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May 11, 1997'Inscription Rock'
By James Abarr
Of the Journal
In the spring of 1605, a band of 30 Spanish soldiers set up camp amid the groves of pine and juniper at the base of a stunning mesa of golden sandstone in west-central New Mexico.
They had come far, these early explorers, for they were returning from a journey to the distant Gulf of California.
A year earlier, they had left northern New Mexico, crossed Arizona and then traveled south to the gulf to see first-hand the extent of Spain's vast Southwest holdings.
Now they were coming home, and the cliffs of the towering mesa offered a resting place sheltered from sun and wind. More importantly, there was a deep pool of fresh water in a catch-basin at the base of the cliffs.
It was a splendid camping place for the explorers and their leader, Don Juan de Oñate.
Before the Spaniards left the shelter of the mesa on the final miles to their capital at San Gabriel, north of present-day Santa Fe, Oñate decided to leave a record of his passing in the soft sandstone.
With the sharp point of a dagger, or perhaps a sword of fine Toledo steel, Oñate, or more likely a soldier on his order, carved in Spanish:
"Pasó por aqui, el adelantado Don Juan de Oñate del descubrimiento de la mar del sur a 16 de Abril de 1605."
In English, the inscription reads:
"Passed by here, the adelantado Don Juan de Oñate from the discovery of the sea of the south the 16th of April of 1605."Popular spot
It was the beginning of a trend, for over the next 250 years, El Morro became a landmark and popular camping place on the old Zuni Trail, and many travelers would leave their names on the lower reaches of the mesa's soaring 200-foot cliffs. The result is a giant outdoor autograph album, which has given the mesa its nickname — Inscription Rock.
Today, El Morro National Monument, 43 miles southwest of Grants on the slopes of the Zuni Mountains, is perhaps the most unique historic site in western United States. More than 1,000 inscriptions left by Spanish soldiers, priests, governors and American travelers represent a virtual history book in stone and a striking reminder of the nation's cultural heritage.
Oñate, the conquistador who started it all, was a grandee of considerable wealth and influence in New Spain (Mexico) and son of Count Cristobal Oñate, a rich silver miner and former governor of the province of Nueva Galicia.
Don Juan also was a man thirsting for adventure, power and more wealth. In pursuit of these ambitions, he pursuaded the Count of Monterrey, Viceroy of New Spain, to allow him to colonize New Mexico, and in 1598, Oñate led the first permanent settlers into Spain's most distant North American province. He funded the new colony largely from his own pocket in exchange for being named governor, captain-general and adelantado, the latter a title that virtually made New Mexico Oñate's private feudal domain.
He established his capital near San Juan Pueblo, north of present-day Española, and called it San Gabriel. It would serve as New Mexico's seat of government until 1610, when Oñate's successor as governor, Don Pedro de Peralta, founded the permanent royal capital at Santa Fe.Earlier visitors
While Oñate's inscription is the oldest found on El Morro, he was not the first Spaniard to see the mesa.
In March 1583, Diego Pérez de Luxán, who accompanied an exploring expedition led by Antonio de Espejo, recorded in his journal that the party had camped at a place he called El Estanque del Peñol (The Pool at the Great Rock). No record of this expedition's passing has been found on El Morro.
In the years after Oñate's journey, countless travelers followed the established trail from the Rio Grande Valley of New Mexico to the pueblo of Zuni, the Hopi villages in Arizona and on west. Many of these travelers stopped at El Morro (The Headland), drawn by the shelter of the great mesa and its always-dependable supply of fresh, cool water.
Like Oñate, they recorded their passing. Many left only a name and date, but others were not shy about proclaiming their deeds, as in this inscription:
"Here was the Señor and Governor Don Manuel de Silva Nieto, whose indubitable arm and valor have now overcome the impossible with the wagons of the King Our Lord, a thing which he alone put into effect, August 5, 1629, that one may well to Zuni pass and carry the faith."
Don Manuel was maintaining that he had pacified hostile Indians and made western New Mexico safe. He was wrong.
In 1632, Fray Juan de Letrado, a Franciscan missionary assigned to Zuni, was slain by hostile members of his flock shortly after his arrival. This brought Spanish soldiers from Santa Fe to punish the pueblo and resulted in this inscription:
"They passed on March 23, 1632, to the avenging of the death of Father Letrado — Lujan."
In 1680, pueblos throughout New Mexico, led by Popé, a medicine man from San Juan, rose in revolt against their Spanish masters. Churches were put to the torch, priests and settlers were killed, and the survivors were driven from the province.
Twelve years later, a reconquering Spanish army marched north from El Paso to reclaim the area. Their commander was Don Diego de Vargas, one of New Mexico's most distinguished colonial governors, who led his troops past El Morro on the way to the pacification of Zuni. He told of the reconquest in this inscription:
"Here was the General Don Diego de Vargas, who conquered for our Holy Faith and for the Royal Crown, all of New Mexico at his own expense, year of 1692."
Deeds of conquest and vengeance aside, El Morro is not without a touch of humor, as witnessed in these inscriptions:
"The 14th day of July 1736 passed by here the General Juan Paez Hurtado, Inspector."
Immediately below is a second inscription in another style of lettering. It obviously was added when the general's back was turned:
"And in his company, the Corporal Joseph Trujillo."
It seems that even in the 18th century, enlisted men were getting the last word.
Two Spaniards who left their names on El Morro later came to grief at the hands of their countrymen. Their inscription proclaims:
"We passed by here el Sargento Major and Captain Juan de Archuleta and Adjutant Diego de Martin Barba and Ensign Agustin de Ynojos, the year of 1636."
Seven years later, Archuleta, who came to New Mexico with Oñate, and Barba were implicated in a plot to kill the governor and were beheaded in the plaza at Santa Fe in 1643.
As colonists far to the east of New Spain prepared to throw off the yoke of Great Britain, a traveler camping at El Morro wrote:
"By here passed Andres Romero, the year of 1774."
No one knows who Romero was, but his is the last dated Spanish inscription found on the mesa.American wave
With the advent of the Mexican War in 1846, Brig. Gen. Stephen Kearny's Army of the West took possession of New Mexico and heralded a wave of American travelers to the new U.S. territory.
Lt. J.H. Simpson, an Army engineer, and Richard Kern, an artist, were among the first Americans to pass El Morro. They left their names on the mesa in 1849, but more significantly, they copied many of the inscriptions and brought them to national attention.
In the following year, the first of many American wagon trains carrying emigrants and adventurers to California passed by El Morro, drawn by the never-failing water basin. As the Spaniards before them, these American travelers left a record of their journey.
However, the march of history was about to bypass the golden mesa.
When the Santa Fe Railway sought the best way through western New Mexico in 1881, surveyors selected a route 25 miles north of El Morro. With the coming of the railroad, the Zuni Trail, except for local travelers, fell from favor.
In 1906, El Morro National Monument was set aside on 1,278 acres and came under the protection of the National Park Service, and additional carvings on the mesa were prohibited.
Today, self-guiding trails lead visitors under the east face of the mesa, past the water basin, fed by rain and melting snow draining from the summit, and past the many inscriptions.
Another trail extends across the summit and offers spectacular vistas of surrounding mesas, forests and plains. Here, too, are the partially-excavated ruins of A'ts'ina, a two-story 13th-century Anasazi pueblo. The name refers to the "Writing on the Rocks."
In the area are hundreds of petroglyphs, a clear indication that the Anasazi, ancestors of the Zunis, were recording their presence long before the coming of Oñate.
Archaeologists believe A'ts'ina, which once housed perhaps 1,000 people, was abandoned because of the short growing season at El Morro's elevation of 7,200 feet.
Often the question is raised: Why did so many of those who camped beneath the mesa feel compelled to carve their names into the rock?
Perhaps it was a sense of immortality, because compared with our lifetimes, El Morro is timeless. It has been there for centuries, and it will be there for countless centuries to come before it is weathered away by the relentless forces of geology.
El Morro on the Web