Spain's Road to Empire

by Henry Kamen

  The hope of liberation, once kindled, could not be extinguished. In those same months, quite independently of the Incas a millenarian movement called Taki Onqoy began to take shape in the area around the town of Huamanga (see Chapter 6). In 1571 Titu Cusi fell ill and his men called on a local Spanish missionary to cure him. The cures did not work and the Inca died. Convinced that the priest had poisoned the emperor, the Indians tortured him to death. The murder supplied an excuse for the recently arrived viceroy Toledo to intervene. Titu Cusi's brother Tupac Amaru assumed power but was destined not to exercise it for long, since a deadly epidemic was now sweeping through the forest areas and affected the territory of Vilcabamba: bridges and roads were left unguarded as warriors died. Toledo sent a small force of Spaniards in. They succeeded in capturing Tupac Amaru, who was taken in chains to Cusco. There, after being baptized, the last legitimate Inca emperor was beheaded in 1572. Guaman Poma recorded that ‘all the great ladies wept, and the Indians of this kingdom, there was great mourning throughout the city and they tolled all the bells, and all the leading persons and ladies and the principal Indians went to the funeral’.136

  The execution, like that of Atahualpa a generation before, provoked bitter criticism on all sides. Writing a generation later, the historian Garcilaso de la Vega alleged that when Toledo returned to Spain Philip II criticized him for the act, saying that ‘he had not sent him to Peru to kill kings, but to serve them’. Guaman Poma's version was that the king refused even to receive Toledo.137 There is no evidence to support either of these stories.

  In fact, the execution fitted in opportunely with the perspective of empire that the Spaniards were now adopting.138 In the colonial territories there was to be no other authority save that of the king: popes, princes, Incas, were no longer to dictate the limits of Spanish power. In the beginning of the conquest period Spain had leaned heavily on papal authorization for its policies; now that was no longer deemed necessary. This did not mean that Spanish power was to be viewed as total or absolute, and no such pretension was ever made. But from now on only the crown decided. In Peru Toledo took great pains to issue publications showing that the Incas had always been usurpers of power in the Andes. This made it easier to present Spanish power as the only legitimate authority. ‘As Your Majesty is the real ruler of this kingdom’, the viceroy informed his master in 1573, ‘and there are no legitimate heirs of the Inca tyrants, all the wealth, land and livestock reserved for the service of the Incas, and which are not private property, justly belong to Your Majesty.’ The king's obligation, in turn, was to ‘defend the native Indians and devise laws for their conservation’.139 There was henceforth to be one sole empire, ruled over by one sole authority, the Crown of Castile.

  5

  The Pearl of the Orient

  We are here at the gateway of great kingdoms. Will Your Majesty aid us so that trade may be introduced and maintained among these nations?

  Guido de Lavezaris, governor of Manila, to Philip II1

  Spain's first contact with the Pacific is dated traditionally to 1513, when Vasco Núñez de Balboa and his men crossed the isthmus of Panama. The first Spanish settlement on the South Sea was the town of Panama, founded in 1519 by Pedrarias Dávila, who had come out (aged already over seventy) in 1514 as governor of Darien and soon displayed a ferocity that the natives came to regard as typical of Spanish methods. He was responsible for the execution of Balboa, and continued his fierce and arbitrary course until removed from his position, but was appointed soon after to the governorship of the adjacent territory of Nicaragua, where he died, still ferocious but indomitable in 1531 at the venerable age of ninety.

  Tied down by the grim and mortal task of establishing themselves on the mainland, the Spaniards on the Pacific at first made little use of the sea, which served primarily as a transport route along the southern coast. Spain's history in the Pacific, consequently, was pioneered not by its own nationals but by Portuguese. In the same year that Cortés set out for the Yucatan peninsula, five ships left Sanlucar in September 1519 under the command of the Portuguese captain Ferdinand Magellan (Fernão Magalhães). Magellan's expedition had a largely Spanish crew but included sailors from several nations. Among them was Antonio Pigafetta, a native of Vicenza, who later wrote a detailed and classic account of the enterprise. Later on, when he was preparing his account, Pigafetta explained how he came to be there: ‘I was in Spain in the year 1519, and from books and conversations I learnt that there were wonderful things to see by travelling the ocean, so I determined to discover with my own eyes the truth of all that I had been told.’ Thanks to his enthusiasm, the most famous expedition in European naval history was narrated for posterity. It was a long and hazardous voyage. Four months later, in January 1520, they were at the Río de la Plata, and further south in Patagonia the little fleet suffered a serious mutiny. Not until the end of the year did four surviving ships manage to navigate in thirty-eight days through the perilous and windy strait that bears Magellan's name. They emerged into an ocean that seemed by comparison so tranquil that it was named ‘the Pacific’, but they soon faced the unending expanse of sea, ‘so vast that the human mind can barely conceive it’, accompanied by thirst and starvation as their supplies ran out. Their first landfall fourteen weeks later in March 1521 was at Guam, where the thieving curiosity of the natives induced the sailors to name the islands the Ladrones. At Cebu a chieftain accepted baptism, but Magellan was killed in a clash with natives on Mactan, in the Philippines.

  The survivors in two ships made it to Maluku, where they encountered Portuguese traders at Tidore and managed to take on spices. The voyage home was attempted in both directions. One of the vessels, the Trinidad, set out eastwards across the Pacific but was beaten back by winds and a few survivors managed to return to port. The other, the Victoria, under Sebastián del Cano, left Tidore on a westwards route in December 1521, striking out directly from Timor towards the coast of Africa. It rounded the Cape of Good Hope and eventually entered the port of Sanlucar on 1 September 1522, three years after departure. Del Cano had left Tidore with a crew of forty-seven Europeans and thirteen Malays; only eighteen of the former (two of them were Germans) and four of the latter made it to Spain. Together with the 13 who later returned from the Trinidad, they were the only survivors of the 265 men that had made up Magellan's enterprise. The Victoria was the first vessel in history to circumnavigate the globe, a gigantic step forward in human achievement. It also established for the Spaniards direct contact with the Spice Islands, opening up the prospect of competition with the Portuguese and possible empire in Asia. The price obtained for the spices brought back by del Cano more than paid for the entire cost of mounting the expedition. A Genoese had offered the New World to Spain, now a Portuguese and a Basque (in a voyage documented by an Italian) offered the Old World as well.

  The news was brought personally by del Cano to the emperor in Valladolid in September. The return of the Victoria revealed for the first time the possibility of direct Spanish access to the riches of the east, and the crown did not wish to let the opportunity slip. But there were problems of measuring distances. The Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494 had agreed to fix a line of demarcation in the Atlantic, but how did this affect the division of lands in the Pacific? After trying in vain to reach agreement in 1524 with Portugal over sharing access to the Maluku archipelago, Charles V in 1525 sent out another expedition from La Coruña. Financed by Castilian and German bankers, it consisted of seven vessels under Juan García Jofre de Loaysa, with instructions to contact the Spaniards stranded in Maluku from Magellan's voyage. The voyage was a disaster: both Loaysa and Sebastián del Cano, who accompanied him as second-in-command, died at sea, and though the remaining ships touched at the Philippines and other islands before reaching Maluku early in 1527, the survivors were forced to take refuge on Tidore. A third expedition, sent out in October 1527 from Mexico by Hernando Cortés, and commanded by his cousin Alvaro de Saavedra, reached the South China Sea the year after, and
explored various islands, but disintegrated like its predecessors and Saavedra died during the passage. With Portuguese help, survivors from these last two voyages – one of them was the subsequently famous Andrés de Urdaneta – eventually returned to Spain in 1536.

  The continuous failures did not serve to foster optimism. As a consequence, the emperor in 1529 by the Treaty of Saragossa ceded to Portugal (in return for the handsome sum of 350,000 ducats) all his claims to the Spice Islands, and a line of longitude was laid down in the Pacific, 297.5 leagues to the east of Maluku.2 Spanish ships were not to operate to the west of the line. Interest in expansion towards the Pacific virtually disappeared. But the vagueness of the term Spice Islands continued to attract individual explorers. In normal usage, the term referred to the islands of Amboina, the Bandas, and Ternate and Tidore, in the Maluku archipelago; but in a broader sense it was also applied to all the islands between the Celebes on the west and New Guinea on the east. Where, moreover, did the line of demarcation really run? Since there was at the time no reliable way to measure longitude, reasonable doubt remained over what the Portuguese could really claim as their own. Occasional Spanish ships ventured into the disputed area. A venture to the islands in 1536 under Hernando de Grijalva collapsed, the commander dying in a mutiny; one ship was wrecked in Maluku, though another made it back to Mexico. Six more years passed before another initiative came from New Spain, when Pedro de Alvarado backed an expedition that sailed from the port of Navidad on 1 November 1542. The ships reached islands which the expedition's leader, Ruy López de Villalobos, named the Philippines in honour of the prince of Spain, later Philip II. The vessels touched on New Guinea, which they also claimed for Spain. Villalobos died of fever on the island of Amboina in 1546, receiving the last rites from a wandering Navarrese missionary who had arrived there, named Francisco Xavier.

  The success of the Portuguese in extending their activity through Southeast Asia was due in good measure to their establishment of key trading posts at Goa and in the Indian Ocean. Pioneers of the route to India round the Cape of Good Hope, thanks to Vasco da Gama's epic voyage of 1498, Portuguese traders pushed east towards the Spice Islands. In 1509 they attacked the town of Melaka with a force that included Magellan in its ranks. Two years later, under Viceroy Albuquerque, they captured the town, and held it thereafter for 130 years. In 1512 they touched on the Philippines, and going farther south established their main base in Maluku, at Ternate. Their firm presence in the China Sea may be dated from the settlement of Macao in 1553, a centre that offered excellent access to the whole commerce of the region and from which they soon organized a successful three-way commerce that took in Goa, Macao and Japan. The annual ‘great ship’ from Macao to Nagasaki became from 1570 an integral part of the trade route from Goa. The Portuguese accomplishment was, of course, not due to themselves alone. It came in great measure from the collaboration of European financiers (mainly Genoese) 3 and from agreements made with the Asian authorities in India, Melaka, China and Japan.

  Rivalry with the Portuguese influenced a good part of Spain's enterprises, and must be considered a positive stimulus to the growth of Spain's empire. Portuguese trade was a tiny enterprise in terms of goods and shipping, but of profound consequence for the Western world, which for the first time penetrated deep into Asia. The Portuguese continued for over a century to be the most active of the Western powers in East Asia, considerably more active than the Spanish, who were obligated by the terms of the papal donation not to enter into territories where the former were active. It was an obligation that continued to be observed, within the limits of possibility, even after the union of the crowns of Portugal and Spain in 1580. The Portuguese pioneered contacts: in 1543 their traders first arrived at the port of Kyushu and brought to Japan the science of firearms, a technology that the regional warlords (daimyo) gradually adapted to their needs and used in their quarrels. No less far-reaching in its consequences was the arrival at Kagoshima in 1549 of the Chinese trading vessel that set ashore Francisco Xavier.

  Well over twenty years after the Villalobos voyage, the Spanish government helped to plan and finance a further expedition. Philip II stated expressly that ‘the main purpose of this expedition is to establish the return route from the western isles, since it is already known that the route to them is fairly short’.4 A fleet of five ships under the command of the veteran Basque administrator Miguel López de Legazpi and piloted by Fray Andrés de Urdaneta sailed from New Spain on 21 November 1564. The Legazpi expedition was new in style and concept: it reflected Philip II's resolve to take a direct hand in policy, while at the same time modifying the rules that till now had governed expansion. The king's instructions, which insisted on a wholly peaceful approach, were intended to avoid the excesses committed by New World conquistadors. The expedition touched at several islands (including the Marshalls and the Marianas) which Legazpi dutifully claimed for Spain, before making landfall on the island of Cebu in the Visayas in April 1565, after a five-month voyage.

  With just under two thousand people at the time the Spaniards arrived, Cebu was the chief port in the Visaya Islands and a promising place to settle. The Spaniards set up a base, from which they began to trade and to reconnoitre adjacent islands. They had to endure six long years of misery, privation, lack of customary food, subjection to tropical disease and discomfort. Though their instructions were to avoid bloodshed in the course of imposing their presence, that proved to be impossible. In the event, it was fairly easy to overcome native resistance, for society in the islands was based on small kin-based units known as barangays, consisting of from thirty to one hundred families, which were usually independent of and hostile to each other. The lack of any broad political organization among the natives made it possible for the Spaniards to move in without serious problems. Above all, as in America they could count on support from local allies.

  The first important move out from the Visayas was made in May 1570 when an expedition of ninety Spaniards accompanied by three hundred Visayan auxiliaries attempted to seize the settlement at Manila, a thriving barangay at the mouth of the River Pasig in Luzon, ruled by a son of the Muslim sultan of Borneo and defended by bronze cannon. They were unable to dislodge the natives and had to settle for an uneasy coexistence. A year later the local leaders (datus) came to an agreement accepting Spanish rule, and in June 1571, a year before Legazpi's death, Manila was formally constituted as a Spanish town.5 It was about the same size as the main town on Cebu and showed signs of Muslim influence, but was seen as more attractive. Manila developed in time into the principal Spanish colony of the entire Philippines.

  The policy of settlement adopted by the Spaniards in the South China Sea was similar to that used in the New World. As leader of the official expedition, Legazpi enjoyed the title and rights of adelantado: for later writers he was simply ‘el Adelantado’. His principal companions had the status of encomenderos; an official listing of 1576 calculated that the territory of the islands was allotted to 143 encomiendas. However, half a century had now passed since the beginning of the conquests on the American mainland, and the style and philosophy of the imperial enterprise had changed radically. Within the small ambit of the Spanish community in the Philippines, it was possible to take seriously the king's 1573 Ordinance. When he received a request in 1574 for further encomiendas in the islands, Philip II rejected it out of hand. The first formal law to be issued by the Spanish authorities in Manila was a ban, in 1576, on any further grants. The holders no longer enjoyed the status they once had. ‘The encomenderos of these islands’, the bishop of Manila reported in 1583, ‘are all very poor people.’6

  The need to survive always took precedence over the need to conquer, for conquest was neither a priority nor a possibility in the Philippines. Among the earliest threats to the Spaniards was the Chinese pirate Limahong, who virtually controlled the seas round the islands. In March 1575 Legazpi's son Juan de Salcedo led a major Spanish expedition of two hundred and fifty men, backed up by
one thousand five hundred Filipinos and a Chinese interpreter, which sailed from Manila to Lingayen Bay, at the mouth of the River Agno, and destroyed the Chinese vessels where they lay at rest. But survival also involved elementary concerns such as food. Without slave labour to support them, the colonists found it hard to maintain themselves. The bishop of Manila in 1581 described cases of Spaniards who managed to eat only because they stole from the natives. They would, he reported, ‘break in on a native who has just cooked himself a meal and take it away from him. If I reprimand them they say, “What do you expect us to do? Lie down and die?”’7

  Because of its great distance from Europe, Manila from the first was provisioned directly from the New World and treated as a dependency of the viceroyalty of New Spain. In 1583 it was given an Audiencia to govern its affairs, and an autonomous supreme court in 1595. In practice, because of the distances involved and the time taken to traverse the Pacific, the Philippines quickly struck out on their own and developed as an independent colony. But the Spaniards never developed a viable economy of their own, and always depended down to the nineteenth century on the regular financial assistance they received from the Mexican government in the form of silver. The subsidy, known as the ‘real situado’ (‘royal subsidy’), was brought directly from Acapulco in the galleons in the form of cash. In reality, though it took the form of assistance it was simply a restitution to the islands of the customs duties their ships paid when they had crossed the Pacific to trade in Acapulco.8