Francisco Vásquez de Coronado, a Spanish conquistador and explorer, was born in Salamanca, Spain in 1510 and decided to seek his fortune in the New World. In 1535, he traveled to New Spain with Antonio de Mendoza, the Spanish viceroy of New Spain. Coronado sent his captains out to explore the Grand Canyon, Hopi Pueblos, and the Rio Grande and plains. After 40 long days of travel, most of his men returned to Tiguex and continued marching northeast with a small detachment.
Upon arriving at Quivira near modern-day Salina, Kansas, they were disillusioned. In early 1540, Coronado led 300 soldiers from Compostela, New Spain, to search for the Seven Cities of Cibola. The largest overland exploring expedition ever undertaken in the Americas, organized by young West Mexican governor Francisco Vásquez de Coronado, set off from Western Mexico in February 1540. The expedition covered approximately 4,000 miles, covering considerable terrain, including deserts, plains, and mountains, as they sought the fabled cities of gold, known as the Seven Cities of Cibola.
Coronado’s average traveling speed was 13½ miles per day, covering about 1,200 miles. He traveled through the present-day states of Arizona and New Mexico, and reached the Rio Grande Valley in the fall of 1540. His travels went from present-day Mexico to parts of Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and up to present-day Kansas. However, he did not find the fabled city of riches.
In summary, Francisco Vásquez de Coronado was a Spanish conquistador and explorer who led a large expedition from Mexico to present-day Kansas, covering approximately 4,000 miles.
📹 Coronado California’s Hidden Gems: The Best Things to See & Do
In this video, we’ll explore the top things to do in Coronado and give you some tips for making the most of your visit. This beautiful …
How many miles did Francisco Coronado travel?
Coronado led a royal expedition of 300 Spanish soldiers, over 1, 000 Indians, and livestock north into the American West, exploring the Grand Canyon, New Mexico, and Kansas. After traveling almost 4, 000 miles, he returned to Mexico without discovering riches. The Viceroy branded the expedition an abject failure. Coronado resumed his governorship but was found guilty of numerous atrocities against Indians.
He was removed from office in 1544 and moved to Mexico City, where he worked in a modest position in the municipal government until his death. His expedition was a significant event in the history of the American West.
How long was the Coronado expedition?
On April 23, 1541, the entire army, led by The Turk, set out for Quivira, near modern-day Salina, Kansas. Upon arrival, they were disillusioned by the primitive grass huts and the story of Quivira was a plot by the Pueblo Indians to lure the Spaniards out onto the plains. In anger, the soldiers executed The Turk, and Coronado and his men began their long return march home.
Despite being publicly scorned and discredited, Coronado resumed his position as governor of New Galicia in 1542. He and his captains were called in to account for their actions during the quest, and it took four more years before Coronado succeeded in clearing his family’s name. Ten years after his return, at the age of 42, he died in relative obscurity. His courage set the stage for the larger-than-life saga of the great American West, as the Indians’ religions changed subtly to incorporate the teachings of the priests who accompanied him.
He also brought back knowledge of the once mysterious land and people to the north, opening a way for later Spanish explorers and missionaries to colonize the Southwest, developing the distinctive Hispanic-American culture we know today.
How many cities did Coronado explore?
In 1536, Cabeza de Vaca and three companions, survivors of the Narvaez Expedition, arrived in Mexico City after eight years of wandering through the American Southwest. They shared stories of an incredible land consisting of seven large cities, with streets lined with goldsmith shops, houses of many stories, and doorways studded with emeralds and turquoise. Viceroy Antonio de Mendoza, Viceroy of New Spain, was eager to explore this new land and sent Fray Marcos de Niza, accompanied by guides and Est é van, to find out. Fray Marcos returned with sad testimony of Est é van’s death at the hands of hostile Indians, but also mentioned the “Seven Cities of Cibola”.
Viceroy Mendoza was convinced of the cities’ existence and planned an official expedition, choosing his close friend Francisco Vásquez de Coronado to lead it. Coronado, who had come to Mexico in 1535 and rose in status, was appointed governor of the northern frontier province of New Galicia. Mendoza commissioned him as expedition commander and captain-general of all lands he might discover and claim for Spain.
The expedition left Compostela on February 23, 1540, with Fray Marcos, priests, over 300 Spanish soldiers, several hundred Mexican-Indian allies, and 1, 500 stock animals. Additional supplies were sent north by ship under the command of Captain Hernando de Alarcón.
Did Coronado travel by boat?
Francisco Vázquez de Coronado’s expedition, which primarily traversed the American plains, lacked a ship and instead relied on foot and horseback travel, following rivers such as the Colorado and Zuni.
What happened on Coronado journey?
In 1540, Francisco Vázquez de Coronado led a significant Spanish expedition to the western coast of Mexico and the southwestern United States. Despite not finding any treasure, they discovered the Grand Canyon and other significant physical landmarks. However, they clashed violently with local Indians. Coronado was labeled a failure by Spanish colonial authorities and returned to Mexico, where he died in 1554. Born in 1510 into a noble family in Salamanca, Spain, Coronado was a younger son who decided to seek fortune in the New World.
In 1535, he traveled to New Spain with Antonio de Mendoza, the Spanish viceroy. The Zuni Pueblo tribes’ Indian settlements in west-central New Mexico inspired the mythic empire of riches that Vázquez de Coronado sought in his 1540-42 expedition.
How long was Coronado in Texas?
Spanish explorer Francisco Vásquez de Coronado’s 1540-1542 journey through the High Plains of Texas was rumored to have led to the discovery of the Blanco Canyon site near Floydada. Archaeologist Donald J. Blakeslee discovered two pieces of chain mail and copper crossbow arrow points in 1993 at the site. These crossbow artifacts are significant as later Spanish expeditions had guns, making crossbows obsolete.
Spanish coins and Mesoamerican pottery sherds were also found at the Owens site, named after Jimmy Owens. The evidence supports the theory that this site was one of the two Texas campsites of Coronado’s expedition, which included 1, 200 Indian allies and 300 Spanish soldiers.
Why did Coronado explore?
The arrival of the Spanish in the New World in the late 16th century marked a significant cultural and biological exchange. Within half a century, a small group of men explored and conquered an area five times the size of the Roman Empire. In 1492, Columbus arrived with 89 men and three small ships, and in 1523, Cortes conquered Mexico. The gold from these conquests made the fortunes of many conquistadores, while the lands to the north of New Spain continued to be Terra Incognita.
The Viceroy of New Spain, Francisco Vazquez de Coronado, appointed a small group led by Franciscan priest Fray Marcos de Niza to go and see the seven cities of gold described by Fray Marcos. Four months later, Fray Marcos returned with great news about the golden cities he had seen in the distance, but his stories turned out to be complete falsehoods.
The Viceroy organized an expedition, led by 30-year-old Francisco Vazquez de Coronado, with three goals: to find the seven cities of gold described by Fray Marcos, spread the word of God, and expand Spain’s realm in the new world. Coronado was intent upon good relations with the Indians and wrote that he would “try to win them over with good deeds and kindness, but if I should fail I shall try to do it by whatever means should be more suitable to the service of God and Your Majesty”. After five difficult months on the trail, the Spaniards reached the golden cities, but were disappointed.
The Zuni Indians at Hawikuh, the first pueblo the Spaniards encountered, were not happy to see the expedition and made ceremonial corn meal lines on the ground. Coronado sought to convince the Indians that they should welcome the opportunity to become subjects of the king and spiritually saved, but the Indians fired arrows at the Spaniards soldiers. After a short but fierce fight, the Indians abandoned the pueblo, realizing that they could not stand against Spanish technology.
Coronado sent his captains out to explore the Grand Canyon, Hopi Pueblos, Rio Grande, and plains, meeting the friendly Indians of the Tiguex Pueblos. The entire expedition wintered in one of these pueblos, taking whatever was needed and straining relations with the inhabitants.
The meeting of the two worlds also resulted in changes, such as the introduction of horses, new foods, Christian concepts, language, architecture, social customs, food, religion, and laws. The rich culture of the Southwest, owes its existence in part to the Spaniards, including Francisco Vazquez de Coronado.
How long did Coronado stay in Kansas?
The expedition returned to the Southwest after a month of exploring central Kansas, disappointed in the search for riches but impressed by the land. Juan Jaramillo, Coronado’s lieutenant, believed the land would be productive for various commodities. Legend has it that the first settler, Seymour S. Rogers, was “mighty liberal” with water from his well, which led to the name of the city established in 1888.
Who looked for the 7 cities of gold?
In 1541, Spanish explorer Francisco Vazquez de Coronado embarked on an ill-fated quest to find the fabled Seven Cities of Cibola. A Franciscan priest, Friar Marcos de Niza, reported seeing the legendary city in New Mexico in 1539. The priest believed it was beautiful and the best he had seen in the area. However, he had only seen it from a distance and did not enter due to fear of being attacked by the Zuni Indian inhabitants.
When a large Spanish expedition returned in 1541, they found a modest adobe pueblo that did not resemble the priest’s description. The expedition, led by Vazquez de Coronado, was a ruinous misadventure for those involved, including Vazquez himself. The 1898 painting by Frederic Remington depicts Vazquez’s ill-fated journey.
What are 3 facts about Coronado?
Francisco Vázquez de Coronado was a Spanish explorer who discovered the Grand Canyon and other famous landmarks in the American Southwest. Born in Salamanca, Spain, in 1510, he was the younger son of a wealthy aristocrat. Despite having a fine upbringing, Vázquez de Coronado sought to make his own in the New World. He traveled to New Spain in 1535, receiving support from viceroy Antonio de Mendoza.
He landed a government position and married well, marrying Dona Beatriz, daughter of colonial treasurer Alonso de Estrada. Vázquez de Coronado rose within the colonial government and was appointed to the governorship of Nueva Galicia. He died on September 22, 1554.
How many miles long is Coronado?
Coronado Island, which extends for approximately one mile between the beach and beach, and for eight miles along Silver Strand/Highway 75, is a popular destination for walking. The distance between the Hotel Del Coronado and the Ferry Landing is less than an hour’s walk. The island boasts well-maintained sidewalks, picturesque properties, blooming gardens, and a diverse array of shopping and dining options along Orange Avenue.
📹 The Hunt for Coronado’s Lost Campsite
The Spanish explorer Coronado traveled across the American Southwest with a huge entourage in 1540 and yet very little is know …
This is going to be a big one Andy! I like it! Great stuff! One of my friends found a spanish sward on his ranch… I thought it was a hat rack in a cave and it turned out to be a sward… Later they found spanish armour as well, but I was not there for that amazing find…Love this article, it reminds me of the adventurous days! Thank you again, sir!
Everything about the “first contact” explorers in the “New World” is fascinating, the changes that took place across the continent during the first 100 years is mind boggling. The men of de Soto’s army were the only Europeans to see the interior nations of the SE that existed before the epidemics…When one travels throughout the SW, it’s over whelming trying to visualize Coronado’s huge expedition struggling through much of that land, it’s big inhospitable country…How amazed the plains Indians must have been seeing horses 150 years before the horse culture really began for the western Indians… Fascinating subject, very well done article, thank you.
Being a native and ancestor of a pioneering family of southeastern Arizona, it has long been rumored for generations that the Coronado National Park on the south end of the Huachuca Mountains is actually 40 miles west of his actual entrance into Arizona 20 miles east of Douglas. The Coronado group went up through the Skeleton Canyon area and north along the San Simon River to the Gila River then east into the Gila Mountain to the Gila Pueblos in New Mexico. There were many rivers and streams in northern Mexico and southern Arizona flowing 400 to 500 years ago that don’t exist today. The valleys are dead giveaway to those creeks and rivers that flowed centuries ago. Another former south flowing river that doesn’t exist today is the Whitewater Wash that runs from Douglas/Aqua Preita (Spanish for muddy water) north to near Sunizona. East of this is the Chiricahua Mountains the further east to the San Simon River. There are several passes through the Chiricahua Mountains running east to west. That is the most likely route. My entire life, 56 years, now Hwy 191, formerly Hwy 666, was called the Coronado trial from Douglas all the way to the Navajo Reservation in New Mexico. Hwy 80 east from Douglas was also called Coronado Route 80 for decades prior to the 70s.
I am a professional archaeologist from Arizona. Worked in southern Arizona for decades. Question: do you believe there was water in those ‘north flowing streams’ in June? It is amazing to me to think those small rivers, even smaller than the Santa Cruz, San Pedro, etc., actually had water in them. They must have as it was the dead heat of summer, likely before the monsoons had yet arrived. Thank you!
I don’t know how it has taken me a year to find your website, but I’m glad I did! I live near Silver City, NM, and have been interested in Brasher’s and Seymour’s ideas for a decade. Last week I was camping in the southern Burro Mountains and the Red Rock area! The Mangas Valley area sure makes perfect sense. It is always lush and green and of course, appealed to Mangas Coloradas and his Apache band. Another epic journey I would like to know more about is that of Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca who traversed part of what is now the U.S in the 1530’s. One editor and translator of his journals (Cyclone Covey, in “Adventures in the Unknown Interior of America” UNM Press 1961) has him leaving the Rio Grande near Hatch, NM and crossing the Mimbres River and the Burro Mountains before heading south to Mexico City! Thank you so much for your fine work.
These are excellent articles sir. Very well done. I am usually telling anyone that will listen or is interested about what a special time we live in. We can do things research wise that weren’t even close to possible five or ten years ago. Combine that with GPR, drone with LiDAR, magnetometer, and satellite based mapping systems just to name a few innovations and we can look forward to many historic finds over the next 20 years. I leave the stuff like outlined in this article to the professionals but that still leaves thousands of cache sites lost to history to stay busy with :).
I live in Bisbee and know the region pretty well. Interesting take on it! You might want to consider whitewater draw, flowing from the Chiricahuas south west then south through the sulphur springs valley, through Agua prieta, Sonora, and down to the rio yaqui. Not much water in it now, but back then it would have been usable, with good forage. They could have followed whitewater draw to Rucker canyon in the southern Chiricahuas and through Tex canyon into the san Bernardino valley, or headed up to Apache pass, with plentiful water. These were paths used by Apaches on their raids into Sonora for mules, and thus the Mule Mountains, where Bisbee is. Good water coming out of the Mules southeastward, intersecting Whitewater and into Agua prieta. Thanks for resparking my interest!
I have recently visited and toured the Fountain of Youth park in St. Augustine, FL. While the fountain itself is the main attraction, I got more from the surrounding park and the people employed there to give reenactments and demonstrations of what life was like back then and the technology used. Anyways, one of things I came away with was how much of thing like “El Dorado”, the Fountain of Youth, or the River of Gold were descriptions that the Spanish took literally? The “Fountain of Youth” is a series of fresh water springs from deep aquifers that the native Floridians used for drinking water and for irrigation so maybe the “Fountain of Youth” was a mistranslation of “Fountain of Life”? I’ve also heard that the “River of Gold” is actually the Mississippi River. Since the Mississippi is very muddy if you get up high enough and the Sun is shining just right the water will reflect the Sun’s rays making the river look gold.
Hello, this was interesting! Four generations of my ancestors (father, grandfather, great- grandfather and 2nd gg) all lived in the Cactus Flats area of SE Arizona, all named Smithson. Grandpa Smithson (M.H., or “Cage” as he was called) was born in 1886, died in 1989 at age 103. He told the best yarns about the early settlers in the area – his father (Lehi) and grandfather (Allen F) being two of them. He spoke of Ft Thomas and San Simon a lot, how they’d travel there and back on horseback often, and also had many tales of our families dealings with Geronimo and the White Mountain Apaches back in the day. I spent a couple summers with him on the old homestead. US Hwy 666 ran just outside the bedroom windows…(highway since renamed!) Summer is so hot there, and no air conditioning, so I’d wake up very early to take a walk and “explore” across the highway on the east. I found buckets full of pottery shards and other interesting items. Wish grandpa had mentioned if he’d heard anything about Coronado’s trek. He knew everything, and then some, about the history of the area and the people that settled there, as well as many other (mostly LDS) settlements in Utah, Northern Arizona, and San Bernardino, California too. Grandpa was a self-taught jack- of-all-trades (you had to be, so isolated) everything from drilling artesian wells to taxidermy. Collected mesquite wood for fuel. Hauled coke (NOT that kind!) by wagon from Bisbee to San Simone and back again. I sure miss his stories. He’d spend hours sitting quietly with his eyes closed.
Idk I believe he made it up to south mountain Phoenix Az. During my explorations of south mountain I found many of rock writings. Most done by natives. But I found one large rock that had Spanish writing scratched on the bottom east side of that rock. The rock is easy to pass by without noticing the Spanish writing. It had a famous Spanish explorers name with a very old date. I took a photo of it and it’s in a box somewhere in the basement. I also found many Spanish diggings..holes in the ground, possibly looking for silver or gold. I assumed the state knew about the area and said nothing to park rangers about what I found. But the name you mentioned in this article could be what’s in that rock.
I see you will trip over the same issue I have when trying to track large groups in the historical record …. ANY guess/estimate on how far they traveled in a day by horse/afoot ? I hear some estimates as low a 20 miles a day and some a high as 50 miles ….. Regardless, when the measure is time instead of distance it is going to definitely impact on where any possible target areas are . I am presently looking to track a course for a military column of 200 men less than 150 miles long that can only have one possible camp site during the trip ….. with no records … at least none I have been able to find . Good Luck to you .
This was an amazing analysis on where Chichilticalli could be. Was that a buffalo on the map? I was reading an article on ancientpottery about the origins of its name. It’s interesting to think that the name was given by Nahuatl speakers who experienced the fall of the Aztec Empire. This transitions perfectly into my question. With the native allies Coronado brought with him being regarded as the first ‘Mexicans’ in the US, and many establishing communities in the Southwest the following century, did they have any influence on the Southwestern native pottery created during this era?
Really interesting article, nice change of subjects though still related. I don’t know much about North American history, so I appreciate this! Just one quick caveat: from discussions with former colleagues and reading their papers, the precipitation regimes (and droughts) and river flow amounts were quite different at certain points in time. Using modern day vegetation cover could be misleading. Unfortunately I have no longer access to much of the information (stupid paywalled journals), but you might want to check out stuff by Edward Cook or Kevin Anchukaitis, the more recent works could be open access, or you could try and go through a library (not sure if that works at all). If I find the time I can try and dig up some older stuff I might still have on my old laptop about droughts in North America for that time. I have not worked on that region, so I might (read: will) be misremembering stuff (plus that was years ago).
Seems like you’ve cleared up an intriguing mystery. Do the Pima have any stories about this, however slight, or the branch of Apache who “attacked” the party? Also, did some of the native groups split their dwellings between upper and lower desert, according to season? Wouldn’t that affect some of the placenames given? At any rate, looks like they made it into the land of enchantment.