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Archaeological Institute of America

Papers of the School of American Archaeology

Number Thirteen

DOCUMENTARY HISTORY OF THE RIO GRANDE PUEBLOS OF NEW MEXICO

I. BIBLIOGRAPHIC INTRODUCTION

by

ADOLPH F. BANDELIER

1910

DOCUMENTARY HISTORY OF THE RIO GRANDEPUEBLOS OF NEW MEXICO

BY ADOLPH F. BANDELIER

I. --BIBLIOGRAPHIC INTRODUCTION

Seventeen years have elapsed since I was in the territory in which theevents in the early history of the Rio Grande Pueblos transpired, andtwenty-nine years since I first entered the field of research amongthose Pueblos under the auspices of the Archæological Institute ofAmerica. I am now called upon by the Institute to do for the Indians ofthe Rio Grande villages what I did nearly two decades ago for the Zuñitribe, namely, to record their documentary history. 

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

The geographical features of the region to be treated are too well knownto require mention. Neither can folklore and tradition, notwithstandingtheir decisive importance in a great many cases, be touched upon exceptwhen alluded to in the sources themselves. I am fully aware, as I statedin presenting the history of the Zuñi tribe, that a history basedexclusively on documents, whether printed or written, must necessarilybe imperfect because it is not impartial, since it summarizes the viewsof those who saw and understood but one side of the question, and judgedit only from their own standpoint. This defect cannot be remedied, as itunderlies the very nature of the task, and the greater therefore is thenecessity of carefully studying the folklore of the Indians in order tocheck and complete as well as to correct the picture presented by peopleacquainted with the art of writing. 

In this Introduction I forego the employment of quotations, reservingsuch for the main work. Quotations and footnotes are not, as it has beenimagined, a mere display of erudition--they are a duty towards thesource from which they are taken, and a duty to its author; moreover, they are a duty towards the reader, who as far as possible should beplaced in a position himself to judge the value and nature of theinformation presented, and, finally, they are a necessary indication ofthe extent of the author's responsibility. If the sources are givenclearly and circumstantially, yet happen to be wrong, the author isexonerated from blame for resting upon their authority, provided, as itnot infrequently happens, he has no way of correcting them by means ofother information. 

In entering the field of documentary research the first task is tobecome thoroughly acquainted with the languages in which the documentsare recorded. To be able to read cursorily a language in its presentform is not sufficient. Spanish, for example, has changed comparativelyless than German since the sixteenth century, yet there are locutions aswell as words found in early documents pertaining to America that havefallen into disuse and hence are not commonly understood. Provincialismsabound, hence the history of the author and the environment in which hewas reared should be taken into account, for sometimes there are phrasesthat are unintelligible without a knowledge of the writer's earlysurroundings. Translations as a rule should be consulted only withallowance, for to the best of them the Italian saying "Traduttore, tradittore" is applicable. With the greatest sincerity and honesty onthe part of the translator, he is liable to an imperfect interpretationof an original text. There are of course instances when the original hasdisappeared and translations alone are available. Such is the case, forinstance, with the Life of Columbus, written by his son Fernando andpublished in Italian in 1571; and the highly important report on thevoyage of Cabral to Brazil in 1500, written by his pilot Vas da Cominhoand others. These are known only through translations. 

Words from Indian languages are subject to very faulty rendering in theolder documents. In the first place, sound alone guided the writers, andIndian pronunciation is frequently indistinct in the vowels andvariable according to the individual--hence the frequent interchange inthe Spanish sources of _a_ and _o_, _ó_ and _u_, _e_ and _i_. For manysounds even the alphabets of civilized speech have not adequate phoneticsigns. I may refer, as an example, to the Indian name in the Tigualanguage for the pueblo of Sandia. The Spanish attempt to render it bythe word "Napeya" is utterly inadequate, and even by means of thecomplicated alphabets for writing Indian tongues I would not attempt torecord the native term. In endeavoring to identify localities from namesgiven to them in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries by Europeanauthors, this difficulty should always be taken into account. No blamecan be attached to the writers for such defects; it should always beremembered that they did not know, still less understand, the idiomsthey heard. Still less should we be surprised if the same site issometimes mentioned under various names. Every Pueblo language has itsown geographical vocabulary, and when, as sometimes happened, severaltribes met in council with the whites, the latter heard and unwittinglyrecorded several names for one and the same locality, thus apparentlyincreasing the number of villages. Moreover, interpreters were notalways at hand, and when they could be had both their competency andtheir sincerity were open to question. 

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

The sources of the history of the Rio Grande Pueblos, both printed andin manuscript, are numerous. The manuscript documents are as yet butimperfectly known. Only that which remained at Santa Fé after the firstperiod of Anglo-American occupancy--a number of church books anddocuments formerly scattered through the parishes of New Mexico, and avery few documents held in private hands--have been accessible withinthe United States. In Mexico the parish and other official documents atEl Paso del Norte (Juarez) up to the beginning of the eighteenth centuryhave been examined by me to a certain extent, and at the City of Mexicothe Archivo Nacional has yielded a number of important papers, thoughthe research has been far from exhaustive, owing to the lack of time andsupport. Hence much still remains to be done in that field. Somedestruction of papers of an official character appears to have takenplace at Mexico also, yet with the present condition of the archivesthere is hope that much that appears to be lost will eventually bebrought to light; in any event we still have recourse to the Spanisharchives, principally at Sevilla. It was the rule during Spanishcolonial domination to have every document of any importance executed intriplicate, one copy to remain at the seat of local government, anotherto be sent to the viceregal archives, and the third to the mothercountry. Hence there is always a hope that, if the first two weredestroyed, the third might be preserved. So, for instance, thecollection of royal decrees (_cedulas_) is imperfect at the City ofMexico. There are lacunæ of several decades, and it is perhapssignificant that the same gaps are repeated in the publication of the"Cedulas" by Aguiar and Montemayor. In regard to ecclesiasticaldocuments the difficulty is greater still. The archives of theFranciscan Order, to which the missions on the Rio Grande were assignedalmost until the middle of the nineteenth century, have becomescattered; the destruction of the archives at the great Franciscanconvent in the City of Mexico in 1857, though not complete, resulted inthe dispersion of those which were not burned or torn, and thewhereabouts of these remnants are but imperfectly known. The documentaryhistory of the Rio Grande Pueblos, therefore, can be only tentative atpresent, but it is given in the hope that it will incite furtheractivity with the view of increasing and correcting the data thus farobtained. 

 * * * * *

The report of Cabeza de Vaca, commonly designated as his "Naufragios, "is as yet the earliest printed source known with reference to the RioGrande Pueblos, concerning whom it imparts some vague information. Thebriefness and vagueness of that information calls for no adversecriticism, for Cabeza de Vaca plainly states that he writes of thesepeople from hearsay and that his information was obtained near the mouthof the Rio Pecos in western Texas. What he afterward learned in Sonorawith respect to sedentary Indians in the north is hardly connected withthe Rio Grande region. The same may be the case with the informationobtained by Nuño de Guzman in 1530 and alluded to by Castañeda. ThatNuño de Guzman had gained some information concerning the Pueblos seemscertain, but everything points to the Zuñi region as the one mentionedby his informant. The same is true of the reports of Fray Marcos deNizza and Melchor Diaz, which clearly apply to the Zuñi Pueblos, themost easterly settlement of sedentary Indians alluded to being theQueres pueblo of Acoma. It is to the chroniclers of the expedition ofCoronado, therefore, that we must look for the earliest definiteinformation concerning the Rio Grande valley and its inhabitants. 

It must be borne in mind that the expedition of Coronado was not a mereexploration. What was expected of its leader, and indeed peremptorilydemanded, was a permanent settlement of the country. Coronado and hismen were not to return to Mexico except in individual cases. The ViceroyMendoza wanted to get rid of them. Whether Coronado was a party to thesecret of this plan is doubtful; the indications are that he was not, whereas Fray Marcos of Nizza certainly was, and perhaps was its originalpromoter. 

The printed sources on Coronado's march may be divided into twochronologically distinct classes, the first of which comprises documentswritten in New Mexico in the years from 1540 to 1543; these reflect allthe advantages and disadvantages of the writings of eye-witnesses. Themere fact that one had been a participant in the events which hedescribes is not a guaranty of absolute reliability: his sincerity andtruthfulness may be above reproach, but his field of vision isnecessarily limited, and the personal element controls his impressions, even against his will, hence his statements. These earliest sourcesregarding Coronado consist of the letters of Coronado himself (with therelated letter of Viceroy Mendoza), and several briefer documentswritten in New Mexico but without indication of their authors. The lasttwo letters written by Coronado alone touch upon the Rio GrandePueblos--those of August 3, 1540, and October 20, 1541. 

As stated above, the expedition of Coronado was not designed as a mereexploration, but rather for the purpose of establishing a permanentsettlement. Coronado's second letter, the first in which he touches uponthe Rio Grande Pueblos, appears to have been lost. His letter of October20, 1541, although written near the site of the present Bernalillo, NewMexico, contains very little in regard to the Rio Grande Pueblos. 

The briefer documents pertaining to Coronado's expedition, and writtenwhile the Spaniards were still in New Mexico, with the exception of one(the report of the reconnoissance made by Hernando de Alvarado, accompanied by Fray Juan de Padilla to the east) concern Zuñi almostexclusively. The document respecting Alvarado's journey is contained inthe _Coleccion de Documentos_ from the archives of the Indies, but iserroneously attributed to Hernando de Soto. The celebratedhistoriographer of Spain, Juan Bautista Muñoz, unacquainted with NewMexico, its geography and ethnography, criticized it rather harshly;nevertheless, the document is very reliable in its description ofcountry and people: it alludes to features which are nowhere elsenoticed, and which were rediscovered by the late Frank Hamilton Cushingand myself about twenty-eight years ago. The number of villages andpeople in the Rio Grande region, of which the document gives a briefdescription, are, as usual, exaggerated; and it could hardly have beenotherwise in view of a first and hasty visit, but it remains theearliest document in which Acoma and a part of the Rio Grande valley aretreated from actual observation. The reconnoissance was made from Augustto October, 1540. It may be that one of the villages briefly describedis Pecos, which lies of course some distance east of the Rio Grande, andthe document is possibly the first one in which the nomadic Indians ofeastern New Mexico are mentioned from actual observation. 

To these sources, which have both the merits and the defects of alldocuments written under the impressions of first direct acquaintancewith the subject, must be added the "Relacion postrera de Sivola"contained in a manuscript by father Toribio de Paredes, surnamedMotolinia, and known as the _Libro de Oro_, etc. , which is an augmentedand slightly modified version of that celebrated missionary's history ofthe Mexicans. It is a condensed report that had reached Mexico afterCoronado had left for Quivira and before his return had become known. Its allusion to the Rio Grande Pueblos and to Pecos is not withoutvalue, although it adds little to what is contained in the sourcespreviously mentioned. On the Indians of the Plains it is, comparativelyspeaking, more explicit. The general tone of the document is one ofsobriety. The "Relacion del Suceso, " published in the _DocumentosInéditos de Indias_ under the erroneous date of 1531, is similar to theforegoing, but is more detailed in some respects and covers a longerperiod of time. It manifestly was written in New Mexico by a member ofthe expedition, but there is no clue as yet to the name of the author. It is a useful corollary to the other contemporary sources. 

Although written more than two centuries after Coronado's march, thereferences to it and to New Mexico contained in the _Historia de laNueva Galicia_, by the licentiate Matias de la Mota Padilla, find aplace here, since the author asserts that he derived much of hisinformation from papers left by Pedro de Tovar, one of Coronado's chieflieutenants. Mota Padilla generally confirms the data furnished by theearlier documents, and adds some additional information. It is howeverquite impossible to determine what he gathered directly from thewritings of Tovar and what he may have obtained through other andprobably posterior sources. At all events the _Historia de la NuevaGalicia_ should never be neglected by students of the Pueblo Indians. 

We now come to the two chief chroniclers of Coronado's time--bothparticipants in his undertakings and therefore eye-witnesses: Pedro deCastañeda de Naxera and Juan Jaramillo. The fact that they wereeye-witnesses establishes their high rank as authorities, but there is adifference between the two in that Castañeda was a common soldier, whereas Jaramillo (a former companion and, to a certain extent, afriend of Cortés) was an officer. This fact alone establishes adifference in the opportunities for knowing and in the standpoint ofjudging what was seen, aside from the difference arising out of thecharacter, facilities, and tendencies of the two individuals. Castañedais much more detailed in his narration than Jaramillo. Discontent withthe management and the final outcome of the enterprise is apparent inthe tone of his writings, and while this may not have influenced verymaterially his description of the country and its people, they rendermore or less suspicious his statements in regard to the dealings withthe aborigines. Both Castañeda and Jaramillo wrote a long time after theevents had occurred, and probably from memory, hence the comparativeaccuracy of their descriptions is indeed remarkable. But that accuracy, however commendable, is relative rather than absolute, as both wereliable to err, owing to the lapse of time and consequent failure toremember facts and events, and, especially with Castañeda, the influenceof personal prejudice growing stronger with age. Jaramillo had lessoccasion to fall into error resulting from such weakness, but he is muchless detailed than Castañeda. We might compare the two narrations bystating that that of Jaramillo embodies the reminiscences of one whostood officially on a higher plane and viewed his subject from a moregeneral standpoint, whereas Castañeda saw more of the inferior detailsbut was more susceptible of confounding, hence to misstate, the mass ofdata which his memory retained. Both reports will always remain thechief sources on the subject of which they treat, subject of course toclose comparison and checking with correlated sources, archaeological, ethnological, and geographical investigation, and Indian tradition. 

Before proceeding further in the discussion of the documents it must bestated that all references to distances in leagues must be taken withmany allowances. According to Las Casas there were in use among theSpaniards in the sixteenth century, two kinds of leagues: the maritimeleague (_legua maritima_) and the terrestrial league (_leguaterrestre_). The former, established by Alfonso XI in the twelfthcentury, consisted of four miles (_millas_) of four thousand paces, eachpace being equal to three Castilian feet. The length of the Castilianfoot at that time cannot be established with absolute minuteness. Theterrestrial league consisted of three thousand paces each, so that whileit contained nine thousand Castilian feet, the maritime league wascomposed of twelve thousand. The latter was used for distances at seaand occasionally also for distances on land, therefore where anindication of the league employed is not positively given, a computationof distances with even approximate accuracy is of course impossible. 

The result of Coronado's failure was so discouraging, and the reports onthe country had been so unfavorable that for nearly forty years nofurther attempt was made to reach the North from New Spain. In factCoronado and his achievements had become practically forgotten, and onlywhen the southern part of the present state of Chihuahua in Mexicobecame the object of Spanish enterprise for mining purposes wasattention again drawn to New Mexico, when the Church opened the waythither from the direction of the Atlantic slope. This naturally led theexplorers first to the Rio Grande Pueblos. 

The brief report of the eight companions of Francisco Sanchez Chamuscadowho in 1580 accompanied the Franciscan missionaries as far asBernalillo, the site of which was then occupied by Tigua villages, andwho went thence as far as Zuñi, is important, although it presentsmerely the sketch of a rather hasty reconnoissance. Following, as theSpaniards did, the course of the Rio Grande from the south, they fixed, at least approximately, the limit of the Pueblo region in thatdirection. Some of the names of Pueblos preserved in the document arevaluable in so far as they inform us of the designations of villages ina language that was not the idiom of their inhabitants. Chamuscadohaving died on the return journey, the document is not signed by him, but by his men. The document had been lost sight of until I calledattention to it nearly thirty years ago, the subsequent exploration byAntonio de Espejo having monopolized the attention of those interestedin the early exploration of New Mexico. 

The report of Antonio de Espejo on his long and thorough reconnoissancein 1582-1583 attracted so much attention that for a time and in somecircles his expedition was looked upon as resulting in the originaldiscovery of New Mexico. This name was also given by Espejo to thecountry, and it thereafter remained. While the documents relating toCoronado slumbered unnoticed and almost forgotten, the report of Espejowas published within less than three years after it had been written. Itmust be stated here that there are two manuscripts of the report ofEspejo, one dated 1583 and bearing his autograph signature and official(notarial) certificates, the other in 1584 which is a distorted copy ofthe original and with so many errors in names and descriptions that, asthe late Woodbury Lowery very justly observed, it is little else thanspurious. I had already called attention to the unreliability of thelatter version, and yet it is the one that alone was consulted for morethan three centuries because it had become accessible throughpublication in the Voiages of Hakluyt, together with an Englishtranslation even more faulty, if possible, than its Spanish original. The authentic document, with several others relating to Espejo's briefcareer, was not published in full until 1871, and even then attractedlittle attention because it was not translated and because the_Coleccion de Documentos del Archivo de Indias_ is not accessible toevery one. But the publication of 1871 was by no means the first printedversion of Espejo's relations. Even prior to 1586 a somewhat condensednarration of his exploration had been published, being embodied in the_History of China_ by Father Gonzalez Mendoza. This account is based onthe authentic report in some of the various editions, on the spuriousdocument in others. The book of Father Mendoza was soon translated intoFrench. It is not surprising that Espejo's narrative should appear firstin print in a work on the Chinese Empire by a Franciscan missionary. That ecclesiastic was impressed by some of Espejo's observations onPueblo customs which he thought resembled those of the Chinese. Thediscoveries of Espejo were then the most recent ones that had been madeby Spaniards, and as New Mexico was fancied to lie nearer the Pacificthan it really does, and facing the eastern coast of China, a lurkingdesire to find a possible connection between the inhabitants of bothcontinents on that side is readily explicable. But Father Mendoza hadstill another motive. The three monks which Chamuscado had left in NewMexico had sacrificed their lives in an attempt to convert the natives. They were martyrs of their faith, hence glories of their order, and theFranciscan author could not refrain from commemorating their deeds andtheir faith. The spurious text was not taken from Mendoza, butmanifestly was copied from the transcript by a bungling scribeimperfectly acquainted with the Spanish tongue. 

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

During the comparatively short time which Espejo had to explore thecountry as far as the Hopi or Moqui, he collected interestingethnological data. Customs that appeared new as late as the second halfof the last century were noted by him; and while his nomenclature of thePueblos agrees in many points with that of the Coronado expedition, terms were added that have since been definitely adopted. Espejo'sreturn to Mexico was to be followed by a definite occupancy of the RioGrande country, but his untimely death prevented it, and the subsequentplan of colonization, framed and proposed by Juan Bautista de LomasColmenares, led to no practical results, as likewise did the ill-fatedexpedition of Humaña, Bonilla, and Leyva, the disastrous end of which inthe plains became known only through a few vestiges of information andby hearsay. 

Seven years after Espejo's journey, Gaspar Castaño de Sosa penetratedto the Rio Grande near the present village of Santo Domingo. The reportthereon is explicit and sober, and in it we find the first mention ofthe Spanish names by which some of the Pueblos have since become known. From this report it is easy to follow the route taken by Castaño and hisfollowers, but the account is incomplete, terminating abruptly at SantoDomingo, whither Castaño had been followed by Captain Juan de Morlete, who was sent after him by the governor of what is now Coahuila, withoutwhose permission Castaño had undertaken the journey. I have no knowledgeas yet of any document giving an account of the return of theexpedition. 

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

The very wise and detailed ordinances regulating the discovery andannexation to Spain of new territory, promulgated by Philip II, declaredthat every exploration or conquest (the term "conquest" was subsequentlyeliminated from Spanish official terminology and that of "pacification"substituted) should be recorded as a journal or diary. Royal decreesoperated very slowly in distant colonies. Neither Chamuscado nor Espejokept journals, but Castaño de Sosa, and especially Oñate, did. His_diario_ (which is accessible through its publication in the _Documentosdel Archivo de Indias_, although there are traces of an earlierpublication) was copied for printing by someone manifestly unacquaintedwith New Mexico or with its Indian nomenclature, hence its numerousnames for sites and tribes are often very difficult to identify. But thedocument itself is a sober, matter-of-fact record of occurrences andgeographical details, interspersed with observations of more or lessethnological value. As Oñate followed the course of the Rio Grandeupward from below El Paso del Norte, and afterward branched off toalmost every sedentary settlement in New Mexico and Arizona, thecomparison of his diary with previous reports (those of the Coronadoexpedition included) is highly valuable, indeed indispensable. The_diario_ forms the beginning of accurate knowledge of the region underconsideration. Perhaps more important still are the Acts of Obedienceand Homage (_Obediencia y Vasallaje_) executed at various villagesduring the course of the years 1598 and 1599. At first sight, and to oneunacquainted with Pueblo idioms, they present an unintelligible list ofpartly recognizable names. But the confusion becomes somewhat reducedthrough closer scrutiny and by taking into consideration thecircumstances under which each official document was framed. Oñatealready enjoyed the advantage of interpreters in at least one NewMexican Indian tongue, but the meetings or councils during which the"acts of obedience" were written were not always at places where hisinterpreters understood the language of the people they were among. These scribes faithfully recorded the names of pueblos as they heardthem, and sometimes several names, each in a different language for thesame village, hence the number of pueblos recorded is considerablylarger than it actually was. Again the inevitable misunderstanding ofIndian pronunciation by the Spaniards caused them to write the same wordin different forms according as the sounds were uttered and caught bythe ear. An accurate copy of these documents of Oñate's time made by oneversed in Pueblo nomenclature and somewhat acquainted with Pueblolanguages would be highly desirable. Oñate is not given to fulness inethnological details. His journal is a dry record of what happenedduring his march and occupancy of the country. Customs are onlyincidentally and briefly alluded to. 

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

The minor documents connected with Oñate's enterprise and subsequentadministration of the New Mexican colony, so far as known, are ofcomparatively small importance to the history of the Rio Grande Pueblos. During the first years of the seventeenth century the attention of Oñatewas directed chiefly toward explorations in western Arizona and the Gulfof California. While he was absent on his memorable journey, quarrelsarose in New Mexico between the temporal and ecclesiastical authorities, which disturbed the colony for many years and form the main theme of thedocumentary material still accessible. Even the manuscripts relating tothese troubles contain, here and there, references to the ethnologicalcondition of the Pueblos. Charges and counter-charges of abusescommitted by church and state could not fail to involve, incidentally, the points touching upon the Indians, and the documentary material ofthat period, still in manuscript but accessible through the copies madeby me and now in the Peabody Museum of Harvard University, should not beneglected by serious investigators. To enter into details regarding thetenor of these documents would be beyond the scope of this Introduction, but I would call attention in a general way to the value and importanceof church records, which consist chiefly of registers of baptisms, marriages, and deaths. These for the greater part were kept withconsiderable scrupulosity, although there are periods during which thesame degree of care was not exercised. They are valuable ethnologicallyby reason of the data which they afford with respect to intermarriagesbetween members of distant tribes, through the numerous Indian personalnames that they contain, and on account of the many records of eventswhich the priests deemed it desirable to preserve. Examples will begiven in the text of the Documentary History to follow. 

The _Libros de Fabrica_, in which are recorded items bearing on theeconomic side of church administration, are usually less important;still they contain data that should not be neglected, for very oftenminor points deserve as much attention as salient ones. Unfortunatelythe church records of the period prior to 1680 have well-nighdisappeared from New Mexico, but some still exist at El Paso del Norte(Juarez), Chihuahua, that date back to the middle of the seventeenthcentury. The absence of these records may be somewhat overcome byanother class of ecclesiastical documents, much more numerous and morelaborious to consult. In fact I am the only one who thus far hasattempted to penetrate the mass of material which they contain, althoughmy researches have been far from exhaustive, owing to lack of support inmy work. These documents, commonly called "Diligencias Matrimoniales, "are the results of official investigations into the status of personsdesiring to marry. From their nature these investigations always cover aconsiderable period, sometimes more than a generation, and frequentlydisclose historical facts that otherwise might remain unknown. Thesechurch papers also, though not frequently, include fragments ofcorrespondence and copies of edicts and decrees that deserve attention. 

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

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

Of greater importance are the notices, of about the same period, preserved by Fray Juan de Torquemada in the first volume of his_Monarchia Indiana_ (1615). In this work we find the first mention ofsome Pueblo fetishes, with their names, as understood at the time. Theletter of Fray Francisco de San Miguel, first priest of Pecos, given inprint by Torquemada, is of considerable interest. Torquemada himself wasnever in New Mexico, but he stood high in the Franciscan Order and hadfull access to the correspondence and to all other papers submitted fromoutside missions during his time. It is much to be regretted that thethree manuscript pamphlets by Fray Roque Figueredo, bearing the titles_Relacion del Viage al Nuevo México_, _Libro de las Fundaciones delNuevo Mexico_, and _Vidas de los Varones Ilustres_, etc. , appear to belost. Their author was first in New Mexico while Oñate governed thatprovince, and his writings were at the great convent of Mexico. Whetherthey disappeared during the ruthless dispersion of its archives in 1857or were lost at an earlier date is not known. 

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

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

We come now to a book which, though small in compass, has had perhapsgreater circulation in languages other than Spanish, with the exceptionof the _Destruycion de las Indias_ by the notorious Las Casas, than anyother. This is the work of Fray Alonso de Benavides, on New Mexico, first published in 1630 under the misleading title of _Memorial que FrayJuan de Santander de la Orden de San Francisco, Comisario General deIndias, presenta a la Magestad Catolica del Rey don Felipe cuartonuestro Señor_, etc. , Madrid, 1630. Benavides was custodian of theFranciscan province of New Mexico for some time, and therefore had goodopportunity of knowing both the country and its natives. He gives a veryprecise and clear enumeration of the groups of Pueblo Indians, locatingthem where they had been found by Coronado ninety years before andadding those which the latter had not visited, as well as giving thenumber of villages of each group and the approximate number of peopletherein contained. No writer on New Mexico up to this time had givensuch a clear idea of its ethnography, so far as the location and thedistribution of the stocks are concerned. While somewhat brief onmanners and customs, Benavides is fuller and more explicit than any ofhis predecessors, and informs us of features of importance which noother author in earlier times mentioned. In short, his book is morevaluable for New Mexican ethnography than any other thus far known, andit is not a matter of surprise, therefore, that it was translated intoseveral European languages. That the Rio Grande Pueblos receive anabundant share of attention from Benavides is natural. We also obtainfrom him some data, not elsewhere found, concerning the establishmentand fate of the missions, and the true relations of the Spaniards andthe natives are particularly well portrayed. Both the Apaches and theNavajos also receive some attention, Benavides giving, among others, thetrue reason for the hostility which the Apaches displayed since thattime against the Spanish settlements. It is a book without which thestudy of the Pueblo Indians could not be satisfactory. 

Where there is strong light there must of necessity be some shadow. Inthe case of Benavides the shadow is found in the exaggerated number ofinhabitants attributed to the New Mexican Pueblos, exaggerations asgross and as glaring as those of Espejo. The number of villages of someof the Pueblo groups is also somewhat suspicious. It is not difficult toexplain these probably intentional deviations from the truth in anotherwise sincere and highly valuable work. As already indicated, thepublications emanating from the Franciscan Order, which exclusivelycontrolled the New Mexican missions, had a special purpose distinct fromthat of mere information: they were designed to promote a propaganda notsimply for the conversion of the Indians in general, but especially forthe conversions made or to be made by the Order. New Mexico was in astate of neglect, spiritually and politically; the political authoritieshad been denouncing the Franciscans in every possible way, and there wasdanger, if this critical condition continued, that the Order might loseits hold upon the northern territories and its mission be turned over tothe Jesuits, who were then successfully at work in the Mexican northwestand approaching New Mexico from that direction. To prevent such a lossit was deemed necessary to present to the faithful as alluring a pictureof the field as possible, exploiting the large number of neophytes as aresult already accomplished and hinting at many more as subjects forconversion. Hence the exaggerated number of Indians in generalattributed by Benavides to what then comprised the religious province ofNew Mexico. In this respect, and in this alone, the _Memorial_ ofBenavides may be regarded as a "campaign document, " but this does notimpair its general value and degree of reliability. 

For the period between 1630 and the uprising of 1680 there is a lack ofprinted documents concerning New Mexico that is poorly compensated bythe known manuscripts which I have already mentioned as existing in NewMexico and Mexico. Still there appeared in 1654 a little book by JuanDiez de la Calle, entitled _Memorial y Resúmen breve de Noticias de lasIndias Occidentales_, in which the disturbances that culminated in theassassination of Governor Luis de Rosas in 1642 are alluded to. Thenational archives at the City of Mexico contain a still fuller report ofthat event, in a royal decree of 1643 and other papers concerning thedeed, all of which are yet unpublished. The archives of Spain have asyet been only meagerly investigated. The publication of the report ofFather Nicolas de Freytas, Portuguese, on the expedition attributed toDiego de Peñalosa Brizeño into what is now Kansas or Nebraska, is of noimportance in the study of the Rio Grande Pueblos. The authenticity ofthe document has been strongly doubted, though probably without justcause. Equally unimportant to the subject of the Documentary History tofollow is the letter of Captain Juan Dominguez de Mendoza, published inthe appendix to the criticism of Cesareo Fernandez Duro on the report ofFather Freytas. The otherwise very interesting letter on New Mexico, written by Fray Alonso de Posadas, also printed in the work of Duro, ismeager in its allusions to the Rio Grande. 

Sixty-eight years after Benavides' time the _Teatro Mexicano_ of theFranciscan Fray Agustin de Vetancurt was published. The third and fourthparts of this important work, namely, the _Cronica de la Provincia delSanto Evangelio de Mexico_ and the _Menologio Franciscano_, are of thehighest value to the history of the Rio Grande Pueblos and of New Mexicogenerally. Although printed eighteen years after the New Mexicanmissions had been destroyed by the Pueblo Indians, the _Cronica_contains a terse description of the missions and Indian villages as theyhad been previous to 1680, and gives data in regard to the populationthat are commendable in their sobriety and probability. The work ofVetancurt is in this respect a great improvement upon Benavides, and itis interesting to note how his approximate census approaches the figuresgiven by Zárate Salmerón seventy years before. Vetancurt had at hisdisposal much more precise data than Benavides. During the sevendecades separating the three authors much information had beenaccumulated, and with greater chances of accuracy than before. Vetancurtmade good use of this accumulation of material, and his books are infact the most reliable sources from which to ascertain the status of thePueblos at the time the insurrection commenced. The historical datagiven by Vetancurt in regard to New Mexico during earlier times are notof great value, but the _Menologio_, as well as the _Cronica_, containsa number of details on the missions and on the lives and achievements ofthe missionaries that become important to an understanding of the Indianhimself. That such references are overburdened with details of a purelyreligious character does not at all impair their ethnologic value: theyare pictures of the times according to the nature of which circumstancesand events can alone be judged properly. 

We have now arrived at a period marking a great temporary change in thecondition of all the Pueblo Indians, and of those of the Rio Grandeespecially. This is the insurrection, successful for a time, of thePueblos in 1680, against the Spanish domination. The material on thiseventful epoch is still largely in manuscript, the nearest approach to adocumentary presentation in full being the incomplete paraphrasefurnished by W. W. H. Davis in his _Spanish Conquest of New Mexico_, published in 1869. No blame should be attached to the author for theinsufficiency of his data. He made the best possible use of hismaterials with the help of my late friends David Miller and SamuelEllison of Santa Fé, but the archives of Santa Fé had already beendepleted through neglect and criminal waste, and what was and is left(as I know from having handled it frequently and thoroughly) is a massof fragments, sometimes long, sometimes short, often disconnected andtherefore unsatisfactory. I shall refer to this material later. Of themanuscript materials preceding and foreshadowing the insurrection, animportant letter by the Franciscan Fray Francisco de Ayeta, a copy ofwhich is in the national archives of Mexico, deserves to be speciallymentioned. To this indefatigable monk, whose timely warnings were toolightly regarded by the Spanish authorities, are also due the dataconcerning the lives and the awful fate of the Franciscan priests atthe hands of the Pueblo Indians on August 10, 1680. The original ofthis tragic list is in manuscript in the national archives of Mexico, where Vetancurt made use of it in his _Teatro_. The memorial sermonpreached and published in Mexico in 1681 (a copy of which exceedinglyrare print was procured by my friend the Honorable L. Bradford Prince ofSanta Fé) rests for its information upon the obituaries preserved byFather Ayeta. That these obituaries are of direct value to the historyof the Rio Grande Pueblos is apparent. 

The sermon alluded to is the earliest print, so far as known, concerningthe great Indian uprising of 1680. Next in date comes a publicationtouching the various attempts made by the Spaniards to reconquer NewMexico prior to 1693. In that year Carlos de Sigüenza y Gongorapublished in the City of Mexico a kind of irregular newspaper bearingthe title _El Mercurio Volante_, in which appears a concise andtolerably reliable sketch of the insurrection and the various attemptsto reconquer the territory, including the successful one in 1692 byDiego de Vargas. Sigüenza is brief, but reasonably accurate. Part of thedocuments concerning the Indian uprising were published in thenineteenth century in the Third Series of the _Colección de Documentospara la Historia de Mexico_, but no complete print of the voluminouspapers concerning those events has yet appeared, and indeed the mostimportant documents still remain in manuscript. In 1701 Villagutierre ySotomayor published his voluminous _Historia de la ConquistayReducciones de los Itzaes y Lacandones en la America Septentrional_, inwhich appears a brief description of the Indian uprising in New Mexico. His data are of course gathered at second hand, although fromcontemporary sources. 

I know of no other publications concerning the Indian uprising, so oftenmentioned, between the close of the seventeenth century and thebeginning of the eighteenth. The manuscript material, which has beenmuch scattered, may be divided locally into three groups. The one, originally at Santa Fé, New Mexico, is now in the Library of Congress atWashington; it had been much neglected, hence for the greater partseriously reduced, in former times, but it still contains most valuableinformation on the condition of the Rio Grande Pueblos immediately afterthe uprising and during the time the Pueblos were left to themselves, attempting to return to their primitive condition. This information, embodied in interrogatories of Indians subsequent to 1680, I made thesubject of a closing chapter to my _Documentary History of the ZuñiTribe_, but it was withheld from publication for some cause unknown tome. The military reports on the expeditions of Diego de Vargas and thefinal reconquest of New Mexico are reduced to disconnected but stillbulky fragments. Almost unique of their kind are the so-called "Pueblogrants" emanating from Governor Domingo Gironza Petros de Cruzate in1688. The term "grant" is a misnomer, since it refers in fact to alimitation to the innate tendency of the Indians to arbitrarily expandtheir tribal range. These documents have become the legal basis oflandholding by the Pueblos and the first step toward eventual singletenure. 

The second group of manuscripts, in the national archives in the City ofMexico, is more complete than the first. It contains information on thebeginnings of the rebellion and on later events that are of greatimportance. 

The third group, and by far the most complete, is in Spain, but inregard to it I am unable to give any precise information, since everyopportunity of completing my investigations concerning the Southwest bystudying the Spanish archives, notwithstanding repeated promises, hasbeen withheld. 

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

A brief but important contribution to the history of New Mexico is theletter of Fray Silvestre Velez de Escalante, published in the ThirdSeries of the _Documentos para la Historia de Mexico_. About the sametime, in the second half of the eighteenth century, the Brigadier JoséCortés wrote an extended report on the territory, but it concerns morethe relations with the constantly hostile roaming tribes than thecondition of the Pueblos. It also is printed in the _Documentos_. 

The otherwise very important diary of the journey of Fray FranciscoGarcés to northern Arizona, published first in the above-mentioned_Colección de Documentos_, and more recently (with highly valuablenotes) by the late Dr Elliott Coues, touches only incidentally on theRio Grande region. In 1746 Joseph Antonio de Villa-Señor y Sanchezembodied in his _Theatro Americano_ a description of New Mexico, condensed chiefly from the journal of the Brigadier Rivera, mentionedabove. The _Diccionario Geografico_ by Murillo is also a source thatshould not be neglected. 

A great amount of documentary manuscript material, mostly of a localcharacter, is contained in the church books of the eighteenth centuryformerly at the pueblo of Santa Clara and now preserved at Santa Féthrough the efforts of the late Archbishop J. B. Salpointe. There arealso the "Informaciones Matrimoniales, " which contain data of greatimportance. Through them we are informed of the tragic fate of the lastexpedition of the Spaniards to the northwest, with its horrifyingincidents. The story of woe and disaster that pictures the life of theIndian Pueblos and Spanish settlers during the eighteenth century iscontained in fragments in the plain, matter-of-fact church registers, and it requires painstaking investigation to collect it. The greatestpart of this information concerns the Rio Grande Pueblos. A carefulinvestigation of the matrimonial and baptismal registers will yield dataconcerning the clans and indications of the primitive rules of marriage, while the "Libros de Fabrica" contain interesting data on the churchesof the Rio Grande valley. Great labor and the utmost scrutiny arerequired in sifting these time-worn papers for desirable data, andespecially is a considerable knowledge of conditions and eventsnecessary; but the result of thorough investigation, especially throughliteral copying by the student, will amply repay the time and laborbestowed. 

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

Before closing this bibliographic sketch with a glance at the earliestliterature of the nineteenth century, I must mention two ponderous booksof the eighteenth century which, while based on second-hand informationand not very valuable in detail, refer occasionally to facts and datanot elsewhere found. These are the two volumes of the _CrónicaApostólica y Seráfica de la Propaganda Fide de Querétaro_. The firstvolume, written by Fray Isidro Felis Espinosa and published in 1746, isinteresting especially on account of its reference to the fate of thefirst Frenchmen brought into New Mexico, and one of whom, Juan deArchibèque, played an important rôle in the first two decades of theeighteenth century. The second volume, the author of which was FrayDomingo de Arricivita, was published in 1792, and is the chief sourceconcerning the still problematical expedition to the north attributed totwo Franciscan friars in 1538. Both of these works are of relativelyminor importance, and I mention them here only for the sake ofcompleteness and in order to warn against attaching undue importance tothem so far as the Pueblos are concerned. 

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

Perhaps the last book published on New Mexico in the Spanish language isthe little book of Pino, which, however, has little more than abibliographic value except in so far as it touches the condition of NewMexico at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The documents in theNew Mexican and Mexican archives up to the date of the Americanoccupancy present features similar to those that characterize theSpanish documents of the eighteenth century. It would be too tedious torefer to them in detail, and I therefore dismiss them for the presentwith this brief mention. If I do not mention here the literature on NewMexico in the English language it is not due to carelessness or toignorance of it, but because of its much greater wealth in number andcontents, its more ready accessibility, and because in mattersrespecting the history of early times the authors of these works haveall been obliged to glean their information from at least some of thesources that I have above enumerated and discussed. 

It may surprise students of New Mexican history that I have thus faromitted the very earliest sources in print in which New Mexico ismentioned, namely, the work of Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo y Valdés, andthat of Gomara. The former was published in part in the first half ofthe sixteenth century, the entire work appearing at Madrid not earlierthan 1850 and 1851. Its title, as is well known, is _Historia General yNatural de las Indias_. The work of Francisco Lopez de Gomara bears thetitle _Historia de las Indias_, and is in two parts. Gomara is moreexplicit than Oviedo, who gives only a brief and preliminary mention;but even Gomara, while more detailed, and basing his work evidently onthe earliest data then accessible in regard to the expedition ofCoronado, cannot be compared with the later reports of those attached tothe expedition. The value of these books is comparatively slight, so faras New Mexico is concerned. Much more important is the _HistoriaGeneral_, etc. , by Antonio de Herrera (1601-1615). What authoritiesHerrera had at his command cannot be readily determined. He may have hadaccess to the report of Jaramillo, and he was certainly acquainted withthe letters of Coronado. Perhaps the letter of Coronado which I have asyet been unable to find was consulted by him. In any event Herrera'sinformation is all second-hand, and while by no means devoid of merit, his work cannot rank with sources written by men who saw the country andtook part in the events of the earliest explorations. The mapaccompanying the first volume of Herrera, while scarcely more than anoutline, is still in advance of the charts published during thesixteenth century. 

Here I may be permitted to refer to the older cartography of New Mexicoin general. Until the beginning of the seventeenth century these mapsare very defective and incomplete. It is almost as if the Ptolemy of1548 had served as a basis for them. Even the large and beautiful globeconstructed at St. Gall in Switzerland in 1595, and now in the SwissNational Museum at Zürich, places Tiguex near the Pacific coast. It isthrough the work of Benavides that more correct ideas of New Mexicangeography were gained and a somewhat more accurate and detailednomenclature was introduced, since the _Geografie Blaviane_ of 1667 bythe Dutch cartographer Jean Blaeuw contains a map of the region farsuperior to any hitherto published. The number of early maps of NewMexico is larger than is generally supposed, and there are to-dayunpublished maps (for instance in the National Archives of Mexico forthe eighteenth century) that indicate, as existing, Indian pueblos andmissions that were abandoned nearly a century before the maps were made. 

I must state that in this Introduction I have abbreviated as much aspracticable the titles of books and manuscripts. These are often verylong, and it is unnecessary to burden the present text with them, as Ishall have to give the full titles in the notes to the DocumentaryHistory proper. 

It may not be out of place to add to the above a brief review of thedistribution and location of the various Pueblo groups at the beginningof the sixteenth century, but strictly according to documentaryinformation alone. The location of different villages must be reservedfor later treatment, hence as the ranges of the various linguisticgroups had no definite boundaries, only the relative position andapproximate extent can be given here. 

Following the course of the Rio Grande to the north from northernChihuahua, the Mansos were first met, in the vicinity of the presentJuarez, Mexico. This was in 1598. Nearly one hundred and forty yearslater Brigadier Don Pedro de Rivera met them farther north, not farfrom Las Cruces and Doña Ana, New Mexico. To-day they are again at ElPaso del Norte. About San Marcial on the Rio Grande began the villagesof the Piros, at present reduced to one small village on the right bankof the Rio Grande below El Paso. The Piros extended in the sixteenthcentury as far north in the Rio Grande valley as Alamillo at least, anda branch of them had established themselves on the borders of the greateastern plains of New Mexico, southeast of the Manzano. That branch, which has left well-known ruins at Abó, Gran Quivira (Tabirá), and othersites in the vicinity, abandoned its home in the seventeenth century, forming the Piro settlement below El Paso, already mentioned. North ofthe Piros, between a line drawn south of Isleta and the Mesa delCanjelon, the Tiguas occupied a number of villages, mostly on thewestern bank of the river, and a few Tigua settlements existed also onthe margin of the eastern plains beyond the Sierra del Manzano. Theseoutlying Tigua settlements also were abandoned in the seventeenthcentury, their inhabitants fleeing from the Apaches and retiring to formthe Pueblo of Isleta del Sur on the left bank of the Rio Grande inTexas. 

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

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

The main interest in this distribution of the Rio Grande Pueblos lies inthe fact that it establishes a disruption and division of some of thesegroups prior to the sixteenth century, but of the cause and the mannerthereof there is as yet no documentary information. Thus the TiguaIndians of Taos and Picuris are separated from their southern relativeson the Rio Grande by two distinct linguistic groups, the Tehuas and theQueres; the Jemez and the Pecos were divided from each other by theQueres and the Tanos. That the Piros and the Tiguas should haveseparated from the main stock might be accounted for by the attractionof the great salt deposits about the Manzano and greater accessibilityto the buffalo plains, but that in the Rio Grande valley itself foreignlinguistic groups should have interposed themselves between the northernand southern Tiguas and the Jemez and Pecos constitutes a problem whichonly diligent research in traditions, legends, and the native languagesmay satisfactorily solve. 

 NEW YORK CITY, March, 1910. 

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Transcriber's Note. 

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

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