Province of the Wichita people on the Great Plains of the U.S.
Quivira was a province of the ancestral Wichita people,[1] located near the Great Bend of the Arkansas River in central Kansas,[1] The exact site may be near present-day Lyons extending northeast to Salina.
A sketch of a Wichita community in the 19th century. The beehive-shaped grass lodges surrounded by cornfields are characteristic and appear similar to those described by Coronado in 1541.
Archaeological evidence suggests that Quivira was located near the Great Bend of the Arkansas River in central Kansas.[1] The remains of several Indigenous communities have been found near Lyons along Cow Creek and the Little Arkansas River along with articles of Spanish manufacture dating from Coronado's time.[3]
The Quivirans were almost certainly the Wichita.[1] Coronado's meager descriptions of Quivira resemble more recent post-contact Wichita communities. The Quivirans seem to have been numerous, based on the number of settlements Coronado visited, with a population of at least 10,000 persons. They were good farmers as well as bison hunters.[4] Judging from Coronado's description, they were a healthy, peaceful people.
The next confirmed European visitor to the Great Bend region after Coronado was Étienne de Bourgmont. In 1724, along with a company of Kaw and other Indigenous explorers, de Bourgmont traveled westward from the Missouri River to a large Indigenous community believed to have an Plains Apache population.[5] The village was near Lyons, precisely where Quivira had been almost 200 years earlier.[6]
The original inhabitants of Quivira migrated to eastern Kansas and south to Oklahoma.[7] Their reasons for moving may have been to escape the encroachment of the Plains Apache, whose expansion created war and hostilities among the nations of the Great Plains. It also appears that the 18th-century Wichita of the 18th century were fewer in number than in the 16th century. This decrease is likely due to smallpox and other European diseases.
Etymology
The origin of the word "Quivira" is uncertain. The inhabitants of Coronado's Quivira called themselves "Tancoa" and "Tabas. These two names are similar to the Wichita tribes, the Tawakonis and Taovayas.[8]
Expedition
Route of the Coronado Expedition, 1540–1542Depiction of Coronado's expedition. Coronado sets out to the north, oil painting by Frederic Remington, c. 1900
In 1540, Spaniard Francisco Vásquez de Coronado led a large expedition north from Mexico to search for wealth and the Seven Cities of Cibola. Instead of wealth, he found Indigenous farmers living in an array of communities and villages in what are today Arizona and New Mexico. These were the Hopi, Zuni, Rio GrandePueblo, Apache, and Navajo peoples.
As Coronado arrived at the Rio Grande, he was disappointed by the lack of wealth among the Pueblo people, but he heard from a Plains Indian informant dubbed “The Turk” of a wealthy nation named Quivira far to the east, whose leader supposedly drank from golden cups hanging from the trees. Hearing of this, Coronado led an expedition of more than 1000 Spanish and Indigenous individuals onto the Great Plains in 1541. The Turk served as the expedition’s adviser.
On his journey, Coronado traversed the Llano Estacado, home to two Indigenous nations: the Querecho and Teya. He was heading southeast when the Teyas told him that the Turk was taking him in the wrong direction and that Quivira was to the north. It appears the Turk was luring the Spaniards away from New Mexico with tales of wealth in Quivira, hoping perhaps that they would get lost in the vastness of the Great Plains. Coronado sent most of his slow-moving expeditionary force back to New Mexico. With 30 mounted Spaniards, Indigenous persons, priests, the Turk and Teya captives forced into service, Coronado changed course northward in search of Quivira. After a march of more than 30 days, he found a large river, probably the Arkansas, and soon met several Indigenous bison hunters, who led him to Quivira.[9]
Spanish visit
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.[10] Coronado spent 25 days in Quivira and traveled about 25 leagues 100km (65mi) from one end of the country to the other. He found nothing more than straw-thatched villages of up to 200 houses each and fields of corn, beans, and squash. He found no gold, other than a single small piece, which he speculated the Indigenous owner acquired from a member of his own expedition.
The Spaniards described the locals as being a "large people of good build" with many of the men being more than 6ft (180cm) and seemed like giants to the Spaniards. Both sexes wore minimal attire. [11]
Coronado was escorted to the border of Quivira at an area called Tabas where the neighboring nation of Harahey began. He summoned the "Lord of Harahey" who, with a retinue of nearly 200, came to meet the Spanish. The Harahey delegation 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."[12] 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 executed by strangulation. 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 Indigenous converts. The friar and most of his companions were soon killed by people from Quivira, apparently because he wished to leave their country to visit their enemies, the Guas. Portuguese and Native survivors reported the story.[13]
In 1594, Francisco Leyba (Leyva) Bonilla and Antonio de Humana (Umana) made another attempt to find the Quivira of Coronado, though it was denounced as unauthorized by Spanish officials. Only Jusepe Gutierrez, a Nahua returned from this journey. He related that Leyba had killed Umana in a quarrel and that he (Jusepe) had deserted the expedition.
Following this, in 1601, the governor of New Mexico, Juan de Oñate, undertook another expedition in search of Quivira. He found settlements of the Escanjaque and Rayado in the Central Great Plains, but no gold or silver. He learned that Leyba and other members of the Umana and Lebya expedition had been killed by Indians. In 1606, 800 people from Quivira reportedly visited Oñate in New Mexico to trade.
In his 1634 expedition, Captain Alonzo Vaca found Quivira 300 leagues east of New Mexico (this suggests more than 1,200km (750mi)). Another reputed expedition was undertaken in 1662 by Diego Dionisio de Penalosa, who allegedly found a large settlement he called a city, but a modern re-examination of his account concluded that the story is fanciful.[14]
Spanish accounts said Quivirans were enemies of the Escanjaques. In 1675 and 1678 came "two Spanish royal orders for the conquest of Quivira."[15]
In cartography
1720 North America Geographicus by Dutchcartographer Henri Abraham Chatelain
In addition, the "Quivira Council" of the Boy Scouts serves the area of southwestern Kansas around Wichita; the central part of the area that was traditionally called Quivira.[20] The first several yearbooks printed by the University of Kansas were entitled Quivira Also, a major arterial road runs through the Johnson County suburbs of Kansas City named "Quivira Road".
A large abandoned pueblo in Torrance County, New Mexico, was named "La Gran Quivira" ("the Great Quivira"). The community was located within Tompiro-speakingPueblo territory. During the early period of the Spanish conquest, when the town was called Pueblo de Las Humanas, a mission was built here. In the 1670s, the Tompiro communities were abandoned and absorbed into other Pueblos. The remains of Gran Quivira Pueblo and the mission are today part of Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument.
From the days of Coronado the name of "Quivira" had been associated with the idea of a great unknown city, of wealth and splendor, situated somewhere on the Eastern Plains; and it is not at all unlikely that when some party from the Rio Grande Valley, in search of game or gold, crossed the mountains and the wilderness lying to the east, and was suddenly amazed by the apparition of a dead city, silent and tenantless, but bearing the evidences of large population, of vast resources, of architectural knowledge, mechanical skill, and wonderful energy, they should have associated with it the stories heard from childhood of the mythical center of riches and power, and called the new-found wonder the Gran Quivira.[21]
The Pawnee are a Central Plains Indian tribe that historically lived in Nebraska and northern Kansas but today are based in Oklahoma. They are the federally recognized Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma, who are headquartered in Pawnee, Oklahoma. Their Pawnee language belongs to the Caddoan language family, and their name for themselves is Chatiks si chatiks or "Men of Men".
Francisco Vázquez de Coronado was a Spanish conquistador and explorer who led a large expedition from what is now Mexico to present-day Kansas through parts of the southwestern United States between 1540 and 1542. Vázquez de Coronado had hoped to reach the Cities of Cíbola, often referred to now as the mythical Seven Cities of Gold. His expedition marked the first European sightings of the Grand Canyon and the Colorado River, among other landmarks. His name is often Anglicized as Vasquez de Coronado or just Coronado.
Juan de Oñate y Salazar was a Spanish conquistador from New Spain, explorer, and colonial governor of the province of Santa Fe de Nuevo México in the viceroyalty of New Spain. He led early Spanish expeditions to the Great Plains and Lower Colorado River Valley, encountering numerous indigenous tribes in their homelands there. Oñate founded settlements in the province, now in the Southwestern United States.
The Wichita people, or Kitikiti'sh, are a confederation of Southern Plains Native American tribes. Historically they spoke the Wichita language and Kichai language, both Caddoan languages. They are indigenous to Oklahoma, Texas, and Kansas.
Plains Indians or Indigenous peoples of the Great Plains and Canadian Prairies are the Native American tribes and First Nation band governments who have historically lived on the Interior Plains of North America. While hunting-farming cultures have lived on the Great Plains for centuries prior to European contact, the region is known for the horse cultures that flourished from the 17th century through the late 19th century. Their historic nomadism and armed resistance to domination by the government and military forces of Canada and the United States have made the Plains Indian culture groups an archetype in literature and art for Native Americans everywhere.
Juan de Padilla, OFM (1500–1542) was a Spanish Catholic priest and missionary who spent much of his life exploring North America with Francisco Vásquez de Coronado. He was killed in what would become Kansas by Native Americans in 1542.
The Tiguex War was the first named war between Europeans and Native Americans in what is now part of the United States. The war took place in New Spain, during the colonization of Nuevo México. It was fought in the winter of 1540-41 by the expedition of Francisco Vázquez de Coronado against the twelve or thirteen Pueblos of what would become the Tiguex Province of Nuevo México. These villages were along both sides of the Rio Grande, north and south of present-day Bernalillo, New Mexico.
The Villasur expedition of 1720 was a Spanish military expedition intended to check New France's growing influence on the North American Great Plains, led by Lieutenant-General Pedro de Villasur. Pawnee and Otoe Indians attacked the expedition in Nebraska, killing 36 of the 40 Spaniards, 10 of their Indian allies, and a French guide. The survivors retreated to their base in New Mexico.
Étienne de Veniard, Sieur de Bourgmont was a French explorer who documented his travels on the Missouri and Platte rivers in North America and made the first European maps of these areas in the early 18th century. He wrote two accounts of his travels, which included descriptions of the Native American tribes he encountered. In 1723, he established Fort Orleans, the first European fort on the Missouri River, near the mouth of the Grand River, and present-day Brunswick, Missouri. In 1724, he led an expedition to the Great Plains of Kansas to establish trading relations with the Padouca.
The myth of the Seven Cities of Gold, also known as the Seven Cities of Cíbola, was popular in the 16th century and later featured in several works of popular culture. According to legend, the seven cities of gold referred to Aztec mythology revolving around the Pueblos of the Spanish Nuevo México, today's New Mexico and Southwestern United States.
The Querecho Indians were an historical band of Apache people living on the Southern Plains.
Teyas were a Native American people living near what is now Lubbock, Texas, who first made contact with Europeans was the 1541 Francisco Vásquez de Coronado Expedition.
The Escanjaques were an American Indian tribe who lived in the Southern Plains.
Etzanoa is a historical city of the Wichita people, located in present-day Arkansas City, Kansas, near the Arkansas River, that flourished between 1450 and 1700. Dubbed "the Great Settlement" by Spanish explorers who visited the site, Etzanoa may have housed 20,000 Wichita people. The historical city is considered part of Quivira.
Jusepe Gutierrez ,) was a Native Nahua guide and explorer. He was the only known survivor of the Umana and Leyba expedition to the Great Plains in 1594 or 1595. In 1599 he guided Vicente de Zaldivar and in 1601 Governor Juan de Oñate on expeditions to the plains.
Antonio Gutiérrez de Umana and Francisco Leyva de Bonilla, Spanish colonists, made an unauthorized expedition to the Great Plains in 1594 or 1595. An Indian, Jusepe Gutierrez, was the only survivor and the source of fragmentary information about the expedition. The route Umana and Leyva followed can not be determined with certitude, but it probably included traveling to what is today Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas.
Jumanos were a tribe or several tribes, who inhabited a large area of western Texas, New Mexico, and northern Mexico, especially near the Junta de los Rios region with its large settled Indigenous population. They lived in the Big Bend area in the mountain and basin region. Spanish explorers first recorded encounters with the Jumano in 1581. Later expeditions noted them in a broad area of the Southwest and the Southern Plains.
The Tompiro Indians were Pueblo Indians living in New Mexico. They lived in several adobe villages east of the Rio Grande Valley in the Salinas region of New Mexico. Their settlements were abandoned and they were absorbed into other Pueblo Nations in the 1670s.
The Southern Plains villagers were semi-sedentary Native Americans who lived on the Great Plains in western Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas, and southeastern Colorado from about AD 800 until AD 1500.
Vicente de Zaldívar was a Spanish soldier and explorer in New Mexico. He led the Spanish force which perpetrated the Acoma Massacre at the Acoma Pueblo in 1599. He led or participated in several expeditions onto the Great Plains.
↑ Wedel, Waldo R; Archeological Remains in Central Kansas and the Possible Bearing on the location of Quivira. Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections; Vol. 101, No. 7; 1942; pp. 1-24
↑ Secoy, Frank R. The Identity of the 'Paduca: An Ethnohistorical Analysis. "American Anthropologist," New Series, Vol. 53, No. 4; [Part 1 (Oct.-Dec. 1951)]; pp. 525–42
↑ Reichart, Milton; Bourgmont's Route to Central Kansas: A Reexamination. Kansas History; Vol. 2, Summer; 1979; p. 102
↑ Vehik, Susan C. Wichita Culture History. "Plains Anthropologist;" Vol. 37, No. 141; 1992; pp. 311-332.
↑ Vehik, Susan C. Onate's Expedition to the Southern Plains: Routes, Destinations, and Implications for Late Prehistoric Cultural Adaptations; "Plains Anthropologist;"' Vol. 312, No. 11; 1986; pp. 13-33
↑ Winship, George Parker (Ed. and Translator). The Journey of Coronado, 1540-1542, from the City of Mexico to the Grand Canon of the Colorado and the Buffalo Plains of Texas, Kansas, and Nebraska, As Told by Himself and his Followers; New York: A.S. Barnes & Co.; 1904, p.219
↑ George P. Hammon and Agapito, Rey Don Juan de Onate: Colonizer of New Mexico, 1595-1628(Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1953_, 416–19.
↑ Hackett, Charles W. "New Light on Don Diego de Penalosa: Proof that he never made an expedition from Santa Fe to Quivira and the Mississippi River in 1662." Mississippi Valley Historical Review, Vol. 6, No 3, Dec 1919, 313-335
↑ Louis Houck (1908) A History of Missouri from the Earliest Explorations... Vol. I., p.p 121–48
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