Part 20 (1/2)
New Mexico in 1680.--Meanwhile the Spanish population of the province had slowly increased till in 1680 there were over 2500 settlers in the upper Rio Grande valley, mainly between Isleta and Taos. The upper settlements were known as those of Rio Arriba and the lower as those of Rio Abajo. The settlers were engaged princ.i.p.ally in farming and cattle ranching.
The beginnings of El Paso.--As a result of the northward advance from Nueva Vizcaya and of a counter movement from New Mexico, the intermediate district of El Paso was now colonized. After several unsuccessful attempts, in 1659 missionaries from New Mexico founded the mission of Guadalupe at the ford (El Paso). Before 1680 Mission San Francisco had been founded twelve leagues below, settlers had drifted in, and the place had an _alcalde mayor_. To these small beginnings there was now suddenly added the entire population of New Mexico.
The Pueblo revolt.--The Pueblo Indians, led by their native priests, had long been restless under the burden of tribute and personal service, and the suppression of their native religion. On August 9, 1680, under the leaders.h.i.+p of Pope, a medicine man of San Juan, they revolted in unison, slew four hundred Spaniards, including twenty-one missionaries, and drove the remaining 2200 Spaniards from the Pueblo district. Under Governor Otermin and Lieutenant Garcia the settlers retreated to El Paso. In 1681 Otermin made an attempt to reconquer the Pueblos, but it proved futile and the El Paso settlement was made permanent and attached to New Mexico. To hold the outpost a presidio was established there in 1683.
The La Junta missions and the Mendoza expedition to the Jumanos.--From El Paso missions were extended in 1683 to the La Junta district, as the junction of the Conchos and Rio Grande was called. Within a year seven churches had been built for nine tribes, living on both sides of the Rio Grande. At the same time Juan Dominguez de Mendoza and Fray Nicolas Lopez led an expedition from El Paso to the Jumanos of central Texas, where they were to meet Tejas Indians from the east. On their return Mendoza and Lopez went to Mexico to appeal for a new outpost of settlement among the Jumanos. This would probably have been established had not attention been called to eastern Texas through the activities of the French.
Indian uprisings.--The Pueblo revolt was followed by a general wave of Indian resistance, and the late years of the century were marked by raids all along the northern frontier, from Nuevo Leon to Sonora, in the course of which mines, missions, haciendas, and towns were destroyed, and travelers and merchant caravans raided. To defend the frontier, in 1685 three new presidios were established at Pasage, El Gallo, and Conchos, and two years later one was erected at Monclova. By 1690 two others were added at Casas Grandes and Janos in Chihuahua and shortly afterward (1695) another at Fronteras in Sonora. In 1690 a revolt in the Tarahumara country destroyed settlements in all directions, and was put down only by the efforts of soldiers from all the presidios from El Gallo to Janos.
Vargas and the reconquest of the Pueblos.--After expelling the Spaniards, the Pueblos, under the lead of Pope, returned to their tribal ways, and destroyed most of the signs of the hated Spanish rule. During the next decade and a half several efforts were made to reconquer the Pueblo region. Otermin was succeeded by Cruzate and he by Reneros, who was in turn followed by Cruzate. In 1688 Cruzate led an expedition against the Queres. At Cia six hundred apostates were killed in battle and seventy captured and shot, or sold into slavery. In 1691 Diego de Vargas Zapata Lujan Ponce de Leon was made governor especially to reconquer the Pueblos. In 1692 he led an expedition against them. As far as Sandia the towns had already been destroyed. Santa Fe he found fortified and occupied by Tanos, but they yielded without a blow, as did all of the pueblos from Pecos to Moqui. Meanwhile the friars with him baptized over two thousand native children.
A new colony.--Submission having been secured, in 1693 Vargas led a colony of eight hundred soldiers and settlers to reoccupy the pueblo region. But submission had been a hollow formality. The Tanos who held Santa Fe were evicted only after a battle, at the conclusion of which seventy warriors were shot and four hundred women and children enslaved.
At the mesa of San Ildefonso. Vargas met the combined resistance of nine towns. A second siege in March, 1694, resulted in a repulse. In the course of the summer the pueblos of Cieneguilla and Jemez were defeated, and abandoned Taos was sacked and burned. A third attack on the mesa of San Ildefonso was successful. Resistance now appeared to be over, the pueblos were rebuilt, captives returned, missions reestablished, and the Spanish regime restored. A number of the pueblos were consolidated and rebuilt on new sites. In 1690 the new Spanish villa of Santa Cruz de la Canada was founded with seventy families on the lands of San Cristobal and San Lazaro.
The conquest completed.--In 1696 a new revolt occurred, in which five missionaries and twenty-one other Spaniards were killed, and Vargas conducted another series of b.l.o.o.d.y campaigns, with partial success. In the following year he was succeeded by Governor Cubero, who secured the formal submission of the rest of the pueblos. The reconquest was now complete and the Spanish rule secured.
COAHUILA OCCUPIED
The Nuevo Leon frontier.--While there had been definite progress eastward from New Mexico during the first three-fourths of the seventeenth century, and considerable contact between that province and what is now the western half of Texas, from Nuevo Leon, on the natural line of advance from Mexico to Texas, progress was slow. For nearly a century the northeastern outpost on the lower Rio Grande frontier was Leon (Cerralvo), founded in the later sixteenth century. Temporarily a more northern outpost had been established in 1590 at Nuevo Almaden (now Monclova), but it was soon abandoned. Again in 1603 and 1644 the place was temporarily reoccupied, but without permanent success.
Zavala's rule, 1626-1664.--Hostile Indians troubled the border, and the intrusions of English, French, and Dutch colonies into the Lesser Antilles awakened fears for the safety of the western Gulf sh.o.r.es. In 1625 Nuevo Leon, therefore, was again entrusted to a _conquistador_, when a contract similar to that of Carabajal in 1579 was made with Martin de Zavala. At the same time the Florida missions 'were extended west to the Apalache district. For thirty-eight years Zavala controlled and governed the frontier with exemplary zeal, subduing Indians, granting _encomiendas_, operating mines, founding new towns, and opening highways to Panuco and the interior. His most able lieutenant after 1636 was Alonso de Leon, one of the founders and first citizens of Cadereyta.
Looking northward.--By the middle of the seventeenth century, explorations beyond the Nuevo Leon frontier had been made on a small scale in all directions. That they were not more extensive was due to Indian troubles and the feebleness of the frontier settlements. To the north the Spaniards were led short distances by a desire to establish communication with Florida, by rumors of a silver deposit called Cerro de la Plata (perhaps the later San Saba mines), and in pursuit of Indians. No doubt the Franciscan missionaries made many unrecorded visits to the outlying tribes. In 1665 Fernando de Azcue led soldiers from Saltillo and Monterey across the Rio Grande against the Cacaxtle Indians. This is the first expedition to cross the lower Rio Grande from the south of which we have any definite record.
The founding of Coahuila.--Another forward step was now taken with the founding of the new province of Coahuila, a step made necessary by Indian depredations. In 1670 Father Juan Larios, a Franciscan from Guadalajara, began missionary work on the troubled frontier. In 1673-1674, aided by other missionaries and by soldiers from Saltillo, he established two missions between the Sabinas River and the Rio Grande.[1] In the course of this work Fray Manuel de la Cruz visited tribes north of the Rio Grande. In 1674 Coahuila was made an _alcaldia mayor_ of Nueva Vizcaya, with Antonio de Valcarcel as first _alcalde mayor_. A colony was now established at thrice abandoned Almaden and later became Monclova.
The Bosque-Larios expedition across the Rio Grande.--In 1675 Valcarcel sent Fernando del Bosque and Father Larios on a tour among the tribes north of the Rio Grande. In the following year (the very year when Bishop Calderon was in Florida) the bishop of Guadalajara visited Coahuila, and urged its further reduction, with a view to pa.s.sing beyond, to the settled Tejas Indians, across the Trinity River. In 1687 a presidio was established at Monclova, and Coahuila was made a province, with Alonso de Leon, the younger, as first governor.
The college of the Holy Cross.--The development of Coahuila and Nuevo Leon was given an impetus by the coming of a new group of Franciscan friars from the recently founded missionary college of Santa Cruz at Queretaro. Among these friars were Fathers Hidalgo, Ma.s.sanet, and Olivares, all of whom figured prominently in the later development of the frontier. Beside the Queretaro friars, to the westward worked the friars of the Province of Santiago de Xalisco with its seat at Guadalajara.
[1] This was just at the time when Joliet and Marquette descended the Mississippi River.
FIRST ATTEMPTS IN EASTERN TEXAS
Plans to occupy the mouth of the Mississippi.--The aggressive policy of the French, English, and Dutch in the West Indies, the raids of freebooters on the Spanish settlements, the occupation of Carolina by England, and the advance of the French into the Mississippi Valley caused Spain great uneasiness for the northern Gulf Coast. As a defensive measure missions had been extended to the Apalache district at the same time that Nuevo Leon had been strengthened. In 1673 Joliet and Marquette descended the Mississippi to the Arkansas, and in 1682 La Salle explored it to its mouth. Four years earlier news had reached the Spanish court that Penalosa, a discredited ex-governor of New Mexico, had proposed to attack New Spain in the name of France. Spanish officials therefore at once planned to occupy the Bay of Espiritu Santo (Mobile Bay, or perhaps the mouth of the Mississippi) and in 1695 Echagaray, an officer at St. Augustine, was ordered to explore it for the purpose.
The search for La Salle's colony.--A few months later the authorities learned with alarm that in November, 1684, La Salle had left France with a colony to occupy the same spot. Immediately several expeditions were sent out by land and sea to learn where La Salle had landed and, if necessary, to occupy the danger point. In 1686 Marcos Delgado explored west by land from Apalache to the neighborhood of Mobile Bay. In 1686-1688 five coastwise expeditions (under Barroto, Rivas, Iriarte, Pez, and Gamara) explored the Gulf between Vera Cruz and Apalache. They discovered the wrecks of La Salle's vessels at Matagorda Bay, and it was concluded that the French expedition had been destroyed.
[Ill.u.s.tration: The Beginnings of Coahuila and Texas.]
Eastern Texas occupied.--While these coastwise voyages were being made, Alonso de Leon was leading expeditions from Monterey and Monclova by land. In 1686 he descended the Rio Grande to the coast. In 1687 and again in 1688 he crossed the Rio Grande, and in the latter expedition captured a stray Frenchman. Shortly afterward a party of soldiers and Indians from far distant Nueva Vizcaya crossed the Upper Rio Grande to seek out the French intruders. In 1689 De Leon succeeded in finding the remains of La Salle's settlement near Matagorda Bay, a few weeks after it had been destroyed by Indians. In the following year De Leon and Father Ma.s.sanet, one of the Coahuila missionaries, led an expedition across Texas and founded two missions among the Asinai (Tejas) Indians, on Neches River. Texas was now erected into a province and Domingo de Teran made governor.
And then abandoned.--In 1691 Teran led an expedition designed to strengthen the outpost on the Neches, explore and occupy the Cadodacho country (near Texarkana) and, if time permitted, to reexplore the coast as far as Florida. He reached the Red River but accomplished little else that was new. The Asinai Indians proved hostile, and in 1693 the missionaries withdrew. The Texas project was now abandoned for a time, and attention centered instead on western Florida, which was in danger not only from the French, but also from the English in Carolina, who were visiting the Georgia and Alabama Indians.
THE STRUGGLE WITH RIVALS IN THE WEST INDIES
Intruding colonies in the West Indies.--In the early years of the conquest Spain had occupied the larger West Indian islands--Cuba, Espanola, Porto Rico, and Jamaica--but had neglected the lesser islands.
They thus became a field for colonization by Spain's enemies. In the seventeenth century the subjects of Holland, France, and England began to establish settlements in the West Indies, in the heart of the Spanish sea, while England intruded in the northern mainland.