TRANSLATION OF A LETTER FROM CORONADO TO THE 

 KING, OCTOBER 20, 1541 > 



Letter from Francisco Vazquez Ooronado to His Majesty, 

 in which he gives an account of the discovery of the 

 Province of Tiguex. 



Holy Catholic <\esarian Majesty: On April 20 of this year I 

 wrote to Your Majesty from this province of Tiguex, in reply to a let- 

 ter from Your Majesty dated in Madrid, June 11 a year ago. I gave 

 a detailed account of this expedition, which the viceroy of New Spain 

 ordered nie to undertake in Your Majesty's name to this country which 

 was discovered by Friar Marcos of Nice, the provincial of the order of 

 Holy Saint Francis. I described it all, and the sort of force I have, as 

 Your Majesty had ordered me to relate in my letters; and stated that 

 while I was engaged in the conquest and pacification of the natives 

 of this province, some Indians who were natives of other provinces 

 beyond these had told me that in their country there were much larger 

 villages and better houses than those of the natives of this country, 

 and that they had lords who ruled them, who were served with dishes 

 of gold, and other very magnificent things; and although, as I wrote 

 Your Majesty, I did not believe it before I had set eyes on it, because 

 it was the report of Indians and given for the most part by means of 

 signs, yet as the report appeared to me to be very fine and that it was 

 important that it should be investigated for Your Majesty's service, I 

 determined to go and see it with the men I have here. I started from 

 this province on the 23d of last April, for the place where the Indians 

 wanted to guide me. After nine days' march I reached some plains, so 

 vast that I did not find their limit anywhere that I went, although I 

 traveled over them for more than 300 leagues. And I found such a quan 

 tity of cows in these, of the kind that I wrote Your Majesty about, \ 

 which they have in this country, that it is impossible to number them, 

 for while I was journeying through these plains, until I returned to 

 where I first found them, there was not a. day that I lost sight of them. 

 And alter seventeen days' march I came to a settlement of Indians 

 who are called Querechos, who travel around with these cows, who do 

 not plant, and who eat the raw fiesh and drink the blood of the cows 

 they kill, and they tan the skins of the cows, with which all the people 



•The text of this letter is printed in Paoheco y Cardenas, Documeutos de Indias, vol. iii, p. 363, from 

 a copy made by Mufioz, and also in the same collection, vol. xiii, p. 261. from a copy in the Archives 

 of the Indies at Seville. There is a French translation in Ternaux, Cihola volume, p. 355. See the 

 footnote to tin- preceding document. 

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