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Coronado Expedition
From 1540 to 1542, Francisco Vásquez de Coronado led a Spanish expedition north from New Spain into the American Southwest in search of the legendary…
Timeline
- 1540Culiacán · New SpainCoronado set out from northern New Spain with about three hundred Spanish soldiers and numerous Indian auxiliaries, advancing along established routes toward the rumored golden Seven Cities.
- 1540–1541Zuni Pueblo region · Zuni PuebloAfter capturing Zuni towns and finding none of the expected gold, the expedition pushed east onto the Great Plains, making contact with Pueblo and plains tribes and engaging in several armed clashes.
- 1542New Mexico frontier · American SouthwestWith supplies exhausted, casualties mounting, and morale low, Coronado ordered a withdrawal; the expedition ended in economic failure but laid the geographical and ethnographic groundwork for later Spanish colonization of the Southwest.
Sources
- Coronado Expedition https://www.britannica.com/event/Coronado-expedition
- The Coronado Expedition to Tierra Nueva: The 1540-1542 Route Across the Southwest — Richard Flint (1997)