Spanish explorers were some of the first Europeans to visit the place now called Colorado. First arriving in North America in the early 1500s, they came looking for gold and silver, and later, for land to settle. But contact with the Spanish forever changed the lives of the Indigenous people who already lived here. Diseases, along with violent campaigns led by Spanish conquistadors, nearly wiped out some Indigenous communities. Spanish settlers followed the conquistadors, taking over the lands that Native peoples called home. Over hundreds of years, Spanish and Indigenous language, culture, religion and food ways have blended, creating a unique culture that only exists in the U.S. Southwest.

In 1492, the Spanish government hired Italian cartographer and sailor Cristoforo Colombo (Christopher Columbus) to find new ways of accessing the silk and spice trade in southern Asia. But instead of finding southern Asia, Columbus stumbled on the North and South American continents. Columbus became a wealthy man, profiting from the role he was given in overseeing new Spanish colonies in the Americas. As leader of the new colonies, Columbus started a brutal campaign of extermination and enslavement against the Indigenous peoples living in the Americas. Even some at the time, such as the priest Bartolome De Las Casas, wrote to the king of Spain and religious leaders to protest Columbus’s brutal treatment of Native peoples. Generations of explorers followed in his footsteps, bringing weapons and diseases that destroyed entire populations of Indigenous peoples.

Physical description: October 12, 1935. Article: “Honoring The Great Navigator” Article depicts Christopher Columbus and then comments on the celebration of Columbus Day with appropriate celebration
This photograph is a digital scan of an original photograph lent for copying during the Italians of Colorado project. The original photograph is not owned by History Colorado. The digital scan was donated with permissions (see permissions in Registrar's file) and accessioned into the History Colorado collection.

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History Colorado

Photograph of Article and Picture in The Trumpet of Christopher Columbus "Honoring the Great Navigator"

Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca took part in a Spanish expedition led by Pánfilo de Narváez. In 1527, the Narváez expedition was shipwrecked. de Vaca landed in Florida and split forces with soldiers moving inland with plans for a rendezvous, but that never transpired. A handful of desperate survivors built small boats and intended to follow the coast to Pánuco settlements in Mexico. The boats were destroyed in a storm, though, and only de Vaca and five companions survived, living in the Galveston Islands (present day Texas). The group was captured by indigenous people and traded from tribe to tribe, until de Vaca and one other slave escaped. Cabeza de Vaca traveled throughout what would later become the American Southwest for eight years. He lived among many American Indian tribes before making his way back to Spanish settlers in Mexico in 1536. He later wrote an account of his journey that included detailed descriptions of the American Indian people he encountered.

Drawing depicts DeVaca with three other men, all holding a cross made of sticks, blessing two kneeling, one standing Indian. The men have only loin clothes around their waist, standing Indian has beads around his neck and a decoration of some sort hanging from his waist. Foreground are rocks and cactus, some sparse plants, background are rocky mountains. Text appears at the top and bottom of the drawing.

Drawing, Cabeza de Vaca

In 1519, Hernán Cortés, 100 sailors, 508 additional men, and 16 horses landed on the Gulf Coast of Mexico. Native groups who disliked living under Mexica (Aztec) rule established alliances with Cortés. These alliances and numerous other factors such as devastating disease helped the Spanish weaken the Mexica Empire.  In 1521 Cortés invaded and took control of Tenochtitlan, the Mexica capitol, spreading disease and violence throughout present day Mexico and beyond.  


History of the conquest of Mexico: with a preliminary view of the ancient Mexican civilization, and the life of the conqueror, Hernando Cortés

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Hernán Cortés

Francisco Vásquez de Coronado started as an assistant to Governor Antonio de Mendoza, a powerful man in the government of New Spain. Mendoza heard rumors that there was gold to the north of modern-day Mexico, and in 1540 he sent Coronado on a vast expedition to find it.

The expedition traveled thousands of miles across today’s New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Arizona. The explorers stumbled upon the Grand Canyon but found no gold. Although Coronado failed to find gold, he strengthened Spain’s claims to land in present-day Texas and New Mexico.

The King of Spain appointed Juan de Oñate governor of New Mexico in 1598. Oñate led 400 colonists north in search of gold, exploring hundreds of miles in all directions to find it. He traveled through Taos, New Mexico, and into the area of present-day Trinidad, Colorado. In 1598 Oñate established the first colony at San Juan de Los Caballeros near present day Española, New Mexico. The colony was later moved to Santa Fe. 

As governor of New Mexico, Oñate ordered the massacre of hundreds of Acoma Pueblo people in 1599. He further punished the survivors by enslaving all men and women who were at least 12 years old and ordering that the men’s toes (some sources say one of their feet) were amputated. 

In the early 1600s, Oñate led an expedition east to explore and colonize the Great Plains, documenting the tallgrass prairie and the native people he encountered. He led a third expedition in 1604 to the lower valley of the Colorado River. He was recalled to Spain in 1606 when reports of his excessive cruelty to American Indians reached the King, and was subsequently banished from New Mexico for life. He died in Spain in 1626.


This is a long metal double-edged blade that tapers symmetrically to a point at one end. There is an inscribed pattern on both sides toward the top of the blade.


Spanish Blade

Bernardo de Miera y Pacheco was a cartographer, or map maker, who traveled with many expeditions, including Domínguez and Escalante and de Anza. He created maps on expeditions from 1749-1779. Miera y Pacheco was also a painter and carver, with pieces in churches and museums.


Map of the newly discovered land : north, northwest, and west of New Mexico / drawn by me, Don Bernardo de Miera y Pachecoa who entered on discovery in the company of the Rev. Fathers Atanasio Domínguez and Silvestre Vélez de Escalante according to the diary and description which was made and sent to His Majesty by hand of his Viceroy, with a copy of map and text, addressed to Señor Don Teodora dela Croix ... Commander-in-Chief of this Western America, under His Majesty.

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Juan Bautista de Anza was an officer in New Spain’s military. In 1776, he led an expedition of 240 settlers more than 2,000 miles to establish a mission in California. In 1777, he was appointed governor of New Mexico. Two years later, de Anza traveled 615 miles through the San Luis Valley and present-day Manitou Springs, Pueblo, and Colorado Springs with 600 Spanish soldiers and Pueblo Indians in pursuit of Comanche leader Cuerno Verde and his warriors. De Anza’s diary of his travels serves as an important source of information for historians.

Anza and the northwest frontier of New Spain

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Juan Bautista de Anza

In 1776, two priests, Padre Silvestre Vélez de Escalante and Fray Francisco Atanasio Domínguez, were sent to find a new route linking Santa Fe, the capital of New Mexico, with the Spanish missions on the California coast. Domínguez and Escalante never reached California, but they mapped and documented their five-month, 1,800-mile journey. They explored much of western Colorado (including present-day Gunnison and Durango), Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico. Their expedition opened up new areas of the American West for future generations to explore and settle.

Wilderness wanderers: the 1776 expedition of Domínguez Escalante

Bibliography Note: Includes bibliographical references (p. 171-172).

Inscription: Montrose (Colo.); Western Reflections Pub. Co., c2003.

Standards for Spanish Explorers

College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework