Various

“ Looking back over the history of this expedition and its results, we see that little was gained for geographic knowledge, and nothing for the honor of Spain or the extension of her colonies. With the clearer light which now enables all civilized nations to recognize the great truth of the brotherhood of all mankind, we are pained to read, throughout this narrative, of the wanton cruelties, murderous warfare, dishonesty and shameless perfidy, with which the Indians were treated by De Soto and his men from the beginning to the end of their expedition. ”

“ The military-religious frontier of the Spanish-American civilization moved from south to north. Its limits are marked by the quaint old mission churches of New Mexico and California. Some of these buildings are still in the hands of the Church, in use and kept in repair. Some are on the sites of long-abandoned Pueblo Indian villages, at the mercy of the elements and the vandals. In California these splendid old landmarks are being cared for by the organized efforts of thinking people and we need give ourselves no concern as to their preservation. Not so in New Mexico. ”

“ The taxes during the war, State and Confederate, were in all five to ten times those levied before the war. Never were taxes paid more willingly by most of the people, [16] though at first there was opposition to them. It is probable that the authorities did not in 1861 and 1862 give sufficient consideration to the fact that conditions were much changed, and that in view of the war the people would willingly have paid taxes that they would have rebelled against in times of peace.
Of the tax-in-kind for 1863, $100,000 was collected in Pickens county alone, one of the poorest in the State. ”

“ The ruins are of such a character and so situated as to resist the action of the weather, and the climate singularly adapted to the preservation of not only the buildings, but also the more perishable remains. So completely did the indigenous culture overspread the area in question that there is not a waterway of any consequence from the Pecos to the Colorado and from the San Juan to the Gila that is without numerous ruins. They are distributed along not less than a hundred valleys in New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado and Utah. ”

“ Whenever a modern structure is to succeed an antiquated public building, the old record stone should invariably be preserved and reset in some conspicuous place. Future students of history and social sciences will see in these the ancient shore-lines of American social development. ”

“ The characteristic style of architecture evolved was the multiple-chambered stone structure that we call the pueblo. The earliest of these were comparatively small, single-storied dwellings of an indefinite number of rooms rarely exceeding fifty, scattered about over the arable areas. The ruins of these to be found in the southwest are quite uncountable. Later, as predatory neighbors multiplied and the people crowded together for mutual aid the enormous hives of hundreds of cells came into existence. ”

“ There was thus a tract of country bounded on the east by the Pecos river, on the north by the San Juan, extending west to the Colorado and south to the Gila in which aridity was the dominant climatic condition. Being poor in game, it was not until comparatively recent times that it was much frequented by nomadic Indians. Comanches, Utes, Navajos and Apaches had no use for this region until it was occupied by some one whom they could dispossess of wealth. Primitive economic systems are not unlike those of civilized men. ”

“ The tax-in-kind fell heavily upon the families of small farmers in the white counties, who had no negro labor, and who produced no more than the barest necessaries of life. To collect the tax required an army of tithe-gatherers, and afforded fine opportunities of escape from military service. The State was divided into districts for the collection of all Confederate taxes, with a State collector at the head. ”

“ A peculiarly interesting class of ruins is that of the pueblo villages that were occupied at the time of the coming of the Spaniards and abandoned during the next century. Archæological work in such sites should yield valuable results by disclosing the first influences of the exotic civilization upon the indigenous tribes. Noteworthy sites of this character are those near Zuñi and a number of the Rio Grande Valley.
The Southwest is rich in historic sites, but in prehistoric remains its wealth is practically limitless. ”

“ Plant food depended upon moisture. Now in the southwest, water was scarce, consequently no other portion of the United States was so poor in game. Hunting tribes, therefore, shunned its desert wastes. Their frontiers were the Pecos valley in eastern New Mexico, practically the western limit of the buffalo, and the divide running east and west across southern Colorado and Utah, separating the San Juan, south of which lay the arid region, from the splendid hunting ranges on the north which extended from ocean to ocean except where broken by the Utah and Nevada deserts. ”

“ The Indian town noted at the mouth of the river may have been at the mouth of the bayou, that is, on or near Lake Maurepas; or it may have been near the chief place of outflow from the main river, which was most probably then, as in recent times, at Bayou Manchac, 117 miles above the site of New Orleans by the course of the river, and 14 miles below Baton Rouge. There is no reason to distrust the statement that within six leagues thence up the Mississippi the Spaniards observed forty groups of temporary or permanent Indian dwellings. ”

“ The significance of our frontier has not been recognized except in social science. Fortunately its advance is well marked. The movement of the military frontier is preserved in monuments and military post buildings throughout the west. Court-house corner stones record the advance of law and order, we may say, the legal frontier—its earliest landmarks in the far west in the form of prominent trees, high bridges, 292and projecting beams, being pointed out with modest pride by the early inhabitants as memorials of Judge Lynch and the Vigilantes. ”

“ The first white men to voyage far on the Mississippi, and to deal largely with its native people, deemed them outside the pale of human sympathy or mercy.
No geographer, nor expert draftsman for mapping, appears to have been enlisted by De Soto in his grand company of followers. But soon after the expedition was disbanded in Mexico, testimony of those who came back to Europe was taken by some unknown compiler as the basis for a revised map of the “Gulf and Coast of New Spain.” ”

“ MESA VERDE DISTRICT. In this district are the finest specimens of true cliff dwellings. They are very numerous in the cañons of Mesa Verde and along the Mancos River. Cliff Palace is justly one of the most famous works of prehistoric man in existence. Numerous pueblo and cliff ruins are distributed along the McElmo, the Yellowjacket and the Hovenweep. On the whole, this is one of the most interesting of all prehistoric districts. A portion of it is under withdrawal by the General Land Office, pending the creation of the Colorado Cliff Dwellings National Park. ”

“ It establishes the liberal policy that any competent scientist who desires to place the material secured in a public museum will be authorized by the Department of the Interior to examine ruins, but that no person will be permitted to excavate them for the purpose of acquiring specimens for traffic or private gain, and that wilful destruction of historic and prehistoric landmarks must cease. The most zealous archæologist must admit that this leaves little to be desired. The main thing, a system of governmental protection for archæological remains, is an accomplished fact. ”

“ For years—with the full knowledge of Washington and Putnam—he maintained a correspondence with them, was allowed to come into the city of New York, was dined and wined by them, went freely about the city, and obtained information of the greatest value to the patriot leaders. What information he gave the British in return was either of no great importance, or would have come to them by some other channel. ”

“ So the supplies gathered by the tax-in-kind law could not be moved. Hundreds of thousands of pounds of beef and bacon, and bushels of corn were piled up in the government warehouses and at the dépôts, while starvation threatened the armies and the people also in districts remote from the railroads or rivers. At the supply centers of Alabama and along the railroads in the Black Belt there were immense stores of provisions. When the war ended, notwithstanding the destruction by raids, great quantities of corn and bacon were seized or destroyed by the Northern troops. ”

“ It is a record also of the loyalists of the town, who suffered even more for their King and Cause than did the patriots, since defeat and banishment with confiscation of their estates was their final portion.
Redding (formerly written Reading) is one of the “hill towns,” of Connecticut, seven miles from Danbury and thirteen from Bridgeport, the two “shire towns,” of Fairfield County. Its people have always been noted for brain force and intelligence. The number of its sons who have won high places in the professions, in art, literature, diplomacy, the army and navy is something remarkable. ”

“ This was near the truth, if understood with reference to capabilities for agriculture; but the Spaniards pictured such wealth of gold and silver as had been recently plundered from Peru and Mexico. A soldier of fortune, De Soto, who was of noble lineage, formerly poor, but who had become suddenly rich with Pizarro from the spoils of Peru, was eager for greater wealth and power. Returning to Spain he secured appointment as governor of Cuba, with a commission to extend Spanish dominion over Florida and the country north of the Gulf of Mexico, where he was to be the feudal lord and governor. ”

“ If I fully succeed in my purpose I shall not fail to produce some lasting effect upon the growing literature of this country, while I establish for myself individually a name which that country ‘will not willingly let die.’... ”

“ The natives treated our men in a friendly manner, trading with them, and giving what they possessed. The Spaniards ascended a distance of six leagues up the river, and saw on its banks, right and left, forty villages.”
Pineda’s map shows the Mississippi as if it had a wide mouth, growing wider like a bay in going inland, and it has no representation of the delta; but this river and the several others tributary to the gulf are all mapped only at their mouths. ”

“ He is a native of Ireland, a man of very large knowledge, and a great share of natural sagacity united with a sound judgment, but of as unmeaning a countenance as any person in my acquaintance. With this appearance he is as little suspected as any man can be. ”

“ Its primary migration movement was from south to north, but branching in all directions, and the almost countless prehistoric ruins following the water-courses of the southwest are the remains of these early migrations.
The present sedentary Indians of the southwest, called by us Pueblos, are thus the true indigines of that arid region so far as we can judge from existing evidences. All presumption of earlier or different races is purely hypothetical, as yet unsupported by any shadow of evidence. ”

“ For the military defense of the State several million dollars were appropriated, much of this being spent for arms and clothing for the Alabama troops, both in the Confederate and the State service. Money was granted to the University of Alabama and other military schools on condition that they furnish drill masters for the State troops without charge. Hospitals were furnished in Virginia and in Alabama for the Alabama soldiers. The gunboat Florida was bought for the defense of Mobile, and $150,000 was appropriated for an ironclad ram for the same purpose. ”

“ Still the Confederate government was in desperate need. The farmers would not willingly sell their produce for currency which was constantly decreasing in value, and, when selling at all, they were forced to charge exorbitant prices because of the high prices charged them for everything by the speculators. [11] The speculator also ran up the prices of supplies beyond the reach of the government purchasing agents, who had to buy according to the list of prices issued by impressment commissioners. ”

“ In its condition of a high flood, the river there opens toward a vast expanse of water, called, by the narrator, “the sea,” reaching east over Lake Maurepas and onward to the Gulf. It seems indeed not unlikely that the Mississippi at that place may have then had even so great a depth; for in a sharp curve at New Orleans it was once found by the Mississippi River Commission to have a sounding of 208 feet. On the large scale maps recently published by the Commission, the maximum depth of the river close to the departure of the Bayou Manchac is noted as 145 feet ”