USA > Louisiana > The province and the states, a history of the province of Louisiana under France and Spain, and of the territories and states of the United States formed therefrom, Vol. I > Part 4
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The expedition was wholly barren of results. No gold nor precious stones were discovered. It was learned that the country contained no such minerals. But the Spaniards found a land of wonderful fertility, possessing inexhaustible quantities of timber, wild game in great abundance, a splendid climate, and conditions generally which promised every reward to the agriculturalist. But the army of De Soto did not seek the wilderness of Louisiana · for the purpose of founding a colony in anything but a land flow- ing with gold and jewels. They did not see the wonderful pos- sibilities of the soil, the climate, the sun and the velvet savannas. They forced the natives to guide them to their villages that they might despoil them of provisions and of life. For more than a hundred years, while Spain was still in the flower of her somber glory, she had no thought of Louisiana. ' An empire the fairest the sun ever shone upon went begging so far as miserable Spain was concerned. She was busy thinking how to kill the 40,000,000 savage heretics in the two Americas.
Among the incidents growing out of the journey of De Soto westward of the Mississippi was the detention by the cacique, Anilco, of Roger D'Estrange, who had been sent by De Soto to conciliate that chief after the return of the expedition to the Mississippi. Having finally managed to escape, in company with an Indian friend named Choquo, he wandered around through
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eastern Arkansas, his precise route being wholly uncertain, until at last, through the influence of Choquo, he fell in with a friendly tribe, among whom there was living Diego de Guzman, who had voluntarily left or deserted from the army, mainly by reason of his ardent love for a beautiful Indian girl, Winona, and with whom he desired to live. He had been made a chief by the Indians, and was living with them on what is now believed to have been Washita river in the province called Carguta. In order to possess the advantage to be derived from the superior knowledge of the white man, the cacique had adopted De Guzman, and now for the sant reason, influenced by the latter, D'Estrange was likewise adopted and made a sub-chief. Both men married Indian maidens, and made themselves very useful to the Indians, in improving their military and domestic service. It is claimed that they succeeded in making rude copper and iron vessels, imple- ments, tools and weapons, having first prepared charcoal. Upon the return of the army under Moscoso from the west, he encoun- tered the Indians under De Guzman, and tried to induce the latter to rejoin the Spanish forces; but he refused, whereupon Moscoso threatened to have him arrested, brought into the Spanish camp, and punished for desertion. But in the end this course was found to be wholly impracticable, owing to the deplorable condi- tion of the Spanish army and to the unwisdom of stirring up the nation of Indians, whom, no doubt, De Guzman could bring to his assistance. However, D'Estrange, who had long cherished such a resolution, determined to leave the Indians and the country, and accordingly did so, taking with him his Indian wife, to whom he was legally married at the first opportunity. With the army of Moscoso he sailed down the Mississippi, and thence along the Gulf of Mexico .*
The "Seven Cities of Cibolo," about which there has been and doubtless will be a vast degree of conjecture, and the location of which will always be more or less an uncertainty, seem to have had once an actual existence. The towns of the Pueblos, with their many squares, enclosing buildings three hundred and four hundred feet long and over one hundred fifty feet wide, varying from two to seven stories high and built of solid walls several feet thick, had doubtless attained among the natives themselves distinction and perhaps fame long before Europeans attempted
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* How much dependence may be placed in this story of D'Estrange is largely a intter of conjecture. Inasmuch as there seems no good reason to dispute its main features, the above brief account is therefore here inserted, though not vouched for.
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to reach them. The rich spoils which had fallen to the con- querors of Mexico and Peru, indicated to the Spaniards of the former the probability of finding similar plunder in the region of the "Seven Cities," and still further cast a glamour of splendor over the idea of the conquest that should subject another empire to the kingdom of Spain. The stories of the Indian slave, Tejos, contributed to the belief in the existence of the cities and in the extravagant tales of their magnitude and wealth. His statements were eagerly believed that he had visited the "Cities," and that they were as large and as populous as the City of Mexico. All these reports taken together seemed based upon substantial facts- upon something more real and promising than idle dreams or fantasies. Accordingly, Nuno de Guzman, the master of Tejos, determined to send an expedition to find the "Seven Cities," and reduce them to Spanish authority. Ile was then at the head of the Royal Audience of Spain, possessed sufficient power in official quarters, and soon succeeded in raising an army of four hundred Spaniards and twenty thousand Indians, and set forth on his journey through an unexplored wilderness of six hundred miles. But his expedition was wholly unprepared for such a journey. The hardships melted his army away, dissipated their dreams, and revealed the impracticability of such a conquest on the lines which he had adopted. It soon came to an abrupt termination followed by a straggling return to Mexico.
But the tales remained unshaken and the dreams undimmed. The arrival of Cabeza de Vaca and his companions revived the idea of conquest. He told of passing through populous lands, where the intelligent and friendly natives lived in fixed habita- tions in large and flourishing towns. He told of their pursuits, their broad acres of grain, their prodigious wealth, and kindled anew the designs of immediate conquest. The governor of New Gallacia, Francisco Vasquez Coronado, caught the flame and deter- mined to act. He first sent out an expedition of inquiry under Fray Marcos de Nizza, guided by Stephen the Arabian, who had accompanied De Vaca on his journey across the continent. Upon their return after a long time, they told that they had found the "Seven Cities," but had not been permitted to enter therein and that the Arabian had been killed. The stories told surpassed anything yet circulated.
The sentiment of the people would not wait for the return of advices from the crown of Spain. The Spanish blood in the New World was too rapid for such lethargic proceedings, and within a few weeks the people took fire, and began to form themselves
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into bodies for the exploration of the country. This was a spon- taneous movement of the Franciscans, but it was an index of the wishes of the people to be led to the land about which so many golden tales had been told. No doubt, Fray Marcos had much to do in setting the fire raging. Finally, so general became the movement, that the viceroy was obliged to take control of the body of men bent upon making the journey. It now assumed an aristocratic character. Coronado was appointed the commander. At once, courtiers and nobles-the proudest in all Mexico- flocked to his standard, and from them the bravest, richest and most influential were selected-grandees, in whose blood ran the pride of a thousand years. Profiting by the experience of De Guzman, he limited his army and prepared for the hardships of an uncertain and unpropitious future ; because battles, continuous and bloody, in the land of the enemy, were expected, and it was realized that many would never return. The forces were rendez- voused at Compostella, the capital of New Gallacia. Late in Feb- ruary, 1540, the army, consisting of about three hundred Spaniards and eight hundred Indians, set out with great pomp and with hopes fluttering far higher than their own high-flown banners. The Viceroy himself accompanied the party for two days, so great was the enthusiasm. But as each man had a heavy load to carry, the labor soon took the gloss from the enthusiasm, as Coronado had intended. When they reached Chiametla they were ready to stop for a few days in order to rest and to secure a fresh supply of provisions. Here their first collision with the natives, an unfortunate affair, occurred, and several Indians were hanged. About this time, also, Melchior Diaz, who had been sent out on a preliminary expedition by Coronado, returned with sad tales of the condition of things to the north. His account dif- fered materially from the gauzy tales of Fray Marcos.
Coronado now left the main body of the Spaniards to the com mand of Tristan de Arellano, and with fifty horsemen and a few men on foot set out in a northeast direction, leaving instructions for the others to follow him in a fortnight. After traveling for more than a month, he came to a desert, on the border of which was a village. . He had thus far met with disappointment every- where, because the tales told by De Vaca and Fray Marcos were in no respects verified. The natives were poor and had few provi- sions ; but were friendly, doubtless because it would have been folly for them to be otherwise. The village on the border of the desert was called Chichiilticalli, or the Red House; and instead of being a populous place not far from the sea, it consisted of a
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single house, long, ruined, roofless, but bearing the appearance of having been at one time a fortified work of an intelligent people. Continuing in a northeast direction over the desert for two weeks, they came to a turbid river which they called Vermejo. They now learned that they were only cight leagues from Cibola. Early the next day, they barely escaped an ambuscade of the hos- tile natives, and soon arrived at the famous city of Cibola. What a disappointment ! It was a little village of not more than two hundred inhabitants, located on rocky heights and very difficult of access. Coronado renamed it Granada, owing to its rocky situ- ation, and because the name Cibola did not apply to any one village, but to the whole province, which contained seven prin- . cipal towns. The inhabitants indicated a hostile spirit, and refused the friendly advances of the whites; whereupon, being in sore need of water and provisions, it was resolved to try to carry the place by assault. The attack was accordingly made, but had it not been for the armor of the Spaniards they would doubtless have lost many men, so desperate was the resistance encountered. Clubs, showers of stones, arrows and other missiles met the Spaniard at every turn. Coronado himself was felled to the earth, and came near losing his life. In about an hour's time the place was captured, which strong position gave the Spaniard's the command of the entire district or province. But the expected gold was not forthcoming. The turquoises were missing. The dreams of the Spaniards began to dissipate in fleecy clouds along the edges of the Apache desert. Curses and maledictions were heaped on the heads of Fray Marcos and De Vaca. It was soon realized that the great object of the expedition-gold and other riches-would not be realized; whereupon it was determined to make the most of what there was in the way of spoils. No thought was given to the savages by the merciless Spaniards, who prepared to visit their wrath on them for the lies which scores of years had accumulated. The Spaniards did not scruple to take the last in the larder of the poverty-stricken savages. It was done, however, in the name of God and Mary and the cross, amid the prayers of the many priests who accompanied the expedition for the principal purpose of saving the souls of the soldiers who should be wounded, by administering to them extreme unction just before their wicked souls should slip over the divide between the here and the hereafter.
Here Coronado determined to await the arrival of the remainder of his forces, before deliberately ransacking and destroying the villages of the unfortunate natives. In the meantime he sent
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dispatches containing an account of his expedition thus far to the viceroy under date of August 3, 1540, the year of our Lord. The diabolical designs of these gold-maddened wretches put one in mind of the atrocities of that other historic, Spanish institution- the Holy Inquisition. All was done in the name of God. The zealous priest had before the dying eyes of the murdered native the cross of Christ, thinking to save his heathen spirit, but really to quiet his own consciousness for dastardly wrongdoing and to impress his miserable followers with the glories of the Catholic faith. Nothing could stay the ruthless intentions of the savage Spaniards. Their disappointment must be glutted in the blood of the Indians, in the ruin of their villages, in the desecration of their simple temples, in the ravishment of their homes and the enslavement of the people. What matter if these unknown wretches should be wholly swept from the earth? On these hills would rise the missions of the Catholics and the cross of Christ. It was right that the gold of the heathen should advance the cause of the true God. It was right that the worshippers of the sun and the monstrous idols should give way to the avarice and the sword of the so-called Christians. So it came to pass that not one thought was given the doomed savages by the no less savage and barbarous grandees.
In November, 1540, they reached the province of Tiguex, through which flowed a large river, since called the Rio Grande del Norte. While here, they heard tales of immense quantities of gold farther to the east-always farther away like a will-of- the-wisp. Coronado was assured by a native called "The Turk" that large quantities of gold could be found by traveling toward the rising sun. Here the harsh treatment of the natives by the Spaniards to compel them to tell all they knew in regard to gold kindled the indignation and eventual hostility of all the natives. The nature of the Spaniards was such that they could not treat the natives humanely ; they must necessarily abuse and maltreat them beyond the point of forbearance or endurance. The trouble arose over some gold bracelets which "The Turk" said the natives possessed; but which they denied, calling "The Turk" a liar. The leaders were accordingly taken by the Spaniards and kept in chains for six months in order to force them to tell where the bracelets were. It transpired that there were no such bracelets in existence. "The Turk" had really lied. But the punishment fell on the native leaders, and their incarceration set the inhabi- tants on fire.
It was in Tiguex that the Spaniards saw private houses seven
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stories in height. It was now December, 1540, and snow fell almost every night. The cold was severe, but there was an abun- dance of fuel, so that the troops were kept from freezing. But the natives had revolted and were now all hostile, owing to the harsh treatment they had received. Gold, the root of all evil, had caused the trouble. They demanded a large quantity of cloth of the natives, and, when it was not forthcoming soon enough, pro- ceeded forcibly to strip the clothing from the natives they met. This led to open war, in which the savages acquitted themselves with the greatest courage. An act of base treachery, whereby the Spaniards violated the commonest rules of warfare, still further kindled the wrath of all the natives against them and led to the widening of the fields of combat. One town after another began to fall, but not without severe loss to the Spaniards, from the poisoned arrows of the natives and otherwise. Whole provinces were soon subjugated.
As soon as the ice began to break in the spring of 1541, Coro- nado made preparations to advance eastward to the country where "The Turk" had declared so much gold existed-Quivira, Arche, Guyas, etc. The army departed from Tiguex on April 23, 1541, taking a southeasterly course ; and after five days of travel reached a river so large that they were forced to build a bridge to cross it. This is thought to have been the Pecos. After passing this river, they still pursued a southeast direction over the rich plains, and after many days came upon an immense herd of buf- faloes, which was being pursued by a band of Querechos. The latter were friendly and toll Coronado that farther to the east were the people who possessed the gold. The Querechos pos- sessed large packs of hunting dogs, and were very strong and skillful with the bow, being able to drive an arrow entirely through a buffalo. They said that to the east was a large river, where a dense population dwelt, and that their nearest village was called Haxa. Ten men under Diego Lopez were sent to find and explore this village; but, after marching twenty leagues, they returned without having found anything of note. The gaudy stories of "The Turk" began to be discredited from this moment. The guides conflicting in their advices, Coronado sent out another expedition of a few men on a scout before advancing with his whole army, but learned nothing, except that an old native told them that he had seen the party of La Vaca which had passed there a few years before. The whole army coming up, they deliberately took possession of all the tanned skins of the natives-a large quantity-greatly to their indignation. Thus the
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Spaniards eternally continued to rob, cheat, or hoodwink the friendly natives, changing them to deadly enemies and stultifying themselves. Civil words will never quite wipe out the record of the infamous treatment inflicted on the natives, who, at first, were exceedingly friendly, giving up their last robe and provision to the strangers, but who were then robbed of the remainder of their possessions and shot, if they dared to show resentment, which they invariably did, be it said to their credit. It was coax, cajole, rob, shoot, ravish and devastate, until history should stamp thie word "knave" or "murderer" on the name of every Spaniard who had any dealings with the native Americans.
A reconnoitering party sent out came upon a small band of wandering Indians who called themselves Teyas (probably Texas), and who conducted the army for three days to their vil- lage called Cona. Here the Spaniards learned that Quivira was distant about thirty days' march in a northerly direction. A little farther on they reached a very large and fine valley, where wild fruits were abundant, and here they rested. It was now evident that the stories of gold were false, that "The Turk" had lied, that many natives had been guilty of the same offense, and that the object of the expedition had dissipated in visions. A council of war was held and it was determined that Coronado should take about thirty of the strongest and bravest horsemen and set out in search of Quivira, while the remainder of the army under Arrellano should return to Tiguex. This decision met with con- siderable opposition from the soldiers, who did not wish to be separated from Coronado and especially from the search after Quivira. But something must be done and this was regarded as the wisest course. They were now, doubtless, in northern, central Texas.
Coronado set out to find Quivira, taking a northerly direction, and for thirty or forty days traveled over the dry plains of Texas, Indian Territory, and Kansas, until he finally arrived at a large river, which was doubtless, the Arkansas. He must have arrived in the vicinity of the modern Kinsley, Kansas, because, when he continued, he journeyed down the river in a northeasterly direction, which would have been impossible had he reached any other portion of that river. It could not have been the Missouri, because 110 where does the Missouri flow northeasterly. The only other river it might have been was the Republican fork of the Kansas in Nebraska, but it is not likely that this branch was the one reached. It could not have been the Red river, because it had required thirty or forty days of travel to reach it after
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leaving the main army. The Arkansas is the only river that answers all the conditions. They had been in Texas, where, it was recorded, two crops a year were raised by the Indians. The distance covered-about three hundred sixty miles-in the time mentioned would be about right, because they had to travel in the heat of midsummer and had to cross all the water courses at right angles, which would necessarily make their progress com- paratively slow. He named the river Saints Peter and Paul and stopped to rest on its banks. Another much larger river was far ahead, it was reported, and was called Teucarea, no doubt the Missouri or Platte. During the wearisome journey across the plains he and his men had lived almost exclusively on buffalo meat, and had often used the milk of that animal to drink. Learning that there were villages down the river, he crossed the stream and continued down the same along the north bank in a northeasterly direction, until finally on a branch of the main river he reached the first of the towns on this water course. Continu- ing four or five days more he reached in succession six or seven other villages, until finally he arrived at one called Quivira, on one of the northern branches of the Arkansas. But what a sore disappointment ! Instead of the six or seven-storied, stone build- ings, the spacious squares, a happy people clad in warm, thick cloth, and an abundance of gold and silver ornaments, the infuri- ated Spaniards beheld only straw-built huts, a savage people who ate their buffalo meat raw, no cloth whatever, but in its place only tanned buffalo skins, and not an ounce of gold or silver in the entire province, if the people were intelligent enough to have such a civic subdivision. The Spaniards had for some time antici- pated such a finality, and as a matter of precaution had placed "The Turk" in chains to prevent his possible escape. They now closely questioned him as to his motive in thus so roundly lying to them. He replied that, as his own country lay beyond Quivira, he had done so to prevent the Spaniards from visiting and impoverishing his people; and that the inhabitants of Cibola had begged him to lead the Spaniards astray in the desert in hopes that they would all perish and never again be seen in . Cibola. One night, while at Quivira, he endeavored to incite an attack on the Spanish forces, hoping thus to massacre all of them, but the attempt was discovered before any damage had been done. How- ever, his participancy in the attempt was discovered, whereupon the Spaniards in fury fell upon him and strangled him to death. Thuis fell a man whose falsehoods were of such gigantic character
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that his name should be placed by the side of those of Ananias and Munchausen; but it may be said that this man lied to save his people and his race, and that, therefore, his falsehoods were justifiable. The statement should be permitted to stand as against the murderous Spaniards.
Coronado fixes Quivira in forty degrees of north latitude; but of course not having suitable instruments he may have missed the correct location by thirty minutes or more. He said the soil was rich and black and watered by many streams and had an abundance of grapes and plums. He remained in the vicinity of these villages, possibly on Republican river, for about twenty- five days, sending out exploring parties in the meantime in hopes of making some discovery of importance. But in this he was doomed to disappointment. The plains of Kansas had no gold for him. But the soil was there offering a bountiful harvest to the husbandman, the streams were there with their never-failing supply of moisture for the grain of the civilized man; the rich pastures, rolling like green silk beneath the stirring breeze and the glowing sun, offered food to thousands of cattle and sheep. But these happy pictures were the last in the minds of the gold- mad Spaniards. Filled with bitterness, they prepared to leave the fabled Quivira enveloped in maledictions, while they pointed doubtless with grim satisfaction to the rude grave of "The Turk," who had lied so well to save his poor people from the Spanish barbarians. The Spaniards collected all the corn they could from the inhabitants, and the latter part of July started to rejoin their comrades at Tiguex. They returned over the route they had come as far as the river Saints Peter and Paul, but then instead of going nearly southward, turned somewhat toward the west and finally came out at the spot where they had first met the Querechos, and had been turned from the direct course to Qui- vira by the subterfuge of the poor "Turk." Thus they traversed again Kansas, Indian Territory, and Texas. Finally, after forty days of travel on their return, they reached Cicuye.
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