Part 2

The value of Espejo's narration is undoubtedly great. The author was a close practical observer and a sincere reporter. The more is it surprising that his statements in regard to the population of the Pueblos are so manifestly exaggerated; yet, as I have elsewhere stated, this may be explained. A tendency to enhance somewhat the importance of discoveries is inherent in almost every discoverer, but in the case of Espejo he was exposed to another danger. As he proceeded from village to village the natives gathered at every point from other places out of curiosity, fear, or perhaps with hostile intent, so that the number of the people which the explorer met was each time much larger than the actual number of inhabitants. On the question of population Espejo could have no knowledge, since he had no means of communicating with the people by speech. Furthermore, it is well known that a crowd always appears more numerous than it would prove to be after an actual count; besides, even if he could have counted the Indians present, he would have fallen into the error of recording the same individual several times.

During the comparatively short time which Espejo had to explore the country as far as the Hopi or Moqui, he collected interesting ethnological data. Customs that appeared new as late as the second half of the last century were noted by him; and while his nomenclature of the Pueblos agrees in many points with that of the Coronado expedition, terms were added that have since been definitely adopted. Espejo's return to Mexico was to be followed by a definite occupancy of the Rio Grande country, but his untimely death prevented it, and the subsequent plan of colonization, framed and proposed by Juan Bautista de Lomas Colmenares, led to no practical results, as likewise did the ill-fated expedition of Humaña, Bonilla, and Leyva, the disastrous end of which in the plains became known only through a few vestiges of information and by hearsay.

Seven years after Espejo's journey, Gaspar Castaño de Sosa penetrated to the Rio Grande near the present village of Santo Domingo. The report thereon is explicit and sober, and in it we find the first mention of the Spanish names by which some of the Pueblos have since become known. From this report it is easy to follow the route taken by Castaño and his followers, but the account is incomplete, terminating abruptly at Santo Domingo, whither Castaño had been followed by Captain Juan de Morlete, who was sent after him by the governor of what is now Coahuila, without whose permission Castaño had undertaken the journey. I have no knowledge as yet of any document giving an account of the return of the expedition.

Seven years more elapsed ere the permanent occupancy of New Mexico was effected under the leadership of Juan de Oñate. Thenceforward events in that province became the subject of uninterrupted documentary record.

The very wise and detailed ordinances regulating the discovery and annexation to Spain of new territory, promulgated by Philip II, declared that every exploration or conquest (the term "conquest" was subsequently eliminated from Spanish official terminology and that of "pacification" substituted) should be recorded as a journal or diary. Royal decrees operated very slowly in distant colonies. Neither Chamuscado nor Espejo kept journals, but Castaño de Sosa, and especially Oñate, did. His _diario_ (which is accessible through its publication in the _Documentos del Archivo de Indias_, although there are traces of an earlier publication) was copied for printing by someone manifestly unacquainted with New Mexico or with its Indian nomenclature, hence its numerous names for sites and tribes are often very difficult to identify. But the document itself is a sober, matter-of-fact record of occurrences and geographical details, interspersed with observations of more or less ethnological value. As Oñate followed the course of the Rio Grande upward from below El Paso del Norte, and afterward branched off to almost every sedentary settlement in New Mexico and Arizona, the comparison of his diary with previous reports (those of the Coronado expedition included) is highly valuable, indeed indispensable. The _diario_ forms the beginning of accurate knowledge of the region under consideration. Perhaps more important still are the Acts of Obedience and Homage (_Obediencia y Vasallaje_) executed at various villages during the course of the years 1598 and 1599. At first sight, and to one unacquainted with Pueblo idioms, they present an unintelligible list of partly recognizable names. But the confusion becomes somewhat reduced through closer scrutiny and by taking into consideration the circumstances under which each official document was framed. Oñate already enjoyed the advantage of interpreters in at least one New Mexican Indian tongue, but the meetings or councils during which the "acts of obedience" were written were not always at places where his interpreters understood the language of the people they were among. These scribes faithfully recorded the names of pueblos as they heard them, and sometimes several names, each in a different language for the same village, hence the number of pueblos recorded is considerably larger than it actually was. Again the inevitable misunderstanding of Indian pronunciation by the Spaniards caused them to write the same word in different forms according as the sounds were uttered and caught by the ear. An accurate copy of these documents of Oñate's time made by one versed in Pueblo nomenclature and somewhat acquainted with Pueblo languages would be highly desirable. Oñate is not given to fulness in ethnological details. His journal is a dry record of what happened during his march and occupancy of the country. Customs are only incidentally and briefly alluded to.

One of Oñate's officers, however, Captain Gaspar Perez de Villagra, or Villagran, published in 1610 a _Historia de la Nueva Mexico_ in verse. As an eye-witness of the events he describes, Villagran has the merits and defects of all such authors, and the fact that he wrote in rhyme called poetry does not enhance the historical merit of his book. Nevertheless we find in it many data regarding the Pueblos not elsewhere recorded, and study of the book is very necessary. We must allow for the temptation to indulge in so-called poetical license, although Villagran employs less of it than most Spanish chroniclers of the period that wrote in verse. The use of such form and style of writing was regarded in Spain as an accomplishment at the time, and not many attempted it, which is just as well. Some of the details and descriptions of actions and events by Villagran have been impeached as improbable; but even if such were the case, they would not detract from the merits of his book as an attempt at an honest and sincere narration and a reasonably faithful description.

The minor documents connected with Oñate's enterprise and subsequent administration of the New Mexican colony, so far as known, are of comparatively small importance to the history of the Rio Grande Pueblos. During the first years of the seventeenth century the attention of Oñate was directed chiefly toward explorations in western Arizona and the Gulf of California. While he was absent on his memorable journey, quarrels arose in New Mexico between the temporal and ecclesiastical authorities, which disturbed the colony for many years and form the main theme of the documentary material still accessible. Even the manuscripts relating to these troubles contain, here and there, references to the ethnological condition of the Pueblos. Charges and counter-charges of abuses committed by church and state could not fail to involve, incidentally, the points touching upon the Indians, and the documentary material of that period, still in manuscript but accessible through the copies made by me and now in the Peabody Museum of Harvard University, should not be neglected by serious investigators. To enter into details regarding the tenor of these documents would be beyond the scope of this Introduction, but I would call attention in a general way to the value and importance of church records, which consist chiefly of registers of baptisms, marriages, and deaths. These for the greater part were kept with considerable scrupulosity, although there are periods during which the same degree of care was not exercised. They are valuable ethnologically by reason of the data which they afford with respect to intermarriages between members of distant tribes, through the numerous Indian personal names that they contain, and on account of the many records of events which the priests deemed it desirable to preserve. Examples will be given in the text of the Documentary History to follow.

The _Libros de Fabrica_, in which are recorded items bearing on the economic side of church administration, are usually less important; still they contain data that should not be neglected, for very often minor points deserve as much attention as salient ones. Unfortunately the church records of the period prior to 1680 have well-nigh disappeared from New Mexico, but some still exist at El Paso del Norte (Juarez), Chihuahua, that date back to the middle of the seventeenth century. The absence of these records may be somewhat overcome by another class of ecclesiastical documents, much more numerous and more laborious to consult. In fact I am the only one who thus far has attempted to penetrate the mass of material which they contain, although my researches have been far from exhaustive, owing to lack of support in my work. These documents, commonly called "Diligencias Matrimoniales," are the results of official investigations into the status of persons desiring to marry. From their nature these investigations always cover a considerable period, sometimes more than a generation, and frequently disclose historical facts that otherwise might remain unknown. These church papers also, though not frequently, include fragments of correspondence and copies of edicts and decrees that deserve attention.

The destruction of the archives and of writings of all kinds in New Mexico during the Indian revolt of 1680 and in succeeding years has left the documentary history of the province during the seventeenth century almost a blank. Publications are very few in number. There is no doubt that the archives of Spain and even those of Mexico will yet reveal a number of sources as yet unknown; but in the meantime, until these treasures are brought to light, we must remain more or less in the dark as to the conditions and the details of events prior to 1692. A number of letters emanating from Franciscan sources have been published lately in Mexico by Luis Garcia y Pimentel, and these throw sidelights on New Mexico as it was in the seventeenth century that are not without value. In the manuscripts from the archives at Santa Fé that survived the Pueblo revolt, now chiefly in the Library of Congress at Washington, occasional references to events anterior to the uprising may be found; and the church books of El Paso del Norte (Juarez) contain some few data that should not be neglected.

In 1602 there was published at Rome, under the title of _Relación del Descubrimiento del Nuevo Mexico_, a small booklet by the Dean of Santiago, Father Montoya, which purports to give a letter from Oñate on his occupancy of New Mexico and journey to the Colorado river of the West, thus covering the period between 1597 and 1605. It is preceded by a notice of Espejo's exploration, but it is entirely too brief to afford much information. The little book is exceedingly rare; but three copies of it exist in the United States, so far as I am aware.

Of greater importance are the notices, of about the same period, preserved by Fray Juan de Torquemada in the first volume of his _Monarchia Indiana_ (1615). In this work we find the first mention of some Pueblo fetishes, with their names, as understood at the time. The letter of Fray Francisco de San Miguel, first priest of Pecos, given in print by Torquemada, is of considerable interest. Torquemada himself was never in New Mexico, but he stood high in the Franciscan Order and had full access to the correspondence and to all other papers submitted from outside missions during his time. It is much to be regretted that the three manuscript pamphlets by Fray Roque Figueredo, bearing the titles _Relacion del Viage al Nuevo México_, _Libro de las Fundaciones del Nuevo Mexico_, and _Vidas de los Varones Ilustres_, etc., appear to be lost. Their author was first in New Mexico while Oñate governed that province, and his writings were at the great convent of Mexico. Whether they disappeared during the ruthless dispersion of its archives in 1857 or were lost at an earlier date is not known.

After the recall of Oñate from New Mexico, not only the colony but also the missions in that distant land began to decline, owing to the bitter contentions between the political and the ecclesiastical authorities. The Franciscan Order, desirous of inspiring an interest in New Mexican missions, fostered the literary efforts of its missionaries in order to promote a propaganda for conversions. It also sent a special visitor to New Mexico in the person of Fray Estevan de Perea, who gave expression to what he saw and ascertained, in two brief printed but excessively rare documents, a facsimile copy of which is owned by my friend Mr F. W. Hodge, of the Bureau of American Ethnology. A third letter which I have not been able to see is mentioned by Ternaux-Compans, also a "Relacion de la Conversion de los Jumanos" by the same and dated 1640.

Much more extended than the brief pamphlets by Fray Perea is the _Relaciones de todas las cosas acaecidas en el Nuevo Mexico hasta el Año de 1626_ (I abbreviate the very long title), by Fray Geronimo de Zárate Salmerón, which was published in the third series of the first _Colección de Documentos para la Historia de Mexico_, and also by Mr Charles F. Lummis in _The Land of Sunshine_, with an English translation. This work, while embodying chiefly a narrative most valuable to the ethnography of western Arizona and eastern California, of the journey of Oñate to the Colorado river of the West, followed by an extended report on De Soto's expedition to the Mississippi river, contains data on the Rio Grande Pueblos and on those of Jemez that are of permanent value. The author gives the numbers of Pueblo Indians officially converted during his time.

We come now to a book which, though small in compass, has had perhaps greater circulation in languages other than Spanish, with the exception of the _Destruycion de las Indias_ by the notorious Las Casas, than any other. This is the work of Fray Alonso de Benavides, on New Mexico, first published in 1630 under the misleading title of _Memorial que Fray Juan de Santander de la Orden de San Francisco, Comisario General de Indias, presenta a la Magestad Catolica del Rey don Felipe cuarto nuestro Señor_, etc., Madrid, 1630. Benavides was custodian of the Franciscan province of New Mexico for some time, and therefore had good opportunity of knowing both the country and its natives. He gives a very precise and clear enumeration of the groups of Pueblo Indians, locating them where they had been found by Coronado ninety years before and adding those which the latter had not visited, as well as giving the number of villages of each group and the approximate number of people therein contained. No writer on New Mexico up to this time had given such a clear idea of its ethnography, so far as the location and the distribution of the stocks are concerned. While somewhat brief on manners and customs, Benavides is fuller and more explicit than any of his predecessors, and informs us of features of importance which no other author in earlier times mentioned. In short, his book is more valuable for New Mexican ethnography than any other thus far known, and it is not a matter of surprise, therefore, that it was translated into several European languages. That the Rio Grande Pueblos receive an abundant share of attention from Benavides is natural. We also obtain from him some data, not elsewhere found, concerning the establishment and fate of the missions, and the true relations of the Spaniards and the natives are particularly well portrayed. Both the Apaches and the Navajos also receive some attention, Benavides giving, among others, the true reason for the hostility which the Apaches displayed since that time against the Spanish settlements. It is a book without which the study of the Pueblo Indians could not be satisfactory.

Where there is strong light there must of necessity be some shadow. In the case of Benavides the shadow is found in the exaggerated number of inhabitants attributed to the New Mexican Pueblos, exaggerations as gross and as glaring as those of Espejo. The number of villages of some of the Pueblo groups is also somewhat suspicious. It is not difficult to explain these probably intentional deviations from the truth in an otherwise sincere and highly valuable work. As already indicated, the publications emanating from the Franciscan Order, which exclusively controlled the New Mexican missions, had a special purpose distinct from that of mere information: they were designed to promote a propaganda not simply for the conversion of the Indians in general, but especially for the conversions made or to be made by the Order. New Mexico was in a state of neglect, spiritually and politically; the political authorities had been denouncing the Franciscans in every possible way, and there was danger, if this critical condition continued, that the Order might lose its hold upon the northern territories and its mission be turned over to the Jesuits, who were then successfully at work in the Mexican northwest and approaching New Mexico from that direction. To prevent such a loss it was deemed necessary to present to the faithful as alluring a picture of the field as possible, exploiting the large number of neophytes as a result already accomplished and hinting at many more as subjects for conversion. Hence the exaggerated number of Indians in general attributed by Benavides to what then comprised the religious province of New Mexico. In this respect, and in this alone, the _Memorial_ of Benavides may be regarded as a "campaign document," but this does not impair its general value and degree of reliability.

For the period between 1630 and the uprising of 1680 there is a lack of printed documents concerning New Mexico that is poorly compensated by the known manuscripts which I have already mentioned as existing in New Mexico and Mexico. Still there appeared in 1654 a little book by Juan Diez de la Calle, entitled _Memorial y Resúmen breve de Noticias de las Indias Occidentales_, in which the disturbances that culminated in the assassination of Governor Luis de Rosas in 1642 are alluded to. The national archives at the City of Mexico contain a still fuller report of that event, in a royal decree of 1643 and other papers concerning the deed, all of which are yet unpublished. The archives of Spain have as yet been only meagerly investigated. The publication of the report of Father Nicolas de Freytas, Portuguese, on the expedition attributed to Diego de Peñalosa Brizeño into what is now Kansas or Nebraska, is of no importance in the study of the Rio Grande Pueblos. The authenticity of the document has been strongly doubted, though probably without just cause. Equally unimportant to the subject of the Documentary History to follow is the letter of Captain Juan Dominguez de Mendoza, published in the appendix to the criticism of Cesareo Fernandez Duro on the report of Father Freytas. The otherwise very interesting letter on New Mexico, written by Fray Alonso de Posadas, also printed in the work of Duro, is meager in its allusions to the Rio Grande.

Sixty-eight years after Benavides' time the _Teatro Mexicano_ of the Franciscan Fray Agustin de Vetancurt was published. The third and fourth parts of this important work, namely, the _Cronica de la Provincia del Santo Evangelio de Mexico_ and the _Menologio Franciscano_, are of the highest value to the history of the Rio Grande Pueblos and of New Mexico generally. Although printed eighteen years after the New Mexican missions had been destroyed by the Pueblo Indians, the _Cronica_ contains a terse description of the missions and Indian villages as they had been previous to 1680, and gives data in regard to the population that are commendable in their sobriety and probability. The work of Vetancurt is in this respect a great improvement upon Benavides, and it is interesting to note how his approximate census approaches the figures given by Zárate Salmerón seventy years before. Vetancurt had at his disposal much more precise data than Benavides. During the seven decades separating the three authors much information had been accumulated, and with greater chances of accuracy than before. Vetancurt made good use of this accumulation of material, and his books are in fact the most reliable sources from which to ascertain the status of the Pueblos at the time the insurrection commenced. The historical data given by Vetancurt in regard to New Mexico during earlier times are not of great value, but the _Menologio_, as well as the _Cronica_, contains a number of details on the missions and on the lives and achievements of the missionaries that become important to an understanding of the Indian himself. That such references are overburdened with details of a purely religious character does not at all impair their ethnologic value: they are pictures of the times according to the nature of which circumstances and events can alone be judged properly.

We have now arrived at a period marking a great temporary change in the condition of all the Pueblo Indians, and of those of the Rio Grande especially. This is the insurrection, successful for a time, of the Pueblos in 1680, against the Spanish domination. The material on this eventful epoch is still largely in manuscript, the nearest approach to a documentary presentation in full being the incomplete paraphrase furnished by W. W. H. Davis in his _Spanish Conquest of New Mexico_, published in 1869. No blame should be attached to the author for the insufficiency of his data. He made the best possible use of his materials with the help of my late friends David Miller and Samuel Ellison of Santa Fé, but the archives of Santa Fé had already been depleted through neglect and criminal waste, and what was and is left (as I know from having handled it frequently and thoroughly) is a mass of fragments, sometimes long, sometimes short, often disconnected and therefore unsatisfactory. I shall refer to this material later. Of the manuscript materials preceding and foreshadowing the insurrection, an important letter by the Franciscan Fray Francisco de Ayeta, a copy of which is in the national archives of Mexico, deserves to be specially mentioned. To this indefatigable monk, whose timely warnings were too lightly regarded by the Spanish authorities, are also due the data concerning the lives and the awful fate of the Franciscan priests at the hands of the Pueblo Indians on August 10, 1680. The original of this tragic list is in manuscript in the national archives of Mexico, where Vetancurt made use of it in his _Teatro_. The memorial sermon preached and published in Mexico in 1681 (a copy of which exceedingly rare print was procured by my friend the Honorable L. Bradford Prince of Santa Fé) rests for its information upon the obituaries preserved by Father Ayeta. That these obituaries are of direct value to the history of the Rio Grande Pueblos is apparent.