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diff --git a/old/56083-0.txt b/old/56083-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 5e30366..0000000 --- a/old/56083-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,3997 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of De Soto, Coronado, Cabrillo, by David Lavender - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: De Soto, Coronado, Cabrillo - Explorers of the Northern Mystery - -Author: David Lavender - -Release Date: November 30, 2017 [EBook #56083] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DE SOTO, CORONADO, CABRILLO *** - - - - -Produced by Stephen Hutcheson, Dave Morgan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - - - - - - - - - Handbook 144 - - - - - De Soto, Coronado, Cabrillo - Explorers of the _Northern Mystery_ - - - By David Lavender - Produced by the - Division of Publications - National Park Service - - U.S. Department of the Interior - Washington, D.C. - - - _About this book_ - -American history begins not with the English at Jamestown or the -Pilgrims at Plymouth but with Spanish exploration of the border country -from Florida to California in the 16th century. This handbook describes -the expeditions of three intrepid explorers—De Soto, Coronado, and -Cabrillo—their adventures, their encounters with native inhabitants, and -the consequences, good and ill, of their journeys. This little-known -story is related by David Lavender, author of many books on the American -West. His work gives perspective to the several national parks that -commemorate the first Spanish explorations. - -National Park Handbooks, compact introductions to the natural and -historical places administered by the National Park Service, are -designed to promote public understanding and enjoyment of the parks. -These handbooks are intended to be informative reading and useful -guides. More than 100 titles are in print. They are sold at parks and by -mail from the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing -Office, Washington, D.C. 20402. - - - _Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data_ - Lavender, David Sievert, 1910- - De Soto, Coronado, Cabrillo: explorers of the northern mystery/by - David Lavender. - p. cm.—(Handbook; 144) - 1. United States—Discovery and exploration—Spanish. - 2. Soto, Hernando, de, ca. 1500-1542. - 3. Coronado, Francisco Vásques de, 1510-1554. - 4. Cabrillo, Juan Rodrígues, d. 1543. - 5. Explorers—United States—History—16th century. - I. Title. - II. Series: Handbook (United States. National Park Service. - Division of Publications); 144 - E123.L24 1992 973.1—dc20 91-47633 - CIP 1992 - - - Prologue 5 - The Spanish Entradas 10 - _David Lavender_ - The Ways of the Conquerors 13 - The Wanderers 21 - Journey into Darkness 37 - Where the Fables Ended 55 - The Seafarers 85 - Epilogue 97 - A Guide to Sites 98 - De Soto National Memorial 102 - Coronado National Memorial 104 - Pecos National Historical Park 106 - Cabrillo National Monument 108 - - [Illustration: This 16th-century woodcut, the product of an artist - with a fertile imagination but little information, epitomizes the - contemporary view that European discoverers were bringing - civilization to the grateful natives of the New World.] - - - - - Prologue - - -A magic date: 1492. The year began with Christopher Columbus watching -the Moors surrender the city of Granada, their last stronghold in Spain, -to the joint monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella. He reminded them of the -triumph in a summation he wrote later of what he too had accomplished -that year. “I saw the banners of your Highnesses raised on the towers of -the Alhambra in the city of Granada, and I saw the Moorish king go out -of the gate of the city and kiss the hands of your Highnesses and of my -lord the Prince.” Shortly after the victory, he added, “your Highnesses -... determined to send me, Christopher Columbus to the countries of -India, so that I might see what they were like, the lands and the -people, and might seek out and know the nature of everything that is -there....” - -This remarkable coincidence—the expulsion of the Moors from Spain and -Columbus’s almost simultaneous discovery of the “Indies”—resulted in a -burst of explosive expansionism. The following year, 1493, Columbus -established Spain’s first colony in the New World on the island of -Hispaniola, occupied now by Haiti and the Dominican Republic. By 1515 -Cuba had been conquered and its cities of Santiago and Havana -established as bases for further exploration. In 1519 Hernán Cortés -swept out of Cuba into Mexico and found a new source of wealth for his -country, his followers, and himself by looting the Aztec empire of -stores of gold and silver the Indians had been accumulating for -centuries. A decade later Francisco Pizarro began his dogged and even -more lucrative conquest of the Incas of Peru. - -Meanwhile, what of the Northern Mystery, as historian Herbert E. Bolton -aptly named the unknown lands above Mexico? Was it not logical that -similar treasures awaited discovery there? And so the fever for -adventure and riches drew three more distance-defying explorers—Hernando -de Soto, Francisco Vásquez de Coronado, and Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo—into -three different parts of what is now the United States. Each reached as -far as he did because inside him burned the awesome, often -contradictory, but always steel-bright fires of medieval Spain. - -Our tangible connection to this age of pathfinding and discovery is a -scattering of historic places stretching from Florida to California. -They are evidence of Spanish life and color in the old borderlands. This -book draws into a whole the stories of several such places. Here are the -beginnings of Spanish North America. - - - Routes of the Explorers - - [Illustration: Routes of the Explorers] - - The first Spanish expeditions into the northern borderlands of New - Spain sampled the continent’s wondrous diversity. De Soto made his - great march across a luxuriant country so stunning and productive that - the expedition’s journals are full of admiring description. He - encountered complex native societies, which were often organized into - powerful chiefdoms—generous in peace but formidable in war. Centuries - of settlement has greatly altered this landscape. Not so Coronado’s - country. A traveler to the Southwest can still see places evocative of - the first Spanish encounters with Indians of the pueblos and Plains. A - sailor retracing Cabrillo’s route up the California coast runs past - mountains that, in the words of the chronicler, “seem to reach the - heavens ... [and are] covered with snow”—mountains he called the - Sierra Nevada. They are today’s Santa Lucia range. Cabrillo’s voyage - is now best followed in the imagination. - - - Timeline - - 1440-60 The Portuguese explore coast of Africa - 1492 Moors defeated in Spain; Columbus lands in New World - 1497 Vasco da Gama sails to India by way of Africa - 1513 Ponce de León claims Florida for Spain - 1519-21 Magellan’s fleet sails around the world - 1521 Cortés conquers the Aztecs - 1528 Narváez attempts a colony in Florida - 1529-36 The wanderings of Cabeza de Vaca - 1532 Pizarro overthrows the Incas of Peru - 1539-43 De Soto expedition - 1540-42 Coronado expedition - 1542-43 Cabrillo’s voyage - 1562 French Huguenots settle in Florida - 1565 Menendez establishes St. Augustine - 1584 Ralegh plants colony on North Carolina coast - 1598 Oñate expedition into Southwest - 1607 English settle at Jamestown - 1620 Pilgrims settle at Plymouth - - - First Expeditions North - - De Soto Coronado Cabrillo - - 1539 Lands in Florida in - late May; marches - through upper Florida; - major battle at - Napituca; guerilla war - with Apalachees; - winter camp at Anhaica - (Tallahassee) - 1540 Following Indian Departs from Accompanies an - trails, expedition Compostela with an exploring expedition - swings in a wide arc army of 300 cavalry up the northwest coast - through Georgia, South and infantry, several as _almirante_ (second - Carolina, North hundred Indian allies, in command). - Carolina, and Alabama, friars, and a long Expedition abandoned - encountering major pack train. Alarcón after its leader is - chiefdoms. Bloody sails up the Gulf of killed fighting - battle at Mabila California with three Indians. - (central Alabama) in vessels. Expedition - October penetrates American - Southwest, reaches - Háwikuh in July; - engages the Zuñi in - battle; Coronado - wounded. - Tovar explores Hopi - villages in Arizona. - Alarcón reaches mouth - of Colorado River. - Cárdenas sights the - Grand Canyon. - Alvarado marches to - Acoma, Pecos, and - beyond. - 1541 Winters among Journeys to Quivira Gathers a new - ancestral Chickasaw (Kansas). Winters at exploring fleet for - Indians of Mississippi Tiguex; puts down an Mendoza. - and suffers attack by Indian revolt. - them; crosses - Mississippi in May; - travels in great loop - through Arkansas; - discovers buffalo - hunters and a people - who live in scattered - houses and not in - villages; endures - severe winter at - Autiamque - 1542 Reaches the rich The army departs for Dispatched by Mendoza - chiefdom of Anilco; at home in April, arrives to continue - nearby Guachoya, De in Mexico City in exploration of the - Soto sends out scout mid-summer. Coronado northwest. - parties who find reports to Viceroy _June:_ Sails from - nothing but Antonio de Mendoza on Navidad, near Colima, - wilderness; De Soto expedition, resumes Mexico. - dies, is succeeded by his governorship of _September 28:_ Sights - Moscoso. After Nueva Galicia. Months “a sheltered port and - fruitless wandering in later Coronado is a very good one.” This - east Texas, Moscoso tried for is San Diego Bay, - retraces route to mismanagement of which he names San - Anilco expedition but Miguel. - acquitted. _October:_ Sails - through the Channel - Islands, suffers fall - and injury. - _November:_ Reaches - the northernmost point - of the voyage, perhaps - Point Reyes, - California, but turns - back. - 1543 Winter camp at Aminoya _January 3:_ Dies on - on Mississippi; San Miguel Island - survivors—half the (Channel Islands). - original number—build _February:_ The fleet - boats to float sails north again, - downriver; in perhaps as far as - September, they reach Oregon before turning - Pánuco River, in Mexico back. - _April:_ Fleet arrives - back at Navidad, nine - months after embarking. - - - - - The Spanish _Entradas_ - - - [Illustration: Globe] - - [Illustration: In 1493 on his second voyage Columbus stopped at St. - Croix, one of the U.S. Virgin Islands. It was then “a very beautiful - and fertile” island cultivated by Carib Indians. A boat he sent - ashore met with a canoe full of Caribs. In an ensuing fight, one - Indian was killed and several captured—the first serious hostilities - with New World natives. Salt River Bay National Historical Park - preserves the scene of this fateful encounter.] - - - The Ways of the Conquerors - -An estimated 3,000 battles wracked the Iberian Peninsula between AD 711, -when Moors from Africa invaded what became Spain, and 1492, when they -were finally expelled. Nor were battles against the Moors the only ones. -The Christian leaders of the peninsula’s several principalities fought -each other and their recalcitrant nobles in a constant quest for power, -until finally Ferdinand and Isabella welded together, by marriage, all -the units except Portugal. - -Centralization of power in the hands of national governments was one of -the characteristics that marked the slow emergence in Europe of what -history calls the modern world. The reasons are manifold. A central -government supported by a rising middle class of merchants and bankers -was able to create big armies of professional soldiers and equip them -with newly introduced gunpowder, a capability quite beyond the reach of -the old feudal nobles. Concurrently, the new governments consolidated -economic power, partly through nationwide taxation. New industries were -encouraged. Feelings of nationalism swelled; people took pride in -considering themselves Spaniards rather than just Castillians. - -International trade assumed new importance, especially trade with the -Orient, whose extraordinary wealth had been revealed by the adventures -of the Venetian family of Polo as recounted by Marco, the youngest of -the group. Land caravans to the fabled East were difficult, however, and -limited by interruptions and tributes imposed by Moslem middlemen. So -why not travel to the Orient by water, either by circling the southern -tip of Africa or sailing due west across the Atlantic? - -The most logical place in Europe for starting the endeavor was the -Iberian Peninsula, which dipped down toward Africa and all but closed -off the western end of the Mediterranean Sea. The exploration of Africa -was launched during the middle of the 15th century by Prince Henry the -Navigator of tiny Portugal. His success and that of the Portuguese -rulers who followed him was so astounding that Ferdinand and Isabella at -last agreed to support Columbus in a competitive transatlantic attempt. -The point is vital. Spain’s feudal nobles probably could not have -financed the expedition; the central government of newly unified Spain -did. - - [Illustration: Prince Henry of Portugal (1394-1460). His attempts at - reaching the Indies by outflanking Africa earned for him the title - of Navigator, though he himself never went on exploring voyages. His - headquarter at Sagres on the western-most promontory of Portugal was - a gathering place for cosmographers, astronomers, chartmakers, and - ship-builders. Their work inaugurated in the 15th century the great - age of discovery that Spain continued in the next century.] - -Columbus took the risk because he believed, as had the ancient Greeks, -that the circumference of the world was much smaller than it actually -was. He also believed, as had Marco Polo, that Asia extended farther -east than it does. When he found land at approximately the longitude -that he expected to, he assumed joyfully that he was close to Cathay -(China) and the islands of India. From that misapprehension comes, of -course, the name West Indies for the islands of the Caribbean and -Indians for their inhabitants, a term that quickly spread throughout the -hemisphere. - -The islands and the eastern coasts of Central America and the -northwestern part of South America that he and Amerigo Vespucci (hence -the name America) skirted on separate expeditions during the following -decade were disappointing—no teeming cities crowned with exotic -architecture, no kings and queens dressed in flowing silk and laden with -precious gems, no warehouses bulging with expensive spices. To a less -energetic nation than Spain, the failure of expectations might have -ended further activity. But emerging Spain saw opportunities in the -wilderness. Some gold could be taken from the placer mines on the island -of Hispaniola. Plantations worked by enslaved Indians could be developed -on Cuba and Puerto Rico. Those Indians—all Indians—had a greater -attraction than just as laborers, however. Alone of all European -nations, Spain was committed to incorporating the native Americans into -the empire as loyal, taxpaying subjects. Priests accompanied exploring -expeditions. After the _entradas_ were completed, missionaries settled -among the tribes and began the civilizing process, as civilization was -defined by the conquerors. - -The Spaniards saw themselves as particularly fitted for carrying out -this God-given program. Eight centuries of war against the Moors had -brought a strong sense of unity to the peninsula’s extraordinary mix of -bloodlines—descendants of ancient Greeks, Romans, Carthegenians, and -Celts as well as indigenous Iberians. Contests with Muslims and attacks -on Jews through the Inquisition (Jews were also expelled from Spain in -1492) had spread a crusading religious fervor throughout the nation. -Many a Spaniard felt in his bones what was in fact the truth: Spain was -poised in the 16th century for a great leap forward that would, for a -time, make her the dominant power in Europe. Supreme confidence -generated in many Spaniards a pride that unfriendly nations such as -England regarded as arrogance. - -One side effect of all this was the creation of a large class of -professional soldiers who scorned all other callings. Success in battle -brought them a living of sorts; victors, for example, could force -Muslims to work patches of ground for them. A man could become an -_hidalgo_, entitled to use the word _Don_ in front of his name and pass -it on, generation after generation, to his sons. The first-born of these -families picked up the nation’s plums. They were appointed to -prestigious places in the army, the church, or the royal bureaucracy. -For the rest there was little but their swords and a readiness for -adventure. - -The New World opened new opportunities for these younger sons and their -followers. They could join small private armies that went, with the -monarch’s permission, into the Americas to spread the gospel among the -“heathens” while simultaneously looting the defeated Indians’ -storehouses of treasure and taking their lands. Prime examples of this -grasping for treasure are furnished by some of the _conquistadores_ who -hailed from the harsh, barren lands of the Extremadura region of -Castile—names that still ring triumphantly throughout most of the New -World: Hernán Cortés, Vasco Nuñez de Balboa, the brothers Pizarro, and -Hernando de Soto. - - [Illustration: Christopher Columbus, whose 1492 voyage opened a new - world to Europeans. Though many artists have attempted portraits of - Columbus, none were from life. This portrait is a copy of a painting - done in 1525.] - - [Illustration: After the First Voyage, the Spanish monarchs granted - to Columbus and his descendents this coat of arms. It signified his - new place in the nobility. The gold castle and purple lion linked - him to the sovereigns. The golden islands in the sea proclaimed his - discoveries. The anchors were emblems of his rank as admiral.] - -The crown gave little except permission and titles—_adelantado_ (“he who -leads the way”) and governor—to men such as these. But if the risks were -great, so too at times were the rewards. As already indicated, there -might be riches to divide after the king had taken his 20 percent share. -There were plantations to be founded and tended by Indians who gave -their labor, however willingly, in exchange for being taught the ways of -Christians. The size of each man’s share in these gains depended partly -on his initial investment in the expedition. Money wasn’t all. The -contribution could be—and this was a crucial point—energy, ability, -intense patriotism, religious zeal, and often ruthlessness. - -Each man took with him to the New World what he had. Apparently there -were few full suits of armor, though Francisco Vásquez de Coronado did -possess one that was handsomely gilded to look like the gold he was -searching for. - -Partial suits—coats of mail made of small, interlinked rings of metal or -cuirasses of plate armor that protected the wearer’s front and -sides—were more numerous. Most cuirasses were made with a ridge running -down the front and curved in such a way that a lance point striking the -metal would, it was hoped, glance off without penetrating. It was hoped, -too, that arrows would be similarly deflected. The chronicles tell, -however, of Indian bows driving arrows entirely through plate armor and -of cane arrows splintering on striking chain mail. The needle-sharp -pieces then passed through the metal rings, inflicting puncture wounds -that festered. Jackets made of quilted padding or even of tough bullhide -were probably as effective against arrows as metal. - - [Illustration: Priests accompanied most expeditions of discovery. - Like their countrymen, most clergy were poorly equipped to - understand and tolerate the new societies they encountered in - America. One clergyman who rose far above his time and place was - Bartolomé de las Casas, who spoke out against abuse of the Indians - but met with great opposition from vested interests.] - -Footmen, who constituted the greater part of every New World expedition, -carried pikes or halberds, crossbows or arquebuses, and sometimes maces -or battle axes. A crossbow, whose string was pulled tight by a crank, -propelled iron darts with great force and accuracy from grooves in the -weapon’s stock. An arquebus was a primitive musket about 3 feet in -length but lacked accuracy at distances greater than 75 yards or so. -Indians, it turned out, could shoot several arrows in the time the -handler of a crossbow or arquebus could fire once. - -Cavalrymen, the elite of the force, were armed with lances, swords for -slashing, and daggers. Long lances were generally couched against the -rider’s body, as in tournaments or charges against similarly equipped -European adversaries. A lance driven through an Indian’s body, however, -would sometimes hang up and pull the rider from his saddle. Accordingly, -shorter weapons held in an upraised hand were preferred in the New -World. They could be hurled or held and directed at the enemy’s face—an -enemy on foot, for the native Americans did not yet have horses. - -The _conquistadores_ were as superb horsemen as the world has seen. -Their animals were loved and pampered. During the early years in the -Americas they were relatively rare and expensive (few survived the -tempestuous sea journey from Europe to become breeding stock), and just -the sight of them terrified Indians. The fearful impact of a cavalry -charge, lances flying or thrusting, swords slashing, and wardogs -sometimes racing beside the horses, goes far to explain how small groups -of Spaniards were able to triumph over great numerical odds. Pedro de -Casteñada, one of the historians of the Coronado expedition, put it -thus: “after God, we owed the victory to the horses.” - -Desperation also played a part. The adventurers often found themselves -hundreds of miles from any possibility of help. Stamina in the face of -hunger and hardship, courage and energy in opposition to attack and fear -were the basic elements of salvation. Of necessity the men adopted -whatever methods promised to carry them to their goals. Religious -fanaticism was another motive. To Cortés’s men, the Aztecs, who -regularly offered human sacrifices to a heathen god, were an abomination -and deserved to be annihilated, or at least enslaved, if they did not -accept the Christian salvation held out to them. This attitude carried -over, in somewhat lesser degree, to all Indians, even though Spain’s -rulers constantly exhorted gentleness, and missionaries went with every -major group to offer heaven to souls lost in darkness. That is, if -Indians had souls, which many Europeans of the time sincerely doubted. - -Finally, every _conquistador_ was stirred to action by his own -credulity. The Church had brought him up to believe implicitly in -miracles. A large part of his education consisted of peopling the -unknown world with marvels and monsters. A favorite tale, though by no -means the only one, dealt with seven Catholic bishops and their -congregations who fled from the invading Moors to the island of Antilia. -There they burned their ships and diligently built seven glorious -cities, for naturally Christian settlements would be more dazzling than -pagan ones. _Mas allá_: there is more beyond. A wondrous dream, -Spanish-style. It carried, in succession, Pánfilo Narváez, Hernando de -Soto, Francisco Vásquez de Coronado, and Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo into -what became the United States. There reality at last took command. - - - Los Conquistadores - - [Illustration: Spanish Soldiers] - - - _Cavalryman in armor_ - _Pikeman_ - _Arquebusier, c. 1540_ - _Crossbowman arming his weapon_ - _Wardogs_ - _Swordsman_ - - -With a few thousand soldiers Spain conquered the Americas. Most of the -soldiers were unemployed veterans of an army tempered by long campaigns -against the Moors in Iberia and the French in North Italy. They came to -America, wrote an eyewitness, “to serve God and His Majesty, to give -light to those who were in darkness, and to grow rich, as all men desire -to do.” - -_Los conquistadores_ were tough, disciplined, and as ruthless as -circumstances required. Their weapons—evolved in the formal battle of -Europe—were the matchlock musket (sometimes called an arquebus), the -crossbow, pikes, lances (carried by cavalry), swords, cannon, and above -all the horse, which Indians universally regarded as a supernatural -being. This weaponry served well against organized armies in Central -America and Peru that fought in formations mostly with clubs, spears, -and slings. But in North America, the Spaniards faced skilled and -elusive archers who could drive an arrow through armor. The crossbow and -musket soon proved useless. Far more effective were sword-wielding -cavalry and infantry and (for De Soto) wardogs. In the one battle -Southeast Indians had a chance of winning (Mabila, 18 October 1540), De -Soto against great odds slaughtered his antagonists. Thousands died -against only 18 or so Spaniards. Foreshadowing things to come, this -battle demonstrated that Indians fighting with Stone Age weapons were no -match against European arms and tactics. - - [Illustration: An infantryman armed his crossbow by pushing the - bowspring back with a lever, engaging the trigger catch, and - inserting a metal-tipped dart. This weapon was effective in Europe - against formations and armor but less useful against a foe who quite - sensibly soon learned to fight by stealth and avoid open combat.] - - - _Lever for arming the bow_ - _Stock_ - _Trigger_ - _Bowstring_ - - - [Illustration: The Spanish sword at its best was a superb piece of - craftsmanship. About 41 inches long, it was double-edged, razor - sharp, and flexible. A fine Toledo blade could be bent into a - semi-circle and withstand a hard strike against steel. At - hand-to-hand combat, Spanish swordsmen were unexcelled in either - Europe or the New World.] - - [Illustration: Temple of the Sun, religious center of the Aztec city - of Teotihuacán. A priest ascending this immense pyramid seemingly - disappeared into the sky.] - - - The Wanderers - -Redheaded Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca—Cabeza de Vaca translates as Cow’s -Head—was a man of considerable pride and, apparently, some wry humor. In -1483, about three years after his birth, its exact date unknown, his -paternal grandfather, Pedro de Vera, conquered the Grand Canary Island -off the northwest coast of Africa for Spain, a feat that brought a glow, -in court circles, to the name de Vera. And then there was his mother’s -name, Teresa Cabeza de Vaca. Legend avers that back in 1212 her -ancestor, a shepherd, had used the skull of a cow to mark a mountain -pass that let a Christian army surprise and defeat its Mohammedan enemy. -The shepherd’s sovereign thereupon bestowed the name Cabeza de Vaca on -the family. Young Alvar Nuñez must have enjoyed the story, for he -adopted his mother’s surname rather than his father’s, a not unusual -custom in Spain. - -He fought in several battles for Ferdinand and Isabella and for their -grandson, Charles V, and was severely wounded at least once. In 1526, -when he was about 46, Charles appointed him royal treasurer of a large -expedition Pánfilo de Narváez proposed to lead into Florida, a name that -then covered a huge region stretching from the peninsula around the -dimly known north Gulf Coast to the Rio de las Palmas in northeastern -Mexico.[1] If treasure was found—and treasure was Narváez’s goal—it -would be up to Cabeza de Vaca to make sure the king received his 20 -percent share. Other financial duties were involved, so that altogether -it seemed a promising appointment for a middle-aged ex-soldier and able -administrator. As events turned out, Vaca could hardly have suffered a -greater misfortune. - -The problem, which merits a digression, was Pánfilo de Narváez, the -expedition’s leader. About the same age as Cabeza de Vaca, he was tall, -courtly, and deep voiced, qualities that helped marvelously in advancing -his career. He had prospered as a pioneer settler in Jamaica, and -between 1511 and 1515 had aided Diego Velásquez in the conquest of Cuba, -a feat which had elevated Velásquez to the governorship of the island. -Both men added to their riches by using enforced Indian labor to exploit -the island’s shallow placer mines and embryonic plantations. And -although both could easily have retired to comfortable estates, each -wanted more money, a common itch. - - [Illustration: Charles, King of Spain, 1516-56, and Emperor of the - Holy Roman Empire, 1519-58. Under his rule, Spain carved out a new - empire in the Americas to go with its dominions in Europe.] - -As chief administrator of Cuba, Velásquez was allowed by the government -in Spain to authorize explorations of the Caribbean. In 1517 and 1518 he -exercised this right by licensing seafarers to explore and trade along -the coasts of Yucatan and Mexico, capture Indian slaves, and scout out -the country for booty. In return for the licenses, Velásquez would share -in whatever gains resulted. - -Of his searchers for new wealth, the one whose name would ring down -through history was Hernán Cortés. Cocky, crafty, reckless, and adept -with the ladies, Cortés had come to Cuba as Velásquez’s private -secretary at the same time Narváez had. He, too, had prospered, but -unlike Narváez he had quarreled sharply with his former boss. Though a -reconciliation had been effected, it was touchy. Still, Cortés had money -and was willing to spend it on risky adventures, and so, in 1518, he was -authorized to explore Mexico’s eastern coast. He assembled a fleet of 11 -ships, 16 precious horses, and prodigious stores of armaments. People -grew so excited about his prospects that he easily recruited 500 or so -soldiers and 100 sailors—nearly half of Cuba’s male population. - -While he was preparing his expedition, some of Velásquez’s other scouts -returned with rumors of a fabulous empire of Aztec Indians and their -capital city, Tenochtitlán, built on an island in a shallow lake that -filled most of a high mountain valley in Mexico. Growing suddenly -nervous about Cortés—how loyal would he be with treasure in front of him -and an army at his back?—Velásquez in February 1519 revoked Cortés’s -commission. Defying him, Cortés slipped away and disappeared. - -One of the world’s most fabulous adventures followed. Landing on the -Yucatan coast, Cortés rescued a survivor of one of Velásquez’s earlier -expeditions—a man who in his captivity had learned the Mayan language. -Employing the one-time prisoner as an interpreter, Cortés turned his -fleet northward, probing the coast. Such resistance as developed among -the Indians was quickly crushed by the terrifying aspect of the -expedition’s few horses. During one of those aborted battles, Cortés -rescued yet another captive, a woman named Malinche whom the priest with -the expedition baptized and named Marina. - - [Illustration: Hernán Cortés with 600 men and 16 horses overthrew - the Aztec empire. This illustration of the conquistador was made - from life.] - - [Illustration: The map traces his route from the coast to - Tenochtitlán in 1519.] - -Marina was a Nahua, or Aztec. While in captivity she too had learned the -Mayan tongue and could converse with the rescued Spaniard. Through this -linguistic conduit, the _conquistadores_ received exciting information -about Tenochtitlán, the glittering city of the Aztecs, predecessor of -today’s Mexico City. A dazzling prize! And why, Cortés surely wondered, -should he share any of it with Diego Velásquez, sitting safely at home -in Cuba? - -On April 21, 1519, the fleet dropped anchor at the sea end of a trail -leading to the city. There Cortés laid the foundations of a port that he -named Vera Cruz (today Veracruz). Calling his men together—they, too, -were excited about prospects—he prevailed on the majority to elect him -captain-general of the expedition, a move that in Cortés’s mind freed -him of his obligations to Velásquez and made him answerable only to King -Charles V. Simultaneously, he sent emissaries to Moctezuma, emperor of -the Aztecs, asking for an audience. - -The timing could hardly have been more propitious. The Aztec rule was -harsh; subject nations seethed with discontent; Tenochtitlán itself was -torn with dissensions. Fearful that the strangers might be able to -capitalize on the undercurrents of the rebellion—and fearful, too, that -the newcomers might somehow be descendants of the ancient serpent-god, -Quetzalcoatl—Moctezuma tried to buy off the Spaniards. Down to Veracruz -went five noble diplomats accompanied by 100 porters laden with -treasure. All of it was breathtaking, but what really dumbfounded the -Spaniards were two metal disks the size of cartwheels. One, representing -the Sun God, was of solid gold. The other, dedicated to the Moon, was of -silver. - -Cortés declined to respond as expected. He loaded the treasure onto one -of his ships and ordered the captain to sail directly to Spain, where he -would use the booty to win the approval of Charles V. The rest of the -ships he burned so that none of the men in the command who were still -loyal to Velásquez could return to Cuba and stir up trouble there. As -for his own men, they too would fight harder if they knew that no ships -were waiting to evacuate them if they were defeated. - - [Illustration: Xipe Totec, Aztec god of fertility, one of many gods - in the Aztec pantheon, redrawn from the original codex. He wears the - flayed skin of a sacrificial victim. Ritual killing horrified - Spaniards and in their eyes justified the conquest. But to Aztecs - the gods and their extravagant costumes were an important part of - everyday life, condensations of vital social truths.] - -In November 1519, Tenochtitlán capitulated after a short, hard fight. -Cortés took Moctezuma hostage and then paused to contemplate his -enormous prize. - -Unknown to the victors, the captain of the ship bound for Spain did -pause in Cuba to check on some land he owned there. It was a short stay -but long enough for the sailors to talk. Astounded couriers sped the -word to Velásquez. The governor was outraged. He was already at work -gathering a strong force of 900 men equipped with 80 horses and 13 ships -to pursue Cortés and arrest him for defying orders. Doubly furious at -what seemed to him Cortés’s latest treachery, he put Pánfilo de Narváez -in charge of a punitive force to bring the disloyal _conquistador_ back -to Cuba in chains! - -Warnings from Veracruz reached Cortés at the Aztec capital. He reacted -with characteristic boldness. Leaving two hundred men at Tenochtitlán, -he marched the rest swiftly to the coast. No one there anticipated him -so soon. Late at night, when most of his would-be captors were asleep, -he waded his men across a swollen stream and attacked without warning. -During the chaos that followed, a lance point put out one of Narváez’s -eyes. By dawn the field was in Cortés’s hands. Most of Narváez’s men, -hearing of the riches of Tenochtitlán, deserted their commander and -swore fealty to the victor. - -While Narváez remained under guard at Veracruz, nursing his wound, -Cortés marched back to rejoin the rest of his men at Tenochtitlán. The -Aztecs let the returning soldiers reach the palace compound and then -attacked in waves of thousands. The hostage emperor, Moctezuma, was -stoned to death by his own people while pleading for peace. Trying once -again to use the night as cover, Cortés on June 30, 1520, led hundreds -of Spaniards and several thousand Indian allies onto one of the -stone-and-earth causeways that connected the island city to the -mainland. Aztecs swarmed after them in canoes. On that famed _noche -triste_—night of sorrows—850 Spaniards and upwards of 4,000 of their -allies died. - -Fortune shifted quickly, however. Wheeling around on the plains outside -the city and making adroit use of his few horses and guns, Cortés -defeated the army pursuing him. Doggedly then he put together a fresh -army of Indians who hated the Aztecs and of whites who were dribbling -into Mexico to see what was going on. The next year, on August 13, 1521, -he recaptured Tenochtitlán, again at heavy cost. By twisting logic only -a little, he could have blamed all these troubles on Narváez’s inept -interference. He did not. He treated the man kindly and then sent him -home to Spain with, so it is said, a bagful of golden artifacts. - - “I saw the things which have been brought to the King from the new - land of gold, a sun all of gold a whole fathom broad, and a moon all - of silver of the same size, also two rooms full of the armour of the - people there, and all manner of wondrous weapons of [the Aztecs], - harnesses and darts, very strange clothing, beds and all kinds of - wonderful objects of human use, much better worth of seeing than - prodigies. These things are so precious that they are valued at a - hundred thousand florins. All the days of my life I have seen - nothing that rejoiced my heart so much as these things, for I saw - among them wonderful works of art, and I marvelled at the subtle - ingenia of people in foreign lands. Indeed, I cannot express all - that I thought there.”—_Albrecht Dürer upon seeing the Aztec objects - Cortés sent Charles V in 1519._ - -In Spain Narváez intrigued against the nation’s hero, as Cortés then -was, as best he could. He also yearned for a conquest in which he could -redeem himself. When the governorship of Florida fell open, he applied -for the position and won. His plan was to establish his first colony at -Río de las Palmas, north of Pánuco, on Mexico’s northeast coast, where -Cortés had already placed a defensive outpost. From there he could put -pressure on his enemy, who many of the king’s council thought was -growing too big for his boots. He could also search for the treasure -that he was sure lay somewhere in the north, in the land from which he -supposed the Aztecs had originally come—land where the fabled Seven -Cities might lie. - -Six hundred soldiers, sailors, and would-be settlers, a few of whom had -their wives with them, left Spain aboard five ships in June 1527. One of -the adventurers was Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca, making his first trip to -the New World. It was a hard journey—desertions, groundings, a deadly -hurricane, and finally a series of adverse storms that drove the little -fleet off its intended course for the Río de las Palmas to a landing on -the west coast of the Florida peninsula, probably opposite the head of -Tampa Bay. - -In view of the peninsula’s nearness to Cuba, remarkably little was known -about it. Beginning with Alonso Alvarez de Pineda in 1519, a few sea -explorers had groped along its western coast on their way to Mexico. -Occasional traders and slave hunters had poked into some of its lovely -bays—and had often taken severe trouncings from the Indians for their -pains. Juan Ponce de León, the only man to try to establish a colony -there, was mortally wounded during the attempt. - - - Tenochtitlán, Capital of the Aztec Empire - - [Illustration: Tenochtitlán] - - Tenochtitlán, predecessor of today’s Mexico City, was one of the most - magnificent cities in the world when Cortés and his small army arrived - in 1519. The sight of the radiant city in the center of a large lake - astonished the Spaniards. “We did not know what to say, or whether - what appeared before us was real,” wrote a soldier, “for there were - great cities along the shore and many others in the lake, all filled - with canoes, and at intervals along the causeways there were many - bridges....” - - About 250,000 persons lived here and in its sister city Tlatelolco - (left). The market place was huge. “Some of the soldiers with us had - been in many parts of the world, in Constantinople and all over Italy - and Rome, and they said they had never seen a public square so - perfectly laid out, so large, so orderly, and so full of people.” - - At the center of the city—and the Aztec religion—was the _Templo - Major_, a complex of temples and shrines to the gods of fertility and - war—the sources of Aztec power. The surfaces of the temples were - richly ornamented in symbols and myths that expressed their complete - vision of life. It was this city, which governed a vast empire in - central Mexico, that the intrepid Cortés and his band overthrew in - 1521. Within a few years a splendid and original civilization lay in - ruins. - -Narváez must have known of the dangers, but when he saw a yellow object -among some fish nets in a village from which the Indians had fled on his -approach, he jumped to the conclusion that it was gold. Hopefully, he -showed the object to some Indians he lured into camp, they pointed north -and said vehemently, “Apalachee! Apalachee!” Straightway Narváez decided -to march there overland with the main part of his force, 40 of them -mounted on the skin-and-bone horses that had survived the sea journey. -The rest of the group, including its women, were directed to sail along -the coast to a harbor supposedly known to the expedition’s pilot. There -the two groups would come together again. - - [Illustration: The Aztecs and kindred people were wonderful artists - in gold. The lifesize breastplate is Mixtecan, perhaps the - representation of the god of death.] - - [Illustration: The gold plug is an Aztecan facial ornament. Nobles - and military leaders routinely wore plugs as a sign of rank. The - plugs were inserted through a hole below the lip or in the cheek.] - -Cabeza de Vaca protested. They couldn’t be sure they understood the -Indians properly. Would the two parties be able to find each other again -on the intricate coast? They did not have food enough for exploring. -First they should locate their colony in an area suitable for farming -and send the ships to Cuba for supplies. Time enough then to search for -gold. - -Narváez waved him aside. The ships sailed on and the land party headed -north, each man carrying two pounds of biscuits and half a pound of -bacon. After 15 days of hunger they luckily seized some Indians who led -them to a field of maize ripe enough for harvesting. Strengthened -somewhat but beset by clouds of insects, they waded on through bogs, -built rafts for crossing rivers—a drowned horse fed some of them one -night—and then entered a region of enormous trees where piles of fallen -timber created an almost impassable maze. - -Apalachee, located close to the site of modern Tallahassee, turned out -to be a village of 40 small houses roofed with thatch. No gold. -Disgruntled, Narváez imprisoned an Apalachee chief and appropriated some -of the houses for shelter. The villagers retaliated by setting fire to -the buildings, a tactic that became common during later years. - -The invaders stayed 25 days, scouting the surrounding country and -resting as best they could under constant sniping by displaced -inhabitants. They then headed west toward another town of reputed -richness, Aute, near present-day St. Marks, on Apalachee Bay. Indians -shadowed them, killing or wounding several men with hard-pointed arrows -capable of piercing armor. Cabeza de Vaca was one of those nicked. - -On the Spaniards’ approach, the inhabitants of Aute burned their huts -and fled. There was no gold in the ruins. No silver. No jewels. And no -sign of Spanish ships in the bay. As a mysterious fever began felling -the men one by one, Narváez said that Pánuco could not be far away. If -they could build boats.... - -How? The men knew nothing about the art of shipbuilding. The only -materials they had were what they and their horses wore. Total -helplessness—until God’s will, Cabeza de Vaca wrote years later, -prompted one anonymous fellow to say he thought he could make a bellows -out of deerskin and wooden pipes. With the bellows they could produce -heat enough to transform spurs, bridle-bits, crossbow darts, and iron -stirrups into nails. Excited by that proposal, a Greek spoke up, saying -he knew how to manufacture waterproofing pitch from the resin in the -pine trees surrounding them. - -Working with the energy of desperation, the men put together, between -August 5 and September 20 five crude boats, each about 33 feet long. -They made sails out of their clothing, rope out of horse hair and -palmetto fibre, anchors out of stone. Those not involved in the -construction used the surviving horses—a diminishing number since they -killed one every third day for food—to bring in 640 bushels of corn from -the fields at Aute. Several men died from fever or wounds received from -the Indians—not altogether an ill wind, since the five boats could not -have carried more than the 250 or so persons who overloaded them at -sailing time. Narváez, exercising a leader’s prerogative, picked out the -best boat and strongest crew for himself. - -They crawled along close to the shore, sat out storms behind islands, -lost more men to Indian attack, and suffered so terribly from thirst—the -water bottles they had made from horsehide soon rotted—that four of them -drank salt water in their misery and perished. A more historic moment -than any of them would ever realize came toward the end of October 1528, -when, as they were edging out past some marshy islands, a powerful -current of fresh water swept them far out to sea. They had discovered -the mouth of a great river—the Mississippi. - -As they worked back toward the coast on the far side of the river mouth, -winds and sea currents quickened their pace. Despite strenuous efforts -the crews could not keep the boats together. The men with Cabeza de Vaca -grew so exhausted that they shouted to Narváez to toss them a rope and -help pull them along. Narváez refused. “When the sun sank,” the -treasurer recalled later, “all who were in my boat were fallen one on -another, so near to death that there were few of them in a state of -sensibility.” They lay inert throughout the night. At dawn—it was -November 6, 1528—Cabeza de Vaca heard the tumult of breakers but could -take no measures to meet the threat. A giant wave lifted the boat out of -the water and dropped it with a crash on what was either Galveston -Island off the coast of Texas or a nearby stub of a peninsula. - - [Illustration: The “hunch-backed cows” that Vaca and his companions - saw were the wide-ranging American bison. “They have small horns - like the cows of Morocco,” he wrote. “The hair is very long and - wooly like a rug. Some are tawny, others are black. In my judgment - the flesh is finer and fatter than cows from [Spain].”] - -Karankawa Indians who had gathered at the spot to dig roots succored -them. A little later they joined the crew of another capsized boat that -had been commanded by captains Alonso de Castillo and Andrés Dorantes, -whose black slave Estéban was with him. The combined group numbered -about 80, most of them infirm and next to naked. Numbly, they tried to -repair Cabeza de Vaca’s boat so the strongest could sail to Pánuco for -help. It sank. Four volunteers then agreed to try to reach Mexico by -land. They never returned. - -A winter of intense cold, starvation, and fever left only 15 alive, -Cabeza de Vaca barely so. In the spring, 13 of the survivors moved off -with the greater part of the Indians in search of food, leaving Cabeza -de Vaca and a second invalid, Lope de Oviedo, behind with a small band. -As soon as Cabeza de Vaca was able to work, the Indians set him to -digging roots and carrying firewood. To escape the drudgery he became a -trader, traveling far inland with a pack of shells, flints, cane for -arrow shafts, sinews and so on for barter. During the wanderings he -became the first European known to have seen bison. - -His great desire was to walk southwest along the coast until he reached -other men of his own kind, and he urged Oviedo to join him. The fellow -kept promising he would as soon as he was better. Not wishing to desert -a fellow Spaniard, Cabeza de Vaca wasted four years through one -postponement after another. At last they started, but then Oviedo caved -in with fear and turned back, preferring familiar miseries to the -unknown. - -Shortly thereafter, in 1532, in the bottomlands of the Colorado River of -Texas, where several bands were harvesting walnuts, Cabeza de Vaca -stumbled joyously across Castillo, Dorantes, and the vigorous black -Estéban. The trio were also ready to strike for Mexico if they could -escape from their masters, but they warned against fierce tribes to the -southwest. They should try a route farther north. - -After two years of interruption and frustrations they made the break. -The incredible journey, broken by long stays at various Indian camps, -lasted two years. At times they traveled alone. More often they were -accompanied by Indians. After they had chanced to pray over an ailing -man, who thereupon leaped up and declared himself cured, they became -revered as supernatural medicinemen, children of the sun. Their marches, -often scouted out for them by Estéban, who also served as interpreter—he -learned six languages during those arduous years—became triumphal -processions. Sometimes, says Cabeza de Vaca, as many as 4,000 Indians -would accompany them from one village to the next, a figure that, as -Bernard DeVoto has pointed out, should be taken as a way of saying -“quite a few.” Those who escorted them would often loot the first -village they reached, whereupon its inhabitants, moving on with the -quartet to another village, would recoup their losses by plundering it. - -What route did they follow? No one knows. Cabeza de Vaca’s descriptions -of Indian customs, rivers, mountains, vegetation, and so on have led -some students to suggest that the wanderers may have gone as far north -as southern New Mexico and Arizona. Others think they traveled out of -west Texas into Chihuahua. But whatever the way, it eventually merged -with one of the trade trails that ran between the Pueblo Indian towns of -the Southwest and those in the heavily populated, southward trending -valleys of Sonora. They reached the Sonora area in the spring of 1536. - -What had they seen along the way? Not much, according to a report that -the survivors sent to the _audiencia_ in Hispaniola in 1537. Just -buffalo robes that had originated in the country of the plains Indians -and beautifully woven cotton mantas that their native hosts had obtained -by trade with Indians somewhere in the north (probably the Pueblos of -the Rio Grande). Bits of coral and turquoise. And miles and miles of -desolation, thinly populated by primitive tribes. Writing a memoir of -the trip six years later, Cabeza de Vaca improved only slightly on the -tales. In Sonora, he related, he was given five emeralds shaped like -arrowheads; the donors said the “jewels” had been purchased in the north -with parrot feathers and plumes. Sadly, he lost the five artifacts -before anyone else saw them. He also told of handling a small bell made -of copper and of hearing stories about large cities filled with big -houses and surrounded by boundless fields of maize. - -Such reports were too vague and understated to create much popular -excitement—at first. But as Antonio de Mendoza, New Spain’s first and -recently arrived Viceroy, realized, the calm might not last. For a -similar story told a few years earlier to the infamous Nuño de Guzmán by -an Indian slave named Tejo had stirred up a violent reaction. - -At the time Guzmán had been governor of Pánuco on Mexico’s northeast -coast and was making a fortune selling slaves to plantations throughout -the West Indies. But that wasn’t enough, and his ears pricked up when he -listened to Tejo telling about a trip with his father to seven marvelous -cities far to the northwest—cities whose streets were lined with the -shops of goldsmiths and silversmiths. - -The story may well have had an element of truth in it. If a trader kept -traveling northwest from Pánuco—and some of Mexico’s early Indian -traders were far-ranging—he would eventually reach the impressive pueblo -towns of today’s New Mexico. Where the notion of goldsmiths came from is -something else, but Guzman believed it because he wanted to. - -Instead of taking a direct line to his goal, he put together a strong -force, fought his way across the mountains to the west coast, and hewed -out, as a base of operations for a thrust along the trade trails leading -north, the all-but-independent province of Nueva Galicia. (It embraced -the better part of the present-day Mexican states of Nayarit and -Sinaloa.) Illness and then his arrest for his slave-dealings put a stop -to the northern plans, but the appearance of the Vaca party out of the -wilderness might, Mendoza feared, lead the great Cortés to appropriate -the idea for himself. - -Cortés was ripe for trouble. Because of his insubordination to Diego -Velásquez of Cuba, the king had refused to name him Viceroy of New -Spain, but then had tried to compensate for the injustice, as Cortés -considered it, by naming him the Marquís of the Valley of Oaxaca and -giving him the right to explore the South Seas (south of Asia) for new -principalities. On their quests some of his ship captains stirred -Guzmán’s jealousy by sailing north along the coast of Nueva Galicia. -When Guzmán seized one of those ships in the port of Chiametla, the -Marquís rushed up with a small army and took it back. He then used that -ship to cross what he called the Sea of Cortés (today’s Gulf of -California) and claim possession, in the name of the king, of pearl -fisheries his mariners had discovered at La Paz in what we call Baja -California. The fisheries were not proving lucrative, however, and the -least sign that something better existed farther north might tempt him -to push on. - -It behooved Mendoza, as the king’s representative, to move first, before -New Spain’s legitimate northward expansion was halted by one of these -semi-autonomous _conquistadores_. Dutifully reporting each of his moves -to Charles V—caution was part of his nature—he asked, in turn, Castillo, -Dorantes, and Cabeza de Vaca to lead a small exploring party into the -north and learn what was really there. Not surprisingly, in view of -their experiences, each refused. - -In 1537, Cabeza de Vaca returned to Spain. Skeptics say he wanted to -persuade the king to appoint him _adelantado_ of Florida so that he -could move independently into the north from that direction. On reaching -Madrid, however, he found that Charles had already given the post to -Hernando de Soto. - -Years later one of De Soto’s Portuguese officers from the town of -Elvas—he identified himself only as a _hidalgo_ (gentleman) of -Spain—wrote that De Soto offered to take Cabeza de Vaca along as second -in command for the sake of his guidance. Again the wanderer declined. -But, said the _hidalgo_, whose accuracy cannot be checked, Vaca did drop -hints to his friends and relatives that led them to sell everything they -had in order to buy enough equipment to join the expedition. Possibly. -But all we really know is that Cabeza de Vaca, the only man to brush -against both of the _entradas_ that gave the world its first views of -what became the United States, never returned there himself. He was sent -to South America instead. - -Mendoza of course learned by ship of De Soto’s appointment and of -necessity had to assume that one of the new _adelantado_’s goals would -be the Seven Cities. So now he had twin worries, Cortés in the west, De -Soto in the east. But before considering the steps he took to checkmate -them, it is well to look at De Soto’s adventure, for he is the one who, -through sheer luck, had the head start. - - - The Odyssey of Cabeza de Vaca - - [Illustration: Routes of Narváez and de Vaca] - - - NARVÁEZ EXPEDITION - Santiago, Cuba - {west Florida coast}: Narváez Expedition lands April 1526 - Apalachee - Aute: Expedition builds boats - CABEZA DE VACA - {Texas coast}: Expedition wrecks; Cabeza de Vaca continues overland - Colorado River - Pecos River - Gila River - Rio Sonora - Corazones - Culiacán: Cabeza de Vaca arrives 1536 - - - [Illustration: Desert vista] - -Cabeza de Vaca and three companions, sole survivors of the ill-fated -Narváez expedition (1527), were the first Europeans to cross the North -American continent. They spent 8 years traveling 6,000 miles through the -interior of Florida, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and northern Mexico. -The journey itself was an incredible feat of human stamina and pluck. -Equally remarkable is Cabeza de Vaca’s account of his adventure. _La -Relación_, first published In 1542, revised Spanish conceptions about -the size and nature of the continent north of Mexico. The book is also -the first detailed description of native Americans. In his wanderings -Cabeza de Vaca came to admire Indians, whom he came to see as fellow -humans who could be won over only by kindness. His book—which can be -considered the beginning of American literature—is a record of both a -physical and a spiritual journey. - - [Illustration: Mangrove near De Soto National Memorial. Thickets of - this plant once formed great barriers along the Florida shore.] - - - Journey into Darkness - -When Hernando de Soto returned to Spain from two decades of adventure in -the New World, he must have seemed to those who encountered him, or even -heard of him, the embodiment of what a _conquistador_ should be. He -carried his tall, hard, handsome body with the unmistakable air of -triumph that comes from having won by his own efforts wealth, fame, and -a noble bride—all before he was 35 years old. The exact date of his -birth is unknown, but it may have coincided with the last year of the -15th century. His birthplace was in the austere province of Extremadura. -His father was a Méndez, his mother a de Soto; his elder brother Juan -followed the Spanish custom of using both names: Juan Méndez de Soto. -Hernando, the second son, chose to be different. According to his -biographer, Miguel Albornoz, he was his mother’s favorite. He therefore -dropped Méndez from his name and became known to history only as De -Soto—an appellation he carried far. - -Another native of Extremadura and a neighbor of the De Soto family was -Vasco Nuñez de Balboa, the fabled conqueror of Darién (Panama) and -discoverer of the Pacific Ocean. Determined to emulate Balboa, who was -still alive somewhere in the New World, young Hernando de Soto made his -way, aged 14 or so, to Seville. There he found employment as a page in -the household of the notorious schemer, 75-year-old Pedro Arias Dávila, -better known as Pedrárias. When Pedrárias sailed to Central America in -1514 as a colonial administrator, De Soto went along. - -He witnessed the quarrel that sprang up between his patron and Balboa, a -quarrel that ended in 1519 when Balboa was convicted of treason through -the intrigues of Pedrárias and beheaded. Grieving, De Soto retrieved the -headless corpse and with the help of an Indian girl gave it a Christian -burial. Yet he remained loyal to Pedrárias and followed him to -Nicaragua, where he developed the ice-hard maturity that marked his -later career. He mastered the arts of dealing in Indian slaves, looting -temples, and ransacking Indian graves for valuable mortuary offerings. -By such means he prospered so well that when Pizarro, also a native of -Extremadura, needed help on his expedition to Peru, De Soto was able to -respond with two ships and 200 men. - - [Illustration: De Soto was a leader of experience and resolve. The - expedition’s chronicler characterized him as “an inflexible man, and - dry of word, who, although he liked to know what the others all - thought and had to say, after he once said a thing he did not like - to be opposed, and as he ever acted as he thought best, all bent to - his will.” This likeness was published in Antonio Herrera y - Tordesillas’s _Historia General_, 1728. No authentic portrait is - known to exist.] - -In the final assault on the Incas, De Soto was generally the one chosen -to lead reconnoitering or vanguard parties over the difficult trails of -the Andes. After the first great victory was achieved, he saw a sight -that ever afterwards burned in his memory. The conquered emperor, -Atahualpa (actually one of two brothers contending for the throne), -offered, as his ransom, to pile a room 17 feet wide, 22 feet long, and 9 -high with golden ornaments, vases, goblets, statuettes. In addition he -said, he would fill a somewhat smaller adjoining chamber twice over with -silver. In spite of that tremendous gesture, he was then tricked into -ordering the death of his brother, for which he himself was executed. -The treachery drew angry protests from De Soto. - -The next conquest was of mountain-perched Cuzco, less rewarding than -anticipated because it had been stripped of treasure during the filling -of the rooms. Though De Soto was named lieutenant-governor, the quarrels -that broke out between the generals led him to give up the position and -return to Spain with his share of the booty. Various estimates of its -size have been given, but since there is no satisfactory way of -comparing purchasing power then and now, the figures are elusive. Still, -it must have been the equivalent of several million of today’s dollars. - -He made a point of cutting a fine figure in Spain. Everywhere he went he -was accompanied by a dazzling entourage composed mostly of officers who -had ridden with him in Panama and Peru. He became a favorite of the -King, to whom he loaned money; and he married a daughter of his old -patron, Pedrárias. A plush life. But as the lazy days drifted by, De -Soto grew restless. He needed activity and he wanted gold. Roomfuls of -gold. And fame. - -Yielding to his importunities, Charles V made him governor of Cuba and -_adelantado_ of Florida, which then stretched from the Atlantic as far -north as the Carolinas and on around the Gulf of Mexico to the Río de -las Palmas. The usual stipulations about the division of treasure were -spelled out in the license. The King was to have one-fifth of all spoils -of battle, one-fifth of any revenue derived from mining precious metals, -and one-tenth of all loot taken from graves, sepulchres, Indian temples. -Once the region had been explored, De Soto was to become the governor of -whatever 200 leagues of coastal area he picked out. There he was to -found colonies and build three fortified harbors. He was to pacify the -Indians and provide the necessary number of priests and friars to -convert them. He was to bear the entire costs of the expedition. When it -was over, he would receive, in addition to his share of any booty and a -grant of land 12 leagues square (about 50,000 acres), a salary of 2,000 -ducats a year, roughly $60,000 today. - -The expedition, its quota of men more than filled with volunteers who -supplied their own armor and arms, landed in Cuba in June 1538 and spent -nearly a year there while De Soto attended to administrative duties and -organized the _entrada_. He used far more care than Narváez had. While -scouts searched for a good harbor on Florida’s west coast, the -commissary department rustled up many loads of hard ship biscuit, 5,000 -bushels of maize, quantities of bacon, and a herd of rangy hogs. They -also brought with them long, clanking strands of iron chains and -collars, portents of things to come. - -The chronicles of the expedition give different figures about the -numbers involved, but this is a reasonable approximation: close to 700 -men, perhaps a hundred camp followers, including a few women, many -slaves, eight ecclesiastical persons, and 240 or so horses. Having -learned from Cabeza de Vaca about some of Narváez’s mistakes, De Soto -included among the soldiers several artisans capable of working with -their hands. People, horses, hogs, and big dogs that could be used for -attacking Indians, and a confusion of supplies and equipment were loaded -aboard five low-waisted, high-pooped, square-rigged ships ranging from -500 to 800 tons burden. Overflow was accommodated, uncomfortably, in two -caravels and two small pinnaces. - -The fleet spent a week in late May 1539, reaching the southernmost part -of what is generally believed to have been Tampa Bay.[2] While the ships -were groping over the shoals so that unloading could begin, patrols of -both horsemen and footmen, happy to be free of the cramped quarters, -dashed off through the undergrowth to learn what lay ahead. They soon -discovered that the countryside, though sweet-smelling with flowers, was -a maze of bogs, meandering streams, and thick stands of mangroves and -oaks. Another tax on travel were small groups of tall, naked Indians, -probably Timucuans. The Indians eluded the horsemen by dodging nimbly -through swamps and behind trees, now and then letting an arrow flash out -from one of their bows. Fortunately one of the few captives the patrols -seized was Juan Ortiz, a former member of the ill-fated Narváez -expedition. - -Ortiz had returned to Cuba with the explorer’s ships after they had -failed to make contact with the land party and then had been hired by -Narváez’s distraught wife to search for her husband in a pinnace she -provided. On visiting Narváez’s initial landing place at Tampa Bay, -Ortiz had been captured and had lived ever since with a group that -controlled part of the region around the bay. He knew the Timucuans’ -language and could speak through interpreters to other Indian groups. -But in all that time he had never been far afield and could report only -rumors about distant places. Gold? There was none near at hand, but far -to the north was a powerful kingdom abounding in maize. Its inhabitants -might know of minerals. - -A scouting party dispatched to investigate returned with a tantalizing -message that would be repeated over and over during the long trek: the -gold was somewhere else, this time at a place called Cale, where the -warriors wore golden helmets. De Soto nodded complacently. In a region -as vast as Florida, he told the Gentleman of Elvas, there were bound to -be riches. - -Mindful still of the colony he was supposed to found, he left Pedro -Calderón near Tampa Bay with three small ships, their sailors, and a -hundred soldiers. They had two years’ supply of food and seed for -planting. If he found a better place to settle, he would let them know. -Meanwhile the other caravel and the five big ships were to return to -Havana for fresh supplies and new recruits. - -Moving inland farther than Narváez had and marching in divisions, the -army moved north. Tough going. Rains were heavy that year. Bogs oozed; -lakes and streams rose. The wayfarers waded some streams and bridged -others. The men herded the pigs through the mud—the sows had farrowed -and there were about 300 now—grooming horses, setting up wet camps and -then, tired out, pulverizing, in curved log mortars, the grain they had -taken from Indian fields and storage cribs so they could boil it into -gruel. Discontent boiled up. There’d better be gold somewhere in this -hellhole. - -There was none at Cale, but a little farther on.... They straggled -through the vicinity of today’s Gainesville and, inclining a little west -of north, reached a village called Aguacaliquen. There an advance party -captured several women, one of whom was the daughter of the cacique, or -chief. The father was told he could not get her back until he had guided -the Spaniards into the territory of the next tribe to the west. This he -did while several of his villagers followed, playing on bone flutes as a -sign of peace and begging that father and daughter be released. - -When pleas produced nothing—De Soto feared being left in the wilderness -with no guides—the Indians decided to ambush the Spaniards at “a very -pleasant village” called Napituca, near today’s Live Oak, Florida. De -Soto’s interpreter, Juan Ortiz, discovered the plot and gave warning. -Spirits leaped. After two months of being harassed by Indian guerrillas, -the Spaniards could at last vent their frustration on a massed -army—about 400 Indians, as it turned out. Giving thanks to God, the -cavalry charged, lances thrusting, swords slashing. Bellow of -arquebuses, zings of crossbow darts, yells of “Santiago!” from -pike-wielding foot soldiers. Scores of Indians died; hundreds were -captured, including a remnant that fled into two nearby lakes and, by -hiding in the cold, night-shrouded waters, evaded capture until -morning—a brave stand that won both admiration and kind treatment from -the Spanish force. - -Not all the captives were handled that generously. Their services were -needed. During marches males were linked by chains and iron collars and -forced to serve as porters for the army. Women, historian Garcilaso de -la Vega wrote after talking to participants in the adventure, served as -“domestics,” grinding the rations of maize, cooking the meals, and so -on. Rodrigo Ranjel, De Soto’s private secretary, was more specific: the -soldiers desired women for “foul use and lewdness.” Whenever the -conquerors seized a new village, its cacique was impressed as a hostage -and guide and released only after his subjects had served as bearers -over the next stretch of the journey. Rebels against the enslavement -received punishments designed to warn other recalcitrants. Some had a -hand or nose cut off, a few were tied to stakes and burned or shot to -death with arrows fired by Indian auxiliaries. Now and then one was torn -to pieces by the Spaniard’s war dogs. They accepted the ordeals with a -stoicism that won the grudging approval of the expedition’s chroniclers. - -In October 1539, De Soto’s army entered the land of the Apalachees. -According to Ranjel, they found “much maize and beans and squash and -diverse fruits and many deer and a great diversity of birds and fish.” -Like Narváez before them, they decided to winter at the fruitful spot, -site of today’s Tallahassee. - -They evicted the Indians of the main town, Anhaica, and settled down in -the log and straw houses. Taking advantage of a high wind, the Indians -burned most of the place. Later, the intense cold killed almost all of -the despondent Indian slaves captured at the battle of Napituca. In -spite of the misfortunes, De Soto decided to use Apalachee as a center -for future explorations. He sent Juan de Añasco and 30 cavalrymen south -through bogs and sniping Indians to Tampa Bay to bring up Calderón’s -hundred soldiers and the three small ships. When the vessels arrived at -the very harbor from which Narváez had sailed (as revealed by the -remnants of the forge and the grisly piles of horse bones) De Soto -dispatched the ships west under Francisco Maldonado to find a protected -bay to which the reinforcements waiting in Havana could be brought the -following summer. - -Meanwhile another distraction arose. Working through a chain of -interpreters, Juan Ortiz learned from an Indian captive that a truly -rich country, Cofitachequi, lay to the northeast, in the vicinity of -what is now Camden, South Carolina. Promptly, De Soto decided to take -his regrouped army there. - -They left on March 3, 1540. Because most of their captives had died, the -men again had to carry their own rations and prepare their own meals. -Spring-swollen streams blocked the way; one was so wide the men built a -ferry and hauled it back and forth with hawsers. The cacique of -Cofitachequi turned out to be a woman. Bedecked in furs, feathers, and -the freshwater pearls that were common in the mussels of the southeast, -she greeted them warmly. “Be this coming to these shores most happy,” -she said according to one chronicler. “My ability can in no way equal my -wishes, nor my services [equal] the merits of so great a prince; -nevertheless, good wishes are to be valued more than the treasures of -the earth without them. With sincerest and purest good will, I tender -you my person, my lands, my people, and make you these small gifts.” - - - Anhaica: De Soto’s First Winter Camp, 1539-40 - - The only site linked with certainty to De Soto is _Anhaica_, once the - principal town of the Apalachee Indians. - - This numerous and powerful people resisted the Spaniards’ intrusion - into their country in autumn 1539, harassing the march and burning - villages to deny food to the army. At _Anhaica_ De Soto found an - abandoned town of “250 large and good houses.” The Spaniards settled - in and spent five months here. They scoured the countryside for - provisions, seizing quantities of maize, pumpkins, beans, and dried - persimmons. The Indians raided the town twice and set fires. When the - army departed in spring, they carried enough maize to last them across - 200 miles of wilderness. - - [Illustration: Artifacts from the Tallahassee site: bits of chain - mail (top), an arrow point (above); a copper coin minted in Spain - between 1505-17; the metal tip of a cross bow dart.] - - [Illustration: Digging also turned up fragments of olive jars of the - type shown at left. The chain mail shirt at right above shows the - type of body armor worn by Spaniards in the first decades of the New - World conquest. The jar and shirt were not found at the site.] - -The exact site of _Anhaica_ lay unknown for 450 years. It was discovered -by accident in 1987 by archeologist Calvin Jones while searching in -downtown Tallahassee, Florida, for a 17th-century Spanish mission. -Digging on land planned for development, he and others recovered many -16th-century Spanish artifacts (iron, coins, olive jar fragments, beads, -the mandible of a pig) in context with Apalachee pottery. Analysis left -no doubt that this was the site of De Soto’s first winter camp. - - [Illustration: The female cacique of Cofitachequi, apparently a - woman of considerable authority, greeted De Soto’s army with - ceremony and gifts of food and clothing. Though she had befriended - the expedition, she was seized as a hostage and guide but eventually - escaped. Artist Louis S. Glanzman illustrates the cacique as she may - have appeared at the time of the encounter.] - -She gave De Soto strands of freshwater pearls and let the men take more -from tombs located in mounds raised above the ground. They were not very -good pearls and had been discolored by being bored with redhot copper -spindles. But they were the closest things to treasure the men had found -so far, and De Soto filled a cane chest with 350 pounds of them. - -Won by the pearls, the lush countryside, and the navigability of the -Wateree-Santee Rivers, which drained southeast into the Atlantic, the -men wanted to found a colony there. De Soto refused. There was not -enough food at Cofitachequi for the army. Moreover, he was still hoping, -in the words of the Gentleman of Elvas, for another windfall “like that -of Atabalipa [Atahualpa] of Peru.” - -The place to investigate, he heard, was off across the Appalachian -Mountains to the northwest. Seizing the cacique who had befriended him, -he forced her to enlist a portion of her subjects as porters and -domestics for the disgruntled men. They moved rapidly through South -Carolina into western North Carolina. By trails that had never before -seen a horse, let alone a herd of pigs, they crossed the mountains into -the tumbled region of the French Broad and Pigeon Rivers. There the -cacique of the pearls managed to escape. As usual, there was no gold. - -Hoping, presumably, to meet the ships coming from Havana with supplies -and reinforcements, De Soto at last turned south through the land that -Creek Indians later occupied in northern Alabama. As they traveled down -the Coosa River, they entered a new chiefdom and there laid hold of a -tall, disdainful leader named Tascaluza. De Soto demanded women and -slaves. With pretended meekness Tascaluza provided the army with a -hundred porters and then secretly sent word ahead to his warriors in the -stockaded town of Mabila, from which today’s Mobile takes its name, to -prepare an ambush. When the town came into sight, De Soto carelessly let -the main part of the hungry army disperse to forage. Leaving the -fettered bearers outside the entrance, the general and a handful of -aides entered the village with Tascaluza. Hot words soon broke out, and -the Indians hurled themselves at the enemy. The Spaniards clustered -around their leader. Although five were killed and De Soto was knocked -down a time or two, they managed to fight their way back outside. During -the uproar the porters picked up the food, armaments, and other baggage -they had been carrying and rushed inside the stockade with it, to join -Tascaluza’s people. - -Assembling his soldiers, De Soto launched attacks against all sides of -the barricaded town. With axes and fire the yelling Spaniards smashed -through the palisades. While the battle raged from house to house, the -tinder-box town went up in flames. Realizing they were being defeated, -some of the Indians threw themselves into the fire rather than -surrender. The last survivor hanged himself with his bowstring. Reports -of Spanish losses range from 18 to 22 killed and 148 wounded, including -De Soto. Somewhere between 7 and 12 irreplaceable horses perished and 28 -were injured. Indian losses were estimated by a chronicler at 2,500. - -Since landing at Tampa Bay, the Spaniards had lost 102 men from all -causes. The chest of pearls De Soto had hoped to send to Cuba as a lure -for replacements had disappeared in the fire, along with most of the -army’s spare clothing, weapons, and food. Yet when the interpreter, Juan -Ortiz, told De Soto of Indian reports of ships in Mobile Bay a few days -away, he ordered him to stay silent. He knew the men would desert if -they thought they could reach the ships, and his pride could not -tolerate that. Go home empty-handed, beaten, and disgraced? Never. - -He rallied the army. For 28 days the healthy doctored the wounded with, -said Garcilaso de la Vega, unguents made from the fat of dead Indians. -Their commander moved among them, bolstering their spirits, so that when -he ordered them to face north again, they obeyed, though they all knew -that ships from Havana had been scheduled to meet them somewhere. - -They followed the Tombigbee River into northeastern Mississippi to -Chicaza, where they wintered (1540-41) among the Chickasaw Indians. When -they made their usual request for porters, women, clothing, and food for -the spring march, the Chickasaws responded one day at dawn by setting -fire to the section of the town in which the invaders were bivouacked. -The confusion was total—and perhaps a salvation for the Spaniards. -Several terrified horses broke loose and stampeded wildly. Their squeals -and the pounding of their hooves, and the sight of De Soto and a few -others who had managed to get mounted bearing down on them with lances -(before De Soto’s saddle turned and he fell heavily) frightened the -Indians into flight. - - - De Soto in La Florida - - De Soto was seeking another Peru in Florida. But after three years and - thousands of miles, his futile quest ended in a watery grave in the - Mississippi. For natives of the Southeast, the _entrada_ was also - tragic. The warfare weakened chiefdoms, and Old World diseases ravaged - populations. By the time the English and French began their invasions - in the a 17th century, the complex mound-building chiefdoms of the - region had vanished. They were replaced by the historic tribes whose - diminished numbers were no match for westward-expanding Americans. - - [Illustration: Route of De Soto] - - In his swing across the Southeast, De Soto’s men traveled over - Indian trails and were sustained by Indian supplies. Without native - help it is unlikely the expedition could have progressed much beyond - the Florida interior. The encounters with native - societies—chronicled by several participants—give the expedition - significance beyond its own time. The journals combined with - archeological and ethnographic data have enabled scholars to map - much of the route and to rediscover the lost world of the once - mighty chiefdoms of the Apalachee, Ichisi, Ocute, Coosa, Pacaha, and - other groups. - -This version of the route is based on the work of Professor Charles -Hudson and others who have attempted to reconstruct the entire route. -There is good scholarly consensus for some segments, but other parts of -the route will remain in dispute unless new archeological evidence is -forthcoming. - - - De Soto Expedition. Dashed line indicates uncertain route. - *Known site, possibly visited by De Soto - ·Uncertain Site - From Havana, Cuba - De Soto National Monument - *Ucita - ·Cale - *Aguacaliquen - ·Napituca 15 Sept 1539 - Spaniards route Timacua Indians, take 200 prisoners - *Auta - *Anhaica - Winter camp 1539-40 - ·Toa - *Ichisi - Ocmulgee National Monument - *Cofitachequl - May 1540 Encounter with female ruler - ·Xuala - *Chiaha - *Coosa - Political center of an important Indian chiefdom - ·Itaba - Etowah Indian Mounds State Historic Site - *Piachi - ·Mabila? - 19 Oct 1540 Major battle with Chief Tasculuza and his allies - *Apafalaya - Mound State Monument - ·Chicaza - Winter camp 1540-41 - Spaniards beat off Indian attack in spring - ·Alibamu - *Quizquiz - *Aquixo - *Casqui - Parkin Archeological State Park - *Pacaha - Scouting parties - *Coligua - *Calpista - *Tanico - ·Tula - ·Autiempque - Winter camp 1541-42 - *Anilco - ·Amihoya - Winter camp 1542-43 - Spaniards build boats to take them down the Mississippi - ·Guachoya - 21 May 1542 Death of De Soto - Scouting parties - Expedition continues under Moscoso after De Soto’s death - *Chaguate - *Naguatex - ·Nondacao - ·Aays - ·Guasco - Scouting parties - - -It was a disaster, nevertheless. Twelve soldiers and a white woman still -with the army—she was pregnant—were dead as were several score pigs and -57 horses, the latter mourned as deeply as the men, for they were the -army’s true strength. But once again, they rallied, improvised forges -for retempering their weapons, replaced the shafts of their lances, and -learned to patch their clothing with woven grasses, pounded bark, and -pieces of Indian blankets. - -On May 9 or so, 1541, after more battles, they reached the Mississippi -at—no one knows, but it seems to have been south of Memphis. While they -were marveling at the river’s size (this is from Elvas), 200 dugout -canoes approached in perfect order. In each canoe warriors, painted with -ochre and bedecked with plumes of many colors, stood erect, protecting -the oarsmen with feathered shields and bows and arrows. The chief man of -the fleet sat in his canoe underneath an awning and likewise each lesser -chief in his canoe. The Spaniards had seen panoply before—bearers -carrying their caciques on feathered litters while flute players marched -beside—but nothing like this. Misunderstood stories of such spectacles, -as we will see later, caused considerable trouble for the expedition -Mendoza sent north under Coronado during this same period. - - [Illustration: The Indians valued the brass bells and brightly - colored glass beads given them by the Spaniards. Where found, they - help authenticate Spanish presence in the 16th century. These - examples were excavated in Florida.] - -A brief parley between the cacique and De Soto ended when nervous -crossbowmen, misreading what was going on, shot five or six of the -Indians. At once the fleet withdrew, still in perfect order, “like a -famous armada of galleys,” wrote Elvas. What follows passes -understanding. In spite of clear warnings not to proceed, De Soto -decided to go ahead. During the next hot, humid month, the men felled -trees, sawed them into planks, and constructed barges. To avoid -detection, they crossed the river, with the horses aboard, in the -pre-dawn darkness of June 18 and moved northwest. - -They spent most of the summer and fall wandering around western -Arkansas. Many scholars believe they may have traveled up the Arkansas -River almost to eastern Oklahoma before going into their 1541-42 winter -quarters in a town (Autiamque) once again commandeered from the Indians. -Though the weather was severe, the men stayed fairly snug. Their slaves -built a strong stockade around the camp and dragged in ample supplies of -firewood. Local Indians provided them with buffalo robes to use as -overcoats and to sleep on, and showed them how to snare the rabbits that -frequented the nearby cornfields. - -During the long days inside the stockade, De Soto at last faced up to -his situation. He had lost half his force. Not all had died in battle. A -few, despairing of seeing the end of the quest, had deserted to live -with the Indians, and the number would increase if he persisted in -wandering as he had been doing. Of the original 223 horses, only 40 -remained, most of them lame for want of shoes. The death of Juan Ortiz -that winter deprived him of his best, if very uncertain, means of -communication with the Indians. Reluctantly he decided to turn back to -Mississippi. There he intended to build two brigantines and, manning -them with his most trustworthy men, send one to Havana and one to Pánuco -in hope that one would be able to lead reinforcements back to those who -would wait for them at the river. - -They reached the roily Mississippi somewhere near the mouth of the -Arkansas River. By that time a deadly fever, perhaps malaria, was -gnawing at De Soto. Knowing death was near and bitterly resenting the -arrogant hostility of the Indians with whom he tried to treat in his -extremity, he ordered two of his captains to go out with lancers and -infantry and make an example of the nearby town of Anilco. Not expecting -an attack, for they had not been among those taking the lead in defying -the Spaniards, the unarmed townspeople clustered about in curiosity. A -wanton butchery followed. “About one hundred men were slain,” wrote -Elvas. “Many were allowed to get away badly wounded, that they might -strike terror into those who were absent.” Eighty women and children -were taken prisoner. - - [Illustration: This effigy from a gourd-shaped ceramic vessel was - discovered in a burial at Ocmulgee National Monument in central - Georgia. De Soto’s expedition passed near this site.] - -By the time the bloodletting was over, De Soto could not rise from his -bed. After confessing his sins and making his will, he named Luis de -Moscoso as his successor. On May 21, 1542, he died. - -To keep the Indians from knowing the fate of the great Child of the Sun, -as he had been describing himself to them, his followers buried him near -the entrance to the town and rode horses back and forth to destroy signs -of the digging. The Indians were suspicious, however, and so Moscoso had -the corpse disinterred, lest the Indians dig it up and mutilate it. A -handful of men then stealthily wrapped the body in a shroud, weighted -the burden with sand, and in the darkness of the night rowed out onto -the river and dumped it overboard. - -De Soto’s plan to build boats for bringing in reinforcements died with -him. The men’s one desire now was to leave this country that had brought -them only misery. But how? Remembering Narváez’s fate, they were -reluctant to try to build enough boats to carry them home by sea. -Instead they decided to march overland to Pánuco in northern Mexico. -They clung to the decision for four months, fighting off Indians when -they had to and living off the country as they had been doing ever since -the landing at Tampa Bay. Then, as the subtropical growth began to give -way to the desert scrub of south central Texas, they encountered, in a -village of poor huts, a woman who said, or they thought she said, that -she had seen Christians at a place nine days’ travel away and that “she -had been in their hands, but had escaped.” Moscoso sent a squad of -cavalrymen with her in the direction she indicated, but when she -contradicted herself, or they thought she did, they abandoned the quest. - -The Spaniards were losing heart. They could not live off this land of -semi-nomadic Indians where little maize grew. As winter approached, the -idea of travel by sea no longer seemed so forbidding. Wheeling around, -they regained the Mississippi in two months of hard travel over the same -trails they had come and in December seized, for use as their fourth -winter quarters (1542-43), an Indian town (Aminoya) a little upstream of -the one which they had destroyed seven months before. - - [Illustration: Mississippian culture in the Southeast (AD 1000-1600) - evolved a rich artistic tradition. The items on these pages come - from the area De Soto marched through. The effigy vessel (7.5 inches - high) and the stone axe (13 inches long) are representative of this - culture in Arkansas. The axe, which is carved from a single piece of - stone, was probably a badge of office.] - - [Illustration: Stone Axe] - -Good timber surrounded the village, and the few artisans still alive had -clung to their tools. They made more nails out of their meager supply of -horseshoes and other iron, contrived ropes out of bark, and sails out of -shawls collected from the Indians. To escape a flood that sent the river -out of its banks, they put their horses on anchored rafts and saved -themselves by climbing to the tops of their huts. Indians kept paddling -around their refuge in canoes. Suspicious of their intent, Moscoso had -one of his men seize a native. Under torture the fellow said that 20 -chiefs of the surrounding tribes were conspiring to attack the invaders. -A sign would be the approach of Indians bearing gifts of fish to lull -the camp into relaxing its guard. When the native chiefs showed up with -fish as predicted, the Spanish laid hold of them, cut off each man’s -right hand, and sent the victims back to their villages to report that -their scheme was known. Although some of the chiefs persisted in their -intrigues, Moscoso, very much on guard now, was able to outwit them, -force submission, and acquire through it all more heaps of shawls out of -which to make sails. - -By July the fleet was ready—seven brigantines and several Indian-style -war canoes lashed side by side. They loaded the vessels with casks of -fresh water and several hundred bushels of corn scoured from a -countryside that could ill afford the loss. During the last days of work -they killed and ate the poorest of the horses. The soundest, 22 all -told, were put aboard, as were a hundred slaves. The rest of the Indians -they had dragged along with them were turned loose in this country where -the tribes were hostile to them. - -The river journey was a series of violent, if intermittent, battles. -Indians from towns they passed swarmed after them in canoes, raining -arrows on them. Ten Spaniards and an unknown number of slaves died, and -because the horses were slowing their flight, Moscoso at last put ashore -at a defensible spot, killed them, and dried the meat. - -After 17 days they reached the Gulf, turned west, and on September 10, -1543, after weeks of combatting fretful seas, contrary winds, thirst and -hunger, 311 survivors (again not counting captive Indians) reached the -Pánuco River. Said Elvas: “Many, leaping ashore, kissed the ground; and -all, on bended knees, with hands raised above them and their eyes to -Heaven, remained untiring in giving thanks to God.” - - [Illustration: The artist’s stone palette (12.5 inches in diameter) - was found at Etowah Mounds State Historic Site, Georgia. The - engraving has been interpreted as snake emissaries of the sun god, - which is represented by the eye.] - -One of the most extraordinary marches in the annals of the New—or -Old—World had come to a profitless end. - - - Piachi, Village in the Coosa Chiefdom - - [Illustration: Piachi] - - After crossing the Great Smokies, De Soto in August 1540 entered the - territory of a rich chiefdom called Coosa. It dominated an area from - the French Broad River in North Carolina into central Alabama. De - Soto’s chronicler described this country as “Thickly settled in - numerous and large towns, with fields between, extending from one to - another, [it] was pleasant and had a rich soil and fair river - margins.” - - One of the subject towns was _Piachi_ (the King Site to - archeologists), on the banks of the Coosa River in northwest Georgia. - De Soto and his expedition spent a day here in early September 1540. - The chronicles are silent on the visit, but from the archeological - work of David Hally and others, as interpreted by artist L. Kenneth - Townsend, we have a good idea of life here. - - _Piachi_ was about 5 acres in extent, protected by a palisade and - ditch. Inside were about 50 domestic structures and a central plaza - with several larger buildings perhaps used for ceremony. Nearby were - several tall poles, from which scalps or war trophies probably hung. - About 350 persons lived here, less than half the number of the main - town of Coosa or the substantial village of Itaba (Etowah Indian - Mounds State Historic Site to the north). A good part of the - villagers’ living came from growing corn, which they stored in cribs. - As the Spaniards traveled from village to village, they expected the - Indians to yield up food, guides, porters, and women. Without this - sustenance, the expedition could not have covered the territory that - it did. - - [Illustration: Acoma Pueblo, New Mexico, visited by the Coronado - expedition in 1540. It is one of the oldest continuously inhabited - communities in the United States.] - - - Where the Fables Ended - -Like De Soto, Francisco Vásquez de Coronado[3] was a younger son who -improved his minimal prospects for worldly success by attaching himself -to a patron—in this case it was the king’s fabulously wealthy viceroy, -Antonio de Mendoza—and going with him to the New World. They arrived in -1535, when Coronado was 25. - -Because of Mendoza’s position and character, Coronado’s rise was faster -and more genteel than De Soto’s. Two years after settling in Mexico City -(originally Tenochtitlán), he married Beatriz de Estrada, an heiress -whose father had been the illegitimate son of Spain’s first king, -Ferdinand. About the same time Mendoza arranged for his appointment to -Mexico City’s governing council and shortly thereafter named him -governor of the far northern province of Nueva Galicia. (The position -was open because Nuño de Guzmán had been arrested for slave-hunting, and -his successor had been killed while fighting Indians.) The only battling -Coronado did during those years was putting down a revolt of black -slaves in the mining district of Amatepeque. Though he had the rebel -leaders drawn and quartered, a standard punishment of the times, he -seems to have been more humane than many of his contemporaries. - -Even before Coronado’s appointment was officially announced, De Soto’s -agents in Mexico notified him that their employer had become -_adelantado_ of Florida. In other words, hands off ... a bluff, since -the limits of De Soto’s jurisdiction had not been established. But the -very fact of the warning shows that De Soto and his people were -suspicious of how the winds might be blowing in Mexico. - -They had reason to be. Mendoza had finally put together a reconnoitering -party whose early entrance into the desirable area would give him a -prior claim over either De Soto or Cortés. Take-off point for the group -was to be Culiacán, an outpost on the western fringe of Nueva Galicia, -800 miles from Mexico City, that Guzmán had founded a few years earlier. -The explorers were hurried across those rough miles by Nueva Galicia’s -new governor, Francisco de Coronado, and a retinue of restless young -blades looking for something to do. From Culiacán on, the scouts were -guided by the black, Estéban, who had traversed part of the country with -his owner, Andrés de Dorantes, and Cabeza de Vaca. (Mendoza had -purchased Estéban from Dorantes after the three whites of the party had -turned down the viceroy’s request that they take over the work.) Indians -of the north—some of them had come to Mexico City with Cabeza de -Vaca—acted as porters. Leader of this belatedly assembled group was a -Franciscan friar, Marcos of Niza, assisted by a friend, Fray Onorato. - -Fray Marcos, a native of Nice, France, spoke Spanish clumsily, even -though he had spent time with Pedro de Alvarado’s forces in Guatemala -and Pizarro’s in Peru, where he had become familiar with the astonishing -wealth of the Incas. He is said to have been a good cartographer and to -have written learned papers about the Indians, none of which has come to -light. He penned such an entrancing letter about Peru to Mexico’s -Archbishop, Juan de Zumárraga, that the prelate invited him to visit -Mexico City and housed him after his arrival early in 1537. The -impression he made led the archbishop to arrange his appointment to an -important office in the Franciscan order in New Spain, and the Viceroy -to make him leader of the search for the cities of the north. - -Coronado and his escort covered the 800 miles to Culiacán on horseback, -as befitted grandees. Marcos’s party walked, the friars in loose gray -robes and sandaled feet. After bidding farewell to the governor at the -outpost, the explorers and their Indian porters forged ahead on March 7, -1539. (In two more months De Soto would leave Cuba for Florida.) Fray -Onorato soon fell ill and turned back. Undeterred, Marcos continued on -to a settlement called Vacapa, close to the boundary between the -present-day states of Sinaloa and Sonora. There he decided to pause -while messengers summoned Indians from the coast, for part of his errand -was to learn whether a big expedition could be supplied by ships. - -Estéban refused to wait. Away from the friar’s restraints, he ceased -being a slave and became a king. During his wanderings across the -continent he had learned how to get along with Indians, speak their -languages, win their gifts, and (we can suppose) entice their young -women. But he dared not simply run away. So he said that as he advanced, -accompanied by two huge hounds and part of the Indian bearers, he would -keep Marcos informed of his gleanings. Unable to write, he devised a -symbol that could be delivered by messengers. A small cross would -signify that he had heard of a northern city that sounded moderately -important. A medium-sized cross would proclaim a significant city, and a -big one something truly superlative. - -Presumably this tactic was devised to corroborate what the messengers -told Marcos to his face. Told him—this man who knew none of the local -Indian tongues and whose Spanish was not of the best? How? - -Actually, it would have been easy, except for Marcos’s dangerous -preconceptions. A long trade trail linked the jungles of Mexico to the -merchandising town of Háwikuh in the Zuñi country of today’s New Mexico. -Háwikuh’s middlemen trans-shipped along the trail tanned buffalo hides -from the plains, turquoise from New Mexico, cotton mantas from the Hopi -villages in Arizona, and bits of clear green olivine called peridot (the -source perhaps of Cabeza de Vaca’s lost arrowheads). They received in -exchange brightly colored parrot and macaw feathers and sometimes the -birds themselves, plus coral and raw carved seashells from the Gulf. -Flowing with the goods was a traders’ _lingua franca_, a melange of the -principal languages the merchants encountered along the way—their own -native tongue, bits of that spoken by the Pimas and Opatas of northern -Mexico, Nahuatl, the tongue of the Aztecs, and bits of Spanish. So there -was a medium by which Estéban’s messengers, especially the one who -brought a cross as big as a man, could talk to the eager friar. - -From the cross’s bearers and from other informants along the way, Marcos -heard of, and sent back reports to Mendoza, about the rich kingdom -called Cíbola and its seven cities, one of which, he understood, was -also named Cíbola. Terraced houses of stone rose three and four stories -high. Doors were decorated with turquoise: clothing and ornaments were -lavish. Near to this magnificent kingdom were others, equally rich. - - [Illustration: Antonio de Mendoza, first viceroy of New Spain. A - capable administrator, he laid the foundations for three centuries - of Spanish rule in the Americas. He encouraged industry, education, - and the work of the church. Firm but just, he tried to protect the - Indians from the worst abuses but was not able to bring about - emancipation.] - - [Illustration: Coronado saw country like this south of Santa Fe, New - Mexico, as he marched toward the Great Plains.] - -Mere travelers’ yarns? Not necessarily. Consider who Estéban’s -messengers were. They resided in small, trailside settlements made up of -_jacals_ built of mud-daubed sticks. In comparison, the terraced pueblos -of Arizona and New Mexico, inhabited by hundreds of people who had -sufficient leisure to attend to other pursuits than just getting enough -to eat—such places, which most of them had only heard about from -boastful peddlers, were bound to seem impressive. Talking through -interpreters in signs and their _lingua franca_ jumble, they tried to -convey their wonder to Marcos—as did one person who said he was a native -of Cíbola and apparently enjoyed bragging about it. While listening, -moreover, Marcos was remembering the Incas and Aztecs and the legends of -the Seven Cities of Antilia. Seven in Cíbola as well! Whose imagination -would not be fired? - -He never overtook Estéban. According to his report to Mendoza, he and -his retinue of Indians had been toiling for 12 days across a -_despoblado_ (uninhabited region) and were within three days’ march of -the city of Cíbola when one of the black’s erstwhile companions met them -and said, weeping, that the Cíbolans had slain Estéban out of fear that -he had come as a spy for would-be conquerors—as, in fact, he had. Two -days later, the tale was confirmed by other Indians who had fled from -Cíbola “covered with blood and many wounds.” - -Convinced they were walking to their deaths, all but a handful of -Marcos’s followers deserted him. With those few, he wrote later, he went -cautiously forward until he glimpsed the city. It rose before his eyes -more magnificent “than the city of Mexico.” And equally wealthy kingdoms -lay beyond. - -Deciding to rename Cíbola St. Francis after the patron saint of his -order, Marcos erected a heap of stones, placed a cross atop it, and -announced to the air that he was taking possession for Spain. Then back -he hastened, “more satiated with fear than food.” So he said. - -Skeptics have long argued that Fray Marcos never got anywhere near -Cíbola. They point to the vagueness of his report, which nowhere -describes topographical features, vegetation, or soil types, although -his instructions had directed him to study all those things. They also -insist that he could not have tarried in Indian towns and have made side -trips searching for the coast, as he claimed he did, and still have -reached and returned from Cíbola in the time known to have elapsed. And -how could he have mistaken a relatively small, mud-plastered pueblo for -a metropolis grander than Mexico City? - -Supporters of the friar, unwilling to believe a man of the cloth could -be an out-and-out liar, juggle time figures their own way and suggest -that his impression of the pueblo was an optical illusion produced by -slanting rays of morning sunlight and made more vivid by the mixture of -weariness, excitement, hope, and fear with which he regarded his goal. -They also point out that when a full-scale expedition marched north to -take possession of the country, he went along. Would he have done that -if his statements were lies that would inevitably be exposed? - -It seems likely that he did turn back immediately after learning, at -some distance from Cíbola, of Estéban’s death. But vanity and fear of -consequences would not let him admit the truth to the Viceroy and the -governor. So he concocted a tale out of the descriptions he had heard -from Indians along the way—descriptions he believed, reasonably enough, -were accurate and would bear scrutiny later on. - -His temporal superiors accepted his statements partly out of an eager -credulity of their own and partly because they were in a hurry to -complete their claims to the Seven Cities. (De Soto was already in -Florida; three ships outfitted by Cortés and commanded by Francisco de -Ulloa were tacking north along the coast looking for sea approaches to -the new kingdoms.) It has even been charged that the Viceroy, Mendoza, -may have suggested some of the glowing details that were incorporated -into Marcos’s report. Most certainly he rewarded the friar by pressuring -the Order of St. Francis to make him, rather than candidates who had -been around much longer, the father-provincial of the Franciscans in -Mexico. As a result, pulpits began resounding with homilies on the work -that awaited the pious—and, by implication, the enterprising—in the -north. This of course stimulated recruiting, not only of idle _hidalgos_ -but of solid men with money enough to equip themselves and their -followers for an extensive journey. - -Mendoza reputedly put 60,000 ducats into the venture. Coronado added -50,000 that he raised by mortgaging his wife’s property. But they were -not completely reckless. They ordered Melchior Díaz, mayor of Culiacán, -to go north with soldiers and Indians and gather specifics about -geography that Marcos had neglected to describe (not having seen it) but -that an army on the march would find useful. - -By February 22, 1540, less than seven months after Marcos’s return, -Mendoza and Coronado had gathered the bulk of their army at Nueva -Galicia’s drab capital, Compostela, some 525 miles west of Mexico City. -For the place and times it was a brave show: about 225 cavalrymen, 62 -foot soldiers, an unrecorded number of black slaves, and upwards of 700 -variously painted Indians. The group’s equipment, like that of De Soto’s -army, was a melange. There were a few suits of armor, including -Coronado’s gilded one, some cuirasses, coats of mail, and plumed helmets -but far more jackets of buckskin and padded cotton, high boots, and -leather shields. - -The Indians were camptenders, stockherders, and warriors, but not -bearers, for unlike De Soto, Mendoza and Coronado meant to enforce royal -orders that forbade turning natives into beasts of burden. Some of the -Indians had wives and children along, as did three Spaniards, in spite -of edicts against camp followers. Hardly noticeable in the throng were -five gray-robed friars, including Marcos, who probably should not have -left his new job as Father Superior so soon. Yet he, too, had a big -stake in this trip. - -Some 1,500 saddle and pack animals, both horses and mules, had been -gathered to provide transportation. Many of the cavalrymen had more than -one mount; Coronado took along 23. Each soldier was responsible for his -personal gear, and since few _hidalgos_ had the least idea of how to -pack a horse, many impromptu rodeos occurred. But “in the end,” wrote -chronicler Pedro de Castañeda, “necessity, which is all-powerful, made -them skillful ... and anybody who despised this work was not considered -a man.” In addition to the horse herd, there was a movable larder of -about a thousand cattle, sheep, and goats. - -Though Mendoza had planned to lead the expedition, the demands of his -office prevented it, and he turned command over to Coronado, then aged -30. The next day the confused, dusty march began, over high hills and -through vales full of thickets. Trouble awaited at Chiametla, where once -Cortés and Guzmán had confronted each other over a ship. Resentful -Indians attacked a foraging party led by Coronado’s second-in-command, -killed him, and wounded five or six others. On top of that, in came -Melchoir Díaz with discouraging reports of what he had learned during -his scouting trip. Though heavy snow had kept him from entering the -mountains north of Arizona’s Gila River, he had interviewed several -Indian traders who supposedly knew Cíbola, and they had led him to -believe there was little, if any, silver or gold in the area. And the -road there, which Marcos had said was good, was very bad. - -Rumors of the report leaked out and upset the soldiers. Marcos quieted -them during one of his sermons: Díaz hadn’t gone far enough. A -preacher’s word against that of a frontier roughneck. Coronado, at -least, was placated: why let go of either his credulity or his -investment this early in the game? But he was worried about dragging the -whole cumbersome army over a bad trail into a _despoblado_ lacking in -supplies. So he decided to go ahead with a vanguard of 80 horsemen, 30 -or so footmen, an unknown number of Indians, some livestock, and the -expedition’s five friars. He placed the main army under; Tristan de -Arellano, told him to stay in Culiacán for 20 more days and then advance -to the Indian town of Corazones in the heart of Sonora, where further -instructions would be sent him. - -It took Coronado’s vanguard from April 22 to July 7, 1540—eleven weeks, -counting rest stops—to cover the thousand miles that separated Culiacán -from Cíbola. (During those same weeks De Soto’s hungry men were marching -through Georgia into the city of pearls and on across the Appalachians -into Alabama.) Hard weeks on rough trails. Contrary to what Marcos had -said, they were veering farther and farther from the coast. Yet at that -very time, Hernando de Alarcón was sailing northward with three ships -loaded with supplies for him. How were they to make contact? - -As events developed, they never did, and the vanguard crossed the -shimmering San Pedro plains into what was to be the United States with -an increasing apprehension that all gates were shutting behind them. -They followed the tree-shaded San Pedro River north to the vicinity of -Benson, Arizona, and then, with Melchior Díaz pointing the way, left it -and worked on through a series of broad-bottomed, mountain-bracketed -valleys to the Gila River, reaching it where Mt. Turnbull bulks huge -against the sky. An enormity of space and remoteness. One can still feel -it, for unlike the southeastern United States, where De Soto marched, -this land has been but little scarred by man’s devouring technologies. - - - First Blood at Cíbola - - [Illustration: Coronado's March Through Puebloland] - - At Cíbola, Coronado had his first encounter with the Pueblo world. His - army was six months into the expedition and worn down from crossing a - wilderness. Food was short, his porters (blacks) and Indians were - deserting, horses were dying of exhaustion. - - The first sight of Cíbola—the legendary kingdom of the north—dismayed - the Spaniards. They found not a shining city of gold but only mud huts - stacked one atop another and a crowd of armed warriors. This was - Háwikuh, western-most of a cluster of Zuñi towns, now a ruin a few - miles south of the present pueblo of the same name. - - Wanting food, Coronado sent forward a party with an interpreter, - friars, and cavalry. This is the moment illustrated by artist Louis S. - Glanzman. The interpreter tells Háwikuh’s war leaders that the - Spaniards have come to claim the country for King and Savior and wish - them no harm. The Indians pay this no attention. An elder draws a line - of sacred corn meal in the sand. The Spaniards hesitate. Arrows fly. - The army storms the village. Soon a dozen Indians lie dead while the - rest flee. The famished soldiers break into the stores. Peace follows - and this pueblo becomes Coronado’s base camp for the next few months. - -They climbed the rough Gila Mountains, found relief in high, open -meadows, but then had to scramble over the Natanes Plateau and pitch -down a steep Indian trail into the Black River gorge. On beyond that -they came to a more difficult crossing of the _barranca_, as they called -the canyon, of the White River. The water was so deep they had to build -rafts to get across. Then on through more pines and meadows whose beauty -they scarcely noticed. They were so hungry that at one camp they ate -lush-looking plants—perhaps wild parsnip, perhaps water hemlocks—that -twisted them with cramps; one Spaniard and two blacks perished. - -Two days later, amidst bare, rolling hills, they passed the Little -Colorado and started up Zuñi Creek. Knowing that Cíbola and its food -supplies were near, the men wanted to hurry, but Coronado, ever -cautious, sent out scouts under tough Garcia López de Cárdenas, and kept -the main force moving slowly behind. Near midnight, Indians attacked the -reconnoitering group and stampeded some of its horses. Quelling a brief -panic, the invaders swept the Indians aside, but the portent was clear. -The Cíbolans were going to defend their homes. - -As the Spaniards emerged from a scattering of junipers onto a flat -plain, they saw, hardly half a mile away, a low spur protruding from a -line of hills. On top of the spur was a city of sorts. Blank tan walls -rose three and, in places, four stories high. Clusters of people on top. -Cornfields and squat houses at the base of the spur. “There are,” -Casteñada wrote in disgust, “haciendas in New Spain which make a better -appearance at a distance.” And he added, “Such were the curses that some -hurled at Fray Marcos that I pray God may protect him from them.” - -Points of view. Modern archeologists have discovered data about the -Pueblo (Anasazi) Indians that were unknown to the Spaniards. For one -thing, population in general was declining in the 16th century, but -towns were growing because survivors were congregating in them, perhaps -as a defense against raiding nomads. One major population center was the -six, not seven, pueblos of the area now known as the Zuñi reservation, -then called Cíbola. (No single “city” had that name; that was just -another misunderstanding of Marcos.) The town of Háwikuh lay farthest to -the southwest and hence dominated the ancient trade trails leading from -the entire Pueblo country to Mexico, the Gulf Coast, and those parts of -Southern California bordering on the Pacific. Háwikuh, accordingly—and -all Cíbola—seemed important to the inhabitants of a considerable area, a -notion Marcos had picked up and relayed to his superiors, as we have -seen. - -The Spaniards, however, had not come looking for dealers in hides, -feathers, and imported sea shells. In spite of doubts and warnings that -must have troubled them along the way, it was still impossible for them -to adjust in one stunning moment to this thunderclap of reality. They -went on doing what they probably would have done if the army of the -Grand Khan had advanced to meet them. Cavalrymen made sure their saddle -girths were tight, footmen readied their weapons, which had not been -well cared for during the march, and together they moved toward the -Indians, whose leaders drew magic lines of corn-meal on the ground and -blew angrily on conch shell trumpets. With bows and war clubs they -gestured for the invaders to leave. No women or children were in sight, -and the numbers of warriors indicated that the neighboring towns had -sent reinforcements. None seemed awed by the sight of horses. - -Dutifully the Spaniards went through the ritual of the _requerimiento_. -Cárdenas, a few cavalrymen, a notary, an interpreter, and two priests -approached the Indians. The interpreter read a proclamation stating that -God’s representative, the Pope, had awarded this part of the world to -the monarchs of Spain. All who submitted to his majesty’s authority and -also accepted Christianity with its promises of salvation would be -embraced as friends. Those who did not would be treated as enemies. - -The answer was a shower of arrows that did no harm. Coronado next went -forward, holding out gifts as a sign of peace. Mistaking the offering -for timidity, the Indians rushed forward. The invaders countered with a -charge. Evidently the horses did inspire terror then, for the Indians -broke and fled. Some were downed on the plain, but most gained the town -and climbed onto the flat roofs, where they continued their gestures of -defiance. - - - To Pecos and Beyond - - [Illustration: Map: Coronado's March Through Puebloland] - -Marching from Cíbola to Pecos, Alvarado’s soldiers saw Puebloland in the -morningtide of its history, a time of prosperity and relative peace. -Village after village welcomed the Spaniards. At Acoma, built on a mesa, -“the natives ... came down to meet us peacefully” and gave the Spaniards -supplies for their journey. In Tiguex province, they met Indians “more -devoted to agriculture than to war” who gave them food, cloth, and -skins. At the huge pueblo of Braba (present Taos), more hospitality. -Cicuyé (Pecos), their destination, greeted Alvarado with drums and -flutes and plied the soldiers with clothing and turquoise (but the women -kept hidden). The record is clear that when the intruders came -peacefully, first encounters were not always hostile. - - [Illustration: Coronado’s army on the march] - -Perhaps there was no gold in the town, but there was food and the -Spaniards were half-starved. Coronado deployed horsemen entirely around -the town to prevent anyone’s escaping while he himself dismounted and -led an attack on foot up the slope toward the pueblo’s single narrow, -twisting entry. Clad in gilded armor that attracted attention (and must -have been clumsy to run in), he was straightway knocked senseless by a -huge stone. Two officers shielded his body while he was dragged to -safety. - -Advantage of position was with the defenders, and the Spaniards, we are -told, were in bad shape. The strings of the crossbows, rotted by the -sun, snapped when cranked tight. The arquebusers were too weak from -hunger and heat to join the onslaught. Yet no one was killed and only a -dozen were hurt. Within less than an hour the town surrendered, an -outcome difficult to understand unless the defenders hurled their -missiles so wildly that none took effect, whereupon they gave up, -terrified by the enemy’s relentless momentum and flashing swords, a -weapon they had never before encountered. - -After Coronado had recovered from his concussion and his men had sated -their hunger on Háwikuh’s corn, beans, and turkeys (which the Indians -raised for feathers rather than food), he began assessing his situation. -Couriers brought in delegations from the neighboring towns, and he put -what he learned from them into a long letter he wrote Mendoza and dated -August 3, 1540. It is a prized ethnographical document now because of -its generally accurate descriptions of the Pueblos. Mendoza must have -found it discouraging. No gold. But Coronado was determined, he wrote, -to keep pressing the search. To strengthen his forces he sent orders, -via the letter-bearers, for the bulk of the main army to advance to -Háwikuh. The remainder were to establish a halfway station beside the -long trail. This station was entrusted to Melchior Díaz. As soon as Díaz -had put things in shape there, he was to ride to the Gulf in search of -Alarcón’s supply ships. Fray Marcos, ill, disgraced, and fearing for his -safety, went home with the messengers. - - _On Cíbola: “Although [the Seven Cities] are not decorated with - turquoises, nor made of lime or good bricks, nevertheless they are - very good houses, three, four, and five storeys high, and they have - very ... good rooms with corridors, and some quite good apartments - underground and paved, which are built for winter and are something - like hot-houses [kivas].... In [Háwikuh] are perhaps 200 houses, all - surrounded by a wall.... The people of these towns are fairly large - and seem to me to be quite intelligent ... most of them are entirely - naked except for the covering required for decency ... they wear the - hair on their heads like the Mexicans, and are well formed and - comely ... the food they eat in this country consists of maize, of - which they have a great abundance, beans, and game.... They make the - best tortillas I have ever seen anywhere, and this is what everybody - ordinarily eats.”_ - -—_Coronado to Mendoza, 3 August 1540_ - -Meanwhile exploring parties had gone northwest from Háwikuh to lay claim -to the “kingdom of Tusayan,” or, as we would say, the Hopi villages. -Nothing the Spaniards wanted was there, either—except for ill-understood -talk about a big river farther to the west. It could be crucial. It must -flow into the sea and might furnish a route inland for Alarcón. Promptly -Coronado ordered Garcia López de Cárdenas to investigate. - -The result was the first sighting, by Europeans, of the Grand Canyon at -a point generally believed to have been Desert View. Awed by the chasm, -the party explored along the rim until thirst turned them back. Clearly -such a stream could not serve as a supply route. - -A few weeks later and many hundreds of miles farther downstream Melchior -Díaz at last unearthed (literally) the first clues about Hernando de -Alarcón’s whereabouts. After straightening out affairs at the halfway -station named San Gerónimo, he led 25 cavalrymen and some Indians west -to the Gulf’s torrid coast, driving a herd of sheep along for food. A -swing north along the desolate beaches brought him to the banks of a -river. He continued along it for perhaps 90 miles, until encountering -Indians who showed him where another bearded man like himself had hidden -some letters. The documents he dug up have since disappeared, but from -other sources it is possible to guess what they said. - -Alarcón had reached the river mouth about August 25, 1540. He had been -preceded there by Cortés’s man, Francisco de Ulloa, who a year earlier -had been trying to find an inlet that would enable his commander to beat -Mendoza to the Seven Cities. Because Ulloa believed that Baja California -was an island, he had been surprised to find himself pinched into the -head of a gulf. A most disconcerting place—shoals, seemingly bottomless -mudbanks, and a terrifying tidal bore, raging tumults of water caused -when the inflowing tide rushed in a great wave upriver against the -current. - -The sight had turned Ulloa back, but Alarcón was more persistent. He -worked a tortuous way through the shoals and, with waves dashing over -the deck of his flagship, rode the bore into the channel on August 26. -Unable to sail upward against the current, he anchored his three vessels -behind a protecting point. Lowering two ship’s launches, he ticked off -20 men, some to work the oars, the others to walk along the bank, -pulling two ropes. Eventually Cócopa Indians appeared, highly excited. -None of them understood the _lingua franca_ of his interpreter, but by -signs and a passing out of trinkets, Alarcón in time prevailed on them -to bring food and to help with the cordelling. - -On September 6, two months after the battle at Háwikuh, the slow-moving -boats reached, it is believed, a point near the junction of the Colorado -and Gila rivers, the site of today’s Yuma, Arizona. Nearby, Alarcón’s -interpreter found Indians with whom he could converse. Their news was -startling. Far inland, white men were causing trouble among the native -inhabitants. Coronado’s army, surely, which Alarcón had been directed to -supply. But how? - -When none of his own men and none of the Indians would agree to carry a -message to Háwikuh, Alarcón decided to return to the ships, take on -fresh supplies, and go to Cíbola himself. During the attempt he advanced -one day’s journey farther upstream than he had gone before, but then -physical difficulties and the growing hostility of the Indians forced -him to halt. After burying the letter Díaz found, he returned to Mendoza -with valuable information about the new land—but, again, no gold. - -Having found the letter, Díaz continued upstream for another five or six -days, perhaps to learn whether this was indeed the lower end of the big -river about which the Hopis had spoken. Evidently satisfied that it was, -he sent the Indian footmen of his party and the sheep across the stream -on rafts made of reeds. Riders swam over on their horses, and the whole -party turned back downstream. At some point in those grisly deserts, -Díaz’s greyhound began tormenting a sheep. Díaz ran at the dog with his -lance. The point stuck in the ground. Before he could stop his horse, -the butt pierced his groin. His distraught men put him on a litter, -recrossed the river (it is very low in the fall of the year), and -hurried toward San Gerónimo, to no avail. He died and was buried no one -knows where. - -Of the Coronado party’s far-flung explorations, the one that had the -greatest impact on its future was Hernando de Alvarado’s trip to the -Great Plains. It was touched off by the appearance at Háwikuh, late in -August, of a still undefined party of Indians—traders probably, but -perhaps a group who felt they should learn more about what was going on -in Cíbola. - -They hailed from the pueblo of Cicuyé, located near a river we call -Pecos in north-central New Mexico. (Cicuyé was the inhabitants’ name for -their town; Pecos, now applied to both the river and the pueblo ruins, -derives from _Pekush_, a word other Pueblo Indians used in speaking of -the settlement.) The travelers were led by an elder whom the Spaniards -called _Cacique_, as if it were a name. (Actually, it was an Arawak word -meaning “chief.” The _conquistadores_ had picked it up first in the West -Indies and later had applied it to Indian leaders throughout Latin -America.) Accompanying Cacique was a husky, talkative young man adorned -with drooping mustaches, unusual in an Indian. Coronado’s people named -him _Bigotes_, or, in English, Whiskers. Bigotes apparently spoke some -Nahuatl, which meant he could converse after a fashion with a few of the -explorers, notably Father Juan de Padilla, who seems to have been going -slowly mad. Another attention-catcher among the visitors was an Indian -from the Great Plains who had a painted picture of a buffalo on his bare -chest. - -Coronado considered the newcomers a peace delegation. He gave them glass -trinkets, beads, and little bells that entranced them. They responded -with head dresses, shields, and a wooly hide that, they signified, had -been taken from an animal like the one pictured on the chest of one of -their number. As the concept became clearer, pulses jumped, for here was -a firm tie-in with Cabeza de Vaca’s story about the huge “cows” of the -new land and of multistoried cities nearby. - -Eager to learn more, Coronado prevailed on the amiable group to lead a -party of his own men eastward to see Cicuyé and its surrounding lands—24 -riders, four crossbowmen, Fray Juan de Padilla, and a lay brother, Luís -de Ubeda. In high spirits they struck off through a malpais of -congealed, jumbled, sharp-edged boulders of black lava that made the -riders dismount and lead their suffering animals. This short-cut brought -them to the amazing town of Acucu (today’s Acoma), perched on the summit -of a butte approachable (as far as the Spaniards saw) only by a stairway -carved into the pink sandstone. After an uneasy confrontation at the -base of the cliffs, the Indians of Acucu invited them to climb arduously -to the top, where they were heaped with presents of hides, cotton cloth, -turkeys and other foods. - - [Illustration: The immense headland of El Morro, also known as - Inscription Rock, was a landmark for western travelers. Lured by the - shaded pool at the base, they camped nearby and often left a record - of their passage in the rock’s soft sandstone face. The party that - Coronado dispatched to Acoma in August 1540 passed well south of the - mesa and probably never saw it. The main army that ascended the Zuñi - Valley several months later may have stopped at El Morro, but if so, - they left no inscriptions. The headland is now the centerpiece of El - Morro National Monument.] - - - Acoma: Ancient Village in the Sky - - [Illustration: Acoma] - - Acoma embodies a thousand years of Pueblo life. According to an origin - belief, the first dwellers were guided here by _Iatiku_, “mother of - all Indians.” Archeologists trace occupation to at least late - Basketmaker times (AD 700). A few centuries later, ancestral Pueblos - are living on top in houses of stone and adobe. - - The native word for Acoma is _ʔá-·k′u_, a word of ancient root that - means “place of preparedness.” In September 1540, Alvarado’s men - arrived at the great rock and marveled at the sight of the village and - its people (about 200) on top. “The village was very strong,” said a - Spaniard, so difficult of access that no army could assault it. - - The Acomans came down to the plain ready to fight the Spaniards. But - when they saw that the intruders could not be frightened off, they - offered peace and gave them food and deerskins. - - This illustration is artist L. Kenneth Townsend’s interpretation of - the village about 1540—a world outside time. - -Pleasant encounters characterized the rest of the journey east. Alvarado -sent a cross ahead of his party to the “province” of Tiguex (rendered -Tiwa today), a concentration of 12 pueblos located on both sides of the -Rio Grande in a broad valley at the foot of the abrupt Sandía Mountains. -Thus prepared, retinues of important elders greeted them, decked out in -ceremonial regalia and marching to the shrill piping of bone flutes. -Presumably either Alvarado or Fray Padilla read them the _requerimiento_ -that made each town subject to the King of Spain. To this they added the -Church’s authority by erecting in the villages they visited, as far -north as Braba (Taos), large crosses made by Brother Luis de Ubeda with -an adze and chisel he had brought along for this purpose. Reactions were -surprising, perhaps because the Indians also used varieties of the cross -pattern in some of their ceremonies. They eagerly bedecked Brother -Luis’s Christian symbols with prayer feathers and rosettes made of plant -fiber, sometimes climbing on each other’s shoulders to reach the tops of -the cruciforms. - -Impressed by Tiguex’s friendly people and stores of food, Alvarado sent -Coronado a message suggesting that the recombined army winter there -rather than in the high, cold lands of Cíbola. Then on he went across -what is now called Glorieta Pass into the valley of the Pecos River. - -There on a flat-topped ridge between a tributary stream and the main -river was the finest pueblo the Spaniards had seen. The pattern was -familiar: terraced houses rising four stories high around several -plazas. Additional storage was provided in extensions running out from -some of the corners of the main square. Balconies that provided walkways -for the people on the upper floors served also to shade those beneath. -Ladders running through holes in the walks served in the place of -stairs. A constant need for firewood and building material had -eliminated the forests for a mile or more around the pueblo, opening -fine vistas of the high peaks of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains to the -north, the red cliffs of Glorieta Mesa to the west, and the lower -Tecolote foothills to the east. - -By dominating the main trail linking the Plains Indians and the Pueblos -of the Southwest, Cicuyé had become an even more powerful trade center -than Háwikuh, and its people boasted that no enemy had been able to -conquer them. But what of these bearded strangers who, with their swords -and horses, had overrun Háwikuh in a single rush? Acting perhaps on the -advice of Bigotes and Cacique, the people of Cicuyé decided to be -friendly. An unarmed delegation marched out beating drums, playing on -bone whistles, and carrying gifts. They listened blankly to the reading -of the _requerimiento_, which demanded their submission to the King of -Spain, then let the strangers rest among them for a few days (meanwhile -keeping their young women out of sight), and gladly furnished guides -when Alvarado announced he wished to continue far enough east to see the -“cows” and the people who lived among them. - -The guides were Plains Indians. Though they have been called “slaves” of -Bigotes and Cacique, it seems more likely they were traders who, having -been stranded in Cicuyé after bartering their goods, earned their keep -by performing menial tasks while waiting for an opportunity to return -home. One was named Ysopete, and may have been—accounts vary—the youth -whose chest bore the tattoo of a buffalo. A Wichita Indian from central -Kansas, Ysopete designated his homeland as Quivira: thus a new word in -American mythology. With him was El Turco, the Turk, so-called by the -Spaniards “because,” wrote Pedro de Castañeda, “he looked like one.” The -resemblance probably arose from his turban, a headdress used by the -Pawnees of eastern Kansas, or, in the Turk’s language, Harahey. - -Shortly after reaching the plains east of the Pecos River, Alvarado’s -explorers found themselves in the middle of a vast herd of buffalo. -Lancing the huge beasts from a running horse and afterwards dining on -the tender, roasted meat of their humps made for high living, but the -sport was soon forgotten in a greater excitement. The Turk said he knew -where there was gold. In Quivira. And even more in Harahey. - - [Illustration: This ancient pueblo kiva at Pecos is one of two - restored kivas in the park. At center is the firepit and stone draft - deflector.] - -Did the Pawnee (if he was a Pawnee) really say that? Some -anthropologists, Carroll Riley and Mildred Mott Wedell among them, have -wondered. As a trader, the Turk knew a smattering of Nahuatl, as did the -missionary friar, Juan de Padilla, one of his chief interrogators. To -this stumbling _lingua franca_, El Turco added the fluent sign language -of the Plains Indians, bits of which the Spaniards were beginning to -pick up, though not as skillfully as they thought. Moreover, the talkers -on both sides were discussing ideas and objects the others know nothing -about. These opportunities for misunderstanding were immeasurably -increased by the determination of Juan de Padilla to find the legendary -Seven Cities of Antilia. - -A word about Padilla. He had served as a soldier under Cortés in Mexico -until deciding to enter the Franciscan order. He was hot-tempered, -obstinate, and consumed with the hope of bringing the lost citizens—the -wealthy, Christian citizens—of Antilia back into the mainstream of -Catholicism. He believed implicitly that their gorgeous metropolises lay -somewhere in the north. Meager Háwikuh and the Hopi villages had shocked -him profoundly, but word of true urban centers farther -east—Quivira!—reinvigorated his faith. He talked earnestly to the Turk -about the kind of places he wanted to discover and listened with intense -preconceptions to the trader’s answers. - -Out yonder, the Turk told him, was a wide river full of fish as big as -horses. The canoes on the river held 20 or more rowers to a side, and -their lords sat in the sterns under brilliant awnings. This tale -corresponds with what the Gentleman of Elvas said about the canoes De -Soto saw on reaching the Mississippi half a year later. So maybe El -Turco had witnessed, during his wanderings, the Indian flotillas of the -lower Mississippi and the fish as well—gar can reach 10 feet in length. -The chiefs of the canoe tribes, he went on, were lulled to sleep by -little bells of gold (_acochis_) tinkling in the breeze. They ate (a -standard fantasy) from dishes molded out of _acochis_. But _acochis_, it -developed years later, was a Spanish rendering of _hawichis_, a generic -Pawnee term for any metal. Copper, perhaps? It was rare on the Plains -and in the Southwest, but there was some and it was displayed -conspicuously by important men. - -That may be all the Turk said at first. But it was not all that Padilla -and the rest of Alvarado’s explorers heard. They harassed the Indian for -proof that he was telling the truth. Frightened, eager to get them off -his back, and desirous, possibly, of causing trouble for Bigotes, whom -he may not have liked, El Turco said he had once owned a bit of -_acochis_, but that Whiskers had taken it from him. The Spaniards -understood that the object was a bracelet. - -By then the autumn days were growing cold, and it was time for Alvarado -to rejoin the army assembling in the Rio Grande Valley. On his way back -through Cicuyé, he confronted Bigotes and Cacique with El Turco’s -charge. They said they know nothing about the matter. Reluctant to set -himself up as judge without Coronado’s authorization, Alvarado seized -the pair, put them in chains—as he later did the Turk and Ysopete when -the one-time guides sought to disappear—and hurried out of the pueblo -through a shower of curses and arrows hurled after him by the outraged -inhabitants. - -In Tiguex, too, affability had vanished. To provide shelter for the main -army, which was moving eastward in sections, an advance group under -hard-fisted Garcia López de Cárdenas had turned the people of Alcanfor -pueblo out of their homes to find whatever refuge they could in -neighboring towns. Coronado, who had taken a portion of the troops on a -swing through the pueblos northwest of Tiguex, had just moved into the -new quarters when Alvarado appeared with his captives. Immeasurably -relieved by the thought that the costly expedition still might succeed, -the general told Padilla, aflame with visions of the Seven Cities, and -Alvarado to get the truth from Bigotes however they could. The -inquisitors took him into a snowy field and set a war dog on him. Partly -it was bluff; the victim was scarred but not disabled. Cacique, too, was -attacked by a dog but less severely because of his age. Throughout the -ordeal, which created deep resentment along the Rio Grande, both men -persistently denied all knowledge of gold. - -No dogs were set on the Turk. Though he, along with Ysopete, was also -kept in chains so that he would be on hand when needed in the spring, -his veracity was not questioned. For if the Turk was not believed, the -expedition lost its meaning. - -Until spring did arrive, survival was the goal. At first the Spaniards -paid for the blankets, warm clothing, and food they requisitioned. -Later, when the Indians, who had little surplus, held back, foraging -parties roamed far and wide, taking what they desired without -recompense, including in at least one case, a Puebloan’s wife. - - [Illustration: Restored kiva of Kuaua pueblo, now preserved at - Coronado State Park, Bernillilo, N.M. This village was long thought - to be the Alcanfor pueblo that Cárdenas occupied. Though excavations - in the 1930s failed to prove the speculation, the diggers did find - these extraordinary kiva murals.] - -Sensing correctly that the horses were the Spaniards’ main strength, the -Indians struck at one part of the herd, killing two dozen or so animals -and stampeding many others. Such attacks could portend disaster. With -Coronado’s blessing, Cárdenas stormed Arenal, the center of resistance. -After breaching the walls with battering rams, the Europeans lighted -smudge fires around the houses. As the gasping Indians fled into the -open, making signs of peace, mounted horsemen struck down many. Others -were tied to stakes and burned alive—a scene the Turk, Ysopete, and -Bigotes were forced to watch so that they could tell the people of their -villages what happened to rebels. - -The episode occurred in December 1540. Shortly afterwards, the main part -of the army appeared, worn out by forced marches through heavy -snowstorms, but excited by rumors of gold, for the Turk, who by then -knew more about the lusts of the invaders than they knew about him, was -elaborating on his tales. With little to talk about but warm weather and -wealth, the force lost its hold on reality and, like De Soto’s, -disintegrated into a kind of insensate organism responding only to the -dynamics of survival. When a new center of resistance developed at a -pueblo called Moho, the Spaniards burned the town after a long siege, -killed many of the men who tried to flee, and made captives (as the -_requerimiento_ threatened) of more than a hundred women and children. - -Some ambiguity surrounds Coronado’s part in these and other suppressions -of “revolt.” Though he was the army’s commanding general, he apparently -was never in the field during the moments of greatest carnage. He later -testified he never authorized the burning of settlements or the use of -dogs in battle. He personally took old Cacique back to Cicuyé and handed -him over to his people, promising to release Bigotes as well when the -army went through on its way to golden Quivira. - -There was a practical side to the generosity, of course. He did not want -a hostile fort astride his back trail when he made his final advance. -Emphasize _final_. He badly needed a triumph to save himself from -bankruptcy and to make the king’s _audiencia_ understand that what -seemed atrocities had been necessary steps on the way to treasure for -the empire. - - [Illustration: Coronado’s search for Quivira took him as far east as - central Kansas. Fragments of chain mail armor found at several sites - point to a Spanish presence in the 16th century. Coronado’s men very - likely saw country like this near Lindsborg, Kansas.] - -The eastern advance began April 23, 1541. (Fifteen days later De Soto, -heading west, sighted the Mississippi.) Bedlam marked much of the -Spaniards’ travel, especially during the daily making and breaking of -camp. There were about 300 white soldiers, other hundreds of Mexican -Indian allies, some with women and children, a herd of a thousand -horses, 500 beef cattle, and 5,000 sheep—or so says Castañeda, possibly -with exaggeration. The people of Cicuyé, seeing the mass advancing under -a shroud of dust and remembering the fate of Arenal and Moho, became -friendly again. They received Bigotes with rejoicing and heaped supplies -on his one-time captors—anything to get the invaders moving on. - -For many miles the Turk led the army east toward the Canadian River, -along the path he had shown Alvarado. They saw so many buffalo—charging -bulls killed a few horses—that Coronado would not venture guessing at -the numbers. They fell in with a meticulously described, to the joy of -future anthropologists, band of nomad Querechos, perhaps forerunners of -the Apaches. As spring waned, they found themselves in the Texas -Panhandle, atop the featureless immensity of the Llano Estacado, the -Staked Plains. - -At that point, the Turk, who the previous fall had told Alvarado that -Quivira lay northeast, turned southeast. Why? Was he heading toward the -lower Mississippi and the kind of civilization he thought the Spanish -wanted? Or had he, during the pause in Cicuyé, agreed with the people -there to lead the invaders into a trackless part of the plains where -they would become lost and, deprived of maize, would starve. - -Ysopete, who seems to have developed an acute antipathy for the Turk and -who was anxious to reach his home in Kansas, warned Coronado he was -being misled. Alvarado voiced suspicions. Coronado, however, clung to -his necessary faith in the Turk until they reached a point where the -abrupt eastern escarpment of the Staked Plains drops into almost -impassable badlands. There at last he put the Turk in irons and turned -the piloting over to Ysopete, assisted by some local Teyas Indians. - -All this had taken precious time. To speed things along and to make food -easier to procure, Coronado ordered the main army to return to Tiguex -while he and 30 picked riders, 6 foot soldiers, Juan de Padilla, and a -few mule packers scouted out Quivira.[4] - -Traveling light and sparing their mounts, Coronado’s group rode -northeast for a month. They reached the River of Quivira (now the -Arkansas) not far below present-day Dodge City, Kansas, and followed it, -still northeast, to its Great Bend, where they left it. A little farther -on they found the first Quivira (Wichita) village, a cluster of domed -huts built of stout frameworks of logs overlaid with grass, so that they -looked like haystacks. The surrounding land, rolling and fertile, -produced fine corn, pumpkins, and tobacco. But no gold. - -There were another 24 or so similar villages in the kingdom of Quivira. -The Spaniards spent nearly a month riding disconsolately among them, -gradually absorbing the truth that riches of the kind they wanted lay -neither here nor, as far as they could learn, further east. (During the -same period., De Soto was arriving at the same opinion while wandering -through parts of Arkansas.) Angry questions were inevitable. Why had the -Turk sought to mislead them both with his tales and his guidance? Under -pressure he said the people of Cicuyé had put him up to it on the -supposition he could lure the invaders to their doom. Perhaps they had. -Or perhaps El Turco was simply trying, in his extremity, to shift blame. - -The last straw came when Ysopete, El Turco’s enemy, said the Pawnee was -trying to stir up the Quivirans against the Spaniards. Acting on -Coronado’s orders, a party of executioners strangled and buried him, -secretly at night lest the Quivirans be aroused. - -There were no repercussions. Guided by several young Quivirans, the -scouts returned by a direct route to the Rio Grande Valley, arriving in -mid-September. In Coronado’s mind, the absence of treasure was -conclusive, but among those who had not gone to Quivira were many who -believed that if the scouts had continued eastward, they would have -found the Seven Cities. Coronado agreed half-heartedly to make another -attempt the following spring, but fate intervened. During a horse race -with a friend, his saddle girth broke and he was thrown under the hooves -of his opponent’s mount. Though his body gradually recovered, his -spirits did not. After another miserable winter in Alcanfor, he ordered -the army to start home. He was carried much of the way in a litter swung -between two mules hitched in tandem. - - [Illustration: On the great plains Coronado encountered a nomadic - people he variously called “Teyas” and “Querechos.” They were the - buffalo-hunting Apaches, who followed the migrating herds, packing - their goods from place to place on _travois_ hauled by dogs. They - impressed the Spaniards more than any Indians they had met. “They - are a gentle people, not cruel,” wrote the expedition’s chronicler - of the Apaches, “faithful in their friendship, and skilled in their - use of sign.”] - -By dying, De Soto escaped being tried for failure. Not Coronado. He was -investigated for derelictions in connection with an Indian rebellion -that swept his province immediately after his departure, for mistreating -the Indians of Tiguex, and for failing to press on beyond Quivira. Every -enemy he had and a pack of opportunists and publicity hunters in quest -of an audience took the stand against him, often blurting out scandalous -rumors that had nothing to do with the case. Ill, his mind cloudy, he -testified poorly in his own defense. But he had supporters, too, and in -the end, largely through the help of Viceroy Mendoza, he was cleared of -all legal charges. Though he lost the governorship of Nueva Galicia and -some of his property there, he retained his seat on Mexico City’s -council until his health, poor since his return, broke completely. He -died on September 22, 1554, aged 44. - -There is a footnote. A few Mexican Indians stayed in Háwikuh and Cicuyé -and a survivor or two were found in those towns when Spanish exploration -of the Pueblo country resumed four decades later. Some religious people -also stayed. One, old Fray Luís de Ubeda, the builder of crosses, -settled at Cicuyé, hoping to spread Christianity by baptizing children. -His fate is unknown. - -Fray Juan de Padilla’s tale is more dramatic. Obsessed with saving -Indian souls by bringing them to the Church and dreaming still of the -Seven Cities, he accompanied the young Quiviran guides back to their -homes from the Rio Grande. Helping him drive along some pack mules, a -horse, and a flock of sheep were two Indian _donados_ of Mexico named -Lucas and Sebastián, Andrés do Campo, a Portuguese, a black -“interpreter,” and a handful of servants. (Indians were not allowed to -become full-fledged friars, but if they were “donated” to the Church by -their parents, they could, as _donados_, serve as assistants.) - -The missionary adventure was short-lived. While attempting to press on -east of Quivira, the group was attacked by unidentified assailants. -Padilla died, bristling with arrows. Do Campo, the two _donados_, and -perhaps some others escaped. Separated, the _donados_ and do Campo -traveled along different routes from tribe to tribe for at least four -years until at last they reached Pánuco, Mexico—trips as astonishing but -far less famed than the odyssey of Cabeza de Vaca, whose -cross-continental traverse had put all these ill-fated land expeditions -into motion. And so, except for the salt-water adventures of Juan -Rodríguez Cabrillo, the epics had reached full circle. - - [Illustration: Cabrillo’s voyage of discovery carried him past - California’s Big Sur. In four centuries, this coast has lost none of - its enchantment.] - - - The Seafarers - -History has preserved only dim outlines of the remarkable career of Juan -Rodríguez Cabrillo, who died in 1543 while attempting to complete the -first exploration of California’s coastline. Though he is generally -supposed to have been Portuguese, the evidence is too scanty to be -sure.[5] There is no firm agreement about the cause or place of his -death. He is variously reported to have used two, three, and even four -vessels on his great exploration. Even his name has invited speculation. -It appears on the few surviving documents he signed in the abbreviated -form _Juan Rodz_. (The Portuguese spelling would normally end in “s,” -the Spanish in “z.”) What then of _Cabrillo_, which means “little goat”? -Was it an affectionate nickname that he liked and used informally to -distinguish himself from numerous other Juan Rodríguezes, a name as -common in Hispanic countries as John Smith is in English-speaking -regions? In any event he should be known formally as Juan Rodríguez. The -name Cabrillo is, however, so firmly fixed in California history that it -will be used in this account. - -Whatever his name and origin, Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo learned seafaring -in his youth. He arrived in Cuba in the second decade of the 1500s, -perhaps as a sailor or, because of his age, as a page. Yet he apparently -joined the Narváez expedition that was dispatched from Cuba to arrest -Cortés as a crossbowman. Like most of his companions, he deserted -Narváez and joined Cortés at Vera Cruz and afterwards survived the -grisly _noche triste_ when the Aztecs drove the Spaniards from their -capital at Tenochtitlán. Immediately thereafter his chance came to -display his nautical skills. - -Cortés knew that if he were to recapture lake-bound Tenochtitlán, he -would have to control the causeways that linked the city to the -mainland. That meant building enough small brigantines to overpower the -Aztec war canoes that had harried the retreating Spaniards so -mercilessly during the _noche triste_. According to the -soldier-historian Bernal Díaz del Castillo, Cortés put Cabrillo in -charge of four “men of the sea” who understood how to make pine tar for -caulking ships. But was that all the younger warrior did? Seamen were -needed in all phases of the operation, beginning with the prefabrication -of thirteen brigantines 50 miles from the capital and then transporting -the pieces on the backs of at least 8,000 porters to the shores of the -lake, where they were reassembled. - -Each brigantine was manned by a dozen oarsmen, who also handled the -sails. Each carried several crossbowmen and arquebus marksmen. The -little fleet was important enough that Cortés took charge in person. A -fortuitous wind enabled the brigantines to hoist sails and smash with -devastating effect into a massed gathering of Aztec canoes. Afterwards -they fought a dozen fierce skirmishes while protecting the footmen on -the causeway—opportunity enough for a good sailor and fighter to catch -the general’s eye, if indeed Cabrillo was in the fleet, as he well may -have been. - -Tenochtitlán regained, the actual conquest of Mexico began. Small bands -of Spaniards, reinforced by numerous Indian allies, radiated out in all -directions. It is known that Cabrillo participated as an officer of -crossbowmen in the conquest of Oaxaca. Later he joined red-bearded Pedro -de Alvarado, cousin of Coronado’s officer, Hernando de Alvarado, in -seizing Guatemala and El Salvador. During those long, sanguinary -campaigns Cabrillo performed well enough that he was rewarded with -_encomiendas_ in both Guatemala and Honduras. - -An _encomienda_ was a grant of land embracing one or more Indian -villages. In exchange for protecting the village and teaching the -inhabitants to become Christian subjects of the king, the _encomendero_ -was entitled to exact taxes and labor from them. Most grant holders -ignored duties while concentrating on the privileges. What kind of -master Cabrillo was does not appear. Anyway, for the next 15 years his -Indian laborers grew food for slaves he had put to work in placer mines -on his lands and in the shipyards he supervised on Guatemala’s Pacific -coast. He traded profitably with Peru and meanwhile enriched his -personal life by taking an Indian woman as his consort. With her he -fathered several children. Later he brought a Spanish wife—Beatriz -Sánchez de Ortega—into his extensive and, for the time and place, -luxurious household. - -Successful shipbuilding helped keep the excitement of the conquistadors -high, for if the world was as small as generally believed, China, the -islands of Indonesia, and the Philippines, discovered by Magellan in -1521, could not be far away. There might be other islands as well, ruled -by potentates as rich as Moctezuma or inhabited by gorgeous black -Amazons who allowed men to visit them only on certain occasions and -afterwards slew them. There was that mythical “terrestrial paradise” -called California in a popular romance of the time, _Las Sergas de -Esplandián_. According to the author, seductive California was ruled by -dazzling queen Calafia, whose female warriors wielded swords of gold, -there being no other metal in the land, and used man-eating griffins as -beasts of burden. What a spot to find! - -The ships charged with searching for these places were built of -materials hauled overland (except for timber) from the Atlantic to the -Pacific by Indian bearers. The vessels were small, ill-designed, cranky, -and often did not have decks. Nevertheless, ships sent out into the -unknown by Cortés during the early 1530s discovered a strip of coast the -sailors believed was part of an island. They were the first, probably, -to refer to it as California, perhaps in derision since the desolate -area was so totally different from the paradise described in the -romance. The notion of nearby Gardens of Eden persisted, however, and -interest soared again when Cabeza de Vaca’s party reached Mexico in 1536 -with tales of great cities in the north. - -Cortés, who considered himself the legitimate _adelantado_ of the north, -tried to cut in on Mendoza’s plans to exploit the Vaca discoveries. -Rebuffed, he defied the Viceroy by dispatching three ships under a -kinsman, Francisco de Ulloa—one of the vessels soon foundered—to search -for a sea opening to the lands of Cíbola. Finding himself locked in a -gulf, Ulloa retreated along the eastern edge of the 800-mile-long -peninsula that we call Baja California, rounded its tip and continued -north to within 130 miles or so of the present U.S.-Mexico border. No -inlets. His ships battered by adverse winds and his men wracked by -scurvy, he returned to Mexico, only to be murdered, it is said, by one -of his sailors. - -The only man remaining who could have saved Cortés’s dimming star was -his old captain, Pedro de Alvarado, then governor of Guatemala. Dreaming -of still more wealth in the sea, Alvarado, too, had built a pair of -shipyards on the Pacific coast and had put Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo in -charge of creating vessels out of materials dragged overland by Indians -from the Atlantic. In 1538 Alvarado went to Spain and returned with 300 -volunteers and a license to conquer any islands he found in the South -Seas. By then he commanded 13 vessels, several of which had been built -by Cabrillo. In the fleet were three galleons of 200 tons each, one of -which, the _San Salvador_ was owned and piloted by Cabrillo; seven ships -of 100 tons, and three lesser brigantines. If Alvarado had thrown in -with Cortés ... but prudence dictated that he consult first with -Mendoza, who had already invested some money in the building of the -armada. So he took the fleet north to the port of Colima, due west of -Mexico City and left it at anchor there, under Cabrillo’s watchful eye, -while he went inland to dicker with the Viceroy. - -In the end Mendoza and Alvarado agreed to share equally in the expenses -and profits of a double venture: they would send some ships west to the -Philippines and some north to Cíbola and then on to a strait called -Anian, which supposedly sliced through the upper latitudes of the -continent. The arrangements, which ignored Cortés’s claims, sent the -aging conquistador hurrying to Spain in 1540 in search of justice, as he -defined justice. He never returned. - -Alvarado had no opportunity to exploit the newly opened field. When an -Indian revolt broke out in provinces of Jalisco and Michacán, the -viceroy called on Alvarado to bring in his volunteers as reinforcements. -During an engagement in the summer of 1541, a horse lost its footing on -a steep hillside, rolled down and crushed Alvarado to death. - - [Illustration: Navigation was still in its infancy in Cabrillo’s - day. Mariners sailed by “dead” reckoning, a method of figuring - location by multiplying time by estimated speed over a given course. - The main instruments were the compass, the hourglass, and the - astrolabe. None of these devices was exact, and charts and - mathematical tables were often inaccurate. Hence mariners sailed as - much by instinct as by science. Skill often meant the difference - between a successful voyage and wreck.] - -Onerous problems followed. Alvarado’s estate had to be put in order; -ships had to be refitted; the chaos of an earthquake at Santiago, -Guatemala, headquarters of Cabrillo’s holdings, had to be confronted. In -due time Mendoza acquired control of the fleet, including the use of -Cabrillo’s _San Salvador_, and in 1542 launched the major explorations -previously agreed on. Ruy Lopéz de Villalobos took ships to the -Philippines. On June 27 of that same year Cabrillo headed north with -three vessels: _San Salvador_, which he captained; _Victoria_, commanded -by pilot Bartolomé Ferrer (a pilot ranked just below a captain and was -far more than a mere guide); and _San Miguel_, a small brigantine used -as a launch and service vessel. It was commanded by Antonio Correa, an -experienced shipmaster. More than 200 persons were crowded aboard the -three vessels.[6] - - [Illustration: Compass and astrolabe] - -Because both Ulloa and Alarcón had reported that the Sea of Cortés was a -gulf, Cabrillo made no effort to follow the mainland north, but led his -ships directly toward the tip of the peninsula, calling it California -without comment, as though the name was already in current use. For -nearly three months they sailed along Baja’s outer coast, bordered much -of the way by “high, naked, and rugged mountains.” Because they were -looking for a river entrance to the interior and for a strait leading to -the Atlantic, they sailed as close to land as they dared, constantly -tacking in order to defeat the contrary winds and the Pacific’s erratic -currents. - -About August 20 they passed the most northerly point (Punta del Engaño) -reached by Ulloa. A little farther on, where the land was flat, they -beached the vessels to make some necessary repairs and, while exploring -the neighborhood, found a camp of Indian fishermen. The native leaders, -their bodies decorated with slashes of white paint, came on board, -looked over the sailors and soldiers and indicated “they had seen other -men like them who had beards and had brought dogs, _ballestas_ -[crossbows] and swords.” Since there was no mention of horses, the -strangers probably had come from ships. Ulloa’s men of 1539? Hernando de -Alarcón’s of 1540? Or a later party, for there had been talk of -Alarcón’s returning for another venture inland. Mystified, Cabrillo -entrusted the Indians with a letter for the bearded ones. - -They relaunched the ships and another month dragged by—crosswinds, -headwinds, calms. Cabrillo took constant sightings of sun and stars with -his massive astrolabe, no small task for he had to stand with his back -braced against a mast for steadiness on the heaving deck while he called -out the readings that were to be recorded in the log. Speed was computed -by throwing a wooden float over the stern and counting the marks -flashing by as the line holding it unwound from its reel. Compasses were -used, but magnetic declinations were not well understood. All of -Cabrillo’s longitudes and latitudes were wide of the mark, but the fault -was not entirely his or his instruments. He began his reckonings at a -point inaccurately observed by others. Even the precise location of -Mexico City was unknown in 1542. - - - _San Salvador_, Cabrillo’s Flagship - - [Illustration: The San Salvador] - - Cabrillo himself built the ship he sailed up the California coast. It - was constructed between 1536 and 1540 at Iztapa on the west coast of - Guatemala. This region was something of a shipbuilding center, with a - reputation for better quality than the yards of Seville, Spain. Much - of the labor was furnished by Indians and black slaves, whole villages - of whom were conscripted to portage supplies, raise food, cut lumber, - trim timbers, and make pitch, rope, and charcoal. - - _San Salvador_ was a full-rigged galleon, with an approximate length - of 100 feet, a beam of 25 feet, and a draft of 10 feet. The crew - numbered about 60: 4 officers, 25 to 30 seamen, and 2 or 3 - apprentices, and two dozen or so slaves, blacks and Indians. On the - voyage to California, _San Salvador_ also carried about 25 soldiers - and at least one priest. The ship was armed with several cannon. - - Ship’s fare was wine, hard bread, beans, salt meat, fish, and anything - fresh picked up along the way, all washed down by mugs of wine. - Officers, who probably brought along food of their own and servants to - prepare it, ate better. Slaves lived off rations of soup and bread and - scraps left by others. - - [Illustration: The ship’s cannon probably resembled this Lombardo of - the period. It fired a stone ball about 3½ inches in diameter. - -This illustration by John Batchelor is based on the research of -Melbourne Smith.] - -On September 28, three months after leaving Mexico, the ships crossed -the future international border and put into a “very good enclosed port, -to which they gave the name San Miguel.” It was our San Diego. - -The Indians there were afraid. That evening they wounded, with arrows, -three men of a fishing party. Instead of marching forth in retaliation, -Cabrillo sailed slowly on into the harbor, caught two boys, gave them -presents, and let them go. The kindness worked. The next day three large -men partly dressed in furs (the “Summary” says) came to the ship and -galloped around to illustrate horsemen killing Indians far inland. -Melchior Díaz, fighting Yumans during his crossing of the Colorado in -the fall of 1540? Or had word of Coronado’s battles at Háwikuh and on -the Rio Grande trickled this far west along the trade trails? In any -event, Europeans were no longer a mystery. On three more occasions -Cabrillo picked up rumors of Spaniards in the interior. - -After easily riding out the first storm of the season in the harbor, the -ships sailed on, pausing at Avalon on Santa Catalina Island and later at -the island we call San Clemente. Along the way they remarked on the many -flat-lying streamers of smoke from Indian villages near San Pedro and, -later, Santa Monica Bays (warnings, unrecognizable then, of temperature -inversions and smog). Somewhere near modern Oxnard, they spent a few -pleasant days with Chumash Indians, admiring their big, conical huts and -their marvelous plank canoes. Tantalized by a fresh rumor of Spaniards -near a large river (the Colorado?), Cabrillo sent out a letter in care -of some Indians “on a chance.” But where the river reached the coast, if -it did, he could not learn. - - [Illustration: A deadeye and a triple-purchase block of the type - used on _San Salvador_. Deadeyes and lanyards were employed in fixed - rigging, frequently to secure shrouds that supported the mast; on - the right is a typical setup, by which lines were tightened and - secured to the vessel’s frame. A block and tackle were essential for - hoisting heavy yards. Drawings by John Batchelor.] - -The coast from Oxnard to Cabo de Galera (our Point Conception) runs -roughly east and west for nearly a hundred miles before bending sharply -north. This stretch was heavily populated. Many canoes traveled -alongside the ships, and there was a great deal of calling back and -forth and exchanges of gifts. A string of islands, also populated, -paralleled the shore, forming what is now called the Santa Barbara -Channel. On October 18 the Spanish ships endeavored to round Cabo de -Galera but were blown by strong winds out to the westernmost of the -Channel Islands, one the mariners had not yet explored. They named it -Posesión (it is now San Miguel) and remained in the shelter of Cuyler’s -Harbor for about a week. - -The idyllic days were over—and so, in many critical ways, is agreement -between Juan Páez’s “Summary” of Cabrillo’s log and the testimony about -the trip given in 1560 to the _audiencia_ of Guatemala by Lázaro de -Cárdenas and Francisco de Vargas, both of whom told the court they had -been on the trip. - -During the stay on Posesión, according to the “Summary,” Cabrillo fell -and broke his arm near the shoulder. In spite of that, he resumed the -journey, rounded Point Conception, was again driven back, tried once -more, and in mid-November succeeded. The fleet soon reached the rugged -Santa Lucia Range, in which William Randolph Hearst four centuries later -built fabulous San Simeon. For the mariners it was a heart-stopping -area—“mountains which seem to reach the heavens.... Sailing close to the -land, it appears as though they would fall on the ships. They are -covered with snow.” - -They may have sailed as far as the vicinity of Point Reyes, a little -north of San Francisco Bay, or they may have gone no farther than -Monterey Bay, where they almost certainly anchored on November 16. -Whatever their northernmost point, they turned back, probably because of -bad weather, possibly because of Cabrillo’s sufferings. On November 23 -they once again landed on San Miguel Island. There, sensing he was about -to die, Cabrillo made the pilot, Bartolomé Ferrer (or Ferrelo in some -accounts) swear to continue the explorations. On January 3, 1543, he -perished and was buried on the island. - -Or was he? In 1901, an amateur archeologist, Philip M. Jones, found on -Santa Rosa Island, just east of San Miguel, an old Indian _mano_, or -grinding stone, into one of whose sides a cross and the fused initials -JR had been incised. The stone was stored in a basement at the -University of California, Berkeley, until 1972, when Berkeley’s noted -anthropologist, Dr. Robert Heizer, began wondering whether the curiosity -might have once marked Juan Rodríguez’s grave. So far extensive -examinations have determined nothing about this additional mystery. - - - The Chumash: Village Dwellers - - The Indians that Cabrillo encountered along the Santa Barbara coast - were the village-dwelling Chumash. Their villages were groupings of - houses, according to a later traveler, with a sweat-house, - store-rooms, a ceremonial plaza, a gaming area, and a cemetery some - distance off. The houses were cone-shaped, spacious and comfortable. A - hole in the roof admitted light and vented smoke from cook fires. - Apart from the brief skirmish at San Diego Bay, Cabrillo found the - California Indians a gentle, friendly people. - - Two views of the Chumash: - - [Illustration: An early illustration of two fishermen, from George - Shelvocke’s _Voyage Around the World_, 1726.] - - [Illustration: Artist Louis S. Glanzman’s drawing of a woman with a - garment. “They were dressed in skins,” said Cabrillo’s diarist, “and - wore their hair very long and tied up with long strings interwoven - with the hair ... attached to the strings were many gewgaws of - flint, bone, and wood.”] - - [Illustration: This stone found on Santa Rosa Island may have once - marked the burial place of Cabrillo.] - -And then there is the testimony of Cárdenas and Vargas in 1560. They -said, without giving dates, that Cabrillo decided to winter on Posesión, -which the witnesses called La Capitana, and that on stepping ashore from -the ship’s boats he fell between some rocks, broke his shin bone, and -died 12 days later. Vargas adds that the fall resulted from Cabrillo’s -hurry to help some of his men, who were battling Indians. A splintered -shin bone with its possibilities for gangrene sounds more deadly than a -broken arm. - -On February 18, 1543, after beating around the Santa Barbara Channel for -more than a month, exploring and taking on wood and water, Ferrer -resumed the trip, as Cabrillo had asked. Standing well out to sea, he -scudded north until on March 1 he was opposite—who knows? Cape -Mendocino? The California-Oregon border? The mouth of the Rogue River? -Wherever they were, the sea, breaking over the little ships with -terrifying fury, was driving them irresistibly toward the -rock-punctuated shore. They prayed fervently, and suddenly the wind -shifted, driving them south “with a sea so high they became crazed.” The -storm separated the ships, _San Salvador_ ran out of food, and the -sailors were in dire straits until they were able to land at Ventura and -later San Diego, where, in addition to food, they also picked up a half -a dozen Indian boys to train as interpreters in case of a repeat -journey. - -Miraculously, the ships rejoined at Cedros Island off Baja California, -and on April 14, 1543, they reached Navidad, nine and a half months -after their departure. There was no repeat journey. Like De Soto and -Coronado, they had located neither treasure nor shortcuts to the Orient. -After that, no one else wanted to try, and Spain’s first great era of -exploration of the United States came to an end. - - [Illustration: Mission churches were the vanguard of Spanish - civilization in the Southwest. They softened the imperatives of the - state and eased inexorable cultural transitions. San Jose Mission - was established along the San Antonio River in 1720. Still an active - parish, the mission today is a unit of San Antonio National - Historical Park, Texas.] - - - - - Epilogue - - -Judged on the basis of what they set out to do, De Soto, Coronado, and -Cabrillo failed. Yet great consequences flowed from their efforts. -Without intending it, they found truth. They exploded myths and gave a -solid anchor to the Spanish imagination. Undistracted, the people of New -Spain could settle down to developing the resources—the mines, -plantations, and ranches—that lay close at hand. It was the perceived -need to protect this new wealth from potential enemies in the -north—France, England, and Russia—and not the frenetic hope of riches -that eventually brought about the extension of the Spanish empire into -what became the southern United States, from St. Augustine, Florida, to -the Franciscan missions of California. - -Another discovery was the tremendous size and geographical diversity of -America north of Mexico. After the truth had trickled out about the -forests and savannahs of the semi-tropical southeast, the vast deserts -and striking headlands of the southwest, the spreading central plains -with their immeasurable herds of buffalo, and the coastal mountains and -misty valleys of California, no one would ever again think of the upper -part of the continent as a mere bulb perched on the thin stem of Central -America and Mexico. These vast stretches, moreover, were peopled by a -race never before known. By bringing back the first sound -anthropological descriptions of these people, the Spanish explorers—and -the French and English after them—gave the philosophers of Europe new -food for speculation concerning the human condition. - -Most important, they, along with the explorers of other nations, brought -a sense of release and fresh possibilities to the Old World. Their -reports arrived at a time when custom-bound Europe was struggling to -shake off the constraints of ancient traditions, outworn feudal -institutions, and an almost total lack of specie for implementing the -quickening trade of the Renaissance—an average of less than $2 in -currency for each of the continent’s 100 million people. In the Americas -there were no mossy customs, but there were precious minerals and raw -materials beyond imagination awaiting development. Development by anyone -with daring and ingenuity. The great _conquistadores_ had all arrived -poor and unknown and then had discovered within themselves explosive -energies for meeting unprecedented physical challenges. Such strengths, -once they were turned from brigandage into constructive endeavors, -became the hallmark of the new continent. Pointing the way were Cabeza -de Vaca, De Soto, Coronado, and Cabrillo, all doing their great work -within a decade. It is indeed an era to remember. - - - - - A Guide To Sites - - - [Illustration: Repaired olla] - - [Illustration: Pueblo entrance] - - - Following the Explorers - -Though nothing spectacular survives, travelers can find many rewarding -historical places that conjure up the Spanish _conquistadores_ and the -natives they encountered. The four principal NPS sites are described -briefly in the following pages. Many other parks and several Indian -communities also preserve landscapes directly associated with the -explorations. They are listed below. All these places are well worth a -visit and several are worth a journey to anyone interested in the -beginnings of North American history. - - Ocmulgee National Monument Ancient mounds built by people of - Macon, GA 31201 the Mississippian culture. De Soto - passed through this region in 1540. - Etowah Indian Mounds State De Soto visited this town (called - Historic Site Itaba) in August 1540. - Cartersville, GA 30120 - Mound State Monument A farming town which flourished AD - Moundville, AL 35474 1000-1500; representative of the - powerful chiefdoms found by De Soto. - Parkin Archeological State Park Believed to be a center of an - Parkin, AR 72373 important chiefdom (Casqui) visited - by De Soto in 1541. - Coronado State Monument A Pueblo village visited by the - P.O. Box 95 Coronado expedition in 1540. - Bernalillo, NM 87004 Polychrome murals in the kiva are a - prize exhibit. - Pueblo of Acoma A fortress town inhabited by - P.O. Box 309 descendents of the Pueblo people - New Mexico 87034 who befriended the Alvarado party - in 1540. - Zuni Pueblo The original Cibola of Spanish - Box 339 legend. Háwikuh, the place of - Zuni, NM 87327 Coronado’s first encounter with - Pueblo Indians, is now a ruin. - - - De Soto National Memorial, Florida - - [Illustration: De Soto’s army may well have come ashore at a spot on - Tampa Bay that resembled this beach within the park. Below: replica - armor and an early marker commemorating De Soto’s bold march.] - -De Soto National Memorial commemorates the first major European -penetration of the southeastern United States. De Soto’s purpose, -sanctioned by the King, was to conquer the land Spaniards called _La -Florida_ and settle it for Spain. He failed in both objects. There was -no rich empire in the north, only a succession of chiefdoms, and his -practice of looting villages and grabbing hostages alienated native -inhabitants and turned his march into a siege. The lasting significance -of the expedition was the information it yielded about the land and its -Mississippian people in a late stage of that remarkable civilization. - -The park was established in 1949 on the south shore of Tampa Bay. De -Soto’s fleet may very well have sailed by this point in May 1539 to a -landing spot farther around the bay. Attractions at the park include -replicas of the type of weapons carried by the expedition and thickets -of red mangrove, the so-called Florida land-builder. The journals tell -of De Soto’s men cutting their way inland through mangrove tangles. - -For more information about the park and its programs, write: - - Superintendent - De Soto National Memorial - P.O. Box 15390 - Bradenton, FL 34280 - - [Illustration: Map] - - [Illustration: Demonstrations in winter give insight into military - life and the Spanish world-view in the 16th century.] - - - Coronado National Memorial, Arizona - - [Illustration: The Huachucas rise like islands above the surrounding - Sonoran desert. This landscape is little changed from Coronado’s - day.] - - Following an ancient Indian trade path up the San Pedro valley, the - Coronado expedition crossed the present Mexico-United States border - just east of this park. Hikers on the Coronado Peak Trail looking down - Montezuma Canyon can see in the far distance cottonwood trees that - mark Coronado’s line of march. - - The national memorial was established in 1941, 400th anniversary of - the expedition. Its setting high in the Huachuca Mountains is a - fitting place to recall the first major Spanish _entrada_ into the - American Southwest in all its color and fire: the gathering of the - army at Compostela, arduous marches across wilderness, encounters with - native cultures of great subtlety and art, discovery of a land of vast - expanse and power, and above all the record of where they had been and - what they had seen. - - This is a park to see on foot. Trails lead to good viewing points and - connect with others in Coronado National Forest, which surrounds the - park. - - For information about the park and its programs, write: - - Superintendent - Coronado National Memorial - 4104 E. Montezuma Canyon - Road, Hereford AZ 85615 - - [Illustration: Map] - - [Illustration: The expedition traveled along the San Pedro River, - east of the park.] - - - Pecos National Historical Park, New Mexico - - [Illustration: The kiva and the mission church frame the two worlds - of the Pecos Indians. During the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, Pecos - Indians destroyed the first mission and built this kiva (now - restored) within the mission’s convento. For a few years they - followed their religion undisturbed.] - -The ruins of Pecos Pueblo and Spanish missions of the 17th- and -18th-centuries crown a small ridge overlooking the Pecos Valley in upper -New Mexico. At the time of the Coronado _entrada_, the pueblo was a -giant apartment house, several stories high, with a central plaza, 600 -rooms, and many kivas—home to 2,000 souls. The village prospered because -it commanded the trade path between Pueblo farmers of the Rio Grande and -buffalo hunters of the Plains. Pecos was a crossroads of commerce and -culture, and its people grew adept at trade and war. The arrival of -Franciscan priests in the 1600s with Spanish custom, religion, law -inexorably altered Pueblo life. The Spaniards built a spacious mission -church on the south end of the ridge, and a second but smaller one when -the first church was destroyed in the Pueblo revolt of 1680. Pecos -continued as a mission for more than a century. Disease and Comanche -raids spelt decline in the late 18th century. The last inhabitants—fewer -than 20—drifted away in 1838. - -The park is 25 miles southeast of Santa Fe. Among its features are the -ruins of the ancient pueblo, two restored kivas, and adobe mission -walls. For information on the park and its programs, write: - - Superintendent - Pecos National Historical - Park - P.O. Drawer 418 - Pecos NM 87552-0418 - - [Illustration: Map] - - [Illustration: Extensive pinyon-juniper forests once surrounded - Pecos Pueblo.] - - [Illustration: The vessel is a 16th-century olla. The Spanish spur - dates from the 17th century.] - - - Cabrillo National Monument, California - - [Illustration: The Old Point Loma Lighthouse, built 1854.] - - [Illustration: Gray whale migrations in winter are an annual - spectacle.] - - This park honors the man who led the first European exploring - expedition along the California coast. Sailing under a Spanish flag, - Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo departed on 27 June 1542 from the port of - Navidad on Mexico’s west coast. He commanded the ship _San Salvador_ - (with a crew of 60); with him was _Victoria_, and another smaller - vessel. His objective: “to discover the coast of New Spain.” Three - months later he hove to in “a very good enclosed port”—San Diego Bay. - This was the mariner’s first landfall north of Baja peninsula. - Cabrillo himself died and was buried in the Channel Islands. His crew - went on to explore as far north as Oregon, seeing new landmarks and - new peoples, not all friendly. - - The park is located on Point Loma, within the city of San Diego. - Features include a heroic statue of Cabrillo, dramatic views of the - Pacific and San Diego Bay, and Old Point Loma Lighthouse, a 1850s - structure. In winter, the point is a good place to see the annual - migration of the gray whale. - - For information about the park and its programs, write: - - Superintendent - Cabrillo National Memorial - P.O. Box 6670 - San Diego CA 92166 - - [Illustration: Map] - - [Illustration: The 14-foot sandstone statue of Cabrillo is the work - of Portuguese sculptor Alvaro DeBree. Completed in 1939 for the San - Francisco World’s Fair, it was eventually relocated here. The - portrait is conjectural; there is no known likeness of the - explorer.] - - - - - Essay on Sources - - -If any of the leading _conquistadores_ who march through these pages -kept a running account of his adventures, the journal has been lost. -Except for occasional letters, the closest we can come to firsthand -information are reminiscences written or dictated by lesser participants -many years after the events described. Some supplementary material also -comes from court testimony. More immediacy is lost by the fact that most -English readers must depend on translations of varying accuracy and -fluency. There are several translations of all main documents. - -The first of the New World adventurers to reminisce in print was Cabeza -de Vaca. His _Relación ..._ appeared in 1542. Buckingham Smith’s English -translation, first printed in 1855, was later included with several -other documents in _Spanish Explorers in the Southern United States, -1528-1543_, edited by Frederick Hodge and Theodore Lewis (New York, -1907). - -The same work also contains Smith’s translation of _Narratives of the -Career of Hernando de Soto_ by an anonymous Hidalgo (gentleman or -knight) of Elvas, Portugal, first published in Portugal in 1557 by a -survivor of the long march. Smith’s translation, somewhat modified, -reappeared in Gaylord Bourne’s two-volume _Narratives of the Career of -Hernando de Soto_ (New York, 1904). Bourne’s volumes also contain -reminiscences by Rodrigo Ranjel, De Soto’s secretary, and Luis de -Biedma, the latter a spare account. The longest and lushest of the De -Soto tales is _The Florida of the Inca_, the Inca being Garcilaso de la -Vega, son of a Spanish father and an Incan mother. He drew his -information from the oral accounts of three of De Soto’s soldiers and -used his active imagination to embellish what he heard. The first -complete English translation, by John and Jeannette Varner, appeared in -1951 (reprinted by University of Texas Press, 1980). Miguel Albornoz has -published a novelized biography, _Hernando de Soto, Knight of the -Americas_, translated by Bruce Boeglin (New York, 1986). - -Some secondary material, which uses anthropological, archeological, and -geographic research to shed light on the early explorations, should be -mentioned. One instance: _Final Report of the United States De Soto -Commission_, John R. Swanton, chairman (Washington, D.C., 1939). The -commission sought to retrace De Soto’s zigzagging route. Jeffery P. -Brain’s new edition of the _Final Report_ for the Smithsonian Press -(Washington, D.C., 1985) revises Swanton’s conclusions in many places. -Another interesting formulation is “De Soto Trail: National Historic -Trail Study, Draft Report” (NPS, 1990). In an appendix Charles Hudson -offers a new reconstruction of De Soto’s route. The articles in _First -Encounters: Spanish Explorations in the Caribbean and the United States, -1492-1570_, Jerald T. Milanich and Susan Milanich, eds., (Gainesville. -1989), fill out our understanding of New World societies during the -first decades of exploration. - -Still the best introduction to Coronado and his expedition is Herbert E. -Bolton’s classic biography, _Coronado: Knight of Pueblos and Plains_ -(1949). George P. Hammond and Agapito Rey have brought together in -_Narratives of the Coronado Expedition_ (Albuquerque, 1940) all the -primary documents, including testimony from Coronado’s trial, that -anyone except specialists needs to know about the first Spanish -_entrada_ into the American Southwest. The chief items are the -_Relacións_ of Juan de Jaramillo and Pedro de Castañeda. Castañeda’s -_Relación_ also appears in Hodges and Lewis. - -A sampling of the historical dispute over Friar Marcos’s doings in the -Southwest can be found in articles by Henry Wagner and Carl Sauer in the -_New Mexico Historical Review_, April 1937, July 1937, and July 1941. -See also Cleve Hallenbeck, _The Journey of Fray Marcos de Niza_ (Dallas -1949). The place of the religious in the Coronado expedition is examined -by Fr. Angelico Chavez of New Mexico in _Coronado’s Friars_ (Academy of -American Franciscan History, Washington, D.C., 1968). John L. Kessell’s -_Kiva, Cross, and Crown_ (National Park Service, Washington, D.C., 1979) -looks at the relationships between the Coronado expedition and the key -pueblo of Pecos. Albert H. Schroeder has analyzed Coronado’s route -across the Plains in _Plains Anthropologist_, February 1962. Carroll L. -Riley, in the _New Mexico Historical Review_, October 1971, and _The -Kiva_, winter 1975, shows that in Coronado’s time long trade routes and -hence a rudimentary system of verbal communications, fortified by signs, -linked Cíbola (Háwikuh) and the Indians of Mexico. Other trade trails -carried goods and knowledge from the interior across the Colorado River -to the Pacific and out onto the Plains. A new account of Coronado’s -march is Stewart L. Udall, _To the Inland Empire_ (New York, 1987). - -The principal sources on Cabrillo (Juan Paez’s “Summary Log” and court -testimony about Cabrillo’s accomplishments) were published by the -Cabrillo Historical Association in _The Cabrillo Era and His Voyage of -Discovery_ (San Diego, 1982). The best biography, Harry Kelsey’s _Juan -Rodriguez Cabrillo_ (The Huntington Library, 1986), is based on -extensive new research in sources. - - -★GPO: 1992—312-246/40005 - - - - - Footnotes - - -[1]Paul Horgan in _Great River_ identifies Rio de las Palmas with - today’s Rio Grande. Other historians favor Soto la Marina, about 30 - miles north of Tampico, formerly Pánuco. - -[2]Such is the conclusion of the U.S. De Soto Commission headed by John - R. Swanton (_Final Report_, Washington, D.C., 1939), which was - appointed by President Roosevelt to study the explorer’s route to - commemorate the 400th anniversary of the landing, an opinion - affirmed by two other scholars, Charles Hudson and Jerald T. - Milanich. For a contrary opinion that favors the Fort Myers area, - see R.F. Schell, _De Soto Didn’t Land at Tampa_, Fort Myers Beach, - 1966. Jeffery P. Brain in a new edition of the report for the - Smithsonian Press (1985) concludes that the most we can now say is - that De Soto landed somewhere along the central Florida gulf coast, - “between the Caloosahatchie River to south and the vicinity of Tampa - Bay to the north.” It is conceivable that future archeological - studies will narrow down the landing site. - -[3]Because Vásquez was the family name of the _conquistador_, the young - man should properly be called Vásquez. This account, however, will - follow established American custom and call him Coronado. - -[4]Among the 30 riders was Juan de Zaldívar. As a consequence, Zaldívar - had to leave behind a captive Indian woman he had picked up in - Tiguex. Rather than return there she fled down a fork of the Brazos - River that rises in the Staked Plains. Somewhere near present Waco, - Texas, she perhaps met the survivors of De Soto’s party as they were - trying to reach Pánuco, Mexico, by land. See page 50 above. If true, - and it seems likely, it was the only contact between the two groups, - who at one point were within 300 to 400 miles of each other. - -[5]Too few records have survived for anyone to say with certainty where - Cabrillo was born or grew up. Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas, a - Spanish chronicler, identified him in 1615 as Portuguese. Set - against this is the testimony of the explorer’s grandson in 1617 - that “My paternal grandfather, Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo came [to the - New World] from the Kingdoms of Spain....” The NPS has adopted the - view that Cabrillo was Portuguese. Many historians, including - Cabrillo’s most recent biographer Harry Kelsey, aver that he was - Spanish. David Lavender believes that the question is both elusive - and unimportant. What is certain, Lavender points out, is that like - many adventurers from other countries Cabrillo spent a good part of - his life in the service of Spain and opened new lands to Spanish - settlement. _Ed._ - -[6]Recent scholarship has shown that accounts which say Cabrillo - commanded two ships on his northern journey, as most accounts do, - were following mistakes made by the first Spanish historians of the - expedition. Unfortunately, Cabrillo’s own log has disappeared and is - known only through an often vague, chronologically mixed-up summary - attributed to a Juan Páez, of whom little is known. Better sources - are the testimony given by witnesses in legal actions brought by - Cabrillo’s heirs to recover property taken from his estate after his - death. For details see Harry Kelsey’s biography, _Juan Rodríguez - Cabrillo_ (1986). and the Cabrillo Historical Association’s 1982 - publication, _The Cabrillo Era and His Voyage of Discovery_, - especially articles by Kelsey and James R. Moriarty, III. - - - - - National Park Service - - - _Sources_ - - - Alabama Museum of Natural History 51 (palette stone) - Andersen, Roy 68-69; 82 - Batchelor, John 90-91, 92, 93 - Bell, Fred 100 - Cook, Kathleen Norris 84 - Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection 28 (bottom) - Florida Division of Historical Resources 43 (all except olive jar) - Florida Museum of Natural History 43 (olive jar) - Glanzman, Louis S. 16; 18-19; 34-35; 44; 64-65; 94 (Chumash Indian) - Gnass, Jeff 104; 108 (lighthouse) - Gray, Tom Back cover (upper left); 36; 102-3 - Harrington, Marshall 108-9 (San Diego, gray whale) - Hudson, Charles 46-47 (route information) - Huey, George H. H. 107 - Huntington Library 57 - Jacka, Jerry Back cover (upper right); 58-59; 73; 79; 80; 106 - Lanza, Patricia 77 - Library of Congress 4 (De Bry woodcut); 23 (from _Das Trachtenbuch des - Christian Weiditz_); 31 (from Gomara’s _History_); 38; 94 - (right) - Mang, Fred 96 - Muench, David 54; 98-99 - Museo Civico Navale di Genova-Pegli 15 (portrait) - Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon 14 - National Geographic Society 24 (artist, Felipe Davalos); 26-27 - (Michael A. Hampshire) - National Maritime Museum, Greenwich 88 - Odyssey Productions (R. Frerck) 20; 22; 28 (top) - Palazzo Tursi, Genoa 15 (coat-of-arms) - Parkin Archeological State Park, Arkansas 48 - Peabody Museum, Harvard University 50 - Smithsonian Institution 51 (stone axe) - Till, Tom 105 - Townsend, L. Kenneth 54-55, 74-75 - University of California, Berkeley, Lowie Museum of Anthropology 95 - Westlight (Bill Ross) Back cover, lower left; 109 - - - - - U.S. Department of the Interior - - -As the Nation’s principal conservation agency, the Department of the -Interior has responsibility for most of our nationally owned public -lands and natural and cultural resources. This includes fostering wise -use of our land and water resources, protecting our fish and wildlife, -preserving the environmental and cultural values of our national parks -and historical places, and providing for the enjoyment of life through -outdoor recreation. The Department assesses our energy and mineral -resources and works to assure that their development is in the best -interest of all our people. The Department also promotes the goals of -the Take Pride in America campaign by encouraging stewardship and -citizen responsibility for the public lands and promoting citizen -participation in their care. The Department also has a major -responsibility for American Indian reservation communities and for -people who live in Island Territories under U.S. Administration. - - - - - De Soto, Coronado, Cabrillo - Explorers of the _Northern Mystery_ - - - [Illustration: De Soto National Memorial] - - [Illustration: Coronado National Memorial] - - [Illustration: Pecos National Historical Park] - - [Illustration: Cabrillo National Monument] - -_Here is the story of the first explorations of North America. _De Soto, -Coronado, Cabrillo: Explorers of the Northern Mystery_ traces in -graceful text and illustration the journeys of three captains of -discovery into New Spain’s northern frontier between 1539 and 1543. -Their encounters with a new land and its native peoples mark the -beginnings of American history._ - - - - - Transcriber’s Notes - - -—Retained publication information from the printed edition: this eBook - is public-domain in the country of publication. - -—Relocated all image captions to be immediately under the corresponding - images, removing redundant references like ”preceding page”. - -—Inverted the Timeline to better fit a vertical flow model. - -—Silently corrected a few palpable typos. - -—In the text versions only, text in italics is delimited by - _underscores_. - - - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's De Soto, Coronado, Cabrillo, by David Lavender - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DE SOTO, CORONADO, CABRILLO *** - -***** This file should be named 56083-0.txt or 56083-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/6/0/8/56083/ - -Produced by Stephen Hutcheson, Dave Morgan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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