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In February, Four Hundred Years Ago, Coronado and His Men Started Out to Find Gold, and Found Good Growing Land IN THESE strange days of conquest abroad. Ne braskans, in common with the southwest, are remembering that the discoverer of their state, although neither he nor his sol diers knew it then, or ever, was a@ conqueror. He came for Spain and he added half a continent to the empire. A century and a half before other white men arrived, he came across the plains with the Spanish emblem. He found a lush and beautiful land, but a disappointing land, for it was not the Arcadia of his dreams. He had accom plished a tremendous journey for his day and time, but the new country had yielded none of the reality of the tales that had been brought him. Four hundred years ago this February 23, Francisco Vasquez Coronado and his army left Culia can, south of the border 500 miles, for the Seven Cities of Cibola and what three centuries later would be Nebraska. The plains would be a rainbow of wild blossoms; the harvest moon would be gold; the snows would come and would go; and the prairie bright again before he and thirty discouraged men reached this region, but Coronado undoubtedly was the first white man to reach Nebraska. Some Dispute. The actual region visited here, of course, has been disputed long; each student has read a different terminal point in the leagues traveled. Because of the Coronado statement that the expedition reached the fortieth degree of latitude. Dr. A. E. Sheldon, secre tary of the historical society, is convinced the Spaniards were in Nebraska, in the Republican val ley. Curiosity as to what lay in the north, with the added enchant ment of beautiful tales brought back to the villages led to the at tempt of Don Francisco. A slave told of the days of his youth when he had gone with his father to seven cities, glittering in their gold and silver, each excursion adding new wonders. On another occasion, a Spaniard and three companions, spent from wander ing, recited love of fabulous cities, rich in jewels and gold, of a beau tiful land, of people who practiced the arts. It could not have been hard to believe in what they want ed to believe. Coronado, a Spaniard cavalier, or of the northern province of Mexico, was placed in charge of the romantic expedition. Mount ed, with plumes flying and capes blowing, with the panoply and pageantry of the centuries before conquistadors sank into the natural background with olive drab and white ski suits, 300 Spaniards, 800 natives, and several friars, gentle and plain in their quiet robes, set forth. No Wealth. In Arizona, they reached the Pueblo towns, but they found no wealth among the Zuni and Hopi Indians to excite their avarice. Cibola was no better, if as pros perous, as Mexico City. They trekked across Arizona and New Mexico, east to the valley of the Rio Grande, too proud to return home in failure, too fearful to re turn because of the cost of the expedition. They found Indians, poor, living from their small irri gated patches, no part of an over whelmingly wealthy culture. The Seven Cities of their vision still were a part of dreams. With the close of winter, Coro nado listened for the first time to a tale of Quivira, many leagues from the pleasant Rio Grande val ley. An Indian slave told of the land, and in a letter to Ferdinand, Coronado stated, according to pub lications by the Smithsonian in stitution: “. . had told me that in their country there were much larger villages and better houses than those of the natives of this coun try, and that they had lords who ol —ay were served witch es of gold, and other magnifi cent things.” After thirty-five days on the march, the corn the soldiers car ried was gone and the expedition knew it had been misled. All but thirty horsemen were sent back to Rio Grande, and the company reduced. At the end of 77 days, the men reached Quivira. Accord ing to the same letter, the houses were not many storied of stone, as anticipated, but of straw; the natives had neither cloaks nor cot ton for cloaks, but used the tanned skins of animals, “because they are settled among these on a very BOY SCOLT WEEK, FER. S104 CELEBRATING BUT BIRTH SCOUTING IN THE UNITED One GRADUAL LIKE NEBRASKA ODDITIES MISS ETHEL WHITAKER LETTERS WENT To we on WHITAKER Mees ETHEL WHITAKER, OF LOS ANGELES 'Gilbert Bola Heads Humbug Beef Club GILBERT Baz , WONME WiNE GO WE GRAD Chweni0d) AWARD FOR THE HEREFORD Evnisit AT “THE STATE FAR, 15 ae OF THE HUMBUG REEF NAMED FOR HUMBUG oyna = STANTON COUTY IN : A.t.6, GENTLEMAN froM ARILONA NO PLACE TO GO WE HAD “HIS DOUBSE TORE HERE lR ACO THE OMEIe DAY TE ”. VINCENT ROHAN OF AGNEW IS A TRAP IN THE CRICKEN COOP AGNEW, HE TOK WINDOW AND LET HIM HAVE IT. WAY SMOKE CLEARED HS TOUND THE DEMOLISHED “TRAP AND A PIECE OF THE SKUNKS TAIL UMMY BUTTS INN J.V. CORTELTOU NOTICED THIS SGN AT VESSAILLES, KY. large river.” The women resembled the Moorish women, Coronado wrote to his sovereign, their fea tures not being Indian. He sent the viceroy of New Spain a piece of copper given him by the chief, a sorry substitute for mines or for gold hanging on the houses or jewels strung on the roofs of the grass huts. Because the black soil yielded the fruits and vegetables of Spain, he wrote of it. “The country itself is the best I have ever seen for producing all the products of Spain, for besides the land itself being very fat and black and be ing very well watered . . . I found prunes like those of Spain (or I found everything they have in Spain) and nuts ,and very good sweet grapes and ‘mulberries.” Even then, it appears Nebraska was a one-industry center. Agri culture was the tale of Nebaaska four centuries ago. Its future was written even before Coronado ar rived, to be disillusioned. “And what I am sure of is that there is not any gold nor any other metal in all that country.” Juan Jaramillo, an officer in the Coronado expedition and one of the men to accompany him on the entire journey, has prepared one of the four original accounts. Of what some day would be Nebras ka, he wrote: Fine Appearance. “This country presents a very fine appearance, than which I have not seen a better in all our Spain nor Italy nor a part of France, nor, indeed, in the other countries where I have traveled in His Majesty’s service, for it is not a very rough country, but is made up of hillocks and plains, and very fine appearing rivers and streams, which certainly satisfied me and made me sure that it will be very fruitful in all sorts of products.” So prophesied the Spaniard. He saw profit in the cattle, be cause of their numbers. Some of the men found a variety of Cas tilian plum, some of them black and green, rather than red. Flax, “grapes of a fair flavor, not to be improved upon,” and other prod ucts. The houses, for which “the straw reached down to the ground like a wall,” were less symmetrical than those of Mexico, and “they have something like a chapel or sentry box outside and around these, with an entry, where the Indians appear seated or reclin ing.” Another who has told of the expedition, Gomara, said: “Qui vira is on the fortieth parallel of latitude. It is a temperate coun try, and hath very good waters and much grass, plums, mulberries, nuts, melons, and grapes which ripen very well. There is no cotton and they apparel themselves with bison hides and deer skins.” Of the buffalo, seen for the first time by white men, a description follows: Buffalo. “These oxen are of the bigness and color of our bulls, but their horns are not so great. They wave a great bunch upon their fore shoulders, and more hair on their fore part than on their hinder part, and it is like wool. They have, as it were, a horse mane upon their back bone, and much hair and very long from their knees downward. ..The horses fled from them, either because of their deformed shape or else be cause they had never before seen them. “Their masters have no other riches or substance,” he wrote, pointing out rather clearly the de pendence of the Indians upon the buffalo. The natives probably were seeing horses for the first time. “Of them they eat, they apparel, they shoe themselves, and of their hides they make many things, as houses, shoes, apparel, and ropes, of the bones they make bodkins, of their sinews and hair, thread. _..To be short, they make so many things of them as they have need of, or as many as suffice them in the use of this life.” In a paper before the historical society in 1880, Judge J. M. Savage commented on the easy compari son between a storm endured by (Continued On Page Two) LEW YOST 9 OF STOCKHAM WA HAS A DAUGHTER, co: who HAD AWATS LIVED IN Spar FLAT, LEVEL, COUNTRY AROUND THERE SHE they MEW WHAT = epee WAS UNTIL THEY WENT 7 COLORADO LéST MEI, SHE AND LEW GIVING A HILL WITHES ARMS FULL OF FIRE WOOD WHEN JONE eeTED 10 RON Runt stor AND DOLLED TO THE | WAL LED TO SXVECT “WELL WE'RE BRINGIN' IT 1 CONGRATULATIONS LINCOW COUPLE MORE SKUNK STORES: 70-35 FEB. 1 1, 640 REV. JOHN H. HALL OF AINSWORTH PREACHES “w6 SERMONS “TO TWO DIFFERENT METHODIST CONGREGATIONS AT THE SAME TIME. EACH OR SUNDAY THAT IS- - HE PREACHES AT THE 1 AM. SERVICE IN HIS CHURCH AT AINSWORTH, THEN HE CHAMBRES 2 OF COMMERCE MEMBERS JUST LET YOUR HORRY HORSE HAVE THE REINS AND HELL THE YOU TO THE ANNUAL HORRY StOw AT THE V.M.C.A. (T STARTED SATURDAY BUT CONTINUES TODAYT- 1 TO 5 P.M. ny eed on, LINCOLN'S VALENTINE ek ans T TUT TR WANTED IM SCOTLAND YARD KENNETH L. BOESIGER, NOW OF GLENDALE, CALIF, Saw THIS Twit BILL OW A THEATER, IW GLENDALE WHAT TRIBE. or INDIANS WESTERN NEBASKA? WNION PACIFIC BNK WISDqQ, ATTORNEY
Newspaper Details
Lincoln Sunday Journal and Star
Lincoln, Nebraska, US
Sun, Feb 11, 1940
Page 25
Full Page
Clipped by
Lillian F.
USA 02 Jun 2026
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