Part 8

Zaldivar halted his little band as close to the foot of the cliff as he could come without danger. The indispensable notary stepped from the ranks, and at the blast of the trumpet proceeded to read at the top of his lungs the formal summons in the name of the king of Spain to surrender. Thrice he shouted through the summons; but each time his voice was drowned by the howls and shrieks of the enraged savages, and a hail of stones and arrows fell dangerously near. Zaldivar had desired to secure the surrender of the pueblo, demand the delivery to him of the ringleaders in the massacre, and take them back with him to San Gabriel for official trial and punishment, without harm to the other people of Acoma; but the savages, secure in their grim fortress, mocked the merciful appeal. It was clear that Acoma must be stormed. The Spaniards camped on the bare sands and passed the night--made hideous by the sounds of a monster war-dance in the town--in gloomy plans for the morrow.

FOOTNOTES:

[10] Pronounced Kay-ress.

[11] Commander in the field: equivalent to our colonel.

[12] Equivalent to lieutenant-colonel.

[13] Huge "table" of rock.

IV.

THE STORMING OF THE SKY-CITY.

At daybreak, on the morning of January 22, Zaldivar gave the signal for the attack; and the main body of the Spaniards began firing their few arquebuses, and making a desperate assault at the north end of the great rock, there absolutely impregnable. The Indians, crowded along the cliffs above, poured down a rain of missiles; and many of the Spaniards were wounded. Meanwhile twelve picked men, who had hidden during the night under the overhanging cliff which protected them alike from the fire and the observation of the Indians, were crawling stealthily around under the precipice, dragging the _pedrero_ by ropes. Most of these twelve were arquebusiers; and besides the weight of the ridiculous little cannon, they had their ponderous flintlocks and their clumsy armor,--poor helps for scaling heights which the unencumbered athlete finds difficult. Pursuing their toilsome way unobserved, pulling one another and then the _pedrero_ up the ledges, they reached at last the top of a great outlying pinnacle of rock, separated from the main cliff of Acoma by a narrow but awful chasm. Late in the afternoon they had their howitzer trained upon the town; and the loud report, as its cobble-stone ball flew into Acoma, signalled the main body at the north end of the _mesa_ that the first vantage-ground had been safely gained, and at the same time warned the savages of danger from a new quarter.

That night little squads of Spaniards climbed the great precipices which wall the trough-like valley on east and west, cut down small pines, and with infinite labor dragged the logs down the cliffs, across the valley, and up the butte on which the twelve were stationed. About a score of men were left to guard the horses at the north end of the _mesa_; and the rest of the force joined the twelve, hiding behind the crags of their rock-tower. Across the chasm the Indians were lying in crevices, or behind rocks, awaiting the attack.

At daybreak of the 23d, a squad of picked men at a given signal rushed from their hiding-places with a log on their shoulders, and by a lucky cast lodged its farther end on the opposite brink of the abyss. Out dashed the Spaniards at their heels, and began balancing across that dizzy "bridge" in the face of a volley of stones and arrows. A very few had crossed, when one in his excitement caught the rope and pulled the log across after him.

It was a fearful moment. There were less than a dozen Spaniards thus left standing alone on the brink of Acoma, cut off from their companions by a gulf hundreds of feet deep, and surrounded by swarming savages. The Indians, sallying from their refuge, fell instantly upon them on every hand. As long as the Spanish soldier could keep the Indians at a distance, even his clumsy firearms and inefficient armor gave an advantage; but at such close quarters these very things were a fatal impediment by their weight and clumsiness. Now it seemed as if the previous Acoma massacre were to be repeated, and the cut-off Spaniards to be hacked to pieces; but at this very crisis a deed of surpassing personal valor saved them and the cause of Spain in New Mexico. A slender, bright-faced young officer, a college boy who was a special friend and favorite of Onate, sprang from the crowd of dismayed Spaniards on the farther bank, who dared not fire into that indiscriminate jostle of friend and foe, and came running like a deer toward the chasm. As he reached its brink his lithe body gathered itself, sprang into the air like a bird, and cleared the gulf! Seizing the log, he thrust it back with desperate strength until his companions could grasp it from the farther brink; and over the restored bridge the Spanish soldiers poured to retrieve the day.

Then began one of the most fearful hand-to-hand struggles in all American history. Outnumbered nearly ten to one, lost in a howling mob of savages who fought with the frenzy of despair, gashed with raw-edged knives, dazed with crushing clubs, pierced with bristling arrows, spent and faint and bleeding, Zaldivar and his hero-handful fought their way inch by inch, step by step, clubbing their heavy guns, hewing with their short swords, parrying deadly blows, pulling the barbed arrows from their quivering flesh. On, on, on they pressed, shouting the gallant war-cry of Santiago, driving the stubborn foe before them by still more stubborn valor, until at last the Indians, fully convinced that these were no human foes, fled to the refuge of their fort-like houses, and there was room for the reeling Spaniards to draw breath. Then thrice again the summons to surrender was duly read before the strange tenements, each near a thousand feet long, and looking like a flight of gigantic steps carved from one rock. Zaldivar even now wished to spare unnecessary bloodshed, and demanded only that the assassins of his brother and countrymen should be given up for punishment. All others who should surrender and become subjects of "Our Lord the King" should be well treated. But the dogged Indians, like wounded wolves in their den, stuck in their barricaded houses, and refused all terms of peace.

The rock was captured, but the town remained. A pueblo is a fortress in itself; and now Zaldivar had to storm Acoma house by house, room by room. The little _pedrero_ was dragged in front of the first row of houses, and soon began to deliver its slow fire. As the adobe walls crumbled under the steady battering of the stone cannon-balls, they only formed great barricades of clay, which even our modern artillery would not pierce; and each had to be carried separately at the point of the sword. Some of the fallen houses caught fire from their own _fogones_;[14] and soon a stifling smoke hung over the town, from which issued the shrieks of women and babes and the defiant yells of the warriors. The humane Zaldivar made every effort to save the women and children, at great risk of self; but numbers perished beneath the falling walls of their own houses.

This fearful storming lasted until noon of January 24. Now and then bands of warriors made sorties, and tried to cut their way through the Spanish line. Many sprang in desperation over the cliff, and were dashed to pieces at its foot; and two Indians who made that incredible leap survived it as miraculously as had the four Spaniards in the earlier massacre, and made their escape.

At last, at noon of the third day, the old men came forth to sue for mercy, which was at once granted. The moment they surrendered, their rebellion was forgotten and their treachery forgiven. There was no need of further punishment. The ringleaders in the murder of Zaldivar's brother were all dead, and so were nearly all the Navajo allies. It was the most bloody struggle New Mexico ever saw. In this three days' fight the Indians lost five hundred slain and many wounded; and of the surviving Spaniards not one but bore to his grave many a ghastly scar as mementos of Acoma. The town was so nearly destroyed that it had all to be rebuilt; and the infinite labor with which the patient people had brought up that cliff on their backs all the stones and timber and clay to build a many-storied town for nearly a thousand souls was all to be repeated. Their crops, too, and all other supplies, stored in dark little rooms of the terraced houses, had been destroyed, and they were in sore want. Truly a bitter punishment had been sent them by "those above" for their treachery to Juan de Zaldivar.

When his men had sufficiently recovered from their wounds Vicente de Zaldivar, the leader of probably the most wonderful capture in history, marched victorious back to San Gabriel de los Espanoles, taking with him eighty young Acoma girls, whom he sent to be educated by the nuns in Old Mexico. What a shout must have gone up from the gray walls of the little colony when its anxious watchers saw at last the wan and unexpected tatters of its little army pricking slowly homeward across the snows on jaded steeds!

The rest of the Pueblos, who had been lying demure as cats, with claws sheathed, but every lithe muscle ready to spring, were fairly paralyzed with awe. They had looked to see the Spaniards defeated, if not crushed, at Acoma; and then a swift rising of all the tribes would have made short work of the remaining invaders. But now the impossible had happened! Ah'ko, the proud sky-city of the Queres; Ah'ko, the cliff-girt and impregnable,--had fallen before the pale strangers! Its brave warriors had come to naught, its strong houses were a chaos of smoking ruins, its wealth was gone, its people nearly wiped from off the earth! What use to struggle against "such men of power,"--these strange wizards who must be precious to "those above," else they never could have such superhuman prowess? The strung sinews relaxed, and the great cat began to purr as though she had never dreamt of mousing. There was no more thought of a rebellion against the Spaniards; and the Indians even went out of their way to court the favor of these awesome strangers. They brought Onate the news of the fall of Acoma several days before Zaldivar and his heroes got back to the little colony, and even were mean enough to deliver to him two Queres refugees from that dread field who had sought shelter among them. Thenceforth Governor Onate had no more trouble with the Pueblos.

But Acoma itself seemed to take the lesson to heart less than any of them. Too crushed and broken to think of further war with its invincible foes, it still remained bitterly hostile to the Spaniards for full thirty years, until it was again conquered by a heroism as splendid as Zaldivar's, though in a far different way.

In 1629 Fray Juan Ramirez, "the Apostle of Acoma," left Santa Fe alone to found a mission in that lofty home of fierce barbarians. An escort of soldiers was offered him, but he declined it, and started unaccompanied and on foot, with no other weapon than his crucifix. Tramping his footsore and dangerous way, he came after many days to the foot of the great "island" of rock, and began the ascent. As soon as the savages saw a stranger of the hated people, they rallied to the brink of the cliff and poured down a great flight of arrows, some of which pierced his robes. Just then a little girl of Acoma, who was standing on the edge of the cliff, grew frightened at the wild actions of her people, and losing her balance tumbled over the precipice. By a strange providence she fell but a few yards, and landed on a sandy ledge near the Fray, but out of sight of her people, who presumed that she had fallen the whole height of the cliff. Fray Juan climbed to her, and carried her unhurt to the top of the rock; and seeing this apparent miracle, the savages were disarmed, and received him as a good wizard. The good man dwelt alone there in Acoma for more than twenty years, loved by the natives as a father, and teaching his swarthy converts so successfully that in time many knew their catechism, and could read and write in Spanish. Besides, under his direction they built a large church with enormous labor. When he died, in 1664, the Acomas from being the fiercest Indians had become the gentlest in New Mexico, and were among the furthest advanced in civilization. But a few years after his death came the uprising of all the Pueblos; and in the long and disastrous wars which followed the church was destroyed, and the fruits of the brave Fray's work largely disappeared. In that rebellion Fray Lucas Maldonado, who was then the missionary to Acoma, was butchered by his flock on the 10th or 11th of August, 1680. In November, 1692, Acoma voluntarily surrendered to the reconqueror of New Mexico, Diego de Vargas. Within a few years, however, it rebelled again; and in August, 1696, Vargas marched against it, but was unable to storm the rock. But by degrees the Pueblos grew to lasting peace with the humane conquerors, and to merit the kindness which was steadily proffered them. The mission at Acoma was re-established about the year 1700; and there stands to-day a huge church which is one of the most interesting in the world, by reason of the infinite labor and patience which built it. The last attempt at a Pueblo uprising was in 1728; but Acoma was not implicated in it at all.

The strange stone stairway by which Fray Juan Ramirez climbed first to his dangerous parish in the teeth of a storm of arrows, is used by the people of Acoma to this day, and is still called by them _el camino del padre_ (the path of the Father).

FOOTNOTES:

[14] Fireplaces.

V.

THE SOLDIER POET.

But now to go back a little. The young officer who made that superb leap across the chasm at Acoma, pushed back the bridge-log, and so saved the lives of his comrades, and indirectly of all the Spanish in New Mexico, was Captain Gaspar Perez de Villagran.[15] He was highly educated, being a graduate of a Spanish university; young, ambitious, fearless, and athletic; a hero among the heroes of the New World, and a chronicler to whom we are greatly indebted. The six extant copies of the fat little parchment-bound book of his historical poem, in thirty-four heroic cantos, are each worth many times their weight in gold. It is a great pity that we could not have had a Villagran for each of the campaigns of the pioneers of America, to tell us more of the details of those superhuman dangers and hardships,--for most of the chroniclers of that day treat such episodes as briefly as we would a trip from New York to Brooklyn.

The leaping of the chasm was not Captain Villagran's only connection with the bloody doings at Acoma in the winter of 1598-99. He came very near being a victim of the first massacre, in which Juan de Zaldivar and his men perished, and escaped that fate only to suffer hardships as fearful as death.

In the fall of 1598 four soldiers deserted Onate's little army at San Gabriel; and the governor sent Villagran, with three or four soldiers, to arrest them. It is hard to say what a sheriff nowadays would think if called upon to follow four desperadoes nearly a thousand miles across such a desert, and with a _posse_ so small. But Captain Villagran kept the trail of the deserters; and after a pursuit of at least nine hundred miles, overtook them in southern Chihuahua, Mexico. The deserters made a fierce resistance. Two were killed by the officers, and two escaped. Villagran left his little _posse_ there, and retraced his dangerous nine hundred miles alone. Arriving at the pueblo of Puaray, on the west bank of the Rio Grande, opposite Bernalillo, he learned that his commander Onate had just marched west, on the perilous trip to Moqui, of which you have already heard. Villagran at once turned westward, and started alone to follow and overtake his countrymen. The trail was easily followed, for the Spaniards had the only horses within what is now the United States; but the lonely follower of it was beset with continual danger and hardship. He came in sight of Acoma just too late to witness the massacre of Juan de Zaldivar and the fearful fall of the five Spaniards. The survivors had already left the fatal spot; and when the natives saw a solitary Spaniard approaching, they descended from their rock citadel to surround and slay him. Villagran had no firearms, nothing but his sword, dagger, and shield. Although he knew nothing of the dreadful events which had just occurred, he became suspicious of the manner in which the savages were hemming him in; and though his horse was gaunt from its long journey, he spurred it to a gallant effort, and fought his way through the closing circle of Indians. He kept up his flight until well into the night, making a long circuit to avoid coming too near the town, and at last got down exhausted from his exhausted horse, and laid himself on the bare earth to rest. When he awoke it was snowing hard, and he was half buried under the cold, white blanket. Remounting, he pushed on in the darkness, to get as far as possible from Acoma ere daylight should betray him. Suddenly horse and rider fell into a deep pit, which the Indians had dug for a trap and covered with brush and earth. The fall killed the poor horse, and Villagran himself was badly hurt and stunned. At last, however, he managed to crawl out of the pit, to the great joy of his faithful dog, who sat whining and shivering upon the edge. The soldier-poet speaks most touchingly of this dumb companion of his long and perilous journey, and evidently loved it with the affection which only a brave man can give and a faithful dog merit.

Starting again on foot, Villagran soon lost his way in that trackless wilderness. For four days and four nights he wandered without a morsel of food or a drop of water,--for the snow had already disappeared. Many a man has fasted longer under equal hardships; but only those who have tasted the thirst of the arid lands can form the remotest conception of the meaning of ninety-six hours without water. Two days of that thirst is often fatal to strong men; and that Villagran endured four was little short of miraculous. At last, fairly dying of thirst, with dry, swollen tongue, hard and rough as a file, projecting far beyond his teeth, he was reduced to the sad necessity of slaying his faithful dog, which he did with tears of manly remorse. Calling the poor brute to him, he dispatched it with his sword, and greedily drank the warm blood. This gave him strength to stagger on a little farther; and just as he was sinking to the sand to die, he spied a little hollow in a large rock ahead. Crawling feebly to it, he found to his joy that a little snow-water remained in the cavity. Scattered about, were a few grains of corn, which seemed a godsend; and he devoured them ravenously.

He had now given up all hope of overtaking his commander, and decided to turn back and try to walk that grim two hundred miles to San Gabriel. But he was too far gone for the body longer to obey the heroic soul, and would have perished miserably by the little rock tank but for a strange chance.

As he lay there, faint and helpless, he suddenly heard voices approaching. He concluded that the Indians had trailed him, and gave himself up for lost, for he was too weak to fight. But at last his ear caught the accent of Spain; and though it was spoken by hoarse, rough soldiers, you may be sure he thought it the sweetest sound in all the world. It chanced that the night before, some of the horses of Onate's camp had strayed away, and a small squad of soldiers was sent out to catch them. In following the trail of the runaways, they came in sight of Captain Villagran. Luckily they saw him, for he could no longer shout nor run after them. Tenderly they lifted up the wounded officer and bore him back to camp; and there, under the gentle nursing of bearded men, he slowly recovered strength, and in time became again the daring athlete of other days. He accompanied Onate on that long, desert march; and a few months later was at the storming of Acoma, and performed the astounding feat which ranks as one of the remarkable individual heroisms of the New World.

FOOTNOTES:

[15] Pronounced Veel-yah-grahn.

VI.

THE PIONEER MISSIONARIES.

To pretend to tell the story of the Spanish pioneering of the Americas without special attention to the missionary pioneers, would be very poor justice and very poor history. In this, even more than in other qualities, the conquest was unique. The Spaniard not only found and conquered, but converted. His religious earnestness was not a whit behind his bravery. As has been true of all nations that have entered new lands,--and as we ourselves later entered this,--his first step had to be to subdue the savages who opposed him. But as soon as he had whipped these fierce grown-children, he began to treat them with a great and noble mercy,--a mercy none too common even now, and in that cruel time of the whole world almost unheard of. He never robbed the brown first Americans of their homes, nor drove them on and on before him; on the contrary, he protected and secured to them by special laws the undisturbed possession of their lands for all time. It is due to the generous and manly laws made by Spain three hundred years ago, that our most interesting and advanced Indians, the Pueblos, enjoy to-day full security in their lands; while nearly all others (who never came fully under Spanish dominion) have been time after time ousted from lands our government had solemnly given to them.

That was the beauty of an Indian policy which was ruled, not by politics, but by the unvarying principle of humanity. The Indian was first required to be obedient to his new government. He could not learn obedience in everything all at once; but he must at least refrain from butchering his new neighbors. As soon as he learned that lesson, he was insured protection in his rights of home and family and property. Then, as rapidly as such a vast work could be done by an army of missionaries who devoted their lives to the dangerous task, he was educated to citizenship and Christianity. It is almost impossible for us, in these quiet days, to comprehend what it was to convert a savage half-world. In our part of North America there have never been such hopeless tribes as the Spaniards met in Mexico and other southern lands. Never did any other people anywhere complete such a stupendous missionary work. To begin to understand the difficulties of that conversion, we must look into an appalling page of history.

Most Indians and savage peoples have religions as unlike ours as are their social organizations. There are few tribes that dream of one Supreme Being. Most of them worship many gods,--"gods" whose attributes are very like those of the worshipper; "gods" as ignorant and cruel and treacherous as he. It is a ghastly thing to study these religions, and to see what dark and revolting qualities ignorance can deify. The merciless gods of India, who are supposed to delight in the crushing of thousands under the wheels of Juggernaut, and in the sacrificing of babes to the Ganges, and in the burning alive of girl-widows, are fair examples of what the benighted can believe; and the horrors of India were fully paralleled in America. The religions of our North American Indians had many astounding and dreadful features; but they were mild and civilized compared with the hideous rites of Mexico and the southern lands. To understand something of what the Spanish missionaries had to combat throughout America, aside from the common danger, let us glance at the condition of affairs in Mexico at their coming.