Debate about which guns actually “won the West” will probably go on indefinitely. The Colt, Winchester, Sharps, Springfield and other arms all have their advocates. But one firearm played a critical role in the West more than two centuries before Samuel Colt or Oliver Winchester saw the light of day. In the hands of Spanish frontiersmen—frontiersmen no less than Jim Bridger or Kit Carson—the comparatively primitive harquebus counterbalanced often overwhelming odds.
The vaunted Spanish expedition under Francisco Vásquez de Coronado that marched from New Spain (present-day Mexico) through parts of what today are Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas between 1540 and ’42 left scant evidence of its passage, and for the next four decades Spanish colonial authorities showed little interest in the region. In 1580, however, Friar Agustín Rodríguez, a Franciscan lay brother eager to convert heathen souls to Christianity, convinced the powers that be that many such souls were waiting to be saved north of the existing mining settlements in New Spain. So, in the largest of the northernmost settlements, Santa Bárbara, Chihuahua, an expedition took shape. As a friar (or three, as it turned out) could hardly travel through hostile country alone, eight soldiers and a captain joined the party.
For such a venture a detachment of nine soldiers was remarkably small. But its captain, Francisco Sánchez—nicknamed Chamuscado (“scorched”) for his flaming red beard—was a veteran of frontier service and knew his business. He made certain his men were well armed and well mounted, with a remuda of 90 horses at their disposal. For arms and armor the soldiers had harquebuses, swords, chain mail coats and breeches, and steel helmets. Armor also shielded their horses. Paramount were the harquebuses. Hernán Gallegos, who kept a journal of the expedition, wrote of a telling encounter with Indians soon after the party set out. “We fired quite a few harquebus shots,” he recalled, “at which the natives were very much frightened and said that
