Dominguez-Escalante Expedition of 1776, Part 3
submitted by: Jay Jones
DE Part3 Conclusion |
On 11 October 1776, an expedition of just over a dozen men paused on a small, remote knoll overlooking what is now called the Escalante Valley in Southern Utah to settle a controversy that had the potential to destroy them. Their leaders decided to abandon the original purpose of their journey: finding an overland route to the Spanish Mission at Monterey, California, which had been established in 1770. Most of the men favored continuing westward instead of returning to Santa Fe, New Mexico. This concludes a three-part series remembering this historic saga as we approach its 250th anniversary.
Following the casting of the lots at Dominguez Knoll, which sent them on their return trek to Santa Fe, the Dominguez-Escalante expedition proceeded south by southeast through Horse Hollow and camped in Cedar Valley north of Cedar City, calling it the Valley of San José.
Escalante described it as a “beautiful valley . . . most abundant in pasturage.”
The following night they camped west of present day Kanarraville and recruited a local Indian to help guide them. Just before proceeding over the Black Ridge they were joined by another Indian man, this one elderly.
Escalante speculated that the motivation for the local Indians to agree to accompany and guide the party was to usher them away from their people in the Cedar Valley area. When a good opportunity came to leave the party and hide in the rocks on the way down the Black Ridge, they did just that.
The Dominguez-Escalante expedition camped near what is now the Snowfield exit of I-15, which has a marker to commemorate the event. Two days later they crossed the Virgin River, which they called the Río Sulfúreo, near its confluence with Ash Creek and LaVerkin Creek in the vicinity of present-day Hurricane.
Along the way they noted maize stalks, recently harvested, grown in small, irrigated fields. Their hopes to significantly replenish the expedition’s depleted food supply in this area were over-optimistic, however.
Continuing on in a south-westerly direction, they found themselves on today’s Sand Mountain facing a slow and difficult descent.
Learning that there was not a route to cross the cliffs of the Grand Canyon and the Colorado River by going south, the expedition turned east.
Difficulties in finding sufficient water, food and feed continued. They resorted to killing some of the pack horses for meat.
After weeks of exhausting travel and searches they finally found, on 7 November 1776, a place wide and shallow enough to safely ford the Colorado River. This site became known as the Crossing of the Fathers, and is now under the waters of Lake Powell and Padre Bay.
In 2006 a volunteer scrubbing graffiti from the rock walls near Padre Bay at Lake Powell found the inscription “Paso por Aqui Año 1776” that has since been authenticated to be from the era of the Dominguez-Escalante expedition. The phrase means “Passed by Here, Year 1776”.
Unfortunately, other more recent graffiti mars the site. A steel cage has been erected surrounding the inscription to prevent further degradation.
After crossing the Colorado River, the weary travelers arrived at the Hopi village of Oraibi on 16 November. After some rest and nourishment there and at the Zuni village in New Mexico, they reached Santa Fe on 2 January 1777.
Upon returning to Santa Fe, Father Dominguez found that the governor of New Mexico was not happy with the failure to reach Monterey. The governor was not willing to finance a follow-up expedition, which Dominguez and Escalante recommended.
Prior to the expedition, Father Dominguez had been sent from Mexico City to New Mexico to inspect the various missions and report on their status. Some of what he found was less than ideal, and he reported back exactly what he saw. By the time he returned from the expedition, word had come back from Mexico City that some serious changes were needed in the missions of New Mexico. The New Mexico leaders blamed Dominguez for their embarrassment. He spent the rest of his life assigned to ministry in obscure outposts.
Father Escalante suffered from a kidney ailment, possibly cancer, that took his life just a few years after the expedition. His journal of the expedition was sent to Mexico City, although copies were made and found their way to some later western explorers, including John C. Fremont.
Since Escalante wrote the account of the journey, many have assumed that he led the expedition. The explorers were led by Father Dominguez, with Father Escalante as second in command.
Knowledge gained by the Dominguez-Escalante expedition was a foundation for later exploration and travel in the west. In 1829 Antonio Armijo led a group of traders from New Mexico to Southern California, following the Dominguez-Escalante route part of the way. Thus began the story of the Old Spanish Trail.