The submission of New Mexico in the last years of the seventeenth century may be regarded as permanent; the natives were now too few and weak, and the Spanish power too firmly established, for any general movement of revolt. Petty local troubles or rumors of troubles in the different pueblos were of not infrequent occurrence, some of which will be noted in these pages, as will occasional raids of the gentile tribes. These, with the succession of governors, now and then a political controversy, periodical renewals of efforts to make Christians of the Moquis, a few reports of mission progress or decadence, some not very important expeditions out into the plains or mountains, feeble revivals of the old interest in mysterious regions of the north, rare intercourse with the Texan establishments, fears of French and English encroachment—make up the annals of the eighteenth century. The archive record is meagre and fragmentary, yet in respect of local and personal details much too bulky to be fully utilized within the scope of my work. From 1700 New Mexico settled down into that monotonously uneventful career of inert and non-progressive existence, which sooner or later is to be noted in the history of every Hispano-American province. The necessity of extreme condensation may not, therefore, prove an unmixed evil.

The Moqui chief did not decide to accept the Spaniards’ terms; and it appears that the people of Aguatuvi were even punished for past kindness shown to visiting friars. Governor Cubero therefore marched in 1701 to the province, killing a few Moquis and capturing many; but it was deemed good policy to release the captives, and Cubero returned without having accomplished anything, unless to make the natives more obstinate in their apostasy, as the not impartial Vargas declared later. In the spring of 1702 there were alarming rumors from various quarters, resting largely on statements of Apaches, who seem in these times to have been willing witnesses against the town Indians. Cubero made a tour among the pueblos to investigate and administer warnings, but he found slight ground for alarm. It appeared, however, that the Moquis, or perhaps Tehua fugitives in the Moqui towns, were trying to incite the Zunis and others to revolt; and it was decided to send Captain Juan de Uribarri with a force to make investigations, and to leave Captain Medina and nineteen men as a garrison at Zuñi. This was probably done, but, all being quiet, the escolta was soon reduced. The remaining soldiers behaved badly, and three Spanish exiles from Santa Fé much worse, treating the Indians harshly, and living publicly with native women. The padre complained; the governor failed to provide any remedy; and on March 4, 1703, the Indians killed the three Spaniards, Valdes, Palomino, and Lucero, fleeing, some to the peñol, others to Moqui. The soldiers seem to have run away. Padre Garaicoechea was not molested, and wrote that only seven Indians were concerned in the affair; but evidently in his missionary zeal and sympathy for the natives he underrated the danger. The governor, justifying his course by the viceroy’s orders to use gentle means, sent Captain Madrid to bring away the friar, and Zuñi, like the Moqui towns, was left to the aborigines.

In August 1703, Cubero, learning that Vargas—whose exoneration and reappointment have been recorded—was on the way to succeed him, and fearing retaliation for past acts, though as a matter of fact Vargas brought no authority to investigate his acts, left the country without waiting to meet his rival. He claimed to have retired by permission of the viceroy; it was said he feigned an Indian campaign as an excuse for quitting the capital; and his successor charged that he ran away for fear of the natives, whose hatred he had excited. Cubero was appointed governor of Maracaibo and given other honors, but died in Mexico in 1704. Don Diego, now marqués de la Nava de Brazinas, assumed the office of governor and captain-general at Santa Fé, on November 10, 1703. He was urged by Padre Garaicoechea to reestablish a mission among the Zuñis, with whom the padre bad kept in communication; but the governor lacked faith in the good-will of that people, or at least found no time to attend to the matter during his brief rule, and that of Padre Juan Alvarez as custodio. At the beginning of 1704 there were more rumors of revolt, but nothing could be proved except against the ever-hostile Moquis. In March Vargas started on a campaign against the Apaches, but was taken suddenly ill in the sierra of Sandía, died at Bernalillo on the 4th of April, and was buried at Santa Fé in the parish church.

Juan Paez Hurtado, lieutenant-general of the province and an old friend of Don Diego, served as acting governor till the 10th of March, 1705, when Don Francisco Cuervo y Valdés assumed the office of governor ad interim, that is, by the viceroy’s appointment. The condition of affairs was not very encouraging. Depredations by Apaches and Navajos were frequent, the Moquis were defiant, the Zuñi rebels still on their peñol, and the presidial soldiers in great need of clothing, arms, and horses, their pay having been cut down about five per cent in support of the Chihuahua mission of Junta de los Rios. Cuervo’s rule was marked by a series of appeals for aid; but except a few arms and implements—and plenty of censure for complaining that his predecessors had given more attention to their quarrels than to the country’s needs—nothing was obtained. On his way north he bad to stop at El Paso to fight Apaches; and on arrival at the capital he stationed his garrison in seven detachments at exposed points. Early in 1705 Padre Garaicoechea went back to Zuñi, and brought the rebels down to the plain to submit on April 6th to Captain Madrid. In July Don Roque marched against the Navajos, who were incited and aided by refugee Jemes. During this campaign the horses’ thirst was miraculously assuaged in answer to the chaplain’s prayers, whereupon the foe was so terrified as to surrender, and the army turned back to Cia in August. In September the finding of a knotted cord at Zuñi recalled the dread days of 1680, but nothing came of it.

In 1706 Governor Cuervo informed the viceroy that he had founded with 30 families the new villa of Alburquerque, named in honor of the viceroy; with 18 Tanos families from Tesuque, he had resettled Santa María—formerly Santa Cruz—de Galisteo; transferred some Tehua families to the old pueblo of Pujuaque, now called Guadalupe; and refounded with 29 families the old villa of old La Cañada, long abandoned, renaming it Santa María de Grado, a name that did not last. He asked for church ornaments, which were supplied; but he was blamed for founding the new villa without authority, and its name was changed from San Francisco to San Felipe de Alburquerque, in honor of the king. It was ascertained later that in all these reports Cuervo had considerably overstated his own achievements. Captain Uribarri marched this year out into the Cíbola plains; and at Jicarilla, 37 leagues north-east of Taos, was kindly received by the Apaches, who conducted him to Cuartalejo, of which he took possession, naming the province San Luis and the Indian ranchería Santo Domingo.

The Moquis often attacked the Zuñis, who were now for the time good Christians, and to protect whom Captain Juan Roque Gutierrez was sent in April 1706 with eight men. With this aid the Zuñis went to Moqui in May, killed two of the foe, and recovered 70 animals. Captain Tomás Holguin was sent with a new reenforcement, and in September surrounded the Tehua pueblo between Gualpi and Oraibe, forcing the Indians after a fight to sue for peace and give hostages; but the Tanos and other reenforcements arrived, attacked the Spaniards and allies as they retired, and drove them back to Zuñi, the hostages being shot. Presently the Zuñis—now under Padre Miranda, who came occasionally from Acoma—asked to have their escolta removed, a request which aroused fears of a general rising in the west. A junta at Cia in April 1707 resolved to withdraw the frontier escoltas to Santa Fé for recuperation of the horses, and thus the west was again abandoned.

It was on the 1st of August, 1707, that the governor ad interim was succeeded by the admiral Don José Chacon Medina Salazar y Villasenor, marques de la Peñuela, who had been appointed by the king in 1705, and who ruled till 1712. The new ruler turned his attention like others to the Moquis, toward whom his predecessors, according to his theory, had acted harshly, shooting captives and exasperating the natives. He sent an embassy of Zunis with an exhortation to peace and submission; but the only reply was a raid of refugee Tanos and Tehuas on Zuñi. Nothing more important is recorded in 1708 than the building of a parish church on the site of the one destroyed in 1680. It was built by the marqués governor at his own cost, though permission was obtained to employ Indians on the work, and was completed within two years. The year 1709 was marked by a war with the Navajos, who had become very bold in their depredations, sacking the pueblos of Jemes in June, but who were defeated by the governor in a vigorous campaign, and forced to make a treaty of peace. This year, also, the custodio, Padre Juan de la Peña, collected some scattered families of Tiguas, and with them refounded the old pueblo of San Agustin Isleta. Padre Peña engaged moreover in a spiritual campaign against estufa-rites and scalp-dances; and complaints sent to Mexico of abuses on the part of the governor and alcaldes brought from the viceroy stringent orders against forcing the Indians to work without compensation.

Padre Peña died, and was succeeded as custodio by Padre Juan de Tagle, after Padre Lopez de Haro as vicepresident had been for a time in charge of the office. There was a quarrel in progress, of which we know little or nothing, between the marqués and his predecessor Cuervo; and Tagle with other friars favored the latter, and were the objects of Peñuela’s complaints in Mexico. In 1711 and the two following years, we find several royal orders on New Mexican affairs; but none of them has any historic importance. The soldiers had asked for an increase of pay, the friars for reinforcements, and Governor Cuervo had reported his great achievements in town founding; the cédulas were routine replies, ordering the viceroy to investigate and report, but always to look out for the welfare of the northern province. The sum total of information seems to be that there were 34 padres in the field, which number the viceroy deemed sufficient, though he was authorized by the king to increase the missionary force whenever it might be deemed best.

Juan Ignacio Flores Mogollon, formerly governor of Nuevo León, had the royal appointment as governor and captain-general; and the marqués de la Peñuela retiring at the expiration of his term of five years, Governor Flores assumed the office on October 5, 1712, ruling until 1715. The Sumas of the south revolted in 1712, but were reduced by Captain Valverde, and settled at Realito de San Lorenzo, a league and a half from El Paso, probably at Otermin’s old camp of 1681. In May 1713 the natives of Acoma and Laguna, offended by the anti-pagan zeal of Padre Carlos Delgado, thought favorably of a proposition to kill him at the instigation of a Zuñi Indian—at least so Padre Irazábal reported; but nothing could be proved. In October of the same year Captain Serna with 400 soldiers and allies defeated the Navajos in their own country; and besides this achievement the Faraon Apaches were warned to desist from their depredations! In 1714 the Yutas and Taos had many fights, but the governor restored harmony by an enforced restitution of stolen property. Navajo raids on the Jemes had again to be checked by a campaign of Captain Madrid, while Captain Valverde marched against the Apache hoards of Pharaoh, as did also the French from Louisiana.

A junta of civil, military, and missionary authorities was held to deliberate on two questions deemed momentous: First, should the Christian Indians be deprived of fire-arms? The military favored such a policy, but the friars opposed it, both to avoid offence and afford the converts protection; and the governor at last ordered the arms taken away except in the case of natives especially trustworthy. Second, should the converts be allowed to paint themselves and wear skin caps, thus causing themselves to be suspected of crimes committed by gentiles, or enabling them to commit offences attributed to gentiles? Governor Flores and his officers, with some of the padres, were in favor of forbidding the custom; but the rest of the friars took an opposite view, holding that no Christian Indian had ever been known to use his paint for a disguise to cover crime, that it was impolitic to accuse them of so doing, that painting was the native idea of adornment, and in that light no worse than Spanish methods; and finally, that the custom was objectionable only in connection with superstition, in which respect it must be removed gradually by Christian teachings. The decision is not recorded. Like other years of this and most other periods, 1715 had its vague rumors of an impending revolt, ever dreaded by the New Mexicans, not traceable to any definite foundation. I find also the record of one of the typical campaigns against Apaches on or toward the Colorado River, made by Juan Paez Hurtado, with no results of importance.

It must not be supposed that nothing was heard from the Moquis, for I find original records of five juntas de guerra at Santa Fé on their account. In June 1713 an Indian named Naranjo was refused permission to visit the Moquis, but in December two natives of Zuñi, through Padre Irazábal, obtained the license and were given letters. They found the Moquis eager for peace and alliance with the Zuñis, but the controlling element under the chief of Oraibe had no desire for the Spaniards’ friendship. In March 1715 a Moqui appeared at the capital with favorable reports, and was sent back with assurances of good­will. Next, in May a chief from Oraibe came to make further investigations, reporting that a grand junta of all the towns had decided on peace and Christianity. This chief was sent back with gifts, and in July eight Moquis came to announce that after harvest the formal arrangements for submission would be completed. Thus all went well so long as the Moquis were the ambassadors; but when the governor sent messengers of his own choosing, the truth came out that the pretended ambassadors were traders, who had invented all their reports to account for their visits and insure their own safety, the Moqui authorities being as hos­tile as ever!

Governor Flores was an old man in feeble health, who resigned on account of his infirmities. He was succeeded by Captain Felix Martinez, who assumed the office as acting governor, or perhaps governor ad interim by the viceroy’s appointment, on October 30, 1715, and who, instead of permitting his predecessor to depart with an escort for Mexico as ordered, engaged in quarrels and lawsuits with him, keeping him under arrest for two years. During Martinez’ rule of two years two campaigns are recorded. In August 1716 the governor marched in person against the Moquis with 68 soldiers, accompanied by the custodio, Padre Antonio Camargo, the cabildo of Santa Fé, and a force of vecinos from Alburquerque and La Cañada. Commissioners were sent forward from Alona, and some of the Moquis seemed willing to submit, but the people of Gualpi and the Tanos pueblo refused. Two fights occurred in September, the Indians being defeated, if we may credit the diary, with many killed and wounded; but the army, after destroying corn-fields, retreated to Santa Fé, and the pretended victories may be regarded as very doubtful.

During the governor’s absence in the west the Yutas and Comanches—perhaps the first definite appearance in history of the latter nation—attacked Taos, the Tehua towns, and even some of the Spanish settlements. On his return Martinez sent Captain Serna, who attacked the foe at the Cerro de San Antonio, thirty leagues north of Santa Fé, killing many Indians and capturing their chusma. It sub­sequently came out in the governor’s residencia that the captives were divided between Don Félix and his brother, and sold on joint account in Nueva Vizcaya, the Yutas being told later that their chusma had died of small-pox!

In September 1716, the new viceroy, marqués de Valero, informed secretly of how things were going in New Mexico, ordered Governor Martinez to present himself in Mexico, at the same time directing Captain Antonio Valverde y Cosío to go up from El Paso, assume the governorship ad interim, and investigate certain charges. Valverde arrived at Santa Fé the 9th of December; but Martínez, supported by the cabildo, refused to give up the office or presidio books. He could not, however, disobey the viceroy’s summons, and having appointed Juan Paez Hurtado to act as governor in his absence, he started on the 20th of January, 1717, taking with him apparently Flores Mogollon, his predecessor. Valverde was ordered to accompany him to El Paso, but feigned illness, and took refuge with his friend, Padre Tagle, at the convent of San Ildefonso. As to resulting complications between Hurtado and Valverde, I have found no record, but suppose that the former ruled but a few months, and that before the end of 1717, as soon as orders could be returned from Mexico, Valverde assumed the office, which he held for four or five years.

A leading event of Valverde’s rule was his expedition of 1719, with 105 Spaniards and 30 Indians, being joined also on the way by the Apaches under Captain Carlarua, against the Yutas and Comanches, who had been committing many depredations. His route was north, east, south-east, and finally south-west back to Santa Fé. He thus explored the regions since known as Colorado and Kansas, going farther north, as he believed, than any of his predecessors. He did not overtake the foe, encountering nothing more formidable than poison-oak, which attacked the officers as well as the privates of his command. On the Rio Napestle, apparently the Arkansas, Valverde met the Apaches of Cuartelejo, and found men with gunshot wounds received from the French and their allies, the Pananas and Jumanas. An order came from the viceroy to establish a presidio of 25 men at Cuartelejo, some 130 leagues from Santa Fé, in the heart of the Apache region; but a council of war decided this to be impossible, believing the viceroy bad meant Jicarilla, some 40 leagues from the capital, as the site, and that even there 25 men would not suffice. In 1719—20 the governor made a tour of inspection, visiting every pueblo and settlement in the province. He also sent information on the Moquis for which he was thanked by the viceroy; and the same persistent apostates were mentioned in a royal order, from which it appears that the Jesuits were trying to be put in charge of the Moqui conversion, a phase of the matter that belongs to the annals of Arizona in another chapter of this volume. From the same document it appears that there was a dispute between the bishop of Durango and the archbishop of Mexico on the ecclesiastic jurisdiction of New Mexico.

Don Juan de Estrada y Austria seems to have come in 1721 as juez de residencia to investigate the still pending charges against and controversies between ex-governors Flores and Martinez; and he may have held, as was sometimes customary, the position of acting governor during the performance of his duties as judge; if so, he turned over the office before the end of the year or early in the next; and on March 2, 1722, the regularly appointed governor, Don Juan Domingo de Bustamante, succeeded; ruling two full terms, or until 1731. A visitador general, in the person of Captain Antonio Cobian Busto, came in 1722 to investigate the condition of provincial affairs. Some Spaniards engaged in illicit trade with the French inhabitants of Louisiana, which brought out prohibitory orders from the king in 1723; and orders regulating the trade with gentile tribes were issued by Governor Bustamante the same year. Early in 1724 the Yutas committed depredations at Jemes; and the Comanches attacked the Apaches at Jicarilla, forced them to give up half their women and children to save their lives and town, burned the place, and killed all but 69 men, two women, and three boys—all mortally wounded. In 1727 Bustamante notified the viceroy that the French had settled at Cuartelejo and Chinali, 160 leagues from Santa Fé, proposing an expedition to find out what was being done, and asking for troops for that purpose; but it was decided that such an entrada was not necessary, though all possible information should be obtained from the Indians. The Jesuits still desired to convert the Moquis, and obtained in 1726 favorable orders from king and viceroy, of which they made no practical use. Padres Miranda and Irazábal visited the province in 1724, obtaining what they considered favorable assurances for the future; and in 1730-1 padres Francisco Archundi and José Narvaez Valverde seem to have had a like experience. The Moquis had no objections to an occasional interview so long as they could put off their submission to a convenient time not the present.

There was a complicated controversy in these and later years between the missionary and episcopal authorities. The bishop of Durango claimed New Mexico as part of his bishopric, insisting on his right to appoint a vicar and control ecclesiastic matters in the province, which the friars refused to recognize. Bishop Crespo, in his visita of 1725, reached El Paso, and exercised his functions without much opposition; but in August 1730, when he extended his tour to Santa Fé, though he administered the rite of confirmation there and at a few other towns, at some of the missions he was not permitted to do so, the friars objecting by instruction of the custodio, Padre Andrés Varo, and he, of course, obeying the instructions of his superior in Mexico. The bishop also appointed Don Santiago Roybal as juez eclesiástico, whose authority was only partially recognized. Crespo began legal proceedings against the Franciscan authorities in Mexico, and besides demanding recognition of his episcopal rights, he made serious charges against the New Mexican friars, alleging that they did not properly administer the sacraments; that they did not learn the native language; that the neophytes, rather than confess through an interpreter, who might reveal their secrets, did not confess at all, except in articulo mortis; that of 30 padres provided for, only 24 were serving; that the failure to reduce the Moquis was their fault; that some of them neglected their duties, and others by their conduct caused scandal; and that tithes were not properly collected or expended. These charges, especially those connected with ignorance of the native language, were supported by the formal testimony of 24 prominent officials and residents, taken by the governor at Santa Fé in June 1731. Details of the suit are too bulky and complicated for notice here. There was a royal order of 1729 favor­able to the bishop, and another of 1731 to some extent sustaining the position of the Franciscans; but the decision in 1733 was in substance that, pending a final decision on the great principles involved, the bishop had, and might exercise, jurisdiction in New Mexico; and as we shall see, he did make a visita in 1737. In Spain, the case came up on appeal in 1736, and a main feature of the friars’ plea was the claim that the testimony against them was false, having been given by bad men, moved by prejudice against the padres, who had opposed their sinful customs. To prove this, they produced the evidence, taken by the vice-custodio, Padre José Antonio Guerrero, in July 1731, of another set of officials and citizens, to the effect that the missionaries had performed every duty in the most exemplary and zealous manner, though it was not pretended that they knew the native dialects. Counter­charges were also made that the governor and his officials abused the Indians, forcing them to work without pay. The record from which I take this information was printed in 1738, when no permanent decision had been reached.

Governor Bustamante’s rule ended in 1731, and the result of his residencia was favorable, though on one charge—that of illegal trade, admitted to be for the benefit of the country—he was found guilty and forced to pay the costs of trial. His successor was Gervasio Cruzat y Góngora, who ruled for a full term of five years. The period was a most uneventful one so far as we may judge by the meagre record in the shape of detached items. A mission of Jicarilla Apaches was founded on the Rio Trampas, three or five leagues from Taos, in 1733, prospering for a time under Padre Mirabal; no Indian campaigns or troubles are recorded, and nothing is heard even of the apostate Moquis. From the governor’s part in taking evidence for the bishop in the great controversy already noticed, it may be presumed that he was not regarded as a friend by the friars.

A successor was appointed—ad interim, by the viceroy—on May 17, 1736, in the person of Enrique de Olavide y Michelena, who, however, may not have assumed the office till 1737. This year Bishop Elizacoechea visited the province, without opposition so far as is known, and extended his tour to the Zuñi towns. In 1738 Governor Olavide visited all the pueblos, at each publicly announcing his presence and calling upon all who had grievances against the alcaldes or individuals to make them known; but nothing more serious was submitted than a few petty debts of a horse, cow, or pair of drawers. Let us hope that Don Enrique’s orders for payment were promptly obeyed. The governor’s residencia was prosecuted in January 1739, by Juan José Moreno as juez; and as the answers to the twenty-eight routine questions by twenty-four witnesses, half of them Indians, were uniformly favorable, the decision was most flattering to a ruler respecting the occurrences of whose rule little is known.

The new governor, appointed by the king on May 12, 1737, and assuming office in January 1739, was Gaspar Domingo de Mendoza, who ruled till 1743. About 1740 a small party of Frenchmen came by way of Jicarilla and Taos, two of them remaining, and the rest departing by another route; and this occurrence is rather vaguely connected by certain writers with a plan of the French to take possession of the Rio Colorado region. In 1742 padres Delgado and Ignacio Pino went to the Moqui towns and succeeded in bringing away 441 Tiguas, who before the great revolt had lived in the pueblos of Sandia, Alameda, and Pajarito, which the friars now wished to reestablish, though the governor declined to act without special instructions. Meanwhile the recovered neophytes were distributed in different missions. Mota Padilla, the historian of Nueva Galicia, devotes some attention to New Mexico, and gives its population of Spaniards in 1742, not including the soldiers and their families, as 9,747, living in 24 towns. Mendoza’s rule ended late in 1743, and his residencia, conducted by his successor, brought to light no complaints or unfavorable testimony.

Joaquin Codallos y Rabal was the next governor, ruling for a little more than a full term, from the end of 1743 to 1749. Colonel Francisco de la Rocha was appointed in 1747 or earlier to succeed Codallos on the expiration of his term; but Rocha declined on account of his age and infirmities. The viceroy wished to appoint a substitute, but the king would not permit it, appointing to the office Tomás Velez Cachupin, who took command as early as May 1749, and ruled to and beyond the end of the half-century covered by this chapter. New Mexican affairs in these years, some­what more fully recorded than for the preceding, may be most conveniently grouped—except a few detached items given in a note—in four or five topics, to each of which I devote a paragraph.

But for the route from El Paso up the Rio del Norte, the region between Santa Fé and Zuñi on the north and the frontier presidios of Janos, Corodeguachi, and Guevavi on the south was a tierra incognita occupied by savage tribes. In 1747 the viceroy ordered a combined movement or campaign in this country. Thirty soldiers and as many settlers and friendly Indians were to march north by separate routes from each of the four southern presidios to meet a corresponding force sent south-westward from Santa Fé. They executed the movement and reached the Acoma region late in the year; but Governor Codallos was unable to cooperate, on account of a Comanche raid, not reaching Cubero until the others had departed. Therefore nothing was effected against the Indians, at which the viceroy was angry, and deducted $8,000 from the New Mexican situado, though he later accepted the governor’s excuses. We have, unfortunately, no details of the explorations, except that Padre Menchero was with the El Paso company, turning to the west from the Jornada del Muerto, reached the upper Gila, and thence went north to Acoma through an entirely new region.

The prospect of having to surrender the Moqui field to the Jesuits was a thorn in the flesh of the Franciscans. Their great achievement to prevent the change was the entrada of 1742, in which 441 apostates were recovered, are already related; but they continued their efforts, mainly with the pen, the venerable Delgado being the leading spirit. In 1743, and again in 1744, they wished to make a new entrada, but, as they claimed, could not get the governor’s permission and aid. In 1745, however, padres Delgado, Irigoyen, and Juan José Toledo got the required license, with an escort of 80 Indians under an ex-soldier, and visited all the Moqui towns, counting 10,846 Indians, who listened gladly to their preaching. Of course they made the most of their success, ridiculed the idea that the natives had expressed a preference for the padres prietos instead of the padres azules, and they even sent in glowing reports on the wealth of the Sierra Azul and grandeur of the great city or empire of Teguayo, with a view to reawaken interest in the Northern Mystery. Meanwhile the king was induced to change his mind and to believe that he had been grossly deceived respecting the geographical situation of Moqui, the hostility and power of its people, and the vain efforts of the soldiers and friars to reduce them. Surely, if two missionaries could go alone, without a cent of expense to the royal treasury, and bring out 441 converts, the Moquinos could neither be so far off from New Mexico, nor so confirmed in their apostasy, as had been represented. So reasoned the king; and in a royal cédula of November 23, 1745, he explained his views, took back all he had said in favor of the Jesuits, and ordered the viceroy to support the Franciscans in every possible way. Thus the azules won the fight, though the Moquis were not much nearer salvation than before. In 1748, however, the rescued Tiguas of 1742, or some of them, were united at Sandía, and their old pueblo was rebuilt at or near its original site.

The Navajos attracted still more attention than the Moquinos. Padres Delgado and Irigoyen started in March 1744 by way of Jemes for the Navajo country, and found the Indians apparently eager to become Christians and receive missionaries, 4,000 of them being interviewed. They promised to come the next full moon to see the governor, and did so, being received with flattery, gifts, and promises of protection, as well as salvation. The padres wrote of this in June; the governor advised the sending of several new missionaries, and prospects were deemed excellent, though as usual there were vexatious delays. The viceroy ordered a complete investigation; and in 1745 a dozen witnesses formally told the governor all they knew about the Navajos, which was not much. The king heard of the conversion of 5,000 gentiles, and ordered the viceroy to sustain the friars and help along the good work. The viceroy authorized the founding of four missions in the Navajo country, with a garrison of thirty men for their protection. This was in 1746, and Padre Menchero, the visitador, took up the enterprise with much zeal, visiting the gentiles in person, and inducing some 500 or 600 to return with him and settle temporarily at Cebolleta in the Acoma region. The hostile Apache bands in various directions made it impossible, in Governor Codallos’ opinion, to spare the mission guard required; and a year or two later a bitter war between the Navajos and their foes, the Yutas and Chaguaguas, interfered with the conversion of the former. Accordingly, in 1749, in response to Menchero’s petitions, a new governor advised, what a new viceroy approved, the founding of the missions, not in the far north or Navajo country proper, but in the Acoma district; and this was done, some additions being made to the converts already there, and two missions of Cebolleta and Encinal being established, under padres Juan de Lezaun and Manuel Bermejo. All went well for a very brief time; but in the spring of 1750 there was trouble, which Lieutenant-governor Bernardo Antonio de Bustamante, with the vice-custodio, Padre Manuel de San Juan Nepomuceno de Trigo, went to investigate. Then the real state of affairs became apparent. Padre Menchero had been liberal with his gifts, and still more so with promises of more; hence his success in bringing the Navajos to Cebolleta. But they said they had not received half the gifts promised, and their present padres—against whom they had no other complaint—were too poor to make any gifts at all. What, then, had they gained by the change? At any rate, pueblo life and Christianity had no charms for them, and they were determined not to remain. They would still be friends of the Spaniards and trade with them, and would always welcome the friars, who might even baptize and teach their children; perhaps the little ones might grow up to like a different life, but as for themselves, they had been born free, like the deer, to go where they pleased, and they were too old to learn new ways. Indeed, they took a very sensible view of the situation. Thus stood the matter in 1750, and the Navajo conversion was a failure.

Of the Yutas and Apaches during this period we know nothing definitely, except that in most years they gave trouble in one way or another; but respecting the Comanches our information is somewhat less incomplete. In June 1746 they made a raid on Pecos, killing 12 inhabitants of that pueblo, and also committed hostilities at Galisteo and elsewhere. The popular clamor for a campaign against them was great, and the governor asked for increased powers. The auditor in Mexico made a long report in October on the preliminary efforts that must be made before war could be legally waged, and corresponding instructions were sent by the viceroy. In October 1747 Codallos, with over 500 soldiers and allies, overtook the Comanches with some Yuta allies beyond Abiquiti, and killed 107 of them, capturing 206, with nearly 1,000 horses. Four Yuta captives were shot. In January 1748, with a smaller force, he repulsed the foe at Pecos, though with some loss of Indian allies; yet a month or two later he gave a friendly reception to 600 Comanches at Taos, on their assurance that they had taken no part in the war. Later in the year, by the viceroy’s orders, a junta was held at Santa Fé to determine whether the Comanches should be permitted to attend the fairs at Taos for purposes of trade. All admitted the unreliable and treacherous character of the tribe; but a majority favored a continuance of trade because the skins, meats, and horses they brought for sale were much needed in the province; and moreover, their presence at the fairs would bring them within Christian influences, especially the captives they brought for sale, who might otherwise be killed. The governor decided accordingly, against the views of the padre custodio.

The bishop, who had practically won his case, does not appear to have attempted in these years any exercise of his episcopal authority; but the quarrel started by Crespo’s charges was still in progress, as appears from two long reports of 1750. Juan Antonio de Ordenal y Maza in some secular capacity visited New Mexico in 1748-9, and made a report to the viceroy, in which in a general way he represented the padres as neglectful of their duties, oppressive to the Indians, often absent from their posts to engage in trade, neither learning the native dialects nor teaching Spanish to the natives. Don Juan advised that the number of missions should be reduced by consolidation, and that some of the Spanish settlements should be put under curates. This being referred to the Franciscan provincial brought out from him a long reply, in which he denies the truth of all the charges, defends his friars, and impugns Ordenal’s motives, accusing him of being merely the mouthpiece through which Governor Cachupin expressed his well-known hatred of the padres. The other report was one written by Padre Delgado, who had served 40 years at Isleta, and was now in Mexico, being called upon probably to write something that would counterbalance current charges against the friars; and the veteran missionary did so with a vengeance. He represented the governors and alcaldes mayores of New Mexico as brutal tyrants, who treated the natives as slaves, forcing them to work without compensation, or accomplishing the same result by appropriating the products of their corn-fields, obliging the friars to keep silent by refusing otherwise to sign the warrants by which their sínodos were collected, and thus driving the converts into apostasy, and effectually preventing the conversion of gentiles. There are indications in other correspondence that Delgado was more or less a ‘crank’; and it is certain that in this instance he overshot the mark; for, if true, his charges were in reality almost as damning to the padres who submitted to these atrocities as to the officials who committed them. I have no doubt that the natives here as elsewhere, and to a greater extent than in many provinces, were the victims of oppression from Spanish officials, many of whom were bent on pecuniary gain, and were favored by their isolated position; but find in the records nothing to support, and much to contradict, the supposition that the rulers were for the most part blood-thirsty brutes, practically sustained in their rascalities by the Franciscans.

The standard work of Villaseñor, published in 1748, and the manuscript report of Padre Menchero in 1744, contain some statistics and other general information on the condition of New Mexico about the middle of the century. Descriptive matter cannot be presented in the space at my command, but I append a statistical note. On population Villaseñor and Menchero agree in some points, but differ widely in others. Bonilla, however, gives a table of 1749 which agrees tolerably well with the general conclusions of the others. The Spanish population was 3,779—too small a figure, I think—and the number of Christian Indians 12,142, besides about 1,400 Spaniards and the same number of Indians at El Paso. This is Bonilla’s statement. Villaseñor and Menchero give the population as 536 to 660 families of Spaniards, and 1,428 to 1,570 families of neophytes, besides 220 and 330 families in the district of El Paso. Mota Padilla’s estimate of about 9,500 Spaniards in 1742 was an exaggeration. Of course, many of the so-called Spaniards were of mixed breed. I attach to the statistical note a chronologic list of governors from the beginning down to 1846.

 

List of Spanish and Mexican governors and captain-generals of New Mexico:

 

Juan de Oñate, 1598-1608. 

 

Pedro de Peralta, 1608-

 

Felipe Zotylo, (1621-8). 

 

Manuel de Silva, 1629. 

 

Fernando de Argüello, 1640 (?). 

 

Luis de Rosas, 1641. 

 

Valdés, (1642).

 

Alonso Pacheco de Heredia, 1643.

 

Fernando de Argüello, 1645. 

 

Luis de Guzman, (1647). 

 

Hernando de Ugarte y la Concha, 1650. 

 

Juan de Samaniego, 1653-4.

 

Enrique de Ávila y Pacheco, 1656.

 

Bernardo López de Mendizábal, to 1661. 

 

Diego de Peñalosa Bricelio, 1661-4. 

 

Fernando de Villanueva. 

 

Juan de Medrano. 

 

Joan de Miranda. 

 

Juan Francisco de Treviño, 1675. 

 

Antonio Otermin, 1679-83. 

 

Domingo Jironza Petriz Cruzat, 1683-6. 

 

Pedro Reneros de Posada, 1686-9.

 

Domingo Jironza Petriz Cruzat, 1689-91. 

 

Diego de Vargas Zapata Lujan Ponce de Leon, 1691-7. 

 

Pedro Rodriguez Cubero, 1697-1703.

 

Diego de Vargas, etc., marques de la Nava de Brazinas, 1703-4.

 

Juan Paez Hurtado, acting, 1704-5.

 

Francisco Cuervo y Valdes, ad int., 1705-7.

 

Jose Chacon Medina Salazar y Villaseñor, marques de la Peñuela, 1707-12.

 

Juan Ignacio Flores Mogollon, 1712—15.

 

Felix Martinez, ad int., 1715-17.

 

Juan Paez Hurtado, acting, 1717.

 

Antonio Valverde y Cosio, ad int.,to 1717-22.

 

Juan de Estrada y Austria (?), ad int., 1721 (?).

 

Juan Domingo de Bustamante, 1722-31.

 

Gervasio Cruzat y Gongora, 1731-6.

 

Enrique de Olavido y Michelena, ad int., 1736-9.

 

Gaspar Domingo de Mendoza, 1739—43.

 

Joaquin Codallos y Rabal. 1743-9.

 

Francisco de la Rocha (appt’d), 1747.

 

Tomás Velez Cachupin, 1749-54.

 

Francisco Antonio Marin del Valle, 1754-60.

 

Mateo Antonio de Mendoza, acting, 1760.

 

Manuel Portillo Urrisola, acting, 1761 -2.

 

TomásiVelez Cachupin, 1762-7.

 

Pedro Fermin de Mendinueta, 1767-78.

 

Francisco Trebol Navarro, acting, 1778

 

Juan Bautista de Anza, 1778-89.

 

Manuel Flon (appt’d), 1785.

 

Fernando de la Concha, 1789-94.

 

Fernando Chacon, 1794-1805.

 

Joaquin del Real Alencaster, 1805-8.

 

Alberto Mainez, acting, 1807-8.

 

José Manrique, 1810-14.

 

Alberto Mainez, 1815-17.

 

Pedro Maria de Allande, 1816-18.

 

Facundo Melgares, 1818-22.

 

Francisco Javier Chavez, 1822-3.

 

Antonio Vizcarra, 1822-3.

 

Bartolomé Vaca, 1823-5.

 

Antonio Narbona, 1825-7.

 

Manuel Armijo, 1827-8.

 

Antonio Vizcarra, acting, 1828.

 

José Ant. Chavez, 1828-31.

 

Santiago Abreu, 1831-3.

 

Francisco Sarracino, 1833-5.

 

Juan Rafael Ortiz, acting, 1834.

 

Mariano Chavez, acting, 1835.

 

Albino Perez, 1835-7.

 

Pedro Muñoz, acting, 1837-8.

 

José Gonzalez, revolutionary gov., 1837-8.

 

Manuel Armijo, 1838-46.

 

Antonio Sandoval, acting, 1841.

 

Mariano Martinez de Lejanza, acting, 1844-5.

 

José Chavez, acting, 1845.

 

Juan Bautista Vigil y Alarid, acting, 1846.