survivors[2] of Narvaez' expedition, who, in the most wonderful manner,
had made their way overland through the unknown regions of the North,
from Florida into Mexico. These men told the viceroy, Mendoza, that
the natives who dwelt among the mountains to the north were a very rich
people, who lived in great cities and had gold and silver in abundance.
Mendoza also held captive some Indians whose homes were in that far-away
country, which he was now meditating how to conquer.
Yet two important obstacles met Mendoza at the start. In the first
place, the unknown country, which the Spaniards vaguely knew by the
name of Cibola,[3] could be reached only through mountain defiles, so
rugged and inaccessible that men questioned whether it could be reached
at all. Nature had admirably adapted it for defence. Clearly, then, a
few resolute men might easily defend their country against a host, and
the Spaniards having reason to expect the most determined resistance
found a twofold hinderance in their way.
The second obstacle, the Spaniards had created for themselves, by
making slaves of all natives taken in arms. Rather than be slaves the
Indians had fled into the mountain fastnesses. As their fear of the
Spaniards was very great, these fugitives secreted themselves in the
most inaccessible places, choosing rather to live like wild beasts than
be branded like cattle with hot irons, and nursing their hatred of their
oppressors. Not venturing to come down into the open valleys where they
would be at the mercy of their conquerors, these unhappy people lived
in caves, or in stone dwellings perched high among the rocks, where they
could at least breathe the air of liberty unmolested. Those who formerly
lived in the valleys had also fled to the mountains when they heard of
the Spaniards' coming. So the Spaniards would have to contend not only
with nature, but with a brave and a hostile people, if they attempted
to subdue them.
[Illustration: NEW MEXICO.—ROUTE OF SPANISH INVADERS.]
Considering that great difficulties are often overcome or results
accomplished by simple means, the viceroy took a poor barefooted
friar[4] from his cell, gave him one of Narvaez' men for a guide, and
with a few natives of the country sent him out to explore the unknown
wilds. Upon reaching Culiacan, which was the most northerly place the
Spaniards had made their way to, the captive Indians were sent ahead
with messages of peace and good-will to the distrustful natives, who
took good care to keep out of the way.
These promises of peace induced a great many of the natives to come
down from the mountains; and once there they were easily won over with
gifts and kind words, and in gratitude for the promise not to capture
and enslave them as they had done, told the Spaniards to go and come
as freely as they chose. The natives were then sent home to spread the
news among their brethren.
The way being thus opened, the friar and his party set forth by one
route, while still another party, led by Vasquez de Coronado,[5] went
forward by a different one, on the same errand. Of the two parties, that
of the friar alone succeeded in penetrating far into the country, and
the information he brought back now reads more like a story from the
Arabian Nights than the sober record of one already well versed in the
country and people, such as Mendoza says he believed Father Marco to be.
Yet the father is thought to have reached Cibola, or Zuñi, which was the
object of his journey, when the murder of his negro guide caused him to
hasten back with all speed to the Spanish settlements.
So these attempts, as well as a second made by Coronado in the following
year, were fruitless in every thing except the formal act of taking
possession of the country, and the acquisition of some imperfect
geographical knowledge about the valleys of the Colorado,[6] the
Gila,[7] and the Rio Grande del Norte.[8] About all we can say of them
is that the explorers went through the country.
As in Florida, so here a long period of inaction followed these
failures. In both cases the Spaniards had come and seen, but not
conquered. The Mississippi flowed on untroubled to the sea, the heart
of the continent still kept its secret fast locked in the bosom of its
hills. But we know now that the gold and silver the Spaniards craved so
much to possess were there waiting for the more successful explorers.
It is forty years before we again hear of any serious effort made to
search out the secrets of this land of mystery. The Church then took
the matter in hand. It was wisely decided that the best way to conquer
the people was to convert them. Accordingly two pious Franciscans set
out from the Spanish settlements in New Biscay[9] on this errand. This
time they penetrated into the country by the valley of the Rio Grande,
under protection of a few soldiers, who, after conducting the fathers
to a remote part of this valley, left them to pursue their pious work
alone, and themselves returned to New Biscay. Hearing nothing from these
missionaries, those who had sent them fitted out an expedition in the
following year—1582—to go in search of them. This rescuing party brought
back a more exact knowledge of the country and people than had so far
been obtained through all the many explorers put together.
[Illustration: JUNCTION OF THE GILA AND COLORADO.]
In proportion as they advanced up the Rio Grande, these explorers
found everywhere very populous towns. The people lived well and
contentedly. Some were found who had even kept the faith taught them
by Christians,[10] long ago, but in general they worshipped idols in
temples built for the purpose. In the natives themselves the Spaniards
remarked a wide difference. Some went almost naked, and lived in poor
hovels of mud covered with straw thatch. Others, again, would be clothed
in skins, and live in houses four stories high. Often the natives
showed the Spaniards cotton mantles skilfully woven in stripes of white
and blue, of their own making and dyeing, which were much admired. It
seemed for the most part a land of thrift and plenty, for the towns were
populous beyond any thing the Spaniards had ever dreamed of. And the
farther north the explorers went, the better the condition of the people
became. Finding themselves in a land much like Old Mexico, in respect
of its mountains, rivers, and forests, the explorers gave it the name
of New Mexico.
One of the greatest towns visited, called Acoma,[11] contained above
six thousand persons. It was built upon the level top of a high cliff,
with no other way of access to it than by steps hewn out of the solid
rock which formed the cliff. The sight of this place made the Spaniards
wonder not a little at the skill and foresight shown in planning and
building these natural fortresses, which nothing but famine could
conquer. All the water was kept in cisterns. But this was not all the
aptitude these people showed in overcoming obstacles or supplying needs.
Their cornfields lay at some distance from the town. In this country
it hardly ever rains. So the want of rain to make the corn grow was
supplied by digging ditches to bring the water from a neighboring stream
into the fields. We therefore see how conditions of soil and climate
had taught the Indians the uses of irrigation.[12]
Turning out of the valley of the Rio Grande, to the west, the explorers
at length came to the province of Zuñi, where many Spanish crosses were
found standing just as Coronado had left them forty years before. Here
our Spaniards heard of a very great lake, situated at a great distance,
where a people dwelt who wore bracelets and earrings of gold. Part of
the company were desirous of going thither at once, but the rest wished
to return into New Biscay in order to give an account of all they had
seen and heard. So only the leader with a few men went forward, meeting
everywhere good treatment from the natives, who in one place, we are
told, showered down meal before the Spaniards, for their horses to tread
upon, feasting and caressing their strange visitors as long as they
remained among them.
[Illustration: ORGAN MOUNTAINS.]
These explorers returned to Old Mexico in July, 1583, by the valley
of the Pecos,[13] to which stream they gave the name of River of Oxen,
because they saw great herds of bison[14] feeding all along its course.
Out of these discoveries and reports came new attempts to plant a
colony on the Rio Grande. Nothing prospered, however, until 1598, when
Juan de Oñate[15] invaded New Mexico at the head of a force meant to
thoroughly subdue and permanently hold it. Oñate was named governor
under the viceroy. These Spaniards established themselves on the Rio
Grande, not far from where Santa Fé now is. Most of the village Indians
submitted themselves to the Spaniards, whose authority over them was,
at best, little more than nominal, though the roving tribes, the fierce
Apaches and warlike Navajoes, never forgot their hereditary hatred to
the Spaniards, with whom they kept up an incessant warfare.
With this expedition came a number of Franciscan missionaries who, as
soon as a town was gained over, established a mission for the conversion
of the natives. In 1601 Santa Fé was founded and made the capital. In
thirty years more the Catholic clergy had established as many as fifty
missions which gave religious instruction to ninety towns and villages.
New Mexico had now reached her period of greatest prosperity under
Spanish rule. For fifty years more the country rather stood still than
made progress. The Spaniards were too overbearing, and the old hostility
too deep, for peace to endure. Then, the system of bondage which the
Spaniards brought with them from Old Mexico, and most unwisely put in
practice here, bore its usual bitter fruit. Determined to be slaves no
longer, in 1680 the native New Mexicans rose in a body, and drove the
invaders out of the country with great slaughter. Upon the frontier of
Old Mexico the fugitives halted, and then founded El Paso del Norte,
which they considered the gateway to New Mexico, and so named it. It
took the Spaniards twelve years to recover from this blow. By that time
little was left to show they had ever been masters of New Mexico. But
a new invasion took place, concerning which few details remain, though
we do know it resulted in a permanent conquest before the end of the
century.
[Illustration: EL PASO DEL NORTE.]
As far back as 1687 Father Kino had founded a mission on the skirt of
the country lying round the head of the Gulf of California, to which the
Spaniards gave the name of Pimeria.[16] It will be noticed that once
again they were following up the traces of Father Marco and Coronado.
When the Spaniards took courage after this defeat, and again entered New
Mexico, Kino (1693) founded other missions in the Gila country which in
time grew to be connecting links between New Mexico and California, in
what is now Arizona.[17]
FOOTNOTES
[1] BY LAND AND SEA. As rivals, both Cortez and Mendoza
strove to be beforehand with each other. Cortez despatched
Ulloa from Acapulco, northward, July, 1539. Alarcon, sailing
by Mendoza's order in 1540, goes to the head of the Gulf of
California, and so finds the Colorado River, while a land
force, under Coronado, marched north to act in concert with
Alarcon.
[2] SURVIVORS OF NARVAEZ' EXPEDITION (FLORIDA, 1528). The
chief among these was Alvar Nuñez, sometimes called Cabeça
de Vaca (literally cow's head), who had been treasurer to the
expedition of Narvaez.
[3] CIBOLA. The Zuñi country of our own day. Supposed to be
derived from Cibolo, the Mexican bull, and therefore applied
to the country of the bison. Cibola is on an English map of
1652 in my possession. Zuñi is thirty miles south of Fort
Wingate.
[4] POOR BAREFOOTED FRIAR was Marco de Niza (Mark of Nice),
a friar of the Franciscan order. For a long time his story
was doubted. It is, in fact, an exaggerated account of what
is, clearly, a true occurrence.
[5] VASQUEZ DE CORONADO. (See note 1.)
[6] COLORADO (Co-lor-ah´-doe) Spanish, meaning ruddy or red.
First called _Tizon_, meaning a firebrand.
[7] GILA, pronounced Hee'la.
[8] RIO GRANDE DEL NORTE, Spanish, Great River of the North.
Usually called, simply, Rio Grande.
[9] NEW BISCAY. Northernmost province of Mexico, capital
Chihuahua (Shee´wah´wah).
[10] BY CHRISTIANS. Cabeça de Vaca and his companions.
[11] ACOMA, one of the seven cities of Cibola; forty-five
miles south of old Fort Wingate.
[12] IRRIGATION. Without it, it would hardly be possible to
raise crops in New Mexico to-day.
[13] VALLEY OF PECOS. East of, and parallel with that of the
Rio Grande.
[14] BISON. Cabeça de Vaca is the first to mention this
animal. One is said to have been kept as a show in Montezuma's
garden, where the Spaniards saw it for the first time. See
note 3.
[15] JUAN DE OÑATE. Hopeless confusion exists concerning the
proper date of this invasion.
[16] PIMERIA essentially corresponds with Arizona. It took
this name from the Pimos Indians of the Gulf.
[17] ARIZONA, or Arizuma, a name given by the Spaniards to
denote the mineral wealth of Pimeria, where silver and gold
were said to exist in virgin masses. Silver ores were, in
fact, discovered by the Spaniards at an early day. Originally
part of Senora (Sonora), Old Mexico.
"THE MARVELLOUS COUNTRY."
"_Antiquity here lives, speaks, and cries out to the
traveller, Sta, viator._"—_V. Hugo, The Rhine._
Mention has been made of the towns which the Spaniards came to in the
course of their marchings up and down the country. Men had told them,
in all soberness, that far away in the north-west seven flourishing
cities,[1] wondrous great and rich, lay hid among the mountains.
We remember that their first expeditions were planned to reach these
seven cities. Now, when, at last, the Spaniards did come to them, these
wonderful cities proved to be large, but not rich, full of people,
though by no means such as the white men expected to see there.
Though sorely vexed to think they had come so far to find so little, the
Spaniards were very much astonished by the appearance of these cities,
the like of which they had never seen before. So these cities hid away
among desert mountains were long remembered and often talked about.
But these cities were not cities at all, as the term is now understood.
Instead of many houses spread out over much ground, the builders plainly
aimed at putting a great many people into a little space. Yet the cities
they built were neither simply walled towns, nor simply fortresses, but
a skilful combination of both.
In the open plain they commonly consisted of one great structure
either enclosed by a high wall, or else so built round it that wall and
building were one.
On the other hand, if the pueblo[2] stood upon a height, the houses
would be built all in blocks, and have streets running through them,
though in other respects the manner of building was everywhere the same.
In either case, this style of architecture made them look less like the
peaceful abodes of peaceful men, than the strongholds of a warlike and
predatory race, whence the inmates might sally forth upon their weaker
neighbors, just as the lords of feudal times did from the rock-built
castles of the Rhine. It is plain they had grown up out of the necessity
for defence, as every thing else was sacrificed to its demands, and we
know that necessity is the mother of invention.
The single great house, in which all the inhabitants lived together,
is perhaps the most curious. Let us suppose this to be a three-story
building, parted off into from sixty to a hundred little rooms, with
something like a thousand people living in it. Could the outer wall be
taken away, the whole edifice would look like a monstrous honeycomb,
and in fact the pueblo was nothing else than a human hive, as we shall
presently see.
[Illustration: A PUEBLO RESTORED.]
Now the city of Acoma is one of those which are built upon a height.
The builders chose the flat top of a barren sandstone cliff, containing
about ten acres, which rises about three hundred feet above the plain.
In New Mexico such table-lands are called _mesas_, from _mesa_, the
Spanish word meaning table. Therefore, while no one knows its age, or
history, all agree that Acoma must go far back into the past. Acoma was
so strongly built that to-day it looks hardly different from what it
did when the Spaniards first saw it, perched on the top of its rock, in
1582.
We see then in the builders of Acoma a people gifted with a much higher
order of intelligence than the Red Indian, who is always found living
in huts, or hovels, of the rudest possible kind. The wild Indian always
carries his house about with him, and so is ever ready, at a moment's
notice, to
"Fold his tent, like the Arabs,
And as silently steal away."
The sedentary Indian sometimes patterned his after the burrowing
animals, like the beaver, and sometimes after the birds of the air, like
the sparrow.
Now to describe Acoma itself. It consists of ranges of massive buildings
rising in successive tiers from the ground. The second story is set
a little back from the first, and the third a little back from the
second, so leaving a space in front of each range of buildings for
the inhabitants or sentinels to walk about in, in peaceful times, or
send down missiles upon the heads of their enemies in time of war. By
running up the outer wall of each story, for a few feet higher than
this platform, the builders made what is called a parapet in military
phrase, meant for the protection of the defenders. There were no doors
or windows except in the topmost tier. Acoma, then, was a castle built
upon a rock.
It would seem that only birds of the air or creeping things could gain
admittance to such a place. Indeed, there was no other way for the
inhabitants themselves to enter their dwellings except by climbing up
ladders set against the outer walls of the building for the purpose.
In this manner one could climb to the first platform, then to the
second, but could not get in till he came to the roof, through which he
descended by a trap door into his own quarters.
[Illustration: ACOMA.]
The whole collection of buildings being divided by partition walls
into several blocks, each containing sixty or seventy houses, is,
practically, the apartment hotel of to-day. The material commonly used
was adobe,[3] or bricks dried and hardened in the sun. Such a building
could not be set on fire or its walls battered down with any missiles
known to its time.
We see then that the Pueblo Indians must have had enemies whom they
feared,—enemies at once aggressive, warlike, and probably much more
numerous than themselves. How well they were able to meet these
conditions, their houses show us to this day.
[Illustration: CASA GRANDE, GILA VALLEY.]
Living remote from the whites, these people, like those of Old Zuñi,
have kept more of their primitive manners, and live more as their
fathers did, than those do who inhabit the pueblos of the Rio Grande,
where they have been longer in contact with Europeans. Forty years
ago they knew only a few Spanish words, which they had learned when
Spaniards held their country. In a remarkable manner, the people have
kept their own tongue and nationality free from foreign taint. From this
fact we are led to think them much the same people that they were long,
long ago.
There are other buildings in the country of the Gila, called _Casas
Grandes_,[4] or Great Houses, which are quite different from those
described in this chapter, but were apparently built for a similar
purpose of defence.
FOOTNOTES
[1] SEVEN CITIES. See preceding chapter.
[2] PUEBLO, Spanish for town or village.
[3] ADOBE, Spanish. The same material is much used throughout
New Mexico, Arizona, California, Utah, and Colorado.
[4] CASAS GRANDES, or Casas Montezumas. Lieut. Emory, U.S.A.,
thus describes one seen on the Gila: "About the noon halt
a large building was seen on the left. It was the remains
of a three-story mud house, sixty feet square, and pierced
for doors and windows. The walls were four feet thick. The
whole interior of the building had been burned out and much
defaced." Casa Grande is on a map of 1720; is on the Gila.
FOLK LORE OF THE PUEBLOS.
While professing Christianity, the Pueblo Indians have mostly kept
some part of the idolatrous faith of their fathers. Thus the two have
become curiously blended in their worship. We often see the crucifix,
or pictures of the Virgin hanging on the walls of their dwellings, but
neither the coming of the whites, nor the zeal of missionaries could
wholly eradicate the deeply grounded foundations of their ancient
religion. The little we know about this belief, in its purity, comes to
us chiefly in the form of legendary lore, although since the Zuñi have
been studied[1] with this object we have a much clearer conception of
it than ever before.
By this uncertain light we find it to be a religion of symbols and
mysteries, primarily founded upon the wondrous workings of nature for
man's needs, and so embodying philosophy growing out of her varied
phenomena. Therefore sun, moon, and stars, earth, sky, and sea, and
all plants, animals, and men were supposed to bear a certain mystical
relation to each other in the plan of the universe. Instead of one
all-supreme being, the Zuñi worshipped many gods each of whom was
supposed to possess some special attribute or power. Some were higher,
some lower down in the scale of power.
The phenomena of nature, being more mysterious, were thought to be more
closely related to the higher gods. If there was drought in the land,
the priests prayed for rain from the housetops, as the Prophet Elijah
did in the wilderness. Each year, in the month of June, they went up to
the top of the highest mountain, which they called the "Mother of Rain,"
to perform some secret ceremony touching the coming harvest. And because
rain seldom falls in this country, they made earnest supplication to
water, as a beneficent spirit, who ascended and descended the heavens
in their sight, and to the sun as the twin deity in whom lay the power
of life and death,—to ripen the harvest or wither all living things away
into dust.
Like the ancient Egyptians, of whom they constantly remind us, the Zuñi
believed animals possessed certain mystic powers, not belonging to man,
so investing them with a sacred character. Beasts of prey were supposed
to have magic power over other animals, hence the bear stood higher in
the Zuñi mythology than the deer or antelope. The Indians call this
magic power medicine, but the Zuñi gave it form to his own mind—the
substance of a thing unseen—by making a stone image of the particular
animal he had chosen for his medicine, which he carried with him to war
or the chase as a charm of highest virtue. We call this fetich-worship.
Each pueblo had one or more close, underground cells[2] in which
certain mysterious rites, connected, it is believed, with the worship
of the people, were solemnized. We are told that, at Pecos, the priests
kept watch night and day over a sacred fire, which was never suffered
to go out for a single moment, for fear some calamity would instantly
happen to the tribe. It is also said that when Pecos was assaulted and
sacked by a hostile tribe, the priests kept their charge over the sacred
fire while the tumult of battle raged about them. And when, at length,
the tribe itself had nearly died out, the survivors took the sacred
fire with them to another people, beyond the mountains, where it is kept
burning as the symbol of an ever-living faith.
[Illustration: RUINS OF PECOS.]
Another legend goes on to say that an enormous serpent was kept in a den
in the temple of Pecos to which on certain occasions living men were
thrown as a sacrifice. Both legends would seem to point to Pecos as a
holy place, from which the priests gave out instruction to the people,
as of old they did from the temples of the heathen gods.
The tradition of the origin of the Zuñi, as told by Mr. Cushing, is
almost identical with that held by the Mandans of the Upper Missouri.
Each says the race sprung from the earth itself, or rather that the
first peoples lived in darkness and misery in the bowels of the earth,
until at length they were led forth into the light of day by two
spirits sent from heaven for their deliverance, as the Zuñi say, or by
discovering a way out for themselves, as the Mandans say.[3]