In the early years of the twentieth century, Herbert Eugene Bolton opened up a new area of study in American history: the Spanish Borderlands. His research took him to the archives of Mexico, where he found a wealth of unpublished, even unknown, material that shed new light on the early history of North America, particularly the American Southwest. The seventeen essays in this book, edited by John Francis Bannon, illustrate the importance of his contributions to American historiography and provide a solid foundation for students of Borderlands history. Herbert Eugene Bolton pioneered Spanish...

Herbert E. Bolton's classic of southwestern history, first published in 1949, delivers the epic account of Francisco Vasquez de Coronado's sixteenth-century entrada to the North American frontier of the Spanish Empire. Leaving Mexico City in 1540 with some three hundred Spaniards and a large body of Indian allies, Coronado and his men-the first Europeans to explore what are now Arizona and New Mexico-continued on to the buffalo-covered plains of Texas and into Oklahoma and Kansas. With documents in hand, Bolton personally followed the path of the Coronado expedition, providing readers with...