10 
Introduction 
peninsula and on the site of present La Paz founded the short-lived settle¬ 
ment of Santa Cruz. This was the first of a long series of attempts to 
settle Lower California, of which Cortés is to be ranked as the first 
governor. 
Meanwhile political readjustments were being made further to the 
south which materially affected the later development of New Spain. The 
creation of Honduras as an independent jurisdiction in 1526 was followed 
almost immediately by the creation of the independent jurisdiction of 
Nicaragua, and still later by that of Veragua. Thus by 1530 the entire 
region now known as Central America had been settled and the indepen¬ 
dent jurisdictions of Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Castilla del 
Oro (modern Panamá and Costa Rica) had been created; in that region 
the northern and southern streams of conquest from Panamá and Mexico, 
respectively, had met, with the results outlined above. Henceforth for 
the Spaniard in New Spain the only region which offered possibilities for 
exploration and conquest lay to the north. Furthermore, overshadowing 
and outstripping all other jurisdictions on the mainland was that of New 
Spain, which in 1535 formally became the first viceroyalty in the Ameri¬ 
cas. Great as New Spain was at that time, by being forced to direct and 
confine its attention to the north the foundation of its future greatness 
was in reality laid. 
Spanish Exploring Activities, i535—1543. 3 
The period immediately following the establishment of the viceroyalty 
of New Spain is a noteworthy one; in no period of equal length in the 
history of Spanish North America was there greater activity in explora¬ 
tion than in the eight years from 1535 until 1543. This movement was 
in part due to and actually may be said to have begun with the arrival of 
Cabeza de Vaca and his three associates at Culiacán in 1536. Reports 
which they brought of permanent settlements and of a high indigenous 
civilization to the north of their route of travel excited all alike, and soon 
rumor connected the northern country with the legendary Seven Cities 
that were supposed to have been founded somewhere in the west by seven 
3 This section of the Introduction is based chiefly upon H. H. Bancroft, History of 
the North Mexican States and Texas, I. (San Francisco, 1884) 79-81; Ad. F. Bandelier, 
“ Cibola ”, in The Gilded Man and Other Pictures of the Spanish Occupancy of America 
(New York, 1893), pp. m-257; H. E. Bolton, “The Cabrillo-Ferrelo Expedition”, in 
Spanish Exploration in the Southwest, 1542-1706 (New York, 1916), pp. 3-39; H. E. 
Bolton and T. M. Marshall, The Colonisation of North America, 1492-1783 (New 
York, 1920), pp. 41-47; E. G. Bourne, Spain in America, 1450-1580 (New York, 1904), 
pp. 158-174; T. H. Lewis, “The Narrative of the Expedition of Hernando de Soto by 
the Gentleman of Elvas ”, in F. E. Hodge and T. H. Lewis (editors), Spanish Explorers 
in the Southern United States, 1528-1543 (New York, 1907), pp. 127-270; W. Lowery, 
The Spanish Settlements within the Present Limits of the United States, 1513-1561 
(New York and London, 1901), pp. 172-377; “The Relation of Fray Marcos de Niza”, 
in Ad. F. Bandelier, The Journey of Alvar Nuñes Cabesa de Vaca (New York, 1905), 
pp. 203-231; Buckingham Smith, Colección de Varios Documentos para la Historia de 
la Florida y Tierras Adjacentes (London, 1857) ; George P. Winship, The Coronado 
Expedition, J 54 °~ i 54 2 > i n the Fourteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American 
Ethnology, part I. (Washington, 1896), pp. 329-613. 
