Children of the Sun

By David Carson

In 1528, Pánfilo de Narváez, a smart and courageous - but reckless - Spanish conquistador, landed near Tampa Bay and took 300 of his men on a quest to find gold. They disappeared. Eight years later, three Spaniards and one African appeared 1,500 miles away at a remote slaving camp on Mexico's Pacific coast, at the head of a throng of hundreds of native Americans. These four strange men claimed they were members of the long-lost Narváez Expedition. The natives following them claimed they were something else: Children of the Sun.

The stories these four ragged castaways told comprise some of the earliest history of the United States. Ever since they were translated to English in the late 1800s, U.S. historians, both professional and amateur, have been trying to understand their route. In Children of the Sun, Texas historian David Carson undertakes the most detailed, careful, comprehensive effort yet to plot every segment of their 1,500-mile, 8-year journey from Pinellas County, Florida to Culiacan, Sinaloa. What makes Carson's analysis different from those preceding it is his extensive fieldwork. This book was not written by someone sitting at a desk with a mapping program; it was done by retracing the explorers' steps as much as possible, by driving and walking along the same paths they went on, and even foraging the same palmettos, dewberries, and prickly pear fruit they ate. Through his first-hand descriptions of the country, dozens of handheld and aerial drone color photographs, custom maps, and driving directions, Carson takes his readers on a guided tour, giving them an experience no other book on the Narváez Expedition has ever provided.

In addition to their notes about flora, fauna, and terrain, the two preserved accounts that the expedition survivors wrote, especially the one authored by Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, also contain a wealth of information about the natives they traded with, fought with, were enslaved by, and were worshipped by. From the Tocobaga, Timucua, and Apalachee of Florida to the Karankawa of Texas, the Coahuiltecans and Otomoacos of the Rio Grande, and the Chichimecas of northern Mexico, Cabeza de Vaca provides fascinating details about the natives' habits and traditions before the arrival of Europeans, such as their "black drink" ritual, their widespread use of ceremonial healing, and their custom of escorting travelers. Readers will see how some of these beliefs, combined with the Europeans' strange appearance and their arrival from the east, resulted in the natives' holding them up to be "children of the sun" possessing supernatural powers.

All great historical sagas take place within a context. Narvaez's landing in Florida was the culmination of events that began with Columbus's discovery of the New World and were accelerated by Ponce de Leon's discovery of Florida and Hernan Cortes's conquest of Mexico. Children of the Sun brings readers up to speed on all of these events, so that they may fully understand what motivated Narvaez, Cabeza de Vaca, and their comrades. Like his route analysis, David Carson's historical interpretations are well-researched, placing a premium on accuracy, instead of misleading the reader with popular theories and entertaining legends that fail to withstand careful scrutiny.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Living Water Specialties
• Release date: Apr 19, 2022
• ISBN: 9781732687448

Book preview

Children of the Sun

Following in the Footsteps of

Narváez and Cabeza de Vaca

From 1528 to 1536

David Carson

Living Water Specialties

Friendswood, Texas

© Copyright 2022, 2024 by David Carson

www.TexasCounties.net

All Rights Reserved

No part of this publication, other than those labeled Public Domain or Cre­ative Commons, may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or trans­mitted, in any form or by any means, without prior written permission from the publisher, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review or as per­mitted by U.S. copyright law.

Items labeled Creative Commons may be reproducible under certain condi­tions. Users are responsible for ensuring their own compliance. Items labeled Public Domain may be copied freely by anyone, for any purpose.

For information about this title, contact the publisher:

Living Water Specialties

P.O. Box 720

Friendswood, Texas 77549

[e-mail]

E-book edition

ISBN 978-1-7326874-4-8

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022906681

The sun image on the cover was drawn by Juan de Tovar circa 1585. It is the artist’s reproduction of a sun image found on an Aztec calendar.

At that time the LORD spoke through Isaiah the son of Amoz, saying, Go and loosen the sackcloth from your hips and take your sandals off your feet. And he did so, going naked and barefoot.

Isaiah 20:2

Table of Contents

Preface

Introduction

Chapter 1 A Surprise at Culiacan

Chapter 2 Pánfilo de Narváez

Chapter 3 Discovering the Gulf of Mexico

Chapter 4 La Florida

Chapter 5 The Narváez Expedition

Chapter 6 The Antilles

Chapter 7 Tampa Bay

Chapter 8 Florida’s West Coast

Chapter 9 The Florida Panhandle

Chapter 10 On the Gulf of Mexico

Chapter 11 Galveston Bay

Chapter 12 Three Boats and Four Men on the Texas Coast

Chapter 13 Another Group Leaves Follet’s Island

Chapter 14 In Captivity

Chapter 15 Escape

Chapter 16 The Rio Grande Valley

Chapter 17 Crossing a Continent

Chapter 18 Signs of Civilization

Chapter 19 New Galicia

Chapter 20 A New Land

Chapter 21 New Laws

Appendix A Narváez’s Contract to Colonize Florida and the River of Palms

Appendix B Known Members of the Narváez Expedition

Appendix C Interpreting the Territories of the Texas Coast Natives

Appendix D Letter from Viceroy Mendoza to Empress Isabella

Appendix E Biographical Notes on Historians and Writers

References

Index

List of Figures

Figure 1 - The Spanish Indies circa 1512-1513

Figure 2 - Diego Velázquez de Cuellar

Figure 3 - Pánfilo de Narváez

Figure 4 - Section of the 1502 Cantino Planisphere

Figure 5 - Section of Waldseemuller’s 1507 world map

Figure 6 - Comparison of Waldeesmuller’s map and a satellite image

Figure 7 - Martyr's 1511 map of the Caribbean

Figure 8 - Holy Roman Emperor Charles V

Figure 9 - Hernán Cortés

Figure 10 - Pineda's 1519 map of the Gulf of Mexico

Figure 11 - The Pineda Stone

Figure 12 - Boca Chica, the mouth of the Rio Grande

Figure 13 - Section of the 1524 Nuremberg map

Figure 14 - Section of 1529 map by Diego Ribero

Figure 15 - Gulf Coast subsection of Ribero's 1529 map

Figure 16 - The Narváez Expedition in the Antilles

Figure 17 - Section of c.1567 map with Miruelo Bay highlighted

Figure 18 - The Narváez Expedition at Tampa Bay

Figure 19 - View into Boca Ciega Bay from Johns Pass

Figure 20 - Sign at the entrance to the Jungle Prada site

Figure 21 - Tocobaga mound at Philippe Park

Figure 22 - View of Old Tampa Bay from the Philippe Park mound

Figure 23 - The Narváez Expedition on Florida's west coast

Figure 24 - Saw palmettos in Pasco County

Figure 25 - Harvesting saw palmetto hearts

Figure 26 - A view north from the mouth of the Withlacoochee River

Figure 27 - Withlacoochee Bay

Figure 28 - The Withlacoochee River at Yankeetown

Figure 29 - Riverside Drive in Yankeetown

Figure 30 - The Suwannee River south of Fanning Springs

Figure 31 - Fallen trees at the Suwannee River

Figure 32 - The Narváez Expedition in the Florida Panhandle

Figure 33 - The St. Marks River at Newport in Wakulla County

Figure 34 - Bay of Horses diorama

Figure 35 - The head of St. Marks Bay at Fort San Marcos

Figure 36 - Natural bridge over the St. Marks River

Figure 37 - The Narváez Expedition in Apalachee Bay

Figure 38 - A view across Ochlockonee Bay from the north shore

Figure 39 - Gulfport Harbor

Figure 40 - Mississippi River Gulf Outlet on Lake Borgne

Figure 41 - Mississippi River Delta nautical chart

Figure 42 - The Narváez Expedition on the Gulf Coast

Figure 43 - Karankawa Campsite his­torical mark­er on Galveston Island

Figure 44 - The beach on Follet's Island

Figure 45 - San Luis Pass

Figure 46 - The castaways on Follet's Island

Figure 47 - Spanish moss on a tree in Galveston County

Figure 48 - The mouth of the San Bernard River

Figure 49 - Beach near Caney Creek, in Matagorda County

Figure 50 - The Narváez Expedition at Matagorda Bay, November 1528

Figure 51 - Aerial view from the east end of Matagorda Island, looking west

Figure 52 - Padre Island National Seashore, Kleberg County

Figure 53 - Brazoria National Wildlife Refuge

Figure 54 - Family picking dewberries near the mouth of the Brazos River

Figure 55 - Canebrakes on the north side of Follet's Island

Figure 56 - 1867 U.S. Coast Guard map of Cavallo Pass

Figure 57 - Satellite photo of Cavallo Pass

Figure 58 - The natural mouth of the Brazos River

Figure 59 - Bastrop Bayou

Figure 60 - Sargassum seaweed

Figure 61 - Atlantic ghost crab

Figure 62 - The San Bernard River and Gulf Intracoastal Waterway

Figure 63 - Caney Creek's entrance to the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway

Figure 64 - The old mouth of Caney Creek, now closed

Figure 65 - Caney Creek east of Wharton

Figure 66 - Beach on the Matagorda Peninsula

Figure 67 - Yaupon holly in cen­tral Texas

Figure 68 - Satellite view of Aransas Pass

Figure 69 - Tuna preparation

Figure 70 - The Guadalupe River at the Calhoun-Refugio county line

Figure 71 - The Narváez Expedition at Matagorda Bay, 1529 and 1533

Figure 72 - Port O'Connor in Calhoun County

Figure 73 - State Highway 185 in Calhoun County

Figure 74 - Mexican coat of arms

Figure 75 - Prickly pears in a field south of San Diego

Figure 76 - A wild prickly pear plant

Figure 77 - The Narváez Expedition in South Texas

Figure 78 – Seed pods on a Texas ebony tree

Figure 79 - A retama tree on the Arroyo Colorado

Figure 80 - Dense thicket of brush and trees at the Arroyo Colorado

Figure 81 - Prickly pear field near the Rio Grande in Cameron County

Figure 82 - South Padre Island, Cameron County

Figure 83 - The Arroyo Colorado in Cameron County

Figure 84 - Green honey mesquite pods

Figure 85 - Mesquite trees on the Arroyo Colorado

Figure 86 - The Rio Grande at Mission in Hidalgo County

Figure 87 - Peñitas, Texas city seal

Figure 88 - 1912 map of the Rio Grande crossing at Reynosa Viejo

Figure 89 - The castaways in Tamaulipas and Nuevo Leon

Figure 90 - Altos Hornos de Mexico's blast furnace in Monclova

Figure 91 - The castaways in Coahuila and the Big Bend of the Rio Grande

Figure 92 - A plain along the Rio Grande

Figure 93 - Topographical map of Santa Elena Ridge and Canyon

Figure 94 - Santa Elena Ridge and Canyon

Figure 95 - The Rio Grande floodplain in Big Bend Ranch State Park

Figure 96 - Satellite image of La Junta

Figure 97 - A cultivated field in Presidio

Figure 98 - Satellite photo of the Rio Grande at El Paso

Figure 99 - El Paso del Norte

Figure 100 - The castaways from El Paso to Hearts

Figure 101 - The Chihuahuan Desert on Highway 9 at Columbus, N.M.

Figure 102 - Head of the Sonora River Valley

Figure 103 - The Castaways in Sonora and Sinaloa

Figure 104 - 1455 sea chart showing the Seven Cities of Antilla

Figure 105 - Bust of Cabeza de Vaca in Her­mann Park in Houston

Figure 106 - Beginning of Narváez's Contract

Figure 107 - Natives of coastal Texas mentioned by Cabeza de Vaca

Preface

The Narváez Expedition was not the first significant event in U.S. history, but it was close, and it was the first event that produced a substantial eyewitness account. We have only scant records of earlier events, such as Juan Ponce de Le­ón’s journeys to Florida, Pineda’s circumnavigation of the Gulf of Mexico, and Ayllón’s colony in Georgia. In the two preserved accounts of the Narváez Expedi­tion, however, we have not just a passing glimpse, but an intent, focused gaze at America as it looked five hundred years ago. Reading the records of the earliest moments in U.S. history and then reading the Narváez Expedition chronicles is comparable to a person studying his family history, starting with only a couple of faded snapshots and clipped obituaries, then suddenly finding a two-hour home movie narrated by his own grandfather. These chronicles tell us more than we could have ever hoped to know about what the members of the expedition saw, how they survived, what they ate, the people they met, and their impressions of the country.

The treasure trove of information found in the Narváez chronicles is not always easy to understand, however. Imagine dumping a 500-piece jigsaw puzzle out on a table and throwing away the box, never having a chance to see the pic­ture of the completed puzzle. We would be able to make out some of the pieces easily – this one is the head of a cow, that one is a well – but where are they in the big picture? Other pieces depict common, easily recognizable things, such as trees and clouds, while others are just patches of indistinct colors and shapes, none of which make any sense by themselves. Only when we start putting pieces next to each other, in the correct position and orientation, do we begin to see the picture forming before us. Interpreting all of the information contained in the Narváez Expedition chronicles requires a similar process. Just as with a jigsaw puzzle, correct physical placement of the pieces is key. For example, if the texts say that the survivors ate a certain root, we must know where they found this root before we can guess what it was. If they discuss their encounters with a cer­tain group of natives, we cannot know what tribe or clan those natives may have been part of without knowing where the survivors met them. Sometimes, this also works in reverse: the texts’ description of a certain plant, animal, native clan, or geographical feature may be so distinct that it alone lets us know where the ex­peditionaries were. The more puzzle pieces we connect and place in the correct location, the easier it is to find the right place for the others.

The main difference between interpreting the Narváez Expedition chron­icles and solving a jigsaw puzzle is the element of progression. A puzzle picture is a representation of a moment in time, but the Narváez Expedition took place over a nine-year span, during which the expeditionaries were usually moving. Solving the puzzle imposes an all-important constraint: the route must work. For every location we might propose that the expeditionaries visited, based on food, soil types, climate, natives, or anything else, we must have an explanation for how they got to that location from their previous one, how they got to their next one, and how their movements worked toward their goal. The route, then, is the one overriding logistical constraint that must always be addressed as we attempt to interpret the texts.

The first historians and authors who attempted to interpret the route of the Narváez Expedition were unsure whether that was even possible, but they still took their stabs at it. Buckingham Smith was the first to publish an English translation of the longest of the two chronicles – Cabeza de Vaca’s eyewitness, autobiographical account entitled La Relación. In his translation, which was published posthumously in 1871, Smith calculated that Cabeza de Vaca’s Island of Misfortune – now agreed to have been at Galveston Bay, Texas – was at Mo­bile Bay, Alabama. He identified the river of nuts – now agreed to be the Gua­dalupe River of south Texas – as the Arkansas River in eastern Oklahoma. Smith’s editor notes that the translator later came to think that the expedition­aries might have spent significant time in south Texas, but writes, This hypo­thesis has in it many features of incredibility.¹ Historian Hubert Howe Bancroft (1832-1918) admitted to having great difficulty working out a route, but he blamed the two texts, which he considered to be fragmentary, dis­connected, contradictory, and often unintelligible.² Even so, he correctly rea­soned that the Island of Misfortune had to have been west of the Mississippi River. Over a few more iterations, historians reached a general consensus that the expeditionaries spent their longest period of captivity on the Texas coast, but most interpreters believed that when the four survivors escaped from captivity, they went west or northwest across the Texas hill country – a theory no one ad­vances anymore.

The problem all of these early historians and researchers had was not that they were unintelligent or that they were unable to read the texts. The prob­lem was that they did not have sufficient first-hand knowledge of the lands they were writing about. Smith, who was from Florida, did his research from libraries in Mexico City and Seville. He got much right about the Narváez Expedition’s journey through his home state, but he got the rest of it all wrong. Bancroft lived in California all of his adult life. He did not know that the river Cabeza de Vaca compared to the Guadalquivir of Spain because of its breadth could not be any river in south Texas except the Rio Grande. No amount of read­ing alone can give a researcher sufficient knowledge of a region’s geography, to­pography, terrain, botany, and zoology that is required to interpret these texts. The land itself must be seen.

The first historian to theorize that the Four Ragged Castaways crossed the Rio Grande near its mouth on the Gulf of Mexico was, unsurprising­ly, a resi­dent of the Rio Grande Valley in south Texas. Bethel Coopwood pub­lished his route analysis in 1899. Subsequent researchers following Coopwood’s lead, in­cluding James N. Baskett (1907) and Harbert Davenport and Joseph K. Wells (1918) made further valuable contributions to a better understanding of the cast­aways’ route. Their findings went too far, however, for some proud Texan re­searchers who believed that too much of the route of Cabeza de Vaca, the first Texas historian, had been moved into Mexico. The next few decades saw several route interpretations that were created from scratch by men, including Robert T. Hill (1933) and Cleve Hallenbeck (1940), whose stated aim was to keep as much of Cabeza de Vaca’s route in the Lone Star State as possible. Their interpreta­tions, which once again had the castaways marching west or northwest across central Texas instead of crossing the Rio Grande near its mouth, were popular at first, but they fell apart when subjected to careful analysis. The most important rebuttal to the new trans-Texas route interpretations was made by anthropolo­gist Alex D. Krieger, first in the form of his 1955 doctoral dissertation, and even­tually in his book, We Came Naked and Barefoot, which was published posthu­mously in 2002. Krieger, in fashioning his own route, moved the casta­ways back to south Texas and northeastern Mexico, but in doing so, casually and unfortu­nately dis­missed some of Davenport and Wells’ excel­lent contributions. Krieger’s main point of disagreement with them was the location of the prickly pear cactus fields where the four surviving castaways fled from their captors. By shifting that loca­tion to the northwest, Krieger consequently moves the locations where the cast­aways first crossed the Rio Grande and where they entered the Sierra Madre Oriental. When I originally began researching Cabeza de Vaca years ago, I was inclined to give the Krieger interpretation and the Davenport and Wells interpre­tation roughly equal weight, but the more I have studied the texts and the more I have traveled and visited the land to study this question, the less regard I have for Krieger’s view. I sin­gle his interpretation out for criticism in several places in this volume because I believe it is currently the main one stand­ing in the way of an accurate consensus.

The internet has made quality geographical research easier than ever. Professional and lay researchers now have immediate access to high-resolution satellite images, historical maps, street-level photography, and mapping tools that help us see places we have never been. These are great advances, but they are no more of a substitute for being there in person than letters, phone calls, pictures, and video chats are a substitute for seeing a loved one in person. The benefits of traveling to a place and experiencing it personally be­fore writing about it are just as great now as they were a hundred years ago.

Even though much progress has been made in interpreting the Narváez Expedition’s route, I humbly propose that we can do better. The texts are not unintelligible or hopelessly contradictory; they are filled with details that are mostly consistent. I believe that every point along the land route can be pro­jected within a margin of error of fifty miles or less, and all of the key way­points can be known to within ten miles. In this volume, I do just that. Where possible, I explain my proposed route in terms of modern roads to make it easier for eve­ryone to follow along. I also do my best to project a timeline onto the route – to the exact day, where possible. I do this not by claiming to be more intelligent than others who have tried, or by claiming a superior ability to understand the texts, but by applying the essential tool of first-hand knowledge to as much of the route as possible. As a lifelong resident of Texas, I have a good head start. The castaways’ Island of Misfor­tune – Fol­let’s Island in Brazoria County – is thirty miles from my house; I know it very well. I have even foraged dewberries there, just like the castaways did, and have tromped through the shallow bayside pools where they pulled roots. I have paddled and camped in the shade of pecan trees on the banks of the Guadalupe River many times, have made dozens of vis­its to the Rio Grande Valley, and have spent many difficult, but re­warding days and nights hiking in the state and na­tional parks at Big Bend. But I am not rely­ing on a lifetime of familiarity to serve as my only credentials; I have also done considerable recent field work at all the key locations in Florida and Texas spe­cifically for the purpose of this study. As much as possible, every place I write about in this book is a place I have visited and photographed. I re­gret not being able to extend my research into northern Mexico, for reasons hav­ing to do not only with cost and time, but also personal safety. (The U.S. gov­ernment currently has a do not travel advi­sory for Sinaloa and advises against traveling to every other north Mexican state due to criminal activity.)

Correctly interpreting the expedition texts requires much more than pay­ing attention to geography. It starts with having a good translation. One of the first things I learned when first becoming a student of Cabeza de Vaca was that the existing translations I was able to find of La Relación were all too para­phrasical and did not suit my analytical purposes. In 2018, I published my own highly-literal translation of La Relación. It is my primary source text throughout this present volume and the one I humbly hope becomes the textus receptus for future researchers. As for the other Narváez Expedition chronicle, Oviedo’s Joint Report, which is a paraphrase of a now-lost eyewitness record, I have not yet felt like making my own translation was necessary.

I stated earlier that the records of the Narváez Expedition are not at all sketchy or fleeting when it comes to telling us where the expeditionaries went and what they saw. That is true. Unfortunately, they are frustratingly tight-lipped in other matters, such as who the expeditionaries themselves were – their backgrounds, their personalities, their characters. They seem to often go out of their way to avoid telling us what transpired between the men on a personal level and how they made their decisions. For example, why is the man who was given the title maestre de campo – usually the highest-ranking officer in a Spanish army below the commanding general – nearly invisible throughout the whole story? Why did Cabeza de Vaca, who was Narváez’s actual second-in-command, have such trouble getting anyone to follow him? Why, when the other members of the expedition were trying to reach Mexico, did Cabeza de Vaca go off by him­self and spend 4½ years trading beads with the natives? Questions like these show the importance of reading the texts critically, looking for places where the authors may not have given us accurate information. Occasional discrepancies and contradictions between Cabeza de Vaca’s account and Oviedo’s are expected and do exist, but that is not the problem. The real problem is when the authors might have been deliberately fibbing or avoiding the truth because of their own biases or agendas. We must not gullibly swallow whole everything that they tell us. At the same time, though, we must not be too dismissive. They were there; we were not. Worst of all, we must not cherry-pick the places where we vouch for the texts and where we rebut them in order to further our own biases or agendas. It is my sincere hope that, whenever there are reasons to doubt the veracity of the texts, I never try to bully you, the reader, into accepting my viewpoint, but instead that I attempt to convince you through logical, reasonable arguments.

Deriving the best Narváez Expedition route analysis to date is rewarding in itself, but, as stated earlier, the benefits of knowing the expeditionaries’ route go far beyond simply having a more accurate itinerary. The route is the key to understanding everything else the texts tell us. Walking in their shoes is a phrase that means to understand what another person has gone through. It is an apt metaphor for us even though our subjects were often barefoot. This book will endeavor to put you in the castaways’ footsteps for every segment of their 3,000-mile journey, so that you will better understand what they saw and did nearly 500 years ago.

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¹ Anonymous, in Buckingham Smith, Relation of Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca, Appendix VII, pp. 234-235.

² Chipman, Donald E., In Search of Cabeza de Vaca’s Route across Texas: An Historiographical Survey, Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 91, October 1987.

Introduction

The central aim of this volume is to construct the most accurate interpre­tation possible of the Narváez Expedition’s route across North America. The first thing that must be done toward this goal to is to discern where Narváez and his men were trying to go. Before proposing where we think their ships landed, we ought to find out where they intended to land, and what they intended to do when they got there. What was their concept of North America, of the Gulf of Mexico, of the country they called La Florida? Did they believe Florida was an island, like it was called in Narváez’s charter? Was their chief objective to try to discover and settle a new province, or was it to convert natives to Christianity? Or, was it to find gold? After giving the reader a quick taste of the action in the first chapter, Chapters 2 through 5 of this book deal with the context of the Nar­váez Expedition: the discoveries that preceded it, the men who carried them out, the kings and queens who sent them, and the stated goals and expectations of the expedition when it launched in 1527. They also introduce the reader to Pán­filo de Narváez, who started making his mark on North American history four­teen years before he was named governor of La Florida, and Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, the central character of our two primary sources on the expedition. The expedition gets underway in earnest in Chapter 6 and concludes in Chapter 19. The final two chapters inform the reader about the after-effects of the expedition and wrap up the biographies of the four survivors.

Everything about the Narváez Expedition took place in a Spanish context. Pánfilo de Narváez was Spanish, most of his men were, his sponsor king was, his ships flew Spanish flags, and the people who wrote about the events wrote mostly in the Spanish language. The best way for everyone to learn as much about the expedition as possible, then, would be to read and write about it exclu­sively in Spanish. But, since this book is written in English for an English-speaking audience, translation must be a huge part of it. And, while many Span­ish words and concepts are simple to translate, there are some, especially those from Spain’s political and legal systems, that do not have good counterparts in English. For example, the terms alcalde, adelantado, audiencia, encomienda, escribano, oidor, requerimiento, and residencia – just to name a few – occur repeatedly in Spanish 16th-century records, and none of them have neat equiva­lents in English. Some writers, possibly to avoid loss of meaning, do not trans­late them at all, resulting in bilingual sentences such as "the licenciado came to subject the adelantado to a residencia over his repartamiento." I believe that too much untranslated Spanish, however, makes a text difficult to read. I keep alcalde, encomienda, and requerimiento as-is, but settle for loose translations for adelantado (governor-general), audiencia (court), escribano (notary), oidor (judge), and residencia (impeachment) much of the time, because I feel that, when all is said and done, the reader’s understanding of the situation is not sig­nificantly impaired by the slight loss of accuracy.

By the same token, when personal names or toponyms have widely-used or obvious English versions, I use them. Rio de las Palmas is River of Palms, the village of Corazones is the village of Hearts, Nueva España is New Spain, and King Carlos is King Charles. When referring to well-known historical figures, I use whatever style is the most common for that person: De Soto vs. Soto, Las Casas vs. Casas, Coronado vs. Vázquez de Coro­nado, etc. Some of my choices may seem inconsistent, such as Panuco River and Sinaloa River but Rio Conchos and Rio Sabinas. The goal is simply to make it easiest for the reader and me, not to adhere to an impractical consistency. Eng­lish does not usually use accent marks, so I keep them to a minimum, using them only when writing personal names, such as Pánfilo de Narváez. I omit them with place names such as Pa­nuco and Culiacan.

Spaniards usually called the original inhabitants of the New World indio, which is written in English as Indian. This word was derived from Christopher Columbus's mistaken belief that the Caribbean islands he discovered were near India. Even though Spain quickly learned that he was wrong, it still called its overseas possessions the Indies for centuries. But because the English-speaking world never standardized on the word Indies when referring to the Americas, the standardized use of Indian as a demonym for their early inhabit­ants has always been illogical and has become increasingly less popular over time. Most of the time, in this book, I call them natives, a term the Spaniards also sometimes used (naturales). In some instances, however, the word native is even less accurate than Indian, because the person or persons under discus­sion are, in that context, just as much of a foreigner or invader as any European. For example, the Americans who allied with Cortés to help him conquer Tenoch­titlan were not natives of that city; they were invaders, just like he was. In in­stances such as this, and many others where native is inaccurate or could be misleading, rather than reach for an unfamiliar word, I revert to the historic term, Indian.

In several places, the source texts recap a spoken conversation that has taken place between two or more parties, using a format like, We told them that … they responded that … we then said that … they replied that … In such cases, I often felt that the best way to relate this information to my readers was to put quotation marks around each part of the conversation and pretend that we are listening to it ourselves, rather than reading someone’s recap of it. The reader should know that the source texts contain little to no dia­logue, so we do not know what words the speakers actually used. That does not make this work a book of fiction, however. My reconstructed dialogue is always scrupulously faith­ful to the source material, often repeating it nearly verbatim, but with quo­tation marks replacing the writers’ cumbersome we told them that…/they replied that… format.

Our understanding of the Narváez Expedition and the route it took has advanced greatly over the centuries, especially in the last hundred years or so. There are still, however, many areas of disagreement – even contro­versy – that are within this book’s scope. Did Ponce de León really discover Flor­ida? Were the Karankawa really cannibals? Did our castaways land on Galveston Island? Did they father the first white children born in the United States? Sometimes the answers to these questions are complex or nuanced. Sometimes they are actually simple, but professional and/or lay historians have made them into controver­sies because it suited them to do so. While writing on these issues, I am not hesi­tant to draw a black-and-white line around what is true and what is not in the cases where I believe the facts are indisputable. Sometimes, though, the facts are in dispute for good reason. In such cases, I believe it is my job to present all rea­sonable viewpoints to you and let you decide. I will try to guide you to my way of thinking when I feel strongly about it and leave you on your own when I do not.¹ I hope that my approach of answering some questions definitively while offering theories and teasing suggestions to others will not only teach you things you never knew about the Narváez Expedition and 16th-century U.S. history, but also make you even more inter­ested in learning about it than when you began read­ing.

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¹ Beyond this point, I present my opinions and theories using the author’s we purely for stylistic reasons.

Chapter 1

A Surprise at Culiacan

Culiacan is a city of nearly one million people on the west coast of Mex­ico. It is close to 500 years old. It was founded in 1531 by Nuño Beltrán de Guz­mán, a Spanish conquistador, as one of the cities of his province, which was called New Galicia. For many years, Culiacan was not only the northernmost town of New Galicia, but also the northernmost foothold of Spanish civilization on the Pacific Ocean.

Guzmán was a brutal tyrant, even by the standards of 16th-century Span­ish provincial governors. His administration is known only for rob­bing, tor­turing, mutilating, and killing his enemies – or anyone else he saw fit to rob, tor­ture, mutilate, or kill – and a policy of aggressive, wholesale enslavement of American natives for trade and export.

In April 1536, one of Guzmán’s deputies, Diego de Alcaraz, was stationed at a slaving camp a hundred miles north of Culiacan. He was in command of about twenty men. His mission was not going well. First of all, there were no natives to capture. All of the natives in the vicinity had fled into the mountains to hide from the Spaniards and their dreaded horses. Alcaraz’s second problem was that he and his men had no food. The Spaniards had marched out from Culiacan as­suming they would be able to steal food from the natives, as they usually did, but now the villages were all abandoned and barren, and their crops were rotting in the fields.

The Spaniards were distressed, not knowing what to do, when one morn­ing, four of Alcaraz’s men saw a group of natives approaching them from the north. These natives were not fleeing, or even trying to avoid them, but were ac­tually coming toward them. When these eleven bold natives came close, the Spaniards, looking down from their mounts, could see that two of them looked unusual: one was lighter-toned and had a full, bushy beard, and the other was as black-skinned as any African. Apart from that, those two looked the same as every other Indian; that is to say, they were naked and barefoot.

The Spanish soldiers were confused at first, but their confusion turned to astonishment when the bearded one began to speak in perfect Castilian. He tried to talk to them, but they were so perplexed, they could not even converse with him. Instead, they talked to each other about him, as if he would not be able to understand what they were saying. For all they knew, he was only parroting words and phrases he had learned to say somehow, but had no comprehension of.

The bearded man impatiently asked the horsemen to take him to their captain. This could have been yet another rehearsed line, but it was a good idea nonetheless, so they did.

Good morning, captain, the bearded man said to Alcaraz. My name is Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca. I am the royal treasurer for the expedition to Florida led by Governor Pánfilo de Narváez. This Moor here with me is a fellow Christian from that expedition. I have two more Spanish comrades waiting fur­ther up the trail with another group of Indians.

History does not record whether these were the actual words spoken by Cabeza de Vaca; they are simply this writer’s imagination. It does not matter. Whatever he said, the fact that this strange man was able to speak fluent Castil­ian was not what surprised Alcaraz the most. The greatest shock came when he said the name of Pánfilo de Narváez.

The Narváez Expedition! How was that possible? Narváez and all 300 of his men were lost at Tampa Bay in 1528! Over a year was spent searching for them, all up and down the Florida coast. What were four of his men doing more than 1,500 miles from where they were last seen, eight years later? And how did these ragged castaways get, of all places, to his slaving camp, a hundred miles from the most remote settlement in the Spanish Empire?

Spain began settling the Caribbean islands of Hispaniola, Puerto Rico, and Cuba in the late 1400s. In 1513, Juan Ponce de León officially discovered something that many had suspected for years – that there was land north of Cuba. He named it La Florida. Considering that this period of history is now called The Age of Discovery, and there were Spanish and Portuguese ships be­ing sent out to all four corners of the earth, Spain’s interest in La Florida, once it was discovered, was surprisingly mild. It took until 1519 for Spain to discover that La Florida was not an island, but was actually part of a rather large conti­nent it had already explored other parts of.

The first royal contract issued to colonize La Florida was issued in 1514, postponed until 1521, and, once undertaken, was an immediate and total failure. The next contract, issued in 1521, suffered from a two-year delay in getting un­derway and was another complete failure. The third contract was issued in 1523. After a three-year delay in getting underway, that effort produced a colony that lasted for about three months before being abandoned. In the decade following its discovery, La Florida took the lives of Córdoba, Pineda, Ponce de León, Ayllón, and hundreds of the unfortunate men and women who went with them. Narváez’s expedition, which embarked in 1527, was the largest and most well-organized expedition to La Florida yet. Its disappearance a year later was the proverbial nail in the coffin for Spain’s interest in colonizing La Florida, or even exploring it. There simply was not any reason to go back.

Cabeza de Vaca’s arrival at Culiacan eight years later changed that. After he and his comrades told their story, Spanish eyes were drawn once again to La Florida. Colonization contracts were drawn up, ships, horses, and supplies were purchased, and men mortgaged their homes and fortunes. Within four years, Spanish boots would be marching across fifteen of the future United States.

Chapter 2

Pánfilo de Narváez

Pánfilo de Narváez was born in Valladolid in the province of Castile y Leon, in the heart of Spain.¹ The exact year of his birth is uncertain, but it was close to 1478. The Spanish historian, Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo, born in that year, knew Narváez and believed him to be about the same age as him, or older.² Bernal Díaz del Castillo, who was part of a party of soldiers who guarded Nar­váez in 1520, concurred, writing, Narváez was about forty two years of age.³ With these two eyewitnesses being in agreement, the question should be settled. Some other birth years, especially 1470, are sometimes cited for him, but they lack any historical foundation. Additionally, most of the events of his life corre­spond better to using 1478 as his birth year, rather than 1470. For example, he wrote in 1526, for twenty-six years I have borne arms in the conquest of all those regions.⁴ The age of 30 would have been unusually late in life for a Span­iard in the 16th century to begin a military career; 22 is more realistic.

Christopher Columbus discovered Hispaniola, Cuba, and the Bahamas in 1492, when Narváez was a teen in Valladolid. The purpose of Columbus’s expedi­tion was to explore the Atlantic Ocean and search for a water passage to India. Upon his return to Spain, he reported that he found the Indies – islands and peninsulas on the coast of Asia – and so that is what his discoveries were called in Spain. Even decades later, when the true geography of the earth was well un­derstood, Spain still referred to all of its overseas possessions, from North and South America to the Pacific Islands, as the Indies. Their native inhabitants were all referred to as Indians.

Columbus left a small settlement on Hispaniola in 1492. Everyone in it perished after he left, apparently because the colonists’ raids on the nearby natives’ camps for goods and women aggravated the natives beyond their point of tolerance.⁵

Not counting this small, failed experiment, the first true colonization ex­pedition to the New World was Columbus’s second voyage, in 1493. During it, he founded another settlement on the north coast of Hispaniola. Within a few years, the town of Santo Domingo was founded on the south coast, in the present-day Dominican Republic. All of the settlers subsequently moved there, and northern settlement was abandoned.⁶ Columbus also discovered Jamaica, Puerto Rico, and the Lesser Antilles on this voyage, but no settlements were placed on them. Santo Domingo was the only Spanish town in the Indies for several years.

Figure 1 - The Spanish Indies circa 1512-1513

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Several key figures in early North American history came over with Co­lumbus in 1493, including Bartolomé de las Casas, Juan Ponce de León, Diego Velázquez de Cuellar, and Antón de Alaminos. Narváez would have been at least 15, and could have come at that time. If he did not come with Christopher Co­lumbus in 1493, there were other ships, such as the one that brought Christo­pher’s brother, Bartholomew Columbus, in 1494, and a fleet of supply ships sent to support the colony in 1498. If Narváez came to Hispaniola on any of these vessels, and his statement that he began to bear arms in 1500 is accurate, then he must have found another form of employment at first.

Christopher and Bartholomew Columbus were recalled to Spain in 1499 to answer charges of mismanagement and cruelty against the natives. At that time, the Hispaniola colony still consisted mainly of the town of Santo Domingo and a few forts at strategic locations near the gold mines. The new governor, Francisco de Bobadilla, arrived in August 1500. Perhaps Narváez came with him, and perhaps this change in the government is when Narváez took up arms in His Majesty’s service.

Bobadilla proved to be ineffective at either making the colony more pro­ductive or managing the feuding political factions. He was soon replaced. The new governor, Nicolás de Ovando y Cáceres, arrived in April 1502. Ovando’s fleet consisted of thirty ships carrying 2,500 people for the establishment of more towns. It was during Ovando’s eight-year tenure that the entire island of Hispan­iola was pacified; that is, brought under Spanish control, with the only remain­ing natives being made either slaves or vassals.

Using a word like pacify when referring to the Spanish colonization of the New World carries an extreme amount of irony, for it was, in all but a few cases, an exceedingly violent process. Friar Las Casas estimated that the number of natives on Hispaniola when the island was discovered was three million. In 1508, the number was estimated as 70,000. At that time, Ovando received per­mission from King Ferdinand to capture Indians from the Bahamas and bring them to Hispaniola as slaves to work in the mines and on the farms, to replenish the diminishing supply of Dominican natives. Even still, when Christopher Co­lumbus’s son, Diego Columbus, arrived in Santo Domingo to replace Ovando in July 1509, there were only 40,000 Indians – native or foreign – in Hispaniola. Five years later, there were only 13,000 to 14,000 left.⁷ A large share of these deaths were from European diseases, but the volume of bloodshed was also very great.

The Greater Antilles is the group of islands that consists of Hispaniola, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Jamaica, and the Cayman Islands. The Caymans were unin­habited when Spaniards arrived. The other four territories were inhabited by na­tives called Taino. Whenever Spaniards made first contact with a new group of Taino, they always found them to possess a gentle, friendly nature. They were not xenophobic, and were not very skilled in war, since their only enemies were the Caribs of the Lesser Antilles – the chain of small islands that bends southeast of Puerto Rico – and these two tribes had to travel by sea to fight each other. The Caribs made occasional raids on the Taino of Puerto Rico to take people back to their islands as slaves and human sacrifices. Even with the Taino’s limited fighting abilities, they were sometimes able to repulse the Caribs,⁸ so the latter were not an especially strong foe. We have no specific information about what Pánfilo de Narváez did as a soldier between 1500 and 1509, but we can only as­sume that he was doing his part to subjugate the Taino of Hispaniola.

Upon his arrival as viceroy and governor-general of the Indies, Diego Co­lumbus appointed subordinate governors over the neighboring islands of Puerto Rico, Cuba, and Jamaica. His governor of Jamaica, Juan de Esquivel, left in No­vember 1509. Narváez went with him. The following year, a messenger came from Cuba to inform Esquivel that another conquistador, Alonso de Ojeda, was shipwrecked in Cuba and needed aid. Ojeda had made a claim of his own over Jamaica and had once threatened to kill Esquivel if they ever met. Never­theless, Esquivel sent Narváez with a ship to rescue Ojeda. Narváez greeted him with honor and safely conducted him back to Jamaica, where Esquivel treated him cordially and paid for his passage to Santo Domingo.⁹ This is the earliest deed of Narváez’s life on record.

Juan de Esquivel is notable for being one of the few Spanish colonial gov­ernors who was able to colonize his territory without massacring or enslaving the entire native population. He established a town, named New Seville, quickly and without bloodshed. Narváez was then transferred to Cuba, as the captain of a company of thirty crossbowmen, to join the command of Diego Velázquez de Cuellar, the man Diego Columbus sent to pacify and colonize that island.¹⁰ Whether Narváez requested to be transferred to a place where there was more action and where his talents could be put to better use is unknown, but he took to his new post with vigor.

Figure 2 - Diego Velázquez de Cuellar

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At the time of his appointment as governor of Cuba, Velázquez was one of the most well-known men in Hispaniola, and was definitely the wealthiest. He was also infamous among the Taino. Under Governor Ovando, Velázquez had been the captain of Spanish forces pacifying the north­western end of Hispaniola – the part nearest Cuba. Some of the Taino, led by a chief named Hatuey, fled across the channel to a district in Cuba where Chris­topher Columbus had once landed and named Baracoa. Hatuey informed his new neighbors in Baracoa that the Spaniards, with whom all of their previous contacts had been pleasant, were the reason for his flight. Las Casas tells a story of un­known origin in which Hatuey gathered the natives of Cuba together with a promise to reveal to them the God of the Spaniards. He placed before them a small basket filled with gold and said, Here is the God the Spaniards worship. He urged them to throw it into the ocean, saying that if the Spaniards found gold in Cuba, they would seize the land and make them their slaves.

When Velázquez did come, some of the chiefs joined Hatuey in fighting against him, while others did not. In the end, Hatuey was captured. He was burned alive at the stake on February 2, 1512. According to another apocryphal story told by Las Casas, a priest asked Hatuey before the fire was lit if he wished to accept Jesus and go to Heaven. Hatuey asked the priest if there were Span­iards in Heaven. When the priest assured him there were, Hatuey replied that in that case, he did not want to go there.¹¹ Hatuey remains a folk hero in Cuba to this day.

Once Narváez arrived in Cuba, Velázquez made him his chief lieutenant. It was largely through Narváez’s eagerness for battle that Cuba was conquered. For the most part, Narváez led the forces on the front lines, killing and subjugat­ing the Taino, while Velázquez followed behind him, founding towns and ap­pointing officials to govern them. Velázquez founded the towns of Bayamo, Xa­gua, Trinidad, Sancti Spiritus, Camaguey, and Santiago de Cuba. The last town, which was on the island’s south coast, became his capital. Narváez founded a seventh town, Havana, which became the principal port on the is­land’s north coast and, decades later, the national capital.

By early 1514, the exploration and pacification of Cuba was complete. Ve­lázquez changed the name of the island to Fernandina, and thus it was known in official documents and on some maps for the duration of his administration. Some gold was found there, but it was clear early on that the best opportunity for Cuban prosperity was agricultural exports.

Friar Bartolomé de las Casas, a newly-ordained priest in Santo Domingo, was sent to Cuba after the conquest had already started. He spent about two years during that campaign traveling with Nar­váez­. Las Casas described him as a re­spectable person, tall of stature, some­what blond, tending to being red, honest, sensible, but not very cautious, good at conversation, having good habits, zealous in fighting Indians, and might [also] have been with [fighting] others, but above all he had this fault, that he was very care­less.¹² Bernal Díaz writes, similarly, that he was of tall stature and large limbs, a full face, and red beard, and agreeable presence; very sonorous and lofty in his speech, as if the sound came out of a vault; a good horseman, and said to be val­iant.¹³ Oviedo does not give a physical description of Narváez, but his characteri­zation of him is in accord with that of Las Casas – astute, clever, valiant, and very reckless.

Figure 3 - Pánfilo de Narváez

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Two events Las Casas relates about Narváez’s conquest of the Taino serve to illustrate what kind of a man he was. The first of these events changed the course of Las Casas’s own life. At the beginning of his career, Las Casas was like most of the other Spanish clergy in the New World in that while he wanted to convert the natives to Christianity, and urged for their good treatment, he did not hold any deep convictions against the institution of slavery per se. He even accepted the allotment of slaves given to him by the government, no doubt thinking that he would earn the opportunity to lead his trustees to the Lord by gaining their admiration through just and equitable treatment. In 1513, he was among a company of about a hundred Spanish soldiers and a thousand friendly Indians led by Narváez who were on their way to a large Indian village named Caonao. Hundreds of the natives of Caonao were assembled, with their chief, seated on the ground, in anticipation of seeing the Spaniards’ horses – a species utterly foreign and wonderful to them. About 500 more natives, who were timider than those seated outside, stayed inside a large hut to prepare food for their visitors. All of a sudden, one of the Spaniards, for no apparent reason, drew his sword and began attacking the seated natives. He was quickly joined by his comrades. Las Casas watched in horror as the Spaniards who were at his side turned on the friendly Indians who were carrying their luggage. Narváez did not order the slaughter, but neither did he do anything to stop it, nor was anyone punished afterward. Las Casas cursed Narváez and thereafter devoted his life to being an advocate for the natives of the New World.¹⁴ He became a vigorous critic of all who abused them, and subsequently advocated for the abolition of slavery in all its forms. In 1516, he was recognized by the Spanish crown as the official Protector of the Indians.

It did not take long for Las Casas’s new resolve to be tested. Narváez, continuing his campaign of exploring and subjugating Cuba, arrived at present-day Havana in 1514. The natives, hearing of the massacre at Caonao, had all fled. Las Casas sent messengers to the different chiefs, assuring them of their safety. About 18 or 19 of these chiefs came to see him. Narváez then had them placed in chains to have them burned alive. Las Casas protested strongly and, with a mix­ture of entreaties and threats, persuaded Narváez to release all but one, the most powerful, who was sent to Velázquez and subsequently released.¹⁵

Las Casas may not have been happy with Narváez’s conduct in the Cuban campaign, but Governor Velázquez was. Narváez enjoyed a high status in Cuba as Velázquez’s lieutenant governor. He married María de Valenzuela, a first cousin of the governor’s,¹⁶ and became the owner of several large plantations in the vicinity of Havana.

History remembers Velázquez mainly for burning Hatuey at the stake and for his subsequent power struggles with Diego Columbus and Hernán Cor­tés. What is often overlooked is that he did know how to govern. His colony of Fernandina became an exporter of food to other Spanish colonies in the Indies, while still producing sufficient amounts of gold to please King Ferdinand. Each of his seven cities had their own town council made up of an alcalde, who was the local administrator and judge; his deputy, and three councilors. Additionally, there was a sheriff, prosecutor, and notary in each city. Velázquez ordered roads to be constructed between the cities and managed the distribution of natives to the seven municipalities. Unlike most of the other colonial governors, who treated the crown’s orders to deal with the natives humanely as having no practi­cal effect, Velázquez made and actually enforced regulations to limit the exploi­tation of natives. Spaniards wishing to emigrate to the New World wanted to go to Cuba above all other places, and it even drew colonists away from Hispaniola and other established colonies. These successes endeared Velázquez to Ferdi­nand, who responded by issuing one decree after another praising him for his wise government and his benevolence with the natives.¹⁷

Velázquez achieved all of this success while nominally serving as Diego Columbus’s subordinate, but what part had Columbus played in any of it? What need did Velázquez have of Columbus? He had the king’s favor; Columbus did not. He had the love of his own colonists; Columbus did not. He earned the right to govern Cuba by his own industry; Columbus inherited it from his father. All Velázquez needed to usurp Columbus’s legal authority over him was the right pretext, which he found in 1514. The extreme decline in native population in Hispaniola put severe strains on the process by which native slaves were distrib­uted to the colonists. Everyone was unhappy with the number of slaves allotted to him, and the person in charge of making the allocations was Columbus. This situation gave Columbus’s enemies ample reasons to complain to the crown about him. In 1514, Ferdinand stopped short of removing Columbus from office, but he did recall him to Spain.

Velázquez seized the opportunity created by Columbus’s depar­ture. The town councils of Cuba declared the island to be a separate colony from Hispan­iola, with Velázquez as their governor-general, subordinate only to the Spanish crown. In many ways, this was merely a formality, for Velázquez had been deal­ing directly with Ferdinand for at least the past two years. The king be­gan un­dercutting Columbus within ten days of appointing him to the position of vice­roy, and he never stopped, no matter how many demands and letters of pro­test Columbus wrote. In contrast, Velázquez was a rising star who could do no wrong in Ferdinand’s eyes. When critics and rivals, noting how much wealthier Veláz­quez had become recently, suggested that he be impeached, Ferdinand flatly ruled that idea out, and he even issued a decree to that effect on July 7, 1515.¹⁸

Velázquez was smart enough to know that men can be fickle in their fa­vors, especially when those men are kings who are always surrounded by flatter­ers and gossipers trying to whisper into their ears. Accordingly, he did two things to secure his status in the court. First, he made an ally of Ferdinand’s most trusted advisor where matters of the Indies were concerned: Juan Rodríguez de Fonseca, the Bishop of Burgos. Since Christopher Columbus’s second voyage in 1493, King Ferdinand and Queen Isa­bella­ had relied upon Fonseca, who was Is­abella’s personal chaplain, to organize expeditions to the New World. As Spain’s overseas possessions increased, so did Fonseca’s level of respon­sibility. In 1503, he organized the House of Trade in Seville to administer all commerce with the Indies and to tax all goods arriving from them. The House of Trade had many other roles, including the drafting of exploratory charters, the licensing of emi­grants, and the creation of maps. All transatlantic traffic was re­quired to depart from and return to Seville, under the House of Trade’s auspices. After Isabella’s death in 1504, Ferdinand relied on Fonseca to advise him on po­litical and legal disputes arising from the New World, making him Spain’s de facto minister of colonial affairs. In time, this role became formally recognized. In a letter to Juan Ponce de León dated June 6, 1511, Ferdinand defers to a deci­sion made by the Council of the Indies, of which Fonseca was president.¹⁹

Ferdinand and Isabella were good judges of character in most instances, but Isabella could not have made a worse choice of administrators. Small-minded and corrupt, no single man did as much to impede Spain’s efforts at ex­ploring and colonizing North America than Juan de Fonseca. As translator-historian Francis Augustus MacNutt puts it:

This appointment was singularly unfortunate as he possessed no aptitude for the post, and, being of choleric temper, touchy, vin­dictive, and given to favouritism, he seems never to have grasped the possibilities of his office, or to have comprehended the mean­ing of the events, whose course he was called upon to shape. In­stead of aiding and encouraging the daring men who were eager to stake everything, including their lives, in great enterprises, he almost invariably vexed and persecuted them, perverting his great power to thwart the very undertakings it was his business to fa­vour … [He died] having done his worst during thirty years with the interests confided to his direction.²⁰

Somehow, Diego Velázquez made Fonseca a faithful advocate for him be­fore the crown. Hernán Cortés charged that Velázquez accomplished this by making Fonseca the owner of a gold-mining district and that they both doctored the books when Velázquez sent ships of tribute and treasure to Castile so that Fonseca got to keep a generous share of it for himself.

The second thing Velázquez did to tend to his business in Castile was to send representatives from Cuba with