The History of Cuba, vol. 1

by Willis Fletcher Johnson

The middle of November, 1518, was the crucial and indeed epochal time; in which the fate of Velasquez, the fortunes of Cortez, and in a large measure the future of the Spanish empire in America, were all decided. Within a week, three major incidents occurred. First, on November 13, Velasquez received his commission from the King, as Adelantado of Cuba and all new lands which he might cause to be discovered. In getting that for him, De Ducro and De Lares fulfilled their promise; whereupon Velasquez in turn fulfilled his agreement, by confirming the appointment of Cortez. Two days later, on November 15, Grijalva arrived at Santiago, and as already stated was unfavorably received. Nevertheless, the apprehensions of Cortez were partially fulfilled. Velasquez did not, indeed, restore his nephew to favor, but he was so impressed by the reports and visible and tangible tokens of the wealth of Mexico, that he hesitated to let Cortez go. The thought occurred to him that it would be better to go himself, or to send somebody upon whom he could more implicitly depend.

His hesitation became known to Cortez, and of course greatly disquieted and alarmed him. But with the intrepidity and resolution which were characteristic of him, he hastened his preparations for departure and added to them preparations for breaking away by force if that should be necessary. It has been said by some that he finally sailed secretly, by night. Las Casas tells that story, and the American historian of Cortez, Prescott, credits and repeats it. Others have pictured Cortez as sailing away openly, with Velasquez falling upon his knees on the shore, imploring him not to go. We may prudently relegate both these versions to the realm of imagination. The far more likely story is that given by honest Bernal Diaz. He tells us that Andres de Ducro—probably knowing that there was danger that Velasquez would change his mind and revoke the appointment of Cortez—urged Cortez to sail without delay; that Cortez accordingly, the second day after Grijalva's arrival at Santiago ordered all his men to go aboard ship and remain there; that he then went with De Ducro and De Lares to bid Velasquez adieu; and that the next day, November 18, after attending an early mass at the cathedral, he went aboard and at once set sail for Mexico. That was five days after the appointment of Velasquez as Adelantado, and three days after the arrival of the real discoverer of Mexico, Grijalva, at Santiago.

With those three incidents, as we have said, a new era began. We need not here concern ourselves with the further doings of Cortez, excepting in that he took from Cuba several hundred of its most venturesome and competent men, including many of those who had been with Grijalva; and that he promptly renounced the authority of Velasquez over the new lands which were to be discovered. The breach between the two occurred when Cortez, having sailed from Santiago, put into the Cuban port of Trinidad for men and supplies. There he was intercepted by a messenger from Velasquez, with orders to return at once to Santiago. If he would not obey this summons, the Alcalde, Verduzo, was authorized forcibly to deprive him of his commission and to give it instead to Vasco Portallo. The latter was a friend of Velasquez, who had formerly been considered by him for the leadership of the expedition, before the choice fell on Cortez. Another candidate had been Baltazar Bermudez, whom indeed Velasquez actually selected for the place, only to have him decline it.

Cortez, as might have been expected, refused to return. Instead, he prevailed upon the Governor's own messenger to join his expedition. To the demand of the Alcalde, that he surrender his commission, he replied with a haughty refusal, and so strong was the force which he had with him that Verduzo prudently refrained from any attempt to coerce him. He then wrote a friendly letter to Velasquez, assuring him that he was giving himself needless concern, took on additional supplies, and resumed his voyage. He had previously helped himself freely from a royal storehouse at Macaca, saying that he was going on the King's business and was therefore entitled to the King's goods. Also he is said to have stopped a merchant ship bound for Hispaniola, and to have taken such goods from its cargo as he desired.

Thus provided, he next put in at the harbor at or near Batabano which had in 1514 been called San Cristobal de la Havana, but which by this time was falling into some disuse and was surrendering its name to the far more important port on the northern coast. Here another messenger from Velasquez intercepted him, with a similar command, to which Cortez gave a similar reply. Last of all, he touched at Guane, on what is now appropriately known as Cortez Bay, near the western extremity of the island; and thence, at the middle of February, 1519, left Cuba for the island of Cozumel, thence to proceed to Vera Cruz, Mexico. The story of his burning his ships after he had landed, in order that his men might have no thought or hope of returning, is historic, and is true. But in effect he did the same, at least for himself, before that time. He departed from Cuba in circumstances which made his return to that island impossible; at least as long as Velasquez was its governor. Then, to seal the matter and make the breach with his former friend and patron more absolutely irremediable, immediately upon landing at Vera Cruz he organized a government by appointing some of his own men to be a municipal council. Then to that Council of his own creation he surrendered the commission which Velasquez had bestowed upon him; and finally, also from his own creatures, he accepted appointment as Royal Governor of New Spain!

It was of course out of the question that Velasquez would meekly acquiesce in this flouting of his authority, and particularly in this open attempt to deprive him of his newly-won authority as Adelantado of Mexico. He immediately reported to the King what Cortez had done, and protested against it as a defiance of the King's authority as well as his own. But Cortez answered his protests and appeals to the Crown with still more potent arguments in justification of his course. These arguments took the form of bars and ingots of gold, which he secured in Mexico and sent to Spain; in some cases "ballasting his ships" with the precious metal. One of the first of these treasure ships was a brigantine, dispatched in the midsummer of 1519 under the pilot-captain Alaminos. As it passed Havana it was espied by Juan de Rojas, a cousin of Velasquez, who sent word of it to Velasquez. The latter sent out Gonzalo de Guzman to intercept and seize it, but he failed in the errand.

Finding his appeals and protests ineffective against the gold of Cortez, Velasquez determined to use force. He was Adelantado, by royal commission. Therefore Cortez was a rebel. He rallied his friends, in both Cuba and Hispaniola. He used his own immense wealth freely for the purchase and equipment of ships. He enlisted an army twice as great as the force which had accompanied Cortez. With this expedition he purposed to follow Cortez to Mexico, and compel his submission. Whether he would have succeeded in this undertaking, had it not been interfered with, must remain subject matter of speculation; for there was prompt and effective interference. Diego Columbus, in Hispaniola, became much concerned. He was still Admiral, and nominally, at least, superior in authority to Velasquez as well as to Cortez, and he did not wish to have his subordinates fighting among themselves. So he sent one of the most eminent Spanish colonial judges, Lucas Vasquez de Ayllon, to Cuba to make peace. This envoy reached Santiago in January, 1520, just in time to find that Velasquez and his expedition had already sailed for Mexico. With the swiftest vessel he could find he set out in pursuit, and was lucky enough to overtake them where they had stopped for supplies, in Corrientes Bay, near the extreme western point of the island.

Ayllon seems to have been vested with no actual authority over Velasquez. He merely tried to dissuade him from executing his purpose. He urged him to content himself with sending one or two vessels on to Mexico, with a summons to Cortez, to return or at least to abandon his pretensions of independence and to acknowledge the authority of Velasquez; under penalty of being reported to the King as a contumacious rebel. The rest of the expedition, he suggested, might be used in explorations elsewhere. Above all, he pleaded with Velasquez not to go to Mexico himself, but to return to Santiago, where his presence was sorely needed. Velasquez yielded to these entreaties so far as to abandon personal leadership of the expedition. He made Panfilo de Narvaez leader in his stead, and then returned to Santiago. Ayllon went along with Narvaez, to keep the peace. The result was that soon after landing in Mexico, Narvaez was wounded and made captive by Cortez, and practically all his men, with their stores, munitions, arms and ships, who had been sent out to subdue Cortez, became loyal followers of that resourceful conquistador. In fact, we may judiciously reckon that Cortez owed his success in the conquest of Mexico to the reenforcements which he thus received from the expedition which had been sent against him.

Later, it is true, some members of Narvaez's party became a source of serious peril to Cortez. This was at the beginning of the year 1521, after the death of Montezuma and the noche triste, and at the time when Cortez was planning to return to the city of Mexico as its conqueror. A number of Narvaez's men entered into a conspiracy to assassinate Cortez, and at their head was one Villafana, who had been a very close friend and earnest partisan of Velasquez. Because of that relationship, it was suspected by Cortez that the man had been incited to undertake the crime by Velasquez himself. Of this there was, however, no proof, and no attempt was made to fasten responsibility or odium upon Velasquez; which we may be sure would have been done had any real ground for it been discovered. By interesting coincidence, the conspiracy was made, detected and punished at the very time when, as we shall see, Velasquez was being removed from the Governorship of Cuba.

Villafana modelled his plans upon those of the slayers of Julius Cæsar. All the conspirators were to approach Cortez in public, and one of them was to approach him with what should purport to be a letter from his father, Martin Cortez, just arrived on a vessel from Spain. The moment he took the letter and began to read it, all were to rush upon him and stab him with their knives. Cortez detected the plot just in time. He personally went with guards to Villafana's apartments and arrested him, while others took the other conspirators into custody. Villafana was put to death, and the others were imprisoned. Then Cortez, with characteristic resourcefulness, turned the incident to account for his own profit, by making it the pretext for continually thereafter surrounding himself with an armed body guard of his most trusted soldiers.