The Coronado Expedition, 1540-1542.: Excerpted from the Fourteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1892-1893, Part 1.Winship, George Parker
History
The Coronado Expedition, 1540-1542.: Excerpted from the Fourteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1892-1893, Part 1.
Winship, George Parker
Coronado, Francisco Vásquez de, 1510-1554; Southwest, New -- Description and travel
_Chapter 16, of how they besieged Tiguex and took it and of what
happened during the siege._
As I have already related, it began to snow in that country just
after they captured the village, and it snowed so much that for the
next two months it was impossible to do anything except to go along
the roads to advise them to make peace and tell them that they would
be pardoned and might consider themselves safe, to which they replied
that they did not trust those who did not know how to keep good
faith after they had once given it, and that the Spaniards should
remember that they were keeping Whiskers prisoner and that they did
not keep their word when they burned those who surrendered in the
village. Don Garcia Lopez de Cardenas was one of those who went to
give this notice. He started out with about 30 companions and went to
the village of Tiguex to talk with Juan Aleman. Although they were
hostile, they talked with him and said that if he wished to talk with
them he must dismount and they would come out and talk with him about
a peace, and [p498] that if he would send away the horsemen and make
his men keep away, Juan Aleman and another captain would come out of
the village and meet him. Everything was done as they required, and
then when they approached they said that they had no arms and that he
must take his off. Don Garcia Lopez did this in order to give them
confidence, on account of his great desire to get them to make peace.
When he met them, Juan Aleman approached and embraced him vigorously,
while the other two who had come with him drew two mallets[154]
which they had hidden behind their backs and gave him two such blows
over his helmet that they almost knocked him senseless. Two of the
soldiers on horseback had been unwilling to go very far off, even
when he ordered them, and so they were near by and rode up so quickly
that they rescued him from their hands, although they were unable to
catch the enemies because the meeting was so near the village that
of the great shower of arrows which were shot at them one arrow hit
a horse and went through his nose. The horsemen all rode up together
and hurriedly carried off their captain, without being able to harm
the enemy, while many of our men were dangerously wounded.[155] They
then withdrew, leaving a number of men to continue the attack. Don
Garcia Lopez de Cardenas went on with a part of the force to another
village about half a league distant, because almost all the people
in this region had collected into these two villages. As they paid
no attention to the demands made on them except by shooting arrows
from the upper stories with loud yells, and would not hear of peace,
he returned to his companions whom he had left to keep up the attack
on Tiguex. A large number of those in the village came out and our
men rode off slowly, pretending to flee, so that they drew the enemy
on to the plain, and then turned on them and caught several of their
leaders.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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