Why is coronado important

What was important about Coronado? Who was Coronado and what did he do? Which physical feature of Texas did Coronado Cross? Which city in Texas is called the Rose Capital of the World? Which region of Texas has the most rivers?

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Hernando de Soto was a Spanish explorer and conquistador who participated in the conquests of Central America and Peru and discovered the Mississippi River. Sometimes called the father of modern art, Spanish artist Francisco de Goya painted royal portraits as well as more subversive works in late s and early s. Francisco Madero was a reformist politician who successfully removed dictator Porfirio Diaz from office in Mexico.

He became president in , but was assassinated two years later. Francisco Franco led a successful military rebellion to overthrow Spain's democratic republic in the Spanish Civil War, subsequently establishing an often brutal dictatorship that defined the country for decades. Samuel de Champlain was a French explorer and cartographer best known for establishing and governing the settlements of New France and the city of Quebec. On the way, the encountered the party of Melchior Diaz, who had been sent north to check the findings of the priest-explorer Marcos de Niza.

Diaz reported that winter snows had prevented him from traveling further north than the present-day southern Arizona. He had more or less confirmed Marcos's discovery of Cibola, but, like Marcos, he was unable to confirm or report that gold was present in Cibola.

From Marcos' report — or rather from rumors about it — the soldiers had conceived that Cibola was full of gold. Reconstruction of Coronado's march north to Cibola and theRio Grande pueblos, based on later descriptions by chroniclers whotraveled with the army. Details are sketchy, but the positions of Old Culiocon, Cibola, Corozones, and Chichilticalli are believed to be known at least approximately. Because of the report of Diaz, and perhaps beginning to have doubts himself, Coronado decided to charge ahead with a modest band of about horsemen, footsoldiers, and some native allies, to find out what was really in Cibola.

They left the main army and the livestock, who would travel more slowly and catch up to them. The chronicles of the expedition describe how Coronado's vanguard then marched then north into terra incognito , guided by Marcos de Niza along the route he pioneered the year before. A first major stop was the native town called Corazones by the Spanish.

The name means "Hearts," after a feast of deer hearts given there to Cabeza de Vaca's party. Based on geographic clues, scholars virtually all agree that this was near the town of Ures, Sonora, on the Rio Sonora. Coronado established a major camp or staging area at Corazones. It was moved on several occasions and occupied three different sites on or near the Sonora River, but has never been found by archaeologists.

The Spanish then proceeded north. They gave different names to each "valley" or segment of a given river. This name, in the form Sonora, is still used for that river.

In this valley, they used the place name Arispa or Ispa. It was written differently by different Spanish chroniclers trying to render the Indian name phonetically. This corresponds to the town of Arispe in the Rio Sonora, a prominent Spanish, and later Mexican, town since the s.

Based on this correspondence in names, most modern sleuths believe the army marched up the Rio Sonora. This matches other clues, as seen below.

However, a few such as Charles di Peso, have argued that "Ispa" refers to the Bavispe River, the next river east of the Rio Sonora, even though this theory would require that the name Sonora was moved one valley to the west by later generations.

This appears to be the San Pedro River in southern Arizona, which is a few days north across pleasant grasslands from the Rio Sonora headwaters. A few days downstream on the "Nexpa," they turned right for a few days to the base of some mountains, where they camped at a well-known campsite near a mysterious ruin called Chichilticale usually pronounced Chee-CHIL-tee-CAHL-ley; the spelling varies. This name means "red house" in the Nahuatl language of the Aztecs, and was possibly introduced by Aztec traders.

Coronado and the men were disappointed that this famed building was only a ruin of mud walls. This mysterious ruin has disappeared and its location is uncertain, but as a number of authors have proposed, it must be one of the pueblo ruins of Southeast Arizona built in the late s or s and abandoned around