Spanish and Mexican Period
The builders of the structures now constituting the ruins of the
Chaco Canyon were long dead before documentary history entered
New Mexico with the coming of the Spanish explorers and conquerors.
Cabeza de Vaca barely touched southern New Mexico (if at all) in
1536; Fray Marcos de Niza probably never set foot in New Mexico
during his journey of 1539; and Coronado and his followers (1540-1542)
crossed the state at least fifty miles to the south of the Chaco
Canyon. Possibly, as Morgan[1]
and others have conjectured, the farflung
tale of the seven cities of Cibola may have been grounded not
upon the Zuñi pueblos but upon a Zuñian report of the Chaco ruins, but
no Spaniard ever searched for these fabled cities in the Chaco area.
Exploratory and military expeditions of Spanish governors, from Oñate
on, traversed the province from north to south and from east to west,
but not one record indicates that even a single Chaco ruin was visited.
Despite the fact that the Chaco area was almost in the geographic
center of the Navajo country (Provincia de Navajoó) of the eighteenth
century, seemingly no Spanish punitive expedition ever dared pierce
this land of the scourge of the northwestern frontier.[2]
Spanish garrisons
were located in the Laguna area; Spanish missionaries labored among
the Jemez, Zuñi, and Hopi; and, for a brief period in the eighteenth
century, Spanish ranchers colonized the San Mateo district; but
normally the Rio Puerco of the East (Rio Grande drainage) and the
lower San Jose marked the westernmost white settlements against the
Navajo territory. It is true, however, that the terms of grants made
in the 1760's[3]
indicate a knowledge of the eastern Chaco area. One
grant made by Governor Mendinueta to Joaquin Mestas in 1768[4]
mentions
the Mesa de Chaca as the western boundary of a tract of land.
This Mesa de Chaca is apparently what is now termed the Chacra
Mesa, immediately to the south of the upper Chaco Canyon.
Such a knowledge, however, was probably hearsay, based upon
reports from Navajos who came into the Spanish villages to trade,
from renegade mestizos who lived among the Navajos, and from the
Pueblo Indians who hunted, raided, and occasionally traveled into or
through the Provincia de Navajoó. It must be remembered that the
Jemez, Zia, Laguna, Acoma, and Zuñi Indians were, perforce, in close
contact (both friendly and hostile) with the Navajos at all times.
Furthermore, during the Pueblo Rebellion and Reconquest of the 1680's
and 1690's there was a considerable movement of Pueblo Indians into
and across the Navajo country.
The first map to present names and features at all in accord with
reality in the Navajo country was that constructed by Don Bernardo
Miera y Pacheco (captain of engineers, and one-time chief alcalde of
Pecos and Galisteo), who accompanied the Franciscan brothers, Dominguez
and Escalante, in 1776 on their trip in search of a feasible road
from Santa Fe to Los Angeles.[5]
This clerical party proceeded from
Abiquiu, up the Chama, across what is now northern Rio Arriba County
to the San Juan River, and continued north of the San Juan into Utah.
Ruins were mentioned, but these were not of the Chaco area. One
Miera map, dated January 3, 1777 (the final date of the "diario" made
by Dominguez and Escalante), probably accompanied the report made
by the friars. That Miera y Pacheco ever saw the Chaco area is
contrary to the internal evidence provided by various copies (dated
1777 to 1779) available of this map.[6]
Bandelier, without citing his
authority, has stated[7]
that Mier y Pacheco (sic) explored the Canyon
de Chaca and measured the ruins. There is no known evidence for
such a statement.
Other Spanish expeditions had sporadically crossed the northern
Navajo country, especially between 1707 and 1743, when parties went
out in search of a rumored mountain of silver. All of these went out
from Jemez or Abiquiu, and none seemingly ventured anywhere near
the Chaco. After the Dominguez and Escalante trip there developed a
certain usage of the northern trail, and this became known as the Old
Spanish Trail, but no ramification entered the Chaco.
Nothing more is known of the Chaco area until Gregg,[8]
in 1844,
published his Journal in which he mentioned "the ruins of Pueblo
Bonito, in the direction of Navajo, on the borders of the Cordilleras."
Gregg never claimed to have been to this Pueblo Bonito (which probably
was the present Pueblo Pintado), gave no dates, and never mentioned
the Chaco.[9]
He probably had acquired a knowledge of this ruin
at second hand, as he gave no details concerning the one ruin, and made
no mention of other ruins in the area.
