Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
islands were detached from Spain. Canada was colonized by the French, and the east coast
of North America stood open to English settlers.
The incredible fortune assigned to each of Pizarro's men inspired a string of expedi-
tions in search of more wealth. No rumor was beyond belief. El Dorado, the man of gold,
was said to live somewhere north of Peru. His was the tale of a chief covered with gold dust
every night by worshipful followers. After his dusting, El Dorado would enter a lake to
cleanse himself, and as time passed, the lake had become muddy with gold. When Spanish
torture failed to produce directions to El Dorado, the myth was changed. Now El Dorado,
in the Spanish imagination, was a city with buildings made of gold. And still later, the city
of gold had become a tale of Cibola, the seven cities of gold. [283]
The search for El Dorado pushed the Spaniards north of the Rio Grande and into the
first European exploration of what is now the American southwest. And equally import-
ant, it led another explorer, Francisco de Orellana, to travel the mightiest river of South
America, from the mountains to the sea. As his hapless expedition tried to outrun hostile
Indians, Orellana claimed to have been beset by fierce women warriors—the Amazons of
Greek mythology. But perhaps the most enduring consequence of Cajamarca was the belief
instilled in the Spanish that theirs was a divine destiny in which a handful of Spanish over-
lords had been chosen to rule a continent.
WHAT WAS THE SECRET OF SPANISH SUCCESS?
Over and above daring and confidence, the Spanish came to the New World with 800 years'
experience fighting Islam. The Spanish had weapons and armor of steel; the Indians had no
metallurgy except for fashioning gold and silver ornaments. Until the use of motor vehicles
in the twentieth century, the most formidable and flexible weapon of war was the cavalry.
The Spanish had horses, while the Indians had none. In fact, and except for the llamas of
South America's far south, neither North nor South America had any animals useful for
war or transportation. The first encounter with mounted riders terrified the Indians. They
thought that horse and rider were a single creature—huge, aggressive demons. The natives
of South America were non-literate. The Incas could keep records with knotted strings, not
an alphabet but a memory jogger understood only by a few initiates. As possessors of books
and writing, the Spanish could draw on the history of warfare reaching back 2,000 years.
They could send messages in writing, precise and concise. The Indians could take counsel,
but messages and tactics were at the mercy of those who carried the words.
But it may be that the strongest advantage of the Europeans lay in something that
none could see: germs and viruses. Indians had lived in viral isolation for some 30,000 to
40,000 years. They had no immunity to European diseases. When Europeans arrived car-
rying measles, mumps, whooping cough, and above all, smallpox, the Indians died—by
the millions. It is estimated that when Columbus landed in the Caribbean, its islands had a
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