Francisco Vazquez de Coronado sought the fabled Seven Cities of Cibola

Posted in America, Historical articles, History, Legend, Myth on Friday, 15 November 2013

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This edited article about El Dorado first appeared in Look and Learn issue number 461 published on 14 November 1970.

Coronado in America, picture, image, illustration

Coronado and his men got as far north as Kansas, as far east as Texas and Oklahoma; they were the first to hunt buffalo, the first to gaze awe-struck at the Grand Canyon, and the first to discover the American West by Ron Embleton

To the Spaniards who had conquered Mexico and Peru nothing seemed impossible, and no story of fabulous treasure too far-fetched to be true. Had not Cortez and some 500 Conquistadors – Conquerors – toppled the mighty Aztec Empire? Had not Pizarro, with less than 200, conquered the Incas and looted unimaginable quantities of gold?

So when the news reached Mexico City that to the north were seven golden cities, the Seven Cities of Cibola, it was thrilling, but it came as no surprise. Men were searching for El Dorado in South America: why should there not be another in the north?

Rumours had started flying back in 1536 when some soldiers had come across a white man thickly bearded and with tangled hair, who wept with joy to see them. Though he had some Indians and an African with him, he had not seen another white man for eight years. He was called de Vaca.

Back in Mexico City he explained that he was a survivor of an expedition sent to conquer Florida and regaled everyone with details of his hair-raising adventures.

Treasure came into the story, but his listeners felt he was holding something back. The tough Conquistadors suspected he was anxious to pass information to the King personally, or, perhaps lead an expedition himself. He had entered Mexico from the north and they wanted to believe that in the north lay the richest prize of all.

The Viceroy, as deputy of the King of Spain, decided to send out a Franciscan friar named Marcos de Niza, on a pilot expedition north. The friar took with him de Vaca’s Negro companion, Estevan, and when he returned be brought electrifying news. He had seen the golden city of Cibola!

Gold-fever swept through the city like a delicious plague and it was not noticeably lessened when the friar admitted that he had only seen Cibola from a distance. But Estevan had seen it.

And where, asked the friar’s frantic hearers, was Estevan?

Dead, killed by the Cibolans, said the friar, but not before he had gone on ahead to the golden city and returned with news of not one but seven cities, all ruled by one man. The doorways were richly paved with turquoise, Cibola was larger than Mexico City . . . every minute the story became more mouth-watering.

Then, apparently, Estevan had returned to Cibola and thrown his weight around so unbearably that he had been murdered. One of the Indians who had accompanied Estevan and the friar from Mexico, brought back the bad news and de Niza, thinking he must at least see Cibola, crept up to the crest of a hill to stare at the fabulous city which seemed to him to be shining in the harsh glare of the desert sun. Then, after remembering to claim possession of the Seven Cities the friar fled.

After hearing all this the Spaniards at once planned an expedition. Soon, rumour had given the friar’s story a new twist. Everyone knew that centuries before seven Portuguese bishops had fled overseas. Surely they must have founded seven cities in the New World, and clearly the newly discovered seven, called jointly Cibola by the Indians, were they!

Fortunately, the expedition’s leader, a tough aristocrat called Franciso de Coronado, was not mad. Volunteers flocked to join him in the northern desert province of New Galicia where he was stationed. Artillery was brought from newly arrived galleons, and in March, 1540, they started.

They marched a thousand miles north. Just how large the army was is not known, probably several thousand cavalry and infantry. There were also several hundred Mexican Indian helpers and sheep-herders, some black servants, three wives and four friars, including Father Marcos de Niza.

Coronado’s men, after a rugged march, reached their first and greatest objective, Cibola, in today’s New Mexico. They had to fight their way into it: the Indian inhabitants bravely tried to keep them out, but firearms and horses proved too much for them. Coronado, in armour and plumed helmet, led the attack.

But where was the gold, silver and turquoise? From a distance the hills above Cibola had looked like palaces in the sun, but, close to, Cibola turned out to be a little village of 200 stone and mud houses, four stories high. The Indians were farmers and there were seven similar villages, the seven cities of gold!

Coronado summoned the shamefaced friar, who had been the victim of a desert mirage, plus other people’s lies, and too fertile an imagination! Together they inspected the village, which at least had a plentiful supply of food, and Coronado told the friar just what he thought of him! His soldiers were less restrained, urging their commander to hang him. As it was he was sent back to Mexico in disgrace.

The Conquistadors pressed on past other multi-storied villages which exist today. Still they hoped for gold, especially when an Indian with them invented a story of a place in what is now Texas where there was masses of it, including “a great tree on which were hung large numbers of little gold bells”! When this El Dorado failed to materialise the Indian was strangled.

The expedition returned to Mexico in 1542 and Coronado was denounced as a failure. Yet though he found no gold, his expedition was a triumph of exploration. His men had got as far north as Kansas, as far east as Texas and Oklahoma, they were the first to hunt buffalo, the first to gaze awe-struck at the Grand Canyon. Only a third of them returned from their ordeal but they discovered the American West.

And they left a legacy behind them. Some of their horses remained behind and from them stemmed the wild horses of the American Plains. A day came when an Indian first managed to mount one of them and in a few generations the mounted Plains Indian was born.

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