The following year, he was appointed as governor of the province of Nueva Galicia, a region that comprised much of what became the Mexican states of Jalisco, Nayarit and Sinaloa. In 1537, Coronado gained Mendoza’s approval by successfully putting down rebellions by black slaves and Indians working in the mines. The match earned him one of the largest estates in New Spain. Within a year after his arrival, Coronado married Beatriz, the young daughter of Alonso de Estrada, former colonial treasurer. In 1535, he traveled to New Spain (as Mexico was then known) with Antonio de Mendoza, the Spanish viceroy, whom his family had ties with from his father’s service as royal administrator in Granada.ĭid you know? A string of Indian settlements built near what is now west-central New Mexico (near the Arizona border) by the Zuni Pueblo tribes inspired tales of the Seven Golden Cities of Cíbola, the mythic empire of riches that Francisco Vázquez de Coronado was seeking in his expedition of 1540-42. As such, he decided to seek his fortune in the New World.

Francisco Vázquez de Coronado’s Early Life and Careerīorn circa 1510 into a noble family in Salamanca, Spain, Coronado was a younger son, and as such did not stand to inherit the family title or estate.

Journey Into Mexico by Alex Grand