headed staff with which he walked habitually in his advanced years was presented to me by his son, Senator Temple Houston, many years ago to keep as a memorial of the General's personal regard. It was delivered to me with the request that it should finally go to the most worthy descendant of the General. After it had remained in my hall for many years, Temple Houston wrote me from Oklahoma requesting that I send it to him. I reminded him that the State had none of his father's belongings, and wrote requesting consent that I might chain it to his father's portrait in the Capitol. He answered saying: "Send me the staff. Texas thinks more of Jim Hogg's old shoes than of my father's memory." I thought it a harsh reflection on the State, but within a year his sister, an intellectual and accomplished lady, was defeated for the office of postmistress of the Senate.

Houston's inflexible honesty and contempt for the mere moneymaker did much to inspire the confidence of the early colonists. He opposed all speculative raids on the public domain, and once proclaimed that he had rather see our treasure emptied into the Colorado River than give it to any sort of corporation.

A Duty of Texas.—To General Sam Houston, more than to any man living or dead, Texas owed her independence, and to his wise statesmanship her preservation against foreign and domestic enemies during the ten years when she was a republic. The prejudice excited by Texas slave holders against him on account of his opposition to the extension of slavery, and which has been transmitted to many of their posterity, is unworthy of our people.

Too long has this State neglected his memory; for not until he had been dead forty-seven years did she do anything to show her gratitude, and then it was done as an act of tardy justice by erecting a monument over his remains in an obscure graveyard in the interior of the State.1

We are now strong and prosperous, and this State should place in front of our Capitol his full length bronze statue of heroic size, on a granite pedestal, with no inscription but his name, SAM HOUSTON.

1For a brief notice of the unveiling of this monument, see THE QUARTERLY, XV, 85.

THE RETREAT OF THE SPANIARDS FROM NEW MEXICO IN 1680, AND THE BEGINNINGS OF EL PASO

I

CHARLES WILSON HACKETT

INTRODUCTORY

In a former paper, published in THE QUARTERLY in October, 1911, an account was given of the revolt of the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico in 1680, and of the defensive efforts of the Spaniards immediately following the revolt. That paper ended with the decision of the two divisions of refugees, at Santa Fé and Isleta, to abandon the province. It is now proposed to give a narrative of their retreat down the Rio Grande, and of their subsequent settlement at Paso del Norte, subjects on which practically nothing has been written heretofore.1 The present paper has been based largely on the sources described in the introduction to the former. Several additional original documents, however, have been encountered in the Bancroft Collection, and have been utilized here. A large number of older secondary works, in which the Bancroft Collection is especially rich, have also been used. Without essentially changing the story of the revolt as I have previously written it, this new material will supplement it and throw additional light on certain points not clear in that narrative.

I. THE RETREAT OF GARCIA'S DIVISION TO FRAY CRISTOBAL

As has been pointed out in the account of the revolt, it was on August 14 that the Spanish refugees in Isleta abandoned that pueblo and began their long and perilous journey toward Mexico. The condition of these once prosperous settlers of Rio Abajo was such, however, that a hasty retreat was impossible. Most of the

1Even Escalante, who wrote an authoritative, though brief account of the revolt from the archives of Santa Fé, has little to say concerning the retreat down the Rio del Norte, or concerning the events attending the settlement of the Spaniards at El Paso.

refugees, including hundreds of women and children, were without horses; many of them were barefooted and half-naked; while all suffered in common from a lack of food.1 It is not surprising to learn, therefore, that for the first ten days of the retreat an approximate distance of only twenty-five leagues was covered. For the details of this stage of the journey there is no adequate account, the chief source being an auto of García dated August 24, at which time the pueblo of Socorro had been reached. In that document García unfortunately made mention of only two important succeeding events, and even neglected to give the date for one of these.

The place first mentioned as having been passed was Sevilleta, one of the pueblos of the Piros Indians. There the natives were found quiet and peaceably disposed toward the Spaniards, as is shown by the fact that they abandoned their pueblo and moved on with the refugees into the interior of the Piros nation. Sometime between the 14th of August, the day Isleta was abandoned, and the 20th of the same month, García and Father Diego de Mendoza despatched letters to Leiva and Father Ayeta informing them of the revolt and of the fate which at that time it was supposed had befallen all the settlers north of Sandía." This news was received by Leiva and Ayeta at El Paso on August 25, at eight o'clock in the morning. The events attending the receipt of it will be discussed later.

A second and more important event had been the receipt by García of definite news concerning Otermín and the northern refugees at Santa Fé. On August 20, while García and the Rio Abajo people were halting in the pueblo of El Alto, there arrived from the north Sebastian de Herrera and Fernando de Chávez,

'Auttos tocantes, 28.

Auto of García, in Auttos tocantes, 21-22.

"Autto (de Otermín)," in Auttos tocantes, 15.

"Carta del Padre Visitador a el Exmo. Sr. Virrey," in N. Mex. Doc., I, 565. I have not had access to the letters of García and Mendoza to Leiva and Ayeta.

"I can find no other reference to the location of any pueblo by that name. The document reads, "estando yo con todos los Vezos del Rio en el puesto del pueblo del alto." I think it possible, however, that García only meant to designate his stopping place as "el puesto del alto" (the place of the height), without any intention of referring to a pueblo by that name.

the two survivors of the jurisdiction of Taos. These men first gave an account of the revolt at that pueblo. They then told of their flight for safety, and of passing on the seventh day after the outbreak of the revolt in sight of Santa Fé, where they were able to ascertain that a large number of Spaniards were besieged in the government buildings (casas reales). While viewing the progress of the siege from a distance, the Indians had been seen to attack the villa and set fire to houses, the church of San Miguel, and the living quarters of the governor, situated in the casas reales, leaving intact only two small towers of his dwelling.2 On these towers were seen some people, though it could not be determined whether they were Indians or Spaniards. A little later Herrera and Chávez saw the smoke, and heard the dull roar, as they judged, of the Spanish artillery, after which they saw the Indians, "who actually were fighting," withdraw to the fields, setting fire to other houses as they proceeded. Herrera and Chávez, however, did not wait to see whether the enemy had withdrawn for good, or returned later to continue the siege.*

This news brought by Herrera and Chávez was García's first information that any of the northern settlers had survived the revolt, for, as has been seen, the Indians had led him to believe that all had perished except those who were able to assemble in Isleta. Having reason to believe, therefore, that if seven days after the outbreak the Indians had not conquered the refugees at Santa Fé, they might even then be alive and still defending themselves there, García determined, if possible, to learn for a certainty their fate.5

Such a move at that time, however, was impracticable. First of all, it was necessary to find a place where the women and children might be left with some degree of security, for the dreaded Apaches, who were allied with the Christian revolters, were almost constantly in sight of the refugees. Now that there was

1Auto of Otermín and Herrera in Auttos tocantes, 70.

Auttos tocantes, 23.

'Auto of García, in Auttos tocantes, 22.

'Auttos tocantes, 23.

Auto of García, in Auttos tocantes, 22.

Ibid., 23.

'Auttos tocantes, 23 and 24.

hope that some of the besieged in the villa might still be alive, the question of the rescue presented even greater difficulties than when it had come up at Isleta. Some twenty-five more leagues now lay between him and the villa. The supply of provisions, scanty in the extreme when Isleta was abandoned, had perceptibly diminished. There was no place where they might hope to replenish their food supply, or to refill their almost empty ammunition pouches. Accordingly, the march was resumed from El Alto, and four days later (August 24) the pueblo of Socorro, near the center of the friendly Piros nation, was reached.

1

Upon the arrival at that place several circumstances combined to influence García to make arrangements at once for returning to the northern jurisdiction. The inhabitants of Socorro, like those of Sevilleta, were found quiet and still friendly toward the Spaniards. When it was learned that the latter were abandoning the province, the natives of Socorro and Sevilleta expressed their determination to go with them, being afraid, since they had not been invited to join the revolt, that the northern tribes would attack and destroy them.2 Feeling a certain sense of security in Socorro, therefore, García decided to fortify that pueblo as a means of protection to the women and children, and, after attempting to secure men, arms, ammunition, and provisions from the supply train which was supposed by that time to be somewhere near them, to return to Santa Fé.3

The supply train, as was pointed out in the account of the revolt, consisted of a number of wagon-loads of provisions and munitions which the government had granted for the support and protection of the missions of the province. It had left Mexico the year before in charge of Father Ayeta, the custos and procurator general of New Mexico; and, in order that it might have safe convoy, Otermín had despatched, some weeks previously, a troop of thirty men under Pedro de Leiva, to meet it at El Paso and conduct it up the river. It was García's intention, upon the receipt of these reinforcements from the supply train, to leave a small garrison at Socorro, and then, with all the force that would

'Auttos tocantes, 23.

Auto of García, in Auttos tocantes, 21.

$Ibid.

Auttos tocantes, 23, 26.