Bernalillo: Coronado's Winter Headquarters
Near Albuquerque, New Mexico
The town of Bernalillo sits in the Rio Grande valley at an elevation of roughly five thousand feet, on ground that Francisco Vasquez de Coronado walked in fifteen forty. Coronado spent two winters here, from fifteen forty to fifteen forty-two, using the Tiwa-speaking Pueblo Indian villages of the Tiguex province as his headquarters while he searched for the fabled golden cities of Cibola.
He found no gold. His men commandeered food and clothing from the pueblos, triggering armed resistance that Coronado crushed with considerable violence. But the Camino Real, the royal road north from Mexico City, would run through this valley for the next three centuries. Bernalillo was formally founded in the years after the Spanish reconquest, and today it is one of the oldest European-founded communities in New Mexico.
