CAPTAIN MORLETE'S EXPEDITION. 107 own men, who said that Captain Juan Morlete 22 had arrived from the south with 50 men. Hoping to learn that reënforcements had been sent to him, though the names were not familiar, the teniente de gobernador hastened to the camp, only to learn that Morlete had come with orders from the king and viceroy for his arrest. He quietly submitted, and here the diary ends abruptly, after Don Gaspar had been put in shackles. Apparently the whole company returned south with their unfortunate chief. Lomas in 1592 tells us that Morlete was accompanied by Padre Juan Gomez, and arrested Castaño "for having entered the said country without license from Vuestra Señoría." Oñate in 1598 found traces of the wagons, showing the return route to have been down the Rio Grande. Salmeron says of this expedition "and those of Captain Nemorcete and of Humaña I do not write, because they all saw the same things, and one telling suffices"an unfortunate resolution of the venerable Franciscan, since he probably had at his command information that would have thrown desirable light on all these entradas. Father Niel adds nothing to the statement of his predecessor except in correcting Nemorcete's name to Morlete; and the poet Villagrá supplies no details.23 Of the expedition attributed by Salmeron and other writers to Humaña, as it was an illegal onecontra bando, as the Spaniards put it—no diary could "The diary has it Morlote, which may be correct. Lomas, Asiente, 58; N. Mex., Ytinerario, 245; Salmeron, Rel., 11; Niel, Apunt., 88. Villagrá's version, Hist. N. Mex., 36-7, is as follows: 'Y por el de nouenta entró Castaño, have been expected to be written, even had the unfortunate adventurers lived to return and report their discoveries. Francisco Leiva Bonilla, a Portuguese, was the veritable chief, and Juan de Humaña one of his companions. The party was sent out on a raid against rebellious Indians by the governor of Nueva Vizcaya at a date not exactly known, but apparently in 1594-6. Captain Bonilla, moved by the current reports of north-eastern wealth, determined to extend his operations to New Mexico and Quivira. The governor sent Pedro de Cazorla to overtake the party and forbid such an expedition, declaring Bonilla a traitor if he disobeyed; but all in vain, though six of the party refused to follow the leader, and returned. The adventurers' progress to and through New Mexico has no record. They are next heard from far out on the buffalo plains in search of Quivira. Here in a quarrel Humaña killed his chief and assumed command. A little later, when. the party had passed through an immense settlement and reached a broad river which was to be crossed on balsas, three Mexican Indians deserted, one of whom, José, survived to tell the tale to Oñate in 1598. Once more we hear of the goldseekers. Farther toward Quivira, or Tindan, or perhaps returning gold-laden from those fabulous lands, they encamp on the plain at the place since called Matanza. The Indians set fire to the grass, and rush, thousands strong, upon the Spaniards just before dawn. Only Alonso Sanchez and a mulatto girl escape the massacre. Sanchez became a great chief among the natives, and from him comes the story, just how is not very clear, since there is no definite record that he was ever seen later by any white man. When we take into consideration their sources, it is not surprising that the records of Humaña's achievements are not very complete.24 24 Villagrá, Hist. N. Mex., 37, 142, is the authority for the first part of this expedition; and he also as an eye-witness speaks of the Ind. deserter José, or Jusepe, at S. Juan. Oñate, Carta de 1599, 303, 309, says that he BONILLA AND HUMAÑA. 109 was instructed to free the province from traitors by arresting Humaña and his men; also that one of H.'s Indians (José) joined his force. Gregg, Com. Prairies, i. 117, seems to have seen a copy of this communication or another containing similar statements at Sta Fé. Niel, Apunt., 89-95, calls Humaña adelantado and governor; says that he killed Capt. Leiva, his bravest officer, and that the Indian José was found by Oñate among the Picuríes. Davis, Span. Cong., 260, seems to follow Niel for the most part, without naming that author. He says Humaña was killed three days after leaving Quivira, which D., as before stated, persists in identifying with the ruins of that name far south of Sta Fé. CHAPTER VI. OÑATE'S CONQUEST OF NEW MEXICO. 1595-1598. A BLANK IN HISTORY FILLED THE VERSIONS OF EARLY WRITERS-NOT IMPROVED BY MODERN AUTHORS-THE VERITABLE BUT UNKNOWN AUTHORITIES- -VILLAGRA'S WORK-AN EPIC HISTORY OF THE CONQUEST-DON JUAN DE ONATE HIS CONTRACT OF 1595-ENLISTMENT OF AN ARMY— CHANGE OF VICEROYS - VEXATIOUS DELAYS - DOCUMENTS FROM THE ARCHIVES CONFIRMING THE POET-PERSECUTIONS START FOR THE NORTH-IN ZACATECAS-VISITA-AT CAXCO AND SANTA BÁRBARA— ROYAL ORDER OF SUSPENSION-A YEAR'S DELAY-ORDER TO START IN 1597-ON THE CONCHOS-THE FRANCISCAN FRIARS-LIST OF OÑATE'S ASSOCIATES TO THE RIO DEL NORTE-FORMAL POSSESSION TAKEN IN APRIL 1598-THE DRAMA. HAVING chronicled in the preceding chapters all the various explorations of New Mexican territory from 1540 to 1596, together with several unsuccessful projects of colonization, I now come to the final success of another similar undertaking, to the actual conquest and occupation of the country accomplished by Don Juan de Oñate for the king of Spain, in 1598-9. While this achievement may properly be regarded as the most important in New Mexican annals, the corner-stone of the historic structure, its record has hitherto been left almost a blank. The early standard writers somewhat unaccountably gave but a brief and generally inaccurate outline of the conquest. Nearly all gave the date as 1595-6, fixing it by that of Oñate's preparations, and greatly underestimating the delays that ensued; and only Mariana, the historian of Spain, seems to have given a correct date. The sum and substance of all these versions, rejecting errors, would ( 110 ) be hardly more than a statement that in 1595 Oñate undertook the enterprise, and soon with the aid of Franciscan friars succeeded in occupying the province, and even made a tour to the Quivira region in the north-eastern plains.1 That later writers, consulting only a part of these earlier authorities, should not have materially improved the accuracy and completeness of the record is not surprising. They have made a few slight additions. from documentary sources; but they have retained for the most part the erroneous dates, and have introduced some new errors, the latest and best of them, Davis and Prince, having copied the blunder of some faulty document consulted, and moved the conquest backward to 1591.2 The real and original authorities 1Torquemada, Monarq. Ind., i. 670 et seq., mentions the confirmations of O.'s contract in 1595 by Viceroy Monterey, the enlistment of men in Mex., and the appointment of a comisario of the Franciscan band; but gives no further details or dates until after N. Mex. was occupied, that is, after 1600. 'Pasaron todos, hasta llegar á las poblaciones que llaman N. Mexico, y allí asentaron Real, y oi Dia permanece, y de la que ha ido sucediendo se dirá en sus lugares. This is virtually Torquemada's history of the conquest. Mendieta, Hist. Ecles., 402, writing in 1596, merely notes that the viceroy is now fitting out O.'s expedition. Vetancur, Chrónica, 95, notes the contract made by Velasco and confirmed by Monterey, the appointment of friars, as in Torquemada, and then says: 'Llegaron con facilidad, y entre los dos rios fundaron una Villa á S. Gabriel dedicada.' Calle, Noticias, 102, after noting the contract ratified Sept. 30, 1595, the Franciscans, etc., like the rest, thus records the conquest: Llegó al Nuevo Mexico y hizo asiento, tomo possession del por la Magestad Católica del Rey N. Señor, y puso su Real en el pueblo que se intituló San Gabriel cuyo sitio está en 37° de altura al Norte, situado entre dos rios, donde fundaron Convento luego los Religiosos, y hasta el año de 1608 bautizaron 8,000 almas.' Salmeron, Relaciones, 23-4, recording the start in 1596, the names of friars, number of soldiers, etc., tells us, 'dejadas largas historias, que no hacen á mi intento,' that Oñate with over 400 men went 400 miles N., pitched his camp in lat. 37° 30′, and went on to make further entradas and explorations. But he adds an account of the Quivira exped., pp. 26 et seq. Niel, Apunt., 89-94, cannot be said to add anything to Salmeron's version, and neither implies that the entrada was delayed more than a few months, in 1596. Ludovicus Tribaldus, in a letter to Richard Hakluyt, printed in Purchas his Pilgrimes, iv. 1565-6 (see also descrip., v. 853-6), and in Laet, Novus Orbis, 314, mentions certain early troubles at Acoma. Alegre, Hist. Comp. J., i. 310-11, mentions the exped. as of 1596. See also Mariana, Hist. España, ii. 527; Morelli, Fast. Nov. Orb., 31; Thesaurus, Geog., ii. 252-3; Cavo, Tres Siglos, i. 225-9; Arlegui, Cron. Zac., 56-7; Aparicio, Conventos, 282; Alcedo, Dicc., iii. 189; Bernardez, Zac., 31–4; Revilla Giyedo, in Dice. Univ., v. 441, who makes the date 1600. Barreiro, Ojeada, 5, thus records the conquest, writing before 1832: 'Pero lo cierto es que en el año de 1595 con cédula de Felipe segundo dirigida al Virrey de México Zuñiga y Acevedo, conde de Monterey, entro al NuevoMéxico Juan de Oñate con los primeros españoles que lo poblaron, trayendo |