One of the treasures for the historian of the period from the sixteenth century through the early nineteenth century in Mexican and Latin American affairs is the Thomas Gilcrease Institute of American History and Art of Tulsa, Oklahoma. The Institute’s director is Dean Krakel, and its librarian and archivist is Martin Wenger.
This collection consists of some 275 separate documentary items ranging in date from 1512 to the 1800’s, and covering widely varying subjects, from Columbus and Cortés to Santa Anna.
The largest single portion is from the former Conway Collection— 125 documentary units and some 21,000 pages of material. The remaining part—some 150 documentary units totalling about 5,000 pages—varies widely in content and date. A catalog of the documents has now been completed. Much of the material has never before been transcribed and put into modern Spanish for those who are unfamiliar with the calligraphy of this period. This work has been undertaken and is progressing.
The part known as “The Conway Papers” contains much material concerning the inquisition in Mexico and is made up of literally thousands of pages. One document is a register of eases and sentences for the period 1624-1632. It includes an index of names, and a summary of some 300 of the early eases, including those presided over by Moya de Contreras, first inquisitor of the Archbishop of Mexico, and by the Chief Inquisitor Bonilla, who was appointed in 1573. Many of the men famous in early Mexican inquisitorial history participated in these cases. Much of this material will shed further light on this period as it becomes available for assessment by qualified historians.
Of the documents other than those in “The Conway Papers,” many will be of interest primarily to linguists, or to those concerned with the daily affairs of relatively unimportant individuals and with unusual glimpses of “human” history.
One document, for instance, a 1788 copy of a 1542 original, is a list of the early conquistadors and settlers and the places where they settled. It includes terse assessments of those colonials as persons, not as mere ciphers. For example:
Hernando de Villanueva: “Married to a woman from Castille. He is a scribe. He went to Peru, and while he was there his wife married another man. He is asking for some Indians who were granted to him. He is lame, crippled, and old.”1
Francisco Téllez: “He is married to a mestiza. He is now over there [i.e., in Spain] on business. Those who know him say that he is a man of little quality.”2
The document which best illustrates self-esteem and self-confidence is the note referring to Diego Montero. It reads: “Diego Montero, unmarried. He was a drummer, and now he builds windmills. He has refused to be a bailiff because he says that he served better than the Marquis.”3
The men, however, were not the only individualists, as is made clear by the reference to Antón de Molina and his wife. The entry reads: “Antón de Molina, married to a woman of Castille. He is provided with bailiwicks. His wife is in Castille ; she refused to come with him.”4
One more note on this particular document. A great number of the entries indicate the toll already exacted on the conquistadors by this time, ca. 1540, for many entries end with the expression : “He is lame and blind,” or with variant forms of this comment.
There are many autographs of important persons. Hernán Cortés signed his papers usually with the title “El Marqués,” and there are several documents here which bear his signature thus. And, on the first official decree issued after the conquest of the Tenochtitlán, 14 August 1521, we have the signatures of Juan de Ribera and Hernán Sánchez de Aguilar, both of whom were official scribes.
One of the letters is from Hernando de Soto to one of his lieutenants in 1535. Another is from the son of Christopher Columbus, in 1512, to Cardinal Jiménez de Cisneros from the island of La Española and signed “El Almirante.” There is also a letter signed by the “Apostle of the Indians,” Fray Bartolomé de las Casas, in which, as was his custom, he pleaded the cause of the Indians.
There is a ca. 1560 copy of a 1470 history of Enrique IV, and in the same document by the same copyist a copy of the Bernáldez history of the reign of Fernando and Isabel, written about 1517 and containing one of the first historical accounts of the voyages of Columbus.
From the year 1555 we have, not a document but a copy of the first printed edition of Molina’s Vocabulario en la lengua Castellana y Mexicana, containing Spanish words with their Nahuatl equivalents; from the year 1571 we have a revision of the above, containing a second section with the Nahuatl-Spanish equivalents.
Also from the year 1571 is one of the few eye-witness accounts of the conquest of Peru, by Diego de Trujillo, who gives a readable account of the men and events of the expedition. Although he signed the manuscript, it was written down by a scribe in a beautiful example of calligraphy.
There are many others, but one of the most interesting throws light on the work of a relatively little known conquistador, Martín López, the man who supervised and paid for the construction of the brigantines which were used by Cortés and his men in the final assault on Mexico City.
Martín López agreed to build the brigantines for Cortés, but according to this document he was never paid for his work, although Cortés apparently collected for it from the crown of Spain.
In 1622, one hundred years after the conquest, the grandsons of Martín López filed another in the interminable series of lawsuits seeking payment. This document consists of some 410 pages of manuscript, the copying of which alone took two years. There are transcripts of other documents going all the way back to the year 1454, including proof of the nobility and purity of blood of Martín López and his family. Unfortunately, the outcome of this particular suit is not indicated, but there are other documents which treat of this man and his heirs. The only recompense indicated was the granting to Martín López of a coat of arms which he could, and did, pass on to his heirs.
For the early history of California there is a copy of the diary of Fray Junípero Serra, which relates the route for reaching the ports of San Diego and Monterrey by land; also the diary of Father Vizcaíno concerning his voyage to California. These are only two of the items copied in this particular manuscript, and there are some nineteen dealing with this area of what is now a part of the United States.
There are numerous documents concerning daily life in colonial Mexico. A letter from Cortés to Diego de Guinea, his overseer in Tehuantepec, concerns a cattle company organized by Cortés and Juan de Toledo. It gives specific instructions about the cattle the former was sending to Guinea. Evidently Cortés did not trust Toledo completely, for one sentence of the letter to Guinea instructs him to do the actual counting of the herd, for “I know that if you go there he will not deceive me, nor will the account err.”5
This Diego de Guinea had come over with Narváez, and from Nuño de Guzmán he had received an encomienda of a pueblo in the Valley of Oaxaca. For some unknown reason he had lost the encomienda, and at the time he was working for Cortés.
Several other documents treat of Cortés’ holdings in Oaxaca: his cattle enterprises, an account of the amount of gold and silver taken from his mines between 1538 and 1543, and a list of his slaves. There is also a letter signed by the widow of Cortés stating her wishes on the disposition of some wine vessels.
Of particular interest among the Cortés items are two, a letter to Diego de Guinea detailing the preparations being made for Cortés’ last voyage of exploration and discovery along the California coast, and the second giving an inventory of the equipment and crew of the Trinidad while she was anchored in Tehuantepec, on 7 June 1539, before the start of this voyage.
In 1549 Antonio de Mendoza, first viceroy of Mexico, wrote a letter to Luis de León Romano, a judge, calling for a re-examination of the tributes collected in the Marquisate of the Valley.
On May 23, 1577, Viceroy Don Martín Enríquez ordered the judges of the Royal Treasury to pay to one Juan Navarro the sum of 600 pesos for his work as interpreter, for he had served in this capacity for many years.
There are letters from Phillip II to the Bishop of Michoacán; from Phillip III to the Bishop of Tlaxcala; from Phillip IV to the Conde de Alba de Alista y de Villaflor, Viceroy of Mexico, and there is one from the queen, in 1665, announcing the death of Phillip IV.
There are also 33 letters from Charles II to the Bishop of Puebla, dating between 1676 and 1685, and five letters from Queen Mariana between 1665 and 1674 to various officials in America.
The materials found in the archives are varied and of differing value to scholars. They await only the scholar’s touch to be brought from the tombs of history into the stream of modern activity. It is a welcome and satisfying task.
“Herndo, de Villanueva casado con muger de Casta, es Escrivno. de los Reynos, fue ese al Peru, y entretanto qe. estuvo alla se caso su muger con otro, pide unos indios que le fueron encomendados, es cojo, manco, y viejo.”
“Franco. Tellez es casado con mestiza esta alla en los negocios, los qe. lo conocen dicen qe. es hombre de poca calidd.”
“Diego Montero Soltero, este fue Atambor, y hace molinos, no ha querido ser Alguacil porqe. dice que sirvió mejor qe. el MarqS.”
“Anton de Molina casado con muger de Castilla este se provehe spre de Alguacilazgos, tiene la muger en Castilla qe. no quiso venir con el.”
“y esto hago porq̃ se q̃ yendo vos no me engañara ni Se yerara la qta.”
Author notes
The author is associate professor of Spanish at the University of Tulsa. This paper was presented at the SCMLA meeting in Waco, Texas, in November, 1961.
