“All is a fantasy, dream of that great desert…” said poet John Gould Fletcher as he delved into the minds of men who sought Cibola. The tale is as old as time: fabled cities made of gold tucked deep in the jungles of the New World. El Dorado, Paititi, City of the Caesars, you name it.
There are many names and variations of the story, but the quest remained the same. Throughout the 15th and 16th centuries, many Spaniards died trying to find the immense wealth of one such place: the Seven Cities of Cibola.
The legend begins
No one knows how the legend of Cibola began. Some sources suggest that an 8th century Portuguese expedition came across an island called Antillia, also referred to as the “Isle of the Seven Cities.” On that expedition, some Catholic bishops from Portugal or Spain — fleeing the Muslim conquest — sought refuge on an Atlantic island that happened to have huge stores of gold.
Most likely, the discoveries of Atlantic islands like the Canaries, Madeira, Cape Verdes, and the Azores inspired the Antillia myth. Possibly, Antillia was a phantom island, a mirage spotted from a distance at sea. However, its vague origins and lack of evidence did not stop this imaginary island from popping up on maps. Charts placed it west of the Iberian Peninsula. How the island made its way from here to the New World is a mystery.
Aztec gold coin in the sand. Photo: breakermaximus/Shutterstock
What is Cibola?
The Seven Cities of Cibola, or simply Cibola, was one version of the City of Gold myth which circulated among conquistadors and church clergy in the 15th and 16th centuries. After the Aztec conquest and the wealth it brought, rumors of glittering cities began to overtake the Spanish imagination. Supposedly, Cibola was hidden in the deserts of the American Southwest, specifically, the Sonoran Desert. The Spanish duly recorded the names of five of the seven cities: Matsaki, K’iakima, Hawikuh, K’ianawe, and Halona. The other two have been lost to history.
According to writer George E. Buker, the discovery of more advanced civilizations in the Yucatan Peninsula further advanced the story of Cibola. It made the prospect of a city of gold more likely. Buker adds that the lure of Cibola likely inspired Hernan Cortes to undertake his own expedition in 1519.
Today, Cibola refers to a national forest located in New Mexico, the ancestral homeland of the Zuni people. Some mining for gold, copper, and silver did take place in the area, but was not part of the legend.
Expeditions
The disastrous Narvaez Expedition of 1527 set out to explore and colonize Florida with 600 men and several ships. Fierce storms, starvation, diseases, and other misfortunes decimated the company. Ultimately, only four individuals survived — Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, Alonso del Castillo Maldonado, Andres Dorantes de Carranza, and a Moorish slave named Estevanico. They had broken away from the main expedition party and wandered the desert for seven years, earning the respect of the indigenous peoples. (A lovely poetic novella, Interlinear to Cabeza de Vaca by Haniel Long, tries to imagine one survivor’s dawning appreciation of local culture.)
Cibola is one of the many City of Gold myths of the 16th century. Photo: Shutterstock AI
When the quartet returned to civilization in Mexico City, they relayed fantastical stories of “large cities with streets lined with goldsmith shops…and doorways studded with emeralds and turquoise.” Other contemporary reports described “seven very large cities” where people “ate off gold and silver plates.”
Such reports prompted a follow-up expedition, initiated by the Viceroy of New Spain, Antonio de Mendoza. He sent out a small group, including Estevancio and a Franciscan friar named Marcos de Niza. Marcos came back bearing the solemn news that hostile natives had killed Estevancio, but not before he had found Cibola.
These teasing reports further inflamed the Viceroy’s lust for gold. It inspired him to launch yet another attempt to find Cibola. He sent out his friend, explorer Francisco Vasquez de Coronado, supposedly to bring the Gospel to the heathen. Instead, the expedition plundered all it could find and devastated the local population. As for Cibola, all they found were some simple pueblo villages.
Desperate to track down these elusive cities of gold, they listened to a mysterious figure known as The Turk, who regaled them with tales of another golden city, Quivira. It was apparently similar to Cibola. In the end, the story turned out to be a bogus concoction to exploit the Spaniards’ gullibility and lure them on a wild goose chase. Eventually, attempts to find these cities ended.
Theories
The original Antillia myth most likely arose from a combination of mirages and Catholic refugees who sought to delegitimize Muslim rule in the Iberian Peninsula. By stating that the bishops came upon an island of gold shows God’s favor upon them. Optical illusions were responsible for dozens of legends of imaginary lands during this age of discovery. Many a sailor dreamed of finding a new land where their wildest dreams would come true. Mirages featured not only in 16th-century New World exploration but prominently in later Arctic voyages, minus the gold angle.
A mirage of land over the Arctic Ocean. Photo: Jerry Kobalenko
Conclusion
Cibola may be nothing more than a fabrication conjured by the indigenous groups in the region, who hoped to draw gullible Spaniards away from their communities into the desert. It is perhaps one of the many quiet but effective weapons that under-gunned indigenous groups used in their battle against the Europeans.
