in the family’s minuscule living space, he would lie holding his wife spoon-like around her waist. There, amid the sounds of children crying, and of people coughing, moaning, and retching in new despair, Pedro awaited a new tomorrow. During these periods from sunset to dawn, although surrounded by a horde of humanity, he experienced profound bouts of loneliness. As he lay in the near-dark watching the cabin’s lone candle-lamp swing in the creaking night, he thought of his beloved Carmena, his children, Ana and Luis, and how Ana, especially, the quickest of the four children, would have been full of questions.
More often, though, when the weather allowed, he returned to the main deck after his family fell asleep. Here, from the high poop or from the taffrail of the embattled ship, he would watch the lanterns of the other vessels, the stars, and the cold, black waves like watered camlet as they flowed around his ship in the wake of its passage. Sometimes he thought he could see light coming from deep beneath the ocean’s waves and wondered what this could be. More often, as the ship plowed through the peak and trough of every wave, he observed the bioluminescence of the tiny sea animals displaced by its wake. Perhaps the motion of the vessel as it plowed through the sea provided these sea creatures with the energy required to make this light, he thought to himself. He connected this with the round flash of St. Erasmus’s light3 that is seen around the masts of ships in a thunderstorm, although he did not know what caused either of these phenomena. Leaning on the taffrail at the stern of the ship, he often stood with his arms extended before him in the form of a cross. In this manner, he could gauge the hour by the position of the horn of Ursa Minor in relation to his arms as time passed before him. These considerations provided him with diversions until sleep came.
* * *
And so it went as, day after day, Spain’s Atlantic fleet beat toward the West Indies. Coming together by day and dispersing at night, the individuals in these floating barracks watched for Drake and Hawkins and now, on the 92nd day, began looking for land.
Land
Lucia, through sunken eyes, now rimmed in black, saw them first. They were perched regally far above the deck, near the masthead, whose banner snapped in the wind, two scarlet macaws. They were predominantly red in color but with yellow, blue, and green plumage, each with an incredibly long, scarlet tail. There among the lines and ropes of the ship’s mizzenmast, the birds allowed the wind to get beneath their wings and to raise them majestically from their perch before they flew off. The crew, weakened and depleted by disease, identified them as land birds and speculated that they had been blown out to sea by some storm. Soon, however, in addition to the macaws, the passengers began to see other land birds. More importantly, they saw the trunks of enormous trees and other debris being carried out to sea by the current of an unseen river. Finally, at two o’clock on the last morning, Pedro Robledo saw something like white sand gleaming in the moonlight. It was, of course, Vera Cruz, the West Indies, the New World, and, perhaps, the land of his dreams.
PERIOD II
THE KINGDOM OF NEW SPAIN
Vera Cruz
La Villa Rica de la Vera Cruz, or the Rich City of the True Cross,
was Spain’s first settlement on the coast of New Spain.1 It was
so-named because the site, which the Spaniards hoped would be one of rich lands, had been reached on Maundy Thursday with the soldiers disembarking on Good Friday.
Hernando Cortes had, against the orders of his commander, the governor of Cuba, founded the ‘Rich City’ in 1519. Now 58 years old, and looking its age, it merely sat there near a beach of dark sand2 overlooking a fine but potentially treacherous harbor. Although in an advantageous position in terms of its landing, it had little else to recommend it. It was the home of approximately 300 vecinos, or Spanish citizens, and many Indians. These were relapsed idolaters, it was said, whom Bishop Diego de Landa had sentenced to hard labor in the disease-infested holds of ships sitting in the harbor. However, despite its sizable population, there was something about the village that gave it the appearance of imminent abandonment, for it appeared that no one, whether vecino or Indian, wanted to be there. It was, for most individuals, only a way-station for passage into the interior of the country, most notably the City of Mexico that lay 400 miles to the west, in the heart of the kingdom.
* * *
The day on which the ships of the merchant fleet approached the harbor at Vera Cruz was no prettier than many of the days that had preceded it. The August morning promised a coming storm. A stiff breeze came up offshore followed by a low, heavy fog. Even before the Morning Star began to roll in deep troughs, it was apparent that to sail into the harbor under these conditions would a very difficult and dangerous task. The stormy and treacherous sea was a counterpoint to the shouted commands of the captains as they attempted to maneuver their vessels in tricky currents. The fear of the passengers was that the condition of the sea would prevent a landing, for without the wind gauge, they could not avoid the reefs that surrounded the harbor.3
By the use of signals and other means of communication, which the captains had worked out prior to their departure, however, instructions were given to stand out to sea and to await more favorable conditions for landing. The captains knew that if the storm passed, surface temperatures over land would exceed 100 degrees by noon, burning off the fog and resulting in the uneven heating of the coastal plain and the ocean which fronted it. The air over the land would then expand and rise and cooler air would rush in to replace it. This would result in an onshore breeze under which each vessel could make a slow run with the wind into the harbor. Thus, as the squall passed, each ship in turn positioned itself with its mainsail at a right angle to the boat’s direction thus creating the greatest wind resistance. The fleet dropped anchor and none were happier than the passengers of the Morning Star.
* * *
Some might say that the passengers of the fleet knew that this day would eventually come, but those weakened by privation and disease would have denied this. They were the ones who had contracted scurvy or who suffered from dysentery from spoiled food. Burning from fever and wracked with the pangs the illness can inflict upon an empty and retching stomach, many had viewed their hell as everlasting. Catalina, for example, had suffered a turned ankle during the first storm and shortly thereafter tore open a knee that refused to heal. She was in constant pain and did not want anyone to come near her. Bedeviled also by a sore mouth and bleeding gums, her teeth had begun to rattle in her head. Lucia had developed anemia, which was aggravated by hunger and thirst, and like many of the other passengers, had often seemed near death.
With their landing now secured, however, the helpless and emaciated voyagers of the fleet might be taken to the hospital on the slight rise above the harbor. More likely, though, they would be cared for by their family or friends in space they might secure in a private home or in an out-building in the small village. However, the resources of the community of Vera Cruz this August were being severely taxed by the circumstances in which it found itself. In fact, the fleet could not have chosen a less providential time to make its landing.
* * *
The people of New Spain were, in 1577, dealing with one of the most virulent scourges yet to be met by the people of the kingdom. The scourge, called the matalzahuatl (typhus), which had first occurred in 1544 and 1545, had, in 1576, again begun its insidious spread across the land. The Indians, who did not have a childhood immunity to the disease, were its direct victims and the only ones to experience its puzzling and horrible symptoms. These were a violent headache and a severe rash that appeared from the third to the seventh day of the illness’s onset. The rash, which was accompanied by a tenacious fever, appeared as small reddish or purplish spots caused by minute hemorrhaging. The spots eventually began to run together and blend into one. One afflicted by the rash and fever could not bear to be covered and even the lightest touch caused intense pain. The only relief was to roll on the cool ground until death ended the suffering about the seventh day. The malady (which occurred for the last times in 1588 and 1596) was attributed by some to scanty rains and severe heat, both of which had been present in the interior of New Spain for some time. Many thousands had died from hunger, thirst, and the effects of the cruel disease, so that not