FIRST EXPEDITIONS FROM NEW SPAIN
In the beginning of the sixteenth century, Spain occupied
perhaps the most prominent position on the theatre of
Europe.... The Spaniard came over to the New World in the true
spirit of a knight errant, courting adventure however perilous,
wooing danger, as it would seem, for its own sake. With sword
and lance, he was ever ready to do battle for the Faith, and
as he raised his old war-cry of “Santiago,” he fancied himself
fighting under the banner of the military apostle. It was
the expiring age of chivalry and Spain, romantic Spain, was
the land where its light lingered longest above the horizon.
Arms ... was the only career which the high-mettled cavalier
could tread with honor. The New World, with its strange and
mysterious perils, afforded a noble theatre for the exercise
of his calling, and the Spaniard entered on it with all the
enthusiasm of a paladin.—W. H. PRESCOTT, _The Conquest of
Mexico_.
The tradition is no longer credited that Cabeza de Vaca in his marvellous
journey of eight years from the Florida coast across perilous lands to
New Spain actually saw any part of what is now New Mexico. Nevertheless,
it was the tales he had gathered on the way, of the Northern Mystery and
the Seven Cities, that eventually brought both these localities into
history. Vaca reached Culiacán (Mexico) in the late spring of 1536. Men
stared to hear of Narváez’ ill-fated attempt to “explore, conquer and
colonize the country between Florida and the Rio Grande.” They were
staggered at the story of all that had befallen in the intervening years,
by way of hardship, imprisonment, and slavery, the four survivors of the
gallant three hundred who had entered the continent eight years earlier.
When Vaca arrived in the capital he related his story to the viceroy,
Antonio de Mendoza. Here was great news for the silk-stockinged official.
Eager to gain for himself and his king the glory of new discoveries of
territory and of unlimited riches that were said to be buried in the
northern regions, he made immediate preparations for exploration.[36]
First a preliminary reconnaissance was undertaken. To lead it the viceroy
chose Marcos de Niza, a Franciscan friar, who had served a difficult
apprenticeship in Peru under Pizarro. Mendoza directed him to go north
with one lay-brother, Onorato, and a small number of Indians. Coronado,
Governor of New Galicia, accompanied them as far as Culiacán. The
instructions with which Mendoza outfitted them were “a model of careful
and explicit directions.” Estévan, a negro servant who had come with
Vaca, was interpreter, and varying bodies of native Indians made up the
party. They left Culiacán on March 7, 1539. At Petatlán, Fray Onorato
became ill and was left behind, after which Fray Marcos was the only
white man in the expedition. In the Sonora valley they halted while
Estévan was sent ahead to reconnoiter.
Estévan was to send back Indian messengers with crosses, whose size
would indicate the value of the country found. After four days, a runner
appeared bearing “a cross as tall as a man.” This assured Fray Marcos
that Estévan had news of cities equal to those from which they had
started in New Spain. The runner confirmed the impression by telling of a
province ahead with large cities built up with houses of stone and lime,
and all under one lord.
[Illustration: NEW MEXICO IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.
FROM BANCROFT. ARIZONA AND NEW MEXICO]
Eager now, Fray Marcos started ahead. Soon he met with Indians wearing
fine turquoises in their ears and noses, or on their waist belts. These
folk, eager to see the strangers pass on, told of houses farther north
that had their doorways studded with gold and turquoises. To the infinite
embarrassment of the friar, gifts of this stone and of skins, such as
served the natives for raiment, were pressed upon him. Other Indians that
were met wandering inland from the seacoast, talked of pearls that could
be gathered in quantity.
Estévan had been told to wait for Fray Marcos. Instead he pressed on
down the San Pedro valley. In Cíbola he excited the anger of the native
population, probably by posing as a great medicine man and using, very
likely, the gourds or rattles of a hostile tribe. According to the Zuñi
legend, he was taken beyond the pueblo precincts and there given “a
powerful kick which sped him through the air back to the south whence he
came.”[37]
When the friar arrived late in May (1539) within sight of the first of
the Seven Cities of Cíbola he found the inhabitants in no mood to receive
another alien visitor, and, like Moses, forbidden to enter the promised
land, he could but look into it from a near-by eminence on the south.
Alone, and unarmed, he had no other choice than to turn back, thankful,
no doubt, to escape from death himself, since he was known to be the
responsible chief of Estévan. By hasty marches, “with far more fright
than food,” the friar reached New Spain once more. There he reported to
the viceroy all that he had seen. What is more valuable, he scrupulously
differentiated between this and what he had been told of treasures in the
region beyond.
The Zuñis still talk of the “Black Mexican” and point out K’iakima,
a ruin on a bluff at the southwest angle of To-yo-ál-a-na (Thunder
Mountain) as the place of his murder. Hodge, who has followed Cushing[38]
in very careful and important work at Zuñi, is satisfied that Háwikuh was
the village first seen by Estévan and that there he met his death; also
that it “was the city of Cíbola rising from the plains which Niza and
his Piman guides viewed from the southern heights in 1539; moreover that
it was the pueblo which Coronado stormed in the summer of the following
year, seems indisputable.”[39]
Háwikuh, to-day a ruin of great interest, lies fifteen miles southwest
of modern Zuñi. On our way thither we overtook and passed an Indian
pointed out as the prize man in the foot-race that is of special ritual
significance to this tribe. A hardy, compact figure, he was no longer
young, but never failed to do his daily stint of dog-trot practice which
would keep him in condition for the annual competition. Háwikuh was built
on the slopes of a round and not very elevated hill. The most noticeable
of the many excavations are those of the _kiva_ and mission church, not
far separated from each other, thus perfectly exemplifying the dual
religious allegiance that has prevailed from the first baptism of an
Indian by Spanish padres until the present day. A great plain stretches
out on every side, sparsely dotted with the familiar stunted herbage of
the desert. Standing on the summit of the mound, the middle distance is
broken toward the south by a range of moderate height and steepness. On
some one of its projecting cliffs the friar might well have stood to look
upon the coveted goal to which he might not win. Vast horizons encompass
the plain and far off the twin peaks of the Zuñi buttes pierce the sky.
It is a lonely scene but the more easy for that reason to re-people with
the figures of a vanished past.
Fray Marcos not only saw Háwikuh, but he also heard of Ácoma. The Indian
with whom Estévan had talked told the friar that, besides these Seven
Cities, there were other territories which they called Marata, Acus, and
Totonteac. Acus was described as an independent kingdom and province. Its
people went _encaconados_: that is, with turquoises hanging from their
noses and ears. The turquoise they called “Cacona.” The village called
“Ácuco” or “Tutahaco” lay between Cíbola and the streams running to the
southwest, entering the “Sea of the North.” Ácuco was Ácoma,[40] which
therefore came into history only twenty years after Cortés entered the
City of Mexico.
When Fray Marcos returned to Culiacán in the late summer of 1539, his
accounts of what he had seen, and what he had heard, were sufficient
to inflame the imagination of the Spaniards there, who were longing
for conquest, for wealth, and for fame. It did not take long to raise
a volunteer army, nor to excite the viceroy to do all in his power to
further an expedition that might be expected to bring much renown to
himself, to the King of Spain, and to Holy Church. For it is never to be
forgotten that the soldier armies of Spain were always supplemented by
smaller armies of priests.
[Illustration: HÁWIKUH TO-DAY
FIRST OF THE SEVEN CITIES OF CÍBOLA
_Bolton_]
[Illustration: THE RUINED CHURCH OF HÁWIKUH
_Bolton_]
The Royal Council of the Indies decreed that a new attempt to explore
the north should be made both by sea and by land (1540). Hernando de
Alarcón was given command of two vessels, and he was ordered to keep near
the coast so as to be able easily to coöperate with the land force. As a
matter of fact the two divisions never did meet or communicate.
Don Francisco Vásquez Coronado was chosen captain-general of the
overland expedition to the north. He was accompanied by a gallant troop
of four hundred Spaniards and eight hundred Indians. It must have been
a brilliant spectacle when this cavalcade, with its gaily caparisoned
horses, its mule train, and its herds of cattle and sheep for food
supply, finally set forth from Compostela on Shrove Tuesday, February 23,
1540. The chief of the religious was Fray Juan de Padilla, once a soldier
but now a Franciscan, destined to become the proto-martyr of the North.
Among others who bore distinguished names three are of especial interest
to us, since they have left tangible evidence of their exploits. The
standard-bearer of the army, Don Pedro de Tobar, discovered the Tusayán
settlements (Hopi) and heard “of a giant People and a mighty river.” Don
García López de Cárdenas first saw the great gorge known to-day as the
“Grand Cañon” of the Colorado. Hernando de Alvarado, first of white men,
saw Ácoma and talked with its inhabitants.
While encamped at Zuñi the white strangers were naturally objects of the
utmost curiosity to the native peoples. Among others who came to observe
them were some from Cicuyé (Pecos) seventy leagues eastward. They were
led by their cacique. He was handsome and well formed, and because of his
great mustaches the Spaniards called him “Bigotes.” On the body of one of
his Indians was painted a picture of a humpbacked cow (the buffalo).[41]
Coronado was told that great herds of these animals roamed the plains.
To test the story Coronado sent Alvarado and twenty other Spaniards with
the Indians charged to report again at Zuñi in eighty days. For five days
they marched eastward. They then “arrived at a town called Ácuco, a very
strange place built upon a solid rock, the inhabitants of which were
great brigands and much dreaded by all the province.”
It was Ácoma, now first seen by white men. The Crag was described as very
high, and on three sides the ascent was perpendicular. The only way to
reach the top was by a trail cut in the solid rock. The first flight was
of two hundred steps, “which could be ascended without much difficulty,
when a second flight of one hundred more commenced. These steps were
narrower and more difficult than the first, and when surmounted, there
remained twelve feet to the top which could only be ascended by putting
hands and feet in the holes cut in the rocks.” It was evidently the
difficult trail near the eastern limit of the village. On the top
great piles of stones were kept, to hurl upon an approaching enemy. No
better proof is needed of the importance to the sedentary Indians of
self-defense against the roving tribes than such a fortress pueblo,
difficult to reach and easily defended.
In warlike mood the Indians came down to the plain to meet the Spaniards.
Drawing a line in the sand, just as those at Tusayán had done, they
forbade the strangers to cross it. Persuasion was first tried. This
failing, Alvarado decided to attack. Seeing such preparations, the
Indians showed willingness to make peace by “approaching the horses to
take their perspiration and rub the whole body with it, and then to
make a cross with the fingers.”[42] They also crossed their hands, an
act considered inviolable. Castañeda mentions a cross at Ácuco, “near a
fountain, two palms high and a finger in thickness. The wood was squared
and around it were dried flowers, and little staves ornamented with
feathers.” Alvarado reported to Coronado that, on his way eastward to
the villages of Tiguex, he passed Ácuco. “It is one of the strongest
places we have seen, because the city is on a very high rock with a rough
ascent, so that we repented having gone up the place.”
There is a curious conflict between the description by Castañeda of
this first encounter with the Ácomas and that of another contemporary
writer who apparently formed a different impression of the dwellers on
the Peñol. In the anonymous “_Relación del Suceso_”[43] we read, that
Alvarado “found a rock with a village on top, the strongest position that
ever was seen in the world, which was called Ácuco in their language.
They came out to meet us peacefully though it would have been easy to
decline to do this and to have stayed on their rock, where we would not
have been able to trouble them. They gave us cloaks of cotton, skins of
deer and of cows, and turquoises, and fowls and other food which is the
same as in Cíbola.”
[Illustration: THE STAIRCASE TRAIL AND THE CHURCH
_Bolton_]
Such is the story of the first sight by Europeans of the Sky City of
the desert. In December, when the ground was covered with three feet
of snow, Coronado’s main army marched from Cíbola to Tiguex, and so
passed Ácuco, as Alvarado had done. The inhabitants furnished them with
provisions in friendly fashion. The Spaniards gazed at the settlement on
its summit with much interest, but could not ascend (or they said they
could not—it is not stated that they tried) without helping one another,
while the Indians went up and down easily, and even their women would do
so carrying heavy burdens. From this we infer that the Spaniards ascended
the Peñol, for after describing as before the “toe-and-finger trail,”
the chronicler continues, “there was a wall of large and small stones at
the top, which they could roll down without showing themselves, so that
no army could possibly be strong enough to capture the village. On the
top they had room to sow and store a large amount of corn and cisterns
to collect snow and water. They made a present of a large number of
(turkey) cocks with very big wattles, much bread, tanned deerskins, piñon
nuts, flour and corn.”[44] There was undoubtedly room enough to “store”
provisions, but then as now there was never a particle of garden soil in
which to “sow” even a little corn unless carried from the valley.
Epoch-making were the results that came from the Coronado expedition, in
the discovery of Cíbola,[45] of the Grand Cañon, and of the buffalo on
the Plains. The discovery of the Colorado River was recognized as of the
first importance. This is shown by a map made by one of Alarcón’s pilots,
for the Ulpius globe of 1542 and the map of Sebastian Cabot of 1544 were
changed by reason of this discovery. Yet Coronado took back to Spain no
material wealth, and no promise of any except such as might be gained
from the cultivation of a good soil by permanent settlers, and by some
means, at that time undiscoverable, of transportation for its products.
Hence Coronado was regarded not only as an unsuccessful explorer, but
almost as a disgraced man, who had wasted the wealth of the realm.
So great was the disappointment over this result and so absorbed were
the men of New Spain by the new mineral discoveries in Nueva Vizcaya,
as well as by the confusion produced by the Mixton War, that forty
years passed before there was another successful attempt to penetrate
the northern country. Such sporadic raids as took place in this interval
were either personal adventures of individual Spaniards or slave-hunting
forays to fill the shortage of laborers at the mines. These adventurers
had little interest in true exploration of the country they crossed
while the slave-catching aroused fear in the native mind and made
further _entradas_ more difficult. A new generation of Spanish explorers
and settlers had arisen, to whom Cíbola and Ácuco and Quivira were
practically myths, before any fresh interest was aroused to explore the
wilderness beyond.
Four decades after Coronado’s exploration, a party of adventurous spirits
made a fresh attempt to penetrate the northern wilderness. They were
only twenty-eight in number, counting soldiers, three friars and Indian
servants. They were organized by a lay brother of St. Francis, Fray
Augustin Rodríguez. Francisco Sanchez Chamuscado commanded the soldiers.
On the whole, they met little opposition from the native peoples and on
their side appear also to have dealt considerately with them.
Curiosity concerning these strange white invaders was mingled with fear
born of the earlier forays made to capture slaves who were taken back to
the mines. So soon as Fray Rodríguez made evident that he asked no more
than fish and maize in exchange for such merchandise as had been brought
along for this purpose, the people showed a child-like interest and
pointed out the way to the north. In the Tigua country, more hostility
was encountered. One of the priests, Fray Santa María, determined,
against the protests of soldiers and padres, to return to beg additional
help from the viceroy. “Children of the Sun,” the Spaniards had called
themselves to these worshippers of the great Sun-Deity, and Santa María
seems to have relied on the belief they had engendered hitherto in their
invulnerability to attack. His departure excited the suspicion of the
natives and, as he was entirely alone, he was easily killed within two
days “while sleeping, by having a large stone placed upon him and left to
die of suffocation.” Thus did the savages learn that Spaniards could be
put to death like other men, and this knowledge proved a serious obstacle
to the future progress of the invaders.
Constantly forced after this to be on their guard against plots and
ambush, the explorers settled themselves for a time at Puaray (a little
above the present city of Albuquerque), from which place excursions were
made in various directions. On one of these, going westward, hoping
to find Zuñi, they reached “a well-fortified pueblo named Ácoma, the
best there is in Christendom.” It is described by their diarist as
having five hundred houses of three and four storeys. This, then, is
the next definite mention of the Peñol. Here they were told that with
two days’ further march inland they would reach many pueblos and mines;
consequently they did not linger at Ácoma or make any close examination
of its people or their civilization.
With the remainder of this expedition[46] we have no further connection
beyond the fact that, when they had returned to San Bartolomé and
reported that they had reluctantly left behind their two friars, the
order of St. Francis at once bestirred itself to attempt their rescue.
On the tenth of December, 1582, the endeavor was inaugurated under
the leadership of Antonio de Espéjo, who offered to finance the whole
undertaking. One of the soldiers in Espéjo’s company, Miguel Sanchez
Valenciano, took with him his wife, Doña Casilda de Amaya, and their two
young children, an astonishing example of courage on her part. She was
in consequence the first white woman to enter New Mexico, the heart of
the continent, a third of a century before the Puritans brought their
families to Massachusetts.
Espéjo knew full well about the death of Fray Santa María, for Bustamente
and Gallegos, the two chroniclers, had already gone to Mexico City to
report the whole story of their experiences.[47] There were rumors, too,
that the other friars had been massacred since the soldiers left. But
the uncertainty must be removed. It was, however, a full year later that
Espéjo confirmed the truth of the massacres, when he reached Puaray. The
avowed purpose of the _entrada_ was now accomplished. Espéjo, however,
was not without other ambitions, and finding that his religious adviser,
Padre Beltrán, was in sympathy with him, he decided to make further
advances into adjacent lands. One of the routes took them as far as Jémez
and thence to Ácoma.
Espéjo’s narrative describes the fortress of Ácoma as follows:
We set out from this province, Emexes [now known as Jémez],
toward the west, and after going three days, or about fifteen
leagues, we found a pueblo called Ácoma, which it appeared to
us must be more than fifty _estados_ in height. In the very
rock, stairs are built by which they ascend and descend from
the town, which is very strong. They have cisterns of water
at the top and many provisions stored within the pueblo. Here
they gave us many mantas, deerskins and strips of buffalo-hide,
tanned as they tan them in Flanders, and many provisions,
consisting of maize and turkeys. These people have their
fields two leagues from the pueblo on a river of medium size
whose waters they intercept for irrigating purposes, as they
water their fields with many partitions of the water near this
river, in a marsh. Near the fields we found many bushes of
Castilian roses. We also found Castilian onions, which grow in
this country by themselves, without planting or cultivation.
The mountains thereabouts apparently give promise of mines
and other riches, but we did not go to see them as the
people from there were many and warlike. The mountain people
come to aid those of the settlements, who call the mountain
people Querechos.[48] They carry on trade with those of the
settlements, taking to them salt, game, such as deer, rabbits,
and hares, tanned deerskins, and other things with which the
government pays them.
In other respects they are like those of the other provinces.
In our honor they performed a very ceremonious _mitote_ and
dance, the people coming out in fine array. They performed many
juggling feats, some of them very clever with live snakes.[49]
Both of these things were well worth seeing. They gave us
liberally of food and of all else of which they had. And thus,
after three days, we left this province.[50]
Four days’ march from Ácoma to the westward brought the party as far as
Cíbola (Zuñi), where they halted at the village of Hálona, the present
pueblo of the tribe.[51]
The great achievement by Espéjo was the new approach, making the third
pathway from Mexico to the north, and to this re-discovered province
which he called Nueva Andalucía. Soon afterward it was permanently
christened Nuevo Mexico.
The golden dream of the earlier explorers had been of a land bursting
with riches and glorious in opportunities for lasting renown, in short,
another “Peru” or another “Mexico.” Assuredly it had led them through
dangers and hardships which to modern ears sound as much like fairy
tales as the treasures these gallant men hoped to secure. If the reality
was far from the dream, it was, nevertheless, a land of promise. There
continued also a belief in the Strait of Anian, the long-hoped-for
northwest passage between the Atlantic and the Pacific, and some of the
claimants for the right to govern the northern territory, while speaking
scornfully to the viceroy of the sterile deserts of Cíbola and Quivira,
affirmed that the true wealth was beyond, and that by reaching that
“beyond” there would also be discovered the shorter route between the two
great seas.
[Illustration: TO-YA-LA-NE
FROM MODERN ZUÑI
_Bolton_]
[Illustration: MODERN ZUÑI, ON SITE OF ANCIENT HÁLONA
RIVER IN FOREGROUND
_Bolton_]
Enough had been discovered by Espéjo and his men to stir the imagination
and the cupidity of all New Spain. Quite naturally Espéjo felt himself
entitled to the first chance. But there were many other aspirants, and
Espéjo’s recommendation that the new province should be subject directly
to the King of Spain and not to the viceroy of New Spain, was probably
no help to the fulfillment of his ambition. In 1595 it was decided to
make a fresh attempt to conquer and colonize on a much more complex and
thoroughgoing scale than any of the others, and, beyond New Mexico,
to reach the much-talked-of Quivira. The command was entrusted to the
greatest of all those who went into the north, Juan de Oñate, who became
the true founder of New Mexico. Bolton in commenting upon it says, “This
was then the great epoch-making step toward both the Strait of Anian and
the Sea; no less than the pushing forward of a frontier whose interstices
it would take a hundred years to fill, even with military outposts.”