Documentary History of the Rio Grande Pueblos of New Mexico; I. Bibliographic Introduction | Page 6

to convert the natives. They were martyrs of their
faith, hence glories of their order, and the Franciscan author could not
refrain from commemorating their deeds and their faith. The spurious
text was not taken from Mendoza, but manifestly was copied from the
transcript by a bungling scribe imperfectly acquainted with the Spanish
tongue.
The value of Espejo's narration is undoubtedly great. The author was a
close practical observer and a sincere reporter. The more is it surprising
that his statements in regard to the population of the Pueblos are so

manifestly exaggerated; yet, as I have elsewhere stated, this may be
explained. A tendency to enhance somewhat the importance of
discoveries is inherent in almost every discoverer, but in the case of
Espejo he was exposed to another danger. As he proceeded from
village to village the natives gathered at every point from other places
out of curiosity, fear, or perhaps with hostile intent, so that the number
of the people which the explorer met was each time much larger than
the actual number of inhabitants. On the question of population Espejo
could have no knowledge, since he had no means of communicating
with the people by speech. Furthermore, it is well known that a crowd
always appears more numerous than it would prove to be after an actual
count; besides, even if he could have counted the Indians present, he
would have fallen into the error of recording the same individual
several times.
During the comparatively short time which Espejo had to explore the
country as far as the Hopi or Moqui, he collected interesting
ethnological data. Customs that appeared new as late as the second half
of the last century were noted by him; and while his nomenclature of
the Pueblos agrees in many points with that of the Coronado expedition,
terms were added that have since been definitely adopted. Espejo's
return to Mexico was to be followed by a definite occupancy of the Rio
Grande country, but his untimely death prevented it, and the subsequent
plan of colonization, framed and proposed by Juan Bautista de Lomas
Colmenares, led to no practical results, as likewise did the ill-fated
expedition of Humaña, Bonilla, and Leyva, the disastrous end of which
in the plains became known only through a few vestiges of information
and by hearsay.
Seven years after Espejo's journey, Gaspar Castaño de Sosa penetrated
to the Rio Grande near the present village of Santo Domingo. The
report thereon is explicit and sober, and in it we find the first mention
of the Spanish names by which some of the Pueblos have since become
known. From this report it is easy to follow the route taken by Castaño
and his followers, but the account is incomplete, terminating abruptly at
Santo Domingo, whither Castaño had been followed by Captain Juan
de Morlete, who was sent after him by the governor of what is now

Coahuila, without whose permission Castaño had undertaken the
journey. I have no knowledge as yet of any document giving an account
of the return of the expedition.
Seven years more elapsed ere the permanent occupancy of New
Mexico was effected under the leadership of Juan de Oñate.
Thenceforward events in that province became the subject of
uninterrupted documentary record.
The very wise and detailed ordinances regulating the discovery and
annexation to Spain of new territory, promulgated by Philip II, declared
that every exploration or conquest (the term "conquest" was
subsequently eliminated from Spanish official terminology and that of
"pacification" substituted) should be recorded as a journal or diary.
Royal decrees operated very slowly in distant colonies. Neither
Chamuscado nor Espejo kept journals, but Castaño de Sosa, and
especially Oñate, did. His diario (which is accessible through its
publication in the Documentos del Archivo de Indias, although there
are traces of an earlier publication) was copied for printing by someone
manifestly unacquainted with New Mexico or with its Indian
nomenclature, hence its numerous names for sites and tribes are often
very difficult to identify. But the document itself is a sober,
matter-of-fact record of occurrences and geographical details,
interspersed with observations of more or less ethnological value. As
Oñate followed the course of the Rio Grande upward from below El
Paso del Norte, and afterward branched off to almost every sedentary
settlement in New Mexico and Arizona, the comparison of his diary
with previous reports (those of the Coronado expedition included) is
highly valuable, indeed indispensable. The diario forms the beginning
of accurate knowledge of the region under consideration. Perhaps more
important still are the Acts of Obedience and Homage (Obediencia y
Vasallaje) executed at various villages during the course of the years
1598 and 1599. At first sight, and to one unacquainted with Pueblo
idioms, they present an unintelligible list of partly recognizable names.
But the confusion