The pueblos had driven the Spanish south of the Rio Grande and practically kept them south of the Rio Grande for ten years. Churches were burned. Images were profaned. Priestly vestments decked wild Indian lads. Converts were washed in Santa Fe River to cleanse them of baptism. All the records in the Governor's Palace were destroyed, and the Palace itself given over to wild orgies among the victorious Indians; but the victory brought little good to the tribes. They fell back to their former state of tribal raid and feud. Drought spoiled the crops; and perhaps, after all, the consolation and the guidance of the Spanish priests were missed. When the Utes heard that the Spanish had retreated, these wild marauders of the northern desert fell on the pueblo towns like wolves. There is a legend, also, that at this time there were great earthquakes and many heavenly signs of displeasure. Curiously enough, the same legends exist about Montreal and Quebec. Otermin hung timidly on the frontier, crossing and recrossing the Rio Grande; but he could make no progress in resettling the colonists.
Comes on the scene now—1692-98—Don Diego de Vargas. It isn't so much what he did; for when you are brave enough, you don't need to do. The doors of fate open before the golden key. He resubjugated the Southwest for Spain; and he resubjugated it as much by force of clemency as force of cruelty. But mark the point—it was force that did it, not pow-wowing and parleying and straddling cowardice with conscience. De Vargas could muster only 300 men at El Paso, including loyal Indians. On August 21, 1692, he set out for the north.
It has taken many volumes to tell of the victories of Frontenac. It would take as many again to relate the victories of De Vargas. He was accompanied, of course, by the fearless and quenchless friars. All the pueblos passed on the way north he found abandoned; but when he reached Santa Fe on the 13th of September, he found it held and fortified by the Indians. The Indians were furiously defiant; they would perish, but surrender—never! De Vargas surrounded them and cut off the water supply. The friars approached under flag of truce. Before night, Santa Fe had surrendered without striking a blow. One after another, the pueblos were visited and pacified; but it was not all easy victory. The Indians did not relish an order a year later to give up occupation of the Palace and retire to their own villages. In December they closed all entrances to the Plaza and refused to surrender. De Vargas had prayers read, raised the picture of the Virgin on the battle flag, and advanced. Javelins, boiling water, arrows, assailed the advancing Spaniards; but the gate of the Plaza stockade was attacked and burned. Reinforcements came to the Indians, and both sides rested for the night. During the night, the Indian governor hanged himself. Next morning, seventy of the Indians were seized and court-martialed on the spot. De Vargas planted his flag on the Plaza, erected a cross and thanked God.
A view of part of San Ildefonso, New Mexico, showing the famous Black Mesa in the background
One of the hardest fights of '94 was out on the Black Mesa, a huge precipitous square of basalt, frowning above San Ildefonso. This mesa was a famous prayer shrine to the Indians and is venerated as sacred to this day. All sides are sheer but that towards the river. Down this is a narrow trail like a goat path between rocks that could be hurled on climbers' heads. De Vargas stormed the Black Mesa, on top of which great numbers of rebels had taken refuge. Four days the attack lasted, his 100 soldiers repeatedly reaching the edge of the summit only to be hurled down. After ten days the siege had to be abandoned, but famine had done its work among the Indians. For five years, the old general slept in his boots and scarcely left the warpath. It was at the siege of the Black Mesa that he is said to have made the vow to build a chapel to the Virgin; and it is his siege of Santa Fe that the yearly De Vargas Celebration commemorates to this day. And in the end, he died in his boots on the march at Bernalillo, leaving in his will explicit directions that he should be buried in the church of Santa Fe "under the high altar beneath the place where the priest puts his feet when he says mass." The body was carried to the parish church in his bed of state and interred beneath the altar; and the De Vargas celebration remains to this day one of the quaintest ceremonies of the old Governor's Palace.