REDROAD

This book is a work of fiction and deals with the power of myth, its impact and meaning by a mythmaker storyteller and is often the product of the author’s imagination. Dates, times places, names, characters, should not be relied on. Much of this book is made up of unverifiable stories handed down from earlier times and constitutes the nature of myths without modern man’s proof test. These are stories of legends, myths, dreams and visions. Yet other passages that may have any resemblance to reality is entirely coincidental. Some is a collection of myths about the origin and history of a people and their ancestors, heroes and their way of life. Still others are dealing with supernatural beings, ancestors, or heroes that serve as primordial types in a primitive view of the world. Some are traditional stories originating in a preliterate society giving expression to deep, commonly felt emotions. But not limited thereto. The information is no substitute for any treatment that may have been prescribed by your doctor. If you suspect that you have a medical problem, you are urged to seek competent medical help. The information shared here is designed to help you learn how to walk the legendary Red Road and make informed decisions about that walk.

Cover Design: WHITE BUFFALO AND PEACE PIPE: Original Painting by Michael J. Lavery. Original Peace Pipe by Akkeeia.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any other information storage and retrieval system, now or yet to be invented, without the written permission of the authors and publishers.

Venture Capital, the RedRoad, Christian Covenant and the LemonFast are trademark owned by the author. All rights are reserved. The above trademarks my not be used in any form without the express written consent of the author.

For copies of the following books or CD ROMs “Venture Capital”, “The Red Road”, “The LemonFast”, and “The Christian Covenant” Call, write

Preparing Food 57

THE VISION QUEST 64

Aztec Empire 203

CHAPTER TWENTY-Six

Mesoamerica 210

Appendix

Early Peoples Recipes and Healing Herbs 216

“Great Spirit, all over the earth living humans are all alike. . .
Look upon these humans without number and that these things come to pass. Listen and hear the winds and see the dreams and visions by walking the Red Road to the day of quiet” Akkeeia Comanche 1944-

As you read this you are invited to come and share with me a journey back in time a world unlike any other. We will walk the sacred RedRoad together for the love of life, and shall learn the blending of the old and the new, and the learning of the ancient wonders of life. You will see how you can best benefit by taking the best from both worlds. We will learn how to live in harmony and balance with our own bodies and at the same time have the same harmony and balance with Mother Nature. How it is all connected to the great circle of life through our tribal connection of the spirit of the early Americans and Early Man.

The very earliest Americans are a prehistoric people and the early Americans who followed are the more familiar historic Indians of this land. We’ll call them “Early Peoples.”

I’m inviting you to enter into the sacred circle of that world. Join us for a spiritual, magical, archetypal celebration as you feel the healing of the ancient ways and share ancient and Early Peoples ceremonial rites. Let their soul walk inside you and visit unknown places in your mind. We will learn about the old ways... from the Clovis people to the Arapaho to the Zuni... Discover healthy foods that sustained people for hundreds of years, for longer than we have been a nation, and find out about many natural plants that healed them and some that we ourselves are using today as modern miracle drugs.

We hope to see the past return and the future foretold, learn to live in that harmony and in balance with our Father and Mother Earth.

White mans God was known to many of the Early Peoples as the “Great Spirit Father Sky”. We will learn how to softly walk on Mother’s back again as a people.

On this walk we will attempt to see the world through the eyes of those who went before us. We will travel to many Sacred Sites, places of mysterious beauty, where the land is alive with Creation stories exposed in the sinuous canyons which are rugged mountains upside down and witness Ancient Cultures and peak at spectacular landscapes, Absorb the unearthly luminous qualities of light on rock and vast plateau lands and of brilliant stars at night. This is a dreamscape sculpted by elemental forces. Radiant with sun, quickened by lightning, resonant with many millennia of human prayer honoring this sacred earth. The wind that shapes the wondrous formations gives voice to the indwelling spirit that Navajos call Nilchi'i, the inner spirit of humans, the mountains, the stars and all of creation. This walk is an exhibition of color and form, the mythological landscape of living cultures with roots in another time. We will take time to star and moon gaze and to breathe in the stunning wisdom of sunset and sunrise! The RedRoad will stimulate your imagination. Ask questions. Like who are we? Why are we here now? Pondering, sensing the mysteries of those who came before, who walked among the remote and exquisitely beautiful stone cliff dwellings, pueblo villages and gazed upon other-worldly images left carved and painted on canyon walls. And, in fact, some of these ancient peoples are still here. Hopi, Navajo, Zuni and other Early Peoples warmly welcome us as they share their stories, lives, ways, reverence, earth-spirit ways, around the campfire, and in special places. We come together in a warm circle of friends from many nations telling our stories

Legends and earth wisdom woven with historic color, nature, geology, archaeology and a real peoples! All this in our dreams as while as our waking time. The RedRoad reveals civilizations whose antiquity predates that of the Egyptians. It will witness wisdom acquired through millenniums of observing nature and see tribal knowledge that may never be duplicated.

Through the walk on the RedRoad and for the love of life, we will follow the people of a new continent. Through the Hohokam and the Mogollon, whose irrigation systems brought the deserts to bloom with many foods, you will be told of the mysterious cliff dwellers, the Anasazi of the Southwest. You’ll be shown beautiful hand made pottery, made by coiling and braiding the soil from Mother. You may even hear ancient voices tell the stories that reveal the sources of power and visions... Explore the belief that link living people with their ancestors though vision quest and sweat lodge ceremonies. Witness rituals that have been performed for centuries.

You may even hold regular meetings yourself, attend pow wows, have councils and sweat lodge. Ask those who walk the RedRoad to talk with us and share with us and to help us to better understand things like the role of song and dance. In these words and because of these words you will discover and maybe hold in your hands things holy and most sacred such as Sage Wands, Sweetgrass Braids, Feather Fans, Blessing Sticks, Medicine Bundles, Sacred Rites Peace Pipes, and many other objects of absolute wonder. We will have stories of eyewitness accounts of the Early Peoples of the Americas and hear the shared stories and may even be able to feel the rush of the buffalo hunt. You’ll be able to follow the trail of tears and of broken treaties that lead to battles like, the “Battle of Powder River, Wounded Knee, Rosebud Strong Hold, Big Hole, and Battle Butte.” And we will sense how it felt to stand with Crazy Horse at “Little Big Horn.” We will get acquainted with their great leaders like Red Cloud Cochise, Sitting Bull, Geronimo, Chief Joseph, Quantum Parker, and many others. All of who were people of great loyalty, bravery and wisdom, committed to protecting their people, their health, their land, and their culture...

The RedRoad is a journey through life learning to live in balance and harmony with Mother and if you walk soft and long you may teach others the walk of the RedRoad. The words you will see and may be hear spoken are sacred. They come from our thoughts, our thoughts come from the wind, and our thoughts are visions during our waking time and from dreams as we sleep.

“Dreams are visions as we sleep and visions are dreams while awake, this is where all wisdom and true talent comes .” Akkeeia Comanche 1944-

The Great Spirit has blessed us with the wind, visions, and dreams. The RedRoad starts by learning to listen to the wind and remembering dreams and visions. This can help you in your walk and prepare you for your Vision Quest, your Sweat Lodge, Council meetings and all important matters of your life. This knowledge will help you and help you to help others in saving Mother’s life!

The RedRoad doctrines are holy and sacred, its precepts binding and committed, its histories are true, and the decisions made because of it are important. Walk it to be wise, believe it to be safe and practice it to help save Earth Mother’s life! The journey contains light to direct you; food to nourish your body and wisdom to nourish your spirit, and it will comfort and cheer you. It is the traveler’s map, the walker’s staff, the Eagle’s compass, the warrior’s spear. In the walk paradise is restored.

The RedRoad will take you to mysterious places, unexplained sacred sites, ancient cities, and lost lands.

The Great Mystery is its grand subject, our good its design and the glory of the Great Spirit its end. It shall fill your memory, rule the heart, and guide the feet. It should be walked slowly, frequently, and prayerfully. It is a mine of wealth, a paradise of glory, and a river of health. It is offered and given you in life. It involves the highest responsibility. It will reward your labor, and will condemn all who trifle with its sacredness... All who walk it will forever remember it.

... I have seen that in any great undertaking it is not enough for a man to depend simply upon himself. Lone Man [Isna la-wica] (late 19th century)

THE HISTORY AND VISION OF THE REDROAD

As a young boy I became aware of my grandfather's strong work ethic. I remember him going to work Monday through Friday and often on Saturdays. He would rise well before dawn with my grandmother. They would have their morning glass of Raw apple cider vinegar with some maple syrup or molasses, black coffee, eggs sunny-side up, thick well-done bacon with toast, a wedge of sweet white onion and a hot Chile pepper. The bacon cooked first in the big black iron skillet, and then the eggs cooked slowly with the bacon grease splashed over them. One of my fondest memories was the wonderful aroma that would awaken me whenever I stayed overnight with my grandparents. That early morning coffee percolating on the kitchen stove, bacon & eggs frying in the frying pan, and fresh bread in the oven toasting I thought was a great way to start a day. But even to this day, when I am on one of my early morning walks with my wife, and we pass a home with a similar aroma drifting from the kitchen, it reminds me of those wonderful days with my grandparents. I have never felt that I belonged more, was welcomed more, or was more at home than when I visited with my grandparents. Every workday after breakfast Granddad, as I called him, would journey off to the bus stop two blocks away. In 27 dedicated years on the railroad he never missed a day and was late only twice. He worked long hard hours in the hot southwest summer sun and the bone chilling cold, and sometimes snowy, and often windy winters.

He was an honored member of the railroad’s work gang. The work gangs of those days repaired and built the railroad. Whatever needed to be done, they did it, be it laying the iron track or creosote wooden ties, or driving spikes using a 12 pound sledgehammer, or building wood, steel, or concrete bridges, he did all of this excruciating work with vigor and pride. My Granddad would tell me, “it’s a good job and I’m glad to have it.”

I first heard of the amazing Lemon/Lime and their wondrous properties when I was very young.

My granddad while working on the Railroad as a member of those work gangs some of the gang members that he help get hired were some local Apache and Yaqui early peoples, who shared with us the legends of the Lemon and Limes.

The Yaqui's were well known for there amazing ability to go for long periods of time with very little to eat or drink. In fact, they could travel for days and even weeks with out food or water. This was one of the great advantages they seemed to have over their enemies and most likely contributed to the fact they never signed any treaties or concessions with anyone, then or to this day. Which included their adversaries the so-called superior U.S. Calvary and The Mexican armies. Who in the 18 and 1900’s pursued them relentlessly. They shared with us some of their secrets that were handed down from their ancestors. They told of how they would take Lemons or Limes with them and they would eat the whole fruit and nothing else and that would sustain them completely and they would not get hungry. They claimed they could just add some water from time to time from remotely scattered desert springs along with wild honey combs and an occasional herb tea (sage) and that would in able them to go even longer without any other food of any kind. Yet stay strong, healthy and mentally alert.

My Granddad said, “the Yaqui always have been and always will be.” They were in the area long before the apaches, Spanish or anyone else. Their origins date beyond written record, and for millenniums they lived in the valleys around the Rio Yaqui River in Sonora, Mexico. The Spanish, invading Mexico in search of treasure in 1517, conquered the Aztecs in 1521 and in 1533 finally reached Rio Yaqui. Following their first incursion into Yaqui territory, battle-hardened Spanish soldiers retreated. They claimed the Yaquis were the fiercest warriors and best battle tacticians they had faced in New Spain. The Yaqui were the only peoples the Apaches feared and it was most likely more respect then just fear as the Yaqui helped to hide the Apache and would welcome them to their land of the fibulas Sonora as brothers.

A special relationship with the Spanish eventually developed. However, even into the 20^th Century, the Yaquis, who did not consider themselves a conquered people, fought unwanted intrusions into their lives and territory, first against the Spanish and then the Mexican and U.S. governments. Because of the fierceness of the Yaqui, government military forces only periodically overwhelmed Yaqui communities, separating families and sending Yaqui men to distant parts of Mexico to live in forced labor conditions. Mexican military occupation of Yaqui territory continued into the 1970s.

In the early 1880s, as railroads dominated shipping between the United States and Mexico, railroad companies came to appreciate the Yaqui’s work ethic. Yaqui workers began moving to job sites in Arizona, and New Mexico creating settlements in and around Tucson and Gila Bend in Southern Arizona, and in a few areas between Tucson and Phoenix and in a small settlement called Guadalupe, now a southeast suburb of Phoenix. They could also be found as Far East as the Pecos River in west Texas and west to the Pacific Ocean and throughout what is called today the great Sonora Desert. Which spread south from deep into what is now called Mexico, and north far into what is now called the United States.

Today, there are more than 12,500 members of the Yaqui Tribe of Arizona, with another 5,000 individuals seeking membership. More than 3,000 members live on the Yaqui reservation southwest of Tucson.

My Granddad was also very fond of the Apaches and many of his friends were numbered among them.

The word "Apache" {uh-pach'-ee} comes from the Yuma word for "fighting-men". It also comes from a Zuni word meaning "enemy". The Zuni name for Navajo was called "Apachis de Nabaju" by the earliest Spaniards exploring New Mexico. Their name for themselves is N'de, Inde or Tinde ("the people"). The Apaches are well-known for their superior skills in warfare strategy and inexhaustible endurance. Continuous wars among other tribes and invaders from Mexico followed the Apaches' growing reputation of warlike character. When they confronted Coronado in 1540, they lived in eastern New Mexico and west Texas, and reached Arizona in the 1600s. The Apache are described as a gentle people faithful in their friendship.

They belong to the Southern Athapascan linguistic family. The Apache are composed of six regional groups: the Western Apache, Chiricahua, Mescalero, Jicarilla, Lipan, and Kiowa Apache. On marriage, men customarily take up residence with their wives' kin. Maternal clans exist among the Western Apache, who depend more on cultivation than did other groups. All Apache rely primarily on hunting of wild game and gathering of cactus fruits and other wild plant foods. The Western Apache (Coyotero) traditionally occupy most of eastern Arizona and include the White Mountain, Cibuecue, San Carlos, and Northern and Southern Tonto bands. The Chiricahua occupy southwestern New Mexico, southeastern Arizona, and adjacent Mexican states of Chihuahua and Sonora. The Mescalero (Faraon) live east of the Rio Grande in southern New Mexico, with the Pecos River as their eastern border. The Jicarilla (Tinde) range over southeastern Colorado, northern New Mexico, and northwest Texas, with the Lipan occupying territory directly to the east of the Jicarilla. The Kiowa Apache (Gataka), long associated with the KIOWA, a Plains people, range over the southern plains of Colorado, Oklahoma, and Texas.

The Apache attained their greatest fame as guerrilla fighters defending their mountainous homelands under the Chiricahua leaders Cochise, Geronimo, Mangas Coloradus, Victorio, Nana and Juh. Today the Apache occupy reservations in New Mexico and Arizona, with some Chiricahua, Lipan, and Kiowa Apache in Oklahoma. In 1680 the Apache population was estimated at 5,000; in 1989 it was estimated at about 30,000, of whom most live on reservations. While accommodating to changed economic conditions, the Apache on reservations have maintained much of their traditional social and ritual activities. Their invincible spirit is still shown today by an energy and fire that makes them a strong and hardy people in modern day society.

The Jicarilla are part of the Apache people. The name Jicarilla means "little basket," deriving from the expertise of their women in making baskets of all sizes, shapes, and colors. Within recent times, they make their homes in southeastern Colorado and northern New Mexico, though a few groups went to Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. Originally they came from northwestern Canada among the migration of Athapascan language tribes, then along the eastern flank of the Rocky Mountains. When first met by explorers in the 1540s, they were called the Vaqueros by the Spanish. Though the Spanish established a mission for Jicarillas in 1733 near Taos, New Mexico, it did not succeed. Later, in 1880, the government set aside a reservation for the Jicarillas in the Tierra Amarilla region of New Mexico. Today they live on their reservations in Arizona and in Rio Arriba and Sandoval Counties, New Mexico.

Apaches have always been inherently aware of earth and sky spirits. From their early morning prayers to the Sun-God, through their hours, days, and their entire lives--for them every act has sacred significance.

My Granddad was the epitome of a real rail-road-man. He wore his cream colored long johns, his Railroad bibbed Blue overalls with his red bandanna, and his hard leather boots, all as if they were his second skin. And, of course, he was never without his gold railroad “Santa Fe Special” pocket-watch with the copper chain and leather tabs. He wore that watch like a badge of honor.

My granddad was a big man, nearly six-feet tall. He had a dark leathery complexion with strong features revealing his Early peoples heritage. He was a man of conviction. He was a man not afraid of hard work. He had worked hard all of his life. Even before he worked on the railroad, he worked his own Farm/ranch, raised cattle and was a blacksmith near Clayton, New Mexico. Folks would bring him blacksmith work from a hundred miles around. The famous Santa Fe Trail and its cut-off the Cimarron Trail run right along side his farm/ranch for over a 1/4-mile. Today, as I stand their, a chilling fall wind whistles through the rusty barb-wired cedar posts and waving tall grama grass,... just tall grama grass covers the still remaining deep indentations carved into the hard weathered earth from bygone years of settlers passing in their great mode of travel, the Prairie Schooners, and early trade wagons. The prairie schooner loaded with all of there earthly belongings must have looked like a sail boat with its canvas cover blowing in the wind and appearing to be sailing across the golden prairie on wheels. Like "sails on a sea of grass." This description of covered wagons inspired the name Prairie Schooner.

The most common wagons used for hauling freight back East were the Conestogas, developed in Pennsylvania by descendants of Dutch colonists. Conestoga wagons were large, heavy, and had beds shaped somewhat like boats, with angled ends and a floor that sloped to the middle so barrels wouldn't roll out when the wagon was climbing or descending a hill. Like the covered wagons of the western pioneers, it had a watertight canvas bonnet to shelter the cargo. Conestogas were pulled by teams of six or eight horses and could haul up to five tons.

Traders on the Santa Fe Trail adopted the Conestoga design for its durability and size, but they found that bullwhackers or muleskinners were preferable to teamsters -- the immense distances and scarcity of good water along the Santa Fe Trail precluded the use of horses as draft animals. Teams of up to two dozen oxen or mules were used to haul the heaviest loads. Sometimes a second wagon, or "backaction," was hitched behind the lead wagon.

Overlanders on the Oregon Trail, in contrast, quickly learned that Conestoga wagons were too big for their needs: the huge, heavy wagons killed even the sturdiest oxen before the journey was two-thirds complete. Their answer to the problem was dubbed the "Prairie Schooner," a half-sized version of the Conestoga that typically measured 4' wide and 10' to 12' in length. With its tongue and neck yoke attached, its length doubled to about 23 feet. With the bonnet, a Prairie Schooner stood about 10' tall, and its wheelbase was over 5' wide. It weighed around 1300 pounds empty and could be easily dismantled for repairs en route. Teams of 4 to 6 oxen or 6 to 10 mules were sufficient to get the sturdy little wagons to Oregon. Manufactured by the Studebaker brothers or any of a dozen other wainwrights specializing in building wagons for the overland emigrants, a Prairie Schooner in good repair offered shelter almost as good as a house.

The wagon box, or bed, was made of hardwoods to resist shrinking in the dry air of the plains and deserts the emigrants had to cross. It was 2' to 3' deep, and with a bit of tar it could easily be rendered watertight and floated across slow-moving rivers. The sideboards were beveled outwards to keep rain from coming in under the edges of the bonnet and to help keep out river water. The box sat upon two sets of wheels of different sizes: the rear wheels were typically about 50" in diameter, while the front wheels were about 44" in diameter. The smaller front wheels allowed for a little extra play, letting the wagon take slightly sharper turns than it would otherwise have been able to negotiate without necessitating a great deal of extra carpentry work to keep the bed level. All four wheels had iron "tires" to protect the wooden rims, and they were likewise constructed of hardwoods to resist shrinkage. Nonetheless, many emigrants took to soaking their wagon wheels in rivers and springs overnight, as it was not unheard of for the dry air to shrink the wood so much that the iron tires would roll right off the wheels during the day.

Hardwood bows held up the heavy, brown bonnets. The bows were soaked until the wood became pliable, bent into U-shapes, and allowed to dry. They would hold their shape if this was done properly, which was important to the emigrants: if the wagon bows were under too much tension, they could spring loose and tear the bonnet while the wagon was jostled and jounced over rough terrain. The bonnets themselves were usually homespun cotton doubled over to make them watertight. They were rarely painted (except for the occasional slogan such as "Pike's Peak or Bust" in later years) as this stiffened the fabric and caused it to split. The bonnet was always well-secured against the wind, and its edges overlapped in back to keep out rain and dust. On some wagons, it also angled outward at the front and back, as shown in the illustration above, to lend some additional protection to the wagon's interior.

While wagons were minor marvels of Nineteenth Century engineering, they inevitably broke down or wore out from the difficulty and length of the journey. Equipment for making repairs en route was carried in a jockey box attached to one end or side of the wagon. It carried extra iron bolts, linch pins, skeins, nails, hoop iron, a variety of tools, and a jack. Also commonly found slung on the sides of emigrant wagons were water barrels, a butter churn, a shovel and axe, a tar bucket, a feed trough for the livestock, and a chicken coop. A fully outfitted wagon on the Oregon Trail must have been quite a sight, particularly with a coop full of clucking chickens raising a ruckus every time the wagon hit a rock.

There was only one set of springs on a Prairie Schooner, and they were underneath the rarely-used driver's seat. Without sprung axles, riding inside a wagon was uncomfortable at the best of times. Some stretches of the Trail were so rough that an overlander could fill his butter churn with fresh milk in the morning, and the wagon would bounce around enough to churn a small lump of butter for the evening meal. The simple leaf springs under the driver's seat made that perch tenable, but not particularly comfortable. The illustration above does not show the driver's seat, and its placement of the brake lever is questionable. The brake lever was usually located so it could be pressed by the driver's foot or thrown by someone walking alongside the wagon, and it was ratcheted so the brake block would remain set against the wheel even after pressure was taken off the lever.

While Prairie Schooners were specifically built for overland travel, many emigrants instead braved the Oregon Trail in simple farm wagons retrofitted with bonnets. Farm wagons were typically slightly smaller than Prairie Schooners and not as well sheltered, as their bonnets usually were not cantilevered out at the front and back, but they were quite similar in most other respects.

The trade wagons on the other hand were massive, as tall as a man’s head, with wooden heavy iron-rimmed wheels, wheels that could be heard crackling under a load of 2 tons or more of needed supplies. The load would often consist of badly needed items by the travelers and soon to be settlers. Those trade wagons were something like a traveling trading post with such typical things to sale as guns, knives, tools, pots, iron skillets, calico, tobacco, food stables like bags of flour and sugar with other various sundry supplies. Oxen, horse, or mule drew these great wagons across the now eerie silence of the vast prairie.

You have to be careful not to pack too much!

In the desert between present-day Lovelock and the Sierras, exhausted pioneers had to jettison much of their cargo just to be able to keep going:

"A scene of destruction began. Trunks, bags, boxes were brought out, opened and ransacked. Cut down to 75 lbs. a man. The scene can be easily imagined. In the evening the plain was scattered with waifs [stray articles] and fragments, looking as though a whirlwind had scattered about the contents of several dry goods, hardware and variety shops."

This much food was suggested for each adult in the group:

200 pounds of flour
30 pounds of pilot bread (hardtack)
75 pounds of bacon
10 pounds of rice
5 pounds of coffee
2 pounds of tea
25 pounds of sugar
½ bushel of dried beans
1 bushel of dried fruit
2 pounds of saleratus (baking soda)
10 pounds of salt
½ bushel of corn meal
½ bushel of corn, parched and ground
1 small keg of vinegar

These ruts that remain stretch to the east and the west horizons and are all that remain offering any evidence of my Granddad’s stories of his old place and of the first major trade route that connected New Mexico to the eastern United States.

The Cimarron Cut-off was the main trade route to the southwest and cut off more than ten days of the trip. But it meant crossing a 60-mile chunk of the feared Llano Estacada. Some of the hazards they had to contend with were not only the weather, hunger and the hard going of the trail but also the roving bands of Kiowa, Apache, Comanche, Pawnee and Ute Indians who roamed across the vast grassland, hunting buffalo but leaving no evidence of any permanent settlements. The Athabascans probably passed through the area during their fourteenth century migrations from Canada whom later was to become known as the Navajo people.

From the turn off the Santa Fe Trail continued on into Colorado where their were fewer hostel Indians, but more water, and where firewood was more plentiful and where their were many trading posts to buy, sale and trade their goods.

The story of the Santa Fe Trail is a story of business - international, national and local. In 1821, William Becknell, bankrupt and facing jail for debts, packed goods to Santa Fe and made a profit. Entrepreneurs and experienced business people followed - James Webb, Antonio José Chavez, Charles Beaubien, David Waldo, and others.
   The Santa Fe trade developed into a complex web of international business, socail ties, tariffs, and laws. Merchants in Missouri and New Mexico extended connections to New York, London and Paris. Traders exploited legal and social systems to facilitate business. Partnerships such as Goldstein, Bean, Peacock & Armijo formed and dissolved. David Waldo "converted" to Catholicism - and also became a Mexican citizen. Dr. Eugene Leitensdorfer, of Missouri, married Soledad Abreu, daughter of a former New Mexico governor. Trader Manuel Alvarez claimed citizenship in Spain, the United States and Mexico.
   After the Mexican-American War, Trail trade and military freighting boomed. Both firms and individuals obtained and subcontracted lucrative government contracts. Others operated mail and stagecoach services.
   Trade created other opportunities. From New York, Manuel Harmony shipped English goods to Independence for freighting over the Santa Fe Trail. New Mexican saloon owner Doña Gertrudis "La Tules" Barcelo invested in trade, and trader Charles Ilfeld ran mercantile stores. Wyandotte Chief William Walker leased a warehouse in Independence and his tribe invested in the trade. Hiram Young bought his freedom from slavery and became a wealthy maker of trade wagons - and one of the largest emloyers in Independence. Blacksmiths, hotel owners, muleteers, lawyers, and many others found their places along the Trail. In 1822, trade totaled $15,000; by 1860, $3.5 million, or more than $53 million in today's dollars.

As I looked around in a whipping wind I could see brown specks of cattle in the distance in a broader landscape which I envisioned the Cimarron, Canadian and Pecos rivers, which are the longest of the waterways. They snake through the sprawling plains of northeastern New Mexico, a land known as the Llano Estacada, stretching north to southeastern New Mexico and west Texas. Also known as Wild Indian Territory.

You can see that time, weather and erosion have not erased the deep wagon ruts stretching across this vast country. I was sensing the stark isolation of prairie travel and was able to glimpse the subtle prairie tapestry that was savored by countless Trail travelers. I was Stepping back in time and enjoying virtually the same prairie vistas and unspoiled beauty that travelers encountered more than 120 years ago.

The Santa Fe Trail on the Kiowa National Grassland affords an almost three-mile stretch of exceptionally well-preserved wagon ruts. This area is reserved for hiking, backpacking, horseback riding and camping. Several windmills along the route provide ample water. The trail is well marked with limestone "Kansas fence posts." One homestead ruin is located at the end of the hiking path.

The Trail across the Kiowa lies between McNees Crossing and Turkey Creek, both resting and watering areas for weary trail caravans. Rabbit Ears Mountain and Round Mound can be seen looming to the west.

Famous Early Travelers
Some famous Spanish travelers in this area include Don Francisco Vasquez de Coronado, who passed through in 1541 on his return to the Rio Grande Valley from his search for Quivira in present-day Kansas. Don Juan de Onate passed this way in 1601 during his tour of "the kingdom and provinces of New Mexico," during which he visited most of the pueblos, the Llano Estacado, Quivira and the Colorado River of the West. Juan de Ulibarri traveled from Taos Pueblo in 1706, passing east of present-day Capulin Volcano National Monument down the Dry Cimarron Valley on his way to El Cuartelejo. Don Carlos Fernandez and 600 Spanish troops met and killed a great number of Comanche Indians on Don Carlos Creek in western Union County in 1774. Sergeant Juan de Dios Pena led an expedition from Taos to the plains, passing through Union County. He was possibly the first to use the name Orejas de Conejo (Rabbit Ears) as the landmark is called today.

Major Steven Long and his 1820 expedition traveling south entered Union County a little north of Emery Peak and continued south to Ute Creek, following the creek out of the county. And finally, an old map shows a trail marked "Buffalo Road" coming from the Taos area to the Clayton area, indicating that the early Spanish settlers in the Rio Grande Valley came out to the prairies of eastern New Mexico to hunt buffalo every year.

There are no known permanent non-prehistoric sites or settlements discovered in this area yet, but we know that many tribes passed through and hunted in the area, including Comanche’s, Apaches, Kiowa, Cheyenne and others. Many arrowheads, pottery shards and other artifacts have been collected and continue to be found in the area, and in the caves north of here along the Dry Cimarron prehistoric mummies and pottery have been found.

They Could Have Used That Lake
Clayton Lake, 12 miles north of Clayton on Hwy 370, was created by the New Mexico Game and Fish Department in 1955 as a fishing lake and winter waterfowl resting area. A dam was constructed across Seneca Creek. Travelers on the Santa Fe Trail couldn't take advantage of the lake, but modern visitors can! Along its spillway are more than 500 tracks left by at least eight different kinds of dinosaurs 100 million years ago.

Trail Sites Northwest of Clayton
Other well-known Santa Fe Trail campgrounds in the area are Turkey Creek Camp (now known as Seneca Creek), just east of Clayton Lake State Park, and Rabbit Ears Creek Camp, located five miles north of Mt. Dora, on A-65. Both are on privately-owned cattle ranches and are not generally open to the public. At a point on Hwy 64-87 between Mt. Dora and Grenville, a one-picnic-table roadside park contains a small monument established by the Colorado and Southern Railroad at the site where the railroad crossed the Santa Fe Trail. The ruts here have been obliterated. Mt. Dora and Round Mound are both Trail landmarks in this area.

Drive a winding, two-mile road to the top of Capulin Volcano National Monument, climbing 1,000 feet from the valley floor. From 8,182 feet, on a clear day, visitors can see the five states of New Mexico, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas. On the west side winds a portion of the Goodnight-Loving Cattle Trail (1867-76). On the southeast side of the crater looms the vast portion of land through which the Cimarron Cutoff of the Santa Fe Trail passed.

Union County was crossed by the old roads, specifically the Tascosa to Springer Road in the southern part of the county and the Ft. Union to Granada Military Road which crossed the mesas north of Capulin Volcano in Toll-Gate Canyon, Hwy 551.

The Aubrey Cutoff was a short-lived portion of the Santa Fe Trail. It began at Fort Dodge, ran to the southwest corner of Kansas, into the Oklahoma Panhandle, up the Dry Cimarron River in New Mexico to the Folsom Falls. From there it went east of Capulin Mountain, south to Wagon Mound, ending at Santa Fe. Some of the early settlers of Madison and later of Folsom, had come up this trail and left the wagon train to make this their home. In places, the ruts of this trail can still be seen.

100 million years ago there was an inland sea in what today is the northeast corner of New Mexico, where scores of duck-billed dinosaurs roamed about near the shoreline. These 10 to 15 feet long 3 plus ton prehistoric creatures left behind 800 footprints that escaped the path of lava spewed from a series of fiery volcanic explosions. Today, the footprints are embedded in sandstone 12 miles north of Clayton.

In the distance you can also see wood and rock ranch houses, brown rusty whirring windmills and the darker brown lava flows of the now silent volcanoes of what came to be known as the valleys of fire.

Abruptly raising from the yellow blanket of grama grass covered prairie floor, stands the remains of a once-violent volcano, which is mainly responsible for the lava rock that you see in northeastern New Mexico. The last time Capulin Volcano erupted was 10,000 years ago. Folsom and Clovis man was there to witness that earth shaking eruption and would have seen the red, hot lava, cinders, ash, and rock debris rocket skyward. What an impressive show, it must have been. No doubt taking many man and beast with its fire and fiery. Untold numbers must have seen the smoke and felt the trembling ground shake for hundreds of miles around. Much of the debris fell back to earth forming a crater over 1,000 feet high, known as a conical mound. The rich soil now shows off wildflowers, which include golden pea, lupine, penstemon, verbena along with paintbrush. Other vegetation, grasses, juniper trees, mountain mahogany, pinon pine, squawbush, chokecherry and gambel oaks cover the cone and slopes. Bird lovers will easily be able to spot gold finches, grosbeaks, warblers, golden eagles, and many kinds of hawks and vultures. Deer and bear can still be seen.

This million year plus shield volcano is more than forty miles around the base, which make it the highest, widest and longest mountain in all of North America, that is not a part of a range.

Capulin is located thirty miles east of Raton, New Mexico via US Hwy.,64/87 and east 28 miles to Capulin, turn left two miles north on NM Hwy.,325. For information call Capulin Volcano National Monument at (505) 278-2201.

Chapter Five

Clayton New Mexico is north of Clovis where US highways 87, 56 and 64 intersect. Clayton is today a town of about 5000 soles and is the county seat of Union County. It remains today much as it was a hundred years ago maintaining the flavor of the old west and is still a cattle town. It holds the world’s largest carbon dioxide deposits at Bravo Dome. The carbon dioxide is used by the oil industry to inject it into oil wells to improve old oil well production. A few miles north of town at Rabbit Ear Mountain were the bloodiest battle ever between the Spanish and the Comanche Indians. A force of Santa Fe Volunteers 500 strong in 1717 attacked the Comanche’s and killed hundreds and captured over seven hundred of them. That didn’t stop the Comanche’s that continued to raid settlers and wagon trains well into the 1800’s.

Clayton hung the infamous train robber Black Jack Ketchum shortly after the turn of the century in 1901. It was one of the most talked about and remembered public executions in the old west. Mr. Ketchum was a big man of close to two hundred pounds and the drop from the gallows yanked so hard that Black Jack was decapitated and his severed head flew into the large crowd of shocked spectators.

Thousands of dinosaur footprints can be found near Clayton. Where at least 13,500 years ago, before Christ, The early inhabitants, known as Clovis people, hunted or defended against the now extinct giant bison, woolly mammoth, mastodon, sloth, camel, dire wolf, short-faced bear, saber-tooth tiger, mask-oxen, horse and who knows what else.

The soil you see is not ordinary soil--it is the dust of the blood, the flesh, and bones of our ancestors....You will have to dig down through the surface before you can find nature’s earth, as the upper portion is Crow. The land, as it is, is my blood and my dead; it is consecrated.... Shes-his (late 19th century Rno Crow

My Granddad would roam all around the area and find remains consisting of bone and teeth of many of those animals and also found fluted spearpoints and smaller fluted arrowpoints, and tools like chipped scrapers. Many made from stone flint, obsidian, jasper, and chert and of translucent chalcedony. My granddad even sent to the Smithsonian a handful of samples but never heard back. After long study of those fluted points and seeing the long flakes were struck longitudinally from the base to there tips they took on the look of a serrated steel Kitchen knife of today. He would practice striking the candidate stone with a harder stone or bone and learned the flaking process that they are believed to have used. His interest persisted and he became an accomplished flint knapper, using only leather, bone and tools. He would try and teach me this ancient technology but all I seemed able to do was get all cut up and bleed a lot. Those points had to be sharp.

Hunting or ambushing mammoths that were bigger than today’s African elephant, standing 14 feet at the shoulder and weighing 10 tons or more. That is likely why the Clovis people were the finest knappers the world has ever known. The Clovis people lived, traded and traveled all across the United States sweeping the continent. In fact we discovered a really nice medium size fluted Clovis point off the Ortega Hwy in Orange Country California. Earliest undisputed peoples of the Americas believed descended from late Pleistocene hunters. Skilled at taking Ice Age animals, they fashioned fluted spearpoints some nine inches or more in length and have been recovered at many sites throughout the Americas. Clovis points have been found hundreds of miles from where the stone to make them originated. Clovis people lived all over the high plains on the eastern slope of the Rockies. Many think that the Folsom people dissented from the Clovis people, and are close cousins to the Anasazi, Hohokam, Mogollon, Mimbres, and many other pre-historic peoples who had certainly lived near by believe it. Some near the Colorado River from the headwaters to Yuma and beyond. Quantities of their other unique artifacts have also been found. Clovis people indeed seemed to have lift their mark far and wide including all the way through Canada and into Alaska. They were hunters. They did not live in caves and therefore didn’t stay in any one place for very long.

It is very unlikely that they buried their dead and is probably why no remains have been found. They are believed to be Homo sapiens who begin appearing in great numbers at about the time erectus man faded, at approximately 300,000 years ago. Neanderthals were apparently rugged and survived the last Ice Age. But by 30,000 years ago they died out and modern Homo sapiens prevailed. That is all that we know about the Clovis people’s ancestry and most likely that is all we ever will know. The skulls of Folsom man are much like Sioux and all other early turtle island people; they are beetle-browed and long-headed rather than round. The first people of turtle Island may be more like Australoids the Australian Bushmen. They are all long-headed and their brow ridges are more marked than ours. They may be closer descendants of Neanderthal man than we are. There are also similar characteristics of the Maya of Central America and the Yucatan, and the Aztecs of Mexico, and the Incas of Peru. Which could explain the boat people and the land bridge going both directions and how the America’s became populated with today’s man. It particularly would explain the coastal early peoples and the raising Ice Age melt water that now floods much of the early evidence which now lays under the Atlantic and pacific oceans. That may some day prove we are all a mixture of that conjugation.

Clovis and Folsom people may have been the first Americans to hunt using the atlatls a slingshot throwing board type apparatus, a spear thrower for propelling a dart or small spear. It is a wooden rod into which you fit the spear shaft. You hold the atlatl in your throwing hand and you cast it. The spear flies off, but the spear thrower (atlatl) stays in your hand. The spear flies truer, faster and is much more powerful because of the thrust and leverage of the atlatl. The whiplash force adds lethal efficiency to spears thrown using the atlatl. To throw it you would swing it back and then forward over your head, snapping your wrist at the very moment of the timed release. The atlatl was the paradigm shaft of its time and was used as a weapon and hunting tool and enabled its user to be much more effective in hunting the bigger more powerful great animals of the time. Used in America until about A. D. 500, when bow-and-arrow technology spread. The bow was introduced from Asia and did not arrive in the Great Basin and the Southwest until about A.D. 200.

Its appearance in the Four Corners region coincided with the introduction of unfired hand coiled pottery made by the Anasazi. The bow far superior as a general hunting weapon, slowly replaced the atlatl that had been in use by the earliest of Early Man.

Blackwater Draw Museum and Site documents earliest Paleoindian culture in North America

James Ridgely Whiteman in a place called Blackwater Draw, in eastern New Mexico near Portales, like my Granddad found spearpoints and the bones of extinct animals exposed by the wind. Later about 1929, Whiteman found a fluted spearpoint and like my Granddad sent the point to the Smithsonian with a letter explaining he had found it with mammoth bones. This time the Smithsonian actually sent an archaeologist to investigate. Whiteman showed his finds and the area to him. Whiteman said ‘the man looked the area over and decided it was too unimportant too work on.” Whiteman like my Granddad was never given adequate credit for his discoveries. In the fall of 1932, Dr. Edgar B. Howard of the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences visited the Blackwater Draw site. By 1933 excavations of the site were started and they found large, fluted spearpoints...just like the ones my Granddad and Whiteman had sent to the Smithsonian years before.

Their was now proof that early Americans had indeed hunted these great animals in North America. An even larger excavation was mounted in 1936 and 1937 and was supervised by John Cotter of the University of Pennsylvania Museum. Still later excavations at the site (at what has come to be known as Blackwater Draw Locality Number One), also revealed remains of short-faced bear, dire wolf, camel, prehistoric horse, bison, giant sloth and saber-toothed tiger.

They also unearthed a 13,000-year old well, the oldest in the New World. These people may have been the first water well diggers of this continent.

After the mammoth became extinct, the Clovis people were force to hunt other animals, such as the bison, and in so doing, I believe they became the Folsom people and still later they then became the more familiar historical tribes of the Americas, all from the seed of Early Man.

For more information about Blackwater Draw visit The Blackwater Draw Museum. Located between Clovis and Portales on US Hwy.,70, commemorating the discovery of Clovis Man on this site. The history and development of Blackwater Draw, complete with fossils, early mans way of life, and replicas of the Blackwater Draw artifacts. The Blackwater Draw Museum is one of the few in the country devoted to a single site; the department of anthropology at Eastern New Mexico State University manages it. It is open Tues.-Sun from 12 p m. - 5 p. m. Call (505) 562-2254.

These early people hunted bison, camels, musk oxen, and among others, giant sloths throughout northeastern New Mexico. Their presence remained mostly unknown until around 1908 when George McJunkin, a New Mexico cowboy and former black slave, discovered some old stone spearpoints like my Grandfather found among large white bleached bones. They where scattered throughout an arroyo close to the small town of Folsom, which by then was a shipping point on the Colorado and Southern Railroads. A friend of McJunkin’s took the bones to Jessie Figgins of the Colorado Museum of national History in Denver. By 1926, and after years of trying to convince people McJunkins was able to convince a important group of skeptical archaeologists to at least come to the site and take a look for themselves. Their findings determined that those big white bleached bones belonged to an ancient and now extinct giant bison and more importantly the spearpoints were those chipped by Folsom people.

Some of the bones and spearpoints can be seen at the Folsom Man Museum, located in the former Doherty’s mercantile building in Folsom New Mexico. (505) 278-2155

Clayton Lake State Park is located just fifteen miles north of Clayton on Hwy.,370, near my Grandfathers place, amidst the yellow grama grasslands that not long ago supported buffalo herds numbering in the millions. The lake is stocked full of bass, trout and some big channel catfish, and has a boat ramp, campgrounds, rest rooms with showers, and a kids playground.

Other large animals roamed the area as well. Dinosaur footprints were discovered in 1982. The tracks or traces are estimated to be over 100 million years old. Other tracks include those of hadrosaurs and therapods.

Park headquarters number is (505) 374-8808 and for even more detailed information on the Clayton area, you can call Clayton-Union County Chamber of Commerce at (505) 374-9253.For more interesting sites go to http://www.clovisandbeyond.org/clovisexhib.html

I was born upon the prairie, where the wind blew free, and there was nothing to break the light of the sun. I was born where there were no enclosures, and where everything drew a free breath.... I know every steam and every wood between the Rio Grande and the Arkansas. I have hunted and lived over that country. I lived like my father before me, and like them, I lived happily.

My Granddad would tell me stories about his family, his beautiful wife and three loving daughters and their life together on the ranch/farm. He told me of one hell of a winter, when the temperature dropped so fiercely and quickly the cattle died frozen while standing. It was that same winter he lost his first wife and family. “It was some sort of plague,” he said. Later, he told me it was, “a calamity of divine retribution”.

Not long after that tragedy, he walked away from the ranch/farm he grew to love so much, and later told me it was one of the most interesting places he had ever lived. Soon after leaving he joined the United States Army by volunteering in the 8^th cavalry Division stationed at Fort Bliss, a U S Army post in El Paso, Texas. The 8th chased Indians, raided Mexico, looked for Poncho Villa with General Sherman and faced off with the Mexican General Escobar along the US Mexico border and the 8th Cav as they called themselves bivouacked (a camping spot while on maneuvers) all over the southwest, and when possible near water. Southwest historian Leon Mets once told me that in the early days in the Southwest where you found water you could find Indian sign.

The 8th relied on my Granddad more than once to lead the troops to water. My Granddad had a nose for that and he told me that, “where you find where water was or where water is now, you also can find Early Man artifacts both prehistoric and historic” and he spent most of his off time doing just that. He and my Dad would travel looking for signs of water, preferably unexplored springs, Hueco (wa-cos) or natural rock water holding tanks, as that was where they were most likely to find Early Man arrowpoints, pottery sheds, mono’s, mutates and other artifacts, and many times pictographs, strange drawings on the rock and in some of the caves, some were even in color. Later I was to learn that they were pictographs drawings from pre-historic man. After what seemed a lifetime to me I was privileged to tag along on these adventures. Which was a journey back in time.

Chapter Eight

Rock Art

Rock Art is found all over the earth, but most are in the US and are most common in the great basin area. But the Coso mountain range of California has the largest number representing more than all other know sites in the world put together. Pictographs. Rock drawings, now more recently being referred to as “Rock Paintings”, which is of two known methods. The first was by applying pigment with an oil binder to the rock. This type is mostly confined to rocks that are chiefly light in color, like sandstone and some other light granites. Some of these can be painted in color using red, black, white and other colors. Some of this paint is taken from cactus called ocher others by mixing mineral earth’s sometimes hematite for red, charcoal for black and kaolin clay for white. They ground them in mortars and were applied with brushes made from cactus and other plant fibers and animal hair.

Petroglyphs or rock engravings are the second way and most often the oldest way. That is to engrave into the surface of rock with a sharp stone tool. Most of which was pecked into volcanic basaltic lava or malpais, which is prevalent throughout the Great Basin. Much of the engraving technique was done by cutting into the rock with a very sharp stone and struck with a hammer stone. This form of early art was mostly found in the desert southwest on many boulders and cliff faces and in some caves.

Who made this rock art? When was it made? Why? To learn more about what these images mean, recent claims are that the purpose and meaning was an intimate part of the ritual of bringing a young person into adulthood and vision quests orchestrated by shaman or medicine men and women. It’s believed by many that they were also used for religious, symbolic and metaphysical purposes and depictions of what they saw on earth and in the havens. It was also thought to be hunting magic. Early man may have believed by painting or pecking the image of an animal on rocks it would cause that animal to appear or perhaps reproduce itself more successfully. There have been hunting magic sites found unknown ancient game trails used as blinds. These blinds were located on or near game trails and almost without exception they were always above the game trails looking down and near narrow gorges or near springs, so the animals could be ambushed. And in some ritualistic magic way the sheep rock art were an invisible aid to early man hunters. It is believed that hunting magic has been widely used from the earliest of times.

Charles Sheldon Hunter, Naturalist and Conservationist in his book “The Wilderness of The Southwest” you’ll find references to hunting blinds on trails he found high in the mountains while Sheldon was hunting sheep from Alaska to Mexico. Sheldon was one of the first known white men to hunt desert bighorn sheep in the Pinacate Country, Sonora Mexico about 1915. Earlier hunted sheep with Havasupais in the Grand Canyon in 1912. And on the Arizona-Sonora Border in 1913 and then later organized an expedition to the Sierra Del Rosario, Sonora in 1916. And still a journey to Seriland , Sonora in 1921- 1922.

Hueco Tanks a place that we have spent a lot of time at is one of the most interesting places I have ever been and luckily for me it happened to be in my back yard and this wonderful place my Granddad and Dad took me there when I was very young. It’s a place where pre-historic peoples and historic peoples who both lived, farmed, made pottery and developed some of the most exquisite rock art in the world. The History is a unique legacy of lively and fantastic rock paintings. From Archaic hunters and foragers of thousands of years ago to relatively recent Mescalero Apaches, Native Americans have drawn strange mythological designs and human and animal figures on the rocks of the area. The site's notable pictographs also include more than 200 face designs or "masks" left by the prehistoric Jornada Mogollon culture. Hueco Tanks was the site of the last Indian battle in the county. Apaches, Kiowas, and earlier Indian groups camped here and left behind pictographs telling of their adventures. These tanks served as watering places for the Butterfield Overland Mail Route.

Just east of El Paso, it features three massive granite hills that rise to about 450 feet above the desert floor and are noted for their prehistoric Indian rock art. Hueco, Spanish for "hollow," refers to the hollows in the rocks that collect rainwater, which has long been one of the chief attractions in this arid land; around 1860 the tanks were capable of holding a year's supply of water. Until about 1910 they furnished virtually the only water between the Pecos River and El Paso. The hills may have been formed thirty-four million years ago by a molten mass of rock ejected from the earth's interior into a layer of sedimentary rock. As the softer stone weathered away, the irregular masses of syenite porphyry (a low-grade granite) were eroded into the present shape and dented with countless huecos. The moisture and soil conditions at Hueco Tanks have supported an remnant oak-juniper woodland that has disappeared from most of the surrounding area. In addition to the Arizona oak and one-seed juniper, many Chihuahuan Desert and grassland plants are found. Animal life in the area ranges from many types of rodents to kit and gray fox, with golden eagles, mule deer, antelope and mountain lions occasionally seen. Several species of desert shrimp can also be found in the huecos following a rain.

Folsom projectile points found at Hueco Tanks show that human beings have been in the area for at least 10,000 years, following the bison and Prong Horn antelope herds. After the big-game thinned out and other animals disappeared, other people came to Hueco Tanks, hunting and gathering whatever food they could find and living in partially underground pit houses. This was the Desert Archaic Culture. About A.D. 1000, agriculture was introduced into the area, and the Jornada Branch of the Mogollon Culture developed; they supplemented their hunting and gathering with farming, made and used pottery vessels, and began building aboveground adobe houses. Excavations by archeologist George Kegley in 1972-73 revealed that a pit-house village probably occupied for a hundred years (A.D. 1100-1200) was located just east of a natural opening into the protected bowl formed by the three outcrops. The village was composed of a number of semisubterranean jacal or wattle-and-daub single-room structures clustered in a thirty by forty meter area. The typical house (six were excavated) was square to rectangular, was oriented true north-south, had two postholes equidistant from the walls along the east-west midline, and had an bowl-shaped adobe fire pit with a collar or raised coping and plastered floor and walls. The living space averaged twelve square meters (130.5 square feet). A step or "altar" was located midway against the south wall on one house, and entry through the roof was postulated. By the beginning of the historic period, Hueco Tanks was being used by the Mescalero and Lipan Apaches and probably the Jumano Indians. Comanche and Kiowa raiders also camped there, as did the Tigua Indians of Ysleta. Each of the three cultures left vivid pictography at Hueco Tanks. An estimated 5,000 pictographs and a few petroglyphs are scattered in more than fifty sites throughout the park. For hundreds of miles around there are smaller but similar sites with rock art being plentiful. Three corners is an interesting site now a state park.

Numerous experimental projects have been performed to halt deterioration and preserve the delicate paintings at Hueco Tanks. Modern graffiti continues to threaten the rock art found adjacent to visitor facilities. My Granddad and Dad and I and sometimes with a few close friends have seen those similarities near Van Horn Texas, north and west of Dell City Texas, numerous sites north East and West of the Hueco Tanks. Most if not all the mesa’s, buttes and mountain tops in the area you will also see Pottery Shards, arrow points and spear points in addition to the rock art. Alamo Mountain in and around the spring. Much of the Sacramento mountain range is full of caves shafts and tunnels and early man sites many with ruins some recorded and some not. The highest mountain peak in Texas is close by and is honey combed with caves and the steams even have trout. And during your travels in and around this country you’ll spot antelope herds sometime in the hundreds. Most of the San Andres Mountains, Organ mountains, Franklins, Guadalupe Mountains, Guadalupe Pass, Sierra De Juarez Mountains, Chihuahua Mt., Florida Mt., Mount Riley, Tres Hermanas Mountains are loaded with wild life early Peoples ruins and presious metals. Just northwest of Columbus New Mexico is Big Hatchet Mountains, Hatchita Peak, Alamo Hueco Mountains, Apache Hills, Sierra De San Luis south into Mexico from Animas Valley and is really just an continuation of the Animas Mountain range in New Mexico. And over into Arizona the Chiricahua Mountains are loaded with goodies that most people will never see. Cooks peak, and the Gila Wilderness are all good places to look over. You may also if you keep an eye out you could find some gold, Silver or Copper. Often they run together. On either side and high on mesas or the higher ground of the Rio Grande, Sacramento and Members rivers you can find ruins with lots of interesting things sometimes just laying around on top of the ground, especially just after a good rain or Earth Quake. North of Lordsburg in the Big and Little Burro Mountains you’ll be able to find water springs. There is a year round creek runs through the area the early Peoples must have loved it in there. The Spanish liked it and so did the Apache. Game, good places to hide and the creek has gold in it. I have personally mined it with a four inch gas dredge and earlier with a sluice box hand loaded by shovel. Often get good color, it is a fine gold, runs with a little silver and some platinum and there are some nuggets of varing size. I had that area claimed some years back. I’ve been meaning for years to get back there and do some mining but like a hundred other places I haven’t for one reason or another made it back. Over the years I have been able to prospect and mine for gold and other metals from my days of homesteading in Alaska to the Jungles of South America and many points in between. I remember a time, it doesn’t seem so long ago my family and I dry washed for gold north of Yuma Arizona on the Colorado River and its dry tributaries and did pretty good. We averaged about a penny weight per day with lots of back breaking work. It reminded me of mining in the Mother load country of California along both the north and south ends of hwy 49. The old 49ers stomping grounds. But that’s another book. Its funny but I swear that Gold, water and Early Peoples ruins seem to run close together…hum.

The early Spanish and Mexicans apparently rarely visited Hueco Tanks. Although there are tales of battles taking place, there is little documentation. One such battle may have occurred about 1839, when Mexican troops and their Tigua allies trapped a band of Kiowa raiders in a cave. According to Kiowa tales, most of the Indians escaped after a few days. Not until 1848-49 did Hueco Tanks begin to appear in the records with any frequency. After the Mexican War the discovery of gold in California lured adventurers westward by the hundreds. Several official expeditions were sent to open a road between Austin-San Antonio and El Paso. One, led by John S. (Rip) Ford and Col. Robert S. Neighbors, went by way of Hueco Tanks and established what became known as the Upper Road, which roughly parallels the present Texas-New Mexico border across far West Texas. In 1852 United States Boundary Commissioner John R. Bartlett, while surveying the boundary between the United States and Mexico, visited Hueco Tanks and recorded several of the pictographs in his journals. The Butterfield Overland Mail established a stagecoach station at Hueco Tanks in 1858, only to abandon it the following year in favor of a better watered and protected route farther south. In 1898, with the Apaches on the reservations, Silverio Escontrías acquired Hueco Tanks for a ranch. The Escontrías family operated Hueco Tanks until 1956, charging a small fee for visitors who came to enjoy the scenic area. After the tanks had passed through the hands of a few other ranchers, land developers moved in with plans for housing developments, lakes, frontier-town movie sets, golf courses, resorts, and restaurants. Fortunately, by the mid-1960s El Paso County acquired Hueco Tanks and began operating it as a county park. On June 12, 1969, the county gave Hueco Tanks by special deed to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. The department purchased an additional 121 acres from Barney Wieland, who had sold Hueco Tanks to the county, and in May 1970 Hueco Tanks State Historical Park was opened to the public. The site has a 1936 Texas Centennial marker and was included on the National Register of Historic Places in 1971. The 860-acre park offers a variety of activities, including camping, picnicking, hiking, rock climbing, bird watching, and exploring.

Hueco Tanks State Historic Site, is located 32 miles northeast of El Paso in El Paso County. It was obtained

from the county by special deed on June 12, 1969, and by purchase of 121 additional acres on August 10, 1970. This site was opened to the public in May of 1970. This 860.3-acre park is named for the large natural rock basins or "huecos" that have furnished a supply of trapped rain water to dwellers and travelers in this arid region of west Texas for millennia.

Two weeks before my Grandfather was to retire from his beloved railroad and after so many years on the job, he suffered a debilitating heart attack. The railroad promptly retired him on half - retirement. My Grandfather was shocked, and deeply hurt by that action and never really recovered, he just withered away,... no more railroading, no more artifact hunting, no more horse rides to Cooper Canyon in Mexico where we would trade with the Tarahumara Indians. Where we would herd live goats and sheep from horseback, and where my Granddad could roll a bullduram cigarette with one hand while riding horse back. We would haul on the backs of our pack animals a team sometimes numbering as many as 10 to 12 sure footed donkeys, loaded with barb-wire, old army coats, socks, boots and many other things that the Tarahumara so desperately needed... and appreciated. In return they would trade pottery, hand woven wool rugs, and hand woven grass baskets and even hand made wooden violins. A craft they claimed they picked up from the conquistadors. Some Tarahumara still live in caves and raise corn, beans, and squash on small mountain fields, and may very well be the world’s best long distance runners. Many also love their home brew made from corn. They also appear to worship peyote known as the king of herbs. Once a year they make a pilgrimage to gather peyote. By eating the hallucinogenic top of the cactus, they believe they communicate with their spirit deities. They run up from their cooper canyon homes out on to the flats where they find and harvest the peyote. These runners perhaps the worlds best long distant runners gather up the buttons (buds), the heads of the plant and run back to the canyon. These runners have made many such treks and have proved their supernatural powers. The harvested peyote hangs in a heavy garland around their necks during the return trip to the canyon.

My Granddad respected the Tarahumara and they him but just like everybody else my granddad was expected to drink their home brew and get drunk and sleep with a local lady provided by the head shaman... for if you refused no Tarahunaran could do business with you or anyone in your party the next day. My Dad would say, “The Tarahumara believe the real you comes out when you’re drunk and sexy”.

The only justus one recieves in life...is the justus one can afford... (1944-?)

I went to bat for my Granddad and tried to convince the railroad to reconsider and reinstate my Grandfather’s full pension and retirement benefits, but Granddad died before I was able to convince them.

That was my second taste of loosing a human being who I loved and would miss dearly; the first was my family’s matriarch and my beloved grandma who had passed 2 years earlier. This was my first lesson and my first experience representing someone against their employer, and my first defeat. Lessons I would never forget. I have not to this day been able to forget that my Granddad died broke and we barely had enough money to pay his funeral expenses, had it not been for his military service and his being a veteran I doubt we could have.

I kept asking myself, how in the world, in this great country that my Granddad loved and taught us to love so much. The richest and strongest country in the world! How could anyone that worked so hard for so long and be so loyal to his company and nation, his entire adult life be treated so shabbily? And wound up with nothing! It was about this time I decided to try to find out why and how that could happen. So I set out to educate myself as to what really turns the wheels of commerce and how I could maybe avoid that fate, and if I learned the why and how of it, I was determined to share it with others who met want to know.

What I hoped to glean from the system was to learn how to avoid that fate if possible, for myself and for anyone else. I wanted to find out how come some had money while most others didn’t? And why most hard working Americans were dying broke? Why 98% of all the money of the world is controlled by less then 5% of the people. So I began paying attention to money, and how it works? How it moves through the system? Who has it, and why? And if you did get it. How to best keep it? Then the question was what to do with it? I was determine to share that knowledge with others and develop strategies that can be used wisely and later to encourage others to be independent by being self employed and in business for themselves. As the saying goes “you will never make it big working for others”. I soon came to realize that working for somebody else could be a ticket to disaster Like it was for my Granddad. And I further felt it was unlikely I’d ever become independent let alone wealthy as an employee of someone else. I came to that conclusion only after working hard long hours myself for others only to make them money... money they were unwilling to share with me, and always with no real job security, and just living paycheck to paycheck, playing by the rules and losing ground. Putting up with bosses that where insecure in there jobs and/or insecure about themselves in life! Most of whom you wouldn’t have as a friend, and many you wouldn’t have in your home. Employers could lay you off or fire you at will. The best anyone could hope for was 20 or 30 years working at the same job for somebody else taking one step forward and 2 backward. Usually not making enough money to make inns meet, much less able to send the kids to collage. If you were so called middle class you may of had hospitalization insurance. Maybe if you were lucky you would retire with a house that was paid for and a not enough to live on retirement check. And if really blessed and all went according to howl like good health etc. you had life insurance and you could be put in a box and then laid into the ground, ground that really wasn’t yours. I was getting tired of getting kick around even my dog knew the difference between a stumble and a kick. The road of life, lead me to walk on two paths, with one leg on the Red Road and the other on the Commercial Road. The journey on the commercial road caused the publishing of my first book titled “ Venture Capital” Raising Business Capital for the 21st Century. However when I compared my families life with those still living on the reservations I would realize how better off we were. As far back as I can remember we believed in sharing and we seemed to have a greater awareness and sensitivity to the needs of others particularly those living on the res. If you can call that living. Even to this day with the gambling casinos and the large land holdings the need for a helping hand is not diminished. In winter and summer, the scene is often the same. Inside dirt-floor Hogan’s, or broken down frame or concrete housing where small children struggle against illness that comes with life on these vast and lonely reservations across this country. Many need medical care and have no money or insurance. It is hard to avoid sickness when four generations live together in one room with no in-door plumbing, electricity, or phones. Most only have small wood burning stoves for there only heat. This is the case in over 50% of homes on American Indian reservations. Did you know that congress made the phone companies several years ago bring phone service to all Americans no matter where they live. That is all Americans except the so-called Indian, and still to this day the phone companies do not provide phone service to thousands of Early Peoples across this land where they are living on reservations. Poverty, hunger, untreated sickness, poor living conditions, severe winter weather. It all adds up to young lives taken before they are lived. Trauma is the Number one cause of death, cancer is number two, and diabetes is endemic in the general population and is epidemic in the young children and adolescents. Strep throats, dysentery, hepatitis, measles, impetigo and conjunctivitis occur with alarming frequency. An ear infection called chronic otitis media is widespread, leaving hundreds of kids in need of surgery for perforated eardrums. And that is just some of the reasons why some of the proceeds from this effort is going to the young and old on those reservations and anywhere else it is needed. If you care and want to help out two, feel free to call or write me that information you will find elsewhere in this work.

My first real memory of my involvement with entrepreneurialism was at the ripe old age of Six (6) while living where we El Pasoans referred to as “Down the Valley” it was a much more rural setting then town. My parents even though very poor and my Father’s health was often failing, they were able to buy one acre of land down the valley with good rich soil, some say the Rio Grande passed though there in prehistoric times and that was the reason. On this land was a pretty sound 3 bedroom, adobe house located at 7211 Dale Road. The house was without air-conditioning of course and just a fireplace to keep us four kids, Mom and Dad warm. That adobe house, with its thick walls was amassing and still stands today. It seemed during the winter it stayed pretty warm inside with just small fires in the fireplace and cool in the El Paso hot summers and we would sometimes help it by opening some doors and letting a breeze blow though.

The American Indian is of the soil, whether it be the region of forests, plains, pueblos, or mesas. He fits into the landscape, for the hand that fashioned the continent also fashioned the man for his surroundings. He once grew as naturally as the wild sunflowers; he belongs just as the buffalo belonged....

The Great Spirit is in all things; he is in the air we breathe. The Great Spirit is our Father, but the earth is our Mother. She nourishes us; that which we put into the ground she returns to us.... Big Thunder [Bedagi] (late 19th century) Wabanaki Algonquin

It wasn’t very long before my Dad and I put in a garden that grew beautiful white corn, which was not only great eating raw but unbelievably good after roasting (with the ears still in there husks) covered generously with real churned butter from our own cows and freshly ground Chile powder from our garden chilies. Sweet white corn also made the best corn tortillas. Which became a staple in our home and we used them like bread. Now that is not to say we didn’t have bread, because we did. My Mother made, from Scratch, some of the best home baked breads, muffins and biscuits you could ever hope to taste. She learned, much of that from my grandma... who was the champ. My Dad did make the best biscuits and pancakes, with home made maple syrup, the best that you could put in your mouth.

My Dad and I also raised sugar cane, pinto beans, butter beans, sweet onions, green onions, tomatoes, peppers, squash, potatoes, lettuces, radishes, and many other veggies. Which all helped to sustain the family between jobs, which were scarce in those days? El Paso had always been economically distressed particularly for minorities.

One of the best things we did was grow “Whole Green Chiles” there is no better smell in the air then whole green chilies roasting over an open pit or BBQ of hot colds. We raised what my Dad named “jumbo’s” they were big chilies, some a foot long! Jumbo’s were the best tasting I had ever had.

That is until years later my wife Peggy would roast chilies out doors when we lived in Santa Fe, New Mexico, very near the town squire, when in the fall you can smell chilies roasting all over town.

Peggy stuffs the chilies before roasting with goat cheese and kibasa sausage. That is the best taste treat on the planet, and as a bonus chilies are high in vitamin C... and non-fattening (without the sausage and cheese).

One of the many things my Dad Lou (the neck name my Mother gave my step father) was to go frog gigging together. His real name was Merle Vincent Lutes one of 9 children with 4 brothers and four sisters all born in Grand Junction Colorado, and at home. It is high mesa country he would tell me. They grew up on an alfalfa and horse farm. Lou was the only father I ever knew and I am sure today I could not have loved a real Father more than my love for him. In many ways we were very different and yet in many other ways we were very much a like. He was half Early People and half German and sported a handsome dark complexion. He only stood about 5’9 and weight soaking wet never more than 145 lbs. But he was the biggest little man I have ever known. When he was well he could work circles around me, at hard labor, he was stronger then I and I was no slouch, he was the best truck driver, mechanic, carpenter, irrigator, gardener, painter, hunter, fisherman conservationist, explorer, adventurer, lover of animals (and they him), and loved the wild outdoors and of course the Colorado Rocky Mountains. He and three others rode the mountain ridges all the way to Alaska from Grand Junction on horseback. One of his favorite cow ponies broke its back when my Dad was just a boy, back when most people shoot horses when they broke a leg. Not my Dad, he built block and tackle and hoisted the pony off the ground in his barn, which kept the weight off the back so it could heal, and it did and my Dad said that horse was stronger and better than before and lived to be 18 and seemed to love every minute of it and I sure know my Dad did. His favorite singer was not John Denver although he liked him; his numero uno was Eddy Arnold.

Some of the biggest bull Frogs you can find anywhere are located down the valley in El Paso. They can be found along the Rio Grande River, in almost any connecting irrigation or over flow ditch. They are seen in the backwashes of draining ditches, ponds or lakes and in almost any water moving or standing. But the best place of all was behind the Texaco refinery and Philips Dodge plant near the crossroads of North loop and Dale road. There were settling ponds of warm water discharged from the processing of both plants. No one was aloud in there of course. But often at night we would sneak in anyway (night is the best time to go Frog gigging anyway) you only had to look out for the night watchman in his red and white ford pick-up and he rarely showed up. So that would leave the cattails and warm ponds to the Frogs and us.... We used flat bottom roe boats, flesh lights, long bamboo poles with a sharp 3 prone gigs at the tip. We had gunnysacks for our catch to be carried home, often just before daylight. Later we would get them ready for a frog leg dinner. The price was right and once you’re past the idea, frog legs taste pretty good...some say kind of like a combination of chicken and tuna. Fried in bacon grease, Texas sweet onions, corn meal, black pepper, sea salt with lots of garlic, tastes more to me, and my Dad like haven than anything else.

Children were encouraged to develop strict discipline and a high regard for sharing. When a girl picked her first berries and dug her first roots, they were given away to an elder so she would share her future success. When a child carried water for the home, an elder would give compliments, pretending to taste meat in water carried by a boy or berries in that of a girl. The child was encouraged not to be lazy and to grow straight like a sapling. mourning Dove [Christine Quintasket] (1888-1936) Salish

One early morning returning from Frog gigging with a sack full of frogs I had got at the smelter ponds behind the tall red brick smoke stack, I noticed a house set back in from the road with lights on and I could see a lady moving about looking very busy, she looked to be about 35, maybe, seemed pretty old to me at the time. It appeared she was hard at work making what at first I thought were Do-Nuts. The smell was wonderful and I was hungry from gigging most of the previous night. So I was drawn to the big class picture window and it wasn’t long before I was offered one to eat, as I pressed my nose against her kitchen’s warm window. She was hard at work making not Do-Nuts but what I was to find out where actually SPUD-NUTS made from potatoes and I also found out they are delicious. Well this lead to my first real entrepreneurial experience. It accrued to me if I liked them so much probably others would too. So I said to this SPUD-NUT lady “ I bet I could sale some of these” she said “I bet you could too”. I commence to tell her I didn’t have any money but I told her if she would trust me with a few bags of those Spud-Nuts, I’ll go sell them right now! She said without hesitation “lets do it”. She gave me 6 bags of 6 Spud-Nuts in each bag. I promptly said thanks and told her I would be back. I took my spuds and my gunnysack with the nights haul and headed down the road home.

Mom was already up having her morning coffee when I burst into the kitchen through the back door. Hey Mom guess what? I got a job, well not really a job, more like a small business I said. Have you ever heard of Spud-Nuts? Yes I have she replied but I don’t think I have ever eaten any. So I opened my first bag of still warm soft spud-nuts and Mom and I pigged out. I picked up the remaining 5 bags and was off to my neighbors house and door- to -door down my street. Within 45 minutes I Had sold them all. I run back home got in my old shoebox...got out 35 cents to pay for Mom’s and my earlier feast. Then jumped on my sister’s bike (a girls bike no less) it had a front wire basket and a finger ringer bell prefect for my needs. So back to the spud-nut shop and I handed the spud-nut lady $2.10 in cash. She then gave me my first taste of the fruits of my efforts and my first profit of 21 cents. She then told me that was almost enough to reinvest and buy a new 6 pack of spud-nut bags. I said, what, do you mean? You save up your spud-nut profits and I’ll wholesale you 6 packs for 25 cents each and you can then sell them for 35 cents or more, hence your profit. Hey I liked that idea. Within days I was in business for myself. Talk about Micronomic’s my first transaction involved a retail sale of $2.10 a wholesale buy cost of $1.50. The difference being 60 cents, my second profit. For months after that I as an independent businessperson, was up very early in the morning before school. I would ride my sister’s bike (subsidized) up to the spud-nut shop load the wire basket and would be off down Dale road ringing the handle barbell. Ladies in varies stages of dress would meet me in the middle of the street and buy my Spud-Nuts. This sure beat my last job picking cotton at 50 cents a 100 lb. bag. It would take me the better part of (my Saturday and Sundays off from school) a day to fill it. Can you believe that, and it was back breaking work. I now could make that much in an hour and with a whole lot less hard work in my new business selling Spud-Nuts.

Preparing Food

"Real Indian" food can easily stir a debate. Exactly what is Indian food? Many would argue that only foods made historically in Mexico and central America (made for at least the last 10,000 years) can qualify. However, the blending of cultures has brought many variations to authentic Indian food.

The Mayans used to populate Southeast Mexico subsisting on wild game, fish, squash, beans and corn. Corn was of such importance that a corn god had to be worshipped for a good harvest. Along the coasts, tropical fruits played a more important role in food preparation as well - often showing up in seafood recipes. Mayan food is the basis of what is now considered "Authentic Indian/ Mexican."

Descended from the food of the Mayans, authenticIndian/ Mexican takes advantage of the varied food sources in Mexico. There are meats, seafood, corn and rich stews and sauces. Small meals are often served wrapped in a fresh tortilla. Even basic recipes vary widely in different regions of Mexico. Most meals served as authentic outside of Mexico are based on recipes from North or Central Mexico.

Tex-Mex is the blended flavors of Northern Mexico and the Southern US where Native Americans, cowboys and Mexicans intermingled cultures. Many traditional dishes have been altered by one side or the other to create the cuisine style that most Americans consider Mexican. Tex-Mex also encompasses the Americanized dishes such as Mexican ingredients used in a casserole instead of served with a tortilla.

Some of the dishes I enjoy most is Indian/Mexican dishes, which I find is an interesting combination of Spanish and American Indian foods and is the main food in the southwest. El Paso is truly an International City; the only thing between Mexico and the US is the Rio Grande River. On the Texas side is El Paso and on the Chihuahua side is Juarez with a combined population of more than 2 million mostly poor people. Many of Mexican descent (Latino’s) hence some of the best Mexican food on earth can be found on both sides of the river.

Some of the very best food I remember came after diving for change under the international bridges that connected the two countries where many tourists walked and would toss their pocket change off the bridge into the Rio Grande, for us poor kids to dive and often fight over. After several hours of that we would head over to Juarez where you could find a street wagon vender with chitlins (fried pork) innards) wrapped in tinny corn tortillas for about 10c US. They had great food on those wagons, corn on the cob, avocado’s, chili Colorado, and other things I couldn’t identify. I never got sick and never knew anyone who did.

I now have modified that some and go to seat down restaurants and settle for a combination plate usually comprising of home made corn tortillas (white corn), cheese enchilada’s consisting of goat, cheddar, jack or any combo their of, meat and/or potato taco’s with bulla meat (beef brisket) and meshed potatoes with copped up green onions and bacon crease, or now olive oil. Chile relleno’s are breaded and, deep-fried whole green chilies stuffed with goat, and/or jack, cheddar, Philly cheese. Spanish rice slightly fried in olive oil with chopped onions, sea salt and pepper, slowly steamed boiled in covered pot my Mothers way. Refried pinto beans (frijoles) with same cheeses as above, bacon crease...opps olive oil, and lots of hot salsa made with diced chili pepper jalapenos, sweet white onions, ripe fresh tomatoes, cilantro, lots of garlic, black pepper, and sea salt. Hopefully, the veggies from your own garden, or at least from a friend’s.

My Granddad, Dad and I would go northeast of El Paso in search of not only water for that is where you find artifacts but we also had been bitten by the gold bug. It was actually a disease that my Granddad caught many years ago in his birthplace, the state of Tenn. Later my dad got it and it wasn’t long after I came along that I came down with a serious dose. About fifty miles east of El Paso is a small mining town called Oro Grande New Mexico and just northwest of town we would explore caves in the small mountains around Oro Grande. Many were loaded with artifacts, including pots, baskets, grounding tools, rock tools, knapping tools, arrow points, bird bone hooks, and beautiful Turquoise jewelry. That knowledge is what lead, my Grandfather to find a low grade Turquoise mine that we worked for years. We also mined gold, using a dry washing process. It was mostly fine gold with few flakes and one time he found a nugget about the size of a pea, it weighed about one pennyweight. He would tell me that he believed ancient people lived in those caves and that he thinks deep inside there is a running river of fresh water.

The town of Oro Grande in the Jicarillas sprang up when a very large gold nugget was found. By 1914, the town had a population of 2,000, and eight placer mining companies were active. The mother lode has never been found. Recorded production was 16,000 ounces of gold.

A well-known archaeologist later claimed to have found evidence that the earliest people lived in America at least 60,000 years ago - evidence that some felt would blow the Bering Strait land bridge theory out of the water, at least as far as timing. I now think it is very likely that the land bridge was used by both man and beast with the raise and fall of the water level associated with the Ice Ages. I also believe they trekked both directions across the straits and many come down the west and east coasts of turtle island as well as the Gulf of Mexico and in a much later time Columbus sailed and consequently made land fall in 1492.

Whenever the white man treats the Indian as they treat each other, then we will have no more wars. We shall all be alike-- brothers of one father and one mother, with one sky above us, and one country around us, and one government for all. Joseph [Hinmaton Yalatkit] (1830-1904

You have noticed that everything an Indian does is in a circle, and that is because the Power of the World always works in circles, and everything tries to be round.... The sky is round, and I have heard that the earth is round like a ball, and so are all the stars. The wind, in its greatest power, whirls. Birds make their nests in circles, For theirs is the same religion as ours.... Even the seasons form a great circle in their changing, and always come back again to where they were. The life of a man is a circle from childhood to childhood, and so it is in everything where power moves. Black Elk (1863-1950) Oglala Sioux holy man

Richard Scotty MacNeish, an archaeologist with the Andover Foundation in Massachusetts, claimed he had found the oldest evidence of human civilization in the United States, at that time.

The remnant of several hunter-gatherer societies were found in the Pendejo Cave on a firing range at Fort Bliss, Texas, near Oro Grande, where tank maneuvers and test missile firings, take place and is not open to the public and hasn’t been for many years.

The army has ordered the cave off limits and has turned it into a protected area and is attempting to get it established in the National Registry of Historic Sites.

The evidence he claimed to have found included: Fingerprints dating back 36,000 years; 19,000-year-old black hair (human) on which DNA tests are being done to identify which Early Peoples the hair belonged; and material that has been Carbon 14 dated at 60,000 years old.

“We have a lot of Carbon 14 dates in a very nice sequence...59 dates that run from 300 years ago and are Apache to 55,000 years ago he said.

“We are sure these were Early American People” (so called Indians). “We can’t prove it right now; yet we do have some 19,000 year-old human hairs, which we are doing DNA tests on; and we very well may be able to tell you the racial type of Early American People that they were here,” according to Dr. MacNeish.

The earliest level of material in the cave is 60,000 years old, which would be the oldest American people in the New World if true, 48,000 years earlier than previously thought by archaeologists and scientists.

Most archaeologists and scientists currently accept the Bering Strait theory today. This theory suggests that human beings first came to North America from Asia across the Bering Strait land bridge fewer than 15,000 years ago at the end of the last Ice Age.

The early peoples (Indians) of North America have always disputed the Bering Strait theory because the theory conflicts with many creation stories, oral histories of the creation of different Early American races that were handed down generation to generation by story tellers of differing tribes.

A popular belief that is rapidly being destroyed is that the first people came in about 12,000 years ago with a culture which is called Folsom and they rapidly migrated from Alaska to the southern tip of South America...on their way killing off the big mammoths, giant bison and mastodons Dr. MacNeish said.

The Pendejo Cave He said, “it’s called the overkill theory, and this doesn’t give the so-called American Indian the history, the long Paleolithic history they are entitled to.”

“It’s another form of discrimination by the white man. They give the white man and the Asian a long Paleolithic history, and what we found is that the Early American people has as long a history - if not longer - than any white man or African American for example in this country.” Dr. MacNeish also stated.

The cave is actually on the edge of a cliff at the end of a canyon at the bottom of the mountains. The so-called Paleo-Indians occupied the inverted heart-shaped cave and used it while hunting and gathering and preparing for the winter.

At the time the area was not arid desert that it is today. It was filled with trees, animals, lakes and riverbeds that nurtured numerous species of plant life including berries, which were a dietary staple of the first Americans, and it was home to animals such as camels, horses and even giant jackrabbits.

In winter the wildlife would migrate from the mountain area to the lower levels to spend the winter, as did man. Then the hunters would get on either side of the canyon where the cave is situated and more easily kill the animals.

“It is a unique kill site much like the buffalo kills in North Dakota,” Dr. MacNeish believes.

Stone tools may have been found. The earliest materials found in the cave are chopping tools or butchering tools, which the inhabitants may have used to cut the meat they had hunted to get it ready for the upcoming winter.

“Out site is really a campsite or cave occupied in the fall, and the major activity in this cave was butchering animals as these animals migrated from the highland to the lowland. There was an occupation of butchering throughout all the occupants of the cave,” Dr. MacNeish said in a report.

The first remnants found in the cave are labeled Oro Grande, named for a town nearby. “Chopper” tools from this occupation were made out of river pebbles. The cave is 300 feet above any river so these objects were foreign and brought into the cave, according to Dr. MacNeish.

The second level of the site is called McGregor and is more unofficial. They chopped on one side, and many of these tools were made of bones and included spearpoints.

Another level of tools found in the cave are called North Mesa and consisted of tools that were bifacial blades, meaning the edges had two faces. These materials are over 12,000 years old because they were found underneath the Clovis remains found in the cave.

In layers closer to the surface, sandals and cornhusks were found, and on the top levels pottery was found.

He claims there were 24 archaeological levels and that He found about 15,000 bones of animals in the various layers of the cave that the early people killed - 90 different species - some of which are extinct.

He claims to have found bones of giant buffalo, two kinds of horses, two, kinds of camels, giant jackrabbit, maybe short-faced giant bears and maybe saber tooth tigers among others. Dr. MacNeish said that and more was included in the find.

“We have found about 300 artifacts from 24 different floors, one on top of the other. The layers change through time as does the climate and animals they killed,” Dr. MacNeish said.

Other artifacts found in the cave are fingerprints embedded in clay and baked by the cooking fires of the inhabitants of the cave.

The fingerprints became embedded in the clay when the occupants made fireplaces to cook the meat they butchered, according to Dr. MacNeish. Early American people often lined the fireplace with rocks and clay and would pack the clay with their fingers. The fire would turn the clay to bricks so fingerprints were solidified forever in the clay brick.

In a set of 16 fingerprints one was dated at 36,000 years old; and four fingerprints are about 13,000 years old.

There are skeptics in the scientific world According to Jean Offutt, a Fort Bliss spokes-woman, said since the cave was discovered just a few years ago, the site is protected by a fence.

“The cave is basically left as it was when he (MacNeish) left. If we were to seal it off, it would ruin anything in there with the climate change”.

Dr. MacNeish had originally hoped that future investigators and archaeologists might be able to visit the sight to check on his data and findings.

Ms. Offutt also said many scientists dispute Dr. MacNeish’s findings, some of who responded to news of his discovery by refuting it in scientific journals.

I believe this may be the coves my Granddad, Dad and I worked. This area is now military property and is on White Sands missile range and Mc Gregor firing range and the public is not welcome. Note the Jicarilla is only 45 miles southeast of Victorio Peak, which also had a cave with a similar history and even a more interesting Past.

I have read of other places of early man buffalo hunt kill sites like “hell gap, Wyoming, Arikaree River in northeastern Colorado and the Assiniboin and Cree peoples on the Canadian plains, they hunted in winter on foot. They dig ponds, fall traps, into which buffalo were driven into the entrance covered with snow and water to make it so slick they could not get out and therefore setting up the kill. These early people would leave a tree in the center of the trap placing offerings for a successful kill. Their leaders would put on buffalo robes and headdress and climb the tree during the hunt and the kill.

THE VISION QUEST

We are only steps away from being like our ancestors as they were close to the intimate rhythms of nature. Travel back in your mind just a hundred years, a thousand years, and it's all right there before us: the sound of birdsong cutting through a crystal clear morning, the majesty of a sky full of starlight so bright that you can walk around under its glow, the wind whipping through a terrain of deep silence, the presence of animals in their own home territory. We are not separate from the rest of Creation we have just lost track and that lose of nature has meant losing part of our own soul.

There is a way to begin to heal our fragmentation in the modern world. It requires going into nature to look deep within ourselves, to discover and measure our own growth through the seasons of our lives, taking time out from our "doing" to enter "just being." Spending time alone, seeking purpose and direction, listening for the voice of Spirit, creating ceremony to mark one's changes, and returning to one's people with a story that gives life new meaning --these are some of the elements of the Vision Quest. This practice goes by many names and has roots in many cultures. In calling it the Vision Quest, we acknowledge being inspired by our early ancestors, as well as our own connection to this land called "Turtle Island".

My Granddad said, “It is time”. In most tribes the vision quest is a boy or girl’s initiation into adulthood. My Granddad always told me that it should take place when you are ready and he seemed to think I was ready. I had already chosen the place for my vision quest at my favorite spot high in the Sacramento mountains of southeastern New Mexico less than 70 miles as the raven fly, from my home in El Paso, a place were wild animals still live and few people go there.

I have over the years seen Black bear, Mountain lion, Bobcat and the Coyote. I have seen magnificent Elk herds and deer in groups to numerous to count and large herds of porn horn antelope and the majestic mountain sheep. A land, were from sparrows to eagles fly and from which buffalo not so very long ago roamed.

I was to stay on the mountain no more than 4 days, without anyone seeing me, hearing me and without food or drink of any kind. One should be very selective in choosing their spot for a vision quest. Like mine it should be somewhere you love, were you are not likely to be seen or heard, because if you are, you must start over again at some other time. Remember you are to be totally alone, nude no blanket and without a knife or tools of any kind. Your preparation should be well in advance and should include any herb and/or the King of herbs along with all the sage you can carry. For this will be your bed laying from East to west cuddled in between the lips of mothers vulva with your head pointed east in alignment with the opening of mothers outer circle. This is a re-birthing ceremony. You will enter Mother Earth’s womb from which you will emerge from her and be born again into the new world with new understanding and wisdom. You will know better your future role in life and who you are. You should only be assisted by someone you trust, a teacher, coach, shaman, holy man or woman, an elder with the knowledge and understanding so they can show you the ways of the RedRoad and prepare you by teaching you the proper instruction, ceremonies and rituals involved in the vision quest and sacred beliefs, dances, songs, lessons in expected adult behavior and a visionary spirit helper. The isolation, the sensory deprivation, fasting and ingestion of herb will result in hallucinations. In ancient times here on turtle island there were special places where you could and should do your vision quest, they were natural places such as holy rock formations (vulva form motifs) of Mother’s vulva, later after these sacred places were discovered by outside peoples some tribes would peck or paint Mothers sacred belief that a vision quest can take place only after the age of 12 years has been reached. Many shaman and elders refuse to assist here in the U.S. for fear of the white man’s laws against such a ceremony. Before the entering of Mothers womb there must be seamen spent and to impregnate Mother in order for her to give birth. Not legal here, if the subject is under 18 years old. The vision quest is also to help you find a mystical reality beneath the surface of life. Experiencing a vision is an intensely personal event, a direct encounter with the Great Mystery.

A vision quest can be repeated again and again - as often as an individual feels the need for help from the spirit powers.

As I lay in the circle of stones with poles representing the four directions, I looked to the sky and asked the Great Spirit, "Who am I? Where do I come from? Why am I here?" I heard no words, but for a brief moment I could understand and all things here made clear. I felt connected with all around me. The load of the world that I carried on my young shoulders was gone I had fallen from an Eagle in the past but now I was about to get back on and take another look around and I felt like I was now on that eagle flying high in the sky, able to see far and wide. As I looked down on Mother I felt something that words can't describe.

Sweat lodge ceremony should not be attempted until after your vision quest has been completed. So you will be able to call on all the powers of Father Sky and be able to intone during a sweat the heavens, the little peoples, the star peoples, all the things that fly, all the things that crawl, all the things that swim, and the red and the blue sacred days, all the mountains, all the deserts, all the valleys, all the water, all the trees that stand, all the grasses of our Grandmother, all the sacred people of the universe. Listen all brothers and sisters this will enable you to have the sacred relationship one must have if you invoke the full power of the sweat lodge and live in a holy, and healthful manner. The sweat lodge is always preceded by the vision quest or the purification will not totally take hold. Remember the sweat lodge is potent ceremony in itself. It is the first step, after re-birth which will have a much larger meaning if the vision quest is first and then you will on a regular basis be able to sweat and have visions with meaning and communicate better with the Great Mystery and experience many rebirths.

The sweat lodge should be a beehive dome shape framed of red willow sticks cut not broken and covered and tied together. Buffalo skins or old blankets and quilts should be used to cover the frame. These are placed on top of and around the dome covering it completely making it as air tight as possible. Always leave an opening for the door. Use the same Buffalo, blankets and quilts to cover the door in such away that when they are closed there will be no light inside. The willows they become the ribs of Mother Earth. The dome shape representing pregnant women’s belly.

In the center of the dirt floor a hole should be dug big enough to receive a number of hot stones but be careful to leave room for the worshipers. The earth that is removed is sacred and should be placed in front of the Sweat Lodge for the alter. The sacred earth which is to be the alter is placed outside and to the right as you come out of the Sweat Lodge. A lemon tree or lemon branch, called the “Tree Of Life”, is placed in the middle of the mount of sacred dirt. Two antlers or forked sticks are placed on either side of the mount with a straight stick laid across them. This becomes the alter to rest the pipes on before the ceremony and to place the gifts and any sacred and special things that one my want blessed on the sacred mound of dirt. We never touch anything on the alter that is not our own. You should only enter from the only door that faces the east and you should be totally nude with only pipe and smoke, drum, medicine pouch, healing rattle and with what ever else you want to share. If approved by the water pourer in advance. We are not there to notice our physical bodies, only to get in touch with our inner selves. Tobacco, sage, sweetgrass, cider, oils and other gifts should all be offered to Father sky and Mother Earth and only gifts of importance to you should also be given to brothers and sisters sharing in the sweat.

You should only move into the sweat clockwise following the one pouring the water. We go in a clockwise direction because this is the way Mother Earth turns. The order should be woman man woman man and so forth. When we enter the Sweat Lodge, we approach the lodge on two legs, as we go through the door we get down on all fours and crawl always being respectful of each other and the holy place we have now entered. Each person should get as close to the back of the lodge as possible. All seating beside each other facing the fire pit. The water pourer should lead by giving a prayer for a good ceremony and blessing on everyone there. Praying that the Spirits join us in the ceremony and guide us in what we do and say. At this time the Sacred Peace Pipe shall be started by the water pourer. With a pinch of tobacco from the alter and offered for each, the one who pours the water will pray to the four directions, Grandfather/ God and Mother Earth. He/she prays for the universe, the four-legged, the winged, the plants, the water spirits and all of mankind. He/she prays for all taking part in the ceremony and their love circles. He/she prays for the strength everyone needs to live each day, for peace in the world for all. He/she then adds a piece of sage into the Pipe bowl and first offers the Pipe to the four directions, Grandfather/God and Mother Earth. It is than time to pass the Pipe clockwise to each. As each one draws from the Sacred Pipe the holy smoke the smoke should first be exhaled towards the stones and then the Pipe holder may pray and share what ever is on their mind. It can be a story, it can be an experience, and it can be a Dream or a vision. Than the Pipe should be passed to the next person. Giving all others amble chance and time to express there interests, all offered up as prays. While you sit naked in the darkness of the sacred lodge. Where outside more rocks, are being heated by the fire tender, a very special and honored and experienced person. The little people (the rocks) are heated outside and passed, one by one into the sweat lodge directed by the water pourer, while all those inside pray, sing, drum, talk, dream and listen to the wind.

With the entrance flap closed and the cold water is silently poured over the little people. In the enveloping steam of amber the worshipers may hear the voice of the spirit and feel its hot and purifying breath. All the time rubbing, yourselves with sage, Almond, and peppermint oil in the most sensitive places.

The Sweat Lodge was given to us thousands of years ago to be used as a tool and a way of life. It is to be used for purification, prayer and healing. The Sweat Lodge in many ways can be related to a church or holy place of worship. The Sweat Lodge represents many things to us. It is also like the womb of Mother Earth, who gives birth to us all. Everything that makes up the Sweat Lodge should came from something that once lived.

The Sacred Pipe is also a tool used to talk with the Creator. The Pipe was given to us to form a direct link between us and the Creator. The red bowl representing the people and the wooden stem representing all the other living things on Earth. Each person that carries a Pipe into the Sweat Lodge will offer up their Pipe to be smoked as their turn comes around. for the Earth Mother. We also use many different herbs as tools in the Sweat Lodge ceremony. The King of herbs and Tobacco is the most sacred of all and was given to us to send our prayers to the Creator as the smoke rises. Sage, cedar and sweetgrass are used for smudging. These are burned in an abalone shell, clay pot or flat stone and the smoke guided by the Feather Fan purifies our minds and bodies. Sage and cedar are used also to send away negative feelings and thoughts and to bring in good influences. I have been told that before a person can be healed or heal another, one must first be cleansed of negative energy. Many elders believe and teach that all ceremonies, tribal or not, must be entered into with love and with a good heart, so that we can pray, sing, walk, dance, smoke, drum and most other things in a most important sacred manner. And in doing this you may enter into the sacred realm of spirit world.

There are many varieties of sage and many can be used in smudging. The botanical word for sage is Salvia and comes from the Latin root salvare, which means to heal. Sage is not only burned in ceremonies to drive out bad spirits, feelings, or negative influences but should also be used to keep bad spirits from entering the area where a ceremony takes place. Many tribes feel in ceremony sage should cover the floor, and participants rub the leaves on each others bodies while in the sweat. Sage is commonly spread on the ground in a lodge or on an altar where the pipe touches the earth. Many wrap their pipes in sage when they are placed in pipe-bundles, or pipe bags, as sage purifies objects wrapped in it. Sage is also used as wreaths and placed around the head and wrists and ankles of dancers.

Sage is a wonderful plant, found on desert hillsides and mountain foothills, usually up to 7,000 feet in elevation.; often found along roadsides. Sage is the traditional plant used for sweat lodge and ritual purification, with the smoke being used to clear the air of bad spirits and influences. From ancient times to the present, Native Americans who gather this plant for use in purification rituals, prepare themselves spiritually first, by prayer and fasting, and gather sage ( and any other medicinal herb) with an attitude of respect and reverence

Sweetgrass is one the most sacred plants of all. Sweetgrass is a tall wild grass with a sweet perfume like fagrance. It can be found growing mainly on the eastern side of the Rockies in Montana and Alberta, Canada. Sweetgrass is often braided together in bunches as a person’s hair is braided. It is usually burned by shaving little bits over hot coals or lighting the end and waving it around, letting the sacred smoke spread. We were taught that it was good to burn sweetgrass after the sage or cedar had driven out the bad influences. Sweetgrass brings in the good spirits and the good influences. Sweetgrass has many uses. It is used as a purifying medicine in prayer, smudging, and other such ceremonies. When Sweetgrass is burned, (smudging), the smoke of Sweetgrass is meant to cleanse the body and open the mind.

The name itself describes a plant that is a type of grass with a sweet-smelling aroma. When Sweetgrass is burned, it smells good and brings feelings of peace and relaxation. High Hollow Horn says in the “Sacred Pipe” “This smoke from the sweet grass will rise up to you, and will spread throughout the universe: its fragrance will be known by the wingeds, the four-leggeds, and the two-leggeds, for we understand that we are all relatives: may all our brothers be tame and not fear us!” Sweetgrass is also put in pipe bundles and medicine bundles along with sage and cedar to purify and protect sacred objects. Sweetgrass is getting very rare, its territory is being severely cut by developers, cattle-grazing and wheat fields and many tribes are trying to protect the last few remaining wild groves.

Tradition holds that the wood of the cedar tree holds powerful protective spirits for the people. Many carry a small piece of cedar wood in their medicine bags worn around the neck. It is tossed into the fire pit in sweat lodges ceremony to spark the visions. It is also placed above the entrances to the sweat lodge and homes to protect against the entry of evil spirits. A traditional drum and flute would be made from cedar wood.

Medicine bags hold ancient cures for the modern world. The 1st people of turtle Island believed that all things have a spirit, or life force and that all these forces are interconnected. Each place has a unique spirit which influences all life around it. To use medicine is to use the forces of nature to influence and guide your path in life. Every animal and plant has a set of influences, just as the stars are thought to influence our lives. To assemble a medicine bag means that the individual wishes to assert control over their life and to choose a certain path. You may choose to add other items to your medicine bag, items which have special meanings to you, items you gather in the course of your life, keep your medicine bag with you and it will keep you firmly on your true path. Let this leather medicine bag hung from your neck during a sweat. But no jewelry or metal as it can burn you.

The Stones used must be lava rocks that come from the center of Mother Earth. We call them little people as they are our oldest living relatives. The oldest and wisest of all things. They represent the sperm which impregnates Mother Earth, giving life to us all. They can absorb sickness, negativity and impurities in the same way they absorb heat from the fire. The number of stone people used depend on the number of people there and the size of the sweat. There should be at least one stone for each person present at the sweat.

The Hopi people say there was the cycle of the mineral, the rock. There was the cycle of the plant. And now we are in the cycle of the animal coming to the end of that and beginning the cycle of the human being. When we get into the cycle of the human being, the highest and greatest powers that we have will be released to us. They will be released from that light or soul that we carry to the mind. But right now we're coming to the end of the animal cycle and we have investigated ourselves and learned what it is to be like an animal on this earth.

Woman on their moons (menstrual cycle)should stay away from the Sweat Lodge for two days before her moon time and two days after her moon time. This is because she is purifying at this time and her body is preparing for a possible new life to begin. During the sweat some may blow an eagle whistle to call the Eagle Spirit to join us. Others may take a drum in and the beat of the drum represents Mothers heart beat and still others may bring a healing rattle. In native traditions, it is believed that the drum is a living thing. The spirit of the animal and the tree of which the drum is made both live on in the drum. When a drum finds its partner, it is a lifelong relationship.

These beliefs are further validated in practical application. The more you rub, handle and play your drum, the more your natural body oils penetrate the hide, thus lengthening its life and enriching it. For this reason, it is not traditional to play another person's drum.

. Each person should fast the day of the sweat and only pure lemon juice can be drank during the ceremony.

The chosen one the Fire Tender holds a great honor and must be one in balance and harmony. There are many things the Fire tender must do to prepare for the ceremony. For him/her the day begins early and ends late. Many say the first to arrive and the last to leave is the Fire tender. The fire Tender and who ever is ask to help, chops the wood and the kindling that was brought by the Fire Tender for the fire. The fire pit may need to be dug. Four long logs are laid side by side going in the same direction. Four more long logs are placed on top of these going the opposite direction, representing the four directions. Next, the Stone People are placed on top the crossed logs. After the Stone people are placed on the logs the kindling and wood are placed under and around them. At this point, the one pouring the water will offer prayers and tobacco to the four directions, the Stone People and the Fire Spirits. No sweat Lodge can commence before the water pourer sees a RAVEN. The water pourer must see a RAVEN sometime during the same day as the sweat.

Each person will be lead to the door of the Sweat Lodge by the Water Tender. The water Tender also keeps everyone’s belongings in a safe place and watches over them and is responsible for there safe keeping. While the Stone People are heating, the Fire Tender looks after the fire and the Stone People. He/she often has help from other people and those in training to become fire tenders. The one tending the fire will also bring the Stone People into the Sweat Lodge and tend to the person pouring the water’s needs during the ceremony.

The water pourer may ask those who wish to make prayer ties to do so. The prayer ties are little squares of cloth, tobacco and red string. The tobacco is prayed with and put into the little squares and tied together with the red string. The one pouring the water will also make some large tobacco ties called waluttas which will hung in the four directions on the tree of life. Waluttas hold prayers for the universe, everyone and everything. The one who pours asks the fire tender to bring the stones as the water pourer requests. The one pouring the water asks the fire tender for the bucket of water and a gourd dipper. Water is a very sacred commodity. It is the life blood of Mother Earth and gives life to her children. Some will bring Eagle feathers and others will bring Raven feathers or feather fans to smudge with.

I was now lying in my Mothers womb, laying on and covered by mother’s earthly sage. No man or animal can see or small me here in this wonderfully warm place. I see all of the star people. I was fearful and wanted to endure what ever Mother had in store for me. I was looking for my vision. If I got my vision I would no longer be a boy, I Would no longer need my boy name. Blackness was now all around me. I could sense and feel some sort of a protective wall between me in Mothers womb and the outside world of things you can only hear at night in a silent Forrest now was feeling even detached from myself and from my own body. I was drafting off in a kind of sleep, no more like I was entering deeper into myself starting to hear voices from within. I thought of my wonderful mother, my father, my Grandmother, my Granddad and I thought of my brothers and sisters and of my forefathers, who I could sense and feel them there with me, who had been here before me and were now trying to talk with me and I now was starting to listen.

Grandfather told me about dreams. He told me that a dream was a vision while you sleep and a vision is but a dream while you are awake. He said to always listen to the wind and to always follow your dreams. In your dreams are messages that guide you though life. If you hear, you will see, and hear what you need to know for the moment and for the future. I was told these dreams are knowledge and that is where wisdom comes from as well as all talent. It comes in riding the light and it is always present. A vision quest only helps you to see it and hear it, so you can start listening to it. Great men and women have learned to listen and see it all the time and they are able to go places others who are not listening cannot go.

I suddenly was aware of my surroundings again and realized it was the darkest before the dawn and I was just starting to sense that sacred glow of night just before dawn that time between light and dark and now Mother was putting on the most colorful display of colors I had ever seen, there were bountiful grays, browns, greens, reds and many colors I had not seen before but that took my breath away and the sun burst forward with a light that I saw for the very first time. It was a warming glow and silent but with music and his waking creatures starting to sing in celebration of the day ahead, in appreciation of the day ahead. And there lays the message I was beginning to listen and to see.

I become aware of a shadow in the morning sky; it was a raven squeaking as if it wanted my attention. It started to circle and circled lower and lower and seemed to hover right in front of me looking into my eyes and was looking into my soul and I started looking into his eyes where I could see the letters AKKEEIA. At that moment I was cut off from the world I knew I was no longer a boy, but I was now a man. It was my grown-up name, my Early-Man name. As I received it, it was providing me with my protector from the spirit world. The Raven was now my Animal-Medicine. To understand I needed more medicine but first I needed to understand what was really meant by this medicine. This is early-man medicine, it will improve one’s connection to the Great Mystery, show you the way in life, it brings personal power, it brings healing to you, and others, and fellow creatures and to Earth Mother. For it teaches you how to walk on Mother’s back softly and in harmony and balance. I was told that all these forces are interconnected. Each place has a unique spirit, which influences all life around it. To use medicine is to use the forces of nature to influence and guide your path in life. Every animal and plant has a set of influences, just as the stars are thought to influence our lives. My Raven is now my protector from the spirit world. I will now be able to call on this Raven power whenever I need it. Now, where, ever I walk their is close by somewhere in the sky or in a tree or on the ground, will be my Raven protector. He will relay my prayers to the Great Mystery and return with knowledge that I will need. Raven magic is a most powerful medicine that will always give you courage. The Raven is the messenger of magic. The Raven will be at my side until the edge of time. The Raven holds all the power of the unknown energy of the Great Mystery. The Raven is healing energy and the messenger of smoke. I was learning that life is a mystical adventure and at that moment Grandfather Spirit told me that the Great Mystery power is without beginning or end. The Mystery Power is manifested in the wind.

I was told about the Sacred peace Pipe, that it is to be held aloft in prayer, that it forms a link between man and the Great Mystery and expresses the unity between that supreme deity and Grandmother Earth. I was told there should be no ceremony without the smoking of a pipe. And what is especially revered are pipe bowls made from the sacred red pipestone and those should be used in great and important ceremony by the tribe as a whole.

For they say with this sacred pipe you will walk upon the Earth. For this earth is our Mother and it is sacred. And with each step you take upon her it should be as a prayer.

The bowl of this sacred bloodstone is from Her. Carved in this Red stone and facing the user is the sacred white Buffalo, who represents all the four-leggeds who live upon Her. All these people and all things of the universe are joined to you who smoke this sacred calumet pipe. All can send their voices to the havens to be heard by the Great Spirit. When you pray with this pipe you pray for your hearts desire. All of this is sacred so do not forget. With every dawn as it comes is a holy event and every day is holy. For it is a miracle. For it all comes from the Father.

As the dawn broke I for the first time was starting to see. Now I was being told like in the sound of thunder, that I was to carve the sacred blood stone into a pipe bowls and that I would be shown how in a dream. This would bring to others great pleasure and wisdom. In so doing that I should bring spiritual inspiration to the work. I was told that nothing else one can possess has the importance of the Sacred Rites Peace Pipe. That I should counsel with many elders of many tribes for their advice and for their wisdom. That I should bring a realistic and simple look and feel to these peace pipe creations. That I am to select only the best available materials to work with, and should only be selected from Mother Earth’s shells, stones, bones, wood, and clay. And should only be gathered these earthy treasures in a most sacred way. I was told that I should draw inspiration from the rich, cultural contribution of my ancestral Comanche tribes- people who called the Peace Pipe “Calumet” and I should draw inspiration from the higher plane, from which all true art comes. I was shown to faithfully reproduce pre-historic, as well as historical Indian pipes, and in so doing, I would be able to create unique original pipes with prehistoric and tribal influences. The vision now in my head indicated the peace pipe is both a portable alter and a passport. The mystery of the pipe shall be respected. These pipes are the Gods of peace and friendship-the arbitrators of life and death. Calumets are to be smoked before, during and after Kiva and during sweat lodge ceremonials. Always to be passed clockwise for that is the way the earth rotates around the sun. No participant should break the smoking chain circle. I am to bring a presence and power to each piece.

I saw on the center pole these words “One summer a long time ago, the seven sacred council fires of the Lakota Sioux came together and camped. The sun was strong and the people were starving for there was no game. Two young men went out to hunt. Along the way, the two men met a beautiful young women dressed in white who floated as she walked. One man had desires for the woman and tried to touch her, but was consumed by a cloud and turned into a pile of bones. The woman spoke to the second young man and said, ‘Return to your people and tell them I am coming”.

This holy woman brought a wrapped bundle to the people. She unwrapped the bundle, giving to the people a sacred pipe and teaching them how to use it to pray. “With this holy pipe, you will walk like a living prayer” she said. The holy woman told the Sioux about the value of the buffalo, the woman and the children. “You are from MOTHER earth,” she told the women. “What you are doing is as great as what the warriors do.”

Before she left, she told the people she would return. As she walked away, she rolled over four times, turning into a white female buffalo calf. It is said after that day the Lakota honored their pipe, and the buffalo were plentiful” (This I believe this is from JOHN lame Deer’s telling in 1967).

Many believe that the white buffalo calf, Miracle, born August 20, 1994, symbolizes the return coming together of all of mankind on to the red road together in oneness of the rebirth of the sacred peace pipe, so as to bring back balance and harmony to Mother by smoking in prayer of one heart, one mind and one spirit. That was my vision…

I offer Vision Quest experiences to those interested in walking the RedRoad in hopes of bringing people into the walk for healing of Self and World. We provide guidance, support, teaching, and years of expertise and try to provide a safe container for inner transformation. We nurture community, from the circle of friendship and support that forms with each new group, to continuing relationships with past participants, to our own community tribe. If the RedRoad calls to you, then perhaps you'd like to contact me and join us in the walk of the RedRoad.

“I take great effort to bring authenticity, quality, and a spiritual inspiration to my work. Nothing else the Indian possessed had the symbolic importance of the “Indian Sacred Rites Peace Pipe”. Akkeeia Comanche1985.

On top of a wind-swept hill in southeastern Saskatchewan there's a cairn of boulders connected to a large circle of rocks surrounding it by five lines of stones resembling spokes in a wheel. The Moose Mountain Medicine Wheel has been a sacred site for Northern Plains Indians for more than 2,000 years. And yet its origins and purpose remain hidden amid the fog of pre-history.

The Moose Mountain Medicine Wheel was first noted by Canadians of European ancestry in an 1895 report written by land surveyors. The report described the central cairn of the wheel as being about 14 feet high, says Ian Brace, an archaeologist with the Royal Saskatchewan Museum in Regina.

"The central rock cairn is now about a foot-and-a-half high," says Brace. "There've been people from all points on the globe who've not only visited the site, but taken a rock home with them."

Theft, vandalism and agriculture have reduced to about 170 the number of medicine wheels on the Northern Plains of North America. Brace says he can't even guess how many wheels once graced the plains. But if the destruction of tipi rings is any indication of the degree of desecration besetting medicine wheels, "in my life time, they might just disappear".

Though medicine wheels are sacred to all plains Indian groups, their symbolism and meaning vary from tribe to tribe.

The oldest wheels date back about 4,000 years, to the time of the Egyptian pyramids and the English megaliths like Stonehenge. (Moose Mountain has been radio-carbon dated to 800 BC, however, Brace says it's possible an older boulder alignment exists beneath the exposed one.) The Blackfoot, first of the current Indian groups on the plains of what are now Saskatchewan and Alberta, arrived about 800 AD.

When the Blackfoot arrived in the new environment it was already populated by two groups of people called the "Tunaxa" and the "Tunaha", according to Blackfoot oral history. Brace and others believe the three groups assimilated and the Blackfoot carried on the tradition of building medicine wheel monuments. Alberta and Saskatchewan host the majority of known medicine wheels. Others are located in North Dakota, Montana and Wyoming.

Like the Blackfoot before them, Indian groups who migrated to the Northern Plains adopted the medicine wheel as a cultural and spiritual icon.

Simon Kytwayhat, a Cree elder who lives in Saskatoon, says he learned his Cree perspective on the meaning of the medicine wheel from elders. Kytwayhat's interpretation associates the four directions represented on the wheel with the four races and their attributes -- the circle and the number four are sacred symbols in First Nations' spirituality.

South, says Kytwayhat, stands for the color yellow, the Asian people, the Sun, and intellect, while west represents the black race, the color black, the Thunderbird, and emotion.

North is associated with the color white, the white man, winter and physicality -- "white people sometimes rush into things without considering the consequences" -- and east is identified with the color red, the Indian person, spirituality and the eagle.

"The eagle has great vision, and so do those who follow the spiritual path in life."

Kytwayhat said he used to blame the white man for all the troubles experienced by Indians.

"In time, I came to see the real meaning of the medicine wheel is the brotherhood of man. How you treat others comes back to you around the circle."

If First Nations' peoples have divergent views on the meaning of the medicine wheel, members of the non-Native community, including scientists, are often poles apart.

The Mormon Church believes the wheels were built by the Aztecs, and Swiss author Erich von Daniken contends they're a link to pre-historic astronauts. New-Agers, meanwhile, embrace them as spiritual symbols and construct their own near existing sites.

In the 1970s, Colorado astronomer John Eddy proposed wheels like Moose Mountain and Bighorn, in Wyoming, were calendars whose cairns and spokes aligned with celestial markers like Rigel, Aldebaran and Sirius to forecast events like the return of the buffalo.

"It's all over the map," says Ernie Walker, head of the Department of Anthropology and Archaeology at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon.

"We don't know whether some have astronomical alignments or not -- if some do, they're very much in the minority. A lot of (archaeologists) doubt it."

Brace says the astronomical theory is easily debunked by simply imagining someone trying to carry out celestial alignments over the 17-foot crest that separates one side of the Moose Mountain wheel from the other.

Archaeologists and Blackfoot elders appear to agree on at least one kind of medicine wheel.

Walker says most archaeologists of the Northern Plains recognize eight different classes or styles of medicine wheels.

"Lo-and-behold, the Blackfoot elders have routinely referred to one of these eight styles -- although they don't call it that -- and they strongly indicate these were monuments to particular people, or events that happened in the past. I think there's some consensus on that."

Brace points out the most recent wheel was constructed in Alberta in 1938, as a memorial to a renowned Blackfoot leader.

Brace has come up with a medicine wheel definition that allows him to categorize the 12 to 14 Saskatchewan wheels, which range in diameter from 45 to 144 metres (160 yards), into four groups: burial; surrogate burial; fertility symbol; and "medicine hunting".

Burial and surrogate burial, as the names imply, are grave sites and memorials. The longest line of boulders in such wheels points to the direction of the honoree's birth, while shorter ones point to places of courageous acts or remarkable deeds. Fertility wheels have the same pattern of radiating lines and circles employed as fertility symbols on the pottery and birch-bark "bitings" of other pre-historic, North American cultures, he says. The fertility wheels contain buried offerings their builders believed would increase the number of buffalo.

"Medicine hunting", meanwhile, may explain the origin of the Moose Mountain Medicine Wheel, says Brace.

"If the people went into a particular place and they were without resources, they'd take the shoulder blade of the animal they wanted to hunt and put it in the fire. As the bone dried out, it would crack, and at the end of the crack you'd get blobs of fat.

"They would interpret (the cracks with the blobs of fat) as indicating the directions they'd have to go to find those food resources, or people who had food to share. The cracks where fat did not accumulate would indicate a poor direction to go."

Brace suspects the medicine hunting wheel was created, and likely amended over time, to serve as a permanent hunting guide to succeeding generations of nomadic Indians. Permanent, that is, until the white culture came into contact with the red.

In the 1980s, the land encompassing the Moose Mountain Medicine Wheel came under the jurisdiction of a First Nation band. Because visitors wishing to view it must first get permission from the band council, at least some degree of security is now assured, says Brace.

But most of Saskatchewan's medicine wheels are on Crown, public and privately-owned land. Although they're "protected" under provincial legislation that allows for fines of up to $3,000 for anyone caught desecrating a medicine wheel, enforcement is difficult.

Most of the surviving medicine wheels are situated "off the beaten path", accessible only to those bent on finding them, says Brace. The same remoteness that protects the wheels from the ravages of high foot traffic, however, also protects the unscrupulous from being caught stealing or vandalizing them.

It's a problem that has no easy solution, but Brace says there may be hope in the Indian land-claims process. If ownership of the medicine-wheel sites located on public and Crown land could be transferred to Indian bands, and if Indian families could be induced to reside on the sites, security would be greatly enhanced.

In the mean time, people wishing to see a medicine wheel might consider a visit to Wanuskewin Heritage Park, near Saskatoon. There's no better place to learn about the people to whom the circles remain sacred, and the science that seeks to know why.

This is how Grandfather Peyote (King of Herbs) came to the early peoples. Long ago, before the white man, there was a tribe living far south of the Sioux in a land of deserts and mesas. These people were suffering from a sickness, and many died of it. One old woman had a dream that she would find a herb, a root, which would save her people.

The woman was old and frail but, taking her little granddaughter, she went on a vision quest to learn how to find this sacred herb. They walked away from the camp until they were lost. Arriving at the top of a lonely hill, the grandmother made a brush shelter for herself and the young one. Without water or food they were weak, and as night fell they huddled together, not knowing what to do.

Suddenly they felt the wing beats of a huge bird, an eagle flying from the east toward the west.

The old woman raised her arms and prayed to the eagle for wisdom and power. Toward morning they saw the figure of a man floating in the air about four steps above their heads. The old woman heard a voice: "You want water and food and do not know where to find it. I have a medicine for you. It will help you."

This man's arm was pointing to a spot on the ground about four steps from where the old woman was sitting. She looked and saw a peyote plant---a large Grandfather Peyote Plant with sixteen segments. She did not know what it was, but she took her bone knife and cut the green part off. And there was moisture, the peyote juice, the water of life. The old woman and her granddaughter drank it and were refreshed.

The sun went down again and the second night came. The old woman prayed to the spirit: "I am sacrificing myself for the people. Have pity on me. Help me!"

And the figure of the man appeared again, hovering above her as before, and she heard a voice saying: "You are lost now, but you will find your people again and you will save them. When the sun rises two more times, you will find them."

The grandmother ate some more of the sacred medicine and gave some to the girl. And a power entered them through the herb, bringing them knowledge and understanding and a sacred vision. Experiencing this power, the old woman and her granddaughter stayed awake all night. Yet in the morning when the sun rose and shone upon the hide bag with the peyote, the old one felt strong. She said, "Granddaughter, pray with this new herb. It has no mouth, but it is telling me many things."

During the third night the spirit came again and taught the old woman how to show her people the proper way to use the medicine. In the morning she got up, thinking: "This one plant won't be enough to save my people. Could it have been the only herb in this world? How can I find more?"

Then she heard many small voices calling, "Over here, come over here. I'm the one to pick."

These were peyote plants guiding her to their hiding places among the thorn bushes and chaparral. So the old woman and the girl picked the herbs and filled the hide bag with them.

At nightfall once more they saw the spirit man, silhouetted against the setting sun. He pointed out the way to their camp so that they could return quickly. Though they had taken no food or water for four days and nights, the sacred medicine had kept them strong-hearted and strong-minded.

When they arrived home, their relatives were happy to have them back, but everybody was still sick and many were dying. The old woman told the people: "I have brought you a new sacred medicine which will help you."

She showed the men how to use this pejuta, this holy herb. The spirit had taught her the ceremony, and the medicine had given her the knowledge through the mind power which dwells within it. Under her direction the men put up a tipi and made a fire. At that time there was no leader, no roadman, to guide them, and the people had to learn how to perform the ceremony step by step, from the ground up.

Everybody, men and women, old and young, ate four buttons of the new medicine. A boy baby was breast nursing, and the peyote power got into him through his mother's milk. He was sucking his hand, and he began to shake it like a gourd rattle. A man sitting next to the tipi entrance got into the power and caught a song just by looking at the baby's arm.

A medicine man took a rattle of rawhide and began to shake it. The small stones inside the rattle were the voice of Grandfather Peyote, and everybody understood what it was saying. Another man grabbed a drum and beat it, keeping time wit the song and the voice inside the rattle. The drumming was good, but it did not yet have the right sound, because in that first ceremony there was no water in the drum.

One woman felt the spirit telling her to look for a cottonwood tree. After the sun rose, all the people followed her as Grandfather Peyote guided her toward the west. They saw a rabbit jumping out of a hole inside a dried up tree and knew that this was the sacred cottonwood.

They cut down the tree and hollowed out the trunk like a drum with a piece of tanned moose hide. He used the pebbles to make knobs around the rim of the drum so that he could tie the hide to it with a rawhide thong. And when he beat the drum it sounded good, as if a spirit had gotten hold of it.

When the night came, the people made a fire inside the tipi and took the medicine again. Guided by peyote power, the old woman looked into the flames and saw a heart, like the heart-shaped leaf of the cottonwood tree. Thus she know that the Great Spirit, who is also in Grandfather Peyote, wanted to give his heart to the red men of this continent. She told the man tending the fire to form the glowing embers into a star and then into a moon, because the power of the star and the spirit of the moon had come into the tipi.

One man sitting opposite the door had a vision in which he was told to ask for water. The old woman brought fresh, cool water in a skin bag and they all drank and in this way they all came under the power. Feeling the spirit of the water, the man who was in charge of the fire shaped the embers into the outline of a water bird, and from then on the water bird became the chief symbol of the holy medicine.

Around the fire this man made a half-moon out of earth, and all along the top of it he drew a groove with his finger. Thus he formed a road, the road of life, He said that anybody with the gift of wacankiyapi, which means having love and heart for the people, should sit right there. And from that day on, the man who is running a meeting was called the "roadman."

In this way the people made the first peyote altar, and after they had drunk the water, they thanked the peyote. Looking at the fire in the shape of the sacred water bird, they prayed to the four directions, and someone sprinkled green cedar on the fire. The fragrant, sweet-smelling smoke was the breath of Grandfather Peyote, the spirit of all green and growing things.

Now the people had everything they needed: the sacred herb, the drum, the gourd, the fire, the water, the cedar. From that moment on, they learned to know themselves. Their sick were cured, and they thanked the old woman and her grandchild for having brought this blessing to them. They were the Camanche nation, and from them the worship of the sacred herb spread to all the tribes throughout the land.

Who Where The First Peoples Of Turtle Island

There is no real consensus when people first migrated to the Americas or from where. Estimates vary between 12,000 and 50,000 years ago or more. And the theories of where they came from is all over the map. The origin of man on earth is even a bigger mystery. I have grown to think we have been here since the beginning of time.

Most experts agree that man in one form or another has roamed this planet for about 4 million years. Recent molecular evidence seems to support this idea. Around 1976 scientist Mary Leakey’s group in Africa was credited with finding Hominid footprints dating back some 3.7 million years and just recently scientists found in the central African country of Chad the oldest fossil of a human ancestor ever—a 7 million-year-old skull that is shaking up theories of human origins.

Many scientist, believe that molecular studies will lead us to a sort of clock which will tell us how long we have been here. When you consider when I was born most people believed that we had only been here a mere, 3 to 5,000 years. So in just my lifetime, so far, science has added several million years to the equation.

I have recurring dreams and visions where I see that man has always been here. That mankind raises and falls with cataclysmic earthly events, like ice ages, catastrophic decease’s, and disastrous asteroid and comet collisions with planet Mother Earth. And has even done, himself in on accusation over the eons of time. Why not? Science now believe Dinosaurs fly. And if the Dinosaurs where wiped out from a meter, comet or what ever impacted with earth 160 million years ago and if we were here or some of our ancestors it could have got them too. In the boarder scream of things I see no real conflict between that theory and the Christian and most other major religions.

Lets take the last Ice Age as an example. Science thinks it ended somewhere between 11,000 and 15,000 years ago. They believe it was a relatively small one as far as ice ages go. But it did happen. If you look at a map that shows the fingers of the ice as it worked its way down from the north almost in some places as far as the equator you will see open ground between the fingers. Where there were green valleys where animals could live and man could hunt them and the eatable plants to survive. There was open water along the west coasts of the Americas. Leaving passages open for travel and fish, shell food to sustain life along the way. Villages where most likely established only later to be obliterated by the high seas caused by ice melt as the ice receded. Yes it not only wiped out most of the folks here but some of the ice was 6 miles thick wiping out everything including any evidence that anyone was ever here. That is except interestingly enough in some of those valleys between the ice sheets and near the tips is where they have found the evidence that early man did indeed live here. Also early peoples seem to have liked living near the ocean kind of like we do today. But remember with those ice ages that come along every so often the water would raise and fall dramatically further obliterating most evidence of all the many people that may have lived here between Ice Ages and other natural disasters. So when you put that all together it’s a wonder we have survived at all. We must have reached certain heights as a people only to be struck down again and again over the millions perhaps billions of years by some catastrophic events. Man and animals may have crossed the Bering straights several times over the millenniums. Taking the paths of least resistance by following the plants and animals as the worlds geography naturally changed along with those humans that inhabited the lands and the seas.

So around 11,000 to 15,000 years ago, near the end of the Ice Age thefirst people we have detected migrated to the so called, North American continent by people of the Beringian subcontinent. They were apparently nomadic hunters from northeast Asia and are believed to have crossed the Bering Strait land bridge (that scientists call Beringia) into present-day Alaska.

11,200 years ago the Clovis Culture known for invention of superbly crafted grooved or fluted stone projectiles (Clovis points) were first found near Clovis, New Mexico, in 1932. Clovis points have been found throughout the Americas. They were noted as big game hunters, notably woolly mammoths, mastodons and other large game of their time.

10,900 years ago the Folsom Culture roamed this land and they were named for a site found near Folsom, New Mexico, in 1926. They developed a smaller, thinner, fluted spear point than Clovis type. They also hunted big game, notably the huge bison ancestor of the modern buffalo. They first used a spear-throwing device called an atlatl (an Aztec word for “spear-thrower” later in this book I go into more detail on this interesting hunting devise). Discovery of Folsom point in 1927 gave first proof of Glacial Man in America.

10,500 years ago Plano or Plainview Culture named after the site in Plainview, Texas. They are associated primarily with the Great Plains area. They also were bison hunters. They developed a delicately flaked spear point that lacked fluting. Adopted mass-hunting technique (jump-kill) to drive animal herds off a cliff. Preserved meat in the form of pemmican. May have been one of the first to use grinding stones to grind seeds and meat.

8,500 years ago Northwest Coast Indians believed to be modern descendants of the Tlingit, Haida, Kwakiutl, Nootka, and Makah tribes. They settled along the shores, rivers, and creeks of southeastern Alaska to northern California. They a maritime culture and were expert canoe builders. Salmon fishing was important to them. Some tribes hunted whales and other sea mammals. They developed a high culture without the benefit of agriculture, pottery, or influence of ancient Mexican civilizations. These tribes lived in large, complex communities, constructed multifamily cedar plank houses. Evolved a caste system of chiefs, commoners, and slaves They were highly skilled in crafts and woodworking that reached their height after European contact, which provided them steel tools. Placed an inordinate value on accumulated wealth and property. Held lavish feasts (called potlatches) to display their wealth and social status. Important site: Ozette, Wash. (a Makah village).

500 B.C. to A.D. 200 the Adena Culture named for the estate called Adena near Chilicothe, Ohio, where their earthwork mounds were first found. Their culture was centered in present day southern Ohio, but also lived in Pennsylvania, Indiana, Kentucky, and West Virginia. They were the pioneer mound builders in the U.S. and constructed spectacular burial and effigy mounds. Settled in villages of circular post-and-wattle houses. Primarily hunter-gatherers, they farmed corn, tobacco, squash, pumpkins, and sunflowers at an early date. Important sites: The Adena Mound, Ohio; Grave Creek Mound, W.V.; Monks Mound, Ill., and is the largest mound. May have built the Great Serpent Mound in Ohio.

A.D. 300 to 1300 Hohokam people (a Pima Indian word meaning “The Vanished Ones”). Believed to be ancestors of the modern Papago (Tohono O'odham) and Pima (Akimel O'odham) Indian groups. Settled in present-day Arizona. Where desert farmers cultivated corn. And are believed to be the first to grow cotton in the Southwest. They also wove cotton fabrics. They built pit houses and later multi-storied buildings (pueblos). They constructed vast network of irrigation systems. They build major canals that were over 30 miles long. They built ball courts and truncated pyramids similar to those found in Middle America. They are the first in the world known to master etching (etched shells with fermented Saguaro juice). It is believed they also traded with Mesoamerican Toltecs Aztecs and others. Important sites: Pueblo Grande, Ariz.; Snaketown, Ariz; Casa Grande, Ariz. May have been the same peoples of Casa Grande Mexico the potters. Ruins can be found from Tucson Arizona to the California boarder on both sides of the American and Mexican boarder.

300 B.C.to 1100 A.D. Mogollon Culture. They were highland farmers but also hunters in what is now eastern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico. Named after cluster of mountain peaks along Arizona-New Mexico border. They developed pit houses, later dwelt in pueblos. They were accomplished stoneworkers. They were famous for their magnificent black on white painted pottery (Minbres Valley pottery), the finest North American native ceramics. Important settlements: Casa Malpais, Ariz. (first ancient catacombs in U.S., discovered there 1990); Gila Cliff Dwellings, N.M.; Galaz, N.M. Casa Grandes in Mexico was largest settlement we have found to date. They also traded with the Aztecs and others. And are believed to have traveled deep into Mexico and may be related to both the Tarahmara and Aztecs of Mexico.

300 B.C.–A.D. 1300 Anasazi (a Navajo word meaning “The Ancient Ones”). Their descendants are the Hopi and other Pueblo Indians. Inhabited Colorado Plateau “four corners,” where Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, and Colorado meet. An agricultural society that cultivated cotton, wove cotton fabrics. The early Anasazi are known as the Basketmaker People for their extraordinary basketwork. Were skilled workers in stone. Carved stone Kachina dolls. Built pit houses, later apartment-like pueblos. Constructed road networks. Were avid astronomers. Used a solar calendar. Traded with Mesoamerican Toltecs. Important sites: Chaco Canyon, N.M.; Mesa Verde, Colo.; Canyon de Chelly, Ariz.; Bandelier, N.M.; Betatkin, N.M. The Acoma Pueblo, N.M., built circa A.D. 1300 and still occupied, may be the oldest continuously inhabited village in the U.S.

Date	Culture or event	Comments
c. 15,000 years ago, near the end of the Ice Age¹	First migration of Paleo-Indians in North America by people of Beringian subcontinent.	Nomadic hunters from northeast Asia are believed to have crossed the Bering Strait land bridge (that scientists call Beringia) into present-day Alaska.
c. 11,200 years ago	Clovis Culture	Known for invention of superbly crafted grooved or fluted stone projectiles (Clovis points) first found near Clovis, New Mexico, in 1932. Clovis points have been found throughout the Americas. Hunted big game, notably mammoths.
c. 10,900 years ago	Folsom Culture	Named for site found near Folsom, New Mexico, 1926. Developed a smaller, thinner, fluted spear point than Clovis type. Hunted big game, notably the huge bison ancestor of the modern buffalo. First used a spear-throwing device called an atlatl (an Aztec word for “spear-thrower”). Discovery of Folsom point in 1927 gave first proof of Glacial Man in America.
c. 10,500 years ago	Plano or Plainview Culture	Named after the site in Plainview, Texas. They are associated primarily with the Great Plains area. Were bison hunters. Developed a delicately flaked spear point that lacked fluting. Adopted mass-hunting technique (jump-kill) to drive animal herds off a cliff. Preserved meat in the form of pemmican. First to use grinding stones to grind seeds and meat.
c. 8,500 years ago	Northwest Coast Indians. Some modern descendants are the Tlingit, Haida, Kwakiutl, Nootka, and Makah tribes.	Settled along the shores, rivers, and creeks of southeastern Alaska to northern California. A maritime culture, were expert canoe builders. Salmon fishing was important. Some tribes hunted whales and other sea mammals. Developed a high culture without the benefit of agriculture, pottery, or influence of ancient Mexican civilizations. Tribes lived in large, complex communities, constructed multifamily cedar plank houses. Evolved a caste system of chiefs, commoners, and slaves. Were highly skilled in crafts and woodworking that reached their height after European contact, which provided them steel tools. Placed an inordinate value on accumulated wealth and property. Held lavish feasts (called potlatches) to display their wealth and social status. Important site: Ozette, Wash. (a Makah village).
c. 500 B.C.–A.D. 200	Adena Culture	Named for the estate called Adena near Chilicothe, Ohio, where their earthwork mounds were first found. Culture was centered in present southern Ohio, but also lived in Pennsylvania, Indiana, Kentucky, and West Virginia. Were the pioneer mound builders in the U.S. and constructed spectacular burial and effigy mounds. Settled in villages of circular post-and-wattle houses. Primarily hunter-gatherers, they farmed corn, tobacco, squash, pumpkins, and sunflowers at an early date. Important sites: The Adena Mound, Ohio; Grave Creek Mound, W.V.; Monks Mound, Ill., is the largest mound. May have built the Great Serpent Mound in Ohio.
c. A.D. 300–1300	Hohokam people (a Pima Indian word meaning “The Vanished Ones”). Believed to be ancestors of the modern Papago (Tohono O'odham) and Pima (Akimel O'odham) Indian groups.	Settled in present-day Arizona. Were desert farmers. Cultivated corn. Were first to grow cotton in the Southwest. Wove cotton fabrics. Built pit houses and later multi-storied buildings (pueblos). Constructed vast network of irrigation systems. Major canals were over 30 miles long. Built ball courts and truncated pyramids similar to those found in Middle America. First in world known to master etching (etched shells with fermented Saguaro juice). Traded with Mesoamerican Toltecs. Important sites: Pueblo Grande, Ariz.; Snaketown, Ariz; Casa Grande, Ariz.
c. 300 B.C.–A.D. 1100	Mogollon Culture	Were highland farmers but also hunters in what is now eastern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico. Named after cluster of mountain peaks along Arizona-New Mexico border. They developed pit houses, later dwelt in pueblos. Were accomplished stoneworkers. Famous for magnificent black on white painted pottery (Minbres Valley pottery), the finest North American native ceramics. Important settlements: Casa Malpais, Ariz. (first ancient catacombs in U.S., discovered there 1990); Gila Cliff, N.M.; Galaz, N.M. Casa Grandes in Mexico was largest settlement.
c. 300 B.C.–A.D. 1300	Anasazi (a Navajo word meaning “The Ancient Ones”). Their descendants are the Hopi and other Pueblo Indians.	Inhabited Colorado Plateau “four corners,” where Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, and Colorado meet. An agricultural society that cultivated cotton, wove cotton fabrics. The early Anasazi are known as the Basketmaker People for their extraordinary basketwork. Were skilled workers in stone. Carved stone Kachina dolls. Built pit houses, later apartment-like pueblos. Constructed road networks. Were avid astronomers. Used a solar calendar. Traded with Mesoamerican Toltecs. Important sites: Chaco Canyon, N.M.; Mesa Verde, Colo.; Canyon de Chelly, Ariz.; Bandelier, N.M.; Betatkin, N.M. The Acoma Pueblo, N.M., built circa A.D. 1300 and still occupied, may be the oldest continuously inhabited village in the U.S.
c. 100 B.C.–A.D. 500	Hopewell Culture. May be ancestors of present-day Zuni Indians.	Named after site in southern Ohio. Lived in Ohio valley, central Mississippi, and Illinois River Valleys. Were both hunter-gatherers and farmers. Villages were built along rivers, characterized by large conical or dome-shaped burial mounds and elaborate earthen walls enclosing large oval or rectangular areas. Were highly skilled craftsmen in pottery, stone, sculpture, and metalworking, especially copper. Engaged in widespread trade all over northern America extending west to the Rocky Mountains. Important sites: Newark Mound, Ohio; Great Serpent Mound, Ohio; Crooks Mound, La.
c. A.D.700–European contact.	Mississippi Culture. Major tribes of the Southeast are their modern descendants.	Extended from Mississippi Valley into Alabama, Georgia, and Florida. Constructed large flat-topped earthen mounds on which were built wooden temples and meeting houses and residences of chiefs and priests. (They were also known as Temple Mound Builders.) Built huge cedar pole circles (“woodhenges”) for astronomical observations. Were highly skilled hunters with bow and arrow. Practiced large-scale farming of corn, beans, and squash. Were skilled craftsmen. Falcon and Jaguar were common symbols in their art. Had clear ties with Mexico. The largest Mississippian center and largest of all mounds (Monks Mound) was at Cahokia, Ill. Other great temple centers were at Spiro, Okla.; Moundville, Ala.; and Etowah, Ga.

This timeline is based on information provided by the scribes traveling with Columbus and drawn from the American historical record as well as from interviews done by the author of descendants of early peoples that have been handed down through story telling. Other information relied on came from the Indians of the American Southwest, Santa Fe: School of American Research Press, 1993; James Olson & Raymond Wilson, Native Americans in the Twentieth Century, Urbana & Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1984; Barbara Leitch, Chronology of the American Indian, St. Clair Shores, MI: Scholarly Press, Inc. 1975. But not limited thereto.

Christopher Columbus set out to find India (Asia). He set sail from the Canaries Islands with confidence that his ideas of sailing west, to reach the east, were correct. Historians generally agree that the date 1492 separates pre-historic peoples from historical peoples of the Americas. Many of those historical people’s dissidents later became the so called American Indians that we are most familiar with. By 1492 people had lived in the Western Hemisphere for at least tens of thousands of years. For much of this time it is falsely believed that they experienced virtually no recorded, sustained contact with other parts of the world. However Millions of people lived in an area some five times the size of Europe. In strikingly diverse habitats and climates they developed possibly the most varied and productive agriculture in the world. Their lifestyles and belief systems differed widely and they spoke hundreds of distinct languages.

Throughout the hemisphere, states and centers of high civilization had risen and fallen. The dynamic Aztec, Maya and Inca empires were still expanding at this time and internal migration and warfare were common. The large land mass area in the hemisphere was referred to and called by many “Turtle Island.” Only later would this area be given the name - America - and the people labeled "Indians." By the white man.

Columbus was obsessed with sailing west for two reasons only and those reasons were to become wealthy and powerful by locating a shorter route to the riches of Asia. After sailing for 33 days and approximately 3,000 miles, he understandably assumed he had reached his goal. But instead landed on one of the nameless islands of the Sea of the Indies, later known as the Caribbean Islands (caribe Indian) no one knows for sure which island it was but he named it San Salvador but the indigenous people called it Guanahani. Columbus thus named the people he saw and met there Indians.

Well this is a misnomer, the place he had made land fall, was not India and therefore the people were not Indians. Those people were actually descendants from the seed of early man and the first inhabitants of turtle island and may be the descendants of the early Folsom people mixed with other early land bridge and boat people of past Ice Ages.

His believed discoveries did not bring the riches and power he sought. Even after exploiting by bring diseases pilfering, murdering and enslaving the so-called Indians he died powerless and poor. That being the very conditions he sought to avoid by his explorations.

With family, friends and a priest at his side, on May 20, 1506 Columbus repeated the words that Christ said on the Cross-” unto your hands, Father, I commend my soul” and died.

Columbus was not the first explorer or perhaps not even the first European to reach the Western Hemisphere but he did bring Europe to the New World as he collected the best cartographic and geographic record of his time. His four remarkable voyages caused the focus of all, the world to be on the West and led others to find the fortune and power that eluded him.

I suppose had Columbus landed in Turkey he would have referred to the people their as Turkeys. That is how ridiculous it was when he referred to the indigenous people in the so called new world as Indians. That name is misleading and has contributed to the confusion that exists even today about the origins of early Turtle Island peoples.

...the voice of the Great Spirit is heard in the twittering of birds, the rippling of mighty waters, and the sweet breathing of flowers. If this is Paganism, then at present, at least, I am a Pagan. Gertrude Simmons Bonnin [Zitkala-Sa] (1876-1933) Dakota Sioux

Columbus wrote that the Indians were pagans; heathens, savages and he placed them somewhere between man and beast. These people were actually very accomplished they were already growing 700 different varieties of corn. All developed from a single parent plant. Science says in order to reach that advanced stage the corn would have had to be cultivated for a minimum of 20,000 years.

By the time Columbus arrived corn was already very old. It had been grown for so long of a time it had lost the ability to replenish itself and had evolved into several different colors. Corn unless it is planted and cared for it will not grow. We should also remember that even before corn, the early peoples of the Americas were planting, irrigating and harvesting beans, squash, potatoes, and even different colors of cotton. Before that they were grinding wild foods such as acorns and threshing grain. They were food gathers as well as hunters.

They raised Turkeys and parrots and domesticated dogs. Early man in the America’s had become the most advanced farmer on earth. They discovered and developed more than twenty-five major food plants, three kinds of beans, three kinds of squash, pumpkin, mase, manioc and potatoes. They also raised sweet potatoes and chili peppers, tomatoes, peanuts, avocados, strawberries, blueberries, grapes, pineapple, lime and lemon. From Anil they made indigo dye. They found that certain insects called Cochineal could be dried and crushed and made into red dye and they raised those insects for that purpose. All these things and much more were passed down to us by these early people.

They took the resin copal and made varnish. They made gum from chicle-cinchona and from quaky aspen bark they got quinine and other plants Aspirin to cure fevers and to thin the blood and help to ease headaches. They picked the coca leaves to chew to take fatigue away. They harvested persimmons, pomegranates, papaws, papayas, guavas, Kievi, plums, cherries, cashew nuts and wild rice.

They drew the latex from the heves tree and made rubber, they drew sap from the maple tree for syrup. They harvested wild sunflower seeds, mustard seed, Jerusalem artichokes, custard apples, and crab apples. They made good use of all sorts of things that grew wild for medicines including many wild herbs, spices, peyote, mushrooms and tobacco.

It is said the greatest discoveries of man was fire, agriculture, and language. All of which America’s early man already possessed by the time Columbus arrived. For upon language, fire and agriculture rest everything else mankind has accomplished since.

The world is a planet without a truly native population like as was the new world. When you consider all the tribes of the world, they and we are descendants from a seed from earlier man. This turtle island is a land without a native people. All of us then and now are immigrants, descendants of Europeans, Orientals, Africans and many other known and unknown peoples, who came to this land before and after Columbus. The early people of turtle Island believed that everything is a circle. Everything is connected, and I believe that is even true of the people whom populated turtle Island and is still true to this day. Even the indigenous men and woman waiting on the shore to welcome and greet the crews of the Pinta, the Nina, and the Santa Maria were themselves of foreign lineage.

The alleged evolutionary process of mankind claimed, apparently never took place in the Western Hemisphere, at least no evidence has to date been found. I find that extraordinarily interesting. I think evidence still to be uncovered will find that earlier voyages took place. For example on the west coast of turtle Island there has been found large chunks of Jade, mostly in and near coves. This Jade is not indigenous and many think it was brought there by ancient Chinese mariners and may have been used as anchors lost in storms. There is even an area on the California coast named Jade Cove because of all the Jade that has been found there over the years. And you can find small pieces Jade on the beaches there today. Many free ocean divers tell stories of large boulders of Jade just off the coast in shallow water. In Laguna Beach in the front yard of the famous Pottery Shack you can see one of those Jade anchors that weighs tons. Unlike Northern California there is no known natural Jade deposits of any kind what so ever, low grade or otherwise. It is said to have been found right off the beach there in Laguna.

Throughout time men have dreamed of lands beyond... lands that could perhaps provide food and even fabulous treasures. Phoenician voyagers of 400 BC, sailed thousands of miles without falling off the edge of the earth as many of the time feared. These bold people were mariners, explorers and traders they surely sailed around Africa and ventured farther west maybe even to Brazil S.A..

We know that the Chinese reached Mexico after long voyages across the Pacific. 500 years before Columbus sailed to the new world, the Norsemen had already set foot on it. I doubt that even they were the first visitors. I speculate that long before Leif Erickson made his landfall at Baffin Island others were braving the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.

1493 Juan Ponce de León

Explorer: In 1493, Ponce sailed to Hispaniola (San Domingo) with Columbus on his second voyage, an expedition which included many aristocratic young men, and adventurous noblemen who had been left without occupation after the fall of Granada. When Nicolás Ovando came to Hispaniola in 1502 as governor, he found the natives in a state of revolt, and in the war which followed Ponce rendered such valuable services that he was appointed Ovando's lieutenant with headquarters in a town in the eastern part of the island. While here, he heard from the Indians that there was much wealth in the neighboring Island of Buriquien (Porto Rico), and he asked and obtained permission to visit it in 1508, where he discovered many rich treasures; for his work in this expedition he was appointed Adelantado or Governor of Boriquien. Having killed and reduced the numbers of the natives, he was soon afterward removed from office, but not until he had amassed a considerable fortune. At this time stories of Eastern Asia were prevalent which told of a famous spring the waters of which had the marvelous virtue of restoring to youth and vigor those who drank them. The Spaniards heard from the Indians tales that reminded them of this Fons Juventutis, and they got the idea that this fountain was situated on an island called Bimini which lay to the north of Hispaniola.

Ponce obtained from Charles V, 23 February, 1512, a patent authorizing him to discover and people the Island of Bimini, giving him jurisdiction over the island for life, and bestowing upon him the title of Adelantado. On 3 March, 1513, Ponce set out from San German (Porto Rico) with three ships, fitted out at his own expense. Setting his course in a northwesterly direction, eleven days later he reached Guanahani, where Columbus first saw land. Continuing his way, on Easter Sunday 7 March, he came within sight of the coast which he named Florida in honor of the day and on account of the luxuriant vegetation. On 2 April he landed at a spot a little to the north of the present site of St. Augustine and formally took possession in the name of the Crown. He now turned back, following the coast to its southern extremity and up the west coast to latitude 27°30', and then returned to Porto Rico. During this trip he had several encounters with the natives, who showed great courage and determination in their attacks, which probably accounts for the fact that Ponce did not attempt to found a settlement or penetrate into the interior in search of the treasure which was believed to be hidden there. Although his first voyage had been without result as far as the acquisition of gold and slaves, and the discovery of the "fountain of youth" were concerned, Ponce determined to secure possession of his new discovery. Through his friend, Pedro Nuñez de Guzmán, he secured a second grant dated 27 September, 1514, which gave him power to settle the Island of Bimini and the Island of Florida, for such he thought Florida to be. In 1521 he set out with two ships and landing upon the Florida coast, just where, it is not known, he was furiously attacked by the natives while he was building houses for his settlers. Finally driven to re-embark, he set sail for Cuba, where he died of the wound which he had received.

Hernando Cortes was born in the village of Medellin in Entremedura, Spain, in 1485. At the age of 14, he left home to study law at the University of Salamanca and returned home two years later. He wandered the seaports of Cadiz, Palos, Sanlucar, an d Seville and in 1504 joined an expedition of five ships that sailed for Santo Domingo in the New World. Cortes wanted to become a conquistador (a conqueror as well as an explorer) for Spain.

After arriving in Hispaniola, the center for Spanish exploration, Cortes got himself noticed by Diego Velasquez who had decided to explore and conquer Cuba in 1511. He asked Cortes to join his expedition. The expedition was successful, but it did not satisfy the Spanish craving for gold. Velasquez had heard about a pre=historic wealthy Aztec Empire in Mexico and wanted someone to lead an expedition there. He needed someone that he could trust and who would remain loyal to him. Cortes was overjoyed that he was asked to be the commander of the expedition to find the Aztec cities.

Cortes rushed to make preparations for departure, because he feared Velasquez might change his mind and appoint someone else to lead the expedition. The expedition consisted of 11 ships, 500 soldiers, 13 horses, and some cannons. His fleet anchored at Trinidad on the south coast of Cuba where more soldiers were hired and additional horses were taken aboard. After sailing across the straits of Yucatan, they landed on the island of Cozumel. Here they met a Spanish castaway, Aguilar, who knew the language of the Natives and became the interpreter for the conquistadores. The expedition sailed around the Yucatan peninsula on March 4, 1519, and stopped at the mouth of a river in the country of Tabasco. Here they met Natives who would not let them come ashore even for water. Cortes and his soldiers got into several tough battles and drove the Natives out of their fortified town. After many Natives were killed, Cortes, through his interpreter, won the peace and friendship of the Natives. Cortes stayed in camp for five days to allow his wounded soldiers to recover and to get their weapons in order.

The fleet set sail again and anchored next at San Juan de Ulua. They were greeted by Natives who gave them food and fine gifts made of gold and silver. The interpreter told them that the Natives had been sent by the great Emperor Montezuma, ruler of the pre-historic Aztecs.

Cortes was even more determined to conquer the Aztecs after seeing these riches. He also made friends with pre-historic Cempoala Natives who fought against the Aztecs. The Cempoalas helped Cortes and his men establish a base on the shore at a village Cortes named Vera Cruz which he claimed in the name of Spain. It was very important to have a safe port where Spanish ships could land supplies and reinforcements that Cortes would need to conquer the Aztec capital city of Tenochtitlan.

Cortes realized that some of his men wanted to return to Cuba. The men did not believe they could walk through 200 miles of jungle and swamps, climb mountains, avoid thousands of hostile Natives and attack the Aztec fortress city which was surrounded by water. To keep his men from deserting, Cortes carried out a desperate and bold scheme. He removed the sails, rigging, compasses, and all other valuables from all but one ship and burned the others.

Without a way to retreat, on August 16, 1519, the expedition started. In addition to the Spaniards, there were 40 Cempoalan warrior chiefs and 200 Natives to drag the cannon and carry the supplies. The men were accustomed to the hot climate of the coast, but they suffered immensely from the cold of the mountains, the rain, and the hail. Although Cortes asked for peace and friendship, and permission to cross their land on the way to Mexico, the pre-historic Tlaxcalan Natives refused. Throughout the month of September, Cortes and members of his expedition fought many battles with the Tlaxcalans. The Spanish weapons and technology, and the boldness of Cortes, kept his men from being wiped out. Cortes made his last peace offer. He said that if it was refused that every Tlaxcalan would be killed. His peace offer was accepted. The Tlaxcalans brought food, water, and gifts. On October 23, 1519, Cortes set out (with an additional 1,000 Tlaxcalan Natives) to conquer Montezuma and the Aztecs. As Cortes passed through mountain towns and villages, many Natives told of cruel treatment by the Aztecs. These Natives were very willing to help conquer Montezuma.

Cortes and his expedition were awe struck when they finally saw Tenochtitlan, Montezuma's capital city. The cities and towns were even more beautiful and contained more riches than the Spanish expected. Cortes arrested Montezuma and locked him in his palace. At this time, Cortes was called back to Vera Cruz to deal with an uprising. When Cortes returned to Tenochtitlan, he found his men fighting with the Aztecs. Montezuma was stoned and killed by his own people. Many Spaniards were killed or drowned when they tried to carry sacks of gold across the causeway to the mainland. A year later, Cortes returned to the Aztec capital city and for two months fought a bloody battle. On August 13, 1521, Cortes claimed it for Spain.

The King's share of the treasure was sent to Spain and Cortes got his reward. On October 15, 1522, he was given the title of Captain General and Governor of New Spain; the capital, Tenochtitlan, became Mexico City.

Coronado was governor of New Galicia (contemporary Sinaloa and Nayarit, Mexico). As such he had already sent out Fray Marcos de Niza on a voyage to the north, to New Mexico. When Marcos returned he told about a wealthy, golden city, called Cibola. Of course this raised Coronado's interest, and he decided to try to get that gold. He set out in 1540, joined by a large expedition of 340 Spanish, 300 Native allies, and 1000 slaves, both native Americans and Africans.

He followed the coast of the Gulf of California northward to the Sonora, then traveled upstream the Sonora, and crossed the Gila to Cibola, in the west of present-day New Mexico. There he was met by disappointment. Cibola was nothing like the great golden city fray Marcos had described, it was just a simple pueblo of the Zuni Natives. Marcos was sent back to Mexico in disgrace.

Coronado conquered Cibola, and explored the other six Zuni pueblos. He also sent out various expeditions. Melchior Diaz was sent out to the mouth of the Colorado, to meet Hernándo de Alarcón who would be shipping supplies for Coronado. Pedro de Tovar was sent northwest, and heard of a great river further west. Garcia Lopez de Cardenas was sent out to find this river, and found himself being the first European to see the magnificent Grand Canyon. Hernando de Alvarado was sent east, and found villages around the Rio Grande. Coronado set up his winter quarters in one of them, Tiguex (present-day Bernalillo near Albuquerque). During his wintering he suffered from fierce attacks by the Natives.

He met an Native, which he called "the Turk", who told him about Quivira, a rich country in the northwest. He decided to look for Quivira, taking the Turk as his guide. He traversed the Texan panhandle, and marched on further north. However, the Turk was found lying about the route, or at least Coronado thought he did so, and was executed. Other guides led him further to Quivira, and he reached a village near present-day Lindsborg, Kansas. But his disappointment was repeated: The Quivira Natives (later known as Wichita) were no rich people at all, the village consisted mostly of thatched huts, and not even small amounts of gold could be found. Coronado returned to Tiguex, where his main force had remained behind. Here he spent another winter.

In 1542 he went back to Mexico through roughly the same route he had come. Only 100 of his men came back with him. Although the expedition was a complete failure, he remained governor of New Galicia until 1544, then retired to Mexico City, where he died in 1554.

First Circumnavigation of the Globe by Magellan

1519-1522

The First Circumnavigation of the Globe, begun in 1519, was an attempt to prove that the coveted Spice Islands, or Moluccas, were actually property of Spain. Finding a direct route between the Spice Islands and Spanish Peru would be argument enough for ownership of these lands. Ferdinand Magellan set out from Spain on this voyage with five ships, but the voyage was more difficult than expected. Disease, bad weather, and loss of ships to Portuguese attack hampered the voyage. On April 27, 1521, Magellan was killed in the Philippine Islands attempting to convert a native chief to Christianity. With only two ships remaining, the crew continued the voyage making it back to Seville, Spain with only 18 crew members on a single ship. The first circumnavigation of the globe had been completed.

In 1539 Hernando de Soto and five hundred adventurers began on a journey of exploration that would take 4 years and would travel through 10 states in the southeast United States. His goal was to discover a source of wealth, preferably gold, and around his mines establish a settlement. During his travels through La Florida he encountered numerous groups of native peoples, making friends of some and enemies of others. His expedition was not the first in La Florida; however, it was the most extensive. In its aftermath thousands of Indians, both friends and enemies, would die by disease that the Spaniards brought from the Old World. De Soto would initially be written of as a great explorer but, would be later viewed as a destroyer of native culture; however, in truth de Soto was neither a hero or a villain but, in reality a man of his era and place of birth.

De Soto was born somewhere around the year 1500 in Jerez de los Caballeros in Extremadura in what is now Spain. Contemporaries of de Soto would include Cortez, Balboa, and Francisco Pizzaro with whom he would share a great adventure. De Soto's ancestors had been part of the reconquista and as aristocrats many had been knighted for their part in driving the Moors from the Iberian Peninsula. Hernando would have played no part in the expulsion of the Moors; however, family legacy would have played no small part in developing his frame of reference. It is thought that by the time do Soto was fourteen he was on his way to the new world.

In 1514 de Soto sailed with the new governor of modern day Panama. Six years later he was a captain who because of his part in military action against the Natives of Panama had earned the right to own Native Slaves. By the age of 31 de Soto had gained a substantial amount of wealth based on the slave trade and gold the Natives had provided for him. Between 1531 and 1535 de Soto would amass the greatest fortune he would ever obtain. De Soto was present with Francisco Pizzaro when the Inca Empire was conquered. De Soto played an important part in the conquest where his military leadership was of great importance to Pizzaro. His reward was a fortune in booty from the conquered Inca which provided the opportunity for de Soto to marry and be welcome at the Castillian Court.

On April 20, 1537 Carlos V of Spain awarded de Soto a contract to conquer and settle 200 leagues of La Florida. La Florida encompassed all of the land north of present day Mexico from which de Soto could choose. The contract required de Soto to supply the venture, pay his men, and build three forts out of his pocket. For his contribution de Soto would receive titles, lands, and a share in the colonies earnings. Do Soto was given the title of Adelantado and given the option of choosing the 200 leagues of coast line he desired. The charter given de Soto had been standardized by the monarchy and was used for all expeditions into the New World. It spelled out de Soto's responsibilities to his men, to the crown, and especially made clear the division of wealth. A return on no investment was a great deal for the monarchy. All charters after 1526 also incorporated a provision which became Spain's policy in the New World.

This provision made clear the responsibility of the state and the church in dealing with peoples of the New World.. According to the provision the Spanish crown required the allegiance of the New World peoples and the only goal in conquest was to establish Catholicism as the official religion. The people could remain free; however, upon encounter the Spanish would read a copy of the Requeimiento. The Requeimiento informed the Natives that they and all their lands were now owned by the Spanish monarchy and if they accepted Catholicism no servitude could be imposed upon them; however, in reality it provided the means for the agents of the crown to enslave the Natives. Cultural differences made it all but impossible for the native Americans to understand what the Requerimiento really meant. To not obey the Requerimiento brought down the wrath of the Spanish military and possible involuntary servitude. De Soto's charter made him representative of the crown, the church, and, God's representative on earth, the pope. In de Soto's mind his authority led right to God's throne.

In April of 1538 de Soto and his expedition left for the New World. They made a brief stop at the Canary Islands and then on to Cuba. In Cuba de Soto gathered feral pigs as a food source for his journey in the New World. The same pigs de Soto would use as a food source were also a potential host for swine flu. According to John Verano and Douglas Ubelaker, editors of Disease and Demography in the Americas, swine flu may have been the first serious epidemic in the New World. A potent ally in controlling native populations micro organisms; however, did not discriminate between friendly Natives, unfriendly Natives, or Spaniards. Influenza, small pox, and measles are thought to have been the most commonly spread diseases from European to Native; however, others such as diphtheria, bubonic plague, and malaria were not found in the western hemisphere before Columbus. It was with a portion of this potential host of allies that de Soto left Cuba heading for La Florida.

After nineteen days at sea the expedition landed at now what is thought to be Tampa bay on the Florida gulf Coast. Over the next several days over six hundred Europeans including 2 women, a number of priests, a cobbler, and a tailor would disembark. Two hundred twenty horses and the herd of swine were also part of the venture. The first native peoples the expedition encountered were the Uzita; however, they abandoned their villages and fled before the Spanish.

The Uzita had reason to fear the Spanish because of the way they had treated captured members of the Narvaez expedition. Eleven years prior to De Soto landing a Spaniard named Narvaez had visited the region and four of his soldiers had been taken prisoner. Three were killed as they ran a gauntlet of arrows and the fourth, Jaun Ortis, had been tortured. Harriga, the cacique of the tribe, was the principal torturer of Ortis and at one time had him half roasted alive only to save him for future torment. Harriga demonstrated all of his hate for the Spanish on Ortis because they had cut off his nose. Upon learning of a plan to kill him Ortis escaped to a neighboring tribe (Shipp 259-261). When de Soto's expedition arrived Ortis was overjoyed to rejoin the Spanish. While in the land of the Uzita the Spanish managed to capture some of the women; however, there were no major confrontations and the Uzita escaped any excessive military harm though they continued to harass the expedition.

De Soto directed the majority of his expedition in a northeasterly course looking for riches but, also hoping to find native towns where he might obtain food (Milanich & Hudson 82). Four days after leaving his base camp at Tampa Bay de Soto found native corn. Though not completely ripe it must have seemed like a banquet to people who had been eating roots and swamp grass. The continual need for food kept the expedition moving and ever vigilant for native sources of supplies. The numerous violent encounters with Natives in the area could have been caused by the commandeering of food or the trespass through the individual territories. The theft of food sources combined with the diseases the Europeans left behind helped to depopulate the areas; however, epidemics may have been localized because of uninhabited lands between individual cultures.

While still in the modern day state of Florida one of the more notable peoples encountered by de Soto were the Apalachee. The Apalachee lived south of what is present day Tallahassee. These were a well organized people, large in number, and had the ability to provide resistance to the Spanish. De Soto lingered in the land of the Apalachee for five months spending the winter because of the abundance of food in spite of the constant guerrilla warfare the Indians utilized. Large numbers of the native peoples were killed in the many skirmishes; however, so were numerous members of the expedition. The Apalachee had a bow so powerful that arrows tipped with flint could penetrate the Spanish armor and on several occasions during armed conflict the Apalachee scalped their dead antagonists.

In the spring of 1540 the expedition left the land of the Apalachee and traveled north where they encountered the Capachequi and the Ichisi. Unlike the Apalachee these Natives were willing to share their food and in exchange de Soto gave them some pigs of the more than three hundred he had at the time. During the initial encounter with these peoples they asked de Soto whether he wanted peace or war and when he left these lands he left in peace and friendship. Traveling north de Soto came to the land of the Hymahi.

The Hymahi welcomed the Europeans and emptied a village for them to live. They expressed their willingness to serve de Soto and offered food in the form of corn, beans, wild fruits, and nuts. In return de Soto gave these people some pigs. He also made it known that he was interested in the wealth that existed in the land of the Cofitachequi, a neighboring tribe. The people of the Hymahi and the Cofitachequi were enemies and the cacique of Hymahi sent four thousand warriors along with de Soto to carry supplies; however, upon reaching the land of the Cofitachequi the Hymahi began to war upon them. De Soto sent the Hymahi home with gifts hoping to make no enemies in this new land.

In this tribe, in present day South Carolina, de Soto saw evidence of some great pestilence. Numerous towns were deserted and few people were to be found. In the Cofitachequi town of Talomeco four large houses were filled with the people who had died from the pestilence. Perhaps disease left by earlier Spanish efforts to explore and colonize had ravaged the Natives.

In 1521 Juan Ponce de Leon had tried to start a small settlement but failed and in 1528 Panfilo de Narvaez led a four hundred man expedition across parts of La Florida. Illness struck the Narvaez expedition and they were forced to leave. In 1526 Lucas Vasquez de Ayllon had started a small colony in Georgia; however, it lasted only a short period of time. These ventures; however, had been considerably earlier than the time the disease afflicted the Cofitachequi in 1538-1539. The more likely probability is that the disease had spread from the land of the Inca where smallpox had made it possible for the Spanish to conquer the huge empire. Whatever the disease may have been it caused the almost total collapse of the tribes. According to the Lady of the Cofitachequi more food could have been provided for the de Soto expedition if the disease had not killed so many.

It was while in the land of the Cofitachequi that de Soto had his first glimpse of promised treasure. The Lady of Cofitachequi gave him fresh water pearls and told him he could have as many as he wished. He obtained the pearls from several sources including burials. Upon leaving the Cofitachiqui de Soto took only the food he had been given and a small number of the pearls; however, there had been no silver or gold as he had heard.

The expedition traveled north into present day North Carolina, west into southern Tennessee and south into Alabama. The trek put them into contact with numerous tribes. The reception they received varied from being given all they needed in the way of supplies to having to confront native peoples and being forced to buy food. While traveling through this region several men chose to desert the expedition and live with the Natives Peoples and one black slave was left behind with the Natives because of being too ill to continue.

Upon reaching the tribes of the Tascaluza the expedition was met by a seemingly friendly people; however, their friendliness was feigned. The Tascaluza invited the Spaniards to the town of Mauvilla where about ten thousand native peoples attacked the expedition. The battle lasted all day with the almost total destruction of the natives; however, the battle had not been totally one sided.. De Soto was wounded and eighty-two members of the expedition were killed along with numerous horses. The battle leaned in the favor of the Spaniards because of the armor they wore and the use of horses to break up the numerous assaults made by the natives. However, the greatest loss to the expedition was not men or horses but was the consecrated wine and bread of the Eucharist.

Without bread of wheat and wine of grapes holy communion could not be given. No substitute was acceptable attesting to the allegiance to the canon of the Catholic faith. According to Garcilasco de la Vega, writer of The Florida of the Inca, the Christians of the expedition suffered great mental anguish at not being able to partake of the sacraments.

Leaving the land of the Tascaluza de Soto crossed into present day Mississippi only to come into contact with the Chicsa another people hostile to the Spaniards. The expedition spent the winter in one of their villages because of the abundance of food; however, they were in constant fear for their lives.

The expedition left the land of the Chicsa in April of 1541 and traveling in a northwesterly direction came in contact with the QuizQuiz peoples. After crossing the Mississippi River they spent some time in the area staying at a town called Pacoha. While in Pacoha de Soto sent expeditions out to search for wealth that traveled into Arkansas and maybe Missouri.

In the Spring of 1542 de Soto died of fever. His captains hollowed out a tree, put his body in, and sank the log in the Mississippi River. He was buried in this manner to prevent the natives from digging him up and defiling his body. Because of the numerous hardships experienced by the expedition the new leader, General Moscoso, opted to try and return to New Spain.

On July 4, 1543 the three-hundred plus survivors of the expedition were fleeing for their lives, in boats they had made, down the Mississippi River. In pursuit was the cacique and warriors from the largest town the expedition had encountered. The people from Quigualtam were showering the expedition with arrows from their canoes. As the Natives reached the edge of their territory one was heard to say, "If we possessed such large canoes as yours ..... we would follow you to your land and conquer it for we are men like yourselves"

De Soto never found the great wealth he was seeking and his expedition was a failure; however, the written accounts of the expedition provide clues about the numerous peoples encountered and their cultures. Archeological evidence provides verification that the de Soto expedition brought disease to the Native peoples. Numerous multiple burials and mass burials seem to provide for epidemics; however, the numerous diseases that are often viewed as allies of European explorers can also be seen as a detriment.

In one or more instances during the de Soto expedition finding adequate food became a problem because of disease that had decimated native populations. The Lady of Cofitachequi could not provide de Soto adequate provisions because numerous towns in the chiefdom were abandoned and food had not been gathered because of a lack of labor. The ultimate effect of disease was realized when de Soto succumbed to fever and the Spaniards gave up on the expedition. Neither Spaniard or Native understood the origin of disease and in some cases both viewed it as an act of God or the gods.

De Soto can justifiably be vilified as a greedy conqueror or he can be viewed as an explorer who gave us a first look at the American interior. Another option may be to put de Soto in the context of his time. He might more appropriately be seen as an adventurer or an entrepreneur trying to make good on his investment.

Milanich, Jerald T. and Charles Hudson. Hernando de Soto and the Indians of Florida. Gainesville: U. of Florida P, 1993.
Milanich, Jerald T. and Susan Milbrath., ed. First Encounters: Spanish Exploration in the Caribbean and the United States1492-1570. Gainesville: U of Florida P, 1989.
Shipp, Bernard. The History of Hernando de Soto and Florida. Philadelphia: Lindsay, 1881.
Varner, John G. and Jeanette Varner., trans., ed. The Florida of the Inca. Austin: U of Texas P, 1951.
Verano, John W. and Douglas H. Ubelaker., ed. Disease and Demography in the Americas. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992.
Viola, Herman J. and Carolyn Martolis., ed. Seeds of Change: Five Hundred Years Since Columbus. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991.

According to Pedro de Castaneda a soldier in the Coronado expedition wrote that around 1536, Nuno de Guzman, President of new Spain who as a boy had claimed he had seen towns as big or bigger than Mexico city and there were seven of these cities and together they were referred to as the Kingdom of Cibola. There were rows of streets where gold and silver smiths lived. In order to reach these towns it was first necessary to travel across a desert for forty days, where there was very little grass of about five inches tall, and it was in a northerly direction. So for the past 25 or 30 years that the Spanish occupied Turtle Island they had already seized treasure beyond there greatest dreams. Cortez and others had pilfered enough Gold and other valuables to interest the King of Spain. Just one ransom by the Inca to Pizarro made a pile nine feet tall of gold, Jade, turquoise and jewelry in a space twenty two by seventeen feet square. Legends of even greater size were rumored and that they were lost at sea or hidden in the north. Pizarro and other conquistadors had been lured south by such a legend the myth of El Dorado. Supposedly highly civilized Chibcha Natives in Colombia as each year they would elect a new chief they allegedly roll him in gold. Similar to that legend was the stories of the lost Seven Cities of Cibola in What would become known as New Mexico. Here it was claimed to be paved with gold and silver and the doors of multi storied houses were studded with turquoise and other precious gems. Extraordinarily the stories of the Seven Cities of Cibola were being told in the motherland of Spain four hundred years before Columbus sailed. One Portuguese sailor claimed he had seen the cities himself and it was true and that the sands were even one-third pure gold. Upon the Spanish arrival into Mexico they say an ancient Native legend says that there are seven caves to the north and that also was where the Aztecs and many other peoples had come from. The legend was reinforced by an account by Balthazar Bregon in 1584 of Cortez discovering among his booty from Montezuma records of drawings, paintings and other chronicles substanciating that the Aztec people were indeed from the north. So these legends developed and seemed to validate each other. The Seven Cities of Cibola existed. It soon became the symbol of riches and a place of great wealth with gold, silver, turquoise in abundance. Cibola was the first name used and written for the state of New Mexico and showed up on carts of Spanish explorer Castillo as early as 1541 as La Ciudad de Cibola and depicted great towers and multi storied buildings not unlike the Aztec capital city La Ciudad de Mexico. According to some historians the Hopi and the Zuni peoples of New Mexico who did have seven stone cities or more between them with several thousand inhabitants gave them the name. Not to mention the cliff dwellers of New Mexico and Arizona. It could be that some of the remains of those seven cities are still there today and some of the cities are still inhabited by the descendants of those early peoples.

The first Europeans to cross turtle Island from east to west was Cabeza de Vaca, Alonso Maldonado, Estavanico Dorantes and Alonso Maldonado. They had heard of legends of a place called Cibola and it was said to be richer than the Aztecs. In about 1527 de Vaca arrived from Spain and in 1528 he joined the Panfilo Narvaez expedition. The expedition consisted of six hundred men and was attacked by so-called hostile and powerful Native tribes. The expedition was forced to builds log barges and fled to the sea. After there shipwrecked off the coast of Florida Vaca recorded their adventures, which lasted for eight years and took them west. Along the way they encountered many Native peoples who varied widely in their customs and even languages but they keep on westward and at times were held as slaves and treated badly by their captors almost starving, living on roots, worms, lizards, spiders and other bugs they became ill more than once. But the yearly harvest of the ripe prickly pear cactus sustained them best. They managed to win favor with their captors and got some trading goods of pieces of seashells and cockles that they move on and started trading with the new Natives they would encounter. Vaca wrote: ”My stock consisted mainly of pieces of seashells and cockles and other shells with which they cut fruit which is like a bean, used by them for healing and in their dances and feasts. This is of the greatest value among them, besides shell beads and other objects. These things I carried inland, and in exchange brought back hides and red ochre with which they rub and dye their faces and hair; flint for arrow points, glue and hard canes wherewith to make them, and tassels made of the hair of deer, which they dye red. This trade suited me well. I was not bound to do anything and was no longer a slave!”

Six of those eight years was spend on an Island. Of the inhabitants he wrote: “There were two tribes on the Island, the Capoques and the Han. They have the custom when they know each other and meet from time to time, before they speak, to weep for half an hour. After they have wept, the one who receives the visit rises and gives to the other all he has. The other takes it, and in a little while goes away with everything.”

De Vaca wrote of a peoples called Iguaces: “ their principal food are two or three kinds of roots, which they hunt for all over the land; they are unhealthy, inflating, and it takes two days to roast them. Many are very bitter, and with all that they are gathered with difficulty. But those people are so much exposed to starvation that these roots are to them indispensable and they walk two and three leagues to obtain them. Now and then they kill deer and at times get fish, but this is so little and their hunger so great that they eat spiders and ant eggs (the pupas), worms, lizards, and salamanders and serpents, also vipers, the bite of which is deadly. They swallow earth and wood, and all they can get, the dung of deer and more things I do not mention; and I verily believe, from what I saw, that if there were any stones in the country they would eat them also.”

By the time de Vaca’s party reached the Rio Grande, they had acquired awesome reputations as shamans or medicine men, and their journey from that point onward became a triumphal procession. They were called “Children of the Sky and Children of the Sun. Thousands of Natives joined their expedition, and each tribe they encountered pressed upon them gifts of food, clothing, and other objects of great value.

The legend of Cibola lives on to this day. For centuries prospectors scoured the mountains and deserts of west Texas and New Mexico searching for the legendary cities of gold.

The Spanish returned to New Mexico making Santa Fe their capital. It remained peaceful for several years and gold mines were discovered and the Natives enslaved to work them.

In early 1970’s Ova Noss the widow of the infamous Doc Noss and other claimants hired flambouant Boston lawyer F. Lee Bailey to represent there interests in Victorio peak a small mountain on White Sands Missile Range. This group believed that the seven cities of gold actually referred to seven gold mines in the San Andres mountains now controlled by the U.S Army. They hired Bailey to force the Army to let them have access to the site and develop Victorio Peak where they believe tons of gold is buried. According to Bailey his clients was being denied excess because the Army themselves were attempting to steal the gold. There are many mines, caves and tunnels in the area of the San Andres mountain range including the Hembrillo Basin, Caballos and the Organs.

Many people know of the beautiful Indian maiden who rescued the early colonists that came to the new world but do you really know the facts?

The first expedition was held by Sir Walter Raleigh. His crew and the people are best known for "The Lost Colony". Sir Walter Raleigh sailed back to England to retrieve more supplies and people. He never had the chance to return to the New World for he was imprisoned in England. His efforts seemed lost for no one heard from the colonists again. Some history depicts the early were killed by the Powhatans or neighboring Indians or they simply joined the tribes. There is no more facts to tell what exactly happened to them. The colony hence was lost to time forever. On April 30, 1607, three ships sailed to the new world. The Virginia Company funded another expedition to the New World. After hearing rumors of finding gold, silver, and exotic people from the Spanish, King James decided it was time to send more people to find out where these treasures were. The Discovery, the Godspeed, and the Susan Constant sailed for 4 1/2 months to reach the shores of the New World. From the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay, the three ships sailed. Captain Bartholomew Gosnold, Captain Christopher Newport, Captain John Ratcliffe, Captain Gabriel Archer, and Captain Edward Wingfield were in charge of the expedition. The people of the expedition consisted of 'gentlemen' and farmers. A clear representation of stations and ranks were greatly divided. It was intent that the gentlemen governed the farmers as the farmers built the forts and houses and yet they had to figure out how to farm the virgin land of the New World.

As their voyage went under way, King James had three metal boxes that contained the instructions to follow once the crew of all three ships hit the shores of the New World. In these boxes, contained who would govern the colonists and who would be on the board of directors.

It is unknown why Captain John Smith was imprisoned on the ship. Never the less, he was sentence to hang for a crime. Captain John Smith was a notorious and fierce man. Captain Smith ran away and joined previous expeditions in discovery of new lands. It is said that he was bought as a slave of a Turkish man. Here he earned a reputation as being a fierce fighter. He slew his master and ran away again. Captain Smith came back to England and was a hero for all of the travels he had done. The crew of the Virginia Company looked up to Captain Smith and trusted him. It is he who helped establish the colonists to the New World.

The main captains of the Virginia Company sought out a piece of land that would help them. Priorities were set for a sailing port in which larger ships could bring in supplies as well as ship goods back to England. Finally after searching for the perfect landing, the ships docked on a river that will be known as the James River, named after King James. The crew of all the ships were very much happy to finally hit dry land. They rushed to the new land and not heeding the warning from Captain John Smith. This warning was to be aware of their surroundings and 'naturals' as he called the local people of the New World. As we know, Indian scouts had already been aware of the 'Tassentasses', the pale people. The crew were unaware of the 'naturals' watching them from the shadows of the forests of the New World. Indian scouts reported their findings back to Powhatan, the leader and chief of the Powhatans. Thus Chief Powhatan professed his hate for the 'Tassentasses' and wanted them to leave his land. As Captain Smith was released from his cell, the boxes from King James revealed that he wanted Captain Smith to be on the council. Thus the king's words were followed. Captain Newport proclaimed the land that they had landed upon be called, 'Jamestown' in honor of King James, the ruler of England. It is known how Captain Wingfield hated Captain John Smith but Wingfield managed to make life difficult for Smith from that moment on.

The orders were to start immediate building to secure the safety of the crew and Newport was to sail back to England with news of how well the travels went. He was to bring back more supplies and people to the new land. Smith wanted to ensure the safety of the crew even more and suggested that a fenced in fort surround the new land and have more land contained within the fort for farming. Wingfield was dead set against this idea and so it was nixed. Instead, crude houses made out of mud, and materials from the land were constructed. Smith also pointed out that they did not know the 'naturals' therefore they must take all caution to protect the men from harm. He proposed that the cannons be brought to shore and mounted in three places of the newly constructed fort. Wingfield again shot the idea down but after a brief attack upon the colonists, the idea was implemented. Smith decided to keep his mouth shut for he knew that if he angered Wingfield, he knew that he could possibly be swinging on the end of a rope. Smith decided that he would explore the surrounding area of the fort, to look for land to farm. Though there were farmers among the crew, they didn't know how to farm this strange land therefore creating another problem, facing the horrible death of starvation and canabalism. Smith knew that he would have to figure out how to become friends with the Indians and befriend the one that they called Chief Powhatan. Smith knew that the seasons changed drastically and he had to act fast or this expedition would be a failure.

Chief Powhatan sent out several scouts to see how many of these pale people there were. Pocahontas was one of them. She was a favorite child of the mighty chief and had begged and pleaded with him until Chief Powhatan finally gave in to his beautiful daughter. Some say that she was only 11 at the time, while others will argue that she was in her mid teens. It is not exactly known how old she was. She,her two brothers, and a few scouts began their trek to the strange pale people. The small party of Powhatans finally reached the fort of the colonists. I do not know exactly how they came about to being there but clearly it was seen how the colonists needed help. Their food supply was slowly being diminished and canabalism had already set in. As soon as a man died, a few people had snuck out and feasted upon his body. These people were caught for defiling the body and they were sentenced to hang. Others were sentenced to hang for stealing food. It was a matter of life and death just to survive in the New World. The odds were stacked against them. No food, fights, the gentlemen wouldn't help, their spirits were low. Over all, many had died. The colonists befriended the visiting Powhatans. Seeing the red haired man known as Captain John Smith, mystified the Indian maiden. She was in awe of his appearance. She described him as eyes of the sky and hair that shown like the sunsets. Some say she was attracted to him. The Indian maiden was now known as a princess among the colonists. Smith taught her English words as she taught him her language. A trust was to form here that would be crucial to the survival of the colonists. Smith knew that if he had Pocahontas' trust, then he could meet this powerful chief. He wanted to trade goods such as beads and guns to get food for his men and he could do that through his lovely daughter, Pocahontas. Pocahontas gave her word that she would send food supplies to the men. She came through. She went back to her father again to convince him that they only wanted to explore the land and then they would leave. Smith told her this, therefore she believed him.

Captain Newport left for England to retrieve more supplies and people for the newly founded Jamestown. During this time, Smith collected a few men to explore the land even more. As they were out and about, the men ran into a Powhatan hunting party. The men were slain but Smith was spared. It was the intention that the Powhatans bring this red-haired 'Tassentasse' to the chief. Once upon his arrival to the village of where this mighty chief lived, the Indians were already curious to what they looked like. The Indians knew how these strange men had brought diseases to the Indians. Chief Powhatan knew these people well. Smith was sentenced to die by clubbing and mutilation. Chief Powhatan would have his people tie the intended victim to a tree and place wooden needle like sticks into the skin. Piercing them and the stretch the victim. To other Indians that were sworn enemies of the mighty Powhatans, it is best to die by their own hands rather than be captured and tortured at the hands of the Powhatans. It was considered a disgrace if a warrior was captured alive. Also, victims were clubbed to death as well. They were supposedly strapped to a very large rock and have their heads clubbed until death. Pocahontas learned of her friend's fate through the rumors that had run rampant through out the village. She took her place beside the mighty chief and as they brought out Smith for the public execution, she knew what she had to do. Pocahontas ran to the red haired man and threw herself between the club and Smith's head. Pocahontas had risked her life to save the life of the man that she befriended. Moved by his daughter's intentions, Chief Powhatan set them both free. It is said that Chief Powhatan gave Smith his freedom only because of his daughter's bravery. It is also said that Chief Powhatan adopted Smith as his son. Chief Powhatan wanted these strange and magical items that Smith and his men had. He wanted guns. He wanted to learn how to fire them but most of all, he wanted their cannons. Smith knew that Pocahontas was a true hero among his people. She had saved them several times but how long would the help last? It was up to him and her to get the two people together.

Smith left back to go to Fort Jamestown. Chief Powhatan gave him an escort of several hundred scouts and warriors to make sure he arrived safely. Monicans were still in the area and the Powhatans and the Monicans were still at war. Upon his arrival, Smith was charged with the murders of the men that he left with. He was found guilty and was sentenced to hang. Again, the mighty Princess Pocahontas intervened. She rushed to Wingfield and told him that Smith was the adopted son of the mighty Powhatan and if he should die, then she would report back to her father of the murder. Pocahontas also told Wingfield that she would not intervene if the chief chose to wipe out the fort and the colonists. Smith's life was spared again. The colonists had great respect for the Princess. It was she that these souls had placed their trust in. She was their only hope and with winter upon them, they needed her more than ever. The 'Starving Time' was upon the colonists. There was very little food and they still were unfamiliar with hunting and finding their own food. They still relied upon the Indian Princess Pocahontas for their survival. Many of the colonist lost their lives during this period. Starvation and the cold winter had taken a toll upon the small community.

Finally warm weather broke the tedious and long winter. The Powhatans showed the colonists how to farm, fish, and hunt. Pocahontas continued to teach Smith her ways as he had continued to teach his ways to her. She became fascinated with their language and this proved to Smith that his plan was working. But there was a problem, rumor of history has said that the princess and the captain became lovers. There is no evidence to back this claim just as there is no evidence to state that they didn't. I will leave it to you, the reader to decide. Pocahontas told her pale friend, that her father was getting tired of supplying the food for the colonists. The colonists must start providing it on their own. Women and men from a neighboring village taught them how to farm the land. Upon learning the techniques of farming, Pocahontas told Smith that her father has informed her that she will be going to all of the many villages that he owned and collect the taxes of the people.

Smith knew that there was a chance now that the gold and silver would be found. Smith discovered where Chief Powhatan kept his treasures. He and a few men secretly left the fort and took small explosives. He remembered how the Powhatans reacted when they shot at the Indians. With this thought in mind, they left for the treasure house. There were three houses that were filled with treasures but Smith wasn't sure what kind of treasures he would find. He and the accompanying men, lit the explosives and watched the 'naturals' scatter. The men hurriedly made entry into the houses. Totem poles of creatures carved out of the wood and rows and rows of skins lined the houses. Food filled the homes. Each one was filled with Powhatan treasures but not gold and silver. As they ran for their lives, Smith was captured again. This time, the chief wanted his head and his scalp. There would be no mercy on the captain. Pocahontas knew she had to save him again but she didn't know how. Pocahontas managed to help him escape a certain death. She got him back to the fort safely.

Upon hearing Smith's escape, Chief Powhatan decided that Pocahontas would be married to the son of another chieftain of her people. She would marry Kokum. Kokum was merely a boy in a man's body. Not much is mentioned about him accept he met his deadly demise from Pocahontas' brother in law. It was rumored that Pocahontas' sister had an affair by Kokum and was murdered by the husband of her sister. There is no proof to back this claim up. Either way, Kokum mysteriously was struck down by an arrow.

Efforts to reunite the colonists with the Powhatans continued. Captain Newport brought gifts to the Powhatan chief. A royal crown, a greyhound dog, beaded jewels, and a bed for the chief. The colonists threw a vast party in honor of the chief. The chief was reluctant to come but was persuaded by his daughter to attend. When presented with the crown of royalty, the chief snubbed his nose at the gifts, claiming that he would not stoop his head to receive a crown. This posed a concern for Newport had orders to follow and they were strict orders. Place the crown upon the chief's head or else. One must remember, the Powhatans towered over the English. The captain tricked the chief and managed to place the crown on top of his head. The chief disapproved immensely and withdrew the crown. The colonists cheered as the chief looked on. He graciously accepted the gifts and in return, presented the captain with a coat made with brilliantly colored feathers. A mantle of feathers for this King James but no crown.

There were many failures for the colonists. They tried harvesting silk worms but the harsh elements killed their dreams. The silk worms were a complete failure. Soon they discovered tobacco. A large green leaf that was smoked when dried. It was unheard of in England. This could very well be a commodity in the New World. Finally, a way to become rich! Soon, their hopes were up and running. They had glass makers who came to the New World. Soon, they were flourishing as they had hoped to over a year ago. More and more colonists were coming to the New World. Men, women, and children were coming and settling in.

It is not known what happened to John Smith but he was hurt badly and was sent back to England. Word was sent to Pocahontas that Smith had gone back to England. Her heart was broken for she wasn't sure if she would ever see him again. Supposedly, she buried herself into collecting taxes for her father and becoming exactly as he had wished.

In 1613, Pocanhontas' brother sent for her. The word brought to Pocahontas was that the colonists needed her. She left immediately to the fort. Upon arriving, the Indian Princess, her brother (a chief), and a few warriors were invited to attend a feast in honor of the princess. As the feast slowly came to a close, Captain Argall, persuaded the lovely maiden to his cabin. It is not known what they discussed but as the sun began to set, Pocahontas told Argall that she needed to return back to the land. Argall told the unsuspecting princess that she had been taken prisoner and her brother betrayed her for a copper pot. Pocahontas was heart broken. Her new home would be in the tiny cabin below decks. Stench filled her room as tears plummeted to the dirty floors of her prison. She begged and pleaded that if she wasn't returned, then her father would wage war against the colonists. He didn't see it her way. A farmer was sent to tell the chief of his daughter. The chief knew that it was a ploy and he sent word back that there would be no negotiations. Pocahontas felt doomed. Argall knew that she couldn't stay on the ship forever. He and the acting governor, Sir Thomas Gates, arranged for the Indian Princess to live with Reverend Alexander Whitaker until the mighty chief came to his senses. Again, Pocahontas' world was about to change.

Pocahontas settled into her new lifestyle with the Reverend Alexander Whitaker and his wife. I am sure that if she wanted to escape, Pocahontas would've done so, after all, she knew the land better than the kind people who took her in.

The Reverend was amazed at the Indian Princess. He was excited how she took in the teachings of their God. She followed him and wanted to learn more about this God. The Reverend had hoped that through Pocahontas, he could spread the Bible and Christianity. Pocahontas was not accustomed to praying without giving some type of sacrifice to the gods that she prayed to. In her land, her people who offer up animals to appease their gods. One of these gods that the Powhatans were mostly afraid of was called 'Okeus' or the Devil God. Pocahontas often made daily sacrifices to the devil god to keep from having the Powhatan priests from sacrificing a child or an infant. The other god that the Powhatans prayed to was called 'Ahone' or also known as the Sky/Water Goddess. The colonists that lived within the fort were amazed how she adapted to her new surroundings. As her faith of the Bible grew, Pocahontas let her feelings be known. She actually enjoyed living among the colonists. She wore their clothes, helped with chores, and taught the women of the fort how to use herbs and spices of Virginia. As time grew on, runners from Chief Powhatan were allowed to give her messages. Her father knew that no harm would come to his daughter so he basically left her there. I am sure that he did miss her but I believe that he felt they would release her and with this, the mighty chief could learn more about the colonists.

During her duration of living with the Reverend, a visitor came to visit often. This man was known as John Rolfe. The Reverend had invited him often to his home and there they talked about plans of increasing the size of the colony. Pocahontas learned what happened on the way back to the New World. A terrible storm had capsized a ship and most of the people were lost in Bermuda. Among those people, was John Rolfe's wife and infant daughter. Day after day, it was evident the love that Pocahontas and Rolfe shared. Rolfe was nothing more than a commoner while he fell deeply in love with the Princess, he knew that they could never be united in marriage. Their ranks and stations did not permit such actions. They finally professed their love for each other. Pocahontas sent a messenger to her father. She wanted his blessing to be married to the man she fell in love with, John Rolfe. On the day of Pocahontas' baptism, the chief gave his blessing but swore he wouldn't attend the wedding. As Pocahontas was baptized, she was given the name 'Lady Rebeka'. Pocahontas felt she had to leave her old life behind her and begin her own life as a colonist. She would never forget her roots nor her people.

The marriage of the beautiful Indian Princess and the colonist named John Rolfe was a major turning point in both the Powhatans and the colonists. Here was the chance to finally unite both of the peoples together and hopefully they could live together as one. For Pocahontas' dowry, Chief Powhatan released 1,000 acres of land to her. He knew in his heart that he lost his daughter forever and this began to take a major toll upon the Indian King. Nothing would ever be the same again. Nothing.

A few months after the marriage of the two people, Pocahontas became pregnant with a child. This child offered more promises to the colonists. An agreement could be reached and all live in harmony. The chief was overjoyed at the news of a grandchild. His heart lightened at the thought of his favorite daughter becoming a mother.

The child was named Thomas Rolfe and he was accepted by both people. John Rolfe and Pocahontas wanted to raise him the English way and have their son go to the finest schools of England. She also wanted him to know his other people. This would be important in the future.

A year has passed since the marriage of the famous couple. Now it was time for her to be diplomatic in a foreign land. Pocahontas, John Rolfe, and their son was to set sail for England within a few weeks. Pocahontas visited her father for the last time and he sent forth his best warriors and women to accompany his daughter and grandson to England.

Upon their arrival, Pocahontas was mortified over the stenches that filled her nose. It was a common practice to pierce oranges with cloves to help ward off the smells. England received the beautiful woman and her enterauge with open arms. Her calendar filled quickly. There would be dances, parties, and meeting of important figure heads. She had hopes of persuading the nobles that the people of the New World would be able to live in harmony with her people. She won the heart of the King and the rest of the nobles. Pocahontas was also scared that she would run into John Smith. It is not known whether or not they actually met again. Some say yes, others say no.

As Pocahontas, John Rolfe, their tiny child, and the rest of the Powhatans were getting ready to leave Gravesend, England. Pocahontas was struck down with TB. At this time, the disease ran wild in England. Pocahontas died in March of 1617. She was buried in a tiny church in Gravesend, England. She never got to see her beloved homeland again. The sweet smells of honeysuckle that grew wild would never fill her lungs again. She would never see her beloved father either.

Upon hearing the news of his beloved daughter's death, the mighty chief succumbed to a life of being a hermit. He stepped down and let his brother take over as chief of the Powhatans. The mighty Chief Powhatan died a year later. He still left Pocahontas' dowry to his grandson, Thomas.

In the year of 1622, a terrible massacre took place. Over 300 colonists were murdered at the hands of the new leader of the Powhatans but needless to say, the the slaughter of both sides proved to be fruitless. They both lost.

Thomas lost his father to this terrible massacre. He went to live with relatives in England until he was old enough to reclaim the inheritance that his grandfather and his mother had left him. In 1635, Thomas returned to Jamestown. Thomas kept close ties with his Indian relatives but chose to take an English wife.

It is said that John Smith returned to Jamestown in 1619 but was heartbroken over the death of the powerful woman who sacrificed her life so that others may live. John Smith died in 1631. A bachelor.

So as you see, a brave young girl fought to secure this great land that we now have come to know as the United States. Without her help, there is no telling what might have happened. In my eyes, it was Pocahontas who sacrificed before *Sacagawea did. Pocahontas opened up a pathway for more expeditions to the New World. It was the colonists of 1607 and not the **Mayflower Colonists who had the first Thanksgiving.

The church yard that Pocahontas was buried in, had burned to the ground. Her body was moved but no one seems to know where she is. Many people have taken up causes to find and bring her back home. One of these people is Wayne Newton, an international singer. Though she may be buried in England, our Powhatan Princess will remain forever in our hearts.

*NOTE: Sacagawea led the Lewis and Clarke expedition in 1804. She was also a famous Shoshone Indian woman. Exactly 197 years *after* Pocahontas' adventures and travels.

**NOTE: The MayFlower was said to arrive in the New World between 1620 and 1630. It sailed to the New World a total of 3 times. The Susan Constant, the Discovery, and the Godspeed arrived at Point Comfort in 1607. 13 - 23 years prior to the May Flower colonists.

***Author's Note: I believe the very first Thanksgiving celebration was Pocahontas' baptism and her marriage to John Rolfe. It is said that the Powhatans brought venison, wild fowl such as duck, turkey, fresh seafood such as crabs and oysters to the marriage and baptism of Pocahontas. The death of Pocahontas was in 1617 while the supposed first Thanksgiving was in 1621. Pocahontas had already been married to a white man, given birth to a child, baptized way before the Mayflower thought about feasting with the Native Americans.

16 and 1700’s European countries started to take over the newly discovered lands.
Unlike Central and South America, North America was governed by more than one country. New England was divided in 13 Colonies. They were Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Maryland, North and South Carolina, and Georgia. New England also governed some Islands in the north of St. Lawrence River and part of Canada.
France was governing lands that were next to the great lakes, Ohio, St. Lawrence, and west of Mississippi River, the lands of the French went west until about Utah, Idaho, and Arizona. This was mostly because in 1534 Jacques Cartier discovered the St. Lawrence. They were better in governing the land because they had only one government.
Spain was governing the parts of the North America which now would be Florida, New Mexico, Texas, and California. They also owned the Central and South America.
Trading and commercializing in the Americas was very, very hard, because there wasn't a lot of people. The good part of this was that there was a lot of good land there and they could use them however they wanted. The English Colonies were more financially stable than the others because they were more populated than the others.

John Cabot was the one that discovered North America for Britain in 1497. Since then more and more people had come to the Americas mostly because it was to them an alternative to British rule, and because of their religious beliefs.

Pennsylvania was colonized by people seeking a place where they could worship as they pleased. In 1680, William Penn whose father was a great friend of King Charles II, wanted land in the New England, mostly because there, he could worship freely. So the King gave him the land for three reasons. 1) The king thought that all the Quakers would go with him and England would get rid of them. 2) If William Penn settle there with his followers, England would have more stronger hold of the land that they had claimed. 3) The king owed William Penn, and this was a cheap way of paying it because at that time, the lands in North America was considered not very valuable.

William Penn wanted to call the land New Wales, but there were people in England who objected that name. So he was going to name it Sylvania, which is the Latin word for "forest", however, King Charles wanted to honor William's father, so the king named it Pennsylvania.
Pennsylvania became one of the best Colonies of England. In 1710, Philadelphia, which was the colony's biggest city, was the largest city in American colonies.

In the 1700's Pennsylvania played a big role for the independence from Great Britain. Philadelphia held the First Continental Congress in 1774 to discuss how to resolve troubles in England. It also held the Second Continental Congress in July 4, 1776 to adopt the Declaration of Independence. There were a lot of battles in Pennsylvania in the Revolution. George Washington and his troop spent cold winters at the Valley Forge, Pennsylvania.

Washington, D.C. is the capital of United States since 1800, but it wasn't like that always. Between the period of 1776 and 1800, the nations capital was located in Pennsylvania. Lancaster served as capital for one day in 1777, York served as capital for nine months in 1777-1778, and Philadelphia served as the country's capital four different times lasting from 1790 to 1800. The constitution of the United States of America was created in Philadelphia.

Delaware is a very small state that lies along the Atlantic Coast of the eastern United States. Pennsylvania is Delaware's neighboring state to the north.
For many centuries Lenni-Lenape (later know as the Delaware) lived in Delaware. In 1638 the first settlers began arriving from Sweden. Delaware was part of their only American colony, which was named as New Sweden. They were the first ones to build cabins and logs here in America. After on seventeen years, New Sweden was taken by the Dutch in 1655. New Netherlands (Dutch's colony) didn't last very long either, in 1664 England captured it. Now Delaware became one of the 13 colonies. Most of the time, Delaware was controlled by the Penn family which lived in Pennsylvania.

When the Americans begin to rebel against the British, most people from this State wanted to keep the things as they were, yet they fought Independence. After the revolution, Delaware was the first State to sign the United States Constitution. The fact of being the first State to sign the constitution gave Delaware it's nickname, First State. Delaware also played an important role at the Civil War (1861-1865), which they fought with the Union (people were against slavery and which didn't wanted the Confederate of the United States to happen).

The name of the State of Delaware was used also by the Englishman to name the tribe that lived in Pennsylvania. The name of the tribe is not really Delaware, it's name is Lenni Lanape, which meant "Genuine people" or "Original People". The population of the Delaware tribe varied between dozens to a few hundred. They had two kinds of dwellings - longhouse and wigwams. Both mother and father provided food for the family. The mother grew crops, such as corn, beans, and squash. The women also gathered berries and roots to feed their families. As always, the men did the hunting. Some of the animal that they hunted were deer, bears, and many kinds of game birds.

In the 1800s the way people earned their lives living was changing in many states, including Delaware. In the early 19th. century, manufacturing grew rapidly in Delaware. A famous person was E.I. du Pont who started a gunpowder factory at Brandywine Creek near Wilmington , Delaware, in 1801 which grew into the world's largest chemical firm. A number of other companies also set up headquarters in Wilmington, which later became know as the "Chemical Capital of the World". In addition, factories that made iron and steel products, leather goods, and cloth products were built in Delaware's cities during the 1800s.

everything from the animals. Skins of animal were made into clothes and blankets. Small bones were made into hooks. Feathers, porcupine quills, and colorful corn kernels were used as decorations.
When the children began to walk they helped the family's work. Little kids watch the field and scare the birds away from the growing crops. Older girls helped their mothers to plant, harvest, and cook. Older boys learned how to hunt and make tools for hunting.

Many times, in a far, far distant past, much of what is now Virginia west of the Blue Ridge was flooded by ancients seas. Then the shrinking of the earth squeezed enormous folds of the rocky layers of the earth into the air, forming the ancestors of today's Appalachian Mountains. Over the years wind and waters wore these ranges almost level, then the were raised up again, and again three times. The precipitation average in a year is 45 inches (114 centimeters).

The greatest part of Virginia's land was ruled by Wahunsonacock, or Powhatan, just before the Colonists came here. He was like a king. He welded a confederacy of thirty separate kingdoms under his autocratic rule. The confederacy included as many as 161 villages, with an army of 2400 trained warriors. When Captain John Smith came to Virginia and visited the principal indian capital of Werowocomoco, he wrote that he found the "Emperor proudly lying upon a Bedstead a foote high, upon tenn or twelve mattes, richly hung with manie Chaynes of great Pearles about necke, and covered with great Covering of Rajaughcums. At head sat a woman, at his feete another; on each side sitting upon a Matte uppon the ground, were raunged his chiefe men on each side the fire, tenne in a ranke, and behind them as many yong women, each a great Chaine of white Beades over their shoulders, their heades painted in redde: and with such a grave Majesticall countenance, as drave me into admiration..."

In 1497 British explorer John Cabot explorer the northern shoreline of North America. Later, the Virgin Queen, Elizabeth the third claimed for Her Majesty all vast region north of the lands of Spain, and named it Virginia after her. Both England and Spain laid claim to this region. As early as 1680's Spanish Jesuit missionaries had set up a mission on the banks of Aquia Creek in the Potomac region, though they failed in the mission of making the Indians turn to Christianity because they were massacred by them. In 1606 King James I of England chartered two companies to colonize Virginia. The London Company who ruled Virginia south of Chesapeake Bay and the Plymouth Company ruled the north of Virginia (roughly everything everything north of Chesapeake Bay).

On April 26, 1607, three little ships, the Discovery, the Godspeed, and the Flagship Susan Constant landed on what is now Virginia Beach. The people set up a cross to give thanks to the God at arriving in the New World. They named the place where they landed Cape Henry, and the opposite cape of this they named Cape Charles, to honor the king's son. The colonists moved slowly up the great Chesapeake Bay on May 14 of 1607, and in the next morning, the very first Virginians went ashore, they built a tiny fort and named in James Towne in honor to the king, later it became know as Jamestown.

When they landed John Smith was in chains for a minor reason, but later he was freed because he was supposed to be one of the members of the governing council. Gradually he became a acknowledged leader. A large number of the Virginians were very arrogant, and consider themselves "Gentlemen" too dignified for ordinary labor. John Smith later in the year was captured by Indians and taken to Powhatan's capital of Werowocomoco. Powhatan was going to kill Smith because of some problems that they had, one of the problems was that England was taking over Indian land. Just before he killed him the 13 year old princess threw her body over Smith to protect him and save his life. With this act, Indians became a little bit more friendly with the colonists, they helped them with supplies and things that they needed. In October of 1609 Captain John Smith went back to England because he had some severe injuries and he had to be treated in England. The winter of that year (1609-1610) became know as the "starving time." When the winter started the population of Jamestown was five hundred, and by may only sixty-five of them survived. These people that survived were going back to England but just 14 miles away they met Lord De la Warr, who came from England with supplies and new settlers, they were encouraged by this.

Next Few years the colony began to rebuild. The Indians became more unfriendly. By 1614 John Rolphe had become the leader of the colony. He promoted the growing of tobacco, which proved to be a successful crop. He also married princess Pocahontas, who has been brought to Jamestown as a hostage. Since then Powhatan kept his people generally quiet until his death in 1618. In 1619 the colony was divided into eleven regularly established plantations. An election was held to choose two representatives from each of the eleven plantations of the colony to form a "House of Burgesses." This year also was the year of the first arrival of the first European women and the first blacks, these blacks were not to be slaved, but came as indentured servants who would be free after a while. After the death of Powhatan, King Opechancanough ruled the region. He pretended friendship with settlers but had plans to drive them from the country. On March 22, 1622, along a 140 mile front covering most of the colonized are the Indians

attacked and killed 347 settlers, they might have succeeded completely if it wasn't by Chanco, and Indian youth who was converted to Christianity. Virginia was hard to recover from this massacre. Plans to convert the Indians to Christianity and give them education were abandoned, the colonists build a palisade across the peninsula as protection from the Indians. The Aged Opechancanough made his last effort in 1644, but failed. He was captured and carried wounded on a stretcher to Jamestown. There he was shot by a soldier who was supposed to have been protecting him.

The London Company charter had been repealed in 1624. By this time Virginia was ruled as a royal colony. King I recognized the House of Burgesses in 1628, and as early 1635 the House of Burgesses had been able to cause the removal of one royal governor. In 1660 Sir William Berkeley was the governor of Virginia, but he wasn't a good governor because he didn't defend the Colony from western Indian attack. One of the protesters was Nathaniel Bacon was angry and he had a lot of followers. Later Bacon virtually took over the government and Berkeley fled to eastern shore. When Berkeley returned to Jamestown, Bacon and his followers set the town on fire and Bacon wrote the "America's first Declaration of Independence." Bacon wrote that if England upheld Berkeley, the people of Virginia would fight for their liberties or leave the colony. He made a trip around Virginia trying to tell the people to stand firm, but he died on the trip with a fever. After Bacon's death Berkeley hanged twenty of Bacon's leader without trial, and robed their lands. The King Charles II didn't liked this and said, "That old fool has hanged more men in that naked country than I have done here for the murder of my father."

The first battle in the Revolution War took place at the Great Bridge on December 9, 1775, when Virginia militia defeated Lord Dunmore. On May 6, 1776, the fifth Virginia Convention meeting at Williamsburg declared the colony to be a free and independent commonwealth (almost the same meaning as "State"). On June 7 Richard Henry Lee suggest to the Continental Congress accept the Declaration of Independence. On June 12 Virginia adopted the George Mason's Bill of Rights and then adopted a constitution which lasted more than 50 years. The Bill of Rights was later used as a model for the U.S. bill of rights. In 1779 Patrick Henry was the Virginia's Governor, he made great speeches telling the people make temselves independent from England, one of his great know parts a speech was "Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death".

Patrick Henry delivers his great Give me liberty or give me death speech to a convention at Richmond on March 23, 1775, after the governor had suspended the Virginia Assembly.

On May 20, 1781 Lord Charles Cornwallis arrived to Virginia and soon began to pursue Lafayette, who was a French General. Lafayette joined Anthony Wayne and they pushed Cornwallies to his final destination, Yorktown. Meanwhile enforcement from France and General Washington were coming to Yorktown to reinforce Lafayette's trop. Admiral Francois Joseph Paul de Grasse was defeating British navy and kept it from bringing reinforcements to Lord Charles Cornwallis. On October 18, 1781 Britain was negotiating the surrender after there wasn't no place to escape for Cornwallis, from this time on, Americans were free. After that (six year later) the Colony was governed by the Articles of Confederation, the new, and first president of this new independent country was George Washington. Virginia became the tenth State of the United State, accepting the constitution in June of 1788. George Washington came from this particular commonwealth, or State. Virginia took a lot of leadership on the country after knowing that Washingto, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe were all president and all Virginians, the only one that governed the country on that period and was not a Virginian was John Adams.

Let us focus on the historic early peoples of this land the so called Indians and we will fast forward to the year 1830. Then the U.S. Government though Congress was passing the Indian Removal Act which mandated the removal of all so called Native Americans from east of the Mississippi River to the newly established Indian Territory located in what is present-day Oklahoma. Tribes subjected to removal included the Shawnee, Potawatomis, Sacs and Foxes, Kickapoos, and Winnebagos.

They were known as the so-called "Five Civilized Tribes" and they were also subjected to removal. The Five Civilized Tribes was a term invented by the American settlers to refer to the Choctaws, Creeks, Chickasaws, Cherokees, and Seminoles. These, tribes believed to have originated in the southeastern United States. The settlers referred to these tribes as 'civilized' because they lived in settled towns, farmed and had a sophisticated form of government. During the 1820s, the Cherokee developed a written alphabet for their language and regularly published a newspaper.

The Cherokees contested the removal order and sued in the United States Supreme Court for the right to stay on their lands. In two key cases, Cherokee Nation v. Georgia (1831) and Worcester v. Georgia (1832), the Supreme Court upheld the right of the Cherokee to stay on their lands. President Andrew Jackson ignored the court's opinion and decided to send federal troops to forcibly remove the Cherokee and other Civilized Tribes from their lands. The Cherokee were removed in 1838 six years later during harsh winter conditions resulting in significant hardship and loss of life; the Cherokee remember this time as the "Trail of Tears." From the Trail of Tears to the Blessing of a Lifetime THE BLESSING STICK

Even though this event “The legendary Trail of Tears” happened, over a century ago, Cherokee Peoples were forced from their rightful homeland to walk across thousands of miles of treacherous, untamed U.S. wilderness. Against incredible odds, barely two-thirds of the tribe managed to survive the perilous journey.

To aid them along the hazardous trail, the Native Americans picked up walking sticks along the way. Once they reached their new homeland, the brave survivors broke their sticks and decorated them with brightly-colored feathers, horse hairs and other natural materials. These Blessing Sticks came to symbolize the three elements of success and prosperity - Health, Happiness and Harmony, considered by the Cherokees to be the greatest blessing in the world. The bending, crooked shape of the stick represents life's journey - never perfect or straight.

These beautifully-decorated Blessing Sticks were given to new mothers, new brides, or anyone in the tribe in need of blessings, and the ceremonial tradition continues today.

1840

Gold is discovered at Sutter's Mill, California in 1848. The subsequent "Gold Rush" and Euro-American settlement in California results in a drop in California Indian population from about 120,000 in 1850 to fewer than 20,000 by 1880. Gold miners changed the environment so much that Indians could no longer pursue their traditional means of procuring food. Indians raided mining camps for food and miners retaliated. Indians caused such problems for miners, that by 1851 the governor of California condoned a policy of extermination against California Indians.

U.S. wins the War with Mexico in 1848 and purchases the territory which, become the states of California, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, and Colorado from Mexico for $5,000,000.

1850

1870

When a child my mother taught me the legends of our people; taught me of the sun and sky, the moon and stars, the clouds and storms. She also taught me to kneel and pray to Usen for strenght, health, wisdom, and protection. We never prayed against any person, but if we had aught against any individual we ourselves took vengeance. We were taught that Usen does not care for the petty quarrels of men.

1880

1890

1900

1910

1920

1930

1940

1950

During the 1950s, the U.S. government adopted an official policy of "terminating" tribes. Termination involved settling all federal obligations to a tribe, withdrawing federal support (e.g., health services, education) and closing the reservation. Frequently, tribal members were then relocated to urban areas. Eventually, Congress would terminate services to over 60 tribes including Klamaths, Paiutes, Menominees, Poncas and Catawbas. By 1990, more than 50% of Indians lived in urban areas.

1960

1970

1980

1990

It is my intention to spur your interest into further examination of the lives and stories of the powerful individuals highlighted here.

I want to encourage people to become familiar with men and women known for their powerful influences in society in hopes of inspiring each to become the best that they can be. In the Early people of American tradition, those identified as having such power were often Chiefs, Shamen, Medicine Men or Women. In fact, our term "doctor" means "teacher". Surely these individuals have something to teach us about living in harmony with the Earth and each other as we explore the stories of their lives and the words they spoke.

"When we first made treaties with the Government, this was our position: Our old life and our old customs were about to end; the game upon which we lived was disappearing; the whites were closing around us, and nothing remained for us but to adopt their ways and have the same rights with them if we wished to save ourselves." Red Cloud

Red Cloud, as Remembered by Ohiyesa (Charles A. Eastman)

Red Cloud was born about 1819 near the forks of the Platte River. He was one of a family of nine children whose father, an able and respected warrior, reared his son under the old Spartan regime. The young Red Cloud is said to have been a fine horseman, able to swim across the Missouri and Yellowstone rivers, of high bearing and unquestionable courage, yet invariably gentle and courteous in everyday life. This last trait, together with a singularly musical and agreeable voice, has always been characteristic of the man.

When he was about six years old, his father gave him a spirited colt, and said to him:

"My son, when you are able to sit quietly upon the back of this colt without saddle or bridle, I shall be glad, for the boy who can win a wild creature and learn to use it will as a man be able to win and rule men."

The little fellow, instead of going for advice and help to his grandfather, as most Indian boys would have done, began quietly to practice throwing the lariat. In a little while he was able to lasso the colt. He was dragged off his feet at once, but hung on, and finally managed to picket him near the teepee. When the big boys drove the herd of ponies to water, he drove his colt with the rest. Presently the pony became used to him and allowed himself to be handled. The boy began to ride him bareback; he was thrown many times, but persisted until he could ride without even a lariat, sitting with arms folded and guiding the animal by the movements of his body. From that time on he told me that he broke all his own ponies, and before long his father's as well.

The old men, his contemporaries, have often related to me how Red Cloud was always successful in the hunt because his horses were so well broken. At the age of nine, he began to ride his father's pack pony upon the buffalo hunt. He was twelve years old, he told me, when he was first permitted to take part in the chase, and found to his great mortification that none of his arrows penetrated more than a few inches. Excited to recklessness, he whipped his horse nearer the fleeing buffalo, and before his father knew what he was about, he had seized one of the protruding arrows and tried to push it deeper. The furious animal tossed his massive head sidewise, and boy and horse were whirled into the air. Fortunately, the boy was thrown on the farther side of his pony, which received the full force of the second attack. The thundering hoofs of the stampeded herd soon passed them by, but the wounded and maddened buffalo refused to move, and some critical moments passed before Red Cloud's father succeeded in attracting its attention so that the boy might spring to his feet and run for his life.

I once asked Red Cloud if he could recall having ever been afraid, and in reply he told me this story. He was about sixteen years old and had already been once or twice upon the warpath, when one fall his people were hunting in the Big Horn country, where they might expect trouble at any moment with the hostile Crows or Shoshones. Red Cloud had followed a single buffalo bull into the Bad Lands and was out of sight and hearing of his companions. When he had brought down his game, he noted carefully every feature of his surroundings so that he might at once detect anything unusual, and tied his horse with a long lariat to the horn of the dead bison, while skinning and cutting up the meat so as to pack it to camp. Every few minutes he paused in his work to scrutinize the landscape, for he had a feeling that danger was not far off.

Suddenly, almost over his head, as it seemed, he heard a tremendous war whoop, and glancing sidewise, thought he beheld the charge of an overwhelming number of warriors. He tried desperately to give the usual undaunted war whoop in reply, but instead a yell of terror burst from his lips, his legs gave way under him, and he fell in a heap. When he realized, the next instant, that the war whoop was merely the sudden loud whinnying of his own horse, and the charging army a band of fleeing elk, he was so ashamed of himself that he never forgot the incident, although up to that time he had never mentioned it. His subsequent career would indicate that the lesson was well learned.

The future leader was still a very young man when he joined a war party against the Utes. Having pushed eagerly forward on the trail, he found himself far in advance of his companions as night came on, and at the same time rain began to fall heavily. Among the scattered scrub pines, the lone warrior found a natural cave, and after a hasty examination, he decided to shelter there for the night.

Scarcely had he rolled himself in his blanket when he heard a slight rustling at the entrance, as if some creature were preparing to share his retreat. It was pitch dark. He could see nothing, but judged that it must be either a man or a grizzly. There was not room to draw a bow. It must be between knife and knife, or between knife and claws, he said to himself.

The intruder made no search but quietly lay down in the opposite corner of the cave. Red Cloud remained perfectly still, scarcely breathing, his hand upon his knife. Hour after hour he lay broad awake, while many thoughts passed through his brain. Suddenly, without warning, he sneezed, and instantly a strong man sprang to a sitting posture opposite. The first gray of morning was creeping into their rocky den, and behold! a Ute hunter sat before him.

Desperate as the situation appeared, it was not without a grim humor. Neither could afford to take his eyes from the other's; the tension was great, till at last a smile wavered over the expressionless face of the Ute. Red Cloud answered the smile, and in that instant a treaty of peace was born between them.

"Put your knife in its sheath. I shall do so also, and we will smoke together," signed Red Cloud. The other assented gladly, and they ratified thus the truce which assured to each a safe return to his friends. Having finished their smoke, they shook hands and separated. Neither had given the other any information. Red Cloud returned to his party and told his story, adding that he had divulged nothing and had nothing to report. Some were inclined to censure him for not fighting, but he was sustained by a majority of the warriors, who commended his self-restraint. In a day or two they discovered the main camp of the enemy and fought a remarkable battle, in which Red Cloud especially distinguished himself

The Sioux were now entering upon the most stormy period of their history. The old things were fast giving place to new. The young men, for the first time engaging in serious and destructive warfare with the neighboring tribes, armed with the deadly weapons furnished by the white man, began to realize that they must soon enter upon a desperate struggle for their ancestral hunting grounds. The old men had been innocently cultivating the friendship of the stranger, saying among themselves, "Surely there is land enough for all!"

Red Cloud was a modest and little known man of about twenty-eight years, when General Harney called all the western bands of Sioux together at Fort Laramie, Wyoming, for the purpose of securing an agreement and right of way through their territory. The Ogallalas held aloof from this proposal, but Bear Bull, an Ogallala chief, after having been plied with whisky, undertook to dictate submission to the rest of the clan. Enraged by failure, he fired upon a group of his own tribesmen, and Red Cloud's father and brother fell dead. According to Indian custom, it fell to him to avenge the deed. Calmly, without uttering a word, he faced old Bear Bull and his son, who attempted to defend his father, and shot them both. He did what he believed to be his duty, and the whole band sustained him. Indeed, the tragedy gave the young man at once a certain standing, as one who not only defended his people against enemies from without, but against injustice and aggression within the tribe. From this time on he was a recognized leader.

Man-Afraid-of-His-Horse, then head chief of the Ogallalas, took council with Red Cloud in all important matters, and the young warrior rapidly advanced in authority and influence. In 1854, when he was barely thirty-five years old, the various bands were again encamped near Fort Laramie. A Mormon emigrant train, moving westward, left a footsore cow behind, and the young men killed her for food. The next day, to their astonishment, an officer with thirty men appeared at the Indian camp and demanded of old Conquering Bear that they be given up. The chief in vain protested that it was all a mistake and offered to make reparation. It would seem that either the officer was under the influence of liquor, or else had a mind to bully the Indians, for he would accept neither explanation nor payment, but demanded point-blank that the young men who had killed the cow be delivered up to summary punishment. The old chief refused to be intimidated and was shot dead on the spot. Not one soldier ever reached the gate of Fort Laramie! Here Red Cloud led the young Ogallalas, and so intense was the feeling that they even killed the half-breed interpreter.

Curiously enough, there was no attempt at retaliation on the part of the army, and no serious break until 1860, when the Sioux were involved in troubles with the Cheyennes and Arapahoes. In 1862, a grave outbreak was precipitated by the eastern Sioux in Minnesota under Little Crow, in which the western bands took no part. Yet this event ushered in a new period for their race. The surveyors of the Union Pacific were laying out the proposed road through the heart of the southern buffalo country, the rendezvous of Ogallalas, Brules, Arapahoes, Comanches, and Pawnees, who followed the buffalo as a means of livelihood. To be sure, most of these tribes were at war with one another, yet during the summer months they met often to proclaim a truce and hold joint councils and festivities, which were now largely turned into discussions of the common enemy. It became evident, however, that some of the smaller and weaker tribes were inclined to welcome the new order of things, recognizing that it was the policy of the government to put an end to tribal warfare.

Red Cloud's position was uncompromisingly against submission. He made some noted speeches in this line, one of which was repeated to me by an old man who had heard and remembered it with the remarkable verbal memory of an Indian.

"Friends," said Red Cloud, "it has been our misfortune to welcome the white man. We have been deceived. He brought with him some shining things that pleased our eyes; he brought weapons more effective than our own: above all, he brought the spirit water that makes one forget for a time old age, weakness, and sorrow. But I wish to say to you that if you would possess these things for yourselves, you must begin anew and put away the wisdom of your fathers. You must lay up food, and forget the hungry. When your house is built, your storeroom filled, then look around for a neighbor whom you can take at a disadvantage, and seize all that he has! Give away only what you do not want; or rather, do not part with any of your possessions unless in exchange for another's.

"My countrymen, shall the glittering trinkets of this rich man, his deceitful drink that overcomes the mind, shall these things tempt us to give up our homes, our hunting grounds, and the honorable teaching of our old men? Shall we permit ourselves to be driven to and fro -- to be herded like the cattle of the white man?" His next speech that has been remembered was made in 1866, just before the attack on Fort Phil Kearny. The tension of feeling against the invaders had now reached its height. There was no dissenting voice in the council upon the Powder River, when it was decided to oppose to the uttermost the evident purpose of the government. Red Cloud was not altogether ignorant of the numerical strength and the resourcefulness of the white man, but he was determined to face any odds rather than submit.

"Hear ye, Dakotas!" he exclaimed. "When the Great Father at Washington sent us his chief soldier [General Harney] to ask for a path through our hunting grounds, a way for his iron road to the mountains and the western sea, we were told that they wished merely to pass through our country, not to tarry among us, but to seek for gold in the far west. Our old chiefs thought to show their friendship and good will, when they allowed this dangerous snake in our midst. They promised to protect the wayfarers.

"Yet before the ashes of the council fire are cold, the Great Father is building his forts among us. You have heard the sound of the white soldier's ax upon the Little Piney. His presence here is an insult and a threat. It is an insult to the spirits of our ancestors. Are we then to give up their sacred graves to be plowed for corn? Dakotas, I am for war!"

In less than a week after this speech, the Sioux advanced upon Fort Phil Kearny, the new sentinel that had just taken her place upon the farthest frontier, guarding the Oregon Trail. Every detail of the attack had been planned with care, though not without heated discussion, and nearly every well-known Sioux chief had agreed in striking the blow. The brilliant young war leader, Crazy Horse, was appointed to lead the charge. His lieutenants were Sword, Hump, and Dull Knife, with Little Chief of the Cheyennes, while the older men acted as councilors. Their success was instantaneous. In less than half an hour, they had cut down nearly a hundred men under Captain Fetterman, whom they drew out of the fort by a ruse and then annihilated.

Instead of sending troops to punish, the government sent a commission to treat with the Sioux. The result was the famous treaty of 1868, which Red Cloud was the last to sign, having refused to do so until all of the forts within their territory should be vacated. All of his demands were acceded to, the new road abandoned, the garrisons withdrawn, and in the new treaty it was distinctly stated that the Black Hills and the Big Horn were Indian country, set apart for their perpetual occupancy, and that no white man should enter that region without the consent of the Sioux.

Scarcely was this treaty signed, however, when gold was discovered in the Black Hills, and the popular cry was: "Remove the Indians!" This was easier said than done. That very territory had just been solemnly guaranteed to them forever: yet how stem the irresistible rush for gold? The government, at first, entered some small protest, just enough to "save its face" as the saying is; but there was no serious attempt to prevent the wholesale violation of the treaty. It was this state of affairs that led to the last great speech made by Red Cloud, at a gathering upon the Little Rosebud River. It is brief, and touches upon the hopelessness of their future as a race. He seems at about this time to have reached the conclusion that resistance could not last much longer; in fact, the greater part of the Sioux nation was already under government control.

"We are told," said he, "that Spotted Tail has consented to be the Beggars' Chief. Those Indians who go over to the white man can be nothing but beggars, for he respects only riches, and how can an Indian be a rich man? He cannot without ceasing to be an Indian. As for me, I have listened patiently to the promises of the Great Father, but his memory is short. I am now done with him. This is all I have to say."

The wilder bands separated soon after this council, to follow the drift of the buffalo, some in the vicinity of the Black Hills and others in the Big Horn region. Small war parties came down from time to time upon stray travelers, who received no mercy at their hands, or made dashes upon neighboring forts. Red Cloud claimed the right to guard and hold by force, if need be, all this territory which had been conceded to his people by the treaty of 1868. The land became a very nest of outlawry. Aside from organized parties of prospectors, there were bands of white horse thieves and desperadoes who took advantage of the situation to plunder immigrants and Indians alike.

An attempt was made by means of military camps to establish control and force all the Indians upon reservations, and another commission was sent to negotiate their removal to Indian Territory, but met with an absolute refusal. After much guerrilla warfare, an important military campaign against the Sioux was set on foot in 1876, ending in Custer's signal defeat upon the Little Big Horn.

In this notable battle, Red Cloud did not participate in person, nor in the earlier one with Crook upon the Little Rosebud, but he had a son in both fights. He was now a councilor rather than a warrior, but his young men were constantly in the field, while Spotted Tail had definitely surrendered and was in close touch with representatives of the government.

But the inevitable end was near. One morning in the fall of 1876 Red Cloud was surrounded by United States troops under the command of Colonel McKenzie, who disarmed his people and brought them into Fort Robinson, Nebraska. Thence they were removed to the Pine Ridge agency, where he lived for more than thirty years as a "reservation Indian." In order to humiliate him further, government authorities proclaimed the more tractable Spotted Tail head chief of the Sioux. Of course, Red Cloud's own people never recognized any other chief.

In 1880 he appealed to Professor Marsh, of Yale, head of a scientific expedition to the Bad Lands, charging certain frauds at the agency and apparently proving his case; at any rate the matter was considered worthy of official investigation. In 1890-1891, during the "Ghost Dance craze" and the difficulties that followed, he was suspected of collusion with the hostiles, but he did not join them openly, and nothing could be proved against him. He was already an old man, and became almost entirely blind before his death in 1909 in his ninetieth year.

His private life was exemplary. He was faithful to one wife all his days, and was a devoted father to his children. He was ambitious for his only son, known as Jack Red Cloud, and much desired him to be a great warrior. He started him on the warpath at the age of fifteen, not then realizing that the days of Indian warfare were well-nigh at an end.

Among latter-day chiefs, Red Cloud was notable as a quiet man, simple and direct in speech, courageous in action, an ardent lover of his country, and possessed in a marked degree of the manly qualities characteristic of the American Indian in his best days.

Geronimo

Chiricahua Apache. (1829-1909)

To the Apaches, Geronimo embodied the very essence of the Apache values, aggressiveness, and courage in the face of difficulty. These qualities inspired fear in the settlers of Arizona and New Mexico. The Chiricahuas were mostly migratory following the seasons, hunting and farming. When food was scarce, it was the custom to raid neighboring tribes. Raids and vengeance were an honorable way of life among the tribes of this region.

By the time American settlers began arriving in the area, the Spanish had become entrenched in the area, they were always looking for Indian slaves and Christian converts. It was the Spanish who raided and killed Geronimo's young wife and child and reportedly caused such a hatred of the whites that he vowed to kill as many as he could.

In 1876, the U.S. Army tried to move the Chiricahuas onto a reservation, but Geronimo fled to Mexico eluding the troops for over a decade. Sensationalized press reports exaggerated Geronimo's activities, making him the most feared and infamous Apache. The last few months of the campaign required over 5,000 soldiers and 500 scouts to track down Geronimo and his band.

Geronimo finally surrendered on the urging of his followers in September after the Army promised that after a period of time he would be able to return to Arizona. Geronimo and his followers were shipped to St. Augustine, Florida where many died from malaria or tuberculosis. Geronimo never again saw his beloved Arizona and died a prisoner many years later on a reservation in Oklahoma.

Quotes from Geronimo:

I was warmed by the sun, rocked by the winds and sheltered by the trees as other Indian babes.

Now I can eat well, sleep well and be glad. I can go everywhere with a good feeling.

The soldiers never explained to the government when an Indian was wronged, but reported the misdeeds of the Indians.

We took an oath not to do any wrong to each other or to scheme against each other.

There is one God looking down on us all. We are all the children of one God. The sun, the darkness, the winds are all listening to what we have to say.

When a child, my mother taught me to kneel and pray to Usen for strength, health, wisdom and protection.

Sometimes we prayed in silence, sometimes each one prayed aloud; sometimes an aged person prayed for all of us... and to Usen.

I was born on the prairies where the wind blew free and there was nothing to break the light of the sun. I was born where there were no enclosures.

Cochise - Chiricahua - Apache Chief

Not a lot is known about Cochise except to say that he was the descendent of a long line of chiefs and was raised to follow in their footsteps. Although Apache leaders did not inherit their positions, but rather earned them by demonstrating their abilities and influencing others, the son of a great chief was treated specially and had a good chance to become a leader himself. Ceremonies and rituals accompanied every stage of an Apache's life - from birth to death. When Cochise was about 4 days old (a magic number to the Apaches), a shaman, or Medicine Man, would have constructed a special cradle for him known as a "tosch" and attached a bag of pollen or the claw of a hummingbird to protect him from evil forces. When he learned to walk, another ceremony would celebrate his first pair of moccasins, and the following spring a ritual would have been made of his first haircut. Each of these events and hundreds of others were social occasions as they were part of the Apache religion, with feasting, dancing and much singing.

Cochise was taught Apache religious beliefs as soon as he was able to understand them. Through stories told by his parents, he came to know the Apache God, Usen, The White Painted Woman, Child of the Water, The Mountain Spirits, and the force called Power that raged before the universe was contained in all things.

Power was in everything, but it was also possible for Usen to award a gift of Power to an individual, giving him special skills and foresight. Cochise received many gifts of Power, and the Apaches believed that it was these gifts that allowed him to be a successful warrior and leader.

The Apaches believed in many kinds of Power - some good and some bad - and felt that these forces were in constant conflict. This idea explained the enemies in their life and the need to struggle to survive in a region that although very beautiful, presented constant challenges.

Kind beings known as Mountain Spirits were thought to have lived in the caves on Cochise's homeland. The Apaches believed that these spirits were very special protectors and could help with important ceremonies. Any undertaking would be much less prosperous without their assistance. Thus, the Apaches felt a strong connection to their home mountains. To leave them meant to be without the Mountain Spirits.

Although the Apaches stayed near the Mountain Spirits, they moved around quiet often within their home territory. The women packed their belongings and each time they stopped, they built a wickiup - a small dome shaped hut covered with brush or animal hides. Apache women were responsible for most of the daily chores. Although Cochise would not be expected to cook or clean as an adult, working with his mother during his childhood taught him a valuable lesson. He learned never to take a woman's contribution to the family for granted.

Cochise no doubt was taught the importance of strict mental and physical discipline, as were the other Apache children as their lives often depended on it. In time, Cochise memorized every rock, tree, and hole in Chiricahua territory. He developed patience and self-control by stalking deer, the skin of which was of great value to the Apaches, but which was a most difficult animal to hunt. Sometimes when a heard of deer would be grazing in the open, a warrior would be forced to spend hours crawling on the ground behind weeds to get close enough to it. Although this kind of hunting could be frustrating, it helped Cochise develop stealth, which would come in handy on raids.

When he was 17 or 18, he became a "dikohe" or apprentice warrior, and was given a different name. He was called Goci, later spelled Cochise. The Apaches were taught that "counting coup" or stealing stealthily, was a better way to let your enemies know that you had the upper hand, rather than killing which would no doubt lead to retaliation and more bloodshed. Over the course of his dealings with both the Mexicans and the Americans, he would steal horses from under the noses of his enemies, adding to his reputation as a man of much power. It was only after his family and his nation had suffered many casualties, that his raids turned to revenge, and even then, Cochise was known to return many horses stolen by renegade Apaches when he had not approved of their actions. Throughout his life his incredible skills as a warrior inspired respect from his people and terror in his enemies, but friends and Indians alike believed him to be an honest man.

In the end, Cochise's skill as a diplomat helped his people retain the lands they so cherished. Many have said that he was the most powerful Apache leader in history. At his death, it was reported that his people wailed loudly for more than a day. After his death, the Government broke the historic treaty made with Cochise and moved the Chiricahua from the ancient mountain homeland to the hot, flat, dry, Arizona desert. Many refused to go, and after their defeat, were sent to prison in Florida or died in Oklahoma of tuberculosis or other diseases. For most of the Chiricahua, the day they left the reservation was the last time they saw their homeland.

Crazy Horse was born along Rapid Creek near present-day Rapid City, South Dakota, to the east of Paha Sapa, the Black Hills.

He was the son of an Oglala medicine man of the same name and his Brule wife, the sister of Spotted Tail.

His mother died when he was young, and his father took her sister as a wife and she helped raise Crazy Horse.

Before he was 12, Curly had killed a buffalo and received his own horse. This was a rare and great honor.

About that age, on August 19, 1854, he was in CONQUERING BEAR’s camp in northern Wyoming when the Brule leader was killed in the GRATTAN Fight.

Although he was away from camp during the Battle of Ash Hollow the following year, he witnessed the destruction of Sioux tepees and possessions by the soldiers during General WILLIAM S. HARNEY’s punitive expedition through Sioux territory along the Oregon Trail, experiences that helped shape his militant attitude toward whites.

After the Grattan Fight, Curly underwent a Vision Quest in which he had a vivid dream of a rider in a storm on horseback,

The storm faded and a red-backed hawk flew over the rider’s head. When Curly later related the dream to his father, the medicine man interpreted it as a sign of his son’s future greatness in battle.

At about the age of 16, now bearing his father’s name, Crazy Horse rode for the first time as an adult warrior in a raid on Crows.

Like the rider in his dream, he wore his hair free, a stone earring, and a headdress with a red hawk feather in it.

The raid was successful, but Crazy Horse received a wound in the leg, because, his father interpreted, unlike the rider in the vision, he had taken two scalps.

For the remainder of his career as a warrior, it is said that Crazy Horse never again took a scalp.

Crazy Horse became further known to many of the Sioux bands for his courage in the War for the BOZEMAN Trail of 1866-68 under the Oglala RED CLOUD , when the army began building a road in Powder River country from the Oregon Trail to the goldfields of Montana.

He was one of the young chiefs, along with the Miniconjou HUMP and the Hunkpapas GALL and RAIN-IN-THE-FACE , who used decoy tactics against the soldiers.

Near Fort Phil Kearny, Wyoming, Crazy Horse participated in the Indian victories known as the FETTERMAN Fight of December 21, 1866, and the Wagon Box Fight of August 2, 1867.

With the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868, in which the army agreed to abandon the posts along the Bozeman Trail, Red Cloud and Spotted Tail settled on reservation lands.

Moreover, he made friends and followers among the Northern Cheyennes through his first marriage to a Cheyenne woman. He later married an Oglala woman too.

Crazy Horse again waged war in the early 1870s, leading his warriors in raids on Northern Pacific Railway surveyors.

The Black Hills Gold Rush, which brought more whites to the region, increased tensions.

When the nomadic hunting bands ignored the order to report to their reservations by January 31, 1876, the military organized a campaign against them.

Crazy Horse’s band fought in the opening engagement of the War for the Black Hills of 1876-77, the Battle of Powder River.

In March 1876, when his scouts discovered an Indian trail, General GEORGE CROOK sent a detachment under Colonel Joseph Reynolds to locate the Indian camp along the Powder in southeastern Montana.

The Indians retreated to surrounding bluffs and fired at the troops who burned the village and rounded up the Indian horses.

Crazy Horse regrouped his warriors and, during a snowstorm that night, recaptured the herd.

Meanwhile, SITTING BULL of the Hunkpapas, who, during the 1860s, had been active in raids in northern Montana and North Dakota along the Yellowstone and Missouri rivers, came into prominence as the spiritual leader of the allied Northern Plains tribes.

Gall acted as his leading war chief. Crazy Horse joined the Hunkpapas on the upper Rosebud.

On June 17, 1876, at the Battle of the Rosebud, Crazy Horse, Gall, and other war chiefs led their warriors in repeated assaults that forced Crook’s troops to retreat.

The Indians then moved their camp to the Bighorn River. On June 25, at the Battle of Little Bighorn, Crazy Horse led the victorious assault on GEORGE ARMSTRONG CUSTER’s men from the north and west, while Gall’s warriors attacked from the south and west.

Following Little Bighorn, the Indian bands split up, and Crazy Horse led his people back to the Rosebud.

The next autumn and winter, Colonel NELSON A. MILES led the 5^th Infantry from a base at the confluence of the Tongue and Yellowstone rivers in a relentless pursuit of the militants, wearing them down and making it difficult for them to obtain food.

When the Indians attempted hit-and-run strikes, the soldiers responded with heavy artillery to repel them.

On January 8, 1877, at Wolf Mountain on the Tongue River in southern Montana, Crazy Horse led 800 braves in a surprise attack.

Miles had disguised his howitzers as wagons and opened fire with them. The Indians withdrew to bluffs and, when the soldiers counterattacked, retreated under the cover of a snowstorm.

Crazy Horse received a promise from Crook through Red Cloud that if he surrendered, his people would have a reservation of their own in the Powder River country.

His people weary and starving, Crazy Horse led some 800 followers to Fort Robinson on the Red Cloud Agency in northwestern Nebraska on May 5, 1877.

Crazy Horse remained at the Red Cloud Agency, and his presence caused unrest among the Indians and suspicion among the whites.

He remained aloof from whites and refused Crook’s request to send him to Washington, D.C., for a meeting with President Rutherford Hayes.

On hearing unfounded rumors that Crazy Horse was planning a rebellion, Crook ordered his arrest.

Taking his family with him, Crazy Horse headed for the Spotted Tail Agency to the northwest.

In a parley with troops sent to capture him, Crazy Horse agreed to return, and the next day, September 5, 1877, he was led back to Fort Robinson.

On realizing he was being taken to the stockade, he resisted and, while the Indian police attempted to regain control, he was bayoneted in the abdomen by a soldier.

His father and stepmother were given his body and, following their son’s request, buried him in his homeland—somewhere near Wounded Knee, according to legend.

Chief Joseph

Nez Pierce (1840-1904)

Chief Joseph, known by his people as In-mut-too-yah-lat-lat (Thunder coming up over the land from the water), was best known for his resistance to the U.S. Government's attempts to force his tribe onto reservations. The Nez Perce were a peaceful nation spread from Idaho to Northern Washington. The tribe had maintained good relations with the whites after the Lewis and Clark expedition. Joseph spent much of his early childhood at a mission maintained by Christian missionaries.

In 1855 Chief Joseph's father, Old Joseph, signed a treaty with the U.S. that allowed his people to retain much of their traditional lands. In 1863 another treaty was created that severely reduced the amount of land, but Old Joseph maintained that this second treaty was never agreed to by his people.

A showdown over the second "non-treaty" came after Chief Joseph assumed his role as Chief in 1877. After months of fighting and forced marches, many of the Nez Perce were sent to a reservation in what is now Oklahoma, where many died from malaria and starvation.

Chief Joseph tried every possible appeal to the federal authorities to return the Nez Perce to the land of their ancestors. In 1885, he was sent along with many of his band to a reservation in Washington where, according to the reservation doctor, he later died of a broken heart.

Quotes from Chief Joseph:

I have carried a heavy load on my back ever since I was a boy. I realized then that we could not hold our own with the white men. We were like deer. They were like grizzly bears. We had small country. Their country was large. We were contented to let things remain as the Great Spirit Chief made them. They were not, and would change the rivers and mountains if they did not suit them.

Our fathers gave us many laws, which they had learned from their fathers. These laws were good. They told us to treat all people as they treated us; that we should never be the first to break a bargain; that is was a disgrace to tell a lie; that we should speak only the truth; that it was a shame for one man to take another his wife or his property without paying for it.

Suppose a white man should come to me and say, “Joseph, I like your horses. I want to buy them.”

Then he goes to my neighbor and says, “Pay me money, and I will sell you Joseph’s horses.”

The white man returns to me and says, “Joseph, I have bought your horses and you must let me have them.”

If the white man wants to live in peace with the Indian, he can live in peace. Treat all men alike. Give them a chance to live and grow.

All men were made brothers. The earth is the mother of all people, and all people should have equal rights upon it. You might as well expect the rivers to run backward as that any man who was born free should be contented when penned up and denied liberty to go where he pleases.

If you tie a horse to a stake, do you expect him to grow fat? If you pen an Indian up on a small spot of earth, and compel him to stay there, he will not be contented, nor will he grow and prosper.

We were taught to believe that the Great Spirit sees and hears everything, and that he never forgets, that hereafter he will give every man a spirit home according to his deserts; If he has been a good man, he will have a good home; if he has been a bad man, he will have a bad home.

Good words do not last long unless they amount to something. Words do not pay for my dead people. They do not pay for my country, now overrun by white men. They do not protect my father’s grave. They do not pay for all my horses and cattle.

Good words cannot give me back my children. Good words will not give my people good health and stop them from dying. Good words will not get my people a home where they can live in peace and take care of themselves.

I am tired of talk that comes to nothing It makes my heart sick when I remember all the good words and all the broken promises. There has been too much talking by men who had no right to talk.

We do not want churches because they will teach us to quarrel about God, as the Catholics and Protestants do. We do not want that.

We may quarrel with men about things on earth, but we never quarrel about the Great Spirit.

I believe much trouble and blood would be saved if we opened our harts more. I will tell you in my way how the Indian sees things. The white man has more words to tell you how they look to him, but is does not require many words to seek the truth.

The Great Spirit Chief who rules above all will smile upon this land... and this time the Indian race is waiting and praying.

Sitting Bull

Hunkpapa Sioux (1831-1890)

Sitting Bull, Lakota Medicine Man and Chief was considered the last Sioux to surrender to the U.S. Government.

In the early 1850s, the Lakota (Sioux) had begun to feel the pressure of the white expansion into the Western United States. Sitting Bull did not participate in the resistance until 1863 when the settlers threatened the Hunkpapa hunting grounds. He had distinguished himself from an early age as a leader, killing his first buffalo at ten and "counting coup" (touching the enemy without their knowing) at fourteen. Because of his leadership during these times he was named principle chief of the Teton Sioux Nation in 1867.

Although the war with the whites ended with the treaty of Ft. Laramie in 1868, the discovery of gold in the Black Hills which was sacred to the tribe caused continued tensions.

After participating in the Sun Dance Ceremony, Sitting Bull had a vision in which he saw his people victorious over the white soldiers who had been sent to protect the gold prospectors. Just weeks later, General George Armstrong Custer and a regiment of the seventh cavalry attacked the seven bands of the Lakota Nation along with several families of the Cheyenne and Arapaho. The attack was clearly in violation of their treaty. Precisely as Sitting Bull had seen in his vision, every white soldier was killed that day at Big Horn along with a few Native Americans. Following the success of the battle, Sitting Bull and his followers headed for Canada.

After the particularly harsh winter of 1881, Sitting Bull, and those of his group who were still with him, finally gave themselves up to the American army. Sitting Bull was held prisoner for two years before he was moved to the Standing Rock Reservation in South Dakota. In 1885, officials released him and he joined the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show and toured throughout Europe.

Sitting Bull remained a powerful force among his people, and upon his return to the U.S. would counsel the tribal chiefs who greatly valued his wisdom.

Shortly after his return, the federal government again wanted to break up the tribal lands. They persuaded several "government appointed chiefs" to sign an agreement, whereby the reservation was to be divided up and subsequently distributed among the tribal members. Missing from the list of recipients was Sitting Bull's name. Jealousy and fighting among the Lakota eventually led to his death. It was reported that he was murdered by tribal police who had been sent to arrest him.

Quotes from Chief Sitting Bull:

I know Great Spirit is looking down upon me from above, and will hear what I say...

The earth has received the embrace of the sun and we shall see the results of that love.

He put in your heart certain wishes and plans; in my heart, he put other different desires.

In my early days, I was eager to learn and to do things, and therefore I learned quickly.

Now that we are poor, we are free. No white man controls our footsteps. If we must die, we die defending our rights.

What white man can say I never stole his land or a penny of his money? Yet they say that I am a thief.

What white woman, however lonely, was ever captive or insulted by me? Yet they say I am a bad Indian.

What white man has ever seen me drunk? Who has ever come to me hungry and left me unfed? Who has seen me beat my wives or abuse my children? What law have I broken?

Is it wrong for me to love my own? Is it wicked for me because my skin is red? Because I am Sioux? Because I was born where my father lived? Because I would die for my people and my country?

I want to tell you that if the Great Spirit had chosen anyone to be the chief of this country, it is myself.

When I was a boy, the Sioux owned the world. The sun rose and set on their land; they sent ten thousand men to battle. Where are the warriors today? Who slew them? Where are our lands? Who owns them?

If the Great Spirit had desired me to be a white man, he would have made me so in the first place.

I was very sorry when I found out that your intentions were good and not what I supposed they were.

If a man loses anything and goes back and looks carefully for it, he will find it.

Quanah Parker was the last Chief of the Commanches and never lost a battle to the white man. His tribe roamed over the area where Pampas stands. He was never captured by the Army, but decided to surrender and lead his tribe into the white man's culture, only when he saw that there was no alternative. Until 1874 the Quashadi Comanche, led by Quanah Parker, carried on their traditional life following the buffalo herds. When they raided settlements on the Texas plains, the army seemed powerless against this band. But time was on the side of the army. Buffalo hunters poured onto the plains and destroyed the buffalo herds. With the loss of the buffalo, the Quashadis were eventually defeated and forced onto a government reservation in Oklahoma.

Chapter Twenty Three

Early Peoples of Turtle Island

The following will give you a little insight into the tribes of today who are from the Early Peoples. You may recognize a few of the more popular tribe names from movies or other sources.

Today's tribes, what is left of them, have been scattered and/or have only a few members left, with few exceptions. Early Peoples in today's society live either on the reservations, under very difficult and poor conditions, or in our cities under not much better conditions as on the reservations. The tribes are poor and are condemned to live on reservations that are desolate and barren and very little remain of the old days before the white man came. Some tribes have adapted and try to take advantage of the treaties by offering opportunities of gambling and/or sales of other items such as tobacco products, pottery, jewelry, arts and crafts etc. The monies made with such endeavors are usually used to build Medical facilities or offer other services to make today's reservations a little better.

But even today the U.S. Government and the American people are still displaying less than contempt for the first owners & the Proud People of the open plains and the land of this country. At every turn the Early Peoples are faced with more difficulties. The Early Peoples lived with Nature and by nature’s rules..... now they have to live and obey the white man's rules, no matter how unfair they are to Nature and it's People!

Here is a partial list of the tribes recognized by the U.S. Government. With some information about each tribe.

Abenaki

An Algonquian tribe. The name was used by the Colonial English and French to designate the tribes which were situated in what is now the state of Maine. In 1604 Champlain visited a small village of bark huts situated near the mouth of the Penobscot River, near what is now Bangor, Maine. These Indians fought on the side of the French until the decline of the French power in America.

Apache

They are divided into many groups or clans. Their names were taken from natural features, never from animals. The Apache were a rather nomadic people and were always on the move. They have a rather high skill in the making of baskets. They lived on the plains of New Mexico and west Texas, were very warlike. Well known leaders included Cochise, Geronimo, Victorio, Nana.

Arapaho

An important plains tribe of the Algonquian family. They divided themselves into about five divisions of the Northern Arapaho, the Southern Arapaho, the Atsina or Gros Ventres, "The wood lodge people or big lodge pole people" and the "rock men". Many names were given for the smaller groups or bands such as "bad faces", "greasy faces", "bad pipes", "forks of the river men", the "watchers" and the "wolves".

Blackfeet

The Blackfeet Indians are one of four closely related bands of the Plains Indians in the Algonquian linguistic family. They are the only Plains group to be located in the United States, the rest are found in Alberta, Canada.

Cahuilla

A part of the Shoshonean tribe of California.

Catawbas

An important eastern Siouan tribe, located in South Carolina. Also known as Esaw or river people. In the early days, The Catawba were very warlike and made many raids on their neighbors in the north. They were friendly to the Colonial government and tried to get them to fight against the French. Between wars and smallpox, as well as the dealings of the whites, the Catawba were talked and written away from their land. In 1841 the State of South Carolina "Bought" all of their reservation but one square mile. This act further reduced the tribe. They still live on their small reservation and are known for their pottery making, which is still done the old way.

Cherokee

A tribe of the Iroquoian family. They formerly held all of the land from southern Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and over even as far as Ohio. Their name variously means "the cave people", "real people", "inhabitants of the cave country". Their language, customs and other archaeological evidence points to their origin as being from the north. A well known Cherokee named Sequoya was the inventor of the Indian alphabet and with that advanced the Indians as a whole. Cherokee today are known for their great craftsmanship and create wonderful hand made Native American artifacts.

Cheyenne

Their name means "to speak a strange language". This is an important tribe of the Plains group and part of the Algonquian family. Before 1700, the tribes are said to have lived in Minnesota and along the headwaters of the Mississippi. They also lived along the Missouri River and were great farmers and pottery makers. However, they were driven out of the plains where they became great hunters of the bison. They fought closely with the Sioux, Kiowa, and the Comanche; and they were very active in the battle against General Custer. The Cheyenne became a typical tribe of the plains and followed the great bison herds and lived in skin tipis. The sun dance was one of their great tribal ceremonies.

Chickasaw

Related to the Choctaw, this was an important Muskhogean tribe. They lived along the Mississippi, Yazoo and Tallahatchie Rivers. One of their main towns was located at the site of the present Memphis, Tennessee.

Chinook

A northwestern tribe which lived at the mouth of the Columbia River in Oregon.

Chipewyan

One of the largest Indian tribes north of Mexico. Their name means "to pucker up" or "roast until puckered up", this term referred to the type of moccasins with the "puckered toe". They lived in the Great Lakes regions. Even though the Chippewa were large in numbers, very few came in contact with the whites. They at times of stress and under certain battle conditions, practiced cannibalism. They built bark houses, gathered wild rice and were also great canoe men.

Choctaw

The name refers to the flattened head of the tribes. This is an important tribe of the Muskhogean. The Choctaw were first visited by De Soto in 1540. These Indians were the outstanding agriculturists of all the Southern tribes. Most of their warfare was on the defensive. They lived in large towns, mainly for their mutual defense against their enemies the Creeks.

Chumash

Also known as the Santa Barbara Indians. This is the linguistic family on the coast of southern California. These Indians were great fishermen and depended more on sea food than on plant products. They were very friendly to the Spanish at first, but as the missions were established they grew to dislike the outsiders and in 1824 the Indians threw off the mission authority. The Chumash Indians made canoes of planks which were calked and lashed together and they were also skilled with the canoes in open sea.

Comanche

A southern branch of the Shoshonean groups. They were the only ones of that group that lived entirely on the plains. They lived in what is now known as Kansas. They were friendly to the whites in general, but were bitter enemies to the Texans who took their best hunting grounds. They fought the Texans for forty years and most of them now live on the reservation in Oklahoma. The Comanche Indians, a nomadic offshoot of the Eastern Shoshoni Indians, lived on the North-American Southern Great Plains during 1800-1900s. The name "Comanche", a household word found in many works of fiction, TV shows, videogames etc., is believed to come from from the Spanish "interpretation" of their Ute name "Kohmahts", meaning: those who are against us, or want to fight us. The Comanche People call themselves "Numunuh", which means: The People. Early explorers knew them as "Padouca"; their Siouan name.

The Comanche language, Uto-Aztecan (Numic), is closely related to the Shoshoni (Ute) linguistic stock.

Prior to their acquiring the horse and gradually migrating to the Southern Great Plains around the 1700s, The Comanche had primarily been a hunter-gatherer people. They moved, attacking and taking over territory occupied by other tribes including the Crow, the Cherokee, the Creek, the Choctaw, and the Apache. The area they controlled became known as "Comancheria".

It is believed the Comanche were the first people of the Plains to use horses in their travels and conquests; they even supplied Americans with horses to reach California during the Gold Rush of 1849. The Comanche were also dependant on the Buffalo for food and clothing.

The Comanche were not a unified tribe, and were divided into 8 to 12 autonomous Sub-Nations which lacked the usual government and military organization of the Other Plains Tribes. In turn this gave way to smaller bands and divisions. Comanche population was also in constant flux due to the numerous casualties resulting from conflict, so their numbers varied greatly. It is estimated there are presently over 11,000 people of Comanche descent living in the United-States.

Since the Comanche Indians were more involved in warfare than storytelling and keeping historical records, most of what we know of them is through often biased third party account.

Creeks

The largest division of the Muskhogean. Their name was given them by the English because of their numerous creeks and streams in their country. They became allies of the English in 1703, but were hostile to the Spanish on Florida. They revolted against the whites in the Creek war in 1813 and were defeated by General Jackson. They also fought

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