Salinas Pueblo Missions: the Early History." (2013)
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University of New Mexico UNM Digital Repository History ETDs Electronic Theses and Dissertations 7-11-2013 Salinas Pueblo Missions: The aE rly History Jeanette L. Wolfe Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/hist_etds Part of the History Commons Recommended Citation Wolfe, Jeanette L.. "Salinas Pueblo Missions: The Early History." (2013). https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/hist_etds/86 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Electronic Theses and Dissertations at UNM Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in History ETDs by an authorized administrator of UNM Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Jeanette L. Wolfe Candidate Department of History Department This thesis is approved, and it is acceptable in quality and form for publication: Approved by the Thesis Committee: Dr. Paul A. Hutton, Chairperson Dr. Margaret Connell-Szasz Dr. Larry D. Ball i SALINAS PUEBLO MISSION: THE EARLY HISTORY by JEANETTE L. WOLFE BACHELOR OF ARTS, HISTORY THESIS Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts History The University of New Mexico Albuquerque, New Mexico May, 2013 ii DEDICATION This thesis is dedicated to my husband, Bryan Wolfe, one of the very best souls I have encountered in my lifetime. I am thankful for your love, grateful for your untiring support, and appreciative of your dry humor. Thank you for seeing me through this project. Dedicated also to my parents David and Fae, who ingrained in me the value of education and the desire to never stop learning. iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I gratefully acknowledge Dr. Paul Hutton, my committee chair, for his advice, assistance, and encouragement during the course of my program of studies, and my thesis preparation. Without your support I might never even have applied for graduate school — many thanks to you. I also heartily thank my committee member Dr. Margaret Connell-Szasz, whose kindness and encouragement kept me moving forward when I was not sure I could, and whose willingness to listen, offer advice, and guidance kept me on the right track. Thanks to my committee member, Dr. Larry D. Ball, is also due, for his willingness to recommend sources that greatly enhanced my ability to put this thesis in a broader historical context, and for his excellent editorial assistance. I am grateful too for the assistance, advice, and encouragement of Dr. Timothy Graham who served on my program of studies committee, and who has given me a love for Mediæval history which has so enriched my understanding of U.S. West history. I also wish to thank Dr. Charlie Steen, the chair of the History Department, and my first history professor at the University of New Mexico, in whose courses I realized I just had to grow up to be an historian. To those unsung heroes of the History Department, Helen, Yolanda, Dana, and the rest of the administrative staff, I thank you for the assistance, information, encouragement, especially for your patience, and for just keeping the wheels turning. To the archivists at the Center for Southwest Research, Nancy Brown-Martinez, Ann Massmann, and Chris Geherin, I owe many thanks for the assistance with source materials, research pointers, and for always going the extra mile. To the government documents specialist Daniel Barclay, for also always going the extra mile in tracking down sources, I thank you. I am iv also grateful to the archivists at the Starsmore Center for Research in Colorado Springs; Tomas Jaehn of the Fray Angélico Chavéz History Library; Daniel Kosharek, at the Palace of the Governors Photo Archive in ; the Bureau of Land Management staff at both the New Mexico State Office, in , and the Socorro Field Office; and the archivists at the National Archives in Denver and Dallas; and to Margot Griffith for allowing me access to her family's archival collection. Finally I would like to acknowledge my supervisors and co-workers, past and present, at Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument: Phil Wilson, who recommended this project; Tobin Roop, who helped me with my understanding of archaeology and asked only that I pay it forward; Derek Toms, for the encouragement, proofreading, advice, and help with archaeology; Marc LeFrançois, for his assistance, support, and encouragement throughout this endeavor; Murt Sullivan, for always being willing to listen while I talked out ideas, even on his days off; Superintendent, Glenn Fulfer, for his overall support of this project; Krystyn Nuñez, for all the work performed by the gal who is not fond of history and yet ended up the historian/curator's assistant; NPS Historian, Bob Spude, for mentoring me in my work; and the archivists at the National Park Service, Western Archaeological and Conservation Center, and staff members Sue Wells and Kim Beckwith, I thank you for your assistance and encouragement. I wish to express my deep appreciation to my family and friends whose love and support make a huge difference in my life. Even if we were only able to infrequently connect, each of you have talked me off the cliff's edge when I thought I had come to the end of my endurance, accompanied me on outings when I needed a break, offered advice on the next step, or helped with proof-reading, filing, and a host of other things — Bryan, Jorene, Kaitlin, Beth, Daddy, Dixie, Kelly, Kathy, Tia, the ladies of the POETS group — you really are amazing people, thank you. v SALINAS PUEBLO MISSIONS: THE EARLY HISTORY by Jeanette L. Wolfe B.A., History, University of New Mexico, 2005 ABSTRACT This paper examines the early history of Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument just beyond the time when Gran Quivira was set aside as a government reservation. It focuses on the Pueblo Indian and Spanish Colonial mission ruins now protected by the National Park Service, at the management units of Gran Quivira, Abó, and Quarai, while also placing the Salinas story into the broader historical context of New Mexico and U. S. West history. This is accomplished by a careful examination of the first hand accounts by individuals who visited the sites throughout this early period in their history, with a view toward how the perception of these places affected their use, and how this ultimately led to their preservation. It is hoped that this study will illicit further investigation of the many topics it can only briefly touch upon. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 1: Encounters, Conflict, Concord and Failure — The Spanish Entrada .......................... 5 Chapter 2: Early American Accounts of Salinas Pueblo Missions .............................................. 48 Chapter 3: The Preservation Movement and the Development of the Antiquities Act ............. 131 Chapter 4: The Great Battle: Clara Corbin and Virginia McClurg, 1900–1914 ....................... 156 Chapter 5: Creation of a Monument - Gran Quivira .................................................................. 197 Chapter 6: Conclusion................................................................................................................ 220 vii Cities and Thrones and Powers, Stand in Time’s eye, So Time that is o’er-kind, Almost as long as flowers, To all that be, Which daily die: Ordains us e’en as blind, But, as new buds put forth, As bold as she: To glad new men, That in our very death, Out of the spent and unconsidered Earth, And burial sure, The Cities rise again. Shadow to shadow, well-persuaded, saith, ‘See how our works endure!’ This season’s Daffodil, She never hears, A Centurion of the Thirtieth What change, what chance, what chill, — by Rudyard Kipling Cut down last year’s: But with bold countenance, And knowledge small, Esteems her seven days’ continuance To be perpetual. Introduction This is a history of place, a place often overlooked in the standard or popular histories of this region we call the Southwest, and more specifically New Mexico. What is a "place"? Is it any location, specified space, or simply the land? Does it have to have a series of structures, or to contain people to have meaning? Or is it really a combination of all of these things? Can we take a place with us? Most New Mexicans would say that you can, or more to the point, that a place can so affect you and become a part of you that it is taken whenever and where ever one goes — we are after all the sum of our experiences. Is a place the sum of its experiences as well? Yes, I think it is, and its experiences very often leave physical alterations and marks upon a place. "Place" is in our perception of it, and perception leads to how we use a space. So this is the history of a place called Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument , the sum of its experiences, the change over time in how it was perceived, and how it was used or experienced. Wolfe – page 2 Although it is often overlooked in histories of this place we call New Mexico, what happened there has impacted the whole, just as one ring in the series of waves emanating from a pebble dropped in water impact the ones before and after it, pushing them along in an ever widening arc. Salinas has arguably affected the people who have resided there or visited it, and they have most definitely affected it for good or ill. Situated almost in the geographic center of the state of New Mexico, the Estancia Basin, alternately known as the Salinas Basin, is an area with a long habitational history. Named for the dry lake beds which provided salt to much of the region in the colonial and pre-colonial period, human habitation in the Salinas Basin stretches back, possibly to before the Clovis period.1 This region east of the Río Grande valley and the Manzano Mountains Figure 1: Location of Salinas Pueblo Missions — accessed via the Abó Pass at the southern end of the mountain chain or Tijeras Canyon to the north, and Hell's Canyon east of Isleta Pueblo — is now home to a little-known monument in the National Park Service system, named Salinas Pueblo Missions National 1 Jerry Harbour, “Microstratigraphic and Sedimentational Studies of an early Man Site near Lucy, New Mexico, (M.S.