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Document 2: Letter of Vázquez de Coronado to Viceroy Mendoza, March 8, 1539
- University of New Mexico Press
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introduction f rancisco vázquez de coronado, a regidor of the cabildo of the ciudad de méxico and the newly appointed governor of nueva Galicia, was dispatched by viceroy mendoza in late 1538 to take up his post at compostela. 1 with him went the franciscan fray marcos de niza and the black slave esteban de Dorantes, whom the viceroy had recently purchased. 2 the governor escorted the friar and the slave, who was to serve as marcos’s guide, to the farthest outpost of his jurisdiction, san miguel de culiacán. there, he turned over written instructions from the viceroy to marcos regarding the reconnaissance he was to make in an attempt to verify the reports of Álvar núñez cabeza de vaca and his associates. their stories promised large, sophisticated populations living in luxury far to the north. But as vázquez de coronado makes clear in the following excerpt from his letter of march 8, 1539, the affluent and populous places made known by cabeza de vaca were not the only lure toward the north. Local indians had told the governor about a group of at least 50 settlements known collectively as topira. either there or in another, even larger, unnamed land beyond lived people who were said to “wear gold, emeralds, and other precious stones,” eat from gold and silver dishes, and even decorate their houses with gold. 3 After touting the possibilities for profit at topira and the more distant, nameless population center in its direction and telling of marcos and esteban’s departure for what was soon to become known as cíbola, vázquez de coronado closed the extant fragment of his letter glowingly. He told mendoza, “i trust in God that in the one area or the other we are about to find something excellent.” 4 How much more there was to the governor’s original letter we may never know, for it disappeared centuries ago. All that survives is an italian translation of the topirac íbola excerpt. evidently that was all that was titillating enough to suit the taste or match the book concept of its publisher, Giovanni Battista ramusio. though we can lament his choice not to publish the letter in full, at the same time we must be grateful for his preserving an important part of it, as well as three other documents included in the present edition. 5 ramusio was secretary of the venetian senate and an avid collector and publisher of manuscripts. Among his sources for manuscripts dealing with the new world were Diego Hurtado de mendoza, brother of viceroy Antonio de mendoza and spain’s ambassador to venice from 1539 to 1546, 6 and Gonzalo fernández de oviedo y valdés, carlos v’s official chronicler of the indies beginning in 1532. 7 it was probably from one of these men that ramusio received a copy of the vázquez de coronado letter that he later excerpted and published in 1556 in the first edition of the Terzo volume of his Navigationi et viaggi, which is the version used in this volume. Both men passed documents on to ramusio in other instances. oviedo was particularly assiduous in supplying documents to ramusio because, from Document 2 Letter of Vázquez de Coronado to Viceroy Mendoza, March 8, 1539 History Library, museum of new mexico, santa fe ramusio, Terzo volume delle navigationi et viaggi, 1556, fols. 354v–355r 31 32 DocuMent 2 1538 to 1543, he and the venetian were business partners in a commercial trading enterprise between europe and the indies. 8 However ramusio came by a copy of the 1539 letter, he subsequently translated it (or had it translated) into italian for publication. it is unknown what happened to the spanishlanguage copy from which the translation derived. we point out elsewhere in this volume that the translator may have been more comfortable in spanish than in italian; his italian renditions are peppered with hispanisms. 9 As is evident from ramusio’s unannounced and gratuitous embellishment of the original text of fray marcos’s relación, the fidelity of the translations he published must always remain in doubt in cases such as this one, in which the original-language text is no longer available for comparison. 10 ramusio or his translator was the author of the title and heading that open the excerpt, but there are no other blatant intrusions by the publisher . to indicate that the heading and title were not part of the...