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
should go ahead and how the rest should return. Here the Indian
Isopete, as we had called the companion of the said Turk, was asked
to tell us the truth, and to lead us to that country which we had
come in search of. He said he would do it, and that it was not as the
Turk had said, because those were certainly fine things which he had
said and had given us to understand at Tihuex, about gold and how it
was obtained, and the buildings, and the style of them, and their
trade, and many other things told for the sake of prolixity, which
had led us to go in search of them, with the advice of all who gave
it and of the priests. He asked us to leave him afterward in that
country, because it was his native country, as a reward for guiding
us, and also, that the Turk might not go along with him, because he
would quarrel and try to restrain him in everything that he wanted
to do for our advantage; and the general promised him this, and said
he would be with one of the thirty, and he went in this way. And
when everything was ready for us to set out and for the others to
remain, we pursued our way, the direction all the time after this
being toward the north, for more than thirty days’ march, although
not long marches, not having to go without water on any one of them,
and among cows all the time, some days in larger numbers than others,
according to the water which we came across, so that on Saint Peter
and Paul’s day we reached a river which we found to be there below
Quibira. When we reached the said river, the Indian recognized it and
said that was it, and that it was below the settlements. We crossed
it there and went up the other side on the north, the direction
turning toward the northeast, and after marching three days we found
some Indians who were going hunting, killing the cows to take the
meat to their village, which was about three or four days still
farther away from us. Here where we found the Indians and they saw
us, they began to utter yells and appeared to fly, and some even
had their wives there with them. The Indian Isopete began to call
them in his language, and so they came to us without any signs of
fear. When we and these Indians had halted here, the general made an
example of the Indian Turk, whom we had brought along, keeping him
all the time out of sight among the rear guard, and [p590] having
arrived where the place was prepared, it was done in such a way that
the other Indian, who was called Isopete, should not see it, so as
to give him the satisfaction he had asked. Some satisfaction was
experienced here on seeing the good appearance of the earth, and it
is certainly such among the cows, and from there on. The general
wrote a letter here to the governor of Harahey and Quibira, having
understood that he was a Christian from the lost army of Florida,
because what the Indian had said of their manner of government and
their general character had made us believe this. So the Indians went
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