The Problem of Distinguishing the Coronado Expedition’s Multiple Routes Across Southeastern Arizona – Richard and Shirley Flint

There has been recent reporting of the discovery of what appear to be traces of sixteenth-century European presence in extreme south-central and southeastern Arizona. As a result, assertions have been made that those traces are indications of an outpost of the Coronado Expedition, called Suya in the surviving documentary record and San Gerónimo III by many modern scholars. Re-examination of sixteenth-century written records, however, shows that identification of that particular archaeological site as Suya is far from the only possibility. There are a total of at least eighteen known expeditionary episodes dating from the sixteenth century that could have left behind part or all of the material traces that have to date been identified in southern Arizona. The small, short-term occupation of Suya was dwarfed by the passage of the whole expeditionary force. Yet the current investigation claims to have located multiple sites associated with the minor Suya event and none linked to the vastly larger full expedition or any of its other sub-units. The evidence for Suya is thin, mostly conjectural, and not distinguishable from other events of the expedition.

Biography

The Flints are a collaborative team of Independent Scholars with major focus on archival research and publication on the early to middle sixteenth century in the U.S. Southwest and Northwest Mexico. Their special interest for 40+ years has been on the Coronado entrada of 1539-1542 and related activities both before and after. They are widely considered to be the foremost authorities on that subject. They have published nine books and dozens of journal article dealing with the sixteenth-century collision between Indigenous Americans and Europeans. In collaboration with the UNM Libraries, the Flints have produced an extensive online data base of information about participants, organizers, and supporters of that entrada: coronado.unm.edu.

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