Vol. X. APRIL, 1907. No. 4.
The publication committee and the editors disclaim responsibility for view expressed by contributors to The Quarterly.
Thirty-nine years ago, April 6th, 1862, 1 was fought one of the bloodiest battles that ever occurred on this continent, called by the Confederates the Battle of Shiloh, from a large log church somewhat to the left of the centre of our line of battle, which was used by General Beauregard as his headquarters. But to begin this tale of the long ago, I will say I was a member at that time of Company C, Wirt Adams's Cavalry; a regiment composed of companies from Alabama, Mississippi and Louisana. Our Company was raised chiefly in Choctaw County, Alabama, with contingents from both Washington and Clarke Counties. One of the commissioned officers, Lieutenant White, was from Washington County. The Company was raised early in the summer of 1861 and organized at Mt. Sterling, Alabama, with F. Y. Gaines, captain; W. W. Long, W. P. Cheney and — White, lieutenants.
Our services had been offered through the governor of the State to the Confederate government. We were fully equipped with Sharp's rifles, sabers, Colt's army revolvers, and the regular U. S. dragoon saddles. Our uniform was a heavy gray cassimere, with the proper trimmings incident to that branch of the service. This equipment, including the uniforms, was presented to the company by Colonel Sam Ruffin, of Choctaw County; hence the name by which we were known, “Ruffin Dragoons.” The ladies of Mt. Sterling and its vicinity—women of blessed memory—met from day to day in the Masonic hall of the village, until every member was furnished with a handsome uniform.
Nearly every man furnished his own horse; some were supplied by the more wealthy citizens of the county; others again were complimented by being presented with finer animals than they possessed, or horses more fitted for the hard service they were destined to endure—notably, as I remember, Captain Gaines was presented by Hon. Frank Lyon, of Demopolis, with a fine sorrel. The equipment furnished by Colonel Ruffin, I was informed, cost him about $30,000. How well I remember the day when we left Mt. Sterling for the front, the 25th of September, 1861. Nearly all of us were young men and boys just from school. The officers were older, and Captain Gaines had seen service in Mexico as an officer of U. S. dragoons. This, of course, gave some prestige, and lent us some prominence in the regiment to which we were assigned. I, myself, was fresh from the class-room, with no experience whatever of any of the ruder sides of life.
We went from Mt. Sterling to Lauderdale, Mississippi, where we were loaded on trains for Memphis, Tennessee. There we were enrolled “for the war in the Confederate service.” We went by way of Nashville to Bowling Green, Kentucky, and became a part of General A. S. Johnston's army confronting Buell, the Federal commander in that part of the State. Here we joined other companies, and Wirt Adams's Cavalry Regiment was formed. We were drilled in company and regimental tactics, picketing the front and doing scouting duties.
Early in February, 1862, the Federals, not desiring to force Johnston's position, commenced flanking movements by way of the Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers, pushing their gunboats up those streams, and gaining the battle of Fort Donelson, where the Confederate General Buckner surrendered a considerable force. This made it apparent that the withdrawal of the army from Bowling Green was imperative.
After the Battle of Fort Donelson, General Grant pushed his forces further south to the vicinity of Pittsburg, a small village on the Tennessee River, not more than twenty-five miles from Corinth, Mississippi, where the Confederates were rapidly gathering to oppose his advance. At this particular place, General Johnston came prominently into view before the country and the world. His methods and strategy had been severely criticized by a part of the Southern press. Mile after mile of the country had been given up without a blow, and apparently it was not understood or approved. It was said a delegation even went to Richmond and demanded the general's removal. But Mr. Davis said to them “if Albert Sidney Johnston is not a general, I have none; so they got back in time to see one of the masterly moves of the war—one by which undoubtedly the conqueror of Lee at Appomattox would have been relegated to the shades had not death overtaken Johnston on the evening of April 6, 1862.
Three days' rations were ordered in the haversacks, and our regiment took the road in the direction of Monterey. I think this was Wednesday, the 3d of April. Other roads leading in that direction were choked with moving masses of men, infantry, and artillery, with their necessary trains of ordnance and commissary stores. The weather had been rainy and the roads were bad. Who of us that was there and toiled through that rain and mud can ever forget it?
On the morning of the 5th of April, Company C of Wirt Adams's Regiment was ordered to report to the commanding general for escort duty. Our uniforms were new and our horses in good condition, and altogether we did not make a bad appearance. Well do I recollect the look of wonder and inquiry that swept over young and beardless faces when we heard the words of the order. We knew of the lonely vigil on the far out picket post, the firing line on the skirmish front, scouting, and so on, but the idea of being escort to the head of the army brought up all sorts of questions, and our officers were plied with inquiries.
Right here let us notice some conditions that always held between the Confederate private and his officers. Off duty, we all were free and easy. Even on duty, except on drill and parade, there ran all through the army an easy tolerance that lent itself so admirably to both rank and file when the individualism of the soldier was demanded in hottest battle; when lines irregularly rushed to the charge, or beaten back, would suddenly nerve themselves to a stand and again rush forward—not shoulder to shoulder, or elbows touching, as we often read in fancy sketches, but every man and officer acting, as it were, individually, and each feeling as if the result depended upon himself alone. So in camp the license of the soldier was controlled by the “morale” of the man, and hence the proverbial easy intercourse between officers and men.
However, we soon found out our duties as a general's escort, though our lot together, alas, was too short. The night of the 5th of April, General Johnston bivouacked in a skirt of woods near an old field, an infantry line of battle just in front and extending through the dense woods and thickets to right and left, with batteries of field artillery just in the rear and occupying assigned positions given them by the staff.
From early in the day, General Johnston had been anxious for the more prompt arrival of the troops. Delay after delay occurred. Staff officers had been sent back to urge haste, but it developed that the two corps of Bragg and Polk had become entangled with each other, on account of the narrow muddy roads, and the miring ordnance and artillery teams, and a part of one of these commands had to diverge into the woods and cut a new road before the forward movement could be hastened. It was evident that the attack was to begin on the arrival of the troops in position, and but for this delay the battle would have opened on Saturday. What might have been the result had the plans of the general been caried out can now only be left to conjecture. Certain it is, Buell would not have been in reach, for on that day his army was nearly twenty-five miles away, and the history of the second day would not so have been written, and General Grant would not have been at Appomattox to receive General Lee's surrender.
But I am anticipating. The escort bivouacked near the general's headquarters. Our slim rations in the haversacks were exhausted, and our commissary wagon was far in the rear. Sentinels were detailed under a proper officer and thrown around the general's tent; night and quiet had settled down immediately around us. Only the distant tramp of detailed detachments as they hurried to join their respective brigades, or the peculiar rumble of some battery of artillery, until then delayed in the mud, struck the ear. Silence had been enjoined on the troops, and no one can forget the weird effect and impressions made upon one, silently gazing through the gloom of the woods on the still ranks of men lying upon their arms, with the flags and guidons hanging limp on their staffs, and the long lines dimmer to the eye as night fell upon the scene. The night was dark and damp, and the April wind stirring the boughs of the tall trees sang in the hearts of many men that lay beneath, as they thought of home, a dirge of death.
Our sentinels, in regular reliefs, guarded headquarters. All were hungry. Our horses had no corn, and our men no bread. R. M. Hearin, of Bladon Springs, Alabama, was on guard that night, his relief coming on in the early morning, and I have heard him tell how the early breakfast of the staff affected him. They would throw away crusts of bread and bits of crackers as they talked, and as his regular beat caried him near the circle of officers, who sat or stood around the camp chest, he would pick up some of the rejected crusts and munch and listen as he walked. Towards morning, general officers had been gathering at the headquarters, and daylight revealed a historic group. Some had come voluntarily, some had been summoned by courier. Mr. Hearin says, hungry and fagged out as he was, he was exceedingly interested by the tense but subdued manner of the group. The argument even then was for or against a general attack. It seems that all the officers did not agree with General Johnston, notably the second in command, who favored a forced reconnaissance, and then dealing with details as they developed.
About six o'clock, still early for the cloudy April morning, and whilst they still ate crackers and sipped coffee, some talking, General Johnston mainly a listener, the heavy denseness of the air was jarred by an ominous sound apparently not far off. All knew what it meant. General Johnston was standing erect, if I remember rightly, when the roar of the gun broke upon his ear. He immediately faced the group and said, “Gentlemen, the ball has opened; no time for argument now,” or words to that effect, and asking an officer to note the time, he immediately called for his horse. “Boots and saddles” for our company was sounded, and we sprang into the saddle. How well I remember the mien and manner of General Hardee, as he quitted the group and made for his horse held a short distance away by an orderly. His form was erect; his stride long but regular; and as he walked he gathered up his trailing sword, and tucking it under his arm so reached his horse. At a gallop he went in the direction of his command, which was mainly to our left, as I now recall these incidents. A portion of the troops that were near us had silently moved forward in the night. Perhaps the whole line moved forward; I do not know, but I remember we had several hundred yards to ride in the direction we took before we came in sight of the lines now fully engaged.
Immediately following the opening gun, portions of lines seemed to me to commence firing by volleys. Then the division to which we were advancing became engaged all at once; the file-firing seemed continuous, as if the men were engaged in close and steady duel. The artillery to right and left of us and in front also had now awakened to a continual volume of sound—no stop, no intermission. Now, for the first time, I heard the sound of “dread artillery,” for almost immediately the enemy responded with every available gun, and round shot and shell came through or over the ranks in a storm. The mists of the morning were heavy, and the smoke clinging close to the ground made it difficult to see ten paces in front.
I shall remember the first wounded man I saw as we passed in. He was half reclining near the foot of an oak tree with an awful wound in his stomach, made apparently by a fragment of a shell, a portion of his bowels protruding and partly lying on the ground. Evidently he had just been wounded, for as General Johnston stopped to talk to him a moment, his eyes were bright and face animated as he was telling the general how the Yankees broke and fled at the first fire. General Johnston ordered the surgeon who was along with us to stop and give him some attention.
About this time, or perhaps a few yards further on, the general was notified that part of our line was giving way. Instantly he quickened to a gallop, with the staff and escort following, and right into the mêlée we plunged. Here was my first sight of the “battle joined.” It must have been a part of Hindman's line, for we saw that officer in one of the most dramatic scenes I witnessed during the whole war. Mounted on a fine horse, his uniform covered with an oil poncho which glistened in the light rain that was falling, he was just behind his line, whooping like a Comanche, with his horse in a dead run, and from one end of his brigade to the other he was urging his charging column forward on the enemy, who were giving Rolands for Olivers, it seemed to me, as fast as they could be swapped. Suddenly a shell tore through General Hindman's horse, throwing him to the ground. The general, not hurt, was on his feet in a moment, still urging his men forward.
General Johnston's presence soon rallied the broken line to the right of where we saw Hindman, and as the smoke for an instant lifted, I saw the men leaping forward to a battery right at us. And right here I saw a Yankee hero. As our men rushed on, I saw a man standing still by one of the guns, while others were fleeing. All this was but an instant, for the smoke immediately covered the scene, and I do not know what was his fate. The only damage we sustained here was a few horses wounded.
General Johnston, quickly leaving this part of the line, went towards the right. Always at a gallop, we traversed a great part of the field. He seemed cool and collected all the time. Only once did I descry any gleam of enthusiasm. Staff and various other officers were continually galloping up to him and off again. My position in column brought me at times very near him, and I remember that a young officer came up at full speed and said something to the general, who listened intently, then suddenly throwing out his right arm and bringing it in with a curve said: “Tell General Breckinridge to sweep them into the river.” The night before, General Breckinridge was in command of the reserves, and at that time these troops were engaging the enemy on the extreme right and driving them.
About ten o'clock, or perhaps a little earlier, we rode into one of the enemy's encampments, from which our infantry had previously swept them. The tents were pitched in company front and were full of the impediments of a field force. Evidently the men had been interrupted at an early breakfast, for at some of the campfires the breakfast was untouched, and some of the soldiers, partly undressed, lay dead in the tents. Yet they say no surprise was ever acknowledged by General Grant. I do not know how this was, for they fought stubbornly from position. Some of our after-experiences of surprisals under General Wheeler made us think of occasions when we knew that surprised Yankees could and would fight. I will not notice further this controversy, but I here add my testimony to the gallant stands made hour after hour through this day of rout by that Federal army. The carnage of this field was terrible, nearly one man in three being either killed or wounded. Battery after battery was disabled, and their brave dead lay silently attesting how gallantly they had stuck to their guns. Particularly I remember one Union battery; the wheels of some of the guns were shattered, and dead men and dead and wounded horses lay around. The men seemed to be all young and clad in new uniforms with the red cap and red stripe of the artillery branch of the service still fresh and defiant on their lifeless forms. Their wounds were ghastly; and, though they were invaders of our Southern homes, as I looked into the pallid young faces, I boyishly felt pity for my dead enemies.
Directly after leaving that part of the field, where the order above mentioned was sent to General Breckinridge, General Johnston made other rapid moves, first to one part of the field, then to another. I do not remember our ever coming in contact with General Beauregard; but for a part of the day that general was very active on the left, though sick the most of the time, as reported. He had two horses killed or wounded under him during the day.
While passing through one of the encampments, we stopped long enough to snatch a morsel of food, for, remember, we were still fasting. Fortunately a sutler's shop was near and into that I went. Boy-like I looked for cake, and I got it, too. Some of us did not forget our poor horses, and I for one quickly bagged a feed of oats and carried it until my horse could eat it. How strange it is these little things should occur to me now as I write. At one time General Johnston's movement was so rapid and the smoke so thick we did not keep up with him, and I remember how he turned to us his grave face and steady eye as he watched us in column “at attention” close in upon him.
A great many things occurred during the day that I have only an indistinct mental view of now, and I can not recall them. One I will mention. Away off to the right in some fields we were passing through, one of the staff—Colonel Preston, I think—called attention to a body of men who, he was apprehensive, might be part of a Federal column. At any rate, he called for a scout, and Jesse A. Norwood was sent to him. Norwood was promised mention, if his work should be satisfactory, in the official report of the battle; and our comrade's name and his special service that day were duly placed on record.
I hope the digression will not be condemned if I introduce here an anecdote of this same beloved comrade of the olden days. It was away up in Kentucky and before General Breckinridge had thrown his lot with us. Our regiment had been ordered to meet the general on a certain road and escort him with honors to Bowling Green. However, he did not come then; but a few days afterwards he did come rather unheralded to us, and, as fortune would have it, passed through our company on his way. We were on the railroad, and those not on duty were taking the warmth of a winter's sun, when some one notified us of the approach of the distinguished ex-vice-president of the United States, who was now coming to join the Confederates. Various comments, pro and con, had been freely passed on his delay, and some thought he had delayed too long his coming, accusing him of temporizing, etc. He was almost upon us before we knew of his presence. We were alert, of course, in a moment, and every man on his feet. Somehow, in those days, apple-jack was mighty good, and had a way of getting into our canteens. Its very odor was exhilarating, and the boys were always happy and exceedingly plain-spoken when it had given the inspiration. That day our comrade was frank and to the point. As the distinguished ex-official was passing near, Norwood was heard to say with some little expressive expletive attached, “As they wouldn't give you what you wanted over there, you have come to us.” General Breckinridge, dressed in citizen's clothes, with tall beaver hat, was just stepping over the rails at the time, and with us heard every word that was said. Boy-like, some of us tittered; but a smile lit up the handsome features of Breckinridge, while the boys took the cue and “opened up,” giving the noted Kentuckian his first Confederate ovation. Norwood was afterward a lieutenant in our company, and was captured in one of our famous raids through Tennessee under General Wheeler. He and Captain Reid, one of Wheeler's staff, were captured together.
A great part of the battlefield of Shiloh was wooded, and broken up in ravines, through which small streams flowed, either into Owl Creek on our right, or into Snake Creek on our left. Between these two historic streams, and with the Tennessee River in their rear, the Federal army was marshaled, and it heroically strove to make a stand for its flag and honor. Thicket and woodland were cut and gashed by ball and shell; the dead lay thick on slope and shallow, and the wounded of both armies were carried back to field hospitals, established as convenience or necessity prompted. The din and roar of battle was incessant, and the “rebel yell” as continuous as the stream of fire. Flag and man, bush and brake, seemed to join in the wild and yet wilder enthusiasm, and it was funny to see the old, staid West Point officers with hat in hand ringing an heroic measure to its music.
It is told of Early in Virginia that at one time General Jackson had severely reproved him for some license a part of his troops had taken on the march. A short time afterward, he, with Jackson and other officers, stood watching the storming of the enemy's line by the same troops. Again and again they were thrown back, and anxiety was shown on every face; finally, with the well-known yell, they swept the guns. As they disappeared in the smoke, General Lee's “bad old man” could stand it no longer. Forgetting the presence of General Jackson, he threw his hat on the ground, and, jumping on it, cried out, “D—n those fellows, they can steal hereafter what they want.”
And so it was, east and west, the same wild music of our tattered ranks always carried consternation to the foe. With the Yankees, it was entirely different. Their slogan seemed to be perfunctory. It was “huzza-huzza,” and sometimes “hip-hip-huzza,” especially in the earlier days of the war. However, toward the close of the war, they too learned to “holler” in some sort of civilized way.
The bloody day had turned toward its evening; its sulphurous smoke was getting thicker around our beloved chieftain. Sherman on the right had commenced forming his last lines; their coign of vantage called the “Hornet's Nest” was being girdled with bayonet and crested with cannon, and their troops were gradually driven in toward it. Later than this, perhaps about four o'clock, Gibson and his Louisianians suffered greatly. General Johnston was closing in rapidly; the lines were narrowing, and the last camps taken. Right here, we were left by the general, and we did not see him again.
It must have been about half past two in the afternoon that his preparations for the final blow were made. A part of a brigade was sweeping forward toward the position we occupied. Some troops in the last camp were fighting with platoon front—an old formation adapted to defile firing. The troops were in column, platoon front, all moving forward; the first platoon would fire, then break in the center, counter-march to the rear, and expose the second platoon, which went through the same movement; then third, then fourth, all the time the whole body of men moving forward. It was a beautiful movement, and at school under Gilman's old tactics I had drilled in the same, and it deeply interested me. During the whole war I never saw it repeated.
General Johnston was near the tents with his back turned, looking to the rear and over and beyond us. The smoke was dense, the din cataclysmal. Looking toward us, the general pointed to a nearby depression in the ground—no word was spoken or could be heard. Captain Gaines understood it as an order to uncover the front of a regiment of infantry that was approaching the general in line of battle. I was very near to its right flank as it passed us, and knowing of the fierce grapple that was awaiting it, I looked into the faces of the men, who were trying to keep in regular order as they advanced over the rough uneven ground. They were pale but steady, seemingly intent on every order shouted by regimental or company officers.
General Johnston still sat his horse, calm and immovable, watching them. When they came, say within twenty feet of him, with a slight motion of his hand, as if in salute, he turned his horse and rode slowly in their front, and directly all had disappeared. That was our last glimpse of Johnston through the smoke of Shiloh.
We waited in the position assigned us, having one man, and perhaps a horse or two, wounded while in this ravine. The storm of battle kept creeping into the distance, the musket balls that had mostly flown above us now and then dropping spent of force. We dismounted to let our horses eat and munch the oaten luncheon we had captured earlier in the day, while we ourselves finished the cake of the Yankee commissary. Still we waited; no news nor orders. Finally an officer approached and had some talk with Captain Gaines. We noticed there was no hurry; the men were anxious, but no news was vouchsafed to us. Perhaps other orders came to the captain; I do not remember, but finally he mounted and started out towards the left of the line.
Then the rumor ran through the company that the general was dead. Some supposed we were going to General Beauregard. But we did not; halt after halt was made, and, as night followed, the volume of rifle fire ceased, and the terrible shells of the Federal gunboats increased. They were shelling their captured camps, for they well knew the hungry Confederates were swarming through the tents. It is now well understood that the halt by General Beauregard about sundown was fatal to our overwhelming their entire army. Bragg held the front and was ready to go under the bluff.
While the lines were waiting and wondering what it meant, Dr. T. J. Savage, now of Mobile, then an officer in one of the Alabama regiments, told me he crept forward to have a look. He said he could see masses of men huddled together and apparently without formation. In fact they were boarding the gunboats as fast as the capacity of the staging would allow. The gallant Prentiss with the larger part of his brigade had been captured some time in the evening; hundreds of other prisoners had been all day streaming to our rear; the quartermaster and other ordnance officers had been gathering in the captured spoil, and the surgeons were red and busy with their dreadful work.
At night, in our bivouac, we were not without plenty to appease the hunger of the day. Huge tins from the camp stores were procured and filled with coffee; and, as the fiery missiles of the gunboats cleft the air above us with their awful shrieks, we reveled in the fatness of the enemy's camp.
The morrow has a history of its own.
Students of Spanish-American history will ever be grateful for the detailed and painstaking way in which most Spanish officials kept the records of their acts. This excellence of the surviving materials left by them serves to increase our regret for the loss of those that have been destroyed or have otherwise disappeared. A case in point is furnished by the records of the Franciscan missions founded and conducted during the Spanish régime in Texas. For, while a small quantity of precious mission records are still available, the larger portion of what we know must have existed at one time has disappeared from present view. To say that they are irrevocably lost is unsafe, except where there is positive proof of destruction, for they may unexpectedly come to light in some out-of-the-way corner or some unexplored repository. There is good reason to hope, indeed, that when the archives of Mexico and Spain have been duly searched, much of the missing material for the history of these interesting institutions will be recovered.
It is not my purpose here to speculate as to what materials exist elsewhere, but rather to describe briefly the small collection that is now the property of the San Antonio diocese of the Catholic Church, and is in the custody of the Right Rev. Bishop Forest. Though the collection is small, it contains, besides important material for the history of Texas missions, ethnological data that may in the last resort be our only clue to the classification of a number of native Southwestern tribes, whose racial affiliation would otherwise remain forever unknown. This collection is private property, is guarded with care by the custodian, and, properly, is made available for use only under the strictest safeguards. It is highly desirable, however, that records such as these, which if once destroyed could never be replaced, should be stored in a fire-proof building, beyond the danger of destruction.
The whole collection of Spanish papers, which does not aggregate more than 3,000 pages, perhaps, falls into two groups. The larger and much completer one consists of records of the parochial church which served the Villa of San Fernando de Béxar and the adjacent Presidio of San Antonio de Béxar. The smaller group is composed of records of the missions located near by. It is with the latter that I shall deal here.
In the immediate neighborhood of San Antonio five Spanish missions were established and operated in the 18th century, while a sixth was projected and nominally founded, but was actually conducted as a part of one of the other five. The five actually established were San Antonio de Valero (1718), which had existed formerly on the Rio Grande as San Francisco Solano, San José de Aguayo (1720), Nuestra Señora de la Puríssima Concepción (1731), San Juan Capistrano (1731) and San Francisco de la Espada (1731). The sixth, San Xavier de Náxera, was nominally founded in 1722, and the neophytes intended for it, though ministered to from San Antonio de Valero, were apparently kept separate till 1726, when they were definitely attached to this mission.
Of these missions the only one whose records are fairly complete in the collection under view is San Antonio de Valero, considered together with its antecedent mission, San Francisco Solano, and the attached mission, San Xavier de Náxera, both of which can best be treated with San Antonio de Valero. For these missions there are the following records:
A. BAPTISMAL RECORDS.
The baptismal records of these three missions are contained in a leather-bound book whose title is: Bautismos. Libro I. De 1703 á 1783. 3
This book is made up of two parts, which really are distinct units. In fact, the first part is unbound, and is only laid within the cover of the other; but the title on the outside has been
adjusted to include them both, and they will, therefore, be treated as Parts I and II, which are my own designations. A typewritten title in English that has been pasted on the outside makes it appear as though the book includes records of Mission San José, but this is not true. Both parts of the book are well preserved.
Part I.
The title of this part is: Libro en que se Assientan los Bautismos De los Indios de esta Mission de S. Anto De Valero Sita a la Rivera del Rio de S. Antonio De la Governacion de esta Provincia de los Texas, y Nuevas Philippinas, perteneciente al Colegio Apostolico de propaganda fide De la Santissima Cruz de la Cuidad de Santiago de Queretaro. 4
This is an unbound cuaderno 5 of 16 folios, and is in a good state of preservation. It contains, under two sub-titles, a beautiful copy of the records of (a) baptisms at Mission San Francisco Solano, the predecessor of San Antonio de Valero, down to 1709, and (b) the baptisms at the Hyerbipiamo District, where the Indians of this tribe 6 were kept while awaiting the actual establishment of the nominally founded Mission San Xavier de Náxera. For this record we are indebted to the care of Fray Diego Martín García, who most of the time between 1740 and 1754 was laboring at San Antonio de Valero. In 1745 he undertook the work of copying these records, because, as he said, the old ones were in different manuscripts and in bad shape. His copy is dated Aug. 12, 1745.
(a) San Francisco Solano.—The first sub-title of this cuaderno is Bautismos de Esta Mision En el Tiempo, que se nombró de S. Francisco Solano. Todos los quales con los demas, que se hicieron desde el principio, yo F. Diego Martin Garcia, Ministro actual de esta Mision, translado aqui de dos libros antiguos, por estar estos ya maltratados, y haver hallado algunas partidas en quadernos sueltos. Y como se siguen. 7
Just preceding this title, on folio 1, García gives a brief statement of the founding of Mission San Francisco Solano at La Cienega del Rio Grande, and of its removal to San Ildefonso, thence back to the Rio Grande, and finally, in 1718, to San Antonio. According to García's statement the mission was founded in 1703, and it is true that the first baptism recorded in this copy of the records was performed Oct. 6, 1703. According to Portillo, however, who seems to be right, the mission was founded in 1700. 8 The last baptism recorded in this cuaderno was dated June 17, 1708.
(b) San Xavier de Náxera.—The second subdivision of this document, together with one or two notes entered elsewhere in the other mission records, gives us a clue to the history of Mission San Xavier de Náxera, which hitherto has mystified students. The sub-title of this part is: Bautismos de los Hyerbipiamos Que se intentaron poner en Nueva Mision, con la advocacion de Sn. Francisco Xavier, lo que no tuvo efecto, por haverse quedado en esta Mision de San Antonio. Ponense aqui, por no poderlos poner en su lugar segun los Años. 9 García tells us at the end of the cuaderno that these baptisms were transferred from two older cuadernos.
A word on the history of this mission, since it has never been written, is in order, as a means of showing the bearings of these records. Some time before Feb., 1721, a chief of the Hyerbipiamos, from near River San Xavier, 10 whose ranchería Father Espinosa and Capt. Ramón had visited in 1716, brought a number of families of followers to San Antonio, and asked that a mission might be founded among his people. This chief was hereafter called by the Spaniards Juan Rodriguez, an indication that he was baptized. When the Marqués de Aguayo went to East Texas in 1721 to re-establish the missions there, he took Juan Rodriguez with him as a guide, and when he returned to San Antonio he nominally established (March 10, 1722) the mission asked for, selecting a site between missions San Antonio de Valero and San José de Aguayo, and put it in charge of a Querétaran friar, Joseph Gonzales. 11 That the Hyerbipiamos were kept separate for some time seems evident, for Juan Rodriguez was hereafter known as “governor of the district (barrio) of the Hyperbipiamos,” and the baptisms while they were waiting for the actual foundation of the new mission, though performed at Valero, were recorded in a separate book, as the above title indicates. This situation apparently continued till 1726, when the project of a separate mission was given up, for thereafter the baptisms of the Indians of this tribe are entered in the Valero book. In 1731 Mission Concepción was founded on the same site. 12
Returning to the record, the entries of the Hyerbipiamo baptisms, only 33 in number, begin March 12, 1721, a year before the mission was nominally founded, and extend to July 20, 1726.
The last paragraph of the document contains the interesting statement, signed by García, that on May 8, 1744, was laid the first stone of a new church at San Antonio de Valero, the ministers being Fray Mariano Francisco de los Dolores and Fray Diego Martín García.
Part II.
The title page of this part reads: In Nomine Domini Amen. Libro en que se asientan los Baptismos de los Indios de esta Mission de San Francisco Solano. 13
This title is misleading, for the record continues after Mission San Francisco Solano had become San Antonio de Valero, and extends down to 1783. While Part I is a copy, Part II is an original record in its entirety. It contains 215 pages and 1601 baptismal entries, the first entry being dated March 19, 1710, and the last Nov. 25, 1783.
(a).San Francisco Solano.—Conversions at Solano after 1708 were evidently few, for there are no entries for 1709, and from 1710 to 1718, when the mission was moved, there are only 28, the last one being dated in 1716.
(b).(b) San Antonio de Valero.—The record for San Antonio de Valero begins with a certified statement that on May 1, 1718, D. Martín de Alarcón gave to Fray Antonio de San Buena Ventura de Olivares possession of the mission site at the Indian village on the banks of the San Antonio River. For a period of more than a year there was apparently but one baptism, and that on the day of the foundation of the mission, May 1, 1718. I say apparently, because the dates in the record are confusing, but after some study my conclusion is that the second baptism was not recorded till June 15, 1719. From this time on baptisms were frequent. In the first five entries, the mission is still called “San Francisco Solano, situated at San Antonio de Valero.” Thereafter the name San Antonio de Valero is used, although for a time not exclusively, I believe.
B. MARRIAGE RECORDS.
One book is devoted to the records of the marriages at Mission San Francisco Solano and San Antonio de Valero. In it are probably recorded also the marriages at the Hyerbipiamo District, although these are not distinguished from the others. The title page of the book reads: In Nomine Domini Amen Libro en que se asientan los cassamientos de los Indios de esta mission de S. Francisco Solano. 14 This is an unbound cuaderno containing 69 folios, and is in good condition. The records extend from 1709 to 1785. As some of the leaves have been torn off the back, I can not say how much further it originally extended.
(a).San Francisco Solano.—The first nine entries were made at San Francisco Solano, covering the period from 1709 to 1716, inclusive.
(b).
San Antonio de Valero.—The records for this mission begin in 1719 and extend to 1785. By the end of 1751 there had
been 231 marriages, and by the end of 1764 the number had reached 330. Thereafter the number was very small. I did not note the exact figures. Folios 40 and 41 of this book, covering the years 1749, 1750, and 1751, are lacking. We learn from the marginal numbers, however, that during these three years only 14 marriages were contracted. Some of the missing data at this point can be supplied, perhaps, from the baptismal and burial records for the same period.
C. BURIAL RECORDS.
The book of burial records for this mission is, like the book of baptisms, divided into two parts. Part I (my designation) is a copy of the early and detached records, made by Father García to preserve them, and Part II is the original record from 1710. Both parts are bound together, in leather, and they comprise about 200 folios. They have been badly damaged by water.
Part I.
(a).San Francisco Solano.—Entie[rros] De Esta Mi[sion] de S. Antonio [de Valero] Desde su Fundac[ion]. 15 Under this title fall the first six folios, covering the period from 1703 to 1708, and including 120 interments.
(b).San Xavier de Náxera.—Entierros de los Hyerbipiamos, que se havian de haver puesto en la Mision de S. Franco. la que no se fundó, por haverse quedado en esta Mission. 16 There are 11 entries, all falling in 1722.
García's note, dated Sep. 27, 1745, states that these records in Part I were transferred from two cuadernos.
Part II.
The title page of this part reads: Libro en que se Asientan los Yndios de esta Mision ya difuntos, de San Franco. Solano. 17...
.(a) San Francisco Solano.—Ten entries, covering 1710-1713, inclusive, were made before the mission was moved to the San Antonio. They throw valuable light on the change of names for the mission. The entries for 1710 and 1711 give the name “esta mission de San Francisco Solano;” the first for 1712 calls it “mission del Señor S. Joseph, yglecia de San Francisco Solano;” the first for 1713 reads “esta mission de la advocacion de el Señor S. Joseph, e yglecia de S. Francisco Solano.”
(b).San Antonio de Valero.—The burial records for this mission begin with 1721, but the marginal entry numbers 11-18 are missing, which indicates that one or more pages have been torn out. The last entries are in 1782, the total number being 1376.
In some years the death rate was extremely high. For instance, a report shows that on March 6, 1762, the total Indian population of the mission was 275 persons, 18 and this book shows that in 1763 there were 130 burials, making it appear that nearly half of the population died in one year.
For this mission the collection contains only the book of marriages, entitled: Libro de Casamientos de Esta Mission de la Purissa. Concepcion. Pueblo de Acuña. Fundado En Cinco de el Mes de Marzo de el Año de Mill Setecientos Treinta y Uno en la Margen de este Rio de San Antonio. 19
This is an unbound cuaderno of thirty-six folios. The first twelve folios are a copy of older records, made in 1746 at the instance of Fray Benito Francisco de Santa Ana, president of the Queréteran missions, and minister at Concepción. The remainder of the document is made up of original entries. The whole cuaderno is in good state of preservation.
The record extends from 1733 to 1790, inclusive, while some pages at the back, how many I cannot say, have been torn off. The entries reach a total of 249 in the fifty-seven years. From time to time there is entered the record of a visita, or official inspection, of the mission. While the possession of the baptismal and burial records
would in many points supplement the information given by the marriage record, this book gives us a very valuable guide to the general history of the mission.
For this mission there is one book, in which the records do not begin till Sept., 1777. Hence, if the earlier records can not be found elsewhere, we shall never know the inner history of the most active period of this mission, which at one time had “no equal in all New Spain.” The book is entitled: Libro de Bautismos, Casamientos, y Entierros, pertenecientes â la Mission de Sr. Sn. Josef. 20
On the leather cover has been pasted an analysis, or table of contents, which includes the Concepción marriage book, but the two are entirely distinct records, and are not bound together. Originally the San José book contained 247 pages, but numbers of them, blank ones apparently, have been removed. Otherwise the book is well preserved.
A.Baptisms. The first part (folios 2-57) is devoted to baptisms, beginning Sept., 1777, and extending to 1824. The entries begin with No. 832, (the “old book,” which has disappeared, having contained 831), and extend to 1211. Of these, 1067 had been entered before the end of 1803. After this date most of the entries are for Spaniards, mestizos, and mulattoes.
B.Marriages. Folios — to 139, covering the period 1778 to 1822, contain marriage records. The first entry is No. 335, 21 and by the end of 1796 No. 395 is reached. Few Indians are mentioned after this date.
C.Burials.—Folios 178-229, covering the period 1781 to 1824, are devoted to burial records. The first entry is No. 847, and the last one is No. 1837. After 1804 the burials of numerous Spaniards, mestizos, and mulattoes, but few Indians, are recorded.
A few scattered entries in the San José record book, between 1818 and 1824, apply to these two missions rather than to San José. No other records for these two missions are in the collection.
The comparative fullness of the records for San Antonio de Valero indicates what is lacking from the collection for the others. In short, for Concepción there are no baptismal or burial records; for San José, no records at all for the active period of its existence; for San Francisco de la Espada and San Juan Capistrano practically none at all; while for even Valero and Concepción the records for the few years preceding secularization are missing.
The historical and ethnological value of these records, particularly the latter, is inestimable—a potent cause for regret that the collection is not complete. Their importance can be only briefly indicated here. On the historical side it may be noted first, that they clear up the outlines of the history of mission San Xavier de Náxera, as is indicated above. They also throw considerable light upon the inner history of the San Xavier mission group founded later on San Gabriel River. On the missions in general the signatures of the entries—for each entry is signed—give us a continuous story of the personnel of the mission forces for the periods covered; the dates give us an adequate guide to the chronology; here and there are recorded notable happenings in the history of the missions; while the student of institutions finds light on mission administration and on the effect of mission life upon the neophytes.
More important still, perhaps, are the ethnological data. The baptismal records, as a rule, indicate the tribe to which the person baptized belongs, generally designating the tribal affiliation of both father and mother. In the baptismal and marriage records it is in many cases definitely shown what marriages were contracted before the parties came to the mission. Where such was the case, we get valuable light on inter-tribal relations independent of mission influence. Finally, for present purposes, the two hundred or more native personal names of Indians scattered through the records and in some cases translated, may be our only means of assigning a number of tribes to one or another of the great linguistic groups of the Southwest. Hence, in proportion as language is a satisfactory basis for ethnological classification and as other data are lacking, these will be treasured by ethnologists. 22
4. From the Iron Region to the River of Permanent Houses.
Let us go back now and compare the narratives on the hypothesis that the route ran almost directly westward from the iron region to the Rio Grande, as is the more probable, since Cabeza's party say as much to the last Indians encountered before they reached the Rio Grande: “We told these people that our route was toward sunset.” 23 So it was, then, thirty leagues out from the Rio Grande, but what it had been before this is not directly asserted, though no change is mentioned after their turning west into the mountains toward the “beautiful river.”
Immediately after the mention of the tribe on the beautiful river, near Cabeza's iron region, Oviedo says 24 they reached a great people of 2,000 souls, in five groups of ranchos, who killed hares, deer, etc., “on the way.” These are the same people with whom Cabeza passes through or along the valleys, after he had “traveled among so many different tribes and languages that nobody's memory can recall them all.” 25 Oviedo does not note how far it was to this new people, but simply says these went on with the white men, and never left them. In these ranchos, says Oviedo, they gave the Spaniards an abundant supply of piñons “where the trees are full throughout those sierras 26 in great quantity.” Cabeza implies 27 that it was in the country of the beautiful river that the “small trees of the sweet pine” grew. Hereby hangs a little matter worth looking into: after leaving the beautiful river Oviedo has only two groups of people met with before reaching the river of permanent houses, and his last is evidently the last group of Cabeza, also; for both narratives have the women sent forward from these and note here other incidents in common. Cabeza has the group of people just back of this last meet the Spaniards immediately after crossing the first great river and traversing thirty leagues of plains. He says these were the first to whom those of the beautiful river took them, after passing the other unrecallable many. With him both these and the last were from “afar off.” But Oviedo says that it was this first people “from afar” who gave them the first piñons, and among whom the trees grew so abundantly. This with him is evidently an intermediate people which he has not noted elsewhere, and corresponds to Cabeza's first people “from afar.” Hence, if we trust the more detailed account of Oviedo, the piñons were a great way from the beautiful river—not at it—and they were across the first of Cabeza's big rivers; making, in any case, the Pecos the river.
It now becomes a matter of decision from the known facts whether the scant scattering of these nuts found north of the Pecos, on its banks, in Uvalde and Edwards county, or the abundant growth of them in the trans-Pecos region, shall constitute the abundant groves spoken of by these chroniclers. Believing as I do from Oviedo's statement that it was the latter the passage of the Colorado River on this journey is cut out of consideration, and the Pecos, on the route directly west, thirty leagues beyond which they met the first piñon people, is the first stream encountered after leaving the region of the Llano River. Oviedo says 28 that the last Indians, which were “from afar off,” and were met just before reaching the river of permanent houses, also gave them piñons. If after crossing the Trans-Pecos ranges, so arid and fruitless, they encountered a river, before reaching the Rio Grande, it must have been some mountain stream like Cienega Creek or Cíbolo or Alamita Creek, at flood by recent rains. From there Cabeza says, 29 “The same Indians [his first that came from afar] led us to a plain beyond the chain of mountains,” that is, to the second distant people, which latter were the same that led them finally to the permanent houses.
If they went the hypothetical southern route it is probable that piñons may be found after the proper sequence of rivers, in Coahuila, and it is slightly significant that this route should pass so near to the piñon region of Edwards and Uvalde counties; but I can not feel that the trees here justify the abundance indicated in either narrative. The two accounts combined, taken in connection with the distribution of these trees at present, justify us in believing that the Spaniards found them as an abundant food supply west of the Pecos only, and that this stream was Cabeza's first “big river.” This again cuts the Colorado out.
From this plain, where the last Indians led Cabeza, Oviedo has a less detailed journey to the great river beyond. Cabeza's more detailed account suggests about thirty leagues, though he is not clear. We need not dwell on this, since the identity of the river is the main thought here. We shall return to the details of the itinerary when we come to consider the time spent on this whole journey. In each narrative it seems to have been about three days' travel, and five leagues more, or about four days in all.
5. From the River of Permanent Houses to the eastern edge of the Maize Region.
The expressions in both accounts imply permanent houses on this next river, which Cabeza says 30 ran between, or among [entre] sierras. Oviedo 31 notes Castillo as finding “people and houses and assiento.” Cabeza calls them, in the edition of 1555, “casas de gente [people] y de assiento” (which last Buckingham Smith renders “fixed dwellings of civilization”); and he says that “these were the first abodes we saw that were like unto real houses.” He says 32 that the houses seen previous to this were made at each camp by women carrying mats. Here were beans, gourds, or squashes, 33 and a little maize, which this year at least these Indians had brought from far westward. When it was not too dry, they “sowed” corn here.
When the Spaniards were on the plain thirty or more leagues east of the settlements of permanent houses, they sent two Indian women to these settlements, and they returned and said that the people of the settlements had gone north to kill cows, 34 and if the white men wanted to meet people they had better go north from there. Cabeza says 35 that they called these of the permanent homes the cow people, “because most of the cows [killed] die near there, and for more than fifty leagues up that stream [rio] they go to kill many of them.” I do not know what clearer statement one should need than this, nor what better authority than Cabeza and Oviedo one could find of affairs then, though the statement in the latter is based on what the Indians told the Spaniards. Mr. Bandelier—perhaps because it conflicts with his idea of the route—has maintained that the bisons never came into the Rio Grande valley, because no early Spanish expeditions note their being there. If there is any earlier expendition than this, I have not heard of it, and there could certainly be none that had better opportunities for observation. When going up this river from this point about ten days, or the required fifty leagues, Oviedo says that on the way the Indians said that many of their people had gone to hunt cows about three days away on a plain among sierras, which came from above toward the sea; and three days away from even the end of this fifty league stretch would not reach east of the Guadalupe mountains; thus, this plain can be practically identified.
Besides this, Judge Coopwood, in The Quarterly for April, 1900, has thoroughly demolished this theory, about cows not coming south and west of the Pecos Valley, which so many others have adopted to the extent of maintaining with Bandelier that this cow river must, per consequence, be the Pecos. It is true that by going northerly from this region these lower Rio Grande Indians would easily reach the valley of the Pecos, where we know the bison was abundant in the fall; and up the Rio Grande might be construed still to mean into this other valley; yet there is no need to make the river of permanent houses any but the Bravo del Norte, which Espejo went up later. But we will pass this for a moment, by merely saying that it will appear further on that the Cabeza party struck the Rio Grande near the mouth of the Conchas, and went up the former only. 36
After reaching the permanent houses, Oviedo notes 37 that they had much people and little land to sow in; food was therefore scarce. Hence the travelers went on one day to four groups of pueblos. The denizens of these told them 38 that onward there was nothing to eat till they should go “forward thirty or forty days' journey, which was beyond the region where the sun went down, toward the north”—a very significant statement, meaning that the place of maize was not at the end of a line drawn to the west, but north of the end of it—a statement which alone would put the location of the permanent houses even further south than the Conchas region, if it be eastward from Corazones (or the neighborhood of Ures, Sonora), where the maize was to be found; and to get this “seed” these Indians said that “they had to go along up that river toward the north other nine or ten days' journey to the crossing of the river, which from there they had to cross, [and] all the rest of the way they had to go west to where there was maize.”
This shows pretty definitely that a large detour to the north was to be made. Oviedo adds 39 that the Indians said that there was also corn toward the right hand, to the north, and lower through all that country—it should be to the coast, as afterward appeared—but that was very distant, and this other was the nearer, and the way was through their friends, who were of one language, etc. 40 He also adds that these Rio Grande Indians said that they killed many cows near there. Then he says that the party went along up that river for nine days' journey, traveling from morn till night each day, but always they slept in houses with people in them. The herb that Cabeza calls chacan, Oviedo speaks of as masarrones, and he notes that they found on the way few people, the others having gone to eat cows three days' journey from there on a plain among mountains, which latter came from above toward the sea. Note that it does not follow that these people were the full nine days up, since he says that they found them on the way. “And thus they [the Spaniards] went along up that river fifteen days' journey without resting, . . . and they crossed from there to the west, and went more than other twenty [days' journey] to the maize” eating powdered herbs and hares, resting on this stage sometimes, as had been their custom, and coming at length to the first houses where they had maize, which was more than two hundred leagues from Culiacán.
This is Oviedo's interesting and helpful story of this great stage of this journey which we may examine further hereafter.
From the second group of permanent houses on the Rio Grande Cabeza says that they went seventeen days up the river before crossing, instead of the fifteen, which we may understand Oviedo to include as his whole stage here. Cabeza has the same words for “along up that river.” Just how Judge Coopwood can insist that there were more than one river here, or translate the expression “aquel rio” in the Naufragios of Cabeza as “that other river,” 41 since there is no otro in either Cabeza or Oviedo when speaking of the stream here, I can not see. His rendering is in no sense justified by lexicon or location.
But Cabeza mentions another route, from near the mouth of the Conchas, which the Indians here suggested to him as being the better. He had asked them “to tell us how to go.” “They said we should travel up the river toward the north.” Literally they said “the way was along up that river toward the north . . . but that . . . it seemed to them that we ought not to take that road [camino].” 42 Cabeza does not record the Indians as giving any reason for this suggestion; but they had just told him that he would find nothing to eat directly up the river but chacan, an abominable food, and in Cabeza's further statement we can see that they had advised him to go out from the river, to the right and to the more direct north, where he would pass through the cow country, and have plenty to eat. Consequently he says: “In doubt as to what should be done, and which was the best and most advantageous road to take, we remained with them for two days [deciding] . . . [after which] we determined to go [directly] in search of maize [not meat] and not to follow the road to the cows, . . . which meant a very great circuit [for us] as we held it always certain that by going toward sunset we should reach the goal of our wishes.” 43
Mr. Bandelier has a foot note at this point in his wife's translation, in which he hints that they were now at the mouth of the Pecos; that this cow route was up that stream, and the one more westward was up the zigzag of the Rio Grande just beyond. Ponton and McFarland have disposed of the possibility for anything but a bird to go over this last way, and the conditions of the narratives do not justify it, if we had never seen Espejo. So taking deer fat against the chacan up the river, Cabeza says, “we went our way . . . to the South Sea . . . the first seventeen days of travel . . . along the river . . . which we [then] crossed and marched for seventeen more.”
This was directly up the river, and not by the way of the cows. Up this river the Indians had said “we should travel . . . toward the north . . . for seventeen days.” 44 Since the Rio Grande flows along here almost southeast, going up it is going both north and west. The other route, which is not mentioned as being up any river at all, would have carried them “to the north,” too much, or too directly north; but the sunset route lay immediately up stream—especially here in midwinter.
After crossing the Rio Grande at the end of the first seventeen days, Cabeza has other seventeen toward sunset. The maize region according to Cabeza was found at the end of this second seventeen days, while Oviedo has it more than twenty from the river. 45 When they reach the maize region the former notes here houses “de assiento—with foundation—many of which were made of earth and cane; and both he and Oviedo are confirmed in their descriptions of the people and houses all along here by the Coronado chroniclers, who passed this same way, quite probably, about four years later.
Buckingham Smith first called attention to the importance of Espejo's journey in connection with that of Cabeza, in a note to his second edition of his translation of the Naufragios; 46 but it seems to have escaped the notice of many later students, or else not to have impressed them. We shall see that it was in the winter of 1535 that Cabeza passed the houses on the “river that ran between sierras,” and it was about fifty years later that Espejo came by the same region. 47 He was going with an expedition, from Mexico to the tall pueblos near Santa Fé, on the upper Rio Grande, and he did not go by the route through Sonora and Arizona, up the coast, which Coronado and the earlier missionaries had gone, but he cut across by a nearer way to the valley of the great river. Later we know that this route was established down the Conchas valley; and, though Espejo does not say that he came down this stream, he describes the Conchas Indians which are known to have lived on that river, and he found another stream, which when he gets further up it, he calls the rio del Norte. Where he first struck this river, he found a tribe of Indians called Patarabueyes, or Jumanos, of whom he says “they have . . . fish of many kinds from two swelling rivers”; and it is one of these he describes as the “del Norte,” because of its coming directly from the north. 48 Traveling up this river, he found the banks peopled with Indians of the same nation for the space of twelve days' journey. They seemed to know something of the Christian religion; and they told Espejo's men that three Christians and a negro had passed through there, which by the signs the Indians made the Spaniards thought must have been Cabeza and his companions. Espejo states that he went on up “the said river” and passed for twenty-two leagues through another nation (about eighty-two leagues in all) whose name he did not learn. Next to this was another province, still “up the said river,” which had fish from certain great lakes near. 49 Here a Conchas Indian told him that fifteen days from there was a very broad lake, with towns and houses four stories high. No one will fail to recognize the pueblos at the Great Salinas in these. Eventually he reaches the Pueblo region and makes the statement that he had always traveled up the said river called rio del Norte.
What could be more definite than this? For the school children know that Rio del Norte and Rio Grande are two names for the same river; and this places Judge Coopwood's claim for an around-the-coast route to Jalisco out of consideration. Espejo's rate along here was about five leagues per day, and his twelve days of travel past towns, through which Cabeza had passed, would amount to sixty leagues northwestward beyond the valley of the Conchas; hence Mr. Bandelier's crossing of the Rio Grande at the mouth of that river is equally preposterous, as has been shown from the narratives themselves.
Since Oviedo represents the Cabeza party as going as rapidly as they could up the Rio Grande, but always sleeping in houses, the extent of their travel through an inhabited space here was greater than that of Espejo. Seventeen days, or even Oviedo's fifteen, would pass about one hundred and twenty leagues, if they went at the rate of seven and a half leagues per day. On the basis of Espejo's rate and Cabeza's days there should be eightyfive leagues of travel. So that they could not possibly have struck the Rio Grande any lower than Espejo did, unless the situation of the towns had changed or their extent diminished in the fifty years. The inference from Espejo is against both hypotheses, though we know that only a little later, stirred up by missionary ministrations, some of these people did move, and later still all abandoned their permanent form of building. There is enough in this to hold the route well to the south, and to destroy any theory that these men passed from the edge of the Llano Estacado to the Rio Grande above El Paso, as has been maintained by some, because one Coronado chronicler says that this route and that of Coronado had a point in common. We shall see later that this is not confirmed by another of these chroniclers, and is generally improbable. In like manner Espejo's narrative precludes all routes that do not pass at least fifteen days' travel up the Rio Grande above the Conchas Valley.
6. From the eastern edge of the Maize Region to Corazones.
Cabeza and Oviedo differ concerning the extent of country through which they found maize and permanent houses before they reached the village which they called Corazones, or Hearts. The first says “from here we traveled more than a hundred leagues, always meeting permanent houses and a great stock of maize and beans, ... and they finally gave us all they had; and Dorantes they presented with five emeralds, shaped as arrow points,” etc. Later he says 50 that “In the village where they had given us the emeralds, they also gave Dorantes over six hundred hearts of deer. ... For this reason we gave to their settlement the name of `village of the hearts' [Corazones].” Oviedo mentions the incident of the deer hearts, and the name of the town. This “finally” of Cabeza indicates that his hundred leagues ends at Corazones, and Oviedo implies the same of his eighty leagues, which he says they went from the first maize to a “Villa de los Corazones,” and he describes it as consisting of three pueblos small and joined together, at which place they first emerged from the mountains. He gives details of this eighty-league journey 51—saying that “every two or three days they reached villages, and rested a day or two in each.” He adds that they reached the three pueblos of Corazones consisting of about twenty houses, just after they had passed the sierras, and in another place he says that great crowds followed them, till they went out on the plain near the coast”; and when they reached there, there had been eight months that they had not gone out of the sierras.” In another place he implies with certainty, that the place which he regarded as the entrance into the sierras was where they first saw the copper rattle (cascabel) just before reaching the village on the “beautiful river” in Texas, from which, according to Cabeza, they went over the mountain with iron slag for stones. This fixes definitely the time from there to Corazones, since Oviedo elsewhere mentions this whole journey as extending over ten months. But we may see later, when we come to consider the itinerary as a whole, that Oviedo has a month too much in this interval, else he has erred in the time of starting.
Without sufficient facts to demonstrate it, I believe that Cabeza's party came to Corazones (which the Coronado narrators locate near the valley of the Sonora river, not far from the head of the cañon in the neighborhood of Ures) down the Sonora river from the north. The hints of it are, first, according to Oviedo, what the Indians said about their seed coming from a region that was north of a due west line from where the white men had struck the Rio Grande; second, because Coronado's men, going up this stream, found the same conditions (extending even over into the San Pedro valley), as the Cabeza party found; third, because we know that then the country directly east of Ures was very rough and broken, and perhaps not provided with food and houses, and these men note no rough country along here; fourth, because Cabeza is especially careful about mentioning the rivers he crossed while he was in the strange parts of the land, and he does not note anything of the Yaqui along here, east of Corazones, which, by its peculiar loop, would cut any route running into Corazones directly, from the east, twice—and he, therefore, probably passed north of it; fifth, because Cabeza says 52 that he believes that, “near the coast, in a line [via] with the villages which we passed, there are more than a thousand leagues of inhabited land,” and since this country must be beyond these villages, it could not lie in Cabeza's mind in any other direction than parallel with the coast, and hence the villages, also, to be in the way, must lie in a similar line; sixth, because the seventeen days up the Rio Grande would require them to bear considerably southward to reach Ures; seventh, because they note no change of direction at Corazones, as would occur if they had come to it from the east.
Against this view is the fact that no change of direction is noted after turning west at the Rio Grande crossing, and also that they left the sierras at Corazones; but as to this last there are statements in the Coronado narrators, that imply that the phrase, “toward the mountains,” may mean here “toward the north,” since Castañeda says that Arispe was one of the villages which he knew, “toward the mountains.” This stands today where it was in Cabeza's time—at the head of the Sonora valley northward from Corazones. Likewise Jaramillo notes that this Sonora valley had mountains on each side (as is well known now) which then were “not very fertile”; but all agree that the immediate Sonora valley was rich and well stocked with food. In fact Melchior Diaz says that it was the only region of any account from Culiacán to the Gila river, when he went over it about three years after Cabeza passed. Further on towards Culiacán, the Indians told Cabeza that he had come from sunrise, and the enslaving Christians of Guzman had come from sunset; but this was an error, since the general line of meeting of these two parties was a north and south one, the first coming from Corazones and the second from Culiacán. I have massed this all that the reader may draw his own conclusions. I have drawn my route down the Sonora valley, because the early records show no other route as practicable in this region. Mr. Bandelier has stated that a route running northward just east of the very bed of the Sonora river was impossible in that day. 53
7. From Corazones to the City of Mexico.
From Corazones, which, according to Oviedo, was on a plain, he says they went directly to the Yaqui, where they waited fifteen days, because the river was too high from rains for them to cross. Cabeza says they waited on account of the flood (one day) at a village half way to the Yaqui. Oviedo rightly says it was thirty leagues to the stream. Cabeza says it was twelve leagues from the second village. At any rate, here they found signs of what proved to be Guzman's men, and in a hundred leagues more they overtook them, after the flood subsided. After this they zigzagged among mountains, and finally reached Culiacán, to which they were taken by the men of Alcaraz under a certain Cebreros, and where they say they were received by Melchior Diaz as mayor. Here Cabeza says they remained till after the fifteenth of May. In another place he says that they were at this place (at least) fifteen days. This would place the arrival there about the first of May, 1536. Thence they went down the coast to Compostela, where they took Guzman to task for allowing the Indians to be enslaved; and they reached Mexico the day before the vespers of St. James, which date Tello says was the 22d of July. Here the viceroy, Mendoza, and Cortés, the marquis and conqueror, who was there then, received them; and a bull fight and tournament was gotten up in honor of their arrival.
8. Afterthoughts of the discussion.
Incidental to this running discussion there have been side thoughts which I have deemed best to pass over till the main presentation was completed. We may glance at some of these now.
(1) Coronado and De Soto.—Students have differed greatly in their estimates given to Castañeda's statement that Cabeza had passed through the place where the army of Coronado rested on the plains, somewhere out east and south of the present town of Pecos, New Mexico. For a long time, it was thought that this camp was well up the valley of the Canadian and that Coronado passed no further south than the 35th parallel; but Mr. F. W. Hodge, in Brower's Harahey, has shown conclusively, from the mere topography, that this expedition came well southward over the Llano Estacado to its southern edge at least, and the present writer, by discovering an inadvertent omission in Mr. Winship's translation, 54 confirms this from the narratives purely. Further study of this route has convinced me that the army proper never crossed the Canadian, or at least left for only the briefest time the gypsum stretches of the Llano Estacado, because it was never able to wear a trail; and that off the eastern edge of that great hard plain, between the forks of the Brazos, in, say, the region of Crosby and Garza Counties, it camped in the ravines. That these men could not have been further south is shown by the fact that after deducting from the time it took them to go back to their camp on the Rio Grande the number of days which it took them to come out from that stream to the crossing of the Pecos, and subtracting also that which it would require for them to go from the point where they struck the Pecos on their return (somewhere in the neighborhood of Fort Sumner) up to the bridge, there are left only eleven or twelve days for them to go from the camp on the plains to the Pecos Valley, on the short cut home. If Cabeza passed through this camp he was somewhere in the sweep of these dozen days' travel southeastward from Fort Sumner.
While, from Oviedo, it may be inferred that there was no possibility of the Cabeza party's reaching this far north, we have Jaramillo's statement that, as Coronado's men approached this camp, and were only one day west of it, an old blind Teya Indian told them that he had seen men like them many days before, but that it was further over toward Mexico—a statement as worthy of credence as that of Castañeda, that they actually passed through the location of this camp, and much more in keeping with the probabilities. While Cabeza may have had time to wander this far, during the days he spent between the Iron Region and the Rio Grande, there is not a thing in his itinerary that hints it, and his omissions significantly are against this view. That he nowhere mentions wigwams of skin, but always houses of mats; that he notes no tent poles drawn by dogs, nor, before reaching the Trans-Pecos region, finds nor hears of any people who live solely by following the bison herds, but only such as exist on the smaller game, is sufficient to show that he never came upon the Teyas when they were on their northern journey after the bison, with their women and dogs hitched tandem to tent poles.
There is a striking parallelism in one item between the experience of Cabeza on the Rio Grande and that of Coronado's men further north. It will be recalled that at the first approach to the permanent houses, Cabeza notes that they found that the natives had piled all their goods in the middle of the floor, and were sitting with their faces to the wall—the most abject plea for mercy that a savage could present. As usual, we may presume with Castañeda, that Cabeza blessed their goods and allayed their fear. Such was his habit. Here doubtless were some Teyas—quite likely this old man whom Jaramillo met, left at home this year, while the younger men had gone to hunt up north. The later missionary records show an intimate relation between the Teyas and the Jumanos of the lower Rio Grande. 55 So, when these same Indians, having come north to hunt bisons, saw similar white men (Coronado's men) away up on the edge of the Staked Plains they thought of Cabeza's piety, and, as Castañeda states, brought out their goods to be blessed as before, and had them looted only. The incidents were of the same character on the Rio Grande and on the Llano Estacado—a habit noted at no other point in all the journeys of the two expeditions. The conclusion is obvious: the journey of the Teyas was between the two routes.
It will be recalled that, after the death of De Soto, at the mouth of Red River, 56 Moscoso went west and southwest with the army for about one hundred and fifty leagues. After passing through a stretch of timber, so peculiarly and regularly open that the narrators mention it—quite evidently the eastern Cross Timbers—they began to see rising ground. All along they saw huts similar to those described by the Cabeza accounts, and beyond still they heard of a river, where the Indians said they went to drive deer; 57 and the Spaniards, having found none just east of this went on there and found both venison and bison meat; though, they say, they saw not this latter animal alive. Having crossed and gone beyond and up this new river—the Daycao, which was in all probability the Colorado—they saw to the west a series of mountains and forests, but with no inhabitants. Beyond this valley they sent three scouting parties, in different directions, and the country grew more and more sterile and thinly populated, till finally there were no houses. Then, according to the Gentleman of Elvas, Moscoso recalled that Cabeza had told the emperor 58 of such a country, and he thought he must certainly have struck it, since he had invariably come toward the west; for though, he reasoned, they were marching “far inland” and Cabeza had always traveled along the coast, yet the latter had “told the emperor” that “he had gone about in a certain region for a long time, and marched north into the interior.”
This is certainly confirmation of the Cabeza narratives, but the main point here is that, since neither he nor Moscoso's men saw the live bison in this region, and since the latter was not farther than thirty leagues beyond the Colorado (certainly in that region where it runs almost directly south), the former did not get any further west than the latter; for Biedma (who was of this party) notes that even before this the guides led Moscoso to where, “in seasons, some cows are wont to herd,” but the direction from the main route here is not given, and it was likely that it was off northward toward the valley of the Red; for the Inca has one of his informants say that on the other side of the country reached by the scouts, who went thirty leagues beyond the Daycao, was “a vast extent of level country where cattle fed in multitudes.” 59
If Cabeza had reached even this, the accounts certainly would have mentioned it. Both he and Oviedo imply a mountainous country all the way of their going along here, as they swung around westward from the Iron Region, and hence they never got out of the hills of central Texas directly west or northwest. At the season of the year when both the expeditions were here—in the fall, for it is distinctly said that Moscoso turned back in October—we know that the bisons were in the habit of coming down as far as the New Mexico line; for Alvarado, who was with the Coronado expedition, came down the Pecos from about the 35th parallel, at this same time of autumn, and found bisons more and more abundant every day, and Coronado's army found them on the eastern slopes of the Llano Estacado in June; so that at any season then Cabeza could not have gone very far north or northwest without encountering the herds. But it is true that Cabeza's party had ample time along here for detours, since we shall see that between the beautiful river and the Rio Grande there were about five months spent—from near the 10th of August to the first of January, in which month Cabeza implies 60 that they reached the first permanent houses.
(2) Natural History Features.—When the writer began this study, he was hopeful of finding some geological, ethnological, or natural history features which might fix definitely certain points on the route. He sought and had the interested and kindly help of Instructor Alexander Deussen, of the department of geology, and Professors William L. Bray, of the department of botany, and Herbert E. Bolton of that of history—all of the University of Texas. The natural history departments of the Bureau of Agriculture at Washington were also drawn upon, as well as the members of the Washington Biological Society, including Dr. F. H. Knowlton and other distinguished students. But, except in a few instances, the result was disappointing. The eastern limits of the cacti, determined by Professor Bray, confirmed the location of Mal-Hado, well westward, but not further west than it is given in this paper, and their extent up the Colorado valley as well, makes the indicated route of the inland journey the more probable, and the poison tree in Sonora which Cabeza and the Coronado writers mention as so fearfully fatal was identified by Dr. Knowlton with the aid of Dr. J. N. Rose (and is, so far as I know, here first set forth) as the Sebastiana palmeri. This is of the order of Euphorbiaceae (the Spurgeworts), as Mr. Winship had hinted—a group of plants of varied form, all having a milky sap which is more or less poisonous. Croton oil of the pharmacies is the most virulent poison of those familiar to us, and the action of this arrow poison, as described by the Coronado chroniclers from their actual experience, was similar to that of this drug—though many times more intense. It is probable that some septic poison was combined with it. The account of Cabeza is as follows:
They have a poison [in the valley of Sonora at Corazones] from a certain tree the size of an apple. For effect, no more is necessary than to pluck the fruit and moisten the arrow with it, or if there be no fruit, to break a twig and with the milk do the like. The tree is abundant and so deadly that if the leaves be bruised and steeped in some neighboring water, the deer and other animals drinking it soon burst. 61
Jaramillo, a chronicler of Coronado's expedition, says:
There was a poison here [at Corazones], the effect of which is, according to what was seen of it, the worst that could possibly be found; and from what we learned about it, it is the sap of a small tree, like the mastic tree, or lentisk, and grows in gravelly and sterile land. 62
Another writer, in the Rudo Ensayo, describing the objects of natural history up the coast from Mexico, speaks of this plant and says that its milk is deadly and used as an arrow poison, and he adds that “it serves also, this same milk, for opening stubborn tumors, although I would not advise it, owing to its poisonous quality.” 63 This poison extended north well over into the valley of the San Pedro, and at “Suya” fifty leagues north of Corazones it nearly exterminated a garrison. The purpose of detailing this will be seen later.
All other attempts at determining the route by mere natural history features were failures. There were great canebrakes at Mal-Hadb, but so there were all around the coast; the women there clothed themselves in a “wool that grew on trees,” but the Spanish moss, or tillandsia, has no limit toward Pánuco; the herba pedrera, though Oviedo mentions a few more of its characteristics, could not be identified; the crawfish and oysters could be found at sundry points; nuts were everywhere, and the bitter and milky-juiced herbs were too abundant to mean anything, as were the granillos 64 ground with the nuts at “that river”; the mesquite grew from anywhere west to a line eastward of Galveston, and had no defined limits; maize meal was away out of place “up that river,” since it was never known to be grown then west of the Brazos or east of the Rio Grande; the piñon was too scant on the hither or eastern side of the Pecos; while quails and hares could be found anywhere, and the gourds nowhere in central Texas, and the chacan (Cabeza) or masserones (Oviedo) up the Rio Grande and the other herb the powder of which was eaten on the high plains beyond were out of the realm of conjecture. Not a crumb of comfort could be found in the stones even, which Cabeza said he believed the Mariames would have eaten, had there been any in that country; for Mr. Deussen wrote me that there were practically none from New Orleans to Brownsville, on the coast, and especially along the coast under discussion. Only the iron region generally in the Llano River country or eastward was left me; and both accounts had distance enough to run far beyond that from any point north of the Rio Grande. Because the Inca had said that De Soto was buried in a coffin excavated out of a solid log of live oak (green and heavy that it might sink well) I had already determined that he died at the mouth of Red River, for this tree does not extend to the mouth of the Arkansas, and Brevoort, Bourne, and others are wrong; but I could find nothing on this route so exclusive and excluding, unless it be the already noted Sonora arrow poison. Even in this case Coopwood claims something as bad may be found on his gulf coast route.
Neither have I been able to find any ethnological aid. On the Coronado expedition, this is important. Even the flint hoes of the Quiviras, found in Kansas, limit the extent of his journey, for the Quiviras planted, and their neighbors eastward did not; but so far as the local student knows, there are no such tale-telling flints in Texas, else they have not been found and read yet. I have some hopes of this help still; but the tribes here were not so settled as those of Kansas, and they lived less by labor—and less even by the chase, since the bison was not always with them here as there. So I have had itinerary and topography only to depend on—and I have abided with them.
(3) Discussion of the Routes Indicated by other Students.—It may not be out of place, for the sake of completeness, to discuss briefly the main points in such papers as have already appeared in The Quarterly.
The first is that of Ponton and McFarland in the issue of January, 1898. They seem to be the pioneers in locating the four rivers west of Mal-Hado, and it is strange that they did not locate, from Oviedo, the ancones beyond. The sand hills of the mouth of the Guadalupe led them astray, and it is remarkable that they have their river of nuts and the dunes and ancón so far apart as the Colorado for the one, the middle of Matagorda Bay for the other, and the head of San Antonio Bay for the third; whereas, according to their own interpretation of Oviedo, they should all be together, as one might wrongly infer from a casual reading.
Their demolishing of Mr. Bandelier's fancies concerning the substitution of cedars for piñons and his impossible location of the route up the zigzag of the Rio Grande is definitive, though they ignore the statements of Espejo; but they err as seriously in not carrying the route inland to the north, and in carrying it up the Pecos. There is no evidence that Cabeza went up any “big river” but one, and that was the Rio Grande. They very properly reject Bandelier's inland turn up the Brazos; but it should not be for the reason that the cactus is not found there (as it is not), but because the Spaniards went at least one hundred and forty leagues westward from Mal-Hado to where they saw mountains, before they made the northward start. In endorsing Bancroft's upper route from the plains near the Llano Estacado, they ignore the fifteen or seventeen days' trip up any river. They claim that the verity of the intersection of the route of these men with that of Coronado as noted by Castañeda, can not be ignored, but they seem to have overlooked the very much modified statement of Jaramillo. Their confidence in the limits of the bison eastward as defining the location of the first day, as set forth in Winsor's History, is scarcely well placed, since we know that in different seasons the stress of drouth and cold varied these limits greatly. With other students they seem to err in thinking that Cabeza notes a well-defined line here to which bisons came. He simply says 65 “All over this country there are a great many deer, fowl and other animals which I have before enumerated. Here also they come up with cows.” Now this enumeration to which he refers took place when he was describing things away east of this on the coast of Florida proper. In this last connection he has just been telling of the habits of the Mariames when they go to the tuna region thirty leagues west of the nut river, and the phrase, “this country” would seem to apply to that; so also his “here.” There is no doubt, however, that bisons came later to Lavaca River. In noting the food and giving the customs of the people east of this first ancón, there is no mention of even a buffalo robe; and hence Cabeza had never gone to these cows in his trading ventures along the coast. They were, therefore, pretty well west of the great ancón, and count nothing in defining the location of this first ancón and river of nuts.
Judge O. W. Williams, in The Quarterly for July, 1899, endorses the foregoing students in their location of Mal-Hado and subsequent coastal topography. According to Professor Bray, he errs in saying that more inland the tunas can not be found. Like Ponton and McFarland, he speaks of the bison range as definitely limited, and he seems to confuse the three times that Cabeza ate of their meat with Dorantes's three journeys as far west as the great ancón. Beyond this he is not definite; but his mention of a great limestone plateau west of Edwards County, full of game, is interesting, since the journey westward from the iron region went very probably over this section—either on the direct route, or on that hypothetical one through Coahuila. He makes a strong corroborative point in favor of the Presidio, or Conchas region on the Rio Grande, being the place of the first permanent houses, when he states that in this neighborhood corn has been planted from time immemorial in “ `temporales,' that is, in sandy stretches near the river, . . . [where it] depends upon rain and subirrigation from the river to bring it to fruitage.” This comports well with what Cabeza says about corn-growing there. The failure for the two years previous to Cabeza's coming had depended on drouth—possibly on one that had made the river-bed dry, and cut off the subirrigation; for we know from Castañeda, Humboldt, and others that there were places above this where the Rio Grande sank in the sand for miles during great drouths. Judge Williams is correct in saying that it would seem that it is these same corn-planters which Cabeza calls the “Cow nation.” How anyone can read otherwise is hard to understand; but he immediately errs in giving credit to Bandelier's statement that this could not possibly be true. As already shown this old hydra has had all its necks amputated by Judge Coopwood, and by further statements of Cabeza and Oviedo—as well as by a critical study of the narratives in connection with the migration of the herds and the topography. When we recall to what a great extent the bison has changed its range and habitat within the memory of this generation, we should be chary in making broad assertions about where its limits were in Cabeza's time, fifty years before we have any other account of the country. The persecution of certain hunter tribes would change the range then as later. There are notices of bisons passing in dry years to the Rio Grande valley above this from a general habitat much further east; and we know that this was an unusually dry time—even in the winter. It may be, however, that the cows were on the Pecos, as Williams suggests; but that Cabeza's “cow people” lived on the river that ran among mountains—the Rio Grande—is firmly established, if the narratives can be depended upon.
Judge Bethel Coopwood's long discussion of the route of Cabeza, in The Quarterly for October, 1889, and January, April and July, 1900, is full of interest for its daring originality in so plausibly presenting such a bizarre scheme by means of what seems to have been a sincerely intense study. Whatever we may think of the probability of his theories, we must feel grateful to him for the amount of unique information that he has massed. The paper is too long to follow in detail. We may see that his first presumption of a far inland position, around Aransas Bay, for his four rivers; his making St. Joseph's Island his Mal-Hado, and his ignoring of the strictly coastal journey of these men, as they went beyond it; his continuance of the journey around the coast south (instead of westward with an almost right-angled turn inland, as indicated by the narratives and the De Soto chroniclers); his continuance of the journey then westward to Jalisco beyond the City of Mexico through a country whose inhabitants could have informed the travelers of the location of the city so practically near them—a country that had been invaded then by white men often—all these show how this student has allowed a preconceived idea to change directions, dwarf distances, and overlook plain statements generally. He also has split on the rock of ignoring Espejo—and much else.
He denies that Cabeza ever passed down through Culiacán, because this would be fatal to his proposed route. He does seem to show from records that Melchior Diaz could not have been mayor there when this party passed in the spring of 1536. He quotes from Tello certain statements to show that it was not possible for the two captains, Cebreros and Alcaraz, to have been near the Yaqui in that year, under a certain other Captain Chirinos; but these are all his own deductions, whereas Tello says distinctly that Chirinos did bring these men from Petatlán River to Compostela, passing Culiacán, where Diaz was mayor. Tello's account is that Chirinos had sent Cebreros and Alcaraz forward to make discoveries. On this trip they heard that Cabeza's men were ahead at the Yaqui, “where they remained fifteen days crying over their long and painful journey, . . . and meeting Cebreros, he took them to where Alcaraz was, and they were taken by him to Captain Chirinos, by whom they were treated kindly, and who recognized them, because they had been his friends before the voyage to Florida.” 66 Coopwood claims that all this and the account of Cabeza and the joint letter written at Mexico were fixed up by the viceroy, Mendoza, involving the reports about the cotton and gems and large houses for to the north, so that the authorities of the crown might empower him to make an expedition up that way, thus getting ahead of Guzman and Cortés, who were making similar attempts. There can be no doubt that “the good” Mendoza was a conscienceless schemer; but, on the face of it, it would seem that he would have had this joint letter made more definite and wonderful in its statements than either it, or the Naufragios, was, which latter was written in Spain, far away from the influence of the viceroy; for they are both very indefinite in their assertions, and each might have said that these men had seen actual wonders, if the object had been to instigate expeditions merely. From what we know of later expeditions, and the report which they obtained from Indian information—we find that the high houses, the turquoises, the feather trading and all that—are of a piece with that which Marcos, Diaz, and Coronado's men heard—and, subsequently, to a large extent verified.
As Judge Coopwood is a plausible advocate, it may not be out of the way to look further into the fallacy of his claims, with such side lights as are at hand. We have seen how the arrow poisons of Cabeza and Jaramillo