The Spanish Southwest: The Dominguez-Escalante Expedition of 1776; An Almighty Gamble

Twenty-eight years before Lewis and Clark set out from St. Louis, a pair of Franciscan priests led a much smaller cadre of men on a monumental exploration through some of the most spectacular and difficult terrain in the future United States, in the process actually discovering more land unknown to non-natives than Lewis and Clark did.

That was a passage from the late author David Roberts in his book Escalante’s Dream, On the Trail of the Spanish Discovery of the Southwest.

One of my favorite places in the whole world, a place that means a lot to me, the place where my wife and I eloped in a red walled slot canyon, but one of my favorite places in the whole world is known as Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. It sits in southern Utah on the Colorado Plateau and its filled with canyons, arches, waterfalls, natural bridges, other geological wonders, archaeological ruins, petroglyphs and pictographs, some of the most amazing drives in the country, and more mountain and red walled filled vistas than you can imagine. So basically the quintessential American Southwest spot. It’s a place surrounded by Capitol Reef National Park, Glen Canyon, The Colorado River, Bryce Canyon, The Vermillion Cliffs, and Paria Canyon. Not to mention, plenty more state parks, national forests, and endless beautiful scenery. The area is also one of the last remaining wildernesses and being there gives one a feeling of semi-isolation. If you couldn’t tell or if it wasn’t obvious, I am in love with that amazing place. But… what’s with the name?

Grand Staircase-Escalante with a hyphen in between Staircase and Escalante is a strange name if you don’t know the history. Being there though, you instantly realize the Grand Staircase part. The entire region from the Grand Canyon to Cedar Mesa, culminating at the top in Bryce Canyon, which is not a canyon but the side of massive cliff, the last step, so to speak, well the whole south central Utah Step region consists of landmarks like Comb ridge, Fifty Mile Mountain, The Kaipirowitz Plateau, Rainbow Plateau, Aquarius Plateau, Red Rocks Plateau, Circle Cliffs, Straight Cliffs, Orange Cliffs, Vermillion Cliffs, the San Rafael Swell, the water pocket fold, and so many others that resemble a Grand Staircase that a giant or a titan or a god would use. So that part of the name is self evident… but what about the Escalante part?

That part comes from the amazing, exciting, and curious 1776 Spanish Franciscan friar led Dominguez & Escalante Expedition. The expedition that discovered more unknown to non American Indian land than Lewis and Clark that I mentioned in the opening. And the land that they discovered for Spain and trekked around and wrote about, that land is the embodiment of the American Southwest. The Colorado plateau and its deep red color, the sandstone spires and slick rock hills and sprawling stair step landscape, the oranges and the yellows and the whites and the hoodoos and the canyons and cliffs, just so many canyons and cliffs… and the mountain ranges and caves and volcanos and rivers. The trees, the wildlife, the sunsets and sunrises and the sound of the wind through the pines and junipers and across the boulders and down the many arroyos… the people! All that I love so much and dedicate this podcast to and visit multiple times a year and read about and have taken tens of thousands of pictures of… the Dominguez & Escalante Expedition were the first non American Indians to explore it so thoroughly and then record it.

The first historian to write about the expedition was Herbert Bolton who wrote in 1951, quote, for the opening of new vistas they belong with Coronado and the splendid wayfarers of Mexico and South America. For their relations with the strange peoples encountered they stand in a class almost by themselves. End quote.

The two leaders of the venture that Bolton was describing and whom I am about to cover extensively, were the 36 year old Dominguez and 27 year old Escalante, and Escalante would transcribe the journal which has been passed down to us and whose name lends itself to the small town and the National Monument that surrounds it.

In a funny twist of fate though, the D & E crew, which is short for Dominguez & Escalante and is a name I will use a lot during this episode, but the D & E Expedition never even stepped foot in Grand Staircase-Escalante. Actually, the closest they came to it was 15 miles. And the town of Escalante, or as the locals call it, EscaLant? 55 miles was the closest they came to it.

In David Robert’s Escalante’s Dream, which I quoted from previously in this episode, and yes, I am again using David Roberts who apparently was interested in the exact same things I am, so this won’t be the last topic I use him for, well, he gives a brief summation of the naming of the town and the monument towards the end of his book which enlightened me. Despite my wife and I’s favorite pizza place in the world being in the town, that pizza being Escalante Outfitter’s King’s Mesa Pizza by the way. But despite driving through the town countless times, eating pizza and fresh baguettes, buying maps and gear and souvenirs, visiting the BLM office for road and hike info, exploring the City’s Escalante Petrified Forest State Park, reading the tribute to the Hole-in-the-Rock Road and the Mormons who made it, and generally loving the small town, despite all of that, I knew nothing of EscaLant’s history.

Like most towns in Utah, it was started by LDS families, these families left Panguitch, which is on the other side of Bryce Canyon, but these LDS Mormons left that larger farming community in the hopes of establishing a place with a longer growing season. So they came down in elevation in 1875 to this lovely little spot and tentatively named it… Potato Valley. Lame… But then, along came Almon H Thompson, who was John Wesley Powell’s brother in law, a man who I will talk about later, or soon, in his own episode with Kit Carson, but the one armed man who would sail down the Colorado River and through the Grand Canyon, that was John Wesley Powell. But Almon Thompson, his brother in law, was a rugged surveyor of the west and of Southern Utah who explored the Aquarius Plateau, the Kaiparowits Plateau, Fifty-Mile Mountain, and my favorite mountains, the Henry Mountains. And the Henry Mountains were actually the last place to be explored and mapped in the entire continental United States. So, excluding Alaska. Well this rugged explorer told these four Mormon men he came across about the Spanish padres who’d been near the area 99 years prior and surprisingly, the Mormons loved it and they named their town after the chronicler, Escalante, although, like I said, the locals today call it Esca-LANT without that Spanish e at the end. By 1923 though, the story was, that the town was named after an old Indian word whose meaning had been lost… like tears, in rain.

And quick side note about my next episode, to keep the podcast flowing topically, the next episode will be about a man named Everett Ruess, who you probably have not heard of, I certainly had not until a woman at the bookstore in Moab told me to check out his story, but the next episode will be about he and his mysterious disappearance from the American Southwest in 1934. How is that relevant? Well, the last place he was seen alive was Escalante.

So I really love Escalante the town, or, I’m sorry, EscaLant, and I love the National Monument named after the Spanish Expedition and since we just got done going over the Spanish conquest of the Southwest, I figured I’d stick with the Religious and the Castilians for one more story as I cover this exciting and quite monumentous journey through the dangerous blank spot on the map that was this portion of the American Southwest and its borderlands.

This is part one of a three part series that will deep dive into this expedition before finally wrapping up the exploits of the Spanish in the American Southwest.

So without further delay, let’s follow the long and winding trail of the Dominguez & Escalante Expedition of 1776.

If you’re an American, which a lot of, but not all of my listeners are, but if you’re an American, the year in the title may have caught your eye. That year is 1776, the founding of this great nation. And of course, the day of our founding or independence, is July 4th, which, is the exact same date, July the fourth, 1776, that the Dominguez and Escalante expedition was slated to begin. Quite the important historical date! Or… it would have been, if some logistical setbacks had not occurred. Oh and if it weren’t for our main character, Fray Francisco Silvestre Velez de Escalante, if it weren’t for him having been bedridden with a debilitating illness. And he’d have that illness right up until he died, which was quite early, at age 30. 4 years AFTER this here journey. A couple days before the fourth though, and actually even before this debilitating illness would cause him to be bed ridden, the leader of the expedition, the 36 year old Fray Francisco Atanasio Dominguez asked Escalante to head over to La Cienega to bless and quote unquote confess some troops who were about to pursue some Comanche warriors through the harsh land. On the 20th of June, some Comanches had killed 10 people only 15 miles south of Santa Fe… well, these warriors needed the Lord on their side before they pursued them in the wilderness. So, off Escalante went to perform his duties.

Once back in Santa Fe, Dominguez then asked Escalante to ride up to Taos to take care of some more church business but this is when the pain and the illness struck. So, Dominguez ordered him to rest up. With all of that, the expedition became delayed some 25 days. In the end, these delays and resting up instead of leaving on the fourth, it may have saved the entire party, for reasons that will become clear later.

A little about our leaders. Fray, the word being short for fraile, is a Franciscan title that can be used only when the entire name is given, I learned. It cannot be used with just the last name, or so I read in the footnotes of the Dominguez-Escalante Journal, and those footnotes were written by Ted J Warner in the 1990s. The journal itself was translated by Hispanic American Fray Angelico Chavez for BYU, or Brigham Young University in Provo, in the 70s, and this journal was obviously used heavily by me for this episode. But Fray Dominguez, I’m not Franciscan so I don't have to follow those rules, Fray Dominguez, or pretty much Dominguez from here on out, he was born in the beautiful city of Mexico City around 1740 and he became a Franciscan in 1757 at age 17.

Another source I used was the beautiful dare I say coffee table book, Without Use of Arms by Walter Briggs. It has wonderful oil paintings by an artist named Wilson Hurley of the places the expedition will travel through. One of those paintings is a beautiful landscape of what Santa Fe looked like at the time. It also has fantastic background information. It’s a great book all around. The title comes from the fact that the D & E crew never fired upon the American Indians they came across, which can’t be said for even Lewis & Clark. They shot and stabbed two Blackfeet Indians, which said violent act, had repercussions for over a century. Well, the author Briggs says of Dominguez, quote, so sophisticated were his views, he may well have been born of the upper strata of this most regal and cultured cosmopolis of all North America. Schooled at the Convento Grande, he knew what was right and proper, and was severe with those who didn’t. End quote.

About that cultured cosmopolis of all North America, he’s talking about Mexico City and back then, before the Mexican War of Independence, the American invasion, the French invasion, the Mexican Revolution, the earthquakes, before all of that, Mexico City was probably one of the most beautiful cities in the world, certainly in the New World. I’m not saying it no longer is! As a matter of fact, a quick search online will pop up hundreds of articles declaring just that but in 1775, D F was the crown Jewel of Spanish rule and Dominguez’ attitude towards his next spot, Santa Fe, proves that he knew it, too.

Before he could get to Santa Fe though, Dominguez had to travel the dangerous 1,600 miles on El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro. Unfortunately for him, he’d get stuck in El Paso due to the quote, state of miserable Panic, end quote, that was being wrought by constant Apache attacks. Briggs says of this time, quote, travelers were being slain, children kidnapped, horses and mules stolen. He and two companion padres were still at El Paso two months later because the vice custodian had written from upriver that it would be "fool-hardy" to try to enter New Mexico now, so sweeping was the siege by Comanches and other tribes there. End quote.

Dominguez left finally in March of 1776 probably accompanying an armed government train, like the ones I described in previous episodes, which were filled with supplies for Santa Fe. It was finally safe enough to leave. Presumably the Comanche were following the buffalo and the Apaches had retreated, since one reason the Apache were even attacking was because of the encroachment by the Comanche. Dominguez’s job in New Mexico, was to report on the state of the Catholic Church there and he was also tasked with obtaining the population of the Indians at each pueblo. But, the cultured Dominguez was… not impressed. From Briggs:

Domínguez contrasted Santa Fe with a Mexico City suburb of "streets, well-planned houses, shops, fountains; ... something to lift the spirits by appealing to the senses." Santa Fe was 'mournful": adobe houses, only one "quasi-street," scattered farms and corrals. "The government palace is like everything else here, and enough said.” End all quotes.

While in the territory though, Dominguez was given two other missions, both central to our story. Both jobs given to him by Fray Isidro Murillo, the Provincial, or head, of the Franciscan Custody in New Mexico. One involved the Father Garces, more on him in a bit, and the other, was to find a route from Santa Fe to the newly established Spanish California town and Mission of Monterey.

Monterey sits below San Francisco in around the center of the Pacific side of the state, on the Pacific Ocean in a large natural bay. You may have heard of Monterey Bay. So the finding of a route from Santa Fe to Monterey Bay is one of, but not THE sole purpose of the coming expedition.

Fray Francisco Silvestre Vélez de Escalante, the writer of the journal, was born in the Spanish mountains of Santander in the town of Treceño in 1749 or thereabouts. By 1767 though, he was across the ocean and in Mexico City where at 17 years old, he too became a Franciscan. In 1774, he was up in New Mexico, where his superiors thought rather highly of him, and he was administering to the Laguna Pueblo. At least, until he was called to visit the Zuni, the following year, the year before the expedition. 1775. Although, in that same year, he would attempt, unsuccessfully, and rather bravely, to administer to the Hopi out on their mesas. Remember from the last few episodes how the Hopi felt about the religious and their popwaqt and the koyaanisqatsi.

He only went to Hopi because while at Zuni, some Hopi, who’d been there to trade, told Escalante to please come visit them, they’d love a visit. I’m not sure how much Escalante knew of the Hopi hatred of the religious but he must have known a little because he sure jumped at the chance to visit the wayward mesas on the periphery of the Spanish known world.

While at Hopi, we learn a little about Escalante, which information I’ve already hinted at, but which helps give some context to the man, his behavior, and his ultimate fate. In a letter he wrote from the Hopi mesas to a friend, Fray Murillo, the same head of the Franciscans in New Mexico, in that letter he documents the fact that he was in near constant pain. He tells Murillo that while he was riding a horse up to one of the Hopi villages, quote, although the ascent of the two hills is very difficult, I went up them without getting off my horse because my urinary ailment had been aggravated by the rough road and the pain was such that I could not walk at all. End quote. While that was a year before the massive journey they would take, this urinary ailment is why Dominguez would order the further delay for the trip I’ll discuss in this episode.

To Escalante’s credit though, he never writes one jot or tittle about the ailment or his pain in the journal during the upcoming trip, despite documenting every one else in the crew’s sufferings… he no doubt was afflicted by whatever it was he had the entire time. I already mentioned he would die at thirty. Well, that death would come four years after the D & E Expedition in 1780 in Chihuahua while he was on his way to DF, or Mexico City in search of a cure for this very same urinary ailment.

As author David Roberts puts it, quote, he was a tough bastard. End quote. David Roberts himself would die shortly after publishing the book Escalante’s Dream. To research the book, Roberts travelled, or attempted to as best he could in his condition, but he traveled the trail of D & E by car with his wife of 50 years while he was suffering from cancer and all of the afflictions that go along with trying to battle cancer. At times it was an emotional read, especially knowing Roberts dies shortly after publication.

Roberts uses another author I’ve quoted at length before when talking about this ailment of Escalante’s when Roberts wrote, quote, John Kessell thinks the urinary ailment was prostate or bladder cancer, and that it killed him. I can relate to that. End quote. A somewhat prophetic sentence… David Roberts would die of complications from throat cancer in 2021. And John Kessell, if you’ll recall, wrote Kiva Cross and Crown which I used extensively in the last few episodes and to whom I owe a lot to for his great research.

As I’ve mentioned, the primary goal of the expedition was to form a route to the coast of California to the newly established Mission San Carlos Borromeo which had been established by Friar Junipero Serra in 1770. Although, the idea for the route or road was presented to the Viceroy and the governor by Escalante, himself! A little history is needed. I mean, obviously.

At the time, New Spain was beset on all sides, but especially in the north, by frightening Indian raids, burgeoning independence movements, the growing British Empire, the French, and the sharpening claws of the Russian Bear. Spies were informing the King of Spain that in fact, Catherine the Great, up in her white kingdom, was wanting to explore down the Pacific Coast from their seal and whaling colonies in Alaska. And that exploration included California. Briggs writes of the predicament, quote, The west must not be abandoned to foreign foes as had the east. End quote. In reality, the Russians wouldn’t establish forts in California until 1812, but the threats were taken seriously, nonetheless. Or at least they were used as justification to receive funding for more exploration.

Enter Gaspar de Portolá y Rovira, who was charged with sailing up the California Coast from the Pacific and finding a suitable bay. He’d set up the first Spanish camp in San Diego, and eventually he’d see, but not stop at San Francisco which he said was a very fine and large harbor which quote all Europe could take shelter in. End quote. Meaning all of European vessels, not the continent. Unfortunately, he didn’t stop there he had to turn around according to him because, quote, not under compulsions from the Russians but from keen hunger. End quote. He’d set out again north from San Diego where he would stop in Monterey bay. There, he, quote, proceeded to erect a fort to defend the port from the atrocities of the Russians. End quote. Atrocities of the Russians…

Hunger really was a problem for these early Spanish explorers to California. It just didn’t rain enough for quick crops and the Spanish hadn’t quite figured out irrigation very well and herds take time to multiply and the Indians wanted nothing to do with these white bearded men who came off their big boats. Monterey was almost abandoned as quickly as it had been established. But it wasn’t abandoned and Walter Briggs writes, Monterey was saved from starvation only by a grizzly bear hunt. End quote. Something had to be done about getting supplies to the Pacific Coast.

Friar Junipero Serra, the man who established the missions, had been along for the ride with Portolá and he actually established 21 missions throughout the modern state of California but this newest, and hungry one, in Monterey galvanized New Spain into finding a way to connect the various northern colonial threads. Roberts writes of this, quote, The viceroy in the capital, Antonio María de Bucareli, was seized with the bold idea of establishing a trading route directly from Spain's oldest northern colony in Santa Fe to its newest at Monterey. End quote. Despite most of the land between the two spots of Santa Fe and the coast of California being an entirely blank spot on the map, a roadway had to be established. And that meant exploration. California promised riches and souls and communication took quite some time from Mexico City to Monterrey by way of ship so they figured an overland route to transport the goods and the word of God would greatly benefit Spain. And the Natives. I learned during research that it actually took 3 years to receive a reply from the king in Spain if you wrote from Mexico City… 3 years. Imagine how long it would take if you wrote your note from Santa Fe, or even California! Roberts further writes, quote, Bucareli hatched his plan. To launch it on the ground, the viceroy turned not to conquistadors in the mold of Coronado, Oñate, and Vargas, but to Franciscan padres. Young they might be, and new to New Mexico, but Dominguez and Escalante were the men for the job. End quote. 

I don’t think Roberts knew when he wrote Escalante’s Dream, even though he came up with that fantastic name, that the expedition, this plan that Bucareli hatched, was in fact, Escalante’s dream in the first place!

But that overland route from Alta California, modern day California to Santa Fe, that was not the only reason for the expedition. As one can gleam from reading the pages of the journal, the men were clearly on the lookout for good patches of land or valleys or riversides where future Spaniards could colonize and proselytize. Escalante is constantly mentioning how this place or that throughout their journey is good for corn or wheat or cattle or sheep or a settlement or a town. Or a mission. So future places for colonies where New Spain could grow was definitely another factor.

With colonies came souls, of course. So places to build missions and churches and set up Catholic bastions of conversion was also a motivator. A couple times during the journey, Escalante promises various Indians that he would return in due time to preach and teach the word of God to them. He never would get that chance, of course, but he meant it when he said it and it does indeed hint at this other reason for the journey. This possibility of more conversions. But the Friars were always on the lookout for more souls, really.

Another quite important motivator for the trip is the strange tale of a Padre, Francisco Garces. Garces was a Franciscan Friar sent to take over the missions in the western American Southwest from the Jesuits after the King expelled them from the missions of New Spain. I honestly know nothing of that story so I’ll skip over that Catholic intrigue but in the 1770s, Garces would himself travel extensively throughout and through the Sonoran, Mojave, and Colorado deserts, he’d also travel the southern Colorado Plateau, portions of the Colorado River, pretty much from the Grand Canyon to the sea of Cortez, and he’d even make it to the central valley of California, the San Joaquin Valley AND the San Francisco Bay. He’d also gain the trust of many American Indian tribes like the Quechan, Mojave, Hopi, and Havasupai. He’d call the Havasupai, the Cosninas, which was the Spanish way of saying Coconino, which was the Hopi word for the Havasupai. Still with me? Escalante would mention the Cosninas a ton throughout the journal, but he always means the Havasupai.

Walter Briggs describes the padre pretty well, quote, tall and oaken, he covered desert and mountain north to the Gila River, west to the Colorado. He made do with jerky, ground meal, a little chocolate. He bore no arms and rode only with God. Fray Pedro Font, an eventual companion, would write: quote, He appears to be an Indian himself. ... at night around the fire, with his legs crossed, . .. he will sit musing two or three hours or more, . .. talking with them with much serenity . . . although the foods of the Indians are as nasty and dirty as those outlandish people themselves, the father eats with them with great gusto and says they are good for the stomach. End all quotes.

Garces was most likely the first non American Indian to ever set foot in the Havasupai or what he called the Cosninas, people’s homeland. You may have heard of the Havasupai, you may have even seen pictures of their homeland, but who are the Havasupai?

After seeking refuge from the turbulent times of the 1200s, you know, that time of civil war and fires and man corn, well in the 13th century, these Yuman speaking American Indians sought refuge at the bottom of a canyon, a tributary canyon that leads to the Grand Canyon. A canyon now called Havasu Canyon. Briggs has a great description of the Havasupai where he quotes an anthropologist so I’ll use that:

Ethnologist Frank H. Cushing wrote in 1882: quote, At times, so impossible does it seem for any living thing to pass further that nowhere can a trail be traced; when a turn to some crack in the rock, almost hidden by intervening boulders, and hewn down with stone hammers to give precarious footing, shows where it goes up or descends. End quote. Because of delightful streamside groves below, Cushing called the Havasupais the Nation of the Willows. Actually, their name means Blue and Green Water People. End quote.

If you’ve seen the pictures of their canyon, their pools, or their waterfall, you know the name Blue and Green Water People fits very well.

In the winter, it is dark and cold and wet so they live outside of the canyon in plots of land the Spanish called rancherias, where they farm. Although according to Briggs, quote, in time some Havasupais apparently made their rancherías semi-permanent, though the abyss remained their heart-land. End quote.

Here’s one more big quote, for now, from Briggs. I know I’m quoting him a lot but he writes so… poetically:

From the Colorado Father Garcés headed east, his eyes on New Mexico. After passing among friendly Hualapais, he was urged by equally friendly Havasupais to visit their heartland. The trail was, now he’s quoting Garces himself, quote, some three handbreadths wide, end quote, along a quote, unquote, hideous abyss with a final descent by wooden ladder. Garcés had now done what Escalante had vowed to do . .. and become as well the first Spaniard known to have visited the Blue and Green Water People in Havasu Canyon. End quote.

Escalante, you see, ALSO, really wanted to visit the Cosninas, especially after he talked to a few during that ill fated Hopi trip where he had the urinary ailment. A Havasupai man approached him and told Escalante that they wanted him to visit their land and convert them… to which Escalante, rather cinematically, quote, lit a cigarette . . . then gave it to him. End quote. They smoked that one down, and then lit another one which made the Havasupai man quote unquote serene and happy. He then told him that despite his extreme desire to come visit them right there in that moment, he simply couldn’t on account of his ailment. But he wanted the man to know that he already loved the Cosninas people as if they were his own sons. He then promised to visit them one day and he gave the man a pouch of tobacco for he and his people to smoke, quote, as if I were present. End quote.

Obviously, Escalante had a growing to do list, and visiting the Cosninas was on it.

So Garces, this massively brave and hearty Friar was out there wandering around some of the harshest terrain in the American Southwest and preaching among people who may have been cannibals, at least that was the rumor at the time, but he was preaching to distant people who were definitely not always friendly to encroaching Spanish. During his travels, word of his whereabouts or if he was still alive or not would take some time to make it to his fellow friars. Even the Viceroy Bucareli wanted word from Garces, and told D & E that himself. So the entire time that D & E are out on their own far reaching expedition, the two leaders would constantly ask about their fellow padre, Garces. They’d pretty much ask every party of American Indians they’d find to which they all would reply with… I’m sorry, who?!

To be fair, they’d also ask every Indian if they knew the way to the Cosninas which, the mostly Utes they’d come across were like, the what now?

Garces himself would end up living the dream of every Franciscan Friar and he’d get himself martyrd in Yuma after a dispute with the tribes there. They clubbed his head to death and left him in the church during the Yuma uprising of 1781.

I know I’ve mentioned multiple times about how the Franciscan Friars love putting themselves in harms way or openly walking into death traps. I know I’ve mentioned their love of assisted suicide and martyrdom and their chance to meet God early but it wasn’t until i was reading Roberts Escalante’s Dream and then digging a little deeper that I understood why. It turns out, the founder of the Franciscan Order, St Francis of Assisi, way back in the 1100s wrote that martyrdom was the fulfillment of God’s plan and design. He would write quote, a servant of God ought always to desire to die and to end by the death of a martyr. End quote. To understand why he wrote that in the 1100s, it helps to remember that this was the heady days of the Crusades into Jerusalem and the holy land.

Even before Assisi headed to the middle east, the Italian fought in a war at 19 years old against another Italian City State but he got captured and was imprisoned for a whole year. Until his father paid his ransom and bailed him out. Later, after donning some gold armor apparently, he would attempt to travel to Jerusalem in the Fifth Crusade but he was stopped by a shipwreck near Italy. Not allowing that to ruin his plans, in that same Crusade, he’d travel to North Africa where he’d get himself captured by the Muslims and brought before the Sultan of Egypt. He no doubt, at this unfortunate turn events, was ecstatic to fulfill his own wishes of martyrdom but instead, the king liked him so much that he sent him back to the Crusaders unharmed. Despite his feelings on the coolness of suicide, he would die peacefully at 44 years old.

All of this helps explain all the friars death wishes I’ve talked about over the last few episodes. But its a little more than that too. Apparently, the Franciscans were pretty keen on the idea of ushering in the second coming as quickly as possible and they were sure it was just around the corner. That’s why they had to convert as many Indians as they could as quickly as they could. If Jesus was coming back very soon, and if you only got to heaven by accepting Jesus, it was imperative that the people be converted! So they could be saved!

I wish I had known this way back when, but at least i know it now. And so do you if you hand’t already. It helps explain a lot of the Religious actions throughout the last couple hundred years in the New World. They needed to convert for the preservation of the Indians souls and if they died doing it, that’s all the better for the martyrd friar.

This helps explain a lot of D & E’s actions on this trip throughout the Southwest too, which you will learn about. Constantly, the fathers ignore the warnings of Indians about other dangerous Indians over the horizon. Constantly they travel through areas that were not the smartest or safest. Roberts actually sums up their somewhat craziness when he wrote, quote, That genuine death wish, so anathematic to our modern sensibility, helped explain, I thought, Domínguez and Escalante's repeated answers, whenever Indians warned them that the tribe the next valley over would surely kill them, that they had nothing to fear because God was on their side. End quote.

Actually, even before this D & E Expedition, when Escalante was out 130 miles west of Zuni attempting but failing to convert the Hopi from Kachina to Christ, I had mentioned this jaunt westward earlier, but when the brave father was among the Hopi pueblos and after he’d accepted failure, he was about to head back when he received some news from a sympathetic Hopi. This man from Walpi told him that he himself had overheard some Navajo man plotting and planning on killing him with 100 Navajo warriors as soon as Escalante was outside of town. That would be some troubling news for me but for Escalante… he was not shaken. Nor stirred. Instead, he replied, quote, that I was very grateful to him for the warning, [but that] . .. he was to tell them from me that even all of them were too few to carry out their intention; that if they liked, they might seek the aid of other tribes, but even if many went forth, they would have an exceedingly costly trial of their weakness and my safeguard. End quote.

This response kinda confused the Hopi man who was risking his own life to give Escalante such a warning so he got up, perplexed, and grabbed some other Hopi friends who had also heard and they all agreed and told Escalante, yeah man, those Navajo dudes are totally gonna kill you out in the painted desert.

Surprisingly, or, not surprisingly, Escalante was still unfazed. This was obviously because, in his own words, he wasn’t afraid of these Navajo thugs, quote, because I trusted in God Who is infinitely more powerful than all the men there ever were, are, or will be. End quote. Talk about faith. This attitude of invincibility unless of course it is God’s will he should be taken into heaven, but this armor of faith, as Roberts aptly called it, he wears it proudly the entire trip.

So, in terms of motivations for the expedition, we’ve got the trail to Monterrey from Santa Fe and the maps and knowledge that would bring. There’s the chance to convert American Indians to god. There’s the scouting of good land for future colonies. And we’ve got finding the Cosninas and finding Garces… but there are more motivating factors.

Another possible reason that D & E were making this journey that is never discussed outright in the journal but is indeed hinted at, and it is discussed in letters, but that reason is the finding and locating of a certain, by this time, almost ancient lost band of Spaniards. Ancient as in hundreds of years lost in the wilderness of North America.

In 1770, 6 years before the expedition that D & E were about to undertake, Escalante received a letter by Fray Damián Martínez which recounted a story Martínez had heard from a Navajo friend. The story, according to Martínez goes like this:

On one of the forays he made with them [his people] they traveled between north and west as far as the river called El Tizón, on the shore of which he found a white man on horseback with clothing and armament of the type we use. He spoke to him in Castilian and in his Navajo language, and he says that the man did not reply but only smiled to himself when he used our language. This Indian and his companions observed among the groves on the opposite bank of the river a number of smokes, as if from chimneys and some plantings. ... They waited a while to observe the ford and the route which the white man was taking, but the said man remained motionless on this side until, tired of waiting, they turned back. End quote.

You’re telling me there’s a long lost secret band of Spaniards out beyond the Rio Tizon aka, the Colorado River, by the way, but beyond the Rio Tizon somewhere on the Colorado Plateau out in the great American Southwest? I did not know this prior to researching this episode, but apparently, ever since Coronado, over 230 years prior, there had been rumors amongst the Spanish about a lost colony of Spaniards wearing Spanish armor and speaking Castilian Spanish. The rumors weren’t just among the Spanish though.

Briggs writes of these European rumors well:

Looking from the east the French and British knew about them from Baron de Lahontan and many another Ouixotic writer: an isolated colony of sophisticated Welsh; white, dwarf and bearded Indians; fancy costumes, gold-studded boots, gilded pearls; opulent cities along a great river or vast sea. A French Jesuit missionary scholar had written: "I have good reason to think that there are in this continent either Spanish or some other European colonies much more to the north than what we know of New Mexico and California. End quote. All this was in print. Like the Bible, all books were gospel truth. End all quotes.

A year before the expedition, in 1775, when Escalante was at the Zuni peublo, he wrote to another Fray friend about his upcoming trip north. In this letter about the lands he would explore, he wrote, quote, here it is believed the Spaniards or white people whom the Yutas say they have seen many times may be descendants from those 300 soldiers whom Captain Alvarado left when he entered by the Rio Colorado at the beginning of the conquest. End quote.

There’s a lot to unpack here… First of all, Captain Alvarado was sent by Coronado way back in the entrada of 1540 with his 100 soldiers, not 300, to Zuni and then back EAST to look for the Seven Cities of Cibola or Quivira on the great plains. Way east. So Alvarado and his 100 soldiers did not get lost further west or north… he actually didn’t get lost east either, he didn’t get lost at all. He totally died in peace in Mexico in 1550. That’s documented. But apparently, by the 1770s, over two hundred years later, this information was forgotten and a legend had been born and grown and now the Navajo were seeing white bearded Spanish speakers with little cottages in the sandstone playground of the Colorado Plateau north of the Colorado River and the Yutes were running into Spanish in the wilderness as well. And by golly, Escalante was going to find them… at least when he wasn’t looking for the Land of Tewayo, the place of emergence for the Tewa speaking people aka the Lake of Copala where the Aztecs and the supernatural beings that spoke to Popay were from…

That last motivator, to look for the fabled Lake of Copala and the Land of Tewayo that I have covered extensively in the past many episodes, of that motivator, I will cover more about later.

In reality, not even Escalante really believed the lost colony rumors but he was prepared to find out once and for all if they were true. In a letter he wrote to a friend, the young friar said, quote, I do not give great weight to this opinion, but if it were true, this discovery would be of the utmost utility ... to both Majesties. End quote. Both majesties being the King and God.

When writing to the viceroy, above his superior’s head, by the way, but when he was suggesting this overland route and this mission to discover and explore, Escalante imagined it would take them about three months to reach the Pacific. He also estimated the distance to Monterey from Santa Fe and he was surprisingly close. He was actually a little further than reality. He also guessed that they’d be able to reach Monterey by that same mysterious western river that Garces was looking for. That same western river that Lewis and Clark would look for later. That same western flowing river that many an expedition assumed would take people easily to the Pacific. Unfortunately, that river just doesn’t exist.

But if you look at it from these early explorers and Europeans point of view, the fact that this river should be there kinda makes sense. The St Lawrence river flowed east in the north. The Mississippi flowed south and covered so much land. Not to mention in the Southwest there’s the Rio Grande and the Colorado. Surely, something must flow west from the mountains, right? There had to be an easy Mississippi, St Lawrence style route. Of course, there is not. The sierras, the great basin and its draining landscape, and other twists of geography and geology take care of that as we know now.

He also suggested they go north to get to California through friendly Ute Land, because that would avoid the people who called themselves the Peaceful Ones, the Hopi, who, according to Escalante and some Havasupai, but the Hopi had recently killed 6 Cosninas who were trying to make it to Santa Fe so their people may have Christianity. You’ll hear later about how much Escalante truly despised the Hopi.

The young friar also suggested for the expedition, 20 men who were quote, well-armed and prepared to go as far as might be convenient. End quote. And in charge of that team, would be Dominguez, and Escalante. 

Briggs writes of the two, quote, Domínguez saw eye to eye with his junior. They would travel together. “In my judgment it was so necessary and proper," he now wrote Murillo, "that from that very night we made a pact for the two of us to undertake to seek out persons who might be useful to us in the enterprise.” End quotes. The two were putting together a team.

Escalante actually already had some people in mind for the expedition and one of those men was a great man who probably deserves his own episode, but will have to make do as a main character in this one, but that man was Don Bernardo de Miera y Pacheco. According to Briggs he was a quote, engineer, cartographer, astronomer, sculptor, painter, rancher, armorer, and lately captain of militia and civil magistrate. End quote. John Kessell, the great writer I have quoted from before, he wrote a biography of M&P and in it he further describes him as, quote: engineer and captain of militia on Indian campaigns; explorer and cartographer of lands never before mapped ; merchant, luckless silver miner, debtor, and debt collector, district officer, or alcalde mayor, rancher, craftsman who worked in metal, stone, and wood, and prolific religious artist. End quote.

Escalante wrote of Miera y Pacheo, quote, there are men of valor [in New Mexico] who would undertake the journey for the said daily wages alone. There is also a paisano here [in Santa Fe] called Don Bernardo Miera [y Pacheco], clever enough for the affair. End quote.

Having been born in 1713, Miera y Pacheco was sixty three during the first month of the expedition which made him the oldest in the crew. The oldest and the most experienced as the aforementioned biographies prove. He fought in and survived five Indian campaigns. Three of which, were against the Comanches. One was against the Navajos at a time when the Spanish attempted to settle them near present day mount Taylor in a reservation in western New Mexico near el Malpais and the Acoma Sky Pueblo.

The record tells us he was married in 1741 in Chihuahua and Kessell describes him as being under 5 feet tall with blue eyes and a straight nose.

It seems Escalante met the brave storied New Mexican when Escalante Escalante commissioned Miera to create a new alter screen for the Church in Zuni. That church that Escalante worked at. Actually, several mission and churches in New Mexico sported his work, although I believe only one still exists today. His work has been described as having quote, ambitious compositions, theatrical poses, a quality of human naturalism, athletic muscularity and realistic details. End quote. That quote was by a Miss E Boyd who was a painter, museum employee and the pre-eminent scholar on Colonial Spanish art in New Mexico. So she knew a little something about what she spoke of.

M&P also gave Escalante a map of the Hopi lands when he went and visited them from Zuni. As you’ll learn, Miera y Pacheco was a fantastic cartographer or map maker. He drew one of the Gila Apache domain, one of the Rio Grande and Rio Concho area. And Briggs says he declined an 8 peso a day salary for that Rio Concho map which must signify, he was pretty well off. He also made a map of the Comanche territory in the Buffalo Kingdom of the Great Plains. He even made a map of the Navajo Nation as it was at the time. Briggs writes further of him: quote, Don Bernardo was not at all humble, as we shall learn.The flourish of his signature would have done proud his contemporary, John Hancock. Yet he was as capable a man as there was around. He was signed on as the expedition's astronomer and cartographer. End quote.

Next up, the two padres asked the 60 year old Don Juan Pedro Cisneros to accompany them. He knew Escalante because he was the Magistrate of Zuni when Escalante had been there. And he probably accompanied Escalante on that failed jaunt to Hopi I keep mentioning and will continue to.

Don Pedo Cisneros also brought along his Indian servant Simon Lucero.

The team’s blacksmith was a man named Don Joaquín Lain who was 30.

A Lorenzo de Olivares came along. He was a citizen of El Paso. And a Juan de Aguilar. At 20 years old, Juan was most likely the youngest on the journey.

As their quote unquote guides, D&E hired a pair of Genizaro brothers who CLAIMED to have gone on an adventure 11 years prior with someone I will talk about later named Rivera. I’m still not convinced the two brothers could be fully trusted, but they said they had gone on the route the D&E Expedition was planning on traveling through, and when not on adventures, they were always trading with the Indians in the area. The brother’s names were Andres Muñiz and Antonio Lucrecio Muñiz. Andres spoke Ute. To what proficiency, I am not sure, but he mostly gets the job done. So Andres Muniz was chief interpreter and guide.

When I introduced these two I used the word genizaro, which is a word I was fully unaware of until researching for this episode but, a genizaro is a term the Spanish would have used for someone who is essentially of mixed Spanish and foreign blood. Briggs writes about them, quote, a goodly number of New Mexicans, after all these isolated generations, were castas, "mixed bloods." Among them were the genizaros. End quote.

A third of the Spanish speaking population was genizaro, according to Dominguez, who also said the Spanish speakers in New Mexico spoke Castilian quote, according to their own fashion. End quote. Remember, Dominguez was a little… hoity toity. He was kind of a snob from the provincial capitol of Mexico City so he frowned upon these territorial pigeon Spanish ways and customs.

The genizaros weren’t slaves apparently, but rather unpaid servants or herders who received Christianity in exchange for their work. I mean… that still sounds a lot like slavery. But, after working as slaves, I mean, hard Christian workers since they’d been sold to whoever… worked them, once they were of marrying age, they were apparently released and on their own. Although, they weren’t really integrated into society for generations to come.

That was Andres and Lucrecio Muñiz and that may explain some of the way they’re written about in the journal but… I don’t take that position. Roberts thinks the Spanish were just a bunch of racists who couldn’t stand these two lower class citizens but as I’ve hinted at, I think these two brothers were up to some tomfoolery.

There’s also the fact that the Muñiz brothers, if their claims of having gone into Ute territory often are true, if they were trading with the American Indians, they may have been doing it illegal and so D&E may have scored at the notion of taking on some rule breakers. Apparently, at the time, in the 1770s, it was illegal to go into Indian lands and trade with them without a license from the Governor himself. Now, of course, people did it anyways, but it was frowned down upon and that’s because as Briggs writes, quote, these excursions were banned primarily to prevent cheating and mistreatment that would inflame Indians against the Hispanos. Even at controlled fairs, Domínguez would say, "our people ordinarily play infamous tricks on them." The illicit traders, precursors of our fabled Montain Men, lived with friendly Indians, savored generously offered sex and saw what there was to see - while, not incidentally, pioneering provinces unknown to the kingdom. End quote.

Not only are the Muñiz brothers possible tall tale tellers, but they are also openly breaking the law by mingling with the Utes north of the border. I think these facts, more than just the padres racism and classism as Roberts suggests, is why in the journal, the two, especially Andres, are so often scoffed at. But you’re also about to hear that… their guiding acumen is less than stellar.

So it was these 8 men, Miera y Pacheco, Cisneros, Simon Lucero, Don Lain, Lorenzo de Olivares, Juan de Aguilar, and the Muniz brothers, combined with our two fearless leaders, Dominguez and Escalante that make up the 10 members of this fateful 1776 expedition into as Escalante put it,

Mysterious Regions. It’s not quite the 20 Escalante had dreamed of for the journey, but they’d prove to be a pretty capable team that would make some incredible history.

To be honest, I don’t think Olivares or Aguilar are ever really mentioned again. But I could be wrong. We’ll see…

There were a few more members of another species worth mentioning though. The last members of their team, were the horses. D&E felt they had been blessed when the governor himself, Pedro Fermín de Mendinueta according to Escalante, quote, not only applauded our plan but also opened his heart and his hands, giving us supplies and everything we might need for the journey. End quote. And the governor did this despite thinking the idea of further expanding the current boundaries of the colony was a foolish and foolhardy idea. He cited the fact that New Mexico and New Spain and Spain herself could barely police and control the current border and people within it. How would expanding help that? But back to the horses!

Briggs writes beautifully of some of the horses that would have accompanied the men, quote: Of the "everything" that Governor Mendinueta was providing it is likely that horses could be acquired for only ten men. These horses were the Spanish mustang, from mesteño for "horse gone astray." The mustang was of two strains, the Andalusian and the barb, the latter brought to Spain by Hannibal two centuries before Christ and in time blooded with the Celtic garron and Germanic horses of successive invaders. Small, wiry and hot-blooded, writes authority John L. Sinclair of mustangs generally, "No other breed was better qualified or could have contributed so gallantly" to the conquest of the New World. End quote.

I’ll say it again later when it comes up, but I believe no cattle were brought. Mules were. But definitely no beeves. Just Mules and horses.

Besides promising that their mission was solely for the quote, glory to god and the salvation of souls, end quote, the men also promised that they would not quote, carry any kind of merchandise, and that those who would not agree to this must stay at home. End quote. This will indeed come up as a thorny issue, later during the expedition. On the flip side, trading with the Indians, which they will indeed do, will save their bacon time and time again. Roberts makes this exact point that D & E didn’t follow their own advice to not trade but I believe that what D & E meant was that no one was going to be trading with the Indians for PERSONAL gain. For the benefit of the expedition and for survival, trading was good and necessary and deemed okay by the team’s leaders and by God. But to gain personal wealth or some personal favors by the Indians? That was unacceptable.

For this helpful trading they would have carried white glass beads, woolen cloaks, woolen cloth, red ribbon, hatchets, and hunting knives. All of these were prized and favored by the American Indians and were common trading goods that the Spanish used.

For themselves, the team was quite Spartan with what they carried. They weren’t out there in an RV glamping around the wilderness, they were roughing it. For food, they had corn, flour, jerky, sugar, and chocolate. Roberts says these were staples of every Spanish expedition so they no doubt brought those important goods, but… it is not likely that the horses and mules could carry enough of that for all ten men for the entire duration and indeed, Escalante will constantly write about how they were out of food and starving towards the end. They’d find some rather unfortunate ways to combat that starvation at times. Including killing and eating horses.

They would have also had ropes, chisels, axes, crowbars, a barrel to hold water for the horses… and a personal bowl, spoon, and knife for eating. Probably no tents or chairs. Or maybe a few tents. Briggs writes of some of the other items, quote, would they take, as had Anza, beans and brandy? His iron frying pans and copper camp kettles? There is no hint that they carried even one of Anza's military tents. Crude tools doubtless were packed for Lain the blacksmith. There must have been a compass. And they had to have either or both flint and steel and Anza's "glass for making fire.” End quote. Anza is someone I will talk about at the end of the episode. Sorry, for his mentioning so many times. He is not on this particular expedition but he does have his own adventures around this same time in the 1770s on the Pacific Coast. He, Anza, brought with him his cast iron skillets and kettles and strong drink but it is very doubtful that the 10 men of D & E carried these items.

Tobacco is mentioned quite a few times and truthfully, it seems all Spaniards in the new world loved their nicotine and tobacco and they felt pity for the man who had none. They would even share it with the American Indians. It is likely that they carried some blankets for sleeping and staying warm, which, won’t always do the trick. There are times they fear freezing to death high up on the Colorado Plateau. Which also means that they did not have the right clothing for the journey either. By late September in the expedition, they’re complaining quite a bit about the cold, truthfully. And speaking of clothing, the brown robes of the Franciscan Friars are now Blue, as the cover for part two hints.

On their feet they wore not the sandals that their fellow friars would have adorned, but rather, they probably wore according to Briggs, quote, against the wear and thorns of the road, the blue cassocked friars probably wore not their order’s penitential sandals, but the stiff soled, ankle high leather moccasins and knee high soft leather legging of the day. End quote. And on their heads, they had the quote, common, stiff leather, broad brimmed sombreros against the journeys sun and rain, end quote. 

They also carried something called an astrolabe which Miera y Pacheco was proficient at but by its own nature this tool is quite inaccurate. So the Astrolabe attempted to measure the latitude of the engineer using it at a time when finding out that specific piece of geospatial information was quite difficult. And actually, finding out the Longitude was impossible. It was helpful tool, if used correctly. Roberts defines the tool like this:

The device, whose origins date back to the second century BS, is used to measure the angle between the horizon and some heavenly body, in D&E’s case, usually the sun, thereby determining latitude. The observer, probably Miera y Pacheco, took his reading at noon, when the sun reached its highest point in the southern sky. The only problem, in an era before accurate clocks had been invented, was knowing exactly when noon arrived. End quote.

Throughout the journal there are many times when the crew stop to use the astrolabe and then the information is recorded, always with the incorrect actual degrees and minutes. Still, those readings helped give the map maker a certain sense of where he was in his incredible mind. It didn’t matter too much that they were always off because it still kinda let them know the general area of where they were in relation to their destination… Monterrey. Although, I don’t even know if they knew where Monterrey was on the globe! Anyways, I’ll be skipping over the use of the astrolabe even though it comes up a lot in the journal and the writings of Briggs and Roberts.

Just a couple more things about what they carried before we begin. These Spanish wouldn’t have had shiny metal armor either, that had become obsolete about a decade prior anyways. Plus no one on the expedition was in a soldiering capacity. But they did have at least one musket as is evidenced by the fact that they will kill a bison with a gun and they will also celebrate a rather important triumph by shooting a musket into the air. Which makes me happy to know that such a long and storied tradition of that practice exists.

But that gun was not meant as a weapon of war. In a letter to Provincial Murillo in Mexico City, Escalante wrote the day before departure, quote, In going without noise of arms, which usually terrifies the tribes encountered on the way, and therefore must be a sufficient force or none at all, I hold some probable hope that god will facilitate our passage as far as befits his honor, glory, and the fulfillment of the will of the all high that all men be saved. End quote. Briggs writes of this, quote, without weapons their progress would be a gamble governed by the Almighty. End quote.

And with that, let’s start this gamble of an adventure.

I’ve been setting up the expedition for so long now, even I was wondering if I would ever get to it.

The Dominguez & Escalante Journal Edited by Ted J Warner

Escalante’s Dream: On the Trail of the Spanish Discovery of the Southwest by David Roberts

Without Noise of Arms: The 1776 Dominguez-Escalante Search for a Route from Santa Fe to Monterey by Walter Briggs

The Report of Fray Alonso de Posada in Relation to Quivira and Teguayo by S. Lyman Tyler & H. Darrel Taylor

The Myth of the Lake of Copala and the Land of Teguayo by S Lyman Tyler

http://npshistory.com/publications/kessell/kiva-cross-crown/chap6.htm Kessell- Kiva cross and crown

https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/juan-antonio-maría-de-rivera

The Phantom Pathfinder: Juan Maria Antonio de Rivera and His Expedition by G Clell Jacobs

The Rivera Expedition by Thomas G. Alexander