Fray Marcos' report encouraged the Emperor of Spain to go on with Coronado's expedition. That trip need not be told here. It has been told and retold in half the languages of the world. The Spaniards set out from Old Mexico 300 strong, with 800 Indian escorts and four priests including Marcos and a lay brother. What did they expect? Probably a second Peru, temples with walls of gold and images draped in jewels of priceless worth. What did they find? In Zuñi and the Three Mesas and Taos, small, sun-baked clay houses built tier on tier on top of each other like a child's block house, with neither precious stones, nor metals of any sort, but only an abundance of hides and woven cloth. When the soldiers saw Zuñi, they broke out in jeers and curses at the priest. Poor Fray Marcos was thinking more of souls saved from perdition than of loot, and returned in shamed embarrassment to New Spain.
Across the Desert to the Three Mesas and the Cañon of the Colorado, east again to Acoma and the Enchanted Mesa, up to the pueblo town now known as the city of Santa Fe, into the Pecos, and north, yet north of Taos, Coronado's expedition practically made a circuit of all the Southwest from the Colorado River to East Kansas. The knightly adventurers did not find gold, and we may guess, as winter came on with heavy snows in the Upper Desert, they were in no very good mood; for now began that contest between white adventurers and Pueblos which lasted down to the middle of the Nineteenth Century. At the pueblo now known as Bernalillo, the soldiers demanded blankets to protect them from the cold. The Indians stripped their houses to help their visitors, but in the mêlée and no doubt in the ill humor of both sides there were attacks and insults by the white aggressors, and a state of siege lasted for two months. Practically from that date to 1840, the pueblo towns were a unit against the white man.
A fashionable metal-worker of Taos, New Mexico, who has not adhered to the native costume
The last great uprising was just after the American Occupation. Bent, the great trader of Bent's Fort on the Arkansas, was governor. Kit Carson, who had run away from the saddler's trade at sixteen and for whom a reward of one cent was offered, had joined the Santa Fe caravans and was now living at Taos, an influential man among the Indians. According to Col. Twitchell, whose work is the most complete on New Mexico and who received the account direct from the governor's daughter, Governor Bent knew that danger was brewing. The Pueblos had witnessed Spanish power overthrown; then, the expulsion of Mexican rule. Why should they, themselves, not expel American domination?
It was January 18, 1847. Governor Bent had come up from Santa Fe to visit Taos. He was warned to go back, or to get a military escort; but a trader all his life among the Indians, he flouted danger. Traders' rum had inflamed the Indians. They had crowded in from their pueblo town to the plaza of Taos. Insurrectionary Mexicans, who had cause enough to complain of the American policy regarding Spanish land titles, had harangued the Indians into a flare of resentful passion. Governor Bent and his family were in bed in the house you can see over to the left of the Plaza. In the kraal were plenty of horses for escape, but the family were awakened at daybreak by a rabble crowding into the central courtyard. Kit Carson's wife, Mrs. Bent, Mrs. Boggs and her children hurried into the shelter of an inner room. Young Alfredo Bent, only ten years old, pulled his gun from the rack with the words—"Papa, let us fight;" but Bent had gone to the door to parley with the leaders.
Taking advantage of the check, the women and an Indian slave dug a hole with a poker and spoon under the adobe wall of the room into the next house. Through this the family crawled away from the besieged room to the next house, Mrs. Bent last, calling for her husband to come; but it was too late. Governor Bent was shot in the face as he expostulated; clubbed down and literally scalped alive. He dragged himself across the floor, to follow his wife; but Indians came up through the hole and down over the roof and in through the windows; and Bent fell dead at the feet of his family.
The family were left prisoners in the room without food, or clothing except night dresses, all that day and the next night. At daybreak friendly Mexicans brought food, and the women were taken away disguised as squaws. Once, when searching Indians came to the house of the old Mexican who had sheltered the family, the rescuer threw the searchers off by setting his "squaws" to grinding meal on the kitchen floor. Kit Carson, at this time, unfortunately happened to be in California. He was the one man who could have restrained the Indians.
The Indians then proceeded down to the Arroyo Hondo to catch some mule loads of whiskey and provisions, which were expected through the narrow cañon. The mill where the mules had been unharnessed was surrounded that night. The teamsters plugged up windows and loaded for the fray that must come with daylight. Seven times the Indians attempted to rush an assault. Each time, a rifle shot puffed from the mill and an Indian leaped into the air to fall back dead. Then the whole body of 500 Indians poured a simultaneous volley into the mill. Two of the Americans inside fell dead. A third was severely wounded. By the afternoon of the second day, the Americans were without balls or powder. The Indians then crept up and set fire to the mill. The Americans hid themselves among the stampeding stock of the kraal. Night was coming on. The Pueblos were crowding round in a circle. The surviving Americans opened the gates and made a dash in the dark for the mountains. Two only escaped. The rest were lanced and scalped as they ran; and in the loot of the teams, the Indians are supposed to have secured some well-filled chests of gold specie.