Córdoba and Grijalva Expeditions
In 1516, because of the continued famine in Darien, Governor
Pedrarias gave leave to his silken host,
as many as wished, to go to Cuba, where provisions were not lacking.
And one hundred and ten went. Velasquez met them cordially and
promised them land if they would wait for vacancies, but they were
tired of a passive role and craved activity. Slave catching, though
contrary to law, was at this time practiced in the island, and it no
doubt was with the profits from such an enterprise in view that the
Darien arrivals made ready an expedition which would serve as an
outlet for their energies. They chartered two vessels, Velasquez, it
is said, contributing a third, and on February 8, 1517, with
Hernandez de Córdoba, now a rich planter of Santo Espiritu, as
captain, unfurled their sails from San Cristóbal, the old Habana.
Whither should they fare? Their chief pilot counseled adventuring
straight into the west, into the region of the people who "wore
clothes." The squadron, about the 1st or 2d of March, reached the
island of Las Mugeres (Island of Women), and on the 4th landed at
Point Catoche, the extreme northeasterly limit of Yucatan. Their
next landing was at Champotón, in Campeche, whence they tediously
worked their way back to San Cristóbal by way of the peninsula of
Florida. On this expedition the Spaniards were roughly handled by
the natives. Both Córdoba and Bernal Diaz were wounded, the former
so severely that soon after reaching Cuba he died. But the invaders
succeeded in bringing away two youths whom they named, respectively,
Melchor and Julian, and to whom they taught Spanish, that they might
serve as interpreters.
Foiled as to slave catching but curious regarding Yucatan, the Cuban
settlers by 1518 were ready for a second adventure into the west,
and this time it was Velasquez who took the lead. He managed to add
two vessels to two others left from the expedition of Córdoba,
enlisted some two hundred and fifty men, and appointed Juan de
Grijalva commander-in-chief. Sail was made from Santiago de Cuba on
the 8th of April, with Alaminos once more as chief pilot, and on the
3d of May the fleet gained, to the southward of Point Catoche, a
large island called Cozumel (Island of Swallows). By the last of the
month the expedition had passed Lake Terminos, and by the 18th of
June various rivers of Tabasco, such as Rio de Grijalva and Rio de
Banderas, and various islands off Mexico, including San Juan de Ulúa
and Isla de Sacrificios. They made a landing where now stands the
city of Vera Cruz.
Grijalva, under the orders given him, might trade in any regions
discovered, but he might not colonize, and, as the country
everywhere by its aspect invited to colonization, Alvarado on the
24th of June was permitted to sail for Cuba to carry back the sick,
report progress, and, if possible, obtain permission to form
settlements.
Meanwhile Grijalva followed the Mexican coast as far north as Cape
Rojo, whence, returning to Yucatan, he sailed for Cuba, reaching
Matanzas about the 1st of November.
On both the Córdoba and Grijalva expeditions the Spaniards were
impressed by divers things, but more than with anything else by the
scenery, the sacrificial mounds, and the stone temples. On every
island, and dotting the coast of the mainland, were to be seen
mounds pyramidal in form, ascended by stone steps, and surmounted by
temple towers of squat masonry. The towers gleamed white, and over
them floated the smoke of incense and of sacrifice. At Campeche,
Córdoba saw many temples or "prayer-places" wetted within with fresh
blood. From each there swarmed angrily forth half a score of
priests, armed with braziers, and clad in white mantles down which
fell their hair, long, black, and disheveled — so matted and clotted
with blood, from their own ears lacerated in penance, that one
strand could not be separated from another. Indeed the farther to
the west the Spaniards fared — the closer their approach, that is to
say, to the Nahua tribes of Mexico as distinguished from the Maya of
Yucatan — the more the evidences of human sacrifices multiplied.
"Why," asked Grijalva of a
Tabasco Indian,
"this ripping open of human bodies and offering of bloody hearts to
hungry gods?" "Because," was the reply, "the people of Ulúa [by
which was meant Mexico] will have it so."
When, in November, 1518, Grijalva reached Cuba — then called Isla
Fernandina — he found himself most undeservedly out of favor. He was
young, handsome, and chivalric, but above all conscientious, so
conscientious that Las Casas tells us he would have made a good
monk. Having been ordered not to plant colonies, he had obeyed. But
obedience proved to be his undoing, for, angered by it, his
subordinates, particularly Alvarado, whom he had reproved, had
misrepresented him to Velásquez, and already that grasping ruler had
decided upon a new voyage in which Grijalva was not to share.
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