Chapter II: Early Writers of Tierra Firme

I. _Bartolomé de las Casas._ II. _Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y
Valdés._ III. _Pascual de Andagoya._

I

[Sidenote: Letters and reports from America]

The letters and reports of the adventurers, the discoverers, and the early settlers, during the period of exploration and conquest, constitute a noteworthy introduction to the literary history of the Spanish colonies in America; and the intellectual vigour of some of these writers was quite in keeping with the practical energy and daring displayed by their Spanish contemporaries in exploring and subduing the wilderness.

The extension of the Spanish occupation from Santo Domingo, as an early seat of the administration, to the South American mainland, belongs to the first decades of the sixteenth century. During this period the Spaniards founded Santa Marta and Cartagena; explored and occupied the Isthmus; and Andagoya established his brief authority on the Pacific coast south of Panama.

[Sidenote: Occupation of Tierra Firme]

[Sidenote: Indians under the British and the Spanish]

It was in this period, moreover, that the Spanish government granted to the German company of the Welsers a charter to an extensive region of Tierra Firme, where the agents of this company devoted their activity, almost exclusively to hunting Indians for the slave-market. On a part of the northern coast of South America Bartolomé de las Casas proposed to plant a proletariat colonial administration as the beginning of a practical reform of Spain’s colonial policy. When this enterprise was wrecked by its internal weakness, Las Casas turned to the business of the Church and to unsparing criticism of the Spanish government. On its practical side the conduct of the government doubtless required modification, but the plan to introduce Spanish labourers and negroes to perform all the work of the colony, if it had been thoroughly and successfully carried out, would indeed have lifted the burden of labour from the Indians, but it would also have made it impossible for the Indians to have a place in the new society. The performance of a certain amount of work was an essential condition of the Indian’s existence in regions occupied by the Spaniards. He had to work or disappear, as he disappeared before the British settlers in North America, who made no provision for incorporating him in the communities which they organized. The Spaniards had a very different plan for the social development of their American colonies. They proposed to form communities with important mediæval features; they recognized distinct classes and feudal superiority and dependence. This method of social organization provided a place for the Indians, although a subordinate place, nevertheless a place where their continued existence would be assured on condition of performing a certain amount of labour. But when Las Casas faced the question of reforming the Spanish policy, he appears to have advocated, if not the worst possible solution, at least a project that could have had no happy outcome for the Indians.

[Sidenote: Las Casas]

The facts of Las Casas’ life hardly need to be recited here. His prodigious defence of the Indian’s right to liberty has made him widely known and given him an exalted position in the estimation of those in sympathy with his purposes. He was born in Seville about eighteen years before the discovery of America: the date of his birth is usually set down as 1474. His studies, begun in his native city, were continued at Salamanca, where he was graduated as “Licenciado”. His first knowledge of the Indians appears to have been obtained through one who had been brought from America to Spain by his father, and was attached to Bartolomé at the University in the capacity of a servant. Las Casas went to the West Indies with Nicolás de Obando, governor of Santo Domingo. This was in 1502. In 1510 he became a priest, and a year later he accompanied Governor Velásquez to Cuba. In these nine years he witnessed certain acts of barbarity by the Spaniards, which seemed to presage the diminution of the native population, and intensified his sympathy for the oppressed race.

[Sidenote: _Brevísima relación_]

In the islands, on the mainland, or as Bishop of Chiapas, one dominating purpose controlled his actions, it was to ameliorate the condition of the Indians, and, in planning for their welfare, the welfare of no other race mattered. Las Casas’ ideal of the Indians, which helped to inspire his zeal for their liberty is set forth in this passage from the _Brevísima relación_:

“All the territory that has been discovered down to the year forty-one is full of people, like a hive of bees, so that it seems as though God had placed all, or the greater part, of the entire human race, in these countries. God has created all these numberless peoples to be the simplest, without malice or duplicity, the most obedient, the most faithful to their natural Lords, and to the Christians, whom they serve, the most humble and patient, the most peaceful and calm, without strife or tumults, nor wrangling or querulous, as free from rancour, hate, and desire for revenge as any in the world. They are likewise the most delicate people, weak and of feeble constitution, and they are less able than any other to bear fatigue, and they succumb readily to whatever disease attacks them, so that not even the sons of our princes or nobles, brought up in luxury and effeminate ways, are weaker than they; although there are among them some who belong to the class of labourers. They are also very poor people, who have few worldly goods, nor wish to possess them.”

[Sidenote: Las Casas and Liberty]

It was beings answering to this ideal that fascinated Las Casas, and a large part of the civilized world has been disposed to honour him for his marvellous service in the interest of an oppressed and outraged people; but when his eulogists announce him as the champion of universal human liberty, they make too large a claim. A champion of the liberty of the Indians he surely was, a champion of rare devotion and unflagging zeal, but with little concern as to the social cost of securing that liberty by his method. He was, moreover, so thoroughly absorbed in his own ideas and plans that he had no mind to consider the ideas and plans of others, or to deliberate with other persons in an attitude of possible compromise. He did not hesitate to seek with unslacking energy the execution of his plan, even when he was aware that it involved extending negro slavery, with all the horrors of the transoceanic shipment of slaves.

[Sidenote: Encomenderos and liberty]

Las Casas’ project to introduce Spaniards into America to undertake the common work which the Indians were required to perform, or to throw the burden upon negroes, necessarily ran counter to the views of those Spaniards to whom Indians had been assigned by the government in Spain, and who depended upon the labour of the Indians to cultivate the lands that had been granted to them, to work their mines, and to carry on their manufacturing enterprises. The encomenderos had come to regard themselves as the foundation of the economic system of the colonies, and they naturally considered the government under obligation to defend them against attacks designed to destroy that system. But Las Casas had enthusiastic partisans, who praised extravagantly his devotion to the Indian and were apparently blind to the consequences of extending negro slavery with respect to the development of society in America. The intense hostility displayed towards Las Casas in the colonies did not proceed solely from his proposed interference with the interests of the encomenderos, but was in a large measure provoked by his reckless denunciation of opponents.

[Sidenote: Reception of Las Casas’ views]

The views set forth in _Brevísima relación de la destrucción de las Indias_ found an enthusiastic reception, particularly in England, promoted by the political friction existing between that country and Spain, and by the rage of militant Protestantism, which found in Las Casas’ denunciation at least a partial expression of its own detestation of Catholicism and of all measures favoured by the Pope. The titles given to translations of the _Brevísima relación_ are evidence of the force of that sentiment.[10]

[Sidenote: Vargas Machuca]

[Sidenote: Opponents of Las Casas]

This pamphlet was published in 1552, and aroused in the minds of some of the Spaniards an opposition only a little less marked than the favour with which it was received by the English. Bernardo de Vargas Machuca was one of those who rose to combat the views presented by Las Casas. His refutation appeared in _Apologías y discursos de las conquistas occidentales_. On the title-page of this pamphlet the author announces that it is written “in opposition to the treatise on the ruin of the Indies.”[11] The question concerning the servitude or the freedom of the Indians raised by Las Casas was discussed by a professor in the University of Córdoba, who wrote _Fasti novi orbis_ under the name of Cyriacus Morelli. His book was published in Venice in 1776. Dr. Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda, a distinguished Spanish theologian and jurist, opposed vigorously the ideas presented by Las Casas, and argued in support of the Spanish policy regarding the Indians. A similar attitude was assumed by Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo, whose education at the Spanish court, and whose later service under appointment by the king naturally disposed him to justify the conduct of the government. This subject continued to engage the attention of writers as long as the Spanish régime lasted. A work by Giovanni Nuix translated from the Italian by Pedro Varela y Ulloa, entitled in Spanish _Reflexiones imparciales sobre la humanidad de los españoles en las Indias, contra los pretendidos filósofos y políticos_, was published in Madrid in 1782. The writer characterized the views of Las Casas as false or exaggerated, and defended the thesis that the conquests made by the Spaniards in America were just, or at least as just as those made by other nations; and he attributed whatever covetousness or cruelty was displayed by the Spaniards to the great distance of the colonies from the supreme authority, under which local officers served in the colonies without adequate supervision. He distinguished clearly, moreover, between the benevolent designs of the crown and the unjust and cruel acts of governmental subordinates and irresponsible private persons.

[Sidenote: Las Casas’ _Historia general_]

[Sidenote: _Historia apologética_]

[Sidenote: Conversion of Indians]

Besides the _Brevísima relación_ a number of other pamphlets were printed in 1552 and 1553, but the more important of Las Casas’ writings remained in manuscript until long after the author’s death. These are the _Historia general de las Indias_ and _Historia apologética de las Indias_, apparently designed in the beginning to constitute a single work; but in the process of their composition, the character of each became more and more distinct, and they finally appeared in print as separate productions. The former is an account of the occupation of the West Indies and the mainland during the early years of Spanish rule, describing the condition of the native inhabitants, their mental state and their customs, with special emphasis on the treatment they received under the Spanish administration; the latter, the _Historia apologética de las Indias_, treats of the character of soil and climate of the occupied lands, of the natural and social position of the inhabitants, but does not contain a narrative of the events incident to the establishment and progress of Spanish settlements. Like other writers of his time, and even of later times, Las Casas faced the problem of the relation of the different races to one another, and of the capacity of the less developed race to rise to the highest form of civilization, and, like most of his countrymen, he regarded the fundamental difference between the races as consisting in the fact that the Spaniards were Christians, while the Indians were pagans, and that the conversion and baptism of the Indians necessarily removed the main feature of difference, and transferred the Indian from the status of barbarism to civilization. But one-remedy reformers have not been found merely among Spanish missionaries. When the government of the United States conferred the right of suffrage upon the emancipated negro slaves, this action was supported by the extravagant expectation that the possession of this right would exercise a transforming influence on the quality of the subject. This hopeful view of the missionary’s work was doubtless the principal source of Las Casas’ inspiration; it was also the source of his intolerance.

[Sidenote: Encomenderos]

The King and the Council of the Indies, in granting lands to Spaniards establishing themselves in America, and distributing Indians among them to become labourers on these lands, had as one of their purposes an end not greatly different from the object of the missionary’s striving. They hoped that by gathering the Indians on these estates to make them immediately subject to Christians who would be required to provide opportunities and facilities for the Indians to acquire a knowledge of Christian doctrine. Thus one of the features of the colonial organization against which Las Casas directed his vehement eloquence was in some part the product of a design formed to further the conversion of the Indians. If it did not attain its high aim or respond to the exalted purpose of Las Casas, it failed for the same reason that some of Las Casas’ plans had failed: it was conceived in imperfect knowledge of American conditions, and was entrusted for execution to selfish, in other words, human agents.

II

[Sidenote: Oviedo’s early life]

An attempt less radical than that of Las Casas to improve Spain’s colonial administration was made by Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés, author of the _Historia general y natural de las Indias_. Although Oviedo’s posthumous fame rests almost exclusively on his writings, his reputation during his lifetime was based chiefly on his practical activity. A contemporary of Las Casas, he was born in Madrid in 1478, and very early entered the service of Don Alfonso de Aragón, the second duke of Villahermosa, a nephew of King Ferdinand. Here his early years were spent under the influence of persons interested in literary cultivation, and where the circumstances tended to stimulate his natural intelligence. At the age of thirteen he became attached to the court of the Catholic Kings as a page. Two years later the sovereigns entered upon the campaign against Granada, and Gonzalo followed the Court to Santa Fe. There as a youth he saw some of Spain’s most distinguished men of the time. He saw Columbus, whose distinction was yet to be won, and who appeared asking assistance to enable him to find a new world.

[Sidenote: Oviedo in Italy]

[Sidenote: Joins Pedrarias’ expedition]

After the death of Prince Juan, on October the fourth, 1497, Oviedo visited Italy, where the art and literature of that country exerted a powerful influence on his intellectual development. In 1500, after three years of varied service, he appeared at Rome, claiming the jubilee indulgence granted to the faithful by the Pope. Subsequently he entered the service of the King of Naples, but in 1501 he left Naples in the train of Queen Juana for Palermo, and in May, 1502, he left Palermo for Valencia, where he took leave of the Queen’s service and went to Madrid. In Madrid he married Margarita de Vergara, who died ten months later. Under the impression of this loss, he turned to service in the army, but he soon abandoned his plans for a military career, and became again attached to the court. Shortly after Oviedo’s return to the court, preparations were made for the expedition of Pedrarias Dávila to Castilla de Oro, and he was appointed to inspect the production of gold in Tierra Firme.

[Sidenote: Las Casas and Oviedo as reformers]

The fleet sailed from San Lucar on April 11, 1514, and arrived at Santa Marta on the following 12th of June. At the end of June the company reached the gulf of Urabá, and proceeded to Santa María del Antigua, where they found the colony overwhelmed in misfortune, now rendered more distressing by the tyranny and cruelty of Pedrarias. Oviedo, out of favour with the authorities, returned to Spain to seek a remedy for the state of things he had observed. After years of waiting to have his memorial considered by the court, he encountered at Barcelona Bartolomé de las Casas, who was present on a somewhat similar mission. They both sought reform in the Indies, but with divergent views. Oviedo contemplated a reform in Darien through the efforts of a wise and just governor and a bishop devoid of covetousness, who would aim effectively at holding the clergy under proper regulations. Las Casas, on the other hand, a religious anarchist, advocated removing the governors, the captains, and the soldiers from the Indies, agreeing to maintain the territory of Cumaná in the power of the crown without other instrumentalities than a few hundred simple labourers and fifty knights of the cross.

In April, 1520, Oviedo embarked at Seville on his second voyage to America. Learning at Santo Domingo that Lope de Sosa, who had been appointed through his influence to supersede Pedrarias, had died on the outward voyage, Oviedo had little reason to expect that friendly relations would be established between himself and Pedrarias, and, in spite of the courteous reception extended to him, he discovered very early that his anticipations were realized. In fact, the governor’s hostility appears to have been one of the influences that led Oviedo to abandon Antigua for Panama and to induce the colonists to remove to the new capital. Pedrarias’ hostility and his desire to compromise and ruin the prestige of Oviedo, moreover, led the governor to appoint him to be his lieutenant or deputy.

[Sidenote: Oviedo’s return to Spain]

[Sidenote: _Sumario de la historia natural_]

The efforts of Oviedo to abate the evils of the colony only intensified the hostility of the governor and his supporters and led him to withdraw the deputy’s appointment. Oviedo then, in 1523, returned to Spain to call the king’s attention to the scandalous conduct of Pedrarias. The part of his voyage between Santo Domingo and the Peninsula was made in company with Diego Columbus. The charges presented specified with much detail the abuses and crimes of the governor; they were made not for the redress of personal wrongs Oviedo had suffered, but to preserve the colony from utter corruption and destruction; and, in spite of the vigorous attempt made to reply to them, Pedrarias was superseded by Pedro de los Ríos as governor of Castilla de Oro. Oviedo, not content to leave his proposed reform half accomplished, offered his services to the new governor, and embarked with him for America on the 30th of April, 1526. It was in this year, 1526, that he published by order of the emperor at Toledo his _Sumario de la natural historia de las Indias_, a work quite distinct from the larger work issued later under a similar title. Oviedo arrived at Nombre de Dios on the 20th of July. After four years of varying fortune in Castilla de Oro, Nicaragua, and Santo Domingo he returned again to Spain in 1530. Wishing to be relieved of the duties of his office as inspector of gold-smelting, he presented his resignation, and petitioned that his son might be appointed to succeed him. Not only was the petition granted, but the emperor appointed him General Chronicler of the Indies.

[Sidenote: Oviedo made alcaide]

After his experience in the warmer regions of America, he no longer found the climate of Spain agreeable, and in the autumn of 1532 he returned to the New World, establishing himself in the city of Santo Domingo. Here the citizens showed their appreciation of his decision, and on the death of Francisco de Tapia, the alcaide, or governor of the fortress of the city, petitioned for the appointment of Oviedo to the vacant post. This petition was granted, and the appointment was confirmed by a decree dated October 25, 1533.

[Sidenote: _Historia general y natural_]

In 1534 Oviedo went to Spain, published the first part of his _Historia general y natural de las Indias_, the printing of which was completed on September 30, 1535. In the following January he was once more in Santo Domingo. From this time forward the practical affairs of his office as alcaide engaged much of his attention. The fort had fallen into decay through neglect, and the increasing danger of pirates and the new wars into which Spain was plunged induced Oviedo to solicit from the King and the Council of the Indies more effective artillery and other means for making the defence more complete. At the same time stories of Pizarro’s exploits began to arrive from Peru, and the affairs of the island were thrown into confusion by emigration to that country. The tales of great wealth acquired by the invaders had the effect of news from newly discovered gold mines.

[Sidenote: Final return to Spain]

As Oviedo approached the end of life, he turned to Spain as his final residence, in spite of his lively interest in the New World. He therefore resigned his office of alcaide, retaining the post of honorary regidor of Santo Domingo. In June, 1556, he took final leave of America, where he had resided thirty-four years, and during this period had crossed the Atlantic at least twelve times.

[Sidenote: Oviedo’s letters]

During these last years his efforts were directed chiefly to giving to the world a complete and corrected edition of his _Historia general y natural de las Indias_. The printing was begun, but before it was finished the author succumbed to an acute fever at the age of seventy-nine. The undertaking was interrupted, and it was only after nearly three hundred years that the complete work appeared in print. The whole work was originally divided into three parts comprising fifty books. The first part published during his lifetime consisted of nineteen or nineteen and a half books. In 1557 the twentieth book was printed separately in Valladolid, but the rest of it remained in manuscript until the publication of the complete edition issued by the Academy of History in the middle of the nineteenth century. Oviedo wrote as the authorized chronicler of the Indies, and in this capacity he had access to official documents. His other works deal chiefly with the affairs of the Peninsula. Harrisse reports the existence of two collections of Oviedo’s letters and diaries, and suggests the desirability of their publication. In referring to this principal work of Oviedo Las Casas manifests his ruling passion in affirming that Oviedo should have written at the top of his history: “This book was written by a conqueror, robber, and murderer of the Indians, whole populations of whom he consigned to the mines, where they perished.”[12]

[Sidenote: Topics of the _Sumario_]

The first chapter of the _Sumario_ presents a description of the navigation between Seville and America. A number of the following chapters are devoted to the Indians of the islands and Tierra Firme, and these are followed by a series of chapters enumerating and describing the animals, birds, reptiles, trees, and other living things, succeeded by an account of mines and pearl-fishing. Of this latter business Oviedo gives a brief account:

[Sidenote: Oviedo on pearl fishing]

“It is off Cubagua and Cumaná that pearl fishing is chiefly carried on, as I have been fully informed by Indians and Christians, who say that many Indians go from the island of Cubagua. These belong to crews in the service of private persons, residents of Santo Domingo and San Juan. They go out in a boat or barge in the morning, in companies of four, five, six or more, and when it seems to them, or they know already, that there are pearls at the point they have reached, they stop there, and the Indians dive into the water and swim until they reach the bottom; one remains in the boat, which he holds in place as well as he can, waiting for those in the water to appear, and after the Indian has been down a long time, he comes to the surface and is taken into the boat, presenting and putting into it the oysters which he has brought up, for in the oysters are found the valuable pearls. He rests a little, eats a mouthful, and then enters the water again, and stays as long as he is able, and again comes up with the oysters which he has found this time and does as before, and in this manner all the rest proceed who are divers in this operation. And when night comes, and it appears to be time to rest, they go home to the island, and turn over the oysters to the major domo of the proprietor, who has charge of the Indians, and who gives them their supper, and places the oysters in a receptacle, and when he has a large number of them, he causes them to be opened, and in them are found pearls of two, three, four, five, six or more grains, as nature has placed them there.”

[Sidenote: Fate of fishers]

This quotation from Oviedo’s _Sumario_ offers a glimpse of an occupation, which sooner or later proved fatal to immense numbers of the Indians forced into it. Many of those engaged in pearl-fishing were compelled to re-enter the water before they had recovered their normal condition after a previous descent, and either never returned to the surface alive, or returned hopelessly exhausted. But in connexion with this account our author makes no mention of the perilous and destructive character of the work, through which the population of the islands and the neighbouring coast was greatly depleted. Doubtless Oviedo wished to reform abuses in the colonies, but his relation to the court and his part in the public administration naturally rendered him reluctant to make conspicuous in his writings the abuses that were brought to his attention. The presence of these abuses produced in his mind a very different reaction from that observed in the fiery spirit of Las Casas.

The reference, in the _Brevísima relación_, to the pearl fishing described by Oviedo reveals the contrast between Las Casas’ lively sympathy with the Indians and Oviedo’s unconcern and official indifference:

[Sidenote: Las Casas on pearl fishing]

“The tyranny exercised by the Spaniard upon the Indians in fishing pearls is as cruel and damnable a thing as can be found in the world. On land there is no life so desperate and infernal in this century that may be compared with it, although that of digging gold in the mines is in its kind exceedingly severe and difficult. They let the Indians down into the sea, three and four and five fathoms deep, from the morning till sunset, where they are swimming under water without respite, gathering the oysters in which the pearls grow; they come up to breathe, bringing up little nets full of oysters. There is a very cruel Spaniard in a boat, and if they linger resting, he beats them with his fists, and, taking them by the hair, throws them into the water to go on fishing.... Their food is fish, and the fish that contain the pearls, and a little cazabi, or maize bread, which are kinds of native bread; the one gives very little sustenance, and the other is very difficult to make, so with such food they are never sufficiently nourished. Instead of giving them beds at night, they put them in stocks on the ground to prevent them from running away.

[Sidenote: Dangers of the deep]

“Many of the Indians throw themselves into the sea while fishing or hunting for pearls, and never come up again, because dolphins or sharks, which are two kinds of very cruel sea animals that swallow a man whole, kill and eat them.... With this insupportable toil, or rather infernal trade, the Spaniards completed the destruction of all the Indians of the Lucayan Islands, who were in the islands when they set themselves to making these gains.”

III

[Sidenote: Companions of Pedrarias]

A number of persons who became especially conspicuous in colonial affairs, besides Oviedo, accompanied Pedrarias on his expedition to the Isthmus. Among these were Bishop Quevedo; Enciso, some time governor of Darien and author of _Suma de geografía_; Benalcázar, who became governor of Popayán; Hernando de Soto; and Pascual de Andagoya, whose varied experience and the events associated with Pedrarias form the matter of a document which has been translated into English by Sir Clements R. Markham. The title of Markham’s translation is _Narrative of the proceedings of Pedrarias Dávila in the provinces of Tierra Firme, or Castilla del Oro, and of what happened in the discovery of the South Sea, and the coasts of Peru and Nicaragua_.[13]

[Sidenote: Andagoya]

Andagoya, the author of this narrative, was born in the valley of Cuartango in the province of Alava. The account of his life as narrated by himself begins with his departure from Spain. On the Isthmus and in regions lying north and south of Panama, he was engaged in various exploring expeditions, during which by observation he appears to have acquired much knowledge of the manners and customs of the Indians. A weaker and less positive character than Oviedo, he was consequently less disposed than Oviedo to revolt against the régime of Pedrarias; in fact, he went with him to Panama, and received from him an encomienda, and became one of the first regidores of Panama, after that settlement had been declared a city. In 1521 and 1522 he was inspector-general of the Indians on the Isthmus. He was the first to receive information concerning the Inca Kingdom of Peru, but, lacking the health, perhaps also the initiative, to become the leader of an expedition against it, he communicated his knowledge to Pizarro and his partners.

[Sidenote: Failure of Andagoya’s expedition]

[Sidenote: News of Peru given to Pizarro]

“In this province (Birú) I received accounts both from chiefs and from merchants and interpreters, concerning all the coast, and everything that has since been discovered, as far as Cuzco, especially with regard to the inhabitants of each province, for in their trading these people extend their wanderings over many lands. Taking new interpreters, and the principal chief of that land, who wished of his own accord to go with me, and show me other provinces of the coast that obeyed him, I descended to the sea. The ships followed the coast at some little distance from the land, while I went close in, in a canoe, discovering the ports. While thus employed, I fell into the water, and if it had not been for the chief, who took me in his arms and pulled me on to the canoe, I should have been drowned. I remained in this position until a ship came to succour me, and while they were helping the others, I remained for more than two hours wet through. What with the cold air and the quantity of water I had drunk, I was laid up next day, unable to turn. Seeing that I could not now conduct this discovery along the coast in person, and that the expedition would thus come to an end, I resolved to return to Panama with the chief and interpreters who accompanied me, and report the knowledge I had acquired of all that land.

“The land had never been discovered either by Castilla de Oro, or by way of the gulf of San Miguel, and the province was called Pirú, because one of the letters of Birú has been corrupted, and so we call it Pirú, but in reality there is no country of that name.

“As soon as Pedrarias heard the great news which I had brought he was also told by the doctors that time alone could cure me, and in truth it was fully three years before I was able to ride on horseback. He therefore, asked me to hand over the undertaking to Pizarro, Almagro, and Father Luque, who were partners, in order that so great a discovery might be followed up, and he added that they would repay me what I had expended. I replied that, so far as the expedition was concerned, I must give it up, and that I did not wish to be paid, because if they paid me my expenses, they would not have sufficient to commence the business, for at that time they had not more than sixty dollars. Accordingly, these three, and Pedrarias, which made four, formed a company, each partner taking a fourth share.”[14]