At the Foot of the Mountain

Juan de Oñate; 3 June 1626; Guadalcanal, Andalusia, Spain

Some maize,

that’s all

we asked

from the foot

of the mesa

sheer stone

rearing

from the plain

that’s all

some maize

our voices

lobbed up

like hollow

stones against

the height

broke against

the upright face

and rained

down

in a veil

of breath

faint

like prayers

unfolded

in a mineshaft

a bit of maize

ground

to a fine

flour

smooth

cool

in the hand

maybe some

tortillas

stacked

like airy

bellows

a fair exchange:

a few yellow

kernels

some warm

tortillas

flour enough

to fill

our hands

cupped

just that

for a still

night’s

sleep

deep as

an arroyo

carved in

the desert

or none

for a stump

a limp

a brown hill

leeching

circled by

dogs

nosing

the calloused

soles

the

savaged

feet

On 21 September 1595, Juan de Oñate (ca. 1550-1626) was awarded a contract to lead an expedition into the country north of Zacatecas. After two years of delays, he and his convoy finally set out on 7 February 1598. On 30 April they crossed the Rio Grande just south of present-day El Paso-Juárez, where Oñate claimed New Mexico for Spain’s King Philip II. They followed the river north and in July 1598 arrived at the Tewa pueblo of Yunge Oweenge, north of present-day Santa Fe.

Initial relations between the Spaniards and Indians were peaceful, but in December when the Spaniards ran short of supplies, several went to the Acomas, who lived on a 360-foot-tall mesa, and went from house to house to take food. The Acomas attacked and killed thirteen Spaniards. On 21 January 1599, the Spaniards, to discourage further revolt, attacked the Acomas, killing approximately 800 and taking prisoner the remaining 500. They were charged with rebellion and murder, convicted, and sentenced. Females over age 12 and males between 12 and 25 years of age were sentenced to “twenty years of servitude” while eighty males over 25 had one foot cut off and were sentenced to twenty years of slavery (Knaut 36-46).

In 1609 Oñate was relieved of his duties as governor of New Mexico, convicted of abuse of authority in 1614, and banished from New Mexico. In 1621 Oñate left for Spain, where he had his conviction overturned. In 1624, as Spain’s head of mine inspectors he traveled throughout the country, but during a 250-mile trip west from Cartagena to Guadalcanal to inspect the silver mines, he became seriously ill and apparently stayed in his home in Guadalcanal during the last seven months of his life. He died on 3 June 1626 (Beerman 305-11).

Beerman, Eric. “The Death of an Old Conquistador: New Light on Juan de Oñate.” New Mexico Historical Review, vol. 54, 1979, pp. 305-19.

About the author

Randy Koch is the author of two collections of poems, Composing Ourselves (Fithian Press, 2002) and This Splintered Horse (Finishing Line Press, 2011), and is a longtime columnist for LareDOS: A Journal of the Borderlands (www.laredosnews.com/category/columns/the-re-con). His poems and reviews have appeared in The Caribbean Writer, Measure, Chiricú Journal, The Texas Observer, Revista Interamericana, The Copperfield Review, J Journal, and many others. He earned an MFA at the University of Wyoming and is working on a memoir about indecision, infatuations, and incarceration.