by Hugh Thomas
23. Schäfer, 1: 95. Alejo Fernández had been born in Spain of Flemish origin. Perhaps he studied in Italy. In Seville, he is known for four large panels in the cathedral now in the Chapel of the Cálices (chalices): Saint Joaquín and Saint Anne embracing; the Birth of the Virgin; the Adoration of the Magi; and the Presentation of Christ in the Temple in the same great building; and the depiction of Christ bound to a pillar in a chapel of piety.
24. Cadenas, Carlos I, 225.
25. For the text of this document, see ibid., 28–33.
26. Deive, La Española, 221.
27. Friede, Welser, 113.
28. Wright, Early History, 145.
29. Ibid., 122. Ubite was bishop of Cuba from February 17, 1517, till April 4, 1525. Was he the first bishop of Cuba, or was Hernando de Mesa before him (see ibid., 121)? See Giménez Fernández, Las Casas, 96, fn. 297, for this prelate. He had been preacher at the service of Queen Leonor of Portugal.
30. Pastor, 10: 365.
31. See biographical article in Martínez Millán, La quiebra, 3: 369.
32. He was of a Muslim family of Aragon. See Giménez Fernández, Las Casas, 1: 29.
33. Díaz del Castillo, Historia, 2: 342.
34. See the biographical essay in Martínez Millán, La corte, 3: 353ff.
35. Mariano Cuevas, Documentos inéditos del siglo XVI (Mexico, 1914), 230.
36. CDI, 1: 39.
37. Otte, Perlas, passim. The main Spanish pearl fishermen in these days were Gonzalo Hernández de Rojas; Pedro de Barrionuevo; Pedro Ortiz de Matienzo; Juan López de Archuleta, who became inspector (veedor) and a town councillor in Santo Domingo; and Juan de la Barrera. These each had two pearl-fishing canoes.
38. Otte, Perlas, 221.
39. Oviedo, Historia, 1: 109.
CHAPTER 10. PEDRARIAS, PANAMA, AND PERU; GUZMÁN IN NEW SPAIN
1. The Residencia is in AGI, Justicia, leg. 230.
2. Las Casas, Historia de las Indias, 3: 357.
3. Oviedo, Historia, 5: 15.
4. Pascual de Andagoya, Relación y documentos (Madrid, 1986), 29.
5. See Juan Tena Fernández, Trujillo histórico y monumental (Trujillo, 1967).
6. David Vassberg, “Concerning Pigs, the Pizarros and the Agropastoral Back-grounds of the Conquerors of Peru,” Latin American Research Review 13, no. 3 (1978): 48.
7. J. A. Busto Duthurburu, La tierra y sangre de Francisco Pizarro (Lima, 1993), passim.
8. The “dogs of the conquest” deserve a study.
9. Martyr, Décadas, 341.
10. Carmen Mena, Sevilla y las flotas de Indias (Seville, 1998), 160.
11. Carl Ortwin Sauer, The Early Spanish Main (Cambridge, U.K., 1966), 252.
12. Deive, La Española, 139.
13. Mena, Pedrarias, 148–50.
14. Las Casas, 3: 357; Pizarro to de los Rios, June 2, 1527, in Raúl Porrás Barrenechea, Pizarro (Lima, 1978), 5.
15. Letters in Porrás Barrenechea, Pizarro, 6–18.
16. Pedro Cieza de León, Descubrimiento y conquista del Perú (Madrid, 1986), 74–76.
17. The Andalusians were Cristóbal de Peralta, Nicolás de Ribera, Pedro de Halcón, Alonso de Molina, and García de Jerez; the Castilians were Francisco de Cuéllar and Antonio de Carrión; the Extremeños were Juan de la Torre, Rodríguez de Villafuerte, and Gonzalo Martín de Trujillo; the Cretan was Pedro de Candía; the Basque was Domingo de Soraluce; and the unknown was called Paez or Paz.
18. Oviedo, 5: 41.
19. Busto Duthurburu, 1: 57. See also Dario Vassberg, “Pigs,” Latin American Research Review 13, no. 3 (1978): 47–62.
20. See James Lockhart, The Men of Cajamarca (Austin, Tex., 1972), 140–41.
21. Raúl Porras Barrenenecha, Cedulario del Perú (Lima, 1959), 393.
22. Alonso Enríquez de Guzmán, Libro de la vida (Madrid, 1960), 498.
23. El Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, Royal Commentaries of the Incas (Austin, Tex., 1966), 95.
24. Ibid., 892.
25. Ibid., 893.
26. Pedro Pizarro, Relación del descubrimiento y conquista de los reinos del Perú (Madrid, 1844), 134.
27. Enríquez de Guzmán, Vida, 341.
28. Garcilaso, 2: 891.
29. Enríquez de Guzmán, Vida, 350.
30. Motolinía, Memoriales, 146, describes this ceremony.
31. Techuipo is the heroine of a famous poem of the Mexica published in La visión de los vencidos, 170 n.
32. Res. vs Guzmán, AGI Justicia, leg. 234.
33. Díaz del Castillo, 1: 136.
34. Gerhard, Geografía, 224.
35. Ibid., 219.
36. CDI, 12: 245.
37. CDI, 40: 260.
38. CDI, 14: 316.
39. CDI, 27: 130ff.
40. G.L.R. Conway, “Hernando Alonso,” Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society, 331, 1928. The details of this tragic case were only revealed in 1574.
41. Ibid., 350.
42. The treasure included 1,500 marcos of silver, 20,000 pesos of superior gold, 10,000 of inferior gold, fine emeralds, cloaks of plumage and skin, obsidian mirrors, and fans, as well as two jaguars and barrels of balsam.
43. CDI, 3: 419.
44. See Rivers of Gold, 353.
45. On Vázquez de Ayllón, see AGI Patronato 63, R. 24.
CHAPTER 11. GIANTS OF THEIR TIME: CHARLES, CORTÉS, PIZARRO
1. Text in Santa Cruz, 2: 454ff. Menéndez Pidal thought that the speech was written by Antonio de Guevara; Brandi thought that it was by Gattinara. See Chabod, Carlos V, 117.
2. Brandi, 282.
3. The Medina Sidonias’ palace was on the site of the modern Corte Inglés.
4. This jewel vanished in the nineteenth century.
5. Díaz del Castillo, 2: 367–68.
6. Memorandum of Cortés of July 25, 1528, summarizing the position, in Documentos cortesianos, 3: 21.
7. Texcoco, Chalco, Otumba, Huejotzingo, Coyoacan, Tascuba, Cuernavaca, four townships in Oaxaca including Cuilapan, the isthmus of Tehuantepec, Tuxotla, Coataxla (Veracruz), Charo-Matalcingo in Michoacán, and Toluco. To these were subsequently added the peñoles of Xico and Tepeapulco on the Lake of Mexico, large sections of the city of Mexico-Tenochtitlan between the causeways of Chapultepec and Tacuba, and the two large palaces of Montezuma next to the Zócalo, where Cortés first lived.
8. Díaz del Castillo, 2: 503.
9. CDI, 12: 381.
10. Fernández Álvarez, Corpus documental, 3: 37.
11. The children were Martín Cortés, a son whom he had had with Marina; Luis de Altamirano, a son whom he had had with Antonia Hermosilla; and Catalina Pizarro, whom he had had with the half-Indian Leonor Pizarro in Cuba.
12. Martínez, Hernán Cortés, 516.
13. Enrique Otte, “Nueve cartas de Diego de Ordaz,” Historia Mexicana 14, no. 53 (July–Sept. 1964): 105–12.
14. Antonio Fontán and Jerzy Axer, Españoles y polacos en la corte de Carlos V (Madrid, 1994), 324.
15. See my Quién es quién de los conquistadores, 77.
16. I am grateful to Julie Pastore for pointing this out to me. This picture I have included in my illustrations, but now think it is a seventeenth-century product.
17. Fernández de Enciso was author of La suma de geografía.
18. He was the son of Pedro Manrique, count of Osorno, and Teresa de Toledo, daughter of the duke of Alba and María Enríquez, and so was a cousin of Fernando the Catholic.
19. Alonso Enríquez, in Giménez Fernández, Las Casas, 2: 975, fn. 3282.
20. See Martínez Millán, La corte, 3: 125–30.
21. CDI, 19: 19.
22. Cieza de Léon, 136–38.
23. Lucía Megía, Antología, 46.
24. The capitulación between Pizarro and the empress Isabel was dated July 26 but signed only on August 17.
25. Varón Gabai, Francisco Pizarro and His Brothers, 40.
26. AGI, Escribanía 496 A ff. 685–86 v, April 24, 1566.
27. Oviedo, part II
I, lib. VIII, chap. 1, p. 265.
28. Other Extremeños recruited in 1529 included Diego de Aguero de Deleitosa, Hernando de Aldama, Juan Herrera, Francisco Peces (actually from Toledo), Lucas Martínez, Francisco de Almendras, Sancho de Villegas, Diego de Trujillo, Hernando de Toro, Alonso de Toro, the trumpeter Alconchel, the pregonero Juan García, Francisco de Solares, and Francisco González. See Lockhart, The Men. There were probably a number of European (white) slaves taken to Lima at this time, as there had been such people taken to New Spain. See Emilio Harth-Terré, “Esclavas Blancas in Lima 1537,” in El Comercio, Lima, June 3, 1963.
29. Carande, 1: 300.
30. J. A. Busto Duthurburu, Pizarro (Lima, 2000), 250.
31. Cadenas, Carlos I, 206.
32. Fernández Álvarez, Carlos V, 201.
33. See letter of Giovanni Bautista de Grimaldi to Ansaldo de Grimaldi, a cousin, in Genoa, cited in J. M. Headley, The Emperor and His Chancellor, 36.
34. Pastor, 10: 68.
35. All kinds of interesting conversations occurred in the exchanges of power: For example, the humanist Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda found that the young aristocrats from Spain who had come with Charles to Bologna were unable to reconcile the idea of piety with military efficiency and strength. This conversation was one that led Sepúlveda to write his dialogue Demócrates in 1535. Sepúlveda at that time was at the university in Bologna.
36. Cited in K. F. Morrison, “History Malgré Lui: A Neglected Bolognese Account of Charles V’s Coronation in Aachen,” in Studia gratiana, postscripta 15 (Rome, 1972), 684.
37. See José Martínez Millán and Manuel Rivero Rodríguez, “La coronación imperial de Bolonia y el final de la vía flamenca,” in Martínez Millán, Carlos V y la quiebra, 1: 131–50.
38. As discovered by Valdés. See Manuel Rivero Rodríguez, “Memoria, escritura y estado,” in Carlos V y la Quiebra, 1: 223.
39. In Tremayne, 327.
40. The list of her possessions in her will included paintings by Roger van der Weyden, Michel Coxcie, Van Eyck, and Memling. There was also a treasure from the Indies, given to her by her nephew through Charles, lord of La Chaulx (Poupet), then a councillor: “Accoustremens de plumes, venuz des Indes, présentées de par de l’Empereur à Madame à Bruxelles, le XXè jour d’Aoust, XVCXXIII et aussi de par Mgr. de La Chaulx le tout estant en ladite librairie.” Soon the collections of the Habsburgs would be enhanced by new treasures sent back by such conquistador families as the Welsers.
CHAPTER 12. THE GERMANS AT THE BANQUET: THE WELSERS
1. See Rivers of Gold, chapter 28.
2. Otte, Perlas, 74–75.
3. CDI, 8: 21.
4. This was a wonderful era for the lending of money. For example, in 1527, not just Charles but Pope Clement borrowed 195,000 golden scudi from the Genoese Miguel Girolamo Sánchez of Barcelona and Ansaldo Grimaldi—the first being of the famous converso family, the second being the richest of the well-known bankers’ family of Genoa (he later became a creditor of Charles also).
5. Oviedo, 3: 77: “le faltaba dinero pero no palabras.”
6. Muñoz, 78f, 247, cited in Georges Scelle, La traite négrière aux Indes de Castile (Paris, 1906), 1: 174.
7. D. Ramos, “El negocio negrero de los Welser,” Revista de historia de América, no. 8, Mexico.
8. Rozendo Sampaio García, Aprovisionamiento de escravos negros na America (São Paulo, 1962), 8.
9. Friede, Welser, 121.
10. Otte, Perlas, 283.
11. Friede, Welser, 118. The Maestro Pedro Márquez saw these poor miners arrive in Seville and then set off for Santo Domingo. Most had been recruited in Silesia. Juan Ehinger, Juan Reiss, and Jorge Neusesser went to Leipzig to arrange their passage, going down the Elbe to Hamburg and to Antwerp and then Seville. The miners were eight months in Santo Domingo before, exhausted, they applied to go home. They reached Antwerp and thence walked home to Silesia. Only eleven of them got back. They began a lawsuit against the Welsers.
12. Ibid., 149.
13. Ibid., 186.
14. Antonio García-Baquero, La carrera de Indias (Seville 1992), 121.
15. Scelle, 1: 150.
16. Ibid., 178.
17. APS, 6: 1547. See Rivers of Gold, 379.
18. APS, 6: 762.
19. Ibid., 1104.
20. Eufemio Lorenzo Sanz, Comercio de España con América en la época de Felipe II (Valladolid, 1986), 1: 316.
21. Characteristic of this slave traffic was a long lawsuit. Espiñola found himself being sued by Esteban Justiniani, the representative of the Genoese, and Agustín de Ribaldo, one of the purchasers of Gorrevod’s license of 1518, who took the affair to the Council of the Indies. AGI Justicia leg. 7, no. 3. The lawsuit is in no. 4 of this legajo.
22. A. C. de M. Saunders, A Social History of Black Slaves in Portugal (Cambridge, U.K., 1982), 23.
23. V. Maghalhaes Godinho, Os descubrimientos e a economia mundial (Lisbon, 1963), 550.
24. A.J.C. Ryder, Benin and the Europeans (London, 1969), 66.
25. CDIHE, 9: 239–42.
CHAPTER 13. NARVÁEZ AND CABEZA DE VACA
1. The capitulación (contract) is in CDI, 12: 86ff, dated March 8, 1528. We learn from CDI, 35: 514 that María de Valenzuela was owed 300 pesos de oro by Diego Velázquez at his death in 1524.
2. Núñez, Castaways, 5.
3. Friede, Welser, 156.
4. Núñez, Castaways, XV.
5. CDI, 28: 391.
6. Samuel Eliot Morison, The European Discovery of America (New York, 1974), 513, 515.
7. A cubit was the length of a forearm.
8. Almost all the references here derive from Núñez’s Castaways.
CHAPTER 14: ORDAZ ON THE ORINOCO; HEREDIA AT CARTAGENA
1. Polavieja, 272.
2. In one of the letters published by Otte, in Historia mexicana, July–September 1964.
3. See his evidence in a probanza in Santo Domingo, 1521, in CDI, 150: 74.
4. Díaz del Castillo, Historia, 2: 254; 1: 82.
5. Ordaz to Verdugo, in Otte, Historia mexicana, July–September 1964.
6. Paso, 1: 152.
7. CDI, 4: 466.
8. Figure is from para. 5 of a probanza of July 1532. See my Quien es quien de los conquistadores. Oviedo, 2: 384 suggests 450.
9. At that time, the Orinoco was often known as the Marañón.
10. Question 6 of the Ordaz probanza, in CDI, 40: 74ss.
11. The cloth was so called because it was sent to Holland to be bleached.
12. See AGI Patrimonio, leg. 74, no. 1, r. 10 of 1575. John Hemming has a fine account of Ordaz’s courageous journey in The Search for El Dorado (London, 1978), 9ff.
13. He actually was born in Sotodosos, Guadalajara.
14. María del Carmen Gómez Pérez, Pedro de Heredia y Cartagena de Indias (Seville, 1984), 307.
15. CDI, 1: 586.
16. On landing, the expedition was led by twenty Indians inland to near Turbaco, where Juan de la Cosa had suffered his disastrous defeat twenty years before. There were skirmishes, and several Spaniards were killed. Heredia returned to his landing place and founded there the city of Cartagena de las Indias, on what had been the site of an indigenous town. Immediately, as usual on this kind of occasion, magistrates and councillors were named. They had surnames that are to be found in all lists of this kind: Gabriel de Barrionuevo and Juan de Sandoval were the magistrates; the councillors were Juan de Peñalosa, Alonso de Saavedra, and Luis de Soria. The official notary was Miguel Sanz Negrete (escribano de número), and Juan Velázquez was inspector. Carmen Gómez Pérez has published an analysis of conquistadors who were with Heredia. Most (48 percent) were in their twenties, a few (22 percent) were under twenty. None had been in Cortés’s expedition to New Spain. Of the 204 Spaniards who arrived in Cartagena, 26 came from Old Castile, 21 from Extremadura, 19 from Seville, and 18 from Toledo.
17. Gómez Pérez, Cartagena, 108.
18. Ibid., 289.
19. Ibid., 319ff.,
for list of witnesses.
CHAPTER 15. CORTÉS AND THE AUDIENCIA IN NEW SPAIN
1. Lewis Hanke, Aristotle and the American Indians (London, 1959), 100.
2. Silvio Zavala, Recuerdo de Vasco de Quiroga (Mexico, 1987), 53–55.
3. Tension was not reduced by the arrival in early 1529 of another expedition of twenty Franciscans under Fray Antonio de Ciudad Rodrigo. The expedition included the remarkable Fray Bernardino de Sahagún, who became the chronicler par excellence of old Mexico through his famous General History of the Things of New Spain (the Florentine Codex). The ship included several of the Indians taken to Spain by Cortés; some have thought that Sahagún’s learning of Nahuatl and study of ancient Mexican ways began on this vessel. García Icazbalceta so thought, but the contrary opinion was held by Antonio Toro, Wigberto Jiménez Moreno, and Luis Nicolau d’Olwer. See Quarterly Journal of the Library of Congress, April 1969.
4. That is, Psalm 51, from the words with which it begins.
5. Guzmán’s agents at Veracruz, Juan Pérez de Gijón and Juan Camino, interfered with the letters of at least three friars, Antonio de Aveñado, Juan de Angayo, and Juan de Montemayor. Juan González, alcalde of Veracruz, testified in 1531 that Guzmán had ordered him to do this.
6. The count of Osorno was the acting chairman, and the other members were now Dr. Beltrán, Bishop Maldonado, Bishop Cabeza de Vaca, Gaspar de Montoya, Rodrigo de la Corte, Álvaro Núñez de Loaisa, and Juan Suárez de Carvajal.
7. Chipman, Nuño de Guzmán, 228.
8. Schäfer, El consejo real, 1: 75.
9. Arthur Aiton, Antonio de Mendoza (Durham, N.C., 1927), 36.
10. Ricard, Spiritual Conquest, 260. See also CDI, 41: 5–6.
11. Magnus Mörner, La mezcla de razas en la historia de América Latina (Buenos Aires, 1969), 55.
12. See CDI, 23: 423–26.
CHAPTER 16. MONTEJO IN YUCATÁN
1. A caballería was a measure of land that in Spain was equivalent to 60 fanegas or 3,863 acres. In Cuba, it meant 1,343 acres; in Puerto Rico, 7,858. I assume that the Yucatán measure was close to the Cuban one.
