The Peaceful "Reconquest" Rolls On

Three weeks after he had spared Pecos, don Diego returned to collect his due. In the interim, he had triumphantly toured the Tewa pueblos, the relocated Tano pueblos of San Cristóbal and San Lázaro, and Taos, everywhere receiving the formal submission of the natives. He had been obliged to talk the Taos, erstwhile allies of the Pecos, down out of the mountains. After the usual ceremonies and the baptism of ninety-six Indians, two Taos leaders asked to see Vargas in his tent. Speaking through interpreter Hidalgo, the two explained that since they were now all brothers, the Spanish governor should know about a plot against him.

Two young Taos on their way home from the Zuñi pueblos had come upon a great council allegedly attended by "all the captains of the Zuñi nation as well as the Hopi, Jémez, Keres, Pecos, Faraón Apaches, Coninas of the Cerro Colorado, and many others from other parts." Held near Ácoma, it had lasted three days and three nights. The plan was simple: join forces, ambush, and annihilate the Spaniards. Thanking the informants, Vargas called in his Tewa and Tano captains and told them to have their best men at Santa Fe by October 16. He would march first to Pecos, then to the Keres and Jémez pueblos, receiving the homage of each. If they refused, he and his allies would destroy them without quarter. Aware of the friendship between Taos and Pecos, he asked for two swift Taos youths to carry word to the Pecos. He was on his way to make peace. This time he expected their compliance.

From Santa Fe, a buoyant Vargas wrote to Viceroy the Conde de Galve. Counting the villa, he had now "reconquered" thirteen towns for God and king. As for himself, it was payment enough knowing "that no one has been bold enough to under take what I, by divine grace, have achieved to date." The dispatch, incredibly enough, reached the viceroy in thirty-six days, setting off in the capital a grand celebration, pealing bells, and the festive illumination of the cathedral. Already don Diego was the toast of New Spain. [17]

Reconqueror Welcomed at Pecos

This time the Pecos were waiting for him. They crowded around the entrance to the pueblo, some of them holding aloft arches of evergreen branches. They had set up a cross, "large and very well made." At about two in the afternoon of October 17, 1692, a Friday, as Diego de Vargas and his party of mounted Spaniards approached, they stepped back opening a path. Those who remembered chanted the Alabado sea. The Spaniards responded gratefully.

Riding straight into the pueblo with his ensign, who held high the royal standard, the erect, supremely confident Vargas dismounted in the plaza of the house block where he had stayed on his first visit. His officers, his secretary, the interpreter Pedro Hidalgo, and two Franciscan chaplains in their familiar blue habits attended the governor. Some of the several dozen soldiers may have sat their horses to control the crowd in case of trouble. This time Vargas had with him no Indian auxiliaries. Those from El Paso he had sent with the baggage train and spare horses to await him at Santo Domingo. And he had excused the Tewas and Tanos, who had not yet harvested their crops "because of the foul weather they have had."

On that gray fall afternoon, the delicious smell of piñon and juniper fires hung over the teeming plaza while hundreds of Pecos, bundled against the chill in their buffalo robes and blankets, looked on from the rooftops. Vargas through interpreter Hidalgo, delivered a speech, as he had done in all the pueblos. As governor and captain general of the kingdom and provinces of New Mexico and castellan of its armed forces and garrisons by order of His Majesty, he, Diego de Vargas, had come a great distance to restore what belonged to the king, not only this land but also the people. "for he was their lord, their rightful king, and there was no other." They should consider themselves blessed to be vassals of such a king.

Viceroy the Conde de Galve, 1688-1696. Rivera Cambas, Los gobernantes, I	Charles II, "the Bewitched," king of Spain, 1665-1700, "a cripple in mind and body." Rivera Cambas, Los gobernantes, I

The Spanish governor called to the ensign to hoist the royal banner three times. Hung on a processional staff, it bore the image of Nuestra Señora de los Remedios, don Diego's special patroness. A squad of soldiers stood at attention with swords unsheathed. Each time the banner went up, Vargas led the crowd in the cry, "Long live the king, our lord! God save him! Charles the Second! King of the Spains, of all this new world, and of the kingdom and provinces of New Mexico, and of these subjects newly won and conquered!" Each time, the soldiers responded, "Long live the king! May he reign in happiness!" Jubilantly, amid cheering, the soldiers threw their hats into the air. Pecos, its lands, and its people had been reconquered. Falling on their knees, the friars intoned the Te Deum Laudamus.

The Pecos Absolved

Having rendered unto Caesar, Vargas now told the Pecos that the reverend missionary Fathers would absolve them of their grievous apostasy, and of all the other sins they had committed in the course of their revolt, and that aferward they would baptize their children born since 1680. As Christians, he admonished, they must select godparents and bring forward their unbaptized. If any of them wished, he himself, the governor and captain general, or one of his men would serve as godfather.

Fray Francisco Corvera, a native of Manila, headed Vargas' three-man chaplain corps. Fray Cristóbal Alonso Barroso assisted at Pecos, while the third friar, Miguel Muñiz de Luna, ministered to the other detachment at Santo Domingo. Father Corvera delivered a homily. Pedro Hidalgo translated as best he could. The Pecos were instructed to kneel on both knees and to fold their hands. After the friar had intoned the general absolution, he and Father Barroso administered simple baptism to two hundred and forty-eight persons, mostly children from nursing babies to twelve-year-olds, as parents and godparents filed by. Don Diego stood as godfather to a son of "the captain they obey," and to many others, as did his soldiers. Compadres now, Spaniards and Pecos embraced.

Two years later, the missionary assigned to Pecos would supply the ceremonies to all these simple baptisms in a temporary but proper church, anointing each individual with blessed chrism. Ironically, some of the Pecos men, whose children he baptized in 1692, would bury Father Corvera at San Ildefonso in 1696, a victim of the Tewas' second revolt.

Vargas Installs Pecos Officials

Saturday dawned cold and overcast. It began to snow. As a matter of policy, Vargas had camp pitched outside the pueblo so as not to displace or molest any of the inhabitants. According to the governor's journal, on this inclement morning, interpreter Hidalgo came to his tent with a request from "the old and eminent natives of this pueblo of the Pecos, in a body." They wanted him to appoint pueblo officials, the way the Spaniards did before 1680. By securing his sanction of their leadership, the elders meant to strengthen their hand over the resistance faction. Don Diego consented.

Speaking again through his interpreter, Vargas told the assembled Pecos that they must elect of their own free will Indians to serve as their pueblo governor, lieutenant governor, alcalde, and alguacil, as well as two fiscales and two war captains. When they had done this, he administered the oath, exhorting them "in the utmost detail through said interpreter to respect and fulfill the duties of their offices to the greater service of Both Majesties." Father Corvera then gave the oath to the two fiscales, whose duties as assistants to the missionaries did not at this time amount to much in the absence of resident priest and church.

Gen. don Diego de Vargas was here, he who conquered all New Mexico for our Holy Faith and the Royal Crown at his own expense, in the year 1692. The inscription on El Morro as drawn by R. H. Kern, 1849. Simpson, Journal

When the snow and rain stopped, about two in the afternoon, Vargas gave the order to decamp "despite the bad weather." By three the column had formed up. "Having taken my leave of these natives," his journal reads, "and having reiterated to them that they should pray and live as Christians, which they promised me they would do, I set out." Curiously, don Diego failed to record in his journal, now or on his earlier visit, the state of the Pecos church. A great heap of melted adobe, beyond repair, it was evidently not worth the mention. No matter. Vargas was satisfied. Pecos, whose population he estimated "from its house blocks and plazas" at about fifteen hundred, was his, number fourteen on his tally of reconquest. [18]

Taking "the wagon road," they camped that night at abandoned Galisteo, and next day passed through San Marcos, where Vargas noted that "some of the rooms and walls of its house blocks and dwellings survive, and likewise the walls and nave of the church as well as those of the convento are in good condition." Reunited with the rest of his force at Santo Domingo, the tireless reconqueror mapped his route through the Keres and Jémez pueblos, then westward to Ácoma, Zuñi, and as far as Awátovi, Walpi, Mishongnovi, and Shongopovi among the defiant Hopi. Everywhere, demonstrating an almost suicidal boldness, don Diego de Vargas won the day.

The "Bloodless" Reconquest Complete

Before Christmas, they were back in El Paso. The final tally, as reported by Vargas to the viceroy, stood at twenty-three pueblos rewon, seventy-four Indian and Spanish captives rescued, and 2,214 Indians baptized. Or, in the words of a news bulletin describing the heroic feat, "An entire realm was restored to the Majesty of our lord and king, Charles II, with out wasting a single ounce of powder, unsheathing a sword, or (what is most worthy of emphasis and appreciation) without costing the Royal Treasury a single maravedí."

To make good on this "bloodless reconquest," Vargas had yet to recolonize New Mexico. In the months ahead, he devoted himself zealously to recruiting, fund raising, supply, and to seeking preferment worthy of his deeds. In a long letter to the king, written from Zacatecas in May 1693, don Diego beseeched his sovereign to grant him the title of Marqués de los Caramancheles, two estates near Madrid, "with lordship over them." To continue in the royal service, he also bid for the governorship of Guatemala, or if that be taken, the governorship of the Philippines, or if that be taken, the governorship of Chile, or if that be taken the governorship of Buenos Aires and the Río de la Plata. [19]

"El hombre propone," says the Spanish maxim, "y Dios dispone." Man proposes and God disposes. It was the Other Majesty's will that Diego de Vargas die in New Mexico.

Vargas Plans Recolonization

The second phase of don Diego's task entailed more work and less glory, and it was by no means bloodless. He welcomed the viceroy's praise and his approval of a government-subsidized, one hundred-man presidial garrison for Santa Fe. Besides those already in the El Paso area, he reckoned he needed as many as forty more priests, plus Custos Salvador de San Antonio, a New Mexico veteran. The twelve thousand pesos offered initially by the viceroy, Vargas considered insufficient to outfit, transport, and maintain for six months the five hundred families of colonists he intended to take. He had decided already where they should settle: 150 families at Santa Fe; 100 in the vicinity of Taos; 50 near Santa Ana; 100 at Jémez; 100 along the Rio Grande from Angostura, south of San Felipe, to Sandía; and 50 at Pecos, bringing the total, incidentally, to 550.

Diego de Vargas' reason for projecting a civil settlement in the vicinity of Pecos—a proposal not realized in fact for another hundred years—was defense.

At the pueblo of the Pecos, a distance of eight leagues from Santa Fe, fifty families could be settled, because it too [like Taos] is an Apache frontier and, being so surrounded by very mountainous country, suffers unavoidable ambushes. Settled in this manner, and backed by the military at the villa, it will prevent the robberies and murders that follow from assured entry. It is very fertile land which responds with great abundance to all kinds of crops planted. [20]

Title page of the Mercurio Volante, a tribute to Diego de Vargas on the occasion of his "reconquest" of New Mexico in 1692, by don Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora, New Spain's most learned professor. Wagner, Spanish Southwest, II

They came together at unprosperous El Paso, where for a couple of weeks mission and presidio were inundated by a swarming camp that tripled the population—a hundred soldiers for Santa Fe, some with families, seventy assorted families of colonists, widows and singles and servants, eighteen Franciscans, and an unlisted number of Indian allies, probably twelve hundred persons in all, plus wagons and gear and a thousand mules, two thousand horses, and nine hundred milling head of cattle, sheep, and other sundry stock. More or less formed up, the straggling, motley train began to move out slowly on the feast of St. Francis of Assisi, October 4, 1693, amid great festivity and cursing.

The journey north was a nightmare. The wind blew bitter cold, food ran low, wagon wheels came off, and nearly every one was sick. Worse, as Vargas and his vanguard of fifty men scouted ahead through the first abandoned pueblos, they began hearing rumors that most of the Indians, fortified on mesa tops, intended to resist. Only the Keres of San Felipe, Santa Ana, and possibly Zia favored the Spaniards' return. [21]

Juan de Ye Offers Services

At San Felipe, unexpectedly, a Pecos hailed don Diego. Juan de Ye, whom Vargas always addressed as don Juan, had arrived to pay his respects. This was "the captain they obey" whom Vargas had inaugurated as pueblo governor at Pecos the year before, and whose son, like those of so many other native leaders, was his godchild. Apparently, Juan had brought with him his lieutenant governor, alcalde, alguacil, and war captains. Learning of the Spaniards' presence from a Pecos lad who was in Santa Fe when Vargas' two Tano emissaries appeared, Juan had hastened to San Felipe to assure the Spanish governor that the Pecos welcomed his return. He had made that clear to the Tewas and Tanos, and he had come in person to tell don Diego. Whether Vargas sensed it at this stage or not, Juan de Ye, until his probable death on a mission for the Spaniards a year later, was to prove almost indispensable. The reconqueror's refusal to destroy Pecos in 1692 had paid off.

Juan de Ye now briefed the Spanish governor on the fight that lay ahead. As far back as the summer, the rebels who occupied Santa Fe had told Juan to have the Pecos "make many arrows so that all of them together" could attack the Spaniards when they came. A council had been held in the Tewa pueblo of San Juan, at which, according to the Pecos governor, the half-breed Pedro de Tapia had planted a cancerous seed of discontent. An interpreter with the Spanish expedition of 1692 who had since died, Tapia told the Pueblos that Diego de Vargas was a monster. Even though he pardoned them in 1692, his ultimate goal was to slaughter them all, sparing only the children born since 1680. This seed, nurtured in the fertile soil of their guilt, had grown into an effort to unite all the Pueblos against the Spaniards. "If it is true," wrote Vargas about Tapia, "may God forgive him!" [22]

A few days later, cold and complaining, the colonists, along with soldiers, friars, baggage, and animals, caught up. The entire expedition camped on the site of Cristóbal de Anaya's ruined estancia. While Vargas parleyed with a variety of Pueblo delegations and sent out supply details in all directions to trade meat for maize, camp was moved nearer and nearer to Santa Fe. The weather turned colder still, and some of the colonists whispered of deserting.

Juan de Ye stayed with the Spaniards. In fact, four Pecos, mounted and armed, Felipe, Juan, Pedro, and Diego, curious to know what was keeping their governor, showed up in camp one day. Vargas welcomed them and told interpreter Juan Ruiz de Cáceres to make them understand "that I loved them all very much, that they were my children, and that their governor and my compadre, don Juan, knew this well. When they recognized this they were satisfied."

A Plot to Annihilate the Spaniards

Late the night of November 25, two of Vargas' captains woke him to report that don Juan and the four recently arrived Pecos had urgent news. Shown into the Spanish governor's tent and seated on the ground near his bed, the natives told of a plot to annihilate the entire expedition. This time Francisco Lucero de Godoy interpreted.

As usual, Juan put the blame on Tewas and Tanos, along with Picurís and Taos. He identified their leaders, some of whom were feigning friendship. The rebels had called an all-Pueblo junta at La Cienaguilla, seven leagues from Santa Fe. Dividing their forces, they meant to attack the Spanish train simultaneously from front and rear, drive off the animals, and massacre everyone. Should the Spaniards reach Santa Fe, where the native occupants had dug a well inside and laid up provisions to withstand a siege, the plan was to stampede the invaders' horses at night, then fall on the camp. A Spaniard afoot, they were convinced, was no match. But for the refusal of the Pecos and the Jémez to join them, the rebels might already have sprung their trap.

As a Christian, Vargas replied, he would proceed as if he knew nothing of the plot. He intended to give everyone an opportunity to submit peacefully. If the Tanos and Tewas chose war, he would rely, as before, on Nuestra Señora de los Remedios and her Son. He had come not to do harm but rather to encourage all the Pueblos to live in peace as Christians. He thanked the Pecos for their offer to fight at his side and to steal the rebels' riding horses and mules from the canyon where they had left them, but he prayed it would not come to that. Before dismissing them, Vargas reiterated the affection and esteem he felt for the Pecos, "because they were loyal to the king our lord, Christians, and friends of the Spaniards."

A few days later don Juan was back. He and another Pecos named Juan "of his closest following" said they wanted to see the Spanish governor. Admitted to Vargas' tent about eight in the evening with interpreter Ruiz de Cáceres, they described again the threat posed by the rebel alliance, repeating their offer to capture the enemy's horses. The Pueblo occupants were preparing to defend Santa Fe, where growing numbers of rebels were gathering, and the weather was getting worse. Why then, the Pecos wanted to know, did the Spaniards not attack? Again Vargas put them off. [23]

Misery in the Spanish Camp

While he played the diplomatic game, a war of nerves, the Spanish camp was starving. The scant provisions acquired in trade with the Pueblos were not enough. Dissuaded by his officers from going to Pecos in person, the Spanish governor now called in don Juan de Ye. If the Pecos really wanted to aid the Spaniards, they would bring food. "I told him," said Vargas, "that he would demonstrate the strength of the good will he felt toward me as a compadre and my relative" if he went to his pueblo and traded for all the flour, maize, pinole, and beans he could get. Don Diego was thinking in terms of seventy or eighty cargas, or mule packs, of two fanegas each. Sgt. Juan Ruiz de Cáceres would accompany the Pecos, taking six slaughtered beeves and other trade goods, mules and muleteers, and an escort of twelve soldiers under Capt. Juan Holguín.

The side expedition to Pecos set out about ten in the morning on December 5. It was back by December 9. The haul: an unfulfilling eight fanegas of maize, more or less, and two of maize flour. The Pecos, reported Juan de Ye, were glad to know that the Spanish governor had returned. Don Diego was welcome at their pueblo, where they would load up his mules with provisions, doubtless for an appropriate consideration in trade goods. Don Diego had to explain to the Indian that the Spaniards and their wagons were not proceeding first to Pecos but to Santa Fe instead. Once they had secured the villa, he would go down to Pecos himself to install a missionary. As a sop he presented don Juan with a horse. The Pecos, plainly, were not going hungry that Spaniards might eat. [24]

Officer's pistol made in Madrid, 1703. Brinckerhoff and Faulk, Lancers

Vargas and Colonists in the Snow

When finally they stood in the snow before Santa Fe, the shivering, half-starved colonists were denied shelter within. The Tanos and Tewas made no move to vacate. On December 16, they received Governor Vargas, a procession of soldiers and Franciscans, a cross, and the Te Deum inside the walls, but they did so with a foreboding reserve. Still, with his tent set up outside in the cold "a mortar shot from the plaza," Vargas decided to distribute the missionaries.

If the reconqueror appeared calm in the face of the dangers and discomforts of the moment, the friars were perturbed. Everyone in camp knew of "the evil design and perfidy" of the Tanos and Tewas. Again don Juan de Ye came to Vargas' tent. This time he had definite information, relayed from a Zuñi to a Cochiti to him. Tewas, Tanos, and Picurís had congregated on the mesa of San Juan with a horde of Apaches. Dressed and armed like Spanish frontier cavalry, with leather doublets, lances, and shields, they would strike Governor Vargas when he least expected it. Meanwhile, they had arranged to steal the Spaniards' horses a few at a time. Don Juan offered to call his Pecos warriors. And again he volunteered to steal the rebels' horses.

Missionaries Balk and Sign Petition

Not on their lives were the missionaries going out into the pueblos. Martyrdom was a blessing, suicide was not. In addition to Santa Fe, Vargas wished to thrust ministers into Tesuque, Nambé, San Ildefonso, San Juan, San Lázaro, Picurís, Taos, Jémez, Zia, Cochití, and Pecos. What was he thinking? Had he forgotten his promise to protect the ministers of the gospel as well as the other innocent vassals of the king "who had come with such willingness to settle this land?" How could he ignore the repeated warnings of don Juan de Ye, an Indian who had proven himself "always faithful and honest in all his actions and conduct and who has not left our company in more than a month."

All eighteen friars signed the petition. That same day, December 18, Fray Diego de Zeinos, secretary of the custody, delivered it to the governor's tent. Whether or not they had their facts straight, they meant to impress upon Vargas the loyalty and the credibility of Juan de Ye.

After all, it was he who at the time of the last uprising in 1680 warned Sargento mayor Francisco Gómez [Robledo], now deceased, twenty days before. And as the time drew closer he repeated the warning eight days before. Seeing that they did not believe him, he told his minister, Fray Fernando de Velasco, "Father, the people are rising to kill all the Spaniards and religious. Therefore, decide where you want to go and I will give you warriors to escape, as in fact he did.

Even had he wished to overrule the friars' protest, Vargas reconsidered. This was no time to send out the missionaries. [25]

The impasse continued. Tension built. An icy wind swirled the snow into drifts. Secure in their walled fortress-pueblo, the native occupants of Santa Fe mocked the Spaniards outside. Vargas doggedly kept up negotiations, all the while struggling to bring in enough food to feed his wretched colony, a few fanegas from this pueblo, five from that. From Pecos, where Sergeant Ruiz de Cáceres and his detachment received another warm welcome, came ten cargas, or twenty fanegas, of flour and ears of maize, as well as regards to don Diego. The long-exiled municipal council of Santa Fe was demanding that Vargas put them in possession of the casas reales. Children were sick and dying. At an open meeting, the leaders of the colony voiced their unanimous resolve: the rebels must go. Inside the walls meanwhile, the natives worked themselves up for a fight.

The Bloody Battle for Santa Fe

In the brittle pre-dawn cold of December 28, the dark figure of a messenger flitted through camp and disappeared into Vargas' tent. The rebels were about to attack. Ordering trumpet and war drum sounded, the Spanish governor called for don Juan de Ye. Now was the time for the Pecos to prove themselves. "I ordered him to send at once to his pueblo on two swift horses I gave him and alert the young warriors to come well prepared and armed." That day both sides girded for battle. Vargas appealed to the rebels to evacuate the villa peacefully. He might as well have asked each of them for his left foot.

The winter solstice ceremonial, or Shalako, at Zuñi. Century (Feb 1883)

Four Pecos appeared next morning. They reported to Juan de Ye something about their people gathering firewood for the night and staying in the foothills until a Spaniard came for them. Vargas told Francisco Lucero de Godoy to get them. In no time he was back with one hundred and forty Pecos indios de guerra give or take a few. "I received and welcomed them all," said Vargas,

and I embraced their governor don Juan many times and gave him my hand, telling him that he was loyal to His Majesty and a good Christian and that whatever he or any of the people or his pueblo wished they would have a friend in me.

Addressing his entire "army," as men and horses stood there benumbed, their breath escaping in white puffs, don Diego de Vargas reassured them that God and the Blessed Virgin were with them, a fact Fray Diego de Zeinos confirmed. Then all knelt in the snow, recited the general confession, and were absolved by the friar. Mounted up, they moved forward, and, met by a hail of shouting, arrows, and rocks, they yelled the Santiago and charged.

This time the Pecos had chosen the winning side. Thirteen years before, they and their Tano allies had fought the beleaguered Spaniards of Santa Fe and lost. Now on the same ground Spaniards and Pecos retook the villa from the Tanos in a hard-fought two-day battle. Eighty-one rebels died: nine in battle, two by their own hand, and seventy executed. The four hundred who surrendered were allotted among the Spaniards for ten years' servitude. Finally the reconquerors had more than the ritual submission of the Pueblos and the boasts of Diego de Vargas. They had their capital. [26]

Vargas Confirms His Alliance with the Pecos

If anything, the Spanish victory at Santa Fe strengthened the alliance between Vargas and don Juan de Ye. Five days later, on January 4, 1694, when the Indian reported a threat to his pueblo, the Spanish governor responded in good faith. Ye, escorted by interpreter Francisco Lucero de Godoy, had come to Vargas' quarters at seven in the morning. An Apache sent by Ye to Pecos had returned in the night with a warning that he had spotted a large force of rebel Tewas, Tanos, Picurís, and Apaches in the mountains behind Santa Fe. They could have been moving on Pecos to avenge their loss of the villa. Vargas expressed his concern. But he was reluctant to leave Santa Fe just yet. He would dispatch don Roque de Madrid, his second-in-command. If, upon investigation, the situation required his presence, don Diego would gladly march to the defense of Pecos.

Madrid took thirty men, saying that he would call for more if needed. Vargas had provided, as usual, that any horses and cueras, the valuable protective leather coats, captured from the enemy be distributed among the members of the expedition. Fray Juan de Alpuente, who rode along as chaplain, would get his first look at Pecos, where two years later he would serve reluctantly as missionary. By four in the afternoon the next day, the column was back. There had been no sign of the rebels. The Pecos to a man, Madrid reported, "were grateful for the sending of these soldiers to protect them. They welcomed them warmly, and, having the Spaniards so firmly on their side, they feel secure." [27]

When Vargas marched out of Santa Fe in February to do battle with the Pueblo rebels dug in on Black Mesa, an "army" of Pecos marched with him. What don Juan de Ye and his following hoped to gain by this close association with the reconquerors, besides the protection of Spanish arms and vengeance on Tewas and Tanos, became increasingly evident that spring. They hoped to restore the traditional role of their pueblo as gateway between the Rio Grande Valley and the plains. The Spaniards had horses and goods, and once they put down rebel resistance, they would impose peace. All this was good for trade.

A colonial New Mexican iron axe.