On the 4th of May, 1598, only twenty-five miles above the point where they first reached the Rio Grande, the Spaniards were shown by natives a convenient ford, and the army crossed to the eastern bank. The latitude is confusedly given as 31° or 31° 30'; and I have no doubt that this “ford of the river of the north” was the original El Paso del Norte, a name that has been retained ever since for the locality where the river leaves the territory which is now New Mexico. From the 5th to the 20th the army marched slowly up the river on the eastern side for fifteen and a half leagues, with none but trivial incidents, if we except the death of several persons of the colony, and without applying names to localities. Here Captain Aguilar returned from an advance exploration, having reached the first pueblos and entered one of them against the orders of his chief, who, however, pardoned him at the intercession of his men. Fearing that the natives might be alarmed and run away with their food supplies, Oñate with the Zaldívar, Villagrá, padres Salazar and Martínez, and fifty men, started on the 22d, and in six days, 26 or 22 leagues, reached the first group of pueblos, a storm with thunder, lightning, and perhaps an earthquake marking the approach, and drawing from the padres all the prayers of the litany.

It is noticeable that the distance of 41 or 38 leagues from El Paso confirms our identification, from the reports of earlier explorers, of the southernmost group of pueblos with the Socorro region in latitude 34°; and indeed, the pueblo of Teipana, three leagues above Qualacú of the first two, was now named Socorro. Besides these three which are mentioned as occupied, there were others abandoned, but only these two names are given. The natives gave a kind welcome to the strangers, entertained the governor in their towns, and furnished supplies of maize, which desirable ‘socorro’ was sent back to the main camp. It was the middle of June when Oñate and his advance party left what may be regarded as the first group of towns.

The next advance up the river was to a small pueblo named Nueva Sevilla, seven leagues above Socorro, the first in which the soldiers slept, and where they remained a week while the Zaldívars went to explore the Abó pueblos, and Villagrá made a tour in search of maize. Then on the 22d of June they went on for four leagues to a new but abandoned pueblo, which they named San Juan Bautista, as they were there on the 24th, or Saint John’s day. Here the general head of two Mexican Indians left by Castaño, and started northward on the 25th in search of them, reaching Puruai, named San Antonio, in a journey of sixteen leagues. Here the friars were lodged in a newly painted room, and in the morning they beheld on the walls life-like portraits of the martyred Rodriguez and Lopez of seventeen years ago, which the natives had vainly tried to conceal with the paint! The two Mexicans, Tomás and Cristóbal, were presently brought in from another pueblo, and they proved as interpreters a most valuable acquisition to the Spaniards. Before the end of June they visited the pueblo of Tria—possibly Cia—which they named San Pedro y San Pablo; and moved on three leagues from Puruai to San Felipe, and thence four leagues to Guipui, or Santo Domingo. This town was made a kind of headquarters or capital for a time, all of Oñate’s advance party coming up apparently; and in this province we are told was chosen a convent named Assumption, though nothing appears later about such an institution. On the 4th of July Captain Juan de Zaldívar was sent back to bring up the rest of the wagons and colonists who had reached the first pueblos on June 26th, but who did not join the advance army till August.

At Santo Domingo on the 7th of July seven chieftains representing some thirty-four pueblos assembled to acknowledge the supremacy of new masters temporal and spiritual. Tomás and Cristóbal, serving as interpreters, explained at great length the material prosperity and eternal happiness that must result from being ‘good’ and submitting cheerfully to Felipe II and God, as contrasted with present disaster and future damnation inseparably connected with refusal; and the chiefs, disposed to be friendly or fearing the strangers’ guns and horses, even if they had some lingering doubts respecting the political and doctrinal theories presented, humbly kneeled and swore the required allegiance, as was duly recorded in a ponderous document. On July 9th the army left the pueblo of Bove, or San Ildefonso, and in two days, or ten leagues—the wagons going by a longer route of sixteen leagues via San Marcos—to Caypa, or San Juan, doubtless identical, or nearly so, with the pueblo still bearing the name near the junction of the Río Grande and Río Chama just above latitude 36°. From the courtesy of the people—especially after much-needed rain had been produced by the padres’ prayers—this town was soon called San Juan de los Caballeros, and for several years was the Spanish capital, or centre of operations. The name San Gabriel was also applied by the friars to their establishment here, or more probably to another pueblo not far distant.

From San Juan on the 13th Onate went to Picuríes, or San Buenaventura, six leagues; and thence six leagues farther to Taos, or San Miguel, or Tayberon, the northern limit. Returning to San Juan he went to San Ildefonso on the 20th, and thence five leagues east to San Marcos next day, and the next to San Cristóbal. On the 24th and 26th he went to Pecos, or Santiago, by way of Glisteo, or Santa Ana; returning to San Cristóbal and San Marcos on the 26th, and next day going down to Santo Domingo, where the main company from below under Saldívar arrived the same day. From the 2d to the 7th of August Oñate made a tour by way of the great pueblo of Tria—probably Cia—to the great one of the Emenes or Jemes, visiting also some others of the eleven pueblos in that province, and finding some hot sulphur springs. Having returned to Santo Domingo, he went up to San Ildefonso on the 9th, and next day probably arrived at San Juan.

It was the next day after this arrival, or the 11th of August, that work was begun on the ditches required to bring water for the city of San Francisco which it was determined to found, some 1,500 Indians assembling to aid in the labor. I believe that the site of this intended city was at or in the immediate vicinity of San Juan, and not at Santa Fé, where the city was really built in later years. For a long time nothing more is heard of it, and it is probable that the progress of the work was soon interrupted by troubles presently to be noticed; or the water-works may have been completed for San Juan, and the building of the city postponed to a more convenient season when a change of site was found desirable. I find not the slightest reason to date the founding of Santa Fé from 1598. While San Francisco was to be the name of the new city, San Pablo was chosen by the Indians as the general patron of the territory. The last of the colonists and wagons arrived on the 18th, and thus all were reunited at San Juan de los Caballeros. A few days later a mutinous plot of certain soldiers, including apparently Captain Aguilar, was revealed, but the governor was moved by tears and supplications to grant a general pardon. From August 23d to September 7th a church was built, and dedicated on the 8th with great ceremonies terminating with a sham battle between Christians and Moors. There was a week of general sports at this time which brought in a large number of natives from all directions, some of them coming, as the poet tells us, as spies to study the invaders’ strength.

A ‘universal junta de toda la tierra’ was held at San Juan on the 9th of September, on which occasion the native chiefs, including representatives of pueblos and provinces that had before submitted and many others, renewed their formal submission, after listening to a new explanation of the system by which the Almighty was represented in New Mexico en lo temporal through the king by Oñate, and en lo espiritual through the pope by the padre comisario Martinez. They also expressed the joy with which they would receive the friars at their pueblos as spiritual teachers and masters, after listening to the cheering assurance that if they refused or disobeyed the padres they would all be burned alive, besides burning later in hell. Villagrá tells us, however, that while they readily submitted to the king, they very sensibly told the padre comisario that so far as the new faith was concerned they had no objection to adopting it, if after proper instruction they found it desirable, adding naively that of course he would not wish them to em­brace a faith they did not fully understand! Thereupon Martinez proceeded to apportion the pueblos among his colaborers.

In my narrative of earlier entradas I have given in text or notes all the pueblo names mentioned by the successive explorers, with such comments as seemed necessary to show their identity. In the records of Oñate’s conquest, and especially in the acts of obediencia y vasallaje and distribution of friars, these names are very numerous, and doubtless in many instances very inaccurate as written or printed; yet I have deemed it desirable to preserve them; and for the convenience of reader and student I append them in compact form, adding all the names that appear in earlier narratives. Identification is in most cases, so far as individual pueblos are concerned, impossible; indeed, there is nothing left with which to identify them, and I make no attempt at arbitrary location on my maps, though all existing data of distance, direction, etc., will be found in these chapters. Fortunately, the identity by groups or leading pueblos presents few difficulties, and in nearly every group a few names have survived to modern times. The towns in the sixteenth century occupied the same general range of territory as in the nineteenth; but most of them were destroyed in the seventeenth, and many of those remaining were moved from their original sites. I have no doubt that the number of pueblos, about 170, is greatly exaggerated through a confounding of names pertaining to towns, tribes, and chieftains.

 

NEW MEXICO IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.

 

After the general assembly and its attendant festivities, Vicente Zaldívar was sent with fifty men to explore the buffalo plains of the east, with no results of a geographic or historic nature worth noticing here. Some petty adventures among the roving bands of natives, the shooting of the first bull by the valiant major, and a grand buffalo hunt with brilliant but not very successful efforts to capture some of the cíbolos alive, claim, however, at the hands of our poet chronicler more space than the annalist can devote to them. Zaldivar’s absence was from September 10th to November 8th, and he found traces of the expedition of Bonilla and Humaña. His course was probably north­east. In October Oñate made a tour to the salinas eastward of Pecos, and thence south to Abó and the Jumana territory, the formal submission of the pueblo groups being on the 12th and 17th, and he returned about the 20th to the Río Grande.

On the 23d of October the general started from Puarai on a western tour, accompanied by Padre Martinez; and four days later received the obediencia of Acoma. Here according to Villagrá he had a narrow escape without knowing it at the time. Zutucapan, a chief who had not been invited to the conference at San Juan, had harangued the people from the house­tops, and urged them not to yield to the haughty Castillos. He had some success at first, but wiser counsels prevailed when his son Zutancalpo and the venerable Chumpo—120 years of age—had made the people understand how very difficult it would be to defeat the valiant strangers, and the utter ruin that must result to Acoma in the case of failure. Still Zutucapan gained a following, and a secret plan was made by twelve conspirators to kill Oñate in an estufa, which on one pretence or another he was to be induced to visit. The adelantado with his small force arrived, was satisfied with his friendly reception, and was filled with admiration at sight of the peñol town with its wonderful natural strength and defensive works. One of the twelve invited Oñate to see something very curious, but he cautiously and fortunately declined to enter the fatal estufa. The formal submis­sion of the pueblo having been received, the little army continued its march westward to Zuñi and to Mohoqui, where formal submission was rendered by the native chieftains on the 9th and 15th of November.

Of Oñate’s western explorations in what is now Arizona we know but little. He was everywhere hospitably entertained by the natives, who held grand hunts to furnish diversion and game for their guests. A party under captains Farfan and Quesada were sent out from Moqui in search of mines, which were found in a pleasant, well-watered country some thirty leagues westward, perhaps in the same region previously explored by Espejo. There were also salt deposits, and according to Villagrá pearl-oyster shells, which caused a belief that the coast was not far dis­tant. The general had intended to reach the ocean on this tour, and soon after starting had sent orders to Juan Zaldívar to turn over the command at San Juan to his brother Vicente as soon as the latter should arrive from the plains, and to join his general in the west with thirty men. But trouble occurred, as we shall see, in connection with the carrying-out of these orders, and the Mar del Sur had to wait.

We have, seen that captains Villagrá and Marquez had in September been sent south in pursuit of deserters. They returned at the beginning of November, and the former started alone with his horse and dog to join his leader and report the success of his mission. At Acoma he was so closely questioned by Zutucapan that his suspicions were aroused, and he refused to dismount. Stating that a large Spanish force was not far behind, and pleading urgent haste to overtake the general, he hurried on; and sleeping that night by the wayside he awoke in a snow-storm. Soon he fell into a pitfall that the treacherous natives had prepared for him, left his horse dead therein, and plodded on through the snow on foot, taking the precaution to reverse his boots, with a view to mislead pursuers. After suffering intensely from hunger for several days, at last he killed his dog for food, but as the faithful animal with the life-torrent pouring from his side turned to lick the hand of his slayer, Villagrá had no heart to eat the food obtained at such a cost. Soon after, when just ready to perish, he was rescued by three of Oñate’s men who were searching for lost horses in the Zuñi region. At the same time his pursuers—possibly imaginary—came up, but thinking the main force near at hand dared not attack.

Don Vicente Zaldívar returned from the plains on the 8th of November, and on the 18th Don Juan set out as ordered to join Oñate. Meanwhile the wily and patriot Zutucapan—if we are to credit the poet chronicler, who may have drawn on his imagination largely for his facts, or may on the other hand have obtained accurate information from the natives later—had renewed his efforts at Acoma, and this time successfully; for after the orators of the former occasion had spoken and others had added their eloquence on both sides, it was determined to test the boasted invulnerability of the Spaniards by attacking them on their arrival, having first taken the precaution to scatter them where they would fall an easy prey. Such was the situation when Zaldívar and his companions approached the peñol. The natives came out to meet them with gifts and every demonstration of friendly feeling. They offered all the supplies that were needed, and next day the soldiers, no treachery being suspected, were sent in small parties to bring the provisions from different parts of the pueblo. A loud shout from the Indians first warned the maestro de campo of his peril; he wished to order a retreat, and thus in his leader’s absence avoid the responsibility of open war; but another officer not named—severely blamed by Villagrá and accused of subsequent cowardice—opposed him until it was too late, and retreat was impossible.

A desperate hand-to-hand fight of three hours ensued; Zutucapan, Pilco, Amulco, Cotumbo, and Tempol were the native chieftains most prominent in the battle; the Spaniards performed prodigies of valor in single combats; but the odds were too great, and one by one the little force melted away. At last the brave Zaldívar fell under the club of Zutucapan; the native warriors set up a cry of victory; five surviving Spaniards fled to the edge of the mesa and leaped down the cliff, four of them reaching the plain alive. Three others had escaped from the peñol, and all joined Alférez Casas, who was guarding the horses. Captain Tabora was sent to overtake Oñate; others went to warn the padres at their different stations, while the rest bore the sad tidings back to San Juan.

The scene in camp when the disaster was announced to the wives, children, and friends of the slaughtered company may be left to the imagination of the reader. Solemn funeral rites for the dead were hardly completed when Tabora returned, saying that he had not been able to find the governor; whereupon Alférez Casas with three companions volunteered for the service; and after many difficulties met Oñate beyond Acoma, near where Villagrá had been succored a month before. The adelantado retired to his tent and spent the night in prayer before a rude cross, if we may believe his eulogist, and in the morning made a speech of consolation to his men. Having with the least possible delay called in the several bands of explorers, he marched his army carefully and sadly back to San Juan, where his safe arrival on December 21st was celebrated by a te deum.

Formal proceedings were now instituted before Juan Gutierrez Bocanegra, appointed alcalde for the occasion, against the rebels; and after the friars had given a written opinion respecting the elements of a just war and the rights of victors over a vanquished people, it was decided that Captain Vicente de Zaldívar be sent against Acoma; that the inhabitants of that town must be forced to give up the arms of the murdered soldiers, to leave their peñol, and to settle on the plains; that the fortress must be burned; and that all who might resist must be captured and enslaved. Seventy brave men were selected for the service, under officers including captains Zubia, Romero, Aguilar, Farfan, Villagrá, and Marquez, Alférez Juan Cortés, and Juan Velarde as secretary. This army started on the 12th of January, 1599, and on the 21st arrived at Acoma, Villagrá with twelve men visiting Cia on the way for supplies. After Zaldívar’s departure there seems to have been an alarm of threatened attack on San Juan, which, although it proved unfounded, gave our chronicler an opportunity to describe the preparations for defence, and to record the heroic offer of Doña Eufemia to lead the women to combat.

At Acoma the followers of Zutucapan were exultant, and succeeded in creating a popular belief that their past victory was but the prelude to a greater success which was to annihilate the invaders and free the whole country. Gicombo, a prominent chieftain who had neither taken part in nor approved the first attack, and had many misgivings for the future, called a general assembly of chiefs, to which were invited certain leaders not belonging to Acoma. It seems to have been tacitly understood that after what had happened war could not be averted, and all were ready for the struggle; but Gicombo, Zutancalpo, and Chumpo urged the necessity of removing women and children, and of other extraordinary precautions. Zutucapan and his party, however, ridiculed all fears, and boastingly proclaimed their ability to hold the peñol against the armies of the universe. When Zaldívar drew near, crowds of men and women were seen upon the walls dancing stark naked in an orgy of defiance and insult.

The sargento mayor, through Tomás the interpreter, sent the rulers of Acoma a summons to come down and answer for the murder they had done; but they only replied with taunts, while the Spaniards pitched their tents on the plain and prepared for an assault. There were two points at which the ascent could be effected; and the summit plateau was divided by a ravine into two parts connected by a narrow pass. Zaldívar’s strategy was to assault one of the peñoles with his main force, while a small and chosen party should hold themselves in readiness to scale the other. The night was spent in revelry by the natives; by the Spaniards in preparations and rest. On the morning of San Vicente, the 22d of January, the Indians began the battle by a discharge of arrows, and the Spanish loader sent what seemed to be his entire army to assault one of the entrances, where he soon concentrated the whole strength of the foe to oppose his ascent. Meanwhile, with twelve chosen men who had been concealed during the night, he mounted the other peñol, and gained the summit without serious resistance. The twelve were speedily reenforced, and all day long the battle raged fiercely, both at the pass between the two plateaux and at the entrance to that not yet gained.

For two days, and perhaps part of the third, the battle raged, and in five cantos of our epic are the details recounted of personal combats, desperate charges, individual acts of prowess on the part of Castilians and natives, religious services in the Christian camp, juntas and discussions and dissensions in the fortress on the cliff, the death-struggles of nearly all the Acoma chieftains and of several of Oñate’s men, hair-breadth escapes of Villagrá, and his comrades—details which may not be followed here, but in which the poet fairly revels. The Spanish loss seems to have been very small—perhaps only one man—and that of the natives very large, as was natural considering the difference in weapons and armor. Zutucapan’s only chance of a successful resistance was lost when the invaders gained a footing on the plateau. It was only by desperate valor, by immense superiority of numbers, and by the advantages of defence offered by the summit pass, that the fated people were able to prolong the combat for three days. During the last day’s battle the buildings of the pueblo were in flames, and hundreds killed each other in their desperation, or threw themselves down the cliff and perished rather than yield. Santiago or San Pablo was clearly seen by the natives during the conflict fighting for the Christians.

Finally, on the 24th the Spaniards gained full possession of the peñol pueblo, which they proceeded to destroy, at the same time slaughtering the inhabitants as a punishment for their sin of rebellion; though a remnant—600 in number, out of an estimated population of 6,000, under the venerable Chumpo, according to Villagrá—was permitted to surrender, and came down to settle on the plain. The pride and strength of the valiant Acomenses were broken forever; and it must have seemed hopeless for the other New Mexican communities to attempt what this cliff town, with all its natural advantages, had failed to accomplish. There is no record that any other pueblo became involved in open hostility to the Spaniards; indeed, of definite events for the rest of 1599 we have no record at all. With the fall of Acoma all the regular chronologic records end, including the Itinerario and Villagrá’s epic. The poet promised his sovereign to continue the narration of New World adventures when the duties of his lance should give leisure to his pen; but so far as I know the opportunity never came.