Searching for Golden Empires: Epic Cultural Collisions in Sixteenth-Century America

Searching for Golden Empires: Epic Cultural Collisions in Sixteenth-Century America

Book is in good condition! There is light wear from use. There is a white sticker inside the back cover. The pages are clean with no marks.

This engaging publication chronicles the expeditions conducted by the initial cohorts of Spanish conquistadors and their Native associates. In this account, author William K. Hartmann accompanies readers as the explorers venture from Cuba to Mexico City, the capital of the Aztec Empire, and onwards northwards through the borderlands to New Mexico, the Grand Canyon, southern California, and even as far as Kansas. The narrative encompasses a range of characters, including Hernán Cortés, the conqueror; Moctezuma, the Aztec ruler; Francisco Vázquez de Coronado, a renowned expedition leader; Fray Marcos de Niza, an explorer-priest doomed to a disgraceful fate; and Viceroy Antonio Mendoza, the king's representative who endeavored to maintain control over the explorers. Drawing from first-hand accounts that the Spaniards documented in letters and memoirs, Hartmann depicts the ancient ways of life spanning from Mexico to the western United States; Aztec narratives of the conquest; discussions between Aztec priests and Spanish priests regarding the nature of the universe; Cortés's enduring relationship with his famous Native mistress, Malinche (not to mention the enigmatic fate of his wife); lost explorers who roamed from Florida to Arizona; and Marcos de Niza's controversial reports on the "Seven Cities of Cíbola." Searching for Golden Empires delineates how, even after the triumph of the Spanish in Mexico, Cortés remained a relentless rival to Coronado in a race to discover the subsequent "golden empire," believed to lie in the north. This is an enthralling history that unveils both tragic and inspirational episodes, ultimately unveiling the interconnected narrative of the United States and Mexico.

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