USA > New Mexico > History of New Mexico : its resources and people, Volume I > Part 7
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Two months were spent on the march to Santa Fé. The small but determined army made its entry into the capital on December 16, but neither the Tanos inhabitants of the villa nor the people of the pueblos through which the invaders had marched afforded them a cordial welcome.
The annals of the reconquest do not reveal a story of interest, rather
27
RECONQUEST BY DE VARGAS
a dull acquiescence of the cowed inhabitants to an occupation which they could not prevent. For a time the Indians were wary of the professed friendship of the Spaniards, and remembered the cruelties rather than the kindnesses done under their régime. Vargas and his army did not enter the villa of Santa Fé for permanent occupation until after a spirited battle, in which the gate was taken by storm and seventy of the captured prisoners immediately executed and four hundred women and children delivered into practical slavery. Such was the stern justice which Vargas and his asso- ciates dealt out to the natives who opposed the monarch of Castile and his deputies.
It was some time before the Spanish position was better than a state of siege. Their authority was acknowledged wherever they went in force, the pueblos in professed alliance called on them for aid against their enemies, but familiar relationship between the colonists and the natives was as yet impossible, and settlements, except under military auspices and guard, seemed little likely to succeed for a long time. One of the chief centers of hostility was among the Tehuas, who had occupied and fortified the mesa of San Ildefonso, where the inhabitants of a number of the pueblos gath- ered for defense. With a force of a hundred soldiers and many settlers and Indians, Vargas proceeded against this stronghold in March, 1684, and after a siege lasting two weeks, including two assaults, was compelled to withdraw without having gained any distinct advantage. In the following month he was more successful in an expedition against the rebellious Cochiti, who had taken up a new position on the mesa of Cieneguilla. The attack upon the pueblo resulted in the defeat of the warriors and the capture of many women and children and nearly a thousand sheep and horses. The new pueblo was burned and the prisoners taken back to Santa Fé to be distributed as slaves. It cannot be doubted that such severe measures, which seemed imperative at the time, were very effective toward the annihila- tion of some of the tribes which Coronado and Onate found flourishing in the territory when they entered it.
An expedition north to Taos effected the subjection of that pueblo, and in September the stronghold of the Tehuas and Tanos, at San Ilde- fonso, was finally reduced. Assaults against this impregnable place failed, but siege and cutting off of all supplies discouraged the forlorn hope, and by their surrender on promise of peace and pardon, New Mexico was brought back to its original status as a province of New Spain. Yet the testimony is indubitable that the fifteen years of revolt, civil war and tribal dissension had made fearful inroads on population and the domestic pros- perity of the country.
Not even then was the spirit of rebellion subdued. So long as the Spaniards were in sufficient force to overawe the inhabitants there was quiet. The distribution of the padres among the various pueblos and the settlement of the colonists away from the garrisons was the signal for new plots among the hostiles, especially the Tehuas. A famine added to the discontent and weakness of the governor's forces, and the time seemed ripe for a repetition of 1680. The missionaries apprehended the dangers first and sent urgent appeals to the capital for protection. The position of the missionaries in the isolated pueblos, constantly surrounded by a foreign and hostile race, who regarded the friars as the representatives of the tyranny of New Spain, was one of peculiar danger and hardship. The
28
HISTORY OF NEW MEXICO
self-sacrifice and devotion with which the padres remained at their posts even after they were convinced of the imminence of revolt appear in the same remarkable degree as characterize the representatives of the Catholic church throughout new world history. Their zeal in the cause and their astonishing fortitude are incompatible with any selfish interest and are the highest light which the pages of New Mexico history reveal.
The governor did not appreciate the dangers that threatened the friars, or was unable with his weak garrison to afford them proper protection, but permitted them to return to Santa Fé when the individual missionaries found their personal safety in peril. Few were so timid as to abandon their stations, and on June 4, 1696, the Taos, Picuries, Tehuas and Queres of Santo Domingo and Cochiti and the Jemes revolted, killing five mis- sionaries and twenty-one other Spaniards. The pueblos in which the padres were slain were San Cristobal, Taos, San Ildefonso, Nambe and Jemes. The pueblos of Acoma, Zuni and Moqui were also implicated in the uprising.
Now followed a series of punitive expeditions, directed against the separate pueblos or against fugitive bands of the hostiles wherever they could be found. The method of checking and punishing an Indian out- break then was very much like that employed by our American leaders in the Indian outbreaks of the past century. The Indians were seldom found concentrated, unless in an impregnable position against assault. The small bands, fleeing to the sierras and canyons, could seldom be brought to de- cisive engagement. And so all the rest of that year was consumed in harrying the pueblos or scattering their population to the mountains, before the rebellion could be said to be quieted. Each such warfare meant a perma- nent diminution of the population and resources of the country, and hence must be viewed with regret, since it is possible to trace the evil conse -. quences far into the future.
In 1696, De Vargas' term as governor having expired, Pedro Rodriguez Cubero was appointed to his stead. Despite what seems to have been on the whole an energetic and progressive term of service, Vargas left his office under a fire of accusation. The charges included embezzlement of public funds, excessive severity in punishing captive Indians and thus in- spiring their hatred, contributing by his mismanagement to the suffering and loss caused by the famine of 1695-96. The weight of these accusa- tions, when weighed against his manifest service in reconquering the province, failed to convince the royal authorities, and he was not only exonerated, but his previous elevation to titled honor and his appointment to a second term as governor to succeed Cubero were sustained. Vargas became governor and captain general at Santa Fé in November, 1703, but died in the following spring while leading a campaign against the Apaches, his body being buried in the church at Santa Fé.
At the close of the seventeenth century the Spanish population in New Mexico was about 1,500. In 1694, after the reconquest, Governor Vargas had distributed the friars among the following pueblos: San Ildefonso, Jacona, San Juan, Santa Clara, San Cristobal, Lazaro, Pecos, Cia, Jemes, Santa Fé, Tesuque, San Felipe, Cochiti, Taos, Santo Domingo, Nambe. These names indicate not only the pueblos that were in submission at the time, but those which had survived the scourge of war and other decimat- ing causes and remained as nuclei for settlement and growth under the renewed Spanish régime. In April, 1695, seventy Mexican families were
29
RECONQUEST BY DE VARGAS
settled at Santa Cruz de la Cañada, which usually dates its beginning from that year, although evidence indicates a settlement there much earlier. Cerillo and Bernalillo also are named in the records as settlements.
It is evident tliat the centers of population at the close of this century were contracted more than when described by Benavides in 1630. The pueblos along the more southern course of the Rio Grande had never been restored since the devastation caused by and subsequent to the revolt of 1680. Santa Fé, as the center of military occupation, was assuming in- creasing importance, and the pueblos and settlements above named were within easy distance of the capital. The most distant and likewise the most troublesome natives at this time were the people of Acoma and Zuñi and the more remote Moqui, the conversion of whom to Christianity and to peaceful relation long continued one of the chief difficulties of the Spanish governors. In the first years of the following century thirty families of colonists became the founders of old Albuquerque (named in honor of the then ruling viceroy). By this process of settlement from Mexico and by resettling and rebuilding former pueblos by the transfer of portions of native population, the growth and development began which it is the purpose of subsequent pages to trace through two centuries to their highest culmination in the present era.
De Vargas died in 1704, in Bernalillo, while on his way from Santa Fé to New Mexico. During his last sickness he made his will-one of the remarkable private documents of the day. Abstracts therefrom are here preserved in order to illustrate the character of the man and the customs of his day :
"In the name of God the Almighty, know all who may see this, my last will and testament, as I, General Don Diego De Vargas Zapata Lujan Ponce de Leon Marquiz de la Naba de Brazinas. Governor and Captain General of this Kingdom and Provinces of New Mexico, by His Majesty native of the Imperial Court of Madrid in the Kingdom of Castile. Being sick in bed with the infirmity which God our Lord had been pleased to send me, believing as I firmly and truly believe in the mystery of the Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, three distinct persons and only one truly God, receiving as I do receive as my intercessor the Holy Virgin Mary, mother of the divine eternal word, I place my soul in the most clear career of salvation interceding with His worthy Son to forgive all my sins, I do make, order and dispose of this my testament in the following manner and form :
"Firstly, I commend my soul to God our Lord, who created it with the price of his precious blood, and my corpse to the earth of which it was formed.
"And if His Divine Majesty is pleased to take me away from the present life, I want and is my will a mass to be said while the corpse is present in the church of this Town of Bernalillo, and afterwards my corpse to be taken to the Town of Santa Fé, and placed ir my bed. suspended and selected as a bier, and in the same to be taken to the church of said Town of Santa Fe and buried in said church in the Principal Altar, under the platform where the priest stands. This I ask as a favor; said bier to be covered with honest woolen cloth and buried according to the military orders and the title privileges of Castile, leading two horses covered with the same cloth as the bier.
"I order that on said day of my funeral be distributed amongst the poor of said town fifty measures of corn and twelve head of cattle."
After ordering the sale of a number of his personal effects, he pro- ceeds :
"In the same manner I leave to the said Don Juan and Don Alonzo de Vargas [his sons] the two saddles of my use, also two pair of pistols with its covers, the
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HISTORY OF NEW MEXICO
bandore of Anselm, with the cover of Saint Michael the great, and cushions, two suits of cloth of my use. one whitish and the other blue, with its gold button covered with flesh color, and the whitish with its waistcoat and pants of brown cloth, adorned with flounces of gold and silver. This I leave to my son, Don Juan Manuel, and the other to said my son, Don Alonzo, with a jacket of blue brocade and a pair of pants of blue plush, and enough cloth for another pair of pants of silk grosgrain; furthermore of the piece of camlet cloth which I have assigned each one of my said sons will make his new suit of cloth, coat and two pair of pants, lined with the color they may select of the listed cloth in the warehouse, and silk buttons, and the jackets lined with the same listed cloth. In the same manner I leave them six shirts of the best, embroidered with lace, three to each one, two jerkins with eaten moth laces one to each one, and of the neckties of my common use I leave two to each one of my said sons, more four pair of stock- ings of Genoba, two pairs to each one. I leave to my said son, Don Alonzo, one pair of blue silk stockings, embroidered with gold, and the silver curled to my son, Don Juan. I leave them four pairs of bed sheets. two to each one, with the embroidered pillow cases. I leave them four yards of fine linen to each one of my said sons. To my said son, Don Alonzo, I leave my two cloaks, one of fine native cloth and the other of gold color, lined with serge. To my said son, Don Juan, I leave the choice of the color of said cloak, lined with serge. I also leave them three pairs of drawers to each one, and one full piece of fine linen to both of them for handkerchiefs, and I leave to their choice the taking with them to their mother and sister a dress pattern of fine camlet cloth, with the lining of the listed cloth which they may like best. and a pattern of petticoats of scarlet cloth from England, with its silk and trimmings; one silk mantle with fringe for each one. Further- more, I leave them the two trunks which I have, and to my said son, Don Alonzo, I leave my fine hilt, and to my said son. Don Juan, I leave my small sword, and each one to take his leather jacket, the one of my use and another one from the warehouse, and in the same manner to take to the General of Parral one leather jacket of blue color, the stockings and gloves which I ordered to be made. Also, I leave them my leather case, large elbow chair and eight ready mules. To the satisfaction of my slave and negro, Andres, who for having rendered me good service of his great love and will since the year ninety-one, by this clause I give him the liberty, with the understanding that he has to take my said sons to the City of Mexico, and be there with them the time he may see fit, to whom will be given the provision of a saddle and two mules, to his satisfaction, with gun, cover, cushions, bridle, reins and saddle-bag, hat, jacket and two pairs of pants of cloth, and in the same manner will be given to my sons one hundred pounds of chocolate and sugar, and twelve measures of wheat made dried bread, stockings, shoes, soap and hats for said journey, which they will execute two months after my death, or with the messenger who may take this notice of my death, and in their com- pany will go Don Antonio Maldonado Zapata, to whom I give four mules-two pack and two saddle mules,-fifty pounds of chocolate and fifty of sugar, four measures of wheat, six pairs of shoes, six bundles of tobacco, six dollars' worth of soap, two hats, that he may go together with my said sons. * * *
"From said inventory made of my property will be paid the parochial fee of the nine masses of corpse being present, to the Rev. Friar Guardian, giving him one hundred candles for the bier and fifty for the altars and religious hands present. I believe there is chocolate of my taste about two hundred and twenty-five pounds in two baskets, and the balance in what he may ask, and in aid to it be paid in goods which may be left. * * *
"I elect, appoint and assign Captain Juan Palz Hurtardo, my Lieutenant Gov- ernor and Captain General of this Kingdom, so declared by virtue of Royal ordi- nances of His Majesty, and for the great satisfaction which I have of his person, as stated, I do appoint him in my place Lieutenant General, that as soon as I may die he may govern this Kingdom-the political as well as the military-giving im- mediate notice to the Viceroy Duke of Albuquerque. * * *
"Notwithstanding the long time since I came from the New Spain, I have ordered a great quantity of masses to be said for the repose of my soul, and * * * I * want and it is my will to have five hundred masses said-two hundred applied to the Holy Virgin of Remedies, my protector, for the benefit of my soul, and three hundred for the souls of the Door, who died in the conquest of this Kingdom and may have died to the present day."
31
NEW MEXICO IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
NEW MEXICO IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
From a Spanish population of about 1,500 in 1700, the similar figures at the close of the century show 18,826, including those of mixed blood, while the Indian enumeration was 9,732. These figures are exclusive of the El Paso district and apply to the group of pueblos and presidios in the northern valley of the Rio Grande, which must be considered the original seat of civilization in the Territory of New Mexico.
The eighteenth century is not remarkable for striking events. There is nothing of romantic interest such as belonged to the Coronado expedition of the sixteenth century, nor a momentous crisis such as marked the or- ganized revolt of 1680. But in the course of this century much of the civil- ization which descended afterward to the Americans came into process of formation. Many of the towns of New Mexico date their beginning in this century, as also many of the characteristic industries and insti- tutions.
The pueblos and Indian affairs generally may be briefly sketched. Both the ecclesiastical and secular authorities gave much of their attention to the conversion of the Moqui tribes. Their resistance to Christian doc- trines, accompanied by a tribute-paying relation to Spanish administrators, continued through the century. The Moquis were not always on the de- fensive. They often attacked the pueblos of the Zuñi, who were under the protection of the Spanish, and it was to retaliate for these attacks that many expeditions were sent out against them. For a time several Moqui traders imposed on the Spanish desire for peace by visiting Santa Fé as representatives of their people and pretending to treat for peace and the acceptance of Christianity. On each visit they were sent back loaded with gifts and promises of good will, but when some Spanish messengers went to the Moqui towns a brief investigation proved that the Moqui were no less hostile than before, and that the officials at Santa Fé were the victims of a clever imposition.
In 1742 two friars, Delgado and Ignacio Pino, accomplished what several armies of conquest had not been able to do. Going without any military escort, they succeeded in bringing away from the Moqui villages over four hundred Tiguas who had inhabited several New Mexico pueblos previous to the revolt. About this time the Jesuit order had been seek- ing to displace the Franciscans from the New Mexican field, the con- troversy being waged not only before the higher authorities, but also incit- ing the friars to renewed zeal in their missions and work of conversion. The contest between the orders brought out the severest criticism on the work of the Franciscan padres in the missions. It was charged, and not denied, that few of the friars knew the native language, so that the close relations of the confessional and absolution for sins were withheld from. the Indians, whose worship consisted in the most empty and grotesque formality. This and general lack of zeal and negligence in performing the
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HISTORY OF NEW MEXICO
duties of their office were freely charged, and, though the defense was eager and ready, it is little to be doubted that the effectiveness of the church as a factor in the civilization of New Mexico had declined to a low degree during the first half of the century.
But the achievement of the two friars in bringing away, without the aid of military force, a large number of Indians from the Moqui vil- lages was the clinching argument that satisfied the king of the zeal and energy the Franciscan propaganda and caused him to lend his support and favor to the friars in their contention against the Jesuits.
The Tiguas who were recovered by the two missionaries were not immediately restored to their old pueblos, but in 1748 many of them were collected and settled on the old site of Sandia, which was rebuilt in that year.
But the conversion of the Moquis proper was making little progress. In 1755 a missionary visited them and obtained an attentive audience to his preachings, but the medicine men would never allow their people to be exhorted so far as to accept the foreigners' faith. Further than this the work of the padres could not go, and the stubborn adherence of this tribe to aboriginal customs and superstitions furnishes a remarkable contrast in the history of southwestern civilization. Not even when on the verge of annihilation could they be persuaded to accept the terms that the Spanish offered. In 1780 a disastrous famine followed a continued drouth of three years. A smallpox pestilence added its horrors, and raids from the terrible Apaches and Utes devastated and plundered what scanty provisions re- mamed. A population of over 7,000 in 1775 was reduced to less than a thousand in 1780. Towns were abandoned and many of the inhabitants had fled to the mountains and taken up with the life of the wild tribes. At this juncture seemed an opportune time for another proffer of relief and conversion. Yet the few who remained, in their destitution and suffer- ing, retained their pride and refused all aid, barely thirty families finally being induced to accompany the Spaniards within the range of Christian settlements.
The Moqui were not the only ones to suffer from the pestilence. It was estimated that 5,025 Indians from the mission pueblos fell victims to the disease. This decrease in the Indian population had a very important re- sult in the consolidation, by order of the governor, of the remaining mis- sions, thus reducing their number to twenty. By this order the missions of Jemes, Santa Ana, Acoma, Nambe, Tesuque, Pecos, San Felipe and San Ildefonso became visitas, this measure greatly reducing the expenses of maintenance, but exciting the vigorous opposition of the friars. It is prob- able that the number of padres toward the close of the century was smaller than in 17II, when a record states that there were thirty-four friars occupy- ing the New Mexico missions.
The wild tribes, Comanches, Apaches and Utes, were a constant menace to all the outlying settlements. A Comanche raid on Pecos in 1746 called out a large expedition in the following year, which met the Indians near Abiquiu and killed or captured over 300 of them, besides a thousand horses. In 1760 Taos was attacked by this same tribe, and the governor is reported to have battled with a large force of them at that place in the following year, slaying 400 of the hostiles. A treaty was concluded with the Co- manches in 1771, but was not lasting, since one of Governor Anza's first
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IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
official acts was a campaign against these Indians. His force consisted of 645 men, and after a march of several hundred miles to the north and northeast he succeeded in killing Cuerno Verde, their famous chief, besides four sub-chiefs and other leaders in the tribe. By this victory the settle- ments were almost entirely freed from Comanche incursions during the rest of the century.
The Navajos were persistently hostile, especially during the first half of the century, the year 1709 being marked by a war with them. In 1713 Captain Serna, with a force of 400, administered the Navajos a de- feat in their own country. In 1744 Padres Delgado and Irigoyen, ani- mated by the same zeal that prompted the visit to the Moqui towns two years before, went to the Navajo country and, with their efforts at re- ligious conversion, treated with them to enter relations of allegiance and peace with the Spanish governor. The Spaniards early realized that the Indian was a child in character development and treated him accordingly.
Therefore the exhortation of the friars was accompanied with liberal gifts and extravagant promises of more. By these means they induced some. 500 or 600 of the Navajos to take up a temporary residence at Cebolleta, in the Acoma region, where they would be more accessible to Spanish influence. In 1749 the two missions of Cebolleta and Encinal were es- tablished here. Their success was brief. As soon as the generosity of the friars was limited by the exhaustion of their resources, pueblo life and Christianity ceased to attract the Navajos, and the missions were a failure. But during the rest of the century and for some years beyond the Navajos gave the settlements but little trouble.
In line with the purpose of this History of New Mexico to assign con- siderable space to the economic features of the Territory, it is necessary to describe, as fully as possible, the conditions of the country during the eighteenth century with respect to the distribution and increase of popula- tion, the occupation and industries of the people, and the general advance- ment in material affairs.
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