Friar Juan de Padilla was a chaplain who travelled in an expedition to Oklahoma with Francisco Vazquez de Coronado, governor of New Galicia, a province of New Spain (now Mexico). Padilla was very impressed with the Wichita people, so he returned with two Mexican indians and a Portuguese-born soldier named Andres do Campo, to establish a Catholic mission.
Somewhere in Kansas, the Kaw tribe ambushed them, killing Padilla and holding the other three men captive for almost a year. When they escaped, they travelled across Oklahoma unto the Gulf of Mexico.
It took the men five years to reach the coast, however, it was a much more direct path than the one Coronado followed, between Quivira and the Spanish settlements. The route became adopted by New Spain as the official route to reach those territories. This route became very significant in the development of Oklahoma, and it is now largely followed by Interstate 35.
