Description of Quivira
Coronado found Quivira “well settled...The land itself being very fat and black and being very well watered by the rivulets and springs and rivers. I found prunes like those of Spain, and nuts and very good sweet grapes and mulberries.” It was, he said, the best land he had seen during his long trek north from Mexico. Coronado spent 25 days in Quivira and traveled about 65 miles (25 leagues) from one end of the country to the other. He found nothing more than straw-thatched villages of up to two hundred houses each and fields of corn, beans, and squash. 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.
The Quivirans were simple people. Both men and women were nearly naked. They “were large people of good build” many of the men being over six feet tall. They seemed like giants compared to the Spaniards.
Coronado was escorted to the further edge of Quivira, called Tabas, where the neighboring land of Harahey began. He summoned the “Lord of Harahey” who, with two hundred followers, came to meet the Spanish. The Harahey Indians were “all naked--with bows and some sort of things on their heads, and their privy parts slightly covered. It was the same sort of place...and of about the same size as Quivira” Disappointed at his failure to find wealth, Coronado turned his face toward New Mexico and marched back across the plains, met up with the rest of his army there, and the following year returned to Mexico. Before leaving Quivira, Coronado ordered the Turk strangled. The Coronado expedition had failed in its quest for gold.
Coronado left behind in New Mexico several Catholic priests and their helpers, including Friar Juan de Padilla. Padilla journeyed back to Quivira with a Portuguese assistant and several Christian Indians. The friar and most of his companions were soon killed by the Quivirans, apparently because he wished to leave their country to visit their enemies, the Guas. The Portuguese and one Indian survived to tell the story.
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