120 SPANISH CHUISTIANIZATION, 



well for the crown as for the adventurers ?' 

 showing that these 'missionaries' (as they 

 were wont to call themselves) not only rob- 

 bed the Indians of their country and treasure, 

 and made menial slaves of them, but exacted 

 tribute beside — promulgated the gospel at the 

 point of the bayonet, and administered bap- 

 tism by force^ of arms — compelling them to 

 acknowledge the ' apostolic Roman CathoUc 

 faith,' of which thf y had not the shghtest idea. 

 Cervantes, who wrote his Don Quixote about 

 this time, no doubt intended to make a hit 

 at this cruel spirit of religious bigotry, by 

 making his hero command his captives to ac- 

 knowledge the superiority of his Dulcinea's 

 beauty over that of all others ; and when they 

 protest that they have never seen her, he de- 

 clares, that " the importance consists in tlii^ 

 that without seeing her, you have it to.beUeve, 

 confess, affirm, swear and defend." 



It is much to be regretted that there are no 

 records to be found of the wars and massa- 

 cres, the numberless incidents and wild ad- 

 ventures which one would presume to have 

 occurred during the first three-quarters of a 

 century of the colonization of New Mexico. 

 It is probable, however, that, as the aborigi- 

 nes seem to have been at first of a re- 

 markably pacific and docile character, the 

 conqueror met with but little difficulty in 

 carrying out his original plans of settlement 

 Quietly acquiescing in both the civil and re- 

 ligious authority of the invaders, the yoke was 

 easily riveted upon them, as they had neither 



