In 1540, the most ambitious expedition ever launched in the Americas marched north from the ruins of the Aztec capital in search of El Norte Misterioso—a land rumored to hold cities of gold. Led by Francisco Coronado and backed by the might of the Spanish Empire, nearly 2,000 men set out expecting conquest and riches. What they encountered instead was the unconquered American West.

Over two brutal years, Coronado’s forces crossed more than 2,500 miles of unmapped territory, becoming the first Europeans to see the Grand Canyon, the Rocky Mountains, and the Great Plains. They met sophisticated Indigenous nations who fiercely defended their lands and mastered an unforgiving environment. Starvation, violence, desertion, and resistance shattered Spanish confidence. Nearly 90 percent of the expedition’s participants never returned.

Peter Stark, author The Lost Cities of El Norte, examines one of history’s great failures of empire—and how Indigenous power and landscape combined to halt European domination of the Southwest and Plains for the next three centuries.

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