Annals of the Minnesota Historical Society, 1852

Angebote / Angebote:

Excerpt from Annals of the Minnesota Historical Society, 1852: Containing the Annual Address, and Other Papers Member of the Minnesota Historical Society - Ladies and Gentlemen: I appear before you more on account, as I fear, the partiality of my friends, than on account of any great profit which may accrue to you from any thing I may have to say. I could wish that some one else, among the many competent gentlemen I now see before me, had been selected for the duty with which I have been entrusted, but having been requested to contribute something to the entertainment of the society, I have not felt at liberty to decline. The society, whose objects we are now met together to promote, has for its chief end, the record and elucidation of facts and incidents connected with the history, past and passing, of the territory whose name it bears, but it has also, if I err not, though in a subordinate degree, the preservation and illustration of the like kind of information in regard to any other portion of our common country, if by such information the quantum of knowledge can be increased, and the mind and heart be correspondingly enlarged and improved. It is in accordance with these views, therefore, and because the Executive Committee have not restricted me in my subject, that I have ventured to go out of the track of my predecessors, who have addressed the society, and shall take as the subject of my address, this evening, the main incidents connected with an expedition into the Navajo country, made in 1849, by a command under the direction of Col. Jno. M. Washington, the then military and civil governor of New Mexico, to which command I was attached as topographical engineer officer. On the 16th of August, 1849, might have been seen, starting out from Santa Fe, a number of troops, (artillery and infantry, ) their commander-in-chief being Col. Washington, the then military and civil governor of New Mexico. The destination of these troops was the heart of the Navajo country, situated near 300 miles to the west of Santa Fe, and on the western slope of the chain of mountains called the Mexican Cordilleras. The object of the expedition was to coerce the Navajos into a compliance with a treaty which they had made with the United States, three years previous, under Col. Nuby of the volunteers, and at the same time extend the provisions of the treaty, so that they would be put in the same relation to the government of the United States, as the tribes conterminous to our old western frontier are, to wit: the Creeks, Choctaws, Cherokees, Seminoles, Winnebagoes and others. Our route lay for the first thirty miles - as far as the Pueblo of Santa Domingo - about southwest, thence to the Canon of Chelly, the terminus of the expedition, for a distance of 250 miles, its general course was north of west. The Rio de Santa Fe, upon which the city of Santa Fe stands, runs southwestwardly into the Rio Grande, the distance being by the Rio de Santa Fe about thirty miles. Our route to Santa Domingo - which town lies on the Rio Grande, but about four miles below the mouth of the Rio de Santa Fe - lay generally along this latter river, six miles of the way being in the canon of the river. This term canon is one of Spanish derivation, and is applied, most generally to a deep valley or chasm, enclosed by precipitous walls. It is sometimes, however, used to designate also a shallow valley without enclosing walls, but not often. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com