residing in Spanish lands pertained not to national origin, but rather was a code word for the worst heretics in his kingdom. With the stability of his empire at stake, Charles V took seriously his vows as Chief Knight of the Holy Inquisition to convert the heathen and burn the heretic. Yet when the communiqué specified “Portuguese,” Charles read between the lines: Jamaica for the Jews, or the colony goes under. 3
When Columbus returned from his voyage of discovery, a golden thread had wound its way into the fabric of every Spaniard’s imagination. In time it stretched from the New World across the Ocean Sea to a peninsula on the edge of the Old World, where it wove an exotic pattern of desire stirring a man’s dreams. Wherever men gathered, the talk was the same—tales of opulent cities with riches beyond belief and beautiful naked maidens aching to please.
Jamaica, thought to have neither, had become a dead end. Only Puerto Rico, where man-eating Indians discouraged settlement, was less popular. Why settle Jamaica when the bounty of the New World was thought to be yours for the taking, if a man be but brave and bold enough? And what Spaniard wasn’t? In their own generation, they had defeated the Moors, kicked out the Jews, enslaved the Indians, and conquered more territory than Rome had in five centuries. In forty-two years, their country had swelled from an alliance of Christians fighting over a few thousand square miles to a world empire governing millions. In the process, Spain had become the richest, most powerful nation on earth. Their king and Church told them they had the right, and they had proved they had the might.
Romance novels of chivalry, the pulp fiction of the day, “fired the imaginations of conquistadors to seek their own adventures in the New World. Their heads filled with fantastic notions…their courage spurred by noble examples of the great heroes of chivalry, they were prepared to undergo every kind of hardship and sacrifice as they penetrated through swamps and jungles into the new continent.” 4 Fortune seekers from every province of Spain filled the taverns of Santo Domingo, the capital of the New World, plotting, conspiring, and gambling on destinies. Most, like Cortés, were soldiers of fortune, a class of Spaniard that had evolved during the Reconquista—the seven centuries of warfare against the Moors. In a grasp at nobility, they called themselves hidalgos, meaning sons of somebody, but the true somebodies, the grandees, would wait another fifty years before sending their sons to the New World. Provided you wore the cross of Jesus, your origin didn’t matter: an acrobat and a musician had looted Colombia for gold; a former scribe got the pearls of Venezuela; a soldier of fortune ruling New Spain, a nation bigger than Europe, was said to be richer than the king himself. And in the summer of 1534, word spread through Spain that a pig farmer turned conquistador had plundered an Indian nation of limitless gold.
While Charles was mulling the Jamaican communiqué in the royal palace, the pig farmer’s brother, Hernando Pizarro, was thrilling court attendees with the tale of how his illiterate brother Francisco, taking a cue from Cortés, had passed himself off as a god, kidnapped the Inca chief, and after accumulating a ransom of nineteen tons of gold and silver, had strangled and then burned the heretic. Even as Hernando spoke of this maleficent deed, a rumor spread in the court: A fleet of seventy ships from the New World had arrived at the Spanish port of Laredo with ten thousand Amazon women on board, hungry for Spanish men to father their children. Given the lure of Inca gold and the lust for Amazon women, Charles knew that would-be settlers would line up for Peru. 5 But none would be interested in settling Jamaica, except the Jews. Along with an empire, Charles had inherited the Inquisition, and soon found the threat of being burned alive a handy means to
When Columbus returned from his voyage of discovery, a golden thread had wound its way into the fabric of every Spaniard’s imagination. In time it stretched from the New World across the Ocean Sea to a peninsula on the edge of the Old World, where it wove an exotic pattern of desire stirring a man’s dreams. Wherever men gathered, the talk was the same—tales of opulent cities with riches beyond belief and beautiful naked maidens aching to please.
Jamaica, thought to have neither, had become a dead end. Only Puerto Rico, where man-eating Indians discouraged settlement, was less popular. Why settle Jamaica when the bounty of the New World was thought to be yours for the taking, if a man be but brave and bold enough? And what Spaniard wasn’t? In their own generation, they had defeated the Moors, kicked out the Jews, enslaved the Indians, and conquered more territory than Rome had in five centuries. In forty-two years, their country had swelled from an alliance of Christians fighting over a few thousand square miles to a world empire governing millions. In the process, Spain had become the richest, most powerful nation on earth. Their king and Church told them they had the right, and they had proved they had the might.
Romance novels of chivalry, the pulp fiction of the day, “fired the imaginations of conquistadors to seek their own adventures in the New World. Their heads filled with fantastic notions…their courage spurred by noble examples of the great heroes of chivalry, they were prepared to undergo every kind of hardship and sacrifice as they penetrated through swamps and jungles into the new continent.” 4 Fortune seekers from every province of Spain filled the taverns of Santo Domingo, the capital of the New World, plotting, conspiring, and gambling on destinies. Most, like Cortés, were soldiers of fortune, a class of Spaniard that had evolved during the Reconquista—the seven centuries of warfare against the Moors. In a grasp at nobility, they called themselves hidalgos, meaning sons of somebody, but the true somebodies, the grandees, would wait another fifty years before sending their sons to the New World. Provided you wore the cross of Jesus, your origin didn’t matter: an acrobat and a musician had looted Colombia for gold; a former scribe got the pearls of Venezuela; a soldier of fortune ruling New Spain, a nation bigger than Europe, was said to be richer than the king himself. And in the summer of 1534, word spread through Spain that a pig farmer turned conquistador had plundered an Indian nation of limitless gold.
While Charles was mulling the Jamaican communiqué in the royal palace, the pig farmer’s brother, Hernando Pizarro, was thrilling court attendees with the tale of how his illiterate brother Francisco, taking a cue from Cortés, had passed himself off as a god, kidnapped the Inca chief, and after accumulating a ransom of nineteen tons of gold and silver, had strangled and then burned the heretic. Even as Hernando spoke of this maleficent deed, a rumor spread in the court: A fleet of seventy ships from the New World had arrived at the Spanish port of Laredo with ten thousand Amazon women on board, hungry for Spanish men to father their children. Given the lure of Inca gold and the lust for Amazon women, Charles knew that would-be settlers would line up for Peru. 5 But none would be interested in settling Jamaica, except the Jews. Along with an empire, Charles had inherited the Inquisition, and soon found the threat of being burned alive a handy means to
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