CORONADO

Álvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca, “La Relación… ,” trans. Fanny Bandelier, The Journey of Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca and his Companions from Florida to the Pacific, 1528-1536,” (New York: A. S. Barnes & Company, 1905), (p. 193):

[Cabeza de Vaca, who also survived the expedition to Florida, said that Esteban was] an Arab Negro from Azamar, [Bejar,Morocco] ….

According to Cantañeda, historian of the Coronado expedition, after Viceroy Mendoza listened to the seven-cities story Esteban and the other three survivors of the expedition to Florida brought back from the north,

Pedro de Castañeda, “Relación de la jornada de Cíbola … ,” Nacera, ~1562, trans. George Parker Winship, The Coronado Expedition 1540-1542, (Washington: Bureau of American Ethnology, 1896), pp 474-5:

"He sent the friar … and the Negro ... off in search of that country, because Friar Marcos offered to go and see it.… It seems that ... the negro did not get on well with the friars, because Esteban took the women that were given him and collected turquoises, and got together a stock of everything   (lyrics). 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 on ahead to open up the way and pacify the Indians, so that when the others came along they had nothing to do except to keep an account of the things for which they were looking.

As I said, Stephen reached Cibola loaded with the large quantity of turquoises they had given him and several pretty women who had been given him. The Indians who accompanied him carried his things. These had followed him from all the settlements he had passed, believing that under his protection they could traverse the whole world without any danger. But as the people in this country were more intelligent than those who followed Stephen, they lodged him in a little hut they had outside their village, and the older men and the governors heard his story and took steps to find out the reason he had come to that country. For three days they made inquiries about him and held a council. The account which the negro gave them of two white men who were following him, sent by a great lord who knew about the things in the sky, and how these were coming to instruct them in divine matters, made them think that he must be a spy or a guide from some nations who wished to come and conquer them, because it seemed to them unreasonable to say that the people were white in the country from which he came and that he was sent by them, he being black. Besides these other reasons, they thought it was hard of him to ask them for turquoises and women, and so they decided to kill him. They did this, but they did not kill any of those who went with him, although they kept some young fellows and let the others, about 60 persons, return freely to their own country. As these, who were badly scared, were returning in flight they happened to come upon the friars in the desert 60 leagues from Cibola, and told them the sad news, which frightened them so much that … they returned from here by double marches, prepared for anything, without seeing any more of the country except what the Indians told them.

News of Esteban’s arrival in Cibola traveled across Indian tribes. As Alarcón was coming up the Colorado River by Yuma (in southwest Arizona), he quizzed Quicama Indians there about Cibola (in northwest New Mexico) as he was looking for it.

Hernando de Alarcón, “Relatione …,” Narratives of the Coronado Expedition 1540-1542, trans. George P. Hammond and Agapito Rey from the Italian in Ramusio, “Viaggi,” 1556 ed., III, fols. 363-370 (Albuquerque: Univ. of New Mexico Press, 1940), p.141:

Afterward, when I was about to eat, this interpreter saw plates being carried back and forth. He said that the chieftain at Cibola had some like them, but that they were green, and that no one had them except the chieftain. The plates, four in all, he had obtained with the dog and other articles from a bearded negro. However, he did not know whence he had come. He had heard that the chieftain ordered him killed.

Upstream, in a different tribe, Alarcón asked an elder

p.145:

about Cibola and whether he knew if the people there had ever seen people like us. He answered no, except a negro who wore on his feet and arms some things that tinkled. Your Lordship must remember how this negro who went with Fray Marcos wore bells, and feathers on his ankles and arms, and carried plates of various colors. He arrived there a little more than one year ago. I asked him why they killed him. He replied that the chieftain of Cibola asked the negro if he had any brothers, and he answered that he had an infinite number, that they had numerous arms, and that they were not very far from there. Upon hearing this, many chieftains assembled and decided to kill him so that he would not reveal their location to his brothers.… They … tore him into many pieces, which were distributed among the chieftains so that they should know that he was dead. He had a dog like mine, which the chieftain had killed a long time afterward.

Esteban wasn’t the only black with the Spanish in North America: Coronado had a number of black people on his expedition. Describing the hardships endured, he states in his letter to Viceroy Mendoza:

Francisco Vázquez de Coronado, “… al Signor Antonio de Mendoza …,” trans. George Parker Winship, The Coronado Expedition 1540-1542, (Washington: Bureau of American Ethnology, 1896), p. 554:

Ten or twelve of the horses had died of overwork by the time that we reached this Valley of Hearts, because they were unable to stand the strain of carrying heavy burdens and eating little. Some of our negroes and some of the Indians also died here, which was not a slight loss for the rest of the expedition.

Alarcón, seeking Cibola via the Colorado River, spoke with an Indian elder.

Alarcón, p. 147:

I asked him, then, how many days’ travel away the kingdom of Cibola was, how far they would say it was from that river. This man replied that it was ten days’ distant over unknown country. Beyond there he did not reckon, as there were people. At this report I was eager to send news to the general. I consulted with my men, but there was no one who would risk going, although I offered many rewards in the name of your Lordship. Only a Moorish slave volunteered to go, although not very enthusiastically.

Jaramillo, a soldier with Coronado, relates how, when Coronado decided after two years of seeking wealth to return to Mexico.

Juan Jaramillo, “Relación …,” trans. George Parker Winship, The Coronado Expedition 1540-1542, (Washington: Bureau of American Ethnology, 1896), p. 592:

Friar Luis wished to remain in these flat-roof houses, saying that he would raise crosses for those villagers with a chisel and adze they left him, and would baptize several poor creatures who could be led, on the point of death, so as to send them to heaven, for which he did not desire any other company than a little slave of mine who was called Christopher, to be his consolation, and who he said would learn the language there quickly so as to help him, and he brought up so many things in favor of this that he could not be denied, and so nothing more has been heard from him. The knowledge that this friar would remain there was the reason that many Indians from hereabouts stayed there, also two negroes, one of them mine, who was called Sebastian. and the other one of Melchor Perez, the son of the licentiate La Torre. This negro was married and had his wife and children. I also recall that several Indians remained behind in the Quivira region, besides a Tarascan belonging to my company, who was named Andrew. Friar Juan de Padilla preferred to return to Quivira, and persuaded them to give him those Indians whom I said we had brought as guides. They gave him these, and he also took a Portugese and a free Spanish-speaking Indian, who was the interpretor and who passed as a Franciscan friar, and a half-blood and two Indians from Capottan … or thereabouts, I believe. He had brought these up and took them in the habits of friars, and he took some sheep and mules and a horse and ornaments and other trifles. I do not know whether it was for the sake of these or for what reason, but it seems that they killed him, and those who did it were the lay servants, or these same Indians whom he took back from Tiguex.

And, per another soldier,

“Relación …,” trans. George Parker Winship, The Coronado Expedition 1540-1542, (Washington: Bureau of American Ethnology, 1896), p. 579:

[Viceroy Mendoza] was pleased that Father Friar Juan de Padilla had stayed there, who went to Quivira, and a Spaniard and a negro with him, and Friar Luis, a very holy lay brother stayed in Cieuique.

Black slaves in New Spain are not the only surprise for us today. Although they were not mentioned by name on the “Muster Roll of the Expedition – February 22,1540,” Narratives of the Coronado Expedition 1540-1542, trans. George P. Hammond and Agapito Rey (Albuquerque: Univ. of New Mexico Press, 1940), p. 87:

700 Indians who volunteered to go as wranglers and the like brought their families with them. Others who did appear on the muster roll are equally surprising: five Portugese, two Italians, a Frenchman, a Scot, and a German bugler. Several of the other troops brought their wives. There was also clergy, this being partly a missionary expedition: four Franciscan padres as well as Frey Marcos himself.

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