The Golden Empire: Spain, Charles V, and the Creation of America
Page 46
In 1539, Federmann resolved on an extensive new journey of discovery. This would go due south from Coro along roads where he had been before, but then seek a crossing of the Andes a long way to the south of his last expedition’s concluding point. Again the aim was partly or perhaps wholly the search for “the strait.”
Federmann set off with about two hundred men and five hundred bearers. His first stage was the eastern foothills of the Andes to the valley of the river Tocuyo. Here he encountered troops of Juan Fernández de Alderete, who had rebelled against Governor Dortal in the Paria territory. They were seeking what they had heard, from the survivors of the late Diego de Ordaz’s expedition, were the rich lands of the valley of the Meta. Federmann took over these troops and seized the goods of the leaders, whom he sent back to Coro. He had a similar encounter with an expedition of Diego Martínez, who had explored the rather more remote peninsula of Guajira. His goods, too, were seized.
Federmann crossed the river Pauto, a tributary of the Meta, and then sent a lieutenant, Pedro de Limpias, to seek a pass over the Andes to the west. He could not find one. Federmann divided his little army into three but they were united again at Aracheta, the future San Juan de los Llanos. The rumor was that, between the rivers Meta and Guaviare, an entrance could be made to a magical territory known as El Dorado, where all Spanish dreams would be fullfilled.
In February 1539, Federmann, with the three sections of his force reunited, was on the upper river Guaviare. Here he found many objects of gold and realized that these came from “the other side of the sierra”—that is, from the Indians who inhabited the Chibcha high plateau. This realization gave Federmann an even stronger motive to seek to scale the cordillera of the Andes. He performed this feat in forty days, of which twenty-two were through barren country, including a wide plain of intense cold where seventy of his Indians died as well as forty of his 130 horses. When he reached the summit, he had only 160 soldiers and seventy horse. Here, he assumed, was the land of his expectations. It was not “the strait” to the Southern Sea. But it was a magic land of gold. Alas, the land could not be Federmann’s, not without argument at least. For he discovered that the territory had been occupied for two years by another Spanish expedition from Santa Marta, under the leadership of Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada.
Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada was a native of Córdoba, a city that gave fewer conquistadors to the Indies than any other large city of Andalusia. Jiménez de Quesada’s father was a lawyer and his mother came from a famous family of dyers. A maternal uncle, Jerónimo de Soria, had been President of the dyers’ guild in Córdoba, but had difficulties when he started using a cheap dye that, it was said, damaged the good cloth of the city. So Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada, with his brothers Hernando and Francisco, decided to go to the Indies to recover their fortunes. Perhaps they were conversos. The “evidence” for that, such as it is, derives from a quarrel that Gonzalo once had with Lázaro Fonte, who accused him of being Jewish. When he sought to become governor in the Indies, the Council of the Indies even said that one reason against him was that he was descended from people who had been “reconciled.”8
Gonzalo, like his father, was by education a lawyer. Probably he had attended the University of Salamanca, and certainly for a time he worked in the supreme court of Granada. He then went to Santa Marta. Probably it was about 1534.
Jiménez de Quesada found Santa Marta in bad shape. There was a shortage of horses, arms, food, and houses. The inhabitants received supplies on a modest scale from the cacique of Bonda. The governor, Pedro Fernández de Lugo, seemed incompetent, greedy, and miserly, even though he came from a family of conquistadors (who were probably also conversos).9 He gave Jiménez de Quesada a characteristic contract (capitulación) on January 22, 1535. This was in the first instance bounded in the east by the meridian line that crosses the Cabo de la Vela; in the west, by the line that runs from the mouth of the Magdalena; and in the south, by the unknown coast of the Southern Sea. Jiménez de Quesada was named as commander and captain-general. His brother Hernando was named chief magistrate. Provision was made as to who should succeed Gonzalo if he were to die.
His expedition left Santa Marta on April 5, 1536, with six hundred men, including seventy mounted. Another two hundred men were to sail up the Magdalena in support, on three brigantines and a pinnace (fusta). But this little fleet was dispersed on the open sea before it even reached the Magdalena. The pinnace was sunk, and its crew drowned. The brigantines took refuge in Cartagena. A hundred miles up the Magdalena, Jiménez de Quesada waited fruitlessly for these ships. He had placed his supplies on them. In the end, his men had to continue without food, eating herbs and berries as best they could. As usual, the mangrove swamps extended down to the river’s edge, and the continual difficulty posed by tributaries of the Magdalena, as well as the mosquitoes, combined with the lack of food, made the journey very difficult. About two hundred miles up the river, they were met by two new brigantines sent up under Diego Hernández Gallego by the governor, Fernández de Lugo, when he heard of the setbacks met by the other three vessels.
Reaching La Tora, at the point of confluence of the rivers Magdalena, Opon, and Carrare, the expedition followed the second named. Jiménez de Quesada sent a mounted expedition ahead to find out the nature of the territory and where the Opon rose. This little unit, captained by Juan de Céspedes, a Sevillano,10 and Juan de San Martín, came back to explain that the land was well populated. The whole force then camped in La Tora. They then numbered only 230 foot and seventy horse, for more than three hundred had already died or otherwise fallen by the way. Most of the survivors ascended the Opon, leaving the ships below under Hernández Gallego, with thirty-five healthy men and twenty-five sick ones. About fifty miles up, they were welcomed by the first Chibchas. Dressed in cotton cloaks, the Indians offered them food. They entered the valley of the Opon, where they came upon abundant food and even some gold. In the far distance, they could see the Chibcha plateau.
While they seemed well enough, the news brought them from the valley was that Diego Hernández Gallego had been attacked by Indians. After he lost a brigantine and half his men, he had decided to return to Santa Marta. A new (interim) governor, Jerónimo Lebrón, sent a new flotilla of four brigantines with food to restore Jiménez de Quesada, but they never found him. By then he was enriching himself on the Chibcha plateau.
For on reaching La Grita in March 1537, Jiménez de Quesada found in one day over 1,000 pesos of fine gold and 73 of a lower grade. Two or three days later, his party reached Guachetá, where they found their first emeralds. Moving southward, meeting every day new peoples, such as the Lemguarque, the Conumba, and the Suesca, they found more gold and emeralds, and then on March 22, they even discovered salt—another and equally important item of commerce. On March 28, they skirmished with natives sent by a chief known as Bogotá, but they went ahead, first to besiege, and then to enter, the capital that had the chief’s name. The chief fled with his main treasure to mountains nearby, where he was later killed. By that time, the Spaniards had seized about 4,600 pesos of good gold as well as more than five hundred emeralds. Jiménez de Quesada then dispatched Pedro Fernández de Valenzuela to the emerald reserves of Somondoco.
Jiménez de Quesada meantime began to explore the cordillera of Tunja, where a rich chief was said to be. On August 20, the Spaniards found there another 140,000 pesos of fine gold, 280 emeralds, and 14,000 pesos of low-grade gold. In October, they seized even more: nearly 200,000 pesos of fine gold, 30,000 of low-grade ore, and more than eight hundred emeralds. The story then reached them that to their southeast, there was a rich region called Neiva, which was abundant in gold mines. The Indians of Pasca were said to descend there to trade their many products for gold. The Spaniards abandoned Tunja, though part of their army under Jiménez de Quesada’s brother Hernando remained. The rest went on under their established commander to Pasca and the plateau of Sumapez, to camp in Neiva, where they were offered gold, though not in the quan
tity that they had anticipated.
Now came a division of the booty. This was decided by the commander, Jiménez de Quesada, and the inspector, Juan de San Martín. It was a great moment for all concerned, since the wealth almost equaled the great riches found in Peru. The army was divided into captains, horsemen, and soldiers. There were also payments to the surgeon and for the cost of arquebuses. Jiménez de Quesada insisted on contributions being made to the two dilapidated churches of Santa Marta—La Mayor and La Merced.11 The royal fifth was decided as being 38,259 pesos of fine gold, 7,257 of low-grade gold, nearly 4,000 of scrap (oro de Chatalonia), and 360 emeralds of varying sizes. There remained over 150,000 pesos of fine gold, 30,000 of low-grade gold, and 1,450 emeralds to be divided among the conquistadors. All debts were paid out of the scrap gold. In the end, there were 148,000 pesos of fine gold, about 17,000 of lower-grade gold, and 1,455 emeralds to be divided. Those who had come up the Magdalena under Diego Hernández Gallego were excluded, since they had not participated in the extraordinary struggles along the great river.
Each share of the treasure, it was determined, would be worth 510 pesos of fine gold, 576 of low-grade gold, and five emeralds.
The leaders decided that the absent governor in Santa Marta would receive ten shares, Jiménez de Quesada nine, his captains four, the sergeant major three, the lieutenants two, each captain’s lieutenant half, lieutenants of horse three, horsemen and clerics two, arquebusiers one and a half, and one each for the macheteros and the infantrymen. Those who had died on the journey were allocated nothing, nor would their heirs receive anything; however, 200 pesos were allocated to pay for the Masses for the five hundred who had died since the expedition had begun.
Jiménez de Quesada decided that he wanted to settle this high territory and establish himself and his soldiers there. He decided to go home to Spain to have himself proclaimed adelantado of the area, taking with him his own money and the royal fifth. He would leave his brother Hernando in command. He first, however, allowed himself to be diverted by a cacique, Sagipa, who came to ask Spanish assistance against his old enemies, the Panches. Jiménez de Quesada set off with a group of horsemen and some infantry, promising his help in return for being told the whereabouts of the dead cacique Bogotá’s treasure. Sagipa agreed and presented Jiménez de Quesada with many presents such as plumes, snail shells (caracoles), and bells of bone (cascabeles). But no gold came. Jiménez de Quesada, disillusioned, chained up Sagipa, though giving him free access to his people. Nothing transpired. The conquistadors, in a democratic impulse, elected Gonzalo de Luza as their procurador. Through an interpreter he told the cacique Sagipa that he would be tortured if the treasure did not appear. Gonzalo de Luza said that he needed 10 million pesos in gold, and ten thousand emeralds. Jiménez de Quesada named his brother Hernando as the defender of the chief. But having heard the arguments, he nevertheless sentenced Sagipa to torture, and the cacique was raised by a beam to which his hands were tied. This was twice repeated (“lightly” apparently and “only twice”). But Sagipa returned in a bad condition to his prison. There was then a fire in the improvised Christian section of Bogotá, which was attributed to Sagipa, who in order to save himself from further torture, agreed to lead Jiménez de Quesada to the place where he believed that the cacique Bogotá had buried his gold. But there seemed to be nothing there.
Jiménez de Quesada lost his temper and submitted Sagipa to further tortures, such as burning his feet, a favorite torment of the conquistadors at this stage, as we saw in respect of what happened to Cuauhtémoc in New Spain. The consequence was that in a few days, after returning to the camp, Sagipa died. Later, there were inquiries as to whether Jiménez de Quesada had tortured poor Sagipa to death.12 There was real doubt about this: A witness of Jiménez de Quesada’s, “Don Gonzalo Indio,” said that he had dined with Sagipa the night before he died and that all that he complained of was a headache.13 Jiménez de Quesada gave a document to two of his colleagues, Pedro Fernández de Valenzuela and Diego de Segura, which enabled them to mount a lawsuit at the Council of the Indies on behalf of the cacique Sagipa.
That was a matter that would be debated for many years. In the meantime, Jiménez de Quesada still hoped to return to Spain to confirm his status as an independent governor and adelantado, but he had to postpone his journey again, for two reasons: first, because of the battles that he had to fight against a ferocious and indeed apparently indomitable tribe, the Panches; and second, because, in the middle of that year, 1538, he received astonishing news—not only that Federmann had reached the eastern cordillera, no distance away, but also that the even more threatening Sebastián de Benalcázar was in Neiva, about 150 miles south of Bogotá. Benalcázar had driven up from Peru, his reputation as a fighter second to none. Jiménez de Quesada, isolated and even incommunicado for three years, now found himself confronted by two Spanish armies, both of which were well furnished with arms and horses, while he had little fighting capacity except for his swords.
Benalcázar had left Quito early in 1538 and made his way north with about five hundred men well equipped for war. He reached what is now Popayán, then climbed up modern Colombia, along the river Magdalena to Neiva. He had a tiny force, perhaps only thirty or forty men, to which his own great name, as one of the conquerors of Peru, added much. On the way, he had founded four towns, including a settlement at Popayán, where he had left altogether three hundred men. From Neiva, hearing of Federmann’s journey, he sent messengers to Jiménez de Quesada hoping to concert action with him against the unexpected German from Venezuela.
For Federmann, it was a hard blow to find at the end of an atrocious journey of two years that the territory which he, on the Welsers’ behalf, had coveted as part of Venezuela was being occupied by others. But he was realistic. He made a remarkable concession. For he subscribed to an agreement by which he would leave his men under Jiménez de Quesada’s control, or that of his brother Hernando, but he and the former would go to Spain, on the same ship, to seek judgment from the Council of the Indies as to who would rule the country. The Welsers later thought that for Federmann to have left his men in New Granada exceeded his authority. But Bogotá was an advantageous place, and some of Federmann’s men had anyway come from Santa Marta or, as we have seen, from Paria. Federmann thought that his men would not have accepted an order to return to Coro by the way that they had come. The decision was a good one even if Federmann would probably have won in a pitched battle against Jiménez de Quesada in the style of the Spaniards in Peru. Jiménez de Quesada’s army was in poor shape. Federmann’s men would now help to establish a sound nucleus of Spaniards in Bogotá, with magistrates, councillors, notaries, and other officials.14
Jiménez de Quesada soon also reached an agreement with Benalcázar, the text of which is lost. Benalcázar went on to Bogotá—Santa Fe de Bogotá, it had become—met Federmann on June 20, and set off with both his rivals in a brigantine down the Magdalena. They first went to Cartagena, where they met a judge, Juan de Santa Cruz, who had been appointed to carry out a residencia of Pedro de Heredia, governor of that port, and the three conquistadors gave him much information about the Indians whom they had encountered, and whom Jiménez de Quesada believed that he had conquered. They also explained how they had granted encomiendas to fellow conquistadors in Bogotá, and how one or two chiefs had been similarly favored, as if they had been Spaniards. For example, the chief Quencubansa had been allotted a town in the Panche province of Tamanjuaca.
In Cartagena, the three conquistadors of Bogotá awaited a ship to take them to Castile. While they waited, Jiménez de Quesada found himself in a lawsuit with his ex-subordinate, Diego Hernández Gallego, in respect to the first flotilla of brigantines that had sailed up the Magdalena without finding his army. But eventually the three returned to Spain, Jiménez de Quesada and Benalcázar going together directly, Federmann traveling via Jamaica. The first named took with him 11,000 pesos de oro in twenty-one bars, as well as nine boxes of emeralds and one fine n
ecklace of emeralds.
The circumstances of the return of these conquistadors were highly discouraging. Bartolomé de las Casas was at that time winning his debates against the encomenderos. Jiménez de Quesada also found that he had suits mounted against him by Alonso Fernández de Lugo, the heir of Pedro Fernández de Lugo, a brutal but influential proconsul himself, being the brother-in-law of Cobos no less. The treasurer of Santa Marta, Pedro Briceño, and the new governor there, Jerónimo Lebrón, sued Jiménez de Quesada, and he was ordered to pay them 5,300 pesos of gold and some emeralds. Till he had paid it, he was to remain in the Casa de la Contratación’s prison in Seville. In addition, Jiménez de Quesada was to pay 1,000 pesos as taxes to the King. He appealed through his skillful lawyer, Sebastián Rodríguez, to the Council of the Indies, but when he appeared before that august body, he was further accused of bringing into Spain 150,000 pesos of gold illegally and of having had his own secret supply of emeralds. To his astonishment, he found that he had numerous creditors, such as Marcos Griego, who owned a boat that had been used by Pedro Fernández de Lugo and Martín de Orduña, the factor of the Welsers in Santa Marta.15