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Show 246 LEADING FACTS OF NEW MEXICAN FRANCISCO HISTORY own accord. The journey across the desert was accomplished without the occurrence of any event of note, and on the second day before reaching Chichilticalli, they met Juan Gallego, with reénforcements from New Spain and necessary supplies for Coronad o’s army When Gallego saw that the army was on its homeward march hie told the captain-general that he was glad of it, and after rondhiee army headquarters, according to Castafieda, there was considerable agitation among the soldiers composing Gallego’s force, who were desirous of continuing their march into the country Sind whence Coronado had returned, or else establish a settlement somewhere in that region until the viceroy could receive an account of what had occurred. However, the soldiers under Coronado would listen to nothin except an immediate return to Mexico, which was then joie nn It was now apparent that the authorit y of the poriaimenta oo 41 was waninol oe neda sa ss he had been disobeye i d already athomomenpeiing reached the Spanish settlements of New Galicia re we quent desertions from the ranks, and it was only with the greatest effort that the captain-general was able to kee : tl even a respectable command with which to enter the City aii 1¢0, wher e he made hig report to the viceroy When Coronado reached the city he appeared ck MAAFY, completely worn out and (4 ‘‘very sad and very Shame faced.’? Ag Mr. Winshj says,*"° “‘Suarez de Peralta was a boy on the A rneda of the tee ae give a vivid picture of the retu rn of the expedition ronado came to kiss the hand of the viceroy A did not i. 7 ry oe receptio n as he oe would have liked for his found him after the general reached the city the ‘ . ed him came straggling in , all of them worn out with their toils, clothed in the skins of ani mals, and showing the marks of their misfortu nes and sufferings ‘‘The countr y had been very Joyous when the news of the discov , ery of the Seven Cities spread abroad, and this was n Ow supplanted by the greatest sadness on the part of all, for many had lost their friends and their fortunes, since those who remained be sree a Sey Pf eo days hind had entered into partnerships with or Inship,: George Parker, Coronad 0 Expedit i i Suarez de Peralta. J., Tratado del D escubrimee gtion,s, PE iento epde en las Yndia ete. VASQUEZ CORONADO 247 those who went, mortgaging their estates and their property in order to procure a share in what was to be gained, and drawing up papers so that those who were to be present should have power to take possession of mines and enter claims in the name of those who were left behind, in accordance with the custom and the ordinances which the viceroy had made in New Spain. Many sent their slaves also, since there were many of these in the country at this time. Thus the loss and the grief were general, but the viceroy felt it most of all, for two reasons; because this was the outcome of something about which he had felt so sure, which he thought would make him more powerful than the greatest lord in Spain, and because his estates were ruined, for he had labored hard and spent much money in sending off the army. Finally, as things go, he succeeded in forgetting it, and devoted himself to the government of his province, and in this he became the best of governors, being trusted by the King and loved by all his subjects.”’ There is no record of what became of Francisco Vasquez Coronado. Even the viceroy, who had more at stake than anyone else, did not hold him to blame for the failure of the expedition which had been put in his charge.?* It was not long after his return that he gave up his position as governor of New Galicia. to the fact that he did not enjoy Later on, doubtless owing his former reputation at the court of Spain, accusations were filed against him because it was claimed 261 Hodge, F. W., Spanish Explorers in the Southern United States, Introduction, pp. 276-280: ‘‘The elaborate expedition of Coronado is the subject of the narrative of a private soldier in his army, Pedro de Castafieda, a native of Najera, in the province of Logrono, in the upper valley of the Ebro, in Old Of the narrator little is known beyond the fact that he was one of Castile. the colonists who settled at San Miguel de Culiacan, founded by Nufio de Guzman in 1531, where he doubtless lived when Coronado’s force reached that point in its northward journey, and where, more than twenty years later, he wrote his account of the expedition and its achievements. The dates of Castafieda’s birth and death are not known, but he was born probably between 1510 and 1518. In 1554, according to a document published in the Colecion de Documentos Inéditos del Archivo de Indias (XIV, 206), his wife, Maria de Acosta, with her four sons and four daughters, filed a claim against the treasury of New Spain for payment for the service of the husband and father had rendered in behalf of the King. ‘<The Coronado expedition was of far-reaching importance from a geographical point of view, for it combined with the journey of De Soto in giving to the world an insight into the hitherto unknown vast interior of the northern continent and formed the basis of the cartography of that region. It was the means also of making known the sedentary Pueblo tribes of our Southwest and the hunting tribes of the Great Plains, the Grand Canyon of the Colorado and the lower reaches of that stream, and the teeming herds of bison and the abso- |