Francisco Vazquez de Coronado
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40 free Francisco Vazquez De Coronado trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Francisco Vázquez de Coronado led one of the largest Spanish expeditions ever to march into North America, chasing rumors of cities paved with gold. He found no treasure, but his two-year journey produced the first European descriptions of landscapes, animals and peoples across the Southwest and the Great Plains. This quiz covers the fun facts people look up about Coronado: where he came from, who sent him and why, the guides and friars who misled him, the surprises his scouts ran into, and what became of him afterward. You will also meet the places and pop culture that still carry his name. It suits students working on an explorer report, teachers who need a quick review, and anyone curious about the age of the conquistadors.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Scouts sent out by Coronado became the first Europeans to see which natural wonder of the American Southwest?
Grand Canyon
Grand Canyon views stopped the scouts on the South Rim, where they spent three days seeking a way down before three soldiers tried the descent and gave up.
Q 02Coronado wrote of plains so full of which animals, which he called cows, that he never lost sight of them?
Bison
Bison awed the Spaniards: one chronicler said the plain was so level that sky showed between the animals' legs.
Q 03Which Indiana Jones film opens with young Indy snatching the fictional Cross of Coronado from grave robbers?
The Last Crusade
The Last Crusade dates the gift of the cross to a year when the real Coronado was a boy of about ten still living in Spain.
Q 04What badly injured Coronado in New Mexico shortly before he and his men decided to abandon the expedition?
A fall from his horse
A fall from his horse gave Coronado a head injury in early 1542, and during his long recovery the expedition agreed to give up and go home.
Q 05What kind of storm battered Coronado's camp on the plains, denting helmets, ripping tents and smashing the crockery?
A hailstorm
A hailstorm blew in one afternoon with a very high wind, and the chronicler counted the army's broken gourds as no small loss.
Q 06Coronado's hunt for gold ended among grass-house villages in which US state, the farthest point of his march?
Kansas
Kansas was the end of the road: after weeks among farming villages near the great bend of a prairie river, Coronado turned back empty-handed.
Q 07Why did the supply fleet sent to meet Coronado turn back after rowing up the Colorado River?
Worms were eating the boats
Worms were eating the boats, by one account of the letters the sailors buried beneath a marked tree; a Coronado patrol later dug them up.
Q 08Coronado's chroniclers marveled at Plains nomads who moved camp using which animals to carry their tent poles?
Dogs
Dogs carried the poles and packs of a whole camp, a system later called the travois; Coronado described these hunters as nomads who followed the herds.
Q 09Coronado's surname is also an everyday Spanish word; what does 'coronado' mean in English?
Crowned
Crowned is the meaning: a Pacific island group named Los Cuatro Coronados in 1602 honors four martyrs, not the explorer.
Q 10Instead of the gold he was promised, Coronado found a plains chief wearing a pendant made of which metal?
Copper
Copper was all the wealth on show; the tales that drew him there had promised a bearded king who worshipped a cross of gold.
Q 11Coronado hoped to repeat the fortune which conquistador had won by toppling the Aztec Empire about twenty years earlier?
Hernán Cortés
Hernán Cortés took the Aztec capital in 1521, and stories of that treasure kept Spaniards chasing rumored golden kingdoms for a generation.
Q 12Which king of Spain, also Holy Roman Emperor, received Coronado's letter praising the rich soil of the plains?
Charles V
Charles V ruled Spain as Charles I; it was his viceroy in New Spain, not the emperor himself, who chose Coronado to lead the expedition.
Q 13Coronado's army spent two winters in pueblos it took over along which river in central New Mexico?
Rio Grande
Q 21Coronado marched north seeking seven legendary cities of gold, known to the Spanish by which name?
Cíbola
Cíbola turned out to be a cluster of plain farming pueblos, and the furious soldiers turned on the friar who had described a rich city.
Q 22What nickname did Coronado's men give the captive Plains guide who promised to lead them to a land of gold?
The Turk
The Turk steered the army far off course, apparently so that it would get lost on the plains, and Coronado had him executed before turning back.
Q 23After the pueblos proved poor, a captive guide lured Coronado onto the plains with tales of which rich land?
Quivira
Quivira was said to be so rich that everyone drank from jugs of gold; the real place had thatched houses and fields of corn.
Rio Grande villagers paid dearly: the army took a whole pueblo for its quarters and demanded food and clothing, setting off a winter of fighting.
Q 14Dozens of Spanish crossbow points unearthed in the 1990s pinned down a Coronado campsite in which US state?
Texas
Texas yielded the proof in the 1990s, when a local man's finds near Floydada led archaeologists to dozens more points and Spanish-made nails.
Q 15Coronado National Memorial marks where the expedition entered what is now the United States, in which state?
Arizona
Arizona got the memorial in 1952; planners had hoped Mexico would create a matching park across the border, but it never did.
Q 16Coronado's first winter camp lay just north of which New Mexico city, where Interstate 40 is the Coronado Freeway?
Albuquerque
Albuquerque is about 16 miles south of Coronado Historic Site, a ruined pueblo near the old camp that preserves murals painted before the Spanish came.
Q 17Coronadite, named in the early 1900s in honor of Coronado, is what kind of natural object?
A mineral
A mineral, coronadite is a lead-bearing manganese oxide that geologist Waldemar Lindgren named for the explorer of the region where it was found.
Q 18Coronado's seaborne supply fleet sailed north from Acapulco up which long, narrow body of water?
Gulf of California
Gulf of California waters carried the fleet to the mouth of the Colorado River, and a pilot's chart from the voyage is the earliest accurate map of both.
Q 19Which group formed the bulk of Coronado's fighting force, far outnumbering the European men-at-arms?
Mexican Indian allies
Mexican Indian allies from about twenty peoples of central and western New Spain made up most of the army and carried their own weapons.
Q 20To help pay for the expedition, Coronado pawned estates that belonged to which member of his family?
His wife
His wife, Beatriz de Estrada, had brought to the marriage one of the largest estates in New Spain, an important source of the expedition's funding.
Q 24Which Pueblo people defended Hawikuh, the first town Coronado's hungry army stormed on its way north?
Zuni
Zuni defenders refused the Spaniards entry and knocked Coronado down with a large stone before the town fell in under an hour.
Q 25The Querechos, tent-dwelling nomads Coronado met following the herds across the plains, were a band of which people?
Apache
Apache hunters, the Querechos talked with the Spaniards in a sign language so clear that no interpreter was needed.
Q 26Which Franciscan friar's report of a rich city in the north persuaded the viceroy to send Coronado?
Marcos de Niza
Marcos de Niza said he had seen a city bigger than the capital of New Spain; when it proved a modest pueblo, Coronado sent him home in disgrace.
Q 27Which Moroccan-born survivor of the Narváez expedition was killed scouting Hawikuh a year before Coronado arrived?
Estevanico
Estevanico, an enslaved man who had crossed the continent on foot, went ahead of a friar's party as its guide and never came back.
Q 28Coronado sailed to New Spain in the entourage of which personal friend, the colony's first viceroy?
Antonio de Mendoza
Antonio de Mendoza put his own money into the expedition he handed to Coronado, then stayed behind to deal with unrest in the colony.
Q 29Coronado was born into a noble family in which Spanish city, home to one of Europe's oldest universities?
Salamanca
Salamanca's university dates from 1218; Coronado, a second son, left Spain at about 25 to make his career in New Spain.
Q 30Coronado's nephew Juan Vázquez de Coronado is remembered for colonizing which Central American country?
Costa Rica
Costa Rica remembers him for fair dealing with its native peoples, and a canton of San José province still carries the family name.