92 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 



torical libraries. New Mexico does well to treasure 

 and be proud of her Palace of the Governors. It 

 was within its adobe walls. and towers that the 

 Spaniards took refuge before fleeing from the Val- 

 ley of the Rio Grande ; and here one may pause to 

 speculate whether the Spanish coins unearthed from 

 time to time in our vicinity may not have been 

 buried during that desperate retreat from Santa 

 Fe to El Paso del Norte. 



To return to the Friars Minor of the Franciscan 

 order — the pioneers of the new religion — they go 

 down to posterity for what they actually were; 

 faithful, self-effacing and heroic workers, often 

 humble and lowly men, devoid of sophistry and 

 pride. The priests who succeeded them were 

 Jesuits, and whatever mav be said of the splen- 

 did work done by this order in New Mexico, 

 by priests and sisters alike, the fact remains 

 that their political meddling, here as else- 

 where, combined with their attempts to control 

 legislation, as also their opposition to free educa- 

 tion, wrought much evil, and delayed statehood con- 

 siderably longer than would otherwise have been 

 the case. 



It may be questioned whether the Franciscans 

 under Spanish rule were altogether responsible for 

 the pest of fiestas, although these ever recurring 

 holidays and fiestas which afflict the ranchman and 

 woman were originally introduced by the Friars in 

 the first half of the Sixteenth Century as a means 

 of attracting and holding the Indians, and some 

 students of Southwestern history go so far as to 



