Chapter XVII: The Spanish Explorers of North America

PONCE DE LEON. While men like Cortes were exploring and conquering
the countries on the west shore of the Gulf of Mexico, others began to
search the vast regions to the north. One of these explorers was Ponce
de Leon, who had come to Espanola with Columbus in 1493. He afterwards
spent many years in the West Indies capturing Indians, and understood
from something they said that a magic fountain could be found beyond the
Bahamas which would restore an old man to youth and vigor, if he
bathed in it.

As Ponce de Leon was beginning to feel aged he went in search of this
wondrous fountain, but he found instead a coast where flowers grew in
great abundance. It was the Easter season in 1513. Since the Spanish
call this season _Pascua Florida_ or Flowery Easter, Ponce called the
new flowery country Florida. He went ashore near the present site of St.
Augustine, and later, while trying to establish a settlement, lost his
life in a battle with the Indians.

EXPLORATIONS OF NORTH AMERICAN COAST. Other Spanish explorers
between 1513 and 1525 followed the whole Gulf coast from Florida to Vera
Cruz, and the Atlantic coast from Florida to Labrador. They sought
continually for a passage to India. Every large inlet was entered, for
it might prove to be the long-looked-for strait. Slowly the coast of
North America took shape on the maps of that time. Two famous
expeditions into the interior of the country did much to enlarge this
knowledge. One was made by De Soto through the region which now forms
seven southern states of the United States, and the other was by
Coronado through the great southwest.

DE SOTO. Hernando de Soto, a noble from Seville in Spain, had won
fame and fortune with Pizarro in Peru. The King of Spain, to reward his
bravery and skill in conquering Indians, made him Governor of Cuba. In
those days the Governor of Cuba controlled Florida. It was a larger
Florida than the present state of that name, for Spanish Florida
included the whole north coast of the Gulf of Mexico running back into
the continent without any definite boundary.

THE STORY OF THE GILDED MAN. De Soto had heard a fanciful story of
a country so rich in gold that its king was smeared every morning with
gum and then thickly sprinkled with powdered gold, which was washed off
at night. De Soto thought this country might be somewhere in Florida,
and prepared to search for the Gilded Man, or in the Spanish language
_El Dorado._

THE COMRADES OF DE SOTO. More than six hundred men, some of them
from the oldest families of the nobility of Spain and Portugal, flocked
to De Soto's banner. They sold their possessions at home and ventured
all their wealth in the hope of obtaining great riches in Florida.

DE SOTO'S ROUTE THROUGH THE SOUTH OF NORTH AMERICA. De Soto crossed
from Cuba to the west coast of Florida in 1539, and advanced northward
by land to an Indian village near Apalachee Bay. Here he spent the first
winter. A white man, whom the Indians had taken captive twelve years
before and finally adopted, joined De Soto and became very useful as an
interpreter.

In the spring De Soto renewed his explorations. It was like a journey
into the interior of Africa. The expedition passed northeasterly through
the country now within Georgia and South Carolina, as far, perhaps, as
the border of North Carolina. From here it passed through the mountains,
and turned southwesterly through Tennessee and Alabama until a large
Indian village called Mauvilla was reached. This was near the head of
Mobile Bay. Mobile was named from the Indian village Mauvilla. The
Alabama Indians, whose name means "the thicket clearers," were near by.
Here again De Soto changed his course to the northwest into the
unknown interior.

THE HARDSHIPS OF THE JOURNEY. His army was almost exhausted by the
difficulties of the journey. A road had to be cut and broken through
thickets and forest, paths had to be made through the many swamps, and
fords found across the rivers. It frequently became necessary to stop
for months at a time, to let the horses, worn out from travel and
starving because of the scarcity of fodder, fatten on the grass. The
stores which the army brought with them soon gave out. The men were
forced to live like Indians, and were often reduced to using the roots
of wild plants for food. Where they could, they robbed the Indians of
their scanty stores of corn and beans.

CRUEL TREATMENT OF THE INDIANS. De Soto was cruel in his treatment
of the conquered natives along his route. Many of his officers came with
him really for the purpose of obtaining Indian slaves for their
plantations in Cuba. Indian women were made to do the work of the camp.
Indian men were chained together and forced to carry the baggage. The
chiefs were held as hostages for the good behavior of the whole tribe.
The Indians who tried to shirk work or offered resistance were killed
without mercy.

De Soto's cruelties made the Indian of the South hate the white men, and
left him the enemy of any who should come to those regions in
after-years. More than once De Soto narrowly escaped destruction at the
hands of the enraged savages. They attacked the Spaniards with all their
strength at Mauvilla, and again while they were in camp in northern
Mississippi for the winter of 1540-1541. These two battles with the
Indians cost the Spaniards their baggage, which was destroyed in the
burning villages. New clothing, however, was soon made from the skins of
wild animals. Deerskins and bearskins served for cloaks, jackets,
shirts, stockings, and even for shoes. The great army must have looked
much like a band of Robinson Crusoes.

THE DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI. De Soto marched on northwesterly
until May 8, 1541, when he was somewhere near the site of the present
city of Memphis. There he came upon a great river. One of his officers
tells us that the river was so wide at this point that if a man on the
other side stood still, it could not be known whether he were a man or
not; that the river was of great depth, and of a strong current; and
that the water was always muddy.

De Soto called it, in his own language, the Rio Grande or Great River,
but the Indians called it the Mississippi. Americans have adopted the
Indian name. Other Spanish explorers had probably passed the mouth of
the Mississippi River before De Soto, and wondered at its mighty size,
but De Soto was the first white man to approach it from the land and to
appreciate the importance of his discovery.

WANDERINGS WEST OF THE MISSISSIPPI. The Spaniards cut down trees,
made them into planks and built barges on which they crossed the
Mississippi. Then they wandered for another year through the endless
woods and marshes of the low-lying lands now within the state of
Arkansas. They probably went as far west as the open plains of Oklahoma
or Texas. In these border regions between the forests and the prairies
they met Indians who used the skins of the buffalo for clothing.

DEATH AND BURIAL OF DE SOTO. The severe winter of 1541-1542
discouraged the hardy travelers, who had now spent nearly three years in
a vain search. The natives whom they had found made clothing from the
fiber in the bark of mulberry trees and from the hides of buffaloes, and
stored beans and corn for food, but such things seemed of little value
to the seekers for the Gilded Man.

De Soto returned to the Mississippi and prepared to establish a colony
somewhere near the mouth of the Red River. It was his purpose to send to
Cuba for supplies, and, with this settlement as a base, make a farther
search in the plains of the great West. He did not live to carry out his
plan. Long exposure and anxiety had weakened him. The malaria of the
swamps attacked him, and he died within a few days. His body was wrapped
in mantles weighted with sand, carried in a canoe, and secretly lowered
in the midst of the great river he had discovered.

His successor tried to conceal De Soto's death from the Indians. The
Spaniards had called their leader the Child of the Sun, and now he had
died like any other mortal. They were afraid if the Indians found his
body they would cease to believe that the strangers were immortal and
would massacre them all. The Indians were told that the great leader had
gone to Heaven, as he had often done before, and that he would return in
a few days.

RESULTS OF DE SOTO'S JOURNEY. The weary survivors built boats,
floated down the Mississippi into the Gulf, and sailed cautiously along
the coasts to Mexico. They had been gone four years and three months,
and half of the army which set out had perished. However, the expedition
of De Soto will always remain one of the most remarkable journeys in the
history of North America. It had extended the Spanish claims far into
the interior. With it had begun the written history of the country now
composing at least eight states in the United States, Florida, Georgia,
South Carolina, North Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, and
Arkansas. It had perhaps reached the present Oklahoma and Texas, and had
certainly passed down the Mississippi River through Louisiana.

THE STORY OF THE SEVEN CITIES. While De Soto was exploring the
southeastern part of North America a second expedition searched the
southwest. Both were looking for rich Indian kingdoms like Mexico and
Peru. The second expedition came about in this manner. Some of the
Indians from northern Mexico told the Spaniards a strange tale of how in
the distant past their ancestors came forth from seven caves.

The Spaniards, however, confused the tale with a story of their own
about Seven Cities. They believed that at the time Spain was overrun by
the Moors in the eighth century, seven bishops, flying from persecution,
had taken refuge, with a great company of followers, on an island or
group of islands far out in the Atlantic Ocean, and that they had built
Seven Cities. Wonderful stories were told in Spain of these cities, of
their wealth and splendor, though nobody ever pretended to have actually
seen them. The Spaniards thought the Indians meant to tell them of these
Seven Cities instead of seven caves.

The mistake was natural, as the Spanish explorers had much trouble in
understanding the Indian languages. They had long expected to find the
Seven Cities in America. Indeed there was rumor that white travelers had
seen them north of Mexico.

THE JOURNEY OF FRIAR MARCOS. In 1539 the Viceroy of Mexico sent a
frontier missionary, Friar Marcos by name, together with a negro,
Stephen, and some Christianized Indians to look for them. Friar Marcos
traveled far to the north. He inquired his way of the Indians, always
asking them about Seven Cities. He described them as large cities with
houses made of stone and mortar. The Indians, half-understanding him,
directed him to seven Zuni villages or pueblos. The first of these they
called Cibola. Friar Marcos henceforth spoke of them as the Seven Cities
of Cibola.

The good friar himself never entered even the first of them. His negro,
Stephen, had been sent on in advance to prepare the way, but this rough,
greedy fellow offended the Indians, who promptly murdered him. When the
friar approached he found the Indians so excited and hostile that he
dared not enter their village. He did, however, venture to climb a hill
at a distance, from which he had a view of one of the cities of Cibola.
The houses, built of light stone and whitish adobe, glistened in the
wonderfully clear air and bright sunlight of that region, and gave him
the idea of a much larger and richer city than really existed. Friar
Marcos, by this time thoroughly frightened, hurriedly retraced
his steps.

CORONADO. There was great excitement in Mexico over the story Friar
Marcos told. The account of what had been seen grew, as such stories
always do, in the telling and retelling. Nothing else was thought of in
all New Spain. The Viceroy of Mexico made ready a great army for the
conquest of the Seven Cities of Cibola. He gave the command to his
intimate friend, Francisco de Coronado. Everybody wanted to accompany
him, but it was necessary to have the consent of the viceroy. Sons of
nobles, eager to go, traded with their more fortunate neighbors for the
viceroy's permit. Some men who secured these sold them as special favors
to their friends. Whoever obtained one of them counted it as good as a
title of nobility. So high were the expectations of great wealth when
the Seven Cities should be discovered!

THE ARMY OF CORONADO. In the early part of 1540, Coronado set forth
from his home in western Mexico near the Gulf of California. He had an
army of three hundred Spaniards, nearly all the younger sons of nobles.
They were fitted out with polished coats of mail and gilded armor,
carried lances and swords, and were mounted on the choicest horses from
the large stock-farms of the viceroy. There were in the army a few
footmen armed with crossbows and harquebuses. A thousand negroes and
Indians were taken along, mainly as servants for the white masters. Some
led the spare horses. Others carried the baggage, or drove the oxen and
cows, the sheep and swine which would be needed on the journey. A small
fleet carried part of the baggage by way of the Gulf of California,
prepared also to help Coronado in other ways, and to explore the Gulf
to its head.

THE ROUTE OF CORONADO TO CIBOLA. The large army marched slowly
through the wild regions of the Gulf coast. Coronado soon became
impatient and pushed ahead of the main body with a small following of
picked horsemen. They went through the mountainous wilderness of
northern Mexico and across the desert plains of southeastern Arizona.
After a march lasting five months, over a distance equal to that from
New York to Omaha, Coronado came upon the Seven Cities of Cibola; but
the real Seven Cities of Cibola as Coronado found them bore little
resemblance to what he had expected.

THE REAL SEVEN CITIES OF CIBOLA. The first city of Cibola was an
Indian pueblo of about two hundred flat-roofed houses, built of stone
and sun-dried clay. The houses were entered by climbing ladders to the
top and then passing down into the rooms as we enter ships through
hatches. The people wore only such clothes as could be woven from the
coarse fiber of native plants, or patched together from the tanned skins
of the cat or the deer. They cultivated certain plants for food, but
only small and poor varieties of corn, beans, and melons. They had some
skill in making small things for house and personal decoration, mainly
in the form of pottery and simple ornaments of green stone.

The kingdom of rich cities dwindled to a small province of poor villages
inhabited by an unwarlike people. We know now that Coronado had found
the Zuni pueblos in the western part of New Mexico. The conquest of
these was a wofully small thing for so grand and costly an expedition.
No gold or silver or precious jewels had been found.

THE CANYON OF THE COLORADO. Yet the wonders of the natural world
about them astonished and interested the Spaniards. Some of their number
found the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River and vividly described it to
their comrades. As they looked into its depths it seemed as if the water
was six feet across, although in reality it was many hundred feet wide.
Some tried without success to descend the steep cliff to the stream
below or to discover a means of crossing to the opposite side. Those who
staid above estimated that some huge rocks on the side of the cliff were
about as tall as a man, but those who went down as far as they could
swore that when they reached these rocks they found them bigger than the
great tower of Seville, which is two hundred and seventy-five feet high.

CORONADO IN NEW MEXICO. Coronado marched from the Cities of Cibola
eastward to the valley of the Rio Grande River, and settled for the
winter in an Indian village a short distance south of the present city
of Albuquerque, New Mexico. The Spaniards drove the natives out, only
allowing them to take the clothes they wore.

A WINTER IN AN INDIAN VILLAGE. The soldiers passed the severe
winter of 1540-1541 comfortably quartered in the best houses of the
Indian village. A plentiful supply of corn and beans had been left by
the unfortunate owners. The live stock brought from Mexico furnished an
abundance of fresh meat. Coronado required the Indians to furnish three
hundred pieces of cloth for cloaks and blankets for his men, to take the
place of their own, now worn out. Nor did the officers give the Indians
time to secure the cloth that was demanded, but forced them to take
their own cloaks and blankets off their backs. When a soldier came upon
an Indian whose blanket was better than his, he compelled the unlucky
fellow to exchange with him without more ado.

Coronado's strenuous efforts to provide well for the comforts of his men
made him much loved by them, but much hated by the Indians. It is no
wonder that such treatment drove the Indians into rebellion, and that
Coronado was obliged to carry on a cruel war of reconquest and revenge.

THE TALE OF QUIVIRA. An Indian slave in one of the villages cheered
Coronado and his followers with a fabulous tale about a wonderful city,
many days' journey across the plains to the northeast, which he called
Quivira. The king of Quivira, he said, took his nap under a large tree,
on which were hung little gold bells, which put him to sleep as they
swung in the air. Every one in the city had jugs and bowls made of
wrought gold. The slave was probably tempted by the eagerness of his
hearers to make his tale bigger. He perhaps made it as enticing as he
could in order to lead the strangers away to perish in the pathless
plains where water would be scarce and corn unknown.

THE SEARCH FOR QUIVIRA. The slave's story deceived the Spaniards.
Coronado grasped eagerly at the only hope left of finding a rich country
and marched away in search of Quivira. He traveled to the northeast for
seventy-seven days. There were no guiding land marks. Soldiers measured
the distance traveled each day by counting the footsteps. The plains
were flat, save for an occasional channel cut by some river half buried
in the sand; they were barren, except for a short wiry grass and a small
rim of shrubs and stunted trees along the watercourses.

QUIVIRA. The most marvelous sight of the long journey was the herds
of buffaloes in countless numbers. The Indians guided Coronado in the
end to a cluster of Indian villages which they called Quivira. This was
somewhere in what is now central Kansas near Junction City. The Indians
were in all probability the Wichitas. Here again the great explorer met
with a bitter disappointment.

Instead of a fine city of stone and mortar, he found scattered Indian
villages with mere tent-like houses formed by fastening grass or straw
or buffalo skins to poles. The people were the poorest and most
barbarous which he had met. Coronado was, however, fortunate in securing
a supply of corn and buffalo meat in Quivira for his long
return journey.

CORONADO'S OPINION OF THE WEST. A year later a crestfallen army of
half-starved men clad in the skins of animals stumbled back homeward
through Mexico in straggling groups. Great sadness prevailed in Mexico,
for many had lost their fortunes besides friends and relatives in the
enterprise. Coronado seemed to the people of the time to have led a
costly army on a wild-goose chase. He himself thought that the regions
he had crossed were valueless. He said they were cold and too far away
from the sea to furnish a good site for a colony, and the country was
neither rich enough nor populous enough to make it worth keeping.

RESULTS OF CORONADO'S EXPLORATIONS. We know better to-day the
value of Coronado's great discoveries. He had solved the age-long
mystery of the Seven Cities, and explored the southwest of the United
States of our day. The rich region now included in the great states of
Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas had been seen, and it
was soon after described for the European world. His men had explored
the Gulf of California to its head, and the Colorado River toward its
source for two hundred miles. They had proved that lower California was
not an island but a part of the mainland. Others soon explored the
entire coast of California to the limits of the present state of Oregon.

HOW DE SOTO AND CORONADO CAME NEAR MEETING. De Soto and Coronado
together pushed the Spanish frontier far northward to the center of
North America. A story which was told by De Soto's men shows how close
together the two great explorers were at one time. While Coronado was in
Quivira, De Soto was wandering along the borders of the plains west of
the Mississippi River, though neither knew of the nearness of the other.
An Indian woman who ran away from Coronado's army fell in with De
Soto's, nine days later. If De Soto and Coronado had met on the plains
there would have been a finer story to tell, almost as dramatic as the
meeting of Stanley and Livingstone in central Africa. One cannot refrain
from wondering how different would have been the ending with the two
great armies united and encouraged to continue their explorations.

QUESTIONS

1. What story had Ponce de Leon heard in the West Indies? What did
he find? Why did he call the new country which he discovered
Florida? What was included in Florida as the Spaniards
understood it?

2. What was De Soto looking for in North America? How long did he
search? What did he find? Was he disappointed? What was he planning
to do when he died? Why was his journey very remarkable? Through
what present states of the United States did he pass?

3. Where did the Spaniards expect to find the Seven Cities? Why did
he expect to find them there? What was the story of the Seven
Cities? Of the Seven Caves?

4. What did Coronado expect to find at the Seven Cities of Cibola?
What did he find there? Why did he go far on into North America in
search of Quivira? What did he find on the way to Quivira? What did
he find Quivira to be?

5. What did Coronado think of his own discoveries? What had he found
out of interest or value to the rest of the world? Which of the
present states of the United States did his route touch?

REVIEW

1. Review the effect of the discoveries of Columbus,
Magellan, De Soto, Coronado, on the knowledge of the new world.

_Important date_--1541. The discovery of the Mississippi by De Soto.