r Sunday, 1513, he anchored off the
shores of a new land. The Spanish name for Easter was La Pascua de los
Flores. So De Leon called the new land Florida. For the Spaniards were a
very religious people and usually named their lands and settlements from
saints or religious events. De Leon then sailed around the southern end
of Florida and back to the West Indies. In 1521 he again visited
Florida, was wounded by an Indian arrow, and returned home to die.

[Sidenote: Discovery of the Mississippi.]

[Sidenote: Conquest of Mexico.]

12. Spanish Voyages and Conquests.--Spanish sailors and conquerors
now appeared in quick succession on the northern and western shores of
the Gulf of Mexico. One of them discovered the mouth of the Mississippi.
Others of them stole Indians and carried them to the islands to work as
slaves. The most famous of them all was Cortez. In 1519 he conquered
Mexico after a thrilling campaign and found there great store of gold
and silver. This discovery led to more expeditions and to the
exploration of the southern half of the United States.

[Sidenote: Coronado sets out from Mexico, 1540.]

[Sidenote: The pueblo Indians. _Source Book_, 6.]

13. Coronado in the Southwest, 1540-42.--In 1540 Coronado set out
from the Spanish towns on the Gulf of California to seek for more gold
and silver. For seventy-three days he journeyed northward until he came
to the pueblos (pweb'-lo) of the Southwest. These pueblos were huge
buildings of stone and sun-dried clay. Some of them were large enough
to shelter three hundred Indian families. Pueblos are still to be seen
in Arizona and New Mexico, and the Indians living in them even to this
day tell stories of Coronado's coming and of his cruelty. There was
hardly any gold and silver in these "cities," so a great grief fell upon
Coronado and his comrades.

[Illustration: _By permission of the Bureau of Ethnology._ THE PUEBLO OF
ZUNI (FROM A PHOTOGRAPH).]

[Sidenote: Coronado finds the Great Plains.]

14. The Great Plains.--Soon, however, a new hope came to the Spaniards,
for an Indian told them that far away in the north there really was a
golden land. Onward rode Coronado and a body of picked men. They crossed
vast plains where there were no mountains to guide them. For more than a
thousand miles they rode on until they reached eastern Kansas.
Everywhere they found great herds of buffaloes, or wild cows, as they
called them. They also met the Indians of the Plains