ORGAN MOUNTAINS.
These explorers returned to Old Mexico in July, 1583, by the valley of the Pecos,[13] to which stream they gave the name of River of Oxen, because they saw great herds of bison[14] feeding all along its course.
Out of these discoveries and reports came new attempts to plant a colony on the Rio Grande. Nothing prospered, however, until 1598, when Juan de Oñate[15] invaded New Mexico at the head of a force meant to thoroughly subdue and permanently hold it. Oñate was named governor under the viceroy. These Spaniards established themselves on the Rio Grande, not far from where Santa Fé now is. Most of the village Indians submitted themselves to the Spaniards, whose authority over them was, at best, little more than nominal, though the roving tribes, the fierce Apaches and warlike Navajoes, never forgot their hereditary hatred to the Spaniards, with whom they kept up an incessant warfare.
With this expedition came a number of Franciscan missionaries who, as soon as a town was gained over, established a mission for the conversion of the natives. In 1601 Santa Fé was founded and made the capital. In thirty years more the Catholic clergy had established as many as fifty missions which gave religious instruction to ninety towns and villages.
New Mexico had now reached her period of greatest prosperity under Spanish rule. For fifty years more the country rather stood still than made progress. The Spaniards were too overbearing, and the old hostility too deep, for peace to endure. Then, the system of bondage which the Spaniards brought with them from Old Mexico, and most unwisely put in practice here, bore its usual bitter fruit. Determined to be slaves no longer, in 1680 the native New Mexicans rose in a body, and drove the invaders out of the country with great slaughter. Upon the frontier of Old Mexico the fugitives halted, and then founded El Paso del Norte, which they considered the gateway to New Mexico, and so named it. It took the Spaniards twelve years to recover from this blow. By that time little was left to show they had ever been masters of New Mexico. But a new invasion took place, concerning which few details remain, though we do know it resulted in a permanent conquest before the end of the century.
EL PASO DEL NORTE.
As far back as 1687 Father Kino had founded a mission on the skirt of the country lying round the head of the Gulf of California, to which the Spaniards gave the name of Pimeria.[16] It will be noticed that once again they were following up the traces of Father Marco and Coronado. When the Spaniards took courage after this defeat, and again entered New Mexico, Kino (1693) founded other missions in the Gila country which in time grew to be connecting links between New Mexico and California, in what is now Arizona.[17]