A Concise History of New Mexico
BY
L. BRADFORD PRINCE, LL. D.
President of the Historical Society of New Mexico: Hon. Member of the
American Numismatic and Archaeological Society: Hon. Member of the
Missouri Historical Society; of the Kansas Historical Society; of the
Wisconsin Historical Society; Cor. Member of the Texas
Historical Society, and Minnesota Historical Society;
Trustee of the Church Historical Society, Etc. Etc.
SECOND EDITION WITH COMPLETE INDEX

THE TORCH PRESS
CEDAR RAPIDS, IOWA
1914

COPYRIGHT. 1914. BY L. BRADFORD PRINCE
CONTENTS

PREFACE 11

CHAPTER I

NEW MEXICO IN GENERAL 13
NAME 13
BOUNDARIES 14
CAPITAL 17
POPULATION 18

CHAPTER II

THE ABORIGINES 20

CHAPTER III

THE PUEBLO INDIANS 30

CHAPTER IV

CABEZA DE YACA 52

CHAPTER V

FRIAR MARCOS DE NIZA 58

CHAPTER VI

CORONADO 66

CHAPTER VII

FRIAR RUIZ AND ESPEJO 79
MISSION OF AGUSTIN RUIZ 79
ESPEJO'S EXPEDITION 81

CHAPTER VIII

ATTEMPTS AT COLONIZATION -1585-1598 ... 86
CASTANO DE SOSA 87
BONILLA AND HUMAXA 90

CHAPTER IX

THE CONQUEST BY OXATE 92

CHAPTER X

SPANISH OCCUPATION -1598-1680 . 100

CHAPTER XI

THE PUEBLO REVOLUTION 110

CHAPTER XII

THE RE-CONQUEST 117

CHAPTER XIII

THE SPANISH ERA -1696-1822 121

CHAPTER XIV

THE EXPEDITION OF LIEUTENANT PIKE -1806 , 132

CHAPTER XV

MEXICAN GOVERNMENT -1821-1846 .... 148
EULERS 150
PIONEERS 153
TEXAN SANTA FE EXPEDITION 155

CHAPTER XVI

THE INSURRECTION OF 1837 159

CHAPTER XVII

THE SANTA FE TRAIL 164

CHAPTER XVIII

SPANISH AND MEXICAN GOVERNORS . . . . 175

CHAPTER XIX

THE AMERICAN OCCUPATION 178

CHAPTER XX

U. S. PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT -1846-1851 187

CHAPTER XXI

THE TERRITORIAL PERIOD -1851-1912 .... 191

CHAPTER XXII

THE TEXAN INVASION OF 1862 220

CHAPTER XXIII

STRUGGLE FOR STATEHOOD 227

CHAPTER XXIV

CHURCHES 244
SCHOOLS 252
NEWSPAPERS 258

CHAPTER XXV

UNITED STATES OFFICIALS 263
GOVERNORS 263
SECRETARIES 264
CHIEF JUSTICES 265
DELEGATES IN CONGRESS 266

CHAPTER XXVI

STATE ORGANIZATION, 1912 268

PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION

In presenting this Second Edition, I wish, in the first place, to return my acknowledgments to the history-loving public, for their appreciation and support. It is particularly gratifying that through the adoption of this work by the New Mexico Teachers' Reading Circle, in 1913, so many of those who are training the new generation have had their attention drawn to the history of our own state. The exhaustion of the edition before all were supplied is much regretted.
I take advantage of the issue of this Second Edition to add to the volume that which was an obvious want, in a comprehensive Index, which will add much to its value and convenience.

Constant attention has been given to the discovery of errors requiring correction, but during the two years since the publication of the First Edition, not a single mis-statement has been brought to light; a few typographical errors, which had escaped the proof-reader, are corrected in this edition.

L. BRADFORD PRINCE Santa Fe, July 1, 1914

PREFACE

After the publication of the Historical Sketches of New Mexico in 1883, and especially after the burning of the plates of that book at Kansas City, two pieces of historical work were constantly pressed upon me: First, the writing of an enlarged and revised History of New Mexico, which should include all of the important matter which has been made available since 1883; and second, the preparation of a condensed volume which would contain the essential facts in comparatively small space, so as to be available for the general reader and for use in the schools of New Mexico.

For the first of these purposes, a large amount of material, much of it from original sources and the statements of eye witnesses as to recent events, was accumulated; but the opportunity for putting it in proper form never presented itself, and the publication of the admirable histories by Colonel Twitchell and Hon. B. M. Read has now made such a work unnecessary. The new state, as well as the distinguished authors, is to be congratulated on the successful completion of these works, and on the amount of valuable and interesting information thus presented to the New Mexican people.

The condensation and revision of the matter in the Historical Sketches, in order to accomplish the second work above referred to, was done to quite an extent over twenty years ago, but was interrupted by other matters that required exclusive attention; and about ten years since was almost completed, but again was laid aside to meet other engagements. Meantime, the acquisition by the New Mexico Historical Society of rare literary treasures, and especially of the remarkable original documents which it had the good fortune to secure, gave an opportunity for correction

12

HISTORY OF NEW MEXICO

and revision that had been impossible before; so that I do not regret the long delay in accomplishing the design.

The end of the territorial era by the acquisition of statehood seemed to present the proper opportunity for the completion of. this work; and the recent requirements of law relative to the teaching of New Mexican history in the public schools has caused a wide-spread request for immediate action. The result is the little volume now presented.

It aims to be simply what its name implies, a "concise" History of New Mexico. Many a time in its preparation, when some subject of peculiar importance, or as to which there has been some controversy, has been involved, the temptation has been great to go into details which could scarcely fail to be interesting; but that temptation has always been resisted in order not to exceed the prescribed brevity of treatment.

The one idea that has been uppermost is, that, whatever is omitted, the facts that are stated shall be absolutely accurate) so that at any rate no false impressions may be given nor current mistakes perpetuated.

If I have succeeded in this I shall be fully content. But as nothing human is infallible, I will welcome any suggestions of correction; and be glad to make them useful in perfecting future editions.

L. BRADFORD PRINCE Santa Fe, August 15, 1912

CHAPTER I
New Mexico in General - Name, Boundaries, Population, Capital Name

The name of New Mexico is the oldest in the United States except that of Florida.

The latter, as is well known, was given to the peninsula by Ponce de Leon on his discovery of its shore in 1512; some consider it was so named on account of the discovery being made on Easter Day, called by the Spaniards "Pascua Florida"; and others, that it was to designate it as the "Land of Flowers," its exuberant beauty in that respect being very striking on the bright spring day when the sight of its vegetation gladdened the eyes of the Spanish explorers.

The name of New Mexico first appears in the narrative of Antonio de Espejo, in 1583, having been given to the fifteen provinces which he discovered on his expedition, as we are told by the historian Gonzales de Mendoza, "because it is similar in many things to the other Mexico already discovered." The narrative of Espejo's exploration reached Europe and was published in Madrid in 1586, and was found to be of such interest that it was speedily translated into French by Luc de la Porte, and printed in Paris but one year later, and also appeared in Italian and English; so that the description of the newly found region in the interior of North America was soon known to all the world. The name, New Mexico, immediately received the ratification of universal adoption, and was continuously applied to all the portions of the continent north of Old Mexico, for hundreds of years.

14

BOUNDARIES

The boundaries and dimensions of New Mexico, from the first, were very indefinite. On the west it reached to the South Sea, as the Pacific Ocean was then called, and on the north there was no claimant to prevent its extension to the Arctic regions. On the south, it began where the northern provinces of Mexico - New Galicia and New Biscay - ended, but with no established boundary; and on the east, for over a century, it divided the country with Florida, which occupied all the region commencing at the Atlantic and extending westward beyond the Mississippi.

After settlements were made along the Mississippi, and the valley of that river became known as Louisiana, there were three divisions in the midst of the continent, instead of two, Louisiana coming between Florida and New Mexico; and after another interval, the Pacific Coast separated itself and was distinguished as California. The changes can be traced better by maps printed from time to time, than from any documents.

On Sanson's map, dated 1656, of Le Nouveau Mexique et la Floride, New Mexico extends north indefinitely, and is bounded on the east by Canada or New France, and by Florida; being separated from the latter by an imaginary range of mountains, represented as running north and south about 200 miles west of the Mississippi, which is called on this map, "Rio de Espiritu Santo." In the opposite direction New Mexico extends west to the South Sea and the Gulf of California, here named "Mar Vermeio."

Forty-three years later, on Sauerman's map of North America, published at Bremen, in 1699, Nouveau Mexique extends from the Gulf of California (Mer Rouge) to the Mississippi (Grand Fleuve Meschasipi); Florida ending at that river. On this map, Santa Fe is represented as by far the most prominent place on the continent, if we can judge by the size of type in which its name appears.

A few years after, De l'Isle's map, called Carte de Mexique et de la Floride, published in 1703, continues to represent New Mexico and Florida as dividing the width of the continent between

15

them; but the dividing line is pushed much farther westward than by Sauerman, as it runs up the Rio Grande and an easterly branch, possibly intended for the Pecos.
These three maps, printed before the existence of Louisiana, show how entirely indefinite the eastern boundary was; in fact, the whole interior of the continent was occupied solely by Indians, so that any claims to ownership were purely theoretical.

Passing on more than half a century, we find a radical change made by the introduction of Louisiana. This is shown on Bonne's map of New Spain, published at Paris in 1771, where Florida occupies the eastern division, Louisiana includes the whole Mississippi Valley on both sides of the river, and New Mexico takes the remainder of the continent to the Pacific. The division line between New Mexico and Louisiana runs northwesterly from a point on the Gulf of Mexico at the mouth of the Sabine. It is noticeable that at that time, the Rio Grande is called the "Riviere du Nord ou de Nouveau Mexique."

The English maps of Eman Bowen, published before the middle of the eighteenth century, show this same three-fold division. But the boundary between New Mexico and Louisiana is placed east of the Rio Grande ("North River") and the Pecos, and west of the Colorado River of Texas.

Dutch and Italian maps of a somewhat later date, the former called Kaart van Nieuw Mexiko, 1774, and the latter, of Nuovo Messico, being published by Zatta, at Venice, in 1785, both give substantially the same boundary between Louisiana and New Mexico as on Bonne's map; and down to the time of the purchase of Louisiana by the United States, in 1803, the line was far from being so definitely established as to be beyond dispute.

After the independence of Mexico, by the treaty of January 12, 1828, between the two republics, the hundredth degree of longitude became the eastern boundary of New Mexico, and the Nepesta or Arkansas River its limit on the north.

To add to the confusion, Texas, when it declared its independence, claimed to own all the territory east of the Rio Grande; a claim utterly without foundation, and absurd when it is re-

16

membered that it would have taken Santa Fe, which during almost two and a half centuries had been the capital of New Mexico, out of the country of which it was the political center; but, as will be seen hereafter, various efforts were made to enforce the claim.

When General Kearny occupied Santa Fe, in August, 1846, he proclaimed that "as he had taken possession of Santa Fe, the Capital of the Department of New Mexico, he now announces his intention to hold the Department, with its original boundaries, on both sides of the Del Norte, as a part of the United States, and under the name of the Territory of New Mexico."

By the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, all of New Mexico was ceded to the United States, and on the final ratification of that treaty, on May 30, 1848, it became an integral part of the American Republic. While its southern boundary was definitely fixed by the treaty, in other directions its extent was left indefinite; and this condition continued until the organization by Congress of the Territory of New Mexico, by the Act of September 9, 1850, with boundaries which appear as follows in the law: "Beginning at a point in the Colorado River where the boundary-line with the Republic of Mexico crosses the same; thence eastwardly with that boundary-line to the Rio Grande; thence following the main channel of the Rio Grande to the parallel of the thirty-second degree of north latitude; thence east with that degree to its intersection with the one hundred and third degree of longitude west of Greenwich; thence north with that degree of longitude to the parallel of thirty-eighth degree of north latitude; thence west with said parallel to the summit of Sierra Madre; thence south with the crest of those mountains to the thirty-seventh parallel of north latitude; thence west with that parallel to its intersection with the boundary-line of the State of California; thence with such boundary-line to the place of beginning."

At the same time, the northwesterly portion of what had heretofore been New Mexico was made into the Territory of Utah. But New Mexico was to undergo many changes of area, both gains and losses, before it became a state, notwithstanding the language of the Act of 1850.

17

On December 30, 1853, the Gadsden Purchase treaty was signed, by which the United States bought from Mexico a long strip of territory, extending from the Rio Grande to the Gila, for ten million dollars; and by Act of Congress of August 4, 1854, this was added to New Mexico.

In 1859 the people of southern New Mexico, including the Mesilla Valley and the settlements in the vicinity of Tucson, applied to Congress to form a new territory out of their section of New Mexico, to be called Arizona. No congressional action was taken, but the next legislature, by Act approved February 1, 1860, organized a county of Arizona consisting of all of Dona Ana county west of "a point one mile distant eastwardly from the Overland Mail Station at Apache Canon," with its county seat at Tubac. In 1863, Congress established the Territory of Arizona, consisting of all of New Mexico west of the 109th meridian, and on December 29th of that year, the new territory was officially organized at Navajo Springs.

This reduced the area of New Mexico almost one-half, and it was further curtailed a few years later, when, by the Act of Congress of March 2, 1867, all that portion of the territory north of the 37th parallel of latitude was attached to Colorado. This left it as it still exists, with an average width of 335 miles, a length on its eastern boundary of 345 miles, and on the western boundary of 390; and with a total area of 121,469 square miles.

CAPITAL

For fully three centuries the city of Santa Fe has been the capital of New Mexico. For seven years after the first colonization, from 1598-1605, the seat of the new government was at San Gabriel, at the junction of the Rio Grande and the Chama; but it was then removed to Santa Fe, where it has ever since remained.
Among all the capitals of the United States, Santa Fe stands unique. For antiquity and continuity it is the acknowledged head, counting many more years than Boston, which is its nearest rival. It is not only the oldest capital in the United States, but with one exception the oldest in all America; and it antedates

18

by many years the capitals of the two most powerful empires of continental Europe, Germany and Russia.

POPULATION

In the population of New Mexico, the increase for a long time was very slow, and the figures of the early enumerations may not be entirely exact.
By a census of 1760, the Spanish population was then 7,666, and the Pueblo Indian 9,104.

In 1793, the Spaniards had increased to 16,156 and the Indians were returned at 9,275.

A census was taken by the Franciscan Fathers in 1796 which showed a population of 14,167 whites and 9,453 Indians. For some reason the city of Santa Fe is omitted in the enumerations made by the Franciscans and we should therefore add the population of the capital, which at that time was 3,795, to the number of Spaniards, making a total of 17,962. A similar census was taken only two years later, and of this Governor Chacon made an official report in 1799, showing a white population of 18,826, together with 9,732 Pueblo Indians. All of these figures are exclusive of the district of El Paso, although that was then included in New Mexico.

Enumerations of population seem to have been frequent in those days, as another census was taken in 1805, the report of which was made by Governor Alencaster, under date of November 20th, containing the following figures: Spaniards - male 10,390, female 10,236, total 20,626; Pueblo Indians - male 4,094, female 4,078, total 8,172; grand total of population of 28,798. In all of these eases the wild tribes of Indians are excluded. The report of Governor Melgares in 1820 gives the Spanish population at 28,436. In 1821, Father Rubi states the number of Pueblo Indians to be 9,034.

The census reports under the Republic of Mexico made no distinction of race, so that only the aggregate can be given: being 43,433 in 1827, as reported by Narbona; and 55,403 in 1840, as reported by Governor Armijo.

Since the American occupation, the decennial census reports
give the following figures, showing a steady and fairly rapid increase:

1850 61,547
1860 80,567
1870 91,874
1880 119,565
1890 153,593
1900 195,310
1910 327,301
The population by the last census, in 1910, is divided among the counties as they then existed as follows:
Bernalillo 23,606
Chaves 16,850
Colfax 16,460
Curry 11,443
Dona Ana 12,893
Eddy 12,400
Grant 14,813
Guadalupe 10,927
Lincoln 7,822
Luna 3,913
McKinley 12,963
Mora 12,611
Otero 7,069
Quay 14,912

Rio Arriba 6,624
Roosevelt 12,064
San Juan 8,504
San Miguel 22,930
Sandoval 8,579

Santa Fe 14,770

Sierra 3,536
Socorro 14,761
Taos 12,008
Torrance 10,119
Union 11,404
Valencia 13,320

19

CHAPTER II
The Aborigines

The history of New Mexico naturally falls into three great divisions, representing not only distinct epochs, but different nationalities and forms of civilization - the Aboriginal and Pueblo, the Spanish and Mexican, and the American.

While these are absolutely distinct, yet it adds a special interest to present travel in the territory, that all three epochs are still represented by existing villages and people; so the observer may in a single day visit an Indian pueblo exhibiting in unchanged form the customs of the intelligent natives of three and a half centuries ago; a Mexican town, where the architecture, the language, and the habits of the people differ in no material respect from those which were brought from Spain in the days of Columbus, Cortez, and Coronado; and an American city or village, full of the nervous energy and the well-known characteristics of modern western life.

In considering, firstly, the history of the prehistoric aborigines and of the Pueblo Indians, we have but few certain landmarks to serve as guides. They possessed no written records, and consequently we have to depend on their own traditions, often vague and uncertain, or on the narratives of the first Europeans who visited their country, for what may be known of the people, their lives, and their customs. Fortunately, these are sometimes supplemented by the histories and chronologies found among the Aztecs of Mexico, which no careful student can fail to connect with the peaceable, industrious, and thrifty people found living in cities of many storied houses, in the midst of the wild, savage, and nomadic tribes which occupied the mountains and the plains in every direction around them.

21

Before taking up the thread of written history, which begins with the arrival of the first Europeans, we must briefly consider the people who, for long centuries before, had inhabited the country, and whose descendants still form one of the most interesting portions of its population.

New Mexico was far from being a new or unknown land when it was first seen by Spanish eyes. On the contrary, if the figures given by the narrators are to be taken as literally correct, it contained more people then than it does at the beginning of the twentieth century; and whether this was true or not in the times of Coronado and Espejo, the vast number of ruins which are widespread over the territory, many of them in regions where now neither food nor water exists in a sufficient quantity to sustain a twentieth part of those who must have lived in the great buildings of the past, is evidence that at some period of the olden time - just when we may never know - a vast multitude of human beings found their homes, and passed their lives, in the valleys and on the mesas of what is now New Mexico.

Unfortunately for the historian, they possessed no written language, and no system of hieroglyphics to perpetuate the record of events. In an interesting and suggestive speech made by the governor of the pueblo of Zufii, in Santa Fe, on the first day of the great "Tertio-Millennial" historical pageant of 1883, his opening words were very significant, in this connection. He said: "The Great Spirit has given to his children of different races and colors various gifts: all of great value, but each diverse from the other. To his white children he has given the great gift of handing down knowledge from one generation to another by the means of marks or letters; by which, centuries after they are inscribed, the new people may understand what is thus told them by those long passed away, of the deeds of their ancestors and the great events of by-gone days. To his red children he did not give this good gift. But he gave them another in its place. Of his fatherly affection and all-knowing care, he gave them Great Memories, of unfailing power; so that the story of the past, handed down from old to young, and by those young receivers, when in their

22
turn grown old, repeated to the new youth that may arise, is carried down, unchanged and undiminished, from generation to generation."

There can be no doubt that a vast amount of legendary lore is thus orally transmitted; being taught with utmost care, and jealously guarded from accidental change or the chance of loss through death, by being held by three men - a kind of three-fold chain - who communicate it, word for word, to their successors, and that thus it is carried, intact, like a Masonic ritual, from age to age.

If the matter thus carefully transmitted was mainly historic, we might have a good substitute for the written book; but it is mostly mythological and ceremonial, and far too fanciful for prosaic historical use. No doubt historic facts are embedded in the traditions which are thus perpetuated, but too obscurely to be of much value, except in rare instances. The intensely religious nature of the Pueblo Indian, and his imaginative mind, bring the supernatural into such close relation with every action in life, that the events of history become mere incidents in the dealings of the higher powers with man and beast, and so are almost lost sight of in the superior importance of the mythology which envelopes them.

For the few facts that can be learned, therefore, of conditions that existed before the coming of the Spaniards, we have to depend most largely on what may be gleaned from the records which were preserved among the more cultivated people to the south, in the land of Montezuma. Without going into detail, a few leading facts are of interest.

The people found by Cortez in the land then called Anahuac, and which is now the Republic of Mexico, had come thither by a succession of migrations, all of which were from the north and northwest.

The first of these, of which there is any distinct knowledge, was that of the Toltecs. They are said to have left their original home in the far northwest, called Huehuetlapallan, in the year 1 Tecpatl, which Clavigero considers equivalent to the year 596

23

of our era. They traveled leisurely, remaining sometimes for years in a locality which appeared to provide amply for their subsistence and suited their fancy and then marching rapidly forward, in the spirit of unrest which actuates all national migrations, until another favored spot attracted their attention and invited them again to rest. Thus they proceeded for somewhat over a century, until they arrived at a place in the great valley of Mexico, which they called Tollantzinco, about fifty miles east from the principal lake, and there they settled themselves and established their capital. A score of years later they moved a short distance to the westward and founded the city of Tula or Tollan, which continued as their central point and seat of government for centuries.

The date of this migration is far from certain, but within moderate limits may be considered as established. Both Clavigero and Gondra, who are acknowledged authorities, fix the date of the arrival of the Toltecs in Anahuac, as the year 648; but the former allows only fifty-two years as the period occupied by their migration, while Gondra gives the year 544 as that on which they left their original home. Precision in these dates, however, is not of especial importance to New Mexico, the essential point being that the migration is considered by all authorities to have passed through this territory.

For five centuries the Toltecs controlled the land of their adoption, and they are believed to have been the architects of the great structures, the ruins of which have been the marvel of later generations in central and southern Mexico. Then, for reasons now impossible to ascertain - perhaps from famine or pestilence, perhaps from a recurrence of the spirit of restlessness and change - they disappeared towards the south; spreading over Yucatan and Central America, and leaving but a meagre remnant in the beautiful valley of Anahuac.

The next migration was that of the Chichimecas, a rough and uncivilized people, who also came from the same direction in the north, where we are told their old home was called Amaquemecan. They had heard of the land of plenty in the south, and marched

25

under Xolotl, the brother of their king, in search of its luxuriance and riches. Torquemada says that they originally lived in caves in the mountains, which tradition may be in some ways connected with the most ancient of the cliff and cave dwellings, whose remains still exist. The date of their arrival in Mexico is fixed by Clavigero at the year 1170.

They were soon followed, only thirty years after, by the Acolhuans, an intelligent and ingenious people, who established themselves at Tescuco, on the eastern border of the great Mexican lake, where they were found by the Spaniards when Cortez arrived.

About the same time, came the end of the long migration of the Aztecs, who settled not far from the last preceding comers. They also came from the northwest, from Aztlan, which Clavigero asserts was a country "situated to the north of the Gulf of California." The route of their migration has long been a favorite subject of study to the historian and the archaeologist, and they have been aided to some extent by the discovery of a most interesting historical painting which hieroglyphically represents each of the places where the Aztecs sojourned for any considerable length of time, during their migration. This famous picture has been reproduced in many forms, but the original was painted on a sheet of maguey paper, thirty-three inches long by twenty-one in width, and gives a graphic illustration of the wanderings of these interesting people from their departure from Aztlan until they found a final resting place in Mexico. It begins with a representation of a flood, in which only one man and one woman are saved, and in which a dove is a prominent feature; and then traces the journeyings of the people from "a place of magpies, through a place of grottoes," "a place of the death's head," "the woody place-of the eagle," "Chalco, the place of the precious stone," "the place of passage," "a whirlpool where the river is swallowed," etc., to the final arrival at Chapultepec, "the hill of grasshoppers," where they arrived in the year 1245.
According to the prevailing legend, they were to continue to journey until they should see an eagle perched upon a cactus,

26
holding a snake in its mouth; and this sign, according to the story, was found near Chapultepec; and the place thus providentially designated was instantly recognized, and established as their future abiding place and their capital.

Here, again, the dates are somewhat uncertain: those of the commencement of the Aztec migration ranging, according to, different authors, from A. D. 1038 to A. D. 1170, and of their settlement in Mexico, from 1245 to 1325.

Most of the authorities trace the route of their pilgrimage as passing through Arizona, so as to make the Casa Grande one of its places of sojourn; but others think that their course was more easterly, and that many of the most remarkable ruins in New

27

Mexico are the results of their residence there. However this may be, there can be little or no doubt that the people whom Cabeza de Vaca, and Coronado, and Espejo, found at Zuni, and Moqui, and in the Rio Grande Valley, living in settled towns composed of substantial houses several stories in height, cultivating the fields, raising cotton and corn, enjoying an excellent form of government, and in all respects entirely different from the wild and nomadic tribes of the plains who surrounded them, were the remains of one or another of these great migrations. It was not unnatural, when, after years of sojourn in an especially attractive region, where they had made their homes and raised their families through at least the cycle of a generation, it was

28

determined that the migration should continue and the people march away to unknown lands in the south, that a portion of the tribe, satisfied with their surroundings and averse to this desertion of their homes, should stay; while their more adventurous brethren proceeded on their way.

This, we think, accounts for the presence in New Mexico of a native people, entirely different from any other which inhabited the United States. Their characteristics are so strong and persistent that even intimate acquaintance with the surrounding nomadic types did not alter their conservative and contented nature; and three centuries of connection with European civilization has made scarcely a change in their habits and customs since they were first seen and described by Castaneda and Espejo. This result is interesting as well as instructive, for notwithstanding the march of the centuries, we can see with our own eyes an almost unchanged representation of the intelligent, just, and peaceful New Mexican of the time of Coronado, in the Pueblo Indian of today.

The ruins, which exist in such great numbers throughout New Mexico, still present an unsolved problem so far as their origin is concerned. Many of them, no doubt, are the remains of buildings deserted or abandoned within the historic period, and similar to Pueblo Indian edifices which still exist and are in actual occupation. But there are others, so much more extensive and of such superior construction, that they point to builders of far greater mechanical skill and knowledge. Such are the remarkable structures which extend for miles along the Chaco Canon, and some of which are found in the San Juan country.

So far as stone structures are concerned, however, there is a remarkable similarity between many of those which were undoubtedly destroyed before the coming of the Spaniards, and others which were built as churches early in the seventeenth century, as at Peeos, Abo, Cuara, and Tabira. The massive walls, built of comparatively small, thin stones, seem to indicate a type unknown elsewhere, but which continues, practically unchanged, from prehistoric times to the existing era. A few photographs,

29

showing the walls of churches built by the Indians under Franciscan direction, east of the Rio Grande, in the first half of the seventeenth century, are reproduced in order to illustrate this idea.

Again, the pottery which abounds in certain localities, and notably in western Socorro county, is not only different from that produced in the Pueblo towns during the historic period but is very superior in its ornamentation; and the mummies of southwestern Colorado must be considered as representing a distinct people.
All this presents a most interesting field for research, but it is beyond the purpose of this work; and we therefore content ourselves with the suggestion that these differences may simply be representative of the successive migrations which age after age brought new and distinct peoples to inhabit our valleys or build upon our mesas, each perhaps in turn leaving a remnant to keep up the continuity of human occupation until the arrival of the next wave of immigration.