CORRESrOT\^DENCE. 



COMMUNICATION liELATIVE TO THE PUBLICATION OF 

 SPANISH WORKS ON NEW MEXICO. 



• Dear Sir : We ask leave to call your attention to tlie existence of 

 some MSS. of a very early date, wliicli belong to tlie history of this 

 country, with the hope that you may consider their publication as a 

 proper object for the Smithsonian Institution to undertake, and in the 

 Spanish — the language in which they are written. 



It is known to the Secretary that an invasion by the Spaniards of 

 the territory since called New Mexico, took place in the years 1540, 

 1541, and 1542, accounts of which have come to us from two hands — 

 Castafieda and larramillo. They are together long, and possess a 

 variety of interest. 



The army marched through the present States of Cinaloa and So- 

 nera, crossed the Gila river, and having passed through the celebrated 

 towns of Cibola and crossed the Pvio Grande near Santa Fe, came upon 

 the Buffalo Plains, and are supposed to have reached the Mississippi 

 river. They give us the first reliable information of the curious state 

 of Indian civilization existing there ; people living in communities, 

 of diverse languages, inoffensive, industrious, gaining their support 

 principally by husbandry, and practising all the virtues with a rigor 

 that belonged to no other American nation, and we believe everywhere 

 without a parallel. 



A copy of these MSS. is in the Historical Collection of James 

 Lenox^ Esq. They have never been printed in the Spanish, and only 

 in the French ; but, from some careful comparisons of other transla- 

 tions that have come from the same source with the original works, 

 v/e are satisfied that they cannot be relied on for accuracy ; yet these 

 have afforded nearly all that is quoted or known in this country of 

 the discovery and early history of New Mexico. The publication of 

 these papers in the language in which they are written will give oppor- 

 tunities for their being rendered into other languages ; still, however 

 exact may be a translation, it must always be important, in writings 

 of such authority as these, to have the original to refer to in matters 

 of nicety and doubt. 



At the same time that the viceroy of New Spain directed an army 

 to the north by land, he sent forward another by sea up the Gulf of 

 California to co-operate with Coronado. Alarcon disembarked at the 

 mouth of the river Gila, and ascended the Colorado river in boats ; 

 but finding the famed cities not so near the South sea as they were 

 supposed to be, the forces did not form a junction. The account of 



