Colonists went looking at their new land. They saw the abandoned cliff cities west of the river, and came upon the two stone panthers in a mountain shrine above the Rito de los Frijoles. The carved animals were four feet long with tails two feet longer than that. They were crouched as if to spring. A circle of large rocks surrounded them. Traces of red ochre showed on the cats’ heads—devotional signs made by Indians. The Spaniards watched how the Indians fished, using long nets of yucca fibre stretched from bank to bank across a shallow place. Great hauls were taken, most of them thrown away. So too the Indians killed game far beyond their needs. The soldiers marvelled at the quantity of deer in the country. They would capture fawns and train them to pull little toy carts for the Spanish children. Later, grown deer were broken to harness and used to draw full-sized vehicles. Indians now had wheels to use. The vast land began to lose its secrets. The Governor thought there were about seventy thousand people in the pueblos.
As to where they were, the people of the river colony had firm notions. They thought it was nonsense to say, as some people said, that the New World had been peopled in the beginning by a landing of King Solomon’s armada on the coast of Peru. Such a theory was held by certain scholars, but it was demolished by others who pointed out that King Solomon sailed from the Red Sea on a cruise of three years, from which he returned with gold, silver and ivory. There were neither elephants nor ivory in Peru. What seemed plain was that he had actually been in the Orient, China. As for where the earliest people came from—somewhere in the north there was a strait, and they came across it from China. China, Japan Island, India, were not far distant in the seas to the west, and only awaited the discovery of suitable harbors on the coast of New Mexico for the birth of lively overseas trade. The Governor had a clause in his royal contract granting him the right to bring two ships annually direct to New Mexico. He looked forward with confidence to trade with China, so close in the west, and with Mexico and Peru to the south. He saw world enterprises centering upon his city of San Juan on the river. Already capital of so much land, who knew what remained to be brought loyally to it? The western sea shored along the provinces of “the Californios.” Reports compared the climate there to that of New Castile, and added further that “their states are the best managed of those thus far discovered,” resembling, indeed, “Roman republics.” In the summer of 1600 Vicente de Zaldívar led a troop of soldiers to find so promising a sea. On his way out he marched first to the saline pueblos beyond the mountains east of the river, to gather provisions for his journey. At one town where he asked for maize and beans the Indians gave him stones. He sent word of this to the capital and went on his way.
The Governor acted upon his message. Taking fifty soldiers he went to the transmontane pueblo, gave battle in which six Indians died, and later hanged two chiefs. He then burned part of the town, but in a manner “tactful and gentle,” and returned to San Juan.
Zaldívar was home before autumn to report that though he had come within three days of the sea he had not been able to reach it through hostile Indian country and high mountains. It was a setback for an impatient Governor, who had problems of discipline to contend with besides. During that autumn two captains of the army were murdered—Aguilar, who had twice made trouble for the Governor, and Sosa Albernoz. There was talk. The Governor was supposed to have ordered the killings.
But Christmas came and with it a new train from Mexico. It arrived at the capital on Christmas Eve bringing new families, new soldiers, six new friars; quantities of arms and ammunition; blankets and clothing, and shoes for everyone. Bonfires of celebration were lighted, and there was music and singing, and at midnight everyone went to Mass to give thanks. With his new resources the Governor could now plan to explore in strength his lands to the east and to the west.
Once again Quivira glowed in the civilized mind. Joseph, the Indian who had escaped from Bonilla and Humaña on those same plains, beguiled the Governor as the Turk had beguiled Vásquez de Coronado. It had long been a common form of Indian politeness to say that which the hearer would like to hear, the truth to the contrary notwithstanding. By his questions a Spanish general could kindle the answers he longed to receive. Gold, like this? Silver? Cities? A great house, a palace? Bounty in all things? Joseph had much to promise, and recited his wonders, ending with an account of a city he himself had not happened to see, but which he well knew from descriptions by other plains people—a city nine leagues long, two leagues wide, filled with marvels. There wasn’t a city in all Spain as big as that. The Governor commanded that preparations be launched for his entry into Quivira in the springtime.
But once again his peaceful purposes of acquisition were interrupted by calamitous news, when three soldiers came home to San Juan to say that two of their comrades had been killed by the same insolent Indians over the mountains to the east. Zaldívar once again led a punitive force against the guilty pueblo. The Indians massed at Quarai, one of the three large towns in the saline district. A battle of five nights and days followed before the town, deprived of its water supply by the soldiers, surrendered. Forty soldiers were wounded. Zaldívar had an arm broken and carried two wounds besides. Nine hundred Indians were killed. Their town was burned and two hundred prisoners were taken to the capital. Two months behind schedule, the Governor marched for Quivira with nearly a hundred soldiers, and pack animals, and cottonwood carts, in June, 1601. His sense of high fortune was at its fullest. Crossing the vast eastern land would be like the act of rolling up a map after it had served its simple purpose.
24.
The Promises
Close to eight hundred people were left at the river capital. Not long after the Governor’s departure they began to air certain disagreements.
First of all, the friars spoke out against the cruelties shown by the Governor to the Indians, and the robberies of Indian food, clothing and other possessions which many of the colonists seemed to consider privileged acts. Certainly no firm action against such unjust behavior was taken by the government. The Indians were close to starvation because the colonists had despoiled them of so much food. It was not to be condoned. Better no city, no province at all, than one so godless.
Other complaints came from other sources. There were charges of misrepresentation of the whole nature of New Mexico and even of the purpose of the expedition. Where was the quick return in wealth and personal fortune that all had believed in? A man put all he owned into a venture of this sort, and he deserved a proper return on his risk and his investment. What did he get here? He owed something to himself and his family. Back in Mexico, they had at least had a home of their own and something to eat.
Many men disdained to work in the colony to develop its modest but life-sustaining yield. They had come to make a fortune, not an irrigation ditch, a bean patch or a slaughter pen.
It appeared to the majority that one after another, the Governor’s explorations up the river, west of the river, east of the river, all founded on promises, showed nothing in the end but battle and burning pueblos. He himself seemed disappointed, but that helped nobody, for his temper only grew shorter, his rule more strict, and his methods more cruel. (After all, if what was going around was true, somebody had ordered the assassination of Aguilar and Sosa Albernoz.) Perhaps he was desperate to prove his whole venture a success. The question remained as to how long others should be expected to pay for things as they were.
In July a mass meeting was called at San Juan to give all such opinion a chance to crystallize. The Governor had his defenders who pointed out the happier facts overlooked by the discontented—there was plenty of food if farmers farmed, the plains were stocked with buffalo if hunters hunted,