bended knee, the chiefs swore allegiance to God and the King of Spain, and sealed the oath by kissing the hands of Oñate and Father Martínez.

The ceremony over, Oñate gave his mind to plans for exploration. He wished to explore the Buffalo Plains, discover the Strait of Anian, open a land route to the Pacific, and take a look at the country northeastward beyond Quivira.

Sixty men went to the plains to procure meat and tallow and to capture buffalo to domesticate. After a few tilts the plan to tame the ugly beasts was given up, but more than two thousand pounds of tallow were obtained. Oñate went to Moqui, and from there Marcos Farfán led a party to the gold-fields of Arizona which Espejo had discovered, and staked out claims. On their way to join Oñate, Juan de Zaldívar and fourteen companions were slain at Ácoma, by the rebellious People of the White Rock. To punish the offenders Oñate sent out an expedition which captured Ácoma after two days of terrific fighting on its stone stairs, laid the pueblo waste by fire, and exterminated most of its inhabitants. Shortly afterward Oñate led eighty men down the Canadian River, crossed Oklahoma, and entered Quivira at Wichita, Kansas; but he was forced to retreat by

Indian hostility. Another golden dream had a

prosaic awakening.

Meanwhile disaster had befallen the colony, which by this time had moved its headquarters across the Río Grande to San Gabriel, near Chama River. A dry season had made food scarce and, when Oñate returned, he confiscated the supplies in the pueblos, leaving the Indians destitute. The friars, whose first thought was for their missions, were now in conflict with Oñate. One of them wrote of him: "In all the expeditions he has butchered many Indians, human blood has been shed, and he has committed thefts, sackings, and other atrocities. I pray that God may grant him the grace to do penance for all his deeds." Hunger drove most of the settlers and all the friars but one back to Santa Bárbara. Among those who withdrew, ruined in fortune, was Captain Luís de Velasco, the erstwhile Beau Brummel of the satin coats. Oñate sent soldiers after his faint-hearted colonists to arrest and bring them back. Some of them returned, and Father Escobar came north as the new superior of the missionaries, bringing six new friars.

Finally, in 1604, Oñate carried out his intention of reaching the South Sea. It was his last throw of

the dice. By this time he and his friends were ruined in fortune, and his reputation was under a cloud as a result of charges made by his rivals and enemies. New Mexico was already a white elephant on the royal hands. Oñate must make a hit somewhere, and Vizcaíno had just focused attention on California. Westward, therefore, Oñate again turned. With thirty men he followed the footsteps of Espejo and Farfán and went on to the Colorado, down the Colorado to the Gulf of California; explored the shore of the Gulf, found no pearl fisheries, and returned to San Gabriel convinced that California was an island. On the way he had heard from an Indian wag of a land to the north where people slept under water and wore golden bracelets; of a race of unipeds; of giant Amazons on a silver island to the west; of a tribe with long ears trailing on the ground, and of another nation which lived on smells. And, as Father Escobar indited of these matters, since God had created greater wonders and "since they have been affirmed by so many and different tribes . . . they cannot lack foundation."

New Mexico was an expense. It had not led to discovery of the Strait of Anian; the distant mines of Arizona could not be worked without Indian

labor, which could only be procured by keeping a large and costly military force in the country. The new Viceroy of Mexico reported on the province unfavorably to the King and urged that all efforts now be concentrated on California. The colonists were as disheartened as the Viceroy. They threatened to leave if ample supplies did not arrive within the year. At the same time, in August, 1607, Oñate asked for his release, unless sufficient aid was to be sent to him. This may have been a bluff. If so, it was called. His request was granted and early in 1609 Pedro de Peralta arrived in San Gabriel as the new Governor with instructions to find a better site and move the capital and colony thither. Thus Peralta founded the town of し Santa Fé. Oñate returned to Mexico, where the charges against him were pending for more than a decade. The rewards for his services were poverty, enemies, and disappointment. Nevertheless, he had founded a permanent outpost for Spain and a colony which after three centuries gives character to one of our commonwealths.

Hopes of finding rich minerals in New Mexico having failed, the province remained chiefly a missionary field, with its principal secular settlement at Santa Fé. But as a missionary province

it flourished. According to Father Benavides, by 1630 there were fifty friars at work. Their twentyfive missions included ninety pueblos and sixty thousand converts. At each mission there were a school and workshops, where the neophytes were taught reading, writing, singing, instrumental music, and the manual arts.

The account which Father Benavides gives of the Queres missions is typical of all. "Passing forward another four leagues," he says, "the Queres nation commences with its first pueblo, that of San Felipe, and extends more than ten leagues in seven pueblos. There must be in them four thousand souls, all baptized. There are three monasteries with very costly and beautiful churches, aside from those which each pueblo has. These Indians are very dexterous in reading, writing, and playing on all kinds of instruments and are skilled in all the crafts, thanks to the great industry of the friars who converted them."

For eighty years Spaniards and Indians dwelt at peace with each other. But while the Indians accepted the religion of the friars, they also preserved their own- as they have preserved it to this day — and, under demands that they give it up, coupled with penances and punishments, they