Spanish Explorers

Spanish Explorers. . , On July 29, 1776, a few weeks after the Declaration of Independence was signed in Philadelphia, ten explorers left the Spanish colonial capital of Santa Fe and headed northwest into unfamiliar territory. Led by Father Francisco Silvestre Velez de Escalante, Father Francisco Atanasio Dominguez, and the cartographer Don Bernardo Miera y Pacheco, the party searched for a route to the California missions. They crossed the Animas River near modern Durango and the Mancos River before reaching and naming the El Rio de Nuestra Senora de Los Dolores (the Dolores River). Camping where the river turns north, Escalante climbed a nearby hill and wrote in his journal: , Upon an elevation on the river's south side, in ancient times there was a small settlement of the same type as those of the Indians of New Mexico, as is shown by the ruins which we purposely inspected. , , Francisco Silvestre Velez de Escalante, journal entry from August 13, 1776, as translated by Fray Angelico Chavez, , The Dominguez-Escalante Journal , Brigham Young University Press, Provo, UT , Although two of the explorers spoke Ute and a Ute man was later hired as guide, rugged terrain and the oncoming winter prevented the party from reaching California. They returned to Santa Fe on January 2, 1777. Their journals and maps are one of the first written descriptions of the people and places of the Colorado Plateau.