Joara: Tale of the New World

By John Bradley

Joara is a tale depicting the 1st organized attempt to bring civilization, on Spanish terms, into the interior of North America. It was an 18 month experience in cultural transformation that ended in April of 1568. The archeologists who are still uncovering the remains of Fort San Juan in the town of Joara have said, "its burned buildings offer

• Language: English
• Publisher: AnewPress
• Release date: Jul 20, 2021
• ISBN: 9781970109443

John Bradley

John Harris Bradley is an American author of historical fiction residing in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, with his extended family. With residence and extensive travel in Iberia and South America and long-time study of Native American heritage in North Carolina, Bradley puts this to use in a two-part series beginning in Belmonte, Portugal in 1565 and ending in the destruction of the Spanish Fort of San Juan in the Catawba Indian village of Joara in 1568. This was Spain's first and only attempt to colonize the Mid-Atlantic area of North America during the 16th century. Joara, Tale of the New World was published in 2021. Another work by John Bradley, Ghost Fields, was published in 2022.

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Joara

Introduction

The book Joara stands by itself as a story accurately depicting, in human drama, the first organized attempt to bring European civilization, on Spanish terms, into the interior of North America. It was an 18-month experiment in cultural transformation that ended in April of 1568. As the archeologists who are still uncovering the remains of Fort San Juan at the Catawba chiefdom town of Joara wrote, its burned buildings offer a window onto a single historical event: the fiery destruction of the fort and the end of Spanish colonial ambitions in northern La Florida.

Although the book Joara can stand alone, its four main protagonists, three Portuguese Jewish young men and an older Spanish Gypsy, arrive in North America with much baggage. Their stories are told in the prequel to Joara, the afore mentioned book entitled Belmonte.

A one sentence synopsis of Belmonte is as follows: Four individuals from persecuted minorities join together in mutual aid to escape Iberia for the New World.

For those who are willing to invest a few minutes to understand what makes up the previously developed characters in Joara, I have constructed the ongoing plot line of Belmonte.

The Great Navigator, Pedro Alvares Cabral, in 1500, led an armada of 12 Portuguese ships to the European discovery of Brazil. He then went on to forge the first European trading markets on the west coast of India. He returned to Portugal with only three ships of the original 12, but those three were so overladen with treasured spices that the proceeds paid off Portugal’s national debt and made Cabral a rich man. The future for the relatively young navigator looked very good, but for unknown reasons, Cabral was sidelined by King Manuel I and never sailed again.

The above is fact; here the historical fiction begins:

Some ten years later a young Fernão de Magalhães, or, for the purposes of our story, Ferdinand Magellan, visits Cabral in Belmonte Castle. Magellan is accompanied by his first cousin, Francisco Serrão. They have recently signed up as soldiers in the great Armada to the Orient to be led by the first Maritime Viceroy, Afonso de Albuquerque. The Armada is scheduled to depart from Lisbon in six months. Sensing that their future will be in the Orient, and with time on their hands, they decide to venture to Belmonte, unannounced, to seek advice from the Great Navigator. Cabral gives it, and in particular, advises them to learn Arabic. Magellan and Serrão proceed to the East and achieve a modicum of wealth after the fall of what is now Singapore. With money in pocket, Magellan returns to Portugal but cannot find good work. Serrão, ironically the more adventurous of the two cousins, eventually discovers the location of the Spice Islands near Borneo. He writes his cousin and includes a map of the Spice Islands, which becomes literally invaluable.

Armed with the map, and an argument that the Spice Islands actually lie in the Spanish half of the world, and not the Portuguese half, Magellan convinces King Phillip of Spain, and those around him, to fund an expedition to the Orient by sailing west.

During the long preparations for the trip, the Spanish government goes broke and funds for the voyage dry up. Magellan desperately returns to Portugal to convince Pedro Cabral to invest in the operation as a secret shareholder. Based on Serrão’s map, Cabral agrees. The Navigator has already supplemented his wealth by international maritime investments predicated on insider information from both Spanish and Portuguese Jews, based largely in Seville and Lisbon. In exchange for his significant contribution, Cabral receives a copy of the map.

The lives of Magellan and Serrão end violently in the Orient, each at about the same time in 1522, but in different places.

As a result of Cabral’s acquisition of Magellan’s Spice Islands map, the fortunes of the secret investment group, composed primarily of wealthy Jews from all the Portuguese and Spanish cities, multiply. The investment group in Portugal takes on the name of two prominent investors, Gabriel Antunes and Bartolomeu Pinto, and these men send their sons, Simão and Rodrigo, to Goa, India, to establish a new trading group called Antunes e Pinto. One activity that many investors in Antunes e Pinto share in common is a taste for cabalistic studies centered around the books called The Zohar. Centers for these clandestine study groups, originally in Toledo and Seville, now spread to Kochi, on the Malabar coast of India.

Davide Mendes de Oliveira’s father and grandfather, both Rabbis, had participated in these cabalistic study groups and well as did Ruy’s father, Dr. Lourenço Gonçalves. In fact, Davide and Ruy both attended as few study sessions in Toledo and were taught from the Zohar in Belmonte by Davide’s father Rabbi Elias.

All goes extremely well for Antunes e Pinto for about 40 years, until the year 1565. That is the year that the Portuguese Inquisition took charge of the Portuguese Maritime Empire, particularly in Goa, the Capital of the Empire.

Coincidental with these events in India, Davide, Ruy, and Toninho Cabral, all 17 years old and best friends, are spending their last summer together before University, tending Rabbi Elias’s sheep herd on the side of the Serra da Estrella mountain near Belmonte.

They discover a long-abandoned sanctuary dedicated to the mythological Lusitanian healer, Endovélico. In the dream state they are each visited by the god-like shaman, who takes them into the past for an historical adventure.

Summer and childhood over, the three go off for their first year at the University in Coimbra. In the following spring (of 1566), Ruy falls in love with the daughter of an esteemed professor, Pedro Nunes, the Royal Cosmographer, mathematician, and inventor of navigational devices. During that summer, the love of Ruy Gonçalves and Anna Sofia Nunes is consummated, while at the same time, a Portuguese ship sets sail from Goa bringing the news that a clandestine Jewish investment group had been discovered and all the principals burned at the stake. The ship was carrying a list of all investors, and even a list of those who had attended the cabalistic study groups, including the names of Rabbi Elias and Dr. Lourenço Gonçalves and their sons. With time being of the essence, Rabbi Elias journeys over mountain and stream to Coimbra to inform his son, Davide and Ruy Gonçalves of the imminent danger and prepare them to escape the Portuguese Inquisition. The plan is for them to flee to the nearest Spanish port, being Cadiz and the neighboring port of Sanlucar de Barrameda, and there and to sign on as soldiers or colonists bound for the New World. Ruy is unaware that Anna Sofia is pregnant, and she keeps this a secret so as not to be used by him as an excuse to stay instead of saving himself.

Meanwhile, the third young Jewish protagonist, Daniel Almeyda is waiting for his parents to return from an annual trading voyage from their home port of Ceuta (the Portuguese enclave across from the Rock of Gibraltar) to Alexandia, stopping at all the ports along the African coast. The name of their merchant vessel is "Rainha de Alcântara" (Queen of a dockside neighborhood of Alcântara in Lisbon), and it is captained by Daniel’s father, Ahmad. The first mate and cook is his mother, Bela. They have a crew of nine.

Daniel is in his early 20s. His mother is Jewish and his father Muslim. Raised in a wealthy family in Ceuta, Daniel is well-educated and multilingual. Despite attempts at refinement, Daniel is more of an adventurer and aspires to be a sea-captain like his father.

The Inquisition from both Portugal and Spain has recently arrived in Ceuta and has entrenched itself, threatening Jewish business interests, including the mercantile maritime business founded by Daniel’s Jewish grandfather.

After over a month’s delay in returning to Ceuta, Daniel sets out on camel along the Mediterranean south coast to learn the fate of his parents. He discovers that the Rainha has been hijacked by two Spanish Captains (pirates) whoes vessels had been employed by the Inquisition. Daniel’s parents and crew have been thrown overboard at sea. Daniel learns the names of the two Captains and traces them as far as the port of Tangier, Morocco. He learns that the pirates have just departed for Cadiz, Spain on the Rainha de Alcântara. He leaves immediately, catching a ride on a merchant vessel on which Davide and Ruy have been temporarily employed while waiting for the Armada to the La Florida to be assembled. Daniel bonds with Ruy and Davide, and they resolve to go to the New World together, but only after Daniel settles the score with villains that murdered his parents.

Daniel arrives in Cadiz alone while the boys from Belmonte continue on the water for a few months more. Daniel begins looking for the Rainha. In a harbor-side tavern Daniel overhears two low-life Spaniards discussing the stalking and killing of an older Gypsy man who has been earning his keep by playing the guitar at the tavern. The Gypsy goes out to defecate in a wharf-side latrine and is followed by the two thugs. As the Gypsy exits the latrine, the two accost him and a knife is pulled, but before it is inserted in the Gypsy, the knife-wielder collapses with a dagger in his own back. His brother, holding the Gypsy, quickly suffers the same fate. Daniel introduces himself to the Gypsy and asks him to help move the bodies into the latrine and down the shithole. Daniel then comments that the Gypsy has just committed the crime of being an accessory to a murder, and therefore they should both leave the scene of their crime and walk to the harbor of Sanlucar, some 20 miles away. The Gypsy consents and Daniel explains that he needs a helper to avenge the murder of his parents by a Sea Captain named Raul Estigarriba, who can probably be found in Sanlucar. Daniel tells the Gypsy that after doing away with Estigarriba they will both need to sign on as soldiers on the upcoming Armada to La Florida. The Gypsy, whose name is Juancinto Taranto, explains that he is willing to help, but that Daniel does not really want his services because he brings bad luck. Everything he touches is cursed. Daniel begs to differ, presenting the argument that, since crossing paths with himself, Juancinto’s luck has changed for the good: witness how Daniel just saved Juancinto from going down the shithole headfirst into the Bay of Cadiz. Daniel convinces Juancinto that from that night on Juancinto will be an angel of justice and that he and Juancinto will be blood brothers forevermore. Juancinto accepts this arrangement. Daniel asks Juancinto to explain why he believes that everything he touches is cursed. Juancinto begins by saying, every woman who has ever loved me has died for it. Daniel acknowledged that that is bad but needs a further explanation. Juancinto relates his history. He was born in Seville 40 years ago. As a teenager he fell in love with a neighborhood girl named Solea. She was an aspiring dancer of the kind we know as flamenco, but as flamenco was not a 16th century term, he called it palos gitanos (roughly, gypsy style). Juancinto learned to play the guitar so that he could win Solea’s attention. He did so, and they were married and had a child named Joaquim, or Quim, for short. They moved to Córdoba and had a good living as a street musician and palo gitano dancer. Juancinto also supplemented their income as a barber, with a stool and razor as well as his guitar. One morning while performing in the city, three lowlife gajo (non-gypsy) brothers began to make advances on Solea while she was dancing. Juancinto, with his razor, confronted the oldest brother and, in an attempt to scare him by cutting his shirt, he severed his jugular vein. The man bled to death on the street. As a punishment Juancinto was sentenced to serve for ten years as a bonded laborer in the Spanish colony of Nueva Granada, or Colombia.

Juancinto’s assignment was to serve at a large hacienda in the vicinity of Chia, a short day’s ride north of Bogota. The indigenous people in Chia called themselves Muiscans and Juancinto had a long-lasting affair with the daughter of the high priest of the Muiscan Temple. Her name was Atora and she, like Solea, was a dancer. As a result of Juncinto’s unwise behavior, and, in fact, greed, he caused the destruction of the Chia Temple and probably the life of Atora at the hands of his boss, the hacienda owner and the authorities in Bogota.

Juancinto was next relocated to the city of Asunción in the country of Paraguay, and soon found himself working as a handyman for a Franciscan Priest managing a leper colony. The colony was located at the southern tip of the beautiful Lake Ypacaraí, a days’ journey east of the city. There for five years, Juancinto learned to read music and classic literature in Castellaño, as taught by the priest and his adopted 15-year old helper, Nani, a mixed Spanish/Guaraní girl, with a natural gift for harp playing, textile-lace designing, and connecting with the hearts of the guests at the leper colony. Juancinto showed Nani how to express her deeper emotions on the harp by developing a gypsy style as played on the guitar. During Juancinto’s five years at Lake Ypacaraí, his dependence on Nani had grown into a suppressed love. Nani’s love for Juancinto could not be suppressed, regardless of the fact that this sinewy gray-bearded small Gypsy was more than 20 years her senior. She finally expressed her love to him and asked Juancinto for a moonlight meeting to initiate her into womanhood and consummate her love for him. Juancinto agreed, but later, sensing the futility of the attraction, he packed his bag and walked in the moonlight to Asunción. Padre Cairbre found Nani in the morning, broken-hearted. That afternoon she disappeared into the jungle leaving a note saying she had the symptoms of leprosy and was going to find her mother beyond the waterfalls of Iguaçu.

The news was unbearable to Juancinto. He found the Bishop of Asunción and pleaded with him to be sent back to Seville now that his sentence was practically done.

Juancinto was soon on the long trip back to Spain, hoping for better days with Solea and Quim. On arriving in Seville, he went to the house of his mother-in-law, the renowned fortune-teller known as La Gitanilla. He was informed by her that his son had died in a knife fight while defending his mother as she danced. Solea, still mourning her son, heard and believed a rumor that Juancinto had died at sea. She then committed suicide by jumping from a bridge into the grand canal. Juancinto that night attempted to jump off the same bridge, but was stopped at the last second by La Gitanilla. She told him that his life was not over, that he was destined for other things in the New World. Believing her, Juancinto made his way to Cadiz where he was biding his time playing his guitar when he crossed paths with Daniel. He told Daniel that the two men who tried to kill him were the brothers of the man he had killed in Córdoba.

On their first day at the docks at Sanlucar de Barrameda, Daniel and Juancinto discovered the Rainha de Alcântara moored with hundreds of other vessels along the Sanlucar wharf. The ship, a frigate, had been renamed "El Redimido" (the Redeemed). It was being repaired and supplied to take part in the 17 ship Menéndez Armada to La Florida, scheduled to depart in one month’s time on April 19. The Captain of El Redimido was Raul Estigarriba, Daniel’s target.

Juancinto signed on as a deckhand for the upcoming voyage, and soon, through alcohol, became Estigarriba’s confident. Juancinto learned his weaknesses.

It was then that Ruy Gonçalves and Davide Mendes de Oliveira arrived in Sanlucar looking for Daniel. Together the four plotted to have Estigarriba lured into the nearby swampland called the Doñada. Their bait was a forged 50-year old treasure map of a Jewish fortune buried in a sand dune in the Doñada. The plot was successful, and they left Estigarriba naked and bound to the earth deep in the Doñada, food for wild boar, lynx, and mongoose.

The foursome returned to Sanlucar and made contact with Captain Juan Pardo, who accepted them as soldier/colonists and assigned them to the Redimido, alias Rainha de Alcântara, due to leave within the week.

From here the book Joara takes up the story of Ruy, Davide, Daniel, and Juancinto and the fateful expedition of Juan Pardo to the New World.

Chapter 1

The Passage

Across the South Atlantic

April 1566 to July 1566

Ruy hoped the Armada’s "rota" to the New World would take them due west from Spain to the Açores and then to La Florida. If so, perhaps he could glimpse Prince Henry’s School for Navigators as they sailed by the cliffs of Sagres, the western-most point of Portugal and continental Europe. He could say a proper good-bye to his "saudages¹ " and dreams of becoming a Portuguese navigator, say farewell to his love and family and homeland. But no, he should have known; the Spanish armada took a course due south, and by sunset he could see the gleaming gold-orange cliffs of the coast of Morocco.

The fleet followed the African shore for over a week and then cruised over to the Grand Canaries and the island of Santa Cruz and then to the port of Tenerife. At the port, they spent a few days resupplying meat, water, and making last-minute repairs. From the Canaries, La Florida lay due west across the vast Ocean Sea. Ruy thought to himself, ‘ a hundred years ago, such a voyage would be unimaginable, and even if you could have had it planned and financed it, you could not have found seamen brave enough to risk sailing off the edge of the flat world. But now, with good winds and decent weather, the New World was only a month away. ’ Ruy knew this, but even now, he noticed the soldiers and the crew were anxious and uneasy, and those who had prayer beads spent much time fiddling with them.

The crew aboard the Redimido numbered about ten, and there were 30 soldiers as part of Juan Pardo’s command of 250. The Captain of the Redimido, Nuno de Faria, being Portuguese, got along very well with Daniel, who, to the Captain, seemed to know everything about the frigate as if he had built it and sailed it before. Daniel even prevailed upon Captain Faria to let Ruy help him with the daily navigation charts. Keeping these charts was perhaps unnecessary or redundant because every day at sunset all the Captains of the ships in the Armada met with Captain-General Archiniegra on the mother ship.

Archiniegra’s Master Pilot was in charge, and all the other ships had no orders but to follow. After sailing for three days down the African coast, Captain Juan Pardo left his galleon, the San Salvador, to spend a day and night aboard the frigate, Redimido, to become more familiar with his soldiers.

Some of the crew and soldiers noticed the fact that Juan Pardo, when speaking with Captain Faria, Ruy, David, Daniel, and a few others, talked to them in fluent Portuguese. This was perceived as an offense; thus, seeds of jealously and division began to spread among the Spanish crew and passengers. When cornered by soldiers of their own detachment, Ruy, David, and Daniel freely confessed that they were Portuguese. The soldiers did not question their religion, probably because they did not care. National pride was a far weightier factor motivating their distrust than religion. Ruy, David, and Daniel managed to pacify their suspicions that they were spies. Daniel was particularly good at portraying to the crew and soldiers that they, like most of humanity, were victims of Established Injustice.

Their fellow soldiers, now "compañeros," soon began to express their contempt for rival Portugal with salacious jests and insinuations about the 12-year-old King of Portugal named Sebastian. The rumor had spread throughout Spain, perhaps stemming from the Spanish royal palace in Valladolid, that the present and future King of Portugal, this 12-year-old boy, orphaned by his father, abandoned by his mother, and under the oversight of his grandmother, was being raised at court by two brothers, both being Jesuit priests and known homosexuals. Sebastian was being raised to hate women and to keep close