The Golden Empire: Spain, Charles V, and the Creation of America by Hugh Thomas

Author:Hugh Thomas [Thomas, Hugh]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: History, Non-Fiction
ISBN: 9781588369048
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2010-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

27

Gonzalo Pizarro and Orellana Seek

Cinnamon and Find the Amazon

You shall understand, Sancho, that Spaniards and those who embark themselves at Cádiz to go to the Indies, one of the greatest signs they have to know whether they have passed the equinoctial, is that all men that are on the ship, their lice die on them …

MIGUEL DE CERVANTES, Don Quixote

In late 1540, Francisco Pizarro had named his younger brother, the charming and valiant Gonzalo, governor of Quito. He had also given Gonzalo an encomienda, which included the Cañari people, Spain’s best friends among the indigenous population. This gave Gonzalo control of the north of the old Inca empire. Atahualpa had had his supporters there. Gonzalo behaved curiously, however, in his new position. He took up his office formally on December 1, 1540, but immediately devoted himself to arranging an expedition whose aim was the search for cinnamon on the eastern side of the great Andes.

He left Quito in February 1541 with nearly two hundred Spaniards, a large number of Indian porters (though surely not approaching the figure of four thousand given by chroniclers), many llamas as beasts of burden, about two hundred pigs to supply bacon on the way, and a large number of fighting dogs, without which, at that time, no Spanish army could be complete. Gonzalo Pizarro at that time was powerful because of his association with his brother, the Marquess. His own qualities of leadership also seemed magnetically attractive. So, as Ortiguera would one day put it, “there followed him in that undertaking a large number of the noblest and most prominent people of the realm.” Ortiguera added, “It was a great achievement to have been able to bring them together and with them 260 horses,” as well as a good number of arquebuses and crossbows, munitions, other implements of war, slaves, and Indians—a “magnificent body of men and one well prepared for any adventure.”1

They began by going east over the Andes, where Gonzalo reported: “We came to some very rugged and wooded country with great ranges out of which we were obliged to open up roads anew not only for the men but also for the horses.” At least a hundred Indians died from cold crossing the Andes. They continued thus, till sixty leagues (180 miles) to the east of Quito, they found themselves in the flatlands of the jungle, at the headwaters of the Napo, in a province that they named Zumaco. The Napo was at this stage a large meandering river, with a big floodplain.2 There Gonzalo expected to find cinnamon bushes.

Cinnamon was native to Brazil, though it is generally supposed that the quality of the product there is inferior to that found in the Old World, for example in Ceylon. The flavor that we expect from cinnamon derives from a fine aromatic oil made by powdering the bark of the tree, macerating it in seawater and then distilling it. It has then a golden yellow color with a special smell and a very hot taste.

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