Chapter 9: , which treats of the direction which the army took, (2)

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.

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.

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]

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]

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]

The other class among the colonists of New Spain in the second quarter of the sixteenth century “floated like cork on the water” on those who had established their homes in the New World.[51] The men [p376] who made it possible to live in security on the farms and ranches of the province had rendered many and indispensable services, and there was much that they might still do to enlarge its boundaries and make the security more certain. They were, nevertheless, a serious hindrance to the prosperity of the settlements. For the most part they were young men of all sorts and degrees. Among them were many sons of Spanish noblemen, like Mendoza the viceroy, whose brother had just succeeded his father as Marquis de Mondejar. Very much of the extension of the Spanish world by discovery and conquest was due to the sons of men of rank, who had, perhaps generally, begun to sow their wild oats in Spain and were sent across the Atlantic in order to keep them out of mischief at home, or to atone, it may be, for mischief already done. In action, these young caballeros were most efficient. By personal valor and ability, they held the positions of leadership everywhere, among men who followed whom and when they chose, and always chose the man who led them most successfully. When inactive, these same cavaliers were a most trying annoyance to any community in which they happened to be. Armed with royal letters and comprehensive introductions, they had to be entertained, at heavy charges. Masters of their own movements, they came as they liked, and very often did not go away. Lovers of excitement, they secured it regardless of other men’s wives or property.