A Most Splendid Company: The Coronado Expedition in Global Perspective

Abstract

This remarkable volume marks the culmination of more than three decades of research tracing Francisco Vázquez de Coronado’s expedition to Tierra Nueva. Richard Flint and Shirley Cushing Flint demonstrate in painstaking detail precisely how a massive land-based enterprise with hundreds of Spaniards and thousands of Native allies made a round trip journey of nearly four thousand miles between 1539 and 1542. The Flints reveal that the main objective of the expedition was to reach Asia to obtain luxury goods. Indeed, the wealthiest European participants brought their finest attire to display their “personal status and group membership with pomp and pride” (155). Native warriors adorned themselves with elaborate headdresses and “eagle and jaguar body suits” for similar reasons (170). Yet Asia remained out of reach for most of those who participated in the expedition. After word spread that Tierra Nueva was “far, far away from China,” Spanish conquistadores neglected to return to New Mexico for nearly another forty years (305).In contrast, Native allies such as the Nahua elected to live among the Ashiwi (252) and the other “pueblos of Cíbola” (208). Native leaders pursued their own agendas in a parallel rather than subordinate hierarchy to Coronado and his officers. Similarly, allegiance among lower-ranking Natives “was first and foremost to their own leaders and communities” and only indirectly “to the hierarchy of Spanish governance, culminating in the viceroy, don Antonio de Mendoza” (138). A close reading enables the Flints to suggest that Native auxiliaries may have viewed the expedition as a way to engage in battle and secure social advancement (130).In the main, the expedition relied on Native arms, Native translators, and Native guides. Having located a muster roll prepared at Compostela in February 1540, the Flints reveal that “of the 286 men listed, 260 (or 90 percent)” declared that they had Native arms and armor either solely or in addition to European equipment (168). The overwhelming reliance on Indigenous arms and knowledge induced much anxiety among Spaniards, who “alternated between uncritical acceptance of information and direction provided by local Natives and apprehensive distrust of proffered guidance”; this eventually led to the notorious execution of the Indian guide known as El Turco (211).Because of the biases inherent in colonial primary sources, the Flints can make only brief references to the subalterns who made up a significant part of the expedition. The ethnocentrism of Spanish conquistadores meant that women and slaves typically were disregarded unless they performed some remarkable feat. Nonetheless, the Flints astutely infer that the tortilleras, meaning Native women who made tortillas by the thousands each day, literally “made the expedition possible” (201). Moreover, the Flints note that a large portion of the expedition included enslaved “Moors/Muslims from North Africa” (201).Another key point is that Antonio de Mendoza, rather than Coronado, was the mastermind of the expedition. Initially, Mendoza had been captivated by fray Marcos de Niza’s reports of Cíbola, which allegedly comprised “seven very great ciudades” (84). However, Mendoza had learned a valuable lesson from the infighting that splintered the Pizarros’ ventures in Peru. Consequently, Mendoza enlisted an inner circle of some three hundred men who had close personal ties to him or to one of his loyal associates (135). Mendoza’s strategy explains in large part why so much documentation exists for an expedition that failed to achieve its main objective.In addition to this superb monograph, the Flints have also provided an excellent companion database at coronado.unm.edu. Undoubtedly, scholars and students of colonial Mexico and the Southwest will continue to reap the benefits of the Flints’ solid research for decades to come.