FROM DISCOVERIES TO EMPIRE^101appointment turned into attraction, for it meant that the treasure was
still to be found. Columbus, the bumbler, just didn't know where to
look. This was just the beginning, and the rewards would go to the
quickest. Merchant venturers bought and fitted old ships, built new
ones, hired crews from a hundred leagues around. In trouble? Start
over across the water. Men-at-arms and freelance caballeros, rough
necks, rogues, and ruffians, came forward to seek or remake their for
tune. These people cherished the legends and fables of "chivalric
romance"—the comic books of that age—tales of Amazons, headless
and cynocephalous monsters, or better yet, of El Dorado (the Man of
Gold). The Amazon legend was a particular favorite, combining as it
did the themes of female and male prowess. These woman warriors
were reported everywhere, always beyond the next cordillera or on an
island some days journey away. In one instance, they were said to be
coming to Spain, ten thousand of them, to get themselves pregnant
"by the men of our nation, whose reputation for gallantry is well es
tablished."* The very extravagance of these tales and promises made
for credence. Anything and everything was possible in those distant
lands.
For a quarter of a century, the Spanish sailed about the Caribbean,
touching the continents to south and north, always disappointed not
to find the treasures that presumably lay just beyond the next landfall.
They comforted themselves for the nonce with slaves, botanical nov
elties, exotic fauna, pieces of gold that hinted at mother lodes. Mes
sengers went back to Spain with jewels and nuggets, by way of
inducing the crown to send back reinforcements, animals, weapons.
Meanwhile parties of conquistadors planted themselves, their flag, their
cross; established "cities" in the legalistic tradition of the European
commune and named them after divinities, saints, and sundry sacred
objects; traded colored beads for gold pebbles; took part in native ri
valries and played one tribe against another. They fought, terrorized,
tortured, and killed the natives; bedded their wives, daughters, and
Spanish-made relicts; and brought many a pagan soul to salvation,
often at the same time as they extinguished the body. And always they
asked after gold. Their persistence says much for their appetite... and
- This may have been intended as a consolation for those who could not get to the
New World and meet the Amazons on their home turf. From a letter of 1533 from
Martin de Salinas, official in Valladolid, to the secretary of Charles V—Gomez, L'in
vention, pp. 120-21. Legend had it that Amazons coupled two or three times a year
in order to have children, then gave the male babies away.