El Norte

by Carrie Gibson

  The crown was moved to issue the 1542 New Laws of the Indies (Las Leyes Nuevas), which was intended, once again, to promote better treatment of the indigenous people. Furthermore, the laws aimed to phase out the encomienda when the titleholder died and free any Indians on it.91 This legislation was unsurprisingly not popular among encomenderos and triggered a revolt by a group of them in Peru, leading to the decapitation of the viceroy. Parts of the New Laws were later amended to stave off similar rebellions elsewhere, including New Spain. Despite the weakening of the legislation, the encomienda system gradually declined over the course of the seventeenth century.

  At the same time, Spain’s enemies read Las Casas’s account with as much interest as Carlos V, but for a very different reason: it exposed the cruelty of Catholic Spaniards. The Short Account was published in Spain in 1552, and the text circulated around Europe, with the first Dutch translation appearing in 1578, and the English in 1583.92 By 1598, the Latin edition, published by Theodore de Bry in Germany, included a number of engravings depicting violent scenes, such as native people being hanged and burned.93 The Habsburg monarchy, which now controlled Spain and its colonies, also included parts of Italy, the Netherlands, and, for a time, Portugal (1580–1640).94 When Felipe II came to the Spanish throne in 1556, he ruled over a vast but troublesome realm.*

  The mixture of religious tension, imperial envy, and the vivid account painted by Las Casas helped to lay the basis of what became known as the leyenda negra, or “Black Legend,” a concept that would color the exploits of conquistadores and darken Spain’s reputation for centuries. In its simplest form, it was the allegation that Catholic conquistadores were uniquely evil and bloodthirsty—an accusation which overlooked similar abuses committed by Protestant Europeans in the Americas—but it also took issue with the reach of Felipe II’s powers, and with the Catholic orthodoxy defended by the Spanish Inquisition, an institution one English observer described as a “dreadful engine of tyranny.”95

  The writings of Las Casas gave Spain’s opponents plenty of ammunition, such as his claim that “the real reason the Christians have murdered on such a vast scale is purely and simply greed. They have set out to line their pockets with gold.”96 The Dutch took a particular interest in the Black Legend, in part because by the 1560s they were growing increasingly frustrated with Felipe II. In 1568 the Eighty Years’ War began, and these images of brutal conquistadores helped fuel propaganda against Spain. Pamphlets likened subjects of Felipe II in the Low Countries to the indigenous slaves in the Americas. As the conflict wore on, some of the writings by the Dutch expressed a fear that they, too, would meet a violent end, as the Amerindians had.97

  Las Casas returned to New Spain to take up the post of bishop of Chiapas in 1545. A few years later, however, he crossed the Atlantic once again and by 1550 he found himself defending the Amerindians in front of the Royal Council, in Valladolid, Spain. The issue of legitimate conquest was still unresolved and continued to attract the leading legal minds in Spain.98 Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda was one such scholar, and he defended Spain’s behavior in his Democrates Alter of 1547, though he had never crossed the Atlantic.* Democrates Alter espoused a belief in a “natural” order, whereby “the perfect and most powerful rule over the imperfect and weaker.”99 In arguing that “there [be] some who by nature are masters and others who by nature slaves,” Sepúlveda implied the Indians could be enslaved, not least because they were “barbarous and inhumane peoples.”100 Such a view incurred the angry criticism of Las Casas and his supporters. In the resulting furor, the publication of the work was halted—it had originally been circulated in manuscript form—and a formal debate was arranged at Valladolid, where Las Casas and Sepúlveda would present their respective cases, though not in front of each other.101

  Las Casas took his turn before the fourteen jurists assembled in August 1550 and argued over five days—to Sepúlveda’s three hours the day before—that people who had not been exposed to Christianity should not be punished for it, going on to point out that despite the “enormous and extraordinary crimes” the Spanish perpetrated against the native people, many still “embraced Christian truth very willingly,” which he considered “a great miracle.”102 There was another session in the spring of 1551, but, in the end, it was an intellectual draw with no clear victor.103 The great moral and intellectual question of the day remained unanswered.

  Las Casas also devoted a great deal of his life to his monumental history of the Indies (Historia de las Indias), which he stipulated was to be published forty years after his death.104* By the time he died, in 1566, the contours of colonialism were changing. The destruction of the native populations and the continued arrival of Africans had transformed the West Indies, while Spanish settlement continued through Central America and the Andean regions of South America. One area, however, remained undisturbed: the impenetrable Florida.

  PONCE’S FIRST ATTEMPT to establish a settlement in La Florida ended in failure, but this did little to deter others from exploring the coastline and carrying out slaving missions. Indeed, at one point in his capacity as adelantado of Florida, Ponce filed a lawsuit against Diego Velázquez for illegally bringing back three hundred slaves from his territory.105 In 1519, the Spanish explorer Alonso Álvarez de Pineda sailed from Jamaica, then still a Spanish colony, and traveled around the Gulf coast of Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and New Spain. He may have been the first European to see the Mississippi River, which he called the Espíritu Santo, a name that was used on maps for a time.106 While another century would pass before more accurate guides emerged, each successful voyage brought explorers one step closer to understanding the unknown land to the north. On the 1519 map of the Gulf that is attributed to Álvarez de Pineda, the outline of La Florida and its connection to a larger mainland are clear, ending the notion of its being an island.107 Álvarez de Pineda may have also encountered, some 350 miles north of Veracruz, a river which became known as the Pánuco River, returning there to put a settlement near what would later be the city of Tampico, though this initial effort was destroyed by the local Huastec people.108

  Ponce was drawn back to Florida in 1521, organizing another expedition of two ships, paid for once again with his own money. In a letter to Carlos V, he explained, “I am returning to that island [Florida] to settle, with great pleasure and the will of God.”109 He returned to Florida’s southwest coast and, as on his previous attempt, he was soon fighting with the Calusa. This time, however, Ponce was wounded by an arrow and taken to Cuba, where he developed gangrene and died in July 1521. That was not the end of Ponce, of course. He lives on in the still popular myth that he was on the hunt for a magical wellspring that would provide the waters of eternal life. Despite all tales to the contrary, Ponce was not looking for this Fountain of Youth. The legend, however, started early, in Spanish chronicler Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés’s Historia general y natural de las Indias in 1535, and from there became forever associated with Ponce.110

  Around the same time as Ponce’s final venture, a Spanish ship landed near Winyah Bay (near present-day Myrtle Beach), on the feast of John the Baptist in June 1521.111 It was under the charge of Pedro de Quejo, who first spotted land. He waited for the caravel commanded by Francisco Gordillo to join him. The men and some of the crew went ashore, where they were met by a group of Indians. The Spaniards captured some of these people and took them on board their ships—they had, after all, intended this to be a slaving mission.112 When Gordillo and Quejo returned to Hispaniola, they had with them a young man who was probably from the Catawba people and whom they named Francisco de Chicora.113 El Chicorano, as he was sometimes called, was quick to learn Spanish and he also was baptized. He was taken to Spain where he regaled the court, including the chronicler Peter Martyr, about his homeland, a place that would take on mythical dimensions.114 El Chicorano told them how it was fertile and full of riches, including gold, whetting the Spaniards’ appetite to establish a colony in this place, which they called Chic
ora.

  Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón, a member of the judicial audiencia in Santo Domingo and the organizing force behind the expedition that had brought Francisco de Chicora to the island, echoed these claims, describing it as “new Andalusia.” He managed to obtain the necessary contract for exploration and settlement by 1523.115 While he was making preparations, he sent Quejo to reconnoiter the area in 1525. On that voyage, Quejo reached as far north as modern Cape Fear, North Carolina, naming on the way Río de la Cruz, today’s Savannah River.116 He stopped and met some of the Muskogean-speaking people there before pushing on. He also returned to the site of his 1521 landfall and named it Punta de Santa Elena. Its exact location remains unclear, but it is thought to correspond to the present-day Port Royal Sound.117

  The success of Cortés in Mexico had inspired other explorers to turn south to see what they could find, but the information that had been gleaned from El Chicorano was enough to propel Ayllón to head north instead. In 1526, with six hundred eager colonists and some reluctant slaves, as well as Francisco de Chicora, the expedition left Puerto Plata in Hispaniola. Ayllón’s six ships were loaded with horses, livestock, and many of the goods needed to build a permanent colony in Chicora. Las Casas happened to be in Hispaniola and was in the crowd to see them off—on board was his friend Father Montesinos, one of three friars tasked with the spiritual colonization.118

  Almost as soon as they landed in Winyah Bay, Francisco de Chicora and the other Indians on board fled, never to be seen again. Meanwhile, the three scouting parties that had been sent out were having trouble locating a good base, so a decision was made to sail a bit farther south, perhaps around Sapelo Sound in present-day Georgia, though the landing point is still debated.119 By then, one ship had run aground and many of the supplies had been lost.120 People fell ill and needed to disembark, so one party traveled overland to the site and the ships later joined them. Despite not knowing the terrain, they managed to survive, foraging as they went.121 A rudimentary colony, named San Miguel de Gualdape, was established in the late summer of 1526; it was the first Spanish settlement in this part of North America, nearly two thousand miles to the north of Mexico. It was named for St. Michael the archangel, whose feast day, September 29, was close at hand.122 Being coastal, it was hot, sandy, and marshy, and a poor choice for a colony. Ayllón died on October 18, and the fragile settlement fell into chaos.123 The colonists never developed a good trading relationship with the local Guale Indians, and some black slaves who had been brought on the expedition rebelled as well. As winter set in, the survivors, who numbered around 150 and included Montesinos, returned to the Caribbean.124 The riches of Chicora that the Spanish kept seeking were, in the end, intangible. San Miguel de Gualdape was another Florida debacle. However, for a time, it remained all that was known about this area, and a 1529 map by Diego Ribero labeled this part of the coast the “Land of Ayllón.”125

  Ayllón’s failure did not deter would-be adelantados. In 1527, the year after the survivors returned to the West Indies, Pánfilo de Narváez—the one-eyed conquistador who had been part of the invading force on Cuba and later failed to arrest Cortés in Mexico—set out from Spain with a royal contract to explore and settle the area between Florida and the unknown lands to the west.126 The expedition began on a bad note: while it was in Cuba, a hurricane destroyed two ships, killing sixty people and twenty horses.127 By February 1528, Narváez was on his way, with five vessels and a few hundred men, as well as eighty horses.128

  Narvaéz landed around modern Tampa Bay, though he failed to make any alliances with the Tocobaga people. They did, however, tell him about a place that Narváez believed might have gold—as well as corn, as food was already running low—in the province of Apalachee.129 It was a considerable distance north from the Tocobaga, who may well have made up the story to get rid of these bearded interlopers; perhaps, too, the Apalachee were their enemies at this time, and the arrival of Narváez would be an unwelcome surprise.130 Narvaéz sent some of his men by land, while others sailed along the coast, with both groups aiming to make their way along it toward the Pánuco River in Mexico, now a part of New Spain. This division proved to be a terrible decision for Narvaéz in part because of the serious miscalculations about where they were and where they wanted to be. Even the pilots could not agree.131

  Second in command on this expedition was Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, who came from a family of conquistadores. He grew up in Andalusia, near Jérez, though he left as a young man to participate in military campaigns in Europe, after which he received a royal appointment to go on the Florida expedition.132 Little could he imagine at the time that this voyage would take him well beyond the boundaries of the known world.

  Cabeza de Vaca went on foot with Narvaéz, and for the first two weeks they walked north from today’s Tampa Bay. Along with them on the expedition were fellow conquistadores Andrés Dorantes and Alonso del Castillo Maldonado, as well as an enslaved black man known only as Estevánico (the Moor). The three figured in the resulting report Cabeza de Vaca would write many years later. As they walked in the months that followed, they met the various groups who lived along the coastal region—at one point spending time with the sought-after Apalachee people—and discovering there was no sign of gold in their villages. Before long, however, skirmishes, accidents, and hunger began to drain the expedition. The remaining 242 men divvied themselves up across five makeshift barges fashioned from palmettos, on which they set sail from a cove in Apalachicola Bay, drifting for a month along the coast in search of the open sea. Desperate for water and battered by a storm, the men took refuge with some coastal Indians who seemed friendly but who attacked them that night, forcing them to flee. In the days that followed, the barges became separated, and one sank. The men on Cabeza de Vaca’s barge “had fallen over on one another, close to death,” but they continued on until they landed at another shore, later taking refuge with local Indians after their raft was sunk by violent waves.133 A short time later, Cabeza de Vaca was reunited with Dorantes and Castillo after the Indians had told them of the presence of the other Spaniards. One of the surviving barges needed repairs, and they also decided that four men would be sent to try to reach New Spain, while the others waited out the winter somewhere around the coast of Texas, on an island they called Malhado, or Island of Doom.134

  The number of survivors dwindled from one hundred to four men after disease, starvation, and attacks killed the rest, including Narváez, leaving only Cabeza de Vaca, Estevánico, Dorantes, and Castillo. Cabeza de Vaca later recounted, “We were in such a state that our bones could easily be counted and we looked like the picture of death.”135 The four men continued west on foot, through what would be today’s Texas, later crossing the Río Grande, encountering many chiefdoms of Native Americans. At times they were captives, but Cabeza de Vaca and the others were later apparently transformed into healers, called upon to “bless the sick, breathe upon them, recite a Pater Noster and Ave Maria, and pray earnestly to God our Lord for their recovery.”136

  After what seemed to be an endless time spent walking—by this point they had been on the expedition for eight years and covered something approaching six thousand miles—around March 1536 they encountered “four Christians on horseback” who were puzzled by the four men on the road, as they were not Indian and yet did not seem to be Spanish. Cabeza de Vaca later recalled that “they were dumbfounded at the sight of me, strangely undressed and in the company of Indians. They just stood staring for a long time.” He had to request that they “take me to your captain,” who was Diego de Alcaraz, then in charge of the town of Culiacán.137 The men had walked all the way from Florida to northwest New Spain. In losing themselves they had found an overland connection in this seemingly endless New World.

  Once his contact with Spaniards was secure, Cabeza de Vaca’s journey came to an end, though he still had to make his way to Mexico City and then Veracruz, where his attempt to return to Spain was ruined by a storm that capsized his ship. His
account of his adventures in North America, initially titled La Relación and published in 1542, is a fascinating document, but not an anthropological one. Although it has its modern uses in efforts to piece together a picture of Native American life, its language is mystical, dwelling on Cabeza de Vaca’s own transformation from a captive to a miracle worker. It is nonetheless an epic tale, of suffering and violence, but also of mythic proportions, with startling reversals of fortune keeping the four men alive while they walked through the valley of death.*

  His years of tribulations were still not enough to diminish Florida’s lure. Not long after Cabeza de Vaca’s return to Spain in 1537, Hernando de Soto wanted to set sail for La Florida.138 De Soto was an experienced conquistador, having been involved in exploits in Peru, and in 1538 was named the governor of Cuba and given the adelantamiento of Florida.139 He, too, was convinced that the land held secret riches, and fell upon clues such as the account of Cabeza de Vaca, who at one point had been given “five emerald arrowheads,” though scholars think the stone was the less valuable malachite.140 In fact, de Soto tried—and failed—to convince Cabeza de Vaca to join him.141

  De Soto set out from Spain with around 840 people and nine ships, with all the necessary tools and weapons for settlement.142 They stopped in Cuba, and then headed north, landing at Bahía Honda (Deep Bay), around present-day Tampa Bay, in May 1539. Writing from his ship on July 9, de Soto said the natives told him about the “many merchants among them, and much trade and abundance of gold and silver and many pearls. I pray to God that it is so, because I do not believe anything that I do not see … since they know and have had it told to them that if they lie to me it will cost them their lives.”143