AND OTHER PICTURES OF THE SPANISH OCCUPANCY OF AMERICA BY A. F. BANDELIER AUTHOR OF MEXICO, THE PUEBLOS OF PECOS, ETC. colophon NEW YORK D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 1893 Copyright , 1893, By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY....

As compared with the peopling of our Atlantic seaboard, the first explorations of our Southwest by a white race have received comparatively slight attention, the minor consequences of the latter, and the inaccessibility of the early Spanish records, being the sufficiently obvious causes which have combined to prevent minute and exhaustive studies until within the past few years. Dramatic and intensely interesting conditions have been revealed as Mr. Bandelier—whose work under the auspices of the

While the early Spanish adventurers in America are justly charged with neglecting the true interests of colonization in their excessive greed for treasure, and thereby bringing harm to those parts of the Western Continent which they entered, it cannot be denied that their irrepressible seeking for the precious metals contributed directly to an earlier knowledge and a more rapid settlement of the country. The Spaniards’ thirst for gold led them into adventures which excite admiration and wonder a

As we have mentioned, the conquest of New Granada by Gonzalo Ximenes de Quesada concluded, as to the whole of Spanish America, that series of extraordinary discoveries of precious metals in the possession of the natives which exercised so sudden an influence on the value of gold, among European peoples in particular. When the Peruvian spoil was divided at Cassamarca in 1533 the peso, which contains about the same quantity of metal as our dollar, had an exchangeable value nearly the same as that

The licentiate Juan de Castellanos, in his “ Elegias de Varones Illustres de Indias ” (1589), sang the legend of the dorado as it was current in Quito in 1536: In these words of a poet who can make far more pretension to historical accuracy than his contemporaries Erxcilla and Martin de Barco [35] lies a significant confirmation of the thesis maintained in our chapter on Cundinamarca: that the fame of the dorado had penetrated southward. Belalcazar’s contemporary Oviedo declares positively that

The government of Bogotá and Santa Marta was lodged in 1542 in the hands of Alonzo de Luga, a son of the former overseer of Gonzalo Ximenes de Quesada, the conqueror of Cundinamarca. With reckless greed Lugo had levied contributions on the province, plundered the original Spanish conquerors, and robbed the royal treasury. When he learned that a royal inquisitorial judge had been sent to Bogotá he hastily gathered up his spoil—300,000 ducats, according to Joaquin Acosta—and fled to Europe, where

Columbus had heard of the Amazons on his great voyage. He said, on the 4th of March, 1493, of the Caribs: “They are the same who have intercourse with the women on the first island which is found on the voyage from Spain to the Indies, on which no men live. These do not follow any womanly occupations, but use bows and arrows of cane, like those mentioned above, and cover and arm themselves with brazen plates, of which they have many.” In the same letter the Admiral spoke of a part of the island

The planisphere which Martin Dehaim constructed in the year 1492 for the Portuguese service contained, among other features, an island of Antilia west of the Cape de Verde group, with a note relating that at the time of the conquest of Spain by the Arabs a Portuguese archbishop and a number of Christians had fled to that island and founded seven cities upon it. The story is still more plainly marked on the map of Johannes Ruysch— Universalior Cogniti Orbis Tabula , A.D. 1508. The legend of the s

Although still young, Coronado had filled offices of no little importance in Mexico. He was born in Salamanca, Spain, and had married the daughter of Alonzo de Estrada, royal treasurer in Mexico. Nuño de Guzman had persecuted and imprisoned Estrada because he would not connive at the robbery of the royal chest of 9000 pesos. After the inquisitorial judge, Diego Perez de la Torre, who had put Guzman in prison, died in 1538 at Guadalajara, Cristóbal de Oñate, father of the future conqueror of New

Residence in a pueblo is not without a charm for single persons in winter. It is, indeed, rather smoky and damp than warm in the many-storied houses, the inner rooms of which, where the sunshine never penetrates, are used only for storerooms. The outside rooms now possess the luxury of real windows, with panes of mica or gypsum, of which a number are fixed together in a wooden sash. These gypsum windows are of Spanish introduction; in their primitive condition the Pueblo Indians were acquainted

It is a well-known fact that lost travellers involuntarily walk circuitously, generally toward the right, and so gradually return to the place whence they started. This phenomenon is especially frequent in wide, treeless plains, where prominent objects by which the wanderer can direct himself are wanting. It has an extremely dangerous effect upon the mind, and may, if it occurs repeatedly, easily lead to despair and frenzy. What happens to individuals may also occur to a larger number. This was

The day on which occurred the massacre of Cholula—a very important event in the annals of the Spanish conquest of Mexico—has not been determined with certainty, but the month is known. It took place about the middle of October, 1519, probably between the 10th and the 15th. The usual account of the tragedy—the conception of it regarded as historical—represents it as a causeless piece of treachery on the part of the Spaniards, an act of unjustifiable cruelty, an eternal blot on the fame of Hernand

The belief has been fixed in the public mind for a considerable time that Santa Fé, the capital of New Mexico, is also its oldest Spanish settlement, and even the oldest city in the United States. It is obvious that the latter opinion is incorrect, for St. Augustine in Florida dates from 1560. After Coronado’s retreat from New Mexico in 1542 no Spaniard entered the territory till 1580, consequently no city was founded there by them; and it is well known that Coronado left no settlers there. Sant

The Indian village—or, as it is usually called in New Mexico, the pueblo—of Santa Clara lies thirty miles north of the city of Santa Fé, on the Texas, Santa Fé & Northern Railroad. It is inhabited by about four hundred agricultural Indians of the Tehua tribe, whose one-and two-storied houses form two irregular quadrangles, surrounding two open places, called plazas. A large church of adobe, now in decay, stands at the northeastern end of the village. It dates from the middle of the last