Conquering the Pacific
Page 25
[back]
3. Navidad
1. The number of people who would go on the fleet was set between 300 and 350 according to the instructions given by the Audiencia of Mexico to Commander Miguel López de Legazpi, Mexico City, September 1, 1564, in CDIU 2, document 21. The final number was 380, as we shall see. It goes without saying that hurricanes and other natural forces have altered the bay and lagoon in the intervening centuries. For an excellent article addressing early doubts about whether the fleet had departed from Navidad, along with relevant historical and geographic information, see Carlos Pizano y Saucedo, “El puerto de la Navidad y la expedición de Legazpi,” Historia Mexicana 14, no. 2 (October–December 1964): 227–49.
[back]
2. Admittedly, this is based on local lore rather than on any literature.
[back]
3. For the foods produced in the port of Navidad and nearby Cihuatlán, see “Suma de visitas,” n.p., mid-sixteenth century, in Francisco del Paso y Troncoso, Papeles de Nueva España, 8 vols. (Madrid: Impresores de la Real Casa, 1905), 1:84. On the wheat, see the two orders issued by Viceroy Don Luis de Velasco to the Alcalde Mayor of Pátzcuaro Bachiller Alonso Martínez, Mexico City, June 23 and July 2, 1563, both transcribed in Rubio Mañé, “La expedición de Miguel López de Legazpi a Filipinas,” documents 36 and 37. On the bacon, lard, cheese, fava beans, and garbanzos, see Muro, “La expedición Legazpi-Urdaneta a las Filipinas,” 160.
[back]
4. The quote about the illnesses is from the relación of the Villa de la Porificación, not far from Navidad, 1585, in Relaciones geográficas del siglo XVI: Nueva Galicia, ed. René Acuña (Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1988), 213. Appointment of Father Melchor González by Viceroy Don Luis de Velasco, Mexico City, July 1, 1560, and appointment of Damián de Rivas by Viceroy Velasco, Mexico City, August 30, 1560, both transcribed in Rubio Mañé, “La expedición de Miguel López de Legazpi a Filipinas,” documents 3 and 4. For the appointment of Gabriel Sánchez Hernández, see Muro, “La expedición Legazpi-Urdaneta a las Filipinas,” 158–59. The death of Friar Lorenzo Jiménez is chronicled in Cuevas, Monje y marino, 188 and 197–98. For a good overview of medical practices at that time, see Linda A. Newson, “Medical Practice in Early Colonial Spanish America: A Prospectus,” Bulletin of Latin American Research 25, no. 3 (July 2006): 367–91.
[back]
5. On the repartimiento Indians, see order from Viceroy Don Luis de Velasco to authorities of Tuxpan and Xilotlán, March 5, 1563, transcribed in Rubio Mañé, “La expedición de Miguel López de Legazpi a Filipinas,” document 27. On African slaves, see payment receipt for six Black slaves, Mexico City, January 16, 1563, transcribed in Rubio Mañé, “La expedición de Miguel López de Legazpi a Filipinas,” document 13; and payment for four Black slaves and a train of mules, April 2, 1563, transcribed in Rubio Mañé, “La expedición de Miguel López de Legazpi a Filipinas,” document 28. See also Muro, “La expedición Legazpi-Urdaneta a las Filipinas,” 167.
[back]
6. The Basque contingent included a carpenter named Gaspar de Arana from Urnieta, a sailor named Martín Urruzuno from Mendaro, and another crew member named Francisco de Astigarribia from Motrico, just to name a few. Other Spanish towns identified in the documentation include Bayona de Galicia, Medina del Campo, Triana (a neighborhood in Seville), Huelva, and Moguer. For these appointments and many others, see the documentation in Rubio Mañé, “La expedición de Miguel López de Legazpi a Filipinas,” 749–98. For the broader context, see Antonio García-Abásolo, “Compañeros y continuadores de Urdaneta: Vascos en la nueva ruta de la seda,” in Truchuelo García, Andrés de Urdaneta, 441–78; and Pablo E. Pérez-Mallaína, Spain’s Men of the Sea: Daily Life on the Indies Fleets in the Sixteenth Century (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998), 59.
[back]
7. The barrel maker from Belgium was Miguel López, the artilleryman was Francisco Alemán, the carpenter was Juan Inglés, the Venetian crew members included Domingo Hernández and Andrés Domingo, the French pilot was Pierres Plín (or Plún), and the Filipino translators were Gerónimo Pacheco and Juanes de Alzola from Cebu. All of these appointments and others are from Rubio Mañé, “La expedición de Miguel López de Legazpi a Filipinas,” 749–98. For estimations of the number of foreigners in other expeditions, see Pérez-Mallaína, Spain’s Men of the Sea, 55–58. Lope Martín sometimes appears as Lope Martínez in the documentation.
[back]
8. For contemporary descriptions of Lagos, see Henrique Fernandes Sarrão, “Historia do Reino do Algarve,” in Duas Descrições do Algarve do século XVI, Cadernos da Revista de História Económica e Social, ed. Manuel Viegas Guerreiro and Joaquim Romero Magalhães (Lisbon: Livraria Sá da Costa Editora, 1983), 143. On the pilots from Lagos, see João Baptista da Silva Lopes, Corografia, ou memoria economica, estadistica, e topografica do Reino do Algarve (Lisbon: Tipografia da Academia R. das Sciencias de Lisboa, 1841), 406 and 473. William Lytle Schurz affirms that Lope Martín took part in the Loaísa expedition. William Lytle Schurz, The Manila Galleon (New York: Dutton & Co., 1959), 277. This is surely a mistake. On the ship as a working space and the role of Black people, see Pérez-Mallaína, Spain’s Men of the Sea, 38.
[back]
9. For a characterization of the different ranks, I rely on Pérez-Mallaína, Spain’s Men of the Sea, 75–79.
[back]
10. The quote is from Diego García de Palacio, a well-known writer of naval treatises, quoted in Pérez-Mallaína, Spain’s Men of the Sea, 37. On Amerigo Vespucci’s time as piloto mayor, see Felipe Fernández-Armesto, Amerigo: The Man Who Gave His Name to America (New York: Random House, 2007), 175–80.
[back]
11. On the requirements and training of pilots, see Antonio Sánchez Martínez, “Los artífices del Plus Ultra: Pilotos, cartógrafos y cosmógrafos en la Casa de la Contratación de Sevilla durante el siglo XVI,” Hispania 70, no. 236 (September–December 2010): 629–32; María Luisa Martín-Merás, “Las enseñanzas náuticas en la Casa de la Contratación de Sevilla,” in La Casa de la Contratación y la navegación entre España y las Indias (Seville: Universidad de Sevilla, 2003), 667–93; and Alison D. Sandman, “Educating Pilots: Licensing Exams, Cosmography Classes, and the Universidad de Mareantes in 16th Century Spain,” in Fernando Oliveira and His Era: Humanism and the Art of Navigation in Renaissance Europe (1450–1650), ed. Inácio Guerreiro and Francisco Contente Domingues (Cascais: Patrimonia, 2000), 99–109. On other pilots of African ancestry, the practice of bribing the piloto mayor, and the tendency of Portuguese seamen to try to pass as Spanish, see Pérez-Mallaína, Spain’s Men of the Sea, 40–41 and 57–58. According to regulations issued on August 2, 1547, foreigners could be accepted as pilots if they were married to Spanish women and lived in Spain. As we shall see later on, Lope Martín claimed to have a wife living in Ayamonte. For the regulations concerning foreign pilots, see José Pulido Rubio, El piloto mayor de la Casa de la Contratación de Sevilla (Seville: Zarzuela, 1923), 13. Other mariners of the Navidad venture who claimed to come from Ayamonte were Alonso Yáñez and Cristóbal Garrucho. See Rubio Mañé, “La expedición de Miguel López de Legazpi a Filipinas,” 749–98. This was a long-standing practice that can be traced back at least to Martín de Ayamonte (or Martinho de Ayamonte in Portuguese), who was a cabin boy on the Victoria, one of Magellan’s ships. António Baião, “A viagem de Fernão de Magalhães por uma testemunha presencial,” Arquivo Histórico de Portugal 1, no. 5–6 (1933), 276–81. Indeed, several of Magellan’s crew members either hailed from Ayamonte (cabin boy Francisco de Ayamonte or Luis Alonso, a vecino of Ayamonte) or were Portuguese (Fernando Portugués, Álvaro de la Mesquita, Gonzalo Rodríguez Portugués, among others), and many were either African or Afro-Iberian (cabin boy Antón Negro). See Colección general de documentos relativos a las Islas Filipinas existentes en el Archivo de Indias de Sevilla, vol. 2, document 84. On the House of Trade and its functions, see Antonio Sánchez Mart�
�nez, “La institucionalización de la cosmografía americana: La Casa de la Contratación de Sevilla, el Real y Supremo Consejo de Indias y la Academia de Matemáticas de Felipe II,” Revista de Indias 70, no. 250 (2010): 715–48; Martínez, “Los artífices del Plus Ultra”; Alison D. Sandman, “Cosmographers vs. Pilots: Navigation, Cosmography, and the State in Early Modern Spain” (PhD diss., University of Wisconsin, 2001), passim; Sandman, “Educating Pilots”; and Alison D. Sandman, “Latitude, Longitude, and Ideas About the Utility of Science,” in Beyond the Black Legend: Spain and the Scientific Revolution, ed. Victor Navarro Brotòns and William Eamon (Valencia: Soler, 2007), 371–81.
[back]
12. The two quotes are from Viceroy Don Luis de Velasco to King Philip II, Mexico City, February 9, 1561, in CDIU 2, document 14. The identities of the pilots hired early on by the viceroy and subsequently sent by Philip remain unknown. The other pilots’ salaries are also unknown. The three Spanish pilots are Esteban Rodríguez from Huelva, Diego Martín from the neighborhood of Triana in Seville, and Rodrigo de la Isla (or Rodrigo Espinoza). The Frenchman is Pierres Plín (or sometimes Plún). Jaymes Martínez Fortún was also from the neighborhood of Triana according to the log written by pilot Esteban Rodríguez. Andrew Sharp claims that Fortún Martínez was originally from Venice. It is unclear, however, where Sharp got this information. Andrew Sharp, Adventurous Armada: The Story of Legazpi’s Expedition (Christchurch: Whitcombe & Tombs, 1961), 9. On all the pilots, see also Muro, “La expedición Legazpi-Urdaneta a las Filipinas,” 190–91.
[back]
13. The quote is from Thomas Cavendish, “First Voyage,” in Voyages of the Elizabethan Seamen: Select Narratives from the “Principal Navigations” of Hakluyt, ed. Edward John Payne (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1907), 376. Cavendish was a wealthy young esquire who wished to emulate Francis Drake. He put together a fleet, departed from Plymouth in the summer of 1586, crossed through the Strait of Magellan, and proceeded to attack Spanish ports along the coasts of Chile, Peru, and Mexico. The raid at Navidad occurred in 1587. He was the first English pirate to take one of the Manila galleons involved in the trade between Asia and the Americas. For additional context, see Schurz, The Manila Galleon, 305–13.
[back]
14. All we know is that the San Pedro was around 550 tons. It is possible, however, to estimate its approximate length and width by comparing it to similar vessels of that era for which we have more information. To derive the size of the San Pedro, I have relied on the excellent discussion by Marcelino de Dueñas Fontán, “Medidas de los navíos de la jornada de Inglaterra,” in La batalla del Mar Océano: Corpus documental de las hostilidades entre España e Inglaterra (1568–1604), ed. Jorge Calvar Gross et al. (Madrid: Instituto de Historia y Cultura Naval, 1996), 46. In appendix 2, the author includes many examples of vessels, some of which are in the appropriate range of five hundred to six hundred tons. (By “tons,” I really mean toneles machos for purposes of the calculation, just as I assume codos de ribera, or 0.57468 meters, for measurements of length.) For instance, the San Cristóbal was 568 tons, with 32.18 codos in length and 9.19 codos across. The original information about the sizes of various vessels as well as additional insights come from the meticulous work by José Luis Casado Soto, Los barcos españoles del siglo XVI y la Gran Armada de 1588 (Madrid: Editorial San Martín, 1988), passim. For another calculation with a different result, see Miguel Bosch, “Las dificultades náuticas del tornaviaje,” 490–91.
[back]
15. I have used the same method to derive the size of the San Lucas. There are many examples of pataches of forty tons of remarkably standard lengths and widths in Dueñas Fontán, “Medidas de los navíos de la jornada de Inglaterra,” appendix 2. There is no reason to assume that the San Lucas would have been any different.
[back]
16. The first quote comes from the instructions given by the Audiencia of Mexico to Commander Legazpi, Mexico City, September 1, 1564, in CDIU 2, document 21. The second quote is from Commander Miguel López de Legazpi to King Philip II, Navidad, November 18, 1564, in CDIU 2, document 24. Some assignments had been made in Mexico City. While some servants were added to the roster, others who had worked in Navidad building the vessels were trying to avoid recruitment. For instance, a very capable carpenter named Gaspar García was fearful that he would be compelled to make the voyage even though he was “old and sick and had a wife in Spain.” See order issued by Viceroy Don Luis de Velasco not to compel Gaspar García to go on the ships, Mexico City, July 6, 1563, transcribed in Rubio Mañé, “La expedición de Miguel López de Legazpi a Filipinas,” document 38.
[back]
17. On the original plan of sending one or two ships back to the Americas, see instructions given by the Audiencia of Mexico to Commander Legazpi, Mexico City, September 1, 1564, in CDIU 2, document 21.
[back]
18. The first quote about the accommodations is from the instructions given by the Audiencia of Mexico to Commander Legazpi, Mexico City, September 1, 1564, in CDIU 2, document 21. Of the quotes about Friar Rada, the first one comes from the opinion or parecer of Friar Andrés de Urdaneta, Madrid, October 8, 1566, AGI, Patronato, 49, R. 12; and the second from Juan de la Isla (possibly), “Relación de las Islas del Poniente y del camino que a ella se hizo desde la Nueva España,” n.p. 1565, transcribed in CDIU 3, document 40. See also Uncilla, Urdaneta y la conquista de Filipinas, 264. The Augustinian friars were distributed as follows: on the San Pedro were Andrés de Urdaneta, Martín de Rada, and Andrés de Aguirre; and on the San Pablo—the second-largest ship—were Diego de Herrera and Pedro de Gamboa. As stated earlier, the sixth friar, Lorenzo Jiménez, died in Navidad. On the pilots and other officials aboard each of the four ships, see Amancio Landín Carrasco and Luis Sánchez Masiá, “El viaje de Legazpi a Filipinas,” in Landín Carrasco, Descubrimientos españoles en el Mar del Sur, 442–43; and Muro, “La expedición Legazpi-Urdaneta a las Filipinas,” 190–93.
[back]
19. The quote is from Visitador Valderrama to Philip II, Mexico City, February 24, 1564, in Scholes and Adams, “Cartas del licenciado Jerónimo Valderrama,” 95. See also Muro, “La expedición Legazpi-Urdaneta a las Filipinas,”187. Sauz’s appointment as military commander had taken place in Mexico City on February 19, 1564, and is transcribed in Patricio Hidalgo Nuchera, ed., Los primeros de Filipinas: Crónicas de la conquista del archipiélago de San Lázaro (Madrid: Ediciones Polifemo, 1995), 106. Andrés Hurtado de Mendoza, Marquis of Cañete, was the later viceroy who pardoned Mateo del Sauz.
[back]
20. See “Informaciones y otros recaudos del capitán Juan de la Isla,” Mexico City, December 14, 1570, AGI, Patronato, 52, R. 4. See also Muro, “La expedición Legazpi-Urdaneta a las Filipinas,” 161–63.
[back]
21. The quote is from the appointment of Don Alonso de Arellano as captain of the San Lucas, Navidad, November 19, 1564, in “Relación del viaje y derrotero de la armada de Legazpi,” AGI, Patronato, 23, R. 19. The name of the original captain was Hernán Sánchez Muñoz. On Cortés’s family, see María del Carmen Martínez Martínez, “Hernán Cortés en España (1540–1547): Negocios, pleitos y familia,” in El mundo de los conquistadores, ed. Martín F. Ríos Saloma (Mexico City: Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas/Silex Ediciones, 2015), 577–98; and Robert Himmerich y Valencia, The Encomenderos of New Spain, 1521–1555 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1991), 147–48. On Arellano’s genealogy, see Amancio Landín Carrasco and Luis Sánchez Masiá, “El viaje redondo de Alonso de Arellano,” in Landín Carrasco, Descubrimientos españoles en el Mar del Sur, 472–73; Henry R. Wagner, Spanish Voyages to the Northwest Coast of America in the Sixteenth Century (San Francisco: California Historical Society, 1929), 118, 350, and 352; and Ricardo Ortega y Perez Gallardo, Estudios genealógicos (Mexico City: Dublán, 1902), 21–26. The Counts of Aguilar came from the kingdom of Navarre in northeastern Spain. Hernán Cortés married Doña Juana Ramírez de Arellano y Zúñiga, daughter of the
second Count of Aguilar. Doña Juana’s older brother Don Alonso de Arellano became the third Count of Aguilar. He lived out his entire life in Spain and died in 1522. He had both legitimate and illegitimate children. One of his illegitimate sons—by a woman named María de Velasco—was Lope de Arellano, who was born in Arnedo, Spain, but spent much of his life in Mexico and held important posts there. See Romero de Solís, Andariegos y pobladores, entry for Lope de Arellano. Alonso de Arellano (the one in the Navidad fleet) appears to have been another illegitimate child of the third Count of Aguilar, possibly also by María de Velasco. This would make him a cousin of Martín Cortés.
[back]
22. These procedures and quotes appear in the instructions given by the Audiencia of Mexico to Commander Legazpi, Mexico City, September 1, 1564, in CDIU 2, document 21. Although the instructions remained secret until after the fleet’s departure, especially with regard to the fleet’s course and destination, it is almost certain that similar safety protocols were already in place in previous instructions and indeed in previous expeditions.
[back]
23. The quotes are from the instructions given by the Audiencia of Mexico to Commander Legazpi, Mexico City, September 1, 1564, in CDIU 2, document 21. The identities of Legazpi’s successors are revealed in Visitador Valderrama to King Philip II, Mexico City, August 18, 1564, in Scholes and Adams, “Cartas del licenciado Jerónimo Valderrama,” 160. On Guido de Lavezaris’s background and earlier involvement in expeditions bound for Asia, see Flint and Flint, A Most Splendid Company, passim.
[back]
24. Instructions given by the Audiencia of Mexico to Commander Legazpi, Mexico City, September 1, 1564, in CDIU 2, document 21.
[back]
25. The first quote is from Commander Miguel López de Legazpi to King Philip II, Navidad, November 18, 1564, in CDIU 2, document 24. The second and third quotes are from Friar Andrés de Urdaneta to King Philip II, Navidad, November 20, 1564, in CDIU 2, document 25.