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Show 4 7 ° COMMENTARY ON ESCALANTE. they sent it to me to the Rio Colorado, they had to bring back, for I had already set forth for above ( up July 29, 1776, at Santa Fe, and ended there Jan. 2, 1777; and we observe by the heading of Point 7, above, that Garces is referring to some Escalante writings of 1775. What he means may be the same as or similar to the report cited by Bancroft, Hist. Ariz, and N. M., p. 261, as of date Oct. 28, 1775, entitled: Informe y Diario de la Entrada que en junio 1775 hizo en la provincia de Moqui, MS., in N. Mex. Doc. 1022- 57, and also without title, ibid., 951- 84; followed ibid., 985- 1013, by Escalante's Carta de 1776 sobre Moqui. As well as I can judge, being thus somewhat in the dark, the subject of Garces* criticisms in the above text is Escalante's report of his visit to the Moquis in June, 1775, when, as said by Bancroft, /. c, " he spent eight days in the Moqui towns, trying in vain to reach the Rio Grande de Cosninas beyond. In a report to the governor [ Mendi-nueta] he gave a description of the pueblos- where he found 7,494 souls, two thirds of them at Oraibe, in seven pueblos on three separate mesas- and his ideas of what should be done. He earnestly recommended- subsequently writing to his superior a long argument in support of his proposition- that the Moquis should be reduced by force of arms, and a presidio established there. The Moquinos, he said, were well disposed, but their chiefs had determined not to give up their power, not only keeping their own people from submission, but the Cosninas as well, who were eager to be Christians." From all of which it is obvious that Escalante was not only an orthodox Spanish ecclesiastic, but also what would be called to- day an expansionist and an imperialist, who proposed to evangelize and civilize the Moquis by the methods of militarism we are now applying to the Filipinos, with the approval of the jingos amongst us and to the disgust of decent American citizens who blush with shame at the dishonor of their country in reverting to Spanish methods of catechism and vassalage. But the |