Disputing Depositions In An Inquisition Trial: March 15, 1494

On March 15, 1494, one Diego Tellez,in Toledo, Castile, presented an extended defense for  Marína González, his wife, who was accused of relapsing as a conversa. A conversa was a converted female Jew, so a relapsed conversa would be someone who said they had converted but instead,continued to practice Jewish rituals in contradiction to Christian forms of worship. The case had been going on since January and after charges were brought, a sworn testimony by the accused was set down, a gathering of evidence through February was also conducted, becoming a collection of sworn testimonies for both the prosecution and defense. After viewing the evidence, the defense decided further action was necessary in its attempt at acquitting the woman. As the Editor/ translator here points out in a footnote:

"At this point Marína's defense strategy changed to one of tachas, whereby she and her relations attempted to disqualify prosecution witnesses -- whose identity they did not know -- for capital enmity, scandalous reputation, or some other quality that would erase or lessen the impact of the depositions. ... attempting to disqualify (tachar) them amounted to a guessing game of who was most hostile to whom within a given community. Not all the prosecution witnesses impugned by Francisco de Toledo [the husband] testified against his wife." [p. 40]

Now the defense had a number of days to look at a publication of witnesses but, according to our editor,not  the names in that court- approved publication. So the defense attorney, Diego Tellez presented a written testimony from the husband, listing possible people who may have seen or heard his wife doing things she wasn't supposed to do, all the while not knowing who actually had testified against her.  Then Tellez presents a long argument to prove his client's innocence of the charge, including a list that Marína had presented of people who might wish her punished. Some of both the husband's and the accused's lists follow. 

"Very Reverend Lords, I, Francisco de Toledo, suspect that the witnesses named below could have spoken against Marína González, my wife, with hatred, ill will, and enmity. I hold them as doubtful and hateful:
The first witness whom I suspect is Juana de la Cadena, the wife of Diego Falcon, She was a sinful person before she married.... She hated my wife, because once she and her husband, who is my wife's cousin, came to stay at my house in Almagro, and my wife said to him, "Congratulations, cousin, that you agree to such a thing! People tell me that your wife gives herself to as many gentlemen as pass your house, and if it is true, it looks horrible to God and the world." He said it was not true, and told his wife what my wife said; for that reason, Juana continued to feel great hatred toward my wife. Whereby, lords, she might avenge herself by giving false testimony, all of which Diego Falcon knows.
Likewise, lords, I suspect Juana, the wife of Martín the butcher, and the daughter of Carrillo, the town crier of Almagro. She was my servant; I had her for eight years and advanced her money. She left without serving me for the stipulated time because of the many injuries my wife inflicted on her. Because of which, and because I pressed her earnestly to repay the money I had advanced her, she hated my wife and me, so much so that she said publicly that she would make sure my wife would not come back from Toledo, but would die in the process. Don Enrique's concubine knows this, as does Juana's sister who lives in Almagro, as well as the daughter of Gonzalo de Chinchilla, and other people. Juana lives in Almagro; she is a whore, a drunk, a pimp, and most days is worse than addle-headed. A short time ago, in Almagro, they whipped her through the plaza and the streets for being a public pimp. ...
I suspect Mayor, the ... wife of Juan de Villareal, wool carder, who lives in Ciudad Real and was my servant.... Your Lordships will find that when this servant Mayor was in my house, my wife became very jealous of her, and thought I committed adultery with her. For this reason, my wife made Mayor's life miserable until finally she forced her from the house, dragging her by the hair, calling her a public whore and the concubine not only of her own husband but the entire village. Mayor went away and threatened my wife, calling her a Jewish whore and saying she would make her burn; she said this to many people, who from hearsay will be able to depose against my wife....
I suspect Catalina, wife of this Bartolomé [Rodriguez], who resides in Ciudad Real. She is a very poor woman, and one of little honor and understanding who has no common sense....
I suspect Mari Ruiz, daughter of Miguel Ruiz, chaplain, who lives in Almagro....
I suspect the wife of Hernando de Segovia, a resident of Almagro, who could speak against my wife because Marína said she was partly a conversa. She resented this very much, because she did not have the reputation of a conversa, and she threatened my wife.... I suspect Catalina de Toledana, wife of Domingo, the wool carder, who could speak against my wife because Catalina was a sinful woman.... I suspect Gracia de Espina, who could say something about my wife because she is her relative...." [pp. 40-41]

The defense lawyer then says a few things:

"Very Reverend Lords, I, Diego Tellez in the name of Marína González , wife of Francisco de Toledo, spice merchant, resident of Ciudad Real, say that your reverences have seen the statements and depositions of our witnesses to her good character, and thus will find very complete proof of my party's intention, to wit:

After Marína was reconciled [with the Catholic Church], she always lived, dressed, and spoke like a good and faithful Christian woman, hearing Mass on Sundays and Church feast days, and confessing and receiving the Eucharist. She worked continuously on Saturdays just as on other days of the week. Out of devotion, she had pictures of saints and the Cross of St Anthony in her house. Likewise, she spun on Saturday and ate pork, except when she was ill with some pain and stopped eating it. She never did or said anything against our Holy Faith.

The proof ... adduced against her has not impeded our case.  First, his witnesses are changeable, and they deposed from hearsay and about frivolous incidents, while for serious events they give neither motives nor reasons. Their statements contradict each other, and then they contradict themselves, and they do not prove that for which they were produced. Secondly, they did not testify or ratify their statements during the period of proof [footnote: "...no explicit ratification of any of the ... prosecution statements,"], and gave false testimony with a great deal of hatred, frivolity and capital enmity." [pp. 41-2]

The lawyer goes on countering why many several accusations are based on mere hearsay, exaggeration, anger and outright lying. For example, he claims, one witness declares things,

"...not on the basis of human understanding but from a knowledge of the heart and interior motive that God alone has. Thus his statement is worthless." [p. 43]

He believes his witnesses should be believed rather than those of the prosecution and because of the suspicions that  Marína González herself has and lists them. 

At last, we get to hear from the woman accused.

"First, I suspect Torres, Mari Godias' husband, because he sold wine and was my neighbor. When I began to sell wine, he became so angry that he threatened me, saying that if we did not stop selling it, it would cost us dearly. ...

Next, I suspect this Torres' wife. We quarreled over some cloths that my daughter embroidered and did not wish to sell, and also over an anklebone that I did not want to give her....

Next, I suspect a brother of this Torres because of a quarrel he had with my son, Diego, over a bridle that my husband sold. He remained so angry against me and my son that he would give false testimony....

I suspect Mayor, my servant girl, whom the wool carder Juan de Villareal took as a wife. She came up to me as I was walking and said, very aggressively: "What did you say about me to my parents?" I did not answer her and left, knowing I had done nothing whatever that she could report. Moreover, before this, when she was a servant in my house, I used to see how she went around like a prostitute with certain men, and I punished her, until I finally had to throw her out. Therefore she retained a lot of hatred for me, and could be easily induced to give false testimony, because she is imprudent and has wicked ways....." [pp. 43-4]

The lawyer then asks them to accept these testimonies and to free the defendant from prison, return her possessions, given that his case is proven and the prosecutor's was not.

The prosecutor answers to the Inquisitors that his trustworthy witnesses would 'completely prove' his case as they were 'above objection and ... practice the Faith'. He  also says that the defendant's testimony against certain witnesses should not be admitted as they were close associates or relatives of hers and some were beneficiaries or descendants of condemned heretics. 

"Then Inquisitor Fernando Rodriguez said that since the parties had concluded, and did not wish to say or advance anything else, that he likewise was finished with them. He said he held this trial as concluded, and assigned a period in which to give the sentence, etc." [p. 44]

Another footnote explains that not even Diego Tellez, the defense attorney in this case knew or was allowed to know the names of the witnesses against his client.

 quotes and pagination, entirely from The Spanish Inquisition 1478-1614: An Anthology of Sources, edited and translated by Lu Ann Homza, Indianapolis, Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. 2006

Discussions Near Tobasco: March 15-16, 1519

For Bernal Díaz, beginning his chapter xxxvi,

 "The next morning, the fifteenth of March, 1519, many caciques and chieftains from that town of Tobasco and other towns came, showing all of us much respect, and they brought a present of gold, including four diadems, several small lizards, something like two small dogs, ear pieces, five ducks, two images of Indian faces, two golden soles like the ones on their own sandals, and other things of little value, whose worth I no longer remember. They also brought cloaks of the kind they make, very coarse... of very little value..... compared with the twenty women, and ... a particularly excellent woman ... called doña Marína after becoming Christian. Cortés received that gift with pleasure. and he withdrew to talk with all the caciques and Aguilar the interpreter." [ p.48]

Cortés told them they should gather all the men and women, children all around to come to this spot and settle. To throw out their idols.and quit their sacrifices and erect a new structure. And the locals did and settled the new spot in two days. And through the interpreter Aguilar, Cortés explained how the Christian God was the one true God, and showed them an image of Mary with the baby Jesus in her arms and explained that his company worshiped that image because she was in heaven and is the Mother of God. 

"The caciques said that the great tecleciguata, which is what they call the great woman in those lands, seemed very good and that they would like to have her in their town. Cortés said that yes, he would give it to them, and he ordered them to make a proper altar, well constructed, which they immediately did." [p.48]

Already it was the next day, so supposedly the sixteenth of March, and Cortés ordered the construction of a great cross which task he gave to the finishing carpenters. Cortés continued to talk to the caciques there assembled asking why the locals attacked 'three times' when all wanted peace.

"They answered that they had already asked and received pardon for it. The cacique said that his brother, the cacique of Champoton, had advised it so that he would not be regarded as cowardly. He had already been reproached and dishonored because he did not attack us when the other captain came with four ships, and it seems he meant Juan de Grijalva. Further, he said that the Indian we brought as an interpreter and who had fled one night advised him to attack us day and night." [p 49]

Cortés asked them where the gold and jewels came from and the caciques replied Culua or Mexico, 'where the sun set'. But Díaz, knowingly, in hindsight explains that they did not then know what Mexico was so they ignored it. Another interpreter, this time one captured during the Grijalva expedition was brought forward, a Francisco who did know Mexica language but not that of the Tobasco locals. He tried to explain to Cortés about Mexico but was not understood. Here, discussions stopped til next day when religious activities commenced even more earnestly.

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All quotes, text and pagination refers to The Conquest of New Spain translated with an introduction and notes by Janet Burke and Ted Humphrey, Indianapolis, Hackett Publishing Co, Inc. 2012

more news from the Ides of March, 2013, 1529

a scathing critique of today's market in five minutes of audio on Marketplace

Matt Taibbi at the Senate hearing today on Morgan Chase fraud et al.

this is a youtube link to the speech that Rep. (R) Paul Ryan - WI gave at the Conservative PAC annual boosterfest without comment

UN chief for development recognises the war on drugs is a failure and suggested that countries affected should  'act on evidence'.

Company makes a box that they say can thwart snooping signals or cameras from drones, thinks the market will boom
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In 1529, Baldassare Castiglione died. Sanudo made note of it on March 15 [p. 454]. The Venetian ambassador in Rome had sent word. Eight days prior to his death he had been made bishop of Avila by the emperor which gave him a very large travel budget. There was discussion reportedly as who the Vatican should send as envoy to the emperor as word of Castiglione's death spread. Sanudo calls him a papal nuncio or envoy to the emperor Charles V who was then living in Spain. It is famously said that when Charles heard of Castiglione's death, he is reported to have said, "... one of the finest gentlemen of the world is dead." He was a diplomat, a courtier in the best tradition, the author of that book and a practical man who knew a bit about balance and restraint.
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notes from Sanudo and his Diaries from Venice, Cita Excellentissima, Selection from the Renaissance Diaries of Marin Sanudo translated by Linda L Carroll,  editors: Patricia H LaBalme and Laura Sanguineti White, published by Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008

news from the Ides of March, 2013

So many stunning stories stumble past on the ticker today. I'm Shattered.

fatster starts the hook-up with the news today. The first half dozen stories she lists look at the wars all over the mid-east.

Federal prosecution of Blackwater collapses after three years citing collusion with CIA; 

bloomberg reports $2.1bn loan to The Blackstone Group for the landlord consortium to buy up houses for rental in the first ever REO to rent securitisation action with the second link giving a full account at zerohedge

Census reports 1 in 3 US Counties are dying, from the AP wire 

After judges found evidence of fraud, mishandling of data by WI (R) state officials charged with redistricting during the 2011 legislative year, their records were subpoened. But the evidence, the harddrives were tampered with

Cities consider taking over electric production ceding control back from private companies

David Dayen talks about the already gradual privatization of Medicare that's very nearly complete.

Defunding Planned Parenthood in Texas even when they don't perform abortions... makes these Republican policies specifically denying women's health." Who cares? They're just half the population." They don't think it's funny either.

With JP Morgan worth 1/9th of the US' total economy, another example of "I don't know, if that's what's out there": Damning report on JP Morgan's 'risk management and internal control environment'

Could commodities like gold and silver be manipulated like the LIBOR? Feds look into it, says The Guardian.

Detroit has a new emergency financial manager 

Detroit 1978.

Fire In The Arsenal! Sanudo Diaries: March 14, 1509

In the early months of 1509, when Venice was preparing for the fight against everyone it seemed, but the Turks, there were a pair of huge explosions at the Arsenal where the city built it's famous fleet.

Sanudo Diaries: March 14, 1509 (8:17-19); "There was a meeting of the Senate after dinner. And I saw letters from Cremona written on the 12th, full of news from Milan.... And while the Senate was meeting, at about twenty-one hours after sunset ... two huge blasts of cannon and powder exploded into the air, so that the houses and the Ducal Palace and the stars in the sky shook.... a fire had started - or been started - in the Arsenal, in the powder supply, and it burst into flame in this manner. At this, everyone ran to the Arsenal to see; I was among them, and I saw appalling things, terribly upsetting.... om my way there, I met the captains [of the guard], in boats and on the land, with four whom they had taken into custody and whose heads were covered. The captains said that these men had fired the powder and were from Trieste."

Editor's Footnote: "They might therefore have been loyal to the emperor elect, Maximillian." [p. 246]

Sanudo Diaries: "Others said that they were Frenchmen caught in the Arsenal, and others said they were taken in the church of San Martin, and they charged them [with this crime]. Then further along I encountered the many bodies pulled from the ruins, some burned, some mangled, some without a head, without an arm, some half-crazy, unable to speak, with faces like Saracens, blackened by the fire, who were being carried out on planks. Among these I saw ser Francesco Rosso, foreman, a very worthy man, and everyone grieved for his death because of the fine galleys he had built and his good design.... in the end it is thought that more than sixty have died, and many were badly wounded, among whom many boys and porters and other worthy men who worked in the Arsenal. And the stones of the wall fell like rain in the Arsenal and did great damage to the poor wretches who found themselves in such a storm.

The explosions caused the roofs of the artillery storehouses belonging to the Council of Ten and other offices to cave in and did dreadful damage.... As for the powder, only about twelve thousandweights burned because, by God's will, two days earlier 4,000 barrels of this powder had been loaded on barges, and had it not yet departed from the Arsenal for Cremona and elsewhere, and had those barrels remained there, and had the fire also gotten into the large powder storehouse, the entire Arsenal would have burned down. Many of the old houses in the district of Castello were ruined, and the monastery of San Daniel suffered great damage to its roofs and glass windows; but especially distressing was the death of so many valuable men. There was a high wind. Many measures were taken to see that the fire did not reach the galleys."

Next day,

Sanudo Diaries: "It was learned from one of the half-dead porters that in order to seal a casket in which there was powder, a nail was struck with a hammer, and a spark flew off, and this ignited the powder and caused the damage. And of had not been for a certain large round ship that was being worked on nearby and protected many who hid there, there would have been a great loss of the master craftsmen of this Arsenal; this large ship became warped by the fury [of the fire]. The storehouses and the hemp storage rooms at the Tana were destroyed, as were the walls of the Arsenal on that side. The master craftsmen set to work in the morning and rebuilt the wall. And it should be noted that one other time, in 1476, on December 9, a fire ignited the powder in the Arsenal because a horseshoe had struck a spark. From that time forward, the horses working there went unshod."

All quotes as Sanudo Diaries or Editor's notes or Editor's Footnotes from Venice, Cita Excellentissima, Selection from the Renaissance Diaries of Marin Sanudo translated by Linda L Carroll,  editors: Patricia H LaBalme and Laura Sanguineti White, published by Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008

Can A Misplaced Chronology Lead To Narrative Bias? Before the Battle of Cintla, 1519

Next, in the account of Bernal Díaz, he spends two of his chapters (xxxi-xxxii) on the first two days near Tabasco, March 12-13. In them he describes arriving and disembarking at Point Palamares, as well as Cortés claiming that land for Spain, the group fending off some attacks and killing a number of the locals and losing one of their original interpreters, Melchorejo. Cortés had sent out captains in different directions with specific instructions and some of their subsequent findings and actions are told. Aguilar is said to have found out with certainty (here, 'the next day' which supposedly would be the 14th) that Melchorejo had run away and turned to warning the locals and encouraging them to attack the Spanish company at once with full force, since their numbers were so few.

But then with this thought in mind, the next chapter (xxxiii) begins with Díaz explaining what Cortés did to ready for battle, since, as chapter xxxiii begins,

"When Cortés knew for certain they were coming to attack us, he ordered us to bring horses quickly from the ships to land, and the escopeteros, crossbowmen, and all the soldiers to be fully ready with our arms, even if we were wounded." [p. 41]

There were men with some kidney ailment that couldn't fight or walk, then the horses, when they were first taken off the ships walked awkwardly but this was understood because they had been onboard for such a long time. Díaz lists the men that were chosen for the fight with Cortés as captain and then, still in chapter xxxiii, he says,

"Very early the next day, which was the Day of Our Lady of March, after hearing mass... we all fell in behind our standard-bearer..." [p.42]

and then marched toward Cintla. A great long remembered battle followed that day, even according to Cortés and the story of this can be found all over the internet and takes up chapter xxxiv of the chronicle of Bernal Díaz.

However, the next chapter (xxxv) consists of negotiations between Cortés, Aguilar, and some of the local captains taken in battle, emissaries sent from the locals and the next day, further negotiations, including a demonstration of cannon fire. But Díaz said the locals went away very happy that day, saying on next day they would bring back a present for the Spaniards. And this is how chapter xxxv ends.

To my surprise, the very next chapter, xxxvi, starts off by giving the day as the fifteenth of March 1519 (in my text page 48) when the local captains brought many presents and twenty women including the future Doña Marina who would become the lover and interpreter of Cortés.

Looking back, it appears that the story of preparing for, and marching on, and the actual battle of Cintla, was misplaced in the strict chronological order that before this time had been the rule for Díaz up to this point. Our Editors don't point this out explicitly. Yet they do give a footnote for 'the Day of Our Lady of March' quoted above, saying "By tradition March 25"  [p. 42] which could be an oblique way of saying that Díaz just got the day of the battle wrong.

But what this does to the narrative overall is place a larger more momentous battle closer to the beginning of the story, making the story of negotiation that immediately follows in chapters xxxv-vi, in turn, more momentous. There is less chance for true reconciliation after such a great battle, in the mind of the hearer, despite the gifts of beads and entreaties by Cortés. Maybe not, maybe it is just a slip of the pen. But if one were to take out the chapters (xxxiii-iv) here that deal with the battle of Cintla, the narrative would continue without interruption of the calendar as I tried to show above. And it would be a narrative of smaller skirmishes with repeated efforts at reconciliation, for several days. On the twelfth they arrived, and fought off some attackers. On the thirteenth Cortés sends out his captains and the skirmishes continue but Cortés also sends out messengers asking for peace. The day before the fifteenth, Díaz says there were negotiations between Cortés, Aguilar and some emissaries and the day before that as well.

I would like to look at the scholarly work surrounding these days and their accounts to see how modern scholarship understands what seems to be a lapse in the chronicle of Díaz here.

Our Editors and translators say that the text they used is the authoritatively accepted Guatemala manuscript in concert with the recent (2005) definitive critical edition which has the original text, complete with alternate readings and commentary. But that's in Spanish. So my return to this interesting temporal displacement may take some time.

Also I will look at how my theory works if chs xxxiii-iv are inserted in what seems to be the actual chronological flow of events in linear time, on or about the 25th of March.

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All quotes, text and pagination refers to The Conquest of New Spain translated with an introduction and notes by Janet Burke and Ted Humphrey, Indianapolis, Hackett Publishing Co, Inc. 2012

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Also, March 12, 1488 is the day that Bartolomeu Dias is said to have made his farthest landing east on the southern end of Africa at Kwaaihoek. The farthest on record that any European had been by sea, they say.
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Also, congratulations to Pope Francis and Argentina and South America and the Catholic Church and Catholics everywhere. So on the day that a new pope is named, today, according to the Oxford book of Saints, is the feast day of Gerald of Mayo. An Irish Saint.

Moctezuma sends messengers with gifts, 1519

We are told that Moctezuma sent messengers fanning out on the eastern coast. He called his chiefs together and told them what he had learned and to guard these objects that he had previously ordered made.  Then the strangers were reported as being seen again and Moctezuma sent out his messengers. [p. twenty-two]

In the Codex Florentino, one of Sahagun's informants tells us what Moctezuma 

"... felt in his heart: He has appeared! He has come back! He will come here, to the place of his throne and canopy, for that is what he promised when he departed!" [p. twenty-three]

These words and others like them later were interpreted by Cortes himself, and many since as equating Cortes' arrival with a myth of a return of the feathered serpent-god Quetzalcoatl. The question of meaning and interpretation is itself currently much disputed today and not just in the area of mesoamerican history.

Moctezuma then called priests together to go as messengers, he tells them,

"It is said that our lord has returned to this land. Go to meet him. Go to hear him. Listen well to what he tells you; listen and remember.  

Moctezuma also said to the messengers: "Here is what you are to bring to our lord. This is the treasure of Quetzalcoatl."   [p. twenty-three]

A great many precious items were shown, the finery of Texcatlipoca - the sun-god, chief god of their pantheon - was also given them, as well as the finery of Tlaloc - god of rain - and many other things. Then his final orders to them,

"Go now, without delay. Do reverence to our lord the god. Say to him: 'Your deputy Moctezuma, has sent us to you. Here are the presents with which he welcomes you home to Mexico.' " [p. twenty-five]

These messengers set off for the sea and traveled several days, then set out in canoes with the precious relics in the boat with them to keep a good eye on them. 

all quoted from  The Broken Spears: the Aztec account of the conquest of Mexico, translated, edited with an introduction by Miguel León-Portilla, expanded and with a postscript, Boston, Beacon Press, 2006.

Cortés Off Coast Approaches Carefully: March 9, 1519

Cortés and his fleet hovered off the north end of Yucatan a few more days, slowly moving its way west and and then south. One ship captained by Juan Velázquez de León was not with the others and they all went back and found him anchored, unable to find enough wind. So Bernal Díaz said they all stayed an extra day. 

"... we put two boats into the water in which the pilot and a captain, Francisco de Lugo, went ashore. Some settlements with maize fields were there, the people made salt, and they had four houses for idols called cus, in which were many figure, mostly of women with tall bodies. That land came to be called the Punta de las Mujeres. I remember Aguilar said that the town where he had been a slave was near those outlying settlements, that he came there loaded down with what he was carrying for his master and fell ill from carrying the burden, and that Guerrero's town was not very far off. He said that all the towns had gold but not very much, and if Cortés wanted Aguilar to guide him, we could go there. Cortés, laughing, told him he did not come for things of such little account, but to serve God and the king." [pp. 36-7]

Cortés ordered the captain named Escobar to go ahead and scope out the Laguna of Terminos to see if it could handle their boats, if there was good hunting nearby and to make a sign somehow if it was and so on. Escobar went and did so, He then tried to wait in his boat but the wind pushed him out to sea, The next day Cortés and the rest sailed south from Campeche and made it to the Laguna de Terminos. Though they saw where he had left a sign and a letter of his having been there, Cortés sent out a boat with ten men with crossbows, But Escobar was nowhere in sight. The fleet continued south anyway and Escobar caught up with them. While they neared Champoton,  Cortés wanted to stop there but the pilot warned it would not be easy as there is a great ebb tide and they would have to anchor away from the shore. [pp. 37-8]

"Cortés was thinking of giving the Indians of that town a good lesson for the defeat of Francisco Hernandez de Cordoba [1517] and Grijalva [1518]. Many of us who had been in those battles begged him to go in and not leave without soundly punishing them, even though it might detain us for two or three days. The pilot Alaminos and the other pilots insisted that if we entered there, in a week we would not be able to leave because of adverse weather, and that now we had a good wind and would arrive in two days at Tabasco, so we went by it." [p. 38]

This happened on or about the ninth of March, 1519. Each step of the way seems to increase the tension. It's as if a drum is beating, increasing in tempo with every brief episode.

Taken from The Conquest of New Spain translated with an introduction and notes by Janet Burke and Ted Humphrey, Indianapolis, Hackett Publishing Co, Inc. 2012

Columbus Makes Landfall In Portugal, March 4, 1493

From chapter 40 in The Life of the Admiral By His Son:

"On 3 March they encountered such a fierce storm that shortly after midnight their sails were torn away. Then in great danger of their lives, they made a vow to send a pilgrim barefoot and in his shirt to the Virgin of the Girdle, whose church is at Huelva. The lot once more fell on the Admiral.... in addition... many private vows were made also.

As they ran before the wind without an inch of sail and with bare masts, in a terrible sea and high winds, the whole sky was rent with thunder and lighting. Any one of these horrors seemed likely to send the ship to destruction. But the Lord was pleased to show them land just before midnight.... To avoid running on a reef ... they had to raise a little sail, saving themselves in this way.... When God was pleased to show them day and dawn broke, they saw that they were near the rock of Cintra, on the coast of the Kingdom of Portugal.

Here the Admiral found himself compelled to come to land, in great fear and dread of the local inhabitants and the sailors of that coast, who ran up from all directions to see this ship which had miraculously escaped from the cruel storm....

Sailing up the Tagus on 4 March, the Admiral anchored near Restalo and very quickly sent a message to the Catholic sovereigns.... He also wrote to the King of Portugal requesting permission to anchor near the city, for the place where he then lay was not safe against anyone who might decide to attack him ... in the belief that by harming the Admiral he could impair the victory of the King of Castile." [pp 109-10]

From chapter 41:

"On Tuesday, 5 March, the master of the large ship which the King of Portugal kept at Restalo to guard the harbour came in his armed boat to inform the Admiral that he must accompany him to give an account of his presence to the ministers of the King, as was the custom for any ship reaching Lisbon. " [pp 110-11]

This master of the large ship was Bartolomeo Diaz, who is credited with discovering the Cape of Good Hope five years previously. Not a small feat for those times. There is no mention here if Columbus knew this. Columbus refused to be led anywhere on principle and told Diaz that it would be the same if he sent a steward to be summoned around by anyone. The officer said he could then at least show his patents, the letters of commission from the King and Queen of Castile. This Columbus thought this was reasonable and did so. Then the captain's superior came back when the message was delivered,

"... to the Admiral's caravel to the accompaniment of trumpets, fifes and drums and with a grand escort and greeted the Admiral ceremoniously, making him many offers of service.

Next day, when the Admiral's arrival from the Indies had become known in Lisbon, so many people came to the caravel to see the Indians he had brought back and so learn the news that there was not room for them all, and the sea could not be seen for the great number of Portuguese boats and launches. Some of the Portuguese gave thanks to God for this great victory but others were unhappy and greatly disappointed that this triumph had slipped out of their hands owing to their King's doubts and under-estimation of the enterprise. The day passed amidst a crowd of visitors." [p. 111]

The next day Columbus got an invite from the King of Portugal offering congratulation and that if he might wish for anything, that it should be provided for him. Columbus thought it prudent to see this King in the event that there ever was a conflict over state rights over these discovered lands, then he should at least state his case to that King. To prove the case before the King that he had discovered lands that were not under the jurisdiction of Portugal, seemed, for Columbus, the honorable thing to do, according to his charge.

quotes and stories from:"The Life of the Admiral By His Son"  in  The Four Voyages, Christopher Columbus, edited, translated and with an introduction by JM Cohen, for The Penguin Group, London, 1969

Shipwreck off Cyprus: Sanudo Diaries: March 3, 1517

news of a shipwreck arrives:-o

Sanudo Diaries: March 3, 1517 (24:24-25); "Summary of a letter ... from Famagosta on Cyprus, written on December 30, 1516, by Nicoló Michiel, university laureate, to his cousin....

Today, messer Nicolò Bragadin arrived here. On his way to his post as consul in Alexandria, he escaped the shipwreck of the Alexandrian galley with about fifty other people. This is his story: On the 22nd of this month the galley, en route to Alexandria, about 250 miles out to sea, was so damaged by a storm that it shipped more water than it could cope with. And at dawn the next day, Monday the 23rd, the ship broke into three parts, one from the forward mast to the galley, and the poop broke in two parts. The high seas and the pressure from the weight or the crashing of the copper bars had this effect.

The abovementioned messer Nicolò Bragadin and about eighty-three others boarded the [landing] boat, into which many others were throwing themselves, but ten to twelve unsheathed swords blocked the others from boarding. In the end, about fifty of the eighty-three survived; the others died of hunger, thirst, and cold. Some may have gone to rlieve the hunger of the others; they had already decided to butcher the little scribe, who was young, fat, and rosy-complexioned, in order to drink his blood. He escaped with many others as they reached land here in Famagosta; so said the abovementioned messer Nicolò and others.

This messer Nicolò landed naked with only a small coverlet wrapped around him. They were in the boat from Monday through the following Sunday. It was dawn on Monday when they reached this island.... So great was their desire to land that they did not really try to land on a beach, and the place [they landed] was so treacherous that some drowned in getting off.... Among the survivors is ... [one] so ill that he holds his life in his teeth, and ... the shipmaster ... is very sick and will probably die.... A Barozi is missing.... [A] ... son of ser Zuan Andrea ... is said to have vowed to become a friar ... and certain survivors will present the boat as a holy offering to the True Cross. Some will go on barefoot on one pilgrimage, and others on another; all have made various vows. They claim to have seen several saints; and... at times they saw giant swells as big as the Basilica San Marco, and they made the sign of the Cross, praying in the name of God and Our Lady that the swells would part and not harm them. This it appeared that the waves parted, as a very great sign of God's mercy. In addition, saints appeared in the sky with lit candles, a remarkable event. They were at sea seven days and seven nights, always in a storm, with a sail made out of two sacks tied with strings and two rudders for the boats made out of two other oars and a spar for the mast made from a strip of flat wood. They drank urine and ate the shirts off their backs and even stranger things so as to have some food.

This is a very pitiful tale: sea voyaging entails many excessive dangers, and all for greed. I can't tell you what passage home I shall find. This morning again I had masses said to the Holy Ghost and Our Lady, so great has my fear grown of travelling with the old galleys, having seen the wreck of this Alexandria ship."

Editor's note: "The length of voyages was a variable of the commercial life. A voyage from Corfu to Venice might take eleven days ... or twenty-nine. From Cyprus ... it might take a ship thirty-five days or ninety-four.... Venetian traders, their families, their clients, and governmental authorities lived in an uncertain world. And many a voyage ended in disaster. Sometimes a survivor described a shipwreck from start to finish ... loss of life, hardships, near cannibalism, and moralizing conclusion." [pp 255-6]

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nedits: A precedent was first seen as onerous though expedient, done for practicality's sake. 

Sanudo Diaries: March 6, 1511 (12:23-24); "After dinner the Council of Ten met with the zonta. A bill was passed concerning Vicenzo Prioli, who had manned a galley in order to serve as a galley commander and is betrothed to the daughter of Alvise Pisani dal Banco. He has offered to loan the Signoria 1,500 ducats immediately, with the following provisions: five hundred will apply to his taxes and those of other [members of his family], and he will be credited with 1,000 [in the Monte Novissimo]; then, just as the others [who have paid for the privilege] have entered the Senate; he will enter it and no longer have to serve as galley commander. the bill passed, and there was a great deal of grumbling about it in the city, and it was an unjust thing. Nonetheless, [the Ten] have done it to be able to use the money, which is in very short supply."

Editor's note: "That Vicenzo's offer was accepted was owing not only to the money he could make immediately available but also to his powerful connections. His father, Lorenzo Priuli, was the influential controller of finances, whose warnings about the lack of funds in state coffers had prompted the government's extraordinary measures (September 25, 1510; 11:416)." [p 272]

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All quotes as Sanudo Diaries or Editor's notes or Editor's Footnotes from Venice, Cita Excellentissima, Selection from the Renaissance Diaries of Marin Sanudo translated by Linda L Carroll,  editors: Patricia H LaBalme and Laura Sanguineti White, published by Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008

news, comics, science from early march2013

Is the drone program coming out of the closet? Does Obama and Brennan want the drone program to be managed by the Pentagon, the DoD instead of the CIA? this four minute clip of rachel maddow analysis answers those questions affirmatively. It makes sense knowing what is known and it does seem like it would be a kind of turning point in a number of ways for all that. Wednesday, Sen. Rand Paul (KY) is blocking the Brennan CIA confirmation in a traditional filibuster on the floor.  Good for him. 

Yes, it does seem like we're living through upside-down times, via Mark Fiore

Money? Finances? Budgets? Village trumpets more BS, via Tom Tomorrow

an FBI profiler said video games don't cause mass shootings or lead to them by themselves

ummm, somebody figured out that bank profits are mostly taxpayer $, no really! Shall we count the ways?

also, heard on npr about eyewire and fold.it, play a game and help advance scientific neuron paths and protein folds or help pattern a virtual sepsis spread! Cool stuff.

here's upwithchris this Sunday if you want to hear about the budget battles in Congress and the WH

a 15 minute 60 Minutes piece on Hugo Chavez in May 2002.

planet money finds out how Amish manufacturers and marketers see an opening for them, 18 min audio

Iceland spar found in shipwreck sunk off channel islands, 1592

March 4, 1519: Cortés and Co. leave Cozumel

It was on March 4, 1519 that Bernal Díaz says that Cortés left in convoy from the island of Cozumel. Heading west.

"... Cortés ordered us to embark in the order we had come before we landed at Cozumel, with the same instructions and lantern signals at night. We were navigating in good weather, but when dusk fell, so strong and opposing a wind came up that it scattered the ships and put them in very great danger of running aground. But God willed that it subside at midnight."

But that points to the future.  In the previous week, Cortés had been busy. The first thing when

"...Cortés arrived with all those ships and, after lodging, the first thing he did was order that the pilot Camacho be put in chains because he did not wait as ordered."

That is, leaving before the rest back on Cuba. As happened three weeks before. The captain of the company that Camacho was in was no other than Pedro de Alvarado, leader of the same company that Bernal  Díaz was in. Upon arriving, Cortés was not happy with what he found there at Cozumel.

"When he saw the town without people and learned that Pedro de Alvarado had gone to the other town and taken hens, hangings, and other things of little value from the idols, and the gold half copper, he expressed as much anger about it as about the pilot failing to wait. Severely reprimanding Pedro de Alvarado, he told him that they were not to pacify the lands in that way, taking property from the natives."

Remember, this is the first time Cortés sets foot on Mexico. On Cozumel, before they set out for the mainland. Cortés makes examples of some to set the example of his own power and leadership, acting as a superior teacher to Pedro's errant, rapacious activities. Where would Pedro de Alvarado get that idea? It was in the culture, we are told and success and failure very often depended on one's timing as well as things like the projection of personal power. In a classic example of 'doing the right thing', Cortés, through the interpreter Melchorejo does honor the idea of reparation for an injury afflicted. Ordering the gold and idols returned, paying for the hens stolen, giving them all new shirts. The next day the leaders came with women and children.

"They walked among us as if they had dealt with us all their lives, and Cortés ordered the men not to offend them in any way. Here on this island, Cortés began to command in earnest, and our Lord gave him grace so that whatever he set his hand to turned out well for him, especially in pacifying the towns and natives of those parts." [all quotes above, p. 26*]

Cortés also inquired about a mystery to him, why did the locals call the Spaniards 'Castilan'. How would they know where they came from? Cortés believed the locals had no idea. Some did. 

Previously, in 1511 a venture had struck out from Darién colony in Panama. It shipwrecked and the survivors were captured and were set to work and died of it or were sacrificed. [ff 1, p 34] This Jeronimo de Aguilar and another man were the only one's left surviving. But he knew the local language and while he found it hard to give up his wife and children...

Wait, what? For one thing, the other survivor would not leave the life there in that area and did not believe that leaving there would improve their lives. This was how some of the locals had known to call them Castilan. A Castilian had already spread the word locally.

There was a muster three days after Cortés arrived to determine how many were going forward with Cortés there on Cozumel.

Also some salt pork was stolen and the dispute had to be resolved. Cortés found the guilty and had them whipped.

Taking a look at some of the religious courts there, full of people burning incense, a priest climbed to the top and began speaking to the crowd gathered. Melchorejo explained that he was preaching 'evil things'. Cortés has the interpreter tell the chief there that these are evil idols and practices and that they should be destroyed and a new altar to Our Lady erected [p. 30]. The chief says that Cortés will learn 'how badly things will go for us because we would be lost at sea.' Cortés ordered the men to  destroy the altar and fetch some lime to build a new altar. Even this was done. 'A very clean altar was erected, a new cross with 'clean timber' was constructed and a mass was said. Then the locals were told to keep it clean and keep burning incense there. Then the Spaniards left.

Before going far, one of the ships began to founder so they all stopped again. An alarm from one of the ships gave word that it was Aguilar still on shore who had at length decided after all to go with them.

It was Aguilar who told the locals always to revere the altar for Our Lady as 'much good would come to them' as a result. [p. 35]. 

Lastly, 

"On the advice of Aguilar, the caciques [local chiefs] asked for a letter of protection from Cortés so that if other Spaniards came to that port, the Indians would be well treated and the Spaniards would not harm them. Cortés gave them the letter at once. After taking leave with many flatteries and promises, we set sail for the Rio Grijalva." [pp. 35-6]

Bernal Díaz explains that the crew was very glad to have such a good interpreter as the Spaniard Aguilar.
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* and all quotes taken from The Conquest of New Spain of Bernal Diaz de Castillo, translated with an introduction and notes by Janet Burke and Ted Humphrey, Indianapolis, Hackett Publishing Co, Inc. 2012

From Tenochtitlan: Reactions and Sightings

The story in Mexico was complex. Moctezuma wanted to know what the visions and omens meant. He called his seers and magicians but they didn't know what to say. He threw them in prison - "They shall tell me against their will" -  but they still couldn't explain. [p. fourteen] 

He instructed his head steward - his petlacalcatl - to have them say what they believed. If it were to be sickness or storms, hunger, droughts or locusts, war or wild beasts, they were to tell him. But the magicians didn't know, that it was a mystery and that whatever it was would come swiftly. Moctezuma was astonished that this compared with what the king of Texcoco had said.

In a (what I call, frustrating) footnote, our editor here Miguel Leon-Portilla explains that Nezahualpilli, the king of Texcoco had told Moctezuma...

"Not long before the first omen was seen ... that, according to his fortune-tellers, Mexico would soon be ruled by strangers. Moctezuma replied that his own fortune-tellers had predicted otherwise. Nezahualpilli then suggested that they settle the matter by playing a series of ritual ball games, with the outcome to decide who was right; he also offered to wager his whole kingdom against three turkey cocks. Moctezuma agreed and won the first two games, but Nezahualpilli won the last three in succession." [pp. twenty-- twenty-one]

I say frustrating, for me, because this is the kind of story that reveals a lot about society, how disputes could be resolved, who Moctezuma could accept as a peer, how one of them treated him, the importance of fortune-tellers to mesoamerican kings etc. But we get a footnote. And then return to Moctezuma directing his petlacalcatl to "Question them again about this mystery. Ask them if it will come from the sky or the earth, and from what direction or place it will come, and when this will happen." [p. fifteen]

The magicians had somehow fled by then and when the king was told this, he ordered all the chiefs of the villages where these magicians lived to deal with it. "Tell them to kill their wives and children, and to destroy their houses." [p. fifteen]. So that was done and "... they killed the women by hanging them with ropes, and the children by dashing them to pieces against the walls. Then they tore down the houses and even rooted out their foundations." [p. fifteen]

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Then, a common man - a macehual - from the coast came to the city who explained that he had seen on the great sea, "... a mountain range or small mountain floating in the midst of the water, and moving here and there without touching the shore. My lord, we have never seen the likes of this, although we guard the coast and are always on watch." [p. sixteen]

Then a priest - a teuctlamacazqui - was called and ordered to go to Cuetlaxtlan and order the chief there to investigate these things. They did. Attendants went and witnessed the strangers in the water and then the cleric did. "They also saw that seven or eight of the strangers had left it in a small boat and were fishing with hooks and lines... [then] they returned to the ship in their small boat." [p. seventeen]

The cleric rushed with this news back to the city. He further explained to the king: "There were about fifteen of these people, some with blue jackets, others with red, others with black or green, and still others with jackets of a soiled color, very ugly .... On their heads they wore red kerchiefs, or bonnets of a fine scarlet color, and some wore large round hats like small comales, which must have been sunshades. They have very light skin, much lighter than ours. They all have long beards, and their hair comes only to their ears." [p. seventeen]

A comal is a wide, flat pottery dish. Montezuma didn't reply to this description, as it was recalled. When the macehual was called back, he was told he had escaped and fled. What Moctezuma did next was command that a wide neck piece be constructed out of gold with emeralds and arm bands as well and giant fans with precious feathers also be constructed. He also threatened that if anyone were to say what they were doing, they and all their families and their houses would be destroyed.... [pp. eighteen -- nineteen]

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These stories come from the Cronica Mexicana by Fernando Alvarado Tezozomoc written "... about 1598; the only surviving text is in Spanish. The same author also wrote the Cronica Mexicayotl in Nahuatl." [p. nineteen]

and all are quoted in  The Broken Spears: the Aztec account of the conquest of Mexico, translated, edited with an introduction by Miguel León-Portilla, expanded and with a postscript, Boston, Beacon Press, 2006.

Bernal Díaz: More Means, Three Times To Mexico

Bernal Díaz says this was the third time he had been along with a company going to Mexico. First, he says was with Francisco Hernández de Córdoba which left Cuba with the license of Diego Velásquez, and 110 men on February 8, 1517. The second with Juan de Grijalva and four ships, also carried the sanction of Governor Velásquez  and departed Cuba April 8, 1518. This third expedition with Cortés, at first with and then, against the wishes of Velásquez, left anyway, February 10, 1519, and made the trip to Mexico with eleven ships.

The first of these ventures was a real loss. On their third landing, looking for water, they went ashore and there took their rest. At dawn they awoke to find themselves surrounded and vastly outnumbered. An intense battle followed. Two of the Spaniards were taken alive, almost everyone was wounded and fifty were killed. There's no record of how many locals died. Then Córdoba's group returned to Cuba. Their first landing, Bernal says, looking for water, they met with a similar ambush and in that skirmish a pair of locals were captured, baptized and renamed, Julian and Melchorejo. These were taken back to Cuba as well and became interpreters.

The second expedition with Juan de Grijalva was better provisioned with four ships and Diego Velasquez himself insisted that Bernal Díaz go as the company's standard-bearer. They came ashore near Champonton and were attacked. Three of their company were killed, seventy wounded and Grijalva received arrow wounds and broken teeth for it. They continued, found the Mexican coast to otherwise be very fruitful and appealing and cemented for Grijalva the desire to land and settle here. Discovering Tabasco, Grijalva's company landed there and with the help of their interpreters began to set up trade there. Pedro de Alvarado was sent back to Cuba to ask for more ships and men from the Governor. But he had already been busy doing that as he was worried the crown back in Spain might give someone else the license to explore and settle that part of the new world.

Under the advice of a pair of close associates, Cortés was chosen to lead the next, the third expedition and this was to include ten ships. By this time Moctezuma knew of their arrival according to Díaz and was allowing the people on the coast to trade with them if they would. [pp 3-6]

from The Conquest of New Spain translated with an introduction and notes by Janet Burke and Ted Humphrey, Indianapolis, Hackett Publishing Co, Inc. 2012

news from late feb2013

one of many, audio story of Calcutta uni corruption and disrepair, 28feb13

proleft podcast this week shares a couple stories about local politics - Shelby Co, AL, Chicago, IL making national politics: this country has always been one of racial and other forms of entitlements. Could it be Obama didn't learn the lesson of Harold Washington? Not Safe For Work.

In a great what if, Greg Sargent asks, if the tables were turned and Romney had won and Reid and the Dems played Boehner's current game, how would the press report that?

Obama gets Hagel and Lew as Secretary's of Defense and Treasury. Italian election is a draw, pope steps down and Bradley Manning gets a plea. New US Secretary of State Kerry gets right to work and goes to Turkey to criticize their leader for comparing Semitism with Fascism. Meanwhile, French and Chadian forces strike at militants in mountains of Mali.

All last week the bbc was reporting on bringing former Côte d' I'voire president Laurent Gbagbo to trial for crimes against humanity. But neither the guardian nor Reuter's reported on that. The discussions around who else should be brought before the court for actions all over the country during that time gets continued air by them, though. Which is good. We'll see how things continue.

here's the new jimi hendrix album coming out next week, up at npr. It won't be there long, it seems such a long time since Jimi's made me smile like this, not to be missed. A great quote: "Those people are so uptight, they sure know how to make a mess."

David Bowie's new album is out too. People talk but I haven't heard it yet.

March 1, 1519: Sanudo, Díaz; Not the Men but the Means

Most places in Europe from the 11th to the 16th century marked the new year with Easter and as that date changed year to year, so did the marking of the new year. Venice was an exception. The Republic of Venice regularly marked the beginning of the New Year on March 1st. This also was the date that Sanudo chose to start his diaries. Marin Sanudo had been elected to a post in that part of the Senate, the zonta, in the fall of 1518. He accepted the post and carried it out with such a seriousness, passion and apparent joy that when he was voted off the following year he seemed to take it very hard. But for the new year, as our Editors tell us [pp 20-21], in the preface to his 27th volume of diaries, Sanudo sees his work at the desk as a good influence on policy and those seeking position in office.

Sanudo Diaries: March 1, 1519 (27:5); "In the past years I have described as they occurred all the events of Italy and beyond, with no little fatigue, producing a work of great length and an enduring record of past events, an excellent instruction for patricians, senators, and others who take pleasure in history and aspire to the government of the state. Therefore, without further introduction, I shall continue this undertaking. I shall here write daily whatever seems to me worthy of note for the eternal memory of my country, beginning with the first day of the month and year according to the Venetian custom, that is, the month of March, and I shall daily go on writing as I have done in the other volumes."

All quotes as Sanudo Diaries or editor's notes from Venice, Cita Excellentissima, Selections from the Renaissance Diaries of Marin Sanudo translated by Linda L Carroll,  editors: Patricia H LaBalme and Laura Sanguineti White, published by Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008

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Meanwhile in the Caribbean, Bernal Díaz, as he tells it, in the company of Pedro de Alvarado, was to be newly found on Cozumel, on the Yucatan coast. The date was very near or on the first of March, 1519.

"We arrived in Cozumel two days before Cortés, and we anchored in the port. Cortés had not yet arrived with his fleet because in bad weather the ship captained by Francisco de Morla broke its rudder. The rudder was replaced with another from the ships that came with Cortés, and they all came in convoy. Let us return to Pedro de Alvarado. When we arrived in the port, we went ashore with all the soldiers to the town of Cozumel, and we found no Indians because they had all fled.Pedro de Alvarado ordered us to go immediately to another town a league from there where the natives had also escaped and fled but could not carry their household goods, so they had left hens and other things. Pedro de Alvarado ordered us to take some forty of the hens. In a house for idol worship, there were some hangings from old cloths, some small chests in which there were something like crowns, idols, beads, and ear pendants made of low-grade gold. He also seized two Indian men and an Indian woman."

from The True History of the Conquest Of New Spain  Bernal Díaz del Castillo, translated and with an introduciton and notes by Janet Burke, Ted Humphrey, Hackett Publishing Company, 2012. pp 25,6

While picking up right where I left off with Bernal Díaz's chronicle, already, there is some need for clarification. Cortés himself in a letter to the King had explained that the men on this expedition were not really soldiers.They were men on horse or on foot. Matthew Restall * makes a case for the very term, in fact, not being used regularly in accounts of the conquest until 1556 and after. He points out that Cortés and Pedro de Alvarado didn't use the term soldados when they meant troops under their command like Díaz did even when referring to himself. Restall looks at all the sources and sees the use of the term soldados didn't come into common use until after the 1550's. He explains this was a time when European armies were growing in size, forms of artillery and other methods advancing at alarming rates. The nature of warfare itself was expanding and new terms for its forms were being reshuffled and expanded as well. The words used in describing War in Europe and conquest in the New World, he says, were changing and their uses expanding.

This is also true of the way the focus was more often on the individual. The 'myth of a few men' conquering millions, he counters, is a central myth to the entire age.  The Conquest must have happened the way it did, because God willed it so, for those in those days. And those 'few men' must have been exceptional. And the vanquished millions must have been primitive, etc. These are some of the central myths surrounding the Conquest of New Spain as it is still remembered, after all. That a Nation on the side of God, with a 'few good men' can bring order and civilization to far off lands because God has made it our duty, our manifest destiny, etc.

Matthew Restall makes a case that this is not really how it was, in reality. At least, regardless of how it was interpreted and retold over centuries, that that's not really how it happened. That it wasn't a few good men, or even soldiers as understood in the time that the conquest occurred. That the providential air that Cortés wore, for himself, as he himself would describe it in letters to the King of Castile - and were published and distributed and retold by Franciscans, and others - everywhere, was just that. That's what he said, and people believed it.
So, they were footmen or horsemen, not professionally trained soldiers, with 'a thirst for gold'.

Again, only partly true. Restall explains the thirst for gold was really just a part of a means to an end. All these individuals in the company of Cortés, Pedro de Alvarado, Diego Velasquez or Bernal  Díaz were in it for themselves. What they all really wanted was their own mining company or equivalent run by indigenous servants with all the product sent back to the Old World. Well, most of it.

This basic extractive economy was not a new concept either. In Spain it had been used the generation before  in reconquering previously held Moorish lands there. Granada, in one of the very last of these was taken in 1492. Many of these same conquistadors would go on with Columbus, Pizarro, Diego Velasquez, trying to find their own colony. This was the means as well, becoming part of a group in a part of society at large willing to undergo anything to secure a grant and a farm of natives somewhere.

"Spaniards, then, joined conquest expeditions not in return for specified payments, but in the hope of acquiring wealth and status. They were, in the words of historian James Lockhart, "free agents, emigrants, settlers, unsalaried and ununiformed earners of encomiendas and shares of treasure." An encomienda was a grant of native American labor. The holder, or encomendaro, had the right to tax the natives of a given community or cluster of towns in goods and labor. Such grants allowed the recipient to enjoy a high status and often a superior lifestyle among his fellow colonists." [p.35]*

 Restall even goes so far as to say these investors were like armed entrepreneurs. Spaniards called these ventures "companies" and investors who had the greatest resources going in, like Velasquez, like Cortés, could expect the highest returns. "While powerful patrons played important investor roles, it was the captains who primarily funded companies and expected to reap the greatest rewards .... The spirit of commercialism thus infused conquest expeditions from start to finish, with participants selling services and trading goods to each other throughout the endeavor."*

I am just getting into this here and will return of course as it pertains to other  European notions of class, how they were before the period, ascendancy in those changing structures, such as that around probanza - roughly 'letters of merit' - and the relations of capital and class mobility later as this story goes on. And even the changing nature of merit or, at least, what was considered laudatory. And by whom. And for whom.

* This whole section  is extensively drawn from chs. 1-2 and the (*) asterisked sections are quoted from p 35  in  Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest by Matthew Restall, New York, Oxford University Press Inc., 2004