L. Northern Half of De Bry’s “America Sive Novus Orbis,” 1596 [◊]

During the late autumn the Indians assumed a hostile attitude toward their visitors, and were reduced to peaceful inactivity only after a protracted struggle, which greatly aggravated the conquerors. The Spanish story of this revolt is clear—that the Indians suddenly surprised the Europeans by attacking the horses and mules of the army, killing or driving off a number of them, after which the natives p393 collected their fighting force into two of the strongest villages, from one of which they were able to defy the soldiers until thirst compelled them to abandon the stronghold. The defenders attempted to escape by stealth, but the sentries of the besieging force discovered them and aroused the camp. Many of the Indians were killed by the soldiers during the flight which followed, while others perished in the icy waters of the Rio Grande. During an attack on the second village, a few of the Spaniards who had succeeded in making their way to the highest portion of the buildings, escaped from their perilous position by inducing the native warriors to surrender. The Indians received an ample promise of protection and safety, but the captain of the attacking party was not informed of this, and in obedience to the general’s orders that no prisoners should be taken, he directed that the captives should be burned as a warning to the neighboring tribes. This affair is a terrible blot on the record of the expedition and of those who composed it. In condemning it most severely, however, English readers should remember that they are only repeating the condemnations which were uttered by most of the men of rank who witnessed it, which were repeated in New Spain and in old Spain, and which greeted the commander when he led his expedition back to Mexico, to receive the cold welcome of the viceroy.

The Spaniards have told us only one side of the story of what was happening along the Rio Grande in the fall of 1540. The other side will probably never be heard, for it disappeared with the traditions of the Indian villagers. Without pretending to supply the loss, it is at least possible to suggest that the preparations by which the army-master procured the excellent accommodations for the force must have appeared very differently to the people in whose homes Cardenas housed the soldiers, and to those who passed the winter in these snug quarters. Castañeda preserved one or two interesting details which are as significant as is the striking fact that the peaceful natives who entertained Alvarado most freely in September were the leaders of the rebellion three months later.

As soon as Coronado’s men had completed the reduction of the refractory natives, and the whole country had been overawed by the terrible punishment, the general undertook to reestablish peaceful relations and confident intercourse between his camp and the surrounding villages. The Indians seem to have been ready to meet him almost half-way, although it is hardly surprising to find traces of an underlying suspicion, and a readiness for treacherous retaliation.

THE STORIES ABOUT QUIVIRA

While this reconciliation was being effected, Coronado heard from one of the plains Indians,[72] held as a slave in the village of Cicuye p394 or Pecos, the stories about Quivira, which were to add so much to the geographic extent of the expedition. When the Spaniards were about to kill this Indian—“The Turk,” they called him[73]—he told them that his masters, the people of Cicuye, had induced him to lead the strangers away to the pathless plains, where water was scarce and corn was unknown, to perish there, or, if ever they should succeed in finding the way back to the village settlements, tired and weak, to fall an easy prey to their enemies.

This plan was shrewdly conceived, and it very nearly succeeded. There is little reason why we should doubt the truth of the confession, made when the Indian could scarcely have hoped to save his life, and it affords an easy explanation of the way in which the exaggerated stories of Quivira originated and expanded. The Turk may have accompanied Alvarado on the first visit to the great plains, and he doubtless told the white men about his distant home and the roving life on the prairies. It was later, when the Spaniards began to question him about nations and rulers, gold and treasures, that he received, perhaps from the Spaniards themselves, the hints which led him to tell them what they were rejoiced to hear, and to develop the fanciful pictures which appealed so forcibly to all the desires of his hearers. The Turk, we can not doubt, told the Spaniards many things which were not true. But in trying to trace these early dealings of Europeans with the American aborigines, we must never forget how much may be explained by the possibilities of misinterpretation on the part of the white men, who so often heard of what they wished to find, and who learned, very gradually and in the end imperfectly, to understand only a few of the native languages and dialects. And besides this, the record of their observations, on which the students of today have to depend, was made in a language which knew nothing of the things which it was trying to describe. Much of what the Turk said was very likely true the first time he said it, although the memories of home were heightened, no doubt, by absence and distance. Moreover, Castañeda, who is the chief source for the stories of gold and lordly kings which are said to have been told by the Turk, in all probability did not know anything more than the reports of what the Turk was telling to the superior officers, which were passed about among the common foot soldiers.[74] The present narrative has already shown the wonderful power of gossip, and when it is gossip recorded twenty years afterward, we may properly be cautious in believing it.

Coronado wrote to the King from Tiguex, on April 20, 1541, as he says in his next letter, that of October 20. The April letter, written just before the start for Quivira, must have contained a full and official account of all that had been learned in regard to the country toward p395 the east, as well as more reliable details than we now possess, of what had happened during the preceding fall and winter. But this April letter, which was an acknowledgment and answer to one from Charles V, dated in Madrid, June 11, 1540, has not been found by modern students. When the reply was dispatched, the messenger—probably Juan Gallego, who had perhaps brought the Emperor’s letter from Mexico—was accompanied by Pedro de Tovar, who was going back to Corazones valley for reinforcements. Many mishaps had befallen the town of San Hieronimo during the year, and when the messengers arrived there they found it half deserted. Leaving Don Pedro here, Gallego hastened to Mexico, where he raised a small body of recruits. He was leading these men, whose number had been increased by some stragglers and deserters from the original force whom he picked up at Culiacan, toward Cibola and Quivira, when he met the expedition returning to New Spain. It was during this, probably his fifth trip over the road from Mexico to our New Mexico, that he performed the deeds of valor which Castañeda so enthusiastically recounts at the very end of his book.

THE JOURNEY ACROSS THE BUFFALO PLAINS

April 23, 1541, Coronado left the Tiguex country and marched toward the northeast, to the plains where lay the rich land of Quivira. Every member of the army accompanied the general, for no one was willing to be left behind when such glorious prospects of fame and fortune lay before them. A few of the officers suggested the wisdom of verifying these Indian tales in some measure before setting the whole force in motion and abandoning their only sure base of supplies. It seems as if there must have been other reasons influencing Coronado beyond those revealed in Castañeda’s narrative; but, if so, we do not know what they were. The fear lest he might fail to accomplish any of the things which had been hoped for, the absence of results on which to base a justification for all the expense and labor, the thought of what would await him if he should return empty handed, are perhaps enough to account for the determination to risk everything and to allow no possible lack of zeal or of strength to interfere with the realization of the hopes inspired by the stories of Quivira.