USA > New Mexico > History of New Mexico : its resources and people, Volume I > Part 4
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Throughout these early expeditions we find the lure of gold the in- centive to exploration and conquest. The kingdoms of the Montezumas had been possessed and spoliated, and Spanish conquistadors were seeking every new field to north or south that offered wealth or dominion. The vague knowledge of the regions to the north, based on native legend and adventurers' fiction, was soon to be tested and clarified by exploration and official investigation.
JOURNEY OF FRIAR MARCOS.
Eight years after Nuño de Guzman made his expedition he was deposed from the office of governor and the viceroy Don Antonio de Mendoza ap- pointed to his place Francisco Vasquez de Coronado. The new governor was a man of wonderful energy and ambitions, and through his exploits in . exploration and discovery his name has become one of the greatest in the lists of Spanish pioneers in the new world.
The avenues of discovery all led to the north, beyond the Sierra Madre mountains and the deserts of Chihuahua and Sonora. De Vaca's stories hastened the plans of the new governor, who began preparations for an expedition as soon as he had established himself in office. He had taken with him to Culiacan the negro Stephen, who had shared the hardships
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and dangers with De Vaca, and three Franciscan friars, one of whom was named Friar Marcos of Nice. Marcos of Nice combined religious zeal with love of adventure, and his offer to explore the famed regions to the north was accepted by Coronado, who sent along as guide the negro Stephen and the two lay friars, besides a number of Indians.
The account of this journey of Marcos of Nice to the land of Cibola, as told by Pedro de Castañeda, who wrote the history of Coronado's explorations about twenty years after they took place, has such direct in- terest in this connection that this initial event in New Mexico's history may be told in the language of one whose point of view was only a few years removed from the actual occurrence.
"It seems," relates Castañeda,# "that after the friars I have men- tioned and the negro had started, the negro did not get on well with the friars, because he took the women that were given him and collected turquoises, and got together a stock of everything. Besides, the Indians in those places through which they went got along with the negro better, because they had seen him before. This was the reason he was sent on ahead to open up the way and pacify the Indians, so that when the others came along they had nothing to do except to keep an account of the things for which they were looking.
"After Stephen had left the friars he thought he could get all the reputation and honor himself, and that if he could discover those settle- ments with such famous high houses alone, he would be considered bold and conrageous. * He was so far ahead of the friars that when these reached Chichilticalli, which is on the edge of the wilderness, he was already at Cibola. * As I said, Stephen reached Cibola loaded with a large quantity of turquoises they had given him and some beautiful women whom the Indians who followed him and carried his things were taking with them and had given him. These had followed him from all the settlements he had passed, believing that under his protection they could traverse the whole world without any danger.
"But as the people in this country were more intelligent than those who followed Stephen, they lodged him in a little hut they had ontside their village, and the older men and the governors heard his story and took steps to find out the reason he had come to that country. For three days they made inquiries about him and held a council. The account which the negro gave them of two white men who were following him, sent by a great lord, who knew about the things in the sky, and how these were coming to instruct them in divine matters, made them think that he must be a spy or a guide for some nations who wished to come and conquer them, because it seemed to them unreasonable to say that the people were white in the country from which he came and that he was sent by them, he being black. Besides these other reasons, they thought it hard of him to ask them for turquoises and women, and so they decided to kill him. They did this, but they did not kill any of those who went with him, although they kept some young fellows, and allowed the others, abont sixty persons, to return freely to their own country. As these, who were badly scared, were returning in flight, they happened to come upon the friars
*In George Parker Winship's edition of "The Journey of Coronado" (New York, 1904).
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in the desert sixty leagues from Cibola, and told them the sad news, which frightened them so much that they would not even trust these folks who had been with the negro, but opened the packs they were carrying and gave away everything they had except the holy vestments for saying mass. They returned from here by double marches, prepared for anything, without seeing any more of the country except what the Indians told them."
Accepting this account of this first known expedition to the pueblos of New Mexico, it is reasonable to assume that the friars did not set foot on soil now comprised in this Territory, and Stephen alone visited the villages of Cibola and paid for his conduct with his life. Yet the incidents of this journey establish the first definite connection with this region, and form a link in the chain of circumstances which led to the exploration and.occupa- tion of the Territory. Marcos himself was content to view Cibola from a dis- tance. Cibola, according to his description, translated into English by Hakluyt, is "situate on a plaine at the foot of a round hill, and maketh shew to bee a faire citie, and is better seated than any I have seene in these partes. The houses are builded in order, according as the Indians told me, all made of stone with divers stories and flatte roofes, as far as I could discern from. a mountain, whither I ascended to view the cities."
Friar Marcos hastened south "with more fear than victuals," arriving at Culiacan in August, 1539, and reported to the governor with such elabora- tion the things which Stephen had discovered and what they had heard from the Indians, "that, without stopping for anything, the governor set off at once for the City of Mexico, taking Friar Marcos with him, to tell the viceroy about it." In a short time the capital of New Spain was astir with the preparation for an expedition which it was hoped would surpass all predecessors in discoveries of wealth and conquest of native tribes. Three hundred Spaniards and 800 natives soon assembled to take part in the expedition, to command which the viceroy appointed the tireless Coro- nado, governor of New Galicia.
THE CORONADO EXPEDITION.
In February, 1540, the members of the Cibola expedition assembled at Compostela, west of the City of Mexico, on the Pacific coast. On Easter day the army arrived at the city of Culiacan. Thence setting out with seventy-five horsemen and a few footmen in advance of the army, the gen- eral proceeded northward through the inhabited country as far as the Gila river, or Chichilticalli, "where the desert begins." Already discouraging reports had come in, many in direct refutation of the glowing pictures which Friar Marcos, who accompanied this expedition as chaplain, had drawn from his explorations of the preceding year. In the words of Castañeda, the general "could not help feeling somewhat downhearted, for, although the reports were very fine about what was ahead, there was nobody who had seen it except the Indians who went with the negro, and these had already been caught in some lies. Besides all this, he was much affected by see- ing that the fame of Chichilticalli was summed up in one tumbledown house without any roof, although it appeared to have been a strong place at some former time, when it was inhabited, and it was very plain that it had been
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built by a civilized and warlike race of strangers, who had come from a distance."
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Fifteen days more of severe marching took them across what was called "the wilderness," to about the latitude of the Zuñi pueblos, where they turned to the right and entered what is now New Mexico. It was about the first of July when the expedition came in sight of the first of the famed "Seven Cities." This date, in the year 1540, may be taken as the starting point for New Mexico's history. It was forty-eight years after the discovery of America; it was sixty-seven years before the English set- tlement at Jamestown, eighty years before the landing of the Pilgrims, and more than two and a half centuries before the Mississippi valley and the Northwest became known to the world through the explorations of Lewis and Clarke-facts in the history of New Mexico which are not less im- pressive than interesting.
How different the realities of discovery are from alluring pictures drawn by such an idealist as Friar Marcos is set forth with much disgust by Casañeda, who throughout seems to take a rather pessimistic view of the situations and events connected with the expedition. "When they saw the first village," says he, "such were the curses that some hurled at Friar Marcos that I pray God may protect him from them. It is a little, crowded village, looking as if it had been crumpled all up together. There are ranch houses in New Spain which make a better appearance at a distance." Coronado himself, in a letter to Mendoza, says: "I can assure you that in reality he (Marcos) has not told the truth in a single thing that he has said, but everything is the reverse of what he said. except the name of the city and the large stone houses."
Coronado found the inhabitants unwilling to treat with him, the small number of his forces making them contemptible in the eyes of the Cibolans. He therefore charged the forces drawn up on the plain before the village, and, routing them, engaged in a sharp fight at the gates of the village, which in a brief time the Spaniards had entered and captured. This village of the Zuñis captured by Coronado was located several miles southwest of the village of their present New Mexican descendants.
For nearly two years Coronado and his army remained engaged in the work of exploration over a wide area of country, to which we now refer as the Southwest. The inhabitants of Cibola were soon brought under sub- jection, and successive expeditions to the surrounding villages brought a large portion of the native population under at least nominal dominion of Spain.
One of the first communities to which he directed his forces was the village groups of Moqui, in Arizona, to which he sent Don Pedro de Tovar with seventeen horsemen and several foot soldiers. "When they reached the region," quoting again from Castañeda's narrative, "they entered the country so quietly that nobody observed them, because there were no set- tlements or farms between one village and another, and the people do not leave the 'villages except to go to their farms, especially at this time, when they had heard that Cibola had been captured by very fierce people, who traveled on animals which ate people. This information was generally believed by those who had never seen horses, although it was so strange as to cause much wonder." A skirmish followed the approach of the Span- iards, but the natives were soon scattered by the firearms and discipline of
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the strangers. "The people of the whole district came together that day and submitted themselves, and they allowed him to enter their villages freely to visit, buy, sell and barter with them."
The expedition of de Tovar led to the discovery of the Grand Canyon of the Colorado by de Cardenas, whose discovery was not the least of the results accomplished on the journey of Coronado. Describing the wonderful chasm, they estimated "the water was six feet across, although the Indians said it was half a league wide, and others that some huge rocks on the sides of the cliffs seemed to be as tall as a man, but those who went down swore that when they reached these rocks they were bigger than the great tower of Seville."
A similar commission was given Hernando de Alvarado, who visited the rock fortress of Acoma and received the submission of its inhabitants ; thence proceeded northeasterly to the province of Tiguex, at or near the present Bernalillo. At Cicuye (Pccos) the people came out and welcomed the explorers with noise and ceremony. At this village the Spaniards met an Indian native of a country near Florida, who described a country rich in gold and silver and who was taken as a guide to this region. The Span- iards called the Indian "Turk," "because he looked like one," and afterward they might have added, "because he lied like one." The extravagance of his description, according to Castañeda, is illustrated in his assertions that "in his country there was a river two leagues wide, in which there were fishes as big as horses, and large numbers of very big canoes, with more than twenty rowers on a side, and that they carried sails, and that their lords sat on the poop under awnings, and on the prow they had a great golden eagle. He also said that the lord of that country took his afternoon nap under a great tree, on which were hung a great number of little golden bells, which put him to sleep as they swung in the air. He said also that every one had their ordinary dishes made of wrought plate, and the jugs and bowls were of gold." Either the Spanish explorer's imagination readily fashioned the crudest signs and most fragmentary words into golden pictures, or the native was quick to take his cue and feed his auditors with the splendorous fictions which they craved.
Coronado made the headquarters of his expedition at Tiguex during the winter of 1540-41. Here the first signs of disaffection appeared among the people, who complained that the Spaniards had not observed the mutual friendship supposed to exist. Individual acts of aggression led to a revolt on the part of the inhabitants. This was put down with the merciless severity characteristic of Spanish rule, the villages being taken by rigorous siege and plundered, and hundreds of the people killed or made prisoners. So that, despite a generally lenient policy in regard to the rest of the coun- try, "the twelve villages of Tiguex were not repopulated at all during the time the army was there, in spite of every promise of security that could possibly be given to them."
In April, 1541, Coronado, acting upon the information detailed by the "Turk," and taking him along as guide, set out in search of the fabulous Quivira, which, after Cibola, remained the seat of golden kingdom and wealth until completeness of exploration removed it forever from the thought of men. The beginning of this famous journey was made from Cicuye, or Pecos, and continued down the Pecos river. until the plains
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were reached. On the "Staked Plains" the explorers found countless herds of "cows"-buffalo, as we know them now-and the descriptions of these "hump-backed oxen" and the nomadic Indians who lived among them and subsisted on their food are among the first accounts of the region and its denizens which is now a large part of western Texas. After five weeks of journeying, mainly to the east, Coronado was no nearer the rich king- doms than at the beginning, and finally lost faith in the stories of his guides. He was then at the headwaters of the Colorado, and from that point he directed the larger part of his forces to retrace the way to the pueblos, while he, with a force of thirty horsemen and without provisions except the meat of the buffaloes and other animals which they could kill, and relying on the buffalo chips for fuel, journeyed northward many days, until he had reached about the latitude of 40 degrees, or approximately the present boundary line between the states of Kansas and Nebraska. Here, to quote his letter to the king. "I arrived at the province they call Quivira, to which the guides were conducting me, and where they had described to me houses of stone with many stories, and not only are they not of stone, but of straw, but the people in them are as barbarous as all those whom I have seen and passed before this; they do not have cloaks, nor cotton of which to make these, but use the skins of the cattle they kill, which they tan, because they are settled among these on a very large river. *
* In this province, of which the guides who brought me are natives, they re- ceived me peaceably, and, although they told me when I set out for it that I could not succeed in seeing it all in two months, there are not more than twenty-five villages of straw houses there and in all the rest of the country which I saw and learned about."
Discouraged by the meager results of his expedition, Coronado re- turned to the Rio Grande villages, and in the spring of 1542 withdrew his army of occupation, and in the fall reached Mexico, worn out and dis- heartened and without the conquest or wealth which he had hoped to gain. Yet he had discovered and, therefore, added to the dominion of Spain a vast territory. from the Grand Canyon of the Colorado to the plains of Texas and Kansas, and gained secure fame as one of the foremost explorers of the American continent.
One result which historians have conjectured to belong to Coronado's expedition should be noted. The great bands of wild horses which in more modern times roamed all over the western prairies are supposed to have sprung, in part at least, from the horses left in the country by Coronado, for it will be remembered that the horse is not indigenous to America and was not known on this continent until brought over by early Europeans.
EARLY MISSIONARIES.
The first practical missionary work on the part of the Franciscan Friars was that accomplished during the Coronado expedition by Fr. Juan de Padilla. He made the exhausting march to the elusive Quivira, believing that the Indians of that region would listen to religious teach- ings in a more receptive manner than those of Tiguex, on account of the inhuman manner in which the latter had been treated by Coronado. Some authorities think that Padilla actually reached Quivira and there met his death. Castañeda says that the friar and several companions remained
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HISTORY OF NEW MEXICO
in the eastern country, and that he was killed because he expressed the intention of visiting Guyas, the inherent enemies of the Quivirans. The remainder of the party returned to New Spain, he states, and the In- dians from Capetlan buried the priest. Jaramillo thinks that he may have been killed by his guides at the instigation of the Tiguex Indians. There is a tradition that Padilla's body lies in the old church at Isleta, and that it is resurrected from beneath the earth once in every ten years.
The following accounts of the earliest martyrs of the church in New Mexico are condensed from the sketches by Very Rev. James H. Defouri :
Juan de Padilla was a native of Andalucia. The first time we hear of him he was guardian of the convent of Tulancinco, in the present state of Hidalgo, between 1525 and 1535. From Tulancinco he was appointed guardian of the convent of Tzapotlan. He remained in office at Tzapotlan until the year 1540, when, in company with the celebrated Marcos de Niza, he joined the expedition of Coronado. When Coronado made his re- markable dash to the north and northeast as far as Quivira, and many say across the plains to the Missouri river, Father Padilla accompanied him. At the return of his unsuccessful and foolish expedition, Coronado spent at Tiguex the winter of 1541-42. Early in the spring he departed for Mexico, leaving behind Fr. Juan de Padilla and the two lay brothers, Juan de la Cruz and Luis de Escalone, with the Portuguese soldier named Campos, or, as some others call him, Andres del Campo. Two years after- ward Juan de Padilla left Tiguex and went farther, with Andres del Campo and two Donados, that is, men given to the service of the church, Lucas and Sebastian.
The people of Quivira received Fr. Padilla and his companions with great and sincere demonstrations of joy. There he stayed for a time, but, burning with zeal for the conversion of souls, he resolved to visit another tribe, at war with the people of La Quivira. They tried to hinder him, and as he was determined to go they became jealous, and, naturally suspicious, as are all the Indians, they accused him of treason. Not sat- isfied with the progress he had made in Quivira, the holy man went on his journey. He left with all his followers, but without the guides who had brought him to Quivira.
In regard to the manner of Padilla's death the versions differ. Some affirm that, having departed, he came to a grave where he had before planted a cross, knelt there to say his prayers, and that while on his knees the Indians of Quivira, following, pierced him with arrows, on the 30th of November of the year 1542. The Indians, it is said, covered him with a heap of rocks, and this became his monument. Others say that Juan de Padilla left Quivira against the wishes of the people, and that when he neared the pueblo which he was going to evangelize these barbarians ran in tumult to meet him. The venerable man begged the Portuguese, Lucas and Sebastian, to fly to save themselves, and with a spirit from heaven he put himself on his knees and there was pierced by a thousand arrows, and a heap of stones was the monument with which they decorated his tomb. Juan de Padilla died, probably, in what is now Kansas.
Juan de la Cruz was born in France, but his family name is not known, for this is the name he bore in religion. The first we know of him is the date of his coming to New Mexico in the expedition of Coronado. He was considered as a saint by the soldiers, and Coronado ordered them
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to uncover their heads on hearing or reading his name. On the de- parture of Coronado for Mexico he remained at Tiguex for a time, teach- ing the faith. But, burning with zeal for the conversion of souls, he left Tiguex and went to some other pueblo, not known, to form a new fold for Christ, and there all trace is lost of him, except that it is known he suf- fered a violent death at their hands while preaching to them. These events came to pass shortly after 1542. Juan de la Cruz was a man of great age, loved by all, anxious to suffer martyrdom for God; he expected and fre- quently spoke of his approaching death.
Luis de Escalone, also called Luis de Ubeda, probably from the place of his birth, was not a priest, but only a brother of the Franciscan order. He was appointed to accompany Juan de la Cruz at the time of Coronado's expedition. He was advanced in years and, like Juan de la Cruz, he often spoke of his impending death. At the departure of Coronado for Mexico he remained at Tiguex with the two other friars. During his stay in Tiguex, Coronado had become possessed of numerous flocks. These he put under the care of Brother Luis, who left Tiguex with the flocks, and, with the help of some Indian herders, drove them toward Pecos. That tribe received him well. But after a time the medicine men, as is most possible, if not absolutely certain, instigated by the love of gain and by their hatred of religion, roused the people against the brother. He met with a violent death, although it is not known how, and the flocks were divided among the people. It is surmised that he was pierced with arrows while at prayer.
Thus died the three first Franciscans who made a stay in New Mexico as early as 1540 to plant the faith in the country.
Coronado's report of his expedition was not such as to encourage any further immediate effort at exploration, and the next mention made of this part of the territory, in the Spanish accounts, appears under the date of 1551. In that year Sanchez Chamuscado, in command of twenty-eight men, escorted three Franciscan friars-Juan de Santa Maria, Augustino Rodriguez and Francisco Lopez-to the pueblo country, where they en- tered upon their missionary efforts to Christianize the native inhabitants. These priests, with their servants, took up their abode among the Indians, and the military escort returned to Mexico. Not long afterward two of the servants arrived in Mexico, bearing the news that all three of the priests had been assassinated and that they themselves had barely escaped with their lives. Santa Maria was killed while returning to New Spain to enlist the co-operation of additional missionaries. The two others re- turned to Puaray, where Lopez also was killed. Ruiz met his death at the hands of the Indians of the pueblo of Santiago, where he had sought refuge.
ESPEJO EXPEDITION.
When the soldiers who had fled from Puarav arrived at the mission of Santa Barbara and described the dangers which confronted the missionaries they had abandoned, the Franciscan fathers immediately laid plans for their relief, hoping to bring them back to Santa Barbara and San Bar- tolome. On account of the great distance to the headquarters of the viceroy in the City of Mexico it was determined to undertake the expedition with-
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