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Show 240 LEADING FACTS OF NEW MEXICAN HISTORY and Luis de Escalona, true soldiers of the cross, is evidenced by their determination to remain among the FRIAR JUAN DE PADILLA savages after the departure of the army. Willing to remain alone, unarmed, among the savage tribes, they displayed a zeal in the work of salvation seldom equaled in the history of Christianity. Separated from >. eee - ae er . cme lowing extract translated from an old Spanish Ms. at Santa Fé: my Lhe de ‘‘When Coronado returned to Mexico, he left behind him, among the Indians of Cibola, the father Fray Francisco Juan de Padilla, the father Fray Juan de la Cruz, and a Portuguese named Andrés del Campo. Soon after the Spaniards departed, Padilla and the Portuguese set off in search of the country of the Grand Quivira, where the former understood there were innumerable souls to be saved. After travelling several days, they reached a large settlement in the Quivira country. The Indians came out to receive them in battle array, when the friar, knowing their intentions, told the Portuguese and his attendants to take to flight, while he would wait their coming, in order that they might vent their fury on him as they ran. The former took to flight and, placing themselves on a height within view, saw what happened to the friar. Padilla awaited their coming on his knees, and when they arrived where he was they immediately put him to death. The same happened to Juan de la Cruz, who was left behind at Cibola, which people killed him. The Portuguese and his attendants made their escape and ultimately arrived safely in Mexico, where he told what had occurred. ’’ General Davis, when asked, some years since, regarding this manuscript, stated that when he re-visited Santa Fé, a few years ago, he learned that one of his successors in the post of governor of the territory, having despaired of disposing of the immense mass of old documents and records deposited in his office, by the slow process of using them to kindle fires, had sold the entire lot, an invaluable collection of material bearing on the history of the southwest and its early European and native inhabitants, as junk. I may remark, that if the ‘‘old documents”? sold as ‘‘junk’’ included the ‘‘manuscript’’ used by General Davis in bringing out the above story of the death of Fr. Juan de Padilla, it is Just as well that they were lost to the world in the manner named. I do not believe that any such ‘‘manuscript’’ was ever in the Santa Fé archives; the fact that the ‘Grand Quivira’’ is mentioned by Davis is clear proof to my mind that some one either made a poor translation of some old document, written long after 1680, or a large part of the Davis story is the product of a very romantic imagination. What he says about the disposition of some of the old archives is partially true; the official who ‘‘disposed’’ of them was Governor Pyle; but it is not believed that much was used to kindle fires or sold as junk. It is true that some of the papers were disposed of, but, in these later years, and about the time of the establishment of the Court of Private Land Claims, and at the time when interests in old Spanish and Mexican land grants were being purchased by varand found a ready sources, large numbers of these old papers which, at one time had undoubtedly been in the archives and which it was supposed had been used to kindle fires, began to see the light of day. No matter how much truth there may be in the destruction of the archives during the Pyle administration, nothing was destroyed which ante-dated 1680. Nearly every- 4 SO tw eur 4 — L Coll ‘ Jey , ys, oS 7 Banks ~ wee ‘ Ler, - 7 » “eat ASS. fee > Co di fe ¢ a. 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