The Domínguez–Escalante Expedition was a Spanish journey of exploration conducted in 1776 by two Franciscan priests, Atanasio Domínguez and Silvestre Vélez de Escalante, to find an overland route from Santa Fe, New Mexico, to their Roman Catholic mission in Monterey, on the coast of modern day central California. Domínguez, Vélez de Escalante, and Bernardo de Miera y Pacheco, acting as the expedition's cartographer, traveled with ten men from Santa Fe through many unexplored portions of the American West, including present-day western Colorado, Utah, and northern Arizona. Along part of the journey, they were aided by three indigenous guides of the Timpanogos tribe (Ute people).
The land was harsh and unforgiving, and hardships encountered during travel forced the group to return to Santa Fe before reaching Las Californias. Maps and documentation produced by the expedition aided future travelers. Part of the Domínguez–Escalante route eventually became an early template for the Old Spanish Trail, a trade route from Santa Fe to Pacific Coast settlements.
Explorers
Atanasio Domínguez
Fray Francisco Atanasio Domínguez was born in Mexico City about 1740, and in 1757, at the age of 17, joined the Franciscan order. In October 1772, Domínguez was at the Convent of Veracruz as Commissary of the Third Order. He arrived in Santa Fe on March 22, 1776, in present-day New Mexico, of the Mexican province to inspect the Custody of the Conversion of St. Paul and investigate opening an overland route from Santa Fe to Monterey, California. Upon his return to Santa Fe and Mexico City, Domínguez submitted to his Franciscan superiors a report that was highly critical of the administration of the New Mexico missions. His views caused him to fall out of favor with the Franciscans in power, leading him to an assignment to an obscure post at a Sonoran Desert mission in the Sonora y Sinaloa Province in northern Mexico.
In 1777, Domínguez returned to Mexico and was the chaplain of presidios in Nueva Vizcaya. In 1800, he was at Janos, Sonora, Mexico. He died between 1803 and 1805.
Silvestre Vélez de Escalante
Fray Francisco Silvestre Vélez de Escalante was born in Treceño, Cantabria, Spain about 1750. Although he is commonly known as "Escalante," "de Escalante" references Escalante, Spain so he is correctly referred to as "Vélez de Escalante" or just "Vélez." When he was 17 he became a Franciscan in the Convento Grande in Mexico City. In 1774 he came to present-day New Mexico in the Mexican province; he was first stationed at Laguna pueblo and then in January 1775 assigned as a minister to the Zuni. In June 1776 he was summoned by Domínguez for the expedition to California and remained in New Mexico for two years following the expedition. He died at the age of 30 in April 1780 in Parral, Mexico, during his return journey to Mexico City for medical treatment. Vélez de Escalante was known for his journal, in which he described the expeditions he went on.
Escalante namesakes include Escalante Desert, Escalante River, Escalante (town), Grand Staircase–Escalante National Monument.
Bernardo de Miera y Pacheco
Bernardo de Miera y Pacheco, a native of Valle de Carriedo, Cantabria, Spain, lived in Chihuahua before he moved to El Paso in 1743. From 1754 to 1756, he lived in Santa Fe. Multi-talented, he was an army engineer, merchant, Indian fighter, government agent, rancher, and artist. It was his experience as a cartographer that made the expedition historic when he produced several maps of the expedition around 1778 and a report on the expedition, which is included in Herbert E. Bolton's Pageant in the Wilderness: The Story of the Escalante Expedition to the Interior Basin. He is also known for his artwork, including a painting of St. Michael on an altar screen in Santa Fe's chapel of San Miguel and statuettes that were in the Zuni church.
Timpanog Utes
Fathers Domínguez and Escalante named three Timpanogos/Ute Native Americans who joined the expedition as guides:
- "Silvestre", named after Silvestre Escalante, from present day Utah was the main Native guide from Colorado to Utah. Because of his recognition with his and other Ute tribes, the explorers enjoyed safe passage.
- "Joaquín", a 12-year-old boy, joined the expedition with Silvestre as a guide. After leaving Silvestre's village, near present Provo, Utah, Joaquín assisted the explorers on their return trip to Santa Fe, New Mexico. He was baptized there in the Catholic Church.
- "José María", the joined name of the Bible's Joseph and Mary, joined the expedition in Silvestre's village. Like Joaquín, José María was a boy, probably also about 12 years old. He did not complete the journey to Santa Fe; when he saw the terrible treatment administered to one of the servants, he returned to his village.
Other explorers
Other men who began the expedition in Santa Fe include:
- Don Juan Pedro Cisneros, Alcalde mayor of Zuñi Pueblo
- Don Joaquín Lain, a native of Santa Cruz in Castilla la Vieja and citizen of Santa Fe at the time of the expedition. He died in 1799.
- Lorenzo Olivares from La Villa del Paso, a citizen of El Paso at the time of the expedition
- Andrés Muñiz from Bernalillo, New Mexico served as an interpreter with the Utes language. He was part of Juan María de Rivera's expedition to the Gunnison River in 1775.
- Lucrecio Muñiz was the brother Andrés Muñiz, from Embudo, north of Santa Fe.
- Juan de Aguilar was born in Santa Clara, New Mexico.
- Simon Lucero, a servant to Don Pedro Cisneros, may have been Zuni.
The expedition
The Domínguez–Escalante expedition was undertaken in 1776 with the purpose of finding a route across the largely unexplored continental interior from Santa Fe, New Mexico, to Spanish missions in Las Californias, such as the Spanish presidio at Monterey. On July 29, 1776, Atanasio Domínguez led the expedition from Santa Fe with fellow friar Silvestre Vélez de Escalante and cartographer Bernardo de Miera y Pacheco (Miera). The initial part of their journey followed the route taken by Juan Rivera eleven years earlier into the Ute country of southwestern Colorado. Three Timpanogos guides led them through Colorado and Utah.
These Spanish colonists were the first European men to travel through much of the Colorado Plateau into Utah, and back through Arizona to New Mexico. During the course of their trip, they documented the route and provided detailed information about the "lush, mountainous land filled with game and timber, strange ruins of stone cities and villages, and rivers showing signs of precious metals."
Route
New Mexico
Santa Rosa de Abiquiú, July 30
Colorado
Mesa Verde, August 10
Father Fray Francisco Atanasio [Domínguez] awoke troubled by rheumatic fever which he felt in his face and head since the day before, and it was desirable that we make camp here until he should be better, but the continuous rains, the inclemency of the weather, and the great dampness of the place forced us to leave it. Going north, and having traveled a little more than half a league, we turned to the northwest, went on a league and then swung west through valleys of very beautiful timber and abundant pasturage, roses, and various other flowers. After going two leagues we were again caught in a very heavy rain. Father Fray Francisco Atanasio became worse and the road impassable, and so, having traveled with great difficulty two more leagues to the west, we had to camp on the bank of the first of two little rivers which form the San Lázaro, otherwise called Río de los Mancos. The pasturage continues in great abundance. Today four and a half leagues.
Escalante and Domínguez Pueblos, August 13
Nucla, August 23
Bowie, September 1–2
Rangely, September 10
Utah
The travel journal kept by Escalante provided the first written descriptions of the geography and people in the area that would later become the state of Utah.
Yampa Plateau, September 11
Uinta National Forest, September 20
Utah Lake, September 23
Payson, September 26
Beaver River Valley, October 5
Arizona
Mojave Desert, northwestern Arizona, October 16
Paria River, October 22
Crossing of the Fathers, Colorado River, October 26 – November 7
Northeastern Arizona, November 8–12
Pueblo of Oraybi, November 16
Return to New Mexico
Northwestern New Mexico and Santa Fe, November 17 – January 2, 1777
Old Spanish Trail
The maps and information resulting from the expedition provided useful information for future travel, and their route from Santa Fe to the Salt Lake Valley became the first segment of a route later known as the Old Spanish Trail.