Chamuscado and Rodríguez Expedition

Fray Agustín Rodríguez, stationed near the mining town of Santa Barbara, Chihuahua, the northernmost outpost of New Spain, organized the expedition.

Rodríguez apparently had little familiarity with Coronado's expedition but had read the account of Cabeza de Vaca.

"[4] Downriver, occupying 40 miles of the river banks were the Cabris or Pasaguantes, also "naked" but speaking a different language and cultivating squash and beans in addition to gathering wild plants.

Near La Junta, the junction of the Conchos River and the Rio Grande, Chamuscado and Rodríguez found several groups of Indians.

They lived in wattled houses and grew squash and beans, but the Spanish considered them "naked and barbarous people."

They lived in mud brick houses and, while growing corn and beans, they also journeyed to the Great Plains to hunt buffalo and ate fish caught in the river.

[6] The Indians directed the Spanish to follow the Rio Grande upstream to where they would find "houses two stories high and of good appearance, built of mud walls and white inside, the people being dressed in cotton.

After many days of following the Rio Grande through unoccupied territory, the expedition reached the first village of Pueblo Indians south of Socorro, New Mexico, near the future site of Fort Craig, and continued up the Rio Grande passing through many large and prosperous Pueblo villages.

[8] On September 10, 1581, one of the three Catholic friars, Juan de Santa Maria, decided to return to Mexico.

The soldiers left them, most of their supplies, and several Indian servants behind in the Tiwa town of Puaray and departed to return to Santa Barbara on January 31, 1582.