Epilogue
Judged on the basis of what they set out to do, De Soto, Coronado, and Cabrillo failed. Yet great consequences flowed from their efforts. Without intending it, they found truth. They exploded myths and gave a solid anchor to the Spanish imagination. Undistracted, the people of New Spain could settle down to developing the resources—the mines, plantations, and ranches—that lay close at hand. It was the perceived need to protect this new wealth from potential enemies in the north—France, England, and Russia—and not the frenetic hope of riches that eventually brought about the extension of the Spanish empire into what became the southern United States, from St. Augustine, Florida, to the Franciscan missions of California.
Another discovery was the tremendous size and geographical diversity of America north of Mexico. After the truth had trickled out about the forests and savannahs of the semi-tropical southeast, the vast deserts and striking headlands of the southwest, the spreading central plains with their immeasurable herds of buffalo, and the coastal mountains and misty valleys of California, no one would ever again think of the upper part of the continent as a mere bulb perched on the thin stem of Central America and Mexico. These vast stretches, moreover, were peopled by a race never before known. By bringing back the first sound anthropological descriptions of these people, the Spanish explorers—and the French and English after them—gave the philosophers of Europe new food for speculation concerning the human condition.
Most important, they, along with the explorers of other nations, brought a sense of release and fresh possibilities to the Old World. Their reports arrived at a time when custom-bound Europe was struggling to shake off the constraints of ancient traditions, outworn feudal institutions, and an almost total lack of specie for implementing the quickening trade of the Renaissance—an average of less than $2 in currency for each of the continent’s 100 million people. In the Americas there were no mossy customs, but there were precious minerals and raw materials beyond imagination awaiting development. Development by anyone with daring and ingenuity. The great conquistadores had all arrived poor and unknown and then had discovered within themselves explosive energies for meeting unprecedented physical challenges. Such strengths, once they were turned from brigandage into constructive endeavors, became the hallmark of the new continent. Pointing the way were Cabeza de Vaca, De Soto, Coronado, and Cabrillo, all doing their great work within a decade. It is indeed an era to remember.