University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln Great Plains Quarterly Great Plains Studies, Center for 1990 Spanish Exploration and the Great Plains in the Age of Discovery: Myth and Reality Ralph H. Vigil University of Nebraska-Lincoln Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly Part of the Other International and Area Studies Commons Vigil, Ralph H., "Spanish Exploration and the Great Plains in the Age of Discovery: Myth and Reality" (1990). Great Plains Quarterly. 505. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly/505 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. SPANISH EXPLORATION AND THE GREAT PLAINS IN THE AGE OF DISCOVERY MYTH AND REALITY RALPH H. VIGIL T his essay attempts to place Spanish explo­ "Age of Discovery," "Age of Reconnaissance," ration on the Great Plains within the context and "Age of Expansion."2 In a more circum­ of the temper and feelings prevailing in the first scribed sense, exploration in what became the century of the "discovery" of the West. 1 Because heart of America echoes the themes of discovery many writers of texts and more specialized works and settlement in the years 1492-1598, when view the past in the light of the present, Eu­ subjects of Castile explored vast regions of the ropean expansion in the sixteenth century ap­ New World by land and sea, conquered the pears to be more modem than it was. This paper dominions of the Aztecs and the Incas, founded views Spaniards of the early colonial period as colonies in Florida and New Mexico, began the more medieval than modem in outlook; it also spiritual conquest of America, and searched for suggests that mythological geography and mixed golden kingdoms in North and South America. spiritual and worldly motives, considered in­ Given the romantic nature of tales of ad­ compatible in our day, were as important as venture, English translations of explorers' nar­ Renaissance curiosity and technology in Euro­ ratives and biographies of daring adventurers pean expansion overseas. appeal to university students. Traditional ac­ Spanish exploration on the Great Plains forms counts of discovery and exploration retain their part of the general theme of European discov­ authority and popularity. J The story of discovery ery, exploration, and settlement of lands be­ and conquest, as reflected in narrative works yond Europe in the period variously called the without copious notes, also appeals to a wider public that no longer reads the often reprinted pioneer studies like William Hickley Prescott's Ralph Vigil is professor of history at the University of History of the Conquest of Mexico (1843), John Nebraska-Lincoln. His many publications include Alonso de Zorita: Royal Judge and Christian Humanist, 1512- Boyd Thacher's Christopher Columbus (1903-04), 1585, winner of the "Spain and America in the Quin­ the works of the versatile and significant Hubert centennial of the Discovery Prize" for 1987. Howe Bancroft, or those of other traditional authorities. Because even the best of the new historical sagas emphasize the deeds of Renais­ [GPQ 10 (Winter 1990): 3-17] sance men of action, however, they break no 3 4 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, WINTER 1990 I , I I ~! I ,-e:..--­I I I I ~I ,0I I ~ I c- I : .>- y T-----~----,__-------_\: I I o I FIG. 1. Map of Coronado's Expedition. Drawn under the supervision of Frederick W. Hodge for his 1907 edition of The Narrative of Alvar Nunez Cabefa de Vaca. SPANISH EXPLORATION 5 new ground, and the motives and personalities peans naval superiority. Once a colony was of the men directing the expansion of European founded, the use of horses, dogs, armor, and empires seem more modem than they were. 4 superior weapons secured the settlement. 6 TEXTBOOK DISTORTIONS OF SPANISH MEDIEVAL AND MYTHIC ROOTS OF EXPERIENCE DISCOVERY The imagined modernity of the Age of Ex­ Granted that discovery, exploration, and ex­ pansion is even more apparent in Western civ­ pansion beyond the seas took place when Eu­ ilization and American history textbooks. ropeans began to join theory and practice in a Written for white, primarily Protestant descen­ period that increasingly glorified the human and dants of transplanted Europeans, these didactic the natural, the idea that Renaissance scientific surveys give limited attention to Spanish over­ curiosity, worldly ideals, and the growth of in­ seas expansion and the Old and New World dividualism fueled the voyages of discovery is backgrounds preceding the founding of James­ only a half-truth. As one better-than-average town and Plymouth. In addition to distorting text correctly observes, "the motives, the or ignoring Indian America, these texts give knowledge, and the wherewithal for the great the impression that a handful of Spanish soldiers discoveries were all essentially medieval." The exploited and inflicted their culture on Indi­ impulse for discovery and exploration of what ans. S became America was a mixture of mistaken me­ Although textbook authors give Indians and dieval geographical theory, the ancient desire Spaniards minor background roles in the story for spices, gold, and precious stones of the fab­ of the epic winning of the West beyond the ulous East, and the memory of medieval jour­ Atlantic, Iberians discovered and took posses­ neys made by missionaries and merchants to the sion of America, and these authors have to in­ Mongol Empire. 7 clude Spain in emphasizing developments America was not only a geographical goal to contemporaneous with overseas discoveries and be reached; it was a concept to be invented. In conquests. Most texts join voyages of discovery the beginning was the West of the imagination. beginning with Columbus to events progres­ West became East and was thought to be part sively leading from the Renaissance to the En­ of the tripartite world made up of Europe, Af­ lightenment. Overseas expansion is thus related rica, and Asia. This unknown land, believed to the rise of nation-states and to the sixteenth­ by Columbus to lie at the world's end, evoked century "new monarchies," new modes of feelings of wonder and mystery. The composite expression in art and religion, dynastic and re­ West was legendary, theological, and imperial, ligious rivalries in the contest for empire, new and "might be either a place, a direction, an forms of economic and social life, and the ad­ idea, or all three at once." For some, this car­ vance of geographical knowledge and technol­ dinal direction brought to mind the setting sun ogy. of the vanishing day, "the father of reflection As the textbooks have it, rulers of the "new and of the mind's meditation." In this region monarchies" favored foreign ventures and the of the world, "the natural goal of man's last merchant class. Reconnaissance, or what may journey," lived death and justice and the second be called the preliminary exploration of the life that follows death. 8 world beyond Europe, was made possible by sci­ Others looking beyond the dark horizon of entific knowledge turned to practical account. the sun's descent saw the planet Venus, which Tools used by the explorers on their "stout, is both the evening and the morning star. Pedro handy, and seaworthy" vessels included the de Castaneda, the chronicler of the Coronado mariner's compass, the astrolabe, and a rudi­ expedition, wrote that "the better land" he and mentary quadrant. Shipborne guns gave Euro- his companions did not see might perhaps be 6 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, WINTER 1990 entered "through the land which the Marquis cepted the hierarchic system in which each es­ of the Valley, Don Fernando Cortes, went in tate had different privileges and functions. search of under the Western star, and which Economic self-interest divorced from military cost him no small sea armament. "9 and religious ideals was condemned, but wealth Monsters, which Thomas More tells us "are joined to nobility and civil power, one aspect common enough," lived in the West. So did of numerous feudal ties and patriarchal rela­ sirens, amazons, griffins, giants, and canni­ tions, was tolerated. The incentive for gold as bals.lO But beyond the dangerous waters of the a motive for expeditions of discovery was also Atlantic and the fierce beasts and men of the considered honorable if it formed part of a trin­ islands and mainland were to be found the waters ity of motives: God, Glory, and Gold. i3 of life and legendary lands of happiness. There might be found Antillia, the golden apples of CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS the Hesperides, King Solomon's mines, El Dor­ ado, the land of Cockaigne, the Seven Cities Even Christopher Columbus, today a myth­ of Cfbola, Quivira, the Fountain of Youth, and ical figure but described by Ramon Iglesias as the Terrestrial Paradise. America's first merchant and travel agent, Because modem man "with an almost Al­ clothed his economic interests with a halo of exandrian virtuosity" makes independent con­ chivalry. After losing his flagship in December cepts of pieces of reality called economics, 1492, he founded the fortress and garrison of religion, legend, history, the natural, the su­ La Navidad in Espanola. He trusted in God that pernatural, and so on, life becomes compart­ on his return from Castile he would find a barrel mentalized. We distinguish between the of gold, obtained by barter, and hoped that those "natural" and the "moral," while religion and he left on the island would have discovered gold economics, the world of the spirit and the world mines and spices in such quantity that the king of human affairs, form separate kingdoms that and queen, in less than three years, could un­ have no vital connections.