High Office Is Given Him. I have already (in another chapter) told of the effect of Fray Marcos's report. It made a most popular man of him, and soon thereafter, when the position of father provincial of his order was vacant, he was chosen to fill the office,--the highest in the district. Henceforth he was called to fill all the pulpits of the region. He became known as a great preacher, and doubtless interlarded his sermons with many references to his wonderful adventures in search of the famous "seven cities." The result was the whole country became excited, and many went on the expedition, the failure of which we are familiar with.
Cortez Discredits Marcos. In the meantime, Cortez was not quiet. It must not be forgotten that he claimed all this northern country by right of discovery, and he protested most vigorously against the sending forth of Coronado's expedition. Just as Coronado was about to start, Cortez returned to Spain, and there presented a memorial to the king (June 25, 1540), setting forth in detail the ill-treatment which he had received from Mendoza. In this, according to Winship, "he declared that after the viceroy had ordered him to withdraw his men from their station on the coast of the mainland toward the north, where they were engaged in making ready for extended inland explorations, he had a talk with Fray Marcos. 'And Igave him,' says Cortez, 'an account of this said country, and of its discovery, because I had determined to send him in my ships to follow up the said northern coast and conquer that country, because he seemed to understand something about matters of navigation. The said friar communicated this to the said viceroy, and he says that, with his permission, he went by land in search of the same coast and country as that which I had discovered, and which it was and is my right to conquer. And since his return, the said friar has published the statement that he came within sight of the said country, which I deny that he has either seen or discovered; but instead, in all that the said friar reports that he has seen, he only repeats the account I had given him regarding the information which I obtained from the Indians of the said country of Santa Cruz, because anything which the said friar says that he discovers is just the same as what these said Indians had told me; and in enlarging upon this and in pretending to report what he neither saw nor learned, the said Friar Marcos does nothing new, because he has done this many other times, and this was his regular habit, as is notorious in the provinces of Peru and Guatemala; and sufficient evidence regarding this will be given to the court whenever it is necessary.'"Marcos an Exaggerator. Cortez never made any attempt to confirm his statements, and it is well known that he himself was very reckless in his handling of the truth where his own purposes were to be served, or the plans of his enemies defeated. It seems a pretty clear matter that, while the friar told the truth as nearly as possible as to what he actually saw, he did not hesitate to let the more exaggerated statements of the things he had merely heard have as full weight as the people to whom he told them desired. Anyhow, he has suffered a great deal of abuse as an exaggerator, and even worse, though it must never be forgotten that people who fail are always ready to blame every one concerned except themselves. Bandelier warmly defends Fray Marcos, and his knowledge is confessedly great; but Winship thinks he treats the charge too lightly.
Poor Fray Marcos, afflicted with rheumatism, had a painful time during the remainder of his life, and finally died March 25, 1558, in the house of his order, in the City of Mexico. Religious Zeal of Garces. It is appropriate also that Fray Francisco Garces should find an honored place in these necessarily brief historical notices. Fired with a wonderful zeal for souls, without the urging or backing of any superior save the Spirit of God, which spoke to his own soul, he marched from San Xavier del Bac, his station in Northern Mexico (now Arizona), across these inhospitable wilds, merely seeking opportunities for the establishment of mission settlements, where the natives could learn of the way of Christ, salvation from sin, and heaven. Five times he left his mission and made entradas (as they are called) into the interior country, anxious to expand his work and his influence. On the third of these, he followed the course of the Gila down to the Colorado River, and descended along its banks, possibly as far as its mouth. His fourth journey was with the intrepid Captain Juan Bautista de Anza, when he set forth in 1774. to discover a road from the missions already established in Northern Mexico, over the then unknown Arizona and Colorado deserts, to the new missions of California. The road was discovered and, in spite of its hardships, deemed feasible, for in 1775-1776 De Anza went over it again, accompanied by the band he had gathered together for the establishment of a Spanish colony at San Francisco. His chaplain on this occasion was Padre Pedro Font. Fray Garces, a fellow Franciscan, also went along as far as the Colorado River. Here he left the party, journeyed down the Colorado to the Gulf, returned to the Mohaves, then crossed the Colorado Desert to San Gabriel Mission in California, back again to the Mohaves, and finally across the Arizona desert to the province of Tusayan, the land of the Hopis.
