The Seven Cities of Cibola
An ancient European myth in the 16th century led the Conquistadors to search in vain for fabulous treasures throughout the New World. But is there really a mythical city completely covered in gold?
Cibola, Antilia, Manoa, Eldorado, Ciudad de los Cesares: all names tied to adventure, exploration, wealth. Non-existent places that cost the lives of thousands of greedy Conquistadors and innocent Natives. Places with a common denominator, where a metal, gold, was as common as iron, to the extent of using it as a building material. There are many theories about these fabulous locations, the most logical of which tells us how they were mirrors for the Spanish invaders of the New World, capable of diverting the greedy and immoral rabble away from sacred and productive territories. However, somewhat like what happened with the Kingdom of Prester John, these mythical places that populated the dreams of adventurers might hide a kernel of truth. An example of this assertion is offered by a famous Disney comic story titled "Uncle Scrooge and the Seven Cities of Cibola," published in the autumn of 1954 in the United States by the great illustrator Carl Barks. In this adventure, featuring Uncle Scrooge, Donald Duck, and Huey, Dewey, and Louie, the ducks stumble upon traces of the mythical Cibola in the American desert, not far from the Colorado River. Guided by the Junior Woodchucks' Guidebook and the travel diary of Francisco de Ulloa's galleon, commander of Cortes's fleet, Scrooge and his nephews discover in a narrow canyon with vertical walls the seven villages of an advanced and wealthy population, decimated by contact with the Spanish who brought diseases unknown to them. In the comic, Barks depicts Cibola very similarly to the Anasazi villages built inside huge natural cavities within mountains, suggesting that their virtual invisibility from above was the reason for their undiscovery.
At the end of the story, captured by the Beagle Boys, the ducks will be overwhelmed by the collapse of the cities themselves triggered by a self-destruction mechanism based on a spherical boulder very similar to the one chased by Indiana Jones in the opening scenes of "Raiders of the Lost Ark". The director of this film, Steven Spielberg, has admitted to being a fan of Uncle Scrooge and Co.'s adventures when he was young and to having been inspired, for that shot, by this story by Barks. In the end, however, Scrooge, Donald, and the nephews, along with the Beagle Boys, manage to escape the rubble of what appears to be a completely ordinary stretch of desert...
The idea behind the comic is that Cibola could be anywhere and could elude even satellites and modern search methods: just being partially underground is enough to bid farewell to any conventional means of finding it. What needs to be done, then, is to rely, somewhat like the old explorers, on myths, legends, and folk tales.
For example, considering what drove the Spaniards in search of these cities is astonishing. In fact, the "Quest" for Cibola began around 1150, when the Arabs conquered the city of Merida in Extremadura, Spain. Legend tells quite explicitly that the seven bishops of the city, to avoid falling into infidel hands, organized a caravan carrying gold and precious objects and from Merida reached the sea, probably the Atlantic coast of Portugal. From there, they set sail westward aboard some ships, taking with them the wealth and citizens of Merida who did not want to surrender. When three and a half centuries later Columbus opened the way to the Americas, the memory of that flight was still clear in the Spanish collective memory, and shortly after arriving in the Caribbean, an expedition was sent to find the seven Christian colonies that the bishops were said to have founded: in addition to the famous Cibola, also Aira, Anhuib, Ansalli, Ansesseli, Ansodi, Ansolli, and Con.
These seven cities are said to have been built with gold on Antilia, the island of riches and bliss often confused with Cuba by many. It was here that the searches began, at least until Emperor Charles V sent Pánfilo de Narváez to Florida in 1527. Narváez was a conquistador who had been sent to Mexico in 1520 to observe Cortes's true intentions on imperial orders, but he left "with broken bones". Defeated in battle by his own Spanish soldiers, Narváez was given a second chance by Spanish viceroy Antonio de Mendoza, and not a small one: to find Cibola and regain lost honor. For this, he was appointed Governor of Florida, but it was largely a ceremonial title, as Florida at the time was a swampy land populated by hostile Natives. Narváez was not a fortunate man, and indeed this expedition also miserably failed: of the initial five ships, two shipwrecked causing the death of the entire crew, and half of the remaining 700 men deserted shortly after landing. The survivors, upon finding no trace of the golden cities in Florida, headed towards the Gulf of Mexico on makeshift rafts, which also wrecked. Foolishly, instead of heading towards nearby Cuba, they decided to traverse the swamps of Alabama and the deserts of Texas... At the end of an almost decade-long delirious march, worthy only of the folly of Conquistadors, only four survived: Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, Alonso del Castillo Maldonado, Andrés Dorantes de Carranza, and a Berber slave named Estebanico, known in Italy as Stefano il Nero.
The latter is the most incredible figure in this story, a character worthy of a novel: he was indeed a Berber slave from Morocco bought by a Spanish nobleman, Andrés Dorantes de Carranza, who later became his friend to the point of bringing him to America as a collaborator and bodyguard. Carranza was a cultured man and art lover who, alongside the desire for wealth, also had a longing to discover new lands and civilizations. Therefore, he taught everything he could to his loyal Estebanico, who returned the favor by saving his friend-master's life on more than one occasion. It was thanks to the survival skills of the almost former Berber slave that the aforementioned four men managed to reach the region of New Spain in Mexico in an absurd eight-year journey. Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, who was a physician and naturalist by profession, described the harrowing journey through the southern future United States in a book titled "Shipwreck," which caused a sensation both in Europe and the New World. The four men, unable to plunder or pillage, were forced to establish friendly relations with the Natives. From these diplomatic relations, they learned that indeed, west of the Colorado River, there existed a place paved with gold and built by a strange indigenous population not affiliated with the locals.
The news of this account reached the ears of the imperial court, and the Governor of New Galicia in Mexico, Francisco Vázquez de Coronado, was tasked in 1539 with sending an expedition in search of these mythical cities of Cibola. Preliminarily, Coronado, known for being tough, cold, and ruthless, sent the man who had been the protagonist of the failed expedition ten years earlier, Estebanico. Alongside him, he sent a respected and followed Franciscan friar, Marcos de Niza, who had participated in the conquest of Peru with Francisco Pizarro and who, after reading Cabeza de Vaca's book, had been sent by Viceroy Mendoza on a solitary search for Cibola in the area of present-day Arizona, in the territories of villages populated by the Zuni and Hopi Natives. Marcos de Niza had also found traces of Cibola in the stories, so there was no better pair to uncover this mystery. However, it was the friar who returned alone a year later. He recounted that he had indeed been near Cibola with Estebanico, but that Estebanico had been killed by hostile Natives. He had not been able to enter the city himself, but had observed it from afar, as his own life had been in danger. He said that Cibola was located five leagues from the sea, and from the hill where he had watched, it was possible to see, to the west, the Pacific Ocean. It was a real city, a city where everything was covered in gold: the roofs, the palace stairs, down to the streets' pavement. Everywhere there was wealth and opulence.
Aware of the importance of these reports, albeit incomplete, the Viceroy convinced Coronado to lead an expedition himself. The Governor organized a full-scale military mission: 335 Spanish soldiers, 1300 Native allies, four Franciscan friars including Marcos de Niza, and an unspecified number of African slaves left Mexico to head towards the Sonoran Desert. This army entered the territory of present-day United States in the area controlled by the Apache Natives, in Arizona. Upon reaching the area populated by the Hopi near the Colorado River, and seeing their poor villages made of mud and thatch, the soldiers felt a sense of revolt. The feeling that things were not as Friar Marcos de Niza had described was widespread, and there was even an attempt to kill him, threatening desertion if de Niza was not punished for his incompetence. Coronado certainly could not execute such an important man and sent him back to Mexico, albeit with dishonor. However, as much of a liar and perhaps a murderer as Marcos de Niza was, he had described Cibola as being close to the Pacific Ocean. It is unclear why a theoretically determined and experienced captain like Coronado went east instead of west, as suggested by the friar's account. The fact is that the expedition turned eastward towards the Rio Grande, into what are now the states of New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas, and ultimately Coronado became entangled in a war of conquest in poor and desolate territories, rich only in grass and bison. The violence, massacres, and torture inflicted by his soldiers on the indigenous populations served no purpose: if something does not exist, it cannot be discovered.
In 1542, Coronado was recalled to Mexico. His army had fragmented into numerous garrisons, decimated by hunger, diseases, ambushes, and continuous guerrilla warfare, as it was unthinkable to sustain such a large group of soldiers in those desert territories without natural resources. The failure to find Cibola led him to pursue another mythically rich city, Quivira, in the territories of the Pueblo Indians, but again, the legends proved unsubstantiated. Thus, Coronado, in complete destitution, returned to his seat as Governor in Mexico, but he was a man morally and reputationally destroyed. With him and the failure of the expedition, attention faded for a while on Cibola and the other six fabulous cities, while the "new" Quivira was sought long into the early 17th century.
What should we think today of these mythical golden cities? Frankly, Friar Marcos de Niza's account appears incomplete and unreliable without Estebanico's corroborating testimony. Moreover, apparently no one truly searched for Cibola until recent times, but certainly its proximity to the ocean (five Spanish leagues corresponded to approximately 21 kilometers) would have attracted someone's attention if it had been covered in gold... If indeed Estebanico and Marcos de Niza reached Cibola, it must forcibly be in the area west of Baja California, in a sparsely urbanized and mapped Mexican territory. Who knows, a canyon like the one Uncle Scrooge discovered could still hide the secret of cities with golden roofs.
