Came Men on Horses: The Conquistador Expeditions of Francisco Vázquez de Coronado and Don Juan de Oñate
2015; Duke University Press; Volume: 95; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1215/00182168-3161544
ISSN1527-1900
Autores Tópico(s)Libraries, Manuscripts, and Books
ResumoStan Hoig's posthumously published Came Men on Horses offers the author's contribution to the study of the Spanish expeditions to Quivira led by Francisco Vázquez de Coronado in 1541 and by Juan de Oñate in 1601. The author's knowledge of the history and topography of the Great Plains allows him to propose a new route for Oñate's expedition; this is perhaps the most original and insightful element of the study, though it is likely to be challenged by scholars, since it is based on conjectures more than facts. Hoig justifies the alternative route that he proposes with a detailed time line and a set of educated inferences that will be of special relevance to geographers and archaeologists, in particular to those in search of remnants of the 1601 expedition.The book is divided in two major parts, respectively devoted to each of the main expeditions mentioned above, and a short one in between them discussing some lesser-known post-Coronado incursions. Five appendixes complete the volume, providing information on (and, on occasion, new interpretations of) Coronado's march, Oñate's family, Oñate's route, maps of the Oñate expedition, and the found artifacts that have been associated with the Spanish armies in present-day Kansas.Throughout the volume, Hoig maintains an accessible, easy to follow tone that makes the narrative come to life, even when he follows rather dull original documents or when he relies on (at times not much better) translations. As the author notes in the introduction to the first part, research on the Southwest's colonial past is greatly aided by the existence of numerous reports, testimonies, letters, and all types of writing that preserve the Spanish perspective on the exploration and settling of these (for them) new lands. Came Men on Horses sets out to read and interpret those earlier texts, proposing its author's own clarifications whenever doubts and ambiguities arise. As an interpretive book, however, this volume offers little by way of original archival research, relying instead on the work of other scholars “who uncovered [documents] yellowed with the ages from distant archives, poured over their antique script, and translated them for further study” (p. 12). Understandably, archival research published in the intervening period between Hoig's passing and the publication of this book remains undiscussed, as no attempt to update the manuscript seems to have been made by the press or the editor(s).From Hoig's quote above, it is easy to spot one of the book's major shortcomings: the author's reliance on translations as opposed to direct consultation of the originals. This applies both to archival materials and to printed matters, as is the case with Gaspar de Villagrá's poem Historia de la nueva México (1610), which Hoig cites from the 1933 prose version in English prepared by Gilberto Espinosa, even when a bilingual edition in verse has been available since 1992. The problem is compounded when Hoig credits Villagrá with some poetic lines authored by Luis Tribaldos de Toledo (p. 276) and when he insists on reading Villagrá's poem as a historical document rather than a literary text, which produces some awkward moments in Came Men on Horses. For example, commenting on the episode in which Villagrá claims that he put his shoes on backward to confuse some pursuers, Hoig dismisses the move as “a seemingly improbable accomplishment” (p. 187), failing to recognize that the poet is just echoing a similar literary motif in Virgil's Aeneid.Not being privy to details on the preparation of Hoig's manuscript for publication, it is hard for me to determine whether this volume's shortcomings should be entirely attributed to the author's own work or to insufficient editing after his passing. In any case, there are innumerable problems that could have been solved by a more careful review of the original before its release: names are often given with multiple spellings, factual errors are not uncommon, and, throughout, the few Spanish words used are almost always misspelled.In Came Men on Horses, Hoig tells an easy to follow story of expedition and discovery. But scholars and specialized readers will find minimal new information here. The author relies on previous scholarship for much of the narrative (especially on works by Richard Flint and Shirley Cushing Flint), and his explicit goal of presenting the conquistadores as less than noble and heroic individuals sounds dated. General readers may be able to enjoy this book to a greater extent, but it is unfortunate that they will be exposed to inaccuracies and errors that a more effective editing process could have prevented.
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