mis- cellaneous relics, not to go further into details-the N. Mex. monuments pre- sent no analogies to any of the southern remains. I do not mean to express a decided opinion that the Aztecs were not, some hundreds or thousands of centuries ago, or even at a somewhat less remote period, identical with the natives of N. Mex., for I have great faith in the power of time and environ- ment to work unlimited changes in any people; I simply claim that it is a manifest absurdity to suppose that the monuments described were the work of the Aztecs during a migration southward since the 11th century, or of any people nearly allied in blood and institutions to the Aztecs as they were found in Anáhuac.' Nat. Races, iv. 683.

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS AND RÉSUMÉ.

from Mexico northward, of the successive steps by which the broad regions south of this distant province were discovered, explored, and to some extent settled before the army of invasion secured a foothold in Ari- zona and New Mexico. But this is a subject that has been presented with all desirable detail in the first volume of my History of the North Mexican States, to which the reader is referred, not only for events pre- ceding the discovery of New Mexico, but for later hap- penings in the southern regions, an acquaintance with which will greatly stimulate interest in and facilitate the study of the accompanying northern developments. Be- cause this matter is fully treated in the volume alluded to, and because it is also presented in various outline- combinations as a necessary introduction to volumes on other northern Pacific states, I may properly restrict its treatment here to narrow limits; but cannot, con- sistently with my general plan of making each work of the series complete in itself, omit it altogether.3

As soon as the Spaniards had made themselves masters of the valley of Mexico, their attention was attracted in large degree to the north as presenting new and promising fields for conquest. This was nat- ural from their comparatively complete knowledge of southern geography and ignorance of the north, with its probably vast extent, its prospectively rich and powerful nations of aborigines, and its correspondingly attractive mysteries. But there was another and more potent incentive in the current theories respect- ing geographical relations of the new regions to Asia and the Indies. These theories, legitimately founded on the slight data accessible, furnish the key to all that might otherwise be mysterious in the annals of

3 In like manner the record in Hist. North Mex. States, i., is made complete by brief résumés, in the proper places, of northern events. Thus not only are the successive expeditions that extended beyond Sonora and Chihuahua into Ariz. and N. Mex. recorded in outline, but on pp. 127-9, 373-5, 642-4, is a sketch of N. Mex. history in 1540-1800; and in the chapters devoted to Sonora may be found the annals of Pimeria Alta, which included southern Arizona. Chap. 1 of Hist. Cal., i., is a résumé of the North Mex. States, in- cluding New Mexico.

PLANS OF CORTÉS.

north-western exploration. So fully have they been explained by me elsewhere in various connections that mere mention may suffice here. At first it was sup- posed that Columbus had reached the main Asiatic coast, which might be followed south-westward to the Indies. Then a great island-really South America- was found, which did not seriously conflict with the original idea, but was of course separated from the main by a strait, through which voyagers to and from India by the new route must pass. Further explora- tion failed to find this strait, but revealed instead an isthmus effectually impeding south-western progress in ships; and when Balboa in 1513 crossed the Isthmus to find a broad expanse of ocean beyond, and others a little later explored the western coast for many leagues northward, it became apparent that the old geographic idea must be modified, that the new regions, instead of being the Asiatic main, were a great south-eastern projection of that main. The idea of the 'strait,' how- ever, had become too deeply rooted to be easily aban- doned; accordingly, it was located in the north, always to be sought just beyond the limit of actual explora- tion in that direction. Of course, this cosmographic ignis fatuus did not obstruct but rather stimulated the quest for new kingdoms to conquer, new riches for Spanish coffers, and new souls to be saved by spiritual conquest.

Fully imbued, not only with the desire to extend his fame as a conqueror, but with the prevalent geo- graphic theories, Hernan Cortés, within a year or two after the fall of Anáhuac, convinced himself, through reports of the natives and of his lieutenants sent to plant the Spanish flag on South Sea shores, that the great westward trend of the Pacific coast that was to connect the new regions with Asia must be sought farther north than the latitude of Tenochtitlan. The plan conceived by him was to build ships on the Pa- cific, and in them to follow the coast northward, then westward, and finally southward to India. In this

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS AND RÉSUMÉ.

voyage, he would either discover the 'strait,' or prove all to be one continent; discover for his sovereign rich coast and island regions; perhaps find great kingdoms to conquer; and at the least explore a new route to the famous Spice Islands. His ship-yard was estab- lished at Zacatula in 1522, but through a series of misfortunes, which need not be catalogued here, his maritime exploration in 1530 had not extended above Colima. Meanwhile, however, various land expedi- tions had explored the regions of Michoacan and southern Jalisco up to the latitude of San Blas, or about 21° 30'. In the interior at the same date the advance of northern exploration had reached Queré- taro, and possibly San Luis Potosí, in latitude 22°. On the east a settlement had been founded at Pánuco, and the gulf coast vaguely outlined by sev- eral expeditions, the last of which was that of Pánfilo de Narvaez, whose large force landed in 1828 in Florida, and with few exceptions perished in the attempt to coast the gulf by land and water to Pánuco.

In 1531 the first great movement northward was made, not by Cortés, but by his rival Nuño de Guz- man, who, with a large army of Spaniards and Indians, marched from Mexico up the west coast to Sinaloa. His northern limit was the Yaqui River in about latitude 28°; and branches of his expedition also crossed the mountains eastward into Durango, and perhaps Chihuahua; but the only practical result of this grand expedition, except a most diabolic oppres- sion and slaughter of the natives, was the founding of the little villa of San Miguel in about latitude 25°, corresponding nearly with Culiacan, an establishment which was permanent, and for inany a long year main- tained a precarious existence as the isolated frontier of Spanish settlement. Guzman returned to Jalisco, whose permanent occupation dates from this period; and the province or 'kingdom' of Nueva Galicia was ushered into existence with jurisdiction extending

NORTHERN EXPEDITIONS.

over all the far north, and with its capital soon fixed at Guadalajara.

But Cortés, though opposed at every step by his enemy, Guzman, and involved in other vexatious dif- ficulties, continued his efforts, and despatched several expeditions by water, one of which was wrecked on the Sinaloa coast in latitude 26°, and another in 1533 discovered what was supposed to be an island in about latitude 24°. Here, in 1535, Cortés in person at- tempted to found a colony, but the enterprise was a disastrous failure; the settlement at Santa Cruz- really on the peninsula-was abandoned the next year, and the place was named, probably by the set- tlers in their disgust, California, from an Amazon isle "on the right hand of the Indies very near the terres- trial paradise," as described in a popular novel. Meanwhile nothing had been accomplished farther east that demands notice in this connection; and the great northern bubble seemed to have burst.

Yet little was needed to renew the old excitement, and the incentive was supplied even before Cortés' ill- fated colony had left California. In April 1536, there arrived at San Miguel de Culiacan Alvar Nuñez and three companions, survivors of Narvaez' expedition of 1528, who had wandered across the continent through Texas, Chihuahua, and Sonora, and who brought re- ports of rich towns situated north of their route. They carried the news to Mexico, and the result was a series of more brilliant and far-reaching explorations by sea and land than any that had been undertaken before. Soto's wanderings of 1538-43 in the Missis- sippi Valley may be connected, chronologically at least, with this revival of interest. Cortés despatched a fleet under Ulloa, who in 1539 explored the gulf to its head, and followed the outer coast of the penin- sula up to Cedros Island in latitude 28°. Viceroy Mendoza took the fever, and not only sent Alarcon to the head of the gulf and up the Rio Colorado, and a little later Cabrillo to the region of Cape Mendocino

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS AND RÉSUMÉ.

on the outer coast, but also despatched Niza as a pioneer, and presently Vasquez de Coronado with his grand army of explorers, who in 1540-2 traversed Sonora, Arizona, New Mexico, and the plains north- eastward to perhaps latitude 40°, and whose adven- tures will be narrated in the following chapters. The explorers, however, returned without having achieved any final conquest, or established any permanent set- tlement; and again interest in the far north died out- a result partly due, however, to the great revolt of native tribes in Nueva Galicia, known as the Mixton war of 1540-2.

With the suppression of this revolt, the final con- quest of Nueva Galicia was effected; and before 1550 the rich mines of Zacatecas were discovered, and the town of that namne founded. Exploration of the north- ern interior was mainly the work of miners, though the missionaries were always in the front rank. Fran- cisco de Ibarra was the great military explorer from 1554, his entradas covering the region corresponding to the Durango, Sinaloa, and southern Chihuahua of modern maps, besides one vaguely recorded expedition that may have extended into Arizona or New Mexico. About 1562 the new province of Nueva Vizcaya, with Ibarra as governor and capital at Durango, was created, to include all territory above what is now the line of Jalisco and Zacatecas, theoretically restricted to the region east of the mountains, but practically in- cluding the coast provinces as well; yet the audiencia of Guadalajara retained its judicial jurisdiction over all the north. Before 1565 there were mining settle- ments in the San Bartolomé Valley of southern Chi- huahua, corresponding to the region of the later Parral, Allende, and Jimenez. These settlements on the east, with San Felipe de Sinaloa on the west, may be regarded as the frontier of Spanish occupation in 1600; yet, as we shall presently see, several expedi- tions had penetrated the country north-eastward even to New Mexico, the conquest of which province at

SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY ANNALS.

this date was thus far in advance of the general pro- gress northward. South of the frontier line as noted, the regions of Sinaloa, Durango, and southern Coa- huila were occupied by many flourishing missions under the Jesuits and Franciscans; and there were numerous mining settlements, with a few military posts; though the general Spanish population was yet very small.

Seventeenth-century annals of the north may be briefly outlined for present purposes. In the begin- ning, Vizcaino, on the outer coast, repeated Cabrillo's explorations to or beyond the 40th parallel; while pearl- fishers and others made many trips to the gulf waters. In Sinaloa, the Jesuits prospered; in Sonora, begin- ning with the Yaqui treaty of 1610, and the conver- sion of the Mayos in 1613, the missionaries made constant progress until a large part of the province was occupied; and in the last decade, not only did Baja California become a mission field, but Pimería Alta, where Padre Kino pushed forward his explora- tions northward to the Gila. East of the mountains, Nueva Vizcaya was for the most part a land of war during this century; eight Jesuits and two hundred Spaniards lost their lives in the Tepehuane revolt of 1616 in Durango; but the missionaries not only re- gained lost ground, but pushed forward their work among the Tarahumares of Chihuahua, where also there were many revolts. North-eastern Durango and eastern and northern Chihuahua formed the mis- sion field of the Franciscans, whose establishments, exposed to the frequent raids of savage foes, main- tained but a precarious existence, yet were extended before 1700 to the Casas Grandes, to the site of the later city of Chihuahua, and to El Paso on the Rio Grande. Meanwhile the mines in all directions yielded rich results; and a small military force under the gov- ernor's management strove more or less ineffectually to protect missions and mining camps, and to repel the endless and ubiquitous incursions of marauding tribes.

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS AND RÉSUMÉ.

Northern Coahuila was occupied by the Franciscans, and several settlements were founded in the last quar- ter of this century. Texan annals of the period are divided into three distinct parts: first, the various ex- peditions from New Mexico to the east in 1601-80; second, the disastrous attempts at colonization by the French under La Salle in 1682-7; and third, efforts of the Spaniards from 1686, resulting in several ex- ploring expeditions from Coahuila, and in the founda- tion of several Franciscan missions on the branches of the rivers Trinidad and Neches, which were aban- doned in 1693.

In the eighteenth century, but for the conquest of Nayarit in 1721-2, the provinces of Sinaloa and Du- rango relapsed into the monotonous, uneventful con- dition of Nueva Galicia, that of a tierra de paz; but Sonora and Chihuahua were more than ever a tierra de guerra, the victim of murderous raids of Apaches and other warlike and predatory tribes. A line of pre- sidios was early established along the northern frontier, which, with occasional changes of site as demanded by circumstances, served to prevent the abandonment of the whole region. There was hardly a settlement of any kind that was not more than once abandoned temporarily. New mines were constantly discovered and worked under occasional military protection; the famous mining excitement of the Bolas de Plata, at Arizonac, occurred in 1737-41; rich placers of gold were found in Sonora; and the Real de San Felipe, or city of Chihuahua, sprang into existence near the mines of Santa Eulalia early in the century. The missions showed a constant decline, which was not materially affected by the expulsion of the Jesuits and substitution of the Franciscans in 1767. Many new missions were founded, but more were abandoned, and most became but petty communities of women, chil- dren, and invalids, or convenient resorts of the able- bodied from time to time, the friars retaining no practical control. There was but slight gain of new

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History of Arizona and New Mexico, 1530-1888, Volume XVII, Part 4

Author: Bancroft, Hubert Howe, 1832-1918; Oak, Henry Lebbeus, 1844-1905 Publication date: 1889 Publisher: San Francisco : The History Company Number of Pages: 890

Author: Bancroft, Hubert Howe, 1832-1918; Oak, Henry Lebbeus, 1844-1905
Publication date: 1889
Publisher: San Francisco : The History Company
Number of Pages: 890