CORONADO

So now I’m going to read to you bits from a few books about how they headed west to go for the gold that might be there, might not be there. Hey, you don’t know till you look. And as if just looking wasn’t hard enough, he first had to get the right to go look, since he was working within the Spanish system.

Bernal Díaz del Castillo, The Discovery and Conquest of Mexico, 1517-21 (Harper & brothers, New York, 1928):

Cortes’ soldier Bernal Diaz del Castillo tells how Narvaez, the man who would become governor of La Florida (“Land of the Flowers”) had previously been commissioned by the governor of Cuba to interrupt Cortes’ expedition to Mexico. (Opposition to Cortes’ appointment had increased in Cuba, the Spanish beachhead for such efforts.) But when Narvaez caught up with Cortes in Mexico, his soldiers succumbed to the gifts Cortes made them out of the wealth of Mexico. Thus was Cortes able to turn the tables and hold Narvaez prisoner for two years in present day Mexico City.Get ebook

George Parker Winship, The Coronado Expedition 1540-1542, (Washington: Bureau of American Ethnology, 1896):

points out that after Cortes won the support of the Spanish King, again by gifts out of Mexico, Narvaez’ friends in Spain got a royal order releasing Narvaez. With two years to appreciate Cortes’ lucky strike close-up, Narvaez returned to Spain to ask the King for a license to himself explore in the New World. With permission granted to conquer the Gulf Coast ( Florida to Texas, all called Florida at the time), Narvaez immediately set about it.

Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, “La Relación… ,” trans. Fanny Bandelier, The Journey of Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca Famy and his Companions from Florida to the Pacific, 1528-1536,” (New York: A. S. Barnes & Company, 1905), p.1:

"On the 27th day of the month of June, 1527, the Governor Panfilo de Nar­vaez departed from the port of San Lucar de Barrameda, with authority and orders from Your Majesty to conquer and govern the provinces that extend from the river of the Palms [Rio Grande] to the Cape of the Florida, these provinces being on the main land. The fleet he took along consisted of five vessels, in which went about 600 men."

Stopping in Cuba just long enough to refit his fleet, he proceeded to aim for the westernmost limit of his jurisdiction (present day Texas). But by the time he was ready and then waited out storms etc. that Cabeza de Vaca describes, it was nearly a year later that they made it to the American continent, sighting land on April twelfth. But, because of a storm and the strong Gulf currents, he and his remaining 400 men arrived instead at Tampa Bay, all the while thinking they must have reached what is now Texas. Narvaez pressed westward anyway, sending out three supply ships (which disappeared) and proceeded with the remaining 300 men and 50 horses over land.

Herbert E. Bolton, Coronado: Knight of Pueblos and Plains, (Albuquerque: Univ. of New Mexico Press, 1949), pp. 8-9:

lays it out: Narvaez began by seeking a place called Cale, whose inhabitants the Florida Indians said wore golden hats like chiefs. Finding this to be false and the natives hostile, he proceeded west to about Tallahassee, also rumored of promise. Meeting more Indian hostility, Narvaez and company (now 250 men) killed the remainder of the horses they had been eating for lack of other sustenance, made five horsehide boats, and resumed the journey by sea.

They did get as far as present day Galveston Island, but a hurricane there finished off the bulk of this force.

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