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Archaeological Institute of America

Papers of the School of American Archaeology

Number Thirteen

ADOLPH F. BANDELIER

BY ADOLPH F. BANDELIER

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 Archaeological 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 Zu?i tribe, namely, to record their documentary history.

I shall follow the method employed by me in the case of the documentary history of Zu?i, 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 Zu?i 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.

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 F? 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 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 is imperfect at the City of Mexico. There are lacunae 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 Nu?o de Guzman in 1530 and alluded to by Casta?eda. That Nu?o de Guzman had gained some information concerning the Pueblos seems certain, but everything points to the Zu?i 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 Zu?i 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 , 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.

We now come to the two chief chroniclers of Coronado's time--both participants in his undertakings and therefore eye-witnesses: Pedro de Casta?eda 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 Casta?eda was a common soldier, whereas Jaramillo 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. Casta?eda 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 Casta?eda 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 Casta?eda, 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 Casta?eda. 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 Casta?eda 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.

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 Zu?i, 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 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 Huma?a, 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 Casta?o 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 Casta?o and his followers, but the account is incomplete, terminating abruptly at Santo Domingo, whither Casta?o had been followed by Captain Juan de Morlete, who was sent after him by the governor of what is now Coahuila, without whose permission Casta?o 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 O?ate. Thenceforward events in that province became the subject of uninterrupted documentary record.

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