[From James G. Scrugham, Nevada: The Narrative of the Conquest of a Frontier Land (1935), vol. I, pp.15-19]

II

SPANISH EXPLORATIONS IN THE SOUTH

1776

The attempts of the Spaniards to explore the arid country north of the Colorado River and within the Great Basin were fruitless of results, left no impress upon that country, and led to no permanent settlements. These efforts, however, hold a certain interest for the reader of Nevada history as showing the reasons for attempting to explore the deserts of the Great Basin, and because two of the exploration parties approached very close to the southern limits of the state fifty years before the trappers entered within its boundaries in the north.

In the year 1776 while the rebellious subjects of King George III were declaring their independence of his reign in the American colonies along the Atlantic coast, the loyal subjects of Charles III of Spain were carrying his banners northward from Mexico and founding a presidio and a mission on the Pacific Ocean at San Francisco. In the establishment of new camps and missions the state and the church went hand in hand; the objective always was both secular and religious. Long before the presidios and missions were established along the California coast a similar movement had been in progress along the larger rivers of the interior as far north as Santa Fe, which had been founded in 1606, in New Mexico. The frontier lines of these establishments in 1776 formed a roughly shaped crescent between the tips of which lay the southern end of the "Northern Mystery." In order to foster the newly founded presidios and missions it was necessary to provide them with supplies. This was comparatively easy for the missions along the coast to which needed material could be sent in ships; it be-came more and more difficult with increased distance in the interior country, where transportation must perforce be by mule-train. For this reason it became physically impossible to extend the missions much if any beyond Santa Fe. In their zeal to found new missions among the Indians of the northern interior the padres conceived the project of a new route of travel that would lead from Monterey on the Pacific coast across the Sierra Nevadas and the interior basin to the old mission at Santa Fe, hoping that such a route would lessen their difficulties, and extend the field of their work.

Two parties were sent out in 1776 for the purpose of finding this hoped-for route from the coast to the interior. One under Padre Garces was to look for the route along the western flanks of the Sierra Nevada in California; the other under Padres Escalante and Dominguez was to explore the country to the north and west of Santa Fe. With Padre Garces our story has little to do, for his route was wholly outside of Nevada. In the same year the expedition under Escalante and Dominguez left Santa Fe for the northwest. Our account follows the diary of Escalante as trans-

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lated in the work of Reverend W. R. Harris, The Catholic Church in Utah.

Just as Garces had journeyed far to the north, on the west of the Great Basin, hoping to find a route to the interior used by the Indians, so now Escalante's party heads for the north, on the east of the basin, looking for a route across the desert to the coast. The early portions of their journey take them along established routes used by Indians and Spanish traders; in the main it led along a line drawn between Santa Fe and Great Salt Lake to the northwest. Zig-zagging about to find passes over the mountains and fords across the rivers, visiting native villages to show the Indians the way to Heaven and to learn from them a road to the ocean, the little band of ten souls spent many weary days along the water courses of the upper reaches of the Colorado and its tributaries before they came to the eastern rim of the Great Basin in the Wasatch Mountains, at the head of Spanish Fork Creek, and looked down into the desert south of Great Salt Lake. From this point, which they reached on September 22, until they leave the basin at the head of the Virgin River on October 11, their story is that of the first known explorers of the Great Basin. While no painstaking and scientific effort has been made to trace the route followed by Escalante and Dominguez, no difficulty is found in following their general course within the basin. Errors in the compass directions, both in the original diary and in the translations, are at times confusing; but remembering that they were continually seeking a road to the west, and were as constantly baffled by the desert's lack of water and forage, we shall expect to find them following the resultant line to the southwest, over a route used in later years by the trappers and emigrants, and now, speaking roughly, by the Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad.

Somewhere in the Green River Valley the expedition had picked up an Indian whose home was on Utah Lake, west of the Wasatch Mountains, and had persuaded him by gifts of a "woolen blanket, a knife, and some white glass beads" to act as its guide. He took them up the Du Chesne River to the divide between the water-sheds of the Colorado and the Great Basin at the head of the Spanish Fork, which they followed down to Utah Lake.

They spent a few days resting themselves and their animals on the east shore of the lake, finding many friendly Indians there. Escalante notes his opinion that among them "might be formed a province of many large settlements." The Indians told them of a great lake to the north whose waters were salt, the earliest known reference to Great Salt Lake. Escalante makes this mention of it: "The other lake that joins this one occupies, as we are told, many leagues, and its waters are very harmful and very salty; the Timpanois assure us that anyone who moistened any part of the body with it would at once feel that part bathed with it greatly inflamed."

Having explored the valley east of Utah Lake as far north as the American Fork, and having looked across the plains to the northwest and noted the cottonwood trees on the banks of the Jordan River, connecting Utah with Great Salt Lake, the expedition turned south again on its quest of a travelled route that would lead them across the desert to the mission at Monterey, a quest that was doomed to failure because no such route existed. They made

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inquiry for news of Garces, but the Indians knew nothing of him, nor of any lands beyond the desert, nor of any trail across it.

With an Indian guide to lead them to camping spots with water and forage they left the Utah Indians, and traveling to the south-west came to the Sevier River. Two days later they reached the dry bed of Beaver River, up which they continued their journey, frequently suffering for lack of water. In a few days their guide ran away evidently afraid of going so far from home. They followed the Beaver up to the mountains and through the pass. Climbing the mountains they could see the great desert to the west. "Now we could not continue in this direction which was the best for us to arrive at Monterey," says Escalante, "so we decided to continue south until we had crossed the mountain range." Although it was early in October snow began to fall and the supply of food was nearly exhausted. The two padres decided that it was dangerous and hopeless to continue their efforts to find a route to the west, and that they should "go to the south, when the weather would permit, as far as the Colorado River, and from there direct our course toward Cosnina, Moqui, and Zuni;" but when they made known their decision to Dons Miera and Lani, the military leaders of the expedition, it met with instant objection, "because," as they said, "there had not been yet discovered any great country, nor a people so well disposed as to be easily added to the vineyard of the Lord, or to the dominion of His Majesty, whom God preserve. They said we had not become acquainted with any extended provinces before unknown, and finally that we had not added one single soul to the fold of the Church, the obtaining of which is the greatest reward, and worthy of the most extended journey, and of the greatest, efforts and fatigues."

While the military leaders were thus pleading the cause of lost souls to influence the padres they really cared but little for that object of the expedition; but they had been greatly disappointed over their failure to find Indian tribes possessed of gold and silver which they had hoped to obtain for their own advantage in ex-change for beads and trinkets; and their zeal for continuing the journey to the west was based on purely selfish considerations. The disagreement between the military and the spiritual leaders continued, to the great pain of the worthy padres.

We were more and more troubled every day, and it discouraged us very much to see that instead of things concerning Heaven, those of the world were sought for first and principally. In order to make them understand more clearly that it was not from fear, nor from our determined will that we had changed our course, we resolved to free ourselves from these charges. Having implored Divine forbearance, and the intercession of our patron saints, we would endeavor to find out the will of God by casting lots, one for Monterey, and the other for Cosnina, and we would follow the road that should be determined by lot. We overtook our companions, and had them dismount from their horses. . . . We assured them that if the lot were cast for Monterey, we should have no other guide than Don Bernardo Miera, as he considered it so near. We then made them a short exhortation, advising them to put aside all kinds of evil passions, to submit themselves entirely to God, and ask of Him with firm hope and living

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faith, that He declare to us His will. They all agreed like Christians, and with fervent devotion recited the third part of the rosary, while we recited the Penitential Psalms with the litanies and the other prayers which follow. Concluding our prayers, we cast lots, and it came out in favor of Cosnina. We all accepted this, thanks be to God, willingly and joyfully.

Following the decision made by lot the expedition headed south and went over the divide separating the Great Basin from the Colorado River basin and came down into the upper valley of the Virgin River. It is impossible from the meagre descriptions in Escalante's journal to follow the subsequent route of the party except in a general way. The map of Escalante's route accompanying the report of Capt. J. H. Simpson on "Explorations Across the

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CATHEDRAL GORGE, LINCOLN COUNTY

Great Basin in 1859" indicates that the party of Spaniards entered the present boundaries of Nevada in the southwestern corner, in the vicinity of Bunkerville; but this is doubtful. The journal would indicate that having given up their major plan of going to Monterey they gradually turned to the south and east in the vicinity of St. George, in Utah, seeking a crossing of the Colorado River. They spent many weary days in the mountainous country north of the Grand Canyon of the Colorado before they found a fording place, which was not far from the point where the river crosses the Utah line into Arizona.

This crossing was later known as El Vado di los Padres. After crossing the Colorado brief visits were made to the Moquis and the Zunis, where information was received of Padre Garces who had been at these villages a few weeks before, after his own failure to find a traveled road across the southern deserts from the missions of California to Santa Fe. Such a route was later to be established and known as the Spanish Trail; it was not opened for the

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The Indians of the Great Basin were uniformly well-disposed toward Escalante's party. Of those living on Utah Lake the journal says : "The Indians of whom we have spoken. . . . subsist upon the abundant fish of the lake. . . . They also gather seeds and herbs, and from them make atole (a kind of gruel); they also hunt wild hares, rabbits, and fowls, which are very abundant here. There are also buffaloes, not very far away, to the north-northwest, but fear of the Comanches hinder these Indians from hunting them. Their dwelling places are huts of cane, of which they also make curious baskets and other useful articles. They are very poorly clothed; the most decent garment they wear is a jacket of buckskin and moccasins and leggins of the same. For cold weather they have blankets made of rabbit skins; they use the Yuta language, but with a great many changes and accents, and even some foreign words. They are good-looking, and most of them without any beard. In all parts of these mountains, south-southwest, the west and the southeast, there live a great many of the same people as the Lagunas, with the same language, and gentleness, among whom might be formed a province of many large settlements."