India, were not far distant in the seas to the west, and only awaited the discovery of suitable harbors on the coast of New Mexico for the birth of lively overseas trade. The Governor had a clause in his royal contract granting him the right to bring two ships annually direct to New Mexico. He looked forward with confidence to trade with China, so close in the west, and with Mexico and Peru to the south. He saw world enterprises centering upon his city of San Juan on the river. Already capital of so much land, who knew what remained to be brought loyally to it? The western sea shored along the provinces of “the Californios.” Reports compared the climate there to that of New Castile, and added further that “their states are the best managed of those thus far discovered,” resembling, indeed, “Roman republics.” In the summer of 1600 Vicente de Zaldívar led a troop of soldiers to find so promising a sea. On his way out he marched first to the saline pueblos beyond the mountains east of the river, to gather provisions for his journey. At one town where he asked for maize and beans the Indians gave him stones. He sent word of this to the capital and went on his way.
The Governor acted upon his message. Taking fifty soldiers he went to the transmontane pueblo, gave battle in which six Indians died, and later hanged two chiefs. He then burned part of the town, but in a manner “tactful and gentle,” and returned to San Juan.
Zaldívar was home before autumn to report that though he had come within three days of the sea he had not been able to reach it through hostile Indian country and high mountains. It was a setback for an impatient Governor, who had problems of discipline to contend with besides. During that autumn two captains of the army were murdered—Aguilar, who had twice made trouble for the Governor, and Sosa Albernoz. There was talk. The Governor was supposed to have ordered the killings.
But Christmas came and with it a new train from Mexico. It arrived at the capital on Christmas Eve bringing new families, new soldiers, six new friars; quantities of arms and ammunition; blankets and clothing, and shoes for everyone. Bonfires of celebration were lighted, and there was music and singing, and at midnight everyone went to Mass to give thanks. With his new resources the Governor could now plan to explore in strength his lands to the east and to the west.
Once again Quivira glowed in the civilized mind. Joseph, the Indian who had escaped from Bonilla and Humaña on those same plains, beguiled the Governor as the Turk had beguiled Vásquez de Coronado. It had long been a common form of Indian politeness to say that which the hearer would like to hear, the truth to the contrary notwithstanding. By his questions a Spanish general could kindle the answers he longed to receive. Gold, like this? Silver? Cities? A great house, a palace? Bounty in all things? Joseph had much to promise, and recited his wonders, ending with an account of a city he himself had not happened to see, but which he well knew from descriptions by other plains people—a city nine leagues long, two leagues wide, filled with marvels. There wasn’t a city in all Spain as big as that. The Governor commanded that preparations be launched for his entry into Quivira in the springtime.
But once again his peaceful purposes of acquisition were interrupted by calamitous news, when three soldiers came home to San Juan to say that two of their comrades had been killed by the same insolent Indians over the mountains to the east. Zaldívar once again led a punitive force against the guilty pueblo. The Indians massed at Quarai, one of the three large towns in the saline district. A battle of five nights and days followed before the town, deprived of its water supply by the soldiers, surrendered. Forty soldiers were wounded. Zaldívar had an arm broken and carried two wounds besides. Nine hundred Indians were killed. Their town was burned and two hundred prisoners were taken to the capital. Two months behind schedule, the Governor marched for Quivira with nearly a hundred soldiers, and pack animals, and cottonwood carts, in June, 1601. His sense of high fortune was at its fullest. Crossing the vast eastern land would be like the act of rolling up a map after it had served its simple purpose.
24.
The Promises
Close to eight hundred people were left at the river capital. Not long after the Governor’s departure they began to air certain disagreements.
First of all, the friars spoke out against the cruelties shown by the Governor to the Indians, and the robberies of Indian food, clothing and other possessions which many of the colonists seemed to consider privileged acts. Certainly no firm action against such unjust behavior was taken by the government. The Indians were close to starvation because the colonists had despoiled them of so much food. It was not to be condoned. Better no city, no province at all, than one so godless.
Other complaints came from other sources. There were charges of misrepresentation of the whole nature of New Mexico and even of the purpose of the expedition. Where was the quick return in wealth and personal fortune that all had believed in? A man put all he owned into a venture of this sort, and he deserved a proper return on his risk and his investment. What did he get here? He owed something to himself and his family. Back in Mexico, they had at least had a home of their own and something to eat.
Many men disdained to work in the colony to develop its modest but life-sustaining yield. They had come to make a fortune, not an irrigation ditch, a bean patch or a slaughter pen.
It appeared to the majority that one after another, the Governor’s explorations up the river, west of the river, east of the river, all founded on promises, showed nothing in the end but battle and burning pueblos. He himself seemed disappointed, but that helped nobody, for his temper only grew shorter, his rule more strict, and his methods more cruel. (After all, if what was going around was true, somebody had ordered the assassination of Aguilar and Sosa Albernoz.) Perhaps he was desperate to prove his whole venture a success. The question remained as to how long others should be expected to pay for things as they were.
In July a mass meeting was called at San Juan to give all such opinion a chance to crystallize. The Governor had his defenders who pointed out the happier facts overlooked by the discontented—there was plenty of food if farmers farmed, the plains were stocked with buffalo if hunters hunted, wheat and corn crops of the year were excellent.
Very well, cried the opposition, if the colony could be sustained on its river, then let the Governor stay at home, keep his soldiers here, and work hard to develop the new city where people could live decently. All those forays over the country brought nothing, took away man power, interrupted family life, and led to conflicts with the Indians.
The Governor’s supporters picked up the attacks of the friars and flung them back. If the friars stormed over the treatment of the Indians, some of the friars themselves were not doing their whole duty in their far-flung missionary parishes. Let them go back to their outlying pueblos, and do their work, and then talk.
The debates were full and bitter, and out of them came two documents. One, representing the great majority, filed fifty-seven charges against the Governor. The other, signed by his supporters, defended him. Both papers were sent by courier to the Viceroy in Mexico, and through the remaining weeks of summer, all but a small part of the colony made ready to take the road down the river to Mexico and older homes. At the end of September, 1601, they departed. Their journey took them two months, and as they arrived home at Santa Barbara near the head of the Conchos River in Mexico, the Governor was approaching his capital from yet another crossing of the plains of Quivira.
He brought a meagre return for all his pains. In his fifty-nine days of travel he saw nothing that had not been reported before. He learned one thing he was eager to know, and that was the fate of Humaña, the murderer, and his fellow deserters. Indians far eastward told how the Spanish renegades had been captured, surrounded with fire on the plains, and burned to death. Pace. For the rest of it, spirit and courage had run out of Oñate’s men, who hearing warnings of hostile Indians in vast numbers farther east presented a written petition to the Governor to turn homeward, as the “horses and mules were tired out and exhausted.” The petition bravely
