Among the documents which the royal decree of February 21, 1790, ordered to be copied and sent to Spain was the well-known work entitled Las relaciones del Nuevo México by Gerónimo de Zárate Salmerón, a Franciscan. This important source composed in 1626 by one who had accompanied Juan de Oñate to New Mexico, was copied into the second volume of the Memorias de Nueva España.
One of these copies of Zárate’s account is preserved in the second volume of the section “Historia” of the Archivo General de la Nación in Mexico City.1 It was first printed in the third series of the Documentos para la historia de México (Mexico City, 1856) and was reprinted from this edition in the Documentos para servir a la historia del Nuevo México, 1538-1778 (Madrid, 1962).
The handwritten transcript and the two printed editions append to Zárate’s Relaciones a mysterious commentary, which is the object of the present brief study.2
The title of the commentary attributed to a certain Jesuit missionary-priest in Mexico, Juan Amando Niel, is given under two different forms: different forms: (a) Apuntamientos que sobre el terreno hizo el Padre Juan Amando Niel de la Compañía de Jesús; y pueden servir de esplicación a las memorias que del Nuevo-México y partes árticas de la América Septentrional nos dejó manuscritas el Padre fray Jerónimo de Zárate Salmerón, predicador de los menores de la provincia del Santo Evangelio mexicana: motivos de escribir estos apuntamientos; and (b) Apuntamientos que a las memorias del Padre fray Gerónimo de Zárate, hizo el Padre Juan Amando Niel de la Compañía de Jesús, no tan sólo estando práctico del terreno que se cita, sino es que llevaba en la mano las memorias para cotejarlas con él.
In the introduction to his commentary Niel informs the reader that he had been a missionary for some thirteen years (1697-1710) in Sinaloa, Sonora, and Tarahumara, and that for some seven years (1703-1710) he had accompanied the captains of Corodéguachi (Fronteras).3
He was also acquainted with Lower California. He had explored the west coast (contra-costa) of the peninsula,4 especially the shore opposite the Isla de Navidad (Natividad), where he failed to discover the Puerto de San Bartolomé.5 Despite all his efforts he was also unsuccessful in finding the Isla de Cedros.6
In 1705 he was with Kino. From the vicinity of San Xavier del Bac they discerned the summit of the Sierra Giganta in Lower California. Kino reasoned from what they saw that California must be a peninsula, not an island; Niel held out against him, maintaining that the view merely proved that the gulf narrowed somewhat. Kino and Niel, for want of a boat, did not cross the Colorado River, and each stuck to his opinion.7
The text of the Apuntamientos seems to be a clumsy hoax from beginning to end; hopelessly confused or non-existent sites, fantastic latitudes; even the passages cited from Zarate are substantially changed and falsified, not just “modernized,” as he claimed.8
He claimed, as we have seen, to have been with Kino in 1705, when with telescopic eye he beheld from the vicinity of San Xavier del Bac the Sierra Giganta in Lower California. Obviously he must have known Kino; yet he places the Atondo entry into California at a time when Kino was not yet nine years old. He assigns the year 1654 to the Atondo expedition; lest there be any doubt, he wants the reader to know that it took place “twenty-six years after Lucenilla tried his fortune in 1628.” A few lines further down the same paragraph Niel changes the date of the enterprise by twenty years, making it take place from 1674 to 1676: “recently, that is twenty three years” after the Atondo entry, and “twenty one years after the return of the expedition, that is in 1697, Father Salvatierra established his settlement.”9
Niel has so much to correct in Zárate’s reference to the Laguna de Copala and the southward migration of the Mexican Indians that he wants the reader to consult his special study entitled Mexicum Illustratum. This is an an exceptionally reliable work, we are assured, since it draws on the genealogical accounts written in Egyptian-like hieroglyphics which only a master of Nahuatl such as Niel could read.10
A brief word about the data indicated above: Niel’s claim that he traversed the vast regions described by Zárate, with the Relaciones in hand in order to check their accuracy, is altogether unlikely. With the northern Jesuit missions far to the west and southwest of New Mexico, there would have been no opportunity for a Jesuit to undertake so formidable a journey, that mysteriously has left no other trace in Jesuit, Franciscan, or civil records.
I have the original and official mission catalogs of Sinaloa, Sonora, and Tarahumara before me. In none of them is there a Juan Amando Niel or any other Niel, either during the period 1697 to 1710 (the years he claimed to be there) or at any other time. At no time did the Jesuit Mexican Province have a Niel as one of its members. Kino and Manje (Mange), who wrote in such detail about their activity in the area at the very time Niel claimed to be there (1697-1710), do not mention him or anyone with a name similar to his.11
Niel claimed to have explored the west coast of Lower California, presumably while a missionary there, yet a perusal of all the contemporary California catalogs shows no Niel or any similar name. His failure to find the Cedros Island should entitle him to some measure of fame.12 It had been sighted and visited by the many explorers that sailed along the west coast and had been placed on almost every map of the area since Ulloa’s discovery of it in 1540.13 Niel’s inability to locate the Puerto de San Bartolomé almost directly opposite the Island of Natividad would have discouraged any less resolute soul from attempting any further exploration however amateurish.
The year 1705 was an unlucky one for Niel to pick out for his expedition with Kino. The latter has left on record nearly forty expeditions for the years he spent in northern Mexico (1687-1711), but due to various circumstances he could undertake none during all of 1705.14 Kino, Manje, and others have left us accounts of the trips which they made close to the head of the gulf of California and the mouth of the Colorado River; in no account, however specific and circumstantial, where every Jesuit in the party is named, is any Niel to be found.15 To discern the head of the gulf of California from the vicinity of San Xavier del Bae just south of Tucson, and especially to discern it so clearly that Kino was convinced of the peninsularity of Lower California, is no small feat; but to see the Sierra Giganta that normally serves as a back-drop for Loreto and San Bruno just north of the 26th degree latitude, blocking Niel’s view of the head of the gulf at approximately 32 degrees, defies qualification.16
Atondo’s efforts to settle California extended from 1682 to 1686. To place them in 1654 to 1656, approximately thirty years too early, and then a few lines later in 1674 to 1676, still some ten years too soon, is hardly evidence of historical accuracy.17 Would one who knew Kino personally in 1705 state in all seriousness that the latter had accompanied the California expedition fifty-one years previously? In all accounts of the Atondo entry into Lower California stress is placed on the fewness of the baptisms administered among the natives due to the uncertainty of the permanency of the enterprise; Niel pretends to possess the knowledge to be able to correct even the unanimous testimony of the participants of the expedition.18
Boturini spent several years in Mexico gathering and studying the antiquities of the Indians.19 How he would have welcomed Niel’s Mexicum Illustratum! One of Boturini’s favorite theories was that the Mexican Indians had come from the north via Lower California.20 The Italian scholar invoked in his favor the authority of Kino, whose manuscripts he had in his possession.21 What corroboration he could have cited from Niel’s monograph with the account of “Tlilxochil, adelantado de California!”22 Boturini studied document after document pertinent to his subject in the principal Jesuit College of Mexico City, where some of the Sigüenza y Góngora manuscripts were still preserved, but unfortunately he failed to come across the Niel monograph so apropos to his scholarly investigation. None of the Jesuits told Boturini about Niel’s work. Even Clavigero failed to learn about its existence.23
What do bibliographers have to say about Niel? The first to write about him was José Fernando Ramírez, whose only source of information was the Apuntamientos. He had before him both the 1856 printed edition and a manuscript copy. His account was published in 1898, in vol. 17 of the Biblioteca de autores mexicanos, pp. 93-95.24 The recent (third) edition of Beristáin reproduces verbatim what Ramírez wrote.25
Subsequent bibliographers have not only copied the information furnished by Ramírez but have also made several intriguing additions of their own; they give us an account of his life and list other works of his. Born in Vitry, France, in 1670, Niel joined the Jesuits in 1686. Having volunteered for the Chinese missions, he set sail for his destination from Saint Malo, France, at the close of 1703. As a precaution against pirates infesting the usual route to the Far East, his ship sailed by way of the strait of Magellan. Niel stopped off for a brief visit at Concepción, Chile, and then stayed some five months at Lima, Peru. While here he sent to Europe two accounts of the Jesuit missions among the Mojo Indians, that were published under his name as though he were their author, reprinted several times and translated into other European languages.
In the hope of reaching China via the Philippines, he sailed from Peru to Acapulco, Mexico. Here he waited until he could board the Manila Galleon that brought him to the Philippines in 1706 or 1707. After an unsuccessful attempt to get into China in 1710, he returned to Macao in 1711. In 1715 he was chosen official representative of the Jesuits in China to defend their cause in Rome. His mission in Europe over, he returned to Canton; shortly afterwards, due to the persecution there, he left for Europe. We find him designated in 1727 teacher of the Spanish Infantes. This seems to be the last reference to Niel.
Ramírez studied Niel only as a missionary in New Spain and author of the Apuntamientos and the Mexicum Illustratum ; this information was taken over by the latest edition of Beristáin. De Backer, the first official Jesuit bibliographer to take notice of Niel, listed the reports on the Mojo Indians.26 Pfister gives us the most complete account of his voyage to the Orient and subsequent activity, but he adds nothing to De Backer’s list of writings.27 In Ramírez and Beristáin he is “Niel”; in De Backer and Pfister, “Nyel.” Sommervogel28 and Streit29 go a step further, equating “Niel” and “Nyel” ; it was one and the same Jesuit, according to them, who wrote the Apuntamientos and who sent in the two reports on the Mojos before proceeding to Acapulco in order to embark for the Philippines and the Orient.
Inasmuch as Jean Armand Nyel did not leave his native France until December of 1703 and stopped off in Acapulco only long enough to board the Manila Galleon, it is obvious that he was not in the northern Mexican missions from 1697 to 1710 and could not accompany the captains of Fronteras from 1703 to 1710.
How did his name become associated with the Apuntamientos? Is it sufficient to say that just as the two reports on the Mojos were not written by him but merely sent to Europe by him and were nonetheless attributed to him as their author, so also the Apuntamientos, although written by someone else, were sent in under his name and thus came to be attributed to him? I do not think so. The commentary, unlike the two reports on the Mojos, is a series of inaccuracies, contradictions, and nonsensical statements and claims; had it been compiled before the expulsion of the Jesuits from Mexico in 1767, it would have been strenuously objected to and refuted; by being invented about the time that the 1790 decree reached Mexico and appended to Zárate’s Relaciones, it assumed an importance it never merited, and many years might well pass by without anyone challenging its authenticity. But let us return to our question: How did Niel’s name get on the document? Whoever was responsible for the forgery quite likely had at hand one of the printed editions of the Mojos reports and decided to attribute his product to the same author.
That the commentary is a forgery seems to be established by the evidence adduced in the course of this brief study; as to how it came to be attributed to Niel, I offer the above explanation as a plausible and reasonable conjecture—but that is all that can be claimed for it.
See H. E. Bolton, Guide to Materials for the History of the United States in the Principal Archives of Mexico (Washington, D.C., 1913), pp. 20-22.
In the 1856 edition Zárate’s account is found on pp. 3-55, and Niel’s commentary follows on pp. 56-112; in the 1962 reprint they are on pp. 114-204 and 205-304, respectively. We shall cite both editions by paragraph numbers. Zárate’s Relaciones were divided into 138 paragraphs; Niel’s commentary breaks off abruptly in the middle of a sentence in paragraph 117; this corresponds to the third-last Relación by Zárate, namely: “Noticias de la Nación Mexicana que pobló esta tierra de la Nueva-España.” Ramírez observed that his ms. copy went no further (see below, note 24). The two printed editions follow the AGN ms. that takes up folios 93r to 189v. The 1962 reprint forms part of a most valuable volume on New Mexican history; in fact, the entire collection (Colección Chimalistac) of 14 volumes at the present writing is one of the most important series of documents and rare editions for Mexican history. There is a ms. fragment of Niel’s Apuntamientos in the Archivo Histórico del Instituto National de Antropología e Historia, designated Ant. 226 (formerly 119), folios 339v-345r. Vetancurt also used a ms. copy of the Relaciones (see below, note 25).
The key-passage is as follows: “. . . yo después observé y ví desde el año de 1697 hasta 1710 que fuí misionero en Sinaloa . . . en Sonora . . . y en Tharaomares . . . acompañando desde el año de 1703 hasta el de 1710 a los capitanes de presidio Corodequatzi (sic) . . . a mariscadas, corridas, seguidas, asaltos y compañas, en que noté cuanto apuntaré para que algunas cosas que el Padre Zárate o no esplica o no alcanzó a saber, se sepa (sic) como son.”
Paragraph 42: “Esta sierra jaspeada no la hemos visto los que hemos registrado la contra-costa.”
Paragraph 43: “Este puerto de San Bartolomé que en el número 31 menciona el Padre Zárate y sitúa enfrente de la isla de Navidad, todavía no lo hemos encontrado nosotros.”
Paragraph 44: “Esa isla de Cedros, tan repetidamente nombrada por el Padre Zárate, todavía aun no la hemos encontrado nosotros, porque debe de estar distante de la tierra firme.” Anyone who could discern from the vicinity of San Xavier del Bac the Sierra Giganta at the head of the gulf of California, should have had no difiiculty detecting the isla de Cedros off the west coast of Lower California.
Paragraph 47: “. . . desde los cerros de Moriaqui (sic) y de Tumaqueri (sic), visitas de San Francisco del Vaac, el año de 1705, mirábamos las cumbres de la Sierra Giganta, que nos hacía horizonte a la parte del occidente, y de ahí se persuadió el Padre Francisco Eusebio (sic) [Kino] que la California era continente y no isla; pero lo que yo juzgué es que por allí estrecha el mar, y como no pasamos de esa otra parte del río Colorado por falta de embarcación, se quedó la cosa en opinión.”
Unnumbered paragraph of the introduction of the Apuntamientos: “. . . he tenido cuidado, al trasladar estas venerables ancianidades, de ponerlas en el estilo moderno sin variar la sustancia.”
Paragraph 30: “. . . año de 1628, pasó. . . Lucenilla . . . De allí a veintiseis años, esto es, el año de 1654, pasó con ánimo de poblar el almirante D. Hisidro Hondo (sic), a quien acompañaron los Padres Matías Goñi, Juan Bautista Copart y Francisco Eusebio (sic) Kino. . . Ultimamente, veintitres años después de esta tercera entrada y veintiuno después de haberse vuelto el señor almirante, pasó a ella, año de 1697, el apostólico Padre Juan María de Salvatierra.”
Paragraph 116: “Lo demás tengo escrito en mi Mexicum Illustratum, sacado de los noviliarios que han quedado escritos a lo egipcio en símbolos que sólo quien sepa el idioma mexicano como yo, podrá leerlos.”
At one time I believed that the name “Juan Amando Niel” was a careless copyist’s misreading of Juan Almonacir (Almonazir), the one name of all the northern missionaries in the areas and at the time indicated by Niel as being there which has some of the elements of the first name and could be confused with it; on more attentive analysis of the text, the Juan Almonacir conjecture must be ruled out. Further study showed that Father Juan Almonacir had never accompanied Kino or any of the captains of the Fronteras presidio; he was never in California or New Mexico, etc., etc.
In Ulloa’s Narrative we are even given the reason why the island was so named: “There are some pines and cedars on the tops of the hills in that island, for which reason we called it ‘Isla de los Cedros.’ ” (Cited by H. R. Wagner, Spanish Voyages to the Northwest Coast of America [San Francisco, 1929], p. 45).
See the numerous references in Wagner, op. cit., p. 544.
Bolton lists 35 of Kino’s expeditions in his edition of Kino’s Historical Memoir of Pimería Alta, 2 vols. (Cleveland, 1919), vol. II, 233-234, and adds one more in his Rim of Christendom. . . (New York, 1936), pp. 594-595.
In addition to the two works indicated in the preceding note, see Juan Matheo Mange, Luz de tierra incógnita. . . (Mexico City, 1926), especially chapters I-III and V-VIII.
See above, note 7.
Cf. the passage cited above in note 9.
Paragraph 30 of the Apuntamientos:“. . . el celo de los Padres catequizó muchos centenares de la nación monquia y bautizó no pocos; pero a los dos años desmanteló el almirante y los suyos la población, y así se volvieron también los Padres, trayéndose consigo algunos cristianos, pero dejando allá todos los demás y los catecúmenos.” Compare this claim with Kino’s factual account: “Es verdad que estos dos años hasta aora no hemos bautisado más que onze naturales y éstos moribundos.” (Kino to the Duquesa de Aveiro, Mexico City, Nov. 16, 1686; original letter in the Huntington Library, ms. 9989).
From 1736 to 1744; see my study “Clavigero and the Lost Sigüenza y Góngora Manuscripts,” in Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl, vol. I (Mexico City, 1959), 63-65, 76-77.
Cf. Lorenzo Boturini Benaduci, Idea de una nueva historia general de la América Septentrional. . . (Madrid, 1746), especially pp. 127-130, which make up chapter XVII: “Del passo y transito que tuvieron los Indios de la Nueva España para llegar à ella.” Regarding the California route he states in the beginning of the chapter: “Apuntarè por ahora en compendio unos argumentos que prueban haver venido los Indios al continente de la America por las gargantas de la California; . . . se demostrará que su transito fuè de la California al continente.”
Op. cit., p. 129: “El quinto [argumento] estriva en ser la California peninsula; y, para probarlo, tengo varias curiosas noticias del cèlebre mathematico Padre Kino, de la sagrada Compañía, missionero apostolico, que fuè de aquella tierra; el qual subiò hasta el Rio Colorado à. la vista del Mar de Californias, y descubriò una lengua de tierra que se estendia mas adelante y acompañaba las orillas de dicho Mar.”
In paragraph 116 of the Apuntamientos.
Cf. my study indicated above in note 19, pp. 59-90, and the authors cited by Francisco Javier Clavigero in his Historia antigua de Mexico, 4 vols. (Mexico City, 1958-1959).
This is at the same time vol. III of the Obras del lic. don José Fernando Ramírez: Adiciones a la Biblioteca de Beristáin.
José Mariano Beristáin de Souza, Biblioteca Hispano Americana Septentrional, third edition, 5 vols. (Mexico City, n. d.), vol. IV, 24-25. This same bibliography gives a brief notice on Zárate (vol. V, p. 189) ; it is a verbatim reproduction of the previous edition (vol. III, p. 313). It is evident that Beristáin took his information from Vetancurt but misinterpreted it, in stating that Zárate was, “. . . capellán de las expediciones hechas al Nuevo México por los capitanes Francisco Vázquez Coronado y Juan de Oñate.” He participated in the second expedition but, of course, merely wrote about the first. Fray Agustín de Vetancurt in his Teatro Mexicano. . . new edition, 4 vols. (Madrid, 1960-1961), vol. I, xxv, lists among the ms. sources on which he drew : Relacion escrita por el Padre Fr. Geronymo de Sarate Salmeron de la jornadas que hizo D. Francisco Vasques Coronado, y de la de D. Iuan de Oñate, a quien acompañó la tierra dentro del Nuevo-Mexico, remitida al Comissário General, Año de 1624. Beristáin obviously made the phrase “a quien” refer to both Coronado and Oñate. Zárate’s account goes to the year 1626.
Augustin De Backer S.J., Bibliothèque des Écrivains de la Compagnie de Jésus, vol. II (Liége and Lyons, 1872), column 1872.
Louis Pfister S.J., Notices biographiques et bibliographiques sur les Jésuites de l’ancienne mission de Chine, 1552-1773, 2 vols, with continuous pagination (Shanghai, 1932-1934), pp. 626-627.
Carlos Sommervogel S.J., Bibliothèque de la Compagnie de Jésus, 11 vols. (Bruxelles-Paris, 1890-1932), vol. V, columns 1722 and 1853.
Robert Streit O.M.I., Bibliotheca Missionum, vol. III (Aachen, 1927), 8, 12, 43, 121, 1062.
Author notes
The editor is a member of the Institutum Historicum S. J., Rome.
