A Standard History of Kansas and Kansans/Chapter 1

by William Elsey Connelley

Quivira

Coronado

The conquest of the continent of North America by the Spaniards was for the most part conducted from Cuba. The expedition of Cortez to conquer Mexico sailed from Havana. In 1520 Lucas Vasquez de Ayllon was granted a royal license to explore the coasts of Florida. In pursuance of this order he sent his lieutenant Gordilla to make a preliminary voyage, whose reports were so favorable that Ayllon carried them to Spain, where he secured a royal cedula to explore and settle eight hundred leagues of the Florida coasts. In 1525 he sent out Pedro de Quexos to make a more extensive preliminary survey of the east shores of America. This expedition returned with a very favorable account of the Atlantic coast regions. In June, 1526, Ayllon sailed from Hispaniola with three ships bearing Spanish emigrants for a colony. He beat up the coasts of North America to the mouth of a stream afterwards known as the James River, into which he turned. On its wooded shores he founded a settlement which he called San Miguel, on the spot where the English afterwards built Jamestown. The Spaniards did not succeed at San Miguel. Ayllon soon died of a fever; the colonists quarreled and finally abandoned the enterprise.

The movement which led to the expedition of Coronado had its origin in the myths of “The Seven Cities.” These myths were the more readily believed because of the magnitude of the spoil of the Peruvian Empire, accounts of which had spread over the whole of both Old and New Spain. It was supposed that what Pizarro had accomplished in South America might be duplicated in North America. In this relation it must be remembered that the Spaniards had not then explored the interior of the continent, and that they were in almost total ignorance of its geography, its mineral resources, its productions, its animal life, and its inhabitants.

The myth of “The Seven Cities” appeared first in Mexico in 1530. Nuno de Guzman was then President of New Spain. Attached to his estate was an Indian named Tejo, who was a native of the valley of Oxitipar. This Indian claimed to be the son of a trader, then dead. This trader, so the son said, had gone into the back country to barter fine feathers for whatever ornaments the inhabitants of those regions could be induced to part with. On the journey (or journeys) made for this purpose, the Indian Tejo had accompanied his father. He now told Guzman that they brought back much silver and gold, which the country produced in considerable quantities. He said, also, that he had seen in that northern land some towns as large as the City of Mexico then was. In seven of those towns there were streets given over to shops and workers in the precious metals. Those cities, he said, were far distant, and from his native valley it required forty days to reach them. For the way, he insisted, was through a barren land where no plant-life was to be seen except some desert shrubs the height of a span.

Hoping to find rich countries to plunder, Guzman organized an expedition to discover “The Seven Cities.” He enlisted four hundred Spaniards and collected twenty thousand Indians with which to make conquest of those opulent countries of which he had little doubt the seven towns were the capitals. But the expedition came to nothing. The difficulties encountered in the first stages of the march discouraged the men, and discontent spread through the ranks of the adventurers. For this, and for other causes, Guzman abandoned the enterprise when he had but entered the district of Culican.

Panfilo de Narvaez was prominent in the conquest of Cuba in 1511, and settled in that island. Mexico was subject to Cuba, but Cortez threw off the authority of Velasquez. In an effort to regain and retain his power in Mexico, in 1520, Velasquez appointed Panfilo de Narvaez Lieutenant-Governor of Mexico, and directed him to voyage to that country, take possession of it, and imprison Cortez. Narvaez set out on this mission, and landed at Vera Cruz in April, 1520. On the 28th of May he met Cortez at Campoala, where he was defeated, wounded, and captured. He managed soon to regain his liberty, after which he went to Spain, where, in 1526, he secured a royal patent to conquer and govern Florida.

At that time Florida embraced all that part of North America, along the Atlantic seaboard and bordering on the Gulf of Mexico to the Rio Grande, which river was then called Rio de Palmas by the Spaniards. Narvaez made preparations for the immediate conquest of Florida. He sailed from Spain on the 17th of June, 1527. His course carried him to Cuba, where he overhauled his fleet, to which he added a vessel to replace one lost on the voyage. He then set sail for the Texas coast, but on the 15th of April he landed at Apalache Bay, having been driven from his course by a storm and the force of heavy currents. Supposing that he was not far distant from the point for which he was bound, he sent one ship back for recruits and directed the others to sail along the coast to Panuco, near the mouth of the Rio Grande.

The force of Narvaez consisted of three hundred men; and he had fifty horses. On the 18th of April he began his march through the forests and over the quagmires of Florida. His course was north, but he soon turned toward the west. The natives became hostile. At a large river, reached on the 15th of May, he rested, while Cabeza de Vaca, the royal treasurer of the expedition, went with a small party down to the sea to find the ships. Not a sail was to be seen along the coast solitudes, and upon the return of the party the march was continued. Another large river was encountered, and this Narvaez descended to the sea. No ships were there to greet him.

The Spaniards were discouraged. No gold had been found, and no cities for sack and plunder had appeared. They had seen only naked savages living in cane huts and in poverty. They determined to build boats in which to quit those inhospitable shores, and to keep the sea to the westward. Late in 1528, a forge was set up, and such metal as their equipment afforded was made into tools and nails. With these, five boats were constructed. They were furnished with rigging from ropes made of the long hair saved from the manes and tails of their horses. Sails were provided from their clothing and the hides of their horses. Each boat was capable of carrying forty-five men, none of whom knew much of navigation. They hugged the shore and drew westward, and about the first of November they came into the mouth of a great river whose mighty volume bore them far into the Gulf of Mexico. There two of the boats were lost, one of which was that of Narvaez, while the other carried the friars of the expedition. A great storm threw the remaining boats upon the shore beyond the Sabine in the winter of 1528–29.

How many survivors of the expedition suffered this shipwreck we do not know. Four finally reached the Spanish settlements. They were rescued on the coast of the Gulf of California in April, 1536. They had wandered in the wilds of Texas and the deserts and mountains of Northern Mexico, as we know those regions, for more than seven years. The leader of the band was Cabeza de Vaca, and the others were Maldonado, Dorantes, and a negro slave named Estevan. The route passed over by these wanderers can not now be established. How they had escaped and managed to survive they did not themselves know. They had been enslaved by savage tribes, had seen and hunted the buffalo, had acted as medicine men, had risen to influence, and had escaped from one tribe only to suffer the same routine of disaster in another. Cabeza de Vaca went on to Spain, but the others remained in Mexico. The stories of their adventures did not excite great interest, or, rather, was over-shadowed by those drifting in from Peru. They were for some time the guests of the Viceroy, Don Antonio de Mendoza, who bought the negro from his master, Dorantes. Cabeza de Vaca had been given a hawk's bell, made of copper, on which was cast or carved the figure of a human face. He related some accounts of the land to the north, which caused the people to believe rich countries might be found there. And these recalled, revived, and confirmed the stories told by the trader's son, the Indian Tejo.

In the revival of the myths of “The Seven Cities” it was said that other parties from the Spanish settlements had visited the rich countries of the North, especially after the return of the shipwrecked wanderers. Of what they saw there, of what they reported, we are not certain. But there was a growing desire to know what those hidden regions held. Mendoza determined to find out. He sent forth an expedition commanded by Friar Marcos de Niza, who is said to have made a prior journey into that land on his own account. He had came into Mexico from Peru, where he had gone with Pizarro, and where he had witnessed the murder of Atahuallpa.

The negro Estevan was the guide of the expedition led by Friar Marcos to discover “The Seven Cities.” He was well fitted for that service, for he had doubtless been near that country with Cabeza de Vaca. Approaching the borders of that land, he was directed to go on before, and to report to the friar upon his discoveries. If what he found was favorable, he was to send back a white cross as large as the palm of the hand, and if the country was better than Mexico, he was to send a larger cross. He penetrated to the Seven Cities, to which he lured the friar by sending back immense crosses. But before the arrival of Friar Marcos, the negro was killed by the Indians because of his rapacity and his lascivious conduct. He collected a quantity of turquois and demanded that women be given to him at every village.

The party, upon the death of Estevan, desired to return at once to Mexico, but Friar Marcos persisted until he dared go no farther. Then he prevailed on two chiefs to take him into a mountain, from the top of which he was able to see one of the cities of Cibola. It was set upon a hill and glittered in the desert sun. He was told that there were other cities beyond, where the people wore clothes of cotton and had much gold.

Friar Marcos returned, arriving at the Mexican settlements in August, 1539. He is said to have made what was in effect two reports—one stating what he had himself seen, and one setting out what the Indians had told him. But the people did not discriminate. It was soon spread abroad that the good friar had reported as facts all the things spoken by him. It came to be of common report that the houses of the Seven Cities were four stories high, with doors faced with precious stones. The Spanish population of New Spain were eager to go there. The principal men of the provinces, and even those in Spain, became rivals for the royal permission to explore and settle the country of Cibola. This privilege went finally to Mendoza, the viceroy, who selected the post of Compostela, on the Pacific, as the point of assembly. He appointed as commander of the expedition Francisco Vasquez de Coronado.

The force allowed Coronado consisted of about two hundred and sixty horsemen, seventy footmen, and a motley throng of Indians variously estimated at from three hundred to one thousand. This army of conquest started from Compostela on Monday, February 23, 1540, and followed the common highway to San Miguel de Culican. This march occupied about a month. The army left Culican on the 22d of April, and its general direction was northeast. Coronado, with a select company, went on in advance. The route led them into that land embraced in Eastern Arizona, as we know the country. The Indians were alarmed at the approach of so large a force of strangers, and gave battle. They were defeated, and the Spaniards took possession of the Zuni villages on the 7th day of July, 1540. How different the reality from the golden stories which had stirred New Spain! The Seven Cities were the filthy, unlighted, unventilated, gloomy pueblos to be seen to this day on the Zuni and Moki Indian reservations in Arizona.

And so was the mystery of the Seven Cities solved, to the dismay of Friar Marcos, who stood with his countrymen in the midst of the rude mud-and-stone communal dwellings of the squalid desert tribes.

Coronado sent out detachments to explore the regions round about. One of these was commanded by Don Hernando de Alvarado, and started eastward on the 29th of August. This was in consequence of the appearance before Coronado of a chief from the province of Cicuye, said to be seventy leagues east of Cibola. The chief came, he said, in response to the invitation made generally to the Indians to come before the commandant as friends. The Spaniards called this chief Bigotes, that is, Whiskers, for he wore a long mustache. He brought presents, and he invited Coronado to pass through his country, should he desire to do so. Among the presents borne by Whiskers to the Spanish commander was the skin of a buffalo. It had the hair still on it, and this hair was a sore puzzle to the Spaniards. They could not understand how a “cow” could have such hair.

Whiskers became the guide of the expedition sent out under Alvarado, who reached the village of Tiguex on a river which the Indians called by the same name, on the 7th of September. This river was the Rio Grande, and Alvarado reported to Coronado that there were eighty villages scattered along its course. The country was much better than that of Cibola, and Alvarado advised that Tiguex be made the winter quarters for the army.

After sending back his report, Alvarado went on to the eastward five days, when he arrived at the village or communal dwelling of Cicuye. There Alvarado learned that he was on the border of the country of the wild cows. He found at Cicuye an Indian who is set down as a slave, but who was only a captive, and a native of some country far to the east, bordering evidently on the Mississippi. He was different in appearance from the Indians of the desert regions, and he resembled a Turk, from which circumstance he was called the “Turk.” He was probably an Arkansas Quapaw Indian, and from the villages on the west side of the Mississippi below the mouth of the Ohio.^[1] To him history assigns the honor of having first mentioned Quivira to Europeans. He acted as guide on a trip Alvarado made from Cicuye to see the cows. The Spanish captain, however, lost interest in the cows and the country where they roamed. The Turk told him such wondrous tales of gold and silver to be found and to be had in Quivira that chasing the stupid and lumbering buffalo seemed a waste of time and energy that should be used in making an early conquest of the golden land. And the buffalo was not to be seen in vast herds at that season of the year. Those found by Alvarado were in scattered bunches and perhaps along the waters of the Upper Canadian.

The Turk was to play an important part in the future movements of the Coronado expedition. He must have gone with Alvarado when that captain returned to Tiguex. There, during the winter, he related to Coronado the wonders of the country of Quivira and two adjoining provinces—Arche and Guaes. In Quivira there was some silver and gold, he said, but more in the adjacent lands. It is admitted that he was a man of superior intelligence, and it is probable that when he learned that the Spaniards desired gold above all other things, he told of great store of it in these distant countries, doubtless hoping these stories would in some way turn to his own benefit. He overplayed the part which he had assumed, or which, as he later claimed, was assigned to him by the people of Cicuye, and was found to be lying, but so intent were the Spaniards on finding another Peru that they disregarded that fact.

On the 23d of April, 1541, Coronado set out from Tiguex to find the rich land of Quivira. The Turk was the guide, and once upon the way, there remained no doubt of his knowledge of the country to be traversed. Coronado went by Cicuye, but did not stop there. He was impatient to reach the golden settlements and held steadily to the eastward. In nine days from Cicuye the army emerged on the Great Plains and saw the buffalo, then just beginning the annual migration to the north. Still the Turk pointed to the east, and the Spaniards toiled in that direction thirty-five days without a single sign of civilization to encourage them. Other Indians were found, following the buffalo herds, the Querechos and the Teyas. They were first spoken to by the Turk; and later they confirmed what he had said about Quivira. An advance guard was sent on to find the country of Haya or Haxa, described by the Turk, but no such land appeared. With Coronado was an inhabitant of Quivira, one Ysopete, who insisted from the start that the Turk was lying. At first no credit attached to what he said, but on the treeless wastes doubt of what the Turk was saying became general in the army. Upon their entry into the settlements of Cona, a portion of the country of the Teyas, the Turk was not permitted to first talk with the people. They said Quivira was in the North—or towards the North—and not in the direction in which the Turk was taking them. Then heed was given to what Ysopete had said of the Turk and his stories.

After resting in a river-bottom where there were trees—a ravine as the old writers have it—it was decided that Coronado should take thirty horsemen and “half a dozen foot-soldiers” and go on to Quivira. The remaining portion of the army was to return to Tiguex, which it did by a shorter way than that taken in the outward march. The Teyas furnished new guides, and Coronado bore to the northward. The Turk was carried along, now a prisoner, and not permitted to converse with Ysopete or the Teyas. On a day counted that of St. Peter and St. Paul in the old calendar of the Roman Church a tolerable river was found and crossed, and which was named for the day of its discovery. This river is spoken of as “there below Quivira,” by which we are to suppose it was south of that land—or perhaps bounded its southern borders. It is more likely that Quivira was up the stream from that point. This river has been identified with the Arkansas by most writers, and the point of crossing, where it turns to the northeast below the present Fort Dodge, or Dodge City.

Coronado followed this river—“went upon the other side on the north, the direction turning towards the northeast.” In three days Indian hunters were found killing the buffalo—“and some even had their wives with them.” They began to run away, but Ysopete called to them in their own tongue, when they turned about and approached the Spaniards without fear.

Coronado was reassured. He felt once more certain of his ground. He had emerged from the labyrinth in which the Turk had sought to involve him. As he stood recovered there, the sense of location returned to him. And standing on the shores of the river given the holy name, reflecting doubtless on perils now safely passed, another matter occupied his attention. He weighed the fate of that Indian who had led him astray in those wilds. A judgment was determined and a death decreed. The Turk—in chains now at the rear of the army—was brought to account. Perhaps they asked him why he had deceived them. No doubt he stated his reasons like a brave man. Who shall blame him for his course? He had seen, maybe, the butchery of the revolted inhabitants of Tiguex. He evidently knew of the fate of those hundreds who had perished at the stake or had been trampled into the earth by Spanish horses after they had surrendered and had been granted peace. These strangers astride fierce animals seemed invincible. In brutality and cruelty they surpassed the barbarous Indians. They were devoid of honor. Their plighted word was worthless. To the Turk it was plain that if they came in numbers the Indians must perish or be enslaved. To avert this calamity to his people he planned to lead the strangers a devious course through deadly mazes. And now he faced the cruel Spaniard and admitted again the truth, though he knew his life was forfeit and his doom at hand. From the temper of his race we know that he was not appalled at his fate. He stood on the shores of two rivers—one seen, the other unseen. There may have been bars of tawny sand lying over beyond the shining river flowing there at his feet. Our knowledge of plains-streams might permit us to say there were water-bushes fringing its intangible shores. Up and beyond, there were the rolling, limitless prairies covered with billowy turbulent herds of wild oxen. And over all were the opalescent skies of the Great Plains, merging into a mystic shimmering haze at the horizon. And, perchance, the Turk saw these and was not moved as the garotte tightened about his throat and he was no more—“an example” to those assembled there—the first of his people to die on the soil of Kansas by the hand of the white man.

So, thus perished the Turk. He carried to Europeans the first tidings of Quivira—Kansas. He was the prey, the first Kansas victim of the brutal spirit which wrecked nations in the New World—then seeking other countries, including his own, for destruction. He was a hero. He acted only as has every patriot in the world with the fate of a people weighing on his soul. Lettered bronze and graven granite should rise in his honor on the plains he sought to save to his race.

Vengeance wreaked, Coronado continued his journey. He came into the land of Quivira. Indeed, he then stood on the borders of Quivira, but the settlements were some leagues beyond. It was a country inhabited by just such Indians as were found on the plains of Kansas and Nebraska two centuries later. They planted a little corn, but they lived chiefly by hunting the buffalo. They had no gold nor anything else a civilized man would covet. Coronado spent twenty-five days in Quivira, traversing the whole width of the land. Then he returned to Tiguex, using a shorter route, probably the ancient road later known as the Old Santa Fe Trail.

In writing thus far I have followed the preponderance of evidence as developed by a majority of the writers on the subject. I have not been always satisfied with the routes indicated by these students, and perhaps they were not themselves convinced that they were right in every instance. It was necessary for them to reconcile many contradictory statements found in the old Spanish chronicles—and not a few had to be rejected altogether. The boldest dissenter from their conclusions is F. S. Dellenbaugh, himself a student and explorer, and long familiar with both the topography and geography of all the country traversed by Coronado. He contends with an astonishing array of evidence that the route of the expedition lay much more to the east than it has been placed. Cibola was on the Mimbres about the present Demming, rather than at the Zuni. His location of Tiguex, it seems to me, can not be disproven, and is much lower down the Rio Grande than the generally accepted site at Bernalillo.^[2]

The information which has come down to us in insufficient. By it we can not trace the old routes with certainty. Archaeology and a full knowledge of the modern geography of the Southwest and Mexico may aid us much. With all this, however, in neither the desert regions nor on the Great Plains can the trails passed over by Coronado be surely identified. But they may be approximately fixed.

The march having for its immediate object the discovery of Quivira began at Cicuye. This pueblo has been by many identified with the ruins of Pecos. If we accept Mr. Dellenbaugh's location of Tiguex, the village of Cicuye was far south of the Pecos ruin. The direction from Cicuye was to the east by south, coming out on the Llano Estacado, where the buffalo herds were found in such numbers. Following the buffalo were found two plains tribes, the Querechos and the Teyas, now supposed to have been the Tonkawas of West-central Texas, and the Comanches. The Turk was put forward always to speak first to these wanderers. Then they confirmed to the Spaniards what the Turk had said from the beginning. The march had deflected more and more to the south. When the halt was called at the ravine—the valley of some plains-river—it is said by most students that Coronado was in North Texas, possibly on the Brazos, the Trinity, or the Colorado. It is most likely that he was then in Central Texas. For it is confidently asserted by some accounts that he was at a village which Cabeza de Vaca had passed through in his escape from captivity.^[3]

There the Teyas of Cona were questioned before the Turk was permitted to converse with them. They said that there was indeed a country called Quivira, but that it was not to be found in the direction in which they were traveling. It was in the North, or “towards the north,” and to reach it the army would have to right about and change its course. It was at Cona that the Turk was thrown into chains.

The information imparted by the Teyas of Cona turned Coronado, with thirty horsemen and a few followers to the north, as we have seen. They were told that they would find no good road to Quivira, and we know that the rivers running eastward over the Great Plains had to be crossed by the army. Most writers now draw a straight north-and-south line across the map, with a ruler, from Texas to a point on the Arkansas River just west of its turn to make the Great Bend, for this march of Coronado from the Cona towns to the borders of Quivira. The authority for this is the accidental phrase “by the needle” used in describing the march.

When we come to drive down a stake and say—“To this point came Coronado”—we find it quite impossible. The information which would enable us to do this does not exist. Writers find themselves unable to agree when it comes to fixing these definite locations. They usually develop some theory of locations and routes, then try to prove that they are right. The indefinite authorities which we possess encourage this sort of writing. Here are some of the locations of Quivira:-

Bandalier places Quivira in Northeastern Kansas.

L. B. Prince says Quivira was on the Missouri above Kansas City and below Omaha.

General J. H. Simpson located Quivira on the Kansas-Nebraska line some distance back from the Missouri.

Hubert Howe Bancroft is of the opinion that Quivira was in Kansas somewhere between the Arkansas and the Missouri.

Haynes thinks Coronado crossed Kansas and reached the Platte.

Winship's judgment is that Quivira was the country about the convergence of the main branches of the Kansas River.

Hodge marks Quivira as extending from the Arkansas, near Great Bend, to the Republican, which stream he makes the east boundary of the country of the Pawnees.

Mr. Twitchell, in his Leading Facts of New Mexican History, copies the map of Mr. Hodge.

Dellenbaugh maps Quivira as embracing Southeastern Kansas and adjacent regions.

Houck in his history of Missouri makes a strong case for his state, insisting that the mountain ranges which rose to view on the march are the Ozarks, and that these were skirted by Coronado as he passed into Southwest Missouri.

Basket, Richey, and Dunbar agree with Winship.

Other writers insist on still other locations. There is evidence for each of these locations, and by very ingenious reasoning probability is found for most of them.

On one point writers practically agree—Quivira was in what is now Kansas. That may be taken as settled beyond question. This old Indian Country may have lapped over and spread its bounds into Nebraska or Missouri or Oklahoma, but it was mainly on the Kansas plains that it was certainly seated. The Spaniards sent other expeditions to Quivira, among them one under Onate in 1601. Some portion of the route of this trip was mapped. That this expedition found Quivira villages on the Arkansas near the present city of Wichita, there is scarcely any doubt.

If we are to believe Gregg and other Santa Fe traders when they tell of the terrible sufferings for water endured by the first parties who attempted to use the “cut off,” or shorter route from the Arkansas by way of the Cimarron, we can not think it possible that Coronado marched “by the needle” from Central Texas, or any point in Texas, to the Arkansas west of the great north bend in June and July. And from Quivira, mountains could be seen to the east. This is asserted by the old chroniclers. Most modern writers ignore this fact.

If the line of march from Central Texas, or North-central Texas, was “northward” as some of the old records have it—and that would pass through a country of grass and water in midsummer—it would strike the Arkansas River thirty leagues below the Quivira towns, though these distances are always uncertain. Thirty leagues may have been really but ten or twenty leagues, and perhaps sixty or ninety leagues. No dependence can be put on these statements of distances. That it was the Arkansas River which was thus reached must be the meaning of the Relation del Suceso. Here is the language:

“After he had proceeded many days by the needle” [here the editor has inserted “i. e., to the north.” Even with the editor's doctoring, the text does not say the march was due north] “we found the river Quivira, which is 30 leagues below the settlement. While going up the valley, we found people who were going hunting, who were natives of Quivira.”

The river was called Quivira River, and must be the same named St. Peter and St. Paul by others, that is, the Arkansas. A fair interpretation of the language would be that Coronado struck the Arkansas thirty leagues below the Quivira towns. For they immediately started up the valley, not down the valley, as they must have gone had they crossed at the west turn of the great bend. While going up the Quivira River to the Quivira settlement they came upon the people, native Quivirans, who were there hunting the buffalo. The point where Coronado came to the Quivira River may have been at any point from the mouth of the Grand or Neosho to the mouth of the Walnut. Up the Arkansas from these regions, Quivira villages were found in 1601. They were near where Wichita now stands, and they may have extended eastward across the country to the Walnut. The only evidence except the phrase “by the needle” to support the direct north-and-south march is that the river (St. Peter and St. Paul) turned northeast below the crossing.

To locate Quivira as it surely lay in Coronado's day there must be mountains on its eastern border—mountains, not hills nor river-bluffs. And for this range we can depend only on the Ozarks. Castaneda says:

“Quivira is . . . . in the midst of the country somewhat near the mountains toward the sea. For the country is level as far as Quivira, and there they began to see some mountain chains.”

The waters of the Atlantic, including the Gulf of Mexico, were at that time known as the North Sea, and these mountains were toward that sea. The hills in Butler, Elk and Chautauqua counties in Kansas, and their continuation in the present Osage country in Oklahoma, are the outlying flanking hills of the Ozarks to the west. They must be the first hills or the beginnings of “some mountain chains” which Coronado and his company saw. It is possible that Castaneda supposed the Ozarks to be the Appalachian Mountains along the Atlantic seaboard, when he said “near the mountains toward the sea.”

On the west Quivira was never set in bounds. It ran over the Great Plains, but to what extent it embraced them there is nothing to tell. It may be asserted that the Arkansas River was its south boundary. And the country whose waters drain into the river from the north—down to the mouth of the Neosho or Grand—was most likely the ancient Quivira. And it may have included the prairie lands of Southwest Missouri and Northwest Arkansas. When all the accounts are considered this location of the mystic and half-mythical old land appears most probable. The preponderance of evidence is in favor of it. But this location—nor any other—can be established beyond controversy. It is one of those unfortunate historical matters not capable of complete and satisfactory settlement. The only definite thing about it is that it was in Kansas. It has persisted through all vicissitudes to attach and cling to Kansas. For years it drifted about. It was located even in Alaska. It haunted the Pacific Coast. It adorned maps of the mountains “where rolls the Oregon.” It was seized as a name for a squalid pueblo village far down the Rio Grande. But these vagaries have vanished. Kansas is Quivira and Quivira is Kansas.

It has been determined perhaps beyond all question that the Quiverans were of the Caddoan linguistic stock of North American Indians. From the account of the houses found by Coronado in Quivira it has been determined that the Quivirans were the Indians known in modern times as the Wichitas. They lived along the Arkansas and there is no evidence that they ever did live on or along the Kansas River.

We know that the Pawnees lived on the Big Blue River. One of their oldest villages was on the site of the present Blue Springs, in Gage County, Nebraska. In Coronado's time they ranged almost to the Missouri. Du Tisne found them on the Neosho in 1719. And we may well believe they roamed to the western limits of the buffalo plains. The Kansas did not ascend the Kansas River at all until long after Coronado's day. The theorists make the Pawnees the inhabitants of Harahey, a country to the north of Quivira. This may have been the case, for the Wichitas and Pawnees are both of the Caddoan family. That there was any rigidly defined line between their countries and hunting grounds is not probable.^[4] And Quivira may have embraced all the country of the Pawnees, as well as that of the Wichitas. For the Caddoan people seem to have occupied the country both north and south of the Arkansas River to the line beyond the Platte. Toward the Missouri their bounds may be defined by an irregular line from near the Mississippi and the Missouri to the Loup Country in Nebraska, should the location of Quivira as proposed in this study prove correct. But it is not to be supposed that this country was all occupied at the same time. These people occupied their country just as all Indian tribes did their domains. They lived in groups of huts along some stream and claimed a vast surrounding hunting-ground. Sometimes their claims were undisputed, but they were usually contested. Their squalid villages were always temporary, and they were moved for the most trivial causes.

Coronado spent several weeks in the exploration of Quivira. He says he reached the fortieth parallel, now the line between Kansas and Nebraska. There is no reason to question this claim. He noted the fertility of the soil and described some of the products of the country. When he was ready to return, native Quivirans—Wichita or Pawnee Indians—told him how to get back to New Mexico. They may have shown him the way. It was probably that ancient path known as the Old Santa Fe Trail, as has already been stated, but not as it was most used in later days. Water could not have been found on that route in the season of his departure. He must have gone up the Arkansas to the point where the trail was crossed by the great trading road which skirted the front range of the Rocky Mountains. This crossing was where Bent's Fort was afterward erected. From that point the descent to the Rio Grande could be safely made at any time of the year.

Another student, and a very thorough one, finds it impossible to accept the conclusions of the majority of writers on this subject. Rev. Michael A. Shine, Plattsmouth, Nebraska, has made an exhaustive study of the available authorities. The results of his investigations are to be found in his pamphlet, The Lost Province of Quivira, published in 1916. A good summary of it is contained in his letter to the author, dated May 3, 1916, from which the following quotation is made:—

The march outward of the Army was 150 leagues or 395 miles from Tiguex on the Rio Grande—i. e., 25 leagues to Pecos, 15 leagues to the Bridge over Gallinas River, 40 leagues to Querechos Settlements and 20 leagues to the Buffalo Ravine or Mustang Creek in Texas—total 100 leagues, then southeast to Red River where the 101st Meridian crosses it. 50 leagues from here the army returned home—68 leagues to Ft. Sumner on the Pecos River-32 leagues from there to the Bridge and 40 leagues from the Bridge to Tiguex—Total, 142 leagues or 8 leagues less than the outward march. (A league = 2.63 miles.)

From the Red River Coronado went straight north on the 101st Meridian-180 leagues, which brought him to the Platte River, which is just 175 leagues or 460 miles. This allows 5 leagues or 13 miles for detours and deviations in the journey north. The Platte is St. Peter & St. Paul's River.

From the crossing of the Platte at the 101st Meridian going northeast 16 days or 72 leagues or 190 miles would bring them to the junction of Beaver Creek with the Loup River—in the vicinity of the present city of Geneva. This was always, even in ancient times, the home of the Skidi or Pawnee Loups. Quivira is the Spanish pronunciation of the name of these people—Skidi-ra—or Wolf people, like Harahey—Arache and Tareque—Ariki-ra, or Horn People, who lived then between the Elkhorn and Missouri Rivers.

Coronado returned to the Platte Crossing and then went southwest to the junction of the Purgatoire river with the Arkansas in Colorado—from there still southwest to the 1st Querechos village—where they were led astray and then back on his original trace to the Bridge, etc. No astronomical observation was taken for the Latitude—it was computed as follows: 180 leagues north—over 6 degrees of latitude. (26 leagues in a degree.) They went south over 30 leagues—below the Bridge or Tiguex (the 36th degree), hence they went into the 34th degree—then north over 6 degrees brought them into the 40th degree as Coronado states.

Now the real latitude of Tiguex is the 35th degree—hence going north over 6 degrees brought them into the 41st degree—which is where I have located Quivira, and exactly where they found it.

This is a further confirmation of the position that there is not sufficient evidence in the records at hand to place the location of Quivira within exact bounds, or beyond controversy.

That Father Shine has discovered and fixed the origin of the name Quivira is possible. That the Skidi Pawnees lived above the Platte in 1541, however, is not established. They may have lived there then. But it is probable that they lived on the Arkansas at that time.

Fray Padilla

The return of Padilla to Quivira may be considered a consequence of Coronado's march to the Great Plains. For he and three other Franciscans had been on that famous primal exploration. And it is to be regretted that it can not be recorded that they, or any of them raised voice or offered protest at the murder of the Turk. Let us hope the record is sadly incomplete.

This priest is usually spoken of as Fray Juan Padilla, and it is said that he was a native of Andalusia. He remained on the Rio Grande when Coronado returned to Mexico. And Fray Juan de la Cruz, a Portuguese soldier of fortune named Andres del Campo, a negro, and a half-blood negro named Louis and Sebastian respectively, and some Indians from New Spain stopped with Fray Padilla at the pueblos on the Rio Grande. In the summer of 1542 Padilla prepared to return to Quivira as a missionary to that country. Some of his company went with him, and all may have gone. The journey was made in the fall of 1542. By some accounts, they went on foot, and by others there was at least one horse taken along by them. It is reasonable to suppose that the route used by Coronado in coming out of the land was followed by Padilla and his company going in.

What Padilla accomplished in Quivira remains hidden. Some say he immediately sought the cross set up there by Coronado, and that he found the grounds about it swept and cleansed. This service had been rendered by the Indians, who doubtless regarded it as an occult object to be propitiated. It is not to be supposed that Padilla accomplished much in the work of Christianizing the Quiviras, for they murdered him shortly after his arrival. Indeed it is not certain but that they met and murdered him as he entered their towns. Others say that after a short sojourn with the Quivirans he set out for the country of the Guaes. These Guaes are set down as the enemies of the Quivirans, who could not understand how any good man could leave them to dwell with their foes. It is not improbable that they attributed traitorous designs to the good father. In any event, he lost his life trying to reach a new tribe. One account has it that he was much beloved by the Quivirans, and he left their villages against their wishes, but attended by a small company. This chronicler says that the band had proceeded more than a day's journey when a war-party was encountered, and this company of warriors murdered Padilla.

What the old writers say of Padilla is here set out, for it may be affirmed that he was the first Christian martyr in what is now the United States. Castaneda says:—

A friar named Juan Padilla remained in this province together with a Spanish-Portuguese and a negro and a half-blood and some Indians from the province of Capothan, in New Spain. They killed the friar because he wanted to go to the province of the Guaes, who were their enemies. The Spaniard escaped by taking flight on a mare, and afterwards reached New Spain, coming out by the way of Panuco. The Indians from New Spain who accompanied the friar were allowed by the murderers to bury him, and they followed the Spaniard and overtook him. This Spaniard was a Portuguese named Campo.

It would appear from the foregoing that Padilla did not return to the Rio Grande with Coronado, but remained in Quivira when his commander left the plains. There is more detail in this account—

He reached Quivira and prostrated himself at the foot of the cross, which he found in the same place where he had set it up; and all around it clean, as he had charged them to keep it, which rejoiced him, and then he began the duties of a teacher and apostle of that people; and finding them teachable and well disposed, his heart burned within him, and it seemed to him that the number of souls of that village was but a small offering to God, and he sought to enlarge the bosom of our mother, the Holy Church, that she might receive all those he was told were to be found at greater distances. He left Quivira, attended by a small company, against the will of the village Indians, who loved him as their father.

At more than a day's journey the Indians met him on the warpath, and knowing the evil intent of those barbarians, he asked the Portuguese that as he was on horseback he should flee and take under his protection the Oblates and the lads who could thus run away and escape. . . . And the blessed father, kneeling down, offered up his life, which he had sacrificed for the winning of souls to God, attaining the ardent longings of his soul, the felicity of being killed by the arrows of those barbarous Indians, who threw him into a pit, covering his body with innumerable stones. . . . It is said that the Indians had gone out to murder the blessed father in order to steal the ornaments, and it was remembered that at his death were seen great prodigies, as it were the earth flooded, globes of fire, comets and obscuration of the sun.

The second paragraph of the foregoing quotation must have been written from the imagination purely. There was no white witness to the murder of the friar except possibly the Portuguese and the attendants. They are said to have observed it from a hill. It is not safe to depend on such testimony. They were fleeing for life. It is doubtful if they turned to look back while in view of the Indians. In truth, they might have themselves murdered Padilla. The account contains no sufficient motive for his murder by the Indians. The assertion that they committed the murder to secure his ornaments can not be taken seriously. And the asseveration that the earth was convulsed, comets seen, and the sun obscured, discredits the entire account. There is still another Spanish version, quoted by Davis in his work on New Mexico, as follows:—

When Coronado returned to Mexico he left behind among the Indians of Cibola, the father fray Francisco Juan de Padilla, the father fray Juan de la Cruz, and a Portuguese named Andres del Campo. Soon after the Spaniards departed, Padilla and the Portuguese set off in search of the country of the Grand Quivira, where the former understood there were innumerable souls to be saved. After traveling many days they reached a large settlement in the Quivira country. The Indians came out to receive them in battle array, when the friar, knowing their intentions, told the Portuguese and his attendants to take flight, while he would await their coming, in order that they might vent their fury on him as they ran. The former took flight, and placing themselves on a height within view, saw what happened to the friar. Padilla awaited their coming upon his knees, and when they arrived where he was, they immediately put him to death. . . . The Portuguese and his attendants made their escape, and ultimately arrived safely in Mexico, where he told what had occurred.

If this version of the effort of Padilla to found a mission in Quivira is correct, he was slain before he had entered the Indian town. The heavens were not rent, nor was the moon turned to blood. There is no mention of a cross, and the inference is that the priest had reached a new town—had found a village of which he had not heard before.

It is with Padilla as with the other Spaniards connected with the Coronado expedition. There is little that can be asserted with confidence. The evidence is fragmentary, contradictory, and incomplete. No certain thing can be founded on it.

The effort to have it appear that a certain monument erected of stones more or less regularly set together near the present Council Grove was erected by the Indians as a monument to Padilla cannot be sustained. That monument was probably set up as a guide-post at the opening of the Santa Fe Trail by the Missourians. General James H. Lane marked the underground railroad from Topeka to Nebraska City in 1856 with exactly such monuments as that to be seen at Council Grove. After the discontinuance of the Lane Trail these monuments were called “Lane's Chimneys.” There were some of them still standing in Richardson County, Nebraska, in 1890. Their purpose had been forgotten with new generations, and their origin was attributed to the Indians. And there is not the slightest evidence that Padilla was ever in the Council-Grove regions. He may have been there, but there is no record to establish that historical fact.

Humana

The Coronado expedition gave the Spaniards the first claim, the prior right and title to the Great Plains. The discovery, together with the exploration of the country by De Soto, should have given the great interior valley in the heart of the continent to Spain. This it would have done had that country shown energy and persistency in its conquest and settlement. But the unusual success of Cortez and Pizarro had over-wrought the Spanish common mind. Countries holding only possibilities of trade and agriculture were not at that time considered worth much, and they received little attention. The adventurers were seeking countries full of gold and silver. It was their intention to seize those commodities at all hazards, even though the lands so ravaged were utterly destroyed. The Great Plains, those “sandy heaths” covered with wild cattle and inhabited by naked savages, did not appeal to the average Spaniard. He was often ruthless and cruel in his conduct toward the Indians in such countries as he finally settled, sometimes perpetrating more atrocious murders than the savages were guilty of, as witness the action of Coronado when he burned the people of the pueblos at the stake.

In the occupation of the country north, of Mexico the priests stopped in the dead and desolate pueblos along the Rio Grande. A few Spaniards—Mexicans—came with them. The burdens imposed on the miserable Indians of the filthy pueblos were unbearable, and they were goaded into desperation. They rose and slew to the utmost. This civilization brought into the valley of the Rio Grande, nearly as barbarous as that which it sought to displace, was thrown back whence it came. It was some years before another attempt to colonize that country was made.

For many years the feeble and desultory efforts at exploration only reflected the weakness of the Spanish in New Mexico. The discoveries made by Coronado could not be continued. A few journeys were made to the plains, but they constantly diminished in strength and purpose. They were finally abandoned altogether. An empire of vast possibilities was practically forgotten in the interest of goats and burros on the deserts of New Mexico.

The first of the futile efforts to follow the grand march of Coronado was a filibustering expedition led from Nuevo Viscaya by Francisco Leyva de Bonilla and Antonio Gutierrez de Humana, in 1594. It is claimed that it was unauthorized. Bonilla was the leader. He lingered about the old pueblos a year, with Bove, the St. Ildefonso of later times, as his headquarters. Then he began his movement to the northeastward. He is said to have passed through Pecos and another pueblo, but he did not follow the route of Coronado, though it is believed he ultimately reached the same destination. A vagabond and wandering course was pursued to the eastward, many streams crossed, and large herds of buffalo encountered. Far out on the plains, Bonilla turned to the north. He probably entered Kansas somewhere about the town of Kiowa, and crossed the Arkansas in the vicinity of Wichita. There he found, no doubt, the Quivira villages visited by Coronado. About these towns there were extensive fields of corn. Three days beyond them to the north on the road which led Coronado to the Nebraska border he was murdered by Humana, who usurped command of the filibusteros. On that day a buffalo herd was seen which seemed to cover all the plains. After this the herds were not so large, and on the tenth day out from the Quivira towns on the Arkansas, a river was reached which was a quarter of a league wide, as remembered by the man who described the journey. It was possibly the Platte. There six Indians deserted and started back to New Mexico. Jusephe, one of the deserters, seems to have finally escaped, though he was captured by the Apaches, who kept him a year. The other deserters were lost or killed.

The narrative of this Contrabando is obscure and half-mythical, as are most of the old Spanish chronicles. By one version it appears that while the party lay encamped on the plains, “gold-laden,” the grass was set on fire by the Indians. They rushed forward with the flames and massacred the entire band, except Alonzo Sanchez, whom the Indians saved, and who became a great chief among them.

The route of Humana, after he left the towns of Quivira, on the Arkansas, is a matter of conjecture. It is believed that he reached the Platte River. It is likely that he lost his life in the robbery of some Pawnee Indian Town. There was no good accomplished by this band, and geographical knowledge was not increased by its journey over the plains into what is now Kansas.

Onate

The Spaniards called the pueblos on the Rio Grande the “first settlements.” In the year 1601, Don Juan de Onate, being at the first settlements, determined to go on an expedition “to the interior, by a northern route and direction, both because of the splendid reports which the native Indians ware giving of this land, and also because of what an Indian named Joseph, who was born and reared in New Spain and who speaks the Mexican tongue, saw while going with Captain Umana.” The force was assembled at San Gabriel, and on the 23d of June detachments began the march for the final rendezvous, the pueblo of Galisteo, which they left about the first of July.

Their route carried them across the Gallinas, and to the Canadian, which they named the River Magdalena. They descended the Canadian, finding much improvement in the country and climate as their journey progressed to the eastward. Apache Indians were encountered and found to be friendly. The river led the Spaniards out onto the buffalo plains. Sometimes the bluffs made it necessary for them to bear away from the river. Other bands of Apaches were met, but “no Indian became impertinent.” The great abundance of wild plums pleased the men much. Early in August herds of buffalo appeared, and their habits are well described. Coming down from the Great Staked Plain, sand-hills turned them away from the river, and they bore north to two streams supposed now to be Beaver Creek and the Cimarron. Continuing in a north-easterly direction the buffalo increased, and some of the prairies were covered with wild flowers. Beyond these much game was seen. Oak and walnut trees were found along the streams, the water of which was cool and pleasant. A temporary village or camp of wandering Indians was found. These are said to have been the Escanjaques, later identified by some students with Kansas or Kaw Indians. Whether this identification shall be permitted to stand remains one of the problems for students of the future. It would appear that it is much more probable that they were the Arkansas Indians, who had come up the Arkansas River to hunt the buffalo. They had lodges ninety feet in diameter, covered with buffalo hides, and they wore dressed hides for clothing. They were at war with another tribe living some twenty-five miles beyond in the interior. The Escanjaques said it was their enemies who had killed Humana and his men. They supposed the Spaniards had come for the purpose of avenging those murders, and they requested permission to guide the strangers to those villages. This permission was granted, and the whites were taken seven leagues to a river with wonderful banks, and in some places so deep that vessels might have sailed on it with ease. The land was fertile and densely wooded along the river, which is now supposed to be the Arkansas.

The Spaniards seem to have been descending the Arkansas, for the mention of crossing smaller rivers is made. Marches totaling eleven leagues brought them to some elevations upon which appeared people shouting for war. They were, however, appeased, and they invited the Spaniards to their houses. That night the Indians of this latter village were accused of having murdered Humana and his men “surrounding them with fire and burning them all, and that they had with them one who had escaped, injured by the fire.” The peculiar wording of this text makes it probable that the survivor was a mulatto woman described in Zarate's Land of Sunshine. This accusation was made by the accompanying Indians. The party took counsel as to what should be done, and it was determined to seize some of the Indians of the town and carry them along. Among those taken was the chief, Catarax.

The Spaniards there crossed the river at a ford, and half a league out an Indian town was found which contained twelve hundred houses, “all established along the bank of another good-sized river which flowed into the large one.” The houses were those seen by Coronado in Quivira, or similar ones, and they probably stood along the banks of the little Arkansas, on the present site of Wichita, Kansas. The people had fled and the houses were vacant, though containing corn. The Escanjaques desired to burn the town, and perhaps did burn a portion of it. The country there is described as the best the Spaniards had ever seen.

Another council was held. The Escanjaques^[5] and the captive Indians were questioned, and their statements agreed. Another river having six or seven branches was said to be not far away. On that river many people dwelt. The Humana party had been murdered a long distance from there—“Eighteen days' journey from here.” Large settlements of Indians were to be found both above and below this town, and the river at that point runs east. The Indians advised the Spaniards to stop and go no further, saying the people who had deserted their homes had gone to assemble their friends to attack the intruders and would destroy them. But the Spaniards pushed on, starting the following day. They traveled three leagues through a well settled country, and could see houses still beyond. The information that had been given them as to the hostile reception they might expect on the third day now began to impress them. Another conference was held, when it was determined to set out on the return to New Mexico.

To prevent the Escanjaques from burning the houses in the town along the Little Arkansas the Spaniards had sent them back home from that point. Now, on returning to that town the Escanjaques were found entrenched in these abandoned houses with the purpose of giving battle. The commander of the Spanish party, mounted his men on armored horses and awaited the attack of the savages, who came on to the number of fifteen hundred, if the old accounts are to be believed. And others joined them. The conflict raged for two hours. The Spaniards were driven from the field, though they claimed to have slain many of the Indians. They freed some Indian women, but retained one man and some boys. They then returned to their camp to sleep, almost all of them being slightly wounded. How they escaped we are not told, the narrative ending with the statement that “On the following day we set out, traveling with our usual care, and in fifty-nine days we reached the camp of San Gabriel, having spent in the entire journey the time from the 23d of June until the 24th of November.”

An Indian was carried back and was named Miguel. It seems that he had been captured by the tribe with which the Spaniards battled. He was taken to Mexico where he found that the Spaniards wanted gold above all things. He, like the Turk and others, told them what they wished to hear. He described golden countries and drew a map of them which is still in existence. The King of Spain was wrought up by the stories told by Miguel and ordered an expedition of one thousand men to be sent to seek out those golden shores. The Count of Monterey was then Viceroy of Mexico, and he had no faith in the Indian's tales. The expedition was never sent out.

It may be taken as fairly well established that the battle between the Spaniards and the Escanjaques was fought in an Indian village from which the Quiviras (Wichitas) had fled. And, also, that this village stood within the present limits of Wichita, Kansas, which more than likely, was the Quivira town visited by Coronado.

Penalosa

Onate returned to New Mexico, as we have seen. It is said, that in a few years eight hundred Quivira Indians visited Onate, carrying with them a prisoner named Axtaos. It seems that the Quivirans were at war with the Axtaos tribe, and desired that Onate aid them in this warfare. The idea of seeking his aid may have originated from reflection upon the battle with the Escanjaques. The Axtaos of the Quivirans may have been the Escanjaques of the Spaniards. Perhaps the Quivirans supposed that it would be an easy matter to induce the Spaniards to engage in war with a tribe which had handled them so roughly on the plains. Finding an unwillingness on the part of the whites to again cross swords with the fierce tribe of the prairies, the Quivirans sang the old song so pleasant to Spanish ears—that of gold. They said there was gold in the interior of their country, supposing the cavaliers would set forth at once to find it. But even this siren song failed to move the Governor of New Mexico, and the Quivirans returned alone to their towns along some plains river.

There is some reason to believe that in 1634 an expedition under Captain Alonzo Vaca penetrated the plains to the River Quivira. It marched eastward more than three hundred leagues, but did not cross the river into Quivira. Very little is known of this expedition. Probably some wild tale of gold in the plains streams induced these Spaniards to brave the march from the deserts to search for it.

Of the expedition of Don Diego Dionisio de Penalosa, Governor of New Mexico from 1661 to 1664, there is a better record. This record has been condemned and discredited by some writers. If admitted it would upset the preconceived ideas of some on the location of the country—and especially the towns—of Quivira. Having fixed these towns on the Kansas River it would prove troublesome to admit as genuine any document which would make the location untenable.^[6]

In the spring of 1662, Penalosa gathered his forces for the march eastward to find Quivira, the location of which remained an enigma to some extent even to the New Mexican Spanish, notwithstanding the many explorations they made to that land. The expedition consisted of eighty Spanish soldiers, with six three-pounder cannon, and thirty-six carts to carry the ammunition. There were one thousand Indians, by which we may suppose there was possibly one-fifth of that number. These were armed in Indian fashion, with bows and arrows. It is said that there were eight hundred horses and three hundred mules. It is always well to view with suspicion the boasting numbers set down in any Spanish document, even though it is known to be genuine. These reports were sometimes composed by priests in the New World for the use of priestly authority in Spain, and large numbers were sometimes employed to create a favorable impression across the ocean.

In Quivira, Penalosa found the great city of Taracari. It was within eight leagues of “a very high and insuperable ridge,” which was the end of Quivira. It does not appear that the Spaniards tarried at Taracari. They passed on, coming finally to a river called, by the Indians, the Mischipi. There they found the Escanjaques Indians, to the number of three thousand, assembled and armed to invade Quivira and attack its first city. The Mischipi was reached in June. The prairies were beautiful. One crop of corn was no sooner gathered than another was planted in that fertile land.

The Spaniards and Escanjaques marched together up the river, having the “insuperable” ridge of mountains on their left hand. They halted for the night in some fine prairies, and six hundred Escanjaques went out to hunt the buffalo, in which they were very successful, each returning with the tongue of a cow, and some bringing two or three tongues. The next day, after marching four leagues, the mountain range was again discovered. It was covered with signal smokes to tell of the approach of the Christian army. And coming thence to some “widespread prairies of another beautiful river,” the great settlement of Quivira was found. This river came out of the mountain range to the west and united with the Mischipi.

The Escanjaques desired to destroy the Quivira settlement, and the Spaniards ordered them to remain behind and not enter it. But it seems that they crossed the river with the whites, and were with difficulty restrained from attacking the Quivirans. Seventy head-chiefs came out to meet Penalosa, bearing presents, buckskin, and fur caps, and bonnets. They were entertained by the Spaniards, who bestowed upon them some presents, but they were much disturbed when they found their white visitors in company with their avowed enemies, the Escanjaques. To reassure the Quivirans, the Spaniards gave them presents and expressed the warmest friendship for them, promising to stand by them. This pleased the Quivirans, who made further presents, consisting of furs, bread, corn, beans, pumpkins, sandpipers, turkeys, partridges, and fish. They invited the Spaniards to enter their principal settlements the next day, to do which, another river had to be crossed—a rapid river. When they departed, the commander detained two of their chiefs, who were questioned until midnight, when they lay down to sleep, as was supposed. But they arose and went over to their own city, fearing an attack there of the Escanjaques. Their fears were well founded, for those treacherous Indians crossed in the night and attacked the Quivirans, killing all they could and burning the city. The Spaniards crossed the river and entered the burning city shortly after sunrise, but the Quivirans had fled, believing the whites in treacherous league with the Escanjaques. The soldiers spent most of the day in arresting the conflagration and restraining their self-imposed allies. The next morning Penalosa marched two leagues through the settlement and counted thousands of houses. He halted on the bank of another river, which he found coming down through the settlement. It was observed that the much-used paths came down from the lofty range six leagues away, entering the settlement every quarter of a league. A detachment of twenty men, under Major Francis de Madrid, was sent to explore all the town, but they were unable that day to come to its outward bounds. They returned to report that the Quivirans had fled and could not be found. On the 11th of June, which was probably the following day, the Spaniards departed from Quivira and set out on their return to New Mexico.

As in all the other Spanish expeditions to Quivira, it is impossible to tell to what point Penalosa penetrated. There is no probability that he reached the Mississippi. At Fort Smith, where the Arkansas enters the Ozarks, there are many streams, and the old chronicle describes the country round about fairly well. But none can say certainly where he did actually go. The country on the Neosho, about the mouth of Spring River, is well described, and it may be that to that point Penalosa came. One thing is apparent. There never existed even in New Mexico any clear conception and definite knowledge of the location of Quivira. It was to the eastward. It was a land of plains and rivers. It was grass-covered. And it was roamed over by the wild cattle. That is most that was known by the Spaniards along the Rio Grande about Quivira.

Brower

It is necessary to notice here the work of one J. V. Brower, who some years ago came into Kansas and pretended to fix beyond question the exact spots visited by Coronado. He published three books on the transactions of Coronado. He made maps of Quivira and the adjacent country of Harahey. On these maps be pretended to define the bounds of those countries exactly—there was no conjecture, no possibility of error admitted. In instances without number the lines of Quivira bend around the heads of ravines as though a careful survey had been made. The north line is carried along the south bank of the Smoky Hill, falling sometimes within a mile or less of that stream, but never permitted to touch it. The line between France and Germany was never more closely adjusted than he made that between two tribes of brutish Indians belonging to a common linguistic family. He pretended to rediscover the principal villages and camps of Quivira and Harahey. He caused to be erected granite monuments to mark the sites of these supposed rediscoveries. And these shafts always bore inscriptions telling how the sites they marked had been rediscovered by J. V. Brower. Mr. Brower pretended to define these countries of Quivira and Harahey by the extent of certain chert beds and the forms of certain flint implements he found about the forks of the Kansas River. He claims to have traced the inhabitants of Quivira and Harahey from the Ozark Mountains to the locations he assigns them. He did this by means of the forms of the flint arrowheads, knives, axes, and hammers made by them. He even assures us that they lived on deer and wild turkeys in the Ozarks, but became raw-meat eaters and blood-drinkers on the Kansas plains where they could get buffaloes for food. This seems strange when we remember that there were as many buffaloes on the plains skirting the Ozarks as there were on the Kansas River, and as many deer and turkeys on the Kansas streams as there were in the Ozarks. And even on the Ozark ranges there were buffaloes in untold numbers. For the Ozark Mountains were treeless and grass-covered until the expulsion of the Indians. The timber appeared on them after the white man came and stopped the Indian practice of burning the country over annually.

The methods of Mr. Brower cannot be approved. The shafts which he caused to be erected may by mere accident be in proper locations. Most probably they are not. He did not know. No one knows. No one ever will know. The data to determine these matters does not now exist. So far as is now known, this evidence has not been in existence for the past three hundred years.

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With Quivira Kansas made her first manifestation. She broke on the world with a radiant flash as a recompense to Coronado for Cibola and the pueblos of the Rio Grande—the mummy villages of the dead deserts. While she was not appreciated and was left to her “brutish people” and her rolling herds of wild oxen for some centuries, it is a source of satisfaction to know that the Kansas plains were ridden over by mailed knights generations before Jamestown and Plymouth Rock were planted on our eastern shores. Vague Old Quivira plants the feet of lusty young Kansas in the dim and misty fastnesses of the past to give dignity and beget pride in the history of a state. Hazy and distant Quivira is hoary with antiquity, but in young and buxom Kansas she becomes the beacon of modern energy to light up the ways of the world. Touched with the magic fire of Kansas, Old Quivira has become a flame that burns across the heavens—an inspiration, an ideal far superior in value to the crops or herds or mines embraced in all her borders. For ideals are more precious to mankind than material things.

So, Quivira takes its place as one of those romantic incidents peculiar to Kansas history. It was all but forgotten for two hundred years. Connected with any other state, Quivira would have passed from the memory of man. Or, perhaps, a few dry lines would have appeared in the misty annals of the Southwest to tell of a fruitless trip to a desert land. But associated with Kansas it became an indefinite mystery vital as the pilgrimages to find the Holy Grail. Romances will have their seat in it. Quivira is not only coequal with Kansas—it is Kansas. It matters not now about exact metes and bounds, and never more will matter, for they are not essential to Quivira. It assumes a larger part—takes form as our earliest absorbing tradition. It is our remotest background in which take refuge the mystic tragedies incident to the evolution of the Great Plains. As a field for the fanciful it holds an expanding value to the coming generations of Kansas. Intangible as the luminous haze of a plains-horizon, Quivira will become the swelling fountain of romance for all who shall seek to connect their times with that mystic life which is to remain the strongest support of civilization as long as the world shall stand.

Authorities

The principal authorities on the Spanish explorations of Kansas are—

George Parker Winship, in The 14th Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, 1896.

Hubert Howe Bancroft in the History of Arizona and New Mexico, 1889.

Spanish Explorations in the Southern United States, edited by Frederick W. Hodge, 1907.

Spanish Explorations in the Southwest, edited by Herbert Eugene Bolton, 1916.

“The True Route of Coronado's March,” by F. S. Dellenbaugh, in Bulletin of American Geographical Society, Vol. XXIX, No. 4, 1897.

The works of A. F. Bandelier. Among these, see Historical Introduction to Studies Among the Sedentary Indians of New Mexico. Also Contributions to the History of the Southwestern Portion of the United States.

Journal of a Military Reconnoissance from Santa Fe, etc. Senate Executive Document 64, 31st Congress, 1st Session. Also Coronado's March in Search of the “Seven Cities” of Cibola, Smithsonian Report for 1869. By James Hervey Simpson.

Important articles have been published in the Kansas Historical Collections.

John Madden has, in Volume VII, “Wardens of the Marches,” an extensive and intelligent discussion of the route of Coronado and the land of Quivira.

In Volume XII is “A Study of the Route of Coronado between the Rio Grande and the Missouri Rivers” by James Newton Basket, of Mexico, Mo.

In Volume X is “The White Man's Foot in Kansas” by John B. Dunbar, of Bloomfield, New Jersey.

In Volume VIII is “Early Spanish Explorations and Indian Implements in Kansas” by W. E. Richey, of Harveyville, Kansas. A picture of the famous “Coronado Sword,” and an account of where it was found, and how it came into Mr. Richey's possession, are a part of the paper. The sword is now the property of the Kansas State Historical Society. It was found in the year 1886, on the head waters of Pawnee Creek, near the north line of Finney County. Kansas, nearly due north of the town of Ingalls. It evidently belonged to Gallego, one of the principal men of the Coronado expedition, for it bears his name graven in the metal. On it are these inscriptions:

No Me Saques Sin Razon
No Me Enbaines Sin Honor.

In the Agora, a magazine published in Kansas and running through the years 1891 to 1896, there is a translation of Voyages, Relations Et Memoires Originaux Pour Servir a L'Historie de la Decouverte De L'Amerique, Publies Pour La Premiere fois en Francais Par H. Ternaux—Compans. This translation was made by Eugene F. Ware, and the first chapters were published in 1895.

In A History of Missouri, by Louis Houck, three volumes, 1908, there is a good discussion of Coronado's route. Some parts of the subject are there better treated than in any other work examined.

Footnotes

1. Under various headings in the Handbook of American Indians, issued by the Bureau of Ethnology it is said that the Turk was a Pawnee—“evidently a Pawnee.” I have not found anything to support that view except the statements in the work above referred to. Mr. Dunbar, in his article, “The White Man's Foot in Kansas” published in Volume X, Kansas State Historical Collections, says in reference to this matter:

   The Turk was no doubt a native of some tribe near the Mississippi, for his description of the scene quoted from Castaneda, one of the chroniclers of Coronado's march, portrays an ordinary familiar scene upon the Mississippi River at that time; while the second writer, the Knight of Elvas, a chronicler of Soto's expedition, presents an ornate naval display on the part of the Indians before the Spanish chieftain. Though the conditions were so diverse, the underlined portions indicate essential resemblance. The two passages are as follows: He (Turk) claimed that in his native country, where the land was level, there was a river two leagues in width, in which were fishes as large as horses, and many canoes of great size with more than twenty oarsmen upon either side. The boats carried sails and the chiefs sat at the stern under awnings, while upon the prow was a large eagle of gold. The next day, the cacique arrived with 200 canoes filled with men, having weapons. They were painted with ochre, wearing great bunches of white and other plumes of many colors, having feathered shields in their hands, with which they sheltered the oarsmen upon either side, the warriors standing erect from bow to stern, holding bows and arrows. The barge in which the cacique came had an awning at the poop under which he sat.

   The absurdity of contending that the Turk was a Pawnee Indian is clearly shown by these quotations. The Turk lived on the Mississippi. If he were a Pawnee, then the Pawnee Indian country bordered on the Mississippi below the mouth of the Ohio, and the Pawnees were the Indians who met De Soto. There is another horn to this dilemma. If the Turk were a Pawnee and the Pawnee country came down to the Kansas River about the mouth of the Big Blue, then his description of the river must be made to apply to the Kansas—something which is preposterous.
2. See his article, “The True Route of Coronado's March,” in the Bulletin of the American Geographical Society, Vol. XXIX, No. 4, 1897. In his “Notes on the Location of the Tigues,” he says:

   Benavides spent about seven years in the Rio Grande region of New Mexico prior to 1630. He was in charge of the church missions. He was a very intelligent man, and it is proper to regard his statements as fairly accurate. He says the first villages coming up the river from Mexico were one hundred leagues south of Taos. They were Qualcu and Senecu. This is apparently the same point at which Onate placed his first villages forty-one leagues above El Paso. Fifteen leagues up the river from Senecu was Sevilleta. Then there was a blank of seven leagues. Then came the Teoas villages, evidently identical with the Tiguex of Coronado and the Tiguas of Espejo. These villages extended up the river from the first one, twelve or fifteen leagues. Then came an interval of four leagues to the next village up the river, San Felipe, which appears to be the same as the town mentioned by Onate. From San Felipe it was about eleven leagues to Santa Ana, the location of which is more easily fixed because it was about twelve leagues east of Acoma. Thus Santa Ana and the Emeies of Espejo seem to have been very near together. Tiguex, therefore, was down the river from a point twelve or fifteen leagues east of Acoma. Consequently the site assigned to it by modern writers at Bernalillo is not correct.

3. Read chapters XIX and XX Voyages, Relations et Memoires Originaux Pour Servir a L'Historie de la Decouverte De L' Amerique. Relation Du Voyage de Cibola, entrepis en 1540. Paris, 1838. And see also the Spanish texts and translations on this point, Vol. XIV, Annual Report, Bureau of Ethnology.
4. According to Jaramillo, Quivira and Harahey formed one country and one government,—and had a single ruler or chief. “The general wrote a letter here to the governor of Harahey and Quivira, etc.” And in the same paragraph—“The general sent to summon the lord of those parts and other Indians who they said resided in Harahey, and he came with about 200 men.”
5. Among the first to identify the Escanjaques with the Kansas Indians was George P. Morehouse, of Council Grove. Mr. Morehouse has given the history of the Kansas Indians much attention and deep study. F. W. Hodge, of the Bureau of Ethnology, Washington, is the best authority who has accepted this identification. For Mr. Hodge's opinion I have profound respect. But it is not yet established that the Quivira towns visited by Coronado were on or near the Kansas River. I am of the opinion that the location is untenable and will soon be abandoned by students. While there is much to support that theory there is much more to condemn it. The latest writers are placing the Coronado-Quivira towns on the Arkansas River—a much more likely location. Whether they are to be finally established there, none can tell. But that they were far south of the Kansas River, I think there is no question. From the Red River Coronado went straight north on the 101st Meridian-180 leagues, which brought him to the Platte River, which is just 175 leagues or 460 miles. This allows 5 leagues or 13 miles for detours and deviations in the journey north. The Platte is St. Peter & St. Paul's River. Now, if the Coronado-Quivira towns were not on the Kansas River, nor near it, the Escanjaques were not the Kansas Indians. The Kansas Indians would not go so far south to hunt the buffalo. For it is conceded that they lived then on the banks of the Missouri, and north of the Kansas River. There were buffalo in their own country at that time, but probably not in such numbers as on the plains. It is doubtful if the Caddoan people, the Pawnees and Wichitas, would have permitted them to cross Quivira to hunt the buffalo, even if the Coronado-Quivira country was on the Kansas River. It is certain that the Kansas Indians did not at that time hunt on the Arkansas River. From the Red River Coronado went straight north on the 101st Meridian-180 leagues, which brought him to the Platte River, which is just 175 leagues or 460 miles. This allows 5 leagues or 13 miles for detours and deviations in the journey north. The Platte is St. Peter & St. Paul's River. It is in reason to believe that the Arkansas Indians, the Arkanse, came up the Arkansas River to the buffalo plains. Their location would warrant their doing that. They were found on the south side of the Arkansas River. That river must have been the south boundary of Quivira. To reach the point where Onate found the Escanjaques they would not have had to pass through any Quivira country. Perhaps the Arkansas Indians claimed the south half or portion of the south half of the Arkansas River valley. Onate may have found them in their own country. Then, it is not certain that they were there on a hunting trip. They may then have lived permanently there. They seemed to know of the Humana expedition and the fate of the party. From the Red River Coronado went straight north on the 101st Meridian-180 leagues, which brought him to the Platte River, which is just 175 leagues or 460 miles. This allows 5 leagues or 13 miles for detours and deviations in the journey north. The Platte is St. Peter & St. Paul's River. The orthography of the two words, Kansa and Arkansea, goes far to prove that the Escanjaques were the Arkansea—not the Kansas Indians. From the Red River Coronado went straight north on the 101st Meridian-180 leagues, which brought him to the Platte River, which is just 175 leagues or 460 miles. This allows 5 leagues or 13 miles for detours and deviations in the journey north. The Platte is St. Peter & St. Paul's River. I maintain that the identification of the Escanjaques is not a settled matter, and that the Escanjaques are much more likely to have been the Arkansea than the Kansa.
6. See Bancroft's History of Arizona and New Mexico, P. 169. Also Houck's A History of Missouri, Vol. I, P. 39. The story may be a fiction, but satisfactory evidence of that fact has not been produced.