Coronado, Francisco Vásquez de (1510?-1554)

American Eras

Francisco Vásquez de Coronado (1510?-1554)

Conquistador

Sources

Expedition. In 1536 Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca and the three other survivors of the Panfilo de Narváez expedition finally reached Mexico City after wandering through present-day Texas for eight years. Though these men had seen no treasure during the time they spent living among the Indians, they had heard rumors of several large, wealthy cities located to the northwest of Spain’s Mexican possessions. Their story of an Indian civilization akin to the Aztec Empire elicited great interest among the Spaniards living in Mexico City, particularly the viceroy of New Spain, Antonio Mendoza. De Vaca’s account persuaded Mendoza to send one of his protégés, Francisco Vásquez de Coronado, governor of the province of Nueva Galicia, to locate and take possession of what many Spaniards had concluded were the fabled Seven Cities of Cíbola. Coronado was forbidden from indiscriminately attacking Indians or looting their wealth as Hernando Cortés had during his conquest of the Aztecs, however, because Emperor Charles V’s recently promulgated New Laws expressly prohibited such practices.

Zuni and Hopi. Coronado’s large expedition of 250 cavalry, 80 infantry, 1,000 Indians, and thousands of horses, cows, and sheep departed from Culiacán, the capital of Nueva Galicia, in the spring of 1540. Moving ahead with a small advanced guard, he reached Háwikuh, a Zuni pueblo, in July. Despite Coronado’s peaceful intentions, fighting broke out almost immediately between the Indians and the Spanish. Equipped with muskets, armor, and horses, his men made short work of it: they killed a dozen Zunis and easily occupied the town. An expedition sent north to the Hopi Indians’ pueblos likewise resulted in a brief engagement that ended in the Spanish occupying a town. Coronado thus had little trouble dealing with the militarily inferior Pueblo Indians. The economic results of the campaign were disappointing, however; neither the Zunis nor the Hopis possessed precious metals or stones. Coronado nonetheless sent a messenger to New Spain ordering the expedition’s main body to join the advanced guard in Pueblo territory.

The Tiguex War. With cold weather approaching, Coronado decided to winter in the part of the Rio Grande valley inhabited by the Tiwa Indians. At first, relations between the Spaniards and the Indians were amicable. Intolerable pressures on the Native Americans’ food supply and sexual assaults on Indian women soon antagonized the Tiwas, however, and led them to attack the Spaniards’ horses. Believing that he had to crush the Tiwas decisively to intimidate other tribes, Coronado retaliated by savagely sacking the biggest Tiwa settlement and burning thirty Indians to death at the stake. His men then besieged the large and well-defended pueblo of Moho, which capitulated in March 1541 due to lack of food. Coronado enslaved the survivors and distributed them among his men.

Disappointment. Still hoping to find treasure, Coronado sent out small parties in various directions. He led one group eastward into present-day Kansas in 1541 in search of the Quivira Indians, who were rumored to possess large amounts of gold. Coronado succeeded in finding the Quivirans but discovered that they possessed nothing of value. After spending the winter of 1541–1542 in the Rio Grande valley, Coronado led his men back to Mexico. Shortly after his return, Coronado faced charges of having violated the New Laws by abusing Indians and by taking goods from them. He eventually cleared himself of these charges but lost his position as governor of Nueva Galicia. He died soon afterward.

Legacy. Coronado’s expedition had important and lasting consequences for both the Spanish and the Pueblo Indians. For the Pueblos, Coronado’s invasion demonstrated that the Spanish were a hostile, arrogant people who retaliated viciously for any infraction and who enjoyed a vast military advantage due to their horses, muskets, and iron weapons. For the Spanish, meanwhile, Coronado’s foray into the Southwest ended the belief that North America contained a wealthy, easily plundered Indian civilization akin to the Aztec or Incan empires. Spain consequently lost interest in the region until settlers under the leadership of Juan de Oñate established the colony of New Mexico in 1598.

Sources

Elizabeth H. John, Storms Brewed in Other Men’s Worlds: The Confrontation of Indians, Spanish and French in the Southwest, 1540–1795 (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1975);

Alfonso Ortiz, ed., Handbook of North American Indians, Volume 9: Southwest (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 1979).

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