he Indians, and
reached the pueblo of Isleta, twelve miles below the present city of
Albuquerque, in safety; but the village was deserted, and the Spaniards
were obliged to continue their flight to El Paso, Texas, which was then
only a Spanish mission for the Indians.

In 1681 Governor Otermin made an invasion as far north as the pueblo of
Cochiti, twenty-five miles west of Santa Fe, on the Rio Grande; but the
hostile Pueblos forced him to retreat again to El Paso. In 1687 Pedro
Reneros Posada made another dash into New Mexico, and took the
rock-built pueblo of Santa Ana by a most brilliant and bloody assault.
But he also had to retire. In 1688 Domingo Jironza Petriz de
Cruzate--the greatest soldier on New Mexican soil--made an expedition,
in which he took the pueblo of Zia by storm (a still more remarkable
achievement than Posada's), and in turn retreated to El Paso.

At last the final conqueror of New Mexico, Diego de Vargas, came in
1692. Marching to Santa Fe, and thence as far as ultimate Moqui, with
only eighty-nine men, he visited every pueblo in the Province, meeting
no opposition from the Indians, who had been thoroughly cowed by
Cruzate. Returning to El Paso, he came again to New Mexico in 1693, this
time with about one hundred and fifty soldiers and a number of
colonists. Now the Indians were prepared for him, and gave him the
bloodiest reception ever accorded in New Mexico. They broke out first at
Santa Fe, and he had to storm that town, which he took after two days'
fighting. Then began the siege of the Black Mesa of San Ildefonso, which
lasted off and on for nine months. The Indians had removed their village
to the top of that New Mexican Gibraltar, and there resisted four daring
assaults, but were finally worn into surrender.

Meantime De Vargas had stormed the impregnable citadel of the Potrero
Viejo, and the beetling cliff of San Diego de Jemez,--two exploits which
rank with the storming of the Penol of Mixton[7] in Jalisco (Mexico) and
of the vast rock of Acoma, as the most marvellous assaults in all
American history. The capture of Quebec bears no comparison to them.

These costly lessons kept the Indians quiet until 1696, when they broke
out again. This rebellion was not so formidable as the first, but it
gave New Mexico another watering with blood, and was suppressed only
after three months' fighting. The Spaniards were already masters of the
situation; and the quelling of that revolt put an end t