Explorations by Land.

Persistent rumors of rich silver lodes north of Mexico set in motion the Spanish exploration of the American West. In 1539 Fray Marcos de Niza set out to search the region, and he heard stories of seven cities of gold and silver, named Cfbola. Between 1540 and 1542 Francisco Vasquez de Coronado followed up Niza's effort, and his men traveled throughout the West in search of the elusive cities and the treasure they were reputed to contain. In the meantime Coronado also heard of another magical city, Quivira, that lay to the east, so he roamed into present-day Kansas and Arkansas, where he found several villages of semisedentary Indians but no gold and silver. The Coronado expedition was based among the Pueblo Indians, and relations between the two groups were initially peaceful, but the Spaniards' exorbitant demands for food...