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The Discovery and Exploration of the Nicaraguan Transisthmian Route, 1519–1545

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Lyle N. McAlister
Lyle N. McAlister*
Affiliation:
University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida
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Extract

IF ANY SINGLE MOTIVE could be selected as the driving force behind that remarkable series of maritime explorations which were conducted in America during the first decades of the sixteenth century, it might very well be the desire to find a passage through the “American Nuisance.” As soon as it became apparent to navigators and cosmographers that the lands discovered by Columbus on his first three voyages were not the outposts of the East, the crown of Spain and its subjects bent every effort to find a way through or around these new and inconvenient discoveries to the Spice Islands and the markets of India and China. At about the same time that Columbus discovered the mainland of South America, Vasco de Gama reached Calicut by way of the Cape of Good Hope. His glowing accounts of the wealth awaiting exploitation in India extended the hopes of both Spain and Portugal that an interoceanic passage might be found.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 10 , Issue 3 , January 1954 , pp. 259 - 276
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1954

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References

1 de Navarrete, Martín Fernández, Colección de los viages y descubrimientos que hicieron por mar los españoles desde fines del siglo XV … (5 vols., Madrid, 1837), Prólogo, p. vi.Google Scholar

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7 De orbe novo. The eight Decades of Peter Martyr d’Anghera; trans, from the Latin with notes and introduction by Francis Augustus MacNutt (2 vols., New York, 1912), II, 215; Gil González Dávila to the king, Santo Domingo, March 6, 1524, in Manuel María de Peralta, ed., Costa Rica, Nicaragua y Panama en el siglo XVI (Paris and Madrid, 1883), p. 20.

8 Account of the armada of Gil González Dávila, 1521, Dll, XIV, 18.

9 Royal cedula, June 18, 1519, Squiers collection of manuscripts in the Bancroft Library, University of California, I (300), p. 1.

10 Peralta, op. cit., p. 31.

11 González to the king, Española, July 12, 1520, Dll, XXXV, 247–248.

12 Ibid., p. 249.

13 Ibid., pp. 249–256.

14 González to the king, Santo Domingo, March 6, 1524, Peralta, op. cit., pp. 4–6; Las Casas, III, 368–371.

15 González to the king, Santo Domingo, March 6, 1524, Peralta, op. cit., pp. 5–6.

16 Ibid., pp. 6–9; “Relatión del viage que hizo Gil González Dávila …,” 1522, Dll, XIV, 20–24.

17 González to the king, Santo Domingo, March 6, 1524, Peralta, op. cit., pp. 9–11; Oviedo, III, 101–102.

18 González to the king, Santo Domingo, March 6, 1524, Peralta, op. cit., pp. 17–18. González was referring to the narrow strip of land separating Lake Nicaragua from the Pacific.

19 Ibid., pp. 11–17.

20 “Relatión del viage que hizo Gil González Dávila …,” 1522, Dll, XIV, 24.

21 González to the king, Santo Domingo, March 6, 1524, Peralta, op. cit., p. 25.

22 De orbe novo, II, 283–284.

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25 Ibid., pp. 20–21.

26 Ibid., pp. 20–22; Oviedo, III, 112.

27 González to the king, Santo Domingo, March 6, 1524, Peralta, op. cit., p. 23.

28 Bancroft, op. cit., I, 518.

29 Royal officials of Santo Domingo to the king, March 10, 1524, Dll, I, 440; Gonzalez to the king, Santo Domingo, March 6, 1524, Peralta, op. cit., p. 20.

30 De orbe novo, II, 283.

31 Colección de documentos inéditos relativos al descubrimiento, conquista y organización de las antiguas posesiones españoles de ultramar. Segunda serie (13 vols., Madrid, 1885–1900), IX, 179–180.

32 Cortés, Hernán, Fourth letter of relation, October 15, 1524, Cartas y relaciones de Hernán Cortés al emperador Carlos V; colegidas e ilustradas por Don Pascual Gayangos (Paris, 1886), p. 290; Bancroft, op. cit., I, 525–526.Google Scholar

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36 Pedrarias to the king, Alvarez Rubiano, op. cit., p. 555. This letter is without date. Alvarez Rubiano, however, claims that it was written in April, 1525.

37 Peralta states that this term was applied to the Gulf of Nicoya because the region between Lake Nicaragua and the Pacific Ocean had not yet been thoroughly explored and it was thought that there might be some water connection between the Gulf and the Lake and thence with the Atlantic via the San Juan River (op. cit., p. 34).

38 Pedrarias to the king, Rubiano, Alvarez, op. cit., pp. 555–556.Google Scholar

39 Ibid., p. 556; Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas, Historia general de los hechos de los castellanos en las islas i tierra firme del Mar Océano (9 vols, in 4, Madrid, 1726), dec. iii, lib. v, cap. xii; Peralta, op. cit., p. 723.

40 Guardia, Fernández, op. cit., p. 105 Google Scholar; Peralta, op. cit., p. 723.

41 Bancroft, op. cit., I, 519.

42 See ibid., I, chaps. XVI–XIX, for an account of these events.

43 “Título de Gobernador de Higueras y Cabo de Honduras a favor de Don Diego López de Salcedo, August 31, 1526” Colección de documentos inéditos para la historia de Hispano-América (14 vols., Madrid, 1927–1932), IX, 325.

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45 Marure, Alejandro, Memoria histórica sobre el canal de Nicaragua … (Guatemala, 1845), p. 4.Google Scholar

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47 “Título de Gobernador y Capitán General de Nicaragua a favor de Pedrarias Dávila,” Valladolid, June 1, 1527, Alvarez Rubiano, op. cit., p. 581.

48 Andrés de Cereceda to the King, January 20, 1529, Squiers collection of manuscripts, IV (302), p. 3; Bancroft, op. cit., I, 605–606.

49 Cereceda to the king, January 20, 1529, loc. cit., p. 13.

50 Loc. cit.; Oviedo, IV, 61–62; Peralta, op. cit., pp. 723, 743.

51 Francisco de Castañeda to the king, León, March 30, 1529, Peralta, op. cit., pp. 58–59.

52 Bancroft, op. cit., I, 610–611.

53 Diego Machuca y Zuazo to the king, Granada, May 30, 1531, Peralta, op. cit., p. 83.

54 Cartas de Indias …. Publicadas por primera vez el ministerio de Fomento (Madrid, 1877), p. 742.

55 Marure, op. cit., p. 4.

56 Herrera, dec. vi, lib. 1, cap. ix.

57 Depositions taken in León at the request of Rodrigo de Contreras, 1536, Dll, VII, 116–146.

58 Loc. cit.; Bancroft, op. cit., II, 171.

59 Royal order, September 9, 1536, Peralta, op. cit., pp. 116–117.

60 Extracts from claims presented by Rodrigo de Contreras, 1545, Doc. para Costa-Rica, VI, 212–213.

61 Ibid., p. 214.

62 Peralta, op. cit., p. 724.

63 Extracts from claims, 1545, Doc. para Costa-Rica, VI, 214, 223; “Relación de lo que el magnifico señor Capitán Alonso. Calero ha visto y descubierto … en el viage del descubrimiento que va del Desaguadero …,” Peralta, op. cit., p. 731.

64 The above account is derived from “Relación de … Alonso Calero,” Peralta, op. cit., pp. 728–740.

65 Gil Robles to the king, Panama, February 16, 1540, quoted in ibid., p. 95; Fernández Guardia, op. cit., p. 133.

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67 Gil Robles to the Council of the Indies, Panama, July 19, 1539, Peralta, op. cit., pp. 741–742.

68 Royal order, June 18, 1540, Doc. para Costa-Rica, IV, 82–84; Alonso Calero to the king (without date), Peralta, op. cit., pp. 94–95.

69 “Relacion de … Alonso Calero,” Peralta, op. cit., p. 736.

70 Gil Robles to the king, Panama, February 16, 1540, Peralta, op. cit., p. 95; Extracts from claims, 1545, Doc. para Costa-Rica, VI, 215.

71 Extracts from claims, 1545, Doc. para Costa-Rica, VI, 215–216.

72 Ibid., pp. 216–217; Girolamo Benzoni, History of the New World …. Now first trans, and ed. by Smyth, Rear-Admiral W. H. (London, 1857), pp. 121–153.Google Scholar

73 Extracts from claims, 1545, Doc. para Costa-Rica, VI, 226–227, 228–229.

74 Royal order, May 6, 1541, Peralta, op. cit., pp. 115–116.