Today in History—February 23: The Expedition That Chased Cities of Gold

On this day in 1540, more than a thousand men marched north from Mexico in search of cities made of gold. Instead, they found Kansas.

It started, as these stories often do, with a shipwreck.

In 1536 Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, Estéban (an enslaved man from North Africa), and two other survivors stumbled into Mexico City, then part of New Spain. They were all that remained of 300 men and five ships that had sailed from Spain eight years earlier. Shipwrecked, enslaved, separated, and—improbably—reunited, they had crossed from the Gulf Coast to the Pacific on foot. Along the way, they heard stories of lands rich in gold.

There were already whispers in New Spain about wealthy cities to the north: the Seven Cities of Cíbola. Cabeza’s account turned rumor into possibility. The viceroy, Antonio de Mendoza, sent a reconnaissance mission led by Franciscan Fray Marcos de Niza, with Estéban traveling ahead as a guide. If Estéban found wealth, he would send back a messenger with a cross: The larger the cross, the richer the city.

Marcos returned in 1539 with news: Estéban had sent a cross “as tall as a man.” They had reached Cíbola. Estéban had been killed, but Marcos claimed he had glimpsed the golden city.

That was enough.

Mendoza chose Francisco Vázquez de Coronado, newly appointed governor, to lead a full expedition. Coronado had traveled to New Spain in 1535 with Mendoza, and he’d been building up his reputation ever since. On this day in 1540, he departed Compostela with more than a thousand people: Spaniards, Indigenous allies and enslaved men, Fray Marcos, and a handful of other priests.

After months of tough terrain and no gold, Coronado reached Háwikuh—a Zuni Pueblo village on the border of present-day Arizona and New Mexico—the place Marcos had described as Cíbola. Instead of gold, they found an adobe village. The Spaniards seized it and sent Fray Marcos home in disgrace.

The expedition pressed east. One scouting party returned with a captive Plains Native American who talked of a golden city called Quivira. In April 1541 they followed him there. Quivira turned out to be Kansas. The Wichita people lived there; they had no gold. Coronado and his men killed the guide and headed home.

Coronado returned to Mexico City two years after he’d left, with no gold but plenty of blame. Responsibility for the expedition’s treatment of Indigenous peoples—including the burning at the stake of some 30 warriors who had surrendered peacefully—fell on him. Though he sometimes tried to restrain his men, violence occurred under his command, and he faced charges but was acquitted.

The expedition laid the foundation for the missionary campaigns that would follow as European settlement spread.

Coronado’s failure cooled Spanish interest in the lands to the north…for a while, anyway.