by Hugh Thomas
Montejo had passed the long months of waiting to hear of Ávila’s accomplishments in almost continual fighting. First with forty-five soldiers, including nine horsemen, he was attacked by a large force led by Nachi Cocom. These sought first and foremost to seize Montejo himself. A great number of Indians penetrated his camp; some seized his horse and its reins; some caught him by the arms. He would probably have been captured had he not been protected by Blas González, who “set upon them and killed many.”54 Thus, as another Spanish combatant, Pedro Álvarez, would put the matter, “the victory of our Holy Faith was gained.”55
In the middle of the year 1532, Montejo embarked on a new campaign in the east and northeast of Yucatán. His persistence seemed as remarkable as his patience. He appointed his son to lead it. El Mozo brought a galleon to carry his men from Tabasco, the invaluable Lerma organized supplies, and he set off with two hundred men, leaving a number to guard Campeche with his father in control. El Mozo’s aim was to establish Spanish control wherever possible without fighting. He was to make allies whenever he could. In this respect, he landed in the cacicazgo of Ceh Pech, whose support he received and who urged him to go on to Chichén Itzá, an ancient temple that to the Maya was hallowed ground. The remains of the place could be made into excellent fortresses. Ávila named it Ciudad Real, after the city of Castile in which he had been born. But that did not prevent the caciques from giving a haughty negative answer to the reading of the Requirement: “We already have Kings, oh noble lords! Foreign warriors, we are the Itza!”56
These Indians were from the proud tribe of Cupul, headed by Nacon Cupul, who was determined to expel, if not destroy, the Spaniards. At a parley with, Nacon tried to kill him there and then. El Mozo saved himself with difficulty, and Nacon was himself soon killed. But the Cupul then refused absolutely to deliver any supplies to Montejo el Mozo. The Spaniards seized them. This worsened relations, and the Cupul, though leaderless, mounted a new attack, killing ten or twelve of El Mozo’s men, as well as ten horses and all the Indian slaves who were serving the Spaniards. El Mozo, with his large force of 150 to 170 men, held them off, but a much bigger attack was to follow, after a siege. El Mozo made an onslaught, but though he killed many, he could not break through the Indians’ cordon. He determined to escape in darkness, as Cortés had done in Mexico-Tenochtitlan. He was more successful than Cortés, for the Spaniards successfully gave the Indian besiegers the slip. They then turned successfully on the Maya vanguard who pursued them. They completed their escape thanks to an Indian ally, An Kin Chef.
Ávila managed to return to Campeche, traveling by sea in a Cuba-based merchant ship. He and the Montejos together sought to reestablish their Ciudad Real at Dzibilkan, on the coast. They were there when the intoxicating news came of the discovery of Peru: “Because of this news, and the slight reward which they had had in … this country [Yucatán], the citizens made off against my will.”57 It was not surprising that the depleted army of Montejo could not maintain itself. Again they evacuated an advanced settlement and returned to Campeche.
Montejo now penned a gloomy dispatch to the King: “There is [in Yucatán] not a single river, though there are lakes. The entire land is covered by thick bush and is so stony that there is not a single foot of soil. No gold has been discovered nor is there anything else from which advantage can be gained. The people are the most abandoned and treacherous in all the lands discovered until this time, being people who never yet killed a Christian except by foul means … in them I have failed to find the truth touching anything. With the news from Peru, the soldiers will not remain here any longer.”58
It seemed in 1534 that seven years of continuous conflict in Yucatán were thus ending in failure. The Spaniards had a base in Campeche, little more. Their efforts to establish Spanish power on the eastern seaboard of the peninsula had failed. Montejo el Padre had now only thirty men at his disposal, not enough of a force to conquer such a large country full of high-spirited and alert natives. He had made the mistake of dividing his men too often and did not seem to realize that Indians often gave their verbal loyalty to Spain only as a temporary expedient.
Just as Montejo recalled from New Spain, in Yucatán there were many governments, not just one. The defeat of one cacique left his neighbors untouched. Also, the Mayan weapons were superior to those of the Mexica. They had strong bows, more straight than curved; their obsidian or flint-tipped arrows could inflict serious wounds; their lances and darts, their swords of hard wood with razor sharp flakes of obsidian, could cause much suffering. The arrows, made from reeds growing in lagoons, were often five palms long. The bowstrings were made successfully from local hemp. They also had little copper hatchets, which could be used both as weapons and for working wood.59 As for defense, their shields were made of reeds lined with deerskin and were carefully woven. They also wore jackets of quilted cotton. A few lords even had wooden helmets. Priests and sometimes others went to war in animal skins.60 Finally, Indian tactics had been intelligent. Soon realizing that their vast superiority in numbers could not make much of an impact on the Spaniards, they would defend their towns in these “harsh, stony and dry lands” (as the Mérida Council spoke of the region in 1561), and then destroy them, fleeing into the forests or the unconquered South.
17
To Pass the Sandbar
Now that we have passed your sandbar, be pleased to have us return and pass over it again with a good and safe voyage.
PRAYER TO OUR LADY OF BARRAMEDA
The most complex machine of its time, as a modern historian has described the sixteenth-century nao,1 was a fortified warehouse that had to be loaded and unloaded as well as steered across the ocean. These ships were also, as Dr. Samuel Johnson put it two hundred and more years later, very like a jail, with all, even grandees, living in conditions that on land would be considered intolerable.2
In the reign of the emperor Charles—between 1516 and 1555—some 2,500 ships left Spain for the Indies, an average of about 60 a year; 1,750 returned. That meant that 750 were lost; a few of them were destroyed in battle.3 The ships that crossed the Atlantic in 1504 numbered 35; in 1550, more than 200.4
The small size of these vessels is what captures our attention first and foremost. The Genoese and Venetians might have carracks of more than one thousand tons; some of them were always in Portuguese or Spanish waters in those days. But Columbus’s three ships, we recall, were sixty, seventy, and one hundred tons each. The great “Admiral of the Ocean Sea” thought a boat as big as seventy tons too large for coastal exploration. Nor could anything over two hundred tons have sailed easily up, or down, the often shallow and risky fifty miles of the river Guadalquivir that led to and from the port of Seville (8 percent of losses of these fleets were on the river!).
At first, ships might take on their cargoes in ports other than Seville, but even so, they were required, before they crossed the Atlantic, to go up the Guadalquivir and register with the officials of the usually bureaucratic Casa de la Contratación. Larger vessels, even in the first half of the sixteenth century, were unable to ascend the Guadalquivir without unloading their cargo eight leagues (twenty-four miles) below or south of the city. This procedure was supervised by an official known as the “visitor,” who would inspect vessels before departure as well as before arrival. After a while, this individual was appointed directly by officers of the Casa. That body decided that that it should have a permanent resident at Cádiz since that port was becoming the effective nerve, the jugular vein, juzgado, of the trade to the Indies.
Captains might choose eccentric ports from which to sail, but the rule was they had to return to the Guadalquivir. The government relied on the payment of customs and other taxes, and it also required that gold and silver be paid to them in a regular fashion. Even so, ships sometimes returned to other ports, such as Málaga or Vigo, or even Lisbon. Almost all stopped, on their way out to the Indies, in the Canaries, a convenient watering and victualing station for ships on their way west or east
, with tolerant attitudes by the Spanish authorities toward English and other foreign merchants.
In 1502, Ovando’s ships in his great fleet were all between 30 and 90 tons. Díaz de Solís’s three ships in 1508 were 90, 60, and 35 tons, respectively. Pedrarias’s ships in 1514 averaged 80 tons. Magellan’s expedition of 1519 left with no ship over 120 tons and the Victoria, the voyage’s surviving vessel, was 75 tons.5 The average tonnage of ships in these years was just under 100 tons. Between 1521 and 1550, it rose to an average of between 100 and 150.
Afterwards, ships increased in weight, but rarely in the sixteenth century did a ship exceed 200 tons, even though in 1509 there was an ordenanza that established a minimum of 80 tons.6
Such vessels might carry sixty passengers and twelve crew, and also perhaps eighteen mares and twelve calves. If adapted for military use, there would be four great cannon, two at each end of the ship, and perhaps a dozen smaller cannon (falconets, culverins) would be each side on a second deck.
A ship of one hundred tons would probably be fifty feet long, fifteen feet wide, and seven feet deep in the hold from keel to the lowest planked deck. Most ships had a single deck, though sometimes there were awnings (toldos) or bridges (hence a “bridge”) connecting with what was known as “the chimney,” sometimes as “the castle.” They could be much larger. For example, the great merchants Portinari in Holland constructed a boat 120 feet long and 36 wide.7
At first, most of these oceangoing ships were known as caravels (carabelas was a word used in Spanish coastal waters since the early fifteenth century). The word nao was used interchangeably. Caravels were rarely mentioned after 1530. The Portuguese usually gave them triangular or lateen sails. The Spaniards preferred square or round sails on the main masts.
The galleon was much bigger than the caravel and eventually became the typical Atlantic ship. It was first mentioned in a list of ships registered in 1525. A galleon might measure up to five hundred tons and would have a crew of fifty or sixty, and perhaps a company of 120 or 150 soldiers.
There were many other smaller ships. For example, the burcho, a large launch powered by rowers, was much used in the fifteenth century off Africa. A smaller vessel, also a launch, was the falúa, with two masts. There was, too, the brigantine, a small boat suitable for traveling on rivers or with sail. Sometimes it was covered, sometimes it was open, like a pinnace. Most expeditions of importance had one or two of these accompanying the larger craft. We also find filibotes, pataches, fragatas, and urcas, useful little ships comparable to the English pinnaces.
All these vessels would dock in Seville in the strangely rough port known as the Arenal, a sandbank between the river and the cathedral that was the center of trade, provisioning, and stocking up. The Arenal was dominated by the Golden Tower, the Torre de Oro: an Arab defense bastion, on which there was, in the sixteenth century, a crane, which had been constructed to help in the unloading of stone for the building of the nearby cathedral and which was afterwards used for landing merchandise. Because of the primitive nature of the port, the rest of the lower river, almost as far as Sanlúcar, fifty miles down at the mouth of the river—constituted an informal shipyard.
If between sixty and seventy tons,8 these ships cost perhaps 500 ducats or about 3,000 maravedís a ton. On top of the cost of the vessel, the crew of, say, ten sailors and eight cabin boys, as well as apprentices and pages, were probably paid an average of 1,000 maravedís each. The total cost of a ship of this kind about to set off on an expedition, therefore, might be 180,000 maravedís.
The social standing of a man who went to the sea was set at whatever level he joined his ship. All the same, an experienced mariner who had been a page or an apprentice could look forward to a professional life as a sailor, his credentials being confirmed by a document attesting to his expertise.
Shippers or captains gained something, too, from passengers, who played a decisive part in financing most outward voyages. The average number of passengers per caravel in the first half of the sixteenth century was perhaps twenty. For example, in November 1514, the passengers on board a ship owned by Andrés Niño paid 8 ducats (3,000 maravedís) to go to Santo Domingo;9 while Cortés paid 11 ducats for the same journey in 1506.10
No ship carried much in the way of furniture. The captain’s cabin would have a few chairs, but there would be no others. The chests of the sailors did, however, serve as seats as well as trunks, and even sometimes as beds. They were customarily fastened down on the deck by ropes.
These vessels usually had short lives, perhaps only four years. The difficulty was the broma, a small sea worm, which seemed especially aggressive in tropical waters. To guard against it, there could be caulking, which meant covering the vessel with resin. The masters on Pedrarias’s fleet of 1514 were the pioneers of a leaden covering. The actual inventor of the process was a certain Antonio Hernández. But lead was expensive, it often wore out, and it was heavy.11
Pilots had to have a license from the piloto mayor, which meant an apprenticeship under that official’s direction. A pilot had to be Spanish by birth or by naturalization, have six months in the profession, spend six months on a course of cosmography, and have a precise knowledge of the route. Every ship had to have two pilots. All would probably have read Fernández de Enciso’s geography, and later, Pedro de Medina’s Arte de Navegar.
The average journey from Cádiz to Veracruz in New Spain was 90 days, a minimum of 55, with a maximum of 160. The return journey was longer, averaging 128 days, a minimum of 70 and a maximum of 298 days.12
Most of the ships’ expeditions were collaborative financial enterprises, the shipowners having to provide incentives for men to enroll. Thus large parts of the ship were reserved for quintaladas (the space in quintals in which the officers and crew could ship goods to the New World). The captain could perhaps ship ninety quintals, the boatswain thirteen, sailors a mere three and a half.
The great shipowners were financiers such as Cristóbal de Haro of Burgos, who already thought in the 1520s that it would be better to give sailors an income in cash rather than a space for merchandise on the ships.13 Many of these mercantile families were conversos.14
Masters of ships were often part owners of them, and they would arrange to be paid two and a half times what was received by a sailor. A master could also ship a certain amount of merchandise free. He would travel in a good cabin, where he would have a silver dinner service and probably be waited on by African slaves. He would hire the crew and be responsible for the safe delivery of the cargo.15
An admiral or major commander, such as Hernando de Soto, might travel with an escort of twelve “gentlemen of honor.”
As a rule there would always be a mate or boatswain (contramaestre), who, with his short thick cable, the rebenque—for beating lazy apprentices—would control the ship if the captain was a soldier without maritime experience. After a time, there would usually be a notary, a carpenter, a caulker, a cook-steward, and as many seamen as necessary—the maximum being forty for a large galleon (but seventy on naval vessels).
The level of literacy was modest on ships. Even captains and generals would scarcely know more than how to sign their names. Most masters would have done so, though perhaps 17 percent could not do even that. Twenty-five percent of pilots could not either. A minority of officials, such as boatswains and stewards, could do so, but only 21 percent of sailors.16 All the same, those who were literate read a great deal.
Wages and salaries were usually partly paid before a journey. Sometimes these advances, up to 20 percent of the expected income, were paid months before departure. Sailors might be paid as little as 100 to 300 pesos for a year’s voyage. Little enough, it might be said, for a journey in an immensely complicated craft with its hundreds of pulleys, its cables, its rigging, often sailed in conditions of great danger and overcrowding. Sailors on royal naval vessels were paid less than others (1,500 maravedís, or 4 ducats a month).
Men of the sea usually received less than skille
d laborers on land. But many who went to Seville in the sixteenth century in the hope of finding work in the city had to fall back on going to sea. They might be compensated by the fact that a sailor could hope to rise in the ranks and become a ship’s officer.
Many increased their wages by stealing from stores: Carpenters would steal wood, boatswains rope, stewards provisions. Admirals would carry illegal passengers and contraband.
In his splendid history, Pablo Pérez-Mallaína has several excellent paragraphs devoted to his idea that wages paid to the Renaissance sailor made him less well off than his medieval equivalent, who would customarily have had an interest in the enterprise of the ship.17
Passengers both then and before slept on bags, which were often just sacks filled with straw. Hammocks, though used by Indians, were as rare as beds. Rich passengers might establish little private rooms under the awnings, formed by panels nailed together by the ship’s carpenter. Many hulls were transformed into a labyrinth of little cabins in consequence.
The latrines of ships were usually set up on a wooden grating jutting out at the prow over the sea. Officers would have their own latrines, “gardens,” as they were called, on the poop deck. The smells were normally overpowering. Dirty clothes remained dirty for most of the journey.
Storms were appalling experiences and might necessitate many sailors spending hours pumping water from the ship to prevent it from sinking. If pumping did not work, every weight would be thrown into the sea. Sometimes masts would be cut down to prevent them breaking open the ship. Waves of colossal size could strike a terrifying blow on the keel, opening up the hull to floods of water. Divers would have to be ready with tarred canvas “palettes,” or lead ones, to patch the outside of ships below the level of water. Fires were also a cause of shipwrecks.