CORONADO, FRANCISCO VASQUEZ ( ? e.1549). A Spanish explorer. He came to the New World about 1535, and, by marrying Dofia Beatriz, the daughter of Estrada, the royal treas urer for New Spain, secured preferment at the viceregal Court in Mexico. He was appointed Governor of the Province of New Galicia, and in 1539 secured the command of an expedition for the conquest of the 'Seven Cities of Cibola,' which the friar Marco de Niza claimed to have discovered on a preliminary expedition earlier in 1539. On February 23, 1540. Coronado started from Compostela with a large force of horsemen, infantry, and native allies, supplied with artil lery and abundant munitions and food. He fol lowed the western coast of Mexico till some distance beyond Guaymas, and then crossed the mountains into southeastern Arizona. On July 7 he reached and stormed the chief city of Cihola, the stone pueblo of llawikuh, now repre sented by large ruins a short distance west of the pueblo of Zufli, in New Mexico. Making this his headquarters, Coronado sent expeditions to the West, which explored the country as far as the villages of Tusayan, and to the Grand Callon of the Colorado, which was first seen by Europeans when the soldiers under Lopez de Cardenas reached it early in September, 1540. Other parties explored toward the east. and in September Coronado moved his forces to the Rio Grande, camping in the village of Tiguex, near Bernalillo, New Mexico. During the win
ter the natives of the river villages were sub jugated after a fierce resistance. In April, 1541, Coronado led his whole army across the moun tains into the great buffalo plains of Arkansas and Indian Territory. Finding that he was being misled by a native guide, he sent his foot soldiers back to the Rio Grande. while he, with thirty horsemen, pushed northward, hoping to find a country rich in treasure. In July he reached a group of tepee villages, somewhere near the bor der line between Kansas and Nebraska. Con vinced that the country contained nothing of value for him, although he recognized its splen did agricultural possibilities, Coronado returned to Tiguex. A severe fall from his horse induced Coronado to turn homeward in the spring. After several months of deprivation he reached Mexico with such of his army as had not deserted along the route. The viceroy received him coldly and allowed him to resign the govern ment of New Galicia. Coronado is said to have lived quietly on his ample estates until his death, about 1549. The original documents describing Coronado's journey, which contain much information concerning the southwestern United States at the time it was first visited by Europeans, are translated in Winship, "The Coro nado Expedition," in the Fourteenth Report of the United ,';'lates Bureau of Ethnology (Wash ington, 1896).