Discovery Of The Americas, 1492-1800 (Discovery & Exploration)

DISCOVERY

& E X P LO R AT I O N

Discovery of the Americas 1492–1800

] TOM SMITH JOHN S. BOWMAN and MAURICE ISSERMAN General Editors

Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800 Copyright © 2005 by Tom Smith Captions copyright © 2005 by Facts On File, Inc. Maps pages 2, 12, 20, 21, 32, 41, 46, 47, 55, 73, 78, 82, 90, 96, 113, 122, 130, 137, 142, 150, 151, 159, 181 copyright © 2005 by Facts On File, Inc. Maps pages 9, 176 copyright © 2005 by Carl Waldman All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher. For information contact: Facts On File, Inc. 132 West 31st Street New York NY 10001 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Smith, Tom. Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800 / Tom Smith. p. cm.—(Discovery and exploration) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8160-5262-X 1. America—Discovery and exploration—Juvenile literature. 2. Explorers— America—History—Juvenile literature. 3. Explorers—America—Biography— Juvenile literature. I. Title. II. Series. E101.S65 2005 909'.09812—dc22 2004016155 Facts On File books are available at special discounts when purchased in bulk quantities for businesses, associations, institutions, or sales promotions. Please call our Special Sales Department in New York at (212) 967-8800 or (800) 322-8755. You can find Facts On File on the World Wide Web at http://www.factsonfile.com Text design by Erika K. Arroyo Cover design by Pehrsson Design Maps by Sholto Ainslie, Patricia Meschino, and Dale Williams Printed in the United States of America VB FOF 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 This book is printed on acid-free paper.

To Laraine Smith, my mother, for a lifetime of keeping the faith in good things and To Terry Masai, for reading to me when I was a boy and so much more. —T. S.

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Note on Photos { Many of the illustrations and photographs used in this book are old, historical images. The quality of the prints is not always up to current standards, as in some cases the originals are from old or poor-quality negatives or are damaged. The content of the illustrations, however, made their inclusion important despite problems in reproduction.

Contents { Acknowledgments Introduction

1 COLUMBUS RETURNS TO SPAIN

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Route of Columbus’s First Voyage, 1492

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The People Who Greeted Columbus

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Native Americans Inhabiting Areas First Visited by Columbus, 1492

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2 THE WORLD IN 1492

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Europe, ca. 1520

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Navigating at Sea in 1492

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Native American Culture Areas, ca. 1492 Major Societies of the Americas, ca. 1500

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Books in the Age of Columbus

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3 THE FOUR VOYAGES OF COLUMBUS

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Routes of Columbus’s Second, Third, and Fourth Voyages, 1493–1504

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The Encomienda Disease in the New World

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4 A NEW WORLD: 1500–1519

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The Treaty of Tordesillas

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Disputed Route of Amerigo Vespucci, 1497–1498

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Naming America

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Vasco Núñez de Balboa’s Route to Discovery of the Pacific Ocean, 1513

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Route of Juan Ponce de León, 1513

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Legacy of the Maya

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5 CORTÉS THE EXPLORER

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Hernán Cortés’s Routes to and in Mexico, 1519–1521

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Native Civilizations of Mexico

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6 PIZARRO, PERU, AND SOUTH AMERICA: 1531–1683

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The Inca Empire

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Spanish Expeditions to Peru and Chile, 1524–1542

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The Legend of El Dorado

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Francisco de Orellana’s Route down the Amazon River, 1541–1542

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The Exploration of South America Continues

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7 CABEZA DE VACA’S EPIC JOURNEY

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Probable Route of Pánfilo de Narváez’s Expedition, 1528

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Conquistadores and “Cows”: The American Buffalo

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Four Interpretations of Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca’s Journey, 1528–1536

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8 HERNANDO DE SOTO AND “LA FLORIDA”

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The Requerimiento

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Hernando de Soto’s Route, 1539–1542, and Luis de Moscoso’s Route, 1542–1543

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9 CORONADO AND THE SEVEN CITIES

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Seven Cities of Cíbola

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Routes of Francisco Vásquez de Coronado and Secondary Expeditions, 1540–1542

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10 CHARTING THE COAST OF CALIFORNIA

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Expeditions along the Pacific Coast, 1542–1603

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Improvements in Mapmaking Strait of Anian

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Route of Sebastián Vizcaíno, 1602–1603

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11 NEW MEXICO AND THE GULF COAST: THE 1600s

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Routes of Major Expeditions of Juan de Oñate, 1598–1605

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The Pueblo Revolts

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René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle’s Failed Expedition, 1684–1687

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Excavating La Salle’s Ship

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12 THE ROAD TO CALIFORNIA: THE 1700s

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Routes of Expeditions in the Southwest and California, 1769–1793 Missions Founded by Father Junípero Serra, 1769–1782

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The Role of California Missions

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13 CHARTING THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST: THE 1700s

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Expeditions along the Northern Pacific Coast, 1774–1795

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The Nootka Convention

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14 THE NEW WORLD IN 1800

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Scientists Descend on South America

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Introduction and Spread of the Horse into North America, 1600–1775

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Horses Return to the New World

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The Americas, 1800

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Glossary Further Information Index

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Acknowledgments { Every history book stands on the shoulders of people who recorded the original events or collected firsthand accounts: in journals, art, or photographs; through the oral tradition; in government reports; and in other ways. For their help in obtaining such material for this book, special thanks to the staff of the Cheshire Public Library and the people who keep Connecti-

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cut’s interlibrary loan system working so well. I would like to thank Ed and Elizabeth Frost Knappman at New England Publishing Associates for their much appreciated encouragement and support. I would also like to especially thank John Bowman, my editor, whose guidance and patience were essential to seeing this project through.

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Introduction { When I talk about America, I’m talking about the continent. Everybody who’s born in the continent of America is an American. . . . We have to deal with the fact that we’re all here—nobody’s going to leave—and we might as well make the best of it. Let’s play our strengths as opposed to our differences, with respect, and we’ll get somewhere. —Ruben Blades, introducing Buscando America (Searching for America)

At the end of the 15th century, the lords of Peru’s Inca culture were certain that the known world stopped at the borders of their empire, which was then one of the largest on Earth. At that same moment, a Genoese mariner set sail on the other side of the globe on a high-risk, low-investment business venture. His sponsors were rulers of a regional culture whose self-important sense of their place in the universe was not radically different from that of the Inca and other civilizations of the Western Hemisphere. The mariner— Christopher Columbus—was unintentionally about to change life in both hemispheres forever. This book, Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800, tells the stories of explorers whose travels made major contributions to these changes.

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The world’s perspective of Columbus’s voyages has evolved over the centuries. For several hundred years, historians forgot Columbus, who went to his grave mistakenly certain that the lands he had encountered were extremities of Asia. First contact between the lands of the Western Hemisphere—the Americas—and people from other continents has been ascribed to numerous nationalities, with proof whose authenticity wildly varies. Over the years, scholars have offered theories and evidence of the “discovery of America” by, among others, Irish, Welsh, Phoenician, African, Chinese, and Roman sailors. None of these possible landings, however, had a significant effect on world history. The Norse Vikings did come to North America from Europe in the 11th century, but their primary mission was not exploration, xiii

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their contact with Native peoples of the Americas had no impact, and the fact that they had been to the Americas was not known beyond their homelands. Exchanges between the civilizations of the Americas, Europe, and Africa that define the world as it is known today began with Columbus. The symbolic weight that comes with that distinction, however, is a different matter. Once ignored and forgotten, Columbus’s actual deeds—and misdeeds— are newly appraised with the arrival of each centennial anniversary of his first voyage. In 1892 most residents of the 44 U.S. states then in existence viewed Columbus as an icon of national progress. The scene was quite different 100 years later, when filmmaker/ historian Zvi Dor-Ner and coauthor William Scheller anticipated the controversy of the imminent Columbus Quincentennial. In Columbus and the Age of Discovery, their book accompanying the 1991 PBS television series, Dor-Ner and Scheller enumerated various attitudes with which Columbus is remembered in modern times: He is reviled by Native Americans, revered by Italian- and IrishAmerican Catholics, and viewed in complex shades of gratitude, revulsion, or indifference across the Caribbean, Central America, South America, and Europe. In the year that followed Dor-Ner and Scheller’s series and the accompanying book, the absence of consensus was inescapable. The city of Genoa, Italy, celebrated its native son. Native American groups and the city of Berkeley, California, declared an alternative holiday, Indigenous Peoples Day—not to be confused with the annual August 8 United Nations–sponsored global holiday, International Day of the World’s Indigenous People— to avoid honoring Columbus’s legacy of conquest and genocide. While 500 sailing ships raced from Spain to the Bahamas to commemorate Columbus’s navigational feats,

Spanish embassies in Latin America tensely increased security, as Indian groups demonstrated in Mexico, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Colombia. New York City hosted two parades: one celebrating the Spanish lineage of Columbus’s voyages, another to honor his Italian heritage. Schoolchildren visited reconstructions of Columbus’s ships. Italian-American and American Indian groups confronted each other in Denver, Colorado. Perhaps no town in the Americas illustrated the divided perceptions better than Sandwich, Massachusetts, where the board of selectmen unanimously approved two resolutions offered by local residents: one lauding Columbus for bringing Christianity, immigration, and cultural exchange to the New World, the other condemning him for bringing war, disease, and cultural destruction. While the morality of Columbus’s actions and his symbolic importance deserve to figure in appraisals of him as a historical figure, they are only part of the story. A more illuminating recent trend instead pays increased, respectful attention to all implications of the transformation of the Americas that started in 1492, allowing a multidisciplinary look at what the subsequent meeting of cultures has meant to the modern world. This approach to what has become known as the Columbian Exchange opens ways of understanding how the “age of discovery” influences—and is influenced by— studies of ethnicity, religion, science, art, technology, language, and nature. Credit for initiating this concept goes to Alfred W. Crosby, whose The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492 (originally published in 1972) details how the Americas and Europe were profoundly changed by biological factors, including transatlantic movement of deadly diseases, as well as the introduction of crops and animals to lands where they were previously unknown.

Introduction Despite 500 years of intercultural contact, genuine efforts to understand the ancient cultures of the New World and early exploration efforts remain in their relative infancy. New technology and archaeological methods refresh the ongoing process. Archaeologists are still unearthing ruins in Central America and proposing new theories about the mysterious decline of the “Golden Age” of Maya civilization. A team of archaeologists and explorers announced in 2003 that infrared aerial photography had revealed the overgrown but ambitious Inca city of Llactapata, within sight of the better-known ruins of the lost Inca city of Machu Picchu. Bone analysis still attempts to unravel the question of whether or not syphilis existed in Europe before the return voyages of Columbus. By chemically analyzing the mineral content of the ink of the Vinland map, former Smithsonian Institution researcher Jacqueline Olin tried to determine the authenticity of this controversial map, whose outlines suggest that some Europeans were aware of the existence of North America before Columbus set sail; although she concluded that the ink could have been made before 1492, it seems unlikely that the controversy will end. Field research continues in the Amazon River basin, much of which is still unexplored. The leader of the first European expedition down the Amazon, Francisco Orellana, claimed to have seen evidence of thriving civilizations in remote jungles, which later researchers considered incapable of supporting such large populations. Recently, however, soil analysis by separate research groups from the University of Vermont and the University of Florida has produced evidence that the massive settlements and roadways Orellana claimed to have seen in 1542 did exist. Excavation of these sites has only recently begun.

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The modern presentation of such finds is also more illuminating than ever. An exhibition devoted to archaeologist Hiram Bingham’s rediscovery of the lost Inca city of Machu Picchu began three years of traveling around the United States in 2003. Museum visitors were treated to more than displays of obscure artifacts behind panes of glass. The multimedia exhibit included an interactive photographic tour and a video explaining Peruvian geography, the rise and fall of Inca society, daily life in Machu Picchu, and the dramatic story of Bingham’s expedition. Exhibits offered plentiful information about how archaeological science, ecology, astronomy, metallurgy, human biology, and other sciences relate to understanding Inca life. In addition to displays of crafts in gold, silver, ceramic, bone, and textiles, visitors viewed the tools with which Bingham carried out his 1911 fieldwork. Presentation of knowledge about the New World has come a long way since the people of Barcelona crowded their streets to watch Columbus introduce captive Taino Indians, parrots, and fishbone masks to the Spanish monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella. This book, Discovery of the Americas, 1492– 1800, cannot claim to deal in detail with all these approaches, but it incorporates many of their concepts and findings, while offering students a strong basic narrative for understanding the “opening of the Americas.” Special features of the book include numerous illustrations, helpful maps, a glossary, and a section that provides students not only with nonfiction historical references but also films and fiction inspired by the age of discovery, as well as Web sites that place both rare primary texts and general interpretative matter only a click away. Sidebar essays give greater detail to subjects, from the native civilizations of ancient Mexico to recent events such as the

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Matagorda Bay resurrection of Sieur de La Salle’s frigate, La Belle. Perhaps most important of all its special features, the text continually incorporates first-person, contemporaneous accounts of significant events. The arrival of Hernán Cortés’s army at the island city Tenochtitlán, later site of Mexico City, is seen through the eyes of both Aztec witnesses and a Spanish adventurer. Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca recounts his great story of survival, walking from the coastal islands of Texas across the future border states to western Mexico, on a journey which began amid one of the most violent of European expeditions and ended with Cabeza de Vaca’s transformation into a stubborn advocate for Native American rights. Pedro de Casteñeda, who rode with Francisco Coronado, recounts what happened when Europeans led by Indian guides first halted at the rim of the Grand Canyon. The book also cites the revealing journals of Columbus, the first explorer to actually write about the first meeting of Europeans and Americans. The Europeans who figure in this narrative are predominantly Spaniards. Explorers from other states and nations—notably Genoa, Portugal, Florence, Tyrol, France, England, and eventually the newly constituted United States—make appearances by the book’s endpoint in 1800. Yet some students may be surprised to learn that by the time English settlements were first attempted in Virginia, Spain controlled and administrated imperial colonies that encompassed all the Caribbean, stretched from Peru to the future border between Mexico and the United States, and were envisaged by explorers sailing up the coast of California. When the struggling Pilgrims of Plymouth colony and the Wampanoag tribe were celebrating the first Thanksgiving in the chilly New England autumn of 1621, an entire century had passed since

Cortés had begun building Mexico City amid the rubble he had made of Tenochtitlán, by his own description one of the most beautiful capitals in the world. The premise of so many history books that present the story of America as beginning on the Virginia coast or at Plymouth Rock is replaced in this book by the history of the first explorations to result in an ongoing relationship between the Americas and all of the rest of the world. All peoples are products of the biases of their own eras and cultures, but this book attempts to tell its stories as straightforwardly as possible. To relate the opening of the Americas with as little bias as possible requires a stylistic shift away from both the idealized history books of 50, 100, or 150 years ago and the harshly critical texts of more recent “revisionists.” Plain speech can be sufficiently powerful and accurate when dealing with figures whose actions, for better or worse, today seem larger than life. Historians of bygone eras described adventurers whose actions now appear grotesque as “valiant” or “intrepid.” Today, writers are free to state things in words that, with the added clarity of hindsight, shine a truer light on the original events and participants. Historian Michael Golay’s succinct 2003 description of Hernando de Soto as “bold, tough, and homicidal” in North American Exploration, for example, might not have cleared an editor’s desk in earlier times, but Golay’s short phrase reflects more of the harsh complexity of the de Soto story than an entire chapter of antiquated hyperbole. One of the ironies of the age of discovery is the scarcity of explorers who profited from their initiative. For all but a handful, their achievements could not stave off miserable ends: neglect, scorn, poverty, murder, imprisonment, political execution, drowning, or death from sickness or war. A few managed to

Introduction die peacefully but seldom in their own beds. Eliminating stereotypes of fearless navigators, proud conquistadores, tireless missionaries, and an assortment of Native American clichés hardly drains the drama from American history. The exploration of the Americas was crowded with true stories of real physical stamina, bravery, greed, charity, ingenuity, almost unimaginable cruelty, cooperation, treachery, and wonder. Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800 was written with the attitude that the real story is an improvement on romantic invention. The word discovery, in this book, is used in its most literal sense. In reaction to centuries of Eurocentric historians, who downplayed or ignored the sophistication of the New World civilizations awaiting Columbus and explorers who followed in his wake, it became popular in the late 20th century to argue that Columbus did not “discover” anything. After all, goes the reasoning, it is both wrong and

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arrogant to claim to have “found” peoples whose own sense of their existence and land was never in any doubt. Whatever their faults as men, however, Columbus and those who followed him were discoverers—literally, people who revealed the existence of things that were previously unknown, not just to Europeans, but to all the participants in these historical encounters. In assembling the cast of explorers in these pages, the mere plunderers and the story of subsequent colonization have mostly been passed over in favor of people whose travels and encounters led to a greater understanding of some aspect of the Americas—geography, native societies, natural resources, cultural and scientific achievements, or whatever other treasures their varying motives led these adventurers to follow. Above all, and as a starting point, this book offers opportunities for students to expand their research—to discover the real America on their own.

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Columbus Returns to Spain The letter in Christopher Columbus’s hands swept away years of rejection and ridicule by everyone who had doubted him. The missive, from King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Queen Isabella I of Castile, the sovereign rulers of Spain, was addressed to “Don Cristóbal Colón, their Admiral of the Ocean Sea, Viceroy and Governor of the Islands that he hath discovered in the Indies.” Columbus—called Colón in Spain—had spent most of the past year at sea, looking for a westward passage from Europe to Asia. Having sailed among islands he named “the Indies,” he sent messages to the Spanish sovereigns as soon as he returned, announcing that his mission had been a success. Without even opening the letter, Columbus knew that his reports had reached his royal patrons. It also told him that the grand titles and rewards he had insisted upon receiving if his voyage was successful were now his. When Columbus opened the letter, dated March 30, 1493, he read that King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella wanted to see him as quickly as possible:

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We have seen your letters and we have taken much pleasure in learning whereof you write, and that God gave so good a result to your labors, and well guided you in what you commenced, whereof He will be well served and we also, and our realms receive so much advantage. It will please God that, beyond that wherein you serve Him, you should receive from us many favors . . . we desire that you come here forthwith, therefore for our service make the best haste you can in your coming, so that you may be timely provided with everything you need; and because as you see the summer has begun, and you must not delay in going back there, see if something cannot be prepared in Seville or in other districts for your returning to the land which you have discovered.

There had never been any doubt in Columbus’s own mind that he would reach Asia by sailing west. By presenting his proof at the royal court at Barcelona, he would show everyone that he was neither a dreamer nor a lunatic. 1

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THE ROAD TO BARCELONA The way to this moment of great personal triumph was years in the making. Even after a lifetime of sailing the seas off Europe and West Africa, studying navigational theories, and poring over maps had convinced the 41-yearold mariner that reaching “the Indies” was possible, Columbus’s dream had been stalled by years of fruitless pleading with those who had the power to help. The leaders of Portugal, France, and England rejected his proposals.

The Spanish monarchs rejected him twice over a period of eight years before giving him the meager resources with which he accomplished his feat. At sea he had endured weeks of worry over restless crews, who could mutiny at any moment and demand a return to Spain. His flagship, the Santa Maria, had been wrecked and abandoned. Violent winter storms nearly sent his remaining two small ships to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean on the voyage home. His men had been arrested and briefly detained by overzealous Portuguese authori-

Columbus Returns to Spain

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A FACE IN THE CROWD

Christopher Columbus landed on the islands of Cuba, Hispaniola (now Haiti and the Dominican Republic), San Salvador, and Guadeloupe in late 1492. This woodcut appeared in a book about Columbus’s voyage to the Americas published in 1494. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZC4-4806])

ties in the Azores. Then, stopping in Portugal while homeward bound for Spain, Columbus himself had escaped the plotting of Portuguese courtiers who wanted their king to have the mariner killed to prevent news of his success from becoming known. Against tremendous odds, Columbus was now safely in Spain, eagerly awaiting the moment when he could describe his discoveries to the king and queen.

When Columbus and his entourage rode through the streets of Barcelona on April 20, 1493, one of the curious onlookers was 18year-old Bartolomé de Las Casas. The young man’s father would sail with Columbus when the admiral returned to “the Indies.” Bartolomé himself would later immigrate to Cuba to work as a planter before becoming the first priest ordained in the Western Hemisphere, an important historian, and an impassioned defender of the rights of Native Americans, whose cruel mistreatment at the hands of his countrymen outraged him. Las Casas continued to observe Columbus closely over the years and would become close to the admiral’s brothers and sons, relationships that helped him compile his History of the Indies. By the time the book was completed more than 70 years later—it would not be commercially published for another 300 years—he had personally known many famous (and infamous) explorers: Hernán Cortés, Vasco Núñez de Balboa, Juan Ponce de León, Pánfilo de Narváez, Ferdinand Magellan, and other figures who played great and small parts in Spain’s age of discovery. Las Casas would find much to both admire and criticize in Christopher Columbus. On that day in 1493, however, young Las Casas watched the strange procession passing by. “The entire city came out, so that there was not room for all the people in the streets,” he wrote. “All wondered to see that venerable person who was said to have discovered another world; to see the Indians, parrots, jewels, and gold things he had discovered.” The common people of Barcelona and Spanish nobility alike watched, Las Casas’s account continued, as Columbus reached a canopied platform that the sovereigns had ordered built to receive him in full public view.

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Shown in an 1870 lithograph, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella received Columbus at court in 1493 after his first voyage to the Americas, which they sponsored. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-96536])

Ferdinand and Isabella arrived, surrounded by noblemen and religious officials. Columbus was motioned toward the royal thrones. Columbus kneeled and kissed their hands as a sign of respect. The king and queen ordered that a chair be brought out so that Columbus could sit before them, which was a great honor. The admiral presented the fascinated court with proof that could only have come from exotic lands. “Don Christopher Columbus,” remembered Las Casas, “carried very beautiful red-tinged green parrots, and guaycas, which were masks made of a collection of fishbones

arranged like pearl-seed, and some belts of the same material, fashioned with admirable craftsmanship; also a great quantity and variety of very fine gold, and many other things never before seen or heard of in Spain.” Columbus described the wide bays and forested mountains he had found in the Indies, islands that would one day be named the Bahamas, Cuba, and Hispaniola (home to the nations of Haiti and the Dominican Republic). He handed his royal patrons jewelry and nuggets he had brought back from his travels. “He asserted,” Las Casas wrote, “the

Columbus Returns to Spain infinite amount of gold shown in those lands and his confidence that it would restore the royal treasury—as if he had already collected it and deposited it under his keys. And likewise what was of greater weight and a rare treasure, he described the multitude, simplicity, mildness, nakedness, and certain customs of their peoples, and their fit disposition and capability . . . for being led to our holy faith.” To prove the gentle nature of the Taino people of whom he spoke, Columbus had kidnapped at least 20 from their home islands

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and brought them to Spain, intending to teach them Spanish and use them as interpreters. Most had died during the difficult voyage. Seven survivors, now baptized, were presented to the court. Months earlier, these same Taino men had stood on faraway beaches, marveling at the strange beards, heavy garments, and pale skin of the tall men who had appeared in their midst. Now, amid the elaborate pageantry of the court at Barcelona, the short, beardless Taino were the fascinating center of attention.

Some of the Native peoples Columbus encountered on his voyage were the Taino, a few of whom he captured and brought back to Spain with him to present to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella. In this early 20th-century photograph, some Taino sit near a typical hut located on the island of Puerto Rico. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-D4-16745])

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The People Who Greeted Columbus

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The first people Columbus met in the Americas were Taino, one of a group of Caribbean tribes linked by their common use of the Arawak language. Arawak speakers lived throughout the Caribbean, from the southern tip of Florida to islands off the northern coast of South America. Numerous words derived from Arawak survive in usage today, including canoe, tobacco, hammock, iguana, and Haiti. The Arawak-speaking tribes depended mainly on fishing and farming for survival. Their peaceful society made them easily exploitable by Spanish colonists, who replaced their previous major threat, the Carib, a people from neighboring islands. The Carib were a seagoing tribe from the Lesser Antilles island chain (which includes the Leeward Islands, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, and islands off the northern coast of Venezuela). A branch of the tribe also lived on the northeastern coastline of South America. The words cannibal and Caribbean are both derived from Arawak words describing the Carib, who raided Arawak communities. Scholars today debate whether Taino accusations that the Carib were cannibals are historically accurate or were invented by Columbus in his journals. Columbus’s men clashed with the Carib while exploring the waters surrounding St. Croix. As a declaration of friendship during his first voyage, Columbus promised the Taino of Hispaniola that the sovereigns of Spain would protect them by ordering the Carib destroyed. Within 100 years, One of the Native peoples Columbus however, both the Arawak and encountered on his voyages were the Carib, Carib cultures had been anni- who lived on the islands of the Lesser Antilles. hilated by European diseases, This 1880s engraving depicts a Carib man forced labor, and wars lost to holding a bow and arrows. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-108521]) Spanish colonists.

Columbus Returns to Spain

DREAMS AND NIGHTMARES OF A NEW WORLD At the same moment Columbus was regaling the royal court with descriptions of beautiful islands full of gold and souls waiting to be baptized, a nightmare was unfolding at La Navi-

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dad, the outpost he had left on the northern coast of Haiti. After the wrecking of the Santa Maria, Columbus had recruited 39 volunteers and instructed them to build a colony. When Columbus sailed for Spain to report his discoveries, the colonists busied themselves brutalizing the Taino, ordering them to provide the

Columbus’s expedition to the Americas in 1492 included the Santa Maria, his flagship; the Niña, and the Pinta. Replicas of all three ships were built for the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. The replica of the Santa Maria is shown in this 1893 photograph. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-D4-21178])

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tiny outpost with increasingly more food and gold. The colonists, who miscalculated the limits to which the peaceful Taino would endure such behavior, would pay for this arrogance with their lives. In Barcelona on the day of Columbus’s arrival at the Spanish court, however, the atmosphere hummed with rejoicing and anticipation of great things to come. The monarchs finished listening to their guest’s tales of the Indies and the singers of the royal chapel were signaled to chant the Christian hymn Te Deum. Las Casas reported that there were tears in the eyes of the monarchs, Columbus, and others present. After the ceremony, Columbus—a Genoese merchant’s son, now honored by the rulers of Spain’s growing empire—was shown to his lodgings. The admiral was thinking ahead. He was ready to set sail again, intent on following the islands he had discovered to the court of the Grand Khan of China or to the imperial palaces of Japan. Flushed with glory and wary of competitors, Columbus was already planning to outfit a fresh expedition and again set sail toward the western horizon.

A NEW WORLD By the time Columbus set sail a second time, his first voyage was common knowledge throughout Spain. Gossip and rumor helped spread the news. Educated Italians and Germans living in Portugal and Spain wrote to their friends and families at home, spreading details of the voyage across southern Europe with surprising speed. Columbus’s initial written report to Ferdinand and Isabella, later known as his “Letter on the First Voyage,” reached Barcelona so quickly that it was printed and distributed publicly even before Columbus’s arrival at court. Gradually, copies of his report were seen throughout Europe.

European intellectuals who were fascinated by Columbus’s first voyage believed, as he did, that the islands he had reached lay somewhere off the eastern shores of Asia, then sometimes called the “antipodes” (from the Greek words meaning “opposing feet,” reflecting the notion that the feet of the people inhabiting the opposite parts of the Earth would come up against each other). Such scholars included Queen Isabella’s chaplain, an Italian priest and perceptive geographer named Pietro Martire d’Anghiera. Better known as Peter Martyr, he witnessed Columbus’s return to Spain in 1492 and was both fascinated by and skeptical of the admiral’s grand claims. Reflecting the current misperceptions about the size of the Earth, political tensions between Spain and Portugal, and a sense of what the discovery might mean, Martyr wrote: A certain Colonus [Columbus] has sailed to the western antipodes, even to the Indian coast, as he believes. He has discovered many islands which are thought to be those of which mention is made by cosmographers, beyond the eastern ocean and adjacent to India. I do not wholly deny this, although the size of the globe seems to suggest otherwise, for there are not wanting those who think the Indian coast to be a short distance from the end of Spain. . . . Enough for us that the hidden half of the globe is brought to light, and the Portuguese daily go farther and farther beyond the equator. Thus shores hitherto unknown will soon become accessible.

Peter Martyr had no way of knowing what future landings on and departures from those “shores hitherto unknown” would mean to the course of human history. His skepticism about Columbus’s claims faded as he studied the

Columbus Returns to Spain

western voyages and personally met explorers like Vasco Núñez de Balboa and renowned pilot Antón de Alaminos. Opportunities to meet such participants allowed Martyr broad access to information about the civilizations of the Americas. Writing extensively after 1511, he spread his findings throughout Europe. In 1530, four years after his death, his collected writings were published in Latin under the title De Orbe Novo—“The New World”—thus coining a phrase used by future generations to describe the Western Hemisphere. By then, Europeans, although they had at first been slow to abandon the idea that

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lands discovered by Columbus were part of Asia—were accepting that the Americas were continents distinct from Asia. This was a revelation that Columbus would never share. He once wrote in his journal that he had discovered “a very great continent which until today has been unknown”—and even referred to it as “an Other World”—but he remained convinced that he could find a landmass linking it to China. Many years would pass before anyone on either side of the Atlantic Ocean would realize how wrong he was, yet how important his mistake would become.

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The World in 1492 In 1492, as Christopher Columbus regaled the Spanish court with tales of primitive islands brimming with gold and, as he said in his original letter to the king, inhabitants who “might conceive affection for us and, more than that, become Christians,” he had no idea that the world he had stumbled across in his quest to reach Asia was as complex as the continent from which he had set forth. The societies of the Western Hemisphere were as varied as the highly structured Aztec Empire Hernán Cortés would soon find dominating Mexico and the primitive tribes with whom Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca would soon wander naked along the Texas coast. The peaceful Taino people who greeted Columbus had little knowledge of weaponry, while the powerful Inca empire of Peru— larger than the empire of Spain—would soon be shaken by a civil war as bloody as the devastating European feudal and religious conflicts of the same era. Although the Maya culture of Central America had passed its prime, the Maya’s mathematical genius and architectural achievements rivaled those of any world culture.

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EUROPEANS TAKE TO THE SEA While Columbus was wrong to assume that he had discovered an uncomplicated paradise, at that moment in world history a combination of politics, religion, and technology increased the chance that ships flying flags of Spanish royalty would be the first to open a busy route between Europe and the Americas. The Vikings had come to North America in the 11th century, but their primary mission was not exploration, their contact with Native peoples of the Americas had no impact, and the fact that they had been to the Americas was not known beyond their homelands (for full coverage of this, see the Exploration in the World of the Middle Ages volume). In 1492 no other region of the world was as actively engaged in exploration by sea as were the powers along Europe’s Mediterranean coast. China, whose skilled mariners and sturdy ships had journeyed to Arabia and the coast of East Africa, had withdrawn from longdistance voyaging by imperial order in the early 1400s. Arab mariners had settled into a

The World in 1492

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Based on Ptolemy’s writings, this map was published in 1492 and shows the world as known to ancient Greeks and Romans. Before the discovery and exploration of the Americas, this map was probably considered an authoritative geographical source. (Library of Congress)

profitable routine of seasonal travel to trading ports in India and the South China Sea. By 1492 many Asians and Arabians were well aware of Europe because of long-standing overland contacts. However, they had little interest in making any sea voyages beyond their immediate regions for a variety of political and religious reasons, as well as the fact that Asian and Arabian trade routes were already prosperous and not in need of further development. Meanwhile, the inhabitants of the Western Hemisphere—what would soon become known as the Americas—remained

completely unknown to the rest of the world. Similarly, the rest of the world was unknown to the people of the Americas. A few Native American cultures, such as the Maya and the Inca, possessed vessels used for coastal trade, but none capable of crossing oceans. Believing that they dominated the center of the world, the most advanced Native American civilizations had never had contact with cultures far beyond the borders of their own empires. This was about to change. Europeans had read descriptions of the empires and wealth of Asia in Venetian

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adventurer Marco Polo’s Description of the World (1298), but most readers—with the notable exception of Columbus—considered Polo’s stories about China and Japan to be nothing more than entertaining fantasies. Even as the merchants of the city-states of northern Italy scoffed at Polo, their cities were home to the best schools of maritime chartmaking of the time. Evaluating geographical exploration was a serious scholarly pursuit. The ranks of Italian-born explorers of the late 1400s and 1500s included Columbus, Amerigo Vespucci, John Cabot (Giovanni Caboto), and Giovanni da Verrazano. Yet with the exception of Verrazano, who was backed by France, all of these navigators sailed for Spain. Their crews came mostly from Portugal or Spain, whose seaports offered an abundant

supply of experienced sailors and pilots. Portuguese captains trained under the patronage of Prince Henry the Navigator, who founded an important institute of navigational and geographical studies at Sagres in southwestern Portugal. Mariners trained at Sagres made increasingly determined attempts to explore southward along the coast of West Africa in the 1400s. Prince Henry’s mariners voyaged west to Madeira, the Azores, and the Canary Islands, transforming the neglected Atlantic islands into Portuguese outposts. Overcoming superstition and contrary ocean currents by the mid-1400s, repeated voyages ordered by Prince Henry probed the West African coastline, establishing colonies, starting the European trade in African slaves that would later spread to the Americas,

The World in 1492 and occasionally exploring inland. In December 1488 a small fleet led by Portuguese captain Bartholomeu Dias returned to Lisbon with news that it had rounded what would become known as the Cape of Good Hope, the southern tip of Africa. Dias’s voyage, which ended Portuguese royal interest in Columbus’s proposal to sail west to Asia, confirmed that African coastal waters could be used as a route to the Indian Ocean and beyond. Domestic political

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turmoil prevented Spain from pursuing seagoing exploration as avidly as the kingdom of Portugal. In 1492, however, the situation changed drastically.

SPAIN IN 1492 In 1492 Spain was not a nation in the modern sense, but its kingdoms and provinces were more closely allied than they had been in

Instructor of many Portuguese explorers, Prince Henry the Navigator sent 20 ships to explore the Atlantic coast of Morocco before one finally succeeded. (National Archives of Canada)

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Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800 kingdom, increasing a desire to spread the Christian religion. Imperial and religious policy were inseparable in much of Europe in this era. The rulers of Spain felt it was their religious duty to convert the inhabitants of lands where Christianity was not the predominant religion—or to conquer such lands if the inhabitants resisted. Politically, this made 1492 a perfect year for Columbus to ask the court of Ferdinand and Isabella for the resources necessary to reach parts of the world where Christianity might be preached for the first time. The merchants of Spain’s commercial ports were prosperous and open to investing

At various times, King Ferdinand ruled Sicily, Naples, Castile, and León (the latter two jointly with Isabella). In 1492, in addition to Columbus’s first voyage, which Ferdinand and Isabella sponsored, the rulers conquered the only region of Spain not under their control, thereby unifying the country. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ61-253])

centuries. This was due to the 1469 marriage of Isabella I of Castille and Ferdinand II of Aragon, who were determined to unite and strengthen the Spanish empire. Since the early 700s, much of Spain had fallen under the rule of the Moors, North African Muslims; by the late 1200s, however, the Moors’ kingdom was reduced to southern Spain. On January 2, 1492, the forces of Ferdinand and Isabella succeeded in capturing the city of Granada in southern Spain. This marked the end of the Reconquista (Reconquest), the nearly 800-year-old struggle by Spanish Christians and Jews to expel the Muslim Moors from Spain. The Spanish victory left a large number of Spanish soldiers unemployed and available for new conquests. It also spread religious fervor throughout the

Queen Isabella ruled jointly with Ferdinand until her death in 1504. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ61-252])

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One of the three ships Columbus sailed during his first journey was the Pinta, a caravel. This replica was built for the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-D4-5516])

in overseas enterprises. They already traded in northern African countries, France, and England, but were prevented by treaty with Portugal from trading anywhere on the long West African coast. Commercial developers and investors from Columbus’s home state of Genoa and other European countries such as Germany were also active in Spain. Like all European merchants, they stood to benefit by finding a way to purchase valuable spices and silk directly from Asian suppliers, at cheaper prices than those controlled by the

Arab traders who sold transported goods to Europeans in Egyptian markets. In 1492 the Portuguese crown was preoccupied with finding such a route by rounding Africa into the Indian Ocean and had no interest in a dreamer like Columbus.

SHIPS AND MAPS At the end of the 1400s, the port cities of both Spain and Portugal had many experienced shipbuilders. One recent invention that

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Mapmaking in the Mediterranean world changed drastically during the 13th century, resulting in the portolan chart. The world map shown here was drawn as part of the portolan atlas created by Battista Agnese in Venice between 1536 and 1564. (Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division)

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aided mariners of both countries was the caravel, a small ship with three short masts. A caravel’s lateen (triangular) sails enabled it to navigate against the wind, which helped Portuguese mariners to explore the African coast with the certainty that contrary winds would not prevent them from returning home. Caravels were cheaper to build and more maneuverable than the nao, a larger ship whose less adaptable square-rigged sails made it useful mostly for sailing with the wind. Columbus’s flagship, the Santa Maria, was a nao; the Niña and the Pinta were caravels. Portugal’s capital, Lisbon, was also home to some of the best mapmakers in Europe. Columbus and his brother Bartolomé worked in a Lisbon cartographer’s office when they were young men. Mariners navigated along coastlines using charts called portolans (from the Italian portolani, meaning “sailing directions”), which were drawn to scale and showed the location of ports, harbors, river mouths, and other landmarks visible from the sea. These charts improved as the accumulating observations of mariners were included. Portolans, however, did not depict latitude and longitude. In 1884 an international convention fixed the location of the meridian—a north-south line depicting a standard baseline of zero longitude—at Greenwich, England. Before then, cartographers were free to draw the meridian wherever they liked. First-century A.D. Greek astronomer/geographer Ptolemy estimated it to be near the Canary Islands. In 1492 its location depended on the nationality of the mapmaker. Most Portuguese cartographers drew its line through Prince Henry the Navigator’s headquarters at Sagres in southwestern Portugal. Even though its location would not be precisely standardized on all maps for nearly another 400 years, comparing the meridian and other lines to

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Navigating at Sea in 1492 = Celestial navigation—using the stars, including the Sun, to determine latitude or distance north of the equator—was possible in 1492 with the help of handheld instruments such as the astrolabe and the marine quadrant. By sighting the constant position of the North, or Pole, Star with an astrolabe, navigators were able to roughly estimate their distance north of the equator by determining the altitude of the star over the northern horizon. Similarly, the weighted cord hanging from the top of a quadrant would line up along varying degree marks on the instrument’s curved bottom edge when it was sighted on the Pole Star. Ship movement made both the quadrant and the astrolabe somewhat inaccurate. Furthermore, the Pole Star was not visible from or below the equator. Building on the observations of early Arabian and Jewish geographers, Portuguese astronomers of the 1480s had also compiled complicated tables for determining latitude by using the position of the Sun as it moved north and south of the equator with the seasons. The altitude of the Sun at noon would be measured with a quadrant, then compared to tables listing the position or “declination” of the Sun north or south of the equator according to the date. Although Columbus had an astrolabe and a quadrant, he depended primarily on a system called “dead reckoning.” (It is believed that dead was based on the word deduced, meaning “traced from the beginning.”) Without a fixed star on the east or west horizon to play the constant role the Pole Star represented in determining latitude, measuring longitude remained difficult until the 1700s. In 1492 navigators using dead reckoning roughly determined how

landmarks on sea maps enabled navigators to calculate location and direction with increasing accuracy.

THE SIZE OF THE EARTH Contrary to the fable that geographers of Columbus’s time thought the Earth was flat, the spherical shape of the globe was a generally accepted fact in 1492, the same year the first known globe of the Earth was made by German cartographer Martin Behaim (significantly, Behaim’s globe reflected the misconceptions of his time and did not include the

Americas). Most of the Earth—roughly 70 percent—is covered with water. In medieval times, however, European scholars and mapmakers thought the reverse was true. This assumption was based upon an obscure biblical passage that declared that only one-seventh of the Earth was covered with seas. The passage appears in one of a group of chapters sometimes called the apochrypha, whose disputed origins have caused them to be omitted from various editions of the Bible over the centuries. The passage was legitimate to Columbus, who focused on the description of God’s creation of the Earth:

The World in 1492

far east or west their ships had traveled by multiplying their rate of speed by the passage of time. A floating log attached to a knotted rope would be thrown from the stern or rear of the ship. The navigator would time the unspooling of the rope with a sandglass and count the number of knots in the rope (this was the origin of using the word knots to describe the speed of ships). After factoring in changes of direction with the help of a compass, an estimate could be made of how far the ship had traveled in a day. Navigating with these systems was never completely accurate. They were, however, the best methods technology had to offer navigators such as Columbus in 1492.

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This astrolabe, an instrument used to determine latitude, dates to the early 17th century. (National Archives of Canada)

Upon the third day thou didst command that the waters should be gathered in the seventh part of the earth: six parts hast thou dried up, and kept them, to the intent that of these some being planted of God and tilled might serve thee. (2 Esdras 6:42)

Consequently, most of the globe must be land. This misapprehension led Christopher Columbus to optimistically calculate that the Earth was much smaller than it is and that the westward distance from Europe to Asia was relatively short.

The landmasses that geographers mistakenly believed to cover six-sevenths of the Earth were divided by rivers and “the ocean sea,” a single ocean. The modern concept of continents did not exist. The three major landmasses of the known world consisted of Africa, Asia, and Europe, as well as a profusion of islands. The westernmost of these islands in the North Atlantic Ocean—the Canaries, the Azores, and Madeira—were known to European mariners. Portugal was still colonizing the Canary Islands in 1492, developing them into the important supply post they would become for transatlantic

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Although not as abundant as in earlier centuries, misconceptions about the Earth persisted into Columbus’s time. Explorers confronted many dangers, some real and some mythical, such as sea serpents. Published in the early 17th century, this engraving depicts sea serpents attacking a ship. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-65366])

voyages. All of Columbus’s voyages to the Americas set forth from the Canary Islands after leaving Spain.

IMAGINARY KINGDOMS Not every location on maps created in Europe during the Middle Ages was drawn from firsthand knowledge. Some grew from religious mythology. After the Muslim Moors’ invasion of the Iberian Peninsula in A.D. 714, it was said that seven Catholic Portuguese bishops sailed west to a large island, where they founded a prosperous Christian utopia. This mythical island, which appeared due west of Portugal

on some nautical maps of the time, was named Antilia (“opposite island”). Antilia would lend its name to the islands discovered by Columbus in the Caribbean Sea. The Greater Antilles include the largest islands (Cuba, Jamaica, Hispaniola, and Puerto Rico), while the Lesser Antilles include smaller islands lined south from the Virgin Islands to Grenada. As late as 1540, the search for Antilia would obsess Francisco Vásquez de Coronado’s expedition on the North American mainland. Many geographers and mariners believed that such lands existed, even when they were not represented on maps. Some European

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Books in the Age of Columbus = Columbus set sail at a time when Europe was better equipped than ever to spread the word of reported discoveries. Prior to the 1400s, books were created individually, by hand on costly vellum, the finest type of parchment, or animal skin. Most of these books addressed only religious matters and usually never left the monastery libraries where they were produced. Increasingly, however, books were also produced to address secular issues and to record observations of the world. After the introduction in Europe of movable type by German printer Johannes Gutenberg in the 1440s, the number of printing presses and books in Europe skyrocketed. Printing presses quickly spread across Germany, then to Italy, Venice, Spain, Hungary, and Poland. At first, woodcuts were used to illustrate printed books. Soon woodcuts were replaced by printing plates engraved on copper, thus producing more accurate lines and measurements, which were especially useful to navigators. Starting in the mid-1400s, printers began translating and publishing texts written by the ancient Greeks. The rediscovery of the work of first-century A.D. Greek astronomer/geographer Claudius Ptolemaeus—better known as Ptolemy—spurred interest in cartography and exploration. In 1477 a Latin translation of Ptolemy’s Guide to Geography was published in the Italian city of Bologna. Other Italian and German editions followed soon thereafter. The increasing accuracy of maps helped navigators, who in turn improved maps when they returned to port with new information about the places they had visited. The explosion in printed knowledge continued without interruption until the mid-1500s, when censorship by church and royal authorities imposed controls on what had been an unrestricted flow of information.

explorers would seek the kingdom of Prester John, a legendary Christian priest who was thought to govern a wealthy empire somewhere in Asia or Africa. Prester John and islands like Antilia were myths, but in 1492 they were considered to be real by European explorers, including Columbus, who hoped to find them. To his surprise—and, ironically, his disappointment—Columbus would reach neither these

imaginary kingdoms nor the great empires of Asia. Instead he encountered a hemisphere whose existence was a complete surprise to the best geographers of his time, changing longheld views of the world that Middle Eastern, African, and European mapmakers and sailors had shared for centuries. The new sea routes opened by his voyages would change history on both sides of the ocean forever.

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The Four Voyages of Columbus Like a surprising number of explorers of his time, Christopher Columbus died forgotten by the public and ignored by those who benefited most from his voyages of discovery. Luckily, his travels were documented through his shipboard logs from his first and third voyages and related documents, even though many of the original manuscripts are lost. In preparing a biography published in Italy in 1571, his son Ferdinand used the journals in which Columbus described his first voyage to Ferdinand and Isabella, the king and queen of Spain. Dominican missionary and historian Father Bartolomé de Las Casas summarized the text of the journals in his Historia de las Indias (History of the Indies). Las Casas’s book, however, remained unpublished until 1875, three centuries after his death. Despite the flawed reprinting of the surviving journals, they reflect Columbus’s travels and his attitudes about the lands he explored.

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SAILOR FROM GENOA Cristoforo Colombo is the actual birth name of the navigator the English-speaking world knows as Christopher Columbus. In Spain, whose monarchs funded his voyages to the Americas, he was called Cristóbal Colón. He was born in 1451 in Genoa, a powerful citystate that did not formally become part of the nation of Italy until 1861. In Columbus’s time, Genoa was one of the most important financial centers in Europe. Columbus was born into a family of woolen merchants. By the time he was a young man, however, he had become an experienced mariner who had traveled throughout the Mediterranean, south to West Africa, and north as far as England, Ireland, and the waters off Iceland. Some people have claimed that Columbus learned of the existence of the New World from Icelanders, descendants of the Vikings who had voyaged to Newfoundland about the year 1000, but most scholars do not accept this theory.

The Four Voyages of Columbus

Sebastiano del Piombo completed this portrait, believed to be of Columbus in 1519, 14 years after the explorer’s death. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-103980])

The possibility that Asia could be reached by sailing west was accepted by some geographers of the era, but none of the European maritime powers were willing to support such a risky and potentially dangerous enterprise. No one knows how Columbus became obsessed with his belief that such a voyage was possible. By the time he was commanding ships, he had plenty of practical experience at sea and access to the charts of his late father-in-law Bartholomew Perestrello, a seasoned navigator. Columbus corresponded directly with Paulo Toscanelli, a respected Florentine scholar who believed that Asia could be reached by sailing

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west. Toscanelli had provided the king of Portugal with a world map upon which an ocean separated the coasts of Europe and Asia. The map, however, depicted nothing but open sea where the Americas lie and greatly underestimated the distance between the Canary Islands and Japan, which Toscanelli computed to be only 3,000 nautical miles, far less than the actual 10,600-mile distance. Columbus’s own calculations owed less to Toscanelli than to French cardinal Pierre d’Ailly, author of a geographical work called Imago Mundi (Image of the world), which stated with certainty that Spain and India were within sailing distance of each other. In d’Ailly’s treatise Columbus found the calculations of the ninth-century Arab astronomer Al-Farghani, also called Alfraganus. Columbus misinterpreted Al-Farghani’s calculation that each degree of latitude at the equator was approximately 66 nautical miles (today the figure is computed to be 60 miles). Thinking the figure to be only 45 miles per degree, Columbus calculated the distance between Japan and Europe to be a mere 2,400 nautical miles. Although this was a significant distance to mariners of the era, Columbus’s belief that he would encounter islands along the way made it seem worth the risk. All 15th-century geographers underestimated the circumference of the Earth. Columbus’s faulty calculations determined that the Earth was only 25 percent of its actual size. Had he not been so wrong, believing the globe to be so much smaller than it actually is, it is unlikely he could have convinced anyone to fund his voyage.

SEARCHING FOR A PATRON Columbus endured ridicule and waited for years before he found a sponsor for his first

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Columbus required financial support to undertake his journeys to the Americas. Ferdinand and Isabella provided some of that support, allowing the crew to have ample supplies, such as Columbus’s armor, shown in 19th-century photograph. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-108633])

voyage. He first applied unsuccessfully for backing to João II, king of Portugal. Columbus next journeyed to Spain, where in 1486 he gained an audience with the king and queen, Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile. Instead of giving him backing for a voyage, Queen Isabella placed Columbus on a retainer and referred his proposal to a group of schol-

ars called the Talavera Commission, after its chairman, Fray Hernando de Talavera, the queen’s confessor. After several years of study, the Talavera Commission told the Spanish sovereigns, “We can find no justification for their Highnesses’ supporting a project that rests on extremely weak foundations and appears impossible to translate into reality.” In April 1492 Columbus renewed his appeal and was successful. Ferdinand and Isabella signed two “capitulations,” or agreements, detailing what royal support Columbus would receive and the rewards he could expect if his mission was successful. The monarchs promised to “appoint the said Christopher Columbus their Admiral in those Islands and Mainlands which by his labor and industry shall be discovered or acquired in the said Ocean Seas during his life.” He would also be appointed governor of any lands he discovered. These rights would be passed on to his heirs at the time of his death. After expenses were reimbursed, Columbus would be entitled to one-tenth of any “Merchandise whatsoever, whether Pearls, Precious Stones, Gold, Silver, Spiceries, and other Things,” which might be “bought, bartered, found, acquired, or obtained within the limits of the said Admiralty.” The rest would belong to the Spanish Crown. A royal decree required the people of the southern Spanish seaport of Palos to furnish Columbus with two caravels, the Pinta and the Niña. The two ships were respectively captained by two brothers, Martín Alonso Pinzón and Vicente Yáñez Pinzón. For his flagship, Columbus chartered a larger ship, the Santa Maria, owned and commanded by Juan de la Cosa who, like others among the crew members, would sail on important future voyages. All but four of the 90 officers, sailors, and apprentices in the fleet were Spaniards.

The Four Voyages of Columbus

FIRST VOYAGE Columbus’s tiny fleet set sail from Palos on August 3, 1492. After pausing to pick up supplies in the Canary Islands, they headed into unfamiliar Atlantic waters on September 6. Most sea voyages of the era were relatively short. As the days at sea became weeks, the men under Columbus’s command became uneasy. He began to keep two logbooks: In one, he overestimated the expedition’s progress to calm the nerves of the crew, while in the other, he secretly recorded their actual progress. The ships and their restless sailors passed far beyond the point at which Colum-

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bus had calculated they would land at Japan. They were somewhat heartened by signs that land must be somewhere within reach, when migrating birds passed overhead and objects like leaves and tree branches floated past. On the night of October 11, a light was briefly sighted in the distance. The men’s hearts sank when it disappeared. At 2 A.M., more than a month after leaving the Canary Islands, sailor Rodrigo de Triana (also known as Juan Rodríguez Bermejo) sighted a distant small island by moonlight and shouted out the news. At daylight Columbus and the other captains went ashore. Columbus immediately

In 1492 Columbus sailed from the port town of Palos, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean and shown in a 19th-century engraving. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-106031])

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claimed the land for Spain. Inhabitants of the island, who did not understand Columbus’s declaration that they were now Spanish subjects, gathered on the beach, and the first awkward communication between Europeans

and the people of the Americas began. Columbus offered trinkets such as beads, hawks’ bells, and red caps. The islanders replied with gifts of “skeins of spun cotton, and parrots, and darts” and told the Spaniards that their island was called Guanahaní. Columbus gave it the name San Salvador (Holy Savior). Despite later controversy over which island in the Bahamas group Columbus first encountered, it is generally agreed that it was the island that still bears the name San Salvador. The people of the island were Arawakspeaking Taino. All were “naked as their mothers bore them,” Columbus wrote, noting that they were physically attractive and “the color of the Canary Islanders, neither black nor white.” Some wore ornamental body paint. Others showed battle scars. When Columbus inquired in sign language about the wounds, the Taino replied that the scars were the result of fighting off slaving raids from neighboring islands. Trying to please his royal sponsors, Columbus wrote: They ought to be good servants and of good skill, for I see that they repeat very quickly what was said to them. I believe that they would easily be made Christians, because it seemed to me that they belonged to no religion. I, please Our Lord, will carry off six of them at my departure to your Highnesses, that they may learn to speak [Spanish].

The Native peoples Columbus encountered while on his initial voyage included both the Taino and the Carib. Columbus described the Taino as a peaceful people and believed their claims that the Carib were vicious and prone to aggression. This 1880s engraving is of a Carib woman. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-108522])

Although he clearly had not reached a wealthy Asian empire, Columbus noticed the Taino custom of wearing small gold nose pendants. Upon leaving Guanahaní, Columbus determined to search for gold and planned his route accordingly. [T]hose whom I captured on the Island of San Salvador told me that there they wore

The Four Voyages of Columbus very big bracelets of gold on their legs and arms. I well believed that all they said was humbug in order to escape. However, it was my wish to bypass no island without taking possession.

Despite having kidnapped his Taino guides, relations between Columbus’s expedition and the people of each Bahamian island he visited were peaceful and friendly. Columbus was eager to impress his Spanish sponsors of how they might profit from his finds, but his journals also reflect his appreciation of the natural beauty of his discoveries. Of one small island, for example, he wrote: [T]he large groves are very green. Here are some great lagoons, and around them, on the banks, the verdure is marvellous; and round about there is a marvellous amount of woodland, the grass like April in Andalusia, and the singing of the little birds such that it would seem that man would never wish to leave here; and the flocks of parrots obscured the sun. . . . Furthermore—it has trees of a thousand kinds, and all have their kinds of fruit, and all so fragrant.

The Taino told Columbus of a large island they called “Colba.” From their descriptions, Columbus was sure that it must be Japan—in fact, it was the island of Cuba—and set sail in its direction. The expedition did not find Asians or much gold when it reached Cuba, but Europeans who went ashore did notice Taino men and women inhaling smoke from lit bundles of “herbs,” called tobaccos. This custom of smoking tobacco, which was then unknown outside of the Americas, later spread throughout the world. The arrival in Cuba marked the first of many future challenges to Columbus’s leadership. When Martín Alonso Pinzón, the captain of the

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Pinta, learned that gold might be found on an island to the east, he disappeared with his ship, without informing Columbus. The remaining ships sailed southeast along the coast of Cuba’s Oriente province. Because of its size, Columbus concluded that Cuba was not an island but a peninsula attached to China, somewhere to the west. Deciding that he would return in the future to explore this theory, he continued east, reaching the island that would one day be divided into the countries of Haiti and the Dominican Republic. He named it La Isla Española (The Spanish Island), a phrase that was eventually contracted to the name by which it is known today, Hispaniola. Columbus considered Hispaniola to be the most beautiful and peaceful of the islands he had yet encountered. “In all the world, there can be no better or gentler people,” he wrote of its inhabitants. They also wore plentiful gold jewelry, which did not go unnoticed. The sailors were happy to celebrate with their Indian hosts, who threw elaborate feasts for all to enjoy. Near the present-day northern Haitian city of Cap Haitien, Columbus received an invitation to visit a cacique, or tribal leader, named Guacanagarí. Columbus mistook the name of Guacanagarí’s chiefdom, Cibao, for Marco Polo’s name for Japan, Cipangu. Certain that he had at last reached his goal, Columbus ordered the Santa Maria and the Niña to sail along the coast to meet Guacanagarí. On Christmas 1492, disaster struck. That night, against orders, an exhausted sailor handed the Santa Maria’s steering tiller over to an inexperienced ship’s boy, who let the ship drift onto a reef. Coral tore through the ship’s planking, and seawater gradually filled the Santa Maria. With Indian help, Columbus’s men were able to unload all of their supplies and get them ashore before being joined by the Niña.

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THE VOYAGE HOME Columbus was so sure of the divine purpose of his mission that he decided that the wrecking of the Santa Maria at Christmas was a sign from God that he should found a colony in Hispaniola. He recruited 39 volunteers and instructed them to build a base from which to search for gold. The colony would be called Villa de la Navidad (Town of the Nativity). The Niña sailed for Spain on January 4, 1493. Two days later, the Pinta caught up with it, with news of having found plentiful gold in the countryside of Hispaniola. The two ships sailed together across the Atlantic Ocean until mid-February, when a storm separated them. After docking briefly in the Azores and being battered by violent seas all the way to the European mainland, Columbus and the Niña safely reached Portugal on March 4. Hoping to secure safe passage from the Portuguese king, Columbus wrote to João II, who invited the seafarers to visit him at his summer home nearby. João II—who had rejected Columbus’s appeal for help eight years earlier—suspected that Columbus had not visited new lands, but had instead been meddling in Portuguese territory in Africa. Columbus’s captive Taino interpreters, however, convinced João II that the Genoese captain had indeed visited a place of which Europeans were unaware. Resisting advice to have him killed to prevent Spain from profiting by the discovery, the Portuguese king allowed Columbus to travel on. Columbus sent word to the Spanish monarchs that he was en route. He returned to Palos aboard the Niña on March 15. Amazingly, the Pinta sailed into the harbor the same afternoon. Columbus’s warm reception by the royal court at Barcelona was his greatest moment of

triumph. He felt that his navigational theories were vindicated. He was awarded all the honors promised by Spanish royalty. Throughout the rest of his life, however, Columbus’s life as a navigator would become secondary to his battles both in Spain and the lands he called “the Indies” to hold onto those privileges.

SECOND VOYAGE When Columbus embarked on his first voyage, hoping to reach the empires of Asia, he neither intended nor was equipped to colonize land. He still planned to reach China when his second expedition set sail from Cadiz on September 25, 1493, but colonization and religious conversion were now overt goals. In fact, the trip would be successful as a voyage of discovery, but a fiasco as a colonial venture. In contrast to the meager fleet he was able to assemble for his first voyage, vigorous royal support showed in Columbus’s second fleet. It included three large ships, 14 caravels, and 1,500 men. This time he had the benefit of Arawak interpreters. The kidnapped Indians he had presented to the king and queen had learned to speak Spanish. All but one, who remained at the Spanish court, sailed back to the Caribbean. On November 3 the fleet sighted islands in the chain that became known as the Lesser Antilles, including Dominica, Maria Galante, and Guadeloupe. Naming the islands as he progressed, Columbus followed the islands northwest to St. Croix, the Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico, whose original Indian name was Borinquén. On November 27 he arrived at La Navidad, the outpost he had left on Hispaniola. The colony was uninhabited. Columbus learned that the Taino had lost patience with the settlers’ incessant demands for gold and women and had killed them all.

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During his second voyage, Columbus built a small fort named Santo Thomas on Hispaniola (near present-day Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic), the ruins of which are shown in these four images, taken in 1893. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-107411])

Columbus sailed east along the coast and made a second attempt at founding a trading colony, near present-day Puerto Plata on the north-central coast of the Dominican Republic. He named it La Isabela, in honor of his royal patron. Leaving his inexperienced brother Diego in command of the colony, Columbus marched into the interior of the island in an unsuccessful attempt to find a major source of gold. When he returned, he found the disillusioned settlers of Isabela at the point of mutiny. After restoring order by

force, Columbus set sail again in April 1494, certain that he could discover the Chinese mainland. Instead, after a brief reconnaissance of Cuba’s southeastern coast, he headed south and encountered Jamaica. His obsession with reaching Asia, however, reserved his attention for Cuba, which he remained convinced was a Chinese peninsula. He returned to the island’s southern coast and struggled against the wind almost all the way to the island’s western tip. If Columbus had continued 50 more miles, Cuba’s true shape

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would have become clear. Instead, he halted the westward voyage and simply declared that Cuba was China. He ordered his crew to swear to an oath that they had found China, with the understanding that the men would have their tongues cut out if they should ever break their oaths. Taking a route along the southern coast of Jamaica, Columbus returned to Isabela. By early 1495 Columbus was becoming increasingly more occupied with calming colonial discontent than with discovery. He tried to pacify disillusioned Spanish gentlemen who had shipped to Hispaniola expecting to find a comfortable, exotic haven with an

unlimited supply of gold and instead found themselves suffering in tropical rain. The speculators went hungry rather than eat the unfamiliar food of “the Indies.” Instead of farming or prospecting, the Spanish pressed Indians for food and more gold after the extant supplies had been collected or stolen. Resentment turned into open rebellion as Arawak tribes resisted demands for labor and wealth. Forced labor, disease, and punitive expeditions began to kill the native inhabitants of Hispaniola in large numbers, a pattern that spread throughout the hemisphere as more colonists arrived.

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In this etching, Columbus’s house on Hispaniola (near present-day Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic) is clearly visible. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-107435])

Leaving his brothers Diego and Bartolomé in charge, Columbus sailed for Spain on March 10, 1496. Meanwhile, news of colonial discontent at Hispaniola’s colonial seat at Santo Domingo and Columbus’s increasingly harsh treatment of the Native peoples had reached the Spanish court, creating profound doubts about his leadership.

COLUMBUS’S THIRD VOYAGE Unlike later explorers, who relied on investors speculating on the discovery of gold or other

wealth, Columbus continued to rely on royal backing for his voyages. After his triumphant first voyage, his career was dogged by political turmoil at Hispaniola and the inability to fulfill his long-sought goal of reaching the Asian empires. Unable to present the Spanish court with the grand success he envisioned—and which he had promised—he was in constant fear that each voyage would be his last. After a strenuous but successful effort to have Ferdinand and Isabella confirm his privileges as chief administrator of the Indies, Columbus sailed west with six ships on May 30, 1498, hoping to find enough riches to convince his patrons that his voyages were worthwhile.

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The Encomienda

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The first wave of colonists who followed Christopher Columbus’s reports of gold to the Americas were interested in reaping fortunes, then returning home to Spain. Few were interested in working to sustain genuine colonies. Starting with Columbus’s first settlements, such labor was imposed upon Indians through an institution called the encomienda (commission), which distributed conquered land and people to colonists. Every encomienda conferred specific rights and obligations upon a recipient, or encomendero. Native people under an encomendero’s control were forced to provide labor and tribute, such as a quota of gold. In return, an encomendero was responsible for the welfare of his workers, their assimilation into Spanish culture, and religious instruction in Christianity. Queen Isabella, who considered the Native people Columbus encountered to be her subjects, instructed him to provide for their religious education and to “treat them well and lovingly and abstain from doing them any injury.” Slavery was strictly forbidden. When Columbus disobeyed this order in 1495 during his second stay at Hispaniola and sent 500 slaves to Spain, he was rebuked and the survivors were returned home. Conceived to avoid abuse of the Indians, however, the actual practice of the encomienda system in the Americas instead became an excuse for forced labor. Native tribes frequently revolted against the system, under which many Indians were literally worked to death. The Spanish Crown’s inability to enforce its rules made encomiendas controversial even in Columbus’s time, but they were employed throughout the Americas. The system was not formally discontinued until 1717.

This time Columbus took a southerly route, crossing the Atlantic Ocean close to the equator to see if any land existed there en route to the Indies. Past the Canary Islands, he sent three ships ahead to Hispaniola, retaining the other three for a fresh effort to find the mainland of Asia. The equatorial heat of the southerly route ruined food and caused wine to resume fermenting. Father Bartolomé de Las Casas, summarizing from Columbus’s original log, wrote that “the heat was so intense and scorching that they were afraid the men and ships would burn up.” The ships eventually picked up speed and crossed the Atlantic, first sighting an island

dominated by three mountain peaks. Following his practice of naming geography after Christian figures, Columbus named the island Trinidad after the Holy Trinity. The ships rounded the southwest corner of Trinidad just in time to be buffeted by a terrifying tidal or volcanic disturbance. The channel is still known by the name Columbus gave it—Boca del Sierpe, the Serpent’s Mouth. A short sail directly north took the ships to the tip of the Paria Peninsula, on the eastern coast of what is now Venezuela. On August 5 Columbus landed there, becoming the first European explorer to set foot on the South American mainland.

The Four Voyages of Columbus Columbus assumed Paria was an island and christened it Isla de García. A year later, Alfonso de Ojeda’s expedition would name the same land Venezuela. In a letter to the Spanish sovereigns that reflected his idiosyncratic mixing of geographical theory with Christian mysticism, Columbus claimed that this was the “Terrestrial Paradise,” the Garden of Eden. “I have always read that the world, both land and water, was spherical,” he added. “I have found that it does not have the kind of sphericity described by the authorities, but that it has the shape of a pear, which is all very round, except at the stem.” Columbus headed north to Hispaniola, where he found his brothers fighting a faction of rebellious colonists. News of this rebellion and plentiful advice from Columbus’s enemies convinced Ferdinand and Isabella that their admiral’s talents for seamanship were not matched by his abilities as administrator. They

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dispatched a new governor, Francisco de Bobadilla, to Hispaniola with broad powers to investigate and end any rebellion. Bobadilla arrived at Santo Domingo in Hispaniola on August 23, 1500. When Columbus refused to accept the royal document appointing Bobadilla, the new governor had all three Columbus brothers arrested, chained, and shipped back to Spain. The Spanish monarchs were shocked by Columbus’s humiliation. They ordered him freed and eventually ordered his property restored, but decided that his role as governor of the Indies was over.

COLUMBUS’S FINAL VOYAGE By 1502 Columbus’s reputation was in tatters and the privileges outlined in his “capitulations” with the Spanish Crown were increasingly restricted. The Spanish royals nevertheless

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Disease was the most destructive force arriving in the Americas with European explorers and colonists. Exposure to smallpox, diphtheria, whooping cough, influenza, tuberculosis, pneumonia, mumps, and even measles had allowed Europeans to develop some natural resistance to such maladies. The inhabitants of the Americas, however, had never been exposed to these potentially fatal diseases, which did more to decimate Native populations than forced labor and war combined. Estimated deaths from epidemics alone among South American natives in the first hundred years after 1492 range from hundreds of thousands into the millions. One disease that may have moved in the other direction is syphilis, which Europeans became aware of only in the mid-1490s. But scientists continue to debate whether syphilis existed in the Old World before 1492 or whether it was first imported to Europe by Columbus’s crew or the Taino captives his first voyage brought to Barcelona. Similarly, scientists continue to examine the origins of malaria and yellow fever. These mosquito-borne diseases are considered to have arrived in the Americas from Africa, after the importation of African slaves began in the early 1500s.

Following his death on May 20, 1506, Columbus’s remains were initially buried in Valladolid, Spain; moved to Seville, Spain; later moved to Santo Domingo, Hispaniola; then moved to Havana, Cuba; and finally returned to Seville. As can be imagined from so much moving, determining his remains’ actual whereabouts is difficult. Today, tombs exist in both Havana (shown in an early 20th-century photograph) and Seville, both of which claim they contain the remains of Columbus, a mystery not yet solved by historians and analysts. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-119088])

The Four Voyages of Columbus agreed to fund Columbus’s fourth and final voyage. Remembering Marco Polo’s account of voyaging westward through the South China Sea and still convinced that Cuba was part of China, Columbus intended to find a strait he incorrectly assumed would lead him from the Caribbean into the Indian Ocean. He set sail from Cadiz on May 11, 1502, with four ships, accompanied by his 13-yearold son and future biographer, Ferdinand. The fleet crossed the Atlantic swiftly, discovering the island of Martinique on the way. To avoid any political problems, the Spanish sovereigns had ordered Columbus not to land at Hispaniola. Using the excuse that a storm was approaching, Columbus sailed into the harbor of Santo Domingo, where the new governor, Nicolás Ovando, refused him permission to land. Columbus sailed on to a harbor just west of the colony and briefly sheltered there from the storm he had predicted. After reaching Cuba by way of Jamaica, Columbus sailed westward, searching for the strait he was certain would lead him to the Orient . Other explorers, including mariners who had served with Columbus earlier, had by now traversed the coast of South America between the Orinoco River and Panama, but the rest of the Gulf of Mexico lay unexplored and open to the theory that such a connecting channel to India existed. Instead of finding China, Columbus found himself off the coast of Honduras. After a month of struggling against contrary winds, Columbus was able to turn south along the coasts of the future countries of Nicaragua and Costa Rica. By autumn 1502 the increasingly ill admiral realized that he would not find a route to China. He concentrated on bartering for gold with the Native peoples and searching for a suitable site to establish a trading outpost. In January 1503 he picked a location near the mouth of the

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Río Belén in rugged northwestern Panama. By spring, however, relations with the area’s Guaymi inhabitants had deteriorated so badly that Columbus’s party was attacked as he was preparing to send three of his four ships to Spain. The Spaniards sustained casualties and were forced to abandon one of their ships in the river before sailing for home on April 16. “I departed,” Columbus wrote, “in the name of the Holy Trinity, on Easter night, with ships rotten, worn out, and eaten into holes.” None of the three ships made it to Spain. One was abandoned at the harbor of Puerto Bello in central Panama. The other two sailed to the present-day border separating Panama and Colombia before heading north, trying to reach Hispaniola. The badly leaking vessels got as far as Jamaica, where Columbus ordered them run aground on the beaches at St. Ann’s Bay, on the northern coast. The ships were too seriously damaged to be repaired, so Columbus ordered a canoe commanded by Diego Méndez to make the 108-mile trip to Hispaniola for help. Méndez reached Hispaniola, but Governor Ovando was so disinclined to help Columbus that no rescue ship was sent to Jamaica for a year. Most of the dispirited survivors then remained in Hispaniola to try their luck as colonists, while Columbus continued on to Spain, arriving in November 1504. Columbus had discovered neither the sought-after strait to China nor had he returned with anything of material worth. By now, years of stress and illness had taken their toll on him. On November 26, 1504, Queen Isabella died. She had frequently been Columbus’s benefactor. King Ferdinand, while sympathetic to the ailing admiral’s condition, continually refused Columbus’s requests that his original contracts be honored and that he be reappointed governor of the Indies. Still

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trying to reclaim his former glory, Columbus died at Valladolid on May 20, 1506. Columbus’s death went unheralded by the Spanish public and royalty. His failures to reach Asia, to retrieve a grand treasure, or to manage colonies diminished his stature, especially as other explorers found greater sources of wealth and pushed deeper into newly discovered lands. Despite Columbus’s own misidentification of the places he found as being portions of Asia, however, his voy-

ages opened a new epoch of discovery that would last for centuries, inspiring unprecedented exploration of the land and oceans of the Western Hemisphere. For many of the Native societies he and his successors encountered, the coming changes would be tragic and final. Columbus’s encounters with the Americas immediately and permanently altered the course of history, forcing people on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean to view their world differently.

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A New World 1500–1519

When Christopher Columbus returned from his first trip to “the Indies” in 1492, his royal rewards included governorship of all lands he had discovered and might find in future voyages. However, as the vast size of the region became clearer and Columbus’s unsuitability as a colonial leader damaged his reputation, other adventurers were given royal authority to explore and colonize. Columbus unsuccessfully appealed to regain his titles while other navigators, including some who had served under him, sailed for the New World. These explorers, like Columbus, initially believed that the land they were exploring was part of Asia or perhaps a simple geographical barrier preventing them from reaching the riches of the Orient. While most concentrated on enriching themselves with gold, pearls, and slaves, they also continued to search for a route to Asia, which they were prevented by treaty from reaching by sailing around Africa.

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IN COLUMBUS’S WAKE On Spain’s side of the line demarcated by the Treaty of Tordesillas, fortune-seeking Spaniards began to venture along the northern coastline of South America. Unlike Columbus, whose voyages were financed by the Spanish Crown, these new explorers were required to finance the trips themselves or find investors. Their geographical knowledge, however, grew as mariners examined one anothers’ charts and their findings gradually reached cartographers in Europe. Few of these adventurers found the new hemisphere profitable enough to remain there for long. Typical was Alfonso de Ojeda, a veteran of Columbus’s second voyage, who sailed westward along the Guianas of north-central South America in 1499, trading for gold and taking slaves. Ojeda’s brutality was long remembered by the Native peoples of the region, whose memories of Spanish raids made future exploration dangerous for decades. A

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The Treaty of Tordesillas = At the time of Columbus’s voyages, Spain and Portugal were the two European countries most actively engaged in exploration by sea. To avoid political conflict, Pope Alexander VI wasted no time in proposing the division of the newly discovered Western Hemisphere between these Catholic nations. On June 4, 1494, the two maritime powers signed the Treaty of Tordesillas (named after the town in north-central Spain where it was signed), agreeing to divide the known world along a vertical line about 1,300 miles west of the Cape Verde Islands. Both countries continued to try to find new routes to the Orient. The practical effect of the treaty, however, assigned to Portugal rights of exploration—and exploitation—of Africa, India, Brazil, and Newfoundland. This left the islands of the Caribbean and still-undiscovered lands of Central America, western South America, and North America open to Spanish explorers. In ink on paper, the Treaty of Tordesillas represented a neat division of newly discovered lands between Portugal and Spain. In reality, the two countries remained suspicious of each other, a situation that remained uneasy due to inaccurate maps and the lack of geographical knowledge about South America. A desire to learn exactly what each power felt entitled to through the treaty encouraged leaders of both nations to sponsor new exploration and to dispute territories not anticipated by the original line. Meanwhile, non-Catholic countries such as England and the Netherlands saw no need to obey the pope, so the Treaty of Tordesillas never really had much effect on exploration or territorial claims.

longer lasting consequence came from the Spaniards’ impression of Indian homes built on wooden piles, suspended above lake water. The homes reminded the Europeans of Venice, so they named the region “Little Venice,” or Venezuela. Vicente Yáñez Pinzón, who had served as captain of Columbus’s caravel the Niña, sighted Brazil in 1500, but the land was claimed on April 22 of that year by Pedro Álvares Cabral on behalf of Portugal. As had other Portuguese mariners, Cabral had sailed westward to catch strong southeasterly currents and winds that would propel his ships to the bottom of the African continent, en route to India. Cabral, however, went so far west that he sailed to the mouth of the Rio Buranhém in the present-day Brazilian state of Bahia. Cabral considered the

new land only a diversion from his real intention of reaching India. His ships explored the coast for just nine days before resuming his eastward voyage. He named the land he left behind Isle de Vera Cruz. Subsequent European settlers renamed it Brazil, after the red dyewood they found and exported. The travels of such explorers—including Columbus on his final voyage, Ojeda, Juan de la Cosa, Amerigo Vespucci, Vicente Yáñez Pinzón and others—swiftly accumulated knowledge about the northern coastline of South America.

THE MYSTERIOUS VESPUCCI Amerigo Vespucci, born in Florence, Italy, and employed in Seville as an agent of the power-

A New World ful Florentine Medici family, remains the most controversial of these navigators. Vespucci made at least two and perhaps four voyages to the New World. His logs and records are lost, leaving republications of two letters to acquaintances to reflect the truth. Vespucci worked with the firm responsible for outfitting ships for Columbus’s second and third voyages. Vespucci’s own first voyage supposedly took place in 1497–98, carrying him north from Brazil to the east coast of North America, possibly as far north as Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, or even the Gulf of St.

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Lawrence. The only account of the trip appears in one of Vespucci’s letters, whose lack of detail makes the authenticity of his claim controversial. If it is true, then Vespucci landed on the mainland of the Americas before Columbus. It is generally agreed that Vespucci sailed on a ship in the 1499 Ojeda-Cosa fleet, but he parted with the westward-bound Ojeda, instead heading southeast along the coast of Brazil. Vespucci’s two vessels briefly explored the delta of the Amazon River before continuing to Cabo São Roque, only to be driven

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back by contrary winds and currents. Upon his return, he wrote a dry description of the voyage to his patron, Lorenzo de’ Medici:

We discovered immense regions, saw a vast number of people, all naked, and speaking various languages. On the land we saw many

Amerigo Vespucci briefly explored parts of the Amazon River during his 1499 voyage. His later journeys took him to parts of South America. Included in a 1624 publication, this map shows the northern coast of South America, including the mouths of the Orinoco and Amazon Rivers. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-71982])

A New World wild animals, various kinds of birds, and an infinite number of trees, all aromatic. We brought home pearls in their growing state

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and gold in the grain. . . . We brought many other stones which appeared beautiful to us, but of all these we did not bring a large quantity, as we were continually busy in navigation, and did not stay long in any one place.

Sailing for Portugal instead of Spain in 1501, Vespucci returned to Brazil and continued south, perhaps as far as South Georgia in the Falkland Islands. It is unknown how far south he reached, but the voyage had the significant effect of convincing many Europeans that the Western Hemisphere was indeed a “New World,” not part of Asia. Vespucci claimed to have returned to the coast of Brazil again in 1503–05, but lack of records again makes the claim controversial. In any case, Vespucci returned to Spain, where he was appointed “pilot major,” or chief navigator, by King Ferdinand. Vespucci spent the rest of his life serving in this important post, which made him responsible for training and licensing pilots, preparing maps, and collecting information from sea captains returning from the New World.

BALBOA REACHES THE PACIFIC One failed Spanish settler in the Caribbean later emerged as one of its most noteworthy explorers. Vasco Núñez de Balboa sailed from Spain in 1501 with an expedition commanded by Rodrigo de Bastidas and Juan de la Cosa. During the voyage they crossed the Gulf of Urabá, on the northern coast of present-day Colombia, and visited the Indian coastal village of Darién in southeastern Panama. Balboa settled on the island of Hispaniola and became a planter, but by 1510 he was broke. To escape his creditors, he hid inside a barrel aboard a shipload of reinforcements bound for a settlement on the eastern shore of

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Naming America

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One person who accepted Amerigo Vespucci’s claims was Martin Waldseemüller, a cartographer and geographer at the French monastery of St-Dié. In 1507 Waldseemüller published and sold 1,000 copies of a large woodcut map, entitled “Map of the World According to the Traditions of Ptolemy and Americus Vespucius.” By depicting the Caribbean and the eastern coastlines of the Western Hemisphere as distinct and separate from Asia, the map further strengthened the European concept of these lands as belonging to a “New World,” not an extension of China as Columbus and others had hoped. Waldseemüller depicted the northern and southern continents of the hemisphere separately. The southern portion—depicting what is now called South America—was accompanied by a large portrait of Vespucci, emblazoned with his name. Waldseemüller suggested in an accompanying book that “since another . . . part [of the world] has been discovered by Americus Vesputius, I do not see why anyone should object to its being called after Americus the Discoverer, a man of natural wisdom, Land of Americus or America.” Waldseemüller stopped using the name America in his later maps, perhaps to correct his mistake in overcrediting Vespucci. By then, however, the 1507 map was used throughout Europe. The matter was unofficially decided in 1538, when influential Belgian cartographer Gerard Mercator published a map dividing the New World into “North America” and “South America.”

the Gulf of Urabá. When the ship landed, the colony was in such danger of perishing from starvation and Indian attacks that its leader, Martín de Enciso, accepted the stowaway’s advice and moved to a safer location at the Indian village on the gulf’s western shore that Balboa had spotted while sailing with Bastidas. The new colony was named Santa María la Antigua de Darién. Within a short time, leadership conflicts resulted in Balboa’s being appointed governor by the colonists. Balboa was brutal to Indians who resisted Spanish advances into the interior, but he preferred to forge close ties with friendlier tribes. He married the daughter of an Indian leader named Chima and helped Chima’s people fight a war against their enemies. According to con-

temporary historian Peter Martyr, the Indians gave gold to the Spaniards for their help. When an argument broke out among the Spaniards over how large a share should be sent to the king of Spain, one Indian prince was revolted. “What is the matter, you Christian men, that you so greatly esteem so little portion of gold more than your own quietness [calmness],” said the prince angrily. “I will show you a region flowing with gold, where you may satisfy your ravening appetites.” This region, the Spaniards were told, lay to the west, over the mountains of central Panama, from which a large sea could be seen. All the Spaniards sought gold, but Balboa had an extra incentive. His appointment as colonial leader was unofficial in the eyes of

A New World Spanish royal authorities, who were being persuaded to punish him for deposing the colony’s first governors. Hoping to prove his worth to the king, in 1512 he led a small expedition into the southwestern corner of Colombia and, although he found little more than cinnamon trees, he was the first European to see the Andes Mountains. On his return to Panama, when it seemed likely that he might be sent to Spain under arrest, Balboa organized another expedition to search for riches that would make the colony a success. Indian guides chose a starting spot near Puerto Esconcés, on the southeastern shore of Panama. On September 1, 1513, the guides led 190 Spaniards and hundreds of Indian porters into the mountains. As they ascended, they were met by nearly impenetrable forests and had to hack their way through the jungle with machetes. Throughout his progress across the isthmus, Balboa continued his practice of offering peaceful alliances to friendly Indians and violently conquering any who resisted his progress. The expedition struggled for three weeks through swamps and over mountains that remain barely accessible even today. Balboa himself was the first European to see the Pacific Ocean. On the morning of September 27, he walked ahead of his men to the top of a hill and suddenly spotted the vast waters, which he called Mar del Sur, the “Sea of the South.” Four days later, the expedition reached the ocean. Spanish historian Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés reported the scene in his Historia general y natural de las Indias (General history of the Indies, 1547): The water was low, and great areas of mud exposed; so they sat by the shore waiting for the tide to rise, which presently it did, rushing into the bay with great speed and force.

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In this illustration published in 1859, Vasco Núñez de Balboa claims the Pacific Ocean for Spain. (National Archives of Canada)

Then Captain Vasco Núñez held up a banner with a picture of the blessed Virgin . . . and with his drawn sword in his hand and his shield on his arm, he waded into the salt sea up to his knees . . .

Pacing back and forth in the surf, Balboa claimed the sea and all the contiguous lands for Spain. On January 18, 1514, Balboa arrived back in Darién, without having lost a single member of his expedition. Unfortunately for Balboa, King

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Ferdinand dispatched a new governor to the colony, a ruthless elderly nobleman named Pedro Arias de Ávila, commonly called Pedrarias Dávila. Pedrarias arrived with 2,000 settlers and soldiers, who were dismayed to discover that the grand city they expected to find at Darién was little more than a frontier settlement. Having lost his governorship to Pedrarias, Balboa busied himself by transporting shipbuilding materials to the Pacific coast. Two ships were constructed and reached the Pearl Islands in the Gulf of Panama in 1517, but Balboa’s attempts to sail southward were halted by rough weather. By then, Balboa’s political enemies had conceived a plan to destroy him. After luring Balboa back to Darién, Pedrarias

charged him with treason and other crimes. After a long series of trials on trumped-up charges, Balboa was beheaded on January 21, 1519. Pedrarias continued to rule Darién. He sent expeditions into the countryside in search of gold, governing with legendary cruelty and destroying the friendships Balboa had cultivated with Indians. During this time, reports began to reach Darién about a wealthy land to the south called Virú or Birú. This land—eventually called Peru—was soon found by a dour soldier Balboa had saved from starvation in the Gulf of Urabá, with whom he had marched to the Pacific, and by whom he had been arrested upon Pedrarias’s orders—Francisco Pizarro.

A New World

PONCE DE LEÓN AND “LA FLORIDA” Desire for gold did not inspire every Spanish expedition. Juan Ponce de León was a veteran of Columbus’s second voyage and a determined soldier who had fought in the conquests of Hispaniola and Puerto Rico. After serving as Puerto Rico’s governor and becoming rich with gold mined by Indian slave labor, Ponce got permission from King Ferdinand to search for and settle the “Island of Bimini,” alleged home of a mythical “fountain of youth,” whose waters would restore the virility of old men. Like all such royal grants, the expedition was funded at Ponce de León’s expense, not the Crown’s.

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Ponce sailed from Puerto Rico in March 1513 with three ships. His flagship was piloted by Antón de Alaminos, who had served as Columbus’s pilot on his second voyage and would guide other significant later expeditions. The route took them past the eastern limits of the Bahama Islands, sailing northwest. On April 2 the fleet encountered what Ponce mistakenly thought was an island. Because they arrived in the Easter season, which Spaniards call La Pascua Florida, Ponce named the land La Florida. They landed just south of presentday Daytona Beach, on Florida’s northeastern coast at a location known today as Ponce de León Inlet. As the ships sailed south along the coast, they began to struggle against a powerful

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current. Ponce de León’s expedition became the first Europeans to encounter the Gulf Stream, one of the strongest ocean currents in the world. Later Spanish navigators learned to use the northeastern flow of Gulf Stream waters and winds to hasten their voyages to Europe. Ponce continued south, stopping at Indian villages and inquiring about a “fountain of youth.” He passed the Florida Keys, naming them Los Mártires (The Martyrs) because from a distance their rocky shores resembled the silhouettes of suffering men. The ships turned north into the Gulf of Mexico and soon anchored in Charlotte Bay, a third of the way up the Florida peninsula’s west coast. Friendly relations with the Calusa Indians quickly deteriorated into open warfare, and on June 14 Ponce abandoned his search for the “fountain of youth” and ordered a return to Puerto Rico. Instead of heading directly southeast toward home, however, he sailed southwest, perhaps intending to return south of Cuba. Less than two weeks after leaving Florida, the crews sighted a land they assumed was Cuba but which some scholars believe was the northern coast of the Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico. The expedition briefly went ashore, but soon resumed its return eastward, unaware that they were perhaps the first Europeans to encounter Mexico.

Florida was an island or part of a greater landmass connected to Mexico. This was a logical quest. While searching the coastline of northeastern Mexico for a route to the Pacific Ocean in 1519, Alonso Alvarez de Pineda blundered into the mighty current caused by the Mississippi River’s discharge into the Gulf of Mexico. Although he did not find his way into the river through its lower passes, credit for the first European discovery of the Mississippi arguably belongs to Alvarez de Pineda, rather than Hernando de Soto, who reached the river overland 22 years later. Alvarez de Pineda’s patron, Francisco de Garay, obtained royal permission to explore the area between Florida and Mexico, which he called the land

LAND OF AMICHEL After his return to Puerto Rico, Ponce de León obtained a royal grant to settle the lands he had discovered, but became involved in fighting the Carib, who had revolted against Spanish rule in his absence. He would not return north until 1521, eight years later. By then, the conquest and newfound wealth of Mexico were encouraging Spaniards to explore the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, to determine if

Juan Ponce de León explored portions of present-day Florida, which he first found in 1513. (Library of Congress)

A New World

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of Amichel (a name of unknown origin). Exploration of Amichel, however, would have to wait. Angered by Alvarez de Pineda’s slaving raids upon their people from his base on Mexico’s Rio Pánuco, the Huastec people of northeastern Mexico killed the Spaniard and his men in 1520. Ponce de León also met a violent end. In 1521 he equipped a large expedition for settlement and sailed for Florida. Upon landing, however, he encountered the same tribe with which he had clashed earlier, the Calusa. A battle ensued and Ponce was wounded in the thigh by an arrow. He was taken to Cuba, where the infected wound killed him. His death left the European exploration and settlement of Florida to later adventurers.

Cabot. Like Solís, Sebastian Cabot was on his way to the Pacific Ocean, with orders to reach Asia by retracing Magellan’s route. The loss of one of his ships and distracting tales of fortunes in silver Cabot heard on his southward passage along the coast of South America convinced him to abandon his goal of reaching the Pacific and explore the Río de la Plata. He discovered no great source of silver and collected mostly inaccurate geographical knowledge of the region, but remained there for two years, establishing fragile settlements and venturing up the Paraná River in search of an elusive fortune. Cabot’s failure to find a route to the Pacific ruined his reputation and ended his career as an explorer. He spent the rest of his life drawing maps in England.

MAGELLAN’S LEGACY

A REGION IN RUINS

The first circumnavigation of the earth was done by survivors of Ferdinand Magellan’s expedition in 1519–22. By successfully navigating through the Strait of Magellan into the Pacific Ocean, they inspired efforts to find a sea route to the western shores of Central America (for full coverage of Magellan, see the Exploring the Pacific volume). King Ferdinand of Spain assigned the task to Juan Díaz de Solís, who had unsuccessfully searched for such a strait with Juan de la Cosa more than a decade earlier. Solís’s well-provisioned 1516 expedition ended prematurely on an island off the coast of modern-day Uruguay. While exploring the estuary of the Río de la Plata (also known as the River Plate), Solís was killed and, according to some reports, eaten by cannibals. Spanish ships returned to the Río de la Plata in 1526, under the command of Sebastian Cabot, who had earlier explored the coastline of North America (1497–98) in the English-sponsored voyages of his father, John

Only 25 years after Columbus’s first arrival in the Americas, the Caribbean was a depleted region whose Native societies faced extinction and whose agriculture lay ruined. Diseases, warfare, and slavery had decimated the Native population, upon whose forced labor the Spanish plantation system depended. Thousands, possibly millions, of Taino, Arawak, Carib, and other Native peoples died working in Spanish mines and from maladies that were common in Europe, but from which the people of the New World had no natural immunity. Like other colonial rulers, Spain’s governor of Cuba, Diego Velásquez, faced a shrinking Native slave workforce as new fortune hunters arrived from Spain. As observed by Bernal Díaz del Castillo, future author of the True History of the Conquest of New Spain, Velásquez’s solution was to promise the new arrivals Indian workers “as soon as there were any to spare” and do nothing. Díaz del Castillo was one of 110 Spaniards who tired of Velásquez’s promises and decided

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The Native peoples on the islands explored by Columbus suffered greatly from that and subsequent contact. The Spanish enslaved the people to work on their plantations and mistreated them in other ways as well. This engraving from an 1858 book covering the life of Hernando de Soto shows a Spanish captain feeding a Native baby to his dogs. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-104366])

to “try our fortune in seeking and exploring new lands where we might find employment.” The group appointed Francisco Hernández de

Córdoba as their leader and bought three ships, including one from Velásquez, who offered to finance the expedition in exchange

A New World

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Legacy of the Maya

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Unlike the relatively young cultures of the Aztec of Mexico and the Inca of Peru, the glory days of Maya civilization were long past when Europeans first landed in Yucatán. The great city of Chichén Itzá, for example, had been abandoned for two centuries when the Spanish arrived. During their “Classic Period,” which lasted from A.D. 300–900, the Maya dominated the lowlands of Mexico and Central America as far south as Honduras. They devised an extremely accurate calendar and were the first civilization to use a form of zero in mathematics. Maya scribes used a sophisticated system of hieroglyphs (pictorial signs indicating sounds) to write on paper (made from the bark of a tree) and to carve records into stone. Human sacrifices played a part in their religion, although it was not as common among the Maya as the Aztec. Imposing examples of Maya temple-pyramid and fortress architecture survive today at such sites as Chichén Itzá and Uxmal. Unfortunately, the mass destruction of Maya writings by Catholic authorities in 1562 destroyed all but a handful of Maya books, leaving few firsthand views of their history and literature. The few surviving Maya books are today The Maya, a highly developed culture whose known as “codices” (singular, roots extend to 300 A.D., settled primarily in the “codex”). After Maya civiliza- area of the present-day Yucatán Peninsula in tion declined for unknown rea- Central America and are known for their grand sons in about the year 900, architecture. One of the sites they settled was the Maya population concen- Chichén Itzá, the location of this large, stone trated in the Yucatán Penin- Chacmool statue (so named by a 19th-century sula, which is where they and archaeologist). The statue, near the Temple of the Spanish first encountered the Warriors, reclines and holds a basin on its each other. lap for offerings. (PhotoDisc)

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for a slaving raid on the coastal islands of Honduras. “We answered that it was neither in accordance with the law of god nor of the king, that we should make free men slaves,” Castillo wrote of Velásquez’s offer. “When he saw that we had made up our minds, he said that our plan to go and discover new countries was better than his, and he helped us in providing food for our voyage.” Three weeks after Córdoba’s group sailed westward from Cuba in February 1517, they sighted the northeastern Yucatán Peninsula at Cape Catoche. The great Maya civilization that had once dominated Yucatán had declined 500 years before Córdoba arrived, but the spectacular architecture of remaining Mayan temples and a handful of gold ornaments convinced him that he had stumbled upon a region full of riches.

“NEW SPAIN” The Spaniards continued to sail along the west coast of Yucatán, which they mistook for an island. Desperately in need of drinking water and suffering heavy casualties at the hands of Maya soldiers each time they attempted to land, Córdoba’s party accepted pilot Antón de Alaminos’s suggestion that he take them to Florida, where he had served under Ponce de León. Alaminos underestimated the distance, but successfully piloted the expedition to Florida. Unfortunately, they

landed the same spot where Ponce de León had clashed with the Calusa, who attacked as soon as the Spaniards landed. The expedition limped to Cuba, where—like Ponce de León— Córdoba died of wounds he sustained in Florida. Even the slight evidence of gold was enough to convince Governor Velásquez to commission a stronger expedition in 1518, under the command of Juan de Grijalva, with Alaminos piloting once again. The evidence of Mayan civilization that Grijalva found when he reached Yucatán reminded him so much of his homeland that he dubbed the land “New Spain,” a term later applied to all of Mexico. When Grijalva returned to the site of Córdoba’s landing at Champotón, he too was attacked. Grijalva, however, convinced the Maya that he wanted to trade peacefully. The Spaniards were delighted to trade colored glass beads for food, textiles—and gold. “They presented some golden jewels, some were diadems, and others were in the shape of ducks, like those in Castille, and other jewels like lizards, and three necklaces of hollow beads, and other articles of gold but not of much value,” Bernal Díaz del Castillo remembered. When the Spaniards asked for more gold, the Indians replied that “further on, in the direction of the sunset, there was plenty of gold.” The land, said the Maya, was called Mexico. This would become the next goal of the Spanish.

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Cortés the Explorer Relatively little gold had actually been discovered and sent to Spain from the New World by 1519. Sensing that the jewelry for which Juan de Grijalva bartered in the Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico might promise an opportunity, Cuba’s governor, Diego Velásquez, acted quickly. Instead of retaining Grijalva as commander, Velásquez commissioned a former subordinate named Hernán Cortés to make an entrada, or exploratory expedition. In an age when exploration and desire for wealth and power were intertwined, the ambitious Cortés would exceed his narrow authority merely to report his discoveries to Velásquez. Cortés would be the first to conquer a vast and powerful empire in the New World, but in so doing he would also reveal unfamiliar lands and people to his fellow Europeans. Europe first learned about Aztec civilization, the geography of Mexico, and the Spanish conquest through detailed letters Cortés wrote to Charles V (the Holy Roman Emperor and Charles I of Spain). The journey into Mexico, from the scuttling of Cortés’s ships through the Spanish retreat from the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlán, was described in one report. Another letter described the siege of

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the Aztec capital and subsequent maneuvers to enlarge Spanish control over Mexico. After their release to the public by the Spanish Crown, these letters were quickly translated, reprinted, and circulated in Spain, Germany, and Italy. Cortés’s letters to his king were later collected and known as the Cartas de Relación. Although Cortés was motivated by a desire to impress the king so as to advance his own standing, his letters provided precise and contemporary descriptions of the many discoveries he made in the New World. Bernal Díaz del Castillo, a member of the Córdoba, Grijalva, and Cortés expeditions, wrote True History of the Conquest of New Spain; it remained unpublished until 1632, but it quickly became and has remained a major source of information about precolonial Mexico. Years after the conquest, a Franciscan friar, Fray Bernardino de Sahagún, collected descriptions of the Spanish arrival from Aztec oral historians. So unflattering were the portraits of the conquistadores and so intense was the Spanish desire to eradicate all remains of the Aztec culture that Sahagún’s General History of the Things of New Spain was suppressed until 1829. Today the first-person 53

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When Hernán Cortés first encountered the Aztec, they had a highly developed culture. In this detail of a drawing from Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España, Aztec people are cultivating fields and socializing. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-124461])

accounts of Cortés, Díaz del Castillo, and Sahagún’s informants make Cortés’s one of the most fully documented of all Spanish expeditions of discovery and conquest.

CORTÉS SETS FORTH Cortés’s popularity as mayor of the Cuban town of San Juan de Baracoa helped him enlist volunteer soldiers for his expedition, which

attracted investors as news of Grijalva’s findings of the Maya civilization spread. Cortés organized a powerful force so swiftly that he was forced to leave Cuba in secret, after learning that Velásquez had become suspicious of his plans and intended to revoke his commission for the venture. Cortés sailed on February 10, 1519, with 11 ships, 508 men, and 16 horses. When the expedition reached the island of Cozumel, 12 miles off the Yucatán

Cortés the Explorer Peninsula, one of its first objectives was to find an interpreter. Incredibly, for a small ransom, the inhabitants produced a Maya-speaking Spanish priest, Jerónimo de Aguilar, who had been shipwrecked on the Mexican mainland eight years earlier. Cortés’s ships continued west along the gulf coast of the present-day states of Campeche and Tabasco, finally anchoring March 12, 1519, near the town of Tabasco. Cortés declared to thousands of armed Maya waiting on the shore that he wished to trade, but the Tabascans refused, explaining that they had been accused of cowardice by neighboring villages for not killing Juan de Grijalva the previous year. Cortés ignored Tabascan warnings not to land and fought

B

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his way into town, claiming the land for Charles V. After several days of battle, the Tabascans pleaded for peace and presented Cortés with gifts, including 20 of their female slaves. One of these young women would play a major role in Cortés’s expedition. Known eventually to the Aztecs and later Mexicans as “Malinche” (a nickname meaning “the Captain’s Woman,” according to Díaz del Castillo)—the Spaniards baptized her with the Christian name Doña Marina—she spoke both Maya and Nahuatl, the language of the Aztec. Her facility with languages enabled her to learn Spanish so quickly that she became Cortés’s translator and strategic guide. Malinche was such an invaluable adviser to the Spanish conquerors that future

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generations of Mexicans would consider her a legendary traitor to the nation. Finding little gold, the Spanish expedition sailed northward. On Good Friday 1519, the ships dropped anchor off an island that Grijalva earlier named San Juan de Ulúa, in the harbor of the present-day city of Veracruz. Cortés was immediately approached by ambassadors of Aztec emperor Moctezuma (Montezuma) II.

MOCTEZUMA’S DILEMMA Aztec royalty had been informed of Spanish activities along the coast, ever since Francisco Hernández de Córdoba’s expedition two years earlier. First reports described strangers who descended from “great floating towers.” Such news created confusion in Tenochtitlán, the Aztec capital. The Aztec had already been unnerved by a series of disturbing omens and prophecies, including one that foretold the destruction of their empire by foreigners. Equally unsettling were descriptions of horses and firearms, neither of which the Aztec had ever seen. “Their deer carry them on their backs wherever they wish to go,” Moctezuma’s ambassadors told their emperor, according to Fray Sahagún’s informants. “Those deer, our lord, are as tall as the roof of a house.” Of the Spanish cannon, the ambassadors reported, “a thing like a ball of stone comes out of its entrails; it comes out shooting sparks and raining fire. The smoke that comes out with it has a pestilent odor, like that of rotten mud. This odor penetrates even to the brain and causes the greatest discomfort. If the cannon is aimed against a mountain, the mountain splits and cracks open.” With a huge army at his command, Moctezuma could have destroyed the strangers at any moment if he wished. Yet to the Aztec, the Spanish arrival resembled the story of

Quetzalcoatl, the most revered Aztec god. Religious prophecies promised that someday Quetzalcoatl, described as a light-skinned, bearded deity who departed Mexico by sea, would return. The approach of the Spaniards plunged Moctezuma into doubt and a visible depression. Unsure whether he should kill the strangers or welcome them, the emperor decided to stall the Spanish rather than attack them. His ambassadors returned to Cortés with elaborate gifts of gold and silver, declaring that Moctezuma felt it was unnecessary to meet with the Spaniards as they desired.

JOURNEY TO TENOCHTITLÁN Moctezuma’s refusal to receive him forced the ambitious Cortés to make a crucial decision. Technically, he was still under the command of Velásquez, whose commission authorized Cortés only to explore and trade with any American Indians he might encounter. Cortés had no legal standing to conquer or settle any land, negotiate with Aztec royalty, or even present himself as a representative of Charles V. Now convinced there were riches in the Mexican interior, however, Cortés’s supporters encouraged a rumor that Velásquez had betrayed the Spanish king. The expedition elected Cortés as its new commander. Abandoning his ties to Velásquez, Cortés moved to legitimize his command by establishing a town he named Villa Rica de Vera Cruz (the present-day city of Veracruz) and shipping the gold presented by Moctezuma’s ambassadors directly to Spain, with an optimistic report to the king. To prevent defections by Velásquez supporters, Cortés scuttled his remaining ships and marched inland, ignoring Moctezuma’s refusal to meet him. Cortés shrewdly realized that the towns through which he passed were unhappy

Cortés the Explorer

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Native Civilizations of Mexico

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When Cortés landed, Mexico had been inhabited for at least 10,000 years. The Classic, or “Golden Age,” of Maya civilization was already past. Between 200 B.C. and A.D. 900, the Maya had developed arts, sciences, and literature of great sophistication. Their mathematicians measured time more accurately than the Gregorian calendar used in Europe. Maya sculpture and architecture flourished, creating ornate stone ceremonial temples, which can still be visited throughout Mexico and Central America. For unknown reasons, Maya civilization declined and nearly disappeared in about A.D. 900, to be replaced by militaristic societies. The most powerful of these were the Mexica, better known as the Aztec, a nomadic people who settled in the marshland around Lake Texcoco in south central Mexico. In the middle of the shallow lake they built their capital city, Tenochtitlán, which Cortés later destroyed and rebuilt, calling it Mexico City. Aztec conquests gradually created an empire that included all of Mexico except Yucatán. A ruling class of priests and military leaders governed Aztec society. This hierarchy and a separate merchant class were supported by a large population of farmers and craftsmen. Most common labor was done by slaves, who were taken from or sent in tribute by conquered lands. Such taxation, which supplied thousands of human sacrifices annually for Aztec religious ceremonies, was resented by other Mexican peoples and helped Cortés attract allies in his conquest of Tenochtitlán. Compared to the civilizations The Aztec calendar stone was discovered in of Mexico’s “Golden Age,” the Mexico City in 1790. Approximately 13 feet wide, Aztec empire was compara- it is covered in pictographs recording the history tively young when it fell—less of Aztec civilization. (Library of Congress, Prints than 150 years old. and Photographs Division [LC-D4-3162])

under Aztec rule. In the Totonac tribe, caciques—a Caribbean Indian name for a chieftain or tribal leader that the Spanish

adopted for all such men in the Americas— complained bitterly of Aztec demands for tribute. “They told us that every year many of

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Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800 ascending onto the great plateau of central Mexico. Wary of attack by the Aztec military, Cortés cautiously avoided the southerly roads from Cholula to Tenochtitlán. The expedition instead climbed high into the desolate, snowy pass between the summits of Popocatépetl and Iztaccíhuatl. Both volcanoes rose more than 17,000 feet above sea level, higher than any mountain in western Europe. Cortés ordered a small company to explore the smoldering crater of Popocatépetl, but the men were driven back by an eruption. Moctezuma continued to send ambassadors to Cortés, warning him to stay away, while promising “tribute would be paid in gold and silver” if the foreigners would leave Mexico. The promise was accompanied by gifts of golden necklaces, which simply made the Spanish more determined than ever to march onward.

Moctezuma, shown in an undated woodcut, was the ruler of the Aztecs at the time Hernán Cortés explored Mexico, and he initially greeted the explorer with curiosity about his origins. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-43534])

their sons and daughters were demanded of them for sacrifice, and others for service in the houses and plantations of their conquerors,” wrote Bernal Díaz del Castillo. “They said that [Moctezuma’s] tax-gatherers carried off their wives and daughters if they were handsome, and ravished them.” Cortés announced that he had been sent by his king to stop such crimes and stunned the caciques with the audacious act of imprisoning two of Moctezuma’s tax collectors when they arrived demanding humans for sacrifice. After four months’ encampment on the tropical coast, Cortés left a small force at Vera Cruz (now Veracruz) and headed west,

ARRIVAL AT TENOCHTITLÁN As they descended into the Valley of Mexico, the Spaniards marveled at the sight of Tenochtitlán in the distance, surrounded by the saltwater of Lake Texcoco. They reached the broad, fortified causeways leading into the city on November 8, 1519. “We were amazed and said it was like the enchantments told of in the legend of Amadis [hero of a Spanish story], on account of the great towers and cues and buildings rising from the water, and all built of masonry,” wrote Díaz del Castillo. “Some of our soldiers even asked whether the things that we saw were not a dream?” A thousand Aztec citizens and nobles lined the route, welcoming the Spaniards. At the edge of the city, Moctezuma met Cortés and, according to the account of the Aztecs recorded by Fray Sahagún, Cortés said, “We have come to your house in Mexico as friends. There is nothing to fear.”

Cortés the Explorer Cortés and his men were housed in Moctezuma’s palace, where they soon set to work seizing whatever gold objects they found and melting them into transportable bars. Although he was treated as an honored guest during the first week of looting, Cortés sought additional protection for his outnumbered force by forbidding Moctezuma to leave the palace, essentially placing the emperor under house arrest. Moctezuma, who was in the custody of the armed Spanish party and still wracked with confusion over

After entering Tenochtitlán, the Aztec empire’s capital city, unopposed in November 1819, Hernán Cortés eventually conquered the empire in 1521. His victory was partly a result of the introduction of European diseases in the New World. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-99515])

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how to respond to the mysterious strangers, did not resist. Cortés also began to compose a description of Tenochtitlán for his king, Charles V: The city itself is as big as Seville or Córdoba. There is also one square twice as big as that of Salamanca, with arcades all around, where more than sixty thousand people come each day to buy and sell, and where every kind of merchandise produced in these lands is found; provisions as well as ornaments of gold and silver, lead, brass, copper, tin, stones, shells, bones, and feathers. They also sell lime, hewn and unhewn stone, adobe bricks, tiles, and cut and uncut woods of various kinds. There is a street where they sell game and birds of every species found in this land. . . . They sell honey, wax, and a syrup made from maize canes, which is as sweet and syrupy as that made from sugar cane. They also make syrup from a plant which in the islands is called maguey, which is much better than most syrups, and from this plant they also make sugar and wine, which they likewise sell.

While established in Tenochtitlán, Cortés sent out several exploratory expeditions to seek gold. Only one of these parties had success— finding gold at Tutupec, near the Pacific coast—but at least they learned something of the features of the Mexican terrain. He sent another expedition to the coast southeast of Veracruz with the goal of finding a better port; again, although they did not succeed in their primary goal, they surveyed the land and the Río Coatzacoalcos. The isolation of the outnumbered conquistadores, meanwhile, made their position increasingly precarious, as Aztec nobles grew irritated with unceasing Spanish demands for more gold. After six months in the capital,

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Cortés learned that he also faced a threat from his abandoned patron, Diego Velásquez. The spurned governor had sent 900 men commanded by Pánfilo de Narváez from Cuba with orders to arrest Cortés. When Cortés heard of Narváez’s landing, he immediately marched to the coast, defeated Narváez, and convinced most of his forces to join the expedition in Tenochtitlán. En route, Cortés learned that the captain left in command at Tenochtitlán, Pedro de Alvarado, had given a catastrophic order. The most important of Aztec festivals, the fiesta of Toxcatl, took place during Cortés’s absence. As Aztec nobles danced in honor of the war god and sun god Huitzilpochtli, Alvarado and his men sealed exits to the ceremonial chamber and attacked the celebrants, slaughtering hundreds of them. When enraged Aztec citizens hurried to the site of the killing, Alvarado retreated to the royal palace and chained Moctezuma, who urged his people to stop attacking the Spaniards and return to their homes. The Aztec populace, however, had lost their respect for Moctezuma during his humiliating confinement and ignored his pleas not to besiege the Spaniards. The streets were empty when Cortés returned to Tenochtitlán. His success thus far had depended on military discipline whenever he was outnumbered. He was furious with Alvarado, who explained that the massacre was designed to warn the Aztec against any future treachery. As Cortés lambasted his captain for this feeble explanation, Aztec forces encircled the palace. The ensuing battle lasted for four days. Moctezuma died during the fighting, either the victim of stones thrown by an angry Aztec crowd or murdered by Cortés’s order. The Spanish and their Indian allies finally tried to flee the city under the cover of a rainstorm on the night of June 30, 1520. By the time Cortés

fought his way to safety in Tlaxcalan territory, his losses during the retreat—known to this day in Mexico as the Noche Triste (Sorrowful Night)—numbered 450 Spaniards, 4,000 Indians, and all of the treasure they had looted from Aztec palaces.

THE CONQUERORS RETURN The Aztec began to repair their city and resumed their way of life after the departure of the Spaniards. Yet Tenochtitlán was soon ravaged by smallpox, which had been unknown in Mexico before the arrival of the Narváez force (an African slave dying from the disease was among Narváez’s force and is considered to have transported the disease from Haiti or Cuba). Cortés regrouped his forces and returned to Lake Texcoco the following spring. The Spaniards built ships equipped with cannons for a naval assault, blocked Tenochtitlán’s causeways, and began a bloody siege that lasted 80 days. At first Aztec soldiers successfully beat back the Spanish and their Indian allies. Smallpox, however, killed thousands of the starving, confined inhabitants. When Tenochtitlán was eventually surrendered on August 13, 1521, by Aztec leader Cuauhtémoc, more than half of the city’s 300,000 defenders were dead. Refugees leaving the city were searched for treasure by the Spaniards, who angrily demanded the gold lost in the chaos of Noche Triste. Almost none of the pilfered Aztec gold was recovered, but Cortés was closer to possessing the larger prize of Mexico itself. After word reached Spain of his victory, he was officially appointed Captain General of New Spain on October 15, 1522. The magnitude of Cortés’s destruction of the Aztec Empire also reverberated throughout Mexico. Rulers of many Mexican states formed alliances with Cortés by

Cortés the Explorer

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Smallpox and measles, among other diseases, that European explorers brought to North America killed numerous American Indians. In this detail of a drawing from Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España, Aztec people are infected with smallpox. (Library of Congress)

agreeing to become Spanish subjects, while others fought the encroaching Europeans to a standstill in Yucatán and other remote regions of Central America for decades. Although there is no denying that Cortés came to Mexico primarily to conquer and exploit the land, he does deserve recognition for sending out various expeditions to survey the land and to report on Mexico’s natural resources. One of his main goals, too, was to find a water route across this part of the Americas that would provide direct passage between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. In 1521–22

Cortés sponsored four such expeditions: one under Juan de Valle, one under Cristóbal de Olid, one under Pedro de Alvarado, and a fourth under Pedro Alvarez Chico. None of these expeditions, of course, found such a water route, but they did discover much about the natural resources of the regions they explored, and they also reported finding potential ports for Spanish ships along the Pacific coast. As a result, in 1523–24, Pedro de Alvarado led an expedition down the Pacific coast to Honduras while Cortés’s nephew, Francisco Cortés, explored northward along the Pacific coast.

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Cortés’s fight for control also faced competition from his ambitious countrymen. Just as Cortés had once declared himself independent of Velásquez, Cristóbal de Olid discarded Cortés’s authority and proclaimed himself governor of Honduras. Cortés dispatched a seaborne force to arrest his mutinous subordinate. When news reached Cortés that the fleet had been wrecked in a storm, in 1524 he assembled an army and marched hundreds of miles overland through Yucatán, guided by little more than a compass and a makeshift map of Mayan traders’ trails. Cortes’s later descriptions of the dense jungles, swamps, and torrential rains his men encountered presented such a forbidding portrait of the region that decades passed before other Spaniards dared to venture along the same route. At a treacherous mountain pass he dubbed the Sierra de los Pedernales (Mountain of the Flints), 68 of the group’s horses tumbled to their deaths, while the remainder were maimed by the trail’s jagged stones. When his force arrived in Honduras, reduced by illness, starvation, and combat, Cortés found that Olid had been executed months earlier by survivors of the shipwrecked expedition. Even worse news was that Cortés and his men were presumed to have perished in the jungles and that their property in Mexico City had been sold. The increasingly ill Cortés returned north to regain his leadership, but political enemies in Spain and Mexico had been busy in his absence. He was accused of falsely reporting the amount of treasure he had seized and plotting to establish himself as the independent ruler of Mexico. Cortés returned to Spain in December 1527 and succeeded in clearing himself of charges before Charles V. Cortés was named marquis of the Valley of Oaxaca and granted a huge estate within the land he had seized. He also obtained royal permission to organize seaborne expeditions in the

Pacific Ocean, then called the Mar del Sur (Sea of the South) by the Spanish.

CORTÉS AND CALIFORNIA Cortés’s history of disregarding authority enabled his Spanish enemies to convince the Crown to limit his power when he returned to Mexico in 1530. A royal edict forbade him to come within 25 miles of Mexico City, as the Spanish settlement built on the ruins of Tenochtitlán was now called. Thus prevented from participating in colonial government, Cortés built an estate and researched plans for exploration from Mexico’s west coast. For the first time, Cortés became a patron of discovery, content to let others explore the unknown on his behalf. “They tell me that Ciguatan is an island inhabited by women,” Cortés wrote to Charles V. “They also tell me it is very rich in pearls and gold, respecting which I shall labor to obtain the truth, and give your majesty a full account of it.” The “island” of Ciguatan was actually the seaside town of Cihuatlan, “the place of women” in the Nahuatl language. In Cortés’s time, such confused expectations of discovering an island inhabited only by women caused the conquistadores to adopt a longer-lasting place name—California. The name is attributed to a popular 1510 Spanish romantic novel by García Ordónez de Montalvo, Las Sergas de Esplandian (The exploits of Esplandian). Montalvo’s hero visits an island called California, inhabited entirely by Amazons and mythological creatures such as griffins. Expeditions sponsored by Cortés set sail from Tehuantepec and Acapulco, ports along the southwest coast of Mexico, with three goals: finding “California”; a route to the Spice Islands (the East Indies); or the mythical Strait of Anian (thought by early explorers to link the northern Pacific to the Arctic Ocean and so

Charles V granted this coat of arms to Hernán Cortés. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZC4-483])

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provide passage across the top of North America to the Atlantic). Nearly all the ventures ended in disaster. A 1532 expedition commanded by Diego Hurtado de Mendoza disappeared without a trace. When Cortés sent ships in search of Mendoza in 1532, the expedition’s abrasive commander, Diego de Becerra, was murdered in a mutiny led by his pilot, Fortún Jiménez. The mutineers continued to search for Mendoza along the eastern coast of Baja (lower) California. When they went ashore in the Bay of La Paz, on the southeastern end of Baja California, Jiménez and all but two of his men were killed by Guaycura Indians. Cortés himself sailed to the Bay of La Paz in 1535 and founded a settlement called Santa Cruz, intending to use it as a base for further northward exploration in search of the region’s rich oyster pearl beds. The colonists nearly perished from hunger, however, when supply ships got lost and failed to arrive at the hot, unfertile outpost. Francisco de Ulloa, commander of the last Cortés-sponsored expedition, sailed north along the west coast of the Mexican mainland in 1539. When he reached the northern waters of the Gulf of California, Ulloa followed the coastline southward as it continued along the eastern shores of Baja California. Like other Spanish mariners, Ulloa was sure that the Baja peninsula was an island. He searched in vain for a route through the landmass, eventually rounding Baja’s tip and continuing north along its Pacific shore. Some accounts of the voyage suggest that Ulloa reached 30° north latitude before turning back due to dangerous seas. These voyages were a financial disaster for Cortés, who had funded all three expeditions and profited from none of them. Hoping to reclaim colonial titles and riches whittled

away by political intrigues, he returned to Spain in 1540. “I had hoped that the toils of my youth would have secured me repose in my old age,” he wrote in a final appeal to Charles V in 1544. “I have endured all peril, and spent my substance in exploring distant and unknown regions, that I might spread abroad the name of my sovereign, and extend his sway over powerful nations. This I have done without aid from home, and in the face of those who thirsted for my blood. I am now aged, infirm, and overwhelmed with debt.” The broken conqueror eventually realized that his appeals to Spanish royalty would never be answered. He planned to return to Mexico, but ruined health prevented him from leaving Spain. He died on December 2, 1547. Five years later, his remains were moved to Mexico for private burial by his son. Cortés’s conquest remains controversial in Mexico, and no memorial or statue to the conquistador exists there. By the time of Cortés’s death, Spain was entrenched as the main political power in Central America and Mexico. The Aztec empire’s grip on the peoples of Mexico had been destroyed, only to be replaced by a widening system of Spanish imperial influence and controls. Seagoing exploration of California by sea and overland exploration west of the Mississippi intensified. Spain’s foothold in the Western Hemisphere would shape its languages and cultural history for centuries. The immediate effect of Cortés’s discoveries, however, was their confirmation of Columbus’s promise of economic wealth on the western shores of the Atlantic Ocean. It was equally clear that the Americas were a “New World,” not part of Asia as Columbus had believed. With a major base, Europeans were about to flood onto the American mainland.

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Pizarro, Peru, and South America 1531–1683

The Spanish conquistadores were both explorers and conquerors, but some were more devoted to one role than the other. One who was unquestionably more interested in conquering new lands than in exploring them was Francisco Pizarro, a man driven by an insatiable desire for wealth and power. Nevertheless, at a terrible cost to Native civilizations, the foothold Pizarro established for Spain in Peru provided the most significant base for the first wave of exploration—and exploitation—of South America. Before his adventures in Peru, Pizarro—a distant cousin of Cortés—was a retired professional soldier who had spent an undistinguished career serving in the expeditions of others. He had marched to the Pacific Ocean with Vasco Núñez de Balboa in 1513. After Balboa’s death, Pizarro remained in Panama, becoming a local mayor with a reputation for ruthlessness toward Indians. Attracted by

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rumors of wealth in the lands south of Panama, Pizarro formed a business partnership with another soldier, Diego de Almagro, and a priest, Hernando de Luque, who agreed to fund any expeditions Pizarro and Almagro attempted. Their initial expeditions were failures. Pizarro’s first voyage (1524) down the west coast of Colombia was quickly halted by Indian attacks and malaria. A second attempt, in 1526–27, fared little better, but resulted in an important discovery. While Pizarro waited in Colombia for Almagro to return from Panama with reinforcements, their pilot Bartolomé Ruiz continued south. Off the coast of Ecuador, Ruiz sighted a large oceangoing raft belonging to local Indians. Francisco de Xéres, Pizarro’s secretary and the author of the only first-person reports of the conquest of Peru, obtained a description of the craft from an unknown eyewitness: 65

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The keel and bottom were made of reed stems as thick as posts, lashed together with henequén, a fiber resembling hemp. There were raised platforms made of lighter stems, lashed in the same way, on which the cargo was stowed and the people sat, to keep dry. . . . They carried as trade goods many personal ornaments of gold and silver, including crowns, diadems, belts, and bracelets; armor, such as greaves and breastplates; tweezers and rattles; beads and rubies in strings and clusters; silvermounted mirrors, cups, and other drinking vessels. There were quantities of woolen

Francisco Pizarro explored the area of present-day Peru and subsequently destroyed the Inca Empire, which was in the midst of a civil war at the time of the encounter. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-104354])

and cotton mantles, tunics . . . and other garments, most of them lavishly embroidered with designs of animals, birds, trees, and fish, in scarlet, purple, blue, yellow, and other colors.

Despite the excitement Ruiz’s encounter inspired when he rejoined Pizarro, the expedition was soon on the edge of collapse again. When a rescue ship sent by the governor of Panama arrived in August 1527, offering the starving survivors a chance to leave Pizarro’s command, all but 13 men accepted. Pizarro, his 13 followers, and three Indians Ruiz had kidnapped from the raft to train as interpreters were abandoned on an island they named Isla Gorgona, off the Colombian coast. Ruiz rescued them seven months later. Instead of returning north, however, Pizarro and Ruiz sailed down the coast of Ecuador, past the point of the earlier meeting with the trading raft. In April 1528 the Spanish sighted the Inca city of Tumbes on Peru’s northwestern coast. Pizarro sent three men ashore to investigate. When the shore party returned with ecstatic tales of gold and silver, beautiful women, and friendly, intelligent men, the doubting Pizarro sent ashore a second group, who confirmed the claims. The Spanish spent several weeks feasting and exchanging information with the locals. They enjoyed similar receptions at other coastal villages as far south as the shore of central Peru. Pizarro returned to Panama, then quickly sailed for Spain seeking investors and a royal commission. Charles V was impressed but preoccupied with preparations for his coronation as emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. He left the matter in the hands of his wife, Queen Isabella of Portugal, who granted Pizarro exclusive authorization to “discover” and conquer Peru. As soon as the conquest was complete, Peru would be called New

Pizarro, Peru, and South America Castile and governed by Pizarro, an entitlement to which his partner Almagro would later violently object. From the start of his third and final expedition, Pizarro’s officially sanctioned goal was nothing less than complete possession of Peru.

THE FINAL EXPEDITION When Pizarro sailed from Panama in December 1530, his expedition was comparatively small. Only 180 men participated, including his half-brothers Hernando, Gonzalo, and Juan, and a cavalry company with 37 horses

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commanded by Hernando de Soto (who later led his own expedition to Florida). The force landed in northern Ecuador and remained there for nearly a year. When Pizarro finally proceeded down the coast to Tumbes, he found Peru dramatically changed from what he had seen earlier. Pizarro learned that Peru was near the end of a bloody four-year civil war over leadership of the Inca empire. When the emperor Huayno Capac died in 1528, his sons Huascar and Atahualpa had both claimed themselves to be the rightful heir to the throne. Tens of thousands of people died as Atahualpa’s forces

Hernando de Soto, who would later explore the present-day southeastern United States, served as Pizarro’s cavalry captain on his expedition in present-day Peru. In this 1850s image de Soto displays his horsemanship for the Inca. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-104369])

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The Inca Empire

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Like the Aztec empire of Mexico, the empire of the Peruvian ethnic group known as the Inca was relatively young when Europeans first landed in Peru in the early 1500s. In less than 100 years the Inca had expanded far beyond lands they had traditionally occupied high in the Andes Mountains, taking control of Peru, most of Ecuador, western Bolivia, northern Chile, and northwest Argentina. In area it was one of the largest empires in the world at the time. Had it not been divided by civil war when the Spanish arrived, there is little chance that Pizarro’s conquest could have succeeded so quickly, if at all. Governed by a supreme ruler also known as the Inca, who was considered to be a descendant of the Sun, Inca society was highly organized. Much of daily community life was devoted to agriculture. Working with cut stone, Inca architects developed a system of mountain terraces, complete with irrigation and drainage systems that kept the soil suitable for farming in the unpredictable climate of the Andes. The Inca genius for building can still be seen in remnants of the Royal Inca Highway and at Machu Picchu, a city 50 miles northwest of Cuzco that escaped detection by the Spaniards and whose jungle-covered ruins were discovered in 1911 by an American explorer, Hiram Bingham. The language of the Inca, which is still spoken in Peru, is called Quechua. The Inca did not record events through writing. They recorded and communicated statistical information by a sophisticated method of knotting strings, which were called quipus. Surviving Inca textiles and pottery, along with what

crushed their opposition. When the Spanish entered the mountains, Atahualpa was marching south to complete his control of the empire by conquering its capital, Cuzco, located in south-central Peru. With thousands of troops at his command, Atahualpa felt he had little to fear from a small group of Spanish soldiers. The Spaniards were also safeguarded by the fact that the Inca had no idea that the strangers secretly intended to conquer their empire. Pizarro left Tumbes in May 1532. For months, he marched inland, demanding the loyalty of local chiefs and executing those who resisted Spanish demands for gold and workers. Heading toward the Andes, he marched along part of the Royal Inca Highway, a 1,000-mile-

long toll road stretching from Ecuador to Chile. His secretary Xéres described the passage: The road is level, and the part which traverses the mountains is very well made, being broad enough for six men on horseback to ride abreast. By the side of the road flow channels of water brought from a distance, at which the travelers can drink. At the end of each day’s journey there is a house, like an inn, where those who come and go, can lodge.

In late 1532 Pizarro learned that Atahualpa was in northern Peru at Cajamarca, on the other side of the Andes, only 12 days’ march away.

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few gold artifacts escaped being melted down by conquistadores, also provide useful information about Inca culture and history.

Machu Picchu, whose ruins are shown here, was one of the Inca’s magnificent, terraced cities. (PhotoDisc)

Pizarro left the highway, taking the most direct overland route with only 40 cavalrymen and 60 footsoldiers. The Spaniards hiked for a week over mountains nearly 14,000 feet above sea level. “The cold is so great on these mountains,” wrote Xéres, “that some of the horses, accustomed to the warmth of the valleys, were frostbitten.” On November 14 they saw Cajamarca in the valley below, dwarfed amid an encampment of more than 30,000 of Atahualpa’s soldiers. Accompanied by an unidentified interpreter, Pizarro’s cavalry captain Hernando de Soto rode to meet Atahualpa the next day. Atahualpa was scornful and unimpressed by the Spaniard, who put on a display of horsemanship for terrified Inca retainers, none of

whom had ever seen such an animal. When Pizarro’s brother Hernando joined them, professing friendship, Atahualpa announced that he had received reports of Spaniards enslaving his subjects. Hernando Pizarro haughtily denied the charge, adding that 10 Spaniards would be enough to rid Atahualpa of his enemies. Atahualpa laughed and agreed to meet Francisco Pizarro on the following day, November 16, 1532. That night Pizarro’s men hid in the buildings surrounding Cajamarca’s main square. The following afternoon, Atahualpa arrived, carried on a royal stretcher and accompanied by a large escort. Pizarro appeared and told Atahualpa through an interpreter that he was

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In this mid-19th century engraving the Inca welcome Spanish conquistadores in the 1530s, probably at present-day Cajamarca, Peru. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-104362])

the friendly ambassador of a great lord. In a 1615 account of the conquest, a Peruvian historian, the half-Inca, half-Spanish Felipe Guamán (Huamán) Poma de Ayala (also known as Waman Poma) described Atahualpa’s reply:

that he had to worship no gods but his own and asked who had told the priest otherwise. Valverde responded that his Bible told him. Atahualpa demanded to see the book:

The Inca responded with majesty and said that it was true that, having come as a messenger from so distant a land, he believed it must be a great lord, but that he did not have to make friendship, as he too was a great lord in his kingdom.

He took it in his hands and began to look through the pages of the book. And the Inca said: “Well, why doesn’t it tell me? The book doesn’t even talk to me!” Speaking with great majesty, seated in his throne, the Inca Atahualpa threw the book down from his hands.

Father Vicente Valverde, Pizarro’s chaplain, approached Atahualpa and told the emperor to renounce all gods except the one worshipped by the Spaniards. Atahualpa replied

The angry priest shouted to Pizarro, who ordered his artillerymen to shoot. Concealed soldiers burst into the plaza, ambushing Atahualpa’s retainers. Atahualpa was seized

Pizarro, Peru, and South America unharmed, but between 2,000 and 10,000 unarmed Incas, including all the chief administrators of the empire, were killed in a slaughter that lasted for hours. The next morning, Pizarro ordered Atahualpa to command his army to disband. Most of the Inca troops surrounding Cajamarca complied. Pizarro’s tiny force, however, remained separated from the coast by difficult terrain and thousands of hostile soldiers. As Atahualpa watched the Spaniards pillage Cajamarca, he conceived a plan to save his own life. He drew a line on a wall with a piece of chalk, reaching as high as he could and promising to fill the room to the mark once with gold and twice with silver if Pizarro would set him free. Pizarro immediately

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agreed and had the terms of the ransom written for Atahualpa to sign. During his confinement, Atahualpa was allowed to receive visitors and continued to govern his empire. Supervising collection of the ransom took the Spaniards deeper into Peru. Hernando Pizarro led a force south to Pachácamac and other Inca holy sites, whose gold idols were stolen and melted down. In February 1533 Almagro arrived at Cajamarca with reinforcements, who immediately quarreled with Pizarro’s men over division of the accumulating tons of gold and silver. By summer the ransom chamber was full. Pizarro, however, reneged on the deal. He accused Atahualpa of plotting against the Spaniards and ordering the murder of his

The Spanish invaders tortured the Inca and pillaged their cities, melting statues for their gold and stealing any treasures they could find. In this 1850s image some Spanish soldiers, commanded by Francisco Pizarro, burn a Peruvian to make him confess the location of the gold. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-104368])

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brother Huascar. Atahualpa was publicly strangled on August 29, 1533. The power vacuum left by Atahualpa’s death allowed Pizarro to march throughout the Inca kingdom with limited opposition. In November 1533 the Spanish occupied the capital of Cuzco, declared the Inca civil war to be over, and appointed Manco Capac, a brother of Huascar and Atahualpa, as the Inca. The first year of Spanish control passed peacefully. In 1535 Pizarro founded the city of Lima a short distance from the coast, choosing it as a convenient location from which to oversee outgoing treasure shipments. Pizarro’s governorship continued to provoke conflict with his business partners. The original agreement between Pizarro, Almagro, and Luque stated that the three would equally divide all their wealth. Pizarro’s royal commission, however, placed control in his hands. The new governor favored his brothers, infuriating Almagro and his supporters. Meanwhile, the first shipments of Peruvian treasure reached Spain, causing a horde of fortune seekers to flock to South America.

SEARCHING FOR NEW KINGDOMS New arrivals faced with Pizarro’s and Almagro’s grip on Peru took sides in the political strife between the two factions or headed north in search of new kingdoms to conquer. In 1533 Sebastián de Benalcázar marched into the Andes, overcoming a defending Inca army in the treacherous high mountain passes. Within a year, Benalcázar controlled Quito, the traditional center of the province and the modern capital of Ecuador. In 1537 Benalcázar tried to expand his territory by moving into Colombia. As Benalcázar followed the Andean cordilleras (mountain ranges) northward, he was unaware of another expedition moving

toward the same spot from the opposite direction. German fortune seekers had unsuccessfully tried to find a westerly route to Peru from the coastal town of Coro in Venezuela, crossing the Lago de Maracaibo, then turning south into the mountains of Colombia. Leaving Coro in 1536, Nikolaus Federman succeeded by heading directly southwest from Coro, avoiding the Andes altogether. The strategy was not a total success. Only 166 of Federman’s original force of 500 survived the journey through the grassy Llanos region before mountains blocked their way. Founding a base called San Juan de Los Llanos, Federman headed west, climbing into the Andes at last. He emerged on the same plateau where Benalcázar would arrive within weeks. Both Federman and Benalcázar were astounded, however, to find another Spanish expedition, led by Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada, already in firm possession of the countryside. In 1536, a year before Benalcázar set forth, Quesada had left Santa Marta on Colombia’s Caribbean coast, intending to find a route to Peru. The approach was risky. Exploration across the entire northern coast of South America was dangerous, due to European slaving raids, which hardened Indian resistance to intruders for centuries. To avoid battling tribes who had stalled attempts to march into the Colombian highlands, Quesada organized an enormous campaign to push up the Magdalena River in west-central Colombia, struggling though hundreds of miles of dense equatorial forest. Spanish historian Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés, who interviewed Quesada, wrote in his Historia general y natural de las Indias (General history of the Indies, 1547): Besides these hardships, they were constantly harassed by forest Indians; a number

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of Spaniards were killed in these skirmishes. The rivers they had to cross were infested with crocodiles, and the forests full of jaguars. Three Spaniards were dragged down by the crocodiles and another three carried off by jaguars.

The landscape was too poor to support the cumbersome expedition of 800. When they eventually arrived on the verdant central plateau, the starving survivors were eating their leather belts to stay alive. Nevertheless, Quesada systematically conquered the Muisca people, confiscated a sizable quantity of gold and emeralds, and founded Santa Fe de Bogotá (present-day Bogotá). He was waiting there when Federman and Benalcázar arrived. The three explorers decided not to fight over the spoils of Muisca treasure. They sailed to Spain and asked the Crown to divide control of Colombia among them. Ironically, Quesada had won the race to Bogotá, but lost his share to the family of his dead patron, Pedro Fernández de Lugo. The province he conquered was named New Granada.

ALMAGRO IN CHILE The Spanish Crown’s division of Peru, or “New Castille,” among its conquerors had less harmonious results. Diego de Almagro was awarded control of Cuzco and southern Peru. Frustrated in his demands for spoils already controlled by the Pizarro clan, Almagro mounted a new expedition further southward, exploring new lands that were rumored to hold even more wealth than the Inca empire. Almagro commanded his expedition expertly but discovered only lands unfit for settlement or exploitation. His main force started southeast into the great highland basin of southern Peru and western Bolivia. Bypassing the fertile area surrounding Lake

Titicaca, the highest large mountain lake in the world, he followed the Desaguadero River toward the shallow, undrinkable saltwater of Lake Poopó. The countryside became increasingly bleak as Almagro continued south, finding little but saline deserts and desolate mountains. Ironically, he came within 100 miles of the Bolivian mountain of ore discovered in 1544 at Potosí, which within a century was the richest silver mine in the world. As Almagro descended into the valleys of northern Argentina, he lost men in ambushes by Indian tribes unfamiliar even to the Incas. A large portion of his supplies was washed away in seasonal floods. Survival became more important than conquest. Almagro turned toward the Pacific coast, hoping to get access to supplies by sea. He divided his expedition into small groups and climbed over deadly mountain ranges, such as the 15,492foot high Paso San Francisco. Contemporary Spanish historian Agustín del Zárate described one company’s crossing: Many of those who had died remained, frozen solid, still on foot and propped against the rocks, and the horses they had been leading also frozen, not decomposed, but as fresh as if they had just died; and later expeditions following the same route, short of food, came upon these horses, and were glad to eat them.

Finding no treasure upon descending from the mountains, Almagro realized his mission was a failure. To return to the Peruvian border, he first had to cross the Atacama Desert, a barren 600-mile-long salt basin lying between Chile’s coastal mountains and the cordilleras he had just surmounted. Wisely dividing into even smaller groups to conserve water, Almagro’s men became the first Europeans to cross the Atacama.

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Diego de Almagro was granted control of Cuzco, a city in south central Peru, in the 1530s, following the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire. Shown in this contemporary photograph is the Sacred Valley of the Incas, or the Urubamba River valley, located about 10 miles north of Cuzco. (PhotoDisc)

Almagro’s severely tested expedition arrived at Cuzco empty-handed in early 1537 to find the Pizarros fighting a widespread Inca rebellion. The Spanish won the war within a year, but armed resistance against them lasted for another 35 years. By then, both Almagro and Francisco Pizarro were dead. The enmity between the two former partners broke into open warfare soon after Almagro’s return from Chile. His forces were defeated in 1538 by Pizarro, who ordered Almagro executed. Almagro’s followers took revenge in 1541, assassinating Francisco Pizarro in Lima.

ORELLANA AND THE AMAZON When Francisco Pizarro lay dying in Lima, his brother Gonzalo was lost in the jungles east of the Andes. As his share of the conquest, Gonzalo had been appointed governor of Quito and other provinces comprising modern Ecuador. The Spaniards were lured by stories of the gold of El Dorado and abundant spices in La Canela, the “Land of Cinnamon,” allegedly located in the east.

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Eager to surpass his brother’s success, Gonzalo Pizarro left Quito, in northern Ecuador, in February 1541 with 220 soldiers, supplies carried by 4,000 chained Indian slaves, and a huge herd of pigs for food. The expedition’s progress soon slowed to a crawl due to the equatorial rainy season and Pizarro’s stubborn insistence on hacking through roadless jungles. A month after setting forth, he was joined by a company of cavalry reinforcements, led by a one-eyed conquistador named Francisco Orellana. Pizarro left his main army and set forth with 70 men. He found and wandered aimlessly in the “Land of Cinnamon,” which he discovered to have little actual cinnamon.

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When he rejoined his main force two months later, most of his Indian porters (carriers of the burdens) were dead from disease and mistreatment, as were many of the Spaniards. Increasingly desperate, Pizarro struggled east along the River Coca, bearing the sick and remaining supplies on a hastily crafted boat christened the San Pedro. His situation worsened when he forced his way 150 miles eastward down the River Napo, only to be told by Indian guides that they were lost in a land with no food, far from any escape route back to the Andes. The day after Christmas 1541, with his starving men ready to mutiny, Pizarro agreed to let Orellana take the boat and 59 men downriver to seek food. Whether or not Pizarro

The Legend of El Dorado = As European explorers made their way into the interior of Colombia in the 1530s, they heard Indian tales about a man covered with gold—El Dorado (“the golden one”). The first written account came in a 1539 report by a member of Sebastián de Benalcázar’s expedition, Luis da Daza, who described an ancient coronation ritual at Lake Guatavita, just north of Bogotá. Writing in 1636, a century after the rush to find El Dorado, Spanish colonial writer Juan Rodríguez Freyle related the legend, in which a new ruler, religious leaders, and a heap of gold were floated aboard a raft into the lake. There the new ruler would be: stripped to his skin, and anointed with a sticky earth on which they placed the gold dust so that he was completely covered with this metal . . . when they reached the centre of the lagoon . . . the gilded Indian made his offering, throwing out all the pile of gold into the middle of the lake, and the chiefs accompanying him did the same.

Gold-hungry conquistadores speculated that the bottom of Lake Guatavita was carpeted with treasure. In 1545 explorer Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada partially drained the lake and recovered 4,000 gold coins. Later attempts, which continued for centuries, produced mostly mud. Over time, the term El Dorado came to refer to an entire golden city instead of one man. Similar legends spread throughout the Americas and encouraged illusions such as the Seven Cities of Cíbola, which was sought by Spanish conquistador Francisco Vásquez de Coronado. Although never found, El Dorado’s grip on the imagination spurred exploration throughout the Americas for decades.

Pizarro, Peru, and South America ordered Orellana to return in a few days would later be disputed. Regardless, Orellana now commanded perhaps the greatest exploratory journey in South American history.

DOWN THE NAPO By his third day downriver, the current was too strong for Orellana to return to Pizarro’s main force. A Dominican priest, Gaspar de Carvajal, described what happened in his later memoirs: We soon realized it was impossible to go back. We talked over our situation (seeing we were already nearly dead from hunger) and we chose what seemed to us the lesser of two evils . . . trusting to God to get us out, to go on and follow the river: we would either die or get to see what lay along it.

Five days into their journey, Orellana’s men came upon a friendly Indian village and rested there for a month, preparing for their voyage downriver into the unknown. Unlike the often cruel Pizarros, who would torture Indians to get information, Orellana made an effort to learn their language. “Next to God,” Father Carvajal would write, “the captain’s ability to speak the languages of the natives was the thing that saved our lives.” Ten days after resuming his voyage, Orellana came to where the Napo met the Marañón River to form one great river. From this point, which he called St. Eulalia, Orellana would drift more than 2,000 miles down the river later named Río Amazonas, the River of the Amazons. Orellana paused east of Iquitos in small villages under the leadership of an overlord named Aparia. The Spaniards were welcomed there. “The Indians remained quiet and rejoiced on seeing our companions and gave them much food, consisting of turtles and par-

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rots in abundance,” wrote Father Carvajal of one visit. The Spaniards lived with Aparia’s people for two months. The Aparians warned that a small, seemingly defenseless party like Orellana’s venturing downriver could expect a hostile reception in Indian states there, named after their respective lords, Machiparo and Omagua. The Spaniards carefully prepared the San Pedro to withstand arrow attacks and built a second boat, the Victoria. The warnings were confirmed soon after the Spaniards finally left Aparia. They were attacked repeatedly as they drifted hundreds of miles past the villages of Machiparo and Omagua. On the occasions when they were able to land, they discovered fine glazed pottery, fields of fruit trees, and broad roads leading into the interior of the countryside. As the attacks subsided, the Spaniards wondered at the vastness of the landscape. They were astonished by the powerful currents of tributaries streaming into the Amazon. One great river, wrote Carvajal, “was black as ink, and for this reason we gave it the name Río Negro, which river flowed so abundantly and with such violence that for more than twenty leagues [more than 50 miles] it formed a streak down through the [Amazon], the one not mixing with the other.” Throughout their journey, Orellana and his men had heard stories of a tribe of warrior women. These stories and others they heard later from a captured Indian led them to associate such tales with the Amazons, the mythical tribe of Greek female warriors (which led to the Spaniards’ name for the river). Constant Indian attacks resumed as the Spaniards came closer to the coast. On June 24, 1542, Carvajal wrote: Here we came suddenly upon the excellent land and dominion of the Amazons. These said villages had been forewarned and knew of our coming, in consequence thereof they

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came out on the water to meet us, in no friendly mood, and, when they had come close to the Captain [Orellana], he would have liked to induce them to accept peace . . . but they laughed, and mocked us and told us to keep going and that down below they were waiting for us, and that they were to seize us all and take us to the Amazons.

Orellana’s men were soon battling a large force of Indians, whose ranks according to Carvajal contained a dozen women: These women are very white and tall, and have hair very long and braided and wound about the head, and they are very robust and go about naked, with their privy parts covered, with their bows and arrows in their hands, doing as much fighting as ten Indian men, and indeed there was one Indian

woman among these who shot an arrow a span deep into one of our brigantines, and others less deep, so that our brigantines looked like porcupines.

A few days after fighting the “Amazons,” Orellana’s party noticed that the waters below them were rising and falling. They correctly decided that they were near an ocean whose tides were reaching upriver. Now at the point of starvation, Orellana’s men landed on an island just past the Trombetus River and did their best to make their crude boats seaworthy. On August 26, 1542, after having drifted for 2,000 miles, they sailed into the Atlantic. They still had 1,200 miles to travel before they reached Spanish settlements. The two small boats sailed north along the Brazilian coast, always in danger of being destroyed by ocean seas. After a storm separated them, each

Pizarro, Peru, and South America crew assumed the other was lost, but after rounding Trinidad, they were reunited on September 11, 1542, at Cubagua, a small island off the Venezuelan coast, which was then home to a colony of Spanish pearl extractors.

ORELLANA’S LAST VOYAGE During Orellana’s amazing journey, Gonzalo Pizarro managed to return to Peru after a horrendous ordeal that took the lives of all but 80 of his men. Pizarro, thinking that his subordinate had abandoned him, was astonished, then infuriated to learn that Orellana was alive. Although bitter, Pizarro was angrier upon learning of his

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brother Francisco’s murder in his absence. Rather than wreak vengeance on Orellana, Pizarro successfully fought to regain control of Peru. The headstrong conquistador met his end when he led a revolt of colonists protesting the Spanish Crown’s new laws restricting the rights of conquistadores and protecting the rights of Indians. Although he had survived one of the most grueling expeditions in the history of Spanish exploration, this political misstep led to his execution in 1548, only seven years after his brother’s assassination. Once he convinced the Spanish court that his trip down the Amazon had not resulted from a mutiny, Orellana was commissioned to

The Exploration of South America Continues = The complete history of exploration of South America is little known except to specialized scholars and would fill volumes with almost incredible tales of hardships, daring, and violence. Between 1540 and 1553, for example, the Spaniard Pedro de Valdavia both led and sponsored expeditions down the coast of Chile as far as the Strait of Magellan before he died in battle with the Araucano Indians (who reportedly ate him). Philip von Hutten, a German aristocrat, spent five years (1541–46) searching for El Dorado, but he found no such place and died fighting local Spaniards. In 1561 the Spaniard Pedro de Ursua attempted to explore what is now known as the Marañón River, which flows from the Andes across northern Peru to the Amazon. The journey ended in a bloodbath after one of the officers, Lupe de Aguirre, became insane. He mutinied, executing Ursua, denouncing the Spanish king, and murdering everyone he suspected of plotting against him. Aguirre was captured and executed in Venezuela. The exploration—and challenges—of South America continued throughout the 1600s. The first major expedition up the Amazon occurred nearly a century after Orellana’s death: In 1637–39 Pedro de Teixeira commanded an enormous Portuguese expedition that ascended all the way up the Amazon, continued on to Quito, and then returned downriver. Teixeira claimed the region for Portugal upon his return home. Franciscan priests played a major role in pushing ever farther, among them Father Manuel de Biedma, who in 1687, while searching out better routes in the headwaters of the Amazon, was murdered by local Indians. Nothing seemed to deter these fearless explorers, however, and by 1700, virtually all the territory of South and Central America was divided up among European nations.

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conquer the regions he had discovered. He collected a force of 400 men and, with his young wife aboard, sailed west. They reached Brazil in about Christmas 1545 and traveled 150 miles upriver. The ships quickly became lost in the maze of the Amazon delta, where most of the expedition—including Orellana—perished from starvation, disease, or Indian attacks. Orellana’s grave was never found. Only his wife and a few survivors lived to relate his fate.

RALEIGH’S TRAVELOGUE The wealth discovered in Peru and Bolivia concentrated exploratory efforts on the Pacific side of South America. The eastern half of the continent, ceded earlier to Portugal by the Treaty of Tordesillas, was slow to be seen as fit for anything more than trading outposts and slaving raids. Yet Europeans continued to seek a water route linking the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, avoiding the dangerous passage through the Strait of Magellan. The myth of El Dorado would not die. A decade after organizing the colony at Virginia, English noble Sir Walter Raleigh returned to the Americas and explored the coasts of present-day Venezuela and Guyana in 1595. He found no treasure, but wrote a book about his travels, The Discoverie of the Large, Rich, and Bewtiful Empyre of Guyana, which became a best seller across Europe. Raleigh claimed with misleading enthusiasm that Guyana was brimming with gold and exotic Indians, including one tribe “reported to have their eyes in their shoulders, and their mouths in the middle of their chests.” Raleigh made a second foray into the Orinoco River delta in 1616, looking for El Dorado and seeking a strategic port from which to battle Spain. He did, in fact, sack a

Sir Walter Raleigh led an expedition in South America in search of the fabled El Dorado. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-111785])

Spanish settlement, an act that proved to be fatal. As a friendly gesture toward Spain, James I imprisoned Raleigh for disobeying orders and had him beheaded. By 1600 Spain controlled much of the western half of South America. Armed resistance by Native peoples continued for centuries, but the face of South America had changed forever. Only the most remote parts of the continent, some of which remain unexplored to this day, were untouched by the conquest.

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Cabeza de Vaca’s Epic Journey Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca came to the New World as a conquistador, but left transformed by his travels among the Native people of North America. While many European explorers of the 1500s marched across new lands as armor-clad conquerors, Cabeza de Vaca and three companions crossed the continent hungry and threadbare, simply trying to stay alive. “Through all that country we went naked,” he wrote later, “and not being accustomed to it, like snakes we shed our skin twice a year.” By living to tell of his experiences in his memoir, La Relación, he provided his contemporaries with a new view of the geography and cultures he encountered, as well as an account that remains one of the great adventure stories of the history of the Americas.

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THE NARVÁEZ EXPEDITION Cabeza de Vaca was treasurer of Pánfilo de Narváez’s expedition, which was authorized by Charles V to conquer and govern lands

“from the Rio de las Palmas to the Island of Florida.” Maps of the Gulf of Mexico were still too primitive to portray the actual geographical boundaries of this region, but it encompassed the coastline and interior of the land Alonso Alvarez de Pineda had named Amichel, stretching from northeastern Mexico to Florida, across the present-day states of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. Unfortunately for his men, Narváez’s shortsightedness and cruelty toward Indians transformed his venture into a worse failure than his attempt to arrest Hernán Cortés in 1520. The expedition was nearly destroyed before it started. Storms mauled Narváez’s ships on three occasions before they successfully crossed the Gulf of Mexico from Cuba to reach the coast of Florida on April 12, 1528. Already desperate from losses of food, troops, and horses during the stormy passage, the Spaniards searched for provisions immediately after landing near Tampa Bay. They soon captured four Timucua Indians, 81

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whose village possessed not only supplies of maize, but small amounts of gold among a store of linens and feather headdresses the Spaniards suspected were from Mexico. The Timucua, who were eager for the Spaniards to leave, told the intruders that there was much gold in the province of Apalache in northwestern Florida. Narváez immediately marched toward Apalache, ordering his ships to sail parallel to the coast. This plan was adopted over the objections of Cabeza de Vaca and others, who warned of the danger of heading into strange territory with few supplies, no interpreter, and no permanent base to which they could return if the ships and the overland expedition lost contact with one another. Narváez reached Apalache, the area around what is now Tallahassee, seven weeks

later. His men were starving and sore from carrying armor and equipment over miles of rough trails. “But,” Cabeza de Vaca later recorded, “to find ourselves at last where we desired to be and where we had been assured so much food and gold would be had, made us forget a great part of our labor and weariness.” Despite his discomfort, Cabeza de Vaca observed his surroundings. He later portrayed the houses, terrain, trees, climate, and native wildlife, including the first European description of the opossum: The animals we saw there were three kinds of deer, rabbits and hares, bears and lions and other wild beasts, among them one that carries its young in a pouch on its belly as long as the young are small, until they are able to look for food, and even then, when

Cabeza de Vaca’s Epic Journey they looking for food and people come, the mother does not move until her little ones are in the pouch again.

The people of Apalache received the Spanish with suspicion that turned to fury when the intruders took one of their chiefs hostage. The Apalachee left the Spanish in possession of a town, but attacked repeatedly. Three weeks of barrages of arrows from hostile Indians and information from friendlier Indians who informed him that the surrounding countryside was poor and desolate convinced Narváez to abandon his mission and march toward the coast in hope of finding his ships.

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ESCAPE BY SEA When Narváez reached the sea near the Apalachee town of Aute, southeast of today’s Panama City, Florida, he realized that separating from his fleet had been a blunder. The starving Spaniards stayed alive by butchering their horses and raiding Indian villages, whose inhabitants retaliated fiercely. “With death as our only prospect,” Cabeza de Vaca recalled, the Spaniards decided to flee by sea. Stirrups, spurs, and other iron objects were melted to make nails and tools necessary for shipbuilding. The conquistadores’ lack of experience in constructing boats showed in their escape barges. When 250 men crowded aboard the

Most of the members of Pánfilo de Narváez’s 1528 expedition to present-day Florida and in the Gulf of Mexico did not survive the journey, including Narváez himself. In this mid-19th-century illustration, a wolf devours the remains of the party. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-104371])

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five vessels on September 22, the sides of the dangerous crafts hovered only six inches above the water. The survivors drifted westward along the coast for a month. Many died of thirst or from drinking seawater. At one point, “a very great river”—later identified as the Mississippi— swept them away from the coast into the Gulf of Mexico. By November 6 only Cabeza de Vaca’s barge remained. The rest of the expedition, including Narváez, had either died or disappeared at sea. The survivors landed on a sandy isle off the coast of Texas, possibly

Galveston Island. The starving men were fed by Karankawa Indians and again set sail, but the lone barge was quickly overturned within sight of land by a wave, drowning several of the Spaniards. The freezing survivors struggled to shore, where they were saved but treated like slaves by the Karankawa. The Spaniards’ desolation lifted slightly with the discovery of survivors from another barge. Although only 15 of the 80 Spaniards survived the harsh winter, Cabeza de Vaca keenly observed the dress, languages, physiology, work habits, funeral rites, and wedding cus-

After surviving Narváez’s failed expedition, Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca (foreground) met and lived with American Indian tribes. Through his travels, he met three other survivors of the Narváez expedition. One such survivor who then helped lead them across the present-day United States and through Mexico was Estéban, a North African slave of Dorantes (one of the survivors) and shown leaning against a rock to Cabeza de Vaca’s left. (National Park Service)

Cabeza de Vaca’s Epic Journey toms of the Karankawa. He also acted for the first time as a medicine man, a role he was to play frequently during his journeys. Protesting that they had no real power to do so, he and his companions agreed to Indian demands that they heal the sick. “The way we treated them was to make over them the sign of the cross while breathing on them, recite a Pater Noster and Ave Maria, and pray to God, Our Lord, as best we could to give them good health and inspire them to do us some favors.” To the Spaniards’ surprise, their patients declared themselves healed. When it was time for the Karankawa to leave their seasonal lodges on the coast, they took all the surviving Spaniards except Cabeza de Vaca, who was too ill to travel. After a year of abuse by the Indians who remained behind, he fled to live inland with another tribe, the Charruco, who treated him better. He became a trader, which allowed him to travel freely for four years among the warring tribes of east Texas. He learned in his travels that the scattered survivors of the Narváez expedition were either near death from illness or had been killed by inland tribes. His goods “consisted mainly of pieces of seashells and cockles, and shells with which they cut a fruit which is like a bean, used by them for healing and in their dances and feasts. These things I carried inland, and in exchange brought back hides and red ochre with which they rub and dye their faces and hair; flint for arrow points, glue and hard canes wherewith to make them, and tassels of the hair of deer, which they dye red.” The freedom of Cabeza’s life as a trader ended when he was enslaved by a tribe called the Guevenes, who mistreated him and constantly threatened him with death. During this period of captivity, however, he was reunited with three suvivors of the Narváez expedition: Alonso del Castillo Maldonado, Andrés

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Dorantes de Carranza, and Dorantes’s Moorish, or North African, slave Estéban (also known as Estevan, Estevánico, or Estabanico).

MEDICINE MEN The four were separated from each other for another year when their Indian captors quarreled. When they were reunited a second time, they escaped together. They began to walk west, looking for food, with vague hopes of reaching Mexico. Luckily their reputation as healers preceded them. As they moved from tribe to tribe in their journey westward, they were welcomed as medicine men and frequently asked to perform healing acts. In one instance Cabeza de Vaca prayed over a comatose man he was certain was dead and was shocked when the man later revived. The reputation of the four survivors as faith healers clung to them throughout the rest of their journey. “During that time they came for us from many places and said that verily we were children of the sun,” Cabeza de Vaca later wrote. “We never treated anyone that did not afterwards say he was well, and they had such confidence in our skill as to believe that none of them would die as long as we were among them.” While their reputation increased the fame the four survivors enjoyed in their journey, it also increased the ranks of their Indian guides and companions, who sometimes numbered in the hundreds. “We traveled among so many different tribes and languages that nobody’s memory can recall them all,” Cabeza de Vaca would write. Unlike so many Europeans in the New World who were preoccupied with searching for wealth, however, Cabeza de Vaca’s memory about the lifestyles of Native Americans with whom he traveled was extraordinary. He noted their ways of cooking, hunting, marriage, divorce, warfare, and

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Used as both medicine and food, prickly pear cacti grow in the desert environment of Mexico and the southwestern United States. (Bureau of Land Management)

indigenous foods such as pecans and prickly pear cactus, which the Indians called tuna. He described, for example, child-rearing among the Avavares and other Texas tribes: Children are nursed to the age of twelve years, when they are old enough to gather their own food. We asked them why they reared them thus and they said it was owing to the great hunger that was in the land, since it was common, as we saw, that one went two or three days without eating, and sometimes four, and for that reason they

Cabeza de Vaca and his companions depended on many American Indian tribes for guidance and directions. No maps were used, which makes it impossible to reconstruct their journey exactly. Descriptions of the rivers, mountains, and other terrain they crossed, however, provide enough clues to fuel several interpretations. Early scholars place the route across Texas along the Colorado or Pecos Rivers, eventually descending southwest to El Paso before continuing west. Later theories propose that the wanderers walked south across the Río Grande, through the present Mexican border states of Nuevo León, Coahuila, and Chihuahua, then recrossed the Río Grande at Ojinaga, and followed the river northwest toward the El Paso area. The group next traveled southwest across northern Chihuahua, crossed the Sierra Madre Occidental mountain range, and reached the upper Río Yaqui. There the wanderers felt for the first time that their dreams of reaching home might come true. One day Castillo noticed a buckle from a Spanish swordbelt hanging from an Indian’s neck. The joy the survivors felt upon realizing that fellow Europeans might be ahead turned to sorrow, as the countryside through which they passed became increasingly deserted: The Indian inhabitants had abandoned their homes and farmland to avoid being abducted by Spanish slaving parties. “The sight was one of infinite pain to us; a land very fertile and beautiful, abounding in springs and streams, the villages deserted and burned, the people thin and weak, all fleeing or in concealment,” Castillo wrote. In April 1536 Cabeza de Vaca, Estéban, and some Indians went in search of Spaniards who were thought to be nearby. After several days of searching, they found a Spanish slaving party.

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Conquistadores and “Cows” = THE AMERIC AN BUFFALO

The animals commonly known to English speakers as American buffalo, or simply buffalo, are called bison by zoologists, who reserve the term buffalo for species native to Africa and Asia. Hernán Cortés’s men saw bison in Moctezuma’s royal menagerie as early as 1521. A decade later, however, the survivors of Pánfilo de Narváez’s expedition were the first Europeans to encounter bison in their natural habitat. In his memoir, La Relación, Cabeza de Vaca described the reliance of the tribes of central Texas on these “cows,” which he compared to Old World cattle: They have small horns like the cows of Morocco; their hair is very long and flocky like merinos’. Some are tawny, others black. In my opinion the meat is finer and fatter than the beef of this country. The Indians make blankets out of the skins of cows not full grown; and shoes and shields from the full-grown. These cattle come from as far away as the seacoast of Florida, from a northerly direction, and range over a tract of more than 400 leagues [about 1,000 miles].

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Spanish explorers were often impressed when they encountered bison, which lived across much of North America and differed greatly from the cattle they were accustomed to seeing. (Bureau of Land Management)

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(continued) Throughout this whole range, the people who dwell nearby descend and live upon them and distribute an incredible number of hides into the interior.

Cabeza de Vaca’s statement that the “cattle” came from “as far away as the seacoast of Florida” was not an exaggeration. Bison lived in many parts of North America, from Canada’s Northwest Territories to the Allegheny Mountains of Pennsylvania. Most bison, however, roamed across the central plains and prairies. When Francisco Vásquez de Coronado’s awestruck expedition saw herds of bison blanketing the Great Plains in 1541, North American Indians had already been hunting and trading these animals’ products for thousands of years. The Spaniards at first simply referred to them as cows, cattle, or “humpbacked oxen,” but would later come to call them by the distinctive name of cíbolo. Soldier Pedro de Casteñeda remembered how Coronado’s European horses were terrified by their first encounter with bison: Now that I wish to describe the appearance of the bulls, it is to be noticed first that there was not one of the horses that did not take flight when he saw them first, for they have a narrow, short face, the brow two palms across from eye to eye, the eyes sticking out at the side, so that, when they are running, they can see who is following them. They have very long beards, like goats, and when they are running they throw their heads back with the beard dragging on the ground. . . . They have a great hump, larger than a camel’s. The horns are short and thick, so that they are not seen much above the hair. . . . They have a short tail, with a bunch of haft at the end. When they run, they carry it erect like a scorpion.

Casteñeda’s account also reflects his wonder at the immense size of the bison herds and the almost incomprehensible vastness of the Great Plains: [T]he bulls traveled without cows in such large numbers that nobody could have counted them, and so far away from the cows that it was more than 40 leagues [about 100 miles] from where we began to see the bulls to the place where we began to see the cows. The country they traveled over was so level and smooth that if one looked at them the sky could be seen between their legs, so that if some of them were at a distance they looked like smooth-trunked pines whose tops joined.

The plains tribes that Coronado’s expedition met hunted bison on foot with spears and arrows. Some North American tribes organized buffalo drives, in which the animals were stampeded over cliffs or driven toward confined areas where they could more easily be killed. These stratagems and the Indian cultures that employed them were transformed in the 1600s and 1700s, when Indians mastered the use of an animal imported from Spain—the horse.

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Cabeza de Vaca’s Epic Journey “I overtook four of them on horseback, who were astonished at the sight of me, so strangely dressed as I was, and in the company of Indians,” Cabeza de Vaca recalled. “They stood staring at me for a time, so confounded that they neither hailed me nor drew near to make an inquiry.” The Spanish slaving party was starving. They were fed by the “medicine men” and the 600 Indians traveling with them. Despite this kindness, Cabeza de Vaca had to argue with the slavers to prevent them from kidnapping the Indians. Indians witnessing the quarrel told Cabeza de Vaca that they could not believe that the survivors of the Narváez expedition belonged to the same people and religion as the Spanish raiding parties, who had been terrorizing the Mexican frontier: “We healed the sick, they killed the sound,” Cabeza wrote; “we came naked and barefoot, they clothed, horsed, and lanced; we coveted nothing but gave whatever we were given, while they robbed whomever they found.” The slavers ultimately agreed to guide Castillo, Dorantes, Estéban, and Cabeza de Vaca into Spanish-held Mexico. Traveling through Culiacán near the Sonoran coast, the four survivors arrived in Mexico City on July 25, 1536, more than eight years after landing in Florida.

RUMORS OF FORTUNE News of four survivors of the lost Narváez expedition was a sensation in Mexico City. Although the survivors offered no grand tales of wealth, their mention of permanent Indian houses north of the frontier was enough to excite the imagination of treasure-hungry Spaniards. New Spain’s viceroy, Antonio de Mendoza, was sufficiently intrigued to sponsor northward exploration by Fray Marcos de Niza in 1539 and Coronado in 1540. The journey of the survivors

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was also a major inspiration for Hernando de Soto’s 1539 incursion into Florida. The survivors themselves, however, had no interest in retracing their route. All three Spaniards declined Mendoza’s request to participate in exploratory ventures, although Dorantes either sold or lent his Moorish servant Estéban to Mendoza, who assigned him to Niza’s ill-fated expedition. The first official report by the survivors was an account jointly written by Castillo, Dorantes, and Cabeza de Vaca. It was submitted in 1537, a year after their return, to the audiencia, or governmental tribunal, of Santo Domingo, under whose authority the Narváez expedition had embarked. Then, in 1542, Cabeza de Vaca published a memoir of his experiences, commonly called La Relación; it was retitled Naufragios (Shipwrecked) in later editions. His description of the journey was too imprecise to be valuable to mapmakers, but his portrait of the arid lands above Mexico’s northern frontier attracted curious readers. “Throughout all that country, wherever it is mountainous, we saw many signs of gold, antimony, iron, copper, and other metals,” he wrote. “The Indians who live in permanent houses and those in the rear of them pay not attention to gold and silver, nor have they any use for either of these metals.” No such description of potential wealth had been present in the survivors’ joint report to the audiencia of Santo Domingo. At the time La Relación appeared five years later, in 1542, however, readers were eagerly speculating what the ongoing expeditions of Coronado and de Soto might be discovering.

CABEZA DE VACA IN SOUTH AMERICA Cabeza de Vaca’s experiences among the Indians of North America had transformed him

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into a forceful advocate on their behalf. Received at court in Spain, he urged the Spanish Crown to rein in slaving raids. Although he wanted Spain and the Christian religion to expand their control in the New World, Cabeza de Vaca’s belief that such control could only be accomplished by treating Indians with kindness would lead to his ruin. Charles V appointed Cabeza de Vaca adelantado of the province of La Plata, which included all of

present-day Paraguay, Argentina, Uruguay, and much of southern Brazil, Chile, and Bolivia; the position of adelantado gave him the right to conquer, settle, profit from, and govern this vast territory. After a five-month voyage his ships sighted Santa Catarina Island off the Brazilian coast in March 1541. Rather than take the long route up the Paraná and Paraguay Rivers to his destination, the settlement at Asunción, Cabeza de Vaca decided to

Cabeza de Vaca’s Epic Journey attempt the trip overland through unexplored mountainous jungles. The journey proved to be difficult, but Cabeza de Vaca and his men became the first Europeans to see the spectacular Iguaçu Falls, where the current boundaries of Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay meet. When he finally arrived at Asunción on March 11, 1542, Cabeza de Vaca’s royal appointment allowed him to displace Domingo Martínez de Irala, who had been elected governor by European colonists. Cabeza de Vaca instituted new laws to protect the rights of Indians, irritating many of the colonists. The new governor left Asunción for western Paraguay in September 1543, planning to defeat tribes that were harassing European settlers and friendly Guaraní Indians. Reports of silver and other treasures to the west inspired Cabeza de Vaca to linger there and send exploratory parties into the desolate Chaco region, but his attempts to find an overland route to Peru resulted only in the expedition being worn by starvation, Indian attacks, and disease. When Cabeza de Vaca returned to Asunción after a six-month absence in the Paraguayan interior, he was arrested almost immediately by resentful colonists, who returned Irala to power. Cabeza de Vaca was shipped to Spain in chains and tried for an assortment of crimes, including the seditious offense of declaring himself ruler of La Plata. Although the charges were manufactured by Irala’s supporters, Cabeza de Vaca was imprisoned and sentenced to banishment in North Africa. Charles V lightened the sentence, but the damage to Cabeza de Vaca’s career was already done. He died around 1557 in Spain, poor and forgotten. Although Cabeza de Vaca died shunned by his contemporaries, the story of the Narváez expedition survivors had an enormous effect upon exploration, encouraging de Soto and directly inspiring the expeditions of Niza and Coronado. Cabeza de Vaca provided Euro-

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Cabeza de Vaca documented his experiences among Native American tribes in Navfragios, or Relation of Núñez, which was published in 1542. (Library of Congress)

peans with the first realistic east-to-west dimensions of North America, valuable accounts of flora and fauna, and detailed descriptions of primitive societies living between the Gulf of Mexico and the northern boundaries of Spanish-held Mexico. The value of his information was ignored by some 16thcentury explorers who were devoted to discovering wealth, but time has transformed Cabeza de Vaca’s narrative into a unique portrait of the American continent before the European conquest.

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Hernando de Soto and “La Florida” Hernando de Soto and his men were long credited as the first Europeans to see the Mississippi River. In fact, de Soto’s journey was one of the most dramatic failures of Spanish exploration, both in terms of the riches he did not find and for a violence that shocked even some contemporary Spaniards. Yet in ways that de Soto had not intended, his expedition contributed to Europeans’ knowledge of the New World. By the time of his venture into southeastern North America (1539), de Soto was an experienced conquistador. He had served under Pedrarias Dávila, the brutal governor of Panama responsible for the execution of Vasco Núñez de Balboa. While still a young man, de Soto became rich from raids on Panamanian Indians and slave trading in Nicaragua. As leader of Francisco Pizarro’s cavalry, de Soto and his horsemen were the first Europeans to meet the Inca leader Atahualpa. De Soto returned to Spain a wealthy man in 1536 and married, but he soon grew restless. He asked Charles V for permission to return to the New

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World to conquer Ecuador, Colombia, and Guatemala. The king instead appointed him governor of Cuba and granted him royal asiento (permission) to explore and conquer “La Florida,” a vaguely defined region including not only the Florida peninsula but lands stretching from the Carolinas to Texas. Every explorer who preceded de Soto into La Florida had met with disaster. Alonso Alvarez de Pineda charted the Gulf Coast from Florida to Mexico in 1519, proving Florida was not an island and claiming Texas for Spain. Alvarez de Pineda was the actual European discoverer of the Mississippi River, whose outlets he explored before resuming his voyage west. At their settlement on Mexico’s Río Pánuco, however, he and most of his crew were killed by the Huastec. Lucas Vásquez de Ayllón, a judge at Santo Domingo’s supreme court, sponsored exploration of the northern Florida coast and led a 1525 attempt to establish a settlement near Cape Fear, North Carolina. This, too, was a failure that cost its leader his life. The efforts of Juan Ponce de

Hernando de Soto and “La Florida”

Beginning in 1538 Hernando de Soto explored much of the present-day southeastern United States before his death near the Mississippi River in 1540. The rest of his party continued under the command of Luis de Moscoso to present-day Tampico, on the eastern coast of Mexico. (Library of Congress)

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followed Columbus, de Soto was responsible for funding his own expedition and had no financial help from the Spanish Crown. This meant that Charles V was entitled to a share of whatever riches de Soto might discover, but if no profit was made, de Soto and his partners would bear the cost alone. The terms of the charter also forbid de Soto to mistreat Indians living on any land he would claim for Spain. The reputation that he had acquired riding with Dávila and Pizarro, however, gave no reason to believe de Soto would honor this condition. Later, in 1548, historian Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés would note sarcastically that “the Governor was much given to the sport of slaying Indians.” De Soto interested a group of Spanish noblemen in the Florida venture. The idea also attracted Portuguese volunteers, including an adventurer who survived to write about the journey under the pen name “A Fidalgo [Gentleman] of Elvas.” The memoir of the Gentleman of Elvas, along with those of de Soto’s secretary Rodrigo Ranjel and the Spanish Crown’s representative, Luis Hernández de Biedma, would provide the only first-person descriptions of the expedition’s bloody progress.

LANDING IN LA FLORIDA León and Pánfilo de Narváez to penetrate Florida’s interior had also been disasters. Yet de Soto was not easily intimidated nor was he immune to the excitement created by Cabeza de Vaca’s return to Spain after his epic adventures and by rumors of the fantastic wealth of the Seven Cities of Cíbola, (legendary cities in the American Southwest). The two men formed a partnership for the Florida venture, but the agreement collapsed when de Soto refused to pay for a boat Cabeza de Vaca bought for the trip. Like most explorers who

De Soto was confident in regards to his Florida venture but spent a year in Cuba planning carefully. His conquistadores were armed with crossbows, primitive guns called harquebuses, and Irish wolfhounds trained as ferocious “war dogs.” He assembled not only soldiers but craftsmen needed to run a colony, such as shoemakers and tailors. In addition to food and trade items, hundreds of shackles and iron collars for slaves were packed in waiting ships. When all preparations were complete, the force included some 620 men and 223 horses.

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The Requerimiento

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Mistreatment of Native Americans was against the declared wishes of Spanish royalty, who felt themselves morally obliged to bring Christianity to the Americas. To protect the Indians—without slowing exploration and colonization—in 1512 King Ferdinand directed a council of theologians to define when military action might be taken against Indians who opposed incursions into their lands. The result was a long legal document called the requerimiento, a term that, literally translated, means “requirement.” Conquistadores like de Soto were required to read the document aloud in a so-called ceremony of possession whenever they moved into new lands inhabited by Native Americans. The requerimiento demanded that Indians “acknowledge the Church as the ruler and superior of the whole world,” under the authority of “the high priest called Pope” and the rulers of Spain. The requerimiento also demanded that Indians consent to religious instruction by priests. In principle, the document’s terms were nonbinding: We in their name shall receive you in all love and charity, and shall leave you your wives, and your children, and your lands free without servitude, that you may do with them and with yourselves freely that which you like and think best, and they shall not compel you to turn Christians, unless you yourselves, when informed of the truth, should wish to be converted to our holy Catholic faith.

Refusal to accept the terms of the requerimiento, however, amounted to a declaration of war and held the Indians responsible for any violence: But if you do not do this or maliciously make delay in it, I certify to you that, with the help of God, we shall powerfully enter into your country, and shall make war against you in all ways and manners that we can, and shall subject you to the yoke and obedience of the Church and of their highnesses; we shall take you, and your wives, and your children, and shall make slaves of them, and as such shall sell and dispose of them as their highnesses may command; and we shall take away your goods, and shall do you all the mischief and damage that we can . . . and we protest that the deaths and losses which shall accrue from this are your fault . . .

Conquistadores often read the complex document too quietly for its audience to hear. In most cases, the Native Americans simply could not understand the Spanish. Yet throughout the exploration of the Americas, conquistadores used the requerimiento as justification for conquest of any land where their entry was opposed.

On May 1, 1539, de Soto’s ships approached Florida’s west coast and sailed into a bay he named Espíritu Santu (Holy Spirit). Some his-

torians believe they landed at Tampa Bay, while others place the landing site farther south in Charlotte Bay. As supplies were slowly

Hernando de Soto and “La Florida” unloaded, eager conquistadores rode into the surrounding marshland. They encountered impassable swamps and elusive Indians. Cavalrymen chasing a group of Indians were shocked when one of the fleeing men began pleading for his life in Spanish. The man was Juan Ortiz, who had been sent by Narváez’s wife a decade earlier to find her husband. When Ortiz’s shore party landed in Florida in 1528, he and another Spaniard were captured by Indians, whose chief had been disfigured upon Narváez’s orders. Ortiz’s companion was killed immediately. The tribe began to roast Ortiz alive over a coal fire, but the chief’s daughter convinced her father to spare the young Spaniard’s life. Soon thereafter, she saved Ortiz’s life a second time, warning him to flee before he was to be killed as a sacrifice. Ortiz escaped to the protection of a nearby tribe and had been living with them for years when news arrived that ships were sailing along the coast. De Soto’s expedition was thrilled to find Ortiz, for they now had a translator. Yet they were disappointed to learn that there was no gold nearby. De Soto made a peace alliance with the cacique, or chief, with whom Ortiz lived and began to send military scouts inland. Instead of finding treasure or land hospitable enough to settle upon, the conquistadores bogged down in swamps, where they were easy targets for hostile Indians. When the furious de Soto suspected one Indian guide of leading the Europeans in circles, the guide was thrown to the dogs, which tore him to pieces. As morale sank, de Soto ordered his cavalry leader to send ambiguously written reports back from the advance party to encourage the fortune seekers. By mid-July, however, the Europeans were starving in the humid, insect-ridden Florida summer. Instead of gold, fertile land, or exportable slave labor, they found only poor villages, whose inhabitants frequently burned their

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dwellings and fled with food stores before the Europeans arrived. De Soto decided to station 100 men on the coast and sent most of the ships back to Havana for more supplies. He ordered the rest of his party to break camp and march into the marshland and pine forests. The expedition was committed—there was no turning back. De Soto’s hungry army devoured everything in its path as it struggled northward. Indians along the way who were defiant enough to refuse to supply food or information were tortured, raped, or killed. Others were chained and used as slaves to carry the Europeans’ equipment. Starving soldiers often ate maize (corn) raw as soon as they discovered it, along with chestnuts and whatever else they found.

Many American Indians living along the coastal United States, such as the Timucua in what is now Florida, supplemented their diets with fish. In this engraving by Theodor de Bry, some American Indians in Virginia fish from a dugout canoe at night. (Library of Congress)

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De Soto began taking hostages to prevent Indian attacks. In mid-August in the village of Caliquen, 20 miles northeast of the mouth of the Suwannee River, de Soto kidnapped the cacique and his daughter, making it known to local Indians that he intended to keep the chief until the expedition had passed safely into a new territory. On September 15 the

expedition arrived at the Indian town of Napituca, southeast of the present city of Live Oak, in northern Florida. Seven Timucua chiefs appeared and asked to meet de Soto in an open field to discuss the cacique’s release. Friendly Paracoxi Indians, however, told Juan Ortiz that the Timucua were plotting an ambush. De Soto rode onto the field as

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The Timucua depended on farming for much of their food. This engraving of a painting by Jacques Le Moyne, a founder of the Huguenot colony at Fort Caroline near the mouth of the St. Johns River in Florida in the mid-16th century, demonstrates a European influence on the Timucua’s planting of crops. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-DIG-ppmsca-02937])

agreed, but at his signal, a trumpet sounded and his cavalry charged. It took all night for the conquistadores to defeat the Timucua fighters. De Soto’s Paracoxi allies tied the vanquished survivors to posts and used them as live archery targets. De Soto’s men headed northwest, building bridges across the Suwannee and Aucilla Rivers on the way to Apalache, the area around modern-day Tallahassee. There de Soto camped for the winter. He sent expedition comptroller (supervisor of finances) Juan de Añasco toward the coast in search of a usable port. At the shoreline Añasco found the

ghostly remains of Narváez’s last encampment, with its forge used to make nails for the doomed expedition’s escape ships.

THE PEARLS OF COFITACHEQUI That winter, a young Indian captive named Perico told the Europeans that he knew of gold mines to the north. Perico described the process of refining gold with enough accuracy to convince them he was telling the truth. The land, he claimed, was called Cofitachequi and was ruled by a woman. When the expedition

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The Lady of Cofitachequi, as she was called, greeted de Soto and his party when they reached the tribe she ruled near present-day Camden, South Carolina. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-104378])

resumed its journey in March 1540, Perico guided it northeast into the hills of presentday southern Georgia. There the Indians were friendlier, offering the Europeans food, porters, and guides. In return, de Soto built large wooden crosses in the center of several towns and lectured the townspeople on the blessings of Christianity. Within six weeks, however, the Europeans’ supplies were again gone. Starving Indian slaves were released and told to fend for themselves, far inside South Carolina. De Soto

threatened Perico, who finally admitted that he was lost. Perico escaped being thrown to the dogs, for he was the only Indian whose language the translator Ortiz understood. On April 26 four Indians were captured near a deserted village. After de Soto ordered one of them burned to death, the others revealed that Cofitachequi was only two days away. The cacica, or female chieftain, of the Muskogean-speaking inhabitants of Cofitachequi welcomed de Soto warmly at the Wateree River near the present site of Cam-

Hernando de Soto and “La Florida” den, South Carolina. “She crossed in the canoes and spoke to the Governor quite gracefully and at her ease,” Ranjel remembered of “The Lady of Cofitachequi,” as she was called by both Indians and the Europeans. “She was a young girl of fine bearing; and she took off a string of pearls which she wore on her neck, and put it on the Governor as a necklace to show her favor and to gain his will.” The Europeans spent a week enjoying the hospitality of the people of Cofitachequi. “The country was delightful and fertile,” wrote the Gentleman of Elvas. “The forest was open, with abundance of walnut and mulberry trees.” Cofitachequi was the most bountiful area the expedition had yet encountered. It was also the first locale that promised any treasure. De Soto and his officers entered an Indian burial chamber, where they found corpses decorated with freshwater pearls. They also found iron Spanish axes, which probably came from the failed Ayllón settlement on the coast, two days’ walk to the east. The Europeans removed 200 pounds of pearls from the mausoleum. When the cacica saw how much they valued the pearls, she offered them more, but de Soto refused. Their week in Cofitachequi was the most promising time the would-be colonists had enjoyed. Crimes committed by de Soto’s soldiers, however, gradually turned the people of Cofitachequi against them. When de Soto announced to the cacica that he was marching onward to search for richer lands, she refused him food or porters. He responded by taking her hostage, but she managed to escape days later.

THE BATTLE OF MABILA For two months, de Soto’s expedition wandered through the hills of North Carolina and eastern Tennessee, crossing the Appalachian Mountains and turning southwest into Alabama. At Coça, near modern-day Childers-

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burg, they rested for a month under the protection of a Creek cacique, who was repaid for his kindness by being taken hostage. They continued to head southwest, down the Alabama River to the Tombigbee River. On October 10 they met Chief Tascalusa, the most imposing cacique they had encountered yet. “His appearance was full of dignity,” the Gentleman of Elvas wrote. “He was a tall person, muscular, lean, and symmetrical. He was the suzerain of many territories, and of a numerous people, being equally feared by his vassals and the neighboring nations.” Tascalusa offered de Soto a peaceful, friendly passage through his lands. After being entertained by the cacique’s men, however, de Soto refused to let Tascalusa return home. Furthermore, de Soto demanded male slaves to use as porters and 100 women. Tascalusa gave de Soto 400 men to use as carriers, but postponed the request for women, saying that he would grant the request when they reached the nearby town of Mabila. As de Soto approached Mabila, near the present site of Mobile, Alabama, he was told that the inhabitants were strengthening the heavily fortified town’s walls, stockpiling weapons, and summoning warriors from the countryside. De Soto ignored the warnings and rode into Mabila on October 18, 1540. He and a dozen of his men were greeted with dancing and singing. The Spaniards noticed, however, that the houses around them were filled with armed men. When Tascalusa disappeared into a dwelling and refused to come out, one of de Soto’s officers grabbed a passing Indian, starting a scuffle. Suddenly, de Soto’s men began dropping under a hail of arrows. The wounded Spaniards fought their way out of the fortress. De Soto regrouped his forces and torched Mabila, killing between 2,500 and 3,000 townspeople, some of whom jumped into the flames or hanged themselves rather than be captured and enslaved.

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De Soto let his badly mauled expedition rest for a month at Mabila. While they recovered, Indians told the translator Ortiz that

Spanish ships were at the coast, only six days away. De Soto kept this news a secret. If he returned to Cuba now, his entire expedition

Although some American Indian tribes greeted de Soto and his expedition eagerly, other tribes (often rightfully) feared their approach. In this 1858 illustration, some American Indians in Arkansas set fire to their village as de Soto’s party approaches. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-104382])

Hernando de Soto and “La Florida” would be considered a failure, for even the Cofitachequi pearls had been destroyed in the Mabila blaze. Determined to return home as a success, de Soto turned his expedition inland. In northern Mississippi confrontations between the Europeans and the Indians continued. After passing a peaceful winter among the Chickasaw, de Soto typically demanded porters from the tribe when it was time to leave. The night before his planned departure, the Chickasaw attacked and would have massacred the entire camp if the Europeans’ terrified horses had not stampeded and thrown the ambush into chaos. On Saturday, May 21, 1541, de Soto’s harried men reached the banks of the Mississippi River, which they called the Río Grande. “Many of these conquerors said this river was larger than the Danube,” Ranjel wrote. Yet they saw it as simply another obstacle to overcome. Four barges were built, and on June 8 the expedition crossed to the west bank. Although the exact site of the crossing is still controversial, it is thought to have taken place 25 miles south of Memphis. The fruitless search for treasure dragged on into southwestern Arkansas, where de Soto’s men and their slaves spent the winter snaring rabbits and subsisting on stores of beans, walnuts, and maize they confiscated in an abandoned town. Almost half of the 620 men who had marched from Florida, including translator Juan Ortiz, were now dead. Most of the remaining horses were lame. When Indians told him of a “great water” to the south, de Soto finally decided to turn toward the Gulf of Mexico and send to Cuba for reinforcements. Near what is now Ferriday, Louisiana, the expedition entered an Indian town called Guachoya. The Guachoyans seemed friendly and told de Soto that the neighboring people of Nilco were preparing to attack the Europeans. De Soto, however, was suspicious. He

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decided to frighten both towns out of any thoughts of war by sending his cavalry into Nilco, where de Soto’s men slaughtered all but a few of the unprepared inhabitants. The Guachoyans watched the killing, then rushed to sack the victims’ homes. By now it was clear to de Soto and his men that their expedition had failed. No gold had been discovered. Many in the ranks now hated the constant warring with Indians, which had gained them nothing. De Soto was seriously ill with fever, and even if he safely led the survivors back to Cuba, his reputation would be ruined, leaving no reason for backers to fund any new expeditions. His fever worsened on May 21, 1542. He called his officers together, thanked them, confessed his sins, and named Luis de Moscoso as his successor. De Soto died the next day and was secretly buried. De Soto had told the Indians that he was immortal, but they noticed his absence and a mound of fresh grave dirt. The Spaniards exhumed their leader at night, weighted his corpse with stones so that it would not reappear unexpectedly, and dropped him overboard in the middle of the Mississippi River. The Gentleman of Elvas heard Moscoso tell the suspicious Guachoyan cacique that “the Governor was not dead, but only gone into the heavens” and would return soon.

MOSCOSO TAKES COMMAND Moscoso polled the members of the expedition as to what direction they wanted to take next. Lacking shipbuilding tools, the majority agreed to leave the river and march toward Mexico, still hoping to discover riches along the way. For the next four months, the expedition struggled through northern Louisiana into east Texas, constantly battling with Native tribes. Moscoso pressed Indians along the way

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for information about gold, a route to the sea, or Christians who might be nearby. The usual cruelties accompanying Moscoso’s demands, however, obtained the Europeans as much false information as good as they journeyed

into Texas. The land became increasingly incapable of supporting the large expedition. In October, near the present site of Austin, Texas, Moscoso called the expedition’s leaders together. Winter was approaching and sup-

After de Soto died of a terrible fever in May 1542, his party continued under the command of Luis de Moscoso. In this mid-19th-century engraving, the party travels south along the Mississippi River. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-104383])

Hernando de Soto and “La Florida” plies were dwindling. Advance riders and information obtained by torturing Indians suggested that only the barren deserts described by Cabeza de Vaca lay ahead. Turquoise (a semiprecious stone) and cotton

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suggested to some Europeans that a more plentiful land might be found on the overland route south to New Spain. Dismissing the objections of these optimists, Moscoso ordered the group to turn back toward the “great river,” the Mississippi. After a grueling march, Moscoso and his men eventually reached the “Río Grande” and took over the Indian town of Aminoya, whose inhabitants were reduced to starvation when the Europeans seized their food supplies. By spring 1543 the Europeans had built seven brigantines (two-masted vessels) from local wood and nails made by melting down slave chains. Moscoso ordered all but his closest allies to dismiss their slaves. Amid much weeping, 500 Indian men, women, and children were abandoned in hostile territory, far from their homes. On July 2, 1543, 322 surviving Europeans and 100 slaves set forth onto the Mississippi River aboard their homemade brigantines. The expedition’s methods remained unchanged on water. The Europeans stole maize from houses along the river and burned the first town they encountered. The next day, Indians approached the Europeans in canoes, offering friendship. As soon as the Indians were within range, however, they rained arrows on the Europeans. Two dozen Spanish soldiers took to canoes to attack their pursuers. The Indians simply capsized them, sending the armor-laden conquistadores sinking to the river bottom. The emboldened Indians continued to attack by day and night, wounding many Europeans before eventually giving up the chase. The drifting survivors reached the mouth of the Mississippi River 17 days later. A vote was taken, and they decided to proceed westward along the coast rather than risk voyaging across the Gulf of Mexico in the rickety brigantines. Juan de Añasco briefly

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convinced the party to try a sea route to speed their progress. Drinking water quickly began to run out, forcing the group to spend several desperate days rowing back to land. Storms and mosquitoes tormented them as they followed the coastline, drifting through the bays of Matagorda and Corpus Christi along the gulf coast of Texas. In September 1543, 52 days after leaving the Mississippi, the survivors reached the mouth of the Río Pánuco, near the future site of Tampico, Mexico. After four days of trying to sail upriver against the current, they deserted their brigantines and walked the rest of the way to the nearest Spanish settlement. “In their clothing of deerskin,” the Gentleman of Elvas wrote, “they all went directly to the church, to pray

and return thanks for their miraculous preservation.”

LEGACY OF A FAILURE The appearance of 311 survivors was a shock to Spanish authorities, who had long assumed that the entire group was dead. Published chronicles by survivors slowly became available. The Spanish Crown’s representative, Luis Hernández de Biedma, filed his brief report in 1544. The diary of de Soto’s secretary Rodrigo Ranjel revealed far more about the incredible hardships and violence of the adventure. Ranjel’s diary was edited and included in La Historia General y Natural de las Indias in 1548 by historian Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y

Atrocities against American Indians abounded throughout many Spanish explorers’ expeditions in the Americas, including killing, torturing, and enslaving them, as shown in this mid-19th-century engraving in which Spanish soldiers use bloodhounds to kill an American Indian. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-104367])

Hernando de Soto and “La Florida” Valdés, whose commentary suggested that he was disgusted by the behavior of his countrymen. The Gentleman of Elvas completed his long, detailed memoir in 1557. These firsthand accounts, and Garcilaso de la Vega’s romantic history, La Florida del Inca (1605), gave Europeans their personal views of the de Soto expedition. Each contained clues about the geography, wildlife, agriculture, and native peoples of La Florida, but the chroniclers retold their experience as men—like de Soto— who were mostly concerned with gold and survival. By reading these accurate accounts, however, Europeans now realized that La Florida was a rugged land of real and complex dangers. It was neither ripe for easy colonization and religious conversion nor was it a country, like Peru, where fabulous wealth made peril worth the risk. De Soto’s experience presented Europe with a forbidding portrait of Florida that had a chilling effect on exploration for a century. Yet Spain continued to consider the region its possession and dealt harshly with other European attempts to settle there. French

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Huguenots under the guidance of French explorer Jean Ribault established two forts in northern Florida along the St. Johns River in 1562 and 1564. Perceiving a dual threat of French claims to the land and Protestantism, King Philip II of Spain dispatched a military expedition under Pedro Menéndez de Avilés. On September 8, 1565, Menéndez established St. Augustine on the northeastern coast of the Florida peninsula. He then turned his attention inland to the French forts, capturing them and slaughtering all but a few of the hundreds of inhabitants. Spain’s hold on the territory remained weak despite some successful efforts by Franciscan missionaries to settle beyond St. Augustine in the late 1600s, but St. Augustine endured to become the oldest European city in the United States. It was not the legacy that Hernando de Soto had in mind when he set off on his expedition. But if he deserves criticism for his brutal mistreatment of the Native Americans he encountered, he also deserves some credit for providing Europeans with their first true look into the great wilderness called La Florida.

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Coronado and the Seven Cities With the wealth of Mexico and Peru already glittering in their minds, Spanish treasure hunters looked north in the late 1530s. They dreamed they might find a new Tenochtitlán or Cuzco in the unexplored lands of what would become the United States. One of the first and greatest journeys of discovery into the heart of North America was led by Francisco Vásquez de Coronado. Members of his entrada (literally, “entrance,” but used to refer to an expedition) were the first Europeans to meet the pueblodwelling peoples of the American Southwest and to see the Grand Canyon. They were also the first to see the Great Plains, traveling alongside Indian tribes whose survival depended on buffalo herds so vast that they covered the landscape as far as the eye could see. For centuries, however, Coronado’s amazing entrada lay forgotten as a business venture whose failure cost its investors their fortunes. Although the contemporary public never saw a word in print about Coronado’s expedi-

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tion, it was one of the best-documented journeys of the era. It was described by Coronado himself in detailed official letters to his patron, Antonio de Mendoza, the viceroy of New Spain. Other chroniclers were soldiers, like the anonymous author of a document known as the Relación del Suceso (Story of the event), or Captain Juan Jaramillo, or Pedro de Casteñeda, who recorded his experiences 20 years after marching from Mexico to presentday Kansas and back. The Spanish venture northward was sponsored by Mendoza. To some extent, Mendoza’s interest in funding exploration was inspired by the rumors of great cities to the north swirling around the survival of Cabeza de Vaca and his companions. Mendoza’s plans were also hastened by competition. His political rival Hernán Cortés was funding seaborne exploration from Mexico’s Pacific coast. Hernando de Soto had received a royal grant to explore La Florida, the vast region between Florida and Texas. Mendoza thought competi-

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Seven Cities of Cíbola = Spain’s search for seven rich cities north of the Mexican frontier appears to have begun with the childhood memories of Tejo, an Indian slave owned by Nuño Beltrán de Guzmán, the brutal first governor of New Spain. According to the chronicler of Coronado’s expedition, Pedro de Casteñeda, Tejo told Guzmán that when he was a boy, his trader father had “gone into the back country with fine feathers to trade for ornaments, and that when he came back, he brought large amounts of gold and silver, of which there was a large amount in that country. He went with him once or twice, and saw some very large villages which compared with Mexico [City] and its environs. He had seen seven large towns which had streets of silver workers.” Guzmán led an expedition in 1530 to search for these “Seven Cities,” but the venture ended when his followers mutinied in the harsh terrain of northwestern Mexico. In 1536, however, when Cabeza de Vaca’s party emerged from the desert and told Mendoza they had heard of powerful villages to the north, Mendoza and other speculators assumed the Narváez expedition survivors were speaking of the Seven Cities. The Seven Cities became known as Cíbola through the 1539 report of Marcos de Niza. When Niza’s scout Estéban arrived at what he thought was the first of the Seven Cities—the Zuni pueblo of Háwikuh, in reality—he sent back word that Cíbola had been reached. The origin of the word Cíbola itself is uncertain. Some anthropologists claim it was based on the name of a Zuni pueblo—Shivola. Another theory is that Cíbola was a Spanish mispronunciation of Ashiwi, the name by which the Zuni then called themselves. If so, it would have been logical for Estéban to report that Indian guides informed him that they had arrived at the communities of the Ashiwi—the cities of Cíbola. The Spanish later named the bison they were seeing cíbolo, apparently because they originally associated these animals with the same region as the legendary Seven Cities. Part of the allure of the search for seven cities lay in Catholic hopes that Cíbola might be the mythical Seven Cities of Antilia. According to Spanish and Portuguese legends, after the Muslim invasion of the Iberian Peninsula in A.D. 714, seven Spanish or Portuguese bishops were said to cross the Atlantic to the island of Antilia, some 2,500 miles west of Europe, where they founded a prosperous Christian utopia. While the fortune hunters in Coronado’s expedition sought gold, the friars in his ranks hoped to connect the fabled wealth and religious harmony of the island of Antilia with the rest of the Christian world.

tors might beat him to the allegedly fabulously wealthy Seven Cities of Cíbola, a region supposedly situated inland above northern Mex-

ico’s frontier. The claim that such cities existed had been reported by the survivors of Cabeza de Vaca’s epic trek.

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Mendoza decided to send a small exploratory expedition north before investing heavily in the project. On March 7, 1539, the group left Culiacán, near the west-central coast of Mexico. Its official leader was Franciscan friar Marcos de Niza, a veteran of expeditions in Peru and Central America. The real leader, however, was Estéban, the experienced survivor of the Narváez and Cabeza de Vaca expeditions. Estéban retraced the Indian roads by which he had earlier come south through the Sonora Valley. Two months later the expedition reached the present Sonora-Arizona border. Niza sent Estéban ahead, with instructions to report any significant discoveries. It was a logical strategy, for the region’s Indians remembered Estéban and got along well with him. He soon outpaced the main party and was more than 200 miles ahead of it when he reached the outskirts of Cíbola. Several tales relate what may have happened when Estéban arrived at the first of the “Seven Cities,” but every story ends with his death. One legend says that Estéban sent the leaders of Cíbola a ceremonial gourd, which he had successfully used in the past as a peace sign. At Cíbola, however, red feathers attached to the gourd were interpreted as a threat of war, a misunderstanding that cost Estéban his life. Another story holds that the elders of Cíbola, who were irritated by Estéban’s demands for turquoise and women, killed him on suspicion that he was a spy. News of Estéban’s violent death terrified Fray Niza, who fled back to Mexico City. Despite his hasty retreat, however, Niza reported to Mendoza that he had seen Cíbola from a distance. His hints at the existence of a great civilization provoked even wilder rumors than those created by Cabeza de Vaca’s austere accounts of Indian life three years earlier. Rodrigo de Albornoz, treasurer of New Spain, described in a letter what Niza

claimed to have learned of the people of the Seven Cities: They have houses built of stone and lime, being of three stories, and with great quantity of turquoises set in doors and windows. Of animals there are camels and elephants and cattle of our kind as well as wild ones, hunted by the natives, and a great number of sheep like those of Peru, also other animals with a single horn reaching to their feet, for which reason they must feed sideways.

The Spanish lords of Mexico soon learned that such tales of the architecture and wildlife of the American Southwest were more fiction than fact.

CORONADO STARTS NORTH Confident that Niza was telling the truth, Mendoza appointed Francisco Vásquez de Coronado to lead a full-scale expedition north. An aristocrat by birth whom historians customarily identify as Coronado rather than by his Spanish family name, Vásquez, Coronado was governor of Nueva Galicia, the northernmost province of New Spain. He and most of the volunteers he enlisted were not experienced, battle-hardened conquistadores like their contemporaries Cortés and de Soto. Unlike the ruthless Pizarro, Coronado was also under strict orders from Mendoza to avoid mistreating any Indians he might encounter. The expedition grew to become an armed force of 336 Europeans, mostly Spaniards, and hundreds of Mexican “Indian allies,” as well as six Franciscan friars, 1,000 Indian laborers, and more than 1,500 horses and pack animals. Fray Niza was appointed to guide the group.

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When Francisco Vásquez de Coronado arrived at the Zuni pueblo of Háwikuh in July 1540, the Spanish forces and the American Indians fought with one another. The Zuni live in a group of seven pueblos now called Zuni Pueblo, in present-day New Mexico, a portion of which is shown in this 1903 photograph by Edward S. Curtis. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-102037])

While organizing the expedition, Coronado dispatched a small reconnaissance party led by Melchior Díaz, the respected alcalde (governor) of Culiacán. Díaz left on November 17, 1539, and followed the Sonora Valley north toward southeastern Arizona, then continued until winter weather stopped him at the southern edge of the Colorado Plateau. He had still not reported back by the time Coronado and the main force left Nueva Galicia on February 23, 1540. When Díaz joined them at

Culiacán in March, he brought no encouraging news of treasure. Mexican Indian traders, however, had given Díaz accurate information about the societies Coronado would encounter. Cíbola, Díaz explained, was actually seven separate Indian communities within a day’s march of one another. He described the homes of tribes who lived in large, multistory dwellings hewn from stone or built with bricks of adobe, a sunbaked mixture of clay and straw: The Spanish later

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named these dwellings and the people who lived in them pueblos—simply the Spanish word for “village.” Díaz also heard about the inhabitants’ farming practices, dress, and warfare strategies, but nothing confirming reports of wealth. Coronado decided to travel ahead of his main army, accompanied by Díaz and 75 men. By June they were at the present border of Mexico and Arizona. They ascended onto the Colorado Plateau, struggling over a rugged landscape that bore no resemblance to the easy route and bountiful countryside promised by Fray Niza. The hungry, disheartened men were inexperienced in living off the land in such a despoblado (wilderness). Several died from eating poisonous “water hemlock” out of desperation. Finally, on July 7, Coronado arrived at the first settlement of Cíbola, the Zuni pueblo of Háwikuh. The starving men were stunned. They found a dusty town of 200 stone dwellings, not the magnificent city described by Fray Niza. “When they got within sight of the first pueblo, which was Cíbola,” Casteñeda recalled, “the curses that some hurled at fray Marcos were such that God forbid they may befall him.” Zuni archers, some of whom had attacked Coronado’s scouts the previous night, assembled to defend Háwikuh. Coronado sent an interpreter forward with a message that he came in peace but, as he later reported, “they, being a proud people, were little affected, because it seemed to them that we were few in number, and that they would not have any difficulty in conquering us.” When Zuni arrows began to fly at the intruders, the Spaniards attacked and took Háwikuh by force. An uneasy peace eventually settled over the town, and Coronado began to question the Zuni about the surrounding countryside:

I commanded them to have a cloth painted for me, with all the animals that they know in that country, and although they are poor painters, they quickly painted two for me, one of the animals and the other of the birds and fishes. . . . They tell me about seven cities which are at a considerable distance, which are like these, except that the houses there are not like these, but are made of earth, and small, and that they raise much cotton there.

This was unwelcome news to an expedition expecting to find rich cities. Coronado sent Fray Niza back to Mexico City in disgrace. “I can assure you that he has not told the truth in a single thing that he said, but everything is the opposite of what he related, except the name of the cities and the large stone houses,” Coronado wrote to Mendoza. Niza’s report was revealed to be an illusion, but Coronado’s financial stake—as well as those of Mendoza and other investors—convinced him to continue the venture. Making his headquarters at Háwikuh, he sent forth smaller expeditions that would define his place in history.

THE GRAND CANYON In September 1540 Coronado ordered Pedro de Tovar, one of his captains, to search for a province the Zuni called Tusuyan, the land of the Hopi. Tovar rode 65 miles into what is now northeastern Arizona. Inhabitants of the first Hopi settlement he reached had heard of the Spanish attack on Cíbola and warned Tovar to stay away. While Tovar tried to negotiate with the Hopi, his impatient soldiers rushed forward, provoking a brief brawl, after which the Spanish and Hopi bartered and traded information peacefully. Tovar returned to Coronado with news that a great river lay to the west.

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When he and a party were sent to scout out the Hopi settled near the Zuni, García López de Cárdenas became the first European to see the Grand Canyon, located in present-day northwestern Arizona. (National Park Service)

Coronado immediately sent a second party, led by García López de Cárdenas, to investigate. In September 1540, 20 days away from the Hopi villages and the Painted Desert (in modern-day Arizona), Cárdenas and his men became the first Europeans to see the Grand Canyon. Casteñeda wrote:

low, twisted pines, very cold, and lying open to the north. . . . They spent three days on this bank looking for a passage down to the river, which looked from above as if the water was 6 feet across, although the Indians said it was half a league [about 1.5 miles] wide.

[They] came to the banks of a river, which seemed to be more than three or four leagues in an air line across to the other bank of the stream which flowed between them. The country was elevated and full of

Cárdenas’s party is thought to have reached the canyon’s South Rim near Moran Point. The three “lightest and most agile men” in the group tried to reach the river, but gave up after a day of difficult climbing:

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They said that they had been down about a third of the way and that the river seemed very large from the place which they reached, and that from what they saw they thought the Indians had given the width correctly. Those who stayed above had estimated that some huge rocks on the sides of the cliffs seemed to be about as tall as a man, but those who went down swore that when they reached these rocks they were bigger than the great tower of Seville.

Cárdenas and his men soon went on their way, more in need of drinking water than interested in exploring the giant chasm blocking their way. Some 135 years passed before another European, Francisco Tomás Garcés, would explore the Grand Canyon.

“ALARCÓN CAME THIS FAR” Cíbola was not the only geography transformed by Fray Niza’s imagination. The friar’s report had created the false impression that Cíbola was close enough to the Pacific coast to be supplied by sea. On May 9, 1540, Mendoza dispatched an exploratory fleet north into the Gulf of California. At the same time Cárdenas was searching for a river passage to the ocean, supply-laden ships commanded by Hernando de Alarcón reached the mouth of the Colorado River, whose waters were colored red by silt. Alarcón tried sailing upriver. He met Yuma (Quechan) Indians, who had heard of Estéban’s death and Coronado’s expedition. When the Yuma convinced Alarcón that Coronado was hundreds of miles inland, he abandoned his mission. Meanwhile, Coronado surmised correctly that a reddish river he had crossed—the Little Colorado—eventually drained into the

Hernando de Alarcón, shown here, turned around his ships full of supplies intended for Coronado’s expedition after being convinced by the Yuma that he would not be able to reach them from the Colorado River. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-99997])

sea; in fact, the Little Colorado joins the main Colorado River in the Grand Canyon. He ordered Melchior Díaz to find Alarcón’s ships, whose supply mission was part of the original plan. Díaz backtracked hundreds of miles south before taking an unknown route west to the Colorado. About 40 miles from the gulf, Díaz found a tree inscribed two months earlier, “Alarcón came this far; there are letters at the foot of this tree.” Díaz explored upriver for six days before crossing the Colorado and riding south into deserts of

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southeastern California. His journey ended there when he was mortally wounded by falling from his horse onto his own spear. As

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was the case with the Cárdenas foray, no explorers would visit the area for another century.

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As photographed during the early 20th century by Edward S. Curtis, Acoma Pueblo is located on a mesa in present-day New Mexico and has been occupied since the 12th century. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-74105])

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THE CAPTIVE OF CICUYÉ On August 29, while Cárdenas was marching northwest toward the Grand Canyon, Coronado dispatched Hernando de Alvarado and 20 men eastward across what is now central New Mexico. Alvarado’s guide was a chieftain the Spaniards nicknamed Bigotes, or “Whiskers,” because of his long mustaches. Bigotes had come to Háwikuh with a friendly delegation from a pueblo some 250 miles to the east called Cicuyé, whose inhabitants invited the Spanish to visit them. Four days into their journey, Alvarado’s men became the first Europeans to see the Acoma pueblo, a Keres Indian town built on top of a flat-topped land formation called a mesa (Spanish for “table”). Gazing up at the fortresslike pueblo, the Spaniards were unaware that Acoma had existed for at least 500, possibly 1,000 years before their arrival. The town still exists today, making Acoma one of the oldest continuously inhabited communities in North America. Acoma was “a rock with a village on top, the strongest position that ever was seen in the world,” wrote the anonymous author of the Relación del Suceso. The inhabitants “came out to meet us peacefully, although it would have been easy to decline to do this and to have stayed on their rock, where we would not have been able to trouble them. They gave us cloaks of cotton, skins of deer and of cows, and turquoises, and fowls and other food.” When Alvarado reached the Río Grande near the present site of Albuquerque, New Mexico, deep in the Indian region then known as Tiguex, he sent word to Coronado that he had found a suitable place for the expedition to spend the winter. After exploring northward along the Río Grande as far as

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Taos pueblo, Alvarado continued east to Cicuyé, which was known to other pueblos as Pecos, a name that the Spanish later adopted. The enormous pueblo was a significant trading center connecting the pueblo Indians of the southwest with the hunting tribes of the Great Plains. The people of Cicuyé had never been defeated in battle and were feared by other tribes. They felt no reason to be intimidated by the Spanish and welcomed them warmly. While awaiting Coronado’s arrival in Tiguex, Alvarado asked his hosts about lands to the east. The Pecos of Cicuyé introduced him to one of their captives, a Pawnee or Wichita from Kansas or Nebraska. Evidently because something about his headgear reminded the Spanish of the Turkish, they nicknamed him El Turco, “the Turk.” El Turco realized from Alvarado’s questions that gold interested the Spaniards more than anything. When Coronado arrived at Tiguex, Alvarado presented him with El Turco, who convinced the Spaniards that his home province of Quivira, far to the east, was a place of fabulous wealth and natural wonders. El Turco, Casteñeda wrote, told Coronado that fish in Quivira were as large as horses and swam in rivers five miles wide: “He stated further that the lord of that land took his siesta under a large tree from which hung numerous golden bells, and he was pleased as they played in the wind. He added that the common table service of all was generally of wrought silver, and that the pitchers, dishes, and bowls were made of gold.” El Turco had no proof of his fantastic claims, but insisted that at the time of his capture he had worn gold bracelets, which Bigotes had confiscated. Alvarado seized Bigotes and another chieftain, then brought them to Coronado, who ordered the men tortured to produce the golden bracelets. No confession

resulted, and the people of Cicuyé were furious, but Coronado was certain that El Turco was telling the truth.

A BLOODY WINTER The Pecos of Cicuyé were not the only ones outraged by the increasing arrogance of Coronado’s entrada. When winter snows began to blow across Tiguex, the Spanish and their Mexican Indian allies were completely unprepared. Their solution was to forcibly evict the inhabitants of Alcanfor, one of Tiguex’s 12 pueblos (and now a ruin located near presentday Bernalillo). Spanish thefts of food, clothing, blankets, and firewood from surrounding pueblos increased as the winter grew colder. Tension increased when Coronado refused to punish a Spaniard accused of raping an Indian woman. The pueblo of Arenal, north of the present city of Albuquerque, New Mexico, retaliated by murdering one of the Spaniards’ livestock tenders and killing a large number of their horses. Within days, the Spaniards and the pueblos of Tiguex were embroiled in a fullfledged war. Cárdenas destroyed Arenal and captured 70 of its defenders, who gave up after Spanish officers offered them a chance to surrender peacefully. The angry Coronado, however, had given no orders to negotiate. He ordered 50 of the captives to be burned at the stake and slaughtered the rest when they resisted. The incident did not provide the warning Coronado intended. By the time the war ended in March 1541, embittered tribes throughout the region knew Coronado’s words of friendship could not be trusted.

KINGDOM OF QUIVIRA Relations with Indians were more peaceful during the rest of Coronado’s expedition. In

Coronado and the Seven Cities April 1541 he took a small force eastward to find the kingdom of Quivira. El Turco led the expedition across the plains of northwestern Texas, later dubbed the Llano Estacado (Staked Plains). This southern boundary of the Great Plains seemed so featureless to the Spaniards that they made piles of buffalo bones and dung to mark their path. One rider who wandered away disappeared forever in the endlessly flat landscape. Coronado’s men were the first Europeans to meet an Indian tribe of the Great Plains, a western Apache group they called Querechos. These nomadic people hunted bison and traveled across the plains on foot, trading hides with more permanently settled tribes. “From what was learned of these Indians, all their human needs are supplied by these cows, for they are fed and clothed and shod from these,” remembered Juan Jaramillo, one of Coronado’s captains. “They are a people who wander around here and there, wherever seems to them best.” Horses were still unknown to the Plains Indians. They transported their belongings on wooden pole frames (later known by the French term travois) that were harnessed to dogs. The tribes Coronado encountered— both the Querechos and their enemies, the Teyas—treated the Spanish with great hospitality. As Coronado crossed the north Texas and Oklahoma panhandles into present-day Kansas, faith in El Turco’s guidance ebbed. Another Indian captive, Isopete, accused El Turco of lying and leading Coronado aimlessly around the countryside. Low on supplies, Coronado ordered most of his men back to Tiguex. He continued onward with only 30 horsemen, led by Isopete, who offered to guide the company in exchange for his freedom. On June 29, 1541, they reached a Wichita village by the Arkansas River near the

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present-day town of Ford, Kansas. This, Isopete explained, was Quivira, home of a Caddoan-speaking tribe whom later Europeans called the Wichita. Spaniards viewing the village’s straw-roofed dwellings realized that, as with Fray Niza’s portrait of Cíbola, El Turco’s promise of an affluent metropolis was an illusion. To discover if Quivira was more than a heavily populated trading center, Coronado continued north along the Arkansas River past Great Bend, exploring the region for more than a month. He finally commanded a halt near the present site of Salina, Kansas. The fertile countryside was rich with game, clean water, and fruit trees, but not with gold. When El Turco secretly appealed to the Quivirans to kill the Spaniards, his captors strangled him. A few days later, Coronado freed Isopete, planted a cross to “take possession” of the land for Spain, and returned west, hoping to rejoin his army before winter. Ironically, the expedition had come within only a few hundred miles of Hernando de Soto’s floundering entrada, members of which were scouting along the lower reach of the Arkansas River after having recently discovered the Mississippi River. Coronado’s men found their way back across 1,000 miles of grassy plains to their headquarters at Tiguex, arriving in October 1541. That winter, some members of the expedition discussed staying in Tierra Nueva, the “New Land,” which would one day become New Mexico. Some considered Quivira suitable for settlement, while others wanted to push even further eastward, still convinced that there might be truth in El Turco’s tales of riches. In December, however, Coronado was gravely injured in a riding accident. While recovering, he declared that the entrada was over and ordered a return to Mexico.

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The Wichita, one of whose villages is depicted in this lithograph, were one of many tribes Coronado met while exploring the United States. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-11478])

Coronado arrived in Mexico in late 1542 after an absence of two and a half years, leaving only a handful of settlers and missionaries

in Tierra Nueva. Bitter Indian memories of Coronado’s cruelty also remained behind, leaving future explorers to face a dangerous

Coronado and the Seven Cities

legacy. An official tribunal investigated Coronado’s management of the expedition, includ-

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ing his mistreatment of Indians. Coronado was cleared of the charges and died in Mexico City in 1554. His subordinate Cárdenas, however, had returned to Spain, where he was convicted of crimes against the Indians and heavily fined. Considering the scope of what Coronado had discovered, his expedition had surprisingly little impact on contemporary exploration. Viceroy Mendoza, safeguarding his monopoly on any future wealth that might be found in the region, ordered members of the expedition to say nothing about what they had experienced. The public heard and cared little about the expedition, which was seen merely as a failed commercial venture. When fresh rumors of great civilizations in the region reached south to Mexico in the 1580s, the expedition had been forgotten so completely that an entirely new wave of fortune seekers rushed to the Spanish court, pleading for permission to “discover” the same lands Coronado and his men had journeyed across. Yet old soldiers like Casteñeda, Jaramillo, and the author of the Relación del Suceso recorded their memories, which lay undisturbed in Spanish archives for centuries. Historian Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés included an account of Coronado’s travels in La Historia general de las Indias, but Oviedo’s completed work was not published until the mid-1850s, 200 years after the expedition. Coronado’s entrada was dismissed and forgotten in his lifetime, but history later revealed it to be one of the great epics of exploring the Americas.

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Charting the Coast of California The voyages sponsored by Hernán Cortés failed to reveal much of California’s coastline to Spanish explorers, but curiosity about what lay to the north guaranteed that new attempts would be made. One of the endeavor’s most enthusiastic sponsors was Cortés’s political rival, Antonio de Mendoza, viceroy of New Spain. Mendoza’s choice to lead an expedition north was Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, a Spanish shipbuilder—he is sometimes identified as being Portuguese—who had fought as a conquistador in the conquests of Cuba, Mexico, and Central America. Neglect and secrecy have left few surviving or dependable firsthand accounts of the earliest European voyages up California’s coast. Cabrillo’s voyage is no exception, but the basic facts are known. On June 27, 1542, Cabrillo’s well-equipped fleet set sail from the tiny Mexican port of Navidad, near Manzanillo on Mexico’s west-central coast. Cabrillo made better progress than his predecessors in sailing up the western coast of Baja, or Lower, California. Exactly three months after leaving

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Mexico, he sailed into a harbor that he described in his log as “sheltered and very good.” Cabrillo stepped ashore, claimed the land for Spain, and christened the area San Miguel in honor of the archangel Michael, on whose September 28 Christian feast day the Spaniards landed. It would later be called San Diego.

THE BAY OF SMOKES At San Diego Cabrillo’s men were met by local Indians, the Ipai. Word of Francisco Vázquez de Coronado’s expedition (1540–42) hundreds of miles inland had reached the coastal tribes. Cabrillo’s log noted that the Ipai had heard that “in the interior men like us were traveling about, bearded, clothed, and armed like those of the ships. They made signs that they carried crossbows and swords; and they made gestures with the right arm as if they were throwing lances, and ran around as if they were on horseback. They made signs that they [Coronado’s men] were killing many native Indians,

Charting the Coast of California and for this reason they were afraid.” Cabrillo heard such stories repeatedly as he ventured up the coast. Leaving the mainland, Cabrillo set off for islands that were visible in the distance. He named them San Salvador and Victoria, after his ships. (Today the islands, northwest of San Diego, are known as Santa Catalina and San Clemente.) When Cabrillo returned to the mainland, just south of present-day Los Angeles, the air was thick with smoke. During their progress north, the Spaniards had encountered smoke from fires set by Indians, who were improving the land for autumn crops and thinning the landscape for hunting game. The smoke drifting from hills overlooking San Pedro Bay was so thick that Cabrillo named the harbor Bahía de los Fumos, or “Bay of Smokes.” Cabrillo discovered that the coastline of California was heavily inhabited by various tribes of friendly Indians, who approached in canoes to exchange sardines for glass beads and other trading items with which the Spanish had stocked their ships. When a storm drove Cabrillo back to a village named Ciucut, where he had earlier anchored near presentday Santa Barbara, he noted in his logs that the Spaniards and Indians—probably the Chumash—celebrated together: The ruler of these pueblos is an old Indian woman, who came to the ships and slept for two nights on the captain’s ship, as did many Indians. The pueblo of Ciucut appeared to be the capital of the rest, for they came there from other pueblos at the call of this ruler.

After several days of music and dancing, the Spaniards replenished their supplies and resumed the voyage north. The waters there were not as welcoming. A storm separated Cabrillo’s flagship, the San Salvador, from the

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rest of the fleet off the treacherously rocky coast south of Monterey. Like every other explorer of his time, Cabrillo missed the entrance to San Francisco Bay. He did, however, round Point Reyes, which he named Cabo de Pinos (Cape of Pines) because of the conifer forests blanketing the headlands. The San Salvador sailed alone up the coast as far as the Russian River (opposite present-day Santa Rosa) before turning back and finding the other ships near Monterey Bay. By then winter had begun, making the frigid seas too dangerous for travel in sailing ships. Cabrillo ordered a retreat south to the calmer harbors at San Salvador (Santa Catalina) and other islands off the Bay of Smokes. Upon his return, however, relations with Indian tribes on the islands deteriorated because of unceasing Spanish demands for food and shelter. Constant skirmishes indirectly took Cabrillo’s life. Around Christmas in 1542, rushing to help his men during an Indian attack, Cabrillo jumped out of a boat and broke either his leg or his arm. The wound became gangrenous. Cabrillo died on January 3, 1543, after passing command to his pilot, Bartolomé Ferrer. Carrying out Cabrillo’s last orders, Ferrer resumed the voyage north in January 1543. The little fleet succeeded in passing the most northerly point they had reached earlier and struggled as far as 42° north latitude, just above the modern boundary between California and Oregon. In the end the wooden fleet was no match for the tumultuous wintry seas, which dispersed the ships and continually threatened to send them to the ocean bottom. Cold, hungry, and ill after weeks of being buffeted by stormy seas, the survivors reunited and found their way back to Navidad, Mexico, arriving on April 14, 1543. The expedition had explored about 1,500 miles of California coastline. The Spanish

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Great improvements in cartography occurred in the 1500s, as increasing exploration revealed the dimensions of the Earth more accurately. The most influential mapmaker of the era was Gerardus Mercator, a Flemish (modern Belgium) cartographer. In the mid-1500s Mercator was the first to represent the curved surface of the Earth on a flat map. His invention, called the Mercator Projection and still used for many maps, enabled navigators to plot their sea courses as straight lines for the first time. The first European map of the world depicting the Pacific Ocean with any accuracy was made in 1529 by Diego Ribiero, a Portuguese mapmaker working in Spain, who used new information provided by the survivors of Ferdinand Magellan’s global voyage. Throughout the 1500s encyclopedias called Cosmographie (world writings) incorporating the latest geographical knowledge, maps, and navigational data from the entire world were published by printers in Germany, Portugal, Spain, the Gerardius Mercator’s well-known map of the Netherlands, and Switzerland. world was first published in 1569. In the portion In the 1600s similar treatises shown here, the cartographer’s use of what became more common in would become known as Mercator projection, France and England, as those in which longitude is drawn as parallel lines countries began to compete meeting latitudinal lines at right angles, is with their contemporaries in evident. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-92883]) exploration and colonization.

trading ships that began to sail between Mexico and the Philippines about this time would now have a better idea of what lay north of Baja California, but Spanish authorities con-

sidered the Cabrillo-Ferrer expedition to be of limited importance. For Mendoza, the voyage was simply another expensive failure to find any riches or routes to Asia or the Atlantic

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Ocean. Their ignored logs and reports gathered dust and disappeared in Spanish archives, and Cabrillo’s and Ferrer’s efforts were forgotten for nearly 60 years.

DRAKE IN CALIFORNIA In the late 1500s antagonism between Catholic Spain and Protestant England turned the

waters and ports of the Caribbean into a violent battle zone in the undeclared war between the two countries. Galleons bearing treasure to Spain were frequent targets of English pirates, such as Sir Francis Drake, who was given unofficial permission by Queen Elizabeth I to raid Spanish ships. Spain’s ports on the Pacific coasts, however, were peaceful and secure. Spanish ships regularly brought luxury goods,

During the 1500s the Spanish controlled the seas, largely because of their galleons, or large, heavy ships, that looked much like this model. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-103297])

Charting the Coast of California such as silk and porcelain, from Asia to Mexico. Silver shipments sailed from Peru to Panama, where they were unloaded and transported overland to Atlantic departure ports, from which the riches would be taken to Spain. By a secret understanding, Elizabeth I gave Drake license to attack and rob Spanish ships. If Drake was captured, however, the queen would disavow any knowledge of his activities. The Spanish viewed him as a common pirate. In reality, Drake was a privateer, a captain who raided enemy ships in his queen’s service. His plan was to round South America and sail into the Pacific Ocean. Since English ships were never seen there, Spanish treasure ships and their ports could be caught unprepared and easily captured. The secrecy of the plan makes the exact route of Drake’s travels controversial to this day. Drake’s small fleet succeeded in navigating through the dangerous Strait of Magellan, at the southern tip of South America. Once through the terrifying passageway, he unexpectedly made one of the few undisputed discoveries of his voyage. For centuries, North Africans and Europeans had believed in the existence of the so-called Great Southern Continent, named Terra Australis Incognita (Unknown Southern Land) by early GreekEgyptian geographer Ptolemy. After Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan passed through the strait that now bears his name in 1520, it was speculated that the landmasses south of the strait might be the northernmost part of Terra Australis Incognita. Shortly after Drake’s ships emerged from the Strait of Magellan into the Pacific, they were seized by a violent storm that blew them southward. One ship, the Marigold, was lost with all hands. By the time the storm subsided, seven weeks later, Drake had been carried into open seas south of Tierra del Fuego, the name given to the group of islands south of the Strait of Magellan. He was the first European to realize

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Francis Drake was the first captain to circumnavigate the world and survive the journey. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-121191])

that the land there was a series of islands, not part of a continental mass. In honor of his discovery that open sea separated the two continents, the waters between South America and Antarctica were later named the Drake Passage. By the time Drake began plundering Spanish gold in the Pacific, shipwrecks, mutiny, and confusion had reduced his small fleet to his own flagship, The Golden Hind. His plan, however, was a great success. Drake caught the Spanish off guard and The Golden Hind was soon packed with treasure from Spanish galleons and coastal towns. With his mission completed off the Mexican coast, Drake faced the problem of getting home to England.

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Navigating through the Strait of Magellan was dangerous. The route also involved fighting contrary winds and the risk of encountering Spanish warships, which were now looking for him. Sailing west across the Pacific was possible, but a drastic alternative. Drake may have decided to confound his pursuers by taking the least likely route. Like his Spanish contemporaries, he may also have believed in the existence of the Strait of Anian—the legendary passage from the northern Pacific into the Arctic Ocean. He sailed north toward this fictitious “Northwest Passage,” possibly hoping to avoid his pursuers by finding a sea route across the top of North America that would take him from the northeastern Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean.

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Strait of Anian

He is thought to have sailed as far north as 48° north latitude, in waters off the presentday border between the United States and Canada, before frigid winter weather convinced him that a northerly passage to England was impossible. Driven south by the cold, Drake began searching for a harbor where he could overhaul his ship, which needed repairs before he could attempt to sail across the Pacific. In June 1579 The Golden Hind anchored in a harbor near 38° north latitude, not far from the Golden Gate and the future site of San Francisco. The exact location of Drake’s landing has been sought after and argued over for centuries. The most common theory is that the harbor was the lee side—the inner side pro-

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Throughout the European exploration of North America, the desire to find an easy sea route between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans inspired many fanciful theories. The Strait of Anian was one such geographical fantasy that explorers and even some mapmakers accepted as reality for centuries. The illusory strait was thought to connect the northwestern Pacific Ocean with the Atlantic via a watery path across the top of North America. Early British geographers called this route the Northwest Passage. The name Anian first appeared on an obscure Spanish map in 1566, and the origin of the name and claim remains unknown. But after famed Belgian cartographer Gerard Mercator included “El Streto de Anian” on a 1569 map, other 16th-century mapmakers incorporated the strait into their maps as if it existed, despite the fact that none of them, including Mercator, had firsthand knowledge of the New World. For the next 240 years the Strait of Anian would appear on many maps, located anywhere from northern Alaska to the coast of Washington. The search for the Strait of Anian continued for centuries. Many seekers after the Northwest Passage, approaching from both the Atlantic and the Pacific, lost their lives. By the late 1800s some explorers had succeeded in navigating through sections of the ice floes north of the Canadian mainland, and in 1906 the Norwegian Roald Amundsen made the complete passage. However, the desire for a waterway fit for shipping between Europe and Asia effectively ended with the opening of the human-made Panama Canal in 1914.

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Francis Drake just missed San Francisco Bay during his late 16th-century circumnavigation of the globe. In this 1902 photograph, the bay is shown before the Golden Gate Bridge, which now spans this portion, was built. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-107985])

tected from the larger ocean—of Point Reyes, in the harbor now known as Drake’s Bay. Other scholars place the landing further south, at Bolinas, near San Francisco itself, or elsewhere. When Drake landed, he was met by local Indians, who are thought to have been the Coast Miwok, the original inhabitants of what is now Marin County. The Miwok were friendly toward the strangers and showered them with gifts. Francis Fletcher, the chaplain and diarist of Drake’s expedition, wrote that the Miwok were “of a free and loving nature, without guile or treachery.” The Miwok guided the English with elaborate cer-

emony to their village, where they placed a crown on Drake’s head. Thinking of their monarch at home in England, the English assumed that the Miwok thought them to be gods. Modern anthropological research suggests that the Miwok instead considered the strangers to be living representatives of dead ancestors. Drake and his men explored some of the wooded countryside beyond the harbor, but their main business was making The Golden Hind seaworthy. Before his departure, Drake named the northwest coast “Nova [New] Albion,” a poetic name once used when referring to England, claimed it for Queen Elizabeth,

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and supposedly engraved a metal plaque to leave behind, commemorating his “possession” of the land. (Drake enthusiasts have searched for the plaque for centuries; scholars insist that one discovered plaque, found in 1937 is a hoax.) On June 23, after spending little more than a month ashore, Drake sailed away from California, continuing the voyage that would take him around the globe and bring him home to England in September 1580. Had his claim of land been pursued, California, not Virginia, might have become England’s first colony in the New World. The secrecy that enveloped his mission obscured from other navigators what he had learned about California’s coastline, but his escape gained him the open distinction of being the first English captain to circumnavigate the world.

VIZCAÍNO TRIES AGAIN Spain’s efforts to find protective harbors along the coast of upper California were initially left to navigators approaching from the west, in the so-called Manila galleons bringing goods to New Spain from the Philippines. Galleon commander Roderíguez Cermeño was the first to make any progress. Ironically, Cermeño’s route from the Philippines took him into Drake’s Bay, where he anchored and encountered the friendly Miwok. Like Drake, Cermeño claimed the surrounding countryside—but for Spain. A sudden storm, however, destroyed his galleon, leaving Cermeño and the other survivors to struggle some 1,300 miles down the coast from Drake’s Bay to the port of Navidad in New Spain in an overcrowded longboat. The task of learning about California’s coast next fell to a merchant and would-be Spanish colonizer named Sebastián Vizcaíno,

whose previous experience included disastrous attempts to establish settlements on the coast of Baja California in 1596. Vizcaíno set sail with three ships carrying 130 men on May 5, 1602, sponsored by New Spain’s viceroy Gaspar de Zuñiga y Acevedo, the count of Monterrey. Vizcaíno’s patron ordered him to name every port he discovered after a Christian saint and claim it for Spain. Vizcaíno was explicitly ordered not to rename any sites previously named by Cabrillo, Ferrer, or others. Possessing little or no detailed information from the earlier expedition to which he could refer, however, Vizcaíno industriously renamed the geography discovered by the previous explorers as he slowly made his way up the California coast. San Salvador became Catalina and La Victoria became San Clemente, names by which both islands are still known. On the mainland, the harbor Cabrillo had christened San Miguel was named after a Christian saint, San Diego de Acalá. The area is simply known today as San Diego. The coastline of modern California is dotted with other locations named by Vizcaíno: Santa Barbara, Point Conception, Carmel, and Año Nuevo. As was the case with Cabrillo, Vizcaíno had friendly meetings with the Chumash and other mainland Indians, who rowed out to trade with the Spanish sailors. In December 1602 Vizcaíno’s ships sailed along the rocky, wooded shores of a bay he named Monterrey (now spelled Monterey) after his sponsor. Vizcaíno would later report that the area offered “protection and security” for ships coming from the Philippines: In it may be repaired the damages which they may have sustained, for there is a great extent of pine forest from which to obtain masts and yards, even though the vessel be of a thousand tons burden, very

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Sebastián Vizcaíno named the large rocky bay south of San Francisco on the California coast Monterey Bay (originally spelled Monterrey) after his sponsor, the count of Monterrey. This photograph of the bay was taken in the mid-19th century. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-27643])

large live oaks and white oaks for shipbuilding, and this close to the seaside in great number.

His appraisal of the area also saw promise in the site for a permanent settlement:

There is fresh water in quantity and the harbor is very secure against all winds. The land is thickly peopled by Indians and is very fertile, in its climate and the quality of the soil resembling Castile, and any seed sown there will give fruit, and there are

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extensive lands fit for pasturage, and many kinds of animals and birds.

Vizcaíno’s party was already low on supplies and beset with illness. One ship was sent back to Mexico, carrying the sick and news that the mission to find a possible port had been successful. The expedition pushed north from Monterey, encountering increasingly rough seas. Like Cabrillo, Vizcaíno

sailed past the Golden Gate, failing to discover San Francisco Bay, which may have been obscured by fog. His two remaining ships were barely seaworthy enough to continue and became separated in the turbulent ocean. Vizcaíno’s sailors were also in bad shape, suffering from scurvy and the effects of eating rotten food. “The mouths of all were sore, and their gums were swollen larger than their teeth, so that they could hardly drink water,” wrote Vizcaíno in his diary. “The ship seemed more like a hospital than a ship of an armada.” Disease and cold took the lives of many of the sailors. Vizcaíno’s two ships never joined each other again during the rest of the expedition. Individually, however, each struggled through the same overwhelming seas that Ferrer had reached, and appear to have reached about 43° north, near Cape Blanco, just north of the California-Oregon border. By the time orders were given to turn back, horrible conditions aboard the vessels had killed most of the crew members. Vizcaíno and the other survivors managed to reach Acapulco, Mexico, in March 1603, 10 months after they had embarked. He had discovered little more than Cabrillo or Ferrer, but his report ensured both his personal reputation and the lasting value of his observations. He had fought—and noted—the contrary currents and winds, accurately charted the coastline, sounded the depths of bays, and explored the countryside whenever he landed. His main mission of finding a suitable harbor for the Manila galleons had been completed, even if his portrayal of Monterey Bay bore only a passing resemblance to reality. Vizcaíno’s idyllic description was so unlike the actual bay that future explorers searched for the allegedly perfect harbor without success.

Charting the Coast of California Unlike so many Spanish explorers whose efforts ended in disgrace or death, Vizcaíno continued to enjoy a distinguished career as an explorer, international diplomat, military leader, and merchant. In 1611 he was sent to search the Pacific for Rica de Oro (Rich in Gold) and Rica de Plata (Rich in Silver), two nonexistent islands whose illusory wealth consumed Spain’s energies in the same way El Dorado and the Seven Cities of Cíbola had earlier.

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Despite Vizcaíno’s report, Spain’s rush to find strategically safe ports in California subsided quickly. San Francisco Bay, the greatest port on the Pacific coast, remained undiscovered by Europeans until 1769. No attempt was made to settle Monterey until 1770, more than 167 years after Vizcaíno’s return. Thanks to the efforts of Cabrillo, Ferrer, and Vizcaíno, however, later explorers and missionaries were not venturing into the complete unknown when they reached coastal California.

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New Mexico and the Gulf Coast The 1600s

Francisco Coronado’s failure to discover riches like those wrenched from the Aztec and Inca empires dampened enthusiasm for expeditions north from Mexico. Fortune hunters instead converged around the central Mexican town of Zacatecas, where rich veins of silver were discovered in the mid-1500s. The poorer lands of the Sonoran and Chihuahuan deserts were forgotten by most Spaniards, with the exception of slave hunters, whose raids prompted new royal regulations intended to avoid provoking Indians. Without authorization from the Spanish king, exploration or settlement above the northern frontier became a treasonous offense punishable by death. Missionaries from the Roman Catholic Franciscan order, however, were exempt from the prohibition. They began to venture north into the arid landscape, usually from

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Nueva Vizcaya, the future state of Chihuahua. In June 1581 Franciscans Agustín Rodríguez, Francisco López, and Juan de Santa María headed north along the Conchos River, accompanied by a tiny armed escort commanded by Francisco Sánchez Chamuscado. The Rodríguez-Chamuscado expedition, as it has since come to be known, met the Río Grande far to the east of Coronado’s route. By following the river northward, however, they arrived at the same pueblos found by Coronado and again claimed the land for Spain. The leaders of the expedition fared badly. Fray Santa María was killed by Indians while returning to Nueva Vizcaya. Sánchez Chamuscado died of illness. Word reached Nueva Vizcaya that Rodríguez and López, who had insisted upon staying in New Mexico to continue missionary work when their escort

New Mexico and the Gulf Coast returned south, had also been killed by Indians. Soldiers from the expedition, however, announced that they had discovered great civilizations. In only 40 years Coronado had been so thoroughly forgotten that speculators— persons primarily interested in making large profits—suddenly flocked to the court of King Philip II, asking permission to “discover” and settle northern lands, in the belief that Spaniards had never before encountered the Pueblo civilizations. A year later, in 1582, another Franciscan, Bernardino Beltrán, organized an expedition, hoping to find Rodríguez and López alive. Beltrán forged a partnership with Antonio de Espejo, a wealthy rancher who agreed to pay all expenses, including a troop of 14 soldiers. The small force followed the Río Grande to the Albuquerque area, where they learned that both Rodríguez and López were indeed dead. Fray Beltrán, whose mission was accomplished, wanted to return to Nueva Vizcaya. Espejo, however, led the expedition into what is now Arizona, prospecting for silver. Again, no wealth or grand cities were found. When Espejo returned in 1583, however, he applied for permission to pursue, as he wrote in his request to the king, “the exploration and settlement of these lands and others which I may discover, for I shall not be satisfied until I reach the coasts of the North and South Seas.” Espejo, like others hoping to secure a royal contract, was rejected, but he encouraged the same sort of rumors that had once lured Coronado north.

THE OÑATE EXPEDITION The official royal contract for settling New Mexico was awarded to Juan de Oñate. By contemporary Spanish standards, he was

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well qualified. His social standing was impeccable—his wife was a descendant of both the Aztec emperor Moctezuma and conquistador Hernán Cortés. Oñate had experience fighting Indians in the northern provinces. Above all, he was born into a wealthy Zacatecas silver mining family. Oñate’s wealth was important because, despite royal approval, he was required to bankroll the venture by himself. Heavily armed, Oñate set forth in 1598 with a force of 400 soldiers, settlers, and servants, as well as a large supply of livestock. Although it was largely a civilian expedition formed for mining, farming, and missionary activities, Oñate’s dual authority as civil and military governor allowed him to enforce strict rules. Deserters would be executed. Rather than follow the route opened by the Rodríguez-Chamuscado expedition along the Conchos River, Oñate headed straight north. After a harrowing passage through the sand dunes of the Chihuahuan desert in northern Mexico, the colonists reached the Río Grande and celebrated with a feast. When his scouts found a place to ford the river, Oñate ordered a halt. In an elaborate ceremony on April 30, 1598, Oñate declared that he was taking official possession of the entire territory for King Philip II, announcing the formation of the province of New Mexico. The column crossed the Río Grande on May 4, near present downtown El Paso. Oñate continued north through the Río Grande Valley, summoning Indian leaders to explain that it was in their best interests to swear obedience to the Spanish king and the pope. The assembled chiefs agreed to Oñate’s ceremonial demands, but how the ritual was viewed by its Native American participants is unknown. On July 11 Oñate arrived at the Tewa pueblo of Ohkay, near the meeting of the

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Located in Santa Fe, New Mexico, this adobe building, constructed between 1610 and 1614, served as the Spanish royal palace and the seat of government. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [HABS, NM,25-SANFE,2-1])

Río Grande and the Río Chama. Oñate chose the site as the first capital of the new state, renaming the pueblo San Juan de Los Caballeros.

NEWS OF A FUGITIVE That September a Mexican Indian named Jusepe arrived at San Juan with information that would determine Oñate’s later efforts. Four years earlier, in 1594, a Spanish army captain, Francisco Leyva de Bonilla, had been ordered to chase a band of rebellious Indians north across the frontier of Nueva Vizcaya. Once across the border, Bonilla and his party decided to explore New Mexico and

search for Quivira, the supposedly wealthy kingdom that had eluded Coronado. Some of Bonilla’s men protested that this would violate the ban against unauthorized exploration, a treasonous act punishable by death. Bonilla and his supporters decided to ride north anyway. According to Jusepe (a servant of Bonilla’s lieutenant, Antonio Gutiérrez de Humaña), the renegade expedition covered much of the same ground seen by Coronado. After a year in pueblo country, they headed northeast, crossing the Great Plains to reach Quivira. As Coronado had discovered, the real Quivira was a Wichita trading village by the Arkansas River near the present-day town of Ford,

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OÑATE AS EXPLORER

Kansas. Finding no riches or empire, Bonilla pressed onward into what is now Nebraska. There he was stabbed to death after an argument with Gutiérrez de Humaña, who took command. Several Indian servants, including Jusepe, fled the reckless expedition and returned westward. On the way Jusepe was captured by the Apache. Hearing that there were Spaniards in New Mexico, he escaped and made his way to Oñate’s settlement. One of Oñate’s earlier orders had been to find Bonilla and arrest him. Deciding to postpone a manhunt for Gutiérrez de Humaña, Bonilla’s murderer, Oñate immediately put Jusepe to work as an interpreter and guide on buffalo-hunting forays.

Oñate left San Juan on October 6 seeking a fortune to shore up support for his venture, both in government circles and among his own colonists, many of whom were already disillusioned. Oñate usually portrayed the colony positively in reports to his superior, New Spain’s viceroy Gaspar de Zuñiga y Acevedo, the marquis de Monterrey (who would sponsor Sebastian Vizcaíno’s voyage up the California coast in 1602). Oñate wrote in a letter to the viceroy that the grumbling settlers “in anger at not finding bars of silver on the ground and resentful because I did not allow them to abuse the natives either in their persons or property, became dissatisfied with the land, or rather with me.” Like Coronado, Oñate mistakenly believed that landlocked New Mexico could be supplied by sea. He and a company of men rode southwest, looking for the Pacific Ocean. With the exception of a tense reception by the people of Acoma pueblo, Oñate’s group was welcomed by Indian tribes along the way. His scouts reached central Arizona before Oñate decided to return to San Juan for the winter and plan a future expedition to the “South Sea,” the name then used by Spaniards for the Pacific. En route, they watered their horses near a huge sandstone bluff decorated with ancient Anasazi carvings of animals, birds, and designs. The Spanish called the rock El Morro (the Promontory). While camped at El Morro, near the present-day town of Ramah, New Mexico, Oñate learned that most of a relief troop riding from San Juan to join him had been massacred at Acoma. Oñate rushed back to San Juan and organized an assault on the seemingly impregnable pueblo. By mounting a diver-

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sionary attack and scaling an unguarded wall of its steep mesa, the Spaniards managed to capture Acoma after a bloody battle. Oñate was determined to make a frightening example of the surviving inhabitants. He sentenced every adult in the pueblo to 20 years of slavery and further decreed that a foot be amputated from every male over the age of 25, although it is unclear if the latter sentence was carried out. The pueblo’s children were taken from their families and given to Christian missionaries.

RETURN TO QUIVIRA After the Acoma battle, Oñate relocated his colony across the Río Grande to a pueblo he renamed San Gabriel and sent new expeditions in search of the “South Sea” and mineral deposits. The results were always disappointing. Cold and hungry colonists became more interested in survival than prospecting for gold. Settlers were so desperate to find a profit in the inhospitable land that they unsuccessfully tried to tame buffalo. In 1601 Oñate and 70 men headed east, searching for Quivira. They reached the trading village along the Arkansas River, finding no more riches than Coronado had. The Quivirans did tell Oñate, however, that the fugitive Gutiérrez de Humaña had been killed by hostile Indians. When Oñate returned to San Gabriel after an absence of five months, most of the settlers had fled. He ordered them arrested and beheaded, but they were safely back in Mexico. A handful of colonists maintained the colony until meager reinforcements arrived. While the settlers were disappointed by the poverty of the land, missionaries grew disgusted for other reasons. “The governor [Oñate] has oppressed his people so that they are all discontented and anxious to get away,” wrote Fray Juan de Escalona in a letter to the

viceroy in Monterrey. Fray Escalona, who had arrived in New Mexico in 1601 to assume leadership of its Franciscan missionaries, favored staying in New Mexico, but railed against Oñate’s mistreatment of the Indians, “who think that we are all evil and that the king who sent us here is ineffective and a tyrant. . . . Because of these matters (and others I am not telling), we cannot preach the gospel now, for it is despised by these people on account of our great offenses and the harm we have done them. At the same time it is not desirable to abandon this land, either for the service of God or the conscience of his majesty since many souls have already been baptized, besides, this place where we are established is a stepping stone and site from which to explore this whole land.”

FINAL GAMBLE Ever desperate to succeed, Oñate left San Gabriel in October 1604 in another attempt to find the Pacific Ocean. By crossing Arizona and following the Colorado River, he reached the inland waters of the Gulf of California. Yet he was still hundreds of miles from the ocean. Oñate would report unconvincingly, “I discovered a great harbor and clarified the reports of extraordinary riches and monstrosities never heard of before.” On the way back to San Gabriel, Oñate added his name to those of Indian travelers who had carved inscriptions in the sandstone of El Morro: Passed by here the Governor Don Juan de Onate, from the discovery of the Sea of the South on the 16th of April 1605

The words remain today at El Morro, which in 1906 was designated a national monument to preserve the thousands of Indian, Spanish, and American signatures carved into the sandstone.

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New Spain’s viceroy, the marquis de Montesclaros, reported to King Philip III. Oñate was recalled to Mexico. He was later convicted on charges of abusing colonists and Indians

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As an early 20th-century photograph by Edward S. Curtis shows, Don Juan de Oñate carved a message in the sandstone surface of El Morro, a present-day national monument. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-123607])

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and was banished from New Mexico forever. Only exaggerated reports of mass religious conversions convinced Spain to maintain New Mexico as a colony, leaving some of Oñate’s legacy intact.

LA SALLE’S THREAT During the late 1600s, a period of uncertainty about the fate of New Mexico, Spain faced threats elsewhere, inspiring exploration of lands it had claimed as part of its empire for more than a century. France was Spain’s chief nemesis, especially in the person of RenéRobert Cavelier, better known by his aristocratic title, sieur de La Salle. In 1682 La Salle had canoed down the Mississippi River from Illinois to the Gulf of Mexico, claiming the countryside for France as a territory he named in honor of the French king, Louis XIV—La Louisiane, now known as Louisiana. La Salle returned to France in 1683 and proposed to establish a fort at the mouth of the Mississippi River, from which to challenge Spain, perhaps to invade New Spain itself. Apart from the ongoing rivalry between the two nations, La Salle’s idea appealed to the French because of his mistaken assumption that the Mississippi was close to the rich silver mines of Zacatecas. When Spain declared war on France in October 1683, Louis XIV approved the operation. By the time La Salle departed with a force of 280 on August 1, 1684, however, the war was over and royal support for the venture was withdrawn. La Salle sailed anyway, but was unable to find the mouth of the great river he had previously descended. When his four ships reached the Gulf of Mexico in late December, his faulty calculations took them west of the Mississippi to the barrier islands of the Texas

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The Pueblo Revolts = Oñate’s venture left Spain with a frail hold on New Mexico. A new capital was established at Santa Fe in 1610. Settlement along the Río Grande northward from El Paso to Taos increased. For the next 70 years, forced labor policies and Franciscan suppression of Native American religions increasingly alienated the pueblo tribes. When a drought further threatened tribal survival in the 1670s, tensions reached a breaking point. On August 10, 1680, well-organized surprise attacks on Spanish settlements began throughout New Mexico. The revolt, known as the Pueblo Rebellion, killed hundreds of Spaniards and quickly drove survivors southward to El Paso. As the Spanish retreated, Santa Fe and other settlements were sacked. Leaders of the revolt tried to erase every sign of Spanish culture and Christianity in the region. The revolt succeeded in keeping the Spanish out of New Mexico until 1692, when a new governor, Diego de Vargas Zapata Luján Ponce de León, led a small force along the Río Grande to appraise the chances of retaking the region. To Vargas’s relief, he was unopposed. When he returned with settlers, missionaries, and soldiers in late 1693, however, many pueblos decided to challenge the recolonization effort. Vargas and his force retook Santa Fe in December after a bloody battle, followed by mass executions and enslavement of Indian survivors. Fitful resistance exploded in the summer of 1696, when a second Pueblo revolt threw the region into open warfare. As hostilities gradually ended, Pueblo tribes acceded to Spanish control and forged new alliances with arriving colonists to organize a common defense against Apache, Comanche, Navajo (Dineh), and Ute attacks.

coast. There his supply ship, L’Aimable, ran aground on a sandbar, and a year later his own ship, La Belle, sank in a fierce storm. To avoid detection by the Spanish, he ordered construction of a fort concealed inside Matagorda Bay, along Garcitas Creek. From this base, called Fort St. Louis, La Salle sent exploring parties into the countryside. He followed the Río Grande in search of the Mississippi, possibly as far west as the Pecos River. Already reduced by shipwrecks and desertion, Fort St. Louis was devastated by illness. Rattlesnakes and alligators claimed lives. So

did raids by the Karankawa, who were infuriated by La Salle’s theft of their canoes for his expeditions. As things worsened, La Salle conceived a plan to find the Mississippi, travel upriver to Illinois, and return to France via Canada to get help. He wandered the forests of east Texas, unable to find the Mississippi. “This pleasant land seemed to us an abode of weariness and a perpetual prison,” the priest Abbé Jean Cavalier, La Salle’s brother, wrote in his diary. When they returned to Fort St. Louis, only eight of the 20 men in the search party remained alive. They were greeted by the news that the frigate La Belle, their only remaining

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The Pueblo Rebellion involved Native Americans in pueblos in present-day New Mexico and Arizona, such as the Taos Pueblo, shown in an early 20th-century photograph. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USF34-002901])

means of escape by sea, had been wrecked in their absence. Marooned and with only 45 settlers now alive, La Salle had no choice but to make another attempt to reach Canada. Leaving half the weakened settlers behind, he marched eastward in January 1687. Throughout his travels, La Salle’s aristocratic arrogance had frequently alienated others. In the wilderness, this proved fatal. Mutineers in a scouting party murdered three of their fellows on March 18 near the Trinity River. When La Salle came looking for the scouts the following day, he was shot to death.

As they moved on, the mutineers killed each other or joined Indian tribes. La Salle’s aide Henri Joutel led survivors uninvolved in the revolt to the Arkansas River, where they unexpectedly came upon Frenchmen allied with Henri de Tonti, who had been searching the nearby Mississippi for La Salle for more than a year. Joutel reached France and appealed for help, but Louis XIV would not send aid to Fort St. Louis. Joutel remained in France, where his journal circulated among future explorers, such as Pierre Le Moyne d’Iberville, and remains an important source of information about the period.

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SEARCHING FOR LA SALLE Spanish authorities had learned of La Salle’s mission in late 1685 and were justifiably alarmed. Expeditions were sent to eliminate the threat. It would not be an easy task. So little attention had been paid to the region since the early expeditions of Alonso Alvaredo de Pineda, Hernando de Soto, and others that even if the French force had landed near the Mississippi as planned, Spanish authorities had no way of estimating La Salle’s location. Their panic would, ironically, contribute more to geographical

knowledge about the Gulf Coast than the previous 150 years combined. Maritime searches were dispatched from Cuba and Mexico. Navigators Juan Enríquez Barroto and Antonio Romero (1686) were slowed by a ship too large for coastal reconnaissance, but collected important information while exploring westward from Florida. They missed the mouth of the Mississippi, which lay disguised by floating vegetation and silt (in fact, they named the area Cabo de lodo, “Cape of Mud”). Later that year, Enríquez Barroto and Romero piloted a return expedition in two specially built ships called piraguas, whose

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Excavating La Salle’s Ship = It should be clear by now that discoveries take many forms and explorers come in many varieties. A centuries-old search for La Belle, the ship of Sieur de La Salle, was not successful until 20th-century technology aided in the stricken ship’s discovery. Historians had known for some 300 years that La Belle sank in 1686 in Matagorda Bay along the Texas coast, but exactly where was unknown. Starting in 1978, scientists from Texas had used sophisticated techniques to locate the presence of metal underwater, and in 1995 they found a site that divers soon confirmed was the remains of La Belle, 12 feet under the surface. The usual method of excavating sunken ships involves divers going down, mapping the site, and then bringing up the remains, piece by piece. For La Belle it was decided to enclose the site in a cofferdam: two large octagonal walls of steel, separated by about 20 feet of space that was filled with sand to absorb seeping water. The space within the inner wall was pumped as dry as possible, exposing the ship’s remains, buried deep in the muck. For two years (1996–97), archaeologists supervised the careful removal of what remained of the wooden hull and the countless artifacts. A fair amount of the wood was fairly well preserved by the mud, which had kept out bacteria, but as each piece was removed it had to be kept soaking wet to protect it from disintegrating on contact with the air. Eventually the wood was slowly dried and conserved. Having such a ship to study was a tremendous gift to marine historians, but most people would be impressed with the many artifacts found. These range from lead shot (for weapons) and coiled rope to brass candlesticks and three handsome bronze cannons. In addition to the expected objects for equipping a ship and a settlement of those days, many of the objects were clearly intended for trading with the native Indians: hundreds of thousands of glass beads, small mirrors, straight pins, wooden combs. Altogether more than a million objects were salvaged from La Belle. A fairly complete skeleton of a man was also found; alongside him was a pewter bowl inscribed with C. BARANGE—presumably the name of the dead man. Does this mean that the last word on La Salle’s expedition has now been recorded? In fact, historians, scientists, archaeologists, and divers have continued to search for La Salle’s supply ship, L’Aimable, which sank in the same waters. Exploration and discovery know no end.

shallow drafts, oars, and sails were better suited to exploring coastal waters. Captained by Martín de Rivas and Pedro de Iriarte, the two piraguas set sail from Veracruz, Mexico, on

Christmas Day 1686, and eventually headed up the Texas coast. They discovered the wreck of La Salle’s frigate, La Belle, and continued as far as Mobile Bay before returning to Veracruz via

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Cuba, completing the first circumnavigation of the Gulf of Mexico on July 3, 1687. Although their journey is known as the Rivas-Iriarte expedition, the voyage’s most valuable information resulted from Enríquez Barroto’s navigational skills and diary. The pilot chronicled the first accurate navigational data of Gulf Coast features, including Galveston Bay; the Aransas, Sabine, and Calcasieu River passes; the Atchafalaya River; and the Mississippi River passes. In late 1688 Barroto’s maps guided the voyage of Francisco López de Gamarra and Andrés de Pez, who anchored at the mouth of the Río Grande and sent an armed party 150 miles upriver in canoes in search of La Salle. Yet, despite all these maritime searches, La Salle—as far as Spanish authorities knew— was still a threat.

SEARCHING BY LAND At the same time the Spanish were looking for La Salle by sea, soldiers commanded by General Alonso de León repeatedly marched overland, collecting new geographical information in the process, but searching in vain for the French intruders. Their fourth search was successful. On April 22, 1689, León at last found Fort St. Louis and described the grim discovery in his notes: We went to see it and found all the houses sacked, all the chests, bottle-cases, and all the rest of the settlers’ furniture broken; apparently more than two hundred books,

torn apart and with the rotten leaves scattered through the patios—all in French. . . . We found three bodies scattered over the plain. One of these, from the dress that still clung to the bone, appeared to be that of a woman. . . . We looked for the other dead bodies, but could not find them; whence we supposed that they had been eaten by alligators, of which there were many.

León learned from two Frenchmen living among friendly Hasinai tribes that the settlers, with the exception of a few children saved by Karankawa women, had been massacred by the Karankawa. León was finally able to report that the French threat was gone. On April 26, 1690, León and his soldiers returned to Fort St. Louis, accompanied by Franciscan friars, who were eager to extend their missions eastward. After the missionaries torched the abandoned fort, León led them northeast across the Colorado, Brazos, and Trinity Rivers to Hasinai villages near the Neches River. Before returning to Mexico, León ransomed some of the French children taken in the Fort St. Louis massacre. The search for La Salle had yielded the first accurate geographical discoveries in the Gulf Coast region in 150 years. With the immediate threat removed, Spain was content to leave scattered Franciscan missions in east Texas to warn of further European intrusions. The episode, however, was a harbinger of the coming century, when strategic power began to drive exploration, replacing earlier quests for gold and souls.

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The Road to California The 1700s

By the 1700s Spain’s strength as a world power was declining. The incredible wealth imported from the New World had been squandered in European wars, leaving Spain’s economy in ruins. Large exploratory expeditions in search of new wealth were now a thing of the past. Colonists, many of whom were now American-born rather than immigrants, were organizing ranches, mines, and missions from Florida to New Mexico. Recent Pueblo Indian revolts in New Mexico left the frontier dangerous for explorers, unrewarding for newcomers looking to make a living, and a challenge to Christian missionaries pursuing religious conversion of the region’s Native inhabitants. Resistance to expansion stiffened as Native American communities associated European arrival with smallpox and other fatal diseases. Yet European-born missionaries, principally Franciscans and Jesuits, continued to arrive. The danger of entering hostile lands was an acceptable risk to missionaries who viewed martyrdom in the course of preaching

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their religion to be an honor. Throughout the 1700s, this missionary activity would result in new routes between Mexico and California. It would also prepare Spain’s strategic defense of its North American colonies against increasing challenges from France, England, and Russia. No explorer promoted the first stage of this shift toward California more industriously than Father Eusebio Kino. The Italian-born priest was a Jesuit, a member of the Society of Jesus, a Catholic order whose adherents dedicated themselves to preaching and higher education. When Kino arrived in Mexico in 1681, the former mathematics teacher was knowledgeable in disciplines that would aid him in relating what he found in the New World, including geography, cartography, and astrology. His first assignment was to establish a mission in Baja (Lower) California. He sailed from Mexico’s Pacific coast across the Gulf of California as official cosmographer with the 1683 colonizing expedition of Admiral Isidro Atondo y Antillón. The colony quickly failed, 145

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San Xavier del Bac, near present-day Tucson, Arizona, was one of the many missions Eusebio Kino established. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [HABS, ARIZ,10-TUCSO.V,3-5])

but a second attempt that year was successful and resulted in exploration of the entire southern peninsula. When Kino returned to Mexico City in 1685, however, he was stranded there when a war between Spain and France left missionaries without funding. Still devoted to the ideal of developing Baja California, Kino conceived a plan to establish mission communities near the northwestern coast of the Mexican mainland. The missions would be economically self-sufficient, capable of supporting both themselves and further forays in California. Kino obtained approval for the project, as well as a crucial royal order from Spain: No baptized Indians under his protection were to be kidnapped by government officials for forced

labor in the silver mines of Sonora, Mexico’s northwestern region.

KINO’S FIRST MISSIONS When he set to work in 1687, Kino’s missionary territory turned out to be larger than he had planned. He was assigned to Pimería Alta (Upper Pimería), a district comprising present-day southwestern Arizona and northern Sonora State in Mexico. Pimería was named after its inhabitants, the Pima, an association of desert-dwelling tribes also known collectively by their Indian name, O’odham (The People). Father Kino established his first mission along the San Miguel River in northern

The Road to California Sonora, naming it Nuestra Señora de los Dolores (Our Lady of Sorrows). The mission became the headquarters for his tireless exploring and missionary activities. During his lifetime, Kino established more than 20 missions, including San Xavier del Bac, near present-day Tucson, and Tumacácori (north of the modern border city of Nogales and now a U.S. National Historical Park). He also set the pattern for modern agriculture and livestock ranching in the region by introducing new crops, such as wheat, and domesticated animals, such as beef cattle and sheep. Mutual respect between the Pima and Father Kino helped the missions flourish. The popular priest aided the Pima in resisting Apache attacks, and his intercession with Spanish authorities helped prevent a small Pima revolt in 1695 from becoming a full-fledged war.

THE ISLAND OF CALIFORNIA In his missionary efforts, Kino traveled many thousands of miles across unexplored Pimería on horseback. He made more than 40 journeys, ranging between 100 and 1,000 miles each, collecting information that he incorporated into the first accurate maps of the region and its rivers. Despite his success in Pimería, Kino never abandoned his deferred hopes for Baja California. When he and Jesuit priest Juan María de Salvatierra first toured the Arizona borderlands in 1691, Kino wrote in his diary: “In all these journeys, the father visitor [Salvatierra] and I talked together of [Baja] California, saying that these very fertile lands and valleys of the Pimería would be the support of the scantier and more sterile lands of California.” Kino had arrived in the New World in agreement with his Austrian teacher, Father

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Adam Aigenler, a geographer whose world map depicted all of California as a peninsula. In Mexico, however, Kino was swayed by the popular but false belief that California was an island. In 1699 Yuma Indians near the western Gila River presented him with a gift of blue abalone seashells like those he had seen years earlier on the Pacific coast of Baja California. He theorized that if the shells could have been transported overland, perhaps it was possible to reach—and supply—California by land. In the late 1690s Kino journeyed repeatedly to the northwest corner of Sonora where it borders California, increasingly convinced that the two regions were divided only by the Colorado River. Mountains and lack of drinking water made travel to California from the Mexican mainland seem impossible, but one of Kino’s expeditions sighted land in the distance that he was sure was California. On a later expedition, Kino and a small party of Pima rode south along the east bank of the Colorado, meeting tribes who ferried him over to the California shore in a basket, as he described in his diary, “very comfortably and pleasantly, without the least risk, taking with me only my Breviary [a book with prayers, texts, and hymns for church services], some trifles, and a blanket in which to sleep, afterwards wrapping up some branches of broom weed in my bandanna to serve me as a pillow.” Kino astutely noted similarities in the people and flora of both regions. In 1702 he followed the Colorado all the way down to the Gulf of California. Kino incorporated his findings into maps that were printed in Paris, not in Mexico, where their practical effect might have been greater. For generations, in fact, the myth that California was an island was slow to disappear, even after Spanish missions lined the coastline of upper California. The myth had begun with Father Antonio de la Ascensión,

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The myth that California was an island persisted long after its beginning in 1602, even after Kino had disproved it. This 1650 map by Joan Vinckeboons depicts California as an island separate from the rest of the present-day continental United States. (Library of Congress)

who sailed with Sebastián Vizcaíno in 1602. Fray Ascensión wrote in his journal of Vizcaíno’s voyage that California was separated from the American continent by the “mediterranean Sea of California.” This claim led to European mapmakers depicting California as an island for the first time. Even after Father Kino established that Baja California was a peninsula 100 years later—and a 1747 royal edict from King Ferdinand VII of Spain, who declared officially “California is not an island”—some cartographers rejected the truth and continued to draw the “island of California” on maps until the 1780s.

EXPLORING UPPER CALIFORNIA Father Kino died suddenly on March 15, 1711, in Magdalena, Sonora, while visiting to dedicate a new chapel. In addition to diaries that are now invaluable to students of the region, his legacy included the first accurate maps of Pimería Alta, the Gulf of California, and Baja California. He had conclusively proven that Baja California was a peninsula, not an island. Without the charismatic and industrious Kino to sustain the missions he founded, however, many of them declined. An even stronger

The Road to California blow came in 1767, when Spain’s King Charles III ordered all Jesuits expelled from Spain and its territories on suspicion of promoting political unrest. Friars of the Franciscan order were assigned to replace the Jesuits. The Jesuit expulsion in Mexico was overseen by José de Gálvez, who had been sent by Charles III to reform Mexico’s financial affairs, but whose office of visitor-general gave him extraordinary power. The ambitious Gálvez decided to bolster Spain’s hold on Alta (Upper) California, the same land claimed earlier by mariners Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, Bartolomé Ferrer, and Sebastián Vizcaíno. A stronger presence on the coastline, Gálvez believed, would protect Spanish claims against English and Russian challenges. Gálvez himself journeyed to Baja California to organize an expedition. Two groups of soldiers commanded by Captain Gaspar de Portolá would march up the California peninsula. Fray Junípero Serra, a former theology professor and new president of the formerly Jesuit missions of Baja California, was to oversee the expedition’s missionary aspect. Two ships, the San Carlos and the San Antonio, would sail up the coast and meet the overland expeditions in the north near San Diego. After blessing the departing San Carlos on January 6, 1769, Father Serra left the southeastern Baja California seaport of Loreto on muleback, riding north to catch up with the departed Portolá expedition. Serra was in great pain for much of the journey. Taking the Franciscan denial of worldly pleasure to great extremes, the asthmatic friar habitually refused any medical assistance for a leg infection that plagued him for much of his life. Land and sea expeditions all met as planned at San Diego on July 1, 1769. Scurvy had killed most of the sailors aboard the ships. Two days later, Serra described the area and its Ipai inhabitants in a letter to his friend and later biographer, Father Francisco Palou:

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The tract through which we passed is generally very good land, with plenty of water. . . . We found vines of a large size, and in some cases quite loaded with grapes; we also found an abundance of roses, which appeared to be like those of Castile. We have seen Indians in immense numbers, and all those on this coast of the Pacific contrive to make a good subsistence on various seeds, and by fishing. The latter they carry on by means of rafts or canoes, made of tule [bullrush] with which they go a great way to sea. They are very civil. . . . We found on our journey, as well as in the place where we stopped, that they treated us with as much confidence and good-will as if they had known us all their lives. But when we offered them any of our victuals, they always refused them. All they cared for was cloth, and only for something of this sort would they exchange their fish or whatever else they had.

Serra set to work building the first mission in the present state of California, at San Diego de Acala. Captain Portolá continued up the coast, following Gálvez’s orders to reach the wonderful harbor Vizcaíno had reported in 1603 to exist at Monterey. Portolá and his men arrived at Monterey on October 1, 1769, but did not recognize the bay because it did not fit Vizcaíno’s grand description. They continued northward along the mountainous coast, sighting the Farallon Islands in the distance. One evening, a hunting party commanded by Sergeant José Francisco Ortega returned to camp. Fray Juan Crespi, the group’s chaplain, noted in his diary, “[A]t about eight o’clock at night on the third [of November], the scouts came back from their exploration, firing off a salvo, and reported on arrival that they had come upon a great estuary, very broad, that must reach about eight or ten leagues inland.” This

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strait—later named the Golden Gate—connected the Pacific Ocean with San Francisco Bay. Although Portolá did not yet realize it,

Ortega and his scouts had discovered the perfect Pacific coast harbor, which previous explorers had repeatedly bypassed.

The Road to California After a difficult journey during which they were forced to eat their mules to survive, Portolá and his men returned to San Diego on January 24, 1770. Fray Serra and others, however, were disappointed because Portolá had not found Monterey, whose discovery was more anticipated because of Vizcaíno’s inflated description.

RETURN TO MONTEREY A second attempt set out to find Monterey in mid-April, with Serra sailing aboard the San Antonio and Portolá leading a few dozen soldiers overland. The land expedition reached

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Monterey on May 24, 1770. When they discovered a large cross they had planted during their previous expedition, Portolá and his men realized they had found Monterey six months earlier but had not recognized it. Lack of fresh water caused them to move their camp to nearby Carmel Bay. When Serra joined the group, he celebrated Mass near the beach on June 3, then observed as Spanish soldiers “took possession” of the land in the name of King Charles III—228 years after Cabrillo’s seaborne expedition had claimed the same coast for Spain. With the basic mission ordered by visitorgeneral Gálvez accomplished, colonization

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The Role of California Missions = The California mission system founded by Father Junípero Serra served both secular and religious purposes. Militarily, missions reinforced Spain’s claim to California against other European powers, particularly English mariners and Russian sea otter hunters descending the Pacific coastline. Each mission included a presidio, or fort, with a small number of soldiers. The goal of Franciscan friars was not only religious conversion to Catholicism but the complete absorption of local Indians into the Spanish empire. Indians were required to live on mission grounds, speak Spanish, and wear European clothing. If Native societies were thus transformed, missionaries believed, Indians would fulfill a dual role as both good Christians and faithful subjects of the Spanish Crown. European crops were cultivated on mission farms, including barley, beans, and wheat, replacing traditional American Indian foods such as berries, fruit, and nuts. Deadly diseases and disruption to traditional life that accompanied European arrival in California took a severe toll in Indian lives. This was especially true in crowded mission living quarters. Harsh working conditions and anger over unpunished crimes against Indians by soldiers caused bloody revolts against the Franciscans. This legacy, combined with Father Serra’s penchant for meting out corporal punishment, later disproved a long-idealized image of happy so-called mission Indians. Native Americans protested when the Vatican considered elevating the friar to sainthood in the 1980s, while Serra’s defenders replied with crediting him for introducing European culture to California. Father Serra considered California to be a province that should remain under the exclusive control of the mission system, a view that often put him at odds with Spain’s military and government authorities. Increasing numbers of colonists with neither military nor church duties began to arrive in California in

began in earnest, accompanied by smaller expeditions that revealed California’s valleys and the true dimensions of San Francisco Bay. Before his death in 1784, Serra traveled repeatedly along the California coastline, founding nine missions: San Diego (1769), San Carlos Borromeo (1770), San Antonio (1771), San Gabriel (1771), San Luis Obispo (1772), San Francisco (1776), San Juan Capistrano (1776), Santa Clara (1777), and San Buenaventura (1782). Twenty-one missions would eventually line Alta California’s coast, from San

Diego in the south to St. Francis Solano in the future town of Sonoma.

CAPTAIN ANZA AND FATHER GARCÉS Spain’s new footholds in California renewed interest in discovering a land route between Sonora and the Pacific coast. Supplying struggling California settlements by sea was dangerous and costly. Establishing an overland

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the 1770s, but missions remained at the center of colonial life into the early 1800s. While their cultural role remains controversial, the architecture of the missions remains one of the most historically important reflections of early Spanish America.

Junípero Serra established the mission at San Carlos Borromeo in present-day Monterey, California, in 1770. The mission was moved to Carmel Valley the next year and has been destroyed and rebuilt over the years since then. The completely restored building is shown in this 1940 photograph. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [HABS, CAL,27-CARM,1-6])

connection would also enable colonists to reach the coast in larger numbers. In 1773 permission to find a route was granted to Juan Bautista de Anza, a cavalry captain in command of the presidio of San Ignacio de Tubac, at the present-day southern Arizona town of Tubac. Ironically, Anza’s father, also named Juan Bautista de Anza, once had aspired to follow the Gila River westward to California. The elder Anza had requested permission for just such an expedition but was killed in an Apache ambush in 1740.

The younger Anza left Tubac on January 8, 1774, with 33 others, including Fray Francisco Garcés, a Franciscan missionary who had already made trips from San Xavier del Bac along the Gila and Colorado Rivers alone, much as Eusebio Kino had done decades earlier. Anza and Garcés both detailed the journey in official diaries. At the meeting of the Gila and Colorado Rivers, Anza paused to renew his friendship with a Yuma chief known as Salvador Palma, whom Fray Garcés had also met in his earlier wanderings in the

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countryside. On February 13 Anza left Yuma country behind, heading west and becoming lost for 10 days in the sand dunes of Imperial Valley in southeastern California. “Seeing the generally disastrous condition of all of our riding animals and the impossibility of continuing the march with them,” Anza wrote in his diary, the expedition returned to Yuma territory to forge a new plan. To get around the vast, shifting dunes, Anza’s company went southwest into Baja California, eventually turning north to enter Alta California west of Mexicali, near Signal Mountain. Struggling alternately through more hot, water-starved deserts and winter snow in the San Jacinto Mountains on the way northwest, Anza arrived at San Gabriel Arcángel mission (east of the present city of Los Angeles) on March 22, 1774. Supplies there were too meager for the entire expedition to continue, so Anza and four soldiers continued north with guides, reaching Monterey on May 1. The rest of the expedition returned to Yuma. Typically, Father Garcés set out on his own, seeking a shortcut back to Sonora.

RETURN TO CALIFORNIA Opening a supply route to California earned Anza a military promotion and the confidence of his superiors, who asked him to organize a second expedition, aimed at colonizing the San Francisco Bay area. The expedition embarked on October 23, 1775. That night, a woman died from childbirth complications, but all of the other 240 colonists and 48 soldiers survived the 62-day trek. The survival rate was incredible, given the unpredictable supplies of water and food, violent winter weather, and bad roads. The colonists arrived at Monterey on March 10, 1776. After briefly exploring the countryside, in April

Anza departed Monterey for Tubac, leaving his lieutenant, José Joaquin Moraga, to lead the colonists the rest of the way to the settlement they would build at San Francisco. Fray Garcés traveled with Anza’s outbound 1775 colonizing group, but only as far as the future site of Yuma, Arizona. After founding a mission there, Garcés set off alone on muleback. He reached the San Gabriel mission, then headed back to the Colorado River to see if he could reach New Mexico by following the river upstream. Garces’s journey back to the mission at San Xavier del Bac took him through the mountains of southern California, across the Mojave Desert, and to the Grand Canyon. He was the first European to see the canyonlands since Francisco Vásquez de Coronado’s officer, García López de Cárdenas, visited them 135 years earlier.

FOUR CORNERS Friars Francisco Atanasio Dominguez and Silvestre Velez de Escalante thought they could find an easier route to Monterey. Their plan was to travel inland north to Monterey’s latitude and head west, thus avoiding the difficult terrain and hostile Indian tribes. On July 29, 1776, the two Franciscans set out from Santa Fe, New Mexico, with 14 men, including a cartographer, Captain Bernardo de Miera y Pacheco. They returned to Santa Fe on January 2, 1777, without ever seeing California, but having accomplished an 1,800-mile journey through the previously unexplored territory known today as the Four Corners, the region where the states of Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, and Colorado meet. Their northerly route took them to the vicinity of modern Rangely in northwestern Colorado. The group then headed west as far as Utah Lake. There Escalante noted his

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When exploring the area of present-day Utah, Friars Dominquez and de Escalante met some Ute Indians. In this 1899 photograph five Ute women pose in traditional dress. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-111568])

Indian hosts’ description of what would later be named the Great Salt Lake: The other lake with which this one communicates, according to what they told us, covers many leagues, and its waters are noxious and extremely salty, for the Timpanois assure us that a person who moistens any part of his body with the water of the lake immediately feels much itching in the part that is wet.

The expedition turned sharply southwest, nearly dying of thirst in what is now known as Escalante Desert. Near present-day Cedar City, Utah, they calculated—relatively accurately, being only 2 degrees off—that continuing directly west would bring them to Monterey. After they nearly expired in the desert, however, oncoming winter snow and hunger threatened them. On October 4 a blizzard convinced Escalante and Dominguez to

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turn back to Santa Fe. Cartographer Miera’s protests over the decision forced the friars to cast lots to keep peace among the ranks. The friars won the toss and the expedition headed south toward Arizona, eventually reaching the Colorado River near Marble Canyon. On November 26, 1776, the expedition reached Zuni Pueblo, south of modern Gallup, New Mexico. “Not having sufficient strength to continue,” the group rested before continuing on to Santa Fe to present their report on the lands and people they had seen. On January 3, 1777, they signed Escalante’s diary, finally documenting the first European explo-

ration of the Great Basin Desert and blazing part of what would later be called the Old Spanish Trail between Santa Fe and California. In the end, the labors of Kino, Anza, Garcés, the Dominguez-Escalante expedition, and others to open a busy route to California stalled. Increasing bloodshed between Indians and colonists in New Mexico made the frontier a dangerous place to live or cross in safety. A 1781 Yuma uprising, which took the life of Fray Garcés, closed the route he and Anza had opened. By then, however, Spain was more concerned with new threats arriving by sea in the Pacific Northwest.

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Charting the Pacific Northwest The 1700s

At the same time expeditions from New Mexico were blazing overland routes to strengthen Spain’s weak but growing claim to California, Spanish mariners once again braved the unpredictable seas between California and the Bering Sea. None of the European powers showed much interest in exploring the Pacific Northwest until in the late 1770s they heard rumors of Russian fur traders edging down the coast. Russians had reached Alaska 50 years earlier but mainly as roving traders rather than as explorers. Vitus Bering explored western Alaska, but he did not continue down into the Pacific Northwest region (for full coverage of this, see the Exploring the Polar Regions volume). Not wanting to forgo a claim on the rugged and potentially profitable land to the north, new explorers set forth, eventually contending in an international rush to lay claim to the land between San Francisco and the Arctic.

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FIRST ATTEMPTS The first Spanish ship to investigate the rumors of a Russian and English presence was the Santiago, commanded by Juan Pérez. Bearing instructions from the Spanish viceroy in Mexico to find suitable sites for settlement, Pérez left the port of San Blas, Mexico, in January 1774. He reached 55° north latitude, the southeastern tip of the present state of Alaska, before turning south. On his return voyage, Pérez anchored near Nootka Sound, along the west coast of what was later named Vancouver Island. Like other explorers of his time, however, he assumed the island was part of the mainland. Pérez traded with Indians and laid claim to some of the land he visited, but the main value of his expedition was information he brought back about the Nootka people of Vancouver Island and the Haida, a tribe living along the coastline north from the Queen 157

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Originally published in a late 18th-century book about James Cook’s voyages, this engraving by John Webber, who accompanied Cook on his third voyage, depicts the homes of the Nootka of Vancouver Island. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-102243])

Charlotte Islands to Prince of Wales Island. On his passage south Pérez sighted Mt. Olympus in northern Washington, but, not having taken possession of any land for Spain, his expedition was not regarded as much of a success. Pérez went to sea again in March 1775 aboard the Santiago, this time under the command of Bruno Heceta. A second ship, the Sonora, was commanded by Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra, who would play a major role in the region’s history. The Spanish goal was to reach 65° north and to investigate rumors of a Russian presence. In early June, they sighted northern California at a spot they named Puerto de la Trinidad, now known as Trinidad Bay. Declaring possession of the land for Spain, the mariners paused to spend a week with local Indians, who received the visitors warmly. The next landing, farther up the

coast, was not as friendly. On July 13, near present-day Grenville, Washington, seven of Bodega’s men went ashore to get fresh water, but were killed by hundreds of Indians who ambushed the landing party. Beset with scurvy and bad weather, Heceta favored turning back. The matter was decided when the Santiago and the Sonora were separated by a storm at sea. Heceta retreated south toward Monterey. On August 17 his crew sighted what appeared to be a large inland bay. Heceta tried to enter it, but was driven back by a powerful outflowing current from what was later recognized as the mouth of the Columbia River. Heceta continued on to Monterey, trying to find relief for his scurvy-ridden crew—too late for Juan Pérez, who died along the way. Meanwhile, Bodega y Quadra continued north as far as 58°

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north, until illness and violent weather stopped the Sonora’s progress. In February 1779 Bodega y Quadra returned northward as second in command to Ignacio Arteaga. The expedition reached nearly 60° north at Kayak Island, the Alaskan landfall of explorer Vitus Bering’s 1741 Russian expedition. Near Prince William Sound a party went ashore to hold a possession ceremony on the northernmost land ever claimed by Spain in North America. The voyagers got as far as Kodiak Island before they were forced back by storms and scurvy, failing to fulfill their orders to reach 70° north. They were also looking for Captain James Cook, unaware that the British explorer had come and gone the previous year.

CAPTAIN COOK Having completed two momentous earlier voyages exploring the South Pacific (1768–71 and 1771–76), Captain James Cook’s third expedition once again followed the dream of finding the Northwest Passage around or through North America, hoping to connect the Pacific with the Atlantic Ocean. In 1776

Cook left his base in the South Pacific island of Tahiti and sailed north, becoming the first known European to visit the Hawaiian Islands (which he named the Sandwich Islands) in January 1778. He then sailed east, avoiding Spanish California and aiming at the land Sir Francis Drake called New Albion. Cook reached the coast of Oregon on March 6. Cook called his point of landfall Cape Foul Weather. The name, which is still used today, was an apt choice. The ships Discovery and Resolution struggled north through gales that kept them far from the rocky coastline. Cook missed the Columbia River and Strait of Juan de Fuca, but on March 30 entered Nootka Sound, the harbor on the west coast of Vancouver Island that Pérez had sighted in 1774. Cook spent a month at Nootka repairing his storm-damaged ships, visiting with the Native peoples, and exploring the area, which he dubbed King George’s Sound. The cartographer assigned to Cook’s flagship, the Resolution, was William Bligh, who would later become legendary as the captain of mutiny-wracked H.M.S. Bounty. With Bligh surveying and drawing maps of the treacherous coastline of western Canada, Cook slowly

In 1778 Captain James Cook spotted Cape Flattery (shown in an 1859 photograph with the lighthouse of the same name on a nearby island) in present-day Washington State; however, he overlooked the nearby Strait of Juan de Fuca, which separates Vancouver Island and the Washington coast. (National Archives of Canada)

Charting the Pacific Northwest progressed toward the Alaskan region where Russian explorer Vitus Bering had perished in 1741. Eventually, Cook threaded his way through the Aleutian Islands and sailed up the western limits of the Alaskan mainland, passing through the Bering Strait at a point Cook named Cape Prince of Wales (now the Seward Peninsula), the closest point on the North American mainland to Asia. Carefully navigating through the icestrewn waters, Cook’s progress slowed to a crawl. Finally, at 70° north, Cook faced a wall of ice blockading the horizon. On August 29 he explained his next move in his journal: I did not think it consistent with prudence to make any further attempts to find a passage this year in any direction, so little was the prospect of succeeding. My direction was now directed towards finding some place where we could obtain wood and water, and in considering how I should spend the winter, so as to make some improvement to geography and navigation and at the same time be in a condition to return to the North in further search of a passage the ensuing summer.

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Cook never returned to Alaska as planned. The Discovery and the Resolution withdrew to Unalaska Island in the Aleutians, where repairs were made to the leaking vessels with the help of Russian traders. Cook’s expedition reached his Hawaiian winter sanctuary, but he was killed there on February 14, 1779, in a scuffle with inhabitants of the island of Hawaii. Cook’s crews returned to the Bering Strait the following summer, but their new commander, Captain Charles Clerke, died of illness without expanding upon Cook’s efforts. Cook’s detailed journals were published in London and became best sellers. Perhaps the greatest effect of Cook’s last voyage, however, was the experience it provided George Vancouver, a lieutenant on the Discovery, whose contributions to understanding the geography and people of the Pacific Northwest would soon surpass those of his late commander.

THE COMTE DE LA PÉROUSE Much of Cook’s route was revisited during the ill-fated world voyage of veteran French naval officer and explorer Jean-François de Galaup, comte de La Pérouse (or La Pérouse, for short). In 1785 the French government dispatched La Pérouse to the Pacific Ocean to search for the Northwest Passage. Hoping to match Cook’s achievements, however, La Pérouse was also ordered to explore the northwest coast of North America, as well as the coast of Asia and the South Seas. It was a scientific expedition whose crew included naturalists, artists, cartographers, an astronomer, a physicist, and a mathematician. La Pérouse’s expedition left France in August 1785 and eventually made its way to Alaska, sighting Mount St. Elias near the current U.S.-Canadian border on June 24, 1786.

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Jean-François de Galaup, comte de La Pérouse, led an expedition consisting of two ships and many scientists on an extensive journey through the Pacific Ocean that began in 1785 and disappeared in 1788. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-78225])

La Pérouse retraced Cook’s route—in the reverse direction—with the help of copies of the English explorer’s charts. At a spot now known as Lituya Bay, La Pérouse landed, claimed the land for France, and named it Port des Français. The French explorers traded with the Native inhabitants for sea otter pelts. As they prepared to continue eastward on, a sounding party in two boats was capsized at the rough waters’ edge, with a loss of 21 men. The disaster cast a pall over the progress of the expedition down the foggy, dangerous coast of North America. Nevertheless, the expedition continued its charting work until it reached the recently founded Spanish mission at Monterey on September 13. La Pérouse, whose

La Pérouse next set out for Macao, China, to sell the sea otter pelts obtained in Alaska. He spent all of 1777 exploring the Pacific Ocean. In January 1788, after leaving Botany Bay, Australia, La Pérouse disappeared at sea. He is thought to have been shipwrecked at New Hebrides. Some of the scientific information La Pérouse collected survived in journals he sent to France from Australia aboard a British ship. France did not, however, pursue any territorial claims in the Pacific Northwest on the basis of his voyage.

CONFRONTATION AT NOOTKA European exploration and territorial ambitions in the Pacific Northwest increasingly centered on a 12,408-square-mile island inhabited by the Nootka, Kwakiutl, Coast Salish, and other Native American tribes. The land would soon be named Vancouver Island. Occasional European voyages into Pacific Northwest waters produced seal otter furs,

Charting the Pacific Northwest but no real dash to explore and claim the land. This changed in late 1787, when Spanish mariner Estéban José Martínez returned to Mexico from Prince William Sound to announce that he had learned that Russian traders were planning to establish a permanent settlement on Nootka Island, off the coast of Vancouver Island. Martínez, an experienced mariner with a reputation for belligerence, was immediately ordered back to Nootka to maintain Spanish control. Soon after his return in summer 1789, he encountered two ships flying the Portuguese flag, but staffed and commanded by English traders. On grounds that the English were violating Spanish sovereignty by their presence, Martínez briefly seized, then released one of the ships. When two more English trading vessels appeared shortly thereafter, Martínez seized them both, then sailed for Mexico with the captured ships and crews. News of the incident eventually reached England in January 1790, causing a war scare. The infuriated British government demanded compensation. Resolution of the confrontation may have been hastened by the ongoing French Revolution, which had erupted in the summer of 1789. Taking the side of the French monarchy and worried about political turmoil within its own empire, Spain chose to settle the Martínez incident quickly—and in terms favorable to Britain—in an agreement known as the Nootka Convention in October 1790. Both countries agreed to use the area as an international trading zone, as soon as damages over the Martínez incident were settled. Resolving the Nootka dispute on paper did not stop Spanish exploration or claims in the Pacific Northwest. In 1790 Manuel Quimper explored the Strait of Juan de Fuca aboard the Princess Royal, one of the British ships seized by Martínez and renamed Princessa Real.

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Spanish charts improved as the coastline’s complex islands and harbors were surveyed by José María Narváez (1791), Salvador Fidalgo (1792), and Jacinto Caamaño (1792).

VANCOUVER ARRIVES In April 1791 George Vancouver, a naval officer and veteran of Captain Cook’s second and third voyages, was dispatched to Nootka Island. Captain Vancouver was assigned to settle Britain’s claims under the Nootka Convention and to survey the coast from California to Alaska. He was also ordered to search for a transcontinental strait allegedly discovered in 1592 by Juan de Fuca, a Greek pilot sailing under the Spanish flag. Fuca may—or may not—have discovered the strait later

During his voyage along the Pacific coast, George Vancouver charted the coastline’s features on maps that were used by later explorers. (Alaska State Library PCA 20-25)

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named for him, which separates Washington’s Olympic Peninsula from Vancouver Island, but Vancouver’s investigation was aimed at determining if Fuca had found the fabled Strait of Anian. Vancouver reached the California coast north of San Francisco on April 17, 1792, and proceeded north, surveying and charting the coastline. Within weeks, the expedition turned east into the Strait of Juan de Fuca and began exploring its southern shore. On May 2, 1792, Vancouver’s ships Discovery and Chatham entered a natural harbor near the east end of the strait that Manuel Quimper had discovered two years earlier. Unaware that Quimper had named the bay Porta de la Bodega y Quadra after his fellow Spanish explorer, Vancouver named it Port Discovery after his own ship. Vancouver’s expedition anchored in the bay for several days, making repairs and collecting supplies of wood and water. European epidemics had preceded Vancouver, decimat-

ing Native populations. He noted in his journal that “skulls, limbs, ribs, and back bones, and other vestiges of the human body, were found in many places promiscuously scattered” on the beaches and woods surrounding deserted Indian towns.

COLUMBIA RIVER AND PUGET SOUND While Vancouver was exploring the area, the American fur trader Robert Gray was farther south on the Pacific coast, at the future boundary between Oregon and Washington. He carefully navigated past sandbars at the mouth of the great river Heceta had mistaken for a bay 17 years earlier. Gray named the river the Columbia, after his ship. This discovery by Gray, who had witnessed the earlier Martínez incident while sailing through the region but managed not to become entangled like his British counterparts, was the foundation for

Despite his careful attention to the Pacific Northwest coastline, George Vancouver missed the mouth of the Columbia River (near the present-day border of Washington and Oregon), shown in a 1908 photograph. (National Archives, Pacific Alaska Region NRIS-77-SEADECIMAL-13-47)

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George Vancouver explored a large island off the western coast of North America that would later be named for him—Vancouver Island—in the early 1790s. (National Archives of Canada)

later U.S. claims to the Oregon Territory (for full coverage of Gray and other American exploration of this period, see the Opening Up North America, 1497–1800 and Across America: The Lewis and Clark Expedition volumes in this set). On his voyage north from California, Vancouver missed the mouth of the Columbia River. When he later learned of Gray’s discovery, the skeptical Vancouver sent a subordinate, William Broughton, south to investigate. Broughton explored and surveyed the Columbia for 100 miles inland, determining that it was not the transcontinental waterway Vancouver sought. Meanwhile, Vancouver continued to explore the region’s labyrinth of coastal inlets and harbors. He explored a large bay, naming it Puget Sound after his lieutenant, Peter Puget, who explored the reaches of the waterway south of present-day Tacoma, Washington. Vancouver’s large ships, the Discovery and

the Chatham were too large to enter shallow waters for surveying, so smaller boats were frequently used to collect the desired data. On June 22 Vancouver encountered two Spanish ships, captained by Cayetano Valdés and Dionisio Alcalá Galiano. The Spanish officers were under the command of Alejandro Malaspina, an Italian-born aristocrat and captain in the Spanish navy, who was then engaged in a scientific voyage around the Pacific Ocean. Like Vancouver, Malaspina had been ordered to investigate rumors of a northwest passage. After exploring the coast of Alaska from Prince William Sound eastward and visiting Nootka Sound, Malaspina had returned to Mexico. In 1792, however, he ordered Alcalá Galiano and Valdés to sail to the Pacific Northwest and explore the Strait of Juan de Fuca. The Spanish presence was a shock to Vancouver. “I cannot avoid acknowledging that, on this occasion, I experienced no small degree of

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mortification in finding the external shores of the gulf had been visited, and already examined a few miles beyond where my researches during the excursion, had extended,” Vancouver noted in his journal. Instead of competing, however, the two expeditions exchanged information and compared maps. Vancouver invited the two Spanish officers to join him in exploring northward. They accepted, but the Spanish ships navigated well only in shallow coastal waters. They could not keep pace with the larger English vessels heading into the turbulent currents of the Strait of Georgia.

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The Nootka Convention

After parting with Alcalá Galiano and Valdés, Vancouver progressed along the northeastern coast of Vancouver Island. He stalled at the Arran Rapids, powerful whirlpools caused by tidal currents. An advance surveying party led by Lieutenant James Johnstone, however, reached the Queen Charlotte Strait, which leads into the open ocean. Vancouver took his ships north through narrow Discovery Passage, Johnstone Strait, and the Queen Charlotte Strait. In doing so, he established that the large landmass to his left was indeed an island. By then it was

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The first version of the Nootka Convention was signed on October 28, 1792. While one of its aims was to settle damages for Spanish mariner Estéban José Martínez’s confiscation of British property—principally the British-owned trading ship Ifigenia—the agreement attempted to define the larger question of sovereignty over Nootka Island and the surrounding area: It is agreed that the buildings and tracts of land situated on the northwest Coast of the Continent of North America, or on islands adjacent to that continent, of which the subjects of His Britannic Majesty were dispossessed about the month of April 1789 by a Spanish officer [Martínez], shall be restored to the said British subjects. . . . It is agreed that the places which are to be restored to British subjects by virtue of the first article as well as in all other parts of the Northwest Coast of North America or of the islands adjacent, situated to the north of the parts of the said coast already occupied by Spain wherever either of the two powers shall have made settlements since the month of April 1789, or shall hereafter make any, the subjects of the other shall have free access and shall carry on their commerce without disturbance or molestation.

Yet Bodega y Quadra and Vancouver, the two nations’ representatives, could not agree on what the convention required when they met in September 1792. For his part, Vancouver stated in his journal that orders regarding the surrounding territories were “entirely silent as to the measures I was to adopt for retaining them afterwards.” A final version of the convention was signed January 11, 1794. With terms finally agreed upon, Spain ceded the island in March 1795 and Britain ceremonially took possession. Both nations abandoned their crude settlements immediately, leaving future diplomats to haggle over ownership of Vancouver Island and the Pacific Northwest territories.

Charting the Pacific Northwest time to address the diplomatic aspect of his mission. When Vancouver arrived at Nootka, the Spanish representative was none other than explorer Bodega y Quadra. The Nootka Convention’s terms were not defined clearly enough for the two negotiators to agree about sovereignty over the area. The two officers became good friends, however, so they chose to ask their governments for clearer instructions. While awaiting new orders from London, Vancouver sailed to California, then to the Hawaiian Islands to spend the winter.

VANCOUVER RETURNS Vancouver returned to the Pacific Northwest in spring 1793. His expedition surveyed the islands at the southeastern tip of present-day Alaska, and nearly some were killed when an exploratory boat he commanded was attacked by Indians. Relations with Native Americans were generally “cheerful” throughout his travels, Vancouver noted in his journal, so he did not anticipate this tribe’s ambush. “Whether their motives were rather to take revenge on us for injuries they may have suffered from other civilized visitors,” Vancouver theorized, “or whether they conceived the valuable articles we possessed, were easily to be obtained by these means, is difficult to be determined.” The expedition left Alaska and headed south, surveying and making friendly stops at Spanish settlements along the California coast before wintering in the Hawaiian islands. Vancouver’s third and final surveying expedition returned to the coast of Alaska in April 1794, farther north than he had ventured before. He sailed first to Cook Inlet on the south-central Alaskan shore and worked his way southeast to Baranov Island, the terminus of his 1793 voyage. He named his final landfall Point Conclusion and, having finally completed his mission, he set sail for home via Cape Horn, arriving in England in late 1795

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after nearly six years of surveying, mapping, scientific inquiry, diplomatic service, and ultimately circumnavigating the globe. Among many other things, Vancouver tried to put the longstanding myth of the Strait of Anian to rest: I trust the precision with which the survey of the coast of North West America has been carried into effect will set aside every opinion of a north-west passage. No small portion of facetious mirth passed among our seamen in consequence of our sailing . . . for the purpose of discovering a north-west passage, by following up the discoveries of De Fuca, [mythical 17thcentury explorer Admiral Bartolomé] De Fonte, and a numerous train of hypothetical investigators.

The years at sea took a toll on Vancouver’s health. Upon his return to England, he retired and set to work compiling an account of his travels. He was within pages of completing the manuscript when he died on May 12, 1798, at the age of 40. His brother John finished the work, which was published in 1798 as A Voyage of Discovery to the North Pacific Ocean and Round the World. The finished opus included three volumes of journals and a folio of detailed maps. In addition to their navigational data, the journals provided an evocative daily record of the flora and fauna Vancouver and his staff encountered, as well as descriptions of relations with Native tribes. Although Vancouver’s work provided a definitive geographical picture of the large, complex area he and his men had surveyed, it was not the only journal resulting from the expedition. Archibald Menzies, the expedition’s Scottish botanist, also compiled a journal covering the initial 1792 foray. Menzies, who collected botanical samples during his time ashore on the surveyed lands, added his

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expertise on ferns, flowering plants, lichens, and marine algae to European knowledge of the region. One lasting result of the voyage resulted from Vancouver’s friendship with Bodega y Quadra, who sociably suggested that Vancouver name “some port or island after us both, to commemorate our meeting. . . . Conceiving no spot so proper for this denomination as the place where we had first met, which was

nearly in the center of a tract of land that had first been circumnavigated by us.” Vancouver decided, “I named that country the island of Quadra and Vancouver; with which compliment he seemed highly pleased.” The name was later shortened to Vancouver Island, but in the final decades of the 1700s, regardless of its shifting motives, exploration of the Pacific coastline was a genuinely international endeavor.

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The New World in 1800 Three hundred years after Columbus gambled that he could find a westward route from Europe to Asia, explorers were still examining what he had instead found. Searches for gold and religious missions continued, but on a much smaller scale. Expeditions were now just as likely to be driven by desire for scientific knowledge. New exploration was also driven by desire for political and strategic superiority. The world had changed since the days of the gold-hungry speculators of Columbus’s second voyage, who intended to return home to Europe as rich men, thinking of their sojourn in the Americas as a temporary adventure. New societies now existed in the Americas, with Old World and New World civilizations interacting in ways whose effects are felt even today.

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DESCRIBING THE KNOWN WORLD Much of what was unknown or misunderstood about the Earth became clearer in the centuries after Columbus’s voyages. Thanks to increasingly accurate maps and the practical

experience of hundreds of mariners, the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans were now geographical regions to be crossed, not underworlds filled with unknown terrors. Discovery of the Gulf Stream revolutionized travel and trade on the Atlantic Ocean. By 1800 ships were much improved from the relatively small caravels of Columbus’s time. Mariners still depended primarily on wind power to reach their destinations, but steam-and-sail combinations were just starting to come into use. Beginning in 1812, steamboats were operating on the Mississippi River. The first transatlantic steamship crossing of the Atlantic Ocean followed, in 1819. Some geographical myths such as the Strait of Anian were nearly dead, although 19th-century British, American, and Norwegian explorers would continue to search the ice-choked northern limits of the Americas for a route between the Atlantic and Pacific. British explorer Sir Robert McClure’s 1854 expedition provided the final link to earlier efforts to traverse the top of North America by sea. The convenient midcontinent passageway that earlier explorers had hoped to find 169

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would have to wait until 1914, when the Panama Canal connected the two great oceans. A desire for more precise knowledge about the Earth replaced earlier ambitions for gold, conquest, and global religious dominance. When Gonzalo Pizarro set out from Quito, Ecuador, in 1541, for example, he was searching for gold, slaves, cinnamon, and a hos-

pitable place to build an empire. His subordinate Francisco Orellana found the Amazon River accidentally and explored the waterway out of a need to survive the harsh environment and possibly Pizarro’s brutish mismanagement. By contrast, when French scientist Charles-Marie de la Condamine went to Ecuador in 1735, he was sponsored by the French Academy of Sciences, which sent him

An engraving by Theodor de Bry, this late 15th-century map of the Americas is bordered by (clockwise from top left) Christopher Columbus, Amerigo Vespucci, Ferdinand Magellan, and Francisco Pizarro. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-89908])

The New World in 1800 to South America to collect measurements at the equator to settle disagreement over the true shape of the Earth. A second expedition led by Pierre-Louis de Maupertuis journeyed to Lapland in Scandinavia, in 1736 for the same purpose. The size of the Earth was less of a mystery than it had been in 1492, but contention over its shape pitted French theories that the spherical globe flattened at the equator against British scientist Sir Isaac Newton, who calculated that it was flattened at the poles. Complications with Spanish authorities and various mishaps stalled La Condamine in Quito until 1743, when he learned that Newton’s theory had been proven by data collected by Maupertuis’s expedition. Rather than return home to France, however, La Condamine instead set out on a four-month journey down the Amazon. The naturalist, mathematician, and cartographer La Condamine and his colleagues were a stark contrast to the armored troops, shackled slaves, and livestock that had accompanied the soldier Pizarro 200 years before. The French explorers carried scientific instruments. They measured and sounded the depths of the rivers they encountered in the Amazonian basin. They observed and collected specimens of plants and animals. In 1751 La Condamine published his account of this first scientific examination of the Amazon, entitled Journal du voyage fait par ordre du roi a l’équateur (Journal of the voyage made by order of the king at the equator).

DISCOVERY AND THE ENLIGHTENMENT The scientific direction in which much exploration was heading in 1800 followed the most potent century of an intellectual movement

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called the Enlightenment. Although it began several centuries earlier, the pace of the Enlightenment increased dramatically in the 1700s. European thinkers attempted to understand the natural world and humanity’s role in it on the basis of reason and scientific evidence, without appealing to religious beliefs for explanations. In Columbus’s time, the discovery of the Americas had been a shock to many European religious leaders and the national monarchs with whom they were closely associated. Previously unknown continents, peoples, religions, and civilizations presented a challenge to church leaders, who had been explaining the order of the known world solely on the basis of the Bible, which made no mention of the New World. Rather than shun the Americas, however, most European leaders and theologians had chosen to view the discovery as ripe with opportunities for economic exploitation and religious conversion. Searching for treasure and religious missionary activities had certainly not ended by 1800. Yet as Europeans became more concerned with understanding the New World— as opposed to merely emptying it of natural resources and forcing their religion upon its original inhabitants—the scientific revolution accompanying the Enlightenment in the 1600s and 1700s gave explorers an increasing array of tools for trying to make sense of the Americas and, for that matter, anywhere else they traveled. Broad advances were made in geology, botany, biology, and other natural sciences, especially after the mid-1600s. Improved surveying instruments produced better maps. Taxonomy and nomenclature— the classifying of plants and animals, and identifying each species by giving it a specific name—were formalized by scientists for the first time in the 1700s.

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Science in the 1700s helped explorers understand what they found, but was also helpful to the navigators responsible for getting them there. After centuries of being unable to accurately determine longitude, English scientist John Harrison solved the problem in the 1750s with his invention of the marine chronometer. Harrison’s invention— essentially an accurate pocket watch— allowed navigators to determine their longitude by comparing the difference

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between their time and what time it was at 0 degrees longitude, the prime meridian. They were then able to make calculations based on the knowledge that each hour of difference represented 15 degrees of longitude. The chronometer’s usefulness was proven by Captain James Cook’s second voyage (1771–76), which produced charts so accurate that navigation and cartography developed to new and improved standards. As the charts of voyagers such as Cook and Vancouver were published

Scientists Descend on South America = Many regions of the world still remained to be explored even as late as 1800, among them parts of South America. Catholic missionaries, Portuguese slavers, and mining prospectors were responsible for much of the exploration of the Amazon basin throughout the 17th and 18th centuries but they had by no means exhausted all the unknowns of the continent. In the 18th century a new breed of explorers began to appear on the scene: scientists who were interested not in discovering new lands to be claimed by their European homelands but in discovering new animals and plants, isolated peoples, and unknown geographic features. During the 1700s, in addition to French astronomer Charles-Marie de La Condamine (1736–45), these included French astronomer Louis Godin (1736–50), French naturalist Jean Godin de Odonais (1743–73), Spanish naturalist José Celestino Mutis (1760–62), Spanish botanist Hipólito Ruz (1777–88), and German naturalist Alexander von Humboldt (1799–1803). The attraction of South America for scientists would continue throughout the 19th century, drawing Anglo-German botanist/explorer Robert Hermann Schomburgk (1835–43); British explorer Francis de La Porte, comte de Castelnau (1843–47); three English naturalists, Alfred Wallace (1848–52), Henry Bates (1848–59), and Richard Spruce (1849–64); German ethnographer Karl von den Steinen (1884–88); and Brazilian soldier/explorer Candido Rondon (1890–1910). Perhaps the most notable scientist to be drawn to South America would be British naturalist/biologist Charles Darwin, who investigated the coast of southeast Argentina in 1831 and then the Galápagos Islands, off Ecuador, where his findings would greatly influence his theory on natural selection and the origin of species. One characteristic of the exploration of South America should be apparent: It has always been an international effort. Another is that, to this day, remote parts of the Amazon River basin remain unexplored.

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Located in San Francisco, this mission was built in the 1780s, shortly after San Francisco was founded. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [HABS, CAL,38-SANFRA,1-15])

and studied, the actual geographical shape of the Americas—and much of the rest of the world—could now be seen, with details and an exactitude the navigators of Columbus’s time would have marveled over.

SPAIN FADES FROM THE SCENE The opening of the Americas produced a new understanding of the world, but the civilizations involved in the initial encounters underwent profound changes between Columbus’s time and 1800. Within 50 years of Europeans’

arrival, the two most powerful empires in the Americas, those of the Aztec and the Inca, had been smashed and replaced by Spanish control. By 1800, however, Spanish power in the Americas was weakening fast. The Spanish economy was a shambles. A yellow fever epidemic swept the country that year, killing thousands of people. Mountains of gold and silver imported from Mexico and Peru had been wasted fighting a succession of wars in Europe. After ceding western Florida to Britain and gaining the Louisiana Territory from France in 1763, the latter region was lost when French leader Napoleon Bonaparte

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pried Louisiana loose from Spain in 1801. Two years later, in April 1803, Bonaparte sold the 820,000-square-mile Louisiana territory to the United States for $15 million. Five years after the Louisiana Purchase, Bonaparte overran Spain itself in his ongoing war against Britain. In 1800 Spain also faced problems in its overseas colonies. Political instability, combined with the dangers of pushing into unfamiliar Native American–dominated lands, left Spain’s interest in expansion stalled at its neglected colonial borders as the 19th century began. Many of California’s 21 Franciscan missions were under construction or had yet to be founded in 1800, but the religious fervor that drove royal Spain’s initial support for new exploration had disappeared long ago. Obedience to the Spanish Crown had been strictly enforced during the first century of colonial rule. By 1800, however, many generations of New World inhabitants of pure or mixed Hispanic ancestry considered themselves natives of the Americas and wanted increasingly more power to govern themselves. Over the next 20 years, revolutions would end Spanish control of Colombia, Ecuador, and Venezuela. In 1820 Mexico seceded from Spain; similarly, the people of Brazil declared their independence from Portugal in 1822. Spain’s three centuries of control in the Americas were ending in all but a few places, such as Cuba and Puerto Rico.

NEW PARTICIPANTS New North American exploration was also poised to begin under the sponsorship of another country created by colonial discontent, New Spain’s recently established northern neighbor, the United States of America. On February 28, 1803, two months before the Louisiana Purchase, President Thomas Jefferson obtained congressional approval to send Captain Meriwether Lewis on a journey across the North American continent. Jefferson out-

lined the basic purpose of the expedition in a June 20, 1803, letter to Lewis: The object of your mission is to explore the Missouri River, and such principal streams of it, as, by its course and communication with the waters of the Pacific Ocean, whether the Columbia, Oregan, Colorado, or any other river, may offer the most direct and practible water-communication across the continent, for the purposes of commerce.

The four-year expedition led by Lewis and his colleague William Clark would travel overland from St. Louis to the same bay fur trader Robert Gray had entered in 1792, where the Columbia River meets the Pacific Ocean. The expedition would be the first U.S. government survey of natural resources in the American West. It would also fulfill Jefferson’s order to collect as much information as possible about Native American nations. Not all such exploration of the Americas would take place in the United States. In the time since Columbus’s voyages, Great Britain had emerged as a world power. Naval expeditions of exploration ordered by the British admiralty, such as the 18th-century travels of Cook and Vancouver, continued into the 1800s, particularly in the Arctic. Much smaller efforts sponsored by fur trading companies also succeeded in finding and surveying routes across the Canadian Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Northwest, including the expeditions of Alexander Mackenzie (1789 and 1792–93) and David Thompson (1807–11).

THE CHANGED FACE OF THE AMERICAS Between 1492 and 1800 the opening of the Americas influenced—and was influenced by—great changes: more accurate under-

The New World in 1800 standing of global geography, ease of navigation, the improvement of scientific methods, and even the fate of nations. Many of the most profound changes, however, took place in basic ways as people on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean led their lives in the steadily shrinking world. Only a few centuries after the Taino Indians and Columbus awkwardly greeted each other with sign language on the Bahamian shore at Guanahaní—most likely present-day San Salvador—Native American languages throughout the Western Hemisphere were replaced or, at least, diminished by the languages of colonizing European powers. North American Indian languages still survived throughout much of the United States and Canada in 1800, despite efforts by European missionaries to obliterate Native American languages through acculturation. By 1800, however, the pattern was set. Brazilians primarily spoke Portuguese. Spanish was spoken in Mexico, Central America, and much of South America and the Caribbean. French was spoken in parts of Canada, Louisiana, and certain islands of the Lesser Antilles. English was spoken in Canada and the former British colonies of the United States. Yet while the advent of European language transformed communication in the New World, it did not entirely destroy what had existed before. Nahuatl, the Aztec language, is still a primary language in some regions of Mexico and Guatemala. Quechua is spoken today in Peru, Ecuador, and Bolivia. Guarani and Spanish coexist as the national languages of Paraguay. The linguistic exchange did not flow only in one direction. New World contributions to English and other Old World vocabularies described animals, plants, and aspects of culture of which the rest of the Earth had been unaware before 1492. This ongoing process

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Tobacco later proved to be a very profitable crop when cultivated in the British colonies in eastern North America. On this 1850s tobacco label, laborers carry bales of tobacco from a plantation to a waiting boat. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZC4-1996])

introduced indigenous New World words into common usage in a larger world; examples include maize, raccoon, opossum, coyote, skunk, succotash, hominy, squash, tomato, potato, tapioca, tobacco, Eskimo, hickory, hammock, canoe, moccasin, and totem. The transoceanic importation of slaves to the Americas also brought a West African component into the linguistic exchange, in the Caribbean and South America as well as the United States. Immigration to the Americas in the 1800s would broaden the exchange even further, with languages evolving to meet the need to communicate.

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ANIMALS AND PLANTS Transatlantic exchanges of animals and plants after 1492 caused numerous changes across

the globe, affecting cultures and economies. Prior to the Spanish arrival, the only commonly domesticated work animals in the New World were dogs and—in limited parts of

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Horses Return to the New World

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The ancestors of the modern horse had roamed the Americas millions of years ago but horses had been extinct there for many thousands of years when Columbus’s second fleet arrived at Hispaniola in 1493. “The Spaniards brought along a great many of their best horses, fleet of foot and capable of bearing armor,” one of Columbus’s party wrote to Nicoló Syllacio, a Sicilian philosopher. “Their formidable appearance did not fail to terrify the Indians. For they suspected that the horses fed on human flesh.” Such confusion reoccurred throughout the Americas. Remembering Pedro de Tovar’s 1540 foray into Arizona, Pedro de Casteñeda wrote that “the people do not leave the villages except to go to their farms, especially at this time, when they had heard that Cibola had been captured by very fierce people, who traveled on animals which ate people. This information was generally believed by those who had never seen horses.” In the 1600s a profound change began. Horses accompanied the first Spanish explorers, but did not reproduce in any great numbers. As colonizers later pushed northward into Mexico and what is now the southwestern United States, however, settlers developed herds, allowing horses to range freely rather than corralling them. A similar system was used during the slower movement of Europeans into South America. Both wild and domestic horse populations increased rapidly over (continues)

Horses transformed American Indian life after their introduction. In this 1905 photograph by Edward S. Curtis, three Plains Indians (probably Dakota, Lakota, or Nakota Sioux) sit astride horses somewhere on the Great Plains. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-105381])

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(continued) the next 200 years. The equestrian skills of Native Americans grew, too, as horses transformed Indian life from the Canadian prairies to the grasslands of Argentina. North American Great Plains tribes, which depended on the buffalo for survival, were able to hunt more easily. Societies that previously traveled on foot and transported their belongings on travois frames hitched to dogs became more mobile, moving faster and over longer distances. Horses also changed the nature of warfare, both among tribes and against settlers pushing into Indian territory. Within a few centuries, the horse changed from being an object of terror into a creature whose great contributions to Native American culture were honored in religious rituals and art across the hemisphere.

Cotton, a crop cultivated in the Americas before Europeans introduced it, became a valuable export throughout the Americas after colonists settled there. In an early 19th-century drawing, two Jamaicans sit on a structure with a tall bag for cotton. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-110700])

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South America—llamas. The introduction of European pigs, sheep, cattle, and especially horses transformed how and what Native Americans ate, wore, traveled, and traded. Escaped cattle from herds in Argentina and the southwestern United States would breed in the wild, providing foundations for massive commerce in beef and leather products in the 1800s. In the century that followed, however, the bison—so plentiful and so crucial for the Indians of North America—was all but wiped out. Many crops introduced from the Old World did not exist in the Americas prior to 1492, including onions, melons, radishes, lettuce, cabbage, cauliflower, chickpeas, apples, peaches, pears, yams, rice, wheat, and other grains. Several introduced crops, such as sugar, bananas, and coffee, would eventually become major exports from the Americas. Meanwhile, New World crops unknown in Europe before 1492 included maize (corn), tomatoes, pumpkin, squash, sweet potatoes, pineapples, avocados, and many varieties of beans. Cacao beans used for making chocolate were a novelty. So were potatoes. These South American tubers were initially unpopular when imported to Europe in the 1500s, but

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many other plants, including the chili pepper, guava, Jerusalem artichoke, papaya, sugar maple, sunflower, and vanilla. Two of the most significant New World crops were inedible but had great economic impact: By 1800, tobacco had become one of the most profitable plants in the world, while in the 20th century chicle became the basis of the vast market in chewing gum.

AFRICA IN THE NEW WORLD

Tobacco, the plant in this 18th-century drawing, was indigenous to the Americas and became an important export. (National Archives of Canada)

ultimately became such a popular staple food that future waves of colonists brought potatoes with them to North America. Peanuts and cassava (also called manioc) would become staple crops in Africa. For Europeans, the Americas became a major source of cotton, which had previously been available as a trade commodity imported from Asia. In addition to such foods that now provide basic nutrition to peoples around the world, the Americas provided many others that add variety to people’s diets: nuts such as the brazil nut, cashew, pecan, and walnut; berries such as the blackberry, blueberry, cranberry, gooseberry, raspberry, and strawberry; and

Much injustice, though, would surround the introduction of some crops to the New World. The fortunes made by cultivating and shipping sugar, rice, tobacco, and cotton encouraged the growth of a slave trade that changed the course of history in Africa, as well as Europe and the Americas. When Columbus first sailed west in 1492, the European “slave trade” consisted primarily of Portuguese slavers who had been enslaving West Africans and shipping them to sugar-producing areas such as the Canary Islands and Madeira since the 1440s. In the Americas, the immediately controversial issue of slavery at first related to Native peoples of the Caribbean being shipped against their will to Spain. Columbus himself was reprimanded for shipping Carib prisoners for use as slaves. Within a generation, however, the population of the Caribbean was so reduced by European diseases and war that a new labor source was sought to replace the vanished Arawak and Carib. Spanish royal opposition to slavery quickly disappeared after the death of Queen Isabella in 1506—the first African slaves were shipped to Spain’s American colonies four years later. The practice of slavery existed in the Americas before Columbus’s arrival, notably in Maya, Aztec, and Inca societies. The new European slave trade, however, expanded it

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In this detail from a 1780s etching, captured Africans are crammed into the hold of a British slave ship, the Brookes, similar in design to many others used to transport slaves. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-44000])

with horrific efficiency, inviting the complicity of anyone who stood to make a profit by its commerce in human misery—African slave traders; European owners and captains of slave ships; sugar, tobacco, and cotton plantation operators throughout the islands and countries of the Western Hemisphere; and the factory and mill owners of Europe, where the Industrial Revolution accelerated in the late 1700s. By 1800 abolitionists in the United States and Europe were openly challenging the legality of slavery, but the institution would not be declared illegal in all of the Americas until late in the 19th century. The Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution banned slavery in the United States in 1865. Abolition came a generation later to Cuba (1886) and Brazil (1888). Apart from the immeasurable suffering caused by the slave trade, Africans brought to the Americas against their will had literally changed the face of the New World by 1800. The Spanish presence in Mexico and Central America had created people and cultures that were distinctly mestizo, a mixture of Native American and European elements. The racial composition of the Caribbean was similarly

changed by the slave trade, creating people of mixed African and European ancestry, called mulattos. By 1800 patterns of distinctly African speech, religion, music, art, and other cultural elements were firmly established in the Caribbean, South America (particularly Brazil), and the United States.

CREATING A NEW WORLD Three tumultuous centuries of exploration, conquest, and colonization helped much of the world forget about Christopher Columbus after his final voyage. In the wake of the revolutions that swept the Americas in the late 1700s and early 1800s, however, people across the Western Hemisphere began trying to understand how they fit into the course of world history, not simply as colonists or slaves from other parts of the globe, but as people with a unique heritage. Around 1800, historians in the Americas began rediscovering Columbus, as they began discovering a new sense of themselves. By 1800 the patterns that would determine life—and exploration—in the 19th-century Americas were in place. Terrible new conflicts

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and some surprisingly cooperative exchanges would occur with Native Americans as explorers with a great variety of motives concentrated on opening the interior of the American hemisphere. Settlement, economic exploitation, searching for new transportation routes, desire for better understanding of the natural

sciences, missionary efforts, and struggles for strategic control would all continue to play a part, as new generations of explorers ventured into unfamiliar territory. Explorers of the 1800s would not approach the Americas as exotic lands to be visited and abandoned, but as lands that were their own.

Glossary { adelantado An office conferred by the Spanish Crown granting an individual the right to conquer and settle new overseas territories, in return for economic privileges and the power to administrate local government and military activities on behalf of the king of Spain. adobe A mixture of straw and clay that, when shaped into bricks and baked in the sun, was used by the Indians of the southwestern United States (including the Pueblo, Hopi, and Zuni tribes) to build homes and walls, especially those often called pueblos (Spanish for “village”). alcalde A Spanish governmental official akin to a governor. Duties of alcaldes in the frontier provinces of New Spain included civil leadership and military command. astrolabe An early scientific instrument that enabled navigators at sea to calculate roughly their distance north of the equator by determining the altitude of the North Star over the northern horizon. audiencia A Spanish civil tribunal and legislative council in the New World. As the Spanish Crown’s representative, the audiencia was also responsible for weighing and protecting the Spanish king’s share of any wealth discovered.

brigantine A relatively small two-masted sailing vessel. buccaneer A type of pirate. In the West Indies the Indian word bocan refers to a rack on which meat was barbecued. From this word the French developed the word boucaner, meaning “to cure meat.” A boucanier thus became known as a man who lived like the Indians, or a man who lived outside European society. The term later became attached to English and French pirates who roamed the seas and preyed on the Spanish Main. cacique An Arawak term for a Native American male tribal leader or chief. Although the term was Caribbean in origin, it was also commonly employed to acknowledge leaders of cultures in parts of Central America and the southeastern United States. The feminine form is cacica. canyon A deep, narrow gorge. Based on the Spanish word for “tube,” canyons were originally called barrancas (ravines) by early Spanish explorers. caravel A small ship with three short masts and triangular lateen sails, whose low cost, maneuverability, and ability to sail against the wind made it a favorite of Portuguese and Spanish mariners. Columbus’s ships Niña and Pinta were caravels. 183

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cartographer An artist or draftsman skilled in drawing maps or maritime charts. celestial navigation Method used by marine navigators to calculate their location using time and the position and altitude of celestial bodies such as stars and planets, and mathematical tables. chart A map used by mariners or the act of creating such a map. Information routinely given on a chart includes the typical condition of the sea in a certain area (hydrographic condition), land formations, and other navigational data. cíbolo The Spanish word for the male American buffalo, or bison. (Cíbola is the female.) It appears that the name derives from the legendary “golden” city of Cíbola sought by Coronado’s expedition; the exact origin of that name is itself unknown, but it has been proposed that it comes from the Spaniards’ mispronouncing “Ashiwi,” the name the Zuni Indians called themselves. circumnavigate A verb meaning “to sail around,” usually applied to sailing around an island or the world. civilization The culture of a people, or the geographical location of that culture, or a specific period of time for a people’s culture. Because it usually implies such attainments as organized urban life and writing, it is often used derogatorily to distinguish a culture from societies that lack such attainments. comptroller An official in charge of financial affairs. conquistador The Spanish word for “conqueror” (conquistadores is its plural). At the time of early Spanish exploration of the Americas, a conquistador was considered to fulfill a triple role as soldier, explorer, and conqueror of people who would not convert to Christianity. dead reckoning A method used by early navigators to determine approximately

how far east or west their ships had traveled by multiplying their rate of speed by the passage of time. Dead is believed to be derived from the word deduce, meaning “to reach a conclusion by the use of reason.” declination Literally, “deviation;” when used by navigators it refers either to (a) the difference on a compass between the direction of the magnetic North Pole and the geographic North Pole or (b) the angular distance to a celestial object as measured north or south of the celestial equator (an imaginary line directly over the equator). despoblado A Spanish term meaning uninhabited wilderness. encomienda Based on a Spanish word meaning “to entrust,” this was a grant by the Spanish Crown entitling a landholder to tax Indians living on his land in labor or goods. The terms of an encomienda required the grant holder, or encomendero, to provide religious instruction to and ensure the physical welfare of the Indians under his control. The lack of royal regulation and enforcement of the encomienda system led to rampant abuses in the New World. entrada The Spanish term for expedition. It literally means “entrance” or “entry.” estuary The area where the current of a river’s mouth meets ocean tides. Franciscan A member of the Order of Saint Francis of Assisi, a Catholic brotherhood whose members are dedicated to poverty, celibacy, and spreading Christianity through missionary work. Franciscan missionaries would often accompany Spanish explorers upon orders of the Spanish Crown to carry out the expedition’s religious aspect. fray The title given by the Spanish to a Franciscan friar, it is derived from the Latin word frater, or “brother.” galleon Full-rigged, heavily armed sailing vessels used primarily as treasure ships, developed in Spain in the 1500s. Galleons

Glossary were essential to trade between Spain and its colonies in the Americas and the Philippines. hemisphere Half of the Earth, whether divided into East-West or North-South. The Western Hemisphere comprises North and South America. hidalgo A Spanish gentleman or low-ranking nobleman. hieroglyphs Based on Greek words for “sacred carving,” this term refers to a system of writing that uses pictorial signs to indicate sounds. indigenous An adjective used to describe people or species of animals and plants that are native to a particular place. When species are found only in that place, they are then said to be “endemic.” isthmus A narrow neck of land connecting two larger bodies of land, such as the Isthmus of Panama. Jesuit A member of the Society of Jesus, a Catholic order whose adherents dedicate themselves to preaching and higher education. Jesuit missionaries were active in the southwestern United States and Mexico until their expulsion in 1767 by order of Spain’s King Charles III. latitude The distance north or south of the equator measured in degrees. The equator is 0 degrees. league A measure of distance. At the time of the early exploration of the Americas, a league was used by different nationalities to refer to a variety of distances, but it was generally defined as being slightly more than two and a half miles. Today it is commonly valued as being three miles in length. log The book in which a ship’s speed and all other information relating to a voyage are recorded. Its name is derived from the practice of tying a piece of wood, or log, to a rope, throwing it overboard, and then timing how long it took to run out the rope a known distance.

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longitude Standard of measurement describing the distance east or west from the meridian, a fixed north-south line depicted on maps with a baseline of zero longitude. See meridian. mariner A sailor. meridian A north-south line depicting a standard baseline of zero longitude. In 1884 an international convention fixed the location of the prime meridian (zero longitude) at Greenwich Observatory, near London, England. Before then, cartographers were free to draw the meridian wherever they liked, and its location depended on the nationality of the mapmaker. mesa A land formation common in the southwestern United States, with steep sides and a flat top. Mesa means “table” in Spanish. mestizo The Spanish word for “mixed,” referring to a person of mixed Native American and European ancestry. mission The place of residence and activities of missionaries. Early Spanish missions in North America sometimes included a military fort, or presidio. missionaries Individuals who undertake religious work, usually in remote or foreign areas, and often with the goal of converting those they encounter. Early Catholic missionaries in America established a string of missions with churches and schools to educate Native Americans and convert them from their own religious beliefs to Christianity. Moor An Arabic-speaking Muslim from northwestern Africa. Moors were often some combination of the indigenous Berbers of North Africa, Arabs from the Middle East, and sub-Saharan black Africans. mulatto A Spanish word derived from the Arabic for “mixed birth,” it refers to a person of mixed African and European ancestry.

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native An adjective describing a person or some other living thing who is associated with a particular place by reason of birth. naturalist A person knowledgeable in and dedicated to several scientific disciplines, especially botany and zoology and often others such as geology or oceanography. It is a term more commonly used before the 20th century, when advances in the sciences required specialization. nautical Anything pertaining to ships, sailing, or sailors. navigator The person who decides the direction of a ship. New Spain (Nueva España) A Spanish viceroyalty, or collection of colonies, created in 1535. New Spain, whose capital was Mexico City, included the Caribbean, Venezuela, the Philippine Islands, and all territories north of Panama. The Viceroyalty of Peru was created in 1542 and included all Spanish territories in South America except Venezuela. pilot In seamanship, a sailor with specific knowledge of a waterway who is qualified to guide vessels through that region. porter A person employed to carry gear or burdens of any kind. portolan From the Italian portolani, meaning sailing directions, this is a chart drawn to scale and showing the location of ports, harbors, river mouths, and other landmarks visible from the sea. Portolans, however, did not depict latitude and longitude. prairie Any large, basically flat, essentially treeless stretch of often arid grassland; often used specifically of the Great Plains in the interior of the United States. presidio A Spanish military fort. privateer A privately owned ship or its captain licensed by royal authority or any government to attack enemy ships. The

privateer’s crew was then allowed to retain a proportion of the profits from any ships captured. pueblo A multistory stone or adobe American Indian dwelling or the community living in such dwellings. Pueblo, which means “village” in Spanish, is also used to collectively describe tribes who live in pueblos. quadrant An early nautical instrument that, when sighted on the North Star, was used to find the altitude of stars and thus roughly determine latitude. scurvy A disease common to early sailors caused by a deficiency in vitamin C in shipboard diets, which often lacked fresh fruits and vegetables. settlement A small group of people (settlers) and their homes and other buildings; often used of such communities on the frontier, or in newly colonized land, although it can also be used of small communities of the original inhabitants in a land undergoing settlement by immigrants. sextant An instrument used to measure the altitude of celestial bodies and thus determine latitude. Sextants replaced astrolabes and quadrants as navigational tools. smallpox A highly contagious disease caused by a virus, whose consequences include pustules and often death. Smallpox claimed the lives of millions of Native Americans, who had little or no resistance to the disease when it was transported to the Americas by European explorers, conquistadores, and settlers. sovereign As a noun, it refers to the person or persons (such as a king and/or queen) who exercise total authority. As an adjective, it indicates complete authority. speculator A person who invests in projects and/or engages in the buying and selling of

Glossary materials where there is considerable risk but who hopes to make a solid profit. travois A V-shaped wood pole frame drawn by dogs (and later horses), which American Indians used to transport goods or people before horses became part of Native American culture. tribe A group of people usually linked by ethnicity, language, culture, and dwelling places.

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tributary A river or stream that flows into another larger river. It can also be used to denote a person who gives tribute or taxation in some form to a more powerful controlling body. turquoise A semiprecious stone, blue to blue-green in color. war dogs Dogs trained by the Spanish military to be used as vicious attack weapons.

Further Information { NONFICTION Adorno, Rolena. Guaman Poma: Writing and Resistance in Colonial Peru. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2002. Alexander, Michael, ed. Discovering the New World. New York: Harper & Row, 1975. Ballantine, Betty, and Ian Ballantine. The Native Americans. Atlanta: Turner Publishing, 1993. Burrus, Ernest J. Kino and Manje: Explorers of Sonora and Arizona. St. Louis, Mo.: Jesuit Historical Institute, St. Louis University, 1971. Cabeza de Vaca, Álvar Núñez. Cabeza de Vaca’s Adventures in the Unknown Interior of America. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1983. Cieza de León, Pedro de. The Discovery and Conquest of Peru. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1998. Cook, Warren L. Flood Tide of Empire: Spain and the Pacific Northwest, 1543–1819. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1973. Cortés, Hernán. Letters from Mexico. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987. Crane, Nicholas. Mercator: The Man Who Mapped the Planet. New York: Henry Holt, 2003. Crosby, Alfred W. The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2003. Cumming, W. P., D. B. Quinn, and R. A. Skelton. The Discovery of North America. New York: American Heritage Press, 1972.

D’Anghiera, Pietro Martire, and Geoffrey Eatough, eds. Selections from Peter Martyr. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 1998. Díaz del Castillo, Bernal. The Discovery and Conquest of Mexico 1517–1521. New York: Da Capo Press, 1996. Dor-Ner, Zvi. Columbus and the Age of Discovery. New York: William Morrow, 1991. Dugard, Martin. Farther Than Any Man: The Rise and Fall of Captain James Cook. New York: Pocket Books, 2001. Duncan, David Ewing. Hernando de Soto: A Savage Quest in the Americas. New York: Crown, 1995. Edmonds, Jane, ed. Oxford Atlas of Exploration. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. Edwards, Philip ed. The Journals of Captain Cook. New York: Penguin, 2000. Engstrand, Iris H. W. Spanish Scientists in the New World: The Eighteenth-Century Expeditions. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1981. Fisher, Robin. From Maps to Metaphors: The Pacific World of George Vancouver. Vancouver: University of British Columbia, 1995. Foster, Lynn V. Fielding’s Spanish Trails in the Southwest. New York: William Morrow, 1986. Foster, William C. Spanish Expeditions into Texas, 1689–1768. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995. Fuson, Robert H., trans. The Log of Christopher Columbus. Camden: International Marine Publishing, 1987.

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Garate, Donald T. Juan Bautista De Anza: Basque Explorer in the New World, 1693–1740. Reno: University of Nevada Press, 2003. Heaton, H. C., ed. The Discovery of the Amazon, According to the Account of Friar Gaspar de Carvajal and Other Documents. New York: American Geographical Society, 1934. Hodge, Frederick W., and Theodore H. Lewis, eds. Spanish Explorers in the Southern United States 1528–1543. Austin: Texas State Historical Association, 1990. Howard, David A. Conquistador in Chains: Cabeza de Vaca and the Indians of the Americas. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1997. Josephy, Alvin M., Jr., ed. America in 1492. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1992. Joutel, Henri. The La Salle Expedition to Texas: The Journal of Henri Joutel, 1684–1687. Austin: Texas State Historical Association, 1998. Kelsey, Harry. Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo. San Marino, Calif.: Huntington Library, 1986. ———. Sir Francis Drake: The Queen’s Pirate. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998. Kendrick, John. The Men with Wooden Feet: The Spanish Exploration of the Pacific Northwest. Toronto: NC Press, 1986. Kessell, John L. Spain in the Southwest. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2002. Krieger, Alex D. We Came Naked and Barefoot: The Journey of Cabeza de Vaca across North America. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2002. Lamar, Howard R., ed. The New Encyclopedia of the American West. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998. La Pérouse, Jean-François De. Life in a California Mission: Monterey in 1786: The Journals of Jean François De La Pérouse. Berkeley: Heyday Books, 1989. Leon-Portillo, Miguel. The Broken Spears: The Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico. Boston: Beacon Press, 1992. Markham, Clements R., trans. Reports on the Discovery of Peru. New York: Lenox Hill, 1970. Mitchell, Mark. Raising La Belle. Austin: Eakin Publications, 2001.

Morison, Samuel Eliot. Admiral of the Ocean Sea. Boston: Little, Brown, 1942. ———. The European Discovery of America: The Southern Voyages 1492–1616. New York: Oxford University Press, 1974. ———. Journals and Other Documents on the Life & Voyages of Christopher Columbus. New York: Heritage Press, 1963. Oviedo y Valdés, Gonzalo Fernández de; J. M. Carillo, ed. Oviedo on Columbus. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2002. Parry, J. H. The Discovery of South America. New York: Taplinger, 1979. Prescott, William H. History of the Conquest of Mexico & History of the Conquest of Peru. New York: Cooper Square Press, 2000. Preston, Douglas. Cities of Gold: A Journey across the American Southwest in Pursuit of Coronado. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992. Raleigh, Walter, and Neil L. Whitehead, eds. The Discoverie of the Large, Rich, and Bewtiful Empyre of Guiana. American Exploration and Travel Series, Volume 77. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1998. Raudzens, George, ed. Technology, Disease and Colonial Conquests, Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries: Essays Reappraising the Guns and Germs Theories. Boston: Brill, 2001. Ruiz, Ramón Eduardo. Triumphs and Tragedy: A History of the Mexican People. New York: W. W. Norton, 1992. Sale, Kirkpatrick. The Conquest of Paradise. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1990. Sauer, Carl O. Sixteenth-Century North America. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971. Sauer, Carl O., Otwin Sauer, and Anthony Pagden. The Early Spanish Main. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971. Sugden, John. Sir Francis Drake. New York: Henry Holt, 1990. Thomas, Hugh. Conquest: Montezuma, Cortes, and the Fall of Old Mexico. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993. Udall, Stuart L. To the Inland Empire: Coronado and Our Spanish Legacy. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Co., 1987.

Further Information Vancouver, George. Voyage of Discovery to the North Pacific Ocean and Round the World. New York: Da Capo Press, 1967. Villagra, Gaspar Perez de, Alfred Rodríquez, and Joseph P. Sánchez, trans. Historia de la Nueva Mexico, 1610. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1992. Waldman, Carl. Atlas of the North American Indian. New York: Checkmark Books, 2000. Warner, Ted J., ed. The Domínguez-Escalante Journal: Their Expedition through Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico in 1776. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1995. Weber, David J. The Spanish Frontier in North America. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992. Wilford, John Noble. The Mapmakers. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1981. ———. The Mysterious History of Columbus. New York: Random House, 1991. Williamson, Edwin. The Penguin History of Latin America. New York: Penguin Press, 1992. Wood, Michael. Conquistadors. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000.

FICTION Anonymous. Castillo-Feliú, Guillermo, ed. Xicoténcatl: An Anonymous Historical Novel About the Events Leading Up to the Conquest of the Aztec Empire. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1999. Belfrage, Cedric. My Master, Columbus. New York: New Amsterdam Books, 1994. Bohnaker, Joseph J. Of Arms I Sing. Santa Fe: Sunstone Press, 2003. Bushnell, Oswald A. The Return of Lono: A Novel of Captain Cook’s Last Voyage. Boston: Little, Brown, 1956. Caistor, Nick. Columbus’ Egg: New Latin American Stories of the Conquest. Boston: Faber & Faber, 1992. Card, Orson Scott. Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus. New York: Tor Books, 1997. Cather, Willa. Father Juniper’s Holy Family. Lexington, Ky.: Anvil Press, 1956.

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Clayton, Paul. Calling Crow Nation. New York: Berkeley Publishing Group, 1997. Conley, Robert. The Long Walk Home. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2000. Conway, James. A Mapmaker’s Dream: The Meditations of Fra Mauro, Cartographer to the Court of Venice. Boston: Shambhala, 1996. Di Perna, Paula. The Discoveries of Mrs. Christopher Columbus. Sag Harbor, N.Y.: Permanent Press, 1994. Dorris, Michael and Louise Erdrich. The Crown of Columbus. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1992. Ducharme, Rejean. The Daughter of Christopher Columbus. Translated by Will Browning. Tonawanda, N.Y.: Guernica Editions, 2000. Encinias, Miguel. Two Lives for Oñate. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1997. Falconer, Colin. Feathered Serpent: A Novel of the Mexican Conquest. New York: Crown, 2003. Finley, Robert S. M. The Accidental Indies. Montreal: McGill–Queen’s University Press, 2000. Frohlich, Newton. 1492: A Novel of Christopher Columbus and His World. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1990. Hall, Oakley M. The Children of the Sun. New York: Atheneum, 1983. Harris, Richard E. The Gift of Estevan: Black Comrade of the Conquistadors. New York: Buy Books on the Web, 1999. Harris, Wilson. The Dark Jester. London: Faber & Faber, 2001. Hudson, Charles. Conversations with the High Priest of Coosa. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003. Jennings, Gary. Aztec. New York: Tom Dougherty Associates, 1997. Johnston, Mary. 1492. Boston: Little, Brown, 1923. Maalouf, Amin. Leo Africanus. Translated by Peter Sluglett. Chicago: New Amsterdam Books, 1990. Marlowe, Stephen. The Memoirs of Christopher Columbus. New York: Scribner’s, 1987. Panger, Daniel. Black Ulysses. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1982. Parini, Jay. Bay of Arrows. New York: Holt, 1992.

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Rodriguez, Alfred. Plus Ultra: Life and Times of Alvar Nunez Cabeza De Vaca. Lincoln, Nebr.: iUniverse.com, 2001. Vernon, John. La Salle: A Novel. New York: Viking, 1986.

VHS/DVD Aguirre, The Wrath of God (1972). Anchor Bay Video, VHS/DVD, 2000. Aztec Empire (2000). A&E Home Entertainment, VHS, 2000. Biography: Christopher Columbus (2000). A&E Entertainment, VHS, 2000. Buried Mirror: Reflections on Spain and the New World (1994). Home Vision Entertainment, VHS, 1994. Cabeza de Vaca (1991). New Concorde Home Video, VHS/DVD, 2001. Captain from Castile (1947). 20th Century Fox, VHS, 1997. Children of the Sun/Death March of De Soto (1992). Archaeology TV Series, VHS, 1992. Christopher Columbus: The Discovery of the New World (1991). PBS Home Video, VHS/DVD, 1992. The Conquistadors (2001). PBS Home Video, VHS/DVD, 2001. Fall of the Aztec and Maya Empires (1999). Questar Inc., VHS, 1999. Fatal Voyage of Captain Cook (2001). A&E Entertainment, VHS, 2001. 1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992). Paramount, VHS/DVD, 2002. Great Adventurers: Christopher Columbus and the New World (1999). Kultur Video, VHS, 1999. In the Land of the War Canoes: A Drama of Kwakiutl Life (1914). Milestone Film & Video/Imagre Entertainment, VHS/DVD, 2000. The Invaders (Erik the Conqueror) (1961). Futura Home Video, VHS, 1989. The Mission (1986). Warner Home Video, VHS/DVD, 2003. National Geographic’s Lost Kingdoms of the Maya (1993). National Geographic, Columbia Tristar, DVD, 1995.

Primal Mind (1999). Wellspring Media, DVD, 2000. The Royal Hunt of the Sun (1969). Simitar Video, VHS/DVD, 1998. Secrets of the Aztec Empire (2000). A&E Home Video, VHS 2000. Seven Cities of Gold (1955). 20th Century Fox, VHS, 1988.

WEB SITES Banco de la Républica Colombia. “The Gold Cultures of Early South America.” Available online. URL: http://www.banrep.org/museo/eng/expo. Downloaded on October 22, 2003. Center for Study of the Southwest. “Cabeza de Vaca.” Available online. URL: http://www.rnglish.swt. edu?CSS/vacaindex.html. Downloaded on January 9, 2004. Crosby, Alfred W. “The Columbian Exchange: Plants, Animals, and Disease between the Old and New Worlds.” National Humanities Center. Available online. URL: http://www.nhc.rtp.nc.us:8080/ tserve/nattrans/ntecoindian/essays/columbian. htm. Updated in December 2001. Domínguez, Francisco Atanasio, and Francisco Silvestre Vélez de Escalante. “The Itinerary and Diary.” Edited by Jarom McDonald. Available online. URL:http://www.mith2.umd.edu/eada/ gateway/diario/index.html. Downloaded on November 25, 2003. The Estevanico Society. “Estevanico.” Available online. URL: http://www.estevanico.org. Downloaded on November 25, 2003. Fordham University. “Colonial Latin America.” Available online. URL: http://www.fordham.edu/ halsall/mod/modsbook08.html. Updated on January 16, 1999. Frontier Trails of the Americas. “Early Explorations.” Available online. URL: http://www.frontiertrails. com/america/2000. Downloaded on November 25, 2003. Historical Text Archive. “Colonial Latin America.” Available online. URL: http://historicaltext archive.com/sections.php?op=listarticles&secid= 23. Downloaded on October 22, 2003.

Further Information Kellscraft.com. “Horace Bingham’s Inca Land.” Available online. URL: http://www.kellscraft. com/IncaLand/incalandscontents.html. Downloaded on December 6, 2003. Mapforum.com. “Early Printed Atlases.” Available online. URL: http://www.mapforum.com/02/ ptolemy1.htm. Downloaded on October 22, 2003. The Mariners’ Museum. “The Age of Exploration.” Available online. URL: http://www.mariner.org/ age/index.html. Downloaded on October 22, 2003. National Endowment for the Humanities. “The Voyage of Columbus.” Available online. URL: http://edsitement.neh.gov/view_lesson_plan.a sp?ID=322. Downloaded on October 22, 2003. National Maritime Museum. “‘Arctic’ and ‘Antarctica.’” Available online. URL: http://www.nmm. ac.uk. Downloaded December 5, 2003. National Park Service. “American Southwest— National Register of Historic Places Travel Itinerary.” Available online. URL: http://www.cr.nps. gov/nr/travel/amsw/index.htm. Updated on August 26, 2003. ———. “Mojave National Preserve—Mojave Road.” Available online. URL: http://www.nps.gov/ moja/mojahtmr.htm. Downloaded November 25, 2003. ———. “Tumacácori National Historical Park.” Available online. URL: http://www.nps.gov/ tuma/home.htm. 2001. Downloaded November 25, 2003. PBS Online. “New Perspectives on the West.” Available online. URL: http://www.pbs.org/weta/ thewest/program. Downloaded on October 22, 2003. Pflederer, Richard. “Portolan Charts: Vital Tool of the Age of Discovery.” Historytoday.com. Avail-

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able online. URL: http://www.findarticles.com/ cf_0/m1373/5_52/85677838/p1/article.jhtml. Posted in May 2002. Pillsbury, John Elliott. “The Gulf Stream.” Available online. URL: http://www.history.noaa.gov/ stories/gulfstream3.html. Updated on December 8, 2000. San Diego Historical Society. “History of San Diego and Early California.” Available online. URL: http://www.sandiegohistory.org/histsoc.html. Downloaded on October 22, 2003. Tyson, Peter. “Secrets of Early Navigation.” Available online. URL: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/ nova/longitude/secrets.html. Downloaded November 25, 2003. University of Arizona. “Journey of Coronado.” Available online. URL: http://southwest.library. arizona.edu/jour. Downloaded on October 22, 2003. ———. “Maps of the Pimería: Early Cartography of the Southwest.” Available online. URL: http://dizzy.library.arizona.edu/branches/ spc/set/pimeria/welcome.html. Downloaded November 25, 2003. University of Oregon. “Juan Bautista de Anza.” Available online. URL: http://anza.uoregon.edu. Downloaded November 25, 2003. Wisconsin Historical Society. “American Journeys: Eyewitness Accounts of Early American Exploration and Settlement.” Available online. URL: http://www.american journeys.org/index.asp. Downloaded November 25, 2003. Yale Map Collection. “Cartographic Curiosities.” Available online. URL: http://www.library.yale. edu/MapColl/curious.html. Updated on August 10, 2000.

Index { Page numbers in italic indicate a photograph. Page numbers in boldface indicate box features. Page numbers followed by m indicate maps. Page numbers followed by g indicate glossary entries.

A abalone seashells 147 abolition 180 Acoma Pueblo 114–115, 115, 135 adelantado 183g adobe 109, 134, 135, 183g Africa and Africans xiv, 30, 180 crops in 179 disease from 35 exploration of 12–13 influences on New World of 180 knowledge of in 1492 19 and Portugal 15 and Prester John 23 West Africa 12, 15, 179 Agnese, Battista 16 agriculture 68. See also crops Aguilar, Jerónimo de 55 Aguirre, Lupe de 79 Aigenler, Adam 147 Alaminos, Antón de 9, 52 Alarcón, Hernando de 112, 112, 113m Alaska 161, 167 Albornoz, Rodrigo de 108 alcalde 183g Alcanfor Pueblo 116 Aleutian Islands 161

194

Alexander VI (pope) 40 Alfraganus 25 Almagro, Diego de 65, 67, 72, 73m, 74, 75, 75 Alvarado, Hernando de 115 Alvarado, Pedro de 60, 61, 73m Alvarez de Pineda, Alonso 48, 92 Amadis 58 Amazon River xv, 41, 42–43, 77–79, 78m, 79, 170, 172 Amazons 62, 77, 78 America, naming of 44 Americas 11, 25, 170, 181m. See also North America; South America Amichel 48–49, 81 Aminoya 103 Amundsen, Roald 126 Añasco, Juan de 97, 103–104 Andes Mountains 45, 72 Anian, Strait of 62, 64, 126, 126, 164, 167, 169 animals 176, 178. See also specific headings, e.g.: buffalo animal skin 23 Año Nuevo 128 Antarctica 125 Antilia 22, 23 Antilia, Seven Cities of 107 antipodes 8

Anza, Juan Bautista de 153–154, 159m Apache Indians 117, 147, 153 Apalache 82, 83, 97 Aparia 77 apochrypha 18 Arab traders 15 Araucano Indians 79 Arawak Indians 6, 30, 32, 49, 179 archaeologists xv Arctic Ocean 126 Arenal Pueblo 116 Argentina 68, 74, 90 Arizona 110, 133, 135, 136, 154–156 Arkansas 101 army 56 Arteaga, Ignacio 159m, 160 artifacts 143 Ascensión, Antonio de la 147, 148 Asia xiii, 19, 44 Americas as distinct from 9 beliefs on navigation to 25 and John Cabot 49 and Christopher Columbus 8, 10, 13, 30, 31, 34, 38, 39 knowledge of in 1492 11, 12, 19 and Prester John 23 astrolabe 18, 19, 183g

Index Atacama Desert 74 Atahualpa (Inca leader) 67–72, 92 Atlantic Ocean 19, 126 Atondo y Antillón, Isidro 145 Aucilla River 97 audiencia 183g Aute 83 Ávila, Pedro Arias de 46 Ayllón, Lucas Vásquez de 92 Azores 2, 3, 12, 19, 30 Aztec Empire and Indians 10, 53, 54, 173 calendar stone of 57 and Hernán Cortés 56–60 language of 175 Mayan Indians 51 Moctezuma (Montezuma) 56, 58, 58–60, 87, 133 oral history of 53 religious prophecies of 56 slaughter of 60 and slavery 179 and smallpox 61 Tenochtitlán xvi, 56–62 tribute to 57–58

B Bahamas 4, 28, 47 Bahia 40 Baja California 64, 123, 128, 145–148, 154 Balboa, Vasco Núñez de 9, 43–46, 45, 46m, 65, 92 Barbados 6 Barcelona, Spain 3–5, 8, 30 Barroto, Juan Enríquez 142, 144 Bastidas, Rodrigo de 43 Bates, Henry 172 Bay of Smokes 120–121 Becerra, Diego de 64 Behaim, Martin 18 Beltrán, Bernardino 133 Benalcázar, Sebastián de 72, 73m, 76 Bering, Vitus 157, 160, 161 Bering Sea 157 Bering Strait 161 Berkeley, California xiv Bermejo, Juan Rodríguez 27 berries 179 Bible 18, 19, 70

Biedma, Luis Hernández de 93, 104 Biedma, Manuel de 79 Bigotes 115 Bingham, Hiram xv, 68 Birú 46 bison. See buffalo Blades, Ruben xiii Bligh, William 160 Bobadilla, Francisco de 35 Boca del Sierpe 34 Bodega y Quadra, Juan Francisco 158, 159m, 160, 164, 166, 167, 168 body paint 28 Bogotá 74 Bolivia 68, 74, 90, 175 Bonaparte, Napolean 173–174 Bonilla, Francisco Leyva de 134–135 books 23 Botany Bay, Australia 162 Bounty, H.M.S. (ship) 160 Brazil 40, 41, 43, 90, 174, 180 brigantines 103, 104, 183g Britain 163, 166, 167, 173, 181m. See also England Broughton, William 165 buccaneer 183g buffalo 87, 87–88, 106, 178, 178 attempts to tame 136 Seven Cities of Cíbola 107 drives 88 hunting of 117 burial chamber 99 Buscando America xiii

C Cabeza de Vaca, Álvar Núñez xvi, 10, 81–85, 89, 90m, 93, 103 on bison 87, 88 and Seven Cities of Cíbola 106, 107, 107 death of 91 imprisonment of 91 as medicine man 85, 86, 89 in Narváez expedition 81–85 and Native Americans 84–86, 91 in South America 89–91 survival of 84

B

195

Cabo de lodo (Cape of Mud) 142 Cabot, John 12, 49 Cabot, Sebastian 49 Caboto, Giovanni. See Cabot, John Cabral, Pedro Álvares 40 Cabrillo, Juan Rodríguez 120–124, 122m, 128, 129, 149 cacica 98, 99 cacique 183g Cadiz 30, 37 Cajamarca 69, 70, 71 calendars 51, 57 California xvi. See also Monterey, California; San Francisco, California Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo 120–124 charting of coastal 120–131 Sir Francis Drake 126–128 early exploration of 120 first expedition to Monterey 149–151 Father Eusebio Kino 145, 146 missions in 152–153, 174 myth of the island of 147, 148, 148 Gaspar de Portolá 149–151 routes of expeditions in, 1769–1793 150m Sebastián Vizcaíno 128–131 Caliquen 96 Calusa Indians 49, 52 Campeche 55 Canada 141, 175 Canary Islands 12, 17, 19, 22, 25, 27, 179 cannibal 6, 49 cannons 56, 143 canoes 6, 37, 95, 103, 175 canyon 183g Cape Fear, North Carolina 92 Cape Flattery 160, 161 Cape Foul Weather 160 Cape Hatteras, North Carolina 41 Cape of Good Hope 13 Cape Prince of Wales 161 Cape Verde Islands 40 “capitulations” 26 caravel 15, 17, 26, 30, 183g Caravjal, Gaspar de 77

196

B

Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800

Cárdenas, García López de 111, 111, 119 Caribbean xviii, 6, 40, 44, 49, 175, 180. See also specific headings, e.g.: Cuba Carib Indians 6, 6, 28, 48, 49, 179 Carmel 128 carriers 99 Cartas las Relación 53 cartographer 184g cartography 18, 23, 123 cassava 179 Castelnau, comte de 172 Casteñeda, Pedro de xvi, 88, 106, 107, 111, 177 Castillo, Bernal Díaz del. See Díaz de Castillo, Bernal Castillo Maldonado, Alonso del 85, 89 Catalina 128 Catholicism and Catholics xiv, 22, 51, 152 cattle 178 Cavalier, Jean 140 cavalry 101 Cavelier, René-Robert. See La Salle, sieur de Cedar City, Utah 155 celestial navigation 18, 184g censorship 23 Central America xv, 10, 40, 49, 51, 64, 175. See also specific headings, e.g.: Mexico Cermeño, Sebastián Rodríguez 122m, 128 Chacmool statue 51 Chaco region 91 Chamuscado, Francisco Sánchez 132 Charles III (king of Spain) 149, 151 Charles V (Holy Roman Emperor and, as Charles I, king of Spain) 53, 62, 63, 64, 66, 90, 92, 93 Charlotte Bay 48, 94 Charruco Indians 85 charts and chartmaking 12, 17, 172, 173, 184g Chatham (ship) 164, 165 chestnuts 95 chewing gum 179 Chichén Itzá 51, 51

Chickasaw Indians 101 chicle 179 Chile 68, 73m, 74, 75, 79, 90 Chima (tribal leader) 44 China 8, 9, 12, 29, 32, 37 Christianity. See also Catholicism and Catholics and Christopher Columbus 10 conversion to 10, 14 and Hernando de Soto 98 encomienda 34 and Muslims 14 and mythical utopia 22, 107 and Native Americans 10 Prester John 23 requerimiento 94 in Spain 14 spread of 14 chronometer (marine) 172 Chumash Indians 128 Cibao 29 Cíbola, Seven Cities of 76, 93, 107, 108–110, 177 cíbolo 184g Cicuyé, Pecos of 116 Ciguatan 62 Cihuatlan 62 cinnamon 170 cinnamon trees 45 Cipangu 29 circumference of the Earth 25 circumnavigate 184g Ciucut 121 civilization 184g civil war 10, 67, 68, 72 Clark, William 174 Clerke, Charles 161 coat of arms 63 “codices” (Mayan) 51 coffee 178 Cofitachequi, Lady of 98, 99 Cofitachequi, land of 97–98 Colombia 174 Colón, Cristóbal 24. See also Columbus, Christopher colonization by Vasco Núñez de Balboa 43–45 of Canary Islands 19, 22 by Christopher Columbus 30–33, 35

by Hernán Cortés 64 effects on language of 175 in 1800s 181m encomienda 34 and gold 44 of Hispaniola 37 and horses 177 at La Navidad 7, 8, 30 of Monterey 154 by Portugal 19, 22, 181m and Pueblo Rebellion 140, 141 revolt in Hispaniola 35 of San Francisco Bay area 154 Spanish xvi, 174 and Taino Indians 7, 8 Colorado 154–156 Colorado Plateau 110 Colorado River 147 Colombia 37, 65, 72 Columbian Exchange xiv The Columbian Exchange (Alfred W. Crosby) xiv Columbia River 158, 174 Columbo, Cristoforo 24. See also Columbus, Christopher Columbus, Bartolomé 17, 33 Columbus, Christopher xiii–xvi, 180 Antilia 22 armor of 26 attack on 37 in Barcelona 3–5, 4 battles for privileges of 30 beliefs of 24, 25, 37–39 and biblical description of seas 18, 19 Canary Islands 22 as cartographer 17 and Christianity 10 and colonization 30–33, 35 death of 38 early years of 24, 25 and Ferdinand and Isabella 1, 4, 4, 5, 8, 14, 14, 26, 33, 37 final voyage of 35, 37–38 first voyage of 27–29 and gold 4, 5, 10, 26, 28–29, 31, 37 hardships of 2, 3 Hispaniola 4, 32, 33, 33, 35, 37

Index house of 33 and imaginary kingdoms 23 journals of 24 legacy of 38 letter from Ferdinand and Isabella to 1 miscalculations of 25 and Native Americans xiv, 5, 5, 6, 6, 28, 28–30, 37, 175 navigation used by 18–19 plans for second expedition of 8 and Marco Polo 12 portrait of 25 and Portugal 2, 3, 30 privileges of 33, 39 remains of 36 report of 8 return to Spain of 1–9, 4, 5, 30 route of first voyage of, 1492 2m routes of second, third, and fourth voyages of, 1493–1504 32m royal support for 26 sails from Palos 27, 27 search for patrons of 25, 26 second voyage of 30–33, 31, 32m ships of 7, 15, 17, 26, 37 and slavery 34, 179 and South America 34, 35, 37 and Spanish court 4–5, 7, 8, 10 as Spanish explorer 12 and Taino Indians 5, 5, 28, 28–30, 175 third voyage of 32m, 33–35 view on new world 9 Columbus, Diego 31, 33 Columbus, Ferdinand 24, 37 Columbus and the Age of Discovery (Zvi Dor-Ner and William Scheller) xiv compass 19, 62 comptroller 184g conquest xiv conquistadores 184g. See also specific headings, e.g.: Cortés, Hernán armament of 93 and Aztec Indians 59–60

and “cows” 87–88 gold-hungry 76 historical portraits of 53 requerimiento 94 rights of 79 continents 19 Cook, James 158, 159m, 160, 160, 161, 161, 172, 174 Cook Inlet 167 Córdoba, Francisco Hernández de 50, 52 corn. See maize Coro 72 Coronado, Francisco Vásquez de xvi, 76, 88 and Alarcón’s expedition 112, 113 and Alvarado expedition 115–116 and El Turco 116 Great Plains expedition of 116–119 and Mexico 110, 117, 118 and Native Americans 116, 118–119, 118–119 news of 120–121 northern expedition of 108–100 at pueblo of Háwikuh 109 routes and secondary expeditions of, 1540–1542 113m search for Antilia by 22 and the Seven Cities of Cíbola 106–119 corporal punishment 152 Cortés, Francisco 61 Cortés, Hernán 10, 59, 81, 106, 133 arrival at Tenochtitlán 58–60 and Aztec Indians 56–60 and California 61, 64 charges against 62 coat of arms for 63 death of 64 expeditions sponsored by 61 explorations of 52–64 and gold 56, 59

B

197

journey to Tenochtitlán 56–58 letters of 53, 54 and Mexico 53, 55m, 60 Moctezuma’s dilemma with 56 return to Tenochtitlán 60, 61 routes to and in Mexico, 1519–1683 55m sets forth 53–56 surveying by 61 at Tenochtitlán xvi, 58–61 Cosa, Juan de la 26, 43 Cosmographie 123 Costa Rica 37 cotton 28, 103, 178, 179 cotton plantations 180 Crespi, Juan 149 crops cotton 28, 103, 178, 179 fortunes from 179 introduced from the Old World 178, 179 maize 95, 103, 175, 178 on mission farms 152 New World 178–179 tobacco 6, 29, 175, 175, 179, 179, 180 Crosby, Alfred W. xiv crossbows 120 Cuauhtémoc (Aztec leader) 60 Cuba 22, 174 abolition in 180 Christopher Columbus 4, 29, 31–32, 37 Francisco Hernández de Córdoba 52 Hernando de Soto 92 Bartolomé de Las Casas 3 Juan Ponce de León 48 slavery in 49 Culiacán 109 culture areas (Native American) 20m Cuzco 68, 74, 75, 75

D d’Ailly, Pierre 25 d’Anghiera, Pietro Martire 8. See also Martyr, Peter

198

B

Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800

Darién 45, 46 Darwin, Charles 172 Dávila, Pedrarias 92, 93 Daytona Beach, Florida 47 Daza, Luis da 76 dead reckoning 18–19, 184g declination 18, 184g deer 56 De Orbe Novo (Peter Martyr) 9 Description of the World (Marco Polo) 12 de Soto, Hernando. See Soto, Hernando de despoblado 184g Dias, Bartholomeu 13 Díaz, Melchior 109, 112, 113, 113m Díaz del Castillo, Bernal 49, 50, 52–54, 58 diphtheria 35 discovery xvii Discovery (ship) 160, 161, 164, 165 diseases xiv, 6, 32, 35, 49, 59, 60, 61, 152, 164 dogs 93, 117, 176, 178 Dominguez, Francisco Atanasio 154–156, 155 Dominican Republic 4, 29, 31 Doña Marina 55. See also Malinche Dorantes de Carranza, Andrés 84, 85, 89 Dor-Ner, Zvi xiv Drake, Sir Francis 122m, 124–128, 125, 127, 160 Drake Passage 125 Drake’s Bay 127, 128 dyewood (red) 40

E Earth 8, 18–19, 22, 25, 35, 171 Ecuador 67, 68, 72, 174, 175 El Dorado 75, 76, 79, 80, 80 Elizabeth I (queen of England) 124, 125, 127 El Morro 135, 136, 138–139 El Paso 86 El Turco 116, 117 Enciso, Martín de 44 encomienda 34, 184g

England 40, 124–128 English language 175 engraved plates 23 the Enlightenment 171–173 entrada 53, 106, 116, 117, 119, 184g epidemics 35 equator 18, 25, 171 Escalante, Silvestre Velez de 154–156, 155 Escalante Desert 155 Escalona, Juan de 136 Espejo, Antonio de 133 Espíritu Santu 94 Estéban 84, 85, 86, 89, 107, 108 estuary 184g Europe and Europeans xiii, xiv, 8–13, 12m, 19, 23, 25, 179, 180. See also specific headings, e.g.: Spain and Spanish exploration 10, 22, 23, 23, 132, 134. See also specific headings, e.g.: Soto, Hernando de

F Falkland Islands 43 Farallon Islands 149 Al-Farghani 25 farming 6, 57, 97. See also crops Federman, Nikolaus 72 Ferdinand II of Aragon (king of Spain) xv, 14, 26, 46 and Christopher Columbus 1, 4, 4, 5, 8, 26, 33, 37 letter to Christopher Columbus from 1 marriage to Isabella 14 requerimiento 94 and Juan Díaz de Solís 49 and Amerigo Vespucci 43 Ferdinand VII (king of Spain) 148 Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés, Gonzalo 45, 72, 74, 93, 104, 105, 119 Ferrer, Bartolomé 121, 129, 149 firearms 56 fish 95 fishing 6 Fletcher, Francis 127 Flints, Mountain of the 62

Florida 48, 52, 82, 83, 105, 173. See also “La Florida”; St. Augustine, Florida Florida Keys 48 forced labor 32, 34 Fort St. Louis. See St. Louis, Fort “fountain of youth” 47, 48 Four Corners region 154–156 France 139, 173, 174, 181m Franciscan missionaries 79, 105, 144, 145, 149, 184g explorations of 132–133 Francisco Tomás Garcés 112, 153–154, 156 goals of 152 Francisco López 132 Agustín Rodríquez 132 fray 184g French Academy of Sciences 170, 171 French language 175 Freyle, Juan Rodríquez 76 Fuca, Juan de 163 Fumos, Bahía de los. See Bay of Smokes fur traders 157

G Galápagos Islands 172 Galaup, Jean-François de. See La Pérouse, comte de Galiano, Dionisio Alcalá 165, 166 galleon 124, 124, 128, 129, 184g–185g Gálvez, José de 149 Gamarra, Francisco López de 144 game 117 Garay, Francisco de 48 Garcés, Francisco Tomás 112, 153–154, 156 Garden of Eden 35 Genoa, Italy xiv, 15 genocide xiv Gentleman of Elvas 99, 105 geography and geographers. See also charts and chartmaking; mapmaking; navigation beliefs in 22–25 in Columbus’s time 24–25 and continents 19 Henry the Navigator 12

knowledge in 24–25 and naming of America 44 and navigation to Asia 25 Germany and Germans 15, 23, 72 glass beads 52 globe 18, 19 Golay, Michael xvi gold and Seven Cities of Cíbola 107 and colonization 44 and Christopher Columbus 4, 5, 10, 26, 28–29, 31, 37 concern for 105 and Hernán Cortés 56, 59 El Turco’s stories of 116 evidence of 52 in Great Plains 117 in Lake Guatavita 76 in Guyana 80 in Lake Guatavita 76 La Navidad colony and 30 lessening importance of 170 mines 97 and Native Americans 44 pilfered Aztec 60 and Francisco Pizarro 66, 68, 71, 71 room filled with 71 and Hernando de Soto 95, 101 and Spanish colonists 32 trade for 52 wasting of 173 Golden Gate 129, 150 The Golden Hind (ship) 125–127 grains 178 Granada 14 Grand Canyon xvi, 106, 110–112, 111, 154 Grand Khan 8 Gray, Robert 164, 174 Great Basin Desert 156 Great Britain 174. See also England Greater Antilles 22, 30 Great Plains 88, 106, 116–119 Great Southern Continent 125 Greeks 11, 23 Greenwich, England 17 Grenada 22

Guacanagarí (tribal leader) 29 Guachoya Indians 101 Guamán Poma de Ayala, Felipe 70 Guanahaní Indians 28 Guaraní Indians 91, 175 Guatavita, Lake 76 guaycas 4 Guaycura Indians 64 Guaymi Indians 37 Guevenes Indians 85 Guide to Geography (Ptolemy) 23 Gulf Coast 144 Gulf of California 64, 112, 136, 146 Gulf of Mexico 37, 48, 83, 84, 139 Gulf of St. Lawrence 41 Gulf of Urabá 43, 46 Gulf Stream 48, 169 Gutenberg, Johannes 23 Guyana 80 Guzmán, Nuño Beltrán de 107

H Haida Indians 157, 158 Haiti 4, 6, 7, 8, 29 hammock 6 harquebuses 93 Harrison, John 172 Hasinai Indians 144 Haustec Indians 49 Hawaiian Islands 160 Háwikuh, pueblo of 107, 109, 110, 115 Heceta, Bruno 158, 159m hemisphere 185g Henry the Navigator (prince) 12, 13, 17 hidalgo 185g hides 85 hieroglyphs 51, 185g Hispaniola 22, 29, 30, 31 Vasco Núñez de Balboa 43–45 Christopher Columbus 4, 32, 33, 33, 35, 37 gold in 30 revolt in 35 and slavery 34 Taino Indians 6 turmoil at 33

History of the Indies (Bartolomé de Las Casas) 3, 24 Honduras 37, 62 Hopi Indians 110, 111, 111 horses 56, 67, 67, 69, 83, 88, 117, 176m, 177–178, 178 hostages 96, 99 Huascar 67, 72 Huastec 92 Huayno Capac (Inca emperor) 67 Huguenots 105 Huitzilpochtli 60 Humaña, Gutiérrez 135, 136 human sacrifice 51, 57, 58 Humboldt, Alexander von 172 Hutten, Philip von 79

I Iberian Peninsula 22 Icelanders 24 Ifigenia (ship) 166 Iguaçu Falls 91 iguana (derivation of word) 6 Imago Mundi (Pierre d’Ailly) 25 immunity (from disease) 49 Imperial Valley 154 Inca Empire and Indians xiii, xv, 10, 68–69, 173 civil war in 67, 68, 72 destruction of 66 Machu Picchu xv, 68, 69 and ocean crossing 11 and Francisco Pizarro 67–72 rebellion in 75 Royal Inca Highway 68, 68 and slavery 179 welcome of Spanish by 70 India 25, 40 Indian Ocean 13, 37 “the Indies” 2–4, 8, 30, 32, 33 indigenous 185g Indigenous Peoples Day xiv Industrial Revolution 180 influenza 35 instruments (for navigation) 18–19, 19 International Day of the World’s Indigenous People xiv Ipai Indians 120 Iriarte, Pedro de 143, 144 Irish-Americans xiv

200

B

Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800

Irish wolfhounds 93 Isabella I of Castile (queen of Spain) xv, 14, 26, 179 and Christopher Columbus 1, 4, 4, 5, 8, 26, 33, 37 death of 37 marriage to Ferdinand of 14 and Francisco Pizarro 66 and treatment of Native Americans 34 “Island of Bimini” 47 islands 6, 19, 22 Isopete 117 isthmus 185g Italian-Americans xiv Italy 12

J Jamaica 22, 31, 37 James I (king of England [James VI of Scotland]) 80 Japan 8, 12, 25, 27, 29 Jaramillo, Juan 106, 117 Jefferson, Thomas 174 Jerusalem artichoke 179 Jesuits 145, 149. See also Kino, Father Eusebio; Serra, Father Junípero jewelry 4 Jews 14 Jiménez, Fortún 64 Jiménez de Quesada, Gonzalo 72, 74, 76 João II (king of Portugal) 26, 30 Johnstone, James 166 Joutel, Henri 141 Juan de Fuca, Strait of 163, 164 Jusepe 134

K Karankawa Indians 84, 85, 140, 144 Kayak Island 160 Keres Indians 115 kidnapping 29, 30 kingdoms, imaginary. See myths and legends Kino, Father Eusebio 145–148, 146, 148 knots 19

knotting strings 68 Kodiak Island 160

L La Belle (ship) 140, 143, 143 La Canela 75 La Condamine, Charles-Marie de 170, 171, 172 “La Florida” 47–49, 48, 92–101, 106. See also Florida L’Aimable (ship) 140, 143 La Isabela 31, 32 La Isla Española 29 Lake Guatavita 76 Lake Texcoco. See Texcoco, Lake Lake Titicaca 74 La Navidad 7, 8, 30 landmass 19 languages 175 La Pérouse, comte de (JeanFrançois de Galaup) 161–162, 162 La Plata 90 La Porte, Francis de 172 La Relación (Cabeza de Vaca) 89 La Salle, sieur de (René-Robert Cavelier) 139–144, 142m, 143 Las Casas, Bartolomé de 3–5, 8, 24, 34 lateen 17 latitude 17, 18, 25, 185g league 185g Leeward Islands 6 legends. See myths and legends Le Moyne, Pierre 141 León, Alonso de 144 Lesser Antilles 6, 6, 22, 30, 175 “Letter on the First Voyage” (Christopher Columbus) 8, 10 Lewis, Meriwether 174 Lewis and Clark Expedition 174 libraries 23 Lima 72 Lisbon, Portugal 17 Live Oak, Florida 96 Llactapata (Inca city) xvii llamas 178 Llano Estacado 117 log 185g logbooks 27 longitude 17, 18, 172, 185g

looting 59 López, Francisco 132 Louisiana 139, 175 Louisiana Purchase 174 Louisiana Territory 173, 174 Louis XIV (king of France) 139 Luque, Hernando de 65, 72

M Mabila, Battle of 99–101 Macao, China 162 machetes 45 Machu Picchu (Inca city) xv, 68, 69 Madeira 12, 19, 179 Magellan, Ferdinand 49, 123, 125, 126 Magellan, Strait of 49, 79, 125 maize 95, 103, 175, 178 malaria 35 Malaspina, Alejandro 165 Malinche 55, 56 Manco Capac 72 manioc 179 mapmaking 17, 123. See also charts and chartmaking map(s) of the Americas, 1800 181m of the Americas, 15th century 170 Vasco Núñez de Balboa’s route to discovery of the Pacific Ocean 46m of California as an island 148 and Hernán Cortés’s routes to and in Mexico, 1519–1683 55m of disputed route of Amerigo Vespucci, 1497–1498 41m Europe, ca. 1520 12m expeditions along the northern Pacific coast, 1774–1795 159m expeditions along the Pacific coast, 1542–1603 122m four interpretations of Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca’s journey, 1528–1536 90m improvements in 23, 171 inaccurate 40 introduction and spread of

Index the horse into North America, 1600–1775 176m of Eusebio Kino 147, 148 of René-Robert Cavelier, sieur de La Salle’s failed expedition, 1684–1687 142m major societies of the Americas, ca. 1500 21m “map of the World according to the traditions of Ptolemy and Americus Vespucius” 44 missions founded by Father Junípero Serra, 1769–1782 151m route of Sebastián Vizcaíno, 1602–1603 130m routes of expeditions in the Southwest and California, 1769–1793 150m routes of major expeditions of Juan de Oñate, 1598–1605 137m by Paulo Toscanelli 25 by George Vancouver 163 of the world by Gerardius Mercator 123, 123m of world known to ancient Greeks and Romans 11 Marble Canyon 156 Mar del Sur 45 Marigold (ship) 125 Marin County 127 marine chronometer 172 marine quadrant 18 mariners 22, 23, 185g Martínez, Estéban José 163, 166 Martinique 37 Martyr, Peter 8–9, 44 mathematics 51, 57 Maupertuis, Pierre-Louis 171 Mayan Indians xv, 10, 11, 51, 51, 52, 55, 57, 179 McClure, Sir Robert 169 measles 35, 61 Medici, Lorenzo de’ 42 Medici family 41 medicine men 85, 86, 89 Mendoza, Antonio de 89, 106–108, 112, 119, 120, 123 Mendoza, Diego Hurtado de 64

Menéndez de Avilés, Pedro 105 Menzies, Archibald 167–168 Mercator, Gerardius 44, 123, 123, 123m, 126 Mercator projection 123, 123, 123m merchants 12, 14, 15, 57 meridian 17, 185g mesa 185g MesoAmerica 20m mestizo 180, 185g Mexico xvi, 89 Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca xvi Seven Cities of Cíbola 107 Francisco Coronado 110, 117, 118 Hernán Cortés 53, 55m, 60 Jesuit expulsion in 149 languages in 175 Mayan Indians in 51 Native American civilizations in 57 “New Spain” 52 revolution in 174 Spanish power in 64 Mexico City xvi, 57, 62 Miera y Pacheco, Bernardo de 154, 156 mines 49 missionaries 185g activity of 145 Franciscan. See Franciscan missionaries Francisco Tomás Garcés 112, 153–154, 156 goals of 152 Father Eusebio Kino 145–148, 146, 148 Francisco López 132 Agustín Rodríquez 132 Father Junípero Serra 149, 151, 151m, 152, 153 missions 185g in California 152–153 founded by Father Junípero Serra, 1769–1782 151m Franciscan 174 and Native Americans 152 role of 152–153 at San Carlos Borromeo 153

B

201

in San Francisco 173 of San Gabriel Arcángel 154 Mississippi 101 Mississippi River 48, 84, 102–103, 103, 139, 140 Miwok Indians 127, 128 moccasin 175 Moctezuma (Montezuma) 56, 58, 58–60, 87, 133 Mojave Desert 154 monastery libaries 23 Montalvo, García Ordónez de 62 Monterey, California 130, 149–152, 154, 162 Monterey Bay 121, 128–129, 129 Moors 14, 22, 185g Moraga, José Joaquin 154 Morocco 13 Moscoso, Luis de 96m, 101–104, 102–103 Mountain of the Flints 62 mountain terraces 68 Mount St. Elias 161 movable type 23 Muisca Indians 74 mulattos 180, 185g mumps 35 Muskogean language 98 Muslims 14, 22, 107 mutiny 64, 141 Mutis, José Celestino 172 myths and legends. See also Cíbola, Seven Cities of Strait of Anian 62, 64, 126, 164, 167, 169 Seven Cities of Antilia 107 El Dorado 75, 76, 79, 80, 80 imaginary kingdoms 22, 23 “Island of Bimini” 47 island of California 147, 148, 148 kingdoms 22, 23 La Canela 75 Rica de Oro 131 Rica de Plata 131

N Nahuatl language 175 nao 17 Napituca 96 Napo River 77

202

B

Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800

Narváez, Pánifilo de 60, 81–85, 82m, 83, 93, 95, 97 native 186g Native American(s) xiv, 182. See also specific headings, e.g.: Zuni Indians advocate for 89–91 in Amazon Basin xvii atrocities against 104 and Pedro Arias de Ávila 46 and Vasco Núñez de Balboa 45 and bison 88 brutality towards 39 and Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca xvi, 84, 84–86, 89–91, 91 on California coast 120, 121 cannibals 6 and Francisco Sánchez Chamuscado 132–133 child-rearing of 86 and Christianity 10 civilizations in Mexico 57 and Christopher Columbus xiv, 5, 5, 6, 6, 28, 28–30, 37, 175 continuing armed resistance of 80 and Francisco Coronado 116, 118–119, 118–119 culture areas of, 1492 20m decimation of 32, 49 defender of 3 and disease 32, 35, 61, 152, 164 encomienda 34 and horses 177, 177, 178, 178 Isabella on treatment of 34 and Eusebio Kino 146 languages of 175 and Bartolomé de Las Casas 3 and Lewis and Clark Expedition 174 major societies of the Americas, ca. 1500 21m Malinche 55, 56 and missions 152 mistreatment of 118–119 and Luis de Moscoso 101–103 news of treatment of 33

and Francisco Orellana 77 and Juan Pérez 158 protection of baptized 146 Pueblo Rebellion 140, 141 requerimiento 94 rights of 79 and slavery 49, 50, 52, 179, 180 and Hernando de Soto 93, 95–101, 100, 105 and Spanish missions 152 and George Vancouver 167 and Vikings 10 naturalist 186g nautical 186g navigation 12, 17, 18, 18–19, 48, 123, 144, 172. See also latitude; longitude navigators 23, 186g Netherlands 40 New Albion 127, 160 New Castile 66–67 Newfoundland 24 New Mexico 114–115, 115, 117, 133–135, 140, 154–156. See also Santa Fe, New Mexico New Spain 52, 103, 186g Newton, Sir Isaac 171 New World 44 Christopher Columbus 24 disease in 35 dreams of 7, 8 in 1800 169–182 languages in 175 return of the horse to 177–178 and Amerigo Vespucci 43 views of 8–9 Nicaragua 37 Niña (ship) 7, 17, 26, 29, 30, 40 Niza, Marcos de 89, 107, 108, 110, 112 Noche Triste 60 nomenclature 171 Nootka Convention 163, 166, 167 Nootka Indians 157, 158 Nootka Island 160, 166 Nootka Sound 157 North America. See also specific headings, e.g.: California in 1800s 181m

expeditions along the northern Pacific coast, 1774–1795 159m expeditions along the Pacific coast, 1542–1603 122m exploration of 49 introduction and spread of the horse into, 1600–1775 176m languages in 175 major societies in 21m Native American culture areas in 20m routes of expeditions in the Southwest and California, 1769-1793 150m Treaty of Tordesillas 40 and Amerigo Vespucci 41 Vikings in xiii–xiv, 10 North American Exploration (Michael Golay) xvi North Star 18 Northwest Passage 126, 126, 161, 169 “Nova Albion.” See New Albion Nuestra Señora de los Dolores 147 nuggets 4 nursing of children 86 nuts 179

O oceans 18, 19. See also Atlantic Ocean; Pacific Ocean Odonais, Jean Godin de 172 Ohkay Pueblo 133 Ojeda, Alfonso de 35, 39 Old Spanish Trail 156 Olid, Cristóbal de 61, 62 Olin, Jacqueline xv Oñate, Juan de 133–139, 137m, 138–139 opossum 82–83 Oregon 121 Oregon Territory 165 Orellana, Francisco de xv, 76, 77, 78m, 79, 80, 170 Orient 37, 40 Orinoco River 42–43, 80 Ortega, José Francisco 149, 150

Index Ortiz, Juan 95, 98, 100 Ovando, Nicolás 37 Oviedo y Valdés, Gonsalo Fernández de. See Fernández de Oviendo Valdés, Gonzalo

P Pacific coast 122m, 159m Pacific Northwest 157–168, 160, 161, 163, 164 Pacific Ocean 45, 45, 46m, 49, 126 Palos 26, 27, 27, 30 Palou, Francisco 149 Panama 37, 43, 66 Panama Canal 126, 170 Paracoxi Indians 96, 97 Paraguay 90, 175 parchment 23 parrots 4, 28 peanuts 179 Pearl Islands 46 pearls 26, 64, 99, 101 pecans 86 Perestrello, Bartholomew 25 Pérez, Juan 157, 159m Perico 97, 98 Peru xvi, 10, 46, 65–67, 66, 68, 73m, 75, 91, 105, 175 Pez, Andrés de 144 Philip II (king of Spain) 105, 133 Pilgrims xvi pilot 186g Pima Indians 146, 147 Pimería Alta 146, 148 Pinta (ship) 7, 15, 17, 26, 29, 30 Pinzón, Martín Alonso 26, 29 Pinzón, Vicente Yáñez 26, 40 Piombo, Sebastiano del 25 piraquas 142, 143 pirates 124, 125 Pizarro, Francisco 46, 65–68, 66, 68, 73m, 75, 93, 170, 171 Pizarro, Gonzalo 73m, 75–76, 79 Pizarro, Hernando 69 plantation systems 49, 50 Plymouth Colony xvi pneumonia 35 Point Conception 128 Point Conclusion 167 pole frames 117

Pole Star 18 Polo, Marco 12, 29, 37 Ponce de León, Diego de Vargas Zapata 140 Ponce de León, Juan 47m, 47–49, 48, 92, 93 Popocatépetl 58 Port des Français 162 porter 101, 186g Portolá, Gaspar de 149–151 portolan (chart) 16–17, 17, 186g Portugal and Portuguese and Africa 15 astronomers 18 claim to Brazil of 40 colonization by 19, 22, 181m and Christopher Columbus 2, 3, 30 exploration by 12–13, 13 independence from 174 language 175 mapmaking in 17, 18 mariners from 12–13 shipbuiding 15, 17 slavers 179 trade with 15 Treaty of Tordesillas 40, 80 Amerigo Vespucci 43 potatoes 178–179 Póveda, Martin de 73m prairie 186g presidio 186g Prester John 23 prickly pear cactus 86, 86 priests 57, 94, 140, 147. See also missionaries prime meridian 172 Princess Real (ship). See Princess Royal Princess Royal (ship) 163 Prince William Sound 160, 163 printing plates 23 printing presses 23 privateer 125, 186g Ptolemy 11, 17, 23, 125 Pueblo Rebellion 140, 141 pueblos 110, 186g Acoma Pueblo 114–115, 115, 135 Alcanfor Pueblo 116 Arenal Pueblo 116

B

203

Pecos of Cicuyé 116 of Háwikuh 107, 109, 110, 115 Ohkay Pueblo 133 San Gabriel Pueblo 136 San Juan Pueblo 135–136 Taos Pueblo 116, 140, 141 Tiguex pueblos 116, 117 Zuni Pueblo 156 Puerto de la Trinidad 158 Puerto Rico 22, 174 Puget, Peter 165 Puget Sound 165 pumpkins 178

Q quadrant 18, 186g Quechua 68 Quechua language 175 Queen Charlotte Strait 166 Querechos Indians 117 Quesada, Gonzalo Jiménez de. See Jiménez de Quesada, Gonzalo Quetzalcoatl 56 Quimper, Manuel 163, 164 quipus 68 Quito 72, 79 Quivira 116–119, 134–135

R raft, trading 65, 66 Raleigh, Sir Walter 80, 80 Ranjel, Rodrigo 93, 101, 104 ransom 71 Reconquista (Reconquest) 14 red ochre 85 Relación del Suceso 106, 115 religion. See Catholicism and Catholics; Christianity; missionaries; Muslims religious prophecies 56 requerimiento 94 Resolution (ship) 160, 161 revolt 35 revolutions 174 Ribault, Jean 105 Ribiero, Diego 123 Rica de Oro 131 Rica de Plata 131 rice 178, 179 Río de la Plata 49

204

B

Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800

Río Grande 86, 101, 103, 115–116, 133, 144 Rivas, Martín de 143, 144 Rodríquez, Agustín 132 Rodríquez-Chamuscado expedition 132 Roman Catholic. See Catholicism and Catholics Romans 11 Romero, Antonio 142 Rondon, Candido 172 Royal Inca Highway 68, 68 Ruiz, Bartolomé 66, 67 Russian traders 157, 163 Ruz, Hipólito 172

S Sagres, Portugal 12, 17 Sahagún, Bernardino de 53, 54, 58 sails (ship) 17 St. Augustine, Florida 105 St. Croix 6 St. Elias, Mount 161 St. Louis, Fort 140, 144 Salvador Palma (Yuma chief) 153 Salvatierra, Juan María de 147 San Antonio (ship) 149, 151 San Carlos Borromeo, mission at 153 San Carlos (ship) 149 San Clemente 121, 128 sand dunes 154 San Diego 120, 121, 128, 149 Sandwich, Massachusetts xiv Sandwich Islands 160 San Francisco, California 126, 127, 129, 154, 173 San Francisco Bay 121, 127, 129, 130, 149, 150, 152 San Gabriel Arcángel mission 154 San Gabriel Pueblo 136 San Juan de Los Caballeros 134 San Juan Pueblo 135–136 San Miguel 120, 128 San Pedro (ship) 77 San Salvador 28, 121, 128 San Salvador (ship) 121 Santa Barbara 121, 128 Santa Catalina 121

Santa Cruz 64 Santa Fe, New Mexico 134, 135, 140, 156 Santa Maria, Juan de 132 Santa María la Antigua de Darién 44 Santa Maria (ship) 2, 7, 7, 17, 26, 29, 30 Santiago (ship) 157, 158 Santo Domingo 35, 37 Santo Thomas (fort) 31 San Xavier del Bac 146, 147 Scheller, William xiv Schomburgk, Robert Hermann 172 science 169, 172 scientific revolution 171 scientists 172 scurvy 129, 149, 160, 186g sea otter pelts 162 sea routes 23 seas 18, 19. See also oceans sea serpents 22 Serpent’s Mouth 34 Serra, Father Junípero 149, 151, 151m, 152, 153 settlements xv, 186g. See also colonization Seward Peninsula 161 sextant 186g shipbuilding 15, 17, 60, 83 ships 18–19, 143, 180. See also caravel; galleon Sierra de los Pedernales 62 silk 15 silver Seven Cities of Cíbola 107 and Hernán Cortés 56 mine 74, 146 and Franciso Pizarro 66, 68 prospecting for 133 room filled with 71 wasting of 173 in Zacatecas 132 slavery and slaves 170 and Aztec Indians 57 banned in United States 180 in Caribbean 49 and Christopher Columbus 34, 179 and crops 179

and disease 35 Hispaniola 34 Inca Indians 179 linguistic exchange from 175 and Luis de Moscoso 103 and Native Americans 49, 50, 52, 57, 179, 180 and Portuguese 179 pre-Columbian 179, 180 prohibition on 34 slave hunters 132 slaving parties/raids 72, 80, 86, 90 and Hernando de Soto 98, 99 start of trade in 12 transport ship for 180 smallpox 35, 60, 61, 186g smoke 121 societies of the Americas, major, ca. 1500 21m soil analysis xv Solís, Juan Díaz de 49 Sonora, Mexico 146, 147, 152 Sonora (ship) 158, 160 Soto, Hernando de and Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca 91 death of 101, 102–103 description of xvi gold 95, 101 inspiration for 89 and “La Florida” 92–101, 106 legacy of 101, 104–105 Battle of Mabila 99–101 Mississippi River 48 and Native Americans 93, 95–101, 100, 105 in Pizarro expedition 67, 67, 69, 92 route of, 1539–1542 96m and slavery 98, 99 Timucua Indians 96, 97 South America. See also specific headings, e.g.: Peru Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca 89–91 Carib Indians 6 Christopher Columbus 34, 35, 37

Index Sir Francis Drake 125 in 1800s 181m exploration of 39, 79 horses in 177 languages in 175 Native American culture areas in 20m northern coast of 42–43 scientists in 172 Spanish power in 64 Treaty of Tordesillas 40 Amerigo Vespucci 42–43 South Georgia 43 Southwest (American) 150m sovereign 186g Spain and Spanish. See also specific headings, e.g.: Soto, Hernando de attacks by Sir Francis Drake on 124–126 belief in geography of 25 claims in California of 128 colonies of, in 1800s 181m and colonization xvi, 174, 181m Christopher Columbus 1–9, 4, 5, 7, 30 court 1, 4–5, 8, 14 declining power of 145 encomienda 34 expeditions to Peru and Chile by, 1524–1542 73m fading influence of 173–174 in 1492 13–15 land claims for 28, 45 language 175 Moors in 14 and Nootka Convention 163, 166, 167 power in New World of 64 problems with colonies of 174 search for La Salle’s expedition by 142–144 and shipbuiding 15, 17 Treaty of Tordesillas 40 Spanish Empire 14 speculator 186g–187g speed of ships 19 Spice Islands 62 spices 15, 26, 75

Spruce, Richard 172 squash 178 stars, navigation by 18 starvation 95, 103 steamships 169 Steinen, Karl von den 172 Strait of Anian. See Anian, Strait of Strait of Juan de Fuca. See Juan de Fuca, Strait of Strait of Magellan. See Magellan, Strait of sugar 178–180 Sun, navigation by 18 sunflowers 179 surveying instruments 171 Suwannee River 97 swords 120 Syllacio, Nicoló 177 syphilis xv, 35

T Tabasco 55 Tahiti 160 Taino Indians xv, 5, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 28, 28–29, 35, 49, 175 Talavera, Fray Hernando de 26 Talavera Commission 26 Tampa Bay 81, 94 Taos Pueblo 116, 140, 141 Tascalusa, Chief 99 taxation 57, 58 taxonomy 171 Teixeira, Pedro de 79 Tejo 107 Tenochtitlán xvi, 56–62 Terra Australis Incognita 125 “Terrestrial Paradise” 35 Texas xvi, 10, 85, 86, 102, 140, 143 Texcoco, Lake 57, 58, 60 Thirteenth Amendment 180 Tierra del Fuego 125 Tiguex pueblos 116, 117 Timucua Indians 81, 82, 95, 96, 97, 97 Titicaca, Lake 74 tobacco 6, 29, 175, 175, 179, 179, 180 Tobago 6

B

205

toll road 68 tomatoes 178 tombs 36 Tonti, Henri de 141 Tordesillas, Treaty of 40, 80 Toscanelli, Paulo 25 Totonac Indians 57 Tovar, Pedro de 110, 177 trade 11, 12, 14, 15, 52, 66, 116 trading raft 65, 66 travois 117, 187g treason 46 treasure 76, 99, 125 Triana, Rodrigo de 27 tribe 187g. See also Native American(s) tributary 187g tribute 57, 58 Trinidad 6, 34 Trinidad Bay 158 Tubac 153 tuberculosis 35 Tumbes 66 tuna 86 “the Turk.” See El Turco turquoise 103, 108, 187g Tusuyan 110

U Ulloa, Francisco de 64 United States xvi, 174, 175, 180 Ursua, Pedro de 79 Uruguay 49, 90 Utah 154–156 Ute Indians 155 Uxmal 51

V Vaca, Álvar Núñez Cabeza de. See Cabeza de Vaca, Álvar Núnez Valdavia, Pedro de 79 Valdés, Cayetano 165, 166 Valverde, Vicente 70 Vancouver, George 159m, 161, 164, 165, 165–168, 166, 172–174 Vancouver Island 157, 158, 162, 165, 166, 166 Vatican 152 Vega, Garcilaso de la 105

206

B

Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800

Velásquez, Diego 49–51, 53, 54, 56, 60 vellum 23 Venezuela 6, 34, 35, 40, 80, 174 Veracruz 56, 59 Verrazano, Giovanni da 12 Vespucci, Amerigo 12, 40–43, 41m, 42–43, 44 Victoria 121, 128 Victoria (ship) 77 Vikings xiii–xiv, 10, 24 Villa de la Navidad 30 Villa Rica de Vera Cruz 56. See also Veracruz Vinland map xv Virgin Islands 22 Virú 46 Vizcaíno, Sebastián 122m, 128–131, 129, 130m, 148, 149 volcanoes 58

W Waldseemüller, Martin 44 Wallace, Alfred 172 Wampanoag Indians xvi war dogs 93, 187g wars and warfare 6, 173, 178 “water hemlock” 110 water route 61 West Africa and West Africans 12, 15, 179 wheat 178 whooping cough 35 Wichita Indians 117, 118–119 woman warriors 77, 78 woodcuts 23

X Xéres, Francisco de 65, 66, 68

Y yams 178 yellow fever 35, 173 Yucatán Peninsula 48, 51, 52, 54–55 Yuma, Arizona 154 Yuma Indians 112, 112, 147, 153, 156

Z Zacatecas 132 Zárate, Agustín del 74 zero 51 Zuñiga y Acevedo, Gaspar de 128 Zuni Indians 107, 109, 110, 111 Zuni Pueblo 156