We Explore and Conquer For God, Glory, Gold This story is built around excerpts from the recently discovered journal of Fray Miguel De La Garza as he recorded the events that took place during travels to explore an unknown territory. The expedition was made at the request of then New Mexico Governor Don Pedro de Peralta. The history of the Southwest is full of untold stories and as a historian I believe that all stories should be told. We may never know all the people and incidents that made the Southwest what it was and what it became. The people who originally lived along the Rio Grande and the Pecos River left us some records, but many of those peoples were decimated by their encounters with Europeans. The clash of cultures that took place made for situations that often looked much like the ones contained in the book.