DISCOVERY & E X P LO R AT I O N

Discovery of the Americas

1492–1800
]

TOM SMITH
JOHN S. BOWMAN and MAURICE ISSERMAN
General Editors
Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800

Copyright © 2005 by Tom Smith

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Smith, Tom.
Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800 / Tom Smith.
p. cm.—(Discovery and exploration)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8160-5262-X
1. America—Discovery and exploration—Juvenile literature. 2. Explorers—
America—History—Juvenile literature. 3. Explorers—America—Biography—
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 To Laraine Smith, my mother,
for a lifetime of keeping the faith in good things

and

To Terry Masai, for reading to me when I was a boy

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

1 COLUMBUS RETURNS TO SPAIN 1

Route of Columbus’s First Voyage, 1492 2
The People Who Greeted Columbus 6
Native Americans Inhabiting Areas First Visited by Columbus, 1492 9

2 THE WORLD IN 1492 10

Europe, ca. 1520 12
Navigating at Sea in 1492 18
Native American Culture Areas, ca. 1492 20
Major Societies of the Americas, ca. 1500 21
Books in the Age of Columbus 23

3 THE FOUR VOYAGES OF COLUMBUS 24

Routes of Columbus’s Second, Third, and Fourth Voyages, 1493–1504 32
The Encomienda 34
Disease in the New World 35

4 A NEW WORLD: 1500–1519 39

The Treaty of Tordesillas 40
Disputed Route of Amerigo Vespucci, 1497–1498 41
Naming America 44
Vasco Núñez de Balboa’s Route to Discovery of the Pacific Ocean,
1513 46
 Route of Juan Ponce de León, 1513 47
Legacy of the Maya 51

5 CORTÉS THE EXPLORER 53

Hernán Cortés’s Routes to and in Mexico, 1519–1521 55
Native Civilizations of Mexico 57

6 PIZARRO, PERU, AND SOUTH AMERICA: 1531–1683 65

The Inca Empire 68
Spanish Expeditions to Peru and Chile, 1524–1542 73
The Legend of El Dorado 76
Francisco de Orellana’s Route down the Amazon River, 1541–1542 78
The Exploration of South America Continues 79

7 CABEZA DE VACA’S EPIC JOURNEY 81

Probable Route of Pánfilo de Narváez’s Expedition, 1528 82
Conquistadores and “Cows”: The American Buffalo 87
Four Interpretations of Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca’s Journey,
1528–1536 90

8 HERNANDO DE SOTO AND “LA FLORIDA” 92

The Requerimiento 94
Hernando de Soto’s Route, 1539–1542, and Luis de Moscoso’s
Route, 1542–1543 96

9 CORONADO AND THE SEVEN CITIES 106

Seven Cities of Cíbola 107
Routes of Francisco Vásquez de Coronado and Secondary Expeditions,
1540–1542 113

10 CHARTING THE COAST OF CALIFORNIA 120

Expeditions along the Pacific Coast, 1542–1603 122
Improvements in Mapmaking 123
Strait of Anian 126
Route of Sebastián Vizcaíno, 1602–1603 130
11 NEW MEXICO AND THE GULF COAST: THE 1600s 132
Routes of Major Expeditions of Juan de Oñate, 1598–1605 137
The Pueblo Revolts 140
René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle’s Failed Expedition,
1684–1687 142
Excavating La Salle’s Ship 143

12 THE ROAD TO CALIFORNIA: THE 1700s 145

Routes of Expeditions in the Southwest and California, 1769–1793 150
Missions Founded by Father Junípero Serra, 1769–1782 151
The Role of California Missions 152

13 CHARTING THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST: THE 1700s 157

Expeditions along the Northern Pacific Coast, 1774–1795 159
The Nootka Convention 166

14 THE NEW WORLD IN 1800 169

Scientists Descend on South America 172
Introduction and Spread of the Horse into North America,
1600–1775 176
Horses Return to the New World 177
The Americas, 1800 181

Glossary 183
Further Information 189
Index 194
 Acknowledgments
{
Every history book stands on the
\ shoulders of people who recorded the
original events or collected firsthand
accounts: in journals, art, or photographs;
through the oral tradition; in government
reports; and in other ways. For their help in
obtaining such material for this book, special
thanks to the staff of the Cheshire Public
Library and the people who keep Connecti-
cut’s interlibrary loan system working so well.
I would like to thank Ed and Elizabeth Frost
Knappman at New England Publishing Asso-
ciates for their much appreciated encourage-
ment and support. I would also like to
especially thank John Bowman, my editor,
whose guidance and patience were essential
to seeing this project through.
xi
 Introduction
{

When I talk about America, I’m talking about the continent. Every-
body who’s born in the continent of America is an American. . . . We
have to deal with the fact that we’re all here—nobody’s going to
leave—and we might as well make the best of it. Let’s play our
strengths as opposed to our differences, with respect, and we’ll get
somewhere.

—Ruben Blades, introducing

Buscando America (Searching for America)

At the end of the 15th century, the
\ lords of Peru’s Inca culture were cer-
tain that the known world stopped
at the borders of their empire, which was
then one of the largest on Earth. At that
same moment, a Genoese mariner set sail on
the other side of the globe on a high-risk,
low-investment business venture. His spon-
sors were rulers of a regional culture whose
self-important sense of their place in the
universe was not radically different from
that of the Inca and other civilizations of
the Western Hemisphere. The mariner—
Christopher Columbus—was unintentionally
about to change life in both hemispheres for-
ever. This book, Discovery of the Americas,
1492–1800, tells the stories of explorers whose
travels made major contributions to these
changes.
The world’s perspective of Columbus’s
voyages has evolved over the centuries. For
several hundred years, historians forgot
Columbus, who went to his grave mistakenly
certain that the lands he had encountered
were extremities of Asia. First contact between
the lands of the Western Hemisphere—the
Americas—and people from other continents
has been ascribed to numerous nationalities,
with proof whose authenticity wildly varies.
Over the years, scholars have offered theories
and evidence of the “discovery of America” by,
among others, Irish, Welsh, Phoenician, Afri-
can, Chinese, and Roman sailors. None of
these possible landings, however, had a signif-
icant effect on world history.
The Norse Vikings did come to North
America from Europe in the 11th century, but
their primary mission was not exploration,

xiii
xiv B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800
their contact with Native peoples of the Amer-
icas had no impact, and the fact that they had
been to the Americas was not known beyond
their homelands. Exchanges between the civ-
ilizations of the Americas, Europe, and Africa
that define the world as it is known today
began with Columbus. The symbolic weight
that comes with that distinction, however, is a
different matter. Once ignored and forgotten,
Columbus’s actual deeds—and misdeeds—
are newly appraised with the arrival of each
centennial anniversary of his first voyage.
In 1892 most residents of the 44 U.S. states
then in existence viewed Columbus as an icon
of national progress. The scene was quite
different 100 years later, when filmmaker/
historian Zvi Dor-Ner and coauthor William
Scheller anticipated the controversy of the
imminent Columbus Quincentennial. In
Columbus and the Age of Discovery, their book
accompanying the 1991 PBS television series,
Dor-Ner and Scheller enumerated various
attitudes with which Columbus is remem-
bered in modern times: He is reviled by Native
Americans, revered by Italian- and Irish-
American Catholics, and viewed in complex
shades of gratitude, revulsion, or indifference
across the Caribbean, Central America, South
America, and Europe.
In the year that followed Dor-Ner and
Scheller’s series and the accompanying book,
the absence of consensus was inescapable.
The city of Genoa, Italy, celebrated its native
son. Native American groups and the city of
Berkeley, California, declared an alternative
holiday, Indigenous Peoples Day—not to be
confused with the annual August 8 United
Nations–sponsored global holiday, Interna-
tional Day of the World’s Indigenous People—
to avoid honoring Columbus’s legacy of
conquest and genocide. While 500 sailing
ships raced from Spain to the Bahamas to
commemorate Columbus’s navigational feats,
Spanish embassies in Latin America tensely
increased security, as Indian groups demon-
strated in Mexico, Ecuador, Bolivia, and
Colombia. New York City hosted two parades:
one celebrating the Spanish lineage of Co-
lumbus’s voyages, another to honor his Italian
heritage. Schoolchildren visited reconstruc-
tions of Columbus’s ships. Italian-American
and American Indian groups confronted
each other in Denver, Colorado. Perhaps no
town in the Americas illustrated the divided
perceptions better than Sandwich, Massachu-
setts, where the board of selectmen unani-
mously approved two resolutions offered by
local residents: one lauding Columbus for
bringing Christianity, immigration, and cul-
tural exchange to the New World, the other
condemning him for bringing war, disease,
and cultural destruction.
While the morality of Columbus’s actions
and his symbolic importance deserve to figure
in appraisals of him as a historical figure, they
are only part of the story. A more illuminating
recent trend instead pays increased, respectful
attention to all implications of the transforma-
tion of the Americas that started in 1492,
allowing a multidisciplinary look at what the
subsequent meeting of cultures has meant to
the modern world. This approach to what has
become known as the Columbian Exchange
opens ways of understanding how the “age of
discovery” influences—and is influenced by—
studies of ethnicity, religion, science, art, tech-
nology, language, and nature. Credit for
initiating this concept goes to Alfred W. Crosby,
whose The Columbian Exchange: Biological
and Cultural Consequences of 1492 (originally
published in 1972) details how the Americas
and Europe were profoundly changed by bio-
logical factors, including transatlantic move-
ment of deadly diseases, as well as the
introduction of crops and animals to lands
where they were previously unknown.

Despite 500 years of intercultural contact,
genuine efforts to understand the ancient cul-
tures of the New World and early exploration
efforts remain in their relative infancy. New
technology and archaeological methods
refresh the ongoing process. Archaeologists
are still unearthing ruins in Central America
and proposing new theories about the myste-
rious decline of the “Golden Age” of Maya civ-
ilization. A team of archaeologists and
explorers announced in 2003 that infrared
aerial photography had revealed the over-
grown but ambitious Inca city of Llactapata,
within sight of the better-known ruins of the
lost Inca city of Machu Picchu. Bone analysis
still attempts to unravel the question of
whether or not syphilis existed in Europe
before the return voyages of Columbus. By
chemically analyzing the mineral content of
the ink of the Vinland map, former Smithson-
ian Institution researcher Jacqueline Olin
tried to determine the authenticity of this
controversial map, whose outlines suggest
that some Europeans were aware of the exis-
tence of North America before Columbus set
sail; although she concluded that the ink
could have been made before 1492, it seems
unlikely that the controversy will end.
Field research continues in the Amazon
River basin, much of which is still unexplored.
The leader of the first European expedition
down the Amazon, Francisco Orellana,
claimed to have seen evidence of thriving
civilizations in remote jungles, which later
researchers considered incapable of sup-
porting such large populations. Recently,
however, soil analysis by separate research
groups from the University of Vermont and
the University of Florida has produced evi-
dence that the massive settlements and road-
ways Orellana claimed to have seen in 1542
did exist. Excavation of these sites has only
recently begun.
Introduction B xv
The modern presentation of such finds is
also more illuminating than ever. An exhibi-
tion devoted to archaeologist Hiram Bing-
ham’s rediscovery of the lost Inca city of
Machu Picchu began three years of traveling
around the United States in 2003. Museum
visitors were treated to more than displays of
obscure artifacts behind panes of glass. The
multimedia exhibit included an interactive
photographic tour and a video explaining
Peruvian geography, the rise and fall of Inca
society, daily life in Machu Picchu, and the
dramatic story of Bingham’s expedition.
Exhibits offered plentiful information about
how archaeological science, ecology, astron-
omy, metallurgy, human biology, and other
sciences relate to understanding Inca life. In
addition to displays of crafts in gold, silver,
ceramic, bone, and textiles, visitors viewed
the tools with which Bingham carried out his
1911 fieldwork. Presentation of knowledge
about the New World has come a long way
since the people of Barcelona crowded their
streets to watch Columbus introduce captive
Taino Indians, parrots, and fishbone masks to
the Spanish monarchs, Ferdinand and
Isabella.
This book, Discovery of the Americas, 1492–
1800, cannot claim to deal in detail with all
these approaches, but it incorporates many of
their concepts and findings, while offering
students a strong basic narrative for under-
standing the “opening of the Americas.” Spe-
cial features of the book include numerous
illustrations, helpful maps, a glossary, and a
section that provides students not only with
nonfiction historical references but also films
and fiction inspired by the age of discovery, as
well as Web sites that place both rare primary
texts and general interpretative matter only a
click away. Sidebar essays give greater detail
to subjects, from the native civilizations of
ancient Mexico to recent events such as the
xvi B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800
Matagorda Bay resurrection of Sieur de La
Salle’s frigate, La Belle.
Perhaps most important of all its special
features, the text continually incorporates
first-person, contemporaneous accounts of
significant events. The arrival of Hernán
Cortés’s army at the island city Tenochtitlán,
later site of Mexico City, is seen through the
eyes of both Aztec witnesses and a Spanish
adventurer. Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca
recounts his great story of survival, walking
from the coastal islands of Texas across the
future border states to western Mexico, on a
journey which began amid one of the most
violent of European expeditions and ended
with Cabeza de Vaca’s transformation into a
stubborn advocate for Native American rights.
Pedro de Casteñeda, who rode with Francisco
Coronado, recounts what happened when
Europeans led by Indian guides first halted at
the rim of the Grand Canyon. The book also
cites the revealing journals of Columbus, the
first explorer to actually write about the first
meeting of Europeans and Americans.
The Europeans who figure in this narrative
are predominantly Spaniards. Explorers from
other states and nations—notably Genoa,
Portugal, Florence, Tyrol, France, England,
and eventually the newly constituted United
States—make appearances by the book’s end-
point in 1800. Yet some students may be sur-
prised to learn that by the time English
settlements were first attempted in Virginia,
Spain controlled and administrated imperial
colonies that encompassed all the Caribbean,
stretched from Peru to the future border
between Mexico and the United States, and
were envisaged by explorers sailing up the
coast of California. When the struggling
Pilgrims of Plymouth colony and the Wampa-
noag tribe were celebrating the first Thanks-
giving in the chilly New England autumn of
1621, an entire century had passed since
Cortés had begun building Mexico City amid
the rubble he had made of Tenochtitlán, by
his own description one of the most beautiful
capitals in the world. The premise of so many
history books that present the story of Amer-
ica as beginning on the Virginia coast or at
Plymouth Rock is replaced in this book by the
history of the first explorations to result in an
ongoing relationship between the Americas
and all of the rest of the world.
All peoples are products of the biases of
their own eras and cultures, but this book
attempts to tell its stories as straightforwardly
as possible. To relate the opening of the Amer-
icas with as little bias as possible requires a
stylistic shift away from both the idealized
history books of 50, 100, or 150 years ago and
the harshly critical texts of more recent “revi-
sionists.” Plain speech can be sufficiently
powerful and accurate when dealing with
figures whose actions, for better or worse,
today seem larger than life. Historians of
bygone eras described adventurers whose
actions now appear grotesque as “valiant” or
“intrepid.” Today, writers are free to state
things in words that, with the added clarity of
hindsight, shine a truer light on the original
events and participants. Historian Michael
Golay’s succinct 2003 description of Her-
nando de Soto as “bold, tough, and homi-
cidal” in North American Exploration, for
example, might not have cleared an editor’s
desk in earlier times, but Golay’s short phrase
reflects more of the harsh complexity of the de
Soto story than an entire chapter of anti-
quated hyperbole.
One of the ironies of the age of discovery is
the scarcity of explorers who profited from
their initiative. For all but a handful, their
achievements could not stave off miserable
ends: neglect, scorn, poverty, murder, impris-
onment, political execution, drowning, or
death from sickness or war. A few managed to

die peacefully but seldom in their own beds.
Eliminating stereotypes of fearless navigators,
proud conquistadores, tireless missionaries,
and an assortment of Native American clichés
hardly drains the drama from American his-
tory. The exploration of the Americas was
crowded with true stories of real physical
stamina, bravery, greed, charity, ingenuity,
almost unimaginable cruelty, cooperation,
treachery, and wonder. Discovery of the Amer-
icas, 1492–1800 was written with the attitude
that the real story is an improvement on
romantic invention.
The word discovery, in this book, is used in
its most literal sense. In reaction to centuries
of Eurocentric historians, who downplayed or
ignored the sophistication of the New World
civilizations awaiting Columbus and explor-
ers who followed in his wake, it became pop-
ular in the late 20th century to argue that
Columbus did not “discover” anything. After
all, goes the reasoning, it is both wrong and
Introduction B xvii
arrogant to claim to have “found” peoples
whose own sense of their existence and land
was never in any doubt. Whatever their faults
as men, however, Columbus and those who
followed him were discoverers—literally, peo-
ple who revealed the existence of things that
were previously unknown, not just to Euro-
peans, but to all the participants in these his-
torical encounters.
In assembling the cast of explorers in these
pages, the mere plunderers and the story of
subsequent colonization have mostly been
passed over in favor of people whose travels
and encounters led to a greater understand-
ing of some aspect of the Americas—geogra-
phy, native societies, natural resources,
cultural and scientific achievements, or what-
ever other treasures their varying motives led
these adventurers to follow. Above all, and as
a starting point, this book offers opportunities
for students to expand their research—to dis-
cover the real America on their own.

Columbus Returns to Spain
The letter in Christopher Columbus’s
\ hands swept away years of rejection
and ridicule by everyone who had
doubted him. The missive, from King Ferdi-
nand II of Aragon and Queen Isabella I of
Castile, the sovereign rulers of Spain, was
addressed to “Don Cristóbal Colón, their
Admiral of the Ocean Sea, Viceroy and Gover-
nor of the Islands that he hath discovered in
the Indies.” Columbus—called Colón in
Spain—had spent most of the past year at sea,
looking for a westward passage from Europe
to Asia. Having sailed among islands he
named “the Indies,” he sent messages to the
Spanish sovereigns as soon as he returned,
announcing that his mission had been a suc-
cess. Without even opening the letter, Colum-
bus knew that his reports had reached his
royal patrons. It also told him that the grand
titles and rewards he had insisted upon
receiving if his voyage was successful were
now his.
When Columbus opened the letter, dated
March 30, 1493, he read that King Ferdinand
and Queen Isabella wanted to see him as
quickly as possible:
{ 1
We have seen your letters and we have
taken much pleasure in learning whereof
you write, and that God gave so good a
result to your labors, and well guided you in
what you commenced, whereof He will be
well served and we also, and our realms
receive so much advantage. It will please
God that, beyond that wherein you serve
Him, you should receive from us many
favors . . . we desire that you come here
forthwith, therefore for our service make
the best haste you can in your coming, so
that you may be timely provided with every-
thing you need; and because as you see the
summer has begun, and you must not delay
in going back there, see if something cannot
be prepared in Seville or in other districts
for your returning to the land which you
have discovered.
There had never been any doubt in Colum-
bus’s own mind that he would reach Asia by
sailing west. By presenting his proof at the
royal court at Barcelona, he would show
everyone that he was neither a dreamer nor a
lunatic.
1
2 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800
THE ROAD TO
BARCELONA
The way to this moment of great personal tri-
umph was years in the making. Even after a
lifetime of sailing the seas off Europe and West
Africa, studying navigational theories, and
poring over maps had convinced the 41-year-
old mariner that reaching “the Indies” was
possible, Columbus’s dream had been stalled
by years of fruitless pleading with those who
had the power to help. The leaders of Portugal,
France, and England rejected his proposals.
The Spanish monarchs rejected him twice
over a period of eight years before giving him
the meager resources with which he accom-
plished his feat.
At sea he had endured weeks of worry over
restless crews, who could mutiny at any
moment and demand a return to Spain. His
flagship, the Santa Maria, had been wrecked
and abandoned. Violent winter storms nearly
sent his remaining two small ships to the bot-
tom of the Atlantic Ocean on the voyage home.
His men had been arrested and briefly
detained by overzealous Portuguese authori-

Christopher Columbus landed on the islands of
Cuba, Hispaniola (now Haiti and the Dominican
Republic), San Salvador, and Guadeloupe in late
1492. This woodcut appeared in a book about
Columbus’s voyage to the Americas published in
1494. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs
Division [LC-USZC4-4806])
ties in the Azores. Then, stopping in Portugal
while homeward bound for Spain, Columbus
himself had escaped the plotting of Portuguese
courtiers who wanted their king to have the
mariner killed to prevent news of his success
from becoming known. Against tremendous
odds, Columbus was now safely in Spain,
eagerly awaiting the moment when he could
describe his discoveries to the king and queen.
Columbus Returns to Spain B 3
A FACE IN THE CROWD
When Columbus and his entourage rode
through the streets of Barcelona on April 20,
1493, one of the curious onlookers was 18-
year-old Bartolomé de Las Casas. The young
man’s father would sail with Columbus when
the admiral returned to “the Indies.” Bar-
tolomé himself would later immigrate to Cuba
to work as a planter before becoming the first
priest ordained in the Western Hemisphere,
an important historian, and an impassioned
defender of the rights of Native Americans,
whose cruel mistreatment at the hands of his
countrymen outraged him.
Las Casas continued to observe Columbus
closely over the years and would become close
to the admiral’s brothers and sons, relation-
ships that helped him compile his History of
the Indies. By the time the book was com-
pleted more than 70 years later—it would not
be commercially published for another 300
years—he had personally known many
famous (and infamous) explorers: Hernán
Cortés, Vasco Núñez de Balboa, Juan Ponce de
León, Pánfilo de Narváez, Ferdinand Magel-
lan, and other figures who played great and
small parts in Spain’s age of discovery. Las
Casas would find much to both admire and
criticize in Christopher Columbus.
On that day in 1493, however, young Las
Casas watched the strange procession passing
by. “The entire city came out, so that there was
not room for all the people in the streets,” he
wrote. “All wondered to see that venerable
person who was said to have discovered
another world; to see the Indians, parrots,
jewels, and gold things he had discovered.”
The common people of Barcelona and
Spanish nobility alike watched, Las Casas’s
account continued, as Columbus reached a
canopied platform that the sovereigns had
ordered built to receive him in full public view.
4 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800

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

Ferdinand and Isabella arrived, surrounded by
noblemen and religious officials. Columbus
was motioned toward the royal thrones.
Columbus kneeled and kissed their hands as a
sign of respect. The king and queen ordered
that a chair be brought out so that Columbus
could sit before them, which was a great honor.
The admiral presented the fascinated court
with proof that could only have come from
exotic lands. “Don Christopher Columbus,”
remembered Las Casas, “carried very beautiful
red-tinged green parrots, and guaycas, which
were masks made of a collection of fishbones
arranged like pearl-seed, and some belts of the
same material, fashioned with admirable
craftsmanship; also a great quantity and variety
of very fine gold, and many other things never
before seen or heard of in Spain.”
Columbus described the wide bays and
forested mountains he had found in the
Indies, islands that would one day be named
the Bahamas, Cuba, and Hispaniola (home to
the nations of Haiti and the Dominican
Republic). He handed his royal patrons jew-
elry and nuggets he had brought back from his
travels. “He asserted,” Las Casas wrote, “the
 Columbus Returns to Spain B 5

infinite amount of gold shown in those lands
and his confidence that it would restore the
royal treasury—as if he had already collected
it and deposited it under his keys. And like-
wise what was of greater weight and a rare
treasure, he described the multitude, simplic-
ity, mildness, nakedness, and certain customs
of their peoples, and their fit disposition and
capability . . . for being led to our holy faith.”
To prove the gentle nature of the Taino
people of whom he spoke, Columbus had kid-
napped at least 20 from their home islands
and brought them to Spain, intending to teach
them Spanish and use them as interpreters.
Most had died during the difficult voyage.
Seven survivors, now baptized, were pre-
sented to the court. Months earlier, these
same Taino men had stood on faraway
beaches, marveling at the strange beards,
heavy garments, and pale skin of the tall men
who had appeared in their midst. Now, amid
the elaborate pageantry of the court at
Barcelona, the short, beardless Taino were the
fascinating center of attention.

Some of the Native peoples Columbus encountered on his voyage were the Taino, a few of whom he
captured and brought back to Spain with him to present to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella. In this
early 20th-century photograph, some Taino sit near a typical hut located on the island of Puerto Rico.
(Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-D4-16745])
6 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800

\
The People Who Greeted Columbus =
The first people Columbus met in the Americas were Taino, one of a group of
Caribbean tribes linked by their common use of the Arawak language. Arawak
speakers lived throughout the Caribbean, from the southern tip of Florida to
islands off the northern coast of South America. Numerous words derived from
Arawak survive in usage today, including canoe, tobacco, hammock, iguana,
and Haiti. The Arawak-speaking tribes depended mainly on fishing and farming
for survival. Their peaceful society made them easily exploitable by Spanish
colonists, who replaced their previous major threat, the Carib, a people from
neighboring islands.
The Carib were a seagoing tribe from the Lesser Antilles island chain
(which includes the Leeward Islands, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, and
islands off the northern coast
of Venezuela). A branch of
the tribe also lived on the
northeastern coastline of
South America. The words
cannibal and Caribbean are
both derived from Arawak
words describing the Carib,
who raided Arawak communi-
ties. Scholars today debate
whether Taino accusations
that the Carib were cannibals
are historically accurate or
were invented by Columbus
in his journals.
Columbus’s men clashed
with the Carib while exploring
the waters surrounding St.
Croix. As a declaration of
friendship during his first voy-
age, Columbus promised the
Taino of Hispaniola that the
sovereigns of Spain would pro-
tect them by ordering the Carib
destroyed. Within 100 years, One of the Native peoples Columbus
however, both the Arawak and encountered on his voyages were the Carib,
Carib cultures had been anni- who lived on the islands of the Lesser Antilles.
hilated by European diseases, This 1880s engraving depicts a Carib man
forced labor, and wars lost to holding a bow and arrows. (Library of Congress,
Spanish colonists. Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-108521])
 Columbus Returns to Spain B 7

dad, the outpost he had left on the northern

DREAMS AND NIGHTMARES
OF A NEW WORLD
At the same moment Columbus was regaling
the royal court with descriptions of beautiful
islands full of gold and souls waiting to be bap-
tized, a nightmare was unfolding at La Navi-
coast of Haiti. After the wrecking of the Santa
Maria, Columbus had recruited 39 volunteers
and instructed them to build a colony. When
Columbus sailed for Spain to report his discov-
eries, the colonists busied themselves brutaliz-
ing the Taino, ordering them to provide the

Columbus’s expedition to the Americas in 1492 included the Santa Maria, his flagship; the Niña, and the Pinta.
Replicas of all three ships were built for the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. The replica of the Santa Maria
is shown in this 1893 photograph. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-D4-21178])
8 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800
tiny outpost with increasingly more food and
gold. The colonists, who miscalculated the
limits to which the peaceful Taino would
endure such behavior, would pay for this arro-
gance with their lives.
In Barcelona on the day of Columbus’s
arrival at the Spanish court, however, the
atmosphere hummed with rejoicing and
anticipation of great things to come. The
monarchs finished listening to their guest’s
tales of the Indies and the singers of the royal
chapel were signaled to chant the Christian
hymn Te Deum. Las Casas reported that there
were tears in the eyes of the monarchs,
Columbus, and others present.
After the ceremony, Columbus—a Genoese
merchant’s son, now honored by the rulers of
Spain’s growing empire—was shown to his
lodgings. The admiral was thinking ahead. He
was ready to set sail again, intent on following
the islands he had discovered to the court of
the Grand Khan of China or to the imperial
palaces of Japan. Flushed with glory and wary
of competitors, Columbus was already plan-
ning to outfit a fresh expedition and again set
sail toward the western horizon.
A NEW WORLD
By the time Columbus set sail a second time,
his first voyage was common knowledge
throughout Spain. Gossip and rumor helped
spread the news. Educated Italians and Ger-
mans living in Portugal and Spain wrote to
their friends and families at home, spreading
details of the voyage across southern Europe
with surprising speed. Columbus’s initial writ-
ten report to Ferdinand and Isabella, later
known as his “Letter on the First Voyage,”
reached Barcelona so quickly that it was
printed and distributed publicly even before
Columbus’s arrival at court. Gradually, copies
of his report were seen throughout Europe.
European intellectuals who were fasci-
nated by Columbus’s first voyage believed, as
he did, that the islands he had reached lay
somewhere off the eastern shores of Asia,
then sometimes called the “antipodes” (from
the Greek words meaning “opposing feet,”
reflecting the notion that the feet of the peo-
ple inhabiting the opposite parts of the Earth
would come up against each other). Such
scholars included Queen Isabella’s chaplain,
an Italian priest and perceptive geographer
named Pietro Martire d’Anghiera. Better
known as Peter Martyr, he witnessed Colum-
bus’s return to Spain in 1492 and was both
fascinated by and skeptical of the admiral’s
grand claims. Reflecting the current misper-
ceptions about the size of the Earth, political
tensions between Spain and Portugal, and a
sense of what the discovery might mean,
Martyr wrote:
A certain Colonus [Columbus] has sailed to
the western antipodes, even to the Indian
coast, as he believes. He has discovered
many islands which are thought to be those
of which mention is made by cosmogra-
phers, beyond the eastern ocean and adja-
cent to India. I do not wholly deny this,
although the size of the globe seems to sug-
gest otherwise, for there are not wanting
those who think the Indian coast to be a
short distance from the end of Spain. . . .
Enough for us that the hidden half of the
globe is brought to light, and the Por-
tuguese daily go farther and farther beyond
the equator. Thus shores hitherto unknown
will soon become accessible.
Peter Martyr had no way of knowing what
future landings on and departures from those
“shores hitherto unknown” would mean to the
course of human history. His skepticism about
Columbus’s claims faded as he studied the

western voyages and personally met explorers
like Vasco Núñez de Balboa and renowned
pilot Antón de Alaminos. Opportunities to
meet such participants allowed Martyr broad
access to information about the civilizations
of the Americas. Writing extensively after
1511, he spread his findings throughout
Europe. In 1530, four years after his death, his
collected writings were published in Latin
under the title De Orbe Novo—“The New
World”—thus coining a phrase used by future
generations to describe the Western Hemi-
sphere. By then, Europeans, although they
had at first been slow to abandon the idea that
Columbus Returns to Spain B 9
lands discovered by Columbus were part of
Asia—were accepting that the Americas were
continents distinct from Asia.
This was a revelation that Columbus would
never share. He once wrote in his journal that
he had discovered “a very great continent
which until today has been unknown”—and
even referred to it as “an Other World”—but he
remained convinced that he could find a land-
mass linking it to China. Many years would
pass before anyone on either side of the
Atlantic Ocean would realize how wrong he
was, yet how important his mistake would
become.
{ 2
The World in 1492
In 1492, as Christopher Columbus
\ regaled the Spanish court with tales of
primitive islands brimming with gold
and, as he said in his original letter to the king,
inhabitants who “might conceive affection for
us and, more than that, become Christians,”
he had no idea that the world he had stum-
bled across in his quest to reach Asia was as
complex as the continent from which he had
set forth. The societies of the Western Hemi-
sphere were as varied as the highly structured
Aztec Empire Hernán Cortés would soon find
dominating Mexico and the primitive tribes
with whom Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca
would soon wander naked along the Texas
coast. The peaceful Taino people who greeted
Columbus had little knowledge of weaponry,
while the powerful Inca empire of Peru—
larger than the empire of Spain—would soon
be shaken by a civil war as bloody as the dev-
astating European feudal and religious con-
flicts of the same era. Although the Maya
culture of Central America had passed its
prime, the Maya’s mathematical genius and
architectural achievements rivaled those of
any world culture.
10
EUROPEANS TAKE
TO THE SEA
While Columbus was wrong to assume that he
had discovered an uncomplicated paradise, at
that moment in world history a combination
of politics, religion, and technology increased
the chance that ships flying flags of Spanish
royalty would be the first to open a busy route
between Europe and the Americas.
The Vikings had come to North America in
the 11th century, but their primary mission
was not exploration, their contact with Native
peoples of the Americas had no impact, and
the fact that they had been to the Americas
was not known beyond their homelands (for
full coverage of this, see the Exploration in the
World of the Middle Ages volume).
In 1492 no other region of the world was as
actively engaged in exploration by sea as were
the powers along Europe’s Mediterranean
coast. China, whose skilled mariners and
sturdy ships had journeyed to Arabia and the
coast of East Africa, had withdrawn from long-
distance voyaging by imperial order in the
early 1400s. Arab mariners had settled into a
 The World in 1492 B 11

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

profitable routine of seasonal travel to trading
ports in India and the South China Sea. By
1492 many Asians and Arabians were well
aware of Europe because of long-standing
overland contacts. However, they had little
interest in making any sea voyages beyond
their immediate regions for a variety of politi-
cal and religious reasons, as well as the fact
that Asian and Arabian trade routes were
already prosperous and not in need of further
development. Meanwhile, the inhabitants of
the Western Hemisphere—what would soon
become known as the Americas—remained
completely unknown to the rest of the world.
Similarly, the rest of the world was unknown
to the people of the Americas. A few Native
American cultures, such as the Maya and the
Inca, possessed vessels used for coastal trade,
but none capable of crossing oceans. Believ-
ing that they dominated the center of the
world, the most advanced Native American
civilizations had never had contact with cul-
tures far beyond the borders of their own
empires. This was about to change.
Europeans had read descriptions of the
empires and wealth of Asia in Venetian
12 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800
adventurer Marco Polo’s Description of the
World (1298), but most readers—with the
notable exception of Columbus—considered
Polo’s stories about China and Japan to be
nothing more than entertaining fantasies.
Even as the merchants of the city-states of
northern Italy scoffed at Polo, their cities were
home to the best schools of maritime chart-
making of the time. Evaluating geographical
exploration was a serious scholarly pursuit.
The ranks of Italian-born explorers of the late
1400s and 1500s included Columbus, Amerigo
Vespucci, John Cabot (Giovanni Caboto), and
Giovanni da Verrazano. Yet with the exception
of Verrazano, who was backed by France, all of
these navigators sailed for Spain.
Their crews came mostly from Portugal or
Spain, whose seaports offered an abundant
supply of experienced sailors and pilots. Por-
tuguese captains trained under the patronage
of Prince Henry the Navigator, who founded
an important institute of navigational and
geographical studies at Sagres in southwest-
ern Portugal. Mariners trained at Sagres made
increasingly determined attempts to explore
southward along the coast of West Africa in
the 1400s.
Prince Henry’s mariners voyaged west to
Madeira, the Azores, and the Canary Islands,
transforming the neglected Atlantic islands into
Portuguese outposts. Overcoming superstition
and contrary ocean currents by the mid-1400s,
repeated voyages ordered by Prince Henry
probed the West African coastline, establishing
colonies, starting the European trade in African
slaves that would later spread to the Americas,
 The World in 1492 B 13

and occasionally exploring inland. In Decem-
ber 1488 a small fleet led by Portuguese captain
Bartholomeu Dias returned to Lisbon with
news that it had rounded what would become
known as the Cape of Good Hope, the southern
tip of Africa. Dias’s voyage, which ended Por-
tuguese royal interest in Columbus’s proposal
to sail west to Asia, confirmed that African
coastal waters could be used as a route to the
Indian Ocean and beyond. Domestic political
turmoil prevented Spain from pursuing seago-
ing exploration as avidly as the kingdom of Por-
tugal. In 1492, however, the situation changed
drastically.
SPAIN IN 1492
In 1492 Spain was not a nation in the modern
sense, but its kingdoms and provinces were
more closely allied than they had been in

Instructor of many Portuguese explorers, Prince Henry the Navigator sent 20 ships to explore the Atlantic
coast of Morocco before one finally succeeded. (National Archives of Canada)
14 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800

kingdom, increasing a desire to spread the

Christian religion.
Imperial and religious policy were insepa-
rable in much of Europe in this era. The
rulers of Spain felt it was their religious duty
to convert the inhabitants of lands where
Christianity was not the predominant reli-
gion—or to conquer such lands if the inhab-
itants resisted. Politically, this made 1492 a
perfect year for Columbus to ask the court of
Ferdinand and Isabella for the resources nec-
essary to reach parts of the world where
Christianity might be preached for the first
time.
The merchants of Spain’s commercial
ports were prosperous and open to investing
At various times, King Ferdinand ruled Sicily,
Naples, Castile, and León (the latter two jointly with
Isabella). In 1492, in addition to Columbus’s first
voyage, which Ferdinand and Isabella sponsored,
the rulers conquered the only region of Spain not
under their control, thereby unifying the country.
(Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division
[LC-USZ61-253])

centuries. This was due to the 1469 marriage

of Isabella I of Castille and Ferdinand II of
Aragon, who were determined to unite and
strengthen the Spanish empire. Since the
early 700s, much of Spain had fallen under
the rule of the Moors, North African Muslims;
by the late 1200s, however, the Moors’ king-
dom was reduced to southern Spain. On Jan-
uary 2, 1492, the forces of Ferdinand and
Isabella succeeded in capturing the city of
Granada in southern Spain. This marked the
end of the Reconquista (Reconquest), the
nearly 800-year-old struggle by Spanish
Christians and Jews to expel the Muslim
Moors from Spain. The Spanish victory left a
large number of Spanish soldiers unem- Queen Isabella ruled jointly with Ferdinand until
ployed and available for new conquests. It her death in 1504. (Library of Congress, Prints and
also spread religious fervor throughout the Photographs Division [LC-USZ61-252])
 The World in 1492 B 15

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

in overseas enterprises. They already traded
in northern African countries, France, and
England, but were prevented by treaty with
Portugal from trading anywhere on the long
West African coast. Commercial developers
and investors from Columbus’s home state of
Genoa and other European countries such as
Germany were also active in Spain. Like all
European merchants, they stood to benefit
by finding a way to purchase valuable spices
and silk directly from Asian suppliers, at
cheaper prices than those controlled by the
Arab traders who sold transported goods to
Europeans in Egyptian markets. In 1492 the
Portuguese crown was preoccupied with
finding such a route by rounding Africa into
the Indian Ocean and had no interest in a
dreamer like Columbus.
SHIPS AND MAPS
At the end of the 1400s, the port cities of both
Spain and Portugal had many experienced
shipbuilders. One recent invention that
16 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800

Mapmaking in the Mediterranean world changed drastically during the 13th century, resulting in the portolan
chart. The world map shown here was drawn as part of the portolan atlas created by Battista Agnese in
Venice between 1536 and 1564. (Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division)
 The World in 1492 B 17

aided mariners of both countries was the

caravel, a small ship with three short masts.
A caravel’s lateen (triangular) sails enabled it
to navigate against the wind, which helped
Portuguese mariners to explore the African
coast with the certainty that contrary winds
would not prevent them from returning
home. Caravels were cheaper to build and
more maneuverable than the nao, a larger
ship whose less adaptable square-rigged
sails made it useful mostly for sailing with
the wind. Columbus’s flagship, the Santa
Maria, was a nao; the Niña and the Pinta
were caravels.
Portugal’s capital, Lisbon, was also home
to some of the best mapmakers in Europe.
Columbus and his brother Bartolomé worked
in a Lisbon cartographer’s office when they
were young men. Mariners navigated along
coastlines using charts called portolans
(from the Italian portolani, meaning “sailing
directions”), which were drawn to scale and
showed the location of ports, harbors, river
mouths, and other landmarks visible from
the sea. These charts improved as the accu-
mulating observations of mariners were
included. Portolans, however, did not depict
latitude and longitude.
In 1884 an international convention fixed
the location of the meridian—a north-south
line depicting a standard baseline of zero
longitude—at Greenwich, England. Before
then, cartographers were free to draw the
meridian wherever they liked. First-century
A.D. Greek astronomer/geographer Ptolemy
estimated it to be near the Canary Islands. In
1492 its location depended on the national-
ity of the mapmaker. Most Portuguese car-
tographers drew its line through Prince
Henry the Navigator’s headquarters at Sagres
in southwestern Portugal. Even though its
location would not be precisely standardized
on all maps for nearly another 400 years,
comparing the meridian and other lines to
18 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800

\
Navigating at Sea in 1492 =

Celestial navigation—using the stars, including the Sun, to determine lati-

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

landmarks on sea maps enabled navigators
to calculate location and direction with
increasing accuracy.
THE SIZE OF THE EARTH
Contrary to the fable that geographers of
Columbus’s time thought the Earth was flat,
the spherical shape of the globe was a gener-
ally accepted fact in 1492, the same year the
first known globe of the Earth was made by
German cartographer Martin Behaim (signifi-
cantly, Behaim’s globe reflected the miscon-
ceptions of his time and did not include the
Americas). Most of the Earth—roughly 70 per-
cent—is covered with water. In medieval
times, however, European scholars and map-
makers thought the reverse was true. This
assumption was based upon an obscure bibli-
cal passage that declared that only one-sev-
enth of the Earth was covered with seas. The
passage appears in one of a group of chapters
sometimes called the apochrypha, whose dis-
puted origins have caused them to be omitted
from various editions of the Bible over the
centuries. The passage was legitimate to
Columbus, who focused on the description of
God’s creation of the Earth:
 The World in 1492 B 19

far east or west their ships

had traveled by multiplying
their rate of speed by the pas-
sage of time. A floating log
attached to a knotted rope
would be thrown from the
stern or rear of the ship. The
navigator would time the
unspooling of the rope with a
sandglass and count the
number of knots in the rope
(this was the origin of using
the word knots to describe
the speed of ships). After fac-
toring in changes of direction
with the help of a compass,
an estimate could be made of
how far the ship had traveled
in a day.
Navigating with these sys-
tems was never completely
accurate. They were, however,
the best methods technology This astrolabe, an instrument used to determine
had to offer navigators such latitude, dates to the early 17th century.
as Columbus in 1492. (National Archives of Canada)

Upon the third day thou didst command
that the waters should be gathered in
the seventh part of the earth: six parts
hast thou dried up, and kept them, to the
intent that of these some being planted of
God and tilled might serve thee. (2 Esdras
6:42)
Consequently, most of the globe must be
land. This misapprehension led Christopher
Columbus to optimistically calculate that the
Earth was much smaller than it is and that
the westward distance from Europe to Asia
was relatively short.
The landmasses that geographers mistak-
enly believed to cover six-sevenths of the
Earth were divided by rivers and “the ocean
sea,” a single ocean. The modern concept of
continents did not exist. The three major
landmasses of the known world consisted of
Africa, Asia, and Europe, as well as a profu-
sion of islands. The westernmost of these
islands in the North Atlantic Ocean—the
Canaries, the Azores, and Madeira—were
known to European mariners. Portugal was
still colonizing the Canary Islands in 1492,
developing them into the important supply
post they would become for transatlantic
22 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800

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

voyages. All of Columbus’s voyages to the
Americas set forth from the Canary Islands
after leaving Spain.
IMAGINARY KINGDOMS
Not every location on maps created in Europe
during the Middle Ages was drawn from first-
hand knowledge. Some grew from religious
mythology. After the Muslim Moors’ invasion
of the Iberian Peninsula in A.D. 714, it was said
that seven Catholic Portuguese bishops sailed
west to a large island, where they founded a
prosperous Christian utopia. This mythical
island, which appeared due west of Portugal
on some nautical maps of the time, was
named Antilia (“opposite island”).
Antilia would lend its name to the islands
discovered by Columbus in the Caribbean
Sea. The Greater Antilles include the largest
islands (Cuba, Jamaica, Hispaniola, and
Puerto Rico), while the Lesser Antilles include
smaller islands lined south from the Virgin
Islands to Grenada. As late as 1540, the search
for Antilia would obsess Francisco Vásquez de
Coronado’s expedition on the North American
mainland.
Many geographers and mariners believed
that such lands existed, even when they were
not represented on maps. Some European
 The World in 1492 B 23

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

explorers would seek the kingdom of Prester
John, a legendary Christian priest who was
thought to govern a wealthy empire some-
where in Asia or Africa. Prester John and islands
like Antilia were myths, but in 1492 they were
considered to be real by European explorers,
including Columbus, who hoped to find them.
To his surprise—and, ironically, his disappoint-
ment—Columbus would reach neither these
imaginary kingdoms nor the great empires of
Asia. Instead he encountered a hemisphere
whose existence was a complete surprise to the
best geographers of his time, changing long-
held views of the world that Middle Eastern,
African, and European mapmakers and sailors
had shared for centuries. The new sea routes
opened by his voyages would change history
on both sides of the ocean forever.
{ 3
The Four Voyages of
Columbus
Like a surprising number of explorers
\ of his time, Christopher Columbus
died forgotten by the public and
ignored by those who benefited most from his
voyages of discovery. Luckily, his travels were
documented through his shipboard logs from
his first and third voyages and related docu-
ments, even though many of the original man-
uscripts are lost. In preparing a biography
published in Italy in 1571, his son Ferdinand
used the journals in which Columbus
described his first voyage to Ferdinand and
Isabella, the king and queen of Spain. Domini-
can missionary and historian Father Bartolomé
de Las Casas summarized the text of the jour-
nals in his Historia de las Indias (History of the
Indies). Las Casas’s book, however, remained
unpublished until 1875, three centuries after
his death. Despite the flawed reprinting of the
surviving journals, they reflect Columbus’s
travels and his attitudes about the lands he
explored.
24
SAILOR FROM GENOA
Cristoforo Colombo is the actual birth name
of the navigator the English-speaking world
knows as Christopher Columbus. In Spain,
whose monarchs funded his voyages to the
Americas, he was called Cristóbal Colón. He
was born in 1451 in Genoa, a powerful city-
state that did not formally become part of the
nation of Italy until 1861. In Columbus’s time,
Genoa was one of the most important finan-
cial centers in Europe. Columbus was born
into a family of woolen merchants. By the time
he was a young man, however, he had become
an experienced mariner who had traveled
throughout the Mediterranean, south to West
Africa, and north as far as England, Ireland,
and the waters off Iceland. Some people have
claimed that Columbus learned of the exis-
tence of the New World from Icelanders,
descendants of the Vikings who had voyaged
to Newfoundland about the year 1000, but
most scholars do not accept this theory.

Sebastiano del Piombo completed this portrait,
believed to be of Columbus in 1519, 14 years after
the explorer’s death. (Library of Congress, Prints and
Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-103980])
The possibility that Asia could be reached
by sailing west was accepted by some geogra-
phers of the era, but none of the European
maritime powers were willing to support such a
risky and potentially dangerous enterprise. No
one knows how Columbus became obsessed
with his belief that such a voyage was possible.
By the time he was commanding ships, he had
plenty of practical experience at sea and access
to the charts of his late father-in-law
Bartholomew Perestrello, a seasoned navigator.
Columbus corresponded directly with Paulo
Toscanelli, a respected Florentine scholar who
believed that Asia could be reached by sailing
The Four Voyages of Columbus B 25
west. Toscanelli had provided the king of Portu-
gal with a world map upon which an ocean
separated the coasts of Europe and Asia. The
map, however, depicted nothing but open sea
where the Americas lie and greatly underesti-
mated the distance between the Canary Islands
and Japan, which Toscanelli computed to be
only 3,000 nautical miles, far less than the
actual 10,600-mile distance.
Columbus’s own calculations owed less to
Toscanelli than to French cardinal Pierre
d’Ailly, author of a geographical work called
Imago Mundi (Image of the world), which
stated with certainty that Spain and India
were within sailing distance of each other. In
d’Ailly’s treatise Columbus found the calcula-
tions of the ninth-century Arab astronomer
Al-Farghani, also called Alfraganus. Columbus
misinterpreted Al-Farghani’s calculation that
each degree of latitude at the equator was
approximately 66 nautical miles (today the
figure is computed to be 60 miles). Thinking
the figure to be only 45 miles per degree,
Columbus calculated the distance between
Japan and Europe to be a mere 2,400 nautical
miles. Although this was a significant distance
to mariners of the era, Columbus’s belief that
he would encounter islands along the way
made it seem worth the risk.
All 15th-century geographers underesti-
mated the circumference of the Earth. Colum-
bus’s faulty calculations determined that the
Earth was only 25 percent of its actual size.
Had he not been so wrong, believing the globe
to be so much smaller than it actually is, it is
unlikely he could have convinced anyone to
fund his voyage.
SEARCHING FOR A PATRON
Columbus endured ridicule and waited for
years before he found a sponsor for his first
26 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800
Columbus required financial support to undertake
his journeys to the Americas. Ferdinand and
Isabella provided some of that support, allowing
the crew to have ample supplies, such as
Columbus’s armor, shown in 19th-century
photograph. (Library of Congress, Prints and
Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-108633])
voyage. He first applied unsuccessfully for
backing to João II, king of Portugal. Columbus
next journeyed to Spain, where in 1486 he
gained an audience with the king and queen,
Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile.
Instead of giving him backing for a voyage,
Queen Isabella placed Columbus on a retainer
and referred his proposal to a group of schol-
ars called the Talavera Commission, after its
chairman, Fray Hernando de Talavera, the
queen’s confessor. After several years of study,
the Talavera Commission told the Spanish
sovereigns, “We can find no justification for
their Highnesses’ supporting a project that
rests on extremely weak foundations and
appears impossible to translate into reality.”
In April 1492 Columbus renewed his
appeal and was successful. Ferdinand and
Isabella signed two “capitulations,” or agree-
ments, detailing what royal support Colum-
bus would receive and the rewards he could
expect if his mission was successful. The mon-
archs promised to “appoint the said Christo-
pher Columbus their Admiral in those Islands
and Mainlands which by his labor and indus-
try shall be discovered or acquired in the said
Ocean Seas during his life.” He would also be
appointed governor of any lands he discov-
ered. These rights would be passed on to his
heirs at the time of his death.
After expenses were reimbursed, Colum-
bus would be entitled to one-tenth of any
“Merchandise whatsoever, whether Pearls,
Precious Stones, Gold, Silver, Spiceries, and
other Things,” which might be “bought,
bartered, found, acquired, or obtained within
the limits of the said Admiralty.” The rest
would belong to the Spanish Crown.
A royal decree required the people of the
southern Spanish seaport of Palos to furnish
Columbus with two caravels, the Pinta and
the Niña. The two ships were respectively cap-
tained by two brothers, Martín Alonso Pinzón
and Vicente Yáñez Pinzón. For his flagship,
Columbus chartered a larger ship, the Santa
Maria, owned and commanded by Juan de la
Cosa who, like others among the crew mem-
bers, would sail on important future voyages.
All but four of the 90 officers, sailors, and
apprentices in the fleet were Spaniards.
 The Four Voyages of Columbus B 27

bus had calculated they would land at Japan.

FIRST VOYAGE
Columbus’s tiny fleet set sail from Palos on
August 3, 1492. After pausing to pick up sup-
plies in the Canary Islands, they headed into
unfamiliar Atlantic waters on September 6.
Most sea voyages of the era were relatively
short. As the days at sea became weeks, the
men under Columbus’s command became
uneasy. He began to keep two logbooks: In
one, he overestimated the expedition’s
progress to calm the nerves of the crew, while
in the other, he secretly recorded their actual
progress. The ships and their restless sailors
passed far beyond the point at which Colum-
They were somewhat heartened by signs that
land must be somewhere within reach, when
migrating birds passed overhead and objects
like leaves and tree branches floated past.
On the night of October 11, a light was
briefly sighted in the distance. The men’s
hearts sank when it disappeared. At 2 A.M.,
more than a month after leaving the Canary
Islands, sailor Rodrigo de Triana (also known
as Juan Rodríguez Bermejo) sighted a distant
small island by moonlight and shouted out
the news.
At daylight Columbus and the other cap-
tains went ashore. Columbus immediately

In 1492 Columbus sailed from the port town of Palos, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean and shown in a
19th-century engraving. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-106031])
28 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800
claimed the land for Spain. Inhabitants of the
island, who did not understand Columbus’s
declaration that they were now Spanish sub-
jects, gathered on the beach, and the first awk-
ward communication between Europeans
The Native peoples Columbus encountered while
on his initial voyage included both the Taino and
the Carib. Columbus described the Taino as a
peaceful people and believed their claims that
the Carib were vicious and prone to aggression.
This 1880s engraving is of a Carib woman.
(Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division
[LC-USZ62-108522])
and the people of the Americas began.
Columbus offered trinkets such as beads,
hawks’ bells, and red caps. The islanders
replied with gifts of “skeins of spun cotton,
and parrots, and darts” and told the Spaniards
that their island was called Guanahaní.
Columbus gave it the name San Salvador
(Holy Savior). Despite later controversy over
which island in the Bahamas group Columbus
first encountered, it is generally agreed that it
was the island that still bears the name San
Salvador.
The people of the island were Arawak-
speaking Taino. All were “naked as their moth-
ers bore them,” Columbus wrote, noting that
they were physically attractive and “the color
of the Canary Islanders, neither black nor
white.” Some wore ornamental body paint.
Others showed battle scars. When Columbus
inquired in sign language about the wounds,
the Taino replied that the scars were the result
of fighting off slaving raids from neighboring
islands. Trying to please his royal sponsors,
Columbus wrote:
They ought to be good servants and of good
skill, for I see that they repeat very quickly
what was said to them. I believe that they
would easily be made Christians, because it
seemed to me that they belonged to no reli-
gion. I, please Our Lord, will carry off six of
them at my departure to your Highnesses,
that they may learn to speak [Spanish].
Although he clearly had not reached a
wealthy Asian empire, Columbus noticed the
Taino custom of wearing small gold nose pen-
dants. Upon leaving Guanahaní, Columbus
determined to search for gold and planned his
route accordingly.
[T]hose whom I captured on the Island of
San Salvador told me that there they wore

very big bracelets of gold on their legs and
arms. I well believed that all they said was
humbug in order to escape. However, it was
my wish to bypass no island without taking
possession.
Despite having kidnapped his Taino
guides, relations between Columbus’s expedi-
tion and the people of each Bahamian island
he visited were peaceful and friendly. Colum-
bus was eager to impress his Spanish sponsors
of how they might profit from his finds, but his
journals also reflect his appreciation of the
natural beauty of his discoveries. Of one small
island, for example, he wrote:
[T]he large groves are very green. Here are
some great lagoons, and around them, on
the banks, the verdure is marvellous; and
round about there is a marvellous amount
of woodland, the grass like April in Andalu-
sia, and the singing of the little birds such
that it would seem that man would never
wish to leave here; and the flocks of parrots
obscured the sun. . . . Furthermore—it has
trees of a thousand kinds, and all have their
kinds of fruit, and all so fragrant.
The Taino told Columbus of a large island
they called “Colba.” From their descriptions,
Columbus was sure that it must be Japan—in
fact, it was the island of Cuba—and set sail in
its direction. The expedition did not find
Asians or much gold when it reached Cuba,
but Europeans who went ashore did notice
Taino men and women inhaling smoke from
lit bundles of “herbs,” called tobaccos. This
custom of smoking tobacco, which was then
unknown outside of the Americas, later
spread throughout the world.
The arrival in Cuba marked the first of many
future challenges to Columbus’s leadership.
When Martín Alonso Pinzón, the captain of the
The Four Voyages of Columbus B 29
Pinta, learned that gold might be found on an
island to the east, he disappeared with his ship,
without informing Columbus. The remaining
ships sailed southeast along the coast of Cuba’s
Oriente province. Because of its size, Columbus
concluded that Cuba was not an island but a
peninsula attached to China, somewhere to the
west. Deciding that he would return in the
future to explore this theory, he continued east,
reaching the island that would one day be
divided into the countries of Haiti and the
Dominican Republic. He named it La Isla
Española (The Spanish Island), a phrase that
was eventually contracted to the name by
which it is known today, Hispaniola.
Columbus considered Hispaniola to be the
most beautiful and peaceful of the islands he
had yet encountered. “In all the world, there
can be no better or gentler people,” he wrote
of its inhabitants. They also wore plentiful
gold jewelry, which did not go unnoticed. The
sailors were happy to celebrate with their
Indian hosts, who threw elaborate feasts for
all to enjoy. Near the present-day northern
Haitian city of Cap Haitien, Columbus
received an invitation to visit a cacique, or
tribal leader, named Guacanagarí. Columbus
mistook the name of Guacanagarí’s chiefdom,
Cibao, for Marco Polo’s name for Japan,
Cipangu. Certain that he had at last reached
his goal, Columbus ordered the Santa Maria
and the Niña to sail along the coast to meet
Guacanagarí. On Christmas 1492, disaster
struck.
That night, against orders, an exhausted
sailor handed the Santa Maria’s steering tiller
over to an inexperienced ship’s boy, who let
the ship drift onto a reef. Coral tore through
the ship’s planking, and seawater gradually
filled the Santa Maria. With Indian help,
Columbus’s men were able to unload all of
their supplies and get them ashore before
being joined by the Niña.
30 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800
THE VOYAGE HOME
Columbus was so sure of the divine purpose
of his mission that he decided that the
wrecking of the Santa Maria at Christmas
was a sign from God that he should found a
colony in Hispaniola. He recruited 39 volun-
teers and instructed them to build a base
from which to search for gold. The colony
would be called Villa de la Navidad (Town of
the Nativity).
The Niña sailed for Spain on January 4,
1493. Two days later, the Pinta caught up with
it, with news of having found plentiful gold in
the countryside of Hispaniola. The two ships
sailed together across the Atlantic Ocean until
mid-February, when a storm separated them.
After docking briefly in the Azores and being
battered by violent seas all the way to the
European mainland, Columbus and the Niña
safely reached Portugal on March 4. Hoping to
secure safe passage from the Portuguese king,
Columbus wrote to João II, who invited the
seafarers to visit him at his summer home
nearby.
João II—who had rejected Columbus’s
appeal for help eight years earlier—sus-
pected that Columbus had not visited new
lands, but had instead been meddling in Por-
tuguese territory in Africa. Columbus’s cap-
tive Taino interpreters, however, convinced
João II that the Genoese captain had indeed
visited a place of which Europeans were
unaware. Resisting advice to have him killed
to prevent Spain from profiting by the dis-
covery, the Portuguese king allowed Colum-
bus to travel on. Columbus sent word to the
Spanish monarchs that he was en route. He
returned to Palos aboard the Niña on March
15. Amazingly, the Pinta sailed into the har-
bor the same afternoon.
Columbus’s warm reception by the royal
court at Barcelona was his greatest moment of
triumph. He felt that his navigational theories
were vindicated. He was awarded all the hon-
ors promised by Spanish royalty. Throughout
the rest of his life, however, Columbus’s life as
a navigator would become secondary to his
battles both in Spain and the lands he called
“the Indies” to hold onto those privileges.
SECOND VOYAGE
When Columbus embarked on his first voy-
age, hoping to reach the empires of Asia, he
neither intended nor was equipped to colo-
nize land. He still planned to reach China
when his second expedition set sail from
Cadiz on September 25, 1493, but coloniza-
tion and religious conversion were now overt
goals. In fact, the trip would be successful as a
voyage of discovery, but a fiasco as a colonial
venture.
In contrast to the meager fleet he was able
to assemble for his first voyage, vigorous royal
support showed in Columbus’s second fleet. It
included three large ships, 14 caravels, and
1,500 men. This time he had the benefit of
Arawak interpreters. The kidnapped Indians
he had presented to the king and queen had
learned to speak Spanish. All but one, who
remained at the Spanish court, sailed back to
the Caribbean.
On November 3 the fleet sighted islands in
the chain that became known as the Lesser
Antilles, including Dominica, Maria Galante,
and Guadeloupe. Naming the islands as he
progressed, Columbus followed the islands
northwest to St. Croix, the Virgin Islands, and
Puerto Rico, whose original Indian name was
Borinquén. On November 27 he arrived at La
Navidad, the outpost he had left on Hispan-
iola. The colony was uninhabited. Columbus
learned that the Taino had lost patience with
the settlers’ incessant demands for gold and
women and had killed them all.
 The Four Voyages of Columbus B 31

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

Columbus sailed east along the coast and
made a second attempt at founding a trading
colony, near present-day Puerto Plata on the
north-central coast of the Dominican Repub-
lic. He named it La Isabela, in honor of his
royal patron. Leaving his inexperienced
brother Diego in command of the colony,
Columbus marched into the interior of the
island in an unsuccessful attempt to find a
major source of gold. When he returned, he
found the disillusioned settlers of Isabela at
the point of mutiny. After restoring order by
force, Columbus set sail again in April 1494,
certain that he could discover the Chinese
mainland. Instead, after a brief reconnais-
sance of Cuba’s southeastern coast, he
headed south and encountered Jamaica.
His obsession with reaching Asia, however,
reserved his attention for Cuba, which he
remained convinced was a Chinese peninsula.
He returned to the island’s southern coast and
struggled against the wind almost all the way
to the island’s western tip. If Columbus had
continued 50 more miles, Cuba’s true shape
32 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800
would have become clear. Instead, he halted
the westward voyage and simply declared that
Cuba was China. He ordered his crew to swear
to an oath that they had found China, with the
understanding that the men would have their
tongues cut out if they should ever break their
oaths. Taking a route along the southern coast
of Jamaica, Columbus returned to Isabela.
By early 1495 Columbus was becoming
increasingly more occupied with calming
colonial discontent than with discovery. He
tried to pacify disillusioned Spanish gentle-
men who had shipped to Hispaniola expect-
ing to find a comfortable, exotic haven with an
unlimited supply of gold and instead found
themselves suffering in tropical rain. The
speculators went hungry rather than eat the
unfamiliar food of “the Indies.” Instead of
farming or prospecting, the Spanish pressed
Indians for food and more gold after the
extant supplies had been collected or stolen.
Resentment turned into open rebellion as
Arawak tribes resisted demands for labor and
wealth. Forced labor, disease, and punitive
expeditions began to kill the native inhabi-
tants of Hispaniola in large numbers, a pat-
tern that spread throughout the hemisphere
as more colonists arrived.
 The Four Voyages of Columbus B 33

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

Leaving his brothers Diego and Bartolomé
in charge, Columbus sailed for Spain on
March 10, 1496. Meanwhile, news of colonial
discontent at Hispaniola’s colonial seat at
Santo Domingo and Columbus’s increasingly
harsh treatment of the Native peoples had
reached the Spanish court, creating profound
doubts about his leadership.
COLUMBUS’S
THIRD VOYAGE
Unlike later explorers, who relied on investors
speculating on the discovery of gold or other
wealth, Columbus continued to rely on royal
backing for his voyages. After his triumphant
first voyage, his career was dogged by political
turmoil at Hispaniola and the inability to ful-
fill his long-sought goal of reaching the Asian
empires. Unable to present the Spanish court
with the grand success he envisioned—and
which he had promised—he was in constant
fear that each voyage would be his last. After a
strenuous but successful effort to have Ferdi-
nand and Isabella confirm his privileges as
chief administrator of the Indies, Columbus
sailed west with six ships on May 30, 1498,
hoping to find enough riches to convince his
patrons that his voyages were worthwhile.
34 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800

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

This time Columbus took a southerly
route, crossing the Atlantic Ocean close to the
equator to see if any land existed there en
route to the Indies. Past the Canary Islands, he
sent three ships ahead to Hispaniola, retain-
ing the other three for a fresh effort to find the
mainland of Asia. The equatorial heat of the
southerly route ruined food and caused wine
to resume fermenting. Father Bartolomé de
Las Casas, summarizing from Columbus’s
original log, wrote that “the heat was so
intense and scorching that they were afraid
the men and ships would burn up.”
The ships eventually picked up speed and
crossed the Atlantic, first sighting an island
dominated by three mountain peaks. Follow-
ing his practice of naming geography after
Christian figures, Columbus named the island
Trinidad after the Holy Trinity. The ships
rounded the southwest corner of Trinidad just
in time to be buffeted by a terrifying tidal or
volcanic disturbance. The channel is still
known by the name Columbus gave it—Boca
del Sierpe, the Serpent’s Mouth. A short sail
directly north took the ships to the tip of the
Paria Peninsula, on the eastern coast of what
is now Venezuela. On August 5 Columbus
landed there, becoming the first European
explorer to set foot on the South American
mainland.
 The Four Voyages of Columbus B 35

Columbus assumed Paria was an island dispatched a new governor, Francisco de

and christened it Isla de García. A year later,
Alfonso de Ojeda’s expedition would name the
same land Venezuela. In a letter to the Spanish
sovereigns that reflected his idiosyncratic
mixing of geographical theory with Christian
mysticism, Columbus claimed that this was
the “Terrestrial Paradise,” the Garden of Eden.
“I have always read that the world, both land
and water, was spherical,” he added. “I have
found that it does not have the kind of
sphericity described by the authorities, but
that it has the shape of a pear, which is all very
round, except at the stem.”
Columbus headed north to Hispaniola,
where he found his brothers fighting a faction
of rebellious colonists. News of this rebellion
and plentiful advice from Columbus’s enemies
convinced Ferdinand and Isabella that their
admiral’s talents for seamanship were not
matched by his abilities as administrator. They
Bobadilla, to Hispaniola with broad powers to
investigate and end any rebellion. Bobadilla
arrived at Santo Domingo in Hispaniola on
August 23, 1500. When Columbus refused to
accept the royal document appointing
Bobadilla, the new governor had all three
Columbus brothers arrested, chained, and
shipped back to Spain. The Spanish monarchs
were shocked by Columbus’s humiliation.
They ordered him freed and eventually
ordered his property restored, but decided that
his role as governor of the Indies was over.
COLUMBUS’S
FINAL VOYAGE
By 1502 Columbus’s reputation was in tatters
and the privileges outlined in his “capitulations”
with the Spanish Crown were increasingly
restricted. The Spanish royals nevertheless

\
Disease in the New World =
Disease was the most destructive force arriving in the Americas with European
explorers and colonists. Exposure to smallpox, diphtheria, whooping cough,
influenza, tuberculosis, pneumonia, mumps, and even measles had allowed
Europeans to develop some natural resistance to such maladies. The inhabi-
tants of the Americas, however, had never been exposed to these potentially
fatal diseases, which did more to decimate Native populations than forced
labor and war combined. Estimated deaths from epidemics alone among South
American natives in the first hundred years after 1492 range from hundreds of
thousands into the millions.
One disease that may have moved in the other direction is syphilis, which
Europeans became aware of only in the mid-1490s. But scientists continue to
debate whether syphilis existed in the Old World before 1492 or whether it was
first imported to Europe by Columbus’s crew or the Taino captives his first voy-
age brought to Barcelona. Similarly, scientists continue to examine the origins
of malaria and yellow fever. These mosquito-borne diseases are considered to
have arrived in the Americas from Africa, after the importation of African slaves
began in the early 1500s.
Following his death on May 20, 1506, Columbus’s remains were initially buried in Valladolid, Spain; moved
to Seville, Spain; later moved to Santo Domingo, Hispaniola; then moved to Havana, Cuba; and finally
returned to Seville. As can be imagined from so much moving, determining his remains’ actual whereabouts
is difficult. Today, tombs exist in both Havana (shown in an early 20th-century photograph) and Seville, both
of which claim they contain the remains of Columbus, a mystery not yet solved by historians and analysts.
(Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-119088])

agreed to fund Columbus’s fourth and final voy-
age. Remembering Marco Polo’s account of voy-
aging westward through the South China Sea
and still convinced that Cuba was part of China,
Columbus intended to find a strait he incor-
rectly assumed would lead him from the
Caribbean into the Indian Ocean.
He set sail from Cadiz on May 11, 1502,
with four ships, accompanied by his 13-year-
old son and future biographer, Ferdinand. The
fleet crossed the Atlantic swiftly, discovering
the island of Martinique on the way. To avoid
any political problems, the Spanish sovereigns
had ordered Columbus not to land at Hispan-
iola. Using the excuse that a storm was
approaching, Columbus sailed into the harbor
of Santo Domingo, where the new governor,
Nicolás Ovando, refused him permission to
land. Columbus sailed on to a harbor just west
of the colony and briefly sheltered there from
the storm he had predicted.
After reaching Cuba by way of Jamaica,
Columbus sailed westward, searching for the
strait he was certain would lead him to the
Orient . Other explorers, including mariners
who had served with Columbus earlier, had by
now traversed the coast of South America
between the Orinoco River and Panama, but
the rest of the Gulf of Mexico lay unexplored
and open to the theory that such a connecting
channel to India existed.
Instead of finding China, Columbus
found himself off the coast of Honduras.
After a month of struggling against contrary
winds, Columbus was able to turn south
along the coasts of the future countries of
Nicaragua and Costa Rica. By autumn 1502
the increasingly ill admiral realized that he
would not find a route to China. He concen-
trated on bartering for gold with the Native
peoples and searching for a suitable site to
establish a trading outpost. In January 1503
he picked a location near the mouth of the
The Four Voyages of Columbus B 37
Río Belén in rugged northwestern Panama.
By spring, however, relations with the area’s
Guaymi inhabitants had deteriorated so
badly that Columbus’s party was attacked as
he was preparing to send three of his four
ships to Spain. The Spaniards sustained
casualties and were forced to abandon one of
their ships in the river before sailing for
home on April 16. “I departed,” Columbus
wrote, “in the name of the Holy Trinity, on
Easter night, with ships rotten, worn out, and
eaten into holes.”
None of the three ships made it to Spain.
One was abandoned at the harbor of Puerto
Bello in central Panama. The other two sailed
to the present-day border separating Panama
and Colombia before heading north, trying
to reach Hispaniola. The badly leaking ves-
sels got as far as Jamaica, where Columbus
ordered them run aground on the beaches at
St. Ann’s Bay, on the northern coast.
The ships were too seriously damaged to
be repaired, so Columbus ordered a canoe
commanded by Diego Méndez to make the
108-mile trip to Hispaniola for help. Méndez
reached Hispaniola, but Governor Ovando
was so disinclined to help Columbus that no
rescue ship was sent to Jamaica for a year.
Most of the dispirited survivors then
remained in Hispaniola to try their luck as
colonists, while Columbus continued on to
Spain, arriving in November 1504.
Columbus had discovered neither the
sought-after strait to China nor had he
returned with anything of material worth. By
now, years of stress and illness had taken their
toll on him. On November 26, 1504, Queen
Isabella died. She had frequently been Colum-
bus’s benefactor. King Ferdinand, while sym-
pathetic to the ailing admiral’s condition,
continually refused Columbus’s requests that
his original contracts be honored and that he
be reappointed governor of the Indies. Still
38 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800
trying to reclaim his former glory, Columbus
died at Valladolid on May 20, 1506.
Columbus’s death went unheralded by
the Spanish public and royalty. His failures to
reach Asia, to retrieve a grand treasure, or to
manage colonies diminished his stature,
especially as other explorers found greater
sources of wealth and pushed deeper into
newly discovered lands. Despite Columbus’s
own misidentification of the places he found
as being portions of Asia, however, his voy-
ages opened a new epoch of discovery that
would last for centuries, inspiring unprece-
dented exploration of the land and oceans of
the Western Hemisphere. For many of the
Native societies he and his successors
encountered, the coming changes would be
tragic and final. Columbus’s encounters with
the Americas immediately and permanently
altered the course of history, forcing people
on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean to view
their world differently.

When Christopher Columbus returned
\ from his first trip to “the Indies” in
1492, his royal rewards included gov-
ernorship of all lands he had discovered and
might find in future voyages. However, as the
vast size of the region became clearer and
Columbus’s unsuitability as a colonial leader
damaged his reputation, other adventurers
were given royal authority to explore and col-
onize. Columbus unsuccessfully appealed to
regain his titles while other navigators,
including some who had served under him,
sailed for the New World.
These explorers, like Columbus, initially
believed that the land they were exploring
was part of Asia or perhaps a simple geo-
graphical barrier preventing them from
reaching the riches of the Orient. While most
concentrated on enriching themselves with
gold, pearls, and slaves, they also continued
to search for a route to Asia, which they were
prevented by treaty from reaching by sailing
around Africa.
{ 4
A New World
1500–1519
IN COLUMBUS’S WAKE
On Spain’s side of the line demarcated by the
Treaty of Tordesillas, fortune-seeking Spaniards
began to venture along the northern coastline
of South America. Unlike Columbus, whose
voyages were financed by the Spanish Crown,
these new explorers were required to finance
the trips themselves or find investors. Their
geographical knowledge, however, grew as
mariners examined one anothers’ charts and
their findings gradually reached cartographers
in Europe.
Few of these adventurers found the new
hemisphere profitable enough to remain there
for long. Typical was Alfonso de Ojeda, a vet-
eran of Columbus’s second voyage, who sailed
westward along the Guianas of north-central
South America in 1499, trading for gold and
taking slaves. Ojeda’s brutality was long
remembered by the Native peoples of the
region, whose memories of Spanish raids made
future exploration dangerous for decades. A
39
40 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800

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

longer lasting consequence came from the
Spaniards’ impression of Indian homes built
on wooden piles, suspended above lake water.
The homes reminded the Europeans of Venice,
so they named the region “Little Venice,” or
Venezuela.
Vicente Yáñez Pinzón, who had served as
captain of Columbus’s caravel the Niña,
sighted Brazil in 1500, but the land was claimed
on April 22 of that year by Pedro Álvares Cabral
on behalf of Portugal. As had other Portuguese
mariners, Cabral had sailed westward to catch
strong southeasterly currents and winds that
would propel his ships to the bottom of the
African continent, en route to India. Cabral,
however, went so far west that he sailed to the
mouth of the Rio Buranhém in the present-day
Brazilian state of Bahia. Cabral considered the
new land only a diversion from his real inten-
tion of reaching India. His ships explored the
coast for just nine days before resuming his
eastward voyage. He named the land he left
behind Isle de Vera Cruz. Subsequent European
settlers renamed it Brazil, after the red dye-
wood they found and exported.
The travels of such explorers—including
Columbus on his final voyage, Ojeda, Juan de la
Cosa, Amerigo Vespucci, Vicente Yáñez Pinzón
and others—swiftly accumulated knowledge
about the northern coastline of South America.
THE MYSTERIOUS
VESPUCCI
Amerigo Vespucci, born in Florence, Italy, and
employed in Seville as an agent of the power-

ful Florentine Medici family, remains the most
controversial of these navigators. Vespucci
made at least two and perhaps four voyages to
the New World. His logs and records are lost,
leaving republications of two letters to
acquaintances to reflect the truth.
Vespucci worked with the firm responsible
for outfitting ships for Columbus’s second and
third voyages. Vespucci’s own first voyage sup-
posedly took place in 1497–98, carrying him
north from Brazil to the east coast of North
America, possibly as far north as Cape Hat-
teras, North Carolina, or even the Gulf of St.
A New World B 41
Lawrence. The only account of the trip
appears in one of Vespucci’s letters, whose
lack of detail makes the authenticity of his
claim controversial. If it is true, then Vespucci
landed on the mainland of the Americas
before Columbus.
It is generally agreed that Vespucci sailed
on a ship in the 1499 Ojeda-Cosa fleet, but
he parted with the westward-bound Ojeda,
instead heading southeast along the coast of
Brazil. Vespucci’s two vessels briefly explored
the delta of the Amazon River before contin-
uing to Cabo São Roque, only to be driven
42 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800

back by contrary winds and currents. Upon We discovered immense regions, saw a vast
his return, he wrote a dry description of the number of people, all naked, and speaking
voyage to his patron, Lorenzo de’ Medici: various languages. On the land we saw many

Amerigo Vespucci briefly explored parts of the Amazon River during his 1499 voyage. His later journeys took
him to parts of South America. Included in a 1624 publication, this map shows the northern coast of South
America, including the mouths of the Orinoco and Amazon Rivers. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs
Division [LC-USZ62-71982])
 A New World B 43

wild animals, various kinds of birds, and an
infinite number of trees, all aromatic. We
brought home pearls in their growing state
and gold in the grain. . . . We brought many
other stones which appeared beautiful to us,
but of all these we did not bring a large quan-
tity, as we were continually busy in naviga-
tion, and did not stay long in any one place.

Sailing for Portugal instead of Spain in

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

BALBOA REACHES
THE PACIFIC
One failed Spanish settler in the Caribbean
later emerged as one of its most noteworthy
explorers. Vasco Núñez de Balboa sailed from
Spain in 1501 with an expedition commanded
by Rodrigo de Bastidas and Juan de la Cosa.
During the voyage they crossed the Gulf of
Urabá, on the northern coast of present-day
Colombia, and visited the Indian coastal vil-
lage of Darién in southeastern Panama.
Balboa settled on the island of Hispaniola
and became a planter, but by 1510 he was
broke. To escape his creditors, he hid inside a
barrel aboard a shipload of reinforcements
bound for a settlement on the eastern shore of
44 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800

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

the Gulf of Urabá. When the ship landed, the
colony was in such danger of perishing from
starvation and Indian attacks that its leader,
Martín de Enciso, accepted the stowaway’s
advice and moved to a safer location at the
Indian village on the gulf’s western shore that
Balboa had spotted while sailing with Basti-
das. The new colony was named Santa María
la Antigua de Darién. Within a short time,
leadership conflicts resulted in Balboa’s being
appointed governor by the colonists.
Balboa was brutal to Indians who resisted
Spanish advances into the interior, but he pre-
ferred to forge close ties with friendlier tribes.
He married the daughter of an Indian leader
named Chima and helped Chima’s people fight
a war against their enemies. According to con-
temporary historian Peter Martyr, the Indians
gave gold to the Spaniards for their help. When
an argument broke out among the Spaniards
over how large a share should be sent to the
king of Spain, one Indian prince was revolted.
“What is the matter, you Christian men,
that you so greatly esteem so little portion of
gold more than your own quietness [calm-
ness],” said the prince angrily. “I will show you
a region flowing with gold, where you may sat-
isfy your ravening appetites.” This region, the
Spaniards were told, lay to the west, over the
mountains of central Panama, from which a
large sea could be seen.
All the Spaniards sought gold, but Balboa
had an extra incentive. His appointment as
colonial leader was unofficial in the eyes of
 A New World B 45

Spanish royal authorities, who were being

persuaded to punish him for deposing the
colony’s first governors. Hoping to prove his
worth to the king, in 1512 he led a small expe-
dition into the southwestern corner of Colom-
bia and, although he found little more than
cinnamon trees, he was the first European to
see the Andes Mountains. On his return to
Panama, when it seemed likely that he might
be sent to Spain under arrest, Balboa organ-
ized another expedition to search for riches
that would make the colony a success.
Indian guides chose a starting spot near
Puerto Esconcés, on the southeastern shore
of Panama. On September 1, 1513, the guides
led 190 Spaniards and hundreds of Indian
porters into the mountains. As they
ascended, they were met by nearly impene-
trable forests and had to hack their way
through the jungle with machetes. Through-
out his progress across the isthmus, Balboa
continued his practice of offering peaceful
alliances to friendly Indians and violently
conquering any who resisted his progress.
The expedition struggled for three weeks
through swamps and over mountains that
remain barely accessible even today.
In this illustration published in 1859, Vasco Núñez
Balboa himself was the first European to
de Balboa claims the Pacific Ocean for Spain.
see the Pacific Ocean. On the morning of (National Archives of Canada)
September 27, he walked ahead of his men to
the top of a hill and suddenly spotted the vast
waters, which he called Mar del Sur, the “Sea Then Captain Vasco Núñez held up a ban-
of the South.” Four days later, the expedition ner with a picture of the blessed Virgin . . .
reached the ocean. Spanish historian Gon- and with his drawn sword in his hand and
zalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés reported his shield on his arm, he waded into the salt
the scene in his Historia general y natural de sea up to his knees . . .
las Indias (General history of the Indies,
1547): Pacing back and forth in the surf, Balboa
claimed the sea and all the contiguous lands
The water was low, and great areas of mud for Spain.
exposed; so they sat by the shore waiting for On January 18, 1514, Balboa arrived back in
the tide to rise, which presently it did, rush- Darién, without having lost a single member of
ing into the bay with great speed and force. his expedition. Unfortunately for Balboa, King
46 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800
Ferdinand dispatched a new governor to the
colony, a ruthless elderly nobleman named
Pedro Arias de Ávila, commonly called
Pedrarias Dávila. Pedrarias arrived with 2,000
settlers and soldiers, who were dismayed to
discover that the grand city they expected to
find at Darién was little more than a frontier
settlement.
Having lost his governorship to Pedrarias,
Balboa busied himself by transporting ship-
building materials to the Pacific coast. Two
ships were constructed and reached the Pearl
Islands in the Gulf of Panama in 1517, but Bal-
boa’s attempts to sail southward were halted
by rough weather. By then, Balboa’s political
enemies had conceived a plan to destroy him.
After luring Balboa back to Darién, Pedrarias
charged him with treason and other crimes.
After a long series of trials on trumped-up
charges, Balboa was beheaded on January 21,
1519.
Pedrarias continued to rule Darién. He
sent expeditions into the countryside in
search of gold, governing with legendary cru-
elty and destroying the friendships Balboa
had cultivated with Indians. During this time,
reports began to reach Darién about a wealthy
land to the south called Virú or Birú. This
land—eventually called Peru—was soon
found by a dour soldier Balboa had saved
from starvation in the Gulf of Urabá, with
whom he had marched to the Pacific, and by
whom he had been arrested upon Pedrarias’s
orders—Francisco Pizarro.

PONCE DE LEÓN AND
“LA FLORIDA”
Desire for gold did not inspire every Spanish
expedition. Juan Ponce de León was a veteran
of Columbus’s second voyage and a deter-
mined soldier who had fought in the con-
quests of Hispaniola and Puerto Rico. After
serving as Puerto Rico’s governor and becom-
ing rich with gold mined by Indian slave labor,
Ponce got permission from King Ferdinand to
search for and settle the “Island of Bimini,”
alleged home of a mythical “fountain of
youth,” whose waters would restore the virility
of old men. Like all such royal grants, the
expedition was funded at Ponce de León’s
expense, not the Crown’s.
A New World B 47
Ponce sailed from Puerto Rico in March
1513 with three ships. His flagship was piloted
by Antón de Alaminos, who had served as
Columbus’s pilot on his second voyage and
would guide other significant later expeditions.
The route took them past the eastern limits of
the Bahama Islands, sailing northwest. On
April 2 the fleet encountered what Ponce mis-
takenly thought was an island. Because they
arrived in the Easter season, which Spaniards
call La Pascua Florida, Ponce named the land
La Florida. They landed just south of present-
day Daytona Beach, on Florida’s northeastern
coast at a location known today as Ponce de
León Inlet.
As the ships sailed south along the coast,
they began to struggle against a powerful
48 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800

current. Ponce de León’s expedition became Florida was an island or part of a greater land-
the first Europeans to encounter the Gulf mass connected to Mexico.
Stream, one of the strongest ocean currents in This was a logical quest. While searching
the world. Later Spanish navigators learned to the coastline of northeastern Mexico for a
use the northeastern flow of Gulf Stream waters route to the Pacific Ocean in 1519, Alonso
and winds to hasten their voyages to Europe. Alvarez de Pineda blundered into the mighty
Ponce continued south, stopping at Indian current caused by the Mississippi River’s dis-
villages and inquiring about a “fountain of charge into the Gulf of Mexico. Although he
youth.” He passed the Florida Keys, naming did not find his way into the river through its
them Los Mártires (The Martyrs) because lower passes, credit for the first European
from a distance their rocky shores resembled discovery of the Mississippi arguably
the silhouettes of suffering men. The ships belongs to Alvarez de Pineda, rather than
turned north into the Gulf of Mexico and Hernando de Soto, who reached the river
soon anchored in Charlotte Bay, a third of the overland 22 years later. Alvarez de Pineda’s
way up the Florida peninsula’s west coast. patron, Francisco de Garay, obtained royal
Friendly relations with the Calusa Indians permission to explore the area between
quickly deteriorated into open warfare, and Florida and Mexico, which he called the land
on June 14 Ponce abandoned his search for
the “fountain of youth” and ordered a return
to Puerto Rico.
Instead of heading directly southeast
toward home, however, he sailed southwest,
perhaps intending to return south of Cuba.
Less than two weeks after leaving Florida, the
crews sighted a land they assumed was Cuba
but which some scholars believe was the
northern coast of the Yucatán Peninsula of
Mexico. The expedition briefly went ashore,
but soon resumed its return eastward,
unaware that they were perhaps the first Euro-
peans to encounter Mexico.

LAND OF AMICHEL
After his return to Puerto Rico, Ponce de León
obtained a royal grant to settle the lands he
had discovered, but became involved in fight-
ing the Carib, who had revolted against Span-
ish rule in his absence. He would not return
north until 1521, eight years later. By then, the
conquest and newfound wealth of Mexico Juan Ponce de León explored portions of present-day
were encouraging Spaniards to explore the Florida, which he first found in 1513. (Library of
coast of the Gulf of Mexico, to determine if Congress)

of Amichel (a name of unknown origin).
Exploration of Amichel, however, would
have to wait. Angered by Alvarez de Pineda’s
slaving raids upon their people from his base
on Mexico’s Rio Pánuco, the Huastec people
of northeastern Mexico killed the Spaniard
and his men in 1520.
Ponce de León also met a violent end. In
1521 he equipped a large expedition for settle-
ment and sailed for Florida. Upon landing,
however, he encountered the same tribe with
which he had clashed earlier, the Calusa. A
battle ensued and Ponce was wounded in the
thigh by an arrow. He was taken to Cuba,
where the infected wound killed him. His
death left the European exploration and set-
tlement of Florida to later adventurers.
MAGELLAN’S LEGACY
The first circumnavigation of the earth was
done by survivors of Ferdinand Magellan’s
expedition in 1519–22. By successfully navi-
gating through the Strait of Magellan into the
Pacific Ocean, they inspired efforts to find a
sea route to the western shores of Central
America (for full coverage of Magellan, see the
Exploring the Pacific volume). King Ferdinand
of Spain assigned the task to Juan Díaz de
Solís, who had unsuccessfully searched for
such a strait with Juan de la Cosa more than a
decade earlier. Solís’s well-provisioned 1516
expedition ended prematurely on an island off
the coast of modern-day Uruguay. While
exploring the estuary of the Río de la Plata
(also known as the River Plate), Solís was
killed and, according to some reports, eaten
by cannibals.
Spanish ships returned to the Río de la
Plata in 1526, under the command of Sebast-
ian Cabot, who had earlier explored the coast-
line of North America (1497–98) in the
English-sponsored voyages of his father, John
A New World B 49
Cabot. Like Solís, Sebastian Cabot was on his
way to the Pacific Ocean, with orders to reach
Asia by retracing Magellan’s route. The loss of
one of his ships and distracting tales of for-
tunes in silver Cabot heard on his southward
passage along the coast of South America con-
vinced him to abandon his goal of reaching
the Pacific and explore the Río de la Plata. He
discovered no great source of silver and col-
lected mostly inaccurate geographical knowl-
edge of the region, but remained there for two
years, establishing fragile settlements and
venturing up the Paraná River in search of an
elusive fortune. Cabot’s failure to find a route
to the Pacific ruined his reputation and ended
his career as an explorer. He spent the rest of
his life drawing maps in England.
A REGION IN RUINS
Only 25 years after Columbus’s first arrival in
the Americas, the Caribbean was a depleted
region whose Native societies faced extinction
and whose agriculture lay ruined. Diseases,
warfare, and slavery had decimated the Native
population, upon whose forced labor the
Spanish plantation system depended. Thou-
sands, possibly millions, of Taino, Arawak,
Carib, and other Native peoples died working
in Spanish mines and from maladies that were
common in Europe, but from which the peo-
ple of the New World had no natural immunity.
Like other colonial rulers, Spain’s governor
of Cuba, Diego Velásquez, faced a shrinking
Native slave workforce as new fortune hunters
arrived from Spain. As observed by Bernal
Díaz del Castillo, future author of the True His-
tory of the Conquest of New Spain, Velásquez’s
solution was to promise the new arrivals
Indian workers “as soon as there were any to
spare” and do nothing.
Díaz del Castillo was one of 110 Spaniards
who tired of Velásquez’s promises and decided
50 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800

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

to “try our fortune in seeking and exploring Córdoba as their leader and bought three
new lands where we might find employment.” ships, including one from Velásquez, who
The group appointed Francisco Hernández de offered to finance the expedition in exchange
 A New World B 51

\
Legacy of the Maya =
Unlike the relatively young cultures of the Aztec of Mexico and the Inca of Peru,
the glory days of Maya civilization were long past when Europeans first landed
in Yucatán. The great city of Chichén Itzá, for example, had been abandoned for
two centuries when the Spanish arrived.
During their “Classic Period,” which lasted from A.D. 300–900, the Maya domi-
nated the lowlands of Mexico and Central America as far south as Honduras. They
devised an extremely accurate
calendar and were the first civ-
ilization to use a form of zero in
mathematics. Maya scribes
used a sophisticated system of
hieroglyphs (pictorial signs
indicating sounds) to write on
paper (made from the bark of
a tree) and to carve records
into stone. Human sacrifices
played a part in their religion,
although it was not as common
among the Maya as the Aztec.
Imposing examples of Maya
temple-pyramid and fortress
architecture survive today at
such sites as Chichén Itzá
and Uxmal. Unfortunately, the
mass destruction of Maya writ-
ings by Catholic authorities in
1562 destroyed all but a hand-
ful of Maya books, leaving few
firsthand views of their history
and literature. The few surviv-
ing Maya books are today
The Maya, a highly developed culture whose
known as “codices” (singular, roots extend to 300 A.D., settled primarily in the
“codex”). After Maya civiliza- area of the present-day Yucatán Peninsula in
tion declined for unknown rea- Central America and are known for their grand
sons in about the year 900, architecture. One of the sites they settled was
the Maya population concen- Chichén Itzá, the location of this large, stone
trated in the Yucatán Penin- Chacmool statue (so named by a 19th-century
sula, which is where they and archaeologist). The statue, near the Temple of
the Spanish first encountered the Warriors, reclines and holds a basin on its
each other. lap for offerings. (PhotoDisc)
52 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800
for a slaving raid on the coastal islands of
Honduras. “We answered that it was neither in
accordance with the law of god nor of the
king, that we should make free men slaves,”
Castillo wrote of Velásquez’s offer. “When he
saw that we had made up our minds, he said
that our plan to go and discover new countries
was better than his, and he helped us in pro-
viding food for our voyage.”
Three weeks after Córdoba’s group sailed
westward from Cuba in February 1517, they
sighted the northeastern Yucatán Peninsula at
Cape Catoche. The great Maya civilization
that had once dominated Yucatán had
declined 500 years before Córdoba arrived,
but the spectacular architecture of remaining
Mayan temples and a handful of gold orna-
ments convinced him that he had stumbled
upon a region full of riches.
“NEW SPAIN”
The Spaniards continued to sail along the
west coast of Yucatán, which they mistook for
an island. Desperately in need of drinking
water and suffering heavy casualties at the
hands of Maya soldiers each time they
attempted to land, Córdoba’s party accepted
pilot Antón de Alaminos’s suggestion that he
take them to Florida, where he had served
under Ponce de León. Alaminos underesti-
mated the distance, but successfully piloted
the expedition to Florida. Unfortunately, they
landed the same spot where Ponce de León
had clashed with the Calusa, who attacked as
soon as the Spaniards landed. The expedition
limped to Cuba, where—like Ponce de León—
Córdoba died of wounds he sustained in
Florida.
Even the slight evidence of gold was
enough to convince Governor Velásquez to
commission a stronger expedition in 1518,
under the command of Juan de Grijalva, with
Alaminos piloting once again. The evidence of
Mayan civilization that Grijalva found when
he reached Yucatán reminded him so much of
his homeland that he dubbed the land “New
Spain,” a term later applied to all of Mexico.
When Grijalva returned to the site of Cór-
doba’s landing at Champotón, he too was
attacked. Grijalva, however, convinced the
Maya that he wanted to trade peacefully. The
Spaniards were delighted to trade colored
glass beads for food, textiles—and gold.
“They presented some golden jewels,
some were diadems, and others were in the
shape of ducks, like those in Castille, and
other jewels like lizards, and three necklaces
of hollow beads, and other articles of gold but
not of much value,” Bernal Díaz del Castillo
remembered. When the Spaniards asked for
more gold, the Indians replied that “further
on, in the direction of the sunset, there was
plenty of gold.” The land, said the Maya, was
called Mexico. This would become the next
goal of the Spanish.

Cortés the Explorer
Relatively little gold had actually been
\ discovered and sent to Spain from the
New World by 1519. Sensing that the
jewelry for which Juan de Grijalva bartered in
the Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico might prom-
ise an opportunity, Cuba’s governor, Diego
Velásquez, acted quickly. Instead of retaining
Grijalva as commander, Velásquez commis-
sioned a former subordinate named Hernán
Cortés to make an entrada, or exploratory
expedition. In an age when exploration and
desire for wealth and power were intertwined,
the ambitious Cortés would exceed his narrow
authority merely to report his discoveries to
Velásquez. Cortés would be the first to conquer
a vast and powerful empire in the New World,
but in so doing he would also reveal unfamiliar
lands and people to his fellow Europeans.
Europe first learned about Aztec civiliza-
tion, the geography of Mexico, and the Span-
ish conquest through detailed letters Cortés
wrote to Charles V (the Holy Roman Emperor
and Charles I of Spain). The journey into Mex-
ico, from the scuttling of Cortés’s ships
through the Spanish retreat from the Aztec
capital, Tenochtitlán, was described in one
report. Another letter described the siege of
{ 5
the Aztec capital and subsequent maneuvers
to enlarge Spanish control over Mexico. After
their release to the public by the Spanish
Crown, these letters were quickly translated,
reprinted, and circulated in Spain, Germany,
and Italy. Cortés’s letters to his king were later
collected and known as the Cartas de
Relación. Although Cortés was motivated by a
desire to impress the king so as to advance his
own standing, his letters provided precise and
contemporary descriptions of the many dis-
coveries he made in the New World. Bernal
Díaz del Castillo, a member of the Córdoba,
Grijalva, and Cortés expeditions, wrote True
History of the Conquest of New Spain; it
remained unpublished until 1632, but it
quickly became and has remained a major
source of information about precolonial Mex-
ico. Years after the conquest, a Franciscan
friar, Fray Bernardino de Sahagún, collected
descriptions of the Spanish arrival from Aztec
oral historians. So unflattering were the por-
traits of the conquistadores and so intense
was the Spanish desire to eradicate all
remains of the Aztec culture that Sahagún’s
General History of the Things of New Spain was
suppressed until 1829. Today the first-person
53
54 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800

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

accounts of Cortés, Díaz del Castillo, and
Sahagún’s informants make Cortés’s one of the
most fully documented of all Spanish expedi-
tions of discovery and conquest.
CORTÉS SETS FORTH
Cortés’s popularity as mayor of the Cuban
town of San Juan de Baracoa helped him enlist
volunteer soldiers for his expedition, which
attracted investors as news of Grijalva’s find-
ings of the Maya civilization spread. Cortés
organized a powerful force so swiftly that he
was forced to leave Cuba in secret, after learn-
ing that Velásquez had become suspicious of
his plans and intended to revoke his commis-
sion for the venture. Cortés sailed on February
10, 1519, with 11 ships, 508 men, and 16
horses. When the expedition reached the
island of Cozumel, 12 miles off the Yucatán

Peninsula, one of its first objectives was to
find an interpreter. Incredibly, for a small ran-
som, the inhabitants produced a Maya-speak-
ing Spanish priest, Jerónimo de Aguilar, who
had been shipwrecked on the Mexican main-
land eight years earlier.
Cortés’s ships continued west along the
gulf coast of the present-day states of
Campeche and Tabasco, finally anchoring
March 12, 1519, near the town of Tabasco.
Cortés declared to thousands of armed Maya
waiting on the shore that he wished to trade,
but the Tabascans refused, explaining that
they had been accused of cowardice by
neighboring villages for not killing Juan de
Grijalva the previous year. Cortés ignored
Tabascan warnings not to land and fought
Cortés the Explorer B 55
his way into town, claiming the land for
Charles V. After several days of battle, the
Tabascans pleaded for peace and presented
Cortés with gifts, including 20 of their female
slaves. One of these young women would
play a major role in Cortés’s expedition.
Known eventually to the Aztecs and later
Mexicans as “Malinche” (a nickname mean-
ing “the Captain’s Woman,” according to Díaz
del Castillo)—the Spaniards baptized her
with the Christian name Doña Marina—she
spoke both Maya and Nahuatl, the language
of the Aztec. Her facility with languages
enabled her to learn Spanish so quickly that
she became Cortés’s translator and strategic
guide. Malinche was such an invaluable
adviser to the Spanish conquerors that future
56 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800
generations of Mexicans would consider her
a legendary traitor to the nation.
Finding little gold, the Spanish expedition
sailed northward. On Good Friday 1519, the
ships dropped anchor off an island that Gri-
jalva earlier named San Juan de Ulúa, in the
harbor of the present-day city of Veracruz.
Cortés was immediately approached by
ambassadors of Aztec emperor Moctezuma
(Montezuma) II.
MOCTEZUMA’S DILEMMA
Aztec royalty had been informed of Spanish
activities along the coast, ever since Fran-
cisco Hernández de Córdoba’s expedition
two years earlier. First reports described
strangers who descended from “great floating
towers.” Such news created confusion in
Tenochtitlán, the Aztec capital. The Aztec
had already been unnerved by a series of dis-
turbing omens and prophecies, including
one that foretold the destruction of their
empire by foreigners.
Equally unsettling were descriptions of
horses and firearms, neither of which the
Aztec had ever seen. “Their deer carry them
on their backs wherever they wish to go,”
Moctezuma’s ambassadors told their emperor,
according to Fray Sahagún’s informants.
“Those deer, our lord, are as tall as the roof of
a house.” Of the Spanish cannon, the ambas-
sadors reported, “a thing like a ball of stone
comes out of its entrails; it comes out shooting
sparks and raining fire. The smoke that comes
out with it has a pestilent odor, like that of rot-
ten mud. This odor penetrates even to the
brain and causes the greatest discomfort. If
the cannon is aimed against a mountain, the
mountain splits and cracks open.”
With a huge army at his command,
Moctezuma could have destroyed the strangers
at any moment if he wished. Yet to the Aztec,
the Spanish arrival resembled the story of
Quetzalcoatl, the most revered Aztec god. Reli-
gious prophecies promised that someday
Quetzalcoatl, described as a light-skinned,
bearded deity who departed Mexico by sea,
would return. The approach of the Spaniards
plunged Moctezuma into doubt and a visible
depression. Unsure whether he should kill the
strangers or welcome them, the emperor
decided to stall the Spanish rather than attack
them. His ambassadors returned to Cortés with
elaborate gifts of gold and silver, declaring that
Moctezuma felt it was unnecessary to meet
with the Spaniards as they desired.
JOURNEY TO
TENOCHTITLÁN
Moctezuma’s refusal to receive him forced the
ambitious Cortés to make a crucial decision.
Technically, he was still under the command
of Velásquez, whose commission authorized
Cortés only to explore and trade with any
American Indians he might encounter. Cortés
had no legal standing to conquer or settle any
land, negotiate with Aztec royalty, or even
present himself as a representative of Charles
V. Now convinced there were riches in the
Mexican interior, however, Cortés’s supporters
encouraged a rumor that Velásquez had
betrayed the Spanish king. The expedition
elected Cortés as its new commander. Aban-
doning his ties to Velásquez, Cortés moved to
legitimize his command by establishing a
town he named Villa Rica de Vera Cruz (the
present-day city of Veracruz) and shipping the
gold presented by Moctezuma’s ambassadors
directly to Spain, with an optimistic report to
the king. To prevent defections by Velásquez
supporters, Cortés scuttled his remaining
ships and marched inland, ignoring
Moctezuma’s refusal to meet him.
Cortés shrewdly realized that the towns
through which he passed were unhappy
 Cortés the Explorer B 57

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

under Aztec rule. In the Totonac tribe, adopted for all such men in the Americas—
caciques—a Caribbean Indian name for a complained bitterly of Aztec demands for
chieftain or tribal leader that the Spanish tribute. “They told us that every year many of
58 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800
Moctezuma, shown in an undated woodcut, was
the ruler of the Aztecs at the time Hernán Cortés
explored Mexico, and he initially greeted the explorer
with curiosity about his origins. (Library of Congress,
Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-43534])
their sons and daughters were demanded of
them for sacrifice, and others for service in the
houses and plantations of their conquerors,”
wrote Bernal Díaz del Castillo. “They said that
[Moctezuma’s] tax-gatherers carried off their
wives and daughters if they were handsome,
and ravished them.” Cortés announced that
he had been sent by his king to stop such
crimes and stunned the caciques with the
audacious act of imprisoning two of
Moctezuma’s tax collectors when they arrived
demanding humans for sacrifice.
After four months’ encampment on the
tropical coast, Cortés left a small force at Vera
Cruz (now Veracruz) and headed west,
ascending onto the great plateau of central
Mexico. Wary of attack by the Aztec military,
Cortés cautiously avoided the southerly roads
from Cholula to Tenochtitlán. The expedition
instead climbed high into the desolate, snowy
pass between the summits of Popocatépetl
and Iztaccíhuatl. Both volcanoes rose more
than 17,000 feet above sea level, higher than
any mountain in western Europe. Cortés
ordered a small company to explore the smol-
dering crater of Popocatépetl, but the men
were driven back by an eruption.
Moctezuma continued to send ambassa-
dors to Cortés, warning him to stay away,
while promising “tribute would be paid in
gold and silver” if the foreigners would leave
Mexico. The promise was accompanied by
gifts of golden necklaces, which simply made
the Spanish more determined than ever to
march onward.
ARRIVAL AT TENOCHTITLÁN
As they descended into the Valley of Mexico,
the Spaniards marveled at the sight of
Tenochtitlán in the distance, surrounded by
the saltwater of Lake Texcoco. They reached
the broad, fortified causeways leading into the
city on November 8, 1519. “We were amazed
and said it was like the enchantments told of
in the legend of Amadis [hero of a Spanish
story], on account of the great towers and cues
and buildings rising from the water, and all
built of masonry,” wrote Díaz del Castillo.
“Some of our soldiers even asked whether the
things that we saw were not a dream?”
A thousand Aztec citizens and nobles lined
the route, welcoming the Spaniards. At the
edge of the city, Moctezuma met Cortés and,
according to the account of the Aztecs
recorded by Fray Sahagún, Cortés said, “We
have come to your house in Mexico as friends.
There is nothing to fear.”

Cortés and his men were housed in
Moctezuma’s palace, where they soon set to
work seizing whatever gold objects they
found and melting them into transportable
bars. Although he was treated as an honored
guest during the first week of looting, Cortés
sought additional protection for his outnum-
bered force by forbidding Moctezuma to
leave the palace, essentially placing the
emperor under house arrest. Moctezuma,
who was in the custody of the armed Spanish
party and still wracked with confusion over
After entering Tenochtitlán, the Aztec empire’s
capital city, unopposed in November 1819, Hernán
Cortés eventually conquered the empire in 1521.
His victory was partly a result of the introduction
of European diseases in the New World. (Library
of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division
[LC-USZ62-99515])
Cortés the Explorer B 59
how to respond to the mysterious strangers,
did not resist.
Cortés also began to compose a descrip-
tion of Tenochtitlán for his king, Charles V:
The city itself is as big as Seville or Córdoba.
There is also one square twice as big as that
of Salamanca, with arcades all around,
where more than sixty thousand people
come each day to buy and sell, and where
every kind of merchandise produced in these
lands is found; provisions as well as orna-
ments of gold and silver, lead, brass, copper,
tin, stones, shells, bones, and feathers. They
also sell lime, hewn and unhewn stone,
adobe bricks, tiles, and cut and uncut woods
of various kinds. There is a street where they
sell game and birds of every species found in
this land. . . . They sell honey, wax, and a
syrup made from maize canes, which is as
sweet and syrupy as that made from sugar
cane. They also make syrup from a plant
which in the islands is called maguey, which
is much better than most syrups, and from
this plant they also make sugar and wine,
which they likewise sell.
While established in Tenochtitlán, Cortés sent
out several exploratory expeditions to seek
gold. Only one of these parties had success—
finding gold at Tutupec, near the Pacific
coast—but at least they learned something of
the features of the Mexican terrain. He sent
another expedition to the coast southeast of
Veracruz with the goal of finding a better port;
again, although they did not succeed in their
primary goal, they surveyed the land and the
Río Coatzacoalcos.
The isolation of the outnumbered con-
quistadores, meanwhile, made their position
increasingly precarious, as Aztec nobles grew
irritated with unceasing Spanish demands for
more gold. After six months in the capital,
60 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800
Cortés learned that he also faced a threat from
his abandoned patron, Diego Velásquez. The
spurned governor had sent 900 men com-
manded by Pánfilo de Narváez from Cuba
with orders to arrest Cortés. When Cortés
heard of Narváez’s landing, he immediately
marched to the coast, defeated Narváez, and
convinced most of his forces to join the expe-
dition in Tenochtitlán.
En route, Cortés learned that the captain
left in command at Tenochtitlán, Pedro de
Alvarado, had given a catastrophic order. The
most important of Aztec festivals, the fiesta of
Toxcatl, took place during Cortés’s absence. As
Aztec nobles danced in honor of the war god
and sun god Huitzilpochtli, Alvarado and his
men sealed exits to the ceremonial chamber
and attacked the celebrants, slaughtering
hundreds of them. When enraged Aztec citi-
zens hurried to the site of the killing, Alvarado
retreated to the royal palace and chained
Moctezuma, who urged his people to stop
attacking the Spaniards and return to their
homes. The Aztec populace, however, had lost
their respect for Moctezuma during his humil-
iating confinement and ignored his pleas not
to besiege the Spaniards.
The streets were empty when Cortés
returned to Tenochtitlán. His success thus far
had depended on military discipline when-
ever he was outnumbered. He was furious
with Alvarado, who explained that the mas-
sacre was designed to warn the Aztec against
any future treachery. As Cortés lambasted his
captain for this feeble explanation, Aztec
forces encircled the palace.
The ensuing battle lasted for four days.
Moctezuma died during the fighting, either
the victim of stones thrown by an angry Aztec
crowd or murdered by Cortés’s order. The
Spanish and their Indian allies finally tried to
flee the city under the cover of a rainstorm on
the night of June 30, 1520. By the time Cortés
fought his way to safety in Tlaxcalan territory,
his losses during the retreat—known to this
day in Mexico as the Noche Triste (Sorrowful
Night)—numbered 450 Spaniards, 4,000 Indi-
ans, and all of the treasure they had looted
from Aztec palaces.
THE CONQUERORS
RETURN
The Aztec began to repair their city and
resumed their way of life after the departure of
the Spaniards. Yet Tenochtitlán was soon rav-
aged by smallpox, which had been unknown
in Mexico before the arrival of the Narváez
force (an African slave dying from the disease
was among Narváez’s force and is considered
to have transported the disease from Haiti or
Cuba). Cortés regrouped his forces and
returned to Lake Texcoco the following spring.
The Spaniards built ships equipped with can-
nons for a naval assault, blocked Tenochti-
tlán’s causeways, and began a bloody siege
that lasted 80 days. At first Aztec soldiers suc-
cessfully beat back the Spanish and their
Indian allies. Smallpox, however, killed thou-
sands of the starving, confined inhabitants.
When Tenochtitlán was eventually surren-
dered on August 13, 1521, by Aztec leader
Cuauhtémoc, more than half of the city’s
300,000 defenders were dead. Refugees leav-
ing the city were searched for treasure by the
Spaniards, who angrily demanded the gold
lost in the chaos of Noche Triste.
Almost none of the pilfered Aztec gold was
recovered, but Cortés was closer to possessing
the larger prize of Mexico itself. After word
reached Spain of his victory, he was officially
appointed Captain General of New Spain on
October 15, 1522. The magnitude of Cortés’s
destruction of the Aztec Empire also reverber-
ated throughout Mexico. Rulers of many Mex-
ican states formed alliances with Cortés by
 Cortés the Explorer B 61

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

agreeing to become Spanish subjects, while
others fought the encroaching Europeans to a
standstill in Yucatán and other remote regions
of Central America for decades.
Although there is no denying that Cortés
came to Mexico primarily to conquer and
exploit the land, he does deserve recognition
for sending out various expeditions to survey
the land and to report on Mexico’s natural
resources. One of his main goals, too, was to
find a water route across this part of the Ameri-
cas that would provide direct passage between
the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. In 1521–22
Cortés sponsored four such expeditions: one
under Juan de Valle, one under Cristóbal de
Olid, one under Pedro de Alvarado, and a fourth
under Pedro Alvarez Chico. None of these expe-
ditions, of course, found such a water route, but
they did discover much about the natural
resources of the regions they explored, and they
also reported finding potential ports for Span-
ish ships along the Pacific coast. As a result, in
1523–24, Pedro de Alvarado led an expedition
down the Pacific coast to Honduras while
Cortés’s nephew, Francisco Cortés, explored
northward along the Pacific coast.
62 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800
Cortés’s fight for control also faced com-
petition from his ambitious countrymen. Just
as Cortés had once declared himself inde-
pendent of Velásquez, Cristóbal de Olid dis-
carded Cortés’s authority and proclaimed
himself governor of Honduras. Cortés dis-
patched a seaborne force to arrest his muti-
nous subordinate. When news reached Cortés
that the fleet had been wrecked in a storm, in
1524 he assembled an army and marched
hundreds of miles overland through Yucatán,
guided by little more than a compass and a
makeshift map of Mayan traders’ trails.
Cortes’s later descriptions of the dense jun-
gles, swamps, and torrential rains his men
encountered presented such a forbidding
portrait of the region that decades passed
before other Spaniards dared to venture along
the same route. At a treacherous mountain
pass he dubbed the Sierra de los Pedernales
(Mountain of the Flints), 68 of the group’s
horses tumbled to their deaths, while the
remainder were maimed by the trail’s jagged
stones. When his force arrived in Honduras,
reduced by illness, starvation, and combat,
Cortés found that Olid had been executed
months earlier by survivors of the ship-
wrecked expedition. Even worse news was
that Cortés and his men were presumed to
have perished in the jungles and that their
property in Mexico City had been sold.
The increasingly ill Cortés returned north
to regain his leadership, but political enemies
in Spain and Mexico had been busy in his
absence. He was accused of falsely reporting
the amount of treasure he had seized and
plotting to establish himself as the independ-
ent ruler of Mexico. Cortés returned to Spain
in December 1527 and succeeded in clearing
himself of charges before Charles V. Cortés
was named marquis of the Valley of Oaxaca
and granted a huge estate within the land he
had seized. He also obtained royal permission
to organize seaborne expeditions in the
Pacific Ocean, then called the Mar del Sur (Sea
of the South) by the Spanish.
CORTÉS AND CALIFORNIA
Cortés’s history of disregarding authority
enabled his Spanish enemies to convince the
Crown to limit his power when he returned to
Mexico in 1530. A royal edict forbade him to
come within 25 miles of Mexico City, as the
Spanish settlement built on the ruins of
Tenochtitlán was now called. Thus prevented
from participating in colonial government,
Cortés built an estate and researched plans for
exploration from Mexico’s west coast. For the
first time, Cortés became a patron of discov-
ery, content to let others explore the unknown
on his behalf.
“They tell me that Ciguatan is an island
inhabited by women,” Cortés wrote to Charles
V. “They also tell me it is very rich in pearls and
gold, respecting which I shall labor to obtain
the truth, and give your majesty a full account
of it.”
The “island” of Ciguatan was actually the
seaside town of Cihuatlan, “the place of
women” in the Nahuatl language. In Cortés’s
time, such confused expectations of discover-
ing an island inhabited only by women caused
the conquistadores to adopt a longer-lasting
place name—California. The name is attrib-
uted to a popular 1510 Spanish romantic
novel by García Ordónez de Montalvo, Las Ser-
gas de Esplandian (The exploits of Esplan-
dian). Montalvo’s hero visits an island called
California, inhabited entirely by Amazons and
mythological creatures such as griffins.
Expeditions sponsored by Cortés set sail
from Tehuantepec and Acapulco, ports along
the southwest coast of Mexico, with three
goals: finding “California”; a route to the Spice
Islands (the East Indies); or the mythical Strait
of Anian (thought by early explorers to link the
northern Pacific to the Arctic Ocean and so
Charles V granted this coat of arms to Hernán Cortés. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division
[LC-USZC4-483])
64 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800
provide passage across the top of North Amer-
ica to the Atlantic). Nearly all the ventures
ended in disaster. A 1532 expedition com-
manded by Diego Hurtado de Mendoza disap-
peared without a trace. When Cortés sent
ships in search of Mendoza in 1532, the expe-
dition’s abrasive commander, Diego de
Becerra, was murdered in a mutiny led by his
pilot, Fortún Jiménez. The mutineers contin-
ued to search for Mendoza along the eastern
coast of Baja (lower) California. When they
went ashore in the Bay of La Paz, on the south-
eastern end of Baja California, Jiménez and all
but two of his men were killed by Guaycura
Indians.
Cortés himself sailed to the Bay of La Paz in
1535 and founded a settlement called Santa
Cruz, intending to use it as a base for further
northward exploration in search of the
region’s rich oyster pearl beds. The colonists
nearly perished from hunger, however, when
supply ships got lost and failed to arrive at the
hot, unfertile outpost.
Francisco de Ulloa, commander of the last
Cortés-sponsored expedition, sailed north
along the west coast of the Mexican mainland
in 1539. When he reached the northern waters
of the Gulf of California, Ulloa followed the
coastline southward as it continued along the
eastern shores of Baja California. Like other
Spanish mariners, Ulloa was sure that the Baja
peninsula was an island. He searched in vain
for a route through the landmass, eventually
rounding Baja’s tip and continuing north
along its Pacific shore. Some accounts of the
voyage suggest that Ulloa reached 30° north
latitude before turning back due to dangerous
seas.
These voyages were a financial disaster for
Cortés, who had funded all three expeditions
and profited from none of them. Hoping to
reclaim colonial titles and riches whittled
away by political intrigues, he returned to
Spain in 1540. “I had hoped that the toils of my
youth would have secured me repose in my
old age,” he wrote in a final appeal to Charles
V in 1544. “I have endured all peril, and spent
my substance in exploring distant and
unknown regions, that I might spread abroad
the name of my sovereign, and extend his
sway over powerful nations. This I have done
without aid from home, and in the face of
those who thirsted for my blood. I am now
aged, infirm, and overwhelmed with debt.”
The broken conqueror eventually realized
that his appeals to Spanish royalty would
never be answered. He planned to return to
Mexico, but ruined health prevented him from
leaving Spain. He died on December 2, 1547.
Five years later, his remains were moved to
Mexico for private burial by his son. Cortés’s
conquest remains controversial in Mexico,
and no memorial or statue to the conquista-
dor exists there.
By the time of Cortés’s death, Spain was
entrenched as the main political power in
Central America and Mexico. The Aztec
empire’s grip on the peoples of Mexico had
been destroyed, only to be replaced by a
widening system of Spanish imperial influ-
ence and controls. Seagoing exploration of
California by sea and overland exploration
west of the Mississippi intensified.
Spain’s foothold in the Western Hemi-
sphere would shape its languages and cultural
history for centuries. The immediate effect of
Cortés’s discoveries, however, was their con-
firmation of Columbus’s promise of economic
wealth on the western shores of the Atlantic
Ocean. It was equally clear that the Americas
were a “New World,” not part of Asia as
Columbus had believed. With a major base,
Europeans were about to flood onto the
American mainland.

Pizarro, Peru, and
South America
The Spanish conquistadores were both
\ explorers and conquerors, but some
were more devoted to one role than
the other. One who was unquestionably more
interested in conquering new lands than in
exploring them was Francisco Pizarro, a man
driven by an insatiable desire for wealth and
power. Nevertheless, at a terrible cost to Native
civilizations, the foothold Pizarro established
for Spain in Peru provided the most significant
base for the first wave of exploration—and
exploitation—of South America.
Before his adventures in Peru, Pizarro—a
distant cousin of Cortés—was a retired profes-
sional soldier who had spent an undistin-
guished career serving in the expeditions of
others. He had marched to the Pacific Ocean
with Vasco Núñez de Balboa in 1513. After Bal-
boa’s death, Pizarro remained in Panama,
becoming a local mayor with a reputation for
ruthlessness toward Indians. Attracted by
{ 6
1531–1683
rumors of wealth in the lands south of
Panama, Pizarro formed a business partner-
ship with another soldier, Diego de Almagro,
and a priest, Hernando de Luque, who agreed
to fund any expeditions Pizarro and Almagro
attempted.
Their initial expeditions were failures.
Pizarro’s first voyage (1524) down the west
coast of Colombia was quickly halted by
Indian attacks and malaria. A second attempt,
in 1526–27, fared little better, but resulted in
an important discovery. While Pizarro waited
in Colombia for Almagro to return from
Panama with reinforcements, their pilot Bar-
tolomé Ruiz continued south. Off the coast of
Ecuador, Ruiz sighted a large oceangoing raft
belonging to local Indians. Francisco de Xéres,
Pizarro’s secretary and the author of the only
first-person reports of the conquest of Peru,
obtained a description of the craft from an
unknown eyewitness:
65
66 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800
The keel and bottom were made of reed
stems as thick as posts, lashed together with
henequén, a fiber resembling hemp. There
were raised platforms made of lighter
stems, lashed in the same way, on which the
cargo was stowed and the people sat, to
keep dry. . . . They carried as trade goods
many personal ornaments of gold and sil-
ver, including crowns, diadems, belts, and
bracelets; armor, such as greaves and
breastplates; tweezers and rattles; beads
and rubies in strings and clusters; silver-
mounted mirrors, cups, and other drinking
vessels. There were quantities of woolen
Francisco Pizarro explored the area of present-day
Peru and subsequently destroyed the Inca Empire,
which was in the midst of a civil war at the time of
the encounter. (Library of Congress, Prints and
Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-104354])
and cotton mantles, tunics . . . and other
garments, most of them lavishly embroi-
dered with designs of animals, birds, trees,
and fish, in scarlet, purple, blue, yellow, and
other colors.
Despite the excitement Ruiz’s encounter
inspired when he rejoined Pizarro, the expedi-
tion was soon on the edge of collapse again.
When a rescue ship sent by the governor of
Panama arrived in August 1527, offering the
starving survivors a chance to leave Pizarro’s
command, all but 13 men accepted. Pizarro,
his 13 followers, and three Indians Ruiz had
kidnapped from the raft to train as inter-
preters were abandoned on an island they
named Isla Gorgona, off the Colombian coast.
Ruiz rescued them seven months later.
Instead of returning north, however, Pizarro
and Ruiz sailed down the coast of Ecuador,
past the point of the earlier meeting with the
trading raft.
In April 1528 the Spanish sighted the Inca
city of Tumbes on Peru’s northwestern coast.
Pizarro sent three men ashore to investigate.
When the shore party returned with ecstatic
tales of gold and silver, beautiful women, and
friendly, intelligent men, the doubting Pizarro
sent ashore a second group, who confirmed
the claims. The Spanish spent several weeks
feasting and exchanging information with the
locals. They enjoyed similar receptions at
other coastal villages as far south as the shore
of central Peru.
Pizarro returned to Panama, then quickly
sailed for Spain seeking investors and a royal
commission. Charles V was impressed but
preoccupied with preparations for his corona-
tion as emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.
He left the matter in the hands of his wife,
Queen Isabella of Portugal, who granted
Pizarro exclusive authorization to “discover”
and conquer Peru. As soon as the conquest
was complete, Peru would be called New
 Pizarro, Peru, and South America B 67

Castile and governed by Pizarro, an entitle-
ment to which his partner Almagro would
later violently object. From the start of his
third and final expedition, Pizarro’s officially
sanctioned goal was nothing less than com-
plete possession of Peru.
THE FINAL EXPEDITION
When Pizarro sailed from Panama in Decem-
ber 1530, his expedition was comparatively
small. Only 180 men participated, including
his half-brothers Hernando, Gonzalo, and
Juan, and a cavalry company with 37 horses
commanded by Hernando de Soto (who later
led his own expedition to Florida). The force
landed in northern Ecuador and remained
there for nearly a year. When Pizarro finally
proceeded down the coast to Tumbes, he
found Peru dramatically changed from what
he had seen earlier.
Pizarro learned that Peru was near the end
of a bloody four-year civil war over leadership
of the Inca empire. When the emperor Huayno
Capac died in 1528, his sons Huascar and
Atahualpa had both claimed themselves to be
the rightful heir to the throne. Tens of thou-
sands of people died as Atahualpa’s forces

Hernando de Soto, who would later explore the present-day southeastern United States, served as Pizarro’s
cavalry captain on his expedition in present-day Peru. In this 1850s image de Soto displays his horsemanship
for the Inca. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-104369])
68 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800

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

crushed their opposition. When the Spanish
entered the mountains, Atahualpa was march-
ing south to complete his control of the empire
by conquering its capital, Cuzco, located in
south-central Peru. With thousands of troops at
his command, Atahualpa felt he had little to
fear from a small group of Spanish soldiers. The
Spaniards were also safeguarded by the fact
that the Inca had no idea that the strangers
secretly intended to conquer their empire.
Pizarro left Tumbes in May 1532. For
months, he marched inland, demanding the
loyalty of local chiefs and executing those who
resisted Spanish demands for gold and workers.
Heading toward the Andes, he marched along
part of the Royal Inca Highway, a 1,000-mile-
long toll road stretching from Ecuador to Chile.
His secretary Xéres described the passage:
The road is level, and the part which trav-
erses the mountains is very well made,
being broad enough for six men on horse-
back to ride abreast. By the side of the road
flow channels of water brought from a dis-
tance, at which the travelers can drink. At
the end of each day’s journey there is a
house, like an inn, where those who come
and go, can lodge.
In late 1532 Pizarro learned that Atahualpa
was in northern Peru at Cajamarca, on the other
side of the Andes, only 12 days’ march away.
 Pizarro, Peru, and South America B 69

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

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

Pizarro left the highway, taking the most direct
overland route with only 40 cavalrymen and 60
footsoldiers. The Spaniards hiked for a week
over mountains nearly 14,000 feet above sea
level. “The cold is so great on these mountains,”
wrote Xéres, “that some of the horses, accus-
tomed to the warmth of the valleys, were frost-
bitten.” On November 14 they saw Cajamarca in
the valley below, dwarfed amid an encampment
of more than 30,000 of Atahualpa’s soldiers.
Accompanied by an unidentified inter-
preter, Pizarro’s cavalry captain Hernando de
Soto rode to meet Atahualpa the next day.
Atahualpa was scornful and unimpressed by
the Spaniard, who put on a display of horse-
manship for terrified Inca retainers, none of
whom had ever seen such an animal. When
Pizarro’s brother Hernando joined them, pro-
fessing friendship, Atahualpa announced that
he had received reports of Spaniards enslaving
his subjects. Hernando Pizarro haughtily
denied the charge, adding that 10 Spaniards
would be enough to rid Atahualpa of his ene-
mies. Atahualpa laughed and agreed to meet
Francisco Pizarro on the following day, Novem-
ber 16, 1532.
That night Pizarro’s men hid in the build-
ings surrounding Cajamarca’s main square.
The following afternoon, Atahualpa arrived,
carried on a royal stretcher and accompanied
by a large escort. Pizarro appeared and told
Atahualpa through an interpreter that he was
70 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800

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

the friendly ambassador of a great lord. In a
1615 account of the conquest, a Peruvian
historian, the half-Inca, half-Spanish Felipe
Guamán (Huamán) Poma de Ayala (also known
as Waman Poma) described Atahualpa’s reply:
The Inca responded with majesty and said
that it was true that, having come as a mes-
senger from so distant a land, he believed it
must be a great lord, but that he did not
have to make friendship, as he too was a
great lord in his kingdom.
that he had to worship no gods but his own
and asked who had told the priest otherwise.
Valverde responded that his Bible told him.
Atahualpa demanded to see the book:
He took it in his hands and began to look
through the pages of the book. And the Inca
said: “Well, why doesn’t it tell me? The book
doesn’t even talk to me!” Speaking with
great majesty, seated in his throne, the Inca
Atahualpa threw the book down from his
hands.

Father Vicente Valverde, Pizarro’s chaplain, The angry priest shouted to Pizarro, who
approached Atahualpa and told the emperor ordered his artillerymen to shoot. Concealed
to renounce all gods except the one wor- soldiers burst into the plaza, ambushing
shipped by the Spaniards. Atahualpa replied Atahualpa’s retainers. Atahualpa was seized
 Pizarro, Peru, and South America B 71

unharmed, but between 2,000 and 10,000
unarmed Incas, including all the chief admin-
istrators of the empire, were killed in a slaugh-
ter that lasted for hours. The next morning,
Pizarro ordered Atahualpa to command his
army to disband. Most of the Inca troops sur-
rounding Cajamarca complied. Pizarro’s tiny
force, however, remained separated from the
coast by difficult terrain and thousands of
hostile soldiers.
As Atahualpa watched the Spaniards pil-
lage Cajamarca, he conceived a plan to save
his own life. He drew a line on a wall with a
piece of chalk, reaching as high as he could
and promising to fill the room to the mark
once with gold and twice with silver if Pizarro
would set him free. Pizarro immediately
agreed and had the terms of the ransom writ-
ten for Atahualpa to sign. During his confine-
ment, Atahualpa was allowed to receive
visitors and continued to govern his empire.
Supervising collection of the ransom took the
Spaniards deeper into Peru. Hernando Pizarro
led a force south to Pachácamac and other
Inca holy sites, whose gold idols were stolen
and melted down.
In February 1533 Almagro arrived at Caja-
marca with reinforcements, who immediately
quarreled with Pizarro’s men over division of
the accumulating tons of gold and silver. By
summer the ransom chamber was full.
Pizarro, however, reneged on the deal. He
accused Atahualpa of plotting against the
Spaniards and ordering the murder of his

The Spanish invaders tortured the Inca and pillaged their cities, melting statues for their gold and stealing
any treasures they could find. In this 1850s image some Spanish soldiers, commanded by Francisco Pizarro,
burn a Peruvian to make him confess the location of the gold. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs
Division [LC-USZ62-104368])
72 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800
brother Huascar. Atahualpa was publicly
strangled on August 29, 1533.
The power vacuum left by Atahualpa’s
death allowed Pizarro to march throughout
the Inca kingdom with limited opposition. In
November 1533 the Spanish occupied the
capital of Cuzco, declared the Inca civil war to
be over, and appointed Manco Capac, a
brother of Huascar and Atahualpa, as the Inca.
The first year of Spanish control passed
peacefully. In 1535 Pizarro founded the city of
Lima a short distance from the coast, choos-
ing it as a convenient location from which to
oversee outgoing treasure shipments.
Pizarro’s governorship continued to pro-
voke conflict with his business partners. The
original agreement between Pizarro, Almagro,
and Luque stated that the three would equally
divide all their wealth. Pizarro’s royal commis-
sion, however, placed control in his hands.
The new governor favored his brothers, infuri-
ating Almagro and his supporters.
Meanwhile, the first shipments of Peruvian
treasure reached Spain, causing a horde of
fortune seekers to flock to South America.
SEARCHING FOR
NEW KINGDOMS
New arrivals faced with Pizarro’s and Almagro’s
grip on Peru took sides in the political strife
between the two factions or headed north in
search of new kingdoms to conquer. In 1533
Sebastián de Benalcázar marched into the
Andes, overcoming a defending Inca army in
the treacherous high mountain passes. Within
a year, Benalcázar controlled Quito, the tradi-
tional center of the province and the modern
capital of Ecuador. In 1537 Benalcázar tried to
expand his territory by moving into Colombia.
As Benalcázar followed the Andean
cordilleras (mountain ranges) northward, he
was unaware of another expedition moving
toward the same spot from the opposite
direction. German fortune seekers had
unsuccessfully tried to find a westerly route
to Peru from the coastal town of Coro in
Venezuela, crossing the Lago de Maracaibo,
then turning south into the mountains of
Colombia. Leaving Coro in 1536, Nikolaus
Federman succeeded by heading directly
southwest from Coro, avoiding the Andes
altogether. The strategy was not a total suc-
cess. Only 166 of Federman’s original force of
500 survived the journey through the grassy
Llanos region before mountains blocked
their way. Founding a base called San Juan de
Los Llanos, Federman headed west, climbing
into the Andes at last. He emerged on the
same plateau where Benalcázar would arrive
within weeks. Both Federman and Benal-
cázar were astounded, however, to find
another Spanish expedition, led by Gonzalo
Jiménez de Quesada, already in firm posses-
sion of the countryside.
In 1536, a year before Benalcázar set forth,
Quesada had left Santa Marta on Colombia’s
Caribbean coast, intending to find a route to
Peru. The approach was risky. Exploration
across the entire northern coast of South
America was dangerous, due to European
slaving raids, which hardened Indian resist-
ance to intruders for centuries.
To avoid battling tribes who had stalled
attempts to march into the Colombian high-
lands, Quesada organized an enormous cam-
paign to push up the Magdalena River in
west-central Colombia, struggling though
hundreds of miles of dense equatorial forest.
Spanish historian Gonzalo Fernández de
Oviedo y Valdés, who interviewed Quesada,
wrote in his Historia general y natural de las
Indias (General history of the Indies, 1547):
Besides these hardships, they were con-
stantly harassed by forest Indians; a number
Pizarro, Peru, and South America B 73
74 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800
of Spaniards were killed in these skirmishes.
The rivers they had to cross were infested
with crocodiles, and the forests full of
jaguars. Three Spaniards were dragged
down by the crocodiles and another three
carried off by jaguars.
The landscape was too poor to support the
cumbersome expedition of 800. When they
eventually arrived on the verdant central
plateau, the starving survivors were eating their
leather belts to stay alive. Nevertheless, Que-
sada systematically conquered the Muisca peo-
ple, confiscated a sizable quantity of gold and
emeralds, and founded Santa Fe de Bogotá
(present-day Bogotá). He was waiting there
when Federman and Benalcázar arrived.
The three explorers decided not to fight
over the spoils of Muisca treasure. They sailed
to Spain and asked the Crown to divide con-
trol of Colombia among them. Ironically, Que-
sada had won the race to Bogotá, but lost his
share to the family of his dead patron, Pedro
Fernández de Lugo. The province he con-
quered was named New Granada.
ALMAGRO IN CHILE
The Spanish Crown’s division of Peru, or “New
Castille,” among its conquerors had less har-
monious results. Diego de Almagro was
awarded control of Cuzco and southern Peru.
Frustrated in his demands for spoils already
controlled by the Pizarro clan, Almagro
mounted a new expedition further southward,
exploring new lands that were rumored to
hold even more wealth than the Inca empire.
Almagro commanded his expedition
expertly but discovered only lands unfit for
settlement or exploitation. His main force
started southeast into the great highland
basin of southern Peru and western Bolivia.
Bypassing the fertile area surrounding Lake
Titicaca, the highest large mountain lake in
the world, he followed the Desaguadero River
toward the shallow, undrinkable saltwater of
Lake Poopó. The countryside became increas-
ingly bleak as Almagro continued south, find-
ing little but saline deserts and desolate
mountains. Ironically, he came within 100
miles of the Bolivian mountain of ore discov-
ered in 1544 at Potosí, which within a century
was the richest silver mine in the world.
As Almagro descended into the valleys of
northern Argentina, he lost men in ambushes
by Indian tribes unfamiliar even to the Incas.
A large portion of his supplies was washed
away in seasonal floods. Survival became
more important than conquest. Almagro
turned toward the Pacific coast, hoping to get
access to supplies by sea. He divided his expe-
dition into small groups and climbed over
deadly mountain ranges, such as the 15,492-
foot high Paso San Francisco. Contemporary
Spanish historian Agustín del Zárate
described one company’s crossing:
Many of those who had died remained,
frozen solid, still on foot and propped
against the rocks, and the horses they had
been leading also frozen, not decomposed,
but as fresh as if they had just died; and later
expeditions following the same route, short
of food, came upon these horses, and were
glad to eat them.
Finding no treasure upon descending from
the mountains, Almagro realized his mission
was a failure. To return to the Peruvian border,
he first had to cross the Atacama Desert, a bar-
ren 600-mile-long salt basin lying between
Chile’s coastal mountains and the cordilleras
he had just surmounted. Wisely dividing into
even smaller groups to conserve water, Alma-
gro’s men became the first Europeans to cross
the Atacama.
 Pizarro, Peru, and South America B 75

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

Almagro’s severely tested expedition

arrived at Cuzco empty-handed in early 1537
to find the Pizarros fighting a widespread Inca
rebellion. The Spanish won the war within a
year, but armed resistance against them lasted
for another 35 years. By then, both Almagro
and Francisco Pizarro were dead.
The enmity between the two former part-
ners broke into open warfare soon after Alma-
gro’s return from Chile. His forces were defeated
in 1538 by Pizarro, who ordered Almagro exe-
cuted. Almagro’s followers took revenge in 1541,
assassinating Francisco Pizarro in Lima.
ORELLANA AND
THE AMAZON
When Francisco Pizarro lay dying in Lima, his
brother Gonzalo was lost in the jungles east of
the Andes. As his share of the conquest, Gon-
zalo had been appointed governor of Quito
and other provinces comprising modern
Ecuador. The Spaniards were lured by stories
of the gold of El Dorado and abundant spices
in La Canela, the “Land of Cinnamon,”
allegedly located in the east.
76 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800

Eager to surpass his brother’s success,
Gonzalo Pizarro left Quito, in northern
Ecuador, in February 1541 with 220 soldiers,
supplies carried by 4,000 chained Indian
slaves, and a huge herd of pigs for food. The
expedition’s progress soon slowed to a crawl
due to the equatorial rainy season and
Pizarro’s stubborn insistence on hacking
through roadless jungles. A month after set-
ting forth, he was joined by a company of cav-
alry reinforcements, led by a one-eyed
conquistador named Francisco Orellana.
Pizarro left his main army and set forth
with 70 men. He found and wandered aim-
lessly in the “Land of Cinnamon,” which he
discovered to have little actual cinnamon.
When he rejoined his main force two months
later, most of his Indian porters (carriers of the
burdens) were dead from disease and mis-
treatment, as were many of the Spaniards.
Increasingly desperate, Pizarro struggled
east along the River Coca, bearing the sick and
remaining supplies on a hastily crafted boat
christened the San Pedro. His situation wors-
ened when he forced his way 150 miles east-
ward down the River Napo, only to be told by
Indian guides that they were lost in a land with
no food, far from any escape route back to the
Andes. The day after Christmas 1541, with his
starving men ready to mutiny, Pizarro agreed
to let Orellana take the boat and 59 men down-
river to seek food. Whether or not Pizarro

\
The Legend of El Dorado =
As European explorers made their way into the interior of Colombia in the
1530s, they heard Indian tales about a man covered with gold—El Dorado (“the
golden one”). The first written account came in a 1539 report by a member of
Sebastián de Benalcázar’s expedition, Luis da Daza, who described an ancient
coronation ritual at Lake Guatavita, just north of Bogotá. Writing in 1636, a cen-
tury after the rush to find El Dorado, Spanish colonial writer Juan Rodríguez
Freyle related the legend, in which a new ruler, religious leaders, and a heap of
gold were floated aboard a raft into the lake. There the new ruler would be:

stripped to his skin, and anointed with a sticky earth on which they placed the
gold dust so that he was completely covered with this metal . . . when they
reached the centre of the lagoon . . . the gilded Indian made his offering, throw-
ing out all the pile of gold into the middle of the lake, and the chiefs accompany-
ing him did the same.

Gold-hungry conquistadores speculated that the bottom of Lake Guatavita

was carpeted with treasure. In 1545 explorer Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada par-
tially drained the lake and recovered 4,000 gold coins. Later attempts, which
continued for centuries, produced mostly mud.
Over time, the term El Dorado came to refer to an entire golden city instead of
one man. Similar legends spread throughout the Americas and encouraged illu-
sions such as the Seven Cities of Cíbola, which was sought by Spanish conquis-
tador Francisco Vásquez de Coronado. Although never found, El Dorado’s grip on
the imagination spurred exploration throughout the Americas for decades.

ordered Orellana to return in a few days would
later be disputed. Regardless, Orellana now
commanded perhaps the greatest exploratory
journey in South American history.
DOWN THE NAPO
By his third day downriver, the current was
too strong for Orellana to return to Pizarro’s
main force. A Dominican priest, Gaspar de
Carvajal, described what happened in his
later memoirs:
We soon realized it was impossible to go
back. We talked over our situation (seeing
we were already nearly dead from hunger)
and we chose what seemed to us the lesser
of two evils . . . trusting to God to get us out,
to go on and follow the river: we would
either die or get to see what lay along it.
Five days into their journey, Orellana’s men
came upon a friendly Indian village and rested
there for a month, preparing for their voyage
downriver into the unknown. Unlike the often
cruel Pizarros, who would torture Indians to
get information, Orellana made an effort to
learn their language. “Next to God,” Father
Carvajal would write, “the captain’s ability to
speak the languages of the natives was the
thing that saved our lives.”
Ten days after resuming his voyage, Orel-
lana came to where the Napo met the
Marañón River to form one great river. From
this point, which he called St. Eulalia, Orellana
would drift more than 2,000 miles down the
river later named Río Amazonas, the River of
the Amazons.
Orellana paused east of Iquitos in small vil-
lages under the leadership of an overlord
named Aparia. The Spaniards were welcomed
there. “The Indians remained quiet and
rejoiced on seeing our companions and gave
them much food, consisting of turtles and par-
Pizarro, Peru, and South America B 77
rots in abundance,” wrote Father Carvajal of
one visit. The Spaniards lived with Aparia’s peo-
ple for two months. The Aparians warned that
a small, seemingly defenseless party like Orel-
lana’s venturing downriver could expect a hos-
tile reception in Indian states there, named
after their respective lords, Machiparo and
Omagua.
The Spaniards carefully prepared the San
Pedro to withstand arrow attacks and built a
second boat, the Victoria. The warnings were
confirmed soon after the Spaniards finally left
Aparia. They were attacked repeatedly as they
drifted hundreds of miles past the villages of
Machiparo and Omagua. On the occasions
when they were able to land, they discovered
fine glazed pottery, fields of fruit trees, and
broad roads leading into the interior of the
countryside.
As the attacks subsided, the Spaniards
wondered at the vastness of the landscape.
They were astonished by the powerful cur-
rents of tributaries streaming into the Ama-
zon. One great river, wrote Carvajal, “was
black as ink, and for this reason we gave it the
name Río Negro, which river flowed so abun-
dantly and with such violence that for more
than twenty leagues [more than 50 miles] it
formed a streak down through the [Amazon],
the one not mixing with the other.”
Throughout their journey, Orellana and his
men had heard stories of a tribe of warrior
women. These stories and others they heard
later from a captured Indian led them to asso-
ciate such tales with the Amazons, the mythical
tribe of Greek female warriors (which led to the
Spaniards’ name for the river). Constant Indian
attacks resumed as the Spaniards came closer
to the coast. On June 24, 1542, Carvajal wrote:
Here we came suddenly upon the excellent
land and dominion of the Amazons. These
said villages had been forewarned and knew
of our coming, in consequence thereof they
78 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800
came out on the water to meet us, in no
friendly mood, and, when they had come
close to the Captain [Orellana], he would
have liked to induce them to accept peace . . .
but they laughed, and mocked us and told us
to keep going and that down below they were
waiting for us, and that they were to seize us
all and take us to the Amazons.
Orellana’s men were soon battling a large
force of Indians, whose ranks according to
Carvajal contained a dozen women:
These women are very white and tall, and
have hair very long and braided and wound
about the head, and they are very robust
and go about naked, with their privy parts
covered, with their bows and arrows in their
hands, doing as much fighting as ten Indian
men, and indeed there was one Indian
woman among these who shot an arrow a
span deep into one of our brigantines, and
others less deep, so that our brigantines
looked like porcupines.
A few days after fighting the “Amazons,”
Orellana’s party noticed that the waters below
them were rising and falling. They correctly
decided that they were near an ocean whose
tides were reaching upriver. Now at the point
of starvation, Orellana’s men landed on an
island just past the Trombetus River and did
their best to make their crude boats seawor-
thy. On August 26, 1542, after having drifted
for 2,000 miles, they sailed into the Atlantic.
They still had 1,200 miles to travel before
they reached Spanish settlements. The two
small boats sailed north along the Brazilian
coast, always in danger of being destroyed by
ocean seas. After a storm separated them, each
 Pizarro, Peru, and South America B 79

crew assumed the other was lost, but after
rounding Trinidad, they were reunited on Sep-
tember 11, 1542, at Cubagua, a small island off
the Venezuelan coast, which was then home to
a colony of Spanish pearl extractors.
ORELLANA’S LAST VOYAGE
During Orellana’s amazing journey, Gonzalo
Pizarro managed to return to Peru after a hor-
rendous ordeal that took the lives of all but 80 of
his men. Pizarro, thinking that his subordinate
had abandoned him, was astonished, then infu-
riated to learn that Orellana was alive. Although
bitter, Pizarro was angrier upon learning of his
brother Francisco’s murder in his absence.
Rather than wreak vengeance on Orellana,
Pizarro successfully fought to regain control of
Peru. The headstrong conquistador met his end
when he led a revolt of colonists protesting the
Spanish Crown’s new laws restricting the rights
of conquistadores and protecting the rights of
Indians. Although he had survived one of the
most grueling expeditions in the history of
Spanish exploration, this political misstep led to
his execution in 1548, only seven years after his
brother’s assassination.
Once he convinced the Spanish court that
his trip down the Amazon had not resulted
from a mutiny, Orellana was commissioned to

\
The Exploration of South America Continues =
The complete history of exploration of South America is little known except to
specialized scholars and would fill volumes with almost incredible tales of hard-
ships, daring, and violence. Between 1540 and 1553, for example, the Spaniard
Pedro de Valdavia both led and sponsored expeditions down the coast of Chile
as far as the Strait of Magellan before he died in battle with the Araucano Indi-
ans (who reportedly ate him). Philip von Hutten, a German aristocrat, spent five
years (1541–46) searching for El Dorado, but he found no such place and died
fighting local Spaniards. In 1561 the Spaniard Pedro de Ursua attempted to
explore what is now known as the Marañón River, which flows from the Andes
across northern Peru to the Amazon. The journey ended in a bloodbath after
one of the officers, Lupe de Aguirre, became insane. He mutinied, executing
Ursua, denouncing the Spanish king, and murdering everyone he suspected of
plotting against him. Aguirre was captured and executed in Venezuela.
The exploration—and challenges—of South America continued throughout
the 1600s. The first major expedition up the Amazon occurred nearly a century
after Orellana’s death: In 1637–39 Pedro de Teixeira commanded an enormous
Portuguese expedition that ascended all the way up the Amazon, continued on
to Quito, and then returned downriver. Teixeira claimed the region for Portugal
upon his return home. Franciscan priests played a major role in pushing ever far-
ther, among them Father Manuel de Biedma, who in 1687, while searching out
better routes in the headwaters of the Amazon, was murdered by local Indians.
Nothing seemed to deter these fearless explorers, however, and by 1700, vir-
tually all the territory of South and Central America was divided up among Euro-
pean nations.
80 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800

conquer the regions he had discovered. He col-

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

RALEIGH’S TRAVELOGUE
The wealth discovered in Peru and Bolivia
concentrated exploratory efforts on the
Pacific side of South America. The eastern half
of the continent, ceded earlier to Portugal by
the Treaty of Tordesillas, was slow to be seen
as fit for anything more than trading outposts
and slaving raids. Yet Europeans continued to
seek a water route linking the Atlantic and
Pacific Oceans, avoiding the dangerous pas-
sage through the Strait of Magellan.
The myth of El Dorado would not die. A
decade after organizing the colony at Vir-
ginia, English noble Sir Walter Raleigh Sir Walter Raleigh led an expedition in South America
returned to the Americas and explored the in search of the fabled El Dorado. (Library of Congress,
coasts of present-day Venezuela and Guyana Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-111785])
in 1595. He found no treasure, but wrote a
book about his travels, The Discoverie of the
Large, Rich, and Bewtiful Empyre of Guyana, Spanish settlement, an act that proved to be
which became a best seller across Europe. fatal. As a friendly gesture toward Spain,
Raleigh claimed with misleading enthusiasm James I imprisoned Raleigh for disobeying
that Guyana was brimming with gold and orders and had him beheaded.
exotic Indians, including one tribe “reported By 1600 Spain controlled much of the west-
to have their eyes in their shoulders, and ern half of South America. Armed resistance by
their mouths in the middle of their chests.” Native peoples continued for centuries, but the
Raleigh made a second foray into the face of South America had changed forever.
Orinoco River delta in 1616, looking for El Only the most remote parts of the continent,
Dorado and seeking a strategic port from some of which remain unexplored to this day,
which to battle Spain. He did, in fact, sack a were untouched by the conquest.

Cabeza de Vaca’s
Epic Journey
Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca came to
\ the New World as a conquistador, but
left transformed by his travels among
the Native people of North America. While
many European explorers of the 1500s
marched across new lands as armor-clad con-
querors, Cabeza de Vaca and three compan-
ions crossed the continent hungry and
threadbare, simply trying to stay alive.
“Through all that country we went naked,” he
wrote later, “and not being accustomed to it,
like snakes we shed our skin twice a year.” By
living to tell of his experiences in his memoir,
La Relación, he provided his contemporaries
with a new view of the geography and cultures
he encountered, as well as an account that
remains one of the great adventure stories of
the history of the Americas.
THE NARVÁEZ EXPEDITION
Cabeza de Vaca was treasurer of Pánfilo de
Narváez’s expedition, which was authorized
by Charles V to conquer and govern lands
{ 7
“from the Rio de las Palmas to the Island of
Florida.” Maps of the Gulf of Mexico were
still too primitive to portray the actual geo-
graphical boundaries of this region, but it
encompassed the coastline and interior of
the land Alonso Alvarez de Pineda had
named Amichel, stretching from northeast-
ern Mexico to Florida, across the present-day
states of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and
Alabama.
Unfortunately for his men, Narváez’s
shortsightedness and cruelty toward Indians
transformed his venture into a worse failure
than his attempt to arrest Hernán Cortés in
1520. The expedition was nearly destroyed
before it started. Storms mauled Narváez’s
ships on three occasions before they success-
fully crossed the Gulf of Mexico from Cuba to
reach the coast of Florida on April 12, 1528.
Already desperate from losses of food,
troops, and horses during the stormy pas-
sage, the Spaniards searched for provisions
immediately after landing near Tampa Bay.
They soon captured four Timucua Indians,
81
82 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800
whose village possessed not only supplies of
maize, but small amounts of gold among a
store of linens and feather headdresses the
Spaniards suspected were from Mexico. The
Timucua, who were eager for the Spaniards
to leave, told the intruders that there was
much gold in the province of Apalache in
northwestern Florida.
Narváez immediately marched toward
Apalache, ordering his ships to sail parallel to
the coast. This plan was adopted over the
objections of Cabeza de Vaca and others, who
warned of the danger of heading into strange
territory with few supplies, no interpreter, and
no permanent base to which they could
return if the ships and the overland expedition
lost contact with one another.
Narváez reached Apalache, the area
around what is now Tallahassee, seven weeks
later. His men were starving and sore from
carrying armor and equipment over miles of
rough trails. “But,” Cabeza de Vaca later
recorded, “to find ourselves at last where we
desired to be and where we had been assured
so much food and gold would be had, made us
forget a great part of our labor and weariness.”
Despite his discomfort, Cabeza de Vaca
observed his surroundings. He later portrayed
the houses, terrain, trees, climate, and native
wildlife, including the first European descrip-
tion of the opossum:
The animals we saw there were three kinds
of deer, rabbits and hares, bears and lions
and other wild beasts, among them one that
carries its young in a pouch on its belly as
long as the young are small, until they are
able to look for food, and even then, when
 Cabeza de Vaca’s Epic Journey B 83

they looking for food and people come, the

mother does not move until her little ones
are in the pouch again.
The people of Apalache received the
Spanish with suspicion that turned to fury
when the intruders took one of their chiefs
hostage. The Apalachee left the Spanish in
possession of a town, but attacked repeat-
edly. Three weeks of barrages of arrows from
hostile Indians and information from friend-
lier Indians who informed him that the sur-
rounding countryside was poor and desolate
convinced Narváez to abandon his mission
and march toward the coast in hope of find-
ing his ships.
ESCAPE BY SEA
When Narváez reached the sea near the
Apalachee town of Aute, southeast of today’s
Panama City, Florida, he realized that separat-
ing from his fleet had been a blunder. The
starving Spaniards stayed alive by butchering
their horses and raiding Indian villages, whose
inhabitants retaliated fiercely. “With death as
our only prospect,” Cabeza de Vaca recalled,
the Spaniards decided to flee by sea. Stirrups,
spurs, and other iron objects were melted to
make nails and tools necessary for shipbuild-
ing. The conquistadores’ lack of experience in
constructing boats showed in their escape
barges. When 250 men crowded aboard the

Most of the members of Pánfilo de Narváez’s 1528 expedition to present-day Florida and in the Gulf of
Mexico did not survive the journey, including Narváez himself. In this mid-19th-century illustration, a wolf
devours the remains of the party. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-104371])
84 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800

five vessels on September 22, the sides of the
dangerous crafts hovered only six inches
above the water.
The survivors drifted westward along the
coast for a month. Many died of thirst or from
drinking seawater. At one point, “a very great
river”—later identified as the Mississippi—
swept them away from the coast into the Gulf
of Mexico. By November 6 only Cabeza de
Vaca’s barge remained. The rest of the expedi-
tion, including Narváez, had either died or
disappeared at sea. The survivors landed on a
sandy isle off the coast of Texas, possibly
Galveston Island. The starving men were fed
by Karankawa Indians and again set sail, but
the lone barge was quickly overturned within
sight of land by a wave, drowning several of
the Spaniards. The freezing survivors strug-
gled to shore, where they were saved but
treated like slaves by the Karankawa. The
Spaniards’ desolation lifted slightly with the
discovery of survivors from another barge.
Although only 15 of the 80 Spaniards sur-
vived the harsh winter, Cabeza de Vaca keenly
observed the dress, languages, physiology,
work habits, funeral rites, and wedding cus-

After surviving Narváez’s failed expedition, Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca (foreground) met and lived with
American Indian tribes. Through his travels, he met three other survivors of the Narváez expedition. One
such survivor who then helped lead them across the present-day United States and through Mexico was
Estéban, a North African slave of Dorantes (one of the survivors) and shown leaning against a rock to
Cabeza de Vaca’s left. (National Park Service)

toms of the Karankawa. He also acted for the
first time as a medicine man, a role he was to
play frequently during his journeys. Protesting
that they had no real power to do so, he and
his companions agreed to Indian demands
that they heal the sick. “The way we treated
them was to make over them the sign of the
cross while breathing on them, recite a Pater
Noster and Ave Maria, and pray to God, Our
Lord, as best we could to give them good
health and inspire them to do us some favors.”
To the Spaniards’ surprise, their patients
declared themselves healed.
When it was time for the Karankawa to
leave their seasonal lodges on the coast, they
took all the surviving Spaniards except
Cabeza de Vaca, who was too ill to travel.
After a year of abuse by the Indians who
remained behind, he fled to live inland with
another tribe, the Charruco, who treated him
better. He became a trader, which allowed
him to travel freely for four years among the
warring tribes of east Texas. He learned in his
travels that the scattered survivors of the
Narváez expedition were either near death
from illness or had been killed by inland
tribes. His goods “consisted mainly of pieces
of seashells and cockles, and shells with
which they cut a fruit which is like a bean,
used by them for healing and in their dances
and feasts. These things I carried inland, and
in exchange brought back hides and red
ochre with which they rub and dye their faces
and hair; flint for arrow points, glue and hard
canes wherewith to make them, and tassels
of the hair of deer, which they dye red.”
The freedom of Cabeza’s life as a trader
ended when he was enslaved by a tribe called
the Guevenes, who mistreated him and con-
stantly threatened him with death. During this
period of captivity, however, he was reunited
with three suvivors of the Narváez expedition:
Alonso del Castillo Maldonado, Andrés
Cabeza de Vaca’s Epic Journey B 85
Dorantes de Carranza, and Dorantes’s Moor-
ish, or North African, slave Estéban (also
known as Estevan, Estevánico, or Estabanico).
MEDICINE MEN
The four were separated from each other for
another year when their Indian captors quar-
reled. When they were reunited a second time,
they escaped together. They began to walk
west, looking for food, with vague hopes of
reaching Mexico. Luckily their reputation as
healers preceded them. As they moved from
tribe to tribe in their journey westward, they
were welcomed as medicine men and fre-
quently asked to perform healing acts. In one
instance Cabeza de Vaca prayed over a coma-
tose man he was certain was dead and was
shocked when the man later revived. The rep-
utation of the four survivors as faith healers
clung to them throughout the rest of their
journey. “During that time they came for us
from many places and said that verily we were
children of the sun,” Cabeza de Vaca later
wrote. “We never treated anyone that did not
afterwards say he was well, and they had such
confidence in our skill as to believe that none
of them would die as long as we were among
them.”
While their reputation increased the fame
the four survivors enjoyed in their journey, it
also increased the ranks of their Indian guides
and companions, who sometimes numbered
in the hundreds. “We traveled among so many
different tribes and languages that nobody’s
memory can recall them all,” Cabeza de Vaca
would write. Unlike so many Europeans in the
New World who were preoccupied with
searching for wealth, however, Cabeza de
Vaca’s memory about the lifestyles of Native
Americans with whom he traveled was
extraordinary. He noted their ways of cooking,
hunting, marriage, divorce, warfare, and
86 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800
Used as both medicine and food, prickly pear cacti
grow in the desert environment of Mexico and the
southwestern United States. (Bureau of Land
Management)
indigenous foods such as pecans and prickly
pear cactus, which the Indians called tuna.
He described, for example, child-rearing
among the Avavares and other Texas tribes:
Children are nursed to the age of twelve
years, when they are old enough to gather
their own food. We asked them why they
reared them thus and they said it was owing
to the great hunger that was in the land,
since it was common, as we saw, that one
went two or three days without eating, and
sometimes four, and for that reason they
nursed the little ones so long to preserve
them from perishing through hunger.
Cabeza de Vaca and his companions
depended on many American Indian tribes for
guidance and directions. No maps were used,
which makes it impossible to reconstruct their
journey exactly. Descriptions of the rivers,
mountains, and other terrain they crossed,
however, provide enough clues to fuel several
interpretations. Early scholars place the route
across Texas along the Colorado or Pecos
Rivers, eventually descending southwest to El
Paso before continuing west. Later theories
propose that the wanderers walked south
across the Río Grande, through the present
Mexican border states of Nuevo León,
Coahuila, and Chihuahua, then recrossed the
Río Grande at Ojinaga, and followed the river
northwest toward the El Paso area. The group
next traveled southwest across northern Chi-
huahua, crossed the Sierra Madre Occidental
mountain range, and reached the upper Río
Yaqui. There the wanderers felt for the first time
that their dreams of reaching home might
come true.
One day Castillo noticed a buckle from a
Spanish swordbelt hanging from an Indian’s
neck. The joy the survivors felt upon realizing
that fellow Europeans might be ahead turned
to sorrow, as the countryside through which
they passed became increasingly deserted:
The Indian inhabitants had abandoned their
homes and farmland to avoid being abducted
by Spanish slaving parties. “The sight was one
of infinite pain to us; a land very fertile and
beautiful, abounding in springs and streams,
the villages deserted and burned, the people
thin and weak, all fleeing or in concealment,”
Castillo wrote.
In April 1536 Cabeza de Vaca, Estéban, and
some Indians went in search of Spaniards who
were thought to be nearby. After several days of
searching, they found a Spanish slaving party.
 Cabeza de Vaca’s Epic Journey B 87

\
Conquistadores and “Cows” =
THE AMERIC AN BUFFALO

The animals commonly known to English speakers as American buffalo, or sim-

ply buffalo, are called bison by zoologists, who reserve the term buffalo for
species native to Africa and Asia. Hernán Cortés’s men saw bison in
Moctezuma’s royal menagerie as early as 1521. A decade later, however, the sur-
vivors of Pánfilo de Narváez’s expedition were the first Europeans to encounter
bison in their natural habitat. In his memoir, La Relación, Cabeza de Vaca
described the reliance of the tribes of central Texas on these “cows,” which he
compared to Old World cattle:

They have small horns like the cows of Morocco; their hair is very long and
flocky like merinos’. Some are tawny, others black. In my opinion the meat is
finer and fatter than the beef of this country. The Indians make blankets out of
the skins of cows not full grown; and shoes and shields from the full-grown.
These cattle come from as far away as the seacoast of Florida, from a northerly
direction, and range over a tract of more than 400 leagues [about 1,000 miles].

(continues)

Spanish explorers were often impressed when they encountered bison, which lived
across much of North America and differed greatly from the cattle they were
accustomed to seeing. (Bureau of Land Management)
88 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800

(continued)

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

Cabeza de Vaca’s statement that the “cattle” came from “as far away as the
seacoast of Florida” was not an exaggeration. Bison lived in many parts of North
America, from Canada’s Northwest Territories to the Allegheny Mountains of
Pennsylvania. Most bison, however, roamed across the central plains and prairies.
When Francisco Vásquez de Coronado’s awestruck expedition saw herds of
bison blanketing the Great Plains in 1541, North American Indians had already
been hunting and trading these animals’ products for thousands of years. The
Spaniards at first simply referred to them as cows, cattle, or “humpbacked
oxen,” but would later come to call them by the distinctive name of cíbolo. Sol-
dier Pedro de Casteñeda remembered how Coronado’s European horses were
terrified by their first encounter with bison:

Now that I wish to describe the appearance of the bulls, it is to be noticed first that
there was not one of the horses that did not take flight when he saw them first, for
they have a narrow, short face, the brow two palms across from eye to eye, the
eyes sticking out at the side, so that, when they are running, they can see who is
following them. They have very long beards, like goats, and when they are run-
ning they throw their heads back with the beard dragging on the ground. . . . They
have a great hump, larger than a camel’s. The horns are short and thick, so that
they are not seen much above the hair. . . . They have a short tail, with a bunch of
haft at the end. When they run, they carry it erect like a scorpion.

Casteñeda’s account also reflects his wonder at the immense size of the bison
herds and the almost incomprehensible vastness of the Great Plains:

[T]he bulls traveled without cows in such large numbers that nobody could have
counted them, and so far away from the cows that it was more than 40 leagues
[about 100 miles] from where we began to see the bulls to the place where we began
to see the cows. The country they traveled over was so level and smooth that if one
looked at them the sky could be seen between their legs, so that if some of them
were at a distance they looked like smooth-trunked pines whose tops joined.

The plains tribes that Coronado’s expedition met hunted bison on foot with

\
spears and arrows. Some North American tribes organized buffalo drives, in
which the animals were stampeded over cliffs or driven toward confined areas
where they could more easily be killed. These stratagems and the Indian cul-
tures that employed them were transformed in the 1600s and 1700s, when Indi-
ans mastered the use of an animal imported from Spain—the horse.

“I overtook four of them on horseback, who
were astonished at the sight of me, so strangely
dressed as I was, and in the company of Indi-
ans,” Cabeza de Vaca recalled. “They stood star-
ing at me for a time, so confounded that they
neither hailed me nor drew near to make an
inquiry.”
The Spanish slaving party was starving.
They were fed by the “medicine men” and the
600 Indians traveling with them. Despite this
kindness, Cabeza de Vaca had to argue with
the slavers to prevent them from kidnapping
the Indians. Indians witnessing the quarrel
told Cabeza de Vaca that they could not
believe that the survivors of the Narváez expe-
dition belonged to the same people and reli-
gion as the Spanish raiding parties, who had
been terrorizing the Mexican frontier: “We
healed the sick, they killed the sound,” Cabeza
wrote; “we came naked and barefoot, they
clothed, horsed, and lanced; we coveted noth-
ing but gave whatever we were given, while
they robbed whomever they found.”
The slavers ultimately agreed to guide
Castillo, Dorantes, Estéban, and Cabeza de
Vaca into Spanish-held Mexico. Traveling
through Culiacán near the Sonoran coast, the
four survivors arrived in Mexico City on July 25,
1536, more than eight years after landing in
Florida.
RUMORS OF FORTUNE
News of four survivors of the lost Narváez expe-
dition was a sensation in Mexico City. Although
the survivors offered no grand tales of wealth,
their mention of permanent Indian houses
north of the frontier was enough to excite the
imagination of treasure-hungry Spaniards.
New Spain’s viceroy, Antonio de Mendoza, was
sufficiently intrigued to sponsor northward
exploration by Fray Marcos de Niza in 1539 and
Coronado in 1540. The journey of the survivors
Cabeza de Vaca’s Epic Journey B 89
was also a major inspiration for Hernando de
Soto’s 1539 incursion into Florida. The sur-
vivors themselves, however, had no interest in
retracing their route. All three Spaniards
declined Mendoza’s request to participate in
exploratory ventures, although Dorantes either
sold or lent his Moorish servant Estéban to
Mendoza, who assigned him to Niza’s ill-fated
expedition.
The first official report by the survivors
was an account jointly written by Castillo,
Dorantes, and Cabeza de Vaca. It was submit-
ted in 1537, a year after their return, to the
audiencia, or governmental tribunal, of Santo
Domingo, under whose authority the Narváez
expedition had embarked. Then, in 1542,
Cabeza de Vaca published a memoir of his
experiences, commonly called La Relación; it
was retitled Naufragios (Shipwrecked) in later
editions. His description of the journey was too
imprecise to be valuable to mapmakers, but
his portrait of the arid lands above Mexico’s
northern frontier attracted curious readers.
“Throughout all that country, wherever it is
mountainous, we saw many signs of gold, anti-
mony, iron, copper, and other metals,” he
wrote. “The Indians who live in permanent
houses and those in the rear of them pay not
attention to gold and silver, nor have they any
use for either of these metals.” No such
description of potential wealth had been pres-
ent in the survivors’ joint report to the audien-
cia of Santo Domingo. At the time La Relación
appeared five years later, in 1542, however,
readers were eagerly speculating what the
ongoing expeditions of Coronado and de Soto
might be discovering.
CABEZA DE VACA IN
SOUTH AMERICA
Cabeza de Vaca’s experiences among the Indi-
ans of North America had transformed him
90 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800
into a forceful advocate on their behalf.
Received at court in Spain, he urged the Span-
ish Crown to rein in slaving raids. Although he
wanted Spain and the Christian religion to
expand their control in the New World,
Cabeza de Vaca’s belief that such control could
only be accomplished by treating Indians with
kindness would lead to his ruin. Charles V
appointed Cabeza de Vaca adelantado of the
province of La Plata, which included all of
present-day Paraguay, Argentina, Uruguay,
and much of southern Brazil, Chile, and
Bolivia; the position of adelantado gave him
the right to conquer, settle, profit from, and
govern this vast territory. After a five-month
voyage his ships sighted Santa Catarina Island
off the Brazilian coast in March 1541. Rather
than take the long route up the Paraná and
Paraguay Rivers to his destination, the settle-
ment at Asunción, Cabeza de Vaca decided to
 Cabeza de Vaca’s Epic Journey B 91

attempt the trip overland through unexplored

mountainous jungles. The journey proved to
be difficult, but Cabeza de Vaca and his men
became the first Europeans to see the spectac-
ular Iguaçu Falls, where the current bound-
aries of Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay meet.
When he finally arrived at Asunción on
March 11, 1542, Cabeza de Vaca’s royal
appointment allowed him to displace
Domingo Martínez de Irala, who had been
elected governor by European colonists.
Cabeza de Vaca instituted new laws to protect
the rights of Indians, irritating many of the
colonists. The new governor left Asunción for
western Paraguay in September 1543, plan-
ning to defeat tribes that were harassing Euro-
pean settlers and friendly Guaraní Indians.
Reports of silver and other treasures to the
west inspired Cabeza de Vaca to linger there
and send exploratory parties into the desolate
Chaco region, but his attempts to find an
overland route to Peru resulted only in the
expedition being worn by starvation, Indian
attacks, and disease. When Cabeza de Vaca
returned to Asunción after a six-month
absence in the Paraguayan interior, he was
arrested almost immediately by resentful
Cabeza de Vaca documented his experiences
colonists, who returned Irala to power.
among Native American tribes in Navfragios, or
Cabeza de Vaca was shipped to Spain in Relation of Núñez, which was published in 1542.
chains and tried for an assortment of crimes, (Library of Congress)
including the seditious offense of declaring
himself ruler of La Plata. Although the charges
were manufactured by Irala’s supporters, peans with the first realistic east-to-west
Cabeza de Vaca was imprisoned and sentenced dimensions of North America, valuable
to banishment in North Africa. Charles V light- accounts of flora and fauna, and detailed
ened the sentence, but the damage to Cabeza descriptions of primitive societies living
de Vaca’s career was already done. He died between the Gulf of Mexico and the northern
around 1557 in Spain, poor and forgotten. boundaries of Spanish-held Mexico. The value
Although Cabeza de Vaca died shunned by of his information was ignored by some 16th-
his contemporaries, the story of the Narváez century explorers who were devoted to dis-
expedition survivors had an enormous effect covering wealth, but time has transformed
upon exploration, encouraging de Soto and Cabeza de Vaca’s narrative into a unique por-
directly inspiring the expeditions of Niza and trait of the American continent before the
Coronado. Cabeza de Vaca provided Euro- European conquest.
{ 8
Hernando de Soto
and “La Florida”
Hernando de Soto and his men were
\ long credited as the first Europeans to
see the Mississippi River. In fact, de
Soto’s journey was one of the most dramatic
failures of Spanish exploration, both in terms
of the riches he did not find and for a violence
that shocked even some contemporary
Spaniards. Yet in ways that de Soto had not
intended, his expedition contributed to Euro-
peans’ knowledge of the New World.
By the time of his venture into southeast-
ern North America (1539), de Soto was an
experienced conquistador. He had served
under Pedrarias Dávila, the brutal governor of
Panama responsible for the execution of Vasco
Núñez de Balboa. While still a young man, de
Soto became rich from raids on Panamanian
Indians and slave trading in Nicaragua. As
leader of Francisco Pizarro’s cavalry, de Soto
and his horsemen were the first Europeans to
meet the Inca leader Atahualpa. De Soto
returned to Spain a wealthy man in 1536 and
married, but he soon grew restless. He asked
Charles V for permission to return to the New
92
World to conquer Ecuador, Colombia, and
Guatemala. The king instead appointed him
governor of Cuba and granted him royal
asiento (permission) to explore and conquer
“La Florida,” a vaguely defined region includ-
ing not only the Florida peninsula but lands
stretching from the Carolinas to Texas.
Every explorer who preceded de Soto into
La Florida had met with disaster. Alonso
Alvarez de Pineda charted the Gulf Coast from
Florida to Mexico in 1519, proving Florida was
not an island and claiming Texas for Spain.
Alvarez de Pineda was the actual European
discoverer of the Mississippi River, whose out-
lets he explored before resuming his voyage
west. At their settlement on Mexico’s Río
Pánuco, however, he and most of his crew
were killed by the Huastec. Lucas Vásquez de
Ayllón, a judge at Santo Domingo’s supreme
court, sponsored exploration of the northern
Florida coast and led a 1525 attempt to estab-
lish a settlement near Cape Fear, North Car-
olina. This, too, was a failure that cost its
leader his life. The efforts of Juan Ponce de

Beginning in 1538 Hernando de Soto explored much
of the present-day southeastern United States
before his death near the Mississippi River in 1540.
The rest of his party continued under the command
of Luis de Moscoso to present-day Tampico, on the
eastern coast of Mexico. (Library of Congress)
León and Pánfilo de Narváez to penetrate
Florida’s interior had also been disasters.
Yet de Soto was not easily intimidated nor
was he immune to the excitement created by
Cabeza de Vaca’s return to Spain after his epic
adventures and by rumors of the fantastic
wealth of the Seven Cities of Cíbola, (leg-
endary cities in the American Southwest). The
two men formed a partnership for the Florida
venture, but the agreement collapsed when de
Soto refused to pay for a boat Cabeza de Vaca
bought for the trip. Like most explorers who
Hernando de Soto and “La Florida” B 93
followed Columbus, de Soto was responsible
for funding his own expedition and had no
financial help from the Spanish Crown. This
meant that Charles V was entitled to a share of
whatever riches de Soto might discover, but if
no profit was made, de Soto and his partners
would bear the cost alone. The terms of the
charter also forbid de Soto to mistreat Indians
living on any land he would claim for Spain.
The reputation that he had acquired riding
with Dávila and Pizarro, however, gave no rea-
son to believe de Soto would honor this con-
dition. Later, in 1548, historian Gonzalo
Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés would note sar-
castically that “the Governor was much given
to the sport of slaying Indians.”
De Soto interested a group of Spanish
noblemen in the Florida venture. The idea
also attracted Portuguese volunteers, includ-
ing an adventurer who survived to write about
the journey under the pen name “A Fidalgo
[Gentleman] of Elvas.” The memoir of the
Gentleman of Elvas, along with those of de
Soto’s secretary Rodrigo Ranjel and the Span-
ish Crown’s representative, Luis Hernández de
Biedma, would provide the only first-person
descriptions of the expedition’s bloody
progress.
LANDING IN LA FLORIDA
De Soto was confident in regards to his Florida
venture but spent a year in Cuba planning care-
fully. His conquistadores were armed with
crossbows, primitive guns called harquebuses,
and Irish wolfhounds trained as ferocious “war
dogs.” He assembled not only soldiers but
craftsmen needed to run a colony, such as
shoemakers and tailors. In addition to food and
trade items, hundreds of shackles and iron col-
lars for slaves were packed in waiting ships.
When all preparations were complete, the force
included some 620 men and 223 horses.
94 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800

\
The Requerimiento =
Mistreatment of Native Americans was against the declared wishes of Spanish
royalty, who felt themselves morally obliged to bring Christianity to the Ameri-
cas. To protect the Indians—without slowing exploration and colonization—in
1512 King Ferdinand directed a council of theologians to define when military
action might be taken against Indians who opposed incursions into their lands.
The result was a long legal document called the requerimiento, a term that, lit-
erally translated, means “requirement.” Conquistadores like de Soto were
required to read the document aloud in a so-called ceremony of possession
whenever they moved into new lands inhabited by Native Americans.
The requerimiento demanded that Indians “acknowledge the Church as the
ruler and superior of the whole world,” under the authority of “the high priest
called Pope” and the rulers of Spain. The requerimiento also demanded that
Indians consent to religious instruction by priests. In principle, the document’s
terms were nonbinding:

We in their name shall receive you in all love and charity, and shall leave you your
wives, and your children, and your lands free without servitude, that you may do
with them and with yourselves freely that which you like and think best, and they
shall not compel you to turn Christians, unless you yourselves, when informed of
the truth, should wish to be converted to our holy Catholic faith.

Refusal to accept the terms of the requerimiento, however, amounted to a dec-

laration of war and held the Indians responsible for any violence:

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

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

On May 1, 1539, de Soto’s ships approached torians believe they landed at Tampa Bay, while
Florida’s west coast and sailed into a bay he others place the landing site farther south in
named Espíritu Santu (Holy Spirit). Some his- Charlotte Bay. As supplies were slowly
 Hernando de Soto and “La Florida” B 95

unloaded, eager conquistadores rode into the dwellings and fled with food stores before the
surrounding marshland. They encountered Europeans arrived. De Soto decided to station
impassable swamps and elusive Indians. Cav- 100 men on the coast and sent most of the
alrymen chasing a group of Indians were ships back to Havana for more supplies. He
shocked when one of the fleeing men began ordered the rest of his party to break camp
pleading for his life in Spanish. and march into the marshland and pine
The man was Juan Ortiz, who had been forests. The expedition was committed—there
sent by Narváez’s wife a decade earlier to find was no turning back.
her husband. When Ortiz’s shore party landed De Soto’s hungry army devoured everything
in Florida in 1528, he and another Spaniard in its path as it struggled northward. Indians
were captured by Indians, whose chief had along the way who were defiant enough to
been disfigured upon Narváez’s orders. Ortiz’s refuse to supply food or information were tor-
companion was killed immediately. The tribe tured, raped, or killed. Others were chained
began to roast Ortiz alive over a coal fire, but and used as slaves to carry the Europeans’
the chief’s daughter convinced her father to equipment. Starving soldiers often ate maize
spare the young Spaniard’s life. Soon there- (corn) raw as soon as they discovered it, along
after, she saved Ortiz’s life a second time, with chestnuts and whatever else they found.
warning him to flee before he was to be killed
as a sacrifice. Ortiz escaped to the protection
of a nearby tribe and had been living with
them for years when news arrived that ships
were sailing along the coast.
De Soto’s expedition was thrilled to find
Ortiz, for they now had a translator. Yet they
were disappointed to learn that there was no
gold nearby. De Soto made a peace alliance
with the cacique, or chief, with whom Ortiz
lived and began to send military scouts
inland. Instead of finding treasure or land
hospitable enough to settle upon, the con-
quistadores bogged down in swamps, where
they were easy targets for hostile Indians.
When the furious de Soto suspected one
Indian guide of leading the Europeans in cir-
cles, the guide was thrown to the dogs, which
tore him to pieces. As morale sank, de Soto
ordered his cavalry leader to send ambigu-
ously written reports back from the advance
party to encourage the fortune seekers. By
Many American Indians living along the coastal
mid-July, however, the Europeans were starv- United States, such as the Timucua in what is now
ing in the humid, insect-ridden Florida sum- Florida, supplemented their diets with fish. In this
mer. Instead of gold, fertile land, or exportable engraving by Theodor de Bry, some American
slave labor, they found only poor villages, Indians in Virginia fish from a dugout canoe at
whose inhabitants frequently burned their night. (Library of Congress)
96 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800
De Soto began taking hostages to prevent
Indian attacks. In mid-August in the village of
Caliquen, 20 miles northeast of the mouth of
the Suwannee River, de Soto kidnapped the
cacique and his daughter, making it known to
local Indians that he intended to keep the
chief until the expedition had passed safely
into a new territory. On September 15 the
expedition arrived at the Indian town of
Napituca, southeast of the present city of Live
Oak, in northern Florida. Seven Timucua
chiefs appeared and asked to meet de Soto in
an open field to discuss the cacique’s release.
Friendly Paracoxi Indians, however, told Juan
Ortiz that the Timucua were plotting an
ambush. De Soto rode onto the field as
 Hernando de Soto and “La Florida” B 97

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

agreed, but at his signal, a trumpet sounded
and his cavalry charged. It took all night for
the conquistadores to defeat the Timucua
fighters. De Soto’s Paracoxi allies tied the van-
quished survivors to posts and used them as
live archery targets.
De Soto’s men headed northwest, building
bridges across the Suwannee and Aucilla
Rivers on the way to Apalache, the area
around modern-day Tallahassee. There de
Soto camped for the winter. He sent expedi-
tion comptroller (supervisor of finances) Juan
de Añasco toward the coast in search of a
usable port. At the shoreline Añasco found the
ghostly remains of Narváez’s last encamp-
ment, with its forge used to make nails for the
doomed expedition’s escape ships.
THE PEARLS OF
COFITACHEQUI
That winter, a young Indian captive named
Perico told the Europeans that he knew of
gold mines to the north. Perico described the
process of refining gold with enough accuracy
to convince them he was telling the truth. The
land, he claimed, was called Cofitachequi and
was ruled by a woman. When the expedition
98 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800

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

resumed its journey in March 1540, Perico
guided it northeast into the hills of present-
day southern Georgia. There the Indians were
friendlier, offering the Europeans food,
porters, and guides. In return, de Soto built
large wooden crosses in the center of several
towns and lectured the townspeople on the
blessings of Christianity.
Within six weeks, however, the Europeans’
supplies were again gone. Starving Indian
slaves were released and told to fend for them-
selves, far inside South Carolina. De Soto
threatened Perico, who finally admitted that
he was lost. Perico escaped being thrown to
the dogs, for he was the only Indian whose
language the translator Ortiz understood. On
April 26 four Indians were captured near a
deserted village. After de Soto ordered one of
them burned to death, the others revealed
that Cofitachequi was only two days away.
The cacica, or female chieftain, of the
Muskogean-speaking inhabitants of Cofi-
tachequi welcomed de Soto warmly at the
Wateree River near the present site of Cam-

den, South Carolina. “She crossed in the
canoes and spoke to the Governor quite
gracefully and at her ease,” Ranjel remem-
bered of “The Lady of Cofitachequi,” as she
was called by both Indians and the Europeans.
“She was a young girl of fine bearing; and she
took off a string of pearls which she wore on
her neck, and put it on the Governor as a
necklace to show her favor and to gain his
will.” The Europeans spent a week enjoying
the hospitality of the people of Cofitachequi.
“The country was delightful and fertile,”
wrote the Gentleman of Elvas. “The forest was
open, with abundance of walnut and mul-
berry trees.” Cofitachequi was the most boun-
tiful area the expedition had yet encountered.
It was also the first locale that promised any
treasure. De Soto and his officers entered an
Indian burial chamber, where they found
corpses decorated with freshwater pearls.
They also found iron Spanish axes, which
probably came from the failed Ayllón settle-
ment on the coast, two days’ walk to the east.
The Europeans removed 200 pounds of pearls
from the mausoleum. When the cacica saw
how much they valued the pearls, she offered
them more, but de Soto refused. Their week in
Cofitachequi was the most promising time the
would-be colonists had enjoyed. Crimes com-
mitted by de Soto’s soldiers, however, gradu-
ally turned the people of Cofitachequi against
them. When de Soto announced to the cacica
that he was marching onward to search for
richer lands, she refused him food or porters.
He responded by taking her hostage, but she
managed to escape days later.
THE BATTLE OF MABILA
For two months, de Soto’s expedition wan-
dered through the hills of North Carolina and
eastern Tennessee, crossing the Appalachian
Mountains and turning southwest into
Alabama. At Coça, near modern-day Childers-
Hernando de Soto and “La Florida” B 99
burg, they rested for a month under the pro-
tection of a Creek cacique, who was repaid for
his kindness by being taken hostage. They
continued to head southwest, down the
Alabama River to the Tombigbee River. On
October 10 they met Chief Tascalusa, the most
imposing cacique they had encountered yet.
“His appearance was full of dignity,” the Gen-
tleman of Elvas wrote. “He was a tall person,
muscular, lean, and symmetrical. He was the
suzerain of many territories, and of a numer-
ous people, being equally feared by his vassals
and the neighboring nations.”
Tascalusa offered de Soto a peaceful,
friendly passage through his lands. After being
entertained by the cacique’s men, however, de
Soto refused to let Tascalusa return home.
Furthermore, de Soto demanded male slaves
to use as porters and 100 women. Tascalusa
gave de Soto 400 men to use as carriers, but
postponed the request for women, saying that
he would grant the request when they reached
the nearby town of Mabila.
As de Soto approached Mabila, near the
present site of Mobile, Alabama, he was told
that the inhabitants were strengthening the
heavily fortified town’s walls, stockpiling
weapons, and summoning warriors from the
countryside. De Soto ignored the warnings
and rode into Mabila on October 18, 1540. He
and a dozen of his men were greeted with
dancing and singing. The Spaniards noticed,
however, that the houses around them were
filled with armed men. When Tascalusa disap-
peared into a dwelling and refused to come
out, one of de Soto’s officers grabbed a passing
Indian, starting a scuffle. Suddenly, de Soto’s
men began dropping under a hail of arrows.
The wounded Spaniards fought their way out
of the fortress. De Soto regrouped his forces
and torched Mabila, killing between 2,500 and
3,000 townspeople, some of whom jumped
into the flames or hanged themselves rather
than be captured and enslaved.
100 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800

De Soto let his badly mauled expedition Spanish ships were at the coast, only six days
rest for a month at Mabila. While they recov- away. De Soto kept this news a secret. If he
ered, Indians told the translator Ortiz that returned to Cuba now, his entire expedition

Although some American Indian tribes greeted de Soto and his expedition eagerly, other tribes (often rightfully)
feared their approach. In this 1858 illustration, some American Indians in Arkansas set fire to their village as de
Soto’s party approaches. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-104382])

would be considered a failure, for even the
Cofitachequi pearls had been destroyed in the
Mabila blaze. Determined to return home as a
success, de Soto turned his expedition inland.
In northern Mississippi confrontations
between the Europeans and the Indians con-
tinued. After passing a peaceful winter among
the Chickasaw, de Soto typically demanded
porters from the tribe when it was time to
leave. The night before his planned departure,
the Chickasaw attacked and would have mas-
sacred the entire camp if the Europeans’ terri-
fied horses had not stampeded and thrown
the ambush into chaos.
On Saturday, May 21, 1541, de Soto’s har-
ried men reached the banks of the Mississippi
River, which they called the Río Grande.
“Many of these conquerors said this river was
larger than the Danube,” Ranjel wrote. Yet
they saw it as simply another obstacle to over-
come. Four barges were built, and on June 8
the expedition crossed to the west bank.
Although the exact site of the crossing is still
controversial, it is thought to have taken place
25 miles south of Memphis. The fruitless
search for treasure dragged on into south-
western Arkansas, where de Soto’s men and
their slaves spent the winter snaring rabbits
and subsisting on stores of beans, walnuts,
and maize they confiscated in an abandoned
town. Almost half of the 620 men who had
marched from Florida, including translator
Juan Ortiz, were now dead. Most of the
remaining horses were lame. When Indians
told him of a “great water” to the south, de
Soto finally decided to turn toward the Gulf of
Mexico and send to Cuba for reinforcements.
Near what is now Ferriday, Louisiana, the
expedition entered an Indian town called
Guachoya. The Guachoyans seemed friendly
and told de Soto that the neighboring people
of Nilco were preparing to attack the Euro-
peans. De Soto, however, was suspicious. He
Hernando de Soto and “La Florida” B 101
decided to frighten both towns out of any
thoughts of war by sending his cavalry into
Nilco, where de Soto’s men slaughtered all but
a few of the unprepared inhabitants. The Gua-
choyans watched the killing, then rushed to
sack the victims’ homes.
By now it was clear to de Soto and his men
that their expedition had failed. No gold had
been discovered. Many in the ranks now hated
the constant warring with Indians, which had
gained them nothing. De Soto was seriously ill
with fever, and even if he safely led the sur-
vivors back to Cuba, his reputation would be
ruined, leaving no reason for backers to fund
any new expeditions. His fever worsened on
May 21, 1542. He called his officers together,
thanked them, confessed his sins, and named
Luis de Moscoso as his successor. De Soto
died the next day and was secretly buried. De
Soto had told the Indians that he was immor-
tal, but they noticed his absence and a mound
of fresh grave dirt. The Spaniards exhumed
their leader at night, weighted his corpse with
stones so that it would not reappear unex-
pectedly, and dropped him overboard in the
middle of the Mississippi River. The Gentle-
man of Elvas heard Moscoso tell the suspi-
cious Guachoyan cacique that “the Governor
was not dead, but only gone into the heavens”
and would return soon.
MOSCOSO TAKES
COMMAND
Moscoso polled the members of the expedi-
tion as to what direction they wanted to take
next. Lacking shipbuilding tools, the majority
agreed to leave the river and march toward
Mexico, still hoping to discover riches along
the way. For the next four months, the expedi-
tion struggled through northern Louisiana
into east Texas, constantly battling with Native
tribes. Moscoso pressed Indians along the way
102 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800

for information about gold, a route to the sea,
or Christians who might be nearby. The usual
cruelties accompanying Moscoso’s demands,
however, obtained the Europeans as much
false information as good as they journeyed
into Texas. The land became increasingly
incapable of supporting the large expedition.
In October, near the present site of Austin,
Texas, Moscoso called the expedition’s leaders
together. Winter was approaching and sup-

After de Soto died of a terrible fever in May 1542, his party continued under the command of Luis de Moscoso.
In this mid-19th-century engraving, the party travels south along the Mississippi River. (Library of Congress, Prints
and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-104383])

plies were dwindling. Advance riders and
information obtained by torturing Indians
suggested that only the barren deserts
described by Cabeza de Vaca lay ahead.
Turquoise (a semiprecious stone) and cotton
Hernando de Soto and “La Florida” B 103
suggested to some Europeans that a more
plentiful land might be found on the overland
route south to New Spain. Dismissing the
objections of these optimists, Moscoso
ordered the group to turn back toward the
“great river,” the Mississippi.
After a grueling march, Moscoso and his
men eventually reached the “Río Grande” and
took over the Indian town of Aminoya, whose
inhabitants were reduced to starvation when
the Europeans seized their food supplies. By
spring 1543 the Europeans had built seven
brigantines (two-masted vessels) from local
wood and nails made by melting down slave
chains. Moscoso ordered all but his closest
allies to dismiss their slaves. Amid much
weeping, 500 Indian men, women, and chil-
dren were abandoned in hostile territory, far
from their homes.
On July 2, 1543, 322 surviving Europeans
and 100 slaves set forth onto the Mississippi
River aboard their homemade brigantines.
The expedition’s methods remained
unchanged on water. The Europeans stole
maize from houses along the river and burned
the first town they encountered. The next day,
Indians approached the Europeans in canoes,
offering friendship. As soon as the Indians
were within range, however, they rained
arrows on the Europeans. Two dozen Spanish
soldiers took to canoes to attack their pur-
suers. The Indians simply capsized them,
sending the armor-laden conquistadores
sinking to the river bottom.
The emboldened Indians continued to
attack by day and night, wounding many
Europeans before eventually giving up the
chase. The drifting survivors reached the
mouth of the Mississippi River 17 days later.
A vote was taken, and they decided to pro-
ceed westward along the coast rather than
risk voyaging across the Gulf of Mexico in the
rickety brigantines. Juan de Añasco briefly
104 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800

convinced the party to try a sea route to
speed their progress. Drinking water quickly
began to run out, forcing the group to spend
several desperate days rowing back to land.
Storms and mosquitoes tormented them as
they followed the coastline, drifting through
the bays of Matagorda and Corpus Christi
along the gulf coast of Texas. In September
1543, 52 days after leaving the Mississippi,
the survivors reached the mouth of the Río
Pánuco, near the future site of Tampico, Mex-
ico. After four days of trying to sail upriver
against the current, they deserted their brig-
antines and walked the rest of the way to the
nearest Spanish settlement. “In their clothing
of deerskin,” the Gentleman of Elvas wrote,
“they all went directly to the church, to pray
and return thanks for their miraculous
preservation.”
LEGACY OF A FAILURE
The appearance of 311 survivors was a shock
to Spanish authorities, who had long assumed
that the entire group was dead. Published
chronicles by survivors slowly became avail-
able. The Spanish Crown’s representative, Luis
Hernández de Biedma, filed his brief report in
1544. The diary of de Soto’s secretary Rodrigo
Ranjel revealed far more about the incredible
hardships and violence of the adventure. Ran-
jel’s diary was edited and included in La Histo-
ria General y Natural de las Indias in 1548 by
historian Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y

Atrocities against American Indians abounded throughout many Spanish explorers’ expeditions in the
Americas, including killing, torturing, and enslaving them, as shown in this mid-19th-century engraving
in which Spanish soldiers use bloodhounds to kill an American Indian. (Library of Congress, Prints and
Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-104367])

Valdés, whose commentary suggested that he
was disgusted by the behavior of his country-
men. The Gentleman of Elvas completed his
long, detailed memoir in 1557. These first-
hand accounts, and Garcilaso de la Vega’s
romantic history, La Florida del Inca (1605),
gave Europeans their personal views of the de
Soto expedition. Each contained clues about
the geography, wildlife, agriculture, and native
peoples of La Florida, but the chroniclers
retold their experience as men—like de Soto—
who were mostly concerned with gold and
survival. By reading these accurate accounts,
however, Europeans now realized that La
Florida was a rugged land of real and complex
dangers. It was neither ripe for easy coloniza-
tion and religious conversion nor was it a
country, like Peru, where fabulous wealth
made peril worth the risk. De Soto’s experi-
ence presented Europe with a forbidding por-
trait of Florida that had a chilling effect on
exploration for a century.
Yet Spain continued to consider the region
its possession and dealt harshly with other
European attempts to settle there. French
Hernando de Soto and “La Florida” B 105
Huguenots under the guidance of French
explorer Jean Ribault established two forts in
northern Florida along the St. Johns River in
1562 and 1564. Perceiving a dual threat of
French claims to the land and Protestantism,
King Philip II of Spain dispatched a military
expedition under Pedro Menéndez de Avilés.
On September 8, 1565, Menéndez established
St. Augustine on the northeastern coast of the
Florida peninsula. He then turned his atten-
tion inland to the French forts, capturing
them and slaughtering all but a few of the
hundreds of inhabitants. Spain’s hold on the
territory remained weak despite some suc-
cessful efforts by Franciscan missionaries to
settle beyond St. Augustine in the late 1600s,
but St. Augustine endured to become the old-
est European city in the United States.
It was not the legacy that Hernando de
Soto had in mind when he set off on his expe-
dition. But if he deserves criticism for his bru-
tal mistreatment of the Native Americans he
encountered, he also deserves some credit for
providing Europeans with their first true look
into the great wilderness called La Florida.
{ 9
Coronado and
the Seven Cities
With the wealth of Mexico and Peru
\ already glittering in their minds,
Spanish treasure hunters looked
north in the late 1530s. They dreamed they
might find a new Tenochtitlán or Cuzco in the
unexplored lands of what would become the
United States. One of the first and greatest
journeys of discovery into the heart of North
America was led by Francisco Vásquez de
Coronado. Members of his entrada (literally,
“entrance,” but used to refer to an expedition)
were the first Europeans to meet the pueblo-
dwelling peoples of the American Southwest
and to see the Grand Canyon. They were also
the first to see the Great Plains, traveling
alongside Indian tribes whose survival
depended on buffalo herds so vast that they
covered the landscape as far as the eye could
see. For centuries, however, Coronado’s amaz-
ing entrada lay forgotten as a business venture
whose failure cost its investors their fortunes.
Although the contemporary public never
saw a word in print about Coronado’s expedi-
106
tion, it was one of the best-documented jour-
neys of the era. It was described by Coronado
himself in detailed official letters to his
patron, Antonio de Mendoza, the viceroy of
New Spain. Other chroniclers were soldiers,
like the anonymous author of a document
known as the Relación del Suceso (Story of the
event), or Captain Juan Jaramillo, or Pedro de
Casteñeda, who recorded his experiences 20
years after marching from Mexico to present-
day Kansas and back.
The Spanish venture northward was spon-
sored by Mendoza. To some extent, Mendoza’s
interest in funding exploration was inspired
by the rumors of great cities to the north
swirling around the survival of Cabeza de Vaca
and his companions. Mendoza’s plans were
also hastened by competition. His political
rival Hernán Cortés was funding seaborne
exploration from Mexico’s Pacific coast. Her-
nando de Soto had received a royal grant to
explore La Florida, the vast region between
Florida and Texas. Mendoza thought competi-
 Coronado and the Seven Cities B 107

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

tors might beat him to the allegedly fabulously ico’s frontier. The claim that such cities existed
wealthy Seven Cities of Cíbola, a region sup- had been reported by the survivors of Cabeza
posedly situated inland above northern Mex- de Vaca’s epic trek.
108 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800
Mendoza decided to send a small explo-
ratory expedition north before investing heav-
ily in the project. On March 7, 1539, the group
left Culiacán, near the west-central coast of
Mexico. Its official leader was Franciscan friar
Marcos de Niza, a veteran of expeditions in
Peru and Central America. The real leader,
however, was Estéban, the experienced sur-
vivor of the Narváez and Cabeza de Vaca expe-
ditions. Estéban retraced the Indian roads by
which he had earlier come south through the
Sonora Valley. Two months later the expedi-
tion reached the present Sonora-Arizona bor-
der. Niza sent Estéban ahead, with instructions
to report any significant discoveries. It was a
logical strategy, for the region’s Indians
remembered Estéban and got along well with
him. He soon outpaced the main party and
was more than 200 miles ahead of it when he
reached the outskirts of Cíbola.
Several tales relate what may have hap-
pened when Estéban arrived at the first of the
“Seven Cities,” but every story ends with his
death. One legend says that Estéban sent the
leaders of Cíbola a ceremonial gourd, which
he had successfully used in the past as a peace
sign. At Cíbola, however, red feathers attached
to the gourd were interpreted as a threat of
war, a misunderstanding that cost Estéban his
life. Another story holds that the elders of
Cíbola, who were irritated by Estéban’s
demands for turquoise and women, killed him
on suspicion that he was a spy.
News of Estéban’s violent death terrified
Fray Niza, who fled back to Mexico City.
Despite his hasty retreat, however, Niza
reported to Mendoza that he had seen Cíbola
from a distance. His hints at the existence of
a great civilization provoked even wilder
rumors than those created by Cabeza de
Vaca’s austere accounts of Indian life three
years earlier. Rodrigo de Albornoz, treasurer
of New Spain, described in a letter what Niza
claimed to have learned of the people of the
Seven Cities:
They have houses built of stone and lime,
being of three stories, and with great quan-
tity of turquoises set in doors and windows.
Of animals there are camels and elephants
and cattle of our kind as well as wild ones,
hunted by the natives, and a great number
of sheep like those of Peru, also other ani-
mals with a single horn reaching to their
feet, for which reason they must feed side-
ways.
The Spanish lords of Mexico soon learned that
such tales of the architecture and wildlife of
the American Southwest were more fiction
than fact.
CORONADO STARTS
NORTH
Confident that Niza was telling the truth,
Mendoza appointed Francisco Vásquez de
Coronado to lead a full-scale expedition
north. An aristocrat by birth whom historians
customarily identify as Coronado rather than
by his Spanish family name, Vásquez, Coron-
ado was governor of Nueva Galicia, the north-
ernmost province of New Spain. He and most
of the volunteers he enlisted were not experi-
enced, battle-hardened conquistadores like
their contemporaries Cortés and de Soto.
Unlike the ruthless Pizarro, Coronado was
also under strict orders from Mendoza to
avoid mistreating any Indians he might
encounter. The expedition grew to become an
armed force of 336 Europeans, mostly
Spaniards, and hundreds of Mexican “Indian
allies,” as well as six Franciscan friars, 1,000
Indian laborers, and more than 1,500 horses
and pack animals. Fray Niza was appointed to
guide the group.
 Coronado and the Seven Cities B 109

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

While organizing the expedition, Coron- Culiacán in March, he brought no encourag-

ado dispatched a small reconnaissance party
led by Melchior Díaz, the respected alcalde
(governor) of Culiacán. Díaz left on November
17, 1539, and followed the Sonora Valley north
toward southeastern Arizona, then continued
until winter weather stopped him at the
southern edge of the Colorado Plateau. He
had still not reported back by the time Coron-
ado and the main force left Nueva Galicia on
February 23, 1540. When Díaz joined them at
ing news of treasure. Mexican Indian traders,
however, had given Díaz accurate information
about the societies Coronado would
encounter. Cíbola, Díaz explained, was actu-
ally seven separate Indian communities
within a day’s march of one another. He
described the homes of tribes who lived in
large, multistory dwellings hewn from stone
or built with bricks of adobe, a sunbaked mix-
ture of clay and straw: The Spanish later
110 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800
named these dwellings and the people who
lived in them pueblos—simply the Spanish
word for “village.” Díaz also heard about the
inhabitants’ farming practices, dress, and
warfare strategies, but nothing confirming
reports of wealth.
Coronado decided to travel ahead of his
main army, accompanied by Díaz and 75 men.
By June they were at the present border of
Mexico and Arizona. They ascended onto the
Colorado Plateau, struggling over a rugged
landscape that bore no resemblance to the
easy route and bountiful countryside prom-
ised by Fray Niza. The hungry, disheartened
men were inexperienced in living off the land
in such a despoblado (wilderness). Several
died from eating poisonous “water hemlock”
out of desperation.
Finally, on July 7, Coronado arrived at the
first settlement of Cíbola, the Zuni pueblo of
Háwikuh. The starving men were stunned.
They found a dusty town of 200 stone
dwellings, not the magnificent city described
by Fray Niza. “When they got within sight of
the first pueblo, which was Cíbola,” Casteñeda
recalled, “the curses that some hurled at fray
Marcos were such that God forbid they may
befall him.”
Zuni archers, some of whom had attacked
Coronado’s scouts the previous night, assem-
bled to defend Háwikuh. Coronado sent an
interpreter forward with a message that he
came in peace but, as he later reported, “they,
being a proud people, were little affected,
because it seemed to them that we were few
in number, and that they would not have any
difficulty in conquering us.” When Zuni
arrows began to fly at the intruders, the
Spaniards attacked and took Háwikuh by
force.
An uneasy peace eventually settled over
the town, and Coronado began to question
the Zuni about the surrounding countryside:
I commanded them to have a cloth painted
for me, with all the animals that they know
in that country, and although they are poor
painters, they quickly painted two for me,
one of the animals and the other of the
birds and fishes. . . . They tell me about
seven cities which are at a considerable dis-
tance, which are like these, except that the
houses there are not like these, but are
made of earth, and small, and that they
raise much cotton there.
This was unwelcome news to an expedi-
tion expecting to find rich cities. Coronado
sent Fray Niza back to Mexico City in disgrace.
“I can assure you that he has not told the truth
in a single thing that he said, but everything is
the opposite of what he related, except the
name of the cities and the large stone houses,”
Coronado wrote to Mendoza.
Niza’s report was revealed to be an illusion,
but Coronado’s financial stake—as well as
those of Mendoza and other investors—con-
vinced him to continue the venture. Making
his headquarters at Háwikuh, he sent forth
smaller expeditions that would define his
place in history.
THE GRAND CANYON
In September 1540 Coronado ordered Pedro
de Tovar, one of his captains, to search for a
province the Zuni called Tusuyan, the land of
the Hopi. Tovar rode 65 miles into what is now
northeastern Arizona. Inhabitants of the first
Hopi settlement he reached had heard of the
Spanish attack on Cíbola and warned Tovar to
stay away. While Tovar tried to negotiate with
the Hopi, his impatient soldiers rushed for-
ward, provoking a brief brawl, after which the
Spanish and Hopi bartered and traded infor-
mation peacefully. Tovar returned to Coron-
ado with news that a great river lay to the west.
 Coronado and the Seven Cities B 111

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

Coronado immediately sent a second
party, led by García López de Cárdenas, to
investigate. In September 1540, 20 days away
from the Hopi villages and the Painted Desert
(in modern-day Arizona), Cárdenas and his
men became the first Europeans to see the
Grand Canyon. Casteñeda wrote:
low, twisted pines, very cold, and lying open
to the north. . . . They spent three days on
this bank looking for a passage down to the
river, which looked from above as if the
water was 6 feet across, although the Indi-
ans said it was half a league [about 1.5
miles] wide.

[They] came to the banks of a river, which
seemed to be more than three or four
leagues in an air line across to the other
bank of the stream which flowed between
them. The country was elevated and full of
Cárdenas’s party is thought to have
reached the canyon’s South Rim near Moran
Point. The three “lightest and most agile men”
in the group tried to reach the river, but gave
up after a day of difficult climbing:
112 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800

They said that they had been down about

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

Cárdenas and his men soon went on their

way, more in need of drinking water than
interested in exploring the giant chasm block-
ing their way. Some 135 years passed before
another European, Francisco Tomás Garcés,
would explore the Grand Canyon.

“ALARCÓN CAME
THIS FAR”
Cíbola was not the only geography trans-
formed by Fray Niza’s imagination. The friar’s
report had created the false impression that
Cíbola was close enough to the Pacific coast to
be supplied by sea. On May 9, 1540, Mendoza
dispatched an exploratory fleet north into the
Gulf of California. At the same time Cárdenas
was searching for a river passage to the ocean,
supply-laden ships commanded by Hernando
de Alarcón reached the mouth of the Colorado
River, whose waters were colored red by silt.
Alarcón tried sailing upriver. He met Yuma
(Quechan) Indians, who had heard of
Estéban’s death and Coronado’s expedition.
When the Yuma convinced Alarcón that Coro-
nado was hundreds of miles inland, he aban-
doned his mission.
Meanwhile, Coronado surmised correctly
that a reddish river he had crossed—the Lit-
tle Colorado—eventually drained into the
Hernando de Alarcón, shown here, turned around
his ships full of supplies intended for Coronado’s
expedition after being convinced by the Yuma that
he would not be able to reach them from the
Colorado River. (Library of Congress, Prints and
Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-99997])
sea; in fact, the Little Colorado joins the main
Colorado River in the Grand Canyon. He
ordered Melchior Díaz to find Alarcón’s
ships, whose supply mission was part of the
original plan. Díaz backtracked hundreds of
miles south before taking an unknown route
west to the Colorado. About 40 miles from
the gulf, Díaz found a tree inscribed two
months earlier, “Alarcón came this far; there
are letters at the foot of this tree.” Díaz
explored upriver for six days before crossing
the Colorado and riding south into deserts of
 Coronado and the Seven Cities B 113

southeastern California. His journey ended was the case with the Cárdenas foray, no
there when he was mortally wounded by explorers would visit the area for another
falling from his horse onto his own spear. As century.
114 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800

As photographed during the early 20th century by Edward S. Curtis, Acoma Pueblo is located on a mesa
in present-day New Mexico and has been occupied since the 12th century. (Library of Congress, Prints and
Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-74105])
 Coronado and the Seven Cities B 115

THE CAPTIVE OF CICUYÉ

On August 29, while Cárdenas was marching
northwest toward the Grand Canyon, Coron-
ado dispatched Hernando de Alvarado and 20
men eastward across what is now central New
Mexico. Alvarado’s guide was a chieftain the
Spaniards nicknamed Bigotes, or “Whiskers,”
because of his long mustaches. Bigotes had
come to Háwikuh with a friendly delegation
from a pueblo some 250 miles to the east
called Cicuyé, whose inhabitants invited the
Spanish to visit them.
Four days into their journey, Alvarado’s
men became the first Europeans to see the
Acoma pueblo, a Keres Indian town built on
top of a flat-topped land formation called a
mesa (Spanish for “table”). Gazing up at the
fortresslike pueblo, the Spaniards were
unaware that Acoma had existed for at least
500, possibly 1,000 years before their arrival.
The town still exists today, making Acoma one
of the oldest continuously inhabited commu-
nities in North America.
Acoma was “a rock with a village on top,
the strongest position that ever was seen in
the world,” wrote the anonymous author of
the Relación del Suceso. The inhabitants
“came out to meet us peacefully, although it
would have been easy to decline to do this
and to have stayed on their rock, where we
would not have been able to trouble them.
They gave us cloaks of cotton, skins of deer
and of cows, and turquoises, and fowls and
other food.”
When Alvarado reached the Río Grande
near the present site of Albuquerque, New
Mexico, deep in the Indian region then
known as Tiguex, he sent word to Coronado
that he had found a suitable place for the
expedition to spend the winter. After explor-
ing northward along the Río Grande as far as
116 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800
Taos pueblo, Alvarado continued east to
Cicuyé, which was known to other pueblos as
Pecos, a name that the Spanish later
adopted. The enormous pueblo was a signif-
icant trading center connecting the pueblo
Indians of the southwest with the hunting
tribes of the Great Plains. The people of
Cicuyé had never been defeated in battle and
were feared by other tribes. They felt no rea-
son to be intimidated by the Spanish and
welcomed them warmly.
While awaiting Coronado’s arrival in
Tiguex, Alvarado asked his hosts about lands
to the east. The Pecos of Cicuyé introduced
him to one of their captives, a Pawnee or
Wichita from Kansas or Nebraska. Evidently
because something about his headgear
reminded the Spanish of the Turkish, they
nicknamed him El Turco, “the Turk.” El Turco
realized from Alvarado’s questions that gold
interested the Spaniards more than anything.
When Coronado arrived at Tiguex, Alvarado
presented him with El Turco, who convinced
the Spaniards that his home province of
Quivira, far to the east, was a place of fabu-
lous wealth and natural wonders. El Turco,
Casteñeda wrote, told Coronado that fish in
Quivira were as large as horses and swam in
rivers five miles wide: “He stated further that
the lord of that land took his siesta under a
large tree from which hung numerous golden
bells, and he was pleased as they played in
the wind. He added that the common table
service of all was generally of wrought silver,
and that the pitchers, dishes, and bowls were
made of gold.”
El Turco had no proof of his fantastic
claims, but insisted that at the time of his cap-
ture he had worn gold bracelets, which Big-
otes had confiscated. Alvarado seized Bigotes
and another chieftain, then brought them to
Coronado, who ordered the men tortured to
produce the golden bracelets. No confession
resulted, and the people of Cicuyé were furi-
ous, but Coronado was certain that El Turco
was telling the truth.
A BLOODY WINTER
The Pecos of Cicuyé were not the only ones
outraged by the increasing arrogance of Coro-
nado’s entrada. When winter snows began to
blow across Tiguex, the Spanish and their
Mexican Indian allies were completely unpre-
pared. Their solution was to forcibly evict the
inhabitants of Alcanfor, one of Tiguex’s 12
pueblos (and now a ruin located near present-
day Bernalillo). Spanish thefts of food, cloth-
ing, blankets, and firewood from surrounding
pueblos increased as the winter grew colder.
Tension increased when Coronado refused to
punish a Spaniard accused of raping an
Indian woman. The pueblo of Arenal, north of
the present city of Albuquerque, New Mexico,
retaliated by murdering one of the Spaniards’
livestock tenders and killing a large number of
their horses. Within days, the Spaniards and
the pueblos of Tiguex were embroiled in a full-
fledged war.
Cárdenas destroyed Arenal and captured
70 of its defenders, who gave up after Spanish
officers offered them a chance to surrender
peacefully. The angry Coronado, however, had
given no orders to negotiate. He ordered 50 of
the captives to be burned at the stake and
slaughtered the rest when they resisted. The
incident did not provide the warning Coron-
ado intended. By the time the war ended in
March 1541, embittered tribes throughout the
region knew Coronado’s words of friendship
could not be trusted.
KINGDOM OF QUIVIRA
Relations with Indians were more peaceful
during the rest of Coronado’s expedition. In

April 1541 he took a small force eastward to
find the kingdom of Quivira. El Turco led the
expedition across the plains of northwestern
Texas, later dubbed the Llano Estacado
(Staked Plains). This southern boundary of
the Great Plains seemed so featureless to the
Spaniards that they made piles of buffalo
bones and dung to mark their path. One rider
who wandered away disappeared forever in
the endlessly flat landscape.
Coronado’s men were the first Europeans
to meet an Indian tribe of the Great Plains, a
western Apache group they called Quere-
chos. These nomadic people hunted bison
and traveled across the plains on foot, trad-
ing hides with more permanently settled
tribes. “From what was learned of these Indi-
ans, all their human needs are supplied
by these cows, for they are fed and clothed
and shod from these,” remembered Juan
Jaramillo, one of Coronado’s captains. “They
are a people who wander around here and
there, wherever seems to them best.” Horses
were still unknown to the Plains Indians.
They transported their belongings on
wooden pole frames (later known by the
French term travois) that were harnessed to
dogs. The tribes Coronado encountered—
both the Querechos and their enemies,
the Teyas—treated the Spanish with great
hospitality.
As Coronado crossed the north Texas and
Oklahoma panhandles into present-day
Kansas, faith in El Turco’s guidance ebbed.
Another Indian captive, Isopete, accused El
Turco of lying and leading Coronado aim-
lessly around the countryside. Low on sup-
plies, Coronado ordered most of his men
back to Tiguex. He continued onward with
only 30 horsemen, led by Isopete, who
offered to guide the company in exchange for
his freedom. On June 29, 1541, they reached a
Wichita village by the Arkansas River near the
Coronado and the Seven Cities B 117
present-day town of Ford, Kansas. This,
Isopete explained, was Quivira, home of a
Caddoan-speaking tribe whom later Euro-
peans called the Wichita. Spaniards viewing
the village’s straw-roofed dwellings realized
that, as with Fray Niza’s portrait of Cíbola, El
Turco’s promise of an affluent metropolis was
an illusion. To discover if Quivira was more
than a heavily populated trading center,
Coronado continued north along the
Arkansas River past Great Bend, exploring
the region for more than a month. He finally
commanded a halt near the present site of
Salina, Kansas.
The fertile countryside was rich with game,
clean water, and fruit trees, but not with gold.
When El Turco secretly appealed to the Quivi-
rans to kill the Spaniards, his captors stran-
gled him. A few days later, Coronado freed
Isopete, planted a cross to “take possession” of
the land for Spain, and returned west, hoping
to rejoin his army before winter. Ironically, the
expedition had come within only a few hun-
dred miles of Hernando de Soto’s floundering
entrada, members of which were scouting
along the lower reach of the Arkansas River
after having recently discovered the Missis-
sippi River.
Coronado’s men found their way back
across 1,000 miles of grassy plains to their
headquarters at Tiguex, arriving in October
1541. That winter, some members of the
expedition discussed staying in Tierra Nueva,
the “New Land,” which would one day
become New Mexico. Some considered
Quivira suitable for settlement, while others
wanted to push even further eastward, still
convinced that there might be truth in El
Turco’s tales of riches. In December, however,
Coronado was gravely injured in a riding
accident. While recovering, he declared that
the entrada was over and ordered a return to
Mexico.
118 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800

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

Coronado arrived in Mexico in late 1542 in Tierra Nueva. Bitter Indian memories of
after an absence of two and a half years, leav- Coronado’s cruelty also remained behind,
ing only a handful of settlers and missionaries leaving future explorers to face a dangerous

legacy. An official tribunal investigated Coron-
ado’s management of the expedition, includ-
Coronado and the Seven Cities B 119
ing his mistreatment of Indians. Coronado
was cleared of the charges and died in Mexico
City in 1554. His subordinate Cárdenas, how-
ever, had returned to Spain, where he was
convicted of crimes against the Indians and
heavily fined.
Considering the scope of what Coronado
had discovered, his expedition had surpris-
ingly little impact on contemporary explo-
ration. Viceroy Mendoza, safeguarding his
monopoly on any future wealth that might
be found in the region, ordered members of
the expedition to say nothing about what
they had experienced. The public heard
and cared little about the expedition, which
was seen merely as a failed commercial
venture.
When fresh rumors of great civilizations
in the region reached south to Mexico in the
1580s, the expedition had been forgotten so
completely that an entirely new wave of for-
tune seekers rushed to the Spanish court,
pleading for permission to “discover” the
same lands Coronado and his men had jour-
neyed across.
Yet old soldiers like Casteñeda, Jaramillo,
and the author of the Relación del Suceso
recorded their memories, which lay undis-
turbed in Spanish archives for centuries.
Historian Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y
Valdés included an account of Coronado’s
travels in La Historia general de las Indias,
but Oviedo’s completed work was not pub-
lished until the mid-1850s, 200 years after
the expedition. Coronado’s entrada was dis-
missed and forgotten in his lifetime, but his-
tory later revealed it to be one of the great
epics of exploring the Americas.
10
{
Charting the Coast of
California
The voyages sponsored by Hernán
\ Cortés failed to reveal much of Califor-
nia’s coastline to Spanish explorers, but
curiosity about what lay to the north guaran-
teed that new attempts would be made. One of
the endeavor’s most enthusiastic sponsors was
Cortés’s political rival, Antonio de Mendoza,
viceroy of New Spain. Mendoza’s choice to lead
an expedition north was Juan Rodríguez
Cabrillo, a Spanish shipbuilder—he is some-
times identified as being Portuguese—who had
fought as a conquistador in the conquests of
Cuba, Mexico, and Central America.
Neglect and secrecy have left few surviving
or dependable firsthand accounts of the earli-
est European voyages up California’s coast.
Cabrillo’s voyage is no exception, but the basic
facts are known. On June 27, 1542, Cabrillo’s
well-equipped fleet set sail from the tiny Mex-
ican port of Navidad, near Manzanillo on
Mexico’s west-central coast. Cabrillo made
better progress than his predecessors in sail-
ing up the western coast of Baja, or Lower,
California. Exactly three months after leaving
120
Mexico, he sailed into a harbor that he
described in his log as “sheltered and very
good.” Cabrillo stepped ashore, claimed the
land for Spain, and christened the area San
Miguel in honor of the archangel Michael, on
whose September 28 Christian feast day the
Spaniards landed. It would later be called San
Diego.
THE BAY OF SMOKES
At San Diego Cabrillo’s men were met by local
Indians, the Ipai. Word of Francisco Vázquez
de Coronado’s expedition (1540–42) hundreds
of miles inland had reached the coastal tribes.
Cabrillo’s log noted that the Ipai had heard
that “in the interior men like us were traveling
about, bearded, clothed, and armed like those
of the ships. They made signs that they carried
crossbows and swords; and they made ges-
tures with the right arm as if they were throw-
ing lances, and ran around as if they were on
horseback. They made signs that they [Coron-
ado’s men] were killing many native Indians,

and for this reason they were afraid.” Cabrillo
heard such stories repeatedly as he ventured
up the coast.
Leaving the mainland, Cabrillo set off for
islands that were visible in the distance. He
named them San Salvador and Victoria, after
his ships. (Today the islands, northwest of San
Diego, are known as Santa Catalina and San
Clemente.) When Cabrillo returned to the
mainland, just south of present-day Los Ange-
les, the air was thick with smoke. During their
progress north, the Spaniards had encountered
smoke from fires set by Indians, who were
improving the land for autumn crops and thin-
ning the landscape for hunting game. The
smoke drifting from hills overlooking San
Pedro Bay was so thick that Cabrillo named the
harbor Bahía de los Fumos, or “Bay of Smokes.”
Cabrillo discovered that the coastline of
California was heavily inhabited by various
tribes of friendly Indians, who approached in
canoes to exchange sardines for glass beads
and other trading items with which the Span-
ish had stocked their ships. When a storm
drove Cabrillo back to a village named Ciucut,
where he had earlier anchored near present-
day Santa Barbara, he noted in his logs that
the Spaniards and Indians—probably the
Chumash—celebrated together:
The ruler of these pueblos is an old Indian
woman, who came to the ships and slept for
two nights on the captain’s ship, as did
many Indians. The pueblo of Ciucut
appeared to be the capital of the rest, for
they came there from other pueblos at the
call of this ruler.
After several days of music and dancing,
the Spaniards replenished their supplies and
resumed the voyage north. The waters there
were not as welcoming. A storm separated
Cabrillo’s flagship, the San Salvador, from the
Charting the Coast of California B 121
rest of the fleet off the treacherously rocky
coast south of Monterey. Like every other
explorer of his time, Cabrillo missed the
entrance to San Francisco Bay. He did, how-
ever, round Point Reyes, which he named
Cabo de Pinos (Cape of Pines) because of the
conifer forests blanketing the headlands. The
San Salvador sailed alone up the coast as far
as the Russian River (opposite present-day
Santa Rosa) before turning back and finding
the other ships near Monterey Bay. By then
winter had begun, making the frigid seas too
dangerous for travel in sailing ships. Cabrillo
ordered a retreat south to the calmer harbors
at San Salvador (Santa Catalina) and other
islands off the Bay of Smokes.
Upon his return, however, relations with
Indian tribes on the islands deteriorated
because of unceasing Spanish demands for
food and shelter. Constant skirmishes indi-
rectly took Cabrillo’s life. Around Christmas in
1542, rushing to help his men during an
Indian attack, Cabrillo jumped out of a boat
and broke either his leg or his arm. The wound
became gangrenous. Cabrillo died on January
3, 1543, after passing command to his pilot,
Bartolomé Ferrer.
Carrying out Cabrillo’s last orders, Ferrer
resumed the voyage north in January 1543.
The little fleet succeeded in passing the most
northerly point they had reached earlier and
struggled as far as 42° north latitude, just
above the modern boundary between Califor-
nia and Oregon. In the end the wooden fleet
was no match for the tumultuous wintry seas,
which dispersed the ships and continually
threatened to send them to the ocean bottom.
Cold, hungry, and ill after weeks of being buf-
feted by stormy seas, the survivors reunited
and found their way back to Navidad, Mexico,
arriving on April 14, 1543.
The expedition had explored about 1,500
miles of California coastline. The Spanish
122 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800
 Charting the Coast of California B 123

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

trading ships that began to sail between Mex- sidered the Cabrillo-Ferrer expedition to be of
ico and the Philippines about this time would limited importance. For Mendoza, the voyage
now have a better idea of what lay north of was simply another expensive failure to find
Baja California, but Spanish authorities con- any riches or routes to Asia or the Atlantic
124 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800

Ocean. Their ignored logs and reports gath-
ered dust and disappeared in Spanish
archives, and Cabrillo’s and Ferrer’s efforts
were forgotten for nearly 60 years.
DRAKE IN CALIFORNIA
In the late 1500s antagonism between Catholic
Spain and Protestant England turned the
waters and ports of the Caribbean into a violent
battle zone in the undeclared war between the
two countries. Galleons bearing treasure to
Spain were frequent targets of English pirates,
such as Sir Francis Drake, who was given unof-
ficial permission by Queen Elizabeth I to raid
Spanish ships. Spain’s ports on the Pacific
coasts, however, were peaceful and secure.
Spanish ships regularly brought luxury goods,

During the 1500s the Spanish controlled the seas, largely because of their galleons, or large, heavy ships,
that looked much like this model. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-103297])
 Charting the Coast of California B 125

such as silk and porcelain, from Asia to Mexico.

Silver shipments sailed from Peru to Panama,
where they were unloaded and transported
overland to Atlantic departure ports, from
which the riches would be taken to Spain.
By a secret understanding, Elizabeth I gave
Drake license to attack and rob Spanish ships.
If Drake was captured, however, the queen
would disavow any knowledge of his activities.
The Spanish viewed him as a common pirate.
In reality, Drake was a privateer, a captain who
raided enemy ships in his queen’s service. His
plan was to round South America and sail into
the Pacific Ocean. Since English ships were
never seen there, Spanish treasure ships and
their ports could be caught unprepared and
easily captured. The secrecy of the plan makes
the exact route of Drake’s travels controversial
to this day.
Drake’s small fleet succeeded in navigating
through the dangerous Strait of Magellan, at
the southern tip of South America. Once
through the terrifying passageway, he unex-
pectedly made one of the few undisputed dis-
coveries of his voyage. For centuries, North
Africans and Europeans had believed in the Francis Drake was the first captain to circumnavigate
existence of the so-called Great Southern the world and survive the journey. (Library of Congress,
Continent, named Terra Australis Incognita Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-121191])
(Unknown Southern Land) by early Greek-
Egyptian geographer Ptolemy. After Por- that the land there was a series of islands, not
tuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan passed part of a continental mass. In honor of his dis-
through the strait that now bears his name in covery that open sea separated the two conti-
1520, it was speculated that the landmasses nents, the waters between South America and
south of the strait might be the northernmost Antarctica were later named the Drake Passage.
part of Terra Australis Incognita. By the time Drake began plundering Span-
Shortly after Drake’s ships emerged from ish gold in the Pacific, shipwrecks, mutiny,
the Strait of Magellan into the Pacific, they were and confusion had reduced his small fleet to
seized by a violent storm that blew them south- his own flagship, The Golden Hind. His plan,
ward. One ship, the Marigold, was lost with all however, was a great success. Drake caught
hands. By the time the storm subsided, seven the Spanish off guard and The Golden Hind
weeks later, Drake had been carried into open was soon packed with treasure from Spanish
seas south of Tierra del Fuego, the name given galleons and coastal towns. With his mission
to the group of islands south of the Strait of completed off the Mexican coast, Drake faced
Magellan. He was the first European to realize the problem of getting home to England.
126 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800

Navigating through the Strait of Magellan was
dangerous. The route also involved fighting
contrary winds and the risk of encountering
Spanish warships, which were now looking
for him. Sailing west across the Pacific was
possible, but a drastic alternative.
Drake may have decided to confound his
pursuers by taking the least likely route. Like
his Spanish contemporaries, he may also
have believed in the existence of the Strait of
Anian—the legendary passage from the
northern Pacific into the Arctic Ocean. He
sailed north toward this fictitious “Northwest
Passage,” possibly hoping to avoid his pur-
suers by finding a sea route across the top of
North America that would take him from the
northeastern Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean.
He is thought to have sailed as far north as
48° north latitude, in waters off the present-
day border between the United States and
Canada, before frigid winter weather con-
vinced him that a northerly passage to Eng-
land was impossible.
Driven south by the cold, Drake began
searching for a harbor where he could over-
haul his ship, which needed repairs before he
could attempt to sail across the Pacific. In June
1579 The Golden Hind anchored in a harbor
near 38° north latitude, not far from the
Golden Gate and the future site of San Fran-
cisco. The exact location of Drake’s landing
has been sought after and argued over for cen-
turies. The most common theory is that the
harbor was the lee side—the inner side pro-

\
Strait of Anian =
Throughout the European exploration of North America, the desire to find an
easy sea route between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans inspired many fanciful
theories. The Strait of Anian was one such geographical fantasy that explorers
and even some mapmakers accepted as reality for centuries.
The illusory strait was thought to connect the northwestern Pacific Ocean
with the Atlantic via a watery path across the top of North America. Early British
geographers called this route the Northwest Passage. The name Anian first
appeared on an obscure Spanish map in 1566, and the origin of the name and
claim remains unknown. But after famed Belgian cartographer Gerard Mercator
included “El Streto de Anian” on a 1569 map, other 16th-century mapmakers
incorporated the strait into their maps as if it existed, despite the fact that none
of them, including Mercator, had firsthand knowledge of the New World. For the
next 240 years the Strait of Anian would appear on many maps, located any-
where from northern Alaska to the coast of Washington.
The search for the Strait of Anian continued for centuries. Many seekers after
the Northwest Passage, approaching from both the Atlantic and the Pacific, lost
their lives. By the late 1800s some explorers had succeeded in navigating
through sections of the ice floes north of the Canadian mainland, and in 1906
the Norwegian Roald Amundsen made the complete passage. However, the
desire for a waterway fit for shipping between Europe and Asia effectively
ended with the opening of the human-made Panama Canal in 1914.
 Charting the Coast of California B 127

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

tected from the larger ocean—of Point Reyes,
in the harbor now known as Drake’s Bay.
Other scholars place the landing further
south, at Bolinas, near San Francisco itself, or
elsewhere.
When Drake landed, he was met by local
Indians, who are thought to have been the
Coast Miwok, the original inhabitants of
what is now Marin County. The Miwok were
friendly toward the strangers and showered
them with gifts. Francis Fletcher, the chap-
lain and diarist of Drake’s expedition, wrote
that the Miwok were “of a free and loving
nature, without guile or treachery.” The
Miwok guided the English with elaborate cer-
emony to their village, where they placed a
crown on Drake’s head. Thinking of their
monarch at home in England, the English
assumed that the Miwok thought them to be
gods. Modern anthropological research sug-
gests that the Miwok instead considered the
strangers to be living representatives of dead
ancestors.
Drake and his men explored some of the
wooded countryside beyond the harbor, but
their main business was making The Golden
Hind seaworthy. Before his departure, Drake
named the northwest coast “Nova [New]
Albion,” a poetic name once used when refer-
ring to England, claimed it for Queen Elizabeth,
128 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800
and supposedly engraved a metal plaque to
leave behind, commemorating his “posses-
sion” of the land. (Drake enthusiasts have
searched for the plaque for centuries; scholars
insist that one discovered plaque, found in
1937 is a hoax.)
On June 23, after spending little more
than a month ashore, Drake sailed away
from California, continuing the voyage that
would take him around the globe and bring
him home to England in September 1580.
Had his claim of land been pursued, Califor-
nia, not Virginia, might have become Eng-
land’s first colony in the New World. The
secrecy that enveloped his mission obscured
from other navigators what he had learned
about California’s coastline, but his escape
gained him the open distinction of being the
first English captain to circumnavigate the
world.
VIZCAÍNO TRIES AGAIN
Spain’s efforts to find protective harbors along
the coast of upper California were initially left
to navigators approaching from the west, in
the so-called Manila galleons bringing goods
to New Spain from the Philippines. Galleon
commander Roderíguez Cermeño was the
first to make any progress. Ironically, Cer-
meño’s route from the Philippines took him
into Drake’s Bay, where he anchored and
encountered the friendly Miwok. Like Drake,
Cermeño claimed the surrounding country-
side—but for Spain. A sudden storm, however,
destroyed his galleon, leaving Cermeño and
the other survivors to struggle some 1,300
miles down the coast from Drake’s Bay to the
port of Navidad in New Spain in an over-
crowded longboat.
The task of learning about California’s
coast next fell to a merchant and would-be
Spanish colonizer named Sebastián Vizcaíno,
whose previous experience included disas-
trous attempts to establish settlements on
the coast of Baja California in 1596. Vizcaíno
set sail with three ships carrying 130 men on
May 5, 1602, sponsored by New Spain’s
viceroy Gaspar de Zuñiga y Acevedo, the
count of Monterrey. Vizcaíno’s patron
ordered him to name every port he discov-
ered after a Christian saint and claim it for
Spain. Vizcaíno was explicitly ordered not to
rename any sites previously named by
Cabrillo, Ferrer, or others. Possessing little or
no detailed information from the earlier
expedition to which he could refer, however,
Vizcaíno industriously renamed the geogra-
phy discovered by the previous explorers as
he slowly made his way up the California
coast. San Salvador became Catalina and La
Victoria became San Clemente, names by
which both islands are still known. On the
mainland, the harbor Cabrillo had chris-
tened San Miguel was named after a Christ-
ian saint, San Diego de Acalá. The area is
simply known today as San Diego. The coast-
line of modern California is dotted with other
locations named by Vizcaíno: Santa Barbara,
Point Conception, Carmel, and Año Nuevo.
As was the case with Cabrillo, Vizcaíno had
friendly meetings with the Chumash and
other mainland Indians, who rowed out to
trade with the Spanish sailors. In December
1602 Vizcaíno’s ships sailed along the rocky,
wooded shores of a bay he named Monterrey
(now spelled Monterey) after his sponsor. Viz-
caíno would later report that the area offered
“protection and security” for ships coming
from the Philippines:
In it may be repaired the damages which
they may have sustained, for there is a
great extent of pine forest from which to
obtain masts and yards, even though the
vessel be of a thousand tons burden, very
 Charting the Coast of California B 129

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

large live oaks and white oaks for ship-
building, and this close to the seaside in
great number.
His appraisal of the area also saw promise in
the site for a permanent settlement:
There is fresh water in quantity and the har-
bor is very secure against all winds. The
land is thickly peopled by Indians and is
very fertile, in its climate and the quality of
the soil resembling Castile, and any seed
sown there will give fruit, and there are
130 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800
extensive lands fit for pasturage, and many
kinds of animals and birds.
Vizcaíno’s party was already low on sup-
plies and beset with illness. One ship was
sent back to Mexico, carrying the sick and
news that the mission to find a possible port
had been successful. The expedition pushed
north from Monterey, encountering increas-
ingly rough seas. Like Cabrillo, Vizcaíno
sailed past the Golden Gate, failing to dis-
cover San Francisco Bay, which may have
been obscured by fog. His two remaining
ships were barely seaworthy enough to con-
tinue and became separated in the turbulent
ocean. Vizcaíno’s sailors were also in bad
shape, suffering from scurvy and the effects
of eating rotten food. “The mouths of all were
sore, and their gums were swollen larger than
their teeth, so that they could hardly drink
water,” wrote Vizcaíno in his diary. “The ship
seemed more like a hospital than a ship of an
armada.” Disease and cold took the lives of
many of the sailors.
Vizcaíno’s two ships never joined each
other again during the rest of the expedition.
Individually, however, each struggled
through the same overwhelming seas that
Ferrer had reached, and appear to have
reached about 43° north, near Cape Blanco,
just north of the California-Oregon border.
By the time orders were given to turn back,
horrible conditions aboard the vessels had
killed most of the crew members. Vizcaíno
and the other survivors managed to reach
Acapulco, Mexico, in March 1603, 10 months
after they had embarked. He had discovered
little more than Cabrillo or Ferrer, but his
report ensured both his personal reputation
and the lasting value of his observations. He
had fought—and noted—the contrary cur-
rents and winds, accurately charted the
coastline, sounded the depths of bays, and
explored the countryside whenever he
landed. His main mission of finding a suit-
able harbor for the Manila galleons had been
completed, even if his portrayal of Monterey
Bay bore only a passing resemblance to real-
ity. Vizcaíno’s idyllic description was so
unlike the actual bay that future explorers
searched for the allegedly perfect harbor
without success.

Unlike so many Spanish explorers whose
efforts ended in disgrace or death, Vizcaíno
continued to enjoy a distinguished career as
an explorer, international diplomat, military
leader, and merchant. In 1611 he was sent to
search the Pacific for Rica de Oro (Rich in
Gold) and Rica de Plata (Rich in Silver), two
nonexistent islands whose illusory wealth
consumed Spain’s energies in the same way
El Dorado and the Seven Cities of Cíbola had
earlier.
Charting the Coast of California B 131
Despite Vizcaíno’s report, Spain’s rush to
find strategically safe ports in California sub-
sided quickly. San Francisco Bay, the greatest
port on the Pacific coast, remained undiscov-
ered by Europeans until 1769. No attempt was
made to settle Monterey until 1770, more than
167 years after Vizcaíno’s return. Thanks to the
efforts of Cabrillo, Ferrer, and Vizcaíno, how-
ever, later explorers and missionaries were not
venturing into the complete unknown when
they reached coastal California.
11
{
New Mexico and the
Gulf Coast
The 1600s
Francisco Coronado’s failure to dis-
\ cover riches like those wrenched from
the Aztec and Inca empires damp-
ened enthusiasm for expeditions north from
Mexico. Fortune hunters instead converged
around the central Mexican town of Zacate-
cas, where rich veins of silver were discovered
in the mid-1500s. The poorer lands of the
Sonoran and Chihuahuan deserts were forgot-
ten by most Spaniards, with the exception of
slave hunters, whose raids prompted new
royal regulations intended to avoid provoking
Indians. Without authorization from the
Spanish king, exploration or settlement above
the northern frontier became a treasonous
offense punishable by death.
Missionaries from the Roman Catholic
Franciscan order, however, were exempt
from the prohibition. They began to venture
north into the arid landscape, usually from
132
Nueva Vizcaya, the future state of Chi-
huahua. In June 1581 Franciscans Agustín
Rodríguez, Francisco López, and Juan de
Santa María headed north along the Con-
chos River, accompanied by a tiny armed
escort commanded by Francisco Sánchez
Chamuscado. The Rodríguez-Chamuscado
expedition, as it has since come to be known,
met the Río Grande far to the east of Coron-
ado’s route. By following the river northward,
however, they arrived at the same pueblos
found by Coronado and again claimed the
land for Spain.
The leaders of the expedition fared badly.
Fray Santa María was killed by Indians while
returning to Nueva Vizcaya. Sánchez Chamus-
cado died of illness. Word reached Nueva Viz-
caya that Rodríguez and López, who had
insisted upon staying in New Mexico to con-
tinue missionary work when their escort

returned south, had also been killed by Indi-
ans. Soldiers from the expedition, however,
announced that they had discovered great civ-
ilizations. In only 40 years Coronado had been
so thoroughly forgotten that speculators—
persons primarily interested in making large
profits—suddenly flocked to the court of King
Philip II, asking permission to “discover” and
settle northern lands, in the belief that
Spaniards had never before encountered the
Pueblo civilizations.
A year later, in 1582, another Franciscan,
Bernardino Beltrán, organized an expedi-
tion, hoping to find Rodríguez and López
alive. Beltrán forged a partnership with
Antonio de Espejo, a wealthy rancher who
agreed to pay all expenses, including a troop
of 14 soldiers. The small force followed the
Río Grande to the Albuquerque area, where
they learned that both Rodríguez and López
were indeed dead. Fray Beltrán, whose mis-
sion was accomplished, wanted to return to
Nueva Vizcaya. Espejo, however, led the
expedition into what is now Arizona,
prospecting for silver. Again, no wealth or
grand cities were found. When Espejo
returned in 1583, however, he applied for
permission to pursue, as he wrote in his
request to the king, “the exploration and set-
tlement of these lands and others which I
may discover, for I shall not be satisfied until
I reach the coasts of the North and South
Seas.” Espejo, like others hoping to secure a
royal contract, was rejected, but he encour-
aged the same sort of rumors that had once
lured Coronado north.
THE OÑATE EXPEDITION
The official royal contract for settling New
Mexico was awarded to Juan de Oñate. By
contemporary Spanish standards, he was
New Mexico and the Gulf Coast B 133
well qualified. His social standing was
impeccable—his wife was a descendant of
both the Aztec emperor Moctezuma and
conquistador Hernán Cortés. Oñate had
experience fighting Indians in the northern
provinces. Above all, he was born into a
wealthy Zacatecas silver mining family.
Oñate’s wealth was important because,
despite royal approval, he was required to
bankroll the venture by himself.
Heavily armed, Oñate set forth in 1598
with a force of 400 soldiers, settlers, and ser-
vants, as well as a large supply of livestock.
Although it was largely a civilian expedition
formed for mining, farming, and missionary
activities, Oñate’s dual authority as civil and
military governor allowed him to enforce
strict rules. Deserters would be executed.
Rather than follow the route opened by the
Rodríguez-Chamuscado expedition along the
Conchos River, Oñate headed straight north.
After a harrowing passage through the sand
dunes of the Chihuahuan desert in northern
Mexico, the colonists reached the Río Grande
and celebrated with a feast. When his scouts
found a place to ford the river, Oñate ordered
a halt. In an elaborate ceremony on April 30,
1598, Oñate declared that he was taking offi-
cial possession of the entire territory for King
Philip II, announcing the formation of the
province of New Mexico. The column crossed
the Río Grande on May 4, near present down-
town El Paso.
Oñate continued north through the Río
Grande Valley, summoning Indian leaders to
explain that it was in their best interests to
swear obedience to the Spanish king and the
pope. The assembled chiefs agreed to Oñate’s
ceremonial demands, but how the ritual was
viewed by its Native American participants is
unknown. On July 11 Oñate arrived at the
Tewa pueblo of Ohkay, near the meeting of the
134 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800
Located in Santa Fe, New Mexico, this adobe building, constructed between 1610 and 1614, served as the
Spanish royal palace and the seat of government. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [HABS,
NM,25-SANFE,2-1])
Río Grande and the Río Chama. Oñate chose
the site as the first capital of the new state,
renaming the pueblo San Juan de Los
Caballeros.
NEWS OF A FUGITIVE
That September a Mexican Indian named
Jusepe arrived at San Juan with information
that would determine Oñate’s later efforts.
Four years earlier, in 1594, a Spanish army
captain, Francisco Leyva de Bonilla, had
been ordered to chase a band of rebellious
Indians north across the frontier of Nueva
Vizcaya. Once across the border, Bonilla and
his party decided to explore New Mexico and
search for Quivira, the supposedly wealthy
kingdom that had eluded Coronado. Some of
Bonilla’s men protested that this would vio-
late the ban against unauthorized explo-
ration, a treasonous act punishable by death.
Bonilla and his supporters decided to ride
north anyway.
According to Jusepe (a servant of Bonilla’s
lieutenant, Antonio Gutiérrez de Humaña),
the renegade expedition covered much of the
same ground seen by Coronado. After a year
in pueblo country, they headed northeast,
crossing the Great Plains to reach Quivira. As
Coronado had discovered, the real Quivira
was a Wichita trading village by the Arkansas
River near the present-day town of Ford,

Kansas. Finding no riches or empire, Bonilla
pressed onward into what is now Nebraska.
There he was stabbed to death after an argu-
ment with Gutiérrez de Humaña, who took
command. Several Indian servants, including
Jusepe, fled the reckless expedition and
returned westward. On the way Jusepe was
captured by the Apache. Hearing that there
were Spaniards in New Mexico, he escaped
and made his way to Oñate’s settlement.
One of Oñate’s earlier orders had been to
find Bonilla and arrest him. Deciding to post-
pone a manhunt for Gutiérrez de Humaña,
Bonilla’s murderer, Oñate immediately put
Jusepe to work as an interpreter and guide on
buffalo-hunting forays.
New Mexico and the Gulf Coast B 135
OÑATE AS EXPLORER
Oñate left San Juan on October 6 seeking a for-
tune to shore up support for his venture, both
in government circles and among his own
colonists, many of whom were already disillu-
sioned. Oñate usually portrayed the colony
positively in reports to his superior, New
Spain’s viceroy Gaspar de Zuñiga y Acevedo,
the marquis de Monterrey (who would spon-
sor Sebastian Vizcaíno’s voyage up the Califor-
nia coast in 1602). Oñate wrote in a letter to
the viceroy that the grumbling settlers “in
anger at not finding bars of silver on the
ground and resentful because I did not allow
them to abuse the natives either in their per-
sons or property, became dissatisfied with the
land, or rather with me.”
Like Coronado, Oñate mistakenly believed
that landlocked New Mexico could be sup-
plied by sea. He and a company of men rode
southwest, looking for the Pacific Ocean.
With the exception of a tense reception by
the people of Acoma pueblo, Oñate’s group
was welcomed by Indian tribes along the
way. His scouts reached central Arizona
before Oñate decided to return to San Juan
for the winter and plan a future expedition to
the “South Sea,” the name then used by
Spaniards for the Pacific. En route, they
watered their horses near a huge sandstone
bluff decorated with ancient Anasazi carv-
ings of animals, birds, and designs. The
Spanish called the rock El Morro (the
Promontory). While camped at El Morro,
near the present-day town of Ramah, New
Mexico, Oñate learned that most of a relief
troop riding from San Juan to join him had
been massacred at Acoma.
Oñate rushed back to San Juan and
organized an assault on the seemingly
impregnable pueblo. By mounting a diver-
136 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800
sionary attack and scaling an unguarded wall
of its steep mesa, the Spaniards managed to
capture Acoma after a bloody battle. Oñate
was determined to make a frightening exam-
ple of the surviving inhabitants. He sen-
tenced every adult in the pueblo to 20 years
of slavery and further decreed that a foot be
amputated from every male over the age of
25, although it is unclear if the latter sen-
tence was carried out. The pueblo’s children
were taken from their families and given to
Christian missionaries.
RETURN TO QUIVIRA
After the Acoma battle, Oñate relocated his
colony across the Río Grande to a pueblo he
renamed San Gabriel and sent new expedi-
tions in search of the “South Sea” and min-
eral deposits. The results were always
disappointing. Cold and hungry colonists
became more interested in survival than
prospecting for gold. Settlers were so desper-
ate to find a profit in the inhospitable land
that they unsuccessfully tried to tame buf-
falo. In 1601 Oñate and 70 men headed east,
searching for Quivira. They reached the trad-
ing village along the Arkansas River, finding
no more riches than Coronado had. The
Quivirans did tell Oñate, however, that the
fugitive Gutiérrez de Humaña had been
killed by hostile Indians.
When Oñate returned to San Gabriel after
an absence of five months, most of the settlers
had fled. He ordered them arrested and
beheaded, but they were safely back in Mex-
ico. A handful of colonists maintained the
colony until meager reinforcements arrived.
While the settlers were disappointed by
the poverty of the land, missionaries grew dis-
gusted for other reasons. “The governor
[Oñate] has oppressed his people so that they
are all discontented and anxious to get away,”
wrote Fray Juan de Escalona in a letter to the
viceroy in Monterrey. Fray Escalona, who had
arrived in New Mexico in 1601 to assume lead-
ership of its Franciscan missionaries, favored
staying in New Mexico, but railed against
Oñate’s mistreatment of the Indians, “who
think that we are all evil and that the king who
sent us here is ineffective and a tyrant. . . .
Because of these matters (and others I am not
telling), we cannot preach the gospel now, for
it is despised by these people on account of
our great offenses and the harm we have done
them. At the same time it is not desirable to
abandon this land, either for the service of
God or the conscience of his majesty since
many souls have already been baptized,
besides, this place where we are established is
a stepping stone and site from which to
explore this whole land.”
FINAL GAMBLE
Ever desperate to succeed, Oñate left San
Gabriel in October 1604 in another attempt to
find the Pacific Ocean. By crossing Arizona
and following the Colorado River, he reached
the inland waters of the Gulf of California. Yet
he was still hundreds of miles from the ocean.
Oñate would report unconvincingly, “I discov-
ered a great harbor and clarified the reports of
extraordinary riches and monstrosities never
heard of before.”
On the way back to San Gabriel, Oñate
added his name to those of Indian travelers
who had carved inscriptions in the sandstone
of El Morro:
Passed by here the Governor Don Juan de
Onate, from the discovery of the Sea of the
South on the 16th of April 1605
The words remain today at El Morro, which in
1906 was designated a national monument to
preserve the thousands of Indian, Spanish, and
American signatures carved into the sandstone.
 New Mexico and the Gulf Coast B 137

By now, royal authorities knew that Oñate’s New Spain’s viceroy, the marquis de Mon-
venture was an economic and religious disas- tesclaros, reported to King Philip III. Oñate
ter. “I cannot help but to inform your majesty was recalled to Mexico. He was later convicted
that this conquest is becoming a fairy tale,” on charges of abusing colonists and Indians
138 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800

As an early 20th-century photograph by Edward S. Curtis shows, Don Juan de Oñate carved a message in the
sandstone surface of El Morro, a present-day national monument. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs
Division [LC-USZ62-123607])
 New Mexico and the Gulf Coast B 139

and was banished from New Mexico forever.

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

LA SALLE’S THREAT
During the late 1600s, a period of uncertainty
about the fate of New Mexico, Spain faced
threats elsewhere, inspiring exploration of
lands it had claimed as part of its empire for
more than a century. France was Spain’s chief
nemesis, especially in the person of René-
Robert Cavelier, better known by his aristo-
cratic title, sieur de La Salle.
In 1682 La Salle had canoed down the
Mississippi River from Illinois to the Gulf of
Mexico, claiming the countryside for France
as a territory he named in honor of the
French king, Louis XIV—La Louisiane, now
known as Louisiana. La Salle returned to
France in 1683 and proposed to establish a
fort at the mouth of the Mississippi River,
from which to challenge Spain, perhaps to
invade New Spain itself. Apart from the
ongoing rivalry between the two nations, La
Salle’s idea appealed to the French because
of his mistaken assumption that the Missis-
sippi was close to the rich silver mines of
Zacatecas. When Spain declared war on
France in October 1683, Louis XIV approved
the operation. By the time La Salle departed
with a force of 280 on August 1, 1684, how-
ever, the war was over and royal support for
the venture was withdrawn.
La Salle sailed anyway, but was unable to
find the mouth of the great river he had pre-
viously descended. When his four ships
reached the Gulf of Mexico in late December,
his faulty calculations took them west of the
Mississippi to the barrier islands of the Texas
140 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800

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

coast. There his supply ship, L’Aimable, ran
aground on a sandbar, and a year later his
own ship, La Belle, sank in a fierce storm. To
avoid detection by the Spanish, he ordered
construction of a fort concealed inside
Matagorda Bay, along Garcitas Creek. From
this base, called Fort St. Louis, La Salle sent
exploring parties into the countryside. He
followed the Río Grande in search of the Mis-
sissippi, possibly as far west as the Pecos
River.
Already reduced by shipwrecks and deser-
tion, Fort St. Louis was devastated by illness.
Rattlesnakes and alligators claimed lives. So
did raids by the Karankawa, who were infuri-
ated by La Salle’s theft of their canoes for his
expeditions. As things worsened, La Salle con-
ceived a plan to find the Mississippi, travel
upriver to Illinois, and return to France via
Canada to get help. He wandered the forests of
east Texas, unable to find the Mississippi.
“This pleasant land seemed to us an abode of
weariness and a perpetual prison,” the priest
Abbé Jean Cavalier, La Salle’s brother, wrote in
his diary. When they returned to Fort St. Louis,
only eight of the 20 men in the search party
remained alive. They were greeted by the news
that the frigate La Belle, their only remaining
 New Mexico and the Gulf Coast B 141

The Pueblo Rebellion involved Native Americans in pueblos in present-day New

Mexico and Arizona, such as the Taos Pueblo, shown in an early 20th-century
photograph. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USF34-002901])

means of escape by sea, had been wrecked in
their absence.
Marooned and with only 45 settlers now
alive, La Salle had no choice but to make
another attempt to reach Canada. Leaving half
the weakened settlers behind, he marched
eastward in January 1687. Throughout his trav-
els, La Salle’s aristocratic arrogance had fre-
quently alienated others. In the wilderness, this
proved fatal. Mutineers in a scouting party
murdered three of their fellows on March 18
near the Trinity River. When La Salle came look-
ing for the scouts the following day, he was shot
to death.
As they moved on, the mutineers killed
each other or joined Indian tribes. La Salle’s
aide Henri Joutel led survivors uninvolved in
the revolt to the Arkansas River, where they
unexpectedly came upon Frenchmen allied
with Henri de Tonti, who had been searching
the nearby Mississippi for La Salle for more
than a year. Joutel reached France and
appealed for help, but Louis XIV would not
send aid to Fort St. Louis. Joutel remained in
France, where his journal circulated among
future explorers, such as Pierre Le Moyne
d’Iberville, and remains an important source
of information about the period.
142 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800
SEARCHING FOR LA SALLE
Spanish authorities had learned of La Salle’s
mission in late 1685 and were justifiably
alarmed. Expeditions were sent to eliminate
the threat. It would not be an easy task. So lit-
tle attention had been paid to the region
since the early expeditions of Alonso
Alvaredo de Pineda, Hernando de Soto, and
others that even if the French force had
landed near the Mississippi as planned,
Spanish authorities had no way of estimating
La Salle’s location. Their panic would, ironi-
cally, contribute more to geographical
knowledge about the Gulf Coast than the
previous 150 years combined.
Maritime searches were dispatched from
Cuba and Mexico. Navigators Juan Enríquez
Barroto and Antonio Romero (1686) were
slowed by a ship too large for coastal recon-
naissance, but collected important informa-
tion while exploring westward from Florida.
They missed the mouth of the Mississippi,
which lay disguised by floating vegetation and
silt (in fact, they named the area Cabo de lodo,
“Cape of Mud”). Later that year, Enríquez Bar-
roto and Romero piloted a return expedition in
two specially built ships called piraguas, whose
 New Mexico and the Gulf Coast B 143

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

shallow drafts, oars, and sails were better suited Christmas Day 1686, and eventually headed up
to exploring coastal waters. Captained by the Texas coast. They discovered the wreck of
Martín de Rivas and Pedro de Iriarte, the two La Salle’s frigate, La Belle, and continued as far
piraguas set sail from Veracruz, Mexico, on as Mobile Bay before returning to Veracruz via
144 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800
Cuba, completing the first circumnavigation of
the Gulf of Mexico on July 3, 1687.
Although their journey is known as the
Rivas-Iriarte expedition, the voyage’s most
valuable information resulted from Enríquez
Barroto’s navigational skills and diary. The
pilot chronicled the first accurate naviga-
tional data of Gulf Coast features, including
Galveston Bay; the Aransas, Sabine, and Cal-
casieu River passes; the Atchafalaya River;
and the Mississippi River passes. In late 1688
Barroto’s maps guided the voyage of Fran-
cisco López de Gamarra and Andrés de Pez,
who anchored at the mouth of the Río
Grande and sent an armed party 150 miles
upriver in canoes in search of La Salle. Yet,
despite all these maritime searches, La
Salle—as far as Spanish authorities knew—
was still a threat.
SEARCHING BY LAND
At the same time the Spanish were looking for
La Salle by sea, soldiers commanded by Gen-
eral Alonso de León repeatedly marched over-
land, collecting new geographical information
in the process, but searching in vain for the
French intruders. Their fourth search was suc-
cessful. On April 22, 1689, León at last found
Fort St. Louis and described the grim discov-
ery in his notes:
We went to see it and found all the houses
sacked, all the chests, bottle-cases, and all
the rest of the settlers’ furniture broken;
apparently more than two hundred books,
torn apart and with the rotten leaves scat-
tered through the patios—all in French. . . .
We found three bodies scattered over the
plain. One of these, from the dress that still
clung to the bone, appeared to be that of a
woman. . . . We looked for the other dead
bodies, but could not find them; whence we
supposed that they had been eaten by alli-
gators, of which there were many.
León learned from two Frenchmen living
among friendly Hasinai tribes that the settlers,
with the exception of a few children saved by
Karankawa women, had been massacred by
the Karankawa. León was finally able to report
that the French threat was gone.
On April 26, 1690, León and his soldiers
returned to Fort St. Louis, accompanied by
Franciscan friars, who were eager to extend
their missions eastward. After the missionar-
ies torched the abandoned fort, León led them
northeast across the Colorado, Brazos, and
Trinity Rivers to Hasinai villages near the
Neches River. Before returning to Mexico,
León ransomed some of the French children
taken in the Fort St. Louis massacre.
The search for La Salle had yielded the first
accurate geographical discoveries in the Gulf
Coast region in 150 years. With the immediate
threat removed, Spain was content to leave
scattered Franciscan missions in east Texas to
warn of further European intrusions. The
episode, however, was a harbinger of the com-
ing century, when strategic power began to
drive exploration, replacing earlier quests for
gold and souls.

The Road to California
By the 1700s Spain’s strength as a
\ world power was declining. The
incredible wealth imported from the
New World had been squandered in European
wars, leaving Spain’s economy in ruins. Large
exploratory expeditions in search of new
wealth were now a thing of the past. Colonists,
many of whom were now American-born
rather than immigrants, were organizing
ranches, mines, and missions from Florida to
New Mexico. Recent Pueblo Indian revolts
in New Mexico left the frontier dangerous
for explorers, unrewarding for newcomers
looking to make a living, and a challenge to
Christian missionaries pursuing religious
conversion of the region’s Native inhabitants.
Resistance to expansion stiffened as Native
American communities associated European
arrival with smallpox and other fatal diseases.
Yet European-born missionaries, princi-
pally Franciscans and Jesuits, continued to
arrive. The danger of entering hostile lands
was an acceptable risk to missionaries who
viewed martyrdom in the course of preaching
12
{
The 1700s
their religion to be an honor. Throughout the
1700s, this missionary activity would result in
new routes between Mexico and California. It
would also prepare Spain’s strategic defense of
its North American colonies against increas-
ing challenges from France, England, and
Russia.
No explorer promoted the first stage of this
shift toward California more industriously
than Father Eusebio Kino. The Italian-born
priest was a Jesuit, a member of the Society of
Jesus, a Catholic order whose adherents dedi-
cated themselves to preaching and higher
education. When Kino arrived in Mexico in
1681, the former mathematics teacher was
knowledgeable in disciplines that would aid
him in relating what he found in the New
World, including geography, cartography, and
astrology. His first assignment was to establish
a mission in Baja (Lower) California. He sailed
from Mexico’s Pacific coast across the Gulf of
California as official cosmographer with the
1683 colonizing expedition of Admiral Isidro
Atondo y Antillón. The colony quickly failed,
145
146 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800
San Xavier del Bac, near present-day Tucson, Arizona, was one of the many missions Eusebio Kino established.
(Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [HABS, ARIZ,10-TUCSO.V,3-5])
but a second attempt that year was successful
and resulted in exploration of the entire
southern peninsula. When Kino returned to
Mexico City in 1685, however, he was stranded
there when a war between Spain and France
left missionaries without funding.
Still devoted to the ideal of developing
Baja California, Kino conceived a plan to
establish mission communities near the
northwestern coast of the Mexican mainland.
The missions would be economically self-suf-
ficient, capable of supporting both them-
selves and further forays in California. Kino
obtained approval for the project, as well as a
crucial royal order from Spain: No baptized
Indians under his protection were to be kid-
napped by government officials for forced
labor in the silver mines of Sonora, Mexico’s
northwestern region.
KINO’S FIRST MISSIONS
When he set to work in 1687, Kino’s mission-
ary territory turned out to be larger than he
had planned. He was assigned to Pimería Alta
(Upper Pimería), a district comprising pres-
ent-day southwestern Arizona and northern
Sonora State in Mexico. Pimería was named
after its inhabitants, the Pima, an association
of desert-dwelling tribes also known collec-
tively by their Indian name, O’odham (The
People).
Father Kino established his first mission
along the San Miguel River in northern

Sonora, naming it Nuestra Señora de los
Dolores (Our Lady of Sorrows). The mission
became the headquarters for his tireless
exploring and missionary activities. During
his lifetime, Kino established more than 20
missions, including San Xavier del Bac, near
present-day Tucson, and Tumacácori (north
of the modern border city of Nogales and now
a U.S. National Historical Park). He also set the
pattern for modern agriculture and livestock
ranching in the region by introducing new
crops, such as wheat, and domesticated ani-
mals, such as beef cattle and sheep. Mutual
respect between the Pima and Father Kino
helped the missions flourish. The popular
priest aided the Pima in resisting Apache
attacks, and his intercession with Spanish
authorities helped prevent a small Pima revolt
in 1695 from becoming a full-fledged war.
THE ISLAND OF
CALIFORNIA
In his missionary efforts, Kino traveled many
thousands of miles across unexplored
Pimería on horseback. He made more than 40
journeys, ranging between 100 and 1,000
miles each, collecting information that he
incorporated into the first accurate maps of
the region and its rivers. Despite his success
in Pimería, Kino never abandoned his
deferred hopes for Baja California. When he
and Jesuit priest Juan María de Salvatierra
first toured the Arizona borderlands in 1691,
Kino wrote in his diary: “In all these journeys,
the father visitor [Salvatierra] and I talked
together of [Baja] California, saying that these
very fertile lands and valleys of the Pimería
would be the support of the scantier and
more sterile lands of California.”
Kino had arrived in the New World in
agreement with his Austrian teacher, Father
The Road to California B 147
Adam Aigenler, a geographer whose world
map depicted all of California as a peninsula.
In Mexico, however, Kino was swayed by the
popular but false belief that California was an
island. In 1699 Yuma Indians near the western
Gila River presented him with a gift of blue
abalone seashells like those he had seen years
earlier on the Pacific coast of Baja California.
He theorized that if the shells could have been
transported overland, perhaps it was possible
to reach—and supply—California by land.
In the late 1690s Kino journeyed repeat-
edly to the northwest corner of Sonora where
it borders California, increasingly convinced
that the two regions were divided only by the
Colorado River. Mountains and lack of drink-
ing water made travel to California from the
Mexican mainland seem impossible, but one
of Kino’s expeditions sighted land in the dis-
tance that he was sure was California. On a
later expedition, Kino and a small party of
Pima rode south along the east bank of the
Colorado, meeting tribes who ferried him over
to the California shore in a basket, as he
described in his diary, “very comfortably and
pleasantly, without the least risk, taking with
me only my Breviary [a book with prayers,
texts, and hymns for church services], some
trifles, and a blanket in which to sleep, after-
wards wrapping up some branches of broom
weed in my bandanna to serve me as a pillow.”
Kino astutely noted similarities in the people
and flora of both regions. In 1702 he followed
the Colorado all the way down to the Gulf of
California.
Kino incorporated his findings into maps
that were printed in Paris, not in Mexico,
where their practical effect might have been
greater. For generations, in fact, the myth that
California was an island was slow to disap-
pear, even after Spanish missions lined the
coastline of upper California. The myth had
begun with Father Antonio de la Ascensión,
148 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800

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

who sailed with Sebastián Vizcaíno in 1602.

Fray Ascensión wrote in his journal of Viz-
caíno’s voyage that California was separated
from the American continent by the “mediter-
ranean Sea of California.” This claim led to
European mapmakers depicting California as
an island for the first time. Even after Father
Kino established that Baja California was a
peninsula 100 years later—and a 1747 royal
edict from King Ferdinand VII of Spain, who
declared officially “California is not an
island”—some cartographers rejected the
truth and continued to draw the “island of
California” on maps until the 1780s.
EXPLORING UPPER
CALIFORNIA
Father Kino died suddenly on March 15, 1711,
in Magdalena, Sonora, while visiting to dedi-
cate a new chapel. In addition to diaries that
are now invaluable to students of the region,
his legacy included the first accurate maps of
Pimería Alta, the Gulf of California, and Baja
California. He had conclusively proven that
Baja California was a peninsula, not an island.
Without the charismatic and industrious Kino
to sustain the missions he founded, however,
many of them declined. An even stronger

blow came in 1767, when Spain’s King Charles
III ordered all Jesuits expelled from Spain and
its territories on suspicion of promoting polit-
ical unrest. Friars of the Franciscan order were
assigned to replace the Jesuits.
The Jesuit expulsion in Mexico was over-
seen by José de Gálvez, who had been sent by
Charles III to reform Mexico’s financial affairs,
but whose office of visitor-general gave him
extraordinary power. The ambitious Gálvez
decided to bolster Spain’s hold on Alta (Upper)
California, the same land claimed earlier by
mariners Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, Bartolomé
Ferrer, and Sebastián Vizcaíno. A stronger pres-
ence on the coastline, Gálvez believed, would
protect Spanish claims against English and
Russian challenges. Gálvez himself journeyed
to Baja California to organize an expedition.
Two groups of soldiers commanded by Captain
Gaspar de Portolá would march up the Califor-
nia peninsula. Fray Junípero Serra, a former
theology professor and new president of the
formerly Jesuit missions of Baja California, was
to oversee the expedition’s missionary aspect.
Two ships, the San Carlos and the San Antonio,
would sail up the coast and meet the overland
expeditions in the north near San Diego.
After blessing the departing San Carlos on
January 6, 1769, Father Serra left the south-
eastern Baja California seaport of Loreto on
muleback, riding north to catch up with the
departed Portolá expedition. Serra was in
great pain for much of the journey. Taking the
Franciscan denial of worldly pleasure to great
extremes, the asthmatic friar habitually
refused any medical assistance for a leg infec-
tion that plagued him for much of his life.
Land and sea expeditions all met as
planned at San Diego on July 1, 1769. Scurvy
had killed most of the sailors aboard the ships.
Two days later, Serra described the area and its
Ipai inhabitants in a letter to his friend and
later biographer, Father Francisco Palou:
The Road to California B 149
The tract through which we passed is gener-
ally very good land, with plenty of water. . . .
We found vines of a large size, and in some
cases quite loaded with grapes; we also
found an abundance of roses, which
appeared to be like those of Castile. We have
seen Indians in immense numbers, and all
those on this coast of the Pacific contrive to
make a good subsistence on various seeds,
and by fishing. The latter they carry on by
means of rafts or canoes, made of tule [bull-
rush] with which they go a great way to sea.
They are very civil. . . . We found on our jour-
ney, as well as in the place where we stopped,
that they treated us with as much confidence
and good-will as if they had known us all
their lives. But when we offered them any of
our victuals, they always refused them. All
they cared for was cloth, and only for some-
thing of this sort would they exchange their
fish or whatever else they had.
Serra set to work building the first mission
in the present state of California, at San Diego
de Acala. Captain Portolá continued up the
coast, following Gálvez’s orders to reach the
wonderful harbor Vizcaíno had reported in
1603 to exist at Monterey.
Portolá and his men arrived at Monterey
on October 1, 1769, but did not recognize the
bay because it did not fit Vizcaíno’s grand
description. They continued northward along
the mountainous coast, sighting the Farallon
Islands in the distance. One evening, a hunt-
ing party commanded by Sergeant José Fran-
cisco Ortega returned to camp. Fray Juan
Crespi, the group’s chaplain, noted in his
diary, “[A]t about eight o’clock at night on the
third [of November], the scouts came back
from their exploration, firing off a salvo, and
reported on arrival that they had come upon a
great estuary, very broad, that must reach
about eight or ten leagues inland.” This
150 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800

strait—later named the Golden Gate—con- Ortega and his scouts had discovered the per-
nected the Pacific Ocean with San Francisco fect Pacific coast harbor, which previous
Bay. Although Portolá did not yet realize it, explorers had repeatedly bypassed.

After a difficult journey during which they
were forced to eat their mules to survive, Por-
tolá and his men returned to San Diego on
January 24, 1770. Fray Serra and others, how-
ever, were disappointed because Portolá had
not found Monterey, whose discovery was
more anticipated because of Vizcaíno’s
inflated description.
RETURN TO MONTEREY
A second attempt set out to find Monterey in
mid-April, with Serra sailing aboard the San
Antonio and Portolá leading a few dozen sol-
diers overland. The land expedition reached
The Road to California B 151
Monterey on May 24, 1770. When they discov-
ered a large cross they had planted during
their previous expedition, Portolá and his men
realized they had found Monterey six months
earlier but had not recognized it. Lack of fresh
water caused them to move their camp to
nearby Carmel Bay.
When Serra joined the group, he cele-
brated Mass near the beach on June 3, then
observed as Spanish soldiers “took posses-
sion” of the land in the name of King Charles
III—228 years after Cabrillo’s seaborne expe-
dition had claimed the same coast for Spain.
With the basic mission ordered by visitor-
general Gálvez accomplished, colonization
152 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800

\
The Role of California Missions =

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

began in earnest, accompanied by smaller
expeditions that revealed California’s valleys
and the true dimensions of San Francisco Bay.
Before his death in 1784, Serra traveled
repeatedly along the California coastline,
founding nine missions: San Diego (1769), San
Carlos Borromeo (1770), San Antonio (1771),
San Gabriel (1771), San Luis Obispo (1772),
San Francisco (1776), San Juan Capistrano
(1776), Santa Clara (1777), and San Buenaven-
tura (1782). Twenty-one missions would even-
tually line Alta California’s coast, from San
Diego in the south to St. Francis Solano in the
future town of Sonoma.
CAPTAIN ANZA AND
FATHER GARCÉS
Spain’s new footholds in California renewed
interest in discovering a land route between
Sonora and the Pacific coast. Supplying strug-
gling California settlements by sea was dan-
gerous and costly. Establishing an overland
 The Road to California B 153

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

Junípero Serra established the mission at San Carlos Borromeo in present-day

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

connection would also enable colonists to
reach the coast in larger numbers. In 1773 per-
mission to find a route was granted to Juan
Bautista de Anza, a cavalry captain in com-
mand of the presidio of San Ignacio de Tubac,
at the present-day southern Arizona town of
Tubac. Ironically, Anza’s father, also named
Juan Bautista de Anza, once had aspired to fol-
low the Gila River westward to California. The
elder Anza had requested permission for just
such an expedition but was killed in an
Apache ambush in 1740.
The younger Anza left Tubac on January 8,
1774, with 33 others, including Fray Francisco
Garcés, a Franciscan missionary who had
already made trips from San Xavier del Bac
along the Gila and Colorado Rivers alone,
much as Eusebio Kino had done decades ear-
lier. Anza and Garcés both detailed the jour-
ney in official diaries. At the meeting of the
Gila and Colorado Rivers, Anza paused to
renew his friendship with a Yuma chief
known as Salvador Palma, whom Fray Garcés
had also met in his earlier wanderings in the
154 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800
countryside. On February 13 Anza left Yuma
country behind, heading west and becoming
lost for 10 days in the sand dunes of Imperial
Valley in southeastern California. “Seeing the
generally disastrous condition of all of our
riding animals and the impossibility of con-
tinuing the march with them,” Anza wrote in
his diary, the expedition returned to Yuma
territory to forge a new plan.
To get around the vast, shifting dunes,
Anza’s company went southwest into Baja
California, eventually turning north to enter
Alta California west of Mexicali, near Signal
Mountain. Struggling alternately through
more hot, water-starved deserts and winter
snow in the San Jacinto Mountains on the
way northwest, Anza arrived at San Gabriel
Arcángel mission (east of the present city of
Los Angeles) on March 22, 1774. Supplies
there were too meager for the entire expedi-
tion to continue, so Anza and four soldiers
continued north with guides, reaching Mon-
terey on May 1. The rest of the expedition
returned to Yuma. Typically, Father Garcés
set out on his own, seeking a shortcut back to
Sonora.
RETURN TO CALIFORNIA
Opening a supply route to California earned
Anza a military promotion and the confi-
dence of his superiors, who asked him to
organize a second expedition, aimed at colo-
nizing the San Francisco Bay area. The expe-
dition embarked on October 23, 1775. That
night, a woman died from childbirth compli-
cations, but all of the other 240 colonists and
48 soldiers survived the 62-day trek. The sur-
vival rate was incredible, given the unpre-
dictable supplies of water and food, violent
winter weather, and bad roads. The colonists
arrived at Monterey on March 10, 1776. After
briefly exploring the countryside, in April
Anza departed Monterey for Tubac, leaving
his lieutenant, José Joaquin Moraga, to lead
the colonists the rest of the way to the settle-
ment they would build at San Francisco.
Fray Garcés traveled with Anza’s out-
bound 1775 colonizing group, but only as far
as the future site of Yuma, Arizona. After
founding a mission there, Garcés set off
alone on muleback. He reached the San
Gabriel mission, then headed back to the
Colorado River to see if he could reach New
Mexico by following the river upstream.
Garces’s journey back to the mission at San
Xavier del Bac took him through the moun-
tains of southern California, across the
Mojave Desert, and to the Grand Canyon. He
was the first European to see the canyon-
lands since Francisco Vásquez de Coronado’s
officer, García López de Cárdenas, visited
them 135 years earlier.
FOUR CORNERS
Friars Francisco Atanasio Dominguez and Sil-
vestre Velez de Escalante thought they could
find an easier route to Monterey. Their plan
was to travel inland north to Monterey’s lati-
tude and head west, thus avoiding the difficult
terrain and hostile Indian tribes. On July 29,
1776, the two Franciscans set out from Santa
Fe, New Mexico, with 14 men, including a car-
tographer, Captain Bernardo de Miera y
Pacheco. They returned to Santa Fe on Janu-
ary 2, 1777, without ever seeing California, but
having accomplished an 1,800-mile journey
through the previously unexplored territory
known today as the Four Corners, the region
where the states of Arizona, New Mexico,
Utah, and Colorado meet.
Their northerly route took them to the
vicinity of modern Rangely in northwestern
Colorado. The group then headed west as far
as Utah Lake. There Escalante noted his
 The Road to California B 155

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

Indian hosts’ description of what would later
be named the Great Salt Lake:
The other lake with which this one commu-
nicates, according to what they told us, cov-
ers many leagues, and its waters are noxious
and extremely salty, for the Timpanois assure
us that a person who moistens any part of his
body with the water of the lake immediately
feels much itching in the part that is wet.
The expedition turned sharply southwest,
nearly dying of thirst in what is now known as
Escalante Desert. Near present-day Cedar
City, Utah, they calculated—relatively accu-
rately, being only 2 degrees off—that continu-
ing directly west would bring them to
Monterey. After they nearly expired in the
desert, however, oncoming winter snow and
hunger threatened them. On October 4 a bliz-
zard convinced Escalante and Dominguez to
156 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800
turn back to Santa Fe. Cartographer Miera’s
protests over the decision forced the friars to
cast lots to keep peace among the ranks. The
friars won the toss and the expedition headed
south toward Arizona, eventually reaching the
Colorado River near Marble Canyon.
On November 26, 1776, the expedition
reached Zuni Pueblo, south of modern Gallup,
New Mexico. “Not having sufficient strength
to continue,” the group rested before continu-
ing on to Santa Fe to present their report on
the lands and people they had seen. On Janu-
ary 3, 1777, they signed Escalante’s diary,
finally documenting the first European explo-
ration of the Great Basin Desert and blazing
part of what would later be called the Old
Spanish Trail between Santa Fe and California.
In the end, the labors of Kino, Anza, Gar-
cés, the Dominguez-Escalante expedition,
and others to open a busy route to California
stalled. Increasing bloodshed between Indi-
ans and colonists in New Mexico made the
frontier a dangerous place to live or cross in
safety. A 1781 Yuma uprising, which took the
life of Fray Garcés, closed the route he and
Anza had opened. By then, however, Spain
was more concerned with new threats arriving
by sea in the Pacific Northwest.

Charting the
Pacific Northwest
At the same time expeditions from
\ New Mexico were blazing overland
routes to strengthen Spain’s weak but
growing claim to California, Spanish mariners
once again braved the unpredictable seas
between California and the Bering Sea. None
of the European powers showed much inter-
est in exploring the Pacific Northwest until in
the late 1770s they heard rumors of Russian
fur traders edging down the coast. Russians
had reached Alaska 50 years earlier but mainly
as roving traders rather than as explorers.
Vitus Bering explored western Alaska, but he
did not continue down into the Pacific North-
west region (for full coverage of this, see the
Exploring the Polar Regions volume). Not
wanting to forgo a claim on the rugged and
potentially profitable land to the north, new
explorers set forth, eventually contending in
an international rush to lay claim to the land
between San Francisco and the Arctic.
13
{
The 1700s
FIRST ATTEMPTS
The first Spanish ship to investigate the
rumors of a Russian and English presence was
the Santiago, commanded by Juan Pérez.
Bearing instructions from the Spanish viceroy
in Mexico to find suitable sites for settlement,
Pérez left the port of San Blas, Mexico, in Jan-
uary 1774. He reached 55° north latitude, the
southeastern tip of the present state of Alaska,
before turning south. On his return voyage,
Pérez anchored near Nootka Sound, along the
west coast of what was later named Vancouver
Island. Like other explorers of his time, how-
ever, he assumed the island was part of the
mainland. Pérez traded with Indians and laid
claim to some of the land he visited, but the
main value of his expedition was information
he brought back about the Nootka people of
Vancouver Island and the Haida, a tribe living
along the coastline north from the Queen
157
158 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800

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

Charlotte Islands to Prince of Wales Island. On
his passage south Pérez sighted Mt. Olympus
in northern Washington, but, not having taken
possession of any land for Spain, his expedi-
tion was not regarded as much of a success.
Pérez went to sea again in March 1775
aboard the Santiago, this time under the com-
mand of Bruno Heceta. A second ship, the
Sonora, was commanded by Juan Francisco
de la Bodega y Quadra, who would play a
major role in the region’s history. The Spanish
goal was to reach 65° north and to investigate
rumors of a Russian presence. In early June,
they sighted northern California at a spot they
named Puerto de la Trinidad, now known as
Trinidad Bay. Declaring possession of the land
for Spain, the mariners paused to spend a
week with local Indians, who received the vis-
itors warmly. The next landing, farther up the
coast, was not as friendly. On July 13, near
present-day Grenville, Washington, seven of
Bodega’s men went ashore to get fresh water,
but were killed by hundreds of Indians who
ambushed the landing party. Beset with
scurvy and bad weather, Heceta favored turn-
ing back. The matter was decided when the
Santiago and the Sonora were separated by a
storm at sea.
Heceta retreated south toward Monterey.
On August 17 his crew sighted what appeared
to be a large inland bay. Heceta tried to enter
it, but was driven back by a powerful outflow-
ing current from what was later recognized as
the mouth of the Columbia River. Heceta con-
tinued on to Monterey, trying to find relief for
his scurvy-ridden crew—too late for Juan
Pérez, who died along the way. Meanwhile,
Bodega y Quadra continued north as far as 58°
Charting the Pacific Northwest B 159
160 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800
north, until illness and violent weather
stopped the Sonora’s progress.
In February 1779 Bodega y Quadra
returned northward as second in command to
Ignacio Arteaga. The expedition reached
nearly 60° north at Kayak Island, the Alaskan
landfall of explorer Vitus Bering’s 1741 Russian
expedition. Near Prince William Sound a party
went ashore to hold a possession ceremony
on the northernmost land ever claimed by
Spain in North America. The voyagers got as
far as Kodiak Island before they were forced
back by storms and scurvy, failing to fulfill
their orders to reach 70° north. They were also
looking for Captain James Cook, unaware that
the British explorer had come and gone the
previous year.
CAPTAIN COOK
Having completed two momentous earlier
voyages exploring the South Pacific (1768–71
and 1771–76), Captain James Cook’s third
expedition once again followed the dream of
finding the Northwest Passage around or
through North America, hoping to connect
the Pacific with the Atlantic Ocean. In 1776
In 1778 Captain James Cook spotted Cape Flattery (shown in an 1859 photograph with the lighthouse of the
same name on a nearby island) in present-day Washington State; however, he overlooked the nearby Strait of
Juan de Fuca, which separates Vancouver Island and the Washington coast. (National Archives of Canada)
Cook left his base in the South Pacific island of
Tahiti and sailed north, becoming the first
known European to visit the Hawaiian Islands
(which he named the Sandwich Islands) in
January 1778. He then sailed east, avoiding
Spanish California and aiming at the land Sir
Francis Drake called New Albion. Cook
reached the coast of Oregon on March 6.
Cook called his point of landfall Cape Foul
Weather. The name, which is still used today,
was an apt choice. The ships Discovery and
Resolution struggled north through gales that
kept them far from the rocky coastline. Cook
missed the Columbia River and Strait of Juan
de Fuca, but on March 30 entered Nootka
Sound, the harbor on the west coast of Van-
couver Island that Pérez had sighted in 1774.
Cook spent a month at Nootka repairing his
storm-damaged ships, visiting with the Native
peoples, and exploring the area, which he
dubbed King George’s Sound.
The cartographer assigned to Cook’s flag-
ship, the Resolution, was William Bligh, who
would later become legendary as the captain
of mutiny-wracked H.M.S. Bounty. With Bligh
surveying and drawing maps of the treacher-
ous coastline of western Canada, Cook slowly

progressed toward the Alaskan region where
Russian explorer Vitus Bering had perished
in 1741. Eventually, Cook threaded his way
through the Aleutian Islands and sailed up the
western limits of the Alaskan mainland, pass-
ing through the Bering Strait at a point Cook
named Cape Prince of Wales (now the Seward
Peninsula), the closest point on the North
American mainland to Asia.
Carefully navigating through the ice-
strewn waters, Cook’s progress slowed to a
crawl. Finally, at 70° north, Cook faced a wall
of ice blockading the horizon. On August 29 he
explained his next move in his journal:
I did not think it consistent with prudence
to make any further attempts to find a pas-
sage this year in any direction, so little was
the prospect of succeeding. My direction
was now directed towards finding some
place where we could obtain wood and
water, and in considering how I should
spend the winter, so as to make some
improvement to geography and navigation
and at the same time be in a condition to
return to the North in further search of a
passage the ensuing summer.
Charting the Pacific Northwest B 161
Cook never returned to Alaska as planned.
The Discovery and the Resolution withdrew to
Unalaska Island in the Aleutians, where
repairs were made to the leaking vessels with
the help of Russian traders. Cook’s expedition
reached his Hawaiian winter sanctuary, but
he was killed there on February 14, 1779, in a
scuffle with inhabitants of the island of
Hawaii. Cook’s crews returned to the Bering
Strait the following summer, but their new
commander, Captain Charles Clerke, died of
illness without expanding upon Cook’s
efforts. Cook’s detailed journals were pub-
lished in London and became best sellers.
Perhaps the greatest effect of Cook’s last voy-
age, however, was the experience it provided
George Vancouver, a lieutenant on the Dis-
covery, whose contributions to understanding
the geography and people of the Pacific
Northwest would soon surpass those of his
late commander.
THE COMTE
DE LA PÉROUSE
Much of Cook’s route was revisited during
the ill-fated world voyage of veteran French
naval officer and explorer Jean-François de
Galaup, comte de La Pérouse (or La Pérouse,
for short). In 1785 the French government dis-
patched La Pérouse to the Pacific Ocean to
search for the Northwest Passage. Hoping to
match Cook’s achievements, however, La
Pérouse was also ordered to explore the
northwest coast of North America, as well as
the coast of Asia and the South Seas. It was a
scientific expedition whose crew included
naturalists, artists, cartographers, an astrono-
mer, a physicist, and a mathematician.
La Pérouse’s expedition left France in
August 1785 and eventually made its way to
Alaska, sighting Mount St. Elias near the cur-
rent U.S.-Canadian border on June 24, 1786.
162 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800
Jean-François de Galaup, comte de La Pérouse, led
an expedition consisting of two ships and many
scientists on an extensive journey through the
Pacific Ocean that began in 1785 and disappeared
in 1788. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs
Division [LC-USZ62-78225])
La Pérouse retraced Cook’s route—in the
reverse direction—with the help of copies of
the English explorer’s charts. At a spot now
known as Lituya Bay, La Pérouse landed,
claimed the land for France, and named it Port
des Français. The French explorers traded
with the Native inhabitants for sea otter pelts.
As they prepared to continue eastward on, a
sounding party in two boats was capsized at
the rough waters’ edge, with a loss of 21 men.
The disaster cast a pall over the progress of the
expedition down the foggy, dangerous coast of
North America. Nevertheless, the expedition
continued its charting work until it reached
the recently founded Spanish mission at Mon-
terey on September 13. La Pérouse, whose
men were resupplied by friendly Spanish set-
tlers, recorded some of the first observations
of the mission and Indians living there:
With pain we say it, the resemblance [to
slavery] is so perfect that we have seen men
and women in irons or in the stocks; and
even the sounds of the lash might have
struck our ears, that punishment also being
admitted, though practiced with little
severity. I confess that, friend of the rights of
man rather than theologian, I should have
desired that to principles of Christianity
there might have been joined a legislation
that little by little would have made citizens
of men whose condition hardly differs now
from that of the negroes of our most
humanely governed colonies.
La Pérouse next set out for Macao, China,
to sell the sea otter pelts obtained in Alaska.
He spent all of 1777 exploring the Pacific
Ocean. In January 1788, after leaving Botany
Bay, Australia, La Pérouse disappeared at sea.
He is thought to have been shipwrecked at
New Hebrides. Some of the scientific informa-
tion La Pérouse collected survived in journals
he sent to France from Australia aboard a
British ship. France did not, however, pursue
any territorial claims in the Pacific Northwest
on the basis of his voyage.
CONFRONTATION AT
NOOTKA
European exploration and territorial ambi-
tions in the Pacific Northwest increasingly
centered on a 12,408-square-mile island
inhabited by the Nootka, Kwakiutl, Coast Sal-
ish, and other Native American tribes. The
land would soon be named Vancouver Island.
Occasional European voyages into Pacific
Northwest waters produced seal otter furs,
 Charting the Pacific Northwest B 163

but no real dash to explore and claim the land. Spanish charts improved as the coastline’s
This changed in late 1787, when Spanish complex islands and harbors were surveyed
mariner Estéban José Martínez returned to by José María Narváez (1791), Salvador
Mexico from Prince William Sound to Fidalgo (1792), and Jacinto Caamaño (1792).
announce that he had learned that Russian
traders were planning to establish a perma-
nent settlement on Nootka Island, off the VANCOUVER ARRIVES
coast of Vancouver Island. In April 1791 George Vancouver, a naval officer
Martínez, an experienced mariner with a and veteran of Captain Cook’s second and
reputation for belligerence, was immediately third voyages, was dispatched to Nootka
ordered back to Nootka to maintain Spanish Island. Captain Vancouver was assigned to
control. Soon after his return in summer 1789, settle Britain’s claims under the Nootka Con-
he encountered two ships flying the Por- vention and to survey the coast from Califor-
tuguese flag, but staffed and commanded by nia to Alaska. He was also ordered to search
English traders. On grounds that the English for a transcontinental strait allegedly discov-
were violating Spanish sovereignty by their ered in 1592 by Juan de Fuca, a Greek pilot
presence, Martínez briefly seized, then sailing under the Spanish flag. Fuca may—or
released one of the ships. When two more may not—have discovered the strait later
English trading vessels appeared shortly
thereafter, Martínez seized them both, then
sailed for Mexico with the captured ships and
crews.
News of the incident eventually reached
England in January 1790, causing a war scare.
The infuriated British government demanded
compensation. Resolution of the confronta-
tion may have been hastened by the ongoing
French Revolution, which had erupted in the
summer of 1789. Taking the side of the French
monarchy and worried about political turmoil
within its own empire, Spain chose to settle
the Martínez incident quickly—and in terms
favorable to Britain—in an agreement known
as the Nootka Convention in October 1790.
Both countries agreed to use the area as an
international trading zone, as soon as dam-
ages over the Martínez incident were settled.
Resolving the Nootka dispute on paper did
not stop Spanish exploration or claims in the
Pacific Northwest. In 1790 Manuel Quimper During his voyage along the Pacific coast, George
explored the Strait of Juan de Fuca aboard the Vancouver charted the coastline’s features on maps
Princess Royal, one of the British ships seized that were used by later explorers. (Alaska State
by Martínez and renamed Princessa Real. Library PCA 20-25)
164 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800

named for him, which separates Washington’s
Olympic Peninsula from Vancouver Island,
but Vancouver’s investigation was aimed at
determining if Fuca had found the fabled
Strait of Anian.
Vancouver reached the California coast
north of San Francisco on April 17, 1792, and
proceeded north, surveying and charting the
coastline. Within weeks, the expedition turned
east into the Strait of Juan de Fuca and began
exploring its southern shore. On May 2, 1792,
Vancouver’s ships Discovery and Chatham
entered a natural harbor near the east end of
the strait that Manuel Quimper had discov-
ered two years earlier. Unaware that Quimper
had named the bay Porta de la Bodega y
Quadra after his fellow Spanish explorer, Van-
couver named it Port Discovery after his own
ship. Vancouver’s expedition anchored in the
bay for several days, making repairs and col-
lecting supplies of wood and water. European
epidemics had preceded Vancouver, decimat-
ing Native populations. He noted in his jour-
nal that “skulls, limbs, ribs, and back bones,
and other vestiges of the human body, were
found in many places promiscuously scat-
tered” on the beaches and woods surrounding
deserted Indian towns.
COLUMBIA RIVER AND
PUGET SOUND
While Vancouver was exploring the area, the
American fur trader Robert Gray was farther
south on the Pacific coast, at the future
boundary between Oregon and Washington.
He carefully navigated past sandbars at the
mouth of the great river Heceta had mistaken
for a bay 17 years earlier. Gray named the river
the Columbia, after his ship. This discovery by
Gray, who had witnessed the earlier Martínez
incident while sailing through the region but
managed not to become entangled like his
British counterparts, was the foundation for

Despite his careful attention to the Pacific Northwest coastline, George Vancouver missed the mouth of the
Columbia River (near the present-day border of Washington and Oregon), shown in a 1908 photograph.
(National Archives, Pacific Alaska Region NRIS-77-SEADECIMAL-13-47)

George Vancouver explored a large island off the western coast of North America that would later be named
for him—Vancouver Island—in the early 1790s. (National Archives of Canada)
later U.S. claims to the Oregon Territory (for
full coverage of Gray and other American
exploration of this period, see the Opening Up
North America, 1497–1800 and Across Amer-
ica: The Lewis and Clark Expedition volumes
in this set).
On his voyage north from California, Van-
couver missed the mouth of the Columbia
River. When he later learned of Gray’s discov-
ery, the skeptical Vancouver sent a subordi-
nate, William Broughton, south to investigate.
Broughton explored and surveyed the Colum-
bia for 100 miles inland, determining that it
was not the transcontinental waterway Van-
couver sought.
Meanwhile, Vancouver continued to
explore the region’s labyrinth of coastal inlets
and harbors. He explored a large bay, naming
it Puget Sound after his lieutenant, Peter
Puget, who explored the reaches of the water-
way south of present-day Tacoma, Washing-
ton. Vancouver’s large ships, the Discovery and
Charting the Pacific Northwest B 165
the Chatham were too large to enter shallow
waters for surveying, so smaller boats were
frequently used to collect the desired data.
On June 22 Vancouver encountered two
Spanish ships, captained by Cayetano Valdés
and Dionisio Alcalá Galiano. The Spanish offi-
cers were under the command of Alejandro
Malaspina, an Italian-born aristocrat and cap-
tain in the Spanish navy, who was then
engaged in a scientific voyage around the
Pacific Ocean. Like Vancouver, Malaspina had
been ordered to investigate rumors of a north-
west passage. After exploring the coast of
Alaska from Prince William Sound eastward
and visiting Nootka Sound, Malaspina had
returned to Mexico. In 1792, however, he
ordered Alcalá Galiano and Valdés to sail to
the Pacific Northwest and explore the Strait of
Juan de Fuca. The Spanish presence was a
shock to Vancouver.
“I cannot avoid acknowledging that, on this
occasion, I experienced no small degree of
166 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800

mortification in finding the external shores of
the gulf had been visited, and already exam-
ined a few miles beyond where my researches
during the excursion, had extended,” Vancou-
ver noted in his journal. Instead of competing,
however, the two expeditions exchanged infor-
mation and compared maps. Vancouver
invited the two Spanish officers to join him in
exploring northward. They accepted, but the
Spanish ships navigated well only in shallow
coastal waters. They could not keep pace with
the larger English vessels heading into the tur-
bulent currents of the Strait of Georgia.
After parting with Alcalá Galiano and
Valdés, Vancouver progressed along the
northeastern coast of Vancouver Island. He
stalled at the Arran Rapids, powerful
whirlpools caused by tidal currents. An
advance surveying party led by Lieutenant
James Johnstone, however, reached the Queen
Charlotte Strait, which leads into the open
ocean. Vancouver took his ships north
through narrow Discovery Passage, Johnstone
Strait, and the Queen Charlotte Strait. In doing
so, he established that the large landmass to
his left was indeed an island. By then it was

\
The Nootka Convention =
The first version of the Nootka Convention was signed on October 28, 1792.
While one of its aims was to settle damages for Spanish mariner Estéban José
Martínez’s confiscation of British property—principally the British-owned trad-
ing ship Ifigenia—the agreement attempted to define the larger question of
sovereignty over Nootka Island and the surrounding area:

It is agreed that the buildings and tracts of land situated on the northwest Coast
of the Continent of North America, or on islands adjacent to that continent, of
which the subjects of His Britannic Majesty were dispossessed about the month of
April 1789 by a Spanish officer [Martínez], shall be restored to the said British sub-
jects. . . . It is agreed that the places which are to be restored to British subjects
by virtue of the first article as well as in all other parts of the Northwest Coast of
North America or of the islands adjacent, situated to the north of the parts of the
said coast already occupied by Spain wherever either of the two powers shall have
made settlements since the month of April 1789, or shall hereafter make any, the
subjects of the other shall have free access and shall carry on their commerce
without disturbance or molestation.

Yet Bodega y Quadra and Vancouver, the two nations’ representatives, could
not agree on what the convention required when they met in September 1792.
For his part, Vancouver stated in his journal that orders regarding the sur-
rounding territories were “entirely silent as to the measures I was to adopt for
retaining them afterwards.” A final version of the convention was signed Janu-
ary 11, 1794. With terms finally agreed upon, Spain ceded the island in March
1795 and Britain ceremonially took possession. Both nations abandoned their
crude settlements immediately, leaving future diplomats to haggle over owner-
ship of Vancouver Island and the Pacific Northwest territories.

time to address the diplomatic aspect of his
mission. When Vancouver arrived at Nootka,
the Spanish representative was none other
than explorer Bodega y Quadra. The Nootka
Convention’s terms were not defined clearly
enough for the two negotiators to agree about
sovereignty over the area. The two officers
became good friends, however, so they chose
to ask their governments for clearer instruc-
tions. While awaiting new orders from Lon-
don, Vancouver sailed to California, then to
the Hawaiian Islands to spend the winter.
VANCOUVER RETURNS
Vancouver returned to the Pacific Northwest
in spring 1793. His expedition surveyed the
islands at the southeastern tip of present-day
Alaska, and nearly some were killed when an
exploratory boat he commanded was attacked
by Indians. Relations with Native Americans
were generally “cheerful” throughout his trav-
els, Vancouver noted in his journal, so he did
not anticipate this tribe’s ambush. “Whether
their motives were rather to take revenge on
us for injuries they may have suffered from
other civilized visitors,” Vancouver theorized,
“or whether they conceived the valuable arti-
cles we possessed, were easily to be obtained
by these means, is difficult to be determined.”
The expedition left Alaska and headed south,
surveying and making friendly stops at Span-
ish settlements along the California coast
before wintering in the Hawaiian islands.
Vancouver’s third and final surveying
expedition returned to the coast of Alaska in
April 1794, farther north than he had ventured
before. He sailed first to Cook Inlet on the
south-central Alaskan shore and worked his
way southeast to Baranov Island, the terminus
of his 1793 voyage. He named his final landfall
Point Conclusion and, having finally com-
pleted his mission, he set sail for home via
Cape Horn, arriving in England in late 1795
Charting the Pacific Northwest B 167
after nearly six years of surveying, mapping,
scientific inquiry, diplomatic service, and ulti-
mately circumnavigating the globe.
Among many other things, Vancouver tried
to put the longstanding myth of the Strait of
Anian to rest:
I trust the precision with which the survey
of the coast of North West America has
been carried into effect will set aside every
opinion of a north-west passage. No small
portion of facetious mirth passed among
our seamen in consequence of our sail-
ing . . . for the purpose of discovering a
north-west passage, by following up the
discoveries of De Fuca, [mythical 17th-
century explorer Admiral Bartolomé] De
Fonte, and a numerous train of hypotheti-
cal investigators.
The years at sea took a toll on Vancouver’s
health. Upon his return to England, he retired
and set to work compiling an account of his
travels. He was within pages of completing the
manuscript when he died on May 12, 1798, at
the age of 40. His brother John finished the
work, which was published in 1798 as A Voyage
of Discovery to the North Pacific Ocean and
Round the World. The finished opus included
three volumes of journals and a folio of
detailed maps. In addition to their naviga-
tional data, the journals provided an evocative
daily record of the flora and fauna Vancouver
and his staff encountered, as well as descrip-
tions of relations with Native tribes.
Although Vancouver’s work provided a
definitive geographical picture of the large,
complex area he and his men had surveyed, it
was not the only journal resulting from the
expedition. Archibald Menzies, the expedi-
tion’s Scottish botanist, also compiled a jour-
nal covering the initial 1792 foray. Menzies,
who collected botanical samples during his
time ashore on the surveyed lands, added his
168 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800
expertise on ferns, flowering plants, lichens,
and marine algae to European knowledge of
the region.
One lasting result of the voyage resulted
from Vancouver’s friendship with Bodega y
Quadra, who sociably suggested that Vancou-
ver name “some port or island after us both, to
commemorate our meeting. . . . Conceiving no
spot so proper for this denomination as the
place where we had first met, which was
nearly in the center of a tract of land that had
first been circumnavigated by us.” Vancouver
decided, “I named that country the island of
Quadra and Vancouver; with which compli-
ment he seemed highly pleased.” The name
was later shortened to Vancouver Island, but
in the final decades of the 1700s, regardless of
its shifting motives, exploration of the Pacific
coastline was a genuinely international
endeavor.

The New World in 1800
Three hundred years after Columbus
\ gambled that he could find a west-
ward route from Europe to Asia,
explorers were still examining what he had
instead found. Searches for gold and religious
missions continued, but on a much smaller
scale. Expeditions were now just as likely to be
driven by desire for scientific knowledge. New
exploration was also driven by desire for polit-
ical and strategic superiority. The world had
changed since the days of the gold-hungry
speculators of Columbus’s second voyage,
who intended to return home to Europe as
rich men, thinking of their sojourn in the
Americas as a temporary adventure. New soci-
eties now existed in the Americas, with Old
World and New World civilizations interacting
in ways whose effects are felt even today.
DESCRIBING THE
KNOWN WORLD
Much of what was unknown or misunder-
stood about the Earth became clearer in the
centuries after Columbus’s voyages. Thanks to
increasingly accurate maps and the practical
14
{
experience of hundreds of mariners, the
Atlantic and Pacific Oceans were now geo-
graphical regions to be crossed, not under-
worlds filled with unknown terrors. Discovery
of the Gulf Stream revolutionized travel and
trade on the Atlantic Ocean. By 1800 ships
were much improved from the relatively small
caravels of Columbus’s time. Mariners still
depended primarily on wind power to reach
their destinations, but steam-and-sail combi-
nations were just starting to come into use.
Beginning in 1812, steamboats were operating
on the Mississippi River. The first transatlantic
steamship crossing of the Atlantic Ocean fol-
lowed, in 1819.
Some geographical myths such as the
Strait of Anian were nearly dead, although
19th-century British, American, and Norwe-
gian explorers would continue to search the
ice-choked northern limits of the Americas for
a route between the Atlantic and Pacific.
British explorer Sir Robert McClure’s 1854
expedition provided the final link to earlier
efforts to traverse the top of North America by
sea. The convenient midcontinent passage-
way that earlier explorers had hoped to find
169
170 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800

would have to wait until 1914, when the
Panama Canal connected the two great
oceans.
A desire for more precise knowledge about
the Earth replaced earlier ambitions for gold,
conquest, and global religious dominance.
When Gonzalo Pizarro set out from Quito,
Ecuador, in 1541, for example, he was search-
ing for gold, slaves, cinnamon, and a hos-
pitable place to build an empire. His subordi-
nate Francisco Orellana found the Amazon
River accidentally and explored the waterway
out of a need to survive the harsh environ-
ment and possibly Pizarro’s brutish misman-
agement. By contrast, when French scientist
Charles-Marie de la Condamine went to
Ecuador in 1735, he was sponsored by the
French Academy of Sciences, which sent him

An engraving by Theodor de Bry, this late 15th-century map of the Americas is bordered by (clockwise from
top left) Christopher Columbus, Amerigo Vespucci, Ferdinand Magellan, and Francisco Pizarro. (Library of
Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-89908])

to South America to collect measurements at
the equator to settle disagreement over the
true shape of the Earth. A second expedition
led by Pierre-Louis de Maupertuis journeyed
to Lapland in Scandinavia, in 1736 for the
same purpose.
The size of the Earth was less of a mystery
than it had been in 1492, but contention over
its shape pitted French theories that the
spherical globe flattened at the equator
against British scientist Sir Isaac Newton, who
calculated that it was flattened at the poles.
Complications with Spanish authorities and
various mishaps stalled La Condamine in
Quito until 1743, when he learned that New-
ton’s theory had been proven by data collected
by Maupertuis’s expedition. Rather than
return home to France, however, La Con-
damine instead set out on a four-month jour-
ney down the Amazon.
The naturalist, mathematician, and car-
tographer La Condamine and his colleagues
were a stark contrast to the armored troops,
shackled slaves, and livestock that had
accompanied the soldier Pizarro 200 years
before. The French explorers carried scientific
instruments. They measured and sounded the
depths of the rivers they encountered in the
Amazonian basin. They observed and col-
lected specimens of plants and animals. In
1751 La Condamine published his account of
this first scientific examination of the Ama-
zon, entitled Journal du voyage fait par ordre
du roi a l’équateur (Journal of the voyage
made by order of the king at the equator).
DISCOVERY AND THE
ENLIGHTENMENT
The scientific direction in which much explo-
ration was heading in 1800 followed the most
potent century of an intellectual movement
The New World in 1800 B 171
called the Enlightenment. Although it began
several centuries earlier, the pace of the
Enlightenment increased dramatically in the
1700s. European thinkers attempted to
understand the natural world and humanity’s
role in it on the basis of reason and scientific
evidence, without appealing to religious
beliefs for explanations. In Columbus’s time,
the discovery of the Americas had been a
shock to many European religious leaders
and the national monarchs with whom they
were closely associated. Previously unknown
continents, peoples, religions, and civiliza-
tions presented a challenge to church leaders,
who had been explaining the order of the
known world solely on the basis of the Bible,
which made no mention of the New World.
Rather than shun the Americas, however,
most European leaders and theologians had
chosen to view the discovery as ripe with
opportunities for economic exploitation and
religious conversion.
Searching for treasure and religious mis-
sionary activities had certainly not ended by
1800. Yet as Europeans became more con-
cerned with understanding the New World—
as opposed to merely emptying it of natural
resources and forcing their religion upon its
original inhabitants—the scientific revolution
accompanying the Enlightenment in the
1600s and 1700s gave explorers an increasing
array of tools for trying to make sense of the
Americas and, for that matter, anywhere else
they traveled. Broad advances were made in
geology, botany, biology, and other natural
sciences, especially after the mid-1600s.
Improved surveying instruments produced
better maps. Taxonomy and nomenclature—
the classifying of plants and animals, and
identifying each species by giving it a specific
name—were formalized by scientists for the
first time in the 1700s.
172 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800

Science in the 1700s helped explorers
understand what they found, but was also
helpful to the navigators responsible for get-
ting them there. After centuries of being
unable to accurately determine longitude,
English scientist John Harrison solved the
problem in the 1750s with his invention of the
marine chronometer. Harrison’s invention—
essentially an accurate pocket watch—
allowed navigators to determine their
longitude by comparing the difference
between their time and what time it was at 0
degrees longitude, the prime meridian. They
were then able to make calculations based on
the knowledge that each hour of difference
represented 15 degrees of longitude. The
chronometer’s usefulness was proven by Cap-
tain James Cook’s second voyage (1771–76),
which produced charts so accurate that navi-
gation and cartography developed to new and
improved standards. As the charts of voyagers
such as Cook and Vancouver were published

\
Scientists Descend on South America =
Many regions of the world still remained to be explored even as late as 1800,
among them parts of South America. Catholic missionaries, Portuguese slavers,
and mining prospectors were responsible for much of the exploration of the
Amazon basin throughout the 17th and 18th centuries but they had by no means
exhausted all the unknowns of the continent. In the 18th century a new breed of
explorers began to appear on the scene: scientists who were interested not in
discovering new lands to be claimed by their European homelands but in dis-
covering new animals and plants, isolated peoples, and unknown geographic
features. During the 1700s, in addition to French astronomer Charles-Marie de
La Condamine (1736–45), these included French astronomer Louis Godin
(1736–50), French naturalist Jean Godin de Odonais (1743–73), Spanish natu-
ralist José Celestino Mutis (1760–62), Spanish botanist Hipólito Ruz (1777–88),
and German naturalist Alexander von Humboldt (1799–1803).
The attraction of South America for scientists would continue throughout the
19th century, drawing Anglo-German botanist/explorer Robert Hermann
Schomburgk (1835–43); British explorer Francis de La Porte, comte de Castel-
nau (1843–47); three English naturalists, Alfred Wallace (1848–52), Henry Bates
(1848–59), and Richard Spruce (1849–64); German ethnographer Karl von den
Steinen (1884–88); and Brazilian soldier/explorer Candido Rondon
(1890–1910). Perhaps the most notable scientist to be drawn to South America
would be British naturalist/biologist Charles Darwin, who investigated the
coast of southeast Argentina in 1831 and then the Galápagos Islands, off
Ecuador, where his findings would greatly influence his theory on natural selec-
tion and the origin of species.
One characteristic of the exploration of South America should be apparent:
It has always been an international effort. Another is that, to this day, remote
parts of the Amazon River basin remain unexplored.
 The New World in 1800 B 173

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

and studied, the actual geographical shape of
the Americas—and much of the rest of the
world—could now be seen, with details and
an exactitude the navigators of Columbus’s
time would have marveled over.
SPAIN FADES FROM
THE SCENE
The opening of the Americas produced a new
understanding of the world, but the civiliza-
tions involved in the initial encounters under-
went profound changes between Columbus’s
time and 1800. Within 50 years of Europeans’
arrival, the two most powerful empires in the
Americas, those of the Aztec and the Inca, had
been smashed and replaced by Spanish con-
trol. By 1800, however, Spanish power in the
Americas was weakening fast. The Spanish
economy was a shambles. A yellow fever epi-
demic swept the country that year, killing
thousands of people. Mountains of gold and
silver imported from Mexico and Peru had
been wasted fighting a succession of wars in
Europe. After ceding western Florida to
Britain and gaining the Louisiana Territory
from France in 1763, the latter region was lost
when French leader Napoleon Bonaparte
174 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800
pried Louisiana loose from Spain in 1801. Two
years later, in April 1803, Bonaparte sold the
820,000-square-mile Louisiana territory to the
United States for $15 million. Five years after
the Louisiana Purchase, Bonaparte overran
Spain itself in his ongoing war against Britain.
In 1800 Spain also faced problems in its
overseas colonies. Political instability, com-
bined with the dangers of pushing into unfa-
miliar Native American–dominated lands, left
Spain’s interest in expansion stalled at its neg-
lected colonial borders as the 19th century
began. Many of California’s 21 Franciscan mis-
sions were under construction or had yet to be
founded in 1800, but the religious fervor that
drove royal Spain’s initial support for new
exploration had disappeared long ago. Obedi-
ence to the Spanish Crown had been strictly
enforced during the first century of colonial
rule. By 1800, however, many generations of
New World inhabitants of pure or mixed His-
panic ancestry considered themselves natives
of the Americas and wanted increasingly more
power to govern themselves. Over the next 20
years, revolutions would end Spanish control
of Colombia, Ecuador, and Venezuela. In 1820
Mexico seceded from Spain; similarly, the peo-
ple of Brazil declared their independence from
Portugal in 1822. Spain’s three centuries of
control in the Americas were ending in all but
a few places, such as Cuba and Puerto Rico.
NEW PARTICIPANTS
New North American exploration was also
poised to begin under the sponsorship of
another country created by colonial discon-
tent, New Spain’s recently established north-
ern neighbor, the United States of America.
On February 28, 1803, two months before the
Louisiana Purchase, President Thomas Jeffer-
son obtained congressional approval to send
Captain Meriwether Lewis on a journey across
the North American continent. Jefferson out-
lined the basic purpose of the expedition in a
June 20, 1803, letter to Lewis:
The object of your mission is to explore the
Missouri River, and such principal streams
of it, as, by its course and communication
with the waters of the Pacific Ocean,
whether the Columbia, Oregan, Colorado,
or any other river, may offer the most
direct and practible water-communication
across the continent, for the purposes of
commerce.
The four-year expedition led by Lewis and
his colleague William Clark would travel over-
land from St. Louis to the same bay fur trader
Robert Gray had entered in 1792, where the
Columbia River meets the Pacific Ocean. The
expedition would be the first U.S. government
survey of natural resources in the American
West. It would also fulfill Jefferson’s order to
collect as much information as possible about
Native American nations.
Not all such exploration of the Americas
would take place in the United States. In the
time since Columbus’s voyages, Great Britain
had emerged as a world power. Naval expedi-
tions of exploration ordered by the British
admiralty, such as the 18th-century travels of
Cook and Vancouver, continued into the
1800s, particularly in the Arctic. Much smaller
efforts sponsored by fur trading companies
also succeeded in finding and surveying
routes across the Canadian Rocky Mountains
to the Pacific Northwest, including the expedi-
tions of Alexander Mackenzie (1789 and
1792–93) and David Thompson (1807–11).
THE CHANGED FACE OF
THE AMERICAS
Between 1492 and 1800 the opening of the
Americas influenced—and was influenced
by—great changes: more accurate under-
 The New World in 1800 B 175

standing of global geography, ease of naviga-

tion, the improvement of scientific methods,
and even the fate of nations. Many of the most
profound changes, however, took place in
basic ways as people on both sides of the
Atlantic Ocean led their lives in the steadily
shrinking world.
Only a few centuries after the Taino Indi-
ans and Columbus awkwardly greeted each
other with sign language on the Bahamian
shore at Guanahaní—most likely present-day
San Salvador—Native American languages
throughout the Western Hemisphere were
replaced or, at least, diminished by the lan-
guages of colonizing European powers.
North American Indian languages still sur-
vived throughout much of the United States
and Canada in 1800, despite efforts by Euro-
pean missionaries to obliterate Native Amer-
ican languages through acculturation. By
1800, however, the pattern was set. Brazilians
primarily spoke Portuguese. Spanish was
spoken in Mexico, Central America, and
much of South America and the Caribbean. Tobacco later proved to be a very profitable crop
when cultivated in the British colonies in eastern
French was spoken in parts of Canada,
North America. On this 1850s tobacco label,
Louisiana, and certain islands of the Lesser
laborers carry bales of tobacco from a plantation
Antilles. English was spoken in Canada and to a waiting boat. (Library of Congress, Prints and
the former British colonies of the United Photographs Division [LC-USZC4-1996])
States.
Yet while the advent of European lan-
guage transformed communication in the introduced indigenous New World words
New World, it did not entirely destroy what into common usage in a larger world; exam-
had existed before. Nahuatl, the Aztec lan- ples include maize, raccoon, opossum, coy-
guage, is still a primary language in some ote, skunk, succotash, hominy, squash,
regions of Mexico and Guatemala. Quechua tomato, potato, tapioca, tobacco, Eskimo,
is spoken today in Peru, Ecuador, and hickory, hammock, canoe, moccasin, and
Bolivia. Guarani and Spanish coexist as the totem. The transoceanic importation of
national languages of Paraguay. The linguis- slaves to the Americas also brought a West
tic exchange did not flow only in one direc- African component into the linguistic
tion. New World contributions to English exchange, in the Caribbean and South Amer-
and other Old World vocabularies described ica as well as the United States. Immigration
animals, plants, and aspects of culture of to the Americas in the 1800s would broaden
which the rest of the Earth had been the exchange even further, with languages
unaware before 1492. This ongoing process evolving to meet the need to communicate.
176 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800

the globe, affecting cultures and economies.

ANIMALS AND PLANTS Prior to the Spanish arrival, the only com-
Transatlantic exchanges of animals and plants monly domesticated work animals in the New
after 1492 caused numerous changes across World were dogs and—in limited parts of
 The New World in 1800 B 177

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

(continues)

Horses transformed American Indian life after their introduction. In this 1905
photograph by Edward S. Curtis, three Plains Indians (probably Dakota, Lakota,
or Nakota Sioux) sit astride horses somewhere on the Great Plains. (Library of
Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-105381])
178 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800

(continued)

the next 200 years. The equestrian skills of Native Americans grew, too, as horses
transformed Indian life from the Canadian prairies to the grasslands of Argentina.
North American Great Plains tribes, which depended on the buffalo for survival,
were able to hunt more easily. Societies that previously traveled on foot and

\
transported their belongings on travois frames hitched to dogs became more
mobile, moving faster and over longer distances. Horses also changed the nature
of warfare, both among tribes and against settlers pushing into Indian territory.
Within a few centuries, the horse changed from being an object of terror into a
creature whose great contributions to Native American culture were honored in
religious rituals and art across the hemisphere.

South America—llamas. The introduction of

Cotton, a crop cultivated in the Americas before
Europeans introduced it, became a valuable export
throughout the Americas after colonists settled there.
In an early 19th-century drawing, two Jamaicans sit
on a structure with a tall bag for cotton. (Library of
Congress, Prints and Photographs Division
[LC-USZ62-110700])
European pigs, sheep, cattle, and especially
horses transformed how and what Native
Americans ate, wore, traveled, and traded.
Escaped cattle from herds in Argentina and
the southwestern United States would breed
in the wild, providing foundations for massive
commerce in beef and leather products in the
1800s. In the century that followed, however,
the bison—so plentiful and so crucial for the
Indians of North America—was all but wiped
out.
Many crops introduced from the Old
World did not exist in the Americas prior to
1492, including onions, melons, radishes, let-
tuce, cabbage, cauliflower, chickpeas, apples,
peaches, pears, yams, rice, wheat, and other
grains. Several introduced crops, such as
sugar, bananas, and coffee, would eventually
become major exports from the Americas.
Meanwhile, New World crops unknown in
Europe before 1492 included maize (corn),
tomatoes, pumpkin, squash, sweet potatoes,
pineapples, avocados, and many varieties of
beans. Cacao beans used for making choco-
late were a novelty. So were potatoes. These
South American tubers were initially unpopu-
lar when imported to Europe in the 1500s, but

Tobacco, the plant in this 18th-century drawing,
was indigenous to the Americas and became an
important export. (National Archives of Canada)
ultimately became such a popular staple food
that future waves of colonists brought pota-
toes with them to North America. Peanuts and
cassava (also called manioc) would become
staple crops in Africa. For Europeans, the
Americas became a major source of cotton,
which had previously been available as a trade
commodity imported from Asia.
In addition to such foods that now provide
basic nutrition to peoples around the world,
the Americas provided many others that add
variety to people’s diets: nuts such as the
brazil nut, cashew, pecan, and walnut; berries
such as the blackberry, blueberry, cranberry,
gooseberry, raspberry, and strawberry; and
The New World in 1800 B 179
many other plants, including the chili pepper,
guava, Jerusalem artichoke, papaya, sugar
maple, sunflower, and vanilla. Two of the most
significant New World crops were inedible but
had great economic impact: By 1800, tobacco
had become one of the most profitable plants
in the world, while in the 20th century chicle
became the basis of the vast market in chew-
ing gum.
AFRICA IN THE
NEW WORLD
Much injustice, though, would surround the
introduction of some crops to the New World.
The fortunes made by cultivating and ship-
ping sugar, rice, tobacco, and cotton encour-
aged the growth of a slave trade that changed
the course of history in Africa, as well as
Europe and the Americas.
When Columbus first sailed west in 1492,
the European “slave trade” consisted prima-
rily of Portuguese slavers who had been
enslaving West Africans and shipping them to
sugar-producing areas such as the Canary
Islands and Madeira since the 1440s. In the
Americas, the immediately controversial issue
of slavery at first related to Native peoples of
the Caribbean being shipped against their will
to Spain. Columbus himself was reprimanded
for shipping Carib prisoners for use as slaves.
Within a generation, however, the population
of the Caribbean was so reduced by European
diseases and war that a new labor source was
sought to replace the vanished Arawak and
Carib. Spanish royal opposition to slavery
quickly disappeared after the death of Queen
Isabella in 1506—the first African slaves were
shipped to Spain’s American colonies four
years later.
The practice of slavery existed in the Amer-
icas before Columbus’s arrival, notably in
Maya, Aztec, and Inca societies. The new
European slave trade, however, expanded it
180 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800
In this detail from a 1780s etching, captured Africans are crammed into the hold of a British slave ship, the
Brookes, similar in design to many others used to transport slaves. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs
Division [LC-USZ62-44000])
with horrific efficiency, inviting the complicity
of anyone who stood to make a profit by its
commerce in human misery—African slave
traders; European owners and captains of
slave ships; sugar, tobacco, and cotton planta-
tion operators throughout the islands and
countries of the Western Hemisphere; and the
factory and mill owners of Europe, where the
Industrial Revolution accelerated in the late
1700s. By 1800 abolitionists in the United
States and Europe were openly challenging
the legality of slavery, but the institution
would not be declared illegal in all of the
Americas until late in the 19th century. The
Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution
banned slavery in the United States in 1865.
Abolition came a generation later to Cuba
(1886) and Brazil (1888).
Apart from the immeasurable suffering
caused by the slave trade, Africans brought to
the Americas against their will had literally
changed the face of the New World by 1800.
The Spanish presence in Mexico and Central
America had created people and cultures that
were distinctly mestizo, a mixture of Native
American and European elements. The racial
composition of the Caribbean was similarly
changed by the slave trade, creating people of
mixed African and European ancestry, called
mulattos. By 1800 patterns of distinctly
African speech, religion, music, art, and other
cultural elements were firmly established in
the Caribbean, South America (particularly
Brazil), and the United States.
CREATING A NEW WORLD
Three tumultuous centuries of exploration,
conquest, and colonization helped much of
the world forget about Christopher Columbus
after his final voyage. In the wake of the revo-
lutions that swept the Americas in the late
1700s and early 1800s, however, people across
the Western Hemisphere began trying to
understand how they fit into the course of
world history, not simply as colonists or slaves
from other parts of the globe, but as people
with a unique heritage. Around 1800, histori-
ans in the Americas began rediscovering
Columbus, as they began discovering a new
sense of themselves.
By 1800 the patterns that would determine
life—and exploration—in the 19th-century
Americas were in place. Terrible new conflicts
182 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800
and some surprisingly cooperative exchanges
would occur with Native Americans as explor-
ers with a great variety of motives concen-
trated on opening the interior of the American
hemisphere. Settlement, economic exploita-
tion, searching for new transportation routes,
desire for better understanding of the natural
sciences, missionary efforts, and struggles for
strategic control would all continue to play a
part, as new generations of explorers ventured
into unfamiliar territory. Explorers of the
1800s would not approach the Americas as
exotic lands to be visited and abandoned, but
as lands that were their own.
 Glossary
{
adelantado An office conferred by the
Spanish Crown granting an individual the
right to conquer and settle new overseas
territories, in return for economic privi-
leges and the power to administrate local
government and military activities on
behalf of the king of Spain.
adobe A mixture of straw and clay that,
when shaped into bricks and baked in the
sun, was used by the Indians of the south-
western United States (including the
Pueblo, Hopi, and Zuni tribes) to build
homes and walls, especially those often
called pueblos (Spanish for “village”).
alcalde A Spanish governmental official
akin to a governor. Duties of alcaldes in
the frontier provinces of New Spain
included civil leadership and military
command.
astrolabe An early scientific instrument that
enabled navigators at sea to calculate
roughly their distance north of the equator
by determining the altitude of the North
Star over the northern horizon.
audiencia A Spanish civil tribunal and leg-
islative council in the New World. As the
Spanish Crown’s representative, the audi-
encia was also responsible for weighing
and protecting the Spanish king’s share of
any wealth discovered.
brigantine A relatively small two-masted
sailing vessel.
buccaneer A type of pirate. In the West
Indies the Indian word bocan refers to a
rack on which meat was barbecued. From
this word the French developed the word
boucaner, meaning “to cure meat.” A bou-
canier thus became known as a man who
lived like the Indians, or a man who lived
outside European society. The term later
became attached to English and French
pirates who roamed the seas and preyed on
the Spanish Main.
cacique An Arawak term for a Native Ameri-
can male tribal leader or chief. Although
the term was Caribbean in origin, it was
also commonly employed to acknowledge
leaders of cultures in parts of Central Amer-
ica and the southeastern United States. The
feminine form is cacica.
canyon A deep, narrow gorge. Based on the
Spanish word for “tube,” canyons were
originally called barrancas (ravines) by
early Spanish explorers.
caravel A small ship with three short masts
and triangular lateen sails, whose low cost,
maneuverability, and ability to sail against
the wind made it a favorite of Portuguese
and Spanish mariners. Columbus’s ships
Niña and Pinta were caravels.
183
184 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800
cartographer An artist or draftsman skilled
in drawing maps or maritime charts.
celestial navigation Method used by marine
navigators to calculate their location using
time and the position and altitude of celes-
tial bodies such as stars and planets, and
mathematical tables.
chart A map used by mariners or the act of
creating such a map. Information routinely
given on a chart includes the typical condi-
tion of the sea in a certain area (hydro-
graphic condition), land formations, and
other navigational data.
cíbolo The Spanish word for the male Amer-
ican buffalo, or bison. (Cíbola is the
female.) It appears that the name derives
from the legendary “golden” city of Cíbola
sought by Coronado’s expedition; the exact
origin of that name is itself unknown, but it
has been proposed that it comes from the
Spaniards’ mispronouncing “Ashiwi,” the
name the Zuni Indians called themselves.
circumnavigate A verb meaning “to sail
around,” usually applied to sailing around
an island or the world.
civilization The culture of a people, or the
geographical location of that culture, or a
specific period of time for a people’s cul-
ture. Because it usually implies such attain-
ments as organized urban life and writing,
it is often used derogatorily to distinguish a
culture from societies that lack such attain-
ments.
comptroller An official in charge of finan-
cial affairs.
conquistador The Spanish word for “con-
queror” (conquistadores is its plural). At the
time of early Spanish exploration of the
Americas, a conquistador was considered
to fulfill a triple role as soldier, explorer, and
conqueror of people who would not con-
vert to Christianity.
dead reckoning A method used by early
navigators to determine approximately
how far east or west their ships had traveled
by multiplying their rate of speed by the
passage of time. Dead is believed to be
derived from the word deduce, meaning “to
reach a conclusion by the use of reason.”
declination Literally, “deviation;” when
used by navigators it refers either to (a) the
difference on a compass between the direc-
tion of the magnetic North Pole and the
geographic North Pole or (b) the angular
distance to a celestial object as measured
north or south of the celestial equator (an
imaginary line directly over the equator).
despoblado A Spanish term meaning unin-
habited wilderness.
encomienda Based on a Spanish word
meaning “to entrust,” this was a grant by the
Spanish Crown entitling a landholder to tax
Indians living on his land in labor or goods.
The terms of an encomienda required the
grant holder, or encomendero, to provide
religious instruction to and ensure the
physical welfare of the Indians under his
control. The lack of royal regulation and
enforcement of the encomienda system led
to rampant abuses in the New World.
entrada The Spanish term for expedition. It
literally means “entrance” or “entry.”
estuary The area where the current of a
river’s mouth meets ocean tides.
Franciscan A member of the Order of Saint
Francis of Assisi, a Catholic brotherhood
whose members are dedicated to poverty,
celibacy, and spreading Christianity through
missionary work. Franciscan missionaries
would often accompany Spanish explorers
upon orders of the Spanish Crown to carry
out the expedition’s religious aspect.
fray The title given by the Spanish to a Fran-
ciscan friar, it is derived from the Latin
word frater, or “brother.”
galleon Full-rigged, heavily armed sailing
vessels used primarily as treasure ships,
developed in Spain in the 1500s. Galleons

were essential to trade between Spain and its
colonies in the Americas and the Philippines.
hemisphere Half of the Earth, whether
divided into East-West or North-South. The
Western Hemisphere comprises North and
South America.
hidalgo A Spanish gentleman or low-rank-
ing nobleman.
hieroglyphs Based on Greek words for
“sacred carving,” this term refers to a sys-
tem of writing that uses pictorial signs to
indicate sounds.
indigenous An adjective used to describe
people or species of animals and plants
that are native to a particular place. When
species are found only in that place, they
are then said to be “endemic.”
isthmus A narrow neck of land connecting
two larger bodies of land, such as the Isth-
mus of Panama.
Jesuit A member of the Society of Jesus, a
Catholic order whose adherents dedicate
themselves to preaching and higher educa-
tion. Jesuit missionaries were active in the
southwestern United States and Mexico
until their expulsion in 1767 by order of
Spain’s King Charles III.
latitude The distance north or south of the
equator measured in degrees. The equator
is 0 degrees.
league A measure of distance. At the time of
the early exploration of the Americas, a
league was used by different nationalities to
refer to a variety of distances, but it was gen-
erally defined as being slightly more than
two and a half miles. Today it is commonly
valued as being three miles in length.
log The book in which a ship’s speed and all
other information relating to a voyage are
recorded. Its name is derived from the
practice of tying a piece of wood, or log, to
a rope, throwing it overboard, and then
timing how long it took to run out the rope
a known distance.
Glossary B 185
longitude Standard of measurement describ-
ing the distance east or west from the merid-
ian, a fixed north-south line depicted on
maps with a baseline of zero longitude. See
meridian.
mariner A sailor.
meridian A north-south line depicting a
standard baseline of zero longitude. In 1884
an international convention fixed the loca-
tion of the prime meridian (zero longitude)
at Greenwich Observatory, near London,
England. Before then, cartographers were
free to draw the meridian wherever they
liked, and its location depended on the
nationality of the mapmaker.
mesa A land formation common in the
southwestern United States, with steep
sides and a flat top. Mesa means “table” in
Spanish.
mestizo The Spanish word for “mixed,”
referring to a person of mixed Native Amer-
ican and European ancestry.
mission The place of residence and activi-
ties of missionaries. Early Spanish missions
in North America sometimes included a
military fort, or presidio.
missionaries Individuals who undertake
religious work, usually in remote or foreign
areas, and often with the goal of converting
those they encounter. Early Catholic mis-
sionaries in America established a string of
missions with churches and schools to
educate Native Americans and convert
them from their own religious beliefs to
Christianity.
Moor An Arabic-speaking Muslim from
northwestern Africa. Moors were often
some combination of the indigenous
Berbers of North Africa, Arabs from the
Middle East, and sub-Saharan black
Africans.
mulatto A Spanish word derived from the
Arabic for “mixed birth,” it refers to a person
of mixed African and European ancestry.
186 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800
native An adjective describing a person or
some other living thing who is associated
with a particular place by reason of birth.
naturalist A person knowledgeable in and
dedicated to several scientific disciplines,
especially botany and zoology and often
others such as geology or oceanography. It
is a term more commonly used before the
20th century, when advances in the sci-
ences required specialization.
nautical Anything pertaining to ships, sail-
ing, or sailors.
navigator The person who decides the
direction of a ship.
New Spain (Nueva España) A Spanish
viceroyalty, or collection of colonies, cre-
ated in 1535. New Spain, whose capital was
Mexico City, included the Caribbean,
Venezuela, the Philippine Islands, and all
territories north of Panama. The Viceroy-
alty of Peru was created in 1542 and
included all Spanish territories in South
America except Venezuela.
pilot In seamanship, a sailor with specific
knowledge of a waterway who is qualified
to guide vessels through that region.
porter A person employed to carry gear or
burdens of any kind.
portolan From the Italian portolani, mean-
ing sailing directions, this is a chart drawn
to scale and showing the location of ports,
harbors, river mouths, and other land-
marks visible from the sea. Portolans, how-
ever, did not depict latitude and longitude.
prairie Any large, basically flat, essentially
treeless stretch of often arid grassland;
often used specifically of the Great Plains in
the interior of the United States.
presidio A Spanish military fort.
privateer A privately owned ship or its cap-
tain licensed by royal authority or any gov-
ernment to attack enemy ships. The
privateer’s crew was then allowed to retain
a proportion of the profits from any ships
captured.
pueblo A multistory stone or adobe Ameri-
can Indian dwelling or the community liv-
ing in such dwellings. Pueblo, which
means “village” in Spanish, is also used to
collectively describe tribes who live in
pueblos.
quadrant An early nautical instrument that,
when sighted on the North Star, was used to
find the altitude of stars and thus roughly
determine latitude.
scurvy A disease common to early sailors
caused by a deficiency in vitamin C in ship-
board diets, which often lacked fresh fruits
and vegetables.
settlement A small group of people (set-
tlers) and their homes and other buildings;
often used of such communities on the
frontier, or in newly colonized land,
although it can also be used of small com-
munities of the original inhabitants in a
land undergoing settlement by immigrants.
sextant An instrument used to measure the
altitude of celestial bodies and thus deter-
mine latitude. Sextants replaced astrolabes
and quadrants as navigational tools.
smallpox A highly contagious disease
caused by a virus, whose consequences
include pustules and often death. Smallpox
claimed the lives of millions of Native
Americans, who had little or no resistance
to the disease when it was transported to
the Americas by European explorers, con-
quistadores, and settlers.
sovereign As a noun, it refers to the person
or persons (such as a king and/or queen)
who exercise total authority. As an adjec-
tive, it indicates complete authority.
speculator A person who invests in projects
and/or engages in the buying and selling of

materials where there is considerable risk
but who hopes to make a solid profit.
travois A V-shaped wood pole frame drawn
by dogs (and later horses), which American
Indians used to transport goods or people
before horses became part of Native Amer-
ican culture.
tribe A group of people usually linked by
ethnicity, language, culture, and dwelling
places.
Glossary B 187
tributary A river or stream that flows into
another larger river. It can also be used to
denote a person who gives tribute or taxa-
tion in some form to a more powerful con-
trolling body.
turquoise A semiprecious stone, blue to
blue-green in color.
war dogs Dogs trained by the Spanish mili-
tary to be used as vicious attack weapons.
 Further Information
{
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Maalouf, Amin. Leo Africanus. Translated by Peter
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Marlowe, Stephen. The Memoirs of Christopher
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Panger, Daniel. Black Ulysses. Athens: Ohio Univer-
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Parini, Jay. Bay of Arrows. New York: Holt, 1992.
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Rodriguez, Alfred. Plus Ultra: Life and Times of
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Children of the Sun/Death March of De Soto (1992).
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2003.
National Geographic’s Lost Kingdoms of the Maya
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Primal Mind (1999). Wellspring Media, DVD, 2000.
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VHS/DVD, 1998.
Secrets of the Aztec Empire (2000). A&E Home Video,
VHS 2000.
Seven Cities of Gold (1955). 20th Century Fox, VHS,
1988.
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 Index
{
Page numbers in italic indicate a photograph. Page numbers in boldface
indicate box features. Page numbers followed by m indicate maps.
Page numbers followed by g indicate glossary entries.

A Alexander VI (pope) 40 Anza, Juan Bautista de 153–154,

abalone seashells 147
abolition 180
Acoma Pueblo 114–115, 115,
135
adelantado 183g
adobe 109, 134, 135, 183g
Africa and Africans xiv, 30, 180
crops in 179
disease from 35
exploration of 12–13
influences on New World of
180
knowledge of in 1492 19
and Portugal 15
and Prester John 23
West Africa 12, 15, 179
Agnese, Battista 16
agriculture 68. See also crops
Aguilar, Jerónimo de 55
Aguirre, Lupe de 79
Aigenler, Adam 147
Alaminos, Antón de 9, 52
Alarcón, Hernando de 112, 112,
113m
Alaska 161, 167
Albornoz, Rodrigo de 108
alcalde 183g
Alcanfor Pueblo 116
Aleutian Islands 161
Alfraganus 25
Almagro, Diego de 65, 67, 72,
73m, 74, 75, 75
Alvarado, Hernando de 115
Alvarado, Pedro de 60, 61, 73m
Alvarez de Pineda, Alonso 48, 92
Amadis 58
Amazon River xv, 41, 42–43,
77–79, 78m, 79, 170, 172
Amazons 62, 77, 78
America, naming of 44
Americas 11, 25, 170, 181m. See
also North America; South
America
Amichel 48–49, 81
Aminoya 103
Amundsen, Roald 126
Añasco, Juan de 97, 103–104
Andes Mountains 45, 72
Anian, Strait of 62, 64, 126, 126,
164, 167, 169
animals 176, 178. See also specific
headings, e.g.: buffalo
animal skin 23
Año Nuevo 128
Antarctica 125
Antilia 22, 23
Antilia, Seven Cities of 107
antipodes 8
159m
Apache Indians 117, 147, 153
Apalache 82, 83, 97
Aparia 77
apochrypha 18
Arab traders 15
Araucano Indians 79
Arawak Indians 6, 30, 32, 49, 179
archaeologists xv
Arctic Ocean 126
Arenal Pueblo 116
Argentina 68, 74, 90
Arizona 110, 133, 135, 136,
154–156
Arkansas 101
army 56
Arteaga, Ignacio 159m, 160
artifacts 143
Ascensión, Antonio de la 147, 148
Asia xiii, 19, 44
Americas as distinct from 9
beliefs on navigation to 25
and John Cabot 49
and Christopher Columbus 8,
10, 13, 30, 31, 34, 38, 39
knowledge of in 1492 11, 12,
19
and Prester John 23
astrolabe 18, 19, 183g

194

Atacama Desert 74
Atahualpa (Inca leader) 67–72, 92
Atlantic Ocean 19, 126
Atondo y Antillón, Isidro 145
Aucilla River 97
audiencia 183g
Aute 83
Ávila, Pedro Arias de 46
Ayllón, Lucas Vásquez de 92
Azores 2, 3, 12, 19, 30
Aztec Empire and Indians 10, 53,
54, 173
calendar stone of 57
and Hernán Cortés 56–60
language of 175
Mayan Indians 51
Moctezuma (Montezuma) 56,
58, 58–60, 87, 133
oral history of 53
religious prophecies of 56
slaughter of 60
and slavery 179
and smallpox 61
Tenochtitlán xvi, 56–62
tribute to 57–58
B See also England
Bahamas 4, 28, 47
Bahia 40
Baja California 64, 123, 128,
145–148, 154
Balboa, Vasco Núñez de 9, 43–46,
45, 46m, 65, 92
Barbados 6
Barcelona, Spain 3–5, 8, 30
Barroto, Juan Enríquez 142, 144
Bastidas, Rodrigo de 43
Bates, Henry 172
Bay of Smokes 120–121
Becerra, Diego de 64
Behaim, Martin 18
Beltrán, Bernardino 133
Benalcázar, Sebastián de 72, 73m,
76
Bering, Vitus 157, 160, 161
Bering Sea 157
Bering Strait 161
Berkeley, California xiv
Bermejo, Juan Rodríguez 27
berries 179
Bible 18, 19, 70
Biedma, Luis Hernández de 93,
104
Biedma, Manuel de 79
Bigotes 115
Bingham, Hiram xv, 68
Birú 46
bison. See buffalo
Blades, Ruben xiii
Bligh, William 160
Bobadilla, Francisco de 35
Boca del Sierpe 34
Bodega y Quadra, Juan Francisco
158, 159m, 160, 164, 166, 167,
168
body paint 28
Bogotá 74
Bolivia 68, 74, 90, 175
Bonaparte, Napolean 173–174
Bonilla, Francisco Leyva de
134–135
books 23
Botany Bay, Australia 162
Bounty, H.M.S. (ship) 160
Brazil 40, 41, 43, 90, 174, 180
brigantines 103, 104, 183g
Britain 163, 166, 167, 173, 181m.
Broughton, William 165
buccaneer 183g
buffalo 87, 87–88, 106, 178, 178
attempts to tame 136
Seven Cities of Cíbola 107
drives 88
hunting of 117
burial chamber 99
Buscando America xiii
C cannons 56, 143
Cabeza de Vaca, Álvar Núñez xvi,
10, 81–85, 89, 90m, 93, 103
on bison 87, 88
and Seven Cities of Cíbola
106, 107, 107
death of 91
imprisonment of 91
as medicine man 85, 86, 89
in Narváez expedition 81–85
and Native Americans 84–86,
91
in South America 89–91
survival of 84
Index B 195
Cabo de lodo (Cape of Mud) 142
Cabot, John 12, 49
Cabot, Sebastian 49
Caboto, Giovanni. See Cabot, John
Cabral, Pedro Álvares 40
Cabrillo, Juan Rodríguez 120–124,
122m, 128, 129, 149
cacica 98, 99
cacique 183g
Cadiz 30, 37
Cajamarca 69, 70, 71
calendars 51, 57
California xvi. See also Monterey,
California; San Francisco, Cali-
fornia
Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo
120–124
charting of coastal 120–131
Sir Francis Drake 126–128
early exploration of 120
first expedition to Monterey
149–151
Father Eusebio Kino 145, 146
missions in 152–153, 174
myth of the island of 147,
148, 148
Gaspar de Portolá 149–151
routes of expeditions in,
1769–1793 150m
Sebastián Vizcaíno 128–131
Caliquen 96
Calusa Indians 49, 52
Campeche 55
Canada 141, 175
Canary Islands 12, 17, 19, 22, 25,
27, 179
cannibal 6, 49
canoes 6, 37, 95, 103, 175
canyon 183g
Cape Fear, North Carolina 92
Cape Flattery 160, 161
Cape Foul Weather 160
Cape Hatteras, North Carolina
41
Cape of Good Hope 13
Cape Prince of Wales 161
Cape Verde Islands 40
“capitulations” 26
caravel 15, 17, 26, 30, 183g
Caravjal, Gaspar de 77
196 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800

Cárdenas, García López de 111, Chickasaw Indians 101 by Hernán Cortés 64

111, 119 chicle 179 effects on language of 175
Caribbean xviii, 6, 40, 44, 49, 175, Chile 68, 73m, 74, 75, 79, 90 in 1800s 181m
180. See also specific headings, Chima (tribal leader) 44 encomienda 34
e.g.: Cuba China 8, 9, 12, 29, 32, 37 and gold 44
Carib Indians 6, 6, 28, 48, 49, 179 Christianity. See also Catholicism of Hispaniola 37
Carmel 128 and Catholics and horses 177
carriers 99 and Christopher Columbus 10 at La Navidad 7, 8, 30
Cartas las Relación 53 conversion to 10, 14 of Monterey 154
cartographer 184g and Hernando de Soto 98 by Portugal 19, 22, 181m
cartography 18, 23, 123 encomienda 34 and Pueblo Rebellion 140,
cassava 179 and Muslims 14 141
Castelnau, comte de 172 and mythical utopia 22, 107 revolt in Hispaniola 35
Casteñeda, Pedro de xvi, 88, 106, and Native Americans 10 of San Francisco Bay area 154
107, 111, 177 Prester John 23 Spanish xvi, 174
Castillo, Bernal Díaz del. See Díaz requerimiento 94 and Taino Indians 7, 8
de Castillo, Bernal in Spain 14 Colorado 154–156
Castillo Maldonado, Alonso del spread of 14 Colorado Plateau 110
85, 89 chronometer (marine) 172 Colorado River 147
Catalina 128 Chumash Indians 128 Colombia 37, 65, 72
Catholicism and Catholics xiv, 22, Cibao 29 Columbian Exchange xiv
51, 152 Cíbola, Seven Cities of 76, 93, The Columbian Exchange (Alfred
cattle 178 107, 108–110, 177 W. Crosby) xiv
Cavalier, Jean 140 cíbolo 184g Columbia River 158, 174
cavalry 101 Cicuyé, Pecos of 116 Columbo, Cristoforo 24. See also
Cavelier, René-Robert. See La Ciguatan 62 Columbus, Christopher
Salle, sieur de Cihuatlan 62 Columbus, Bartolomé 17, 33
Cedar City, Utah 155 cinnamon 170 Columbus, Christopher xiii–xvi,
celestial navigation 18, 184g cinnamon trees 45 180
censorship 23 Cipangu 29 Antilia 22
Central America xv, 10, 40, 49, 51, circumference of the Earth 25 armor of 26
64, 175. See also specific head- circumnavigate 184g attack on 37
ings, e.g.: Mexico Ciucut 121 in Barcelona 3–5, 4
Cermeño, Sebastián Rodríguez civilization 184g battles for privileges of 30
122m, 128 civil war 10, 67, 68, 72 beliefs of 24, 25, 37–39
Chacmool statue 51 Clark, William 174 and biblical description of
Chaco region 91 Clerke, Charles 161 seas 18, 19
Chamuscado, Francisco Sánchez coat of arms 63 Canary Islands 22
132 “codices” (Mayan) 51 as cartographer 17
Charles III (king of Spain) 149, 151 coffee 178 and Christianity 10
Charles V (Holy Roman Emperor Cofitachequi, Lady of 98, 99 and colonization 30–33, 35
and, as Charles I, king of Spain) Cofitachequi, land of 97–98 death of 38
53, 62, 63, 64, 66, 90, 92, 93 Colombia 174 early years of 24, 25
Charlotte Bay 48, 94 Colón, Cristóbal 24. See also and Ferdinand and Isabella 1,
Charruco Indians 85 Columbus, Christopher 4, 4, 5, 8, 14, 14, 26, 33, 37
charts and chartmaking 12, 17, colonization final voyage of 35, 37–38
172, 173, 184g by Vasco Núñez de Balboa first voyage of 27–29
Chatham (ship) 164, 165 43–45 and gold 4, 5, 10, 26, 28–29,
chestnuts 95 of Canary Islands 19, 22 31, 37
chewing gum 179 by Christopher Columbus hardships of 2, 3
Chichén Itzá 51, 51 30–33, 35 Hispaniola 4, 32, 33, 33, 35, 37

house of 33
and imaginary kingdoms 23
journals of 24
legacy of 38
letter from Ferdinand and
Isabella to 1
miscalculations of 25
and Native Americans xiv, 5,
5, 6, 6, 28, 28–30, 37, 175
navigation used by 18–19
plans for second expedition of
8 corn. See maize
and Marco Polo 12
portrait of 25
and Portugal 2, 3, 30
privileges of 33, 39
remains of 36
report of 8
return to Spain of 1–9, 4, 5, 30
route of first voyage of, 1492
2m
routes of second, third, and
fourth voyages of,
1493–1504 32m
royal support for 26
sails from Palos 27, 27
search for patrons of 25, 26
second voyage of 30–33, 31,
32m
ships of 7, 15, 17, 26, 37
and slavery 34, 179
and South America 34, 35, 37
and Spanish court 4–5, 7, 8, 10
as Spanish explorer 12
and Taino Indians 5, 5, 28,
28–30, 175
third voyage of 32m, 33–35
view on new world 9
Columbus, Diego 31, 33
Columbus, Ferdinand 24, 37
Columbus and the Age of Discov-
ery (Zvi Dor-Ner and William
Scheller) xiv
compass 19, 62
comptroller 184g
conquest xiv
conquistadores 184g. See also
specific headings, e.g.: Cortés,
Hernán
armament of 93
and Aztec Indians 59–60
and “cows” 87–88
gold-hungry 76
historical portraits of 53
requerimiento 94
rights of 79
continents 19
Cook, James 158, 159m, 160, 160,
161, 161, 172, 174
Cook Inlet 167
Córdoba, Francisco Hernández de
50, 52
Coro 72
Coronado, Francisco Vásquez de
xvi, 76, 88
and Alarcón’s expedition 112,
113
and Alvarado expedition
115–116
and El Turco 116
Great Plains expedition of
116–119
and Mexico 110, 117, 118
and Native Americans 116,
118–119, 118–119
news of 120–121
northern expedition of
108–100
at pueblo of Háwikuh
109
routes and secondary expe-
ditions of, 1540–1542
113m
search for Antilia by 22
and the Seven Cities of Cíbola
106–119
corporal punishment 152
Cortés, Francisco 61
Cortés, Hernán 10, 59, 81, 106,
133
arrival at Tenochtitlán
58–60
and Aztec Indians 56–60
and California 61, 64
charges against 62
coat of arms for 63
death of 64
expeditions sponsored by
61
explorations of 52–64
and gold 56, 59
Index B 197
journey to Tenochtitlán
56–58
letters of 53, 54
and Mexico 53, 55m, 60
Moctezuma’s dilemma with
56
return to Tenochtitlán 60, 61
routes to and in Mexico,
1519–1683 55m
sets forth 53–56
surveying by 61
at Tenochtitlán xvi, 58–61
Cosa, Juan de la 26, 43
Cosmographie 123
Costa Rica 37
cotton 28, 103, 178, 179
cotton plantations 180
Crespi, Juan 149
crops
cotton 28, 103, 178, 179
fortunes from 179
introduced from the Old
World 178, 179
maize 95, 103, 175, 178
on mission farms 152
New World 178–179
tobacco 6, 29, 175, 175, 179,
179, 180
Crosby, Alfred W. xiv
crossbows 120
Cuauhtémoc (Aztec leader) 60
Cuba 22, 174
abolition in 180
Christopher Columbus 4, 29,
31–32, 37
Francisco Hernández de Cór-
doba 52
Hernando de Soto 92
Bartolomé de Las Casas 3
Juan Ponce de León 48
slavery in 49
Culiacán 109
culture areas (Native American)
20m
Cuzco 68, 74, 75, 75
D
d’Ailly, Pierre 25
d’Anghiera, Pietro Martire 8. See
also Martyr, Peter
198 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800
Darién 45, 46
Darwin, Charles 172
Dávila, Pedrarias 92, 93
Daytona Beach, Florida 47
Daza, Luis da 76
dead reckoning 18–19, 184g
declination 18, 184g
deer 56
De Orbe Novo (Peter Martyr) 9
Description of the World (Marco
Polo) 12
de Soto, Hernando. See Soto, Her-
nando de
despoblado 184g
Dias, Bartholomeu 13
Díaz, Melchior 109, 112, 113,
113m
Díaz del Castillo, Bernal 49, 50,
52–54, 58
diphtheria 35
discovery xvii
Discovery (ship) 160, 161, 164,
165
diseases xiv, 6, 32, 35, 49, 59, 60,
61, 152, 164
dogs 93, 117, 176, 178
Dominguez, Francisco Atanasio
154–156, 155
Dominican Republic 4, 29, 31
Doña Marina 55. See also Mal-
inche
Dorantes de Carranza, Andrés 84,
85, 89
Dor-Ner, Zvi xiv
Drake, Sir Francis 122m, 124–128,
125, 127, 160
Drake Passage 125
Drake’s Bay 127, 128
dyewood (red) 40
E Ferdinand VII (king of Spain)
Earth 8, 18–19, 22, 25, 35, 171
Ecuador 67, 68, 72, 174, 175
El Dorado 75, 76, 79, 80, 80
Elizabeth I (queen of England)
124, 125, 127
El Morro 135, 136, 138–139
El Paso 86
El Turco 116, 117
Enciso, Martín de 44
encomienda 34, 184g
England 40, 124–128
English language 175
engraved plates 23
the Enlightenment 171–173
entrada 53, 106, 116, 117, 119,
184g
epidemics 35
equator 18, 25, 171
Escalante, Silvestre Velez de
154–156, 155
Escalante Desert 155
Escalona, Juan de 136
Espejo, Antonio de 133
Espíritu Santu 94
Estéban 84, 85, 86, 89, 107, 108
estuary 184g
Europe and Europeans xiii, xiv,
8–13, 12m, 19, 23, 25, 179, 180.
See also specific headings, e.g.:
Spain and Spanish
exploration 10, 22, 23, 23, 132,
134. See also specific headings,
e.g.: Soto, Hernando de
F Smokes
Falkland Islands 43
Farallon Islands 149
Al-Farghani 25
farming 6, 57, 97. See also crops
Federman, Nikolaus 72
Ferdinand II of Aragon (king of
Spain) xv, 14, 26, 46
and Christopher Columbus 1,
4, 4, 5, 8, 26, 33, 37
letter to Christopher Colum-
bus from 1
marriage to Isabella 14
requerimiento 94
and Juan Díaz de Solís 49
and Amerigo Vespucci 43
148
Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés,
Gonzalo 45, 72, 74, 93, 104, 105,
119
Ferrer, Bartolomé 121, 129, 149
firearms 56
fish 95
fishing 6
Fletcher, Francis 127
Flints, Mountain of the 62
Florida 48, 52, 82, 83, 105, 173.
See also “La Florida”; St. Augus-
tine, Florida
Florida Keys 48
forced labor 32, 34
Fort St. Louis. See St. Louis, Fort
“fountain of youth” 47, 48
Four Corners region 154–156
France 139, 173, 174, 181m
Franciscan missionaries 79, 105,
144, 145, 149, 184g
explorations of 132–133
Francisco Tomás Garcés 112,
153–154, 156
goals of 152
Francisco López 132
Agustín Rodríquez 132
fray 184g
French Academy of Sciences 170,
171
French language 175
Freyle, Juan Rodríquez 76
Fuca, Juan de 163
Fumos, Bahía de los. See Bay of
fur traders 157
G
Galápagos Islands 172
Galaup, Jean-François de. See La
Pérouse, comte de
Galiano, Dionisio Alcalá 165, 166
galleon 124, 124, 128, 129,
184g–185g
Gálvez, José de 149
Gamarra, Francisco López de 144
game 117
Garay, Francisco de 48
Garcés, Francisco Tomás 112,
153–154, 156
Garden of Eden 35
Genoa, Italy xiv, 15
genocide xiv
Gentleman of Elvas 99, 105
geography and geographers. See
also charts and chartmaking;
mapmaking; navigation
beliefs in 22–25
in Columbus’s time 24–25
and continents 19
Henry the Navigator 12
 knowledge in 24–25
and naming of America 44
and navigation to Asia 25
Germany and Germans 15, 23, 72
glass beads 52
globe 18, 19
Golay, Michael xvi
gold
and Seven Cities of Cíbola
107
and colonization 44
and Christopher Columbus 4,
5, 10, 26, 28–29, 31, 37
concern for 105
and Hernán Cortés 56, 59
El Turco’s stories of 116
evidence of 52
in Great Plains 117
in Lake Guatavita 76
in Guyana 80
in Lake Guatavita 76
La Navidad colony and 30
lessening importance of 170
mines 97
and Native Americans 44
pilfered Aztec 60
and Francisco Pizarro 66, 68,
71, 71
room filled with 71
and Hernando de Soto 95,
101
and Spanish colonists 32
trade for 52
wasting of 173
Golden Gate 129, 150
The Golden Hind (ship) 125–127
grains 178
Granada 14
Grand Canyon xvi, 106, 110–112,
111, 154
Grand Khan 8
Gray, Robert 164, 174
Great Basin Desert 156
Great Britain 174. See also Eng-
land
Greater Antilles 22, 30
Great Plains 88, 106, 116–119
Great Southern Continent 125
Greeks 11, 23
Greenwich, England 17
Grenada 22
Guacanagarí (tribal leader) 29
Guachoya Indians 101
Guamán Poma de Ayala, Felipe
70
Guanahaní Indians 28
Guaraní Indians 91, 175
Guatavita, Lake 76
guaycas 4
Guaycura Indians 64
Guaymi Indians 37
Guevenes Indians 85
Guide to Geography (Ptolemy) 23
Gulf Coast 144
Gulf of California 64, 112, 136,
146
Gulf of Mexico 37, 48, 83, 84, 139
Gulf of St. Lawrence 41
Gulf of Urabá 43, 46
Gulf Stream 48, 169
Gutenberg, Johannes 23
Guyana 80
Guzmán, Nuño Beltrán de 107
H Imago Mundi (Pierre d’Ailly) 25
Haida Indians 157, 158
Haiti 4, 6, 7, 8, 29
hammock 6
harquebuses 93
Harrison, John 172
Hasinai Indians 144
Haustec Indians 49
Hawaiian Islands 160
Háwikuh, pueblo of 107, 109,
110, 115
Heceta, Bruno 158, 159m
hemisphere 185g
Henry the Navigator (prince) 12,
13, 17
hidalgo 185g
hides 85
hieroglyphs 51, 185g
Hispaniola 22, 29, 30, 31
Vasco Núñez de Balboa
43–45
Christopher Columbus 4, 32,
33, 33, 35, 37
gold in 30
revolt in 35
and slavery 34
Taino Indians 6
turmoil at 33
History of the Indies (Bartolomé
de Las Casas) 3, 24
Honduras 37, 62
Hopi Indians 110, 111, 111
horses 56, 67, 67, 69, 83, 88, 117,
176m, 177–178, 178
hostages 96, 99
Huascar 67, 72
Huastec 92
Huayno Capac (Inca emperor) 67
Huguenots 105
Huitzilpochtli 60
Humaña, Gutiérrez 135, 136
human sacrifice 51, 57, 58
Humboldt, Alexander von 172
Hutten, Philip von 79
I
Iberian Peninsula 22
Icelanders 24
Ifigenia (ship) 166
Iguaçu Falls 91
iguana (derivation of word) 6
immunity (from disease) 49
Imperial Valley 154
Inca Empire and Indians xiii, xv,
10, 68–69, 173
civil war in 67, 68, 72
destruction of 66
Machu Picchu xv, 68, 69
and ocean crossing 11
and Francisco Pizarro 67–72
rebellion in 75
Royal Inca Highway 68, 68
and slavery 179
welcome of Spanish by 70
India 25, 40
Indian Ocean 13, 37
“the Indies” 2–4, 8, 30, 32, 33
indigenous 185g
Indigenous Peoples Day xiv
Industrial Revolution 180
influenza 35
instruments (for navigation)
18–19, 19
International Day of the World’s
Indigenous People xiv
Ipai Indians 120
Iriarte, Pedro de 143, 144
Irish-Americans xiv
200 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800
Irish wolfhounds 93
Isabella I of Castile (queen of
Spain) xv, 14, 26, 179
and Christopher Columbus 1,
4, 4, 5, 8, 26, 33, 37
death of 37
marriage to Ferdinand of 14
and Francisco Pizarro 66
and treatment of Native
Americans 34
“Island of Bimini” 47
islands 6, 19, 22
Isopete 117
isthmus 185g
Italian-Americans xiv
Italy 12
J landmass 19
Jamaica 22, 31, 37
James I (king of England [James
VI of Scotland]) 80
Japan 8, 12, 25, 27, 29
Jaramillo, Juan 106, 117
Jefferson, Thomas 174
Jerusalem artichoke 179
Jesuits 145, 149. See also Kino,
Father Eusebio; Serra, Father
Junípero
jewelry 4
Jews 14
Jiménez, Fortún 64
Jiménez de Quesada, Gonzalo 72,
74, 76
João II (king of Portugal) 26, 30
Johnstone, James 166
Joutel, Henri 141
Juan de Fuca, Strait of 163, 164
Jusepe 134
K Lewis and Clark Expedition 174
Karankawa Indians 84, 85, 140,
144
Kayak Island 160
Keres Indians 115
kidnapping 29, 30
kingdoms, imaginary. See myths
and legends
Kino, Father Eusebio 145–148,
146, 148
knots 19
knotting strings 68
Kodiak Island 160
L Louisiana Purchase 174
La Belle (ship) 140, 143, 143
La Canela 75
La Condamine, Charles-Marie de
170, 171, 172
“La Florida” 47–49, 48, 92–101,
106. See also Florida
L’Aimable (ship) 140, 143
La Isabela 31, 32
La Isla Española 29
Lake Guatavita 76
Lake Texcoco. See Texcoco, Lake
Lake Titicaca 74
La Navidad 7, 8, 30
languages 175
La Pérouse, comte de (Jean-
François de Galaup) 161–162,
162
La Plata 90
La Porte, Francis de 172
La Relación (Cabeza de Vaca) 89
La Salle, sieur de (René-Robert
Cavelier) 139–144, 142m, 143
Las Casas, Bartolomé de 3–5, 8,
24, 34
lateen 17
latitude 17, 18, 25, 185g
league 185g
Leeward Islands 6
legends. See myths and legends
Le Moyne, Pierre 141
León, Alonso de 144
Lesser Antilles 6, 6, 22, 30, 175
“Letter on the First Voyage”
(Christopher Columbus) 8, 10
Lewis, Meriwether 174
libraries 23
Lima 72
Lisbon, Portugal 17
Live Oak, Florida 96
Llactapata (Inca city) xvii
llamas 178
Llano Estacado 117
log 185g
logbooks 27
longitude 17, 18, 172, 185g
looting 59
López, Francisco 132
Louisiana 139, 175
Louisiana Territory 173, 174
Louis XIV (king of France) 139
Luque, Hernando de 65, 72
M
Mabila, Battle of 99–101
Macao, China 162
machetes 45
Machu Picchu (Inca city) xv, 68,
69
Madeira 12, 19, 179
Magellan, Ferdinand 49, 123, 125,
126
Magellan, Strait of 49, 79, 125
maize 95, 103, 175, 178
malaria 35
Malaspina, Alejandro 165
Malinche 55, 56
Manco Capac 72
manioc 179
mapmaking 17, 123. See also
charts and chartmaking
map(s)
of the Americas, 1800 181m
of the Americas, 15th century
170
Vasco Núñez de Balboa’s
route to discovery of the
Pacific Ocean 46m
of California as an island 148
and Hernán Cortés’s routes to
and in Mexico, 1519–1683
55m
of disputed route of Amerigo
Vespucci, 1497–1498 41m
Europe, ca. 1520 12m
expeditions along the north-
ern Pacific coast, 1774–1795
159m
expeditions along the Pacific
coast, 1542–1603 122m
four interpretations of Álvar
Núñez Cabeza de Vaca’s
journey, 1528–1536 90m
improvements in 23, 171
inaccurate 40
introduction and spread of

the horse into North Amer-
ica, 1600–1775 176m
of Eusebio Kino 147, 148
of René-Robert Cavelier, sieur
de La Salle’s failed expedi-
tion, 1684–1687 142m
major societies of the Ameri-
cas, ca. 1500 21m
“map of the World according
to the traditions of Ptolemy
and Americus Vespucius”
44
missions founded by Father
Junípero Serra, 1769–1782
151m
route of Sebastián Vizcaíno,
1602–1603 130m
routes of expeditions in the
Southwest and California,
1769–1793 150m
routes of major expeditions of
Juan de Oñate, 1598–1605
137m
by Paulo Toscanelli 25
by George Vancouver 163
of the world by Gerardius
Mercator 123, 123m
of world known to ancient
Greeks and Romans 11
Marble Canyon 156
Mar del Sur 45
Marigold (ship) 125
Marin County 127
marine chronometer 172
marine quadrant 18
mariners 22, 23, 185g
Martínez, Estéban José 163, 166
Martinique 37
Martyr, Peter 8–9, 44
mathematics 51, 57
Maupertuis, Pierre-Louis 171
Mayan Indians xv, 10, 11, 51, 51,
52, 55, 57, 179
McClure, Sir Robert 169
measles 35, 61
Medici, Lorenzo de’ 42
Medici family 41
medicine men 85, 86, 89
Mendoza, Antonio de 89,
106–108, 112, 119, 120, 123
Mendoza, Diego Hurtado de 64
Menéndez de Avilés, Pedro 105
Menzies, Archibald 167–168
Mercator, Gerardius 44, 123, 123,
123m, 126
Mercator projection 123, 123,
123m
merchants 12, 14, 15, 57
meridian 17, 185g
mesa 185g
MesoAmerica 20m
mestizo 180, 185g
Mexico xvi, 89
Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca
xvi
Seven Cities of Cíbola 107
Francisco Coronado 110, 117,
118
Hernán Cortés 53, 55m, 60
Jesuit expulsion in 149
languages in 175
Mayan Indians in 51
Native American civilizations
in 57
“New Spain” 52
revolution in 174
Spanish power in 64
Mexico City xvi, 57, 62
Miera y Pacheco, Bernardo de
154, 156
mines 49
missionaries 185g
activity of 145
Franciscan. See Franciscan
missionaries
Francisco Tomás Garcés 112,
153–154, 156
goals of 152
Father Eusebio Kino 145–148,
146, 148
Francisco López 132
Agustín Rodríquez 132
Father Junípero Serra 149,
151, 151m, 152, 153
missions 185g
in California 152–153
founded by Father Junípero
Serra, 1769–1782 151m
Franciscan 174
and Native Americans 152
role of 152–153
at San Carlos Borromeo 153
Index B 201
in San Francisco 173
of San Gabriel Arcángel 154
Mississippi 101
Mississippi River 48, 84, 102–103,
103, 139, 140
Miwok Indians 127, 128
moccasin 175
Moctezuma (Montezuma) 56, 58,
58–60, 87, 133
Mojave Desert 154
monastery libaries 23
Montalvo, García Ordónez de 62
Monterey, California 130,
149–152, 154, 162
Monterey Bay 121, 128–129, 129
Moors 14, 22, 185g
Moraga, José Joaquin 154
Morocco 13
Moscoso, Luis de 96m, 101–104,
102–103
Mountain of the Flints 62
mountain terraces 68
Mount St. Elias 161
movable type 23
Muisca Indians 74
mulattos 180, 185g
mumps 35
Muskogean language 98
Muslims 14, 22, 107
mutiny 64, 141
Mutis, José Celestino 172
myths and legends. See also
Cíbola, Seven Cities of
Strait of Anian 62, 64, 126,
164, 167, 169
Seven Cities of Antilia 107
El Dorado 75, 76, 79, 80, 80
imaginary kingdoms 22, 23
“Island of Bimini” 47
island of California 147, 148,
148
kingdoms 22, 23
La Canela 75
Rica de Oro 131
Rica de Plata 131
N
Nahuatl language 175
nao 17
Napituca 96
Napo River 77
202 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800
Narváez, Pánifilo de 60, 81–85,
82m, 83, 93, 95, 97
native 186g
Native American(s) xiv, 182. See
also specific headings, e.g.: Zuni
Indians
advocate for 89–91
in Amazon Basin xvii
atrocities against 104
and Pedro Arias de Ávila 46
and Vasco Núñez de Balboa
45
and bison 88
brutality towards 39
and Álvar Núñez Cabeza de
Vaca xvi, 84, 84–86, 89–91,
91
on California coast 120, 121
cannibals 6
and Francisco Sánchez
Chamuscado 132–133
child-rearing of 86
and Christianity 10
civilizations in Mexico 57
and Christopher Columbus
xiv, 5, 5, 6, 6, 28, 28–30, 37,
175
continuing armed resistance
of 80
and Francisco Coronado 116,
118–119, 118–119
culture areas of, 1492 20m
decimation of 32, 49
defender of 3
and disease 32, 35, 61, 152,
164
encomienda 34
and horses 177, 177, 178, 178
Isabella on treatment of 34
and Eusebio Kino 146
languages of 175
and Bartolomé de Las Casas 3
and Lewis and Clark Expedi-
tion 174
major societies of the Ameri-
cas, ca. 1500 21m
Malinche 55, 56
and missions 152
mistreatment of 118–119
and Luis de Moscoso 101–103
news of treatment of 33
and Francisco Orellana 77
and Juan Pérez 158
protection of baptized 146
Pueblo Rebellion 140, 141
requerimiento 94
rights of 79
and slavery 49, 50, 52, 179,
180
and Hernando de Soto 93,
95–101, 100, 105
and Spanish missions 152
and George Vancouver 167
and Vikings 10
naturalist 186g
nautical 186g
navigation 12, 17, 18, 18–19, 48,
123, 144, 172. See also latitude;
longitude
navigators 23, 186g
Netherlands 40
New Albion 127, 160
New Castile 66–67
Newfoundland 24
New Mexico 114–115, 115, 117,
133–135, 140, 154–156. See also
Santa Fe, New Mexico
New Spain 52, 103, 186g
Newton, Sir Isaac 171
New World 44
Christopher Columbus 24
disease in 35
dreams of 7, 8
in 1800 169–182
languages in 175
return of the horse to
177–178
and Amerigo Vespucci 43
views of 8–9
Nicaragua 37
Niña (ship) 7, 17, 26, 29, 30, 40
Niza, Marcos de 89, 107, 108, 110,
112
Noche Triste 60
nomenclature 171
Nootka Convention 163, 166, 167
Nootka Indians 157, 158
Nootka Island 160, 166
Nootka Sound 157
North America. See also specific
headings, e.g.: California
in 1800s 181m
expeditions along the north-
ern Pacific coast, 1774–1795
159m
expeditions along the Pacific
coast, 1542–1603 122m
exploration of 49
introduction and spread of
the horse into, 1600–1775
176m
languages in 175
major societies in 21m
Native American culture areas
in 20m
routes of expeditions in the
Southwest and California,
1769-1793 150m
Treaty of Tordesillas 40
and Amerigo Vespucci 41
Vikings in xiii–xiv, 10
North American Exploration
(Michael Golay) xvi
North Star 18
Northwest Passage 126, 126, 161,
169
“Nova Albion.” See New Albion
Nuestra Señora de los Dolores
147
nuggets 4
nursing of children 86
nuts 179
O
oceans 18, 19. See also Atlantic
Ocean; Pacific Ocean
Odonais, Jean Godin de 172
Ohkay Pueblo 133
Ojeda, Alfonso de 35, 39
Old Spanish Trail 156
Olid, Cristóbal de 61, 62
Olin, Jacqueline xv
Oñate, Juan de 133–139, 137m,
138–139
opossum 82–83
Oregon 121
Oregon Territory 165
Orellana, Francisco de xv, 76, 77,
78m, 79, 80, 170
Orient 37, 40
Orinoco River 42–43, 80
Ortega, José Francisco 149, 150
 Index B 203

Ortiz, Juan 95, 98, 100
Ovando, Nicolás 37
Oviedo y Valdés, Gonsalo Fernán-
dez de. See Fernández de
Oviendo Valdés, Gonzalo
P
Pacific coast 122m, 159m
Pacific Northwest 157–168, 160,
161, 163, 164
Pacific Ocean 45, 45, 46m, 49, 126
Palos 26, 27, 27, 30
Palou, Francisco 149
Panama 37, 43, 66
Panama Canal 126, 170
Paracoxi Indians 96, 97
Paraguay 90, 175
parchment 23
parrots 4, 28
peanuts 179
Pearl Islands 46
pearls 26, 64, 99, 101
pecans 86
Perestrello, Bartholomew 25
Pérez, Juan 157, 159m
Perico 97, 98
Peru xvi, 10, 46, 65–67, 66, 68,
73m, 75, 91, 105, 175
Pez, Andrés de 144
Philip II (king of Spain) 105, 133
Pilgrims xvi
pilot 186g
Pima Indians 146, 147
Pimería Alta 146, 148
Pinta (ship) 7, 15, 17, 26, 29, 30
Pinzón, Martín Alonso 26, 29
Pinzón, Vicente Yáñez 26, 40
Piombo, Sebastiano del 25
piraquas 142, 143
pirates 124, 125
Pizarro, Francisco 46, 65–68, 66,
68, 73m, 75, 93, 170, 171
Pizarro, Gonzalo 73m, 75–76, 79
Pizarro, Hernando 69
plantation systems 49, 50
Plymouth Colony xvi
pneumonia 35
Point Conception 128
Point Conclusion 167
pole frames 117
Pole Star 18
Polo, Marco 12, 29, 37
Ponce de León, Diego de Vargas
Zapata 140
Ponce de León, Juan 47m, 47–49,
48, 92, 93
Popocatépetl 58
Port des Français 162
porter 101, 186g
Portolá, Gaspar de 149–151
portolan (chart) 16–17, 17, 186g
Portugal and Portuguese
and Africa 15
astronomers 18
claim to Brazil of 40
colonization by 19, 22, 181m
and Christopher Columbus 2,
3, 30
exploration by 12–13, 13
independence from 174
language 175
mapmaking in 17, 18
mariners from 12–13
shipbuiding 15, 17
slavers 179
trade with 15
Treaty of Tordesillas 40, 80
Amerigo Vespucci 43
potatoes 178–179
Póveda, Martin de 73m
prairie 186g
presidio 186g
Prester John 23
prickly pear cactus 86, 86
priests 57, 94, 140, 147. See also
missionaries
prime meridian 172
Princess Real (ship). See Princess
Royal
Princess Royal (ship) 163
Prince William Sound 160, 163
printing plates 23
printing presses 23
privateer 125, 186g
Ptolemy 11, 17, 23, 125
Pueblo Rebellion 140, 141
pueblos 110, 186g
Acoma Pueblo 114–115, 115,
135
Alcanfor Pueblo 116
Arenal Pueblo 116
Pecos of Cicuyé 116
of Háwikuh 107, 109, 110, 115
Ohkay Pueblo 133
San Gabriel Pueblo 136
San Juan Pueblo 135–136
Taos Pueblo 116, 140, 141
Tiguex pueblos 116, 117
Zuni Pueblo 156
Puerto de la Trinidad 158
Puerto Rico 22, 174
Puget, Peter 165
Puget Sound 165
pumpkins 178
Q
quadrant 18, 186g
Quechua 68
Quechua language 175
Queen Charlotte Strait 166
Querechos Indians 117
Quesada, Gonzalo Jiménez de. See
Jiménez de Quesada, Gonzalo
Quetzalcoatl 56
Quimper, Manuel 163, 164
quipus 68
Quito 72, 79
Quivira 116–119, 134–135
R
raft, trading 65, 66
Raleigh, Sir Walter 80, 80
Ranjel, Rodrigo 93, 101, 104
ransom 71
Reconquista (Reconquest) 14
red ochre 85
Relación del Suceso 106, 115
religion. See Catholicism and
Catholics; Christianity; mission-
aries; Muslims
religious prophecies 56
requerimiento 94
Resolution (ship) 160, 161
revolt 35
revolutions 174
Ribault, Jean 105
Ribiero, Diego 123
Rica de Oro 131
Rica de Plata 131
rice 178, 179
Río de la Plata 49
204 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800
Río Grande 86, 101, 103, 115–116,
133, 144
Rivas, Martín de 143, 144
Rodríquez, Agustín 132
Rodríquez-Chamuscado expedi-
tion 132
Roman Catholic. See Catholicism
and Catholics
Romans 11
Romero, Antonio 142
Rondon, Candido 172
Royal Inca Highway 68, 68
Ruiz, Bartolomé 66, 67
Russian traders 157, 163
Ruz, Hipólito 172
S scientists 172
Sagres, Portugal 12, 17
Sahagún, Bernardino de 53, 54,
58
sails (ship) 17
St. Augustine, Florida 105
St. Croix 6
St. Elias, Mount 161
St. Louis, Fort 140, 144
Salvador Palma (Yuma chief) 153
Salvatierra, Juan María de 147
San Antonio (ship) 149, 151
San Carlos Borromeo, mission at
153
San Carlos (ship) 149
San Clemente 121, 128
sand dunes 154
San Diego 120, 121, 128, 149
Sandwich, Massachusetts xiv
Sandwich Islands 160
San Francisco, California 126,
127, 129, 154, 173
San Francisco Bay 121, 127, 129,
130, 149, 150, 152
San Gabriel Arcángel mission 154
San Gabriel Pueblo 136
San Juan de Los Caballeros 134
San Juan Pueblo 135–136
San Miguel 120, 128
San Pedro (ship) 77
San Salvador 28, 121, 128
San Salvador (ship) 121
Santa Barbara 121, 128
Santa Catalina 121
Santa Cruz 64
Santa Fe, New Mexico 134, 135,
140, 156
Santa Maria, Juan de 132
Santa María la Antigua de Darién
44
Santa Maria (ship) 2, 7, 7, 17, 26,
29, 30
Santiago (ship) 157, 158
Santo Domingo 35, 37
Santo Thomas (fort) 31
San Xavier del Bac 146, 147
Scheller, William xiv
Schomburgk, Robert Hermann
172
science 169, 172
scientific revolution 171
scurvy 129, 149, 160, 186g
sea otter pelts 162
sea routes 23
seas 18, 19. See also oceans
sea serpents 22
Serpent’s Mouth 34
Serra, Father Junípero 149, 151,
151m, 152, 153
settlements xv, 186g. See also col-
onization
Seward Peninsula 161
sextant 186g
shipbuilding 15, 17, 60, 83
ships 18–19, 143, 180. See also
caravel; galleon
Sierra de los Pedernales 62
silk 15
silver
Seven Cities of Cíbola 107
and Hernán Cortés 56
mine 74, 146
and Franciso Pizarro 66, 68
prospecting for 133
room filled with 71
wasting of 173
in Zacatecas 132
slavery and slaves 170
and Aztec Indians 57
banned in United States 180
in Caribbean 49
and Christopher Columbus
34, 179
and crops 179
and disease 35
Hispaniola 34
Inca Indians 179
linguistic exchange from
175
and Luis de Moscoso 103
and Native Americans 49, 50,
52, 57, 179, 180
and Portuguese 179
pre-Columbian 179, 180
prohibition on 34
slave hunters 132
slaving parties/raids 72, 80,
86, 90
and Hernando de Soto 98,
99
start of trade in 12
transport ship for 180
smallpox 35, 60, 61, 186g
smoke 121
societies of the Americas, major,
ca. 1500 21m
soil analysis xv
Solís, Juan Díaz de 49
Sonora, Mexico 146, 147, 152
Sonora (ship) 158, 160
Soto, Hernando de
and Álvar Núñez Cabeza de
Vaca 91
death of 101, 102–103
description of xvi
gold 95, 101
inspiration for 89
and “La Florida” 92–101, 106
legacy of 101, 104–105
Battle of Mabila 99–101
Mississippi River 48
and Native Americans 93,
95–101, 100, 105
in Pizarro expedition 67, 67,
69, 92
route of, 1539–1542 96m
and slavery 98, 99
Timucua Indians 96, 97
South America. See also specific
headings, e.g.: Peru
Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca
89–91
Carib Indians 6
Christopher Columbus 34,
35, 37

Sir Francis Drake 125
in 1800s 181m
exploration of 39, 79
horses in 177
languages in 175
Native American culture areas
in 20m
northern coast of 42–43
scientists in 172
Spanish power in 64
Treaty of Tordesillas 40
Amerigo Vespucci 42–43
South Georgia 43
Southwest (American) 150m
sovereign 186g
Spain and Spanish. See also spe-
cific headings, e.g.: Soto, Her-
nando de
attacks by Sir Francis Drake
on 124–126
belief in geography of 25
claims in California of 128
colonies of, in 1800s 181m
and colonization xvi, 174,
181m
Christopher Columbus 1–9, 4,
5, 7, 30
court 1, 4–5, 8, 14
declining power of 145
encomienda 34
expeditions to Peru and Chile
by, 1524–1542 73m
fading influence of 173–174
in 1492 13–15
land claims for 28, 45
language 175
Moors in 14
and Nootka Convention 163,
166, 167
power in New World of 64
problems with colonies of
174
search for La Salle’s expedi-
tion by 142–144
and shipbuiding 15, 17
Treaty of Tordesillas 40
Spanish Empire 14
speculator 186g–187g
speed of ships 19
Spice Islands 62
spices 15, 26, 75
Index B 205
Spruce, Richard 172 toll road 68
squash 178 tomatoes 178
stars, navigation by 18 tombs 36
starvation 95, 103 Tonti, Henri de 141
steamships 169 Tordesillas, Treaty of 40, 80
Steinen, Karl von den 172 Toscanelli, Paulo 25
Strait of Anian. See Anian, Strait Totonac Indians 57
of Tovar, Pedro de 110, 177
Strait of Juan de Fuca. See Juan de trade 11, 12, 14, 15, 52, 66, 116
Fuca, Strait of trading raft 65, 66
Strait of Magellan. See Magellan, travois 117, 187g
Strait of treason 46
sugar 178–180 treasure 76, 99, 125
Sun, navigation by 18 Triana, Rodrigo de 27
sunflowers 179 tribe 187g. See also Native Ameri-
surveying instruments 171 can(s)
Suwannee River 97 tributary 187g
swords 120 tribute 57, 58
Syllacio, Nicoló 177 Trinidad 6, 34
syphilis xv, 35 Trinidad Bay 158
Tubac 153
tuberculosis 35
T Tumbes 66
Tabasco 55 tuna 86
Tahiti 160 “the Turk.” See El Turco
Taino Indians xv, 5, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, turquoise 103, 108, 187g
28, 28–29, 35, 49, 175 Tusuyan 110
Talavera, Fray Hernando de 26
Talavera Commission 26
U
Tampa Bay 81, 94
Taos Pueblo 116, 140, 141 Ulloa, Francisco de 64
Tascalusa, Chief 99 United States xvi, 174, 175, 180
taxation 57, 58 Ursua, Pedro de 79
taxonomy 171 Uruguay 49, 90
Teixeira, Pedro de 79 Utah 154–156
Tejo 107 Ute Indians 155
Tenochtitlán xvi, 56–62 Uxmal 51
Terra Australis Incognita 125
“Terrestrial Paradise” 35 V
Texas xvi, 10, 85, 86, 102, 140, Vaca, Álvar Núñez Cabeza de. See
143 Cabeza de Vaca, Álvar Núnez
Texcoco, Lake 57, 58, 60 Valdavia, Pedro de 79
Thirteenth Amendment 180 Valdés, Cayetano 165, 166
Tierra del Fuego 125 Valverde, Vicente 70
Tiguex pueblos 116, 117 Vancouver, George 159m, 161,
Timucua Indians 81, 82, 95, 96, 164, 165, 165–168, 166,
97, 97 172–174
Titicaca, Lake 74 Vancouver Island 157, 158, 162,
tobacco 6, 29, 175, 175, 179, 179, 165, 166, 166
180 Vatican 152
Tobago 6 Vega, Garcilaso de la 105
206 B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800

Velásquez, Diego 49–51, 53, 54, W Y

56, 60
Waldseemüller, Martin 44 yams 178
vellum 23
Wallace, Alfred 172 yellow fever 35, 173
Venezuela 6, 34, 35, 40, 80, 174
Wampanoag Indians xvi Yucatán Peninsula 48, 51, 52,
Veracruz 56, 59
war dogs 93, 187g 54–55
Verrazano, Giovanni da 12
wars and warfare 6, 173, 178 Yuma, Arizona 154
Vespucci, Amerigo 12, 40–43,
“water hemlock” 110 Yuma Indians 112, 112, 147, 153,
41m, 42–43, 44
water route 61 156
Victoria 121, 128
West Africa and West Africans 12,
Victoria (ship) 77
15, 179 Z
Vikings xiii–xiv, 10, 24
wheat 178
Villa de la Navidad 30 Zacatecas 132
whooping cough 35
Villa Rica de Vera Cruz 56. See Zárate, Agustín del 74
Wichita Indians 117,
also Veracruz zero 51
118–119
Vinland map xv Zuñiga y Acevedo, Gaspar de
woman warriors 77, 78
Virgin Islands 22 128
woodcuts 23
Virú 46 Zuni Indians 107, 109, 110, 111
Vizcaíno, Sebastián 122m, Zuni Pueblo 156
128–131, 129, 130m, 148, 149 X
volcanoes 58 Xéres, Francisco de 65, 66, 68