Coronado
The conquest of the
continent of North America by the Spaniards was for the most part
conducted from Cuba. The expedition of Cortez to conquer Mexico sailed
from Havana. In 1520 Lucas Vasquez de Ayllon was granted a royal license
to explore the coasts of Florida. In pursuance of this order he sent his
lientenant Gordilla to make a preliminary voyage, whose reports were so
favorable that Ayllon carried them to Spain, where he secured a royal
cedula to explore and settle eight hundred leagues of the Florida coasts.
In 1525 he sent out Pedro de Quexos to make a more extensive preliminary
survey of the east shores of America. This expedition returned with a very
favorable account of the Atlantic coast regions. In June, 1526, Ayllon
sailed from Hispaniola with three ships bearing Spanish emigrants for a
colony. He beat up the coasts of North America to the mouth of a stream
afterwards known as the James River, into which he turned. On its wooded
shores he founded a settlement which he called San Miguel, on the spot
where the English afterwards built Jamestown. The Spaniards did not
succeed at San Miguel. Ayllon soon died of a fever; the colonists
quarreled and finally abandoned the enterprise.
The movement which led to the expedition of Coronado had its origin
in the myths of "The Seven Cities." These
myths were the more readily believed because of the magnitude of the spoil
of the Peruvian Empire, accounts of which had spread over the whole of
both Old and New Spain. It was supposed that what Pizarro had accomplished
in South America might be duplicated in North America. In this relation it
must be remembered that the Spaniards had not then explored the interior
of the continent, and that they were in almost total ignorance of its
geography, its mineral resources, its productions, its animal life, and
its inhabitants.
The myth of "The Seven Cities" appeared
first in Mexico in 1530. Nuno de Guzman was then President of New Spain.
Attached to his estate was an Indian named Tejo, who was a native of the
valley of Oxitipar. This Indian claimed to be the son of a trader, then
dead. This trader, so the son said, had gone into the back country to
barter fine feathers for whatever ornaments the inhabitants of those
regions could be induced to part with. On the journey (or journeys) made
for this purpose, the Indian Tejo had accompanied his father. He now told
Guzman that they brought back much silver and gold, which the country
produced in considerable quantities. He said, also, that he had seen in
that northern land some towns as large as the City of Mexico then was. In
seven of those towns there were streets given over to shops and workers in
the precious metals. Those cities, he said, were far distant, and from his
native valley it required forty days to reach them. For the way, he
insisted, was through a barren land where no plant-life was to be seen
except some desert shrubs the height of a span.
Hoping to find rich countries to plunder, Guzman organized an expedition
to discover "The Seven Cities." He enlisted four hundred Spaniards and
collected twenty thousand Indians with which to make conquest of those
opulent countries of which he had little doubt the seven towns were the
capitals. But the expedition came to nothing. The difficulties encountered
in the first stages of the march discouraged the men, and discontent
spread through the ranks of the adventurers. For this, and for other
causes, Guzman abandoned the enterprise when he had but entered the
district of Culican.
Panfilo de Narvaez was prominent in the conquest of Cuba in 1511, and
settled in that island. Mexico was subject to Cuba, but Cortez threw off
the authority of Velasquez. In an effort to regain and retain his power in
Mexico, in 1520, Velasquez appointed Panfilo de Narvaez
Lieutenant-Governor of Mexico, and directed him to voyage to that country,
take possession of it, and imprison Cortez. Narvaez set out on this
mission, and landed at Vera Cruz in April, 1520. On the 28th of May he met
Cortez at Campoala, where he was defeated, wounded, and captured. He
managed soon to regain his liberty, after which he went to Spain, where,
in 1526, he secured a royal patent to conquer and govern Florida.
At that time Florida embraced all that part of North America, along the
Atlantic seaboard and bordering on the Gulf of Mexico to the Rio Grande,
which river was then called Rio de Palmas by the Spaniards. Narvaez made
preparations for the immediate conquest of Florida. He sailed from Spain
on the 17th of June, 1527. His course carried him to Cuba, where he
overhauled his fleet, to which he added a vessel to replace one lost on
the voyage. He then set sail for the Texas coast, but on the 15th of April
he landed at Apalache Bay, having been driven from his course by a storm
and the force of heavy currents. Supposing that he was not far distant
from the point for which he was bound, he sent one ship back for recruits
and directed the others to sail along the coast to Panuco, near the mouth
of the Rio Crande.
The force of Narvaez consisted of three hundred men; and he had fifty
horses. On the 18th of April he began his march through the forests and
over the quagmires of Florida. His course was north, but he soon turned
toward the west. The natives became hostile. At a large river, reached on
the 15th of May, he rested, while Cabeza de Vaca, the royal treasurer of
the expedition, went with a small party down to the sea to find the ships.
Not a sail was to be seen along the coast solitudes, and upon the return
of the party the march was continued. Another large river was encountered,
and this Narvaez descended to the sea. No ships were there to greet him.
The Spaniards were discouraged. No gold had been found, and no cities for
sack and plunder had appeared. They had seen only naked savages living in
cane huts and in poverty. They determined to build boats in which to quit
those inhospitable shores, and to keep the sea to the westward. Late in
1528, a forge was set up, and such metal as their equipment afforded was
made into tools and nails. With these, five boats were constructed. They
were furnished with rigging from ropes made of the long hair saved from
the manes and tails of their horses. Sails were provided from their
clothing and the hides of their horses. Each boat was capable of carrying
forty-five men, none of whom knew much of navigation. They hugged the
shore and drew westward, and about the first of November they came into
the mouth of a great river whose mighty volume bore them far into the Gulf
of Mexico. There two of the boats were lost, one of which was that of
Narvaez, while the other carried the friars of the expedition. A great
storm threw the remaining boats upon the shore beyond the Sabine in the
winter of 1528-29.
How many survivors of the expedition suffered this shipwreck we do not
know. Four finally reached the Spanish settlements. They were rescued on
the coast of the Gulf of California in April, 1536. They had wandered in
the wilds of Texas and the deserts and mountains of Northern Mexico, as we
know those regions, for more than seven years. The leader of the band was
Cabeza de Vaca, and the others were Maldonado, Dorantes, and a negro slave
named Estevan.1 The route passed over by these
wanderers can not now be established. How they had escaped and managed to
survive they did not themselves know. They had been enslaved by savage
tribes, had seen and hunted the buffalo, had acted as medicine men, had
risen to influence, and had escaped from one tribe only to suffer the same
routine of disaster in another. Cabeza de Vaca went on to Spain, but the
others remained in Mexico. The stories of their adventures did not excite
great interest, or, rather, was overshadowed by those drifting in from
Peru. They were for some time the guests of the Viceroy, Don Antonio de
Mendoza, who bought the negro from his master, Dorantes. Cabeza de Vaca
had been given a hawk's bell, made of copper, on which was cast or carved
the figure of a human face. He related some accounts of the land to the
north, which caused the people to believe rich countries might be found
there. And these recalled, revived, and confirmed the stories told by the
trader's son, the Indian Tejo.
Footnotes:
To him history assigns the honor of
having first mentioned Quivira to Europeans. He
acted as guide on a trip Alvarado made from Cicuye to see the cows. The
Spanish captain, however, lost interest in the cows and the country where
they roamed. The Turk told him such wondrous tales of gold and silver to
be found and to be had in Quivira that chasing
the stupid and lumbering buffalo seemed a waste of time and energy that
should be used in making an early conquest of the golden land. And the
buffalo was not to be seen in vast herds at that season of the year. Those
found by Alvarado were in scattered bunches and perhaps along the waters
of the Upper Canadian.
