Fought in the winter of 1540-41 by the army of Francisco Vasquez de Coronado against the 12 pueblos of the Tiwa along both sides of the Rio Grande River in New Mexico. It was the first war between Europeans and Native Americans in the American West.

Francisco Vasquez de Coronado led Mexico's invasion of the north with an expeditionary force of 300 conquistadors and more than one thousand native "allies" in the search for the seven cities of gold. When they reached Cibola, they found not the promised metropolis but "a little, crowded village, looking as if it had been crumpled all up together." This was the Zuni Pueblo of Hawikuh, whose warriors answered with arrows when Coronado demanded that they swear loyalty to his King. Within an hour, the Spaniards overran the pueblo, and over the next few weeks, they conquered the other Zuni in the region.

Coronado moved his camp to the upper Rio Grande River, where his soldiers confiscated one pueblo for winter quarters and looted the surrounding pueblos for supplies. During this operation, a Spaniard raped an Native woman, and when Coronado refused to punish him, the Natives retaliated by stealing horses. Lopez de Cardenas attacked the thieves' pueblo, captured 200 men and methodically burned them all at the stake.

1541 Faced with an incipient uprising, Francisco Vasquez de Coronado ordered an attack on the Moho Pueblo, a center of Native resistance. His men were repulsed when they tried to scale the walls, so they settled in for a siege that lasted from January through March. When the Moho tried to slip away, the Spaniards killed more than 200 men, women and children.