Columbus and Other Heroes of American Discovery

by N. D'Anvers

As early as 1530, the conqueror of Mexico, anxious to retrieve his waning greatness by new discoveries to the northward, sent forth two brigantines, under Diego de Hurtado, to explore the coast above the 25th parallel of north latitude. These first vessels were wrecked, and their commander lost; but, nothing daunted, Cortes at once equipped two others to take their place, which put to sea in 1534, under two captains, named Grijalva and Mendoza. The former is supposed to have reached the northern portion of the Gulf of California, but the latter was murdered by his pilot, Ximenes, who afterward landed on the coast of California, where he and many of his men [♦]were killed by the natives. The survivors returned to Mexico with wonderful stories of their adventures and the wealth of the districts visited, which so inflamed the imagination of Cortes, that he soon afterward himself started for the North with three well-manned vessels.

[♦] ‘where’ replaced with ‘were’

FERDINAND CORTES.

A disastrous result ensued. Two of the ships were wrecked, and when about to prosecute his voyage in the third, Cortes was recalled to Mexico by a rebellion which had broken out in his absence. A little later, however, a certain Francisco de Ulloa, who had been throughout the companion of Cortes, spent a year in cruising about the Gulf of California, and discovered it to terminate in N. lat. 32°, in a bay resembling the Adriatic, to which he gave the name of the Sea of Cortes.

In 1537, a new impulse was given to the flagging interest of the Spanish in the unknown districts to the north by the arrival at the Mexican capital of our old acquaintance, Alvaro Nunez, fresh from his wonderful experiences in Florida. His stories of his adventures, and, still more, his repetition of the rumors of gold in plenty somewhere on the north of the Gulf of Mexico, led to the sending forth in the following year of a monk named Fra Marco da Nizza, with orders to find out “what there was in the extensive regions beyond Mexico.”

Starting from Culiacan, then the most northern Spanish settlement in Mexico, Da Nizza, accompanied by several Spaniards and a few Indian guides, made his painful way, first through plains already desolated by the incursions of his fellow-countrymen, and thence into the territory now called Arizona, on the borders of which he was met by some natives of California, who told him falsely, as it turned out, that their home was on an island, and that its shores were washed by waters abounding in pearls.

Encouraged by this intelligence, Da Nizza passed on till he came to the encampment of a tribe of Indians who had never seen a white man, but who received him courteously, informing him that forty days’ journey to the north, on the other side of lofty mountains, there existed a vast plain full of cities inhabited by a people whose wealth far exceeded their own. Passing on in search of this new El Dorado, the Father was presently met by some Indians from the plain in question, who confirmed all that he had already been told, and, pointing to some gold ornaments he carried with him, assured him that their land abounded in similar objects. Cevola, or Cibola, was the nearest and largest of their cities. It contained lofty stone houses, large places, etc.; in a word, it seemed likely to be a second Tenotchitlan; and, after a consultation with his companions, Da Nizza resolved to send one of them, Stefano Dorantes, on in advance, with an escort of three hundred Indians, to announce his own approach, hoping thus to enhance the eclat of his own entry with a view to obtaining a larger tribute for his employer.

The first part only of this programme was carried out. As Da Nizza was approaching the capital, a few days after his envoy had left him, he was met by an Indian, who told him that, on entering the city in all the pomp of ringing bells and waving plumes, Dorantes and his escort were seized by the people, stripped of all they possessed, and flung into prison. On their attempting to escape, they were shot down by arrows, and but few lived to tell the tale.

Resolved, in spite of the awful fate of Dorantes, not to return to Mexico without seeing Cibola, Da Nizza now disguised himself, and, accompanied by two attendants as brave as himself, he succeeded in approaching near enough to the scene of the massacre to be convinced that there had been no exaggeration in the reports of the wealth of the people of the plain. Secretly setting up a little cross as a witness of his visit, and a sign that the country henceforth belonged to Spain, Da Nizza now retraced his steps, narrowly escaping death at the hands of the Indians whose comrades had formed part of his unlucky escort, but finally arriving safely at Culiacan, there to arouse a perfect fever of enthusiasm by his account of all he had seen and heard.