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508 introduction o ften confused with the captain Juan Jaramillo who participated in the conquest of tenochtitlan under cortés, 1 the man of the same name who was a member of and wrote the following relación about the coronado expedition was only about 10 years old at the time of the famous conquest of the mexica/Aztec capital. 2 He was known as “el mozo,” or “the younger,” to distinguish him from the better-known captain and from several other contemporaries of the same name. His parents were Gómez méndez and Ana de toro. A native of villanueva de Barcarrota in southern extremadura, spain, Jaramillo, during a period of 10 years, served King carlos in italy, tunis, and france before coming to the new world, perhaps at about the time of viceroy mendoza’s arrival in 1535. 3 Also from Barcarrota were expedition members Alonso Álvarez del valle and rodrigo Álvarez (likely Alonso’s father), but there is no evidence that Jaramillo was otherwise linked with them. 4 in order to outfit and support himself on the coronado expedition, Jaramillo spent more than 3,000 pesos. 5 Judging from the size of this expenditure and the three horses and at least two slaves or servants he took with him, he was certainly moderately well off at the time of the expedition. 6 During the entrada he served as a horseman. He does not stand out in any of the surviving contemporary documents, not even particularly in his own chronicle. He did, however, often travel with the captain general in the advance guard and thus was present at the capture of cíbola and was among the few people who reached Quivira. 7 According to his own narrative, Jaramillo was one of a small group of people who opposed returning from tierra nueva in 1542. 8 it appears that he lived with his wife, Ana de Andrada, in the cuidad de méxico following the end of the expedition and was a vecino and still living there as late as 1578. 9 By the time he wrote his chronicle, Jaramillo was himself a captain. 10 Like castañeda de nájera, Jaramillo addresses his narrative to an unnamed illustrious person whom he calls “vuestra señoría” (your lordship), whom “His majesty directed . . . to find out about or locate a route by which to connect that land with this.” 11 And like castañeda de nájera, Jaramillo probably wrote in the 1560s (although the existing unsigned copy of the document is incorrectly dated at 1537), quite likely also to doctor Alonso de Zorita. 12 the narrative itself, though, is very unlike castañeda de nájera’s relación. Jaramillo displays no particular literary flair or experience, and the information he provides is most often unembellished and usually unelaborated. the first half of the narrative is, indeed, little more than the spare recital of daily direction, distance, and destination of travel. once the events of the narration reach the plains inhabited by bison, however, that changes radically. from that point, Jaramillo dedicates nearly half the relación to Quivira and the plains. nearly two and a half folio sides of text are devoted to Quivira, in comparison with less than a single folio side to cíbola, Juan Jaramillo’s Narrative, 1560s AGi, patronato, 20, n.5, r.8 Document 30 Juan Jaramillo’s Narrative, 1560s 509 about a paragraph to tiguex, and only a passing mention to cicuique. 13 this glaring contrast between the two halves of the chronicle is reminiscent of the style of a famous book of the day, El Viaje de don Fadrique Henríquez a Jerusalén. recording the marqués de tarifa’s 1518–20 pilgrimage to the Holy Land, 14 it opens with many pages of entries such as “on monday we reached Abreol, which is five leagues,” providing only the barest of information defining his travel. 15 But once the pilgrim reaches the goal of his voyage, each day’s entry swells to pages in length as he visits shrine after shrine of the life and death of christ. Like don fadrique, Juan Jaramillo wrote sparingly until it came time to report on the region he considered most significant in his travels, Quivira and the buffalo plains. Bison and bison hides run through Jaramillo’s narrative, at first as a seemingly accidental motif, but finally as the dominant theme. rather than gold, it was clearly hides that represented...

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