THE GOVERNOR'S PALACE OF SANTA FE
It lies to the left of the city Plaza—a long, low, one-story building flanking the whole length of one side of the Plaza, with big yellow pine pillars supporting the arcade above the public walk, each pillar surmounted by the fluted architrave peculiar to Spanish-Moorish architecture. It is yellow adobe in the sunlight—very old, very sleepy, very remote from latter-day life, the most un-American thing in all America, the only governor's palace from Athabasca to the Gulf of Mexico, from Sitka to St. Lawrence, that exists to-day precisely as it existed one hundred years ago, two hundred years ago, three hundred years ago, four hundred years ago—back, back beyond that to the days when there were no white men in America. Uncover the outer plaster in the six-foot thickness of the walls in the Governor's Palace of Santa Fe, and what do you find? Solid adobe and brick? Not much! The walled-up, conical fireplaces and meal bins and corn caves of a pueblo people who lived on the site of modern Santa Fe hundreds of years before the Spanish founded this capital here in 1605. For years it has been a dispute among historians—Bandelier, Hodge, Twitchell, Governor Prince, Mr. Reed—whether any prehistoric race dwelt where Santa Fe now stands. Only in the summer of 1912, when it was necessary to replace some old beams and cut some arches through the six-foot walls was it discovered that the huge partitions covered in their centers walls antedating the coming of the Spaniards—walls with the little conical fireplaces of Indian pueblos, with such meal bins and corn shelves as you find in the prehistoric cave dwellings.
We have such a passion for destroying the old and replacing it with the new in America that you can scarcely place your hand on a structure in the New World that stands intact as it was before the Revolution. We somehow or other take it for granted that these mute witnesses of ancient heroism have nothing to teach us with their mossed walls and low-beamed ceilings and dumb, majestic dignity.
The Governor's Palace at Santa Fe, New Mexico, within the walls of which are found the conical fireplaces of the Indians who lived here hundreds of years before the Spaniards came
To this, the Governor's Palace of Santa Fe is the one and complete exception in America. It flanks the cottonwoods of the Plaza, yellow adobe in the sunlight—very old, very sleepy, very remote from latter-day life, but with a quaint, quiet atmosphere that travelers scour Europe to find. Look up to the vigas, or beams of the ceiling, yellowed and browned and mellowed with age. Those vigas have witnessed strange figures stalking the spacious halls below. If the ceiling beams could throw their memories on some moving picture screen, there would be such a panorama of varied personages as no other palace in the world has witnessed. Leave out the hackneyed tale of General Lew Wallace writing "Ben Hur" in a back room of the Palace; or the fact that three different flags flung their folds over old Santa Fe in a single century. He who knows anything at all about Santa Fe, knows that Spanish power gave place to Mexican, and the Mexican régime to American rule. Also, that General Lew Wallace wrote "Ben Hur" in a back room of the Palace, while he was governor of New Mexico. And you only have to use your eyes to know that Santa Fe, itself, is a bit of old Spain set down in the modern United States of America. The donkeys trotting to market under loads of wood, the ragged peon riders bestriding burros no higher than a saw horse, the natives stalking past in bright serape or blanket, moccasined and hatless—all tell you that you are in a region remote from latter-day America.
But here is another sort of picture panorama! It is between 1680 and 1710.
A hatless youth, swarthy from five years of terrible exposure, hair straight as a string, gabbling French but speaking no Spanish, a slave white traded from Indian tribe to Indian tribe, all the way from the Gulf of Mexico to the interior of New Spain, is brought before the viceroy. Do you know who he is? He is Jean L'Archevêque, the French-Canadian lad who helped to murder La Salle down on Trinity Bay in Texas. What are the French doing down on Trinity Bay? Do they intend to explore and claim this part of America, too? In the abuses of slavery among the Indians for five years, the lad has paid the terrible penalty for the crime into which he was betrayed by his youth. He is scarred with wounds and beatings. He is too guilt-stricken ever to return to New France. His information may be useful to New Spain; so he is enrolled in the guards of the Spanish Viceroy of Santa Fe; and he is sent out to San Ildefonso and Santa Clara, where he founds a family and where his records may be seen to this day. For those copy-book moralists who like to know that Divine retribution occasionally works out in daily life, it may be added that Jean L'Archevêque finally came to as violent a death as he had brought to the great French explorer, La Salle.
Or take a panorama of a later day. It is just before the fall of Spanish rule. The Governor sits in his Palace at Santa Fe, a mightier autocrat than the Pope in Rome; for, as the Russians say, "God is high in His Heavens," and the King is far away, and those who want justice in Santa Fe, must pay—pay—pay—pay in gold coin that can be put in the iron chest of the viceroy. (You can see specimens of those iron chests all through New Mexico yet—chests with a dozen secret springs to guard the family fortune of the hidden gold bullion.) A woman bursts into the presence of the Viceroy, and throws herself on her knees. It is a terrible tale—the kind of tale we are too finical to tell in these modern days, though that is not saying there are not many such tales to be told. The woman's young sister has married an officer of the Viceroy's ring. He has beaten her as he would a slave. He has treated her to vile indecencies of which only Hell keeps record. She had fled to her father; but the father, fearing the power of the Viceroy, had sent her back to the man; and the man has killed her with his brutalities. (I have this whole story from a lineal descendant of the family.) The woman throws back her rebozo, drops to her knees before the Viceroy, and demands justice. The Viceroy thinks and thinks. A woman more or less! What does it matter? The woman's father had been afraid to act, evidently. The husband is a member of the government ring. Interference might stir up an ugly mess—revelations of extortion and so on! Besides, justice is worth so much per; and this woman—what has she to pay? This Viceroy will do nothing. The woman rises slowly, incredulous. Is this justice? She denounces the Viceroy in fiery, impassioned speech. The Viceroy smiles and twirls his mustachios. What can a woman do? The woman proclaims her imprecation of a court that fails of justice. (Do our courts fail of justice? Is there no lesson in that past for us?) Do you know what she did? She did what not one woman in a million could do to-day, when conditions are a thousand fold easier. She went back to her home. It was just about where the pretty Spanish house of Mr. Morley of the Archæological School stands to-day. She gathered up all the loose gold she could and bound it in a belt around her waist. Then she took the most powerful horse she had from the kraal, saddled him and rode out absolutely alone for the city of Old Mexico—900 miles as the trail ran. Apaches, Comanches, Navajos, beset the way. She rode at night and slept by day. The trail was a desert waste of waterless, bare, rocky hills and quicksand rivers and blistering heat. God, or the Virgin to whom she constantly prayed, or her own dauntless spirit, must have piloted the way; for she reached the old city of Mexico, laid her case before the King's representatives, and won the day. Her sister's death was avenged. The husband was tried and executed: and the Viceroy was deposed. Most of us know of almost similar cases. I think of a man who has repeatedly tried for a federal judgeship in New Mexico, who has literally been guilty of every crime on the human calendar. Yet we don't at risk of life push these cases to retribution. Is that one of the lessons the past has for us? Spanish power fell in New Mexico because there came a time when there was neither justice nor retribution in any of the courts.
Other panoramas there were beneath the age-mellowed beams of the Palace ceiling, panoramas of Comanche and Navajo and Ute and Apache stalking in war feathers before a Spanish governor clad in velvets and laces. Tradition has it that a Ute was once struck dead in the Governor's presence. Certainly, all four tribes wrought havoc and raid to the very doors of the Palace. Within only the last century, a Comanche chief and his warriors came to Santa Fe demanding the daughter of a leading trader in marriage for the chief's son. The garrison was weak, in spite of fustian and rusty helmets and battered breastplates and velvet doublets and boots half way to the waist—there were seldom more than 200 soldiers, and the pusillanimous Governor counseled deception. He told the Comanche that the trader's daughter had died, and ordered the girl to hide. The only peace that an Indian respects—or any other man, for that matter—is the peace that is a victory. The Indian suspected that the answer was the answer of the coward, a lie, and came back with his Comanche warriors. While the soldiers huddled inside the Palace walls, the town was raided. The trader was murdered and the daughter carried off to the Comanches, where she died of abuse. When these tragedies fell on daughters of the Pilgrims in New England, the Saxon strain of the warrior women in their blood rose to meet the challenge of fate; and they brained their captors with an ax; but no such warrior strain was in the blood of the daughters of Spain. By religion, by nationality, by tradition, the Spanish girl was the purely convent product: womanhood protected by a ten-foot wall. When the wall fell away, she was helpless as a hot-house flower set out amid violent winds.
Diagonally across the Plaza from the Governor's Palace stands the old Fonda, or Exchange Hotel, whence came the long caravans of American traders on the Santa Fe Trail. Behind the Palace about a quarter of a mile, was the Gareta, a sort of combined custom house and prison. The combination was deeply expressive of Spanish rule in those early days, for independent of what the American's white-tented wagon might contain—baled hay or priceless silks or chewing tobacco—a duty of $500 was levied against each mule-team wagon of the American trader. Did a trader protest, or hold back, he was promptly clapped in irons. It was cheaper to pay the duty than buy a release. The walls of both the Fonda and the Gareta were of tremendous thickness, four to six feet of solid adobe, which was hard as our modern cement. In the walls behind the Gareta and on the walls behind the Palace, pitted bullet holes have been found. Beneath the holes was embedded human hair.
Nothing more picturesque exists in America's past than the panorama of this old Santa Fe Trail. Santa Fe was to the Trail what Cairo was to the caravans coming up out of the Desert in Egypt. Twitchell, the modern historian, and Gregg, the old chronicler of last century's Trail, give wonderfully vivid pictures of the coming of the caravans to the Palace. "As the caravans ascended the ridge which overlooks the city, the clamorings of the men and the rejoicings of the bull whackers could be heard on every side. Even the animals seemed to participate in the humor of their riders. I doubt whether the first sight of Jerusalem brought the crusaders more tumultuous and soul-enrapturing joy."
A pool in the Painted Desert whither came thousands of goats and sheep, driven by Navajo girls on horseback
We talk of the picturesque fur trade of the North, when brigades of birch canoes one and two hundred strong penetrated every river and lake of the wilderness of the Northwest. Let us take a look at these caravan brigades of the traders of the Southwest! Teams were hitched tandem to the white-tented wagons. Drivers did not ride in the wagons. They rode astride mule or horse, with long bull whips thick as a snake skin, which could reach from rear to fore team. I don't know how they do it; but when the drivers lash these whips out full length, they cause a crackling like pistol shots. The owner of the caravan was usually some gentleman adventurer from Virginia or Kentucky or Louisiana or Missouri; but each caravan had its captain to command, and its outriders to scout for Indians. These scouts were of every station in life with morals of as varied aspect as Joseph's coat of many colors. Kit Carson was once one of these scouts. Governor Bent was one of the traders. Stephen B. Elkins first came to New Mexico with a bull whacker's caravan. In the morning, every teamster would vie with his fellows to hitch up fastest. Teams ready, he would mount and call back—"All's set." An uproar of whinnying and braying, the clank of chains, and then the captain's shout—"Stretch out," when the long line of twenty or thirty white-tented wagons would rumble out for the journey of thirty to sixty days across the plains. Each wagon had five yoke of oxen, with six or eight extra mule teams behind in case of emergency. About three tons made a load. Twenty miles was a good day's travel. Camping places near good water and pasturage were chosen ahead by the scouts. Wagons kept together in groups of four. In case of attack by Comanche or Ute, these wagons wheeled into a circle for defense with men and beasts inside the extemporized kraal. Campfires were kept away from wagons to avoid giving target to foes. Blankets consisted of buffalo robes, and the rations "hard tack," pork and such game as the scouts and sharpshooters could bring down. A favorite trick of Indian raiders was to wait till all animals were tethered out for pasturage, and then stampede mules and oxen. In the confusion, wagons would be overturned and looted.
As the long white caravans came to their journey's end at Santa Fe, literally the whole Spanish and Indian population crowded to the Plaza in front of the Palace. "Los Americanos! Los Carros! La Caravana!"—were the shouts ringing through the streets; and Santa Fe's perpetual siesta would be awakened to a week's fair or barter. Wagons were lined up at the custom house; and the trader presented himself before the Spanish governor, trader and governor alike dressed in their best regimentals. Very fair, very soft spoken, very profuse of compliments was the interview; but divested of profound bows and flowery compliments, it ended in the American paying $500 a wagon, or losing his goods. The goods were then bartered at a staggering advance. Plain broadcloth sold at $25 a yard, linen at $4 a yard, and the price on other goods was proportionate. Goods taken in exchange were hides, wool, gold and silver bullion, Indian blankets and precious stones.
Travelers from Mexico to the outside world went by stage or private omnibus with outriders and guards and sharpshooters. Young Spanish girls sent East to school were accompanied by such a retinue of defenders, slaves and servants, as might have attended a European monarch; and a whole bookful of stories could be written of adventures among the young Spanish nobility going out to see the world. The stage fare varied from $160 to $250 far as the Mississippi. Though Stephen B. Elkins went to New Mexico with a bull whacker's team, it was not long before he was sending gold bullion from mining and trading operations out to St. Louis and New York. How to get this gold bullion past the highwaymen who infested the stage route, was always a problem. I know of one old Spanish lady, who yearly went to St. Louis to make family purchases and used to smuggle Elkins' gold out for him in belts and petticoats and disreputable looking old hand bags. Once, when she was going out in midsummer heat, she had a belt of her husband's drafts and Elkins' gold round her waist. The way grew hotter and hotter. The old lady unstrapped the buckskin reticule—looking, for all the world, like a woman's carry-all—and threw it up on top of the stage. An hour later, highwaymen "went through" the passengers. Rings, watches, jewels, coin were taken off the travelers; and the mail bags were looted; but the bandits never thought of examining the old bag on top of the stage, in which was gold worth all the rest of the loot.
In those days, gambling was the universal passion of high and low in New Mexico; and many a Spanish don and American trader, who had taken over tens of thousands in the barter of the caravan, wasted it over the gaming table before dawn of the next day. The Fonda, or old Exchange Hotel, was the center of high play; but it may as well be acknowledged, the highest play of all, the wildest stakes were often laid in the Governor's Palace.
Luckily, the passion for destroying the old has not invaded Santa Fe. The people want their Palace preserved as it was, is, and ever shall be; and the recent restoration has been, not a reconstruction, but a taking away of all the modern and adventitious. Where modern pillars have been placed under the long front portico, they are being replaced by the old portal type of pillar—the fluted capital across the main column supporting the roof beams. This type of portal has come in such favor in New Mexico that it is being embodied in modern houses for arcades, porches and gardens.
The main entrance of the Palace is square in the center. You pass into what must have been the ancient reception room leading to an audience chamber on the left. What amazes you is the enormous thickness of these adobe walls. Each window casement is wider than a bench; and an open door laid back is not wider than the thickness of the wall. To-day the reception hall and, indeed, the rooms of the center Palace present some of the finest mural paintings in America. These have been placed on the walls by the Archæological School of America which with the Historical Society occupies the main portions of the old building. You see drawings of the coming of the first Spanish caravels, of Coronado, of Don Diego de Vargas, who was the Frontenac of the Southwest, reconquering the provinces in 1680-94, about the same time that the great Frontenac was playing his part in French Canada. There are pictures, too, of the caravans crossing the plains, of the coming of American occupation, of the Moki and Hopi and Zuñi pueblos, of the Missions of which only ruins to-day mark the sites in the Jemez, at Sandia, and away out in the Desert of Abo.
To the left of the reception room is an excellent art gallery of Southwestern subjects. Here, artists of the growing Southwestern School send their work for exhibition and sale. It is significant that within the last few years prices have gone up from a few dollars to hundreds and thousands. Nausbaum's photographic work of the modern Indian is one of the striking features of the Palace. Of course, there are pictures by Curtis and Burbank and Sharpe and others of the Southwestern School; but perhaps the most interesting rooms to the newcomer, to the visitor, who doesn't know that we have an ancient America, are those where the mural drawings are devoted to the cave dwellers and prehistoric races. These were done by Carl Lotave of Paris out on the ground of the ancient races. In conception and execution, they are among the finest murals in America.
Long ago, the Governor's Palace had twin towers and a chapel. Bells in the old Spanish churches were not tolled. They were struck gong fashion by an attendant, who ascended the towers. These bells were cast of a very fine quality of old copper; and the tone was largely determined by the quality of the cast. Old Mission bells are scarce to-day in New Mexico; and collectors offer as high as $1,500 and $3,000 for the genuine article. Vesper bells played a great part in the life of the old Spanish régime. Ladies might be promenading the Plaza, workmen busy over their tasks, gamblers hard at the wheel and dice. At vesper call, men, women and children dropped to knees; and for a moment silence fell, all but the calling of the vesper bells. Then the bells ceased ringing, and life went on in its noisy stream.
There are streets in Santa Fe where one may see box-like adobe houses beside dwellings of modern architecture
No account of the Governor's Palace would be complete without some mention of the marvels of dress among the dons and doñas of the old régime. Could we see them promenading the Plaza and the Palace as they paraded their gayety less than half a century ago, we would imagine ourselves in some play house of the French Court in its most luxurious days. Indians dressed then as they dress to-day, in bright-colored blankets fastened gracefully round hip and shoulders. Peons or peasants wore serapes, blankets with a slit in the center, over the shoulders. Women of position wore not hats but the silk rebozo or scarf, thrown over the head with one end back across the left shoulder. On the street, the face was almost covered by this scarf. Presumably the purpose was to conceal charms; but when you consider the combination of dark eyes and waving hair and a scarf of the finest color and texture that could be bought in China or the Indies, it is a question whether that scarf did not set off what it was designed to conceal. About the shawls used as scarfs there is much misconception. These are not of Spanish or Mexican make. They come down in the Spanish families from the days when the vessels of the traders of Mexico trafficked with China and Japan. These old shawls to-day bring prices varying all the way from $200 to $2,000.
The don of fashion dressed even more gayly than his spouse. Jewelry was a passion with both men and women; and the finest type of old jewelry in America to-day is to be found in New Mexico. The hat of the don was the wide-brimmed sombrero. Around this was a silver or gold cord, with a gold or silver cockade. The jackets were of colored broadcloth with buttons of silver or gold, not brass; but the trousers were at once the glory and the vanity of the wearer. Gold and silver buttons ornamented the seams of the legs from hip to knee. There were gold clasps at the garter and gold clasps at the knee. A silk sash with tasseled cords or fringe hanging down one side took the place of modern suspenders. Leather leggings for outdoor wear were carved or embossed. A serape or velvet cape lined with bright-colored silk completed the costume. Bridles and horse trappings were gorgeous with silver, the pommel and stirrups being overlaid with it. The bridle was a barbarous silver thing with a bit cruel enough to control tigers; and the rowels of the spurs were two or three inches long.
No, these were not people of French and Spanish courts. They were people of our own Western America less than a century ago; but though they were not people of the playhouse, as they almost seem to us, they are essentially a play-people. The Spaniard of the Southwest lived, not to work, but to play; and when he worked, it was only that he might play the harder. Los Americanos came and changed all that. They turned the Spanish play-world up side down and put work on top. Roam through the Governor's Palace! Call up the old gay life! We undoubtedly handle more money than the Spanish dons and doñas of the old days; but frankly—which stand for the more joy out of life; those laughing philosophers, or we modern work-demons?