The Gilded Man (El Dorado) and other pictures of the Spanish occupancy of America

by Adolph Francis Alphonse Bandelier

Philip von Hutten had now been absent four years from the settlement on the seacoast, and in that time events there had taken a turn very favorable to the plans of the revengeful Spaniard. After Von Hutten was sent to the south in the year 1541, and their main support was thereby taken from the Germans (even to the Factor), Bishop Bastidas returned to the Antilles. He left Diego de Boiça as his representative in Coro, who, however, was soon obliged to flee to Honduras on account of his misdemeanors. The chief court of justice (Audiencia) next appointed as alcalde mayor Enrique Remból, who, with a wasteful expenditure of the Welsers’ property, brought a hundred men from Cubagua, and thus contributed somewhat to the encouragement of the settlement. The office was held after his death by Bernardino Manso and Juan de Bonilla, who both had, however, to seek safety in flight from the consequences of their misdeeds. Finally, in order to prevent the ruin of the colony, the licentiate Frias was in 1545 appointed controlling inquisitorial judge, and the licentiate Juan de Carvajal governor, of the Province of Venezuela. The latter appointment was significant of the intention of the Spaniards to terminate the contract with the Welsers. Frias remained on the island of Margarita, while Carvajal proceeded to Coro.

The new governor was a man of indubitable ability and vigor, but unprincipled and violent. His first important transaction was an act of formal disobedience. In the course of three months he by persuasion or intimidation induced the more active part of the population to leave Coro, and taking their property, to follow him across the country to New Granada, where he promised them wealth which the Venezuelan coast could not afford them. His adherents first plundered those who remained behind, and then, having collected their domestic animals, set forth on their migration. The route lay southward, along the plains, avoiding the woods. Carvajal halted at Tocuyo, among the Cuybas Indians, in a pleasant and fertile region, favorable to agriculture and cattle-raising; and the fact that he began a settlement there speaks well for his judgment. He collected about two hundred well-armed men at Tocuyo, whose devotion to himself he assured by skilfully anticipating and gratifying their unrestrained passions and wants. The inquisitorial judge, Frias, proceeded to Coro to call the governor to account, but in the ruinous and plundered condition of the colony he had no means of making his authority felt. Carvajal therefore remained undisturbed in Tocuyo, stamped by his own acts as a rebel against the Spanish Crown, and the sworn enemy of the Welsers and their representatives.

Such was the man whom Pedro de Limpias met on his way as he was hastening to Coro, filled with hatred and thirsting for vengeance against the Germans. Limpias came into Tocuyo at night with six soldiers, called upon Juan de Villegas, one of Carvajal’s officers, and represented himself to be a fugitive from the Germans, who were on the way to Coro to offer themselves to the judge there. This was sufficient to alarm all Tocuyo, for such a union of Von Hutten’s tried soldiers with the inquisitorial judge’s weak force would be highly dangerous to Carvajal. It seemed necessary to stop their march, to remove their leader by stratagem or force, and win over his men to their side.

Pedro de Limpias, at all events, gave his counsel in favor of the execution of this purpose. First, the advance-guard under Bartholomäus Welser must be captured. It had already reached Barquicimeto, north of Tocuyo. Juan de Villegas met it there, and as Philip von Hutten had not come with it, two written messages were sent to him representing that Welser was waiting for him at Tocuyo. Thinking of nothing else than that his companion in arms was bringing him reënforcements, Von Hutten hurried on with his troop of sixty men to Barquicimeto. To his no little astonishment he was informed by Villegas that Governor Juan de Carvajal summoned him to appear at once before him, otherwise “he would come for him with fifty horse.” The threatening tone of this message was clear enough, but Von Hutten was the weaker party and he thought it best to temporize and to submit, at least in appearance, to the “governor.” Carvajal received him with a show of friendliness, prepared a feast for him, and tried to dissuade him from going to Coro. If he would stay with him he would show him a valley where much gold could be got, by the use of which reënforcements could be obtained from Cubagua and Margarita. The German knight did not directly refuse this invitation, but pleaded his duty to the emperor. If this required it he would stay where they were; but nothing could prevent him from defending himself before the imperial judge in Coro.

In the meantime the rest of the troops had arrived at Tocuyo. The two camps or parties had, as it were, coalesced. The moment seemed favorable for striking a decisive blow. On the second day of Von Hutten’s presence Carvajal proclaimed orders early in the morning that all of the soldiers of the former should report themselves to him. The German knight, greatly astonished at this assumption, hurried to the house of the governor, whom he met at the door. He remonstrated with him and repeated his former declaration, that he was ready to account to “the king, the judge, and the Welsers” for what he had done. Carvajal had been waiting for the mention of the Welsers, and he used the occasion to call out aloud, “You are witnesses that he says this province belongs to the Welsers,” hoping by this means to excite the animosity of the Spaniards against the Germans and provoke an immediate conflict. The passage of words between the leaders brought the soldiers to the spot. Carvajal ordered a notary (a necessary accompaniment of all Spanish expeditions) to draw up a warrant against Von Hutten. He protested, and both drawing their swords, appealed to the king. They were separated, but the men of the two leaders ranged themselves under their respective banners; two hostile camps ready for battle confronted one another—and Carvajal’s plan to separate the leader from his soldiers had failed. In the conflict, Bartholomäus Welser rushed three times against Carvajal with upraised lance. His exhausted, famished horse failed him the third time, else, Herrera says, he would certainly have killed the “tyrant.” He fled to his house, and the approach of night put an end to further action.

On the next morning Philip von Hutten escaped from the trap that had been set for him in Tocuyo, and collected his men on the llanos of Quibore. Carvajal now tried negotiations. Priests and Welser’s factor, Melchior Grubel, served as emissaries. It was finally agreed that Carvajal and his officers should swear peace and permit the Germans to go unmolested to Coro. With this assurance Von Hutten started thither, accompanied by his men.

It was often the case at that time, and in those wild, thinly inhabited regions, that two war parties could march one a short distance behind the other without knowing anything of each other. As soon as Von Hutten had started Carvajal followed upon his track, being probably guided by Limpias. The Germans went on in fancied security, not suspecting they had anything to fear, and apparently even neglecting the usual measures of precaution. Carvajal fell upon their sleeping camp on the night of the seventh day, and his officers, who had with him a little while before sworn peace with Von Hutten, seized the German knight in his bedroom. After the leaders had been captured the men surrendered without resistance.

By this act of perfidy Ulrich von Hutten and Bartholomäus Welser were now helpless prisoners. An old Spanish proverb says, “When the dog is dead the madness is over.” Carvajal, therefore, did not wait long. He called a council of war at dawn to determine what the fate of the prisoners should be; they were promptly sentenced to death. Before the sun had set both the German knights were brought bound into the midst of the Spanish camp, and, together with two of their associates, were beheaded with a rusty machete that had been used a short time before for cutting wood.

Shortly after this tragical event the licentiate Juan Perez de Tolosa came to Coro as a representative of the weak inquisitorial judge Frias. He was an earnest, conscientious, inflexible, strict man. He collected the few soldiers that could be found on the coast, and fearlessly went with them in 1546 to meet Carvajal. He succeeded, notwithstanding the superiority of Carvajal’s force, in arresting him without resistance, and in a few days Von Hutten’s murderer was publicly beheaded at Tocuyo. Of the further fortunes of Pedro de Limpias we are not able to speak.

Although by this act of justice a kind of atonement was offered to the Germans, their rule in Venezuela wholly ceased from this time. It had lasted eighteen years, and had, it must be admitted, contributed very little to the development of the colonies. Robertson justly remarks that under the direction of such persons as the Welsers it might have been expected that a settlement would be founded on a plan different from that of the Spaniards, and more favorable to the advancement of those useful industries which commercial proprietors recognize as the most direct sources of prosperity and wealth. The failure to fulfil these expectations is ascribed by Robertson to the mistakes and misconduct of individual German leaders in Venezuela. His designation of these men as adventurers, who in their impatience thought of nothing but of snatching wealth, fits Ambrosius Dalfinger very well, and Federmann to a certain extent, although the latter was too prudent fully to come under it. But we cannot affix such a reproach to the grand and richly endowed nature of Georg von Speyer or the noble and knightly personality of Philip von Hutten. The cause of the lamentable failure lies in the nature of the transaction itself, in the way in which the possession of Venezuela was conveyed to the Welsers. They received the province from the Spanish Crown, not so much in the form of a leasehold as of a mortgage security for money loaned, and as commercial men their first object was to recover the advances they had made as quickly as possible from the revenues of the district. Whatever they might gain after that would be “good business.” Their representatives acted in their interest as seen from this point of view.