Quivira
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Quivira is a place first mentioned by Francisco Vazquez de Coronado in 1541, who visited it during his searches for the mythical "Seven Cities of Gold".
The location and identity of the "Quivirans" has been much debated over a wide area, including Kansas, Nebraska, and Missouri. They are most often considered to have been Wichita or another Caddoan tribe (Pawnee, Arikara, etc.).
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[edit] Coronado's 1541 expedition
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After failing to find the Seven Cities of Gold at Cibola, Coronado, while still among the pueblos, met an Indian he called "the Turk", who indicated that he was from the fabulously wealthy city of Quivira, where the chief supposedly drank from golden cups hanging from the trees. Guided by "the Turk", Coronado and his army continued their expedition northeast across the Great Plains, finally coming to a loose collection of teepees that was said to be Quivira. When he got there, he found no gold, other than a single small piece which he reasoned had come into the natives' hands from a member of his own expedition.
[edit] Later expeditions to Quivira
In 1594, Francisco Leiva Bonilla and Juan de Humana made another attempt to find the Quivira of Coronado, even though it was denounced as unauthorized by Spanish officials. Only three Mexican Indians ever returned from this journey, one of whom related that the entire party was massacred while returning across the plains laden with much gold, apart from one survivor named Alonzo Sanchez, who was supposedly made a chief.
Following this, in 1602, the governor of New Mexico, Don Juan de Oñate, made another expedition in search of Quivira. He found the tribe they called "Quivirans", but no gold or silver. In 1606, 800 of these "Quivirans" were said to have visited Oñate in New Mexico.
Quivira is again mentioned in a 1634 expedition of Captain Alonzo Vaca who found it 300 leagues east of New Mexico. Another expedition was made in 1662 by Don Diego Dionisio de Penalosa, who found a large settlement he called a city. The enemies of the Quivirans in all these accounts were the "Escanxaques" (Arkansas). In 1675 and 1678 came "two Spanish royal orders for the conquest of Quivira".[1]
[edit] Quivira in cartography
On early 16th and 17th century maps of North America, a large region including what is now Kansas, Oklahoma, southeastern Colorado, northeastern New Mexico and the Texas panhandle was called Quivira.[2][3]
The last remnants of the formerly extensive cartographic region of "Quivira" today is the city of Lake Quivira and the Quivira National Wildlife Refuge in Kansas. In addition, there is the "Quivira Council" of the Boy Scouts, serving the area of southwestern Kansas around Wichita, Kansas, the central part of the area that was traditionally called Quivira.[4] There is also a major arterial in the Kansas suburbs of Kansas City named "Quivira Road".
An abandoned Indian Pueblo in Torrance County, New Mexico has been given the name La Gran Quivira ("The Great Quivira"). The site was inhabited during the early period of Spanish occupation, when the settlement was called Pueblo de Las Humanas. The remains of the Gran Quivera settlement are today part of Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument.
[edit] In popular culture
- In the Western video game Gun, the game's villain seeks a golden cross which he believes leads to Quivira. A prologue scene shows Coronado's search for Quivira.
- In the Lincoln Child and Douglas Preston book Thunderhead, the location of Quivira is discovered to be a cliff dwelling, but the "gold" is found to be pottery.
[edit] See also
- Baboquivari Peak Wilderness
- La Canela
- City of Gold
- El Dorado
- Paititi
- Fountain of Youth
- City of the Caesars (Ciudad de los Césares)
- Sierra del Plata
- Anian
[edit] References
- ^ Louis Houck, 1908, A History of Missouri from the Earliest Explorations... Vo. I., p. 121-148
- ^ Portinaro, Pierluigi The Cartography of North America: 1500-1800 (1999)
- ^ Entry "Quivira" in the Kansas State Cyclopedia of 1912:
- ^ Quivira Council of the Boy Scouts:
[edit] External links
- *The journey of Coronado, 1540-1542, from the city of Mexico to the Grand Canon of the Colorado and the buffalo plains of Texas, Kansas and Nebraska, as told by himself and his followers - Complete primary documents pertaining to Coronado's expeditions, translated by George Parker Winship, at Portal to Texas History.
