In 1720, the Faraón were east of Santa Fé. Farther north, Paloma and El Cuartelejo Apache bands lived on both sides of the Platte river. To the west, the Sierra Blanca, La Jicarilla and La Flecha bands exploited the canyons near the headwaters of rivers that flowed from the eastern side of passes through the Sangre de Cristo. On the other side of those passes were pueblos that held trade fairs: Taos, Picurís, and Pecos.
Their living arrangements were dictated by the seasonal nature of their food supply. In 1715 Gerónimo Ye, chief of Taos, told the governor in Santa Fé the Faraón returned to their river bank settlement "at the end of April or the beginning of May" when they planted their crops. They harvested in "the middle of August when the moon is almost full. At this time they are shaking out the grain from the ears of corn. Having finished doing this and having buried it beneath the soil, they all go on a hunt for buffalo where they maintain themselves." They lived there in "thirty houses of wood entirely smeared with clay outside," according to the chief of Picurís, Lorenzo.
When Antonio Valverde was trailing the Ute and Comanche in September of 1719, he passed scattered small farming settlements along the streams flowing from the canyons on the eastern face of the Sangre de Cristo. At La Ciéneguilla, he saw "a small adobe house" where Apache "had sown and reaped their maize fields."
At the next Canadian tributary north, he passed "some fields of maize, frijoles, and squashes" in September. About "an arquebus shot" away he saw an adobe house with a flat roof. "Farther up the river eight other houses were found" of La Flecha.
Valverde was following the same general route used by Juan de Ulibarrí in 1706 when he went to El Cuartelejo. At Sierra Blanca he saw "corn, frijoles, and pumpkins" in July. He was told, when he returned, he "would find them together in the rancherías of the Jicarillas."
The Comanche targeted Carlana’s band. Valverde was told they had "attacked two houses" and "burned the people living in them." Half the people fled east. The others were going to La Jicarilla for protection. They were then living in "twenty-seven tipis" in September.
Comanche had raided another settlement the year before Valverde arrived. They killed 60 and absconded with 64 women and children, burned "a little house in the shape of a tower" and set fire to "heaps of maize."
Valverde went up river about five miles where he "found seven terraced houses" with "many ditches and canals in order to irrigate their fields." It was still September and "they had already gathered their crops of corn." They were "placed it in the shape of a wall about half a yard high." They were still processing it. "There was much corn in heaps not yet husked."
From Jicarilla, Ulibarrí met the Penxayes to the east. He noted in late September, they too had "much land planted to corn, frijoles, and pumpkins" on the banks of the Purgatorie. Representatives came down to where he was standing near a mesa in the canyon, so he didn’t see where they lived.
Ulibarrí’s comments make it sound like the Apache broke into small farming settlements in summer along protected streams when game was scarce. After the harvest, they reassembled into larger communities, presumably in places where there was adequate fuel. Groups of men then left to hunt buffalo, probably during the period the animals also were merging into larger groups headed for winter forage.
At El Cuartelejo, Ulibarrí was told the émigrés from Picurís were living in four satellite rancherías: Tachichichi, Nanaje, Adidasde, and Sanasesli. Before they arrived "at the plaza which the rancherías formed," Ulibarri passed a group of "casitos" near a low cliff, "la bajada de dicho alto." In 1726, Bourgmont’s chronicler described them as "sizeable dwellings."
In 1706, the Spaniard praised the "good climate, for at the end of July they had gathered crops of Indian corn, watermelons, pumpkins, and kidney beans." He noted the men they met were out hunting buffalo. After finding us "they had returned to assure the safety of their ranches and maize fields."
When the French arrived, they were sowing "hardly any maize." However, they did "sow a little and a few pumpkins." The difference was reflected in their food. In August of 1706, they gave Ulibarrí "bison meat, roasting ears of Indian corn, tamales, plums." In October of 1724, they served Bourgmont "bison meat cooked in a pot, and some meat that had been dried in the sun, with dried plums pounded up with their pits and cooked in a pot." Later, Philippe de la Renaudiére recorded, "they brought us two plates of maize they had cooked. It was all they had in the village."
Between the two expeditions, the remote settlement had been absorbing refugees from the Comanche. When they heard Valverde was coming in 1719, they came with the Paloma and other exiles to met him along the Platte. He left for Santa Fé before they all arrived. Even so, "they numbered more than two hundred tents, and more than three hundred Indians under arms. Together with the crowd of woman and children there were probably more than one thousand persons."
When Bourgmont visited the main El Cuartelejo settlement five years later, more bands had moved to them for safety, probably including people from some of their own rancherías. The population probably had doubled to "about 140 dwellings, housing about 800 warriors, more than 1,500 women and about 2,000 children."
Instead of living in small groups that reunited for hunts, they lived in large settlements that divided into smaller groups to forage. Renaudiére said, they left "in bands of 50 to 80, sometimes even 100 households together; when they return to their permanent villages, those who had stayed at home leave at once, while those returning bring with them provisions of dried meat, either bison meat or venison, killed not far from their villages."
The disparity in numbers of men and women may have grown. In 1706, Ulibarrí had met a man traveling with "two women and three little boys." In 1624, Renaudiére said some "have as many as four wives."
El Cuartelejo may have been in a situation like the besieged Arkansas described by Jacques Marquette in the post for 12 May 2015. The need to find camping places for so many probably usurped their farm lands. The dangers of enemy attacks made it impossible to find develop new lands along the river. The men who provided meat were protected by their hunting weapons.
Notes: La Ciéneguilla is the Mora valley.
Gerónimo. Testimony before Council of War, Santa Fé, 20 July 1715, translation in Thomas.
Lorenzo. Testimony before Council of War, Santa Fé, 22 July 1715, translation in Thomas.
Renaudiére, Philippe de la. Journal of the Voyage of Monsieur de Bourgmont, translation in Frank Norall, Bourgmont, 1988.
Thomas, Alfred B. After Coronado, 1935.
Ulibarrí, Juan de. Diary of expedition to El Cuartelejo, 1706, translation in Thomas. Thomas wasn’t sure of the translation of "la ranchería que esta muy cerca a la baxada de dho alto, de cuyos ranchos, o casitos," and so gave the Spanish. We all know bajada from our drives from Albuquerque to Santa Fé. "Dho" was the standard abbreviation of "dicho," in Spanish texts of the 1700s, and seems to have meant small.
Valverde y Cosío, Antonio. Diary of the campaign against the Ute and Comanche Indians, 1719, translation in Thomas.
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