Читать книгу The Gilded Man (El Dorado) and other pictures of the Spanish occupancy of America - Adolph Francis Alphonse Bandelier - Страница 5

Table of Contents

As we have mentioned, the conquest of New Granada by Gonzalo Ximenes de Quesada concluded, as to the whole of Spanish America, that series of extraordinary discoveries of precious metals in the possession of the natives which exercised so sudden an influence on the value of gold, among European peoples in particular. When the Peruvian spoil was divided at Cassamarca in 1533 the peso, which contains about the same quantity of metal as our dollar, had an exchangeable value nearly the same as that of a pound sterling, or $4.85; but by 1553 its value had declined, according to the learned Mexican student, Orozco y Berra, to $2.93, or about forty per cent. During these twenty years Mexico alone yielded in gold and silver together 1,355,793 pesos. The four ships which arrived in Spain from Peru on the 5th of December, 1533, and the 9th of January and 3d of June, 1534, carried, without including golden vessels and ornaments, 708,590 pesos in gold and 240,680 pesos in silver. The spoil of New Granada amounted to 246,972 pesos in gold alone. These examples, drawn from two years only in South America, show clearly that the great depreciation of the precious metals we have just cited is to be ascribed principally to the findings in Peru and New Granada. The value of silver fell about eighty-four per cent. in Europe between 1514 and 1610, a fall which was caused by the working of the silver mines of Potosi in Bolivia. These yielded, between 1545 and 1564, 641,250,000 pesos or piastres in silver. The discovery of New Granada had an especial effect on the value of emeralds.

It cannot be denied that this sudden depreciation of the metallic media of exchange had a great influence on the demand for them, while it covered the search for them with the mantle of a legitimate want. The need of specie was evident, and the less the material of which coins were made was worth, the more of it must be had. To this was added the fact that the simple necessities of life on which Europeans depended for existence were at first not to be got, for example, in Peru. The first horses sold there brought 6000 pesos (equivalent to at least $28,000 in present values); and in 1554 Alonzo de Alvarado offered in vain 10,000 pesos, or $29,300, for an ordinary saddle-horse. Between thirty and forty pesos were paid in Cassamarca soon after the division of the spoil for a pair of half-boots, and forty or fifty pesos for a sword. The first cow was sold in Cuzco in 1550 for two hundred pesos. Nine years later the price of a cow had fallen to seventeen pesos. Wine began to be cheaper about 1554, when a ship landed at Truxillo with two thousand casks; the first cask was sold for six hundred ducats, and the last one for two hundred ducats.

Still, no explanation or excuse can be found in these extreme instances for the reckless, passionate eagerness with which the Spaniards, without waiting to secure one treasure, pursued the visions of others. The transactions and expeditions subsequent to the conquest of New Granada, of which the dorado was the object, depended on such fancies.

Before describing the second period of the search for the dorado, let us return to the fourth decade of the sixteenth century and take a view of a number of enterprises carried out at the same time with the conquests of Peru and New Granada, by the aid of which we may be better prepared in historical and geographical knowledge for the understanding of later events. The regions on which we have to fix our attention for this purpose are the present republic of Venezuela and southeastern New Granada.

While Dalfinger was engaged in his arduous expedition to the Magdalena, considerable attempts were begun to found colonies on the northeastern coast of the South American continent. Antonio Sedeño, contador of the island of Puerto Rico, was a wealthy and prominent man. One of his contemporaries, Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo y Valdés, says of him that “under the pretext of serving God and his king he hoped, through what he possessed and through his estates on the island of St. John, to acquire a larger property on the island of Trinidad and on the mainland, and greater honor. But it did not turn out to the advantage of his purse, for while he despised what he had, he pursued the schemes of his fancy. … This lust for ruling and for being more than others caused him to lose his property, and, what was more, his time too, and exposed his body as well as his soul to great danger and trouble.”[18] Sedeño sought and obtained the appointment of governor of Trinidad, with the design of “building a strong house there” (de labrar una casa fuerte),[19] of which he should be the alcalde. But his concession did not extend beyond the island.

Nevertheless, having left San Lúcar de Barrameda on the 18th of September, 1530, with seventy men, Sedeño’s first act after reaching Trinidad was to take formal possession of it and then pass over to the mainland. There, on the Gulf of Paria, he built, outside of his province, and contrary to his commission, the “strong house” which he had contemplated building in Trinidad. This act, apparently insignificant in itself, was of great importance for the future. Sedeño left a small garrison in the “strong house,” and sailed to the Antilles to procure reënforcements. He hoped that he had in the meantime secured undisputed possession of the mainland, even though it was without higher sanction. But without his knowledge a former companion of Cortés, Diego de Ordaz, the same person to whom is ascribed the first ascension of the Mexican volcano Popocatepetl, had obtained in Spain a concession for the colonization of the then very indefinite district of Marañon on the mainland. This concession was granted in 1530, and included permission to occupy the coast from the territory leased to Welser & Co. to the mouth of the Marañon, and to erect four fortresses. An allowance of 725,000 maravedis a year was set aside for him, while he had also an assured income from Mexico of between 6000 and 7000 pesos. Ordaz fitted out two ships and a caravel in Spain at his own cost, and sailed from San Lúcar de Barrameda with four hundred and fifty men on the 20th of October, 1531. Although an additional caravel joined the squadron at the Canary Islands, and the aggregate force was increased to six hundred men, yet, in consequence of heavy storms, the Admiral’s ship was the only vessel that came in sight of the South American coast, near the mouth of the Amazon.[20] Ordaz sailed on thence northward along the coast to Paria, where he found the fort built by Sedeño. He captured this post by assault, regarding it as belonging to his concession, and kept it for a further base of operations. Ordaz thought so little of the region of the mouths of the Amazon and of the coast of southern Guiana that he abandoned all attempts there and decided to turn to the nearer-lying mouths of the Orinoco. He fitted out a flotilla of seven galleys from Paria, with which, with two hundred and eighty men and eighteen horses, to explore the thickly wooded labyrinth of the delta of that river.

The fleet was worked with great difficulty through one of the numerous channels up into the principal arm of the river. The relations of Ordaz with the Arnaks,[21] the scattered inhabitants of that swampy, unhealthy wilderness, were for the most part of a tolerably friendly character. But when the tribe of Baratubaro refused to furnish him provisions he punished them severely for it. Sailing up the principal stream, he at length came to the falls of the Orinoco, near Atures and Maypures, since made famous by Alexander von Humboldt, where the miles of rapids and small cataracts by which the course of the river was broken made further navigation impossible. Before this the officers of the expedition had vainly tried to persuade Ordaz to abandon his boats and press into the interior. Now it was necessary to leave the boats. On the right extended a broad savanna, on which a hostile encounter took place with the Indians. They informed Ordaz that the river flowed from a large lake which lay in the midst of high and rugged mountains. The way thither lay through a province called Meta, which was thickly populated and rich in gold. Silver, which the Spaniards showed the natives, was not known to them, but they recognized gold at once as the substance that was abundant in Meta. They pointed to the west as the direction in which this land was to be found. Unfortunately, the river was falling so rapidly that Ordaz would not venture to march inland. Unwillingly he had to embark again and begin a dangerous and laborious retreat. Eighty of his men died from the hardships of the voyage; with the rest, ill and despondent, he reached Paria. His purpose was, since the Indians near the falls of the Orinoco had spoken so highly of the wealth of Meta, to march overland thither from the northern coast of Venezuela—the Gulf of Cariaco. He left a little colony of a hundred souls at Paria, and sent a part of his force under Alonzo de Herrera to Cumaná, following it himself eight days later. To his surprise he was received at Cumaná with cannon-shots, and was informed that his men were on the island of Cubagua, and that the post belonged to that jurisdiction. Greatly astonished at this unexpected communication and at his hostile reception, he crossed over to Cubagua, where most unpleasant information was imparted to him.

During the period of nearly two years which Ordaz had spent on the Orinoco Sedeño had been informed of the occupation of the post he had established at Paria. He at once appealed to Spain against what he styled a violent attack on his rights. He cited the terms of Ordaz’s concession, which, indeed, confirmed to him the coast from the Marañon to the limits of Welser’s leasehold, but defined the length of the coast-line as two hundred leagues from the mouth of the Marañon. Sedeño insisted that under the latter clause Paria was outside of that concession, and therefore contested the right of Ordaz to occupy the post there. The contention was in many respects characteristic of the times. It especially illustrates the vagueness of the geographical ideas of the period, which estimated the distance from the easternmost point of the German concession in Venezuela to the mouth of the Amazon as only two hundred leagues. The Crown decided in favor of Sedeño so far as to order Ordaz to restore to him the property he had seized, and to satisfy himself with the prescribed two hundred leagues of coast, which he could choose either “from the Cape of La Vela toward the Marañon, or from the Marañon toward the Cape of La Vela,” as he might prefer.[22] Ordaz was further ordered to restore to the jurisdiction of the city of New Cadiz, on the island of Cubagua, the coast of Cumaná, which he claimed. The inhabitants of Cubagua had joined with Sedeño against Ordaz, and when the latter came upon the island he found that his people had been dispersed, and his lieutenant, Alonzo Herrera, was held a prisoner. Ordaz all at once found himself alone, and grieving bitterly over his loss, sailed for Spain, in order to contend there for his claims, and if possible to organize a new expedition. Death overtook him on the ocean in 1533, and the waves were his grave.

Of all their laborious enterprises, there was left to the party of Ordaz only the post in Paria. Sedeño seized this also, and thus seemed to make himself sole heir of the scanty acquisitions of his unfortunate rival. The chief of them was, so far as the interests of the time were concerned, a name—Meta; signifying the intangible, enticing vision of a land of gold, which was to be found west of the Orinoco. But before Sedeño could enter upon the pursuit of this vision a bitter quarrel arose between him and his confederates at Cubagua over the ambiguous decision of the Crown already mentioned. The control of the island of Trinidad cost him much labor and a large sum of money, and when he landed at Paria on his return thence he found that the island of Cubagua now claimed that post.

It is aside from the purpose of this sketch to consider the controversies and contentions, continuing till the end of 1534, between Sedeño and the administration of Cubagua, of which the “strong house” in Paria, called by Oviedo “the house of discord” (casa de discordia), was the object. In consequence of them Sedeño was put in prison. Nothing was accomplished on the mainland, because each party alternately stood in the way of the other engaging in any important enterprise; but man-stealing was carried on on the northern coast of Venezuela, as before from Cubagua and Margarita, without hindrance. Notwithstanding the complete miscarriage of the enterprises of Diego de Ordaz and his death, a number of men and officers at Paria remained faithful to the memory, at least, of his plans. They had indeed to submit to the authority which was exercised alternately by Sedeño and the people at Cubagua, but they never gave up the hope of making use on their own account of the information which they had collected on their memorable campaign to the falls of the Orinoco. Alonzo de Herrera, the former prisoner at Cubagua, afterward Sedeño’s associate, finally acquired and maintained the command of the “house of discord” on the mainland at Paria.