wimship] THE END OF CORONADO 403 



ernor of New Galicia, but we need not suppose that he was compelled 

 to resign. There was every reason why he should have desired to 

 escape from a position which demanded much skill and unceasing active 

 administration, but which carried with it no hope of reward or of honor. 

 It is pleasant to believe that Goronado withdrew to his estates and 

 lived happily ever after with his wife and children, spending his leisure 

 in supervising the operations on his farm and ranch, and leading the 

 uneventful life of a country gentleman. The only break in the monot- 

 ony of which we happen to know — and this is the only part of this belief 

 for which there is the slightest evidence that it is correct — came when 

 he was accused, in 1544 and again in 1547, of holding more Indians to 

 labor on his estates than were allowed by the royal regulations. We 

 do not even know the outcome of this accusation. Vazquez Coronado 

 sinks into oblivion after lie made his report to the viceroy in the autumn 

 of 1542. 



Some Results of the Expedition — 1540-1547 



the discovery of colorado river 



the voyage of alarcon 



Goronado found no gold in the land of the Seven Gities or in Quivira, 

 but his search added very much to the geographical knowledge of the 

 Spaniards. 1 In addition to the exploration of the Pueblo country of 

 New Mexico and Arizona, and of the great plains as far north as 

 Kansas or Nebraska, the most important subsidiary result of the expe- 

 dition of 1540-1542 was the discovery of Colorado river. Hernando de 

 Alarcon, who sailed from Acapulco May 9, 1540, continued his voyage 

 northward along the coast, after stopping at the port of Culiacan to 

 add the San Gabriel to his fleet, until he reached the shoals and sand- 

 bars at the head of the Gulf of California. The fleet which Cortes 



1 The maps of the New World drawn and published between 1542 and 1*500, reproductions of several 

 of which accompany this memoir, give a better idea of the real value of the geographical discoveries 

 made by Coronado than any bare statement could give. In 1540, European cartographers knew nothing 

 about the country north of New Spain. Cortes had given them the name — Nueva Espafia or Hispania 

 Nova— and this, with the name of the continent, served to designate the inland region stretching 

 toward the north and west. Such was the device which Mercator adopted when he drew his double 

 oordiform map in 1538 (plates xlv, xlvi). Six years later, 1544, Sebastian Cabot published his elabo- 

 rate map of the New World (see plate XL). He had heard of the explorations made by and for Cortes 

 toward the head of the Gulf of California, very likely from the lips of the conqueror himself. He 

 confined New Spain to its proper limits, and in the interior he pictured Indians and wild beasts. In 1548 

 the maps of America in Ptolemy's Geography for the first time show the results of Coronado's discov- 

 eries (see plate xli). During the remainder of the century Granada, Cibola, Quivira, and the other 

 places whose names occur in the various reports of the expedition, appear on the maps. Their loca- 

 tion, relative to each other and to the different parts of the country, constantly changes. Quivira 

 moves along the fortieth parallel from Espiritu Santo river to the Pacific coast. Tiguex and Totonteac 

 are on any one of half a dozen rivers flowing into the Gulf of Mexico, the Espiritu Santo, or the South 

 sea. Acuco and Cicuye are sometimes placed west of Cibola, and so a contemporary map maker may 

 be the cause of the mistaken title to the report of Alvarado's expedition to the Rio Grande. But 

 many as were the mistakes, they are insignificant in comparison with the great fact that the people of 

 Europe had learned that there was an inhabited country north of Mexico, and that the world was, by 

 so much, larger than before. 



