# The Coronado expedition, 1540-1542/The expedition to New Mexico and the great plains

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The Expedition to New Mexico and the Great Plains
THE ORGANIZATION OF THE EXPEDITION
Two classes of colonists are essential to the security and the permanent prosperity of every newly opened country. In New Spain in the sixteenth century these two classes, sharply divided and almost antagonistic—the established settlers and the free soldiers of fortune—were both of considerable importance. Cortes, so soon as he had conquered the country, recognized the need of providing for its settlement by a stable population. In the petitions and memorials which he wrote in ​and 1540 he continually reiterates the declaration of the pains and losses sustained on account of his efforts to bring colonists from Spain to populate the New World. Whether he accomplished all that these memorials claim is doubtful, for there are comparatively few references to this class of immigrants during the years when Cortes was in a position to accomplish his designs. Mendoza declared that the increase of the European population in New Spain came largely after his own arrival there, in 1535, and this was probably true. The "good viceroy" unquestionably did more than anyone else to place the province on a permanent basis.
Mendoza supervised with great care the assignment of land to the newcomers, and provided tools and stock for those who had not the means of equipping their farms. As a royal decree forbade the granting of land to unmarried men, besides directing an increase of royal favor and additional grants proportionate to the increase of children, the viceroy frequently advanced the money which enabled men who were desirous of settling down to get married. When he came from Spain in 1535, he brought with him a number of eligible spinsters, and it is quite probable that, after these had found husbands, he maintained the supply of maids suitable to become the wives of those colonists who wished to experience the royal bounty and favor. Alvarado engaged in a similar undertaking when he came out to Guatemala in 1539, but with less success than we may safely hope rewarded the thoughtfulness of Mendoza. A royal order in 1538 had decreed that all who held encomiendas should marry within three years, if not already possessed of a wife, or else forfeit their estates to married men. Some of the bachelor landholders protested against the enforcement of this order in Guatemala, because eligible white women could not be found nearer than Mexico. To remove this objection, Alvarado brought twenty maidens from Spain. Soon after their arrival, a reception was held, at which they were given a chance to see their prospective husbands. During the evening, one of the girls declared to her companions that she never could marry one of these "old fellows, . . . who were cut up as if they had just escaped from the infernal regions, . . . for some of them are lame, some have only one hand, others have no ears or only one eye, and some of them have lost half their faces. The best of them have one or two scars across their foreheads." ​The story is that one of the "old fellows" overheard this outburst, reported it to his friends, and promptly went off and married the daughter of a powerful cacique.
Besides assisting his colonists to get wives, Mendoza did a great deal to foster the agricultural interests of the province. He continued the importation of cattle, which Cortes had begun, and also procured horses and sheep from Spain. He writes in one of his letters of the especial satisfaction that he felt because of the rapid increase of his merino sheep, in spite of the depredations of the natives and of wild animals. The chief concern of the officials of the audiencia had been the gold mines, which yielded a considerable revenue in certain districts; but Mendoza, without neglecting these, proved how large and reliable was the additional revenue which could be derived from other sources. The viceroy's success in developing the province can not be shown more clearly than by repeating the description of New Spain in 1555, written by Robert Tomson, an English merchant engaged in the Spanish trade. In the course of a business tour Tomson visited the City of Mexico. His commercial friends in the city entertained him most hospitably, and did their best to make his visit pleasant. He refused, however, to heed their warnings, and his indiscreet freedom of speech finally compelled the officials of the Inquisition to imprison him, thus adding considerably to the length of his residence in the city. After he returned home, he wrote a narrative of his tour, in which he says of New Spain:
The other class among the colonists of New Spain in the second quarter of the sixteenth century "floated like cork on the water" on those who had established their homes in the New World. The men ​who made it possible to live in security on the farms and ranches of the province had rendered many and indispensable services, and there was much that they might still do to enlarge its boundaries and make the security more certain. They were, nevertheless, a serious hindrance to the prosperity of the settlements. For the most part they were young men of all sorts and degrees. Among them were many sons of Spanish noblemen, like Mendoza the viceroy, whose brother had just succeeded his father as Marquis de Mondejar. Very much of the extension of the Spanish world by discovery and conquest was due to the sons of men of rank, who had, perhaps generally, begun to sow their wild oats in Spain and were sent across the Atlantic in order to keep them out of mischief at home, or to atone, it may be, for mischief already done. In action, these young caballeros were most efficient. By personal valor and ability, they held the positions of leadership everywhere, among men who followed whom and when they chose, and always chose the man who led them most successfully. When inactive, these same cavaliers were a most trying annoyance to any community in which they happened to be. Armed with royal letters and comprehensive introductions, they had to be entertained, at heavy charges. Masters of their own movements, they came as they liked, and very often did not go away. Lovers of excitement, they secured it regardless of other men's wives or property.
Compostela, on the Pacific coast, was announced as the place at which the force should assemble. The viceroy desired to have the army begin its march so soon as the roads were passable in the spring, and he wished also to relieve the Indians living in the districts between Mexico and the coast from as much as possible of the annoyance and loss which would be inevitable if the army started from Mexico and marched through this territory in a body. How much this forethought for the Indians was needed appears from Mendoza's reply to the accusations against him filed during the visita of 1547, which showed that all his care had not saved the Indians of Michoacan from needless injury at the hands of those who were on their way to join the gathering at Compostela. Incidentally, this arrangement also gave the capital city an earlier relief from its unwelcome guests.
Popular as was the expedition to the Seven Cities, there was a little opposition to the undertaking. When it became evident that a large force was about to leave the country, some of those who were to remain behind complained that all New Spain was being depopulated, and that no one would be left to defend the country in case of an Indian uprising. When Mendoza reached Compostela, by the middle of February, 1540, Coronado asked him to make an official investigation of these complaints. The formal request is dated February 21, and on the following day, Sunday, the viceroy held a grand review of the whole array, with everyone ready equipped for the march. As the men passed before the viceregal party the secretaries made an exact count and description of the force, but this document is not now known. Its loss is partly supplied by the sworn testimony of the officials who were best acquainted with the inhabitants of all parts of New Spain, ​recorded a few days after the departure of the expedition. They declare that in the whole array there were only two or three men who had ever been settled residents in the country; that these few were men who had failed to make a living as settlers, and that, in short, the whole force was a good riddance.
The men who assembled at Compostela to start for the Seven Cities numbered, Mendoza stated at the time of the visita in 1547, "about two hundred and fifty Spaniards on horseback, . . . and about three hundred Indians, a few more or less." Mota Padilla, who must have used documents of the very best authority, nearly all of which have since disappeared, gives the number of the force as "two hundred and sixty horsemen, . . seventy footmen, . . . and more than a thousand friendly Indians and Indian servants." Herrera, who used official documents, says that there were one hundred and fifty horsemen and two hundred footmen. Mendoza's statement of the number of Indians may be explained, if we suppose him to have referred only to the friendly Indians who went on the expedition as native allies. His statement is made in the course of a defense of his administration, when he was naturally desirous of giving as small a number as possible. Castañeda says that there were three hundred horsemen, and this number occurs, in other early narratives.
Mendoza spared neither pains nor expense to insure the success of the expedition. Arms, horses, and supplies were furnished in abundance; money was advanced from the royal chest to any who had debts to pay before they could depart, and provision was made for the support of those who were about to be left behind by fathers, brothers, or husbands. The equipment of the force was all that the viceroy could desire. Arms and military supplies had been among the things greatly needed in New Spain when Mendoza reported its condition in his first letters to the home government. In 1537 he repeated his request for these supplies with increased insistence. The subject is not again mentioned in his letters, and we may fairly suppose that he had received the weapons and munitions of war, fresh from the royal arsenals of Spain, with which he equipped the expedition on whose success he had staked so much. It was a splendid array as it passed in review before Mendoza and the officials who helped and watched him govern New Spain, on this Sunday in February, 1540. The young cavaliers curbed the picked horses from the large stock farms of the viceroy, each resplendent in long blankets flowing to the ground. Each rider held his lance erect, while his sword and other weapons hung in their proper places at his side. Some were arrayed in coats of mail, polished to shine like that of their general, whose gilded armor with its brilliant trappings was to bring him many hard blows a few months later. Others wore iron helmets or vizored headpieces of the tough bullhide for which the country ​has ever been famous. The footmen carried crossbows and harquebuses, while some of them were armed with sword and shield. Looking on at these white men with their weapons of European warfare was the crowd of native allies in their paint and holiday attire, armed with the club and the bow of an Indian warrior. When all these started off next morning, in duly ordered companies, with their banners flying, upward of a thousand servants and followers, black men and red men, went with them, leading the spare horses, driving the pack animals, bearing the extra baggage of their masters, or herding the large droves of "big and little cattle," of oxen and cows, sheep, and, maybe, swine, which had been collected by the viceroy to assure fresh food for the army on its march. There were more than a thousand horses in the train of the force, besides the mules, loaded with camp supplies and provisions, and carrying half a dozen pieces of light artillery—the pedreros, or swivel guns of the period.
After the review, the army assembled before the viceroy, who addressed to them an' exhortation befitting the occasion. Each man, whether captain or foot soldier, then swore obedience to his commander and officers, and promised to prove himself a loyal and faithful vassal to his Lord the King. During the preceding week the viceroy had divided the force into companies, and now he assigned to each its captain, as Castaneda relates, and announced the other officers of the army. Francisco Vazquez Coronado—de Coronado it is sometimes written—was captain general of the whole force. "Who he is, what he has already done, and his personal qualities and abilities, which may be made useful in the various affairs which arise in these parts of the Indies, I have already written to Your Majesty," writes Mendoza to the Emperor, in the letter of December 10, 1537. This previous letter is not known to exist, and there is very little to supply the place of its description of the character and antecedents of Vazquez Coronado. His home was in Salamanca, and he came to America in the retinue of Mendoza in 1535. His relations with his patron, the viceroy, previous to the return of the expedition from Cibola, appear always to have been most cordial and intimate. In 1537 Coronado married Beatrice de Estrada, a cousin by blood, if gossip was true, of the Emperor, Charles V. Her father, Alonso, had been royal treasurer of New Spain. From his mother-in-law Coronado received as a marriage gift a considerable estate, "the half of Tlapa," which was confirmed to him by a royal grant. Cortez complained that the income from this estate was worth more than 3,000 ducados, and that it had been unduly and inconsiderately alienated from the Crown. Coronado obtained also the estate of one Juan de Búrgos, apparently one of those who forfeited ​their land because they persisted in the unmarried state. This arrangement likewise received the royal approval. When, however, "the new laws and ordinances for the Indies" came out from Spain in 1544, after Coronado's return from the northern expedition, one of the sections expressly ordered an investigation into the extent and value of the estates held by Francisco Vazquez de Coronado, since it had been reported to the King that the number of Indians held to service on these estates was very excessive. Mendoza had to answer the same charge at his visita in 1547.
Mendoza sent Coronado, in 1537, to the mines at Amatepeque, where the negroes had revolted and "elected a king," and where they threatened to cause considerable trouble. The revolt was quelled, after some fighting, with the help of the Indians of the district. A couple of dozen of the rebels were hung and quartered at the mines or in the City of Mexico.
Coronado probably spent the winter of 1538-39 in New Galicia, arranging the administration and other affairs of his government. He entertained Friar Marcos, when the latter passed through his province in the spring of 1539, and accompanied the friar as far as Culiacan, the northernmost of the Spanish settlements. Here he provided the friar with Indians, provisions, and other things necessary for the journey to the Seven Cities. Later in the spring, the governor returned to Guadalajara, and devoted considerable attention to the improvement and extension of this city, so that it was able to claim and obtain from the King a coat of arms and the title of "city" during the following summer. He was again here on January 9, 1540, when he promulgated the royal order, dated December 20, 1538, which decreed that inasmuch as it was reported that the cities in the Indies were not built with sufficient permanency, the houses being of wood and thatched with straw, so that fires and conflagrations were of frequent occurrence, therefore no settler should thereafter build a house of any material except stone, brick, or unbaked brick, and the houses should be built after the fashion of those in Spain, so that they might be permanent, and an adornment to the cities. Between these dates it is very likely that Coronado may have made some attempt to explore the mountainous regions north of the province, as Castañeda says, although his evidence is by no means conclusive.
About midsummer of 1539, Friar Marcos came back from Cibola. Coronado met him as he passed through New Galicia, and together they returned to Mexico to tell the viceroy what the friar had seen and heard. Coronado remained at the capital during the autumn and early ​winter, taking an active part in all the preparations for the expedition which he was to command. After the final review in Compostela, he was placed in command of the army, with the title of captain-general.
THE DEPARTURE OF THE EXPEDITION
Monday, February 23, 1540, the army which was to conquer the Seven Cities of Cibola started on its northward march from Compostela. For 80 leagues the march was along the "much-used roads" which followed the coast up to Culiacan.
Everyone was eager to reach the wonderful regions which were to be their destination, but it was impossible to make rapid progress. The cattle could not be hurried, while the baggage animals and the carriers were so heavily laden with equipments and provisions that it was necessary to allow them to take their own time. Several days were lost at the Centizpac river, across which the cattle had to be ​transported one at a time. At Chiametla theie was another delay. Here the army camped in the remains of a village which Nuño de Guzman had established. The settlers had been driven away by a pestilence caught from the Indians, and by the fierce onslaught of the natives who came down upon them from the surrounding mountains. The food supply of Coronado's force was beginning to fail, and as the tribes hereabout were still in rebellion, it became necessary to send a force into the mountains to obtain provisions. The army master, Samaniego, who had been warden of one of the royal fortresses, commanded the foraging party. The men found themselves buried in the thick underbrush as soon as they passed beyond the limits of the clearing. One of the soldiers inadvertently, but none the less in disregard of strict orders, became separated from the main party, and the Indians, who were nowhere to be seen, at once attacked him. In reply to his cries, the watchful commander hastened to his assistance. The Indians who had tried to seize him suddenly disappeared. When everything seemed to be safe, Samaniego raised his visor, and as he did so an arrow from among the bushes pierced his eye, passing through the skull. The death of Samaniego was a severe loss to the expedition. Brave and skillful, he was beloved by all who were with him or under him. He was buried in the little chapel of the deserted village. The army postponed its departure long enough to capture several natives of the district, whose bodies were left hanging on the trees in order to counteract the bad augury which followed from the loss of the first life.
A much more serious presage was the arrival at Chiametla, as the army was preparing to leave, of Melchior Diaz and Juan de Saldivar, or Zaldivar, returning from their attempt to verify the stories told by Friar Marcos. Melchior Diaz went to New Galicia with Nuño de Guzman, and when Cabeza de Vaca appeared in that province, in May 1536, Diaz was in command of the outpost of Culiacan. He was still at Culiacan, in the autumn of 1539, when Mendoza directed him to take a mounted force and go into the country toward the north "to see if the account which Friar Marcos brought back agreed with what he could observe." He left Culiacan November 17, with fifteen horsemen, and traveled as far north as the wilderness beyond which Cibola was situated, following much the same route as the friar had taken, and questioning the Indians with great care. Many of the statements made by Friar Marcos were verified, and some new facts were obtained, but nowhere could he find any foundation for the tales of a wealthy and attractive country, except in the descriptions given by the Indians. The cold weather had begun to trouble his men seriously before he reached the limit of his explorations. He pushed on as far as Chichilticalli, however, but here the snows and fierce winds from across the ​wilderness forced him to turn back. At Chiametla he encountered Coronado's force. He joined tie army, sending his lieutenant, Saldivar, with three other horsemen, to carry his report to the viceroy. This was delivered to Mendoza on March 20, and is embodied in the letter to the King, dated April 17, 1540.
Coronado did not allow Diaz to announce the results of his reconnoissance to the soldiers, but the rumor quickly spread that the visions inspired by Friar Marcos had not been substantiated. Fortunately, the friar was himself in the camp. Although he was now the father provincial of the Franciscan order in New Spain, he had determined to accompany the expedition, in order to carry the gospel to the savages whose salvation had been made possible by his heroic journey of the preceding spring. The mutterings of suspicion and discontent among the men grew rapidly louder. Friar Marcos felt obliged to exhort them in a special sermon to keep up a good courage, and by his eloquence he succeeded in persuading them that all their labors would soon be well repaid.
From Chiametla the army resumed its march, procuring provisions from the Indians along the way. Mendoza stated, in 1547, that he took every precaution to prevent any Injury or injustice being done to the Indians at the time of Coronado's departure, and that he stationed officials, especially appointed for this purpose, at convenient points on the road to Culiacan, who were ordered to procure the necessary provisions for the expedition. There are no means of telling how well this plan was carried into execution.
A day or two before Easter, March 28, 1540, the army approached Culiacan. The journey had occupied a little over a month, but when Coronado, from his lodging in the Cibola village of Granada, three mouths later, recalled the slow and tedious marches, the continual waiting for the lazy cattle and the heavily loaded baggage trains, and the repeated vexatious delays, we can hardly wonder that it seemed to him to have been a period of fourscore days' journey.
The soldiers, and especially the gentlemen among them, had started from Compostela with an abundant supply of luxurious furnishings and extra equipment. Many of them were receiving their first rough lessons in the art of campaigning, and the experiences along the way before reaching Culiacan had already changed many of their notions of comfort and ease. When the preparations for leaving Culiacan began, the citizens of the town received from their guests much of the clothing and other surplus baggage, which was left behind in order that the expedition might advance more rapidly, or that the animals might be loaded with provisions. Aside from what was given to the people of the place, much of the heavier camp equipage, with some of the superfluous property of the soldiers, was put on board a ship, the San Gabriel, which was waiting in the harbor of Culiacan. An additional supply of corn and other provisions also was furnished for the vessel by the generous citizens.
THE EXPEDITION BY SEA UNDER ALARCON
A sea expedition, to cooperate with the land force, was a part of Mendoza's original plan. After the viceroy left Coronado, and probably while he was at Colima, on his way down the coast from Compostela, he completed the arrangements by appointing Hernando de Alarcon, his chamberlain according to Bernal Diaz, to command a fleet of two vessels. Alarcon was instructed to sail northward, following the coast as closely as possible. He was to keep near the army, and communicate with it at every opportunity, transporting the heavy baggage and holding himself ready at all times to render any assistance which Coronado might desire. Alarcon sailed May 9, 1540, probably from Acapulco. ​This port had been the seat of the shipbuilding operations of Cortes on the Pacific coast, and it is very probable that Alarcon's two ships were the same as those which the marquis claimed to have equipped for a projected expedition. Alarcon sailed north to Santiago, where he was obliged to stop, in order to refit his vessels and to replace some artillery and stores which had been thrown overboard from his companion ship during a storm. Thence he sailed to Aguaiauale, as Ramusio has it, the port of San Miguel de Culiacan. The army had already departed, and so Alarcon, after replenishing his store of provisions, added the San Gabriel to his fleet and continued his voyage. He followed the shore closely and explored many harbors "which the ships of the marquis had failed to observe," as he notes, but he nowhere succeeded in obtaining any news of the army of Coronado.
THE JOURNEY FROM CULIACAN TO CIBOLA
Melchior Diaz had met with so many difficulties in traveling through the country which the army was about to enter, on its march toward the Seven Cities, and the supply of food to be found there was everywhere so small, that Coronado decided to divide his force for this portion of the journey. He selected seventy-five or eighty horsemen, including his personal friends, and twenty-five or thirty foot soldiers. With these picked men, equipped for rapid marching, he hastened forward, clearing the way for the main body of the army, which was to follow more slowly, starting a fortnight after his own departure. With the footmen in the advance party were the four friars of the expedition, whose zealous eagerness to reach the unconverted natives of the Seven Cities was so great that they were willing to leave the main portion of the army without a spiritual guide. Fortunately for these followers, a broken leg compelled one of the brethren to remain behind. Coronado attempted to take some sheep with him, but these soon proved to be so great a hindrance that they were left at the river Yaquimi, in charge of four horsemen, who conducted them at a more moderate pace.
Leaving Culiacan on April 22, Coronado followed the coast, "bearing off to the left," as Mota Padilla says, by an extremely rough way, to the river Cinaloa. The configuration of the country made it necessary to follow up the valley of this stream until he could find a passage across the mountains to the course of the Yaquimi. He traveled alongside this stream for some distance, and then crossed to Sonora river. ​The Sonora was followed nearly to its source before a pass was discovered. On the northern side of the mountains he found a stream—the Nexpa, he calls it—which may have been either the Santa Cruz or the San Pedro of modern maps. The party followed down this river valley until they reached the edge of the wilderness, where, as Friar Marcos had described it to them, they found Chichilticalli.
Here the party camped for two days, which was as long as the general dared to delay, in order to rest the horses, who had begun to give out sometime before as a result of overloading, rough roads, and poor feed. The stock of provisions brought from Culiacan was already growing dangerously small, although the food supply had been eked out by the large cones or nuts of the pines of this country, which the soldiers found to be very good eating. The Indians who came to see him, told Coronado that the sea was ten days distant, and he expresses surprise, which Mr Bandelier has reëchoed, that Friar Marcos could have gone within sight of the sea from this part of the country.
Coronado entered the wilderness, the White Mountain Apache country of Arizona, on Saint John's eve, and in the quaint language of Hakluyt's translation of the general's letter, "to refresh our former travailes, the first dayes we founde no grasse, but worser way of mountaines and badde passages." Coronado, following very nearly the line of the present road from Fort Apache to Gila river, proceeded until he came within sight of the first of the Seven Cities. The first few days of the march were very trying. The discouragement of the men increased with the difficulties of the way. The horses were tired, and the slow progress became slower, as horses and Indian carriers fell down and died. The corn was almost gone, and as a result of eating the fruits and herbs which they found along the way, a Spaniard and some of the servants were poisoned so badly that they died. The skull and horns of a great mountain goat, which were lying on the ground, filled the Europeans with wonder, but this was hardly a sign to inspire them with hopes of abundant food and gold. There were 30 leagues of this travailing before the party reached the borders of the inhabited country, where they found "fresh grass and many nutte and mulberrie trees."
The day following that on which they left the wilderness, the advance guard was met, in a peaceable manner, by four Indians. The Spaniards treated them most kindly, gave them beads and clothing, and "willed ​them to return unto their city and bid them stay quiet in their houses fearing nothing." The general assured them that they need have no anxiety, because the newcomers had been sent by His Spanish Majesty, "to defend and ayde them."
THE CAPTURE OF THE SEVEN CITIES
The provisions brought from Culiacan or collected along the way were now exhausted, and as a sudden attack by the Indians, during the last night before their arrival at the cities, had assured the Spaniards of a hostile reception, it was necessary to proceed rapidly. The inhabitants of the first city had assembled in a great crowd, at some distance in front of the place, awaiting the approach of the strangers. While the army advanced, Garcia Lopez de Cardenas, who had been appointed to Samaniego's position as field-master, and Hernando Vermizzo, apparently one of the "good fellows" whose name Castañeda forgot, rode forward and summoned the Indians to surrender, in approved Castilian fashion, as His Majesty commanded always to be done. The natives had drawn some lines on the ground, doubtless similar to those which they still mark with sacred meal in their ceremonial dramatizations, and across these they refused to let the Spaniards pass, answering the summons with a shower of arrows. The soldiers begged for the command to attack, but Coronado restrained them as long as he could. When the influence of the friars was added to the pleas of the men—perhaps without waiting for the command or permission—the whole company uttered the Santiago, the sacred war cry of Saint James, against the infidels, and rushed upon the crowd of Indians, who turned and fled. Coronado quickly recalled his men from the pursuit, and ordered them to prepare for an assault on the city. The force was divided into attacking parties, which immediately advanced against the walls from all sides. The crossbowmen and harquebusiers, who were expected to drive the enemy back from the tops of the walls, were unable to accomplish anything, on account of their physical weakness and of accidents to their weapons. The natives showered arrows against the advancing foes, and as the Spaniards approached the walls, stones of all sizes were thrown upon them with skillful aim and practiced strength. The general, in his glittering armor, was the especial target of the defenders, and twice he was knocked to the ground by heavy rocks. His good headpiece and the devotion of his companions saved him from serious injury, although his bruises confined him to the camp for several days. The courage and military skill of the white men, weak and tired as they were, proved too much for the Indians, who deserted their homes after a fierce, but not protracted, resistance. Most of the Spaniards had received many hard knocks, and Aganiez Suarez—possibly another of the gentlemen forgotten by Castañeda—was severely wounded by arrows, as were also three foot soldiers.
The mystery of the Seven Cities was revealed at last. The Spanish conquerors had reached their goal. July 7, 1540, white men for the first time entered one of the communal villages of stone and mud, inhabited by the Zuñi Indians of New Mexico. Granada was the name which the Spaniards gave to the first village—the Indian Hawikuh—in honor of the viceroy to whose birthplace they say it bore a fancied resemblance. Here they found, besides plenty of corn, beans and fowls, better than those of New Spain, and salt, "the best and whitest I have seen in all my life," writes one of those who had helped to win the town. But even the abundance of food could not wholly satisfy the men whose toilsome march of more than four months had been lightened by dreams of a golden haven. Friar Marcos was there to see the realization of the visions which the zealous sermons of his brethren and the prolific ardor of rumor and of common talk had raised from his truthful report. One does not wonder that he eagerly accepted the earliest opportunity of returning to New Spain, to escape from the not merely muttered complaints and upbraidings, in expressing which the general was chief.
THE EXPLORATION OF THE COUNTRY
THE SPANIARDS AT ZUÑI
Some of the inhabitants of Hawikuh-Granada returned to the village, bringing gifts, while Coronado was recovering from his wounds. The general faithfully exhorted them to become Christians and to submit themselves to the sovereign over-lordship of His Majesty the Spanish ​King. The interview failed to reassure the natives, for they packed all their provisions and property on the following day, and with their wives and children abandoned the villages in the valley and withdrew to their stronghold, the secure fastness on top of Taaiyalone or Thunder mountain.
As soon as he was able, Coronado visited the other villages of CibolaZuñi, observing the country carefully. He reassured the few Indians whom he found still living in the valley, and after some hesitation on their part succeeded in persuading the chiefs to come down from the mesa and talk with him. He urged them to return to their homes below, but without success. He was more fortunate in obtaining information regarding the surrounding country, which was of much use to him in directing further exploration. Then as now the rule held good that the Indians are much more likely to tell the truth when giving information about their neighbors than about themselves.
THE DISCOVERY OF TUSAYAN AND THE GRAND CANYON
A group of seven villages, similar to those at Cibola, was reported to be situated toward the west, "the chief of the towns whereof they have knowledge." Tucano was the name given to these, according to Eamusio's version of Coronado's letter, and it is not difficult to see in this name that of Tusayan, the Hopi or Moki settlements in northeastern Arizona.
As soon as everything was quiet in the Cibola country, about the middle of July, Don Pedro de Tovar was ordered to take a few horsemen and his company of footmen and visit this district. Don Pedro spent several days in the Tusayan villages, and after he had convinced the people of his peaceable designs, questioned them regarding the country farther west. Returning to the camp at Cibola within the thirty days to which his commission was limited, Tovar reported that the country contained nothing to attract the Spaniards. The houses, however, were better than those at Cibola. But he had heard stories of a mighty river and of giant peoples living toward the west, and so Don Garcia Lopez de Cardenas was instructed to go and verify these reports. Cardenas started, perhaps on August 25. He had authority for eighty days, and within this term he succeeded in reaching the Grand canyon of Colorado river, which baffled his most agile companions in their efforts to descend to the water or to discover some means of crossing to the opposite side. He returned with only the story of this hopeless barrier to exploration westward.
THE RIO GRANDE AND THE GREAT PLAINS
The first expedition toward the east was sent out August 29 in charge of Don Hernando de Alvarado. Passing the rock of Acuco or Acoma—always a source of admiration—Alvarado reached the village and river of Tiguex—the Rio Grande—on September 7. Some time was spent in ​visiting the villages situated along the stream. The headquarters of the party were at Tiguex, at or near the site of the present town of Bernalillo, and here a list was drawn up and sent to the general giving the names of eighty villages of which he had learned from the natives of this place. At the same time Alvarado reported that these villages were the best that had yet been found, and advised that the winter quarters for the whole force should be established in this district. He then proceeded to Cicuye or Pecos, the most eastern of the walled villages, and from there crossed the mountains to the buffalo plains. Finding a stream which flowed toward the southeast—the Canadian river, perhaps—he followed its course for a hundred leagues or more. Many of the "humpback oxen" were seen, of which some of the men may have remembered Cabeza de Vaca's description.
On his return, Alvarado found the army-master, Garcia Lopez de Cardenas, at Tiguex, arranging winter quarters sufficient to accommodate the whole force in this region. Coronado, who had made a trip to examine the villages farther south, along the Rio Grande, soon joined his lieutenants, leaving only a small force at Cibola to maintain the post. The whole of the advance party was now in Tiguex, and orders had been left at Cibola for the main body to proceed to the eastern settlements so soon as they should arrive from Culiacan and Corazones.
THE MARCH OF THE ARMY FROM CULIACAN TO TIGUEX
The main portion of the army remained at Culiacan, under the command of Don Tristan de Arellano, when the general started for Cibola with his small party of companions. The soldiers completed the work of loading the San Gabriel with their surplus equipment and with provisions, and busied themselves about the town for a fortnight after the departure of their general. Some time between the first and middle of May, the army started to follow the route of the advance party. The whole force marched ou foot, carrying their lances and other weapons, in order that the horses and other beasts, numbering more than six hundred, might all be loaded with provisions. It had taken Coronado and his party of horsemen, eager to push on toward their destination, more than a month to make the journey to Corazones or Hearts valley. We can only guess how much longer it took the slowly marching army to cover this first half of the distance to Cibola. The orders which the general had left with Arellano were that he should ​take the army to this valley, where a good store of provisions had been found by Melchior Diaz, and there wait for further instructions. Coronado promised to send for his soldiers as soon as he was sure that there was a country of the Seven Cities for them to conquer and settle.
In the valley of Corazones, which had been given its name by Cabeza de Vaca because the natives at this place offered him the hearts of animals for food, Arellano kept the soldiers busy by building a town on Suya river, naming it San Hieronimo de los Corazones—Saint Jerome of the Hearts. A small force was sent down the river to the seacoast, under the command of Don Rodrigo Maldonado, in the hope of communicating with the ships of Alarcon. Maldonado found neither signs nor news of the fleet, but he discovered a tribe of Indian "giants," one of whom accompanied the party back to the camp, where the soldiers were filled with amazement at his size and strength.
Thus the time passed until early in September, when Melchior Diaz and Juan Gallego brought the expected orders from the general. Gallego, who carried the letter which Coronado had written from Granada-Hawikuh on August 3, with the map and the exhibits of the country which it mentions, continued on to Mexico. He was accompanied by Friar Marcos. Diaz had been directed to stay in the new town of San Hieronimo, to maintain this post and to open communication with the seacoast. He selected seventy or eighty men—those least fitted for the hardships and struggles of exploration and conquest—who remained to settle the new town and to make an expedition toward the coast. The remainder of the army prepared to rejoin their general at Cibola, and by the middle of September the start was made.
After a long, rough march, in which little occurred to break the daily monotony, the soldiers reached the pueblo settlements. The bad weather had already begun, but the men were eager to continue their journey in spite of the snow and the fierce, cold winds. After a short rest, the force proceeded to Tiguex, where comfortable quarters were awaiting them, and in these they quickly settled for the winter.
THE WINTER OF 1540-1541 ALONG THE RIO GRANDE
THE INDIAN REVOLT
The first winter spent by white men in the pueblos of New Mexico was a severe one. Fortunately for the strangers, however, they were comfortably domiciled in the best houses of the country, in which the owners had left a plentiful supply of food, and this was supplemented by the livestock brought from New Spain.
The Spaniards have told us only one side of the story of what was happening along the Rio Grande in the fall of 1540. The other side will probably never be heard, for it disappeared with the traditions of the Indian villagers. Without pretending to supply the loss, it is at least possible to suggest that the preparations by which the army-master procured the excellent accommodations for the force must have appeared very differently to the people in whose homes Cardenas housed the soldiers, and to those who passed the winter in these snug quarters. Castañeda preserved one or two interesting details which are as significant as is the striking fact that the peaceful natives who entertained Alvarado most freely in September were the leaders of the rebellion three months later.
As soon as Coronado's men had completed the reduction of the refractory natives, and the whole country had been overawed by the terrible punishment, the general undertook to reestablish peaceful relations and confident intercourse between his camp and the surrounding villages. The Indians seem to have been ready to meet him almost half-way, although it is hardly surprising to find traces of an underlying suspicion, and a readiness for treacherous retaliation.
THE STORIES ABOUT QUIVIRA
While this reconciliation was being effected, Coronado heard from one of the plains Indians, held as a slave in the village of Cicuye ​or Pecos, the stories about Quivira, which were to add so much to the geographic extent of the expedition. When the Spaniards were about to kill this Indian—"The Turk," they called him—he told them that his masters, the people of Cicuye, had induced him to lead the strangers away to the pathless plains, where water was scarce and corn was unknown, to perish there, or, if ever they should succeed in finding the way back to the village settlements, tired and weak, to fall an easy prey to their enemies.
This plan was shrewdly conceived, and it very nearly succeeded. There is little reason why we should doubt the truth of the confession, made when the Indian could scarcely have hoped to save his life, and it affords an easy explanation of the way in which the exaggerated stories of Quivira originated and expanded. The Turk may have accompanied Alvarado on the first visit to the great plains, and he doubtless told the white men about his distant home and the roving life on the prairies. It was later, when the Spaniards began to question him about nations and rulers, gold and treasures, that he received, perhaps from the Spaniards themselves, the hints which led him to tell them what they were rejoiced to hear, and to develop the fanciful pictures which appealed so forcibly to all the desires of his hearers. The Turk, we can not doubt, told the Spaniards many things which were not true. But in trying to trace these early dealings of Europeans with the American aborigines, we must never forget how much may be explained by the possibilities of misinterpretation on the part of the white men, who so often heard of what they wished to find, and who learned, very gradually and in the end imperfectly, to understand only a few of the native languages and dialects. And besides this, the record of their observations, on which the students of today have to depend, was made in a language which knew nothing of the things which it was trying to describe. Much of what the Turk said was very likely true the first time he said it, although the memories of home were heightened, no doubt, by absence and distance. Moreover, Castañeda, who is the chief source for the stories of gold and lordly kings which are said to have been told by the Turk, in all probability did not know anything more than the reports of what the Turk was telling to the superior officers, which were passed about among the common foot soldiers. The present narrative has already shown the wonderful power of gossip, and when it is gossip recorded twenty years afterward, we may properly be cautious in believing it.
Coronado wrote to the King from Tiguex, on April 20, 1541, as he says in his next letter, that of October 20. The April letter, written just before the start for Quivira, must have contained a full and official account of all that had been learned in regard to the country toward ​the east, as well as more reliable details than we now possess, of what had happened during the preceding fall and winter. But this April letter, which was an acknowledgment and answer to one from Charles V, dated in Madrid, June 11, 1540, has not been found by modern, students. When the reply was dispatched, the messenger—probably Juan Gallego, who had perhaps brought the Emperor's letter from Mexico—was accompanied by Pedro de Tovar, who was going back to Corazones valley for reinforcements. Many mishaps had befallen the town of San Hieronimo during the year, and when the messengers arrived there they found it half deserted. Leaving Don Pedro here, Gallego hastened to Mexico, where he raised a small body of recruits. He was leading these men, whose number had been increased by some stragglers and deserters from the original force whom he picked np at Culiacan, toward Cibola and Quivira, when he met the expedition returning to New Spain. It was during this, probably his fifth trip over the road from Mexico to our New Mexico, that he performed the deeds of valor which Castañeda so enthusiastically recounts at the very end of his book.
THE JOURNEY ACROSS THE BUFFALO PLAINS
April 23, 1541, Coronado left the Tiguex country and marched toward the northeast, to the plains where lay the rich land of Quivira. Every member of the army accompanied the general, for no one was willing to be left behind when such glorious prospects of fame and fortune lay before them. A few of the officers suggested the wisdom of verifying these Indian tales in some measure before setting the whole force in motion and abandoning their only sure base of supplies. It seems as if there must have been other reasons influencing Coronado beyond those revealed in Casteñada's narrative; but, if so, we do not know what they were. The fear lest he might fail to accomplish any of the things which had been hoped for, the absence of results on which to base a justification for all the expense and labor, the thought of what would await him if he should return empty handed, are perhaps enough to account for the determination to risk everything and to allow no possible lack of zeal or of strength to interfere with the realization of the hopes inspired by the stories of Quivira.
Guided by the Turk, the army proceeded to Cicuye, and in nine days more they reached the buffalo plains. Here began the long march which was to be without any guiding landmarks. Just where, or how, or how far the Spaniards went, I can not pretend to say. After a mouth and more of marching—very likely just thirty-five days—their patience became exhausted. A second native of the plains, who accompanied the Spaniards from the pueblo country, had declared from the first that the Turk was lying, but this had not made them trust the latter any less. When, however, the Indians whom they found living among the buffalo herds began to contradict the stories of their guide, suspicion was aroused. The Turk, after much persuasive cross-questioning. ​was at last induced to confess that he had lied. Quivira, he still insisted, existed, though it was not as he had described it. From the natives of the plains they learned that there were no settlements toward the east, the direction in which they had been traveling, but that toward the north, another good month's journey distant, there were permanent settlements. The corn which the soldiers had brought from Tiguex was almost gone, while the horses were tired and weak from the constant marching and buffalo chasing, with only grass for food. It was clearly impossible for the whole force to attempt this further journey, with the uncertain prospect of finding native tribes like those they had already seen as the only incentive. The general held a council of his officers and friends, and decided to select 30 of the best equipped horsemen, who should go with him and attempt to verify the new information.
After Coronado had chosen his companions, the rest of the force was sent back to Tiguex, as Castaneda relates. The Indians whom they met on the plains furnished guides, who led the soldiers to the Pueblo settlements by a more direct route than that which the Turk had taken. But the marches were short and slow, so that it was the middle of July before they were again encamped alongside the Rio Grande. So far as is known, nothing of interest happened while they were waiting there for the return of the general.
Coronado and his companion horsemen followed the compass needle for forty-two days after leaving the main force, or, as he writes, "after traveling across these deserts for seventy-seven days in all," they reached the country of Quivira. Here he found some people who lived in permanent settlements and raised a little corn, but whose sustenance came mainly from the buffalo herds, which they hunted at regular seasons, instead of continuously as the plains Indians encountered previously had done.
Students of the Coronado expedition have very generally accepted the location of Quivira proposed by General Simpson, who put the northern point reached by Coronado somewhere in the eastern half of the border country of Kansas and Nebraska. If we take into account the expeditions which visited the outer limits of the Quivira settlements, this is not inconsistent with Bandelier's location of the main seat of these Indians "in northeastern Kansas, beyond the Arkansas river, and more than 100 miles northeast of Great Bend."
It is impossible to ignore the question of the route taken by Coronado across the great plains, although the details chiefly concern local historians. The Spanish travelers spent the summer of 1541 on the prairies west of the Mississippi and south of the Missouri. They left descriptions of these plains, and of the people and animals inhabiting them, which are of as great interest and value as any which have since been written. Fortunately it is not of especial importance for us to know the exact section of the prairies to which various parts of the descriptions refer.
From Cicuye, the Pecos pueblo, Coronado marched northeast until he crossed Canadian river, probably a little to the east of the present river and settlement of Mora. This was about the 1st of May, 1541. From this point General Simpson, whose intimate knowledge of the surface of the country thirty-five years ago makes his map of the route across the plains most valuable, carried the line of march nearly north, to a point halfway between Canadian and Arkansas rivers. Then it turned east, or a trifle north of east, until it reached one of the tributaries of the Arkansas, about 50 miles or so west of Wichita, Kansas. The army returned by a direct route to Cicuye or Pecos river, striking that stream nearly east of Bernalillo-Tiguex, while Coronado proceeded due north to Quivira on the Kansas-Nebraska boundary, Mr Bandelier has traced a route for the march across the plains which corresponds with the statements of the contemporary narratives somewhat more closely than does that of General Simpson. Crossing ​Canadian river by a bridge, just south of where Mora river enters it, the Spaniards, according to Bandolier, marched toward the northeast for ten days, until they met the first of the plains Indians, the Querecho or Toukawa. Thence they turned almost directly toward the rising sun. Bandelier thinks that they very soon found out that the guides had lost their reckoning, which presumably means that it became evident that there was some difference of opinion among the Indians. After marching eastward for thirty-five days or so, the Spaniards halted on the banks of a stream which flowed in the bottom of a broad and deep ravine. Here it was computed that they had already traveled 250 leagues—650 miles—from Tiguex. They had crossed no other large river since leaving the bridge over the Canadian, and as the route had been south of east, as is distinctly stated by one member of the force, they had probably reached the Canadian again. There is a reference to crossing what may have been the North Fork of the Canadian, in which case the army would now be on the north bank of the main river, below the junction of the two forks, in the eastern part of Indian Territory. Here they divided. The Teya guides conducted the main force directly back to the Rio Grande settlements. Coronado went due north, and a month later he reached a larger river. He crossed to the north bank of this stream, and then followed its course for several days, the direction being northeast. This river, manifestly, must be the Arkansas, which makes a sharp turn toward the northeast at the Great Bend, east of Fort Dodge, flowing in that direction for 75 miles. Jaramillo states that they followed the current of the river. As he approached the settled country, Coronado turned toward the north and found Quivira, in northeastern Kansas, not far south of the Nebraska boundary.
The two texts of the Relacion del Suceso differ on a vital point; but in spite of this fact, I am inclined to accept the evidence of this anonymous document as the most reliable testimony concerning the direction of the army's march. According to this, the Spaniards traveled ​due east across the plains for 100 leagues—265 miles—and then 50 leagues either south or southeast. The latter is the reading I should prefer to adopt, because it accommodates the other details somewhat better. This took them to the point of separation, which can hardly have been south of Red river, and was much more likely somewhere along the North Fork of the Canadian, not far above its junction with the main stream. From this point the army returned due west to Pecos river, while Coronado rode north "by the needle.'" From these premises, which are broad enough to be safe, I should be inclined to doubt if Coronado went much beyond the south branch of Kansas river, if he even reached that stream. Coronado probably spent more days on his march than General Simpson allowed for, but I do not think that he traveled nearly so far as General Simpson supposed. Coronado also returned to Cicuye by a direct route, which was about two-thirds as long as that of the outward march. The distances given for various portions of the journey have a real value, because each day's march was paced off by a soldier detailed for the purpose, who carefully recorded the distance covered.
THE WINTER OF 1541-1542
By October 20, 1541, Coronado was back in Tiguex, writing his report to the King, in which he expressed his anxiety lest the failure to discover anything of immediate material profit might react unfavorably on his own prospects. Letters and dispatches from Mexico and Spain were awaiting him at Tiguex. One of these informed Don Garcia Lopez de Cardenas of the death of his brother, by which he became heir to the family estates. Cardenas had broken his arm on the plains, and this injury was still troubling him when he received permission to return to New Spain. He was accompanied by the messengers carrying letters to the viceroy and by ten or twelve other invalids, "not one of whom could have done any fighting." The party had no trouble, however, until they reached Suya, in Corazones valley, the settlement which had taken the place of San Hieronimo. Pedro de Tovar had reduced the already feeble garrison at the latter post by half, when he took away the reinforcements six months before. The town had been much weakened by desertions, as well as by the loss of its commander, the invaluable Melchior Diaz, before this. The Indians quickly discerned the condition of the town, and its defenders were unable to maintain friendly relations with the surrounding tribes. When Cardenas reached the place, he found every thing burned to the ground, and the bodies of Spaniards, Indians, and horses lying about. Indeed, he seems barely to have saved the invalids accompanying him from being added to the number of the massacred. The party succeeded in making its way to Cibola in safety, and from there they returned to Tiguex, where they found the general seriously ill. By this time the winter was ​fairly begun, but the season, fortunately, was much less severe than the preceding one.
Two parties formed in the Spanish camp at Tiguex during the winter of 1541-42. The men who had seen Quivira can hardly have brought back from there much hope of finding gold or other treasure by further explorations in that country. But there were many who had not been there, who were unwilling to give up the ideas which had been formed during the preceding months. When the general parted from his army on the plains, he may have promised that he would return and lead the whole force to this land, if only it should prove to be such as their inclination pictured it. Many persisted in the belief that a more thorough exploration would discover some of the things about which they thought the Turk had told them. On the other hand, there were many besides the leader who were tired of this life of hardship, which had not even afforded the attractions of adventure and serious conflict. Few of them, doubtless, had wives and estates waiting to welcome them home, like their fortunate general, but most of the gentlemen, surely, were looking forward to the time when they could win wealth and glory, with which to return to old Spain, and add new luster to their family name. Castañeda gives a soldier's gossip of the intriguing and persuading which resulted in the abandonment of the Pueblo country, and Mota Padilla seems to support the main points in his story.
THE FRIARS REMAIN IN THE COUNTRY
Friar Juan de la Cruz is not mentioned by Castañeda nor by Jaramillo, but Mendieta and Mota Padilla are very clear in their accounts of him. He was an older man than the others, and had been engaged in missionary work among the natives of the Jalisco country before he joined this expedition. Coronado left him at Tiguex, where he was killed, according to Mota Padilla. The date, in the martyrologies, is November 25, 1542. Many natives of the Mexican provinces stayed in the Pueblo country when Coronado abandoned it. Some of these were still at Cibola when Antonio de Espejo visited it in 1583, while others doubtless made their way back to their old homes in New Spain, and they may have brought the information about the death of Friar Juan.
Friar Luis Descalona, or de Ubeda as Mota Padilla calls him, was a lay brother, who selected Cicuye or Pecos as the seat of his labors in New Mexico. Neither the Spanish chronicles nor the Indian traditions which Mr Bandelier was able to obtain give any hint as to his fate or the results of his devotion to the cause of Christianity.
THE RETURN TO NEW SPAIN
The army started on its return from Tiguex to Cibola and thence to Culiacan and Mexico early in the spring of 1542. The march was without interruption or diversion. As the soldiers reentered New Galicia and found themselves once more among settlements of their own race, beyond the reach of hostile natives, the ranks dwindled rapidly. The men stopped to rest and to recruit their strength at every opportunity, and it was only with the greatest difficulty that Coronado was able to keep together the semblance of a force with which to make his entry into the City of Mexico. Here he presented his personal report to the viceroy. He had little to tell which could interest the disappointed Mendoza, who had drawn so heavily on the royal treasure box two years before to furnish those who formed the expedition with everything that they might need. Besides the loss in his personal estate, there was this use of the royal funds which had to be accounted for to the ​officials in Spain. It is the best proof of the strength of Mendoza's able and economical.administration that no opposition ever succeeded in influencing the home government against him, and that the failure of this expedition, with the attendant circumstances, furnished the most serious charge which those who had displayed hostility toward him were able to produce.
When Coronado reached the City of Mexico, "very sad and very weary, completely worn out and shamefaced," Suarez de Peralta was a boy on the streets. We catch a glimpse of him in the front rows of a crowd watching an execution, this same winter of 1542-43, and we may be sure that he saw all that was going on, and that he picked up and treasured the gossip of the city. His recollections give a vivid picture of the return of the expedition, when Coronado "came to kiss the hand of the viceroy and did not receive so good a reception as he would have liked, for he found him very sad." For many days after the general reached the city the men who had followed him came straggling in, all of them worn out with their toils, clothed in the skins of animals, and showing the marks of their misfortunes and sufferings. "The country had been very joyous when the news of the discovery of the Seven Cities spread abroad, and this was now supplanted by the greatest sadness on the part of all, for many had lost their friends and their fortunes, since those who remained behind had entered into partnerships with those who went, mortgaging their estates and their property in order to procure a share in what was to be gained, and drawing up papers so that those who were to be present should have power to take possession of mines and enter claims in the name of those who were left behind, in accordance with the custom and the ordinances which the viceroy had made for New Spain. Many sent their slaves also, since there were many of these in the country at this time. Thus the loss and the grief were general, but the viceroy felt it most of all, for two reasons: Because this was the outcome of something about which he had felt so sure, which he thought would make him more powerful than the greatest lord in Spain, and because his estates were ruined, for he had labored hard and spent much in sending off the army. Finally, as things go, he succeeded in forgetting about it, and devoted himself to the government of his province, and in this he became the best of governors, being trusted by the King and loved by all his subjects."
THE END OF CORONADO
We do not know what became of Vazquez Coronado. The failure of the expedition was not his fault, and there is nothing to show that he ever sought the position which Mendoza intrusted to him. Neither is there any evidence that Mendoza treated him with any less marks of friendship after his return than before. The welcome home was not cordial, but there are no reports of upbraiding, nor any accusations of negligence or remissness. Coronado soon gave up his position as ​governor of New Galicia, but we need not suppose that he was compelled to resign. There was every reason why he should have desired to escape from a position which demanded much skill and unceasing active administration, but which carried with it no hope of reward or of honor. It is pleasant to believe that Coronado withdrew to his estates and lived happily ever after with his wife and children, spending his leisure in supervising the operations on his farm and ranch, and leading the uneventful life of a country gentleman. The only break in the monotony of which we happen to know—and this is the only part of this belief for which there is the slightest evidence that it is correct—came when he was accused, in 1544 and again in 1547, of holding more Indians to labor on his estates than were allowed by the royal regulations. We do not even know the outcome of this accusation. Vazquez Coronado sinks into oblivion after he made his report to the viceroy in the autumn of 1542.
* ↑ Fragmento Visita: Mendoza, Icazbalceta's Mexico, vol. ii, p. 90, § 86. "Porque antes que el dicho visorey viniese. . . habia may poca gente y los corregimientos bastaban para proveellos y sustentallos, y corao despues de la venida del dicho visorey creció la gente y se aumentó, y de cada dia vienen gentes pobres á quien se ba de proveer de comer, con la dicha baja y vacaciones so ban proveido y remediado, y sin ella hubieran padecido y padecieran gran necesidad, y no se poblara tanto la tierra, y dello se dió noticia á S. M. y lo aprobó y se tuvo por servido en ello. § 194 (p. 117): Despues que el dicho visorey vino á esta Nueva España, continamente ba acogido en au casa á caballeros y otras personas que vienen necesitados de España y de otras partes, dándoles de comer y vestir, caballos y armas con que sirvan á S. M.". . .
* ↑ Garcilaso de la Vega, Comentarios Reales, part ii, cap. i, lib. ii, p. 58 (e<l. 1722), tells the story of Alvarado's experiment. The picture of the life and character of the Spanish conquerors of America, in the eyes of a girl fresh from Europe, is so vivid and suggestive that its omission would be unjustifiable.
* ↑ Tomson's whole narrative, in Hakluyt, Voyages, vol. iii, p. 447 (ed. 1600), is well worth reading. Considerable additional information in regard to the internal condition of New Spain, at a little later date, may be found in the "Discourses" which follow Tomson's Narrative, in the same volume of Hakluyt.
* ↑ The proof text for this quotation, as for many of the following statements which are taken from Mota Padilla a Historia de la Nueva Galicia, may be found in footnotes to the passages which they illustrate in the translation of Castañeda's narrative. I hope this arrangement will prove most convenient for those who study the documents included in this memoir. I shall not attempt in the introductory narrative to make any further references showing my indebtedness to Mota Padilla's invaluable work.
* ↑ The Testimonio contains so much that is of interest to the historical student that I have translated it in full herein.
* ↑ Herrera, Historia General, dec. vi, lib. ix, cap. xi, vol. iii, p. 204 (ed. 1730), mentions pigs among the food supply of the army. For the above description, which is not so fanciful as it sounds, see notes from Mota Padilla. etc, accompanying the translation of Castañeda.
* ↑ Castañeda's statement is supported by Herrera, Historia General, dec. vi, lib. v, cap. ix, vol. iii, p. 121 (ed. 1730), and by Tello, in Icazbalceta's Mexico, vol. li, p. 370.
* ↑ See the Fragmento de Visita, in Icazbalceta's Doc. Hist. Mexico, vol. ii, p. 95.
* ↑ The laws were signed at Valladolid, June 4 and June 26, 1543, and the copy printed in Icazbalceta's Doc. Hist. Mexico, vol. ii, p. 214, was promulgated in New Spain, March 13, 1544.
* ↑ See Mendoza's letter to the King. December 10, 1537.
* ↑ The proceso which was served on Cortes is in Pacheco y Cardenas, Doc. de Indias, vol. xv, p. 371.
* ↑ The grant, dated at Madrid, November 8, 1539, is given in Tello's Fragmento (Icazbalceta's Doc. Hist. Mexico, vol. ii, p. 371).
* ↑ Before the end of the month Mendoza wrote a letter to the King, in which he gave a detailed account of the preparations he had made to insure the success of the expedition, and of the departure of the army. This letter is not known to exist.
* ↑ This march from Compostela to Culiacan, according to the letter which Coronado wrote from Granada-Zuñi on August 3, occupied eighty days. The same letter gives April 22 as the date when Coronado left Culiacan, after stopping for several days in that town, and this date is corroborated by another account, the Traslado de las Nuevas. April 22 is only sixty days after February 23, the date of the departure, which is fixed almost beyond question by the legal formalities of the Testimonio of February 21-26. We have only Ramusio's Italian text of Coronado's August 3 letter, so that it is easy to suspect that a slip on the part of the translator causes the trouble. Cut to complicate matters, eighty days previous to April 22 is about the 1st of February. Mota Padilla, who used material of great value in his Historia de la Nueva Galicia, says that the army marched from Compostela "el 1° de Febrero del año de 1540." Castañeda does not give much help, merely stating that the whole force was assembled at Compostela by "el dia de carnes tollendas," the carnival preceding Shrove tide, which in 1540 fell on February 10, Faster being March 28. Mendoza, who had spent the New Year's season at Pasquaro, the seat of the bishopric of Michoacan, did not hasten his journey across the country, and we know only that the whole force had assembled before he arrived at Compostela. At least a fortnight would have been necessary for completing the organization of the force, and for collecting and arranging all the supplies. Another combination of dates makes it hard to decide how rapidly the army marched. Mendoza was at Compostela February 26. He presumably started on his return to Mexico very soon after that date. He went down the coast to Colima, where he was detained by an attack of fever for some days. Thence he proceeded to Jacona, where he wrote a letter to the King, April 17, 1540. March 20 Mendoza received the report of Melchior Diaz, who had spent the preceding winter in the country through which Friar Marcos had traveled, trying to verify the friar's report. Diaz, and Saldivar his lieutenant, on their return from the north, met the army at Chiametla as it was about to resume its march, after a few days' delay. Diaz stopped at Chiametla, while Saldivar carried the report to the viceroy, and he must have traveled very rapidly to deliver bis packets on March 20, when Mendoza had left Colima, although he probably had. not arrived at Jacona. Everything points to the very slow progress of the force, hampered by the long baggage and provision trains. Castaneda says that they reached Culiacan just before Easter, March 28. less than thirty-five days after February 23. Here Coronado stopped for a fortnight's entertainment and rest, according to Castañeda, who was present. Mota Padilla Says that the army stayed here a month, and this agrees with Castañeda's statement that the main body started a fortnight later than their general. The attempt to arrange an itinerary of the expedition is perplexing, and has not been made easier by modern students. Professor Haynes, in his Early Explorations of New Mexico (Winsor's Narrative and Critical History, vol. ii, p. 481), following Bandelier's statement on page 26 of his Documentary History of Zuñi, says that the start from Compostela was made "in the last days of February, 1540." Mr Bandolier, however, who has given much more time to the study of everything connected with this expedition than has been possible for any other investigator, in his latest work—The Gilded Man, p. 164—adopts the date which is given by Mota Padilla. The best and the safest way out of this tangle in chronology is gained by accepting the three specific dates, February 23—or possibly 24—Easter, and April 22, disregarding every statement about the number of days interesting.
* ↑ Mota Padilla says, "warden of one of the royal storehouses in Mexico," which may refer to some other position held by Samaniego, or may have arisen from some confusion of names.
* ↑ This is taken from Mota Padilla's account of the incident, without any attempt to compare or to harmonize it with the story told by Castañeda. Mota Padilla's version seems much the more reasonable.
* ↑ A note, almost as complicated as that which concerns the date of the army's departure, might he written regarding the length of the stay at Culiacan. Those who are curious can find the facts in Coronado's letter from Granada, in Castañeda, and in the footnotes to the translation of the latter.
* ↑ The complete text of Alarcon's report was translated into Italian by Ramusio (vol. iii, fol. 363, ed. 1556), and the Spanish original is not known to exist. Herrera, however, gives an account which, from the close similarity to Ramusio's text and from the personality of the style, must have been copied from Alarcon's own narrative. The Ramusio text does not give the port of departure. Herrera says that the ships sailed from Acapulco. Castañeda implies that the start was made from La Natividad, but his information could hardly have been better than second hand. He may have known what the viceroy intended to do, when he bade the army farewell, two days north of Compostela, Alarcon reports that he put into the port of Santiago de Buena Esperanza, and as the only Santiago on the coast hereabout is south of La Natividad, which is on the coast of the district of Colima H. H. Bancroft (North Mexican States, vol. i, p. 90) says the fleet probably started from Acapulco. Bancroft does not mention Herrera, who is, I suppose, the conclusive authority. Gen. J. H. Simpson (Smithsonian Report for 1869, p. 315), accepted the start from La Natividad, and then identified this Santiago with the port of Compostela, which was well known under the name of Xalisco. The distance of Acapulco from Colima would explain the considerable lapse of time before Alarcon was ready to start.
* ↑ Coronado's description of this portion of the route in the letter of August 3 is abbreviated, he says, because it was accompanied by a map. As this is lost, I am following here, as I shall do throughout the Introduction, Bandelier's identification of the route in his Historical Introduction, p. 10, and in his Final Report, part ii, pp. 407-409. The itinerary of Jaramillo, confused and perplexing as it is, is the chief guide for the earlier part of the route. There is no attempt in this introductory narrative to repeat the details of the journey, when these may be obtained, much more satisfactorily, from the translation of the contemporary narratives which form the main portion of this memoir.
* ↑ This "Red House," in the Nahuatl tongue, has been identified with the Casa Grande ruins in Arizona ever since the revival of interest in Coronado's journey, which followed the explorations in the southwestern portion of the United States during the second quarter of the present century. Bandolier's study of the descriptions given by those who saw the "Red House" in 1539 and 1540. however, shows conclusively that the conditions at Casa Grande do not meet the requirements for Chichilticalli. Bandelier objects to Casa Grande because it is white, although he admits that it may once have been covered with the reddish paint of the Indians. This would suit Mota Padilla's explanation that the place was named from a house there which was daubed over with colored earth—almagre, as the natives called it. This is the Indian term for red ocher. Bandelier thinks that Coronado reached the edge of the wilderness, the White Mountain Apache reservation in Arizona, by way of San Pedro river and Arivaypa creek. This requires the location of Chichiltioalli somewhere in the vicinity of the present Fort Grant, Arizona.
* ↑ Hakluyt, Voyages, vol. iii, p. 375, ed. 1600.
* ↑ Hawikuh, near Ojo Caliente, was the first village captured by the Spaniards, as Bandelier has shown in his Contributions, p. 166, and Documentary History of Zuñi, p. 29. The definite location of this village is an important point, and the problem of its site was one over which a great deal of argument had been wasted before Sir Bandelier published the results of his critical study of the sources, which he was enabled to interpret by the aid of a careful exploration of the southwestern country, undertaken under the auspices of the Archæological Institute of America. It was under the impetus of the friendly guidance and careful scrutiny of results by Professor Henry W. Haynes and the other members of the Institute that Mr Bandelier has done his best work. It is unfortunate that lie did not use the letter which Coronado wrote from Granada-Hawikuh, Augusts, 1540, which is the only official account of the march from Culiacan to Zuñi. The fact that Bandelier's results stand the tests supplied by this letter is the best proof of the exactness and accuracy of his work. (This note was written before the appearance of Mr Bandelier's Glided Man, in which he states that Kiakima. instead of Hawikuh, is the Granada of Coronado. Mr F. W. Hodge, in an exhaustive paper on The First Discovered City of Cibola (American Anthropologist, Washington, April, 1895), has proved conclusively that Mr Bandolier's earlier position was the correct one.)
* ↑ Marcos returned to Mexico with Juan de Gallego, who left Cibola-Zuñi soon after August 3. Bandelier, in his article on the friars, in the American Catholic Quarterly Review, vol. xv, p. 551, says that "the obvious reason" for Marcos's return "as the feeble health of the friar. Hardship and physical suffering had nearly paralyzed the body of the already aged man. He never recovered his vigor, and died at Mexico, after having in vain sought relief in the delightful climate of Jalapa, in the year 1558"—seventeen years later.
* ↑ Alvarado's official report is probably the paper known as the Relacion de lo que. . . . Alvarado y Fray Joan de Padilla descubrieron en demanda de la mar del Sur, which is translated herein. The title, evidently the work of some later editor, is a misnomer so far as the Mar del Sur is concerned, for this—the Pacific ocean—was west, and Alvarado's explorations were toward the east. This short report is of considerable value, but it is known only through a copy, lacking the list of villages which should have accompanied it. Muñoz judged that it was a contemporary official copy, which did not commend itself to that great" collector and student of Spanish Americana. There is nothing about the document to show the century or the region to which it relates, so that one of Hubert H. Bancroft's scribes was misted into making a short abstract of it for his Central America, vol. ii, p. 185, as giving an account of an otherwise unknown expedition starting from another Granada, on the northern shore of Lake Nicaragua.
* ↑ Castañeda says that this Indian accompanied Alvarado on the first visit to the buffalo plains, and this may be true without disturbing the statement above.
* ↑ He was called "The Turk" because the Spaniards thought that he looked like one. Bandelier, in American Catholic Quarterly Review, vol. xv, p. 555, thinks this was due to the manner in which he wore his hair, characteristic of certain branches of the Pawnee.
* ↑ This probability is greatly strengthened by Mora Padilla's statement in relation to the Turk and Quivira, quoted in connection with Casteñada's narrative.
* ↑ The Spaniards had already observed two distinct branches of these pure nomads, whom they knew as Querechos and Teyas. Bandelier, in his Final Report, vol. i. p. 179, identified the Querechos with the Apaches of the plains, but later investigation by Mr James Mooney shows that Querecho is an old Comanche name of the Tonicawa of western central Texas (Hodge, Early Navajo and Apache, Am. Anthropologist, Washington,-July, 1895, vol. iii. p. 235). I am unable to find any single tribal group among the Indians whom we know which can he identified with the Teyas, unless, as Mr Hodge has suggested, they may have been the Comanche, who roamed the plains from Yellowstone Park to Durango, Mexico.
* ↑ I am inclined, also, to believe Jaramillo's statement that the day's marches on the journey to Quivira were short ones. But when he writes that the journey occupied "more than thirty days, or almost thirty days" journey, although not long day's marches,"—seguimos nuestro viaje. . . más de treiuta dias ú casi treinta dias do camino, aunque no de jornadas grandes—and again, that they decided to return because it was already nearly the beginning of winter, . . . and lest the winter might prevent the return,"—nos paresció á todos, que pues que hera ya casi la boca del inbierno, porque si me acuerdo bien, jera media y más de Agosto, y por ser pocos para inbernar ali, . . . y porque el invierno no nos cerrase los caminos do nieves y rios quo no nos dexesen pasar (Pacheco y Cardenas, Doc. de Indias, vol. xiv, pp. 312,314)—we experience some of the difficulties which make it hard to analyse the captain's recollections critically and satisfactorily.
* ↑ Final Report, vol. i, p. 170.
* ↑ Ibid., vol. 1, p. 178.
* ↑ Bandelier's best discussion of the route is in his article on Fray Juan de Padilla, in the American Catholic Quarterly Review, vol. xv, p. 551. The Gilded Man also contains an outline of the probable route. An element in his calculation, to which lie gives much prominence, is the tendency of one who is lost to wander always toward the right. This is strongly emphasized in the Gilded Man; but It can, I think, hardly merit the importance which he gives to it. The emphasis appears, however, much more in Bandelier's words than in his results. I can not see that there is anything to show that the Indian guides ever really lost their reckoning.
* ↑ Bandelier accounts for sixty-seven days of short marches and occasional delays between the separation of the force on Canadian river and the arrival at Quivira. It may be that the seventy-seven days of desert marching which Coronado mentions in his letter of October 20, 1541, refers to this part of the journey, instead of to the whole of the journey from the bridge (near Mora on the Canadian) to Quivira. But the number sixty-seven originated in a blunder of Ternaux-Compans, who substituted it for seventy-seven, in translating this letter. The mistake evidently influenced Bandelier to extend the journey over more time than it really took. But this need not affect his results materially, if we extend the amount of ground covered by each day's march and omit numerous halts, which were very unlikely, considering the condition of his party and the desire to solve the mystery of Quivira. If the Spaniards crossed the Arkansas somewhere below Fort Dodge, and followed it until the river turns toward the southeast, Quivira can hardly have been east of the middle part of the state of Kansas. It was much more probably somewhere between the main forks of Kansas river, in the central part of that state. Bandelier seems to have abandoned his documents as he approached the goal, and t« have transported Coronado across several branches of Kansas river, in order to fill out his sixty-seven days—which should have been seventy-seven—and perhaps to reach the region fixed on by previous conceptions of the limit of exploration. He may have realized that the difficulty in his explanation of the route was that it required a reduction of about one-fourth of the distance covered by the army in the eastward march, as plotted by General Simpson. This can be accounted for by the wandering path which the army followed.
* ↑ See the note at the end of the translation.
* ↑ The Spanish (judicial) league was equivalent to 2.63 statute miles.
* ↑ Castañeda implies that Friar Antonio Victoria, who broke his leg near Culiacan, accompanied the main force on its march to Cibola. This is the last beard of him, and it is much more probable that he remained in New Gallcia.
* ↑ Vetancurt, in the Menologia, gives the date of the martyrdom of Fray Juan de Padilla as November 30, 1544, and I see no reason to prefer the more general statements of Jaramillo, Castaneda, and Mota Padilla, which seem to imply that it took place in 1542. Docampo and the other companions of the friar brought the news to Mexico. They must have returned some time previous to 1552, for Gomara mentions their arrival in Tampico, on the Mexican gulf, in his Conquista de Mexico published in that year. Herrera and Gomara say that the fugitives had been captured by Indians and detained as slaves for ten months. These historians state also that a dog accompanied the fugitives. Further mention of dogs in connection with the Coronado expedition is in the stories of one accompanying Estevan which Alarcon heard along Colorado river, also in the account of the death of Melchior Diaz, and in the reference by Castañeda to the use of these animals as beasts of burden by certain plains tribes. Mendieta and Vetancurt say that, of the two donados, Sebastian died soon after his return, and the other lived long as a missionary among the Zacatecas.