Uli] Triumphal Entrada Into Santa Fe
By General Don Diego De Vargas Zapata Lujan Ponce De Leon; taken from the Archives; his second grand entry.
On the sixteenth day of the month of September, date and year above (1693) I. the said governor and captain general, about the eleventh hour of said day, made my entry into the villa of Santa Fe, and coming in sight of the walled village where the Tewa and Tanos reside, with the squadron on the march, and in company with the Very Illustrious Cabildo of this villa and kingdom, its high sheriff and color-bearing alderman, the Captain Don Bernardino Duran de Chavez, carrying the standard referred to * * * and under which this land was conquered, we arrived at the Plaza where we found the said natives assembled, the women apart from the men, all unarmed and abstaining from any hostile demonstrations whatever, but instead, behaving themselves with great composure, and on preferring to them our greetings, saying ‘Praise to Him!’ several times, they answered ‘Forever’; and seeing the approach on foot of the Very Reverend Father Custodio, Friar Salvador de San Antonio, and in his train the fifteen monks, priests and reverend fathers missionary, and the lay brothers of our father Saint Francis, chanting divers psalms as they marched, I got down from my horse, and my example was followed by the said Cabildo, corporals and officers of war, and by the ensign of the Royal Standard in company with the said high sheriff and color-bearing alderman, all having gone out with the purpose of receiving the said Reverend Fathers, who in union with their Very Reverend Father Custodio, came, in processional order, singing, and when I made due obeisance as 1 was passing on my way to the entrance of said villa, and the same thing was done by my followers, and in the middle of the Plaza a cross had been placed, where all present knelt down and sang psalms and said prayers, including the Te Deum and in conclus ion the Litany of Our Lady, and the Very Reverend Father Custodio, attuning his voice, sang with such joy and fervor that almost everyone without exception was duly moved by the happiness of hearing in such a place the praises of our Lord God and His Most Ploly Mother. And after he sang the hymn three times, I offered my congratulations to the said Very Reverend Father and the others.
To the said natives in the plaza of said villa, I told and repeated what our Lord and King had sent
me on, the news I gave his Royal Majesty of their surrender last year, with orders that this Kingdom should be rcpeopled; that with the information I had given of my having pardoned them, and of their obedience * * * all his displeasure had disappeared, and he would again call them his children, and for that reason lie had sent many priests in order that they might be Christians as they were, and that likewise he sent me with the soldiers they saw for the purpose of defending them against their enemies that I came not asking anything of them, but only for two things; that they should be Christians as they ought, hearing mass and saying their prayers, and their sons and women attending to their catechisms the same as the Spaniards did; and the second that they might be safe from the Apaches and friendly with all; and that this was my only object in coming, and not to take away anything. * * * I ordered that if they had among them any bad and malicious Indian they should tie him up and bring him to me to ascertain the truth about what he sard, and in case of falsehood, 1 would order his instant execution, and that in this way we could live as brothers and very happy.
Thanks are due the J. C. Penney Co. for their generous cooperation with the Fiesta in furnishing a great deal of material for decorations and costumes at actual cost.
PUEBLO OF TAOS