A Most Splendid Company
A Most Splendid Company
The Coronado Expedition in Global Perspective
Winner of the 2020 Fray Francisco Atanasio Domínguez Award from the Historical Society of New Mexico
This magisterial volume unveils Richard and Shirley Flint's deep research into the Latin American and Spanish archives in an effort to track down the history of the participants who came north with the Coronado Expedition in 1540. Through their investigation into thousands of baptismal records, proofs of service, letters, journals, and other primary materials, they provide social and cultural documentation on the backgrounds of hundreds of the individuals who embarked on the Coronado expedition.
The resulting data reveal patterns that shed decisive new light on the core reasons behind the Coronado expedition to Tierra Nueva, revealing, most importantly, that the expedition to Tierra Nueva was part of a complex plan to finally complete the Columbian project--that is, to locate a direct, westward route from Spain to the Asian sources of silks, porcelains, spices, and dyes. Along the way the Flints show us, in far greater detail than ever before, the individuals who made up the expedition--members of the upper echelons of Spanish society to thousands of Nahuatl-speaking Natives of Nueva España and largely anonymous slaves, servants, and women who made the enterprise possible and kept it running, with a course set for Asia by land.
The book is a fascinating read that illuminates much about Spanish organizational skills and about Native American resistance to European encroachment.'--Dan Shannon, Denver Westerners Roundup
A work of reference with extensive forays into such topics as the financing of the expedition, the logistics of travel, the social background of its European and indigenous participants, and so on. . . . It would be impossible to do justice to the richness of A Most Splendid Company in a short review like this one.'--Andrés Reséndez, Journal of Early American History
This volume, with its extensive notes and bibliography, reflects the exhaustive research that its authors have put into it and the whole historical problem of the Coronado Expedition. Its subject matter and the approach to it are presented clearly, concisely, and comprehensibly. This volume should be attractive to anyone, scholar and interested reader alike, with a fascination for the history of the greater Southwest in general and the early exploration of the region specifically.'--Dennis Reinhartz, Terrae Incognitae
The volume and the archive on which it rests are monumental achievements and major boons not only to Coronado scholars but to all students of Spanish colonialism. Their significance will not soon be eclipsed.'--Travis Jeffres, Hispanic American Historical Review
Readers will not find more information and careful analysis of the Coronado Expedition in any other source.'--Jack Becker, Panhandle-Plains Historical Review
The sheer breadth and depth of the research collected in this volume makes it a must-have for any scholar of colonial Latin America, the US borderlands, and exploration history.'--H-LatAm
Richard and Shirley Flint have been working on Coronado since 1980. They are currently the leading experts on the expedition. Individually and together, they have written or edited six previous books on the topic. A Most Splendid Company: The Coronado Expedition in Global Perspective summarizes and adds to their findings in encyclopedic form and is successful in giving the reader a deep and graphic understanding of the Coronado expedition.'--Deborah and Jon Lawrence, Desert Tracks
Richard and Shirley Cushing Flint [. . .] analyze this complex, intensely ordered enterprise every which way, placing it deftly in the sixteenth-century world of Europe, America, and Asia.'--John L. Kessell, author of Whither the Waters: Mapping the Great Basin from Bernardo de Miera to John C. Frémont
Richard Flint is the author of No Settlement, No Conquest: A History of the Coronado Entrada (UNM Press) and the coeditor of The Latest Word from 1540: People, Places, and Portrayals of the Coronado Expedition (UNM Press) and The Coronado Expedition: From the Distance of 460 Years (UNM Press). Shirley Cushing Flint is the author of No Mere Shadows: Faces of Widowhood in Early Colonial Mexico (UNM Press) and the coeditor of The Latest Word from 1540: People, Places and Portrayals of the Coronado Expedition (UNM Press) and The Coronado Expedition: From the Distance of 460 Years (UNM Press).
