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Show 226 LEADING FACTS OF NEW MEXICAN tribe shifting to and fro across the eastern part that time. Leaving this matter undecided, we the Teyas signified to Coronado that his guides pletely astray, the Quiviras being far north of neda adds that those guides had led Coronado direction, ‘too near to Florida.’ HISTORY FRANCISCO of New Mexico at must remark that had led him comthe place. Castain too southerly a This is a further confirmation of what we have said, namely that the Spaniards marched like people losing their reckoning on the plains, in a circle or are of a circle, first, north-east, then east, afterwards even south of east. ‘At this place Coronado left the main body and with twenty-nine horsemen, and probably Father Padilla, struck out for Quivira. He moved northward, and, at the end of about forty days (the number is variously given) a large river was reached which he crossed to its northerly bank and followed its course to the northeast for upwards of twenty days. Finally, turning to the north inland, he reached, after sixty-seven days of short marches and occasional delays, the region called Quivira. The great river north of the Canadian can only have been the Arkansas, and they struck it some point below Fort Dodge, It is noteworthy whence the river flows also that Jaramillo states, to the while north-east. going in that direction, they descended the course of the stream.??2 ‘‘Tt is therefore in northeastern Kansas, not far from the boundary of Nebraska, that we must look for the homes of the Quiviras in the years 1541 and 1543. The descriptions of the country furnished by Coronado himself, by his lieutenant, Jaramillo, and (from hearsay) by Castafieda, agree very well with the appearance of that country. As long as they remained south of the Arkansas the land was one great plain, without timber and very little water: north of the Arkansas, its aspect changed.’’ ; The writings of all the historians of the expedition under Coro- nado, from Mexico to the valley of the Kansas and its tributaries, do not disclose sufficient facts to determine with certainty the situs of the terminal point reached in 1541, but it is safe to conclude that Mr. Hodge has arrived at the most satisfactory solution of the problem. The opinions and conclusions of the earlier writers a re entirely irely conse Mr. *8 flicting.2 Winship quite closely agrees with the route marked 242 Simpson, Gen. march of Reese He takes Coronado J. oa H. across j ithsoni port, pp. 309-340, discusses the ee agree with Mr. Bandelier nor with Mr. Hodge. the Ka In doing this he is governed by the statem nsas river as well as the Arkansas. ent of the captain-general that he had reached 40° of latitude, and therefore locate 8 Quivira on the Missouri in northeastern Kansas and southe astern 243 That the reader Nebraska. may know lowing list will afford some light Bandel i , ndeter ; ae : how conflicting these conclusions are, the fol- A. F., Final ij Report, part 1,] pp. 44, 169, note 4, and p. 170, says VASQUEZ CORONADO 227 out by Mr. Bandelier. On the map which accompanies his Memoir, the province of Quivira covers central Kansas from a point not far that the Quiviras were a band of roving Indians in northeastern Kansas, beyond the Arkansas, and more than one hundred miles northeast of Grand Bend. Simpson, Gen. J. H., Smithsonian Report, 1869, says Quivira was the boundary between the states of Kansas and Nebraska, well on towards the Missouri river. Bancroft, Hubert H., History of Arizona and New Mezico, p. 62, says: ‘There is nothing in the Spaniards’ description of the region, or of the journey, to shake confidence in Simpson’s conclusion that it was in the modern Kansas, between the Arkansas and Missouri Rivers.’’ Prince, L. B., Historical Sketches, p. 141, says that it was on the borders of the Missouri, somewhere between Kansas City and Council Bluffs. Haynes, Narr. and Crit. Hist. Am., vol. ii, p. 494, note, does not agree with the earlier writers, Gallatin, Squier, Kern, Abert, nor does he quite agree with Simpson, Bandelier, Hodge, or Prince, as he says, in his opinion, Coronado crossed the Kansas plains and came out at a point much farther west than latitude 40 degrees, upon the Platte river. Winship, George Parker, Coronado Expedition, 14th B. A. E., p. 398, note, says: ‘‘Bandelier accounts for sixty-seven days of short marches and occasional delays between the separation of the force on the Canadian river and the arrival at Quivira. It may be that the seventy-seven days of desert marching which Coronado mentions in his letter of October 20, 1541, refers to this part of the journey, instead of to the whole journey from the bridge (near Mora on the Canadian) to Quivira. But the number sixty-seven originated in a blunder of Ternaux-Compans, who substituted it for seventy-seven, in translating this letter. The mistake evidently influenced Bandelier to extend the journey over more time than it really took. But this need not affect his results materially, if we extend the amount of ground covered by each day’s march and omit numerous halts, which were very unlikely, considering the condition of his party and the desire to solve the mystery of Quivira. If the Spaniards crossed the Arkansas somewhere below Fort Dodge, and followed it until the river turns toward the southeast, Quivira can hardly have been east of the middle part of the state of Kansas. It was more probably somewhere between the main forks of the Kansas river, in the central part of that state. Bandelier seems to have abandoned his documents as he approached the goal, and to have transported Coronado across several branches of the Kansas river, in order to fill out his sixty-seven days, which should have been seventy-seven, and perhaps to reach the region fixed on He may have realized that by previous conceptions of the limit of exploration. the difficulty in his explanation of the route was that it required a reduction of about one-fourth of the distance covered by the army in the eastward march as This can be accounted for by the wandering path plotted by General Simpson. which the army followed.’’ Mr. Hodge himself, at one time, believed that Coronado reached the Kansas river, for in Brower’s Memoirs he says that Great Bend or its vicinity is the site of the first village of the province of Quivira and that Coronado, after leaving the village at or near Great Bend, continued in a northeasterly course, and either followed down the Smoky Hill, or crossed that stream and also the Saline, Solomon, and Republican Forks, reaching Kansas river not far from Junction City. be Davis, W. W. H., Conquest of New Mezico, thinks that Quivira was about one The old pueblo which gave this hundred and fifty miles due south of Santa Fé. i idea to Mr. Davis is that of Tabira, often called the Gran Quivira. Brower, J. V., Quivira, Memoirs, etc., pp. xii and xiii, also thinks that Quivira See for description of village sites and weapons of was on the Kansas river. |