Came Men on Horses: The Conquistador Expeditions of Francisco Vásquez de Coronado and Don Juan de Oñate

20. Rediscovering Quivira

221 20 Rediscovering Quivira They [the Rayados] began to make threats and to give indications they wanted to fight, waving their arms, pulling the strings of their bows, and throwing dirt into the air. Captain Juan gutiérrez Bocanegra1 There is no mention in the Spanish records that the Oñate Expedition was advantaged by accounts of the Coronado Expedition sixty years earlier. In taking a direct course from San Gabriel eastward to the Canadian River, Oñate avoided the hazard of becoming lost on the prairies of the Texas Panhandle. He was possibly aided by Indians, including Jusepe, who were interviewed earlier regarding the interior country beyond New Mexico. Even as the expedition was still in the field in October 1601, Sergeant Alonso de la Vega, who had accompanied the march for fifty leagues until he fell ill and returned, testified at San Gabriel that prior to Oñate’s departure some natives had been interviewed through an interpreter.They told of large pueblos in the interior and had drawn “lines on the ground and pointed in the direction of the road followed by the governor.”2 Oñate embarked on his Quivira quest from his San Gabriel headquarters at the mouth of the Chama River, north of Albuquerque, on 222 R e d i s c o v e R i n g Q u i v i R a June 23, 1601.The expedition consisted of “more than seventy picked and well-equipped men, more than seven hundred horses and mules, six carts drawn by mules and two by oxen bringing four pieces of artillery,and sufficient servants to transport the necessary baggage.”3 Prominent among the other members were Vicente de Zaldívar as the maestro de campo; Oñate’s son, Don Cristóbal, now about fifteen years of age; two Franciscan friars, priest Francisco de Velasco and lay brother Fray Pedro de Vergara; and the Indian guide Jusepe.Vicente later complained that half of the men Oñate took with him were more of a hindrance than a help.4 The expedition also included a herd of cattle for feeding the members .This sizable impediment naturally restricted the party’s rate of travel, which is suggested as averaging three or four leagues a day—coinciding with how often they generally found water.5 With plodding oxen, cattle, a spare horse remuda, and those making the journey on foot, the expedition could hardly have moved with much speed. Eventually, the cattle were consumed by the army and replaced for food by buffalo found in enormous herds on the ravine-slashed plains of the Texas Panhandle. But the hunting, slaughtering, and butchering of buffalo was time-consuming and further impeded the entrada’s advance.6 As with the Coronado Expedition, uncertainty has long existed concerning the route of Oñate’s march across the regions of present Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas in 1601. Despite the studied efforts of historians, anthropologists, and archaeologists, neither his route in total nor his final destination has been determined satisfactorily. Some scholars have concluded that Oñate’s visit to the Escanjaque and Rayado (Wichita) villages occurred in present Oklahoma, while others think it took place at various locations in Kansas. This study offers yet another theory of Oñate’s route and final destination for consideration (see appendix C). A map prepared by cartographer Enrico Martínez in 1602 depicts Oñate’s route in terms of the known landmarks of the time (figure 20.1). In drawing the map, Martínez was guided from memory by Juan Rodríguez, a Portuguese mariner experienced in sea navigation who had been a member of the Castaño de Sosa Expedition in 1590 and made the journey to Quivira with Oñate.The Martínez map is said to be the oldest surviving map to show the interior of Tierra Nueva with any accuracy.7 Because of its geographic disproportion and the difficulty it presents in relating its place references beyond the Canadian River to those of today, however, the map leaves much to interpretation. FigUrE 20.1. Oñate’s march, 1602 (map by Martínez) 224 R e d i s c o v e R i n g Q u i v i R a By any reasoning of the entrada’s route, it appears certain that the map does not include all of the streams the...