The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 27, July 1923 - April, 1924 Page: 277
344 p. : maps ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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The Expedition of Pinfilo de Narvdez
Those Indians in whose company these few Christians were,
became tired of giving them food,1 and sent five of them forward
to other Indians, that they said were on another ancon2 six leagues
forward. They went there, and three remained there much time.
They were Alonso del Castillo, Pedro de Valdivieso, cousin of
AndrBs Dorantes, and another who was named Diego de Huelva.
Two went down more to the coast, and there they died of hunger,
because Dorantes said that he found their bodies, while going
about there seeking help, with another Christian, his cousin, who
was named Diego Dorantes.3
There remained in that ranch these two gentlemen, and the
or Governor with license and authority to go somewhere, as promised in
his capitulacion with those who from ignorance will accompany him with
their persons and goods, attracted by his false heraldry.
"Once dispatched from Court, he comes to Sevilla with less money than
he likes, and sends out for the one part, a drummer, and a friar or two
and some priests, who adhere to him at once, under color of conversion of
the Indians, and turn the minds of others to go by promising riches of
which they know nothing, while the captain, with bills of exchange, buys
old and worn out ships which have arrived there through the mercy of
God and by force of double pumping, which are not only unfit to return,
but are unfit to go to New Castille, to account for the cargo that they
brought. And for the other part, a young man who acts as his Secretary
(and knows not what a secret is), with other flatterers and crafty follow-
ers of the captain, chosen because they know how to scheme, and to talk
the poor volunteers into doing two things-lending the captain their money
on the vain hopes they are promised, in the belief that they are receiving
for it a bill of exchange, and thus the poor volunteer gives the little money
that remains to him, and if this snare is well handled, he will sell his cape
and his coat, and go in his shirt, because he thinks that when he comes to
the tropics he will arrive well dressed, and may await, as a favor, for
what has been promised him.
"The other thing is that each ten volunteers, more or less, shall obligate
themselves jointly to pay, at a certain time, ten or twelve ducats or gold
pesos each for their food and passage to where they are going, which food
is such as can only be described by those who have returned to Spain,
after being thus deceived (who are few) because, since the voyage is long
and life is short, and the occasions innumerable for losing it, most of
those who come here come to stay, and do not return to their country,
but alter the ideas they formed in Spain, since now they know, and as they
would have known before had they read these histories from their begin-
ning, and as you will read in what I have yet to say, if you care to be
informed for your own knowledge and that of others."
1Oviedo: "As happens in every place that guests are detained longer
than the host wishes, and especially where they are neither desired nor
profitable."
2Aransas Pass. THE QUARTERLY, XXII, 133.
8Smith erroneously translates this passage so as to make it appear that
Diego Dorantes was one of the two who died of hunger. (Hodge, 69.)277
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 27, July 1923 - April, 1924, periodical, 1924; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101086/m1/283/: accessed April 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.