User:Virtualken/Seven Cities of Gold

Origins of myth
In the 16th century, the Spanish in New Spain (now Mexico) began to hear rumours of "Seven Cities of Gold" called "Cibola" located across the desert, hundreds of miles to the north. The stories may have their root in an earlier Portuguese legend about seven cities founded on the island of Antillia by a catholic expedition in the 8th century. The latter Spanish tales were largely caused by reports given by the four shipwrecked survivors of the failed Narváez expedition, which included Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca and an African slave named Esteban Dorantes, or Estevanico. Eventually returning to New Spain, the adventurers said they had heard stories from natives about cities with great and limitless riches. However, when conquistador Francisco Vázquez de Coronado finally arrived at Cibola in 1540, he discovered that the stories were lies and that there were in fact no treasures as the friar had described&mdash;only adobe pueblos.

While among the pueblos, Coronado heard an additional rumor from a native he called "the Turk" that there was a city with plenty of gold called Quivira located on the other side of the great plains. However, when at last he reached this place (variously conjectured to be in modern Kansas, Nebraska or Missouri), he found little more than teepees.

7 Cities of Gold in popular culture

 * The 1982 cartoon-serial The Mysterious Cities of Gold is heavily based on the legend.
 * The 1984 video game Seven Cities of Gold, dramatizing the Spanish conquest of the Americas, takes its name from this legend.
 * The historical novel Texas by James A. Michener begins with a search for the seven cities.
 * In the skit "Temporarily Humbolt County" from the classic Firesign Theater comedy album "Waiting for the Electrician or Someone Like Him", a tourist asks a native American, "What about the seven cities of gold, Phoenix, Tucson, Las Vegas.....?"
 * In Civilization Revolution for both the the PlayStation 3 and the Nintendo DS, players can go on a quest to find the Seven Cities of Gold. The player who finds the Seven Cities of Gold receives 200 gold pieces to spend on building cities, military units, settlers (people that found new cities), or roads.
 * The movie sequel National Treasure 2 mentions the Seven Cities of Cibola as its treasure.