Note 167 — Chapter XCIX

Juan Infante. No notice seems to be preserved of this encomendero.

Diego de Ordás. Was a native of Campos de Valverde or Castro Verde. He was chief Mayor-domo to Diego de Velásquez, governor of Cuba, and was sent by him to arrest Cortés at Trinidad, in the Island of Cuba, when he had already started on the expedition to Mexico. Instead of arresting Cortés, D. de Ordás joined his company and was made Captain of one of the ships of the expedition, and became one of the principal leaders. He was the first Spaniard to ascend Popocatepetl. After the fall of Mexico he was sent by Cortés on a mission to Spain, when he was made a Comendador of the order of Santiago, had the grant of Indians which had been made to him in Mexico confirmed by the Emperor, and was given a smoking mountain (Popocatepetl) as his coat of arms. He then went back to Mexico, and two or three years later returned to Castile, and petitioned for leave to conquer the Marañón region, where he lost his life. He was about forty years old when he left Cuba for Mexico.

Maestro Roa. When describing the festivities in Mexico to celebrate the peace made by Francis I and the Emperor at Aguas Muertas, Bernal Díaz says (ch. cci): "After this, on the following morning, half this same Plaza had been turned into the City of Rhodes with its towers ... and of the hundred knights commanders ... the Marquis Cortés was their commander and the Grand Master of Rhodes....

"I want to add an amusing story concerning a settler in Mexico called the Master of Rhodes (Maestro de Roda), already an old man, who had a great wen on his neck. He had the name of Master of Rhodes because they called him purposely Master of Rhodes, and it was he for whom the Marquis had sent to Castile to heal his right arm, which he had broken in a fall from a horse after his return from Honduras, and he paid him very well for coming to cure his arm, and gave him some pueblos of Indians.

"When the festivals which I have mentioned were over, as this Master of Rhodes was one of the chroniclers [of the festivities], and was a good talker, he went to Castile at that time, and became so well acquainted with the Señora Doña Maria de Mendoza, the wife of the Comendador Mayor, one Francisco de los Cobos, that he bewitched her, and promised to give her drugs so that she should bear a child, and he said this in such a way that she believed him, and the Señora Doña Maria promised him that if she bore a child she would give him two thousand ducats, and would support him before the Royal Council of the Indies in obtaining further pueblos of Indians. This same Master of Rhodes also promised Cardinal de Cigüenza, who was President of the Council of the Indies, that he would cure him of the gout, and the President believed him, and they allotted him, on the order of the Cardinal and through the support of the Señora Doña Maria de Mendoza, very good Indians, better than those he owned. What he did in the matter of cures was to heal neither the Marquis's arm (if anything he left him more crippled, although he paid him very well and gave him the Indians I have mentioned), nor did the Señora Doña Maria de Mendoza ever bear a child, for all the hot sweetmeats of sarsaparilla which he ordered her to take, nor did he cure the Cardinal of the gout; but he kept the bars of gold which Cortés gave him, and the Indians which the Royal Council of the Indies bestowed upon him in New Spain.

"He left behind him in Castile among the traders who had gone to law [about Indians] a joke, to the effect that a little sarsaparilla which the Master of Rhodes had brought with him was worth more than all the services the true conquistadores had rendered to his Majesty, for owing to this name, which had been given him of Master of Rhodes, and through being a good talker, he had deceived both the President and the Señora Doña Maria de Mendoza, while other conquistadores, however much they had served his Majesty, got no benefits at all." [Hakluyt Society, Series II, vol. 40, pp. 191, 197-8.]

Francisco Vásquez Coronado. I do not think he was an original conquistador; he probably arrived later in Mexico. He was an intimate friend of Antonio de Mendoza, the first Viceroy of Mexico. He married the daughter of Alonso de Estrada, the Treasurer of Mexico. He was appointed Governor of the State of Jalisco, and left his government to undertake the conquest of Cibola—"the seven cities."

Bernal Díaz says of him: "Francisco Vázquez had been lately married to a lady who was a daughter of the Treasurer Alonzo de Estrada, and, in addition to being talented, was very beautiful; and as he went to those cities of Cibola he had a great desire to return to New Spain to his wife. Some of the soldiers who were in his company said that he wished to copy the Greek Captain Ulysses, who when he was before Troy was crazy to go and enjoy his wife Penelope, so did Francisco Vázquez Coronado, who left the Conquest he had undertaken. He was attacked by incipient madness and returned to Mexico to his wife, and as they reproached him for having returned in that way, he died within a few days."

Later on Bernal Díaz says: "Nor will I call to mind the expedition which Francisco Vázquez Coronado made from Mexico to the cities which they call Cibola, for as I did not go with him I have no right to speak of it."

Francisco Maldonado. Must have been one of the original conquistadores as he signed the first letter of the Army of Cortés to the Emperor. However, there were five men of the name of Maldonado mentioned by Bernal Díaz. Two of them may be ruled out as their names, Alonzo and Alvaro, are given—a third, a native of Medellin, returned to Cuba, invalided. Francisco Maldonado was therefore probably either "Maldonado 'el ancho,' a native of Salamanca and a distinguished person who had been in command of expeditions, who died a natural death," or "Maldonado of Vera Cruz, who was the husband of Doña Maria de Rincon."

Bernaldino Vázquez de Tapia. An original conquistador, as he signed the first letter to the Emperor. He is mentioned as chosen to accompany Pedro de Alvarado on an embassy to Montezuma, when Cortés was at Tlaxcala—but he fell ill on the road and the embassy was recalled. When the first Royal Audiencia of Mexico was dismissed and many disputes arose, Bernaldino Vázquez was chosen by the conquistadores as Proctor to go to Spain and represent the interests of Cortés. Bernal Díaz says of him, "a very distinguished and rich man, who died a natural death."

Juan Jaramillo. Was captain of a launch during the siege of Mexico. He accompanied Cortés on the expedition to Honduras, and on the way, at Orizaba, he was married to Doña Marina the mistress of Cortés. He died a natural death.

Martín Vázquez. An original conquistador described by Bernal Díaz as "a native of Olmedo, a rich and distinguished man" who became a settler in Mexico—died a natural death.

Gil González de Benavides. Was not an original conquistador, but he accompanied Cortés on his expedition to Honduras. He was the brother of the distinguished conquistador and Captain Alonzo de Avila, who had received the encomienda of the pueblo of Cuautitlan, near Mexico. When Alonzo de Avila left Mexico he gave his brother power of attorney, so that he might benefit from the encomienda, and on the death of Alonzo de Avila the Crown claimed the encomienda, and I think there was a lawsuit about it.

The two sons of Gil González were beheaded for conspiracy.