Image provided by: University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries, Lincoln, NE
About The Conservative (Nebraska City, Neb.) 1898-1902 | View Entire Issue (Dec. 27, 1900)
t be Conservative * THE CORONADO EXPEDITION OF Ifi41 ITS HEARING UPON THE EMPIRE OF QUIVERA. The point to which Corouado pene trated these plains of Kansas and Nebraska has been the theme of many writers for many years. That the exact point will ever be definitely fixed , is a question which must be settled by further exploration. The subject has a curious fascination , however , for the average reader ; although few are willing to devote valuable time to the arduous search and study necessary to add one new point to the already voluminous writings along these lines. That Ooronado reached the fortieth parallel of latitude is certain , from , not only his own statement , but from two other chroniclers who ware with him. He must have known this definitely , as latitude is easy to determine when one knows the simple operations in general use. This point is admitted by all writers of repute , and here on the Kan sas-Nebraska line he visited twenty or thirty villages and consumed twenty five days in his exploration of this region. This is all we have of his account except his description of the people , which is not very flattering. They were , accord ing to his account , very barbarous. When we hear a description of any thing we are very much inclined , in ordinary life , to take into account the condition of the desoriber. For instance , I once attended a lecture , advertised as a great masterpiece to be delivered by a very talented orator. Of course , I ex pected something. My mind was made up for a great treat. The lecture was very mediocre. One of my friends asked me the next morning how I liked the lecture. I said there was nothing in it. Now , upon sober thought , there was something in it , but I was disappointed and gave the worst side ; in fact , I was not a competent judge and my friend should have taken my condition into account in forming his estimate of the powers of that lecturer. The same is true with regard to Coronado , in form ing our judgment of the people he saw and the villages , we should take into account the Spaniards' thirst for gold ; the disappointment attendant upon their not finding a great empire as they ex pected ; Coronado's personal desire to return to his beautiful , young wife ; and , the inadequate diet of meat , alone. But in the face of all these influences draw ing him toward home , he stayed twenty- five days to explore this region 1 He must have been interested. He reminds me of the man who went to the expo sition to spend two days but stayed a week ; when he returned he told his wife and boys it was no good not worth spending money to see. ' Ooronado had a method to his mad ness ; he was diplomatic , and gave the story of the people which best suited his purpose. It was doubtless the truth , too. How often have we enjoyed that old , old story which an uncle told the children about a now , strange land where the people were BO poor and bar barous that they dug roots for food , and ate the seeds of various plants , crushing them with stones , clothed themselves with the bark and leaves of plants and the skins of animals and so on , until the bright boy discovered that he was one of these new , strange people. This story which the uncle gave was true , every word of it , but how strange it sounded told in that way , and what a false impression it would leave if one did not use a little common sense and take the narrator into account. Ooronado said these people were wild and barbarous ate raw meat. Now , I know people who eat raw meat for breakfast , in fact I enjoy rare steak myself 1 Should Ooronado visit us he would call us heathens because we are a Methodist , or a Presbyterian , and not a true Catholic ; and if he should witness one of our modern political rallies I am he could ' 'The quite sure truthfully say : people are very barbarous. " If they were barbarous , as we understand the term , how could a mere handful of thirty men stay with these people twenty-five days and make no record of attempted harm ? Not a single account is given of any violence being offered , but they were shown the villages and entertained. I fear if he should come here , today , unknown , as he was to those people , he would not care to stay twenty-five days ; our hospitality would scarcely carry him as far as did theirs , unless he happened to have the price with him. These people domesticated the dog and used it as a beast of burden. I want you to note this point and consider how much civilization it would take for a people to domesticate any animal , and then think of other countries where dogs are the common beast of burden ; then see if this one fact alone does not seem , first , a direct contradiction to the term "barbarous" and , second , a key to the country from which these people emi grated to this land of promise. True , their customs were very different from those of the Spaniards ; so are ours , thank Godl The resources of the country were different from those of Spain , but the people were a fair sample of the human family in the days before the art of writing was discovered ; before the Bronze Age , or during the Stone Age. They were stone workers , as their relics show and their civilization had advanced commensurate with their environments. There is little doubt that they were transplanted from the parent stock of the human family at the beginning of the Bronze Age and being isolated and having the bison for subsistence , had advanced but slowly , if at all , in the scale of civilization. They were a numerous people , and had Corouado left no account of them , had he never come across these trackless plains and sun- kissed valleys to report a community of barbarous people , we would know from the relics left by them that they had attained a certain degree of art in stone work ; that they lived in villages , and that tlley were numerous ; that there were different tribes , and that they had widely differing customs. In fact , I doubt not but we would arrive at the truth much nearer without Ooronado's account than we will with it. I can remember when my very devout uncle was ready to burn a valuable work on geology , which I had borrowed , because he claimed it did not agree with the Genesis account of the creation , the scientific world would probably have arrived at the real truth of the world creation much sooner had Moses for gotten to put that part of Genesis in. / Some very painstaking research has / been conducted by Mr. J. V. Brewer in the field just south of the Nebraska line in Kansas. Mr. Brewer has published an account of his research in a memoir which it has been my good fortune to peruse. Thirty-two village sites have been located and more or less explored in an area forty miles from north to south and thirty miles from east to west. He states that there are , doubtless , many more villages to be discovered in this same area. In his memoirs , Mr. Brewer carries the idea that this was the field visited and explored by Ooronado during those twenty-five days he seemed to enjoy so much among the "barbarous" inhabi tants , and I think the evidence will bear him out in this assertion. I do not think , however , that his explorations were confined to the territory south of the line , wholly , as relics found in this state go a long way in proving that he visited our state as well as Kansas. The entire absence of relics left by him in the Kansas field seems to me very strange , as every indication points to this explored area as being on his route. I will not enter here into a detailed account of his route as described by Oastaneda , as it is not germaiu to this article ; but every written account seems to confirm the theory which Mr. Brewer champions. Now , in this state a number of relics have been found that may be taken as conclusive evidence of Ooronado hav ing been here. Near Eiverton , this state , have been found two stirrups , a bridle bit and a sword ; all of the kind used by the Spaniards of that day. Franklin county , where Eiverton is located , is nearly due north of the Great Bend in the Arkansas river and quite a distance northwest of the village sites mentioned by Mr. Brewer ; still , mounted soldiers could easily have ex plored the villages from the mouth of Mill Oreek , on the banks of the Kansas
