Saturday, January 24, 1998
History Unkind to Colonization Leader
Juan de Oñate came to New Mexico seeking honor; insteadhe lost his money and titles and was reviled by his followers
By Leslie Linthicum
Journal Staff Writer
The man who colonized New Mexico has gone down in history as aninsignificant footnote.
Lost in the sea of more daring adventurers -- true conquistadoreslike Cortez, De Soto, Coronado and Cabeza de Vaca -- Juan de Oñateis unknown in Spain, uncelebrated in Mexico and only a murky memoryin the land he claimed for the crown.
When a sculptor set out to memorialize Oñate in a bronzethat would sit in the northern New Mexico territory of Onate'sfirst settlement, he was forced to go on instinct and paintingsof Don Diego de Vargas, another more memorable emissary from Spain.No drawings or written descriptions of Oñate existed.
One of the explorer's direct descendants in Spain, Madrid lawyerManuel Guillón y Oñate, remembers no mention ofhis ancestor in Spanish history classes and found precious littleinformation available when he embarked on a personal quest asan adult. "History," his ancestor says, "does nottreat Oñate very well."
And historian Marc Simmons, who chose Oñate as the subjectof a biography in 1991, was stung by the indifference generatedby the Oñate name. "It was a flop," Simmons admits."It went nowhere."
Before he gave up lecturing about early New Mexico history tohigh school and college classes, Simmons used to make a pointof polling students on their knowledge of Oñate.
"No one," he said, "had ever heard of him. Andthis is in New Mexico."
New World developer
Oñate was not a renegade risking his life for riches, nora conquering soldier, nor an adventurer galloping toward the unknown.He was a businessman, a rich scion of a silver-mining family,whose primary quest was for honor and title -- the twin hungershe could quench only through service to the Spanish king.
Oñate came north to New Mexico years after the myth ofglittering cities of gold had been discounted and after the Spanishgovernment had ceased allowing pillaging expeditions by maverickconquistadores.
His arrangement with the Spanish crown was that of a contractdeveloper. Using his own fortune and money he borrowed to fundthe expedition, his job was to subdue native people through conversionto Catholicism and to give Spain a foothold for exploration inthe New World. His reward, in addition to the coveted titles,would be a share of tax revenue the new kingdom would produce.
Ten years after the first wooden wagon wheel turned northward,Oñate was out of money and patience and took a quill toink to write his resignation letter.
Historian Thomas A. Chávez, director of the Palace of theGovernors in Santa Fe, sums up Oñate's decade as governorin terms most New Mexicans can understand. The governor, Chávezsays, "did a pretty half-assed job."
Oñate and his wagon train arrived in the new lands nearlyout of supplies and just in time for the end of a summer of droughtfollowed by a long, cold winter.
At San Juan Pueblo, so named by Oñate and the Franciscansafter St. John the Baptist, little remains of the original Spanishsettlement. Colonists' quarters have been covered by centuriesof river silt. The original church, put up within weeks of theSpaniards' arrival, is long gone.
Herman Agoyo, a member of the pueblo's tribal council, understandswhy the Spaniards chose to change history in this place. The view400 years ago was not obscured by the cottonwoods and salt cedarsthat hug the riverbank today, and attackers would have to crossthe river to reach the colonists.
When Agoyo pictures the moment Oñate and his lieutenantsrode into the village, in velvet and armor and trailing horsesand wagons, he does not imagine relief on the part of the Spaniardsat completing their journey, only the fear that must have overcomethe Indian villagers.
"You're looking at horses, armor and guns," says Agoyo,an employee of the tribe's real estate office. "It had tobe overwhelming."
Eight friars, two lay brothers, 129 men and several dozen womenand children made the trip in 80 wagons. Although the men arrivedin fighting gear, the Indians mounted no defense.
Instead of a battle, the settlers were immediately distractedby disappointment. Although their stated mission was the arduoustask of building a colony, the people who had thrown their lotwith Oñate had expected to find more than dust and hardwork at the end of the trail.
Only days after their arrival, Oñate faced down a mutinyattempt by about half the settlers.
Oñate explained the problem in a letter to the viceroy.The settlers, he said, "in anger at not finding bars of silveron the ground right away and resentful because I did not allowthem to abuse the natives either in their persons or property,became dissatisfied with the land, or rather with me."
It took the execution of two of the mutiny's ringleaders to quellthe uprising.
Absent leader
Desperate to justify his existence and pacify his party, he rodegreat distances east and west, from present-day Kansas to California,searching for silver, gold, pearls and salt. Oñate wasnot tilting at windmills: His father had explored similar territoryin northern Mexico for the Spanish king and been rewarded withthe richest silver mines in the new world.
But Oñate did not find silver on his travels. Instead,he ranged through Indian lands, demanding, as was his mission,their allegiance to his king. In battles with the Acomas, whorefused subordination, he lost 11 soldiers and two servants, killedhundreds of Indians and punished 24 with amputation of a foot.
Three years after arriving, Oñate had this to show forhis risk and investment: A church at San Juan Pueblo, a debilitatedarmy, angry pueblo neighbors and about two dozen hungry, coldand disenchanted colonists. The rest had decided to put an endto their part of the miserable colonization effort and had headedback down the Camino Real.
In 1953, the University of New Mexico Press published a heftytwo-volume collection of English translations of correspondenceregarding the Oñate entrada. Although the reports are centuriesold, they read like a modern tale of a crumbling political empireand a failing man desperate to hold it together.
From frustrated Franciscan priests to colonists worried aboutthe welfare of their wives and children, the accounts all pointthe finger of blame at Oñate.
Fray Juan de Escalona wrote to the viceroy in New Spain, whatis now Mexico, in 1601, to report on the sorry condition of thesettlement. "The governor has oppressed his people so thatthey are all discontented and anxious to get away," he wrote.
The settlement, Capt. Gregorio Céssar echoed, "islacking in everything essential to support human life."
Céssar had cause to worry. He had brought his wife andseven children along. Bedbugs, lice, snow and wind combined tosap the settlers of their enthusiasm. They hated New Mexico, describingit as "eight months of winter and four months of hell."
Not only the settlers were dissatisfied. The Franciscans foundthe pueblo people increasingly unwilling to consent to baptismby newcomers who continued to demand food, clothing and labor.
Even though he had spent months away from the settlement on foraysinto the New World, Oñate as the governor was held accountablefor the manner in which the colony was subsisting on the backsof the natives.
"From the time he came here to the moment of this statement,"Fray Francisco de San Miguel reported, "his conscience hasever been disturbed by the mistreatment of these natives. Thefact is that in order to induce the Indians to furnish corn forfood, it has been necessary to torture the chieftains, even hangingand killing them. We find ourselves in extreme need of food andsee the natives starving to death, eating whatever filth thereis in the fields, even the twigs from the trees, dirt, coal andashes."
Escalon concluded that it was impossible to save souls under thecircumstances: "We cannot preach the gospel now," hewrote, "for it is despised by these people on account ofour great offenses and the harm we have done them."
Oñate did not resist the temptation to escape the increasinglytroubled colony at San Juan and search for silver. He roamed asfar as present-day Kansas, the Grand Canyon and the Gulf of California,weighing down his saddlebags with ore samples and describing inreports to New Spain the great promise of mineral wealth heldby the mountains of Nuevo México and the abundant herdsof buffalo on the great plains to the east.
"He was out exploring," says historian Chávez."He wasn't taking care of the colony."
With most of the men -- 50 at a time -- gone from the small colonyfor months on end, there was no one to build houses, farm or gatherfirewood.
Colonists lived in houses abandoned by the Indians and fed themselvesfrom the pueblo's stores of corn.
Oñate returned from each expedition to a poorer, more fracturedcommunity.
"When things started falling apart," says Chávez,"he kind of panicked. He became kind of brutal. He lost control."
Faith in crown
Oñate's considerable pride would have no doubt been woundedby the prospect of obscurity and defeat in the winter of 1597-1598as he camped on the banks of the Rio Concho in what is now northernMexico, awaiting permission to travel north.
Already delayed for two years by political wranglings and quicklylosing his fortune to the upkeep of an army of stranded colonists,Oñate was 46 years old, a rich man, and accustomed to accomplishment,not frustration.
Although he had been born in New Spain and had never set footon the European fatherland, Oñate was a true Spaniard,devoted to the church and king and the expansion of the empire.
Whatever else Oñate believed, he had unsinkable faith inthe importance of his mission.
Upon embarking with 80 carts and several hundred people trailinghim northward in January 1598, he penned a letter to the king.
"I trust to God," he wrote, "that what I am pursuingwill be of great consequence."
His reports to the viceroy and the king continued to paint promisingpictures even when his assaying turned up poor silver ore andhis foray to the Gulf of California did not return pearls.
Four years after the colonists and priests sent their letters-- and seven years into the settlement -- support from above alsoeroded.
The viceroy in New Spain collected the reports of starvation andtorture, weighed them with Oñate's predictions of imminentdiscoveries of great lands and great riches, and recommended tothe king that Oñate be dismissed and the settlement beallowed to disband.
"I cannot help but to inform your majesty that this conquestis becoming a fairy tale," viceroy Marquis de Montesclarostold the king. "Less substance is being revealed every day."
In the return mail came the king's order to recall Oñate.Two years later followed the order to suspend the discovery andexploration of New Mexico.
Oñate took it upon himself to resign, and in his letterto the viceroy in 1607 he did not hide his feelings of betrayalby the crown he had pledged to serve:
"As far as I am concerned, matters have moved in such a waythat my feelings have been greatly hurt, in view of the fact thatthose who fled from this camp have gone entirely unpunished."
Defeated, Oñate blamed "the devil" for his stringof setbacks.
"Unable to overcome my zeal and good purpose," he wrote,"(the devil) has exhausted my resources and I find myselfunable to explore any further at a moment when the reports aremost promising and encouraging."
Spain did not abandon New Mexico when it abandoned Oñate.Buoyed by sudden reports from the priests that some 7,000 nativeshad been baptized, in 1609 Spain replaced Oñate with anew governor, Pedro de Peralta. New Mexico went on to become animportant piece of Spanish real estate in the new world.
The foundation, however crumbling it seemed at the beginning ofthe 17th century, had been laid, and Oñate gets the credit-- or the blame -- for setting the ball in motion.
Put on trial and convicted of a number of charges, including crueltyat Acoma, he was stripped of his titles and ordered never to returnto New Mexico. Oñate spent the rest of his life tryingto rehabilitate his reputation and reclaim titles so he couldpass them on to his grandson.
Saturday, January 31, 1998
Oñate Anniversary a Painful Event for Acomas
Some say the trials of colonization should be remembered, butthe pueblo will not take part in the observation
Spanish Chroniclers Tell Different Tales
By Leslie Linthicum
Journal Staff Writer
ACOMA PUEBLO -- The wind blows on the top of the rock, and blackravens circle like sentinels. It seems in the silence of a winterday like a perfect fortress, high, steep and alone, hundreds offeet above the surrounding desert. It was not impenetrable, though.
Over there, Spanish soldiers sent by colonizer Juan de Oñatescrambled up a side and began to wage war. Here, on the steepestnorthern edge of the rock, Acomas fell to their deaths.
All around, blood soaked the yellowing sandstone.
Historians and Spanish and Indian descendants continue to debatewhether it was a legitimate war among equals or a vengeful massacreof the weak by the strong. But by all accounts, the three-daybattle at Acoma village in 1599 was a gory, smoky marathon ofsword play, rage and cannon fire -- a fight to the finish 367rocky feet above the desert floor.
And four centuries later, it is not forgotten.
Chris Garcia, a guide who takes tourists through the old Acomavillage, known as Sky City, makes a point of showing visitorsthe steep cliff where some accounts of the battle describe Acomamen being gored and thrown off.
He tells of the trial held by the Spanish weeks later and thepunishment of slavery and the amputation of a foot for each of24 Acoma men.
"We should not commemorate a man," Garcia says, "whotried to destroy my people."
Thriving culture
It is obvious, though, that Acoma was not destroyed. Men and womenescaped from slavery and returned to the rock to start over. Evidenceof their survival is in the pueblo's stone government buildings,in the school where children learn the Keresan language of theirancestors and in the shiny new buses that take tourists to thetop of the old Acoma village.
Acoma is a traditional pueblo where decisions are still made byreligious leaders inside the kiva, and tribal business is rarelydiscussed with outsiders. It faces unparalleled scrutiny thisyear, as New Mexicans mark the 400th year of European influence,and the attention is an unwelcome intrusion.
Pueblo officials today will not talk about the battle or the punishmentsof slavery and amputation, and the pueblo has no plans at thistime to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the expedition thatled to one of the darkest chapters in the pueblo's long history.
The pueblo's former governor, Ron Shutiva, wanted to use the 400thanniversary to call attention to the pueblo's survival. He proposedinviting President Clinton and the king and queen of Spain tothe pueblo, not to complain about past events but to reaffirmthat Acoma is alive and independent today.
While many tribal members liked the idea, others thought it wouldstir up painful memories or be misinterpreted as an acceptanceof the events of 400 years ago. The idea was dropped last year.Shutiva, who served three years as governor before being replacedlast
December by the pueblo's caciques, or religious leaders, stillbelieves the pueblo should not sit silently this year.
"It needs to be known," says Shutiva. "There'sno way to turn back that hand of time. You can't change what happened.Maybe we just need to acknowledge that those things did happenand that is it."
He has joined Albuquerque's committee coordinating events to honorthe 400 years of Spanish presence in New Mexico.
Shutiva, a 44-year-old businessman and a kiva leader at the pueblo,remembers no mention of the battle or the amputation punishmentwhen his elders told him stories when he was a child.
"Maybe we were too proud to talk about punishment and totalk about defeat," he says. "But it needs to be toldso that my kids, my grandkids know their true origins, their history."
Legacy of pain
From the Spanish soldiers' perspective, the battle was a fairand declared war. They had claimed New Mexico for the king ofSpain and, in their view, the Acomas sparked a war when they killed13 members of a Spanish scouting party.
To the Acomas, it was a massacre, unjust retribution for the Acomas'refusal to hand over food and supplies to the invading Spanish.
Official correspondence of the expedition shows that Oñateused Acoma as an example to surrounding pueblos. He would razeand burn the Indians' greatest fortress and divide its people,teaching a lesson in obedience to the Indians.
At battle's end in 1599, the surviving woman and children weretaken into slavery by the Spanish. The surviving 24 men were puton trial by the Spanish, found guilty of war crimes and each sentencedto 20 years slavery and the amputation of a foot.
The foot, 400 years later, has become a symbol of the brutalityof the Spanish-Indian encounter. Late last year when vandals defacedNew Mexico's only statue of Oñate, a large bronze at theOñate Center in Alcalde, they cut off its foot. The preliminarydesign for an Oñate artwork that the city of Albuquerqueis paying for includes pairs of moccasins, with one shoe symbolicallymissing.
Oñate's actions seem, in history's hindsight, to have beenwithout conscience, although brutal punishment was the realityof 16th century Spain.
"I think we have to consider him in terms of what conditionswere 400 years ago, not in terms of today," says EstevanArellano, director of the Oñate Center. "I'm not defendingwhat he did at Acoma, but it was different then."
'Need for reconciliation'
The issue is difficult for New Mexicans of Spanish descent aswell as for Acomas.
Antonio Trujillo grew up in the village of San Rafael in CibolaCounty, less than 30 miles from the rock where his Spanish ancestorsdid battle with the ancestors of his Acoma friends and classmates.Today, he is 39 and the Catholic priest who serves the three churchesat Acoma. He celebrates Mass every Wednesday in the big adobechurch the Acomas were forced to build by the Spanish friars afterthey returned to Sky City.
"Of all of the pueblos, Acoma had the most atrocities againstthem," says Trujillo. "There's a lot of emotion, andit shows there is a need for reconciliation. When there isn'treconciliation, we become prisoners. We become caught in the past."
Before the idea of commemoration activities was dropped, Trujilloworked with former governor Shutiva to involve the church. Hestill feels the year should not pass without some gesture of apologyby a representative of people of Spanish descent or the CatholicChurch.
Standing around a bonfire with kiva leaders outside the churchon Sky City last Christmas Eve, Trujillo began to think aboutthe possibility of reconciling one person at a time.
"There were atrocities, and we should never forget thoseatrocities because they can always be repeated," Trujillosays. "We need to say we did do those things, and we're sorryand ask forgiveness. I would like to apologize, personally. Iwant this reconciliation. All cultures are here to stay, likeit or not. What are we going to do to live together?"
As matriarch of the pueblo's antelope clan, 66-year-old VelmaChino is the tribe's chief religious woman, the mother of allAcomas.
Avoiding debate or blame this year, she prefers to retell theAcoma story of the creation of the world.
In the beginning, the story says, the creator made two women,sisters. One stood close to the rising sun and turned dark skinned.She would be the mother of the Indian people. The other was shieldedfrom the sun's rays and stayed light skinned. She would be themother of non-Indians. Chino remembers the story whenever historyof the battle with the Spanish begins to cloud relationships today.
"I've got two Spanish son-in-laws, and I love them dearly,"Chino says.
"We should not just look at the differences. We should justcontinue living in harmony and peace. We truly are brothers andsisters.
"I see some of what is happening this year, and I think weshould not fight. Our mother would not like it."
Chino's son, television newsman Conroy Chino, is also a memberof the antelope clan and a pueblo cacique. He has protested theuse of public money to pay for a statue of Oñate, but ina speech at the Roundhouse last week to kick off the state's 400thanniversary activities, he counseled New Mexicans to rememberOñate's deeds but not to be bound by them.
"We should use this time to draw on one another for emotionalsupport, bridge our worlds and replenish that spiritual bond betweenus," he said. "We may have been enemies 400 years ago,but now our only enemies should be racism, prejudice and ignorance."
The Journal is publishing a biweekly series of history articlesto commemorate the settlement of New Mexico by Juan de Oñatein 1598. This one covers the expeditions of Espejo in 1582 andCastaño de Sosa in 1590.
By Miguel Encinias
For the Journal
Antonio de Espejo came to New Spain with Chief Inquisitor PedroMoya de Contreras, who had come to the viceroyalty of Mexico toestablish a separate Inquisition for the New World.
But Espejo and his brother Pedro de Espejo soon developed wanderlustand headed to the northern frontier, where they became fairlywealthy cattle ranchers.
After making their fortune, the Espejo brothers became implicatedin a killing, after an argument with a cowboy employee. Pedro,who had actually done the killing in a gunfight, was jailed. Antoniowas assessed a fine, which he refused to pay.
Instead he fled even further north to the remote mining outpostsnear San Bartolome.
There he met members of the returning Rodriguez-Chamuscado expedition,a small group of soldiers and friars that explored New Mexicoin 1581.
The returning soldiers expressed concern about the friars whohad stayed behind at a pueblo near Albuquerque.
The Franciscans at San Bartolome demanded a rescue mission. Theybecame impatient with delays in such a mission being planned bythe viceroy and attempted to get permission for one of their ownfrom their superior in Durango.
Permission did not materialize, but a permit of sorts was obtainedfrom an alcalde mayor of a small frontier town.
Espejo, who was helping organize the mission and paying expenses,became the leader, but without portfolio, because the expeditionwas illegal.
A small band accompanied by only one friar, Bernardino Beltran,left San Bartolome on Nov. 1, 1582. They followed what had bynow become the usual route to the Conchos River, then headed onto the Rio Del Norte (Rio Grande).
After crossing the river, the group continued on northward tothe Tiguex area, near present-day Bernalillo, where they lookedfor traces of friars Francisco Lopez and Agustin Rodriguez.
Not finding any trace, they visited the Keres Pueblos, then headedwest to Zuni and Hopi lands, going as far as Oraibe. The groupreturned to the Galisteo basin, then headed to Pecos and finallyentered Humano territory on the east slope of the Manzano Mountains.
After crossing the mountains back to the river, they headed home,reaching San Bartolomé on Sept. 10, 1583.
The quick, but thorough, exploration inspired a flurry of curiosityabout the much-explored and still-intriguing north land, but itwould be seven years before another group made the trek.
Gaspar Castaño de Sosa, lieutenant governor of Nuevo Leon,was the first to move when the governor Luis de Carbajal was arrestedby the newly established Inquisition. Castaño, with theentire town of Almaden, his headquarters, started moving north.
Castaño had become discontented with Nuevo Leon becauseit had not produced the expected wealth.
This and the recurring dream of the great cities to the northmoved him to action after a perfunctory attempt to get officialpermission.
The good-sized train composed of women and children left on July27, 1590, intercepting the Rio del Norte in the general area ofmodern Del Rio, Mexico. They crossed the river and started lookingfor the Rio Salado (Pecos River).
They floundered in ravines, canyons and mountains in the unimaginablyrough terrain until they found the river, but they could not getto it because it was in an inpenetrably deep canyon.
The travellers went on for three weeks with the river in sightbefore they were able to use its waters.
They followed along the east bank changing sides frequently, dependingon the terrain.
Castaño sent his second-in-command, Cristobal de Heredia,ahead to look for the pueblos. When he returned, he reported havingreached Pecos, where he received a good reception at first, butwhen the Spaniards got careless, they were attacked, and barelyescaped with their lives.
When they returned half-starved, Castaño decided to gosee for himself with 20 of his men. Upon his arrival Dec. 31,the natives refused to come out, so Castaño attacked, capturingsome of them to use as guides. He went on to the vicinity of SanJuan, then returned to the main body of the expedition, leadingit to the Galisteo valley, where he left it while he went backto Pecos with 19 men. This time he was received in a friendlierfashion.
Having in his mind established Spanish authority, he rejoinedthe train and headed for Santo Domingo. He was planning to sendsome of his men back to New Spain for reinforcements, but a badsurprise awaited him, which would change his plans and his life.
Miguel Encinias is an Albuquerque historian. Hisnovel, "Two Lives for Oñate," was published thisyear by the University of New Mexico Press.
Copyright © 1997, 1998 Albuquerque Journal
Sunday, June 21, 1998
The Journal is publishing a biweekly seriesof history articles to commemorate the settlement of New Mexicoby Juan de Oñate in 1598. This one covers Oñate'sentrance into northern New Mexico in June and July 1598.
By Miguel Encinias
For the Journal
Juan de Oñate returned to his small group of scouts campednear what is now San Marcial in Socorro County after trying withlimited results to settle discontent in the main body of the expedition,which was approaching from the south.
Oñate and his party -- his nephews Vicente and Juan deZaldivar, Father Alonso Martinez and Capitán Diego de Zubia-- didn't wait and resumed the northward trek.
The light party arrived at the pueblo of Teypana on June 14, 1598,where they received a most gracious welcome.
Chief Letoc was not only very generous with his corn, but he alsoprovided the Spaniards with valuable information about the landand people up ahead.
In gratitude they named the pueblo "Socorro," or "help,"a name the village has today.
Four leagues of travel took them to a pueblo they baptized NuevaSevilla. There, a halt was called while the Zaldivar brothersexplored the area of Abo, to the northeast.
On June 21, after another short leg, they arrived at a newly builtpueblo they named San Juan Bautista. The natives had abandonedit so quickly that they left behind a large store of maize andmany art objects.
Oñate and his party camped at the pueblo, and for recreationconducted the "Moros y Cristianos" pageant.
Curiosity brought the natives back to watch the mock battle of"Moors and Christians." Among them was an Indian whowent up to Oñate and recited the words "jueves, viernes,sabado, domingo" -- the Spanish words for Thursday, Friday,Saturday and Sunday.
The Spaniards did not know what to make of it, feeling that perhapsthe man was mocking them. The native said no more until he sawthat the newcomers were getting angry.
Then he uttered two more words -- "Tomas, Cristobal"-- and pointed north.
The Spaniards soon understood from others who joined the strangeconversation that the names referred to two Indians who had comefrom Mexico with Gaspar Castaño de Sosa and had stayedbehind when the renegade explorer was taken back in chains byJuan de Morlete.
Oñate was so elated at the news -- which meant that hewould have two good interpreters -- that he decided to hurry onto Puaray, a large pueblo in the area of modern Bernalillo hopingto find them there.
When he arrived at Puaray on the June 27, he was told the would-beinterpreters were living at Guipui (Santo Domingo). When CaptainZubia found the two Mexican Indians they were in bed, but theywent willingly to meet Oñate at Puaray, with a purpose.
They told the general that they were married, had children andwere not willing to go back to New Spain.
The governor told them he had no intention to force them to goback, but only needed their help in getting to know the area nativesbetter.
After visiting Zia and San Felipe pueblos, Oñate convokeda council at Santo Domingo of the seven chiefs he had alreadymet so they could pledge allegiance to the Spanish king.
Next on the itinerary was Bove, which the Spanish named San Ildefonso,and San Marcos.
On July 11 the tiny troop reached Okhe, which Oñate wouldname San Juan de los Caballeros because of the gentlemen he encounteredthere. It was near San Juan that he would establish his capital.
As Gaspar de Villagrá says in his epic poem, "Historiade la Nueva Mexico": "At the end of adventures and eventsand times of sorrow, misadventures too, happy and in great pleasure(they) did arrive at a fine pueblo, well laid out, to which theygave the name San Juan, and 'de los caballeros.' ... Here allthe Indians with pleasure did share their houses with our folk.And when, all lodged and settled down, we were endeavoring tobe good neighbors."
Copyright ©1998 Albuquerque Journal