13. This discussion of the Laws of the Indies is adapted from Mundigo and Crouch, "The Laws of the Indies Revisited." A book by the same authors and Garr restated essentially the same material: Crouch, Garr, and Mundigo, Spanish City Planning .

14. Prince, Spanish Mission Churches of New Mexico , pp. 38-39.

15. Bolton, "The Mission as a Frontier Institution," p. 60.

16. A mission system was established in the late seventeenth century in Pimería Alta, which extended from what is Sonora, Mexico, to Arizona. The system is almost synonymous with the name of the Jesuit Fray Eusebio Kino (1645-1711), who arrived in New Spain in 1687 and is credited with founding more than a dozen churches, including the celebrated San Xavier del Bac in 1700. The expulsion of the Jesuits in 1767 left the missions under Franciscan jurisdiction. Because of distance and hostile conditions, there was virtually no contact between these missions and those along the Río Grande. See Polzer, Kino Guide II . For a geographical discussion of the land and its settlement, see Meinig, Southwest .

17. Simmons, New Mexico , p. 41. As is subsequently noted, Oñate later stood trial for the brutality used in bringing Acoma under control.

18. To effectively administer and control disparate towns in Mexico, the Spanish devised a policy of reducciones that condensed the scattered villages into larger units under direct Spanish supervision. According to the Laws of the Indies, "The Spaniards, to whom Indians are entrusted ( encomendados ) should seek with great care that these Indians be settled into towns, and that, within these, churches be built so that the Indians can be instructed into Christian doctrine and live in good order." At first the Indians resisted relocation into non-traditional village clusters but through coercion, threat, and, one assumes, some demonstration of material gain, the reducción became a rather successful institution—at least when viewed from the Spanish side.

19. Bolton, "The Mission as a Frontier Institution," p. 52. For a more extensive study of work policy, see Barber, "Indian Labor in the Spanish Colonies."

20. Simmons, New Mexico , p. 55.

21. Kubler, Mexican Architecture , p. 136.

22. Prince, Spanish Mission Churches , p. 44. The letter describing the situation was written by Fray Escalona to the superior of the Franciscan order in Mexico.

23. "Ultimately, New Mexico's conqueror was to be tried and convicted along with many of his leading officers for a wide variety of crimes. But the most important crime Oñate had committed in the eyes of Spain's rulers was one he was never tried for: that of failing to duplicate the feats of Cortés and Pizzaro in finding Indians of sufficient wealth to swell the bottomless coffers at Madrid." Beck, New Mexico , p. 60.