HISTORY. 259 



sixteenth century. It may yet come to light, as well as the papers of Pedro 

 de Tovar, which in the middle of the eighteenth century were held in Culi- 

 acan, but which (if they still exist) are unobtainable now, owing to the dis- 

 turbed state of the country. It may well be that the official chronicle has 

 been transferred to Spain. Of other data of the sixteenth century, or con- 

 cerning events that transpired during that period, I have secured those con- 

 tained in the work of Father Tello. I have also copied what the Archbishop 

 of Mantua and General of the Franciscan order, Francisco Gonzaga, pub- 

 lished on the missionaries who went with Coronado. That work is based 

 on writings sent to him from Mexico about 1563, but his most important 

 source was the manuscript of Pedro Oroz. 



I have also secured two contributions very essential from my standpoint 

 of writing history. To determine distances according to present Spanish 

 standards, when these distances were given four centuries ago, is without 

 value, and distances are often the only means for identification of settle- 

 ments. I have made copies of the data contained in the work of Vanegas 

 from 1540, which gives the linear measures at that time, with every possible 

 detail, beginning with the smallest unit. Furthermore, I have a full copy 

 of the proclamation in 1577 by Viceroy Gaston de Peralta, establishing the 

 measures to be recognized in New Spain. That proclamation exists only 

 in manuscript and has been loaned to me for purposes of copying it. 



Among manuscripts concerning the sixteenth century, though composed in 

 the seventeenth, I must mention the fragment of an unfinished "History of 

 Sinaloa," evidently written by a Jesuit. The passages therefrom which I 

 have transcribed throw an entirely new light on the last years of the life of 

 the negro Estevanico, who was the first to visit the Zuni villages and was 

 there killed. 



While in 1887 I made a collection of copies of the documents then acces- 

 sible, antedating 1680, I have always considered that material to be utterly 

 insufficient for basing upon it a history during the seventeenth century. 

 Since 1887 a few more papers have come to light. After 1680 the docu- 

 ments, owing to military events, became much more numerous. Of the 

 latter I had obtained most at Santa Fe, and they are included in the collection 

 now at the Peabody Museum of Cambridge. My search for material from 

 the seventeenth century, at the National Archives, would therefore have 

 been comparatively fruitless, had I not been informed of anether and much 

 more valuable source, which I am now trying to exhaust. This source is 

 the branch of the Inquisition, opened to me by Sehor Francisco Fernandez 

 del Castillo, in whose special care the Inquisition papers are at the Archives. 

 The collection comprises more than a thousand folios, and Senor del Castillo 

 is going through it gradually and calling our attention to everything relative 

 to or remotely connected with New Mexico. 



Through the Archbishop of Mexico, I may yet obtain a clue to the where- 

 abouts of part of the old Franciscan archives, so valuable for the early 

 periods of New Mexican history, and I shall attempt to investigate the ar- 



