On Saturday, July 16, 2011, the staff at the Villanueva State Park coordinated a special presentation by noted archeologist/document historian, Dr. Richard Flint, Research Associate in History for the Center for Desert Archeology, Tucson, Arizona.  His one-hour presentation was part of the New Mexico State Park System’s series of educational lectures/workshops for visitors to the State Parks and in this case was extremely interesting and relevant to my interests in history and Native American culture.

Dr. Richard Flint

Essentially, Francisco Vasquez de Coronado, a captain for His Majesty, King Carlos I of Spain, undertook an “entrada” or expedition into previously unexplored new world territories (Tierra Nueva or new lands) between 1539 and 1542, for the purpose of establishing new colonies and reaping the products for Nuevo Espana and Spain.  Contrary to established belief the search was not for gold but for porcelain, spices and wares for the settlers of the new world, primarily in what is now Mexico.  The “conquistadores” were self-funded and fully expected to become administrators of such new territories along with land grants and associated profits.  It should be clear that no support was forthcoming from the crown in Spain, although in principal it was supported.

According to Dr. Flint, the Spanish explorers who participated in the expedition and wrote about it later seemed to indicate that the response of the Pueblo Indians to their presence was chaotic and unplanned.  As Dr. Flint clearly shows through his research and books, it was in fact very well preplanned and based on serious reconnaissance on the part of the Indians with subsequent detailed planning about how to deal with the Spanish to the point of having different responses depending on the situation.

“One of the things I am going to try to show is that there were four different ways in which we have been able to identify their response to the Coronado expedition.

First of all they collected intelligence in a very methodical way, consulting among themselves, between villages, about what to do.  There was actually a planning process going on prior to the arrival of the Coronado expedition.

When the expedition arrived there were two distinct strategies.  One is what I call defensive withdrawal.  That was taking themselves out of their usual homes, going to easily defended cities, elevated that is high, thus engaging the advantage of horses.  Secondly, with encounters (contacts with the Spaniards) they chose to limit their encounters with people within their own community, especially those that specialized in dealing with outsiders.”

Historical Marker at entrance to Villanueva

It would seem from the above that the Pueblo Indians that occupied the lands in and about the Zuni and Gila rivers were not above suspicion and needed to know if their visitors were well intentioned or not.  Had they known that Coronado planned to make them subjects of Spain, convert them to Catholicism and take their food and wares they would have probably been more aggressive from the start, although it is doubtful it would have presented much of an advantage in the long run.  Fortunately for the Pueblo Indians, Coronado and his army of 2,000 mostly Indians from Mexico, decided the spoils were hardly worth the taking and they abandoned their “conquest” and returned to Mexico.

About a dozen visitors to Villanueva came to hear him speak last Saturday

To go deeper into Dr. Flint’s findings and unique discoveries goes beyond the scope of this blog, so I suggest the reader to look up Dr. Richard Flint on Amazon.com for additional books he has published.  The one book I purchased from him is entitled No Settlement, No Conquest and while I am still in the process of reading it, but it is an excellent read – highly recommended.

Francisco Vasquez de Coronado. Wikimedia Commons (Public Domain)