The Lost Cities of El Norte : Coronado's quest, the unconquered West, and the birth of American Indian resistance / Peter Stark.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Stark, Peter, 1954- author.

Contributor:

Mapping Specialists, Ltd., cartographer.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Cibola, Seven Cities of.

Pueblo Indians--Wars.

Pueblo Indians.

Pueblo Indians--History.

Indigenous peoples--Southwest, New--History.

Indigenous peoples.

Coronado, Francisco Vásquez de, 1510-1554--Travel--West (U.S.).

Coronado, Francisco Vásquez de.

Coronado, Francisco Vásquez de, 1510-1554--Travel--Southwest, New.

West (U.S.)--Discovery and exploration--Spanish.

West (U.S.).

Southwest, New--Discovery and exploration--Spanish.

Southwest, New.

Southwest, Old--History.

Southwest, Old.

Genre:

Informational works.

Physical Description:

xix, 405 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (chiefly color), maps, portraits ; 24 cm

polychrome

monochrome

illustration

map

portrait

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

New York : Mariner Books, [2026]

Summary:

"In 1540, the grandest exploring expedition ever assembled in the Americas paraded north from the ruins of the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan, a glittering column of 2,000 men heading into the unknown. Their destination was El Norte Misterioso--The Mysterious North, present-day United States--where fabulous cities of gold were rumored to shine beyond the horizon. Two years later, survivors began stumbling back, half dead. Lost to poisoned arrows, brutal deserts, starvation, cold, desertion, and countless other hardships, 90% of those who left would never return. Led by Francisco Coronado and backed by the full weight of the Spanish empire, the superpower of its day, they had expected to seize the land, steal its riches, and subjugate its peoples, just as they had so recently done to the mighty Aztec and Inca empires. But instead they encountered the unconquered American West, populated by complex societies of indigenous nations, masters of a vast and unforgiving landscape who fiercely resisted this European 'incursion' onto their lands. Coronado and his people traversed 2,500 miles of unmapped terrain, ranging across the present-day U.S. states of California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, and finally Kansas. They were the first Europeans to gaze upon the Grand Canyon and the Rocky Mountains; made first contact with the Puebloan peoples; crossed the Sonoran Desert and the Great Plains, where they encountered endless herds of bison and the nomadic tribes who followed them. After leading the largest exploring cavalcade ever assembled in the New World, wearing his gilded armor and bobbing plume, Coronado retreated back to Mexico City two years later accompanied only by a hundred or so hangers-on and carried on a litter, a broken man. America's Southwest and Plains would remain unconquered for the next 300 years."-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

List Of Maps

List of Participants

Prologue : Glint on the Horizon

Part I : La Entrada - The Entrance

Chapter 1 : The Delicate Lady

Chapter 2 : Friars and Fortune Seekers

Chapter 3 : An Upraised Visor

Chapter 4 : The Middle of the Heart of Mother Earth

Chapter 5 : Wandering the Ocean

Chapter 6 : Dowa Yalanne - Corn Mountain

Part II : La Tierra Nueva - The New Land

Chapter 7 : The Heart of Brightness

Chapter 8 : A Continent's Marketplace

Chapter 9 : Raising the Cross

Chapter 10 : Two Tales of Gold

Chapter 11 : A Silver Tube

Part III : The Unraveling

Chapter 12 : The Fog Of War

Chapter 13 : The Deadly Shrub

Chapter 14 : A Thousand Arroyos

Chapter 15 : Woodhenge

Part IV : L Salida - The Exit

Chapter 16 : The Breaking Wave of Empire

Chapter 17 : The Plot

Chapter 18 : Between Two Horses

Epilogue : The End Of Empire And The Birth Fo Native Resistance

Fate Of Characters

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 387-390) and index.

ISBN:

9780063383883

0063383888

OCLC:

1582189791

Publisher Number:

90104425412