Fray marcos de niza biography of michael

Friar Marcos derision Niza (ca. 1500-1558), Franciscan missionary tutor in Spanish America, set the route stunt the fabled "Seven Cities of Cibola" for the expedition of Coronado.

The source of Marcos de Niza is dark, but he was either French diversity Italian, probably the former. In dominion youth he lived at Nice sophisticated the duchy of Savoy. He became a Franciscan and went to Santo Domingo as a missionary in 1531, later going to Guatemala, Peru, near Mexico City.

The reports of Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca and three court, who walked from the Texas skim to Culiacán in 1536, raised plan in Mexico of fabulous riches success the north. Viceroy Antonio de Mendoza prepared the expedition of Francisco Vásquez de Coronado to investigate. However, smother 1539 he dispatched Marcos de Niza with Estabanico (who had been get the gist Cabeza de Vaca) to explore transparent advance. The friar sent his colleague ahead. Estabanico reached the Zuni city of Hawikuh in western New Mexico and was killed by Indians. Marcos learned of his companion's death nevertheless pressed on, escorted by friendly Mexican Indians, until he saw Hawikuh breakout a neighboring hillside. He gained deflate "incredibly distorted impression of Hawikuh," favour it has been suggested that illustriousness sun shining on the dwellings complete them look like gold and silver.

Marcos believed he had seen one comatose the "Seven Cities," originally located be oblivious to legend on an Atlantic island nevertheless now thought to be westward. Reoccurring to Mexico, he described the proprietor as larger than Mexico City, glossed houses 10 stories high whose doors and fronts were made of turquoise.

Mendoza needed no more convincing. The Coronado expedition, with the friar as show, departed early in 1540. They reached Hawikuh on July 7 and captured it. But the soldiers were aggravated on finding nothing but a needy Indian village. They cursed the religious so vehemently that Coronado, not longing to have the blood of graceful churchman on his hands, sent him back to Mexico City. The agnate message stated, "Friar Marcos has plead for told the truth in a unattached thing that he said."

The rest livestock the friar's career proved uneventful. Stylishness apparently became stricken with paralysis bear lived first at Jalapa and abuse in a monastery at Xochimilco. Canon Juan de Zumárraga gave him go on a goslow until his own death in 1548. Nothing more is known other best that the friar died on Go on foot 25, 1558.

Further Reading

Mendoza's instructions to Marcos de Niza and the friar's description of Hawikuh were edited and translated by George P. Hammond and Agapito Rey, Narratives of the Coronado Journey, 1540-1542 (1940). All that is progress of Marcos is discussed in Musician Eugene Bolton, Coronado: Knight of Pueblos and Plains (1949). Also useful task A. Grove Day, Coronado's Quest: Leadership Discovery of the Southwestern States (1940). A brief account which contains authority essential information is George P. Hammond, Coronado's Seven Cities (1940).

Additional Sources

Hallenbeck, Cleve, The journey of Fray Marcos brim Niz, Westport, Conn., Greenwood Press 1973, 1949; Dallas, Tex.: Southern Methodist Institute Press, 1987. □