Chapter 2: Come The Conquistadors. c1510-c1565.

Upon the death of Queen Isabella in 1504, King Ferdinand of Aragon continued to reign over Castile as regent for their eldest daughter, Joanna “La Loca,” deemed unfit to rule by virtue of her insanity. Upon Ferdinand’s death in 1516, the Spanish crowns passed through Joanna to her son Charles. Crowned Charles I of Spain (1516-1555), he inherited the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon, Aragonese territories in southern Italy, and all the Castilian territories in the Indies. From the line of his father, Philip the Handsome, Charles also inherited the Netherlands, and vast dominions in central Europe over which he reigned as Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. With no fixed Spanish capital, Charles held court in Valladolid, Toledo, Granada, and Madrid, and other grand European cities including Brussels, Augsburg, and Bologna. His rolling court hosted artists from across the continent, including Albrecht Durer from Germany, and Titian from Italy. Adjusting his language to suit his subjects, Charles was quoted saying, “I speak Spanish to God, Italian to women, French to men, and German to my horse.” Reigning over these disparate European realms became more difficult after 1517, when Martin Luther nailed his Ninety-five Theses to the door of a German church, criticizing the Pope and protesting papal indulgences. Across the German states, disaffected Christians flocked to Luther’s new creed of Lutheranism and launched the Protestant Reformation, which divided western Christendom between Catholics and Protestants. Devoutly Catholic, Charles fought a series of sanguinary campaigns to preserve his realms from Protestantism. He readily accepted American gold to finance his European wars but refused to provide royal armies for service in America. The conquest of the New World thus fell to blue-blooded adventurers and other bloodthirsty mercenaries. So came the conquistadors. Giving credence to old European legends and new Indian fictions, Spanish soldiers of fortune launched themselves across the Western Hemisphere seeking mythical lands and magical waters. A prototype of early conquistadors, Juan Ponce de Leon was an impoverished young nobleman who had laid siege to Granada and witnessed the final capitulation of Moorish forces in Spain in 1492. 1

A year later he escorted Christopher Columbus on his second voyage across the Atlantic. In the next decade he helped the Governor of the Indies, Nicolas de Ovando, conquer Hispaniola and enslave the natives to labor on grand encomiendas.

With Ovando’s backing, Ponce de Leon led exploratory parties to San Juan seeking gold and became the island's first governor in 1509.

But he was anon dislodged from the governorship by Ovando’s successor, Diego Columbus – the son and heir of Christopher Columbus. By 1513, Ponce de Leon had equipped three ships to seek new fortunes, and new slaves, west of the Bahamas.

Spanish chroniclers would later assert that the middle-aged conquistador – rumored to be impotent – also sought the fabled “Fountain of Youth.” Cruising through shallow reefs beyond the Bahamas, Ponce de Leon entered pristine waters teeming with sea life. Many Spaniards had their first taste of pompano and barracuda, while they marveled at mantas, manatees, and large lizard-like alligators. On April 2, 1513, Ponce de Leon reached the sandy shores of a landmass that he believed was a large island. As it was Easter Season, known to the Spanish as “Pascua Florida,” or Flowery Easter, Ponce de Leon considered the double-headed name appropriate for his discovery. But after coming ashore to claim possession of the land, he was captivated by its rich array of flora; leaving Pascua behind, he christened the flowery land FLORIDA. Still believing he had found an island, Ponce de Leon remained unaware that, north of the tropics, Florida was the first European name fixed on continental America. Following the long, sandy coastline south, Ponce de Leon’s Spanish flotilla fought rolling battles with natives. Indian warriors fought from the beaches, and in fleets of war canoes, firing poisoned arrows and launching spears tipped with sharpened bone. Several Spaniards were killed – the first European casualties on these continental shores. But lacking the shields and body armor of conquistadors, the Indians proved easy prey to European artillery. Reaching the southern tip of Florida, the Spanish found the land trailing off into a series of islands arcing southwest over 150 miles. Crewmen scrutinized the irregular shape of islands, isles, and islets, which from a distance resembled men in distress or drowning. With fresh memories of Christian blood spilled by heathens, Ponce de Leon called the islands The Martyrs: “Los Martires.” While the name remained in common use throughout the 16th century, it slowly yielded to the generic Spanish word for small islands or isles, “cayos.” The name appeared on maps as “Cayos de Los Martires,” the Isles of the Martyrs, or merely “Cayos.” The Cayos of Florida then became the FLORIDA KEYS. Beyond the westernmost Martyr, the Spanish rested at another set of rocky islets, crowded with birds and sea life. In one night, they took 160 giant sea turtles – and could have taken more had their hulls a greater capacity. The resident turtles left a lasting impression upon Ponce de Leon, who called the islands “Tortugas.” Despite the abundance of turtles, the islets bore no source of freshwater, so subsequent mariners marked them on their charts as the DRY TORTUGAS.4 Securing the governorship of Florida from King Charles, Ponce de Leon returned in 1521 with Catholic missionaries and colonists, informing the king of his intention to plant fruit seeds, probably oranges, in the fecund Florida soil. But the Spanish reputation for slaving and carnage preceded them across Florida, and their plans for a colony met fierce resistance from a formidable tribe they called the “Calos,” “Calus,” or “Calusa.” Unrelenting in defense of their homeland, the Calusa obstructed Spanish attempts to penetrate the mangroves and establish a beachhead. Within months, surviving colonists retreated, defeated, to Cuba. Ponce de Leon never found the Fountain of Youth in Florida. From the bow of a Calusa warrior, a poisoned arrow made manifest his mortality.

While the Spanish still struggled to understand the relationship between Florida and the rest of the Indies, events farther south permanently changed the way Europeans saw America. In 1513, three years after founding the first European settlement on the east coast of continental America, 5 Vasco Nunez de Balboa crossed a narrow isthmus from the Atlantic Ocean to the shores of another ocean unknown to Europeans. Having travelled in a southern direction to reach its shores, Balboa called the world’s largest ocean the “Mar del Sur,” or South Sea.

By early 1519, rumors of a gilded civilization filtered out across the Caribbean. While Governor Velazquez prepared a third expedition from Cuba, Governor Francisco de Garay of Jamaica commissioned another voyage to explore the land between Florida and the Yucatan peninsula. 12 Under the command of Alonso Alvarez de Pineda, four ships reached Florida in the spring. Following the coastline west, Pineda disproved Ponce de Leon’s supposition that Florida was an island: his map showed it as a large peninsula of a continental landmass. Rounding the coastline west, Pineda’s crew found a verdant land, flushed by waterways: one great river discharged an enormous volume of dark, silty freshwater into the blue salty sea. Around June 2, with the feast of the Pentecost upon them, Pineda christened this grand river in the name of the Holy Spirit: “Espiritu Santo.” It was the first name ever recorded for the great river – but not the last. Past the vast arms of delta lands, Pineda followed the coastline west and then southwest. On June 24, in an inlet of the sandy coast, he claimed possession of the land for King Charles. Spanish Catholics celebrated the Body of Christ, a feast day known by the Latin name of CORPUS CHRISTI. Pineda followed the coastline south until July, when he encountered a hostile cohort of Spaniards under the command of a renegade conquistador, Hernan Cortes. Eluding capture by his Spanish compatriots, Pineda retreated north a few hundred miles along the coast, where he was mortally wounded months later in an Indian attack. A petty nobleman with grand ambitions, Hernan Cortes had arrived in the New World in 1504 hoping to capitalize on his family connections to the Governor of the Indies, Nicolas de Ovando. After helping Ovando subdue the native population of Hispaniola, Cortes aided Governor Velazquez in his conquest of Cuba and was appointed mayor of Havana. By marrying Catalina Suarez, Velazquez’s sister-in-law, Cortes had further ingratiated himself to the governor. In February 1519, Velazquez entrusted Cortes to lead the next exploratory mission to the west. Immediately regretting his own decision, Velazquez then tried to recall him. But Cortes refused to turn back – determined to lead 600 conquistadors in his own direction, toward fortune and glory. Upon reaching continental shores, Cortes plotted the first Spanish settlement in the region13; scuttled his own fleet to preclude any retreat by sea; and opposed the arrival of incoming Spanish ships – like those of Alonso Alvarez de Pineda – lest they challenge his authority. Cortes found ample signs of wealth amongst the natives – his conquistadors needed only trace its source. Bernal Diaz, who partook in this and the two previous expeditions, recalled:

the native name, the Spanish renamed the Tabasco River after their captain, GRIJALVA. Farther along the coast, the Spanish placed the name ALVARADO at the mouth of another river, for one of Grijalva’s most skilled soldiers, Pedro de Alvarado. Offshore the Spanish explored a tiny island on which they found a gruesome temple containing fresh blood, butchered flesh, and evidence of human sacrifice; the Spanish thus called it the Island of the Sacrifices, ISLA DE LOS SACRIFICIOS. 12 Under Spanish rule, the island of Jamaica was usually called “Santiago” – the name bestowed upon it by Columbus. The capital city was called “Santiago de la Vega,” St James of the Field. 13 Reaching the site on Good Friday, 1519, the Spanish named their settlement 'Villa Rica de la Vera Cruz' – Rich City of the True Cross. The name conveys both the Christian spirit and the lust for wealth, a combination common in conquistadors. Most conquistadors with Cortes called the town Villa Rica; only later did the True Cross triumph as VERA CRUZ.

Cortes then asked them where they procured their gold and jewels and they answered from the direction of the sunset, saying 'Colua', and ‘Mexico’. But as we did not know what these words meant, we did not note them.14 The Spanish would soon learn that “Mexico” was both the name of a people and their present homeland. From the name of their ancestral homeland, the mysterious “Aztlan,” they are better known to history as the Aztecs. Moving toward Mexico, Cortes’ army of 600 Spaniards invaded an empire of perhaps 10,000,000 people. Pushing inland they found an agrarian empire, with vast fields of maize, beans, and squash. They found sophisticated cities of ornate masonry and monumental architecture, with pyramids larger in volume than those of Egypt. The Spanish also saw visceral signs of Aztec aggression and human sacrifice, with temples dedicated to angry gods blotted with blood and flesh. Local armies, loyal to the Aztecs, offered sporadic resistance to the Spanish incursions – but the terrifying effects of Toledo steel, European artillery, and armored war horses scattered native warriors. Among these combatants the Spanish also found subjects hostile to Aztec hegemony, and from these malcontents Cortes drew thousands of auxiliary soldiers. 15 In November 1519, Cortes and his army reached the fabled lake of Mexico, from whose sparkling waters soared a metropolis grander than any in Spain – one rivaling Rome, Paris, and London in size – called “Tenochtitlan.” 16 It dazzled Diaz and his comrades:

These great towns and cues (pyramids) and buildings rising from the water, all made of stone, seemed like an enchanted vision from the tale of Amadis. Indeed, some of us asked whether it was not all a dream.” “Amadis the Gaul,” a fantastic chivalric epic from the quill of Garcia Ordonez de Montalvo, was indeed the nearest point of reference for most conquistadores. Mexico stretched the imagination. The Aztec Emperor Montezuma watched the Spanish cross the causeways into his capital and then welcomed Cortes with great ceremony. Carried upon a litter, Montezuma exhibited the wealth of his majesty from head to toe: adorned with a headdress of brilliant green feathers, clothes interwoven with pearls and gemstones, and shoes with golden soles. The emperor lavished upon the armored conquistador gifts of gold and silver. The residents of 14 MEXICO remains an enigmatic name. The inland Colhua-Mexica tribe, better known to history as the Aztecs, were now synonymous with the land they dominated: the land of the Mexica was Mexico. But it remains unclear if the tribe brought their name to the place or took their name from the place. Broken into its component parts, Mexico may be translated as Navel of the Moon, or Center of the Moon. The existence of an Aztec god named Mexitli further complicates the issue. 15 In the conquest of Mexico, Cortes and his Spanish comrades recorded many native names for the land.; CHIAPAS, Place or River of Chia Seeds; TUXTLA, Place of Rabbits; “Tecuantepeque” or TEHUANTEPEC, Hill of Wild Beast/Jaguar; XALAPA, also spelled “Jalapa” signified Sandy Springs; “Aulicaba” or ORIZABA, Place of Pleasant Waters; “Tuxtepeque” or TUXTEPEC, Hill of rabbits; “Guaxacaque,”“Guaxaca,” or OAXACA Place of the Guaje (Acacia) Tree; “Tascalteca” or TLAXCALA , Place of Maize Tortillas; CHALCO, Lake Edge; “Coadnabaced,” or CUERNAVACA, Place in the Trees or Forest; CUAUTLA, Place of Eagles; CHILPANCINGO Place of Wasps; MICHOACAN Place of Fish or Fishermen; COLIMA Place where the water turns or Place of the grandfathers. 16 Tenochtitlan, which Cortes also called “Temixtitan,” may signify Place of Cactus on Rock; according with Mexican tradition, the Aztecs settled on this location after seeing an eagle perched on a cactus eating a snake – an image still seen on the flag of Mexico. Tenochtitlan is now buried under another name that Cortes called it, the “Ciudad de Mexico,” or MEXICO CITY.

Tenochtitlan stood awestruck. Already some Aztecs speculated that Cortes might be a manifestation of the feathered serpent god, Quetzalcoatl, whom they believed had ventured off east centuries earlier. And Montezuma wondered: could Cortes and his soldiers be gods themselves, returned from the east to reclaim their empire?17 Or were these just mortal men, come to conquer his empire and tear down the temples of the gods? While Montezuma hesitated, Cortes acted decisively: the conquistador took the emperor hostage. While Cortes plotted his next move, he learnt of alarming developments from back east: Governor Velazquez had sent another armada to Mexico to stop him. Under the command of Panfilo de Narvaez, another member of the extended Velazquez family, a thousand troops had disembarked on the coast with orders to capture or kill the mutinous Cortes. Cortes raced back to the coast with a contingent of soldiers – entrusting Pedro de Alvarado, his most ruthless lieutenant, to hold the Aztec capital. Attacking Narvaez during an overnight storm, Cortes won a bloody victory: Narvaez was blinded in battle and taken captive; most of his soldiers, blinded by promises of fortune, agreed to join Cortes’ army. Cortes returned to Tenochtitlan to discover that, in his absence, Alvarado had led a Spanish massacre of Aztec nobles in the Great Temple. Montezuma remained their hostage and tried to placate Cortes with increasing quantities of precious metals and precious stones. But angry Aztec citizens refused further co-operation and rioted against Spanish occupation. Marked for death, Montezuma was killed in the carnage. Despite blaming his death on Aztec projectiles, Spanish soldiers more likely stabbed or strangled the emperor. With his hostage dead, Cortes now led a desperate flight from the city under a shower of arrows, spears, and stones; burdened by the weight of their loot, two-thirds of his army did not make it back across the city’s causeways. Cortes refused to concede defeat. While Cortes tried to rebuild his army in Mexico, a Spanish armada led by a Portuguese mariner was reshaping global geography. Embarking from Spain in 1519, Ferdinand Magellan led five ships across the Atlantic to the shores of Brazil, followed the coastline south, and rounded the southernmost shores of continental America.18 Venturing west across the same 17 The name of COATZACOALCOS, which Cortes spelled, “Guazacualco,” may signify the Place of Quetzalcoatl, or Place of the Hidden Snake, perhaps marking the departure point of the god. The religious sanctuary of CHOLULA, which Cortes spelled “Churultecal,” was Place of Escape or Refuge, and home to the largest pyramid in the world, dedicated to Quetzalcoatl. Although the Spanish had already begun imposing Christian names on the land, they recorded many other native place names dedicated to the old gods. Cortes transcribed the name of “Huchilohuchico” and “Uchilubusco,” later fixed on the maps as CHURUBUSCO, Place of Huitzilopochtli, the chief Aztec deity, god of the sun, and war, and sacrifice. The Spanish also recorded the name of TOLUCA, the Place of Tolo, or Tlaloc, god of rain, water, and fertility; and ECATEPEC, the Hill of Ehecatl, god of air and wind. Other names dedicated to the Aztec pantheon included TEHUACAN Place of the Gods; and TEOTIHUACAN Birthplace of the Gods. 18 Around January 10, 1520, Magellan entered a bay on whose shores rose a small mountain. With many Portuguese Catholics celebrating Ovidio of Braga, an early martyr for the Catholic church, they named the mount “Monte Ovidio,” subsequently corrupted to MONTEVIDEO. The local Portuguese cult of Ovidio would receive the full recognition of the Catholic Church in 1527, after which he was widely venerated as a saint; this may explain a comment entered into the journal of Magellan’s chief scribe, “...we gave it the name of Montevidi (now they correctly call it Santovideo).” On February 24, the feast day of St Matthias, they entered a gulf they named GOLFO SAN MATIAS. On March 31, after celebrating the feast of St Julian, they entered a port named PUERTO SAN JULIAN. On May 3, while most of Magellan’s fleet wintered in Port San Julian, one of his lieutenants scouted a river delta farther south; with Catholics celebrating the feast of the Discovery of the Holy Cross, they named the river SANTA CRUZ. Approaching the southern extremities of the continent, Magellan’s mariners encountered a race of tall Indians garbed in animal skins whose appearance reminded them of a giant savage in a Spanish story

ocean seen by Balboa, Magellan made an epic oceanic crossing and reached islands just east of Asia in April, 1521, where he was killed battling the natives. His second-in-command, Juan Sebastian El Cano, kept the flagship on a western course, through the Indian and Atlantic Oceans until arriving back in Spain in September 1522. It was the first circumnavigation of the globe and the definitive proof of a spherical world. Over the winter of 1520-21, while smallpox decimated the Aztec population, Cortes rebuilt his army with hundreds more Spanish recruits from the coast and swelled his ranks with thousands more native allies. He returned to Tenochtitlan in the spring, and with 13 purpose-built brigantines to master the surrounding lake, Cortes began a long siege of the city. Each day ardent conquistadors fought their way up the causeways, slaying Aztec defenders by the hundreds and thousands. But by night, exhausted conquistadors heard the dreaded sound of blaring horns and beating drums, and watched helplessly as their captured comrades were dragged up to the high altar of the Great Temple – where their hearts were cut from their chests and sacrificed to angry Aztec gods. For more than three months the Spanish laid siege to the Aztec capital. Making inroads into the city, Cortes began torching temples and houses – steadily levelling the greatest metropolis in the New World. Smallpox tore through the Mexican population. Corpses piled up in the streets. The entire city reeked of death. Making a desperate attempt to escape by canoe, the new Aztec Emperor, Cuauhtemoc, was captured by a Spanish brigantine. His surrender brought an end to one empire and marked the ascent of another. Now triumphant, Cortes dispatched five letters to his own king and emperor, Charles V, justifying his audacious actions, reaffirming his loyalty to the Spanish crown, and promising to send the king his royal fifth of all Aztec treasure. Upholding the conquistador’s right to the spoils of war, and content to receive his royal fifth, Charles effectively confirmed Cortes as the richest man in Mexico; many conquistadors who survived the Aztec conquest complained that their share of the treasure barely covered their costs. In his letters to Charles, Cortes also proposed a new name for the newly conquered region, over which the Spanish king now granted him provisional governorship, “Nueva Espana” or “New Spain.” In 1522 Cortes’ wife Catalina joined him in Mexico, only to meet a mysterious death months later. Governor Velazquez of Cuba, Catalina’s brother-in-law and now perhaps the richest man in the Indies, demanded that Cortes be charged with her murder. A secret crown investigation failed to prove Cortes’ guilt in Catalina’s death and old Velazquez died disgruntled in 1524. Now unencumbered, Cortes conducted relationships with various Indian women, including Isabel Moctezuma, daughter of Montezuma, with whom he fathered a child: Leonor Cortes Moctezuma. Cortes now ruled with the authority of king – dispatching armies across New Spain. Alvarado cut a swathe through the south, almost doubling Cortes’ territorial gains, though the two conquistadors soon clashed over the division of power and plunder.

his control south from Mexico, Davila extended his reach north from Panama.20 To counterbalance the growing power of Cortes across New Spain, Charles V granted new governorships in the region to the most ruthless of his royal bodyguards, and to hardy conquistadors prepared to challenge Cortes, including Alvarado.21 Upon his triumphant return to Spain in 1528, Cortes presented King Charles with Mexican delicacies like chocolate and vanilla; new fruits like tomato, avocado, and chili; and other New World wonders like the beast that Indians called a jaguar; and the little armored one that Spaniards called an “armadillo.” The king elevated the conquistador to the distinguished Order of Santiago and made him the 1st Marquess of the Valley of Oaxaca; his marriage to a distinguished Spanish noblewoman fortified his new status.22 But the king also stripped Cortes of governorship of New Spain and replaced him with a more dependable viceroy, Antonio de Mendoza. In 1531 the skies of New Spain were darkened by two solar eclipses and then streaked by the light of a great blazing comet. In the same year, a series of celestial visions helped shape the future of New Spain: Franciscans saw visions of angels instructing them to found cities; Conquistadors saw visions of St James that inspired them to victory over heathen armies; and Guatemala,” a name subsequently reduced and relocated to GUATEMALA CITY. Alvarado recorded other native names in the region, including, QUETZALTENANGO, Place of the Quetzal Bird; MIXCO, Place of the Puma; and ESCUINTLA, Place of the Dogs. By 1525 Alvarado was campaigning in another province to the south that he dedicated to Jesus Christ, The Savior, EL SALVADOR. He then directed his brother, Gonzalo de Alvarado, to found a city dedicated to Jesus Christ, the Holy Savior – SAN SALVADOR. Luis de Moscoso Alvarado, nephew of Pedro and Gonzalo, soon founded SAN MIGUEL for St Michael. 20 In the 1520s Gil Gonzalez Davila, a distant cousin of Pedrarias Davila, extended Spanish occupation north from Panama, promoting a Rich Coast in COSTA RICA. Near the shores of a large lake, he encountered a powerful chief, “Nicarao”; combined with the Spanish word for water, “agua,” Nicarao’s water became NICARAGUA. Pedrarias dispatched Francisco Hernandez de Cordoba to conquer the region and expel Gil Gonzales Davila. Beyond Lake Nicaragua, Cordoba reached the shores of a smaller lake, MANAGUA, whose name may be another fusion of Indian and Spanish and might be loosely translated in either lingua as Awash with water. Cordoba also founded the first two colonial cities in Nicaragua, named after two proud Spanish cities, LEON and GRANADA. Reporting back to Charles V, Pedrarias recorded the Indian province of MASAYA, meaning Place of Deer, and described the burning volcano that loomed over the region. In 1526 Pedrarias had Cordoba beheaded, and the following year he relocated himself to Nicaragua. After reaching his nineties, old Pedrarias finally filled his coffin and was buried beside Cordoba in Leon. 21 Charles V granted governorship of north and northwestern provinces to his personal bodyguard, Nuno Beltran de Guzman. Guzman’s brutal campaigns to subdue the natives on the northwestern frontiers of New Spain, he and his soldiers recorded many native names including SINALOA, Rounded Prickly Pear Cactus; JALISCO, Sandy Plain; TEPIC, Place of Hard Stones; ZAPOPAN, Place of the Zapote tree; TEQUILA, Place of Cutting or Harvest; MAZATLAN, Place of Deer. CULIACAN may be the Place of the Crooked Hill, or the ancient Place of the Colhua tribe, who later allied with the Aztecs in the Valley of Mexico. NAYAR and NAYARIT both commemorate Chief Nayar who resisted the Spanish conquest. Charles V granted the governorship of Yucatan to a veteran of Cortes’ army, Francisco Montejo the Elder. In his campaigns, he recorded the name of “Chactemal” around CHETUMAL Bay; And “Xaman,” subsequently reduced to “Carmen,” and preserved by the Beach, PLAYA DEL CARMEN. Charles V granted the governorship of Guatemala to Alvarado, who also claimed de facto governorship of Honduras. Warring against Indian tribes of Honduras in the 1530s, Alvarado recorded the name “Teguycegalpa,” now TEGUCIGALPA. In the same year 1536 he founded a new city dedicated to his patron saint, “San Pedro,” the Spanish name was later coupled with the Indian “Sula,” meaning Bird valley, to create SAN PEDRO SULA. 22 Eager to establish a west coast base for Pacific explorations, Cortes – now a marquess – founded the port of PUERTO MARQUES. The port was presently eclipsed by the neighboring port of ACAPULCO – a native term for place of reeds, or broken reeds, such as fringed the bay waters.

Indians saw visions of a dark-skinned St Mary, whose appearance helped the wholesale conversion of the native population to Catholicism.23 New Spain was beginning to resemble Spain.24 Living in a monumental palace built from the ruins of Aztec architecture, Cortes still reigned over large swathes of New Spain with the authority of a king. Ever expanding the frontiers of New Spain, he sponsored new expeditions to the north and west. In the early 1530s he received reports of an island lying off the west coast, likened to another mythical land imagined by Garcia Ordonez de Montalvo. “The Deeds of Esplandian,” narrated the travels of a legendary knight – the son of Amadis – whose adventures had taken him to the Indies. Esplandian mentioned an island of spectacular wealth, where a race of warrior women forbade the presence of men: Know that on the right hand from the Indies exists an island called California very close to a side of the Earthly Paradise; and it was populated by negro women, without any man existing there, because they lived in the way of the Amazons. They had beautiful and robust bodies, and were brave and very strong. Their island was the strongest of the World, with its cliffs and rocky shores. Their weapons were golden and so were the harnesses of the wild beasts that they were accustomed to domesticate and ride, because there was no other metal in the island than gold. Perhaps the first Spanish conquistadors encountered hostile Indian women upon its shores – or perhaps Cortes anticipated another golden civilization over the horizon – for one among them jested that this newly discovered island must be Montalvo’s CALIFORNIA. In fact, what they had discovered was not insular but peninsular, projecting 700 miles south from the mainland. But before this error was recognized, the name was already fixed along the full length of the peninsula and upon a broad coastal strip extending another 700 miles north.25 While conquistadores in New Spain knew few barriers to their onward march, in Florida they labored still to claim a foothold. In 1528 Panfilo de Narvaez arrived on Florida’s western

shores with almost 400 mercenaries. 2

Blind in one eye after attempting to stop Cortes eight

years earlier, he now sought to emulate his foe’s conquest of Mexico in Florida. Told of a rich Indian province in the north named “Apalache” or “Apalachen,” Narvaez marched up the peninsula. The one-eyed conquistador found instead small, poor villages of fearsome Indians. Demoralized and dying in daily attacks from Indian warriors, the Spanish retreated to the Gulf of Mexico but failed to reunite with their ships. They built five barges to carry their survivors back to New Spain, but a violent tempest swept Narvaez and half his men to their deaths in the Gulf. Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, the expedition treasurer, assumed command of the remaining craft. Blown to the northwestern waters of the Gulf, scores of shipwrecked Spaniards washed ashore on a sandy barrier island, where they began succumbing to exposure and disease, starvation and cannibalism; Cabeza de Vaca called it the “Isla de Malhado,” the Island of Doom. Reaching the mainland, Cabeza de Vaca and a few surviving comrades were then absorbed into semi-nomadic Indian tribes. When their clothes disintegrated, they wandered naked across Indian territories of the west, alternately as slaves, traders, healers, and holy men. They encountered coyotes, cougars, and herds of buffalo. In starving times, they ate spiders, scorpions, snakes, and lizards. Ever exposed to the burning sun, Cabeza de Vaca noted that his skin shed twice a year. Finally, in 1536, after an eight-year odyssey across the continent, Cabeza de Vaca and three fellow survivors from the original 400, staggered south into New Spain, where their tales astonished their compatriots. Despite ranging farther across the northern continent than any Spaniard come before, Cabeza de Vaca had little to offer cartographers. Only one tribal Indian name, so ruinous to the expedition, left an impression on the maps. The Apalache name was appended to the coastal waters where Narvaez’ barges had embarked: APALACHEE Bay. The Apalachen province also appeared on contemporary Spanish maps, but the name expanded to the mountains rising in the tribe’s territory and then extended 1500 miles north along the continent’s eastern spine: the APPALACHIAN Mountains. Through the 1520s Charles V waged war for control of Italy and the Holy City of Rome. After defeating the French at the 1525 battle of Pavia, Charles’ imperial forces extended his control along the Italian peninsula. Then in 1527 his unruly German troops, many of whom were Lutheran, sacked Rome in a frenzy of slaughter and destruction comparable to the Spanish sack of Tenochtitlan. In 1530 the constrained Pope formally crowned Charles V Holy Roman Emperor – the last emperor ever so legitimized by a pope. The most powerful man in Christendom, Charles V yet struggled to preserve his Catholic Empire from Protestant reformers. Lutheranism was but one of a growing number of dangerous sects. In the Swiss Confederacy, Ulrich Zwingli sparked a zealous movement called Zwinglianism. In the Netherlands, Menno Simons drew new converts to his Anabaptist faith, many calling themselves Mennonites. And from Geneva, John Calvin launched Calvinism into his native France and beyond. Zealous Catholics employed increasingly violent tactics to combat

these and other heretical sects, Charles V expanded the reach and power of the Inquisition. Rejecting the pacifism of the Franciscans, two Basque nobleman, Ignatius Loyola and Francis Xavier, founded a more militant Catholic order dubbed the “Soldiers of God” or the Society of Jesuits. And Spanish soldiers, enlisted to the fight against Islamic infidels and heathen Indians, began redirecting their arms against fellow Christians. Notwithstanding conflicts between Catholics and Protestants in Western Europe, Charles V launched new campaigns against Islamic forces in North Africa. To forestall the Ottoman Empire’s expansion into the western Mediterranean, he led a coalition of European troops to conquer Tunis in 1535. In occupying Tunis, Charles visited the neighboring ruins of ancient Carthage and contemplated its conquest by Rome in the Punic Wars two millennia earlier. As Holy Roman Emperor – and avowed heir of the Caesars – Charles V could boast of restoring the empire’s rule in Africa for the first time in a millennium. In fact, Charles already reigned over more continents than the Romans ever imagined. Francisco Pizarro had arrived in the New World in 1502 and like his cousin, Cortes, proved his worth to Governor Ovando in the conquest of Hispaniola. While Cortes continued to Cuba under Governor Velazquez, Pizarro pushed onto Panama under Governors Balboa and Davila. Having accompanied Balboa on his march to the Pacific in 1513, Pizarro would later arrest him under Davila’s orders. From Panama City’s unique position on the west coast, Davila and Pizarro plotted new entradas into the southern continent via the Pacific Ocean. 27 In the

service of the Spanish crown, some hoped to access the interior via the Atlantic.28 In the late 1520s, after the elderly Davila withdrew his support, Pizarro took command of the enterprise. Joining him were other ambitious soldiers who had come to the New World with Davila, including Diego de Almagro and Hernando de Soto. Their early forays from the coast found signs of a sophisticated civilization deeper in the continent; from a native term meaning Lords or Rulers, the Spanish referred to the subject population as “Yngas” or “Ingas” or Incas. 29 Returning to Spain in 1529, Pizarro encountered Cortes in Seville – who offered him fresh 27 In the 1520s Pedrarias Davila sent out an exploratory party under Pascual de Andagoya, which sailed down the west coast of the continent. He reported the presence of a powerful Indian people who had descended on the coastal territories, “These invaders came from a province called Biru, the name of which has been corrupted to Piru.” The name was further corrupted to PERU; its linguistic origins remain unclear. 28 In 1526 Sebastian Cabot, the Venetian-born son of John Cabot, probed the east coast of the continent for access to the interior – fueled by legends of a great Silver Mountain, a “Sierra de la Plata.” Entering a broad river estuary, he found small quantities among the local Indians and, hoping to find great quantities more, he named it the River of Silver, RIO DE LA PLATA. Based on the Latin word for the same element, Argentum, the surrounding country would later become a Land of Silver, ARGENTINA. Cabot probed the Rio de la Plata watershed for months, failing to find silver, or gold, or a route to Peru. But in the wake of his expeditions, many rivers within the river’s vast basin appeared on maps. PARANA, with “para” a widely spread native term for water or river, may be Sea River. PARAGUAY, which contains the native “para,” and “-y,” as well as the Spanish “agua,” all of which may signify water or river, must suggest a Big River. URUGUAY, which emerged in the same period, may be a Bird River. 29 Finding one rocky barren island, bald of vegetation, Pizarro named it Bald, or Bad Hair, MALPELO Island. Chancing upon another Pacific Island, lush with vegetation but full of lethal snakes, Pizarro named it GORGONA, after the Gorgon of Greek mythology, who had snakes instead of hair. On a small offshore island, they found a depository of precious metals, such that they named it the Island of Silver, ISLA DE LA PLATA. On the equatorial coast, the Spanish found small emeralds and heard rumors of one enormous emerald – the size of an ostrich egg – worshipped as a goddess; although they failed to find the sacred gem, the Spanish search for Emeralds still shows in ESMERALDAS. Pizarro’s soldiers also sighted the continent’s great mountain range, and heard west coast Indians refer to the ANDES, probably signifying East. The name also resembled the native word for copper, already mined on the mountain slopes.

advice on how to speak to kings and subjugate Indians. Received by Charles V, Pizarro presented him with samples of Incan gold and curiosities like the llama. With a direct commission from Charles, Pizarro then returned to the New World to conquer the Incan Empire.30 Through the early 1530s, Pizarro urged conquistadors into tropical mountain jungles, over Incan roads of finely worked masonry, through terraced mountain slopes cultivating crops of potato, quinoa, and coca, and into mountaintop cities of monumental architecture. In November 1532, in a walled city built high in the Andes, Pizarro would finally encounter the Incan emperor, Atahualpa.31 Pizarro took up position in the central plaza with just 167 Spanish soldiers. Atahualpa arrived on a litter, thronged by thousands of guards and attendants. Pizarro unleashed a terrifying wave of artillery fire and led a cavalry charge that cut a swathe to Atahualpa. Replicating his cousin’s conquest of the Aztecs, the conquistador took the emperor hostage. Over the next nine months, Pizarro extorted an astonishing amount of wealth from Atahualpa – promising to release him once he had filled a chamber with gold and silver. Over the same period, de Soto befriended the Incan emperor and taught him how to play chess. In April 1533, Almagro arrived with another 150 conquistadors, almost doubling the Spanish forces. But Atahualpa could still count on the allegiance of at least 100,000 warriors, many of whom were massing in the area. Pizarro and Almagro agreed that the Incan emperor had to be eliminated. In July, in de Soto’s absence, Pizarro and Almagro staged the trial of Atahualpa. Finding the Incan emperor guilty of treason and idolatry in his own realm, the Spaniards sentenced him to be burnt at the stake. After Atahualpa consented to a Catholic baptism, Pizarro allowed him a more merciful death by garrotte. Despite clashing with Pizarro over the execution of Atahualpa, de Soto demanded and received his share of Incan spoils. Due to his late arrival, Almagro missed out on much of the early plunder. Pizarro encouraged him to lead new campaigns across the crumbling Incan Empire. Almagro’s army, and other bands of conquistadors, now raced to pillage the empire’s vanishing treasures – sacking ancient cities and founding new ones in their course. They also heard rumors of another kingdom of fabulous riches and began their futile search for The Golden or The Gilded One, “El Dorado.” To legitimize himself as the successor to the Incan emperors, Pizarro took as his de facto wife a royal sister of the late Atahualpa. De Soto soon married another noble daughter of the late Davila, enhancing his wealth and his status. But rivalry for control of the continent soon led to civil war among conquistadors. Pizarro, Almagro, and most of the conquistadors who had

followed them, would die violent deaths. De Soto, however, had already made the fortunate decision to quit the continent.32

On the frontiers of Charles V’s European empire, a young Flemish cartographer was poised to change the maps forever. Trying to solve the problem of longitude, Gerardus Mercator experimented with spherical and cylindrical projections of the world, producing a now-standard format for global maps: “The Mercator Projection.” A prolific cartographer, he was also the first man to refer to a collection of maps as an “atlas.” While preparing his first map of the world in the 1530s, Mercator studied Waldseemuller’s historic 1507 map – noting the continental landmass in the south marked “America,” and the separate, smaller land supposed to exist in the north marked Unknown Distant Land “Terra Ulteri Incognita”. Mercator knew that recent expeditions had found evidence suggesting a continental landmass in the north at least as large as America in the south. Alonso de Pineda had proven that ships could sail from Florida to Mexico without losing sight of land. Fellow mariners had followed the coast north from Florida and never found the land’s limits. Drawing upon Spanish and French charts, Mercator sketched an outline of two western continents, joined in the middle by a narrow isthmus. With symmetry of size, and no clear cut-off point between them, he saw the continents as two halves of the same whole. Declining the opportunity to provide a new name for the northern continent on his 1538 map of the world, Mercator instead designated it “America Settentrionale,” which may be translated as Northern America or NORTH AMERICA.33 After leaving South America, de Soto took up the governorship of Cuba, while he dreamed of other empires in North America. Recently returned from eight years in the wilderness, Cabeza de Vaca had publicly disparaged the desolate lands of the north but had reserved some classified observations for the ears of Viceroy Mendoza and King Charles. De Soto was certain this secrecy concealed knowledge of another flourishing empire, ripe for conquest, somewhere between Florida and Mexico – and he received a commission from Charles to conquer it. In April 1539, de Soto disembarked on the western shores of Florida with a thousand men. Venturing in the footsteps of Narvaez and Cabeza de Vaca, de Soto soon found a pitiful survivor of the preceding expedition living naked among the local Indians; absorbed into de Soto’s army, he would prove an invaluable guide and interpreter. Pushing north, de Soto urged his conquistadors through wetlands and quicksand and jungle. Although his exact course remains uncertain, the names of Indian tribes and villages in expedition records provide reference points in his meandering march. Years, decades, even centuries, would pass before these Indian names found fixed places on the map, but de Soto’s scribes gave cartographers much raw material with which to work. In August 1539 they encamped near a large Florida village called “Ocale,” not distant from OCALA. Local Indians were captured to provide information; caciques, or chiefs, were run down by armored war dogs; poor villagers who swore no knowledge of fabulous cities were subjected to interrogation by fire. Conquistadors slew hundreds of Ocala on the shores of a local lake; many survivors plunged into the lake, treading water throughout the night before succumbing to Spanish arms in the morning. De Soto marched his men up the Florida peninsula, terrorizing Apalachee Indians and others beyond. Spaniards encountered a village of “Axille” or “Ochile,” a tribal name

perpetuated by the AUCILLA River and a locale called OCILLA. Both names may be linguistically connected to Ocala; all three, perhaps, signify simply town. In April 1540, de Soto treated with the cacique of another village, recorded by expedition scribes as “Altapaha,” “Altamaca,” and “Altamaha.” Vestiges of this tribal name endure on two rivers on the northern frontier of Florida – the ALAPAHA and the ALTAMAHA. Traversing the headwaters of both rivers, the Spanish continued north, entering the territory of the “Chalaque,” the CHEROKEE; and the “Xuala,” now called the Saura or CHERAW. Some Indians gave the Spaniards the welcome they desired – offering maize and meat to hungry conquistadors and presenting luminous pearls to de Soto. To rid themselves of Spanish invaders, eastern Indians invariably spoke of greater riches toward the setting sun. Ever credulous to Indian tales, de Soto persisted west through the summer of 1540. The Spanish menaced small tribal towns including the “Canasagua,” whose name was preserved by the CONASAUGA River and probably KENNESAW. “Tasqui,” in the vicinity of TUSKEGEE. Another local tribe reported by de Soto’s scribes as the “Acoste” or “Costehe” probably left their name to COOSADA; later migrating farther west, their name also appeared as COUSHATTA. Across the region, the Spanish found vast fields of maize and increasingly large earthworks upon which Indians had built their homes and temples – entombing leading citizens at the base. Many mound-building tribes fell under the dominion of the powerful “Coca” or “Cosa” tribe – a name fastened to a long regional waterway, the COOSA River. They recorded the name of the “Itaba” or “Ytaua,” but bypassed the abandoned mounds on the ETOWAH River. Other tribal towns menaced on the Spanish meander west include the “Ulibahali,” a name preserved by EUHARLEE Creek, and perhaps a later band called EUFAULA; and “Casiste” the origin of CUSSETA, and perhaps a later band called COWETA. In October 1540, de Soto’s scribes recorded a village called “Tascaluca.” Synonymous with his tribe, Chief Tuskaloosa was the most resolute of Indian caciques. Tall, lean, and muscular, donning a mantle of feathers from head to toe, he dwarfed the armored Spanish soldiers – looking down upon de Soto first with indifference and then with disdain. To ensure Tuskaloosa’s compliance, de Soto had him taken prisoner. But upon entering his territorial stronghold, a fortified village with thousands of loyal braves, the chief refused further cooperation. De Soto ordered his troops to attack the villagers and torch the village. The battle raged until sunset, with brave Indian women fighting beside the men. By nightfall, Spanish arms and fire carried the day. Scattered across the ashen field lay thousands of Indian corpses – charred, mutilated, hanging from trees. The body of Tuskaloosa was never identified but his tribal name survived on regional maps as TUSCALOOSA. The ravaged Indian village appeared in expedition records as “Mauvila” and “Mabila,” but later maps show the surviving Indians farther south, around a bay named MOBILE. Many Spanish survivors emerged from the flames of battle in burnt rags and blood spatter, forced to quench their thirst at pools of bloody water. De Soto had lost a hundred men, scores of horses, vital supplies, and 200 pounds of pearls. The wounded conquistadors marched onward, their aura of invincibility fast fading. They spent Christmas of 1540 in the village of the “Chicaca” or “Chicasa” – the CHICKASAW. De Soto yet again threatened his hosts, demanding they provide him porters for his course ahead. The Chickasaws retaliated, sparking another night of fire and bloodshed. In the middle of winter, two chiefs arrived in the Spanish camp hoping to placate de Soto with pelts, shawls, and 150 rabbits. When the Spanish journeyed to one of their villages, they

found a ragged people with scarcely enough food to feed themselves. The name of the chief and his synonymous village and people was transcribed “Limamu,” “Alimamu,” and “Alibamo,” a tribal name signifying plant cutters or vegetation clearers, in reference to their agricultural practices. Cartographers applied the name to a large regional waterway: the ALABAMA. The conquistadors continued west, finding little that glittered in sunlight. They traversed broad torrents and swamplands, blazing paths through forests of oak and cypress draped in Spanish moss. In May 1541, they arrived at the banks of a mighty river whose mouth Pineda had seen and called “Espiritu Santo.” The Spanish crossed its widths in ad hoc canoes. In September they encountered a tribe whose territory straddled the great river, the “Tanico” – the TUNICA. And as ever, the red men pointed the white men westward. De Soto’s dwindling army passed another winter in the interior. In the spring of 1542, de Soto was struck down with fever. Three years of travel and travail had weakened his body and spirit, and in May he expired his last breath. To maintain the myth of his immortality, his loyal soldiers concealed his lifeless body from Indian eyes. In the dead of night his enshrouded corpse was weighted down with sand and sunk unto the depths of the river of the Holy Spirit. Luis de Moscoso Alvarado – nephew of Pedro de Alvarado – assumed command of the surviving conquistadors. Abandoning the futile quest, he launched seven brigantines onto the Holy Spirit and led his men down the great river to the Gulf of Mexico.34 In Central and South America, conquistadors seeking the golden city of El Dorado had to content themselves with mountains of silver.

not grand enough to be called cities, but neither were they primitive Indian camps. To the Spanish they resembled towns, or “pueblos,” and the native residents were thereafter known as Pueblo Indians. Among the Pueblo names recorded by Coronado’s scribes was “Teoas” the northernmost of the Pueblo villages, now spelled TAOS; “Quirix,” now KERES; “Hemes” now JEMEZ; and “Acuco” built upon a sandstone mesa almost 350 feet high, now ACOMA. And what Coronado called Cibola would appear in later 16th century records as “Cuni” and “Suni” now ZUNI. Most of these names were self-designations, applied to the people as much as their pueblo; their prehistoric origins remain obscure. In passing many Indian villages, Spanish conquistadors blithely provided them new names. One Pueblo situated on a small island in the Rio Grande, they called ISLETA. A Pueblo located near a small lake, or lagoon, they called LAGUNA. Finding gourds resembling watermelons in another pueblo, Coronado named it after the watermelon: SANDIA. Frustrated by his failure to find gold, Coronado raided pueblos and tortured residents. While Catholic padres pontificated to Indians in Latin, Coronado had dozens of heathens burnt alive. Hundreds more Indians, sentenced to death by fire, broke free and died fighting. Finally, an Indian slave of the Pueblo Indians told the Spanish what they desired to hear: hundreds of leagues to the east lay a golden city called “Gran Quivira.” Before striking east across the plains Coronado detached part of his army under Garcia Lopez de Cardenas, giving him orders to reconnoiter farther west. As Spanish cavalrymen rode toward the setting sun, the yellow-red spread of desert changed color around them. Stratified layers of rock showed a full spectrum of colors: yellow, red, orange, green, blue, violet. The Spanish called this desert “Pintado” – the PAINTED Desert. Cardenas began investigating reports of a large river and ravine cutting through the desert. After thirsty days travelling across arid plains, his awestruck conquistadors stood at the precipice of a vast canyon. The river below looked no more than a trickle to the Spaniards, but their Indian guides assured them that closer inspection would prove it a broad torrent. Two Spaniards who descended a third of the depth confirmed the immense scale of the canyon: rocks that looked no taller than a man from the heights had proven to be grander than the great tower of Seville. The Spaniards had encountered many deep ravines, but this one was a mile deep, many miles wide, and hundreds of miles long. They called it “El Gran Canon” or THE GRAND CANYON. Coronado, meanwhile, ventured east through 1541 toward disappointment. Sudden tempests sent down hailstones as large as bowls, which smashed their crockery, dented their armor, and wounded men and horses. Coronado pushed on across a sea of grass; in a dispatch to Charles V, he wrote of “llanos,” or plains, so vast he never saw their limits. Across the grassy plains Spaniards saw enormous herds of buffalo, called bison. Indian tribes migrated with the beast, eating its flesh, carving tools and weapons from its bones, and stitching clothes and tents from its skin. In their first attempts to replicate a successful Indian hunt, Spanish caballeros showed their inexperience: their gunshots started a stampede that saw buffalo trample one another, before the herd ran headlong into a ravine – which was soon filled to ground level with writhing buffalo and overzealous Spanish cavalrymen. Coronado’s conquistadors encountered a tribal alliance whose expansive dominions earned a lasting place on the map, with expedition records referring to the “Tejas” and “Teyas” – an Indian term signifying Friends or Allies. Open and amicable, the Tejas spoke of other Spaniards they had seen years earlier; Coronado deduced that they had seen Cabeza de Vaca.

Though the tribe migrated widely across the plains with the buffalo, they knew of no golden cities or ‘Gran Quivira.” Coronado remembered the tribespeople with painted faces and bodies; others in the expedition described them as an intelligent people, whose men were deadly with a bow and arrow, and whose women were well-built and modest. For centuries to come, travelers could meet the “Tejas” in their own lands, TEXAS. Coronado passed the winter of 1541-42 amongst the devastated Pueblos, considering his next course of exploration. But while horseracing against his officers, the seasoned cavalryman fell from his horse and was trampled under the hooves of another. His body took months to heal but he never recovered his old vitality. Calling off the expedition in spring, he led his surviving soldiers back to Mexico. He died the following decade in Mexico City.36

By 1541 Viceroy Mendoza and Governor Alvarado of Guatemala had assembled a large fleet for an ambitious exploration of the Pacific Ocean. Due to command the Pacific fleet, Alvarado was fatally crushed by a falling horse during an Indian uprising in July; inheriting her late husband’s estates, Beatriz de la Cueva became the first female governor in the New World – but died in a volcanic mudslide in September.37 Mendoza then divided the fleet, sending three ships north under the command of Juan Cabrillo. A battle-hardened veteran and a true soldier of fortune, Cabrillo had served under Velazquez and Narvaez in Cuba; defected from Narvaez to join Cortes in the conquest of Mexico; and then switched allegiance from Cortes to Alvarado during the conquest of Guatemala and Honduras. Now under Mendoza’s commission, Cabrillo was to seek a northern passage linking the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, and search for the Seven Cities of Cibola. Probing the coast of California, alternating between long sandy beaches and precipitous coastal cliffs, Cabrillo provided names to some of its largest bays.38 Reached in late September 28, 1542, on the eve of the feast of St Michael, Cabrillo named one bay “San Miguel,” the same name as one of his three ships. Finding numerous fires burning around the shores of another, he named it the “Bahia de Fumos” or the Bay of Smokes. Farther north, he found another bay of Pines and so named it, “Bahia de los Pinos.” Cabrillo continued to a northernmost latitude around the 38th parallel but found few signs of wealth and no sign of a strait leading back to the Atlantic. The aging conquistador met a banal death on his return south:

stepping ashore he slipped on jagged rock and splintered his shinbone; the wound festered and claimed his life in January 1543. Co-pilot Bartolome Ferrelo assumed command of the expedition, re-embarking with Pacific winds to a northernmost latitude around the 40th parallel before aborting the mission. A broad cape around the 40th parallel would later appear on maps under the name of Little Mendoza, MENDOCINO. Perhaps Ferrelo suggested the name to gain favor with Viceroy Mendoza; perhaps the viceroy, or a younger member of the Mendoza family, suggested the name. Cabrillo and Ferrelo’s incomplete records and imprecise charts allowed later explorer and cartographers to treat the map of California as a blank slate. Yet Cabrillo or Ferrelo may be credited with one more name surviving deep within California. Standing on the quarterdeck, with a view unbroken by sea mist or mountain haze, one of the captains must have gazed inland and seen a snowy mountain range – in the following decade Spanish maps of California began to show a SIERRA NEVADA. Contemporary with the California expedition of Cabrillo and Ferrelo, Viceroy Mendoza sent the remainder of the Pacific fleet under Ruy Lopez de Villalobos to Asia. 39 An armada of six ships completed the voyage east to west across the Pacific but all attempts to recross west to east failed. Villalobos and scores of crewmen died of hunger and disease, while survivors accompanied Portuguese ships across the Indian and Atlantic Oceans back to Lisbon. To complete the return voyage from Asia to North America, Spanish navigators finally learned to catch easterlies across the North Pacific – which discharged ships off the northern California coast around the 40th parallel and Cape Mendocino. In 1540, after two decades spent exploring and exploiting the ruins of the Aztec Empire, Cortes left Mexico for the last time. He returned to Spain fabulously rich but burdened by enormous debts and legal charges. In 1541 he accompanied Charles V on his expedition against Algiers, a semi-independent stronghold of the Ottoman Empire. In the catastrophic campaign, some 10,000 troops from across Charles’ European realms were killed or captured and sold into slavery. Cortes was lucky to escape with his life. Charles retreated to Europe, abandoning his ambitions of extending his Holy Roman Empire across North Africa. Because of Cortes and his comrades-in-arms, Charles yet ruled over the most expansive empire in history – the first empire on which the sun never set. But the pious emperor had lost patience with the brutal excesses of the conquistadors. In 1542 Charles introduced the New Laws, banning the enslavement of Indians and restricting the encomienda system. Cortes and the conquistadors of New Spain objected to reductions of their estates but offered little resistance to the crown; Cortes’ petitions for a pension were repeatedly denied by Charles. In South America conquistadors defied the New Laws, with Gonzalo Pizarro directing the decapitation of the first viceroy of Peru and leading an open revolt against his king and emperor; the colonial revolt collapsed after soldiers loyal to Charles decapitated Pizarro.40 Striving to revive his fortunes in 39 Crossing the Pacific, Villalobos reached an archipelago southeast of China in 1542. In honor of Prince Philip, son and heir of Charles V, Villalobos christened the islands the PHILIPPINES. Seeking alternate courses across the Pacific, Villalobos sent Inigo Ortiz de Retes to explore a more southerly route. In 1545 Ortiz de Retes reached the northern shores of a large island whose dark-skinned inhabitants reminded him of the Africans he had earlier encountered along the Guinea coast of Africa. He thus named it “Nueva Guinea,” now NEW GUINEA. 40 In 1548, with Gonzalo Pizarro’s death ending civil war for control of the old Incan Empire, the interim viceroy sent Alonso de Mendoza to found a new city high in the Andes; celebrating The Peace in Upper Peru, Mendoza founded LA PAZ.

Spain, Cortes was preparing to return to Mexico in 1547 when he died of natural causes. Having outlasted Cortes, Mendoza left the Viceroyalty of New Spain in 1550 to become the second Viceroy of Peru.41 Yet new generations of conquistadors ventured north from New Spain, driven by the persistent belief that somewhere in the immensity of North America must lay another civilization comparable to that of the Aztecs: another Mexico. They found deposits of silver and opened profitable mining districts, but none of gold.42 Jesuit and Franciscan priests – whose influence grew with the reduction of the conquistadors – encountered and converted many undocumented tribes, none of whom inhabited large cities.43 Still belief persisted in an undiscovered civilization in New Spain. In 1561 Franciscan father Jacinto de San Francisco wrote of “Nuevo Mexico” – NEW MEXICO; the context suggested it was already a familiar placename, though not actually fastened to a specific place. Francisco de Ibarra, governor of a newly created province in the north of New Spain,44 scouted the northern deserts for new mining regions and the Seven Cities of Cibola. Reports of “Nuevo Mexico” piqued his interest and in 1562 he ventured north to investigate. Keeping a safe distance, Ibarra spied from the hills a village of Indians dressed much like the peoples of Mexico. Despite the limited scale and modest architecture of the village, Ibarra was convinced he had located a great civilization. To his ears the natives even beat their drums “as men beat drums in Mexico.” After Governor Ibarra declared that he had found New Mexico, the name became an official designation for a region north of Mexico. In fact, Ibarra had discovered nothing new: his

With peace, veteran conquistadors pushed deeper into the interior of South America, establishing new cities in the names of old Spanish hometowns. In Peru, in the late 1540s, Diego Palomino honored his hometown of JAEN; while in the Equatorial region, Alonso de Mercadillo honored his hometown of LOJA. In 1549, in New Granada, Pedro de Ursua honored his Basque hometown of PAMPLONA; Ursua later pursued El Dorado with the mad conquistador, Lope de Aguirre, who doubled-crossed him and had him murdered. In the 1550s, conquistadors founded several Venezuelan cities under Spanish names. Juan de Villegas honored his

hometown in “Nueva Segovia de Barquisimeto,” but his New Segovia yielded to a native name for the local ash- colored river, BARQUISIMETO. Alonso Diaz Moreno named VALENCIA, not for the large city in Aragon, but for

his small hometown of Valencia de Don Juan, in Castile and Leon. Juan Rodriguez Suarez honored his Spanish hometown of MERIDA; in pursuit of the rogue conquistador, Lope de Aguirre, Suarez was later killed in an Indian attack. Diego Garcia de Paredes, another cousin of the Pizarros, honored his hometown of TRUJILLO; in 1561, Paredes helped trap Aguirre in Barquisimeto, where the “Wrath of God” was finally killed by one of his own men. In 1561, in Upper Peru, Nuflo de Chavez founded a city in the mountains named after his mountainous hometown in Spain, SANTA CRUZ DE LA SIERRA, literally the Holy Cross of the Mountains; married into the Mendoza family, Chavez established himself as a powerful figure in the region until he too was killed by Indians. 41 The extended Mendoza family remained the most powerful dynasty in the New World. In 1556 Andres Hurtado de Mendoza, 3rd Marques of Canete, became the third Viceroy of Peru. In 1557, in the Equatorial region, officials honored the viceroy by naming a new city after his Spanish hometown, CUENCA. The viceroy granted the governorship of Chile to his son, Garcia Hurtado de Mendoza, who in 1558 founded one Chilean city under his father’s title, CANETE; and another under the title of his grandfather, Garcia Fernandez Manrique, 3rd Count of OSORNO, former president of the Council of the Indies. In 1561, after Garcia Hurtado became the 5th Marques of Canete, he established the Argentinian city of MENDOZA. Like his father, he would later become Viceroy of Peru. 42 Conquistadors discovered silver mines in PACHUCA, an enigmatic name that might once have signified Place where they work metal. Other early silver mines were opened in GUANAJUATO, a Place of Frogs; and ZACATECAS, a Place of Zacate Grass, or Grassland People 43 Jesuits and Franciscan records show newly encountered Indian tribes like “Quahuilas” around COAHUILA, and “Tamaholipa” around TAMAULIPAS. 44 In 1562 Francisco de Ibarra was appointed Governor of “Nueva Vizcaya,” New Biscay. In the following year founded a city named for his home in the Basque region of Spain, DURANGO.

New Mexico had no more substance than Coronado’s Seven Cities of Cibola – both were based on exaggerated tales of poor Pueblo villages. Conquistadors persisted in the search for golden civilizations. With the Americas offering ever diminishing returns, voracious Spaniards extended their search across the Pacific.45 46