# The Coronado expedition, 1540-1542/Historical introduction

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HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION
The Causes of the Coronado Expedition, 1528-1539
ALVAR NUÑEZ CABEZA DE VACA
The American Indians are always on the move. Tribes shift the location of their homes from season to season and from year to year, while individuals wander at will, hunting, trading or gossiping. This is very largely true today, and when the Europeans first came in contact with the American aborigines, it was a characteristic feature of Indian life. The Shawnees, for example, have drifted from Georgia to the great lakes, and part of the way back, during the period since their peregrinations can first be traced. Traders from tribe to tribe, in the days when European commercial ideas were unknown in North America, carried bits of copper dug from the mines in which the aboriginal implements are still found, on the shores of Lake Superior, to the Atlantic coast on the one side and to the Rocky mountains on the other. The Indian gossips of central Mexico, in 1535, described to the Spaniards the villages of New Mexico and Arizona, with their many-storied houses of stone and adobe. The Spanish colonists were always eager to learn about unexplored regions lying outside the limits of the white settlements, and their Indian neighbors and servants in the valley of Mexico told them many tales of the people who lived beyond the mountains which hemmed in New Spain on the north. One of these stories may be found in another part of this memoir, where it is preserved in the narrative of Pedro Castañeda, the historian of the Coronado expedition. Castañeda's hearsay report of the Indian story, which was related by an adventurous trader who had penetrated the country far to the north, compares not unfavorably with the somewhat similar stories which Marco Polo told to entertain his Venetian friends. But whatever may have been known before, the information which led to the expedition of Friar Marcos de Niza and to that of Francisco Vazquez Coronado was brought to New Spain late in the spring of 1536 by Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca.
In 1520, before Cortes, the conqueror of Motecuhzoma, had made his peace with the Emperor Charles V and with the authorities at Cuba, Panfilo de Narvaez was dispatched to the Mexican mainland, at the ​head of a considerable force. He was sent to subdue and supersede the conqueror of Mexico, but when they met, Cortes quickly proved that he was a better general than his opponent, and a skillful politician as well. Narvaez was deserted by his soldiers and became a prisoner in the City of Mexico, where he was detained during the two years which followed. Cortes was at the height of his power, and Narvaez must have felt a longing to rival the successes of the conqueror, who had won the wealth of the Mexican empire. After Cortes resumed his dutiful obedience to the Spanish crown, friends at home obtained a royal order which effected the release of Narvaez, who returned to Spain at the earliest opportunity. Almost as soon as he had established himself anew in the favor of the court, he petitioned the King for a license which should permit him to conduct explorations in the New World. After some delay, the desired patent was granted. It authorized Narvaez to explore, conquer, and colonize the country between Florida and the Rio de Palmas, a grant comprising all that portion of North America bordering on the Gulf of Mexico, which is now included within the limits of the United States. Preparations were at once begun for the complete organization of an expedition suitable to the extent of this territory and to the power and dignity of its governor.
On June 17, 1527, Narvaez, governor of Florida, Rio de Palmas and Espiritu Santo—the Rio Grande and the Mississippi on our modern maps—sailed from Spain. He went first to Cuba, where he refitted his fleet and replaced one vessel which had been lost in a hurricane during the voyage. When everything was ready to start for the unexplored mainland, he ordered the pilots to conduct his fleet to the western limits of his jurisdiction—our Texas. They landed him, April 15, 1528, on the coast of the present Florida, at a bay which the Spaniards called Bahia de la Cruz, and which the map of Sebastian Cabot enables us to identify with Apalache bay. The pilots knew that a storm had driven them out of their course toward the east, but they could not calculate on the strong current of the gulf stream. They assured the commander that he was not far from the Rio de Palmas, the desired destination, and so he landed his force of 50 horses and 300 men—just half the number of the soldiers, mechanics, laborers, and priests who had started with him from Spain ten months before. He sent one of his vessels back to Cuba for recruits, and ordered the remaining three to sail along the coast toward the west and to wait for the army at the fine harbor of Panuco, which was reported to be near the mouth of Palmas river. The fate of these vessels is not known.
Narvaez, having completed these arrangements, made ready to lead his army overland to Panuco. The march began April 19. For a while, the Spaniards took a northerly direction, and then they turned toward the west. Progress was slow, for the men knew nothing of the country, and the forests and morasses presented many difficulties to the soldiers ​unused to woodcraft. Little help could be procured from the Indians, who soon became openly hostile wherever the Spaniards encountered them. Food grew scarce, and no persuasion could induce the natives to reveal hidden stores of corn, or of gold. On May 15, tired and discouraged, the Spaniards reached a large river with a strong current flowing toward the south. They rested here, while Cabeza de Vaca, the royal treasurer accompanying the expedition, took a small party of soldiers and followed the banks of the river down to the sea. The fleet was not waiting for them at the mouth of this stream, nor could anything be learned of the fine harbor for which they were searching. Disappointed anew by the report which Cabeza de Vaca made on his return to the main camp, the Spanish soldiers crossed the river and continued their march toward the west. They plodded on and on, and after awhile turned southward, to follow down the course of another large river which blocked their westward march. On the last day of July they reached a bay of considerable size, at the mouth of the river. They named this Bahia de los Cavallos, perhaps, as has been surmised, because it was here that they killed the last of their horses for food. The Spaniards, long before this, had become thoroughly disheartened.
Neither food nor gold could be found. The capital cities, toward which the Indian captives had directed the wandering strangers, when reached, were mere groups of huts, situated in some cases on mounds of earth. Not a sign of anything which would reward their search, and hardly a thing to eat, had been discovered during the months of toilsome marching. The Spaniards determined to leave the country. They constructed forges in their camp near the seashore, and hammered their spurs, stirrups, and other iron implements of warfare into nails and saws and axes, with which to build the boats necessary for their escape from the country. Ropes were made of the tails and manes of the horses, whose hides, pieced out with the shirts of the men, were fashioned into sails. By September 22, five boats were ready, each large enough to hold between 45 and 50 men. In these the soldiers embarked. Scarcely a man among them knew anything of navigation, and they certainly knew nothing about the navigation of this coast. They steered westward, keeping near the land, and stopping occasionally for fresh water. Sometimes they obtained a little food. Toward the end of October they came to the mouth of a large river which poured forth so strong a current that it drove the boats out to sea. Two, those which contained Narvaez and the friars, were lost. The men in the other three boats were driven ashore by a storm, somewhere on the coast of western Louisiana or eastern Texas. This was ​in the winter of 1528-29. Toward the end of April, 1536, Cabeza de Vaca, Alonso del Castillo Maldonado, Andres Dorantes, and a negro named Estevan, met some Spanish slave catchers near the Rio de Petatlan, in Sinaloa, west of the mountains which border the Gulf of California. These four men, with a single exception, were the only survivors of the three hundred who had entered the continent with Narvaez eight years before.
Cabeza de Vaca and his companions stayed in Mexico for several months, as the guests of the viceroy, Don Antonio de Mendoza. At first, it was probably the intention of the three Spaniards to return to Spain, in order to claim the due reward for their manifold sufferings. Mendoza says, in a letter dated December 10, 1537, that he purchased the negro Estevan from Dorantes, so that there might be someone left in New Spain who could guide an expedition back into the countries about which the wanderers had heard. An earlier letter from the viceroy, dated February 11, 1537, commends Cabeza de Vaca and Francisco Dorantes—he must have meant Andres, and perhaps wrote it so in his original manuscript—as deserving the favor of the Empress. Maldonado is not mentioned in this letter, and no trace of him has been found after the arrival of the four survivors in Mexico. All that we know about him is that his home was in Salamanca.
While Dorantes was stopping at Vera Cruz during the winter of 1536-37, he received a letter from Mendoza, asking him to return to the City of Mexico. After several interviews, the viceroy induced Dorantes to remain in New Spain, agreeing to provide him with a party of horsemen and friars, in order to explore more thoroughly the country through which he had wandered. Mendoza explains the details of his plans in the letter written in December, 1537, and declares that he expected many advantages would be derived from this expedition which would redound to the glory of God and to the profit of His Majesty the King. The viceroy was prepared to expend a large sum—3,500 or 4,000 pesos—to insure a successful undertaking, but he promised to raise the whole amount, without taking a single maravedi from the royal treasury, by means of a more careful collection of dues, and especially by enforcing the payment of overdue sums, the collection of which hitherto had been considered impossible. This reform in the collection of rents and other royal exactions and the careful attention to all the details of the fiscal administration were among the most valuable of the many services rendered by Mendoza as viceroy. The expedition under Dorantes never started, though why nothing came of all the preparations, wrote Mendoza in his next letter to the King, "I never could find out."
The three Spaniards wrote several narratives of their experiences on the expedition of Narvaez, and of their adventurous journey from the gulf coast of Texas to the Pacific coast of Mexico. These travelers, who had lived a savage life for so long that they could wear no clothes, and were unable to sleep except upon the bare ground, had a strange tale to tell. The story of their eight years of wandering must have been often repeated—of their slavery, their buffalo-hunting expeditions, of the escape from their Indian masters, and their career as traders and as medicine men. These were wonderful and strange ​experiences, but the story contained little to arouse the eager interest of the colonists in New Spain, whose minds had been stirred by the accounts which came from Peru telling of the untold wealth of the Incas. A few things, however, had been seen and heard by the wanderers which suggested the possibility of lands worth conquering. "A copper hawks-bell, thick and large, figured with a face," had been given to Cabeza de Vaca, soon after he started on his journey toward Mexico. The natives who gave this to him said that they had received it from other Indians, "who had brought it from the north, where there was much copper, which was highly esteemed." After the travelers had crossed the Rio Grande, they showed this bell to some other Indians, who said that "there were many plates of this same metal buried in the ground in the place whence it had come, and that it was a thing which they esteemed highly, and that there were fixed habitations where it came from." This was all the treasure which Cabeza de Vaca could say that he had seen. He had heard, however, of a better region than any he saw, for the Indians told him "that there are pearls and great riches on the coast of the South sea (the Pacific), and all the best and most opulent countries are near there." We may be sure that none of this was omitted whenever he told the Spanish colonists the story of the years of his residence in Texas and of the months of his journey across northern Mexico.
THE GOVERNORS OF NEW SPAIN, 1530-1537
Don Antonio de Mendoza, "the good viceroy," had been at the head of the government of New Spain for two years when Cabeza de Vaca arrived in Mexico. The effects of his careful and intelligent administration were already beginning to appear in the increasing prosperity of the province and the improved condition of the colonists and of their lands. The authority of the viceroy was ample and extensive, although he was limited to some extent by the audiencia, the members of which had administered the government of the province since the retirement of Cortes. The viceroy was the president of this court, which had resumed more strictly judicial functions after his arrival, and he was officially advised by his instructions from the King to consult with his fellow members on all matters of importance.
Nuño de Guzman departed for New Spain in 1528, and became the head of the first audiencia. Within a year he had made himself so deservedly unpopular that when he heard that Cortes was coming back to Mexico from Spain, with the new title of marquis and fresh grants of power from the King, he thought it best to get out of the way of his rival. Without relinquishing the title to his position in the capital ​city, Gazman collected a considerable force and marched away toward the west and north, determined to win honor and security by new conquests. He explored and subdued the country for a considerable distance along the eastern shores of the Gulf of California, but he could find nothing there to rival the Mexico of Motecuhzoma. Meanwhile reports reached Charles V of the manner in which Guzman had been treating the Indians and the Spanish settlers, and so, March 17, 1536, the King appointed the Licentiate Diego Perez de la Torre to take the residencia of Guzman. At the same time Torre was commissioned to replace Guzman as governor of New Galicia, as this northwestern province had been named. The latter had already determined to return to Spain, leaving Don Christobal de Onate, a model executive and administrative official, in charge of his province. Guzman almost succeeded in escaping, but his judge, who had landed at Vera Cruz by the end of 1536, met him at the viceroy's palace in Mexico city, and secured his arrest before he could depart. After his trial he was detained in Mexico until June 30, 1538,-when he was enabled to leave New Spain by an order which directed him to surrender his person to the officers of the Casa de Contratacion, at Seville. Guzman lost no time in going to Spain, where he spent the next four years in urging his claims to a right to participate in the northern conquests.
Torre, the licentiate, had barely begun to reform the abuses of Guzman's government when he was killed in a conflict with some revolted Indian tribes. Onate again took charge of affairs until Mendoza appointed Luis Galindo chief justice for New Galicia. This was merely a temporary appointment, however, until a new governor could be selected. The viceroy's nomination for the position was confirmed by the King, in a cedula dated April 18, 1539, which commissioned Francisco Vazquez Coronado as governor.
Cortes had been engaged, ever since his return from Spain, in fitting out expeditions which came to nothing, but by which he hoped to accomplish his schemes for completing the exploration of the South sea. His leisure was more than occupied by his efforts to outwit the agents of the viceroy and the audiencia, who had received orders from the King to investigate the extent and condition of the estates held by Cortes. In the spring of 1535, Cortes established a colony on the opposite coast of California, the supposed Island of the Marquis, at Santa ​Cruz near the modern La Paz. Storms and shipwreck, hunger and surfeiting, reduced the numbers and the enthusiasm of the men whom he had conducted thither, and when his vessels returned from the mainland with the news that Mendoza had arrived in Mexico, and bringing letters from his wife urging him to return at once, Cortes went back to Mexico. A few months later he recalled the settlers whom he had left at Santa Cruz, in accordance, it may be, with the command or advice of Mendoza. When the stories of Cabeza de Vaca suggested the possibility of making desirable conquests toward the north, Cortes possessed a better outfit for undertaking this work than any of the others who were likely to be rivals for the privilege of exploring and occupying that region.
Pedro de Alvarado was the least known of these rival claimants. He had been a lieutenant of Cortes until he secured an independent command in Guatemala, Yucatan and Honduras, where he subdued the natives, but discovered nothing except that there was nowhere in these regions any store of gold or treasures. Abandoning this field, he tried to win a share in the conquests of Pizarro and Almagro. He approached Peru from the north, and conducted his army across the mountains. This march, one of the most disastrous in colonial history, so completely destroyed the efficiency of his force that the conquerors of Peru easily compelled him to sell them what was left of his expedition. They paid a considerable sum, weighed out in bars of silver which he found, after his return to Panama, to be made of lead with a silver veneering. Alvarado was ready to abandon the work of conquering America, and had forwarded a petition to the King, asking that he might be allowed to return to Spain, when Mendoza, or the audiencia which was controlled by the enemies of Alvarado, furthered his desires by ordering him to go to the mother country and present himself before the throne. This was in 1536. While at court Alvarado must have met Cabeza de Vaca. He changed his plans for making a voyage to the South seas, and secured from the King, whose favor he had easily regained, a commission which allowed him to build a fleet in Central America and explore the South sea—the Pacific—toward the west or the north. He returned to America early in 1539, bringing with him everything needed in the equipment of a large fleet.
THE RECONNOISSANCE OF FRIAR MARCOS DE NIZA
Mendoza did not confine himself to diplomatic measures for bringing about the exploration and conquest which he had in mind. In his undated "première lettre" the viceroy wrote that he was prepared to send Dorantes with forty or fifty horses and everything needed for an expedition into the interior; but nothing was done.
About this time, 1537-38, Friar Juan de la Asuncion seems to have visited the inland tribes north of the Spanish settlements, Mr Bandelier has presented all the evidence obtainable regarding the labors of this friar. The most probable interpretation of the statements which refer to his wanderings is that Friar Juan went alone and without official assistance, and that he may have traveled as far north as the river Gila. The details of his journey are hopelessly confused. It is more than probable that there were a number of friars at work among the outlying Indian tribes, and there is no reason why one or more of them may not have wandered north for a considerable distance. During the same year the viceroy made an attempt, possibly in person, to penetrate into the country of Topira or Topia, in northwestern Durango, but the mountains and the absence of provisions forced the party to return. It may be that this fruitless expedition was the same as that in which, according to Castañeda, Coronado took part, while Friar Marcos was on his way to Cibola. It is not unlikely, also, ​that Friar Marcos may have made a preliminary trip toward the north, during the same year, although this is hardly more than a guess to explain statements, made by the old chroniclers, which we can not understand.
As yet nothing had been found to verify the reports brought by Cabeza de Vaca, which, by themselves, were hardly sufficient to justify the equipment of an expedition on a large scale. But Mendoza was bent on discovering what lay beyond the northern mountains. He still had the negro Estevan, whom he had purchased of Dorantes, besides a number of Indians who had followed Cabeza de Vaca to Mexico and had been trained there to serve as interpreters. The experience which the negro had gained during the years he lived among the savages made him invaluable as a guide. He was used to dealing with the Indians, knew something of their languages, and was practiced in the all-important sign manual.
Friar Marcos de Niza was selected as the leader of the little party which was to find out what the viceroy wanted to know. Aside from his reconnoitering trip to Cibola, very little is known about this friar. Born in Nice, then a part of Savoy, he was called by his contemporaries a Frenchman. He had been with Pizarro in Peru, and had witnessed the death of Atahualpa. Returning to Central America, very likely with Pedro de Alvarado, he had walked from there barefooted, as was his custom, up to Mexico. He seems to have been somewhere in the northwestern provinces of New Spain, when Cabeza de Vaca appeared there after his wanderings. A member of the Franciscan brotherhood, he had already attained to some standing in the order, for he signs his report or personal narration of his explorations, as vice-commissary of the Franciscans. The father provincial of the order, Friar Antonio de Ciudad-Rodrigo, on August 26, 1539, certified to the high esteem in which Friar Marcos was held, and stated that he was skilled in cosmography and in the arts of the sea, as well as in theology.
This choice of a leader was beyond question an excellent one, and Mendoza had every reason to feel confidence in the success of his undertaking. The viceroy drew up a set of instructions for Friar Marcos, which directed that the Indians whom he met on the way should receive the best of treatment, and provided for the scientific observations which all Spanish explorers were expected to record. Letters were to be left wherever it seemed advisable, in order to communicate with a possible sea expedition, and information of the progress of the party was to be sent back to the viceroy at convenient intervals. These instructions are a model of careful and explicit directions, and show the characteristic interest taken by Mendoza in the details of everything with which he was concerned. They supply to some extent, ​also, the loss of the similar instructions which Coronado must have received when he started on his journey in the following February.
Friar Marcos, accompanied by a lay brother, Friar Onorato, according to Mendoza's "première lettre," left Culiacan on March 7, 1539. Coronado, now acting as governor of New Galicia, had escorted them as far as this town and had assured a quiet journey for a part of the way beyond by sending in advance six Indians, natives of this region, who had been "kept at Mexico to become proficient in the Spanish language and attached to the ways of the Christians." The friars proceeded to Petatlan, where Friar Onorato fell sick, so that it was necessary to leave him behind. During the rest of the journey. Friar Marcos was the only white man in the party, which consisted of the negro Estevan, the Indian interpreters, and a large body of natives who followed him from the different villages near which he passed. The friar continued his journey to "Vacapa," which Mr Bandelier identifies with the Eudeve settlement of Matapa in central Sonora, where he arrived two days before Passion Sunday, which in 1539 fell on March 23. At this place he waited until April 6, in order to send to the seacoast and summon some Indians, from whom he hoped to secure further information about the pearl islands of which Cabeza de Vaca had heard.
The negro Estevan had been ordered by the viceroy to obey Friar Marcos in everything, under pain of serious punishment. While the friar was waiting at Vacapa, he sent the negro toward the north, instructing him to proceed 50 or 60 leagues and see if he could find anything which might help them in their search. If he found any signs of a rich and populous country, it was agreed that he was not to advance farther, but should return to meet the friar, or else wait where he heard the good news, sending some Indian messengers back to the friar, with a white cross the size of the palm of his hand. If the news was very promising, the cross was to be twice this size, and if the country about which he heard promised to be larger and better than New Spain, a cross still larger than this was to be sent back. Castañeda preserves a story that Estevan was sent ahead, not only to explore and pacify the country, but also because he did not get on well with his superior, who objected to his eagerness in collecting the turquoises and other things which the natives prized and to the moral effect of his relations with the women who followed him from the tribes which they met on their way. Friar Marcos says nothing about this in his narrative, but he had different and much more important ends to accomplish by his report, compared with those of Castaneda, who may easily have gathered the gossip from some native. ​Estevan started on Passion Sunday, after dinner. Four days later messengers sent by him brought to the friar "a very large cross, as tall as a man." One of the Indians who had given the negro his information accompanied the messengers. This man said and affirmed, as the friar carefully recorded, "that there are seven very large cities in the first province, all under one lord, with large houses of stone and lime; the smallest one-story high, with a flat roof above, and others two and three stories high, and the house of the lord four stories high. They are all united under his rule. And on the portals of the principal houses there are many designs of turquoise stones, of which he says they have a great abundance. And the people in these cities are very well clothed. . . . Concerning other provinces farther on, he said that each one of them amounted to much more than these seven cities." All this which the Indian told Friar Marcos was true; and, what is more, the Spanish friar seems to have correctly understood what the Indian meant, except that the Indian idea of several villages having a common allied form of government was interpreted as meaning the rule of a single lord, who lived in what was to the Indians the chief, because the most populous, village. These villages of stone and lime—or rather of stone and rolls or balls of adobe laid in mud mortar and sometimes whitened with a wash of gypsum—were very large and wondrous affairs when compared with the huts and shelters of the Seri and some of the Piman Indians of Sonora. The priest can hardly be blamed for translating a house entrance into a doorway instead of picturing it as a bulkhead or as the hatchway of a ship. The Spaniards—those who had seen service in the Indies—had outgrown their earlier custom of reading into the Indian stories the ideas of government and of civilization to which they were accustomed in Europe. But Friar Marcos was at a disadvantage hardly less than that of the companions of Cortes, when they first heard of Moctecuhzoma, because his experience with the wealth of the New World had been in the realm of the Incas. He interpreted what he did not understand, of necessity, by what he had seen in Peru.
Friar Marcos tried to find out how these Indians bartered for the things they brought from the northern country, but all he could understand was that "with the sweat and service of their persons they went to the first city, which is called Cibola, and that they labored there by digging the earth and other services, and that for what they did they received turquoises and the skins of cows, such as those people had." We now know, whatever Friar Marcos may have thought, that they doubtless obtained their turquoises by digging them out of the rocky ground in which they are still found in New Mexico, and this may easily have seemed to them perspiring labor. It is not clear just how they obtained the buffalo skins, although it was doubtless by barter. The friar noticed fine turquoises suspended in the ears and noses of many of the people whom he saw, and he was again informed that the principal doorways of Cibola were ceremonially ornamented with designs made of these stones. Mr Cushing has since learned, through tradition, that this was their custom. The dress of these people of Cibola, including the belts of turquoises about the waist, as it was described to the friar, seemed to him to resemble that of the Bohemians, or gypsies. The cow skins, some of which were given to him, were tanned and finished so well that he thought it was evident that they had been prepared by men who were skilled in this work. ​At this point iu his narrative Friar Marcos first uses the word pueblo, village, in referring to the seven cities, a point which would be of some interest if only we could be sure that the report was written from notes made as he went along. He certainly implies that he kept some such record when he speaks of taking down the statements of the Indian who first told him about the seven cities. It looks as if the additional details which he was obtaining gradually dimmed his vision of cities comparable to those into which he had seen Pizarro gather the golden ransom of Atahualpa.
Friar Marcos had not heard from Estevan since leaving Vacapa, but the natives told him that the negro was advancing toward Cibola, and that he had been gone four or five days. The friar started at once to follow the negro, who had proceeded up Sonora valley, as Mr Bandelier traces the route. Estevan had planted several large crosses along the way, and soon began to send messengers to the friar, urging the latter to hasten, and promising to wait for him at the edge of the wilderness which lay between them and the country of Cibola. The friar followed as fast as he could, although constantly hindered by the natives, who were always ready to verify the stories he had already heard concerning Cibola. They pressed him to accept their offers of turquoises and of cow skins in spite of his persistent refusals. At one village, the lord of the place and his two brothers greeted the friar, having collars of turquoises about their necks, while the rest of the people were all encaconados, as they called it, with turquoises, which hung from their ears and noses. Here they supplied their visitor with deer, rabbits, and quail, besides a great abundance of corn and piñon seed. They also continued to offer him turquoises, skins, fine gourds, and other things which they valued. The Sobaipuri Indians, who were a branch of the Papago, among whom the friar was now traveling, according to Bandelier, seemed to be as well acquainted with Cibola as the natives of 2few Spain were with Mexico, or those of Peru with Cuzco. They bad visited the place many times, and whatever they possessed which was made with any skill or neatness had been brought, so they told him, from that country.
Soon after he encountered these people, the friar met a native of Cibola. He was a well-favored man, rather old, and appeared to be much more intelligent than the natives of this valley or those of any of the districts through which the friar had passed in the course of his march. This man reported that the lord of Cibola lived and had his seat of government in one of the seven cities called Abacus, and that he appointed men in the other cities who ruled for him. Abacus is readily identified with Hawikuh, one of the present ruins near K'iapkwainakwin, or Ojo Caliente, about 15 miles southwest of Zuñi. On questioning this man closely, the friar learned that Cibola—by which, as Bandelier and Cushing maintain, the Indian meant the whole range occupied by the Zuñi people—was a large city, in which a great many ​people dwelt and which had streets and open squares or plazas. In some parts of it there were very large houses, which were ten stories high, and the leading men met together in these on certain days of the year. Possibly this is one of the rare references in the accounts of these early visits to Zuñi, to the ceremonials of the Pueblo Indians, which have been studied and described with so much care by later visitors, notably by Mrs M. C. Stevenson and by Dr J. Walter Fewkes of the Hemenway Southwestern Archeological Expedition.
This native of Cibola verified all the reports which the friar had already heard. Marata, he said, had been greatly reduced by the lord of Cibola during recent wars. Totonteac was a much larger and richer place, while Acus was an independent kingdom and province. The strange thing about all these reports is not that they are true, and that we can identify them by what is now known concerning these Indians, but the hard thing to understand is how the Spanish friar could have comprehended so well what the natives must have tried to tell him. When one considers the difficulties of language, with all its technicalities, and of radically different conceptions of every phase of life and of thought, the result must be an increased confidence in the common sense and the inherent intelligence of mankind.
On his way up this valley of Sonora, Friar Marcos heard that the sea-coast turned toward the west. Realizing the importance of this point, he says that he "went in search of it and saw clearly that it turns to the west in 35 degrees." He was at the time between 31 and 311/2 degrees north. Just opposite the head of the Gulf of California. If Bandelier's identification of the friar's route is accepted—and it has a great deal more in its favor than any other that can be proposed with any due regard to the topography of the country—Friar Marcos was then near the head of San Pedro valley, distant 200 miles in a direct line from the coast, across a rough and barren country. Although the Franciscan superior testified to Marcos' proficiency in the arts of the sea, the friar's calculation was 3 J degrees out of the way, at a latitude where the usual error in the contemporary accounts of expeditions is on the average a degree and a half. The direction of the coast line does change almost due west of where the friar then was, and he may have gone to some point among the mountains from which he could satisfy himself that the report of the Indians was reliable. There is a week or ten days, during this part of the journey, for which his narrative gives no specific reckoning. He traveled rather slowly at times, making frequent stops, so that the side trip is not necessary to fill this gap. The point is a curious one; but, in the absence of any details, it is hardly likely that the friar did more than secure from other Indians stories confirming what he had already been told.
Friar Marcos soon reached the borders of the wilderness—the country in and about the present White Mountain Apache reservation in Arizona. He entered this region on May 9, and twelve days later a young man ​who had been with Estevan, the son of one of the Indian chiefs accompanying the friar, met him and told the story of the negro's death. Estevan had hastened to reach Cibola before the friar, and just prior to arriving at the first city he had sent a notice of his approach to the chief of the place. As evidence of his position or authority, he sent a gourd, to which were attached a few strings of rattles and two plumes, one of which was white and the other red.
The killing of Estevan made it impossible for Friar Marcos, alone and unprepared for fighting, to enter the Cibola region. The first reports of the disaster, as is usually the custom, told of the death of all who accompanied the negro, and in consequence there was much wailing among the Indians who had followed the friar. They threatened to desert him, but he pacified them by opening his bundles and distributing the trinkets brought from Mexico. While they were enjoying these, he withdrew a couple of stone-throws for an hour and a half to pray. Meanwhile, the Indians began again to think of their lost friends, and decided to kill the friar, as the indirect cause of the catastrophe. But when he returned from his devotions, reinvigorated, and learned of their determination, he diverted their thoughts by producing some of the things which had been kept back from the first distribution of the contents of his packs. He expounded to them the folly of killing him, since this would do him no hurt because he was a Christian and so would go at once to his home in the sky, while other Christians would come in search of him and kill all of them, in spite of his own desires to prevent, if possible, any such revenge. "With many other words" he ​succeeded at last in quieting them and in persuading two of the chief Indians to go with him to a point where he could obtain a view of the "city of Cibola." He proceeded to a small hill, from which he saw that it was situated on a plain on the slope of a round height. "It has a very fine appearance for a village," he writes, "the best that I have seen in these parts. The houses, as the Indians had told me, are all of stone, built in stories, and with flat roofs. Judging by what I could see from the height where I placed myself to observe it, the settlement is larger than the city of Mexico. . . . It appears to me that this land is the best and largest of all those that have been discovered."
"With far more fright than food," the friar says he retraced his way toward New Spain, by hasty marches. During his journey to Cibola, he had heard of a large and level valley among the mountains, distant four or five days from the route which he followed, where he was told that there were many very large settlements in which the people wore clothes made of cotton. He showed his informants some metals which he had, in order to find out what there was in that region, and they picked out the gold, saying that the people in the valley had vessels made of this material and some round things which they hung from their ears and noses. They also had some little shovels of this same metal, with which they scraped themselves to get rid of their sweat. On his way back, although he had not recovered from his fright, the friar determined to see this valley. He did not dare to venture into it, because, as he says, he thought that those who should go to settle and rule the country of the seven pities could enter it more safely than he. He did not wish to risk his own life, lest he should be prevented from making the report of what he had already seen. He went as far as the entrance to the valley and saw seven good-looking settlements at a distance, in a very attractive country, from which arose a great deal of smoke. He understood from the Indians that there was much gold in the valley, and that the natives used it for vessels and ornaments, repeating in his narrative the reports which he had heard on his outward journey.
The friar then hastened down the coast to Culiacan, where he hoped, but failed, to find Coronado, the governor of the province. He went on to Compostela, where Coronado was staying. Here he wrote his report, and sent the announcement of his safe return to the viceroy. A similar notification to the provincial of his order contained a request for instructions as to what he should do next. He was still in Compostela on September 2, and as Mendoza and Coronado also were there, he took occasion to certify under oath before them to the truth of all that he had written in the report of his expedition to Cibola.
THE EFFECT OF FRIAR MARCOS' REPORT
In his official report it is evident that Friar Marcos distinguished with care between what he had himself seen and what the Indians had told him. But Cortes began the practice of attacking the veracity and ​good faith of the friar, Castañeda continued it, and scarcely a writer on these events failed to follow their guidance until Mr Bandelier undertook to examine the facts of the case, and applied the rules of ordinary fairness to his historical judgment. This vigorous defender of the friar has successfully maintained his strenuous contention that Marcos neither lied nor exaggerated, even when he said that the Cibola pueblo appeared to him to be larger than the City of Mexico. All the witnesses agree that these light stone and adobe villages impress one who first sees them from a distance as being much larger than they really are. Mexico in 1539, on the other hand, was neither imposing nor populous. The great communal houses, the "palace of Montezuma," had been destroyed during or soon after the siege of 1521. The pueblo of Hawikuh, the one which the friar doubtless saw, contained about 200 houses, or between 700 and 1,000 inhabitants. There is something naïve in Mr Bandelier's comparison of this with Robert Tomson's report that the City of Mexico, in 1556, contained 1,500 Spanish households. He ought to have added, what we may be quite sure was true, that the population of Mexico probably doubled in the fifteen years preceding Tomson's visit, a fact which makes Niza's comparison even more reasonable.
The credit and esteem in which the friar was held by the viceroy, Mendoza, is as convincing proof of his integrity as that derived from a close scrutiny of the text of his narrative. Mendoza's testimony was given in a letter which he sent to the King in Spain, inclosing the report written by Friar Marcos, the "première lettre" which Ternaux translated from Ramusio. This letter spoke in laudatory terms of the friar, and of course is not wholly unbiased evidence. It is at least sufficient to counterbalance the hostile declarations of Cortes and Castañeda, both of whom had far less creditable reasons for traducing the friar than Mendoza had for praising him. "These friars," wrote Mendoza of Marcos and Onorato, "had lived for some time in the neighboring countries; they were used to hard labors, experienced in the ways of the Indies, conscientious, and of good habits." It is possible that Mendoza felt less confidence than is here expressed, for before he organized the Coronado expedition, late in the fall of this year 1539, he ordered Melchior Diaz to go and see if what he could discover agreed with the account which Friar Marcos gave.
However careful the friar may have been, he presented to the viceroy a report in which gold and precious stones abounded, and which stopped just within sight of the goal—the Seven Cities of Nuño de Guzman and of the Indian traders and story tellers. Friar Marcos had ​something to tell which interested his readers vastly more than the painful, wonderful story of Cabeza de Vaca. The very fact that he took it for granted, as he says in his report, that they would go to populate and rule over this land of the Seven Cities, with its doorways studded with turquoises, was enough to insure interest. He must, indeed, have been a popular preacher, and when the position of father provincial to the Franciscans became vacant, just now, brother Marcos, already high in the order and with all the fresh prestige of his latest achievements, was evidently the subject for promotion. Castañeda, who is not the safest authority for events preceding the expedition, says that the promotion was arranged by the viceroy. This may have been so. His other statement is probable enough, that, as a result of the promotion, the pulpits of the order were filled with accounts of such marvels and wonders that large numbers were eager to join in the conquest of this new land. Whatever Friar Marcos may have sacrificed to careful truth was atoned for, we may be sure, by the zealous, loyal brethren of blessed Saint Francis.
Second-hand evidence, recorded fifty years after the occurrence, is far from conclusive. Fortunately, we are able to supplement it by legal testimony, taken down, and recorded under oath, with all the formalities of the old Spanish law customs. When the news of Friar Marcos' journey reached Spain there was much rivalry among those who claimed the privilege of completing the discovery. Much evidence was presented and frequent pleas were entered by all the men who had an active part and leadership in the conquest of the northern portion of the New World. In the course of the litigation the representative of the adelantado Hernando de Soto, presented some testimony which had been given in the town of San Cristobal de la Habana de la Isla Fernandina—Habana and Cuba—dated November 12, 1539. There were seven witnesses, from a ship which had been obliged to put into this port in order to procure water and other supplies, and also because some persons aboard had become very sick. Each witness declared that a month or more before—Friar Marcos arrived back in Mexico before the end of August, 1539—he had heard, and that this was common talk in Mexico, Vera Cruz, and in Puebla de los Angeles, that a Franciscan friar named Fray Marcos, who had recently come from the inland regions, said that he had discovered a very rich and very populous country 400 or 500 leagues north of Mexico. "He said that the country is rich in gold, silver and other treasures, and that it contains very large villages; that the houses are built of stone, and terraced like those of Mexico, and that they are high and imposing. The people, so he said, are shrewd, and do not marry more than one wife at a time, and they wear coarse woolen cloth and ride on some animals," the name of which the witness did not know. Another testified that the common report was that this country "was very rich and populous and had great walled cities, and that the lords of the cities were called kings, and that the people were very shrewd and use the Mexican language." But the witness to whose deposition we are most indebted was Andrés Garcia. This man declared that he had a son-in-law who was a barber, who had shaved the friar after he came back from the new country. The son-in-law had told the witness that the friar, while being ​shaved, had talked about the country which he had discovered beyond the mountains. "After crossing the mountains, the friar said there was a river, and that many settlements were there, in cities and towns, and that the cities were surrounded by walls, with their gates guarded, and were very wealthy, having silversmiths, and that the women wore strings of gold beads and the men girdles of gold and white woolen dresses; and that they had sheep and cows and partridges and slaughterhouses and iron forges."
Friar Marcos undoubtedly never willfully told an untruth about the country of Cibola, even in a barber's chair. But there seems to be little chance for doubting that the reports which he brought to New Spain were the cause of much talk as well as many sermons, which gave rise to a considerable amount of excitement among the settlers, whose old-world notions had been upset by the reputed glory of the Montezumas and the wealth of the Incas. Very many, though perhaps not all, of the colonists were stirred with an eager desire to participate in the rich harvest awaiting the conquerors of these new ​lands. Friar Marcos was not a liar, but it is impossible to ignore the charges against him quite as easily as Mr Bandelier has done.
Pedro Castaneda makes some very damaging statements, which are not conclusive proof of the facts. Like the statements of Suarez de Peralta, they represent the popular estimation of the father provincial, and they repeat the stories which passed current regarding him, when the later explorations had destroyed the vision that had been raised by the reports of the friar's exploration. The accusations made by Cortes deserve more careful consideration. Cortes returned to Spain about the time that the preparations for the Coronado expedition were definitely begun. Soon after his arrival at court, June 25, 1540, he addressed a formal memorial to the King, setting forth in detail the ill treatment which he had received from Mendoza. In this he declared that after the viceroy had ordered him to withdraw his men from their station on the coast of the mainland toward the north—where they were engaged in making ready for extended inland explorations—he had a talk with Friar Marcos. "And I gave him," says Cortes, "an account of this said country and of its discovery, because I had determined to send him in my ships to follow up the said northern coast and conquer that country, because he seemed to understand something about matters of navigation. The said friar communicated this to the said viceroy, and he says that, with his permission, he went by land in search of the same coast and country as that which I had discovered, and which it was and is my right to conquer. And since his return, the said friar has published the statement that he came within sight of the said country, which I deny that he has either seen or discovered; but instead, in all that the said friar reports that he has seen, he only repeats the account I had given him regarding the information which I obtained from the Indians of the said country of Santa Cruz, because everything which the said friar says that he discovered is just the same as what these said Indians had told me: and in enlarging upon this and in pretending to report what he neither saw nor learned, the said Friar Marcos does nothing new, because he has done this many other times, and this was his regular habit, as is notorious in the provinces of Peru and Guatemala; and sufficient evidence regarding this will be given to the court whenever it is necessary."
This is a serious charge, but so far as is known it was never substantiated. Cortes was anxious to enforce his point, and he was not always scrupulous in regard to the exact truth. The important point is that such charges were made by a man who was in the position to learn all ​the facts, and that the accusations were made before anyone knew how little basis there was for the stories which were the cause of the whole trouble. Without trying to clear the character of Cortes, it is possible to suggest the answer to the most evident reply to his accusations—that he never published the stories which he says he received from the Indians. Cortes certainly did persist in his endeavors to explore the country lying about the head of the Gulf of California. If he ever heard from the Indians anything concerning the Cibola region—which is doubtful, partly because Cortes himself complains that if Mendoza had not interfered with the efficiency of his expeditious, he would have secured this information—it would still have been the best policy for Cortes to keep the knowledge to himself, so that possible rivals might remain ignorant of it until he had perfected his own plans. It may be questioned how long such secrecy would have been possible, but we know how successfully the Spanish authorities managed to keep from the rest of the world the correct and complete cartographical information as to what was being accomplished in the New World, throughout the period of exploration and conquest.
The image is joined to the image on the previous page. — Ineuw (talk) 08:05, 4 July 2020 (UTC)​We can not be certain what the plans of Cortes were, nor can we tell just how much he did to carry his schemes into execution, during the years from 1537 to 1540. Shortly after the men whom Cortes had established at Santa Cruz were recalled, a decree was issued, in the name of the audiencia, to forbid the sending of any expedition for exploration or conquest from New Spain. Cortes declared that he had at this time, September, 1538, nine good ships already built. He was naturally unwilling to give up all hope of deriving any benefit from his previous undertakings, as would be inevitable if Mendoza should succeed in his projects for taking advantage of whatever good things could be found toward the north. The danger must have seemed clear so soon as he learned of the departure of Friar Marcos and the negro on their journey toward the Seven Cities. There is no means of knowing whether Cortes had learned of the actual discovery of Cibola, when he suddenly ordered Francisco de Ulloa to take three vessels and sail up the coast toward the head of the Gulf of California. The friar may have sent Indian messengers to the viceroy so soon as he heard the native reports about the seven cities of Cibola, and it is possible that the news of his approaching return may have reached New Spain before the departure of Ulloa, which took place July 8, 1539, from Acapulco. It seems clear that this action was unexpected, and that it was a successful anticipation of preventive measures. In the statement of his grievances, Cortes declares that Mendoza not only threw every possible obstacle in his way, seizing six or seven vessels which failed to get away with Ulloa, but that even after Ulloa had gone, the viceroy sent a strong force up the coast to prevent the ships from entering any of the ports. When stress of weather forced one of the ships to put into Guatulco, the pilot and sailors were imprisoned and the viceroy persistently refused to return the ship to its owner. About the same time, a messenger who had been sent to Cortes from Santiago in Colima was seized and tortured, in the hope of procuring from him information about the plans of Cortes.
After Friar Marcos came back from the north and filled the people in New Spain with the desire of going to this new country, Cortes realized that he could do nothing, even in the city which he had won for his King and for Europe, to prevent the expedition which Mendoza was already organizing. Early in 1540—we know only that he was on his way when he wrote to Oviedo from Habana on February 5—the conqueror of Motecuhzoma's empire left Mexico for the last time, and went to see what he could gain by a personal application at the court of His Majesty the Emperor, Charles V. ​Mendoza had guarded against rival expeditions from his own territory, and so soon as he knew that Friar Marcos had succeeded in his quest, he took precautions to prevent the news of the discovery from reaching other portions of the New World. His chief fear, probably, was lest De Soto, who had recently received a license to explore the country between the Rio de las Palmas, in the present Texas, and Florida, might direct his expedition toward the western limits of his territory, if he should learn of the rich prospects there. Although Mendoza probably did not know it, De Soto had sailed, from Habana in May, 1539, and in July, sending back his largest ships, he began the long march through the everglades of Florida, which was to end in the Mississippi. Mendoza, with all the formality of the viceregal authority, ordered that no vessel sailing from New Spain should touch at any port in the New World on its way back to the home peninsula, and this notice was duly served on all departing shipmasters by the secretaries of the viceroy. By the middle of November, however, despite all this care, a ship from Vera Cruz sailed into the harbor of Habana. The master declared, on his oath, that he had been forced to put in there, because sickness had broken out aboard his vessel soon after the departure from New Spain and because he had discovered that his stock of provisions and water was insufficient for the voyage across the Atlantic. Curiously enough, one of the crew, possibly one of those who had been seized with the sickness, had in his possession some letters which he had been asked to deliver to Hernando De Soto, in Habana. Apparently the agent or friend of De Soto living in Mexico, one Francisco de Billegas, did not know that the adelantado had left Cuba, although he had arranged to have the letters carried to Spain and given to the representative of the adelantado there if De Soto was not found at Habana. De Soto had taken care that his interests should be watched and protected, in Spain as well as in the New World, when he started on his search for the land of wealth north of the Gulf of Mexico, the search on which Ayllon and Narvaez had failed so sadly.
It was the regular practice of all the governors and successful explorers in the colonies of the empire to maintain representatives in Spain who should look after their interests at court and before the administrative bureaus. When the news of Friar Marcos' discovery reached Europe, accompanied by reports of the preparations which Mendoza was making for an expedition to take possession of the new territory, protests and counterclaims were immediately presented in behalf of all those who could claim any right to participate in this new field of conquest. The first formal statements were filed with the Council for the Indies, March 3, 1540, and on June 10, 1541, the factor or representative of Cortes, whose petition is first among the papers relating to the case, asked for an extension of six days. This ends the ​documents concerning the litigation, so far as they have been printed. Petitions, testimony, narratives of explorations and discoveries, acts taking possession of new lands, notifications and decisions, appeals and counter-charges, were filed and referred, each claimant watching his rivals so closely and objecting to their claims so strenuously that the fiscal, Villalobos, in his report on the case, May 25, 1540, gives as one of the most conclusive reasons in favor of the advice which he offers to the Council, that each of the parties has clearly proved that none of the others have any right to claim a share in the newly discovered region by virtue of any grants, licenses, or achievements whatsoever. Of the various claimants, the representative of the adelantado Hernando De Soto offered perhaps the best argument. The territory granted to De Soto extended on the west to the Rio de las Palmas, and this grant was the same as that previously made to Narvaez. The discovery had grown out of the expedition of Narvaez, to whose rights De Soto had succeeded, through the reports which Cabeza de Vaca carried to New Spain. The newly discovered region was evidently inland, and this fact disposed of the two prominent rivals, Cortes and Alvarado. The adelantado had expended large sums in preparing for this undertaking—a claim advanced with equal vigor by all the parties, and usually supported by specific accounts, which unfortunately are not printed—and it was only right that he should be given every opportunity to reap the full advantage from these outlays. Most important of all was the fact that De Soto was already in the country north of the gulf, in command of a large and well equipped force, and presumably on his way toward the region about which they were disputing. Because De Soto was there, urged his representative with strong and persistent emphasis, all other exploring expeditions ought to be kept away. It was clearly probable that great and notorious scandals would ensue unless this was guarded against, just as had happened in Peru. If this precaution was not taken, and two expeditions representing conflicting interests should be allowed to come together in the country beyond the reach of the royal restraint, many lives would inevitably be lost and great damage be done to the Spaniards, and to the souls of the Indians as well, while the enlargement of the royal patrimony would be hindered.
Cortes reached Spain some time in April, 1540, and was able to direct his case in person for much of the time. He urged the priority of his ​claims under the royal license, dating from 1529. He told of his many efforts to enlarge the Spanish domain, undertaken at great expense, personal sacrifice and danger, and resulting in the loss of relations and friends. From all of this, as he carefully pointed out, neither His Majesty nor himself had received any proper benefit, though this was not the result of any fault or lack of diligence on his part, as he hastened to explain, but had been caused by the persistent and ill-concealed hostility of the audiencia and the viceroy in New Spain, "concerning all of which His Majesty must have been kept heretofore in ignorance."
Nuño de Guzman presented his case in person, though perhaps this was not so much because it was more effective as because his resources must have been limited and his time little occupied. He was able, indeed, to make out a very good argument, assuming his right to the governorship of New Galicia, a province which had been greatly enlarged by his conquests. These conquests were toward the north, and he had taken possession of all the land in that direction in behalf of His Catholic Majesty. He would have extended the Spanish territory much farther in the same direction, if only his zealous efforts had not been abruptly cut short by his persecutors, through whose malicious efforts he was even yet nominally under arrest. Nor was this all, for all future expeditions into the new region must go across the territory which was rightfully his, and they could only succeed by the assistance and resources which would be drawn from his country. Thus he was the possessor of the key to all that lay beyond.
The image is joined to the image on the previous page. — Ineuw (talk) 08:05, 4 July 2020 (UTC)
* ↑ The Indian's story is in the first chapter of Castañeda's Narrative. Some additional information is given in Bandolier's Contributions to the History of the Southwest, the first chapter of which is entitled "Sketch of the knowledge which the Spaniards in Mexico possessed of the countries north of the province of New Galicia previous to the return of Cabeza de Vaca." For bibliographic references to this and other works referred to throughout this memoir, see the list at the end of the paper.
* ↑ The most important source of information regarding; the expedition of Narvaez is the Relation written by Cabeza de Vaca. This is best consulted in Buckingham Smith's translation. Mr Smith includes in his volume everything which he could find to supplement the main narration. The best study of the route followed by the survivors of the expedition, after they landed in Texas, is that of Bandelier in the second chapter of his Contributions to the History of the Southwest. In this essay Bandelier has brought together all the documentary evidence, and he writes with the knowledge obtained by traveling through the different portions of the country which Cabeza de Vaca must have traversed. Dr J. G, Shea, in his chapter in the Narrative and Critical History of America, vol. ii, p. 280. disagrees in some points with Mr Bandelier's interpretation of the route of Cabeza de Vaca west of Texas, and also with Mr Smith's identifications of the different points in the march of the main army before it embarked from the Bahia de los Cavallos. Other interesting conjectures are given in H. H. Bancroft's North Mexican States, vol. i, p. 63, and map at p. 67.
* ↑ Buckingham Smith collected in his Letter of Hernando de Soto. pp. 57-61, and in his Narrative of the Career of Hernando de Soto <see index), all that is known in regard to Ortiz, one of the soldiers of Narvaez, who was found among the Indians by De Soto in 1540.
* ↑ Mendoza to Charles V, 10 Diciembre, 1537. Cabeza de Vaca y Dorantes,. . . despues de haber llegado aqui, determinaron de irse en España, y viendo que si V. M. era servido de enviar aquella tierra alguna gente para saber de cierto lo que era, no quedaba persona que pudiese ir con ella ni dar ninguna razon, compré á Dorantes para este ofecto un negro que vino de allá y se halló con ellos en todo, que se llama Estéban, por ser persona de razon. Despues sucedió, como el navio en que Dorantes iba se volvió al puerto, y sabido esto, yo le escribi á la Vera-Cruz, rogándole que vinieso aqui: y como llegó á esta ciudad, yo le hablé diciéndole que huhiese por bien de volver á esta tierra con algunos religiosos y gente de caballo, que yo le daria á calalla, y saber de cierto lo que enu ella habia. Y él vista mi voluntad, y el servicio que yo le puse delantre que hacia con ello á Dios y á V . M., me respondió que holgaba dello, y asi estoy determinado de envialle allá con la gente de caballo y religiosos que digo. Pienso que ha de redundar dello gran servicio á Dios y á V. M—From the text printed in Pacheco y Cardenas, Docs, de Indias, ii, 206.
* ↑ Some recent writers have been misled by a chance comma inserted by the copyist or printer in one of the old narratives, which divides the name of Maldonado—Alonso del Castillo, Maldonado—making it appear as if there were five instead of four survivors of the Narvaez expedition who made their way to Mexico.
* ↑ Besides the general historians, we have Cabeza de Vaca's own account of his career in Paraguay in his Comentarios, reprinted in Vedia, Historiadores Primitivos, vol. i, Ternaux translated this narrative into French for his Voyages, part vi.
* ↑ The Spanish text of this letter has not been seen since Ramusio used it in making the translation for his Viaggi, vol. iii, fol. 355, ed. 1556. There is no date to the letter as Ramusio gives it. Ternaux-Compans translated it from Ramusio for his Cibola volume (Voyages, vol. ix, p. 287). It is usually cited from Ternaux's title as the "Première lettre de Mendoza." I quote from the French text the portion of the letter which explains my narrative:". . . Andrès Dorantès, un do ceux qui firent partie de l'armée de Pamphilo Narvaez, vint près de moi. J'ous de fréquents entretiens avec lui; je pensai qu'il pouvait rendre un grand service à votre majesté; si je l'expédiais avec quarante ou cinquante chevaux et tous les objets nécessaires pour découvrir ce pays. Je dépensai beaucoup d'argent pour l'expédition, mais je ne sais pas comment il se fit que l'affaire n'ent pas de suite. De tous les préparatifs que j'avais faits, il ne me resta qu'un nègre qui est venu avec Dorantès, quelques esclaves que j'avais achetés, et des Indiens, naturels de ce pays, que j'avais fait rassembler."
* ↑ Two of these are extant—the Relacion of Cabeza de Vaca and Oviedo's version of an account signed by the three Spaniards and sent to the Real Audiencia at Santo Domingo, in his Historia General de las Indias, lib. xxxv, vol. iii, p. 582, ed. 1853.
* ↑ See Buckingham Smith's translation of Cabeza de Vaca's Narrative, p. 150.
* ↑ The effect of the stories told by Cabeza de Vaca, and later by Friar Marcos, is considered in a paper printed in the Proceedings of the American Historical Association at Washington, 1894, "Why Coronado went to New Mexico in 1540."
* ↑ The best sources for these proceedings is in Mota Padilla's Historia de la Nueva Galicia (ed. Icazbalceta, pp. 104-109). A more available account in English is in H. H. Bancroft's Mexico, vol. ii. p. 457.
* ↑ An official investigation into the administration of an official who is about to be relieved of his duties.
* ↑ The best account, in English, of the Casa de Contratacion is given by Professor Bernard Moses, of Berkeley, California, in the volume of papers read before the American Historical Association at its 1894 meeting.
* ↑ See Fragmentos de una Historia de la Nueva Galicia, by Father Tello (Icazbalceta, Documentos de Mexico, vol. ii, p. 369).
* ↑ Mendoza, in the "première lettre," gives a brief sketch of the efforts which Cortes had been making, and then adds: "Il ne put done jamais en faire la conquête; il semblait même que Dieu voulût miraculeusement l'en éloigner." Ternaux, Cibola volume, p. 287.
* ↑ On the maps it is usually designated as S.
* ↑ The details of this episode are given in the relations and petitions of Cortes. H. H. Bancroft tells the story in his North Mexican States, vol. i, p. 77. The Cortes map of 1536 is reproduced, from a tracing, in Winsor's Narrative and Critical History of America, vol. ii, p. 442.
* ↑ This is the story which Garcilaso de la Vega tells in his Commentales Reales, pt. ii, lib. il.
* ↑ Contributions to the History of the Southwest, pp 79-103.
* ↑ This region is identified by Bandelier in his Contributions, p. 104, note. The letter from which the details are obtained, written to accompany the report; of Friar Marcos when this was transmitted to the King, is in Ramusio, and also in Ternaux, Cibola volume, p. 285.
* ↑ This certification, with the report of Friar Marcos and other documents relating to him, is printed in the Pacheco y Cardenas Coleccion, vol. iii, pp. 325-351.
* ↑ The instructions given to Friar Marcos have been translated by Bandelier in his Contributions, p. 109. The best account of Friar Marcos and his explorations is given in that volume.
* ↑ Herrera, Historia General, dec, vi, lib. vii, cap.vii.
* ↑ Bandelier, in his Contributions, p. 122, says this was "about the middle of April," but his chronology at this point must be at fault.
* ↑ See F. W. Hodge, "Aboriginal Use of Adobes," The Archæologist, Columbus, Ohio, August, 1895.
* ↑ These are described in the Castañeda narrative.
* ↑ In lieu of turquoises the Pima and Maricopa today frequently wear small beaded rings pendent from the ears and septum.
* ↑ Bandelier, Contributions, pp. 154,155.
* ↑ There is an admirable and extended account, with many illustrations, of the Apache medicine men, by Captain John G. Bourke. in the ninth report of the Bureau of Ethnology.
* ↑ This is precisely the method pursued by the Zuñis today against any Mexicans who may be found in their vicinity during the performance of an outdoor ceremonial.
* ↑ This question has been fully discussed by F. W. Hodge. See "The First Discovered City of Cibola," American Anthropologist. Washington, April. 1895.
* ↑ Tomson's exceedingly interesting narrative of his experiences in Mexico is printed in Hakluyt, vol. iii, p. 447, ed. 1600.
* ↑ Compare the ground plan of Hawikuh, by Victor Mindeleff, in the eighth annual report of the Bureau of Ethnology, pl. xlvi, with the map of the city of Mexico (1550?), by Alonzo de Santa Cruz, pl. xliii of this paper.
* ↑ Diaz started November 17, 1539. The report of his trip is given in Mendoza's letter of April 17, 1540, in Pacheco y Cardenas, ii, p. 356, and translated herein.
* ↑ The Spanish text from which I have translated may be found on pages 144 and 148 of Zaragoza's edition of Suarez de Peralta's Tratado. This edition is of the greatest usefulness to every student of early Mexican history.
* ↑ The depositions as printed in the Pacheco y Cardenas Docs, de Indias, vol. xv., pp. 392-398, are as follows: Pedro Nuñez, testigo rescebido en la dicha razon, juró segun derecho, é dijo; . . . que estando en la ciudad de México, puedo haber tres meses [the evidence being taken November 12, 1539], poco mas ó menos, oyó decir este testigo publicamente, que habia renido nn fraile Francisco, que se dice Fray Marcos, que venia la tierra adentro, é que decia el dicho fraile que se habia descobierto una tierra muy rica é muy poblada; é que habia cuatrocientas leguas dende México allá; é que dice que han de ir allá por cerca del rio de Palmas; . . . Garcia Xavarro, . . . oyó decir publicamente, puede haber un mes ó mes y medio [and so all the remaining witnesses] que habia renido un fraile, nuevamente, de una tierra, nuevamente descobierta, que dicen qnes quinientas leguas de México, en la tierra de la Florida, que dicen ques hácia la parte del Norte de la dicha tierra; la cual diz, que es tierra rica de oro é plata é otros resgates, é grandea pueblos; que las casas son de piedra é terrados á la manera de México, é que tienen peso é medida, é gente de razon, é que no casan mas de una vez, é que visten albornocea, é que andan cabalgando en unos animales, que no sabe cómo se llaman, . . . . Francisco Serrano, . . . el fraile venia por tierra, por la via de Xalisco; é ques muy rica é muy poblada é grandea ciudades cercadas; é que los señores dellas, se nombran Reyes; é que las casas son sobradas, é ques gente de mucha razon; que la lengua es mexicana, . . . Pero Sanchez, tinturero . . . una tierra nueva muy rica é muy poblada de cindades é villas; . . . por la via de Xalisco . . . hácia en medio de la tierra . . . . Francisco de Leyva . . . en la Vera-Cruz, oyó decir que habia venido un fraile de una tierra nueva muy rica é muy poblada de ciudades villas, é ques á la banda del Sur, . . . Otrosi, dixo: que es verdad que no embargante que no toca en este puerto, dejaba de seguir su viaje; pero que entró en este puerto por necesidad que llevaba de agua é otros bastimentos é de ciertas personas que venian muy enfermos. Hernando de Sotomayor . . . questando en la Puebla de los Angeles . . . públicamente se decia . . . é que las casas son de piedras sobradadas, é las ciudades cercadas, é gente de razon; . . . é questa dicha tierra es ia parte donde vino Dorantes é Cabeza de Vaca, los cuales escaparon de la armada de Narvaez; é que sabe é vido este testigo, que fué mandado al maestre por mandado del Virey é con su mandamiento, que no tocase en parte ninguna, salvo que fuese derechamente á Españia, con la dicha nao, é quel secretario del Virey hizo un requirimiento al dicho maestre, viniendo por ia mar, que no tocase en este puerto ni en otra parte destas islas. . . . [This statement appears in each deposition.] Andrés Garcia, dixo: . . . questando en la ciudad de México, un Francisco de Billegas le dio cartas para dar en esta villa, para dar al Adelantado D. Hernando de Soto, é si no lo hallase, que las llevase á España é las diese al hacedor suyo; é queste testigo tiene un yerno barbero que afeitaba al fraile quo vino de la dicha tierra; é quel dicho su yerno, le dixo este testigo, qnestando afeitando al dicho fraile, le dixo como antes que llegasen á la dicha tierra estaba una sierra, é que pasando la dicha sierra estaba un rio, é que habia muchas poblazones de ciudades é villas, é que las ciudades son cercadas é guardadas á las puertas, é muy ricas; é que habia plateros; é que las mugeres traian sartas de oro é los hombres cintos de oro, é que habia albarnios é obejas é vacas é perdices é carnicerias é berreria, é peso é medida; é que un Bocanegra, dixo á este testigo que se quedare, que se habia descobierto un nuevo mundo. . . .
* ↑ The document, as printed in Doc. Inéd. Hist. España, vol. iv, pp. 209-217, is not dated. The date given in the text Is taken from the heading or title to the petition, which, if not the original, has at least the authority of Señor Navarrete, the editor of this Coleccion when the earlier volumes were printed. This memorial appears, from the contents, to have been one of the documents submitted in the litigation then going on between the rival claimants for the privilege of exploring the country discovered by Friar Marcos, although the document is not printed with the other papers in the case.
* ↑ Documentos Inéditos Hist. España, vol. iv, p. 211: Memorial que dió el Marques del Valle en Madrid á 25 de Junio de 1540. . . . "Al tiempo que yo vino de la dicha tierra el dicho Fray Marcos habló conmigo. . . é yo le di noticia de esta dicha tierra y descubrimiento de ella, porqae tenia determinacion de enviario en mis navios en proseguimiento y conquista de la dicha costa y tierra, purque parescia que se le entendia algo de cosas de navegacion: el cual dicho fraile lo comunicó con el dicho visorey, y con su licencia diz que fué por tierra en demanda de la misma costa y tierra que yo habia descubierto, y que era y es de mi conquista; y despues que volvió el dicho fraile ha publicado que diz que llegó á vista de la dicha tierra; lo cual yo niego haber él visto ni descubierto, antes lo que el dicho fraile reflere haber visto, lo ha dicho y dice por sola la relacion que yo le habia hecho de la noticia que tenia de los indios de la dicha tierra de Santa Cruz que yo truje, porque todo lo que el dicho fraile se dice que refiere, es lo mismo que los dichos indios á mí me dijeron; y en haberse en esto adelantado el dicbo Fray Marcos fingiendo y refiriendo lo que no sabe ni vió, no hizo cosa nuova, porque otras muchas veces lo ba hecbo y lo tiene por costumbre como es notorio en las provincias del Perú y Guatemala, y se dará de ello informacion bastante luego en esta corte, siendo necesario."
* ↑ The request occurs in the earliest letters from the viceroy, and in repeated in that of December 10, 1537. This privilege was withdrawn from all governors in the colonies by one of the New Laws of 1513. (Icazbalceta, Col. Hist. Mexico, ii, 2(M.) The ill success of Coronado's efforts did not weaken Mendoza'a desire to enlarge his territory, for he begs his agent in Spain, Juan de Aguilar, to secure for bin) a fresh grant of the privilege in a later letter. (Pacheco y Cardenas, Doc. de Indias, vol. iii, p. 506; B. Smith, Florida, p. 7.)
* ↑ Ulloa's Relation is translated from Ramusio in Hakluyt, vol. iii, p. 397, ed. 1600.
* ↑ Memorial que dió al Rey el Marques del Valle, en Madrid, 25 de Junio, 1540: Printed in Doc. Inéd. España, vol. iv, p. 209. Compare with this account that in H. H. Bancroft's Mexico, vol. ii, p. 425. Mr Bancroft is always a strong advocate of the cause of Cortes.
* ↑ Oviedo, Historia General, vol. iv, p. 19.
* ↑ The capitulacion or agreement with De Soto is printed in Pacheco y Cardenas, Doc. de Indias. vol. xv, pp. 351-363.
* ↑ These documents fill 108 pages in volume xv of the Pacheco y Cardenas Documentos de Indias. At least one other document presented in the case, the Capitulacion. . . que hizo Ayllon, is printed elsewhere in the same Coleccion. This, also, does not include the two long memorials which Cortes succeeded in presenting to the King in person.
* ↑ This much feared conjunction came very near to being realized. A comparison of the various plottings of the routes Be Soto and Coronado may have followed and of their respective itineraries shows that the two parties could not have been far apart in the present Oklahoma or Indian territory, or perhaps north of that region. This evidence is confirmed by the story of the Indian woman, related by Castañeda. Dr J. G. Shea, in Winsor's Narrative and Critical History, vol. ii, p. 292, states that Coronado heard of his countryman De Soto, and sent a letter to him. This is almost certainly a mistake, which probably originated in a misinterpretation of a statement made by Jaramillo.
* ↑ See his Carta in Doc. Inéd. España, vol. civ, p. 491.
* ↑ The Titulo, etc, dated 6 Julio, 1529, is in Pacheco y Cardenas, Coleccion de Documentos Inéditos de Indias, vol. iv. pp. 572-574.