Part 8

The coast from Oxnard to Cabo de Galera (our Point Conception) runs roughly east and west for nearly a hundred miles before bending sharply north. This stretch was heavily populated. Many canoes traveled alongside the ships, and there was a great deal of calling back and forth and exchanges of gifts. A string of islands, also populated, paralleled the shore, forming what is now called the Santa Barbara Channel. On October 18 the Spanish ships endeavored to round Cabo de Galera but were blown by strong winds out to the westernmost of the Channel Islands, one the mariners had not yet explored. They named it Posesión (it is now San Miguel) and remained in the shelter of Cuyler’s Harbor for about a week.

The idyllic days were over—and so, in many critical ways, is agreement between Juan Páez’s “Summary” of Cabrillo’s log and the testimony about the trip given in 1560 to the _audiencia_ of Guatemala by Lázaro de Cárdenas and Francisco de Vargas, both of whom told the court they had been on the trip.

During the stay on Posesión, according to the “Summary,” Cabrillo fell and broke his arm near the shoulder. In spite of that, he resumed the journey, rounded Point Conception, was again driven back, tried once more, and in mid-November succeeded. The fleet soon reached the rugged Santa Lucia Range, in which William Randolph Hearst four centuries later built fabulous San Simeon. For the mariners it was a heart-stopping area—“mountains which seem to reach the heavens.... Sailing close to the land, it appears as though they would fall on the ships. They are covered with snow.”

They may have sailed as far as the vicinity of Point Reyes, a little north of San Francisco Bay, or they may have gone no farther than Monterey Bay, where they almost certainly anchored on November 16. Whatever their northernmost point, they turned back, probably because of bad weather, possibly because of Cabrillo’s sufferings. On November 23 they once again landed on San Miguel Island. There, sensing he was about to die, Cabrillo made the pilot, Bartolomé Ferrer (or Ferrelo in some accounts) swear to continue the explorations. On January 3, 1543, he perished and was buried on the island.

Or was he? In 1901, an amateur archeologist, Philip M. Jones, found on Santa Rosa Island, just east of San Miguel, an old Indian _mano_, or grinding stone, into one of whose sides a cross and the fused initials JR had been incised. The stone was stored in a basement at the University of California, Berkeley, until 1972, when Berkeley’s noted anthropologist, Dr. Robert Heizer, began wondering whether the curiosity might have once marked Juan Rodríguez’s grave. So far extensive examinations have determined nothing about this additional mystery.

The Chumash: Village Dwellers

The Indians that Cabrillo encountered along the Santa Barbara coast were the village-dwelling Chumash. Their villages were groupings of houses, according to a later traveler, with a sweat-house, store-rooms, a ceremonial plaza, a gaming area, and a cemetery some distance off. The houses were cone-shaped, spacious and comfortable. A hole in the roof admitted light and vented smoke from cook fires. Apart from the brief skirmish at San Diego Bay, Cabrillo found the California Indians a gentle, friendly people.

Two views of the Chumash:

And then there is the testimony of Cárdenas and Vargas in 1560. They said, without giving dates, that Cabrillo decided to winter on Posesión, which the witnesses called La Capitana, and that on stepping ashore from the ship’s boats he fell between some rocks, broke his shin bone, and died 12 days later. Vargas adds that the fall resulted from Cabrillo’s hurry to help some of his men, who were battling Indians. A splintered shin bone with its possibilities for gangrene sounds more deadly than a broken arm.

On February 18, 1543, after beating around the Santa Barbara Channel for more than a month, exploring and taking on wood and water, Ferrer resumed the trip, as Cabrillo had asked. Standing well out to sea, he scudded north until on March 1 he was opposite—who knows? Cape Mendocino? The California-Oregon border? The mouth of the Rogue River? Wherever they were, the sea, breaking over the little ships with terrifying fury, was driving them irresistibly toward the rock-punctuated shore. They prayed fervently, and suddenly the wind shifted, driving them south “with a sea so high they became crazed.” The storm separated the ships, _San Salvador_ ran out of food, and the sailors were in dire straits until they were able to land at Ventura and later San Diego, where, in addition to food, they also picked up a half a dozen Indian boys to train as interpreters in case of a repeat journey.

Miraculously, the ships rejoined at Cedros Island off Baja California, and on April 14, 1543, they reached Navidad, nine and a half months after their departure. There was no repeat journey. Like De Soto and Coronado, they had located neither treasure nor shortcuts to the Orient. After that, no one else wanted to try, and Spain’s first great era of exploration of the United States came to an end.

Epilogue

Judged on the basis of what they set out to do, De Soto, Coronado, and Cabrillo failed. Yet great consequences flowed from their efforts. Without intending it, they found truth. They exploded myths and gave a solid anchor to the Spanish imagination. Undistracted, the people of New Spain could settle down to developing the resources—the mines, plantations, and ranches—that lay close at hand. It was the perceived need to protect this new wealth from potential enemies in the north—France, England, and Russia—and not the frenetic hope of riches that eventually brought about the extension of the Spanish empire into what became the southern United States, from St. Augustine, Florida, to the Franciscan missions of California.

Another discovery was the tremendous size and geographical diversity of America north of Mexico. After the truth had trickled out about the forests and savannahs of the semi-tropical southeast, the vast deserts and striking headlands of the southwest, the spreading central plains with their immeasurable herds of buffalo, and the coastal mountains and misty valleys of California, no one would ever again think of the upper part of the continent as a mere bulb perched on the thin stem of Central America and Mexico. These vast stretches, moreover, were peopled by a race never before known. By bringing back the first sound anthropological descriptions of these people, the Spanish explorers—and the French and English after them—gave the philosophers of Europe new food for speculation concerning the human condition.

Most important, they, along with the explorers of other nations, brought a sense of release and fresh possibilities to the Old World. Their reports arrived at a time when custom-bound Europe was struggling to shake off the constraints of ancient traditions, outworn feudal institutions, and an almost total lack of specie for implementing the quickening trade of the Renaissance—an average of less than $2 in currency for each of the continent’s 100 million people. In the Americas there were no mossy customs, but there were precious minerals and raw materials beyond imagination awaiting development. Development by anyone with daring and ingenuity. The great _conquistadores_ had all arrived poor and unknown and then had discovered within themselves explosive energies for meeting unprecedented physical challenges. Such strengths, once they were turned from brigandage into constructive endeavors, became the hallmark of the new continent. Pointing the way were Cabeza de Vaca, De Soto, Coronado, and Cabrillo, all doing their great work within a decade. It is indeed an era to remember.

A Guide To Sites

Following the Explorers

Though nothing spectacular survives, travelers can find many rewarding historical places that conjure up the Spanish _conquistadores_ and the natives they encountered. The four principal NPS sites are described briefly in the following pages. Many other parks and several Indian communities also preserve landscapes directly associated with the explorations. They are listed below. All these places are well worth a visit and several are worth a journey to anyone interested in the beginnings of North American history.

Ocmulgee National Monument Ancient mounds built by people of Macon, GA 31201 the Mississippian culture. De Soto passed through this region in 1540. Etowah Indian Mounds State De Soto visited this town (called Historic Site Itaba) in August 1540. Cartersville, GA 30120 Mound State Monument A farming town which flourished AD Moundville, AL 35474 1000-1500; representative of the powerful chiefdoms found by De Soto. Parkin Archeological State Park Believed to be a center of an Parkin, AR 72373 important chiefdom (Casqui) visited by De Soto in 1541. Coronado State Monument A Pueblo village visited by the P.O. Box 95 Coronado expedition in 1540. Bernalillo, NM 87004 Polychrome murals in the kiva are a prize exhibit. Pueblo of Acoma A fortress town inhabited by P.O. Box 309 descendents of the Pueblo people New Mexico 87034 who befriended the Alvarado party in 1540. Zuni Pueblo The original Cibola of Spanish Box 339 legend. Háwikuh, the place of Zuni, NM 87327 Coronado’s first encounter with Pueblo Indians, is now a ruin.

De Soto National Memorial, Florida

De Soto National Memorial commemorates the first major European penetration of the southeastern United States. De Soto’s purpose, sanctioned by the King, was to conquer the land Spaniards called _La Florida_ and settle it for Spain. He failed in both objects. There was no rich empire in the north, only a succession of chiefdoms, and his practice of looting villages and grabbing hostages alienated native inhabitants and turned his march into a siege. The lasting significance of the expedition was the information it yielded about the land and its Mississippian people in a late stage of that remarkable civilization.

The park was established in 1949 on the south shore of Tampa Bay. De Soto’s fleet may very well have sailed by this point in May 1539 to a landing spot farther around the bay. Attractions at the park include replicas of the type of weapons carried by the expedition and thickets of red mangrove, the so-called Florida land-builder. The journals tell of De Soto’s men cutting their way inland through mangrove tangles.

For more information about the park and its programs, write:

Superintendent De Soto National Memorial P.O. Box 15390 Bradenton, FL 34280

Coronado National Memorial, Arizona

Following an ancient Indian trade path up the San Pedro valley, the Coronado expedition crossed the present Mexico-United States border just east of this park. Hikers on the Coronado Peak Trail looking down Montezuma Canyon can see in the far distance cottonwood trees that mark Coronado’s line of march.

The national memorial was established in 1941, 400th anniversary of the expedition. Its setting high in the Huachuca Mountains is a fitting place to recall the first major Spanish _entrada_ into the American Southwest in all its color and fire: the gathering of the army at Compostela, arduous marches across wilderness, encounters with native cultures of great subtlety and art, discovery of a land of vast expanse and power, and above all the record of where they had been and what they had seen.

This is a park to see on foot. Trails lead to good viewing points and connect with others in Coronado National Forest, which surrounds the park.

For information about the park and its programs, write:

Superintendent Coronado National Memorial 4104 E. Montezuma Canyon Road, Hereford AZ 85615

Pecos National Historical Park, New Mexico

The ruins of Pecos Pueblo and Spanish missions of the 17th- and 18th-centuries crown a small ridge overlooking the Pecos Valley in upper New Mexico. At the time of the Coronado _entrada_, the pueblo was a giant apartment house, several stories high, with a central plaza, 600 rooms, and many kivas—home to 2,000 souls. The village prospered because it commanded the trade path between Pueblo farmers of the Rio Grande and buffalo hunters of the Plains. Pecos was a crossroads of commerce and culture, and its people grew adept at trade and war. The arrival of Franciscan priests in the 1600s with Spanish custom, religion, law inexorably altered Pueblo life. The Spaniards built a spacious mission church on the south end of the ridge, and a second but smaller one when the first church was destroyed in the Pueblo revolt of 1680. Pecos continued as a mission for more than a century. Disease and Comanche raids spelt decline in the late 18th century. The last inhabitants—fewer than 20—drifted away in 1838.

The park is 25 miles southeast of Santa Fe. Among its features are the ruins of the ancient pueblo, two restored kivas, and adobe mission walls. For information on the park and its programs, write:

Superintendent Pecos National Historical Park P.O. Drawer 418 Pecos NM 87552-0418

Cabrillo National Monument, California

This park honors the man who led the first European exploring expedition along the California coast. Sailing under a Spanish flag, Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo departed on 27 June 1542 from the port of Navidad on Mexico’s west coast. He commanded the ship _San Salvador_ (with a crew of 60); with him was _Victoria_, and another smaller vessel. His objective: “to discover the coast of New Spain.” Three months later he hove to in “a very good enclosed port”—San Diego Bay. This was the mariner’s first landfall north of Baja peninsula. Cabrillo himself died and was buried in the Channel Islands. His crew went on to explore as far north as Oregon, seeing new landmarks and new peoples, not all friendly.

The park is located on Point Loma, within the city of San Diego. Features include a heroic statue of Cabrillo, dramatic views of the Pacific and San Diego Bay, and Old Point Loma Lighthouse, a 1850s structure. In winter, the point is a good place to see the annual migration of the gray whale.

For information about the park and its programs, write:

Superintendent Cabrillo National Memorial P.O. Box 6670 San Diego CA 92166

Essay on Sources

If any of the leading _conquistadores_ who march through these pages kept a running account of his adventures, the journal has been lost. Except for occasional letters, the closest we can come to firsthand information are reminiscences written or dictated by lesser participants many years after the events described. Some supplementary material also comes from court testimony. More immediacy is lost by the fact that most English readers must depend on translations of varying accuracy and fluency. There are several translations of all main documents.

The first of the New World adventurers to reminisce in print was Cabeza de Vaca. His _Relación ..._ appeared in 1542. Buckingham Smith’s English translation, first printed in 1855, was later included with several other documents in _Spanish Explorers in the Southern United States, 1528-1543_, edited by Frederick Hodge and Theodore Lewis (New York, 1907).

The same work also contains Smith’s translation of _Narratives of the Career of Hernando de Soto_ by an anonymous Hidalgo (gentleman or knight) of Elvas, Portugal, first published in Portugal in 1557 by a survivor of the long march. Smith’s translation, somewhat modified, reappeared in Gaylord Bourne’s two-volume _Narratives of the Career of Hernando de Soto_ (New York, 1904). Bourne’s volumes also contain reminiscences by Rodrigo Ranjel, De Soto’s secretary, and Luis de Biedma, the latter a spare account. The longest and lushest of the De Soto tales is _The Florida of the Inca_, the Inca being Garcilaso de la Vega, son of a Spanish father and an Incan mother. He drew his information from the oral accounts of three of De Soto’s soldiers and used his active imagination to embellish what he heard. The first complete English translation, by John and Jeannette Varner, appeared in 1951 (reprinted by University of Texas Press, 1980). Miguel Albornoz has published a novelized biography, _Hernando de Soto, Knight of the Americas_, translated by Bruce Boeglin (New York, 1986).

Some secondary material, which uses anthropological, archeological, and geographic research to shed light on the early explorations, should be mentioned. One instance: _Final Report of the United States De Soto Commission_, John R. Swanton, chairman (Washington, D.C., 1939). The commission sought to retrace De Soto’s zigzagging route. Jeffery P. Brain’s new edition of the _Final Report_ for the Smithsonian Press (Washington, D.C., 1985) revises Swanton’s conclusions in many places. Another interesting formulation is “De Soto Trail: National Historic Trail Study, Draft Report” (NPS, 1990). In an appendix Charles Hudson offers a new reconstruction of De Soto’s route. The articles in _First Encounters: Spanish Explorations in the Caribbean and the United States, 1492-1570_, Jerald T. Milanich and Susan Milanich, eds., (Gainesville. 1989), fill out our understanding of New World societies during the first decades of exploration.

Still the best introduction to Coronado and his expedition is Herbert E. Bolton’s classic biography, _Coronado: Knight of Pueblos and Plains_ (1949). George P. Hammond and Agapito Rey have brought together in _Narratives of the Coronado Expedition_ (Albuquerque, 1940) all the primary documents, including testimony from Coronado’s trial, that anyone except specialists needs to know about the first Spanish _entrada_ into the American Southwest. The chief items are the _Relacións_ of Juan de Jaramillo and Pedro de Castañeda. Castañeda’s _Relación_ also appears in Hodges and Lewis.

A sampling of the historical dispute over Friar Marcos’s doings in the Southwest can be found in articles by Henry Wagner and Carl Sauer in the _New Mexico Historical Review_, April 1937, July 1937, and July 1941. See also Cleve Hallenbeck, _The Journey of Fray Marcos de Niza_ (Dallas 1949). The place of the religious in the Coronado expedition is examined by Fr. Angelico Chavez of New Mexico in _Coronado’s Friars_ (Academy of American Franciscan History, Washington, D.C., 1968). John L. Kessell’s _Kiva, Cross, and Crown_ (National Park Service, Washington, D.C., 1979) looks at the relationships between the Coronado expedition and the key pueblo of Pecos. Albert H. Schroeder has analyzed Coronado’s route across the Plains in _Plains Anthropologist_, February 1962. Carroll L. Riley, in the _New Mexico Historical Review_, October 1971, and _The Kiva_, winter 1975, shows that in Coronado’s time long trade routes and hence a rudimentary system of verbal communications, fortified by signs, linked Cíbola (Háwikuh) and the Indians of Mexico. Other trade trails carried goods and knowledge from the interior across the Colorado River to the Pacific and out onto the Plains. A new account of Coronado’s march is Stewart L. Udall, _To the Inland Empire_ (New York, 1987).

The principal sources on Cabrillo (Juan Paez’s “Summary Log” and court testimony about Cabrillo’s accomplishments) were published by the Cabrillo Historical Association in _The Cabrillo Era and His Voyage of Discovery_ (San Diego, 1982). The best biography, Harry Kelsey’s _Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo_ (The Huntington Library, 1986), is based on extensive new research in sources.

★GPO: 1992—312-246/40005

Footnotes

[1]Paul Horgan in _Great River_ identifies Rio de las Palmas with today’s Rio Grande. Other historians favor Soto la Marina, about 30 miles north of Tampico, formerly Pánuco.

[2]Such is the conclusion of the U.S. De Soto Commission headed by John R. Swanton (_Final Report_, Washington, D.C., 1939), which was appointed by President Roosevelt to study the explorer’s route to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the landing, an opinion affirmed by two other scholars, Charles Hudson and Jerald T. Milanich. For a contrary opinion that favors the Fort Myers area, see R.F. Schell, _De Soto Didn’t Land at Tampa_, Fort Myers Beach, 1966. Jeffery P. Brain in a new edition of the report for the Smithsonian Press (1985) concludes that the most we can now say is that De Soto landed somewhere along the central Florida gulf coast, “between the Caloosahatchie River to south and the vicinity of Tampa Bay to the north.” It is conceivable that future archeological studies will narrow down the landing site.

[3]Because Vásquez was the family name of the _conquistador_, the young man should properly be called Vásquez. This account, however, will follow established American custom and call him Coronado.