Rivers of Gold
Page 80
16. Konetzke [14:86].
17. Las Casas [2:50], 1, 469.
18. Deive [6:36], 70.
19. Navarrete [4:38], 1, 318; Las Casas [2:50], 2, 146; Morison [4:42], 104–8.
20. Martyr [6:34], 70.
21. Martyr [6:34], 71: “tierra continente.”
22. Cédula of Dec. 2, 1501, from Écija, in CDI, 31, 104–7.
23. See Serrano, “El Viaje de Alonso de Hojeda en 1499, Congreso” [5:15], 2, 11–136.
24. Important documentation of this voyage is in Autógrafos de Cristóbal Colón y papeles de América, Madrid 1892, papers from the Palacio de Liria.
25. For the life and background of this extraordinary individual, see ch. 20.
26. Las Casas [2:50], 2, 115, gives the departure date as May 20. This account contains an extensive defense of the reputation of Columbus against the presumed (but false) assertions of Vespucci. Ch. 20 discusses Vespucci in detail. For this voyage, see Morison [4:42], 186ff.
27. Pohl [5:35] discusses. There remain some unanswered questions about Vespucci’s travels.
28. Ibid., 46.
29. Morales Padrón [6:19], 213.
30. For a consideration of the Brazilian Indian, see ch. 36.
31. Morales Padrón [6:19], 218.
32. “dad la cara a vuestros enemigos que Dios os dará la victoria.” See Pohl [5:35], 60–61.
33. “tentar el mar y la fortuna.”
34. Ramos, Audacia, 74.
35. Manzano [6:4], 1, 268.
36. Morales Padrón [6:19], 223.
37. This letter to Lorenzo, incidentally, does not read as if Vespucci had been to the Americas before. His admirers (for example, Harrisse [4:37], 355) argue he had been there in 1496 or 1497.
38. Morales Padrón [6:19], 224.
39. Pohl [5:35], 137.
40. Las Casas [2:50], 2, 154. See Morison [4:42], 211ff.
41. Martyr [6:34], 75–78.
42. Las Casas [2:50], 2, 156; Marañón is a small town in the province of Logroño, whence no conquistador of that time came. The word means “pimp” in Gallego. Could that be relevant?
43. Navarrete [4:38], 2, 328: “todo lo que hoy esta ganado desde la isla de Guanaja hacia el norte, e que estas tierras se llaman Chabaca e Pintigrón e que llegaron por la vía del norte fasta 23 grados e medio e que en esto no andubo el dicho don Cristóbal Colón ni lo descubrió ni lo vido” (Evidence of Ledesma).
44. Navarrete [4:38], 2, 325. Las Casas [2:50], 2, 159, 208. There was later controversy. In 1513, Lepe claimed to have discovered “la vuelta de levante,” being accompanied by Juan González, a Portuguese of Palos, Juan Rodríguez, piloto, Alonso Rodríguez de Calco, García de la Monja, Fernando Esteban, Cristóbal García, Pedro Medel, and Luis del Valle. See L. Gil Munilla, “Diego de Lepe, descubridor del Marañón,” AEA, 9 (1952), 73ff., and J. Gil, “Marinos y mercaderes en Indias, 1499–1504,” AEA, 42 (1985), 313ff.
45. Gil [3:37], 4, 336, discusses his genealogy. He was the son of Alonso Fernández Ojos and Ana Bastidas. He married Isabel Rodríguez de la Romera—all of Triana.
46. Navarrete [4:38], 1, 447. See J. J. Real, “El sevillano Rodrigo de Bastidas,” Archivo Hispalense, 111–12, 1961, and J. Gil [14:44], 317, 387.
47. Las Casas [2:50], 2, 302.
48. For which see ch. 15.
49. Oviedo ([2:43], 1, 63) has a rather inaccurate description of this journey. Bastidas had an “información de servicios y méritos” that did not mention any detail of the expedition.
50. Some of the best-known explorers were with Mendoza—Nicolau de Coelho, Bartolomeu Díaz, Duarte Pacheco, and Pero de Ataideo. CDI, 38, 441–50; Navarrete [4:38], 1, 449. Las Casas does not mention this journey.
51. See Gil [14:44], 304ff., also 433ff.
52. The fleet also had on board Bartolomeu Díaz, the hero of the expedition of 1487, Nicolau de Coelho, Sancho de Tovar, Diego Díaz, the brother of Bartolomeu, Alfonso Ribeiro, Simão de Miranda, Aure Gomes, and Gaspar de Lemus.
53. Nothing suggests that Cabral’s journey to Brazil could have been other than an accident. Yet Portugal was full of rumors to the contrary. An adventurer from the Azores, Gasper Corte-Real, received a letter patent from King Manuel on May 12, 1500, in which there figures the following: “Whereas Gaspar Corte-Real … formerly did make great efforts of his own free will and at his own cost, with vessels and men, spending his fortune and at the peril of his life to discover islands and a continent.…” See also Morison [4:42], 217–29.
54. The situation was rendered the more complex by the arrival of Alonso de Hojeda near Jaragua in September 1499. But he made it evident that he was against both the Admiral and Roldán, and he eventually withdrew to Spain. The arrival of Vicente Yáñez Pinzón at the end of his voyage further complicated matters for some days before Yáñez also withdrew.
55. Azcona [1:21] discusses, 511.
56. Navarrete [4:38], 1, 447. This was one of the last documents on which Columbus signed himself Viceroy and Captain-General of the Indies, and it was countersigned by his secretary, an Extremeño who had come with him on the second voyage, Diego de Alvarado.
57. Colón [4:16], 420.
58. Fernando Colón [4:40], 428.
59. A good account is that of Harvey [1:1], last chapter.
60. Las Casas [2:50], 2, 183.
61. Las Casas [2:50], 2, 185.
62. Las Casas [2:50], 2, 188.
63. Guillermo Céspedes del Castillo, in Historia Social, ed. J. Vicens Vives (Barcelona 1959), 2, 532.
64. Las Casas [2:50], 2, 203–4.
65. Colón [4:16], 440.
66. Las Casas [2:50], 2, 199.
67. “Si me quexa del mundo es nueva, su usar de maltratar es de antiguo.”
68. “Llegué yo y estoy que no ay nadie tan vil que no piense de ultrajarme” (Colón [4:16], 430).
69. Las Casas [2:50], 2, 190.
70. CDI, 24, 22–25. A Spanish translation of the original Latin.
71. Francisco (Francesco) Riberol (Ripparolo, Rivarolo) was the son of Pietro Giovanni Sopranis Riparolo and Bianchina, daughter of Pietro Grimaldi. The Riparolos hispanized their name as Riberol. They came from Rivarolo, a village on the mountain behind Genoa. Francesco, one of four sons, was a Genoese merchant in Seville, with a fortune from banking, cloths, dyestuffs, and sugar. He bought part of the rights for the sale of cloth from Pedro de Ribadeneira, and became the chief producer of soap in Seville, with Mario Castiglione. Two years later Castiglione sold him half his soap factory in Triana. Riberol had established sugar plantations in the Canaries in return for his help in the conquests there, where he seems to have been the richest merchant in the 1490s. He and his brothers Cosmo and Gianotto succeeded the Lugos as the main dealers in orchil from the islands, in collaboration, to begin with, in Gomera with Inés de Peraza and later Gutierre de Cárdenas in Tenerife. He and Cosmo married sisters, Giacometta and Benedetina Sopranis de Andora, while his sisters Salvaggina and Mariola married Nicoló and Gregorio Cassana. Riberol was a financier of Columbus’s fourth voyage and is mentioned in a letter from Columbus to Gorricio in May 1501 (Colón [4:16], 456), and to Diego (May 1502, Colón [4:16], 478). He probably sold to Cortés the pearl that that captain would in 1519 give to the Mexican emperor Moctezuma’s nephew. He, and later his son Bartolomeo, dominated the soap industry of Seville until Francisco’s death in 1514. His nephew, Pietro Giovanni Ripparolo, and his son-in-law, Bernardo Castiglione’s nephew, Pietro Benedetto Basigniana, and later Jacopo Sopranis continued the monopoly till 1521.
72. The family of Sanchís was involved in the famous murder by conversos of the Inquisitor of Saragossa, Pedro Arbués, in 1485, while he prayed in the cathedral. Gabriel was accused of having proposed the murder. After a long inquiry, many conversos were executed, including the father-in-law of Gabriel, Luis de Santangel, a relation of his namesake who financed Columbus.
73. Bernal [12:31], 178.
74. Harrisse [4:37], 60.
75. Las Casas [2:50].
76. Harrisse [4:37], 59–76. Miguel Corte-Real returned on Oct. 11,1502, from Newfoundland with indigenous people and some goods. Alberto Cantino, ambassdor of Ferrara in Lisbon, wrote on Oct. 18 to his master, Duke Hercules, about the journey and described how they had found a great territory and kidnapped people, bringing them back to the King of Portugal, while Gaspar Corte-Real had turned south and was never heard of again (Morales Padrón [6:19], 253–65).
77. Chronology of Voyages, 72, qu. Harrisse [4:37], 128.
Chapter 15
1. “Mediano de cuerpo y la barba muy rubia y bermeja.… De codicia y avaricia muy grande enemigo” (Las Casas [2:50], 2, 214).
2. Ursula Lamb [13:74], 23.
3. CDI, 31, 13–25.
4. “oficios de justicia e juridición civil e criminal, alcaldías e alguacildalgos dellas de las Indias, Islas, y Tierra Firme del Mar Oceano.”
5. Esteban Cavallo, Juan and Álvaro Rodríguez, Juan Fraba, and García Osorio. AGI, Indif. 418, lib. 1, f. 77, qu. Pérez de Tudela [9:39], 196.
6. “otros esclavos que hayan nacido en poder de cristianos nuestros súbditos y naturales.”
7. For example, on Columbus’s third voyage when he stopped in the Cape Verde Islands.
8. CDI, 30, 523.
9. Haring [9:39], 26.
10. CDI, 31, 13ff., and 50ff.
11. Navarrete [4:38], 1, 546. The royal share, eventually “the royal fifth,” tied the Spanish Crown into the success of the mining enterprises in the New World.
12. “de manera que ellos conozcan que no se les hace injusticia.”
13. These inquiries, known as residencias, might be reintroduced to face modern ministers, ambassadors, and commissioners in Brussels.
14. Giménez Fernández [2:39], 196, 236; see also Las Casas [2:50], 2, 452, 557–58, 562.
15. Navarrete [4:38], 1, 456–58.
16. Las Casas [2:50], 2, 227.
17. CDI, 30, 527. There is a list of thirty-seven people who accompanied Arriaga in Giménez Fernández [2:39], 2, 594. They included Diego de Nicuesa, afterwards famous; Diego Ramírez, the only man who was a laborer and who was probably with Narváez in Mexico; Gonzalo de Ocampo; and Rodrigo de Mexía.
18. CDI, 30, 526. Giménez Fernández [2:39], 2, 590–91. See also Pérez de Tudela [9:39], 194.
19. Navarrete [4:38], 2, 349, 351. Hojeda himself said that his second expedition was in 1501, but the documents in AGS (Simancas) studied by Navarrete show that it must have been 1502.
20. Colón [4:16], 473–76.
21. Colón [4:16], 473–76: “plazer y holgura: pesadumbre y hastío.”
22. Fernando Colón [4:40], 277. But this did not prevent Isabel and Fernando from making a new contract with Yáñez Pinzón on Sept. 5, 1501, whereby Yáñez would pay only a sixth of what he found to the Crown. His journey would be one of settlement, not of discovery. He would also be governor of “the lands newly discovered.” Then, a week or so later, on Sept. 14, the monarchs concluded a capitulación, this time with Diego de Lepe, the discoverer of the River Marañón, with a new variant: in contrast to what had just been agreed with Yáñez Pinzón, the aim now would be to stimulate discovery. On goods and treasure found on land previously visited by Spaniards, one-half would be payable to the Crown, but only a sixth on what was obtained from new territories. Much the same arrangement was made with Juan de Escalante on Oct. 5. CDI, 31, 5–12.
23. Navarrete [4:38], 1, 548.
24. Colón [4:16], 479–80; Navarrete [4:38], 1, 471–72.
25. Pérez de Tudela [9:39], passim.
26. CDI, 31, 121.
27. See Pedro Mexía de Ovando, Libro o memorial … in Biblioteca Nacional MS no. 3183, f. 2, cit. Miguel Muñoz de San Pedro, “Francisco de Lizaur,” in BRAH, c. 23, 1948.
28. CDI, 39, 13–14.
29. For the family, see Gil [3:37], 1, 247, and Giménez Fernández [2:39], 2, 953. A kinsman was Bartolomé de Alcázar, a poet known for such lines as “A uno muy gordo de vientre y muy resumido de valiente.”
30. Giménez Fernández [2:39], 2, 696. The relationship of Ovando and Monroy was remote, and I have not found how Francisco fitted into the main line of the Monroys. A bastard?
31. Colón [4:16], 268.
32. Las Casas [2:50], 2, 214 and 368.
33. AGI, Indif. gen., leg. 418, f. 64, discussed in Pérez de Tudela [9:39], 200.
34. There were with Ovando others who later traveled with Cortés: Francisco Dávila, Juan Suárez (his future brother-in-law), Cristóbal Martín Millán de Gamboa, Juan Pérez de Arteaga, Lorenzo Suárez of Portugal, Francisco Ramírez el Viejo (and his wife, Juana de Godoy), Benito de Cuenca, Domingo Díaz (an Italian who could not remember who his parents were), Juan de Gamarra, Diego Sánchez de Sopuerta, Bernardino and Antonio de Santa Clara, and Juan de Cáceres. There were also Gonzalo Velázquez de Lara and Gutierre de Badajoz, whose sons Francisco and Gutierre were both with Cortés.
35. Fray Alonso de Espinar, Fray Bartolomé de Turégano, Fray Antonio de Carrión, Fray Francisco de Portugal, Fray Antonio de los Mártires, Fray Mases de Zafra, Fray Pedro de Hornachuelos, Fray Bartolomé de Sevilla, Fray Juan de Hinojosa, Fray Alonso de Hornachuelos, Fray Juan de Escalante, Fray Juan Francés, Fray Pierre Francés, and four lay brothers, Juan, Martín, Luis Sánchez, and Pedro Martínez.
36. Pedro Díaz de la Costona, Alonso de Illescas, Fernando Guiral, and Alonso Fernández.
37. Muniz qu. Pérez de Tudela [9:39], 201; Lamb [13:74], 73, fn 43.
38. The charm of Sanlúcar remains, as does the palace of the Medina Sidonia.
39. Las Casas [2:50], 2, 215.
40. The monarchs introduced on Feb. 12 a royal ordinance (pragmática) that sought to complete the Christianization of Castile: all mudéjares over fourteen (over twelve for women) were given two and a half months to choose either baptism or emigration.
41. Liss [2:42], 335.
42. This was the usual title of an adult heir to the throne of Castile, like the Prince of Wales.
43. Liss [2:42], 336.
44. Fernández-Armesto [4:49], 14.
45. Garay had been a friend of Hernán Cortés, according to Díaz del Castillo (Historia Verdadera de la Nueva España, 2 vols., Madrid 1982), between about 1506 and 1510 when both were relatively young men in La Española.
46. The residencia was an import from old days in Spain.
47. Fernández-Armesto [4:49], 26. Other members of the family such as Batista were well established in Tenerife.
48. Colón [4:16], 482–83.
49. The family had been involved in all Genoese trading, from the Crimean outpost in Caffa to that in England, and they would be the first Genoese to establish a branch of their business in Santo Domingo.
50. Colón [4:16], 476–78.
51. Navarrete [4:38], 1, 223.
52. Navarrete [4:38], 2, 328. In 1520, he would carry home to the New World the surviving slaves whom Hernán Cortés took to Spain in 1519 with Francisco de Montejo and Alonso Hernández Portocarrero. Juan Sánchez, piloto mayor, and Antón Donato, contramaestre, were both on the Santo.
53. Nicknamed the “Bermuda.”
54. See Gil [3:37], 3, 84.
55. Colón [4:16], 487.
56. See Jesús Varela Marcos, “Antón de Alaminos, ‘El piloto del Caribe,’ ” in Congreso [5:27], 2, 49ff. We hear of Alaminos as a “grumete” in 1502 from Las Casas [2:50], 3, 157.
57. Navarrete [4:38], 2, 328.
58. Their stores, etc., are mentioned in Navarrete [4:38], 1, 229–31. Consuelo Varela has done much better with her “El rol del cuarto viaje colombino,” AEA, 42, 1985, 243ff.
59. Rafael Donoso Anes speaks of this slave receiving a wage. All the same, he was a “negro esclavo.”
60. Las Casas [2:50], 2, 209–10.
61. Colón [4:16], 485–86.
62. Colón [4:16], 494.
63. Fernando Colón [4:40], 279.
64. Colón [4:16], 485.
65. Las Casas [2:50], 2, 220–24.
66. Giménez Fernández [2:39], 1, 224.
67. Ursula Lamb, “Cristóbal de Tapia versus Nicolás de Ovando,” Hispanic American Historical Review (hereafter HAHR), 33, Aug. 1953.
68. Las Casas [2:50], 2, 226: “el oro no era el fruto de árboles para que llegando lo cogiesen.”
69. Qu. Pérez de Tudela [9:39], 218.
70. Las Casas [2:50], 2, 226.
71. Ibid.
72. Earl Hamilton [3:8], 123.
73. Pérez de Tudela [9:39], 219.
74. Las Casas [2:50], 2, 231–32.
75. Gil [3:37], 1, 155, and also 4, 28. Esquivel came to La Española, I assume, with Ovando, but possibly with Colón, on the second voyage.
76. We soon find that one of the slaves, baptized as Juan, was sold to Francisco Velázquez in the Castilian city of Olmedo. He fled aged thirty but was recovered.
77. Lamb [13:74], 128.
78. Las Casas [2:50], 2, 213.
79. Cf. Alvarado in Tenochtitlan, Cortés in Cholula.
80. This tragedy appears to have been witnessed by Diego Méndez, back on the island looking for help for Columbus, who was marooned in Jamaica; Lamb [13:74], 130.
81. Las Casas [2:50], 238–39; Oviedo [2:43], 1, 83.
82. See María Luisa Laviana and Antonio Gutiérrez Escudero, “Las primeras obras públicas en el nuevo mundo y su financiación: Santo Domingo 1494–1572,” in Congreso [5:27], 551, 523ff.
83. Enrique Otte, Las Perlas del Caribe, Caracas 1977, 251; Las Casas [2:50], 2, 235.
Chapter 16
1. “Azúa” would seem to have been an indigenous word to which the Spaniards added the golden suffix “de Compostela” because of the presence there of a Gallego.
2. That claim is discussed skeptically by Navarrete [4:38], 2, 350. But he admits that Columbus may have seen a report that showed that there was no strait in the continuation of the southern American coast.
3. Colón [4:16], 487.
4. It seems certain that these Indian merchants would have talked of meeting Columbus and that the rumor of these bearded Spaniards would have reached Mexico/Tenochtitlan. See below, ch. 33.
5. Colón [4:16], 488.
6. These paragraphs derive from Paul Kirchhoff, in Handbook [13:62], 4, 219–29.