parish the pueblo of Tshiquite (Pecos), and remained there after the
Spaniards had left the country. He built himself a little hut outside
the great fortified town of the savages, and there taught those who
would listen to him, and tended his little flock of sheep,--the remnants
of those Coronado had brought, which were the first that ever entered
the present United States. The people came to love him sincerely,--all
save the wizards, who hated him for his influence; and these finally
murdered him, and ate the sheep.
Fray Juan de Padilla, the youngest of the four missionaries, and the
first martyr on the soil of Kansas, was a native of Andalusia, Spain,
and a man of great energy both mentally and physically. He himself made
no mean record as a foot-traveller, and our professional pedestrians
would stand aghast if confronted with the thousands of desert miles this
tireless apostle to the Indians plodded in the wild Southwest. He had
already held very important positions in Mexico, but gladly gave up his
honors to become a poor missionary among the savages of the unknown
north. Having walked with Coronado's force from Mexico across the
deserts to the Seven Cities of Cibola, Fray Padilla trudged to Moqui
with Pedro de Tobar and his squad of twenty men. Then plodding back to
Zuni, he soon set forth again with Hernando de Alvarado and twenty men,
on a tramp of about a thousand miles more. He was in this expedition
with the first Europeans that ever saw the lofty town of Acoma, the Rio
Grande within what is now New Mexico, and the great pueblo of Pecos.
In the spring of 1541, when the handful of an army was all gathered at
Bernalillo, and Coronado set out to chase the fatal golden myth of the
Quivira, Fray Padilla accompanied him. In that march of one hundred and
four days across the barren plains before they reached the Quiviras in
northeastern Kansas, the explorers suffered tortures for water and
sometimes for food. The treacherous guide misled them, and they wandered
long in a circle, covering a fearful distance,--probably over fifteen
hundred miles. The expedition was mounted, but in those days the humble
_padres_ went afoot. Finding only disappointment, the explorers marched
all the way back to Bernalillo,--though by a less circuitous route,--and
Fray Padilla came with them.
But he had already decided that among these hostile, roving,
buffalo-living Sioux and other Indians of the plains should be his field
of labor; and when the Spanish evacuated New Mexico, he remained. With
him were the soldier Andres Docampo, two young men of Michuacan, Mexico,
named Lucas and Sebastian, called the Donados, and a few Mexican Indian
boys. In the fall of 1542 the little party left Bernalillo on its
thousand-mile march. Andres alone was mounted; the missionary and the
Indian boys trudged along the sandy way afoot. They went by way of the
pueblo of Pecos, thence into and across a corner of what is now
Colorado, and nearly the whole length of the great State of Kansas. At
last, after a long and weary tramp, they reached the temporary
lodge-villages of the Quivira Indians. Coronado had planted a large
cross at one of these villages, and here Fray Padilla established his
mission. In time the hostile savages lost their distrust, and "loved him
as a father." At last he decided to move on to another nomad tribe,
where there seemed greater need of his presence. It was a dangerous
step; for not only might the strangers receive him murderously, but
there was equal risk in leaving his present flock. The superstitious
Indians were loath to lose the presence of such a great medicine-man as
they believed the Fray to be, and still more loath to have such a
benefit transferred to their enemies,--for all these roving tribes were
at war with one another. Nevertheless, Fray Padilla determined to go,
and set out with his little retinue. One day's journey from the villages
of the Quiviras, they met a band of Indians out on the war-path. Seeing
the approach of the savages, the good Father thought first for his
companions. Andres still had his horse, and the boys were fleet runners.
"Flee, my children!" cried Fray Padilla. "Save yourselves, for me ye
cannot help, and why should all die together? Run!"
They at first refused, but the missionary insisted; and as they were
helpless against the savages, they finally obeyed and fled. This may not
seem, at first thought, the most heroic thing to do, but an
understanding of their time exonerates them. Not only were they humble
men used to give the good priests implicit obedience, but there was
another and a more potent motive. In those days of earnest faith,
martyrdom was looked upon as not only a heroism but a prophecy; it was
believed to indicate new triumphs for Christianity, and it was a duty to
carry back to the world the news. If they stayed and were slain with
him,--as I am sure these faithful followers were not physically afraid
to do,--the lesson and glory of his martyrdom would be lost to the
world.
Fray Juan knelt on the broad prairie and commended his soul to God; and
even as he prayed, the Indians riddled him with arrows. They dug a pit
and cast therein the body of the first Kansas martyr, and piled upon it
a great pile of stones. This was in the year 1542.
Andres Docampo and the boys made their escape at the time, but were soon
captured by other Indians and kept as slaves for ten months. They were
beaten and starved, and obliged to perform the most laborious and menial
tasks. At last, after long planning and many unsuccessful attempts, they
escaped from their barbarous captors. Then for more than eight years
they wandered on foot, unarmed and alone, up and down the thirsty and
inhospitable plains, enduring incredible privations and dangers. At
last, after those thousands of footsore miles, they walked into the
Mexican town of Tampico, on the great Gulf. They were received as those
come back from the dead. We lack the details of that grim and matchless
walk, but it is historically established. For nine years these poor
fellows zigzagged the deserts afoot, beginning in northeastern Kansas
and coming out far down in Mexico.
Sebastian died soon after his arrival in the Mexican State of Culiacan;
the hardships of the trip had been too much for even his strong young
body. His brother Lucas became a missionary among the Indians of
Zacatecas, Mexico, and carried on his work among them for many years,
dying at last in a ripe old age. As for the brave soldier Docampo, soon
after his return to civilization he disappeared from view. Perhaps old
Spanish documents may yet be discovered which will throw some light on
his subsequent life and his fate.
III.
THE WAR OF THE ROCK.
Some of the most characteristic heroisms and hardships of the Pioneers
in our domain cluster about the wondrous rock of Acoma, the strange
sky-city of the Queres[10] Pueblos. All the Pueblo cities were built in
positions which Nature herself had fortified,--a necessity of the times,
since they were surrounded by outnumbering hordes of the deadliest
warriors in history; but Acoma was most secure of all. In the midst of a
long valley, four miles wide, itself lined by almost insurmountable
precipices, towers a lofty rock, whose top is about seventy acres in
area, and whose walls, three hundred and fifty-seven feet high, are not
merely perpendicular, but in most places even overhanging. Upon its
summit was perched--and is to-day--the dizzy city of the Queres. The few
paths to the top--whereon a misstep will roll the victim to horrible
death, hundreds of feet below--are by wild, precipitous clefts, at the
head of which one determined man, with no other weapons than stones,
could almost hold at bay an army.
This strange aerial town was first heard of by Europeans in 1539, when
Fray Marcos, the discoverer of New Mexico, was told by the people of
Cibola of the great rock fortress of Hakuque,--their name for Acoma,
which the natives themselves called Ah'ko. In the following year
Coronado visited it with his little army, and has left us an accurate
account of its wonders. These first Europeans were well received there;
and the superstitious natives, who had never seen a beard or a white
face before, took the strangers for gods. But it was more than half a
century later yet before the Spaniards sought a foothold there.
When Onate entered New Mexico in 1598, he met no immediate resistance
whatever; for his force of four hundred people, including two hundred
men-at-arms, was large enough to awe the Indians. They were naturally
hostile to these invaders of their domain; but finding themselves well
treated by the strangers, and fearful of open war against these men with
hard clothes, who killed from afar with their thunder-sticks, the
Pueblos awaited results. The Queres, Tigua, and Jemez branches formally
submitted to Spanish rule, and took the oath of allegiance to the Crown
by their representative men gathered at the pueblo of Guipuy (now Santo
Domingo); as also did the Tanos, Picuries, Tehuas, and Taos, at a
similar conference at the pueblo of San Juan, in September, 1598. At
this ready submission Onate was greatly encouraged; and he decided to
visit all the principal pueblos in person, to make them securer
subjects of his sovereign. He had founded already the first town in New
Mexico and the second in the United States,--San Gabriel de los
Espanoles, where Chamita stands to-day. Before starting on this perilous
journey, he despatched Juan de Zaldivar, his _maestro de campo_,[11]
with fifty men to explore the vast, unknown plains to the east, and then
to follow him.
Onate and a small force left the lonely little Spanish colony,--more
than a thousand miles from any other town of civilized men,--October 6,
1598. First he marched to the pueblos in the great plains of the Salt
Lakes, east of the Manzano mountains,--a thirsty journey of more than
two hundred miles. Then returning to the pueblo of Puaray (opposite the
present Bernalillo), he turned westward. On the 27th of the same month
he camped at the foot of the lofty cliffs of Acoma. The _principales_
(chief men) of the town came down from the rock, and took the solemn
pledge of allegiance to the Spanish Crown. They were thoroughly warned
of the deep importance and meaning of this step, and that if they
violated their oath they would be regarded and treated as rebels against
his Majesty; but they fully pledged themselves to be faithful vassals.
They were very friendly, and repeatedly invited the Spanish commander
and his men to visit their sky-city. In truth, they had had spies at the
conferences in Santo Domingo and San Juan, and had decided that the
most dangerous man among the invaders was Onate himself. If _he_ could
be slain, they thought the rest of the pale strangers might be easily
routed.
But Onate knew nothing of their intended treachery; and on the following
day he and his handful of men--leaving only a guard with the
horses--climbed one of the breathless stone "ladders," and stood in
Acoma. The officious Indians piloted them hither and yon, showing them
the strange terraced houses of many stories in height, the great
reservoirs in the eternal rock, and the dizzy brink which everywhere
surrounded the eyrie of a town. At last they brought the Spaniards to
where a huge ladder, projecting far aloft through a trapdoor in the roof
of a large house, indicated the _estufa_, or sacred council-chamber. The
visitors mounted to the roof by a smaller ladder, and the Indians tried
to have Onate descend through the trapdoor. But the Spanish governor,
noting that all was dark in the room below, and suddenly becoming
suspicious, declined to enter; and as his soldiers were all about, the
Indians did not insist. After a short visit in the pueblo the Spaniards
descended the rock to their camp, and thence marched away on their long
and dangerous journey to Moqui and Zuni. That swift flash of prudence in
Onate's mind saved the history of New Mexico; for in that dark _estufa_
was lying a band of armed warriors. Had he entered the room, he would
have been slain at once; and his death was to be the signal for a
general onslaught upon the Spaniards, all of whom must have perished in
the unequal fight.
Returning from his march of exploration through the trackless and deadly
plains, Juan de Zaldivar left San Gabriel on the 18th of November, to
follow his commander-in-chief. He had but thirty men. Reaching the foot
of the City in the Sky on the 4th of December, he was very kindly
received by the Acomas, who invited him up into their town. Juan was a
good soldier, as well as a gallant one, and well used to the tricks of
Indian warfare; but for the first time in his life--and the last--he now
let himself be deceived. Leaving half his little force at the foot of
the cliff to guard the camp and horses, he himself went up with sixteen
men. The town was so full of wonders, the people so cordial, that the
visitors soon forgot whatever suspicions they may have had; and by
degrees they scattered hither and yon to see the strange sights. The
natives had been waiting only for this; and when the war-chief gave the
wild whoop, men, women, and children seized rocks and clubs, bows and
flint-knives, and fell furiously upon the scattered Spaniards. It was a
ghastly and an unequal fight the winter sun looked down upon that bitter
afternoon in the cliff city. Here and there, with back against the wall
of one of those strange houses, stood a gray-faced, tattered, bleeding
soldier, swinging his clumsy flintlock club-like, or hacking with
desperate but unavailing sword at the dark, ravenous mob that hemmed
him, while stones rained upon his bent visor, and clubs and cruel
flints sought him from every side. There was no coward blood among that
doomed band. They sold their lives dearly; in front of every one lay a
sprawling heap of dead. But one by one the howling wave of barbarians
drowned each grim, silent fighter, and swept off to swell the murderous
flood about the next. Zaldivar himself was one of the first victims; and
two other officers, six soldiers, and two servants fell in that uneven
combat. The five survivors--Juan Tabaro, who was _alguacil-mayor_, with
four soldiers--got at last together, and with superhuman strength fought
their way to the edge of the cliff, bleeding from many wounds. But their
savage foes still pressed them; and being too faint to carve their way
to one of the "ladders," in the wildness of desperation the five sprang
over the beetling cliff.
Never but once was recorded so frightful a leap as that of Tabaro and
his four companions. Even if we presume that they had been so fortunate
as to reach the very lowest point of the rock, it could not have been
less than _one hundred and fifty feet_! And yet only one of the five was
killed by this inconceivable fall; the remaining four, cared for by
their terrified companions in the camp, all finally recovered. It would
be incredible, were it not established by absolute historical proof. It
is probable that they fell upon one of the mounds of white sand which
the winds had drifted against the foot of the cliffs in places.
Fortunately, the victorious savages did not attack the little camp. The
survivors still had their horses, of which unknown brutes the Indians
had a great fear. For several days the fourteen soldiers and their four
half-dead companions camped under the overhanging cliff, where they were
safe from missiles from above, hourly expecting an onslaught from the
savages. They felt sure that this massacre of their comrades was but the
prelude to a general uprising of the twenty-five or thirty thousand
Pueblos; and regardless of the danger to themselves, they decided at
last to break up into little bands, and separate,--some to follow their
commander on his lonely march to Moqui, and warn him of his danger; and
others to hasten over the hundreds of arid miles to San Gabriel and the
defence of its women and babes, and to the missionaries who had
scattered among the savages. This plan of self-devotion was successfully
carried out. The little bands of three and four apiece bore the news to
their countrymen; and by the end of the year 1598 all the surviving
Spaniards in New Mexico were safely gathered in the hamlet of San
Gabriel. The little town was built pueblo-fashion, in the shape of a
hollow square. In the Plaza within were planted the rude
_pedreros_--small howitzers which fired a ball of stone--to command the
gates; and upon the roofs of the three-story adobe houses the brave
women watched by day, and the men with their heavy flintlocks all
through the winter nights, to guard against the expected attack. But the
Pueblos rested on their arms. They were waiting to see what Onate would
do with Acoma, before they took final measures against the strangers.
It was a most serious dilemma in which Onate now found himself. One need
not have known half so much about the Indian character as did this gray,
quiet Spaniard, to understand that he must signally punish the rebels
for the massacre of his men, or abandon his colony and New Mexico
altogether. If such an outrage went unpunished, the emboldened Pueblos
would destroy the last Spaniard. On the other hand, how could he hope to
conquer that impregnable fortress of rock? He had less than two hundred
men; and only a small part of these could be spared for the campaign,
lest the other Pueblos in their absence should rise and annihilate San
Gabriel and its people. In Acoma there were full three hundred warriors,
reinforced by at least a hundred Navajo braves.
But there was no alternative. The more he reflected and counselled with
his officers, the more apparent it became that the only salvation was to
capture the Queres Gibraltar; and the plan was decided upon. Onate
naturally desired to lead in person this forlornest of forlorn hopes;
but there was one who had even a better claim to the desperate honor
than the captain-general,--and that one was the forgotten hero Vicente
de Zaldivar, brother of the murdered Juan. He was _sargento-mayor_[12]
of the little army; and when he came to Onate and begged to be given
command of the expedition against Acoma, there was no saying him nay.
On the 12th of January, 1599, Vicente de Zaldivar left San Gabriel at
the head of seventy men. Only a few of them had even the clumsy
flintlocks of the day; the majority were not _arquebusiers_ but
_piquiers_, armed only with swords and lances, and clad in jackets of
quilted cotton or battered mail. One small _pedrero_, lashed upon the
back of a horse, was the only "artillery."
Silently and sternly the little force made its arduous march. All knew
that impregnable rock, and few cherished an expectation of returning
from so desperate a mission; but there was no thought of turning back.
On the afternoon of the eleventh day the tired soldiers passed the last
intervening _mesa_,[13] and came in sight of Acoma. The Indians, warned
by their runners, were ready to receive them. The whole population, with
the Navajo allies, were under arms, on the housetops and the commanding
cliffs. Naked savages, painted black, leaped from crag to crag,
screeching defiance and heaping insults upon the Spaniards. The
medicine-men, hideously disguised, stood on projecting pinnacles,
beating their drums and scattering curses and incantations to the winds;
and all the populace joined in derisive howls and taunts.
Zaldivar halted his little band as close to the foot of the cliff as he
could come without danger. The indispensable notary stepped from the
ranks, and at the blast of the trumpet proceeded to read at the top of
his lungs the formal summons in the name of the king of Spain to
surrender. Thrice he shouted through the summons; but each time his
voice was drowned by the howls and shrieks of the enraged savages, and a
hail of stones and arrows fell dangerously near. Zaldivar had desired to
secure the surrender of the pueblo, demand the delivery to him of the
ringleaders in the massacre, and take them back with him to San Gabriel
for official trial and punishment, without harm to the other people of
Acoma; but the savages, secure in their grim fortress, mocked the
merciful appeal. It was clear that Acoma must be stormed. The Spaniards
camped on the bare sands and passed the night--made hideous by the
sounds of a monster war-dance in the town--in gloomy plans for the
morrow.
FOOTNOTES:
[10] Pronounced Kay-ress.
[11] Commander in the field: equivalent to our colonel.
[12] Equivalent to lieutenant-colonel.
[13] Huge "table" of rock.
IV.
THE STORMING OF THE SKY-CITY.
At daybreak, on the morning of January 22, Zaldivar gave the signal for
the attack; and the main body of the Spaniards began firing their few
arquebuses, and making a desperate assault at the north end of the great
rock, there absolutely impregnable. The Indians, crowded along the
cliffs above, poured down a rain of missiles; and many of the Spaniards
were wounded. Meanwhile twelve picked men, who had hidden during the
night under the overhanging cliff which protected them alike from the
fire and the observation of the Indians, were crawling stealthily around
under the precipice, dragging the _pedrero_ by ropes. Most of these
twelve were arquebusiers; and besides the weight of the ridiculous
little cannon, they had their ponderous flintlocks and their clumsy
armor,--poor helps for scaling heights which the unencumbered athlete
finds difficult. Pursuing their toilsome way unobserved, pulling one
another and then the _pedrero_ up the ledges, they reached at last the
top of a great outlying pinnacle of rock, separated from the main cliff
of Acoma by a narrow but awful chasm. Late in the afternoon they had
their howitzer trained upon the town; and the loud report, as its
cobble-stone ball flew into Acoma, signalled the main body at the north
end of the _mesa_ that the first vantage-ground had been safely gained,
and at the same time warned the savages of danger from a new quarter.
That night little squads of Spaniards climbed the great precipices which
wall the trough-like valley on east and west, cut down small pines, and
with infinite labor dragged the logs down the cliffs, across the valley,
and up the butte on which the twelve were stationed. About a score of
men were left to guard the horses at the north end of the _mesa_; and
the rest of the force joined the twelve, hiding behind the crags of
their rock-tower. Across the chasm the Indians were lying in crevices,
or behind rocks, awaiting the attack.
At daybreak of the 23d, a squad of picked men at a given signal rushed
from their hiding-places with a log on their shoulders, and by a lucky
cast lodged its farther end on the opposite brink of the abyss. Out
dashed the Spaniards at their heels, and began balancing across that
dizzy "bridge" in the face of a volley of stones and arrows. A very few
had crossed, when one in his excitement caught the rope and pulled the
log across after him.
It was a fearful moment. There were less than a dozen Spaniards thus
left standing alone on the brink of Acoma, cut off from their companions
by a gulf hundreds of feet deep, and surrounded by swarming savages. The
Indians, sallying from their refuge, fell instantly upon them on every
hand. As long as the Spanish soldier could keep the Indians at a
distance, even his clumsy firearms and inefficient armor gave an
advantage; but at such close quarters these very things were a fatal
impediment by their weight and clumsiness. Now it seemed as if the
previous Acoma massacre were to be repeated, and the cut-off Spaniards
to be hacked to pieces; but at this very crisis a deed of surpassing
personal valor saved them and the cause of Spain in New Mexico. A
slender, bright-faced young officer, a college boy who was a special
friend and favorite of Onate, sprang from the crowd of dismayed
Spaniards on the farther bank, who dared not fire into that
indiscriminate jostle of friend and foe, and came running like a deer
toward the chasm. As he reached its brink his lithe body gathered
itself, sprang into the air like a bird, and cleared the gulf! Seizing
the log, he thrust it back with desperate strength until his companions
could grasp it from the farther brink; and over the restored bridge the
Spanish soldiers poured to retrieve the day.