s experience
.-As is a research division of Pagden writes, "It is the T who has seen what no other being has seen who alone is capable
of giving credibility to
the text" (89). Ha
ving no other
claim to authority
, Villagra stakes the
authority of h
is heroic tale first and last on his sta
tus as witness: "Hearken, O might
- y King, for I wa
- s witness of a
- ll that I here
- relate!"
- (42). As Pagde
- n also remarks.
- New World writings
- are repeatedly punctuated b
- y what Michel de Certeau has called the mod
alities of witnessing ("It was obvious
," "It was evident," etc.) (Pagden
- 89; de Certeau 1
- 986, 68). In Villagra's
- text, these mark
- ings s
- trategic
- ally and progre
ssively move the place of
his writing from the royal court, where t
- he king h
- as authority, be
- yond the frontier of empire,
- well beyond the
- prescription
- s of colonial
- authorities and prescribed b
- ehaviors, to a place wher
e only the eyewitness can tell the "true" histo
ry of the glory of conquest. It
- is only he
- re in the new place
- of this
- writing, fi
- nally, tha
- t the con
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quest of New Mexico is enacted in t
- he terms of conquest tha
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- t Villagra so desperately wants remembered. The practice of "reco
rding" this history, t
hen, allows the soldier-historian to "tre
- asure" and "remember" not the past conquest of Ne
- w Mexico in 1598, but the very meaning
- and function of conquest in the present. Villagra's own conclud
- ing remarks already foretell the eventual failure of their
- efforts. The poet is perhaps ironic, perhaps nostalgic,
perhaps bitter, when he appe
als, "O ye who seek renown in
- battle, remembe
- r it is well tha
- t ye be not too mighty with your tongue;
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