Our Catholic Heritage, Volume I

Our Catleolic fl eri.tage in Texas

revolt. The charge was false, for throughout the entire expedition Castano de Sosa had acted in accordance with the ordinances of 1573 and had sincerely thought he was rendering a great service to the king, as shown by his Memoria. He did not resist arrest, but gave himself up without a struggle. He and his men were returned under guard along the Rio Grande. Sosa was taken to Mexico City where he was tried and unjustly condemned and exiled to China. He appealed to the Council of the Indies, but before he was exonerated, he was killed "in a wild fight at sea, when the Chinese galley slaves on board the junk in which he was bound to the Moluccas, rose in revolt." 55 Leiva Bonilla and Gutierrez de llttmmia's expedition. When the Indians on the northeastern frontier of Nueva Vizcaya rebelled in the close of 1594, the governor ordered Francisco Leiva Bonilla, a Portuguese captain, to undertake an expedition to subdue and chastise them. With a group of soldiers, among them a certain Juan or Antonio Gutierrez de Humana, his lieutenant, Bonilla set out to execute his orders. But once beyond the confines of Nueva Vizcaya, the little group of soldiers of fortune decided to continue to the new lands and the fabled kingdom of Quivira of which they had heard confused and exaggerated reports. In vain did the Governor of Nueva Vizcaya dispatch Pedro de Cazorla to overtake them with instructions to bring them back as traitors. The dari~g adventurers were too far out beyond the reach of the law and the jurisdiction of the governor. Six men refused to follow Bonilla and returned, but the rest went on across the plains, even as Coronado had done before, and on to Quivira from where they were never to return. 56 Going first to the pueblos of New Mexico, Bonilla and his companions seem to have spent almost a year there, making Bove, later San Ildefonso, their principal headquarters. But fearful of arrest by Cazorla, or perhaps desirous of reaching Quivira, they left the town and went to old Pecos from where Coronado, Rodriguez, and Espejo had previously set out for 55Hull, "Castano de Sosa's Expedition," in op. cit., II, 331. 56The details concerning this great adventure are meager indeed because of its illegal character and the subsequent fate of the participants. Such information as is available has been summarized by Bancroft in his volume Histor,y of Arizona and New llfe:rico, 107-109, and Dolton, S-pa11isk E:r-plorations, 201 ad passim. For additional details, see Villagra, History of New Me:rico (Quivira Publications), (Vol. IV), 71 , 148, 153; Hackett, Historical Documents, 1, 194, 210, 227, 315, 393; Zarate Salmeron, "Relaciones," in Documentos para la Historia de Mexico, 3rd series, I, 9-10, 27; Niel, "Apuntamientos," in Ibid., 91-92. In the remainder of our summary all these sources will be followed and combined.

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