by Hugh Thomas
Further confusion was sown in the mind of Alfinger. Diego de Ordáz, Cortés’s companion and a veteran of the campaign in Mexico in 1519–20, persuaded the Council of the Indies to let him explore and exploit the eastern end of Venezuela precisely as far as what he called the Río Marañón, though it would seem better now to call it the Orinoco. Ordáz was to be allowed to take two hundred fifty men and would receive the habit of the Order of Santiago.14
There were other more domestic disputes for Alfinger to try and settle. For example, the prices in the colony seemed far too high—above all for wine, but also for soap and for horses. Further, neither Alfinger nor his colleagues in Santo Domingo had been able to fulfill the demand for slaves to work there, neither Indians nor blacks. The bishop of Santo Domingo would write shortly to the emperor Charles (1530) that the very survival not just of his island but also of Puerto Rico and of Cuba depended on the provision of African slaves. He suggested that all these colonies should be able to import them without licenses.15
There was much support for this demand. In 1529, Ehinger sought and obtained a new contract for the carriage of slaves to the New World. He was helped by a temporary alliance that he made in Medina del Campo, that great market city of Castile, with Rodrigo de Dueñas, whose large Castilian fortune was based on the import of cinnamon.16
Other agitation in favor of an extension of the slave traffic continued. For example, in 1527, Alfonso Núñez, a merchant of Seville, on behalf of a Portuguese, Alonso de Torres, undertook to sell to Luis Fernández de Alfaro, a backer of Cortés, ex–ship captain, and surely from his name a converso, one hundred black slaves, of which four-fifths were to be men. These would be procured in the Cape Verde Islands, the Portuguese slave mart off Africa, and sold in Santo Domingo.17 Two years later, Fernández de Alfaro himself went to buy slaves in the Cape Verde Islands. He had by then arranged a contract of his own to supply another hundred black slaves to Santo Domingo.18 There were lesser merchants who undertook the same kind of service to Puerto Rico.19 The first merchant of Seville implicated in the African trade on a large scale was, however, Juan de la Barrera, who, returning in 1530 from the Indies already wealthy, soon became one of the richest of traders with establishments for the sale of slaves and other items in Cartagena, Honduras, Cuba, and New Spain. He would regularly make the Seville–Cape Verde–Veracruz journey in one of his own boats.20
These procedures, and this route, marked an innovation. Until now, black slaves of African origin had usually been taken to the Americas from Europe, having probably been born in Portugal or Spain. But now slave ships began to sail direct from Africa to the New World, following the precedent of Nuestra Señora de Begoña. Belonging to a Genoese merchant, Polo de Espiñola of Málaga, the vessel left São Tomé, off what is now Nigeria, in 1530. Aboard were three hundred slaves bound direct for Santo Domingo.21
Clearly, too, many of the slaves taken from Spain or Portugal to the Spanish empire now came from Africa, as was testified by the belief that all the difficulties encountered in disciplining them derived from Muslim wolofes, a term used to describe a Muslim tribe in West Africa—an anxiety which led to a ban in 1526 on the import of such slaves. The Germans who had secured the contract for carrying slaves from Seville entered negotiations with the Casa da Mina in Lisbon. They reached an understanding that these slaves would be sent from São Tomé, in the Gulf of Guinea. In 1530, King João III of Portugal gave permission to ships’ captains to export slaves regularly from both the Cape Verde Islands and from São Tomé.22 He does not seem to have hesitated a moment before agreeing to this, any more than King Fernando the Catholic had hesitated in 1510 about arranging for slaves to be sent to Santo Domingo. If these monarchs gave the matter any thought at all, they would have supposed that a slave in Christian hands would be much better off than a free African in Africa.
The first boat to travel from Guinea direct to the Caribbean was the San Antonio, whose captain, Martim Afonso de Sousa, took 201 slaves, branded G for Guinea, from São Tomé in November 1532, a consignment that he delivered to the royal factor in San Juan de Puerto Rico, Juan País.23 This was the forerunner of three hundred years of such traffic. In 1533, nearly 500 slaves were taken direct from São Tomé to the Spanish Indies and, in 1534, about 650 were sent, even though at that time the royal factor at São Tomé was sending more than 500 slaves a year to the Portuguese castle of Elmina and 200 or 300 a year to Lisbon.24 In 1530 and 1532, rules were written against the shipment of ladinos, as slaves directly shipped from Spain were called, because they, too, were supposed to be potentially irresponsible.
A decree from the King in 1526 had repealed the slaving provision in the more tolerant code of Alfonso el Sabio, the Siete Partidas in the thirteenth century, which provided that a slave who married would become free: Already the complexities of black slaves marrying free Indians had begun to preoccupy agile state lawyers.25
Thereafter, nevertheless, black slaves, tied to their masters or no, would play a decisive part in most European ventures in the Americas.
Thus, when in 1527 Pánfilo de Narváez, veteran survivor of Cortés’s expedition, set off for the conquest of Florida, he had his expected crew of men with names such as Cuéllar, Alanís, and Enríquez. But there were also several black slaves, their names forgotten but their work essential.
13
Narváez and Cabeza de Vaca
Who will count the gold which entered Spain from this quarter?
PEDRO DE CIEZA DE LEÓN
Bent on founding a new settlement in Florida, Pánfilo de Narváez, with his Segovian upbringing, his deep voice, and his long experience of fighting in the Indies, set off from Sanlúcar de Barrameda with six hundred men in five ships on June 17, 1527. On board were five Franciscans, headed by Fray Juan Suárez, the commissary of the expedition. Other important participants were Alfonso Alonso Enríquez, the accountant; Antonio Alonso de Solís, the factor; and Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, the treasurer. There was, too, as often in those days, a Greek sailor: This one was named Doroteo Teodoro. There was a captain, Valenzuela, a relation of Narváez’s wife, María de Valenzuela. It was thus a typical expedition of the late 1520s.1 A Spaniard named Esquivel, another named Velázquez de Cúellar, and an Alanís as notary completed the crew.
Of these men, Cabeza de Vaca would make history on this voyage. His extraordinary surname means literally “head of a cow.” It derives from the legend that King Sancho of Navarre gave the name to an ancestor, the shepherd Martín Alhaja, who marked a path for the Christian armies at the battle of Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212. Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca was brought up in Jerez de la Frontera by his uncle, Pedro de Vera, and Beatriz Figueroa, his aunt. He became a chamberlain in the household of the Duke of Medina Sidonia, who sent him to Valladolid with urgent messages during the war of the comuneros, fighting also in Seville for the royal forces. Then he was in Italy with the imperial army. He married María de Marmolejo before he joined Narváez. He was a cousin of the Cabeza de Vaca who was bishop of the Canary Islands and on the Council of the Indies.
After stopping in the Canaries as was de rigueur in those days, the expedition of Narváez reached La Española by mid-August. There Narváez tried unsuccessfully to recruit more men. Instead of gaining new adherents, indeed, he lost 140, who preferred the local scene, being “influenced by the offers and promises made to them by the people of the islands.”2 Florida, after the journeys of Ponce de León and Vázquez de Ayllón (about which people in Santo Domingo were informed), did not now seem so inviting, and more attractive rumors of a rich new country to the south of Panama were already beginning to be current.3 With the remainder of his followers, Narváez set off for Cuba, where they remained for the winter of 1527 to 1528.4 Narváez had been in Cuba most of the time between 1511 and 1520, so he had many friends there to draw upon. He had a son in Cuba, too, Diego Narváez, as well as his wife, María de Valenzuela, who managed his estates. One of his friends was Vasco de Porcallo de Figueroa, now of Tri
nidad, where he had a large encomienda, which he treated as an estate rather than as a grant of individuals. He had been in New Spain in Narváez’s expedition of 1520 and had a bad name for mistreating Indians. Rather surprisingly, he went with Cortés to Spain in 1527.5 He offered to supply Narváez.
Narváez set off for Trinidad but in the event waited at Cabo de Santa Cruz. Cabeza de Vaca went back to Trinidad with a captain named Pantoja to obtain the supplies. They encountered a fierce storm, and Cabeza de Vaca went alone to see Porcallo. A hurricane almost destroyed the place while he was there. The houses and the church were blown down, and Cabeza de Vaca said that he had to link arms with several others to avoid being blown away. Narváez then assembled his fleet outside Jagua, a town in Cuba he had himself established in 1511.
In February 1528, Narváez, Cabeza de Vaca, and the rest of the expedition set off for Florida with the experienced Diego Muriel as their chief pilot. Muriel had already been to the west coast of Florida and had also been with Narváez on his disastrous expedition to New Spain in 1520.6 He left behind in Havana one of his captains, Álvaro de la Cerda, with forty men and twelve horse. Another storm caught them off Havana, and they were near Florida rather sooner than they had expected or desired. They found themselves in a bay, which seems to have been Moore Haven, on Thursday, April 12. Narváez landed there on Good Friday, and the following day he raised the flag of Castile and took possession of the land in the name of the distant Emperor. He was then proclaimed governor of Florida by his men and Cabeza de Vaca, as treasurer, and Alonso de Solís, as veedor, presented their credentials to him. After that, forty-two thin horses were landed, being in a very poor way after such a bad journey. Alonso Enríquez exchanged some Spanish goods for venison from local Indians who had first made threatening gestures and then left, leaving a large hut, which could have sheltered three hundred.
Narváez immediately wanted to investigate the interior, and he set off with Cabeza de Vaca and forty men, with six of the healthier horses. They found what seems to have been the bay of Tampa, where they spent the night. They then returned to the fleet, and Narváez sent a brigantine back to Havana to seek more provisions from Álvaro de la Cerda. He also seized four Indians, whom he asked to lead him to where maize was grown. They took him to such a place, though the sought-after cereal was far from ripe. They found there some cases belonging to traders from Castile, with their bodies inside, each covered with painted deerskin. There was also some gold and some feathered objects, which looked as if they had originated in New Spain, home of feather mosaics. The Indians explained that these objects came from Apalachee, where there was everything that the Spaniards might want. Enríquez burned these reminders of previous Spanish defeats to avoid demoralization.
The Castilians, meantime, disputed the right course: Cabeza de Vaca thought that they should re-embark and seek a better harbor, but Fray Juan Suárez thought quite differently, explaining that Cortés’s fief of Pánuco was only about thirty miles away to the west. Narváez agreed. He suggested that Cabeza de Vaca should stay with the ships while he went ahead. Cabeza refused, saying that he preferred to risk his life than lose his honor. A Captain Carvalho stayed behind with the ships. But Pánuco was in fact more than one thousand miles away.
The expedition set off, meeting a river, which they crossed with difficulty. They made rafts for the supplies, and some Spaniards swam. Two hundred Indians were waiting on the other side. The Spaniards captured some of them and were then led to their settlement, where the explorers at last found ripe maize. Cabeza said that they should now seek the sea again, but Narváez refused to commit his men to such a journey. Cabeza went ahead on his own but found only a river with oyster shells, which cut explorers’ feet through their boots. In the event, it was an expedition led by Valenzuela that found the sea in a small bay.
The expeditionaries continued their journey, which was generally westward in direction, though it was by now quite unclear where they were going. They occasionally met and made friends, as they supposed, with Indian chiefs such as a certain Dulchanchellin, who was attended by men playing reed flutes, and with him they exchanged beads and hawks’ bells for deerskins. The aim was to find a good place for a settlement, but one did not appear. Occasionally they obtained maize, sometimes a Spaniard (as Velázquez de Cuéllar) was drowned, sometimes horses were killed. Occasionally, there were golden moments, as when “we saw that we had arrived at a place where they told us that there was an abundance of food and also gold [so that] it seemed that a large part of our weariness and hunger had been lifted from us.” The abundance included pumpkins and beans. They encountered such interesting animals as rabbit, hare, bear, geese, hawks such as sparrow hawks, heron, partridge, and teal ducks. While up to their necks in a lake, which they could not cross in any other way, they were attacked by “tall, naked, handsome, lean, strong and agile Indians” with powerful bows, which they managed “so surely that they never miss anything.” Narváez sent Cabeza de Vaca with about sixty men again to seek the sea. He found it at the Bay of the Cross (or Mobile Bay). The whole expedition set off for there, but the journey was long and there were many who were sick (perhaps a third of the total). Cabeza de Vaca noted that “most of the horsemen began to steal away in the hope that they could find some recourse for themselves by abandoning the governor and the invalids.” But “those who were hidalgos could not bring themselves to do this without telling the governor and we, the officials [the inspector, the treasurer, the accountant], reproached them and they agreed to stay.” Then Narváez asked each man separately his advice “about this evil land and how to get out of it.”
At the sea, they built boats, but that meant making nails, saws, axes, and other tools out of stirrups, spurs, and crossbows. They made rigging from the tails of horses, sails from shirts, oars from juniper wood. Doroteo Teodoro made pitch from pine trees. They tanned the hides of dead horses to obtain pails for water. The building of boats began on August 4, and by September 20 they had five of them, each twenty-two cubits long.7 On September 22, they ate the last of the horses and embarked, with Narváez on the first ship with forty-nine men and the auditor Enríquez. Forty-eight men sailed with Andrés de Dorantes, forty-eight with captains Téllez and Peñalosa, and forty-nine with Cabeza de Vaca. They set off, with no one on board having any knowledge of navigation, for none of these conquistadors were sailors. The boats were loaded so high they were scarcely a hand’s breadth above the water.
After seven days, they landed at an island, which seems to have been in the delta of the Mississippi. They sailed on in a westerly direction and ran short of water as well as of food (the horses’ hides rotted) and reached an island without sweet water. They began to drink seawater, five men becoming almost insane as a result. At last they reached an Indian port where there were canoes, freshwater, and cooked fish, all of which the Indians offered Narváez, apparently because they admired his sable coat. But at midnight the Indians attacked, Narváez was injured, and the Greek Doroteo Teodoro deserted. It was observed that the Indian canoes seemed to be cutting off the Spaniards from the open sea, so the flotilla of five boats set sail again. Cabeza de Vaca was swept out into the Gulf of Mexico, but he managed to return and saw again three of the boats, including Narváez’s. Cabeza de Vaca caught up with him, but as the governor’s boat carried “the strongest and healthiest people among us there was no way whereby the others could follow him.” Cabeza was able to ask Narváez for a line so that he would not be left behind and also to ask for orders. Narváez said that “this was no time to give orders to others, each of us must do what seems best to save his life and that was what he intended to do.” So saying, he drew away with his boat. No one ever saw him again. It became known that he remained on board his ship, on which there was no food, and in the course of the evening, the ship was blown out to sea without anyone seeing him go, “and no one learning more of him” (“Nunca más supieron de el”).8
It was a tragic end to the life of a resolute adventurer
whose ambitions were boundless even if his capacity was limited. He was good-hearted, optimistic, and resourceful but also ruthless and foolish.
For a time, Cabeza de Vaca sailed alongside the boat of Téllez and Peñalosa, but on the fifth day of sailing, a storm separated them. “Next day all the [forty-nine] men in my boat were lying heaped upon one another so near death that few were conscious. Not five men were able to stand. When night fell, only the mate and I were capable of sailing the boat and, at nightfall, the mate told me to take over for he thought that he would die that night.… At midnight I went to see if he was dead but he was better.”
At daybreak, this boat was flung on to the shore, and nearly all the ship’s company revived. They found themselves with freshwater on an island, which they called Malhado, island of ill fortune. There, Indians gave them food, for which the Spaniards offered more hawks’ bells and beads. They decided to set off again, but waves overwhelmed the boat, Fray Juan Suárez drowned, and the rest of the expedition were flung naked on to the shore. It was now November 1528. Indians emerged from a village and offered to take the survivors into their houses. There was a general disposition to accept such kindness, but the few of Cabeza’s conquistadors who had been in New Spain (Alanís, Dorantes) refused because they thought the concession was certain to lead to their being sacrificed. The Indians had built a hut for their unexpected guests, with beds of reed mats inside it. The Indians danced and made revelry, though, wrote Cabeza, “for us there was neither pleasure nor revelry nor sleep for we were waiting to know when they were going to sacrifice us.”