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Show 15 the command of Mauricio Arze and Lagos Garcia. They left Abiquiu on the sixteenth of March, 1813, and returned to that place after a trip of some four months, on the twelfth of July. On the first of September the governor of New Mexico, having received information regarding the affair, ordered the members of the party to appear before Manuel Garcia as alcalde of the "Villa de Santa Cruz de la Canada" and report what had taken place on the trip. Between the sixth and tenth of the month affidavits were sworn to by the following five members of the party: Miguel Tenorio, Filipe Gomez, Joseph Santiago Vejil, Gabriel Quintana, and Josef Velasques. In the main these affidavits duplicate each'other, with only here and there a unique detail. None of the accounts give any particulars as to the route followed between Abiquiu and the lake of the Timpanogos, possibly because that route was so well known that nothing needed to be said. The company remained at the lake of the Timpanogos three days carrying on a little trade while waiting for the Indians of two rancherias to come together. When all were assembled a council was held, but, if we may rely upon the statements of the Spaniards in their affidavits, the Indians would trade nothing but Indian slaves, "as they had done on other occasions," the documents add. This the Spaniards claimed they refused to do. Whereupon some of the Indians fell upon and began killing the horses of the Spaniards. Before the chief could quiet his people and stop the slaughter eight horses and a mule had been killed. Warned by the injury the Spaniards collected their remaining horses and, after standing guard over them all night, .set out on the following day for Rio Sebero (Sevier River).12 Further on, Hill comments: Besides the slaves mentioned above, the Spaniards collected on their trip a total of one hundred and nine pelts. This, however, was stated to be "but a few." None of the statements tell what kind they were.13 This document is very informative, for the interest in the fur trade on Utah Lake was a known fact at a very early date. Further, 12Hill, op_. cit. ,pp. 17-18. 13lbid., p. 19. |