Missions to the American Southwest

Many recent posts have focused on the events surrounding the founding of colonies on the Atlantic coast, many of which were English. It's important to keep in mind that today the United States is far larger than the colonies which fought in the American Revolution.

As noted in an earlier post, Columbus never stepped foot in the United States, however subsequent Spanish voyages destroyed the Aztec civilization in Mexico. The Spanish Empire was able to colonize the Western Hemisphere including where Mexico is today, and pioneering conquistadors and priests extended the Empire's reach into the American Southwest.

Don Juan Onate ventures into today's Texas and New Mexico in 1598.

"I set out, on the sixteenth of March, with the great multitude of wagons, women, and children...bringing me to these provinces of New Mexico with all his Majesty's army enjoying perfect health....I reached these provinces on the 28th day of May (going ahead with as many as 60 soldiers to pacify the land." - Onate

Two things I'll call out for now. The colonization of the Americas is consistently at least in part a military operation. The Spanish seem to do it a more robust way, but the idea of needing pacify the land isn't unusual. This particular expedition with 60 soldiers sounds more equipped to engage in hostilities when compared to the Plymouth Colony. The other noteworthy thing, is that role of the family here. Colonization is also a family affair. In order for the colony to be perpetuated whether you are settling Massachusetts or New Mexico, you need women and children, otherwise your colony won't survive the current generation. (At some point, I'll need to circle back to this idea specifically)

Other recurring themes of colonization play out for Onate in the Southwest, but the heavier military presences allows for the events to unfold somewhat differently.

"exciting a rebellion among more than 45 soldiers and captains, who under the pretext of not finding immediately whole plates of silver lying on the ground..." - Onate

This mutiny of sorts arrises in August, not quite 6 months into their venture. If he truly set out with 60 soldiers, he's lost whatever connection or credibility he needs with 75% of his soldiers. We also see here the hope or expectations that colonization will return riches quickly, and when they fail to, it leads to tension and unrest.

While all colonization was somewhat religious in nature, it was a main focus for the Spanish mission. Onate indicates that by October, his church was ready to hold mass, "in order to lose not time, at the beginning of October, this first church having been founded, wherein first mass was celebrated on the 8th of September."

Spanish missions such as the Alamo in San Antonio still exist today. One of the oldest examples still standing today is at Acoma Pueblo, the mission of San Estavan del Rey built in 1629. As noted in an earlier post about Native Americans in the American Southwest, the Anasazi culture had been their for long period of time before unrest at Chaco Canyon appears to have given rise to Pueblo culture where more cities were built up higher in the cliffs. Acoma Pueblo has been inhabited for 500 years before the mission church was built.

Of course colonies are expected to turn a profit, and Onate does note that they eventually have some success and there "are places where we recently discovered the rich mines..." Even with these mines, Onate specifically calls out other things which have economic value, "Others wear buffalo hides, of which there is a great abundance. They have the most excellent wool, of whose value I am sending a small sample...It is land abounding in flesh of buffalo, goats with hideous horns, and turkeys...there is game of all kinds" Onate also sends back a sample of ores and honey.

Colonies need a population of people, and part of the Spanish mission was to bring Native Americans into the fold as Catholic subjects of the Crown of Spain, Onate reports on this as well, "to make a conservative estimate, seventy thousand Indians settled after our custom, house adjoining house with square plazas". And Onate comments on local religions of the local people, "Their religion consists in worshipping idols of which they have many, and in their temples, after their own manner, they worship them with fire, painted reeds, feathers, and universal offerings...." And what happens when these cultures collide?

From Onate's own latter, he claims to have met Apaches who were living in pueblos and attempted to compel them to "render obedience to His Majesty, although not by means of legal instruments like the rest of the provinces" Onate goes on to note that after a dozen of his counterparts are killed by the residents of Acoma, "As punishment for its crime and its treason against his Majesty, to whom it had already rendered submission by a public instrument and as warning to the rest, I raised and burned it completely."

In short, Onate expects that the Native Americans should be willing subjects of the Spanish Crown and willing converts to Catholicism and Spanish culture. Resistance met is to be put down as a warning to the other tribes. By his own estimates, Acoma was populated with thousands of people, and if his account is accurate, he had not qualms about committing genocide to put everyone on notice.

Onate closes his letter requesting 500 additional men, preferably married to aid in the settling of and pacifying of the land, and the preaching of the Gospel. Noteworthy here, that at least in his letter, Onate's description of the Spanish colonization sounds somewhat dissimilar to English colonization. Where the Plymouth Colony or Jamestown seem to have a defined border where the colony ends and the Native American lands start, the Spanish colonization reads more like occupation and conversion.

The National Park Service describes the Spanish mission thusly: "The Spanish colonization of the southwest and California followed the same patterns and methods, as in Mexico, with the obligatory adaptations as well as abuses and errors of any conquest. All expeditions into unknown lands were guided by the sword of the soldier and the cross of the missionary. In the great expeditions in North America during the mid-1500s, friars marched among hundreds of soldiers."

A history of American colonization shows that both English and Spanish colonization had little regard for the Native American peoples already living in the Americas. At the same time as European civilization is transplanted along the Atlantic Coast, it is spreading into the American Southwest. The history of the Spanish colonization of the Southwest during the 16th and 17th Centuries (and alongside the colonization of the Atlantic Coast) is important to recognize as part of US History, as the decedents of the Spanish colonials become part of the United States when the Southwest annexed into the United States (also a post for a later time). The establishment of these Spanish colonies within what is today the United States is an important part of not only of Latinx or Hispanic heritage but also the history and heritage of the United States as a whole.