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494 introduction t he “relación del suceso” (“report of the outcome”) is second in the bundle of documents in the Archivo General de indias that also includes Juan Jaramillo’s narrative (Document 30) and the “traslado de las nuevas” (Document 22). Like the traslado, the author of the relación is not known with any certainty, although he was among the advance guard that made first contact with cíbola, and he also participated in Hernando de Alvarado’s reconnaissance to the bison plains in the late summer of 1540 and the captain general’s march to Quivira in 1541. 1 the author displays knowledge of when and to whom vázquez de coronado sent messages and when and from whom he received reports. this suggests someone involved directly in the processing of such communications. certainly the captain general’s secretary, Hernando Bermejo, or a scribal assistant of his cannot be ruled out as author of the relación del suceso. He certainly would have had the necessary literary skill and would have been privy to the information about travel distances and latitude measurements now discussed in detail. more than any other known coronado expedition document, the relación del suceso devotes significant and consistent attention to distances and latitude measurements. it is the most geographically oriented of the surviving documents of the expedition. on 19 occasions the author provides information on the travel distances along segments of the expedition’s route (in the process covering its entirety). He relates data such as that the valley of Los corazones lies halfway between cíbola and the valley of culiacán, 150 leagues each way. 2 four times the author reports latitude readings: for cíbola, Quivira, a river (either at tiguex or in Quivira), and the point where the northward route to cíbola made a decided long dogleg to the northeast. 3 He also records the general bearing of the two major segments of the route from culiacán to cíbola and the direction of flow of the río de tiguex and of an unnamed river at the beginning of the bison plains. 4 Assuming that the author of the relación was reporting distances in the legua legal, or old league of Burgos, 2.63 miles in length (as he seems to be), then those distances seem quite accurate, within a margin of error of 10 to 15 percent. 5 for example, the relación states that it is 300 leagues from culiacán to cíbola. in leguas legales this would be about 790 miles, in comparison with the straight-line modern map distance of about 730 miles. the distance between tiguex and the barrancas reached by the expedition during the early summer of 1541 is given as 100 leagues to the east and 50 to the southeast. 6 on the modern map that would place the barrancas in the vicinity of Lubbock, texas, uncannily close to the archaeologically located campsite of the expedition situated in southern floyd county, only about 35 miles northeast of Lubbock. 7 A third example is even more remarkable. the relación lists the distance from Acuco (Acoma pueblo, new mexico) to the río de tiguex Document 29 The Relación del Suceso (Anonymous Narrative), 1540s AGi, patronato, 20, n.5, r.8 Relación del Suceso, 1540s 495 (the rio Grande in the immediate vicinity of Albuquerque, new mexico) as 20 leagues, the equivalent of about 53 miles, which happens to match the modern straight-line map distance. 8 it is worth noting in this regard that the distance of 150 leagues reported in the relación from culiacán to Los corazones, when converted to miles (395) and applied as a straight line to the modern map, falls nearly exactly at ures, sonora, the location most frequently suggested for corazones. such attention to and accuracy of distances traversed by the expedition raises the possibility that the author of the relación was one of the two men who were assigned to keep track of the daily distances covered, one by making an estimate, the other by actually counting his steps. 9 unfortunately, the identity of neither of those persons is known, but one of them certainly could have been the secretary . the document called the “relación de suceso” is assuredly a sixteenth-century copy of the original report, a copy perhaps made for Juan páez de castro, royal chronicler to carlos v. 10 its...

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