CHAPTER V.
QUIVIRA.
It is a well-known fact that lost travellers involuntarily walk circuitously, generally toward the right, and so gradually return to the place whence they started. This phenomenon is especially frequent in wide, treeless plains, where prominent objects by which the wanderer can direct himself are wanting. It has an extremely dangerous effect upon the mind, and may, if it occurs repeatedly, easily lead to despair and frenzy. What happens to individuals may also occur to a larger number. This was the fate of Coronado and his company when they sought and found Quivira. They returned in a wide bend to their starting-point, after they had wandered for months on the desolate plains, "led around in a circle as if by some evil spirit."
Coronado, having completed all his preparations at Pecos, left that pueblo in the beginning of May, 1541, to go to the prairies. His general direction was northeast. On the fourth day he crossed a river that was so deep that they had to throw a bridge over it. This river was perhaps the Rio de Mora, and not, as I formerly thought, the little Gallinas, which flows by Las Vegas. The latter, an affluent of the Pecos, is too insignificant, while the Mora is tolerably rapid and deeper. But it was more probably the Canadian River, into which the Mora empties. Of the three accounts of the campaign which lie before me, Jaramillo's is very confused, and that of Pedro de Casteñeda, which was written long after the event, must be used with scrutiny and caution, while the third letter of Coronado to Charles V. was composed immediately after the expedition, and thus records fresh, clear recollections. Coronado and Casteñeda, besides, agree in the principal points. Herrera has compiled from all the materials, and has used, among other sources, the anonymous "Relation de los Sucesos de la Jornada" etc. (1541). He is not less trustworthy as a source of information than Mota-Padilla.
The Spaniards soon found themselves in the plains, and were surrounded by herds of the American bison or buffalo. The first sight of these animals produced a great terror among the horses. They all ran away at the view of those large, hairy, ill-shaped beasts, which covered the plain by thousands, and whose hollow bellowing and glowing eyes still strangely affect those who see them for the first time. The plain aroused feelings of anxiety and gloom among the men by its immense monotony and the absence of any marks by which they could direct themselves. The conviction stands out in the writings of all the witnesses, that an oppressive feeling of helplessness soon made itself master of them. Casteñeda gives an excellent description of the llanos and their character: "All that one could see of these plains was entirely uninhabited. On a stretch of two hundred and fifty leagues one could discern neither the other mountain chains, nor hills, nor a single elevation of more than two or three fathoms. Occasional lagoons were found, as round as plates, which might have been a stone's-throw in diameter, while a few were a little broader. The water of some was fresh, of others salt. The grass grows high around these pools, but everywhere else it is extremely short. Trees stand only in isolated ravines, in the bottoms of which flow little brooks, so that one can see around him nothing but sky and plain, for he is not aware of these ravines till he gets to their edge. Descending them are paths, which the buffaloes have trodden in going to drink."
The feeling of helplessness which gradually crept upon the hearts of the Spaniards became critical by the growing conviction that their leader, "the Turk," was betraying them and purposely leading them astray. They began to believe that the inhabitants of the pueblos had induced him to conduct the Spaniards into the plains, in order that they might perish there and the sedentary tribes thus be rid of their troublesome guests. His companion, whom the Pecos Indians had associated with him, who was born at Quivira, and whom the chronicler calls variously "Sopete" and "Ysopete," talked quite differently from "the Turk." The feeling thus came upon the Spaniards, at the very beginning of the campaign, that the outcome of their enterprise was at least extremely doubtful.
The troop came upon the first Indians of the plains about seventeen days after leaving Pecos. Coronado pertinently designates these people as those "who go around the country with the cows." The Prairie Indian, who lives on the bison, also, as it were, lives with him. These aborigines dwelt in tents of buffalo hide; they had no agriculture; they dressed in buffalo skins, and kept dogs, which they used as beasts of burden. The Spanish writers call them Querechos. There is no doubt that they were Apaches, and of the group which were called Vaqueros in the beginning of the sixteenth century, because they were associated exclusively with the "wild cow" (or bison). This tribe used the dog as a pack and draft animal as late as the middle of the last century. The species apparently belongs to the family of the Arctic dog, and probably came down with the Apaches from the north. I do not know whence the name of "Querechos" is derived, unless it is a pueblo name from the Jemez dialect, which was spoken in Pecos. It has some resemblance to "Oi-ra-uash," by which the Queres Indians designated a savage tribe that threatened the pueblos from the plains previous to the arrival of the Spaniards.
The Querechos, or Apaches, as I shall hereafter call them, were friendly toward the Spaniards; but they knew nothing of Quivira and its treasures. The whites then continued to follow their guides, but these soon lost their way; every landmark disappeared, and thirst began to afflict the adventurers, who wandered aimlessly over the plains. Reconnoissances led to no results, for the sky and bisons were all that could be discovered. The Spaniards had accustomed their horses to hunting the wild oxen, and inflicted the same useless slaughter upon them of which American and European hunters and travellers were guilty, till the animals disappeared from their haunts. At one of the camping places the troop were surprised by a violent storm, with hail, that frightened the horses, wounded many, and broke to pieces everything frangible in the camp. A whirlwind accompanied the hail, and carried away tents, coverings, and some of the horses. The storm fortunately came upon them in the bottom of a ravine; if it had been on the plain the damage would have been much greater.
Wandering around in this way upon the illimitable plains, they again came suddenly in contact with Indians. Like the Querechos, this tribe, which was called "Teyas," lived exclusively with and upon the buffalo. They were hostile toward the Apaches of the plain, had been troublesome to the pueblo of Pecos, and appeared frank and friendly toward the Spaniards. They were of large stature and well shaped, and painted their faces and bodies with various figures. I do not venture to express a definite opinion as to what tribe the Teyas belonged to. Some have thought they were the Comanches, but those Indians were not known to the Pueblos till about the year 1700, while the Teyas, as I have remarked, had had hostile (and also friendly) intercourse with them before the arrival of the Spaniards. They may have been Utes. They knew of Quivira and the eastern regions, and gave Coronado information concerning them. But they were ignorant of the stone buildings, of the treasures and wealth, and in general of all that "the Turk" had described. The dwellings in Quivira, they said, were of "straw and skins," and there was very little maize there. These accounts produced great depression, but still greater was the irritation against the guide who had drawn them into this country. "The Turk" finally confessed that he had spoken falsely to the whites when he told them of stone houses; but he adhered to what he had asserted concerning the numerous population and the wealth in metals of Quivira. He was thereupon put in chains, and the company continued its arduous march with guides whom the Teyas supplied. Scarcity of water was the greatest privation they suffered. Intense thirst afflicted man and beast, and buffalo meat was all they had with which to appease their hunger, for the supplies of maize were exhausted.
The Teyas advised Coronado to return; they assured him that nearly forty days' march would still be required to reach Quivira, and that the scarcity of water and of vegetable food would destroy his little army on the way. Many soldiers had already disappeared by going from the camp to hunt, when they became lost and miserably perished. Nevertheless Coronado determined to satisfy at least himself personally with the sight of Quivira, but to risk the lives of only a few men on the chance. Against the entreaties and expostulations of his followers, he selected twenty-nine horsemen, put himself at their head, entrusted the command of the main corps to Tristan de Arellano, and went on under the guidance of the Teyas, together with the enchained "Turk" and the other Indian. According to Casteñeda's statements, the point where the Spaniards separated was thirty-seven days' march—of six or seven leagues or between sixteen and nineteen English miles each—from Pecos. If we suppose, what is, however, doubtful, because of their wandering around, that they marched toward the northeast, they were then near the eastern border of New Mexico, close upon what is now the Indian Territory. A passage in Coronado's report says that in thirty-seven days they only marched on twenty, so that the distance traversed would be about three hundred miles. It, however, appears very plainly that they had turned to the right and marched in a circle, and, instead of northeast, were east or east-southeast of Pecos.
The date of the separation can be fixed approximately. The Spaniards left Pecos on the 3d of May, and, according to Casteñeda, reached the place where the army remained on June 9th. On St. Peter and St. Paul's day—July 10th—according to Jarainillo, the little band of horsemen to which he belonged, and which was under Coronado's personal leading, had been thirty days on the march; the separation must therefore have taken place on the 9th of June—that is, on Ascension Day of 1541, as Mota-Padilla correctly gives it. The "army," as it was called, was now divided into two parts, and it is therefore necessary to follow the fortunes of each of them separately. Casteñeda belonged to the chief corps, and concerned himself, in his account, exclusively with it. Coronado and Jaramillo, on the other hand, speak only of the march to Quivira, in which they took part.
Arellano and the "army" proper remained fifteen days in the spot where Coronado left them, spending the time in slaughtering the buffaloes that ranged around them. This wasteful butchery was carried to such an extent that more than five hundred bulls were slain, with a number of cows. Several of the soldiers were lost in the hunt, and disappeared entirely. At last, on the 24th of June, a retreat was begun, in the course of which several salt lakes and numerous prairie-dogs were seen. More than thirty leagues (eighty-one miles) south of the spot where the bridge had been thrown across the Canadian River the band came to the Pecos, below "Anton Chico"; then followed the course of that river to the great pueblo, arriving in front of it on July 19th. The inhabitants had changed in feeling, and refused them provisions. So the weary company were obliged to go on, and came to a halt at Tiguex, near the present town of Bernalillo, in their former headquarters, at the end of July, 1541. The Tiguas had in the interval resumed possession of their pueblo, but left it on the approach of the Spaniards and fled to the mountains. It was still summer, and there was no lack of provisions. Arellano therefore busied himself actively with laying in stores for the winter.
So far as the main body of the Spanish "army" was concerned, the march toward Quivira had terminated, having borne only insignificant fruits. Except for the buffalo hunting, which supplied meat and hides in quantities, they had gained nothing in return for their unprecedentd toil and danger besides the conviction that they had been betrayed and misled, and that Quivira was in no sense the gold-rich land that it had been described to them to be. This conviction had been impressed upon every one of them, so that the men were unwilling to see Coronado start off on an adventure more hazardous than any they had passed through, and with only a few horsemen. They were truly devoted to their leader, and were reluctant to part from him; yet, although many took leave of him with a fixed impression that they would never see him again, they obeyed his orders; for his enterprise might ultimately lead to discoveries that would recompense them for all their sufferings in the past and the present.
They therefore readily disposed themselves to the commands of Arellano, who, starting from Tiguex, instituted further researches along the course of the Rio Grande. Francisco de Barrionuevo, with two soldiers, followed the stream toward the north. Passing through the country on the west side, he came to the group of the "Hernes." These are the pueblos of which numerous ruins lie in the neighborhood of the present Jemez. They are divided into two groups, numbering together ten villages, seven of which belong properly to Jemez, and three to the subdivision of Aguas Calientes (the present "Thermen"). The Jemez Indians entered at once into friendly relations with the Spaniards, and continued thus till 1680. Touching upon the Queres on the west, they were wedged in between them and the powerful hostile tribe of the Navajos. These were so troublesome to them that even the two churches which were built for them soon after the year 1600 were temporarily given up and the Jemez Indians were dispersed. About the year 1622 the Franciscan missionaries collected them again, and gradually united them into a single large village. This village, abandoned in 1680, is now merged in the pueblo of Jemez, which contains in all about four hundred souls.
Returning from Jemez to the Rio Grande, Barrionuevo seems to have followed the right (or western) shore of the river exclusively, for he mentions the pueblo of "Yuque Yunque," "the inhabitants of which, as well as those of another village situated on the river, fled to the mountains," where they had four other fortified villages. The place was inaccessible to horses. "Yuque Yunque" is the present deserted "Yuge-uinge" (village of the ravine), called briefly "Yunque." The town of Chamita on the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad stands on its ruins, and near by was built, in 1598, the first Spanish settlement in New Mexico, San Gabriel.[1] On the east bank is the pueblo of San Juan, in a charming situation, and the valley, which borders the course of the Rio Grande, although hardly twelve miles long, is the most fruitful and the loveliest in New Mexico, that of Taos, perhaps, excepted. The massive chain of the Sierra Madre overlooks it in the east, with peaks that rise to a height of 13,000 feet; in the west a gloomy front of volcanic mesas, intersected by awful clefts, projects close upon the riverbank; and behind them the mountains of Abiquin and the Sierra del Valle crown the landscape. This beautiful region was, and still is, occupied by the Tehuas Indians. There yet stand two other of their pueblos, San Ildefonso ("Poo-joge") and Santa Clara ("Ka-Poo"), on the bank, which have existed since 1598. If Barrionuevo, as I suppose, went from Cochiti through the great cañon which the Rio Grande traverses between there and San Ildefonso, or on the east side of the river over the mesa of Toma and the "Cuervo," as it is called, to Chamita, he would have observed both these pueblos if they existed then. This, however, he seems not to have done, and the four villages situated on the mountain were, therefore, on the west side, "Tzirege" and "Triape," in a wild region difficult of access; and on the east side two pueblos in the neighborhood of "Nambé." The accuracy of the accounts of the Spanish writers often astonishes those who have become acquainted by long residence with the country they describe, and creates a feeling of high respect for them.
Barrionuevo pressed still farther toward the north. Twenty leagues, or fifty-four miles, beyond Chamita he came to a large pueblo called "Braba," which was built on both sides of a river, and contained very large estufas. General Simpson has identified this place with the present Taos, and I see no reason for not agreeing with him. The native name for Taos is indeed "Tegat-hâ," and I have never been able to find any name of a place in any of the pueblo languages that corresponds with "Braba" or "Uraba," or "Yuraba." Yet the situation and the whole description point to Taos as the place that is meant. Casteñeda says further on that Braba was the last village to the north that was built of stone and mortar, and that is actually the case with Taos.
Thus the Spaniards had found and specified, before the end of the summer of 1541, all the linguistic stocks of the pueblos of New Mexico, and had come in actual contact with all the groups of New Mexican aborigines, except the Jumanos and a few roaming hordes in the southwest, which once belonged to the Texan group. It is even possible that the Jumanos might be found among the painted Tejas, who were afterward called by the Spaniards, from their painting, Indios rayados, or striped Indians. This great tribe, which was extinguished in the insurrection of 1680, then inhabited the regions of eastern and southeastern New Mexico and northern Chihuahua. The Jumanos of New Mexico were in a state of constant feud with the Apaches, and this became the cause of their disappearance.
September was drawing toward its end, and the commander-in-chief had not yet returned from his hazardous journey to Quivira. The time which he had fixed for his return had passed, and Tristan de Arellano was anxious concerning the fate of the Adelantado. Leaving Barrionuevo in command at Tiguex, he went with forty horsemen to Pecos. The people there were still hostile, and he was obliged to bring his small artillery against their pueblo. The great houses resisted the attack, and he could not force an entrance. He was therefore encamped outside of the village in the valley, when the news came to him that the Adelantado was approaching with his company; and a few days afterward Coronado arrived, sound and in good health, but weary, empty-handed, and disappointed. He had found Quivira and explored it well, but discovered no signs there of a permanent settlement, or of gold or silver.
The Tejas Indians had informed the Spaniards, while the whole army was still together, that they had gone much too far south; Quivira was away in the north. When, therefore, Coronado started with his twenty-nine men, the Tejas led him directly north, for thirty days, through unlimited, treeless plains, covered with herds of buffaloes and traversed by small streams, till on August 9th they came to a river, which they named, in honor of the saints of the day, "Rio San Pedro y San Pablo." Jaramillo says that they had been able to march over only short distances each day, so that this river can have been no other than the Arkansas, and the spot where they struck it was probably near the Great Bend, for after crossing the river they followed its northern bank for three days toward the northeast, a direction corresponding exactly with the course of the Arkansas in that latitude.
It may be remarked, by the way, that Coronado speaks of this region as situated in the 40th degree of north latitude; that is, that it was five and a half degrees north of the Gila, according to the determinations of that time. The Gila River, however, runs, not in the parallel of 34° 30′, but of about 33°, while the Arkansas flows in the 38th degree, or five and a half degrees north of the Gila. Quivira should therefore be sought in the present State of Kansas, and in the central districts, about a hundred miles north of the Arkansas River.
It would be useless, however, to look for the ruins of a considerable permanent settlement of the natives. There is no such place, and the tribe that lived at Quivira was a roaming Indian horde that subsisted chiefly by hunting the buffalo, and casually followed a rude agriculture. Coronado says: "I had been told that the houses were made of stone and were several storied; they are only of straw, and the inhabitants are as savage as any that I have seen. They have no clothes, nor cotton to make them out of; they simply tan the hides of the cows which they hunt, and which pasture around their village and in the neighborhood of a large river. They eat their meat raw, like the Querechos and the Tejas, and are enemies to one another and war among one another. All these men look alike. The inhabitants of Quivira are the best of hunters, and they plant maize." There were no signs of gold or silver; some iron pyrites and a few pieces of copper were all the metal that was found. Jaramillo confirms these statements, adds that the huts were round, and clearly describes one of the medicine lodges that are common among the Indians of the prairies.
Coronado, with his company and "the Turk," arrived at Quivira on August 21st. "The Turk" was brought in chains, a prisoner, while the other Indian was able to prove that he had at least always told the truth. Through him the Spaniards had been well received at Quivira, and that embittered them all the more against the "the Turk." He confessed that the Pueblo Indians had engaged him to draw the Spaniards into the plains, in order that they might perish there. Implicit faith must not, however, be given to this assertion. When the prisoner could not deliver himself by such confessions and other pretences, he tried to stir up the people of Quivira against the Spaniards. The plan was quickly discovered, and the treacherous guide was hanged the same night. Coronado stayed twenty-five days with the Indians of Quivira and the vicinity. He found the country fertile. "The soil," he says, "is the best that can be found for all the crops of Spain; besides being strong and black, it is well watered with brooks, springs, and rivers. I found plums like those in Spain, nuts, very fine grapes, and mulberries." To this description is added the testimony of Jaramillo, who praises the fertility of the soil, the abundance of water, and the absence of mountains, and gives special prominence to certain productions, such as flax, sumach, and grapes.
Notwithstanding all these advantages, which Coronado sufficiently pointed out, he could not remain in Quivira. Winter, if not immediately at his door, was not very far off, and the Spaniards, surprised by early frosts, and not being acquainted with the delightful autumn of Kansas and the Mississippi Valley, thought that cold weather would follow at once. They therefore began a retreat, accomplished it without accident in forty days, and arrived in the Pecos Valley on October 25th (1541). Thence Coronado returned with Arellano to Bernalillo, where he wrote on October 31st the report to Charles V., from which part of the facts we have related are taken.
It is remarkable that when Coronado told his men the full truth about Quivira, and confided to them the discouraging results of his expedition, they became all the more fixed in the idea that Quivira was a gold-rich country. They conceived that their commander had not gone far enough into the interior because, meeting a dense population, he was not willing to venture among them with his small following. Indians who had been with Arellano confirmed the Spaniards in these opinions, and promoted an inclination which was liable to lead on the one side to further expeditions, and on the other side to a breach with their leader. He found himself in a very difficult position. He was at all events convinced that another expedition beyond Quivira would not be likely to lead to the discovery of what they were seeking for, while it would be attended with great danger; for the whole army would have to follow him, and he would therefore be cutting himself entirely off from New Mexico and going out into the unknown without any base of operations. He felt, on the other hand, that such a campaign, if not of gold and silver, might lead to other important discoveries. He was sure that the great river which the Spaniards then called "Rio del Espiritú Santo," and which was nothing else than the Mississippi, must rise in those unknown regions. To reach this river from the west would be a great achievement, which would cover him and his men with honor, and be of much direct or indirect advantage to them. At the same time, his men were insisting so earnestly upon an attempt in that direction, that Coronado determined to yield to them, and, spending the winter in the valley of the Rio Grande, to leave New Mexico in the spring of 1542 and go eastward once more. Quivira, which had now been proved and acknowledged to be poor in metals, was no longer the sole object of the contemplated new expedition; it was to form the new base of operations, from which the step into the unknown should be made. I have shown that Quivira was in central Kansas, in the region of Great Bend and Newton, and a little north of there. It is also clear that the name appertained to a roving Indian tribe, and not to a geographical district. Hence, when I say that Coronado's Quivira was there, the identification is good for the year 1541, and not for a later tune. The tribe wandered with the bison, and with the tribe the name also went hither and thither. In the place where Coronado found Quivira. he was not more than seven hundred miles from the Mississippi. It is a remarkable fact that in the same year, and at nearly the same time, June 18, 1541, Hernando de Soto reached the Mississippi from the southeast and crossed it to the west. Had Coronado gone directly east or southeast from the point where he and his horsemen separated from the chief corps to go in search of Quivira, instead of in a northerly direction, he might have shaken hands with the discoverer of the Mississippi on the western shore of the great river.
On Coronado's return friendly relations were restored with the Indians of Pecos, and even the Tiguas at Bernalillo showed a disposition to inhabit their deserted villages again. Before the end of the year 1541 (not 1542, as Casteñeda says), in October, Pedro de Tobar arrived with reinforcements. The letters which he brought from Spain and Mexico caused Garcia Lopez de Cárdenas to leave the expedition and return home by way of Zuñi and Sonora. I mention this fact among others because it shows with what security a solitary Spaniard could then make the long journey, which is not wholly without dangers to-day, with only Indian guides. This security has been ascribed to the respect which the Spanish arms won from the tribes, and to intimidation caused by severe treatment. The explanation is not sufficient in the present case. The Pueblo Indian, or the Apache, or the Navajo would not have been afraid of individual Spaniards if he had been generally inclined to hostility. The relation between the Indians and the Spaniards was, on the contrary, a friendly one, to which only the excesses against the Tiguas formed a solitary and therefore a conspicuous exception. With all the other tribes (except the little frictions with the Pecos, which always smoothed themselves away) the Spaniards lived in peace, and the roads from and toward Sonora were more open and secure than they are now. Large tracts were uninhabited, it is true, in which at least a few human abodes may now be seen, and the savage Indians were much more widely dispersed than they are now; but the present increased population, with increased quiet, also furnishes occasions of greater peril to property and life. Coronado was beloved by his men. He took the largest share in all their privations, and whenever there was an allotment of provisions and clothing, he was careful to protect the common soldiers against the greed of the officers. Such a division took place in the fall of 1541, but Coronado was not in a condition to exercise his accustomed authority. The bonds of discipline had become relaxed, and his own energy had been weakened. Undeceived concerning the value of his conquests, he perceived that they opened no future to him, and still less to his wife, whom he had left in Mexico. He longed to go back to this wife, without whom there was no home for him, and he could not give her a home in New Mexico. It was, therefore, not contrary to his secret wishes, as he remarked, that the soldiers began of themselves to object to the contemplated expedition and to talk of a return to Mexico. Nevertheless, he continued making his arrangements, and the winter of 1541-42 was quietly spent in the camp at Bernalillo in busy preparation. They were to start in the spring of 1542, and the time for breaking camp was approaching, when two events caused a change in their plans. As Coronado was one day tilting with Don Pedro Maldonado, while on the full run the girth of his saddle broke, and he fell upon the side of Maldonado's horse, which, being also at full speed, sprang over him, and inflicted a dangerous wound upon his head.
After long suffering he had begun to recover, when Garcia Lopez de Cárdenas unexpectedly returned from Sonora, bringing important news. He had gone to the Valley of Sonora without delay, and confidently hoped to meet the little colony in Suya. Instead of that he found the settlement a pile of smoking ruins, and the natives in full insurrection. After the death of Melchior Diaz, Diego de Alcaráz had continued in command at Suya. His character, which he had already revealed in Sinaloa, was not such as to qualify him for forming friendly relations with the Indians, while his subordinates were of the most unruly soldiers of the government of New Galicia. Their outrageous conduct excited the Indians to resistance. Some of the Spaniards fled to Culiacan; the rest, with a few exceptions, besides Alcaráz, were murdered in the night, their horses killed, all their cattle slaughtered or carried off, and their houses torn down and burnt. Cárdenas, in order to escape the poisoned arrows of the Opatas, hurried back to Zuñi, and thence to the Rio Grande.
This report provoked a relapse in Coronado's condition, which caused all thoughts of Quivira to be set aside for the time. How long his illness and convalescence lasted cannot be exactly determined. An error in counting the years has crept into Casteñeda's story, for he places the beginning of the expedition to the plains in 1541 and the return in 1542, but afterward corrects himself as to the date 1542, so as to fix the return to Mexico in the year 1543. This is certainly an error, unless Coronado's illness lasted a whole year and the Spaniards spent the winter of 1542-43 in Bernalillo. It appeal's clearly from the reports, however, that this was not the case, but that Coronado had fully recovered in March, 1542. The relapse which he suffered is suspected by Casteñeda of having been a pretence; but Jaramillo, who was an officer, and stood in closer relations with him than Casteñeda, says nothing of this. His wounded condition increased the weary commander's longing to return, and the insurrection of the Opatas in the rear of the little army made its situation very critical. He therefore proposed to his officers to take advantage of the feeling of the troops, and to have them prepare a petition to him for the evacuation of New Mexico. Signatures were easily procured for this petition, but Coronado had hardly begun the preparations for a retreat on the strength of it, when several of the signers asked to have their names withdrawn. It was, however, too late, and most of the soldiers adhered to their former decision. Casteñeda, whose morose nature dwells upon this division, says that Coronado had lost all authority and affection among the officers, who obeyed him after this, not out of respect, but only because of their oaths. Great discord prevailed in the little army; some wanted to stay at any cost; but they all agreed at last, and in the beginning of April, 1542, Tiguex was evacuated and the retreat to Zuñi begun.
Over a few members of the expedition Coronado had no power. These were the priests, who had come with him to this point; the Franciscan monks, Fray Juan de Padilla, Fray Juan de la Cruz, and the lay brother, Fray Luis de Ubeda, decided to remain in New Mexico, even without the protection of the army. It was indifferent to them whether there were treasures in the newly discovered regions or not; they thought only of the souls of the natives, and considered themselves pledged to devote their lives to the work of conversion. Coronado could not compel them to return with him, and they equally could not demand a large guard. Only volunteers, therefore, remained with them in Bernalillo. These were a Portuguese, Andrés del Campo; a mestizo; two Indians named Lúcas and Sebastian, who had been adopted by the monks in Michoacan; two Indians from Oaxaca; and a negro. They stayed voluntarily, as we have said, although there could hardly be a doubt as to what their fate would be. Such heroic devotion finds favor even in Casteñeda's cynic judgment, for he says of Fray Juan de Padilla that "we must believe that his zeal was true and sincere."
After the "army" left the Valley of the Rio Grande the three priests apportioned the field of labor which they had chosen. Fray Juan de la Cruz remained among the Tiguas at Bernalillo, where he passed out of view. A story that he was murdered is little questioned in the church, and is very probably true. The other two priests went to Pecos, where Fray Luis de Ubeda settled, and likewise passed out of definite knowledge. The natives were, however, at least in the beginning, friendly in their demeanor toward him.
Fray Juan de Padilla, in his turn, chose Quivira as his field of work. Accompanied by the others who remained behind, and by guides from Pecos, he reached the tribe during the summer months of the same year. The wooden cross was still standing which Coronado had erected, with the words cut upon it: "Francisco Vasquez de Coronado, leader of a campaign, came to this place." This cross served him as the central point for missionary work, and the Quiviras received him gladly. Yet, notwithstanding the warnings of the people around him, he wanted to go farther. His first effort to travel toward the east brought him in contact with a hostile horde, which Casteñeda calls "the Guyas." The priest immediately perceived his danger, and ordered the Portuguese and his other companions to flee and leave him alone. Resistance was impossible, and it would be better to save their lives than sacrifice them uselessly. The advice was prudent and worthy of the devotion of the priest. His companions therefore left him, with bitter sorrow in their hearts, and saw him kneel to await the coming of the savages. There is no doubt that he was immediately killed.[2] It is thus not improbable that the first martyr of the church, in the Spanish attempts to settle in the southwest, fell in Kansas, not more than six hundred miles west of the Mississippi, and only fifty years after the landing of Columbus.
The story of this event could hardly reach posterity without including an adventure of great hazard and of the most marvellous character. The companions of Fray Juan de Padilla fled back to the Quiviras, and it is said that those savages received the not unanticipated news of the death of the priest with sincere mourning and deep grief. Neither the Portuguese nor the Indians who had accompanied him felt themselves longer called upon to continue the missionary work, but were anxious to return to Mexico. Yet they were disposed not to go back by the same route as they had come, but to see new regions. It was in the spirit of the time. Fearlessness and the constant expectation of finding something new and astonishing were so deeply implanted in those men that it was like a second nature to them to go recklessly forward into the unknown rather than back into the known. Then, perhaps, a return to New Mexico might be more dangerous than an advance in the opposite direction. The Portuguese and the two Indians from Michoacan, who, as adopted children ("donados") of the order of St. Francis, wore the Franciscan dress, directed their course from Kansas toward the east and then toward the south. The fact is undoubted that they finally reached Pánuco (in the present State of Tamaulipas in the Mexican republic), after a journey comparable in its adventurous character with that of Cabeza de Vaca and his companions. I have not been able to fix the exact date, for the event, although verified in many ways, seems not to have attracted much attention. The fugitives did not see the Mississippi, but passed on the western side of the river, through the Indian Territory and perhaps a part of Texas, to Tamaulipas, whence the Portuguese went to the City of Mexico, and the two Indians, Lúcas and Sebastian, to their home in Michoacan, where Sebastian died a few days after his arrival. The details of this remarkable wandering are unfortunately very scanty. It is inferred, from the fact that Gromára mentions it, that it took place before the year 1550.
The main corps under Coronado had returned to Mexico. While the expedition had suffered in the beginning from the disadvantages occasioned by intense eagerness and haste to reach its object, the retreat afforded a spectacle of sad disappointment, discontent, and consequent insubordination. Between the Rio Grande and Zuñi disease broke out among the horses, under which more than thirty perished. It was, perhaps, the same disease which now prevails occasionally among horses in New Mexico, and is called el mal. The Spaniards rested in Zuñi, and some of the Mexican Indians remained there—a fact which should be carefully regarded in the investigation of the myths and usages of the natives. Although the people were friendly, they followed the troop for several days, and tried to compel some of the men to stay. The troop reached Chichiltic-calli without delay, and were met there by Juan Gallegas, who had come from Mexico with reinforcements and ammunition. He was very angry at finding the army on the retreat. The fabulous reports which, reinforced by the representations of "the Turk," had reached Mexico had produced a revival of speculative excitement respecting New Mexico, and the newly arrived soldiers were greatly dissatisfied. Some of the officers made use of this feeling to urge at least that a permanent settlement should be founded, but Coronado's soldiers opposed this, and insisted on continuing the retreat. Coronado himself pleaded illness, and seemed to have lost all his energy.
The troop therefore moved again, to make their way into Sonora. The Opatas opposed them, annoying the march daily, and killing men and horses with poisoned arrows. No pause occurred in the hostilities till Batuco was reached; thence the despondent company proceeded unhindered to Culiacan, and there all the bonds of discipline were broken. Coronado started from Culiacan for Mexico on the 4th of July, 1542. When he arrived at the capital he was followed by hardly a hundred soldiers. The rest had scattered to the right and left on the way.
As the entrance into the capital was gloomy, so was his reception by the viceroy, Don Antonio de Mendoza, a hard blow for Coronado, from which he never recovered. This officer, the highest in authority in Mexico, declared to his former favorite that he was disappointed and angry that he had given up the north, and in such terms that Coronado withdrew to the present Cuernavaca, where he needed to give himself no more concern about his province of New Galicia, and died there in retirement. In the year 1548 the government was compelled, on account of his entire incapacity for business, to appoint a court of audiencia for the "kingdom of New Galicia." Little is known concerning the proceedings that were instituted against him. The once honored, now despised nobleman was deserted in early old age, and died neglected.
"Was the disfavor into which he had fallen, and which cast a gloomy shadow over the whole of his after-life, deserved? As a leader Coronado was always worthy of distinction; he never spared himself, but always had a fatherly care for his subordinates; and if we regard the whole course of the campaign, we must acknowledge that he always acted prudently and yet decisively. Two dark features are visible in his intercourse with the natives: the abduction of the chiefs of Pecos, and the cruelties against the Tiguas at Bernalillo. In the former case Coronado followed an example which stood prominent at the time in the view of every Spaniard, and of many a champion in the rest of Europe that of Hernando Cortés; and he afterward repaired his fault. The responsibility for the atrocious cruelties at Tiguex does not fall so much upon him as upon Garcia Lopez de Cárdenas. A proof that he did not, as a rule, behave badly toward the Indians is afforded by the fact that during the whole course of the expedition, which lasted two years and extended over so wide a territory, and in which so many different tribes were encountered, only four cases of real hostilities occurred, and only one of these was of great importance.
The conception which has been often formed of Coronado as a wicked adventurer is therefore unjust. Equally wrong and unfounded are the accusations which Mendoza formulated against him, and on the ground of which he treated the knight so severely. The following are assigned as the reasons by which the action of the viceroy was determined: first, while Alarcon wrote with the fullest detail in his reports, the letters of Coronado were short, and therefore unsatisfactory; second, Coronado wrote also directly to the emperor and king (Charles V.), which the viceroy considered a presumption on his part, and even regarded as bordering on treason; third, his evacuation of New Mexico and return seemed at least a gross violation of duty, for it was ascribed to disobedience, incapacity, and cowardice.
The letters of Coronado (of which I am acquainted only with those written to the emperor) are, indeed, not to be compared with the detailed daybook-like reports of Alarcon. But the latter, being most of the time on shipboard, had leisure and opportunity to prepare even more voluminous reports than he really made. It is not strange that he expanded his accounts. Coronado, on the other hand, was living under conditions which often made writing impossible, as I have many times experienced. No one is disposed to write long letters in the pueblo houses; moreover, in winter and on the road to Quivira the ink may have failed. Don Antonio de Mendoza understood none of these conditions, and did not realize the great difference between the situations of the seaman and of the officer in the heart of the continent. With all the traits for which he was distinguished, the viceroy was first of all things a European officer, who, however ably he could direct from his desk, had no comprehension of American camp-life. Coronado's letters to the emperor and king were, it is true, an imprudence on his part that bordered on insubordination, and (in view of the previous difficulties of Cortes with Diego Velasquez) might easily have aroused suspicion in the viceroy.
Respecting the evacuation of New Mexico, I have minutely examined the course of events, in order to make a judgment upon it possible. There was no cowardice. Coronado's wounds, and the result of the expedition to Quivira, with homesickness and a weakened bodily condition, probably contributed much to a discouragement which was based on the conviction that the country was not worth the effort which its control would cost. Coronado accused his predecessor, Fray Marcos, the discoverer of New Mexico, unjustly, as I have already shown, of having published exaggerated accounts of that country. He did not anticipate, he could not anticipate, that his own accounts, which fully agreed, so far as they concerned the same regions, with those of the monk, might afford occasion, to a superficial review, for the same reproaches against him as he made against the Franciscan, and supply material for distortions and mistakes the practical results of which would be as evil in the nineteenth century as were those of the exaggerated accounts of Cibola in the sixteenth century.
With the return to Mexico of the little army that Coronado commanded, the name of Cibola lost its fascination. The legend of the Amazons had, in the north, passed into that of the "seven cities," and these are accounted for by the seven pueblos or villages of Zuñi. But Quivira continued to exercise an unperceived influence on the imaginations of men. Notwithstanding, or perhaps because, Coronado had told the unadorned truth concerning the situation and conditions of the place, the world presumed that he was mistaken, and insisted on continuing the search for it. And although Juan de Oñate, in 1599, and Saldivar, in 1618, went out in the direction which Coronado had designated, and found only what he had found, yet was Quivira more persistently sought, and at a greater distance; and it became a phantom, like the Dorado, which hovered with visions of golden treasures before the fancies of the Spaniards, in the northeast and east of New Mexico. It was forgotten that the Quiviras were a wandering, horde of Prairie Indians, who lived with the herds of bison, and not a sedentary people; that the mission of Jumanos, which Fray Francisco Letrado had founded, was visited by Quiviras, and the church there was the religious centre for all these wandering tribes after 1636; and that the Quiviras were then roaming around for a distance of forty leagues, or one hundred and eight miles, eastward, or in southeastern New Mexico, and that, therefore, they had moved southward. The insurrection of 1680 produced such a confusion in the ethnographic conditions of New Mexico that Quivira passed out of mind, and when the revolution extended to Chihuahua and Sonora in 1684, the only thought was of self-preservation. After the re-conquest of New Mexico by Diego de Vargas (1692 to 1694) followed the irruption of the Comanches from the north, greatly disturbing the former ethnographic conditions, in the east and down into Texas. The Jumanos had already vanished, and even the name of the Quiviras, if it was a real name, was lost; but not the recollection of the golden stories which had been associated with them. A golden kingdom had grown in imagination out of the tribe, and to this golden kingdom belonged, as did the city of Manoa to the South American Dorado, a great capital in New Mexico, called la gran Quivira. This treasure-city had lain in ruins since the insurrection of 1680; but its treasures were supposed to be buried in the neighborhood, for it was said there had once been a wealthy mission there, and the priests had buried and hidden the vessels of the church. Thus the Indian kingdom of Quivira of "the Turk" was metamorphosed in the course of two centuries into an opulent Indian mission, and its vessels of gold and silver into a church service. But where Quivira should be looked for was forgotten.
In the middle of the last century a Spanish captain of engineers, Don Bernardo de Mier y Pacheco, went upon a scientific and political mission for the Crown in New Mexico. He explored the ruins of the country, and the numerous pueblos of the Cañon de Chaca (in the present home of the Navajos) excited his interest in the highest degree. When he began to concern himself about the situation of Quivira, it was supposed that he had plans and documentary evidences to assist him in finding the place. The measurements which he made in the ruins of the Chaca convinced the people that Quivira was there, and this conviction grew and spread rapidly. There was living at that time in Socorro on the Rio Grande an old Indian who was called "Tio Juan Largo." When he heard of the search of the Spanish officer, he protested at once against the idea that Quivira could be found in the northwest, and insisted that the ruins of the former mission of the Jumanos and Quiviras were east of Socorro, on the "Mesa Jumana." He was a Jumano Indian—perhaps the last who passed for one. Attention was then turned at once to the region east of Socorro. The country beyond the Sierra Oscura, between the Rio Grande and the Pecos, had remained uninhabited after the insurrection of 1680, and the small settlements of Manzano and Abó, in the vicinity of the Great Salt Lake, were not founded till about 1841 and 1869. The Apaches Taraones and the Comanches had, as it were, frightened all life away from the region. Ruins of pueblos and imposing stone churches, burnt out, with their enclosures open to the sky and the clouds, remains of the modest prosperity which the pueblo Indians enjoyed under the guidance of the Franciscan monks, before their unfortunate insurrection, lie scattered on the cliffs. Definite recollections are associated with all these ruins; the descendants of the Indians of Cuaray, Chililé, and Tajique still live at Isleta in Texas, and the posterity of the inhabitants of Abó at Senecú near El Paso del Norte. The existence of these ruins and a dim outline of their history were never absent from the recollections of the Spaniards.
Touching the Valley of Abó on the east and the basin of the Salt Lake on the north, rises a broad mesa, the borders of which are covered only on the north side with thin woods. The surface is inclined toward the south, and is treeless, though covered with good grass, but from the northern edge of the mesa south, southeast, and southwest, there is for from thirty to sixty miles not a drop of standing water. While I was there from the 4th to the 10th of January, 1883, melted snow was my only drink. This uninhabited plateau is the "Mesa de los Jumanos," and on its southeast side stand the ruins of a pueblo which, according to my measurements, contained about twelve hundred inhabitants, with two stone churches, one of which is thirty-four feet wide and one hundred and thirty-two feet long, and stands almost undamaged, except in the roof. The walls are six feet thick, and a few hewn beams are still left in the interior. Adjoining these ruins are the walls of a considerable presbytery. The other church has been reduced to crumbling walls. No running water is to be found anywhere near, but f our large artificial pools afford enough water for drinking purposes. This is the ruin which the old Jumano Indian of Socorro in the last century described as the former mission of Quivira, and which consequently now bears the name of "la gran Quivira."
The old man was right. In the year 1630 Fray Francesco Letrado undertook the conversion of the Jumanos after an earlier effort had failed. But instead of going directly among the Indians, he established himself in a pueblo of the Piros, and had them build a church for the use both of the people there and of the inhabitants of the surrounding country. This pueblo was called the "Tey-paná" in the Piro language, and was the present Gran Quivira, while the ruins of the little church are those of the smaller temple. The place was the most eastern mission in New Mexico, and was called la mision de los Jumanos. At the same time with the Jumanos, the Quiviras were visited by the priests; and a number of members were gradually associated from all these tribes with the people of the village, and thus the building of a' new church became necessary. This was the newer, larger ruin, and the structure was never quite completed. The Apaches pressed so closely upon the remote and isolated village that the mission to the Jumanos was abandoned in 1679. A few surviving members of the Piros who once dwelt there still live in Jemez, but the Jumanos and Quiviras have died away.
The history of the mission, too, was lost in the eighteenth century, although it could be clearly learned from the annals of the church and in Spanish books and manuscripts. But instead of studying these, men have peopled the ruins with fanciful figures, and have entered them cautiously and timidly in superstitious treasure-hunting. Numerous excavations attest the stay there of persons who have searched for the golden cups, the candlesticks of solid silver, and all that the fables ascribed to the poor missionaries of the sixteenth century. Had the gold-hunters, and, in later times, the water-hunters, considered the history of the Gran Quivira, they might have spared themselves trouble, labor, much money, and much suffering.
What is true on a small scale of Quivira is true in far greater measure of New Mexico and its metallic wealth in general. Historical writers have dealt superficially with that country by taking only a few authorities (Espejo, for example), and those without adequate criticism, as the basis of their sketches. Practical life demands of research in the historical field that it make it acquainted with the experiences of the past for the use and advantage of the present. Had those experiences been represented as they are clearly and truthfully laid down in the Spanish documents, much useless expenditure of capital would have been spared in New Mexico alone. It cannot be said that those documents were inaccessible, for the reports of Fray Marcos and of Coronado were printed in Italy and in England in the sixteenth century, and the works of Gomara, Herrera, and Torquemada contained the truth in abstracts. A Spanish officer wrote as early as 1601 that New Mexico was not so bad as it was occasionally drawn, but was far from being as good as it was usual to represent the country; and Alexander von Humboldt explicitly denied ("Histoire politique du royaume de la Nouvelle Espagne," vol. ii. cap. viii. 3d book, p. 246) the existence there of rich beds of ore. In spite of this he has often been brought forward as authority for the assertion that the richest mines in the world were once opened there and in Arizona. The truth as to the metallic wealth of the country lies between the two extremes, but considerably nearer the former; and a critical study of the documentary history of the region should have been enough of itself to convince inquiring mankind of the fact.
- ↑ Santa, Fé was not founded till ten years later.
- ↑ The legend stands in the Martyrology under date of the 30th of November, but Gonzaga ("Origen de la religion seráfica," 1587, Part I., p. 105} is mistaken when he says that the event happened in the year 1560. Mota-Padilla depends on the manuscript of Don Pedro de Tobar, who fixes the date at 1542, which agrees closely with the statements of the monk's contemporaries—Casteñeda's error excepted.