Francisco Vásquez de Coronado
Francisco Vázquez de Coronado led an expedition of over a thousand people across the American southwest looking for cities that did not exist. Born in Salamanca around 1510 into a noble family, he was a second son with no inheritance and went to New Spain in 1535 in the retinue of the viceroy Antonio de Mendoza, married a wealthy heiress, and was made governor of Nueva Galicia at about twenty-eight. The friar Marcos de Niza returned from a journey north in 1539 reporting the seven golden cities of Cíbola, which he claimed to have seen from a distance. Coronado set out in 1540 with about 350 Spaniards, 1,300 indigenous allies and 1,500 animals. Cíbola turned out to be the Zuni pueblo of Hawikuh, a settlement of mud and stone, which his men stormed for its food. Detachments went further than he did: García López de Cárdenas became the first European to see the Grand Canyon, and Hernando de Alarcón sailed up the Colorado. A guide the Spanish called the Turk then told them of Quivira, a rich kingdom to the east, and led them across the Llano Estacado into what is now Kansas, where they found grass-lodge villages of the Wichita. The guide admitted he had been sent to lose them in the plains, and was garrotted. Coronado returned in 1542 having found no gold, injured by a fall from a horse, and was investigated for his treatment of indigenous peoples — including the burning of prisoners at Tiguex — and cleared, while a subordinate was convicted. He died in 1554.
- Lived: 1510 CE – 1554 CE
- Nationality: Spanish
- Roles: explorer, conquistador, governor
