Guerrero: A Novel of Conquest and Resistance

By José Ángel Mañas

Celebrated Spanish writer José Ángel Mañas makes his English-language debut with Guerrero, a novel based on the real-life Spanish conquistador Gonzalo Guerrero, who defied Cortés and fought against Spain with his adopted Mayan tribe.

In January 1512, a caravel full of gold and Indian slaves sinks in a fierce storm. A small group of survivors including Guerrero wash up on a beach in Yucatán. Captured by Cocome Mayans, some are sacrificed; the rest are enslaved. Two survive: the young priest Jerónimo de Aguilar and the seasoned soldier Guerrero. They are redeemed by the rival and more sympathetic Tutul Xiúe Mayans. Jerónimo clings to his prayerbook, while Gonzalo becomes fascinated with Mayan culture and religion, joining with his new Mayan family to fight against Spanish conquest. For his crime, he is wiped from the record books of colonial Spain. Though little is known of Guerrero today, in this masterful short novel he becomes a larger-than-life figure of resistance and honor.

• Language: English
• Publisher: UNM Press
• Release date: Nov 1, 2024
• ISBN: 9780826366870

José Ángel Mañas

José Ángel Mañas is a Spanish writer who came to fame in the 1990s with his first novel, Historias del Kronen, a finalist for the Premio Modelo Prize that was later adapted into a film. Guerrero is his first work to be published in English.

Book preview

Chapter 1

on the thirteenth of January, in the Year of Our Lord 1512, the men of the Spanish settlement on the shoals of Santa Maria de la Antigua del Darién—barely a handful of miserable huts at the edge of the jungle—on what was already known as the Gulf of Urabá, bid farewell at the break of dawn to the Santa Maria de la Barca, a ship once owned by the governor of Veragua, the unfortunate Diego de Nicuesa.

The ship’s captain, Juan de Valdivia, with forty sailors at his command, was entrusted with a delicate mission, to persuade don Diego de Colón, viceroy of Hispaniola and admiral of the Indies, that Vasco Núñez de Balboa—who had departed Hispaniola in 1509 as a stowaway on the expedition of Martín Fernández Enciso, and who, after numerous adventures, and flouting Enciso’s authority, had risen to become governor of the newly founded Santa María de la Antigua—bore scant responsibility for the fratricidal power struggles in Darién which, after two years of feuding, had concluded with the disappearance of said governor, Diego de Nicuesa.

When Diego de Nicuesa arrived in La Antigua to assume his governorship, the colonists, fearing that he would strip them of their gold and land grants, forced him to return to sea under stormy conditions, and he was never heard from again. From then on, Núñez de Balboa’s authority was accepted by all, even by the officers who had formerly served under Nicuesa. And, as proof of their good will, Captain Juan de Valdivia, confidant of Balboa, carried with him letters from the principal personages of the colony, as well as fifteen thousand gold pesos minted from the treasures seized from the Indians in the surrounding lands, and a missive in which Balboa announced that the tribal chieftains of the region had informed him of the existence of an immense sea to the west upon whose southerly shores there existed a vast and mysterious empire that he himself was prepared to discover and conquer. That news, along with the gold, they believed, would suffice to secure the viceroy’s support.

We can’t afford to lose any more time. You must depart immediately, Balboa told Valdivia that night, before each man retired to his hut. And when dawn lit the eastern sky across the bay, and the first rays of the rising sun illumined the waters of the gulf, that ship, belonging to Nicuesa’s fleet, left the ramshackle port, while the crewmen, who had come aboard from their canoes during the night, unfurled the sails.

Chapter 2

the day dawned lovely and bright.

Once they lost sight of the coast and left the seagulls behind, the first stretch of the journey across the gulf and out into the open sea was as peaceful as could be. The pilot, Jerónimo Saavedra, and Captain Valdivia breathed sighs of relief, although neither man felt especially relaxed. And with good reason, because the second morning had barely broken when the weather changed dramatically. By midday a violent gale overtook them, terrifying the Indian slaves down in the hold who prayed incessantly and commended themselves to their god of rain.

Guerrero! For God’s sake, do something to shut those Indians up! Captain Valdivia ordered Gonzalo Guerrero, officer in charge of the ship’s slaves. I can’t endure any more of their chanting!

There’s really nothing I can do to quiet them, Captain. Given the way the wind was blowing, I urged don Vasco not to set sail, Guerrero said. But of course, I’m just an officer. The only thing to do now is what these native devils are doing. Pray!

For not one but seven days, the wind and rain intensified, and that exhausting gale ran the ship wildly off course, over the dark cresting waves of a sea gone mad. The nightmare went on and on until, at dusk on the eighth day, approaching Viper Shoals near Jamaica—the exact location of the wreck was only discovered years later—the ship’s keel struck the rocky shallows, and the vessel heeled over on the starboard side, its mainmast broken, the sails in tatters.

By that time, the waves crashing over the deck during those endless days had dragged two sailors into the sea, and with the water now flooding the hold, where the Indians remained chained up, there was nothing else to do but unlash the one skiff still on deck and set off with as many men as it could hold. Most of the castaways managed to swim to the overloaded boat. Crowded with those ragged, miserable souls, it was swallowed up by the same thick fog that enveloped the wreck behind them. The ship creaked as its hull gave way and collapsed while the Indians screamed. Then the whole vessel began to sink, with the king’s gold inside and the slaves trapped in the hold.

The survivors, lacking any water or food, numbered twenty, including the women. The currents swept their skiff out to the open sea, although not before smashing it against some jagged rocks, almost invisible in the mist, whose knife-sharp edges pierced the boat’s hull.

We’ve got to plug those holes! Use your clothes! shouted Valdivia.

The next morning the gale abated. The wind stopped. The sea swells subsided. The sun beat down on the shipwrecked survivors and they began to suffer the torments of thirst. By evening, as the sky darkened, the sea began to swell around them, and a sailor whom they called Ángel de la Santa Cruz fell overboard: before anyone could try to save him, some sharks that had begun trailing the skiff attacked him. Lashing furiously, they dragged him down into the depths: all that remained was a bloodstain on the water.

Two days later, another sailor, Juan Sánchez de Albornoz, who seemed to be hunched over asleep on the plank seat beside the oars, his head between his arms and his face resting on his knees, turned out to be dead: rigor mortis had already set in when the others discovered him. And so, as he was, they tipped his stiff body overboard into the water where he slowly sank out of sight. That same day, Jerónimo de Aguilar, a deacon from Écija, delirious from thirst and sunstroke, pointed his own sword at himself, and he would have thrust it through his breast if Gonzalo Guerrero had not stopped him.

For almost two weeks they suffered an agonizing thirst and a blazing sun that roasted their innards, clinging to life as best they could upon an increasingly flimsy skiff that was falling to pieces. They drank their own urine and prayed to God to send them rain.

The sea was bleak and rough. At the mercy of the Caribbean currents, several more men died of sunstroke and thirst: their bodies were dropped overboard. To try to escape the madness, Saavedra, the pilot, talked to them about the stars and sought to ease the suffering of those fighting to stay alive.

Finally, at nightfall on the thirteenth day of their crossing, they saw some seagulls flying overhead, and then a great dark smudge on the horizon: some thought it was clouds. Near daybreak, a strong leeward wind began to blow, and as the sun rose into a cloudless sky they saw clearly that it was no mirage, but the coastline of an unknown land.

Thank God! It’s a miracle! A miracle!

Land! Land!

They all snatched up the planks they’d been using as oars and soon landed on the beach. There, between prayers and weeping, they fell fainting to the sand. But their respite was short-lived—almost immediately the exhausted survivors had to begin searching for water and food for their wasted bodies.

It was not very difficult: they soon slaked their thirst with the water from coconuts dropped from the palm trees that grew along the beach. Once revived, they headed to the rocks nearby in search of shellfish or anything at all to eat. Ravenous, they gathered bunches of violet-colored sea grapes and captured three sea turtles clambering to get back to the water.

Next to the bonfire, the charred shells of the turtles swarmed with flies, so numerous they made the air shimmer. It almost seemed as if the turtles were still alive and moving. In contrast, among the vegetation fringing the beach stood a tree flocked with white ibis, all the way up to the branches in the crown. Its green foliage framed the birds’ snowy plumage, but they began to fly away when the men approached.

If we only had a bow … Guerrero muttered.

Chapter 3

captain valdivia! captain valdivia!

I’m here, trying to start the fire. Come closer, Gonzalo Guerrero.

Valdivia was having real trouble kindling a blaze. He was using dead leaves and brush, dried palm fronds, and coconut shells, but the flame repeatedly died down before it finally began to take hold.

But, little by little, they coaxed the fire to life.

Over that way, past those dunes, about half an hour’s walk from the beach, there’s a large freshwater pond. Some men are heading there now. But it might be a good idea to call them back.

The ragged Spanish captain shook his head no.

Let them go. After what we’ve been through, no danger could be worse than dying at sea. He spit through his teeth. His once elegant mustache was matted with his gray beard, now grown back. His cheeks were sunken and hollow. Like all the rest of them, he’d lost a lot of weight and was reduced to skin and bones.

Seeing him next to the now blazing bonfire, Guerrero judged it the right moment to speak. The only other man nearby was Jerónimo de Aguilar, for whom he’d lost all respect: he’d not forgotten how the man had shown such an utter lack of integrity when he’d tried to end his own life aboard the skiff. For a long while the young deacon from Écija had been lost in the pages of his book of hours, his horarium—miraculously saved from the shipwreck, damaged by the saltwater—praying with a fervor Guerrero found irritating.

Aguilar clung to his faith desperately. With great absorption he prayed to that all-powerful God who had at last answered the pleas of the shipwrecked sailors. And it made sense, thought Guerrero, because they were the same pious Spaniards who spread their faith throughout these new lands. Jerónimo looked just as miserable as all the rest of them. He’d been delirious for days, gripped by a fever that left him unable to tell if he was dead or alive.

Haven’t you prayed enough, Aguilar? You were quite the Christian a few days ago when you wanted to kill yourself, openly flouting God’s law. Guerrero made himself comfortable before the fire. The warmth felt good after so many days at sea, after so much suffering.

Stop quarreling; that’s enough already, said Captain Valdivia. In the distance, the two women, Inés and Isabel, were coming back from the pond where they had gone to slake their thirst. Widows now, they had both lost their husbands in the shipwreck. Help me fetch more brush to keep the fire going.

Guerrero didn’t miss his chance.

Well, we made it to land. What’s next, Captain?

For now, we’re alive. Doesn’t that seem like enough, Guerrero?

Our mission was to visit the admiral of the Indies on Hispaniola and find the men Balboa requested. And obtain his support. If we don’t do that, we leave the men from Darién in a difficult situation.

And how can I do that? Maybe you want us to sail off on the scraps of wood from our skiff? I know you were Nicuesa’s man, Guerrero. You’re still bitter about what happened. But remember that your expedition landed in Tierra Firme in order to capture natives and send them as slaves to Hispaniola. And so we did. Those were the Indians on the ship—your cargo. Now they’re at the bottom of the sea …

Like the fifteen thousand gold pesos you were supposed to deliver to the admiral.

Precisely. So you must understand, Guerrero, said Valdivia, his voice tinged with irony, that even if we reach Hispaniola, showing up empty-handed will make our requests rather less welcome. But set your mind at ease. You’ve done your duty. We all have. Only the elements have prevented us from reaching our goal. It’s not the time to dredge up grudges.

At that moment, Aguilar stopped