The Spanish Pioneers Part 5

While they were still on the Isle of Misfortune, a proposition had been made which seemed the height of the ridiculous. "In that isle," says Vaca, "they wished to make us doctors, without examining us or asking our t.i.tles; for they themselves cure sickness by blowing upon the sick one. With that blowing, and with their hands, they remove from him the disease; and they bade us do the same, so as to be of some use to them.

We laughed at this, saying that they were making fun, and that we knew not how to heal; and for that they took away our food, till we should do that which they said. And seeing our stubbornness, an Indian said to me that I did not understand; for that it did no good for one to know how, because the very stones and other things of the field have power to heal,... and that we, who were men, must certainly have greater power."

This was a characteristic thing which the old Indian said, and a key to the remarkable superst.i.tions of his race. But the Spaniards, of course, could not yet understand.

Presently the savages removed to the mainland. They were always in abject poverty, and many of them perished from starvation and from the exposures incident to their wretched existence. For three months in the year they had "nothing but sh.e.l.l-fish and very bad water;" and at other times only poor berries and the like; and their year was a series of wanderings. .h.i.ther and thither in quest of these scant and unsatisfactory foods.

It was an important fact that Vaca was utterly useless to the Indians.

He could not serve them as a warrior; for in his wasted condition the bow was more than he could master. As a hunter he was equally unavailable; for, as he himself says, "it was impossible for him to trail animals." a.s.sistance in carrying water or fuel or anything of the sort was impossible; for he was a man, and his Indian masters could not let a man do woman's work. So, among these starveling nomads, this man who could not help but must be fed was a real burden; and the only wonder is that they did not kill him.

Under these circ.u.mstances, Vaca began to wander about. His indifferent captors paid little attention to his movements, and by degrees he got to making long trips north, and up and down the coast. In time he began to see a chance for trading, in which the Indians encouraged him, glad to find their "white elephant" of some use at last. From the northern tribes he brought down skins and _almagre_ (the red clay so indispensable to the savages for face-paint), flakes of flint to make arrow-heads, hard reeds for the shafts, and ta.s.sels of deer-hair dyed red. These things he readily exchanged among the coast tribes for sh.e.l.ls and sh.e.l.l-beads, and the like,--which, in turn, were in demand among his northern customers.

On account of their constant wars, the Indians could net venture outside their own range; so this safe go-between trader was a convenience which they encouraged. So far as he was concerned, though the life was still one of great suffering, he was constantly gaining knowledge which would be useful to him in his never-forgotten plan of getting back to the world. These lonely trading expeditions of his covered thousands of miles on foot through the trackless wildernesses; and through them his aggregate wanderings were much greater than those of either of his fellow-prisoners.

It was during these long and awful tramps that Cabeza de Vaca had one particularly interesting experience. He was the first European who saw the great American bison, the buffalo, which has become practically extinct in the last decade, but once roamed the plains in vast hordes,--and first by many years. He saw them and ate their meat in the Red River country of Texas, and has left us a description of the "hunchback cows." None of his companions ever saw one, for in their subsequent journey together the four Spaniards pa.s.sed south of the buffalo-country.

Meanwhile, as I have noted, the forlorn and naked trader had had the duties of a doctor forced upon him. He did not understand what this involuntary profession might do for him,--he was simply pushed into it at first, and followed it not from choice, but to keep from having trouble. He was "good for nothing but to be a medicine-man." He had learned the peculiar treatment of the aboriginal wizards, though not their fundamental ideas. The Indians still look upon sickness as a "being possessed;" and their idea of doctoring is not so much to cure disease, as to exorcise the bad spirits which cause it.

This is done by a sleight-of-hand rigmarole, even to this day. The medicine-man would suck the sore spot, and pretend thus to extract a stone or thorn which was supposed to have been the cause of trouble; and the patient was "cured." Cabeza de Vaca began to "practise medicine"

after the Indian fashion. He says himself, "I have tried these things, and they were very successful."

When the four wanderers at last came together after their long separation,--in which all had suffered untold horrors,--Vaca had then, though still indefinitely, the key of hope. Their first plan was to escape from their present captors. It took ten months to effect it, and meantime their distress was great, as it had been constantly for so many years. At times they lived on a daily ration of two handfuls of wild peas and a little water. Vaca relates what a G.o.dsend it seemed when he was allowed to sc.r.a.pe hides for the Indians; he carefully saved the sc.r.a.pings, which served him as food for days. They had no clothing, and there was no shelter; and constant exposure to heat and cold and the myriad thorns of that country caused them to "shed their skin like snakes."

At last, in August, 1535, the four sufferers escaped to a tribe called the Avavares. But now a new career began to open to them. That his companions might not be as useless as he had been, Cabeza de Vaca had instructed them in the "arts" of Indian medicine-men; and all four began to put their new and strange profession into practice. To the ordinary Indian charms and incantations these humble Christians added fervent prayers to the true G.o.d. It was a sort of sixteenth-century "faith-cure;" and naturally enough, among such superst.i.tious patients it was very effective. Their mult.i.tudinous cures the amateur but sincere doctors, with touching humility, attributed entirely to G.o.d; but what great results these might have upon their own fortunes now began to dawn upon them. From wandering, naked, starving, despised beggars, and slaves to brutal savages, they suddenly became personages of note,--still paupers and sufferers, as were all their patients, but paupers of mighty power. There is no fairy tale more romantic than the career thenceforth of these poor, brave men walking painfully across a continent as masters and benefactors of all that host of wild people.

Trudging on from tribe to tribe, painfully and slowly the white medicine-men crossed Texas and came close to our present New Mexico. It has long been reiterated by the closet historians that they entered New Mexico, and got even as far north as where Santa Fe now is. But modern scientific research has absolutely proved that they went on from Texas through Chihuahua and Sonora, and never saw an inch of New Mexico.

With each new tribe the Spaniards paused awhile to heal the sick.

Everywhere they were treated with the greatest kindness their poor hosts could give, and with religious awe. Their progress is a very valuable object-lesson, showing just how some Indian myths are formed: first, the successful medicine-man, who at his death or departure is remembered as a hero, then as a demiG.o.d, then as divinity.

In the Mexican States they first found agricultural Indians, who dwelt in houses of sod and boughs, and had beans and pumpkins. These were the Jovas, a branch of the Pimas. Of the scores of tribes they had pa.s.sed through in our present Southern States not one has been fully identified. They were poor, wandering creatures, and long ago disappeared from the earth. But in the Sierra Madre of Mexico they found superior Indians, whom we can recognize still. Here they found the men unclad, but the women "very honest in their dress,"--with cotton tunics of their own weaving, with half-sleeves, and a skirt to the knee; and over it a skirt of dressed deerskin reaching to the ground, and fastened in front with straps. They washed their clothing with a soapy root,--the _amole_, now similarly used by Indians and Mexicans throughout the Southwest. These people gave Cabeza de Vaca some turquoise, and five arrow-heads each chipped from a single emerald.

In this village in southwestern Sonora the Spaniards stayed three days, living on split deer-hearts; whence they named it the "Town of Hearts."

A day's march beyond they met an Indian wearing upon his necklace the buckle of a sword-belt and a horseshoe nail; and their hearts beat high at this first sign, in all their eight years' wandering, of the nearness of Europeans. The Indian told them that men with beards like their own had come from the sky and made war upon his people.

The Spaniards were now entering Sinaloa, and found themselves in a fertile land of flowing streams. The Indians were in mortal fear; for two brutes of a cla.s.s who were very rare among the Spanish conquerors (they were, I am glad to say, punished for their violation of the strict laws of Spain) were then trying to catch slaves. The soldiers had just left; but Cabeza de Vaca and Estevanico, with eleven Indians, hurried forward on their trail, and next day overtook four Spaniards, who led them to their rascally captain, Diego de Alcaraz. It was long before that officer could believe the wondrous story told by the naked, torn, s.h.a.ggy, wild man; but at last his coldness was thawed, and he gave a certificate of the date and of the condition in which Vaca had come to him, and then sent back for Dorantes and Castillo. Five days later these arrived, accompanied by several hundred Indians.

Alcaraz and his partner in crime, Cebreros, wished to enslave these aborigines; but Cabeza de Vaca, regardless of his own danger in taking such a stand, indignantly opposed the infamous plan, and finally forced the villains to abandon it. The Indians were saved; and in all their joy at getting back to the world, the Spanish wanderers parted with sincere regret from these simple-hearted friends. After a few days' hard travel they reached the post of Culiacan about the first of May, 1536, where they were warmly welcomed by the ill-fated hero Melchior Diaz. He led one of the earliest expeditions (in 1539) to the unknown north; and in 1540, on a second expedition across part of Arizona and into California, was accidentally killed.

After a short rest the wanderers left for Compostela, then the chief town of the province of New Galicia,--itself a small journey of three hundred miles through a land swarming with hostile savages. At last they reached the City of Mexico in safety, and were received with great honor. But it was long before they could accustom themselves to eating the food and wearing the clothing of civilized people.

The negro remained in Mexico. On the 10th of April, 1537, Cabeza de Vaca, Castillo, and Dorantes sailed for Spain, arriving in August. The chief hero never came back to North America, but we hear of Dorantes as being there in the following year. Their report of what they saw, and of the stranger countries to the north of which they had heard, had already set on foot the remarkable expeditions which resulted in the discovery of Arizona, New Mexico, our Indian Territory, Kansas, and Colorado, and brought about the building of the first European towns in the inland area of the United States. Estevanico was engaged with Fray Marcos in the discovery of New Mexico, and was slain by the Indians.

Cabeza de Vaca, as a reward for his then unparalleled walk of much more than ten thousand miles in the unknown land, was made governor of Paraguay in 1540. He was not qualified for the place, and returned to Spain in disgrace. That he was not to blame, however, but was rather the victim of circ.u.mstances, is indicated by the fact that he was restored to favor and received a pension of two thousand ducats. He died in Seville at a good old age.

FOOTNOTES:

[9] p.r.o.nounced Hay-ress.

II.

THE GREATEST AMERICAN TRAVELLER.

The student most familiar with history finds himself constantly astounded by the journeys of the Spanish Pioneers. If they had done nothing else in the New World, their walks alone were enough to earn them fame. Such a number of similar trips over such a wilderness were never heard of elsewhere. To comprehend those rides or tramps of thousands of miles, by tiny bands or single heroes, one must be familiar with the country traversed, and know something of the times when these exploits were performed. The Spanish chroniclers of the day do not dilate upon the difficulties and dangers: it is almost a pity that they had not been vain enough to "make more" of their obstacles. But however curt the narrative may be on these points, the obstacles were there and had to be overcome; and to this very day, after three centuries and a half have mitigated that wilderness which covered half a world, have tamed its savages, filled it with convenient stations, crossed it with plain roads, and otherwise removed ninety per cent of its terrors, such journeys as were looked upon as everyday matters by those hardy heroes would find few bold enough to undertake them. The only record at all comparable to that Spanish overrunning of the New World was the story of the California Argonauts of '49, who flocked across the great plains in the most remarkable shifting of population of which history knows; but even that was petty, so far as area, hardship, danger, and endurance went, beside the travels of the Pioneers. Thousand-mile marches through the deserts, or the still more fatal tropic forests, were too many to be even catalogued. It is one thing to follow a trail, and quite another to penetrate an absolutely trackless wilderness. A big, well-armed wagon-train is one thing, and a little squad on foot or on jaded horses quite another. A journey from a known point to a known point--both in civilization, though the wilderness lies between--is very different from a journey from somewhere, through the unknown, to nowhere; whose starting, course, and end are all untrodden and unguessed wilds. I have no desire to disparage the heroism of our Argonauts,--they made a record of which any nation should be proud; but they never had a chance to match the deeds of their brother-heroes of another tongue and another age.

The walk of Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, the first American traveller, was surpa.s.sed by the achievement of the poor and forgotten soldier Andres Docampo. Cabeza de Vaca tramped much more than ten thousand miles, but Docampo much over _twenty_ thousand, and under as fearful hardships. The explorations of Vaca were far more valuable to the world; yet neither of them set out with the intention of exploring. But Docampo did make a fearful walk voluntarily, and for a heroic purpose, which resulted in his later enormous achievement; while Vaca's was merely the heroism of a very uncommon man in escaping misfortune. Docampo's tramp lasted nine years; and though he left behind no book to relate his experiences, as did Vaca, the skeleton of his story as it remains to us is extremely characteristic and suggestive of the times, and recounts other heroism than that of the brave soldier.

When Coronado first came to New Mexico in 1540, he brought four missionaries with his little army. Fray Marcos returned soon from Zuni to Mexico, on account of his physical infirmities. Fray Juan de la Cruz entered earnestly into mission-work among the Pueblos; and when Coronado and his whole force abandoned the Territory, he insisted upon remaining behind among his dusky wards at Tiguex (Bernalillo). He was a very old man, and fully expected to give up his life as soon as his countrymen should be gone; and so it was. He was murdered by the Indians about the 25th of November, 1542.

The lay-brother, Fray Luis Descalona, also a very old man, chose for his parish the pueblo of Tshiquite (Pecos), and remained there after the Spaniards had left the country. He built himself a little hut outside the great fortified town of the savages, and there taught those who would listen to him, and tended his little flock of sheep,--the remnants of those Coronado had brought, which were the first that ever entered the present United States. The people came to love him sincerely,--all save the wizards, who hated him for his influence; and these finally murdered him, and ate the sheep.

Fray Juan de Padilla, the youngest of the four missionaries, and the first martyr on the soil of Kansas, was a native of Andalusia, Spain, and a man of great energy both mentally and physically. He himself made no mean record as a foot-traveller, and our professional pedestrians would stand aghast if confronted with the thousands of desert miles this tireless apostle to the Indians plodded in the wild Southwest. He had already held very important positions in Mexico, but gladly gave up his honors to become a poor missionary among the savages of the unknown north. Having walked with Coronado's force from Mexico across the deserts to the Seven Cities of Cibola, Fray Padilla trudged to Moqui with Pedro de Tobar and his squad of twenty men. Then plodding back to Zuni, he soon set forth again with Hernando de Alvarado and twenty men, on a tramp of about a thousand miles more. He was in this expedition with the first Europeans that ever saw the lofty town of Acoma, the Rio Grande within what is now New Mexico, and the great pueblo of Pecos.

In the spring of 1541, when the handful of an army was all gathered at Bernalillo, and Coronado set out to chase the fatal golden myth of the Quivira, Fray Padilla accompanied him. In that march of one hundred and four days across the barren plains before they reached the Quiviras in northeastern Kansas, the explorers suffered tortures for water and sometimes for food. The treacherous guide misled them, and they wandered long in a circle, covering a fearful distance,--probably over fifteen hundred miles. The expedition was mounted, but in those days the humble _padres_ went afoot. Finding only disappointment, the explorers marched all the way back to Bernalillo,--though by a less circuitous route,--and Fray Padilla came with them.

But he had already decided that among these hostile, roving, buffalo-living Sioux and other Indians of the plains should be his field of labor; and when the Spanish evacuated New Mexico, he remained. With him were the soldier Andres Docampo, two young men of Michuacan, Mexico, named Lucas and Sebastian, called the Donados, and a few Mexican Indian boys. In the fall of 1542 the little party left Bernalillo on its thousand-mile march. Andres alone was mounted; the missionary and the Indian boys trudged along the sandy way afoot. They went by way of the pueblo of Pecos, thence into and across a corner of what is now Colorado, and nearly the whole length of the great State of Kansas. At last, after a long and weary tramp, they reached the temporary lodge-villages of the Quivira Indians. Coronado had planted a large cross at one of these villages, and here Fray Padilla established his mission. In time the hostile savages lost their distrust, and "loved him as a father." At last he decided to move on to another nomad tribe, where there seemed greater need of his presence. It was a dangerous step; for not only might the strangers receive him murderously, but there was equal risk in leaving his present flock. The superst.i.tious Indians were loath to lose the presence of such a great medicine-man as they believed the Fray to be, and still more loath to have such a benefit transferred to their enemies,--for all these roving tribes were at war with one another. Nevertheless, Fray Padilla determined to go, and set out with his little retinue. One day's journey from the villages of the Quiviras, they met a band of Indians out on the war-path. Seeing the approach of the savages, the good Father thought first for his companions. Andres still had his horse, and the boys were fleet runners.

"Flee, my children!" cried Fray Padilla. "Save yourselves, for me ye cannot help, and why should all die together? Run!"

They at first refused, but the missionary insisted; and as they were helpless against the savages, they finally obeyed and fled. This may not seem, at first thought, the most heroic thing to do, but an understanding of their time exonerates them. Not only were they humble men used to give the good priests implicit obedience, but there was another and a more potent motive. In those days of earnest faith, martyrdom was looked upon as not only a heroism but a prophecy; it was believed to indicate new triumphs for Christianity, and it was a duty to carry back to the world the news. If they stayed and were slain with him,--as I am sure these faithful followers were not physically afraid to do,--the lesson and glory of his martyrdom would be lost to the world.

Fray Juan knelt on the broad prairie and commended his soul to G.o.d; and even as he prayed, the Indians riddled him with arrows. They dug a pit and cast therein the body of the first Kansas martyr, and piled upon it a great pile of stones. This was in the year 1542.

Andres Docampo and the boys made their escape at the time, but were soon captured by other Indians and kept as slaves for ten months. They were beaten and starved, and obliged to perform the most laborious and menial tasks. At last, after long planning and many unsuccessful attempts, they escaped from their barbarous captors. Then for more than eight years they wandered on foot, unarmed and alone, up and down the thirsty and inhospitable plains, enduring incredible privations and dangers. At last, after those thousands of footsore miles, they walked into the Mexican town of Tampico, on the great Gulf. They were received as those come back from the dead. We lack the details of that grim and matchless walk, but it is historically established. For nine years these poor fellows zigzagged the deserts afoot, beginning in northeastern Kansas and coming out far down in Mexico.

Sebastian died soon after his arrival in the Mexican State of Culiacan; the hardships of the trip had been too much for even his strong young body. His brother Lucas became a missionary among the Indians of Zacatecas, Mexico, and carried on his work among them for many years, dying at last in a ripe old age. As for the brave soldier Docampo, soon after his return to civilization he disappeared from view. Perhaps old Spanish doc.u.ments may yet be discovered which will throw some light on his subsequent life and his fate.

III.

THE WAR OF THE ROCK.

Some of the most characteristic heroisms and hardships of the Pioneers in our domain cl.u.s.ter about the wondrous rock of Acoma, the strange sky-city of the Queres[10] Pueblos. All the Pueblo cities were built in positions which Nature herself had fortified,--a necessity of the times, since they were surrounded by outnumbering hordes of the deadliest warriors in history; but Acoma was most secure of all. In the midst of a long valley, four miles wide, itself lined by almost insurmountable precipices, towers a lofty rock, whose top is about seventy acres in area, and whose walls, three hundred and fifty-seven feet high, are not merely perpendicular, but in most places even overhanging. Upon its summit was perched--and is to-day--the dizzy city of the Queres. The few paths to the top--whereon a misstep will roll the victim to horrible death, hundreds of feet below--are by wild, precipitous clefts, at the head of which one determined man, with no other weapons than stones, could almost hold at bay an army.

This strange aerial town was first heard of by Europeans in 1539, when Fray Marcos, the discoverer of New Mexico, was told by the people of Cibola of the great rock fortress of Hakuque,--their name for Acoma, which the natives themselves called Ah'ko. In the following year Coronado visited it with his little army, and has left us an accurate account of its wonders. These first Europeans were well received there; and the superst.i.tious natives, who had never seen a beard or a white face before, took the strangers for G.o.ds. But it was more than half a century later yet before the Spaniards sought a foothold there.

When Onate entered New Mexico in 1598, he met no immediate resistance whatever; for his force of four hundred people, including two hundred men-at-arms, was large enough to awe the Indians. They were naturally hostile to these invaders of their domain; but finding themselves well treated by the strangers, and fearful of open war against these men with hard clothes, who killed from afar with their thunder-sticks, the Pueblos awaited results. The Queres, Tigua, and Jemez branches formally submitted to Spanish rule, and took the oath of allegiance to the Crown by their representative men gathered at the pueblo of Guipuy (now Santo Domingo); as also did the Tanos, Picuries, Tehuas, and Taos, at a similar conference at the pueblo of San Juan, in September, 1598. At this ready submission Onate was greatly encouraged; and he decided to visit all the princ.i.p.al pueblos in person, to make them securer subjects of his sovereign. He had founded already the first town in New Mexico and the second in the United States,--San Gabriel de los Espanoles, where Chamita stands to-day. Before starting on this perilous journey, he despatched Juan de Zaldivar, his _maestro de campo_,[11]

with fifty men to explore the vast, unknown plains to the east, and then to follow him.