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CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION,
SANTA FK, NEW MEXICO.
JULY 4, 1876.
CENTENNIAL HISTORICAL ORATION BY
EX-GOVERNOR W. F. M. ARNY,
"Santa Fe, New Mexico — The Oldest City in North America."
RESPONSES BY
CEN. H. M. ATKINSON,
HON. JOHN PRATT,
CEN. EDWARD HATCH,
HON. T. B. CATRON,
E. A. FISKE, ESQ.,
C. H. CILDERSLEEVE, ESQ-
CENTENNIAL POEM,
BY \.. Z. nUGGINS, ESQ.
SANTA FE, NEW MEXICO:
Williams & Shaw, Printers'.
1876.
UICilJV<l^-r•
OPENING REMARKS
BY
GEN. JAMES K. PROUDFIT,
PRESIDENT OF THE DAY.
^Ji T is only once in a hundred years ! This is, indeed, the only
-^j time in the history of the human race that the citizens of a
real republic, founded upon democratic ideas, and controlled
by free people, untrammelled and uncontaminated by the idea of the
divine right of kings, or fear of the iron hand of unrighteous power,
have met together in peace and joy to commemorate, with fitting display,
and pomp, and ceremony, the fact that one hundred years of the life of
a republic has been accomplished. The so-called republics of ancient
history were not governments, " of the people, by the people, and for
the people.'- They were monai'chies in essence and in substance, and
important changes came over them all more than once in a hundred years.
It is also thus with all the republics of to-day, except this mighty
nation. We can now proudly say that not one gem has been lost from
the diadem of freedom in one hundred years.
It is a fact that no nation has ever had a perfect history except the
United States of America. From the time of the landing of the Cava-
liers on James Kiver, the Puritans on Plymouth Rock, the Swedes on
the Delaware, the Dutch on Manhattan Island, the Quakers on the
Schuylkill, the Hug-uenots on the Ashley, the Catholics on the Chesa-
peake, the Spaniards in Florida, the French in Louisiana, the Russians
in Alaska, and the explorations of Coronada in New Mexico, our history
is written, recorded and known of all men. This is not true of any
other land on Grod's green earth. The origin and history of all the
nations of the old world are shrouded in mystery and tradition ; and
P 5< VN ^
from Csezar to Bonaparte, every human beast of prey has so torn the
vitals of history, and so stained its pages with rapine and blood, that the
student of to-day turns from it with feelings of doubt and horror.
From a confederacy of weak communities, without coherence or
central power ; with few of the elements of real strength ; by bravery
in war ; by energy in peace ; by wisdom in council ; by the influences
of freedom and civilization, we have extended an empire from sea to
sea — ^more powerful than Imperial Rome in her best estate — a sanctu-
ary for all the peoples, a menace to none.
From fruitful vale, from green hillside, from city spire and moun-
tain peak, our voices rise to-day in glad acclaim, and honest pride.
May peace and joy be with us all, and all the earth, for many a
hundred years.
HYMN.
Jmlj 4i% A. B. iSf i,
CEOiT'X'ED^iTI-^Ij.
OBy -A.. SB. HXJO-CS-IlXrS-
Tune: "OLD HUNDRED."
In thanks to Him who rules above,
Let every heart with fervor glow —
Our land recalls in pride and love
Its birth one hundred years ago.
Columbia, among the free.
Stands forth a people true and great,
And other nations bend the knee
In homage to her high estate.
From sea to sea, o'er mountainSj hills,
Her grand dominion has its sway.
The warming breeze her banner fills,
And peace and union rule the day.
So let us pledge our hearts anew,
Let hands join hands from shore to shore ;
Fresh honors on our altars strew.
And freedom thrive for evermore.
liuuiir
. DELIVERED AT SANTA FE, NEW MEXICO,
BY
In conformity with the following Proclamation of President U. S.
Grant, to wit :
" PROCLAMATION.
" Whereas a joint resolution of the Senate and House of Repre-
sentatives was duly approved on the 13th day of March last, which
resolution is as follows :
" Be it resolved hy the Senate and House of Representatives of
the United States of Amey-ica in Congress assembled, That it be
and is hereby recommended by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives to the people of the several States, that they assemble in their
several Counties or Towns on the approaching Centennial Anniversary
of our National Independence, and that they cause to have delivered
on such day a historical sketch of said County or Town from its
formation, that a copy may be filed, in print or manuscript, in the
clerk's office in said County, and an additional copy, in print or man-
uscript, be filed in the office of the librarian of Congress, to the intent
that a complete record may be obtained of the progress of our insti-
tutions during the first century of their existence."
" And whereas, it is deemed proper that such recommendation
be brought to the notice and knowledge of the people of the United
States, now, therefore, I, U. S. Grant, President of the United States,
do hereby declare and make known the same in the hope that the
object of such resolution may meet the approval of the people of the
United States, and that proper steps may be taken to carry it into
effect. Griven under my hand at the City of Washington this 25th
day of May, in the year of our Lord, 1876, and of the Independence
of the United States, the one hundreth.
U. S. Grant.
Hamilton Fish, Secretary of State."
^^1 HAVE been honored by the good people of this City and
iJrpj County to act as the orator in English on this very interes-
ting day which commemorates the one hundreth anniversary
of the Independence of the United States of America. And in en-
deavoring fitly to celebrate this immortal day, it surely becomes us to
express our grateful thanks to God, the Father, Proprietor and Boun-
tiful Benefactor of the whole creation, who by His word and power
called into existence the universe, of which this Terraqueous is a
component part. He adorned and decorated it with everything
gratifying to the eye and pleasing to the taste of man, whom " He
created both male and female," and placed in Paradise — the garden
of delights — with the injunction to multiply and replenish the earth.
Omnipotent is the word of God ! He spake and the world
was made ! " Let there be light" He said, " and light there icas! "
He uttered His voice and from darkness light was born ; from chaos
order sprang ; and from an inert mass of lifeless matter animated
beings of ten thousand ranks and orders stood forth in life trium-
phant. Thus came the universe from the command of God. But
how gradual and progressive was the development of the wisdom
power and goodness of the almighty Maker ! Light was the first-
born ; next, the aerial expanse called heaven ; then the water heard
His voice, and of the terraqueous globe this element first felt the
impulse of all creating energy. It was congregated into its aerial and
terrestrial chambers. Naked from the womb of waters the earth appear-
ed. The new-born earth God clothed with verdure, with all the charms
of vegetable beauty, and gave to its apparel a conservative principle.
a reproducing power. Light was itself chaotic until the fourth day.
No luminaries garnished the firmament until the week of creation was
more than half expired. It was then the sun, moon and stars were
lighted up by " the Great Father of Lights."
" Bespangled with those isles of light —
So wildly spiritually bright."
Yet how few can with truth exclaim
" Whoever gazed upon them shining
And turned to earth without repining, .
Nor wished for wings to flee away
And mix with their eternal ray? "
Until the earth was born of water, no sun beamed in heaven, no
ray of celestial light shone upon its face ; for no life was in the earth
until the sun beamed upon it. Then wer« the waters peopled, and from
them came forth the inhabitants of the air. In the dominion of
this wonderful element life was first conceived and exhibited.
The race of earth-borns, creatures of a grosser habit, did not hear
the voice of God until the sixth day. On that day they obeyed the
command of God and stepped forth into life. Then the Almighty
changed His style. Till then His commands were all addressed in the
third person ; " Let there fee," was the preamble, " and there was" was
the conclusion. But now, ^'Let us make man," and ^'■Let us mahe him
after another model." The only being made after a model was man ;
all other creatures were originals. Towards Him if any creature ap-
proached in any one similitude, it was in anticipation. Man steps forth
into life in the image of his Maker, and found himself the youngest
child of the universe ; the darling of his Father and his God. Here
the chapter of creation closes, and man has the last period.
"Such was the value stamped on man by his Creator. A world is
made and peopled for him ; a palace reared, furnished, and decorated
for his abode. The Great Architect plans and executes the edifice and
then introduces to its richest apartment the favorite of His creation.
'Tis here we are taught the science ; 'tis here we learn the num-
bers, which, when combined with wisdom, tell of how much account
we are.
On man thus valued, dignified, and honored by his Maker, a
lordship is conferred. Over all that swims, that flies, or that moves
upon the earth, his dominion extends. The crown placed upon his
head had attractions which angels saw, and charms which angels felt.
Man thus placed in Eden with his Eve — from his side and by his
side — having all its fruits, and flowers, and sweets, and charms under
his control, with the smallest reservation in favor of the Absolute
Sovereign of the universe, having, too, the whole earth, from Eden's
flowery banks to both the poles, subject to His will — ^becomes the
most enviable object in all the great empire of the universe. From
this creation proceeded the entire inhabitants of the world, who were
filed oS" into small groups called trihes, and the first eff"oi-t to resist
this arrangement was avenged with the confusion of human speech
which made a dispersion unavoidable.
Patriarchs and princes over these small detachments of human
beings, called nations, wieldad'the scepter for nearly a thousand years
without any remarkable incident. Cities, towns, and palaces were
reared and ruined during the interval from the Delugo to the coming
of the Messiah the Prince of Peace, one thousand eight hundred and
seventy-six years ago, since which tribes have grown into Nations,
Nations into Empires and Kingdoms ; of these the present assemblage
are mostly the descendants of the sons of Brittania and of Spain —
the sons of whom first discovered America in the year 1492, under
Columbus, who described the natives of the coast in a letter to the
sovereigns who sent him on his explorations, as follows :
" So loving, so tractible, so peaceable are these people that I de-
clare to your majesties that there is not in this world a better nation or a
better land. They love their neighbors as themselves ; their discourse
is ever sweet, gentle and accompanied with a smile, and though it is true
that they are naked, yet their manners were decorous and praiseworthy."
This was the condition of the people of Florida previous to the
founding of San Augustine there, in the year 15G5, the natives were
nomadic and had no towns.
Where we now stand in the city of Santa Fe there was a town
according to tradition and to records four hundred years ago, which
dates previous to the establishment of San Augustine, and previous
to the landing of the Pilgrims on Plymouth Rock. The evidence
of this is fonnd not only in the ruins of a vast city which was found
in existence in the time of Cabeza de Baca and Coronado. One of
the old Indian houses stands in sight of us on the bank of the Santa
Fe Iiiver, near by the old San Miguel Cliurch.
There stands in full view of my audience the Grovernor's Palace,
erected previous to the year 15S1, and built from material of the
old Indian town. In regard to the time of the settlement of these
Indians in towns there is extant a royal decree in Spanish of Emperor
Charles V, dated at Cigales, March 21st, 1551, containing the state-
ment that by an order of the Emperor given in 1546, the prelates of
New Spain convened for the purpose, had resolved that the Indians
should be brought into the settlements.
Philip II in consequence of the intention of Emperor Charles,
published a statute on the founding of settlements. " It was the
royal decree designed to protect the Pueblo Indians, and to provide
for the settlement of others at that time not living in towns.
A number of the descendants of these Indians are before us
from the towns of Tesuque, Nambe, San Juan, Santa Clara, whose
history and appearance indicate their honesty and native intelligence.
They are to-day in our Centennial celebration the descendants and
representatives of the people who occupied Santa Fe and other
towns in its vicinity, more than 400 years ago.
The question as to whether the Pueblo Indians were found living
in towns, or thus settled by the early conquerors, is clearly settled by
Cabeza de Baca and Coronado, who are the earliest authorities upon the
history of this country. They found these Indians living in towns
many of which were described as cities by them, and especially the
Pueblo city with its many thousand inhabitants where we now stand,
and from which sprang the Spanisli city of Santa Fe — the "City of
the Holy Faith" — the Capital of New Mexico.
At the time of the first Indian revolution against the Spanish
rule some of their towns were destroyed. Some were rebuilt on
new sites. These were the only towns whose settlements were made
after the date of the Conquest. From Castaneda's description in
1540 these Indians were found living in towns, and the city of Indians
where Santa Fe now stands was then a prosperous Indian city, and
so far as the decree in question relates to our city of Santa Fe and
other towns, the object was to protect their rights from encroachment
and imposition.
Previous to 1583 the Pueblo Indians rebelled against the Spanish
Government and drove from the country the Spanish settlers and
priests of the Roman Catholic Church, and we have an account in
Spanish of an expedition by Espejo in that year in which a portion
of the country was again conquered, and the Indians compelled to
work in the mines.
In 1680 the Pueblo Indians rebelled for the second time against
the Spaniards, and the historian tells us " they drove the Spaniards
and priests from the country, and again established their own gov-
ernment and religious worship."
On the 5th of November, 1681, Governor Otermin unfurled his
banner and marched with an army to conquer New I^Iexico, in which
he failed. In 1692 the Spaniards succeeded in re-conquering New
Mexico, and again took Santa F6. There is, in the office of the Secre-
tary of this Territory, three documents in Spanish which would make
over a hundred pages of printed matter, dated 1693 and 1694, which
give a full account of the conquest of Santa Fe by the Spaniards, its
re-conquest by the Indians, and its re-conquest again by the Spaniards.
With the acquisition of Santa Fe in 1694 the Indian towns on
the Rio Grande and in the vicinity of Santa Fe, twelve in number,
made submission and were visited and taken possesion of in the nanie
of the King of Spain.
HISTORICAL SKETCH OF SANTA FE.
The resolution of congress and the proclamation of the presi-
dent contemplate that the people of each of the towns and cities
throughout the republic having a history shall have arranged among
themselves for the public delivery on this occasion of a historical
sketch thereof from its formation ; and I have been by you honored
with the selection for that purpose. Aware of the propriety of
such a sketch being full and complete and of your desire that it be so
as far as practicable, I have endeavored to attain that end — for cer-
tainly no town within the limits of the United States can boast of a
longer or a more interesting history than can the famous old historic
city of Santa Fe. At my request the following descriptive and his-
torical sketch was written and furnished me by David J. Miller,
translator and chief clerk in the office of the United States surevyor
general here, with which he has been connected since its establish-
ment in 1854, and who is learned in the lore of the preserved old
archives and in the records of the Spanish and Mexican governments
in New Mexico. The sketch is designed to present, besides the history
embodied, an idea of the present appearance and condition of the city.
THE CITY OF SANTA FE
Stands upon both sides of Santa Fe creek, a small river heading in
the lake on the top of the mountain twelve miles to the east and
running westerly into the Rio Grrande del Norte fourteen miles from
the city. From it the fields and gardens in the valley are irrigated
for cultivation, the whole volume of water being usually during the
irrigating season diverted into the branching acequias or irrigating
canals. The city residences and other buildings are almost univer-
sally of the Mexican style, built of adobes or sundried brick, one
story high, are warm in winter and cool in summer, and are withal
quite comfortable. It has been aptly said that the city when viewed
from either of the fine natural eminences overlooking it presents the
appearance of a large collection of brick kilns. Huge spurs of the
Rocky Mountains rise in the immediate vicinity on the northeast,
the east and the southeast, and loom in the distance to the northwest,
the west and the southwest, a series of low tablelands lying to the
north, the whole presenting an interesting landscape. Situated at an
elevation of 6862 feet above sea level the climate is very equable and
agreeable, the atmosphere very rare and pure, and the salubrity of
the place unsurpassed. It enjoys on this account a widespread and
very enviable reputation. It is upon the thoroughfare of much com-
merce and travel, as yet wholly by animal transportation, and is the
center of a large trade.
The population of the city is reported in the national census of
1870 as 4765, but it is believed it was then really much larger, and
10
that it is now not less than 6500. Of these fully 5500 are persons of
Spanish and Mexican descent, speaking the Spanish language, the bal-
ance being mainly Americans and Europeans — the whole population be-
ing divided conventionally into two classes, the " Mexican " or Spanish-
speaking and the "American" or English-speaking people, the latter
class being composed really of a majority of foreign born persons, among
them a large proportion of Jews. The city was incorporated in 1851 by
the first territorial legislature assembled under act of congress of Sept, 9,
1850, organizing the territory, but, on account of the levy and collection
of taxes for the support of the city government, a measure then entirely
new and very distasteful to the people, the succeeding annual legislature
was preva'led upon to repeal the charter. The city government, there-
fore, was in operation but one year — and the first and hitherto the only
mayor Santa Fe ever had was the one elected and acting under that
charter, Mr. Robert Nesbit. The city was however thereafter regularly
provided with municipal regulations prescribed and a police appointed
under a law of the legislature by the prefect of Santa Fe county, of which
this city has always been the capital, the police being paid from the
county funds. The matter is now under the management of a board of
county supervisors created by the twenty-second legislature, that of
1875-6.
Santa Fe is known in the old records of the Roman Catholic church
and is often found referred to in the archives of the former civil
governments of the country as the city of San Francisco de Asis de Santa
Fe, Saint Francis being the patron saint ; and the annual recurrence of
Saint Francis' Day, October 4, is still celebrated by the population under
the auspices of the church by illuminations in the church edifices, the
streets and upon the housetops, and with high mass at the cathedral.
Santa F6 is the residence of the Roman Catholic Archbishop of New
Mexico, Colorado and Arizona. There are in the city four Roman
Catholic churches, besides another extensive and handsome edifice in
course of erection during the last six years. There is one Protestant
church edifice, that of the Presbyterians, who have a resident missionary
minister, as do also the Episcopalians, though these have no church edi-
fice. The Roman Catholic church have here a college for boys and a
conventual academy for girls, at each of which about 150 pupils attend
11
from all parts of tlie Territory. The population of the city not " Ameri-
cans" are almost without any exception Roman Catholics. The city
contains two national banks, each having $150,000 capital, the only ones
in the Territory. Upon the military reserve of Fort Marcy , within the
city north and northwest of the plaza, the government have some excel-
lent buildings erected for military offices and for the residences of military
officers, the residences only being two stories high. In the northern
part of the city stand the ruins of two unfinished stone buildings — the
territorial capitol and the territorial penitentiary, congress having failed
during the last twenty years to make any appropriation to complete or to
prosecute further the work upon them. Adjoining these to the north-
east is the Masonic and 1. 0. 0. F. cemetery, a large and well cared for
burial place for the deceased of those fraternities and for strangers. To
the west of this in the northwest edge of the city near the Catholic church
of Rosario are the military and private family cemeteries adjoining one
the other. The plaza or public square in the city north of the river,
comprising an area of about two and a half acres, contains enclosed
with palings inside the surrounding streets a beautiful park of trees
covering an area of about an acre and a quarter. The trees are
mainly cottonwoods — the eight large ones forming the extreme north
tier having been set out in the spring of 1844 by Mariano Martinez,
then Governor of New Mexico, and the others in 1863 at the private
expense of the citizens. The plaza is surrounded upon the east, south and
west sides with good adobe buildings, the principal mercantile and other
business houses of the city, and on the north side stands the old govern-
ment "Palace,"containingnow theGrovernor's mansion, the United States
Designated Depository, the United States and Territorial court rooms,
the legislative halls, the Territorial library and the Territorial Attorney
General's office. The federal officers for New Mexico residing and offi-
ciating now at Santa Fe are the Governor (Samuel B. Axtell), the
Secretary of the Territory (W. G. Ritch), the Chief Justice of the
Territorial Supreme Court (Henry L. Waldo), the District Attorney
(Thomas B. Catron), the Marshal (John Pratt), the Surveyor
General (Henry M. Atkinson), the Internal Revenue Collector
(Gustavus A. Smith), the Designated Depositary (Abram G. Hoyt),
the Register of the Landoffice (Jose D. Sena), the military Comman-
12
der of the District of New Mexico (Edward Hatch) and staff, the
Agent for the Pueblo Indians (Benjamin M. Thomas) and the Post-
master (Marshall A. Breeden). In the center of the park in the
plaza stands the handsome*Sb?<^zers' Monument^ erected of native granite
by authority of the Territorial legislature, and dedicated with imposing
ceremonies October 24, 1867, to the citizens of New Mexico who had
fallen in the Indian wars of the country and to the Union soldiers who
perished in the battles in New Mexico during the late civil war. The
city outside the plaza is very irregularly laid out, the streets, uupaved,
being narrow, crooked and ancient looking. As no railroad has yet
penetrated or been constructed in New Mexico Santa Fe as from time
immemorial still presents continually the scene of a city filled with freight
wagons and carrying animals, these being the burros or donkeys so
generally and so universally used in the country. At present there is
but one newspaper published here, the daily and the weekly New Mexi-
can, issued by the same house, and published one half in English and
one half in Spanish, by Manderfield & Tucker, and there is a job
printing house by Williams & Shaw. There is one Masonic
lodge (Montezuma No. 109), and one I. 0. 0. F. lodge (Paradise No.
2), and one I. 0. 0. F. encampment (Centennial No. 3). There are
five wholesale mercantile establishments, those of Spiegelberg Broth-
ers, Z. Staab & Co., James L. Johnson & Co., S. Seligman & Broth-
ers and Ilfeld & Co.
Santa Fe, from the time the Spaniards entered and occupied the
country before the beginning of the seventeenth century to the present
day, has always been the political and military capital of New Mexico,
which, under the three distinct nationalities to which it has at different
times belonged, has always constituted a separate political organiza-
tion, except when for a short time in 1823-4 it constituted with
Chihuahua and Durango one of the Mexican States ; and the historic
old "Palace" building on the plaza has been occupied successively as
his official residence by the haughty war-loving Governor and Captain
General under Spain, by the power-exercising Civil and Military Gov-
ernor and Political Chief under Mexico, and now by the statute-
restricted Governor under the United States. This interesting old
building, on account of the repairs repeatedly made upon it now-a-
13
days, is fast losing its antique appearance and internal arrangements.
It has been the scene and the witness of many events of interest and
importance, the recital of many of which would to us of today seem
almost absolutely incredible. In it lived and ruled the Spanish
Captain General, so remote and inaccessible from the viceroyalty at
Mexico that he was in effect a king, nominally accountable to the vice-
roy, but practically beyond his reach and control and wholly irresponsi-
ble directly to the people. Equally independent for the same reason
were the Mexican governors. Here met all the provincial, territorial,
departmental and other legislative bodies that have ever assembled at the
capital of New Mexico. Here have been planned all the domestic
Indian wars and measures for defence against foreign invasion, includ-
ing as the most noteworthy the Navajo war of 1823 and the Texan
invasion of 1842, the "American of 18-16 and the Confederate of 1862.
Within its walls was imprisoned in 1809 the American explorer
Zebulon M. Pike, and innumerable state prisoners before and since ;
and many a sentence of death has been pronounced therein and the
accused forthwith led away and shot at the dictum of the man at the
" Palace." It has been from time immemorial the government house
with all its branches annexed. It was such on the fourth of July,
1776, when the American congress at Independence Hall in Philadel-
phia proclaimed liberty throughout all the land not then but now embrac-
ing it. Indeed, this old edifice has a history. And as the history
of Santa Fe is the history of New Mexico, so is the history of the
" Palace " the history of Santa Fe.
It is now contended that Santa Fe is really the oldest-settled town
upon the whole territory of the United States. As the city of Mexico
of today is but the old Aztec pueblo of Tenochtitlan of Montezuma,
so is Santa Fe but the old pueblo of Cicuye of Coronado. Saint
Augustine in the state of Florida, settled in 1565, was conceded
the distinction of being the oldest until the acquisition of New Mexico
and its capital, Santa Fe, by the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848,
when the latter of right assumed that rank in virtue of being, when
the Spaniards first visited it in or about the year 1542, a populous
regulated Indian pueblo or town, one that had been in existence there
is no knowing how many decades or how many centuries. The mil-
14
itary exploring forces of the Spanish commander Francisco Vasquez
Coronado visited various such pueblos in this vicinity at that time,
mentioning them in his reports by their Indian names, not now
known; and one of them unquestionably stood upon the site
of the present city of Santa Fe. Which of them it was is now
unknown, for, owing to the unfortunate poverty of descriptions of
places given by the historians of that expedition, it is now very diffi-
cult if not impossible to identify any of them with certainty. We
are of opinion that it was Cicuye — ^that ancient Santa Fe was the
pueblo of this name. If so, modern Santa Fe with its population of
6500 is not yet its ancient self again, for Cicuye extended along the
stream nearly or quite six miles, from the mountains as far west as
the present town of Agua Fria — this in fact is in accordance with
tradition — and the beautiful valley of undiminished fertility adjoining
the city has been cultivated annually at least three hundred and fifty
years, for Coronado relates that when here he found the Pueblos cul-
tivators of the soil.
The place since then has a long and an interesting written and
unwritten history — ^the former, yet uncollated, being found scattered
here and there, and indeed being mainly recorded incidentally, among
the voluminous old archives. Nevertheless much of it has been col-
lated and presented in General Davis' work the history of the Spanish
Conquest of New Mexico. The author does not therein state when
Santa Fe was first settled by the whites, the Spaniards, but mentions
that it was the capital of the civil and military government of New
Mexico many years prior to and at the time of the expulsion of the
Spaniards from the province at the great Indian insurrection of 1680.
The record ghows, he says, that it was the capital in 1640, when
General Arguello was Governor and Captain General, who discovered
and suppressed the first mentioned of the numerous insurrections
attempted by the Pueblo Indians, he executing on that occasion at
Santa Fe a number of the ringleadei-s. He mentions Pedro de Pe-
ralta as Governor in 1600, General Arguello in 1640, General Concha
in 1650, Henrique de Abila y Pacheco in 1656, Juan Francisco
Frenio in 1675, and Antonio de Otermiu in 1680, '81, '82, '83.
During the administration of General Otermin, in 1680, the Pueblos
15!
had secretly conspired on a large scale to rise and overpower the
whites and drive them from the country. The time determined upon
for an irresistable armed attack upon Santa Fe and the other Spanish
settlements was the 10th of August. Their plans were however com-
municated to the Spaniards on the 8th by some natives of Tezuque
pueblo, and steps were taken to thwart the rebellion. But the Indi-
ans, discovering that theu* scheme was known, nevertheless commenced
the war with vigor, and Governor Otermin soon learned that the
enemy was marching upon Santa Fe from the north. They had
already attacked and massacred all the inhabitants of the town of
Santa Cruz de la Canada, though it was well fortified and advised of
their approach. Santa Fe contained then about one thousand inhab-
itants citizens and soldiery, and the streets were barricaded and
arms put in possession of the citizens, and the whole population con-
gregated in the plaza. The attack came on the 12th by nearly three
thousand Pueblo warriors, who at once laid siege to the city. The
Governor went out to parley with the besiegers, but could make no
terms with them. They told him that they had with them two
crosses, one a red and the other a white one, of which he could take
his choice, and that if he took the red one war to the death would
follow, and if the white one peace could be secured only by the Span-
iards' forthwith marching out of the country and leaving it ever forth
to its rightful owners, the Indians. Failing to conciliate or make
terms with the enemy, Otermin re-entered his besieged capital and
resolved to attack them before the arrival of more of their allies.
Several hundred soldiers made a sortie, and some terrific fighting
ensued in the city suburbs to the north, wherein the Indians lost
many killed and wounded, the engagement lasting nearly all day.
Late in the afternoon further allies arrived, and General Otermin
was obliged to proceed in person into the action with his whole fight-
ing force to save his troops from annihilation and enable them to re-
treat into the city. The besiegers now numbered fully three thou-
sand warriors. By means of a large ditch they turned ofi" from the
city the water of the stream running through it, and cut off supplies
of provisions from without. The siege continued till August 21, the
Spaniards in their repeated sallies against the enemy losing ia that
16
time about five hundred men killed and disabled, including twenty
priests killed, and the besiegers a great many more. On the
night of the 20th the whites in their desperation determined to at-
tempt to cut their way through the enemy the next day and get out
of the country if possible. They accordingly on the mornin'g of the
21st marched out towards the southwest, soldiers, men, women and
chiMren, mostly on foot, each with what he could take along. The
Indian servants were nearly all left behind. There were not sufficient
animals for the transportation even of the sick and wounded, and the
huddled mass of humanity, in momentary expectation of a terrible
attack from the surrounding enemy, presented truly a lamentable
and a pitiable sight. They had however less fighting in their exit
than they had anticipated, and soon were out of sight of the doomed
city on their dreary march of three hundred and fifty miles to El Paso.
The Indians immediately entered the city, and commenced their work
of havoc and desolation. They at once burned down the churches
and other public buildings and residences of prominent Spaniards.
They collected the church saints and other appurtenances in a
pile on the plaza and burned them to ashes. They held high and
boisterous festival over the charred and ruined city, proclaiming in
triumphant shouts that the God of the white man was dead and the
God of the red man, the sun, again lived and reigned and there was
none else. They forbid the use of a word of the Spanish language
among their people, bathed themselves to cleanse the baptism of the
Catholic priests, and allowed those who had been married by these to
put aside their wives and take others. They utterly destroyed every-
thing even suggestive of the Spaniards. After a great deal of suffer-
ing on their march General Otermin with his command of miserable
humanity reached El Paso about the first of October.
During the following year the Viceroy at Mexico despatched
General Otermin from El Paso with an army to attempt to recapture
the lost capital, reestablish the settlements and restore Spanish su-
premacy in New Mexico. This expeditionary force marched Novem-
ber 5, 1681, with the c!ty of Santa F4 for its objective point. On
or about December 20 it reached and encamped at the west edge of
the Mesa, twenty-one miles west of the city, the site of the present
17
town of Bajada, where it remained several days, when Otermin deter-
mined to abandon his purpose and return to El Paso. This he did
in view of the insuperable opposition he saw he would have to en-
counter if he advanced, the Pueblos having concentrated all their
forces at Santa Fe to defend the place. He commenced to retire on
the 24th, and on the 11th of February following arrived at El Paso
with his command.
The Pueblos were permitted to remain in undisturbed possession
of Santa Fe and of all New Mexico for the next twelve years. In
1692 the Viceroy commissioned Diego de Vargas Zapata Luj an Ponce
de Leon as Governor and Captain General of New Mexico, and at
once dispatched him from the city of Mexico to El Paso to command
an expedition thence similar in purpose to that with which Otermin
had failed. It marched for Santa Fe August 31, and, so far as the
record shows, met no serious armed resistence until within the imme-
diate vicinity of the city. Here the Pueblos were assembled in large
force, and, upon the approach of the Spaniards, went forth to give
them battle. In view of the important and deadly combat then about
to ensue the troops in line were by the priests admonished to cleanse
their hearts of sin, were administered absolution and the blessing, and
counselled to courage in the name of God and the king. The battle
commenced about daylight on the morning of September 13, and
lasted with great fury and bravery and with heavy loesses on both
sides till late in the afternoon. At about three o'clock the Pueblos
began to weaken and waver and give way. The Spaniards pushed
their advantage and about sundown they marched into the city with
flying colors ; and the soldiers, weary with the fatigues of the cani-
paign and with that day's incessant fighting, soon took up comfortable
quarters in the houses of the Indians. Quite a number of citizens
of those who were expelled the country in 1680 and who had resided
at Santa Fe had asked and obtained permission to return with the
army and avenge their expulsion. They found upon entering the
city that during the twelve years it was in posession of the Pueblos it
had in all respects completely changed its character from that of a
Spanish town into that of an Indian pueblo. With its capture Span-
ish supremacy was again established in the country. The surrounding
18
pueblos began to come in and declare tbeir submission, and soon the
whole of them except the most distant and inaccessible were again
in obedience to the government and the church.
Having thus attained the first object of the expedition and ren-
dered feasible the second — to wit, the resettlement of the country by
the return of the expelled settlers with their families and the intro-
duction of new immigrants — the Governor and Captain General deter-
mined to return with his whole command to El Paso. The great
object of the viceregal government was the resettlement of New
Mexico, and if possible the puebloization of the nomadic Indians in
the province. General de "Vargas determined to select and appoint,
before leaving, from among the Pueblos, some capable and trusty
representative to keep loyal and govern the natives during his absence.
The person so commissioned was an Indian of the Pueblo of Picuris
named Luis, a man of fame and influence among his people, the
Pueblos. And on the 17th of October, 1692, de Vargas set out from
Santa Fe, first despatching the main body of his charge, including
artillery, supplies, animals, captives, prisoners, and so forth, with
orders to await him at the pueblo of Santo Domingo, going himself
with an escort and some priests by way of the pueblo of Pecos, now
abandoned. Soon after his arrival at Pecos two hundred and fifty
people were baptized by the priests into* the Roman Catholic church.
On the 20th of December he reached El Paso and went into camp at
San Lorenzo near that place, after an eventful and very successful
campaign into New Mexico.
Reporting in extenso his operations and successes to the govern-
ment at the city of Mexico, he was soon authorized by the royal au-
dience there to make another expedition into this province with a
view to its colonization and permanent occupation. On October 11,
1693, he marched from El Paso for Santa Fe with his juilitary com-
mand and a large number of emigrants, mainly from the cities of
Queretaro, Sombrerete and Zacatecas in Mexico, the emigrants being
in charge of Lieutenant Governor Juan Paez Hurtado, a name fre-
quently met with in the archives of the time embracing a period of
more than forty years. Nearing Santa Fe de Vargas despatched run-
ners in advance to ascertain and report to him the sentiment of the
19
Pueblos concerning his return. At Santo Pom'ngo lie was joined by
the Indian Luis, whom he had left at Santa Fe in charge of public
affairs the year previous, and he and the runners reported that during
the absence of the Spaniards the Pueblos had become disloyal and
demoralized, that learning of their approach they were resolved to
oppose them to the death, and that there was then collected upon the
mesa 21 miles west of Santa F^, whence Otermin was made to fall
back, a large force ready to give battle. It was subsequently ascer-
tained that the Pueblos had induced sundry of the wild tribes to
promise their assistance in the impending war against the approach-
ing Spanish army, but that their allies failing to come to time they
concluded not to interpose by themselves the resistence they had con-
templated. The command of de Vargas was comprised of one thou-
sand five hundred persons or more, including immigrants, the families
of these and the soldiers. On December 11 the command reachfed
the present town of Agua Fria, six miles from Santa Fe, where it en-
camped five days. Luis was sent forward into the city, and he re-
ported that preparations were making there to give de Vargas not
only a peaceable but a triumphal entry into the city. On the 16th
he commenced his march with drum and fife and flying colors, and
at the head of the column on horseback he marched in at the western
edge of town. The entire people were assembled in a multitude
upon the plaza to receive him, the men ranged on one side and the
women on the other. The troops, having entered the plaza, were
formed in open ranks to allow the priests to pass through ; and when
these arrived to where the Indians had erected a large wooden cross
they kneeled before it, chanted the litany and celebrated the Te Deiim
Laudamus, and General de Vargas addressed the assembled multi-
tude in a speech. The ceremonies of reception concluded, the com-
mand marched to an eminence near town, believed to be that now in
sight of the plaza about a quarter of a mile to the northeast, where
the Indians had prepared quarters for the soldiers and the emigrants,
the former being in the full possession and use of all parts of the city.
This was still in about the same condition as when the Spaniards left
it the year before, the works and intrenchments for defence remain-
ing unimpaired. The principal buildings which the Indians had
20
burned thirteen years before were mainly still unrepaired, and de
Vargas commenced the work of restoring them. He sent to the
mountains for timber for work upon San Miguel church, the same
old Roman Catholic edifice which stands now on the south side of
the river near the bridge on the road leading from the southeast cor-
ner of the plaza. Adjoining this old church immediately to the north
stands yet one of the identical buildings built and occupied by the
Indians when Santa Fe was a pueblo ; and, though erected very prob-
ably three centuries ago or more, it is still in good preservation, and
is now inhabited. There are in other portions of the city a few an-
tique-looking buildings showing Pueblo Indian architecture, some or
all of them no doubt cotemporaries of the one just referred to.
The " Palace," which had been partially repaired by him, was
occupied by de Vargas during his former occupation of Santa Fe, and
was now in the exclusive possession and use of the Indians. The
General determined to move about Christmas from his quarters on
the hill into the city with his command, wherefore he gave orders that
all the public buildings and sufficient of the others should be vacated
to make room for the rank and file of the army without delay. The
Indians evinced dissatisfaction at the order. It was apparent that
they intended to resist its execution. Indeed their preparations
for doing so soon became manifest ; and incontinently they declared
that the Spaniards should not come down into the city at all, and,
manning the intrenchments on the plaza, bid them defiance. At day-
light Christmas morning de Vargas marched to the assault and con-
fronted the works of the rebels. In anticipation of terrific fighting
the whole command were administered" the sacrament and absolu-
tion and given the blessing by the priests in full view of the enemy.
While these ceremonies were proceeding the red rebels raised the
battle-shout, and with their bows and slings hurled at the troops from
the works a shower of arrows and stones — and the engagement com-
menced. The troops, with the animating old Spanish battle-cry of
^^ Santiago .'" rushed upon the works amid a hailstorm of missiles. A
portion of the outer walls was soon carried, but to gain the plaza others
had to be scaled or demolished ; and beams and ladders were soon on
the ground for the purpose. The enemy within fought the assailants
21
with courage and determination, and among other efforts to repulse
poured boiling water upon them as they ascended the ladders or un-
dermined the walls. De Vargas was advised of the near approach
from the west of reinforcements to the enemy, and he at once des-
patched some squadrons of cavalry to prevent their incorporation with
the main body in the plaza. The cavalry charged and routed them,
but they rallied and again attempted to reach the city, when they
were again attacked, and, after considerable fighting, finally beaten
back and dispersed. In the mean time the fighting on the plaza con-
tinued unabated and until dusk, when both parties ceased, neither
having any perceptible material advantage, though the Pueblos were
greatly discouraged, mainly on account of their hea^^ losses in killed
and wounded, the serious wounding of their commanding war captain
and the failure of the reinforcements to reach them. In the battle
about one hundred and seventy-five Pueblos were killed. The num-
ber of their wounded or of the killed and wounded of the Spaniards
does not appear. As the troops the next morning were about renew-
ing the assault, de Yargas discovered the demoralization of the Indians,
who were soon thereafter seen flying from their intrenchments and
from the city. He at once marched in with the royal banner in the
air and with martial music, and, amid the victorious and triumphant
shouts of the Spaniards, again took formal possession of Sant.a Fe in
the name of King Charles the Second. Concealed in different houses
of the city were found numerous warriors, some of them wounded.
They were brought into the presence of de Yargas at the Palace to
the number of seventy, who ordered their execution forthwith, and,
being first absolved by the priests, they were marched out by his
adjutant and shot. The Pueblos during the night preceding the fall
of the city had themselves executed several of their principal men,
among them de Yargas' friend and representative Luis. From the
Indian families falling into the hands of the Spaniards at the capture
of the city four hundred young women and children were retained
and distributed among the families of the whites, the recently arrived
immigrants, among whom were also distributed large quantities of
captured produce, consisting mainly of five thousand bushels of corn,
quantities of wheat; beans, etc.
22
Thenceforward the Pueblos, though subsequently making fre-
quent attempts at insurrection with the same end in view as before,
and some attacks upon the city to capture it, have never got into full
actual possession of Santa Fe. Among the old Spanish and Mexican
archives on deposit at the office of the Secretary of the Territory and
of the Surveyor General are found frequent references to subsequent
Indian wars and attacks and depredations upon life and property in
and around Santa Fe. Of the wild Indians the most formidable and
harassing enemies were the Navajos (called then the Navajo Apaches)
and the Utahs. There was in progress with them almost incessantly
a war of retaliation ; and, though treaties of peace were sometimes
made, they were almost always soon violated and broken.
Among the insurrections of the Pueblos that of 1837 appears
to have been the most serious of modern times. Colonel Albino
Perez of the city of Mexico was commissioned and sent to New Mex-
ico by the Central government as Political Chief in 1835, and upon
the erection of the Territorial into a Departmental government in
January, 1837, by the Mexican Congress, Colonel Perez was appoin-
ted Governor, the new government going into operation the following
May. Assuming his new position, and invested by the act of con-
gress with extraordinary powers, Governor Perez soon began to exer-
cise these to such an extent that he became very unpopular. Like
the old Spanish Governors and Captains General who had ruled in
the " Palace " before, he is said to have issued his mandates and de-
crees wholly regardless of the wants or the welfare of the people.
Sooner or later an ebulition of the popular discontent was bound to
occur. And in July, 1837, the Pueblos rose in rebellion on account
of the imposition of a certain tax which it appears the Governor had
in fact arbitrarily laid upon the tobacco raised in the Indian pueblos,
and on account also of other oppressive measures which were in fact
not contemplated by him but which it was reported and the Indians
had been induced to believe he meditated. The rebellion first took
form at the pueblo of San Juan, whose inhabitants in modern like
those of Zia in former times had the reputation of being the most
warlike of the Pueblos in New Mexico. Nearly or quite all the other
pueblos to the north soon became the allies of San Juan in the move-
23
ment, as did those of Gochiti and Santo Domingo and others to the
west and south. Upon the approach of an organized hostile force of
the insurgents towards Santa Fe from the north, Governor Perez
marched with a small body of soldiers to meet and conciliate or sub-
due them. A battle ensued at Santa Cruz de la Canada, wherein he
was badly beaten and routed. He returned to Santa Fe in discom-
fiture, convinced that the rebellion was much more formidable than
he had thought ; and he resolved to attempt a conciliation of the be-
ligerants with concessions, or else reduce them with military power.
Upon the approach of the victorious insurgents to his capital he went
out to meet- them accompanied by various officials of the government
and sundry prominent citizens, but they would hold no intercourse
with him. Keturning to the city he was intercepted by a war party
from Santo Domingo and Cochiti, who fell upon him in the western
suburbs of the city and assassinated him, together with Jesus Maria
Alarid, his Secretary of State, and Kamon Abreu, Prefect of Rio Ar-
riba. This was on the evening of August 9, 1837. During the
ensuing several days various persons were in like manner killed, in-
cluding District Judge Santiago Abreu, Lieutenants Diego Zaens and
Joaquin Hurtado, Marcelino Abreu and others. The red rebels cut
off the head of the dead Governor, kicked it about in derision over
the ground in their camp, then at the Rosario church in the north-
west suburbs, and paraded it on a pole in sight of the city. They
cut off the hands of Secretary Alarid, avowing that with them he
should countersign tyrranical gubernatorial decrees never more. That
night a friend of Governor Perez, learning where his dead body had
been left lying in a field near the rebels' camp, silently stole to the
spot in the darkness, wrapped' the acephalous mass in a blanket and
brought it into the city, and the next day it was buried where it now
lies, in the old cemetery on the hill northeast of the plaza.
At the capital there was no ruler at the " Palace," and anarchy
reigned. A mass meeting of citizens was held under the portal of
that building, and resolutions, with a preamble clearly hostile to the
personnel and policy of the Perez adminisrtration, were adopted pro-
viding for a temporary civil government. On the 8th of September
Manuel Armijo " pronounced " at Tome in the Rio Abajo, and soon
24
drew around him there a large force of men, at whose head he pre-
pared to march against the insurgents near Santa Fe, primarily the
Pueblos, but who had now grown into a larger and much more formi-
dable organization, composed of these and a considerable number of
discontented whites who after the death of Perez had openly espoused
their cause and taken the field. This body of men was encamped near
Pojoaque, and had already organized and proclaimed a revolutionary
provisional government, not yet in possession of the capital, having at
its head as Civil and Military Governor one Jose Gonzales and as its
Lieutenant Governor one Antonio Domingo Lopez. Armijo, having
proclaimed himself Governor of New Mexico, marched on the 13th
of September in command of his army against the other soi disant
Governor and his adherents at his camp. Upon the approach of
Armijo with the imposing military array he presented, Gonzales pre-
pared to give battle ; but, mainly upon the persuasions of an influential
Catholic priest who accompanied him, he was induced to enter into
negotiations for peace with his threatning assailant. This proceeding
created dissensions in his camp, so manifest that they were observed
and taken advantage of by Armijo, and Gonzales did not obtain the
favorable terms of compromise and settlement he had anticipated, and
he was finally obliged to surrender unconditionally, and his whole
party of revolutionists dispersed. He was made a prisoner, was re-
duc3d to confinement, and on the 25th of January, 1838, was hung
at Santa Cruz, together with his second in command Lopez. Armijo
report3d his patriotic efibrts and his successes to the national govern-
ment at Mexico, and was thereafter soon recognized thence as Gov-
ernor. And public tranquility being now restored throughout all his
borders, he established himself in the "Palace" at Santa Fe, where
the American government found and ousted him in 1846.
On the 18th day of August, 184G, during the war with Mexico,
the city of Santa Fe was captured by the United States military forces
under General Kearney, though without any fighting in or near the
city. Governor Armijo, as commander of the Mexican regular troops
at the garrison here and of the militia, had under his command an
army of about four thousand men, with which he marched out of the
city on the 17th of that month on the road towards Las Vegas to
25
confront and give battle to the invading army of General Kearny
then approaching from the east. General Armijo proceeded fifteen
miles to the Canon del Apache and encamped near the western outlet
of the canon, through which the invaders were advancing — a position
which if adequately defended would have been almost absolutely impreg-
nable. The visible evidences of Armij o's preparations for attack and de-
fence at the Canon indicated that he really intended to fight, though it was
believed by many in his camp that he only awaited some pretext for
abandoning the field. The canon for several miles runs between
timber covered rocky hills averaging about 1500 feet high on either
side, anywhere within cannon shot and in many places within point
blank musket shot of the road alongside of the stream in the canon.
He had thrown up breastworks upon the crests of the cliffs on both
sides of the mouth of the canon, his men had there collected piles of
fragments of rocks to hurl down upon the advancing invaders, and he
had his artillery stationed so as to sweep the road emerging from the
canon. The cannon were concealed by an abattis made of trees with
the ends of the branches sharpened and pointing outwards so as to oppose
an impenetrable barrier to a cavalry charge; but the abattis was placed
some hundred yards out of due range of the outlet of the canon, evi-
dencing that he intended to allow the enemy to pass the gorge before
opening fire upon them, which done his batteries could have been
carried with comparative ease. But dissensions arose during the night
of the 17th in the Mexican camp ; and, though aware that reinforce-
ments were marching to their support from Chihuahua, Armijo and
sundry of his officers, taking with them the regular troops and a por-
tion of the artillery, fled towards Chihuahua, the militia disorganized
and dispersed, and the Americans had an open road into the capital.
Upon their arrival here, late in the afternoon of the 18th, the
Secretary of State, Juan Bautista Vigil y Alarid, acting as Governor
in the absence of Armijo, received General Kearny at the " Palace"
and formally delivered the capital to him, addressing him in a dignified
speech and presenting him his sword in token of surrender and sub-
mission. The stars and stripes were flung to the breeze upon the
Palace and saluted with cannon, and General Kearny made a speech
to the assembled multitude of people, whom he had invited to draw
26
nigh and hear him, advising them to return in peace to their homes
and avocations, and assuring them in the name and hy authority of
his government of full protection to their lives and property and of
perfect religious and political freedom under the constitution and laws
of the United States. Upon the conclusion of the General's address
the Mexican civil and military officers present invited the American
officers -within the building and regaled them with native wine and
brandy, fruits, and other refreshments ; and at night there was a
sumptuous banquet and an elegant ball at the residence of Captain
Francisco Ortiz y Baca, on the north side and about midv/ay of the
street extending then and now between the parochial Catholic church
and the southeast corner of the plaza. The next day General Kearny
again addressed the populace on the plaza, having had circulated in
the city and surrounding towns and ranches a notice that he would
do so and a general invitation to the people to attend. There was a
large assemblage, and the address was at considerable length. In it
the people were told that there was now a new regime, that New
Mexico and the New Mexicans were transferred permanently to the
sovereignty of the United States, the character and the excellencies
of whose government were set forth, that they were absolved from all
allegiance to the Republic of Mexico, and that those desiring to become
citizens of the United States would at once be affijrded the opportu-
nity formally to declare their new allegiance. Manyof the people did
so, and many declined. In after years however, as the permanency
of the American government here became manifest and assured,
nearly all the resident Mexicans who had declared their intention to
retain the character of Mexican citizens under the stipulations and
guaranties of the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo of 1848 sooner or later
became American citizens by naturalization, and the remainder of
them became such in 1851 by operation of the treaty. On the 22d
General Kearny issued his proclamation addressed to the people of
New Mexico embodying the sentiments and declarations expressed in
his speeches ; and on September 22d he issued another proclamation
announcing and proclaiming a civil and military provisional govern-
ment for the TeiTitory of New Mexico, and a code of laws for the
same, which remained in operation and force until the installation, on
27
March 1, 1851, of the existing Territorial government under the
organic act of congress of September 9, 1850.
Santa Fe during the late civil war was captured by the Confeder-
ate militaiy forces from Texas under General H. H. Sibley in 1862,
very much as it was by the United States troops under Greneral Kear-
ny in 1846, and was occupied by the rebels about a month. After
the battle of Valverde in southern New Mexico February 21, 1862,
the Confederates, flushed with victory, marched thence upon Santa
F6. They entered the city March 10, unfurling the Confederate flag
upon the ' ' Palace ' ' and planting their cannon in the plaza. The advance
which then entered was a small party of independent volunteers, com-
posed mainly of men who had formerly resided at Santa F^ and who
at the opening of the war left here to join the Southern armies. On
the 13th several hundred more, commanded by Greneral Sibley in
person, arrived, and in a few days more the city swarmed with Con-
federate soldiers. The subordinate commands, rank and file, occu-
pied the public buildings in the city. The Union troops, the federal
civil officers and the prominent actively loyal citizens had all left for
the east on March 3. The main body of the Texans were marching
to attack Fort Union one hundred miles to the east, leaving Santa
F6 to the north of their line of march. On the 25ih the Union vol-
unteers from Colorado under Major John M. Chivington and the
Texans under Major C. L. Pyron met at Apache Canon, where a
battle ensued. Major Chivington falling back and the Texans continu-
ing their march. But on the 28th the main body of the latter under
command of Colonel W. R. Scurry and twelve hundred Union regu-
lai-s and volunteers under Colonel John P. Slough met at Glorieta,
otherwise Pigeon's Ranch, twenty-two miles east of Santa Fe, when
a battle ensued lasting from ten o'clock in the morning until five in
the afternoon, when an armistice was agreed upon. The losses in
this engagement as reported by Col. Slough were of the Union troops 38
killed, 54 wounded and 17 prisoners, and of the rebel troops 80 killed, 100
wounded and 93 prisoners. On the 29th Major Chivington with 400
men executed a flank movement upon the supply train of the rebels
and destroyed it, which so crippled their plans that they at once re-
treated towards Santa Fe : and Colonel Slou2;h with his force retired
to Fort Union. Greneral Sibley with his whole command thereupon
at once commenced to march out of the country towards Texas, in his
march encountering General Canby in the valley of the Rio Grande
and having with him several fights before reaching El Paso. The
last of the Texans finally evacuated Santa Fe on the 8th of April, and
on the 11th the Union troops reoccupied the city, and soon the offici-
als and the citizens who had left in March returned to their avoca-
tions and their homes. The Confederates during the time they were
in possession of Santa F4 committed no wanton depredations upon
life or upon public or private property, and in taking from the people
their necessary supplies did not exceed the recognized prerogative of
an occupying hostile military force.
Santa Fe at an early day after the conquest of New Mexico by
the Spaniards was made a " Villa " or village, an honorary title au-
thorized and proclaimed always by special edict of the king. Of the
places so honored there are now in Spain about one hundred and
fifty, and in her former and present ultramarine possessions various
others. The title was conferred only by the sovereign and only upon
the recommendation of the Royal Audience. It was of various grades
of rank, the principal being Ciudad or city and Villa or village ; and
it was deemed a high honor to obtain the appellation. It was con-
ferred only upon those places whose inhabitants had distinguished
themselves by some of the preeminent heroic acts or deeds or some of
the instances of remarkable valor, courage, suffering, selfsacrifice or
eminent patriotism related in Spanish history during the last thousand
years. It endowed the inhabitants with certain honorary privileges,
prerogatives and immunities, and often entitled their city or village
to be termed and hailed as the Very Noble, the Very LoyaJ, the
Heroic, the Valiant, the Invincible, the Renowned, the Illustrious,
and so forth. The first and principal of the places so honored in New
Spain was the city of Mexico, which was created a Giudad or City
by edict of king Charles I dated June 25, 1530, soon aft«r its me-
morable siege and capture by Cortez. The preserved old records and
archives at Santa F6 do not show when the title of Villa was con-
ferred upon the place : they evidence the fact only. The archives
dated here from the time de Vargas captured the city and reestab-
29
lished Spanish supremacy in New Mexico in 1693 invariably call the
place the Villa de Santa Fe. The custom of conferring these honor-
ary titles seems to have been continued under the Mexican system
after independence. In 1823 the inhabitants of the town of Taos in
this Territory through their ayuntamiento made an effort to acquire
the title of Villa. They petitioned the provincial deputation or leg-
islature at Santa F6 to approve and recommend their application to
the Mexican congress. On the 15th of November of that year the
deputation acting upon their prayer referred the same back to the
corporation with authority to prepare a statement of the claims in
virtue whereof the honor was asked, to be by the deputation trans-
mitted to congress with its recommendation — but the record does not
show that there was anything further done in the premises.
The historical and descriptive sketch here presented of the an-
cient and modern city of Santa Fe is not as full and as complete as
it might be were the ample material for it more readily accessible or
in a form more available. Many of the objects referred to are from
this spot upon the plaza within view of the three thousand people now
here assembled. And as we now contemplate with the eye these ob-
jects of interest, and imagine others long since obliterated in the
course of the three centuries and a half covered by this sketch, we
can appreciate measurably the times and the experiences Santa F6
has had, in peace and war and in barbarism and civilization, while suc-
cessively under the dominion of the Aboriginal, the Latin and the
Anglo Saxon races.
MINES AND MINING.
Turning now from the history of the capital of New Mexico as
given by Mr. Miller in the foregoing sketch, I will endeavor briefly
to set forth that of the Territory itself as to mines and mining. The
subject is one of great interest, but the time allotted me on this oc-
casion will not permit a fiill detail. I must therefore be brief, and can
furnish but a few facts comparatively, derived principally from my
examination of history found in Peter Force's library and from other
works, which from time to time I have examined in the congressional
30
library at Washington, corroborated by my personal observations, in
New ^Mexico.
The early history of New Mexico as written by the Spaniards or
rather by the Franciscan friars, for they were the first to prosecute
their explorations north after the conquest of old Mexico, reveals to
us the fact that the Territory of New Mexico at a very early period
had acquired the reputation of possessing mines of fabulous richness
in gold, silver, copper and other metals and minerals. The Indians
as it appears had made considerable advancement in the art of smelt-
ing and the working of metals, as the history of Cortez, and IMonte-
zuma, the prophet, priest, and king of the Pueblo Indians, who left
this region at an early dat<3, demonstrates. The vast amount of gold,
silver, copper, turquoise, etc., (a valuable mineral of a peculiar bluish
color, it is susceptable of a high polish, and is used in jewelry and is
much esteemed as a gem, and is worn by the Pueblos and Navajo
Indians who prize it very highly) worn by the Indians on their per-
sons, and the walls of their dwellings profusely adorned by the
precious metals, indicated its abundance.
The Franciscan friars who first penetrated the Territory of New
Mexico were an intelligent and highly educated class of men, schooled
in all the arts and sciences of the period, particularly those pertaining
to minerals and mining. They were peculiarly qualified to judge of
the latent resources of a new country. They saw among the natives
the evidences of so much mineral wealth that it excited their wonder
and cupidity. The reports of the existence of vast deposits of the
precious metals inflamed their countrymen, and inspired a desire for
adventure. Expeditions as I have shown were organized to conquer
this El Dorado for the crown of Spain. Aft^er many campaigns fraught
with untold hardship and privations, and the sacrifice of many thou-
sands of lives their eiforts were crowned with success. The natives
were conquered and compelled to work in opening and developing the
mines in all parts of the Territory; they were compelled to pack ores
and fuel on their backs for many miles to the furnaces. The eviden-
C3S of their active mining operations are to be seen in almost every
mountain and valley throughout the country. Old shafts and tunnels
are frequently being found now partially filled with the debris of ages.
31
that excite the wonder and speculation of the prospector. The Taos
mountains are full of them, many of them are hundreds of feet deep,
with levels excavated each way from the shaft. One of these old
shafts which I explored with Colonel Pfeiffer, is sunk on a lode near
the old town of Abiquiu is very deep, and has levels excavated several
hundred feet in one direction. The records of this ancient mine as
found in the archives of an old church near by show that the 10 per
cent, in tithes collected from it amounted to about ten million dollars.
No work has been done on this mine since 1680. There are also very
extensive mine works in the old and new placer mountains of Santa
F^ county. Old shafts and excavations are quite numerous, gold,
silver, coal and turquois are found ; a turquois mine in this county
has lately been explored and the shaft found to be over one hundred
feet below the surface. From this mine an unusually large and valua-
ble specimen was sent to the Emperor of Spain. There are also many
shafts in the Sandia mountain a few miles farther south. The old
turquois mine in the Cerrillos mountain looks as if it had been worked
several hundred years ago ; the two mines are located on broad ex-
tended ridges, and have been worked from both sides to the distance
of 300 feet or more.
Since the massacre of the Spaniards by the Pueblo Indians in
1680 all the richest mines have been covered up by them, and all
traces so obliterated that they are only known and kept in the tradi-
tions of the old Governors and other rulers of the various Indian
towns. There are traditions among the people of immense amounts
of treasure buried, that was hastily hidden at the time of the massacre.
La Gran Quivira is the ruin of an ancient Indian Pueblo ; it was a
flourishing town when the Spaniards first discovered this country, and
Coronado spent some time there ; its location is a few miles south of
the Gallinas mountains. There is abundant evidence that it was peo-
pled by a race of miners ; there are found the remains of old furnaces,
slags and cinders scattered profusely around, with numerous shafts
and excavations in the adjacent foot hills and mountains, which indi-
cate whence they derived their ores. The Aztecs told their.conquer-
ors that their gold and silver came from a long way to the north.
There are many reasons in support of the belief that New Mexico
32
furnished vast amounts of gold, silver and copper to Montezuma
prior to the conquest. A practical survey would reveal an amount of
wealth almost startling. At present our country is but little known.
In 1704 the Spanish people entered into a compromise with
the Pueblo Indians, by which the former were permitted to return to
the country, but with the positive and express condition that they
should not open the mines or prosecute mining as a pursuit. There-
fore up to a few years past, there has been no mining prosecuted in
this Territory since 1680. After their return to New Mexico the
Spanish people turned their attention to trading, agriculture and
raising sheep and cattle. Nearly all the mining prosecuted in the last
twenty years has paid well, but for want of capital to obtain proper
machinery it has not been as remunerative as it should have been.
The most prominent mining localities at present are Silver City, Pines
Altos, Socorro, Elizabethtown, and the mines in Santa F^ county.
There is a chain of gold placers and of silver lodes extending
from the northern boundary down through the center of the Territory
to the southern boundary, which are known to a few of our citizens
and most of which are not developed for want of capital and machin-
ery. Some of these placers have been worked by the Mexican people
in a crude way for more than a hundred years, by carrying water from
2 to 8 miles in barrels and skins, and then by pan or rocker they
made from $3 to $8 per day to the hand. Yet the mines are scarce-
ly touched. Many of them today would rival the richest placers ever
discovered in California or Australia, if there was water convenient
to work them. With a judicious investment of capital water in
abundance could be obtained by digging an irrigating canal from the
Rio Grande in Rio Arriba county, or from the Pecos river in San
Miguel county, to the south part of the county of Santa Fe, which
would be supplied with abundance of water from the Rio del Norte
river at La Embuda, or from the Pecos. Silver City is located in
Grrant county 420 miles from Santa F6 by the stage road. Though
comparatively a new town it is rapidly growing in prominence ; it is
the center of a large area of one of the most promising mining local-
ities in the Rocky Mountains. Within the last few years several stamp
mills and other reduction works have been erected and seem to be
33
doing well. Deposits of the chloride of silver are proving to be
very extensive and remarkably rich. I am of the opinion that the
most valuable mines have yet to be discovered. The mineral belt of
this region covers a vast extent of country, containing gold, silver,
copper, iron, and many other minerals. Taking all its improvements
and the immensity of its resources into consideration. Silver City has
a grand and brilliant future before her.
The Pinos Altos gold quartz and placer mines are located eight
miles north of Silver City. There has been a large amount of gold
taken from the placers and they are by no means worked out. The
Socorro mines located in the Magdelena mountains about 30 miles
west of the Rio Grande and 150 miles south of Santa F4, furnish
some remarkably rich silver ores. The ores of these mountains carry
galena and copper — ^two or three common lead furnaces have been
erected which pay well ; most of the mountains lying on either side
of the Rio Grande, the great river 1800 miles long, which extends
through the Territory of New Mexico, and which has been called the
Nile of America, with almost an equal volume of water from its source
in the mountains of the Territory of Colorado, to its mouth in the
Gulf of Mexico. Like the Nile it is the reliance of the farmer ; the
natives have made to each town and the adjoining lands canals for
irrigation. These are often twenty or thirty miles in length, afford-
ing also considerable mill power. In El Paso valley the Spaniards
found a tribe of Indians cultivating the soil 265 years ago, and de-
pending upon the waters of the Rio Grande for irrigation, and its
cultivation has been continued ever since — yet the soil is of an un-
diminished fertility. East of the Rio Grande H. C. Justice, an in-
telligent metalurgist of our city, reports large deposits of precious
metals of gTcat value. Mr. Justice is a gentleman who has for sev-
eral years investigated the merits of our metalliferous resources, and
being an old prospector, is well able to judge of the value of mineral
lands, and is in possession of knowledge on this subject of great value
to the capitalist and the interests of those who desire to aid in the
development of our vast mineral resources,
Santa Fe county and city — the " City of Holy Faith," — ^is surroun-
ded with the precious metals. The following I quote from Professor
Raymond's report for 1870^ in which he says :
34
" Santa Rosa, discovered forty years ago by Alvarado, is situated
in a small valley surrounded by hills. The inclined shaft is 50 feet
deep but mostly caved in. The lode is six feet wide, strikes north,
23° east and dips 80° northwest. The walls are granite and encase
argentiferous galena, zinc blend, iron, copper, etc." Since the above
report this mine has been re-opened by a vertical shaft, and the min-
erals reduced in a furnace situated upon the Galisteo. The bullion
produced averaged $120.00 per ton in silver.
" Mina Ruelena. The lode consists of two layers on the surface,
one of which is three feet and the other one foot wide. The incline
shaft on this vein is 120 feet deep."
" Mina del Tiro is situated on the east side of the Cerrillos, in
the Caiiiida de las Minas. An incline 150 feet and a shaft 100 feet
deep, connect with the extensive montones (drifts) of over 300 feet
in length and with many chambers. All are filled with water. The
remains of an old canoe which was used for crossing water in the
mine are still there. These excavations were made by Jesuits "
(this by history should read Franciscan Friars and not Jesuits)
" probably before 1680, and the expense has been estimated at
$100,000. Silver ore is visable in large quantities." Professor
Raymond in speaking of this locality says :
" The Cemilos, 17 miles southwest of Santa Fe, contain many
silver bearing lodes which have never been described, although they
are well worth it. They are situated on an old Spanish grant belong-
ing to the Baca y Delgado family." (These lands have since been
surveyed as public lands and sold by the government to citizens who
are now working the mines.) " The Cerrillos are a series of low un-
dulating hills about six miles long and three miles wide, and consist
mostly of granite rocks, a few of them of volcanic origin. From a
cone made up of basaltic lava near Martin's ranch, splendid views
of the old and new Placer mountains in the southeast, the Bernalillo
in the southwest, Santa Fe in the north and the Jemez range in the
west are spread before the visitor."
Many other mines and lodes of gold and silver could be men-
tioned, but the time allotted to me on this occasion will not permit.
Enough has been said to show the age of our city and mineral value
of its surroundin2:s.
35
OUR FIRST CENTURY.
The Fourth of July, 1776, was a memorable day, a day to be
remembered, a day to be regarded with grateful acknowledgements
by every American citizen, by every philanthropist in all the nations
of the world. The light which shines from our political institutions
has penetrated even the dungeons of European despots, for the genius
of our Government is the genius of universal emancipation ! Nothing
can resist the political influence of a great nation enjoying great
political advantages, if she walk worthy of them. The example our
government gives is necessarily terrible to the crowned heads of
Europe, and exhilarating to all who look for the redemption of man
from political degredation.
The American Revolution of 1776 was but the precursor
of a revolution of infinitely more importance to mankind. It was a
great, a happy, and a triumphant revolution. It will long, perhaps
always, be accounted an illustrious and a happy era in the history of
man. Many thanksgivings and praises have reached unto heaven
because of this great deliverance. The incense of gratitude perfumed
with the praise of all patriots, has long since risen from myriads of
hearts, and will continue to rise until the principle of self government
shall cover the whole earth, and the glory and majesty of the Grreat
Creator be reflected upon the nations of all lands.
The praises of a Washington, a Franklin, a Jefferson, a Lafayette
and other patriots of one hundred years ago, will long resound through
the hills and valleys of this spacious country, and will, in proportion
as men are prepared to taste the blessings to result from a fuller devel-
opement of the great principles of divine government, continually in-
crease.
THE WORK OF THE PRESENT CENTURY.
A more glorious work is reserved for this Centennial generation,
a work of as much greater moment, compared with the revolution of
1776, as immortality is to the present span of human life — the
emancipation of the human mind from the shackles of superstition by
the introduction of universal education. To liberate the minds of
men from pagan ignorance and Sectarian tyrannies — to deliver them
36
from the thraldom of relentless systems, is a work fraught with greater
blessings, and a work of a nobler daring and loftier enterprise than the
substitution of a representative democracy for an absolute or limited
monarchy.
When this grand work of this Centennial age is achieved then
will all men literally " beat their swords into plowshares, and their
spears into pruning hooks, and learn war no more," and bask in the
sunshine of the glory of the majesty of the heavens, " dwelling in
peace," under the soverign rule of the " Prince of Peace."
I am admonished that the time allotted to me on this occasion
has fully expired, I will therefore conclude in the language of the
Kocky Mountain bards :
Hills of beauty round me rise,
Sentinels to valleys sweet.
Crowned with azure from the skies,
Bathed in emerald at their feet.
Lightness lingers, rises, falls,
Shedding glory on our walls.
Santa F6, the oldest born
Of Columbia's cherished towns.
Yet as fresh as glorious noon.
Life from every nook resound.
Old, yet new, grown gray yet strong.
Jubilant for right, but death to wrong.
From mountain peak the breeze.
Floating to the plains below,
Fan the flowers, the fields, the trees,
Where the sparkling waters flow.
Here, by the waterfall and glen,
Pleasure waits the will of men.
Thunder from an azure sky.
Lightning flashes earthward flow,
Storms of wind go sweeping by.
With their trains of dust and snow.
Here the elements combine
At the will of One divine.
Airy echoes on the hills.
Gleams of sunshine everywBere,
37
Cooling breezes by the rills,
Tempest tremore in the air,
All the elements of liealth.
All the ways of life and wealth.
New Mexico, land of treasures new and old.
New Mexico, land of sunshine and of gold,
New Mexico, lovely day and starry night,
New Mexico, land of beauty and delight.
CENTENNIAL POEM,
By colonel A. Z. HUGGINS.
BRITANNIA.
In former days there lived a woman, old
In years, in strength yet young, proud, cold ;
Of faculties unequalled — brilliant, keen —
The very model of a stately queen.
Her age she counted by the thousand years,
She deemed herself without her earthly peers,
And in full grandure sat her golden throne,
As though esteeming all the world her own.
A thousand altars blazed at her behest,
Fired by strong hands from plain to mountain crest ;
A thousand courtiers knelt to win her smile ;
A thousand captains fought her foes the while ;
A thousand ships swept o'er the billowy plain,
Bearing her royal banner at the main.
In matchless glory by the sounding sea,
She dwelt 'mid all the forms of royalty ;
And 'twas her boast that in her lustrous reign.
The sun ne'er set throughout her vast domain.
'o^
Full many comely children claimed from her
Their parentage, and e'er without demur,
Obeyed all calls that bore her royal name —
E'en freely gave their stores to spread her fame.
But with great age will come at last a change ;
Declining years from youthful thoughts estrange ;
The glowing faculties die out apace —
38
A law enduring to the human race.
With wriakled brow and locks of driven snow ;
With blood becoming sluggish in its flow ;
With nerves unsettled and with figure bent ;
With lungs less active and with vigor spent ;
How could the vital energies remain ?
With physical, the mental force must wane ;
A languor take the place of sparkling life ;
A proneness to inquietude, to strife.
Then bigotry develops — vengeful curse !
And carries dotage on from bad to worse ;
Leading the thoughts to irresponsive sway ;
E'en thus it seemed with proud Britannia.
COLUMBIA.
Ere long, when Eastern lands were waxing old ;
When conflicts wild had raged through years untold,
And liberty seemed mould' ring in the grave ;
When hope was gone — no outstretched hand to save
A new land was discovered in the west,
Promising freedom to the longing breast.
G-rand news ! Then hastened pilgrims by the score ;
Relief from hardships seeking ; weary, sore :
They set their standards in the new found land ;
Stationed their guards on every sea-girt strand ;
Chose as their queen the young Columbia —
The fairest daughter of Britannia —
And raised a banner o'er their goodly wolds,
With " Freedom " blazoned on its waving folds.
But Britain's queen could not withhold her hand :
She saw her offspring peopling the new land —
The same that from her tyranny had flown —
And she averred that all should be her own.
Weakness cannot, for long, the strong withstand ;
And so Columbia took her mother's hand,
In timid deference to the stern command,
And humbly promised to abide her will,
'Till matron's age her growing years should fill.
Gently at first the mother ruled her child,
And with soft words her trusting faith beguiled ;
But, erelong, as the child in beauty grew,
And promiised soon to take the helm anew ;
39
The motlier changed her tactics, and in thought
Resolved to crush her daughter's realm to naught.
WAR.
Columbia sought, by every kindly art,
To soften her still cherished mother's heart ;
But all in vain : The daughter could not stay
The hand outstretched for universal sway.
Then bloodshed came ; came wild and furious war ;
Came fleets on fleets from Britain's coasts afar ;
Came Red Coats, panting for their brother's blood ;
Came Hessians, hired to swell the rising flood ;
Came Indians, bought to do a tyrant's will,
'Till streams of blood fed many a winding rill.
Dark was the hour, yet Freedom struggled on,
Led by the brave, heroic Washington :
Cold steel met steel ; the patriotic few.
From point to point, with fiery ardor flew.
Half starved and ragged were the faithful band,
Yet, full resolved to save their cherished land,
Endured their toils with nerve unknown before
In all the annals of historic lore.
INDEPENDENCE.
But now a balmy, hopeful day appeared,
That to all patriot spirits is endeared ;
A day that promised homes to the oppressed :
To stay the guilty hand of will conquest :
To end these dire, unnatural conflicts —
The glorious Fourth of S&venteen Seventy Six!
On that proud day, Columbia, adored
By freemen, by aspiring lords abhorred ;
Now, of full age, to modest beauty gTOwn ;
With brow that in celestial splendor shone ;
Her beaming orbs sparkling in diamond rays :
Her graceful form winning all peoples' praise :
Stepped forth, and waving her resplendant hand,
Declared full freedom to her chosen land,
Her voice in cheering strains rang through the air :
Her words in joy reechoed everywhere.
Again steel flashed, more vigorously borne ;
And now the foemen quailed with laurels shorn r
40
The flowing tide was changed ; the brutal force,
Surcharged with gore, was checked in its mad course.
Then equal conflict followed for a space ;
Then grand successes to the youthful race ;
Until at last the foe disheartened, sore.
In utter rout, was driven from our shore.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS.
Then followed to the bravest of the brave,
Prosperity on every rolling wave :
Riches and honor, charity, good will.
Contributing the promise to fulfill,
That freemen could all enemies withstand ;
Could raise to fame their new apportioned land ;
Could rule in love with undiminished sway,
'Till every grievous wrong had passed away.
But even freemen, human still, will now
And then opposing sentiments avow ;
Each thinking only his opinions good
And requisite to real brotherhood.
Hence, in our midst, dissensions have occurred,
Which for a time our beauteous flag have blurred ;
Yet right succeeded always in the end,
To peace restore and hearts in union blend :
And all have forward moved in rapid stride.
Unhindered by opposing wind or tide ;
Unchecked by danger, billow, strife or fear,
'Till onward ever in our gi-and career
We have emblazoned our loved country's name
Upon the highest p'nnacle of fame.
'Tis startling to the mind to cast around.
And view our progress in a single bound.
Those live who saw us as a feeble child ;
Who saw our land, uncultivated, wild ;
Who saw few states, all on the Atlantic shore ;
Few farms ; towns few — supplied from meagre store —
But who beheld a faithful, earnest corps.
Destined to make their mark in future lore.
And now, what do they see ? A broad expanse,
Advanced so rapidly that e'en romance
Would scarce accept the tale — a nation grown
41
To span a wide spread continent as its own.
They see strong workmen on a thousand plains,
With implements improved for larger gains ;
They see a thousand mines exposed to view,
Offering the riches which our mountains strew ;
They see in every harbor, lake and stream,
A hundred noble ships propelled by steam ;
They see in rapid stride the railroad train,
Traversing every valley, mountain, plain ;
They see the telegraph, with lightning speed,
Coursing the country on its wiry steed ;
They see, by strides to ages past unknown,
A thousand towns to vast proportions grown ;
They see their land of unpretentious birth.
Exalted to the noblest rank in earth.
THE OVATION.
A nation now, acknowledged by the world,
Of fame scarce equalled, and with flag unfurled.
We celebrate our glorious natal hour.
Our growth, our freedom, brotherhood, our power.
And not alone do we our altars raise.
In fervid thanks in these triumphal days :
For many nations join around our shrine.
In honor to Columbia, divine.
Britannia, proud queen, in gracious mood,
Reclothed in all the charms of motherhood,
Comes to congratulate, in accents mild.
The glories of her freedom loving child.
Comes France, our faithful friend in direst need.
Who, with strong hand, showed brotherhood indeed ;
Comes Germany ; comes Hussia ; Turkey, too.
On Freedom's shores old friendships to renew ;
Comes Austria, Italy, Greece, Papal See ;
E'en China comes, to mingle with the free ;
Comes young Brazil, Don Pedro in command.
To view the wonders wrought by freedom's hand ;
Comes Mexico, and in the sweeping train.
With graceful bearing, comes old mother Spain.
Why this grand rush to young Columbia's realm,
As if our swelling hearts to overwhelm ?
Why come proud monarchies in rich array.
On this, our soul inspiring, festal day ?
42
They come because they honor our swift strides
Towards supremacy, 'gainst floods and tides ;
Because they see in Freedom's lines a star
Of splendor, lighting countries near and far ;
Because the greatest can but honor right,
As more divine than wealth or lordly might.
Blessed day ! A grandly thriving people now,
Stand forth to register a sacred vow —
To guard the flag that o'er our country flows,
And in our homes the light of peace bestows.
They meet from distant points, to notes compare ;
To mutual, cordial gratulations share ;
They meet in glowing health to view the past,
In glory shining, yet with clouds o'ercast :
They meet to view the present, brilliant, clear ;
Fanned by a balmy, strength'ning atmosphere ;
They meet, each his improvements to reveal ;
True hands to shake and plighted faith to seal ;
They meet, a prosperous reunion band
In proud devotion to their hallowed land.
Be this Centennial a beacon light.
To guide lost wanderers through the darksome night
And let its glories be but the prelude
To others reaching to infinitude.
ORATION IN SPANISH.
By JUDGE EDMUND F. DUNNE.
[Upon the conclusion of the reading of the Declaration in Span-
ish and the interlude of music by the band. Judge Dunne, being
next on the programme, arose and addressed the audience in the
Spanish language ; but his oration has not been furnished in En-
glish for incorporation here. All those present acquainted with
the beautiful and copious language in which the orator spoke, unite
in admiring the elegant Castilian in which he portrayed the heroic
annals of Spain and the Spaniards and the eloquence and excellence
of the efibrt.]
43
TOASTS AND RESPONSES.
[The sentiments and responses according to the programme were
to be in both the. English and Spanish languages, and they were so
announced and made. Only the responses delivered in English are here
reproduced however. The associate respondents to the respective
toasts were General Atkinson and Don Clemente P. Ortiz, Captain
Pratt and Judge Antonio Ortiz y Salazar, General Hatch and Major
Jos6 D. Sena, Mr. Catron and Don Vicente Garcia, Mr. Fiske and
Don Trinidad Alarid and Mr. Gildersleeve and Don Jos6 B. Ortiz.]
THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.
By general H. M. ATKINSON.
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen :
HE office of President at the birth of the republic was surrounded
with difficulties and embarrassed by responsibilities of such a
character that even a Washington accepted the trust imposed
upon him by three millions of people with many misgivings as to the
success of his administration.
Our form of government was then an experiment, and the Chief
Executive had no idle task to perform in administering the new and
onerous duties of his office. Grave as were the responsibilities
of President at that time, when the nation was composed of a popula-
tion of less than three millions of people, how much greater are they
now with nearly forty-five millions of people, scattered over a vast in-
crease of territory, with a diversity of interests, enlarged, comensurate
with the growth of the republic. With perhaps one or two exceptions
the office has been filled creditably by representatives of the various
dominant political parties, and in general the American people can
refer with pride to the record of those upon whom a free people have
conferred the distinguished honor of Chief Executive.
Somewhere in the speculative writings of the ancient Greeks,
the highest post of political honor is accorded to him who rules with
44
justice over a free city. This saying is full of practical wisdom to the
American people, and it readily occurs to us who live under the pro-
tection of a republican form of government, that one of the most diffi-
cult and perplexing positions to which man can aspire in political life
is the Chief Magistracy of a republic, each of whose citizens feels that
he is the peer of his chief and entitled to the same privileges and
rights of person and property.
To harmonize the conflicting interests and passions, and so govern
as to win the applause of even his own partizans, is a most difficult
task, and one which few men are capable of performing.
Great as the difficulties have been that have surrounded the office,
I doubt if in all history can be shown a long line of chief magistrates
or rulers of any nation, who have continuously and for nearly a cen-
tury ruled with such satisfaction to any people as have the various
Presidents of the United States, and of these whom we delight to
honor, none has been more faithful to his high trust as president than
U.S. Grant. Emerging from an humble and unpretending life at the call
of his country in tl^e hour of her peril, he has by his own merit and
ability attained the most honorable and distinguished position in the
gift of a great and free people. The unassuming manner which char-
acterized his life as a private citizen followed him through his military
career, while commanding the federal troops in the midst of the recent
conflict, and nowhere has that modest demeanor been more notice-
able than during his seven years occupancy of the presidential chair.
Victorious in war, and generous in peace, great as a general yet
still greater as a statesman, at a time when the nation was recovering
from the results of a terrible civil war, when the hearts of the late
contestants were burdened with the discord resultant from the long
strife, he stood like a rock, stemming the angry waves of passion and
hate that sought to overwhelm him, and has so ordered his acts that
even his enemies can find naught against him, and the future histor-
ian will record him as one of the ablest of generals and wisest of states-
men.
45
"THE CENTENNIAL BIRTHDAY OF AMERICA: MAY IT
PROVE THE FIRST OF UNNUMBERED CENTENNIALS.
By HON. JOHN PRATT.
Mr. President, Fellow Citizens :
,ODAY, in city, town and hamlet, from New England's ocean-
beaten shores to the waving forests of Oregon, from the semi-
tropic waters of the Gulf to the breezy lakes of the North,
from the golden sands of California to the white fields of Georgia and
the Carolinas, leaving the labors of the work-shop and the counting
house, the bench, the bar, and the pulpit, from the mine and the
foundry, the forest and farm, come more than forty millions of free
people to exult in one hundred accomplished years of national exis-
tence, growth and prosperity, and to utter the wish just expressed.
We celebrate today no triumph of arms, where all that was won
was a province wrested from one allegience to another equally hard
and hated, no single fame earned at the cost of thousands of innocent
lives and years of useless suffering, no false and tinsel glory that per-
ished with the wearer.
We are assembled to commemorate the enunciation of what are
today living principles, left not behind by the world in its advance-
ment as useless, worn-out motives of action, but principles which the
knowledge and experience of yeai^ better enable us to approximate
to a comprehension of their truth and justice, their essentiality to
national well being.
While we hold in grateful remembrance the honored names of
those who were wise in planning, forcible and eloquent in advocating,
and brave and skillful in executing, during the trying years of the
nation's birth, yet the great cause for which they counselled and fought
overshadows while it brightens their fame.
Time but adds new lustre to their laurels, and the world con-
stantly growing to a fuller appreciation of their wisdom, bravery and
self-sacrifice, the studied phrase of eulogy is less needed year by year,
for those names in whose sound
* * * there is a charm
The nerves to brace, the heart to warm.
46
The justification which they gave to the world for their appeal
to arms set forth principles too broad, too general, too well grounded
in right in truth, too applicable to all times and to all nations, to be
confined to these shores, to this people. " They builded wiser than
they knew," and they not merely founded a nation and a government
for themselves and their posterity, but they demonstrated to the world
the possibility of safely merging into one class the governing and the
governed, and the consequent identity, mutuality and protection of
all interests in the action of government.
The men of 1776 have passed away, but the nation and the gov-
ernment founded and formed by them still stand, and we of this time
assuredly have duties for its preservation as surely as had they in their
inception and formation.
From the first there have been in our country, few in number
but noisily and noisomely prominent, classes, not resultant from our in-
stitutions, not accordant with the character of our people.
The debauched, howling " striker " vending his vote at the polls
like wares in the market, the dishonest official busy only in the ad-
vancement of his own mean personal profit, the ignorant, uncultured
imbecile vainly striving to cloak in the importance of official station
his uncouth inefficiency : these have, in former years as now, given to
many good and thoughtful men, who failed to see that present evils
are always apparently greatest in degree, prevalance and power, ap-
prehensions for the purity, for the perpetuity of our institutions.
Their apprehensions we may easily believe are unfounded, for
these are but accidents, excresences.
They are but the bubbling scum, that thrown to the surface
seethes and simmers for a time in pretentious and ofiensive activity
but to decay and pass away, leaving the great body below solid and
sweet, pure and powerful.
They are not representative citizens, not representative public
servants. No ! They are types of classes as small as they are loud,
weak and vicious, and soon descend to the visible degradation or hidden
obscurity they so richly merit.
Their presence however admonishes us the more carefully to con-
sider that in a government like ours we have not only privileges to
enjoy but duties to perform, perhaps sacrifices to make.
47
Wishes without works are but futile ; and accomplished or re-
tained good is seldom had, save with duty done.
Every American therefore, the honest, intelligent private citizen
versed in his country's history, and the nature of its institutions, in
casting his ballot, every public servant, trained and cultured in honesty,
wisely and efficiently discharging his official functions, every journalist
fully appreciating that the press should be the reflector, the exponent,
the demonstrator of the always existing, and always prevalent right,
good and true public sentiment, the preacher in the pulpit, the edu-
cator of youth, all these and others in their stations should be always
actively conscious of the pressing duty of sacredly guarding the trust
placed in their hands, always watchfully careful to see that it is not
sufibred to dim or decay.
So with the glorious memories of the past shall be mingled the
solid satisfaction, the bright assurance of the future.
Then shall Columbia's Centennials cease only in the years that
bring the full fruition of the invocation " on earth peace, good will
towards men," when the anniversary of her natal day becomes the
world's festal season, shall see the assembled nations of the earth re-
joicing in that true, orderly, rational liberty of which she has been
the originator, the organizer, the fair examplar.
THE ARMY AND NAVY OF THE UNITED STATES."
By general EDWARD HATCH.
,HE Army and Navy of our country created in the interest of
human rights a century ago, was then as now, from the peo-
ple and of the people.
A citizen transformed into the soldier to do battle for the Repub-
lic in its youth, as now to die in defense of its honor in the nation's
manhood.
With all nations we recognize the need of an army, and as all
have a voice in our government, we honor those interested to preserve
the integrity of our territory and to preserve inviolate its flag on
every sea.
48
The nation may well be proud of its army and navy. One hun-
dred years ago the world recognized the valor of its soldiers and sailors,
acknowledged the genius of its leaders. It was because we were then
as now an energetic, intelligent, courageous people. That the Republic
was possible and today a/acf. To have accomplished our first Cen-
tennial the army and navy in sufferings and triumphs have had their
proper place. This achievement is their eulogy, none other is required.
Of those who went to the field their deeds live in the hearts of the
nation — there they will live forever, whether they fell or returned there
is no need to speak. The Republic looks back upon them in pride and
gratitude.
It was inevitable that a people cradled to freedom in conflicts
with an unjust power, her sons invigorated by the ocean, hardened
almost to invincibility by a struggle against human despotism, should
be foremost today among the nations in development of political, re-
ligious and commercial freedom, and that her army and navy should
furnish ability of the highest order in her commanders. As long as
the Republic lives will her army exist, (war is the condition of the
world), so but adjusted and distributed is this power in our nation its
guardian always, never its master.
Though America has lately emerged from war with an enormous
debt, scarcely purchasing tranquility with fearful loss of life, she re-
joices in the glory of her arms — proud of the valor of her sons.
That with the evils following the sword comes many virtues.
For the soldier who would achieve greatness and bring honor to his
country, must exercise the virtues inculcated by our mothers, (dearer
than life to the American soldier) honor fortitude, courage, obedience,
modesty and temperance, with love of country, which stimulates the
brave man's patriotism, and is a corrective to the rich man's pride,
imbued with the precepts of our constitution, our army will, in com-
ing centuries, secure the country from foes without, and guarantee
tranquility within.
49
t By HON. THOMAS B. CATRON.
[Not having a copy of Mr. Catron's remarks they are only re-
ferred to here. The speaker claimed and eloquently maintained that
since the creation women have occupied a very distinguished position
in the history of the world, and that they deserved all the honors that
had been showered upon them. In no nation under heaven had the
influence of good women been crowned with so much enduring glory
as in ours. He gave them an exalted niche in the temple of fame for
giving to the world the notable day and the glorious men of a hundred
years ago. It was to the mothers, daughters and sisters of the revo-
lutionary times that we owe a debt of gratitude for giving to us the
blessings of freedom and good government then and now, and cited
his audience to the history of all the republics that have ever existed
— especially to Mexico — as exemplars of the influence of good women
in guiding to fame and greatness. He claimed that like the perpetual
order of Nature women never change. Today they are the guiding
stars of this nation as they were a hundred years ago. As in the dim
and distant ages, they labor on the same today for the good of human-
ity and in the cause of God. He maintained that the men of our
land, particularly, should feel eminently grateful to the gentler sex )
that filial love and unceasing devotion is their due ; and that while we
give undying honors to the women of the revolution, those of the pres-
ent day — among them many of the fair Castilian race in America —
should not be overlooked. The speech was well received, and was
appreciated as an eloquent tribute to woman and to her influence and
potency as a prime power in the affairs of the world.]
"WASHINGTON, THE FATHER OF HIS COUNTRY."
IN SILENCE.
50
"SPAIN, THE MOTHER COUNTRY OF THE CASTILIAN
RACE IN AMERICA."
By EUGENE A. ♦FISKE, ESQ.
Mr. President and Ladies and Gentlemei^ :
^^HETHER we would examine the literature of Spain, com-
mencing with the philosopher Seneca and thence descending
throughout the middle ages, when Spain was the objective
point of the pilgrims of learning of all. Europe, to Cervantes and the
host of honored names of more moderm times ; whether we would
inquire into her contributions to, science or her place in the world of
art under the leadership of Murillo and Velasques ; whether we would
consider her manufactories from that remote period when the silks of
Seville and Granada, the cloth of Murcia and the arms of Toledo
ranked first in the commercial marts of the world ; whether we would
examine into the wealth of her natural resources or the customs and
manners of her people for the centuries since she has been a great
nation, or whether we would seek to know of the successes of ho*
armies in war or of her statesmen in peace ; to whichever of these
sources of greatness in a nation we turn, the field of information
widens out before us covered with such abundant harvest that even
a brief mention of either of them cana<rf boAmade in the moment al-
lotted for a response to this sentiment. it.o3 f ■ ^
We must therefore leave these inquiries for other occasions to
the patient seeker after the useful, the beautiful and the grand in the
records of the past ; but, upon this the one hundredth anniversary of
the natal day of our independence, standing erect in the full con-
sciousness that we are free and offeriiig thanks for the blessings of
liberty, there is one portion of the history of Spain which we cannot
overlook without the sin of ingratitude. I need not tell you that the
period to which I refer was that age when the names and the acts of
the sons of Spain upon this continent were so deeply graven upon the
book of fame that they will endure and grow brighter with the growth
and advancement of civilization-^when they conquered and gave
America to be the home of freemen and the asylum of the op-'
pressed of the whole great -brMlierliood of* mankind.
51
The record of that age reads h'ke romance so wonderfiil seems to
us in these matter-of-fact times the achievements of the handful of
men who victoriously carried the name of Spain and the Christian
religion into the heart of a new continent then swarming with a
strange and hostile people. But it is not romance : it is history, but
the history of no common race. It is the history of a brave, gener-
ous and enlightened people, in whose veins flowed the turbulent
blood of the Iberian, the Oelt^ the Groth, the Vandal and the Arabian,
mellowed by the best blood of. ancient Rome and Carthage ; whose
ancestors in the youth of civilization, undisciplined as they were, had
fought against, and for many years held at bay, the invading legions
of imperious Rome when Rome was the proud mistress of the world ;
whose ancestors five centuries later under Euric the visigoth, had
put an end to the Roman empire in what is now Spain ; whose ances-
tors had offered up their lives in the storm of battle under Roderick
the last of the Gothic kings and marched to victory with Pelayo and
the immortal Cid, and who, themselves, with the record of such an
ancestry to stir up longings for renown in arms, had been bred and
nurtured to deeds of valor on the fields and in the passes of Granada.
These were the dauntless men who leaving home and kindred
sailed unto an unknown ocean in quest of that land of which their
tidings were as vague and shadowy as the winds that filled their sails,
who with Ponce de Leon sought for the fountain of eternal youth in
the morrasses and on the flower-clad hills of Florida, who first of
Europeans beheld the scarlet gleam of the setting sun sinking behind
the broad and peaceful Pacific, and who, hurling themselves like the
whirlwind against the fierce and warlike natives, planted the Cross in
the virgin mould of the forest and on the wide and fertile plains of a
new world for the honor of Ferdinand, of Isabella and of Spain, for
the good of posterity and for the glory of the ever-living God they
worshipped.
The thunder of the cannon and the clamor of the trumpets of old
Spain no longer awake the echos in the hills of America, for the de-
scendents of the conquerors have acquired what their heroic sires,
bound by the iron bands of custom, centuries old, could not achieve
— ^free governments. Buf the deeds of the noble dead, to whom the
52
mysteries of the future are no longer mysteries, and who in life walked,
with unshaken fortitude, side by side with the grim specters of Famine
and of Death that they might redeem this continent, still live in
memory, for the voice of Truth, speaking from the pages of history,
speaks louder than the voices of men continually reminding us of the
debt we owe to the departed heroes who bequeathed to us the soil upon
which we now celebrate, where, unfettered by monarchical traditions and
power, it is possible that the genius of Liberty, who presides at the
birth of every man, may watch over and guard him until the gray
twilight of his life when his soul passes up into the presence of his Creator.
While we pay our homage to the fathers of the Republic let us
salute Spain, the glorious mother of the conquerors and of the Casti-
lian race in America.
By CHARLES H. GILDERSLEEVE, ESQ.
Mr. President and Fellow Citizens :
^^i DOUBT if there is a heart in the United States, today, that is
-^■j ever filled with the proud feeling of patriotism but what it
palpitates with a responsive throb at the sentiment, " May
our Union be perpetual." Born one hundred years ago amid the
tumult and confusion of a revolutionary strife whose annals are un-
paralleled in the pages of history, with barely sufficient supporters to
beat off oppression's ruthless power, it now stands up boldly and defies
the world. This day forty million of freemen worship at its shrine,
and with one voice that resounds like the continuous unbroken chain
of great thunders from Maine to California, from the lakes of the
North to the Gulf of the South, exclaim, " May our Union be per-
petual." Founded on just and honest principles ; built by the mighty
and combined strength of national industry and independence ; ce-
mented by the sweat and blood of our forefathers, success has crowned
all its efibrts in peace and in war ; naught but the clarion shout of
victory, mctory ! has followed in its wake since Freedom gave it birth.
53
Our Union ! Its very name fills the soul of every true patriot
with rapturous enthusiasm. The asylum of the oppressed and down-
trodden of all nations, where the heart throws all its fetters ofi", and
the unburdened mind is as free as the winds that play round the
cloud-capped peaks of yonder mountain chain.
" May our Union be perpetual !" May its noonday never dar-
ken till all records of valor and nations are ground into eternity's
dust ! May its golden sunlight never grow dim till the fiat of time,
till the sun of heaven itself doth die.
THE CELEBRATION.
^^\ T is deemed proper to append to the foregoing collection of
mX) speeches, etc., a brief review of the great popular celebration
at Santa Fe which was the occasion of their utterance. As
it was the celebration of the first centennial birthday of the American
republic, a republic now the recognized principal in the great common-
wealth of nations, the citizens of the capital of New Mexico in mass
convention had resolved to make their preparations for it on a scale
proportionately commensuate with those of the most oppulent and
patriotic cities in the land. Indeed the published programme of pro-
ceedings indicated a demonstration unprecedentedly comprehensive
and grand for Santa Fe ; and, should this record of it perchance be
preserved to the second of the centennials contemplated in the last
stanza of Colonel Huggins' poem, the then denizens of Santa F^ may
thereby have an idea of how the occasion was here observed a hun-
dred years before.
At dawn on the Fourth a salute of thirteen rounds from the
twelve-pound brass cannon at Fort Marcy ushered in the glorious day
always welcome to the American people, and on this occasion doubly
welcome at the thought that it was the first and very probably the
last and the only centennial day any of them would ever witness. At
an early hour a large concourse of people from all over the city and
from the country began to assemble upon the plaza. Almost every
place of public and private business and numerous residences in the
54
city had thrown the Starspangled Banner to the breeze. The day-
opened and continued beautiful and delightful. At the hour pre-
scribed, half-past eight o'clock, the chief marshal and his assistants
were observed busy in forming the procession on the north side of the
plaza. This was soon accomplished, and the great mass of many and
varied constituents and concomitants marched from the northeast cor-
ner of the plaza, through sundry streets to the north and west, and
back into the plaza at the southwest corner. As it proceeded the
main object of interest was perhaps the Car of Independence, a large
government ambulance tastefully and gippropriately prepared, and
drawn by six tremendous black mules with a groom at the head of
each. The car, pyramidal in shape, was large and commodious,
having a wide base projecting over the wheels of the vehicle, and
upon its top waved the Stars and Stripes from a tall aspen pole. Upon
the projecting base were seated thirty-nine young girls, little beauties,
representing all the States of the Union and the Territory of New
Mexico, each flourishing a miniature national banner bearing the
name of the State she represented, and each evincing a patriotic pride
in her character as the representative of a portion of the mightiest
commonwealth of the world. All were arrayed in the purest white,
with wreaths of flowers on the forehead and with red, white and blue
sashes and badges upon their shoulders and breasts. Upon the top
of the car as it moved were seen standing the Goddess of Liberty,
Uncle Sam, and Young America, in character. The Groddess was
personated by Miss J. Graeie Shaw, robed in snowy white, with red
sash on the shoulder and blue tiara on the forehead inscribed with the
word Liberty. Brother Jonathan was personated by Mr. George
N. Davis, full six-feet-six tall, dressed in red, white and blue striped
home-spun goods, long swallow-tailed coat, stove-pipe hat wrapped
around with ribbons, and breeches with long straps under the boots.
Young America, represented by Master Cyrus Amy, sported a brown
and yellow ^suit, with straw hat and flag, and a streamer bearing in
parti-colored letters the name Young America. The names of the
thirty-nine young Misses before referred to, and of the States they so
joyfully repJressnted — including New Mexico pro hoc vice — are as
fellows: ■ • j; K r.i. ,,- lY, ovi ,=
■_ ~ 55
Lulsa Ortiz, Alabama,
Helena Grunsfeld, Arkansas,
Kitty Hudson, California,
Mabel Loud, Colorado,
Adelaida Ortiz, Connecticut,
Grace Proudfit, Delaware,
• Inez Stevens, Florida,
Lula Rice, Georgia,
Emma Ross, Illinois,
Luz Delgado, Indiana,
Tomasita Lopez, Iowa,
Belle Watts, Kansas,
Margarita Tompkins, Kentucky,
Sallie Gruusfeld, Louisiana,
Mary Everett, Maine,
Anita Johnson, M^^iryland,
Yicenta Montoya, IVLassachusetts,
Kitty Cosgrove, Michigan,
Mabel Belcher, Minnesota,
Frdncisca Tompkins, Mississippi,
Amada Garcia, Nebraska,
Luz Ortiz, Nevada,
Rosario Ortiz, Missouri,
Bessie Hatch, New Hampshire,
Cieofes Ortiz, New Jersey,
Emma Ritch, Wisconsin,
Isabella Proudfit, New York,
Eliza Krummeck, North Carolina,
Gertrude Belcher, Ohio,
Felipa Delgado, Oregon^;
Florentina Manderlieid, Pennsylvania,
Meliuda Thayer, Rliode Island,
Minerva Krummeck, South Carolina,
Magdalena Delgado, Tennessee,
Josefa Ellison, Texas,
Beatriz Alarid, Vermont,
Lucy Watts, Virginia,
Paulita Lopez, West Virginia,
Adelaida Tucker, New Mexico. , ' ^ i
In the procession were General Edward Hatch and his staff
officers, all in full uniform and mounted upon splendid horses, and
following them- marched company " I,", -of the 15th United States
Infantry, under command of Captain Chambers McKibbin and Lieut.
56
George A. Cornish. There were three bands of music — that of the
9th U. S. Cavalry of nineteen instruments, that of St. Michael's Col-
lege and the Mexican Band of Santa Fe. The boys composing the
college band were in uniform — dark dress with shoulders ornamented
with their colors. The teachers and pupils of the college were also
out in force.
Among the most notable features of the procession were those we
shall now refer to in the order of their appearance in the line.
Following the soldiers came the boys with their miniature fire
engine and hook and latter apparatus, decorated with arches of ever-
greens and flowers. Master George C. Wilder appeared as Captain
and carried the trumpet. The little fellows were in uniform — red
shirts, black caps and blue and white pants.
Next came the crowd of Pueblo Indians (under charge of Gov-
ernor Arny) — a band of about a hundred grotesque looking creatures
— men, women and children, dressed in their peculiar Indian cos-
tumes, and many of them bearing the wares of their home manufac-
ture. They presented an interesting sight, especially to those who
were unaccustomed to seeing such.
After the Indians followed the Donkey Brigade. They were
mounted on unbridled burros, dressed in the most grotesque masks
and costumes, and armed with sabres. They rode their little beasts
at random ; and the novel scene reminded one of Mark Twain's cav-
alcade to Damascus.
The cigar manufactory of Maurice Trauer & Co. was well repre-
sented by a highly ornamented car, with the workmen busily engaged
in the moving fa6tory manufacturing cigars, which as fast as made
they distributed along the route by tossing them into the crowd.
The Bank Exchange saloon of Harry Mottley was represented
by a gaily dressed car, containing a counter and its appointments of
bottles, kegs and tumblers, with representatives from the establishment
on board.
Another large and commodiously arranged car represented the
brewery establishment of Probst & Kirchner in full blast, fireplace
and all, manufacturing that staple article and favorite drink, lager
beer. The vehicle resembled a huge locomotive with smoke rolling
from the stack.
57
Arriving at the stand in the plaza the procession was disbanded ;
and the people prepared to witness the proceedings upon the platform,
a strong and spacious plank structure erected among the trees in the
east edge of the park, and upon which were now seated the president,
vicepresidents, marshals, members of the various committees, orators,
readers, respondents, poet, goddess. Uncle Sam, Young America,
General Hatch and staiF, the reporter hereof and sundry prominent
citizens.
After the opening of the exercises by the president of the day
he announced as in order the singing of the Centennial Hymn com-
posed for the occasion, which was done by the whole assembly, most
appropriately to the tune of " Old Hundred." The Declaration of
Independence was then read in English by Judge William C. Hazle-
dine and in Spanish by Captain Jesus Maria Sena y Baca. The
readers executed their tasks in a manner befitting the august occasion,
seeming in the act to partake of the spirit of the immortal document,
presented to the world thrt)ugh the Continental Congress exactly one
hundred years ago. Orations, poem, toasts and responses then fol-
lowed by the gentlemen and in the order indicated in the foregoing
publication of the same. The bands closed the morning exercises
with music, and the people adjourned to their homes until four
o'clock in the afternoon. Bancroft LibraQ^
At four o'clock many people were already again on the plaza,
the lades and children occupying the piazzas of the adjacent two-story
buildings. The amusement committee had put up a tall smooth and
well-greased polo in the street, near the northwest corner of the plaza,
and also arranged for other sports. Precisely at four o'clock the
military band occupied the Pagoda, the Pueblo Indians deployed in
front of the " Palace," and in a few moments the public square, the
streets on its four sides, the sidewalks and balconies were filled with
people of all ages and conditions intent on seeing the fun, the lowest
estimate of the crowd being 3000. As the band music progressed
the Indians struck up a lively air on their peculiar primitive instru-
ments, with their " war dance " accompaniment, and the old men
of the Pueblos procured several large lard cans for musical instru-
ments, and getting together the women, youths and children, com-
58
menced what thej called their " corn dance," a lively, sinuous pro-
cedure of shuffling of feet, clapping of hands, courtesying, etc.
Next came the wheelbarrow and sack races, which were amusing in
the highest degree and created rivulets of laughter. Then a race by a
band of Pueblo Indians, three ^imes around the plaza with the tail of
their only garment flying in the breeze. Then a hurdle race, four
hurdles, by well-known Santa Fe athletes. Then a foot-race from
;the Statehouse to the plaza, by Indian and Mexican contestants, with
jumping, etc. This occupied the time until about six o'clock, when
the Pueblo Indians went for the greased pole and the sack of silver
said to be oil top. The first Indians attempt was a failure ; the second
ditto ; the third likewise, and so on until about a dozen had pretty
well wiped the grease off 'to ab^ut half-way to the top, when they
concluded to try strategy. One fellow would start up, then another
would " boost " him, until about a half a dozen were strung along,
clinging to their slippery perch, when the bottom man would lose his
grip and the whole party come scooting to the bottom in a bunch.
Tlien another party tried sand, and the top man would carry up sand
in liis shirt-tail and throw it above him on the pole as he slowly went
up, rubbing off the grease at the same time ; in this way after much
labor the top was reached, the bag grasped and brought down, when
lo ! instead of ten silver dollars, as the Indians had been informed,
there were only four. Then there was aheap of Indian talk, and cuss-
words flowed free. At this juncture the committee and military came
to the rescue, and, iii' consideration of the labor performed, the am-
ount was increased to $26, much to the delight of the climbers. By
this time a summer sun was sinking behind the western hills, glint-
ing the azure heavens with a halo of golden rays, when another rest
was taken.
Precisely at 9 o'clock, p. m., the committee on fire-works com-
menced their labors near the Soldiery' Monument, and while the mil-
itary band was playing lively and patriotic airs, by the light of the
lamps in the Pagoda, the available space around was jammed with an
anxious mass of humanity, who had assembled to witness the pyro-
technics. Then the rockets disturbed the quiet stars ; the roman
candles lit up the night with colored flame ; Greek fire spirted ; the
___^ 59
mines exploded tp the al^rm of. the spectators ; tjie.fire wheels sprin-
kled fiery sparks on the green turf, while the fronts and tops of the
surrounding buildings jetted streams of Spectral light. It was a
brilliant scene, and a titling closing to a grandly spent day. The
pieces in the fire-display deserving especial mention, were the pictures
of Washington, her ladyship the Moon in full face, and Venus, the
Evening Star, the Passion Cross— these were costly and beautiful
displays. ' •
Thus ended the celebration of the great Republic's Centennial
birthday at Santa Fe — an occasion worthy of being lon^- remembered
as one of pleasant and proUd recoliefetions.
[By an oversight on the part of the Committee on Toasts and
Sentiments, Columbia's most true and steadfast friend in her time of
need, fair, sunny, generous France was entirely left out of the list.
A land that produced a Lafayette ,.and a Rochambeaii ; the patron of
art, literature and science ; the land of revolutions, courage and cour-
tesy ; of beauty and gallantry ; smiling vineyards and glorious monu-
ments ; whose people are ever welcome to our shores, was entitled to
more than a common-place tribute in the great heart of her sister
Republic on the anniversary of that sister's Centennial birthday.
"Welcome freedom-loving France !]
THE PRESS.
'• Thou mightiest of the mighty means.
On which the arm of Progress leans,
Man's noblest mission to advance,
His woes assauge, his weal enhance,
His rights enforce, his wrongs redress-
Mightiest of mighty is the Press."
60
"SUCCESS TO OUR FLAG.'
" Success to the Flag of our Nation I
Its folds all around us be spread !
It is blazoned witli deeds of the valiant,
And sacred with names of the dead.
The stars are the symbol of Union !
In Union they ever must wave !
The white is the emblem of honor,
The red is the blood of the brave.
Success to the Flag of the Nation !
Let it sweep o'er the land and the sea !
The shades of our heroes are 'round it,
Beneath it the ranks of the Free,
"We will keep its young glory unsullied,
In the ages to come, as the past :
Uprear it a beacon of Freedom,
Unbowed through all storms, to the last.
MEXICO.
BY AN OLD RESIDENT OP SANTA FE.
I love that land of brilliant clime,
As bright as mortals ever know ;
With lovely vales — and hills sublime —
The land of bright New Mexico.
*o*
I love thy valleys deep and green,
Where crystal waters laughing flow,
In wild romance — ^the hills between,
The green vales of New Mexico.
61
I love the plains so broad and free.
Where elk and deer unfettered go,
With tranquil brook and lonely tree,
The broad plains of New Mexico.
I love the peaks beyond the cloud,
That glisten with perennial snow,
The glorious summits of the proud
Grand sierras of New Mexico.
I love the hues that gild the west,
At even-tide, with supernal glow.
And crown the hills in dazzling crest,
The glorious sun-set of New Mexico.
I'love the soft,' melodious tongue.
That from the lips doth sweetly flow.
Like strains with harp and timbrel sung.
The sweet voice of New Mexico.
I love the silence deep and grand,
Which reigns around, above, below,
From mountain top to river strand.
The solemn stillness of New Mexico.
I love the skies, so fair, so bright, '
That o'er the earth their radiance throw.
Serene by day, so grand by night.
The cerulean skies of New Mexico.
Oh ! I would haste, would haste away,
More swiftly than the light can go,
And there forever fondly stay.
On the hills of dear New Mexico.
Oh ! Yes beneath that gentle sky.
Where moon and stars so softly glow,
There I would live, there I would die —
At Santa F4, in grand New Mexico.
62
Then bury me on the mountains high,
Thro' vales where Kio Grande's waters flow,
Whose summits pierce that glorious sky,
The Rocky Mountains of New Mexico.
SANTA FE AS A SANITARIUM AND PLEASURE RESORT.
By will. D. DAWSON.
^Jjl. UITE a number of strangers have visited Santa Fe thus far
m[ fj during the Summer for health and pleasure, and both parties
^^ seem to be well pleased. Situated as we are 6,846
feet above sea level, latitude 35° 41\ longitude 106° lf)\ with moun-
tain and plain in full view, the location is beiautiful and healthful. In
the immediate surroundings the level 'plain covered with a rich
growth of cereals, with young orchards and farm houses dotting it here
and there, stretches out to a considerable distance on the south and
west, and recedes into the low hills on the north and east, and very
nearly all under cultivation. Beyond this, in the distance, the moun-
tains lift their eternal heads skyward, clothed with verdure, with
vales of beauty beneath, and sparkling trout streams fringed with love-
liness meandering through each.
Santa I'6, the ancient and beautiful capital, whose history runs
far back into the centuries, is nestled in the center of this central
scene, and in the center of it is centered the center of its attractive-
ness, the public park or plaza, where is erected the Soldiers' Monu-
ment, a noble tribute to the heroes of New Mexico who fell in battle,
and around which center, shaded walks diverge to the shaded streets,
and grand old trees throw their leafy arches over this center, where
centres very frequently the beauty, the elite, the gallantry of the
central city of the County and Territory, and where on great occas-
ions, everybody, his wife and little ones find a common center, the
starry banner, as the central figure, waving in graceful curves over all.
But we commenced this item for the purpose of calling attention
to Santa Fe as a' health and pleasure resort. Its markets are sup-
plied with fruits, both native and imported ; with vegetables as tender
63
and sweet as ever dame nature nurtured ; with meats, domestic and
wild, fat, juicy and toothsome ; with feathered game in its season ;
with frog's legs and fish all the year round ; with good hotels and
restaurants ; with talented, kind-hearted physicians and comfortable
hospitals ; with patient and attentive nurses ; with refined and social
people ; with mountains where deer, elk and sheep love to wander ;
with silvery streams abounding with the sweetest of fish ; with trusty
guides and old excursionists to show the way and make good com-
pany. With a climate incomparable the whole year round for even-
ness, mildness and healthfulness. With nights for sleep undisturbed
by heat and poisonous insects. With sun-set scenes rivaling Italy's
beautiful skies. With noons of blue and golden splendor. With
dawns of rainbow tints, dew-gemmed and sparkling. With newspa-
pers, libraries, telegraph lines, buck-boards, ambulances and coaches.
Easy of ingress and outgo to and from all parts of creation. Where
can be seen the crude civilization of the past and the progress of the
present. Where the Indians are as gentle as doves, and the military
always on the alert.
In a word, Santa F4 is a pleasant place for bott the health and
pleasure-seeker, but will not become generally patronized as such un-
til a line of railroad connects it with the rest of the world. In this
fast age people live fast, die fast, and must travel fast — ^hence Colo-
rado has been getting the bulk of the visiting public to the Rocky
Mountains since the completion of her railroads, while Santa F6 and
other desirable portions of New Mexico have been somewhat neglec-
ted. But they are coming, and the plan of building a grand hotel
somewhere in the central portion of the city to accommodate the
comers, is talked of by resident capitalists, and a railroad company
organized with $1,500,000 capital to connect the Capital City of
New Mexico with one of the lines that terminate near the border of
New Mexico, as constructed by the Denver & Rio Grande Railway,
the Atchinson, Topeka & Santa F6 Railroad, and the Kansas Pacific
Railway. The distance from the terminus of the Railroad at El
More to Santa Fe is 220 miles, and is supplied with stage transporta-
tion by the Southern Overland Mail and Express, Barl6w & Sander-
son, proprietors, who have arranged to transport passengers in their
coaches in thirty-six hours from El Moro, Colorado, to Santa ¥6.
64
GENERAL COM^IITTEE OF ARRANGEMENTS FOR THE
CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION IN SANTA FE,
JULY 4TH, 1876.
At a mass meeting of citizens of Santa F^, held in Legislative
Hall on the night of May 23, 1876, Ex-Governor Amy called the
meeting to order and General J. K. Proudfit was elected President,
Wm. C. Hazledine and Captain Jesus M. Sena y Baca Secretary and
assistant Secretary.
Upon motion Gen. Smith and Gov. Amy were elected vice-pres-
idents.
The following resolution was presented by Governor Arny :
Resolved^ That a Committee of General Arrangements be ap-
pointed, number equal to the states of the Union with our sister Colorado
thrown in, which resolution was unanimously adopted, and the fol-
lowing thirty-eight gentlemen were selected as such committee :
Gov. W. F. M. Arny, Chairman.
Jose D. Sena, J. K. Proudfit, Nicolas Pino, A. G. Irvine,
Felipe B. Delgado, E. Andrews, Trinidad Alarid, Willi Spiegelberg,
Jesus M. Sena y Baca, William C. Hazledine, Ambrosio Ortiz, Sig-
mund Sehgman, Antonio Ortiz y Salazar, James L. Johnson, Rafael
Lopez, Z. Staab, John Ritter, Noa Ufeld, Solomon Spiegelberg, Gas-
par Ortiz, A. Z. Huggins, W. D. Dawson, Anastacio Sandoval, Chas.
H. Gilderslee^e, John Watts, Clemente P. Ortiz, H. M. Atkinson,
Lewis Kingman, R. H. Longwill, T. S. Tucker, S. H. Lucas,
Epifanio Vigil, C. M. Conklin, Joseph Spitznagle, William Bolander,
J. M. Gough and George W. Howland.
On motion of John Ritter, W. D. Dawson, representative of the
New Mexican^ was requested to report the proceedings of the meet-
ing, and the New Mexican was requested to publish the proceedings
in English and Spanish.
JAS. K. PROUDFIT, President.
G. A. SMITH, W. F. M. ARNY, Vice-Presidents.
W. C. Hazledine, J. M. Sena y Baca, Secretaries.
itii compliments oj j
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