While Dorantes was stopping at Vera Cruz during the winter of 1536–37, he received a letter from Mendoza, asking him to return to the City of Mexico. After several interviews, the viceroy induced Dorantes to remain in New Spain, agreeing to provide him with a party of horsemen and friars, in order to explore more thoroughly the country through which he had wandered. Mendoza explains the details of his plans in the letter written in December, 1537, and declares that he expected many advantages would be derived from this expedition which would redound to the glory of God and to the profit of His Majesty the King. The vice­roy was pre­pared to ex­pend a large sum—3,500 or 4,000 pesos—to insure a suc­ces­sful under­tak­ing, but he promised to raise the whole amount, with­out taking a single maravedi from the royal treasury, by means of a more careful collection of dues, and especially by enforcing the payment of overdue sums, the collection of which hitherto had been considered impossible. This reform in the collection of rents and other royal exactions and the careful attention to all the details of the fiscal administration were among the most valuable of the many services rendered by Mendoza as viceroy. The expedition under Dorantes never started, though why nothing came of all the preparations, wrote Mendoza in his next letter to the King, “I never could find out.”[7]

The three Spaniards wrote several narratives of their experiences on the expedition of Narvaez, and of their adventurous journey from the gulf coast of Texas to the Pacific coast of Mexico.[8] These travelers, who had lived a savage life for so long that they could wear no clothes, and were unable to sleep except upon the bare ground, had a strange tale to tell. The story of their eight years of wandering must have been often repeated—of their slavery, their buffalo-hunting expeditions, of the escape from their Indian masters, and their career as traders and as medicine men. These were wonderful and strange p350 experiences, but the story contained little to arouse the eager interest of the colonists in New Spain, whose minds had been stirred by the accounts which came from Peru telling of the untold wealth of the Incas. A few things, however, had been seen and heard by the wanderers which suggested the possibility of lands worth conquering. “A copper hawks-bell, thick and large, figured with a face,” had been given to Cabeza de Vaca, soon after he started on his journey toward Mexico. The natives who gave this to him said that they had received it from other Indians, “who had brought it from the north, where there was much copper, which was highly esteemed.” After the travelers had crossed the Rio Grande, they showed this bell to some other Indians, who said that “there were many plates of this same metal buried in the ground in the place whence it had come, and that it was a thing which they esteemed highly, and that there were fixed habitations where it came from.”[9] This was all the treasure which Cabeza de Vaca could say that he had seen. He had heard, however, of a better region than any he saw, for the Indians told him “that there are pearls and great riches on the coast of the South sea (the Pacific), and all the best and most opulent countries are near there.” We may be sure that none of this was omitted whenever he told the Spanish colonists the story of the years of his residence in Texas and of the months of his journey across northern Mexico.[10]

THE GOVERNORS OF NEW SPAIN, 1530–1537

Don Antonio de Mendoza, “the good viceroy,” had been at the head of the government of New Spain for two years when Cabeza de Vaca arrived in Mexico. The effects of his careful and intelligent administration were already beginning to appear in the increasing prosperity of the province and the improved condition of the colonists and of their lands. The authority of the viceroy was ample and extensive, although he was limited to some extent by the audiencia, the members of which had administered the government of the province since the retirement of Cortes. The viceroy was the president of this court, which had resumed more strictly judicial functions after his arrival, and he was officially advised by his instructions from the King to consult with his fellow members on all matters of importance.

Nuño de Guzman departed for New Spain in 1528, and became the head of the first audiencia. Within a year he had made himself so deservedly unpopular that when he heard that Cortes was coming back to Mexico from Spain, with the new title of marquis and fresh grants of power from the King, he thought it best to get out of the way of his rival. Without relinquishing the title to his position in the capital p351 city, Guzman collected a considerable force and marched away toward the west and north, determined to win honor and security by new conquests. He explored and subdued the country for a considerable distance along the eastern shores of the Gulf of California, but he could find nothing there to rival the Mexico of Motecuhzoma. Meanwhile reports reached Charles V of the manner in which Guzman had been treating the Indians and the Spanish settlers, and so, March 17, 1536,[11] the King appointed the Licentiate Diego Perez de la Torre to take the residencia[12] of Guzman. At the same time Torre was commissioned to replace Guzman as governor of New Galicia, as this northwestern province had been named. The latter had already determined to return to Spain, leaving Don Christobal de Oñate, a model executive and administrative official, in charge of his province. Guzman almost succeeded in escaping, but his judge, who had landed at Vera Cruz by the end of 1536, met him at the viceroy’s palace in Mexico city, and secured his arrest before he could depart. After his trial he was detained in Mexico until June 30, 1538, when he was enabled to leave New Spain by an order which directed him to surrender his person to the officers of the Casa de Contratacion,[13] at Seville. Guzman lost no time in going to Spain, where he spent the next four years in urging his claims to a right to participate in the northern conquests.

Torre, the licentiate, had barely begun to reform the abuses of Guzman’s government when he was killed in a conflict with some revolted Indian tribes. Oñate again took charge of affairs until Mendoza appointed Luis Galindo chief justice for New Galicia. This was merely a temporary appointment, however, until a new governor could be selected. The viceroy’s nomination for the position was confirmed by the King, in a cedula dated April 18, 1539, which commissioned Francisco Vazquez Coronado as governor.[14]

Cortes had been engaged, ever since his return from Spain, in fitting out expeditions which came to nothing,[15] but by which he hoped to accomplish his schemes for completing the exploration of the South sea. His leisure was more than occupied by his efforts to outwit the agents of the viceroy and the audiencia, who had received orders from the King to investigate the extent and condition of the estates held by Cortes. In the spring of 1535, Cortes established a colony on the opposite coast of California, the supposed Island of the Marquis, at Santa p352 Cruz,[16] near the modern La Paz. Storms and shipwreck, hunger and surfeiting, reduced the numbers and the enthusiasm of the men whom he had conducted thither, and when his vessels returned from the mainland with the news that Mendoza had arrived in Mexico, and bringing letters from his wife urging him to return at once, Cortes went back to Mexico. A few months later he recalled the settlers whom he had left at Santa Cruz, in accordance, it may be, with the command or advice of Mendoza.[17] When the stories of Cabeza de Vaca suggested the possibility of making desirable conquests toward the north, Cortes possessed a better outfit for undertaking this work than any of the others who were likely to be rivals for the privilege of exploring and occupying that region.

Pedro de Alvarado was the least known of these rival claimants. He had been a lieutenant of Cortes until he secured an independent command in Guatemala, Yucatan and Honduras, where he subdued the natives, but discovered nothing except that there was nowhere in these regions any store of gold or treasures. Abandoning this field, he tried to win a share in the conquests of Pizarro and Almagro. He approached Peru from the north, and conducted his army across the mountains. This march, one of the most disastrous in colonial history, so completely destroyed the efficiency of his force that the conquerors of Peru easily compelled him to sell them what was left of his expedition. They paid a considerable sum, weighed out in bars of silver which he found, after his return to Panama, to be made of lead with a silver veneering.[18] Alvarado was ready to abandon the work of conquering America, and had forwarded a petition to the King, asking that he might be allowed to return to Spain, when Mendoza, or the audiencia which was controlled by the enemies of Alvarado, furthered his desires by ordering him to go to the mother country and present himself before the throne. This was in 1536. While at court Alvarado must have met Cabeza de Vaca. He changed his plans for making a voyage to the South seas, and secured from the King, whose favor he had easily regained, a commission which allowed him to build a fleet in Central America and explore the South sea—the Pacific—toward the west or the north. He returned to America early in 1539, bringing with him everything needed in the equipment of a large fleet.

XL. Sebastian Cabot’s Map of 1544 [◊] After Kretschmer