No Settlement, No Conquest: A History of the Coronado Entrada (review)

442Southwestern Historical QuarterlyApril depicts Asian Texans as active agents in their quest for acceptance, prosperity, and survival. Rather tiian a condemning tone towards discrimination and immigration restrictions, he and other contributors show how Asian Texans turned to their families and distinctive cultures to rebuild dieir lives and form communities . But the volume is not without its problems. To label the book a collection of essays by experts is a bit of a misnomer since die editor (Tang) wrote or co-wrote thirteen of the seventeen chapters, revised, and published the book. One wonders how much of the essays represent die contributors or Tang's interpretation. Although most chapters utilized interviews and newspapers, the treatment and documentation of the various groups were uneven. Still, the book makes a useful addition to Asian-Texan history and Texana, while the many photos complement the anthology. Lamar UniversityMary L. Kelley No Settlement, No Conquest: A History of the Coronado Entrada. By Richard Flint. (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2008. Pp. 376. Maps, appendices , notes, references, index. ISBN 9780826343628, $29.95 cloth.) Those familiar with the previous publications of Richard and Shirley Cushing Flint, especially the two massive works on Francisco Vázquez de Coronado from Southern Methodist University Press (2002, 2005), are aware that during die last twenty-five years no one has come close to their passionate efforts to peruse every archival and published source on Coronado. This treatment places the Coronado expedition (1539-1542) in broad historical context. By the time of the expedition's inception, the Spanish had occupied the major islands of the Caribbean and overdirown the Aztec and Inca empires in Mexico and Peru. More important, Spanish Indian policy had evolved—both in theory and practice—since the earliest conquests. The great Dominican friar Bartolomé de las Casas had lobbied the Spanish court in behalf of peaceful approaches to New World Indians for more than a score of years, and Pope Paul Ill's bull, Sublimits Deus (1537), had proclaimed Indians to be rational human beings. Viceroy Antonio de Mendoza had headed the government of New Spain since 1535.This cautious head of state had to decide how to respond to glowing accounts of the Nordi Country related by Cabeza de Vaca and his companions who, after nearly seven years in unexplored regions, reached Mexico City in July 1536.In what can best be described as "Byzantine competition," Mendoza prevailed over Ñuño de Guzman, Hernando Cortés, Hernando de Soto, and Pedro de Alvarado. He then, "as a private citizen rather than as viceroy" (p.48), sponsored the Coronado entrada, which was outfitted at an estimated cost of 600,000 silver pesos. Readers will find much that is familiar in Flint's account: Coronado's march to Cibola in present-day western New Mexico; the disappointment attendant with finding the reality of Hawikuh, as opposed to its presumed wealtii; die entrada's 20ogBook Reviews443 relocation to the Rio Grande near contemporary Bernalillo, New Mexico, and die bitter winter (1539-1540) spent there; the march to the Texas Panhandle and beyond to the Arkansas River in present-day Kansas; and the retreat to the Rio Grande, followed by the expedition's subsequent wididrawal to Mexico City. What is different, however, makes this book a landmark study. Flint argues that Coronado and his men had much more nuanced motives than is generally accorded them. They primarily sought advanced indigenous communities wealthy enough to permit the granting of royal encomiendas (the right to collect tribute or labor from native polities), rather dian discovering easily exploitable gold and silver. Not finding such, they returned to Mexico deeply in debt. The author also emphasizes that virtually every Spanish expedition in the Americas relied heavily on Indian allies. These native auxiliaries should be given more credit for their role in Spanish exploration, including die Coronado entrada. Significantly, the author attributes the "longevity of reputation" (p. 123), along with the difficulty of precise understandings between native speakers and Spaniards, to explain what other scholars have recendy concluded. Namely, that what the Indian called "the Turk" described as the wonders of Quivira were likely references to long-ago, mound-building cultures of the Mississippi River...