Rivers of Gold

by Hugh Thomas

  Artillery needs to be transported. Here the Spaniards were able to count on the help of their Indian allies. At the beginning, Cuban Indians probably helped. It is unlikely that Cortés could ever have left Vera Cruz for Tenochtitlan if he had not had such a supply of “sepoys.” Even foot soldiers had servants and they, too, like their commanders, often had Indian girls with whom to sleep. The effect of these affairs, which founded the mestizo race in Mexico, was obviously beneficial for the morale of the Spaniards.

  A further element in the Spanish success was contributed by the outbreak of a smallpox epidemic in Old Mexico in the autumn of 1520, which weakened indigenous resistance and killed several prominent leaders; in addition, the Spaniards seemed grandly immune. That may have had a serious psychological effect as well as reducing the superiority of manpower that the Mexica always had. The epidemic had been noticed in Spain in 1518, was destructive the following year in Santo Domingo, as we have seen, and was carried to New Spain/Mexico by a slave of Narváez’s.

  Moctezuma’s ambiguous attitude toward his Spanish captors must also have had a negative effect on many of his fellow countrymen.

  • • •

  After the conquest, Cortés set about reconstructing Tenochtitlan. He employed the surviving Mexica and several of his allies, such as the people of Chalco, who were known as competent builders from the days when they had previously worked on the Mexica’s capital in the fifteenth century. The work was one of the great triumphs of Renaissance urban planning: in 1518, before its destruction, as has been pointed out, Tenochtitlan probably had been bigger than any western European city, and it was rebuilt within three years on a similar scale, on a plan devised by one of Cortés’s friends from Badajoz, Alonso García Bravo.37 The Indians worked, so the Franciscan monk Motolinía recalls, with enthusiasm and a will barely believable, no doubt because they were reviving what once had been their pride.

  The indigenous people were particularly impressed by two Western devices introduced by the Spaniards: the wheeled cart and the pulley. Carts had been used by the Spaniards to transport guns during the war. Although the Mexica had the potter’s wheel, they had not thought to use the wheel for the purposes of transport. Nor indeed did they have appropriate domesticated animals. Both the cart and the pulley, which transformed work on the building site of Tenochtitlan (it soon turned into just “Mexico”), were revelations. They helped the process of conversion to Christianity. If the foreigners had such technology, their gods (the Virgin, St. Martin, St. Christopher, as well as the Trinity) might be true, too.

  The spiritual conquest of Mexico was the next stage after the material conquest. It was a triumph of proselytism. Many Mexica thought that the victory of Cortés meant a triumph for the God and the saints of Christianity. In most ways, they were right.

  Cortés soon began also to allocate encomiendas to his followers. In a letter to King Charles, he explained that he would much rather not have done so, but the shortage of treasure with which to reward his followers was the explanation.38 Among the first encomenderos were, of course, the heroes of the conquest, Andrés de Tapia, Pedro de Alvarado, and Juan Jaramillo.

  In the spring of 1521, a detailed account of Tenochtitlan (“Venice the rich,” Peter Martyr said the conquistadors had called it) reached Spain. Martyr wrote of it in a letter to his favorite correspondents, the Marquises de Mondéjar and de los Vélez.39 In the autumn, two new emissaries of Cortés’s arrived in Seville: Alonso de Mendoza and Diego de Ordaz. The first was a native of Medellín, an old friend of Cortés’s, but no relation, or so it seems, of the dominant aristocratic family of that name. The second, Diego de Ordaz, born in Old Castile, had been a magistrate in Santiago de Cuba in 1518, at the same time as Cortés, and was one of his first commanders. These two told of the astonishing city that they were then besieging and of the empire of the Mexica, in what Cortés had already christened New Spain. They described how their commander was determined to seize it for King Charles and his mother, Juana. Castile was still considering this news when, six months later, on March 1, 1522, the message came that Cortés had indeed captured the Mexican capital. News of that event was described and published by the German printer of Seville Jacob Cromberger in a postscript to the second of Cortés’s reports, or Cartas de Relación, to the King, which he must have had ready for printing.

  A third letter, written by Cortés in New Spain in May 1522, gave a report of what had happened in the siege and the conquest of Tenochtitlan. It reached Seville in November 1522 and was published in March 1523. It had been countersigned as giving an honest account by a solid scion of an old family of Tordesillas, Julián de Alderete, the royal treasurer in Tenochtitlan, and two other conquistadors of repute, Alonso de Grado and Bernardino Vázquez de Tapia. It was a story that made even such novels as Tirant lo Blanc and Amadís de Gaula seem limited in their scope, though the latter was a book that Cromberger had also published. The attitude of Old Spain toward the Indies was transformed, and forever.

  It has long been recognized that the study of the history of the conquest of Mexico is greatly facilitated by the large amount of original writing by the combatants. These included Cortés himself, Bernal Díaz del Castillo, Andrés de Tapia, Father Aguilar, Bernardo Vázquez de Tapía, and Father Juan Díaz (though he wrote only of the expedition of Grijalva). Fray Bartolomé de las Casas and Oviedo also wrote from personal experience of some of the people concerned in the conquest. But these names are merely the tip of an iceberg. Either as witnesses to the residencia of Cortés or as witnesses in their own right in inquiries into their actions during the forty years after the conquest, or acting as witnesses in others’ inquiries, another 350 or so conquistadors left some kind of personal memory of what they had undergone or seen during the years 1519 and 1520. All the leading captains recorded something, so this is one of the best-documented conflicts in history. How often did it occur in some investigation twenty or more years afterwards that a judge would ask a middle-aged conquistador, “But how do you know of this?” and received the answer, “I was there. I saw it with my own eyes.”40

  Book Nine

  MAGELLAN AND ELCANO

  Utopia by Thomas More was first published in 1516.

  Here is an illustration from an edition of 1518, probably designed by Hans Holbein.

  (Illustration credit 9.1)

  36

  “Go with good fortune”

  You are to go with good fortune to discover that part of the ocean within our limits and demarcation … and, for the first ten following years, we shall not give leave to any [other] person to … discover by the same road and course by which you shall go.

  Instructions to Magellan, 1520

  Bartolomé de las Casas was in the rooms of the chancellor, Jean Le Sauvage, in Valladolid in March 1518 when a Portuguese captain, Hernando (Ferñao) de Magalhaes (Magallanes in Spanish, Magellan in English), came in with a friend, Ruy Faleiro, who proclaimed himself an astrologer. They had arranged the audience with Le Sauvage thanks to the help of a corrupt but benign merchant from Burgos, the converso Juan de Aranda.1 Magellan had with him a painted globe on which he had marked a westward voyage that he wanted to make. He seemed certain that he would thereby find a strait that would take him to the far south of what Waldseemüller had called America and, thence, to the Moluccas, “whence the spices come.” He and Faleiro had worked out, to their own satisfaction, at least, that the line dividing the world between the Portuguese and the Spaniards would, if logically continued around the planet, give those Spice Islands to Spain.

  Las Casas asked: “And if you don’t find a strait, how are you going to pass through to the Southern Sea?”2 Magellan said in that case he would take the old Portuguese route via South Africa, which he already knew from personal experience. Antonio Pigafetta, a citizen of Vicenza in the republic of Venice, who accompanied Magellan, later reported that that captain was convinced he would find a strait since he had seen a map drawn by Martín de Behaim in the library of the Kin
g of Portugal that showed it.3 The famous globe, however, made by Behaim in Nuremberg shows no strait, nor does it show America. Waldseemüller’s map showed the Pacific but no strait. Magellan must have seen something else.4 More important, perhaps, in that commander’s mind was the advice of a cousin of his, Francisco Serrano, a commander in the Moluccas who had convinced himself when he was in the East that there was a route to those islands via the West Indies.

  Expeditions of discovery had been taken in this direction before. For example, Juan Díaz de Solís, the experienced sailor who succeeded the Florentine Vespucci as chief pilot, had also set out to look for a strait from the Atlantic into the Southern Sea.5 Early in 1516, Díaz de Solís discovered the estuary of the River Plate, which he called El Mar Dulce. His was a great achievement, but the Plate was not “the strait.” Nor was the river all sweet for, alas, resting triumphantly on the shore, Solís, together with eight others, were captured and subsequently eaten by Guaraní Indians: a tragic end for a great sailor.6 Other members of the expedition were imprisoned, to be kept for later consumption, on the island of Santa Catalina, but some escaped. One of these was Alejo García, probably Portuguese, an astounding individual so characteristic of Europeans in this first generation in the years after Columbus. With four compatriots he reached the South American continent in an improvised canoe. They set off in search of “the White Man,” a mythical figure of the interior whom they had been assured by local Indians possessed immense wealth. The author of Amadís de Gaula could not have done better. Followed for many miles by a large horde of Indians, whom he not only placated but fascinated, García reached the Peruvian Andes and made contact with the Incas—the first European to do so. Thence he returned and went somewhere near what is now Asunción, where he, like Díaz de Solís, was murdered by Guaranís about 1525.7

  As for Magellan’s plans for these waters, an arrangement (capitulación) was reached between him and King Charles (the document was also signed by the “Indian” specialists in Charles’s court, Cobos, Gattinara, Fonseca, Ruiz de la Mota, and García de Padilla). Magellan saw not only Le Sauvage, but Fonseca and then Chièvres. The contract of April 19, 1519, stated that Magellan had wanted to offer to the Crown a great service within the limits of the agreed Spanish area of control. It continued:

  You are to go with good fortune to discover that part of the ocean within our limits and demarcation … and, for the first ten following years, we shall not give leave to any [other] person to … discover by the same road and course by which you shall go.… Also, you may discover in those parts what has not yet been discovered, but you may not discover or do anything in the demarcation and limits of the most serene King of Portugal, my very dear and well-beloved uncle and brother.…8

  Magellan was to hand over to the King one-twentieth of all goods found and exchanged. The merchant Juan de Aranda would receive an eighth of the profits of the journey. Such were the benefits of important introductions. Magellan was granted the right to dispense summary justice in the event of disputes that might arise on land or sea. Before they left, both Magellan and Faleiro received nominations as Knights of Santiago.9

  Magellan had been born in Villa de Sabroza, in the district of Villa Real, Trás-os-Montes, in northern Portugal, not far from Porto. He came from a family of minor nobility, his father, Ruy Rodrigo Magalhaes, having been for a time chief magistrate of Aveiro, while his grandfather Pedro Afonso also played a part in the administration of the province. Magellan was early attached to the service of the Portuguese queen Elena, who was a daughter of the Catholic Kings, and in 1505, he joined the expedition to India of Francisco de Almeida, who had fought for Castile against Granada. He took part in the conquest of Malacca and then sailed for the Moluccas. He was in India with the astonishing Admiral Afonso de Albuquerque and then in Azamour, in Morocco. As well as being a navigator of experience, he was also a military man. Yet he offended King Manuel, partly because he fell out with Albuquerque, and partly because of a trivial failure to hand over cattle captured from the Arabs in Morocco. For that reason he was not listened to when he approached the King of Portugal about his scheme for sailing to the Moluccas by a western route.

  Thwarted in Lisbon, Magellan went to Seville accompanied by Ruy Faleiro, who was always full of interesting ideas. In Seville he was welcomed by a Portuguese merchant, Diego Barbosa, who was deputy commander of the Alcázar under Jorge de Portugal. He introduced Magellan to the Casa de Contratación and, indeed, to the society of Seville; and Magellan married his daughter, Beatriz.

  King Manuel of Portugal continued to do what he could to create obstacles for Magellan. One of King Manuel’s advisers, Bishop Vasconcellos, was even said to have suggested that Magellan might be killed. The King of Portugal’s factor in Seville, Sebastián Álvarez, called on Magellan at his lodgings and, finding him arranging baskets and boxes of victuals for his journey, told him that he had embarked on a course in which there were as many dangers as spokes in the wheel of St. Catherine. He ought to return home. Magellan said that “for honor’s sake, he could now do nothing else except what he had agreed upon.” Álvarez said that a disservice to his own king could not be a matter of honor. But Magellan demurred and said that it was indeed unfortunate that he had been refused in Lisbon, but that it was now too late to do anything other than work for the King of Castile. Another agent of King Manuel wrote that he had told King Charles personally “how ill-seeming and unusual it was for one King to receive the vassals of another one, his friend, against his will—which was a thing that was not usual even among knights.…”10

  On September 20, 1519, Magellan left Sanlúcar de Barrameda with five ships and about 250 men. They headed first, following the route of all explorers, for the Canary Islands. Then, two weeks later, they left Tenerife with another 26 men so that the total of the crews amounted to 276. About a third of his crew was not Spanish, and many bore the names of their birthplaces as their surnames: Jácome de Messina, Simón de la Rochola, and so on. About fifteen were Portuguese. There were among the voyagers some who knew the coast of Brazil; for example, an Italian named Juan Caravaggio. Rodríguez Serrano had also been to Brazil in 1500 with Vélez de Mendoza.11 It seems that one of Magellan’s men, “Master Andrés,” a “constable,” was an Englishman from Bristol. There were no women on board. Pigafetta, a citizen of Vincenza, said that Magellan “did not entirely declare the voyage which he was going to make to avoid his men, from amazement or fear, being unwilling to accompany him on so long a journey.”12

  Magellan’s ships, which should live in legend as long as Columbus’s, were, first, the caravel Trinidad (110 tons), of which the captain was Magellan himself. Pigafetta sailed as a passenger, as did Álvaro de la Mezquita, a cousin of Magellan’s. Magellan arranged for a torch of burning wood to be placed on the poop of his boat so that the others should not lose sight of him. On his ship, Magellan carried good iron guns. Second, there was the San Antonio (120 tons), the captain being the inspector of the armada, Juan Pérez de Cartagena, who was said to have been a nephew of Bishop Fonseca.13 Third, there was the Concepción (90 tons), whose captain was Gaspar Quesada, once an employee of Fonseca’s.14 The master was a resourceful Basque sailor, Juan Sebastián de Elcano, whose place in history is secure.15 Fourth, there was the Victoria (85 tons), whose captain was Luis de Mendoza, a protégé of Archbishop Deza’s. Fifth, there was the Santiago (75 tons), whose captain was Juan Rodríguez Serrano.

  Magellan took with him a good supply of artillery: 62 culverins and 10 falconets, and he had some 50 arquebuses. He also carried 1,000 lances, 220 shields, 60 crossbows, 50 light guns (escopetas), and 50 quintales of gunpowder in barrels: this expedition was going to be able to defend itself. In addition, he had over 10,000 fishhooks, more than 400 barrels of wine or water, over 20 parchment maps, 6 compasses, about 20 quadrants, 7 astrolabes, 18 hourglasses, and numerous objects for exchange with unknown natives: hawks’ bells, for example, knives, mirrors, quicksilver, and scissors. Over 2,000 kilos of ships
’ biscuits were carried, as well as dried fish, bacon, beans, lentils, flour, garlic, cheeses, honey, almonds, anchovies, white sardines, figs, sugar, and rice. Six cows (one on each ship except for the Trinidad, which had two) traveled, and there were three pigs. It was always said in Sanlúcar de Barrameda that Magellan spent more on the dry light fortified wine of the place, manzanilla, than on gunpowder.16 The medicine chest traveled on the Trinidad.17

  The fleet cost 8.78 million maravedís, of which the King produced 6.4 million and a merchant from Burgos, Cristóbal de Haro, who had always been especially interested in finding a western route to the Spice Islands, being a leading spice trader, contributed most of the rest. So the expedition was primarily a royal enterprise. (The only two other such had been Columbus’s second voyage and that of Pedrarias.) Much of the royal contribution must have derived from the gold imported from the Caribbean.18

  Magellan and his ships sailed first to Cape Verde and then to Sierra Leone, where it rained without ceasing. Some sharks followed the ships. The expedition harpooned several but, except for the smaller ones, did not find them good to eat. Often, men reported seeing Santo Elmo’s fire;19 sometimes the body of the saint himself seemed to appear, sometimes birds materialized without tails, sometimes birds of paradise hovered, and sometimes there were flying fish. Magellan set off southeast for “Verzin,” the Italian word for redwood, that is, Brazil.