The Western San Juan Mountains: Their Geology, Ecology, and Human History

16. The Spanish

CHAPTER 16 THE SPANISH RICHARD N. ELLIS Long before Anglo-Americans visited the Southwest, the area was explored and settled by the Spanish. In 1540, almost seventy years before the founding ofJamestown or the landing ofthe pilgrim fathers at Plymouth, Francisco Vasques de Coronado led an exploring expedition into the Southwest that took his men from western Arizona to Kansas. More than fifty years later, in 1598, Juan de Onate undertook the colonization of New Mexico. New Mexico was a small and isolated frontier province at the farthest edge of the Spanish frontier, and even in the 1630s Santa Fe had a population of only some 250 Spaniards in addition to mestizos and christianized Indians. In 1680 the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico organized against the Spanish, and the Pueblo Revolt of that year successfully drove the Spanish from the province. It was not until 1693 that New Mexico was recolonized by Diego de Vargas, and three years later the population of New Mexico numbered only approximately 2,000 Spaniards and mestizos. The population of New Mexico grew in subsequent years, but it remained an isolated region whose people depended upon agriculture and stock raising for subsistence. New Mexico also was surrounded by Indian tribes, including Navajos, Utes, Apaches, and Comanches, who resisted Spanish efforts to control and to Christianize them and who were willing to fight to maintain their freedom and independence. Though Spanish-Indian hostility was common in New Mexico , such conflict was intermittent, and many ofthose same Indian 215 2/6 The Western San Juan Mountains tribes also engaged in economic interchange with New Mexicans and with the Pueblo population of the Rio Grande Valley. Taos became a center for such trade, as Comanches, Apaches, and Utes began to make frequent commercial visits to that area, and in the latter half of the eighteenth century Taos began to host an important annual trade fair. The community of Abiquiu, in the Chama Valley, also became a center of commerce. The trade was important to both Indians and New Mexicans, and tribes such as the Utes were important suppliers of deerskins, which New Mexicans used themselves and exported to the south. "Without this trade," wrote one governor in the 1750s, the settlers "could not provide for themselves, for they have no other commerce other than that of these skins." The Utes were an important commercial partner for New Mexico because they were generally more friendly than tribes such as the Comanches. In time their trade became significant enough that New Mexicans began to go into Ute country rather than waiting for the Utes to come to the trade fairs. It is not known when the first Spanish traders entered southwestern Colorado, for such trade was illegal and the participants were careful not to leave a written record. The trade probably began sometime about 1700, for one governor of that era proclaimed such activity by Spaniards and Indians illegal. In 1712 the governor indicated that New Mexicans were unaware of the royal order that outlawed trade on Indian land and commonly made such expeditions. Spanish miners also explored the San Juans, although no contemporary written record of their activity exists in Spanish archival sources. Such prospecting was illegal without specific authorization, but physical evidence of mining clearly indicates that the Spanish penetrated into the San Juans in their search for precious metals. The first recorded Spanish expedition into southwestern Colorado was led by Juan Maria de Rivera in 1765. Though the account of this trading expedition lacks detail, it is apparent that Rivera traveled into the La Plata Mountains and then proceeded westward. He journeyed down the Dolores River, turned to the San Miguel in the vicinity ofpresent Naturita, and crossed the Uncompahgre Plateau, reaching the bottomlands of the Gunnison The Spanish ., 2I7 Valley west of present-day Delta. He returned by ascending the Uncompahgre Valley and then crossed back over the Uncompahgre Plateau and retraced his original route. Along the way Rivera met Utes who told him he was the first Spaniard to go that way. Rivera, who returned to southwestern Colorado in the autumn of 1765, blazed the trail into Colorado and played an important role in making contact with the Utes in that country. In all likelihood other Spaniards followed Rivera's example, and in 1775 three members of his initial expedition returned to the vicinity of modern -day Delta. The next major Spanish expedition...