The Spanish Pioneers - free ebook by Charles Fletcher Lummis

AUTHOR OF "A NEW MEXICO DAVID," "STRANGE CORNERS OF OUR COUNTRY," ETC. Illustrated SIXTH EDITION

CHICAGO A. C. McCLURG &amp; CO. 1914 Copyright By Charles F. Lummis a.d. 1893 TO ONE OF SUCH WOMEN AS MAKE HEROES AND KEEP CHIVALRY ALIVE IN OUR LESS SINGLE-HEARTED DAYS: ELIZABETH BACON CUSTER...

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In pronouncing the Spanish names give—

The views presented in this book have already taken their place in historical literature, but they are certainly altogether new ground for a popular work. Because it is new, some who have not fully followed the recent march of scientific investigation may fear that it is not authentic. I can only say that the estimates and statements embodied in this volume are strictly true, and that I hold myself ready to defend them from the standpoint of historical science. I do this, not merely from the mot

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PREFACE.

It is because I believe that every other young Saxon-American loves fair play and admires heroism as much as I do, that this book has been written. That we have not given justice to the Spanish Pioneers is simply because we have been misled. They made a record unparalleled; but our text-books have not recognized that fact, though they no longer dare dispute it. Now, thanks to the New School of American History, we are coming to the truth,—a truth which every manly American will be glad to know.

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THE PIONEER NATION.

It is now an established fact of history that the Norse rovers had found and made a few expeditions to North America long before Columbus. For the historian nowadays to look upon that Norse discovery as a myth, or less than a certainty, is to confess that he has never read the Sagas. The Norsemen came, and even camped in the New World, before the year 1000; but they only camped. They built no towns, and practically added to the world's knowledge nothing at all. They did nothing to entitle them t

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A MUDDLED GEOGRAPHY.

The least of the difficulties which beset the finders of the New World was the then tremendous voyage to reach it. Had that three thousand miles of unknown sea been the chief obstacle, civilization would have overstepped it centuries before it did. It was human ignorance deeper than the Atlantic, and bigotry stormier than its waves, which walled the western horizon of Europe for so long. But for that, Columbus himself would have found America ten years sooner than he did; and for that matter, Am

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COLUMBUS, THE FINDER.

Columbus sailed from Palos, Spain, on Friday, August 3, 1492, at 8 a. m. , with one hundred and twenty Spaniards under his command. You know how he and his brave comrade Pinzon held up the spirits of his weakening crew; and how, on the morning of October 12, they sighted land at last. It was not the mainland of America,—which Columbus never saw until nearly eight years later,—but Watling's Island. The voyage had been the longest west which man had yet made; and it was very characteristically ill

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MAKING GEOGRAPHY.

While Columbus was sailing back and forth between the Old World and the new one which he had found, was building towns and naming what were to be nations, England seemed almost ready to take a hand. All Europe was interested in the strange news which came from Spain. England moved through the instrumentality of a Venetian, whom we know as Sebastian Cabot. On the 5th of March, 1496,—four years after Columbus's discovery,—Henry VII. of England granted a patent to "John Gabote, a citizen of Venice,

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THE CHAPTER OF CONQUEST.

While the discoverer of the greatest ocean was still striving to probe its farther mysteries, a handsome, athletic, brilliant young Spaniard, who was destined to make much more noise in history, was just beginning to be heard of on the threshold of America, of whose central kingdoms he was soon to be conqueror. Hernando Cortez came of a noble but impoverished Spanish family, and was born in Estremadura ten years later than Balboa. At the age of fourteen he was sent to the University of Salamanca

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A GIRDLE ROUND THE WORLD.

Before Cortez had yet conquered Mexico, or Pizarro or Valdivia seen the lands with which their names were to be linked for all time, other Spaniards—less conquerors, but as great explorers—were rapidly shaping the geography of the New World. France, too, had aroused somewhat; and in 1500 her brave son Captain de Gonneville sailed to Brazil. But between him and the next pioneer, who was a Florentine in French pay, was a gap of twenty-four years; and in that time Spain had accomplished four most i

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SPAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.

Cortez was still captain-general when Cabeza de Vaca came into the Spanish settlements from his eight years' wandering, with news of strange countries to the north; but Antonio de Mendoza was viceroy of Mexico, and Cortez' superior, and between him and the traitorous conqueror was endless dissension. Cortez was working for himself, Mendoza for Spain. As Mexico became more and more thickly dotted with Spanish settlements, the attention of the restless world-finders began to wander toward the myst

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TWO CONTINENTS MASTERED.

This, then, was the situation in the New World at the beginning of the seventeenth century. Spain, having found the Americas, had, in a little over a hundred years of ceaseless exploration and conquest, settled and was civilizing them. She had in the New World hundreds of towns, whose extremes were over five thousand miles apart, with all the then advantages of civilization, and two towns in what is now the United States, a score of whose States her sons had penetrated. France had made a few gin

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THE FIRST AMERICAN TRAVELLER.

The achievements of the explorer are among the most important, as they are among the most fascinating, of human heroisms. The qualities of mind and body necessary to his task are rare and admirable. He should have many sides and be strong in each,—the rounded man that Nature meant man to be. His body need not be as strong as Samson's, nor his mind as Napoleon's, nor his heart the most fully developed heart on earth; but mind, heart, and body he needs, and each in the measure of a strong man. The

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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 perfor

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THE WAR OF THE ROCK.

Some of the most characteristic heroisms and hardships of the Pioneers in our domain cluster about the wondrous rock of Acoma, the strange sky-city of the Quéres [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 precipic

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THE STORMING OF THE SKY-CITY.

At daybreak, on the morning of January 22, Zaldivar gave the signal for the attack; and the main body of the Spaniards began firing their few arquebuses, and making a desperate assault at the north end of the great rock, there absolutely impregnable. The Indians, crowded along the cliffs above, poured down a rain of missiles; and many of the Spaniards were wounded. Meanwhile twelve picked men, who had hidden during the night under the overhanging cliff which protected them alike from the fire an

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THE SOLDIER POET.

But now to go back a little. The young officer who made that superb leap across the chasm at Acoma, pushed back the bridge-log, and so saved the lives of his comrades, and indirectly of all the Spanish in New Mexico, was Captain Gaspar Perez de Villagran. [15] He was highly educated, being a graduate of a Spanish university; young, ambitious, fearless, and athletic; a hero among the heroes of the New World, and a chronicler to whom we are greatly indebted. The six extant copies of the fat little

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THE PIONEER MISSIONARIES.

To pretend to tell the story of the Spanish pioneering of the Americas without special attention to the missionary pioneers, would be very poor justice and very poor history. In this, even more than in other qualities, the conquest was unique. The Spaniard not only found and conquered, but converted. His religious earnestness was not a whit behind his bravery. As has been true of all nations that have entered new lands,—and as we ourselves later entered this,—his first step had to be to subdue t

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THE CHURCH-BUILDERS IN NEW MEXICO.

To give even a skeleton of Spanish missionary work in the two Americas would fill several volumes. The most that can be done here is to take a sample leaf from that fascinating but formidable record; and for that I shall outline something of what was done in an area particularly interesting to us,—the single province of New Mexico. There were many fields which presented even greater obstacles, and cost more lives of uncomplaining martyrs and more generations of discouraging toil; but it is safe

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ALVARADO'S LEAP.

If the reader should ever go to the City of Mexico,—as I hope he may, for that ancient town, which was old and populous when Columbus was born, is alive with romantic interest,—he will have pointed out to him, on the Rivera de San Cosme, the historic spot still known as El Salto de Alvarado. It is now a broad, civilized street, with horse-cars running, with handsome buildings, with quaint, contented folk sauntering to and fro, and with little outwardly to recall the terrors of that cruellest nig

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THE AMERICAN GOLDEN FLEECE.

We all know of that strange yellow ramskin which hung dragon-guarded in the dark groves of Colchis; and how Jason and his Argonauts won the prize after so many wanderings and besetments. But in our own New World we have had a far more dazzling golden fleece than that mythical pupil of old Cheiron ever chased, and one that no man ever captured,—though braver men than Jason tried it. Indeed, there were hundreds of more than Jasons, who fought harder and suffered tenfold deadlier fortunes and never

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THE SWINEHERD OF TRUXILLO.

Somewhere between the years 1471 and 1478, (we are not sure of the exact date), an unfortunate boy was born in the city of Truxillo, [19] province of Estremadura, Spain. He was an illegitimate son of Colonel Gonzalo Pizarro, [20] who had won distinction in the wars in Italy and Navarre. But his parentage was no help to him. The disgraced baby never had a home,—it is even said that he was left as a foundling at the door of a church. He grew up to young manhood in ignorance and abject poverty, wit

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THE MAN WHO WOULD NOT GIVE UP.

With so inadequate a force, yet much stronger than before, Pizarro and Almagro sailed again on their dangerous mission. The pilot was Bartolomé Ruiz, a brave and loyal Andalusian and a good sailor. The weather was better now, and the adventurers pushed on hopefully. After a few days' sail they reached the Rio San Juan, which was as far as any European had ever sailed down that coast: it will be remembered that this was where Almagro had got discouraged and turned back. Here were more Indian sett

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GAINING GROUND.

Governor de los Rios was not impressed by the heroism of the little party, and refused them aid. The case seemed hopeless; but the leader was not to be crushed. He decided to go to Spain in person, and appeal to his king. It was one of his most remarkable undertakings, it seems to me. For this man, whose boyhood had been passed with swine, and who in manhood had been herding rude men far more dangerous, who was ignorant of books and unversed in courts, to present himself confidently yet modestly

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PERU AS IT WAS.

Now that we have followed Pizarro to Peru, and he is about to conquer the wonderful land to find which he has gone through such unparalleled discouragements and sufferings, we must stop for a moment to get an understanding of the country. This is the more necessary because such false and foolish tales of "the Empire of Peru" and "the reign of the Incas," and all that sort of trash, have been so widely circulated. To comprehend the Conquest at all, we must understand what there was to conquer; an

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THE CONQUEST OF PERU.

Certainly no army ever marched in the face of more hopeless odds. Against the countless thousands of the Peruvians, Pizarro had one hundred and seventy-seven men. Only sixty-seven of these had horses. In the whole command there were but three guns; and only twenty men had even cross-bows; all the others were armed with sword, dagger, and lance. A pretty array, truly, to conquer what was an empire in size though not in organization! Five days out from San Miguel, Pizarro paused to rest. Here he n

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THE GOLDEN RANSOM.

There is no reason whatever to doubt that Pizarro accepted this proposition in perfect good faith. The whole nature of the man, his religion, the laws of Spain, and the circumstantial evidence of his habitual conduct lead us to believe that he intended to set Atahualpa free when the ransom should have been paid. But later circumstances, in which he had neither blame nor control, simply forced him to a different course. Atahualpa's messengers dispersed themselves through Peru to gather the gold a

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ATAHUALPA'S TREACHERY AND DEATH.

But in the midst of their happiness at this realization of their golden dreams,—and we may half imagine how they felt, after a life of poverty and great suffering, at now finding themselves rich men,—the Spaniards were rudely interrupted by less pleasant realities. The plots of the Indians, always suspected, now seemed unmistakable. News of an uprising came in from every hand. It was reported that two hundred thousand warriors from Quito and thirty thousand of the cannibal Caribs were on their w

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FOUNDING A NATION.—THE SIEGE OF CUZCO.

But before Hernando reached Peru, one of his company carried thither to Almagro the news of his promotion; and this prosperity at once turned the head of the coarse and unprincipled soldier. Forgetful of all Pizarro's favors, and that Pizarro had made him all he was, the false friend at once set himself up as master of Cuzco. It was shameful ingratitude and rascality, and very nearly precipitated the Spaniards into a civil war. But the forbearance of Pizarro bridged the difficulty at last; and o

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THE WORK OF TRAITORS.

Almagro had penetrated Chile, suffering great hardships in crossing the mountains. Again he showed the white feather; and, discouraged by the very beginning, he turned and marched back to Peru. He seems to have concluded that it would be easier to rob his companion and benefactor than to make a conquest of his own,—especially since he learned how Pizarro was now beset. Pizarro, learning of his approach, went out to meet him. Manco fell upon the Spaniards on the way, but was repulsed after a hot

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