THE CONQUEST OF MEXICO 61
BALBOA AND MAGELLAN
Others followed in the wake of Columbus’s ships
and gradually made known the immense extent
of the mainland coast of South America. In 1499
Alonso de Ojeda, accompanied by the pilot Juan
de la Cosa and the Florentine Amerigo Vespucci,
sailed to the mouths of the Orinoco and explored the
coast of Venezuela. Vespucci took part in another
voyage in 1501–1502 under the fl ag of Portugal.
This expedition, sent to follow up the discovery of
Brazil by Pedro Álvares Cabral in 1500, explored
the Brazilian coast from Salvador da Bahia to Rio
de Janeiro before turning back. Vespucci’s letters
to his patrons, Giovanni and Lorenzo de’ Medici,
reveal an urbane, cultivated Renaissance fi gure
with a fl air for lively and realistic description of the
fauna, fl ora, and inhabitants of the New World. His
letters were published and circulated widely in the
early 1500s. One (whose authenticity is disputed)
told of a nonexistent voyage in 1497 and gave him
the fame of being the fi rst European to set foot on
the South American continent. A German geogra-
pher, Martin Waldseemuller, decided to honor Ves-
pucci by assigning the name “America” to the area
of Brazil in a map of the newly discovered lands.
The name caught on and presently was applied to
the whole of the New World.
A growing shortage of indigenous labor and
the general lack of economic opportunities for
new settlers on Hispaniola incited Spanish slave
hunters and adventurers to conquer the remain-
ing Greater Antilles. Puerto Rico, Jamaica, and
Cuba were occupied between 1509 and 1511. In
the same period, efforts to found colonies on the
coast of northern Colombia and Panama failed
disastrously, and the remnants of two expeditions
were united under the energetic leadership of the
conquistador Vasco Núñez de Balboa to form the
new settlement of Darien on the Isthmus of Pan-
ama. Moved by local tales of a great sea, south of
which lay a land overfl owing with gold, Balboa led
an expedition across the forests and mountains of
Panama to the shores of the Pacifi c. He might have
gone on to make contact with the Inca Empire of
Peru if he had not aroused the jealousy of his terri-
ble father-in-law, the “two-legged tiger,” Pedrarias
Dávila, sent out by Charles V in 1514 as governor
of the isthmus. Charged with treason and deser-
tion, Balboa was tried, condemned, and beheaded
in 1519.
After Balboa had confi rmed the existence of
the Pacifi c Ocean, subsequent European voyages
centered on the search for a waterway to the East
through or around the American continent. Fer-
dinand Magellan, a Portuguese who had fought
in India and the East Indies, was convinced that
a short passage to the East existed south of Bra-
zil. Failing to interest the Portuguese king in his
project, Magellan turned to Spain, with greater
success. The resulting voyage of circumnaviga-
tion of the globe from 1519 to 1522, the fi rst in
history, represented an immense navigational feat
and greatly increased Europe’s stock of geographic
knowledge. Aside from the acquisition of the Phil-
ippines for Spain, however, Magellan’s exploit had
little practical value, for his new route to the East
was too long to have commercial signifi cance. The
net result was to enhance the value of America in
Spanish eyes. Disillusioned with the dream of easy
access to the riches of the East, Spain turned with
concentrated energy to the task of extending its
American conquests and to the exploitation of the
human and natural resources of the New World.The Conquest of Mexico
EARLY CONTACT WITH MOCTEZUMA
A disturbing report reached the Aztec capital of
Tenochtitlán in 1518. Up from the coast of the
Gulf of Mexico hurried the tribute collector Pinotl
to inform King Moctezuma of the approach from
the sea of winged towers bearing men with white
faces and heavy beards. Pinotl had communicated
with these men by signs and had exchanged gifts
with their leader. Before departing, the mysterious
visitors had promised (so Pinotl interpreted their
gestures) to return soon and visit Moctezuma in his
city in the mountains.
Aztec accounts agree that the news fi lled
Moctezuma with dismay. Could the leader of these
strangers be the redeemer-god Quetzalcóatl, re-
turning to reclaim his lost kingdom? According to
one Aztec source, Moctezuma exclaimed, “He has
appeared! He has come back! He will come here, to