Etzanoa – The City Before Arkansas City
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| Etzanoa - The Great Settlement |
Long before there was a city
named Arkansas City, before Kansas was a state, even before the Pilgrims landed
at Plymouth Rock in 1620, the Rayados people had a large and thriving
settlement at the confluence of the Walnut and Arkansas Rivers where Arkansas
City sits now.
On Monday, March 26th, Sandy Randel, Director of the Cherokee
Strip Land Museum and Coordinator for the Etzanoa Conservancy, will speak to the
Sumner County Historical and Genealogical Society and share the story of
“Etzanoa – the city before Arkansas City” with a video and PowerPoint
presentation and answer questions. The meeting begins at 6:30 p.m. at the
Wellington Public Library, lower level, 121 W. 7th, Wellington. P
program is free; visitors welcome. For
questions or weather cancellation, contact Jane at 620-447-3266 or Sherry at
316-833-6161.
They were hunting for gold…
It was 1601, 417 years ago, when Juan de
Oñate, colonial governor of the Santa Fe de Nuevo México province in the
Viceroyalty of New Spain set out with approximately 130 Spanish soldiers,
a dozen Franciscan priests, servants, scouts, cannons, and weapons to search
for gold.
They didn’t find it.
But according to
diaries, eyewitness accounts, and maps from the Conquistadores, they did find
herds of “monstrous cattle” that they pronounced “good to eat”, grass so high
in places that it “hid a horse,” and when they reached what is now Oklahoma,
they found the Escanxaque native people who were nomadic hunters, and enemies
of the native people of Etzanoa.
The Escanxaque
told the Conquistadores about the “great settlement” called Etzanoa, and then
followed Oñate and his troops north to the Great Settlement at the confluence
of what is now the Walnut and Arkansas rivers.
There, Oñate and his soldiers found at least 2,000 post and
pole, grass-thatched houses seventy to eighty feet in circumference. Houses
separated by crops of beans, squash, and maize, houses big enough for eight to
ten occupants.
Because of the paint and tattoos on their faces, the
Conquistadores called the natives at Etzanoa the “Rayados”, which means
“striped” in Spanish.
When Oñate decided to return to Nuevo México, the Escanxaque
attacked the troops. Even though they were outnumbered, the Spanish cannons and
muskets forced the Escanxaque to take shelter in a rocky gully, leaving behind
evidence of the battle. Several of the Escanxaque were killed or
wounded. Some of Oñate’s troops were injured,
but none were killed.
The next day, Oñate
and his troops began their journey back to New Mexico; they arrived on
Nov 24, 1601.
After a new translation of the Spanish records of Oñate’s journey was done in 2013 it
helped Dr. Donald Blakeslee, Professor of Anthropology and Archeology at
Wichita State University to locate and verify the location of the Great
Settlement.
And that battle between the Conquistadores and the Escanxaque left behind cannon
and musket balls that helped Dr. Blakeslee verify that this is the site of the
Etzanoa village.
How Old Was the Settlement?
They don’t know how long Etzanoa
existed prior to 1601, and they aren’t sure how long it was there after 1601,
but Randel knows that a town of that size didn’t spring up overnight.
“We know it was there in 1601,” Randel said., “there
would have needed to be quite a bit of things in place to support that many
people.”
Currently, the estimated size of
Etzanoa at a population of 20,000 puts it second in size only to the 13th
Century settlement of Cahokia near St. Louis, but the exact boundaries of the settlement
at Etzanoa is still unknown and some suspect that further discoveries may show
that Etzanoa is larger than Cahokia.
“The settlement does go north of Arkansas City,” Randel
said, “We don’t know how far north it goes.”
How to Get Involved in the
Project…
Randel stated that the Etzanoa Conservancy welcomes volunteers and involvement
with the project and she will bring information on volunteering and getting
involved.
For more information, check
out www.ks-schgs.blogspot.com.
Articles about Etzanoa:
Lost City of Etzanoa Found
Etzanoa: The Great Settlement
WSU professor, students continue research on archaeological discovery
WikiPedia - Rayado Indians
Searching for Etzanoa
Has a High School Student Found the Mythical City of Etzanoa
