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T H E G I L D E D M A N
(EL DORADO)
AND OTHER PICTURES OF THE SPANISH
OCCUPANCY OF AMERICA
BY
A. F. BANDELIER
AUTHOR OF MEXICO, THE PUEBLOS OF PECOS, ETC.
NEW YORK
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
1893{ii}
Copyright, 1893,
By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.
PUBLISHERS’ NOTE.
As compared with the peopling of our Atlantic seaboard, the firstexplorations of our Southwest by a white race have receivedcomparatively slight attention, the minor consequences of the latter,and the inaccessibility of the early Spanish records, being thesufficiently obvious causes which have combined to prevent minute andexhaustive studies until within the past few years.
Dramatic and intensely interesting conditions have been revealed as Mr.Bandelier—whose work under the auspices of the Archæological Instituteof America and on the Hemenway Survey has entitled him to stand first asthe documentary historian of this region, and also to rank as the mostexhaustive of its explorers—has brought the facts of this long-hiddenhistory once more to the light. It is the history of a search for theGolden Fleece, which was full of strange and romantic episodes; ahistory of the progress of the cross and the sword, which wasaccompanied by deeds of superhuman endurance, dauntless courage, and apitiless bigotry and ravening cruelty that drove even the gentle Pueblosto revolt, and to the attempted destruction and concealment of alltraces of their conquerors. The Southwest is the land of romantichistory, albeit the history is often dark and bloody, and the pictures{iv}of Spanish exploration and domination which Mr. Bandelier presents inthis volume are of profound interest. The legends of the mysteriousSeven Cities of Cibola, and of the elusive Gran Quivira, are set forthclothed in no other romantic garb than that due to the truth ascertainedby a learned explorer and archæologist; but the bare truth is so strangeand moving that it has needed no adornment. Directly from the records wehave the final facts in the after-life of one of La Salle’s murderers.In the true story of El Dorado—that is to say, The Gilded Man—there issettled definitely a matter that has undergone indeterminate disputethrough three hundred years. These several papers, with the others herepresented, selected from the records of Spanish conquest on bothcontinents of America, do not constitute a continuous nor a completehistory. Each, however, is complete in itself; each probablycrystallizes the subject that it embraces; and the interest andhistorical value of the collection as a whole make it a necessary partof every library in which American history is adequately represented.
Owing to Mr. Bandelier’s absence in Peru while this volume was passingthrough the press, he has been unable to revise the proofs—a duty whichMrs. Thomas A. Janvier, utilizing her familiarity with Mexican andSpanish historical litera