While organizing the expedition, Coron-
ado dispatched a small reconnaissance party
led byMelchior Díaz, the respected alcalde
(governor) of Culiacán. Díaz left on November
17, 1539, and followed the Sonora Valley north
toward southeastern Arizona, then continued
until winter weather stopped him at the
southernedge of the Colorado Plateau. He
had still not reported back by the time Coron-
ado and the main force left Nueva Galicia on
February 23, 1540. When Díaz joined them at
Culiacán in March, he brought no encourag-
ing news of treasure. Mexican Indian traders,
however, had given Díaz accurate information
about the societies Coronado would
encounter. Cíbola, Díaz explained, was actu-
ally seven separate Indian communities
within a day’s march of one another. He
described the homes of tribes who lived in
large, multistorydwellings hewn from stone
or built with bricks of adobe, a sunbaked mix-
ture of clay and straw: The Spanish laterCoronado and the Seven Cities B 109
When Francisco Vásquez de Coronado arrived at the Zuni pueblo of Háwikuh in July 1540, the Spanish forces
and the American Indians fought with one another. The Zuni live in a group of seven pueblos now called
Zuni Pueblo, in present-day New Mexico, a portion of which is shown in this 1903 photograph by Edward S.
Curtis.(Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-102037])