360 Reminiscences of 



where the entrances were high up, and only reached 

 by ladders, which could be withdrawn, all indicate 

 that these were periods in the history of this Toltec 

 and Anahuac habitation when human life was in 

 great peril from warlike tribes, and show that 

 in the two centuries preceding white occupation 

 a very considerable extermination had occurred; 

 and even in the nineteenth century the accounts 

 of massacres and spoliation were of an extremity 

 to which those of the early settlers of New England 

 from the Indians were of light circumstance in com- 

 parison. 



I have had occasion to search the church records 

 in New Mexico by employed assistants to a large 

 extent for tracing genealogical descents, to ascertain 

 existing and unknown interests. After the Spanish 

 occupation, large tracts of land were awarded by the 

 kingdom of Spain to Spaniards as an inducement 

 for their settlement in the new regions acquired, 

 which were largely availed of. These settlers had 

 no difficulty in dominating the Pueblo natives of 

 New Mexico, who were industrious and hospitable 

 and non-warring, as of to-day, and united with them 

 in mutual defence against the warlike tribes who, 

 from prehistoric times, committed great ravages. 

 Under the customs of the Catholic faith in New Mex- 

 ico, most particular records since 1700 have been 

 made in the church archives, of births, deaths and 

 marriages, and the details of such in many instances 

 are given with extended references, faithfully tran- 

 scribed by the official recorders, so that a remarkably 

 accurate recitation occurs of families, of deaths and 

 names of relatives, and causes of death; and I have 



