hem once again. With e

ach new discovery across the Atlantic, the projected location of those cities had progressively moved from the Antilles to the Western Indies to Mexico, and now was believed to be in the territory of New Mexico (Junquera 14; Hammond 1979, 20-33). Thus the conquest of New Mexico is formulated in part as a quest for the source of legend, the answer to an originary exile. The ever vanishing origin seduces the conquistador farther and farther north, taking Onate as far north as Wi

chita, in present-day Kansas, before colonial authorities force him back. This story of conquest implies too a narrative of new discovery, of travel beyond the cartographically mapped, the empirically kno

One of wn. Crossing the northern frontier of New Spain marked by the Rio del Norte (today the Rio Grande), Onate and Villagra enter "vast and solitary plains where foot of Christian never trod before" (Villagra 125), and together initiate a new chapter in Spanish conquest. Moreover, while Onate seeks a "new" Mexico, Villagra figures this Mexico not as a copy of the first, but as its origin: "It is a well-known fact that the ancient Mexica

n races, w

• ho in ages past foun
• ded the city of Mexi
• co, came from these

regions" (4

• 2). Onate seeks not jus
• Single-stage light gas gun