USA > Colorado > History of the State of Colorado, Vol. I > Part 7
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How speedily this prophecy was to be literally fulfilled, not even this white haired patriarch could have foretold. In less than a quarter of a century since the Pacific Railway was projected, the buffalo, the deer, and the antelope, which once thronged the plains in countless numbers, have passed away, and are no longer seen except in zoolog-
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ical gardens, as effigies in our museums, or, at best, the last expiring remnant, in the solitude of our mountain fastnesses.
A few additional reflections, with here and there such further tes- timony as can be obtained from records and traditions at our command, and we are done with this branch of the subject.
Were the remote ancestors of our pueblo Indians Aztec or Tol- tec? No writer on the subject has yet dared to make a positive selec- tion. The Aztecs of Mexico insisted that they came from the North, or Northwest, and that they proceeded southward by regular stages of emigration, halting from time to time, and remaining for years, pos- sibly through generations, in each place adapted to their tastes and re- quirements, and finally swept down in vast hordes upon the Toltecs in the Valley of Anahuac, driving them out, and taking possession of their country. In the course of this migration, one hundred and fifty years were passed. Castañeda favors the theory of a starting point in the far Northwest. It is assumed, indeed known with reasonable cer- tainty, that the whole tribe or nation did not move together continu- ously. Undoubtedly, large numbers were left behind, from choice, and as probably built the cities and towns whose remains are found in Southwestern Colorado and in New Mexico. Immense tracts, covered with the ruins of their habitations and fragments of their pottery, are found at intervals all the way from the San Juan Mountains to Mexico, on the route assumed to have been pursued by the original host. Baron von Humboldt, by authority of the Catholic missionaries he met on his travels through the country, who were as familiar with the Aztec as with the Spanish language, employing it in their missionary work and in their sermons, affirms that it differs essentially from that spoken by these natives, and from this argues that they were not of the same race of people. Still this is by no means conclusive. Castañeda as- serts that the Indians of New Mexico were entirely unknown to the people of Southern Mexico, and that the latter first learned of them through Cabeza de Vaca. Who shall number the centuries that lie be- tween the migrations of the Aztecs and the discovery of the pueblos
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by Cabeza and Coronado? The similitude in the methods of building, customs, dress, physique, and forms of worship, with here and there traces of identity of language, seem to indicate, if they do not prove, an Aztec origin.
When found by the Europeans, in the sixteenth century, the cliff and cave dwellers were living peacefully, and, no doubt, contentedly, in their well-protected abodes. Excepting occasional incursions by nomadic and warlike tribes, it is presumed, from what we know of their amiability and industry, that they lived upon the fruits of toil, until finally dispersed. The following legend, related to Captain Moss by one of the venerable Moqui chiefs, and subsequently published in an Eastern paper, indicates more clearly than any other the probable cause of their final abandonment of the caves and cliff houses :
" Formerly the aborigines inhabited all this country as far west as the head waters of the San Juan, as far north as the Dolores, west some distance into Utah, and south and southwest through Arizona, and down into Mexico. They had lived there from time immemorial- since the earth was a small island, which augmented as its inhabitants multiplied. They cultivated the valley, fashioned very neatly and handsomely whatever utensils and tools they needed, out of clay, and wood, and stone, not knowing any of the useful metals; built their homes, and kept their flocks and herds in the fertile river bottoms, and worshiped the sun. They were an eminently peaceful and prosperous people, living by agriculture, rather than by the chase. About a thou- sand years ago, however, they were visited by savage strangers from the North, whom they treated hospitably. Soon these visits became more frequent and annoying. Then their troublesome neighbors-an- cestors of the present Utes-began to forage upon them, and at last to massacre them and devastate their farms; so, to save their lives, at least, they built houses high up on the cliffs, where they could store food and hide away till the bold raiders left. But one summer the in- vaders did not go back to their mountains, as the people expected, but brought their families with them, and settled down. So, driven from
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their homes and lands, starving in their little niches on the high cliffs, they could only steal away, during the night, and wander across the cheerless uplands. To one who has traveled these steppes, such a flight seems terrible, and the mind hesitates to picture the sufferings of the sad fugitives.
"At the Christone they halted, and probably found friends, for the rocks and caves are full of the nests of these human wrens and swal- lows. Here they collected, erected stone fortifications and watch tow- ers, dug reservoirs in the rocks, to hold a supply of water, which, at all times, is precarious in this latitude, and once more stood at bay. Their foes came, and for one long month fought, and were beaten back, but returned, day after day, to the attack, as merciless and inevitable as the tide. Meantime, the families of the defenders were evacuating and moving south, and bravely did their protectors shield them till they were all safely a hundred miles away. The besiegers were beaten back, and went away; but the narrative tells us that the hollows of the rocks were filled to the brim with the mingled blood of conquerors and conquered, and red rivers of it ran down into the cañon. It was such a victory as they could not afford to win again, and they were glad, when the long fight was over, to follow their wives and little ones to the south. There, in the deserts of Arizona, on well nigh unapproachable, isolated cliffs, they built new towns, and their few de- scendants-the Moquis-live in them to this day, preserving more care- fully and purely the history and veneration of their forefathers than their skill or wisdom."
Contrary to the usual legend, this reads like a well considered chapter of history, and in many respects accords with the modern apprehension of the causes of their expulsion from the lofty slopes of the San Juan, the Mancos and the Dolores. It is exactly the kind of history which any careful observer of their remains would construct for these people after studying the ruins. It is clear that they were abandoned long anterior to the Spanish invasion of New Mexico.
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The conquerors knew nothing of them until they were discovered by Fathers Escalante and Garcia in 1775-7.
When discovered by the Europeans in the sixteenth century, these brave and intelligent people were living at peace with all the world they knew, in their comfortable and well protected pueblos of adobe and stone. The Spaniards came, overran the country, burned many of their villages, slaughtered thousands, and in the course of time reduced them to abject servitude. Nor did their cruel work stop, even at that point of degradation; they were forced to abandon their ancient religions and accept Christianity at the point of the sword, according to the Spanish plan of salvation. Though they rebelled again and again, the iron hand struck them down as repeatedly, until they became so reduced in numbers as to render them powerless for further resist- ance. Hence the arts and refinements they once possessed, and in which they surpassed many of the European races in prehistoric times, have been lost in their rapid degeneration. We have seen how their ancestors dressed in cotton and other fabrics of their own weaving, how well and industriously they built. These broken descendants manufacture little enough now, build nothing at all, and seem content to be let alone, to pursue their uneventful lives according to the slender means still left to them.
Davis relates some of the curious superstitions of the Pueblos, among them the following from the Pecos Indians. It is said that in the estufa the sacred fire was kept constantly burning, having been originally kindled by Montezuma. It was in a basin of a small altar, and in order to prevent its becoming extinguished, a watch was kept over it day and night. The tradition runs that Montezuma enjoined upon their ancestors not to allow it to expire until he should return to deliver them from the Spaniards, and hence their devotion to it. He was expected to appear with the rising sun, and every morning the Indians went upon the housetops, and with eyes turned toward the east, looked for the coming of their monarch. Alas! for them, he never came, and alas! too, for the lovers of these picturesque tradi-
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tions, it is probable that they never knew of Montezuma, except through their conquerors.
That some idea of the numbers which occupied the pueblos before their decimation by wars and pestilences may be obtained, we give the estimates afforded by the chronicler of Espejo's expedition in 1582. In one of the provinces visited there was a town, or cluster of towns, estimated to contain 40,000 souls, possessing great herds of cattle, and raising large crops of cotton and vegetables ; in another 14,000 were found, with markets and plazas, where the people congregated for trading purposes. Many of the dwellings were plastered, and painted in various colors, and the better class wore beautiful and curious mantles of their own weaving. In another there were 30,000, and at a distance of twenty-eight leagues from Cibola (Zuni), direction not stated, was a province containing 50,000. The last visited had 40,000. When the smoldering embers had expired, they gave up all hope of deliverance, and sought homes elsewhere. The task of watching the sacred fires was assigned to the warriors, who served by turns for a period of two days and two nights at a time, without eating or drinking, while some say they remained on duty until death or exhaustion relieved them from their post. The remains of those who died from the effect of watching are said to have been carried to the den of a great serpent, which appears to have lived upon these delicacies alone.
Gregg* says: "This huge snake-invented no doubt by the lovers of the marvelous to account for the constant disappearance of the Indians-was represented as the idol which they worshiped, and as subsisting entirely upon the flesh of his devotees. The story of this wonderful serpent was so firmly believed in by many ignorant people that on one occasion I heard an honest ranchero assert that upon entering a village very early upon a winter's morning he saw the huge trail of the reptile in the snow, as large as that of a dragging ox."
*Commerce of the Prairies.
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Gregg gives it as his opinion that the Navajoes are a remnant of the Aztec race, which remained in the north when that people migrated toward Anahuac, and mentions the superiority of their skill in the manufacture of blankets, cotton goods, embroidery in feathers, and so forth. The alliance is further suggested by the wonderful skill of both ancient and modern Mexicans in feather work. Humboldt fixes the country of the Navajoes as the region inhabited by the Aztecs of the twelfth century.
Among the recent works relating to the pueblo Indians, is one published in 1884 by John G. Bourke, U. S. A.,* who visited that country in 1881. Having seen in their estufas many seashells, and having inquired where they were found, the following legend was related to him by one of the old men of the tribe :
" Many years ago, the Moquis lived upon the other side of a high mountain (range) beyond the San Juan River, in the southwestern corner of Colorado. The chief of those who lived there thought he would take a trip down the big river, to see where it went to. He made a boat from a hollow cottonwood log, took some provisions, and started down. The stream carried him to the seashore, where he found the shells. When he arrived on the beach, he saw on the top of a cliff a number of houses, in which lived many men and women. They had white un- der their eyes, and below that a white mark. That night he took unto himself one of the women as his wife. Shortly after his return to his home, the woman gave birth to snakes, and this was the origin of the Snake family (gens or clans), which manages this dance. When she gave birth to these snakes, they bit a number of the children of the Moquis. The Moquis then moved in a body (down from the San Juan) to their present villages, and they have this dance to conciliate the snakes, so they wont bite their children."
Says Bourke: "My own suspicion is that one of the minor objects of the Snake Dance has been the perpetuation in dramatic form of the legend of the origin and growth of the Moqui family.
* Snake Dances of the Moquis of Arizona.
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For example, salt water, sand and seashells seen in the estufas may have symbolized their emergence from the ocean-their landing upon the western coast, with their huddling together, and smoking in company with the crawling reptiles, in all probability conserved the tradition of a prehistoric life in caves which snakes infested."
We learn from Sylvester Baxter* that the Zunis believe their gods brought them to a dry and sterile country for a home, but that their forefathers taught them the prayers and songs whereby that land might be blessed with rain. They therefore addressed their prayers to spirits dwelling in the ocean, the home of all water, as the source from which their blessings came. They believe their prayers brought the clouds from the ocean, guided by the spirits of their ancestors, and the clouds gave them rain. The Zunis have had a knowledge of the oceans from time immemorial, and besides the Atlantic and the "Ocean of Hot Water" (Gulf of Mexico), they speak of the "Ocean of Sunset" and the "Ocean of the Place of Ever- lasting Snow," and they include all four under the name of the "Waters embracing the World." When asked how it was that they knew all about the ocean, one of them replied : "Farther back than a long time ago our fathers told their children about the 'Ocean of the Sunrise.' We ourselves did not know it. We had not seen it. We knew it in the prayers they had taught us, and by the things they had handed down to us, and which came from its waters."
At the council when Nai-in-tchi was told that he had been chosen to go to Washington with Cushing, he repeated the ancient Zuni tradition of the people that had gone to the eastward in the days when all mankind was one, and said that now our "Lost Others," as they were called, might be coming back to meet them in the shape of Americans. They talked incessantly of the Americans, repeated all the traditions within their recollection, and among them this: "A strange and unknown people are the Americans, and in a far-off and unknown land they live. Thus said our ' Old Ones'-ancestors."
*"Century Magazine," August, 1882.
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Bourke says one of the Moqui Indians told him that human sacrifice was the custom of his ancestors, and that if the tribes to the south in Mexico (the Aztecs) "did that, they were one people with us. We have one religion, and human sacrifice was the practice of our forefathers."
At Zuni also, a venerable chief who talked Spanish quite fluently, said to him : " In the days of long ago all the Pueblos, Moquis, Zunis, Acoma, Laguna, Jemez, and others, had the religion of human sacrifice at the time of the feast of fire. The victim had his throat cut, and his breast opened, and his heart taken out by one of the Cochinas (priests). That was their method of asking good fortune, The Mexicans (Span- iards) came, and they had another method; they went to church and prayed to God. They would not allow the Pueblos to keep up the good old custom."
These traditions have been cited to illustrate the drift of the Indian mind in regard to his ancestry. If they were handed down from a remote period, of which there is at least a certain probability, they also indicate a connection between these people and the Aztecs.
The distinguished historian, Hubert Howe Bancroft, who has given in his " Native Races" much valuable information concerning the Aztec language, says: "It was the court language of American civilization, the Latin of mediæval, and the French of modern times ; it was used as the means of holding intercourse with non-Aztec speaking peoples, also by all ambassadors, and in all official communications. * * * It is also possible that it may at one time have been used even east of the Mississippi, as will appear from the statements of Acosta and Sahagun. The latter says that the Apalaches, living east of the Mississippi, extended their expeditions far into Mexico, and were proud to show to the first conquerors of their country the great highways in which they traveled. Acosta affirms that the Mexicans called these Apalaches Natuices, or mountaineers. Of all the languages spoken on the American continent, the Aztec is the most perfect and finished, approaching in this respect the tongues of
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Europe and Asia, and actually surpassing many of them by its elegance of expression." Mendieta says that "it is not excelled in beauty by the Latin, displaying even more art in its construction and abounding in tropes and metaphors." Clavigero says it is copious, polite and expressive.
In bringing this prolific subject to a close, the reader is invited to take into just consideration the fact that even a rapid digest would extend it beyond the limit of this volume. He will therefore readily pardon the brevity of its treatment here. It is not our purpose to burden these pages with more than is essential to a correct apprehen- sion of the origin, so far as any one has been enlightened, of the people who ages ago inhabited a small portion of Colorado. This object has been as fully met in the foregoing chapters as it is possible for any history thus far published to attain.
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CHAPTER VI.
1582 TO 1806. REVIVAL OF EXPLORATIONS FROM MEXICO-THE EXPEDITION OF DON JUAN DE ONATE-COLONIZATION OF NEW MEXICO-DISCOVERY OF GOLD IN THE SAN LUIS VALLEY-MARCHES OF ONATE AND PENALOSA TO THE MISSOURI RIVER- FRENCH EXPEDITIONS FROM NEW ORLEANS-THE PILGRIMAGE OF FATHERS ESCA- LANTE AND GARCIA TO THE SAN JUAN MOUNTAINS, AND THROUGH VARIOUS PARTS OF COLORADO-THE EXPLORATIONS OF LIEUT. ZEBULON M. PIKE AND HIS CAPTURE BY THE SPANIARDS-THE FIRST DISCOVERER OF GOLD ON THE UPPER ARKANSAS- ORIGINAL AMERICAN VISITORS TO THIS REGION.
December 10, 1582, an expedition commanded by Don Antonio de Espejo, marched up from Mexico to the Rio Grande in the vicinity of Albuquerque. After a cursory examination of the country, he returned by way of the Pecos Valley, passing down into Northwestern Texas. He was followed in 1591 by Don Juan de Onate, a wealthy and vigorous cavalier of Zacatecas, with the especial purpose of establishing colonies at various points, and thus confirming the Spanish title to the country. He came also in search of the precious metals, and, more fortunate than his predecessors, found many valuable mines. The first colony was located on the north side of the Chama in a beautiful valley just above its junction with the Rio Grande. The settlement remains to the pres- ent day, and while not large, is thrifty, and, to all appearances, pros- perous. In the course of his numerous explorations, Onate penetrated the San Luis Park, between the Culebra and Trinchera above Fort Gar- land,and, it is said, located and partly opened mines containing gold and silver. Returning to the colony on the Chama, he projected a still more extensive journey which carried him between the Arkansas and Platte Rivers, and it is believed, very nearly if not quite to the Missouri.
On the 6th of March, 1662, Don Diego de Peñalosa, with a con-
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siderable force, left Mexico for Santa Fe, and from there passed down into Kansas to its eastern borders.
In 1724 M. De Bourgmont, then in command of the French forces stationed at Fort Orleans, on the Missouri River, not far from the pres- ent site of Kansas City,-more precisely near Camden, or the mouth of Grand River-was directed to make an " exploratory voyage " westward, for a twofold object. First, to bring the Osage, Kaw or Kansas Indians, the Otoes and the Padoucas or Pawnees into council, and to conclude with them a durable treaty. Second, by this means to assure a per- manent peace between these constantly warring tribes, and thereby promote the fur trade, which was too frequently interrupted by tribal conflicts. Next, the government of Louisiana hoped to attach all these Indians to the interests of France, by inducing them to abandon their traffic with the Spaniards of New Mexico, for which concession the French agreed to aid and protect them against their enemies. In July, De Bourgmont proceeded westward a distance of something over one hundred and fifty miles. He was taken ill and returned to Fort Orleans, but left a part of his command and all his goods with the Kansas Indians. Returning in September, this officer advanced further west on the same parallel to a point not far from Fort Ellsworth, in Western Kansas. Here he concluded a treaty with the Kansas and Pawnees, and an agree- ment that peace should be preserved between them. He discovered in this expedition that the Kansas River and its tributaries extended west" ward some four hundred to five hundred miles ; that the Padoucas had villages on the Platte, the head of the Smoky Hill and near the sources of the Republican Fork in our present state of Colorado ; that the Span- iards traded with the Padoucas; that the latter obtained from them cattle and horses ; also that the Spaniards mined great quantities of silver, and the Indians explained to him their methods of producing it. It will be remembered that after the final subjugation of the natives, years after Coronado's invasion, these people were enslaved and put to work in the mines.
This is the first authentic account we have of the Kansas and
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Colorado prairies since the sixteenth century, when Louis Moscoso and Coronado explored them as recorded in a previous chapter. There is evidence, however, that both before and after De Bourgmont's expedi- tions, Spanish exploring parties had in the eighteenth century, penetrated northward from Santa Fe to the Yellowstone and Missouri Rivers. This was established by the capture, about 1720, of a Spanish map which gave as then drawn, an altogether misleading idea of the Missouri, and its headwaters as conceived by Spaniards from New Mexico.
In 1740-50 the Spaniards, who had for one hundred and sixty years frequented the Valley of the Arkansas, the South and North Platte Rivers and the heads of the Kansas, had at times attempted to secure a foothold in that region, but never succeeded in establishing them- selves permanently at any point northeast of the Raton and Sangre de Cristo ranges. Still the remains of old acequias, house foundations, etc., that for thirty or forty miles below the present city of Pueblo may be seen along the Arkansas River, indicate a very restricted occupation. Although Spanish grants had been made extending for miles below the Huerfano, permanent settlements never could have been maintained there, exposed, as they must have been, to frequent attacks from the war-like Apaches and other nomadic tribes who made this region their hunting grounds. Nevertheless, in the years mentioned above, the Spaniards kept a picket post on the Huerfano where the trail led to the Sangre de Cristo Pass. When Lieut. Pike led his expedition up the Arkansas in 1806-7, he passed the spot where Pueblo now stands, but neither houses nor settlers were there at that period. Indeed, the entire valley was deserted even by the Indians, except now and then a war or hunting party. Pike discovered, however, that Spanish goods and wares were not uncommon among the prairie Indians, and that a troop of Spanish cavalry had not long before penetrated to the headwaters of the Kansas and Republican Rivers. But at that time no route existed known to any one, which led to the settlements of New Mexico from the Missouri. The Santa Fe trail was not opened nor traveled until
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after 1820. Yet, in 1824-26 Spanish troops had escorted trains to the Arkansas en route for trade at St. Louis or Independence, Mo.
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