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1643 By Richard Flint and Shirley Cushing Flint Diego José de Vargas Zapata Luján Ponce de León y Contreras was born in Madrid in 1643 to Alonso de Vargas and María Margarita Contreras y Arráiz. His was an illustrious family, though not among the monarch's inner circle. Each…
1736 By Richard Flint and Shirley Cushing Flint By the eighteenth century, populations from other European nations in addition to Spain were well established in the Americas. In Spain itself chronic financial difficulties all but ruled out expansion of Spanish controlled territory anywhere in the world. Meanwhile, unsubjugated,…
Juan and Vicente de Zaldivar The Nephews by Richard Flint and Shirley Cushing Flint It was no accident that the brothers Juan and Vicente de Zaldívar were among the hopeful colonists of Juan de Oñate\'s expedition to New Mexico in 1598. They were, in the first place, related through…
1514 By Richard Flint and Shirley Cushing Flint In early Spanish colonial New Mexico there were three prominent figures who bore the surname Zaldívar. Although their activities in New Mexico were separated by almost 60 years, it is significant that they were close relatives. The first of the three…
By Richard Flint and Shirley Cushing Flint In 1540, at age 22, Hernando de Alvarado, a native of the small town of Las Montañas in northern Spain, became captain of artillery for the Coronado expedition. Rather than a strictly military rank, the designation "captain" signified Alvarado's social status as…
By Richard Flint and Shirley Cushing Flint Francisco Vázquez de Coronado was in his late twenties when he led a major expedition of reconnaissance and conquest from Mexico City to Cíbola, Tiguex, and Quivira from 1539 to 1542. He was a native of the great university town of Salamanca…
By Richard Flint and Shirley Cushing Flint Without the work of fray Marcos de Niza, there may never have been a Coronado expedition. It was evidence provided in his 1539 report that triggered launch of the expedition the following year. Had Marcos\'s report been less glowing in its descriptions…
By Richard Flint and Shirley Cushing Flint Speculation abounds regarding the origins of the black slave of the Spaniard Andrés Dorantes, Esteban de Dorantes, also known as Esteban the Black, Estebanillo, and Estebanico. The only eyewitness account available comes from Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, the chronicler of the…
by Richard Flint and Shirley Cushing Flint The attempt made to settle New Mexico in 1590-1591, led by Gaspar Castaño de Sosa, might have succeeded but for one ruinous detail. The venture was illegal. Thus, even if Castaño and his colonists had been able to insert themselves into the…
By Richard Flint and Shirley Cushing Flint Although he was never in what is now New Mexico, Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca and three companions of his had a momentous effect on the region's history. In February 1536 four survivors of the expedition to La Florida that had been…
