other expeditions toward the north … 510
Second Part, which treats of the high villages and provinces
and of their habits and customs, as collected by Pedro de
Castañeda, native of the city of Najara … 512
Chapter 1, of the province of Culiacan and of its habits and
customs … 513
Chapter 2, of the province of Petlatlan and all the inhabited
country as far as Chichilticalli … 514
Chapter 3, of Chichilticalli and the desert, of Cibola, its
customs and habits, and of other things … 516
Chapter 4, of how they live at Tiguex, and of the province of
Tiguex and its neighborhood … 519
Chapter 5, of Cicuye and the villages in its neighborhood, and
of how some people came to conquer this country … 523
Chapter 6, which gives the number of villages which were seen
in the country of the terraced houses, and their population …
524
Chapter 7, which treats of the plains that were crossed, of the
cows, and of the people who inhabit them … 526
Chapter 8, of Quivira, of where it is and some information
about it … 528
Third Part, which describes what happened to Francisco Vazquez
Coronado during the winter, and how he gave up the expedition
and returned to New Spain … 530
Chapter 1, of how Don Pedro de Tovar came from Señora with some
men, and Don Garcia Lopez de Cardenas started back to New
Spain … 530
Chapter 2, of the general’s fall and of how the return to New
Spain was ordered … 531
Chapter 3, of the rebellion at Suya and the reasons the
settlers gave for it … 533
Chapter 4, of how Friar Juan de Padilla and Friar Luis remained
in the country and the army prepared to return to Mexico … 534
Chapter 5, of how the army left the settlements and marched to
Culiacan, and of what happened on the way … 537
Chapter 6, of how the general started from Culiacan to give
the viceroy an account of the army with which he had been
intrusted … 538
Chapter 7, of the adventures of Captain Juan Gallego while he
was bringing reenforcements through the revolted country … 540
Chapter 8, which describes some remarkable things that were
seen on the plains, with a description of the bulls … 541
Chapter 9, which treats of the direction which the army took,
and of how another more direct way might be found if anyone
was going to return to that country … 544
Translation of the letter from Mendoza to the King, April 17, 1540
… 547
Translation of the letter from Coronado to Mendoza, August 3, 1540
… 552
Translation of the Traslado de las Nuevas … 564
Relación postrera de Sívola … 566
Spanish text … 566
Translation … 568
Translation of the Relacion del Suceso … 572
Translation of a letter from Coronado to the King, October 20, 1541
… 580
Translation of the narrative of Jaramillo … 584
Translation of the report of Hernando de Alvarado … 594
Testimony concerning those who went on the expedition with
Francisco Vazquez Coronado … 596
A list of works useful to the student of the Coronado expedition …
599
[p337]
ILLUSTRATIONS
PLATE
XXXVIII. The New Spain and New Mexico country … 345
XXXIX. The Ulpius globe of 1542 … 349
XL. Sebastian Cabot’s map of 1544 … 353
XLI. Map of the world by Ptolemy, 1548 … 357
XLII. Battista Agnese’s New Spain, sixteenth century … 361
XLIII. The City of Mexico about 1550, by Alonzo de Santa Cruz … 365
XLIV. Zaltieri’s karte, 1566 … 369
XLV. Mercator’s northwestern part of New Spain, 1569 … 373
XLVI. Mercator’s interior of New Spain, 1569 … 377
XLVII. Abr. Ortelius’ Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, 1570 … 381
XLVIII. Dourado’s Terra Antipodv Regis Castele Inveta, 1580 … 385
XLIX. Western hemisphere of Mercator, 1587 … 389
L. Northern half of De Bry’s America Sive Novvs Orbis, 1596 … 393
LI. Wytfliet’s Vtrivsqve Hemispherii Delineatio, 1597 … 397
LII. Wytfliet’s New Granada and California, 1597 … 401
LIII. Wytfliet’s kingdoms of Quivira, Anian, and Tolm, 1597 … 405
LIV. Matthias Quadus’ Fasciculus Geographicus, 1608 … 409
LV. The buffalo of Gomara, 1554 … 512
LVI. The buffalo of Thevet, 1558 … 516
LVII. The buffalo of De Bry, 1595 … 520
LVIII. On the terraces at Zuñi … 525
LIX. Middle court at Zuñi … 527
LX. Zuñi court, showing “balcony” … 529
LXI. Zuñi interior … 531
LXII. Zuñis in typical modern costume … 534
LXIII. Hopi maidens, showing primitive Pueblo hairdressing … 536
LXIV. Hopi grinding and paper-bread making … 539
LXV. Hopi basket maker … 543
LXVI. Pueblo pottery making … 547
LXVII. Pueblo spinning and weaving … 551
LXVIII. The Tewa pueblo of P’o-who-gi or San Ildefonso … 555
LXIX. Pueblo of Jemez … 559
LXX. Ruins of Spanish church above Jemez … 562
LXXI. The Keres pueblo of Sia … 569
LXXII. The Keres pueblo of Cochití … 571
LXXIII. The Tewa pueblo of Nambe … 573
LXXIV. A Nambe Indian in war costume … 576
LXXV. A Nambe water carrier … 578
LXXVI. The Keres pueblo of Katishtya or San Felipe … 583
LXXVII. The south town of the Tiwa pueblo of Taos … 585
LXXVIII. The Tewa pueblo of K’hapóo or Santa Clara … 587
LXXIX. The Tewa pueblo of Ohke or San Juan … 589
LXXX. A native of San Juan … 592
LXXXI. A native of Pecos … 596
LXXXII. Facsimile of pages of Castañeda’s relacion … 456
LXXXIII. Facsimile of pages of Castañeda’s relacion … 442
LXXXIV. Facsimile of pages of Castañeda’s relacion … 466
[p339]
THE CORONADO EXPEDITION, 1540–1542
BY GEORGE PARKER WINSHIP
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
The following historical introduction, with the accompanying
translations, is the result of work in the Seminary of American
History at Harvard University. Undertaken as a bit of undergraduate
study, it has gradually assumed a form which has been considered
worthy of publication, chiefly because of the suggestions and
assistance which have been given with most generous readiness by all
from whom I have had occasion to ask help or advice. To Dr Justin
Winsor; to Professor Henry W. Haynes, who opened the way for students
of the early Spanish history of the North American southwest; to Dr
J. Walter Fewkes, who has freely offered me the many results of his
long-continued and minute investigations at Tusayan and Zuñi; and to
the careful oversight and aid of Mr F. W. Hodge and the other members
of the Bureau of Ethnology, much of the value of this work is due.
Mr Augustus Hemenway has kindly permitted the use of the maps and
documents deposited in the archives of the Hemenway Southwestern
Archeological Expedition by Mr Adolph F. Bandelier. My indebtedness
to the researches and writings of Mr Bandelier is evident throughout.
Señor Joaquin Garcia Icazbalceta—whose death, in November, 1894,
removed the master student of the documentary history of Mexico—most
courteously gave me all the information at his command, and with his
own hand copied the _Relación postrera de Sívola_, which is now for
the first time printed. The Spanish text of Castañeda’s narrative,
the presentation of which for the first time in its original language
affords the best reason for the present publication, has been copied
and printed with the consent of the trustees of the Lenox Library in
New York, in whose custody is the original manuscript. I am under
many obligations to their librarian, Mr Wilberforce Eames, who has
always been ready to assist me by whatever means were within his
power.
The subject of this research was suggested by Professor Channing
of Harvard. If my work has resulted in some contribution to the
literature of the history of the Spanish conquest of America, it is
because of his constant guidance and inspiration, and his persistent
refusal to [p340] consent to any abandoning of the work before the
results had been expressed in a manner worthy of the university.
Before the completion of the arrangements by which this essay
becomes a part of the annual report of the Director of the Bureau of
Ethnology, it had been accepted for publication by the Department of
History of Harvard University.
GEORGE PARKER WINSHIP
_Assistant in American History in Harvard University._
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS,
_February, 1895._
[p341]
ITINERARY OF THE CORONADO EXPEDITIONS, 1527–1547
1527
[Sidenote: June 17]
Narvaez sails from Spain to explore the mainland north of the Gulf of
Mexico.
1528
[Sidenote: April 15]
Narvaez lands in Florida.
[Sidenote: Sept. 22]
The failure of the Narvaez expedition is assured.
1535
Cortes makes a settlement in Lower California.
Mendoza comes to Mexico as viceroy of New Spain.
1536
[Sidenote: April]
Cabeza de Vaca and three other survivors of the Narvaez expedition
arrive in New Spain.
The Licenciate de la Torre takes the residencia of Nuño de Guzman,
who is imprisoned until June 30, 1538.
1537
Franciscan friars labor among the Indian tribes living north of New
Spain.
Coronado subdues the revolted miners of Amatepeque.
The proposed expedition under Dorantes comes to naught.
[Sidenote: April 20]
De Soto receives a grant of the mainland of Florida.
1538
[Sidenote: September]
It is rumored that Coronado has been nominated governor of New
Galicia.
1539
Pedro de Alvarado returns from Spain to the New World.
[Sidenote: March 7]
Friar Marcos de Niza, accompanied by the negro Estevan, starts from
Culiacan to find the Seven Cities.
[Sidenote: April 18]
The appointment of Coronado as governor of New Galicia is confirmed.
[Sidenote: May]
De Soto sails from Habana.
[Sidenote: May 9]
Friar Marcos enters the wilderness of Arizona.
[Sidenote: May 21]
Friar Marcos learns of the death of Estevan.
[Sidenote: May 25]
De Soto lands on the coast of Florida.
[Sidenote: July 8]
Ulloa sails from Acapulco nearly to the head of the Gulf of
California in command of a fleet furnished by Cortes.
[Sidenote: August]
Friar Marcos returns from the north and certifies to the truth
[Sidenote: Sept. 2] of his report before Mendoza and Coronado.
[Sidenote: October]
The news of Niza’s discoveries spreads through New Spain.
[Sidenote: November]
Mendoza begins to prepare for an expedition to conquer the Seven
Cities of Cibola.
Melchior Diaz is sent to verify the reports of Friar Marcos.
De Soto finds the remains of the camp of Narvaez at Bahia de los
Cavallos.
[Sidenote: Nov. 12]
Witnesses in Habana describe the effect of the friar’s reports.
1540
[Sidenote: Jan. 1]
Mendoza celebrates the new year at Pasquaro.
[Sidenote: Jan. 9]
Coronado at Guadalajara.
[Sidenote: Feb. 5]
Cortes stops at Habana on his way to Spain.
[Sidenote: February]
The members of the Cibola expedition assemble at Compostela, where
the viceroy finds them on his arrival.
[Sidenote: Feb. 22]
Review of the army on Sunday.
[Sidenote: Feb. 23]
The army, under the command of Francisco Vazquez Coronado, starts for
Cibola (not on February 1).
[Sidenote: Feb. 26]
Mendoza returns to Compostela, having left the army two days before,
and examines witnesses to discover how many citizens of New Spain
have accompanied Coronado. He writes a letter to King Charles V,
which has been lost.
[Sidenote: March]
The army is delayed by the cattle in crossing the rivers.
The death of the army master, Samaniego, at Chiametla.
Return of Melchior Diaz and Juan de Saldivar from Chichilticalli.
[Sidenote: March 3]
Beginning of litigation in Spain over the right to explore and
conquer the Cibola country.
[Sidenote: March 28]
Reception to the army at Culiacan, on Easter day.
[Sidenote: April]
The army is entertained by the citizens of Culiacan.
Mendoza receives the report of Melchior Diaz’ exploration, perhaps at
Jacona.
Coronado writes to Mendoza, giving an account of what has already
happened, and of the arrangements which he has made for the rest of
the journey. This letter has been lost.
[Sidenote: April 17]
Mendoza writes to the Emperor Charles V.
[Sidenote: April 22]
Coronado departs from Culiacan with about seventy-five horsemen and a
few footmen.
[Sidenote: April]
Coronado passes through Petatlan, Cinaloa, Los Cedros, [Sidenote:
May] Yaquemi, and other places mentioned by Jaramillo.
[Sidenote: May 9]
Alarcon sails from Acapulco to cooperate with Coronado.
The army starts from Culiacan and marches toward the Corazones or
Hearts valley.
[Sidenote: May 26]
Coronado leaves the valley of Corazones. He proceeds to
Chichilticalli, [Sidenote: June] passing Senora or Sonora and Ispa,
and thence crosses the Arizona wilderness, fording many rivers.
The army builds the town of San Hieronimo in Corazones valley.
[Sidenote: July 7]
Coronado reaches Cibola and captures the first city, the pueblo of
Hawikuh, which he calls Granada.
[Sidenote: July 11]
The Indians retire to their stronghold on Thunder mountain.
[Sidenote: July 15]
Pedro de Tovar goes to Tusayan or Moki, returning within thirty days.
[Sidenote: July 19]
Coronado goes to Thunder mountain and returns the same day.
[Sidenote: Aug. 3]
Coronado writes to Mendoza. He sends Juan Gallego to Mexico, and
Melchior Diaz to Corazones with orders for the army. Friar Marcos
accompanies them.
[Sidenote: Aug. 25 (?)]
Lopez de Cardenas starts to find the canyons of Colorado river, and
is gone about eighty days.
[Sidenote: Aug. 26]
Alarcon enters the mouth of Colorado river.
[Sidenote: Aug. 29]
Hernando de Alvarado goes eastward to Tiguex, on the Rio Grande, and
to the buffalo plains.
Pedro de Alvarado arrives in New Spain.
[Sidenote: Sept. 7]
Hernando de Alvarado reaches Tiguex.
Diaz and Gallego reach Corazones about the middle of September, and
the army starts for Cibola.
Coronado visits Tutahaco.
[Sidenote: September to January]
The army reaches Cibola, and goes thence to Tiguex for its winter
quarters. The natives in the Rio Grande pueblos revolt and are
subjugated. The Turk tells the Spaniards about Quivira.
[Sidenote: October]
Diaz starts from Corazones before the end of September, with
twenty-five men, and explores the country along the Gulf of
California, going beyond Colorado river.
Diego de Alcaraz is left in command of the town of San Hieronimo.
[Sidenote: Nov. 29]
Mendoza and Pedro de Alvarado sign an agreement in regard to common
explorations and conquests.
1541
[Sidenote: Jan. 8]
Diaz dies on the return from the mouth of the Colorado, and his
companions return to Corazones valley.
[Sidenote: March]
Alcaraz, during the spring, moves the village of San Hieronimo from
Corazones valley to the valley of Suya river.
[Sidenote: April 20]
Beginning of the Mixton war in New Galicia.
Coronado writes a letter to the King from Tiguex, which has been lost.
Tovar and perhaps Gallego return to Mexico.
[Sidenote: April 23]
Coronado starts with all his force from Tiguex to cross the buffalo
plains to Quivira.
[Sidenote: May]
The army is divided somewhere on the great plains, perhaps on
Canadian river. The main body returns to Tiguex, arriving there by
the middle or last of June.
De Soto crosses the Mississippi.
[Sidenote: June]
Coronado, with, thirty horsemen, rides north to Quivira, where he
arrives forty-two (?) days later.
[Sidenote: June 24]
Pedro de Alvarado is killed at Nochistlan, in New Galicia.
[Sidenote: August]
Coronado spends about twenty-five days in the country of Quivira,
leaving “the middle or last of August.”
[Sidenote: Sept. 28]
The Indians in New Galicia attack the town of Guadalajara, but are
repulsed.
[Sidenote: Oct. 2]
Coronado returns from Quivira to Tiguex and writes a letter to the
King.
[Sidenote: November]
Cardenas starts to return to Mexico with some other invalids from the
army. He finds the village of Suya in ruins and hastily returns to
Tiguex.
[Sidenote: December]
Coronado falls from his horse and is seriously injured.
The Mixton peñol is surrendered by the revolted Indians during
holiday week.
1542
Coronado and his soldiers determine to return to New Spain. They
start in the spring, and reach Mexico probably late in the autumn.
The general makes his report to the viceroy, who receives him coldly.
Coronado not long after resigns his position as governor of New
Galicia and retires to his estates.
[Sidenote: April 17]
De Soto reaches the mouth of Red river, where he dies, May 21.
[Sidenote: June 27]
Cabrillo starts on his voyage up the California coast. He dies in
January, 1543, and the vessels return to New Spain by April, 1544.
[Sidenote: Nov. 1]
Villalobos starts across the Pacific. His fleet meets with many
misfortunes and losses. The survivors, five years or more later,
return to Spain.
[Sidenote: Nov. 25]
Friar Juan de la Cruz is killed at Tiguex, where he remained when
the army departed for New Spain. Friar Luis also remained in the new
country, at Cicuye, and Friar Juan de Padilla, at Quivira, where he
is killed. The companions of Friar Juan de Padilla make their way
back to Mexico, arriving before 1552.
1544
[Sidenote: Nov. 30]
Promulgation of the New Laws for the Indies.
Sebastian Cabot publishes his map of the New World.
1547
Mendoza, before he leaves New Spain to become viceroy of Peru,
answers the charges preferred against him by the officials appointed
to investigate his administration.
[Illustration: XXXVIII. The New Spain and New Mexico Country]
[p345]
HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION
THE CAUSES OF THE CORONADO EXPEDITION, 1528–1539
ALVAR NUÑEZ CABEZA DE VACA
The American Indians are always on the move. Tribes shift the
location of their homes from season to season and from year to year,
while individuals wander at will, hunting, trading or gossiping.
This is very largely true today, and when the Europeans first came
in contact with the American aborigines, it was a characteristic
feature of Indian life. The Shawnees, for example, have drifted
from Georgia to the great lakes, and part of the way back, during
the period since their peregrinations can first be traced. Traders
from tribe to tribe, in the days when European commercial ideas were
unknown in North America, carried bits of copper dug from the mines
in which the aboriginal implements are still found, on the shores
of Lake Superior, to the Atlantic coast on the one side and to the
Rocky mountains on the other. The Indian gossips of central Mexico,
in 1535, described to the Spaniards the villages of New Mexico
and Arizona, with their many-storied houses of stone and adobe.
The Spanish colonists were always eager to learn about unexplored
regions lying outside the limits of the white settlements, and their
Indian neighbors and servants in the valley of Mexico told them many
tales of the people who lived beyond the mountains which hemmed
in New Spain on the north. One of these stories may be found in
another part of this memoir, where it is preserved in the narrative
of Pedro Castañeda, the historian of the Coronado expedition.
Castañeda’s hearsay report of the Indian story, which was related
by an adventurous trader who had penetrated the country far to the
north, compares not unfavorably with the somewhat similar stories
which Marco Polo told to entertain his Venetian friends.[1] But
whatever may have been known before, the information which led to the
expedition of Friar Marcos de Niza and to that of Francisco Vazquez
Coronado was brought to New Spain late in the spring of 1536 by Alvar
Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca.
In 1520, before Cortes, the conqueror of Motecuhzoma, had made
his peace with the Emperor Charles V and with the authorities at
Cuba, Panfilo de Narvaez was dispatched to the Mexican mainland,
at the [p346] head of a considerable force. He was sent to subdue
and supersede the conqueror of Mexico, but when they met, Cortes
quickly proved that he was a better general than his opponent, and
a skillful politician as well. Narvaez was deserted by his soldiers
and became a prisoner in the City of Mexico, where he was detained
during the two years which followed. Cortes was at the height of his
power, and Narvaez must have felt a longing to rival the successes
of the conqueror, who had won the wealth of the Mexican empire.
After Cortes resumed his dutiful obedience to the Spanish crown,
friends at home obtained a royal order which effected the release of
Narvaez, who returned to Spain at the earliest opportunity. Almost as
soon as he had established himself anew in the favor of the court,
he petitioned the King for a license which should permit him to
conduct explorations in the New World. After some delay, the desired
patent was granted. It authorized Narvaez to explore, conquer, and
colonize the country between Florida and the Rio de Palmas, a grant
comprising all that portion of North America bordering on the Gulf of
Mexico, which is now included within the limits of the United States.
Preparations were at once begun for the complete organization of an
expedition suitable to the extent of this territory and to the power
and dignity of its governor.
On June 17, 1527, Narvaez, governor of Florida, Rio de Palmas and
Espiritu Santo—the Rio Grande and the Mississippi on our modern
maps—sailed from Spain. He went first to Cuba, where he refitted his
fleet and replaced one vessel which had been lost in a hurricane
during the voyage. When everything was ready to start for the
unexplored mainland, he ordered the pilots to conduct his fleet to
the western limits of his jurisdiction—our Texas. They landed him,
April 15, 1528, on the coast of the present Florida, at a bay which
the Spaniards called Bahia de la Cruz, and which the map of Sebastian
Cabot enables us to identify with Apalache bay. The pilots knew that
a storm had driven them out of their course toward the east, but they
could not calculate on the strong current of the gulf stream. They
assured the commander that he was not far from the Rio de Palmas,
the desired destination, and so he landed his force of 50 horses and
300 men—just half the number of the soldiers, mechanics, laborers,
and priests who had started with, him from Spain ten months before.
He sent one of his vessels back to Cuba for recruits, and ordered
the remaining three to sail along the coast toward the west and to
wait for the army at the fine harbor of Panuco, which was reported to
be near the mouth of Palmas river. The fate of these vessels is not
known.
Narvaez, having completed these arrangements, made ready to lead his
army overland to Panuco. The march began April 19. For a while, the
Spaniards took a northerly direction, and then they turned toward the
west. Progress was slow, for the men knew nothing of the country, and
the forests and morasses presented many difficulties to the soldiers
[p347] unused to woodcraft. Little help could be procured from
the Indians, who soon became openly hostile wherever the Spaniards
encountered them. Food grew scarce, and no persuasion could induce
the natives to reveal hidden stores of corn, or of gold. On May 15,
tired and discouraged, the Spaniards reached a large river with a
strong current flowing toward the south. They rested here, while
Cabeza de Vaca, the royal treasurer accompanying the expedition, took
a small party of soldiers and followed the banks of the river down
to the sea. The fleet was not waiting for them at the mouth of this
stream, nor could anything be learned of the fine harbor for which
they were searching. Disappointed anew by the report which Cabeza
de Vaca made on his return to the main camp, the Spanish soldiers
crossed the river and continued their march toward the west. They
plodded on and on, and after awhile turned southward, to follow down
the course of another large river which blocked their westward march.
On the last day of July they reached a bay of considerable size,
at the mouth of the river. They named this Bahia de los Cavallos,
perhaps, as has been surmised, because it was here that they killed
the last of their horses for food. The Spaniards, long before this,
had become thoroughly disheartened. Neither food nor gold could be
found. The capital cities, toward which the Indian captives had
directed the wandering strangers, when reached, were mere groups
of huts, situated in some cases on mounds of earth. Not a sign of
anything which would reward their search, and hardly a thing to eat,
had been discovered during the months of toilsome marching. The
Spaniards determined to leave the country. They constructed forges
in their camp near the seashore, and hammered their spurs, stirrups,
and other iron implements of warfare into nails and saws and axes,
with which to build the boats necessary for their escape from the
country. Ropes were made of the tails and manes of the horses, whose
hides, pieced out with the shirts of the men, were fashioned into
sails. By September 22, five boats were ready, each large enough to
hold between 45 and 50 men. In these the soldiers embarked. Scarcely
a man among them knew anything of navigation, and they certainly knew
nothing about the navigation of this coast. They steered westward,
keeping near the land, and stopping occasionally for fresh water.
Sometimes they obtained a little food.
Toward the end of October they came to the mouth of a large river
which poured forth so strong a current that it drove the boats out to
sea. Two, those which contained Narvaez and the friars, were lost.
The men in the other three boats were driven ashore by a storm,
somewhere on the coast of western Louisiana or eastern Texas.[2] This
was [p348] in the winter of 1528–29. Toward the end of April, 1536,
Cabeza de Vaca, Alonso del Castillo Maldonado, Andres Dorantes, and a
negro named Estevan, met some Spanish slave catchers near the Rio de
Petatlan, in Sinaloa, west of the mountains which border the Gulf of
California. These four men, with a single exception,[3] were the only
survivors of the three hundred who had entered the continent with
Narvaez eight years before.
Cabeza de Vaca and his companions stayed in Mexico for several
months, as the guests of the viceroy, Don Antonio de Mendoza. At
first, it was probably the intention of the three Spaniards to
return to Spain, in order to claim the due reward for their manifold
sufferings. Mendoza says, in a letter dated December 10, 1537,[4]
that he purchased the negro Estevan from Dorantes, so that there
might be someone left in New Spain who could guide an expedition back
into the countries about which the wanderers had heard. An earlier
letter from the viceroy, dated February 11, 1537, commends Cabeza de
Vaca and _Francisco_ Dorantes—he must have meant Andres, and perhaps
wrote it so in his original manuscript—as deserving the favor of the
Empress. Maldonado is not mentioned in this letter, and no trace of
him has been found after the arrival of the four survivors in Mexico.
All that we know about him is that his home was in Salamanca.[5]
[Illustration: XXXIX. The Ulpius Globe of 1542
in Possession of the New York Historical Society]
Cabeza de Vaca and Dorantes started from Vera Cruz for Spain in
October, 1536, but their vessel was stranded before it got out of the
harbor. This accident obliged them to postpone their departure until
the following spring, when Cabeza de Vaca returned home alone. He
told the story of his wanderings to the court and the King, and was
rewarded, by 1540, with an appointment as adelantado, giving him the
command over the recently occupied regions about the Rio de la Plata.
The position was one for which he was unfitted, and his subordinates
[p349] sent him back to Spain. The complaints against him were
investigated by the Council for the Indies, but the judgment, if any
was given, has never been published. He certainly was not punished,
and soon settled down in Seville, where he was still living,
apparently, twenty years later.[6]
While Dorantes was stopping at Vera Cruz during the winter of
1536–37, he received a letter from Mendoza, asking him to return to
the City of Mexico. After several interviews, the viceroy induced
Dorantes to remain in New Spain, agreeing to provide him with a
party of horsemen and friars, in order to explore more thoroughly
the country through which he had wandered. Mendoza explains the
details of his plans in the letter written in December, 1537, and
declares that he expected many advantages would be derived from this
expedition which would redound to the glory of God and to the profit
of His Majesty the King. The viceroy was prepared to expend a large
sum—3,500 or 4,000 pesos—to insure a successful undertaking, but he
promised to raise the whole amount, without taking a single maravedi
from the royal treasury, by means of a more careful collection of
dues, and especially by enforcing the payment of overdue sums, the
collection of which hitherto had been considered impossible. This
reform in the collection of rents and other royal exactions and the
careful attention to all the details of the fiscal administration
were among the most valuable of the many services rendered by Mendoza
as viceroy. The expedition under Dorantes never started, though why
nothing came of all the preparations, wrote Mendoza in his next
letter to the King, “I never could find out.”[7]
The three Spaniards wrote several narratives of their experiences
on the expedition of Narvaez, and of their adventurous journey from
the gulf coast of Texas to the Pacific coast of Mexico.[8] These
travelers, who had lived a savage life for so long that they could
wear no clothes, and were unable to sleep except upon the bare
ground, had a strange tale to tell. The story of their eight years
of wandering must have been often repeated—of their slavery, their
buffalo-hunting expeditions, of the escape from their Indian masters,
and their career as traders and as medicine men. These were wonderful
and strange [p350] experiences, but the story contained little to
arouse the eager interest of the colonists in New Spain, whose minds
had been stirred by the accounts which came from Peru telling of the
untold wealth of the Incas. A few things, however, had been seen and
heard by the wanderers which suggested the possibility of lands worth
conquering. “A copper hawks-bell, thick and large, figured with a
face,” had been given to Cabeza de Vaca, soon after he started on his
journey toward Mexico. The natives who gave this to him said that
they had received it from other Indians, “who had brought it from
the north, where there was much copper, which was highly esteemed.”
After the travelers had crossed the Rio Grande, they showed this bell
to some other Indians, who said that “there were many plates of this
same metal buried in the ground in the place whence it had come, and
that it was a thing which they esteemed highly, and that there were
fixed habitations where it came from.”[9] This was all the treasure
which Cabeza de Vaca could say that he had seen. He had heard,
however, of a better region than any he saw, for the Indians told him
“that there are pearls and great riches on the coast of the South
sea (the Pacific), and all the best and most opulent countries are
near there.” We may be sure that none of this was omitted whenever he
told the Spanish colonists the story of the years of his residence in
Texas and of the months of his journey across northern Mexico.[10]
THE GOVERNORS OF NEW SPAIN, 1530–1537
Don Antonio de Mendoza, “the good viceroy,” had been at the head of
the government of New Spain for two years when Cabeza de Vaca arrived
in Mexico. The effects of his careful and intelligent administration
were already beginning to appear in the increasing prosperity of the
province and the improved condition of the colonists and of their
lands. The authority of the viceroy was ample and extensive, although
he was limited to some extent by the audiencia, the members of which
had administered the government of the province since the retirement
of Cortes. The viceroy was the president of this court, which had
resumed more strictly judicial functions after his arrival, and he
was officially advised by his instructions from the King to consult
with his fellow members on all matters of importance.
Nuño de Guzman departed for New Spain in 1528, and became the
head of the first audiencia. Within a year he had made himself so
deservedly unpopular that when he heard that Cortes was coming
back to Mexico from Spain, with the new title of marquis and fresh
grants of power from the King, he thought it best to get out of the
way of his rival. Without relinquishing the title to his position
in the capital [p351] city, Guzman collected a considerable force
and marched away toward the west and north, determined to win honor
and security by new conquests. He explored and subdued the country
for a considerable distance along the eastern shores of the Gulf of
California, but he could find nothing there to rival the Mexico of
Motecuhzoma. Meanwhile reports reached Charles V of the manner in
which Guzman had been treating the Indians and the Spanish settlers,
and so, March 17, 1536,[11] the King appointed the Licentiate Diego
Perez de la Torre to take the residencia[12] of Guzman. At the same
time Torre was commissioned to replace Guzman as governor of New
Galicia, as this northwestern province had been named. The latter
had already determined to return to Spain, leaving Don Christobal de
Oñate, a model executive and administrative official, in charge of
his province. Guzman almost succeeded in escaping, but his judge, who
had landed at Vera Cruz by the end of 1536, met him at the viceroy’s
palace in Mexico city, and secured his arrest before he could depart.
After his trial he was detained in Mexico until June 30, 1538, when
he was enabled to leave New Spain by an order which directed him to
surrender his person to the officers of the Casa de Contratacion,[13]
at Seville. Guzman lost no time in going to Spain, where he spent the
next four years in urging his claims to a right to participate in the
northern conquests.
Torre, the licentiate, had barely begun to reform the abuses of
Guzman’s government when he was killed in a conflict with some
revolted Indian tribes. Oñate again took charge of affairs until
Mendoza appointed Luis Galindo chief justice for New Galicia. This
was merely a temporary appointment, however, until a new governor
could be selected. The viceroy’s nomination for the position was
confirmed by the King, in a cedula dated April 18, 1539, which
commissioned Francisco Vazquez Coronado as governor.[14]
Cortes had been engaged, ever since his return from Spain, in fitting
out expeditions which came to nothing,[15] but by which he hoped to
accomplish his schemes for completing the exploration of the South
sea. His leisure was more than occupied by his efforts to outwit the
agents of the viceroy and the audiencia, who had received orders from
the King to investigate the extent and condition of the estates held
by Cortes. In the spring of 1535, Cortes established a colony on the
opposite coast of California, the supposed Island of the Marquis, at
Santa [p352] Cruz,[16] near the modern La Paz. Storms and shipwreck,
hunger and surfeiting, reduced the numbers and the enthusiasm of the
men whom he had conducted thither, and when his vessels returned from
the mainland with the news that Mendoza had arrived in Mexico, and
bringing letters from his wife urging him to return at once, Cortes
went back to Mexico. A few months later he recalled the settlers
whom he had left at Santa Cruz, in accordance, it may be, with the
command or advice of Mendoza.[17] When the stories of Cabeza de Vaca
suggested the possibility of making desirable conquests toward the
north, Cortes possessed a better outfit for undertaking this work
than any of the others who were likely to be rivals for the privilege
of exploring and occupying that region.
Pedro de Alvarado was the least known of these rival claimants. He
had been a lieutenant of Cortes until he secured an independent
command in Guatemala, Yucatan and Honduras, where he subdued the
natives, but discovered nothing except that there was nowhere in
these regions any store of gold or treasures. Abandoning this field,
he tried to win a share in the conquests of Pizarro and Almagro.
He approached Peru from the north, and conducted his army across
the mountains. This march, one of the most disastrous in colonial
history, so completely destroyed the efficiency of his force that the
conquerors of Peru easily compelled him to sell them what was left
of his expedition. They paid a considerable sum, weighed out in bars
of silver which he found, after his return to Panama, to be made of
lead with a silver veneering.[18] Alvarado was ready to abandon the
work of conquering America, and had forwarded a petition to the King,
asking that he might be allowed to return to Spain, when Mendoza,
or the audiencia which was controlled by the enemies of Alvarado,
furthered his desires by ordering him to go to the mother country
and present himself before the throne. This was in 1536. While at
court Alvarado must have met Cabeza de Vaca. He changed his plans
for making a voyage to the South seas, and secured from the King,
whose favor he had easily regained, a commission which allowed him
to build a fleet in Central America and explore the South sea—the
Pacific—toward the west or the north. He returned to America early in
1539, bringing with him everything needed in the equipment of a large
fleet.
[Illustration: XL. Sebastian Cabot’s Map of 1544
After Kretschmer]
Mendoza, meanwhile, 1536–1539, had been making plans and
preparations. He had not come to the New World as an adventurer,
and he lacked the spirit of eager, reckless, hopeful expectation of
wealth and fame, which accomplished so much for the geographical
unfolding of the two Americas. Mendoza appears to have arranged his
plans as carefully as if he had been about to engage in some intrigue
at court. He [p353] recognized his rivals and their strength. Nuño
de Guzman was in disgrace and awaiting a trial, but he was at the
court, where he could urge his claims persistently in person. Cortes
was active, but he was where Mendoza could watch everything that he
tried to do. He might succeed in anticipating the viceroy’s plans,
but his sea ventures heretofore had all been failures. So long as he
kept to the water there seemed to be little danger. Mendoza’s chief
concern appears to have been to make sure that his rivals should
have no chance of uniting their claims against him. Representing the
Crown and its interests, he felt sure of everything else. The viceroy
had no ambition to take the field in person as an explorer, and he
selected Alvarado as the most available leader for the expedition
which he had in mind, probably about the time that the latter
came back to the New World. He wrote to Alvarado, suggesting an
arrangement between them, and after due consideration on both sides,
terms and conditions mutually satisfactory were agreed on. Mendoza
succeeded in uniting Alvarado to his interests, and engaged that
he should conduct an expedition into the country north of Mexico.
This arrangement was completed, apparently, before the return of
Friar Marcos from his reconnoissance, which added so largely to the
probabilities of success.
THE RECONNOISSANCE OF FRIAR MARCOS DE NIZA
Mendoza did not confine himself to diplomatic measures for bringing
about the exploration and conquest which he had in mind. In his
undated “première lettre” the viceroy wrote that he was prepared to
send Dorantes with forty or fifty horses and everything needed for an
expedition into the interior; but nothing was done.
About this time, 1537–38, Friar Juan de la Asuncion seems to have
visited the inland tribes north of the Spanish settlements. Mr
Bandelier has presented all the evidence obtainable regarding the
labors of this friar.[19] The most probable interpretation of the
statements which refer to his wanderings is that Friar Juan went
alone and without official assistance, and that he may have traveled
as far north as the river Gila. The details of his journey are
hopelessly confused. It is more than probable that there were a
number of friars at work among the outlying Indian tribes, and there
is no reason why one or more of them may not have wandered north
for a considerable distance. During the same year the viceroy made
an attempt, possibly in person, to penetrate into the country of
Topira or Topia, in northwestern Durango,[20] but the mountains and
the absence of provisions forced the party to return. It may be that
this fruitless expedition was the same as that in which, according
to Castañeda, Coronado took part, while Friar Marcos was on his way
to Cibola. It is not unlikely, also, [p354] that Friar Marcos may
have made a preliminary trip toward the north, during the same year,
although this is hardly more than a guess to explain statements, made
by the old chroniclers, which we can not understand.
As yet nothing had been found to verify the reports brought by Cabeza
de Vaca, which, by themselves, were hardly sufficient to justify the
equipment of an expedition on a large scale. But Mendoza was bent on
discovering what lay beyond the northern mountains. He still had the
negro Estevan, whom he had purchased of Dorantes, besides a number
of Indians who had followed Cabeza de Vaca to Mexico and had been
trained there to serve as interpreters. The experience which the
negro had gained during the years he lived among the savages made him
invaluable as a guide. He was used to dealing with the Indians, knew
something of their languages, and was practiced in the all-important
sign manual.
Friar Marcos de Niza was selected as the leader of the little party
which was to find out what the viceroy wanted to know. Aside from
his reconnoitering trip to Cibola, very little is known about this
friar. Born in Nice, then a part of Savoy, he was called by his
contemporaries a Frenchman. He had been with Pizarro in Peru, and had
witnessed the death of Atahualpa. Returning to Central America, very
likely with Pedro de Alvarado, he had walked from there barefooted,
as was his custom, up to Mexico. He seems to have been somewhere
in the northwestern provinces of New Spain, when Cabeza de Vaca
appeared there after his wanderings. A member of the Franciscan
brotherhood, he had already attained to some standing in the order,
for he signs his report or personal narration of his explorations,
as vice-commissary of the Franciscans. The father provincial of the
order, Friar Antonio de Ciudad-Rodrigo, on August 26, 1539,[21]
certified to the high esteem in which Friar Marcos was held, and
stated that he was skilled in cosmography and in the arts of the sea,
as well as in theology.
This choice of a leader was beyond question an excellent one, and
Mendoza had every reason to feel confidence in the success of his
undertaking. The viceroy drew up a set of instructions for Friar
Marcos, which directed that the Indians whom he met on the way should
receive the best of treatment, and provided for the scientific
observations which all Spanish explorers were expected to record.
Letters were to be left wherever it seemed advisable, in order to
communicate with a possible sea expedition, and information of
the progress of the party was to be sent back to the viceroy at
convenient intervals. These instructions are a model of careful and
explicit directions, and show the characteristic interest taken by
Mendoza in the details of everything with which he was concerned.
They supply to some extent, [p355] also, the loss of the similar
instructions which Coronado must have received when he started on his
journey in the following February.[22]
Friar Marcos, accompanied by a lay brother, Friar Onorato, according
to Mendoza’s “première lettre,” left Culiacan on March 7, 1539.
Coronado, now acting as governor of New Galicia, had escorted them as
far as this town and had assured a quiet journey for a part of the
way beyond by sending in advance six Indians, natives of this region,
who had been “kept at Mexico to become proficient in the Spanish
language and attached to the ways of the Christians.”[23] The friars
proceeded to Petatlan, where Friar Onorato fell sick, so that it was
necessary to leave him behind. During the rest of the journey, Friar
Marcos was the only white man in the party, which consisted of the
negro Estevan, the Indian interpreters, and a large body of natives
who followed him from the different villages near which he passed.
The friar continued his journey to “Vacapa,” which Mr Bandelier
identifies with the Eudeve settlement of Matapa in central Sonora,
where he arrived two days before Passion Sunday, which in 1539 fell
on March 23.[24] At this place he waited until April 6, in order to
send to the seacoast and summon some Indians, from whom he hoped to
secure further information about the pearl islands of which Cabeza de
Vaca had heard.
The negro Estevan had been ordered by the viceroy to obey Friar
Marcos in everything, under pain of serious punishment. While the
friar was waiting at Vacapa, he sent the negro toward the north,
instructing him to proceed 50 or 60 leagues and see if he could find
anything which might help them in their search. If he found any signs
of a rich and populous country, it was agreed that he was not to
advance farther, but should return to meet the friar, or else wait
where he heard the good news, sending some Indian messengers back to
the friar, with a white cross the size of the palm of his hand. If
the news was very promising, the cross was to be twice this size, and
if the country about which he heard promised to be larger and better
than New Spain, a cross still larger than this was to be sent back.
Castañeda preserves a story that Estevan was sent ahead, not only to
explore and pacify the country, but also because he did not get on
well with his superior, who objected to his eagerness in collecting
the turquoises and other things which the natives prized and to the
moral effect of his relations with the women who followed him from
the tribes which they met on their way. Friar Marcos says nothing
about this in his narrative, but he had different and much more
important ends to accomplish by his report, compared with those of
Castañeda, who may easily have gathered the gossip from some native.
[p356]
Estevan started on Passion Sunday, after dinner. Four days later
messengers sent by him brought to the friar “a very large cross,
as tall as a man.” One of the Indians who had given the negro his
information accompanied the messengers. This man said and affirmed,
as the friar carefully recorded, “that there are seven very large
cities in the first province, all under one lord, with large houses
of stone and lime; the smallest one-story high, with a flat roof
above, and others two and three stories high, and the house of the
lord four stories high. They are all united under his rule. And
on the portals of the principal houses there are many designs of
turquoise stones, of which he says they have a great abundance. And
the people in these cities are very well clothed. . . . Concerning
other provinces farther on, he said that each one of them amounted
to much more than these seven cities.” All this which the Indian
told Friar Marcos was true; and, what is more, the Spanish friar
seems to have correctly understood what the Indian meant, except
that the Indian idea of several villages having a common allied form
of government was interpreted as meaning the rule of a single lord,
who lived in what was to the Indians the chief, because the most
populous, village. These villages of stone and lime—or rather of
stone and rolls or balls of adobe laid in mud mortar and sometimes
whitened with a wash of gypsum[25]—were very large and wondrous
affairs when compared with the huts and shelters of the Seri and some
of the Piman Indians of Sonora.[26] The priest can hardly be blamed
for translating a house entrance into a doorway instead of picturing
it as a bulkhead or as the hatchway of a ship. The Spaniards—those
who had seen service in the Indies—had outgrown their earlier custom
of reading into the Indian stories the ideas of government and of
civilization to which they were accustomed in Europe. But Friar
Marcos was at a disadvantage hardly less than that of the companions
of Cortes, when they first heard of Moctecuhzoma, because his
experience with the wealth of the New World had been in the realm of
the Incas. He interpreted what he did not understand, of necessity,
by what he had seen in Peru.
The story of this Indian did not convince the friar that what he
heard about the grandeur of these seven cities was all true, and he
decided not to believe anything until he had seen it for himself,
or had at least received additional proof. The friar did not start
immediately for the seven cities, as the negro had advised him to
do, but waited until he could see the Indians who had been summoned
from the seacoast. These told him about pearls, which were found near
their homes. Some “painted” Indians, living to the eastward, having
their faces, chests, and arms tattooed or decorated with pigments,
who were perhaps the Pima or Sobaipuri Indians, also visited him
while he was staying at Vacapa and gave him an extended account of
the seven cities, very similar to that of the Indian sent by Estevan.
[p357]
[Illustration: XLI. Map of the World by Ptolemy, 1548]
Friar Marcos started on the second day following Pascua Florida, or
Easter, which came on April 6, 1539. He expected to find Estevan
waiting at the village where he had first heard about the cities.
A second cross, as big as the first, had been received from the
negro, and the messengers who brought this gave a fuller and much
more specific account of the cities, agreeing in every respect with
what had previously been related. When the friar reached the village
where the negro had obtained the first information about the cities,
he secured many new details. He was told that it was thirty days’
journey from this village to the city of Cibola, which was the first
of the seven. Not one person alone, but many, described the houses
very particularly and showed him the way in which they were built,
just as the messengers had done. Besides these seven cities, he
learned that there were other kingdoms, called Marata, Acus, and
Totonteac. The linguistic students, and especially Mr Frank Hamilton
Cushing, have identified the first of these with Matyata or Makyata,
a cluster of pueblos about the salt lakes southeast of Zuñi, which
were in ruins when Alvarado saw them in 1540, although they appeared
to have been despoiled not very long before. Acus is the Acoma
pueblo and Totonteac was in all probability the province of Tusayan,
northwestward from Zuñi. The friar asked these people why they went
so far away from their homes, and was told that they went to get
turquoises and cow skins, besides other valuable things, of all of
which he saw a considerable store in the village.
Friar Marcos tried to find out how these Indians bartered for the
things they brought from the northern country, but all he could
understand was that “with the sweat and service of their persons they
went to the first city, which is called Cibola, and that they labored
there by digging the earth and other services, and that for what they
did they received turquoises and the skins of cows, such as those
people had.” We now know, whatever Friar Marcos may have thought,
that they doubtless obtained their turquoises by digging them out of
the rocky ground in which they are still found in New Mexico, and
this may easily have seemed to them perspiring labor. It is not clear
just how they obtained the buffalo skins, although it was doubtless
by barter. The friar noticed fine turquoises suspended in the ears
and noses of many of the people whom he saw,[27] and he was again
informed that the principal doorways of Cibola were ceremonially
ornamented with designs made of these stones. Mr Cushing has since
learned, through tradition, that this was their custom. The dress of
these people of Cibola, including the belts of turquoises about the
waist, as it was described to the friar, seemed to him to resemble
that of the Bohemians, or gypsies. The cow skins, some of which were
given to him, were tanned and finished so well that he thought it was
evident that they had been prepared by men who were skilled in this
work. [p358]
At this point in his narrative Friar Marcos first uses the word
_pueblo_, village, in referring to the seven cities, a point which
would be of some interest if only we could be sure that the report
was written from notes made as he went along. He certainly implies
that he kept some such record when he speaks of taking down the
statements of the Indian who first told him about the seven cities.
It looks as if the additional details which he was obtaining
gradually dimmed his vision of cities comparable to those into which
he had seen Pizarro gather the golden ransom of Atahualpa.
Friar Marcos had not heard from Estevan since leaving Vacapa, but
the natives told him that the negro was advancing toward Cibola, and
that he had been gone four or five days. The friar started at once to
follow the negro, who had proceeded up Sonora valley, as Mr Bandelier
traces the route. Estevan had planted several large crosses along
the way, and soon began to send messengers to the friar, urging the
latter to hasten, and promising to wait for him at the edge of the
wilderness which lay between them and the country of Cibola. The
friar followed as fast as he could, although constantly hindered
by the natives, who were always ready to verify the stories he had
already heard concerning Cibola. They pressed him to accept their
offers of turquoises and of cow skins in spite of his persistent
refusals. At one village, the lord of the place and his two brothers
greeted the friar, having collars of turquoises about their necks,
while the rest of the people were all _encaconados_, as they called
it, with turquoises, which hung from their ears and noses. Here they
supplied their visitor with deer, rabbits, and quail, besides a great
abundance of corn and piñon seed. They also continued to offer him
turquoises, skins, fine gourds, and other things which they valued.
The Sobaipuri Indians, who were a branch of the Papago, among whom
the friar was now traveling, according to Bandelier, seemed to be as
well acquainted with Cibola as the natives of New Spain were with
Mexico, or those of Peru with Cuzco. They had visited the place many
times, and whatever they possessed which was made with any skill or
neatness had been brought, so they told him, from that country.
Soon after he encountered these people, the friar met a native of
Cibola. He was a well-favored man, rather old, and appeared to be
much more intelligent than the natives of this valley or those of any
of the districts through which the friar had passed in the course of
his march. This man reported that the lord of Cibola lived and had
his seat of government in one of the seven cities called Ahacus, and
that he appointed men in the other cities who ruled for him. Ahacus
is readily identified with Hawikuh, one of the present ruins near
K’iapkwainakwin, or Ojo Caliente, about 15 miles southwest of Zuñi.
On questioning this man closely, the friar learned that Cibola—by
which, as Bandelier and Cushing maintain, the Indian meant the whole
range occupied by the Zuñi people—was a large city, in which a great
many [p359] people dwelt and which had streets and open squares
or plazas. In some parts of it there were very large houses, which
were ten stories high, and the leading men met together in these on
certain days of the year. Possibly this is one of the rare references
in the accounts of these early visits to Zuñi, to the ceremonials
of the Pueblo Indians, which have been studied and described with
so much care by later visitors, notably by Mrs M. C. Stevenson and
by Dr J. Walter Fewkes of the Hemenway Southwestern Archeological
Expedition.
This native of Cibola verified all the reports which the friar had
already heard. Marata, he said, had been greatly reduced by the
lord of Cibola during recent wars. Totonteac was a much larger and
richer place, while Acus was an independent kingdom and province.
The strange thing about all these reports is not that they are true,
and that we can identify them by what is now known concerning these
Indians, but the hard thing to understand is how the Spanish friar
could have comprehended so well what the natives must have tried
to tell him. When one considers the difficulties of language, with
all its technicalities, and of radically different conceptions of
every phase of life and of thought, the result must be an increased
confidence in the common sense and the inherent intelligence of
mankind.
On his way up this valley of Sonora, Friar Marcos heard that the
seacoast turned toward the west. Realizing the importance of this
point, he says that he “went in search of it and saw clearly that
it turns to the west in 35 degrees.” He was at the time between 31
and 31-1/2 degrees north, just opposite the head of the Gulf of
California. If Bandelier’s identification of the friar’s route is
accepted—and it has a great deal more in its favor than any other
that can be proposed with any due regard to the topography of the
country—Friar Marcos was then near the head of San Pedro valley,
distant 200 miles in a direct line from the coast, across a rough and
barren country. Although the Franciscan superior testified to Marcos’
proficiency in the arts of the sea, the friar’s calculation was 3-1/2
degrees out of the way, at a latitude where the usual error in the
contemporary accounts of expeditions is on the average a degree and
a half. The direction of the coast line does change almost due west
of where the friar then was, and he may have gone to some point among
the mountains from which he could satisfy himself that the report
of the Indians was reliable. There is a week or ten days, during
this part of the journey, for which his narrative gives no specific
reckoning. He traveled rather slowly at times, making frequent stops,
so that the side trip is not necessary to fill this gap. The point
is a curious one; but, in the absence of any details, it is hardly
likely that the friar did more than secure from other Indians stories
confirming what he had already been told.
Friar Marcos soon reached the borders of the wilderness—the country
in and about the present White Mountain Apache reservation in
Arizona. He entered this region on May 9, and twelve days later a
young man [p360] who had been with Estevan, the son of one of the
Indian chiefs accompanying the friar, met him and told the story of
the negro’s death. Estevan had hastened to reach Cibola before the
friar, and just prior to arriving at the first city he had sent a
notice of his approach to the chief of the place. As evidence of his
position or authority, he sent a gourd, to which were attached a few
strings of rattles and two plumes, one of which was white and the
other red.
While Cabeza de Vaca and his companions were traveling through
Texas, the natives had flocked to see these strange white men and
soon began to worship them, pressing about them for even a touch
of their garments, from which the Indians trusted to receive some
healing power. While taking advantage of the prestige which was
thus obtained, Cabeza de Vaca says that he secured some gourds or
rattles, which were greatly reverenced among these Indians and which
never failed to produce a most respectful behavior whenever they
were exhibited. It was also among these southern plains Indians that
Cabeza de Vaca heard of the permanent settlements toward the north.
Castañeda says that some of these plains Indians came each year to
Cibola to pass the winter under the shelter of the adobe villages,
but that they were distrusted and feared so much that they were not
admitted into the villages unless unarmed, and under no conditions
were they allowed to spend the night within the flat-roof houses. The
connection between these Indian rattles and the gourd which Estevan
prized so highly can not be proven, but it is not unlikely that the
negro announced his arrival to the Cibola chiefs by sending them an
important part of the paraphernalia of a medicine man of a tribe with
which they were at enmity.
[Illustration: XLII. Battista Agnese’s New Spain, Sixteenth Century
After Kretschmer]
There are several versions of the story of Estevan’s death, besides
the one given in Friar Marcos’ narrative, which were derived from
the natives of Cibola. Castañeda, who lived among these people for
a while the next year, states that the Indians kept the negro a
prisoner for three days, “questioning him,” before they killed him.
He adds that Estevan had demanded from the Indians treasures and
women, and this agrees with the legends still current among these
people.[28] When Alarcon ascended Colorado river a year later, and
tried to obtain news of Coronado, with whom he was endeavoring to
cooperate, he heard of Estevan, who was described as a black man with
a beard, wearing things that sounded, rattles, bells, and plumes,
on his feet and arms—the regular outfit of a southwestern medicine
man.[29] Friar Marcos was told that when the messengers bearing the
gourd showed it to the chief of the Cibola village, he threw it on to
the ground and told the messengers that when their people reached the
village they would find out what sort of men lived there, and that
instead of entering the place they would all be killed. Estevan was
not at all daunted when this answer was reported to him, saying that
everything would be right [p361] when he reached the village in
person. He proceeded thither at once, but instead of being admitted,
he was placed under guard in a house near by.[30] All the turquoises
and other gifts which he had received from the Indians during his
journey were taken from him, and he was confined with the people who
accompanied him, over night, without receiving anything to eat or
drink. The next morning Estevan tried to run away, but was overtaken
and killed. The fugitives who brought this news to Friar Marcos said
that most of their companions also had been killed. The Indians who
had followed the friar forthwith began to mourn for three hundred
of their relations and friends, who had perished, they declared,
as a result of their confidence in his forerunner. This number was
undoubtedly an exaggeration. Castañeda heard that the natives of
Cibola kept a few lads from among those who were with the negro,
“and sent back all the rest, numbering about sixty.” The story of
Estevan’s death is reputed to have been preserved among the legends
of the Indians of Zuñi. According to this tradition, the village at
which the “Black Mexican” was killed was K’iakima, a village now
in ruins, situated on a bluff at the southwestern angle of Thunder
mountain mesa; but this is totally at variance with the historical
evidence, which seems to point quite conclusively to Hawikuh, the
first village encountered from the southwest, as the scene of
Estevan’s death.[31] One of the Indian stories of Estevan’s death
is that their wise men took the negro out of the pueblo during the
night, and “gave him a powerful kick, which sped him through the air
back to the south, whence he came!”
The killing of Estevan made it impossible for Friar Marcos, alone
and unprepared for fighting, to enter the Cibola region. The first
reports of the disaster, as is usually the custom, told of the
death of all who accompanied the negro, and in consequence there
was much wailing among the Indians who had followed the friar.
They threatened to desert him, but he pacified them by opening his
bundles and distributing the trinkets brought from Mexico. While
they were enjoying these, he withdrew a couple of stone-throws for
an hour and a half to pray. Meanwhile, the Indians began again to
think of their lost friends, and decided to kill the friar, as the
indirect cause of the catastrophe. But when he returned from his
devotions, reinvigorated, and learned of their determination, he
diverted their thoughts by producing some of the things which had
been kept back from the first distribution of the contents of his
packs. He expounded to them the folly of killing him, since this
would do him no hurt because he was a Christian and so would go at
once to his home in the sky, while other Christians would come in
search of him and kill all of them, in spite of his own desires to
prevent, if possible, any such revenge. “With many other words” he
[p362] succeeded at last in quieting them and in persuading two of
the chief Indians to go with him to a point where he could obtain
a view of the “city of Cibola.” He proceeded to a small hill, from
which he saw that it was situated on a plain on the slope of a round
height. “It has a very fine appearance for a village,” he writes,
“the best that I have seen in these parts. The houses, as the Indians
had told me, are all of stone, built in stories, and with flat roofs.
Judging by what I could see from the height where I placed myself to
observe it, the settlement is larger than the city of Mexico. . . .
It appears to me that this land is the best and largest of all those
that have been discovered.”
“With far more fright than food,” the friar says he retraced his way
toward New Spain, by hasty marches. During his journey to Cibola, he
had heard of a large and level valley among the mountains, distant
four or five days from the route which he followed, where he was told
that there were many very large settlements in which the people wore
clothes made of cotton. He showed his informants some metals which
he had, in order to find out what there was in that region, and they
picked out the gold, saying that the people in the valley had vessels
made of this material and some round things which they hung from
their ears and noses. They also had some little shovels of this same
metal, with which they scraped themselves to get rid of their sweat.
On his way back, although he had not recovered from his fright, the
friar determined to see this valley. He did not dare to venture into
it, because, as he says, he thought that those who should go to
settle and rule the country of the seven cities could enter it more
safely than he. He did not wish to risk his own life, lest he should
be prevented from making the report of what he had already seen. He
went as far as the entrance to the valley and saw seven good-looking
settlements at a distance, in a very attractive country, from which
arose a great deal of smoke. He understood from the Indians that
there was much gold in the valley, and that the natives used it for
vessels and ornaments, repeating in his narrative the reports which
he had heard on his outward journey.
The friar then hastened down the coast to Culiacan, where he hoped,
but failed, to find Coronado, the governor of the province. He went
on to Compostela, where Coronado was staying. Here he wrote his
report, and sent the announcement of his safe return to the viceroy.
A similar notification to the provincial of his order contained a
request for instructions as to what he should do next. He was still
in Compostela on September 2, and as Mendoza and Coronado also were
there, he took occasion to certify under oath before them to the
truth of all that he had written in the report of his expedition to
Cibola.
THE EFFECT OF FRIAR MARCOS’ REPORT
In his official report it is evident that Friar Marcos distinguished
with care between what he had himself seen and what the Indians had
told him. But Cortes began the practice of attacking the veracity
and [p363] good faith of the friar, Castañeda continued it, and
scarcely a writer on these events failed to follow their guidance
until Mr Bandelier undertook to examine the facts of the case, and
applied the rules of ordinary fairness to his historical judgment.
This vigorous defender of the friar has successfully maintained his
strenuous contention that Marcos neither lied nor exaggerated, even
when he said that the Cibola pueblo appeared to him to be larger than
the City of Mexico. All the witnesses agree that these light stone
and adobe villages impress one who first sees them from a distance as
being much larger than they really are. Mexico in 1539, on the other
hand, was neither imposing nor populous. The great communal houses,
the “palace of Montezuma,” had been destroyed during or soon after
the siege of 1521. The pueblo of Hawikuh, the one which the friar
doubtless saw, contained about 200 houses, or between 700 and 1,000
inhabitants. There is something naïve in Mr Bandelier’s comparison of
this with Robert Tomson’s report that the City of Mexico, in 1556,
contained 1,500 Spanish households.[32] He ought to have added, what
we may be quite sure was true, that the population of Mexico probably
doubled in the fifteen years preceding Tomson’s visit, a fact which
makes Niza’s comparison even more reasonable.[33]
The credit and esteem in which the friar was held by the viceroy,
Mendoza, is as convincing proof of his integrity as that derived from
a close scrutiny of the text of his narrative. Mendoza’s testimony
was given in a letter which he sent to the King in Spain, inclosing
the report written by Friar Marcos, the “première lettre” which
Ternaux translated from Ramusio. This letter spoke in laudatory terms
of the friar, and of course is not wholly unbiased evidence. It is
at least sufficient to counterbalance the hostile declarations of
Cortes and Castañeda, both of whom had far less creditable reasons
for traducing the friar than Mendoza had for praising him. “These
friars,” wrote Mendoza of Marcos and Onorato, “had lived for some
time in the neighboring countries; they were used to hard labors,
experienced in the ways of the Indies, conscientious, and of good
habits.” It is possible that Mendoza felt less confidence than is
here expressed, for before he organized the Coronado expedition, late
in the fall of this year 1539, he ordered Melchior Diaz to go and see
if what he could discover agreed with the account which Friar Marcos
gave.[34]
However careful the friar may have been, he presented to the viceroy
a report in which gold and precious stones abounded, and which
stopped just within sight of the goal—the Seven Cities of Nuño de
Guzman and of the Indian traders and story tellers. Friar Marcos had
[p364] something to tell which interested his readers vastly more
than the painful, wonderful story of Cabeza de Vaca. The very fact
that he took it for granted, as he says in his report, that they
would go to populate and rule over this land of the Seven Cities,
with its doorways studded with turquoises, was enough to insure
interest. He must, indeed, have been a popular preacher, and when
the position of father provincial to the Franciscans became vacant,
just now, brother Marcos, already high in the order and with all the
fresh prestige of his latest achievements, was evidently the subject
for promotion. Castañeda, who is not the safest authority for events
preceding the expedition, says that the promotion was arranged by
the viceroy. This may have been so. His other statement is probable
enough, that, as a result of the promotion, the pulpits of the order
were filled with accounts of such marvels and wonders that large
numbers were eager to join in the conquest of this new land. Whatever
Friar Marcos may have sacrificed to careful truth was atoned for, we
may be sure, by the zealous, loyal brethren of blessed Saint Francis.
[Illustration: XLIII. The City of Mexico about 1550, by Alonzo de
Santa Cruz]
Don Joan Suarez de Peralta was born, as Señor Zaragoza shows in his
admirable edition of the Tratado del Descubrimiento de las Yndias y
su Conquista, in Mexico between 1535 and 1540, and probably nearer
the first of these five years. In the Tratado, Suarez de Peralta
gives a most interesting description of the effect produced in Mexico
by the departure and the return of the Coronado expedition. He can
hardly have had very vivid personal recollections of the excitement
produced by the reports of Friar Marcos, yet his account is so clear
and circumstantial that it evidently must be the narrative of an
eyewitness, though recorded, it may be, at secondhand. He tells us
that “the country was so stirred up by the news which the friar
had brought from the Seven Cities that nothing else was thought
about. For he said that the city of Cibola was big enough to contain
two Sevilles and over, and the other places were not much smaller;
and that the houses were very fine edifices, four stories high; and
in the country there are many of what they call wild cows, and sheep
and goats and rich treasures. He exaggerated things so much, that
everybody was for going there and leaving Mexico depopulated. . . . .
The news from the Seven Cities inspired so eager a desire in every
one that not only did the viceroy and the marquis (Cortes) make ready
to start for there, but the whole country wanted to follow them so
much that they traded for the licenses which permitted them to go
as soldiers, and people sold these as a favor, and whoever obtained
one of these thought that it was as good as a title of nobility at
the least. For the friar who had come from there exaggerated and
said that it was the best place in the world; the people in that
country very prosperous, and all the Indians wearing clothes and the
possessors of much cattle; the mountains like those of Spain, and the
climate the same. For wood, they burnt very large walnut trees, which
bear quantities of [p365] walnuts better than those of Spain. They
have many mountain grapes, which are very good eating, chestnuts, and
filberts. According to the way he painted it, this should have been
the terrestrial paradise. For game, there were partridges, geese,
cranes, and all the other winged creatures—it was marvelous what was
there.” And then Suarez adds, writing half a century later, “He told
the truth in all this, because there are mountains in that country,
as he said, and herds, especially of cows. . . . . There are grapes
and game, without doubt, and a climate like that of Spain.”[35]
Second-hand evidence, recorded fifty years after the occurrence,
is far from conclusive. Fortunately, we are able to supplement it
by legal testimony, taken down and recorded under oath, with all
the formalities of the old Spanish law customs. When the news of
Friar Marcos’ journey reached Spain there was much rivalry among
those who claimed the privilege of completing the discovery. Much
evidence was presented and frequent pleas were entered by all the
men who had an active part and leadership in the conquest of the
northern portion of the New World. In the course of the litigation
the representative of the adelantado Hernando de Soto, presented some
testimony which had been given in the town of San Cristobal de la
Habana de la Isla Fernandina—Habana and Cuba—dated November 12, 1539.
There were seven witnesses, from a ship which had been obliged to
put into this port in order to procure water and other supplies, and
also because some persons aboard had become very sick. Each witness
declared that a month or more before—Friar Marcos arrived back in
Mexico before the end of August, 1539—he had heard, and that this
was common talk in Mexico, Vera Cruz, and in Puebla de los Angeles,
that a Franciscan friar named Fray Marcos, who had recently come
from the inland regions, said that he had discovered a very rich
and very populous country 400 or 500 leagues north of Mexico. “He
said that the country is rich in gold, silver and other treasures,
and that it contains very large villages; that the houses are built
of stone, and terraced like those of Mexico, and that they are high
and imposing. The people, so he said, are shrewd, and do not marry
more than one wife at a time, and they wear coarse woolen cloth and
ride on some animals,” the name of which the witness did not know.
Another testified that the common report was that this country “was
very rich and populous and had great walled cities, and that the
lords of the cities were called kings, and that the people were
very shrewd and use the Mexican language.” But the witness to whose
deposition we are most indebted was Andrés Garcia. This man declared
that he had a son-in-law who was a barber, who had shaved the friar
after he came back from the new country. The son-in-law had told the
witness that the friar, while being [p366] shaved, had talked about
the country which he had discovered beyond the mountains. “After
crossing the mountains, the friar said there was a river, and that
many settlements were there, in cities and towns, and that the cities
were surrounded by walls, with their gates guarded, and were very
wealthy, having silversmiths, and that the women wore strings of gold
beads and the men girdles of gold and white woolen dresses; and that
they had sheep and cows and partridges and slaughterhouses and iron
forges.”[36]
Friar Marcos undoubtedly never willfully told an untruth about the
country of Cibola, even in a barber’s chair. But there seems to be
little chance for doubting that the reports which he brought to New
Spain were the cause of much talk as well as many sermons, which
gave rise to a considerable amount of excitement among the settlers,
whose old-world notions had been upset by the reputed glory of the
Montezumas and the wealth of the Incas. Very many, though perhaps
not all, of the colonists were stirred with an eager desire to
participate in the rich harvest awaiting the conquerors of these new
[p367] lands. Friar Marcos was not a liar, but it is impossible to
ignore the charges against him quite as easily as Mr Bandelier has
done.
Pedro Castañeda makes some very damaging statements, which are
not conclusive proof of the facts. Like the statements of Suarez
de Peralta, they represent the popular estimation of the father
provincial, and they repeat the stories which passed current
regarding him, when the later explorations had destroyed the vision
that had been raised by the reports of the friar’s exploration.
The accusations made by Cortes deserve more careful consideration.
Cortes returned to Spain about the time that the preparations for the
Coronado expedition were definitely begun. Soon after his arrival
at court, June 25, 1540,[37] he addressed a formal memorial to the
King, setting forth in detail the ill treatment which he had received
from Mendoza. In this he declared that after the viceroy had ordered
him to withdraw his men from their station on the coast of the
mainland toward the north—where they were engaged in making ready for
extended inland explorations—he had a talk with Friar Marcos. “And
I gave him,” says Cortes, “an account of this said country and of
its discovery, because I had determined to send him in my ships to
follow up the said northern coast and conquer that country, because
he seemed to understand something about matters of navigation. The
said friar communicated this to the said viceroy, and he says that,
with his permission, he went by land in search of the same coast and
country as that which I had discovered, and which it was and is my
right to conquer. And since his return, the said friar has published
the statement that he came within sight of the said country, which I
deny that he has either seen or discovered; but instead, in all that
the said friar reports that he has seen, he only repeats the account
I had given him regarding the information which I obtained from the
Indians of the said country of Santa Cruz, because everything which
the said friar says that he discovered is just the same as what
these said Indians had told me: and in enlarging upon this and in
pretending to report what he neither saw nor learned, the said Friar
Marcos does nothing new, because he has done this many other times,
and this was his regular habit, as is notorious in the provinces of
Peru and Guatemala; and sufficient evidence regarding this will be
given to the court whenever it is necessary.”[38]
This is a serious charge, but so far as is known it was never
substantiated. Cortes was anxious to enforce his point, and he was
not always scrupulous in regard to the exact truth. The important
point is that such charges were made by a man who was in the position
to learn all [p368] the facts, and that the accusations were made
before anyone knew how little basis there was for the stories which
were the cause of the whole trouble. Without trying to clear the
character of Cortes, it is possible to suggest the answer to the
most evident reply to his accusations—that he never published the
stories which he says he received from the Indians. Cortes certainly
did persist in his endeavors to explore the country lying about the
head of the Gulf of California. If he ever heard from the Indians
anything concerning the Cibola region—which is doubtful, partly
because Cortes himself complains that if Mendoza had not interfered
with the efficiency of his expeditions, he would have secured this
information—it would still have been the best policy for Cortes
to keep the knowledge to himself, so that possible rivals might
remain ignorant of it until he had perfected his own plans. It may
be questioned how long such secrecy would have been possible, but
we know how successfully the Spanish authorities managed to keep
from the rest of the world the correct and complete cartographical
information as to what was being accomplished in the New World,
throughout the period of exploration and conquest.
The truce—it can hardly be called a friendship—between Mendoza and
Cortes, which prevailed during the first years of the viceroy’s
administration, could not last long. Mendoza, as soon as he was
fairly settled in his position in New Spain,[39] asked the King for
a license to make explorations. Cortes still looked on every rival
in the work of extending this portion of the Spanish world as an
interloper, even though he must have recognized that his prestige at
the court and in the New World was rapidly lessening. The distrust
with which each of the two regarded the other increased the trouble
which was inevitable so soon as the viceroy, urged on by the
audiencia, undertook to execute the royal orders which instructed
him to investigate the extent of the estates held by Cortes, and
to enumerate the Indians held to service by the conqueror. Bad
feeling was inevitable, and the squabbles over forms of address and
of precedence, which Suarez de Peralta records, were only a few of
many things which reveal the relations of the two leading men in New
Spain. [p369]
[Illustration: XLIV. Zaltieri’s Karte, 1566]
We can not be certain what the plans of Cortes were, nor can we tell
just how much he did to carry his schemes into execution, during
the years from 1537 to 1540. Shortly after the men whom Cortes had
established at Santa Cruz were recalled, a decree was issued, in the
name of the audiencia, to forbid the sending of any expedition for
exploration or conquest from New Spain. Cortes declared that he had
at this time, September, 1538, nine good ships already built. He
was naturally unwilling to give up all hope of deriving any benefit
from his previous undertakings, as would be inevitable if Mendoza
should succeed in his projects for taking advantage of whatever good
things could be found toward the north. The danger must have seemed
clear so soon as he learned of the departure of Friar Marcos and the
negro on their journey toward the Seven Cities. There is no means of
knowing whether Cortes had learned of the actual discovery of Cibola,
when he suddenly ordered Francisco de Ulloa to take three vessels
and sail up the coast toward the head of the Gulf of California. The
friar may have sent Indian messengers to the viceroy so soon as he
heard the native reports about the seven cities of Cibola, and it is
possible that the news of his approaching return may have reached New
Spain before the departure of Ulloa, which took place July 8, 1539,
from Acapulco.[40] It seems clear that this action was unexpected,
and that it was a successful anticipation of preventive measures.
In the statement of his grievances, Cortes declares that Mendoza
not only threw every possible obstacle in his way, seizing six or
seven vessels which failed to get away with Ulloa, but that even
after Ulloa had gone, the viceroy sent a strong force up the coast
to prevent the ships from entering any of the ports. When stress
of weather forced one of the ships to put into Guatulco, the pilot
and sailors were imprisoned and the viceroy persistently refused
to return the ship to its owner. About the same time, a messenger
who had been sent to Cortes from Santiago in Colima was seized and
tortured, in the hope of procuring from him information about the
plans of Cortes.[41]
After Friar Marcos came back from the north and filled the people
in New Spain with the desire of going to this new country, Cortes
realized that he could do nothing, even in the city which he had won
for his King and for Europe, to prevent the expedition which Mendoza
was already organizing. Early in 1540—we know only that he was on
his way when he wrote to Oviedo from Habana[42] on February 5—the
conqueror of Motecuhzoma’s empire left Mexico for the last time, and
went to see what he could gain by a personal application at the court
of His Majesty the Emperor, Charles V. [p370]
Mendoza had guarded against rival expeditions from his own territory,
and so soon as he knew that Friar Marcos had succeeded in his quest,
he took precautions to prevent the news of the discovery from
reaching other portions of the New World. His chief fear, probably,
was lest De Soto, who had recently received a license to explore the
country between the Rio de las Palmas, in the present Texas, and
Florida,[43] might direct his expedition toward the western limits
of his territory, if he should learn of the rich prospects there.
Although Mendoza probably did not know it, De Soto had sailed from
Habana in May, 1539, and in July, sending back his largest ships, he
began the long march through the everglades of Florida, which was
to end in the Mississippi. Mendoza, with all the formality of the
viceregal authority, ordered that no vessel sailing from New Spain
should touch at any port in the New World on its way back to the
home peninsula, and this notice was duly served on all departing
shipmasters by the secretaries of the viceroy. By the middle of
November, however, despite all this care, a ship from Vera Cruz
sailed into the harbor of Habana. The master declared, on his oath,
that he had been forced to put in there, because sickness had broken
out aboard his vessel soon after the departure from New Spain and
because he had discovered that his stock of provisions and water was
insufficient for the voyage across the Atlantic. Curiously enough,
one of the crew, possibly one of those who had been seized with the
sickness, had in his possession some letters which he had been asked
to deliver to Hernando De Soto, in Habana. Apparently the agent or
friend of De Soto living in Mexico, one Francisco de Billegas, did
not know that the adelantado had left Cuba, although he had arranged
to have the letters carried to Spain and given to the representative
of the adelantado there if De Soto was not found at Habana. De Soto
had taken care that his interests should be watched and protected, in
Spain as well as in the New World, when he started on his search for
the land of wealth north of the Gulf of Mexico, the search on which
Ayllon and Narvaez had failed so sadly.
It was the regular practice of all the governors and successful
explorers in the colonies of the empire to maintain representatives
in Spain who should look after their interests at court and before
the administrative bureaus. When the news of Friar Marcos’ discovery
reached Europe, accompanied by reports of the preparations which
Mendoza was making for an expedition to take possession of the new
territory, protests and counterclaims were immediately presented in
behalf of all those who could claim any right to participate in this
new field of conquest. The first formal statements were filed with
the Council for the Indies, March 3, 1540, and on June 10, 1541, the
factor or representative of Cortes, whose petition is first among
the papers relating to the case, asked for an extension of six days.
This ends the [p371] documents concerning the litigation, so far
as they have been printed.[44] Petitions, testimony, narratives of
explorations and discoveries, acts taking possession of new lands,
notifications and decisions, appeals and countercharges, were filed
and referred, each claimant watching his rivals so closely and
objecting to their claims so strenuously that the fiscal, Villalobos,
in his report on the case, May 25, 1540, gives as one of the most
conclusive reasons in favor of the advice which he offers to the
Council, that each of the parties has clearly proved that none of the
others have any right to claim a share in the newly discovered region
by virtue of any grants, licenses, or achievements whatsoever.
Of the various claimants, the representative of the adelantado
Hernando De Soto offered perhaps the best argument. The territory
granted to De Soto extended on the west to the Rio de las Palmas,
and this grant was the same as that previously made to Narvaez.
The discovery had grown out of the expedition of Narvaez, to whose
rights De Soto had succeeded, through the reports which Cabeza
de Vaca carried to New Spain. The newly discovered region was
evidently inland, and this fact disposed of the two prominent
rivals, Cortes and Alvarado. The adelantado had expended large sums
in preparing for this undertaking—a claim advanced with equal vigor
by all the parties, and usually supported by specific accounts,
which unfortunately are not printed—and it was only right that he
should be given every opportunity to reap the full advantage from
these outlays. Most important of all was the fact that De Soto was
already in the country north of the gulf, in command of a large and
well equipped force, and presumably on his way toward the region
about which they were disputing. Because De Soto was there, urged
his representative with strong and persistent emphasis, all other
exploring expeditions ought to be kept away. It was clearly probable
that great and notorious scandals would ensue unless this was guarded
against, just as had happened in Peru. If this precaution was not
taken, and two expeditions representing conflicting interests should
be allowed to come together in the country beyond the reach of the
royal restraint, many lives would inevitably be lost and great damage
be done to the Spaniards, and to the souls of the Indians as well,
while the enlargement of the royal patrimony would be hindered.[45]
Cortes reached Spain some time in April, 1540,[46] and was able to
direct his case in person for much of the time. He urged the priority
of his [p372] claims under the royal license, dating from 1529.[47]
He told of his many efforts to enlarge the Spanish domain, undertaken
at great expense, personal sacrifice and danger, and resulting in
the loss of relations and friends. From all of this, as he carefully
pointed out, neither His Majesty nor himself had received any proper
benefit, though this was not the result of any fault or lack of
diligence on his part, as he hastened to explain, but had been caused
by the persistent and ill-concealed hostility of the audiencia and
the viceroy in New Spain, “concerning all of which His Majesty must
have been kept heretofore in ignorance.”
Nuño de Guzman presented his case in person, though perhaps this was
not so much because it was more effective as because his resources
must have been limited and his time little occupied. He was able,
indeed, to make out a very good argument, assuming his right to
the governorship of New Galicia, a province which had been greatly
enlarged by his conquests. These conquests were toward the north,
and he had taken possession of all the land in that direction in
behalf of His Catholic Majesty. He would have extended the Spanish
territory much farther in the same direction, if only his zealous
efforts had not been abruptly cut short by his persecutors, through
whose malicious efforts he was even yet nominally under arrest. Nor
was this all, for all future expeditions into the new region must go
across the territory which was rightfully his, and they could only
succeed by the assistance and resources which would be drawn from his
country. Thus he was the possessor of the key to all that lay beyond.
The commission or license which Pedro de Alvarado took with him
from Spain the year before these proceedings opened, granted him
permission to explore toward the west and the north—the latter
provision probably inserted as a result of the reports which Cabeza
de Vaca brought to Spain. Alvarado had prepared an expedition at
great expense, and since the new region lay within his grant, his
advocate pleaded, it would evidently pertain to him to conquer it.
Moreover, he was in very high favor at court, as is shown by the ease
with which he regained his position, in spite of the attack by the
Mexican audiencia, and also by the ease with which he obtained the
papal permission allowing him to marry the sister of his former wife.
But Alvarado figures only slightly in the litigation, and he may
have appeared as a party in order to maintain an opposition, rather
than with any hope or intention of establishing the justice of his
claims. Everything seems to add to the probability of the theory that
Mendoza effected an alliance with him very early. It is possible that
the negotiations may have begun before Alvarado left Spain, although
there is no certainty about anything which preceded the written
articles of agreement. Some of the contemporary historians appear to
have been ignorant even of these. [p373]
[Illustration: XLV. Mercator’s Northwestern Part of New Spain, 1569]
The Council for the Indies referred the whole matter of the
petitions and accompanying evidence to the fiscal, the licentiate
Villalobos, April 21, 1540. He made a report, which virtually
decided the case, May 25. The parties were given an opportunity
of replying to this, and they continued to present evidence and
petitions and countercharges for a year longer. The final decision,
if any was made, has not been printed, so far as I know, but the
Council could hardly have done anything beyond formally indorsing
the report of Villalobos. The duty of the fiscal was plain, and his
report advises His Majesty not to grant any of the things asked for
by the petitioners. He states that this discovery ought to be made
by and in behalf of His Majesty, since the region was not included
in any previous grant. Although the Crown had forbidden any further
unlicensed explorations, this would not prevent expeditions being
undertaken on the part of the Crown, which is always at liberty to
explore at will. In effect, of course, the report sanctioned the
exploration by Mendoza, who represented the royal interests and
power. An objection was at once entered in behalf of De Soto, using
the very good argument that Mendoza’s expedition would be sent out
either at the expense of the Crown or of his private fortune. If the
former, it was claimed that as the explorer would have the glory in
any event, the Crown ought to save the expense by allowing De Soto,
who had already undertaken the same thing at his own cost, to make
these discoveries, which he promised should redound to as great an
extent to the glory and advantage of the Emperor. If Mendoza was
undertaking this at his own expense, it was evident that he would
desire to recover his outlay. Here he was merely on the same footing
as De Soto, who was prepared to make a better offer to his Royal
Master than Mendoza could possibly afford. In either case there was
the danger of scandal and disaster, in case the two expeditions
should be allowed to come together beyond the range of the royal
oversight. No answer to this appeal is recorded, and the parties
continued to argue down their opponents’ cases, while the viceroy
in New Spain started the expedition which, under the command of
Francisco Vazquez Coronado, discovered the Pueblo Indians of New
Mexico, the Grand canyon of the Colorado, and the bison of the great
plains.
THE EXPEDITION TO NEW MEXICO AND THE GREAT PLAINS
THE ORGANIZATION OF THE EXPEDITION
Two classes of colonists are essential to the security and the
permanent prosperity of every newly opened country. In New Spain
in the sixteenth century these two classes, sharply divided and
almost antagonistic—the established settlers and the free soldiers
of fortune—were both of considerable importance. Cortes, so soon
as he had conquered the country, recognized the need of providing
for its settlement by a stable population. In the petitions and
memorials which he wrote in [p374] 1539 and 1540 he continually
reiterates the declaration of the pains and losses sustained on
account of his efforts to bring colonists from Spain to populate the
New World. Whether he accomplished all that these memorials claim is
doubtful, for there are comparatively few references to this class
of immigrants during the years when Cortes was in a position to
accomplish his designs. Mendoza declared that the increase of the
European population in New Spain came largely after his own arrival
there, in 1535, and this was probably true. The “good viceroy”
unquestionably did more than anyone else to place the province on a
permanent basis.[48]
Mendoza supervised with great care the assignment of land to the
newcomers, and provided tools and stock for those who had not the
means of equipping their farms. As a royal decree forbade the
granting of land to unmarried men, besides directing an increase of
royal favor and additional grants proportionate to the increase of
children, the viceroy frequently advanced the money which enabled
men who were desirous of settling down to get married. When he
came from Spain in 1535, he brought with him a number of eligible
spinsters, and it is quite probable that, after these had found
husbands, he maintained the supply of maids suitable to become the
wives of those colonists who wished to experience the royal bounty
and favor. Alvarado engaged in a similar undertaking when he came out
to Guatemala in 1539, but with less success than we may safely hope
rewarded the thoughtfulness of Mendoza.[49] A royal order in 1538
had decreed that all who held encomiendas should marry within three
years, if not already possessed of a wife, or else forfeit their
estates to married men. Some of the bachelor landholders protested
against the enforcement of this order in Guatemala, because eligible
white women could not be found nearer than Mexico. To remove this
objection, Alvarado brought twenty maidens from Spain. Soon after
their arrival, a reception was held, at which they were given a
chance to see their prospective husbands. During the evening, one
of the girls declared to her companions that she never could marry
one of these “old fellows, . . . who were cut up as if they had just
escaped from the infernal regions, . . . for some of them are lame,
some have only one hand, others have no ears or only one eye, and
some of them have lost half their faces. The best of them have one
or two scars across their foreheads.” [p375] The story is that one
of the “old fellows” overheard this outburst, reported it to his
friends, and promptly went off and married the daughter of a powerful
cacique.
Besides assisting his colonists to get wives, Mendoza did a great
deal to foster the agricultural interests of the province. He
continued the importation of cattle, which Cortes had begun, and
also procured horses and sheep from Spain. He writes in one of his
letters of the especial satisfaction that he felt because of the
rapid increase of his merino sheep, in spite of the depredations
of the natives and of wild animals. The chief concern of the
officials of the audiencia had been the gold mines, which yielded
a considerable revenue in certain districts; but Mendoza, without
neglecting these, proved how large and reliable was the additional
revenue which could be derived from other sources. The viceroy’s
success in developing the province can not be shown more clearly
than by repeating the description of New Spain in 1555, written by
Robert Tomson, an English merchant engaged in the Spanish trade. In
the course of a business tour Tomson visited the City of Mexico. His
commercial friends in the city entertained him most hospitably, and
did their best to make his visit pleasant. He refused, however, to
heed their warnings, and his indiscreet freedom of speech finally
compelled the officials of the Inquisition to imprison him, thus
adding considerably to the length of his residence in the city. After
he returned home, he wrote a narrative of his tour, in which he says
of New Spain:
“As for victuals in the said Citie, of beefe, mutton, and hennes,
capons, quailes, Guiñy-cockes, and such like, all are very good
cheape: To say, the whole quarter of an oxe, as much as a slaue
can carry away from the Butchers, for fine Tomynes, that is, fine
Royals of plate, which is iust two shillings and sixe pence, and
a fat sheepe at the Butchers for three Royals, which is 18. pence
and no more. Bread is as good cheape as in Spaine, and all other
kinde of fruites, as apples, peares, pomegranats, and quinces, at
a reasonable rate. . . . [The country] doth yeeld great store of
very good silke, and Cochinilla. . . . Also there are many goodly
fruits, whereof we haue none such, as Plantanos, Guyanes, Sapotes,
Tunas, and in the wildernes great store of blacke cheries, and other
wholsome fruites. . . . Also the Indico that doeth come from thence
to die blew, is a certaine hearbe. . . . Balme, Salsaperilla, cana
fistula, suger, oxe hides, and many other good and seruiceable
things the Countrey doeth yeeld, which are yeerely brought into
Spaine, and there solde and distributed to many nations.”[50]