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Don Pedro Sarmiento c.1590. summed up his long life of service to Spain,
“by land and sea; in times of war and times and peace; with sword
and pen; amidst most grave events and occurrences; with prosperous results
and perils safely past; all thanks, honour and glory to God.”
Being a compendium of odd bits that I find interesting but haven't found a proper place to put them.
1500-1600 Tampa Bay was inhabited by the aboriginal people known
as the Tocobago, affiliated with Timuccuan who populated most of central
Florida.
1519 Alonzo Alvarez de Pineda explores the coast of the Gulf
of Mexico, drawing the first known map of Tampa Bay.
1528 Pánfilo de Narváez with five ships, lands
an army of some 500 men and 40 horses and marches north along the coast.
1539 Hernando de Soto, with nine ships, leads to Tampa Bay an
expedition of 600 men and 220 horses. A base camp is established and occupied
for six months with a garrison of 100 men at native village, while the
rest of the army proceeds inland.
1549 Leaving from Veracruz, Mexico, Father Luis Cancer Barbastro
attempted to establish a mission. Ignoring the warnings John Munoz, a soldier
of De Soto’s expedition who had been captured by the natives 10 years before;
Father Cancer was beaten to death upon landing.
1567 Pedro Menendez de Aviles, Spanish Governor of Florida, sailed
into Tampa Bay and was granted permission to leave a small garrison of
thirty men under Captain Garcia Martinez de Cos; Nine months later a supply
ship returned to find that all thirty had been massacred.
Most of the Spanish recruits were indolent, parasitic 'gentlemen’, second sons left penniless by the laws of inheritance. Since the most degrading thing a Spanish gentlemen could do was to work, many of these second sons sailed to the New World, hoping to share in the spoils of conquest and gain estates of their own. Mexico city was full of them, “who, like a cork floating upon water, ” one Spaniard noted, “went about with nothing to do...all importuning the Viceroy to grant them favors and the citizens of Mexico to feed them at their tables.”
Witness after witness stood up and testified that the recruits were men of “no occupation, [who] were bad characters...without income, and lazy.” Another witness noted that it would be “one of the greatest blessings that had come to New Spain” if these people departed, as “they were mostly single and dissolute men without anything to do..but eat and loaf.”1
“As each one,” Castañeda wrote, “was obliged to transport his
own baggage and all did not know how to fasten the packs, and as the horses
started off fat and plump, they had a good deal of difficulty and labor...In
the end necessity, which is all powerful, made them skillful, so that one
could see many gentlemen become carriers, and anybody who despised work
was not considered a man.”2
1 Preston, Douglas. Cities of Gold: A Journey Across the American Southwest in Pursuit of Coronado. (Simon & Schuster: New York, 1992) p.47.
2 Preston. p. 76.
After the captain showed him cloths of divers colors, and linen, coral
and many other goods, and all that artillery, several pieces of which he
caused to be fired before his eyes, whereby the king was greatly astonished.
This done, the said captain had one of his men clad in plate armor and
put him in the middle of three of his companions who struck him with swords
and daggers. Which thing the king thought very strange. And the captain
gave him to understand there were two hundred such as that man. He showed
a great number of swords, or cuirasses, and bucklers, and then he had two
of his men exercise at swordplay before the king. And he showed him the
marine chart and the compass of his ship, telling him how he had found
the strait [by which] to come hither, and of the time which he had spent
in coming, also how he had not seen any land. At which the king marveled.1
Sounds a lot like a Calderon’s Company afternoon at De Soto National Memorial!
1 Pigafetta, Antonio. Translated and Edited by R.A. Skelton Magellan’s Voyage: A Narrative Account of the First Circumnavigation. (Dover Publications: New York, 1994) p.68.
We captains and soldiers were all somewhat sad when we saw how little gold there was and how poor and mean our shares would be. The Mercedarian friar, Pedro Alvardo, Cristobal de Olid, and other captains told Cortes that since there was so little gold, the entire share that would fall to us ought to be divided among those who were maimed and lame and blind, or had lost an eye or their hearing, and others who had were crippled of had pains in their stomachs, or had been burnt by the powder, or were suffering from pains in their sides...
...After making the calculation, they told us a horseman would receive eighty pesos, and a crossbowman, musketeer, or shield-bearer fifty or sixty - I do not remember which - and when we heard this figure not a single soldier was willing to accept his share.
While Cortes was at Coyocan, he lodged in a palace with whitewashed walls on which it was easy to write with charcoal and ink; and every morning malicious remarks appeared, some in verse and some in prose, in the manner of lampoons...Another said that he had dealt us a worse defeat than he had given to Mexico, and that we ought to call ourselves not the victors of New Spain but the victims of Hernando Cortes...
Many of us were in debt to one another. Some owed fifty or sixty pesos for crossbows, and others fifty for a sword...and there were thirty other tricks or swindles for which payment was demanded out of our shares...An order went out that whatever price was placed on our purchases or the surgeon’s cures must be accepted, and that if we had no money, our creditors must wait two years for payment. And I must say that in the end, in compensation for the slaves sold by auction, the remaining gold all fell to the King’s officials.
When Cortes found many of the soldiers were still insolently demanding
larger shares, saying he had stolen everything for himself, and begging
him to lend them money, he decided to free himself from their clutches
and send them to settle in any province that seemed to him suitable.1
1 Díaz, Bernal. The Conquest of New Spain.
Penguin books: New York, 1963. pp.410-412.
My wife, Jennifer,
recently completed her graduate studies and at long last finds herself
with some free time again. She’s considering spending some of this in the
modern sixteenth century. Realizing that she’ll never pass for the ship’s
boy, she was curious as to the role of women on expeditions to the New
World. My suggestion that the camp could use a laundress was met with this
reply; “The proper way to wash a codpiece is to place it in freezing cold
water and crush the foul thing between two large flat rocks.” So at her
suggestion, some examples of women on expeditions to the New World.
Although men comprised the vast majority of those
taking part in the Spanish entradas of the first half of the sixteenth
century, such expeditions were not exclusively male. The chronicles of
the time reflect the fact that many women, with their retainers, accompanied
their husbands from Spain to the New World. Still others stayed with these
expeditions as they ventured into unknown regions and some even went so
far as to actively participate in combat when circumstances required.
Cortés c. 1521 in Mexico
Hernan Cortés’ army of Spaniards was accompanied by a large number of native auxiliaries. Most notable among these was “Dona Marina," formerly Malinali, a Mayan noblewoman who served as interpreter. A few Spanish women also traveled: these were two sisters of Diego de Ordaz, three or four maids, and one or two women who went as house keepers. The exact role of these particular “conquistadoras”- the word was used by Andrea del Castillo, Francisco de Montejo’s daughter-in-law, in a subsequent inquiry - is unclear. But no doubt the lady was correct when she said that, when women of her quality did take part in these engagements, their work was considerable. One or two of these women certainly later fought effectively.1
Several Castillian women established themselves in Cortés’ camp as nurses; Isabel Rodríguez, for example, who was said to have a legendary touch with the wounded; and Beatriz de Pardes, a mulata who not only nursed but on occasion fought in the place of her husband, Pedro de Escoto.2
At the feast celebrating the fall of Tenochtitlan
[Mexico City]. When the tables were taken away there was gambling - and
dancing. The few women who had been with the expedition came into their
own: María de Estrada, for example, the extraordinary conquistadora
whose valor at the battle of the bridges on the noche triste had inspired
such admiration; and Francisca, the sister of Diego de Ordaz. The two girls
called “la Bermuda” were there. These adventurous women went gaily to dance
with men still in their quilted armor.3
Narvaez c.1528 in La Florida
Curiously enough, since Cabaza de Vaca does not mention it until the epilog, women accompanied the Narvaez expedition to La Florida at least for the beginning stages. Whether this was an intentional part of the plan for settlement or simply the result of the fleet having been driven to the coast of Florida by contrary winds is not explained in the narrative.
“At the time we split from the ships, one of them had already been lost in the breakers and the other three faced a dangerous prospect, with low stores and nearly a hundred souls on board, ten of them married women.
One of them had prophesied to the Governor many things that later actually befell him. She warned him before he plunged inland not to go; that he nor anyone with him could ever escape; though should one get back, the Almighty must work great wonders for him. She however, believed few or none of us would ever be seen again. The Governor said that, after all, he and his men were going to fight wholly unknown nations, and of course he would indeed be fortunate from what he understood of the riches of that land. Yet he begged her to tell him where she got her notions of what was going to happen that was past as well as these things to come, and she replied that they had told her in Castile by a Moorish women of Hornachos, She said many things happened on the passage the way she foretold.
After the Governor departed... and the people
on the ships ...had got back on board, they distinctly heard that woman
say to the other women that their husbands were the same as dead and that
they might as well be looking for after whom they would marry next; she
was going to. And she did presently “marry”. So did the other wives “marry”
with men who remained in the ships.”4
De Soto c.1539 in La Florida
Francisca Hinestrosa, a Spanish woman and the wife of Hernando Bautista accompanied the De Soto expedition until it reached Chicaca, March 4, 1541.5
From Garcilaso’s story of the expedition, “In addition to the anguish our Spaniards felt for the loss of their companions and for the death of the horses, which were the very strength of the army, they were grieved further by a particular incident which occurred on that same night. For among them was one sole Spanish female, Francisca de Hinestrosa, who was married to a good soldier named Hernando Bautista and was in her days of childbirth. Now since the attack was so sudden, this woman’s husband went out to fight, but when the battle was over and he returned to inquire about his wife, he found that she, being unable to escape the flames, was burned to charcoal.”6
In spite of Garcilaso’s statement to the to the contrary there is another woman whose presence in Florida during its exploration is well documented. Ana Menedez, was a witness in the probanza of Alonso Vazquez in Jerez de Badajoz, Spain, in the year 1560. She declared that she was a servant of Doña Ysabel de Bobadilla and about thirty-one years of age. [ If her age is correct this means she was aged nine at the time of the time of the entrada’s arrival in Florida! ] To the questions presented to her, she answered that Alonso Vazquez was in Florida and that she was involved in all that took place at that time. Specifically, when asked if it was true that after arriving at a marsh, which took three days to cross while going with out food, they arrived at a province called Ocal, where food was found, she answered: That she remembered crossing that swamp, there being much water in it...which they went through much labor in three days, but does not recall if the they spent time without food. She continued assenting to most of the questions, answering to one that she saw the Indians kill Don Carlos, her master, and that Alonso Vazquez was wounded by an arrow in an ankle and was a long time lame. She also testified that they went from Florida to Mexico, wearing skins. Lastly she did not sign her declarations for she stated she could not write.7
Finally it should be remembered that three or
four names of women appear in connection with the original enlistments
but we cannot be sure that they got any farther than the wives of de Soto,
Baltasar de Gallegos, Don Carlos Enriquez, and Nuño de Tobar who
remained in Cuba.8
1 Thomas, Hugh. Conquest: Montezuma, Cortéz, and the Fall of Old Mexico. (Touchstone: New York, 1993)p.152.
2 Thomas. p.513.
3 Thomas. p.529.
4 Covey, Cyclone Trans.&Annot. Cabeza de Vaca’s Adventures in the Unknown Interior of America (University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque: 1993) p.138.
5 Swanton, John R. The Final Report of the United States De Soto Expedition Commission. (Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington 1985) p.359.
6 Vega, Garcilaso de la. Trans. John and Jeannette Varner. The Florida of the Inca. (University of Texas Press, Austin 1988)p.403.
7 Avellaneda, Ignacio. Los Sobreviventes de la Florida: The Survivors of the De Soto Expedition. (University of Florida Libraries: Gainesville, Florida 1990) pp.38-39.
8 Swanton. p.83.
Some Additional Conquistadora Info:
Subject: Re: 17th Century Battlefield ECW - were women present?
Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1999
From: "Robert Sulentic" <sulooney@erols.com>
soc.history.living
Well, its not England,
but there was a book out a few years ago, called "Lieutenant Nun" the memoirs of a Spanish Nun who ran away from her convent, took ship to South America and ended up in the colonial forces over there (As an officer!) She was eventually found out, but the reaction was more of "wow, lookit that', than anything else. The thing reads like a spaghetti western with rapiers.
RNS
Lieutenant Nun : Memoir of a Basque Transvestite in the New World
by Catalina De Erauso,Synopsis
Michele Stepto (Translator),
Gabriel Stepto (Translator)List Price: $12.00
Paperback - 128 pages (June 1997)
Beacon Pr; ISBN: 0807070734
Born in San Sebastian in 1585, Catalina de Erauso fled a convent at 15 and spent the rest of her life dressed as a man. In 1603, she became a soldier and fought in the conquest of Chile and Peru. Gambling and brawling her way through the mining towns of the Andean highlands, she finally revealed her true identity 20 years later and became an instant celebrity.
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