PENALOZA'S EXPEDITION TO QUIVlRA. 215 



Dr. Rau's work has been translated into other languages, notably into Span- 

 ish, by the Museo Nacional de Mexico, together with a fac-simile of Trill's re- 

 production. 



Note.— We have also received notes from Dr. Rau and Prof. K. W. Putnam confirming the above.— [Ed. 

 Review. 



HISTORICAL NOTES. 



PENALOZA'S EXPEDITION TO QUIVIRA. 



JOHN P. JONES. 



The recent publication of a translation from the Spanish, with notes, of 

 Father Freytas' narrative of Penaloza's expedition from Santa Fe, to the rivers 

 Mischipi and Quivirai n 1662,* has added new material to the history of the val- 

 ley of the Missouri, and renewed the oft discussed question as to the location 

 of Quivira. 



Among the subjects for investigation, especially interesting to the students of 

 history who are investigating that of the Missouri Valley, which this narrative 

 suggests are the following ; Did the expedition reach the Mississippi River ? If 

 so, at what point ? Was the Quivira of Coronado the same as that of Penaloza, 

 and did both expeditions reach the same locality ? Did the Province of Quivira 

 lie east of the Missouri River? Who were the people of Quivira, and what In- 

 dians are referred to as Escanxaques ? How did the word Quivira originate ? 



As to the point reached by the expedition, the translator of the narrative 

 says in a note to the writer of this article, that he makes a conjecture, and hopes 

 the Missouri antiquarians will be able to determine it. His conjecture is as fol- 

 lows : "The short distance advanced along the river after the bend and the fact 

 ' that the town was on a river entering the Missouri from the east seems to 

 ' point to the rich lands on the Platte. The high ridge would be the line of bluffs 

 ' enclosing the bottom lands along the Missouri." 



It is possible this conjecture is right, but there are difficulties in the way of 

 endorsing it as, the true solution of the problem. The expedition consisted of 

 eighty soldiers with officers, and one thousand Indians, well armed and equipped 

 for peace and war, with a train of thirty-six carts well provided with provisions 

 and munitions, a large coach, a litter, two portable chairs, six three-pounders, 

 eleven hundred horses and mules. If we are to believe that the narrator has truly 

 stated the magnitude of the Penaloza's force and accompanying train, we are 

 bound to assume that a journey from Santa Fe to the junction of the Platte and 

 Missouri, would be one of serious difficulty for it to accomplish in the spring of 

 the year, when the rivers on the route would be swollen with their annual snow- 



=''The expedition of Don Diego Dionisio De Penaloza, governor of New Mexico, from Santa Fe to the 

 Mischipi In 1862, as described by Father Nicholas de Freytas, etc., by John Gilmary Shea, New York, 1882. 



