support and raiment. Their constant occupation is that of Martha and Mary, hastening like Martha to the active life, curing the sick and supporting the needy poor, planting for this purpose fields and raising flocks and with these breaking the ground for the Indians that do not live in towns and after having given them houses and whole towns and ploughed the land and sowed it for them, and given them all that was necessary for those first months, bring them to live there like men, where they teach them to say the Catechism and teach them good manners; and the boys also to read and write and sing, which is to praise the Lord to see in so short a time so many organ choirs; also all the arts and trades for civilised use, such as tailors, shoemakers, carpenters, black smiths and the rest, in which they are now very dexterous, and all depends on the solicitude and care of the religious, for should he fail, all this concert and all this civilized life in which they are instructed after our fashion, would cease. Nor do they fail to imitate Mary in the contemplative life, which is the monastic state which they have professed, since with so many exterior occupations of the holy sacraments, they do not give over from one town to another, for there is not a religious, but has in charge four or five pueblos, they live in such a way, that they seem to be in one community since matins never fail at midnight and the other hours and high mass in their time, and the convents with so much concert that they seem sanctuaries rather than the house of a single friar, and with all these continual occupations, fasts never fail down to the Lent of the Benditos and many other spiritual exercises, by which they edify both Spaniards and Indians, who respect them as Angels. I have wished to touch thus on this matter in passing, forbearing to say many other things, that I might; only that your Majesty may know the quality and virtue of his chaplains who with so much gratitude, love and good will, commend your Majesty to God in that remote corner and in that primitive church, where our Lord works so many wonders, and to which your Majesty should give all favor and aid as well by the obligation which the Church imposed on your Majesty in the Bull of Alexander VI. when it gave you in the name of God, these kingdoms for the simple care of supporting there our holy Catholic faith and the conversion of so many souls, as also for the many [mercies] that God our Lord there does your Majesty, by giving you so much wealth as we have discovered in the province of the Piros, as has been said, and in this kingdom of Quivira and Aixaos, and to enjoy all that monarchy it requires only to settle the ports, whence all this wealth is taken, and some one to profit by it; for it is certain that bars of silver will not come all cast from the mines, but they must be [costear i traer a casa], it is enough that our Lord God shows us before our eyes the rich mines and the ports by which we may enjoy them. SOUTHERN COAST. Having treated of all this land that we have pacified and converted to our Lord God and to your Majesty on this northern part, it is just that your Majesty know another treasure which has been kept for him more than seventy years and since it was discovered and seen, has been left till our Lord be pleased that its hour should come. It is seventy years since the Viceroy of New Spain Don Antonio de Mendoza sent Captain Alonzo Vazquez Coronado to discover the southern coast and four religious of my order went with him, and although to treat of these nations we might begin from New Mexico, going directly to the south or from the road of New Mexico at the last town of New Spain, which is the valley of Santa Barbara, going westward, as it is all one contiguous land with New Mexico, and no other order has entered there but that of my Father St Francis, which at the price of their blood has spread the knowledge of our holy Catholic faith, supposing that to make this [journey], you are to begin not from New Mexico but from the city of Mexico, it seems to me most proper to begin it at that city and arrive at the province of Chiametla, Culuacan and Sinaloa, which are fifty or sixty leagues from those of Xalisco, you meet these nations in the following order. VALLEY OF SEÑORA. I say then that leaving this province of Chiametla and proceeding eighty leagues north, bearing always near and coasting along the south sea you come and strike on the valley of Señora, which is seventy leagues long and ten broad, through the middle of which runs a very deep river, a land very fertile in grain and peopled with a great population. The first town is called the Town of Hearts (de los Corazones) from the number of deers' hearts that they presented there to our people: this town has 700 well arranged houses, and the climate of the country is very delightful. AGASTAN. Six leagues beyond this town in the same direction is another called Agastan, which is greater than the last, and around and through all this valley there are many towns, but the chief one, which is where the Cazique of this kingdom abides, is of 3000 very good and seemly houses, and in this as in the others they have their very handsome idolatrous temples and sepulchres, where the chief persons are interred. SIBOLA. Leaving then the last town of this valley of Señora, for the north again along the same coast of the South Sea forty or fifty leagues is the province of Sibola, and so too the chief city is called: which has in its vicinity seven other cities. The first has some 1000 houses, and the others many more, they are of stone and wood, and three or four stories high, very beautiful. TIHUES. After two more days' march in the same direction, you come to the province of Tihues, which contrasts very favorably with the last in the beauty and strength of the buildings. The first city going from Sibola which must be the chief town of this kingdom, is called Tihues. It has 4000 houses and more, all very large, in which lived from 10 to 15 families, very high corridors and terraces and very high towers all this city communicates by [roof walks] and terraces for [the passing people]. It was situated in a plain on the banks of a river, surrounded by walls of stone without lime, but with [white wash], and therefore the Spaniards were amazed at its beauty. CITY. There is another city a league and a half from that of Tihues, also on the banks of a river, of 3000 houses where the king keeps his women, a very handsome and strong square city, with houses of stone: it has three squares, the least being 200 paces broad and as many long. From these squares run streets so narrow as scarcely to hold two persons on horse back. All the houses have their corridors on the places like those of New Mexico and their [stoves] in them for winter and of these there are more than twenty very large, which argue well the number of people there. On the same bank of this river, half a league, two, three and four leagues are more than twenty other towns like this more and less strong and for a distance of sixty leagues that this river runs, to the sea, all is inhabited, and it is called Rio Bravo and is about a gun shot wide. WONDERFUL ROCK. Starting from Tihues westward and not north as up to this for a space of two days journey, is the strangest and strongest town that there can be in the world. It contains over two thousand houses so capacious that they say they contained over 7000 families and they even said more; it stands in some great plains, fifteen leagues [wide?] in the middle of which is a rock as high as the spire of the church of Seville, which seems to have more than a thousand [estados]. On the top of this rock it is all level for the space of a league, without any kind of tree or [ridge], on which the city is built; there and below in the plains they have their fields of maize and other crops. All this rock without is [precipitous], so smooth and straight that there is no way to ascend, except one road made by hand, so narrow that it holds only a single person and at intervals some cavities that in case two meet on the way they may pass there. On top they have very large cisterns and [receptacles] of water, which render it impregnable and wonderful in all. TUZAYAN. Following this same direction westward on the coast of the South Sea, 80 leagues from Tihues is the province of Tuzayan which has as many as 30 towns of good houses, although not like those mentioned. CICUYO. Turning northward from the city of Tihues, three or four days journey, is a plain which has six leagues, all full of tilled fields, amid pines that bear wonderful pineapples and other large and graceful trees. There is built a large and handsome city called in the language of that city Cycuyo, on a level ground, which must have more than 6000 very large houses of six and seven stories. It has two walls, one separated from the other of the height of two [estados], too strong for people that employ no artillery; it has its towers with their chapters well colored and handsome, it has three very large squares and in them many estufas and all the houses with their corridors on the squares and the streets narrow so that only two men on horseback can pass. It is a very handsome and strong town and so filled our people with wonder. QUIVIRA. Fifteen short days' journey from Tihues westward is the kingdom of Quivira where there are many and great towns, with houses of straw as in New Spain because the climate here is very temperate, and this nation builds its edifices with no greater pomp than is necessary for [its ordinary needs], and although we call this the South Sea, it is that of California, which runs from south to north till it comes out in the Strait of Anian. To this point arrived Alonzo Vazquez Coronado and his people with our four religious and not to [embarrass] himself so much and with so few people and such short supplies and ammunition, he determined to return, being informed that on both sides there were very large and rich towns, and having left there sown the seed of the divine Word and the knowledge of our God and Lord as far as that brief time permitted, they returned to report to the Viceroy what they had seen, and so it remained till God was pleased that its hour should arrive and your Majesty enjoy that monarchy also. The divine Majesty is pleased to dispose of it all, so that all those souls may know and adore his most holy name and obtain the holy sacrament of Baptism, and to your Majesty, spirit, grace and strength to subject to your royal crown so many barbarous [ people], that dwell there. FRIAR ALONSO DE BENAVIDES. This is the memorial which the said Father Fray Alonso de Venanedis [Benavides] drew up and compiled, as well of things experienced and seen by him in his time as of a juridical information and other authentic relations which the Commissary General of New Spain transmitted to me. By which memorial your Majesty will understand the great spiritual and temporal fruits wherewith our Lord God has been pleased to reward the Catholic zeal which your Majesty has shown in favoring those missions by his royal means, with so much profit to over 500,000 souls by the industry and care, and not without the immense labors of this seraphic order, who as well in these missions as in all the others of that New World, in the East and West Indies, have been the first who so disinterestedly [han puesto elombro] and given a happy and fortunate commencement to such glorious enterprises. Wherefore I beseech your Majesty to be pleased to command once more that those missions be favored by sending to them and to all the provinces of my order, (which alone now in all America is engaged in new missions) religious from those of Spain, whence they always had their commencement and preservation, the harvest being so great and copious and the workmen there so few, that none of those provinces even that of the Holy Gospel can provide for them, because granting that this has the men who suffice for it, if they have to be such as can be well selected for these apostolic missions, it cannot give them to others without remaining in notable want and necessity of what is so important for its preservation, in the perfection and observance of their rule, and the fulfilment of their obligations; and hence the Father Commissary General of those provinces writes, that they are all in very urgent necessity of your Majesty's providing them with religious from here, to cultivate them, that seeing themselves favored by such protection and help, they may take courage and exert themselves to prosecute and carry on the many valuable services which in those parts they have rendered to both majesties. FRIAR JUAN SANTANDER, Commissary General of the Indies. THE WHISKEY REBELLION OF 1794. DEAR SIR, (From the original manuscript in the New York Public Library.) My errand here was a humane one, and without much hesitation might be pronounced one easily to be accomplished. It was to remove desperation from conscious gilt, to calm ruffled minds and to induce the inhabitants of four counties to consult their own happiness. It may be thought an easy task to convince men, that it is for their benefit not to be hanged, for the safety of their persons & property not only to obey but to support the laws made for securing both, and for their mental and corporeal comfort to cultivate and enjoy peace, order & tranquillity in their day & generation. The wiser & better sort required no arguments to convince them of all this, but the next class to them and those placed a grade still lower would at first scarce listen to anything of this import; their prejudices & passions had usurped the judgment-seat of reason, and for sometime almost induced a belief that they could not be governed by the arms of truth & perswasion, but by military coercion only. At length however, affability, moderation & perseverance, allowing the passion of fear its proper place, and compliments to the good sense & virtue of the persons conversed with, operated a change in several, and from being suspected, feared and considered as enemies we in a few days were freely spoken to, confided in, and treated as friends. Our negociation approaches towards a favorable issue. The proceedings of this day will probably nearly insure in these counties at least a passive obedience to the Excise Laws. At a convention of committees, composed of not less than three, nor exceeding five persons chosen by the inhabitants of every township (except four) within the counties of Westmorland, Washington, Fayette & Alleghany, at Parkinson's-ferry on the Monongahela the 14th instant, a committee of sixty, called a committee of safety, consisting of one member from each township, and another of twelve persons, stiled a committee of conference, were appointed. All matters have been amicably adjusted with the committee of conference, who were to make their report yesterday to the sixty at Fort Burd (now Brownsville); if it shall be adopted, the convention of committees, who met on the 14th will be assembled next week, and their sense taken upon it; should it meet with their approbation, as they are 226 in number it may be fairly considered as the voice of the people. Thus an Assembly originally convened for one (I will not say a bad) purpose, is likely to be converted to another and a very useful & good one. In case a reconciliation & amnesty had not taken place, many (I believe a majority) of the people here threatened to become British subjects, to remove into the Indian country, or at all events to detach themselves from the laws of the Union, and be independent of any government except one to be formed by themselves. Indeed, their speeches & actions have been most extravagant; a frenzy |