With this volume the authors have completed one of the most important trilogies in the history of the Spanish Southwest. Together with their Narratives of the Coronado Expedition and Oñate, Colonizer of New Mexico, Hammond and Rey have now presented all the known basic documents on the origin of New Mexico’s history. Many of them are new, excepting those of Núñez.
Bandelier, Bolton, Mecham, and others (including Hammond and Rey themselves), who made earlier studies of these materials, did not have the results of recent investigations at hand. The latter include not only their own immense research on Coronado, Oñate, and Obregón’s History, but studies of the University of New Mexico, and the Museum of New Mexico and its two organizations, the School of American Research and the Laboratory of Anthropology at Santa Fe, as well as other pertinent specialized studies in both anthropology and history. Thus at many points the authors have made valuable corrections of explorers’ routes, the location of Indian groups, and accounts of the Pueblos. Not unimportant is the emphasis which they give to the 1573 laws aimed to end lawless frontier expeditions. Their conclusions are clearly stated throughout the sixty-three-page Introduction, in which they survey the expeditions of Chamuscado, Espejo, Castaño, Morlete, Leyva, and Humaña.
Only on one small point does the reviewer wish to raise a question. He believes that the authors (like Schroeder and Matson) have dismissed too lightly Alessio Robles’ statement regarding Castaño’s travels to the Rio Grande. Actually there is evidence that a route existed even before Castaño’s time, to Los Chizos ford on the Rio Grande. The rough terrain described by the explorers after leaving the Rio Grande suggests that Castaño reached the Pecos somewhat southeast of Pecos, Texas, then followed the river to its junction with the Toyah (p. 257). The diarist reported fully a month later that they had been following the east bank (n. 15, p. 257).
The final chapter of the Introduction concerns itself with the problem of identifying Gallego’s List of Pueblos. This is probably the thorniest problem in New Mexican history and a source of disagreement among students. Where the authors have differed with authorities they have done so with scholarly courtesy. Their analysis here will become a classic, for it is so clearly and carefully done, based upon both documents and archaeological field studies to which they have brought to bear their own profound knowledge of terrain and historical record.
The rest of the volume is devoted to the translation of the documents, many of them new, together with editorial footnotes. Bolton used to say that the English language too has its rights. These the authors have clearly observed, so that the smoothness of the writing makes the documents a joy to read. The editorial notes identify the documents, indicate their location and copies where such exist, and supplement significantly the data in the Introduction. In accord with the standards of this fine series of the Coronado Cuarto Centennial Publications, the volume has a comprehensive index.
Scholars will welcome the new materials, and few will disagree with the editors’ identification of routes, location, and descriptions of Pueblo and other Indian groups, and their suggestions concerning important questions upon which there are differences of opinion (e.g., n. 76, p. 188). While in all cases, they have frankly stated, where pertinent, qualifications to their conclusions, the authority of these two writers, nevertheless, is so great that their work will stand for many years to come as the basic study on the Rediscovery.
