Coronado Expedition

In this episode, we follow the Coronado expedition of 1540 to 1542, a vast Spanish campaign led by Francisco Vázquez de Coronado through the American Southwest in search of wealth, power, and the legendary cities of gold. The episode explores how historians and archaeologists use Spanish records, landscape evidence, and Indigenous sites to reconstruct the expedition’s route, while also examining the violence that marked encounters with Native communities, including resistance at Hawikuh and the destruction of pueblos. Beyond the failed search for gold, we look at how Coronado’s arrival introduced European livestock, colonial hierarchies, and new pressures that reshaped Indigenous societies and left lasting consequences across North America.