Chapter 44

_Which sets forth some of the diversities and peculiarities of Florida; and the fruit, birds, and beasts of the country._

From the port of Espiritu Santo, where the Christians went on shore, to the province of Ocute, which may be a distance of four hundred leagues, a little more or less, the country is very level, having many ponds, dense thickets, and, in places, tall pine-trees: the soil is light, and there is not in it a mountain nor a hill.

The land of Ocute is more strong and fertile than the rest, the forest more open; and it has very good fields along the margins of the rivers. From there to Cutifachiqui are about one hundred and thirty leagues, of which eighty leagues are of desert and pine forests, through which run great rivers. From Cutifachiqui to Xuala there may be two hundred and fifty leagues, and all a country of mountains: the places themselves are on high level ground, and have good fields upon the streams.

Thence onward, through Chiaha, Coça, and Talise, the country of which is flat, dry, and strong, yielding abundance of maize, to Tascaluça, may be two hundred and fifty leagues; and thence to Rio Grande, a distance of about three hundred leagues, the land is low, abounding in lakes. The country afterward is higher, more open, and more populous than any other in Florida; and along the River Grande, from Aquixo to Pacaha and Coligoa, a distance of one hundred and fifty leagues, the land is level, the forest open, and in places the fields very fertile and inviting.

From Coligoa to Autiamque may be two hundred and fifty leagues of mountainous country; thence to Guacay may be two hundred and thirty leagues of level ground; and the region to Daycao, a distance of one hundred and twenty leagues, is continuously of mountainous lands.

From the port of Espiritu Santo to Apalache they marched west and northeast; from Cutifachiqui to Xuala, north; to Coça, westwardly; and thence to Tascaluça and the River Grande, as far as the provinces of Quizquiz and Aquixo, to the westward; from thence to Pacaha northwardly, to Tula westwardly, to Autiamque southwardly, as far as the province of Guachoya and Daycao.

The bread that is eaten all through Florida is made of maize, which is like coarse millet; and in all the islands and Indias belonging to Castile, beginning with the Antillas, grows this grain. There are in the country many walnuts likewise, and plums (persimmons), mulberries, and grapes. The maize is planted and picked in, each person having his own field; fruit is common for all, because it grows abundantly in the woods, without any necessity of setting out trees or pruning them. Where there are mountains the chestnut is found, the fruit of which is somewhat smaller than the one of Spain. Westward of the Rio Grande the walnut differs from that which is found before coming there, being of tenderer shell, and in form like an acorn; while that behind, from the river back to the port of Espiritu Santo, is generally rather hard, the tree and the nut being in their appearance like those of Spain. There is everywhere in the country a fruit, the produce of a plant like _ligoacam_, that is propagated by the Indians, having the appearance of the royal pear, with an agreeable smell and taste; and likewise another plant, to be seen in the fields, bearing a fruit like strawberry, near to the ground, and is very agreeable. The plums (persimmons) are of two sorts, vermilion and gray, of the form and size of walnuts, having three or four stones in them. They are better than any plums that are raised in Spain, and make much better prunes. The grapes appear only to need dressing; for, although large, they have great stones; the other fruits are all in great perfection, and are less unhealthy than those of Spain.

There are many lions and bears in Florida, wolves, deer, jackals, cats, and rabbits; numerous wild fowl, as large as pea-fowl; small partridges, like those of Africa, and cranes, ducks, pigeons, thrushes, and sparrows. There are blackbirds larger than sparrows and smaller than stares; hawks, goshawks, falcons, and all the birds of rapine to be found in Spain.

The Indians are well proportioned: those of the level country are taller and better shaped of form than those of the mountains; those of the interior enjoy a greater abundance of maize and clothing than those of the coast, where the land is poor and thin, and the people along it more warlike.

The direction from the port of Espiritu Santo to Apalache, and thence to Rio de las Palmas, is from east to west; from that river towards New Spain, it is southwardly; the sea-coast being gentle, having many shoals and high sand-hills.

DEO GRATIAS.

* * * * *

This Relation of the Discovery of Florida was printed in the house of Andree de Burgos, Printer and Cavalleiro of the house of the Senhor Cardinal Iffante.[331]

[331] Henry, cardinal archbishop of Evora, uncle of King John III., great uncle of King Sebastian, and himself King of Portugal from 1578 to 1580.

It was finished the tenth day of February, of the year one thousand five hundred and fifty-seven, in the noble and ever loyal city of Evora.

THE NARRATIVE OF THE EXPEDITION OF CORONADO, BY PEDRO DE CASTAÑEDA

INTRODUCTION

From the time of the appearance in Mexico, in 1536, of Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca of the ill-fated Narvaez expedition of nine years before, with definite news of the hitherto unknown north, there had been a strong desire to explore that region, but nothing of importance was accomplished until 1539. In that year Fray Marcos of Nice, the Father Provincial of the Franciscan order in New Spain, with Estévan, the negro companion of Cabeza de Vaca, as a guide, penetrated the country to the northwest as far as the Seven Cities of Cibola, the villages of the ancestors of the present Zuñi Indians in western New Mexico. Estévan, preceding Fray Marcos by a few days and accompanied by natives whom he gathered en route, reached Hawikuh, the southernmost of the seven towns, where he and all but three of his Indian followers were killed. The survivors of this massacre fled back to Fray Marcos, whose life was now threatened by those who had lost their kindred at the hands of the Zuñis; but the friar, fearful that the world would lose the knowledge of his discoveries, appeased the wrath of his Indians by dividing among them the goods he had brought and induced them to continue until he reached a mesa from which was gained a view of the village in which Estévan had met his fate. Here Fray Marcos erected a cross, took possession of the region in the name of Spain, and hastened back to Mexico "with more fear than victuals."

The glowing accounts which the friar gave of what he had seen, and particularly of what he believed the Indians intended to communicate to him, resulted in another expedition in the following year (1540). This was planned by the Viceroy Don Antonio de Mendoza, and the command was given to Francisco Vazquez de Coronado.

The elaborate expedition of Coronado is the subject of the narrative of a private soldier in his army, Pedro de Castañeda, a native of Nájera, in the province of Logroño, in the upper valley of the Ebro, in Old Castile. Of the narrator little is known beyond the fact that he was one of the colonists who settled at San Miguel Culiacan, founded by Nuño 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 Castañeda'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 _Coleccion de Documentos Inéditos del Archivo de Indias_ (XIV. 206), his wife, María de Acosta, with her four sons and four daughters, filed a claim against the treasury of New Spain for payment for the service the husband and father had rendered in behalf of the King.

As a rhetorician and geographer Castañeda was not a paragon, as he himself confesses; but although his narration leaves the impression that its author was somewhat at odds with the world, it bears every evidence of honesty and a sincere desire to tell all he knew of the most remarkable expedition that ever traversed American soil--even of exploits in which the writer did not directly participate. Castañeda's narration is by far the most important of the several documents bearing on the expedition, and in some respects is one of the most noteworthy contributions to early American history.

The accompanying translation, by Mr. George Parker Winship of the John Carter Brown Library, was first published, together with other documents pertaining to the expedition, in the _Fourteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology_ (Washington, 1896), now out of print. Barring a few corrections, most of which were communicated to the present writer by Mr. Winship in 1899, the translation is here printed as it first appeared.

Mr. Winship's translation of Castañeda, together with the letters and the other narratives pertaining to the expedition, was reprinted, with an introduction, under the title _The Journey of Coronado, 1540-1542, from the City of Mexico to the Grand Cañon of the Colorado and the Buffalo Plains of Texas, Kansas, and Nebraska_, as a volume of the "Trail Makers" series (New York, 1904).

The original manuscript of Castañeda is not known to exist, the Winship translation being that of a manuscript copy made at Seville in 1596. This copy, which is now in the Lenox branch of the New York Public Library, was first translated into French by Henri Ternaux-Compans, who found it in the Uguina collection in Paris and published it in Volume IX. of his _Voyages_ (Paris, 1838).

In addition to Castañeda's narration there are several letters and reports that shed important light on the route traversed by the expedition, the aborigines encountered, and other noteworthy details which the student should consult. These are as follows:

1. The Relation by Fray Marcos of his _entrada_ during the preceding year (1539), Coronado following the same route as far as the first of the Seven Cities of Cibola with Marcos as both guide and spiritual adviser. A brief bibliography of this narration is given in a note on p. 290.

2. A letter from the viceroy, Don Antonio de Mendoza, to the King, dated Jacona (Mexico), April 17, 1540, in which is set forth the progress of Coronado's expedition from Culiacan, and containing extracts from a report by Melchior Diaz, who had been sent forward in November, 1539, to explore the route from Culiacan to Chichilticalli, in the valley of the present Gila River, Arizona, for the purpose of verifying the reports of Fray Marcos. This letter appears in the _Documentos Inéditos de Indias_, II. 356, and in English in Winship's memoir in the _Fourteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology_, p. 547, as well as in his _Journey of Coronado_, p. 149.

3. An important and extended letter from Coronado to Mendoza, written at Granada (as Coronado called Hawikuh, the first of the Seven Cities of Cibola), August 3, 1540. This letter appears in Italian in Ramusio's _Terzo Volume delle Navigationi et Viaggi_ (ed. 1556), fol. 359, translated by Hakluyt, _Voyages_, IX. 145-169 (ed. 1904); reprinted in _Old South Leaflets,_ Gen. Ser., No. 20. A translation from Ramusio into English appears in both of Mr. Winship's works on the expedition. It should perhaps here be mentioned that the Hakluyt translations of the Coronado documents, at least, are so unreliable as to warrant careful use.

4. The _Traslado de las Nuevas_, an anonymous "Copy of the Reports and Descriptions that have been received regarding the Discovery of a City which is called Cibola, situated in the New Country." This important document was written evidently by a member of the expedition while the Spaniards were at Cibola. It appears in Spanish in the _Documentos Inéditos de Indias_, XIX. 529, from which it was translated into English by Mr. Winship and printed in each of his memoirs.

5. The important letter of Coronado to the King, dated Tiguex (the present Bernalillo, New Mexico), October 20, 1541, after the return of the expedition from Quivira. Printed in the _Documentos Inéditos de Indias_, III. 363; XIII. 261; in French in Ternaux-Compans' _Voyages_, IX. 355; translated into English by Mr. Winship and printed in each of his memoirs, as well as in _American History Leaflets_, No. 13.

6. The _Relación Postrera de Síbola, y de mas de Cuatrocientas Leguas Adelante_ (the "Latest Account of Cibola, and of more than Four Hundred Leagues Beyond"). This important anonymous account, written apparently in New Mexico in 1541 by one of the Franciscans who accompanied the expedition, was published, both in Spanish and in English, for the first time, in Mr. Winship's _Coronado Expedition_ (_Fourteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology_, pp. 566-571). In his _Journey of Coronado_ only the translation appears (pp. 190-196).

7. The anonymous _Relación del Suceso_, an "Account of what happened on the Journey which Francisco Vazquez made to discover Cibola." First printed, in Spanish, in Buckingham Smith's _Colección de Varios Documentos para la Historia de la Florida_ (1857), I. 147; it appears also, under the erroneous date 1531, in the _Documentos Inéditos de Indias_, XIV. 318, whereas the account was written apparently in 1541 or early in 1542. An English translation appears in each of Mr. Winship's works, and also in _American History Leaflets_, No. 13.

8. "Account given by Captain Juan Jaramillo of the Journey which he made to the New Country, on which Francisco Vazquez Coronado was the General." Next to Castañeda's narration this is the most important document pertaining to the expedition, inasmuch as it contains many references to directions, distances, streams, etc., that are not noted in the other accounts. The Jaramillo narration was written long after the events transpired, and is based on the keen memory of the writer. It is printed in Spanish in Buckingham Smith's _Coleccion_, I. 154, and in the _Documentos Inéditos_, XIV. 304. A French translation is given by Ternaux-Compans, IX. 364, and an English translation in both of Mr. Winship's works.

9. "Account of what Hernando de Alvarado and Friar Juan de Padilla discovered going in Search of the South Sea." A brief account of the journey of Alvarado from Hawikuh (Coronado's Granada) to the Rio Grande pueblos in 1540. Printed in Spanish in Buckingham Smith's _Coleccion_, I. 65, and in the _Documentos Inéditos_, III. 511. An English translation by Mr. Winship is included in each of his works on the expedition, and was printed also in the _Boston Transcript_, October 14, 1893. The title of this document is a misnomer, as Alvarado did not go in search of the Pacific.

10. "Testimony concerning those who went on the Expedition with Francisco Vazquez Coronado." This testimony is printed in the _Documentos Inéditos de Indias_, XIV. 373, and an abridgment, freely translated, is included in Mr. Winship's works.

11. Although the account of the voyage of the fleet under Hernando de Alarcon does not directly concern us, reference should perhaps be made to the sources of information regarding it. These are: Herrera's _Historia General_, dec. VI., lib. IX., cap. XIII. (1601-1615), and in various subsequent editions; Ramusio's _Navigationi et Viaggi_ (1556), III., fol. 363-370; Hakluyt's _Voyages_, IX. 279-318 (1904); Ternaux-Compans' Voyages, IX. 299-348; _Coleccion de Documentos Inéditos para la Historia de España_, IV. 218-219.

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 Cañon of the Colorado and the lower reaches of that stream, and the teeming herds of bison and the absolute dependence on them by the hunting Indians for every want. But alas for the Spaniards, the grand pageant resulted in disappointment for all, and its indefatigable leader ended his days practically forgotten by his country for which he had accomplished so much.

F. W. HODGE.

THE NARRATIVE OF THE EXPEDITION OF CORONADO BY CASTAÑEDA

_Account of the Expedition to Cibola which took place in the year 1540, in which all those settlements, their ceremonies and customs, are described. Written by Pedro de Castañeda, of Najera._[332]

[332] For information concerning the author of this narrative, see the Introduction.

PREFACE

To me it seems very certain, my very noble lord, that it is a worthy ambition for great men to desire to know and wish to preserve for posterity correct information concerning the things that have happened in distant parts, about which little is known. I do not blame those inquisitive persons who, perchance with good intentions, have many times troubled me not a little with their requests that I clear up for them some doubts which they have had about different things that have been commonly related concerning the events and occurrences that took place during the expedition to Cibola, or the New Land, which the good viceroy--may he be with God in His glory--Don Antonio de Mendoza,[333] ordered and arranged, and on which he sent Francisco Vazquez de Coronado as captain-general. In truth, they have reason for wishing to know the truth, because most people very often make things of which they have heard, and about which they have perchance no knowledge, appear either greater or less than they are. They make nothing of those things that amount to something, and those that do not they make so remarkable that they appear to be something impossible to believe. This may very well have been caused by the fact that, as that country was not permanently occupied, there has not been any one who was willing to spend his time in writing about its peculiarities, because all knowledge was lost of that which it was not the pleasure of God--He alone knows the reason--that they should enjoy. In truth, he who wishes to employ himself thus in writing out the things that happened on the expedition, and the things that were seen in those lands, and the ceremonies and customs of the natives, will have matter enough to test his judgment, and I believe that the result can not fail to be an account which, describing only the truth, will be so remarkable that it will seem incredible.

[333] Mendoza was first viceroy of New Spain (Mexico), serving from 1535 to 1550, when he was ordered to Peru as its second viceroy. He reached Lima in September, 1551, and died July 21 of the year following.

And besides, I think that the twenty years and more since that expedition took place[334] have been the cause of some stories which are related. For example, some make it an uninhabitable country, others have it bordering on Florida, and still others on Greater India, which does not appear to be a slight difference. They are unable to give any basis upon which to found their statements. There are those who tell about some very peculiar animals, who are contradicted by others who were on the expedition, declaring that there was nothing of the sort seen. Others differ as to the limits of the provinces and even in regard to the ceremonies and customs, attributing what pertains to one people to others. All this has had a large part, my very noble lord, in making me wish to give now, although somewhat late, a short general account for all those who pride themselves on this noble curiosity, and to save myself the time taken up by these solicitations. Things enough will certainly be found here which are hard to believe. All or the most of these were seen with my own eyes, and the rest is from reliable information obtained by inquiry of the natives themselves. Understanding as I do that this little work would be nothing in itself, lacking authority, unless it were favored and protected by a person whose authority would protect it from the boldness of those who, without reverence, give their murmuring tongues liberty, and knowing as I do how great are the obligations under which I have always been, and am, to your grace, I humbly beg to submit this little work to your protection. May it be received as from a faithful retainer and servant. It will be divided into three parts, that it may be better understood. The first will tell of the discovery and the armament or army that was made ready, and of the whole journey, with the captains who were there; the second, of the villages and provinces which were found, and their limits, and ceremonies and customs, the animals, fruits, and vegetation, and in what parts of the country these are; the third, of the return of the army and the reasons for abandoning the country, although these were insufficient, because this is the best place there is for discoveries--the marrow of the land in these western parts, as will be seen. And after this has been made plain, some remarkable things which were seen will be described at the end, and the way by which one might more easily return to discover that better land which we did not see, since it would be no small advantage to enter the country through the land which the Marquis of the Valley, Don Fernando Cortes, went in search of under the Western star, and which cost him no small sea armament. May it please our Lord to so favor me that with my slight knowledge and small abilities I may be able by relating the truth to make my little work pleasing to the learned and wise readers, when it has been accepted by your grace. For my intention is not to gain the fame of a good composer or rhetorician, but I desire to give a faithful account and to do this slight service to your grace, who will, I hope, receive it as from a faithful servant and soldier, who took part in it. Although not in a polished style, I write that which happened--that which I heard, experienced, saw, and did.

[334] Castañeda is supposed to have been writing at Culiacan, in western Mexico, about 1565.

I always notice, and it is a fact, that for the most part when we have something valuable in our hands, and deal with it without hindrance, we do not value or prize it so highly as if we understood how much we should miss it after we had lost it, and the longer we continue to have it the less we value it; but after we have lost it and miss the advantages of it, we have a great pain in the heart, and we are all the time imagining and trying to find ways and means by which to get it back again. It seems to me that this has happened to all or most of those who went on the expedition which, in the year of our Savior Jesus Christ 1540, Francisco Vazquez Coronado led in search of the Seven Cities.[335] Granted that they did not find the riches of which they had been told, they found a place in which to search for them and the beginning of a good country to settle in, so as to go on farther from there. Since they came back from the country which they conquered and abandoned, time has given them a chance to understand the direction and locality in which they were, and the borders of the good country they had in their hands, and their hearts weep for having lost so favorable an opportunity. Just as men see more at the bullfight when they are upon the seats than when they are around in the ring, now when they know and understand the direction and situation in which they were, and see, indeed, that they can not enjoy it nor recover it, now when it is too late they enjoy telling about what they saw, and even of what they realize that they lost, especially those who are now as poor as when they went there. They have never ceased their labors and have spent their time to no advantage. I say this because I have known several of those who came back from there who amuse themselves now by talking of how it would be to go back and proceed to recover that which is lost, while others enjoy trying to find the reason why it was discovered at all. And now I will proceed to relate all that happened from the beginning.

[335] The Seven Cities of Cibola. See p. 287, note 1; p. 300, note 1.

FIRST PART