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Ambiguous Authority: Juan de Frías and the Audiencia of Santo Domingo Confront the Conquistador Antonio Sedeño (1537)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 August 2017

Michael Perri
Michael Perri*
Affiliation:
Texas A&M-Texarkana, Texarkana, Texas
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Extract

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.

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Articles
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The Americas , Volume 74 , Issue 4 , October 2017 , pp. 427 - 455
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 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.Footnote 1 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.Footnote 2 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.Footnote 3

Figure 1

North Coast of South America and the Southeastern Caribbean

Source: Michael Perri and Tracy Pounds, February 10, 2016.

This conflict illustrates much about sixteenth-century Spaniards' conceptions of political legitimacy, as well as the reasoning leaders employed to exercise authority. It also reflected the disjointed nature of political power: the highest branch of government (the monarchs in consultation with the Council of the Indies) and the highest regional court (the Audiencia of Santo Domingo) did not always work in unison. In 1524, Charles V established the Council of the Indies to screen, read, and address communications to the crown from the empire's American colonies. The council was to advise the monarch and supervise the administration of the Indies on his behalf. Spain's conciliar governing structure served the monarchy well, preserving, in the words of historian John Elliott, “the fiction that the King was personally present in each of his territories.”Footnote 4

The Audencia of Santo Domingo

The Spanish crown had long sought to distribute power among the institutions that dealt with the colonies, in a system of checks and balances designed to maintain its own authority. In keeping with this strategy, Ferdinand II established the Audiencia of Santo Domingo in 1511 on the island of Hispaniola to check the power of Viceroy Diego Columbus. Like its later counterparts in other colonies, the Audiencia of Santo Domingo combined political, administrative, and judicial functions, and transmitted the royal will to the Americas.Footnote 5 Audiencias were not the only conduits of royal power, however. Confusion frequently arose because the crown conferred its authority at multiple administrative levels, including governorships, which were typically peripheral regions in need of defense or further conquest. The crown usually chose military men as governors—men willing to conquer or defend marginal but promising territories.Footnote 6 After the crown in 1523 rescinded Columbus's viceroyalty of the Indies, the Audiencia of Santo Domingo often competed for authority with the region's governorships.

The unique geography of the Spanish Caribbean differentiated the Audiencia of Santo Domingo from its later mainland counterparts. According to historian Peter Bakewell, mainland audiencias provided “a unity of judicial and executive functions that mirrored the nature of Spanish monarchy itself.” Audiencias, which were usually based in major towns or cities, thus became politically centralizing institutions.Footnote 7 Like the other audiencias, the Audiencia of Santo Domingo wanted to establish a cohesive political entity, but the fragmentary geography of its Caribbean jurisdiction—consisting of an assortment of islands and remote continental territories—created isolating and centrifugal conditions that frustrated the court's efforts.

Eventually, both the crown and the region's subjects came to view governorships as the most effective governing institutions. By the end of the sixteenth century, distant governorships, such as the governorship of Venezuela, and important town councils, such as the Cabildo of Havana, came to exercise an informal independence from the out-of-the-way Audiencia of Santo Domingo.Footnote 8 Nevertheless, in the 1530s the Audiencia of Santo Domingo could still entertain the illusion that it could exert authority over its unwieldy jurisdiction, while conquistador-governors endeavored to increase their wealth and influence by conquering new civilizations.

Multiple interrelated objectives both unified and divided Spanish authorities. The Spanish monarchs sought wealth through trade or conquest of new subjects and territories, and authority over their realms, no matter how far-flung. The empire's bureaucrats and regional authorities (councilmen, viceroys, audiencia judges, and governors) coveted power, prosperity, prestige, and the crown's unwavering favor. The leaders of the conquistadors—whether titled captains or governors—wanted success foremost for themselves and their men, but they realized that to maintain their leadership and accomplish their goals, they needed to enlist the support of the crown. Governing powers at all levels defended the legitimacy of their authority by maintaining channels of communication with power, and even lower-rung leaders attempted to correspond directly with the crown.Footnote 9 Uniting all levels were common goals, such as proselytizing their Catholic faith and gaining wealth and glory for themselves and their king.

Rationality and Structure

In a 1958 article, Andrew Gunder Frank, a German-American scholar, examined multidimensional bureaucratic decision-making. To analyze his research, Frank used German sociologist Max Weber's distinction between “substantive rationality” (flexible, goal-oriented, decision-making) and “formal rationality” (impersonal, rule-based decision-making). Frank discovered that in bureaucracies with multiple levels of command issuing ambiguous directives, substantive rationality guided decision-makers. Agents, who claimed shared standards with superiors, focused on the achievement of tasks without strict adherence to rules or systematic practices.Footnote 10 In 1960 historian John Leddy Phelan employed Frank's research to describe the administration of Spain's American empire. Phelan argued that Spanish colonial authorities clung to a vague substantive rationality based on shared values and the achievement of common ends, regardless of the means. Subordinates observed authority by being sensitive to their superiors' objectives, but they considered authority to be malleable, in accordance with circumstances and incentives. This understanding of authority benefited both supervisors and subordinates by injecting into the governing system the flexibility needed to create a decentralized, yet resilient, imperial administration.Footnote 11 However, the imprecise structure that gave the administrative system its strength and adaptability also made it prone to misunderstandings, missteps, and infighting.

Scholars of the Spanish conquest have long recognized the ill-defined authority that characterized the empire's administrative structure. In 1988, historian Colin MacLachlan explained that this structure—below the monarch at the top—typically functioned more as competing horizontal layers with overlapping jurisdictions rather than as a vertical hierarchy. Such a configuration generated confusion and conflict, but it allowed the crown to impose its power, even in distant lands, as the final arbiter of jurisdictional disputes.Footnote 12 The crown sought to incentivize conquering governors with capitulaciones that bestowed on them considerable authority, but it also wanted to control these leaders. Such contradictory objectives often led to miscalculations. Indeed, the crown, even with the help of the Council of the Indies, sometimes sent different authorities different messages reflecting different priorities. Distances and corresponding delays in exchanging communications also hampered the crown's ability to receive information, formulate coherent policies, and delineate lines of authority.Footnote 13

The clash between Sedeño and the Audiencia of Santo Domingo, in the person of Frías, resulted from such blurred lines of authority. The engagement was a struggle between two horizontal political layers in a system with overlapping authorities. The political system psychologically linked the monarch directly with his agents. According to MacLachlan, “legally, the king delegated authority (jurisdictio) not command (imperium).”Footnote 14 Sedeño and the Audiencia of Santo Domingo both claimed political legitimacy because each was convinced of possessing the king's jurisdictio and best representing the king's will. Both communicated actively and independently with the crown, reinforcing their faith that their monarch shared their goals and values. The audiencia judges and their agent Frías viewed Sedeño as an impudent subordinate who had violated an injunction.Footnote 15 Sedeño believed that, as a favored conquistador on the brink of founding a wealthy civilization, he best embodied the king's will. His confidence in his jurisdictio mirrored a trait common among conquistadors, but the audiencia also had a powerful claim to political authority as the region's highest royal court.

Sedeño's dispute with the audiencia does not represent the first time Spanish leaders wrangled over conflicting claims to authority. Perhaps the most famous case involved Hernán Cortés. In 1519, Diego Velázquez, the governor of Cuba, appointed Cortés to explore Mexico, where he was to acquire as much gold as possible and then to return to Cuba. Velázquez decided to remove Cortés from the leadership of the expedition (thus revoking Cortés's jurisdictio), but Cortés set sail before Velázquez could stop him. Aware of his near-treasonous position and the need to establish his own power, Cortés cajoled, intimidated, and oppressed the Velázquez loyalists on the expedition. He and his followers then founded the town of Villa Rica de Veracruz near present-day Veracruz and appointed a full complement of municipal officials. The newly created town council elected Cortés as its chief justice and captain-general, giving him the pretense of autonomy from Governor Veláquez and empowering him to appeal directly to the king. According to historian Matthew Restall, Cortés sought royal authority to conquer Mexico, and, “to that end, he betrayed Velázquez, wrote directly to the king, sent agents to argue his case at court, and scuttled the remaining ships to prevent Velázquez loyalists from shipping back to Cuba to warn him—all logical, predictable, standard conquistador responses to the situation.”Footnote 16

Authority and chaos on the Pearl Coast

Although scholars are familiar with the case of Cortés and with the empire's ambiguous chain of administrative authority, multiple channels of communication, and overlapping jurisdictions, few are familiar with Sedeño or the Spanish conquest of the Pearl Coast (Figure 2). This protracted conquest included colonists on the island of Cubagua and many conquistadors, including Diego de Ordás, Alonso de Herrera, Gerónimo de Ortal, and Sedeño. The region's history reflects the drama and chaos typical of Spanish frontier societies.

Figure 2

The Pearl Coast, Detail

Source: Michael Perri and Tracy Pounds, March 14, 2014.

In 1974, historian Stuart Schwartz observed that applying theories, such as those of Weber, “increased understanding of the past,” but that too often scholars “mechanically applied [such theories] with little concern for the particular nature of the Spanish empire.”Footnote 17 In this paper, I look into some of the theoretical research regarding authority and administrative structure to analyze the fractured nature of Spanish governance in a particular frontier society. The 1537 confrontation between Sedeño and the Audiencia of Santo Domingo exemplified the empire's muddled chain of authority. The Audiencia of Santo Domingo represented a higher authority than Governor Sedeño's. However, Sedeño relied on his jurisdictio and substantive rationality to justify his decisions. Believing that the crown would in due course support his risky expedition into the unknown interior to find a rich native civilization, Sedeño thought he could disregard the agent of the Audiencia of Santo Domingo with orders to halt his enterprise.

In late 1530, nearly seven years before the Sedeño-Frías confrontation on the banks of the Unare River, Antonio Sedeño—the short, stout, and energetic royal accountant of Puerto Rico—left his home island with a force of 70 to 80 men to conquer the island of Trinidad.Footnote 18 The natives fought fiercely, and, after losing nearly two-thirds of his men, Sedeño and his small army retreated to the mainland. There, on the coast of Paria, Sedeño established a settlement, naming it Puerto de las Palmas. Leaving most of his men to build a fort, Sedeño made his way to the island of Cubagua and then to Puerto Rico, seeking recruits and selling Indian slaves in exchange for provisions.Footnote 19 In April 1531, another conquistador, Diego de Ordás, and his force of nearly 600 men arrived in the Gulf of Paria. The crown had granted Ordás a capitulación to explore the territory stretching from the Amazon River to the boundary of the Welsers in central Venezuela.Footnote 20 Outraged to find another conquistador in his designated territory, Ordás seized Puerto de las Palmas with its ships and supplies, incorporated most of Sedeño's men into his own force, and renamed the settlement San Miguel de Paria.Footnote 21

While Ordás explored the interior, Huyapari Indians told him that up the Meta River, significantly outside of their territory, existed “good, rich land and many large towns” that were “very rich.”Footnote 22 Encouraged by this information, Ordás led an expedition up the Orinoco as far as the Meta River before receding waters and a lack of provisions forced him to retreat. During the journey, other natives corroborated the Huyapari Indians' account of a rich realm in the interior, thus inflaming the Spaniards' belief in a golden province somewhere along the Meta River.Footnote 23 Spaniards named this as-yet-undiscovered land the Province of the Meta.Footnote 24

Entreaties from Sedeño prompted Empress Isabella and her advisors in the Council of the Indies to attempt to settle the Ordás-Sedeño dispute by ordering Ordás to return all the goods, ships, and horses that he had appropriated from Sedeño's settlement in Paria.Footnote 25 The letter admonished Ordás to serve the crown by “ceasing all dissension” with Sedeño, “acting brotherly” toward him, and “being a good neighbor.”Footnote 26 Not wanting to repeat the hardships of rowing up the Orinoco, Ordás concluded that he could more easily reach the Province of the Meta from a route further to the west, passing near Cumaná. Disembarking there, he came into conflict with other Spaniards.

Cumaná had long been the mainland outpost for Spaniards living on the nearby pearling island of Cubagua, and Ordás's move angered them. In 1532 these Spaniards from Cubagua routed Ordás's force and sent the conquistador under arrest to Santo Domingo. The Audiencia of Santo Domingo, unsure how to handle the internecine conflict, permitted Ordás to return to Spain to defend himself before the crown. Prior to his departure, Ordás left Alonso de Herrera, his alguacil (constable-deputy), in command of his remaining soldiers, most of whom had reassembled at San Miguel de Paria (formerly Puerto de las Palmas). Soon afterwards, Ordás died en route to Spain.Footnote 27

Herrera saw himself as Ordás's legitimate successor, but the ambitious Sedeño saw his own opportunity in Ordás's departure. He wanted to incorporate Ordás's men—including Herrera—into his command. A letter from the empress and Council of the Indies permitting Sedeño to “rescue and collect” the men Ordás had left in Paria seemed to legitimize Sedeño's plans. The letter instructed Sedeño as follows:

[T]o treat and aid [Ordás's men] as people in our service. . . . If the men want of their own will to go with you to your governorship [of Trinidad], you may take them and entrust them with duties towards our service. However, if, in order to conquer and pacify the said province, you find it necessary to reoccupy and re-garrison the said fort [of San Miguel de Paria] with men who you bring and find there, you may do so as a private citizen [vezino particular] without exercising any official jurisdiction in the said land.Footnote 28

With this letter in hand, Sedeño went to San Miguel de Paria while Herrera was away seeking provisions on Cubagua. There he convinced Agustín Delgado, San Miguel de Paria's temporary commander, to accept his leadership; in return, Sedeño would persuade a local judicial inspector-general to appoint Delgado “governor of Paria.” When Herrera returned, he contested the new state of affairs, but Sedeño would not tolerate any challenge and arrested Herrera on trumped-up charges.Footnote 29 In 1533 Sedeño took 92 men, including the shackled Herrera, to Trinidad in a renewed attempt to conquer that island. Meanwhile, the Audiencia of Santo Domingo dispatched an agent to Trinidad to order Sedeño to release Herrera. The agent and his escribano (secretary) reached Sedeño in March 1534. According to the escribano, Sedeño read the directive and then “kissed it and held it above his head and said that he had acknowledged and would continue to acknowledge it as a letter and directive from his majesties, . . . and that in regard to its fulfillment he said that he would respond [after further inquiry].”Footnote 30 Such circumvention did not last long, however. Some of the expedition's men still harbored loyalty to Herrera and had misgivings about the campaign in Trinidad. After Trinidadian natives fiercely attacked the expedition, killing both Spaniards and their horses with arrows and darts, many of the exhausted men switched sides and aided the audiencia's agent in freeing Herrera and arresting Sedeño.Footnote 31

The struggle between Sedeño and García de Aguilar, the audiencia's agent, was fluid and Sedeño eventually lost the allegiance of his men. Aguilar and the few men who believed Sedeño was improperly defying the authority of the audiencia helped Herrera and his supporters to escape their imprisonment, and together they fled to Paria, where they took over San Miguel de Paria and arrested Delgado. Soon more men abandoned Sedeño's enterprise. According to the chronicler Fray Pedro de Aguado, Sedeño foolishly tried to reverse his fortunes by returning to Paria from Trinidad with only five or six supporters, and Herrera and his men were easily able to arrest the conquistador.

Not surprisingly, Sedeño's versions of events differed. Sedeño claimed he had freed Herrera, even though he knew that Herrera would return to Paria and that his men would therefore stop receiving shipments of supplies from the Indians of Paria. Sedeño also alleged that Aguilar told him that no more supplies or assistance would come from Cubagua or Puerto Rico. According to Sedeño, this bad news encouraged many to leave with Herrera. Soon afterward, some of Herrera's men returned to incite a mutiny and convince many more to leave, taking with them the horses, ships and provisions.Footnote 32 They then returned to Paria where an imprisoned Sedeño became emaciated and gravely ill.Footnote 33

After several months, a few men loyal to Sedeño managed to free him and return with him to Puerto Rico.Footnote 34 Amazingly, Sedeño's ambition remained robust, even though his ill health persisted. En route to Puerto Rico, he gave a resident of the coastal island of Margarita authority to negotiate a deal on his behalf with another conquistador, Gerónimo de Ortal.Footnote 35 The crown had recently granted Ortal (previously Ordás's royal treasurer) a capitulación to renew Ordás's search for the golden Province of the Meta. After recruiting reinforcements, Ortal returned to Paria to take command of what remained of the force that had stayed with Herrera.Footnote 36

The Allure of the Province of the Meta

The imagined riches of the Province of the Meta mesmerized many Spaniards on the increasingly impoverished island of Puerto Rico, where Sedeño rapidly recruited men even while struggling to recover his health. According to Sedeño, the men pleaded with him to lead them on an expedition to the Meta, offering him money, horses, and provisions.Footnote 37 Royal officials in Puerto Rico reported that Sedeño enlisted between 320 and 450 men and acquired between 120 and 190 horses for the expedition.Footnote 38 In February 1535, a procurador of Puerto Rico wrote that “there is not a person who wants to stay on this island. It is such a grand affair that even the oldest and the lamest want to go on the expedition, and, if they were not held back, all would be leaving on the trip.”Footnote 39 That May, the island's royal factor (treasury official) wrote to Charles V that many Puerto Ricans wanted to embark on a journey of conquest some “200 leagues inland from the coast of Cubagua, toward the summit of the Sierra” where there were “two large cities called the Meta and the Manta” that were “very rich in gold.” Sedeño had returned from Trinidad “broken and frustrated,” but his fellow Puerto Ricans' eagerness to launch an expedition reinvigorated his spirits. The recruits named Sedeño as their captain, the royal factor explained, “but in doing so they have obliged [Sedeño] to go to that province [of the Meta] and not to Trinidad.”Footnote 40

Sedeño's expedition ran high on enthusiasm but lacked legality. The conquistador's capitulación to conquer the island of Trinidad arguably gave him the right to secure the coast of the island's adjacent mainland but did not justify an expedition into the continent's interior. Aware of this dubious legitimacy, Sedeño cloaked his intentions with a veneer of legality. On October 12, 1535, he wrote a rambling letter to Charles V in which he explained his past tribulations and his current efforts to organize a new expedition. He claimed that he had intended to re-conquer Trinidad, but, after securing the island, he and his men wanted to join Ortal in discovering “the other Peru.” The problem, argued Sedeño, was that Ortal, after initially accepting his offer of help, had since rejected it.

Sedeño and his men now agreed that they would go to the mainland before conquering Trinidad with the hope of changing Ortal's mind. Sedeño cited his men's sentiments to justify his plans, explaining that “it seems to them that it would be of more service to His Majesty to discover new treasures than to make war on the island of Trinidad, and for this task they have sold their estates.”Footnote 41 Even before writing his letter to the emperor, Sedeño had already sent an advance party to the mainland at Maracapana, only about seven miles from Ortal's outpost of San Miguel de Neverí.Footnote 42

Ortal coveted Sedeño's men, horses, and supplies, but he did not trust Sedeño, whose forces on the mainland remained independent from his own.Footnote 43 In a September 1535 letter to the emperor, Ortal admitted that he had initially agreed to allow Sedeño to join him, but that he now had doubts about the agreement. Not only had Sedeño started sending his men to the mainland, Ortal reported, but also the rival conquistador proclaimed that once he joined his men “he would comply or not comply with the agreement [he had made with Ortal] as he saw fit.”Footnote 44

Sending two advance parties to the Pearl Coast, Sedeño remained in Puerto Rico recuperating from illness and waiting for a royal document that would allow him to appoint a lieutenant to act in his absence as royal accountant.Footnote 45 Meanwhile, Ortal launched two assaults, the first in December 1535 and the second in February 1536, against Sedeño's advance parties, capturing many of his men and confiscating his supplies.Footnote 46 Undaunted, Sedeño continued to recruit men and prepare for his own departure. Worried about their colony's depopulation, Puerto Rican officials asked the Santo Domingo audiencia to block Sedeño's enterprise. The judges responded by ordering Sedeño “not to go outside the limits of his governorship upon penalty of losing half his property.” In March 1536, Puerto Rican officials informed the empress that Sedeño was ignoring the Audiencia de Santo Domingo's directives and had already sent many men and horses to the mainland. Sedeño was also not paying “any attention to Your Majesty's stipulation to carry out his office of accountant personally.” Instead, Sedeño disregarded the welfare of Puerto Rico, meeting “with people from all over [the island], and even with those who are well established, taking them without a license and causing serious damage because many are missing [from their settlements in Puerto Rico] due to the fury caused by [the desire to find another] Peru.”Footnote 47

Uncertain Authority

Although Sedeño ignored the audiencia's directive, he did not see himself as a rebel. Instead, he believed that his interests were in accord with those of the emperor. In April 1536, he expressed his sentiments to His Majesty, reporting that Ortal had attacked his advance parties and asserting that “these shameless acts do not serve Your Majesty.” He now had to go to the mainland, Sedeño claimed, “in order to collect as much as possible that which remains and to protect that which would be of service to His Majesty in sending me to command.”Footnote 48 According to this logic, Ortal's “shameless acts” and disservice to His Majesty now justified Sedeño's departure to the mainland and his appropriation of the expedition's command.

While Sedeño's assumption that he enjoyed royal favor was ardent, his logic was defective. He had a royal capitulación to conquer Trinidad, but he sailed instead to the mainland, supposedly to protect his and the crown's interests against Ortal, the man to whom the crown had granted a capitulación to discover the Province of the Meta. Sedeño realized the weakness of his justification, but (using a rationalization that in Weberian terms was substantive) he chose to proceed, focusing on the goals he sought to achieve for himself, his men, and the crown instead of the limits of his charge. The lure of the Meta had intoxicated him and hundreds of his fellow Puerto Ricans who wanted to achieve feats similar to those of Hernán Cortés and Francisco Pizarro. Sedeño was confident that he shared the same values and abilities as these acclaimed conquistadors and had the same goals.

Moreover, the examples of Cortés and others suggested that success would excuse illegal or politically questionable actions.Footnote 49 Like Cortés, Sedeño believed he would retain the emperor's favor by informing him of events and defending his intentions with accomplishments. He felt justified in undertaking the venture: for him, royal favor was personal and he believed that the prestige and wealth his conquests would bring to the crown would negate any objections to the legality of his expedition. Many of Sedeño's men shared such assumptions and exercised the substantive rationality that focused on the ends. The ends in this case entailed conquering for themselves and the crown a wealthy, native civilization and bringing Christianity to its inhabitants. The goals reflected common values that unified the expedition's men, whose enthusiasm for the enterprise and support of the leadership reinforced Sedeño's ambition, his sense of personal royal favor, and his belief in the campaign's legitimacy.

On August 29, 1536, Puerto Rico's royal factor wrote to the crown to say that Sedeño had recently departed, intending, he feared, to pursue Ortal and exact revenge.Footnote 50 Ortal did lose his command but not to Sedeño. To acquire provisions and porters, Ortal resorted to slave raids. Many natives resisted, and a warrior from the village of Guamba killed Augustín Delgado, Ortal's charismatic second-in-command. As Ortal's men marched for days, lost in rain-soaked marshlands, provisions ran low. Absent Delgado's calming influence, fights erupted over the distribution of captured booty.Footnote 51 A majority of the men mutinied and forced Ortal from command. Humiliated, Ortal and a few loyalists returned to the coast, carefully avoiding Sedeño's expedition.Footnote 52

No sooner had Sedeño landed on the mainland in August than he too encountered difficulties.Footnote 53 Rain kept the expedition from penetrating the marshy interior of the Unare basin, and late October found Sedeño and his army still encamped along the coast, with their provisions nearly exhausted. Hoping to incorporate Ortal's former force into his own, Sedeño sent a small party to chase down Ortal's men and negotiate a deal.Footnote 54 To occupy his men, obtain more provisions, and perhaps to pay off debts, Sedeño sent his men to raid and capture native peoples. The slave raids enraged the town council of Cubagua, which reported to the crown that Sedeño had destroyed the eastern region of the Pearl Coast, “arrogantly enslaving the Indians there.” The council claimed Sedeño had shipped 800 slaves to Puerto Rico, bypassing royal officials in Cubagua and failing to assess or brand the slaves, thus denying the crown its royal fifth. Moreover, Spaniards in Nueva Cádiz (Cubagua) complained that Sedeño's slaving activities had “injured and vexed friendly Indians who had had, until now, peaceful relations with this town.”Footnote 55

The Audiencia of Santo Domingo, angry at Sedeño for disregarding its orders, commissioned the licenciado Juan de Frías to halt his expedition, relocate his men to Trinidad, and bring Sedeño himself to face them in Santo Domingo. Because the audiencia had no money to pay Frías, it gave him instructions to force “the guilty” Sedeño and Ortal to pay him a daily salary of 1,200 maravedís. If they could not pay, Frías was to confiscate his salary from the conquistadors' estates or provisions.Footnote 56

Frías arrived in the province of Maracapana with about 80 men in April or early May 1537 and marched southwest toward the Unare River. Not wanting to surprise Sedeño, he sent ahead three men, including Pedro de Sandoval, whose brother, Diego de Sandoval, was Frías's captain. These messengers carried a letter informing Sedeño that Frías was on his way.Footnote 57 This cautious approach was prudent. Frías was almost certainly aware that the Pánfilo de Narváez's punitive expedition of 1520, sent by Governor Velázquez to arrest Hernán Cortés, had ended with Cortés defeating Narváez and appropriating his men and supplies.

Narváez's force had been larger than Cortés's, but Frías's party was smaller than Sedeño's. Frías relied on his vara del rey to exert authority over Sedeño and his men.Footnote 58 The audencia judges in Santo Domingo, armed with documents verifying that Sedeño had overstepped his jurisdiction and authority, expected him to respect the authority of their royal court and its agent. Their miscalculation suggests that the structure of competing layers of authority had changed little in the 17 years separating the Cortés-Narváez and the Sedeño-Frías confrontations. The vertical chain of command remained ambiguous.

The Sedeño-Frías Conflict

Many details of the Sedeño-Frías conflict are available today, because just weeks after it occurred, Nueva Cádiz municipal officials conducted an investigation. Between June 4 and June 14, 1537, two alcaldes of Nueva Cádiz called nine witnesses to testify about the confrontation.Footnote 59 The following paragraphs draw from these testimonies to recount the story of the clash and to provide insight into the tensions and anxieties that resulted from competing horizontal layers of authority, for the rank and file as well as for the leaders.

Frías's three messengers, led by Pedro de Sandoval, came across two of Sedeño's men in a hut in the pueblo of Canima. One of the men, named Cornejo, confessed that Sedeño had sent them to spy on Frías's force. Pedro de Sandoval released his captives and asked them to inform Sedeño that he wanted to meet with him.Footnote 60 The next day, as Pedro de Sandoval and his companions constructed a raft to cross a swollen river, Sedeño's men seized them.Footnote 61 Meanwhile, Frías and his main party advanced cautiously. A little less than two miles before they reached the Unare River, Frías sent García del Campo ahead to look for Pedro de Sandoval's party. García del Campo found what appeared to be evidence of a struggle at a site with corn from Pedro de Sandoval's party scattered on the ground. Advancing toward the river, Campo continued his reconnaissance “on all fours,” beneath some trees from which he could spy on the opposite bank “the many lances” of Sedeño's forces.Footnote 62

García del Campo's report did not deter Frías, who marched to the swollen Unare River and ordered two of his men to reconnoiter the opposite bank. As the men reached the opposite bank, Sedeño's men appeared and apprehended them.Footnote 63 Frías shouted, “You do this in my presence as traitors to the king!”Footnote 64 He then ordered his crier to proclaim a directive, but just as the crier started to read, the men on the opposite side of the river began shouting “like Indians,” drowning out his voice.Footnote 65 One of Sedeño's followers yelled that the directive was a “heap of lies.” According to a witness, Sedeño's men eventually quieted. Frías then moved closer to the riverbank and asked, “why were they choosing not to support justice and acting as traitors to the king.” According to the witness, the men left without responding.Footnote 66

The next day, Frías drew up an indictment against Sedeño and his men, which his crier announced, calling out the accused by name. Twice during the next two days, a man on horseback appeared on a hill above Frías's camp. Both times, Frías called out, “Ride over here. Why not talk to us?” The man did not respond. Four days later, on May 19, 1537, a man from Sedeño's party named Arce Pérez appeared on the opposite bank and fired his harquebus. Not intimidated, three of Frías's men, including Captain Diego de Sandoval—the brother of the seized Pedro de Sandoval—walked to the riverbank to ask Pérez why he was acting as a traitor by not acknowledging the vara.Footnote 67

Then, a second man from Sedeño's party appeared and fired his harquebus, which prompted Captain Sandoval to shout, “You come here to taunt us, treating us as though we are Paragoto Indians whom you can frighten so that we give you slaves.”Footnote 68

“My God, Señor,” Pérez responded. “You won't even allow us to shoot at some trees?”Footnote 69 He then remarked, “We are doing no one any harm by amusing ourselves shooting at birds.”Footnote 70

“How is it,” Captain Sandoval replied, “that you do not see that Señor Licenciado Frías is here with the vara del rey, which you are scorning?”Footnote 71

Breaking into this scene there came a man on horseback, Diego de Sánchez de Chiclana, looking as if he were ill or hurt. He went immediately to Pérez's side. Sancho del Castillo, Frías's escribano, asked Sánchez de Chiclana, who was an old acquaintance of his from Puerto Rico, why Sedeño had not sent anyone to present himself before Licenciado Frías. Sánchez de Chiclana responded that he did not know.Footnote 72 When Frías arrived at the scene, Sánchez de Chiclana, apparently disconcerted by questions emanating from contending bases of authority, called across the river, “I kiss the hands of the Señor Licenciado [Frías] and of the gentlemen who are with him.”

Irritated, Frías retorted, “What is this? Come here and let's talk.”Footnote 73

Sánchez de Chiclana responded in anguish, “Sir, I am very sick, I have not gotten out of bed for three months and I am blind and deaf with pain. Forgive me, your honor.”Footnote 74

Concerned about his captured brother and comrades and wanting to resolve the standoff, Captain Sandoval asked about the prisoners' condition. He also stressed that “it would be good if you release them and send a person who would talk to Señor Licenciado [Frías]. That way we could see what we should do and how we should handle this so that we won't have to stay here.”Footnote 75

Captain Sandoval inquired as to why Sedeño had arrested Frías's men and why no one in Sedeño's party was willing to mediate between the two leaders.Footnote 76 Sánchez de Chiclana answered: “I do not understand Governor Sedeño. He does not trust anyone. You have brought him to a breaking point because [you and officials] from Cubagua have written him so many letters.”Footnote 77 Sánchez de Chiclana then explained, “He fears your honor has come to stop him and frustrate all he has done up until now.”Footnote 78 Again pleading sickness, Sánchez de Chiclana begged Frías to forgive him. As he turned to leave, Frías shouted, “I promise you [plural] that with this vara del rey I will subdue and remove this tyranny.”Footnote 79

Captain Sandoval then turned to his men and said, “Gentlemen, rise up and take up your arms, for it appears to me they are either going to commit treason or they are coming to surrender.”Footnote 80 Two to three hours later, near the time of vespers, some 150 infantry and 50 cavalry fell upon Frías and his men. According to one witness, Sedeño's men shouted “‘Santiago y a ellos,’” as if they were attacking Turks.Footnote 81 Another witness testified that Sedeño's men cried “Santiago, Santiago, kill, kill the traitors! Fire, fire!”Footnote 82

Seeing the attackers, Frías asked for his vara and called out, “Traitors to the vara del rey! Long live the king!”Footnote 83 One witness saw Frías raise the vara forcefully and say, “Here is the king!” Captain Sandoval grabbed his lance and prepared to defend Frías, shouting, “Oh, you traitors, you come against the vara del rey.” Sedeño's cavalry then advanced to engage Frías's men. As they approached, Captain Sandoval killed a man's horse with his lance and injured another horse as well. At this point, a cavalryman attacked Captain Sandoval with his lance, wounding his neck and hand.Footnote 84

The arrival of Sedeño's numerically superior infantry discouraged further fighting. The soldiers disarmed the injured Captain Sandoval and carried him to a nearby hut. Meanwhile, Sedeño's cavalry fell upon Frías, whose sergeant stepped in front of the mounted men, shouting “Respect the vara del rey; do not go against it!”Footnote 85 Sedeño's men ignored the admonition and grabbed Frías by the shoulders. As Frías fell to the ground with the vara in his hands. Sedeño's infantry seized it, picked Frías up, and flung him back to the ground. In response, Castillo, Frías's escribano, held up some of the audiencia's directives and shouted, “Long live the King!”Footnote 86 Cornejo, in Sedeño's party, yelled back, “God be damned with this long live the king [talk]”Footnote 87 and slashed Castillo twice with his sword, slicing his clothing around the breast and slightly injuring him. The captors mounted Frías on a horse without his shoes or doublet or hat, covered by only a jacket made from old clothes, and took him across the river to Sedeño's camp.Footnote 88 In the meantime, Sedeño's men used their knees to break Frías's vara into pieces.Footnote 89 Witnesses reported that Sedeño's men took the cloaks off the backs of Frías's forces, stole their horses, stole the clothes they had left behind in the camp, and generally “took whatever they wanted.” Sedeño's followers, claiming that their leader had told them they could do what they wanted with their captives, felt justified in confiscating the detainees' possessions.

Sedeño's supporters brought Frías and his men to their camp, but, once there, Sedeño refused to meet with Frías, instead ordering Captain Diego de Losada to take him under arrest to the pueblo of Orocomay, some 20 miles farther inland. Sedeño decided to keep Frías and some of his men as hostages, including the three men he had captured in the advance party. He let others go, free to return to the coast disarmed and in tatters.Footnote 90 Many of Frías's men probably decided to change their status as hostages and free themselves by willingly joining Sedeño's expedition.

After the Conflict

With the threat of Frías's mission neutralized, Sedeño advanced toward the Meta. Near the Valley of Tiznados in what would become the Venezuelan state of Guárico, Sedeño fell victim to a debilitating ailment that caused swelling. According to several chroniclers, Francisca Fernández, Sedeño's morisca slave, gave her master an herbal beverage to treat the sickness, but, shortly after drinking it, he died in agony. The chroniclers concluded that Francisca had poisoned the conquistador, unwilling to believe that his extraordinary pluck could have left him open to a mundane death from mere sickness.Footnote 91 However, Sedeño had first become seriously ill when Herrera imprisoned him in Paria three years earlier, and any new ailment or a flare-up of his previous malady could have taken his life. Royal officials in Puerto Rico were aware of Sedeño's poor health, and none of them seemed surprised or hesitant to report to the crown that he “had died from sickness.”Footnote 92

Sedeño's men, without their leader, seem to have lost the will to keep their enemy under arrest, and Frías along with six or seven of his men returned to the coast. Most of the expedition, probably consisting of some 300 men and 80 horses, continued the search for the Province of the Meta. The men elected a young noble, Pedro de Reinoso, as their captain-general and Captain Losada as their maestre de campo (field commander).Footnote 93 Unimaginable hardships dogged this defiant expedition. Reinoso and his men wandered for over a year in the vast llanos of Venezuela, searching in vain for the province of the Meta. As provisions ran out, the men searched desperately for any native community they could raid. Repelled in battle, on the brink of starvation, and in the middle of seemingly endless grassy plains, the Spaniards faced horrific hardships. The chronicler Castellanos recounts that one starving Spaniard ate a fallen comrade. By mid 1539, death and desertion had reduced the once strong and confident force to only 86 men.Footnote 94

Searching by this time for a way out of the llanos as much as a way to the province of the Meta, the wayward conquistadors wandered into the valley of Barquisimeto in the territory of the German Welsers. There, Philipp von Hutten (Felipe de Utre), a leader of the Welsers' expedition, encountered the ragged party. Von Hutten was also carrying high hopes of finding a rich native kingdom in the Venezuelan interior, and he viewed Reinoso's force as an intruding rival. With only 36 men, Von Hutten attacked and easily disarmed Reinoso's exhausted band.Footnote 95 Most of the men from the failed expedition joined the Welsers' force, and Von Hutten, desperate for men for his own expedition, overlooked his captives' responsibility in Sedeño's insubordination.Footnote 96

Assessing the Conflict

Nearly two years earlier, while Sedeño was out exploring the interior following his confrontation with Frías, the alcaldes of Nueva Cádiz who were investigating the insubordination recorded testimonies that painted Sedeño and his men as traitors. Five of the nine witnesses testified that before they were marched to Sedeño's camp, a captor named Antonio de Campo had told them that “although they well know that there is an emperor and king in Castile, over there [in Sedeño's camp] they know no other king and governor other than that chiquito, Antonio Sedeño.”Footnote 97 If Campo did indeed say this, as witnesses reported, and if Sedeño had consciously asserted authority independent from the king, then Sedeño's actions were treasonous. However, historians have reason to doubt whether Sedeño saw himself or his men viewed him as the ultimate authority or, in fact, a king. All those who testified in the Nueva Cádiz investigation were on the losing side along with Frías; in testifying before officials upset with Sedeño, they had incentive to provide evidence of treason.

The witnesses did not report hearing any treasonous statements directly from Sedeño or his officers; those in Sedeño's ranks who had allegedly committed treacherous acts or voiced treasonous words (Cornejo and Campo) were men of low rank. The witnesses making the accusations were also individuals of low status, one identified as a black man and another as a silversmith, a profession that would have suggested Jewish heritage.Footnote 98 The alcaldes of Nueva Cádiz conducting the investigation may have been content with the marginal status of the witnesses, which might have safeguarded them from a change in the political tides. Such a change would be conceivable if Sedeño were to achieve success and redemption. Nevertheless, based on their investigation, the alcaldes reported that Sedeño and his men “revolted and rebelled against the royal crown,” usurped his Majesty's lands, and “committed very serious crimes.”Footnote 99

Chroniclers and historians also describe Sedeño as a rebel against the crown, although almost surely Sedeño had another version of that story.Footnote 100 It is true that he appropriated to himself a questionable amount of authority and disobeyed injunctions from the Audiencia of Santo Domingo, but he and his men most likely did not disavow the king. Doing so would have alienated them from their larger society. Sedeño and his men wanted to become rich and influential, but success would only be meaningful if society recognized their affluence and power. They thus claimed political legitimacy, believing that their enterprise best represented the will of the king: acquiring riches and territory, as well as new subjects to rule, tax, and Christianize. Many Spaniards interpreted the king's will as a set of shared values, standards, and common ends. They employed substantive rationality, which allowed them to justify questionable means that they could defend after they had achieved the ends they felt were most desired.

As an agent of the audiencia, Frías was fully confident that he represented royal authority and hence the true will of the king. The degree to which Frías, who had the smaller of the two forces, relied on the vara to “subdue and remove” the “tyranny” of Sedeño was striking. Frías and his men thought the vara, as an emblem of royal authority, would persuade Sedeño and his men to submit to Frías's command, but it did not. Physical force prevailed. Nevertheless, the vara remained a powerful symbol. When Sedeño's men captured Frías, they quickly seized and destroyed the vara. Without it, Frías's claim to represent the will of the king symbolically disappeared. The desecration of the vara outraged the audiencia, which informed the crown that Sedeño's men had not only broken the vara but had also burned it. The judges called on the crown to punish Sedeño for rebuffing royal justice.Footnote 101

Conclusion

Even in embarking on their expedition in the first place, Sedeño and his men had disregarded the authority of the audiencia and its agent Frías. Nonetheless, Sedeño and his men were most likely not challenging the audiencia's authority generally, but rather the audiencia's correctness on a particular issue of great consequence to them. Perhaps Sedeño's men were apprehensive about the disputed will of the king. The misgivings of the sickly Sánchez de Chiclana hinted at such apprehension and illustrated the confusion that horizontal layers of authority generated among the rank and file. Frías, with his vara, held a powerful claim to royal authority. However, based on Sedeño's past relations with both the audiencia and the crown, the Puerto Rican conquistador almost surely saw room for negotiation between the audiencia's authority and his jurisdictio. His belief that he knew the king's true will strengthened his resolve. Sedeño also had the support of his men, who were so determined to find the province of the Meta that they continued the expedition even after their leader died. Their devotion to their ends led them to make light of their means.

Spain's abundance of political agents, most of whom felt endowed with the king's favor, clouded the empire's chain of command, and, in the Indies the factor of distance made it even less clear. Moreover, the high-stakes nature of the conquistadors' enterprises made the exercise of political authority unstable and fostered mutinies. A conquistador might possess jurisdictio, but authority had to be earned from his followers. Sedeño had learned this, but apparently Frías and the audiencia had not. The conquistador Ortal also failed to secure sufficient support from his men. Although he had legal authorization to lead, Ortal's reliance on his credentials failed to avert several mutinies against his leadership.Footnote 102 Other conquistadors, Cortés and Pizarro included, knew that to wield authority effectively in the Indies a conquistador needed the loyalty of his men and the favor—or at least perceived favor—of the king. If a conquistador had both of these sources of support, local royal officials would find challenging his authority difficult.

Conflicts between conquistadors and royal officials were not limited to the Pearl Coast. In New Spain after 1524, Cortés had serious differences with royal treasury officials, and later with the audiencia and viceroyalty of New Spain, that led to challenges and tensions. Collectively, these royal officials, judges, and administrators effectively assumed control of Cortés's governance in New Spain, despite the conquistador's protests. Later, tensions in Peru between royal authorities and conquistadors turned violent. In 1546 Gonzalo Pizarro, Francisco Pizarro's youngest half-brother, defeated and beheaded Blasco Núñez Vela, the first viceroy the crown sent to Peru. Sedeño's rebuff of the Audiencia of Santo Domingo occurred chronologically between the reduction of Cortés's power by royal officials in Mexico and Gonzalo Pizarro's beheading of Viceroy Núñez Vela in Peru. Thus, Sedeño's challenge to the audiencia's authority occurred at a time when the crown still viewed conquistadors—with all their ambition and initiative—as mostly beneficial to advancing Spain's interests in the New World. The civil wars in Peru largely changed this perception.

Although Sedeño and other conquistadors most likely did not disavow the king, there was a notable exception in 1560–61, after the crown had ordered a hiatus of new enterprises of conquest. In that year, during a long and hapless expedition of conquest eastward on the Amazon River, the officer Lope de Aguirre murdered his superiors and seized power. Once the desperate party reached the Atlantic Ocean, Aguirre wrote a rambling letter in which he blamed King Phillip II for a long list of injustices and declared himself a rebel “until death” against the king and his “ingratitude.” Aguirre's reign of terror was short-lived, as his followers deserted him at the first auspicious opportunity. When Aguirre's countrymen finally killed him, all but one of his followers had forsaken him.Footnote 103

Although the Sedeño-Frías conflict illustrates the frequent contentions between competing horizontal layers of authority, the incident also presents some differences from other expeditions. Unlike Sedeño, Cortés and Pizarro achieved success. They ruled rich provinces with elaborate social structures that gave them power—so much power that some of their most zealous supporters wanted to see them as kings. Neither the king nor any royal official had granted Aguirre jurisdictio, so the wayward conquistador declared himself in rebellion and appropriated royal authority on his own. Sedeño, however, could claim jurisdictio and thus felt no need to declare himself in rebellion. At the time Frías confronted him in 1537, Sedeño thought he was on the brink of discovering the Province of the Meta, and therefore his decision to disregard the audiencia's authority seemed a rational gamble. After investing his credibility and much of Puerto Rico's resources in the expedition, Sedeño felt he could not turn back, and, if he took into consideration the sentiments of his men, he was probably right. For both economic and psychological reasons, Sedeño and his men decided they would find the Province of the Meta, but they were not in rebellion.

Operating within an empire with blurry lines of authority and employing his conviction (based on a substantive rationality) that he was supported by his jurisdictio from the crown, Sedeño and his men felt justified in launching their expedition into the unknown interior. They rationalized their actions based on the faith that they shared the same values and goals as the king. Their faith gave them confidence that they would retain or regain the favor of the crown with deeds that would bring both them and their king immense wealth and glory.

Major Figures in the Juan de Frías-Antonio Sedeño Conflict

  • • Antonio Sedeño: a conquistador with a capitulación to conquer Trinidad.

  • • Juan de Frías: an official commissioned by the Audiencia of Santo Domingo to arrest Antonio Sedeño and halt his expedition to the province of the Meta.

  • • Diego de Ordás: a conquistador with a capitulación to conquer a vast expanse of northeastern South America.

  • • Gerónimo de Ortal: Ordás's royal treasurer and a conquistador, he was granted a capitulación to renew Ordás's expedition to discover the golden Province of the Meta after Ordás died.

  • • Alonso de Herrera: Ordás's constable-deputy (alguacil). When Ordás departed for Spain, he left Herrera in charge of his men, who encamped in Paria. Herrera conducted a dispute with Antonio Sedeño.

  • • Agustín Delgado: a charismatic and opportunistic conquistador who arrived with Ordás, changed allegiances to Sedeño, and became the second-in-command in the Ortal expedition; he was killed by a native.

  • • Cubaguans: residents of the pearling island of Cubagua who routed Ordás force and arrested Ordás.

  • • Diego de Losada: a captain in Sedeño's expedition.

  • • García de Aguilar: a man commissioned by the Audiencia of Santo Domingo to order Sedeño to release Herrera from arrest. Sedeño did not release Herrera, and Aguilar helped a faction of Spaniards to release Herrera and arrest Sedeño.

  • • Juan de San Pedro: Aguilar's secretary (escribano).

  • • Pedro de Sandoval: Frías's messenger. Juan de Villalobos and the escribano Juan de Quincoces, also messengers, accompanied Pedro de Sandoval. Sedeño's men seized all three of them. Pedro was the brother of Diego de Sandoval, a captain in Frías force.

  • • Diego de Sandoval: Frías's captain and Pedro de Sandoval's brother. Sedeño's cavalryman Hernán Lorenzo attacked and injured Diego de Sandoval; Sandoval, fighting back, killed Antón Sánchez's horse.

  • • Cornejo: A member of Sedeño's party. Pedro de Sandoval captured him as a spy and then released him with a message for Sedeño. In the confrontation with Frías's force, Cornejo slashed Frías's escribano, Sancho de Castillo.

  • • Diego de Sánchez de Chiclana: a member of Sedeño's expedition who had a respectful conversation from the opposite bank of a river with Frías and his men. However, he remained loyal to Sedeño, although perhaps ambiguously so.

  • • Antonio de Campo: a member of Sedeño's expedition who reportedly said that Sedeño's men “know Antonio Sedeño as king and governor.”

References

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.

Figure 0

Figure 1 North Coast of South America and the Southeastern Caribbean

Source: Michael Perri and Tracy Pounds, February 10, 2016.
Figure 1

Figure 2 The Pearl Coast, Detail

Source: Michael Perri and Tracy Pounds, March 14, 2014.