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Spanish explorers toured U.S
Once in the Grand Canyon of the Colorado, the Spanish postponed the attempt to reach the riverbed, almost without water, due to the great danger. They named it after the type of red-colored soil.
+ Hispanic Roots
Discovered by the Spanish (1540)
It happened almost 300 years before the birth of the U.S as a country. And they did not see it as a great landscape of Nature. They saw it as a big problem to get through. They couldn’t even get water, since the river was at the end of huge cliffs. And they risked their lives trying to reach the riverbed.
Grand Canyon Discovery
A Spanish expedition in 1540, surprised to find themselves before such a cut on the ground, in an arid area. They explore it trying to reach the water of the riverbed
Vázquez Coronado Expedition
The Spanish expedition was looking for the supposedly rich cities of the Kingdom of Cíbola.
After the conquest of the Aztec Queen of Mexico, it was believed that another similar kingdom could exist in that area. The great expedition sent explorers in various directions. His main mission was to reach the mythical kingdom of Cíbola with its great riches. But in his search too, he was trying to discover possible mineral sites, especially gold and silver. He did not find the Gold he was looking for, but he did take a great tour and discovered the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River in its section of Arizona. A huge natural obstacle
García López de Cárdenas
Discover the Colorado Canyon a group of the expedition
Its enormous size and the difficult access to the water of the riverbed, due to the dangers of the great cliffs, made its exploration difficult, so it was little explored.
From Quivira, one of the towns of the Zuñi Indians, Francisco Vázquez Coronado sent an exploration expedition to a river.
This Spaniard was the first European to contemplate the impressive spectacle of the Colorado Canyon. He explored and surveyed the Moran Point area.
Curiously, they could not reach the water, since they did not find access due to the difficulties of the terrain. When they saw that they ran out of supplies and the water they carried, they had to leave without reaching the water of the river, since he was at the end of the ravine.
They navigate its mouth
An attempt is made to bring supplies to Coronado and to do so, navigate through the mouth of the Colorado River
Coronado explores by land, Alarcón explores by sea
While Coronado is exploring inland, another Spaniard Hernando de Alarcón almost at the same time, tries to bring them supplies, reaches the mouth of the Colorado River. He took a boat trip exploring the area until he reached the final leg.
Alarcón was unable to locate Coronado’s expedition. But just as they used to do to communicate, they left an explanatory letter. Another Coronado expedition located the tree with Alarcón’s letters explaining the search for it and the subsequent abandonment of it.
No European except the Spanish, was at the mouth of the Colorado River until 1820, the year in which the Englishman Hardy did.
Francisco de Ulloa (1539)
He discovered its mouth and named the area, Ancón de San Andrés
A year earlier, in another Spanish exploration of the Pacific, the mouth of the Colorado River had already been discovered, although it was never navigated.
Americans arrive in 1869
John Wesley explored the Grand Canyon
The first exploration of the new United States of America did not arrive there, until more than 80 years after its Independence. The new country in its need to generate great discoverers and explorers, rediscover what is already known, assigning one more pioneer. which was soon mythologized.
The Grand Canyon impressed and impresses
An impressive show of more than 450 km
With slopes that reach 2500 m, separation between banks of 30 km in some cases and gorges of up to 1500 m
The enormous dimensions of the Grand Canyon of the Colorado are impressive. However, the Spaniards short of water, it was a problem to see the water from above and not be able to access it due to the great slopes and precipices. Nor were they to contemplate these landscapes, with enormous distances, when their exhausting voyages of exploration were on foot or at most on horseback.
Located within a huge plateau, The Grand Canyon borders Las Vegas, Great Salt Lake, Albuquerque, Santa Fe, coming almost close to Denver.
Tour the states of Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and Arizona. And it covers an area of 340,000 square km.
Although the Hispanics were the first to visit and name it, it would be Americans like John Wesley Powell, who would be known and would obtain fame.
And they would leave the Hispanic explorers as an anecdote, like most of US Hispanic history, would be hidden and soon forgotten.
The different layers of the terrain, configure some strata, which reaching the depths, indicate an antiquity of 1,700 million years. Therefore, it is not surprising that only 65 million years ago, dinosaurs walked among its huge rocks.
