USA > Arizona > The marvellous country : or, Three years in Arizona and New Mexico, the Apaches' home > Part 14
USA > New Mexico > The marvellous country : or, Three years in Arizona and New Mexico, the Apaches' home > Part 14
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"J. Aparella, 1619."
"Governor and Captain General of the province of New Mexico, for our Lord, the King, passed by this place on his return from the pueblo of Zuni, on the 29th of July, of the year 1620, and put them in peace at their petition, asking the favor to become subjects of His Majesty; and anew they gave obedience. All of which they did with free consent, knowing it prudent, as well as very Christian."
"To so distinguished and gallant a soldier, indomitable and famed, we love ... " (The balance of this inscription is so completely obliterated, that it was impossible to de- cipher it.)
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255
FATHER MARCO DE NIZA.
"Here passed General Don Diego de Baragas, to conquer Sante Fe for the Royal Crown, New Mexico, at his own cost, in the year 1692."
The only two inscriptions to be found in English, are these: -
"O. R., March 19, 1836." The other that of Lieutenant Simpson himself, bearing date September 18, 1849.
Whatever became of Bazemzalles and his band of adver- turers, if he had any, none can tell. How they perished, or where their bones lie bleaching, are alike unknown.
The simple inscription upon the side of "El Moro" seems to be the only record of his journeyings extant.
Marco de Niza, a Franciscan monk before referred to, gives us the first information concerning this country and its people.
On the 7th of March, 1539, he was dispatched by Fran- cisco Vasquez de Coronado, a nobleman of Salamanca, and governor of the province, "to descry the country." He took with him the friar Honoratus, and an Arabian negro, called Esteva. Starting from Petatlan, a town of Culi- can,- so called because its inhabitants lived in houses built of matted rushes, called petates,- he went " following as the Holy Ghost did lead," passing through "great deserts, and meeting Indians who marvelled to see him, having no knowledge of any Christians, or even of any Indians on the other side of the desert."
256
HIS JOURNEYINGS.
.
The inhabitants were numerous and intelligent. The women wore petticoats, or dresses, of deer-skin, but they had no idea of Christianity. They called Niza "Soyota," or man come down from heaven, and would try to touch his garments. They informed him that he would soon come to a great plain, full of large towns, which were inhabited by a people clad in cotton, wearing gold rings and ear-rings, and "using little blades of the same metal to scrape the sweat from their bodies."
About this time the negro Esteva, who had been giving the good father "great trouble on account of misconducting himself towards the women of the country, and only thought of enriching himself," was sent away by Father Niza on a voyage of discovery, accompanied by some "emancipated Indians."
Four days after Esteva's departure, he dispatched two messengers to Father Niza, acquainting him with the dis- covery of a wonderful city called Cibola.
These messengers the good father called pintados, because their faces, breasts, and arms were painted. They told him that a man might travel in thirty days to this great city of Cibola, which was the first of the seven cities.
They also informed him that they often went there after "turquoise and ox-hides," which they received as "wage for tilling the ground." They said that the inhabitants of Cibola dressed in "gowns of cotton down to the feet, with
257
THE INHABITANTS.
a button at the neck; that they girded themselves with gir- dles of turquoises, or hide of kine," all of which reports so greatly pleased the good father, that he determined to follow on after Esteva.
He continued his journey for five days, "always finding inhabited places, and great hospitality."
Before reaching the desert, he arrived at a very pleasant town, where he found many people, both men and women, "clothed in cotton, and some in ox-hides, which generally they take for better apparel than that of cotton." He says :-
"All the people of this village go in caconados;" that is to say, with turquoises hanging at their nostrils and ears, which they call caconas. The lord of the village, and others beside him, were "apparelled in cotton, in caconados, with a collar of turquoises about their necks."
They gave him "conies," quails, maize, and nuts of pine- trees, and offered him turquoises, ox-hides, and fair vessels to drink in, which he declined.
They informed him that beside the seven cities of Cibola, there were three other kingdoms, called Marata, Acus, and Totonteac, and that in Totonteac were great quantities of woollen cloth, such as he himself wore, made from the fleece of wild beasts, which were about the size of the two spaniels that he carried with him.
The next day he entered the desert; and when he came to dine he found "bowers made, and victuals in abundance."
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258
HE HEARS OF CIBOLA.
These the Indians provided for him all the way across the desert, which was four days' journey.
Then he came to a valley "inhabited by a goodly people. It was well watered and like a garden, abounding in victuals sufficient to feed about three thousand horsemen."
Through this valley he travelled five days. Here, too, he found a man born in Cibola, having escaped from the gov- ernor-lieutenant of the same. "For," he says, "the lord of the seven cities liveth and abideth in one of these towns called Ahacus, and in the rest he appointeth lieutenants under him."
This townsman of Cibola was a white man, of good com- plexion, well advanced in years, and of far greater intellect than the inhabitants of this valley or the others left behind.
He says: "Cibola is a great city, inhabited by a great store of people, and having many streets and market-places. In some parts of the city are certain great houses, five stories high, wherein the chief of the city do assemble themselves on certain days of the year. The houses are of lime and stone, the gates and small pillars of the principal houses are of turquoises, and all the vessels wherein they are served are of gold. The other six cities are like untc this, and Ahacus is the chiefest of them all.
"To the southwest is a kingdom called Marata, where therc be great cities builded of houses of stone, with many lifts Likewise the kingdom of Totonteac lieth to the west, a very
THE APACHE PASS
259
ESTEVA PUT TO DEATH.
mighty province, replenished with infinite store of riches; and in the said kingdom they wear woollen cloth made of the fleece of animals, and they are a very civil people." They showed him "a hide half as big again as the hide of an ox, which belonged to a beast with one horn. The color of the skin was like that of a goat, and the hair was a finger long." Father Niza was still fifteen days' journey from the great city of Cibola, following in the course of the negro Esteva.
He started once more on the 9th of May, determined to accomplish the journey without any further delay. He trav- elled for twelve days, when he met one of the Indians who had accompanied Esteva, and "in great fright, and covered with sweat," he hastily informed Father Niza that the inhabitants of Cibola had seized the negro, and after imprisoning him, had put him to death, together with several of the Indians of his party.
This statement greatly disconcerted the good father, who much feared to put his life in such jeopardy. Still, with the indomitable pluck that always characterized those early adventurers, he determined to see the great city, if he could not enter it. To this end he made one more day's jour- ney, where, ascending a mountain, he viewed the city.
He says: "It is situated upon the plain at the foot of a round hill, and maketh show to be a fair city. It is better seated than any I have seen in these parts. The houses are
260
NIZA SEES CIBOLA.
builded in order and all made of stone, with divers stories and flat roofs."
Having ascertained these facts, and seen the city with his own eyes, Father Niza at once retraced his steps; and after many days' journey, during which he experienced nothing but kindness from the hands of the Indians, he finally reached the province of Culican, where he straightway mad'e report to the governor of all the strange things he had seen. The Abbé Em Domenech, in his work on the deserts of North America, says, in speaking of Father Niza's journey :-
" "The information given by Father Marcos is so vague that it is scarcely possible to state precisely the route he fol- lowed, or to indicate the geographical position of the countries through which he passed.
'There would seem to be, however, good authority for supposing that his journey was made through the valley of the Gila, instead of the Rio Verde country; across the Colorado Chiquito, thence through the Mogollon Mountains, and across the great plateau to the western slope of the Sierra Madre."
That he visited the Casas Grandes, already described in a preceding chapter, there is no doubt, as it is most probable that they would be included in that portion of country called the kingdom of Marata. Niza says in his report before referred to, "And these people of Marata have, and do, wage war with the lord of the seven cities,
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261
NIZA'S REPORT.
through which war the kingdom of Marata is for the most part wasted, although it yet continueth and maintaineth war against the others."
This being the only information we have concerning the carly settlements on the Gila, it is much to be regretted that Niza's report is not more explicit.
Upon his return, it would seem that he decided to visit the kingdom of Totonteac, which was undoubtedly comprised of those towns lying upon the Rio Verde and Pueblo Creek ; but from fear of the Indians, he did not go into it, though he saw it from afar off, lying in a low valley, "being very green, and having a most fruitful soil, out of which ran many streams."
Of course this is mostly conjecture, founded principally upon the fact that no other ruins are known to exist in the direction given from. Cibola, by Father Niza.
The wonderful reports of Father Niza so fired the patri- otic heart of Captain-General-Governor Francisco Vasquez de Coronado, that he determined to view with his own eyes this wonderful city of Cibola. To this end he commenced at once to organize an expedition, which he proposed to lead in person, having for its object the conquest of the kingdom of Cibola.
This army he assembled at the town of Compostella, in the province of Culican, and was composed of one hundred and fifty horsemen, two hundred archers, the
262
CORONADO'S ARMY.
flower and chivalry of the province, together with eight hundred emancipated Indians.
The army set forth the day following Easter, 1540, and marched to the outermost limit of the province of Culican, where it halted for rest. Coronado, however, could ill brook even this delay; so he determined to push on ahead, in company with Father Niza, fifty chosen horsemen, and seventy archers, entrusting the command of the remainder of his army to one Don Tristran de Arellano, with instruc- tions to remain in camp fifteen days, and then follow the route pursued by himself.
CHAPTER XVII.
FTER forty days of toil and priva- tions of all kinds, Coronado arrived at a place he calls "Chichilticall," which signifies Red Town, a name which seems to have been given by Coronado himself, on account of "a very large house there of red color, inhabited by an entire tribe that came from towards Cibola, where the last desert begins."
At this point Coronado's troubles seemed to have begun in earnest. He lost some of his horses, as well as a number- of his men, for want of food; and his army became greatly discouraged, and clamored loudly to return to Culican.
But Coronado was made of no such stuff, and was bound to proceed. After the delay of a week at Red Town, he with his followers continued the march. In two weeks' time they had arrived at a point within twenty miles of Cibola.
Here for the first time they met several natives of the kingdom; but they, becoming frightened, immediately took
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264
A BATTLE.
to flight, spreading the alarm throughout the country by means of great fires, which they kindled on the high moun- tains (a custom followed by the Indians of Arizona and New Mexico to this day).
At this point Coronado seems to have tarried for a time, in order to enable Don Tristan d'Arellano, with the re- mainder of his army, to overtake him. After waiting in vain for. some weeks, he at last determined to advance to the walls of Cibola without reinforcements.
In his report to the Emperor Charles V., he says: "Af- ter we had passed thirty leagues of the most wicked way, we found fresh rivers and grass like that of Castile, and many nut-trees, whose leaf differs from that of Spain. And there was flax, but chiefly seen on the banks of a cer- tain river, which, therefore, we called El Rio del Lino .* At last I did arrive at the walls of Cibola, and I sent a mes- senger thither, who was ill-treated and fired at." Coronado found that the people of the province were all assembled, and with "steady attitude" awaited his coming.
He valiantly attacked the city, and after a desperate fight, in which he was struck by a large stone and unhorsed, and only saved from bodily harm by the strength of his armor and the devotedness of his friends, Garcia Lopez de Cardenas and Horonardo de Alvarado, who shielded him with their bodies, while some others helped him up,
* Flax River.
265
DON TRISTAN'S ADVENTURES.
the city capitulated, and Coronado marched in and took possession.
He found neither old men, women, nor children under fifteen years of age, in the town, they having been taken to the mountains before the assault began. He found, how- ever, plenty of corn, of which they were greatly in need.
While waiting here for the arrival of Don Tristan and his command, Coronado dispatched one of his officers, by name Garcia Lopez de Cardenas, with a handful of men, to visit the Moquis villages situated at the distance of a few leagues from Cibola. De Cardenas, however, seems to have lost his way; and after travelling for twenty days through a broken, volcanic country, with insufficient food for man or beast, he suddenly came to a "great cleft in the carth's surface, which prevented them from going any farther." -
De Cardenas describes the cleft to be "deeper than the side of the highest mountain; while the torrent below was scarcely a fathom wide. Two men tried to descend its steep, precipitous sides; and after experiencing the most terrible difficulties, they managed to climb down perhaps a quarter of the way, when their progress was stopped by a rock, which seemed from above to be no greater than a man, but which in reality was higher than the top of the cathedral tower at Seville."
Never had they seen such a sight before; and not know-
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266
STARVATION AND DEATH.
ing what might be in further store for them if they pro- ceeded down the chasm, they straightway returned, that they might report this wonderful impediment to Captain Cardenas.
In the mean time Don Tristan and the men under his command were slowly, and in the face of most trying ob- stacles, making their way along towards Cibola, where they hoped to effect a junction with the general-in-chief.
Hunger assailed their ranks, and many of the men died from absolute starvation, which so affected Don Tristan that he changed his route to one farther north, hoping thereby to better the condition of his army.
This course soon brought him among a very depraved class of people. "The women painted their chins and around their eyes. The men were very wicked, and in- toxicated themselves with wine made from the pitahaya or maguey, which grew in abundance throughout the country."
After passing through almost insurmountable difficulties, Don Tristan and his army finally reached Cibola, and joined Coronado, who was much dissatisfied with the results thus far obtained.
He says in his report, "It remaineth now to testify whereof the Father Provincial, Niza, made report to your majesty. And to be brief, I can assure your honor he said the truth in nothing that he reported; but all was quite
267
THE MILLS OF CIBOLA.
contrary, save only the names of the cities and the great houses of stone. The seven cities are seven towns, all made of these kind of many-storied houses. They all exist, and within four leagues of each other, and are called the king- dom of Cibola."
He further says, "They eat the best cakes I ever saw, and have the finest order and way of grinding. One woman of this country will grind as much as four women of Mex- ico. That which these people worship, as far as we hith- erto can learn, is the water; for they say it causeth the corn to grow, and maintaineth their lives."
Becoming tired of the inactive life at Zuni, Coronado determined to start forth in the hope of finding yet undis- covered territory. With this object in view he started eastward, into the valley of the Rio Grande.
He soon came to Acoma, or, as he calls it, "Acuco," a town on an exceedingly "strong hill," four leagues from which he met with a "new kind of oxen," * "very wild and fierce, of which the first day they killed four score, which supplied the army with flesh,-for all the way was as full of crooked-backed oxen as the mountain-sierras in Spain are of sheep."
"Coronado now took measures," says the Abbé Dome- nech, "to push his conquest, by taking possession of the province of Tiguex, on the Rio Grande." This province he
* Buffalo.
268
MONTEZUMA'S CHURCH.
captured after a fight of fifty days. It consisted of twelve towns, the principal of which were Pecos, Querra, Abo, and Gran Quivera.
Pecos was a fortified town of several stories. It was built on a high mesa, and overlooked the country around for many miles. Here stood the large Mexican temple, Montezuma's church, which was three stories high, and
FECOS.
where burned the sacred flame day and night. The Indian legend is, that Montezuma built this pueblo himself, and with his own hands placed the sacred fire in the estufa, at the same time warning his people that when they allowed it to go out, death would come. Before he left them, he took a tall tree, and, inverting it, planted it near the estufa, saying, if they did not permit the sacred flame to be
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CORONADO MEETS WITH AN ACCIDENT. 269
extinguished until the tree fell, men with pale faces would come into the country from the East, and, overrunning it, would drive their oppressors, the Spaniards, from the country; when he himself would return and build up his kingdom, the earth should become fertile, and the moun- tains yield rich harvests of gold and silver. All of which predictions these Indians claim have been literally ful- filled.
Late in the year 1542, Coronado, becoming tired of con- quest, organized a series of festivals for the amusement of his army and the Indians; and at one of them, held at Tiguex, Coronado himself was thrown from his horse while "running the ring" with one Don Pedro Maldonado, and severely injured. This accident seems to have been the primary cause of a great desire on the part of Coronado to reurn to his province of Culican. His army became greatly demoralized in consequence of this fact becoming known, and soon disbanded, scattering throughout the newly-dis- covered country. Few of them were ever afterwards heard from. Coronado, with a few trusty followers, arrived in Culican in April, 1543.
I had long entertained a desire to see the ruins of this country, and many facts and incidents connected with them, related to me by Major Ruff of the U. S. Army, who com- manded an expedition through the Navajoe country in '57, so strengthened the inclination, that I should have made the
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270
WILL YOU ACCOMPANY US?
trip alone, had I been unable to find anybody to accompany me.
The preceding pages contain the early history of the coun- try which we proposed to visit at this time, and we asked ourselves the questions many times over,- Shall we be able to recognize the different localities from the slight knowledge we have of them? Shall we find, inhabiting the pueblos, de- scendants of the people so minutely described by Father Niza and Coronado, possessing any of the characteristics and habits of their ancestors ?
Reader, will you accompany us in our journey, or shall we part here? Do you care to encamp with us at cach stopping-place we make on the long dusty drive to Albu- qurque, or will you be content to know that we crossed the long jornada of ninety miles without water, in safety ? That on our right hand we saw each day the peaks of the Sierra Blanca, the Organos, and the Oscruro; and on our left those of the Mimbres, while afar off, to the north and west, the snow-clad peaks of the Sierra Madre range glistened each day in the bright sunshine like huge cones of crystal, stretching from seven to nine thousand feet in the air; that after a weary journey of five days we were at last delighted with a sight of the twin spires on the church in Albuqurque; that we found here one of the neatest, and at the same time most interesting towns we had yet seen in the country; that we accepted the generous hospitality of our friend, Judge Baird,
271
A NOTED CHARACTER.
who for thirteen years had resided there; that nearly every house in the city had a piece of land or garden well filled with peach, apple, and plum trees of nearly every variety, or with vines growing the most luscious grapes? Shall I tell you of the little American colony which we found here;
KIT CARSON.
and that here we saw and talked for a long while with the veritable Kit Carson himself, a little weazen-faced, light- haired, wiry, active frontierman, who wore his hair long, and swore in a horrible jargon of Spanish and English, and who didn't "fear no Injun a livin'?"
272
SECURING A GUIDE.
We passed three days very pleasantly at Albuqurque, and through the kindness of Judge Baird obtained the ser- vices of a Mexican named Rafael Orrantia, as guide; a man thoroughly acquainted with the entire country through which we were to pass, and who could take us to the ruins of every pueblo, and knew the shortest and best route to every spring or stream of water to be found in that region. In short, a most valuable man, especially as he bore the reputation of being an honest one,- a qualifi- cation rarely to be found among men of his class.
Jimmy was much pleased with our new acquisition, and gravely informed me the morning after I had engaged him, that he was an "illegant cook," and would "relave him of a great daal of the risponshibility a ristin' on his shoulders," a relief that I very much fear Jimmy did not experience in as great a degree as he had anticipated.
As our guide informed us that we should have to descend the Rio Grande as far as Isletta, a small Mexican village nearly twenty miles below Albuqurque, if we desired to visit Laguna and Acoma, we decided to move down the valley that day, in order to be ready for an early start the next morning.
The valley of the Rio Grande, from Santa Fe for nearly four hundred miles south, as well as far to the north, bears every evidence of having at one time supported a dense population
273
ABBÉ DOMENECH'S OBSERVATIONS.
In speaking of the former population of New Mexico and Arizona, the Abbé Domenech observes: "When New Mexico was discovered, the country extending from the Pacific on the one side to the Rio Grande on the other, was but a succession of towns, villages, and habitations, joined together by cultivated fields, orchards, and roads. But the great multitude of human beings have almost disappeared since the conquest. The silence of the wilderness has succeeded to the joyful songs of the extinct population, and the aridity of the desert replaces the fertility of the soil. Wormwood and artemisia now grow where fields of rose-trees and Indian corn formerly flourished. The cactus, mesquit, and the dwarf cedar vegetate on the rem- nant of the pine and fruit trees, reduced to powder by constant droughts. The sun darts its perpendicular and scorching rays on the arid and barren rocks, which sparkle by day like gigantic diamonds. All the smiling nature, so lovely in by-gone days, has retained nothing of its former glory but a melancholy beauty, not unlike the sickly hues of a flower washed by the waves of the sea."
He also estimates the population residing between the thirty-fourth and thirty-sixth degrees N. lat., and extending from the Canadian River through to the Gulf of California, to be at least one hundred and forty-nine thousand souls, as late as 1856. This estimate is generally believed to be largely in excess of the actual population, though less than
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274
VINE-CLAD ISLETTA.
one-tenth of the number who inhabited it at the time of Coronado's conquest.
The Pueblo Indians in the valley of the Rio Grande, who in 1790 numbered twelve thousand, in 1864 numbered less than six thousand, and they are steadily decreasing in numbers every year. Not many years will elapse before this industrious, semi-civilized race will become extinct, and the places that have known them for so many hundred years will know them no more forever.
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