Oldest Gun Found in the U.S. Tells the Story of a Forgotten Battle

Talk about a blast from the past: A team of researchers in Arizona discovered a bronze cannon that they’re associating with conquistador Francisco Vázquez de Coronado, making it the oldest firearm found in the continental United States.

The long cannon, or wall gun, was found on the floor of a Spanish stone-and-adobe building in southern Arizona. It probably required two people to operate, and would’ve been supported by a structure or tripod—as opposed to it being carried like a hand cannon. The research team dated the gun to Coronado’s era and speculated on how such an expensive piece of weaponry in good condition would be left abandoned by the Spaniards, who went to such lengths to haul it there in the first place. The team’s findings were published last week in the International Journal of Historical Archaeology.

Coronado made his way into what is now the central United States, inspired by stories about legendary, treasure-filled cities. Those cities did not exist, but it didn’t stop Coronado’s expedition from seizing land and enslaving native groups as it made its way across the continent.

“Until this particular cannon was found no firearms from the Coronado Expedition had been discovered,” said Deni Seymour, an independent archaeologist and lead author of the study, in an email to Gizmodo. “No firearms from this early period are known from the U.S. or on the continental land mass as a whole.”

The 42-inch-long (1.07-meter) gun weighs about 40 pounds (18 kilograms) and was found abandoned on the floor of a Spanish building in southern Arizona. It is the first gun recovered from the Coronado expedition, which moved through Arizona between 1539 and 1542. Coronado’s expedition eventually got as far inland as central Kansas.

“All professionals who have seen this evidence and been to the site concur that this is a Coronado site, and that this is evidence of a battle and a settlement,” Seymour added. “From the standpoint of interpretation, this cannon and the battle that occurred around it are are significant in that they represent the earliest successful Native American uprising in the Continental U.S. since the Spaniards did not come back for 150 years.”

The settlement, attacked by the local Sobaipuri O’odham, still bears “abundant” evidence of the battle, the researchers noted in their paper. This includes crossbow bolts, arrowheads, lead bullets, and fragments of weaponry. The conflict probably happened in 1541, the researchers said, specifically dating the abandonment of the wall gun to 483 years ago.

The gun’s design dates to the mid-to-late 1400s, the researchers concluded, making it “practically obsolete by the time of the expedition.” That may explain why the gun was abandoned in Arizona, instead of being slogged further into the American continent or hauled back towards Mexico when the expedition made its return trip. The expedition is not documented as bringing any wagons or carts on its trip, so all gear was carried by humans and animals. However, the researchers stated that the weapons were too expensive to be left behind in normal circumstances, indicating that the settlement may have been attacked, causing the Spanish to flee.

“We also have a second cannon that was probably made in the same foundry because it looks very similar,” Seymour said. “The second cannon was in the battlefield itself and exploded during the battle.”

The wall gun as it was found, on the floor of a Spanish structure. Photo: International Journal of Historical Archaeology (2024)

The simple design of the artillery suggested to the team that the cannons were cast in Mexico or the Caribbean, rather than Spain, where the cast weapons would have been more ornamented. If researchers can confirm that the cannon was made on this side of the Atlantic, the researchers say it would be the oldest firearm still in existence that was manufactured in the New World.

More archaeological investigations could clarify how widely used the cannons were, and exactly how the Spanish were routed by the native populations in southern Arizona. The wall gun is a remarkable window into that period of cultural clashes in the American Southwest.