Francisco Vázquez de Coronado Tells of How He Opened the Southwest of North America to Spain

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My name is Francisco Vázquez de Coronado, and I was born around 1510 in Salamanca, Spain. Like many young men of my time, I dreamed of fortune and glory in the New World, so I sailed to New Spain and rose to power through service and marriage into wealth. By 1540, I was chosen to lead a great expedition north in search of the fabled Seven Cities of Gold. With hundreds of men, priests, and allies, I set out across deserts, rivers, and mountains into lands no Spaniard had seen before. We reached the pueblos of the Zuni, but instead of golden kingdoms, we found villages of stone and clay. Still, I pressed onward, chasing rumors of riches all the way to the plains of Kansas. In the end, I found no treasure, only vast grasslands and farming villages. My men were weary, and we returned empty-handed. For this, I was disgraced, accused of failure, and my reputation never recovered. Yet history remembers my journey not for gold, but for opening Spain’s eyes to the immense lands of the American Southwest. My story is one of ambition humbled by reality, of maps made through hardship, and of how dreams of wealth shaped the course of exploration.

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