_Agriculture._ The American emigrants ar_The Expeditions of Zebulon Montgomery Pike, Volume 2 (of 3) To Headwaters of the Mississippi River Through Louisiana Territory, and in New Spain, During the Years 1805-6-7.

spirit of agriculture near Nacogdoches and the Trinity; but the

oppressions and suspicions they labor under prevent their proceeding

with that spirit which is necessary to give success to the

establishment of a new country.

_Aborigines._ The Tancards [note 12, p. 705] are a nation of

Indians who rove on the banks of Red river, and are 600 men strong.

They follow the buffalo and wild horses, and carry on a trade with the

Spaniards. They are armed with the bow, arrow, and lance. They are

erratic and confined to no particular district; are a tall, handsome

people; in conversation they have a peculiar cluckling, express more

by signs than any savages I ever visited, and in fact language appears

to have made less progress. They complained much of their situation

and the treatment of the Spaniards; are extremely poor, and, except

the Appaches, were the most independent Indians we encountered in the

Spanish territories. They possess large droves of horses.

There are a number of other nations now nearly extinct, some of which

are mentioned by Dr. Sibley in a report he made to the government of

the United States on these subjects. A few, and very few indeed, of

those nations have been converted by the missions, and these are not

in that state of vassalage in which the Indians further to the south

are held. [Notes 17, 21, 22, pp. 709, 713, 714.]

_Government and Laws._ Perfectly military, except as to the

ecclesiastical jurisdiction.

_Morals and Manners._ They being on the frontier, where buffalo and

wild horses abound, and not engaged in any war with savages who are

powerful, have adopted a mode of living by following those animals,

which has been productive of a more wandering disposition round the

capital (St. Antonio) than in any other of the provinces. Cordero,

restricting by edicts the buffalo hunts to certain seasons, and

obliging every man of family to cultivate so many acres of land, has

in some degree checked the spirit of hunting or wandering life which

had been hitherto so very prevalent, and has endeavored to introduce,

by his example and precepts, a general urbanity and suavity of

manners which rendered St. Antonio one of the most agreeable places

that we met with in the provinces.

_Military Force._ There were in Texas at the time I came through 988

[888?] men, from the actual returns of the troops which I have seen,

500 of whom were from St. Ander and New Leon, under command of

governor Herrara. The disposition of those troops is as follows: 388

at St. Antonio, 400 [300?] at the cantonment of [Blank, 300 marked on

map low down] on the Trinity, 100 at the [crossing of the] Trinity,

and 100 at Nacogdoches. The militia, a rabble made somewhat

respectable by a few American riflemen who are incorporated amongst

them, are about 300 men, including bow and arrow men.

_Religion._ Catholic, but much relaxed.

_History._ To me unknown, except what can be extracted from various

authors on that subject.

GENERAL REMARKS ON NEW SPAIN.

To become acquainted with all the civil and political institutes of a

country requires a perfect knowledge of the language, a free ingress

to the archives, and a residence of some years; even then we can

scarcely distinguish between the statute laws and common law, derived

from custom, morals, and habits. Under those circumstances, it cannot

be expected that I shall be able to say much on the subject, as I

possessed none of the above advantages. I will, however, offer a few

observations. To a stranger it is impossible to define the limits of

the military and ecclesiastical jurisdictions; in every affair which

relates to the citizens, and in fact with the soldiery, the force of

superstition is such that I am doubtful whether they would generally

obey one of their officers in a direct violation of the injunction of

their religious professions. The audiences of Mexico and Guadalaxara

were formed, no doubt, as a check on the immense power of the viceroy.

The number of members composing each is to me unknown, but they are

formed of the viceroy as president, with two votes, generals, and

bishops. To their jurisdictions the appeals from the judgment of the

intendants and all subordinate officers may be made in civil cases;

but the military and ecclesiastical decisions are distinct.

Notwithstanding all this semblance of justice, should an individual

dare to make the appeal and not succeed in establishing the justice of

his claim to redress, he is certainly ruined. Where justice is so

little attended to, when opposed to power and wealth, as in the

Spanish provinces, the appeal is a desperate remedy. This tribunal or

legislative body enacts all the laws for the general regulations of

their divisions of the kingdom.

The captain-generalcy of the internal provinces appeared to me to be

much more despotic, for the laws or regulations were issued in the

form of an order merely, without any kind of a preamble whatsoever,

except sometimes he would say, "By order of the king"; and such was

the style of governors of provinces.

_Morals, Manners, etc._ For hospitality, generosity, and sobriety the

people of New Spain exceed any nation perhaps on the globe; but in

national energy, patriotism, enterprise of character, or independence

of soul, they are perhaps the most deficient. Yet there are men who

have displayed bravery to a surprising degree, and the Europeans who

are there cherish with delight the idea of their gallant ancestry.

Their women have black eyes and hair, fine teeth, and are generally

brunettes. I met but one exception to this rule, at Chihuahua--a fair

lady, who, by way of distinction, was called "the girl with light

hair." They are all inclining a little to enbonpoint; but none or few

are elegant figures. Their dress generally is short jackets and

petticoats and high-heeled shoes, without any head-dress. Over the

whole dress they have a silk wrapper,[IV'-49] which they always wear

and, when in the presence of men, affect to bring over their faces,

but from under which you frequently see peeping a large sparkling

black eye. As we approached the Atlantic and our frontiers, we saw

several ladies who wore the gowns of our countrywomen, which they

conceived to be much more elegant than their ancient costume. The

lower class of the men are generally dressed in broad-brimmed hats,

short coats, large waistcoats, and small clothes always open at the

knees (owing, as I suppose, to the greater freedom it gives to the

limbs on horseback), a kind of leather boot or wrapper bound round the

leg somewhat in the manner of our frontier-men's leggings, and

gartered on. The boot is of a soft, pliable leather, but not colored.

In the eastern provinces the dragoons wear, over this wrapper or boot,

a sort of jack-boot made of sole-leather, to which are fastened, by a

rivet, the spurs, the gaffs of which are sometimes near an inch in

length; but the spurs of the gentlemen and officers, although clumsy

to our ideas, are frequently ornamented with raised silver-work on the

shoulders, and the straps embroidered with silver and gold thread.

They are always ready to mount their horses, on which the inhabitants

of the internal provinces spend nearly half the day. This description

will apply generally to the dress of all the men of the provinces for

the lower class; but in their cities, among the more fashionable, they

dress after the European or United States modes, with not more

variation than we see in our cities from one six months to another.

Both men and women have remarkably fine hair, and pride themselves in

the display of it. Their amusements are music, singing, dancing, and

gambling. The latter is strictly prohibited, but the prohibition is

not much attended to. The dance of ---- is danced by one man and two

women, who beat time to the music, which is soft and voluptuous, but

sometimes changing to a lively, gay air. The dancers exhibit the

motions of the soul by gestures of the body, snapping the fingers, and

sometimes meeting in a stretched embrace. The fandango is danced to

various figures and numbers. The minuet is still danced by the

superior class only. The music made use of is the guitar, violin, and

singers, who, in the first-described dance, accompany the music with

their hands and voices, having always some words adapted to the music.

Their games are cards, billiards, horse-racing, and cock-fighting, the

first and last of which are carried to the most extravagant lengths,

losing and winning immense sums. The present commandant-general is

very severe with his officers in these respects, frequently sending

them to some frontier post in confinement for months, for no other

fault than having lost large sums at play. At every town of

consequence is a public walk, where the ladies and gentlemen meet and

sing songs, which are always on the subject of love or the social

board. The females have fine voices, and sing in French, Italian, and

Spanish, the whole company joining in the chorus.

In their houses the ladies play the guitar, and generally accompany it

with their voices. They either sit down on the carpet cross-legged, or

loll on a sofa. To sit upright in a chair appeared to put them to

great inconvenience; although the better class would sometimes do it

on our first introduction, they soon took the liberty of following

their old habits. In their eating and drinking they are remarkably

temperate. Early in the morning you receive a dish of chocolate and a

cake; at twelve you dine on several dishes of meat, fowls, and fish,

after which you have a variety of confections, and indeed an elegant

dessert; then drink a few glasses of wine, sing a few songs, and

retire to take the siesta, or afternoon's nap, which is taken by rich

and poor. About two o'clock the windows and doors are all closed, the

streets deserted, and the stillness of midnight reigns throughout.

About four o'clock they rise, wash and dress, and prepare for the

dissipation of the night. About eleven o'clock some refreshments are

offered, but few take any, except a little wine and water and candied

sugar.

The government has multiplied the difficulties of Europeans

intermarrying with the Creoles or Metifs to such a degree that it is

difficult for such a marriage to take place. An officer wishing to

marry a lady not from Europe is obliged to acquire certificates of the

purity of her descent 200 years back, and transmit it to the court,

when the license will be returned; but should she be the daughter of a

man of the rank of captain or upward this nicety vanishes, as rank

purifies the blood of the descendants.

The general subjects of conversations among the men are women, money,

and horses, which appear to be the only objects, in their estimation,

worthy of consideration. Uniting the female sex with their money and

their beasts, and having treated them too much after the manner of the

latter, they have eradicated from their breasts every sentiment of

virtue or ambition, either to pursue the acquirements which would make

them amiable companions, instructive mothers, or respectable members

of society; their whole souls, with a few exceptions, being, like

those of Turkish ladies, taken up in music, dress, and the little

blandishments of voluptuous dissipation. Finding that the men only

regard them as objects of gratification to the sensual passions, they

have lost every idea of that feast of reason and flow of soul which

arise from the intercourse of two refined and virtuous minds.

The beggars of the City of Mexico are estimated at 60,000 souls; what

must be the number through the whole kingdom, and to what reason can

it be owing that, in a country superior to any in the world for

riches in gold and silver, producing all the necessaries of life and

most of its luxuries, there should be such a vast proportion of the

inhabitants in want of bread or clothing? It can only be accounted for

by the tyranny of the government and the luxuries of the rich. The

government strives, by all the restrictions possible to be invented

without absolutely driving the people to desperation, to keep Spanish

America dependent on Europe.

_Trade, Commerce, Manufactures, and Revenue._ The trade and commerce

of New Spain are carried on with Europe and the United States by the

port of Vera Cruz solely, and with the East Indies and South America

generally by Acapulco; and, even at these ports, under such

restriction as to productions, manufactures, and time, as to render it

of little consequence to the general prosperity of the country. Were

all the numerous bays and harbors of the gulfs of Mexico and

California opened to the trade of the world, and a general license

given to the cultivation of all the productions of which the country

is capable, with freedom of exportation and importation, with proper

duties on foreign goods, the country would immediately become rich and

powerful, and a proper stimulus would be held out to the poor to

labor, when certain of finding a quick and ready sale for the

productions of their plantations or manufactories. The country abounds

in iron ore, yet all the iron and steel, and articles of manufactures,

are obliged to be brought from Europe, the manufacturing or working of

iron being strictly prohibited. This occasions the necessary articles

of husbandry, arms, and tools to be enormously high, and is a great

check to agriculture, improvements in manufactures, and military

skill. The works of the Mexicans, in gold, silver, and painting, show

them naturally to have a genius which, with cultivation and

improvement, might rival the greatest masters of either ancient or

modern times. Their dispositions and habits are peculiarly calculated

for sedentary employments, and I have no doubt, if proper

establishments were made, they would soon rival, if not surpass, the

most extensive woolen, cotton, or silk manufactures of Europe; their

climate being proper to raise the finest cotton in the world, and

their sheep possessing all the fineness of wool for which they are so

celebrated in Spain. Under these circumstances, together with the

immense quantities of the raw materials which they have on hand, wool

sells for a mere trifle; and, in fact, they scarcely take half from

the fleece of the sheep, for the coarse manufactures of the country

and to make beds.

I cannot presume to state the revenues of the country from official

documents, but the following statements I have had from so respectable

a source, and they are so confirmed by my own observations, that I

think much reliance may be placed on their correctness. The mint coins,

per annum, at least, $50,000,000 in silver and $14,000,000 in gold,

the one-fifth of which (the duty) is equal to $12,800,000.[IV'-50] The

duties on foreign goods and the amount paid by the purchasers of

monopolies may be estimated at $4,000,000; which, with the duty on

gold and silver, makes the annual revenue $16,800,000. The civil list

of the kingdom is $580,000, the military $7,189,200; these together

amount to $7,760,200, which, deducted from the gross revenue of

$16,700,000, leaves a clear revenue for the king from his Mexican

dominions of $9,030,800. The money paid for the support of the clergy

is not included in this estimate, as they receive their revenue

through its own proper channel. The best paid officers under the

government cost the king nothing in a direct line, yet the oppressive

manner in which they pay themselves and impoverish the people would

render it better policy to abolish their impositions and pay them out

of the public treasury by a direct salary.

_Return of Military Force in New Spain._

Key Code:

C = Cavalry.

A = Artillery.

I = Infantry.

F = Fire-arms.

B.A.L. = Bows, arrows, and lances.

==============+=================+=================

| |

| Disciplined | Regular

Provinces | and Regular | Troops of the

and | European Troops.| Country.

Places. +-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----

| C | A | I | C | A | I

--------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----

Vera Cruz | | 200| 2000| 2000| |

sea-ports | | 800| 2000| | |

Mexico | 1000| | | | | 1000

New Mexico | | | | 100| |

Biscay | | | | 1100| |

Senora | | | | 900| | 200

Sinaloa | | | | 100| |

Cogquilla | | | | 400| |

Texas | | | | 488| |

+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----

Total | 1000| 1000| 4000| 5088| | 1200

--------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----

==============+=================+============

| Militia with |

| Regular | Probable

Provinces | Field Officers | Armed

and | and under Pay. | Citizens.

Places. +-----+-----+-----+-----+------

| C | A | I | F |B.A.L.

--------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+------

Vera Cruz | 3000| | 1000| |

sea-ports | 600| | 2000| |

Mexico | 3400| 1000| | |

viceroyalty | | | |15000| 80000

New Mexico | | | | 1000| 4000

Biscay | | | | 5000| 8000

Senora | | | | 5000| 3000

Sinaloa | | | | 3000| 6000

Cogquilla | | | | 1000| 2000

Texas | | | | 500| 1000

+-----+-----+-----+-----+------

Total | 7000| 1000| 3000|30500|109000

--------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+------

Cavalry. Artillery. Infantry.

Regular troops, European 1000 1000 4000

Regular troops, Mexican 5088 .... 1200

Trained militia 7000 1000 3000

----- ---- ----

Total 13088 2000 8200

Cavalry 13088

Artillery 2000

Infantry 8200

------

Total 23288 disciplined and effective force.

------

30500 undisciplined militia.

109000 bow, arrow, and lance men.

------

162788 total force.

The European troops are some of the choicest regiments from Spain;

consequently, we may put them on the supposition that they are well

disciplined, and officered by men of honor and science.

The regular troops of the kingdom who are in the viceroyalty, acting

from the stimulant of ambition and envy, are supposed to be equal to

their brethren from Europe. The militia, with the regular officers,

are likewise good troops, but are not held in so high estimation as

the other corps. Those three corps, forming a body of 23,288 men, may

be called the regular force of the kingdom, as the militia of 139,500

would, in my estimation, be of no more consequence against the regular

troops of any civilized power than the ancient aborigines of the

country were against the army of Cortes.

The particular observations which follow must be considered as

applying to the troops of the internal provinces, unless it is stated

to the contrary.

The appearance of the Spanish troops is certainly, at a distance, à la

militaire; their lances are fixed to the side of the saddle under the

left thigh and slant about five feet above the horse. On the right the

carabine is slung in a case to the front of the saddle, or pommel,

crosswise, the breech to the right hand; and on each side of the

saddle, behind the rider, is a pistol; below the breech of the

carabine is slung the shield, which is made of sole leather three

doubled, sewed together with thongs, with a band on the inside to slip

the left arm through; those of the privates are round, and are about

two feet in diameter. The officers and non-commissioned officers have

their shields oval, bending on both sides, in order to permit the

arrow to glance, and they have in general the arms of Spain with Don

Carlos IV. gilt on the outside, with various other devices, which add

much to the elegance of their appearance on horseback, but are only

calculated to be of service against savages who have no fire-arms. The

dragoons of the viceroyalty do not make use of the lance or shield,

but are armed, equipped, and clothed after the modern manner, as are

also the dragoons of the eastern provinces. When they recently

expected to be opposed to the American troops they were deprived of

the lance and shield, and received the straight cutlass in their

stead.

Their dress is a short blue coat, with red cape and cuffs, without

facings, leather or blue cotton velvet small-clothes and waistcoat,

the small-clothes always open at the knees, the wrapping-boot with the

jack-boot and permanent spur over it, a broad-brimmed, high-crowned

wool hat, with a ribbon round it of various colors, generally received

as a present from some female, which they wear as a badge of the favor

of the fair sex and a mark of their gallantry.

Their horses are small and slender-limbed, but very active and capable

of enduring great fatigue. The equipments of the horses are, to our

idea, awkward; but I believe them superior to the English, and they

have the advantage over us in the skill of the rider, as well as in

the quality of the beast. Their bridles have a strong curb, which

gives so great a mechanical force to the bridle that I believe it

almost practicable with it to break the jaw of the beast. The saddle

is made after the Persian mode, with a high projecting pommel or, as

anciently termed, bow, and is likewise raised behind. This is merely

the tree; it is then covered by two or three covers of carved leather

and embroidered workmanship, some with gold and silver in a very

superb manner. The stirrups are of wood closed in front, carved

generally into the figure of a lion's head, or that of some other

beast; they are very heavy, and to us present a very clumsy

appearance. The horseman, seated on his horse, has a small bag tied

behind him, his blankets either under him, or lying with his cloak

between his body and the bow, which makes him at his ease. Thus

mounted, it is impossible for the most vicious horse ever to dismount

them. They will catch another horse with a noose and hair rope, when

both are running nearly at full speed, with which they soon choke down

the beast of which they are in pursuit; in short, they are probably

the most expert horsemen in the world.

At each post is a store, called the king's, where it was the original

intention of the government that the soldiers should be supplied with

provisions, clothing, arms, etc., at a cheap rate; but it being a post

generally given to some young officer to make his fortune, they are

subject to great impositions. When a dragoon joins the service he

receives from the king five horses and two mules, and this number he

is always obliged to keep good from his own pocket; but when he is

discharged, the horses and mules receive the discharge mark and become

his private property. They engage for five or ten years, at the option

of the soldier, but in the bounty there is a very material difference.

It is extremely easy to keep up their corps, as a private dragoon

considers himself upon an equality with most of the citizens and

infinitely superior to the lower class, and not unfrequently you see

men of considerable fortune marrying the daughters of sergeants and

corporals.

The pay of the troops of New Spain varies with the locality, but may

be averaged, in the internal provinces, as follows:

Colonel, $4,500; lieutenant-colonel, $4,000; major, $3,000; captain,

$2,400; first lieutenant, $1,500; second lieutenant, $1,000; ensign,

$800; sergeant, $350; corporal, $300; private, $288. With this pay

they find their own clothes, provisions, arms, accouterments, etc.,

after the first equipments.

Corporal punishment is contrary to the Spanish ordinances. They punish

by imprisonment, putting in the stocks, and death. As a remarkable

instance of the discipline and regularity of conduct of those

provincial troops, although marching with them and doing duty as it

were for nearly four months, I never saw a man receive a blow or put

under confinement for one hour. How impossible would it be to regulate

the turbulent dispositions of the Americans with such treatment! In

making the foregoing remark I do not include officers, for I saw more

rigorous treatment exercised toward some of them than was ever

practiced in our army.

The discipline of their troops is very different from ours. As to

tactics or military maneuvers, they are not held in much estimation;

for, during the whole of the time I was in the country, I never saw a

corps of troops exercising as dragoons, but frequently marching by

platoons, sections, etc., in garrison, where they serve as infantry

with their carabines. In these maneuvers they are very deficient. On a

march a detachment of cavalry generally encamp in a circle. They

relieve their guards at night; as soon as they halt the new guard is

formed on foot with their carabines, and then marched before the

commandant's tent, where the commanding officer of the guard invokes

the holy virgin three times; the commanding officer replies, "It is

well." They then retire and mount their horses, and are told off, some

to act as guard of the horses, as cavalry, others as guard of the

camp, as infantry. The old guards are then paraded and relieved, and

the new sentinels take post. Their sentinels are singing half the

time, and it is no uncommon thing for them to quit their post to come

to the fire, go for water, etc.--in fact, after the officer is in bed,

frequently the whole guard comes in; yet I never knew any man punished

for those breaches of military duty. Their mode of attack is by

squadrons, on the different flanks of their enemies, but without

regularity or concert, shouting, hallooing, and firing their

carabines; after which, if they think themselves equal to the enemy,

they charge with a pistol and then a lance. From my observation on

their discipline I have no hesitation in declaring that I would not be

afraid to march over a plain with 500 infantry and a proportionate

allowance of horse artillery of the United States army, in the

presence of 5,000 of these dragoons. Yet I do not presume to say that

an army with that inferiority of numbers would do to oppose them, for

they would cut off your supplies, and harass your march and camp,

night and day, to such a degree as to oblige you in the end to

surrender to them without ever having come to action. If, however, the

event depended on one single engagement, it would eventuate with glory

to the American arms. The conclusion must not be drawn that I consider

they are more deficient in physical firmness than other nations, for

we see the savages, 500 of whom on a plain fly before 50 bayonets, on

other occasions brave danger and death in its most horrid shapes, with

an undaunted fortitude never surpassed by the most disciplined and

hardy veterans. It arises solely from the want of discipline and

confidence in each other, as is always the case with undisciplined

corps, unless stimulated by the godlike sentiment of love of country,

of which these poor fellows know little. The traveling food of the

dragoons in New Mexico consists of a very excellent species of wheat

biscuit, and shaved meat well dried [charqui], with a vast quantity of

red pepper [chile colorado], of which they make bouilli and then pour

it on their broken biscuit, when the latter becomes soft and excellent

eating.

Farther south they use large quantities of parched corn-meal and sugar

[pinole], as practiced by our hunters, each dragoon having a small

bag. In short, they live, when on command, on an allowance which our

troops would conceive little better than starving, never, except at

night, attempting to eat anything like a meal, but biting a piece of

biscuit, or drinking some parched meal with sugar and water, during

the day.

From the physical as well as moral properties of the inhabitants of

New Spain, I do believe they are capable of being made the best troops

in the world, possessing sobriety, enterprise, great physical force,

docility, and a conception equally quick and penetrating.

The mode of promotion in the internal provinces is singular, but

probably productive of good effects. Should a vacancy of first

lieutenant offer in a company, the captain commanding nominates, with

the senior second lieutenant, who by seniority would fill the vacancy,

two other lieutenants to the general, giving his comments on all

three. The general selects two for a nomination to the court, from

whom is selected the fortunate candidate, whose commission is made out

and forwarded. As the letters of nomination are always kept a secret,

it is impossible for the young officers to say who is to blame if they

are disappointed, and the fortunate one is in a direct way to thank

the king only for the ultimate decision. And thus with superior grades

to the colonel.

The king of Spain's ordinances for the government of his army are

generally founded on justice and a high sense of honor. I could not

get a set from any of the officers to take to my quarters,

consequently my observations on them were extremely cursory. They

provide that no old soldier shall ever be discharged the service,

unless for infamous crimes. When a man has served with reputation for

15 years and continues, his pay is augmented; 20 years, he receives

another augmentation; 27 years, he receives the brevet rank and pay of

an ensign; and 32, a lieutenant, etc. Those circumstances are a great

stimulant, although not one in a thousand arrives at the third period,

when they are permitted to retire from the service with full pay and

emoluments. All sons of captains, or of grades superior, are entitled

to enter the king's schools as cadets, at the age of 12 years.

The property of any officer or soldier who is killed on the field of

battle, or dies of his wounds, is not liable to be taken for debt, and

is secured, as well as the king's pension, to the relatives of the

deceased.

Courts-martial for the trial of commissioned officers must be formed

of general officers; but this clause subjects the officers of the

provinces to a great species of tyranny, for the commanding general

has taken it upon himself to punish for all offenses not capital, and

consequently according to his own judgment and prejudices, from which

there is only an appeal to the king, and difficult it is indeed for

the complaints of a subaltern to reach his majesty through the

numerous crowd of sycophants who surround him, one-half of whom are

probably in league with his oppressor. It likewise deprives an officer

of the most sacred of all rights, that of being tried by his peers;

for, should he be sent to Mexico or Europe for trial, it is possible

he cannot take half the testimony which is necessary to complete his

justification.

There is another principle defined by the ordinances, which has often

been the cause of disputes in the service of the United States. The

commandant of a post in the Spanish service, if barely a captain,

receives no orders from a general, should one arrive at his post,

unless that general should be superior in authority to the person who

posted him; for, says the ordinance, he is responsible to the king

alone for his post. That principle, according to my ideas, is very

injurious to the country which adopts it. For example, we will say

that a post of great importance, containing immense military stores,

is likely to fall into the hands of the enemy; an officer superior to

the commandant receives the information, repairs to the post, and

orders him immediately to evacuate it. The commandant, feeling himself

only responsible to the authority who placed him in that position,

refuses to obey, and the magazines and place are lost. The principle

is also subversive of the very root of military subordination and

discipline, where an inferior should in all cases obey a superior, who

alone should be responsible for the effect arising from the execution

of his orders. It will readily be believed that, in my thus advocating

implicit obedience to the orders of a superior, that I do not suppose

the highest improbabilities or impossibilities, such as an order to

turn your arms against the constituted authority of your country, or

to be the ensign of his tyranny or the pander of his vices. Those are

cases where a man's reason must alone direct him, and are not--indeed,

cannot be--subject to any human rule whatever.

_Religion._ It forms a subject with which I am very imperfectly

acquainted; but, having made some inquiries and observations on the

religion of the country, I will freely communicate them, fearful at

the same time that I lay myself open to the severe criticism of

persons who have in any degree applied themselves to the study of

theology or the ritual of the catholic church.

The kingdom of New Spain is divided into four archbishoprics, viz.:

Mexico, Guadalaxara, Durango, and St. Louis Potosi. Under these again

are the sub-bishoprics--deacons, curates, etc., all of whom are

subject and accountable to their immediate chief for the districts

committed to their charge, and the whole are again subject to the

ordinances of the high court of inquisition held at the capital of

Mexico, whence are fulminated the edicts of their censure against the

heresies and impious doctrines of modern philosophy, both as to

politics and religion. I am credibly informed that the influence of

that tribunal is greater in his Catholic majesty's Mexican dominions

than in any Catholic country in Europe or perhaps in the world. A few

years since they condemned a man to the flames, for asserting and

maintaining some doctrine which they deemed heretical; and a Jew who

was imprudent enough to take the image of Christ on a cross, and put

it under the sill of his door, saying privately he would make the dogs

walk over their God. They likewise examine and condemn to the flames

all books of a modern sentiment, either as to religion or politics,

and excommunicate anyone in whose hands they may be found. I recollect

to have seen a decree of theirs published in the Mexican gazettes,

condemning a number of books, "as heretical and contrary to the sacred

principles of the holy Catholic church, and the peace and durability

of the government of his Catholic majesty." Amongst these were

mentioned Helvetius on Man, J. J. Rousseau's works, Voltaire's,

Mirabeau's, and a number of others of that description; even at so

great a distance as Chihuahua a officer dared not take Pope's Essay on

Man to his quarters, but used to come to mine to read it.

The salaries of the archbishops are superior to those of any officers

in the kingdom; the bishop of Mexico's being estimated at $150,000 per

annum, when the viceroy's is $80,000, with $50,000 allowed for his

table, falling short of the bishop's $20,000.

Those incomes are raised entirely from the people, who pay no tax to

the king, but give one-tenth of their yearly income to the clergy,

besides the fees of confessions, bulls, burials, baptisms, marriages,

and a thousand impositions which the corruption of priestcraft has

introduced, and which have been kept up by their superstition and

ignorance. Notwithstanding all this, the inferior clergy, who do all

the slavery of the office, are liberal and well-informed men; I

scarcely saw one who was not in favor of a change of government. They

are generally Creoles by birth, and always kept in subordinate grades,

without the least shadow of a probability of rising to the superior

dignities of the church. This has soured their minds to such a degree

that I am confident in asserting that they will lead the van whenever

the standard of independence is raised in that country.

_Politics._ It has often been a subject of discussion with

politicians, in what manner a mother country should treat her distant

and powerful colonies, in order to retain them longest in their

subjection; for the history of all nations and all ages has proved

that no community of people separated from another by an immense

ocean, feeling their power, strength, and independence, will remain

long subject to the mother country, purely from the ties of

consanguinity and similarity of habits, manners, and religion. Society

itself having arisen from the mutual wants, fears, and imbecility of

the infancy of human institutions, a large body of that society will

remain no longer subject to another branch, at the immense distance of

1,000 leagues, than until they feel their maturity, and capability of

providing for their own wants and their own defense. Therefore we may

draw a conclusion that no political course of conduct whatever will

eventually prevent the separation; but there is a line of conduct

which certainly must retard it in a great measure; and prudence would

dictate to the mother country the policy of giving way without a

struggle to an event beyond her power to prevent.

The two great examples of English and Spanish America are before our

eyes. England gave us liberty to pursue the dictates of our own

judgment with respect to trade, education, and manners, by which means

we increased in power, learning, and wealth, with a rapidity unknown

in the annals of the world, and at the first attempt to infringe the

rights which we had hitherto enjoyed, asserted that claim which

nature and the locality of our situation gave us a right to demand and

a power to defend. Had Great Britain yielded to the storm with grace

and dignity, she would have secured our gratitude, ancient prejudices,

and affections in her favor; on the contrary, by a long and arduous

conflict, the murder of thousands of our citizens, the destruction of

our country, the profanation of our altars, and the violation of every

right, divine and human, she implanted in the breast of the Americans

an antipathy approaching nearly to horror, a desire of revenge almost

hereditary; and destroyed the bonds of brotherhood which might have

subsisted between the two countries. It will take ages of just conduct

from her to the United States to eradicate this. Spain pursued a

different line of conduct toward her Mexican dominions, which were

settled by Europeans 60 years previous to any part of the United

States, and might be termed a conquered kingdom, rather than the

settlement of a savage country. This country she has therefore bound

up in all the ligatures of restrictions, monopolies, prohibitions,

seclusions, and superstitions; and has so carefully secluded all light

from bursting in on their ignorance, that they have vegetated like the

acorns in the forest, until the towering branches have broken through

the darkness of the wild which surrounded them and let in the light of

heaven. The approximation of the United States, with the gigantic

strides of French ambition, have begun to arouse their dormant

qualities, and to call into action the powers of their minds on the

subject of their political situation.

An instance of their disposition for independence has been exhibited

in their feeble attempts at a revolution on the 15th of January, 1624,

under the viceroyalty of Don Diego Carrello Galves; the insurrection

on the 8th of June, 1692; and more recently, in 1797, under the Count

de Galves,[IV'-51] when they proclaimed him king of Mexico in the

streets of the capital, and 130,000 souls were heard proclaiming,

"Long live Galvez, king of Mexico!" It was then only for him to have

willed it, and the kingdom of Mexico was lost to Charles IV. forever.

But preferring his loyalty to his ambition, he rode out attended by

his guards to the mob, with sword in hand, crying out, "Long live his

Catholic majesty, Charles IV.," and threatening to put to instant

death with his own hand any persons who refused immediately to retire

to their houses. This dispersed the people. In another quarter of the

kingdom an immense number had also collected and proclaimed him king.

He sent 10,000 men against them, dispersed them, and had four

beheaded. Those firm measures saved the country at that period, and

for them he received the greatest honors from the court of Spain; but

was poisoned a short time after, fulfilling the maxim that "it is

dangerous to serve a jealous tyrant." For such always conceive that

the same power which stilled the ocean's rage can by its will raise

the storm into all the majesty of overwhelming fury. Thus, by taking

his life, it relieved them from the dread of his influence with the

Mexicans.

England would naturally have been the power they would have looked up

to, in order to form an alliance to secure their independence; but the

insatiable avarice and hauteur exhibited by the English in their late

descents at La Plate [La Plata, in South America], with the disgrace

of their arms, has turned their views from that nation.

They therefore have turned their eyes toward the United States, as to

a sister of the same soil, in their vicinity--one who has within her

power ample resources of arms, ammunition, and even men, to assist in

securing their independence, and who in that event would secure to

herself the almost exclusive trade of the richest country in the world

for centuries, and [the opportunity] to be her carriers as long as the

two nations exist. For Mexico, like China, will never become a nation

of mariners, but will receive the ships of all the world into her

ports, and give her bullion in exchange for the productions of their

different countries. Then, what would not be the advantages the United

States would reap from the event! Our numerous vessels would fill

every port, and our vicinity would enable us to carry off at least

nine-tenths of her commerce; even on the coast of the Pacific no

European nation could vie with us. There would also be a brisk inland

trade carried on with the Spanish provinces via Red river; and having

a free entrance into all their ports, we should become their factors,

agents, guardians--in short, their tutelar genius; as they fear but

hate France and all French men and measures. It therefore remains for

the government of the United States to decide whether, if Bonaparte

should seize the crown of Spain, the States would hold out a helping

hand to emancipate another portion of the western hemisphere from the

bonds of European tyranny and oppression: or, by a different policy,

suffer 6,000,000 people to become, in the hands of French intrigue,

enterprise, and tactics, a scourge on our southwestern boundaries,

which would oblige us to keep up a large and respectable military

force, and continually lay us liable to a war on the weakest and most

vulnerable part of our frontiers.

Twenty thousand auxiliaries from the United States under good

officers, joined to the independents of the country, are at any time

sufficient to create and effect the revolution. These troops can be

raised and officered in the United States, but paid and supplied at

the expense of Mexico. It would be requisite that not only the general

commanding, but that every officer, down to the youngest ensign,

should be impressed with the necessity of supporting a strict

discipline, to prevent marauding, which should in some instances be

punished with death, in order to convince the citizens that we come as

their friends and protectors, not as their plunderers and tyrants.

Also, the most sacred regard should be paid not to injure the

institutions of their religion; thereby showing them we have a proper

respect for all things in any way connected with the worship of the

Deity, at the same time that we permit every man to adore him

agreeably to the dictates of his own judgment.

The details requisite for the equipment, organization, etc., of the

corps, so as to adapt it to the locality of the country and the nature

of the service, could be easily formed, but would be impertinent here.

Should an army of Americans ever march into the country, and be guided

and governed by these maxims, they will only have to march from

province to province in triumph, and be hailed by the united voices of

grateful millions as their deliverers and saviors, whilst our national

character resounds to the most distant nations of the earth.

WASHINGTON, April 12th, 1808.

FOOTNOTES:

[IV'-1] Chapter IV., which I introduce to accommodate Pike's

Observations on New Spain, as the article may be briefly entitled,

consists of the leading piece of the App. to Pt. 3 of the orig. ed.,

pp. 1-51; it had no number, but as it came first and was followed by a

piece presented as No. 2, it is of course to be taken as No. 1, _pro

forma_. The original heading was: Geographical, Statistical, and

General Observations made by Capt. Z. M. Pike, on the Interior

Provinces of New Spain, from Louisiana to the Vice Royalty, and

between the Pacific Ocean, Gulph of California and the Atlantic Ocean

or Gulph of Mexico. This was by far the most important article in the

whole work, bringing news of great public interest in 1810. Much of it

was original; how much of it was borrowed without acknowledgement

could only be said after careful examination of prior works on the

same subject. It should be compared with Humboldt and Bonpland's

Political Essay on the Kingdom of New Spain, with a Physical and

Geographical Atlas, etc., 2 vols., 4to, with atlas, folio, of 20

plates. Pike's two maps of Mexico will be best understood in

connection with the same source of information: see Memoir, _anteà_.

[IV'-2] Nueva España (New Spain) is a term whose geographical and

political connotation has varied much. As the colonial name of what we

call Mexico it was first applied to Yucatan and Tabasco by Grijalva,

in 1518, and next extended to all the Cortesian conquests. The kingdom

of New Spain proper was a region under the audience of Mexico, which

corresponded closely to the modern states of Yucatan, Campeche,

Tabasco, Vera Cruz, Hidalgo, Guanajuato, Michoacan, Colima, Mexico,

Morelos, Tlascala, Puebla, Guerrero, Oajaca, and Chiapas. The

viceroyalty of New Spain, dating from 1535, when the first viceroy,

Mendoza, entered in possession, was much more comprehensive, as it

embraced all the Spanish possessions in Central and North America,

from the S. boundary of Costa Rica, as well as the West Indies and the

Spanish East Indies. Its political composition was the five audiences

of Mexico, Guadalajara, Guatemala, Santo Domingo, and Manila, and the

captaincy-general of Florida. During the eighteenth century the East

Indies and Guatemala were excluded from the viceroyalty. The

viceroyalty of New Spain, as the term was most generally used, long

consisted of the three "kingdoms" of New Spain, New Galicia, and New

Leon. This corresponded to modern Mexico, plus then undefined

territories of Texas, New Mexico, and California, now parts of the

United States. On the separation in 1793 of the Provincias Internas or

Internal Provinces, the viceroyalty of New Spain corresponded to the

present Mexico, plus the Californias, but minus southern Coahuila,

Durango, Sinaloa, Chihuahua, and Sonora. Spanish viceroyalty ceased in

1821, but "New Spain" was not finally "Mexico" till 1824 (during the

Empire under Iturbide, 1822-28). The term "Provincias Internas" was

vaguely used, as early as the seventeenth century, for the northern

parts of New Spain or Mexico. "In 1777 (by order of Aug. 22, 1776) a

new government was formed under this name, completely separated from

the viceroyalty of New Spain, and comprising Nueva Vizcaya ([New

Biscay] Durango and Chihuahua), Coahuila, Texas, New Mexico, Sinaloa,

Sonora, and the Californias. The Capital was Arizpe in Sonora, and the

audience of Guadalajara retained its judicial authority; the governor

was also military commandant. In 1786 and 1787-93 the government was

again subordinate to the viceroy. When the final separation was made

in 1793, California was attached to Mexico," Cent. Cyclop., 1894, _s.

v._, p. 828. This last "New Spain" is Pike's; and the present article

is mainly devoted to the Provincias Internas of this New

Spain--excepting that nothing is said of the Californias.

[IV'-3] El Reino de Nueva Galicia, or New Galicia, was a prime

division of colonial New Spain, whose limits fluctuated, like those of

most Mexican political divisions, but for most of the seventeenth and

eighteenth centuries corresponded nearly to the modern states of

Jalisco, Aguas Calientes, and Zacatecas, plus a small part of San Luis

Potosí. The audience of Guadalajara, originating in 1548, had

jurisdiction over this Nueva Galicia; in 1786 the latter became the

intendency of Guadalajara; and after 1792 the Provincias Internas were

judicially subordinate to the audience of Guadalajara. Pike's

"administration of Guadalaxara" corresponds inexactly to the present

State of Jalisco or Xalisco. This lies on the Pacific coast, bordered

by the states of Sinaloa, Durango, Zacatecas, Aguas Calientes,

Guanajuato, Michoacan, and Colima; area, 27,261 sq. m.; pop.,

1,280,500; capital, Guadalajara. The situation of this city is lat.

21° N., long. 103° 10´ W.; it was founded in 1542, and is now the

second largest city in Mexico, pop. 95,000. That "one of the Gusman

family," who Pike says built it "in 1551" was probably Nuño or Nuñez

Bertrande Guzman, b. Guadalajara (in Spain) about 1485, d. there 1544;

he was the enemy of Cortés, and the conqueror of New Galicia. Rio

Grande de Santiago is the largest river in the state, and Lago de

Chapala, which lies mostly within its limits, is the largest lake in

Mexico; area, over 1,300 sq. m.

[IV'-4] Valladolid was the name of an old Castilian province in Spain,

and of the capital of that province; it was applied to a political

division in Mexico which has entirely disappeared, though

corresponding to some extent to the present State of Michoacan. The

capital of this was also called Valladolid until 1828, when it was

changed to present Morelia, in honor of the patriot priest José Maria

Morelos y Pavon, b. there Sept. 30th, 1765; joined the revolt of

Hidalgo, 1810; was captured Nov. 15th, 1815; executed Dec. 22d, 1815,

near the City of Mexico.

[IV'-5] This administration has been so changed and subdivided that it

is not easily compared in a word with existing divisions which

represent its former extent. In general terms it was a south central

portion of Mexico with an extensive Pacific coast line, but cut off

from the Atlantic by Vera Cruz and Puebla, and bordered on the N. by

San Luis Potosí, etc. The present State of Mexico is an area of

somewhat over 9,000 sq. m., bounded by Querétaro, Hidalgo, Tlascala,

Puebla, Morelos, Guerrero, and Michoacan. Its capital is Toluca; for

the City of Mexico, capital of the republic, is in a small Federal

District set apart from the rest of the state (like our District of

Columbia), with an area of only 463 sq. m. The pop. of the present

State of Mexico is about 830,000; the capital city of the republic has

a pop. of 330,000; its situation is lat. 19° 25´ 45´´ N., long. 99° 7´

18´´ W., at an alt. of about 7,500 feet.

[IV'-6] The present State of Oajaca has an extensive Pacific

coast-line on the S., Guerrero and a small part of Puebla on the W.,

Puebla and Vera Cruz on the N., Vera Cruz and Chiapas on the E.; area,

about 28,800 sq. m.; pop. about 816,000. The capital city of the same

name is on the Rio Verde or Atoyac, about 200 m. S. E. of the City of

Mexico; pop. 29,000.

[IV'-7] Vera Cruz is the long, narrow maritime state of Mexico, with

the Gulf on the E., Tamaulipas on the N., and then bordered on the W.,

S., and E., successively, by San Luis Potosí, Hidalgo, Puebla, Oajaca,

Chiapas, and Tabasco. The land is low along the Gulf, or in the

_tierra caliente_, but soon rises to the mountainous _tierra fria_ of

most of the state. The whole area is 27,450 sq. m.; pop. 642,000. The

long-famous seaport of Vera Cruz is the principal city, pop. 24,000,

in lat. 19° 12´ N., long. 96° 9´ E. This was founded near the present

site by Cortés in May, 1519, by the name of Villa Rica de la Vera

Cruz; site changed to the Rio de la Antigua in 1525; to present

position in 1599; became City of Vera Cruz in 1615; was taken by the

French in 1838, by the Americans in 1848, by the Allies in 1861. The

celebrated Picacho of Orizaba, 10 m. N. of Orizaba, alt. 18,314 feet,

is on the boundary between Vera Cruz and Puebla. This is the highest

mountain of N. America, except Mt. St. Elias.

[IV'-8] Present State of Puebla is entirely cut off from the sea,

being wedged in among Vera Cruz on the E., Oajaca on the S., Guerrero

on the S. W., and Morelos, Mexico, Tlascala, and Hidalgo, on the W.;

area 12,740 sq. m.; pop. lately, 845,000; capital, La Puebla de los

Angeles, so called from a pious taradiddle; pop. about 110,000; it is

a very old city, founded about 1530, and was taken by the French in

1863. The famous peak of Popocatepetl, or Smoking mt., a volcano about

17,800 feet high, is on the boundary between this state and Mexico, 45

m. S. E. of the city of the latter name; and N. of that peak is

another volcano, Ixtaccihuatl or the "Woman in White," over 16,000

feet high.

[IV'-9] Guanajuato is a small central state, surrounded by Zacatecas,

San Luis Potosí, Querétaro, Michoacan, Jalisco, and Aguas Calientes;

area, 11,370 sq. m., pop. over 1,000,000; capital of same name, about

lat. 21° 1´ N., long. 100° 35´ W.; pop. 52,000.

[IV'-10] Zacatecas has altered less than some of the administrations,

the present state being bounded N. by Coahuila, N. and N. W. by

Durango, W. and S. W. and S. by Jalisco, S. by Aguas Calientes, E. by

San Luis Potosí; area, 25,230 sq. m.; pop. 585,640; capital of same

name, about lat. 22° 40´ N., pop. about 60,000.

[IV'-11] Pike's "St. Louis" corresponds, though inexactly, to present

State of San Luis Potosí, lying among Nuevo Leon, Tamaulipas, and a

small extent of Vera Cruz on the E., Zacatecas on the W., Coahuila on

the N., and Guanajuato, Querétaro, and Hidalgo on the S.; area, 24,450

sq. m.; pop. about 550,500; capital of the same name, 223 m. N. N. W.

of City of Mexico; pop. 62,600.

[IV'-12] Nuevo Santander, whose history is something of a political

curiosity, was originally a division of colonial New Spain, and

continued to be known as a colony until 1786. The extent was about

that of the present State of Tamaulipas, bounded substantially as Pike

says, though it once overreached the Rio Grande into what is now

Texas. Tamaulipas has Texas on the N., separated by the Rio Grande;

the Gulf of Mexico on the E.; Nuevo Leon and Coahuila on the W.; San

Luis Potosí on the S. W. and S.; with a small extent of Vera Cruz on

the extreme S.; area, 29,350 sq. m.; pop. about 173,000; capital,

Ciudad Victoria. The river, on one of whose headwaters this city is

situated, falls into the Gulf near the Barra de Santander, as it is

still called, about 60 Mexican leagues S. of the mouth of the Rio

Grande, and rather less than 40 such leagues N. of Tampico; its length

is supposed to be about 150 m.

[IV'-13] Or Nuevo Reino de Leon, as it was long styled. This was a

division of colonial New Spain, corresponding to the present State of

Nuevo Leon, but, when a kingdom, including certain portions of what

are now Tamaulipas and San Luis Potosí; it was attached to the

intendency of the latter in 1786. New Leon still has Tamaulipas along

the whole of its E. border, excepting that its northern panhandle is

environed by Coahuila, which thence extends on its W. side to San Luis

Potosí, which latter thence curves to meet Tamaulipas at the end of

the southern panhandle. The shape of some of the Mexican states would

show, in the absence of all history, that earthquakes and volcanoes

were not the only agitations against which New Spain contended in the

settling of some of her geographical problems. Area of New Leon,

24,000 sq. m.; pop. 272,000; capital, Monterey: for Pike's location of

Monterey on "Tiger" r., see note 33, p. 682, May 18th, 1807. The

position of this city is about lat. 25° 40´ N., long. 100° 25´ W.;

pop. 46,000; it is best known to us as a prize captured by the U. S.

forces under Z. Taylor, Sept. 23d, 1846. The Count of Monterey was one

Caspar de Zuñiga y Azevedo, b. _ca._ 1540, d. Lima, Peru, Feb. 10th,

1606, viceroy of Mexico, Oct. 5th, 1595-1603, of Peru, Nov. 28th,

1604, till death; Monterey bay, Cal., named for him. The American

officer whom Pike names was Edward D. Turner of Massachusetts, who

entered the army as an ensign of the 2d Inf. Mar. 4th, 1791; became a

lieutenant July 13th, 1792: captain of the 2d sub-Legion Nov. 11th,

1793, and of the 2d Inf. Nov. 1st, 1796; served as brigade inspector

from Nov. 1st, 1799, to Apr. 1st, 1802; was retained as a captain of

the 1st Inf. from the latter date, and resigned Nov. 30th, 1805.

[IV'-14] This comes at the end of the present dissertation, when Pike

has finished with his account of the Internal Provinces, to which he

now proceeds. Two of these, Sonora and Sinaloa, are "internal" to the

extent of bordering on the Gulf of California and not on the high sea.

These he never saw; those he traversed correspond to the present three

Mexican states of Chihuahua, Durango, and Coahuila, and to our

Territory of New Mexico, State of Texas, and a small part of the State

of Louisiana. Most of the commentary that would otherwise be here

offered has already been put upon Pike's itinerary through these

regions; but some points will come up for further criticism or

explanation.

[IV'-15] New Mexico, as long as it was a province of New Spain, could

not be satisfactorily bounded, for the simple reason that its

boundaries were never clearly defined. Pike's ascription of lat. 44°

N. sends it up to the shadowy border of "the Oregan"--that No Man's

Land till Lewis and Clark descended the Columbia to the South Sea.

This is no place to open the celebrated quarrel over boundaries that

hovered in the air like clouds on political paper; suffice it, that

when the Oregan became an undisputed possession of any nation, it

already belonged to the United States. Away from the Pacific coast,

Spanish dominion never exceeded 38° N. in fact, whatever it may have

been on paper at any time. Shortly after Pike's time, _i. e._, from

Feb. 22d, 1819, an intelligible theoretical boundary was agreed upon

by the United States and Spain, though it was never run upon the

ground. This line, aside from any question of the still unsettled

boundary of Texas, ran from the Red r. to the Arkansaw r. on the

meridian of 100° W. from Greenwich, up the Arkansaw to its source,

thence due N. on whatever the meridian might prove to be to lat. 42°

N., thence on that parallel due W. to the Pacific. Spanish Nuevo

Mejico was quietly captured without resistance by the U. S. Army of

the West under Kearny in 1846; formally ceded in 1848; organized as a

U. S. territory in 1850; its southern boundary changed by the

acquisition of the Gadsden purchase and definitely established in

1853; Arizona detached on the W. in 1863 along the meridian of 109°

W.; eastern boundary, the meridian of 103° W.; present area, 122,460

sq. m.; pop. in 1890 given as 153,593. Thus, to all intents and

practical purposes, Pike's "New Mexico" is our New Mexico and Arizona,

and thence indefinitely northward. Present Arizona has an area of

112,920 sq. m.; pop. 59,620 by the census of 1890. In December, 1863,

Governor John N. Goodwin and Secretary Richard C. McCormick, with

other new Territorial officials, entered into possession on the

ground, and formally proclaimed their functions. They proceeded to

establish the capital on Granite cr., a tributary of the Rio Verde,

and named it Prescott, for the historian, after having deliberated

whether to call it Audubon, for the ornithologist. The log house built

for the gubernatorial, secretarial, and all other functions was there

when I last saw it, in 1892, and still the residence of one of the

original party, Judge Fleury, who in the course of time exercised his

versatile talent in every capacity, from cook to acting governor.

Arizona is thus politically in its 32d year now (1895). Its historic

period dates from 1540 or 1536; the prehistoric compass of time, since

it was first inhabited, is very likely not exceeded by the Christian

era--to judge from recent exhumations in the valley of the Gila,

revealing a cluster of cities 6 m. long. Those who named the present

capital Phoenix builded better than they knew--the name, I mean, not

the mud hovels and wicker-work jacals which adorn some portions of

that new center of political intrigue to which were lately shifted the

inevitable dissensions that arose between the northern mountaineers

and the southern deserteers.

[IV'-16] To correct in detail all such statements would hardly come

within the scope of cursory notes, and I usually pass them over, as

anyone can easily inform himself of the adjustment required for

geographical precision. But in this particular instance it is well to

remember that Pike had acquired an erroneous notion of the source of

the Yellowstone, from considering the _South_ Platte to be the whole

Platte, thus throwing the _North_ Platte out of court. Having no

knowledge of this great river, he fancied there was some spot whence

he could walk in a day to the source of any one of the four he

names--a feat for which the seven-leagued boots of fable would be

required: see note 5, p. 524. For some particulars concerning the Rio

Grande, see note 32, p. 642. To the different names which the river

had in different regions, add Rio Abajo and Rio Arriba for lower and

upper sections, not well defined but conveniently recognized, of Rio

del Norte above El Paso. Pike is quite right in the matter of Rio

Bravo--a name never applied to the river in any portion of its course

which he traversed in New Mexico.

[IV'-17] Whatever the real implication of names bestowed upon actual

or alleged branches of the Colorado by the early explorers from whom

Pike drew his inspiration, as Escalante 1777, it is not difficult to

identify those he uses, even when his text does not agree with his

map, as happens in some cases. From the Rio Gila, for which see note

19, we will follow his map upward. 1. "Rio S^n. Maria" of the map, not

in the text. The name Santa Maria held for many years for the branch

of the Colorado now called Bill Williams' fork. This is composed of

two main streams, to one of which the name Santa Maria is now usually

restricted; the other is called Big Sandy. Bill Williams' fork does

not head in Bill Williams' mountain, being cut off from that by the

Rio Verde, etc.; its basin lies entirely W. of Aubrey and Chino

valleys, and of the Prescott plains. This river drains westward from

the Santa Maria, Granite, Juniper, Weaver, and other ranges in

Arizona, and falls into the Colorado from the E. at a place called

Aubrey City, the site of which was pointed out to me by a native when

I navigated the Colorado in 1865, though I saw nothing like a city. 2.

There is no mention in the text, nor any sign on the map, of the

Colorado Chiquito, otherwise Little Colorado r., though this is a

large water-course which, when it runs, drains an extensive area in N.

Arizona. This stream heads about the White, Mogollon, and other ranges

on or near the confines of New Mexico; receives from the Zuñian mts.

its main fork, Rio Puerco of the West; flows N. W. past (E. of) the

San Francisco and Bill Williams' peaks, and falls into the Colorado

from the S. E., well up in the Grand Cañon of the latter; its own

lower courses are terribly cañonous for a great distance, its bed

being riven in chasms comparable even with the awful abyss of the

Colorado itself. 3. Non-appearance of the Colorado Chiquito affects to

some extent the identification of the river called in the text "de los

Anamas or Nabajoa" and lettered on the map "Rio Jasquevilla." This is

laid down as a large eastern branch of the Colorado which falls in

_above_ the Grand Cañon, and on which lived the "Nahjo" (Navajo) and

"Cosninas" (Cojnino) Indians, and _south_ of which were the "Indiens

Moqui, Independent since 1680," in four villages lettered "Oraybe,"

"Mosanis," "Songoapt," and "Gualpi"--for, though the Moki legend is

set astride of the river itself, it belongs to these four villages S.

of the river. The stream in question certainly was meant for the

Colorado Chiquito; but most of its ascribed characters are those of

Rio San Juan of N. W. New Mexico, N. E. Arizona, and S. E. Utah. The

leaning toward the Colorado Chiquito is shown by the location of the

Cojnino Indians on this stream, and its passage next N. of the circle

of ten peaks lettered "Sierra de los Cosninas"--these indicating the

San Francisco, Bill Williams', and other mountains of central Arizona;

but identification with the San Juan is possible by the location of

the Navajos on its headwaters and of the Mokis further S., as well as

by its entrance into the Colorado _above_ the Grand Cañon--for Pike

charts the upper end of the cañon as the "Puerto del Bacorelli." Rio

San Juan heads in N. W. New Mexico, next W. of the Rio Grande basin,

having numerous collateral sources there and in contiguous parts of N.

E. Arizona and S. W. Colorado; hence it enters S. E. Utah and runs to

the Colorado around the base of Mt. Navajo, thus including in its

ramifications adjacent corners of two states and two territories; two

of its affluents retain to this day the names Rio de las Animas and

Rio Navajo, respectively. Among its larger tributaries may be

mentioned Rio Chusco, Chasco, or Chaco, and especially Rio Chelly--the

latter being that one the mystery of whose famous Cañon de Chelly was

fathomed by Captain J. H. Simpson in 1859. The two strange words which

Pike uses in this connection, "Bacorelli" and "Jasquevilla," both

treated in the Index, are not the same as Jicarilla, present name of

certain mountains in Arizona and of a certain tribe of Indians called

in Arizona "Hickory" Apaches. 4. The fact that the Grand Cañon of the

Colorado is indicated on Pike's map may be certified in more than one

way: (_a_) He marks below it certain "Indiens Chemequaba," _i. e._,

Chemehuevi, a Shoshonean tribe then as now living in Arizona below the

cañon, and thus isolated from their parent stock among Apaches of

Athapascan lineage. (_b_) Pike's term "Cosninas," for certain Indians

and mountains, is still an alternative name for the Cosnino, Cojnino,

or Cataract Cañon, a side-spur of the Grand Cañon, and still the

residence of a curious cave-dwelling tribe called Yavasupai, Havasupi,

or Aguazul, who numbered 214 when I visited them in 1881. (_c_) The

trans-continental route via the Arkansaw and Colorado rivers, which

Pike suggests as the "best communication from ocean to ocean," need

not be supposed to run through the Grand Cañon, but rather to

approximate that lately achieved by the Atlantic and Pacific R. R.,

connecting on the E. with the A., T., and S. F. R. R., on the W. with

the So. Cala. R. R. 5. West of the Grand Cañon Pike traces a

problematical "Rio de los Panami des surfurcas on ignore l

Embouchure," without beginning or end. This suggests Virgin r., whose

junction with the Colorado in Nevada was then unknown. 6. Above the

Grand Cañon, Pike forks the Colorado distinctly into two main

branches, referable of course to the Grand and the Green rivers. 7.

The main course of Grand r. is lettered "Rio de los Duimas," for which

read Las Animas--but not "Los Anamas or Nabajoa" of Pike's text,

already accounted for. This "Duimas" may be taken as intended to

represent the whole course of Grand r. and its branches, as the

Gunnison, etc. 8. The main course of the "Duimas" or Grand r. is what

Pike means by Rio "de los Dolores" of the text, nameless on his map.

This is the Dolores r. of present geography, running chiefly in

Colorado, but joining the Grand in Utah. Pike forks this; one of these

forks is the continuation of the Dolores; the other is present San

Miguel r. of Colorado. 9. Green r. is the one lettered "Rio

Zanguananos," as the main continuation of the Colorado itself. This is

correct, though the singular S-shaped course in which it is laid down

is so far out of drawing that the two branches of it which he names

are thrown in the wrong direction. These two are the San Rafael and

San Xavier of both text and map. The first one of them is present San

Rafael r.; and if we take Pike's San Xavier to be the next above on

the same side, it corresponds to Price r. We must not seek for any

streams higher up the Grand than Price r.; the early Spanish travelers

did not get very far in that direction; and Pike sets all these

streams considerably S. of Great Salt l., not beyond the latitude he

assigns to the head of the Rio Grande. The old Spanish trail from

Colorado into Utah passed a certain Sierra La Sal, or Salt mt., which

is situated near the confluence of the Green and the Grand; continued

across both these rivers a little above their junction, and so on

westward between the San Rafael r. and the San Xavier or Price r.,

into the basin of present Sevier r. and Sevier l. Now Pike sets his

"Montaigne de Sel," or Mountain of Salt, close to the main Rio

Zanguananos or Green r., and directly against the mouth of his San

Rafael. This particular combination could not have been accidental,

and seems to show what was really mapped, though so distortedly. As

intimated in beginning this note, I have attempted identifications

without prejudice to any original implication of the Spanish records,

but solely according to what I find in Pike. The early names

themselves seem open to the interpretation here offered, and I know

from several futile attempts which I made that Pike's geography of the

Colorado basin would be hard to square with the facts in any other

way. Should the present identifications be acceptable, some hitherto

unsurmounted difficulties would prove to have been overcome.

[IV'-18] This paragraph is contradicted by the map, on which "Rio de

S^ta. Buenaventura" runs W. into a nameless lake, S. of a certain Lac

de Timpanagos, and is the first river, N. and W. of Green r., that

does not connect with the Colorado. The Buenaventura is a ghost-river

which haunted geography for many years. Nothing like such a river as

this was represented to be exists--it is as much of a myth in Utah and

California as Lahontan's fabulous Long r. in Minnesota and Dakota. But

it is a rule with hardly an exception that every myth has some basis

of fact. In so far as Pike's Buenaventura represents anything in

nature, I imagine it to be an adumbration of Sevier r., and its sink

to be Lake Sevier, in the western part of Utah, S. of Great Salt l.

True, the Buenaventura is laid down very much out of the actual course

of the Sevier; but not more wrongly than Green r. is, and the very

curious way in which the Sevier winds about to reach its sink would

hardly have been discovered and correctly delineated by those early

travelers in the "Great American Desert." The nameless lake itself is

not very far out of the way on Pike's map. Possibly also, the

mysterious river, "whose mouth is unknown," may be intended for some

section of the Sevier; for, if we were to connect this trace with

Pike's Buenaventura, we should have a recognizable representation of

the Sevier. But Pike heads his Rio S. Buenaventura, by a principal

branch called "Rio de S^n. Clemente," in that portion of the

continental divide he marks "Sierra Verde," _i. e._, Green mts., also

the source of present Green r. We should note further in this

connection the appearance on Pike's map of New Mexico of a certain

river running northward, lettered "Rio de Piedro Amaretto del

Missouri." Here, "Amaretto" is a mistake of the engraver for

_Amarillo_, the phrase being Sp. Piedra Amarilla = F. Pierre Jaune or

Roche Jaune = E. Yellow Stone, a principal branch of the Missouri. As

we have repeatedly seen already, Pike was determined to interlock the

headwaters of the Yellowstone, Platte, Arkansaw, and Rio Grande in

some one spot in the Rocky mts.--and here we have it, just over the

divide that separates these Atlantic waters collectively from those of

the general basin of the Colorado. Observe, also, how nearly the

dotted trail of the "Country explored by a Detachment of American

Troops commanded by Captain Pike" reaches to the supposed Yellowstone.

The Sevier r. possesses a melancholy interest as the scene of the

wanton and brutal murder by Piute Indians of Captain John Williams

Gunnison and most of his companions, near Sevier l., Oct. 27th, 1853.

The particulars are given by Lieutenant E. G. Beckwith, P. R. R. Rep.,

II. 1855, pp. 72-74. The massacre occurred at break of day of the

27th, not on the 26th, as usually reported. There was no provocation

whatever, and no thought of danger on the part of the devoted band.

Those killed, besides Captain Gunnison, were Mr. E. H. Kern,

topographer and artist; Mr. F. Creuzfeldt, botanist; Mr. Wm. Potter, a

citizen of Utah, guide; John Bellows, an employee; and three men of

the military escort, which consisted of a corporal and six privates;

only four of the whole party escaped with their lives. Lieutenant

Beckwith expressly exonerates the Mormons from complicity in the

outrage; public opinion thought otherwise; and the official record of

Captain Gunnison's death stands "Killed 26 Oct. 53 by a band of

Mormons and Inds near Sevier Lake Utah." The lamented and accomplished

officer met his fate while conducting explorations and surveys for a

railroad route near the 38° and 39° parallels of N. lat. He had

graduated from the U. S. Military Academy at West Point July 31st,

1837, when he became a second lieutenant of the 2d Artillery; was

transferred with that rank to the corps of Topographical Engineers

July 7th, 1838; became first lieutenant May 9th, 1846; and obtained

his captaincy Mar. 3d, 1853.

[IV'-19] Pike acquired a good idea of the Gila, for one who never saw

it, and it is well laid down on his map; though it joins the Colorado

a considerable distance above the head of the Gulf of California, the

confluence is below 33°, being in lat. 32° 43´ 32´´ N., long. 114° 36´

10´´ W. The Gila was known to the whites before the Mississippi was

discovered; it was long better known than the Rio Grande, and down to

the present century was far better known than the Rio Colorado. The

valley of the Gila was the first seat of semi-civilization within the

present limits of the United States; and Tucson, on the Santa Cruz r.,

disputes with St. Augustine in Florida the record of being the oldest

continuously inhabited white settlement in our country; but St. A. was

founded by Spaniards about the middle of the sixteenth century. An

early if not the first name of the Gila was Rio de los Apostolos, more

fully Rio Grande de los Apostolos, as the legend appears, for example,

on Vaugondy's map, 1783, where so many apostolic and canonical towns

are marked along the river as to give its valley the appearance of a

well-settled region, including even that ancient and celebrated

structure, the Casa Grande, still extant. Rio de los Apostolos or

Apostles' r. appears on maps of the present century, as for example on

the one which Captain Clark drew at the Mandans in the winter of

1804-5, and which Captain Lewis dispatched to President Jefferson

April 7th, 1805, but which was never published of full size till

September, 1893. Pike's first branch of the Gila is called "Rio de la

Asuncion," with Rio Verde as its main fork. This is correct; for the

river of the Assumption of the B. V. M., whatever may be the myth upon

which such an extraordinary assumption was based, is that now known as

Rio Salinas, Rio Salado, and Salt r., into which the Verde falls near

Mt. McDowell and the fort of the same name. The confluence of Salt r.

with the Gila is below Phoenix, present capital of Arizona, and but

little above the point where the Agua Fria also falls into the Gila.

The Verde is the principal river of central Arizona, for the most part

flowing southward, though it starts northward by the headwater called

Granite cr. and then makes a loop; this creek is the site of Prescott,

first capital of Arizona on the establishment of the Territory in

1863, and of Fort Whipple, established by the troops to which I was

attached in July, 1864. Pike's small branch of the Gila lettered "Rio

de Ozul," for which read Rio Azul or Blue r., is the present San

Carlos, of which we lately heard a good deal on account of the unruly

Apaches at the agency of that name. Present Blue cr. is a small branch

higher up on the same side, near Pike's Rio San Francisco, which

latter he rightly charts as one of the initial forks of the Gila. His

Rio San Pedro, still so called, is the principal Gileño tributary from

the S. It acquired special importance in connection with the U. S. and

Mexican Boundary Survey. Near this stream he marks "Pres[idio] de

Tubson," at the town of "S^n. Xavier del bac," in the "Senora"

(Sonora) of that day.

The Indian tribes of the Gila valley which are located on the map may

be here noted, as their names do not come up elsewhere in this work,

and with these may also be conveniently considered those which Pike

marks on the Colorado above the Gila. Such are, on the Gila: The Yumas

(Cuchans); the "Cojuenchis"; the "Cucapa" (Cocopas); the Papagos; the

"Cocomaricopas" (Maricopas); and on the Colorado: the "Chemequaba"

(Chemehuevis, who are of Shoshonean stock, as we have already seen);

the "Jalchedum"; the "Yabijoias" (Yavapais); the "Yamaya" (Amaquaqua,

Amaqua, Majave or Mohave). All these Indians lived within the present

territory of the United States, occupying the valley of the Gila on

both sides from above the junction of the San Pedro down to the

Colorado, and up the Colorado, on the Arizona side at least, to the

Grand Cañon, to the almost entire exclusion of other tribes. They were

bounded on the N. by Shoshonean tribes in California, Nevada, Utah,

and a small part of Arizona; on the E. by Athapascan tribes,

especially the Apaches; on the S., they stretched throughout Lower

California, and far into Mexico. With the single exception just said,

the names that I can identify all are now classed under two main

family groups or linguistic stocks, Piman and Yuman; and all belong to

the latter, excepting the Papagos and the Pimas themselves. 1. The

Piman family is mainly Mexican, as of its nine tribes or divisions

only three are Arizonian. Of these, the Sobaipuri, who lived on the

Santa Cruz and San Pedro branches of the Gila, have entirely

disappeared. The Pimas proper, Upper Pimas, or Pimas Altas (so called

in distinction from the Lower Pimas, Pimas Bajas, or Nevomes, of

Mexico), have lived for 200 years on the Gila and Salado, in the

position assigned by Pike to the Cocomaricopas. The Papagos lived

further S. and extended into Mexico. According to late official

returns (for 1890), there were 4,464 Pimas and 5,163 Papagos under the

Pima Agency on the Gila. 2. The Yuman family is less summarily to be

disposed of, as the area of its distribution in the United States is

more extensive and its divisions are more numerous, and several of

them are entirely extralimital in Lower California and Mexico. The

name _Yuma_ is given by Whipple as a Cuchan word meaning "sons of the

river." In the early days of our occupation of Arizona some of the

tribes along the Colorado were hostile; but since the subjugation of

the Yumas and Mohaves, followed by the establishment of Fort Yuma and

Fort Mohave, they have given very little trouble, with the exception

of the Hualapais or Walapais. These may be properly classed as Yuman

by linguistic affinities, but they are rather mountain than river

Indians, and have within comparatively few years been most decidedly

hostile. In January, 1865, it was my misfortune, which I shall never

cease to regret, to be concerned in a cruel massacre--for I cannot

call it a fight--in which about 30 Hualapais were killed, in the

Juniper mts., a very few miles from the spot where Camp Hualapais was

later established. My friend, the late Colonel William Redwood Price,

when major of the 8th Cavalry (d. Dec. 30th, 1881), had the handling

of the Hualapais after this; in 1867 they were about 1,500 people,

with probably 400 warriors; he killed probably 175 of them, mostly

men, and brought them to terms in 1869, when a batch of prisoners was

sent to San Francisco. In 1881, when we reoccupied Camp Hualapais and

named it Camp Price, a threatened outbreak was averted by putting a

chief in irons. The Hualapais now number perhaps 750, in N. W.

Arizona, and are almost the only members of the Yuman stock in the

Territory whom we have not entirely broken down, pauperized, and

debauched. The shocking syphilization of all the Yuman Indians along

the Colorado has been notorious for many years. The Yumas or Umas

proper, or Cuchans, have been segregated; there are or were lately

about 1,000 at the Mission Agency in California, and 300 at the San

Carlos in Arizona. Of the Mohaves, some 650 are at the Colorado River

Agency in Arizona, 800 at San Carlos, and perhaps 400 at large. The

disestablishment of Fort Mohave is quite recent; I was post surgeon

there in 1881. There are about 300 Maricopas at the Pima Agency in

Arizona. The Cocopas are a small tribe whose census is uncertain; they

live on the California side of the Colorado up to the vicinity of the

Gila. The Yavasupai or Aguazul Indians, who live in Cojnino or

Cataract cañon, to the number of about 200, as already said, note 17,

are entirely cut off from the world in the bottom of the chasm

selected for their abode. Some of them I found occupying holes in the

rock, which they walled up like old-fashioned cliff-dwellers; while

others were sheltered in wickiups scattered about the few acres of

arable ground they could find to irrigate for the cultivation of their

corn, beans, melons, squashes, peaches, apricots, and sunflower-seeds.

[IV'-20] This is the main fork or largest branch of the Rio Grande. As

already remarked, note 23, p. 632, Pike maps it too high up; for it

runs entirely E. of the mountains (Sacramento, Guadalupe, White,

etc.), W. of which he traces it, and its mouth is 346 m. by the

channel of the Rio Grande below the site of Presidio del Norte, in

lat. 29° 40´ N., long. 101° 20´ W. The length of the river is supposed

to be between 700 and 800 m. The Pecos heads in the mountains

immediately W. of Santa Fé--on the E. side of the Santa Fé range and

W. side of Las Vegas range, among such peaks as the Truchas, Cone,

Baldy, Lake, etc., there flowing due S. before it bears off to the

left. It receives numerous small tributaries, both above and below the

point where it passes by the cañon, old pueblo, and modern town of

Pecos. The name is derived from the old pueblo, which was situated on

one of those tributaries in the mountains, some 25 m. S. E. of Santa

Fé. The Pecos have for many years been currently reported to have been

among the straitest sect of the Montezuman faith, and the belief is

general that they were those who longest guarded the holy fire in

their estufas and looked to the east for the advent of their

paraclete. This is a traditional taradiddle which has no foundation in

fact. Not that Montezuma Ilhuicamina and Montezuma Xocoyotzin were not

real historical persons; nor that the latter, Montezuma II., was not

euhemerized and apotheosized; simply, that the Pecos people never

worshiped him. The myth recrudesced during the old Santa Fé trade, and

was found in full swing on our peaceable conquest of New Mexico in

1846. _Pecos_ is corrupted from the (Tañoan) Jemez word _Paquiu_,

applied later than the aboriginal name _Tshiquite_, rendered

_Cicuique_ in old Sp. chronicles. Pecos "was in 1540 the largest

Indian village or pueblo in New Mexico, containing a population of

about 2,000 souls, which formed an independent tribe speaking the same

language as the Indians of Jemez. In 1680 the Pecos rebelled with the

others, but surrendered peaceably to Vargas in 1692, and thereafter

remained loyal to Spain," Cent. Cyclop. Names, _s. v._ "What with the

massacres of the second conquest, and the inroads of the Comanches,

they gradually dwindled away, till they found themselves reduced to

about a dozen, comprising all ages and sexes; and it was only a few

years ago that they abandoned the home of their fathers and joined the

Pueblo of Jemez," Gregg, Comm. Pra., I., 1844, p. 271. The pueblo was

desolate and in ruins when our Army of the West came by in 1846: see

Lieut. Emory's report, Ex. Doc. 41, 30th Congr., 1st Sess., pub. 1848,

p. 30, with plate facing it; also, a different view, on the plate

facing p. 447 of Lieut. Abert's report in the same volume. The latter

says, p. 446: "In the afternoon [Sept. 26th, 1846] I went out on the

hills to see the ancient cathedral of Pecos. The old building and the

town around it are fast crumbling away under the hand of time. The old

church is built in the same style as that of San Miguel; the ends of

the rafters are carved in imitation of a scroll; the ground plan of

the edifice is that of a cross. It is situated on a hill not far from

the winding course of the river. High ridges of mountains appear to

converge until they almost meet behind the town, and through a little

gap one catches sight of a magnificent range of distant peaks that

seem to mingle with the sky." Abert was told that the surviving

remnant went to live with the Zuñis; but Gregg's statement is no doubt

correct, especially as Emory says, _l. c._, that "they abandoned the

place and joined a tribe of the original race over the mountains,

about 60 miles south." The modern small village of Pecos grew up close

by the original site, which was abandoned in 1840.

[IV'-21] Here we enter the legendary land where we are liable to be

soon confronted with the standard specter of the northwest passage to

India, and other well-dressed phantoms. The body of water which the

map shows probably represents Utah l., south of Great Salt l., and

connected therewith by the short course of the Jordan. This seems to

be what Pike means by the legend: "This lake is known as high as the

40° of Lat. there it opens wider to the West and receives the Waters

of the Rio Yampancas"; for we can readily understand this as a way of

saying that the lake is connected with a larger one to the W. Utah l.

is meridionally E. of Great Salt l. by a few miles, and entirely S. of

it; the Jordan is a very short stream between them. In a broad sense,

then, Pike's Lac de Timpanagos or Lake of Tampanagos includes both

these bodies of water; and his Rio Yampancas answers to Bear r., the

large stream which falls into Great Salt l. at Bear River bay. His

Sierra de Tampanagos covers the mountains on the E. and S. E. of Great

Salt l. A different form of the same word appears in his "Indiens

Yamparicas" of that region, and yet another in the legend: "The Lake

of Tampanagos is supposed to be the same as the Lake of Thequaio in

the Chart d'Alzate de Thequao placed in 40° of Lat. some Historians

pretend that the Aretiqui comes from this Lake."

[IV'-22] _Chapetones_ is a word which, with several variants in form,

is pretty well known, and to be found in many dictionaries, though its

origin may never have been satisfactorily shown, or at least agreed

upon. In its application to un-American Spaniards in America the sense

implied seems to have been always reproachful--perhaps something as

our cowboys and other "rustlers" in the wild and woolly West would

speak of a "tenderfoot" or "greeny." In Mexico the word corresponding

to Chapeton or Chapetone was _Gachupin_ or _Gachupine_, "applied to

natives of Spain who are called Chapetones in Peru and Maturrangos in

Buenos Aires," as one of the authorities before me says. I am afraid

that it is significant of some unpleasant matters already noted, to

find Pike here using the word said to be current in Peru, instead of

that which was usual in Mexico: see Memoir, _anteà_. Geo. W. Kendall's

Narrative of the Texan Expedition of 1841, 2 vols., small 8vo, London,

1845, II. p. 75, speaks of "the _Gachupines_, or natives of Old

Spain"; and p. 76: "the _Gachupines_ were indiscriminately

slaughtered," etc. Gregg, Comm. Pra., I. 1844, p. 170, has:

"_Gachupin_--a term used to designate European Spaniards in America."

Wislizenus uses _Gachupins_.

[IV'-23] That is, Rio San Francisco, one of the initial forks of the

Gila: see the map, and note 19. The other is the main continuation of

the Gila, sometimes called Rio San Domingo. The confluence is in

Arizona, a few miles over the New Mexican border. There are mountains

in this region called the San Francisco divide, and others known as

the San Francisco range--both by no means to be confounded with the

San Francisco mt. of the range in north-central Arizona. Whether the

ruins of which Pike speaks as on this river be the work of the

aboriginal colonists of Old Mexico from the northwest is, of course,

in question; he simply renders a prevalent opinion of his time. The

oldest _authentic_ ruins known to exist in Arizona have only very

recently been brought to light by the exhumations conducted by my

friend, Mr. Frank H. Cushing, of the Hemenway Archæological

Expedition, in 1886-88, in the valley of the Salado or Salt r., near

the town of Tempe, and not far from Phoenix. An account of these

discoveries, from the pen of Dr. Washington Matthews, U. S. A., forms

part of the Seventh Memoir of Vol. VI. of Mem. Nat. Acad. Sci., 1893,

pp. 142-161, figs. 1-22. Mr. Cushing dug up mounds he supposes to be

from 1,000 to 2,000 years old, full of bones and pottery, and

revealing structures, some of which recall the long famous Casa Grande

itself. The buildings represented by the cluster of mounds crowded an

area some 6 m. long and ½ to 1 m. wide. Five of the best marked

mounds, standing in the places of groups of houses, have been named

Los Muertos, Los Guanacos, Los Hornos, Las Canopas, and Las Acequias.

Four kinds of architecture have been recognized as priest-temples

(style of Casa Grande); sun-temples, in some cases 200 feet long by

150 broad; certain great communal houses, a sort of several-storied

prototypes of our modern city flats; and ultramural huts, jacals, or

wickiups. I should have called them respectively hieroecias,

helioecias, synoecias, and exoecias. Those old Saladoans had an

extensive system of irrigation, the lines of acequias madres or

mother-ditches alone representing over 150 m. of dug-way; some of

these canals are now utilized by the new-comers. It took many thousand

people many years to leave monuments like these. Their actual

antiquity is unknown; that it is very great is obvious; it is great

enough to have resulted in the disappearance of everything but bone

and clay. There is no sign of wood-work or textile fabric. Conjecture

of a thousand years or more may reasonably be based on comparison of

the natural rate of decay of structures known since the historic

period, 1540. Thus, the Casa Grande has not changed perceptibly in our

day, except from vandalism, and probably looks much as it did 350

years ago. It would appear also that the same indefatigable explorer

has settled the long-mooted question of the Seven Cities of Cibola

(Cebola, Sibola, Zibola), against any theory of their being the Moki

(Tusayan) villages, or being anywhere else than in the vicinity of

Zuñi itself. The names which have come down to us since Coronado,

1541, are: (1) Ahacus, Avicu, Aquico, Jahuicu, Havico; (2) Canabe; (3)

...; (4) Aquinsa; (5) Alona; (6) Musaqui, Maçaque, Maçaquia; (7)

Caquina. According to a certain phonetic system the preferable

spelling is given as: (1) Hawiku; (2) Kyanawe; (3) Ketchupawe; (4)

Apina or Pinawan; (5) Halona; (6) Matsaki; (7) Kyakima. All these were

in what is now Valencia Co., N. M.; two were some miles S. W. of Zuñi,

near the village of Ojo Caliente; two were nearer Zuñi, but E. of it;

two were within 3 m. of Zuñi, S. of it; while one, Halona, occupied in

part, at least, the site of the present pueblo. The ruin of

Hishota-uthla, classed as "Cibolan" though not as one of the Seven

Cities, is 12 m. N. E. of Zuñi, on the road to Fort Wingate;

excavation there has revealed "a compactly-built, many-storied

stronghold of stone containing a population of probably more than a

thousand people," supposed to have been dead and gone long before

Coronado passed that way. Zuñi, now one of the best known of all the

extant pueblos in New Mexico, is also the best living exemplar of such

places. Its antiquity is great, though hardly estimable with

precision. Some of its inhabitants made a tour of the United States

under Mr. Cushing's management in 1881 and 1882. Immense collections

of implements, utensils, and the like were made about that time by the

late Colonel James Stevenson, and deposited in our museums. I visited

the town in the summer of 1864, when it was far from having been as

well exploited as it has since become; so my own observations are

obsolete. The Zuñi nation, otherwise Çuni, Sune, Soone, Suinyi,

Shiwina, etc., sole member of the Zuñian linguistic stock, has but one

permanent pueblo, though it also inhabits at times three other small

villages, of the nature of "summer resorts," as we should say of our

similar æstival refuges. These Indians numbered 1,613 by the census of

1890. They are well distinguished by their speech from all the various

Tusayan, Tañoan, and Keresan pueblonians of New Mexico, Arizona, and

Chihuahua: for some of which, see next note.

[IV'-24] I can find no better place than this to bring up some matters

which require attention concerning certain pueblos which Pike locates

on his map, but which, being off his route, he does not notice in his

text. The Tañoan pueblos have been pretty fully noted in the foregoing

itinerary, but the Tusayan and Keresan have not been sufficiently

treated. We must first come to an understanding of the term "Pueblo

Indians." This is simply a convenient phrase, or _façon de parler_, to

designate various tribes which, in New and Old Mexico, and Arizona,

settled in permanent habitations, became attached to the soil,

practiced agriculture, kept flocks, and built the kind of towns called

"pueblos." They are thus collectively distinguished from all roving

and more or less warring tribes; they are settlers, not nomads;

farmers and graziers rather than hunters, and of peaceful rather than

predatory proclivities. This step in the direction of civilization was

not however taken without some sacrifice of the strength of the

natural wild animal, and they have suffered in consequence. They are

never "bad" Indians; simply poor, tame ones, who for ages have been

the prey of the priest, the trader, and the wild Indian. But the point

to be insisted on is, that "Pueblo Indian" does not mean all one kind

of Indians. It includes various tribes of distinct ethnic characters,

the representatives of several linguistic lineages, who have severally

yielded to their environments, and thus become collectively modified

in a way that brings about that appearance of affinity which does not

exist, and tends to obscure those radical distinctions of race which

do exist. We say, for instance, "New Yorker," meaning anyone who lives

in New York; but it would be as far from the fact to suppose that all

Pueblo Indians are of one race as that all New Yorkers are Americans.

The differences in language, and therefore in lineage, of the Tusayan,

Keresan, Tañoan, and Zuñian pueblonians is as great as that of the

English, French, German, and Spanish peoples. We must not be misled by

the convenience of a phrase: see note 3, p. 598. The Pueblonians to be

here noted belong either (1) to the Tusayan federation, or (2) to the

Keresan linguistic family.

1. Pike marks, W. of the Continental divide and in the region of the

Colorado Chiquito, S. of the San Juan r., six Indian villages, which

he calls Oraybe, Mosanis, Songoapt, Gualpi, Chacat, and Cumpa. For the

last two, see note 21, p. 630; the other four are the well-known Moki

Indians, living on the four Moki mesas, about 50 m. N. E. of the

Colorado Chiquito, in N. E. Arizona. With a single (Tañoan) exception,

those Indians are of Shoshonean stock; and without exception, they

form the Tusayan confederacy. The ethnic affinities of Mokis are with

such Indians as the Snakes, Utes, Comanches, and other well-known

members of the Shoshonean race which overran so vast an area in

western parts of the United States. But these settled down in Arizona

and built pueblos, isolated from their kindred and surrounded by

Athapascan (Navajo and Apache) tribes. They are at present the only

Shoshonean tribe in Arizona, excepting the handful of Chemehuevis who

live among Yuman tribes on the Colorado Grande, and unless there be

also a few Kwaiantikwokets on the northern border about Mt. Navajo.

The Mokis have resided in their present position for more than 200

years. This habitat is the plateau of moderate extent, commonly called

the Moki mesa, some special elevations of which are well-known

landmarks by the name of the Moki buttes, in full view from the main

road which passes S. of them. Three of the most conspicuous of these

buttes are called Chimney, Signal, and Spring. The mesa is between

long. 110° and 111° W., in lat. 36° N. and southward, and thus to the

S. W. of the Navajos; the locality is sometimes called the "Province

of Tusayan." Here the Mokis proper, of Shoshonean stock, built six

villages; and a seventh village, probably also about 200 years old,

called Hano (or Tewa) was built with them by Tañoan (Tewan or Teguan)

refugees from the Rio Grande. Thus even the compact and isolated Moki

establishment is not quite homogeneous, ethnically speaking. The

Tusayan census is about 2,000; the Tañoans there were lately counted

as 132. Among the names of the seven villages, the four which Pike

gives can be recognized under their modern spellings, as

Oraybe=Oraibi, etc. One authority I have consulted renders Oraibi,

Shipauliwisi, Shongapavi, Mishongnivi, Shichoamavi, Walpi (or

Hualpee), and Tewa (_i. e._, Hano). Another, and probably preferable

set of orthographies, is Oraibi, Shupaulovi, Shumepovi, Mashongnavi,

Sichumovi, Walpi, and Hano. The name Tusayan, which varies to Tuçayan,

Tuzan, etc., is derived from a Zuñian word Usaya, applied to certain

pueblos once inhabited by the confederacy. The Tusayans' name of

themselves is a word variously rendered Hopituh, Hapitu, Hopee, Hopi,

Opii, etc. Other words designating them, or some of them, are

Cinyumuh, Shenoma or Shinumo, and Totonteac. The term now usually

rendered Moki was longest current as Moqui; it is also found as Maqui,

Magui, Mohace, Mohotse, and "Monkey."

2. The Keresan family consists entirely of Pueblo tribes who live in

New Mexico along the Rio Grande and some of its tributaries, where

their pueblos are interspersed with others of Tañoan stock, in the

moderate area to which their range is thus restricted. The family name

is variously rendered by different authors, as Keres, Keran, Kera;

Queres, Queris, Quera, Quirix; Chuchacas or Chuchachas; also,

Keswhawhay. Some ethnists divide these people into two dialectal

groups: one including the pueblos of Acoma and Laguna and their

outliers; the other, all the rest of the pueblos about to be named.

Acoma is the only pueblo which exists on the site occupied at the date

of the earliest Spanish annals. Laguna dates from 1699. There were

five Keresan pueblos in 1582; there had been seven in 1542. The full

list of Keresan pueblos, as given by Powell in alphabetical order,

with the census for 1890, is: 1. Acoma, including the summer pueblitos

of Acomita and Pueblita; pop. 566. 2. Cochití, on the W. bank of the

Rio Grande, 27 m. S. W. of Santa Fé; pop. 268. "The inhabitants

formerly successively occupied the Potrero de las Vacas, the Potrero

San Miguel, the now ruined pueblo of Cuapa, and the Potrero Viejo,"

Cent. Cyc., _s. v._ 3. *Hasatch. 4. Laguna, including the eight other

places whose names are here starred; pop. 1,143. Laguna is thus really

a group of small pueblos situated on and near Rio San José, W. of the

Rio Grande. The original foundation was by Zuñians as well as by

Keresans, and the place was called Kawaiko. 5. *Paguate. 6.

*Punyeestye. 7. *Punyekia. 8. *Pusityitcho. 9. San Felipe; pop. 554.

This is called by the name of the mission which the Spanish founded

there. 10. Santa Ana, pop. 253, on the Rio Jemez, W. of the Rio

Grande. This Spanish name is also that of a mission, usurping the

native name Tamaya. 11. Santo Domingo; pop. 670. 12. *Seemunah. 13.

Sia, on the Jemez; pop. 106; also called Chea, Chia, Cia, Cilia,

Silla, Tsea, Tsia, Tzia, Zia. "In 1582 Sia was said to be the largest

of five villages forming a province called Punames. The recent pueblo

dates from about 1692, when the village formerly occupied was

abandoned. The tribe, which was once comparatively populous, now

numbers but 106. The decrease is attributed largely to infectious

disease and to the killing of persons accused of witchcraft," Cent.

Cyc., _s. v._ 14. *Wapuchuseamma. 15. *Ziamma. Total pop. 3,560 for

the 17 places, of which 15 (all but Acomita and Pueblita) are

permanent pueblos, and 7 are officially rated as principal and

distinct. Those which are given by Pike in his itinerary have been

already noted, along with the Tañoan pueblos as they occur in his

text.

[IV'-25] For remarks on the Indians mentioned in this paragraph which

would be introduced here had I not recently given them elsewhere, the

reader is referred to Lewis and Clark, ed. 1893, p. 55, note 7; p. 58,

note 11; p. 60, note 15; and p. 477, note 3.

[IV'-26] The Navajos, Navahos, or, as they call themselves, Tennai,

are one of the three main divisions of the southern group of

Athapascan Indians (the other two being the Lipans and the Apaches).

They have always lived, so far as is known to history, in the country

where they do now, and whence they raided in every direction before

their final subjugation in our times. They focused on the upper waters

of the Rio San Juan, in N. W. New Mexico, whence they habitually

ranged down the river in Colorado and Utah, and S. of it in Arizona.

They were thus in contact and conflict with Shoshonean tribes on the

N., and warred when they pleased with the various Apache tribes of

their own stock which were about them; they were of course a terror to

the peaceful Pueblonians, who had to hold their own as best they could

against all the battlesome savages by whom they were beset on every

hand. They were powerful, and are still one of the largest tribes with

which we have to do, like the Comanches and some of the divisions of

the Sioux. A late census returns about 17,000, nearly all on the large

Navajo reservation which occupies the contiguous N. W. corner of New

Mexico and N. E. corner of Arizona.

An interesting account of the expedition of Colonel Doniphan and some

of his officers to the Navajos in 1846, together with the text of the

first treaty of peace concluded between them, the New Mexicans, and

Americans, at Ojo Oso (Bear spring), Nov. 22d, occupies Chaps. IX-XI

of Hughes' Don. Exp., 8vo, ed. of 1847, pp. 61-76.

[IV'-27] The Lipans or Sipans cut no figure now in the United States,

where they are practically extinguished, though the case may be

different in Mexico. They were a numerous and roving tribe of stalwart

Indians who scoured the plains of Texas from Red r. to the Rio Grande.

They were a sort of Apaches, having their nearest affinities with the

latter, and in fact might be considered the Apaches of the plains as

distinguished from those of the mountains. They have been commonly

called Lipan Apaches, and such is no incorrect designation, though

they are rather more distinct from most bands of Apaches than these

are from one another. They extend in Mexico as far S. as Durango. A

Lipan collision which made some history, and enriched the cabinet of

S. G. Morton, the craniologist of Philadelphia, may be read in Hughes'

Don. Exped., pp. 130-132, and Wislizenus, Mem., pp. 71, 72: see also

note 5, p. 697.

[IV'-28] There is no historic period when the Apaches were not the

scourge of the country they inhabited, down to the time when they were

brought to terms by General Crook, in his Arizona campaigns of 1872

_seq._, and even since then their repeated escapades are matters of

recent notoriety. They always warred with other Indians, always warred

with the whites, and not seldom with one another. In Arizona

particularly, so far as we are concerned, they did more to retard the

development of the country than all other causes combined. For some

years after the Territorial government was established, it was at the

risk of life that one went out of sight of Prescott or Fort Whipple

alone or with a small party. The Apaches lurked behind every rock, and

hid in every bush; or, failing that, under cover of every three blades

of grass--a trick they did to perfection--and reddened with blood

every trail that led to the capital or the post. People were killed

and stock was run off within a few hundred paces of both these places,

and more than one pitched battle came off within ear-shot. A regular

part of my business for two years was the extraction of Apache

arrow-heads. The arrows used by the tribes nearest us were exactly

such as Pike describes, though, so far as my observation went, the

heads were all of stone, quite small and sharp, and very brittle, so

that they usually shivered when they struck a bone and the fragments

were not easily removed. They were only held in place with gum in the

shallow notch at the end of the small hardwood stick that was set in

the large reed, and thus were always left in the wound when the stick

was pulled out. It is within my certain knowledge that they were in

some cases poisoned; the common opinion was that the septic substance

was derived from a deer's liver into which a rattlesnake had been made

to inject its venom, and which was then left to putrefy in the sun;

but how this case may really be, I never ascertained to my

satisfaction. We continually hunted Apaches and killed a good many; a

particular friend of mine, Mr. Willard Rice, who saved my life on a

very ticklish occasion, when we were on a deer-hunt together without

other companions, and who is still living near Prescott, is to be

credited with at least 20 "good" (dead) Apaches--none of the score

women or children, either. But such desultory operations as we could

conduct in those years seemed to make little difference; it required

Crook's systematic campaigns, on a large scale, to render the country

inhabitable. The other side of the picture is, that the Apache has

never committed an atrocity that we have not exchanged in kind, with

the sole exception that we have probably never put a prisoner to death

by slow torture, as was the Apache custom; that the Apache has not

broken faith with us oftener than we are proud to say we have with

him, and has not robbed us of more than we would like to take from

him, if he had anything left to steal and we had an opportunity. The

secrets of Indian agencies, like those of the Roman confessional, only

leak out under great pressure. The Apaches that troubled us most in

that particular vicinity of which I speak were known or supposed to be

those of the Tonto basin, commonly called Tontos (Pinal Coyoteros). In

scientific classification the Apache tribes and sub-tribes are

numerous. The alphabetical list now recognized by high authority is:

Arivaipa, Chiricahua, Faraone, Gileño (Gilans, or Apaches of the Gila,

with four sub-tribes, Coyotero, Mimbreño, Mogollon, and Pinal Coyotero

or Tonto), Jicarilla, Lipan, Llanero, Mescalero, Naisha, Querecho,

Tchikun, Tchishi. All the Apaches within our jurisdiction have been

brought under military subjection and restraint. The largest body of

Apaches is now on the San Carlos reservation; their number is

uncertain, say 2,000, representing several different tribes. Nearly as

many more are in charge of the military at Camp Apache, in Arizona,

say 1,900, known collectively as White Mountain Apaches. About 800

Jicarillas are on the Southern Ute Reservations in Colorado; some 500

Mescaleros are on the reservation of that name in New Mexico; and 300

other Apaches are on the Kiowa, Comanche, and Wichita Reservation in

Indian Territory. After a recent outbreak had been quelled 356

prisoners were sent to Mount Vernon Barracks in Alabama. There are

about 150 children at school in Carlisle, Pa. The total of perhaps

6,000 Apaches with which we have still to deal is not large in

comparison with the numbers of some other tribes--but it is enough.

[IV'-29] See note 13, p. 615, note 14, p. 616, note 15, p. 618; also,

note 24, p. 743. The towns here mentioned are those usually called San

Domingo, San Felipe, and Sandia--the latter being the Tañoan one Pike

elsewhere speaks of as St. Dies.

[IV'-30] Juan de Oñate, first governor of New Mexico, b. Guadalajara,

Mex., about 1555, d. after 1611. "He was a son of the founder of

Guadalajara, and was married to a granddaughter of Hernando Cortés. In

1595 his proposition to settle New Mexico was accepted by the viceroy

Velasco, and after much delay the grant was confirmed by the Count of

Monterey. Oñate left Zacatecas in Jan., 1598, with 130 men besides

Indians, a large wagon- and cattle-train, etc.; reached the Rio

Grande, probably at El Paso, April 20; took formal possession April

30; crossed the river; and in Aug. founded the first capital, San Juan

(Santa Fé was founded later). After the first year he had little

trouble with the Indians. Early in 1599 he explored a part of Arizona,

and in 1604 followed the Gila river down to the Gulf of California. He

probably ceased to rule as governor in 1608." (Cent. Cyc. Names, _s.

v._) (See Nadal and Niza, in the Index.)

[IV'-31] The province which Pike calls indifferently Biscay and New

Biscay was properly Nueva Vizcaya. It was named Reino de la Nueva

Vizcaya by Francisco de Ibarra, who invaded it about 1560-70, and

retained the name until after the independence. As a colonial division

of New Spain it had been originally called Copala, and was much more

extensive than Pike's Biscay, as it corresponded to the present states

of Sonora, Sinaloa, Chihuahua, Durango, and a southern part of

Coahuila. This region was included among the Provincias Internas in

1777, and such was its status in Pike's time; but meanwhile it had

become contracted in extent by the exclusion of Sonora and Sinaloa, so

that in Pike's time it was little if any more than equivalent to the

two present states of Chihuahua and Durango. Present Chihuahua has

Sinaloa and Durango on the S. Present Durango is surrounded by

Sinaloa, Chihuahua, Coahuila, Zacatecas, and Jalisco.

[IV'-32] Wislizenus, Mem., p. 55, quotes this passage, and adds: "By

rubbing the hair of cats and dogs in the dark, I could elicit here a

greater mass of electricity than I had ever seen produced in this way.

Some persons, entitled to confidence, informed me that by changing

their woollen under-dress in the night, they had at first been

repeatedly frightened by seeing themselves suddenly enveloped in a

mass of electrical fire. The remarkable flames that appeared after a

thunder-storm in the mountains south of El Paso, already mentioned by

me [Mem. p. 43], were no doubt connected with electricity. I recollect

also, from an account published in relation to the battle of Buena

Vista, that during a sultry evening electrical flames were seen on the

points of the bayonets among the sentinels stationed in the

mountains."

[IV'-33] For these, see the itinerary, Apr. 30th-May 13th, pp.

668-678, and notes there. The lakes Pike proceeds to mention are in or

on the border of present Coahuila. The situation of the Presidio del

Norte, where the Conchos discharges, is lat. 29° 33´ 53´´ N., long.

104° 36´ 27´´ W., by the river 346 m. above the mouth of the Pecos,

and 348 below El Paso--both of these distances much in excess of the

direct line between these points. "Batopilis" is very far out for the

source of the Conchos, unless Pike refers to some other place than the

modern Batopilas. This is situated below lat. 27° N., and in the

Pacific water-shed, being on a branch of the Rio del Fuerte, which

runs from Chihuahua through Sinaloa and empties into the Gulf of

California at Point Ahome.

[IV'-34] Before undertaking to answer this query, it would be well to

ascertain the fact. The scorpions which Pike describes are known by

the Spanish name _alacran_, and I presume are closely related to the

widely distributed _Androctonus biaculeatus_, if not the same species.

Kendall's Narrative of the Texan Expedition of 1841, pub. Lond., 1845,

II. p. 114, cites Pike in this connection, and also has: "I believe

that the city of Durango is somewhat celebrated for the beauty and

talent of its women--I know that it is noted for the numbers and

venomous qualities of its _alicrans_, or scorpions. Frequently, while

travelling through the State of Durango, were we regaled with Mexican

stories of the swarms of poisonous _alicrans_ which infest the

capital.... A bounty of some three or six cents ... is paid by the

authorities for each insect secured, and according to some of the

stories told us, no inconsiderable business is carried on in catching

and bottling the much dreaded scorpions." When Gregg was in Durango,

March, 1835, he noted that city "as being the headquarters, as it

were, of the whole scorpion family. During the spring, especially, so

much are the houses infested by these poisonous insects, that many

people are obliged to have resort to a kind of mosquito bar, in order

to keep them out of their beds at night. As an expedient to deliver

the city from this terrible pest, a society has already been formed,

which pays a reward of a _cuartilla_ (three cents) for every _alacran_

(or scorpion) that is brought to them. Stimulated by the desire of

gain, the idle boys of the city are always on the look-out; so that,

in the course of a year, immense numbers of this public enemy are

captured and slaughtered. The body of this insect is of the bulk and

cast of a medium spider, with a jointed tail one or two inches long,

at the end of which is a sting whose wounds are so poisonous as often

to prove fatal to children, and are very painful to adults. The most

extraordinary peculiarity of these scorpions is, that they are far

less dangerous in the north than in the south, which in some manner

accounts for the story told Capt. Pike, that even those of Durango

lose most of their venom as soon as they are removed a few miles from

the city," says Gregg, very sensibly, Comm. Pra., II. 1844, p. 89.

Hughes, Doniphan Exp., p. 128: "the soldiers would sometimes shake

their blankets, toss ... the lizards and _alacrans_, exclaiming

angrily, 'd----n the scorpion family!'"

[IV'-35] Gregg, Comm. Pra., II. 1844, p. 114, cites Pike in his own

description of Chihuahua, as it appeared to him in 1839, and the two

accounts may be here brought together. Noting the regularity of the

city in comparison with Santa Fé, the dressing of the best buildings

with hewn stone, the paving of some of the streets, and the population

of about 10,000, this author continues:

"The most splendid edifice in Chihuahua is the principal church, which

is said to equal in architectural grandeur anything of the sort in the

republic. The steeples, of which there is one at each front corner,

rise over 100 feet above the azotea [roof]. They are composed of very

fancifully-carved columns; and in appropriate niches of the

frontispiece, which is also an elaborate piece of sculpture, are to be

seen a number of statues, as large as life, the whole forming a

complete representation of Christ and the 12 Apostles. This church was

built about a century ago, by contributions levied upon the mines

(particularly those of Santa Eulalia, 15 or 20 miles from the city),

which paid over a percentage on all the metal extracted therefrom; a

_medio_ [6¼ cents], I believe, being levied upon each _marco_ of eight

ounces. In this way, about a million of dollars was raised and

expended in some 30 years, the time employed in the construction of

the building. It is a curious fact, however, that, notwithstanding the

enormous sums of money expended in outward embellishments, there is

not a church from thence southward, perhaps, where the interior

arrangements bear such striking marks of poverty and neglect. If,

however, we are not dazzled by the sight of these costly decorations

for which the churches of Southern Mexico are so much celebrated, we

have the satisfaction of knowing that the turrets are well provided

with bells, a fact of which every person who visits Chihuahua very

soon obtains auricular demonstration. One, in particular, is so large

and sonorous that it has frequently been heard, so I am informed, at

the distance of 25 miles.

"A little below the _Plaza Mayor_ stand the ruins (as they may be

called) of San Francisco--the mere skeleton of another great church of

hewn stone, which was commenced by the Jesuits previous to their

expulsion in 1767, but never finished. By the outlines still traceable

amid the desolation which reigns around, it would appear that the plan

of this edifice was conceived in a spirit of still greater

magnificence than the Parroquia which I have been describing. The

abounding architectural treasures that are mouldering and ready to

tumble to the ground bear sufficient evidence that the mind which had

directed its progress was at once bold, vigorous, and comprehensive.

"This dilapidated building has since been converted into a sort of

state prison, particularly for the incarceration of distinguished

prisoners. It was here that the principals of the famous Texan Santa

Fé Expedition were confined, when they passed through the place, on

their way to the City of Mexico. This edifice has also acquired

considerable celebrity as having received within its gloomy embraces

several of the most distinguished patriots, who were taken prisoners

during the first infant struggles for Mexican independence. Among

these was the illustrious ecclesiastic, Don Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla,

who made the first declaration at the village of Dolores, September

16, 1810. He was taken prisoner in March, 1811, some time after his

total defeat at Guadalaxara; and being brought to Chihuahua, he was

shot on the 30th of July following, in a little square back of the

prison, where a plain white monument of hewn stone has been erected to

his memory. It consists of an octagon base of about 25 feet in

diameter, upon which rises a square, unornamented pyramid to the

height of about 30 feet. The monument indeed is not an unapt emblem of

the purity and simplicity of the curate's character.

"Among the few remarkable objects which attract the attention of the

traveller is a row of columns supporting a large number of stupendous

arches which may be seen from the heights, long before approaching the

city from the north. This is an aqueduct of considerable magnitude

which conveys water from the little river of Chihuahua, to an eminence

above the town, whence it is passed through a succession of pipes to

the main public square, where it empties itself into a large stone

cistern; and by this method the city is supplied with water. This and

other public works to be met with in Chihuahua, and in the southern

cities, are glorious remnants of the prosperous times of the Spanish

empire. No improvements on so exalted a scale have ever been made

under the republican government.... -¡Ojalá por los dias felices del

Rey!-"

[IV'-36] Sonora then was nearly the same as the present State of that

name, but lost a northern strip (the Gadsden Purchase) to our Arizona,

and also lost its New Mexican line. For the present boundary between

it and the United States, running on lat. 31° 20´ N. to long. 111° W.,

see note 32, p. 645. In Mexico, Sonora is now bounded on the E. by

Chihuahua, on the S. by Sinaloa, and on the W. by the Gulf of

California, except the short extent to which the Colorado r. separates

it from Lower California. Area, 77,550 sq. m.; pop. 140,500; capital,

Hermosillo, pop. 7,000; principal seaport, Guaymas, pop. 5,500,

situated in lat. 27° 56´ N., long. 110° 36´ W.

[IV'-37] The whole Sonoran water-shed is Pacific, and the river-system

runs on general S. and S. W. courses to the Gulf, in a series of

somewhat parallel streams. The northernmost one of these, of any size,

which Pike calls Ascencion r., I find lettered Rio Altar; its main

branch is Rio Magdalena; some of its ultimate sources are in Arizona,

in the country about Arivaca, Tubac, and old Fort Mason; it discharges

between George's bay and Cape Tepoca. The Sonora is much larger, with

a main branch called San Miguel; it discharges opposite Tiburon isl.

Arizpa, which Pike speaks of as near the head of the Yaqui, is high up

on the right bank of the Sonora; lower down is Hermosillo (lat. 29°

10´ N., long. 110° 45´ W.). The Yaqui is the largest Sonoran river,

falling into the Gulf below Guaymas and above Point Lobos. It has two

main forks, Rio Moctezuma and Rio Bavispe. Rio Matape, a small river,

is the one that falls in at Guaymas, and not the Yaqui. Another small

one, Rio Mayo, falls in below Vacamora and Point Rosa. Rio Alamos,

which heads in Sonora, falls over the Sinaloan boundary.

[IV'-38] Arizpe is now a small place, with a population of probably

4,000, and is of interest chiefly to the antiquarian. The original

mission of Arizpe was already over 150 years old in Pike's time, and

the place is believed to have been an Opata village as early as 1540.

The derivation of the name is given as the Opata word _arit_, meaning

"ant." The name _Arizpe_ suggests the obvious conjecture, that the

root of the word _Arizona_, the derivation of which has been so much

mooted, may be here found. How this may be, I do not know; but

_Arizona_ does not appear to be Spanish, and certainly any such

etymology as Lat. _arida zona_, which has been adduced among others,

is fictitious.

[IV'-39] Tubson is now Tucson, Ariz. San Cruz is Santa Cruz, also in

Arizona, on or near the branch of the Gila of that name. Tubac is

likewise now Arizonian, being a place about on long. 111° W., N. W. of

Nogales, and not far from old Forts Mason and Crittenden. Altac is

Altar, on the Sonoran river of that name. "Fiuntenas" I take to be a

misprint for Fronteras, a place on one of the headwaters of the Yaqui,

about lat. 31° N. Bacuachi is on one of the branches of the Sonora r.,

above Arizpe. Bavista is Bavispe, a place high up on the river of that

name, close to the eastern border of the State. Horcasites, to judge

from its location on Pike's map, was on or near the Sonora r., in the

vicinity of present Ures; but I have not found the place. Near it Pike

locates a Presidio San Antonio, omitted from the text. Buenavista is a

place low down on the Yaqui r.; the present road from Punta de Agua on

Rio Matape goes through it to Batacoso, Alamos, and so on.

[IV'-40] Sinaloa or Cinaloa is practically the same as it was, but

would be now said to be bounded by Sonora, Chihuahua, Durango, and

Jalisco; its whole S. W. length is sea-coast, on the Gulf of

California and Pacific Ocean. Area, 36,180 sq. m.; pop. 245,700;

capital, Culiacan, on the river of that name, in lat. 24° 50´ N.,

long. 107° 20´ W.; pop. 8,000. The principal city and port is

Mazatlan, in lat. 23° 15´ 36´´ N.; pop. 12,000.

[IV'-41] Sinaloa has a long series of comparatively short rivers, with

a general S. W. trend to the sea. Rio del Fuerte (River of the Fort)

is the largest and, excepting Rio Alamos, the northernmost. The

Sinaloa is the next one of any size; on this is Sinaloa, in Pike's

time the capital, but not now a place of special importance. Further

S. come successively, Rio San Lorenzo, Rio San Miguel, Rio Piaxtla,

Rio Mazatlan, and Rio El Rosario; the latter is charted by Pike, who

empties it into the Gulf, near 23°, which is about right.

[IV'-42] Coahuila, or Coahuila de Zaragoza, or Cohahuilla, or Quagila,

etc., has much the same limits now, excepting of course the

cis-Grandean portion which is now a part of Texas. On the eastern side

there is a curious peninsula or panhandle of the State, which is

wedged between two similar projections of Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas

respectively. On the S. are San Luis Potosí as well as Zacatecas, and

on the W. the former Biscay gives Chihuahua and Durango. Area, 60,500

sq. m.; pop. 178,000; capital, Saltillo, about lat. 25° 25´ N., long.

101° 4´ W., founded 1586; pop. 23,000.

[IV'-43] The Rio Grande does not now cross Coahuila, but forms its

whole U. S. border on the N. W., N., and N. E. But there are a good

many rivers in Coahuila, some of them notable. 1. Prominent among

these is the whole course of the Sabinas, and of its main fork on

which is Monclova, together with their respective tributaries, down to

where the two are joined, to continue under the name of Rio Salado to

the Rio Grande; the Salado cuts across the tip end of New Leon, but

again becomes Coahuilan to the extent of separating Coahuila from

Nuevo Leon before entering Tamaulipas. The "Aqua Verde" lake which

Pike names, and which is rather centrally than westerly located, is

the Laguna de Agua Verde; which, with a neighboring one called Santa

Maria, belongs to the water-system of the Sabinas. 2. The two rivers

which flow into Lag. del Muerto and Lag. de Parras enter Coahuila. 3.

The headwaters of the Rio San Juan, on one of which Saltillo, the

capital, is situated, are in Coahuila. 4. A series of Coahuilan

streams falls into the Rio Grande at successive points from below

Presidio Salto to above Presidio San Vincento.

[IV'-44] The tree is not the palmetto of the Southern States, _Sabal

palmetto_, but one of the large woody yuccas, of the same genus as the

small shrubby ones commonly called Spanish bayonets, from the

character of the leaves Pike notes. _Yucca treculeana_ (or

_canaliculata_) is a Mexican species sometimes 25 feet high and 2 feet

thick, thus answering to the requirements of the text. The one best

known in our country is the tree yucca, _Yucca arborescens_, very

similar to the last named. This grows abundantly in some parts of

Southern California in the valley of the Mohave r., sometimes so

thickly as to make a sort of forest. Multitudes may be seen along the

line of the Atl. and Pac. R. R. in the desert, where there is for many

miles no sign of anything else that looks like a tree.

[IV'-45] For various places mentioned in this and the following

paragraphs, see the itinerary of May 16th to June 1st, pp. 680-689,

and notes along there.

The Expeditions of Zebulon Montgomery Pike, Volume 2 (of 3) To Headwaters of the Mississippi River Through Louisiana Territory, and in New Spain, During the Years 1805-6-7. · 第 12 / 13 章

_Agriculture._ The American emigrants are introducing some little