Discovery of the Americas, 1492-1800

Coronado immediately sent a second
party, led by García López de Cárdenas, to
investigate. In September 1540, 20 days away
from the Hopi villages and the Painted Desert
(in modern-day Arizona), Cárdenas and his
men became the first Europeans to see the
Grand Canyon. Casteñeda wrote:

[They] came to the banks of a river, which

seemed to be more than three or four

leagues in an air line across to the other

bank of the stream which flowed between

them. The country was elevated and full of

low, twisted pines, very cold, and lying open

to the north.. .. They spent three days on

this bank looking for a passage down to the

river, which looked from above as if the

water was 6 feet across, although the Indi-

ans said it was half a league [about 1.5

miles] wide.

Cárdenas’s party is thought to have

reached the canyon’s South Rim near Moran

Point. The three “lightest and most agile men”

in the group tried to reach the river, but gave

up after a day of difficult climbing:

Coronado and the Seven Cities B 111

When he and a party were sent to scout out the Hopi settled near the Zuni, García López de Cárdenas

became the first European to see the Grand Canyon, located in present-day northwestern Arizona.

(National Park Service)