We come now to the time when Antonio de Leon Pinelo, judge in the India House, presented to the Council of the Indies the first and second books, nearly complete, of his Discurso sobre la importancia, forma, y disposicion de la Recopilacion de Leies de Indias, which was printed in one volume, folio, in 1623. This was in reality Encinas' work with some cédulas added. Meanwhile it appears that some direct official work was done on a compilation, for in 1624 we find the Council instructing Pinelo to enter into relations with the custodian of the material for the compilation. Pinelo was likewise authorized to examine the archives of the Council; and for two years he employed himself continuously in examining some 500 MS. volumes of cédulas, containing over 300,000 documents. In the law authorizing the Recopilacion de las Indias of 1680, it is said that in 1622 the task had been entrusted to Rodrigo de Aguiar y Acuña, probably the custodian referred to. In 1628 it was thought best to print for the use of the Council an epitome of the part completed; hence appeared the Sumarios de la Recopilacion General de las Leies de las Indias. Aguiar y Acuña dying, Pinelo worked on alone until 1634, when the Council approved of what had been done; and in the year following this indefatigable and learned man had the satisfaction of presenting the completed Recopilacion de las Indias. To one of the members, Juan de Solórzano y Pereira, the work was referred, and received his approbation in 1636. More than half a million of cédulas had been examined and classified during the progress of this compilation. And yet it was not published; and during the delay it was becoming obsolete, and new material and partial compilations were being made both in Spain and in America, some of which were printed in separate pieces. In 1634 the Ordenanzas de la Junta de Guerra de Indias were published; in 1646 Juan Diez de la Calle compiled and published for the Council of the Indies in small quarto a memorial containing some of the cédulas of the Recopilacion. A useful aid for the study of statistic geography in America is to be found in the exceedingly rare Memorial y Noticias Sacras y Reales del Imperio de las Indias Occidentales. By Iuan Diez de la Calle, 1646, sm. 4to, 183 folios. A register for the Spanish colonies, chiefly of state and church officials, of towns, their wealth and notable objects. Folios 41-132 refer to the jurisdictions of the audiencias of Mexico, Guadalajara, and Guatemala. Calle had in the previous year, as assistant chief clerk to the secretary of the Royal Council of the Indies, presented the work to the king as Memorial Informatorio al Rey, and in accordance with his approval it had been reprinted with additions as above. Encouraged hereby he wrote at greater length the Noticias Sacras i Reales in twelve libros, the publication of which was begun, but never finished. Puga's work was continued in the form of an Inventario of the cédulas relating to New Spain issued from 1567-1620, the manuscript being presented to the secretary of the New Spain department of the Council of the Indies by Francisco de Párraga, afterward forming part of the Barcia collection. In 1647 appeared at Seville the Ordenanças Reales, para la Casa de Contratacion de Sevilla, y para otras cosas de las Indias; in 1658 Pinelo published at Madrid the Autos, acuerdos y decretos de gobierno del real y supremo consejo de las Indias. In 1661 there was printed at Madrid a folio entitled Ordenanzas para remedio de los daños, é inconvenientes que se siguen de los descaminos i arribadas maliciosas de los Navios que navegan de las Indias Occidentales; and in 1672 the Norte de la Contratacion de las Indias Occidentales of Ioseph de Veitia Linage was published at Seville. J. Stevens translated this last work into English and published it in London in 1702.
The many and long periods of suspended animation of the Recopilacion de Indias, between its inception and its birth, is no less remarkable a feature in the history of the work than its multiplicity of origins and collateral affluents. In 1660 the case was brought before the king, and then referred to successive committees, in each of which were several members of the Council, the whole being under the supervision of their successive presidents, until finally, on the 18th of May, 1680, a royal decree made the Recopilacion de Indias law, and all ordinances conflicting therewith null. Even now printing did not seem to be at first thought of. Two authenticated copies were ordered made, one to be kept in the archives of the Council, and the other at Simancas. It was soon seen, however, that this was not sufficient, and in 1681 the king ordered the book printed under the superintendence of the Council of the Indies, which was done. Although the Recopilacion de Indias was several times revised, and well fulfilled its mission for over a hundred years, in fact to the end of Spain's dominion in America, several partial collections appeared from time to time in Spain and in America. Among these were Sumarios de las Cédulas ... que se han despachado ... desde el año 1628 ... hasta ... 1677, printed in Mexico in 1678; Ordenanzas del Perù, Lima, 1685; also the Ordenanhas de Cruçada, para los Subdelegados del Perù; Reglamento y Aranceles Reales para el Comercio Libre de España à Indias, 1778; Teatro de la legislacion universal de España e Indias, by Antonio Javier Perez y Lopez, 28 vols. 4to, Madrid, 1791-8. In the various public and private archives of Spain and Spanish America are manuscript collections of cédulas and compilations on special subjects.
[VI-1] The world was at a loss at first what to call the newly found region to the westward. It was easy enough to name the islands, one after another, as they were discovered, but when the Spaniards reached the continent they were backward about giving it a general name. Everything was so dark and uncertain; islands were mistaken for continent, and continent for islands. The simple expression New World that fell with the first exclamations of wonder from the lips of Europeans on learning of the success of Columbus sufficed for a time as a general appellation. More general and more permanent was the name India, arising from the mistake that this was the farther side or eastern shore of India, applied at first to the continent as well as to the islands, and which fastened itself permanently on the people as well as on the country. 'Segun la opinion mas probable, que penetró hasta aquellos parages, y tambien mas comunmente se da à este nuevo mundo descubierto, el nombre de Indias Occidentales, para distinguirlas de las verdaderas que están situadas en la Asia à nuestro Oriente entre el Indo, y el Ganges.' Nueva España, Brev. Res., MS. i. 3. As the coast line of the continent extended itself and became known as such it was very naturally called by navigators tierra firme, firm land, in contradistinction to the islands which were supposed to be less firm. And, indeed, not the islands only, but the people of the islands are inconstant, the moon being mistress of the waters. As Las Casas, Hist. Indias, iii. 395, puts it, 'La naturaleza dellos no les consiente tener perseverancia en la virtud, quier por ser insulares, que naturalmente tienen ménos constancia, por ser la luna señora de las aguas.' The name Tierra Firme, thus general at first, in time became particular. As a designation for an unknown shore it at first implied only the Continent. As discovery unfolded, and the magnitude of this Firm Land became better known, new parts of it were designated by new names, and Tierra Firme became a local appellation in place of a general term. Paria being first discovered, it fastened itself there; also along the shore to Darien, Veragua, and on to Costa Rica, where at no well defined point it stopped, so far as the northern seaboard was concerned, and in due time struck across to the South Sea, where the name marked off an equivalent coast line. Lopez Vaz, in Purchas, His Pilgrimes, iv. 1433, says, 'From this Land of Veragua vnto the Iland of Margereta, the Coast along is called the firme Land, not for that the other places are not of the firme Land, but because it was the first firme Land that the Spaniards did conquer after they had past the Ilands.' In the Recop. de Indias, i. 324, is a law dated 1535, and repeated 1537, 1538, 1563, 1570, 1571, and 1588, which places within the limits of the kingdom of Tierra Firme the province of Castilla del Oro. As a political division Tierra Firme had existence for a long time. It comprised the provinces of Darien, Veragua, and Panamá, which last bore also the name of Tierra Firme as a province. The extent of the kingdom was 65 leagues in length by 18 at its greatest breadth, and nine leagues at its smallest width. It was bounded on the east by Cartagena, and the gulf of Urabá and its river; on the west by Costa Rica, including a portion of what is now Costa Rica; and on the north and south by the two seas. On the maps of Novvs Orbis seu descriptionis Indiæ Occidentalis by De Laet, 1633, and of Ogilby's America, 1671, the Isthmus is called Tierra Firme. Villagutierre writes in 1701, Hist. Conq. Itza, 12, 'Tierra-Firme de la Costa de Paria, ò Provincia, que llamò de Veragua; principio de los dilatados Reynos de aquel Nuevo, y Grande Emisferio.' Neither Guatemala, Mexico, nor any of the lands to the north were ever included in Tierra Firme. English authors often apply the Latin form, Terra Firma, to this division, which is misleading.
The early Spanish writers were filled with disgust by the misnomer America. Pizarro y Orellana, Varones Ilvstres, in his preface speaks of the 'Nueva, y riquissima Parte del Mundo, que se llama vulgarmẽte America, y nosotros llamamos Fer-Isabelica;' and throughout his book the author persists, where 'Nuovo Mundo' is not employed, in calling America Fer-Isabelica, that is to say Ferdinand and Isabella, an attempt at name-changing no less futile than bungling. This was in 1639. If with these seventeenth-century writers the name Columbia, the only appropriate one for the New World, smacked too strongly of Genoa, they might have called it Pinzonia, which would have been in better taste, at least, than in bestowing the honor on the cold and haggling sovereigns. Jules Marcou, like thousands of his class who seek fame through foolishness, writes in the Atlantic Monthly, March, 1875, to prove that the name America came from a mountain range in Nicaragua, called by the natives Americ, which became a synonym for the golden mainland, first at the islands and then in Europe, until it finally reached the foot of the Vosges, where Waldsee-Müller, or Hylacomylus of Saint Dié, confuses it with the name of Vespucci, and is led to print in the preface of Vespucci's Voyages:—'And the fourth part of the world having been discovered by Americus may well be called Amerige, which is as much as to say, the land of Americus, or America.' Had the name been so early and so commonly applied to Tierra Firme, it is strange that some one of the many Spanish writers in the Indies or in Spain had not employed it or mentioned it. Villagutierre in 1701 endorses the effort made by Pizarro y Orellana in 1639, saying, Hist. Conq. Itza, 13, that the New World should have been called after the Catholic sovereigns, 'de cuya orden, y à cuyas expensas se descubrian.' He states further, on the authority of Simon, that the Council of the Indies as late as 1620 talked of changing the name, but were deterred by the inconvenience involved. Likewise Vetancurt, Teatro Mex., 13-15, in 1698 says that the name America should be erased from history, calling attention to the bull of partition issued by Pope Adrian VI., which alludes to the new lands as the Western Part—only it was not Adrian but Alexander VI. who perpetrated the bull, in which moreover there is no such term as Western Part used—arguing therefrom that Indias Occidentales was the most proper term. On the application and origin of the name America see [cap. i. p. 123-5 of this volume].
[VI-2] Now gulf of Darién. The name Urabá was first applied to the gulf by Bastidas, or by navigators immediately following him. Subsequently the territory on the eastern side of the gulf was called Urabá, and that on the western side Darien. On Peter Martyr's map, India beyond the Ganges, 1510, is the word vraba; on the globe of Orontius, 1531, Sinus vraba is applied to the gulf, and vrabe to the river Atrato. Pilestrina, Munich Atlas, no. iv., 1515, places G: d epimeg at the southern end of the gulf, which is represented as very wide. Maiollo, Munich Atlas, no. v., 1519, writes Vraba in small letters at the southern end; also the words aldea, tera plana, and Rio basso.
[VI-3] Castilla del Oro was for the time but another name for this part of Tierra Firme. Then Castilla del Oro became a province of Tierra Firme; for in the Recop. de Indias, ii. 110, we find ordered by the emperor in 1550, 'que la Provincia de Tierrafirme, llamada Castilla del Oro, sea de las Provincial del Perú, y no de las de Nueva España.' The province of Veragua, and the territory 'back of the gulf of Urabá, where dwelt the cacique Cimaco,' were declared within the limits of the government of Tierra Firme. Helps, Span. Conq., i. 400, calls a map of that portion of South America extending from the gulf of Maracaibo to the gulf of Urabá by the name Castilla del Oro. I have noticed in several of the early maps the same mistake. Colon and Ribero call only the Pearl Coast Castilla del Oro. In West-Indische Spieghel, 1624, 64, the country between the Atrato and a river flowing into the gulf of Venezuela is called Castilla del Oro. Humboldt, Exam. Crit., i. 320, erroneously narrows the limits of Nicuesa's government to that 'partie de la Terre-Ferme placée entre le Veragua et le golfe d'Uraba, où commençait la governacion de Hojeda;' for Navarrete says distinctly in his Noticias biográficas del capitan Alonso Hojeda, Col. de Viages, iii. 170, 'Los límites de la gobernacion de Hojeda eran desde el cabo de la Vela hasta la mitad del golfo de Urabá, que llamaron nueva Andalucía; y los de la gobernacion de Diego de Nicuesa, que se le concedió al mismo tiempo, desde la otra mitad del golfo hasta el cabo de Gracias á Dios, que se denominó Castilla del Oro.' He who some time after drew the commission of Pedrarias Dávila as 'Gobernador de la provincia de Castilla del Oro en el Darien,' is sadly confused in his New World geography when he writes, Navarrete, Col. de Viages, iii. 337, 'Una muy grand parte de tierra que fasta aquí se ha llamado Tierra-firme, é agora mandamos que se llame Castilla del Oro, y en ella ha hecho nuestra gente un asiento en el golfo de Urabá, que es en la provincia del Darien, que al presente se llama la provincia de Andalucía la Nueva, é el pueblo se dice Santa Maria del Antigua del Darien;' and again on the following page:—'Castilla del Oro, con tanto que no se entienda ni comprenda en ella la provincia de Verágua, cuya gobernacion pertenece al Almirante D. Diego Colon por le haber descubierto el Almirante su padre por su persona, ni la tierra que descubrieron Vicente Yañez Pinzon é Juan Diaz de Solis, ni la provincia de Pária.' Oviedo marks the limits plainly enough, iv. 116, 'Por la costa del Norte tiene hasta Veragua, que lo que con aquel corresponde en la costa del Sur puede ser la punta de Chame, que está quince leguas al Poniente de Panamá, é desde allí para arriba seria Castilla del Oro hasta lo que respondiesse ó responde de Norte á Sur.' The Descripcion Panamá, in Pacheco and Cárdenas, Col. Doc., ix. 82, says the official name was Provincia de Castilla del Oro y reino de Tierra Firme, and so remained till the beginning of the 17th century, and afterward Bética áurea, or Castilla del oro, is written in Décadas, Pacheco and Cárdenas, Col. Doc., viii. 14.
[VI-4] And no wonder misunderstandings should arise over a cédula dividing territory in such words as, 'á vos el dicho Diego de Nicuesa en el parte de Veragua y el dicho Alonso de Hojeda en el parte de Urabá.' Navarrete, Col. de Viages, iii. 116.
[VI-5] Peter Martyr, dec. ii. cap. i., gives Nicuesa 795, and Ojeda 300 men. Herrera, dec. i. lib. vii. cap. xi., says that 700 sailed from Española with Nicuesa and 300 with Ojeda. 'No pudiendo Hojeda por su pobreza aprestar la expedicion, la Cosa y otros amigos le fletaron una nao, y uno ó dos bergantines, que con doscientos hombres.' Noticias biográficas del capitan Alonso Hojeda, Navarrete, Col. de Viages, iii. 170. Benzoni, who pays little heed to numbers or dates, says, Hist. Mondo Nvovo, 37, 'Hoieda comprò quattro naui e fece più di quattrocento soldati alle fue spese, e cosi partì san Domenico.'
[VI-6] 'Bachiller,' says the English translator of Benzoni, 'has a wider meaning than our word bachelor, signifying also an inferior order of knighthood.' This is a mistake. The word has the same corresponding significance in both languages. It is true that the degree exempts the possessor from certain obligations, such as personal service, military and municipal, imprisonment for debt, etc., and grants him certain privileges enjoyed by noblemen. But this does not make him noble. The next degree, which is that of licentiate, carries with it still further privileges, but even this does not constitute knighthood. The degree of doctor, which follows that of licentiate and is the highest conferred by the university, gives the possessor the right to prefix Don to his name, and places him in nearly every respect on a par with noblemen.
[VI-7] The word alcalde is from the Arabic al cadi, the judge or governor. Alcalde ordinario used formerly to designate the officer having the immediate superintendency of a town or city, with cognizance of judicial matters except those of persons enjoying some privilege (fuero). Alcalde mayor signifies a judge, learned in the law, who exercises ordinary jurisdiction, civil and criminal, in a town or district. The office is equivalent to that of district judge in the United States, the audiencia standing for the supreme court. There were, however, in the early years, alcaldes mayores who were not law judges, or men learned in the law; they governed for the king a town or city not the capital of a province.