HAZ Forum. Google [Bot]. He is credited with being the first European in what is now the State of Arizona in the United States. In he arrived in Mexico City at the request of the viceroy Antonio de Mendoza. Fray Marcos was made provincial superior of his order for Mexico before the second trip to Zuni, and returned in to the capital, in shame, where for a time was able to exercise the highest office of the Franciscans, in the province. Source Wikipedia.
Information on this page has been gathered from member submissions. Effort has been made to avoid any infringement of copyright. Additionally, any use is anticipated to be within the "fair use" doctrine.
If any copyright has been infringed, please notify the webmaster. The disputed information will be removed and your issue will be resolved. They reached Hawikuh on July 7 and captured it. But the soldiers were enraged on finding nothing but a poor Indian village.
They cursed the friar so vehemently that Coronado, not wishing to have the blood of a churchman on his hands, sent him back to Mexico City. The accompanying message stated, "Friar Marcos has not told the truth in a single thing that he said.
The rest of the friar's career proved uneventful. He apparently became stricken with paralysis and lived first at Jalapa and then in a monastery at Xochimilco. Nothing more is known other than that the friar died on March 25, This proves Marcos was on a well-known route with natives carrying most of his supplies - not bushwhacking through unknown wilderness.
So enthused were the natives of this last valley, that they organized a second party of "chiefs" from various villages to accompany Marcos to Cibola. On May 9, they entered the final day despoblado , expecting to be reunited with Estevan around May 24 in the wondrous city of Cibola. In a dramatic turn of events, Marcos' party met a handful of bloodied refugees a few days south of Cibola.
Impetuous Estevan, they reported, had ignored orders from the governor of Cibola not to approach or enter the city. Apparently the governor was apprehensive about Estevan, who appeared as a strange, dark-skinned shaman, traveling with two Castillian greyhounds.
Estevan, full of confidence from his experiences five years earlier, had laughed off the governor's orders and approached anyway where he was held for at least one night in a building outside the city.
A skirmish ensued. Some of the southern Arizona natives in the entourage were killed or injured, and Estevan, too, was reported killed. The death of Estevan in this way was confirmed a year later by Coronado's army.
Marcos' entourage from southern Arizona almost turned on him, but after prayer and a distribution of gifts, Marcos talked his way out of the situation.
At this point, Marcos retreated as fast as possible, "more full of fear than food," as he said ironically. In the last populated valleys, of southern Arizona, he found the people now hostile, because of the debacle - a fact that was to cause Coronado a less than joyous reception a year later. Marcos gives few details of his return trip. Apparently he turned up in Mexico City in mid to late August. On August 23, Bishop Zumarraga, in Mexico City, wrote a letter with some details of Marcos' discoveries, possibly after chatting with him.
On September 2, it was delivered in person to the Viceroy at a court function where Marcos answered questions in front of various witnesses. The return of Marcos initiated a period of intense rumor-mongering in Mexico City, as attested by various historians.
Many writers say that Marcos claimed that Cibola had gold and fabulous wealth, and that this was the cause of the Coronado expedition. It is clear that Coronado's expedition expected to find gold, and people invested heavily in it for that reason, but it is difficult to prove that Marcos himself promised gold.
The fact that Cibola turned out not to have gold caused the soldiers of Coronado to call him a liar. This charge was magnified in later centuries especially when Sauer, Wagner, and Hallenbeck in the s and 40s concluded that Marcos simply did not have time to get to Cibola and back to Mexico City in the available weeks.
Upon examination, this charge turns out to be based on conclusion by Sauer and Wagner , p. Sauer and Wagner assumed that Marcos himself had arrived by that time.
However, Bloom , , Hartmann , and Nallino and Hartmann in press developed seemingly conclusive proof that Marcos, following Mendoza's orders, sent back messengers with news of his discoveries.
Thus, it was the good news gathered by Marcos on his way north, not Marcos himself with his more sobering final outcome, that arrived in Mexico City by messenger in July.
This is supported by letters of Coronado which remark on the arrival of a message from Marcos, and in one crucial letter written in Compostela July 15 even refer to the good treatment given Estevan. At the time of this letter, Estevan was dead, which Coronado would have known if Marcos had arrived, but would not have known if the news was in a message sent back by Marcos on the way north.
The conclusion that Marcos did not arrive in Mexico until mid to late August essentially removes the time constraint and negates any claim that he had inadequate time. Furthermore, if as part of a conspiracy with Mendoza Marcos never traveled beyond the region of the modern border, as claimed by Sauer, it seems beyond belief that he would turn around and volunteer to lead the Coronado army all the way to Cibola - and expect to get away with the fraud.
In any case, Marcos remains an intriguing and enigmatic character: priest, accused charlatan, courageous traveler, and first methodical purposeful explorer of the American southwest. Perhaps one day, some lucky scholar studying the archives in Seville, Spain, or the archives in Mexico City, or some musty documents in a small village church somewhere in Mexico, will turn up more documents that finally reveal the truth about this first explorer to document the unknown lands of the U.
All Rights Reserved. Skip to main content. Login Register. You are here Home. The Controversy Rages On Marco died in in disgrace, everyone having blamed him for leading Coronado's army on a fruitless quest under false pretenses.
Purposes of Marcos' Journey Viceroy Mendoza gave Marcos a specific list of instructions which we still have. The Mysterious Journey of Marcos de Niza The route of Marcos in is known in very rough outline, but scholars have grand arguments over the details. Hypothetical reconstruction of Marcos de Niza's route to the north. The journey started from the old location of Culiocon and worked north along the coast, turning inland to the village of Vacapa.
Details of the route are sketchy and controversial. The extent of his reported foray west, to explore the head of the Gulf, is uncertain. Origin of the Name "Cibola" Marcos de Niza was the first person to record the name Cibola, reported to him by Estevan the Moor, who learned it from native informants. Marcos de Niza collected what he called "cow hides" from the Indians in Sonora, Mexico, who first told him about Cibola.
I remarked that houses of the style they described, several stories high, seemed impossible. To make me understand, they took soil and ashes and mixed them with water, and showed me how they placed the stones, and how the edifice was built up, placing stones and mortar until it reached the required height. I asked them if the men of that country had wings to reach the upper stories; they laughed and explained the concept of ladders to me as well as I could explain it.
They took a stick and placed it over their heads, saying this was the height, from one story to the next This photo from the late s shows the appearance of the one surviving example of the Seven Cities of Cibola, much as it appeared in the time of Marcos. It shows how the pueblo structure gives the impression of three to five stories' height.
This was the style of construction in which was accurately described to Marcos by natives as far south as central Sonora. The river valleys described by Marcos de Niza were well-watered and dotted with native villages about a mile apart. Today, many of these villages have only dry riverbeds because urban growth and farming have pumped underground water and lowered the water table. This view shows the beautiful Santa Cruz headwaters in Sonora, Mexico.
The river flowed through Tucson until around , but today is dry. Perhaps it was a half-hearted diversion, because he gives it only a few vague lines: Here, I learned that the coast turns abruptly to the west, though it had been running to the north.
As a change in the direction of the coast was a matter of importance I wished to learn about it, and so I went to view it, and saw clearly that, in latitude 35 degrees, it turns to the west. A little-known monument near the small town of Lochiel, Arizona, commemorates the place where Marcos de Niza crossed from Mexico into the present United States in The exact location of this crossing is unknown, but the monument may be within a few tens of miles of the spot.
0コメント