Corregidor, a magistrate having civil and criminal jurisdiction in the first instance (nisi prius) and gubernatorial inspection in the political and economical government in all the towns of the district assigned to him. There were corregidores letrados (learned in the law), políticos (political), de capa y espada (cloak and sword), and políticos y militares (holding civil and military authority). All had equal jurisdiction. When the corregidor or mayor was not by profession a lawyer, unless he had an asesor of his own, the alcalde mayor, if possessed of legal knowledge, became his adviser, which greatly increased the importance of the latter. The alcalde mayor was appointed by the king. He must be by profession a lawyer, twenty-six years of age, and of good character. He could neither be a native of the district in which he was to exercise his functions, nor could he marry a wife in his district. Recop. de Indias, ii. 113-27 and note. So much for the law. Practically in cases of this kind, where the governor was not learned in the law, civil, criminal, and some phases even of military authority devolved on the alcalde mayor, the two first ex officio, and the last as the legal adviser of the military chief. In new colonies this officer was invested with powers almost equal to those of the governor, though of a different kind.
[VI-8] A document prepared by the united wisdom of church and state, for general use in the Indies, setting forth the obligations of all good savages to their dual head of Spain and Rome, with a list of punishments which were to follow disobedience. Of which more hereafter.
[VI-9] To this day there are tribes in the vicinity of the Atrato River which have never been subjugated.
[VI-10] I am unable to find this place on any map. Gomara, Hist. Ind., 68, says: 'Començo luego vna fortaleza, y pueblo, donde se recoger, y assegurar en el mismo lugar que quatro años antes lo auia comẽçado Iuan dela Cosa. Este fue el primer pueblo de Españoles en la tierra firme de Indias.' If the author refers his first town to the former visit of Juan de la Cosa four years before, I should say that could scarcely be called an attempted settlement, still less an established town. If he intimates that this fort of Ojeda's was the first settlement, then is he wrong, for Belen, in Veragua, was before this. Whatever he means, and that often is impossible to determine, in this instance it is safe to say that he is in error, as San Sebastian can by no possibility have been the first settlement in Tierra Firme. Herrera writes, i. vii. xvi.: 'Entrò en el golfo de Vrabà, y buscò el rio del Darien, que entre los Indios era muy celebrado de oro, y de gente belicosa, y no le hallando, sobre vnos cerros assentó vn pueblo, al qual llamò la villa de san Sebastian, tomandole por abogado contra las flechas de la yerua mortifera: y esta fue la segunda villa de Castellanos que se poblò, en todo la tierra firme, auiendo sido la primera la que començò a poblar el Almirante viejo, en Veragua.' Words to the same effect are in Navarrete, Col. de Viages, iii. 172. It seems rather premature to call these futile attempts establishing towns.
[VI-11] The first in Tierra Firme, Oviedo says, but he forgets the landing, for the same purpose, of Bartolomé Colon at Cape Honduras, Sunday, August 14, 1502.
[VI-12] When Oviedo gravely asserts that Ribero intended desertion, and was stealing by Belen when he was captured by Olano, he goes out of his way to make palpable nonsense appear as truth. Admit them inhuman monsters, which they were not, whither would four starved helpless wretches desert on this deadly shore?
[VI-13] Chagre, not Chagres, was the name of the native province through which this river flows. Near its mouth empty several small streams, and it was only below the confluence of these that the term Lagartos for any length of time applied. Says Alcedo, Dic., i., of the River Chagre:—'Lo descubrió el de 1527 Hernando de la Serna llamándole rio de Lagartos, y antes su boca Lope de Olano el de 1510.' Oviedo remarks upon it:—'Algunos han querido deçir que los de aquesta armada le dieron este nombre, porque ninguna cosa viva saltaba de los navíos que en pressençia de la gente no se la comiessen luego muy grandes lagartos, lo qual se experimentó en algunos perros. Este rio es la boca del rio Chagre.' Hist. Gen., ii. 467. Acosta is somewhat loose in the statement, Compend. Hist. Nueva Granada, 34, 'En la boca del rio Chagres, que entonces llamaban de los Lagartos por la multitud de caimanes que Colon habia visto en él.' Vaz Dourado places, on Munich Atlas, no. x., 1571, in this vicinity a river with the word chi. Munich Atlas no. ix. has it Chiche. De Laet writes R. de Chagre; Dampier, R. Chagre; Jefferys, R. Chagre and Ft. Chagre.
[VI-14] The name familiar to cartographers often assumed in those days peculiar orthography on the maps. Thus Fernando Colon writes this name nõbre; Ribero, nõb; Agnese, nõmbre de dio; Vaz Dourado, nöbre de dios; Ramusio, Nome de dio; Hondius, in Purchas, Nom de Dios; Mercator, Dampier, Ogilby, the author of West-Indische Spieghel, Jefferys, and their successors, contrary to their frequent custom, all write the words correctly. This place, as we shall hereafter see, was for a long time famous as the chief post on the northern coast of Tierra Firme through which passed the merchandise from Spain and the gold from Peru. Says Benzoni, Hist. Mondo Nvovo, 79: 'Questa Città stà situata nel mare di Tramontana. Sogliono adunque communemente ogn'anno andare di Spagna al Nome di Dio, da quattordici, ò quindici naui, fra piccole, e grande, e la maggior porterà mille, e ottocento salme; cariche di robbe diuerse.' Dampier about a century later found the spot where the city had stood overgrown with trees. Its abandonment was owing to poisoned air, the same unwholesome climate that broke up all the early settlements on this coast, the last being always regarded as the worst.
[VI-15] The original authorities for this chapter are: Real Cédula, etc., in Navarrete, Col. de Viages, iii. 116; Memorial presentado al Rey por Rodrigo de Colmenares, in Navarrete, Col. de Viages, iii. 387; Las Casas, Hist. Ind., ii. 61; Oviedo, ii. 465-78; Noticias biográficas del capitan Alonso Hojeda, in Navarrete, Col. de Viages, iii. 163; Gomara, Hist. Ind., 69; Peter Martyr, dec. ii. 2; Herrera, dec. i. lib. vii. cap. vii. Reference, mostly unimportant, to the doings of Ojeda and Nicuesa may be found in Ramusio, Viaggi, iii. 18-22; Roberts' Nar. Voy., xviii.-xix.; Dalton's Conq. Mex. and Peru, 37-38; Montanus, Nieuwe Weereld, 62-65; Morelet, Voy. dans l'Amérique Cent., ii. 300-1; Laharpe, Abrégé, ix. 160-84; Ogilby's Am., 66-67, 397; March y Labores, Marina Española, i. 391-402; Juan and Ulloa, Voy., i. 94; Acosta, Compend. Hist. Nueva Granada, 26-36; Remesal, Hist. Chyapa, 163; Andagoya, Nar., 4-5; Nouvelle An. des Voy., cxlviii. 7-10; Dufey, Résumé Hist. Am., i. 66-71, 371-75; Helps' Span. Conq., i. 295-334; Gordon's Hist. Am., ii. 62-72; Holmes' Annals Am., i. 29-30; Lardner's Hist. Discov., ii. 37-40; Gonzalez Dávila, Teatro Ecles., ii. 57; Quintana, Vidas, 'Vasco Nuñez,' 1-10, and 'Pizarro,' 42-43; Robinson's Acct. Discov. in West, 171-95; S. Am. and Mex., i. 12-14; Snowden's Am., 70-1; Robertson's Hist. Am., i. 191-95; Irving's Col., iii. 66-31; Russell's Hist. Am., i. 43-8; Drake's Voy., 155-58; London Geog. Soc., Jour., xxiii. 179; Du Perier, Gen. Hist. Voy., 110-13; Pizarro y Orellana, Varones Ilvstres, 53-61; Benzoni, Hist. Mondo Nvovo, 36-47; Morelli, Fasti Novi Orbis, 14; Bastidas, Informacion, in Pacheco and Cárdenas, Col. Doc., ii. 439; Décadas, in Pacheco and Cárdenas, Col. Doc., viii. 14; Mesa y Leompart, Hist. Am., i. 85-86; Touron, Hist. Gen. Am., i. 275-87; Lallement, Geschichte, i. 22.
[VII-1] So named by the early settlers of Antigua, probably because of its being on the other side of the gulf from them, toward the Carib country. It is now known as Punta Arenas. Some maps make two points, and give one of the names to each.