214 SUCCESS OF THE INDIANS COLONY DESTROYED. 



tants of the north. But the garrison was warned in time by a few 

 natives who still remained faithful to their foreign task-masters, 

 and was thus enabled to muster its forces and to put its arms in 

 order, so as to receive the meditated assault. , The Spanish soldiers 

 allowed the rebellious conspirators to approach their defences, until 

 they were sure of their aim, and, then, discharging their pieces 

 upon the impetuous masses, covered the fields with dead and 

 wounded. But the brave Indians were too excited, resolved and 

 numerous to be stayed or repulsed by the feeble garrison. New 

 auxiliaries took the places of the slaughtered ranks. On all sides, 

 the country was dark with crowds of dusky warriors whose shouts 

 and warwhoops continually rent the air. Clouds of arrows, and 

 showers of stones were discharged on the heads of the beleagured 

 townsmen. No man dared show himself beyond the covering of 

 houses and parapets ; and thus, for ten days, the Indian siege was 

 unintermitted for a single moment around the walls of Santa Fe. 

 At the expiration of this period the provisions as well as the mu- 

 nitions of the Spaniards were expended, and the wretched inhabi- 

 tants, who could no longer endure the stench from the carcasses of 

 the slain which lay in putrefying heaps around their town, resolved 

 to evacuate the untenable place. Accordingly, under cover of the 

 night, they contrived to elude the besiegers' vigilance, and quitting 

 the town by secret and lonely paths, they fled to Paso del Norte, 

 whence they despatched messengers to the viceroy with the news 

 of their misfortune. The day after this precipitate retreat, the 

 Indians, who were altogether unaware of the Spaniards' departure, 

 expected a renewal of the combat. But the town was silent. Ad- 

 vancing cautiously from house to house and street to street, they 

 saw that Santa Fe was, in reality deserted; and, content with having 

 driven their oppressors from the country, they expended their wrath 

 upon the town by destroying and burning the buildings. The 

 cause of this rising was the bad conduct of the Spaniards to the 

 Indians and the desire of these wilder northern tribes to regain 

 their natural rights. 



In the commencement of 1681, the viceroy began to fear that this 

 rebellion, which seemed so deeply rooted and so well organized, 

 would spread throughout the neighboring provinces, and, accord- 

 ingly, despatched various squadrons of soldiers to New Mexico, 

 and ordered levies to join them as they marched to the north 

 towards El Paso del Norte, which was the present refuge of the 

 expelled and flying government. In this place all the requisite 

 preparations for a campaign were diligently prepared, and thence 



