The soldiers and adventurers gathering in Mexico, commanded by Francisco Vasquez de Coronado, were the first Europeans to organize an expedition to the American Southwest. Leaving from Culiacan in 1540, they went up the west coast of Mexico into modern Arizona, then east into New Mexico. The seven golden cities turned out to be the pueblos around Zuni, New Mexico, and not golden at all. The expedition, although discouraged, marched into the Rio Grande Valley and visited most of the pueblos there. Still they failed to find the treasure they sought. In a final desperate attempt, they explored onto the Great Plains, eventually reaching central Kansas. Broken in spirit and body, they struggled back to the Rio Grande Valley, and then retraced their route to Mexico. In all, the expedition covered a two-year span. A failure? Yes, in terms of wealth and treasure found. Yes, in terms of conquest, for nothing had been conquered. No, in terms of human resources, for the Indians Coronado met were to be the incentive that would bring the Spaniard back to New Mexico. While the Spaniard did seek gold and glory, he also burned with a missionary zeal and sought souls for his deep-running religion, Roman Catholicism. [Illustration: Mesa top pueblo] For fifty-five years after Coronado, interest in New Mexico and the Southwest was spotty. Other things occupied the Spanish—primarily silver discoveries in the central valleys of Mexico. But men did not forget New Mexico and saw there an opportunity for missionary activity and exploitation. Also, other nations of Europe were beginning to take an interest in the North American continent, and New Mexico began to look attractive to the Spanish as a frontier defensive outpost. The frontier line pushed ever northward from central Mexico. By 1595, the Spanish were ready to push a salient into New Mexico. From among the mining communities of northern Mexico, a force of two hundred colonists was assembled by Don Juan Oñate who had a contract to colonize New Mexico. After countless delays due to politics and supply shortages, the Oñate expedition left Chihuahua in 1598. The route went north across the desert to the Rio Grande near El Paso del Norte (modern Juarez), thence up the Rio Grande into New Mexico. On August 18, 1598, they arrived at San Juan, and there founded the first capital of New Mexico, San Juan de los Caballeros. These lands of the Southwest so long colored by the Indian now received a new imprint, one that would alter the direction and flow of culture and change it from the Indian to the Spanish Southwest.