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Updated: May 2, 2025
One century ago, from the summit of yonder mountain could have been seen, not only the settlement of San Ildefonso, but a score of others cities, and towns, and villages where to-day the eye cannot trace a vestige of civilisation. Even the names of these cities are forgotten, and their histories buried among their ruins! "The Indian has wreaked his revenge upon the murderers of Moctezuma!
Then come the Indian villages, San Ildefonso, and Española, and Santa Clara, where the strings of red chile bake in the sunlight against the glare adobe. Women go up from the pools with jars of water on their heads.
The intervals are filled up by gambling, smoking, and flirtation. There is much of republican equality exhibited on these occasions. Rich and poor, high and low, mingle in the throng, and take part in the amusements of the day. It is the day of San Juan. A broad grassy plain lies just outside the town of San Ildefonso, and upon this the citizens are assembled.
With the exception of the Tagno Indians, few survived to tell of that horrid massacre. A few whites only the unhappy father of Catalina among the rest were permitted to escape, and carry their broken fortunes to another settlement. That of San Ildefonso town, Presidio, mission, haciendas, and ranchos in the short space of twelve hours had ceased to exist.
When I made up my mind at the end of August to leave Madrid, I asked the Count of Aranda for a passport. He replied that I must first obtain one from my ambassador, who, he added, could not refuse to do me this service. Fortified with this opinion I called at the embassy. M. Querini was at San Ildefonso at the time, and I told the porter that I wanted to speak to the secretary of embassy.
This was true. Garcia was liked by the people of the settlement perhaps not so much from the possession of any peculiar virtues, but in contrast with his superiors. He was an affable, harmless sort of person, and had won general esteem. That night the cibolero had not one friend in San Ildefonso. Nay, we speak wrongly. He had one.
Previous to the coming of the Moors in the eighth century, a humble cathedral stood where the magnificent church now lifts its three-hundred-foot tower in the summer sky. It had been built in the sixth century and dedicated to the Virgin, who had appeared in the selfsame spot to San Ildefonso, when the latter, ardent and vehement, had defended her Immaculate Honour before a body of skeptics.
In October, 1800, the secret treaty of San Ildefonso was negotiated, by which Spain agreed to return Louisiana to France, the condition being that Napoleon should create a kingdom of Etruria for the son-in-law of the king of Spain. In 1802 the Peace of Amiens was made with England.
It was soon agreed upon that I should accompany the party, who were on their way to the old Spanish mine of San Ildefonso, formerly noted as one of the richest in the province of New Mexico, but for many years deserted by the Mexicans from terror of the savage Apache and Navajo.
Oriente. Pelayo. San Antonio. San Domingo. San Firmin. San F'sco de Paula. San Genaro. San Ildefonso. San Juan Nepomuceno. San Pablo. San Ysidro. Soberano. Terrible. There were also twelve frigates, some gun-boats, and seventy transports with troops, which were disembarked at Algesiras.
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