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2009

Coronado and Aesop Fable and Violence on the Sixteenth-Century Plains

Daryl W. Palmer Regis University

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Palmer, Daryl W., "Coronado and Aesop Fable and Violence on the Sixteenth-Century Plains" (2009). Great Plains Quarterly. 1203. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly/1203

This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Great Plains Studies, Center for at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Great Plains Quarterly by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. CORONADO AND AESOP FABLE AND VIOLENCE ON THE SIXTEENTH~CENTURY PLAINS

DARYL W. PALMER

In the spring of 1540, Francisco Vazquez de the killing of this guide for granted, the vio­ Coronado led an entrada from present-day lence was far from straightforward. Indeed, Mexico into the region we call New Mexico, the expeditionaries' actions were embedded where the expedition spent a violent winter in sixteenth-century Spanish culture, a milieu among pueblo peoples. The following year, that can still reward study by historians of the after a long march across the Great Plains, Great Plains. Working within this context, I Coronado led an elite group of his men north explore the ways in which Aesop, the classical into present-day Kansas where, among other master of the fable, may have informed the activities, they strangled their principal Indian Spaniards' actions on the Kansas plains. guide, a man they called El Turco. In the pages that follow, I focus on the events leading up CONQUISTADORS AND STORYTELLERS to and including the execution of this Indian guide. Although Coronado, his chroniclers, The notion that fierce conquistadors could and modern historians have tended to take have any interest in fables of foxes and tortoises will strike many people as improbable. With good reason, David Lavender explains that "Los conquistadores were tough, disciplined, and as Key Words: Cfbola, Conquistador, Kansas, New ruthless as circumstances required."l To be sure, Mexico, Quivira. they were violent men in search of great wealth, but simple portraits do not capture their com­ Daryl W. Palmer is an associate professor of English plexity. Simon A. Barton offers more detail: at Regis University. He is the author of Hospitable Performances: Dramatic Genre and Cultural Most were young single men aged between Practices in Early Modern England and Writing 14 and 30; a quarter were of hidalgo stock, Russia in the Age of Shakespeare. many of them impoverished segundones, or younger sons, who were denied any prospect [GPQ 29 (Spring 2009): 129-40) of an inheritance at home by the system of

129 130 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 2009

entail; the rest were mostly labourers, arti­ number of Europeans brought along their wives sans, traders and soldiers of limited means. and children. African slaves marched with the Imbued with the militant Catholicism of party. Wagons filled with supplies and arma­ the Reconquest and inspired by the tales of ments rattled along. Sheep, goats, and dogs chivalry then much in vogue, what all these made their own slow way at the back of the determined and supremely self-confident caravan. men had in common was a burning sense Like many before them, Coronado and his of loyalty, to Crown and Church, and an European comrades had been inspired by a unquenchable thirst to acquire wealth, mix of legend, literature, and rumor. Myths status and power.2 of El Dorado, the seven Portuguese bishops, Antillia, the Hesperides, and Solomon's mines This description supplements Lavender's sum­ merged with rumors of Indian kingdoms to the mary by recognizing a range of conquistadorial north and the stories ofCabeza de Vaca.lO Tales inspirations and motives. Alluding to "the of chivalry such as Amadfs de Gaula mingled tales of chivalry," Barton acknowledges that a with this discourse of speculation. Whether surprising number of the conquistadors were such stories really motivated any Europeans to literate and, to a certain extent, aware of the risk life and limb is open to debate, but such literary culture around them.3 After describing fictions inflected their aspirations and their this co~nection in detail, Irving Leonard offers perceptions.!! For instance, as Richard Flint an even more surprising portrait of the con­ explains, quistador: "His emotional responses to stimuli of every sort were quick and warm, moving Spaniards came to the Western Hemisphere him to heroic action and intense ·enthusiasm.''4 already primed with popular stories of In ways too numerous to mention here, the treacherous guides, often Turks, so they conquistador was a complex product of his age. anticipated and might have projected that As J. H. Elliott once pointed out, in a discus­ possibility onto American natives. The sion of Cortes, the conquistador embodied the deceptive guide was a staple of the wildly "ideals and aspirations of his society."5 If this popular chivalric romances of the day in more complex invader turns out to be guilty Spain. Many expeditionaries were precondi­ of atrocities, perhaps we should look to the tioned to expect attempts at deception.!2 European culture that produced him. Leonard puts the matter bluntly: "The study of con­ Expecting deceit, Coronado and company tried temporary Europe reveals plainly the universal to take charge of their fortunes by turning pattern of cruelty, intolerance, and inhuman­ "authorial."13 ity."6 Although this sort of acknowledgment It is possible to study this scripting in first­ can never excuse the conquistadors' violence, hand accounts of the expedition by Coronado, it does help us approach the personnel of the Pedro Castaneda de Najera, Juan de Jaramillo, Coronado expedition with greater precision. and the anonymous author of Relaci6n del We know, for instance, that Coronado led Suceso.!4 Arranged side by side, these relaci6nes about four hundred Europeans and thirteen clearly agree on many aspects of the expedi­ hundred Indian allies.7 G. Douglas Inglis has tion. In unison, they point to landmarks and pointed out that "[o]nly 28.9% of the men of rehearse turning points. Nevertheless, personal Cfbola had participated in a previous conquest. and professional biases emerge as the writers Even the Captain General was a novice con­ attempt to explain New World experiences quistador having served only in pacificaciones through Old World frames of reference. Where of areas already conquered."8 Instead of shining the anonymous author emphasizes measure­ armor, many of the Europeans wore pieces of ments, Jaramillo concentrates on bison and Indian armor they called armas de la tierra.9 A pasture. In the longest account of the expedi- CORONADO AND AESOP 131 tion, Castaneda likes to explore the literary canoes with more than twenty rowers on possibilities of the material. He sets scenes and each side, which also carried sails. The lords pauses to rehearse little inset stories, like the traveled on the poop, seated [54r] beneath one about awnings. On the prow [there was] a large eagle of gold. He said further that the lord a young man-at-arms called Trujillo [who] of that land slept during siesta under a great pretended to have had a prophetic vision tree on which a great number of golden bells while bathing in the river and defecat­ hung. In the breeze they gave him pleasure. ing. With his appearance altered, he was Further, he said that generally everyone's brought before the general, at which point serving dishes were worked silver. And the he explained that the devil had told him pitchers, plates, and small bowls were [made] that he [Trujillo] would kill the general and of gold. (400) marry his wife, dona Beatriz, and that she would give him great treasures. (392) Castaneda and his fellow chroniclers devote a great deal of speculation to this story because, Readers of Renaissance literature will recog­ needless to say, the tale of Quivira did not nize the spirit of Boccaccio, Lazarillo, and La seem to match their experience of Quivira. Celestina in this tale as the writer explains how Following these chroniclers, many modern a frightened Coronado sent Trujillo home­ historians have dubbed EI Turco a prevarica­ which is what the man craved all along. In keep­ tor, but other interpretations are possibleP ing with the satiric spirit of the aforementioned Although Europeans in the New World liked works, Castaneda mocks the captain-general. to assume that they could communicate clearly Elsewhere in the narrative, he heightens this with native peoples, the reality was always mood as he tells how Coronado was knocked more fraught. With this in mind, one arche­ to the ground during the attack on Cfbola and ologist has suggested that the Indian was really how an expeditionary raped a woman at one of describing Mississippian tribes and their watery the pueblos in New Mexico while her husband worlds.18 Perhaps Coronado and his captains unwittingly held the attacker's horse. simply misunderstood an honest report. It is I suggest that Castaneda's investment in also possible that, minus a few garbled details, storytelling says as much about his comrades the description accurately depicts the abun­ as it does about him, and this hunger for nar­ dance of Quiviran life along the Arkansas rative is acutely apparent at the end of that River.19 first long and bloody summer in 1540. The What we know for sure is that the expedi­ expeditionaries felt like failures. With no tionaries responded to the tale with violence gold to show for their actions, they paid close and invention. When the other Indian guides attention to the first storyteller who spoke to denied the story, the Europeans tortured them their desires. He was probably "a member of a for it, as though violence could in some way proto-Pawnee people."15 He may have been an supplement, even perfect, the anecdote. More itinerant merchant.I6 We really have no way of strikingly, either during the expedition or knowing for sure, but what we do know is that afterwards, Coronado and company named the when he began to tell his story of a distant land storyteller EI Turco, turning him into a char­ called Quivira-a place of abundant water and acter, a figure from the Old World that echoed gold-the Spaniards listened. Not surprisingly, familiar tales of the Reconquista. If the act of Castaneda reports the Indian's story of naming was retrospective, as Jane Maclaren Walsh and the Flints quite reasonably suggest, a river in a plain which was two leagues wide. then it represents a remarkable example of There were fish as large as horses there. And sixteenth-century rationalization. The expe­ [there were] a great many exceedingly large dition's failure made perfect sense. Coronado 132 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 2009

""a.nd his captains had simply been playing their [F] irst, it was probably one of the most part in an ancient (and even eternal) battle widely read books of the time, judging from between good and evil. On the other hand, the large number of editions; second, it is if the expeditionaries named the storyteller the first known Spanish version of these before setting out for the plains, the act may fables, and served as a model for a series of suggest the Europeans' awareness of their own collections of Aesopic fables, having popu­ desperation. It may suggest a kind of fatalism larity in Spain lasting almost down to the that seems irrational to us but quite reasonable present time.24 to sixteenth-century minds.2o Pushed to the brink of collapse, these gold-hungry Europeans Sixteenth-century Spanish schoolchildren may have gone out of their way to fictionalize read the book as a language primer, and the their final venture and foreshadow its collapse. fables took on a life of their own.25 Over time, these secular tales assumed the moral AESOP AND THE EXPEDITION aura of Christian texts; and sometime after the Coronado expedition, Spanish humanists Not content with El Turco, the Spaniards began to translate their Aesop into Nahuatl, turned to Aesop. In the spring, as the expedi­ the language of the Aztecs.26 In the imperial' tion prepared to set out, the captains laid their mindset of the sixteenth-century Spaniard, hands on Quivirans who could counsel them Aesop occupied a central place. with their detailed knowledge of the kingdom. The fascination, as it turns out, was multifac­ The captains called one Xabe and turned eted. People of lower social classes appreciated away when the native told them El Turco was the fables because they saw their own lives and lying (Castaneda 408). Xabe's compatriot said predicaments reflected in the stories of lowly the same thing and the captains dubbed him mice and vulnerable lambs.27 People of all ranks "Ysopete," or Aesop in English. as the Flints appreciated the fables because they found com­ point out in their definitive edition of the expe­ pelling stories of difficult and dangerous predica­ dition documents.21 Historians have tended to ments. Just as the poor in spirit might turn to the pass over this action in silence, even though Beatitudes for comfort, people could invoke and it raises a number of remarkable questions. rehearse Aesopian tales and find company for What did sixteenth-century Spaniards know their misery. It should be no surprise, then, that of Aesop? How did they value him? How might a group of frustrated Spaniards might see their knowledge of the fable-maker and his fables situation mirrored in Aesopic storytelling. have mattered to Coronado's company as it set Nor is it surprising that the expedition aries out for Quivira? would want to write their own fables. La Vida Answering the first question is simple del Ysopet encouraged them to do so. Stretching enough. Coronado and his compatriots would to 163 fables, the collection includes many have been quite familiar with the creator of stories penned by later fabulists, who happily fables. For much of the fifteenth century, a few wrote themselves into the Aesopian tradi­ well-educated Spaniards read a Latin version of tion.28 The quality of their contributions seems the stories translated by Lorenzo Valla.22 Then, not to have mattered. Many of the later entries as Spurgeon W. Baldwin Jr. explains, "The are bad imitations. A number of the dimmest first collection of fables to appear in Spain [in entries seem completely out of touch with the Spanish], made up primarily but not exclusively genre. Yet everyone, it seems, was welcome of fables attributed to Aesop, was printed in at the Aesopian table. By naming their guide Zaragoza in 1489, and was given the title La Aesop, Coronado and company seem to have Vida del Ysopet con sus [abulas historiadas.23 embraced this model. Baldwin goes on to describe the significance of Needless to say, their action offered a number the edition for Spanish culture: of strategic advantages. If the expeditionaries CORONADO AND AESOP 133 took to calling their honest Indian guide Aesop Indeed, they may have said, "This is what hap­ after the fact, they could claim an aura of pre­ pens to Aesop." Perhaps they found a certain science. Thoughtful readers might deduce that consolation in such thoughts. If they were the captains had anticipated deception but intent on believing EI Turco, then calling his had pressed on in the face of disaster. In such chief critic Aesop turned that criticism into a a scenario, the leaders seem less like dupes and familiar joke. Aesop could deny the possibility more like dutiful officers following every pos­ of finding gold, but the Spaniards would have sible lead, regardless of the risk. At the same the last laugh at the Indian's execution. The time, by aligning their search for golden cities violence would be communal, emphatic, and with the Aesopian tradition, the authors of the inevitable. relaci6nes could imply that that their stories Of course the fables reinforce this kind of should be understood in the tradition of the rationalization at every turn. In story after story, fabula historia. In this context, the failure to violence is inevitable, pragmatic, retributive, find gold seems less important than the adven­ and utterly gratifying. Consider, for instance, ture itself. the fable of the wolf and the lamb that appears If the captains named the Indian Aesop near the beginning of the Spanish collection before setting out for Quivira, they may have (Fig. 1).31 This well-known story offered a para­ been seeking a kind of hermeneutical reori­ digm for the Spaniards' position on the way to entation. Perhaps Aesopian bearings could Quivira. In the fable, the two animals meet at be applied to their unprecedented position in a stream, and the wolf puzzles over his desire to the heart of Tierra Nueva. In this context, the eat the innocent lamb. Hopeful readers might expeditionaries were-like the cats, raptors, begin to suspect that the wolf will change his mice, and lambs of so many fables-poised mind, but he does not. The moral explains: before life and death decisions with inevitable finales. The tack made sense. As Baldwin Esta fabula significa q[ue] cerca los malos y explains, fables' morals "are without exception falsos no ha lugar v[er]dad ni razon ni vale concerned with practical advice for getting otra cosa contra ellos saluo la fuerc;a sola. E along in life, often with overtones of stoicism seme[nljates lobos se fallan en cada lugar. Los highly appropriate and useful to those of low quales por tirania bus cando ocasiones beuen la degree."29 Reading Aesop was like studying sangre y afan delos innocentes y pobres. a manual for how to anticipate and manage failure. This fable signifies that in proximity to bad One thing seems certain. Regardless of when and false people there is no place for reason the captains named their Indian guide Aesop, or anything else save force alone. And these the nomination helped them naturalize the wolves are everywhere, searching out by violence that occurred on the Kansas plains. rp.eans of tyranny occasions to drink the This effect, as it turns out, is rooted in the blood and take away the will of the inno­ title of the 1498 collection: La Vida del Ysopet. cents and the poor.32 Before offering any fables, the volume rehearses the familiar narrative of Aesop the gadfly As they set out across a forbidding landscape for who travels the world, challenging communi­ Quivira, Coronado and his comrades saw the ties' assumptions about themselves. Put more trail ahead in precisely these terms. They would bluntly, the volume introduces the storyteller have to traverse an arid landscape where even as being famous for telling people what they did the smallest stream would mark a turning point, not wish to know. In keeping with Herodotean a moment of decision. They already believed version, the Delphians execute Aesop for being that their guides could not be trusted. Preaching so irascible.30 Coronado and company must a kind of lupine paranoia, the Spanish version of have been acquainted with this violent ending. Aesop reminded them that "wolves" are every- 134 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 2009

FIG. 1. The death of Aesop. From La Vida del Ysopet con sus fabulas historiadas (Zaragoza, 1489). The figure depicts the fable of "The Wolf and the Lamb."

where. But any thoughtful expeditionary must formula: in a harsh world, alliances only make have wondered whether, in this story, he and more victims. The application to expedition­ his comrades were the wolves or the lambs. As ary experience seems obvious. Like the mouse, wolves, they could take heart from the fact that Coronado and company crossed streams and force would see them through. As lambs, they rivers with varying degrees of confidence. Like had to feel doomed. Whether wolves or lambs, the mouse, they were now defying common the end was the same: violence. sense by tying themselves to guides who were The fable of "The Mouse, the Frog, and radically other. Somewhere on the plains the Hawk" is even more relevant. Like the ahead, they would sink like mice in water. In expeditionaries, the mouse in this fable wants retrospect, the moral is particularly ominous: help with his journey. Against all the laws of nature, he approaches the frog and asks for help Significa esta fabula q[ue] los q[ue] piensan crossing the river. They agree on the preposter­ mal y dampnyo a otros y 10 se ponen par obra, ous plan of tying the mouse's leg to the frog's a las vezes se destruyen assi mesmos par fazer leg. The venture goes smoothly only until the mal a otros, y assi perescen los q[ue] so especie frog hits the water and the mouse sinks. As the de beien fazen mal. frog struggles to save himself, the hawk swoops down and snatches the two creatures. The This fable means that those who wish ill woodcut from the Spanish collection depicts and injury to others and try to do it, some­ this pathetic end (Fig. 2). Here we find yet times destroy themselves in trying to hurt another tale of failure and violence, but this others, and thus die those who, under the one adds an important codicil to the familiar guise of good, do harm.33 CORONADO AND AESOP 135

Fig. 2. La Vida del Ysopet con sus [abulas historiadas (Zaragoza, 1489). The figure depicts the fable of "The Mouse, the Frog, and the Hawk."

According to the Spanish text of Aesop, alli­ Any educated Spaniard reading this letter ances demand rigorous analysis by all those would expect Coronado to have shown a cer­ involved because improbable plans usually tain amount of skepticism at this juncture. The mask malicious motives. Destruction is inevi­ leader does not disappoint: table. Quite in keeping with this conclusion, [Sjince it was a report from Indians and Coronado and the other writers who chronicle mostly by signs, I did not give them cre­ the expedition describe their alliances with dence until I could see it with my own eyes Aesopian wariness. In his letter to the emperor, (their report seeming very exaggerated to written soon after his return from Quivira, me). Because it seemed important to Your Coronado provides the most compelling exam­ ·Majesty's service that it be examined, I ple. Faced with the task of reporting failure, decided to go with the company I have here Coronado explains that to see [itj. (319)

some native Indians from other provincias The writer takes care to highlight his reasoning. beyond these gave me a report that in their The shifts of thought are evident, here as well land were much grander towns and build­ as in the Spanish original. Coronado had good ings, better than those of the natives of this reason to doubt the report.34 Consequently, land. [They reportedj that there were lords he set out with a clear standard for belief: his who ruled them, that they ate out of golden own eyes. Unconcerned with wealth, he went dishes, and other things of great magnifi­ forward out of duty or "service." He was, at the cence. (319) outset, neither frog nor mouse. 136 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 2009

"As they traveled across the Plains, the puts it succinctly: "Neither gold nor silver was expedition encountered the Querechos and seen among those people, nor [was there] news the Teyas. They marveled at the herds of of it" (411). On the other hand, Coronado bison and the grasslands that seemed to erase reported to the emperor: "The soil itself is the their passage. Pummeled by hail, confounded most suited for growing all the [crops] of Spain by the open spaces, the Spaniards grew more that has been seen. [This is] because in addi­ and more frustrated. A crisis was inevitable. tion to its being deep and black and having Coronado reports the turning point as occur­ very excellent water from streams, springs, and ring during a conversation with the Teyas who rivers, I found plums like those in Spain, wal­ nuts, excellent sweet grapes, and mulberries" made me [understand that] in [the land I was (321). Jaramillo echoes this appraisal: "This going to] the houses [were made] of thatch land has a very beautiful appearance, such that and hides and not of stone nor [were they] I have not seen better in the entirety of Spain, multistoried, as the guides I was taking had nor in Italy or part of France, nor even in other made me imagine them. And in them [there lands where I have traveled in His Majesty's was] little corn for eating. With this news I service" (517). received the utmost pain, seeing myself in These accounts seem to suggest that the those tiresome, endless plains, where I had conquistadors were well contented with their extreme need of water. I drank [water] so bad labors, but such an assumption overlooks the it contained more mud than water. (320) Europeans' mood. Coronado describes the sticking point: The account reads like a fable's peripeteia, that moment when an animal looks about over a Thus the report [the guides] gave me was stream and suddenly realizes that he has been false. [And] because it might have induced dangerously misled. Like one o( these duped me to go there with the whole company, I animals, Coronado confesses that he was believe (because the route passed through bamboozled. His confession made, the leader so many empty and unsettled areas and begins to complain and goes on whining about [because of] the absence of water sources) conditions on the final leg of the journey to that [the guides] may have directed us to a Quivira. place where our horses and ourselves might die of hunger. The guides confessed to just MURDER IN QUIVIRA this and that they did it by the advice and order of the natives of these provincias What Coronado and his elite group of expe­ [Tiguex, Cicuique, and perhaps others]. ditionaries found along the great bend of the (321) Arkansas River was an abundant civilization of Caddoan people, ancestors of the Wichita, Coronado and his men, though they had sus­ who lived in thatched lodges, cultivating lush pected the situation from the outset, were furi­ gardens in the summer, hunting buffalo in the ous that the Indians had lied to them. It would winter. A wealth of streams and springs sur­ be a mistake to pass over this testimony lightly. rounding the river nurtured their way of life. According to the invaders, the pivotal issue Ysopete and Xabe seem to have negotiated the was that that they had been duped. A glance arrival, for the Quivirans welcomed the invad­ back at Aesop tells us more. Compounding ers peacefully enough, offering them hospital­ this frustration was a certain Aesopian aware­ ity and access to their villages. ness that they, like the frog in the fable, had To say the least, the conquistadors were con­ embraced a bad alliance. They should have flicted. On the one hand, there were no stone known better. It would, I think, be difficult to mansions encrusted with jewels. Castaneda overestimate the resulting fury that, in fabular CORONADO AND AESOP 137 terms, was already sufficient justification for ing a companion of the aforesaid Turco, was violence. asked whether he would tell us the truth and Coronado does not mention the execution lead us to the land we were going in search of. {-} of El Turco in this letter. We must turn to the He said yes, he would do that, and that it was not expedition's chroniclers for an account of this as El Turco had told us" (515). At Coronado's event. Castaneda takes pains to rehearse the moment of truth, Aesop stepped in to supplant important "confession" of the guid,e: the lying guide. In a manner of speakipg, the father of fables took center stage in order to He replied that his land was toward that explain that he had been right from the begin­ area and besides, the [people] of Cicuyc had ning. Unlike his namesake, the Indian was set begged him to get the [Spaniards] lost on the free and remained with his people. In the midst plains. [That was] so that, lacking food sup­ of so much failure, it must have been a psycho­ plies, the horses would die. And [the people logically satisfying turn of events. ofCicuyc] could kill [the Spaniards] without On the matter of El Turco's execution, difficulty when they returned, [because they the chroniclers are matter of fact. Castaneda would be] weak. And [they would be able] emphasizes expediency, the idea that the to avenge what [the Spaniards] had done. Spaniards acted in order to prevent collu­ Because of this he had led the [Spaniards] sion between El Turco and the Quivirans. off course, thinking that they would not He concludes, "[T]hey garroted him" (411). know how to hunt or how to sustain them­ Then he adds a touch of Aesopian spirit by selves without corn. Regarding what [he had reporting that "Ysopete was pleased about said previously] about gold, he [now] said that" (411). Here is the old fabular pleasure that he did not know where there was any. in victory, comeuppance, hierarchy restored, He said this now as [one who was] hopeless. vindication-and deftly executed violence. In He was ashamed that [the Spaniards] had this spirit, Jaramillo tells his version with the believed Ysopete and that [Ysopete] had kind of sardonic tone that would eventually guided them better than he had. (411) figure in tales of the Wild West: "That night he [El Turco] was put to the garrote, so that he I quote the passage at length because of its his­ did not wake the next day" (516). Both writers torical importance. Here is a "transcript" of the emphasize a kind of poetic justice, the inevi­ first crudely improvised tribunal of European table ending in a clear-cut moral that makes "officials" condemning a Native American to violence so satisfying and so inevitable. death in the Great Plains. It begins with the When the expedition eventually returned to victim whose true name has been erased. After Mexico City in 1542, the Spanish government torture, this man "confesses" his desire for home initiated an official inquiry into the expedi­ and a plot to undo the European forces that tion's many acts of violence. At the center of mean to claim his land. After torture, he denies this hearing was the question of El Turco's his previous account of Quivira. He announces murder. Richard Flint, who has translated his hopelessness and his shame. Even the and edited the hearing's documents, observes casual historian of the American West knows that the Coronado expedition has a reputa­ that this pattern stands as a prototype for the tion for gentleness, but the editor declares: centuries of violence that followed. "Nothing could be farther from the truth."35 Undigested in this account is the Spanish As one participant after another testified, the chronicler's emphasis on the rivalry between conquistadors had carried out many acts of vio­ the lying guide and Aesop. Jaramillo sets up lence, including the brutal murder of El Turco. this narrative by describing the events sur­ Having established this fact, the presiding offi­ rounding Coronado's epiphany on the plains: cials exonerated Coronado for having done his "Here the Indian Ysopete, whom we were call- best in a difficult situation. 138 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 2009

When modern historians discuss the murder "Myths," James Hillman writes, "are the of EI Turco, they effectively underwrite the norms of the unreasonable."43 When Coronado chroniclers' perspective. For instance, in and his company found themselves struggling the most famous account of the expedition, to salvage an expensive expedition founded on Herbert Bolton becomes positively Aesopian unreasonable expectations, they invoked the when he calls the victim that "rascal."36 He figure of Aesop. With his life and his fables, describes the garroting in detail, speculating this canonical figure of the Old World offered that "[p]erhaps the honors were divided."37 these frustrated conquistadors a way to manage Bolton writes of this execution with the kind failure and normalize violence in the heart of of high spirits we tend to reserve for comedy or an abundant and peaceful civilization. sport. Paul Horgan, by contrast, conjures up a legalistic sort of justice: "The Turk was dead, by NOTES order of the General, for he had proved to be a lying traitor who had even schemed to betray 1. David Lavender, De Soto, Coronado, and the army to enemy Indians."38 Of course, this Cabrillo: Explorers of the Northern Mystery (Washing­ ton, DC: National Parks Service, 1992), 18. sense of legality has its roots in the kind of 2. Simon A. Barton, A History of Spain (Hound­ justice dispensed by crafty felines and raptors mills: Palgrave, 2004), 109. See also Henry Kamen, in the pages of Aesop. It has far less to do with Empire: How Spain Became a World Power, 1492-1763 jurisprudence than it does with human psychol­ (New York: HarperCollins, 2003), 105. ogy. Lavender offers a similar treatment: "He 3. On conquistadors' literacy, see Kamen, Empire: How Spain Became a World Power, 105. had lied about it because the people of Cicuye On their affinity with and taste for literature, see had promised him rich rewards for luring the Irving A. Leonard, Books of the Brave (Cambridge: Spaniards onto the Llano, where, it was hoped, Harvard University Press, 1949), 12,93. they would perish. Bleakly, Coronado had the 4. Leonard, Books of the Brave, 11. prevaricator strangled."39 Lavender embeds 5. J. H. Elliott, Spain and Its New World, 1500- 1700 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), 28. the idea of cause and effect in this passage but 6. Leonard, Books of the Brave, 8. encourages our sympathy for the despairing 7. While the majority of Coronado's person­ leader. Picking up a bit of Castaneda's tone, nel were Spanish, representatives of Germany, William Brandon equivocates but arrives at Scotland, Portugal, and France also took part in the same verdict: "Whether or not EI Turco was the expedition. For more on the group's makeup, see G. Douglas Inglis, "The Men of Cfbola: truly the first villain of record of the Quivira New Investigations on the Francisco Vazquez de Trail, he was certainly the first victim; and, of Coronado Expedition," Panhandle Plains Historical course, maybe he was both. He was killed at Review 55 (1982): 5; William K. Hartmann and night in one of the Christian tents-secretly, Richard Flint, "Before the Coronado Expedition: to keep from upsetting the Quivirans.'>40 More Who Knew What and When Did They Know It," in The Coronado Expedition: From the Distance of 460 recently, John L. Kessell has told the most suc­ Years, ed. Richard Flint and Shirley Cushing Flint cinct version of the familiar equation. He notes (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, the Indian's confession and concludes "[tlhat 2003), 21. revelation cost EI Turco his life."41 For Horgan, 8. Inglis, "The Men of Cfbola," 5. Lavender, Brandon, and Kessell, EI Turco's end 9. Richard Flint, "What's Missing from This Picture?: The Alarde, or Muster Roll, of the is pure cause and effect, right and wrong, utterly Coronado Expedition," in The Coronado Expedition, logical and reasonable. Among the many his­ 76. See also Richard Flint, "Armas de la Tierra: torians who have discussed the expedition over The Mexican Indian Component of Coronado the last hundred years, Wes Jackson is unique Expedition Material Culture," in The Coronado Expedition to Tierra Nueva, ed. Richard Flint and in his dissenting opinion: "Thus young noble­ Shirley Cushing Flint (Boulder: University Press of men from some of Europe's finest families were Colorado, 1997), 47-57. responsible for the first murder of an Indian by 10. Hartmann and Flint, "Before the Coronado whites in Kansas."42 Expedition," 38; Diana de Armas Wilson, "Cervantes CORONADO AND AESOP 139 and the Indies," Philosophy and Literature 24, no. 2 17. For a succinct summary of such verdicts, see (2000): 371; Ralph H. Vigil, "Spanish Exploration Smith, The Wichita Indians: Traders of Texas and the and the Great Plains in the Age of Discovery," in Southern Plains, 39. Spain and the Plains, ed. Ralph H. Vigil, Frances W. 18. Wedel, The Wichita Indians, 1541-1750,42-43. Kaye, and John R. Wunder (Boulder: University For a fine summary of the debate over misunder­ Press of Colorado, 1994),22, 27-28; Jane Maclaren standing, see Janet lecompte, "Coronado and Walsh, "Myth and Imagination in the American Conquest," New Mexico Historical Review 64, no. 3 Story: The Coronado Expedition, 1540-1542" (1989): 299-300; Flint, No Settlement, No Conquest, (PhD diss., Catholic University of America, 1993), 161-64. On the vexed question of communication 28-34. For a valuable precis of this milieu, see James between the Indians and the conquistadors during Eastgate Brink, "The Function of Myth in the the Coronado expedition, see Carroll L. Riley, Discovery of the New World," in Coronado and the "Early Spanish-Indian Communication in the Myth of Quivira, ed. Diane Everett (Canyon, TX: Greater Southwest," New Mexico Historical Review Panhandle-Plains Historical Society, 1985), 11-19. 46, no. 4 (1971): 285-314; Flint, No Settlement, No 11. Rolena Adorno, The Polemics of Possession Conquest, 79-85. in Spanish American Narrative (New Haven: Yale 19. Compare, for instance, the description of University Press, 2007), 214. Quivira by Joseph v. Hickey and Charles E. Webb, 12. Richard Flint, No Settlement, No Conquest: "The lyons Serpent: Speculations on the Indian A History of the Coronado Entrada (Albuquerque: as Geographer," Emporia State Research Studies 33, University of New Mexico Press, 2008), 84. no. 4 (1985): 38. For the most recent summary of 13. For a discussion of how European authors archeological investigations of the Quiviran sites began to undertake this sort of revision, shifting the in Kansas, see Donald J. Blakeslee and Marlin old plots to the New World, see Daryl W. Palmer, F. Hawley, "The Great Bend Aspect," in Kansas "Pedro Castaneda, Francisco Vasquez de Coronado, Archaeology, ed. Robert J. Hoard and William E. and the Rebirth of the Picaresque on the American Banks (lawrence: University of Kansas Press, Plains," Mediterranean Studies 11 (2002): 131-48. 2006), 165-79. 14. George Parker Winship discovered Cas­ 20. Walsh, in "Myth and Imagination in the taneda's narrative in the nineteenth century and American Story: The Coronado Expedition," published it in 1896 as The Coronado Expedition, 207-8, has suggested that the name was given to 1540-1542, part of the Fourteenth Annual Report of the Indian after the expedition. There seems to be the U.S. Bureau of American Ethnology, 1892-93, no way of proving this notion. I remain skeptical part 1. Born c. 1515, Castaneda left behind the of the theory for several reasons. First, if Coronado most comprehensive account of the expedition, and company waited until after the expedition to although he did not witness certain key events, name the guides, what did they call them during including the execution ofEI Turco. Jaramillo came the expedition? Although written at different times from Villanueva de Barcarrota in Extremadura, in different places, none of the extant accounts ever having invested over 3,000 pesos in the expedition. hints at other names. Second, the expeditionaries The author of the Relaci6n seems to have been a everywhere demonstrate their love of naming. They captain with significant knowledge of the expedi­ name one Indian for his facial hair-Bigotes. They tion's decision-making process. Further quotations name every river and every significant canyon. They from these documents are cited parenthetically in even call attention to their love of naming. In his the text and come from Documents of the Coronado chronicle, Juan Jaramillo reports: "Here the Indian Expedition, 1539-1542, trans. and annotated by Ysopete, whom we were calling a companion of the Richard Flint and Shirley Cushing Flint (Dallas: aforesaid Turco ... " (Documents of the Coronado Southern Methodist University Press, 2005). Expedition, 515). Finally, we should not underesti­ 15. Documents of the Coronado Expedition, 596. mate the capacity of sixteenth-century people to 16. Mildred Mott Wedel, The Wichita Indians, anticipate and even embrace their own misfortune. 1541-1750 (Lincoln: J & l Reprint Company, 1988), On this phenomenon, see lacey Baldwin Smith, 21. For more on the mercantile network in which Treason in Tudor England: Politics and Paranoia the Quivirans participated, see F. Todd Smith, The (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986), 1-35. Wichita Indians: Traders of Texas and the Southern 21. Documents of the Coronado Expedition, 679 n. Plains, 1540-1845 (College Station: Texas A&M 317. University Press, 2000), 9. For a discussion of archeo­ 22. Emilio Cotarelo Mori, "Prologo," in Fdbulas logical evidence, see Wedel, "Archeological Remains de Esopo (Madrid: Real Academia, 1929), x. in Central Kansas and Their Possible Bearing on the 23. Spurgeon W. Baldwin Jr., "The Role of the location of Quivira," Reprints in Anthropology, vol. 2 Moral in 'La Vida del Ysopet con sus fabulas historia­ (Lincoln: J & l Reprint Company, 1976), 6-7. das,'" Hispania 47, no. 4 (1964): 762. The inaugural 140 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 2009 status of this volume is complex. For more on the 34. The Relaci6n del Suceso echoes this view, transmission of the fables into Spanish, see Gustav noting that the expedition gave little "credence" to El G. Laubscher, "Notes on the Spanish Ysopo of 1496," Turco (Documents of the Coronado Expedition, 50l). MLN 24, no. 3 (1909): 70-71. 35. Richard Flint, Great Cruelties Have Been 24. Baldwin, "The Role of the Moral," 762. This Reported: The 1544 Investigation of the Coronado sort of popularity was mirrored in countries across Expedition (Dallas: Southern Methodist University Europe. Caxton produced a popular edition for Press, 2002), xvi. England in 1484. The Medici Aesop appears in Italy 36. Herbert E. Bolton, Coronado: Knight of around 1488. Pueblos and Plains (New York: Whittlesey House, 25. Nicholas Tromans, "The Iconography of 1949),299. Velazquez's Aesop," Journal of the Warburg and 37. Ibid., 303. Courtauld Institutes 59 (1996): 334. 38. Paul Horgan, Conquistadors in North Amer­ 26. Gordon Brotherston, "How Aesop Fared in ican History (New York: Farrar, Straus, 1963), 179. Nahuatl," Arcadia 7, no. 1 (1972): 37-38. 39. David Lavender, The Southwest (New York: 27. Baldwin, "The Role of the Moral," 763. Harper and Row, 1980),44. 28. Ibid., 762. 40. William Brandon, Quivira: Europeans in the 29. Ibid., 764. Region of the Santa Fe Trail, 1540-1820 (Athens: 30. Fdbulas de Esopo, 25r. Ohio University Press, 1990), 44. 31. For an excellent discussion of the Aesopian 41. John L. Kessell, Spain in the Southwest (Nor­ iconography in Spain, see Carmen Navarro, "Notas man: University of Oklahoma Press, 2002), 44. a la icongraffa del Isopete Espanol," Quaderni di 42. Wes Jackson, Becoming Native to This Place lingue e letterature 18 (1993): 543-76. (1994; Washington, DC: Counterpoint, 1996), 7. 32. Fdbulas de Esopo, 26v-27r, translation mine. 43. James Hillman, A Terrible Love of War (New 33. Ibid., 27r, translation mine. York: Penguin, 2004), 9.