Читать книгу Great River - Paul Horgan - Страница 44

23.

Exchange

With each day that passed the colony more deeply established its roots, bringing new ways to the Indian people, and in turn acquiring from them some of the old habits of living along the river.

The river lands met now a new use on a larger scale than ever before. The Spaniards set their cattle, sheep, horses and goats out to graze on the slopes of the valley above the irrigated fields—the slopes where storm water ran, and according as it was detained by vegetation made great or little damage in the face of the earth. Nobody could see in the first years or even generations, as the grass came back every spring, whether or not there was less of it showing each time; and whether gullies formed and grew faster than before. It was an immemorial process, the grazing of animals, and the land had always fed them. There were no thoughts of river life and valley character and land use as related to one another by all the fateful possibilities that lay within change wrought by man.

Vásquez de Coronado had brought his sheep along to be eaten. Oñate’s sheep gave not only mutton but wool. Indian weavers prepared the wool just as they had their cotton and used the same looms and methods with the new material. New garments began to appear among the Indians, which could be acquired by the Spaniards in turn through sale or force.

Foods were exchanged. The Indian chocolate, that had come from the Aztec, and the tomato, were already in the Spanish household. Indian hunting drives to the foothills after piñon nuts brought a rich little nibble to the colonists. On such expeditions they saw many piñon trees ruined by the heavy antics of bears—the silver-tip, the brown bear and the black bear—who loved to gather the clustered nuts but broke whole limbs away doing it. In return the Indian farms came to plant new foods brought by the colonists—wheat, oats, barley, chile, onions, peas, watermelon, muskmelon, peaches, apricots, apples and certain varieties of beans. The irrigated fields of both Indian and Spaniard showed new plants. The honey of the Indians was “very white,” as the Governor wrote to Mexico. He detailed much of the wild life, the vegetation, the untouched mineral riches of the land; and he found the Indians much like those of Mexico in coloring, disposition and all but speech.

Colonists went looking at their new land. They saw the abandoned cliff cities west of the river, and came upon the two stone panthers in a mountain shrine above the Rito de los Frijoles. The carved animals were four feet long with tails two feet longer than that. They were crouched as if to spring. A circle of large rocks surrounded them. Traces of red ochre showed on the cats’ heads—devotional signs made by Indians. The Spaniards watched how the Indians fished, using long nets of yucca fibre stretched from bank to bank across a shallow place. Great hauls were taken, most of them thrown away. So too the Indians killed game far beyond their needs. The soldiers marvelled at the quantity of deer in the country. They would capture fawns and train them to pull little toy carts for the Spanish children. Later, grown deer were broken to harness and used to draw full-sized vehicles. Indians now had wheels to use. The vast land began to lose its secrets. The Governor thought there were about seventy thousand people in the pueblos.

As to where they were, the people of the river colony had firm notions. They thought it was nonsense to say, as some people said, that the New World had been peopled in the beginning by a landing of King Solomon’s armada on the coast of Peru. Such a theory was held by certain scholars, but it was demolished by others who pointed out that King Solomon sailed from the Red Sea on a cruise of three years, from which he returned with gold, silver and ivory. There were neither elephants nor ivory in Peru. What seemed plain was that he had actually been in the Orient, China. As for where the earliest people came from—somewhere in the north there was a strait, and they came across it from China. China, Japan Island, India, were not far distant in the seas to the west, and only awaited the discovery of suitable harbors on the coast of New Mexico for the birth of lively overseas trade. The Governor had a clause in his royal contract granting him the right to bring two ships annually direct to New Mexico. He looked forward with confidence to trade with China, so close in the west, and with Mexico and Peru to the south. He saw world enterprises centering upon his city of San Juan on the river. Already capital of so much land, who knew what remained to be brought loyally to it? The western sea shored along the provinces of “the Californios.” Reports compared the climate there to that of New Castile, and added further that “their states are the best managed of those thus far discovered,” resembling, indeed, “Roman republics.” In the summer of 1600 Vicente de Zaldívar led a troop of soldiers to find so promising a sea. On his way out he marched first to the saline pueblos beyond the mountains east of the river, to gather provisions for his journey. At one town where he asked for maize and beans the Indians gave him stones. He sent word of this to the capital and went on his way.

The Governor acted upon his message. Taking fifty soldiers he went to the transmontane pueblo, gave battle in which six Indians died, and later hanged two chiefs. He then burned part of the town, but in a manner “tactful and gentle,” and returned to San Juan.

Zaldívar was home before autumn to report that though he had come within three days of the sea he had not been able to reach it through hostile Indian country and high mountains. It was a setback for an impatient Governor, who had problems of discipline to contend with besides. During that autumn two captains of the army were murdered—Aguilar, who had twice made trouble for the Governor, and Sosa Albernoz. There was talk. The Governor was supposed to have ordered the killings.

But Christmas came and with it a new train from Mexico. It arrived at the capital on Christmas Eve bringing new families, new soldiers, six new friars; quantities of arms and ammunition; blankets and clothing, and shoes for everyone. Bonfires of celebration were lighted, and there was music and singing, and at midnight everyone went to Mass to give thanks. With his new resources the Governor could now plan to explore in strength his lands to the east and to the west.

Once again Quivira glowed in the civilized mind. Joseph, the Indian who had escaped from Bonilla and Humaña on those same plains, beguiled the Governor as the Turk had beguiled Vásquez de Coronado. It had long been a common form of Indian politeness to say that which the hearer would like to hear, the truth to the contrary notwithstanding. By his questions a Spanish general could kindle the answers he longed to receive. Gold, like this? Silver? Cities? A great house, a palace? Bounty in all things? Joseph had much to promise, and recited his wonders, ending with an account of a city he himself had not happened to see, but which he well knew from descriptions by other plains people—a city nine leagues long, two leagues wide, filled with marvels. There wasn’t a city in all Spain as big as that. The Governor commanded that preparations be launched for his entry into Quivira in the springtime.

But once again his peaceful purposes of acquisition were interrupted by calamitous news, when three soldiers came home to San Juan to say that two of their comrades had been killed by the same insolent Indians over the mountains to the east. Zaldívar once again led a punitive force against the guilty pueblo. The Indians massed at Quarai, one of the three large towns in the saline district. A battle of five nights and days followed before the town, deprived of its water supply by the soldiers, surrendered. Forty soldiers were wounded. Zaldívar had an arm broken and carried two wounds besides. Nine hundred Indians were killed. Their town was burned and two hundred prisoners were taken to the capital. Two months behind schedule, the Governor marched for Quivira with nearly a hundred soldiers, and pack animals, and cottonwood carts, in June, 1601. His sense of high fortune was at its fullest. Crossing the vast eastern land would be like the act of rolling up a map after it had served its simple purpose.