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95 introduction A persistent background or subtext to spain’s century of conquest in the Americas was fierce, sometimes violent, competition among potential conquistadores. one instance of this widespread and recurrent phenomenon arose in the late 1530s and early 1540s, a complex rivalry over the right to mount an expedition to seek out and subjugate numerous and affluent peoples said to inhabit the interior of north America. in total, five powerful individuals sought the king’s license to organize such entradas northward from nueva españa: Hernán cortés, pedro de Alvarado, nuño Beltrán de Guzmán, Hernando de soto, and Antonio de mendoza. the document published here for the first time in english and several others in this volume had their origins in the resulting dispute. 1 in addition, the dispute and its consequences are touched on frequently among the remaining documents deriving from the coronado expedition. in the end, the consejo de indias, on the king’s behalf, dismissed the claims of cortés and Guzmán and granted permission to both soto, a veteran of the conquest of peru, and mendoza to launch separate expeditions. the final piece of the puzzle was to order mendoza and Alvarado to cooperate jointly in seaborne enterprises coordinated with a land expedition directed at seeking cíbola. 2 ignorance of and uncertainty about the size and geography of north America led to friction between soto and mendoza both before and after their receipt of formal grants of authority from the king. 3 As Juan de Barrutia, soto’s advocate before the consejo, put it in 1540, “your majesty conceded [to soto] a royal decree under which neither the viceroy of nueva españa [mendoza] nor the marqués del valle [cortés] nor any other persons whatsoever, nor any agent [of theirs] may intrude into the territory about which the Adelantado [soto] has concluded a formal agreement with your majesty with the intention of reconnoitering or conquering it.” 4 the April 1537 capitulación, or concession, to soto stipulated that he had the right to “conquer, pacify, and populate” “the province of rio de las palmas to florida . . . and the provinces of tierra-nueva.” 5 tierra nueva, in this case, referred to a large but ill-defined territory along the east coast of what is now the united states that had previously been assigned for conquest to Lucas vázquez de Ayllón in 1523. 6 La florida, too, was an extensive, indistinct region stretching along and inland from the Gulf of mexico coast for an indeterminate distance. it extended from at least the Atlantic coast of the modern states of florida and Georgia westward as far as the río de las palmas. 7 only after the soto and coronado expeditions was it clear that at that latitude the continent was many hundreds of leagues wide and that cíbola lay outside soto’s jurisdiction. in 1539 and 1540, it was not unreasonable for soto to fear that mendoza’s attempt to reach cíbola would necessarily infringe on the adelantado’s prerogatives. thus, both viceroy and adelantado tried to keep their Document 8 Testimony of Witnesses in Habana Regarding Fray Marcos’s Discoveries, November 1539 AGi, patronato, 21, n.2, r.4, fols. 66r–70v 96 DocuMent 8 own actions secret while ferreting out every available bit of information about what the opposite party was up to. in the fall of 1539, when fray marcos de niza returned to the ciudad de méxico with word of the reinos of cíbola, marata, and totonteac, viceroy mendoza dispatched reports to the king in spain but attempted to do so surreptitiously. of primary concern was to keep details of marcos’s discoveries away from soto’s lieutenants in cuba, then known as fernandina, where he was governor. 8 thus, according to the 1539 Habana witness pero núñez, “the viceroy has ordered that no navío is to call here [cuba].” 9 other witnesses testifying in Habana had much the same to report. Andrés García, for instance, declared that the viceroy had even prohibited people from leaving the ciudad de méxico without license. 10 on August 26, 1539, mendoza had, in fact, issued a directive forbidding anyone to leave nueva españa without his express permission. 11 that permission was granted on occasion, and necessary sea traffic continued. Among the ships granted license to sail during this time was one of unknown name under...

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