10.
Here is the oldest and most famous inscription at El Morro. It was done by the first governor of New Mexico, Don Juan de Oñate, in 1605, 15 years before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock.
In 1604, Oñate rode south with 30 men to the Gulf of California. On his return the next year, he made his inscription, which reads:
“Paso por aquí el adelantado Don Juan de Oñate del descubrimiento de la mar del sur a 16 de Abril de 1605.”
The translation reads:
“Passed by here the Governor Don Juan de Oñate, from the discovery of the Sea of the South on the 16th of April, 1605.”
By “Sea of the South,” Oñate meant Gulf of California, an arm of the Pacific Ocean. He was not the first Spaniard to see it, of course.
This was not Oñate’s first visit to El Morro—on December 13, 1598, he passed here from Zuñi with a group of Spanish soldiers, enroute to the Rio Grande via Acoma.
Juan de Oñate inscription. 1605
Below the Oñate inscription, partly hidden by the yucca plant, is an inscription that reads:
“By here passed the Ensign Don Joseph de Payba Basconzelos, the year he brought the cabildo of the realm at his own expense the 18th of February, of the year 1726.”
What Basconzelos actually meant is not clear to us.