a colonist. His play, hurriedly prepared and rehearsed, showed how the Franciscan fathers came to New Mexico; crossed the land, so; met the poor savages, so; who were gentle and friendly, and came on their knees, thus, asking to be converted; and how the missionaries then baptized them in great throngs. So the colony showed to themselves a great purpose of their toil. The audience adjourned in high spirits to prepare for the next episode of the celebrations.
Men with horses now went to mount, and came in formation shining with arms, armor and all their richest dress. The rest of the colony took up formal ranks, and when all was ready the Governor came forward accompanied by the crucifer, the standard-bearer, the trumpeters and the royal secretary of the expedition to perform the most solemn of acts.
All knew what a great man the Governor was. He was supposed to be one of the five richest men in Mexico. His father the Count de Oñate had been a governor before him—in New Galicia. During the four years of preparations, delays, starts and stops which the expedition had already endured, they said the Governor had spent one million dollars of his own fortune, for salaries, supplies, equipment, and running expenses. The Governor was magnificent on both sides of his household, for his wife was a granddaughter of the Marquis of the Valley, Cortés, the conqueror; and the great-granddaughter of the Emperor Montezuma himself. Her father was Don Pedro de Tovar, who had gone and returned with Coronado. As a child she must have heard him tell of his adventures in the north. All such great connections were matters of pride to the colony, but since opinion was always divided in human affairs, there were those who had heard things. They said the Governor had squandered and mismanaged his great patrimony so that he actually owed more than thirty thousand dollars, all of it borrowed in bad faith, with the creditors evaded by tricks ever since. Everybody knew he was only a private individual, and thus had no place in the government to command respect for him. How would anybody obey him? In fact, once before, leading soldiers, he had been treated disrespectfully and disobeyed. Would anybody but wastrels and thugs enlist to go with him? But for all such opinion there was plenty of the opposite, which held that the delays and frustrations that had so many times during the past four years prevented the Governor from actually marching forth with his army had come from the Devil, whose purpose it was to prevent the colony from going to convert the heathen Indians, and it was plain that those who worked against the Governor worked for the Prince of Darkness. Many said that nobody was better fitted for the command than the Governor, with his virtue, his human understanding and the nobility of his character; his efficiency and his place in the affections of the soldiers; and the fact that he was the son of his father, who was the beloved “refuge of soldiers and poor gentlemen in this kingdom.”
When he now came forward to face the army and with them all to signalize their common achievement, all hearts lifted to him in unity. He was a fine-looking man in middle life, wearing one of his six complete suits of armor. He held many closely written pages of parchment on which were written over three thousand words of solemn proclamation. Bareheaded, in the presence of the cross and the royal standard, he began to read aloud.
He invoked the trinity in “the one and only true God… creator of the heavens and earth… and of all creatures… from the highest cherubim to the lowliest ant and the smallest butterfly.” He called upon the Holy Mother of God and upon Saint Francis. He set forth the legal basis of his authority, and declared, “… finding myself on the banks of the Rio del Norte, within a short distance from the first settlements of New Mexico, which are found along this river… I desire to take possession of this land this 30th day of April, the feast of the Ascension of Our Lord, in the year fifteen hundred and ninety-eight.…” He commemorated the Franciscan martyrs of earlier years up the river, and showed how their work must be taken up and continued. Turning to other purposes of his colony, he listed many—the “need for correcting and punishing the sins against nature and against humanity that exist among these bestial nations”; and the desirable ends “that these people may be bettered in commerce and trade; that they may gain better ideas of government; that they may augment the number of their occupations and learn the arts, become tillers of the soil and keep livestock and cattle, and learn to live like rational beings, clothe their naked; govern themselves with justice and be able to defend themselves from their enemies.… All these objects I shall fulfill even to the point of death, if need be. I command now and will always command that these objects be observed under penalty of death.” Mentioning the presence of his reverend fathers and of his officers, and the name of the King, he declared:
“Therefore… I take possession, once, twice, and thrice, and all the times I can and must, of the… lands of the said Rio del Norte, without exception whatsoever, with all its meadows and pasture grounds and passes… and all other lands, pueblos, cities, villas, of whatsoever nature now founded in the kingdom and province of New Mexico… and all its native Indians.… I take all jurisdiction, civil as well as criminal, high as well as low, from the edge of the mountains to the stones and sand in the rivers, and the leaves of the trees.…”
He then turned and took the cross beside him, and advancing to a tree he nailed the cross to it and knelt down to pray, “O, holy cross, divine gate of heaven and altar of the only and essential sacrifice of the blood and body of the Son of God, pathway of saints and emblem of their glory, open the gates of heaven to these infidels. Found churches and altars where the body and blood of the Son of God may be offered in sacrifice; open to us a way of peace and safety for their conversion, and give to our king and to me, in his royal name, the peaceful possession of these kingdoms and provinces. Amen.”
And the royal secretary then read his certification of the deed, and the trumpets blew a tremendous voluntary, and the harquebusiers fired a salute together, and the Governor planted with his own hands the royal standard in the land near the river.
17.
The River Capital
Four days later, on May 4, the army arrived upriver at the ford discovered by the five swimmers a week before. There the river flowed from between two mountains whose flanks it had for aeons worn away in its search for the sea, still so distant. All went to work to get the train across. The ford was close to the site of modern El Paso-Juarez. The most noble youth sweated himself like the commonest half-breed, hauling at the heavy carts, calling to the cattle, riding back and forth from dust to dust on each side of the river. A man’s worth was in how much he worked when the time came. The Governor’s nephews, Juan and Vicente de Zaldívar, were among the worthiest.
Once across on the left bank, the colony moved on to the pass through the mountains, which they called now the North Pass, El Paso del Norte. Wandering Indians watched them, Mansos, naked and passive, but known to be capable of great ferocity. They had no fixed dwellings or planted fields, but ate berries and whatever they could catch that jumped or ran, such as toads, lizards and vipers, and other animals, all of which they ate raw.
The colony moved safely on with all its burdens on pack animals and in the two-wheeled wagons. The wheels were made of cross sections of cottonwood trunks, joined by a pine-log axle on which rested the wagon bed four feet square. The wagon sides were made of slender branches lashed upright. The shaft of the wagon was of pine, and to it were chained the yokes of the oxen. There went all the household treasures and trifles, the possessions that meant personality and home and ways of doing things, from sacred images to dishes to books and clothing, whether humble or grand.
A servant of one of the officers was in charge of his master’s arms and wardrobe, which included a captain’s lance of silver with tassels of gold, yellow and purple silk; three suits of armor; three Madrid harquebuses, with powder horns, firelocks, and bullet moulds; three sets of buckskin armor for horses; a sergeant’s halberd with yellow and purple velvet tassels; a Toledo sword and a dagger inlaid with soft gold, with silk belts; four Cordovan leather saddles; a bed with two mattresses and coverlet, sheets, pillowcases, pillows. The Captain owned a suit of blue Italian velvet faced with wide gold lace; another of lustrous Castilian satin, rose-colored, with a short gray cloak trimmed in
