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

CHAPTER 25 PARTISAN TESTIMONY AS SOURCE MATERIAL FOR HISTORY

Chapter 25 Partisan Testimony as Source Materialfor History The Witnesses asTypical Members of the Expedition uring the pesquisa into treatment of indigenous peoples by the expedition toTierra Nueva,21 witnesses testified, 14 de oficio and 7 de parte. Neither group was randomly summoned. As would be expected, the de parte witnesses were selected and called because they would support the defense claims of Vázquez de Coronado. More surprisingly, so were the de oficio witnesses. In other words, the investigation carried out by Lorenzo de Tejada was essentially aproforma exercise, orchestrated to clear the captain general and, more importantiy, his sponsor and superior, the viceroy, of directly contravening royal orders and instructions. As has previously been remarked, at the time, Viceroy Mendoza was facing a very aggressive challenge to his right to office mounted by Hernán Cortés and carried out by the visitador general Francisco Tello de Sandoval. The charges raised against the leaders of the expedition to Tierra Nueva, if proven, would have fallen to Mendozas responsibility, a dangerous possibility in light of the many other charges raised by Tello de Sandoval. D Partisan Testimony as Source Materialfor History 503 Mendoza and his supporters, therefore, managed to insure that as little damage aspossible accrued to the viceroy as a result of the investigation of the expedition. That successfiíl eífort began with securing appointment of Lorenzo deTejada asinvestigating judge, rather than having the charges concerning the expeditiorís treatment of Indians simply added to those to be investigated by Tello de Sandoval. The cióse personal relationship between Tejada and Mendoza has already been detailed in Chapter 3 and need not be reviewed here. CertainlyTejadas partisan stance is revealed in his lack of pursuit of evidence of possible wrongdoing by Vázquez de Coronado, such as the assertion by Cristóbal de Escobar that the captain general had ordered the killing and maiming of as many as 150 Tiguex prisoners during the siege of Pueblo del Cerco and, in a more systematic way,by his selection of witnesses to be called for the investigation. In several ways the group of 14 witnesses whom Tejada called was typical of the European contingent of the expedition as a whole. The total number of known non-Indian, lay participants in the expedition to Tierra Nueva continúes to grow asmore and more documents arising from the expedition are examined. To date, the ñames of 370 non-Indian, lay expedition members are known.1 Ofthese, data have been compiled on 115 (or 31.1%) concerning their places of origin, their ages in 1540, and the length of their tenure in the New World/Nueva España as of 1540. In terms of the geography of modern Spain, the largest component of the 96 members of the expedition to Tierra Nueva for whom place of origin data are available originated from the comunidad oí Castilla-León, asdid Vázquez de Coronado (24 individuáis, 25.0%). Not far behind were Extremadura (19 individuáis, 19.8%) and Andalucía (18 individuáis, 18.7%).The only other modern comunidad boasting a significant number of expedition members from this sample is Castilla-La Mancha (11 individuáis, 11.5%).2 As with other Spanish expeditions of that era in the New World that have been studied in this regard, the members of the expedition to Tierra Nueva, thus, hailed predominandy (75%) from western and southern Spain.3 The remaining 15 Spanish members of the expedition in this samplewere natives of seven other áreas in Spain 504 Chapter25 with no one área being home to more than three individuáis.4 In addition, the sample includes six individuáis born in Europe but outside of Spain and three born in the Americas. The 14 de oficio witnesses called by licenciado Tejada coníbrmed to the dominant pattern of the expedition as awhole, with regard to place of origin. Four were from Castilla-León, four firom Castilla-La Mancha, three from Extremadura, and three from Andalucía. In this respect they were representative of the mass of the expedition. It appears, on the basis of this study, that the majority of non-Indian, lay members of the expedition to Tierra Nueva were in their twenties when the entrada began in 1540. Age data are more scarce than is information on place of origin and, as a consequence, the ages of...