Some Results of the Expedition—1540–1547
The Discovery of Colorado River
The Voyage of Alarcon
Coronado found no gold in the land of the Seven Cities or in Quivira, but his search added very much to the geographical knowledge of the Spaniards.85 In addition to the exploration of the Pueblo country of New Mexico and Arizona, and of the great plains as far north as Kansas or Nebraska, the most important subsidiary result of the expedition of 1540–1542 was the discovery of Colorado river. Hernando de Alarcon, who sailed from Acapulco May 9, 1540, continued his voyage northward along the coast, after stopping at the port of Culiacan to add the San Gabriel to his fleet, until he reached the shoals and sand-bars at the head of the Gulf of California. The fleet which Cortes p404 had sent out under the command of Ulloa the previous summer, turned back from these shoals, and Alarcon’s sailors begged him not to venture among them. But the question of a passage by water through to the South, or Pacific, sea, which would make an island of the California peninsula, was still debated, and Alarcon refused to return until he had definitely determined the possibility of finding such a passage. His pilots ran the ships aground, but after a careful examination of the channel, the fleet was floated across the bar in safety, with the aid of the rising tide. Alarcon found that he was at the mouth of a large river, with so swift and strong a current that it was impossible for the large vessels to make any headway against it. He determined to explore the river, and, taking twenty men in two boats, started upstream on Thursday, August 26, 1540, when white men for the first time floated on the waters of the Colorado. Indians appeared on the river banks during the following day. The silence with which the strangers answered the threatening shouts of the natives, and the presence of the Indian interpreters in the boats, soon overcame the hostile attitude of the savages. The European trifles which had been brought for gifts and for trading completed the work of establishing friendly relations, and the Indians soon became so well disposed that they entirely relieved the Spaniards of the labor of dragging the boats up the stream. A crowd of Indians seized the ropes by which the boats were hauled against the current, and from this time on some of them were always ready to render this service to their visitors. In this fashion the Spaniards continued northward, receiving abundant supplies of corn from the natives, whose habits and customs they had many excellent opportunities for observing. Alarcon instructed these people dutifully in the worship of the cross, and continually questioned them about the places whose names Friar Marcos had heard. He met with no success until he had traveled a considerable distance up the river, when for the first time he found a man with whom his interpreter was able to converse.
This man said that he had visited Cibola, which was a month’s journey distant. There was a good trail by which one might easily reach that country in forty days. The man said he had gone there merely to see the place, since it was quite a curiosity, with its houses three and four stories high, filled with people. Around the houses there was a wall half as high again as a man, having windows on each side. The inhabitants used the usual Indian weapons—bows and arrows, clubs, maces, and shields. They wore mantles and ox hides, which were painted. They had a single ruler, who wore a long shirt with a girdle, and various mantles over this. The women wore long white cloaks which completely covered them. There were always many Indians waiting about the door of their ruler, ready in case he should wish for anything. They also wore many blue stones which they dug out of a rock—the turquoises of the other narratives. They had but one wife, and when they died all their effects were buried with them. When p405 their rulers ate, many men waited about the tables. They ate with napkins, and had baths—a natural inference from any attempt to describe the stuffy underground rooms, the estufas or kivas of the Pueblos.
LIII. Wytfliet’s Kingdoms of Quivira, Anian and Tolm, 1597 ◊
Alarcon continued to question the Indian, and learned that the lord of Cibola had a dog like one which accompanied the Spaniards, and that when dinner was served, the lord of Cibola had four plates like those used by the Spaniards, except that they were green. He obtained these at the same time that he got the dog, with some other things, from a black man who wore a beard, whom the people of Cibola killed. A few days later, Alarcon obtained more details concerning the death of the negro “who wore certain things on his legs and arms which rattled.” When asked about gold and silver, the Indians said that they had some metal of the same color as the bells which the Spaniards showed them. This was not made nor found in their country, but came “from a certain mountain where an old woman dwelt.” The old woman was called Guatuzaca. One of Alarcon’s informants told him about people who lived farther away than Cibola, in houses made of painted mantles or skins during the summer, and who passed the winter in houses made of wood two or three stories high. The Indian was asked about the leather shields, and in reply described a very great beast like an ox, but more than a hand longer, with broad feet, legs as big as a man’s thigh, a head 7 hands long, and the forehead 3 spans across. The eyes of the beast were larger than one’s fist, and the horns as long as a man’s leg, “out of which grew sharp points an handful long, and the forefeet and hindfeet about seven handfuls big.” The tail was large and bushy. To show how tall the animal was, the Indian stretched his arms above his head. In a note to his translation of this description, Hakluyt suggests, “This might be the crooke backed oxe of Quivira.” Although the height and the horns are clearly those of a buck deer, the rest of the description is a very good account of the bison.
The man who told him all this was called ashore, and Alarcon noticed an excited discussion going on among the Indians, which ended in the return of his informant with the news that other white men like himself were at Cibola. Alarcon pretended to wonder at this, and was told that two men had just come from that country, where they had seen white men having “things which shot fire, and swords.” These latest reports seemed to make the Indians doubt Alarcon’s honesty, and especially his statements that he was a child of the Sun. He succeeded in quieting their suspicions, and learned more about Cibola, with which these people appeared to have quite frequent intercourse. He was told that the strangers at Cibola called themselves Christians, and that they brought with them many oxen like those at Cibola “and other little blacke beastes with wooll and hornes.” Some of them also had animals upon which they rode, which ran very swiftly. Two of the party that had recently returned from Cibola, had fallen in with two of the p406 Christians. The white men asked them where they lived and whether they possessed any fields sown with corn, and gave each of them little caps for themselves and for their companions. Alarcon did his best to induce some of his men to go to Cibola with a message to Coronado, but all refused except one negro slave, who did not at all want to go. The plan had to be given up, and the party returned to the ships. It had taken fifteen days and a half to ascend the river, but they descended with the swift current in two and a half. The men who had remained in the ships were asked to undertake the mission of opening communication with Coronado, but proved as unwilling as the others.
Much against the will of his subordinates, Alarcon determined to make a second trip up the river, hoping to obtain further information which might enable him to fulfill the purposes of his voyage. He took “three boats filled with wares of exchange, with corne and other seedes, hennes and cockes of Castille.” Starting September 14, he found the Indians as friendly as before, and ascended the river, as he judged, about 85 leagues, which may have taken him to the point where the canyons begin. A cross was erected to inform Coronado, in case an expedition from Cibola should reach this part of the river,86 that he had tried to fulfill his duty, but nothing more was accomplished.87
While Alarcon was exploring the river, one of the ships was careened and repaired, and everything made ready for the return voyage. A chapel was built on the shore in honor of Nuestra Señora de Buenaguia, and the river was named the Buenaguia, out of regard for the viceroy, who carried this as his device.
The voyage back to Colima in New Spain was uneventful.
The Journey of Melchior Diaz
In September, 1540, seventy or eighty of the weakest and least reliable men in Coronado’s army remained at the town of San Hieronimo, in the valley of Corazones or Hearts. Melchior Diaz was placed in command of the settlement, with orders to maintain this post and protect the road between Cibola and New Spain, and also to attempt to find some means of communicating with the fleet under Alarcon. After he had established everything in the town as satisfactorily as possible, Diaz selected twenty-five of these men to accompany him on an exploring expedition to the seacoast. He started before the end of September, going into the rough country west of Corazones valley, and finding only a few naked, weak-spirited Indians, who had come, as he understood, from the land on the farther side of the water, i. e., Lower p407 California. He hurried across this region and descended the mountains on the west, where he encountered the Indian giants, some of whom the army had already seen. Turning toward the north, or northwest, he proceeded to the seacoast, and spent several days among Indians who fed him with the corn which they raised and with fish. He traveled slowly up the coast until he reached the mouth of a river which was large enough for vessels to enter. The country was cold, and the Spaniards observed that when the natives hereabouts wished to keep warm, they took a burning stick and held it to their abdomens and shoulders. This curious habit led the Spaniards to name the river Firebrand—Rio del Tizon. Near the mouth of the river was a tree on which was written, “A letter is at the foot of this.” Diaz dug down and found a jar wrapped so carefully that it was not even moist. The inclosed papers stated that “Francisco de Alarcon reached this place in the year ’40 with three ships, having been sent in search of Francisco Vazquez Coronado by the viceroy, D. Antonio de Mendoza; and after crossing the bar at the mouth of the river and waiting many days without obtaining any news, he was obliged to depart, because the ships were being eaten by worms,” the terrible Teredo navalis.88
Diaz determined to cross the river, hoping that the country might become more attractive. The passage was accomplished, with considerable danger, by means of certain large wicker baskets, which the natives coated with a sort of bitumen, so that the water could not leak through. Five or six Indians caught hold of each of these and swam across, guiding it and transporting the Spaniards with their baggage, and being supported in turn by the raft. Diaz marched inland for four days, but not finding any people in the country, which became steadily more barren, he decided to return to Corazones valley. The party made its way back to the country of the giants without accident, and then one night while Diaz was watching the camp, a small dog began to bark and chase the flock of sheep which the men had taken with them for food. Unable to call the dog off, Diaz started after him on horseback and threw his lance while on the gallop. The weapon stuck up in the ground, and before Diaz could stop or turn his horse, which was running loose, the socket pierced his groin. The soldiers could do little to relieve his sufferings, and he died before they reached the settlement, where they arrived January 18, 1541. A few months later, Alcaraz, who had been placed in charge of the town when Diaz went away, abandoned Corazones valley for a more attractive situation on Suya river, some distance nearer Cibola. The post was maintained here p408 until late in the summer, when it became so much weakened by dissensions and desertions that the Indians had little difficulty in destroying it. The defenders, with the exception of a few who were able to make their way back to Culiacan, were massacred.
The Indian Uprising in New Spain, 1540–1542
Of the arguments advanced by those who wished to hinder the expedition which Mendoza sent off under Coronado, none was urged more persistently than the claim that this undertaking would require all the men available for the protection of New Spain. It was suggested by all the parties to the litigation in Spain, was repeated by Cortes again and again, reappeared more than once during the visita of 1547, and was the cause of the depositions taken at Compostela on February 26, 1540. These last show the real state of affairs. The men who were withdrawn constituted a great resource in case of danger, but they were worse than useless to the community when things were peaceful. The Indians of New Spain had been quiet since the death of De la Torre, a few years before, but signs of danger, an increasing restlessness, unwilling obedience to the masters and encomenderos, and frequent gatherings, had been noticed by many besides Cortes. There were reasons enough to justify an Indian outbreak, some of them abuses which dated from the time of Nuño de Guzman, but there is every reason to suppose that the withdrawal of Coronado’s force, following the irritation which was inevitably caused by the necessity of collecting a large food supply and many servants, probably brought matters to a crisis. Oñate, to whom the administration of New Galicia had again been intrusted during the absence of his superior, began to prepare for the trouble which he foresaw almost as soon as Coronado was gone from the province. In April he learned that two tribes had rebelled and murdered one of their encomenderos. A force was sent to put down the revolt. The rebels requested a conference, and then, early next morning, surprised the camp, which was wholly unprepared for defense. Ten Spaniards, including the unwary commander, and nearly two hundred native allies were killed. Thus began the last and the fiercest struggle of the Indians of New Spain against their European conquerors—the Mixton war.
LIV. Matthias Quadus’ Fasciculus Geographicus, 1608 ◊ After Nordenskiold
Oñate prepared to march against the victorious rebels, as soon as the news of the disaster reached him, but when this was followed by additional information from the agents among the Indians, showing how widespread were the alliances of those who had begun the revolt, and that the Indians throughout the province of New Galicia were already in arms, he retired to Guadalajara. The defenses of this town were strengthened as much as possible, and messengers were dispatched to Mexico for reenforcements. The viceroy sent some soldiers and supplies, but this force was not sufficient to prevent the Indians—who were animated by their recent successes, by their numbers, by the knowledge of the weak points as well as of the strong ones in their oppressors, and p409 who were guided by able leaders possessing all the prestige of religious authority—from attacking the frontier settlements and forcing the Spaniards to congregate in the larger towns.
There was much fighting during the early summer of 1540, in which the settlers barely held their own. In August, the adelantado Pedro de Alvarado sailed into the harbor of La Natividad. As the news of his arrival spread, requests were sent to him from many directions, asking for help against the natives. One of the most urgent came from those who were defending the town of Purificacion, and Alvarado was about to start to their assistance, when a message from Mendoza changed his plans. The two men arranged for a personal interview at Tiripitio in Michoacan, where the estate of a relative afforded Alvarado a quasi neutral territory. After some difficulties had been overcome, the terms of an alliance were signed by both parties November 29, 1540. Each was to receive a small share in whatever had already been accomplished by the other, thus providing for any discoveries which might have rewarded Coronado’s search before this date. In the future, all conquests and gains were to be divided equally. It was agreed that the expenses of equipping the fleet and the army should offset each other, and that all future expenses should be shared alike. Each partner was allowed to spend a thousand castellanos de minas yearly, and all expenditure in excess of this sum required the consent of the other party. All accounts were to be balanced yearly, and any surplus due from one to the other was to be paid at once, under penalty of a fine, which was assured by the fact that half of it was to go into the royal treasury.
Mendoza secured a half interest in the fleet of between nine and twelve vessels, which were then in the ports of Acapulco and of Santiago de Colima. Cortes accused the viceroy of driving a very sharp bargain in this item, declaring that Alvarado was forced to accept it because Mendoza made it the condition on which he would allow the ships to obtain provisions.89 Mendoza, as matters turned out, certainly had the best of the bargain, although in the end it amounted to nothing. Whether this would have been true if Alvarado had lived to prosecute his schemes is another possibility. Alvarado took his chances on the results of Coronado’s conquests, and it is very likely that, by the end of November, the discouraging news contained in Coronado’s letter of August 3 was not generally known, if it had even reached the viceroy.
The contract signed, Alvarado and Mendoza went to Mexico, where they passed the winter in perfecting arrangements for carrying out their plans. The cold weather moderated the fury of the Indian war somewhat, without lessening the danger or the troubles of the settlers in New Galicia, all of whom were now shut up in the few large towns. Alvarado returned to the Pacific coast in the spring of 1541, and as soon as p410 Oñate learned of this, he sent an urgent request for help, telling of the serious straits in which he had been placed. The security of the province was essential to the successful prosecution of the plans of the new alliance. Alvarado immediately sent reinforcements to the different garrisons, and at the head of his main force hastened to Guadalajara, where he arrived June 12, 1541. Oñate had received reports from the native allies and the Spanish outposts, who were best acquainted with the situation and plans of the hostile Indians, which led him to urge Alvarado to delay the attack until he could be certain of success. An additional force had been promised from Mexico, but Alvarado felt that the glory and the booty would both be greater if secured unaided. Scorning the advice of those who had been beaten by savages, he hastened to chastise the rebels. The campaign was a short one. On June 24 Alvarado reached the fortified height of Nochistlan, where he encountered such a deluge of men and of missiles that he was not able to maintain his ground, nor even to prevent the precipitate retreat of his soldiers. It was a terrible disaster, but one which reflected no discredit on Alvarado after the fighting began. The flight of the Spaniards continued after the Indians had grown tired of the chase. It was then that the adelantado tried to overtake his secretary, who had been one of those most eager to get away from the enemy. Alvarado was afoot, having dismounted in order to handle his men and control the retreat more easily, but he had almost caught up with his secretary, when the latter spurred his jaded horse up a rocky hill. The animal tried to respond, fell, and rolled backward down the hill, crushing the adelantado under him. Alvarado survived long enough to be carried to Guadalajara and to make his will, dying on the 4th of July.
This disaster did not fully convince the viceroy of the seriousness of the situation. Fifty men had already started from Mexico, arriving in Guadalajara in July, where they increased the garrison to eighty-five. Nothing more was done by Mendoza after he heard of the death of Alvarado. The Indians, emboldened by the complete failure of their enemies, renewed their efforts to drive the white men out of the land. They attacked Guadalajara on September 28, and easily destroyed all except the chief buildings in the center of the city, in which the garrison had fortified themselves as soon as they learned that an attack was about to be made. A fierce assault against these defenses was repulsed only after a hard struggle. The miraculous appearance of Saint Iago on his white steed and leading his army of allies, who blinded the idolatrous heathen, alone prevented the destruction of his faithful believers, according to the record of one contemporary chronicler. At last Mendoza realized that the situation was critical. A force of 450 Spaniards was raised, in addition to an auxiliary body of between 10,000 and 50,000 Aztec warriors. The native chieftains were rendered loyal by ample promises of wealth and honors, and the warriors were granted, for the first time, permission to use horses and Spanish p411 weapons. With the help of these Indians, Mendoza eventually succeeded in destroying or reducing the revolted tribes. The campaign was a series of fiercely contested struggles, which culminated at the Mixton peñol, a strongly fortified height where the most bitter enemies of the Spanish conquerors had their headquarters. This place was surrendered during the Christmas holidays, and when Coronado returned in the autumn of 1542, the whole of New Spain was once more quiet.
Further Attempts at Discovery
The Voyage of Cabrillo
Mendoza took possession of the vessels belonging to Alvarado after the death of the latter. In accordance with the plans which the two partners had agreed on, apparently, the viceroy commissioned Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo to take command of two ships in the port of La Natividad and make an exploration of the coast on the western side of the peninsula of Lower California. Cabrillo started June 27, 1542, and sailed north, touching the land frequently. Much bad weather interfered with his plans, but he kept on till the end of December, when he landed on one of the San Lucas islands. Here Cabrillo died, January 3, 1543, leaving his chief pilot, Bartolome Ferrel or Ferrelo, “a native of the Levant,” in command. Ferrel left the island of San Miguel, which he named Isla de Juan Rodriguez, on January 29, to continue the voyage. In a little more than a month the fleet had reached the southern part of Oregon or thereabouts, allowing for an error of a degree and a half in the observations, which said that they were 44° north. A severe storm forced the ships to turn back from this point.
The report of the expedition is little more than an outline of distances sailed and places named, although there are occasional statements which give us valuable information regarding the coast Indians.90 Among the most interesting of these notes are those showing that the news of the expeditions to Colorado river, and perhaps of the occupancy of the Pueblo country by white men, had reached the Pacific coast. About September 1, 1542, a party from the fleet went ashore near the southern boundary of California. Five Indians met the Spanish sailors at a spring, where they were filling the water casks. “They appeared like intelligent Indians,” and went on board the ships without hesitation. “They took note of the Spaniards and counted them, and made signs that they had seen other men like these, who had beards and who brought dogs and cross-bows and swords... and showed by their signs that the other Spaniards were five days’ journey distant.... The captain gave them a letter, which he told them to carry to the Spaniards who they said were in the interior.” September 28, at San p412 Pedro bay, Ferrel again found Indians who told him by signs that “they had passed people like the Spaniards in the interior.” Two days later, on Saturday morning, “three large Indians came to the ship, who told by signs that men like us were traveling in the interior, wearing beards, and armed and clothed like the people on the ships, and carrying cross-bows and swords. They made gestures with the right arm as if they were throwing lances, and went running in a posture as if riding on horseback. They showed that many of the native Indians had been killed, and that this was the reason they were afraid.” A week later, October 7, the ships anchored off the islands of Santa Cruz and Anacapa. The Indians of the islands and also of the mainland opposite, near Santa Barbara or the Santa Clara valley, gave the Spaniards additional descriptions of men like themselves in the interior.
The rest of the year 1542 was spent in this locality, off the coast of southern California, and then the voyage northward was resumed. Many points on the land were touched, although San Francisco bay quite escaped observation. Just before a severe storm, in which one of the vessels was lost, forcing him to turn back, Ferrel observed floating drift and recognized that it meant the neighborhood of a large river, but he was driven out to sea before reaching the mouth of the Columbia. The return voyage was uneventful, and the surviving vessel reached the harbor of Natividad in safety by April 14, 1543.
Villalobos Sails Across the Pacific
Cortes and Alvarado had both conceived plans more than once to equip a great expedition in New Spain and cross the South sea to the isles of the Western ocean. After the death of Alvarado, Mendoza adopted this scheme, and commissioned Ruy Lopez de Villalobos to take command of some of the ships of Alvarado and sail westward. He started on All Saints day, the 1st of November, 1542, with 370 Spanish soldiers and sailors aboard his fleet. January 22, 1547, Friar Jeronimo de Santisteban wrote to Mendoza “from Cochin in the Indies of the King of Portugal.” He stated that 117 of the men were still with the fleet, and that these intended to keep together and make their way as best they could home to Spain. Thirty members of the expedition had remained at Maluco, and twelve had been captured by the natives of various islands at which the party had landed. The rest, including Ruy Lopez, had succumbed to hunger and thirst, interminable labors and suffering, and unrelieved discouragement—the record of the previous months. This letter of Friar Jeronimo is the only published account of the fate of this expedition.
The brief and gloomy record of the voyage of Villalobos is a fit ending for this story of the Coronado expedition to Cibola and Quivira, of how it came about, of what it accomplished, and of what resulted from it. Nothing is the epitome of the whole story. The lessons which it teaches are always warnings, but if one will read history rightly, every warning will be found to be an inspiration.
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