Great Cruelties Have Been Reported: The 1544 Investigation of the Coronado Expedition

CHAPTER 11 RODRIGO DE FRÍAS, THE NINTH DE OFICIO WITNESS

Rodrigo de Frías 189 Chapter 11 Rodrigo de Frías, the Ninth de Oficio Witness A Member of theAdvance Guard I ery little is known about Rodrigo de Frías and nothing after 1548, except that a person of that ñame was encomendero of Xolostotiti án, northeast of Guadalajara in 1570.1 Frías was from the famous sixteenth-century center of ceramics manufactureTalayera de la Reina in the province ofToledo, Spain. In May 1536 he received license to travel to Nueva España at about age 19.2 A litde less than four years later he passed muster before the viceroy at Compostela, evidently, like Juan Troyano, in the company of Hernando de Alvarado.Judging from the three horses he took with him to Tierra Nueva, he was better supplied and perhaps of higher economic state than most of the expedition members.3 Also likeJuan Troyano, Fríaswas selected as a member of the advance guard that traveled with Vázquez de Coronado from Culiacán to Cíbola. In June 1544, when he testified before Lorenzo de Tejada, he was residing in México City, but had not been granted vecino status. He still maintained the same resident status aslate as 1548.4 Frías, the last of the witnesses questioned in México City, like many of the others, volunteered unsolicited information that portrayed Vázquez de Coronado in a positive light. v 190 Chapteru For instance, he declared that the captain general had not allowed the Spaniards who went with him to lodge within the Indian towns they stopped at, in order to forestall potential friction and ill will. In further exoneration, he suggested that Vázquez de Coronado never heard about the rape of an Indian woman by one of his men. In addition to such exculpatory statements, Frías offered not the slightest hint of anything incriminating against the expedition leader. It should be remembered that Frías, like all the witnesses from México City and Guadalajara whose testimony survives, was a de oficio witness, making the predominance, even profusión, of testimony favorable to the target of the pesquisa all the more remarkable. Almost everything that Frías had to saytoTejadawashearsay evidence. He was present at almost none of the events he was asked about. He gave, nevertheless , perfunctory renditions of some of the same stories of rapes and commandeering of food and clothing told by other witnesses. He also reported as hearsay that when Hernando de Alvarado first visited the Tiguex pueblos all but two of them agreed to what they understood of the requerimiento. Those remaining two, though, had to be forced to submit. This is a possibility not raised elsewhere in known documents deriving from the expedition. The one bit of eyewitness evidence that Frías offered was that he saw the cacique from Cicuique threatened with hanging. Again, this is reported nowhere else. FIGURES. Indian captive threatened with hanging, after Códice Azoyú Rodrigo de Frías 191 A TRANSLATION OF THE TESTIMONY Ninth de Oficio Witness (Rodrigo de Frías)5 [64v] Rodrigo de Frías, accepted as a witness for this investigation, having given his oath in the form required bylaw and being questioned before the lord judge, was asked the fbllowing questions. {1} He was asked whether he knows Francisco Vázquez de Coronado, don García López de Cárdenas, don Diego de Guevara, don Tristán de Arellano , don Rodrigo Maldonado, the councilman of Sevilla Diego López , don Pedro de Tovar, Hernando de Alvarado, Juan de Zaldívar, Barrionuevo, Pablos de Melgosa, and the other captainswho went to explore andsubjugate the tierra nueva of Cíbola, Tiguex, Cicuique, Brava, and Quivira and the other neighboring provinces. He answered that he knows all of those about whom he is asked, by appearance, voice, behavior, and conversation that he has had and continúes to have with them for the last five years and more. He was present during the subjugation and reconnaissance of those provinces, with the exception of Quivira since he stayedwith don Tristán de Arellano in the barranca on the plains (where most [65r] of the company remained). He went with Francisco Vázquez and his captains from the time they left the city of México until they returned to it. {2} [The witness] was askedwhether the [people of the] provincesof Los Corazones, the valleys...