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We are now in late May 1539, almost exactly 482 years ago as I write this. Friar Marcos is alone with a bunch of Indios Amigos – literally, friendly Indians who had not been enslaved — somewhere in Arizona, possibly in the Salt River Valley east of modern Phoenix. He has just learned that his guide and advance man Esteban, has died rather gruesomely along with a bunch of his Indian escorts at the hands of the angry chief of Cibola, the “city” purported to be the gateway to the Seven Cities of Gold. By his own somewhat suspect account, Fray Marcos has a decision to make – does he soldier on to lay eyes on Cibola himself, knowing that if he dies his mission will have been a complete failure, insofar as there will be no European to report on the territory? Or does he head back to Culiacan, on the west coast of Mexico, where Coronado is waiting for him, and base his report on the tales told by Indians, either at Esteban’s direction or otherwise?
Selected references for this episode
Robert Goodwin, Crossing the Continent 1527-1540: The Story of the First African-American Explorer of the American South
George Parker Winship, The Journey of Coronado, 1540-1542
F. S. Dellenbaugh, “The True Route of Coronado’s March”
George J. Undreiner, “Fray Marcos de Niza and His Journey to Cibola”
