One of Onate's officers, however, Captain Gaspar Perez de Villagra, or Villagran, published in 1610 a _Historia de la Nueva Mexico_ in verse. As an eye-witness of the events he describes, Villagran has the merits and defects of all such authors, and the fact that he wrote in rhyme called poetry does not enhance the historical merit of his book. Nevertheless we find in it many data regarding the Pueblos not elsewhere recorded, and study of the book is very necessary. We must allow for the temptation to indulge in so-called poetical license, although Villagran employs less of it than most Spanish chroniclers of the period that wrote in verse. The use of such form and style of writing was regarded in Spain as an accomplishment at the time, and not many attempted it, which is just as well. Some of the details and descriptions of actions and events by Villagran have been impeached as improbable; but even if such were the case, they would not detract from the merits of his book as an attempt at an honest and sincere narration and a reasonably faithful description. The minor documents connected with Onate's enterprise and subsequent administration of the New Mexican colony, so far as known, are of comparatively small importance to the history of the Rio Grande Pueblos. During the first years of the seventeenth century the attention of Onate was directed chiefly toward explorations in western Arizona and the Gulf of California. While he was absent on his memorable journey, quarrels arose in New Mexico between the temporal and ecclesiastical authorities, which disturbed the colony for many years and form the main theme of the documentary material still accessible. Even the manuscripts relating to these troubles contain, here and there, references to the ethnological condition of the Pueblos. Charges and counter-charges of abuses committed by church and state could not fail to involve, incidentally, the points touching upon the Indians, and the documentary material of that period, still in manuscript but accessible through the copies made by me and now in the Peabody Museum of Harvard University, should not be neglected by serious investigators. To enter into details regarding the tenor of these documents would be beyond the scope of this Introduction, but I would call attention in a general way to the value and importance of church records, which consist chiefly of registers of baptisms, marriages, and deaths. These for the greater part were kept with considerable scrupulosity, although there are periods during which the same degree of care was not exercised. They are valuable ethnologically by reason of the data which they afford with respect to intermarriages between members of distant tribes, through the numerous Indian personal names that they contain, and on account of the many records of events which the priests deemed it desirable to preserve. Examples will be given in the text of the Documentary History to follow.