Primary Source #10

In 1540, Francisco Vásquez de Coronado set out to find the legendary seven cities of Cibola, where he hoped to discover another cache of gold like that of Mexico or Peru. He traveled north from Mexico, through what is now Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas; failing to find the legendary cities but reaching Quivira on the Arkansas River.

First Expedition to Kansas and Nebraska (1540)

BY CAPTAIN JUAN JARAMILLO

(Translated by George P. Winship, 1896)

(Jaramillo mentions buffalo herds several times, calling them “cows”. I have replaced the generic term “cows” with buffalo, and retained the word cows only when he is referring to females)

Jaramillo's opportunities and character are set forth in his own narrative.  —  Bibliography: Winsor, Narrative and Critical History II, 498-504; Channing and Hart, Guide, § 86; Geo. P. Winship, List of Works useful to the Student of the Coronado Expedition; H. H. Bancroft, Arizona and New Mexico (Pacific States, XII).

FROM here we went to another river, which we called the Bermejo, or Red river, in two days’ journey in the same direction, but less toward the northeast. Here we saw an Indian or two, who afterwards turned out to be from the first settlement of Cibola. From here we came in two days' journey to the said village, the first of Cibola. The houses have flat roofs and walls of stone and mud, and here was where they killed Steve, or Estevanillo, the negro who had come with Dorantes from Florida and returned with Friar Marcos de Niza. In this province of Cibola there are five little villages besides this, all with flat roofs and of stone and mud, as I described. The country is cold, as is shown by the houses and hothouses (estufas) they have. From this first village of Cibola, facing the northeast and a little less, on the left hand, there is a province called Tucayan, about five days off, which has seven flat-roofed villages, with as good as or better food supply than these, and even a larger population; and they also have the skins of buffalo and of deer, and cloaks of cotton, as I said.

All the waterways we found up to this Cibola,  —  and I don't know but what a day or two beyond,  —  the rivers and streams, run into the south sea [Pacific], and those from beyond here into the north sea [Gulf of Mexico].

From this first village of Cibola, as I have said, we went to another in this same province, which was about a short day's journey off, on the way to Tihuex [Rio Grande]. It is nine days of such marches as we have made from this settlement of Cibola to the river of Tihuex. Half-way between, I do not know but it may be a day more or less, is a village of earth and dressed stone, in a very strong position, which is called Tutahaco. All these Indians, except the first in the village of Cibola, received us well. At the river of Tihuex there are 15 villages within a distance of about 20 leagues, all with flat-roofed houses of earth, and not stone, after the fashion of mud walls. There are other villages besides these on other streams which flow into this, and three of these are, for Indians, well worth seeing, especially one that is called Chia, and another Uraba, and another Cicuique. Uraba and Cicuique have many houses, two stories high. All the rest, and these also, have corn and beans and melons, skins, and some long robes of feathers which they braid, joining the feathers with a sort of thread; and they also make them of a sort of plain weaving with which they make the cloaks with which they protect themselves. They all have hot rooms underground, which, although not very clean, are very warm. They raise and have a very little cotton, of which they make the cloaks of which I have spoken above. This river comes from the northwest and flows about southeast, which shows that it certainly flows into the North sea. Leaving this settlement and the said river, we went by two other villages whose names I do not know, and in four days came to Cicuique [Pecos pueblo], which I have already mentioned. The direction of this is toward the northeast. From Cicuique we came to another river [Pecos?], which the Spaniards named Cicuique, in three days; if I remember rightly, it seems to me that we went rather toward the northeast to reach this river by the way we came, and, after crossing this, we turned more to the left hand, which would be more to the northeast, and began to enter the plains where the buffalo are, although we did not find them for some four or five days, after which we began to come across bulls, of which there are great numbers, and after going on and meeting the bulls for two or three days in the same direction, after this we began to find ourselves in the midst of very great numbers of cows, yearlings, and bulls all in together. We found Indians among these first buffalo, who were called, on this account, by those in the flat-roofed houses, Querechos. They live without houses, but have some sets of poles which they carry with them to make something like huts in the places where they stop, which serve them for houses. They tie these poles together at the top and stick the bottoms into the ground, covering them with some buffalo skins which they carry around, and which, as I have said, serve them for houses. From what was learned of these Indians, all their human needs are supplied by these buffalo, for they are fed and clothed and shod from these. They are a people who go around here and there, wherever seems to them best. We went on for eight or ten days in the same direction, along those streams which are among the buffalo. The Indian who guided us from here was the one that had given us the news about Quivira and Arache (or Arahei) and about its being a very rich country, with much gold, and other things, and he and the other one were from that country I mentioned, to which we were going, and we found these two Indians in the flat-roofed villages. It seems that, as the said Indian wanted to go to his own country, he proceeded to tell us what we found was not true, and I do not know whether it was on this account or because he was counselled to take us into other regions by confusing us about the road, although there are none in all this region except those of the buffalo. We understood, however, that he was leading us away from the route we ought to follow and wanted to get us on to those plains where he had got us, so that we would eat up the food, and both ourselves and our horses would become weak from the lack of this, because if we should go either back or ahead in this condition we could not make any resistance to whatever they might wish to do to us. At last as, from the time when, as I said, we entered the plains and from this settlement of Querechos, he led us off more to the east, until we came to be in extreme need from the lack of food.  . . . I believe we had been travelling twenty days or more in this direction.  . . . We all went forward one day to a stream which was down in a ravine in the midst of good meadows, to agree on who should go ahead and how the rest should return. Here the Indian Isopete, as we had called the companion of the said Turk, was asked to tell us the truth, and to lead us to that country which we had come in search of. He said he would do it, and that it was not as the Turk had said, because those were certainly fine things which he had said and had given us to understand, about gold, and how it was secured, and the buildings, and the style of them, and their trade, and many other things told for the sake of prolixity, which had led us to go in search of them, with the advice of all who gave it and of the priests. He asked us to leave him afterwards in that country, as it was his native country, as a reward for guiding us, and, also, that the Turk might not go along with him, because he would quarrel and try to restrain him in everything that he wanted to do for our advantage; and the general promised him this, and said he would be with one of the thirty, and he went in this way. And when everything was ready for us to set out and for the others to remain, we pursued our way, turning all the time after this toward the north, for more than thirty days’ march, although not long marches, without having to go without water on any one of them, and among buffalo all the time, some days in larger numbers than others, according to the water which we came across, so that on Saint Peter and Paul's day we reached a river which we found to be there below Quivira, and when we reached the said river, the Indian recognized it and said that was it, and that it was below the settlements. We crossed it there and went up the other side on the north, the direction turning toward the northeast, and after marching three days we found some Indians who were going hunting, killing the buffalo to take the meat to their village, which was about three or four days still farther away from us. Here where we found the Indians and they saw us, they began to utter yells and appeared to fly, and some even had their wives there with them. The Indian Isopete began to call them in his language, and so they came to us without any signs of fear.  .  .  .  Some satisfaction was experienced here on seeing the good appearance of the earth, and it is certainly such here among the buffalo, and from here on. The general wrote a letter here to the governor of Harahey and Quivira, giving him to understand that he was a Christian from the army of Florida, led astray by what the Indian had said of their manner of government and their general character, which he had made us believe. So the Indians went to their houses, which were at the distance mentioned, and we also proceeded at our rate of marching until we reached the settlements, which we found along good river bottoms, although without much water, and good streams which flow into another, larger than the one I have mentioned. There were, if I recall correctly, six or seven settlements, at quite a distance from one another, among which we travelled for four or five days, since it was understood to be uninhabited between one stream and the other. We reached what they said was the end of Quivira, to which they took us, saying that what there was there was of great importance.

Here there was a river, with more water and more inhabitants than the others. Being asked if there was anything beyond, they said that there was nothing more of Quivira, but that there was Harahey, and that it was the same sort of a place, with settlements like these, and of about the same size. The general sent to summon the lord of those parts and the other Indians whom they said resided in Harahey, and he came with about 200 men  —  all naked  —  with bows, and I don’t know what sort of things on their heads.  .  .  .  He was a big Indian, with a large body and limbs, and well proportioned. After he had got the opinion of one and another about it, the general asked them what we ought to do, reminding us of how the army had been left and that the rest of us were there, so that it seemed to all of us that as it was already almost the opening of winter, for, if I remember rightly, it was after the middle of August, and because there was little to winter there for, and we were but very little prepared for it, and the uncertainty as to the success of the army that had been left, and because the winter might close the roads with snow and rivers which we could not cross, and also in order to see what had happened to the rest of the force left behind, it seemed to us all that his grace ought to go back in search of them, and when he had found out for certain how they were, to winter there and return to that country at the opening of spring, to conquer and cultivate it. Since, as I said, this was the last point which we reached, here the Turk saw that he had lied to us, and called upon all these people to attack us one night and kill us. We learned of it, and put him under guard and strangled him that night, so that he never waked up. With the plan mentioned, we turned back it may have been two or three days, where we provided ourselves with picked fruit and dried corn for our return. The general raised a cross at this place, at the foot of which he made some letters with a chisel, which said that "Francisco Vazquez de Coronado," general of that army, had arrived here.

This country presents a very fine appearance, than which I have not seen a better in all our Spain nor Italy nor a part of France, nor, indeed, in the other countries in which I have travelled in His Majesty's service, for it is not a very rough country, but is made up of hillocks and plains, and very fine appearing rivers and streams, which certainly satisfied me and made me sure that it will be very fruitful in all sorts of products. Indeed, there is profit in the buffalo ready to the hand, from the quantity of them, which is as great as one could imagine. We found a variety of Castilian prunes which are not all red, but some of them black and green; the tree and fruit is certainly like that of Castile, with a very excellent flavor. Among the buffalo we found flax, which springs up from the earth in clumps apart from each other, which are noticeable, as the buffalo do not eat it, with their tops and blue flowers, and very perfect although small, resembling that of our own Spain (or and sumach like ours in Spain). There are grapes along some streams, of a fair flavor, not to be improved upon.  .  .  .

Bureau of Ethnology, Fourteenth Annual Report (Washington, 1896?), 584-593

American History Told by Contemporaries, Volume I, Albert Bushnell Hart, 1897, 60-4.