IOTL, the very first European expeditions up there were mounted in 1540, led by Hernando de Alarcón, Vázquez de Coronado and Melchior Díaz, in search of the fabled Seven Cities of Gold which were believed to exist hundreds of miles to the north across the Sonoran desert (in Alta California). So then, let's say that ITTL, the overland expedition led by Coronado actually followed the plan, and managed to meet up with Alarcón's naval expedition at the coast at the pre-arranged spot near the present-day site of Los Mochis ITTL, instead of having Coronado miss the rendevzous and instead electing to go it alone as he did IOTL, along the path he took historically- up the Sinaloa river valley and hence onwards in a North-Easterly direction, across New Mexico all the way to central Kansas?
If Coronado had managed to make the previously agreed-upon rendezvous point with Alarcón along the coast, then the joint expedition would have continued north-west along the coast of the Sea of Cortés (Gulf of California)- resupplied with stores and provisions delivered by Alarcón's ships traveling up the Gulf as planned, all the way up to the Colorado river basin- before tranversing the Yuma Crossing and heading into California via the Imperial Valley. From there, even if TTL's Coronado Expedition only traveled half as far in a NW direction from the Yuma Crossing as it did in its NE direction from the mouth of the Sinaloa River IOTL, then it would have easily transversed the entire length of the Central Valley (reaching it via Palm Springs, San Bernadino, Pasadena, Palmdale and Lancaster, and then through the Tehachapi Pass)- with the possibility of making it as far north as Portland well in the realms of plausibility.
And in doing so, his expedition would have discovered all of those fields of gold they'd been sent to find- and from there, probably kicked off New Spain's Californian Gold Rush in the 1550s, a few hundred years earlier than IOTL. How much of an impact would you think this would have had on the course of history? How much bigger, more populous, and more important would Spain's colonial presence in California have been as a result- and how radically different would the histories of California, Mexico and the USA (if it still even forms ITTL as it did IOTL) be here?
If Coronado had managed to make the previously agreed-upon rendezvous point with Alarcón along the coast, then the joint expedition would have continued north-west along the coast of the Sea of Cortés (Gulf of California)- resupplied with stores and provisions delivered by Alarcón's ships traveling up the Gulf as planned, all the way up to the Colorado river basin- before tranversing the Yuma Crossing and heading into California via the Imperial Valley. From there, even if TTL's Coronado Expedition only traveled half as far in a NW direction from the Yuma Crossing as it did in its NE direction from the mouth of the Sinaloa River IOTL, then it would have easily transversed the entire length of the Central Valley (reaching it via Palm Springs, San Bernadino, Pasadena, Palmdale and Lancaster, and then through the Tehachapi Pass)- with the possibility of making it as far north as Portland well in the realms of plausibility.
And in doing so, his expedition would have discovered all of those fields of gold they'd been sent to find- and from there, probably kicked off New Spain's Californian Gold Rush in the 1550s, a few hundred years earlier than IOTL. How much of an impact would you think this would have had on the course of history? How much bigger, more populous, and more important would Spain's colonial presence in California have been as a result- and how radically different would the histories of California, Mexico and the USA (if it still even forms ITTL as it did IOTL) be here?
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