countless expeditions
throughout the Southwest, penetrating even the deadly Llano Estacado
(Staked Plain). The heroism which held the Southwest so long was no less
wonderful than the exploration that found it. The life of the colonists
was a daily battle with niggard Nature--for New Mexico was never
fertile--and with deadliest danger. For three centuries they were
ceaselessly harried by the fiendish Apaches; and up to 1680 there was no
rest from the attempts of the Pueblos (who were actually with and all
about the settlers) at insurrection. The statements of closet historians
that the Spaniards enslaved the Pueblos, or any other Indians of New
Mexico; that they forced them to choose between Christianity and death;
that they made them work in the mines, and the like,--are all entirely
untrue. The whole policy of Spain toward the Indians of the New World
was one of humanity, justice, education, and moral suasion; and though
there were of course individual Spaniards who broke the strict laws of
their country as to the treatment of the Indians, they were duly
punished therefor.

Yet the mere presence of the strangers in their country was enough to
stir the jealous nature of the Indians; and in 1680 a murderous and
causeless plot broke out in the red Pueblo Rebellion. There were then
fifteen hundred Spaniards in the Territory,--all living in Santa Fe or
in scattered farm settlements; for Chamita had long been abandoned.

Thirty-four Pueblo towns were in the revolt, under the lead of a
dangerous Tehua Indian named Pope. Secret runners had gone from pueblo
to pueblo, and the murderous blow fell upon the whole Territory
simultaneously. On that bitter 10th of August, 1680, over four hundred
Spaniards were assassinated,--including twenty-one of the gentle
missionaries who, unarmed and alone, had scattered over the wilderness
that they might save the souls and teach the minds of the savages.

Antonio de Otermin was then governor and captain-general of New Mexico,
and was attacked in his capital of Santa Fe by a greatly-outnumbering
army of Indians. The one hundred and twenty Spanish soldiers, cooped up
in their little adobe city, soon found themselves unable to hold it
longer against their swarming besiegers; and after a week's desperate
defence, they made a sortie, and hewed their way through to liberty,
taking their women and children with them. They retreated down the Rio
Grande, avoiding an ambush set for them at Sandia by t