[40] Ietans (Iotans) is another name for the Comanche, the latter being originally the Spanish appellation. See James's Long's Expedition, in our volume xiv, p. 223, note 179.—Ed.
[41] The Navaho Indians are closely related to the Apache, both belonging to the Athabascan family. At this time they numbered nearly ten thousand people, their territory being west of the Rio del Norte, between the San Juan River and latitude 35°. Their manner of life was more settled than that of the Comanche and Apache; and the blankets they manufacture have gained a wide notoriety. They are now located, to the number of about one thousand five hundred, on the Navaho reservation in northwest New Mexico.—Ed.
[42] Manifestly a slip, since the subsequent dates show that it was the fifth of October.—Ed.
[43] For the Cimarron River, see Nuttall's Journal, volume xiii of our series, p. 263, note 203.—Ed.
[44] San Fernandez de Taos was one of two small Spanish towns in the fertile valley of Taos, about seventy-five miles northeast of Santa Fé. This valley formed the Mexican boundary for those who came up Arkansas River, and crossed to New Mexico from the north. The first Spaniard to settle in Taos valley, so far as records show, came about the middle of the eighteenth century; for his story, see Gregg's Commerce of the Prairies, in our volume xx. Fernandez de Taos is at present the seat for Taos County, with a population of fifteen hundred. See Report of the Governor of New Mexico to the Secretary of the Interior (Washington, 1903), p. 287.
The Indian pueblo of Taos, discovered in 1541 by Barrionuevo, one of Coronado's lieutenants, lies about three miles northwest of San Fernandez, and has had a varied history. A Franciscan mission was established here before 1617, when was built the church which suffered bombardment from the American army in 1847. The great Pueblo revolt of 1680 was largely fomented at Taos; and again, in 1837, a half-breed from Taos, José Gonzales, was the leader of a revolt against the Mexican government. There is still a community of Indians at this pueblo, where in 1847 the final stand was made against Price's army.—Ed.
[45] The Rio del Norte rises in the San Juan mountains, in southwestern Colorado. Closely hemmed in by mountains, it flows almost directly south as far as El Paso, where it reaches the plains and thence forms the western boundary of Texas. From El Paso it is called the Rio Grande, or Rio Bravo.—Ed.
[46] Pattie could not have passed the town of Albuquerque, as that is seventy-five miles south of Santa Fé. He probably means Abiquiu, a town on the Chama, a western affluent of the Rio del Norte, and on the well-known trail leading from Santa Fé to Los Angeles, California. Pike passed down the valley of the Rio del Norte (1807), and his descriptions of places and of Mexico are as a whole valuable. See Coues, Expeditions of Zebulon M. Pike (New York, 1895), ii.—Ed.
[47] This was the mission of St. Thomas de Abiquiu.—Ed.
[48] Santa Fé is one of the oldest towns within the present limits of the United States. The site was first visited by Coronado in 1541; but the founding of the town was the work of Oñate, who established the colony of New Mexico in 1598. The date of the founding of Santa Fé is uncertain, owing to the destruction of the records by the revolt of 1680; but it was sometime between 1605 and 1609. By 1630, Santa Fé had one thousand inhabitants; its first church was built on the site of the present cathedral, in 1622-27; the ancient governmental palace, still existing, dates from the seventeenth century. In 1680 the Spaniards were expelled, but twelve years later returned under Diego de Vargas. From that time to the present, Santa Fé has been continuously inhabited. In the eighteenth century, French traders found their way thither, and by the early nineteenth the American trade began. In 1822, the Mexican standard was raised over the town, and in 1846 General Stephen W. Kearny secured its surrender to the United States. Santa Fé has always been the capital of the territory. It has now (1905) a population of about eight thousand. At the time of Pattie's visit the governor of New Mexico, the first under republican rule, was Bartolome Baca.—Ed.