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

25. The Conquistador Legacy

275 25 The Conquistador Legacy Truth is the only merit that gives dignity and worth to history. lord acton1 Individuals who have been differently persuaded, as well as organized groups formed to honor Coronado and Oñate, will naturally resent any challenge to the idea that the two men were noble leaders who exercised benevolent oversight of those under their authority. Most of us have been trained early in our school years to see certain historical figures in a purified , heroic sense. There is good in this, it can be argued, in shaping young minds to appreciate and accept moral values and honor their national heritage. But in adult life we must recognize the inherent danger of closing our minds to the full, sometimes ugly, truth of the past. History, unlike fiction, cannot be manipulated to reach a single, pleasing, but false conclusion. The conquistadors saw themselves as Herbert Bolton described Coronado: each a virtuous knight in the service of his deified monarch, supported further by a contorted religious piety that justified virtually any 276 T h e C o n q u i s T a d o r L e g a C y act of mayhem. These were men descended from the period of European history we know as the Inquisition, when barbarous behavior by those in power was, for both national and religious reasons, accepted practice. Virtually any action to quell dissenters or enemies of the state was justified by the “noble cause.” Oñate’s captain, Gaspar de Villagrá, proudly proclaimed the conquistador’s virtue in his lyrical account of his New Mexico experiences: From a thousand chieftains he has slain. Castile, mother glorious Of warriors most victorious, Mirror of the moon and sun, Villagrá has come to lay On your altars here today A precious trophy he had won, His shining sword wiped clean Of its gory, bloody spleen.2 Bolton, whose outstanding scholarship on the conquistador is truly to be recognized, found merit in Coronado’s actions by contrasting them with the horrific excesses of conquistadors Nuño de Guzmán in Mexico’s Nueva Galicia province and Hernando de Soto in the American South. Relatively speaking, Bolton concluded, Coronado’s treatment of the Indian natives he encountered was a “Sunday school picnic.”3 In terms of the Quivira expeditions alone, Bolton’s argument holds some validity; the atrocities of Guzmán and de Soto, after all, were gory to the extreme.During their expeditions to Quivira,Coronado and Oñate realized that their forces were severely extended on the far plains. The fates of Francisco Leyva de Bonilla, Antonio Gutiérrez de Humaña, and Friar Juan Padilla well illustrate the potential dangers the Spaniards faced there. Other than dragging Indian guides about in iron collars and chains and the secretive garroting of the Turk, neither Coronado nor Oñate committed the types of serious infractions on the plains that they had employed among the generally compliant Pueblo Indians. But as Richard Flint points out, in regard to his overall performance with Indian natives otherwise, Coronado relied on torture and other horrific measures to establish dominance over the people he was sent to quell in Mexico and those he encountered during his two years in North America. Mass murders occurred when his men torched occupied pueblo settlements. Any 277 T h e C o n q u i s T a d o r L e g a C y Indian even suspected of being resistant to Spanish overlording was often hanged, burned at the stake, or brutally maimed. Indian women were raped or forced into slave servitude.4 Clearly, Oñate was likewise guilty of horrific acts in maiming the Acoma prisoners by cutting off their noses, hands, or feet essentially to establish Spanish dominance over the New Mexico pueblos. Indian prisoners were burned at the stake under his command as well.It appears,too, that he brutalized and murdered his own officers and colony members when they sought to escape back to Mexico. These revelations and introspection into Coronado’s and Oñate’s characters leave us with conflicted views as to their historical importance. Even as we recognize the inhumaneness of their acts, we must acknowledge the significance of their expeditions into the American Southwest and give credit to the courage, determination, and personal sacrifice required of their exploration efforts. For ensuing generations who must serve as...