|
Winner Don Juan de Onate y Zalazar sentenced all males over the age of 25 from the Acoma pueblo in 1599
to have one foot chopped off. The right foot on his bronze statue was nocturnally removed in 1998 under a moonless
sky and soon replaced. Onate is a Basque word meaning, "At the foot of the mountain pass."
|
Winner Vincente de Zaldivar commanded 70 conquistadors during a punitive raid against 1500 Acoma pueblo indians
in 1599. His older brother Juan was killed weeks earlier in an ambush. Villagers jeered him from the rim of their mesa they
thought was impregnable. He killed 1000 and lost only 2 during a three day battle, supressing the Acoma pueblo rebellion.
|
Loser Juan de Zaldivar, 28 was coaxed into a false sense of security. He permited his 24 conquistadors to separate
within the maze of Acoma's narrow alleys. They were easily isolated, surrounded, and killed by hundreds of
angry villagers armed with stones, clubs, bows, and poles in face-to-face combat that lasted 3 hours.
|
Loser Zutucapan was the cacique of lofty Acoma; he was chosen by the local secret societies to rule for life.
As chief and spiritual leader he emerged one ominous day from a village kiva and foolishly decided to fight a more
formidable opponent. Slain.
|
|
Loser Gaspar Castano de Sosa established a bold but unauthorized spanish settlement in pueblo country
along the Rio Grande in the winter of 1590. Without official approval his group of 170 men and women were disbanded back
to Mexico in the spring of 1591 by order of the viceroy. Arrested. Convicted. Exiled to China. Died there.
|
Winner Antonio de Espejo was a private citizen and charasmatic merchant who assumed command of
14 conquistadors in 1583.
He visited dozens of pueblos and encountered thousands of people in Tiguex. Astutely discovered their divisions,
especially in language. Torched a northern pueblo and executed 16 indians - "a stange deed for so
few people in the midst of so many enemies."
|
Loser El Turco (the Turk) came from the great plains. He was not a Pueblo, probally a Pawnee. He was called
"Turk" because "he looked like one"
according to Castanedas. He embellished tales of a wealthy wonderous city of gold called Quivira. The swarthy deceiver
was strangled to death for lying.
|
Winner Pedro de Castanedas chronicled Coronado's exploration as a soldier. The Spanish adventurers were
dissappointed in the adobe and plaster-stoned pueblos they discovered. The appartments had flat roofs and ladders
instead of stairs. There were only rumors of precious metals. Read out loud requerimiento, or demand for
submission to Cibolans.
|
|
Winner Don Garcia Lopez de Cardenas was the first european to discover the Grand Canyon in 1540. He gave the
Pueblos of Puaray a taste of traditional Spanish tactics: he offered them the honors of capitulation and
then butchered over 100 as a reminder to all.
|
Winner Hernando de Alarado visited the mesa pueblo of Acoma and discovered the pueblos of Tiguex along
the Rio Grande near present day city of Albuquerque. Advised Coronado to winter inside adobe apartments at Puaray.
|
Winner Francisco Vasquez de Coronado entered the Zuni village of Hawikuh with a violent introduction.
The 30 year old ambitious aristocrat was handsome and hungry.
Not finding rubbies, emeralds, diamonds, gold, or silver anywhere inside the pueblo many of his soldiers talked
about desertion. Impressed by the mechanical way the women effeciently ground corn.
|
Winner Fray Marcos de Niza reported to the viceroy of Mexico about the rich Seven Cities of Cibola
without every having visited any. His documented memory of a Esteban's cross the size of a man inspired visions of
silver, gold, and precious stones inside the minds of men like Coronado. Returned in shame to Mexico.
|
|
Loser Esteban was a dark moor. He was shipwrecked near Galveston in 1528 and survived. He wandered for
eight dangerous years across inhospitable Texas and survived. He was elevated from a slave to an explorer to a god.
While proudly carrying a magic gourd or sacred rattle like a royal scepter, he errored in judgement on Cibola
and was killed by Pueblo warriors at Zuni.
|
Loser solo hijo of Onate was killed in 1609 during a skirmish with indian raiders, possibly Apache.
His father's weathy fortune, high social reputation, and personal legacy were crushed.
The Spanish colony his father founded at the end of El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro precariously marched forward.
|
Winner Don Pedro de Peralta succeeded Onate as governor. He wisely moved the miserable first capitol of San
Gabriel to the new site of Sante Fe in 1610 among the foothills of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.
Villa Real de las Sante Fe de San Francisco de Asis or "Royal City of the Holy Faith of St. Francis of
Assisi"
|
Winner Captain Gaspar Pérez de Villagrá authored Historia de la Nueva México (1610) and
described the battle of Acoma Pueblo in 1599. He kept an unofficial log of Onjate's expedition.
|
