by Hugh Thomas
Gonzalo Pizarro expected Orellana to assist and accompany him, and indeed the conquistador was anxious to do this, though he first had to go down to Guayaquil, on the Pacific coast. Thus he was too late to accompany Gonzalo in February and only caught up with his commander at the end of March. They met at Quema, about four hundred miles east of Quito. Orellana came with his twenty-three companions almost starving and, as was said at the time, no one had more than a sword and a shield with him. Quema had a savanna about six miles long and about a mile broad, so it was a reasonable place for a rest. Pizarro pressed on, however, seeking a way to food and fertility, while Orellana rested. Before he left, Gonzalo Pizarro brutally interrogated several Indian chiefs about the country ahead. Though some said that there was soon to be found good country, where the population was a large one and the people wore clothes, most said that they knew only of forests usually inundated with water.
On this journey of reconnaissance, Gonzalo Pizarro left his horses behind. He was away seventy days and found a few cinnamon trees. The cinnamon here was not in the bark but in the form of flower buds, a sample of which Gonzalo sent back to the King. A small detachment went ahead farther, to discover on a new river (which turned out to be the Napo) settlements with houses on the bank and, indeed, people wearing clothes. Gonzalo captured some fifteen canoes from these Indians. “In these,” Gonzalo recalled, “we went up and down the main river in search of food and there we built [also] a brigantine to protect and to accompany the canoes, because we were compelled to cross over from one side of the river to another and, without this [brigantine], the men of the expedition could not have been kept in condition both from the point of view of food and from the point of view of carrying weapons and munitions for the arquebuses and [whatever was necessary] for the crossbows and iron bars and pickaxes, [not to speak of shoes for horses]. But I was informed by Indian guides that ahead of us lay a great uninhabited region where there was no food whatsoever.”6
By this time, Orellana had joined Gonzalo Pizarro. Although he had been against building the brigantine, once the decision had been made, he busied himself, as the de facto second-in-command, in finding iron for nails and wood for timber and so on. There was no shortage of wood, nor of lianas for cordage, nor resin, nor indeed metal for nails.
With these canoes and with this brigantine, the San Pedro, Gonzalo Pizarro and his men reached the junction of the rivers Coca and Napo. The equipment, the supplies, and the sick were here placed on the brigantine, and Juan de Alcántara (presumably, from his name, an Extremeño) was placed in command. The rest of the expedition struggled with their horses along the banks of the river, though the undergrowth was thick and there were marshes and tributaries flowing into the main river that necessitated bridge building. The adventurers found little food, and by that time, all the pigs of the expedition had been eaten. They continued thus for forty days and covered another 150 miles.
Orellana told Pizarro that he had been able to talk to guides whom he considered reliable (his Quechua was by then reasonable), who had said that the uninhabited region ahead was indeed vast and that there was no food whatever to be had until the point “where one great river [the Amazon] joined up with that down which we were proceeding and that, from that junction, one day’s journey up the other river [the Amazon], there was an abundance of maize. And Captain Orellana told me [Pizarro] that, in order to serve His Majesty, and for love of me, he was willing to go in search of that food where the Indians said that it was and that, if I would give him the brigantine San Pedro and the canoes manned by sixty men, he would go in search of that food and bring it back.”7
Gonzalo trusted Orellana, since he had been such a friend of the Pizarro family for so long and they both came from Trujillo. Pizarro agreed, though he specified that Orellana had to be back with him in twelve days. He allowed him fifty-seven men.8 This was the crucial moment of Orellana’s life, the origin of his glory and of the terrible accusations that would be made against him. For Orellana sailed off in the brigantine, with about ten canoes tied to its sides, with the plan of returning with such food as he had procured. But he never came back.
Orellana took with him on the San Pedro many heavy objects, such as most of the clothing and bedding of the expedition, the “munitions,” spare weapons, and a small quantity of food, but probably not, as was afterwards alleged by Gonzalo Pizarro and his friends, many emeralds and gold. On their second day out, still on the Napo, the San Pedro hit a fallen tree in the middle of the river, and much damage was caused. Had they not been close to the shore, the ship would have been destroyed. Orellana and the crew hauled the boat to the side of the river, mended the hole in its side, and then continued their journey. The river had a fast current, so that they found themselves traveling sixty or seventy-five miles a day, the river always increasing in width since so many smaller streams were entering it, especially from the south.
The first three days, they traveled without seeing any settlement. As they had by then long distanced themselves from where they had left Gonzalo, and since they had so little to eat and their route seemed so unclear, Orellana and his leading companions began to talk quite soon of their return and how they would cope with the tremendous current against which they would have to row. Fray Carvajal, the chaplain of the expedition, recorded that it seemed from very early on necessary to have to choose between two evils: One, which the captain and most of his fellow leaders thought the lesser danger, was to continue on and follow the river; the other, which seemed to spell certain death, was to try to return upstream. To go back by land seemed impossible.
They continued onward, with no idea what they would encounter. They did realize that the river would eventually meet the Atlantic, but no one had any knowledge of how far away that meeting would be. Food was now nonexistent, and the Spaniards were reduced to cooking shoes, belts, and other leather clothes, sometimes seasoned by herbs. But no one knew which herbs were edible, and some found themselves poisoned in consequence and at the point of death “because they became like mad men and did not possess sense.”9 They did have, it is true, some maize and wine, but Fray Carvajal was attempting to preserve the latter so that he could celebrate Mass.
In one sense, conditions began to improve, for after New Year’s Day, 1542, Orellana’s Spaniards began to hear the distant beat of drums. It slowly became evident that they were not far from an Indian pueblo. Then, after several weeks of seeing nothing, they came upon four canoes full of Indians. Orellana sailed the San Pedro fast downriver, to find the pueblo of Aparia. This was probably near the watersmeet of the Napo and the Curaray, a black-water river, which is the Napo’s largest tributary. There Orellana addressed the assembled elders of the place in Quechua and told them not to be afraid and that he and his friends would do nothing wrong or evil. The chief of the place was pleased at the Spaniards’ reception of him and asked whether they needed anything. “Only food,” replied Orellana, and in a short time, they were brought a selection of meat, including game and fish of many types. There was also maize, yucca, and sweet potato.
After they had eaten, Orellana called a meeting of his fifty-odd companions. He said that he himself favored going back up the river by boat to rejoin Gonzalo Pizarro, however difficult that might seem. But most of his companions thought that it would be “disastrous for us if we were to go with Your Lordship back up the river.”10 They hoped that Orellana would not put them in a compromising situation where they would be compelled to disobey him and in which they would appear traitors, saying that, on the other hand, they would be ready to follow him on any other route by which their lives might be saved. They concluded by saying that “they had been assured by the seamen who are here, or in the boat, or in the canoes, that we are some 600 miles or more by land from the expeditionary force of governor Gonzalo, all without road or settlement but, on the contrary, with very wild and wooded regions which we have come to know well from experience.” Like most Spaniards at that time, those who thought like this
committed their views to paper, and they signed a document where one could see the names of the Dominican friar Gaspar de Carvajal; the notary Francisco de Isasaga; and several Enríquezes, Gutiérrezes, and Rodríguezes.
Next day, January 5, 1542, Orellana called the notary Isasaga and declared that, though it was against his wish, the expedition would indeed continue, provided that they waited where they were for a time to see whether Gonzalo Pizarro and his friends would catch up with them. For since they had on board many objects that belonged to the men with Gonzalo, they might otherwise risk being accused of being thieves. This scene before a notary in a spot so remote that there could have been no European for over one thousand miles, on the edge of a colossal river that had never been visited by any European before, expresses an astonishing side of the great Spanish adventure.
Later, there was much argument about this conversation. Some recalled thinking that they could with ease have sailed back up the river, others thought that the currents and the rains would have prevented them going any distance upstream at all. Yet others said that the brigantine could not have gone back, and that left the canoes, which they thought would have been easily overwhelmed. Orellana seems to have become dominated by the desire to see where the rivers on which he had embarked reached the sea. In the meantime, in the name of the King, he took possession of the pueblo they were in and gave the territory the name of Victoria.
Fray Carvajal noted, “We stayed in that pueblo longer than we should have done, eating whatever we could find (the Indians had stopped bringing food regularly) in such a way that, thereafter, we went ahead with great speed and we discussed again whether there was some way of finding out what was going on in Gonzalo Pizarro’s camp.”11 Orellana agreed to give 6,000 castellanos to any group of his men willing to return to give news to Gonzalo, and he promised them two black slaves also. But he found only three men prepared to do this.
The Spaniards left this Amazonian pueblo on the day of the fiesta of Candelmas, as they remembered—that is, February 2—which commemorates the purification of the Virgin. They rowed their way farther down the Napo, past a point where the turbulence of the waters was intense and where a chief named Irrimorrany visited them, bringing food, including turtles and parrots. The prevalence of mosquitoes was great. On February 11, some hundred miles beyond where the Napo meets the Curaray, Orellana and the San Pedro finally came upon the Amazon proper, not far from what is now Iquitos. The place itself is now called Francisco de Orellana.
At the next halt, they received more food in abundance, such as turtle, sea cow, roast monkey, roast cat, and partridge. Orellana gave a sermon to the Indians of the region, which explained how the Spaniards were Christians and vassals of the “Emperor of the Christians and the King of Spain, Charles.” The Spanish, Orellana insisted, “were children of the sun.”12 The Indians seemed pleased to hear that interesting claim.
Orellana set about making another boat to substitute for the San Pedro, which had much deteriorated. Juan de Alcántara, the Extremeño, and Sebastián Rodríguez, from Galicia, neither of whom had experience of such labors, promised to make the necessary nails, which they did: Two thousand such were ready in twelve days. They also made bellows from boots. A forge was built, timber was cut, cotton was used as oakum to fill in cracks in the wood, resin from trees was used as tar, and the new vessel was ready in about forty days. Diego Mexia, a carpenter, was the director of these operations. He wrote, “[It was] a wonderful thing to see the happiness with which our comrades worked. There was no one amongst us who was accustomed to such work but, all the same, they conducted themselves as if they had been professionals.”13 The Spaniards bore in mind that the Amazonian Indians cut wood only in the last quarter of the moon’s cycle, to avoid the rotting that they believed occurred if they cut at other times. Thus it was that Orellana and his expeditionary force spent Lent 1542.
On the Amazon in April, Orellana traveled fast with his two ships. When the river broadened, it was impossible for them to land and sleep. So they again became short of food. Still, on May 6 they succeeded in shooting a vulture with a crossbow, and a large fish was caught the same day. Fray Carvajal wrote, “[From then on,] we endured more hardships and more hunger and passed more uninhabited regions than before because the river led from one forested territory to another and we found no place to sleep nor could any [more] fish be caught, so we were reduced to our customary fare of herbs and occasionally roasted maize.”14 On May 12, they reached the junction of the Tefé with the Amazon, and a great number of canoes full of warriors suddenly appeared. Orellana prepared for battle, but alas, the powder for his arquebuses seemed damp, so he had to rely on crossbows. There followed a confusing conflict. Half the fifty Spaniards found themselves quickly in the water, but Orellana and Alonso de Robles, with the other half of the Spaniards, captured a riverine pueblo. There they seized a good quantity of food, including turtles in corrals, much fish, some dried meats, and biscuit. This they placed on their new brigantine and set off down the river again, the arquebuses now being able to be used since the munitions had become drier. Still the Indians pressed hard, and there were some difficult moments, Orellana himself being nearly killed just before his assailant was himself killed by a Spaniard with an arquebus.
The two Spanish ships soon reached Omagua, which was the first territory where neither Orellana nor any of his friends could communicate with the natives. The language spoken there bore no relation to Quechua. There were other surprises. For example, the Indians of this region were skilled potters, and Fray Carvajal thought the pottery there was “superior to that of Malaga.”15 It is now known as Guarita ware. They also found two giant idols elaborately decorated with feathers. Here was a riverine town about six miles long, whose lord, Paguana, received the Spaniards hospitably. The Indians awaited the Spaniards in their houses as if it were the most normal thing to welcome foreigners, though they had never before met such people as the Castilians. Carvajal wrote that “from this pueblo there were many roads running inland, with many llamas, and there seemed a good deal of silver about.” The land seemed happy, and the people wore clothes with bright colors. The people evidently ate fruit of all kinds: There were pineapples, pears, cherries, and avocados.16
Another riverine town also seemed to continue for miles, with every section of it having its own embarkation point. The houses here were designed for living on the land, but the people had large dwellings in trees, “like magpies’ nests,” with everything ready for when the river was in flood.17 Some towns gave the Spaniards “much war.” Others supplied them with food. Other peoples fled. Thus it was that Orellana and his men reached the junction of the Amazon proper with what they called the Black River, the Río Negro as it has been known ever since, because its waters were as “black as ink,” and for more than sixty miles after joining the Amazon, it preserved its menacing dark color.
After this great union of the two immense rivers, Orellana and his expedition met an extraordinary variety of towns. There was a town with two towers, several with temples to the sun, and one where an Indian explained by signs that the population were “subjects of the Amazons whom they served only with the feathers of parrots, which they used as linings of the roofs of their houses.” It turned out that there was here a lady who ruled the whole territory, directing the wars of these women with zest and verve.18 It was this improbable experience that led Orellana to christen the river that they soon would know so well as the Amazon.
Soon after this, they came to another great confluence, where the Amazon met the river Madeira. In one of the towns here, they captured as a potential interpreter an Indian girl. She told them that inland there were many Christians, among them two white women—left behind, it seemed, in 1531, eleven years before, by Diego de Ordaz. In this territory of the “Amazonas,” they were attacked fiercely by bow and arrows, including poisoned arrows such as one that wounded Antonio Carranza and another that killed García de Soria. In this battle, the Spaniards found thems
elves facing about ten naked women who were white skinned, tall, with big heads.
Fray Diego Carvajal lost an eye in the next town, which was surrounded by a temperate land. The Spaniards thought that this region would be a good one for cattle, wheat, and fruit trees. Orellana asked an Indian who the women were who had attacked his expedition. The Indian replied that there were seventy pueblos inhabited only by women. Orellana asked if these women had children. The reply was: “The lord who lived next door carried the women to his own land, his men impregnated them and returned them to their own residence. If they had a son, he would be killed but, if they had a daughter, she would be well looked after and trained for war.”19 One can only imagine that the Spaniards heard in this conversation what they expected to hear. The historian Oviedo commented that these were not real Amazons, for they had two breasts: A real Amazon did not have a right breast since it would get in the way of the bow.20
Soon after that, Orellana and his friends noticed that the river was becoming tidal and realized that they must be approaching the sea. The land was also clear of woods: the high banks and savannas were replaced by lowlands; and soon they were plainly in the estuary of the great river, surrounded by islands instead of mainland. Here one of the brigantines was damaged by a log in the river, and at the same time, the other one was left high and dry on the riverside. They were attacked by Indians in great numbers, but withstood them. They found a beach where they could haul out and repair their vessels. In two weeks, both ships were adequately restored, and new rigging was made out of vines, and sails out of the blankets in which they had been sleeping. But these last days in the Amazon were days of penance, because of the hunger from which they suffered. They did not eat anything save what could be picked up on the edge of the river—a few snails and some tiny crabs. At this stage of the journey, they lacked anchors and used stones instead, but sometimes, the tide picked them up and carried them back in an hour or so to where they had been that morning.
