VI
Extremeños in the New World

Just as the people of Cáceres and Trujillo who went to the Indies in the sixteenth century came from virtually every rank and grouping of society, their activities and experiences there reflected the full range of possibilities and opportunities offered by the New World. They became wealthy encomenderos and high officials, stockraisers and farmers, merchants and artisans, agents and retainers. Extremeños participated in and often were central and decisive figures in some of the most dramatic and important events and episodes of the early years of exploration, conquest, and settlement. Francisco Pizarro and his brothers, friends, and retainers undertook the conquest of Peru; men like Juan Cano of Cáceres and Francisco de las Casas of Trujillo were with Cortés in Mexico; Gonzalo Pizarro and Francisco de Orellana explored the Amazon; Diego García de Paredes (son of the extremeño hero) led the party that captured the "tyrant" Lope de Aguirre in Venezuela.

Extremeños went not only to the centers of the new empire, Mexico and Peru, but to its periphery as well. They accompanied Hernando de Soto and later Lucas de Ayllón to Florida, Cabeza de Vaca to the Río de la Plata, Pedro de Alvarado to Guatemala, García de Lerma to Santa Marta. They upheld law and order and the crown, and they defied royal authority. Frey Nicolás de Ovando, governor of the island of Hispaniola from 1502 to 1509, played a key role in stabilizing and consolidating royal government there and increasing royal revenues; Gonzalo Pizarro and his followers usurped royal authority and ran Peru for nearly three years in the 1540s. People from Extremadura authored chronicles; Fray Gaspar de Carvajal

wrote an account of Gonzalo Pizarro's expedition to "la Canela" (in which he participated), while late in life Diego de Trujillo dictated a simple and abbreviated history of the early years in Peru. Men like Hernando de Aldana (of Cáceres) and Francisco de Orellana reportedly had unusual linguistic abilities and quickly learned Indian languages.

Naturally for every individual whose name and deeds were famous at the time and in some cases ever since, there were dozens of men and women whose experiences and achievements (or failures) did not attract much attention then or now. Yet the differences between the much larger, lesser-known group and the great leaders and high officials of church and state were more of degree than of kind. At all levels extremeños in the New World did much the same things. They sought advantage and opportunity and diversified economically. They associated closely with relatives, friends, and acquaintances from home. They maintained their connections with home, sending money and recruiting family members to join them. They considered returning home to Spain and often did so temporarily or permanently.

Nor were there any real, lasting differences between extremeños and emigrants from other parts of Spain. The contingent from the Trujillo-Cáceres region stood out clearly in the early years of conquest and settlement in Peru because of their connections with the Pizarros and the favoritism they enjoyed as a result. But this era lasted barely a generation. The failure of Gonzalo Pizarro's rebellion and the subsequent restitution of royal authority in Peru marked the demise of the power and prestige of the Pizarrist contingent, especially the people from Trujillo. In fact it has been shown that even from the beginning the Pizarros' circle of extremeño recruits and associates never was a closed one, since they could not provide all the expertise and experience needed for the range of administrative, financial, and other tasks at hand.^[1] Within a short time, then, extremeños became virtually indistinguishable from other Spanish emigrants in the New World in terms of their activities and possibilities, although new arrivals still benefited from a well-established network of connections. Furthermore the perception of a separate and coherent identity long outlasted the eclipse of any special claim to prominence, and this perception continued to affect choices and expectations.

Their common origins, kinship, and patron—client relations, as well as shared experiences and interests, bound the extremeños in the Indies. Not only did they form a fairly integrated group from the socioeconomic point of view, virtually all these people were part of an extensive network of acquaintance and relationship. The significance of identification with point of origin and the emphasis placed on family and kinship ties hardly disappeared in the Indies; if anything, that context in certain ways probably underscored the importance of these relationships, since they served as crucial points of reference in a world that was new and different. An apt illustration of these ties appears in Pedro Cieza de Léon's description of the encounter between Lorenzo de Aldana (a noble of Cáceres) and Hernando Pizarro, when Aldana arrived as Diego de Almagro's representative:

Capt. Hernando Pizarro took Capt. Lorenzo de Aldana aside, and throwing his arms around his neck, he spoke to him fondly [asking that] he tell him of the adelantado 's intentions, since he did not doubt the friendship that would oblige Aldana to tell the truth, since their fathers were so close and they were from the same country ("de una patria").^[2]

During his years in Peru Lorenzo de Aldana was constantly in the company of his noble friends and relatives from Cáceres and Trujillo, and he participated actively (with most of his kinsmen and friends) in Gonzalo Pizarro's rebellion, though ultimately deserting Pizarro and emerging with a valuable encomienda in Charcas. Despite his family connections, however, in his will of 1562 Aldana left houses, lands, and slaves to Diego Hurtado, neither a relative nor a cacereño, whom he called "my friend and brother who has been in my house and company." Although Aldana apparently had no legitimate heirs of his own—he had a mestiza daughter whom he married to another encomendero of Charcas—at the time of his death his nephew Lorenzo de Aldana was in Peru; his nephew in fact witnessed the will.^[3] Family and kinship ties were not, then, the only significant ones. As Aldana's will reflects, a parallel set of relationships often emerged from the context and experiences of the Indies. Friendships, partnerships, and long-term associations need not have competed with family ties but often, in fact, complemented them. The existence of lifelong friendships that were based

on trust and common experience and viewed as quasi-familial (note that Aldana called Hurtado his "brother"), together with the importance of family and kinship, reflect the combination of old and new patterns that influenced the choices and behavior of people in the New World.

This chapter examines who went to the Indies and what they did there, emphasizing in particular how the activities and choices of extremeños continued to reflect their orientation toward family and kin and the bonds of common origin. As suggested, the people from Cáceres and Trujillo over time at one level became all but indistinguishable from other emigrants in terms of their objectives and actions; yet at another level they continued (or at least tried to continue) to function in a context that was shaped by their own particular set of priorities and interests, which to an extent remained rooted in the family and social network and relations of their home towns thousands of miles away. In their preference for associating with family and kin and with people who shared their local or regional origins the extremeños, again, were hardly unique. The appearance of similar patterns among a number of groups (Basques, Asturians, Andalusians) present in the Indies is further evidence that extremeños behaved much as did other emigrants in the New World.^[4]

Background and Activities

Despite a rather heavy showing of hidalgos and a discernible lack of business talent in the early years, extremeños in the long run probably entered into nearly every sphere of life in the New World. Naturally people who became encomenderos, successful merchants or entrepreneurs, served as officials, or participated in some of the key episodes of the early years (such as the division of treasure at Cajamarca or Gonzalo Pizarro's rebellion) are better documented than the more modest individuals who set up artisan shops, worked as stewards or employees of encomenderos or entrepreneurs, or the like. Women especially seldom emerge other than as wives, sisters, or nieces, although they sometimes played crucial roles in family and estate affairs. But studies of early Spanish American society have demonstrated convincingly that all these individuals—from the

wealthiest and most powerful to the most humble—played vital roles in the formation of society in the New World, and hence in the broadest sense all were important.

Who were the extremeños who went to the New World? Chapter 5 showed that anywhere from a tenth to a fifth (or more) of the emigrants from Trujillo, Cáceres, and their jurisdictions were hidalgos, who thus constituted a significant element in the emigrant group as a whole. In Extremadura the hidalgo group encompassed considerable variety of rank and socioeconomic status; nonetheless certain features characterized most of the noble and hidalgo emigrants, and these would have implications for what they would do in the New World. Most of the hidalgos, with the exception of the priests, professionals, and semiprofessionals among them, had no specific occupation as such, although they probably had received some education and training in the use of arms. So many of them emigrated not with the intention of setting themselves up in a trade or going to work for an already-established relative, but with the expectation that their status and connections would ensure them a living and a place in society. Naturally, being among the more affluent emigrants, many hidalgos could take with them a stake in merchandise or capital that would help them make their start. Certainly a number of them proved to be resourceful and flexible as they sought opportunities and adapted to the new context. Yet one cannot discard altogether the other image of the hidalgo seeking mercedes (rewards) and sinecures, frustrated that neither name nor connections brought the anticipated rewards. This element existed as well, especially after the first couple of generations in the Indies, when the military conquest per se had been accomplished and factional turmoil curtailed. The hidalgos who came later and missed the fighting and distribution of rewards often were unable to find a comfortable niche and had difficulty fitting into society.^[5]

Alvaro de Paredes, the man who wrote the revealing series of letters to his brother in Cáceres from Mexico in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century, is a fine example of this latter kind of hidalgo. Paredes had problems in Mexico and, for whatever reason, time and again failed to take advantage of what opportunities came his way. For years his letters reflected a constant concern with connections and influence. He had some connection with the Inquisitor Bonilla, who in 1590 left Mexico for Peru. Paredes asked

to accompany him, but Bonilla refused on the grounds he would not be able to do anything for him there. Later the same year, after his marriage, Alvaro urged his brother Licenciado Gutiérrez Espadero to get in touch with Juan Beltrán de Guevara on the Council of the Indies to "remind him of past friendship, so that he might help me in this kingdom with a letter of his and others of his friends on the council." In 1606 he wrote that "I am such that I need favor by any means." Despite all his difficulties in making his way, it was not until 1608 that he asked his brother to send him the bachelor's degree he had earned in law, so that he could be appointed to a position that required a lawyer (letrado). Evidently he had not expected to work in the profession for which he was trained.^[6]

Artisans and semiprofessionals formed another important element in the emigrant group. Among the thirty-nine men from Trujillo who identified themselves as artisans, there were nine blacksmiths (including three locksmiths), eight tailors, seven stonecutters (including the architect Francisco Becerra), five shoemakers, and four carpenters. In addition Trujillo sent three notaries, two surgeons, a barber, and a pharmacist. The data for the representation of trades from Cáceres are scant; the cacereño emigrants included two shoemakers and a blacksmith, as well as two notaries, a barber, and a pharmacist. Cáceres did send four labradores, however, whereas none of the trujillanos identified himself as a farmer (two labradores left Santa Cruz for Peru).

The larger number of artisans from Trujillo compared to Cáceres probably reflects the differences in the overall size and nature of the emigrant groups from the two cities. Artisans often were family men who had clear notions of what they planned to do once they reached their destinations, and many more families left Trujillo than Cáceres. Andrés Hernández, the carpenter who went to New Spain in 1580 with his wife and children under the sponsorship of the encomendero Gonzalo de las Casas, obtained permission to take a twenty-year-old apprentice and his nephew Alonso Sánchez, also a carpenter.^[7] Melchor González, a locksmith who emigrated in 1555, declared he planned to settle in Peru and practice his trade there; he asked to take an apprentice with him.^[8] These men would arrive in the New World well-prepared to establish their trades. The tailor Alonso Ramiro left Trujillo for New Spain in 1574 with his wife and three sons and an apprentice. Ramiro formed a partner-

ship in Puebla de los Angeles with his cousin Alonso Morales, another tailor who was from Cabañas de la Peña. In 1576 Morales wrote to Juan Ramiro, Alonso Ramiro's brother, telling him about the store they had together and urging him to come and bring other relatives of theirs; "the work pays very well," he wrote, "and food is cheap."^[9] While doubtless a number of artisans and semiprofessionals did not work exclusively in their trades and some even discarded them altogether in face of unanticipated circumstances or better opportunities, most likely the intention of individuals who identified themselves by their trade or profession was to establish themselves in the occupation for which they were trained.

Probably the same was true for the secular clergy who emigrated; in the New World, as in Extremadura, they would serve as priests or work in other capacities. Twenty priests left Trujillo and five Cáceres, the majority for Peru. Opportunities there must have looked most promising, especially since the principal figure in the ecclesiastical establishment of Lima for decades was the Dominican Fray Jerónimo de Loaysa. A native of Trujillo, Loaysa was appointed bishop of Lima in 1541 and made archbishop several years later, serving in that capacity until his death in 1575. Fifteen of the priests from Trujillo went to Peru, almost all of them in the 1560s and 1570s, and three of the five cacereños went there as well.

Some of the priests achieved considerable prominence. Hernando Alonso Villarejo went to Cartagena in 1539 (at which time Fray Jerónimo de Loaysa was bishop of Cartagena) as the appointed archdeacon of the church there.^[10] The more common pattern, however, was not appointment in Spain but gradual advancement after a priest established himself in the Indies. Juan de Llerena of Cáceres first went to Peru in the entourage of the Inquisitor Licenciado Fray Antonio Gutiérrez de Ulloa (from Cáceres) in 1570. Llerena returned to Spain in 1575 on business for the inquisitor, and when he went back to Peru in 1577 he said he had been given the "benefice of the port of Payta and pueblo of Escolar, in the diocese of Quito."^[11] Bachiller Gonzalo de Torres of Trujillo was vicar of Arequipa until his patron, appointed bishop of Popayán, brought him to be vicar of Popayán. Later the bishop made Torres archdeacon and chantre (cantor).^[12] While few priests achieved such distinction, most of them probably did well enough. Francisco Regodón, who went to Peru in the early 1550s, sent for his nephew

in Trujillo, Alonso Regodón Calderón, in the 1570s and was said to be "very rich."^[13] Priests frequently purchased censos in Spain in absentia, an indication that they had surplus capital to invest.^[14]

Most officials left Spain with a definite appointment in hand, although emigrants who were in the New World might obtain positions that typically went to people already on the local scene. Treasury officials often emerged from the local milieu; Francisco González de Castro was treasurer of Santa Marta in the 1560s, Juan Rodríguez de Ocampo was treasurer of Quito in the 1570s and 1580s, and Pedro de Valencia treasurer of Arequipa in 1570.^[15] Higher-ranking officials received their appointments in Spain. Cáceres and Trujillo both produced a number of governors and audiencia judges and presidents, some of whom had long and uninterrupted careers in the Indies and accumulated considerable experience there. Dr. Francisco de Sande from Cáceres served successively as prosecutor, criminal magistrate, and judge of the audiencia of Mexico between 1567 and 1574. He was governor and captain-general of the Philippines from 1575 to 1580, at which time he returned to Mexico to serve again on the audiencia. He later served as president of Guatemala (1593–1596) and Santa Fe de Bogotá (1596 until his death in 1602).^[16] Another cacereño, Licenciado Diego García de Valverde, in 1556 went to New Granada as fiscal (prosecutor) of the audiencia of Bogota. In 1564 he was appointed oidor of the audiencia of Lima, then served as president in Quito in 1573–1574 and the following year became president of Guatemala; he died in 1587 before assuming the presidency of Guadalajara to which he had been appointed.^[17]

Such lengthy careers must have resulted in (and reflected) substantial expertise and competence in the governance of the Indies, regardless of whether the policies and actions undertaken were popular or just. Licenciado García de Valverde was a determined reformer who arrived in Guatemala at the tail end of a major epidemic to find the population there much diminished. He tried to reform the encomiendas through improved recordkeeping that would allow a realistic adjustment of tribute quotas. This and other measures enraged the local encomenderos, who attempted to undermine the president's reputation and position.^[18] Dr. Sande, in contrast, seems to have run afoul of his constituents not because of an interest in reform but more likely as a result of his ambitions. He

accumulated substantial wealth during his career and doubtless was always alert to the opportunities afforded by his position. In 1578 in the Philippines, for example, he sent his captain, Esteban Rodríguez de Figueroa (also from Cáceres) to the island of "Xolo" to pacify the people and develop agriculture and the pearl industry. He also instructed Rodríguez to have the people tame two elephants for him, for which he would pay. Rodríguez conquered the "king" of Xolo and made him a vassal.^[19]

In contrast to artisans and professionals, who usually went to the Indies intending to pursue their occupations or careers at least for a number of years (if not necessarily permanently), merchants often went there only temporarily, or moved back and forth. Thirteen men from Trujillo, one from Robledillo (in Trujillo's district), and three from Cáceres left for the Indies calling themselves merchants or merchants' factors, most of them in the 1560s and 1570s. Probably many of them worked together. Gonzalo de Carmona, Juan de Ribera (brother of Bachiller Gonzalo de Torres, who became archdeacon and cantor of Popayán), and the noble Andrés Calderón Puertocarrero, all left Trujillo for Tierra Firme and Peru in 1562. Juan Cotrina and Rafael Solana both left Cáceres in 1564. Andrés Calderón and Juan de Ribera were back in Trujillo within two or three years.

These self-identified merchants, who often remained more closely tied to Spain than the New World, actually formed only part of the much larger and flexible group of merchants and entrepreneurs which developed in response to the many opportunities offered by the Indies enterprise. Even a random look at the activities of emigrants in the Indies suggests that almost everyone at one time or another engaged in some kind of commercial activity. Alonso Alvarez de Altamirano went to Peru as a child with his father Licenciado Alvarez, the surgeon. When he returned to Spain in 1581 at the age of thirty on business, he called himself a "known merchant" ("mercader conocido").^[20] Alvaro de Cáceres, long-time resident and leading citizen of Puebla de los Angeles, became involved in the cacao trade between Mexico and Guatemala and Soconusco.^[21] Since opportunities abounded, many individuals, especially in the early years, were buying and selling as a sideline if not a principal occupation; Diego de Carvajal, a retainer of Juan Pizarro who returned to Trujillo to marry Juan's half-sister Isabel de Soto, in testimony re-

garding transactions of 1536 with Juan de Herrera in Peru, said that "at the time this witness invested in the City of the Kings [Lima] certain money and certain merchandise and he doubled them in the city of Cuzco."^[22] Yet others invested in commerce while avoiding direct participation; Juan de Hinojosa of Cáceres, an encomendero of Arequipa, invested 20,000 ducados with the merchant Gaspar de Solís.^[23] Alonso Carrasco of Zorita, another encomendero, had a mercantile company with his mayordomo Alonso de Fuentes and employed his own factors.^[24]

Diversity and flexibility characterized the activities of extremeños, as of all emigrants in the Indies. An encomendero could be an entrepreneur, a miner, or a stockraiser. Lucas Martínez Vegaso, a veteran of Cajamarca and wealthy encomendero of Arequipa, from the outset of his career in Peru was involved in commercial activities. He owned a ship and had silver mines at Tarapaca, where he held his encomienda.^[25] Another emigrant from Trujillo, Diego Pizarro de Olmos, who arrived in Peru around 1540 with his relative Alonso Pizarro de la Rua, who also received an encomienda, had an encomienda in the valley of Supe on the coast. He received a land grant of 210 acres in the valley of Charcay, near Lima, and in his will of 1562 left 910 head of cattle, 680 pigs, 178 goats, and 37 horses in the valley of Supe.^[26] Non-encomenderos also diversified their economic activities. Diego de Nodera, a master stonecutter from Trujillo who lived for years and practiced his trade in Mexico, had a commercial partnership with a merchant from Seville and visited Spain at least once on business.^[27] Francisco de Ojalvo of Cáceres had a mercantile company as well as a shoemaker's shop in Trujillo (Peru).^[28]

Because many Spaniards in the New World pursued an array of economic undertakings, there is no very precise way of categorizing people according to their economic involvements, occupations, or status, nor was possession of an encomienda necessarily a crucial determinant of one's status or activities. Holding an encomienda did not guarantee economic success, although certainly a populous and well-located encomienda was a great asset to someone with agricultural, stockraising, or mining interests. But an encomienda was not essential to such activities. Juan de Cáceres Delgado, a cacereño involved in stockraising and the transport trade in and around Mexico City in the 1520s and 1530s, achieved wealth and

prominence despite the fact that he never received an encomienda. In the 1520s he was "father and guardian of orphans" for New Spain, and his wife was called "doña."^[29] Juan Pantoja de Ribera of Cáceres, who lived in San Jorge in Honduras in the 1540s, at the time of his marriage there owned thirteen black slaves "of the best miners . . . in Honduras" and a stand of cacao trees that annually yielded fourteen or fifteen cargas of cacao; together with his houses and other properties, his net worth was estimated at over 12,000 pesos.^[30] Diego Martín de Trujillo of Garciaz, who went with his wife to Mexico in the early 1550s, held agricultural land and pastures on which he grazed sheep outside Mexico City. In a letter of 1562 he claimed that he had an annual income of 2,000 pesos. A vecino of Garciaz who had seen Diego Martín in Mexico said that he and his family were "rich and prosperous."^[31] Andrés Pérez of Cáceres, a vecino of Puebla de los Angeles in the 1540s and 1550s, had owned mines and slaves in Zumpango in the 1530s.^[32]

None of these men held an encomienda, and they all achieved a decent standard of living in the New World. But their economic circumstances on the whole were still fairly modest. In Spain in the 1560s the relatives of cacereño Juan Pantoja de Ribera, who died in Honduras, attempted to reclaim from Juan Pantoja's widow the cumulative value of his estate and assets over the twenty-four years since his death. By the claimants' own calculations the income from mines and cacao would not have much exceeded 600 pesos annually, hardly a fortune.^[33] Commercial activity, in contrast to agriculture or small-scale mining, more likely could generate real wealth. Alvaro de Cáceres's activities in the cacao trade with Guatemala financed the upkeep of a large, well-furnished house in Puebla in which he had built a fountain that he let his neighbors use. He served as the steward of a local confraternity and was known for his charities to widows and orphans. His entrepreneurial success can be gauged by the fact that by the mid-1570s he apparently had retired from direct participation in commerce and acquired an estate in the countryside. In 1574 Cáceres received a sentence of one year's exile from New Spain for attempting to secure the bishopric of Tlaxcala for his own candidate. The sum of 7500 ducados that he proposed to use for this purpose reflects his substantial financial wherewithal.^[34]

Encomenderos

Despite the relative success, even in the early years, of some nonencomenderos, the encomienda nonetheless was the dominant economic and political institution of early colonial society, mobilizing labor for Spanish enterprises as well as providing a direct source of income for those who received grants. Furthermore, encomenderos, since they often were among the wealthiest and best-established vecinos of a city, frequently served on town councils or in other official capacities and thus were in a good position to secure the land grants they wanted. Frey Nicolás de Ovando, during his term as governor of Hispaniola, was an encomendero and the largest landholder on the island (after King Ferdinand). He had extensive agricultural lands and holdings in livestock (mainly pigs) and was involved in mining and commercial imports. In fact Ovando implemented the royal cédula of 1503 authorizing the establishment of encomiendas (which actually had been in existence for some years). Probably most of the wealth that Ovando derived from his encomienda and other very profitable enterprises went to the Order of Alcántara or indirectly to the king (as grand master of the order) rather than to Ovando himself.^[35]

Some encomiendas yielded disappointingly little in the way of tribute or labor or were rendered virtually worthless by epidemics that decimated indigenous populations. Others were not located sufficiently near to productive mining or agricultural areas to be of much use, or the encomendero lacked the necessary access to capital or political favor to use the encomienda to best advantage. In the 1540s cacereño Alonso Hidalgo, vecino of Ciudad Real de Chiapas, complained of his poverty, saying he had received only a small encomienda from Pedro de Alvarado worth about 70 pesos.^[36] Some conquistadores and early settlers, victims of factionalism and favoritism, lost part or all of their encomiendas. Another cacereño, Diego Holguín, a vecino of Puebla de los Angeles in the 1530s and 1540s, lost part of his encomienda to Cortés's Marquesado. Nuño de Guzmán, first president of New Spain's audiencia, reassigned the remainder, leaving Holguín, a married man with two sons and two daughters, destitute.^[37]

Politics, factionalism, and civil war frequently resulted in the

loss or reassignment of encomiendas in Peru as well. Pedro Alonso Carrasco, a native of Zorita and conqueror and early settler of Cuzco, lost part of his encomienda of Carichane, which he had received from Juan Pizarro. Witnesses in the late 1550s said that Francisco Pizarro took Carrasco's grant because he was angry at him ("por estar mal con el") and because he thought Carrasco had too many Indians.^[38] A number of encomiendas changed hands during or after Gonzalo Pizarro's rebellion. Lucas Martínez, who in 1547 became Gonzalo Pizarro's lieutenant governor for the region of Arequipa, lost his encomienda when the rebellion ended. Eventually he regained it, in 1557, allegedly bribing the new Viceroy, Cañete, and one of the judges of the audiencia to achieve that effect.^[39] Although Martínez, like many of Pizarro's supporters, in the end switched his support to the side of the royal representative, President Licenciado Pedro de la Gasca, he did not fare as well as other supporters of Pizarro who did the same. Men like Lorenzo de Aldana and Gómez de Solís, nobles from Cáceres who played an active and important role in the rebellion, actually came out ahead, ending up with some of the best encomiendas in Peru.^[40]

An encomienda could yield a substantial income and serve as the basis for a range of economic activities. But because encomiendas were grants made and held at the discretion of officials (or whoever exercized effective authority), they were a much more uncertain basis for the accumulation of wealth and perpetuation of family status than the rents and properties held in Extremadura—hence the need to diversify and develop the private aspects of estates and enterprises. Early grants went to a variety of individuals, from artisans and miners to hidalgos and officials, but people with wealth, prestige, and good connections were most successful in securing and retaining good encomiendas. On the whole hidalgos probably did best in using and keeping their grants, but certainly they were not immune to the capriciousness of events or officials. Lorenzo de Ulloa, one of the few cacereños in Peru who managed to survive Gonzalo Pizarro's rebellion while avoiding real commitment to the rebel side, lost one-third of his encomienda (which had been worth 4000 pesos) in the 1550s when the viceroy transferred 1400 pesos to seven vecinos of the town of Jaen. He never was reinstated in this grant, but later he succeeded to the repartimiento left vacant at the death of a fellow cacereño, Lorenzo de Aldana.^[41]

The nature of the grants created other problems for their holders. An encomienda could not be held in absentia, although the encomendero could obtain permission for a short-term absence. Since encomenderos could not arrange to collect the income from their grants in absentia and could not legally sell their grants outright, the direct profits to be made from an encomienda only benefited the grantee who stayed in the Indies. There were, of course, some exceptions in both regards. Hernando Pizarro and his wife doña Francisca (the mestiza daughter of Francisco Pizarro) enjoyed the income from their encomiendas and mines in Peru to the end of their lives in Spain; but then the careers and circumstances of the Pizarro family in Peru in certain ways were quite atypical, just as in other ways they exemplified—if on a grander scale than most—the activities and occupations of many of their fellow countrymen.^[42]

The question of succession to the grants also caused problems. Normally a son succeeded to his father's encomienda, at least in the first generation. Thus Gonzalo de las Casas succeeded to the encomienda first granted to his father Francisco de las Casas; Maestre Manuel Tomás, a surgeon from Trujillo who accompanied Francisco de las Casas to Mexico, in 1547 transferred his encomienda of Tututepec to his son Diego Rodríguez de Orozco, who arrived in Mexico in 1536; and Juan de Hinojosa, another trujillano who shared an encomienda about 150 miles northeast of Mexico City and died in 1533, was succeeded by his son Francisco, who arrived from Spain in 1537.^[43] In each of these cases in the early years, the encomenderos were men who had started families in Spain and so had the appropriate heirs to succeed them. But the excitement, newness, and conflicts of the early years, in Peru especially, meant both high mortality rates and delays in establishing families in the New World. Lorenzo de Aldana had no legitimate heirs and apparently never married, so his encomienda went to Lorenzo de Ulloa, a fellow cacereño. Where there were no heirs, it was common for a grant to be assigned to someone from the same home town or region in Spain. Pedro de Valencia of Trujillo, the treasurer of Arequipa, in 1570 succeeded to the encomienda left vacant at the death of another trujillano, Captain Francisco de Chaves.^[44]

An encomendero's widow usually could succeed to a grant, but a woman was seldom permitted to remain single and retain an encomienda. As a result men often became encomenderos through

marriage to widows who held grants.^[45] This practice could create conflicts in the next generation, however, if there were children by more than one husband. And the custom of allowing widows to succeed but hastening them into marriages doubtless at times had less than desirable results for the women involved. Alonso Carrasco of Zorita succeeded to his uncle Francisco Lobo's encomienda in the valley of Jayanca and married Lobo's widow, doña Isabel Palomino. Lobo had made Carrasco his heir in his will of 1551, and witnesses stated that Lobo had treated Carrasco like a son, giving him the run of his estate:

Alonso Carrasco commanded all the household . . . and his Indians, and everyone obeyed him, and he spent and distributed the goods and tributes of Francisco Lobo, and in everything he acted as if it were his, the same as Francisco Lobo himself could do.

Lobo's widow's feelings for Carrasco might not have been so fond; by the mid-1570s Carrasco was dead, allegedly at the hand of his wife, who poisoned his soup.^[46]

Problems over succession and assignment of grants generated endless litigation that could involve officials who acted not only in their official capacity but in defense of their private interests as well; Pedro Alonso Carrasco tried to reclaim part of his grant from the son of the governor Licenciado Vaca de Castro.^[47] Again, because of a high rate of mortality and considerable mobility, a series of individuals might succeed to a grant in a rather short period of time, fomenting legal chaos, especially since individuals who probably did not have the authority to assign grants often did so in the early years.

The acrimonious suit between the aforementioned Alonso Carrasco of Zorita and Alvaro Pizarro de la Rua of Trujillo arose from precisely those kinds of circumstances and was unusual only in that the customary solidarity of two men from the same "tierra"—they had many friends and even relatives in common—broke down. Carrasco's uncle Francisco Lobo received half the repartimiento of Jayanca, to which Carrasco succeeded. The other half passed through the hands of a couple of men and to the daughter of the second, who apparently died young. Since the holders of that half had never taken over administration very effectively, Lobo and Carrasco allegedly had expanded their part at the expense of the other. So when Alonso

Pizarro de la rua was assigned half of Jayanca in 1566, probably as a reward for helping to put down the rebellion of Francisco Hernández Girón, he discovered that his share was of little value. Attempts to negotiate with Carrasco failed, and Alonso Pizarro's representatives were unable to contact Carrasco's wife, doña Isabel Palomino, who they claimed Carrasco had "very shut up and hidden," unable to leave the house; nor could a notary enter. Two long-time residents and early conquerors—Diego de Trujillo and Pedro Alonso Carrasco (the former from Trujillo, the latter from Zorita)—testified in 1570 in Alonso Carrasco's probanza; and several other trujillanos—Diego Pizarro de Olmos, Captain Francisco de Olmos, and the surgeon Licenciado Juan Alvarez—gave testimony for Alonso Pizarro de la Rua. Carrasco's mayordomo and business partner, Alonso de Fuentes, claimed he was a friend of both parties, and Juan de Valverde Pizarro, a second cousin of Alonso Pizarro de la Rua, was the man who testified regarding the key position Alonso Carrasco played in Francisco Lobo's establishment.^[48]

Lucas Martínez Vegaso

The activities and often complex business affairs of Lucas Martínez of Trujillo provide a good illustration of how an early encomendero-entrepreneur operated. Martínez's long-time association with partner and fellow Cajamarca veteran Alonso Ruiz, who returned to Trujillo to marry Martínez's sister Isabel, and his connections with other people from Trujillo illustrate how the maintenance of ties to home and family put a particular stamp on the organization and operation of an early Spanish American establishment.

Martínez figured among the group of young recruits from Trujillo who accompanied Francisco Pizarro back to Peru in 1529. He was about twenty-one years old when he received his share of the spoils of Cajamarca, and his companion and business partner Alonso Ruiz was perhaps a year or two younger. Ruiz was not a native of Trujillo; he may have grown up there, but he also could have been recruited by Pizarro elsewhere. Whatever his origins, he and Martínez formed an enduring partnership almost from the inception of their enterprise in Peru, selling horses and other provisions, lending money, and for ten years—until Ruiz's departure for Spain in 1540—holding and managing their property in common. They did, how-

ever, receive separate encomiendas in Arequipa.^[49] Despite their closeness and the similarity in age, Martínez was the dominant partner. He was informed and literate (Ruiz essentially was illiterate), and regardless of whether Martínez actually started out as a merchant, he had a talent for and knowledge of business affairs. He was a loyal Pizarrist and achieved some prominence in early Peru despite an undistinguished military record. A member of the Cuzco city council in the 1530s, he sat on the Arequipa council from the first year of its founding in 1539–1540; Ruiz in contrast scarcely appeared in a public capacity in Peru. Ruiz's encomienda was smaller than Martínez's encomienda of Tarapaca and Arica, one of the largest and most lucrative in the jurisdiction of Arequipa.

When Ruiz left for Spain in 1540 to marry Martínez's sister Isabel in Trujillo, the men divided up their property but did not terminate their partnership. Each of them put aside 2000 pesos for Isabel's dowry, and in addition Ruiz took to Spain over 20,000 pesos that belonged to both; the men gave each other their powers of attorney to administer properties and conduct transactions. Ruiz probably did not intend to return permanently to Spain, and three times he had his license to stay there extended.^[50] But in the 1550s he was on the Trujillo city council, and in 1558 he purchased señorío of the village of Madroñera, where Martínez may have had family connections. Over the years the two men in their parallel and connected lives rose considerably beyond their rather humble origins, and both added surnames to bolster their new status. The encomendero of Arequipa became Lucas Martínez Vegaso, and the lord of Madroñera Alonso Ruiz de Albornoz.

Lucas Martínez created an integrated and efficient operation in Peru, based on the exploitation of his silver mines at Tarapaca, his encomienda, and agricultural holdings. His tributes and farms yielded a standard range of products—maize, wheat, alpacas and llamas (for wool, meat, and transport), sheep and pigs, salted fish, poultry—which he used to supply his employees, slaves, and retainers or sold in Potosí or elsewhere. Of over 1200 fanegas of maize collected in 1565, for example, more than half the total was sold or exchanged for livestock, while 43 percent went to feed encomienda and mine workers. Martínez's ship was crucial to the operation, and after he recovered his encomienda in 1557, he had new boats built that linked Tarapaca to Arica, Callao, and other ports.^[51]

Martínez's will of 1566 declared that he held twenty black slaves, half of them working in the mines and half in his households in Arica and Lima, where he had gone to live in 1561. In addition to encomienda Indians, he had yanaconas (Indian dependents) working on his lands in Guaylacana, Tarapaca, and elsewhere.^[52] One of the most interesting aspects of Martínez's staffing arrangements for his encomienda and mining operations was his employment of a number of members of the Valencia family, natives of Trujillo and Madroñera who possibly were related to Lucas Martínez on his mother's side (his mother was Francisca de Valencia). Soon after his return to Trujillo, Alonso Ruiz sent two first cousins, Martín de Valencia and Pedro Alonso de Valencia, to Peru to work for Martínez; Martín worked in Arica and Pedro Alonso in Tarapaca. About ten years later Martín de Valencia's son Gonzalo also departed Trujillo to work for Lucas Martínez in Peru. One of Gonzalo's brothers also apparently went to work for Martínez in the mines.

The men of the Valencia family did fairly well working for Martínez, although they remained primarily his dependents and employees. In the mid-1540s Pedro Alonso was the encomendero's chief mayordomo, earning an annual salary of 600 pesos. Later Gonzalo de Valencia's salary would be higher, since he received 650 pesos for just seven months' work. Gonzalo's father Martín owned a farm where he had an Indian woman and a black slave working for him. But apparently none of them left Martínez's establishment. Gonzalo de Valencia and Pedro Alonso de Valencia's widow each received a bequest of 1000 pesos in Lucas's will of 1566. Martínez made Gonzalo the custodian of his property and directed him to take his things back to Spain.^[53]

Lucas Martínez's career in Peru provides a revealing picture of a man in transition between two worlds. He spent over thirty-five years—the greater part of his life—in Peru and took the fullest possible advantage of available opportunities to build up a flourishing and profitable enterprise. He apparently never visited home again and certainly did not plan to go back permanently, although he arranged for his friend and partner Alonso Ruiz to do so. Yet in a sense he never fully established himself in Peru, marrying a young woman only days before his death in April 1567 so that she could inherit the encomienda. Never having established a legitimate family, Martínez left no direct legal heirs. In the early years he did

have an Indian noble woman, doña Isabel Yupanqui, as his mistress, and he had children by a morisca woman named Beatriz (formerly a slave). One of these children might have been his son Francisco Martínez Vegaso, who held an encomienda in Chile in 1546.^[54] Martínez made his sisters Isabel and Lucía Martínez his universal heirs, and the executors of his will included Alonso Ruiz and Isable Martínez in Spain and Martín de Meneses (of Trujillo) and Diego Velázquez (a native of Jaraicejo and long-time retainer of Hernando Pizarro) in Peru.

Despite his success and extensive involvement in Peruvian affairs and society, Lucas Martínez, then, remained to the end of his life strongly oriented toward Trujillo and his family there, maintaining close relations with Alonso Ruiz, who acted as a sort of surrogate for Martínez in his own home town, and continuing to rely on his fellow trujillanos (and possible relatives) the Valencias to staff and manage his business enterprise. A further irony of Martínez's rather paradoxical—if not irreconcilable—allegiances lies in the fact that at least one of his brothers, Alonso García Vegaso, was in Peru. He left this brother and his illegitimate son Lucas Martínez Vegaso only modest bequests in his will and does not seem to have associated closely with them.^[55] Clearly Lucas much preferred Alonso Ruiz, and he chose to forge with him bonds of kinship and common origin—Alonso became his partner, then his brother-in-law and a trujillano—rather than rely on the ones already at hand.

Family, Kinship, and Recruitment

The importance of having someone to trust with one's economic affairs and properties accounted in part for the close connections extremeños maintained with one another in the Indies and their frequent efforts to recruit young relatives from home. The priest Francisco Regodón, who sent for his nephew Alonso Regodón Calderón in Trujillo, wrote to his brother-in-law Vasco Calderón in 1578 that he had lost 4000 pesos as a result of having trusted distant relatives.^[56] Alvaro de Paredes wrote to his brother in February 1591 that a man to whom he had entrusted "a little capital" absconded with the money.^[57] Others had similar experiences. Francisco González de Castro, the treasurer of Santa Marta, wrote to his brothers that he would be happy if one of them sent a son; but he

qualified this, saying that "if he turns out to be as irresponsible and as much my enemy as was the son of Francisco García who came here, I'd prefer he doesn't come, because I don't see him nor do I know where he is."^[58] Along with affection and family loyalty, letters from emigrants in the Indies often expressed a very real anxiety that the economic gains of years or even decades would be lost for lack of an heir or trusted relative to take charge of affairs. Francisco Ojalvo, the shoemaker whose business flourished in Trujillo (Peru), wrote to his nephew Gonzalo Ojalvo in Cáceres in the 1570s:

The greatest pain and grief . . . I have is not to have you at present in this country to give you the little I have. . . . Because if I died, the greatest pain I would carry would be if you were not here to collect what I leave, because this country is such that almost everything is lost when a man shuts his eye.^[59]

Inés Alonso Cervera wrote to her son in Trujillo in the late 1570s about "the need I have for you because, as I say, I have no help nor anyone to look after my property."^[60]

On the whole, however, despite the dangers of travel and factional turmoil, the frustration experienced by men like Alvaro de Paredes in Mexico or Diego de Ovando de Cáceres in Peru—who, despite his connections and loyal services to the crown, never received an encomienda or any kind of compensation^[61] —and the economic risks and uncertainty that could spell disappointment or disaster, the evidence suggests that most emigrants to the Indies felt that they had substantially improved their condition and possibilities by making the move to the New World. Letters from emigrants to family members did not paint exaggerated pictures of wealth, but instead emphasized the potential for a good life if one were willing to work. Lorenzo Gutiérrez, who in 1572 wrote from the valley of Ica in Peru urging his son Mateo in Cáceres to join the family, indicated that they certainly were comfortable if not rich. Two of his daughters had married there and a third was about to do so, all of them to "well-to-do and rich men."^[62] Antonio and Andrés Pérez of Cáceres, vecinos of Puebla de los Angeles in the 1540s and 1550s, wrote to their brother Francisco Gutiérrez inviting him to join them; they also talked about their prosperity and the good life they had made for themselves. The two brothers had married two sisters, the daughters of "honorable parents," and lived in adjacent

houses in Puebla.^[63] When Inés Alonso Cervera wrote to her son García de Escobar in 1577, she had been recently widowed; "since our Lord has been served to take my husband," she wrote, "he has compensated me in possessions, of which I have many."^[64]

The strength of family ties and the marked tendency to regard the pursuit of opportunities offered by the Indies as a collective, family undertaking, rather than an individual one, accounts for numerous examples already cited of family members emigrating together or joining each other in the New World. The evidence for this pattern is so abundant that one suspects that almost any emigrant identified from the passenger lists or other records probably had at least one other relative—parent, uncle, sibling, or cousin—in the Indies. The Guerra family of Cáceres provides a good case in point. Alonso Guerra was in Peru quite early. He received an encomienda from Francisco Pizarro and by 1537 was a vecino and councilman of San Miguel de Piura; in that year he appeared with fellow cacereño Francisco de Godoy to receive Godoy's power of attorney. Eventually no fewer than six members of Guerra's immediate family—five sons and a brother—would join him in Peru.^[65]

Diego Guerra, who claimed to be an hidalgo and Alonso Guerra's legitimate son, prepared an información in 1562 detailing what he and his brothers had done in the New World. Diego had gone to the Indies looking for his father, arriving first in Puerto Rico and moving on to Hispaniola, where he helped put down an attempted slave revolt in Santo Domingo. After spending a couple of years there, he left for Tierra Firme and then Peru, having heard his father was there. Diego went to San Miguel but did not find his father until he went on an expedition to quell a local revolt; Alonso Guerra met the expedition with supplies. Diego stayed on in Peru, marrying around 1550 and inheriting his father's encomienda, which was located 140 leagues from San Miguel.

In 1562 Diego complained that the repartimiento's annual income of 1500 pesos was insufficient to support himself and his brother Juan Guerra "to whom he is obligated." Juan Guerra had been in Peru since some time in the 1540s. Two other sons of Alonso Guerra—Fray Alonso Guerra and Fray Ambrosio Guerra—both Dominicans—also were in Peru. Yet another son, Pedro Guerra, went on from Peru to Chile, where he died with Pedro de Valdivia. Diego Guerra also testified that his father's brother Diego Guerra de la

Vega had gone to the Indies as a secret envoy of the crown and later produced chronicles of the discovery and conquest of New Spain and other events. This uncle became a priest. Eventually he too went to Peru, where he died in the city of San Miguel.^[66]

We have, then, six men in one family drawn to Peru, singly or in pairs—Diego Guerra and his uncle Diego Guerra de la Vega each got there on his own, the two Dominican brothers probably went there together—by the presence of Alonso Guerra. Alonso Guerra was in Peru from the 1530s, and his connection with Francisco de Godoy suggests that from the beginning he formed part of the closeknit cacereño group so active in the early years. In this case, as in others such as that of the early settler and encomendero of Trujillo, Lorenzo de Ulloa, who attracted three of his brothers and a sister to Peru,^[67] the early and successful establishment of one family member in the Indies offered others not just a precedent to follow but seemingly a solid base from which to develop their own careers in the New World.

These hopes often met with disappointment. Diego Guerra found his father's encomienda barely sufficed to support him, his family, and his brother Juan and enable him to send money back to his mother in Spain, and not one of Lorenzo de Ulloa's brothers who came from Cáceres established himself successfully in Peru. Nonetheless such men, especially the hidalgos who (with the exception of the ecclesiastics) mostly lacked any particular vocation, operated according to standard notions of how to make one's way in the world. When a family member moved to the Indies, the Indies became part of the enlarged arena in which family and kinship networks could function to provide opportunities and a livelihood for other relatives.

The continuous recruitment of younger relatives by people established in the New World and the desires of parents for the children they had left behind to join them reflect one of the paradoxes of life for Spaniards in the Indies. While many emigrants' economic circumstances improved strikingly as a result of the move, for whatever reason—late marriages, mortality rates—they frequently failed to produce heirs. Thus while they often found the economic security that had eluded them back home in Spain, they were unable to pass the benefits on to their children. Francisco Ojalvo, who sent for his nephew in Cáceres, was married but childless. Antonio Pérez, vecino of Puebla, had no children, although his brother Andrés had

several, legitimate and illegitimate. The encomendero Juan Ramiro had married doña María Martel in Lima but died without heirs, as did Juan Pantoja in Honduras and many, many others. Diego de Trujillo, the veteran of Cajamarca and encomendero of Cuzco who sent for his nephews in the 1570s, married four times but had no surviving heirs. Doubtless children born in the Indies were much more susceptible to the epidemic diseases that were ravaging Indian populations than were their parents. Alvaro de Paredes in 1602 had six small children. Two years later he had lost two; "there have been a thousand illnesses and three deaths" (the third was his mulatto servant).^[68]

While marriages could bring personal fulfillment and happiness, they often hinged on pragmatic considerations. Thus Alonso Carrasco married his uncle's widow, who had inherited the encomienda. The consequences for Carrasco of that practical arrangement were quite literally fatal. A trujillano named Hernando Caballero entered into another type of situation when he wrote to the widow of his compatriot Pedro Martín about Martín's untimely death (following a failed business venture, Martín died trying to escape from a royal constable sent to arrest him for his debts; he threw himself into a river near Cuzco and drowned). Caballero was supposed to take charge of collecting what remained of Martín's estate—he had owned a mine at Potosí—for Martín's widow in Trujillo. He ended up marrying one of Pedro Martín's illegitimate daughters, who apparently had inherited the property.^[69]

Common origins or relationship could influence choice of marriage partners, hence the strikingly anomalous marriage of the noble trujillano don Pedro Puertocarrero to the wealthy commoner María de Escobar, widow of Francisco de Chaves of Trujillo.^[70] Gonzalo Pizarro intended to marry off his mistress María de Ulloa in Lima to a compatriot. He wrote to her in April 1547 that "an hidalgo of my country, who has served much in this land, named Pizarro de la Rua, I have married to you, because he is a good soldier and has my name; and I think you will be very happy with him."^[71]

The same factors that resulted in a frequent lack of heirs—delayed marriages or no marriage at all, mortality among children—could enhance the importance of the mestizo children that Spaniards had with Indian women. While most mestizo children were illegitimate,

their fathers often recognized and raised them. Francisco, Gonzalo, and Juan Pizarro all failed to marry in Peru and all fathered mestizo children, some of whom were sent to Spain;^[72] it was not uncommon for mestizo children to end up there. Cristóbal de Ovando Paredes took his mestiza daughter doña Beatriz back to Cáceres in the 1580s and placed her in the convent of Santa María de Jesús.^[73] Diego de Sanabria, an early vecino of Mexico City, in his will of 1528 left fifty pesos to his mestiza daughter Isabel and gave two of his fellow cacereños responsibility for his daughter, instructing them to take her to Castile so that his mother or brother (a priest) could care for her.^[74]

More typically, however, mestizo children remained in the New World where their possibilities probably were much better. A son of Frey Nicolás de Ovando, Diego de Ovando, who became one of Gonzalo Pizarro's captains, was called a "mestizo natural de Extremadura."^[75] Bartolomé Chico de Halia of Zorita, who died in Charcas in the 1560s, left his mestizo son 800 pesos and instructed that he not be sent to Spain.^[76] Lorenzo de Aldana married his mestiza daughter to another encomendero, and don Pedro Puertocarrero, whose marriage to María de Escobar was childless, shortly before his death allegedly fathered a boy by an Indian woman, Ana Vispa, who had been his wife's servant. Although because of don Pedro's advanced age and illnesses some people doubted that the child could have been his, don Pedro recognized the boy, gave him his name, and made him his heir, and he sought to legitimate his son by marrying the boy's Indian mother just before his death (María de Escobar died before the child was born). In the 1590s Bachiller don Cristóbal de Albornoz, a dignitary of the cathedral of Cuzco, said that don Pedro had been very happy when his son was born and showed him to everyone who came to his house, "saying look how he resembles me in this and that."^[77]

Local and Regional Ties

Emigrants' economic activities, legal involvements, marriages, and families all underscore the extent to which the extremeños maintained their connections with one another. These associations were so pervasive that they must be considered a crucial aspect of their lives in the Indies with many implications and repercussions. Emi-

grants frequently gave their power of attorney to relatives and other acquaintances from their home towns or regions. Extremeños served as witnesses for the transactions, wills, and other documents executed by their kinsmen and home town acquaintances, testified on their behalf in suits, took custody of orphaned children, and bought and sold property held in Spain or the Indies to each other. The encomendero Maestre Tomás in Mexico in 1527, for example, bought houses in Trujillo for 100 pesos from another trujillano in Mexico, Hernando Pizarro, who was acting as guardian of Francisco de Gaete.^[78] Such patterns of association characterized not only the early years but persisted throughout the sixteenth century. Juan Rodríguez de Ocampo, the trujillano who was treasurer of Quito, bought some juros on the sales tax of Trujillo from Licenciado García de Valverde, doubtless while Valverde was oidor in Quito in the mid-1570s.^[79] Francisco Calderón de Tapia of Trujillo, who went to Peru in 1573 in his mid-twenties, in 1580 became the guardian of don Pedro Puertocarrero, the mestizo son and heir of his noble father of the same name.^[80] Continued reference to and association with relatives and other people from the same home town or region conditioned or affected the decisions and activities of extremeños in the Indies for years.

Letters home in particular shed light on these continuing connections. Andrés Pérez, after living in New Spain for some twenty years, mentioned two other cacereños, Cosme de Ovando and Alvaro de Cáceres, when he wrote to his brother in Spain in 1559.^[81] Diego Martín de Trujillo of Garciaz in 1562 wrote to the priest Alonso de Aguilar (apparently his wife's uncle and the guardian of the daughter they had left behind) about several people who must have been from their town or nearby and known to Aguilar: "My sister and Juan López and Miguel Sánchez, my brother-in-law, and Hernan Martín are all alive and well. We know nothing of Andrés Martín for three years because [he went] to Peru with merchandise and we await him here."^[82] Fray Gaspar de Carvajal wrote to his brother Diego de Carvajal in Trujillo that their compatriots Martín de Chaves and Alonso García Calderón had drowned together in Peru in 1549.^[83] In two letters in 1606 Alvaro de Paredes mentioned the arrival in Vera Cruz of cacereño Alonso Gil, son of the man who owned the oven next to their father's house in Cáceres. Paredes passed along the rumor that Gil and his wife had disappeared from

Vera Cruz because they had emigrated without the proper legal authorization.^[84]

Testimony of people who returned to Spain also reflects the network of contact and communication that extremeños maintained in the Indies. Alvaro Rodríguez Chacón, who returned to Trujillo from Mexico in the 1570s to get his children, testified that Francisco Gómez of Trujillo had a tailor's shop with a good business in Mexico City.^[85] Seven returnees to Trujillo testified that they had been with Juan Ramiro in Lima before his death.^[86] Juan de Ribera, who went to Tierra Firme and Peru in 1562 as a merchant and returned three or four years later, testified at different times in Trujillo regarding people he had seen in the Indies. In Lima he had met Felipe Rodríguez, a silversmith, and Pedro Gómez, whom he said he knew both in Trujillo and Lima; both of them had left young sons in Trujillo. In Santa Marta Ribera stayed in the house of the treasurer Francisco González de Castro.^[87]

Emigrants frequently borrowed money from one another. Lorenzo de Aldana's will of 1562 mentioned a debt of 1100 pesos he owed to Leonor Méndez, the wife of cacereño Juan de Hinojosa.^[88] The associations of people in the Indies also could generate complicated transactions that involved people at home in Spain as well. Jerónimo Holguín borrowed money from fellow cacereño Benito de la Peña in the 1550s and arranged for the sum to be repaid in Cáceres by making an agreement with a notary, Pedro Pérez, by which 2045 maravedís of rents that belonged to Holguín were transferred to Peña's brother in Cáceres.^[89]

The mobility of many Spaniards in the Indies enhanced both the possibility and the importance of maintaining this network of acquaintance and association. Furthermore it must be remembered that the total numbers of Spaniards, even in the largest centers of settlement, were relatively small, which also helps account for their success in preserving and utilizing these connections. Mexico City in the midsixteenth century, for example, had perhaps 75,000 Indian residents but only about 8 to 10,000 Europeans and another 8,000 Blacks.^[90] Thus the European element or community there constituted the equivalent of a contemporary small Castilian city. Since Spaniards in their everyday lives in the Indies generally took Indians into account only indirectly for the most part, for many intents and purposes they could maintain social relations with one

another and pursue their economic activities within a frame of reference not entirely unlike that of their home towns and villages in Castile in scale. Naturally the greater diffusion of people over large areas made for some real and important differences in the New World setting; but mobility and the effectiveness of communications among people who were separated geographically to some degree compensated for the scattering of people and worked to bind them together.

The accounts and chronicles of the conquest and civil wars of Peru provide endless examples of the close association of extremeños. After Cajamarca, in which seventeen men from Trujillo and towns nearby and two from Cáceres participated,^[91] perhaps the most spectacular episode in Peruvian history that involved virtually everyone from the region in one way or another was Gonzalo Pizarro's rebellion of the 1540s against the New Laws that restricted the encomienda.^[92] Many extremeños—above all, the trujillanos—were loyal and enthusiastic supporters of Gonzalo Pizarro from the outset. Although the shrewdest ultimately defected, while the rebellion lasted their support was crucial. Extremeños were not drawn into Gonzalo Pizarro's entourage simply because of common origin, but rather because common origin, as seen, meant common ties of relationship and acquaintance. Pizarro's rebellion, in other words, did not in itself so much call forth local or regional solidarity as draw on it, and of course in turn reinforced already-existing networks and ties by involving people in acts of rebellion and treason. Gómez de Solís (of Cáceres), for example, wrote to Pizarro from Tumbez in December 1546:

I am bringing with me Benito de la Peña, who is the person I talked to you about the night before I left, because he's from my country [tierra] and I love him very much, and I have great trust in him because I know him, and also because he is very dedicated to you.^[93]

The trujillano Fray Gaspar de Carvajal wrote from Jauja in May 1547:

I am going with all haste to see you. I bring a companion, father Fray Alonso Trueno of our country [tierra], who wishes to serve you. Although it's not legal for him to take up arms, I know he will use those of Jesus Christ and pray to God on your behalf, as do I.^[94]

Naturally, given Gonzalo's strength and momentum during much of the rebellion, expressions of friendship and support might have been the only guarantee of safety. Fray Jerónimo de Loaysa, bishop of Lima, wrote to Gonzalo Pizarro at the end of 1546 "you understand that I an truly your servant and friend, although according to what I understood . . . and later was told . . . there has been no lack of suspicions to the contrary."^[95] Given the close ties that extremeños maintained with one another, their mobility in Peru, and the constant communication that resulted, it was all but impossible not to take sides—and taking the wrong one likely had serious or even fatal consequences, as in the case of cacereño Hernando de Aldana. A veteran of Cajamarca and encomendero of Cuzco, Aldana was executed by one of Pizarro's lieutenants in 1546.^[96]

Two young trujillanos, Alonso de Bibanco and Pedro Jara, who returned to Spain with Licenciado Gasca in 1549, were subsequently accused in the death of Nicolás de Heredia, executed by Pizarro's field marshal Francisco de Carvajal. Witnesses claimed that Bibanco and Jara had served only brief stints in Pizarro's camp, under coercion. Martín Casco, another returnee to Trujillo, said that Pedro Jara had been with Carvajal maybe two or three weeks. "He went with his merchandise and against his will because the said Pedro Jara told it to this witness later with tears in his eyes." Pedro de Cuevas, who had arrived in Peru with Pedro Jara in the 1530s, at one point managed to warn Jara that Carvajal intended to intercept him on his way back to Cuzco, and he arranged for Jara to hide for a few days. After Pizarro and Carvajal left Cuzco, Pedro Jara came to Cuevas's house, and they stayed in Cuzco until Gasca arrived. Pizarro had posted guards along the river between Cuzco and the royal camp so that no one would desert to the other side. Cuevas said that the guards captured and killed eight or nine men who tried to flee, including a man from Trujillo named Sotelo, after which everyone else stayed put to wait out the denouement of the revolt.^[97]

The bonds of kinship and loyalty continued to play a key role to the very end as events unfolded. Gonzalo Pizarro had real difficulty accepting the possibility that such close friends and allies as Gómez de Solís or Pedro Alonso de Hinojosa might actually have betrayed him. When he wrote to cacereño Francisco Hernández Girón from Lima in April 1547, he was convinced that the delegation he had

sent to meet the crown's representative, Gasca, in Panama must have come to a bad end. He wrote "it's fair that everyone should know . . . what I will do in revenge of your friends Lorenzo de Aldana and Gómez de Solís, because if anything has happened, it's certain that they will receive the greatest part of the bad treatment, as a result of being such friends of mine."^[98] And Gasca's representative to Gonzalo Pizarro, Pedro Hernández Paniagua de Loaysa, constantly stressed his extremeño ties and origins. He was a cousin of the bishop, don Jerónimo de Loaysa, and Gómez de Solís was his wife's cousin. According to the account of August 1547 that he wrote to Gasca, he judged that these kinship ties had been crucial in securing his safe conduct to Pizarro's camp. In conversation with Gonzalo Pizarro he called the bishop his "nephew," said he had brought with him one of his (the bishop's) brothers, and referred to Aldana as a relative. No doubt tongue in cheek, he appealed to Gonzalo on the basis of their common ties and origins:

I thought that [having] arrived to you, all my labors were done, in that you would grant me a thousand favors and rewards for being from Extremadura, and a deudo and servant of your deudos, and of one friendship and party [bando], and for the letter of Sr. Alvaro de Hinojosa [Pizarro's brother-in-law].

He also pointed out that he had expected to benefit from the favors that his "lord and cousin" the cardinal had always done for Gonzalo's brothers.^[99]

The consequences for many of the extremeños who participated in the rebellion were bad or fatal, although quite a few not only escaped punishment but landed solidly on their feet. Some, like Pedro de Bibanco and Blas de Soto, died before the end of the conflict. Soto was Gonzalo Pizarro's maternal half-brother and died just before his wife gave birth to a son.^[100] Their deaths notwithstanding, these men were tried and convicted along with a number of other men—Rodrigo Pizarro, Bartolomé de Aguilar, Gonzalo Hernández, Gristóbal Pizarro, all of Trujillo, and Diego de Ovando (son of Frey Nicolás de Ovando)—and their goods confiscated. These confiscations often directly affected people in Spain, since properties there were forfeit as well. Blas de Soto's sister Isabel de Soto, who had been raised by Gonzalo Pizarro's sister Inés Rodríguez de Aguilar and had married the Pizarro retainer and returnee

Diego de Carvajal, had to give up the 1000 ducados that her brother had donated for her dowry.^[101] The participants in the rebellion who survived to face trial usually were sentenced to exile from the Indies and condemned to the galleys. One man from Trujillo, Francisco Velázquez, went to trial and was sentenced, spent two or three months in jail, and then went free, according to returnees Alonso Cervantes and Pedro Jara who testified in Trujillo in 1550. Apparently he was recruited by Captain Juan Alonso Palomino to help apprehend other followers of Gonzalo Pizarro who were still at large and received a full pardon for his services.^[102]

Certainly leniency and recociliation played an important part in the process by which Gasca won over many of Pizarro's followers and secured their future loyalty. Alonso de Bibanco and Pedro Jara, who returned to Spain with Gasca when they were still young men of thirty or less, formed close ties to Gasca. Returnee Alonso de Cervantes testified in Trujillo that Gasca was fond of Bibanco and "showed him much love." Juan de Monroy, who returned to Spain on the same ship as Gasca, said that since Pedro Jara traveled on a different boat, Gasca sent "to find out how he was and if he needed something to eat" and then sent Jara a quintal of biscuits, saying that "if there were anything else he needed he should say, that he would provide it, and he showed him much love." Pedro de Cuevas testified that after they returned to Spain, he and Pedro Jara went to visit Licenciado Gasca at the home of the archbishop in Cantillana, where Gasca received them and then sent Jara on his way to Trujillo, commending him to Francisco de Loaysa, brother of the archbishop of Lima.^[103]

The participation of people from Trujillo and Cáceres in Gonzalo Pizarro's rebellion, along with other less spectacular examples of close association in the Indies, raises the question of what the real scope and extent of associational networks were. Were the networks regional or subregional, or did real cohesion and solidarity actually extend little beyond one's home town? The question is complex. Certainly the appearance—in fact the prominence—of cacereños in Pizarrist camps from the earliest years in Peru attests to significant regional or subregional ties; yet the relations between cacereños and trujillanos on the whole do not reflect the almost invariable solidarity and loyalty that characterized the relations of trujillanos with one another. Essentially the cacereño supporters of

Gonzalo Pizarro were the same individuals who had actively and consistently associated with the Pizarros from the very beginning. But men such as Hernando de Aldana and Lorenzo de Ulloa distanced themselves from the Pizarros fairly early and did not flock to Gonzalo Pizarro's camp, nor did many later-arriving cacereños. In contrast, the trujillanos in Peru supported Gonzalo to a man. Similarly, while people from Trujillo and its town Zorita knew one another, and their ties of kinship, acquaintance, and common origin fostered frequent association, here again solidarity was less consistent, as seen in the dispute between Alonso Carrasco of Zorita and Alonso Pizarro de la Rua of Trujillo.

Other aspects of association reveal similar patterns. Officials assigned encomiendas for which there was no immediate heir not to a person from the same region but rather to someone from the same home town, if possible. Only in their marriage choices for themselves or their children did emigrants abandon their preference for partners from their home towns, and surely this was so because they had no real choice, given the limited possibilities in the New World. If they could make such alliances, they did. It would appear, then, that the more regional (rather than local) nature of marriage choices reflected not the most characteristic or preferred pattern of association by place of origin but rather a much more diluted form forged by the circumstances and context of the New World.

In the end the conservatism manifested in preferences for association failed to become the dominant feature of social organization in the Indies largely because there simply were not enough trujillanos or cacereños available to do everything that needed to be done. Had there been, the factionalism that was so prevalent and disruptive in early Peru doubtless would have been even more pronounced and enduring. Yet if home town identification, clustering, and cohesion were so important and tenacious, why then did people from Seville, for example, not take over and run everything in the Indies? The answer to that question touches on a complicated set of factors involving timing, leadership, occupations, and destinations. But the answer also would underscore the same point made earlier about local society in Spain: Spanish cities and towns were quite separate, with their own distinctive patterns of development and organization. Given its remarkable expansion and dyna-

mism in the sixteenth century, Seville certainly was a far more varied and complex, and therefore far less cohesive, place than the small, conservative cities of Alta Extremadura.

Ties to Home

The ties that extremeños maintained with home manifested themselves as clearly and frequently as those that bound them to one another in the New World. As did association with other extremeños in the Indies, ties to home conditioned the decisions made by emigrants and the people they left behind and reflected their concerns and objectives. Emigrants wrote letters, sent home for relatives, visited (or returned permanently), sent back money to support family members and further family strategies and objectives, and invested in rents and properties, chaplaincies, and charitable works. These activities resulted from some rather distinct concerns. Continued investment in properties in Spain could indicate that an emigrant had plans (or at least intentions) to return there to live, while endowing charitable works in one's will obviously reflected another kind of aspiration. But in a larger sense all these concerns were related, because they were rooted in emigrants' perception of what their place of origin represented. The home town and all it encompassed—family, friendship, reputation—continued to serve as a major point of reference even after years of absence. Ultimately emigrants made their choice either for Old World or New, but this decision, whether conscious or not, could evolve slowly. It is in the context of this sometimes protracted process of transferring allegiance and interest from one side of the Atlantic to the other that one must consider the emphasis emigrants placed on obligations to and ties of affection with relatives at home, their cohesiveness in the Indies, their desire to reunite with family members, their investments in property to assure themselves or their heirs a secure place in their home town, and their concern for status and prestige in a distant "tierra" they might never see again.

Furthermore, people at home often continued to view absent family members as a vital part of the family unit, to be consulted or considered when important decisions were made. In 1560 Lorenzo de Aldana's mother in Cáceres, doña María de Ulloa, said that in donating a part of her estate to her eldest son, Alvaro, and making

her will, "her intent and will has never been nor was nor is to deny her son Lorenzo de Aldana, presently in the Indies, nor her grandson," of what was rightfully theirs.^[104] When Isabel González, the mother of emigrant sons Antonio and Juan Cotrina, made her will in 1579, she instructed that none of her properties should be sold nor was her daughter Juana to leave the house until Antonio Cotrina arrived (he probably was in Seville at the time). If Antonio died, then the executors should wait at least until her son Juan, still in the Indies, had been informed by letter.^[105]

People in Spain sometimes continued to involve themselves in the affairs of people in the Indies even after the death of the immediate family member. Lorenzo de Ulloa Solís in Cáceres spent years trying to settle the affairs of his brothers Gómez de Solís and Juan de Hinojosa, who died in Peru. The business dealings of the latter were complex, and even matters that really concerned his sister-in-law Leonor Méndez rather than his brother occupied Lorenzo de Ulloa's attention. Leonor Méndez had been married first to Miguel Cornejo, and a suit that she brought against someone in Córdoba probably involved money owed to her first husband. Lorenzo de Ulloa Solís handled the matter nonetheless. When Leonor Méndez won her claim in 1579, the money went to the sons of her first marriage.^[106]

People at home in Cáceres and Trujillo assigned their power of attorney to friends and relatives in the Indies to collect the legacies of deceased relatives, or undertook the journey themselves for that purpose, or sent a young relative or representative in their place. They also responded with some frequency to the invitations of relatives in the Indies to join them there. Thus people on both sides of the Atlantic had strong motivations—economic, legal, and emotional—to maintain their connections with one another.

The flow of money from emigrants to relatives or acquaintances in Spain was constant if erratic. Almost all the private letters that survive either referred to money that had been or would be sent or offered apologies if none was forthcoming immediately.^[107] In her letter from Lima of March 1578 to her son in Trujillo, for example, Inés Alonso Cervera said she had sent 700 reales with the last fleet—500 for one of her daughters and 200 for her son—and that she was now sending another 40 ducados.^[108] The amounts and form that such remittances took varied considerably, as did the purposes

for which they intended. If the money was meant to cover the passage and travel expenses of a family member or members, most likely the amount sent would exceed those costs by very little. But the provision of dowries, acquisition of offices, or support of family members could generate much larger remittances. Francisco Picón sent 500 ducados from Peru to Bachiller Antonio Picón in Cáceres to buy rents for the dowries of his sisters "las Piconas" in the late 1570s. Around the same time Dr. Francisco de Sande sent approximately 1100 ducados to his mother to cover the costs of business that his brother don Juan de Sande was conducting at the court and to purchase a seat on Cáceres's city council for don Juan.^[109] Martín López, a vecino of Arequipa, sent his wife and children in Trujillo more than 2500 ducados in 1549.^[110]

People at home in Spain could receive varying quantities by various means over an extended period. Juan Rodríguez de Cepeda, a cacereño who acquired a position as notary in Huamanga, sent 3000 pesos to his father in the early 1570s and 128, 118 maravedís to his brother Alonso Domínguez in 1580. Domínguez's sister and niece received the money via the regidor don Juan de Sande (brother of Dr. Francisco de Sande) and another vecino of Cáceres; they in turn had gotten it from the priest of the church of San Pedro in Seville. Alonso Domínguez himself had been in Peru and had sent 600 ducados for his sister's dowry in the 1560s. Domínguez sent the money to Francisco de Ovando, mayorazgo, and his sister collected the 600 ducados from a priest who worked as Ovando's agent.^[111]

Such cases reveal the complexity that recovering money coming from the Indies often entailed. In 1571 a vecina of Cáceres, Francisca Jiménez Durán, stated that she had received 480 reales that her son Lorenzo de Montanos had sent from Honduras via a merchant from Seville. At the same time Montanos sent another 565 reales to two brothers and a sister, possibly his cousins. They had to spent 30 reales of this for "certain inquiries and suits" to get the money from the Casa de Contratación, and the merchant who had brought the money from Honduras sent the remainder on with a muleteer from Cáceres.^[112] Thus the number of middlemen involved in the transfer of money could proliferate. Madalena Pérez, whose husband was in the Indies, received several sums of money for her daughter Costanza Pérez. A sum of 24,000 maravedís came from Madalena's brother in the Indies, Rodrigo de Soria, via a

vecino of La Serradilla (a town in Extremadura), as well as a separate amount of 30,800 maravedís. Madalena Pérez also acknowledged receipt of another 20,000 maravedís from her daughter's aunt who was a vecina of Trujillo. In 1577 Costanza Pérez and her sister Catalina received another 200 ducados from their uncle Rodrigo de Soria, via a cacereño merchant who in turn had received the money from a vecino of Alcaraz. Rodrigo de Soria also sent his nieces documents so that they could collect another 130 ducados from a banker in Madrid.^[113]

The frequency and size of these remittances and of other kinds of financial arrangements made indicate that many emigrants took their continuing ties and obligations to the families they left behind quite seriously. Alonso Delvás wrote to his brother Francisco Delvás, a silversmith, from Victoria (New Granada) in January 1568, saying he had sent 50 pesos and that Francisco "should do what is obligated for the lady our mother and our sister until I provide more.^[114] Diego de Trujillo wrote to his sister from Cuzco in 1565, saying he had sent her 224 ducados and another 50 ducados to his wife's sister in Fuente de Cantos. He also was sending another 100 ducados for Christmas: "be certain," he wrote, "that every Christmas while I live I'll send money."^[115]

Emigrants also remembered people back home in their wills. In the same letter of 1568 Diego de Trujillo told his sister that he had more than 1500 ducados for her and her son and that in his will he was leaving another 3000 ducados for his brothers and their sons. Juan Rubio, a native of Santa Cruz de la Sierra who died in Popayán, left half his estate to his nephew Hernán Pérez Rubio and one-fourth each to his brother Juan Sánchez Rubio and a niece Leonor Alonso, his sister's daughter. In 1583 this niece's husband, Juan Sánchez of Santa Cruz, asked permission to go to Popayán for four years to collect the legacy, taking with him a son who could help him with the estate because he knew how to read and write, which Sánchez could not.^[116] Collecting legacies often occasioned applications for short-term sojourns in the Indies. Juan Ramiro's mother sent another of her sons, García Ramiro, to Lima in 1555 to collect the "many goods and estate, gold and silver and other things" Juan Ramiro had left. García Ramiro posted a bond of 100,000 maravedís, pledging to return in three years.^[117]

Probably more commonly people assigned their powers of attor-

ney to acquaintances already in or en route to the Indies to collect on the estates of relatives. On his second trip to Peru in 1569 Licenciado Altamirano of Trujillo took with him a power of attorney of the heirs of Bartolomé Chico de Halia of Zorita, who had died in Peru leaving them about 3600 pesos. Apparently the family was having difficulty extricating this legacy from the executor, Pedro Alonso Carrasco, and eventually Bartolomé Chico de Halia's son Pedro went himself.^[118] In 1551 a man and woman who claimed to be the siblings of Alonso de Toro, a veteran of Cajamarca, encomendero and lieutenant of Gonzalo Pizarro who was killed by his father-in-law in 1546, made an arrangement with Juan Velázquez to collect Alonso de Toro's legacy. Velázquez, who was the brother of Licenciado Altamirano, was to keep one-third of whatever he recovered.^[119] While this probably fraudulent effort doubtless yielded nothing, since the crown in any case confiscated Toro's property at the end of Gonzalo Pizarro's rebellion, identical or similar names and circumstances at times might have created genuine confusion. In 1579 three sisters, their husbands, and the husband of a fourth sister who had died (in the name of their five children) gave their power of attorney to returnee Antonio Cotrina to collect 726 silver pesos from the Casa de Contratación. They said that the money came from their brother Vasco Gallego, who had died in San Miguel de Piura in Peru, and presented evidence demonstrating that he was in fact the Vasco Gallego of Cáceres and not another man from Plasencia.^[120]

Conclusion

Remittances of money, the purposes for which such money was intended and used, and the emphasis in emigrants' letters on business and practical affairs and economic opportunities underscore and reflect the principal expectations and aims of the people who went to the New World. Adventure and excitement (along with the quest for gain and opportunity) unquestionably motivated many people to go to the Indies in the early years. But Spanish American society consolidated rapidly, and emigrants chose destinations where they had relatives or acquaintances; increasingly, therefore, people were going to America not to meet the challenges of adventure and risk but rather those of making a livelihood and rising in the world, whether

they stayed in the Indies or returned to Spain. Although extremeños sought to preserve or recreate a context defined by relations of family, kinship, and common origin whenever possible, the circumstances of their lives in the New World often limited their ability to do so and introduced new elements into the traditional social equation based on family and home. In their objectives and activities extremeños over time proved to be no different from all the other emigrants who left Spain—nor, for that matter, did they differ markedly in these regards from all the other hundreds of thousands of emigrants who left the Old World for the New from that time until the present day.