Rivers of Gold
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In addition, he seemed “to the Queen to be so wonderfully decisive in everything he did, moments of self-doubt never held him up, and he impressed all by seeming to be able easily to combine meditative spirituality with efficient modern administration, a combination of qualities that had so impressed Cardinal Mendoza when he was young.” The Queen continued to rely on Cisneros for everything. His influence was to be seen in all her actions. The sixteenth-century historian Jerónimo Zurita said of him that not unnaturally he was unpopular at court—outside the circle of the monarchs—because he had a mind “that soared with great thoughts more usual for a king than for a mere friar.”15 His mass conversions were a foretaste of other such actions later carried out with equal fervor, partly in his shadow, by other Franciscans in the New World. They were certainly a contrast with medieval Castilian practice in which the three “peoples of the book” had often lived side by side in separate but neighboring districts.
Francisco de Bobadilla was still in Seville in the summer of 1500. Just before he left for Santo Domingo, the monarchs, on June 20, decided to free some of the slaves sent home by Columbus who remained alive in Spain. Bobadilla was asked to take these back to La Española.16 A courtier, Pedro de Torres, was made responsible for delivering as many of them as he could find to the corregidor of El Puerto de Santa María, Gómez de Cervantes, who was organizing Bobadilla’s flotilla. Torres managed to find twenty-one Indians for a return voyage. Of these, one was declared too ill to travel. Another, a girl, insisted not only that she wished to continue her education in the house of Diego de Escobar, a Sevillano who had been on Columbus’s second voyage, but that when her education was finished, she wanted to remain in Spain. Perhaps she dreaded another voyage. The remaining nineteen Indians, of whom three were females, were handed over for safekeeping and safe travel to Fray Francisco Ruiz.
These twenty-one were, however, only a minority of the surviving Caribbean slaves in Spain.17 Those left behind after the departure of Bobadilla must have numbered at least five hundred. Presumably the Queen, Cisneros, and Fonseca would have seen them as having been fairly enslaved since they were said to be (or to have been) cannibals, or at least cannibalistic, or had been captured in some good cause. There seem to have been Taino as well as Carib slaves available in Granada in 1501, put up for sale by Genoese merchants. Nor were all the Taino slaves brought back by other adventurers in the Caribbean ordered to be freed.18
While Bobadilla delayed, new expeditions began to set out for the New World. This was a sensational development for which the Admiral was unprepared, though he knew most of those involved. The first of these was one led by Peralonso Niño of Moguer, which left Palos for the “Pearl Coast,” the north coast of South America, at the beginning of May 1499. The second was that which left Cadiz later that month, directed by Alonso de Hojeda, in the company of the Cantabrian Juan de la Cosa and a Florentine who had been living in Seville, Amerigo Vespucci. The third was that of Vicente Yáñez de Pinzón and Juan Díaz de Solís, which left Palos in November. A fourth was that of Diego de Lepe, which left Seville the following month. Then Rodrigo de Bastidas, a young converso merchant of Triana, having been on one of the expeditions of 1499, probably that of Hojeda, received permission to sail to the north coast of South America. Finally, in July 1500, Alonso Vélez de Mendoza was authorized to set off for what was Brazil in the Portuguese zone of the Americas. But all the commanders on these journeys had orders both to avoid territory that had already been discovered by Columbus and to take into account the Treaty of Tordesillas; so Mendoza had to return with no claims on what he had seen.
We should no doubt mention a seventh journey, a magnificent Portuguese one that left Belem, outside Lisbon, in March 1500 and, directed by Pedro Alvares Cabral, set out for the true India and, making a big curve to the west, inaugurated the Portuguese penetration of Brazil.
There does not seem to have been any difficulty in finding sailors to embark on these journeys. Men who in the past would have spent their lives waiting for some opportunity in the Canaries or in the war against the Moors were now catapulted by Columbus’s deeds in the 1490s into performing acts of world significance. Thus Peralonso Niño of Moguer, who had accompanied the Admiral on his first voyage as captain of the Santa María, had been on the second voyage as a sailor, and had seen on the third voyage the promise of the pearls in the region of the island of Margarita. When he returned to Spain, Niño sought permission for a personal journey there, finding financial help from a financier of Triana, Luís Guerra. He set off from Palos, in one ship only, with about thirty men, in the company of Luís Guerra’s younger brother Cristóbal and of Juan de Veragua, a confidant of the latter.19
Later, as already intimated, there was debate as to where Columbus had earlier been in this territory and whether Peralonso Niño and his comrades had a prior claim to have discovered the South American mainland. They went to many of the places where Columbus had been in 1498, but reached several hundred miles farther west. From Cubagua or Curiana on the Paraguaná peninsula, in what is now Venezuela, south of the island of Aruba, they obtained a substantial quantity of pearls. They visited a number of markets on the north coast of South America, and they also discovered that gold, from what is now Colombia, was freely traded: Peter Martyr said that Peralonso Niño later recalled that “in making their offers and their bargaining and disputing, the natives conducted their commercial affairs in just about the same way as our women when they are arguing with peddlers.”20
Peralonso returned, accurately thinking that “this land is a continent.”21 He also came back “loaded with pearls, as other people come loaded with straw.” The Spaniards traded hawks’ bells, glass beads, and scarlet cloth in return for all kinds of fruit, cassava, maize, and a little gold. It was a most profitable journey. Peralonso seems to have tried to avoid paying the Crown its royal fifth by returning to Castile via Baiona, at the mouth of the Miño, in Galicia, as Martín Pinzón had done in 1493. He was accordingly arrested there by Hernando de Vega, the Viceroy, a relation by marriage of the King, who had assumed many administrative tasks in that province after the royal visit of the 1480s. Guerra, who treacherously informed the Crown officials of Peralonso Niño’s hopes, brought back and sold in several cities of Andalusia a number of Indian slaves, which action the Catholic Kings as usual criticized since “they were our subjects.” Once again the monarchs tried to ensure that these slaves were handed over to the next expedition that returned to La Española to be freed.22 Meanwhile, nothing was proved in the end against Peralonso Niño, who was duly released.
• • •
The second of these independent journeys, that of Hojeda, la Cosa, and Vespucci, was the most interesting, though it is obscure in detail. Hojeda, whom we have of course often met before, was then the best-known captain of New World voyages after Columbus himself, and though impetuous and negligent of human life, was by now experienced in dealing with the Indians of the Caribbean.23 Juan de la Cosa, of Santoña, was also a veteran of the first and second of Columbus’s voyages. On the second he had been asked by Columbus to make maps. Vespucci, on the other hand, had not been to the Indies before (though there were stories for many years—several hundred years—that he had sailed there in 1497, even that he had discovered Mexico).24
This Florentine was then about forty-five and had lived in Seville since 1494.25 He and Hojeda, with Juan de la Cosa, set off in four caravels from Cadiz on May 18, 1499, and crossed the Atlantic as usual, via the Canaries.26 It does not seem that Vespucci was a captain of any of the boats to begin with. The leaders of this expedition went to find pearls at Margarita, but they also sailed even farther west than Peralonso Niño and touched at islands that were by then called “the Frailes” and “the Gigantes,” stopping at Coquibacoa (now the peninsula of Guajiro). They were thus approaching the boundary of modern Colombia and Venezuela. Hojeda later claimed that he discovered Maracaibo, the so-called gulf of Venezuela. They found gold as well as pearls.
&
nbsp; Vespucci sent a report to his employer in Florence, Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de’ Medici, about this voyage. He seems to have become separated, however, or perhaps he broke away for a time from the main expedition, with two ships and sailed not west but south from near the island of Trinidad to the Demerara, Berbice, and other rivers of Guiana.27 Here he found wonderfully aromatic trees and forests, as well as a freshwater lake.28 He also saw marvelous birds and splendid trees. Just as Columbus had, he thought that he was in an earthly paradise.29 He sailed up one of the rivers where, in comparison, “the current at Gibraltar or at Messina was a mere fish bowl.” Perhaps this was the Courantyne or the Marouini. Watching the stars and trying to interpret their changed aspect, Vespucci remembered with affection the first verse of Dante’s Purgatorio, which figures as the title of this chapter.30
Turning back eventually to the north, the Florentine came to Trinidad, where he found naked and beardless natives: they were cannibals. They did not eat one another, however, but went on long journeys to find appropriate victims.
They do not eat women except for female slaves. They have bows and arrows, and are excellent archers. They took us to a town where they gave us food, more through fear than by good will, and after spending a day with them, we left. We went on and saw the Gulf of Paria and the Orinoco, where we saw what we thought was a great town and where we were received with love. There we drank a wine made from fruit, and very good it was. They gave us a few small pearls and eleven big ones.
Vespucci, like Columbus, still thought that South America must be “on the extremity of Asia” (los confines de Asia).31 He wrote most enthusiastically of the women whom he encountered, a fact that helped make his letter, when published in Florence in 1502, very successful.
Having traveled 400 leagues [he continued] we began to meet people who did not want our friendship. Indeed, they awaited us with weapons, trying to prevent us from landing, so that we had to fight them. Often it happened that sixteen of us had to fight two thousand of them. Once a Portuguese [sailor] aged fifty-five rallied us while we were running away, saying: My boys [hijos], show your face to our enemies so that God will give us victory.32
This simple reflection turned the tide, and “soon it was they who fled, and we killed 150 of them and burned 180 houses.”
Shortly after this, Vespucci seems to have rejoined Hojeda and Juan de la Cosa. They sailed westward and brought back several of the emeralds for which Colombia remains famous. They landed, too, on the islands of Curaçao (where they found some exceptionally tall people) and Aruba, where there were numerous natives living in houses standing in the sea “like Venice.” Hence they spoke of the mainland there as “little Venice,” Venezuela. The name has survived. Only Vespucci of the captains could have been to Venice, and even that is uncertain. But Hojeda received credit for the designation.
Then they started for home, since the crews of the ships were tired of “tempting sea and fortune.”33 They returned via La Española, even though they had been told to avoid it because it was under Columbus’s control. In September 1499, Hojeda landed at Yaquimo, near Jaragua, and immediately gave out that he was Fonseca’s man in the Indies. On Columbus’s orders, Roldán marched against him. Yet, after some arguments, Hojeda talked that individual out of taking any action; they were, after all, old friends. But de la Cosa and Vespucci, who had seized 232 natives as slaves in various places to be sold at Cadiz, returned home via the Azores. Vespucci wrote to his Medici chief that he took thirteen months for the return journey, an estimate understandably challenged by some who insist that he was back by the end of November or early December,34 and others who say that it must have been June.35 The uncertainty added to the mystery of Vespucci’s career, which will be discussed later. Whenever he returned, the pearls that he carried he gave to the Queen.36 He had lost only two men (killed by the Indians) on his entire voyage.
Vespucci concluded his account to Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de’ Medici of what he had seen by saying that he hoped he would soon be able to start on another such voyage and perhaps find the island of Ceylon (Taprabana).37 He added that he was sending a map and a globe to Tuscany with a Florentine, Francesco Lotti, who was with him in Seville. He also wrote to Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco about the recent voyage of Vasco da Gama to India, and explained that he had heard, when in the Cape Verde Islands, of that of Cabral.38 When disembarking in Lisbon, Vespucci wrote again to Lorenzo, saying: “We arrived at a new land which, for many reasons enumerated in what follows, we observed to be a continent.” The fact that he described what he had seen as a new land, not just an eastern extension of Asia, enables Vespucci to be looked upon as an innovator. Juan de la Cosa made a chart on his return that was much valued thereafter.39
The third voyage at this time was that of Juan Díaz de Solís, with Vicente Yáñez Pinzón and with the latter’s nephew Arias. The first-named apparently came from an old but impoverished family in Asturias. He was born in Lebrija, near Sanlúcar de Barrameda, and had been in the Portuguese service. He was said to have left Lisbon to escape being charged for the murder of his wife, but that is the kind of story frequently bandied about in ports.
Yáñez Pinzón had, of course, been on Columbus’s first two voyages and came from the premier maritime family of Palos.
The two captains built four caravels in the latter town and set off from there on November 18, 1499, with Pedro de Ledesma as chief pilot.40 They sailed to the Canaries, then to the Cape Verde Islands, and finally, after being blown fast by a gale in the wrong direction, found themselves at the end of January 1500 in Brazil. They had reached the estuary of the Amazon (Cabo San Agustín) at the extreme east of the South American continent, which they baptized Santa María de la Consolación.
There Pinzón and Solís took possession of the territory in the name of the Catholic Kings, though they must have known that it was in the Portuguese zone of influence. The natives killed eight of their number, including a pilot, and the Spaniards saw what they claimed were footsteps “twice as large as those of a medium-sized man.” They believed themselves to be “at the other side of Cathay, on the coast of India, not far from the river Ganges.” They found much brazilwood and cinnamon bark trees (“as efficacious for driving off fevers as the cinnamon that the apothecaries sell …”) and trees so big that sixteen men holding hands could not encompass their trunks.41 They named a great river the Marañón, presumably for some private reason long forgotten.42 Surviving terrible storms, they turned north to La Española, which they eventually reached on June 23, 1500.43 Returning to Spain three months later, they reached Palos with a cargo of twenty slaves and some logwood. The journey was important, since the collaboration between two such skillful captains was successful and would be repeated in other voyages. But they had lost many men.
The fourth journey, undertaken by Diego de Lepe, who seems to have been related to the Pinzons and to have been born in Palos, appears at first sight of less importance than those of his predecessors. Lepe left in December 1499 with two ships, went down to the Cape Verde Islands, and then sailed about 1,500 miles to the southwest, until he reached a bay in Brazil to which he gave the name of San Julián. There Lepe found no one with whom to treat or even talk. He sailed a hundred miles up an astounding river, the Amazon, the Santa María de la Mar Dulce, as he curiously named it—an achievement that should have made him famous forever. Returning to the coast, he sailed north to the River Marañón and thereafter went farther north still to Paria, where he seized some Indians whom he took home as a present for Bishop Fonseca.44
Rodrigo de Bastidas of Triana was twenty-five when, in 1500, he set off for South America with two ships, the caravels Santa María de Gracía and San Antón.45 Half of his sailors were Sevillanos, half Basques. There were nineteen backers of the expedition, all Sevillanos except a certain Alfonso de Villafranca from Valladolid.46 With him was Juan de la Cosa, who had been much the same way with Alonso de Hojeda, and an adventurer, Vasco Núñez de Balboa, who would play a great
part in the future of the Spanish Empire. It is unclear where exactly they made landfall; they perhaps sailed to the island of Margarita and then the Río de la Hacha, the lovely bay that is now known as that of “Cartagena de Indias,” and the Gulf of Urabá, which turned out to be a center of Indian trade. Probably Bastidas or Juan de la Cosa was responsible for the christening of Cartagena.47 They established themselves there for a few weeks and found gold and some emeralds. They may have reached Nombre de Dios, on the isthmus of Panama, where Núñez de Balboa would later make himself the “first caudillo of the Americas.”
Then, making for La Española since their ships had been damaged by termites, they were wrecked off Jaragua. Bastidas and his companions walked two hundred miles across La Española to Santo Domingo, presumably with Indian bearers carrying what treasure they had. He (and de la Cosa) returned to Spain in 1501 on the vessel Aguja, which survived the hurricane of 1502.48 Though he had lost money, Bastidas dutifully gave a fifth of what he had (including emeralds, pearls, and gold) to the monarchs at Alcalá. This booty excited much attention. At last the Indies seemed to be productive. The discoveries seemed less remarkable. But Bastidas had sailed along the north coast of South America and probably discovered the isthmus of Central America. At any other time in history his account of this journey would have seemed epoch-making.49
The last of this series of early independent voyages was that of comendador Alonso Vélez de Mendoza, a hidalgo of Moguer, who left Spain on July 20, 1500. He had with him two ships, one owned by another citizen of Triana, Luis Rodríguez de la Mezquita, the other by the Ramírez family. Mendoza had to add the cost of the salary of the inspectors insisted upon by the monarchs to that of the armament of his journey. His instructions were similar to those given to Bastidas except that the lands that were forbidden to him were not only those discovered by Columbus, the King of Portugal, and Cristóbal Guerra but also those by Hojeda. The monarchs again would get a fifth part of all profits.50 Luis Guerra accompanied Mendoza. In the event, he much extended the knowledge in Europe of the coastline of Brazil, where he made landfall near Cabo Santo Agostinho, and then perhaps reached as far south as what is now São Francisco by Christmas.51