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Show 13 Archives of New Mexico between the years 1785 and 1813. Even before the Escalante Expedition, parties of Spaniards and Indian allies made their way into the Ute domain along the southern reaches of their lands in Colorado and New Mexico. Some of these are a matter of record. Tyler refers to the rising concern of the Spanish in New Mexico with Anglo-American activity to the north. He says: About 1800, the Spanish began to receive word of activity on the part of the Anglo-Americans north of them. There was fear of an expedition from Canada by the English in 1801. This caused the Spanish to organize a group of Yuta and Genizaro spies that were to be sent among the Kiowa, Aa, Abajases (perhaps the Arapaho), Pawnee, and other tribes south of the Missouri River. They were to keep the Spanish constantly informed concerning Anglo-American activity in the area. ° Hill relates an incident from a slightly later period which illustrates the intensifying relationship between the Utes and the Spanish: On September 1, 1805, Joaquin de Real Alencaster who had but recently become governor of New Mexico, in writing to the commandant-general on the merits of a Yuta interpreter says: "Manuel Mestas, a Genizaro, seventy years old, who for approximately fifty years has served as Yuta interpreter, was the one who reduced them to peace." Further, in recounting Mestas' virtues Alencaster says: "In the short time that I have governed this province, he has recovered from the aforesaid heathen eight horses which he himself searched for and brought back. In the month of*" July he went back to 9joseph H. Hill,"Spanish and Mexican Exploration and Trade Northwest from New Mexico into the Great Basin," Utah Historical Quarterly, Vol. 3, No. 1 (January, 1930), p. 5- 1 0S. Lyman Tyler, "The Spaniard and the Ute," Utah Historical Quarterly, Vol. XXII, (October, 1954), p. 351*. |
