<P> During the 1500s , the Spanish began to travel through and colonize North America . They were looking for gold in foreign kingdoms . By 1511 there were rumours of undiscovered lands to the northwest of Hispaniola . Juan Ponce de León equipped three ships with at least 200 men at his own expense and set out from Puerto Rico on 4 March 1513 to Florida and surrounding coastal area . Another early motive was the search for the Seven Cities of Gold , or `` Cibola '' , rumoured to have been built by Native Americans somewhere in the desert Southwest . In 1536 Francisco de Ulloa , the first documented European to reach the Colorado River , sailed up the Gulf of California and a short distance into the river 's delta . </P>
in the early periods of spanish colonization what was the primary goal
looking for gold in foreign kingdoms