THE CORONADO EXPEDITION, 1540-1542
Chapter 2, of how Francisco Vazquez Coronado came to be governor, and the second account which Cabeza de Vaca gave.
Eight years after Nuño de Guzman made this expedition, he was put in prison by a juez de residencia,[1] named the licentiate Diego de la Torre, who came from Spain with sufficient powers to do this.[2] After the death of the judge, who had also managed the government of that country himself, the good Don Antonio de Mendoza, viceroy of New Spain, appointed as governor of that province Francisco Vazquez de Coronado, a gentleman from Salamanca, who bad married a lady in the city of Mexico, the daughter of Alonso de Estrada, the treasurer and at one time governor of Mexico, and the son, most people said, of His Catholic Majesty Don Ferdinand, and many stated it as certain. As I was saying, at the time Francisco Vazquez was appointed governor, he was traveling through New Spain as an official visitor, and in this way he gained the friendship of many worthy men who afterward went on his expedition with him. It happened that just at this time three Spaniards, named Cabeza de Vaca, Dorantes, and Castillo Maldonado, and a negro, who had been lost on the expedition which Pamfilo de Narvaez led into Florida, reached Mexico.[3] They came out through Culiacan, having crossed the country from sea to sea, as anyone who wishes may find out for himself by an account which this same Cabeza de Vaca wrote and dedicated to Prince Don Philip, who is now King of Spain and our sovereign.[4] They gave the good Don Antonio de Mendoza an account of some large and powerful villages, four and five stories high, of which they had heard a great deal in the countries they had crossed, and other things very different from what turned out to be the truth. The noble viceroy communicated this to the new governor, who gave up the visits he had in hand, on account of this, and hurried his departure for his government, taking with him the negro who had come [with Cabeza de Vaca] with the three friars of the order of Saint Francis, one of whom was named Friar Marcos of Nice, a regular priest, and another Friar Daniel, a lay brother, and the other Friar Antonio de Santa Maria. When he reached the province of Culiacan he sent the friars just mentioned and the negro, who was named Stephen, off in search of that country, because Friar Marcos offered to go and see it, because he had been in Peru at the time Don Pedro de Alvarado went there overland. It seems that, after the friars I have mentioned and the negro had started, the negro did not get on well with the friars, because he took the women that were given him and collected turquoises, and got together a stock of everything. Besides, the Indians in those places through which they went got along with the negro better, because they had seen him before. This was the reason he was sent
- ↑ A judge appointed to investigate the accounts and administration of a royal official.
- ↑ A full account of the licentiate de la Torre and his administration is given by Mota Padilla (ed. Icazbalceta, pp. 103-106). He was appointed juez March 17, 1536, and died during 1538.
- ↑ They appeared in New Spain in April, 1536, before Coronado's appointment. Castañeda may be right in the rest of his statement.
- ↑ This account has been translated by Buckingham Smith. See Bibliography for the full title.
