The Memorial of Fray Alonso de Benavides on New Mexico (1630)

A report on the missions of New Mexico laid before Philip IV to obtain more friars, and the earliest sustained description of the peoples of that country in print. It records the turquoise mines and painted cotton mantas of the pueblos, names the Apaches de Navajo and explains the name as great sowers of fields, and describes wars fought over an alum quarry. It is a petition, and it argues its case with admissions, ethnography and contempt in the same paragraphs.