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Archaeological Institute of America

Papers of the School of American Archaeology

Number Thirteen

DOCUMENTARY HISTORY OF THE RIO GRANDE PUEBLOS OF NEW MEXICO

I. BIBLIOGRAPHIC INTRODUCTION

by

ADOLPH F. BANDELIER

1910







DOCUMENTARY HISTORY OF THE RIO GRANDE
PUEBLOS OF NEW MEXICO

BY ADOLPH F. BANDELIER

I.--BIBLIOGRAPHIC INTRODUCTION


Seventeen years have elapsed since I was in the territory in which the
events in the early history of the Rio Grande Pueblos transpired, and
twenty-nine years since I first entered the field of research among
those Pueblos under the auspices of the Archæological Institute of
America. I am now called upon by the Institute to do for the Indians of
the Rio Grande villages what I did nearly two decades ago for the Zuñi
tribe, namely, to record their documentary history.

I shall follow the method employed by me in the case of the documentary
history of Zuñi, by giving the events with strict adherence to
documentary sources, so far as may be possible, and shall employ the
correlated information of other branches only when absolutely
indispensable to the elucidation of the documentary material.

The geographical features of the region to be treated are too well known
to require mention. Neither can folklore and tradition, notwithstanding
their decisive importance in a great many cases, be touched upon except
when alluded to in the sources themselves. I am fully aware, as I stated
in presenting the history of the Zuñi tribe, that a history based
exclusively on documents, whether printed or written, must necessarily
be imperfect because it is not impartial, since it summarizes the views
of those who saw and understood but one side of the question, and judged
it only from their own standpoint. This defect cannot be remedied, as it
underlies the very nature of the task, and the greater therefore is the
necessity of carefully studying the folklore of the Indians in order to
check and complete as well as to correct the picture presented by people
acquainted with the art of writing.

In this Introduction I forego the employment of quotations, reserving
such for the main work. Quotations and footnotes are not, as it has been
imagined, a mere display of erudition--they are a duty towards the
source from which they are taken, and a duty to its author; moreover,
they are a duty towards the reader, who as far as possible should be
placed in a position himself to judge the value and nature of the
information presented, and, finally, they are a necessary indication of
the extent of the author's responsibility. If the sources are given
clearly and circumstantially, yet happen to be wrong, the author is
exonerated from blame for resting upon their authority, provided, as it
not infrequently happens, he has no way of correcting them by means of
other information.

In entering the field of documentary research the first task is to
become thoroughly acquainted with the languages in which the documents
are recorded. To be able to read cursorily a language in its present
form is not sufficient. Spanish, for example, has changed comparatively
less than German since the sixteenth century, yet there are locutions as
well as words found in early documents pertaining to America that have
fallen into disuse and hence are not commonly understood. Provincialisms
abound, hence the history of the author and the environment in which he
was reared should be taken into account, for sometimes there are phrases
that are unintelligible without a knowledge of the writer's early
surroundings. Translations as a rule should be consulted only with
allowance, for to the best of them the Italian saying "Traduttore,
tradittore" is applicable. With the greatest sincerity and honesty on
the part of the translator, he is liable to an imperfect interpretation
of an original text. There are of course instances when the original has
disappeared and translations alone are available. Such is the case, for
instance, with the Life of Columbus, written by his son Fernando and
published in Italian in 1571; and the highly important report on the
voyage of Cabral to Brazil in 1500, written by his pilot Vas da Cominho
and others. These are known only through translations.

Words from Indian languages are subject to very faulty rendering in the
older documents. In the first place, sound alone guided the writers, and
Indian pronunciation is frequently indistinct in the vowels and
variable according to the individual--hence the frequent interchange in
the Spanish sources of _a_ and _o_, _ó_ and _u_, _e_ and _i_. For many
sounds even the alphabets of civilized speech have not adequate phonetic
signs. I may refer, as an example, to the Indian name in the Tigua
language for the pueblo of Sandia. The Spanish attempt to render it by
the word "Napeya" is utterly inadequate, and even by means of the
complicated alphabets for writing Indian tongues I would not attempt to
record the native term. In endeavoring to identify localities from names
given to them in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries by European
authors, this difficulty should always be taken into account. No blame
can be attached to the writers for such defects; it should always be
remembered that they did not know, still less understand, the idioms
they heard. Still less should we be surprised if the same site is
sometimes mentioned under various names. Every Pueblo language has its
own geographical vocabulary, and when, as sometimes happened, several
tribes met in council with the whites, the latter heard and unwittingly
recorded several names for one and the same locality, thus apparently
increasing the number of villages. Moreover, interpreters were not
always at hand, and when they could be had both their competency and
their sincerity were open to question.

It is not unusual to read in modern works that such and such a source is
the reliable one _par excellence_, and the principal basis upon which to
establish conclusions. No source, however seemingly insignificant,
should be neglected. A brief mention is sometimes very important, as it
may be a clue to new data, or may confirm or refute accepted information
and thus lead to further investigation. Some documents, of course, are
much more explicit than others, but this is no reason why the latter
should be neglected. The value of a source may be subject to
investigation from a number of points of view, but it is not always
possible to obtain the requisite information. Thus the biographies of
authors are an important requisite, but how seldom are they obtainable
with the necessary detail!

The sources of the history of the Rio Grande Pueblos, both printed and
in manuscript, are numerous. The manuscript documents are as yet but
imperfectly known. Only that which remained at Santa Fé after the first
period of Anglo-American occupancy--a number of church books and
documents formerly scattered through the parishes of New Mexico, and a
very few documents held in private hands--have been accessible within
the United States. In Mexico the parish and other official documents at
El Paso del Norte (Juarez) up to the beginning of the eighteenth century
have been examined by me to a certain extent, and at the City of Mexico
the Archivo Nacional has yielded a number of important papers, though
the research has been far from exhaustive, owing to the lack of time and
support. Hence much still remains to be done in that field. Some
destruction of papers of an official character appears to have taken
place at Mexico also, yet with the present condition of the archives
there is hope that much that appears to be lost will eventually be
brought to light; in any event we still have recourse to the Spanish
archives, principally at Sevilla. It was the rule during Spanish
colonial domination to have every document of any importance executed in
triplicate, one copy to remain at the seat of local government, another
to be sent to the viceregal archives, and the third to the mother
country. Hence there is always a hope that, if the first two were
destroyed, the third might be preserved. So, for instance, the
collection of royal decrees (_cedulas_) is imperfect at the City of
Mexico. There are lacunæ of several decades, and it is perhaps
significant that the same gaps are repeated in the publication of the
"Cedulas" by Aguiar and Montemayor. In regard to ecclesiastical
documents the difficulty is greater still. The archives of the
Franciscan Order, to which the missions on the Rio Grande were assigned
almost until the middle of the nineteenth century, have become
scattered; the destruction of the archives at the great Franciscan
convent in the City of Mexico in 1857, though not complete, resulted in
the dispersion of those which were not burned or torn, and the
whereabouts of these remnants are but imperfectly known. The documentary
history of the Rio Grande Pueblos, therefore, can be only tentative at
present, but it is given in the hope that it will incite further
activity with the view of increasing and correcting the data thus far
obtained.

       *       *       *       *       *

The report of Cabeza de Vaca, commonly designated as his "Naufragios,"
is as yet the earliest printed source known with reference to the Rio
Grande Pueblos, concerning whom it imparts some vague information. The
briefness and vagueness of that information calls for no adverse
criticism, for Cabeza de Vaca plainly states that he writes of these
people from hearsay and that his information was obtained near the mouth
of the Rio Pecos in western Texas. What he afterward learned in Sonora
with respect to sedentary Indians in the north is hardly connected with
the Rio Grande region. The same may be the case with the information
obtained by Nuño de Guzman in 1530 and alluded to by Castañeda. That
Nuño de Guzman had gained some information concerning the Pueblos seems
certain, but everything points to the Zuñi region as the one mentioned
by his informant. The same is true of the reports of Fray Marcos de
Nizza and Melchor Diaz, which clearly apply to the Zuñi Pueblos, the
most easterly settlement of sedentary Indians alluded to being the
Queres pueblo of Acoma. It is to the chroniclers of the expedition of
Coronado, therefore, that we must look for the earliest definite
information concerning the Rio Grande valley and its inhabitants.

It must be borne in mind that the expedition of Coronado was not a mere
exploration. What was expected of its leader, and indeed peremptorily
demanded, was a permanent settlement of the country. Coronado and his
men were not to return to Mexico except in individual cases. The Viceroy
Mendoza wanted to get rid of them. Whether Coronado was a party to the
secret of this plan is doubtful; the indications are that he was not,
whereas Fray Marcos of Nizza certainly was, and perhaps was its original
promoter.

The printed sources on Coronado's march may be divided into two
chronologically distinct classes, the first of which comprises documents
written in New Mexico in the years from 1540 to 1543; these reflect all
the advantages and disadvantages of the writings of eye-witnesses. The
mere fact that one had been a participant in the events which he
describes is not a guaranty of absolute reliability: his sincerity and
truthfulness may be above reproach, but his field of vision is
necessarily limited, and the personal element controls his impressions,
even against his will, hence his statements. These earliest sources
regarding Coronado consist of the letters of Coronado himself (with the
related letter of Viceroy Mendoza), and several briefer documents
written in New Mexico but without indication of their authors. The last
two letters written by Coronado alone touch upon the Rio Grande
Pueblos--those of August 3, 1540, and October 20, 1541.

As stated above, the expedition of Coronado was not designed as a mere
exploration, but rather for the purpose of establishing a permanent
settlement. Coronado's second letter, the first in which he touches upon
the Rio Grande Pueblos, appears to have been lost. His letter of October
20, 1541, although written near the site of the present Bernalillo, New
Mexico, contains very little in regard to the Rio Grande Pueblos.

The briefer documents pertaining to Coronado's expedition, and written
while the Spaniards were still in New Mexico, with the exception of one
(the report of the reconnoissance made by Hernando de Alvarado,
accompanied by Fray Juan de Padilla to the east) concern Zuñi almost
exclusively. The document respecting Alvarado's journey is contained in
the _Coleccion de Documentos_ from the archives of the Indies, but is
erroneously attributed to Hernando de Soto. The celebrated
historiographer of Spain, Juan Bautista Muñoz, unacquainted with New
Mexico, its geography and ethnography, criticized it rather harshly;
nevertheless, the document is very reliable in its description of
country and people: it alludes to features which are nowhere else
noticed, and which were rediscovered by the late Frank Hamilton Cushing
and myself about twenty-eight years ago. The number of villages and
people in the Rio Grande region, of which the document gives a brief
description, are, as usual, exaggerated; and it could hardly have been
otherwise in view of a first and hasty visit, but it remains the
earliest document in which Acoma and a part of the Rio Grande valley are
treated from actual observation. The reconnoissance was made from August
to October, 1540. It may be that one of the villages briefly described
is Pecos, which lies of course some distance east of the Rio Grande, and
the document is possibly the first one in which the nomadic Indians of
eastern New Mexico are mentioned from actual observation.

To these sources, which have both the merits and the defects of all
documents written under the impressions of first direct acquaintance
with the subject, must be added the "Relacion postrera de Sivola"
contained in a manuscript by father Toribio de Paredes, surnamed
Motolinia, and known as the _Libro de Oro_, etc., which is an augmented
and slightly modified version of that celebrated missionary's history of
the Mexicans. It is a condensed report that had reached Mexico after
Coronado had left for Quivira and before his return had become known.
Its allusion to the Rio Grande Pueblos and to Pecos is not without
value, although it adds little to what is contained in the sources
previously mentioned. On the Indians of the Plains it is, comparatively
speaking, more explicit. The general tone of the document is one of
sobriety. The "Relacion del Suceso," published in the _Documentos
Inéditos de Indias_ under the erroneous date of 1531, is similar to the
foregoing, but is more detailed in some respects and covers a longer
period of time. It manifestly was written in New Mexico by a member of
the expedition, but there is no clue as yet to the name of the author.
It is a useful corollary to the other contemporary sources.

Although written more than two centuries after Coronado's march, the
references to it and to New Mexico contained in the _Historia de la
Nueva Galicia_, by the licentiate Matias de la Mota Padilla, find a
place here, since the author asserts that he derived much of his
information from papers left by Pedro de Tovar, one of Coronado's chief
lieutenants. Mota Padilla generally confirms the data furnished by the
earlier documents, and adds some additional information. It is however
quite impossible to determine what he gathered directly from the
writings of Tovar and what he may have obtained through other and
probably posterior sources. At all events the _Historia de la Nueva
Galicia_ should never be neglected by students of the Pueblo Indians.

We now come to the two chief chroniclers of Coronado's time--both
participants in his undertakings and therefore eye-witnesses: Pedro de
Castañeda de Naxera and Juan Jaramillo. The fact that they were
eye-witnesses establishes their high rank as authorities, but there is a
difference between the two in that Castañeda was a common soldier,
whereas Jaramillo (a former companion and, to a certain extent, a
friend of Cortés) was an officer. This fact alone establishes a
difference in the opportunities for knowing and in the standpoint of
judging what was seen, aside from the difference arising out of the
character, facilities, and tendencies of the two individuals. Castañeda
is much more detailed in his narration than Jaramillo. Discontent with
the management and the final outcome of the enterprise is apparent in
the tone of his writings, and while this may not have influenced very
materially his description of the country and its people, they render
more or less suspicious his statements in regard to the dealings with
the aborigines. Both Castañeda and Jaramillo wrote a long time after the
events had occurred, and probably from memory, hence the comparative
accuracy of their descriptions is indeed remarkable. But that accuracy,
however commendable, is relative rather than absolute, as both were
liable to err, owing to the lapse of time and consequent failure to
remember facts and events, and, especially with Castañeda, the influence
of personal prejudice growing stronger with age. Jaramillo had less
occasion to fall into error resulting from such weakness, but he is much
less detailed than Castañeda. We might compare the two narrations by
stating that that of Jaramillo embodies the reminiscences of one who
stood officially on a higher plane and viewed his subject from a more
general standpoint, whereas Castañeda saw more of the inferior details
but was more susceptible of confounding, hence to misstate, the mass of
data which his memory retained. Both reports will always remain the
chief sources on the subject of which they treat, subject of course to
close comparison and checking with correlated sources, archaeological,
ethnological, and geographical investigation, and Indian tradition.

Before proceeding further in the discussion of the documents it must be
stated that all references to distances in leagues must be taken with
many allowances. According to Las Casas there were in use among the
Spaniards in the sixteenth century, two kinds of leagues: the maritime
league (_legua maritima_) and the terrestrial league (_legua
terrestre_). The former, established by Alfonso XI in the twelfth
century, consisted of four miles (_millas_) of four thousand paces, each
pace being equal to three Castilian feet. The length of the Castilian
foot at that time cannot be established with absolute minuteness. The
terrestrial league consisted of three thousand paces each, so that while
it contained nine thousand Castilian feet, the maritime league was
composed of twelve thousand. The latter was used for distances at sea
and occasionally also for distances on land, therefore where an
indication of the league employed is not positively given, a computation
of distances with even approximate accuracy is of course impossible.

The result of Coronado's failure was so discouraging, and the reports on
the country had been so unfavorable that for nearly forty years no
further attempt was made to reach the North from New Spain. In fact
Coronado and his achievements had become practically forgotten, and only
when the southern part of the present state of Chihuahua in Mexico
became the object of Spanish enterprise for mining purposes was
attention again drawn to New Mexico, when the Church opened the way
thither from the direction of the Atlantic slope. This naturally led the
explorers first to the Rio Grande Pueblos.

The brief report of the eight companions of Francisco Sanchez Chamuscado
who in 1580 accompanied the Franciscan missionaries as far as
Bernalillo, the site of which was then occupied by Tigua villages, and
who went thence as far as Zuñi, is important, although it presents
merely the sketch of a rather hasty reconnoissance. Following, as the
Spaniards did, the course of the Rio Grande from the south, they fixed,
at least approximately, the limit of the Pueblo region in that
direction. Some of the names of Pueblos preserved in the document are
valuable in so far as they inform us of the designations of villages in
a language that was not the idiom of their inhabitants. Chamuscado
having died on the return journey, the document is not signed by him,
but by his men. The document had been lost sight of until I called
attention to it nearly thirty years ago, the subsequent exploration by
Antonio de Espejo having monopolized the attention of those interested
in the early exploration of New Mexico.

The report of Antonio de Espejo on his long and thorough reconnoissance
in 1582-1583 attracted so much attention that for a time and in some
circles his expedition was looked upon as resulting in the original
discovery of New Mexico. This name was also given by Espejo to the
country, and it thereafter remained. While the documents relating to
Coronado slumbered unnoticed and almost forgotten, the report of Espejo
was published within less than three years after it had been written. It
must be stated here that there are two manuscripts of the report of
Espejo, one dated 1583 and bearing his autograph signature and official
(notarial) certificates, the other in 1584 which is a distorted copy of
the original and with so many errors in names and descriptions that, as
the late Woodbury Lowery very justly observed, it is little else than
spurious. I had already called attention to the unreliability of the
latter version, and yet it is the one that alone was consulted for more
than three centuries because it had become accessible through
publication in the Voiages of Hakluyt, together with an English
translation even more faulty, if possible, than its Spanish original.
The authentic document, with several others relating to Espejo's brief
career, was not published in full until 1871, and even then attracted
little attention because it was not translated and because the
_Coleccion de Documentos del Archivo de Indias_ is not accessible to
every one. But the publication of 1871 was by no means the first printed
version of Espejo's relations. Even prior to 1586 a somewhat condensed
narration of his exploration had been published, being embodied in the
_History of China_ by Father Gonzalez Mendoza. This account is based on
the authentic report in some of the various editions, on the spurious
document in others. The book of Father Mendoza was soon translated into
French. It is not surprising that Espejo's narrative should appear first
in print in a work on the Chinese Empire by a Franciscan missionary.
That ecclesiastic was impressed by some of Espejo's observations on
Pueblo customs which he thought resembled those of the Chinese. The
discoveries of Espejo were then the most recent ones that had been made
by Spaniards, and as New Mexico was fancied to lie nearer the Pacific
than it really does, and facing the eastern coast of China, a lurking
desire to find a possible connection between the inhabitants of both
continents on that side is readily explicable. But Father Mendoza had
still another motive. The three monks which Chamuscado had left in New
Mexico had sacrificed their lives in an attempt to convert the natives.
They were martyrs of their faith, hence glories of their order, and the
Franciscan author could not refrain from commemorating their deeds and
their faith. The spurious text was not taken from Mendoza, but
manifestly was copied from the transcript by a bungling scribe
imperfectly acquainted with the Spanish tongue.

The value of Espejo's narration is undoubtedly great. The author was a
close practical observer and a sincere reporter. The more is it
surprising that his statements in regard to the population of the
Pueblos are so manifestly exaggerated; yet, as I have elsewhere stated,
this may be explained. A tendency to enhance somewhat the importance of
discoveries is inherent in almost every discoverer, but in the case of
Espejo he was exposed to another danger. As he proceeded from village to
village the natives gathered at every point from other places out of
curiosity, fear, or perhaps with hostile intent, so that the number of
the people which the explorer met was each time much larger than the
actual number of inhabitants. On the question of population Espejo could
have no knowledge, since he had no means of communicating with the
people by speech. Furthermore, it is well known that a crowd always
appears more numerous than it would prove to be after an actual count;
besides, even if he could have counted the Indians present, he would
have fallen into the error of recording the same individual several
times.

During the comparatively short time which Espejo had to explore the
country as far as the Hopi or Moqui, he collected interesting
ethnological data. Customs that appeared new as late as the second half
of the last century were noted by him; and while his nomenclature of the
Pueblos agrees in many points with that of the Coronado expedition,
terms were added that have since been definitely adopted. Espejo's
return to Mexico was to be followed by a definite occupancy of the Rio
Grande country, but his untimely death prevented it, and the subsequent
plan of colonization, framed and proposed by Juan Bautista de Lomas
Colmenares, led to no practical results, as likewise did the ill-fated
expedition of Humaña, Bonilla, and Leyva, the disastrous end of which in
the plains became known only through a few vestiges of information and
by hearsay.

Seven years after Espejo's journey, Gaspar Castaño de Sosa penetrated
to the Rio Grande near the present village of Santo Domingo. The report
thereon is explicit and sober, and in it we find the first mention of
the Spanish names by which some of the Pueblos have since become known.
From this report it is easy to follow the route taken by Castaño and his
followers, but the account is incomplete, terminating abruptly at Santo
Domingo, whither Castaño had been followed by Captain Juan de Morlete,
who was sent after him by the governor of what is now Coahuila, without
whose permission Castaño had undertaken the journey. I have no knowledge
as yet of any document giving an account of the return of the
expedition.

Seven years more elapsed ere the permanent occupancy of New Mexico was
effected under the leadership of Juan de Oñate. Thenceforward events in
that province became the subject of uninterrupted documentary record.

The very wise and detailed ordinances regulating the discovery and
annexation to Spain of new territory, promulgated by Philip II, declared
that every exploration or conquest (the term "conquest" was subsequently
eliminated from Spanish official terminology and that of "pacification"
substituted) should be recorded as a journal or diary. Royal decrees
operated very slowly in distant colonies. Neither Chamuscado nor Espejo
kept journals, but Castaño de Sosa, and especially Oñate, did. His
_diario_ (which is accessible through its publication in the _Documentos
del Archivo de Indias_, although there are traces of an earlier
publication) was copied for printing by someone manifestly unacquainted
with New Mexico or with its Indian nomenclature, hence its numerous
names for sites and tribes are often very difficult to identify. But the
document itself is a sober, matter-of-fact record of occurrences and
geographical details, interspersed with observations of more or less
ethnological value. As Oñate followed the course of the Rio Grande
upward from below El Paso del Norte, and afterward branched off to
almost every sedentary settlement in New Mexico and Arizona, the
comparison of his diary with previous reports (those of the Coronado
expedition included) is highly valuable, indeed indispensable. The
_diario_ forms the beginning of accurate knowledge of the region under
consideration. Perhaps more important still are the Acts of Obedience
and Homage (_Obediencia y Vasallaje_) executed at various villages
during the course of the years 1598 and 1599. At first sight, and to one
unacquainted with Pueblo idioms, they present an unintelligible list of
partly recognizable names. But the confusion becomes somewhat reduced
through closer scrutiny and by taking into consideration the
circumstances under which each official document was framed. Oñate
already enjoyed the advantage of interpreters in at least one New
Mexican Indian tongue, but the meetings or councils during which the
"acts of obedience" were written were not always at places where his
interpreters understood the language of the people they were among.
These scribes faithfully recorded the names of pueblos as they heard
them, and sometimes several names, each in a different language for the
same village, hence the number of pueblos recorded is considerably
larger than it actually was. Again the inevitable misunderstanding of
Indian pronunciation by the Spaniards caused them to write the same word
in different forms according as the sounds were uttered and caught by
the ear. An accurate copy of these documents of Oñate's time made by one
versed in Pueblo nomenclature and somewhat acquainted with Pueblo
languages would be highly desirable. Oñate is not given to fulness in
ethnological details. His journal is a dry record of what happened
during his march and occupancy of the country. Customs are only
incidentally and briefly alluded to.

One of Oñate's officers, however, Captain Gaspar Perez de Villagra, or
Villagran, published in 1610 a _Historia de la Nueva Mexico_ in verse.
As an eye-witness of the events he describes, Villagran has the merits
and defects of all such authors, and the fact that he wrote in rhyme
called poetry does not enhance the historical merit of his book.
Nevertheless we find in it many data regarding the Pueblos not elsewhere
recorded, and study of the book is very necessary. We must allow for the
temptation to indulge in so-called poetical license, although Villagran
employs less of it than most Spanish chroniclers of the period that
wrote in verse. The use of such form and style of writing was regarded
in Spain as an accomplishment at the time, and not many attempted it,
which is just as well. Some of the details and descriptions of actions
and events by Villagran have been impeached as improbable; but even if
such were the case, they would not detract from the merits of his book
as an attempt at an honest and sincere narration and a reasonably
faithful description.

The minor documents connected with Oñate's enterprise and subsequent
administration of the New Mexican colony, so far as known, are of
comparatively small importance to the history of the Rio Grande Pueblos.
During the first years of the seventeenth century the attention of Oñate
was directed chiefly toward explorations in western Arizona and the Gulf
of California. While he was absent on his memorable journey, quarrels
arose in New Mexico between the temporal and ecclesiastical authorities,
which disturbed the colony for many years and form the main theme of the
documentary material still accessible. Even the manuscripts relating to
these troubles contain, here and there, references to the ethnological
condition of the Pueblos. Charges and counter-charges of abuses
committed by church and state could not fail to involve, incidentally,
the points touching upon the Indians, and the documentary material of
that period, still in manuscript but accessible through the copies made
by me and now in the Peabody Museum of Harvard University, should not be
neglected by serious investigators. To enter into details regarding the
tenor of these documents would be beyond the scope of this Introduction,
but I would call attention in a general way to the value and importance
of church records, which consist chiefly of registers of baptisms,
marriages, and deaths. These for the greater part were kept with
considerable scrupulosity, although there are periods during which the
same degree of care was not exercised. They are valuable ethnologically
by reason of the data which they afford with respect to intermarriages
between members of distant tribes, through the numerous Indian personal
names that they contain, and on account of the many records of events
which the priests deemed it desirable to preserve. Examples will be
given in the text of the Documentary History to follow.

The _Libros de Fabrica_, in which are recorded items bearing on the
economic side of church administration, are usually less important;
still they contain data that should not be neglected, for very often
minor points deserve as much attention as salient ones. Unfortunately
the church records of the period prior to 1680 have well-nigh
disappeared from New Mexico, but some still exist at El Paso del Norte
(Juarez), Chihuahua, that date back to the middle of the seventeenth
century. The absence of these records may be somewhat overcome by
another class of ecclesiastical documents, much more numerous and more
laborious to consult. In fact I am the only one who thus far has
attempted to penetrate the mass of material which they contain, although
my researches have been far from exhaustive, owing to lack of support in
my work. These documents, commonly called "Diligencias Matrimoniales,"
are the results of official investigations into the status of persons
desiring to marry. From their nature these investigations always cover a
considerable period, sometimes more than a generation, and frequently
disclose historical facts that otherwise might remain unknown. These
church papers also, though not frequently, include fragments of
correspondence and copies of edicts and decrees that deserve attention.

The destruction of the archives and of writings of all kinds in New
Mexico during the Indian revolt of 1680 and in succeeding years has left
the documentary history of the province during the seventeenth century
almost a blank. Publications are very few in number. There is no doubt
that the archives of Spain and even those of Mexico will yet reveal a
number of sources as yet unknown; but in the meantime, until these
treasures are brought to light, we must remain more or less in the dark
as to the conditions and the details of events prior to 1692. A number
of letters emanating from Franciscan sources have been published lately
in Mexico by Luis Garcia y Pimentel, and these throw sidelights on New
Mexico as it was in the seventeenth century that are not without value.
In the manuscripts from the archives at Santa Fé that survived the
Pueblo revolt, now chiefly in the Library of Congress at Washington,
occasional references to events anterior to the uprising may be found;
and the church books of El Paso del Norte (Juarez) contain some few data
that should not be neglected.

In 1602 there was published at Rome, under the title of _Relación del
Descubrimiento del Nuevo Mexico_, a small booklet by the Dean of
Santiago, Father Montoya, which purports to give a letter from Oñate on
his occupancy of New Mexico and journey to the Colorado river of the
West, thus covering the period between 1597 and 1605. It is preceded by
a notice of Espejo's exploration, but it is entirely too brief to afford
much information. The little book is exceedingly rare; but three copies
of it exist in the United States, so far as I am aware.

Of greater importance are the notices, of about the same period,
preserved by Fray Juan de Torquemada in the first volume of his
_Monarchia Indiana_ (1615). In this work we find the first mention of
some Pueblo fetishes, with their names, as understood at the time. The
letter of Fray Francisco de San Miguel, first priest of Pecos, given in
print by Torquemada, is of considerable interest. Torquemada himself was
never in New Mexico, but he stood high in the Franciscan Order and had
full access to the correspondence and to all other papers submitted from
outside missions during his time. It is much to be regretted that the
three manuscript pamphlets by Fray Roque Figueredo, bearing the titles
_Relacion del Viage al Nuevo México_, _Libro de las Fundaciones del
Nuevo Mexico_, and _Vidas de los Varones Ilustres_, etc., appear to be
lost. Their author was first in New Mexico while Oñate governed that
province, and his writings were at the great convent of Mexico. Whether
they disappeared during the ruthless dispersion of its archives in 1857
or were lost at an earlier date is not known.

After the recall of Oñate from New Mexico, not only the colony but also
the missions in that distant land began to decline, owing to the bitter
contentions between the political and the ecclesiastical authorities.
The Franciscan Order, desirous of inspiring an interest in New Mexican
missions, fostered the literary efforts of its missionaries in order to
promote a propaganda for conversions. It also sent a special visitor to
New Mexico in the person of Fray Estevan de Perea, who gave expression
to what he saw and ascertained, in two brief printed but excessively
rare documents, a facsimile copy of which is owned by my friend Mr F. W.
Hodge, of the Bureau of American Ethnology. A third letter which I have
not been able to see is mentioned by Ternaux-Compans, also a "Relacion
de la Conversion de los Jumanos" by the same and dated 1640.

Much more extended than the brief pamphlets by Fray Perea is the
_Relaciones de todas las cosas acaecidas en el Nuevo Mexico hasta el Año
de 1626_ (I abbreviate the very long title), by Fray Geronimo de Zárate
Salmerón, which was published in the third series of the first
_Colección de Documentos para la Historia de Mexico_, and also by Mr
Charles F. Lummis in _The Land of Sunshine_, with an English
translation. This work, while embodying chiefly a narrative most
valuable to the ethnography of western Arizona and eastern California,
of the journey of Oñate to the Colorado river of the West, followed by
an extended report on De Soto's expedition to the Mississippi river,
contains data on the Rio Grande Pueblos and on those of Jemez that are
of permanent value. The author gives the numbers of Pueblo Indians
officially converted during his time.

We come now to a book which, though small in compass, has had perhaps
greater circulation in languages other than Spanish, with the exception
of the _Destruycion de las Indias_ by the notorious Las Casas, than any
other. This is the work of Fray Alonso de Benavides, on New Mexico,
first published in 1630 under the misleading title of _Memorial que Fray
Juan de Santander de la Orden de San Francisco, Comisario General de
Indias, presenta a la Magestad Catolica del Rey don Felipe cuarto
nuestro Señor_, etc., Madrid, 1630. Benavides was custodian of the
Franciscan province of New Mexico for some time, and therefore had good
opportunity of knowing both the country and its natives. He gives a very
precise and clear enumeration of the groups of Pueblo Indians, locating
them where they had been found by Coronado ninety years before and
adding those which the latter had not visited, as well as giving the
number of villages of each group and the approximate number of people
therein contained. No writer on New Mexico up to this time had given
such a clear idea of its ethnography, so far as the location and the
distribution of the stocks are concerned. While somewhat brief on
manners and customs, Benavides is fuller and more explicit than any of
his predecessors, and informs us of features of importance which no
other author in earlier times mentioned. In short, his book is more
valuable for New Mexican ethnography than any other thus far known, and
it is not a matter of surprise, therefore, that it was translated into
several European languages. That the Rio Grande Pueblos receive an
abundant share of attention from Benavides is natural. We also obtain
from him some data, not elsewhere found, concerning the establishment
and fate of the missions, and the true relations of the Spaniards and
the natives are particularly well portrayed. Both the Apaches and the
Navajos also receive some attention, Benavides giving, among others, the
true reason for the hostility which the Apaches displayed since that
time against the Spanish settlements. It is a book without which the
study of the Pueblo Indians could not be satisfactory.

Where there is strong light there must of necessity be some shadow. In
the case of Benavides the shadow is found in the exaggerated number of
inhabitants attributed to the New Mexican Pueblos, exaggerations as
gross and as glaring as those of Espejo. The number of villages of some
of the Pueblo groups is also somewhat suspicious. It is not difficult to
explain these probably intentional deviations from the truth in an
otherwise sincere and highly valuable work. As already indicated, the
publications emanating from the Franciscan Order, which exclusively
controlled the New Mexican missions, had a special purpose distinct from
that of mere information: they were designed to promote a propaganda not
simply for the conversion of the Indians in general, but especially for
the conversions made or to be made by the Order. New Mexico was in a
state of neglect, spiritually and politically; the political authorities
had been denouncing the Franciscans in every possible way, and there was
danger, if this critical condition continued, that the Order might lose
its hold upon the northern territories and its mission be turned over to
the Jesuits, who were then successfully at work in the Mexican northwest
and approaching New Mexico from that direction. To prevent such a loss
it was deemed necessary to present to the faithful as alluring a picture
of the field as possible, exploiting the large number of neophytes as a
result already accomplished and hinting at many more as subjects for
conversion. Hence the exaggerated number of Indians in general
attributed by Benavides to what then comprised the religious province of
New Mexico. In this respect, and in this alone, the _Memorial_ of
Benavides may be regarded as a "campaign document," but this does not
impair its general value and degree of reliability.

For the period between 1630 and the uprising of 1680 there is a lack of
printed documents concerning New Mexico that is poorly compensated by
the known manuscripts which I have already mentioned as existing in New
Mexico and Mexico. Still there appeared in 1654 a little book by Juan
Diez de la Calle, entitled _Memorial y Resúmen breve de Noticias de las
Indias Occidentales_, in which the disturbances that culminated in the
assassination of Governor Luis de Rosas in 1642 are alluded to. The
national archives at the City of Mexico contain a still fuller report of
that event, in a royal decree of 1643 and other papers concerning the
deed, all of which are yet unpublished. The archives of Spain have as
yet been only meagerly investigated. The publication of the report of
Father Nicolas de Freytas, Portuguese, on the expedition attributed to
Diego de Peñalosa Brizeño into what is now Kansas or Nebraska, is of no
importance in the study of the Rio Grande Pueblos. The authenticity of
the document has been strongly doubted, though probably without just
cause. Equally unimportant to the subject of the Documentary History to
follow is the letter of Captain Juan Dominguez de Mendoza, published in
the appendix to the criticism of Cesareo Fernandez Duro on the report of
Father Freytas. The otherwise very interesting letter on New Mexico,
written by Fray Alonso de Posadas, also printed in the work of Duro, is
meager in its allusions to the Rio Grande.

Sixty-eight years after Benavides' time the _Teatro Mexicano_ of the
Franciscan Fray Agustin de Vetancurt was published. The third and fourth
parts of this important work, namely, the _Cronica de la Provincia del
Santo Evangelio de Mexico_ and the _Menologio Franciscano_, are of the
highest value to the history of the Rio Grande Pueblos and of New Mexico
generally. Although printed eighteen years after the New Mexican
missions had been destroyed by the Pueblo Indians, the _Cronica_
contains a terse description of the missions and Indian villages as they
had been previous to 1680, and gives data in regard to the population
that are commendable in their sobriety and probability. The work of
Vetancurt is in this respect a great improvement upon Benavides, and it
is interesting to note how his approximate census approaches the figures
given by Zárate Salmerón seventy years before. Vetancurt had at his
disposal much more precise data than Benavides. During the seven
decades separating the three authors much information had been
accumulated, and with greater chances of accuracy than before. Vetancurt
made good use of this accumulation of material, and his books are in
fact the most reliable sources from which to ascertain the status of the
Pueblos at the time the insurrection commenced. The historical data
given by Vetancurt in regard to New Mexico during earlier times are not
of great value, but the _Menologio_, as well as the _Cronica_, contains
a number of details on the missions and on the lives and achievements of
the missionaries that become important to an understanding of the Indian
himself. That such references are overburdened with details of a purely
religious character does not at all impair their ethnologic value: they
are pictures of the times according to the nature of which circumstances
and events can alone be judged properly.

We have now arrived at a period marking a great temporary change in the
condition of all the Pueblo Indians, and of those of the Rio Grande
especially. This is the insurrection, successful for a time, of the
Pueblos in 1680, against the Spanish domination. The material on this
eventful epoch is still largely in manuscript, the nearest approach to a
documentary presentation in full being the incomplete paraphrase
furnished by W. W. H. Davis in his _Spanish Conquest of New Mexico_,
published in 1869. No blame should be attached to the author for the
insufficiency of his data. He made the best possible use of his
materials with the help of my late friends David Miller and Samuel
Ellison of Santa Fé, but the archives of Santa Fé had already been
depleted through neglect and criminal waste, and what was and is left
(as I know from having handled it frequently and thoroughly) is a mass
of fragments, sometimes long, sometimes short, often disconnected and
therefore unsatisfactory. I shall refer to this material later. Of the
manuscript materials preceding and foreshadowing the insurrection, an
important letter by the Franciscan Fray Francisco de Ayeta, a copy of
which is in the national archives of Mexico, deserves to be specially
mentioned. To this indefatigable monk, whose timely warnings were too
lightly regarded by the Spanish authorities, are also due the data
concerning the lives and the awful fate of the Franciscan priests at
the hands of the Pueblo Indians on August 10, 1680. The original of
this tragic list is in manuscript in the national archives of Mexico,
where Vetancurt made use of it in his _Teatro_. The memorial sermon
preached and published in Mexico in 1681 (a copy of which exceedingly
rare print was procured by my friend the Honorable L. Bradford Prince of
Santa Fé) rests for its information upon the obituaries preserved by
Father Ayeta. That these obituaries are of direct value to the history
of the Rio Grande Pueblos is apparent.

The sermon alluded to is the earliest print, so far as known, concerning
the great Indian uprising of 1680. Next in date comes a publication
touching the various attempts made by the Spaniards to reconquer New
Mexico prior to 1693. In that year Carlos de Sigüenza y Gongora
published in the City of Mexico a kind of irregular newspaper bearing
the title _El Mercurio Volante_, in which appears a concise and
tolerably reliable sketch of the insurrection and the various attempts
to reconquer the territory, including the successful one in 1692 by
Diego de Vargas. Sigüenza is brief, but reasonably accurate. Part of the
documents concerning the Indian uprising were published in the
nineteenth century in the Third Series of the _Colección de Documentos
para la Historia de Mexico_, but no complete print of the voluminous
papers concerning those events has yet appeared, and indeed the most
important documents still remain in manuscript. In 1701 Villagutierre y
Sotomayor published his voluminous _Historia de la Conquistay
Reducciones de los Itzaes y Lacandones en la America Septentrional_, in
which appears a brief description of the Indian uprising in New Mexico.
His data are of course gathered at second hand, although from
contemporary sources.

I know of no other publications concerning the Indian uprising, so often
mentioned, between the close of the seventeenth century and the
beginning of the eighteenth. The manuscript material, which has been
much scattered, may be divided locally into three groups. The one,
originally at Santa Fé, New Mexico, is now in the Library of Congress at
Washington; it had been much neglected, hence for the greater part
seriously reduced, in former times, but it still contains most valuable
information on the condition of the Rio Grande Pueblos immediately after
the uprising and during the time the Pueblos were left to themselves,
attempting to return to their primitive condition. This information,
embodied in interrogatories of Indians subsequent to 1680, I made the
subject of a closing chapter to my _Documentary History of the Zuñi
Tribe_, but it was withheld from publication for some cause unknown to
me. The military reports on the expeditions of Diego de Vargas and the
final reconquest of New Mexico are reduced to disconnected but still
bulky fragments. Almost unique of their kind are the so-called "Pueblo
grants" emanating from Governor Domingo Gironza Petros de Cruzate in
1688. The term "grant" is a misnomer, since it refers in fact to a
limitation to the innate tendency of the Indians to arbitrarily expand
their tribal range. These documents have become the legal basis of
landholding by the Pueblos and the first step toward eventual single
tenure.

The second group of manuscripts, in the national archives in the City of
Mexico, is more complete than the first. It contains information on the
beginnings of the rebellion and on later events that are of great
importance.

The third group, and by far the most complete, is in Spain, but in
regard to it I am unable to give any precise information, since every
opportunity of completing my investigations concerning the Southwest by
studying the Spanish archives, notwithstanding repeated promises, has
been withheld.

For the eighteenth century documentary materials pertaining to New
Mexico remain, it may be said, almost exclusively in manuscript. A
connecting link between the printed sources of the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries are the _Apuntamientos que sobre el Terreno hizo el
Padre José Amando Niel_, in the early part of the eighteenth century,
published in the Third Series of the _Documentos para la Historia de
Mexico_. Father Niel was a Jesuit who visited New Mexico shortly after
the reconquest. His observations are of comparatively mediocre value,
yet his writings should not be overlooked. The journal of the Brigadier
Pedro de Rivera, in 1736, of his military march to Santa Fé, is a dry,
matter-of-fact account, but is nevertheless valuable owing to his
concise and utterly unembellished description of the Rio Grande valley
and of what he saw therein. The book is very rare, and therefore
correspondingly unnoticed.

A brief but important contribution to the history of New Mexico is the
letter of Fray Silvestre Velez de Escalante, published in the Third
Series of the _Documentos para la Historia de Mexico_. About the same
time, in the second half of the eighteenth century, the Brigadier José
Cortés wrote an extended report on the territory, but it concerns more
the relations with the constantly hostile roaming tribes than the
condition of the Pueblos. It also is printed in the _Documentos_.

The otherwise very important diary of the journey of Fray Francisco
Garcés to northern Arizona, published first in the above-mentioned
_Colección de Documentos_, and more recently (with highly valuable
notes) by the late Dr Elliott Coues, touches only incidentally on the
Rio Grande region. In 1746 Joseph Antonio de Villa-Señor y Sanchez
embodied in his _Theatro Americano_ a description of New Mexico,
condensed chiefly from the journal of the Brigadier Rivera, mentioned
above. The _Diccionario Geografico_ by Murillo is also a source that
should not be neglected.

A great amount of documentary manuscript material, mostly of a local
character, is contained in the church books of the eighteenth century
formerly at the pueblo of Santa Clara and now preserved at Santa Fé
through the efforts of the late Archbishop J. B. Salpointe. There are
also the "Informaciones Matrimoniales," which contain data of great
importance. Through them we are informed of the tragic fate of the last
expedition of the Spaniards to the northwest, with its horrifying
incidents. The story of woe and disaster that pictures the life of the
Indian Pueblos and Spanish settlers during the eighteenth century is
contained in fragments in the plain, matter-of-fact church registers,
and it requires painstaking investigation to collect it. The greatest
part of this information concerns the Rio Grande Pueblos. A careful
investigation of the matrimonial and baptismal registers will yield data
concerning the clans and indications of the primitive rules of marriage,
while the "Libros de Fabrica" contain interesting data on the churches
of the Rio Grande valley. Great labor and the utmost scrutiny are
required in sifting these time-worn papers for desirable data, and
especially is a considerable knowledge of conditions and events
necessary; but the result of thorough investigation, especially through
literal copying by the student, will amply repay the time and labor
bestowed.

What I have stated in regard to the church archives applies, in a still
greater degree, to the state and private papers that may be accessible.
Of the former the archives of Santa Fé contain a great number, though
many of them are only fragmentary. Valuable documents exist also in the
archives of the Surveyor General at Santa Fé; these are valuable chiefly
for historical data covering the first half of the eighteenth century.
The national archives in the City of Mexico are much more complete than
those of New Mexico, while in Spain we may expect to find an almost
complete set of government documents, preserved with much greater care
and with more system than in any early Spanish possessions in America.
The city of Sevilla would be the first place in which research in this
direction should be conducted.

Before closing this bibliographic sketch with a glance at the earliest
literature of the nineteenth century, I must mention two ponderous books
of the eighteenth century which, while based on second-hand information
and not very valuable in detail, refer occasionally to facts and data
not elsewhere found. These are the two volumes of the _Crónica
Apostólica y Seráfica de la Propaganda Fide de Querétaro_. The first
volume, written by Fray Isidro Felis Espinosa and published in 1746, is
interesting especially on account of its reference to the fate of the
first Frenchmen brought into New Mexico, and one of whom, Juan de
Archibèque, played an important rôle in the first two decades of the
eighteenth century. The second volume, the author of which was Fray
Domingo de Arricivita, was published in 1792, and is the chief source
concerning the still problematical expedition to the north attributed to
two Franciscan friars in 1538. Both of these works are of relatively
minor importance, and I mention them here only for the sake of
completeness and in order to warn against attaching undue importance to
them so far as the Pueblos are concerned.

It is of course understood that I omit from the above account a number
of publications containing more or less brief and casual references to
New Mexico. Most of them are geographical, and but few allude to
historical facts. In the notes to the Documentary History proper I may
refer to some of them.

Perhaps the last book published on New Mexico in the Spanish language is
the little book of Pino, which, however, has little more than a
bibliographic value except in so far as it touches the condition of New
Mexico at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The documents in the
New Mexican and Mexican archives up to the date of the American
occupancy present features similar to those that characterize the
Spanish documents of the eighteenth century. It would be too tedious to
refer to them in detail, and I therefore dismiss them for the present
with this brief mention. If I do not mention here the literature on New
Mexico in the English language it is not due to carelessness or to
ignorance of it, but because of its much greater wealth in number and
contents, its more ready accessibility, and because in matters
respecting the history of early times the authors of these works have
all been obliged to glean their information from at least some of the
sources that I have above enumerated and discussed.

It may surprise students of New Mexican history that I have thus far
omitted the very earliest sources in print in which New Mexico is
mentioned, namely, the work of Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo y Valdés, and
that of Gomara. The former was published in part in the first half of
the sixteenth century, the entire work appearing at Madrid not earlier
than 1850 and 1851. Its title, as is well known, is _Historia General y
Natural de las Indias_. The work of Francisco Lopez de Gomara bears the
title _Historia de las Indias_, and is in two parts. Gomara is more
explicit than Oviedo, who gives only a brief and preliminary mention;
but even Gomara, while more detailed, and basing his work evidently on
the earliest data then accessible in regard to the expedition of
Coronado, cannot be compared with the later reports of those attached to
the expedition. The value of these books is comparatively slight, so far
as New Mexico is concerned. Much more important is the _Historia
General_, etc., by Antonio de Herrera (1601-1615). What authorities
Herrera had at his command cannot be readily determined. He may have had
access to the report of Jaramillo, and he was certainly acquainted with
the letters of Coronado. Perhaps the letter of Coronado which I have as
yet been unable to find was consulted by him. In any event Herrera's
information is all second-hand, and while by no means devoid of merit,
his work cannot rank with sources written by men who saw the country and
took part in the events of the earliest explorations. The map
accompanying the first volume of Herrera, while scarcely more than an
outline, is still in advance of the charts published during the
sixteenth century.

Here I may be permitted to refer to the older cartography of New Mexico
in general. Until the beginning of the seventeenth century these maps
are very defective and incomplete. It is almost as if the Ptolemy of
1548 had served as a basis for them. Even the large and beautiful globe
constructed at St. Gall in Switzerland in 1595, and now in the Swiss
National Museum at Zürich, places Tiguex near the Pacific coast. It is
through the work of Benavides that more correct ideas of New Mexican
geography were gained and a somewhat more accurate and detailed
nomenclature was introduced, since the _Geografie Blaviane_ of 1667 by
the Dutch cartographer Jean Blaeuw contains a map of the region far
superior to any hitherto published. The number of early maps of New
Mexico is larger than is generally supposed, and there are to-day
unpublished maps (for instance in the National Archives of Mexico for
the eighteenth century) that indicate, as existing, Indian pueblos and
missions that were abandoned nearly a century before the maps were made.

I must state that in this Introduction I have abbreviated as much as
practicable the titles of books and manuscripts. These are often very
long, and it is unnecessary to burden the present text with them, as I
shall have to give the full titles in the notes to the Documentary
History proper.

It may not be out of place to add to the above a brief review of the
distribution and location of the various Pueblo groups at the beginning
of the sixteenth century, but strictly according to documentary
information alone. The location of different villages must be reserved
for later treatment, hence as the ranges of the various linguistic
groups had no definite boundaries, only the relative position and
approximate extent can be given here.

Following the course of the Rio Grande to the north from northern
Chihuahua, the Mansos were first met, in the vicinity of the present
Juarez, Mexico. This was in 1598. Nearly one hundred and forty years
later Brigadier Don Pedro de Rivera met them farther north, not far
from Las Cruces and Doña Ana, New Mexico. To-day they are again at El
Paso del Norte. About San Marcial on the Rio Grande began the villages
of the Piros, at present reduced to one small village on the right bank
of the Rio Grande below El Paso. The Piros extended in the sixteenth
century as far north in the Rio Grande valley as Alamillo at least, and
a branch of them had established themselves on the borders of the great
eastern plains of New Mexico, southeast of the Manzano. That branch,
which has left well-known ruins at Abó, Gran Quivira (Tabirá), and other
sites in the vicinity, abandoned its home in the seventeenth century,
forming the Piro settlement below El Paso, already mentioned. North of
the Piros, between a line drawn south of Isleta and the Mesa del
Canjelon, the Tiguas occupied a number of villages, mostly on the
western bank of the river, and a few Tigua settlements existed also on
the margin of the eastern plains beyond the Sierra del Manzano. These
outlying Tigua settlements also were abandoned in the seventeenth
century, their inhabitants fleeing from the Apaches and retiring to form
the Pueblo of Isleta del Sur on the left bank of the Rio Grande in
Texas.

North of the Tiguas the Queres had their homes on both sides of the
river as far as the great cañon south of San Ildefonso, and an outlying
pueblo of the Queres, isolated and quite remote to the west, was Acoma.
The most northerly villages on the Rio Grande were those of the Tehuas.
Still beyond, but some distance east of the Rio Grande, lay the Pueblos
of Taos and Picuris, the inhabitants of which spoke a dialectic
variation of the Tigua language of the south. The Tehuas also approached
the Rio Grande quite near, at what is called La Bajada; and in about the
same latitude, including the former village at Santa Fé, began that
branch of the Tehuas known as Tanos, whose settlements ranged from north
of Santa Fé as far as the eastern plains and southward to Tajique, where
their territory bordered that of the eastern Tiguas.

The Rio Grande Queres extended also as far west as the Jemez river; and
north of them, on the same stream, another linguistic group, the Jemez,
had established themselves and built several villages of considerable
size. East of the Rio Grande and southwest-ward from Santa Fé another
branch of the Jemez occupied the northern valley of the Rio Pecos.

The main interest in this distribution of the Rio Grande Pueblos lies in
the fact that it establishes a disruption and division of some of these
groups prior to the sixteenth century, but of the cause and the manner
thereof there is as yet no documentary information. Thus the Tigua
Indians of Taos and Picuris are separated from their southern relatives
on the Rio Grande by two distinct linguistic groups, the Tehuas and the
Queres; the Jemez and the Pecos were divided from each other by the
Queres and the Tanos. That the Piros and the Tiguas should have
separated from the main stock might be accounted for by the attraction
of the great salt deposits about the Manzano and greater accessibility
to the buffalo plains, but that in the Rio Grande valley itself foreign
linguistic groups should have interposed themselves between the northern
and southern Tiguas and the Jemez and Pecos constitutes a problem which
only diligent research in traditions, legends, and the native languages
may satisfactorily solve.

  NEW YORK CITY,
    March, 1910.



      *      *      *      *      *      *



Transcriber's Note.

  Several words purposely occur in accented and non-accented forms. The
  differing occurrences are retained.

  Page 20: Misspelling of Sante Fé corrected to Santa Fé.
  Page 23: The title "Coleccion de Documentos" modified to
           "Colección de Documentos".