Documentary History of the Rio Grande Pueblos of New Mexico; I. Bibliographic Introduction | Page 4

October, 1540. It may be that one of the villages briefly
described is Pecos, which lies of course some distance east of the Rio
Grande, and the document is possibly the first one in which the
nomadic Indians of eastern New Mexico are mentioned from actual
observation.
To these sources, which have both the merits and the defects of all
documents written under the impressions of first direct acquaintance
with the subject, must be added the "Relacion postrera de Sivola"
contained in a manuscript by father Toribio de Paredes, surnamed
Motolinia, and known as the Libro de Oro, etc., which is an augmented
and slightly modified version of that celebrated missionary's history of

the Mexicans. It is a condensed report that had reached Mexico after
Coronado had left for Quivira and before his return had become known.
Its allusion to the Rio Grande Pueblos and to Pecos is not without value,
although it adds little to what is contained in the sources previously
mentioned. On the Indians of the Plains it is, comparatively speaking,
more explicit. The general tone of the document is one of sobriety. The
"Relacion del Suceso," published in the Documentos Inéditos de Indias
under the erroneous date of 1531, is similar to the foregoing, but is
more detailed in some respects and covers a longer period of time. It
manifestly was written in New Mexico by a member of the 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, the
references to it and to New Mexico contained in the Historia de la
Nueva Galicia, by the licentiate Matias de la Mota Padilla, find a place
here, since the author asserts that he derived much of his information
from papers left by Pedro de Tovar, one of Coronado's chief lieutenants.
Mota Padilla generally confirms the data furnished by the earlier
documents, and adds some additional information. It is however quite
impossible to determine what he gathered directly from the writings of
Tovar and what he may have obtained through other and probably
posterior sources. At all events the Historia de la Nueva Galicia should
never be neglected by students of the Pueblo Indians.
We now come to the two chief chroniclers of Coronado's time--both
participants in his undertakings and therefore eye-witnesses: Pedro de
Castañeda de Naxera and Juan Jaramillo. The fact that they were
eye-witnesses establishes their high rank as authorities, but there is a
difference between the two in that Castañeda was a common soldier,
whereas Jaramillo (a former companion and, to a certain extent, a
friend of Cortés) was an officer. This fact alone establishes a difference
in the opportunities for knowing and in the standpoint of judging what
was seen, aside from the difference arising out of the character,
facilities, and tendencies of the two individuals. Castañeda is much
more detailed in his narration than Jaramillo. Discontent with the
management and the final outcome of the enterprise is apparent in the

tone of his writings, and while this may not have influenced very
materially his description of the country and its people, they render
more or less suspicious his statements in regard to the dealings with the
aborigines. Both Castañeda and Jaramillo wrote a long time after the
events had occurred, and probably from memory, hence the
comparative accuracy of their descriptions is indeed remarkable. But
that accuracy, however commendable, is relative rather than absolute,
as both were liable to err, owing to the lapse of time and consequent
failure to remember facts and events, and, especially with Castañeda,
the influence of personal prejudice growing stronger with age.
Jaramillo had less occasion to fall into error resulting from such
weakness, but he is much less detailed than Castañeda. We might
compare the two narrations by stating that that of Jaramillo embodies
the reminiscences of one who stood officially on a higher plane and
viewed his subject from a more general standpoint, whereas Castañeda
saw more of the inferior details but was more susceptible of
confounding, hence to misstate, the mass of data which his memory
retained. Both reports will always remain the chief sources on the
subject of which they treat, subject of course to close 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 be
stated that all references to distances in leagues must be taken with
many allowances. According to Las Casas there were in use among the
Spaniards in the sixteenth century, two kinds of leagues: the maritime
league (legua maritima) and the terrestrial league (legua terrestre). The
former, established by Alfonso XI in the twelfth century, consisted of
four miles (millas)