Friar Marcos soon reached the borders of the wilderness—the country in and about the present White Mountain Apache reservation in Arizona. He entered this region on May 9, and twelve days later a young man p360 who had been with Estevan, the son of one of the Indian chiefs accompanying the friar, met him and told the story of the negro’s death. Estevan had hastened to reach Cibola before the friar, and just prior to arriving at the first city he had sent a notice of his approach to the chief of the place. As evidence of his position or authority, he sent a gourd, to which were attached a few strings of rattles and two plumes, one of which was white and the other red.

While Cabeza de Vaca and his companions were traveling through Texas, the natives had flocked to see these strange white men and soon began to worship them, pressing about them for even a touch of their garments, from which the Indians trusted to receive some healing power. While taking advantage of the prestige which was thus obtained, Cabeza de Vaca says that he secured some gourds or rattles, which were greatly reverenced among these Indians and which never failed to produce a most respectful behavior whenever they were exhibited. It was also among these southern plains Indians that Cabeza de Vaca heard of the permanent settlements toward the north. Castañeda says that some of these plains Indians came each year to Cibola to pass the winter under the shelter of the adobe villages, but that they were distrusted and feared so much that they were not admitted into the villages unless unarmed, and under no conditions were they allowed to spend the night within the flat-roof houses. The connection between these Indian rattles and the gourd which Estevan prized so highly can not be proven, but it is not unlikely that the negro announced his arrival to the Cibola chiefs by sending them an important part of the paraphernalia of a medicine man of a tribe with which they were at enmity.

XLII. Battista Agnese’s New Spain, Sixteenth Century [◊] After Kretschmer

There are several versions of the story of Estevan’s death, besides the one given in Friar Marcos’ narrative, which were derived from the natives of Cibola. Castañeda, who lived among these people for a while the next year, states that the Indians kept the negro a prisoner for three days, “questioning him,” before they killed him. He adds that Estevan had demanded from the Indians treasures and women, and this agrees with the legends still current among these people.[28] When Alarcon ascended Colorado river a year later, and tried to obtain news of Coronado, with whom he was endeavoring to cooperate, he heard of Estevan, who was described as a black man with a beard, wearing things that sounded, rattles, bells, and plumes, on his feet and arms—the regular outfit of a southwestern medicine man.[29] Friar Marcos was told that when the messengers bearing the gourd showed it to the chief of the Cibola village, he threw it on to the ground and told the messengers that when their people reached the village they would find out what sort of men lived there, and that instead of entering the place they would all be killed. Estevan was not at all daunted when this answer was reported to him, saying that everything would be right p361 when he reached the village in person. He proceeded thither at once, but instead of being admitted, he was placed under guard in a house near by.[30] All the turquoises and other gifts which he had received from the Indians during his journey were taken from him, and he was confined with the people who accompanied him, over night, without receiving anything to eat or drink. The next morning Estevan tried to run away, but was overtaken and killed. The fugitives who brought this news to Friar Marcos said that most of their companions also had been killed. The Indians who had followed the friar forthwith began to mourn for three hundred of their relations and friends, who had perished, they declared, as a result of their confidence in his forerunner. This number was undoubtedly an exaggeration. Castañeda heard that the natives of Cibola kept a few lads from among those who were with the negro, “and sent back all the rest, numbering about sixty.” The story of Estevan’s death is reputed to have been preserved among the legends of the Indians of Zuñi. According to this tradition, the village at which the “Black Mexican” was killed was K’iakima, a village now in ruins, situated on a bluff at the southwestern angle of Thunder mountain mesa; but this is totally at variance with the historical evidence, which seems to point quite conclusively to Hawikuh, the first village encountered from the southwest, as the scene of Estevan’s death.[31] One of the Indian stories of Estevan’s death is that their wise men took the negro out of the pueblo during the night, and “gave him a powerful kick, which sped him through the air back to the south, whence he came!”

The killing of Estevan made it impossible for Friar Marcos, alone and unprepared for fighting, to enter the Cibola region. The first reports of the disaster, as is usually the custom, told of the death of all who accompanied the negro, and in consequence there was much wailing among the Indians who had followed the friar. They threatened to desert him, but he pacified them by opening his bundles and distributing the trinkets brought from Mexico. While they were enjoying these, he withdrew a couple of stone-throws for an hour and a half to pray. Meanwhile, the Indians began again to think of their lost friends, and decided to kill the friar, as the indirect cause of the catastrophe. But when he returned from his devotions, reinvigorated, and learned of their determination, he diverted their thoughts by producing some of the things which had been kept back from the first distribution of the contents of his packs. He expounded to them the folly of killing him, since this would do him no hurt because he was a Christian and so would go at once to his home in the sky, while other Christians would come in search of him and kill all of them, in spite of his own desires to prevent, if possible, any such revenge. “With many other words” he p362 succeeded at last in quieting them and in persuading two of the chief Indians to go with him to a point where he could obtain a view of the “city of Cibola.” He proceeded to a small hill, from which he saw that it was situated on a plain on the slope of a round height. “It has a very fine appearance for a village,” he writes, “the best that I have seen in these parts. The houses, as the Indians had told me, are all of stone, built in stories, and with flat roofs. Judging by what I could see from the height where I placed myself to observe it, the settlement is larger than the city of Mexico. . . . It appears to me that this land is the best and largest of all those that have been discovered.”

“With far more fright than food,” the friar says he retraced his way toward New Spain, by hasty marches. During his journey to Cibola, he had heard of a large and level valley among the mountains, distant four or five days from the route which he followed, where he was told that there were many very large settlements in which the people wore clothes made of cotton. He showed his informants some metals which he had, in order to find out what there was in that region, and they picked out the gold, saying that the people in the valley had vessels made of this material and some round things which they hung from their ears and noses. They also had some little shovels of this same metal, with which they scraped themselves to get rid of their sweat. On his way back, although he had not recovered from his fright, the friar determined to see this valley. He did not dare to venture into it, because, as he says, he thought that those who should go to settle and rule the country of the seven cities could enter it more safely than he. He did not wish to risk his own life, lest he should be prevented from making the report of what he had already seen. He went as far as the entrance to the valley and saw seven good-looking settlements at a distance, in a very attractive country, from which arose a great deal of smoke. He understood from the Indians that there was much gold in the valley, and that the natives used it for vessels and ornaments, repeating in his narrative the reports which he had heard on his outward journey.

The friar then hastened down the coast to Culiacan, where he hoped, but failed, to find Coronado, the governor of the province. He went on to Compostela, where Coronado was staying. Here he wrote his report, and sent the announcement of his safe return to the viceroy. A similar notification to the provincial of his order contained a request for instructions as to what he should do next. He was still in Compostela on September 2, and as Mendoza and Coronado also were there, he took occasion to certify under oath before them to the truth of all that he had written in the report of his expedition to Cibola.

THE EFFECT OF FRIAR MARCOS’ REPORT

In his official report it is evident that Friar Marcos distinguished with care between what he had himself seen and what the Indians had told him. But Cortes began the practice of attacking the veracity and p363 good faith of the friar, Castañeda continued it, and scarcely a writer on these events failed to follow their guidance until Mr Bandelier undertook to examine the facts of the case, and applied the rules of ordinary fairness to his historical judgment. This vigorous defender of the friar has successfully maintained his strenuous contention that Marcos neither lied nor exaggerated, even when he said that the Cibola pueblo appeared to him to be larger than the City of Mexico. All the witnesses agree that these light stone and adobe villages impress one who first sees them from a distance as being much larger than they really are. Mexico in 1539, on the other hand, was neither imposing nor populous. The great communal houses, the “palace of Montezuma,” had been destroyed during or soon after the siege of 1521. The pueblo of Hawikuh, the one which the friar doubtless saw, contained about 200 houses, or between 700 and 1,000 inhabitants. There is something naïve in Mr Bandelier’s comparison of this with Robert Tomson’s report that the City of Mexico, in 1556, contained 1,500 Spanish households.[32] He ought to have added, what we may be quite sure was true, that the population of Mexico probably doubled in the fifteen years preceding Tomson’s visit, a fact which makes Niza’s comparison even more reasonable.[33]