Poor Fray Marcos, Afflicted With Rheumatism, Had A Painful Time During The
Remainder Of His Life, And Finally Died March 25, 1558, In The House Of His
Order, In The City Of Mexico.
Religious Zeal of Garces.
It is appropriate
also that Fray Francisco Garces should find an honored place in these
necessarily brief historical notices. Fired with a wonderful zeal for
souls, without the urging or backing of any superior save the Spirit of
God, which spoke to his own soul, he marched from San Xavier del Bac, his
station in Northern Mexico (now Arizona), across these inhospitable wilds,
merely seeking opportunities for the establishment of mission settlements,
where the natives could learn of the way of Christ, salvation from sin, and
heaven. Five times he left his mission and made entradas (as they are
called) into the interior country, anxious to expand his work and his
influence. On the third of these, he followed the course of the Gila down
to the Colorado River, and descended along its banks, possibly as far as
its mouth. His fourth journey was with the intrepid Captain Juan Bautista
de Anza, when he set forth in 1774. to discover a road from the missions
already established in Northern Mexico, over the then unknown Arizona and
Colorado deserts, to the new missions of California. The road was
discovered and, in spite of its hardships, deemed feasible, for in
1775-1776 De Anza went over it again, accompanied by the band he had
gathered together for the establishment of a Spanish colony at San
Francisco. His chaplain on this occasion was Padre Pedro Font. Fray Garces,
a fellow Franciscan, also went along as far as the Colorado River. Here he
left the party, journeyed down the Colorado to the Gulf, returned to the
Mohaves, then crossed the Colorado Desert to San Gabriel Mission in
California, back again to the Mohaves, and finally across the Arizona
desert to the province of Tusayan, the land of the Hopis.
Havasupais Guide Garces to the Hopi Towns. It was on June 4,
1776 - memorable year in American annals - that Garces started under the
guidance of some Wallapais for the Hopi towns. They had given him fair
details of the country he would have to travel over. Passing by their own
home in Diamond Creek (one of the earliest approaches to the Grand Canyon),
he decided to visit the Havasupais, whom he calls Yabesuas. Those familiar
with Spanish spelling and pronunciation will readily recognize that they
are almost one and the same. The Wallapais took the priest down their own
trail into Havasu or Cataract Canyon, - a trail which made his head swim,
and where his mule had to be left behind, to be brought to him later by
another route. He also describes the ladder down which he climbed just
before reaching the place where the innumerable springs flow out of the
solid rock and form Havasu Creek. It was the same ladder descended eighty
years later by Egloffstein, Lieutenant Ives's artist, who was so heavy that
he took down ladder and all with him. Here Garces stayed five days, being
hospitably treated by the natives, who brought him melons, squash, corn,
beans, etc., and who had thriving trees of peaches and apricots.
The Grand Canyon Is Reached. Leaving the kindhearted Havasupais, he
returned to the plateau above, and soon saw for the first time the deep
gorge of the Colorado River itself, - the Grand Canyon. He describes with
surprising accuracy of detail the break in the Kaibabs, where the Marble
and Little Colorado Canyons unite and form the Grand Canyon, and then, a
little later, he gives a true description of the Little Colorado Canyon.
From his account, he doubtless went down by the old Hopi Salt Trail into
the gorge of the Little Colorado, and thus on to Oraibi, which he reached
July 2, 1776.
Wishes to Baptize the Indians. About this time those interesting, exciting
and most important of all discussions were raging in the Continental
Congress on the eastern side of the continent, which, two days later, were
to result in the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson had
undoubtedly written it at this time, but Garces knew not the name of the
great patriot and his compeers. He was bent on a different mission. He
wished to declare to the Hopis how they might have freedom, - freedom from
sin and the fear of hell. For, as Elliott Coues (the scholarly translator
of Garces's diary, published a few years ago by F. P. Harper of New York)
expresses it: "It made him sick at heart to see so many natives going to
hell for lack of the three drops of water he would sprinkle over them if
only they would let him do it."
Garces Reaches Oraibi. His arrival at Oraibi caused great excitement,
though a priest had been at work there as early as 1650. There were four
priests laboring among the Hopis in 1680, when the great native uprising
throughout New Mexico and Arizona occurred, and all of them, with many
others (laymen and soldiers as well) were slain at that time. Then, too,
the remembrance had not died away of the total destruction of the town of
Awatobi (one of the Hopi towns of that day) in the year 1700, because the
people of that place were hospitable and tolerant of the "long gowns." The
medicine men and leaders of all the adjacent towns gathered together, and
led a force which fell upon Awatobi in the dead of the night. Every male in
it was slain, and only some of the women and girls were saved and taken to
the other towns. The place was fired, and remained a neglected ruin, until
the scholarship and labors of recent ethnologists dug up both the town and
its tragic history.
Indians Are Hostile. Poor Garces! The hostility of the Oraibis was
apparent. They refused to allow him to enter a house, and he was compelled
to camp outside, in a corner formed by a jutting wall, while his guide
sheltered his mule in a sheep corral.
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