Thus it is that the town-building Indians of New Mexico, not having any record of their former emigration from Old Mexico, have introduced the worship of Montezuma and a state of civilization quite unknown in North America, and yet affirm, in many oft-repeated traditions, that they came from the north -- the headwaters of the Rio Grande.

They are right as far as they go; but they seem to me to have misled every authority I have met with on the subject, some of whom have expended much ingenious argument in trying to prove that they came from the north-western part of the continent (perhaps originally from Kamtschatka), that they crossed a region occupying the upper basin of the Colorado, inhospitable enough to repel any colonists under the sun, and that their town-building and Montezuma-worship were of endogenous growth, founded by that great emperor himself.

This is certain, viz. that as one community claims the head of the Rio Grande as the birthplace of the great king, another some district in its own part of the country, and so on, there is no reliance whatever to be placed on any such attempts at local exaltation; but that these people are an offshoot of the race which, under the name of Aztec, overspread Mexico previously to the invasion of the Spaniards, there is, I think, very little doubt.

As late as the end of the 16th century all or nearly all the ruins scattered throughout the country, besides many lesser ones now worn away, were inhabited, and the country, according to Spanish accounts, was very fairly populated. At first the Spaniards were received with confidence and kindness: they seem to have been welcomed, by a race striving after civilization, as superior beings come to help them in their struggle against barbarism. But they soon found that conquest and conversion by force to a new creed were the ruling passions of the intruders, and that they must fight to the last to protect their homes.

From the scraps of information furnished us by Spanish missionaries and commanders we know that the stand these people made for freedom was a long and gallant one. But of course it was useless.

The Papagos, who rendered so much assistance to the earliest pioneers, made a most protracted resistance; and, after years of warfare, at last united in a body, invoked their deity (who was supposed to live on the summit of Babuquivari Peak), placed all their families, cattle, and worldly goods in a place of safety, and risked and lost their all in one final battle. Since then they have forsaken their old faith, and remained in peace with the Mexicans.

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adapted from A. W. Bell
"On the Native Races of New Mexico"
1869 (Journal of the Ethnological Society of London)