To readers of colonial New Mexico history, the names of Coronado, Espejo, Oñate, Vargas, Escalante and De Anza are quite familiar. Not so another name, that of Gov. Antonio de Valverde (1717-1722) who led a grand expedition against the Comanches and Utes in 1719.

At the beginning of the century, those two allied tribes migrated from the northwest into the Southern Rockies. Their first hostilities against the Spanish and Pueblos occurred in the Taos area in 1704.

A series of small raids followed. Then in July 1719, the Comanches struck hard at Taos and Cochiti pueblos, killing a number of residents.

That awakened Velarde to the serious nature of this new threat. Fueling his concern also were reports that Comanches who supported by Utes were invading the eastern buffalo plains, displacing the Jicarilla Apaches, nominal allies of the Spaniards.

Officers in the Santa Fe presidio warned the governor that an army should be sent against these enemies "to punish them for their grave robberies and atrocities." Valverde agreed.

Coinciding with preparations for launching a punitive expedition, he received a letter from the viceroy in Mexico City, instructing him to investigate rumors that Frenchmen were advancing toward New Mexico from the Mississippi Valley. The governor was also told to give aid to the Jicarilla Apaches, suffering at the hands of Comanches.

Valverde detached 60 soldiers from the presidio and added 45 settlers that "offered voluntarily to serve His Majesty on this campaign." Some 30 Pueblo Indians came in, fully armed, and also volunteered.

The force then moved north to Taos where the final muster was held. A large number of Taos Indians and local Spanish citizens signed on, among them, two men who spoke Apache and enlisted as interpreters.

In proper formation, the expedition threaded its way through the Sangre de Cristos and emerged upon the edge of the plain near today's Cimarron.

At once the army began to encounter Jicarilla Apaches scattered in adobe houses along the stream courses, some of the buildings terraced in multistories, pueblolike. The Indians were raising corn and beans and irrigating their crops, practices perhaps borrowed from the eastern-most pueblos of Taos, Picurís and Pecos with whom the Apaches regularly traded.

They welcomed the Spaniards and to them complained loudly of the Utes and Comanches who recently had killed 60 of their people and kidnapped numerous of their women and children.

According to Valverde's official diary, when he announced to the Apaches that the Spaniards were on their way to attack the raiders, there was universal rejoicing among their people.

The governor, as he would later inform the viceroy, was well-pleased with his reception, which included a displaying of crosses by the Indians. Many took up their weapons and joined him on the march.

In 1978, I found archeologists James and Dolores Gunnerson excavating one of the Apache adobe houses on the Vermejo River east of Cimarron. The foundations and pieces of the lower wall that remained were no doubt part of a structure seen by the 1719 expedition.

The fighting men continued on to Raton Pass, where they crossed over into Colorado. Angling toward the northwest, they reached the Arkansas River, calling it by the Indian name, Rio Napestle.

Various other divisions of the Apaches, met along the way, cheered them heartily. Mindful of his instructions to win them over fully to the Spanish cause, the governor passed out gifts of tobacco, chocolate and parched corn.

As he would write later to the viceroy, "I found the Jicarillas very close to embracing our holy faith. They only lack priests to teach and convert them. They work hard and have always maintained friendship with us."

Descending the river, Valverde met a horde of Apaches numbering, he guessed, a thousand men, women and children. From them, he learned that Frenchmen were indeed on the high plains and had even established a couple of small settlements.

On the other hand, during the hundreds of miles traversed from Santa Fe, not a single Comanche or Ute had been spotted. We can guess those Indians had kept a careful watch over the enormous cavalcade and gave the Spaniards no opportunity for battle.

Therefore, along the middle Arkansas near present-day La Junta, Valverde gave up on that, the most important part of his mission, and returned home.

Today the significant aspect of the whole affair can be found in Valverde's campaign diary, buried in the archives until its discovery in 1935.

The document contains valuable details on the economy and customs of the plains Apaches. It also shows a typical example of Indians attacking Indians, and Spaniards intervening in a bid to halt aggression.

Historian Marc Simmons is author of numerous books on New Mexico and the Southwest. His column appears Saturdays.