THE GOVERNOR'S PALACE OF SANTA FE
It lies to the left of the city Plaza--a long, low, one-story building
flanking the whole length of one side of the Plaza, with big yellow pine
pillars supporting the arcade above the public walk, each pillar
surmounted by the fluted architrave peculiar to Spanish-Moorish
architecture. It is yellow adobe in the sunlight--very old, very sleepy,
very remote from latter-day life, the most un-American thing in all
America, the only governor's palace from Athabasca to the Gulf of
Mexico, from Sitka to St. Lawrence, that exists to-day precisely as it
existed one hundred years ago, two hundred years ago, three hundred
years ago, four hundred years ago--back, back beyond that to the days
when there were no white men in America. Uncover the outer plaster in
the six-foot thickness of the walls in the Governor's Palace of Santa
Fe, and what do you find? Solid adobe and brick? Not much! The
walled-up, conical fireplaces and meal bins and corn caves of a pueblo
people who lived on the site of modern Santa Fe hundreds of years before
the Spanish founded this capital here in 1605. For years it has been a
dispute among historians--Bandelier, Hodge, Twitchell, Governor Prince,
Mr. Reed--whether any prehistoric race dwelt where Santa Fe now stands.
Only in the summer of 1912, when it was necessary to replace some old
beams and cut some arches through the six-foot walls was it discovered
that the huge partitions covered in their centers walls antedating the
coming of the Spaniards--walls with the little conical fireplaces of
Indian pueblos, with such meal bins and corn shelves as you find in the
prehistoric cave dwellings.
We have such a passion for destroying the old and replacing it with the
new in America that you can scarcely place your hand on a structure in
the New World that stands intact as it was before the Revolution. We
somehow or other take it for granted that these mute witnesses of
ancient heroism have nothing to teach us with their mossed walls and
low-beamed ceilings and dumb, majestic dignity.
[Illustration: The Governor's Palace at Santa Fe, New Mexico, within the
walls of which are found the conical fireplaces of the Indians who lived
here hundreds of years before the Spaniards came]
To this, the Governor's Palace of Santa Fe is the one and complete
exception in America. It flanks the cottonwoods of the Plaza, yellow
adobe in the sunlight--very old, very sleepy, very remote from
latter-day life, but with a quaint, quiet atmosphere that travelers
scour Europe to find. Look up to the _vigas_, or beams of the ceiling,
yellowed and browned and mellowed with age. Those _vigas_ have witnessed
strange figures stalking the spacious halls below. If the ceiling beams
could throw their memories on some moving picture screen, there would be
such a panorama of varied personages as no other palace in the world has
witnessed. Leave out the hackneyed tale of General Lew Wallace writing
"Ben Hur" in a back room of the Palace; or the fact that three different
flags flung their folds over old Santa Fe in a single century. He who
knows anything at all about Santa Fe, knows that Spanish power gave
place to Mexican, and the Mexican regime to American rule. Also, that
General Lew Wallace wrote "Ben Hur" in a back room of the Palace, while
he was governor of New Mexico. And you only have to use your eyes to
know that Santa Fe, itself, is a bit of old Spain set down in the modern
United States of America. The donkeys trotting to market under loads of
wood, the ragged peon riders bestriding burros no higher than a saw
horse, the natives stalking past in bright serape or blanket, moccasined
and hatless--all tell you that you are in a region remote from
latter-day America.
But here is another sort of picture panorama! It is between 1680 and
1710.
A hatless youth, swarthy from five years of terrible exposure, hair
straight as a string, gabbling French but speaking no Spanish, a slave
white traded from Indian tribe to Indian tribe, all the way from the
Gulf of Mexico to the interior of New Spain, is brought before the
viceroy. Do you know who he is? He is Jean L'Archeveque, the
French-Canadian lad who helped to murder La Salle down on Trinity Bay in
Texas. What are the French doing down on Trinity Bay? Do they intend to
explore and claim this part of America, too? In the abuses of slavery
among the Indians for five years, the lad has paid the terrible penalty
for the crime into which he was betrayed by his youth. He is scarred
with wounds and beatings. He is too guilt-stricken ever to return to New
France. His information may be useful to New Spain; so he is enrolled in
the guards of the Spanish Viceroy of Santa Fe; and he is sent out to San
Ildefonso and Santa Clara, where he founds a family and where his
records may be seen to this day. For those copy-book moralists who like
to know that Divine retribution occasionally works out in daily life, it
may be added that Jean L'Archeveque finally came to as violent a death
as he had brought to the great French explorer, La Salle.
Or take a panorama of a later day. It is just before the fall of Spanish
rule. The Governor sits in his Palace at Santa Fe, a mightier autocrat
than the Pope in Rome; for, as the Russians say, "God is high in His
Heavens," and the King is far away, and those who want justice in Santa
Fe, must pay--pay--pay--pay in gold coin that can be put in the iron
chest of the viceroy. (You can see specimens of those iron chests all
through New Mexico yet--chests with a dozen secret springs to guard the
family fortune of the hidden gold bullion.) A woman bursts into the
presence of the Viceroy, and throws herself on her knees. It is a
terrible tale--the kind of tale we are too finical to tell in these
modern days, though that is not saying there are not many such tales to
be told. The woman's young sister has married an officer of the
Viceroy's ring. He has beaten her as he would a slave. He has treated
her to vile indecencies of which only Hell keeps record. She had fled to
her father; but the father, fearing the power of the Viceroy, had sent
her back to the man; and the man has killed her with his brutalities. (I
have this whole story from a lineal descendant of the family.) The woman
throws back her _rebozo_, drops to her knees before the Viceroy, and
demands justice. The Viceroy thinks and thinks. A woman more or less!
What does it matter? The woman's father had been afraid to act,
evidently. The husband is a member of the government ring. Interference
might stir up an ugly mess--revelations of extortion and so on! Besides,
justice is worth so much per; and this woman--what has she to pay? This
Viceroy will do nothing. The woman rises slowly, incredulous. Is this
justice? She denounces the Viceroy in fiery, impassioned speech. The
Viceroy smiles and twirls his mustachios. What can a woman do? The woman
proclaims her imprecation of a court that fails of justice. (Do our
courts fail of justice? Is there no lesson in that past for us?) Do you
know what she did? She did what not one woman in a million could do
to-day, when conditions are a thousand fold easier. She went back to her
home. It was just about where the pretty Spanish house of Mr. Morley of
the Archaeological School stands to-day. She gathered up all the loose
gold she could and bound it in a belt around her waist. Then she took
the most powerful horse she had from the kraal, saddled him and rode
out absolutely alone for the city of Old Mexico--900 miles as the trail
ran. Apaches, Comanches, Navajos, beset the way. She rode at night and
slept by day. The trail was a desert waste of waterless, bare, rocky
hills and quicksand rivers and blistering heat. God, or the Virgin to
whom she constantly prayed, or her own dauntless spirit, must have
piloted the way; for she reached the old city of Mexico, laid her case
before the King's representatives, and won the day. Her sister's death
was avenged. The husband was tried and executed: and the Viceroy was
deposed. Most of us know of almost similar cases. I think of a man who
has repeatedly tried for a federal judgeship in New Mexico, who has
literally been guilty of every crime on the human calendar. Yet we don't
at risk of life push these cases to retribution. Is that one of the
lessons the past has for us? Spanish power fell in New Mexico because
there came a time when there was neither justice nor retribution in any
of the courts.
Other panoramas there were beneath the age-mellowed beams of the Palace
ceiling, panoramas of Comanche and Navajo and Ute and Apache stalking in
war feathers before a Spanish governor clad in velvets and laces.
Tradition has it that a Ute was once struck dead in the Governor's
presence. Certainly, all four tribes wrought havoc and raid to the very
doors of the Palace. Within only the last century, a Comanche chief and
his warriors came to Santa Fe demanding the daughter of a leading
trader in marriage for the chief's son. The garrison was weak, in spite
of fustian and rusty helmets and battered breastplates and velvet
doublets and boots half way to the waist--there were seldom more than
200 soldiers, and the pusillanimous Governor counseled deception. He
told the Comanche that the trader's daughter had died, and ordered the
girl to hide. The only peace that an Indian respects--or any other man,
for that matter--is the peace that is a victory. The Indian suspected
that the answer was the answer of the coward, a lie, and came back with
his Comanche warriors. While the soldiers huddled inside the Palace
walls, the town was raided. The trader was murdered and the daughter
carried off to the Comanches, where she died of abuse. When these
tragedies fell on daughters of the Pilgrims in New England, the Saxon
strain of the warrior women in their blood rose to meet the challenge of
fate; and they brained their captors with an ax; but no such warrior
strain was in the blood of the daughters of Spain. By religion, by
nationality, by tradition, the Spanish girl was the purely convent
product: womanhood protected by a ten-foot wall. When the wall fell
away, she was helpless as a hot-house flower set out amid violent winds.
Diagonally across the Plaza from the Governor's Palace stands the old
Fonda, or Exchange Hotel, whence came the long caravans of American
traders on the Santa Fe Trail. Behind the Palace about a quarter of a
mile, was the Gareta, a sort of combined custom house and prison. The
combination was deeply expressive of Spanish rule in those early days,
for independent of what the American's white-tented wagon might
contain--baled hay or priceless silks or chewing tobacco--a duty of $500
was levied against each mule-team wagon of the American trader. Did a
trader protest, or hold back, he was promptly clapped in irons. It was
cheaper to pay the duty than buy a release. The walls of both the Fonda
and the Gareta were of tremendous thickness, four to six feet of solid
adobe, which was hard as our modern cement. In the walls behind the
Gareta and on the walls behind the Palace, pitted bullet holes have been
found. Beneath the holes was embedded human hair.
Nothing more picturesque exists in America's past than the panorama of
this old Santa Fe Trail. Santa Fe was to the Trail what Cairo was to the
caravans coming up out of the Desert in Egypt. Twitchell, the modern
historian, and Gregg, the old chronicler of last century's Trail, give
wonderfully vivid pictures of the coming of the caravans to the Palace.
"As the caravans ascended the ridge which overlooks the city, the
clamorings of the men and the rejoicings of the bull whackers could be
heard on every side. Even the animals seemed to participate in the humor
of their riders. I doubt whether the first sight of Jerusalem brought
the crusaders more tumultuous and soul-enrapturing joy."
[Illustration: A pool in the Painted Desert whither came thousands of
goats and sheep, driven by Navajo girls on horseback]
We talk of the picturesque fur trade of the North, when brigades of
birch canoes one and two hundred strong penetrated every river and lake
of the wilderness of the Northwest. Let us take a look at these caravan
brigades of the traders of the Southwest! Teams were hitched tandem to
the white-tented wagons. Drivers did not ride in the wagons. They rode
astride mule or horse, with long bull whips thick as a snake skin, which
could reach from rear to fore team. I don't know how they do it; but
when the drivers lash these whips out full length, they cause a
crackling like pistol shots. The owner of the caravan was usually some
gentleman adventurer from Virginia or Kentucky or Louisiana or Missouri;
but each caravan had its captain to command, and its outriders to scout
for Indians. These scouts were of every station in life with morals of
as varied aspect as Joseph's coat of many colors. Kit Carson was once
one of these scouts. Governor Bent was one of the traders. Stephen B.
Elkins first came to New Mexico with a bull whacker's caravan. In the
morning, every teamster would vie with his fellows to hitch up fastest.
Teams ready, he would mount and call back--"All's set." An uproar of
whinnying and braying, the clank of chains, and then the captain's
shout--"Stretch out," when the long line of twenty or thirty
white-tented wagons would rumble out for the journey of thirty to sixty
days across the plains. Each wagon had five yoke of oxen, with six or
eight extra mule teams behind in case of emergency. About three tons
made a load. Twenty miles was a good day's travel. Camping places near
good water and pasturage were chosen ahead by the scouts. Wagons kept
together in groups of four. In case of attack by Comanche or Ute, these
wagons wheeled into a circle for defense with men and beasts inside the
extemporized kraal. Campfires were kept away from wagons to avoid giving
target to foes. Blankets consisted of buffalo robes, and the rations
"hard tack," pork and such game as the scouts and sharpshooters could
bring down. A favorite trick of Indian raiders was to wait till all
animals were tethered out for pasturage, and then stampede mules and
oxen. In the confusion, wagons would be overturned and looted.
As the long white caravans came to their journey's end at Santa Fe,
literally the whole Spanish and Indian population crowded to the Plaza
in front of the Palace. "Los Americanos! Los Carros! La Caravana!"--were
the shouts ringing through the streets; and Santa Fe's perpetual siesta
would be awakened to a week's fair or barter. Wagons were lined up at
the custom house; and the trader presented himself before the Spanish
governor, trader and governor alike dressed in their best regimentals.
Very fair, very soft spoken, very profuse of compliments was the
interview; but divested of profound bows and flowery compliments, it
ended in the American paying $500 a wagon, or losing his goods. The
goods were then bartered at a staggering advance. Plain broadcloth sold
at $25 a yard, linen at $4 a yard, and the price on other goods was
proportionate. Goods taken in exchange were hides, wool, gold and silver
bullion, Indian blankets and precious stones.
Travelers from Mexico to the outside world went by stage or private
omnibus with outriders and guards and sharpshooters. Young Spanish girls
sent East to school were accompanied by such a retinue of defenders,
slaves and servants, as might have attended a European monarch; and a
whole bookful of stories could be written of adventures among the young
Spanish nobility going out to see the world. The stage fare varied from
$160 to $250 far as the Mississippi. Though Stephen B. Elkins went to
New Mexico with a bull whacker's team, it was not long before he was
sending gold bullion from mining and trading operations out to St. Louis
and New York. How to get this gold bullion past the highwaymen who
infested the stage route, was always a problem. I know of one old
Spanish lady, who yearly went to St. Louis to make family purchases and
used to smuggle Elkins' gold out for him in belts and petticoats and
disreputable looking old hand bags. Once, when she was going out in
midsummer heat, she had a belt of her husband's drafts and Elkins' gold
round her waist. The way grew hotter and hotter. The old lady unstrapped
the buckskin reticule--looking, for all the world, like a woman's
carry-all--and threw it up on top of the stage. An hour later,
highwaymen "went through" the passengers. Rings, watches, jewels, coin
were taken off the travelers; and the mail bags were looted; but the
bandits never thought of examining the old bag on top of the stage, in
which was gold worth all the rest of the loot.
In those days, gambling was the universal passion of high and low in New
Mexico; and many a Spanish don and American trader, who had taken over
tens of thousands in the barter of the caravan, wasted it over the
gaming table before dawn of the next day. The Fonda, or old Exchange
Hotel, was the center of high play; but it may as well be acknowledged,
the highest play of all, the wildest stakes were often laid in the
Governor's Palace.
Luckily, the passion for destroying the old has not invaded Santa Fe.
The people want their Palace preserved as it was, is, and ever shall be;
and the recent restoration has been, not a reconstruction, but a taking
away of all the modern and adventitious. Where modern pillars have been
placed under the long front portico, they are being replaced by the old
_portal_ type of pillar--the fluted capital across the main column
supporting the roof beams. This type of _portal_ has come in such favor
in New Mexico that it is being embodied in modern houses for arcades,
porches and gardens.
The main entrance of the Palace is square in the center. You pass into
what must have been the ancient reception room leading to an audience
chamber on the left. What amazes you is the enormous thickness of these
adobe walls. Each window casement is wider than a bench; and an open
door laid back is not wider than the thickness of the wall. To-day the
reception hall and, indeed, the rooms of the center Palace present some
of the finest mural paintings in America. These have been placed on the
walls by the Archaeological School of America which with the Historical
Society occupies the main portions of the old building. You see drawings
of the coming of the first Spanish caravels, of Coronado, of Don Diego
de Vargas, who was the Frontenac of the Southwest, reconquering the
provinces in 1680-94, about the same time that the great Frontenac was
playing his part in French Canada. There are pictures, too, of the
caravans crossing the plains, of the coming of American occupation, of
the Moki and Hopi and Zuni pueblos, of the Missions of which only ruins
to-day mark the sites in the Jemez, at Sandia, and away out in the
Desert of Abo.
To the left of the reception room is an excellent art gallery of
Southwestern subjects. Here, artists of the growing Southwestern School
send their work for exhibition and sale. It is significant that within
the last few years prices have gone up from a few dollars to hundreds
and thousands. Nausbaum's photographic work of the modern Indian is one
of the striking features of the Palace. Of course, there are pictures by
Curtis and Burbank and Sharpe and others of the Southwestern School; but
perhaps the most interesting rooms to the newcomer, to the visitor, who
doesn't know that we have an ancient America, are those where the mural
drawings are devoted to the cave dwellers and prehistoric races. These
were done by Carl Lotave of Paris out on the ground of the ancient
races. In conception and execution, they are among the finest murals in
America.
Long ago, the Governor's Palace had twin towers and a chapel. Bells in
the old Spanish churches were not tolled. They were struck gong fashion
by an attendant, who ascended the towers. These bells were cast of a
very fine quality of old copper; and the tone was largely determined by
the quality of the cast. Old Mission bells are scarce to-day in New
Mexico; and collectors offer as high as $1,500 and $3,000 for the
genuine article. Vesper bells played a great part in the life of the old
Spanish regime. Ladies might be promenading the Plaza, workmen busy over
their tasks, gamblers hard at the wheel and dice. At vesper call, men,
women and children dropped to knees; and for a moment silence fell, all
but the calling of the vesper bells. Then the bells ceased ringing, and
life went on in its noisy stream.
[Illustration: There are streets in Santa Fe where one may see box-like
adobe houses beside dwellings of modern architecture]
No account of the Governor's Palace would be complete without some
mention of the marvels of dress among the dons and donas of the old
regime. Could we see them promenading the Plaza and the Palace as they
paraded their gayety less than half a century ago, we would imagine
ourselves in some play house of the French Court in its most luxurious
days. Indians dressed then as they dress to-day, in bright-colored
blankets fastened gracefully round hip and shoulders. Peons or peasants
wore serapes, blankets with a slit in the center, over the shoulders.
Women of position wore not hats but the silk _rebozo_ or scarf, thrown
over the head with one end back across the left shoulder. On the street,
the face was almost covered by this scarf. Presumably the purpose was to
conceal charms; but when you consider the combination of dark eyes and
waving hair and a scarf of the finest color and texture that could be
bought in China or the Indies, it is a question whether that scarf did
not set off what it was designed to conceal. About the shawls used as
scarfs there is much misconception. These are not of Spanish or Mexican
make. They come down in the Spanish families from the days when the
vessels of the traders of Mexico trafficked with China and Japan. These
old shawls to-day bring prices varying all the way from $200 to $2,000.
The don of fashion dressed even more gayly than his spouse. Jewelry was
a passion with both men and women; and the finest type of old jewelry in
America to-day is to be found in New Mexico. The hat of the don was the
wide-brimmed sombrero. Around this was a silver or gold cord, with a
gold or silver cockade. The jackets were of colored broadcloth with
buttons of silver or gold, not brass; but the trousers were at once the
glory and the vanity of the wearer. Gold and silver buttons ornamented
the seams of the legs from hip to knee. There were gold clasps at the
garter and gold clasps at the knee. A silk sash with tasseled cords or
fringe hanging down one side took the place of modern suspenders.
Leather leggings for outdoor wear were carved or embossed. A serape or
velvet cape lined with bright-colored silk completed the costume.
Bridles and horse trappings were gorgeous with silver, the pommel and
stirrups being overlaid with it. The bridle was a barbarous silver thing
with a bit cruel enough to control tigers; and the rowels of the spurs
were two or three inches long.
No, these were not people of French and Spanish courts. They were people
of our own Western America less than a century ago; but though they were
not people of the playhouse, as they almost seem to us, they are
essentially a play-people. The Spaniard of the Southwest lived, not to
work, but to play; and when he worked, it was only that he might play
the harder. Los Americanos came and changed all that. They turned the
Spanish play-world up side down and put work on top. Roam through the
Governor's Palace! Call up the old gay life! We undoubtedly handle more
money than the Spanish dons and donas of the old days; but
frankly--which stand for the more joy out of life; those laughing
philosophers, or we modern work-demons?