Chapter 9: , which treats of the direction which the army took, (4)

Guided by the Turk, the army proceeded to Cicuye, and in nine days more they reached the buffalo plains. Here began the long march which was to be without any guiding landmarks. Just where, or how, or how far the Spaniards went, I can not pretend to say. After a month and more of marching—very likely just thirty-five days—their patience became exhausted. A second native of the plains, who accompanied the Spaniards from the pueblo country, had declared from the first that the Turk was lying, but this had not made them trust the latter any less. When, however, the Indians whom they found living among the buffalo herds began to contradict the stories of their guide, suspicion was aroused. The Turk, after much persuasive cross-questioning, [p396] was at last induced to confess that he had lied. Quivira, he still insisted, existed, though it was not as he had described it. From the natives of the plains they learned that there were no settlements toward the east, the direction in which they had been traveling, but that toward the north, another good month’s journey distant, there were permanent settlements. The corn which the soldiers had brought from Tiguex was almost gone, while the horses were tired and weak from the constant marching and buffalo chasing, with only grass for food. It was clearly impossible for the whole force to attempt this further journey, with the uncertain prospect of finding native tribes like those they had already seen as the only incentive. The general held a council of his officers and friends, and decided to select 30 of the best equipped horsemen who should go with him and attempt to verify the new information.

After Coronado had chosen his companions, the rest of the force was sent back to Tiguex, as Castañeda relates. The Indians whom they met on the plains furnished guides, who led the soldiers to the Pueblo settlements by a more direct route than that which the Turk had taken. But the marches were short and slow, so that it was the middle of July before they were again encamped alongside the Rio Grande. So far as is known, nothing of interest happened while they were waiting there for the return of the general.

Coronado and his companion horsemen followed the compass needle for forty-two days after leaving the main force, or, as he writes, “after traveling across these deserts for seventy-seven days in all,” they reached the country of Quivira. Here he found some people who lived in permanent settlements and raised a little corn, but whose sustenance came mainly from the buffalo herds, which they hunted at regular seasons, instead of continuously as the plains Indians encountered previously had done.[75]

Twenty-five days were spent among the villages at Quivira, so that Jaramillo, one of the party, doubtless remembered correctly when he said that they were there after the middle of August.[76] There was [p397] nothing here except a piece of copper hanging from the neck of a chief, and a piece of gold which one of the Spaniards was suspected of having given to the natives, which gave any promise of mineral wealth, and so Coronado determined to rejoin his main force. Although they had found no treasures, the explorers were fully aware of the agricultural advantages of this country, and of the possibilities for profitable farming, if only some market for the produce could be found.

Students of the Coronado expedition have very generally accepted the location of Quivira proposed by General Simpson, who put the northern point reached by Coronado somewhere in the eastern half of the border country of Kansas and Nebraska. If we take into account the expeditions which visited the outer limits of the Quivira settlements, this is not inconsistent with Bandelier’s location of the main seat of these Indians “in northeastern Kansas, beyond the Arkansas river, and more than 100 miles northeast of Great Bend.”[77]

It is impossible to ignore the question of the route taken by Coronado across the great plains, although the details chiefly concern local historians. The Spanish travelers spent the summer of 1541 on the prairies west of the Mississippi and south of the Missouri. They left descriptions of these plains, and of the people and animals inhabiting them, which are of as great interest and value as any which have since been written. Fortunately it is not of especial importance for us to know the exact section of the prairies to which various parts of the descriptions refer.

From Cicuye, the Pecos pueblo, Coronado marched northeast until he crossed Canadian river, probably a little to the east of the present river and settlement of Mora.[78] This was about the 1st of May, 1541. From this point General Simpson, whose intimate knowledge of the surface of the country thirty-five years ago makes his map of the route across the plains most valuable, carried the line of march nearly north, to a point halfway between Canadian and Arkansas rivers. Then it turned east, or a trifle north of east, until it reached one of the tributaries of the Arkansas, about 50 miles or so west of Wichita, Kansas. The army returned by a direct route to Cicuye or Pecos river, striking that stream nearly east of Bernalillo-Tiguex, while Coronado proceeded due north to Quivira on the Kansas-Nebraska boundary.

Mr. Bandelier has traced a route for the march across the plains which corresponds with the statements of the contemporary narratives somewhat more closely than does that of General Simpson.[79] Crossing [p398] Canadian river by a bridge, just south, of where Mora river enters it, the Spaniards, according to Bandelier, marched toward the northeast for ten days, until they met the first of the plains Indians, the Querecho or Tonkawa. Thence they turned almost directly toward the rising sun. Bandelier thinks that they very soon found out that the guides had lost their reckoning, which presumably means that it became evident that there was some difference of opinion among the Indians. After marching eastward for thirty-five days or so, the Spaniards halted on the banks of a stream which flowed in the bottom of a broad and deep ravine. Here it was computed that they had already traveled 250 leagues—650 miles—from Tiguex. They had crossed no other large river since leaving the bridge over the Canadian, and as the route had been south of east, as is distinctly stated by one member of the force, they had probably reached the Canadian again. There is a reference to crossing what may have been the North Fork of the Canadian, in which case the army would now be on the north bank of the main river, below the junction of the two forks, in the eastern part of Indian Territory. Here they divided. The Teya guides conducted the main force directly back to the Rio Grande settlements. Coronado went due north, and a month later he reached a larger river. He crossed to the north bank of this stream, and then followed its course for several days, the direction being northeast. This river, manifestly, must be the Arkansas, which makes a sharp turn toward the northeast at the Great Bend, east of Fort Dodge, flowing in that direction for 75 miles. Jaramillo states that they followed the current of the river. As he approached the settled country, Coronado turned toward the north and found Quivira, in northeastern Kansas, not far south of the Nebraska boundary.[80]

The two texts of the Relacion del Suceso differ on a vital point;[81] but in spite of this fact, I am inclined to accept the evidence of this anonymous document as the most reliable testimony concerning the direction of the army’s march. According to this, the Spaniards traveled [p399] due east across the plains for 100 leagues—265 miles[82]—and then 50 leagues either south or southeast. The latter is the reading I should prefer to adopt, because it accommodates the other details somewhat better. This took them to the point of separation, which can hardly have been south of Red river, and was much more likely somewhere along the North Fork of the Canadian, not far above its junction with the main stream. From this point the army returned due west to Pecos river, while Coronado rode north “by the needle.” From these premises, which are broad enough to be safe, I should be inclined to doubt if Coronado went much beyond the south branch of Kansas river, if he even reached that stream. Coronado probably spent more days on his march than General Simpson allowed for, but I do not think that he traveled nearly so far as General Simpson supposed. Coronado also returned to Cicuye by a direct route, which was about two-thirds as long as that of the outward march. The distances given for various portions of the journey have a real value, because each day’s march was paced off by a soldier detailed for the purpose, who carefully recorded the distance covered.

THE WINTER OF 1541–1542

By October 20, 1541, Coronado was back in Tiguex, writing his report to the King, in which he expressed his anxiety lest the failure to discover anything of immediate material profit might react unfavorably on his own prospects. Letters and dispatches from Mexico and Spain were awaiting him at Tiguex. One of these informed Don Garcia Lopez de Cardenas of the death of his brother, by which he became heir to the family estates. Cardenas had broken his arm on the plains, and this injury was still troubling him when he received permission to return to New Spain. He was accompanied by the messengers carrying letters to the viceroy and by ten or twelve other invalids, “not one of whom could have done any fighting.” The party had no trouble, however, until they reached Suya, in Corazones valley, the settlement which had taken the place of San Hieronimo. Pedro de Tovar had reduced the already feeble garrison at the latter post by half, when he took away the reinforcements six months before. The town had been much weakened by desertions, as well as by the loss of its commander, the invaluable Melchior Diaz, before this. The Indians quickly discerned the condition of the town, and its defenders were unable to maintain friendly relations with the surrounding tribes. When Cardenas reached the place, he found everything burned to the ground, and the bodies of Spaniards, Indians, and horses lying about. Indeed, he seems barely to have saved the invalids accompanying him from being added to the number of the massacred. The party succeeded in making its way to Cibola in safety, and from there they returned to Tiguex, where they found the general seriously ill. By this time the winter was [p400] fairly begun, but the season, fortunately, was much less severe than the preceding one.

Two parties formed in the Spanish camp at Tiguex during the winter of 1541–42. The men who had seen Quivira can hardly have brought back from there much hope of finding gold or other treasure by further explorations in that country. But there were many who had not been there, who were unwilling to give up the ideas which had been formed during the preceding months. When the general parted from his army on the plains, he may have promised that he would return and lead the whole force to this land, if only it should prove to be such as their inclination pictured it. Many persisted in the belief that a more thorough exploration would discover some of the things about which they thought the Turk had told them. On the other hand, there were many besides the leader who were tired of this life of hardship, which had not even afforded the attractions of adventure and serious conflict. Few of them, doubtless, had wives and estates waiting to welcome them home, like their fortunate general, but most of the gentlemen, surely, were looking forward to the time when they could win wealth and glory, with which to return to old Spain, and add new luster to their family name. Castañeda gives a soldier’s gossip of the intriguing and persuading which resulted in the abandonment of the Pueblo country, and Mota Padilla seems to support the main points in his story.

THE FRIARS REMAIN IN THE COUNTRY

When it was determined that the army should return to Mexico, the friars who had accompanied the expedition[83] resolved to remain in the newly discovered regions and continue their labors among the people there. Friar Juan de Padilla was the leader of the three missionaries. Younger and more vigorous than his brethren, he had from the first been the most active in constantly maintaining the oversight and discipline of the church. He was with Tovar when the Tusayan country on the west was discovered, and with Alvarado during the first visit to the Rio Grande and the buffalo plains on the east. When Coronado and his companion horsemen visited the plains of Kansas, Friar Juan de Padilla went with him on foot. His brief experience in the Quivira country led him to decide to go back to that district, when Coronado was preparing to return to New Spain. If the Indians who guided Coronado from Quivira to Cicuye remained in the pueblo country during the winter, Padilla probably returned with them to their homes. He was accompanied by Andres Docampo, a Portuguese, mounted on a mare according to most accounts, besides five Indians, negroes or half-bloods, two “donados” or lay brethren, Indians engaged in the church service, who came from Michoacan and were named Lucas and Sebastian, a mestizo or half-blood boy and two other servants from Mexico. [p401]

The friar was successful in his labors until he endeavored to enlarge the sphere of his influence, when the jealousy, or possibly the cupidity, of the Indians led them to kill him, rather than permit the transference to some other tribe of the blessings which he had brought to them.[84]

Friar Juan de la Cruz is not mentioned by Castañeda nor by Jaramillo, but Mendieta and Mota Padilla are very clear in their accounts of him. He was an older man than the others, and had been engaged in missionary work among the natives of the Jalisco country before he joined this expedition. Coronado left him at Tiguex, where he was killed, according to Mota Padilla. The date, in the martyrologies, is November 25, 1542. Many natives of the Mexican provinces stayed in the Pueblo country when Coronado abandoned it. Some of these were still at Cibola when Antonio de Espejo visited it in 1583, while others doubtless made their way back to their old homes in New Spain, and they may have brought the information about the death of Friar Juan.

Friar Luis Descalona, or de Ubeda as Mota Padilla calls him, was a lay brother, who selected Cicuye or Pecos as the seat of his labors in New Mexico. Neither the Spanish chronicles nor the Indian traditions which Mr Bandelier was able to obtain give any hint as to his fate or the results of his devotion to the cause of Christianity.

THE RETURN TO NEW SPAIN

The army started on its return from Tiguex to Cibola and thence to Culiacan and Mexico early in the spring of 1542. The march was without interruption or diversion. As the soldiers reentered New Galicia and found themselves once more among settlements of their own race, beyond the reach of hostile natives, the ranks dwindled rapidly. The men stopped to rest and to recruit their strength at every opportunity, and it was only with the greatest difficulty that Coronado was able to keep together the semblance of a force with which to make his entry into the City of Mexico. Here he presented his personal report to the viceroy. He had little to tell which could interest the disappointed Mendoza, who had drawn so heavily on the royal treasure box two years before to furnish those who formed the expedition with everything that they might need. Besides the loss in his personal estate, there was this use of the royal funds which had to be accounted for to the [p402] officials in Spain. It is the best proof of the strength of Mendoza’s able and economical administration that no opposition ever succeeded in influencing the home government against him, and that the failure of this expedition, with the attendant circumstances, furnished the most serious charge which those who had displayed hostility toward him were able to produce.

When Coronado reached the City of Mexico, “very sad and very weary, completely worn out and shamefaced,” Suarez de Peralta was a boy on the streets. We catch a glimpse of him in the front rows of a crowd watching an execution, this same winter of 1542–43, and we may be sure that he saw all that was going on, and that he picked up and treasured the gossip of the city. His recollections give a vivid picture of the return of the expedition, when Coronado “came to kiss the hand of the viceroy and did not receive so good a reception as he would have liked, for he found him very sad.” For many days after the general reached the city the men who had followed him came straggling in, all of them worn out with their toils, clothed in the skins of animals, and showing the marks of their misfortunes and sufferings. “The country had been very joyous when the news of the discovery of the Seven Cities spread abroad, and this was now supplanted by the greatest sadness on the part of all, for many had lost their friends and their fortunes, since those who remained behind had entered into partnerships with those who went, mortgaging their estates and their property in order to procure a share in what was to be gained, and drawing up papers so that those who were to be present should have power to take possession of mines and enter claims in the name of those who were left behind, in accordance with the custom and the ordinances which the viceroy had made for New Spain. Many sent their slaves also, since there were many of these in the country at this time. Thus the loss and the grief were general, but the viceroy felt it most of all, for two reasons: Because this was the outcome of something about which he had felt so sure, which he thought would make him more powerful than the greatest lord in Spain, and because his estates were ruined, for he had labored hard and spent much in sending off the army. Finally, as things go, he succeeded in forgetting about it, and devoted himself to the government of his province, and in this he became the best of governors, being trusted by the King and loved by all his subjects.”

THE END OF CORONADO

We do not know what became of Vazquez Coronado. The failure of the expedition was not his fault, and there is nothing to show that he ever sought the position which Mendoza intrusted to him. Neither is there any evidence that Mendoza treated him with any less marks of friendship after his return than before. The welcome home was not cordial, but there are no reports of upbraiding, nor any accusations of negligence or remissness. Coronado soon gave up his position as [p403] governor of New Galicia, but we need not suppose that he was compelled to resign. There was every reason why he should have desired to escape from a position which demanded much skill and unceasing active administration, but which carried with it no hope of reward or of honor. It is pleasant to believe that Coronado withdrew to his estates and lived happily ever after with his wife and children, spending his leisure in supervising the operations on his farm and ranch, and leading the uneventful life of a country gentleman. The only break in the monotony of which we happen to know—and this is the only part of this belief for which there is the slightest evidence that it is correct—came when he was accused, in 1544 and again in 1547, of holding more Indians to labor on his estates than were allowed by the royal regulations. We do not even know the outcome of this accusation. Vazquez Coronado sinks into oblivion after he made his report to the viceroy in the autumn of 1542.

SOME RESULTS OF THE EXPEDITION—1540–1547

THE DISCOVERY OF COLORADO RIVER

THE VOYAGE OF ALARCON

Coronado found no gold in the land of the Seven Cities or in Quivira, but his search added very much to the geographical knowledge of the Spaniards.[85] In addition to the exploration of the Pueblo country of New Mexico and Arizona, and of the great plains as far north as Kansas or Nebraska, the most important subsidiary result of the expedition of 1540–1542 was the discovery of Colorado river. Hernando de Alarcon, who sailed from Acapulco May 9, 1540, continued his voyage northward along the coast, after stopping at the port of Culiacan to add the _San Gabriel_ to his fleet, until he reached the shoals and sand-bars at the head of the Gulf of California. The fleet which Cortes [p404] had sent out under the command of Ulloa the previous summer, turned back from these shoals, and Alarcon’s sailors begged him not to venture among them. But the question of a passage by water through to the South, or Pacific, sea, which would make an island of the California peninsula, was still debated, and Alarcon refused to return until he had definitely determined the possibility of finding such a passage. His pilots ran the ships aground, but after a careful examination of the channel, the fleet was floated across the bar in safety, with the aid of the rising tide. Alarcon found that he was at the mouth of a large river, with so swift and strong a current that it was impossible for the large vessels to make any headway against it. He determined to explore the river, and, taking twenty men in two boats, started upstream on Thursday, August 26, 1540, when white men for the first time floated on the waters of the Colorado. Indians appeared on the river banks during the following day. The silence with which the strangers answered the threatening shouts of the natives, and the presence of the Indian interpreters in the boats, soon overcame the hostile attitude of the savages. The European trifles which had been brought for gifts and for trading completed the work of establishing friendly relations, and the Indians soon became so well disposed that they entirely relieved the Spaniards of the labor of dragging the boats up the stream. A crowd of Indians seized the ropes by which the boats were hauled against the current, and from this time on some of them were always ready to render this service to their visitors. In this fashion the Spaniards continued northward, receiving abundant supplies of corn from the natives, whose habits and customs they had many excellent opportunities for observing. Alarcon instructed these people dutifully in the worship of the cross, and continually questioned them about the places whose names Friar Marcos had heard. He met with no success until he had traveled a considerable distance up the river, when for the first time he found a man with whom his interpreter was able to converse.

This man said that he had visited Cibola, which was a month’s journey distant. There was a good trail by which one might easily reach that country in forty days. The man said he had gone there merely to see the place, since it was quite a curiosity, with its houses three and four stories high, filled with people. Around the houses there was a wall half as high again as a man, having windows on each side. The inhabitants used the usual Indian weapons—bows and arrows, clubs, maces, and shields. They wore mantles and ox hides, which were painted. They had a single ruler, who wore a long shirt with a girdle, and various mantles over this. The women wore long white cloaks which completely covered them. There were always many Indians waiting about the door of their ruler, ready in case he should wish for anything. They also wore many blue stones which they dug out of a rock—the turquoises of the other narratives. They had but one wife, and when they died all their effects were buried with them. When [p405] their rulers ate, many men waited about the tables. They ate with napkins, and had baths—a natural inference from any attempt to describe the stuffy underground rooms, the estufas or kivas of the Pueblos.

Alarcon continued to question the Indian, and learned that the lord of Cibola had a dog like one which accompanied the Spaniards, and that when dinner was served, the lord of Cibola had four plates like those used by the Spaniards, except that they were green. He obtained these at the same time that he got the dog, with some other things, from a black man who wore a beard, whom the people of Cibola killed. A few days later, Alarcon obtained more details concerning the death of the negro “who wore certain things on his legs and arms which rattled.” When asked about gold and silver, the Indians said that they had some metal of the same color as the bells which the Spaniards showed them. This was not made nor found in their country, but came “from a certain mountain where an old woman dwelt.” The old woman was called Guatuzaca. One of Alarcon’s informants told him about people who lived farther away than Cibola, in houses made of painted mantles or skins during the summer, and who passed the winter in houses made of wood two or three stories high. The Indian was asked about the leather shields, and in reply described a very great beast like an ox, but more than a hand longer, with broad feet, legs as big as a man’s thigh, a head 7 hands long, and the forehead 3 spans across. The eyes of the beast were larger than one’s fist, and the horns as long as a man’s leg, “out of which grew sharp points an handful long, and the forefeet and hindfeet about seven handfuls big.” The tail was large and bushy. To show how tall the animal was, the Indian stretched his arms above his head. In a note to his translation of this description, Hakluyt suggests, “This might be the crooke backed oxe of Quivira.” Although the height and the horns are clearly those of a buck deer, the rest of the description is a very good account of the bison.

The man who told him all this was called ashore, and Alarcon noticed an excited discussion going on among the Indians, which ended in the return of his informant with the news that other white men like himself were at Cibola. Alarcon pretended to wonder at this, and was told that two men had just come from that country, where they had seen white men having “things which shot fire, and swords.” These latest reports seemed to make the Indians doubt Alarcon’s honesty, and especially his statements that he was a child of the Sun. He succeeded in quieting their suspicions, and learned more about Cibola, with which these people appeared to have quite frequent intercourse. He was told that the strangers at Cibola called themselves Christians, and that they brought with them many oxen like those at Cibola “and other little blacke beastes with wooll and hornes.” Some of them also had animals upon which they rode, which ran very swiftly. Two of the party that had recently returned from Cibola, had fallen in with two of the [p406] Christians. The white men asked them where they lived and whether they possessed any fields sown with corn, and gave each of them little caps for themselves and for their companions. Alarcon did his best to induce some of his men to go to Cibola with a message to Coronado, but all refused except one negro slave, who did not at all want to go. The plan had to be given up, and the party returned to the ships. It had taken fifteen days and a half to ascend the river, but they descended with the swift current in two and a half. The men who had remained in the ships were asked to undertake the mission of opening communication with Coronado, but proved as unwilling as the others.

Much against the will of his subordinates, Alarcon determined to make a second trip up the river, hoping to obtain further information which might enable him to fulfill the purposes of his voyage. He took “three boats filled with wares of exchange, with corne and other seedes, hennes and cockes of Castille.” Starting September 14, he found the Indians as friendly as before, and ascended the river, as he judged, about 85 leagues, which may have taken him to the point where the canyons begin. A cross was erected to inform Coronado, in case an expedition from Cibola should reach this part of the river,[86] that he had tried to fulfill his duty, but nothing more was accomplished.[87]

While Alarcon was exploring the river, one of the ships was careened and repaired, and everything made ready for the return voyage. A chapel was built on the shore in honor of Nuestra Señora de Buenaguia, and the river was named the Buenaguia, out of regard for the viceroy, who carried this as his device.

The voyage back to Colima in New Spain was uneventful.

THE JOURNEY OF MELCHIOR DIAZ

In September, 1540, seventy or eighty of the weakest and least reliable men in Coronado’s army remained at the town of San Hieronimo, in the valley of Corazones or Hearts. Melchior Diaz was placed in command of the settlement, with orders to maintain this post and protect the road between Cibola and New Spain, and also to attempt to find some means of communicating with the fleet under Alarcon. After he had established everything in the town as satisfactorily as possible, Diaz selected twenty-five of these men to accompany him on an exploring expedition to the seacoast. He started before the end of September, going into the rough country west of Corazones valley, and finding only a few naked, weak-spirited Indians, who had come, as he understood, from the land on the farther side of the water, i. e., Lower [p407] California. He hurried across this region and descended the mountains on the west, where he encountered the Indian giants, some of whom the army had already seen. Turning toward the north, or northwest, he proceeded to the seacoast, and spent several days among Indians who fed him with the corn which they raised and with fish. He traveled slowly up the coast until he reached the mouth of a river which was large enough for vessels to enter. The country was cold, and the Spaniards observed that when the natives hereabouts wished to keep warm, they took a burning stick and held it to their abdomens and shoulders. This curious habit led the Spaniards to name the river Firebrand—Rio del Tizon. Near the mouth of the river was a tree on which was written, “A letter is at the foot of this.” Diaz dug down and found a jar wrapped so carefully that it was not even moist. The inclosed papers stated that “Francisco de Alarcon reached this place in the year ’40 with three ships, having been sent in search of Francisco Vazquez Coronado by the viceroy, D. Antonio de Mendoza; and after crossing the bar at the mouth of the river and waiting many days without obtaining any news, he was obliged to depart, because the ships were being eaten by worms,” the terrible _Teredo navalis_.[88]

Diaz determined to cross the river, hoping that the country might become more attractive. The passage was accomplished, with considerable danger, by means of certain large wicker baskets, which the natives coated with a sort of bitumen, so that the water could not leak through. Five or six Indians caught hold of each of these and swam across, guiding it and transporting the Spaniards with their baggage, and being supported in turn by the raft. Diaz marched inland for four days, but not finding any people in the country, which became steadily more barren, he decided to return to Corazones valley. The party made its way back to the country of the giants without accident, and then one night while Diaz was watching the camp, a small dog began to bark and chase the flock of sheep which the men had taken with them for food. Unable to call the dog off, Diaz started after him on horseback and threw his lance while on the gallop. The weapon stuck up in the ground, and before Diaz could stop or turn his horse, which was running loose, the socket pierced his groin. The soldiers could do little to relieve his sufferings, and he died before they reached the settlement, where they arrived January 18, 1541. A few months later, Alcaraz, who had been placed in charge of the town when Diaz went away, abandoned Corazones valley for a more attractive situation on Suya river, some distance nearer Cibola. The post was maintained here [p408] until late in the summer, when it became so much weakened by dissensions and desertions that the Indians had little difficulty in destroying it. The defenders, with the exception of a few who were able to make their way back to Culiacan, were massacred.

THE INDIAN UPRISING IN NEW SPAIN, 1540–1542

Of the arguments advanced by those who wished to hinder the expedition which Mendoza sent off under Coronado, none was urged more persistently than the claim that this undertaking would require all the men available for the protection of New Spain. It was suggested by all the parties to the litigation in Spain, was repeated by Cortes again and again, reappeared more than once during the visita of 1547, and was the cause of the depositions taken at Compostela on February 26, 1540. These last show the real state of affairs. The men who were withdrawn constituted a great resource in case of danger, but they were worse than useless to the community when things were peaceful. The Indians of New Spain had been quiet since the death of De la Torre, a few years before, but signs of danger, an increasing restlessness, unwilling obedience to the masters and encomenderos, and frequent gatherings, had been noticed by many besides Cortes. There were reasons enough to justify an Indian outbreak, some of them abuses which dated from the time of Nuño de Guzman, but there is every reason to suppose that the withdrawal of Coronado’s force, following the irritation which was inevitably caused by the necessity of collecting a large food supply and many servants, probably brought matters to a crisis. Oñate, to whom the administration of New Galicia had again been intrusted during the absence of his superior, began to prepare for the trouble which he foresaw almost as soon as Coronado was gone from the province. In April he learned that two tribes had rebelled and murdered one of their encomenderos. A force was sent to put down the revolt. The rebels requested a conference, and then, early next morning, surprised the camp, which was wholly unprepared for defense. Ten Spaniards, including the unwary commander, and nearly two hundred native allies were killed. Thus began the last and the fiercest struggle of the Indians of New Spain against their European conquerors—the Mixton war.

After Nordenskiold]

Oñate prepared to march against the victorious rebels, as soon as the news of the disaster reached him, but when this was followed by additional information from the agents among the Indians, showing how widespread were the alliances of those who had begun the revolt, and that the Indians throughout the province of New Galicia were already in arms, he retired to Guadalajara. The defenses of this town were strengthened as much as possible, and messengers were dispatched to Mexico for reenforcements. The viceroy sent some soldiers and supplies, but this force was not sufficient to prevent the Indians—who were animated by their recent successes, by their numbers, by the knowledge of the weak points as well as of the strong ones in their oppressors, and [p409] who were guided by able leaders possessing all the prestige of religious authority—from attacking the frontier settlements and forcing the Spaniards to congregate in the larger towns.

There was much fighting during the early summer of 1540, in which the settlers barely held their own. In August, the adelantado Pedro de Alvarado sailed into the harbor of La Natividad. As the news of his arrival spread, requests were sent to him from many directions, asking for help against the natives. One of the most urgent came from those who were defending the town of Purificacion, and Alvarado was about to start to their assistance, when a message from Mendoza changed his plans. The two men arranged for a personal interview at Tiripitio in Michoacan, where the estate of a relative afforded Alvarado a quasi neutral territory. After some difficulties had been overcome, the terms of an alliance were signed by both parties November 29, 1540. Each was to receive a small share in whatever had already been accomplished by the other, thus providing for any discoveries which might have rewarded Coronado’s search before this date. In the future, all conquests and gains were to be divided equally. It was agreed that the expenses of equipping the fleet and the army should offset each other, and that all future expenses should be shared alike. Each partner was allowed to spend a thousand castellanos de minas yearly, and all expenditure in excess of this sum required the consent of the other party. All accounts were to be balanced yearly, and any surplus due from one to the other was to be paid at once, under penalty of a fine, which was assured by the fact that half of it was to go into the royal treasury.

Mendoza secured a half interest in the fleet of between nine and twelve vessels, which were then in the ports of Acapulco and of Santiago de Colima. Cortes accused the viceroy of driving a very sharp bargain in this item, declaring that Alvarado was forced to accept it because Mendoza made it the condition on which he would allow the ships to obtain provisions.[89] Mendoza, as matters turned out, certainly had the best of the bargain, although in the end it amounted to nothing. Whether this would have been true if Alvarado had lived to prosecute his schemes is another possibility. Alvarado took his chances on the results of Coronado’s conquests, and it is very likely that, by the end of November, the discouraging news contained in Coronado’s letter of August 3 was not generally known, if it had even reached the viceroy.

The contract signed, Alvarado and Mendoza went to Mexico, where they passed the winter in perfecting arrangements for carrying out their plans. The cold weather moderated the fury of the Indian war somewhat, without lessening the danger or the troubles of the settlers in New Galicia, all of whom were now shut up in the few large towns. Alvarado returned to the Pacific coast in the spring of 1541, and as soon as [p410] Oñate learned of this, he sent an urgent request for help, telling of the serious straits in which he had been placed. The security of the province was essential to the successful prosecution of the plans of the new alliance. Alvarado immediately sent reinforcements to the different garrisons, and at the head of his main force hastened to Guadalajara, where he arrived June 12, 1541. Oñate had received reports from the native allies and the Spanish outposts, who were best acquainted with the situation and plans of the hostile Indians, which led him to urge Alvarado to delay the attack until he could be certain of success. An additional force had been promised from Mexico, but Alvarado felt that the glory and the booty would both be greater if secured unaided. Scorning the advice of those who had been beaten by savages, he hastened to chastise the rebels. The campaign was a short one. On June 24 Alvarado reached the fortified height of Nochistlan, where he encountered such a deluge of men and of missiles that he was not able to maintain his ground, nor even to prevent the precipitate retreat of his soldiers. It was a terrible disaster, but one which reflected no discredit on Alvarado after the fighting began. The flight of the Spaniards continued after the Indians had grown tired of the chase. It was then that the adelantado tried to overtake his secretary, who had been one of those most eager to get away from the enemy. Alvarado was afoot, having dismounted in order to handle his men and control the retreat more easily, but he had almost caught up with his secretary, when the latter spurred his jaded horse up a rocky hill. The animal tried to respond, fell, and rolled backward down the hill, crushing the adelantado under him. Alvarado survived long enough to be carried to Guadalajara and to make his will, dying on the 4th of July.

This disaster did not fully convince the viceroy of the seriousness of the situation. Fifty men had already started from Mexico, arriving in Guadalajara in July, where they increased the garrison to eighty-five. Nothing more was done by Mendoza after he heard of the death of Alvarado. The Indians, emboldened by the complete failure of their enemies, renewed their efforts to drive the white men out of the land. They attacked Guadalajara on September 28, and easily destroyed all except the chief buildings in the center of the city, in which the garrison had fortified themselves as soon as they learned that an attack was about to be made. A fierce assault against these defenses was repulsed only after a hard struggle. The miraculous appearance of Saint Iago on his white steed and leading his army of allies, who blinded the idolatrous heathen, alone prevented the destruction of his faithful believers, according to the record of one contemporary chronicler. At last Mendoza realized that the situation was critical. A force of 450 Spaniards was raised, in addition to an auxiliary body of between 10,000 and 50,000 Aztec warriors. The native chieftains were rendered loyal by ample promises of wealth and honors, and the warriors were granted, for the first time, permission to use horses and Spanish [p411] weapons. With the help of these Indians, Mendoza eventually succeeded in destroying or reducing the revolted tribes. The campaign was a series of fiercely contested struggles, which culminated at the Mixton peñol, a strongly fortified height where the most bitter enemies of the Spanish conquerors had their headquarters. This place was surrendered during the Christmas holidays, and when Coronado returned in the autumn of 1542, the whole of New Spain was once more quiet.

FURTHER ATTEMPTS AT DISCOVERY

THE VOYAGE OF CABRILLO

Mendoza took possession of the vessels belonging to Alvarado after the death of the latter. In accordance with the plans which the two partners had agreed on, apparently, the viceroy commissioned Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo to take command of two ships in the port of La Natividad and make an exploration of the coast on the western side of the peninsula of Lower California. Cabrillo started June 27, 1542, and sailed north, touching the land frequently. Much bad weather interfered with his plans, but he kept on till the end of December, when he landed on one of the San Lucas islands. Here Cabrillo died, January 3, 1543, leaving his chief pilot, Bartolome Ferrel or Ferrelo, “a native of the Levant,” in command. Ferrel left the island of San Miguel, which he named Isla de Juan Rodriguez, on January 29, to continue the voyage. In a little more than a month the fleet had reached the southern part of Oregon or thereabouts, allowing for an error of a degree and a half in the observations, which said that they were 44° north. A severe storm forced the ships to turn back from this point.

The report of the expedition is little more than an outline of distances sailed and places named, although there are occasional statements which give us valuable information regarding the coast Indians.[90] Among the most interesting of these notes are those showing that the news of the expeditions to Colorado river, and perhaps of the occupancy of the Pueblo country by white men, had reached the Pacific coast. About September 1, 1542, a party from the fleet went ashore near the southern boundary of California. Five Indians met the Spanish sailors at a spring, where they were filling the water casks. “They appeared like intelligent Indians,” and went on board the ships without hesitation. “They took note of the Spaniards and counted them, and made signs that they had seen other men like these, who had beards and who brought dogs and cross-bows and swords . . . and showed by their signs that the other Spaniards were five days’ journey distant. . . . The captain gave them a letter, which he told them to carry to the Spaniards who they said were in the interior.” September 28, at San [p412] Pedro bay, Ferrel again found Indians who told him by signs that “they had passed people like the Spaniards in the interior.” Two days later, on Saturday morning, “three large Indians came to the ship, who told by signs that men like us were traveling in the interior, wearing beards, and armed and clothed like the people on the ships, and carrying cross-bows and swords. They made gestures with the right arm as if they were throwing lances, and went running in a posture as if riding on horseback. They showed that many of the native Indians had been killed, and that this was the reason they were afraid.” A week later, October 7, the ships anchored off the islands of Santa Cruz and Anacapa. The Indians of the islands and also of the mainland opposite, near Santa Barbara or the Santa Clara valley, gave the Spaniards additional descriptions of men like themselves in the interior.

The rest of the year 1542 was spent in this locality, off the coast of southern California, and then the voyage northward was resumed. Many points on the land were touched, although San Francisco bay quite escaped observation. Just before a severe storm, in which one of the vessels was lost, forcing him to turn back, Ferrel observed floating drift and recognized that it meant the neighborhood of a large river, but he was driven out to sea before reaching the mouth of the Columbia. The return voyage was uneventful, and the surviving vessel reached the harbor of Natividad in safety by April 14, 1543.

VILLALOBOS SAILS ACROSS THE PACIFIC

Cortes and Alvarado had both conceived plans more than once to equip a great expedition in New Spain and cross the South sea to the isles of the Western ocean. After the death of Alvarado, Mendoza adopted this scheme, and commissioned Ruy Lopez de Villalobos to take command of some of the ships of Alvarado and sail westward. He started on All Saints day, the 1st of November, 1542, with 370 Spanish soldiers and sailors aboard his fleet. January 22, 1547, Friar Jeronimo de Santisteban wrote to Mendoza “from Cochin in the Indies of the King of Portugal.” He stated that 117 of the men were still with the fleet, and that these intended to keep together and make their way as best they could home to Spain. Thirty members of the expedition had remained at Maluco, and twelve had been captured by the natives of various islands at which the party had landed. The rest, including Ruy Lopez, had succumbed to hunger and thirst, interminable labors and suffering, and unrelieved discouragement—the record of the previous months. This letter of Friar Jeronimo is the only published account of the fate of this expedition.

The brief and gloomy record of the voyage of Villalobos is a fit ending for this story of the Coronado expedition to Cibola and Quivira, of how it came about, of what it accomplished, and of what resulted from it. Nothing is the epitome of the whole story. The lessons which it teaches are always warnings, but if one will read history rightly, every warning will be found to be an inspiration.

[p413]

THE NARRATIVE OF CASTAÑEDA

BIBLIOGRAPHIC NOTE

A perusal of the narratives of the expeditions of Coronado and of Friar Marcos of Nice, which were translated by Henri Ternaux-Compans for the ninth volume of his Collection de Voyages, convinced me that the style and the language of these narratives were much more characteristic of the French translator than of the Spanish conquistadores. A comparison of Ternaux’s translations with some of the Spanish texts which he had rendered into French, which were available in the printed collections of Spanish documents in the Harvard University library, showed me that Ternaux had not only rendered the language of the original accounts with great freedom, but that in several cases he had entirely failed to understand what the original writer endeavored to relate. On consulting Justin Winsor’s Narrative and Critical History of America, in the second edition, I found that the Spanish manuscript of the Castañeda narrative, from which most of our knowledge of Coronado’s expedition is derived, was in the Lenox Library in New York City. The trustees of this library readily granted my request, made through Dr Winsor, for permission to copy the manuscript. The Lenox manuscript is not the original one written by Castañeda, but a copy made toward the end of the sixteenth century. It contains a number of apparent mistakes, and the meaning of many passages is obscure, probably due to the fact that the Spanish copyist knew nothing about the North American Indians and their mode of living. These places I have pointed out in the notes to my translation of the narrative, and I have called attention also to the important errors and misconceptions in Ternaux’s version. Diligent inquiry among the custodians of the large Spanish libraries at Simancas, Madrid, and at Seville where the Lenox manuscript was copied in 1596, has failed to bring me any information in regard to the original manuscript. The Lenox copy is the one used by Ternaux.

The Spanish text of the Relación Postrera de Sívola is printed now for the first time, through the kindness of the late Señor Joaquin García Icazbalceta, who copied it for me from a collection of papers in his possession, which formerly belonged to the Father Motolinia, the author of a very valuable description of the Indians of New Spain. In the preface to this work, dated 1541, Motolinia says that he was in communication with the brethren who had gone with Coronado. The Relación Postrera appears to be a copy made from a letter written to some of the Franciscans in New Spain by one of the friars who accompanied Coronado. [p414]

In the bibliography are the references to the exact location of the Spanish texts from which I have translated the other narratives. I am not aware that any of these have been translated entire, although Mr Bandelier has quoted from them extensively in his Documentary History of Zuñi.

There is one other account of the Coronado expedition which might have been included in the present volume. Mota Padilla wrote his Historia de la Nueva Galicia two centuries after the return of Coronado, but he had access to large stores of contemporary documents concerning the early history of New Spain, most of which have since been destroyed. Among these documents were those belonging to Don Pedro de Tovar, one of the captains in Coronado’s army. Mota Padilla’s account of this expedition is nearly if not quite as valuable as that of Castañeda, and supplements the latter in very many details. The length of the narrative and the limitations inevitable to any work of this nature forced me to abandon the idea of translating it for the present memoir. Much of the text of Mota Padilla will be found, however, in the notes to the translation of Castañeda, while the second half of the historical introduction is based primarily on Mota Padilla’s narrative, and a large portion of it is little more than a free rendering of this admirable work.

THE SPANISH TEXT[91]

Relacion de la Jornada de Cibola conpuesta por Pedro de Castañeda de Naçera. Donde se trata de todos aquellos poblados y ritos, y costumbres, la qual fue el Año de 1540.

Historia del Conde Fernando Gonzales impressa.

PROEMIO.