Veracruz

The name of the major Native cultural zone lying along the Gulf of Mexico, Veracruz also refers to the first Spanish settlement in Mexico, which became the principal port of the colony of New Spain.

In ancient times several important Native groups developed in the Veracruz area. The earliest and most famous of these were the OlMECs, who flourished between 1700 and 300 B. C. As the first great culture of Mesoamerica, the Olmecs created the iconography, religious rituals, and royal ceremonies that most ancient Mexican cultures used until the arrival of the Spaniards. Other cultures developed in the region after the fall of the Olmecs, including the magnificent El Tajin culture that was contemporary with the classic Maya. After the classic era, the area increasingly came under the shadow of the great empires of central Mexico, and at the time of the conquest much of the Veracruz region was firmly under the control of the AzTEcs.

In 1519 Diego de Velazquez, the governor of Cuba, commissioned Hernan Cortes to explore the coast of Mexico. Concerned about Cortes’s arrogant behavior and lavish spending on supplies, he reconsidered his action and moved to remove Cortes from command. Cortes suspected the governor’s plans and sailed away before Velazquez could stop him. Realizing he was acting outside of orders and could be tried for treason, Cortes took steps to legitimize his actions as soon as he landed in Mexico. As part of his plan he founded the settlement of La Villa Rica de la Vera Cruz (“The Wealthy Town of the True Cross”) in 1519. He meticulously followed the established royal ceremony of foundation, with witnesses swearing to the authenticity of his actions. As founder, he quickly appointed a CABILDO, or town council, made up of his own trusted followers and resigned leadership of the community to this body. In response, the cabildo appointed Cortes royal captain of the army and commissioned him to explore and conquer Mexico in the name of the king. Although highly suspicious, his actions were entirely legal and provided a veneer of legitimacy to his subsequent actions. After conquering the Aztecs, Cortes moved the site about 20 miles south to a better location (modern-day La Antigua), and in 1598 the Crown ordered the city to relocate once again, to its present location.

The city of Veracruz continued to play an important role during the colonial period. The Crown designated it as the official port of New Spain, meaning that all ships both arriving and departing had to pass through the city. Like other official ports such as Portobelo, Panama City, Acapulco, and Cartagena, Veracruz primarily came to life when the annual treasure fleets gathered, and the collected wealth of New Spain passed through its streets. In other times the threat of raiders and tropical diseases kept it from developing into one of the colony’s larger cities. In 1567 nine English ships under Sir John Hawkins sailed into the city’s harbor, hoping to sell slaves (see slave trade) and contraband. The Spanish fleet trapped and destroyed them, although Sir Francis Drake escaped with two ships. Veracruz retained its privileged position within New Spain until 1760, when the Crown allowed ships legally to trade in the colony’s other port cities.

Further reading: Lyle N. McAlister, Spain and Portugal in the New World, 1495-1700 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984); Michael C. Meyer and William L. Sherman, The Course of Mexican History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995).

—Scott Chamberlain

Verrazano, Giovanni da (ca. 1485-ca.1528) Italian explorer

Commissioned by the French King Francis I to explore the Atlantic coast of North America, Giovanni da Verrazano in 1525 sailed northward from modern-day South Carolina to a place he called “Norumbega,” in the process becoming perhaps the first European to view the coast of present-day New York and Narragansett Bay.

Born in Florence to a wealthy family who possessed estates south of the city, Verrazano received a solid education. Once completed, he moved to Dieppe, France, sometime around 1506. After working on commercial and military ships, he came to the attention of Francis I, who provided four ships to him with orders to explore the North American coastline. Verrazano left France in January 1525. Only two of his ships made it across the Atlantic. The survivors landed at modern-day Cape Fear, North Carolina. After sailing to the south, perhaps as far as modern-day Charleston, South Carolina, he led his ships to the north, passing Chesapeake Bay (which his brother Girolamo labeled the Verrazano Sea on a map of the world), which the explorer believed might lead to the South Sea (the Pacific Ocean). He continued northward on his journey, reaching an area now known as Verrazano Narrows (a channel between Staten Island and Brooklyn, New York) in April 1525. He sailed farther north into Narragansett Bay, where he met local Natives who provided assistance to the storm-tossed sailors. By early May he was ready to continue his northward journey. Over the next few weeks his ships followed the coastline until they reached modern-day Maine, where he encountered Natives he found unpleasant, and then past the modern-day Maritime Provinces of Canada. In July he sailed back to Dieppe. On his return he described much of what he had seen in positive terms, especially a place he called “Norumbega,” which became a fixture on European maps in the 16th century, even though no other explorer managed to figure out exactly where Verrazano had landed.

On a second journey, also sponsored by Francis I, Verrazano sailed to Florida and then southward into the Caribbean. Anchored off one island, possibly Guadeloupe, he led a group onto the shore, where they were killed by local Natives and, so some believe, eaten by cannibals.

Further reading: Angus Konstam, Historical Atlas of Exploration, 1492-1600 (New York: Facts On File, 2000).

Vespucci, Amerigo (1451-1512) Italian explorer Poet, cosmographer, and banker, Amerigo Vespucci is best known for his voyages from Spain to South America around the turn of the 16th century and for giving his name to two continents.

Born in Florence, Vespucci in his youth was an ambassador to France for Lorenzo de’ Medici. In 1492 he traveled to Seville and became involved in the organization

A map drawn by Hieronymus da Verrazano from Verrazano the Navigator, by J. C. Brevoort (Hulton/Archive)

Of shipping ventures. He had arrived at the right time: After the return of CHRISTOPHER CoLUMBUS, Vespucci was able to provision other ships destined for the Western Hemisphere. Eventually, he decided to venture west himself. Although he claimed to have made his first transatlantic journey in 1497, more reliable evidence suggests that he sailed to South America for the first time two years later along with Alonso de Ojeda. He arrived near Cape Sao Roque, on the eastern tip of Brazil, and then followed the coast to the northwest for 700 miles. He was, as a result, the first European to lead an extended exploration of the mainland, though PEDRO Alvares Cabral had, in fact, landed in Brazil earlier but had not yet made it back to Europe to offer his report. On his journey Vespucci crossed the mouths of the Amazon River and the Orinoco River, the river that would later so entice Sir Walter Ralegh. When he returned to Spain, he discovered that the Spanish were not particularly interested in his findings, and so he traveled to the court of King Manuel I of Portugal, who welcomed him and the possibility that Vespucci had found territory lying to the east of the line demarcated in the Treaty of Tordesillas and thus part of the world the Vatican believed should be controlled by Portugal.

Vespucci made other trips to Brazil in 1501. On one he explored Darien and made maps of much of what he saw. Upon his return he published his report (see Documents) about what he called a New World. In response Martin Waldseemuller, a German cartographer, labeled South America as “the land of Amerigo” on a map. The name stuck, and by the late 1530s Europeans applied the term to the entire Western Hemisphere.

The spread of the printing press meant that news of Vespucci’s feats could race across Europe quickly. One edition of his letter to Soderini, published in Strasbourg in 1509, depicted a smiling man and woman chopping up human arms and feet. A broadside published in Augsburg or Nuremburg in 1505 showed a group of Indians at home with plenty of domestic details, such as a mother nursing an infant, a man and a woman kissing, and two men engaged in a serious conversation. The image also included one man eating a human arm and pieces of a human, including the head, suspended from a rope, presumably waiting to be eaten. Such images, based on Vespucci’s writing, terrified many Europeans, who feared that all peoples in the Western Hemisphere were cannibals.

Further reading: Hugh Honour, The New Golden Land: European Images of America from the Discoveries to the Present Time (New York: Pantheon, 1975); Angus Kons-tam, Historical Atlas of Exploration, 1492-1600 (New York: Facts On File, 2000); Clements R. Markham, ed., The Letters of Amerigo Vespucci and other Documents Illustrative of His Career, Works Issued by the Hakluyt Society, 1st ser., 90 (London, Hakluyt Society, 1894); Amerigo Vespucci, Letter to Piero Soderini [1504], trans. George T. Northup (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1916).

Vikings See Norse.