Spanish Trinidad [1 ed.] 9789766376697, 9789766376239

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Spanish Trinidad (La Trinidad Española)

Puerto España, agosto de 2012 La Embajada de España, con el fin de conmemorar el L Aniversario de la Independencia de la República de Trinidad y Tobago (31 de agosto de 2012), decidió en 2010 poner en marcha, a través de la Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional para el Desarrollo (AECID/MAEC), la publicación de la primera historia de la isla de Trinidad (Siglos XV– XVIII), narrada desde la perspectiva española. A tal fin, se encargó al Profesor D. Francisco Morales Padrón (Universidad de Sevilla) la preparación de La Trinidad Española, publicada en su idioma original en 2011, y cuya versión en inglés, esta Spanish Trinidad, vio la luz, gracias al esfuerzo y dedicación del Profesor D. Armando García de la Torre (Universidad de las Indias Occidentales/UWI) y al generoso apoyo de REPSOL, en agosto de 2012. El Gobierno de España dedica esta obra a las generaciones presentes y futuras de trinitobaguenses, para que puedan conocer y apreciar el valioso legado histórico de la dilatada etapa española en Trinidad. Nuestros pueblos comparten un pasado importante y fecundo, herencia que nos emplaza a construir, conjuntamente, un futuro de prosperidad y bienestar para nuestros ciudadanos. Joaquín de Arístegui Laborde Embajador de España en la República de Trinidad y Tobago

Port of Spain, August 2012 In commemoration of the 50th Anniversary of Independence of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago (31st August, 2012), the Embassy of Spain, through the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID/MFA), undertook in 2010 the publication of the first ever historical chronicle of the island of Trinidad (15th-18th centuries), presented from a Spanish perspective. Professor Francisco Morales Padrón (University of Seville) was entrusted with writing La Trinidad Española, which was published in its original language in 2011. The subsequent English version was released in August 2012, as a result of the efforts and commitment of Professor Armando García de la Torre (UWI), as well as the generous support of REPSOL. The Government of Spain dedicates this book to present and future generations of Trinidadians and Tobagonians, so that they may know and appreciate the valuable historical legacy of the lengthy Spanish era of Trinidad. Our peoples share a fruitful and important past, a heritage upon which together we may continue to build a future of prosperity and well-being for our citizens. Joaquín de Arístegui Laborde Ambassador of Spain to the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago

Repsol tiene el honor de contribuir a las iniciativas emprendidas por el Gobierno de España a través de su Embajada en Trinidad y Tobago, para conmemorar el L Aniversario de la Independencia, bajo el lema “Trinidad y Tobago y España: compartir un pasado, la construcción de un futuro”. Esta edición en inglés de “La Trinidad Española” es un libro que cubre 300 años de fascinante historia de Trinidad, desde la llegada de Colón en su tercer viaje a América el 31 de julio 1498 a las innovadoras medidas económicas y sociales adoptadas a finales del Siglo XVIII por el último Gobernador Español de la Trinidad, Don José María Chacón. Nombres como, entre otros, Puerto de España -en su época llamado Puerto de los Españoles-, San José, San Fernando, Valencia, Sangre Grande, La Brea, San Juan, Río Claro, Las Cuevas, evidencian ese legado común de 300 años. Destacando la iniciativa del Excmo. Sr. D. Joaquín de Arístegui Laborde, Embajador de España en Trinidad y Tobago y ante la CARICOM, agradecemos al Gobierno de España que haya invitado a Repsol a participar en este gran proyecto, que enriquece el conocimiento y la comprensión de la Historia de Trinidad y Tobago, junto con la de España.   Puerto España, agosto de 2012 Luis Polo Navas Álvaro Racero Baena Director Ejecutivo Regional, Repsol Director Principal Caribe y Norte de Sur América Repsol Trinidad y Tobago Exploración y Producción Repsol is honored to contribute to the initiatives undertaken by the Government of Spain through its Embassy in Trinidad and Tobago to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Independence under the theme “Trinidad & Tobago and Spain: sharing a past, building a future”. The English publication of “Spanish Trinidad”, a book that comprises 300 years of fascinating history of Trinidad, from the arrival of Columbus on his third trip to Americas on July 31st, 1498 to the ground-breaking economic and social measures taken in the late 18th century by the last Spanish Governor of Trinidad, Don José María Chacón. Names such as Port of Spain, formerly Puerto de los Españoles, San José, San Fernando, Valencia, Sangre Grande, La Brea, San Juan, Rio Claro, Las Cuevas, are obvious remnants of those 300 years of common past. We acknowledge the efforts of H.E. Joaquín de Arístegui Laborde, Ambassador of Spain to Trinidad & Tobago and CARICOM, and thank the Government of Spain for inviting Repsol to participate in this excellent project that enriches the knowledge and understanding of the History of both Trinidad & Tobago and Spain. Port of Spain, August 2012 Luis Polo Navas Álvaro Racero Baena Business Unit Director Executive Regional Director Repsol Trinidad & Tobago Caribbean & Northern South America

Spanish Trinidad FRANCISCO MORALES PADRÓN

Edited and Translated by Armando García de la Torre

Ian Randle Publishers

Kingston • Miami

First published in Jamaica, 2012 by Ian Randle Publishers 11 Cunningham Avenue Box 686 Kingston 6 www.ianrandlepublishers.com © 2012 Francisco Morales Padrón ISBN 978-976-637-616-1 (hbk) Epub Edition @ 2013 ISBN: 978-976-637-669-7 National Library of Jamaica Cataloguing-In-Publication Data Morales Padron, Francisco Spanish Trinidad / edited and translated by Armando Garcia de la Torre p. ; cm. Includes bibliographical references 1. I.

Trinidad and Tobago – History 2. Spain – Colonies de la Torre, Armando Garcia II. Title

972.98302 dc 22 Originally published in Spanish as La Trinidad Española, 2011. English translation © 2012 Armando García de la Torre. Spanish Trinidad. Copyright © 2012 by Francisco Morales Padrón. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of Ian Randle Publishers. All maps © 2012 Archivo General de Indias Cover and Book Design by Ian Randle Publishers Printed and bound in the United States of America

To their Excellencies Don Joaquín de Arístegui Laborde and Don Fernando de la Serna Inciarte, first Ambassadors of the Kingdom of Spain to the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, without their efforts this publication would not have been possible.

:

Table of Contents



List of Illustrations Editor’s Foreword Introduction

1. Columbus’s Ships in The Seas of Trinidad

» » »

x xi xv

» 1

The Discovery of Trinidad The Trinidadian Amerindians The New World’s Gypsies The Island’s Geography in Chronicles and Sources

2. The First Attempts to Settle Trinidad » 15 Encounters with Trinidad after Columbus Antonio Sedeño’s Royal Charter First Attempt at Conquest Diego De Ordás Appears Sedeño’s Second Attempt The Spanish Abandon The Island The Source of Discord Another Conqueror: Juan Sedano Ponce De León The Conquest Secured: The Birth of St Joseph or San José De Oruña 3. Trinidad as a Base of Operations for El Dorado » 52 The Spreading of The Myth The First Attempts to Search For El Dorado Berrío’s First Entries into Guiana Vera, “The Indies Man of El Dorado” Gualterio Ralé or Sir Walter Raleigh The Spanish Version of Raleigh’s Stay The Outcome of Vera’s Expedition The Other Berrío The Second Appearance of the Don Quixote Raleigh 4. Trinidad in The Seventeenth Century » 110 European Settlements in The Antilles Hardship and Foreign Attacks The State of Religion on the Island

English Colonies in Trinidad Contact with Foreigners Amerindians and Africans under Governor Roteta The Advancement of Religion: The Capuchin Monks Foreign Threats at The End of The Century Amerindian Rebellion The State of The Treasury 5. Trinidad in the Eighteenth Century (1700–1783) » 142 Eighteenth-Century Politics Military and Political Aspects of Government Society and Economy The Church Commerce and Agriculture 6. Chacón: A Questionable Governor » 177 The Inauguration The Boom Years (1784–1793) The War against France 7. The Anglo-Spanish Rivalry » 205 Apodaca’s Fleet The Causes of War The Declaration of War Trinidad’s Means of Defence The English Assault The End to Spanish Resistance The Governor’s Defence Measures The Unfolding of Events 8. Trinidad Ceases to be Spanish » 240 The Consequences of Losing the Island Chacón and His Troops Until The Signing of The Treaty of Amiens The State of the Island Leading to the Treaty of Amiens The 1802 Treaty of Amiens Notes » 253 Selected Sources » 277 Index » 281

ist llustrations

L

of I

1.

Columbus’s Route When He Encountered and Named the Island Trinidad, During His Third Voyage in 1498, According to Samuel Morison’s Admiral of The Ocean Sea

» 102

2.

Trinidad and South America’s Coastline

» 103

3.

The Island of Tobago According to a Map in The General Archive of the Indies (Seville)

» 104

4.

Map of Trinidad by Agustín Crame with a Description of its Coastline in Relation to its Ports

» 105

5.

Map of Trinidad in the D’anville Collection of the Bibliothèque Nationale De Paris

» 106

6. French Map of Trinidad

» 107

7. Spanish Map of Trinidad with Ports, Depressions, and Localities

» 108

8. French Map of Trinidad with Description of Inland Forests as “Impenetrable”

» 109

9. Profile of Port of Spain’s Redoubt, 1773

» 197

10. A Design of Port of Spain’s Redoubt, 1773

» 198

11. A Design of a Barbet Battery for Port of Spain

» 199

12. Island of Trinidad and The Orinoco: Rivers and Deltas, 1771

» 200

13. Map of Chaguaramas and Cerenero Coves, 1771

» 201

14. 17th Century Map of The Port of Chaguaramas 15. Trinidad and The Coast of South America, 1775

» 202

16. Map of The Port of Chaguaramas

» 204

» 203

Editor’s Foreword :

Francisco Morales Padrón (Canary Islands, Spain; 1923-

2010) earned his Doctorate in History in Madrid in 1952 and held a professorship at the University of Seville from 1958 to 2006; in 1989, being honoured as Professor Emeritus. He specialised in the History of Spanish America and published nearly fifty books on the subject. He was a member of various Academies of History of Spain and Latin American nations and held visiting professorships at distinguished universities, among them the City University of New York (CUNY), the University of Paris, the University of Cologne, and the University of Genoa. His career as a scholar of history was truly prolific and remarkable; he was awarded with honorary doctorates and the highest national honours for scholarship, such as Spain’s Royal Medal of King Alfonso X the Wise, Peru’s Order of Civil Merit, and Venezuela’s Order of Andrés Bello. After a long, distinguished life of scholarly achievements in the service of history and in the expansion of our knowledge of the past, of reconstructing a bygone era in the history of the Americas and the Caribbean during the period of Spain’s rule, Professor Morales Padrón was laid to rest in November 2010 at the age of eighty-seven. His decades-long professorship at the University of Seville and as a member of Spain’s eminent research council, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), afforded him access to the General Archive of the Indies (Archivo General de Indias), the vast Spanish colonial archives in Seville. Professor Morales Padrón laboured extensively in these archives and, based on these efforts, wrote several books illuminating the history of the Spanish West Indies. He wrote a definitive, unsurpassed history of Spanish Jamaica in 1952, and has complemented it with this book Spanish Trinidad (La Trinidad Española) in 2011, the product of years of research, and one which,

Spanish Trinidad unfortunately, he did not live to see in its published form. I have been honoured to have translated and edited Professor Morales Padrón’s book into English for the first time. Spanish Trinidad begins with the story of Columbus’s arrival in 1498 and follows the history to the British conquest of the island in 1797. He sheds light on the lives of the first inhabitants of Trinidad; their contact with the Spanish, the first Europeans on the island; and, later, the arrival of African descendants who were also instrumental in the economic and social development of Trinidad during the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries. Spanish Trinidad describes how Spain governed and settled the island from its first governor, Antonio Sedeño, to the final one, José María Chacón. Importantly, Morales Padrón integrates the history of Trinidad from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries into the greater global currents of the time – the wars, diplomatic efforts, and the trade and commercial networks that linked Trinidad to the world of these bygone centuries. In Spanish Trinidad, there are real-life stories of Catholic monks trying to evangelise and transmit Spanish culture to the Amerindians and the first Amerindian rebellions against these attempts that perhaps embody the first of Trinbagonian nationalist efforts, as they battled to protect their way of life. Beyond Amerindians, Spanish Trinidad also delves into the time of the Dutch, French, and British pirates and their encroachments and attempts to wrest the island from the Spanish, with quite devastating effects. In Morales Padrón’s book, there are stories of earthquakes, fires, invasions, as well as, of reconstruction and survival, particularly the resilience of towns such as St Joseph, the first capital of Spanish Trinidad, and Port of Spain, are all brought to light. Spanish Trinidad highlights the period of the mid to late eighteenth century. It explains how in a matter of several years, starting with the Royal Decree to promote population and settlement, Trinidad was opened to other Caribbean colonists from islands and nations friendly to Spain. The book also analyses the reasons why Spain lost Trinidad – the greater repercussions of the French Revolution were felt in the Caribbean and particularly in this island. Throughout the 1700s, Spain was an ally of France. Both monarchies were linked through the Bourbon blood line and with the advent of the French Revolution and with the execution of the Bourbon king, Spain allied herself with Britain against the French Republic. Later Britain’s hostile actions, as Morales Padrón’s book reveals, led Spain to make peace with the French Revolutionaries in 1795 – “perhaps”, in xii

Editor’s Foreword

the words of the Spanish Professor, “the most distant cause for the loss of Trinidad” – and ultimately, driving Spain to declare war on Britain. With this declaration of war, the Spanish government of Trinidad was placed in a precarious position. Not only did the threat exist at the time of Britain invading and conquering Trinidad, but also, the then Spanish governor, Chacón, had to confront a conflicting population of settlers who were either French royalists or British supporters or who, many of African descent, embraced the ideals of the French Revolution. As history has demonstrated, these events ultimately unfolded with Britain’s final invasion and conquest of Trinidad in February 1797. Professor Morales Padrón delves into these events and provides the reader with the motivations behind these events; reasons why the Spanish governor surrendered to the British; what Trinidadians thought and how they reacted to this situation. Spanish Trinidad concludes with the signing of the Treaty of Amiens in 1802, where Spain finally relinquished her claims to Trinidad. Professor Morales Padrón’s book offers the reader a wealth of previously forgotten original sources, letters and documents from governors, Trinidadian residents and places the history of Trinidad from 1498 to 1797 in a truly global context. Spanish Trinidad is not a history book meant just for the Spanish descendants of Trinidad, but rather a tome for anyone interested in filling the gap of knowledge in Trinidad and Tobago’s national, as well as Caribbean, history – it insightfully recounts what happened in this land from the late fifteenth to the late eighteenth centuries. Trinidad’s historical literature has focused on the British period of colonisation, on the early nineteenth century leading to independence and after 1962. As Trinidad and Tobago celebrates its fifty years of independence, the Government of Spain and Professor Morales Padrón have provided an opportunity to re-open a historical discussion that allows for an understanding of what happened earlier, of how Trinidadians of diverse backgrounds interacted and attempted to create a new Trinidad under the government of Spain and in a Hispanic transculturising context. The book Spanish Trinidad is a valuable contribution to what Trinbagonians and the world know about this nation from 1498 to 1797; nearly three hundred years of Trinidadian history have been brought to life. I am fortunate to have been provided with the opportunity to translate and edit Professor Morales Padrón’s Trinidad española from the Spanish language into English. This experience has been doubly enriching. As a xiii

Spanish Trinidad historian of Latin America and the Caribbean, this English version has been strengthened by research conducted in the course of translating, providing clarifications in footnotes and simplifying, expanding or updating terms as most effective in English and, particularly, considering our modern audience. Yet, I have endeavoured to remain faithful to Morales Padrón’s voice and to ensure that this Spanish Trinidad is a proper reflection of his Spanish; however, any shortcomings of this English-language rendition of the work are my own. If history has been traditionally written by conquerors, then, in this sense, the history of Trinidad has been mostly narrated in an Anglo perspective, shying away from other viewpoints. Spanish Trinidad is, indeed, a necessary Spanish perspective by a Spanish historian, but, that nonetheless provides a wealth of original source-based information and that serves as a modern springboard for the further study of Trinidad’s past prior to 1797. For me, translating place names in Trinidad and what unfolded in them, knowing that these are locations that I pass through in my daily life on the island, Morales Padrón’s descriptions take a life of their own. To render a narrative as having been written originally in English and not as a stale compendium of facts, but a story of how life, people, and the environment developed prior to 1797, has been my aim. I humbly hope to have achieved it. I am grateful for the support of my home institution, The University of the West Indies; my thanks to Spain’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, and particularly to His Excellency, the Ambassador of Spain to Trinidad and Tobago, Joaquín de Arístegui Laborde, for having entrusted me with this work; also, a special thanks to the Spanish Embassy staff, specifically, the Deputy Head of Mission, Ms. Beatriz Lorenzo Didic, for their support; and to REPSOL, for its funding. Finally, I thank Professor Morales Padrón for bequeathing this history of the Spanish period of Trinidad and Tobago, a legacy now available to English-speaking readers in Trinidad, the Caribbean, and beyond. Armando García de la Torre The University of the West Indies St Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago

xiv

Introduction : In this History of Trinidad it seems, as Graham Greene

once remarked, that, in certain instances, the story of how a book or novel is written is more interesting than the actual contents of it. Apparently, this is the case here. The history of Spanish Trinidad does not seem as unique or singular, as that of other American nations in relation to the events that transpired in it. The birth of Trinidad was mythical, a major feature of the history of the Americas. There was an El Dorado-like interest that emerged in these far off American regions, a mythical landscape like the Andean one, where crossing jungles, valleys, mountains, and plying over rivers, transformed the geography of this legend into more achievable ones, full of promise – Parimes and Manoas. The island was the entry point to a continent where golden regions lay. Oliver Cromwell’s well-known “Western Design” sought the takeover of the island of Hispaniola or Santo Domingo, and acted as a precedent to what later happened in 1797 to the island of Trinidad, since both islands share a series of similar circumstances. Both constituted a means to penetrate the continent, facilitated by the abandonment of their defences and a lack of naval policy on the part of Spain. and both islands were reasons over which European powers and naval piracy would rival and come to dominate this Caribbean region. Trinidad was the last in the designs to capture Spanish islands. Even though in the British Colonel Modyford’s seventeenth-century expedition Trinidad was among the major objectives, a prize for its proximity to the Orinoco delta, the island initially attracted outsiders based on a belief in the existence of a mythical El Dorado in its lands. They did not find it. In exchange they found a dense Amazon, where other myths did not fail to emerge, like Parime and Manoas. Trinidad was left far behind and did not experience the economic development that its soil, rivers, and seas deserved.

Spanish Trinidad Shifting geopolitical events and rivalries of the eighteenth century motivated the rebirth and a renewed interest in these islands and the Spanish government became increasingly aware of the dangers looming over the abundant archipelago surrounding Trinidad. Trinidad’s Spanish governors would not be able to halt foreign intrusions, yet, with a sense of Hispanic providence, they established a colony in Trinidad. Only a controversial figure, José María Chacón, appears to have eluded negative judgment. To describe life in Trinidad or to narrate its history, has been a fullylived adventure by scholars of history who share a love for illuminating its historical process that in its future will become as beautiful as a chaconia. The delicate condition of my health, when I began writing this book, has led me to rely on various studies of Trinidad that I conducted at different times. This book was also completed with the esteemed support of friends and collaborators who in the General Archive of the Indies researched, during these final months, the periods that I was unable to study, and availing myself of the work, that under my guidance, Josefina Gómez Aparicio conducted regarding the loss of the island of Trinidad.

xvi

1.

Columbus’s Ships in the Seas of Trinidad :

The Discovery of Trinidad

Christopher Columbus’s third voyage took him, without him ever knowing, to the shores of a new continent. His ships left the coasts of the Spanish peninsula on 30 May 1498. By Thursday, 19 July, a heat so intense lingered over them that they imagined that they would burn in the ocean. In the days that followed, the weather improved. Navigation, in a westward direction, took two more weeks, despite the Admiral having the intention of returning towards southern regions in order to repair his ships that had been sailing without cover due to the high temperatures, and also to find supplies which they direly needed. On Sunday 22 July, the ship’s crew saw a flock of birds heading northeast. This same event repeated itself in the following days, along with a pelican and other frigate birds perching themselves over the Admiral’s ship. On the seventeenth day of good weather, they expected to encounter land, but their wishes went unfulfilled. Due to these circumstances, Columbus decided to change course, since they were running low on water. He ordered to turn north, towards a quarter of a north-easterly direction. They sailed until midday without encountering anything, “but since his majesty,” Columbus wrote, “has always employed mercy on me, due to a closeness or good fortune, a sailor from Huelva, a servant of mine whose name is Alonso Pérez, climbed up the mast and spotted land towards the west, and I was fifteen leagues from it, and what appeared to me, from this sighting, were three cliffs or mountains”. It was the island of Trinidad, at the entrance of the mouth of the Orinoco River, a geological extension of Venezuela. “He named this land,” in Las Casas words, “the island of Trinidad, since he had already decided that the first land he would discover, he

Spanish Trinidad would name it so and may our Lord be pleased, for his high majesty, that the first view were three cliffs, I say, three mountains, all at one time and in one view”. A new feature had just been christened and appended to the geographic world of the Indies. The first Admiral gave thanks to God, and aboard his ships, there was an immense joy. They sang a salve, Las Casas narrates, and “other folk songs and devotional hymns, praising God and the Virgin Mary, according to the customs of sailors, at least ours from Spain, who with either joy or sorrow, tend to sing them”. Discovery, christening, thanksgiving and joy, the island seen, Columbus then decided to alter direction and ordered a steady course towards a cape that appeared eastward in the distance. He named it “Cabo de la Galera (Cape Galley) or Galea (Galeota Point) for it was a high cliff that seemed like a small vessel with its sails unfolded. They arrived at that geographic feature in the “hours of completeness". It did not have too deep of a port, which worried the Admiral since it would not be fit for anchoring his ships. Unable to remain in that bay, Columbus decided to continue sailing, but did not find any port where they could take refuge. Along their route, they verified that the island’s coast was dense with forests that reached its shore. The coastal frontage did not reveal much to them, but the Spanish sailors realised that the land behind it must indeed be large. They enjoyed hours of favourable winds in their direct course along the littoral zone when they saw the first human inhabitants of Trinidad. They were the crew of a fishing canoe. The impression the strange ships of white sails caused must have been great for the Trinidadians fled inland, and took cover in various dwellings that the sailors were able to spot from the decks of their ships. They continued sailing. On Wednesday, 1 August, they traced eastwardly the coast by five leagues and finally reached a point where they were able to drink water from streams and natural sources. They had no doubt that the island was populated. There was plenty evidence of human presence: fishing gears and deer tracks were seen on the ground. Beautiful aloe plants and tall palm trees towered over the land. The sailors also saw wide fields farmed by the indigenous inhabitants. Before departing the area, Columbus named the geographic point surrounding the place where they drank water, “Punta de la Plata [Silver Point], later known as Erin Point. From this newly christened area to Point Galera, there was not a port in sight, despite the sailors having seen fallowed or ploughed lands ready to be sown, and full of trees and running streams. 2

Columbus’s Ships in the Seas of Trinidad

Their steady journey eastward in search of a wide port to set anchor led them, on Thursday, 2 August, to an area they named Punta del Arenal [Point of sandy ground or Sandy Point, known today as Point Icacos]. Columbus’s ships were then, unknowingly, entering the waters they would later name the Gulf of the Whale or Whale’s Gulf [today’s Gulf of Paria] and where they also almost lost their ships. This gulf, Las Clasas explains, “is wonderful and dangerous for the river that leads or empties into it and that the locals call Yuyaparí”. The friar referred to the Orinoco. At this point of land’s end, named Sandy Ground earlier, the easternmost point of the island, the Admiral allowed the crew to disembark “so that they could relax and enjoy themselves, for they were tired and fatigued”. Two encounters they had on this Thursday, one with a herd of deer or with their tracks and another with twenty-five men sailing in a canoe. The Trinidadian Amerindians avoided approaching the Spanish any less than a canon’s shot. They stopped rowing their canoe and limited themselves to screaming unrelentingly. Columbus believed, and Las Casas as well, that they were inquiring as to who were these intruders. Since the Spaniards were unable to verbally respond to them for they would not understand them, they showed them lavatory pans and other trinkets. To these displays, they added signs of affection and peace, which did not seem to appease them. Having seen this, the Admiral decided to rehearse a circus number to attract them and ordered that a sailor play a tambourine in the ship’s forecastle while others danced to his rhythm. The situation worsened. Seeing the sailors dancing and hearing the tambourine led the Amerindians to believe that their gestures were declarations of war and, instantly, they switched their oars for crossbows. The Amerindians then began shooting a barrage of arrows over the Spanish ships. Having witnessed the results of the Spaniards’ folkloric performance, Columbus ordered the sailors to stop dancing and playing music, and they too substituted their musical instruments for crossbows that they then shot over the Amerindian boats. Columbus’s crew intended to awe the Amerindians, but they instead achieved the opposite effect. The canoe approached the ships, and reached under the stern of one of the Spanish vessels. One Spanish captain, without notifying others, lowered himself by a rope and fell among the Amerindians, bearing gifts and presents. To the one who appeared to be their leader, he gave a bonnet, while his Spanish shipmates looked on; waiting for what would be the outcome of this encounter. The Amerindians, displaying appreciation for their presents, 3

Spanish Trinidad signalled to the audacious captain to come to land with them, where they too, would give him things they owned. Accepting the invitation, the Spanish captain returned to the ship; he then rowed in a small boat to the Admiral’s ship in order to seek his consent to disembark. The Amerindians, however, seeing that the Spanish captain did not go with them at once, steered themselves towards the island and disappeared, never to be seen again.

THE TRINIDADIAN AMERINDIANS Las Casas’s narrative is full of ethnological content and descriptions of the island’s climate and environment. He wrote often of the bountiful land and of its large forests. Nevertheless, his descriptions of the indigenous people are of significant value. Las Casas narrated that a chieftain wearing a golden crown went to Columbus’s ship. The chieftain placed the diadem over the Admiral’s head, and exchanged it with Columbus’s crimson cap. Wearing the Admiral’s crimson beret, apparently brought joy to the chieftain, and both then displayed a mutual warm welcome. The Amerindians who accompanied the chieftain were young and good looking, well-armed with bows and wooden shields. These Amerindians, were not as short as others, [they were] even more white than the others that I have seen in these Indies, and of good manners and of handsome bodies, with long and straight hair, clipped in the Castilian style; a cotton handmade headscarf of colours was tied to their heads. The Admiral thought it appeared like the headscarves that the Moors wore; they had another one of these kerchiefs, wellfitted and they covered themselves with it, instead of garments; he said they are not Black, despite being near the equinoctial line, [they are] rather of Indian colour, like all others I have found. They are of a very beautiful stature; they go naked; they are warlike; and they have long hair, like the women in Castile. They carry bows and feathered arrows with sharp fishbone tips, similar to a fishhook and they bring wooden shields, all which I have not seen until now.

The climate, flora and fauna fill Las Casas’s narrative. He speaks of the large oysters they found, of huge dark green macaws with spotted and colourful necks. Nevertheless, let us now turn our attention away from the colourful macaws that were so different from the ones of the continent, according to the Friar, and also of the significant amounts of 4

Columbus’s Ships in the Seas of Trinidad

fish that abounded in Trinidadian waters and of the gigantic oysters, and let us continue with the Admiral’s caravels. From Sandy Point (Punta del Arenal), he observed that to the north by east, a large cape or point emerged, which he later named Paria. Columbus, believing it to be another island, named it the Island of Grace. On Saturday, 4 August, Columbus decided to approach what they believed to be yet another island. He raised anchor and opened sails from Sandy Point (Punta del Arenal) and they placed themselves in the current of the Orinoco. For several harrowing moments, they thought they would not escape from it. Columbus, when later recounting the odyssey to the Spanish monarchs regarding the disturbance they experienced, told his royal audience, according to Las Casas’s transcription, that “even to this day I still feel the fear in my body, that my ship did not overturn when I was within it,” referring to the huge wave that raised the ships like feathers. As a result of the thrashing they suffered by the currents, he named the area the Serpent’s Mouth (Boca de la Sierpe). The ships later touched upon what the crew named, Cape of Lapa, an extension of what they believed to be the Island of Grace. Las Casas affirmed that “all of the [details] of this sailing and the descriptions and illustrations of the land were sent by the Admiral to the Monarchs.” The Dominican friar’s pages become more convoluted and portray Columbus’s geographical descriptions of Trinidad in a manner increasingly difficult to understand. At times, it seems as if the caravels become lost in the torrent of Las Casas’s prose and its intertwining geography. From the farthest point of Paria, christened Cape of Lapa, they sailed towards Punta de la Aguja (Needle Point). Sailing along the coast of the mainland, they then went on to Los Jardines (the Gardens), almost at the end of the Gulf of the Whale or the Whale’s Gulf (Golfo de la Ballena [Gulf of Paria]). The crew began, again, to lavish praises on the coastal scenery. They provided descriptions of the Amerindians and they retraced the route they previously had sailed until finally returning in a steady course towards the opening of the Bocas del Dragón (the Dragon’s mouth), where they exited into the open Caribbean Sea in search of the island of Margarita. On “Monday, 13 August, during the new moon, [the Admiral] lifted anchor from where he was moored, and sailed towards the Cape of Lapa, the one of Paria”, entering the open sea by the Bocas del Dragón [the Dragon’s Mouth]. The Admiral estimated that there were between two leagues and a half between Cape Lapa in Paria (in his mind, the Isla 5

Spanish Trinidad Sancta [Holy Island]) and the Cabo Boto [Round Cape] of Trinidad. Sailing through the narrow opening, he found himself “in a great struggle between freshwater flowing into the sea, and the ocean salt water surging into the Gulf.” As in the Boca de la Sierpe [Serpent’s Mouth], a mountain of water threatened to sink the ships and Columbus, even though Las Casas was not aware of it, exclaimed that it seemed as if they had just escaped the jaws of a dragon. After then sailing through that final and dangerous hurdle of the Dragon’s treacherous currents, they set course for Margarita. Trinidad remained in the distance. The Admiral continued sailing, fixated in his geographic errors, without “being able to take his mind away from the sweet freshwater he had found and had seen in the Gulf of the Whale between Trinidad and the mainland. He thought much about it and found reasons to believe that the Earthly Paradise must be located in those parts.” Apparently, Columbus’s eyes were also blinded. It seemed as if he had an illness that worsened his sight after having gone through the Dragon’s Mouth. The Amerindians who Christopher Columbus had just confronted were – or have been – included in the cultural group of the Ignori. The Caribs, the neighbouring northern group, had not yet achieved control of the island, dominating only a north-eastern zone. Nevertheless, the first chroniclers – and I refer to Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo – affirm that Trinidad was populated by “Carib Indians who were full of arrows” and that they “threw darts with poisonous herbs that, when fresh, anyone rarely survived after having been wounded. They are a very warlike people and go undressed and are idolatrous and they eat human flesh, and, in addition to these vices, one can believe that they had many more.” The chronicler Fernández de Oviedo did not stop at these descriptions. His enemy and denouncer of everything, the Friar Bartholomew de Las Casas, maintained that the Amerindians were not anthropophagus. Nevertheless, the first Europeans that came to the island after Columbus also shielded themselves in the belief that they were Amerindians of that nature in order to capture them. I do not believe, however, that these Amerindians were anthropophagus, though they were indeed bellicose. The island did not have one single ethnic group. Sixteenth-century Spanish sources do not focus on this aspect, but another European author of the late sixteenth century distinguished between five island “nations”: the Iao, around Punta Arenal (Sandy Point); the Arawaks towards the south and centre of the island; the Salvaios, towards the far south, between 6

Columbus’s Ships in the Seas of Trinidad

Garao and Curiapán; the Nepoyes between Garao and Point Galera [Point Galley or Galetoa Point], to the north of the Arawaks and all along the eastern coast; and, finally, the Carinepagotos around St. Joseph (San José de Oruña) in the north-eastern section. All of them called the island Cairi, which meant in Arawak, island. The population density increased in the sector of the Salvaios. The ethnological facts that have been gathered about these Amerindians must be presented without making distinctions, acknowledging that they would have been a mixture of the cultures and traditions of all of these five groups. Their spoken language seems to have been a distinct dialect from the one spoken in the Greater Antilles, though it is unknown whether it was the same as the Eyerí, of the Lesser ones. Columbus, as shown earlier, was the first to note that their physique – their skin colour – was lighter than the ones he had previously seen. The Admiral himself, as always, sketched an aesthetic image, full of colours and unintelligible words of what this world offered him – and also, as always – as seen from a fast canoe. Their cuisine was typical of other Amerindian island peoples, yet, unlike others, the Trinidadian Amerindians ate deer which did not exist in other regions. Their homes, similarly described by Las Casas when dealing with Juan Bono, were transportable and in a shape of a bell. They housed an entire tribe or group formed by more than one hundred people. Once again, they were extremely bellicose and walked almost nude, if not for a belt and a few dyed bands of cotton that they wrapped on their heads. They carried bows, quivers, shields, and poisoned, feathered arrows. The Trinidadian Amerindians also had a terrible mortal poison brought from the Continent. Their great vehicle of transport was a large canoe and some had a sort of chamber or room at the centre. Their paucity of clothing was supplemented by colourful marks and tattoos, and the chieftains had crowns or diadems of gold on their head. Necklaces of stone and bones – some human – completed their attire. Gold – guanines [an impure gold alloy] – were obtained from the mainland, where they had a trade based on tobacco. Many Amerindians of the lower Orinoco would come to Trinidad to engage in this type of commerce. Peace with outsiders and among themselves was infrequent. Some tribes joined against others, led by chiefs, who apparently were known as Acarewanas. Traditional drums and sea conchs were the tools of their war campaigns and employed in announcing their battles. 7

Spanish Trinidad The deceased, during peace time or war, were buried in the ground or in caves. Their bodies were laid to rest horizontally and clay items and trinkets hung at their sides. The sorcerer played an important role in the burial ritual, as well as in other occasions. As in the Greater Antilles, this diabolical man would take shredded tobacco to communicate with spirits.

THE NEW WORLD’S GYPSIES My aim in this brief description of the features of the indigenous world has been to offer an understanding of the island’s inhabitants and their conditions in a general pre-Hispanic context. There are not many useful sources for this endeavour and they almost all limit themselves to repeating the same information provided by the chroniclers that I have also relied on. Nevertheless, in the selection of the sources that have been cited, I have missed some interesting facts regarding the Arawaks that an inhabitant of the island of Margarita, Rodrigo Navarrete, provided. I will also use his accounts later, when discussing Trinidad’s environment. Navarrete drafted these descriptions when he served as a public notary in Santo Domingo. Navarrete, as if he were speaking today, described the Arawaks as “the New World’s gypsies”, since they were “quick and sharp and to an extreme, friends of the Christians, and also of buying and selling, and of trading from land to land.” Navarrete’s interesting contribution allows for a better understanding of this group, especially, since they constitute part of the island’s population. Navarrete presented a magnificent physical image of the Arawak, having a noble face, with displays of long hair and of big ears, as an aesthetic symbol. For this reason, the Arawaks trimmed the hair of those they captured, and for that reason too, the Arawaks pierced their ears and placed rings to dilate them. They went nude, except for a simple loincloth. Their villages were constructed on river banks and despite the fact that they were a fine people, they united among themselves or with the Spaniards who they called Guatrao (friend), to exterminate the Caribs, their arch-enemies. At the start of summer, they met and formed armed flotillas of nearly thirty men that were launched from and through the rivers and into the sea in search of the Caribs. The Arawaks held beliefs in an afterlife. They spoke of a great lord and of a great lady who raised them and who sent them water to nurture the land. When they died, they believed the soul, which they called gaguche, went with the great lord, named Hubuiri, if they had been good or with 8

Columbus’s Ships in the Seas of Trinidad

the demon named Camurespitan, if they had been bad. Their moral code was limited to a few principles: to not kill others, to not deny others any goods when asked, to not take the women of others, and to welcome those who visit their home. When practising these, according to the Arawaks, one would go with the great lord at death. They loathed idleness and they were aware of their ancestor’s actions through oral accounts and stories of wise old men known as Cemetú. Hence, in large brush strokes, this is the ethnic and cultural composition of the pre-Hispanic population of Trinidad, and specifically of the Arawaks, one of the groups who populated the island. The survival of these indigenous peoples continued throughout the centuries. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, they survived without suffering the significant reduction in numbers that the other inhabitants of the Greater Antilles endured. The Spanish did not decidedly nor entirely penetrate the island of Trinidad. They limited themselves to an urban, inland nucleus – in San José de Oruña [St Joseph] and to a coastal outlet; Puerto de España [Port of Spain]. The rest of the island remained unknown or barely explored. Towards the end of the seventeenth century, contact with the indigenous people became more frequent and intense due to the work of missionaries. The non-subjugated population lived simply, as always in the island’s contours, while other groups drew nearer, willingly or unwillingly, to Western elements, finding themselves within them, as servants, slaves, tributary workers or subdued into Spanish-controlled villages.

THE ISLAND’S GEOGRAPHY IN CHRONICLES AND SOURCES The result of the timid Spanish penetration of the island’s geography is evident in the island’s toponymy. Plenty of names were given to christen geographic features of the shoreline and rivers, but when referring to inland territory, they are scarce, at least in the early centuries of the Spanish arrival. Columbus, who in other occasions illustrated his discoveries, did not do so when encountering Trinidad. Las Casas, who followed him, provided the impressions I have already described. Columbus, who must have had nightmares about archipelagos, correctly assumed that Trinidad was an island. He also conjectured that the land facing it was as well, but he was mistaken. Trinidad floated like the final buoy of an arc, composed of the Leeward islands, separating the Atlantic from the Caribbean and extending from the Virgin Islands. It is an arc that rests on an underwater 9

Spanish Trinidad volcanic base over which tropical winds blow year round from east to west causing abundant rainfall. The last geographic findings connect Tobago and Trinidad more with South America’s geography, than to the Antillean one. Trinidad’s resemblance to the continent is highly evident. Their geology is similar and the channel that separates them is only 16 kilometres wide and quite shallow. The two islands are not anything else, but an extension of the Venezuelan coastal mountain range that, in the case of Trinidad, emerges with three parallel ones in an east-west direction. The structural morphology of the island confirms the existence in its northern section of protrusive crystalline rocks and in the central region, crumpled metamorphic resources, resting on tertiary elements. The same occurs in its southern range; wide plains with sediments from the Quaternary period extend into two middle depressions. Valuable resources that have been capitalised exist within this geology, namely, petroleum and pitch. The geologic seams of petroleum have created hotbeds, volcanoes, pools of mud and fountains of liquid pitch. The Spanish, however, only profited from the Pitch Lake’s (9.5kms2) tar in caulking their ships. The tropical forests, abundant in mahogany, cedars, and rubber trees, as well as ferns, moss, orchids, and other varieties, cover a geological landscape whose roots are nothing green. Native animals, like the agouti, anteaters, howler monkeys, opossums, ocelots, otters and numerous birds, share this geography with the island’s inhabitants. The absence of these descriptions in Columbus’s narrative is repaired by a map that the Admiral confesses to have drawn when he reported the discovery to the Spanish monarchs. Nevertheless, no evidence remains of this map. Trinidad will later appear in the maps of Juan de la Cosa, in the Mapa Mundi of Ribero, and in the Archipelago of Santa Cruz. Two men named Fernández, Enciso and Oviedo, provided the first descriptions of the island. Fernández de Enciso’s Suma de Geografia compiles interesting geographic, ethnic, and zoological details. “This island of Trinidad,” he relates, has a longitude of twenty-five leagues, and some others of latitude; it is populated by many people, but it is not subjugated. Here the Amerindians use arrows that are as long as an arm’s length, arrows made of cane stalks, [from the island], with a strong wooden stick inserted at the tip, where they place fish bones instead of iron, and these bones are stronger than diamonds, and each one are two, three 10

Columbus’s Ships in the Seas of Trinidad or even four fingers in length, and each captive has three of them: one over his back and two underneath their arms, and the one on their backs is the strongest and thickest. In this island, they say there is gold naturally. In this island and in Paria, there are reeds that are very thick, from which they make walking sticks and they bring them to Spain also as walking canes. There are also green macaws, large and docile, and some of them have yellow faces, and these learn easily to speak, and they indeed speak very much.

Another chronicler, Fernández de Oviedo, appears as more the geographer. In his narrative, he places the island at nine degrees “to the region of our artic pole in the band towards the south or midday”, and ten degrees of the region that looks towards the Septentrion or the North. It is eighteen or twenty leagues in latitude and in longitude, a little over twenty-five. He related only two geographic features: the Palmar [Palm Grove] in the opposite zone of the Southern region and the river Saladomas in the east and up the coast, named by Columbus for its saltwater. Two geographers, Alonso de Santa Cruz and López de Velasco, also did not offer much information. The first limited himself to repeating information about the existence of savage and arrow-carrying Amerindians, believing also in sources of gold, and gives the island a length of twenty-six leagues, a width of twenty, and a perimeter of ninety-five; and named Eel Point (Punta Anguila) what Columbus christened Sandy Point (Punta del Arenal) and Round Point (Punta Rendonda) to Point Galera (Punta Galera). In another account, López de Velasco doubted the existence of gold, although he did corroborate the fertility of the land, the abundance of rivers and huts, the dual presence of Caribs and Arawaks, and also provided the island’s position and dimensions. The reports drafted by Rodrigo de Navarrete, resident of Margarita and later public notary in Santo Domingo, repeat the same known facts and provide new ones as well. Navarrete visited the island and, therefore, had first-hand knowledge of the island. Not only did he speak of Trinidad’s elevation (nine degrees and nine minutes) and longitude (thirty leagues), but also of the tall mountains that divide the island geographically and of the Amerindians who “are a very manly, bellicose and warlike people, especially those on the shores” or rather, the island’s coastal inhabitants. He believed that the natives were of the Guaiquirí language and race, engaged in farming, and were always attacked by the Caribs, and also, that those on one side of the range were always at war with those on the other. The land 11

Spanish Trinidad was fertile and populated, allowing for the establishment of a Spanish town with two hundred inhabitants without harm to the Amerindians, since they cultivated little terrain and did not raise cattle, for they relied on deer for their source of meat. Rodrigo de Navarrete advanced the idea of raising cattle in a deserted section of the nearby South American mainland and of cultivating all types of trees and vegetables from Castile. He concluded his narrative by affirming the existence of gold and pearls, even though they were brought from the continent and from a nearby island. The poet of Tunja, Juan de Catellanos, expressed Navarrete’s ideas in poetic verses. The island’s geography inspired the comedic poet with two stanzas of eight lines, in total sixteen verses that are preceded by others that describe the island’s borders, its position, and its surrounding lands and then, Trinidad: It is at all times and seasons of plenty food and nourishment, It has savannahs, rivers, seas, bays And in many parts, mountainous forests: There are large and wide villages Of people bellicose to the extreme; All in general of good manners, Tall, robust, eager and at ease. In all other months, these people compete with the inhuman Caribs, Of mines and resources, it appears to have potential Thus show the plains and ranges: In this fertile island, finally good for populating with Christians, It has two unique provinces Camucuraos and the other, Chacomares

These verses are not extraordinary, but their description of Trinidad’s geography and of other known facts are almost perfect. They are more so than the pompous verses that precede a well-known and entertaining book, afflicted by a Caribbean “fever” that prevailed in the seventeenth century and which I transcribe as follows: In Cumaná or New Andalusia the compact Venice extends itself 12

Columbus’s Ships in the Seas of Trinidad over the rock that the fluttering white eagle from Tellus’s table snatches: Trinidad with the green waves it rears Sea of scents with silver-laced shores presents itself to the great Sedeño who in tight contest lends fear to those who flee, and to those who wait, death

The poet continued with a description of Tobago, more interesting than Trinidad’s, where I pause for a moment in order to turn to a Carmelite friar, Antonio Vázquez de Espinosa, who rendered the reader a more complete image of Trinidad in the seventeenth century. Additionally, since the island’s government had been joined by then to Guiana’s, he also provided minor descriptions that allow for a better understanding of the environment and of the events in question. For Vázques de Espinosa, the island was fifty leagues in longitude and twenty in width – the chroniclers never seem to agree – and it is very mountainous and covered with precious woods. The total number of indigenous peoples inhabiting the island is 4,000 pagan Amerindians and 300 “civilised” ones who served the Spanish in their town and also kept their herds and ranches. The village is none other than St Joseph (San José de Oruña), founded, as discussed in a later chapter, towards the end of the sixteenth century by Antonio de Berrío. St Joseph had sixty Spanish residents who lived in houses that surrounded the Town Hall, the Parochial Church, and the Convent of St Francis. This urban centre was two leagues from its port, the well-known Port of Spain, where Spanish and foreign pirate ships anchored. The ports of Maracás and of the Ayre in the north, including the ones of Tunapó and Point Galera, also served the island’s inhabitants. The island’s hot and rainy climate allowed for the growth of papayas, plantains, pineapples, cocoa, and tobacco. The Carmelite friar’s prose creates a lasting impression when he describes the island’s honey, beeswax, its fragrant trees, fruits, and medicinal roots. And, as if he had also contracted Columbus’s ailment, Vázquez de Espinosa confesses in his narrative that the waters and the lands separating Trinidad from Guiana seem “a piece of earthly Paradise”. He was enthralled by seafaring and by the river banks that were full of green forests and of multi-coloured, softly singing birds. He was like an Impressionist artist. Little stands in his way of almost reproducing the “noble savage” in this pleasing natural environment, yet the Amerindians do not appear in his 13

Spanish Trinidad chronicle. He substitutes them for turtles, turkeys, and for birds of stone. He sailed through the Amacuro canyon, since, according to him, it was the best one and allowed for tall ships to sail all the way to Guiana. The changes that this embellished, preliminary sketch of the island underwent at the onset of the eighteenth century will be discussed later. Even though another chronicler, Father Caulín, provided a detailed description of the island in the eighteenth century, I must abandon it in these pages. Caulín’s descriptions are especially detailed regarding coastal features and in their listing of rivers.

14

2.

The First Attempts to Settle Trinidad :

Trinidad is like a geographic reflection

of eastern Venezuela. Both regions served as reference points for colonising initiatives geared towards Guiana during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Trinidad was a difficult island to penetrate; it was, therefore, not subdued until the last decade of the sixteenth century, and then only relatively. The events that took place in Paria, led by Ortal, Sedeño, and Ordás, demonstrate that Trinidad merely became a staging ground for entries into Guiana. Perhaps, Trinidad eluded the Spanish conquerors’ visions, even though it may be best to avoid premature, simplistic judgments when explaining the history of the island that the Spanish lost at the end of the eighteenth century.

ENCOUNTERS WITH TRINIDAD AFTER COLUMBUS In the wake of the ships of Columbus’s third voyage – as plotted in the map that Columbus declared to have sent to the monarchs – the vessels of these poorly designated “Lesser Voyages” unfurled their sails. The objectives, individuals, events, trajectories, consequences and others matters regarding these sailings are well known. The Venezuelan coast had been, by then, surveyed and explored from east to west. The island of Trinidad, at its far end, emerged as an objective in these expeditions, as an entry point into the Caribbean world. Ships arriving from Spain merged in the currents of the Orinoco. They slid along the shoreline, sailed down the coast, somewhat or not even. They then continued northward. They placed themselves between Trinidad and the South American continent. They slipped into the Serpent’s Mouth (Boca de las Sierpes) and exited through the Dragon’s (Boca del Dragón). The ships later entered the open sea. They turned eastward and left Cumaná and Margarita behind, ending up at Cabo de la Vela. These were intentional voyages that explored a

Spanish Trinidad more familiar geography. They did not operate at random; instead, they had clearly defined objectives of widening and elongating Columbus’s American world.1 Alonso de Ojeda (1499), Pero Alonso Niño and Cristóbal Guerra (1499), Vicente Yáñez Pinzón (1500), Diego de Lepe (1499-1500), and Pinzón with Solís in 1508 repeated Columbus’s trajectory in Trinidadian waters. Except for Niño, Guerra, and Lepe, the others entered through the Serpent’s Mouth and exited through the Dragon’s in search of the island of Margarita. The men on board these ships of exploration were professionals of the sea, sailing as advancing patrols, opening America to the Spanish conquerors. Trinidad, for that reason, did not play a major role in the annals of that time. It did not have pearls, and therefore, did not entice these explorers. Trinidad – and its inhabitants – gained their initial appeal when the Crown authorised in 1516 the enslavement of indigenous people perceived as “fierce”. The well-known story of Jeronomite friars not allowing Father Las Casas to sail in their same ship that had left Spain for the Indies, interlinked with Trinidad on the island of Puerto Rico (1516). The Jeronomite friars had denied permission to the Dominican Friar Las Casas, in Sanlúcar, Spain and, again, later in Puerto Rico, to sail on their ship. In Sanlúcar, they alleged that Las Casas would travel more comfortably in another ship. Once in San Juan, Las Casas’s ship took some extra days to unload goods and supplies. The Dominican friar again asked the Jeronomites to allow him to sail with them to Santo Domingo, since they were all headed there to deal with the same problem in silent partnership. The governing Jeronomite friars rejected Las Casas’s request a second time and Las Casas had no choice but to remain in San Juan for a dozen more days. At that time, a Vizcayan named Joan Bono (“he had no more bonus than the Blackman Joan Blanco, famous pirate, highwayman, and kidnapper of Indians”, the Dominican friar clarified) was in Puerto Rico after having assaulted Trinidad. Word of events that took place in Trinidad had reached Puerto Rico. The Jeronomites, Las Casas believed, must have known the reasons why other Spaniards were in the Indies, since he had mentioned it to them. Las Casas’s assertion or insinuation cannot be generally applied to all Spanish explorers of the time, but in Bono’s case it did, if indeed he committed the following: This Vizcayan Joan Bono sailed to Trinidad with sixty Spaniards and told the inhabitants that he had come in peace and to live among them. The 16

The First Attempts to Settle Trinidad

Amerindians believed him. A shrewd Bono rejected the Amerindians’ offer of building houses for the Spaniards. He did, however, accept the daily provisions that they brought them. Bono then built a large, indigenousstyle hut in the shape of a bell that could house one hundred people. Once the dwelling was finished, Bono invited the Amerindians to enter. Nearly four hundred Amerindians naively entered the grounds. What transpired, according to Las Casas, may be easily conjectured. Bono gave orders to remain calm and for no one to leave the dwelling. The Amerindians refused to obey the orders and only with the thrusts and by swinging their swords did Bono’s Spaniards convince them to stay. Around 185 Amerindians were captured, and then taken to the hold of the ship. While on land, another one hundred refugees suffered abuse in the large house that they refused to abandon. In Puerto Rico, the captured Amerindians were sold as slaves. The Jeronomites and Las Casas had arrived in Puerto Rico from Spain only days after these events, and they heard the account of what transpired in Trinidad from Bono’s own mouth.2 These Spaniards repeated the wicked crime the following year. The ship of terror then departed from the island of Hispaniola with the intention of collecting pearls. They stopped in Trinidad and the Amerindians, still shaken by the events of the previous year, yelled: “Juan Bono, bad, Juan Bono, bad”. The Spaniards answered that they were not Juan Bono and that he had been hung for his crimes. The Amerindians succumbed again to the Castilians’ assurances of innocence and promises of gifts. And, as if like a reward for their gullibility, they suffered a similar attack and crime to Bono’s. The captive Amerindians were then sold in Santo Domingo, where the Jeronomite friars were at the time. The Friar Pedro de Córdoba, however, would not allow such shamelessness. He reproached the Jeronomite fathers for tolerating these crimes and obligated them to forbid the trade in enslaved Amerindians in his presence. The Amerindians were nevertheless sold clandestinely.3 Bono the Basque had chosen the final months of 1516 for his depredations. There now lay a wide abyss between Columbus’s first encounter, with tambourines and circus acts, to these recent ones. The indigenous people had already learned their lesson and they were now prepared to ignore any flattering remarks and to repel any approaches by the Spanish. During these years, the Spanish concentrated their efforts on the other far end of the Caribbean Sea. The four large islands of the Caribbean became 17

Spanish Trinidad the focus of Spain’s policies towards the Indies and the staging ground for ships searching for an ocean, a passage or a rich empire. The Lesser Antilles were left behind. The Spanish did not yet consider with a strategic interest the islands of the Lesser Antilles, for they were unaware, at that point, of the whole configuration of the New World. The islands of the Lesser Antilles did not have a mining economy, which was of primary concern to the Spanish. When the Spanish did return to them, it was not for slaves as they had searched for earlier, but rather for pearls or due to floating, near-by myth of Eldorado. Bono’s attempts in Trinidad were limited to what has been described and the next Spanish attempts included the first official project to conquer Trinidad that ultimately linked the island with the rest of Spain’s policies towards the Antilles. A Spanish veteran of West Indian affairs fixed his gaze on Trinidad. His person and his efforts in relation to Trinidad are worthy of discussion. The Rodrigo de Bastidas who in 1502 abandoned the city of Cádiz to conquer lands on the continent ended up arrested by the Knight Bobadilla after having sailed through parts of the Mainland coasts. Imprisoned along with Christopher Columbus, Bastidas arrived in Spain and travelled through its domains in search of the roving Spanish Court, at that time officiating in Alacalá de Henares. Bastidas wished to display the gold that he had acquired in the Indies. He had acquired it under royal sanction, since the Crown wished to awaken in its subjects the interest to sail across the Atlantic. The Court did not censure Bastidas for having illegally recovered the metal; instead, they rewarded him. And, Bastidas, still longing for the New World, returned to and settled in the island of Hispaniola. “And like a good settler – the chronicler Oviedo expressed – he sent for his wife and children in Seville”.4 And, like any good man of the Indies at the time, he was not satisfied with the comfortable and easy life of Santo Domingo. The continent seduced Bastidas. By 1520, he was given the task of conquering Trinidad with the titles of Adelantado [Preliminary Governor], Royal Governor, and Captain General. When Columbus’s son, Diego, heard of the agreement between the Crown and Bastidas, and knowing that the island had been “discovered” by his father, Diego decided to take the same action as in the case of Jamaica. Diego believed the island belonged to him and that the King had placed one more governor in the Antillean bureaucracy who would be against the Columbus family interests, but since Bastidas was a friend and ally of the Admiral’s son, 18

The First Attempts to Settle Trinidad

Diego did not obstruct the naming of his new governorship. In reality, little is known regarding Bastidas actions in Trinidad, even if he indeed set sail for the island. Perhaps, he did not. Four years later, the Crown awarded him the governorship of Santa Marta in modern-day Colombia, where his name would gain more renown.5 The first attempt to incorporate Trinidad had failed; the second one would as well, but only halfway, for the second conqueror-governor opened the path for others that followed.

ANTONIO SEDEÑO’S ROYAL CHARTER Antonio Sedeño’s first initiatives began in 1530, although he does not appear in the original sources to be actually and physically executing the enterprise. He surfaces in a letter to the Royal Council of the Indies and in the royal charter that he signed with the Crown. I will not enter into the minute details, not many, that are known about his life or character. I will leave that information for when he finally does appear on the Caribbean stage, where he proved himself adept and experienced in the area. The Council of the Indies’s letter, dated 3 January 1530, acknowledges Sedeño’s request to colonise Trinidad.6 From this letter and from the charter’s text, one may conclude that Sedeño’s objective was based on the gold and on the Amerindians of the island. The letter appears to be from January, but the charter has a July date.7 The royal contract reveals that Antonio Sedeño informed royal officials that the Trinidadian Amerindians were anthropophagous and therefore had been declared worthy of enslaving. It could not have been any clearer. Sedeño expected to capture these anthropophagous people and to sell them in the markets of the Caribbean. At that time, incursions in search of native labour were prevalent throughout the Caribbean. European ships departed island ports like hunters that harassed the coastal zone of the Mainland and docked in unarmed beaches where, through cunning deceit or violence, captured Amerindians. Despite what he affirmed, Sedeño did not sail towards Trinidad – he could not – in search of capturing Amerindians. It may have been, most likely, his initial plan, but not the Crown’s, for it forbade Sedeño in the charter to enslave Amerindians. Nevertheless, Sedeño was always eager to comply with the terms of the charter like when the Chieftain Maruana Aquirilano provided him with a Carib Amerindian and Sedeño, instead of enslaving him, declared him free in order “to show him the faith and our 19

Spanish Trinidad language, with the intention to see if through him he could motivate other Caribs of his nation to submit peacefully”.8 Later on, when Sedeño left the island, he took with him a group of Amerindians that, once in Puerto Rico, he declared free in order to prove his intentions and to show the feasibility of a Hispano-indigenous accord.9 There are, however, more examples that reveal Sedeño’s intentions regarding Trinidad. Of course, he could not storm over the island like someone headed towards a market of slaves. The Spanish government would impede it. He went to Trinidad with other intentions and these, examining his charter and his actions on the island, were readily displayed. The royal contract that the Crown signed on 12 July 1530 in favour of Sedeño, conceded him a series of advantages and placed a number of conditions that Sedeño tried to nullify. The charter’s contents and Sedeño’s refutation of some of its clauses are worth discussing. First, the Crown gave him a licence to construct a fort under his command, for him and his heir, with a salary of two hundred Spanish ducats per year, once the fortification was finished. According to Sedeño, he should receive a salary of 250,000 maravedies10 and the command of the fort in perpetuity, as had been assigned to the Weslers in Venezuela, the Montejos in the Yucatan and to Narváezes in Florida. Evangelisation of the island would be at his expense. He was compelled to place on the island two clerics whose salaries were to be paid by him, at least until there would be a bishop and tithes collected. Sedeño would be able to name the abbot or bishop of the island. Sedeño accepted all these conditions and suggested that the abbot would be the priest that would first accompany him. He would, of course, be made governor for life, but without any assigned assets and subject to royal inspection at any moment. Also, Sedeño was named head constable, a position that he could transfer to whomever he wished, as long as the candidate was not forbidden to hold office. Sedeño’s response to the issue of the head constableship was the same as his previous answer to the issue of the fortress: he wished it under the same conditions that it had been given to Welser, Montejo and Narváez. A quite interesting matter regarding what has already been discussed emerges. The Crown allowed Sedeño to search for metals with the Amerindians, but forbade taking indigenous people as slaves. How did Sedeño respond to this issue? His response confirms our original belief regarding Sedeño’s true intentions, i.e., his objectives were to capture and sell 20

The First Attempts to Settle Trinidad

Amerindians. Sedeño alleged that the Catholic monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella, had declared the anthropophagous Caribs worthy of enslavement and therefore he requested the liberty to enslave any Amerindians declared as such and who were held by the indigenous people of Trinidad, all to be executed under supervision of a royal inspector. In exchange, he promised to free and return to his or her homeland any Amerindian under Carib control who came originally from an area now colonised by the Spanish. He begged for royal favour in covering the costs that this initiative would incur. The Crown upheld its rejection of Sedeño’s conditions, and when he informed the Crown that Amerindians would be made prisoners of war when rejecting evangelisation, the Crown responded that war would not be necessary. Since Friar Antonio de Montesino’s first accusations in 1511, a whole series of complaints regarding the conquest of America and the treatment of Amerindians had been registered in Spain. The Dominican friars, the first to attack the system of enslaving Amerindians, had achieved in 1525 the suspension of all new discoveries and conquests. The hour of Vitoria11 was at hand. The debates regarding the rights to conquer and enslave explain the royal refusal to Sedeño’s request. By contrast, another ethnic group, essential to the Caribbean economy, was not the source of discussions, the Africans. Up to one hundred people of African descent – half of them women – were allowed to be brought to Trinidad as enslaved labourers, geared for farming and for the construction of the main fortress. Sedeño considered this number insufficient and requested fifty more, for a total of one hundred men and fifty women. As always, the Crown had the desire to incorporate the economy of the Americas into the European one. Africans were introduced for that reason, and for that too, tax exemptions were extended. The Crown wished to provide incentives to the coloniser that would settle in the conquered lands by authorising any subject of the Crown who moved to the island, the right to acquire property, to become registered local citizens, and to acquire estates. The Crown’s anxiety over the island’s economy appeared again in a clause that ordered Sedeño to implement in Trinidad the same type of economy that existed in the Greater Antilles, one based on sugar mills. Hence, Africans and their descendants would also be needed for that purpose; and in order to advance the sugar industry, the first mill would be exempted from taxes. Sedeño’s was the first sugar mill and the Crown provided him advantages that not only he enjoyed, but his heirs as well. Tools and other materials that were imported for the sugar mill and the 21

Spanish Trinidad fortress were also exempt from duties for five years, as well as supplies for acquiring Amerindians for work or to evangelise. An economy was to be created for the benefit of the Crown. The presence of royal officials and one-fifth of all metals represented this aspect. Before executing the enterprise, all agreements and other desired items were to be verified; and to the King, belonged a fifth of all metals, of all precious stones, and of all the harvested cotton. Sedeño believed that it sufficed to capture Amerindians for work and for evangelisation under the supervision of a royal inspector. The asiento or royal contract that has just been explained was valid for twenty years – Sedeño requested thirty-five – and his heirs would be able to continue its implementation in case of his premature death. Within those twenty years, the Crown could not assign Trinidadian Amerindians, if they were already living peacefully,12 in order for the Spanish to instruct them.13 The decision regarding instructing Amerindians peacefully in Spanish ways dated from 1526, as a result of reports received by the Council of the Indies asserting that the Amerindians were intellectually incapable and infantile. The issue of indigenous freedom, as has been discussed, was prevalent at the time and social experiments in the Indies were conducted to demonstrate the capacity of Amerindians for European education and for European notions of progress. Characterised by such beliefs, Sedeño’s royal charter tangibly reveals in the final clause that the encomienda or the assignment of Amerindians to the colonists for work was prohibited and the Crown expected to witness the results of transculturation without it.14 A final condition of the royal charter was issued with Sedeño already sailing in the Atlantic. The Crown compelled him to implement all the terms of the charter within a period of six months.

FIRST ATTEMPT AT CONQUEST From 1530 to 1537, Antonio Sedeño travelled through the surrounding geography of Trinidad, Paria, Cumaná, Cubagua, Puerto Rico and Santo Domingo. Within this time period, four distinct phases emerged. The first phase developed in Trinidad and Paria. It was characterised by the first attempt to conquer the island and its main feature was the construction of a small fort on the South American continent that supported the entry into the island. The fortress became the centre of Spanish interests and determined, in part, the course of events of the other phases that followed. The second phase was characterised by the rivalries between Diego de Ordás, Antonio Sedeño and the inhabitants of Cubagua. Ordás took over 22

The First Attempts to Settle Trinidad

Sedeño’s fortress and entered South American lands that the inhabitants of the island of Cubagua claimed as theirs. The third phase transpired in Trinidad and Paria. Clashes emerged over the fortress between Sedeño and Alonso de Herrera who arrived as a Lieutenant of Ordás. The fourth and final phase was personified in Sedeño and Jerónimo de Ortal. These men were driven by the desire to access the Meta River15 and their disagreements took place in Cumaná. Sedeño changed his objectives and interloped in what Ortal considered to be his governorship. The audiencia or main governing council of Santo Domingo intervened in the dispute and attempted to delineate jurisdictions. Examining these issues more broadly, Antonio Sedeño, a wealthy royal accountant in Puerto Rico, “with a body and spirit anxious for great danger and adventure”, departed on 18 September 1530 from the Port of Sanlúcar in Spain. He made a stop in the Canary Islands, where most of the people who went on the expedition joined him.16 He sailed in two well-stocked caravels with ammunitions and supplies whose final port, according to the original sources, was the island of Trinidad. Sedeño believed that sixty men would be sufficient to conquer the territory without violence or bloodshed. In the end, he was wrong for the Amerindians were already infuriated over previous Spanish incursions. Since the time of King Ferdinand, Oviedo affirms in his accounts, Trinidad’s indigenous inhabitants were deemed worthy of enslavement for the crime of being belligerent, idolatrous, and anthropophagous Amerindians. Sedeño had, indeed, already informed the Council of the Indies of this matter. On 8 November 1530, they docked in the part of Trinidad that faced the South American mainland in a bay they named Las Palmas. Before crossing over to the Mainland, Sedeño presented the official documents that he carried with him to his companions and they accepted him as governor and captain general of the island. While back on the Mainland, he contacted the chieftain, Turipari, a friend of the Spanish, whom Sedeño believed would lend him assistance in conquering Trinidad. Sedeño received the chieftain’s support and crossed back to the island, arriving in Chacomare, where the chieftain, Maruana, ruled.17 Sedeño easily enticed him and his subjects with European trinkets and objects. With this new indigenous ally, they crossed over to another region, known as Camorocabo, where more than three thousand minor chiefs ruled, an area inhabited by Amerindians 23

Spanish Trinidad who were arch-enemies of the Europeans. Several villages were scattered around the region and the main one of these was Paralaure. The Spaniards’ unexpected entrance was not entirely badly received, but it was all pretence on the part of the Amerindians. Sedeño, however, realised how precarious their situation was and how endangered were their lives, given the small number of Spanish men. He, therefore, determined to return to the South American Mainland in the company of Turipari. Sedeño recognised the lowlands of Paria that ship captains affirmed to be part of the Mainland and that the Amerindians called Paria or Biapari.18 The Amerindian chief, Turipari, did not stop the Spanish from building the fortress on his territory, where Juan González de Sosa ultimately stayed with twenty-five men.19 The stronghold was constructed in the chieftain Turipari’s district, near the Dragon’s Mouth (Bocas del Dragón), and at a distance of half a shot of a crossbow’s arrow from the beach, surrounded by a river that defensively encircled it, perhaps today’s Yoco river. Antonio Sedeño then left for Puerto Rico in search of reinforcements and to inspect the farms and cattle ranches he held there. Those who remained in the fort did not fare well, for the Amerindians blocked and impeded any re-provisioning.

DIEGO DE ORDÁS APPEARS By the end of February 1531, Diego de Ordás, who claimed jurisdiction over lands that extended two hundred leagues from the Orinoco delta, landed in Paria.20 A group of Sedeño’s supporters stationed at the fort spotted Ordás’s ship. Sedeño’s lieutenant attempted to confiscate Ordás’s vessel, thus igniting a long line of clashes that transpired during the years that followed and that dealt with Sedeño’s building of the fort. Ordás, not heeding Sedeño’s lieutenant, removed Jerónimo Ortal with a group of one hundred men that Ordás had brought and took over the fort and its garrison.21 Ordás then took possession of the territory and enlisted the group of famished Sedeño supporters.22 Ordás christened San Miguel de Paria, the yet-to-be-named area on 14 June 1531.23 For four months, Ordás roamed the region, acquainting himself with the Amerindians of Trinidad who were in search of European gifts.24 Ordás also employed his stay in Paria to acquire information about the Orinoco and to adapt his ships for river navigation, since he had already decided to enter that great river, which will be discussed shortly. What is interesting in all of this is that three jurisdictions had just collided. Ordás, with his territorial ambitions, ran against Sedeño’s illegal 24

The First Attempts to Settle Trinidad

Paria settlement and against the claims of the inhabitants of the island of Cubagua who jealously guarded the South American coastline that faced their island and from where they sourced their fresh water. Returning to the gist of the story, the makeshift structure, exaggeratedly referred to as a fortress, is what appeals in regard to Trinidad. Ordás won over its garrison and after leaving fifty men behind in it who had been previously sent by Martín Yáñez Tafur, among them a cleric; he headed to the mouth of the Orinoco. The men in San Miguel de Paria who remained in the small fort were left with standing orders to instruct any newly arrived reinforcements from Spain to reject Sedeño’s possible retaliation of the events who was at that time in Puerto Rico. One may safely assume that Sedeño would have attempted to recover his former position in Paria. Without any knowledge of the events that transpired, Sedeño sent to Paria thirty men with horses, mares, calves, sheep and pigs from San Juan, Puerto Rico. Sedeño notified the Council of the Indies of the situation, informing the Council that Ordás had been merely given two hundred leagues west of the mouth of the Marañon (Amazon) river and that he had appropriated more than four hundred. Sedeño also informed the Council of the damages he suffered by Ordás taking his garrison and he demanded reparation or compensation. The Crown responded to Sedeño’s plea and ordered Diego de Ordás to compensate him for the value of the structure and other usurped goods, unless they decided to unite their efforts and to explore and conquer in partnership, in spite of the fact that the Crown had previously ordered Sedeño to abandon Paria.25 The officials of Cubagua had lodged a similar complaint to Sedeño, alleging that Ordás had trespassed into the thirty leagues of South American coastline that had been awarded to them for provisions and freshwater. The inhabitants of New Cádiz (Cubagua) feared that such intrusion denied them access to the facing Mainland area, their lifeline. In order to avoid this, the officials of Cubagua wrote the Crown and Sedeño, knowing that the latter would be upset by Ordás’s usurpation of his fortress. The officials of Cubagua achieved their triple purpose. In the end, the one responsible for all their worries disappeared. Diego de Ordás, unknowingly, fell into the hands of the Cubaguan officials who arrested him and sent him to Santo Domingo and from there to Spain. On the way to Spain, Ordás was poisoned. Once Sedeño became aware of Ordás’s death, he determined to restart his venture. 25

Spanish Trinidad SEDEÑO’S SECOND ATTEMPT Once again, Sedeño placed the task of conquest and the search for riches at the forefront. Juan de Castellanos, always ready to offer us poorly written verses, describes his frame of mind in poetic verses: A short man was he, of good spirits Of pleasant condition and good hearted; Yet in his appearance so large of a giant That took all else for small matters; And so he determined to come forth Calling for dangerous conquest, To which the King provided him, for he knew The plenty that his fame promised26

Sedeño arrived in Cubagua in May 1533, but circumstances had changed. The inhabitants of New Cádiz (Cubagua), with Ordás dead, did not need Sedeño’s support any longer. They had summoned him and had offered him assistance when they were trying to rid themselves of Ordás. But with Ordás now poisoned and dead, Sedeño emphatically complained that the New Cádiz (Cubagua) officials were not fulfilling their promises. Eager to recruit more men, Sedeño was now denied by city officials. Coincidentally, a royal magistrate was visiting Cubagua at the time and Sedeño presented him with the official accrediting documents and asked the judge to allow him to enlist Ordás’s former followers, now leaderless, in his troops. Despite the magistrate realising that such leaderless men were perhaps better off under control and their potential value in annexing Trinidad, the magistrate denied Sedeño’s request. One may assume the refusal was a result of the Queen’s royal order authorising Sedeño to gather Ordás’s survivors not having been yet received.27 While Sedeño was in the midst of these events, Alonso de Herrera arrived from Santo Domingo, as Ordás’s lieutenant governor – what transpired between Sedeño and this individual will be later discussed. Sedeño, ignoring the city officials’ prohibition, secretly recruited the men and gathered eighty of them who crossed over to the island of Margarita, where he too, with six rowboats and canoes, later met them. From Margarita, Sedeño focused on his ultimate goal: Trinidad, landing near Morocabo, where the Spanish had been killed earlier. The Amerindians had been forewarned and had their defences ready. Quietly, Sedeño’s men entered a village that they almost exterminated if it were not for the Amerindians 26

The First Attempts to Settle Trinidad

defending themselves courageously, “fighting to the point as if their souls left their bodies”. The Spanish found it necessary to set ablaze the houses in order to finish off any resistance. More than one Spanish corpse that had previously convulsed in anguish under the effects of the indigenous poisoned arrows joined the Amerindian dead. Everything was destroyed with only a few women and children surviving the massacre. For ten days, Sedeño and his men roamed the land without encountering others or finding any supplies. According to the chronicler Fernández de Oviedo, since these Amerindians inhabited the coastal zones, they dedicated themselves strictly to warlike activities, and did not spend any time farming and would bring their provisions from afar. It was a strategy designed to provide the arriving Spanish with empty coastal lands. Sedeño had no other choice but to leave for Paria, where they denied him entry, and he therefore continued on to the island of Margarita. In Margarita, he recovered and recruited eighty more men and six horses. Still unsatisfied with the strength of his contingent, Sedeño requested more reinforcements from Puerto Rico. The fort in Paria suffered a new setback. A resident magistrate, named Prado, attempted to incorporate the area into Cubagua’s jurisdiction, but Ordás’s former men, stationed there, refused and petitioned the order. By contrast, they accepted Sedeño’s command. Their obedience to Sedeño relied only on the fact that Sedeño had an armed contingent with him. If not, most certainly, Ordás’s former men would have also rejected him. Agustín Delgado, who had sworn an oath of allegiance to Ordás, was now in command of the fort, but negotiated with Sedeño in order to accompany him to Trinidad.28 After thirty days of preparation, they set sail. Thirteen of the men who were originally stationed at the fort stayed behind, while the other twenty-three joined Sedeño’s men. A new character approached the fort in order to complicate matters even further. Alonso de Herrera, head constable and Ordás’s lieutenant, mentioned earlier, and who can no longer be avoided in this discussion. Alonso arrived at the fort – “the house of discord” as the chronicler Oviedo termed it – and took command of it by displaying the accrediting orders that the Audiencia or Council of Santo Domingo had given him. Alonso de Herrera, as previously mentioned, met with Antonio Sedeño in Cubagua, where Sedeño promised Alonso to make him governor of the future Fort to be built in Trinidad. In that meeting, they must have discussed the island’s potential and the issue of conflicting jurisdictions. 27

Spanish Trinidad Placing into poetry their dialogue, and as proof that interest in Trinidad and how its surrounding regions could serve as staging ground for the search of El Dorado and the riches of the Meta River, 29 Juan de Castellanos expressed that Sedeño told Herrera that, Some of these companions Bring their lips to my ear Telling me that you return to a journey From where Sir Diego de Ordás came ruined; For some so poorly based reason That the error is more than well known, For from dry and scraggy trees One can barely gather leaves or fruits

Their conversation continued and Sedeño insisted in making Alonso de Herrera realise the futility of privations suffered and the foolishness of wasted efforts so that, in the end, they would not reap anything, except death and disappointment. Sedeño attempted to convince Herrera that riches were at hand, and therefore there was no need to go any further: What is the use of going any further when riches at your doorstep?30

Alonso de Herrera told Sedeño that he was aware that Jerónimo de Ortal would be arriving as Diego de Ordás’s replacement and that he had chosen de Ortal as his field captain. Nevertheless, he would be at Sedeño’s service. Although the chronicler Oviedo narrated this version of events , another chronicler, Aguado, asserted that Herrera expressed to Sedeño that he would rather lead in Paria, than be second in command in Trinidad, or as yet another chronicler, Simón, commented, to be a head of a mouse in Paria, than a tail of a lion in Trinidad. What remains certain is that Herrera set sail from Cubagua towards Paria in a canoe after Sedeño left, where Herrera took command of the notorious fort. When Sedeño, in Trinidad, heard of Herrera’s actions, he returned to Paria and arrested him by surprise. Once again, Sedeño’s authority loomed over the fortress. It also appears that Sedeño tortured Herrera and dismissed Álavaro de Ordás, nephew of the late Diego, from the fort’s garrison.31 If more credence is given to a report made at the time to the Council of Santo Domingo over chroniclers’ accounts, then some 28

The First Attempts to Settle Trinidad

discrepancies emerge in the story of the Sedeño-Herrera events. According to the report given to the Council of Santo Domingo, Sedeño, between two daybreaks, went to the fort, knowing that there would be only a few people there to defend it. He then took Herrera, stabbed him with a knife, and placed him in the stocks along with the others. Sedeño placed Herrera in the stockade for several days. The prisoner dared to defend his rights and asked Sedeño to show him the documents that authorised him to commit such abuse and usurpation. Sedeño, as his sole response, hung Herrera from a tree by his feet for half a day and lashed him. After this not so delicate treatment, Sedeño then took Herrera to Trinidad. The Crown, once aware of these actions, ordered Sedeño to set the prisoner free and for Sedeño to present himself at once to the Council of Santo Domingo,32 but this would be to get ourselves ahead of the events.

THE SPANISH ABANDON THE ISLAND Juan de Castellanos composed two hundred and eighty-eight verses in a fourth poem to describe the Trinidadian Amerindian reaction and the abandonment of the island by the Spanish. Before the decisive battle, the poet de Castellanos described a tirade spewed from the mouth of the chieftain, Baucumar, worthy of the Ercillean and Araucanian Caupolican.33 Alas, let us continue our discussion without getting ourselves ahead of the events. Sedeño, now back in Trinidad, with Herrera as prisoner, began to fell trees, to clear land, and to build huts. Two different attitudes can be observed in the chieftains. Baucumar wanted war and to expel the Spanish intruder. The chieftain, Maruaná, proposed peace and to accept the Spanish presence. With this in mind, Maruaná appeared in Sedeño’s night guard house and warned him of Baucumar’s intentions: Sedeño seeing such manners warnings and promises so urbane, displayed through gestures his contentment; gave him his polished ornaments [cloths] of linen and silk and scarlet grain, gave him gifts, wine of Castile of which he praised as marvelous

Mauraná then departed with Sedeño’s gifts and with a request to tell Baucumar to abandon his bellicose intentions. Not only did the Amerindian 29

Spanish Trinidad threat loom over the Spanish encampment, but also internal divisions surfaced among Sedeño’s men, as rumours ran that Herrera planned on finishing Sedeño off, but…. Sedeño did not regard with much weight that poorly sounding hearsay.

Two Spaniards that had left the Spanish encampment fell to Amerindian arrows. The Spanish increased security, but the Amerindians still attacked them by surprise, “it seemed as if the mountains opened up or that the air was full of countless arrows…” Not even the chronicler Fernández de Oviedo who wrote the aforementioned view and on whose chronicle this description of events is based, and not even another historian, Antonio de Herrera, offered the names of the attacking chieftains in their narratives. Only Juan de Castellanos provided more than one name and he described their attributes, as well as their belligerent actions: Guyna who brought three hundred warriors; Pamacoa provided four hundred; Diamaná brought many weapons and fighters; Utuyaney, a gigantic Amerindian, came with three hundred warriors; Amanatey appeared with one hundred; and Paraguany with another hundred… Along with others that Castellanos did not wish to relate. In the presence of the Amerindian armed retinue, Baucumar gave the Spaniards a grand patriotic lecture. Pointing to the Castilians, he shouted: It seems to you the island a beautiful thing, and your desire swells to the measure they are to die for taking control of it and not to make waste of their arrival; yet for you having driven us out of it it is suitable for us that without fear to lose our lives; for it is better to die once and for all than to die a hundred thousand times day by day (Castellanos 10:4)

With such patriotic fervour and with numerous Amerindian warriors mustered, there was no doubt that the Amerindians would attack in extreme anger. Battle cries and arrows severed the air and injured bodies and punctured ears. In half an hour, the Amerindians wounded twentyfive Spaniards, killing two Spanish men and five horses. Castellanos’s 30

The First Attempts to Settle Trinidad

description of each chieftain’s attire should not be overlooked, but it would be almost impossible to mention so many stanzas without being burdensome and losing some sense of historical accuracy. Sedeño’s supporters were ultimately victorious. In January 1534, Sedeño was in a precarious situation; they did not even have boots. They lacked ships for their boats and canoes needed caulking. He sent a request for shoes, cotton, paper, cooking pans, food, sackcloth, rope, and news from the Court and other items, as well as fishing nets.34 Sedeño’s troops were preparing themselves for another attack, when an emissary from Santo Domingo appeared – Alonso de Aguilar – with an order to free Alonso de Herrera and for Herrera to take possession of Paria. Sedeño dragged his feet. There are several versions of the events that transpired from the moment that Aguilar landed in Trinidad. Sedeño considered that the Paria fort belonged to him, since he was the one who had built it and since Agustín Delgado, Ordás’s lieutenant had handed it over to him. Father Aguado, Antonio de Herrera, and Friar Pedro Simón, all attributed Herrera’s liberation to Alonso de Aguilar, but Fernández de Oviedo and Father Caulín affirmed that it was the work of some deserters of Sedeño’s camp who transferred Herrera in a canoe to Paria, where he took possession in the name of the Council of Santo Domingo.35 According to original sources, Sedeño, once aware of Aguilar’s order, agreed to comply with it. A few days later, on Sunday, 8 March 1534, when Sedeño was about to fulfil the royal order, several men arrived from Cubagua in a canoe, the same ones who brought the order to set Alonso de Herrera free – they took the shackles off the prisoner and took him to Paria. In Paria, Augustín Delgado, the magistrate responsible for Herrera’s imprisonment as a result of what Herrera had done in Paria, and the Mayor who also accused Herrera of several offenses, were waiting for him.36 Whether as a result of the actions of Alonso de Aguilar or of the deserters’ of Sedeño’s camp or of his own, Alonso de Herrera escaped Sedeño’s imprisonment and crossed over to Paria where he took possession of the fort. Meanwhile, Sedeño became absorbed in a delicate situation. In Trinidad, Sedeño’s men mutinied, alleging that the region of Paria was being taken from them which was tantamount to seizing their source of supplies. Considering that Ordás’s former soldiers had now joined Sedeño, they were probably the cause of the discontent. The rebels took hold of Sedeño and controlled and disarmed all those who did not join them. They also took all the horses and ships, and planned to cross over to 31

Spanish Trinidad Paria. The mutineers presented the Sedeño loyalists with an ultimatum, either board the ships with them or stay with the governor. Twenty-seven men opted to stay with their leader, while the others thought it best to leave. Nonetheless, the soldiers loyal to Sedeño understood that, without ships or supplies, they could do nothing except die at the hands of the Amerindians. In the end, they also decided to also set sail. Sedeño faced the dilemma of leaving with those who had rebelled against him or to remain with some Amerindians who had offered to help him. Sedeño did not trust the Amerindians and believed it best to suffer hardships with the Christians than to be among strange and untrustworthy Amerindians. Furthermore, the rebels promised to hand over everything to him as soon as they arrived in Paria.37 The leaders of the rebellion and sedition have not been mentioned yet; they were, the previously named Agustín Delgado, Antón García, Head Constable of Trinidad Alonso Morán, Francisco de Eras, Antón Gómez, and Francisco de Gracia.

THE SOURCE OF DISCORD The Governor of Trinidad could not have had a worse arrival in Paria. Sedeño immediately fell into the hands of Alonso de Herrera’s constable who imprisoned him. Herrera believed that the hour of his revenge had come and locked Sedeño away for six months. For the fallen governor, it proved to be a period of harsh and terrible treatment. His health worsened and his life was in jeopardy. Sedeño’s precarious situation could not hold. His supporters determined to put an end to it. Some of them united, including Alonso Álvarez Guerrero, former pro-Sedeño Mayor, Álvaro de Xenas, Juan de Nidos, Antonio Fernández, and others. They marched with their weapons to Alonso de Herrera’s home and demanded Sedeño’s release, availing themselves that Agustín Delgado and others had gone in search of supplies. Herrera, in utter fear and armed with his sword, ran along with the local notary, to where Sedeño was locked up and threatened to kill the imprisoned governor. Nevertheless, as Sedeño’s liberators approached and Herrera, taken by sudden fear, fell on his knees and begged the weak Sedeño to spare his life. The ailing Sedeño had hardly any strength left; nevertheless, he fulfilled Herrera’s wish. The mutineers were extremely agitated, prompting Sedeño to glance through a window so that they could see him. Some of his followers wept, others cried with joy, and yet others promised swift revenge against those 32

The First Attempts to Settle Trinidad

who had rebelled back in Trinidad. They also demanded that the house where they been imprisoned be set on fire with the perpetrators inside it, but Sedeño refused. The reinstalled governor of Trinidad was not keen for revenge. He left Alonso de Herrera in his post and Sedeño, by way of Margarita, left for Puerto Rico with his supporters in search of more men, food, and ammunition in order to pursue his original undertaking. Alonso de Herrera and Agustín Delgado waited in Paria for the arrival of Jerónimo Ortal, heir to Diego de Ordás governorship.38 Ortal or Dortal, Ordás’s former companion in his explorations, appeared in the area with royal titles and orders. Ortal must have arrived towards the end of August 1535, in what he referred to as the capital of the Kingdom of Neveris, two leagues from Maracapana. His project consisted of building a fort there and using the area as a staging ground for entering the Meta River, since previous attempts to reach it through the Huyapari River had failed. They were not alone in Paria, since they found twenty-five Castilians from Cubagua who had gone to capture Amerindians. With this intrusion in mind, Ortal suggested to the king that whoever governed Cubagua should also rule over the Continent and vice versa. Ortal’s objective, however, was in the deep Orinoco River. Herrera and Delgado accepted Ortal’s orders and placed themselves at his service for the journey. Antonio Sedeño, still governor of Trinidad, at that time in Puerto Rico, offered to cooperate with Ortal and to explore with him, promising to send him horses and men from Puerto Rico. Sedeño, however, must not have fulfilled his agreement with Ortal, since Ortal, without seeking Sedeño’s approval, left for Trinidad in 1535 and used the island as a stopover and supply base, to the governor of Trinidad, Sedeño’s disapproval who considered the island his. As clearly evident, all the problems that had arisen were related to the issue of competing jurisdictions. As a collateral issue, the island was merely considered as a launching pad for penetrating the South American continent through the great waterway of the Orinoco. Another side issue was how the Spanish took into account the Trinidadian Amerindians’ reluctant attitude to cooperate, rebuffing all attempts at being subdued having learned the lessons of previous Spanish abuses. Nothing truly positive had been created on the island at this point in the sixteenth century. Moreover, in an extraordinary meeting of the Council of the Indies, the presiding officials declared the Amerindians of Trinidad worthy of enslavement for their savagery. 33

Spanish Trinidad Although it might be more interesting to follow Herrera in his journey up river through the Huyapari, doing so would distract the reader from the main story. The key man in this narrative is none of the ones mentioned thus far; rather it is Antonio Sedeño, governor of Trinidad. Nevertheless, this fact should not impede mentioning that Herrera died from an arrow shot at his mouth – such was life in the Indies. While Ortal was in Trinidad, he received news of Herrera’s death from Álvaro de Ordás, who waited for him in Puerto Sancto. Ortal immediately boarded a ship and left behind one hundred and thirty men in Trinidad with orders that if he were not to return within a set period, they should all set sail again to Maracapana, the site designated as the entry point into the South American continent through the Meta River. Álvaro de Ordás and the remaining arrivals that had come with him from Huyapari were not in Puerto Sancto, since they had continued on to Cubagua. Ortal met the fatigued and famished men in Cubagua who were still willing to follow him into the Meta River. Antonio Sedeño, still in Puerto Rico, was infected by the myth of El Dorado.39 An enslaved Amerindian woman enticed Sedeño with the opulence of the Meta River, and promised to guide him there. Sedeño took the bait and sailed to Santo Domingo, where he requested authorisation from the Dominican Council to conquer land on the continent with the intent of acquiring the resources to complete the conquest of Trinidad. The Council of Santo Domingo consented and with authorisation in hand, Sedeño returned to Puerto Rico, embellishing stories of the treasures to be had. If he had been previously unsuccessful in finding volunteers to go with him to the discredited island of Trinidad, now he was able to recruit them. He gathered one hundred and forty men, and forty horses and sent them to the continent with Captain Juan Bautista.40 One may easily imagine what happened once on the Mainland; yet, my description of events errs in the same fashion of the affliction that consumed Sedeño. Like Sedeño, I have drifted away from Trinidad and have made another area, distant to the topic at hand, the object of the discussion, motivated by a desire to look into the demise that awaited the second governor of Trinidad. Disagreements often disappeared, as Oviedo predicted, with the death of one claimant or of both. The officials of the Council of Santo Domingo were not even successful in settling the disputes between Ortal and Sedeño, both, by then, on the South American continent.41 They attacked each other. They arrested the officials who had gone to them in charge of settling their 34

The First Attempts to Settle Trinidad

disagreements, and, in the end, Ortal died in Santo Domingo and Sedeño on the Continent. Some say he was poisoned by an Amerindian woman and “in a most unchristian way”.42 Sedeño took six years, from 1530 to 1537, to execute his royal charter. First, it was Amerindian resistance and then clashing jurisdictions and finally his digression to the Meta River from his original objective – all had frustrated the annexation of Trinidad. Sedeño had fought tenaciously against the Amerindians; had gone more than once to Puerto Rico in search of reinforcements; had fought over his supply base in Paria, but in the end, he allowed himself to be tempted by the glimmer of the unknown continental inland regions. Sedeño’s demise ushered a long period when Spanish explorers and the Crown lost interest in Trinidad. It seems that with the conquest of Mexico, Spanish adventurers slipped into it or towards the other great conquests that followed. The Germans had already tired of searching for El Dorado. Pizarro had already won Peru and Belalcázar, Quito. Inroads into southern South America, through the banks of the Rio de la Plata, had already been made. The Spanish had already gone into and returned from the heart of North America. Much had been explored, returned from, and annexed. Nevertheless, in the mid-sixteenth century, El Dorado still incited the imagination. Many believed that its location lay where Columbus situated Paradise. Trinidad, therefore, maintained its original importance as a staging ground for reaching the imagined riches that laid beyond, and the Europeans held firm to the belief that they would find them.

ANOTHER CONQUEROR: JUAN SEDANO Another serious attempt emerged with Juan Sedano’s request for a royal charter. Sedano, a resident of the city of La Plata in the Viceroyalty of Peru, offered in 1553 to conquer Trinidad. During his time, there was more talk of settling lands than of actually conquering them. By then, debates and theological committees had been held regarding the rights of Spain in conquering the Indies and of the methods of annexing new regions. The Crown desired to replace the previous pure warlike method of conquest for an approach of more peaceful settlement. The contents of Sedano’s charter reflect this new Spanish governing spirit, a consequence of the heated aforementioned debates. The Crown required Juan Sedano to bring with him two Franciscan friars from Castile, to be named by the Council of the Indies, and two 35

Spanish Trinidad priests in order to conduct Mass in the new settlement. Eventually, all four would be destined to evangelise the Trinidadian Amerindians. Aside from these spiritual matters, the charter refers to the type of people who were allowed to settle. Sedano was expected to bring from Castile forty married farmers with their wives and children, and sixty single men. All of them, the charter made clear, were to be settlers, not soldiers of war. Forty enslaved Africans were to be destined for agricultural labour. In addition, plants, seeds, oxen, cows, goats, pigs, horses, and mares were also to set sail for Trinidad. With this group of settlers, Sedano would construct a village of twenty married men and twenty single ones on the South American mainland. He would do the same for Trinidad, one of twenty married and forty single men. He had a period of two years to complete the terms of the Charter. The policy regarding the natives was as follows: the Spanish were to approach them in a positive manner, by way of the clerics; and were to build Spanish settlements in areas that were not employed by the indigenous for their farming or for their villages. The Crown strictly forbade the acquisition of Amerindian women or of precious metals from the indigenous inhabitants. The latter may only be taken when exchanged for objects of equal value, if not, the settler would be under penalty of death or suffer the loss of assets. The Crown’s shift in the policy of conquest is admirable. A significant difference now existed between the ways Juan Bono or Antonio Sedeño treated the indigenous peoples and what the new laws instructed. Father Las Casas’s shadow loomed large over these new policies. The Amerindian was now considered an object of extreme care. He or she was most certainly to be evangelised, but anyone who harmed the Amerindian would be punished according to Castilian laws, regardless of whether the injured party was an Amerindian or a Spanish criminal. If Sedano fulfilled these outlined instructions, then the Crown would concede him the discovery and conquest of Trinidad and of the Mainland, free of any claim by a third party. The hatred sowed by Sedeño, Ordás, Ortal, Herrera, and others were still remembered. Sedano would equally receive the title of governor for life of the town he would build on the Mainland, including a perimeter of six leagues, as well as half of the island of Trinidad, divided by a north-south meridian. Between these two sections, he could choose the one he preferred. I am unable to explain the reason for this dichotomy; perhaps, Sedano’s attempt has all the features 36

The First Attempts to Settle Trinidad

of a belated experiment by the Crown. In terms of salary, Sedano would be assigned three thousand gold pesos per year, effective once he set sail from Sanlúcar, Spain and payable from the royal revenue received from the lands where he established himself. Therefore, if there was no royal revenue, the King would not make any payment. Sedano could have a lieutenant, versed in legal affairs, named by him, only if the Crown ordered it in the future, and Sedano would also be able to reap the fruits of the land. Other responsibilities included, head constable of the Mainland territory granted and half of that of Trinidad, for life, and transferrable to whomever he designated under the condition that he would replace the official every three years and would be subject to royal review. Other benefits given by the Crown were necessary and reasonable in order to achieve the conditions imposed by the charter. He was, for example, given authority to distribute plots and acres of land to the settlers, without encroaching on indigenous villages. He also had the authority to designate the communal terms of the two towns to be built. Regarding defence, he would build two forts on the Mainland and one on Trinidad’s coast under the supervision of royal officials. He and an heir would control the forts for life with an annual payment of one hundred thousand maravedies, receivable once the forts were finished and only if the settlements had revenue. Other benefits: they only had to transfer to the Crown one-tenth of the precious metals and pearls obtained in Trinidad and on the continent and for ten years, they were exempt from duties on imports that went to the upkeep of the forts. Also, the Amerindians would not be obliged to pay tribute for two years in order to more easily entice them over to the Spanish. And, a final promise to give the remaining half of Trinidad to Sedano in governorship if he executed the terms of the charter and successfully achieved its stipulations. As it appears, the plan was merely a rehearsal; it is a shame that it was not implemented. Despite the charter’s viability, it was not carried out for there is no evidence of it.43 The Spanish annexation of Trinidad would have to wait yet again for another strong-willed captain who could face the forgotten and troubled island. The next attempt to settle the island did not appear until 1569, when Juan Trejo Ponce de León presented the Crown a plan to conquer the island. Despite its neglect, Trinidad remained connected to the nearby areas already settled by Spaniards and the island’s ports were employed as 37

Spanish Trinidad rest stops or for resupplying ships. Rodrigo de Navarrete, a notary and resident of the island of Margarita, wrote in 1554 an account in which he confirmed this connection by referring to a Trinidadian chieftain named Ocharayma who came to Margarita, desiring to establish relations with the Christians. In his letters, Navarrete wrote about sending his associates to Trinidad and finding that, as in Sedeño’s time, some Amerindians were apt to initiate relations with the Spanish and others were not.44 According to this account, Navarrete indicated that the Amerindians of Trinidad were not Caribs, contradicting what he would later write in 1570 in a report regarding the Arawaks.45 After 1535 there were no other attempts to settle Trinidad, except for some entries made from Cubagua and Margarita or from other surrounding places, but more motivated by capturing Amerindians, than settling it with Spaniards.46 This situation persisted until Juan Ponce de León’s expedition in 1571. Nevertheless, the chroniclers mentioned that Father Salas went twice from Trinidad to the Orinoco in 1560, where Amerindians killed him.47 The university graduate Alonso de Maldonado wrote the Council of the Indies in Spain from Santo Domingo48 on the 22 September 1553 informing them of several islands “that have never been subdued” and he mentioned, among these, Dominica and Trinidad. Alonso de Maldonado suggested sending friars in order to indoctrinate the Amerindians, as a safer and alternative approach to previous ones. There is no doubt that the Spaniards began approaching the island in this manner, as in the aforementioned example of Father Salas. In early 1569, many men swarmed Seville who were focused on the New World. Indeed, the eastern region of Venezuela had become by then the object of three royal charters for its conquest.

PONCE DE LEÓN Pedro Maraver de Silva, Diego Fernández de Serpa, and Juan Trejo Ponce de León received royal charters from the Crown to annex new lands. Ponce de León wished the island of Trinidad for himself. Maraver de Silva desired New Extremadura, three hundred leagues to the south of the Dragon’s Mouth [Bocas del Dragón]. In 1549, Serpa opened a royal inquiry in which he described Guiana and requested that its conquest be assigned to him, since Guiana had yet to be discovered and had not been assigned to anyone’s jurisdiction. The king accepted the request and Fernández de Serpa travelled towards New Andalusia, the region encompassing from 38

The First Attempts to Settle Trinidad

Margarita to the Marañón [Amazon] river and with a total number of three hundred coastal leagues and three hundred deep into its interior.49 In early March 1569, Seville’s streets were full of willing adventurers. The Port of Santa María also had many that were ready to set sail; among them were Serpa’s men. As the men prepared for the expedition, as per royal instructions, they received news of an uprising of converted exMuslims in Alpujarra, Spain. The men knew what this meant; troops that were about to set sail were to be requisitioned by the Crown. Both Silva and Serpa yearned for El Dorado and hoped to find it by way of the Orinoco. Their governorships were staging grounds to search for it. Serpa’s successor, Francisco de Vides, who will appear later in this discussion, also attempted to pursue El Dorado, but for now it is best to continue the story of the third conqueror in question, Juan Trejo Ponce de León. Juan Ponce de León, a descendant of the conqueror of Puerto Rico and of the seeker of the Fountain of Youth, had agreed to be ready for his expedition by the end of April 1569 with a supply ship, three caravels, men and provisions.50 Everything was set to be in place in Sanlúcar. The supply ship had three hundred tonnes, the caravels, one hundred, and five hundred men of which one hundred were farmers and the rest soldiers. The Crown instructed him that it preferred to send married farmers and that he should also take six clerics and some sailors. After four years, the Crown required Ponce de León to place in Trinidad three hundred more men (two hundred from Spain and one hundred that were not needed in Santo Domingo), with one hundred married farmers who would take their wives and children with them, as well as six clerics. Serpa would also have to bring four hundred enslaved Africans to employ in the sugar mills and plantations. Other requirements and conditions included his taking a six-month supply of stocks, that his ships needed to be inspected by officials of the Royal Guild of Merchants [Casa de la Contratación], and that he would have to, personally, take possession of Trinidad in the name of Spain. He would also establish two towns with their respective forts, to be increased by two more with their own ports within four years. One last item, Ponce de León had to take one hundred horses, three hundred mares, five hundred cows, one thousand sheep, two hundred pigs and goats, all within the four-year designated period. The intent of the expedition was merely for settlement purposes and in order to execute it, the Crown granted Ponce de León the 39

Spanish Trinidad title of governor and captain general for life and revenues drawn from the land. He would also receive the position of adelantado [preliminary governor] of Trinidad, the post with the maximum authority in the territory, for life and for the life span of his heir, a licence to distribute Amerindians for work and for tribute among the settlers, also, land, water, textiles, homes, and farms. He was also granted a twelve-league block of land with Amerindians personally assigned to him and for his heirs in perpetuity without royal oversight under the condition that no mines were to be built or that no harm should come to the Amerindians. Other benefits extended in order to favour the venture were the well-known payment to the Crown for ten years of only one-tenth of the gold, silver, pearls or precious stones of the mines that they located and the exemption from duties on imports and exports, also for ten years, of all provisions that they would import from Spain. Other benefits were meant to facilitate the execution of the enterprise, such as a licence to introduce five hundred enslaved Africans, of which one-third were to be women (without assigning rights over them); a licence to bring from Spain five hundred men of which forty could be from the Canary Islands “since they have good managers in constructing sugar mills”, and twelve married Portuguese men. The Crown also extended permission, for five years, to supply his governorship with two ships of up to two hundred tonnes that could bring cargo, free of duties, from anywhere, along with an authorisation to name the captains and pilots of his ships, regardless of whether they were officially licensed, but who were nonetheless skilled Spaniards. The final conditions and benefits of the 1569 charter included the concession of fisheries, one for pearls and another for fishing, and the right to name a substitute in his absence. The aforementioned instructions detailing what had to be executed in his newly-given governorship followed in the charter.51 The minute details of this colonising endeavour embodied an established state policy that aimed to control distant lands and governors. Ponce de León would have to decide, upon arrival, the location of his settlements, without expropriating from indigenous inhabitants. De León would have to enter into agreements with the Amerindians, establishing friendly relations with them, and to ensure that they abandon their perceived errors and vices. The clerics sent were to be the engines of this conversion and placing indigenous inhabitants in Spanish controlled 40

The First Attempts to Settle Trinidad

villages was considered the best way to achieve this objective. If the indigenous inhabitants refused to accept the establishment of these villages, the Spanish were obliged to exhaust all peaceful, convincing arguments, persuading them that the Spanish would not steal from them or hurt them “but rather be friends with them and to teach them how to live politically and how to know God and to show them the law of Jesus Christ…” The Spanish settlers were obliged to issue this warning three times, in consultation with the clerics. If, after this notice, the indigenous people still did not embrace the policy of friendship, then the use of force could be employed against them, but without abusing it. Logically, in this situation, the Spanish were compelled to notify the Council of the Indies immediately, who would render the final judgment regarding the course to follow. The royal instructions provided descriptions about the type of settlers, clerics and settlements to be made. Regarding the priests, there were to be four Jesuits. Regarding the settlers, they would be chosen from virtuous and Christian men. Settlers were compelled to do their best to treat the indigenous inhabitants with care, without taking any possessions away from them. Only once the foundations of the villages were erected could the settlers approach the indigenous people. Once settled, with their homes built, and with each settler holding an allocation of Amerindian workers, according to the settler’s status, then the Spanish were allowed by the Crown to enter into contact with the general indigenous population of the island. They would also do their best to establish commercial relations with the surrounding regions in order to trade the island’s commodities. The Crown’s major concern with developing the economy was revealed in its directives of searching for mines and of taking care to “sow the land and increase it with new plants”.52 A series of royal decrees, dated 5 February, granted other rights to Juan Trejo Ponce de León in order to execute the colonising venture. The Crown then took two final measures. The first one was addressed to Serpa and took away his right to land in Trinidad at Ponce de León’s request.53 The other was aimed at the Spanish authorities in the Indies and allowed him to acquire from their governorships horses, provisions, and whatever necessary supplies for the settlement of Trinidad and Tobago.54 Although not previously mentioned, Tobago was indeed part of all these royal contracts and instructions. 41

Spanish Trinidad Nevertheless, Ponce de León was taken by surprise, like Maraver and Serpa before him, by a Morisco55 uprising in Spain that obstructed and delayed his plans, despite his arranging his affairs since 1565; for in that same year, he had asked permission to leave his post as governor of the garrison in San Juan’s (Puerto Rico) fortress and to journey to Spain for three years. By the time he was negotiating the royal charter, his three year period had expired and he was required to extend it.56 In July, upon receiving the extension, he had to officially report that he had not yet left for the Indies. He had first promised to set sail in April, then at the end of June. Nevertheless, the uprisings in Granada, Spain, to which several captains were mobilised, obstructed his plans, compelling him to call on the Royal Court. The Crown must have been strongly interested in Ponce de León’s venture for it allowed, not only for de León to set sail in New Spain’s (Mexico) fleet that was to set sail much later, but also authorised him to embark without the designated five hundred men and without having them go through a rigorous exam of “purity of Spanish blood”.57 In October, the Royal Guild of Merchants in Seville received a royal order instructing them to remit an official to Sanlúcar in order to manage the provisioning of Ponce de León’s fleet. The Royal Merchant’s Guild had not sent one earlier, for they had been swamped by the arrival of New Spain’s (Mexico’s) fleet.58 The expedition finally departed and on 14 January 1570, Ponce de León wrote from Trinidad to the king informing him about his arrival and of his discovering the land for him. The king responded to the letter by reminding him of what he had been instructed to do regarding the Amerindians; he was to attract them by good means. The Crown also urged Ponce de León to report on the results of his forthcoming exploration up river into the Orinoco. As to be seen, Trinidad’s environment did not suit Ponce de León either. He had hardly arrived and he was already leaving it behind for the secrets that lay beyond the continent’s green coastal barrier. The Spanish King, Phillip II, would have been interested in the results of Ponce de León’s incursions into the continent, but since the king knew of others previously and yet to be executed, he ordered de León not to abandon his main responsibility of colonising Trinidad until he was instructed otherwise.59 Ponce de León’s actions in Trinidad are revealed in an account given six years later in Santo Domingo by Francisco de los Cobos, treasurer of de León’s fleet. De los Cobos, who spent all his wealth on this expedition (3,000 ducados), related that as soon as they arrived on the island, they 42

The First Attempts to Settle Trinidad

began building a fort and a settlement. Nine months later, Ponce de León, weary of not being able to get settlers to remain in Trinidad and after many of them leaving, depopulated the island and left for Santo Domingo.60 Ponce de León thought he could recover his losses in Santo Domingo and recruit more settlers in order to return to Trinidad. He constructed three ships with the objective of taking newly enlisted men back to Trinidad. Cobos waited in Santo Domingo for six years for Ponce de León to recover his losses so that he could join him on his return to the island, but in the end, after the ships were constructed, Ponce decided to sell them. For this reason, Francisco de los Cobos requested assistance and employment, since he had squandered his assets in Ponce de León’s frustrated venture.61 From Sedeño to Ponce de León, this discussion has traced all the poorly achieved attempts to incorporate Trinidad into the Spanish empire. The sixteenth had been an unfortunate century. Only towards its end, a late attempt would be successfully executed by Antonio de Berrío y Oruña, a descendent of Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada. Throughout the sixteenth century, Trinidad had been a staging ground, a theatre of unfortunate experiments, and a base for entering El Dorado by way of the Orinoco. In the seventeenth century, it emerged as a precarious governorship and vital point of foreign presence at the limits of the South American continent. Two centuries shaped its character, particularly the eighteenth.

THE CONQUEST SECURED: THE BIRTH OF ST JOSEPH OR SAN JOSé DE ORUña By the end of the sixteenth century, a stable settlement was finally made that became the centre of colonization. It was merely a bridgehead that looked towards the continent, but this centre would then focus on its own surroundings and send men to annex the rest of the island. This settlement exists to this day; San José de Oruña, modern-day St Joseph. Antonio de Berrío y Oruña, veteran of wars in Italy, Africa, Germany, Flanders and Granada, in addition to having been governor of the Alpujarra region in Spain and husband of Sir Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada’s niece, became the new governor and conqueror of Trinidad. Drawn by an uncle’s inheritance, Berrío left Granada, Spain and went to live in the Viceroyalty of New Granada in 1580.62 Among other things, the young Berrío – not so young, for he already had six daughters and two sons at the time – inherited from the former explorer 43

Spanish Trinidad and governor, Jiménez de Quesada, the conquest of the governorships of Pauto and Papamene. Jiménez de Quesada, field marshal of New Granada and conqueror of the Chibchas, had entered into a contract with the governing council of Bogotá to conquer El Dorado. It was his last undertaking and final departure, ending in complete failure. In 1571 the Crown confirmed the terms of the charter, signed two years earlier, and ordered the Council of Bogotá to arrange the expedition for Jiménez de Quesada and to inform him that he should not interfere with the lands of Maraver and de Serpa. As mentioned earlier, disappointment marred Jiménez de Quesada’s last expedition. Yet, neither failure nor anguish were enough to erase his hopes of El Dorado, for when the moment arrived for him to enter eternity, he dedicated the final clause of his will as follows: I declare that, in addition to the conquest and settlement of this kingdom in earlier times, Your Majesty, granted me the governorship and conquest of what lay between the two rivers Pauto and Papamene (Orinoco and Amazon) in the province of the plains, which you gave me perpetually for life and to my named successor, and I went on the conquest with many persons and spent three years trekking through it and never in those parts that I roamed, never did I encounter sufficient, good land to settle and hence I returned to this kingdom [New Granada] after many soldiers had died in the aforementioned [endeavour], where I returned with the objective of re-entering through another way to my said governorship in order to see if one could find land worthy of what had been [agreed] and until now, I have not been able to return to it due to many illnesses and other obstacles, and I am waiting for time and a favourable moment to return in person or to send, while my health still allows, and according to the grant that Your Majesty gave me of two life spans, for if by chance I were to die, I declare my successor for the second life span of said governorship, Captain Antonio de Berrío, husband of Lady María de Oruña, my niece or if he were deceased, his eldest son, I beg Your Majesty to confirm this according to the grant that you made me.

44

The First Attempts to Settle Trinidad

The above excerpt demonstrates how a last testament, drafted in some far-off place in the Viceroyalty of New Granada, would influence the life of a man who lived peacefully in the distant Moorish Granada. When Antonio de Berrío heard of Sir Gonzalo’s will, he set sail with his large family for the Indies. He then immediately contacted the Council of Santa Fé (Bogotá) in order to pursue the conquest of the lands between the Orinoco and the Marañón (Amazon) rivers. Berrío asked, in his official request to the Crown, to inherit the titles granted him for three life spans, as well as for those who accompanied him; for the ability of these holders of official grants to leave their encomiendas63 to natural sons, if they did not have legitimate ones, and the right to name his fellow companions as minor nobleman. Berrío also requested the right to deny anyone who attempted to enter his governorship; the right to name his captains and to recruit settlers; and the liberty to designate his son as heir in perpetuity with whatever title he wished. When the Council of Bogotá heard of the demands made by the heir of the deceased field marshal, it agreed to provide him with the same benefits as the late Jiménez de Quesada: title of governor and captain general of the conquered region; tenure of the government for two life spans; that the assignment of Amerindians for the settlers as per decree 58, regarding new settlements, which stated, “… they can distribute the Amerindians who are idle or who have vacated the districts of Spanish cities that have been settled for two lifetimes and the ones that have been settled for three lifetimes…”; and, the right to deny entry to other captains to enter his governorship. The Council also agreed to arrange for Berrío the recruitment of settlers and to allow him to name captains and to also provide Berrío and his comrades with all the same benefits and grants that the royal orders regarding new settlements stipulated. These terms were issued in 1582. In Berrío’s mind, the previous captains – Serpa, Maraver and Quesada – had attempted to reach the same region, Guiana, but under different names (New Andalusia, New Extremadura, El Dorado). He was correct. For as a descendant of Quesada and, offering his services to the king with the stature of having had three brothers who died in service to the Crown, and with a large family to support, he requested that the right to conquer Guiana be granted to him and he indeed obtained it. 45

Spanish Trinidad In 1586, royal officials from Madrid wrote to the Council of Bogotá to inquire whether Berrío had discovered El Dorado and had fulfilled the terms of the royal charter. The officials also issued a royal order confirming what the Council of Bogotá had agreed with Berrío and promised that when Berrío concluded the conquest of Guiana, a son of his would be given the title of governor.64 By that time, Quesada’s nephew was in the midst of the second attempt to annex the lands “between the Pauto and Papamene rivers”. The region to be conquered extended, according to official sources, some four hundred leagues from the rear border of the Viceroyalty of New Granada. With geographic vagueness so prevalent in the sixteenth century, when these charters were drafted, Berrío had the leeway to believe that Guiana, and even the island of Trinidad, belonged to him.65 Somewhat at the margin, even though linked to Trinidad, the island of Tobago, at first always mentioned along with Trinidad and later, perhaps, due to a perception of it having no economic value, was neglected and separated from Trinidad.66 Antonio de Berrío’s attempts to conquer Guiana may be classified in two phases; both were characterised by various entries. The first phase was marked by three attempts to reach Guiana and Trinidad from the Viceroyalty of New Granada by way of the Orinoco. The second phase, from Trinidad, was characterised by different entries through the Orinoco and its continental area in order to reach the Manoas and other imagined myths – Berrío may easily remind one of Don Quijote’s adventures and of his own late uncle, another Quijote of America, who squandered his life in conquests. Berrío found success in his third entry. He failed in the first two. Only his third entry is generally well known, no doubt due to the fact that the third one was included in chroniclers’ accounts, as well in Sir Walter Raleigh’s, but what remains certain is that Berrío had two failed attempts in reaching Guiana. In the first attempt, in 1584, Berrío crossed the Andes to the east of Tunja. Fighting fiercely against the Amerindians and through intrepid treks, he ended up at the Meta River, where he waded and finally made it across on the day of Our Lady of Candlemas. Setting up camp on the banks of the Meta, which he christened for Our Lady of Candlemas, he heard, believed, and wrote about the news he received regarding the sought after region that it was so fantastic that it could not possibly be true. His letter, and 46

The First Attempts to Settle Trinidad

his impression, served to insinuate or tempt the Council of Bogotá which was reluctant to send him reinforcements. And, as if placing some bait to entice others, he wrote in his letter to the Council of Bogotá about the “most extraordinary” character of the region, followed by his account that from the Meta River, where he set up camp, to the Daume (sic) there were only six days of travel or twenty leagues. From that fluvial feature, extending thirty leagues to the Guauyaz (sic) River, there was an area of high mountain ranges with large numbers of indigenous peoples. Nevertheless, he realised and complained that with only one hundred soldiers, he would not be able to continue, despite doing the impossible to discover it all, since “for once and for all” – he writes – “the enchanting allure must be undone and this province discovered, for so long has it been sought after and no one has been able to discover it.”67 The failure was evident. Despite having caught a glimpse of Guiana or El Dorado, Berrío lost more than 170,000 pesos in this first attempt. For the second time, Berrío headed towards Guiana with two hundred and fifty soldiers, equipped at the cost of his wife’s inheritance. Neither was he successful in his second attempt, and after twenty-eight months of wandering, his retreat became inevitable.68 This second expedition must have taken place in 1587, for there is a letter from that year where Berrío relates that he had ninety-seven soldiers gathered and camping on the banks of the Varraguan (sic), from where he intended to go discover the Manoa Lagoon, since from there, the rich regions of El Dorado or Guiana began. He blamed the failures of his previous attempts on the obstacles that the Council of Bogotá placed on him through their magistrate, Dr Gaparro, the loyal master of the Council. Despite his complaints and his letters to two new judges who arrived on 15 March 1587, Berrío’s second attempt ended in disaster, since most likely the king never ordered the Council to assist him as he wished.69 For the third time, and this would be the expedition that Raleigh and other chroniclers wrote about, the stubborn Berrío attempted to enter Guiana. He organised his army, spending more than 40,000 pesos in outfitting them. The route they followed would be the same as always, through the Pauto, Meta, and Orinoco rivers. With plenty of horses and cattle, the well-stocked army began its descent through the plains. After two hundred leagues, the faces of the explorers began to lose their look of excitement and to grow thin. Nowhere was their objective to be found. It appears as if the same old tune began to play: death, disease, and soldiers mutinying. But, this time, 47

Spanish Trinidad Captain Berrío did not retreat; he continued his advance at all costs, despite the threats from his soldiers who were anxious to abandon him. In order to avoid any desertion, Berrío ordered all horses to be slaughtered so that no one could use them to return. Perhaps, he remembered Cortés when he razed his ships on the coasts of Mexico. Whether he had Cortés in mind or not, what is certain is that Berrío’s decision had a favourable outcome for there was not one soldier who felt strong enough to return on foot. It would have been worse to die in the silence of the jungle than in the company of a friendly face. The expedition, now on the move again, reached the banks of the Orinoco. The geographic landscape shifted. Once on the Orinoco, instead of treading through broken paths and taking arduous steps, they slid through the river in canoes. Their expedition was now well equipped. For alongside the men and equipment, they carried the sacrificed horses. The poor brutes, even in death they still lent their assistance, now having been turned into salted meat. Navigating through the lower Orinoco, they entered Guiana. The Amerindians who populated the land resisted and attacked them, when they encountered the Spanish unexpectedly. The truth is that the Amerindians did not expect the arrival of white men from behind them, from where Orellana, Ursúa, and Aguirre had previously attempted. Instead, the Amerindians expected them from the sea, from where Ordás, Ortal and from where the other fallen caudillos had arrived. Without staying longer than necessary, Berrío’s canoes crossed Guiana and spotted the island of Trinidad. Once on the island, the Captain “saw and attempted to settle it”, thinking that Trinidad could serve him as a springboard to the lands he had just journeyed through. From Trinidad, Berrío went on to Margarita “impoverished and as such, was poorly received”.70 In Margarita, Governor Sir Juan Sarmiento welcomed him upon his arrival. This Sir Juan was young enough to be adaptable and inconsistent. According to Berrío’s complaints, “he received me well and his welcome only lasted three days; for men born in the Indies, have a steadfastness that does not last more than that”. The European-born man criticised an American-born one, a man from the sixteenth century calling a Creole weak and degenerate is an interesting fact. What transpired may be easily imagined. Margarita’s governor, who was very welcoming during the first days, grew weary of feeding Berrío’s exhausted, famished and penniless troops. After having trekked for more than one thousand leagues through lands never before discovered by Europeans and having experienced unlimited calamities, little else could 48

The First Attempts to Settle Trinidad

be expected from the depleted troops. Perhaps, Sarmiento believed that he could accomplish what Berrío had intended to do and therefore began complicating things for Berrío. Something along these lines must have occurred, since Sir Antonio Berrío described the governor as the destroyer of his plans “who the Devil chose as one of his ministers to harass me, which he did with great consistency, as if he were born in Spain.”71 Berrío complained incessantly, indeed, too much. He expressed that he was too old, that Sarmiento foiled his plans, that he only had twenty old comrades, and that he had spent his life and fortune. Berrío would emerge from this difficult situation, thanks to the assistance from the Governor of Caracas, Sir Diego Osorio, who sent him thirty soldiers and 6,000 pesos. With this amount, Berrío restored his confidence and resupplied his troops. He also recruited some more, bought supplies, and began the colonisation of Trinidad. Before continuing this story, let us pause for a moment. Other issues need to be considered, such as, if – as stated – Osorio lent Berrío assistance, then one must assume that he arrived on the island of Margarita during the period of time between 1588 and 1596, the years of Osorio’s rule in Caracas. Considering this, if Berrío made his second attempt in 1587 and Trinidad’s capital was established in 1591 (on whose eve we are now on), one must assume that Berrío left for his third expedition some time between 1590 and 1591. Following this logic, Berrío’s first entry would have been in 1584, the year employed by the chroniclers who merge all three expeditions into one; then, the second one must have taken place in 1587; and, finally, his third, successfully, in the year 1590 or 1591. Berrío left the island of Margarita in search of more troops in Puerto Rico, Santo Domingo, Cumaná, Venezuela and in the Viceroyalty of New Granada. Meanwhile, his lieutenant, Domingo de Vera Ybargoyen, set sail for Trinidad with the remaining contingent of soldiers and with Berrío’s orders to travel and see for yourselves the island and the frequency and population of natives and of inhabited lands and how it is maintained, ports and stopovers, since that island is at the entrance to said provinces and since the land seems promising, it would be good for you to wait for me there and it would be of great service to God and to our Lord the King if it would be settled in the King’s name for considering how much that island means for the discovery of said provinces that there can be joined sailing fleets that would need to enter….72

49

Spanish Trinidad I have modernised the contents of the deed of possession of Trinidad and of the founding of St Joseph, and I have also transcribed the above excerpt of this important document in order to show that Berrío’s interest in the island was based on how it could serve as a springboard for his entries into Guiana. For this reason, he sent his lieutenant, Vera Ybargoyen, who would fulfil his orders. He landed in Trinidad at the Port of Camocurapo on 15 May 1592 and, on that same day, the captains Álvaro Jorge, Juan Márquez, Diego Díaz de Aceveo and second lieutenant Juan Mejías Prado urged Vera to take possession of the island in the name of Phillip II and of Antonio de Berrío. Vera did not need much coercing, since he had arrived in Trinidad for that purpose, and referring to what his captains had requested of him and pointing to the significance of the island as a springboard for further conquests, and to the 100,000 pesos that his overlord, Berrío, has spent in the last years, Vera took possession of the island of Trinidad, its land, and indigenous peoples.73 The ceremony that took place was like others in newly-acquired areas. Vera, in the name of his king and of his captain, Berrío, ordered the troops to arm themselves, and “turning in a battle formation”, commanded his soldiers to stand at attention and to witnesses what he was executing and declaring for all present to hear. They initiated the ceremony in the name of the King and of Berrío. Vera carried out the ceremony of possession in order to avoid future incursions by French and English corsairs; to defend the Trinidadian Amerindians against the Caribs; and to evangelise the indigenous inhabitants. The troops expressed this same interest to Vera, when they asked him to colonise the island as “a port, a main stopover and muster point for the campaigns and armies that muster for the settlement of the said Guiana and El Dorado”. Vera replied to his troops that he was willing to take possession of the island in the name of the King and of Berrío, and immediately initiated the ceremony. They erected a Christian cross, took off their helmets, and adorned the cross in the company of Friar Domingo de Santa Águeda, a Franciscan travelling with the troops. With the cross erected, Vera encircled it in the company of his soldiers and with his sword in hand, swung the grass on the ground and then in the air. And, subsequently, with his sword on his shoulder, he challenged whoever would test him, but all the soldiers in unison shouted, “Long live the King!” 50

The First Attempts to Settle Trinidad

Vera then named fifty surrounding leagues as the borders of the island which included, and to be distributed, all the Amerindians that lived within it, an area comprising the islands of Granada, Dominica, Tobago, Matalino, and others (according to the source). Without wasting any more time and whilst the notary Domingo de Carranza certified the ceremony, Vera went to the Port of Cunucurapo where, “in order to better fortify the possession” he called on the chieftains, Maicai and Paraco, and through his translator Antonio Vicente, told them of his plan of settlement, of the official ceremony of possession that had taken place, and of his promise to repatriate any Amerindian that had been taken to Margarita. And, as expected, Vera also informed the chieftains that they were now subjects of the King of Spain and as such, they should obey him and accept the teaching of the Gospel. To certify the possession in their presence, Vera made one of the Amerindians pass from one side to another with a book in hand. Having executed what has been described above, Berrío’s lieutenant walked towards the headwaters of the Caroni river, where he located the village of Goanagoanare, ideally suited for the new settlement. Once there, and following Berrío’s order, Vera founded the city that he named San José de Oruña (St Joseph of Oruña). The documents of the period situate the selected area as lying between a tall hill, bare on its eastern side, and a fertile plain free of river waters during the midday, a “field of forests” towards the east, and a hill on the north. He founded the city on that site, built a town square, and erected gallows and an insignia of the new jurisdiction at its centre. Also, he designated a plot of land for a new church, to be named Our Lady of Conception, guardian saint of the newly-established town. The Franciscan friar, Domingo de Santa Águeda, then conducted mass, where all present took communion. This marked the birth of a new town in the Indies. Next to the church were the plots of land for the royal buildings.

51

3.

Trinidad as a Base of Operations for El Dorado :

First indigenous resistance, then clashes between Spaniards,

and finally the dream of El Dorado, all hampered the annexation of Trinidad. What happened in Trinidad was similar to what transpired during those same years in the Greater Antilles, in Jamaica for instance.1 The continent’s riches attracted the Spaniards more than an island economy based on agriculture and raising cattle. The Lesser Antilles, considered by some as the “useless islands”, were unappreciated and were left behind by the allure of the larger islands. In turn, the larger islands were later abandoned for the continent. Following in the footsteps of the Spaniards, other Europeans arrived in the seventeenth century, settling in these abandoned islands. In Trinidad, the appeal for the continent was embodied in the lure of the Meta River, of Dorados, Manoas and Parimes in Guiana. By the end of the sixteenth century, Spaniards were drawn to Trinidad, but only in terms of its proximity to the continent. The Spaniards did not value Trinidad for its own merits, rather for its strategic position as a base for entering the heart of Guiana. Only in the eighteenth century, once “the ghosts of El Dorado” dissipated did Trinidad earn its own worth and was adequately exploited. There were many legends of gold in the Americas. They emerged everywhere. The Spaniard, like any other mortal living closer to the earth than to heaven, ran after golden fables. Yet, there was one legend that ran deep in the Spanish soul. Enduring the most extreme hardships in its search, the Spaniard found only defeat after failure. Despite not having learned the lesson, the Spaniards that miraculously survived these expeditions would return again and again in search of the myth. If there were many expeditions that exhausted themselves in this quest, there were even more that failed without getting started, for the royal authorities would forbid them or because the means to execute them were lacking. The legend’s name reached such far

Trinidad as a Base of Operations for El Dorado

distances that it transformed itself into a symbol of splendour. That terrible, yet grandiose legend was the one of El Dorado. For this reason and none other, I have found it necessary to dedicate an entire chapter of this book to this saga, the search for El Dorado that defined the status and significance of Trinidad in regard to its role as a base of operations for accessing the continent in search of this precious myth. But, what was El Dorado? The legend that spread around with the name of the golden one or of the golden man originated with a story among the indigenous Chibchas, about a chieftain of the Guatavita Lagoon2 in presentday Colombia.

THE SPREADING OF THE MYTH Modern-day historians agree that the first news of “El Dorado”, “the Golden Man”, began in 1534. It was the time of the conquest of Peru. In the midst of their euphoria and still enjoying the bounty of their conquests, the Spanish told wonderful tales and hoped to discover other empires much more marvellous, even if this were imaginable. In this general climate, a conqueror, Sebastián de Belalcázar, soldier of Pizarro, yearned for greater glory by searching for an unknown land that he had heard of. That unknown land was Quito. In the middle of his quest, it so happened that a captain of his, Luis de Deza, presented him one day with an Amerindian, dressed unlike any other they knew and speaking a different, unknown language. This occurrence was nothing spectacular, but the tale that the Amerindian told was. According to the original account, his name was Muequetá and his chieftain’s, Bogotá. He had come as part of a diplomatic entourage to request the King of Quito for his assistance in the war that they were fighting against the Chibchas. All of his companions had died in the evening of Cajamarca.3 He managed to escape, but was later captured in his attempt to return to his people. By this point, the Amerindian’s account must not have impressed Belalcázar, but what followed did. When the Amerindian spoke of his native land, he said it was named Cundinamarca and when asked if in his country there was the metal that the Spaniards showed him, which was gold, he told them “there is a large quantity of it and of emeralds, which he called in his language ‘green stones’”. Belalcázar and his soldiers liked hearing this news, for they “were eager for greater discoveries than the ones they had made in Peru”.4 At first Belalcázar decided to go in search of the region, but he then desisted. Nonetheless, the Spaniards in order to classify in some way the land the 53

Spanish Trinidad Amerindian spoke of and, in order to distinguish it from other conquests, “they decided to call it the Provincia del Dorado [the Province of the Golden One], in other words, the name given to the Province where that man or chieftain with a golden body offered his sacrifices” and the chronicler of the time added that “this is the root and the trunk of the branches of the fame of El Dorado [legend and how it] spread throughout the world, and beyond this, everything else is pure fiction.” The reason why its name and its story spread so rapidly is quite simple. Belalcázar’s soldiers told the story to those of Federman and Quesada when their three armies converged in the savannah of modern-day Bogotá. The name became famous “for having a certain ring to it that seemed to bring joy to the heart, and from there, it took flight among all those gathered, from all those present and then to the places where the soldiers went to, each one pretending [to know] where they believed it best.”5 The myth of El Dorado spread like fire among the conquerors. For those who had just witnessed the temples filled with riches in Peru, the story seemed truthful. And, why wouldn’t it? And, if it were true, only a fool would not go after it, but where was that otherworldly province? The Spaniards soon exhausted the route first employed, towards the north. El Dorado perhaps was in the Amazon, on the Mainland, but possibly also in Cumaná, Guiana or in the Rio de la Plata region. Each conqueror situated wherever he believed best. For Jiménez de Quesada, it was “in the province of the plains”, between two rivers; for Ordaz and Ortal, in the basins upriver of the Meta and Orinoco rivers; for Antonio de Berrío and Juan de Castellanos, the chronicler and poet, it was situated in Guiana. Actually, its location was never found, for it never existed. Its rightful location was in the heart of each conqueror. That is where El Dorado really was, but the Spanish never realised this. That is why they searched for it for so long, all the way into the eighteenth century. As time progressed, the character of the expeditions shifted. If at first primal instincts motivated the search for riches to be found in a marvellous city, by the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, it would be something more that drove the quest. By that time, El Dorado would not be thought of as a region with gold; instead, as a region not settled yet by the Spanish Crown and that required to be annexed, especially if it possessed the renowned riches. Attitudes shifted; the fever for gold that drove sixteenth century Spanish conquerors would be overcome. El Dorado, weary of its frenzied history throughout the sixteenth century, will find a permanent place. During the centuries that followed, 54

Trinidad as a Base of Operations for El Dorado

the Spanish would set its location in the Guianas, one of the remaining areas yet to be explored. In the sixteenth century, there was not one single way to search for El Dorado. There were many expeditions and each one had its commanding figure. In the seventeenth century, the Spaniard Antonio de Berrío and the Englishman Walter Raleigh would take centre stage. The eighteenth century would rely on Sir Manuel Centurión, but in order to reach these men, one must first examine the myth in the sixteenth century and delve into its evolution.

THE FIRST ATTEMPTS TO SEARCH FOR EL DORADO Prior to 1535, the year of the Amerindian’s tale of the chieftain of Guatavita, the Spanish monarchs granted licences for the discovery of wondrous lands. These expeditions had nothing to do with the myth at hand, since Belalcázar had yet to hear of it and therefore he would not have been able to spread it. Once the myth gained currency, the departure points from which the Spanish conquering armies went in search of El Dorado became varied. If one were to look at a map of South America, and if one were to follow it clockwise, various points from which the Spanish armies departed in search of El Dorado can be sketched.

a) The Search from Quito Founded by Sebastián de Belalcázar, Pizarro’s lieutenant, in 1534, Quito served this Spanish conqueror in advancing north of the Inca Empire. After Belalcázar first heard of El Dorado, believing it to be situated on the Bogotá plateau, he sent his captain, Pedro de Añasco, and, later, Juan de Ampudia who, with Añasco, advanced from the plateau to a location quite near what will later become Cartagena de Indias. By 1536, Belalcázar reached the men he had sent earlier and founded the city of Popayán and then returned to Quito in order to prepare his expedition for El Dorado. After a year of preparations, Belalcázar left in 1538 in the direction of the plateau of Bogotá in search of the longed-for El Dorado. In his footsteps, yet without reaching him, Pizarro’s envoy, Francisco de Aldana, arrived in Quito. After learning that the governor of Quito, Belalcázar, had left without Pizarro’s permission, he sent for his brother, Gonzalo, to substitute Belalcázar as governor of Quito and also so that his brother would finish conquering and settling the nearby lands, thought to also contain riches of another kind; cinnamon was believed to be plentiful, according to 55

Spanish Trinidad reports, in the eastern part of the governorship.6 Seeking to reach the land of cinnamon riches, Gonzalo arrived in Quito, but “since Gonzalo saw that in Quito there were too many people, all of them too young or old soldiers, he coveted to discover the valley of El Dorado.”7 Gonzalo Pizarro left in pursuit of El Dorado and of the isphingo flowers that the indigenous people used to season their foods. As Gonzalo confessed to the Spanish Emperor in a letter from Tomebamba, due to the great news that in Quito and from beyond it that I received…[assurances of the existence] of the province of cinnamon and of the lagoon of El Dorado, a very populated and rich land, and for this reason, I determined to go and conquer and discover it, since they confirmed to me that in these provinces lay great treasures from which Your Majesty could be served and assisted with the large expenses that each day Your Majesty’s kingdoms incur.8

The legend of El Dorado would soon be disseminated, for among the three gathered armies, undoubtedly each would tell others of their guiding objective. The story of the chieftain who coated his skin with gold dust motivated Belalcázar; the other one by the marvellous stories that ran about the Sogamoso and the Tunja temples; and Federman, by the fabulous and yet unknown land called Meta. From this moment on, the El Dorado myth spread like wild fire throughout all latitudes and was deemed the source of whatever marvellous story that the Amerindians told the Spaniards in order to get rid of them. The most visible example was Gonzalo Pizarro’s expedition’s search for the Land of Cinnamon, where he would forever become the archetype of suffering and calamity. Twenty years later, “in 1560, these hopes were fed again by General Pedro de Ursúa’s entrance, by order of the Viceroy of Peru, into this great river [the Amazon], hurling himself with a large army into its waters….”9 El Dorado kept inciting minds. This time it would be the Viceroy of Peru, Sir Luis Hurtado de Mendoza, Marquis of Cañete, who hearing about some “Brazil” Amerindians, decided to annex the region. Additionally, the situation in Peru was such at the time that organising any type of expedition would have been advantageous. There were some army captains who as a result of their services enjoyed the spoils of conquest, while others were in such precarious conditions that they were willing to enlist in any venture that would fulfil their hopes. One of these expeditions would go to the Kingdom of Omagua. Pedro de Ursúa, with titles of governor of the 56

Trinidad as a Base of Operations for El Dorado

Omagua and Dorado, would lead the expedition. Circumstances would soon transform that endeavour into a real tragedy, ending on the night of 1 January 1561 with Ursúa stabbed to death and Aguirre’s takeover of command and turning the expedition into a series of criminal acts that took place all along the waters of the river that led to the vast, open sea.

b) El Dorado from the Viceroyalty of New Granada Continuing towards the next hub, in a geographically clockwise direction, the second centre of El Dorado explorations lay further north from Quito, in the city of Cartagena de Indias, founded in 1533 by Pedro de Heredia. News of Sinu, land of opulent indigenous graves, reached Cartagena. In earlier times, in the days of the explorers Balboa and Pedrarías, another myth, one of Dabaybe or Dabeiba, loomed over the Spanish troops. That myth continued for thirty more years through Heredia’s actions and whilst the expeditions moved through the Cauca and Anserma rivers, Belalcázar, Quesada and Federman’s men converged in Bogotá. The city of Santa Marta and the waterway of the Magdalena River served as a third platform for the search of the plateau of the Chibchas, the base for the new capital. Either from Santa Fe de Bogotá, founded in 1538, or from Tunja, Spanish armies, commanded by the Quesada brothers, authentic “gentlemen of El Dorado”, as Ciro Bayo expressed, first Hernando and then Gonzalo, by then a full-fledged field marshal of New Granada, went in search of El Dorado. This took place after the 1538 gathering, possibly when news of the legend arrived from Quito, but the active expeditions, in the region under study, were unaware at the time of the existence of El Dorado. Lastly, the El Dorado myth, brought from Quito, and now in Colombian lands, was spread to Venezuela where it merged with dreams of the Meta River, and to the Guianas where it was confounded, over imposed, and linked to the legend of Manoa, a city, and Parime, a lagoon. Hence, it was not farfetched to assert that the myth’s diffusion followed the same trajectory sketched here: it was born in Quito, passed over to Colombia, continued on to Venezuela, and finally crossed into Guiana, where it spread all over northern South America. It did not so much designate a rite with genuine historical basis, but rather symbolised the conquerors’ thirst for El Dorado (Áurea sacra fames). Returning to the gist of the story, regarding the Quesada brothers, Hernando was stung by the El Dorado myth. News that circulated regarding the longed-for province was truly marvellous, “the men who 57

Spanish Trinidad campaigned were so powerful and rich with 500,000 soldiers, all armed with both defensive and offensive golden weapons.”10 Hernando did not think twice and decided to search and to conquer El Dorado. He wrote a letter to the Council of the Indies in Spain on 16 May 1543 expressing that he had “received news from many regions, that behind some mountain ranges to the west there were the greatest riches of gold and silver and emerald stones that have ever been heard”.11 On 1 September, he led a great caravan of Amerindians, soldiers, and horses. All were excited; ignorant of the fate that awaited them. In 1550, Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada returned to New Granada. New Granada was not the same as he had left it. Most of his companions had disappeared; his two brothers killed by lightning, Belalcázar had died in Cartagena. Gonzalo was now fifty, yet his age did not impede him from dreaming about further expeditions in search of gold and riches. He yearned for the El Dorado that his brother Hernando never found. Finally, convinced of executing the expedition, Gonzalo requested the Royal Council the necessary licences and received them. In the royal charter negotiated, he pledged to equip his own troops, to take half a thousand men, supplies, eight clerics, and animals, as well as to establish cities along the way. If the venture were successful, Gonzalo and his sons would receive the title of marquis. The large expedition left Santa Fe de Bogotá in 1569. From the first day, the plains demonstrated their cruelty. Hardships, calamities, and death overran the camp, spurring soldiers to desert the expedition. The gold, pearls, precious stones, the large cities, the farmed fields that should have surrounded the capital of El Dorado were in reality scrublands, endless plains, or jungles full of ferocious animals. It had been two years since they had left Santa Fe and they had found nothing. The men, fed up and exhausted, refused to continue forward. Some plotted to murder the commander. In one instance, Gonzalo allowed anyone who wished, to return. Gonzalo with the few remaining men marched onward. The rainy winter season took them by surprise while in the tropical plains. All the land flooded and he was forced to take refuge on a small hill. Once the wet, winter season passed between the Guaiyaré and Guaracare Rivers, he had only twenty-five men. He had no other choice but to return to New Granada after enduring three years of misfortune. He arrived in New Granada, humiliated for his disastrous expedition, with high debts, and having lost his dream for El Dorado, as well as the title of marquis that had 58

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only been granted in the Indies to Hernán Cortés and Francisco Pizarro. The final result of his expedition was truly tragic, of 1,300 European men, only 64 returned; of 1,500 Amerindians carriers, only four survived; and of 1,000 horses, only 18; in total, 200,000 golden pesos lost. In his diary, Gonzalo summarised his failure with sadness: For God was not served for three years in which that venture lasted that I could discover something of value or [lands] to settle, suffering in those three years, my men and I, so much hardships, so much misfortune and so strange and out of the ordinary circumstances that bring horror to the mind when looking back at so much misadventure in my memory.

With this colossal lesson, one would think that no one else would dare venture in search of El Dorado, but it would not be so. For soon after, other disappointments would emerge, setbacks even as significant as Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada’s; however, not so expensive.12

c) Venezuela and El Dorado Four royal contracts between the Wesler family and Charles I of Spain, Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire, in 1528 placed the governorship of Venezuela under their domain. German governors went to Venezuela, who from Coro penetrated the interior of the continent searching for the plains and the Orinoco River. Espira, Federman, and Hutten were names of so many other German captains that were also drawn to the interior of the Continent. But what did these men search for? El Dorado? No. They searched for a wondrous land named Meta, believed to be located in the plains of northern South America, lands that were hardly known by then to Europeans. In the long series of expeditions that were launched, the first one was under the command of Enrique [Henry] Alfinger. His venture was truly an odyssey, for the amount of hardships sustained and for the tragic ending of its captain: an Amerindian arrow killed him. The only result of this expedition was a heap of fantastic reports that led other conquerors also to their sorrowful end. His successor, Jorge Espira, drawn to discoveries, believed the reports from a captive Amerindian woman of a little known land, but believed to be opulent. After five long arduous years, he returned to Coro without achieving anything. This leads to the story of Federman in 1539. There 59

Spanish Trinidad is something special in Federman. He did not journey to the heart of the land; rather, he took a detour towards the Viceroyalty of New Granada, as if he were privy to some undisclosed information. It seems as that he knew about the Chibchas or Guatavita or about Sogamoso. In the end, as previously mentioned, Federman would later converge with Quesada and Belalcázar’s troops. Reports ran wild, but if they were tinged with gold, they quickly vanished. Therefore, the famous news of El Dorado speedily reached Coro. Federman’s captain, Pedro de Limpias, was the messenger of the news of El Dorado. Soon after, in 1541, an expedition departed from Coro in search of the famed indigenous kingdom. It would be under the command of Felipe [Phillip] von Hutten who the Spaniards simply refer to as Felipe de Utre. This expedition was significant for two reasons: for one, by that time the men were already referring specifically to a “Province of El Dorado”; and second, because they asserted that they had found the kingdom in the region of Omagua. If one were to believe these accounts of this expedition, El Dorado was discovered or at least, they discovered a land of opulent cities, a powerful empire, which was, in the end, what they had been searching for under the name of El Dorado, whether a chieftain of golden dust lived in it or not.13

d) Trinidad, the Guianas, and surrounding regions and the first explorations Continuing clockwise, one arrives at the next hub from which entries into the Orinoco in search of the continent’s interior departed. Shifting the landscape and the actors that have been depicted until now, the new theatre of expeditions that emerged bordered “on one part with the Mainland that faces the island of Trinidad, and on the other with the governorships of Cumaná, of the island of Margarita, and of Venezuela, and then with the Viceroyalty of New Granada, with the governorships of Popayán and Quito”.14 El Dorado would be situated in this geography where the Orinoco flows. But, why would El Dorado be placed there? Simply because it was an unexplored region and it was therefore believed to hold immense riches. The Spanish had forgotten Guiana for twelve years. There was not one conqueror who would be wiling to annex it. The venture required men and money. From New Granada, however, a soldier emerged with the will to conquer it. Antonio de la Hoz Berrío, grandson 60

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and sole heir of Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada, would be the one to have it. He is a well-known character in this discussion, but he will be dealt with further on in this narrative. When he went in search of Guiana, he also looked for El Dorado, since by that time it was an established fact that “it was all one, Guiana and El Dorado”. In Tunja, where Berrío lived, notions held regarding Guiana were of a land lacking any permanent settlements. The Spaniards who had entered it corroborated this belief. The Amerindians there did not have any fixed settlements. They roamed the area “like Arabs” and their only source of food was fishing and hunting. Only Caribs ate meat and, it was believed, the human kind. Since there were no towns or settlements to be found, it was therefore very difficult to trek through Guiana and to ultimately arrive at El Dorado. The land of El Dorado, awaiting conquest, was hot, humid, flat, and expansive. During the winter season, it flooded, its landscape sterile. The Spanish believed that the longed-for region was situated barely in the distance, beyond a hardly visible, great mountain range. The Spaniards thought the region to be heavily populated, like the governorships of Quito, Popayán, and Peru. Not all of its inhabitants, according to Spanish reports, were indigenous to the land; there were those from Peru who came with one of the Incas who coveted a more powerful kingdom. The Spaniards knew about the existence of rivers behind the Guianian mountain range, in particular of the Amazon, which was the largest one of all. Undoubtedly, the region, in their minds, had to be fertile and full of riches. The Spanish explorers reached the foothills of the mountain range; not one, however, had ever climbed the summit or crossed them, “because when they reached the foothills, the explorers were so tired and hungry, that they did not have the strength to climb them.”15 Such was the region of Guiana as seen from Tunja. Returning to the story of Berrío, who prepared to go in search of El Dorado; Berrío departed Tunja and sailed the Casanare downriver, entered the Meta, and continued until reaching the Orinoco, and then exiting the mouth of the river, encountering Trinidad. As previously mentioned, Trinidad would become Berrío’s base, a staging ground for going in search of El Dorado or deep into Guiana. Berrío was not the first European to step in that land, nor his ships the first ones to sail the Orinoco. The landscape had already thwarted other dreams and inflicted defeat in the men previously mentioned. 61

Spanish Trinidad Our story takes us to the year 1531, when Belalcázar had not yet heard of the marvellous reports of the golden chieftain and when expeditions were yet to be launched through the Orinoco in search of golden lands. Like the German conquerors working for the Spanish crown, these explorers searched for the Meta, since it was by then, in Fernández de Oviedo’s words, a rousing topic of conversation in Spain, before the El Dorado legend had emerged.16 Diego de Ortal was the first explorer to search for the legend of the Meta, sailing by the shoreline of the Orinoco. The Orinoco River became the conduit for those that followed. Spanish expeditions entered the Orinoco and sailed through it until reaching the legendary Meta. They went in search of the riches believed to be in those imaginary lands. In their search, some explorers reached the Venezuelan plains; others found only death. One of these men, Diego de Ordás, had accompanied Hernán Cortés and Alonso de Ojeda and had also played other roles in the New World. Diego de Ordás roamed from place to place without ever tiring. He was not satisfied with his exploits or conquests, nor did he believe that the reward for his weariness should be an idle old age. His ambition led him to covet more. He longed to conquer unknown and magnificent lands – it was, after all, the era of exploration and conquest. In 1530, Diego de Ordás sailed from the beachhead of Sanlúcar, Spain, after having entered into an agreement with Isabella of Portugal, Holy Roman Empress, Queen Consort of the unified Spanish kingdoms, to conquer the lands between the Cape of Sails (Cabo de la Vela in modernday Colombia) and the Amazon delta. Upon arriving, Ordás realised that these lands had already been divided into different jurisdictions and, therefore, were occupied; in one direction, the island of Trinidad, governed by the well-known Sedeño and in another, Cubagua, a dependency of the continent. The previously described rivalries would later emerge. The Royal Court was the one to blame for these clashes of jurisdictions for it was totally ignorant when assigning governorships and new lands for conquest. In the mid-sixteenth century, in 1569 to be precise, the image of El Dorado persisted in the minds of many men. The royal charters requested by Spanish explorers to conquer eastern Venezuelan regions testify to this fact. Pedro Maraver de Silva, Diego Fernández de Serpa and Juan Trejo Ponce de León annexed those lands. Maraver de Silva went in search of New 62

Trinidad as a Base of Operations for El Dorado

Extremadura,17 Fernández de Serpa proceeded towards New Andalucía (eastern Venezuela), Ponce de León sought the island of Trinidad.18 Were these Spanish conquerors merely after new conquests, simply seeking to annex new lands? I must say no. These governorships were specifically requested in order to serve as bases for entering El Dorado by way of Guiana. Silva and Serpa attempted this, but both failed. Beginning with Silva’s expedition, one finds the first official reference to El Dorado existing in Guiana. Although this first reference is from a 1576 document, several chroniclers, for instance Herrera, when writing about Sedeño, expressed that Sedeño while in Puerto Rico was taken over by an obsession over El Dorado. One must consider that Herrera wrote his narrative in the seventeenth century, when much about El Dorado was already well known. Nevertheless, during Sedeño’s journeys, word of El Dorado had not yet reached Trinidad. Reference to El Dorado appears in sources relating to Maraver, but Maraver did not mention it directly, nor is the reference in the actual royal contracts. Instead, a transcriber of the Council of the Indies in a report about a voyage of Maraver wrote at the margin of the document the word El Dorado.19 Maraver de Silva, like Vasco Núnez de Balboa, was originally from Jerez de los Caballeros. He went to Peru where he settled in Chachapoyas, where apparently he did well for himself, for he lived a comfortable life. When word of rich and mysterious lands reached him, he decided to return to Spain and to ask the king for the licence to discover them. In honour of his home province, he named the area New Extremadura. In 1568, Maraver de Silva was in Spain and in that same year on 15 May, the king signed the royal charter in Aranjuez. New Extremadura would begin where Serpa’s New Andalucía ended, or rather 300 leagues south of the Bocas del Dragón [Dragon’s Mouth, Trinidad]. With royal permits in hand, Maraver de Silva travelled to Extremadura, where his countrymen believed all his imaginings and decided to join him on the expedition. He enlisted all the men he needed and more. If he only took five hundred men to America with him, it was due to the fact that the royal permits did not allow for any more. A year later, in 1569, in early March, de Silva’s soldiers gathered in Cádiz, Spain. Incidentally another conqueror, Serpa, was also in that same location and for the same reason, with an identical contingent of men and with similar ambitions. A news report almost put an end to Silva’s dreams. Moriscos had rebelled in Alpujarras, Spain, and government calls for Spanish troops were to be 63

Spanish Trinidad shortly issued. Pedro de Silva, suspecting a ban on the transport of Spanish soldiers out of Spain, managed to gather his ships and sailed downriver towards the sea. On 19 March 1569, his fleet crossed the sandbars of Sanlúcar and set sail for the Canary Islands. The King’s order for reinforcements caught him at sea. The ships, hastily equipped, soon began to crack. In the island of Tenerife, in the Canaries, they were forced to purchase another ship, but not with de Silva’s money, for he had none; instead, with the funds of the soldiers and settlers who did not understand why they had to hand over their jewellery and savings. The delay in the Canary Islands proved detrimental. The men were tired and “worn down.” When they later set sail for the Cape Verde islands, which they spotted after six days, they docked on the island of Sal, where they drank salty water, for there was no fresh one. They had only packed four barrels and forty jugs of freshwater, too little for such a large contingent. On the island of Sal, they hunted 150 wild goats and remained there for eight days. The stopovers along the voyage were lengthy; for in their next one, on the island of Santiago, they anchored for fourteen days.Finally, they set sail towards the Amazon. They were plagued by heavy rains and by Maraver’s increasingly irrate demeanor. Among the expedition’s commander’s arbitrary measures, he took away the wine and oil that each soldier had carried. He also did not mind their treatment, referring to the men, in his best terms, as rebels and traitors. They arrived on the island of Margarita in mid April. They asked the local Spanish settlers for directions for the best way to begin the conquest of the nearby, new lands. The local colonists advised him that the most logical trajectory would be by way of Maracapana and that the women and children of the expedition could remain behind in port, while the men would advance inland. Silva, however, did not agree. He wished to go through Borburata and he very stubbornly held to this decision, despite possibly suspecting that the others were right. Everyone disheartened, the soldiers did not know what to do. Silva allowed for all those wishing to return to do so, and more than one soldier accepted his offer, asking him for the monies, which he could not pay back. With this ill-fraught beginning, Silva left for Borburata with the remaining men. When they arrived, they did not see any trace of the local inhabitants. Borburata was all a ghost town. They went on to Valencia, a nearby municipality, and in Valencia what remained of the expedition suffered a significant blow. The stories the local townspeople told were 64

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so harrowing that they frightened the expeditionaries in such a way that when Silva noticed, more than half had deserted. On 2 July 1569, in order to avoid any more desertions, Silva ordered a march towards the plains. From the army he brought from Spain, only 140 men remained. He took a southern trajectory. He soon suffered setbacks and misfortunes. Added to his rude and bitter demeanour, the march became unbearable to his men; so much so, that one of his captains, Céspedes, deserted him. Another one, Captain Leiva, sent to find Céspedes, also abandoned him. The forty-six men that Céspedes took, along with the thirty that Leiva fled with, left Silva with only a few men. With so few soldiers, he could not advance. Consequently, and in spite of his stubbornness, he began the retreat, entering Barquisimeto in early 1570. Turning back to Spain, Serpa prepared his ships in the docks of Cádiz in 1569. Like Silva, he prepared to take possession of his governorship, New Andalucía. His efforts to recruit men throughout Castile had not been difficult. Men wanted to get rich and they were told stories of how easy it was! The expedition’s departure, set for March, was delayed until August. The royal order forbidding men to leave for the Americas due to the uprising of the Moriscos caught them while still on land. And, then, to make matters worse, Serpa was arrested and had to wait for five months before being set free. He had to sell his ships in order to restock all the supplies that were in a poor state. In August, they finally set sail and on 4 October, they dropped anchor on the island of Margarita. After purchasing 800 cows in Margarita, Serpa crossed over to the port of Cumaná. Anxious to begin his search for El Dorado, he did not even create adequate town plans for New Córdoba. Serpa set out to discover what he believed was almost in his hands, but not everything would move as fast as he desired. Serpa’s captains were not pleased with him. They called him a miser. He distributed few supplies and little clothing. The men began deserting. Serpa caught a few of them and as a lesson to others, he hung them. Other deserters, he simply never saw again. And, if this were not enough, rebellious Amerindians were not willing to let any Spaniard enter their lands. And, indeed, they meant it; for when Serpa attempted it, he was killed in an ambush.20 Ponce de León would not fare any better. He attempted, as discussed earlier, to leave the island of Trinidad shortly after landing without the Spanish King’s permission. He was more interested in what lay in unknown lands, than in settling the one he had. He had been instructed to settle Trinidad; that was his royal duty. 65

Spanish Trinidad These accounts of the digressions from settling Trinidad in the sixteenth century conclude here. I now shift the story back to Berrío who prepared to enter Guiana as a new century dawned, the seventeenth. If the news Berrío received while in Tunja of El Dorado of Guiana being a poor, sterile, flood-prone land, the reports he received while in the coastal regions of the Orinoco led him to change his opinion. How was Guiana seen from the Orinoco delta? Delving into this question, Vázquez de Espinosa informed that the Orinoco flows through the lands of Guiana. Just navigating through it, he wrote, seems like “a piece of Earthly Paradise”. Its banks are abundant with luxuriant forests; its multi-coloured birds sing softly. All of these descriptions create an incomparably beautiful landscape.

BERRÍO’S FIRST ENTRIES INTO GUIANA Following Serpa and Maraver’s frustrated attempts, there was no further Spanish movement in the area until Sir Antonio de Berrío. The unconquered region, where the longed-for El Dorado was believed to exist, was under the Council of Santa Fe of Bogotá’s jurisdiction by the end of the sixteenth century. The change in jurisdiction from Santo Domingo to Bogotá caused much controversy in the Council of Santo Domingo, which previously had authority over Trinidad and Guiana. With the new designation, attempts to annex the region were launched from the Viceroyalty of New Granada. At this time, expeditions no longer entered from the Atlantic, as the previous failed attempts of Ordás, Ortal, Sedeño, Silva and Maraver. Instead, the Spanish attempted to access Guiana through the continent’s interior. After Vera founded San José de Oruña (St Joseph) in the name of the Spanish king, Phillip II, and of his captain, Antonio Berrío, governor of Trinidad, he returned in order to colonise Trinidad with some settlers, taken from the surrounding areas. Berrío did not have a joyful arrival in Trinidad. Barely had he landed, when the first disturbance confronted him: the Trinidadian Amerindians were in revolt. The governor of the island of Margarita, Sarmiento, was behind the revolt. Later, new royal charters approved by the Spanish king, Phillip II, firmly appended the territories of Guiana to Berrío’s governorship. To Berrío, the island of Trinidad was not a sliver of earthly paradise. Berrío suffered the same calamities that had forced others to abandon the island, with the only difference being that he knew how to withstand them. What he could not endure or resist was 66

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the allure of El Dorado. It had been the true objective of his voyage and, eventually, it came to haunt him throughout his lifetime. Berrío had long been afflicted by a disease-like yearning for El Dorado, from the time of his arrival in Tunja, when he journeyed there to receive the inheritance lesft by his ancestor Jiménez de Quesada who had bequeathed more than financial assets, but also the dream of El Dorado. Berrío had earlier thought to search for the renowned region from the Viceroyalty of New Granada. He now planned on reaching it through Trinidad, like Ortal, Ordás, Maraver and Serpa before him. The reports he received while in Trinidad heightened his hopes to the point that he decided to pursue El Dorado immediately.21 Berrío did not personally conduct the first search for El Dorado. His field captain, Domingo de Vera, departed with 35 soldiers and an assortment of trinkets for bartering. Vera headed towards the South American continent in search of the marvellous city of Manoa, on the shores of the Parime Lagoon. The route the small army followed took them to the province of Carapana and later to the one of Mariquití, domain of the Chieftain Marequito, at El Dorado’s doorstep. Vera had a two-fold mission: on the one hand, he sought to punish the Caribs; on the other, he went to open the path towards Guiana. Vera’s journey lasted from 4 March to 14 May and was full of unexpected events. Vera first marched towards southern Trinidad, reaching the Pitch Lake on 27 March, where he found eleven dead Amerindians with their homes burned to the ground by a Carib attack. Apparently, the Caribs prowled along the Punta del Gallo (the Rooster’s Point or Icacos) in their canoes. Vera unsuccessfully attempted to capture them in that direction. He then crossed over to the Mainland with the intention of entering through Guanipa, but he was not successful. Since it was the dry, summer season, his canoes constantly ran aground. Ten leagues further south, he then entered through the Guarapies River that extended twenty more leagues inland. The area belonged to the Caribs. He found a series of hanging bones that proved this fact and he also found Carib canoes that he destroyed. The Caribs then staged an ambush, where they killed a good number of Vera’s men. A head chieftain, named Guaracamono, ruled over the area. Vera received reports that further inland a young Christian man who fled the island of Granada was being held captive. As always, any new information received became a driving incentive. 67

Spanish Trinidad Vera entered the Orinoco through the mouth of the Parataora, all the way to the home of the chieftain, Carapana. From Chieftain Carapana’s home, Vera sent a wife of the chieftain, Morequito in search of some of his soldiers whom he had left behind. They all left together from the site on the second day of the Christian Resurrection and on 22 April, they reached Morequito or Morequite’s village, where a population of peaceful Amerindians received them. The Spaniards handed out trinkets among them and then Vera held a private meeting with the chieftain. Morequito asked not to be killed and promised to show the Spaniards all the gold dust they had and the location where they mined it on the following day. In order to demonstrate his good will, Vera presented the chieftain with nine canoes and some of the gift items he had brought. Then, on 23 April, Vera took official possession of the land for the Spanish. Vera re-initiated his trek towards the village of Guaremero, where they took fresh water and waited for three days for the gold promised by the Amerindian chieftain and for the guides that would lead them to Guiana and later Caracas. Chieftain Morequito was a shrewd man who fooled Vera. Vera guessed as much and heard that Morequito had spoken earlier to his people, telling them that “these Christians come to settle here and many of them will come. I told them that I would show them the way to the gold mines. Decide what you wish to do, for I, with my death will end it.” Morequito’s speech was full of rage and he also mentioned other things in his diatribe that showed his duplicity. Morequito then went to see Vera with a piece of a horse stirrups that had been brought from the island of Margarita. Vera acted as if he did not know the origins of the metal object that Morequito presented him. A few days later, while camping on the banks of the river, Vera encountered a Guianian chieftain, named Maracay. Vera gave him presents and letters addressed to the inland chieftains. In his letters, Vera expressed that he wished to enter into friendly agreements with them. Meanwhile, negotiations with Morequito continued and Vera, in order to see the cheiftain’s true intentions, asked Morequito for his son to be handed over as hostage. The chieftain complied. Acknowledging Morequito’s gesture, Vera immediately returned the chieftain’s son. Morequito then informed the Spaniards that he would fulfil his promise to them. The chieftain disappeared for three days and then returned with some hackled gold pieces, shredded by scissors brought from the island of Margarita. Once again, Vera noticed that Morequito was prevaricating 68

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and trying to fool him. Vera then sent Morequito home. Not only was the chieftain shrewdly engaging in deception and fooling the Spanish, but he had also sent messengers inland to warn others of the Spanish presence and for them to prepare their defences. After having found all this out, Vera had no choice but to arrest Morequito. As mentioned earlier, Vera took official possession of Guiana on 23 April in a ceremony, similar to the one conducted when he founded St Joseph of Oruña in Trinidad. Vera conducted the rite of possession on the banks of the Pauto or Orinoco rivers. Following the official rite and after Morequito’s deceptions were revealed and his subsequent arrest, Vera and his men arrived on 4 May in the village of Aguarazana, where they resupplied fresh water and on 5 May, they believed they had arrived in Guiana’s main province. The indigenous people gave them a peaceful and friendly welcome, even though the Amerindians had covered the path Vera and his men took with straw. Nevertheless, there was no lack of food for the Spaniards. The Spaniards took a wide and well-worn path and on 6 May, an Amerindian appeared who diverted them, informing the Spaniards of another route that would lead to a great house at the edge of a mountain. Two chieftains would be waiting for the Spanish with plenty provisions. The Amerindian chieftains told Vera that they wished to have good relations with the Christians and that they did not mind becoming subjects of Berrío. Vera and his men continued their march. There was no lack of food or of Amerindians, many even watched the Spaniards as they trekked. The Spaniards later encountered another chieftain, named Ataruqua, who watched the Spaniards conducting another ceremony of taking possession of the land. On 7 May, the Spaniards left the last Amerindian settlement and entered a large, densely populated valley that they named Santa Cruz and they travelled through it until reaching Carapano, a village under the Chieftain Parigua. As always, the Spaniards were well received and they were given chickens and deer as gifts. The Spaniards again performed another ceremony of possession and the Amerindians responded that they were very satisfied in joining them and shouted, “Berrío! Berrío!” The Spanish looked for information regarding the lands that extended far into the distance and to that effect, they met with Amerindian elders who informed them of the following: they were “Guianas” peoples and their lands bordered on or reached up to fifty surrounding leagues in 69

Spanish Trinidad each direction. Mucuraguara’s province lay about a day’s journey away and Mucuraguara’s people were in constant battle with the Spaniards and there were so many Amerindians that they “concealed the sun”. Beyond that province lay another, named Guaycapari, even more populated than previous ones; and towards the east was the nation of the Piramuy Amerindians, which bordered with the Guaracuyr. Beyond both provinces lay a large, saltwater lagoon that the Amerindians referred to as “sea”. The area was densely populated and the Caroni River sprang from it. Guiana was about a twelve-day trek from this lagoon. According to reports from the Amerindian elders, about twenty years earlier, a contingent of indigenous men, dressed in clothes, arrived on the shores of the lagoon and subjugated the local inhabitants. These new wellattired occupants were at war with the Amerindians on the opposite side of the lagoon. These Amerindian invaders were traders and carried gold rings in their noses, chests, arms, and legs. Most likely, one may assume that these Amerindians came from the Peruvian Tahuantinsuyo (Inca Empire), where their presence would not have been unlikely. Among all these reports, there was also news of another group of Amerindians who were very tall, with short necks and shoulders that seemed to reach the top of their heads. These Amerindians inhabited the eastern zone of the mountain range of the Orinoco. These newly-learned facts intrigued the Spanish. The Spaniards deliberated over these new reports and made decisions based on them. In the home of a brother-in-law of Morequito, the Amerindians called a meeting, a committee of elders, where they agreed to join Vera against their long-time enemies. Vera had suspicions about the Amerindians’ true intentions. Vera informed the Amerindians that he would travel with them to fight against their traditional enemies, but confessed that he wished to rest for a couple of days in the home of an uncle of a friend of his, named Paracana. Vera’s plan or objective was to find out what the Amerindians were secretly plotting. He soon found out: the Amerindians were going to abandon Morequito and exterminate the Spanish. Once aware of this, Vera left for Unicapro, ignoring the Amerindians of the “committee” as they called for him. The original source document employed for this account, signed on 14 May 1593, concludes with this final incident. A letter from Berrío, in which he pleads with the king to excuse him for the short nature of the account, a result of having no paper, is attached to this original document. 70

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In the letter, he also informs the king that he would go to Morequito’s, “the traitor”, home in order to find out for certain “the way to Caracas”. Berrío’s letter is dated 15 May 1593.22 It is not certain whether Berrío concocted what he told the king, even though Vera’s testimony corroborates Berrío’s account. Whether Berrío fabricated this story or not, Sir Walter Raleigh would believe and later add to it. Domingo de Vera would also later spread throughout Spain what he said he saw. If it were all a lie, it would have indeed been audacious of Berrío, for at the end of his letter, he requested certain grants from the king and even for the monarch to bestow upon the men, who had trekked to the interior of Guiana with Vera, the order of St James.23 By this time, Berrío had reached the fine age of seventy and despite his years, “he was everywhere; handled everything; managed everything personally; he was a strong man to others needing advice; a soldier in one’s arms, father to those suffering, companion in all travails”.24 How these words remind this historian of others uttered by the explorer Valdivia from the banks of the Maule River in Chile, when he wrote to Charles I of Spain [V of the Holy Roman Empire]!: like a father helping all who needed, and taking pain in their travails, helping them to endure like my children, and a friend who listens; a geometrist in diagraming and populating towns; an architect in building ditches and distributing water; farmer and farmhand in sowing lands; herdsman and shepherd to herds; and in the end, settler of lands, originator, supporter, conqueror and discover.

VERA, “THE INDIES MAN OF EL DORADO” Berrío needed more men to reach Manoa, at least three hundred soldiers. He could not enlist this amount from surrounding areas. He needed to go to Spain in order to negotiate a permit with the Council of the Indies to recruit more men. Berrío entrusted Vera with this mission who once in Spain fantasised about the expedition. And once the Council had given them the licence, he spread the news about the riches and wonders that awaited all those who joined their expedition. Vera counted on his personal talents for recruiting soldiers for the enterprise, for beyond having firsthand knowledge of the area, he was naturally, highly persuasive. While at the Spanish Court, he carried himself in such a way that he did not go unnoticed. Father Simón expressed that once in Madrid, whenever he had 71

Spanish Trinidad a meeting with the Council members to negotiate some issue regarding Trinidad or Guiana, he would walk the streets of the city: in pilgrim’s attire and quite distinguished from all others. He wore a large robe of fine cloth, fastened at the front, with satin ruffles, with four sleeves, two of them, as long as the height of his body, which was tall, and he inserted his arms in the others; he wore a hat of the same colour, covered with felt-like alpaca fur, yet not so thin, of a large crown and with his large physique (he had somewhat long, dark and not very well groomed, curly hair and when he rode a horse, it was always a draught one, also of a large body); he greeted people, who came out to seem him like a strange fixture wherever he went, and they would say: this is the Indies Man of El Dorado…25

Vera’s strategy had the desired effect. Some would be amazed at all the things he spoke of, especially if they were backed by his specimens of “nose rings”, by the ears made of gold, and by stone emeralds that the very shrewd Vera had brought back from New Granada. From the Spanish regions of Toledo, la Mancha, and Extremadura, socially prominent people enlisted. Nevertheless, the same did not occur in Andalusia, inhabited by port people familiarised with the Indies and, therefore, would not be so easily swayed by Vera’s fantastic stories. In spite of this, Vera managed to recruit a large contingent, composed of twenty infantry captains, all veterans from the wars in Flanders and Italy, expert soldiers who having provided their good services to the Crown were now sent to the rich provinces on the other side of the Atlantic as a reward; old soldiers, heirs of estates, noblemen, married men who sold their assets and licences, and even a nephew of the president of the Council of the Indies, named Sir Pablo de Laguna. This long list increased with wives and children; also more than ten priests joined, whose leader and vicar was the prebendary of the Cathedral of Salamanca who went as administrator general of the hospital to be erected in St Joseph of Oruña. In addition to the ten priests, eleven Franciscan monks from the Province of Castile also went along, and additionally one from Seville. All were led by the Friar Commissar Luis de Mieses. Moreover, of this ecclesiastical entourage, the most prestigious member was Fray Pedro de Esperanza, Confessor to the Royal Pages and of most of the royal household and who the Council of the Indies had specifically designated to accompany the expedition. Two religious cantors also joined the retinue, Friar Juan de Pezuela and Fray Pedro Cubillo. 72

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In total, over two thousand men and women were to set out on the expedition. Vera must have been excited to have persuaded these many people and also delighted to have extracted from Phillip II seventy thousand ducats for the expedition’s expenses, plus another five thousand payable in Seville. The Crown had also given in to his pleas. The most concrete proof of this was the splendid generosity of the money given and the many licences that allowed him to recruit more people and to take five ships. Those two thousand people, better said, two thousand naïve dreamers, who made the expedition had no idea of the hardships awaiting them; but let us not get ahead of the events and let us now return to the adventurers. The expeditionaries were ready and eager to set sail. The departure was set to be from the Port of Sanlúcar de Barrameda in 1596. In that same year, on 23 February, they joyfully arrived on the island of Trinidad.26 While Vera had been in Spain, new events had transpired in Trinidad. For instance, Berrío was not in St Joseph of Oruña at the time; instead, other individuals unconnected to the governorship were present. Trinidad belonged to the Audiencia [Council] of Bogotá, but Vera found Trinidad to be under the control of Cumana’s governor, Francisco Vides who had sent his lieutenants, Velasco and Juan de Rivamartin to occupy Trinidad. Vides provided the reasons for having taken this action. First, he said that the governorship did not belong to Berrío. The second reason that supported the first one, was based on a charter that he had negotiated with the king27 and that will be shortly examined, after first delving into more pressing and significant issues. Later in the discussion, the reader will come to understand how the governor of the island of Margarita, believing Berrío to be dead, ordered Vides to occupy Trinidad. Let us pause for a moment to discuss an extraneous event. When Vera returned to Trinidad, he heard that Berrío was in Guiana and that Governor Vides’s forces were controlling Trinidad. However, there was a previous, unconnected development that had taken place and that placed a foreign figure on the scene. The foreigner’s, an Englishman, intervention momentarily altered the course of events. It is quite odd that the chronicler Caulín28 omitted the story of the events about to be mentioned. What transpired had such a concrete and conspicuous impact that one shudders to think that the same mind that conjured up Manoa and El Dorado ignored it. It was indeed the legend of El Dorado that had gone beyond the world of the Indies and had reached the Courts of Europe. In one of these Courts, 73

Spanish Trinidad an imaginative and famous “Lord-Pirate” fantasised over the legend’s allure. Some say this man introduced tobacco and the potato into England; that he was the favourite of a queen considered to be a virgin, that he wrote histories, and that he ended up on London’s scaffolds. This man was Sir Walter Raleigh.

GUALTERIO RALé or SIR WALTER RALEIGH On 6 February 1595, Sir Walter Raleigh sailed from Plymouth, later stole two ships full of wine and armaments in the Canary Islands, and finally approached Trinidad on the 22nd. Ten days earlier, another Englishman, Robert Dudley, had left the island. Dudley arrived on 1 February through the Gulf of Paria, passing through Trinidad through the Point of Carnao [Punta del Carnao] [sic]; he was searching for Manoa. Despite his strong desire to reach Manoa, the men he sent through the Orinoco were not successful in locating the mythical kingdom.29 The arrival of another Englishman, Raleigh, shocked the Spanish settlers of the island. The Spanish King Phillip II received letters informing him of Raleigh’s arrival in Trinidad, of his march through the Orinoco, and of his return to the island, where “he disembarked from six ships, took Berrío’s Fort, arresting Berrío and slitting the throats of the remaining Spaniards, and it is said that he built a fort on the island of Trinidad and left the standard of the Queen of England…”30 If Domingo de Vera had departed Sanlúcar, Spain on 23 February 1595 and arrived in Trinidad on 16 April, most certainly, he would have run into Raleigh’s ships. Therefore, I insist that Vera must have left Spain in 1596 and not in 1595, as the chroniclers Simón and Caulín suggested. From Trinidad, Raleigh continued on to Cumaná, and later surveyed the coasts of Hispaniola in June. What did Raleigh do in Trinidad and Guiana? One must turn to and follow Raleigh’s own account of the events, a somewhat loose narrative, but nevertheless an accurate one. Raleigh’s fleet that had initiated violent actions in the Canaries, stealing two ships, arrived on the island of Trinidad, landing on the Punta del Gallo o Galea [Galera Point]. The ships later sailed onto Puerto España [Port of Spain], or what Raleigh referred to as the “puerto de los Hispanioles [Port of the Spaniards]”. Let Sir Raleigh be the one to narrate the story for us: Meeting with the ships at puerto de los Hispanioles, we found at the landing place a company of Spanyards who kept a guard at the 74

Trinidad as a Base of Operations for El Dorado descent, and they offering a signe of peace I sent Captaine Whiddon to speake with them, whome afterward to my great griefe I left buried in the said Iland after my returne from Guiana, being a man most honest and valiant. The Spanyards semed to be desirous to trade with us, and to enter into terms of peace, more for doubt of their own strength then for ought else, and in the end upon pledge, some of them came abord: the same evening there stale also abord us in a small Canoa two Indians, the one of them being a Casique or Lord of people called Cantyman, who had the yeare before beene with Captaine Whiddon, and was of his acquaintance. By this Cantyman wee understood what strength the Spaniardes had, how farre it was to their Citie, and of Don Anthonio de Berreo the governour, who was said to be slaine in his second attempt of Guiana, but was not. While we remained at puerto de los Hispanioles some Spaniardes came abord us to buy lynnen of the company, and such other thinges as they wanted, and also to view our shippes and company, all which I entertained kindly and feasted after our manner:

by meanes

whereof I learned of one and another as much of the estate of Guiana as I could, or as they knew, for those poore souldiers having beene many yeares without wine, a fewe draughtes made them merry, in which moode they vaunted of Guiana and of the riches therof, and all what they knew of the waies and passages, my selfe seeming to purpose nothing lesse then the enterance or discoverie thereof, but bred in them an opinion that I was bound onely for the reliefe of those english, which I had planted in Virginia, whereof the brute [sic] was come among them, which I had performed in my returne if extremity of weather had not forst me from the said coast. I found occasions of staying in this place for two causes: the one was to be revenged of Berreo, who the yeare before betraied 8 of Captaine Whiddons men, and toke them while he departed from them to seeke the E. Bonaventure, which arrived at Trinedado the day before from the East Indies: in whose absence Berreo sent a Canoa abord the pinnace onely with Indians and dogs inviting the company to goe with them into the wods to kil a deare, who like wise men in the absence of their Captaine followed the Indians, but were no sooner one harquebush shot from the shore, but Berreos souldiers lying in ambush had them all, notwithstanding that he had given his worde to Captain Whiddon that they should take water and wood safelie: the other cause of my stay was, for that by discourse with the 75

Spanish Trinidad Spaniards I daily learned more and more of Guiana, of the rivers and passages, and of the enterprise of Berreo, by what meanes or fault he failed, and how he meant to prosecute the same. While we thus spent the time I was assured by another Casique of the north side of the Iland, that Berreo had sent to Marguerita & to Cumana for souldiers, meaning to have given me a Cassado at parting, if it had bin possible. For although he had given order through all the Iland that no Indian should come aborde to trade with me upon paine of hanging and quartering, (having executed two of them for the same which I afterwards founde) yet every night there came some with most lamentable complaints of his cruelty, how he had devided the Iland & given to every soldier a part, that he made the ancient Casiqui which were Lordes of the country to be their slaves, that he kept them in chains, & dropped their naked bodies with burning bacon, & such other torments, which I found afterwards to be true: for in the city after I entred the same, there were 5 of the Lords of little kings (which they cal Casiqui in the west Indies) in one chaine almost dead of famine, and wasted with torments: these are called in their own language Acarewana, and now of late since English, French, & Spanish are come among them, they call themselves Capitaynes, because they perceive that the chiefest of every ship is called by that name. Those five Capitaynes in the chaine were called Wannawanare, Carroaori, Maquarima, Tarroopanama, & Aterima. So as both to be revenged of the former wrong, as also considering that to enter Guiana by small boats, to depart 400 or 500 miles from my ships, and to leave a garrison in my backe interesssed in the same enterprise, who also daily expected [s]upplies out of Spaine, I should have savoured very much of the Asse: and therefore taking a time of most advantage, I set upon the Corp du guard in the evening, and having put them to the sword, sente Captaine Calfeild onwards with 60. soldiers, & my self followed with 40. more & so toke their new city which they called S. Joseph, by breake of day: they abode not any fight after a few shot, & al being dismissed but onley Berreo and his companion, I brought them with me abord, and at the instance of the Indians I set their new city of S. Josephs on fire. The same day arrived Captaine George Gifford with your Lordships ship, & Captaine Keymis whom I lost on the coast of Spaine, with the Gallego and in them divers Gent. and others, which to our little army was a great comfort and supply. 76

Trinidad as a Base of Operations for El Dorado We then hastened away towards our purposed discovery, and first I called all the Captaines of the Iland together that were enemies to the Spaniards, for there were some which Berreo had brought out of other countries, & planted there to eat out & wast those that were natural of the place, & by my Indian interpreter, which I carried out of England, I made them understand that I was the servant of a Queene, who was the great Casique of the north, and a virgin, and had more Casiqui under her then there were trees in their Iland: that she was an enemy to the Castellani in respect of their tyrannie and oppression, and that she delivered all such nations about her, as were by them oppressed, and having freed all the coast of the northern world from their servitude had sent me to free them also, and with al to defend the countrey of Guiana from their invasion and conquest. I shewed them her majesties picture which they so admired and honored, as it had beene easie to have brought them Idolatrous thereof. The like & more large discourse I made to the rest of the nations both in my passing to Guiana, & to those of the borders, so as in that part of the world her majesty is very famous and admirable, whom they now call Ezrabeta Cassipuna Aquerewana, which is as much as Elizabeth, the great princesse or greatest commaunder. This done wee left puerto de los Hispanioles, and returned to Curiapan, and having Berreo my prisonour I gathered from him as much of Guiana as he knewe. This Berreo is a gent. well descended, and had long served the Spanish king in Millain, Naples, the lowe Countries and else where, very valiant and liberall, and a Gent. of great assuredness, and of a great heart: I used him according to his estate and worth in all things I could, according to the small meanes I had. I sent Captaine Whiddon the yeare before to get what knowledge he could of Guiana, and the end of my jorney at this time was to discover and enter the same, but my intelligence was farre from trueth, for the country is situate above 600. English miles further from the sea, then I was made believe it had beene, which afterward understanding to be true by Berreo, I kept it from the knowledge of my companie, who else woulde never have been brought to attempt the same: of which 600. miles I passed 400. leaving my shippes so farre from me at ancor in the sea, which was more of desire to performe that discovery, then 77

Spanish Trinidad of reason, especially having such poore & weake vessels to transport our selves in; for in the bottom of an old Gallego which I caused to be fashioned like a Galley, and in one barge, two wherries, and a ship bote of the Lyons whelpe, we carried 100 persons and their victuals for a moneth in the same, being al driven to lie in the raine and wether, in the open aire, in the burning sunne, & upon the hard bords, and to dresse our meat, and to carry al manner of furniture in them, wherewiht they were so pestred and unsavery, that what with victuals being most fish, with the weete clothes of so many men thrust together and the heate of the sunne, I will undertake there was never any prison in England, that coulde be founde more unsavoury and lothsome, especially to my selfe, who had for many yeares before beene dieted and cared for in a sort farre differing.31 32

Reports from Spanish sources demonstrate that Berrío’s situation in Trinidad was not encouraging when Raleigh arrived. Only months earlier, the Amerindians together with the Caribs staged an uprising. In addition to these internal threats, external ones were added in the form of foreign ships appearing frequently along the coast. Berrío counted a total of eighteen vessels in the four months preceding Raleigh’s arrival. One of them, commanded by the son of the Count of Lee, had taken possession of the island in the name of Elizabeth, placing her leaded coat of arms in the Punta del Gallo [Los Gallos Point]. Raleigh, however, was the final one, having the most far-reaching impact.

THE SPANISH VERSION OF RALEIGH’S STAY Raleigh commanded four ships when he docked in Trinidad. Incidentally, two of Berrío’s soldiers – he only had 36 – were on the shore at that time. The soldiers received a missive from Raleigh, addressed to Governor Berrío. The letter expressed that I have come to this port with a great desire to see and speak with you matters that are of service to your Majesty King Phillip. I beg you not to refuse in any way this meeting as I say, Your Majesty King Sir Phillip will be served by it and you will be delighted in having done so that you will not refuse for me to see you, wherever you would like to meet and I will go there, for it is a matter so great that it does not allow to be trusted to be said in this letter and so that you would be more at ease, I promise you, with my gentleman’s honour, that it will be with all security and to attest to this and so that you will be sure of it, I send you this ring as a token of friendship. 78

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While Raleigh handed the letter to the two Spanish soldiers, he showed them an image of the Virgin Mary and another of St Francis, telling them that he was a Roman Catholic and that his parents had died professing the faith and that he believed he would as well. He added that he had been until then the most powerful man in England, one who enjoyed full royal backing, but it had been two years since he had fallen out of grace, for having taken the honour of a lady-in-waiting whom he later married. Berrío, realising that he was ill and seeing that his town of straw houses had no gold or silver and that a contingent of Amerindians was also in rebellion, consulted the Cabildo [town council] as to how to respond to Raleigh’s request. The town council authorised the governor to engage Raleigh. Berrío wrote the Englishman that it would be a great pleasure to speak to him, but since he was sick and bedridden, he would send his nephew, a young, nevertheless sensible man, accompanied by three soldiers who would take with them a dozen hens, three deer and some fruits as gifts. Raleigh wrote back to Berrío, insisting that they must urgently and personally meet for the issue at hand was of great significance to the service of the king of Spain. To Berrío who alleged being ill, and had responded negatively, Raleigh sent a third letter in which he informed the Spanish governor that since Raleigh had already with him four Spanish soldiers, there would be no inconvenience in sending the three soldiers and a captain, as well, in order to discuss with Berrío the matter of interest. In all of Raleigh’s missives he swore and perjured himself claiming that he would provide all the necessary assurances to Berrío. Port of Spain, where Raleigh docked, was three leagues from the capital, St Joseph, by way of a rough, broken trail. Berrío had placed watchmen at its halfway point. According to Berrío, Raleigh, without any reason and with the aid of Amerindians, had tied his nephew Sir Diego de la Hoz, the three soldiers, and a page who had accompanied them, to surrounding trees and ordered that they be stabbed. Later that night, Raleigh encircled the Spanish watchmen and killed them. Raleigh continued his attack all the way to the town of St Joseph of Oruña, where Berrío remained with only twenty-eight soldiers of which eleven fell into the hands of the Englishman who stabbed them, after having tied their hands and feet. The deaths of the fallen Spaniards were compounded by the burning of the town. The town was set ablaze; and as the inhabitants attempted to 79

Spanish Trinidad deal with their tragedy, the English returned to their ships with the Spanish governor, Antonio de Berrío, as hostage.33 Margarita’s Governor Salazar, upon receiving news of the events, organised a large canoe with twenty Amerindian rowers and six soldiers who left for Trinidad in order to investigate the events, the condition of the survivors, and the enemy’s plans. From the island of Margarita to Trinidad, the crossing took twenty-four days. The canoe docked in the Port of La Brea, from which the first survivors had initially fled. The Spanish received reports from the Amerindian inhabitants that the English were in Punta del Gallo [Los Gallos Point] felling trees and building a fort to place the three pieces of artillery that they had unloaded. The English insisted had that the Amerindians recognise Queen Elizabeth as their sovereign. On 8 May, after three days of receiving the reports from the Amerindians, Salazar heard that Berrío was still alive and that Raleigh was being friendly to him, praising, and entertaining him with feasts. Raleigh attempted to obtain from Berrío any information regarding the coveted Guiana. Berrío, however, was not revealing any details and by the 15 May, Salazar heard that Raleigh threatened Berrío with hanging his captain, Álvaro Jorge, and with handing Berrío over to the Amerindians, so that they would gang up on him, if Berrío did not reveal the secrets of Guiana. Then, with four armed boats and four canoes, Raleigh entered the Orinoco River with Berrío. On 8 June, the canoe that Salazar had sent to Trinidad returned to Margarita, since the English had spotted it and attempted to seize it. Furthermore, according to reports, it seemed the British were not treating the Amerindians well, but nonetheless Raleigh had returned in high spirits from his trip down the Orinoco. There was no news of Berrío, though; no one had seen him after Raleigh’s return, despite the fact that the Spanish had placed two Amerindian spies among the British. The Spanish, therefore, suspected that Berrío and Captain Álvaro Jorge had been taken in a ship that Raleigh had sent back to England. The Spanish believed in this likely scenario, but, in fact, Berrío still remained in the New World. Meanwhile, the British continued their reconnaissance of Trinidad and drilled and nailed spikes in Port of Spain, in a sandy spot with fresh water, possibly with the intent of building a port. The Governor of Margarita wasted no time. On 12 June, he sent another canoe to Trinidad, but it returned on the 15th, having spotted five ships at twelve leagues from Margarita. There was no doubt that they were 80

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Raleigh’s and they were heading towards Margarita. In the late hours of the night of 16 June, “a long ship like the ones from Sanlúcar” attempted to enter the Port of Margarita, but an alert watchman sounded the alarm. At dawn, at a distance of about half a league inland, the Spanish saw five ships surrounded by many boats with men and flags. The British landed suddenly and their prime objective was Puerto Moreno. Governor Salazar, aided by his cavalry, put a halt to British actions. Unable to enter through Puerto Moreno, the English went on to threaten the pearl beds, where the Spanish confronted them and took three English prisoners. Through these three prisoners, the Spanish found out how the Chieftain Morequito had allied himself with the British and had shown them where they mined for gold. The English had taken four casks full of the metal to show their sponsors back home. The alliance with Morequito was strengthened when the English left him two of their soldiers, in turn, Morequito handed the English a son of his. The British also took possession of the island and as evidence, left several coats of arms. The English planned to return within a year, with 1,500 men in order to colonise Trinidad. Salazar suspected that Governor Berrío was in one of the five British ships. He was not mistaken. Salazar also thought the British were taking Berrío to be displayed to Queen Elizabeth. Salazar was unable to get information concerning this from the captured Englishmen, but he did find out that Drake was preparing a fleet of forty ships that would set sail in August with 10,000 men to take Puerto Rico, Santo Domingo and Cartagena. Drake would most likely spend the winter in Trinidad or in a nearby area, from which he would attempt to take the aforementioned Spanish territories, in addition to Panama, a prized objective, since – the prisoners said – Drake had built shallow boats to sail through the Chagres River. In view of the fact that there was nothing more to be gained in Margarita, Raleigh set course for Cumaná whose governor, Vides, had been forewarned by Salazar on 23 June. But what had happened to Berrío? Salazar believed Berrío was dead or had disappeared or that he was being taken to England. Salazar therefore considered it critical to return to Trinidad, whose colonisation he believed “was of great importance”, since Trinidad was on its way to becoming another Dominica. If the enemy did not populate the island, Salazar believed, then it would fall into the hands of the Caribs who would use it a base for attacking the rest of the Spanish Indies. As a result, Salazar sent Governor Francisco de Vides of Cumaná to settle the island, according to what Vides had agreed with the King in 81

Spanish Trinidad his charter. If Vides did not personally execute this task, Salazar would compel him to send a captain and twenty-five soldiers to guard Trinidad, while the king decided what to do with the island. This is why, when Vera arrived in Trinidad, Vera did not find Berrío, finding instead Vides’s representatives.34 Fortunately, Berrío showed up when the Spanish least expected. On 26 June, reports arrived in Margarita that Walter Raleigh had left Berrío in Cumaná.35 In Berrío’s own words, Raleigh’s voyage lasted seventy-days and Raleigh left intending to return in order to establish a settlement with 1,000 men. Therefore Berrío requested assistance from the King and begged him to send Field Captain Domingo de Vera who was in Spain at the time procuring the reinforcements that Berrío wished to employ to avenge Raleigh’s wickedness, if the Englishman were to return. Berrío was unaware that Vera was already about to arrive in Trinidad. Before leaving Berrío in Cumaná, after receiving a small ransom, Raleigh tried to take over the area, but Governor Vides drove him back, inflicting on the British nearly 100 casualties and wounded men. Berrío considered this action as “the first good deed that has been done in the Indies”. With a little assistance, Berrío insisted, the menacing heretics would lose their enthusiasm and the local settlers would strengthen theirs. On Thursday, 29 June, on St Peter’s Day, the English departed, leaving the Spanish believing that they would soon return to take Trinidad and destroy Cumaná and Margarita. Berrío remarked that Raleigh had told him about Drake and Hawkins’s plans of sailing directly to the Chagres River and of entering it in their shallow boats that would allow them to take Panama. Once in control of Panama and the Pacific, they would take Nombre de Dios and Cartagena, where they would spend their winter and then they would conduct successive attacks from their new bases. Berrío wrote his missive to the King of Spain from Cumaná, and from Cumaná, Berrío said he expected to return to Trinidad to punish the Amerindian rebels and to wait for reinforcements from New Granada that would come by way of the Orinoco (“people from my household”, he wrote). Berrío was unable to finish his letter to the king in Cumaná and continued it in Margarita, where the governor, Pedro de Salazar, gave him a good welcome and promised to assist him in any way possible. With the governor’s help and with twenty soldiers that Berrío had and others who 82

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would arrive from the Orinoco, where he had left them, Berrío planned to return to Trinidad to colonise it. Berrío would wait for Field Captain Domingo de Vera, whom the king would send, Berrío insisted, with new recruits. Berrío informed in his letter that he had requested assistance from the governor of Cumaná who planned on having rights over Trinidad, but Vides – Berrío mistakenly presumed – was not a soldier and who having survived the clashes with the English did not wish to be embroiled in any more conflicts. In turn, Salazar, who had only been in Margarita for three months, had already fortified the island and was willing to help him. The local citizens admired Salazar, seeing how “in his deeds [he] was a classic soldier”. As evidenced in the original sources, Berrío did not praise Vides much, perhaps because Vides relied, as will be discussed later, on his rights over the island that Berrío had included in his governorship.36 As mentioned earlier, Salazar believed Berrío had disappeared and, therefore, planned on sending Vides to Trinidad. I have also referred to the somewhat negative view Berrío had of Vides, but I have yet to disclose what Vides actually had in mind regarding Trinidad, especially, in light of Berrío’s reappearance and Domingo de Vera’s imminent return.

THE OUTCOME OF VERA’S EXPEDITION When Vera appeared in Trinidad, nothing remained of Raleigh’s stay on the island. What the field captain found has already been mentioned: the island’s governor, Berrío, already freed by the Englishman, was in Guiana, where he must have gone from Margarita, possibly stopping in Trinidad, but not staying for its destroyed capital did not offer adequate shelter and Vides’s supporters were already residing there. Vides’s intrusion was based on legal principles. An entire royal charter supported Vides’s alleged rights. Originally from Huelva, Spain and from the township of Trigueros, Vides agreed to conquer the island of Trinidad, given its significance in accessing El Dorado and Guiana and in order to impede the settlement of French and English pirates who searched for cover in the island’s ports during winter. The royal clerk that drafted Vides’s charter wrote in it, according to custom at the time, that Vides pledged to “conquer”, but some warning must have driven the clerk to scratch out that phrase, already in disuse at the time, and to write in its place “to settle and pacify”. 83

Spanish Trinidad In addition, Vides pledged to establish a settlement in the area known as “Piritu”, a required base for entry into El Dorado and another one towards Cumaná. Both settlements would be on the coast and with the stated objective of the Spanish being able to access the interior of the continent. Vides was given control over the island, where he would later encounter Berrío who appropriated it, believing it to be within his designated 400 leagues. Vides’s sole driving motive in conquering Trinidad was its proximity to El Dorado. The island became merely a base for future incursions in its search. Therefore, the role that Trinidad played was that of a springboard, a stepping-stone towards the renown mythical Kingdom.37 Vides left for the Indies with his royal charter. Once in Trinidad, he began constructing the settlement under the governorship granted to him. The governorship’s conditions were identical to the ones that had been given earlier to Serpa, even the Fort of Unare was his and his heirs’. Trinidad belonged to Vides and he took possession of it by driving out Berrío’s men. Guiana also belonged to him and with that objective in mind, he marshalled his forces. Eventually, they would clash with Berrío’s. With Guiana in mind, Vides sent a captain, named Santiago, who commanded sixty soldiers with orders to expel Berrío or to arrest him. Having heard of the impending approach of Vides’s men, Berrío, despite being seventy years of age, went out to confront the men with several of his soldiers. When Berrío encountered Vides’s men, Berrío recognised Santiago, Vides’s commander, as having been raised in his household, back in Tunja, and whom he highly admired for being a good soldier. Berrío asked him why he had come. Upon Santiago’s response, Berrío attacked him. Actually, neither side had any desire to fight. Therefore, the shots fired did not hit anyone, except a poor African-Spaniard of Captain Santiago’s side who had placed himself in front of the commander to shield him, and Berrío was also injured. The men loaded their harquebuses again, were ready to fire, when one of Berrío’s captains, Martín Gómez from Extremadura, raised a handkerchief and declared that it was nonsense to kill each other without first knowing Santiago and his men’s true intentions. The two sides gathered for several hours. Santiago and Berrío then went alone for a walk and decided to leave the matter pending resolution until Field Captain Domingo de Vera returned from Spain. Domingo de Vera docked in Port of Spain, landing with one hundred soldiers whom he placed under the command of Captain Medinilla, from 84

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Granada, who had orders to take over the city of St Joseph in the name of Berrío. Once they easily achieved this objective, the rest of the expedition disembarked. Once the Spaniards were on land, they constructed temporary straw dwellings where they housed the settlers and stored their supplies. At the port, they commemorated the ceremonies of the Christian Holy Week, where everyone took communion. Following these events, the first thing Vera did was to send a ship with supplies and several married couples with orders to trade the items brought from Spain and for the Spanish couples to journey by land to Guiana. The husbands and wives apparently realised what awaited them and decided to stay instead in Caracas. Once the Easter holiday concluded, Domingo de Vera gave instructions for all settlers to head towards St Joseph of Oruña. Since they had no horses or Amerindian carriers, each one carried their belongings on foot. After a long, hard trek, especially for the women and children, they arrived in St Joseph of Oruña. The town could not have had a bleaker appearance, as a result of Raleigh’s attack. The homes were made of logs and the town had no more than thirty dwellings. The new colonists settled themselves in whichever way possible. The settlers who got the best accommodations were the clerics who stayed in a reasonably well-constructed convent founded by the Franciscan Friar Juan de Peralta. The arrival of the new settlers in the small village placed a burden on the availability of food. Daily rations of salted meat and biscuits were soon exhausted. In order to ease the strain, Vera ordered some settlers to head towards Guiana in six canoes. The outcome of this minor expedition was tragic. The settlers suffered a storm that resulted in only three canoes entering the Orinoco; the others were stranded on a beach where anthropophagous Caribs exterminated the men and took the women with them. The nephew of the president of the Council of the Indies was among the unfortunate ones. The expedition’s survivors then safely arrived in Santo Tomé and were well received by its governor, Berrío. With the arrival of these men, the settlement increased to 400, not counting women and children. The five clerics who arrived joined a Franciscan hospital, founded by Friar Domingo de Santa Águeda, a good friend of the Governor. The settlement’s clerics now increased to a total of eight. After Raleigh freed Berrío, the Governor remained in Guiana and not in Trinidad, since in Guiana he considered himself closer to the elusive, 85

Spanish Trinidad sought-after riches. With the new Spanish reinforcements, Berrío believed he was now ready to go in its search. Three hundred men, three clerics, and a Portuguese Captain, named Álvaro Jorge set for the unknown. Only thirty of them returned, and one may well imagine what they endured. In Trinidad, the situation was no better. Domingo de Vera, Berrío’s Lieutenant on the island, feared that the recent arrivals would abandon the settlement due to the extreme hardships. Vera therefore determined to send one hundred of the married couples to Guiana. He did not wish for fleeing Spanish settlers to spread stories around the coasts of Cumaná, Margarita, and Caracas that they had been victims of a deception. Nevertheless, if the settlers were enduring hard conditions in Trinidad, they would, if one could fathom, suffer even more in Guiana. Hunger had taken over the poor inhabitants of Santo Tomé. Despite the fact that the death of the 270 expeditionaries had lessened the food shortages, the supplies mostly spoiled due to the hot and humid weather. Famished, barefooted, harassed relentlessly by fleas and mosquitoes, an epidemic of open skin sores and wounds spread among the inhabitants, killing many for lack of medicine. Even the governor buried the dead each morning. Some days the governor buried up to fourteen corpses. Hunger became so intense that when the settlers killed an alligator, they feasted. The ones who survived the terrible conditions looked like they were made of parchment.38 The Spanish chronicler, Simón, tells of a man who brought a cleric to his home so that his wife could have her last confession as she lay dying. While the cleric heard her confession, the husband remained outside the home, sitting on a rock and waiting under a tree. When the cleric returned, he found the husband dead in the same position that the he had left him. The poor man died from hunger. In addition to the famine, the climate and a plague of insects intensified the misery. The smouldering humidity drove the settlers to take their clothes out of their crates so that they would not be ruined. There were also so many crickets that they would eat away at the sick while they slept. The settlers were so desperate and distressed that they decided to kill the governor who they deemed responsible for their situation. In the end, they did not execute their criminal plot thanks to the intervention of a priest who dissuaded them. The details of the spoiled plans reached Berrío who gathered the settlers and told them that he was not to blame for their misfortune for he had instructed Domingo de Vera to send only 300 men. Furthermore, he added, they had his permission to leave and to go wherever they desired; more than one man accepted the offer. In precarious 86

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canoes, some settlers left into the unknown. Since they did not know the Orinoco well, they entered tributaries, streams, and shallow banks where Amerindians ambushed and exterminated them. Friar Juan de Pezuela and the so-called Father Manos-Albas ended this way. From Trinidad, others like Captain Velasco, Lorenzo del Hoyo and Santiago abandoned the island along with other noblemen who when sailing out of the Bocas del Dragón [Dragon’s Mouth], eventually drowned to death. Father Espejo and Friar Pedro de Cubillo were killed by an epidemic. There were others who were fortunate enough to make it back to Spain, like Friar Pedro de Esperanza, Friar Pablo and Friar Juan de Zuezo.

THE OTHER BERRÍO Shortly after the failed settlement, Sir Antonio Berrío y Oruña died. Along with him, the dream of being named Marquis as a reward for the discovery of El Dorado also perished. He was replaced, however, by a worthy substitute, his son Fernando, to whom the locals warmed. Once Domingo de Vera heard that Antonio Berrío had passed away, he believed Guiana’s governorship now belonged to him, especially since he held a royal charter that authorised him to rule over the territory, whilst Berrío’s son was still a minor. Nevertheless, Vera must have been surprised when he found out that Berrío’s son was already “a man”, as he said, “as tall as I, and with as much of a beard, of calm demeanour, careful in his manners and in all necessary restraints and, above all, a good Christian, always inclined do what was right…”39 Vera’s letter then reveals his observations of the island, providing the reader with the impression that he did not achieve his planned entry into El Dorado. Vera believed that the only way to enter the coveted region was by leaving from Venezuela, but its governor obstructed all attempts to reach the prized objective. This would have been only natural, for no governor thought it convenient to have unfamiliar troops in his area, especially if they were on the march after riches that he could pursue himself. With his new governor, Sir Fernando, Vera pursued, once again on 1 January 1598, the same objective as always. They took, this time, more ammunitions and weapons than men. In 90 days, they travelled more than 50 leagues inland and a span of eight leagues wide. They encountered more and more Amerindians, and also excellent sites for future settlements. Although the Amerindians tried to keep from them that the “land was fertile”, the Spanish were able to witness it for themselves. Vera’s letter describes it as a great “gorge”, in between the mountain ranges, where 87

Spanish Trinidad there was a small cliff in the shape of a die on one side and on the other, a tall, cone-like one. The Amerindians told the Spanish that, according to oral tradition, in ancient times the two cliffs were one, but a great chieftain had asked another chieftain for his beautiful daughter’s hand in marriage. The chieftain complied only on the condition that the huge cliff would split in two. The amorous chieftain, realising that this stipulation would be impossible, wept very much and fasted for a long time until; finally he came to an agreement with the devil who split the rock in two. After hearing about the legend and verifying that the area was not too mountainous, fertile, and with plenty of livestock, the Spanish soldiers founded Ciudad de los Arias. Vera wrote his letter from that new settlement and for it, he requested 300 men from Puerto Rico’s garrison, as well as cows, horses and “unemployed” people who could be sent by Venezuela’s governor for ten years in order to develop the settlement. Once again, Vera expresses in the letter that Venezuela’s governor hampered any attempt to locate El Dorado, since he had once been a captain in an expedition that went for it and he mutinied from it. Governmental rivalries that had emerged from the beginning stages of the conquest in regards to Trinidad continued and although they did not have larger consequences, they did, in fact, frequently ruin expeditions and colonising endeavours.40 From that moment on, Berrío’s son would be known as Governor General and Captain General of the Governorship of New Guipúzcoa of El Dorado [Nueva Guipúzcoa del Dorado]; a lengthy title just to justify that it was truly El Dorado that interested him and that Trinidad was merely a portal to it. For this reason, the young Berrío left Trinidad and changed his former name. He would set up his residence in Santo Tomé of Guiana [Santo Tomé de la Guayana] from where he would guard Trinidad, placing a lieutenant on the island. One must understand that he only guarded Trinidad in the sense that whenever he named a new comptroller, he justified it by writing that it was “for the perpetual and good government that the correct service of the King requires and so that there would be royal officials who take account of the Treasury…”41 The comptroller assigned was Licenciado [university graduate] Pedro de Beltranilla, who was instructed to present himself to the Cabildo [Royal Town Council] of Trinidad. Sir Fernando had been twelve years in his governorship when in 1609 he was accused by the Council of the Indies of “certain charges”, according to the chronicler Caulín. The Court sent as replacement Governor and Investigator Sancho Alquiza who had finished his tenure in the government 88

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of the province of Venezuela. The outcome of the investigation had led to the charges and Berrío’s removal, a dismissal confirmed by the Council of the Indies. Sir Fernando de Berrío did not readily accept Alquiza’s judgment that was later ratified by the Crown, and as soon as he could, Sir Fernando left for Spain.42 Whilst Fernando de Berrío is on his way back to Spain, I shall take this moment to survey the landscape where these events unfolded in order to examine their century-long transformations. In this way, one may better understand the charges levelled against Sir Fernando. What first comes to view is the following: if in the sixteenth century only the Spanish were interested in finding hidden riches through the Orinoco, in the seventeenth, this great river was en vogue, or so to say, as foreigners from different countries would also wish to search for them. After his first voyage, Sir Walter Raleigh sparked this interest. Echoing these foreign incursions and settlements, the Governor of Margarita provided some interesting news in 1613. Bernardo de Vargas, Margarita’s governor, informed royal officials that not far from his province the English had set up tobacco plantations. The English relied on the help of the Amerindians, as per the governor’s letter of 10 July. A few days later, the governor reported that on the coasts of Trinidad and Guiana, the English, also with the assistance of the Caribs, ploughed land for tobacco and constructed more settlements. The governor was worried by these new colonies and wished to expel the English, but could not do so for lack of soldiers. The governor requested a small number of soldiers, 40; in addition to the 50 sentinels they had, the Spanish would remove the meddling English. Spanish officials in Trinidad sent similar letters. One dated 30 June reported that foreign ships were swarming throughout and threatening the island’s coasts. Antonio Mújica Buitrin who ruled Trinidad, in Alquiza’s absence, informed that the Flemish and Caribs had joined and were harassing the Arawaks. For that reason, he decided to head towards the Coretin River with thirty-four musketeers and three hundred Amerindians. At midnight, he arrived in the camp of the Flemish and Caribs. According to Antonio Mújica Buitrin, he read the “requerimiento [act of possession]” to them, but the Flemish sneered in response. He then set the enemy camp on fire. Antonio believed that the same had to be done to all foreign settlements that existed between “the Amazon and Orinoco”. He expressed how these foreign colonies, in addition to having excellent earnings from plantations, controlled all the river deltas (letter of 30 May 1614). 89

Spanish Trinidad Juan Díaz de Mansilla, curate of Trinidad, provided information regarding these aforementioned settlements in his letters, along with other remarks concerning the acting governor of Trinidad, Juan Tostado, who Alquiza delegated and who the curate did not appreciate for causing so much trouble to the locals. This is the reason, Tostado added, why the designated acting governor should not be believed.43 In addition to the aforementioned events, Trinidad’s lieutenant governor added that they did not have enough resources to ward off foreign threats. They lacked everything, including the most trivial items. Tostado, therefore, pleaded with the Crown to send 50 muskets, 10 quintals44 of gunpowder, 6 quintals of rope and another 6 of lead. The Council of War back in Spain must have indeed considered the situation dire for it ordered the Guild of Merchants [Casa de Contratación] in Seville to send immediately the requested items. In case that there was no gunpowder in Seville – it was, after all, the seventeenth century – it should be brought from Cádiz or Málaga. And, if there was no money to pay for it, then they should find it somehow, even borrowing it, if necessary. The Council’s letter to the Guild of Merchants contains a post script informing that if a Royal Decree was needed to comply with the instructions, they should inform them of it.45 Gradually, Trinidad’s Spanish settlers began losing interest in the myth of El Dorado. At the same time, they began realising that the island held the potential for great riches, once it could be adequately exploited. Trinidad, merely serving in the sixteenth century as a stepping stone, a zone of transit, converted itself into a sedentary colony in the seventeenth. The Spanish inhabitants now wished to farm and to exploit the island’s economic resources, abandoning the search for what did not exist. One of the products the Spanish began to grow was tobacco and in order to export it, they requested some privileges from the Crown. The Spanish colonists believed that exempting Trinidad from taxes was the only way they could hold onto the island. The Crown considered the request. Nevertheless, since it was sent in 1615 and most likely only reviewed by the Royal Council in January 1616, the Spanish settlers would not have received by July of that year, the Royal response to their request of not having to pay taxes on exports for six years. 46 That is why the colonists continued with more requests. The colonists wrote about the abject poverty, the dangers risked, and asked for the right to import supplies in a smaller ship that would come with the fleet from the Mainland. And, they warned, as an 90

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ultimatum of sorts, that if what they requested was not granted to them, they would return to trading with foreigners.47 The colonists wished to acquire direly needed products from Spain and wished tax concessions for their exports. Exports went to Seville or other Caribbean islands48 and, normally, involved tobacco. Along with tobacco, cocoa emerged as another major commodity. It grew on its own in Trinidad, but required labour for its cultivation. The Spaniards could not be relied on for it, since they were mostly present as soldiers. The Amerindians could neither be relied upon for labour, for they were few and the Caribs had proven to be dangerous enemies. Only a third ethnic group would be able to lend a hand, the Africans. Some three hundred enslaved Africans, two-thirds of them men, would solve the labour problem.49 Sir Fernando de Berrío – who I left behind still sailing while I discussed these issues – had already reached Spain. He immediately visited the Council and learned about the charges lodged against him: he had conducted illegal trade with foreigners along with the local inhabitants. Sir Fernando accepted the charges and stated that he had indeed carried out said trade, but he justified it as having no other alternative due to the hardships endured. Berrío’s defensive statements, referring to his uncle Jiménez de Quesada and his father Antonio de Berrío’s services to the Crown, along with his complaints and justifications, led the King to reconfer on him the title of governor on 12 December 1615.50 Nevertheless, it so happened that one month earlier, the Crown had also named on 8 November Sir Diego Palomeque de Acuña as successor to Alquiza, Governor of Guiana and Trinidad.51 Acuña’s appointment was for four years. The Crown solved the dilemma by instructing Sir Fernando de Berrío to travel to Santa Fe de Bogotá where he would provide his services to the Royal Council, while Sir Diego fulfilled his appointment. When Sir Diego concluded his tenure, Berrío would replace him. Both, Diego and Fernando, set sail for the Americas. Let us leave Sir Fernando in his new abode and let us follow the Governor of Guiana and Trinidad; for the moment, his situation is more interesting. Palomeque had not been living in Guiana for two months when he was warned by a royal missive of Walter Raleigh’s arrival. This roaming sailor’s adventures and failures in the Spanish colonies, along with his emptyhanded return to England, were well known. Before Queen Elizabeth’s 91

Spanish Trinidad death, he had not dared again to search for Manoa or El Dorado. Several reasons impeded new voyages: he was bankrupt and imprisoned in the Tower of London. Only after 1613 did Raleigh find new opportunities and economic support.

THE SECOND APPEARANCE OF THE DON QUIXOTE RALEIGH Queen Elizabeth died in 1603 and her successor to the throne, the young James I, could be easily swayed. The Spanish ambassador had significant influence over him. Therefore, Raleigh ended up imprisoned in the Tower of London in the same year of 1603. News around London spread regarding a plan by Raleigh to go in search of and to exploit a magnificent mine that a late Guianian chieftain had showed him during his first voyage. To execute the task, Raleigh was willing to leave his wife and children as hostages and to accept a page and three ships that the King would provide. Raleigh was to supply the rest. Nevertheless, the plan did not go through because of the efforts of one of Raleigh’s harshest enemies, the crown treasurer, who blocked any plan from reaching the king. According to original sources, Raleigh received news of the magnificent mines during his first voyage, and only Raleigh and his captain, Keymis (Spanish sources refer to him as “Quemiche”), knew where to find the legendary El Dorado. It was common knowledge that Walter Raleigh had returned from his first voyage with the chieftain’s son. The young Amerindian, once in England, displayed an interest in learning how Europeans conducted war and for that reason, Raleigh sent him to the siege of Oostende, where the Amerindian died. Some merchants in London told the story that when an English ship arrived at the Orinoco, the indigenous people asked if Raleigh was with them. Little did they know that Raleigh was locked up in the Tower of London, smoking tobacco rolled by an Amerindian servant who had been raised in indigenous ways. Raleigh had brought earlier some fine powder from the luxurious mountain that the chieftain from Guiana had shown him and that Raleigh believed to be made of gold. One day, while speaking to a silversmith in the Tower, the silversmith told Raleigh that a ship with fine gold powder had arrived in port. Raleigh then told the silversmith about some powder he had there and begged him to analyse it, promising him one hundred ducats for each gram of gold he extracted. The silversmith’s assessment brought 92

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him twelve per cent of gold from the fine powder. It was at that moment when Raleigh took his plan to the King and to the Royal Council, but was denied by the royal treasurer who did not believe in the silversmith’s story or in Raleigh’s or of the mountain of gold or in the Chieftain Topiwary or even in the tale of a mine that, according to some, was near Cartagena de Indias!52 At first, James I did not entertain Sir Walter Raleigh’s plans, but the notion of extracting riches without troubling the feared Spaniards tempted him. The great seaman’s plans were inextricably affected by the shifts in international politics. Nevertheless, James I’s son, prince and heir to the British throne, found Raliegh’s project somewhat appealing. The prince wished to marry the Spanish Infanta, heir to the Spanish throne, especially after Henvy IV of France’s death, but this plan fell apart when France and Spain became allies. As a result, the prince grew intensely hostile to Spain. Therefore, the prince promised Raleigh to set him free from the Tower, once the powerful royal treasurer had died and then, there would be no one who could stand against the prince’s wishes. Finally, in March 1616, the British king became receptive to Raleigh’s proposal and authorised him to go in search of the mines of Manoa. By April, the Spanish ambassador, Diego Sarmiento de Acuña, Count of Gondomar, had written to Phillip III, explaining that “the English have designs in the western and eastern Indies and they are planning to establish another company for Guiana and for the Orinoco river, near the island of Trinidad; Walter Raleigh, great sailor and captain, is its prime motivator and architect who had great weight during the time of Queen Elizabeth and who settled Virginia”. The Spanish ambassador provided the Spanish King, Phillip III, with all sorts of details about the expedition and informed him that Sir Walter was a courtier of the Indies. The ambassador did everything in his power to get James I to stop any act of piracy. James I responded with an assurance that Raleigh “went with a rope around his neck,” in the sense that if Raleigh attempted any freebooting, he would immediately be taken to Spain chained by his hands and feet. Neither Gondomar nor Phillip III believed these promises. In the time of Hawkins, the English had given these same assurances. Meanwhile, Sir Walter Raleigh suffered serious setbacks in preparing his fleet. He did not have any money and, worse, he did not know if they would either set sail for Guiana or towards the Cape of Good Hope in search of the Red Sea or India. In spite of prevailing uncertainties, what was assured was that they would set sail one way or another. Raleigh, however, did not 93

Spanish Trinidad know that the king had betrayed him. James I handed over the seaman’s plans to the Spanish ambassador who then quickly sent them to the Royal Court in Madrid, from where defensive measures were dispatched to the Spanish Indies.53 Walter Raleigh, after overcoming an unknown number of troubles, finally outfitted his expedition. He had a total of fourteen ships, with The Destiny as the lead one and with a hold of 440 tonnes and carrying 86 guns. Nevertheless, the expeditionaries did not reflect the quality of the expedition. Almost all were destitute people, taken from England’s prisons. Out of the eighty volunteer noblemen and 120 others who would later join them, only the wise Captain Weyoms knew Guiana. Once the expedition was equipped, they sailed for South America on 28 March 1617. Numerous letters went back and forth between Madrid and London that dealt with the preparations and spoke of the general climate in London regarding Raleigh’s sailing. The Council of War in Madrid met more than once to deal with the issue of Raleigh’s voyage. The council deliberated over sending two or four ships from Cartagena de Indias to Trinidad with the aim of sailing into the Orinoco and following Raleigh. The council asked for Diego Brochero and Colonel Semple’s advice and they said that whoever was chosen to repel the British attack must be a soldier and a mariner and that the ships should be shallow in order to sail through the river. Semple advised that Jamaica should also be fortified, since it could be on the minds of the British. There were also rumours that the Dutch were attempting to take control of Matanzas, Cuba. As evident, notions of the British seeking to control Jamaica were already present in the minds of the Spanish in the early seventeenth century, even though it would take a half-century for Oliver Cromwell to make them a reality. When Sarmiento de Acuña’s letters from London arrived in Madrid with the details of Raleigh’s ships and with the news that they had set sail and had already reached the Canary Islands, officials in Madrid were of the opinion that Jamaica did not need to be urgently fortified and that neither was it necessary to instruct Cartagena to displace its ships. The only thing they could do at that point – indeed very much a seventeenth century option – was to send a ship warning the governors of the Antilles and of the Venezuelan coast of the British expedition. There were some in the Council of War and others from abroad that advised the impounding of all British ships and shops in the ports of the Canaries and Seville. The Spanish should take the sails off English ships 94

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and British shops should be closed down and their owners told to go to England to recover their losses from the financial promissory notes left by Walter Raleigh. The Spanish ambassador in London, indeed, advised to take such harsh action.54 While Sir Walter Raleigh headed towards South America, Trinidad’s situation could not have been worse. In the same month of August that the British ships left their port, the local inhabitants of St Joseph of Oruña sent a long letter to Phillip III. From a minute point of his vast dominions, Phillip III received a long list of grievances that informed him about the actions of the governor that the Crown had imposed on them, Diego Palomeque de Acuña. According to the locals, not only had he done nothing to develop the island, but also his despotic government made life unbearable. He was the typical governor of the Indies who did whatever fancied him. He used the Amerindians, against the will of the settlers who had control over them, for unloading ships and for loading tobacco without paying anything. The governor disturbed the farmers and insulted the clerics and the women of the colony. When he called a meeting of the Town Council to order, the council had to do as he wished, since he said, “he was King and Pope wherever he was”. The governor promised to personally set fire to anyone who dared to destroy the excess tobacco. And he cut communications and links with the island of Margarita where they got their supplies. He did not allow for any justice to be carried out; he made royal officials deny any act of fraud, for he had appointed them and they were afraid of him; he expelled notaries and inspectors, taking away their rightful duties from investigating any complaint lodged.55 The governor even spoke offensively about his superiors in public. Regarding the Council of the Indies, he said “words that are so awful that we dare not put them in this letter so as to not offend Your Majesty’s chaste ears, saving them for an appropriate time, and regarding the royal persona, he said things so hideous that they cannot fit the royal person….” The governor dismissed the prelate of the Convent of St Francis, who the locals tried to save, promising to hang him by his feet and furthermore, he sold all his assets. Two letters contain all these grievances. The Spanish inhabitants of Trinidad wrote one letter and the ones from Guiana wrote the other. At the end of the letters, they begged for the governor to be replaced and for the governors of Caracas and Margarita to verify these accusations, but only once Palomeque was gone, for he would distort any information. If the Crown did not fulfil their request, the colonists informed the king that the area would become depopulated and then the enemies who have 95

Spanish Trinidad settled in the surrounding areas would take over Peru, Charcas, Potosí and Chile – a strong threat indeed. The king, after having received this long list of grievances, must not have been moved to take action, for Palomeque continued as governor. He would soon lose his office, though. Raleigh, who has been left behind sailing towards Trinidad, will be the one to rid him of his governor’s responsibilities, although it is believed that it was the Spanish and not Raleigh’s men who killed him. In the battles that were waged in Santo Tomé of Guiana between the English and the Spanish, Palomeque fell, according to some sources, Caulín for instance, to an English bullet; in others, the Spanish were the ones to shoot him dead. Returning to Sir Walter Raleigh who had a difficult crossing of the Atlantic, he departed from the Isle of Wight and encountered severe weather and strong headwinds. He was forced twice to take cover in safe harbours where he could fix his ships that had been battered by storms. First in Plymouth and later in Ireland, Raleigh’s expedition suffered long delays. Raleigh remained in Ireland for two months, raising money and gathering men and supplies. According to the Knight or Captain Jorge Bailey, Raleigh, while in Ireland, enlisted “all the pirates that had been condemned to hanging”. He finally set sail on 19 August towards the Canary Islands. It was not long before the men of good character on his ships noticed that Raleigh lacked scruples and that he behaved like a regular pirate, hunting down any ship within shot. Raleigh pursued five ships that eventually escaped, perhaps because they were Turkish and “had swift sails”, but another five ships that later appeared were captured. The ships were French, from Bayonne, and carried stocks of fish that the French caught in the White Cape of modern day Mauritania. Raleigh, uncertain and believing the ships were Basque, took them along for four days, as he sailed towards the Canaries. He ultimately released the ships, but he let all his crew know that they should capture any Spanish or Portuguese ship and that they would not be penalised in England for it. He also informed his crew of his intention of landing in Lanzarote in the Canaries, where he eventually arrived on 6 September. Two Spanish caravels swiftly escaped, but an English ship full of wine – could it have been transporting the famous Malmsey wine imbibed by Shakespeare’s characters? – was captured. On the following day, a Sunday, Raleigh docked in Lanzarote at around three o’clock in the afternoon. The local inhabitants, and others who had taken 96

Trinidad as a Base of Operations for El Dorado

cover in a castle, approached the ships. The Englishmen found little wine in the homes of the inhabitants. The governor of Lanzarote then appeared with around thirty horses and a small battalion to inquire what were the intruder’s intensions. Two Englishmen were sent to negotiate with Lanzarote’s governor. Upon seeing them, the governor asked if they were Christians. Lanzarote’s governor thought they were Turks and he could have been right, for according to Bailey, one of the delegates, Captain Cosmore, was or could have been a son of a Moorish or Portuguese man. He was of a darker complexion and his physique did not lead anyone to believe that he was English, to the extent that “one could not blame the Spanish for they thought they were Turks in Christian dress”. Since the Spanish remained stubbornly doubtful, Raleigh sent two other emissaries, but the governor kept on with his questions. Were they Moors or Christians? Where were they headed to? Why had they landed in Lanzarote? Why did they land with so much artillery? Were they thinking of razing the island? The English responded that Raleigh was headed to Virginia and due to the long, harsh sailing and the series of storms that had hit them, the expeditionaries were ravaged and needed their help. If the Spanish did not give them supplies and wine, they would be forced to “burn the town and to raze the entire the island”. The Spanish had to comply with the request by the next morning. To this ultimatum, Governor Hernán Peraza de Ayala responded, “Never should God wish not to give relief to a Christian, especially when they are close neighbours, and who are friends that are allied to their master, the King”. The governor added that the island had nothing to offer except what they could see for themselves: wheat, goats and wine. The night remained peaceful. Raleigh was not satisfied, however, with the governor’s response and at eight o’clock in the morning, went to the town centre. Bailey remained on his ship with the British troops. Wondering if Raleigh needed reinforcements and what were his plans, Bailey sent two messengers who returned informing him that Raleigh planned on staying for several weeks until French reinforcements arrived, whose king looked for any opportunity to attack the Spaniards, and also that Raleigh intended to continue on to the island of Fuerteventura. With this information in hand and knowing of Raleigh’s piratical tendencies, despite his former promises to the English King, Bailey deserted Raleigh and escaped with his ship back to Plymouth on 10 October. Incidentally, Bailey’s letter, written by a nobleman who, according to English sources, was nonetheless considered a traitor by having sold himself to the Spanish 97

Spanish Trinidad ambassador, is not dated according to the Gregorian calendar. For this reason, the precise landing date in Lanzarote was 16 September 1617.56 If I have somewhat lingered on the topic of Raleigh’s visit to the Canaries it has been merely to shed light on some unknown aspects regarding Raleigh’s expedition. Raleigh’s visit to the Canaries, as well as its motives, preparations, and circumstances have been well examined by Antonio Rumeu.57 Raleigh later went from one Canary island to another, until finally setting sail for the Americas. On 7 November, they landed on the coast of Guiana where old Amerindian friends gave them a warm welcome. Raleigh, along with several others, was ill. He had been sick for six weeks; he could barely walk and had to be carried in a chair. They then laid anchor at the Punta del Gallo in Trinidad [Los Gallos Point]. From Punta del Gallo, Raleigh sent one caravel, two ships, and five boats with more than seven hundred men to sail into the Orinoco in search of the city of Santo Tomé in Guiana. The expeditionary force was led by Sir Walter Raleigh’s son and by Captain Sir Lawrence Keymis. With the rest of his fleet, six ships, Raleigh then headed towards the Trinidadian town of St Joseph of Oruña. The local inhabitants of Trinidad had been forewarned. The governor’s lieutenant, Benito Baena, sent some Spanish forces to the port, where he shot down some of the arriving assailants and captured an Englishman who revealed the identity of the commander of the British fleet and his plans. The British forces heading to Guiana reached the island of Jaya on 12 January 1618. Governor Palomeque received news of the British advance from a local Amerindian fisherman who had spotted them. The governor immediately gathered his troops in order to confront the invasion. They were fifty-seven men, of which fifteen were already sick and could hardly carry any weapons. The few able-bodied Spaniards were instructed and armed immediately. Two cannons on the banks of the river and another four swivel guns in the settlement were aimed towards the path of the invaders. At 11:00 a.m., the Spanish spotted the English sails turning at the Point of Aramaya, about a league from the town centre. The chronicler Caulín explains that Santo Tomé was located between the Point of Aramaya and the Caroni river. Jaya island is most likely known today as the island of Mata-Mata [sic]. Hence, where “Los Castillos” is located today, on the banks of the Supango River, one may assume is where Santo Tomé stood. The English ships entered through the delta of the Aruro or Amaruca, 98

Trinidad as a Base of Operations for El Dorado

where five hundred armed men disembarked from six boats and advanced towards the city. Immediately, Palomeque sent Captain Jerónimo de Grados with ten soldiers to a nearby hill to ambush and harass the English, but his force was too small to stop the invader’s advance that later arrived in view of Santo Tomé in two divided columns. Grados’s forces had to retreat and they returned to the city where they then joined the governor’s troops and all the local men who were transformed into warriors. Spanish cannons repelled the first English shots. By 9:00 p.m., the battle turned into a hand-to-hand combat. Due to the uneven numbers of the fighting armies, Palomeque was killed. In spite of his death, Spanish resistance continued. Without providing the minute details of the battle, the town, nevertheless, was set completely on fire. Women and children fled to the banks of the Carosú River, whilst the mayors García de Aguilar and Juan de Lezama ordered Captain Grados to take some soldiers to protect the evacuees. Once having fulfilled his mission, Grados returned to the city where in the Convent of St Francis the Town Council called an emergency meeting. Two decisions were taken: first, to effectively protect all women and children who had been evacuated; and second, to avoid by any means the invaders making contact with the Chaguanes and Tibitibes Amerindians, for they would then surely finish off all the remaining Spaniards. To execute the first order, Captain Grados was placed in charge and returned to where he had left the refugees earlier and took them to a secret spot, three leagues further away, known as Zeiba, today’s La Ceiba island. Regarding the second order, the two mayors along with the other local citizens, staged ambushes and beleaguered anyone who attempted to leave the town. The English had been in the conquered town for twenty-six days without showing any signs of life. The Spaniards knew that the English were planning on annexing and establishing settlements there. On more than one occasion, the English sent boats up river, surveying the landscape. The hidden Spaniards and other Amerindians armed with bows and arrows frustrated any English advance and they entered the city in the middle of the night with the intension to set it on fire. A recent rainfall, however, prevented the fire from spreading and while they attempted this, the Spaniards also sent messengers to other Spanish colonies to report on the events. Captain Cárdenas, Bartolomé de Quevedo, and Diego García led the emissaries. While Cárdenas headed downriver through the Orinoco, towards Trinidad, Margarita, Cumaná, and Caracas, the other two went 99

Spanish Trinidad upriver towards the Viceroyalty of New Granada. The emissaries sought provisions, weapons, soldiers and priests, since only one, Father Juan de Moya, was present. On 9 April, the letters from Santo Tomé arrived in Santa Fe de Bogotá. The officials in Bogotá, capital of the Viceroyalty of New Granada, were shocked by the news. They urgently convened a meeting where the Archbishop Sir Hernando Arias and Fernando de la Hoz Berrío, the future governor who waited Palomeque’s term to conclude, attended. Fernando de la Hoz Berrío, having heard of the disaster, volunteered to go help Guiana. Before Fernando left Santa Fe de Bogotá for Guiana, Captain Martín de Baena had already departed with thirty soldiers. Baena entered Santo Tomé on 19 August, finding no trace of the English. They had already left on 29 January.58 The events in Trinidad and Guiana arrived in Spain and in London in the form of an official diplomatic protest. After this terrible disaster, Raleigh had to desist, for his son had died. Lawrence Keymis had also committed suicide by shooting himself in the chest upon Raleigh’s reproaching him for the defeat. On 2 April, Raleigh was apparently in Trinidad. Six ships then set sail for England, by way of Bermuda, where a gale split them apart. One of the ships ended up in Lisbon, where they reported on the events. The Marquis of Alenquer, Captain General of Portugal, having heard of the news, sent reports to Madrid. According to rumours at the time, Raleigh left Trinidad, heading towards Florida or Virginia, intending to poison himself in light of his failure. Nevertheless, Alenquer knew that these types of reports should not be believed for the British and the Dutch often planted misinformation in order to create a state of confusion and uncertainty among the Iberians. Did Raleigh really fail in Guiana? The best way to know for certain is to survey the Orinoco and to investigate whether the British left some type of fort there. Doubts about Raleigh’s whereabouts were cleared when Alenquer received letters from Friar Roque de la Cruz, General Vicar of the Order of Preachers of Ireland. The letters stated that Walter Raleigh had landed in the Port of Quensal (sic). He lost his son, his closest captains and friends, and his ships, except for three. And, as plunder or as the spoils of his expedition, Raleigh only brought back three casks of Virginian tobacco. Like a good smoker, he could never let go of his addiction. Raleigh was in a very precarious situation. He did not dare go on to London, fearing the king’s reaction or reception, and of the noblemen 100

Trinidad as a Base of Operations for El Dorado

whose children and brothers he had led to their deaths. He also feared to drop anchor in Ireland due to a standing order by the king to arrest him. He also did not dare to become a pirate, since he thought his creditors would lose all their assets, if he were to devote himself to piracy.59 Raleigh suspected, and with reason, that the English king would send him to the scaffold, as soon as he could lay his hands on him, which, indeed he did. The king had not played fair with Raleigh. From the start, the monarch knew that Raleigh was on his way to wreak havoc on Spanish lands, despite giving him a “seal of warranty”, as displayed in the original sources, and the English monarch had also reneged on his promises by informing the Spanish ambassador. They were, nevertheless, ambiguous promises that allowed for the venture to go forward. If the expedition would have been successful, surely the monarch would have reacted quite differently. But, in the face of Raleigh’s failure, and seeing that the loot consisted only of a few casks of tobacco, the best option would be to eliminate Raleigh once and for all, a big international nuisance.60

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