The Jumano Indians

by Frederick Webb Hodge

These facts are mentioned for the purpose of showing that the Jumano, at least, although friendly toward the Spaniards, had apparently not occupied eastern New Mexico for some twenty-two years prior to 1654, but that they were living on the plains and leading their customary semi-sedentary life.

As previously stated, Fray Juan de Salas, earlier in the century, found the Jumano on the prairies about 112 leagues eastward from the Rio Grande. But distances given by the early Spanish travelers must be regarded as only approximate, and there is no reason for believing that the tribe had moved farther away simply because Captains Martin and Castillo, in 1650, are said to have found the Jumano on the Nueces 200 leagues from Santa Fé. They may have been in practically the same spot during this quarter century.

There is ground for strong suspicion that the village or villages of the Jumano on the plains at this time were in proximity to if not actually at the Quartelejo, or Cuartelejo, mentioned frequently by writers of the 18th century. The distance of the Jumano from Santa Fé, according to two writers above cited, varied from 112 to 200 leagues (300 to 530 miles); while El Quartelejo, according to the record, was from 130 to 160 leagues (350 to 425 miles) from the New Mexican capital.[15] This Indian outpost was situated in the valley of Beaver creek, in northern Scott county, Kansas, as has been shown by Williston and Martin.[16]

El Quartelejo first appears in history about the middle of the seventeenth century, when “some families of Christian Indians of the pueblo and tribe of Taos uprose, withdrew to the plains of Cibola [i. e. the buffalo plains], and fortified themselves in a place which afterward was for this reason called the Cuartelejo. And they were in it until Don Juan de Archuleta [in 1652?], by order of the Governor, went with 20 soldiers and a party of auxiliary Indians and brought them back to their pueblo. He found in the possession of these revolted Taos, casques and other pieces of copper and tin; and when he asked them whence they had acquired these, they replied ‘from the Quivira pueblos,’ to which they had journeyed from the Cuartelejo.... From Cuartelejo in that direction one goes to the Pananas [Pawnees]; and to-day it is seen with certainty that there are no other pueblos besides the said [Panana] ones, with which the French were by then already trading. Besides this in all the pueblos which the English and French have discovered, from the Jumano to the north or northeast, we do not know any to have been found of the advancement and riches which used to be imagined of the Gran Quivira.”[17]

It has been seen that the Jumano were still on the plains in 1654, and that their former settlement in the Salinas of New Mexico had evidently long been abandoned. It is said that, in 1670, “many Indians from the Pueblo of the Jumanos were at El Paso, but the roads to the [former] Jumano country [the Salinas] were closed by the Apaches,”[18] whose depredations soon became so serious that between the years 1669 and 1675 every settlement of the Piro and Tigua east of the Rio Grande had been permanently abandoned on their account. I find no evidence that any Jumano inhabited that part of New Mexico at this time, however,[19] nor is there any indication that they were in New Mexico at the outbreak of the Pueblo rebellion of 1680 or that they participated in that bloody revolt during the succeeding twelve years.

During this period the government of New Mexico was administered from El Paso, the provincial capital (Santa Fé) having been completely abandoned in 1680. On October 20, 1683, more than 200 Jumano visited El Paso for the purpose of asking for missionaries, “stating that thirty-two tribes were waiting for baptism, because, being on the point of fighting a great battle, and anxious because they were few while the enemy were more than 30,000 in number, they invoked the aid of the holy cross, of which they had heard from their forefathers, and at once there descended through the air a cross wrought in red, with a pedestal two yards in breadth ... and that when this cross was put on their banner, they had conquered their enemies without losing a man, and gaining much spoils of war.” Having acknowledged the miracle, they came to ask for baptism. Three friars went to them and found “a great multitude of Xumanas and Tejas; they decided to return with better preparation and a greater number of ministers.... Some friars returned with the intention of going among the Xumanas and Tejas, to Caracoles river, where it is said that pearls are fished, in order that they might ascertain the truth.... The apparition of the cross turned out to be uncertain, because it was a ruse devised by an Indian of the Tejas in order that the Spaniards might help them to cross the Conchas river to their land, which passage the Apaches were trying to prevent; and such chimeras are often tried by the Indians, because they know how easily the Spaniards can be made to believe them.”[20]

This statement is generally too indefinite to be of much value beyond the fact that the Jumano—or at least some of them—again ventured across the plains as far as El Paso, with another miracle to unfold. We may not assume from the foregoing statement that the Jumano at this time were dwelling in the neighborhood of the Conchos-Rio Grande junction, where they were first met, as there is definite evidence that their old home had become occupied by the Conchos, Julimes, and Chocolomos,[21] who, so far as is known, were unrelated.

In December, 1683, according to Escalante, “there arrived at El Paso, Juan Sabeata,[22] an Indian of the Jumano nation, saying that all his people wished to be reclaimed to the Faith, and asked for ministers; and that not very far from their country were the Tejas, of whom he related so many things that he caused it to be believed that that province was one of the most advanced, fertile, and rich in this America. For which reason Fray Nicholas Lopez, then vice-custodian, desirous of propagating the Gospel, determined to go apostolically, without escort or defense, to this exploration with Fray Juan de Zavaleta and Fray Antonio de Acevedo.” The governor, however, thought it unsafe for the fathers to go alone, so he formed an expedition of volunteers under command of Juan Domingo (Dominguez) de Mendoza, who accompanied the friars to the junction of the Conchos and Rio Grande, where the docile Conchos, Julimes, and Chocolomos now resided. Father Acevedo remained with them while the expedition set out for the Rio Pecos, and after many days “arrived at a rancheria of Indians who then were called Hediondos [“Stinkers”]. Among them were some Jumanes; and of the latter [tribe] was Juan Sabeata.”[23] The party later returned to El Paso.

Henceforward historical references to the Jumano are fewer and farther between. Bandelier even asserts that they “were lost sight of after the great convulsions of 1680 and succeeding years, and their ultimate fate is as unknown as their original numbers.”[24] This is largely true, yet there are a few allusions to this erratic people, under the name by which they were known to the Spaniards, reference to which will prove of interest.

In 1700, according to contemporary documents,[25] the Jicarilla Apache brought word to Taos, the northernmost of the New Mexican pueblos, that the French had destroyed a village of the Jumano on the eastern plains; and in 1702 a campaign was made by the Spaniards in that direction which resulted only in loss of life at the hands of the Apache. It would seem from the circumstance of the destruction of the Jumano settlement, and from the facts that the Jicarilla Apache at this time were at the Quartelejo[26] and the French had penetrated as far westward as Nebraska or Kansas,[27] as well as into Texas, that the Jumano village was in the north.[28] There is distinct evidence, however, aside from that already presented, that a part of the tribe had been in Texas for several years, since they are mentioned in French documents of this period. Early in January, 1687, for example, La Salle heard of the Choumans, or Choumenes as they were called by the Teao (Tohaha) Indians among whom he then was, a short distance east of the Colorado river of Texas. These people, he was informed, were friends of the Spaniards, from whom they got horses; “that most of the said nation had flat heads, that they had Indian corn, which gave M. de la Salle ground to believe that those people were some of the same he had seen upon his first discovery.”[29] Again, in 1691, we are informed, a few rancherias of the Jumano were visited by Governor Terán de los Rios, Father Massanet, and others, on the Rio Guadalupe of Texas.[30]