[IV'-9] Guanajuato is a small central state, surrounded by Zacatecas, San Luis Potosí, Querétaro, Michoacan, Jalisco, and Aguas Calientes; area, 11,370 sq. m., pop. over 1,000,000; capital of same name, about lat. 21° 1´ N., long. 100° 35´ W.; pop. 52,000.
[IV'-10] Zacatecas has altered less than some of the administrations, the present state being bounded N. by Coahuila, N. and N. W. by Durango, W. and S. W. and S. by Jalisco, S. by Aguas Calientes, E. by San Luis Potosí; area, 25,230 sq. m.; pop. 585,640; capital of same name, about lat. 22° 40´ N., pop. about 60,000.
[IV'-11] Pike's "St. Louis" corresponds, though inexactly, to present State of San Luis Potosí, lying among Nuevo Leon, Tamaulipas, and a small extent of Vera Cruz on the E., Zacatecas on the W., Coahuila on the N., and Guanajuato, Querétaro, and Hidalgo on the S.; area, 24,450 sq. m.; pop. about 550,500; capital of the same name, 223 m. N. N. W. of City of Mexico; pop. 62,600.
[IV'-12] Nuevo Santander, whose history is something of a political curiosity, was originally a division of colonial New Spain, and continued to be known as a colony until 1786. The extent was about that of the present State of Tamaulipas, bounded substantially as Pike says, though it once overreached the Rio Grande into what is now Texas. Tamaulipas has Texas on the N., separated by the Rio Grande; the Gulf of Mexico on the E.; Nuevo Leon and Coahuila on the W.; San Luis Potosí on the S. W. and S.; with a small extent of Vera Cruz on the extreme S.; area, 29,350 sq. m.; pop. about 173,000; capital, Ciudad Victoria. The river, on one of whose headwaters this city is situated, falls into the Gulf near the Barra de Santander, as it is still called, about 60 Mexican leagues S. of the mouth of the Rio Grande, and rather less than 40 such leagues N. of Tampico; its length is supposed to be about 150 m.
[IV'-13] Or Nuevo Reino de Leon, as it was long styled. This was a division of colonial New Spain, corresponding to the present State of Nuevo Leon, but, when a kingdom, including certain portions of what are now Tamaulipas and San Luis Potosí; it was attached to the intendency of the latter in 1786. New Leon still has Tamaulipas along the whole of its E. border, excepting that its northern panhandle is environed by Coahuila, which thence extends on its W. side to San Luis Potosí, which latter thence curves to meet Tamaulipas at the end of the southern panhandle. The shape of some of the Mexican states would show, in the absence of all history, that earthquakes and volcanoes were not the only agitations against which New Spain contended in the settling of some of her geographical problems. Area of New Leon, 24,000 sq. m.; pop. 272,000; capital, Monterey: for Pike's location of Monterey on "Tiger" r., see [note33, p. 682], May 18th, 1807. The position of this city is about lat. 25° 40´ N., long. 100° 25´ W.; pop. 46,000; it is best known to us as a prize captured by the U. S. forces under Z. Taylor, Sept. 23d, 1846. The Count of Monterey was one Caspar de Zuñiga y Azevedo, b. ca. 1540, d. Lima, Peru, Feb. 10th, 1606, viceroy of Mexico, Oct. 5th, 1595-1603, of Peru, Nov. 28th, 1604, till death; Monterey bay, Cal., named for him. The American officer whom Pike names was Edward D. Turner of Massachusetts, who entered the army as an ensign of the 2d Inf. Mar. 4th, 1791; became a lieutenant July 13th, 1792: captain of the 2d sub-Legion Nov. 11th, 1793, and of the 2d Inf. Nov. 1st, 1796; served as brigade inspector from Nov. 1st, 1799, to Apr. 1st, 1802; was retained as a captain of the 1st Inf. from the latter date, and resigned Nov. 30th, 1805.
[IV'-14] This comes at the end of the present dissertation, when Pike has finished with his account of the Internal Provinces, to which he now proceeds. Two of these, Sonora and Sinaloa, are "internal" to the extent of bordering on the Gulf of California and not on the high sea. These he never saw; those he traversed correspond to the present three Mexican states of Chihuahua, Durango, and Coahuila, and to our Territory of New Mexico, State of Texas, and a small part of the State of Louisiana. Most of the commentary that would otherwise be here offered has already been put upon Pike's itinerary through these regions; but some points will come up for further criticism or explanation.
[IV'-15] New Mexico, as long as it was a province of New Spain, could not be satisfactorily bounded, for the simple reason that its boundaries were never clearly defined. Pike's ascription of lat. 44° N. sends it up to the shadowy border of "the Oregan"—that No Man's Land till Lewis and Clark descended the Columbia to the South Sea. This is no place to open the celebrated quarrel over boundaries that hovered in the air like clouds on political paper; suffice it, that when the Oregan became an undisputed possession of any nation, it already belonged to the United States. Away from the Pacific coast, Spanish dominion never exceeded 38° N. in fact, whatever it may have been on paper at any time. Shortly after Pike's time, i. e., from Feb. 22d, 1819, an intelligible theoretical boundary was agreed upon by the United States and Spain, though it was never run upon the ground. This line, aside from any question of the still unsettled boundary of Texas, ran from the Red r. to the Arkansaw r. on the meridian of 100° W. from Greenwich, up the Arkansaw to its source, thence due N. on whatever the meridian might prove to be to lat. 42° N., thence on that parallel due W. to the Pacific. Spanish Nuevo Mejico was quietly captured without resistance by the U. S. Army of the West under Kearny in 1846; formally ceded in 1848; organized as a U. S. territory in 1850; its southern boundary changed by the acquisition of the Gadsden purchase and definitely established in 1853; Arizona detached on the W. in 1863 along the meridian of 109° W.; eastern boundary, the meridian of 103° W.; present area, 122,460 sq. m.; pop. in 1890 given as 153,593. Thus, to all intents and practical purposes, Pike's "New Mexico" is our New Mexico and Arizona, and thence indefinitely northward. Present Arizona has an area of 112,920 sq. m.; pop. 59,620 by the census of 1890. In December, 1863, Governor John N. Goodwin and Secretary Richard C. McCormick, with other new Territorial officials, entered into possession on the ground, and formally proclaimed their functions. They proceeded to establish the capital on Granite cr., a tributary of the Rio Verde, and named it Prescott, for the historian, after having deliberated whether to call it Audubon, for the ornithologist. The log house built for the gubernatorial, secretarial, and all other functions was there when I last saw it, in 1892, and still the residence of one of the original party, Judge Fleury, who in the course of time exercised his versatile talent in every capacity, from cook to acting governor. Arizona is thus politically in its 32d year now (1895). Its historic period dates from 1540 or 1536; the prehistoric compass of time, since it was first inhabited, is very likely not exceeded by the Christian era—to judge from recent exhumations in the valley of the Gila, revealing a cluster of cities 6 m. long. Those who named the present capital Phœnix builded better than they knew—the name, I mean, not the mud hovels and wicker-work jacals which adorn some portions of that new center of political intrigue to which were lately shifted the inevitable dissensions that arose between the northern mountaineers and the southern deserteers.
[IV'-16] To correct in detail all such statements would hardly come within the scope of cursory notes, and I usually pass them over, as anyone can easily inform himself of the adjustment required for geographical precision. But in this particular instance it is well to remember that Pike had acquired an erroneous notion of the source of the Yellowstone, from considering the South Platte to be the whole Platte, thus throwing the North Platte out of court. Having no knowledge of this great river, he fancied there was some spot whence he could walk in a day to the source of any one of the four he names—a feat for which the seven-leagued boots of fable would be required: see [note5, p. 524]. For some particulars concerning the Rio Grande, see [note32, p. 642]. To the different names which the river had in different regions, add Rio Abajo and Rio Arriba for lower and upper sections, not well defined but conveniently recognized, of Rio del Norte above El Paso. Pike is quite right in the matter of Rio Bravo—a name never applied to the river in any portion of its course which he traversed in New Mexico.
[IV'-17] Whatever the real implication of names bestowed upon actual or alleged branches of the Colorado by the early explorers from whom Pike drew his inspiration, as Escalante 1777, it is not difficult to identify those he uses, even when his text does not agree with his map, as happens in some cases. From the Rio Gila, for which see [note19], we will follow his map upward. 1. "Rio Sn. Maria" of the map, not in the text. The name Santa Maria held for many years for the branch of the Colorado now called Bill Williams' fork. This is composed of two main streams, to one of which the name Santa Maria is now usually restricted; the other is called Big Sandy. Bill Williams' fork does not head in Bill Williams' mountain, being cut off from that by the Rio Verde, etc.; its basin lies entirely W. of Aubrey and Chino valleys, and of the Prescott plains. This river drains westward from the Santa Maria, Granite, Juniper, Weaver, and other ranges in Arizona, and falls into the Colorado from the E. at a place called Aubrey City, the site of which was pointed out to me by a native when I navigated the Colorado in 1865, though I saw nothing like a city. 2. There is no mention in the text, nor any sign on the map, of the Colorado Chiquito, otherwise Little Colorado r., though this is a large water-course which, when it runs, drains an extensive area in N. Arizona. This stream heads about the White, Mogollon, and other ranges on or near the confines of New Mexico; receives from the Zuñian mts. its main fork, Rio Puerco of the West; flows N. W. past (E. of) the San Francisco and Bill Williams' peaks, and falls into the Colorado from the S. E., well up in the Grand Cañon of the latter; its own lower courses are terribly cañonous for a great distance, its bed being riven in chasms comparable even with the awful abyss of the Colorado itself. 3. Non-appearance of the Colorado Chiquito affects to some extent the identification of the river called in the text "de los Anamas or Nabajoa" and lettered on the map "Rio Jasquevilla." This is laid down as a large eastern branch of the Colorado which falls in above the Grand Cañon, and on which lived the "Nahjo" (Navajo) and "Cosninas" (Cojnino) Indians, and south of which were the "Indiens Moqui, Independent since 1680," in four villages lettered "Oraybe," "Mosanis," "Songoapt," and "Gualpi"—for, though the Moki legend is set astride of the river itself, it belongs to these four villages S. of the river. The stream in question certainly was meant for the Colorado Chiquito; but most of its ascribed characters are those of Rio San Juan of N. W. New Mexico, N. E. Arizona, and S. E. Utah. The leaning toward the Colorado Chiquito is shown by the location of the Cojnino Indians on this stream, and its passage next N. of the circle of ten peaks lettered "Sierra de los Cosninas"—these indicating the San Francisco, Bill Williams', and other mountains of central Arizona; but identification with the San Juan is possible by the location of the Navajos on its headwaters and of the Mokis further S., as well as by its entrance into the Colorado above the Grand Cañon—for Pike charts the upper end of the cañon as the "Puerto del Bacorelli." Rio San Juan heads in N. W. New Mexico, next W. of the Rio Grande basin, having numerous collateral sources there and in contiguous parts of N. E. Arizona and S. W. Colorado; hence it enters S. E. Utah and runs to the Colorado around the base of Mt. Navajo, thus including in its ramifications adjacent corners of two states and two territories; two of its affluents retain to this day the names Rio de las Animas and Rio Navajo, respectively. Among its larger tributaries may be mentioned Rio Chusco, Chasco, or Chaco, and especially Rio Chelly—the latter being that one the mystery of whose famous Cañon de Chelly was fathomed by Captain J. H. Simpson in 1859. The two strange words which Pike uses in this connection, "[Bacorelli]" and "[Jasquevilla]," both treated in the Index, are not the same as Jicarilla, present name of certain mountains in Arizona and of a certain tribe of Indians called in Arizona "Hickory" Apaches. 4. The fact that the Grand Cañon of the Colorado is indicated on Pike's map may be certified in more than one way: (a) He marks below it certain "Indiens Chemequaba," i. e., Chemehuevi, a Shoshonean tribe then as now living in Arizona below the cañon, and thus isolated from their parent stock among Apaches of Athapascan lineage. (b) Pike's term "Cosninas," for certain Indians and mountains, is still an alternative name for the Cosnino, Cojnino, or Cataract Cañon, a side-spur of the Grand Cañon, and still the residence of a curious cave-dwelling tribe called Yavasupai, Havasupi, or Aguazul, who numbered 214 when I visited them in 1881. (c) The trans-continental route via the Arkansaw and Colorado rivers, which Pike suggests as the "best communication from ocean to ocean," need not be supposed to run through the Grand Cañon, but rather to approximate that lately achieved by the Atlantic and Pacific R. R., connecting on the E. with the A., T., and S. F. R. R., on the W. with the So. Cala. R. R. 5. West of the Grand Cañon Pike traces a problematical "Rio de los Panami des surfurcas on ignore l Embouchure," without beginning or end. This suggests Virgin r., whose junction with the Colorado in Nevada was then unknown. 6. Above the Grand Cañon, Pike forks the Colorado distinctly into two main branches, referable of course to the Grand and the Green rivers. 7. The main course of Grand r. is lettered "Rio de los Duimas," for which read Las Animas—but not "Los Anamas or Nabajoa" of Pike's text, already accounted for. This "Duimas" may be taken as intended to represent the whole course of Grand r. and its branches, as the Gunnison, etc. 8. The main course of the "Duimas" or Grand r. is what Pike means by Rio "de los Dolores" of the text, nameless on his map. This is the Dolores r. of present geography, running chiefly in Colorado, but joining the Grand in Utah. Pike forks this; one of these forks is the continuation of the Dolores; the other is present San Miguel r. of Colorado. 9. Green r. is the one lettered "Rio Zanguananos," as the main continuation of the Colorado itself. This is correct, though the singular S-shaped course in which it is laid down is so far out of drawing that the two branches of it which he names are thrown in the wrong direction. These two are the San Rafael and San Xavier of both text and map. The first one of them is present San Rafael r.; and if we take Pike's San Xavier to be the next above on the same side, it corresponds to Price r. We must not seek for any streams higher up the Grand than Price r.; the early Spanish travelers did not get very far in that direction; and Pike sets all these streams considerably S. of Great Salt l., not beyond the latitude he assigns to the head of the Rio Grande. The old Spanish trail from Colorado into Utah passed a certain Sierra La Sal, or Salt mt., which is situated near the confluence of the Green and the Grand; continued across both these rivers a little above their junction, and so on westward between the San Rafael r. and the San Xavier or Price r., into the basin of present Sevier r. and Sevier l. Now Pike sets his "Montaigne de Sel," or Mountain of Salt, close to the main Rio Zanguananos or Green r., and directly against the mouth of his San Rafael. This particular combination could not have been accidental, and seems to show what was really mapped, though so distortedly. As intimated in beginning this note, I have attempted identifications without prejudice to any original implication of the Spanish records, but solely according to what I find in Pike. The early names themselves seem open to the interpretation here offered, and I know from several futile attempts which I made that Pike's geography of the Colorado basin would be hard to square with the facts in any other way. Should the present identifications be acceptable, some hitherto unsurmounted difficulties would prove to have been overcome.
[IV'-18] This paragraph is contradicted by the map, on which "Rio de Sta. Buenaventura" runs W. into a nameless lake, S. of a certain Lac de Timpanagos, and is the first river, N. and W. of Green r., that does not connect with the Colorado. The Buenaventura is a ghost-river which haunted geography for many years. Nothing like such a river as this was represented to be exists—it is as much of a myth in Utah and California as Lahontan's fabulous Long r. in Minnesota and Dakota. But it is a rule with hardly an exception that every myth has some basis of fact. In so far as Pike's Buenaventura represents anything in nature, I imagine it to be an adumbration of Sevier r., and its sink to be Lake Sevier, in the western part of Utah, S. of Great Salt l. True, the Buenaventura is laid down very much out of the actual course of the Sevier; but not more wrongly than Green r. is, and the very curious way in which the Sevier winds about to reach its sink would hardly have been discovered and correctly delineated by those early travelers in the "Great American Desert." The nameless lake itself is not very far out of the way on Pike's map. Possibly also, the mysterious river, "whose mouth is unknown," may be intended for some section of the Sevier; for, if we were to connect this trace with Pike's Buenaventura, we should have a recognizable representation of the Sevier. But Pike heads his Rio S. Buenaventura, by a principal branch called "Rio de Sn. Clemente," in that portion of the continental divide he marks "Sierra Verde," i. e., Green mts., also the source of present Green r. We should note further in this connection the appearance on Pike's map of New Mexico of a certain river running northward, lettered "Rio de Piedro Amaretto del Missouri." Here, "Amaretto" is a mistake of the engraver for Amarillo, the phrase being Sp. Piedra Amarilla = F. Pierre Jaune or Roche Jaune = E. Yellow Stone, a principal branch of the Missouri. As we have repeatedly seen already, Pike was determined to interlock the headwaters of the Yellowstone, Platte, Arkansaw, and Rio Grande in some one spot in the Rocky mts.—and here we have it, just over the divide that separates these Atlantic waters collectively from those of the general basin of the Colorado. Observe, also, how nearly the dotted trail of the "Country explored by a Detachment of American Troops commanded by Captain Pike" reaches to the supposed Yellowstone.