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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 31 August 2017
On May 19, 1537, in a region of the Pearl Coast, two armed factions of Spaniards challenged one another on the banks of the Unare River in what would become eastern Venezuela (see Figure 1). Licenciado Juan de Frías and his smaller force of about 80 men confronted a large party under the command of the conquistador Antonio Sedeño. Frías professed to represent the crown by charge of the Real Audiencia of Santo Domingo, which had bestowed on him a vara del rey (staff of the king, symbolizing royal authority) and sent him off to arrest Sedeño. Sedeño likewise maintained that he had royal authority, citing his capitulación (contract of conquest) for the nearby island of Trinidad and letters from Empress Isabel, wife of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V (King Charles I of Spain) and regent of Spain from 1529–32 and 1535–39. In their confrontation, both Frías and Sedeño claimed to represent the will of the king.
1. At the end of this article is a guide to the principal figures who appear in it.
2. The audiencia did not use the word ‘arrest.’ It ordered Frías to stop Sedeño's expedition and to send the conquistador to Santo Domingo to face the audiencia. Since Sedeño would not willingly return to Santo Domingo to face the royal court, Frías, in all practical terms, had to arrest him to send him to Santo Domingo. The audiencia's instructions mentioned that Sedeño's men could choose a lieutenant and go to Trinidad, but that his expedition was not to proceed to the Province of the Meta. The audiencia also charged Frías with returning Ortal to his command and punishing those who mutinied against his leadership. See Audiencia de Santa Domingo to the crown, Santo Domingo, November 4, 1536, in Cartas de la Real Audiencia de Santo Domingo (1530–1546), Santo Domingo, Archivo General de la Nación, vol. 44, and Academia Dominicana de la Historia, vol. 81, 2007, 265. [The Cartas de la Real Audiencia collection is hereafter abbreviated to CRASD].
3. The titles of the monarchs can cause confusion. As the wife of Charles V, Empress Isabella was the Holy Roman Empress. She was also the Infanta of Portugal by birth and queen of Spain, Germany, Italy, Naples, and Sicily through marriage. Between 1529 and 1532 and again between 1535 and 1539, Empress Isabella served as regent of Spain, and thus many of the figures in this paper wrote to her as their monarch in command at the time. Her husband, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, is also known as Charles I, King of Spain. When referring to their monarchs personally, Spaniards usually addressed Charles and Isabella as emperor and empress, but when writing about a monarch abstractly, as their liege, they often referred to them as their king and queen. Hence, they referred to the royal staff as the staff of the king (vara del rey), not the staff of the emperor.
4. Elliott, John, Imperial Spain: 1469–1716 (New York: New American Library, 1977), 173 Google Scholar.
5. Bakewell, Peter, A History of Latin America: Empires and Sequels, 1450–1930 (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 1997), 81 Google Scholar.
6. Ibid., 104, 121.
7. Ibid., 113, 116, 121.
8. Bakewell, A History of Latin America, 113; Higman, B. W., A Concise History of the Caribbean (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 89–90 Google Scholar; Andrews, Kenneth R., The Spanish Caribbean: Trade and Plunder, 1530–1630 (London: Yale University Press, 1978), 40–41 Google Scholar.
9. Phelan, John, “Authority and Flexibility in the Spanish Imperial Bureaucracy,” Administrative Science Quarterly 5:1 2017(1960): 48 Google Scholar. Arguably, those who lacked authority (the lower ranks of conquistadors) also had varied objectives. They sought increased wealth and prestige that would make them a success in the eyes of their relations, but the form such success could take varied from the acquisition of treasure to the granting of encomiendas or prestigious titles.
10. Regarding multidimensional bureaucratic decision making, Frank wrote, “The relative importance of standards is neither well, nor completely defined, nor is it entirely undefined. The priority among standards is ambiguous. Subordinates make their assessment of priority to guide their decision-making and task performance. Each subordinate appeals to those standards which are most in accord with his incentives and the circumstances of the moment and to those which are most likely to be invoked by superiors in evaluating his performance.” Frank's model differed from that of German sociologist Max Weber, who coined the term “formal rationality” to describe bureaucratic decision making. Weber maintained that the formal rationality of bureaucracies was impersonal, rule-based, systematic, and calculative, neither creative nor unique to a singular context. Weber wrote that in bureaucracies “the dominant norms are concepts of straightforward duty without regard to personal considerations.” Elwell, Frank W., Sociocultural Systems: Principles of Structure and Change (Edmonton: AU Press, 2013), 146–148 Google Scholar; Frank, Andrew Gunder, “Goal Ambiguity and Conflicting Standards: An Approach to the Study of Organization,” Human Organization 17 (1958–59), 11 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Phelan, 49; Weber, Max, Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology, eds. Guenther Roth and Claus Wittich, trans. Ephraim Fischoff, Hans Gerth, A.M. Henderson, Ferdinand Kolegar, C. Wright Mills, Talcott Parsons, Max Rheinstein, Guenther Roth, Edward Shils, and Claus Wittich (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978), 225 Google Scholar. This edition of Economy and Society includes translations from several earlier editions published by Beacon Press, Oxford University Press, The Free Press of Glencoe, and Harvard University Press]. See also Westby, David L., The Growth of Sociological Theory: Human Nature, Knowledge, and Social Change (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1991), 436–437 Google Scholar.
11. Phelan used Weber's analysis of human rationality, as well as Andrew Gunder Frank's “conflicting standards analysis,” to examine authority and flexibility in the Spanish imperial bureaucracy. Phelan reasoned that the system's “multiple hierarchies and alternative channels of communication” made subordinates more responsible to their superiors because they could not prevent “the upward movement of information about their own malperformance.” Phelan, “Authority and Flexibility,” 49–50.
12. MacLachlan, Colin, Spain's Empire in the New World: The Role of Ideas in Institutional and Social Change (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1988), 38–40 Google Scholar.
13. Bakewell contends that in some cases the blurring of the lines of authority “resulted from ignorance in the Council of the Indies.” In an analysis corroborating much of Phelan's argument, Bakewell wrote that “imprecisions were tolerated and often went unresolved for decades because they generated tensions in the machinery of American government that, while sometimes the cause of inefficiency, also made administrators mutually vigilant.” Bakewell, A History of Latin America, 125.
14. MacLachlan, Spain's Empire, 38–40.
15. The audiencia judges were Alonso de Fuenmayor, Alonso de Zuazo, Juan de Vadillo, and, by 1538, Iñigo Cervantes de Loaisa.
16. Restall, Matthew, Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 20–21 Google Scholar.
17. Schwartz, Stuart B., “State and Society in Colonial Spanish America: An Opportunity for Prosopography,” in New Approaches to Latin American History, Graham, Richard and Smith, Peter H., eds. (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1974), 17 Google Scholar.
18. Sedeño came to Puerto Rico in 1512 as the island's royal accountant. In 1528 he went to Spain to lobby for a capitulación to conquer Trinidad. Ismael Silva Montañés, Hombres y mujeres del siglo XVI venezolano, Vol. 4 (Caracas: Biblioteca de la Academia Nacional de la Historia, 1983), 221; Caulín, Fray Antonio, Historia de la Nueva Andalucía, Vol. 1 (Caracas: Academia Nacional de la Historia, 1966), Book 2, chapt. 4, 208–209Google Scholar.
19. Carta a S.M. de Johan de la Puente, respecto a la conquista de la Trinidad, July 14, 1534, in “Documentos relativos a la Historia Colonial de Venezuela,” Boletín de la Academia Nacional de la Historia [hereafter DHCV/ BANH ], Caracas: Academia Nacional de la Historia, (March, June, September, 1926), Vol. 9, no. 33, 55–57; Carta [de] relación que hace Antonio Sedeño, October 12, 1535 [his letter on this date is referred to hereafter as Carta . . . Sedeño], DHCV/BANH, no. 35, 56–61; Que Diego de Ordás restituya a Antonio Sedeño los objectos confiscados en la fortaleza de Paria, January 13, 1532, in Cedulario relativo a la Parte Oriental de Venezuela [hereafter COV], Enrique Otte, ed. (Caracas: Academia de Ciencias Políticas y Sociales, 1984), 121–123; Embid, Florentino Pérez, Diego de Ordás, compañero de Cortés y explorador del Orinoco (Seville: Escuela de Estudios Hispano-Americanos, 1950), 62–66 Google Scholar; Borde, Pierre-Gustave-Louis, The History of Trinidad under the Spanish Government, James Alva Bain, trans. (Trinidad: Paria Publishing Co., 1982), 92–105 Google Scholar; de Oviedo, Gonzalo Fernández, Historia general y natural de las Indias, ed. Bueso, Juan Pérez de Tudela, (Madrid: Ediciones Atlas, 1959 [1535]), no. 118, Vol. 2, 387–388Google Scholar; Antonio Caulín, Historia de la Nueva Andalucía, Vol. 1, Book 2, chapt. 4, 208–216.
20. The Welsers were a family-run banking enterprise based in Augsburg, Germany. Charles V was indebted to them, and, in return for favorable terms regarding his loans, he granted the Welsers rights of discovery and conquest over an unknown and seemingly promising expanse of territory that comprised what is present-day central and western Venezuela. Friede, Juan, Los Welser en la conquista de Venezuela (Caracas and Madrid: Ediciones Edime, 1961)Google Scholar.
21. Pérez Embid, 58–59; García, Casiano, Vida del Comendador Diego de Ordaz, descubridor del Orinoco (Mexico: Editorial Jus, 1952), 133–145 Google Scholar.
22. Interrogatorio presentado por el procurador Juan Ruiz, en nombre de Diego de Ordaz, AGI, Patronato, leg. 28, ramo 28, fol. 33, item 33.
23. Ibid., fol. 36, item 44.I.
24. Ojer, Pablo, La formación del oriente venezolano (Caracas: Universidad Católica, 1966), 87–160 Google Scholar; Michael Hartman Perri, “The Spanish Conquest of the Pearl Coast and the Search for the Province of the Meta” (PhD diss.: Emory University, 2004), 150–247.
25. Empress Isabella signed herself “I the Queen.” The letter was countersigned by Secretary Sámano and signed by Count Osorno, president of the Council of the Indies, and the councilmen Diego Beltrán, Juan Suárez de Carvajal [sic.: Juárez], Juan Bernal [sic.: Vernal], and Pedro Mercado de Peñalosa.
26. The empress and the Council of the Indies ordered Ordás to return the goods upon penalty of losing his grant and 200,000 maravedís. Que Diego de Ordás pueda escoger las 200 leguas de su capitulación desde Maracapaná, January 13, 1532, COV, 121–123.
27. Suffering from syphilis, Ordás had frequently been too ill to travel before his confrontation with the Cubaguans (Spaniards from the island of Cubagua). Nevertheless, because his authority over the Pearl Coast had become so controversial, and his potential return to Spain was so fraught with potential royal disapproval for those who had rebuffed him, his death led many to suspect his enemies had poisoned him. García, chapt. 12; Caulín, Vol. I, Book 2, 234; Morón, Guillermo, A History of Venezuela (London: George Allen & Unwin, Ltd., 1964), 35 Google Scholar.
28. Que Antonio Sedeño recoja la gente dejada por Diego de Ordás en la fortaleza de Paria, December 10, 1532, COV, 132–133. Empress Isabella signed the letter in her usual way: “I the Queen.” The letter was also countersigned by secretary Sámano and signed by Count Osorno, president of the Council of the Indies, and by the councilmen Diego Beltrán, Juan Suárez de Carvajal, and Juan Bernal.
29. The Juez de Residencia (judicial inspector-general) of Margarita who appointed Delgado governor of Paria was a Licenciado Prado. Sedeño arrested Herrera with the charge that Herrera had stolen his horses and intended to enslave the Indians of Paria. Carta a S.M. de Johan de la Puente, respecto a la conquista de la Trinidad, July 14, 1534, DHCV/BANH, no. 33, 55–57; Carta . . . Sedeño, DHCV/BANH, no. 35, 56–87, esp. 62; Pierre-Gustave-Louis Borde, History of Trinidad; 92–105; Fernández de Oviedo, Historia General, Vol. 2, 406–409; Ojer, La formación, 118–129; Fray Pedro de Aguado, Historia de Venezuela, ed. Jerónimo Bécker (Madrid: Establecimiento Tipográfico de Jaime Ratés, 1919) Book 4, chapts. 20–24, 520–545.
30. The audiencia agent was García de Aguilar and the escribano was Juan de San Pedro. The quotation reads in part as follows: “la tomó en sus manos e la besó e puso sobre su cabeça e dixo que la obedeçía e obedeció como carta e provisión de sus magestades . . . e que en cuanto al cumplimiento della dixo que él respondería.” Sedeño's response was close to the expression “I obey but do not carry out” (“Obedezco pero no cumplo”). Some historians cite this expression to explain how local authorities in the Indies often circumvented the execution of royal laws. In sixteenth-century Castilian, the verb obedecer does not translate literally to “obey.” Rather, it means to recognize or acknowledge with a strict formality the legitimacy of the order (document) as having been issued by a proper authority. In this way, specific orders could be recognized as legitimate, but not immediately carried out. In practice, local authorities in the Indies often found it wise, or at least in their best interest, to acknowledge formally the legitimacy of an order from the crown or a faraway audiencia but to refrain from carrying it out until the issuers could be given more information concerning the inconveniences that the fulfillment of the order would entail. Ojer, La formación, 125, note 86; MacLachlan, Spain's Empire, chapts. 1, 2.
31. On Trinidad in early June, 1533, Sedeño and his men encountered stiff resistance from the natives, who, according to Sedeño, fell upon them “with great vigor and strength as if they had been Turks.” Sedeño also started to experience opposition from some of Ordás's former soldiers, especially when he threatened to hang those most hostile to his leadership, including Ordás's nephew, Álvaro de Ordás. See Carta . . . Sedeño, DHCV/BANH, no. 35, 64–65.
32. Aguado, Historia de Venezuela, Book 4, chapt. 23, 535–540; Carta . . . Sedeño, DHCV/BANH, no. 35, 68–75.
33. In his October 12 letter to the crown, Sedeño claimed Herrera had imprisoned him “for more than six months.” Sedeño exaggerated the duration, and apparently the chronicler Fernández de Oviedo, who cited the same duration, believed Sedeño's exaggeration. Sedeño had been released and was on his way back to Puerto Rico by early September 1534. Ojer believes that Herrera arrested Sedeño in July. However, it seems more likely that Sedeño had died earlier, with his arrest most likely occurring in late June. Whatever the case, Sedeño was still in Trinidad in early June, and so did not spend “over six months” in prison, although it certainly may have felt that long to the gravely ill governor of Trinidad. Carta . . . Sedeño, DHCV/BANH, no. 35, 73; Fernández de Oviedo, Historia General, Vol.21, 408; Ojer, La formación, 127. The Audiencia of Santo Domingo also reported on the conflict between Sedeño and Herrera. See Audiencia of Santo Domingo to the crown, August 1, 1534, CRASD, 168.
34. After debriefing Sedeño, the alcalde ordinario of Puerto Rico, Rodrigo de San Juan, wrote that “up to 45 men” had left with Sedeño but had been taken away from him on Margarita by the alcalde mayor of Cubagua, Antón de Jaén. This was probably an exaggeration. Ortal reported that some 25 men left with Sedeño. Información hecha en la va. de San Juan en 6 de Octubre de 1534 ante el Alcade ord[inario] Rodrigo de San Juan a pdto [a pedimento] de Antonio Sedeño, DHCV/BANH, no. 33, 60; Gerónimo de Ortal to the Emperor, December 24, 1534, DHCV/BANH, no. 33, 62. Sedeño claimed that Antón Jaén and his men “did not allow him to take more than two of his servants.” However, after arriving on Puerto Rico, Rodrigo de San Juan reported that there were five or six accompanying servants. Historian Pablo Ojer placed the number at two or three servants. Ojer, La formación, 142; Carta . . . Sedeño, DHCV/BANH, no. 35, 56, 58, 74 [quote]; Información hecha en la va. de San Juan en 6 de Octubre de 1534 ante el Alcade ordo Rodrigo de San Juan apdto de Antonio Sedeño, DHCV/BANH, no. 33, 60.
35. Carta . . . Sedeño, DHCV/BANH, no. 35, 77.
36. Jerónimo de Ortal: Capitulación de Paria, October 25, 1533, COV, 133–138.
37. Carta . . . Sedeño, DHCV/BANH, no. 35, 83–84.
38. On March 15, 1536, Puerto Rico's royal factor Baltasar de Castro wrote the empress that Sedeño had recruited 400 men and 120 horses. The following day, Castro, along with Francisco Manuel de Lando and Juan de Castellanos, wrote another letter to the empress, this time citing a total of 320 and 150 horses. Nearly five months later, on August 29, Baltasar wrote a letter to the emperor in which he claimed that Sedeño had sent an advance force of some 300 men and 120 horses to the mainland and then followed them with an additional force of men and 70 horses. These letters by the royal officials of Puerto Rico (San Juan) express alarm at the exodus from the island colony. See Rivera, Alejandro Tapia y, Biblioteca Histórica de Puerto Rico, Documentos Inéditos (San Juan: Instituto de Literatura Puertorriqueña, 1945), 317, 320Google Scholar. The figures cited above represent an astonishingly large contribution from the island colony, which in 1530 listed only 369 Spanish men. Many who participated in the expedition must therefore have been mestizos, mulattos, Africans, or peoples native to Puerto Rico. Castanha, Tony, The Myth of Indigenous Caribbean Extinction: Continuity and Reclamation in Borikén (Puerto Rico), (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), 68–69 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
39. Jerónimo Bécker, ed. Historia de Venezuela, by Fray Pedro de Aguado, ed., 656. The Puerto Rican procurador Alonso de Molina wrote the letter on February 17, 1535 to another Puerto Rican procurador, Asensio de Villanueva.
40. Jerónimo Bécker, ed. Historia de Venezuela, by Fray Pedro de Aguado, 656. Baltasar de Castro, the royal factor, dated his letter May 25, 1535. I have not found any other reference to a city called Manta. The notion of the large, gold-rich city of the province of Meta was illusory in the first place, but it is not surprising that Baltasar de Castro reported a second such city in the designated province. Rumors such as those involving the Province of the Meta tended to spread easily and become exaggerated in the dispersion process.
41. Carta . . . Sedeño, DHCV/BANH, no. 35, 56–87.
42. Captain Juan Bautista led Sedeño's first advance party to land on the mainland. The chronicler Fray Pedro de Aguado wrote that Ortal had sent a small force under Captain Nieto to keep an eye on Sedeño's advanced party. The chroniclers Oviedo and Castellanos, on the other hand, wrote that the leader was Captain Alonso Alvarez Guerrero. Although the chroniclers do not agree on the name of the captain, they do agree that Bautista was able to capture and disarm Ortal's concerned captain and the few men who accompanied him. Aguado, Historia de Venezuela, Book 6, chapt. 4, 658–660; Castellanos, , “Elegía XI, Canto Sesto,” Elegías de varones ilustres de Indias (Bogotá: Gerado Rivas Moreno, 1997), 234 Google Scholar; Fernández de Oviedo, Historia General, Vol. 2, 417.
43. In a move that Ortal could have interpreted as inflammatory, Bautista unloaded his men and material at Maracapana, and then marched inland to wait for Sedeño, allegedly at the pueblo of a Christian and Hispanicized (ladino) Indian who lived within Cacique Guaramental's territory of Almental. Sedeño's reason for this diversion, offered in his letter to the emperor, strain credulity. He wrote that, because of the roughness of the seas, sailing directly to Trinidad would have endangered the horses. Thus, he had decided to try to get closer to Trinidad by traveling overland. Maracapana was chosen because he could not find another pass through the coastal mountains, which he called “sierras.” These “sierras” kept them from moving east, so they decided to head inland and go around them, and “were making a trail to arrive in Paria,” which was closer to Trinidad. In a letter to the emperor on August 29, 1536, Baltasar de Castro explained that Bautista went to wait for Sedeño at “a pueblo that the Christians call an enclosed pueblo (pueblo cercado)” in a province called Almental. Tapia y Rivera, Biblioteca Histórica de Puerto Rico, 319–320; Carta . . . Sedeño, DHCV/BANH, no. 35, 83; Aguado, Historia de Venezuela, Book 6, chapt. 5, 665.
44. Ojer, 143.
45. Ibid., 145; Carta . . . Sedeño, DHCV/BANH, no. 35, 85.
46. Sedeño's first advanced party was led by Captain Juan Bautista and the second by Captain Vega. Ortal and his men first captured Captain Vega and his men and supplies, soon after they disembarked. Aguado, Historia de Venezuela, Book 6, chapts. 4 and 5, 658–670; Castellanos, “Elegía XI, Canto Sesto,” Varones Ilustres, 234–241; Fernández de Oviedo, Historia General, Vol. 2, 417–418; Tapia y Rivera, Biblioteca Histórica, 317, 319–320. For a synthesis of chroniclers and royal officials' accounts of the raids and counter-raids between the forces of Sedeño and Ortal, see Perri, “Spanish Conquest,” 193–219.
47. Tapia y Rivera, Biblioteca Histórica, 317. The three Puerto Rican officials, Baltasar de Castro, Francisco Manuel de Lando, and Juan de Castellanos, wrote the letter on March 16, 1536. The audiencia sent a copy of its order to the crown. See Audiencia of Santo Domingo to the crown, Santo Domingo, July 23, 1535, CRASD, 180.
48. Tapia y Rivera, Biblioteca Histórica, 370–371. Sedeño wrote the letter on April 10, 1536. Captain Vega led the second advance party to the mainland. It was the first of Sedeño's parties that Ortal and his men captured.
49. Hernán Cortés's successful conquest of the Aztec Empire seemingly persuaded the crown to absolve him of his insubordination to Governor Diego Velázquez.
50. The royal factor was Baltasar de Castro. Tapia y Rivera, Biblioteca Histórica, 319–320.
51. The chroniclers Fray Pedro de Aguado, Juan de Castellanos, and Fernández de Oviedo paint the bold Agustín Delgado as the real leader of Ortal's force, stating that it was he who galvanized Ortal's men to attack and capture Sedeño's advanced parties. They also describe vividly how a resentful captured Indian from the pueblo of Guamba was able to kill the popular leader by shooting an arrow into his eye. Aguado, Book 6, chapt. 6, 672–674; Juan de Castellanos, “Elegía XI, Canto Sesto,” Varones ilustres, 239–240; Fernández de Oviedo, História General, Vol. 2, 418.
52. During the residencia of Ortal, Alonso Pérez de Aguilera testified that 78 men took part in the mutiny in the Indian pueblo of Chapaure. See Ojer, La formación, 146, note 133. Aguado maintained that “a certain Escalante, who had the title of veedor of the King” was also the key figure in denouncing Ortal, and that he died of illness shortly after the mutiny. See Aguado, Historia de Venezuela, Book 6, chapts. 7-8, 675–683. The brief account of the eighteenth-century chronicler José de Oviedo y Bañoa also involved Escalante, but differed somewhat. Oviedo y Baños wrote, “While Ortal was engaged in conquests, Alfonso de Escalante, inspector of the royal treasury and a man of rebellious nature, was instigated by Machín de Oñate to lead the army in brazen revolt against Ortal.” de Oviedo y Baños, José, The Conquest and Settlement of Venezuela, Varner, Jeannette Johnson, trans. (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1987), 44 Google Scholar.
53. In a letter dated August 29, 1529, Baltasar de Castro wrote that Sedeño's force had left on July 9. In another letter written on January 30, 1537, Castro claimed that Sedeño had actually left on July 11. Sedeño's substitute as royal accountant claimed in a letter written earlier, on January 25, that he had departed on August 2. Tapia y Rivera, Biblioteca Histórica, 320–322. July, August and September are generally the region's rainiest months.
54. Tapia y Rivera, Biblioteca Histórica, 321. On October 25, 1536, Sedeño's substitute royal accountant for Puerto Rico, Alonso de la Fuente, wrote the crown that the mutineers against Ortal “consist of a hundred men who will gladly submit to the command of Sedeño, forming one force to discover the land in which there are great prospects. They have found gold of 17 to 20 carats and woolen clothes from Peru itself.”
55. de Nueva Cádiz, Consejo, “Carda del Concejo a S.M. trata del las necesidades de Jeronimo de Ortal y Antonio Cedeño y de sus prmeros asientos; de otros temores y eleciones, y piden confirmación de las ordenanzas hechas por la justicia y regimiento de la Nueva Ciudad de Cádiz e Ysla de Las Perlas para que Su Majestad confirme.” AGI, Santo Domingo 184, R. 4, N. 147, 1r. Arellano Moreno published a transcription of this document in Documentos para la historia económica de Venezuela, Moreno, Antonio Arellano, ed. (Caracas, Instituto de Antropología e Historia, 1961), 194 Google Scholar. [Arellano Moreno's work is abbreviated to DHEV in the succeeding notes.] The council of Cubagua accused Sedeño of destroying native communities in Maracapana, Neverí, and Cumanagoto.
56. The audiencia also charged Sedeño with returning Ortal to his command and punishing the leaders of the mutiny against him. Morón, Guillermo, Los orígenes históricos de Venezuela, I: introducción al siglo XVI (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 1954), 305 Google Scholar; Audiencia de Santo Domingo to the crown, December 31, 1538, CRASD, 332.
57. The other two men accompanying Pedro de Sandoval were Juan de Villalobos and the escribano Juan de Quincoces. They moved up the Unare River toward the native pueblo of Guaramental. Información de los procedimientos injustos hechos por Antonio Sedeño y su gente contra el Fiscal don Juan de Frías, Juez de Comisión por S.M. en la Isla de las Perlas, AGI, Santo Domingo 10, no. 15. In the same source, see the testimonies of Andrés Gómez (image 2v), Diego Franco (image 9r), and Antonio de Segovia (image 12r).
58. Contemporaries used the phrase vara del rey (staff of the king) and vara de justicia (staff of justice) interchangeably, sometimes within the same document. However, they more often used the former.
59. The “very noble” Nueva Gaditano alcaldes were Rui Pérez and Antón de Jaén. The Nueva Gaditano escribano, Diego López, recorded the testimonies. Paleographers Guadalupe Fernández and Esther González transcribed the testimonies for this author. “Informaciones de oficio y parte: Juan de Frías, juez de comision. (Información sobre su misión por Antonio Sedeño, en la Isla de las Perlas). 1537.” AGI, Santo Domingo 10, no. 15.
60. Testimony of Diego Franco, image 9r, AGI, Santo Domingo 10, no. 15.
61. Testimonies of Andrés Gómez (image 2v), Diego Franco (image 9r), and Antonio de Segovia (image 4v), AGI, Santo Domingo 10, no. 15. Sedeño sent both cavalrymen and infantrymen to seize Pedro de Sandoval and his party and bring them back to his camp.
62. Testimony of Diego Franco (image 9r), AGI, Santo Domingo 10, no. 15.
63. Testimony of del Juan de Plasencia (image 15r), AGI, Santo Domingo 10, no. 15. The two men who were ordered by Frías to swim across the river were a certain Córdoba and Antonio de Saucedo. Saucedo went upriver to cross. Once across, he entered the forest and shouted back, “Oh, help us, Our Lady, there are so many people here.” Sedeño's men quickly apprehended Saucedo. Córdoba, who crossed downriver, met the same fate. Frías and his men could only watch from the opposite side of the river as ten or twelve of Sedeño's men, some on foot and some on horseback, seized Córdoba and took him away.
64. Testimony of Diego Franco (image 9v) AGI, Santo Domingo 10, no. 15.
65. Testimony of Antonio de Segovia (image 4r), AGI, Santo Domingo 10, no. 15.
66. Testimony of del Juan de Plasencia (image 15r), AGI, Santo Domingo 10, no. 15. One of Sedeño's men yelled “¡Menta cheguare!” while the crier was reading. Frías did not understand this slang expression until one of his men, Pedro Hernández Carrasco, told him it meant a “heap of lies.” Among Sedeño's men whom Frías addressed directly was the group's commander, Captain Diego de Losada.
67. Testimony of Antonio de Segovia (image 4r), AGI, Santo Domingo 10, no. 15. Witnesses Franco, Plasencia, Melchor Bello had similar accounts in their testimonies. Arce Pérez was reportedly armed with a harquebus and a buckler.
68. AGI, Santo Domingo 10, no. 15.
69. Testimony of Juan de Plasencia (image 15v), AGI, Santo Domingo 10, no. 15.
70. Testimony of Melchor Bello (image 18r), AGI, Santo Domingo 10, no. 15.
71. Testimony of Diego Franco (image 10r), AGI, Santo Domingo 10, no. 15.
72. Testimonies of Andrés Gómez (image 13r), Juan de Plasencia (image 15v), Diego Franco (image 10r), Melchor Bello (image 18r), and Antonio de Segovia (image 4r), AGI, Santo Domingo 10, no. 15.
73. Testimony of Diego Franco (image 10r), AGI, Santo Domingo 10, no. 15.
74. Ibid.
75. Testimony of Andrés Gómez (images 13r-13v), AGI, Santo Domingo 10, no. 15.
76. Testimony of Diego Franco (image 10r), AGI, Santo Domingo 10, no. 15.
77. The letters that Cubaguan officials sent to Sedeño have most likely disappeared, but other letters from Cubaguan officials have survived. The council of Cubagua wrote a letter to the crown criticizing Sedeño for enslaving friendly Indians and destroying their province. Cubaguan officials also reported hearing that the Audiencia of Santo Domingo had issued a license for Sedeño to brand slaves in the provinces of Cumanagoto and Neberi, but stated that they did not believe it because the audiencia would not do such a thing. AGI, Santo Domingo 184, R. 4, N. 147, 1r; DHEV, 194.
78. Testimony of Antonio de Segovia (image 4r), AGI, Santo Domingo 184, R. 4, N. 147.
79. Testimony of Diego Franco (image 10r), AGI, Santo Domingo 184, R. 4, N. 147.
80. Testimony of Antonio de Segovia (image 4r), AGI, Santo Domingo 184, R. 4, N. 147.
81. Testimony of Francisco de Reina (image 5r) and Diego Franco (image 10r), AGI, Santo Domingo 184, R. 4, N. 147. Diego Franco (image 10r) also testified that Sedeño yelled the battle cry “Santiago y a ellos!” The rough meaning is “For Saint James, attack them!” A more literal translation is “Saint James and at them!” Spain considers Saint James its patron and protector. According to legend, Saint James miraculously appeared to fight for the Christian army during the Reconquista. To invoke his spirit and summon his help, Spaniards shouted his name as a battle cry.
82. Testimony of Melchor Bello (image 20r), AGI, Santo Domingo 184, R. 4, N. 147.
83. Testimony of Diego Franco (image 10r), AGI, Santo Domingo 184, R. 4, N. 147.
84. Testimony of Antonio de Segovia, (images 12r-12v), AGI, Santo Domingo 184, R. 4, N. 147. Sedeño's cavalrymen who advanced to engage Frías's men were Losada, Reinoso, Aduza, Osorio, and Antón Sánchez Barbero. Captain Sandoval killed Antón Sánchez's horse. The cavalryman who attacked Sandoval was Hernán Lorenzo.
85. Testimony of Antonio de Segovia (images 12r-12v), AGI, Santo Domingo 184, R. 4, N. 147. Frías's men shouted their admonition at Captain Diego de Losada.
86. Testimonies of Francisco de Reina (image 5v) and Antonio de Segovia (images 12r-12v and 5v), AGI, Santo Domingo 184, R. 4, N. 147.
87. Testimonies of Francisco de Reina (image 5v), Diego Franco (image 11v), and Melchor de Bello (image 19r), AGI, Santo Domingo 184, R. 4, N. 147. These three witnesses all claimed that Cornejo used the phrase “Viva el rey, pese a Díos” (“God be damned with this ‘long live the king’ [talk]”). To translate this phrase, I consulted Villa-Flores, Javier, Dangerous Speech: A Social History of Blasphemy in Colonial Mexico (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2006), 197Google Scholar.
88. Testimonies of Andrés Gómez (image 2v), Antonio de Segovia (image 4r, 5v, 12r), Diego Franco, (image 11r-11v), Juan de Plasencia (image 14r-14v, 16v), and Melchor de Bello (image 19r), AGI, Santo Domingo 10, no. 15.
89. Testimony of Juan de Plasencia (images 16r-17v), AGI, Santo Domingo 10, no. 15. Juan de Plasencia testified that he learned about the breaking of the vara from Frías's alguacil, Andrés Vázquez.
90. Testimony of Diego Franco (image 11v), and Juan de Plasencia (image 16v), AGI, Santo Domingo 10, no. 15.
91. Aguado, Historia de Venezuela, Book 7, chapt. 3, 712; Castellanos, “Elegía XII, Canto Segundo,” Varones ilustres, 262.
92. Tapia y Rivera, Biblioteca Histórica, 325.
93. Audiencia de Santo Domingo to the crown, July 20, 1538, CRASD, 321; Castañeda to the crown, Santo Domingo, July 22, 1539, CRASD, 364.
94. Aguado and Castellanos offer colorful, dramatic descriptions of the expedition led by Reinoso and Losada. However, it is difficult to trust the accuracy of their chronicles, some of which contain obvious errors. For example, they incorrectly attribute the eventual capture of the expedition to Lupe Montalvo de Lugo, whereas German documents reveal that it was actually Philipp von Hutten. Aguado, Historia de Venezuela, Book 7, chapts. 3, 5, and 6, 713–714, 724–735; Castellanos, “Elegía XII, Canto Tercero,” Varones ilustres, 264–274.
95. In a letter to his brother, written from Coro on January 16, 1540, Von Hutten explained, “I fell upon them in the morning, and, before they were able fully to awake, I had all of their weapons in my possession.” See “Philipp von Hutten an seinen Bruder Moritz von Hutten; Brief aus Coro vom 16. Januar 1540” in Das Gold der Neuen Welt: die Papiere des Welser-Konquistadors und Generalkapitäns von Venezuela, Philipp von Hutten, 1534–1541, Eberhard Schmitt and Friedrich Karl von Hutten, eds. (Hildburghausen: Verlag Frankenschwelle, 1996), 133.
96. Captain Diego de Losada, who had led Sedeño's men in capturing Frías, would later gain royal favor, conquer the Valley of Caracas, and become one of Venezuela's most renowned conquistadors. María, Nectario, Historia de la conquista y fundación de Caracas (Madrid: Comité de Obras Culturales, 1966), 67–104 Google Scholar.
97. Testimonies of Antonio de Segovia (image 5v, 12v), Diego Franco (image 11v), Andrés Gómez (image 13v), Juan de Plasencia (image 16v), and Melchor Bello (image 19v), AGI, Santo Domingo 10, no. 15. The testimonies concerning Antonio de Campo's comments are similar. The quotation is from the testimony of Juan de Plasencia.
98. The black witness was Andrés Gómez (image 12v) and the silversmith was Antonio de Segovia (image 11v), AGI, Santo Domingo 10, no. 15.
99. Report on the imprisonment of Licenciado Frías (images 2r-2v), AGI, Santo Domingo 10, no. 15.
100. Historians Pablo Ojer and Guiillermo Morón wrote that Sedeño was a rebel. So did the chronicler Fray Pedro Simón, who wrote about Sedeño's “tyranny and rebellion.” The chronicler Oviedo y Baños described Sedeño's actions as criminal and outrageous. Although he recounted the same basic events, Castellanos's analysis is more balanced. He wrote that Sedeño and his men viewed themselves as serving “God and king.” See Ojer, La formación, 147; Morón, A History of Venezuela, 36; Oviedo y Baños, Conquest and Settlement, 59; Simón, Fray Pedro, Noticias historiales de las conquistas de Tierra Firme en las Indias Occidentales (Bogotá: Imprenta de Medardo Rivas, 1882), Primera Parte, 184Google Scholar; Castellanos, “Elegía XII, Canto Primero,” Varone ilustres, 250.
101. Audiencia de Santo Domingo to the crown, December 31, 1538, CRASD, 333.
102. Ortal had to face several mutinies, including one by led Alonso de Herrera.
103. de Aguirre, Lope, “Lope de Aguirre: Letter to King Philip of Spain, 1561,” in Documentos para la historia económica de Venezuela, Moreno, Antonio Arellano, ed. (Caracas: Universidad Central, 1961)Google Scholar, translated for the Modern History Sourcebook by Tom Holloway, http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1561aguirre.asp (accessed July 17, 2017). Aguirre's henchman Antón Llamoso was the one man who did not desert him.