X— 7 O icD -%■- U- 77 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 005 070 832 9 THE S^iSTTA^ FE TI^A^DE: ITS ROUTE AND CHARACTER. IIY J. EVARTS GREENE. Read as a part of the Report of the Council at the Semi-Annual Meeting of the American Antiquarian Society, at Boston, April 26, 1S93. WORCESTER, MASS. PRESS OF CHARLES HAMILTON, 311 MAIN STREET. 1893. 07f ^ •5 V THE SANTA FE TRADE: ITS ROUTE AND CIIAIIACTEK. Less than twenty years ago, a truflSc, which had been car- ried on for half a century under conditions unique in North America, came to an end, or, to speak more strictly, though the traffic continued, its conditions, which had been medi- aeval, oriental and, for this century and continent, singular, became modern, American and commonplace. The Santa Fe trade resembled that of the caravans of Africa and Western Asia in that it traversed a desert, or what was then so-called — the Great American Desert; it was also attended with dangers from the attacks of wild, marauding tribes. It differed from that, however, in the fact that there were no oases or inhabited stations on the long route, and in the contrast in the peoples and the con- ditions of life of the communities between which this traffic was conducted. At the eastern terminus was the rude, busy, enterprising, essentially modern and progressive life of our Western border, distinctively American, using that word, as we must so often, in default of an adjective denot- ing that which pertains to the United States. At the other end of the route, the social, industrial and political condition of the people was substantially unchanged since Spanish rule was established in Mexico by Cortes and his companions early in the sixteenth century, and with no prospect of a change for centuries to come. This remark applies, of course, to the conditions prevailing when the trade was begun and for many years afterward, but not so strictly to the last twenty-five years of its existence. To one, familiar only with the life of the Eastern States, who thirty-five or forty years ago visited Kansas City, which had then scarcely ceased to be known as Westport Landing, the sight of the huge wagons crowding the levee in early summer, with their drivers, short in stature, slouching in gait, dressed with a peculiar shabby finery and with swarthy, stolid, sinister faces, was extremely fascinat- ing, and suggested thoughts of romantic and mysterious adventure. That sight has not been seen for nearly twenty years. The railroad, while vastly increasing the trade, has transformed it into a prosaic, ordinary traffic. The Great American Desert has vanished. The empty waste is sprinkled with cities, villages and farms. The bufialo is nearly extinct, the Indian is no longer nomadic or preda- tory, and Santa Fe is, from the business point of view, simply a station, more or less like other stations, on a branch of the great transcontinental railway. The old Santa Fe trade has only an historical interest now, and in that sense it is, I trust, a proper subject for the attention of this Society. The first Europeans to penetrate to the region traversed by the caravans of the Santa Fe trade were Cabeza de Vaca and hrs three companions, survivors of the company of Pamphilo Narvaez. After nine years of wandering from the shores of Florida, they arrived in 1536 at Culiacan, near the Pacific coast in Mexico. It does not appear that their devious route crossed the line of the Santa Fe trail. It was probably altogether south of the latter. But the story which they told of rich and populous cities in the region north of iMexico prompted the famous expedition of Coronado, who, setting out from Culiacan with a large force of Spaniards and Indians in 1540, wandered in New Mexico, wintered there, apparently not very far from Santa Fe, and in the spring set forth again towards the northeast in search of the city of Quivira, of whose great- ness and riches he had heard surprising fictions. I will not discuss the disputed questions concerning the identity of the places mentioned by Coronado in his narra- tive of the earlier part of his journey. But I venture to offer a few suggestions in support of the opinion that its northeastern terminus was near that of what has been known in our time as the Santa Fe trail. Combining the account of Coronaclo in his third letter to the Emperor Charles V. with that of Captain Juan Jaramillo, one of his companions, whose itinerary is fairly definite, it appears that after travelling for many days across great plains, where they encountered marvellously vast herds of buffalo, and suffered much from thirst, they came, on the day of Saints Peter and Paul, to a river to which they gave the names of those Saints. Coronado briefly but graphically describes the prairie, which seems to have impressed him with awe and almost with dismay. "There is neither rock nor hill," he says, " nor tree nor shrub ; nothing to arrest the eye, which seeks in vain for a limit to those endless plains as if gazing at the open sea." They crossed the river, says Jaramillo, and advanced along its northern bank in a northeasterly direction for three days, when they came to an Indian village on a con- siderable affluent of this stream. The Indians resembled those they had before met on the plains, but were hostile to the latter. They ate buffalo's flesh raw, and their dwell- ings and clothing were made of buffalo skins, but they also cultivated maize. Travelling four or five days farther, they found successivel}^ six or seven other Indian villages on other affluents of the river, and at last came to a village whose name, they were told, was Quivira. It was not a rich and populous city, but a miserable group of skin huts, like the others. Here Coronado remained twenty-five days, sending out parties which explored the neighboring country to some extent. He was told of other villages farther on, on the bank of a still larger river. He says the latitude of this place was forty degrees ; that the country was well-watered by rivers, brooks and springs ; that the soil was rich, deep and black ; that the pasturage was 6 excellent ; that the Indians cultivated maize ; that there were plums in abundance like those of Spain, and excellent grapes. Jaramillo adds to these fruits, nuts and mulber- ries. Coronado pursued his quest no further, but returned, retracing for some distance the route by which he came, and arrived at Cicuye, whose site is supposed to have been some sixty or seventy miles to the eastward of Santa Fe, in forty days. When I read the account of Coronado's expedition in the chapter on Early Explorations of New Mexico, contributed by our asssociate, Mr. Henry W. Haynes, to the " Narrative and Critical History of America," it seemed to me that there could be little doubt as to the northeastern limit of Coronado's explorations. Coronado's and Jaramillo's de- scriptions of the country traversed after they arrived at the river named by them for Saints Peter and Paul, precisely tit the valley of the Kansas or Kaw River, with which I was once very familiar, having made the land-office surveys of a part of it. I infer that the Smoky Hill or main fork of the Kaw River was the river Saints Peter and Paul, because, besides other reasons, it is the only considerable stream flowing northeastward within reasonable distance of the place where Coronado, according to his previous and subsequent narra- tive, must have been. He came to the river, apparently, not far from the mouth of the Saline Fork, or Grand Saline, about sixty miles from the present site of Fort Riley. Following the course of the river on its north bank, he came, after three days or more, to an Indian village on a tributary of the river. Three days' journey over a level route would bring him to the confluence of the Republican Fork, where there would certainly be an Indian village, if anywhere. For there the blutf is high and steep on the north, sheltering the place below from the fierce and bitter winter winds. Wood is abundant ; it is almost the first considerable growth of timber, except cottonwood and elm, encountered by the traveller from the westward, and the bottom lands, broad and rich, required little labor to con- vert them into corn-fields. Continuing his journey for four or five days, he passed other villages in like situations, that is to say, on other branches of the river Saints Peter and Paul, and came at length to Quivira, not fiir, as I suppose, from the present site of Lawrence, and he was told of other villages beyond this on a larger river, which, if my theory is sound, must have been the Missouri. The latitude of Lawrence is about thirty-nine and one- half degrees. Coronado says his limit was forty. Greater precision could scarcely have been expected. He says the country was well watered with rivers, brooks and springs. Anyone who had occasion to travel with wagons along the valley of the Kaw River before the era of bridges was pain- fully reminded of the fact that the streams are numerous, and, what is unusual in a region so level, springs are many and copious. I well remember two, which, if Coronado took the route which according to my interpretation of his narrative he says he did, he must have discovered and drunk from. One is a circular basin, ten feet or more in diameter and four or five deep, from which a stream, two or three feet wide, of clear, cold water flows to the river. Another, some twelve miles distant, we called the Seven Springs. For some distance along the foot of the bluff, streams of bright, cool water broke through the gravelly soil, and these uniting formed a delightful brook, which wandered through the wide bottom lands, a mile and a half, to the river, near where the town of Abilene now is. Both these springs are in the open prairie, unconcealed by tree or shrub, and no traveller through that valley could have missed them or resisted the temptation to drink of their waters ; for the river is somewhat turbid, and its water, though wholesome enough, I believe, is not very palatable, having a slightly alkaline taste. The plums and grapes, mulberries and nuts are there. The quality of the plums varies much ; those from some trees are large, handsome and not ill-flavored. The grapes are abundant enough, but Coronado would not have written so confidently of their excellence if he had waited until they were ripe. The mulberries, ripening in June, were gone before his arrival, but Jaramillo probably recognized the trees. The nuts most abundant there are black-walnuts and pecans. Coronado came to this river on the days of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, June 29th and 30th, according to the cal- endar of his Church. His journey of eight days or more down the river and his stay of twenty-five days at Quivira occupied him until the second day of August or later, so that Castafieda, who says that they arrived at Cicuye in August, after a return journey of forty days, must be in error, and Jaramillo, who fixes the time of their leaving Quivira at about the middle of August, is apparently correct. The description of the province of Quivira fits the Kaw River country exactly. It will not fit any other nearly so well. Some portions of the Arkansas valley agree fairly M'ell with the description, but the latitude is hopelessly wrong. The Platte River is more than a degree farther north ; not so far that it need be ruled out on that score merely, but otherwise it is unlike Coronado's river of Saints Peter and Paul. It seems highly probable, therefore, that Coronado, though his route was not that of the Santa Fe trail centuries later, was the first white man who passed from one to the other of its terminal points. From Francisco Vasquez de Coronado to Zebulon M. Pike is a long step, not only in time, almost three hundred years, but in the contrast between the sonority of the name of the Spanish knightly adventurer and the homely quaint- ness of that of the American soldier. But Lieutenant, afterward General, Pike was as adventurous, as intrepid, and as skilful a leader of men as the first explorer of New Mexico, and more honorable, just and humane. He was 9 the next person of whom we have certain knowledge, who passed from the Mississippi Valley across the desert plains to Santa Fe. A vague tradition asserts that, in the eight- eenth century, trade was carried on to some extent between the French settlements on the Illinois River and New Mex- ico, and proof of it has been said to exist in the archives of the Spanish government of the province. It is said also, that in 1804 one Morrison of Kaskaskia sent a Frenchman named Lalande with goods for trade in Santa Fe, and that the faithless agent, having sold the goods profitably, neg- lected to account with his principal, lived prosperously in New Mexico and died there a rich man. These may be facts or fictions, but Zebulon Pike and his expedition per- tain to the history of the Santa Fe trade, though he was a soldier and not a trader. Having the year before conducted a successful expedition to explore the upper waters of the Mississippi, Lieutenant Pike was in 1806 directed by General Wilkinson to explore the country to the westward so far as the headwaters of the Arkansas and Red Rivers. Setting out from St. Louis, he went across the country to the Arkansas, and ascended that river to its headwaters, thence passed to the Rio Grande, some distance above Santa Fe. He built a small fort there, seeming to have believed that the stream was the Red River or one of its tributaries, and that he was within the territory of the United States. He was treach- erously enticed from his little fortress by the Spaniards, made prisoner and sent back by way of Mexico to the United States. There was an appearance of mystery in some parts of his conduct on this expedition, and by some persons it was supposed to have a connection with the schemes of Aaron Burr, but Pike indignantly repelled this suspicion. He gave an interesting account of his expedi- tion in his official report, in which, among other notable things, he writes of passing through vast herds of buflalo, elk and "cabri," and says he prevented the wanton 1* 10 slaughter of these animals by his men, "not merely because of the scarcity of ammunition, but as I considered the law of humanity also forbade it." He would deserve to be hon- orably remembered for this, if for nothing else. Few of his fellow-countrymen in later years and in like circum- stances have been so merciful. Zebulon Pike, then a briga- dier-general, was killed in the battle near York, Upper Canada, April 25, 1813, just eighty years ago yesterday. We come now to the actual beginning of the Santa Fe trade ; but before treating of its history and its character let me give a brief description of its route. Its real eastern terminus was St. Louis, where the goods were purchased and the accounts adjusted. But the starting-point of the caravans was at first Franklin, a town about one hundred and iifty miles from St. Louis, on the Missouri River, after- ward Independence, one hundred miles farther up the river, and finally Kansas City, known for some years as Westport Landing, Westport being a village five or six miles south of Kansas City on the State line, where for a time the for- warding-houses were established and the caravans made up for their journey of eight hundred miles. The route then was by steamboat from St. Louis to Kansas City, and by wagon from that place to Santa Fe. I may add that for a short time during the war of the rebellion, the starting- point of the caravans was changed to Leavenworth, Kansas. Except for its lack of mountain and sea, a more beautiful and attractive landscape can scarcely be found anywhere, than that near the confluence of the Missouri and Kaw Rivers. In the late spring or early summer, it is especially charming, when the grass on the prairie is fresh and sprinkled profusely with flowers of many hues ; when crab- apple thickets, many acres in extent, are covered with pink blossoms, surpassing in depth of color and delicacy of fra- grance the bloom of our orchards ; when the mignonette- like perfume of the wild grape and the subtile sweetness of the sensitive brier, a species of mimosa, with its flowers 11 like purple globes, sprinkled with gold-dust, entrance the senses like — Sabean odors from the spicy shore Of Araby the blest. The oppressive monotony of the wide prairie is broken by gentle slopes and deep ravines, well wooded with groves of stately oaks and walnuts, which form promontories of woodland, jutting out into the open-prairie sea ; and grace- ful elms, tall cottonvvoods and stately sycamores adorn the margins of the streams. Pleasant brooks wander throush the valleys, and plenteous springs entice the wayfarer by the sparkle and murmur of their cool, sweet waters. The Mormons, who occupied for a time about 1833, a district of like character in the adjacent counties of Missouri, styled it the Land of Promise — the Garden of the Lord — and well they might. Not much of the route, however, was of this character. Leaving the Missouri at Kansas City, it followed in general the high prairie divide between the valleys of the Kaw and the Arkansas Rivers. If ease of travel were the only con- sideration, the summit of the dividing ridge or plateau would be the best route, alibrding a direct, almost level road, absolutely without obstructions, for more than a third of the whole distance. But in order to have daily supplies of water, it was necessary to follow along the southern slope of the divide, far enough below the summit line to intercept the tributaries of the Arkansas near their sources. These streams, the Marais-de-Cygnes, Neosho, Cottonwood and others, were encountered at suitable distances for camping-places, about twenty miles, more or less, being a day's journey. Of the three requisites for a camp — water, grass and wood — the second was scarcely ever lacking, and the third was superfluous after entering the buffalo range, its place being taken by "buffalo-chips" or dried dung, which, readily gathered and making a clear, hot fire, met perfectly all the 12 requirements of a summer-camp fuel. The route presents no difficulties ; the early traders had some trouble through losing their way, but after the trail had been established, it was, without the expenditure of any labor in grading or otherwise, a broad, well-worn highway, as distinct and unmistakable as any road in Massachusetts, stretching away for eight hundred miles without being crossed by any other, with no permanent habitation of man near it, and without a hill or ravine so steep or other obstacle so formid- able as to make lightening of loads or doubling of teams necessary. Beyond Council Grove, one hundred and forty- five miles from Kansas City, no timber except an occasional Cottonwood or elm was seen until within a short distance of Santa Fe. The rivers crossed were the Arkansas, Cimarron, Canadian and Pecos. Mr. Gregg, whose book entitled "Commerce of the Prairies," is the best authority on the early Santa Fe trade, says that when he made his first journey in 1831, buffaloes were not encountered until he had gone some distance beyond Council Grove. He says, also, that he never saw bufildoes so abundant as some travellers have represented, but only scattered herds, a few scores, hundreds and some- times thousands, and that ten years later they were "very sensibly and rapidly decreasing." Fifteen years later still, I found the eastern limit of the bufialo range as nearly as possible where Gregg placed it ; but, instead of finding them less abundant than some travellers had represented, their numbers seemed so vast that exaggeration would be scarcely possible. The caravans were sometimes attacked and more often threatened by marauding Indians, but the danger, except of a loss of mules or cattle by stampede, was not great. Gregg writes, about 1842: "In the course of twenty years since the commencement of this trade, I do not believe there has been a dozen deaths upon the Santa Fe 13 route, even including tliose who have been killed oft' by disease, as well as by the Indians." The first actual trading expedition to Santa Fe from the United States appears to have been that undertaken by Knight, Beard, Chambers and others in 1