A Harvest of Reluctant Souls: Fray Alonso de Benavides's History of New Mexico, 1630

29. The Conversion of the Apaches de Navajó

• 55 Leaving, then, this province of the Gila Apaches, we proceed in the same direction along the western border of the settlements. Bearing north more than fifty leagues, with the country full of the tiny hamlets of the Gila Apache country, we come to the province of the Navajó Apaches. Although these people are part of the same Apache nation as the Gila people, they are the subjects and subordinates of another primary captain. They have a distinct way of life, as the others have never done any planting and sustain themselves solely by hunting. Nowadays, we have plowed a series of farmlands for them and taught them how to plant. And these Navajos are great workers; that’s what “Navajó” means— “big planted fields.” This province is the most bellicose of the entire Apache nation, and the place where the Spaniards have shown their greatest courage. This cordillera1 runs another fifty or sixty leagues, all of which is filled with alum2 deposited in the rock. The settled tribes and the Christians, who are all inclined toward using dyes, need alum to dye their clothes. This is only found in areas with iron deposits,3 and two or three thousand of the Pueblo Indians at a time will gather together to collect it. The Navajó Apaches make war on these mineral collectors in defense of their land. A tremendous number of deaths will occur 29. TheConversionof the ApachesdeNavajó 56 • Chapter 29 unless the collectors show up when the Navajos have gone off hunting in some other part of the iron deposit country. After they find out that people have been hauling off their minerals, they quickly band together and come to make war on the Christians. This is in revenge for people having entered their lands without permission. There are so many people in this tribe that in two days more than thirty thousand Indians, all carrying bows and arrows, can assemble. This is only a little exaggeration, as sometimes the Spaniards have gone to their country to fight as punishment for the many Christian Indians the Navajos have killed. And even with surprise assaults at dawn, catching the Navajos unawares, they always found the encampments full of hordes of dumbfounded people. The Navajó Apaches have a way of building dwellings beneath the earth.4 They set up jacal fences5 to protect their fields, and they always live in that kind of place. In the month of September of this past year of 1629, I was in the rectory of this aforementioned Santa Clara. This was in the pueblo of Capoó, which was the tenth and last mission I had founded to the glory and honor of God in these conversions. Here the Apaches de Navajó rampaged more than usual. And now, Our Lord saw fit that I should settle them during the monthof Septemberof thispastyearof 1629.ForthispurposeIfounded a friary and church at the pueblo of Santa Clara of the Tewa nation.6 These people were Christians, neighbors of the Navajó Apaches on the frontier, and they had sustained a good deal of damage from these Apaches. I wanted very much to make peace between them; out of this effort, of course, would also come their conversions. The outcome of all this was unusual, and perhaps Your Majesty might wish to know how it came about. It was like this: I could find no Apache to give presents to and send back to his own country so that he might tell his captains that we should meet and parley. So I determined to risk sending off a dozen of my Christians, men of talent and lively spirit. For this purpose, I called together the elders and captains of the pueblo and let them know of the wish I had to make peace with the Navajó Apaches, as much to cut down on more deaths as to get these tribes to deal with each other. This would profit all of them, and we could achieve their conversion by this means, which was my principal aim. The Conversion of the Apaches de Navajó • 57 Well, they all agreed to this, and naming one of the dozen as captain —as he was the most talented of the lot—they gave him their peace offerings in their customary way. These included an arrow that had in place of its flint point a colorful feather, as well as a pipeful of tobacco,7...