Although the DeSoto expedition fought numerous battles earlier, the Tiguex War was the first named war between Europeans and Native Americans in what is now the United States. It was fought in the winter of 1540-41 by the expedition of Francisco Vázquez de Coronado against the twelve or thirteen pueblos of Tiwa Indians as well as other Puebloan tribes along both sides of the Rio Grande, north and south of present-day Bernalillo, New Mexico, in what was called the Tiguex Province. The only book-length treatment of the Tiguex War is in the historical novel, Winter of the Metal People. The virtually unknown Tiwa leader who opposed Coronado was Xauían, usually referred to in the chronicles by the Spanish nickname of Juan Alemán. Xauían was from the Tiwa pueblo of Ghufoor , which Coronado commandeered for his headquarters in the winters of 1540-41 and 1541-42.The Coronado expedition had the primary motivation of finding the silk and spices of the Indies as well as gold, silver, and land for forced-labor encomienda estates. The Coronado expedition was huge in size, with about 350 European men-at-arms, a large number of spouses, slaves, and servants, and as many as 2,000 Mexican Indian allies, mostly warriors from Aztec, Purépecha, and other tribes from central and western Mexico. The expedition also brought thousands of livestock, including horses, mules, sheep, cattle, and perhaps pigs.
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