A School History of the United States | Page 6

inland. On returning to the shore, he missed his
ships, and after traveling westward on foot for a month, built five rude
vessels, and once more put to sea. For six weeks the little fleet hugged
the shore, till it came to the mouth of the Mississippi, where two of the

boats were upset and Narvaez was drowned. The rest reached the coast
of Texas in safety. But famine and the tomahawk soon reduced the
number of the survivors to four. These were captured by bands of
wandering Indians, were carried over eastern Texas and western
Louisiana, till, after many strange adventures and vicissitudes, they met
beyond the Sabine River.[1] Protected by the fame they had won for
sorcery, and led by one Cabeza de Vaca, they now wandered westward
to the Rio Grande[2] (ree'-o grahn'-da) and on by Chihuahua
(chee-wah'-wah) and Sonora to the Gulf of California, and by this to
Culiacan, a town near the west coast of Mexico, which they reached in
1536. They had crossed the continent.
[Footnote 1: Now the western boundary of Louisiana.]
[Footnote 2: Rio Grande del Norte---Great River of the North.]
%12. "The Seven Cities of Cibola."%--The story these men told of the
strange country through which they had passed, aroused a strong desire
in the Spaniards to explore it, for somewhere in that direction they
believed were the Seven Cities. According to an ancient legend, when
the Arabs invaded the Spanish peninsula, a bishop of Lisbon with many
followers fled to a group of islands in the Sea of Darkness, and on them
founded seven cities. As one of the Indian tribes had preserved a story
of Seven Caves in which their ancestors had once lived, the credulous
and romantic Spaniards easily confounded the two legends. Firmly
believing that the seven cities must exist in the north country traversed
by Vaca, Mendoza, the Spanish governor of Mexico, selected Fray
Marcos, a monk of great ability, and sent him forth with a few
followers to search for them. Directed by the Indians through whose
villages he passed, he came at last in sight of the seven Zuñi (zoo'-nyee)
pueblos (pweb'-loz) of New Mexico, all of which were inhabited in his
time. But he came no nearer than just within sight of them. For one of
the party, who went on in advance, having been killed by the Zuñi,
Fray Marcos hurried back to Culiacan. Understanding the name of the
city he had seen to be Cibola (see'-bo-la), he called the pueblos the
"Seven Cities of Cibola," and against them the next year (1540)
Coronado marched with 1100 men. Finding the pueblos were not the

rich cities for which he sought, Coronado pushed on eastward, and for
two years wandered to and fro over the plains and mountains of the
West, crossing the state of Kansas twice.[1]
[Footnote 1: Do not fail to read a delightful little book called _The
Spanish Pioneers_, by Charles F. Lummis. In it the story of these great
journeys is told on pp. 77-88, 101-143.]
[Illustration: The kind of cities found by Marcos and Coronado in the
Rio Grande valley.]
[Illustration: CORONADO'S EXPEDITION 1540]
%13. The Spaniards on the Mississippi.%--In 1537 De Soto was
appointed governor of Cuba, with instructions to conquer and hold all
the country discovered by Narvaez. On this mission he set out in May,
1539, and landed at Tampa Bay, on the west coast of our state of
Florida. He wandered over the swamps and marshes, the moss-grown
jungles, and the forests of the Gulf states, and spent the winter of 1541
near the Yazoo River. Crossing the Mississippi in the spring of 1542 at
the Chickasaw Bluffs, he wandered about eastern Arkansas, till he died
of fever, and was buried in the Mississippi. His followers then built
rude boats, floated down the river to the Gulf, steered along the coast of
Texas, and in September, 1543, reached Tampico, in Mexico.
More than half a century had now gone by since the first voyage of
Columbus. Yet not a settlement, great or small, had been established by
Spain within our boundary. Between 1546 and 1561 missionaries twice
attempted to found missions and convert the Indians in Florida, and
twice were driven away. In 1582 others entered the valleys of the Gila
and the Rio Grande, took possession of the pueblos, established
missions, preached the Gospel to the Indians, and brought them under
the dominion of Spain. But when Santa Fé (sahn'-tah fa') was founded,
in 1582, the only colony of Spain in the United States, besides the
missions in Arizona and New Mexico, was St. Augustine in Florida.
[Illustration: A Spanish mission]

%14. St. Augustine.%--St. Augustine was founded by the Spaniards in
order to keep out the French, who made two attempts to occupy the
south Atlantic