The Golden Empire: Spain, Charles V, and the Creation of America

by Hugh Thomas

  Many sailors were citizens of Triana, a town across the river from Seville in the shadow of an Arab castle, which had begun to be used as a prison by the Inquisition. In 1561, a census suggested that out of thirty-four pilots, thirty-one lived in Triana.18

  Seville was still a growing city, by far the largest port of the south of Spain, rising in population from forty thousand in 1500 to double that by 1550. Many of the new citizens were from Old Castile or Extremadura. Other ports nearby were tiny in comparison and until 1529 were not permitted to engage in transatlantic trade.

  The international aspect of this Atlantic traffic should be remembered. A surprisingly large number of new citizens of Seville were foreigners. Italians—principally Genoese but also some Florentines—had dominated the commerce of Portugal from the fourteenth century. The first discoveries in the Canary Islands were, as emphasized in Rivers of Gold, brought about with Genoese capital. Many of the first sugar mills and other investments had Genoese support or were initiated thus. The Genoese knew all about money, insurance, investments, loans, and mortgages. Bankers and merchants from Genoa disguised themselves as Spaniards: The Marini became the Marín, the Centurioni the Centurión.

  In addition, many sailors on the ships were not Spanish. Fifteen percent of those who sailed with Pedrarias were born abroad. At least ninety out of the 265 on Magellan’s voyage were foreigners, mostly from Portugal or Italy. Greeks, Frenchmen, and Flemings usually managed a representative or two on a big expedition. Portuguese sailors often pretended to be Spaniards. That was easy enough if they claimed that they were Gallegos, as the languages of Galicia and Portugal are close. An Italian could pose as a Catalan. All the same, the Spanish control of this vast enterprise cannot be ignored. Before the seventeenth century, Spain and Portugal were the only colonial powers to speak of, and Portugal’s imperial greatness was displayed mostly in the East.

  During most of the reign of Charles V, ships bound for and coming from the Indies sailed independently. Would-be permanent emigrants would have to make a detailed application to the Casa de la Contratación as well as pay for their food and fare.

  The first French corsair was apparently a pirate of 1506.19 The increasing danger at sea from France caused some to argue as early as the 1530s that commercial vessels should sail in fleets. In 1543, this Spanish fleet was also accompanied by ships of war for protection.20 In 1564, after further French intrusions, these anxieties would mature into a regular organization whereby two escorted merchant fleets a year would head for New Spain. Both fleets would normally stop after about a week, or a little more, for supplies and water, or recovery from seasickness, in the Canaries. The fleets would then sail direct for the West Indies. The ships for New Spain would usually travel via Puerto Rico to San Juan de Ulúa, opposite Veracruz; those for the admirable harbor of Cartagena would not as a rule make a stop. San Juan de Ulúa was inhospitable but convenient, and both merchandise and crews would be shipped from there to the mainland by barge.

  On return journeys, both the northern and the southern fleets would sail home via Havana, the best harbor in all the Americas. Both would wait there for a naval escort. The return across the Atlantic would usually be via the Azores, still Portuguese, whence it would be usual to expect another month’s voyage home to Castile. Welcomed home they might then well be, but many seamen would be sent off to the special maritime hospital of Buena Aire in Triana.

  Regular voyages across the Pacific incidentally began in the 1560s and on most occasions were a fearful experience. One had to take into account the battles with the French or other pirates, which consisted of boarding or defending against boarding by the enemy. Cannon would be fired and all manner of objects would be thrown: flaming arrows (alacranes); gunpowder, tar, and oil mixtures (alquitranes); and pieces of iron with four sharp points (abrojos).

  By 1550, the main items of trade with the Indies were: first, agricultural—wine, olive oil, eau-de-vie; then horticultural products such as vinegar, olives, raisins, almonds, spices, wax; then clothes; metal objects such as iron, agricultural machinery, nails and nail-making equipment; leather, soap, glass, medicines, even works of art. Then there was mercury, a Spanish state monopoly but much used for securing good silver. In the sixteenth century, textiles constituted over 60 percent of all exports to the Americas. Many came from Rouen or Angers. Then there were paper, rosaries, pens, and strings for violins. Slaves were considered as an item of commerce second to none.21

  But there were also cochineal, indigo, and brazilwood. Colorings and dyes seem to have constituted about half the exports of the time, these being the American products most easily sold. At the end of the sixteenth century, leather, tobacco, ginger, and pearls were regularly being shipped back from the Indies.

  The ships on both the Atlantic and the Pacific would be stocked with sacks of biscuit, salt, and firewood; barrels of wine and of water; flagons of oil and vinegar; huge packs of salt meat, salt fish, and beans or rice; dozens of cheeses. The staple elements in the diet of a sailor would be biscuit, water, and wine. The usual daily diet on a transatlantic ship would probably have been a pound and a half (690 grams) of biscuit, and a liter both of water and of wine, 150 grams of a mixture (menestra) of horsebeans and chickpeas, and 150 grams of salt fish—probably tollo (dogfish), pargo (red snapper), or cod. Some days the menestra would be replaced by 46 grams of mixed rice and oil, and 230 or even 460 grams of salt pork. Small rations of cheese might sometimes be distributed, particularly when storms or possible battles made it unwise to light the stove.22

  Masters would expect grander menus: white rather than black biscuit, roast chicken, dried fruit, good wine. Fresh fish would be frequently found in the sea, and most sailors would have a fishhook and a line. The caloric content of their diet, about four thousand calories a day, was adequate for the efforts demanded.23

  Most sailors slept on the deck in sacks or on mattresses filled with straw, or in unexpected places. Some would bring small pillows with them. The fact that a third of the crew would at any one time likely be on some kind of guard duty created space. Masters and captains often had good beds, a mark of their superior status. They also would have copper chamber pots.

  Most seamen wore loose-fitting clothes—trousers known as zaragüelles or greguescos, and capes or jackets called capotes de mar or chaquetillas, such as those sketched by the painter Christoph Weiditz. Most such clothes were blue. Most travelers would carry knives in their belts.

  Though scarcely a man of much maritime experience, Fray Antonio de Guevara tells us that at sea there were three diversions: gaming, talking, and reading. The first included gambling at dice or card games, but it also included chess. The third included the reading of many books, some religious, such as the Libro de la oración y la meditación of Fray Luis de Granada, the most-read book in Spain in the sixteenth century; some technical works; some chivalrous, such as Amadís de Gaula and its successors. There were also seductions of boys (by sailors) and the few women traveling—female servants or perhaps widows. Homosexuality naturally played its part.

  ______

  Commerce with the Indies was every year increasingly dominated by regulations. To begin with, on April 10, 1495, a decree was proclaimed giving all Spanish subjects the right to establish, exploit, or carry out commerce in the New World under prescribed conditions.

  On May 6, 1497, another decree stated that participation in commerce was to be under the direction of the Crown. A few years later, on September 6, 1501, another decree prohibited foreigners from going to the Indies.

  All the same, at this time any ship that kept to the rules had the liberty to travel freely and whenever convenient.

  A decree of October 12, 1504, spoke of the need for commerce to be directed by Isabel from her realms. On December 10, 1508, Spanish merchants were able to register their merchandise at the Canary Islands. The following year, it was laid down that all ships whose captains wanted to would be able to load their merchandise at Cádiz.

&nb
sp; In 1510, the ordinances for the Casa de la Contratación instructed that body not to allow foreigners to go to the Indies and not to allow ships to go to the Indies without a permit, which should insist on three inspections. A vistador (visitor) would take a look before any permissions were granted. Then there would be a look at the loaded ship, in Seville. Finally, there would be a general search at Sanlúcar seeking to ensure that the vessel was not overloaded and therefore dangerous.

  From the beginning, all merchants who wanted to send goods to the Indies had to pay taxes known as almojarifes de Indias and obtain a license from the Casa de la Contratación. Similar permits were needed in the Indies for both the outward-bound and the inward-bound journeys. All goods—above all, gold, but also brazilwood—had to be registered, any smuggler being required to pay four times the value of the amount siezed. The property of anyone dying in the Americas would be carefully listed and later sold in a regular way. All such regulations were published by Andrés de Carvajal, one of the many of that surname who played a part in the Indies.

  In 1513, there was another striking change: the Casa de la Contratación was ordered to send two caravels to Cuba to defend the coast there against French pirates; and in 1521, a little squadron of four or five ships was charged to patrol the waters off Cape Saint Vincent in Portugal. In 1515, there was a protest against the monopoly on trade enjoyed by Seville. In 1518, we hear of a decree forbidding the visitors Diego Rodríguez Comitre and Bartolomeu Diaz from having any financial connection with any vessel engaged in commerce with the Americas. Though like most officials they would buy their offices, they were well paid and expected to be experts in ship care such as careening (beaching a ship to do the maintenance below the water line). They would eventually carry out the prescribed three inspections of all ships, all at Sanlúcar de Barrameda, sometimes checking that all priests had regularized their passage. They were later concerned with loading, and were also concerned by the need to prevent smuggling.24

  On April 5, 1522, orders were given to the officials of the Casa de la Contratación not to permit a stranger of any sort to travel who had not given proof of identity. Also excluded were non-Catholics, Jews, Moors, and the children, even grandchildren, of those who had publicly worn a San Benito in consequence of the punishments of the Inquisition. On July 14, numerous further ordinances were proclaimed: Thus every ship of one hundred tons was obliged to carry at least fifteen mariners, including a gunner, eight apprentices or cabin boys (grumetes), and three pages (pajes). There would have to be four large iron guns, provided with three dozen shot each, and twenty-four swivel guns (pasavolantes and espingardas, six dozen shot for each of them). Two hundredweight of powder and ten crossbows with eight dozen arrows would be provided, along with four dozen short lances, eight long pikes, and twenty shields. Naturally, every soldier carried a sword, usually at his own expense.

  On January 15, 1529, a decree at Toledo again reserved all commerce to the people of Castile, but also named nine ports, including some in Galicia as well as Seville, from which ships would be allowed to sail: Corunna, Bayona, Avilés, Laredo, Bilbao, San Sebastián, Cartagena, Málaga, and Cádiz. In September 1534, it was insisted that no ship unless it was new might leave for the Americas without being careened first. The crew as well as the ship had also to be examined by the pilot-major. The upper deck and main cabins had to be kept free of merchandise. Only provisions, artillery, and passengers’ chests were permitted above deck. But it turned out that first-rate ships were more rarely sent to the Americas than seemed likely.

  Thirty was the maximum number for a ship of thirty tons. Very often, however, the regulations insisting on these limitations were not kept. Bureaucratic rules are meant to be broken and, in the Spanish Empire as in other such undertakings, were frequently only an indication of what the civil servants in Seville hoped might happen. Captains, boatswains, passengers, and sailors exploited the rules as best they could.

  In 1537, a royal fleet was sent to the Indies to guarantee the safe dispatch of the treasures of the place. In 1540, there was a reference to the idea that all ships active in the Indies would have to be Spanish.

  From August 23, 1543, the annual departure of the fleets was formalized: Only ships of 100 tons or more were allowed to take part, two annual fleets of at least ten ships lifting anchor, one in March and another in September. In 1552, it was decided temporarily to suspend convoys and to arm all ships against possible foes. Ships were now classified in three categories: from 100 to 170 tons; from 170 tons to 220; and 220 tons to 320. Armaments were mostly of brass. Crossbows were being supplemented in these years by the more efficient arquebus.

  In 1558, a cédula of April 3 abrogated the rule of obligatory return from Puerto Rico and Santo Domingo to Seville. From 1561, ships that were damaged and might not be able to pass the sandbar at Sanlúcar were also allowed to discharge merchandise at Cádiz.25 Special naval vessels were allocated to the defense of the treasure fleets from now on; they were paid for by a duty on exports.

  Colonists to the New World were encouraged by the Crown in numerous ways. For example, those on their way to Santo Domingo or Tierra Firme (Venezuela) were now given maintenance and free passages from the day that they arrived in Seville until they disembarked in “America.” They were provided with the land, livestock, plants, and agricultural implements that they needed. For twenty years, they were free of the tax known as alcabala and other taxes except tithes to the Church. Land was provided to them on whatever scale they wanted. Doctors and apothecaries would be provided. Special prizes were offered for good husbandry: Thirty thousand maravedís would be given to whoever produced twelve pounds of silk, and there were similar compensations for those who produced comparable quantities of cloves, cinnamon, and olive oil.

  Long before that arrangement, however, Spain had become preoccupied by a new territory to the south, namely a land known to the conquistadors of Darien and Panama as “Birú.”

  18

  Birú

  It rarely happens that new islands emerge out of the sea. But should that occur and some new island … appear, it should belong to him who first settles it.

  Las Siete Partidas, PARTIDA III, TITLE 28, LAW 29

  The land that now became the subject of Spanish attention—even obsession, particularly in the isthmus of Panama–Darien—was one that seemed at first sight similar to that which Cortés had conquered in New Spain. Peru and old Mexico were powerful monarchies that knew nothing of each other. Both were also relatively recent in power, having accumulated their capacities in the fifteenth century. Both monarchies had rulers taken from the same royal family throughout their histories. Both had dominating religions with priestly castes. The Incas also worshipped the moon as well as the sun. Some coastal societies in Peru (the Chimú) thought that the moon was more important than the sun. The Mexica and the Incas included savagery and high culture in their ceremonials and customs but the violence in Mexico was never seen in Peru. War and fighting were persistent with them both. In neither society is there any evidence that anyone had a sense of humor, whereas the Spaniards were always laughing. Both had settled capital cities—in Tenochtitlan and in Cuzco—something that at that stage Spain had not. Both had sophisticated systems of landholding. Both the Mexica and the Inca were peoples who had succeeded in exerting their dominance over neighboring tribes to whom they had themselves once been subordinate. The rise in Peruvian power had been slower than that of the Mexica, but all the same, the great conquerors of the two dynasties were fifteenth-century contemporaries. The ruling houses of both Mexico and Peru were large family autocracies, not unlike the Saudi royal family of today. In neither country did primogeniture play a part. The best man was expected to gain power. The Scots had that kind of arrangement in the tenth century and before, with their Law of Tanistry. In Mexico, a succession was less of a crisis than it was in Peru, because the reigning emperor (hueytlatoani) would select his successor soon after his enthronement. All important positions we
re filled by members of the royal house.

  Both the Mexica and the Incas thought that they were in some ways chosen peoples. The Inca rulers, like the Mexica, were in one respect comparable to the English monarchy after Henry VIII: They were at the summit of the national religion, though the “King” was not a high priest. The two monarchies were both absolute ones: The power of the ruler was unquestioned. Both rulers were in constant touch, it was said, with the sun. The popular adulation attached to the monarch was exorbitant, and protest or dissent unthinkable.

  Both Peruvians and Mexica made fine cotton clothes, including tunics and cloaks deriving from sophisticated weaving. On occasion, both wore feathers arranged as cloaks or in headdresses. The Incas valued their cloth so highly that they burned it rather than allow it to fall into Spanish hands.1 Both empires used languages—the Mexica Nahuatl, the Inca Quechua—that seemed to be lingua francas in the territories concerned, though the Incas also had a private language for use within the royal family. Both societies liked alcohol and some drugs: The Peruvians had chicha, a mild beer made from maize, while the Mexica had pulque, made from the agave cactus; the Incas enjoyed coca rather than the elaborate range of hallucinogenic drugs available to the Mexica from mushrooms. Both the Mexica and the Peruvians supplemented their staple diet of maize and potatoes (in the Peruvian case2) with fish (anchovies, sardines, tuna, sea bass, salmon off the coast of Peru) and birds. The Peruvians also ate dried llama meat and guinea pig. They would organize great hunts for vicuña, guanaco, roe deer, mountain fox, hare, and puma, as the Inca Manco would show to Francisco Pizarro in 1534. Though both societies made elaborate pottery, neither had the benefit of the potter’s wheel. Perhaps in the Mexican case that convenience was not far away. Nor had either any means of writing, though the Peruvians used quipus, knots and rows of colored strings that represented mathematical units.3