The Search for the Seven Cities
One of the strangest episodes in the Spanish conquest of the New World was the quest for the mythical Seven Cities, first believed to stand on a mysterious island far out in the Atlantic Ocean, afterwards magically transported to the depths of America.
By the end of the sixteenth century, the astonishing impulse of exploration and conquest that had won a new world for Spain was all but spent. Colonization and missionary activity continued, however, even in the least accessible areas, such as the vast territory vaguely denoted by the terms Florida and Tierra Nueva.
It seemed, indeed, that the wild, half-explored regions, that were later to form the South and the South-west of the United States, would find their permanent destiny within the framework of the Spanish Empire.
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