Great Cruelties Have Been Reported: The 1544 Investigation of the Coronado Expedition

CHAPTER 10 JUAN TROYANO, THE EIGHTH DE OFICIO WITNESS

Chapter 10 Juan Troyano, the Eighth de Oficio Witness A Professional MilitaryMan y a substantial margin, the lengthiest testimony given during the 1544 investigation, barring Vázquez de Coronado s, was that ofJuan Troyano. According to fellow expedition member Rodrigo Maldonado , he was a criado or henchman of Antonio de Mendoza, and Troyano himself reported that he carne to the New World in the viceroys entourage in 1535. Further, the viceroy provided financia! support to insure that Troyano could join the expedition to Tierra Nueva.1 Among those who went on the expedition he was a rarity, a professional fighting man. Beginning in 1511, when he left his home in Medina de Rioseco in modern Castilla y León, Spain, at age 15 to the curses of his father, he had served as seaman and artilleryman, first in Italy and thereafter with Mendoza in Nueva España.2 Throughout the expedition to Tierra Nueva, Troyano served as an artilleryman in the company of the captain of artillery, Hernando de Alvarado. His companion-in-arms Rodrigo Maldonado reported that Troyano was in charge of six versillos (light, swivel-mounted, breech-loading guns which threw one- to two-inch shot).3 During his 1544 testimony before Tejada, Troyano himself recalled one occasion on which he had been sent, B iÓ2 Chapter 10 with Juan Cordero, to pack half a dozen artillery pieces (tiros de artillería) from Cíbola to the expeditiorís winter quarters at Tiguex. Troyano was among the vanguard of approximately 100 Europeans and "most of the [Indian] allies"who went ahead of the main body of the expedition from Culiacán to Cíbola.4 Consequendy, he was one of the relatively few European eyewitnesses to the storming of the "first pueblo" of Cíbola in July 1540 and to the arrival there of a diplomatic/trading party from Cicuique. Troyano was also among the small partywho went to the towns ofTiguex and Cicuique and to the Great Plains shordy after the fall of Cíbola. He was,thus, one of the first members of the expedition to seebison and to hear about possible riches in the land of Quivira. Later, Troyano was present at the siege of Pueblo del Arenal commanded by García López de Cárdenas during the winter of 1540-1541, in the course of which several of the events took place for which the maestre de campo later was punished. López de Cárdenas claimed that Troyano, Juan Contreras, and Melchior Pérez were among his principal enemies, for which reason their testimony concerning his actions during the expedition should be disregarded.5 Troyano had some knowledge of bridge building and, thus, undoubtedly was involved in the construction of a bridge that was built by the expedition in spring 1541.Juan Cordero claimed that the captain general and the captains never did anything without asking Troyanos opinión because of his long experience in matters of warfare.6 While in Tierra Nueva, Troyano made an alliance with a woman, who returned with him to México in 1542.7 Much later he pointed with pride to this "compañera " and boasted that no other such woman had returned with the expedition to México City. At the same time, he extolled Tierra Nueva as "another new world as excellent as New Spain;" he claimed to have gone on all the explorations conducted there, lamented that a land of so many people had not been brought to the Catholic faith, and volunteered to goback under the leadership of Martín Cortés.8 After Troyano s return from Tierra Nueva in 1542, the viceroy conceded to him the solé right to build bergantines (shallow-draft, oared boats) with which to transport wood and stone to the island city of México. Years later he claimed to have built at least one at a cost of 500 pesos.9 Although, at the time JuanTroyano 163 of the 1544 investigation, Troyano was lodging with fellow artilleryman Pedro de Écija, by at least 1560 he was a vecino of México City and maintained his own casapoblada or family seat there.10 He continued to serve the viceroys of Nueva España even after Mendozas departure for Perú in 1551, filling various minor roles under viceroys Luis de Velasco, Gastón de Peralta, and Martín Enríquez de Almansa. Despite apparent...