The Coronado Expedition, 1540-1542.: Excerpted from the Fourteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1892-1893, Part 1.Winship, George Parker
History
The Coronado Expedition, 1540-1542.: Excerpted from the Fourteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1892-1893, Part 1.
Winship, George Parker
Coronado, Francisco Vásquez de, 1510-1554; Southwest, New -- Description and travel
There were many others who would have liked to go, but
did not, in order not to appear faint-hearted. During this time the
general endeavored to pacify several villages in the neighborhood
which were not well disposed, and to make peace with the people at
Tiguex. He tried also to procure some of the cloth of the country,
because the soldiers were almost naked and poorly clothed, full of
lice, which they were unable to get rid of or avoid.
[Illustration: LXI. Zuñi Interior]
The general, Francisco Vazquez Coronado, had been beloved and obeyed
by his captains and soldiers as heartily as any of those who have
ever started out in the Indies. Necessity knows no law, and the
captains who collected the cloth divided it badly, taking the best
for themselves and their friends and soldiers, and leaving the rest
for the soldiers, and so there began to be some angry murmuring on
account of this. Others also complained because they noticed that
some favored ones were spared in the work and in the watches and
received better portions of what was divided, both of cloth and food.
On this account it is thought that they began to say that there was
nothing in the country of Quivira which was worth returning for,
which was no slight cause of what afterward happened, as will be seen.
_Chapter 2, of the general’s fall, and of how the return to New Spain
was ordered._
After the winter was over, the return to Quivira was announced, and
the men began to prepare the things needed. Since nothing in this
life is at the disposition of men, but all is under the ordination of
Almighty God, it was His will that we should not accomplish this, and
so it happened that one feast day the general went out on horseback
to amuse himself, as usual,[271] riding with the captain Don Rodrigo
Maldonado. He was on a powerful horse, and his servants had put on
a new girth, which must have been rotten at the time, for it broke
during the race and he fell over on the side where Don Rodrigo was,
and as his horse passed over him it hit his head with its hoof,
which laid him at the point of death, and his recovery was slow and
doubtful.[272]
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