Tupinamba

The Tupinamba, a Native people living in present-day Brazil, impressed 16th-century Europeans as “noble savages” who went to war for revenge, practiced CANNIBALISM, and yet seemed to lead happy lives.

Three important chroniclers of Tupinamba life were the French Franciscan Andre Thevet, the French Protestant Jean de Lery, and a German captive, Hans Stade. The differences between Tupinamba culture and European cultures disturbed visiting Europeans. According to European observers, the Tupinamba did not wear clothes and felt no shame at being naked. Because Europeans believed that human beings were ashamed of their nakedness as a result of humanity’s fall in the Garden of Eden, they were surprised to see people who adorned themselves with feathers, paint, and other ornaments but did not wear clothes. Lery, however, who often commented on Tupinamba ways of life in order to criticize European customs, maintained that the nakedness of Tupinamba women “is much less alluring than one might expect” and added that the elaborate and expensive clothing and makeup worn by European women “are beyond comparison the cause of more ills than the ordinary nakedness of the savage women.”

European observers also reported that the Tupinamba were warlike and practiced cannibalism. Stade reported that he had barely escaped death at his captors’ hands and claimed that he had seen other captives killed and eaten. Lery also described cannibalism but noted that, unlike Europeans, the Tupinamba did not fight over land or to take one anothers’ possessions. Instead, they “are impelled by no other passion than that of avenging, each for his side, his own kinsmen and friends who in the past have been seized and eaten. . . .”

In 1550, the city of Rouen staged a tableau to honor Henry II and Catherine de’ Medici. This tableau featured Tupinamba (and sailors made up to resemble them) acting out Tupinamba life: hunting, shooting bows and arrows, and resting in hammocks. The scene ended with a simulated attack on the Tupinamba by another Indian group, from which the Tupinamba emerged victorious. Sixteenth-century European illustrators used the image of Tupinamba, with their distinctive headdresses and wooden swords, as allegorical figures representing America.

Further reading: John Hemming, Red Gold: The Conquest of the Brazilian Indians (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1978); Jean de Lery, History of a Voyage to the Land of Brazil, Otherwise Called America, intro. and trans. Janet Whatley (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990); Malcolm Letts, ed. and trans., Hans Staden: The True History of His Captivity (London: Routledge & Sons, 1928); J. H. Parry, The Discovery of South America (London: Paul Elek, 1979).

—Martha K. Robinson

Valdivia, Pedro de (1500-1554) conquistador One of Francisco Pizarro’s best officers in the conquest of Peru, Pedro de Valdivia is best known for leading the conquest of Chile.

Valdivia was born in 1500 in the district of La Savena, Spain. At the age of 19 he entered a military career. He left the service in 1525 and married Marina Ortiz de Gaeta. Growing restless, he left for the Spanish-controlled West Indies in 1535, leaving behind a wife and children whom he would never see again. He quickly established himself among the conquisTADoRes, but when his hope of gaining riches and glory in Venezuela faded, he welcomed the opportunity to enlist in Diego de Fuenmayor’s force of 400 men who were leaving for the Royal Audience of Santo Domingo at the request of Francisco Pizarro.

In Peru Pedro rose to the rank of quartermaster general in Pizarro’s army. For his efforts in the conquest of Peru, he was awarded the valuable La Canela estate along with a lucrative SILVER mine in Porco. Following the conquest of Peru, conquistadores besieged Pizarro with requests to lead expeditions in all directions, although few wanted to head toward Chile, perhaps because Diego de Almagro’s recent (and fatal) trip there failed to discover a flourishing civilization, roads, points of communication, or magnificent golden buildings. It was a great surprise to Pizarro when Valdivia requested a commission to explore and subdue Chile.

Overcoming a lack of funds and recruits, Valdivia’s expedition embarked from Peru in 1540. He later reflected that potential recruits “fled from it as from the plague.” Nevertheless, he managed to muster enough Spanish troops to go along with a contingent of more than 1,000 Indians, who served as porters and camp followers. In his letters Valdivia often referred to the Natives as “pieces of service.” During battles with Chilean Natives, the loss of “pieces” was recorded, if at all, after the loss of horses. Although scholars often portray Valdivia as somewhat less cruel than his fellow conquistadores, his treatment of the

Natives no doubt hurt him in the end, when his former groom, known as Lautaro, led an ambush that cost Valdivia his life in 1554.

Before his death Valdivia was successful in the founding of a number of towns, including Santiago in 1541. Granted the title of governor of Chile in 1547, he ventured farther to the south, founding Concepcion (1550) and Valdivia (1552). To Pedro, town founding was not a haphazard affair. To guide him he possessed a copy of a town-founding guidebook, written by CHARLES V in 1523. Ostensibly, the conquest of Chile was complete with the founding of Valdivia, but the Spanish encountered continued resistance from the Araucanians that persisted for more than 300 years. Known for their adaptability in the use of weaponry, the Araucanians had perfected the use of a small club (macanas), a lasso consisting of a running noose, and pikes, all useful when Lautaro led the ambush that killed Valdivia in 1554. Despite the murder, the Araucanians failed to dispel the Spaniards from their domains, and an epidemic wiped out more than one-third of their population, some 400,000 individuals, between 1554 and 1557.

Further reading: C. R. B. Graham, Pedro de Valdivia, Conqueror of Chile (London: W. Heinemann 1926); Arthur Helps, The Life of Pizarro: With Some Accounts of His Associates in the Conquest of Peru (London: Bell & Daldy, 1869); H. R. Pocock, The Conquest of Chile (New York: Stein & Day, 1967).

—Mathew Lindaman

Velazquez, Diego de (1465?-1524) soldier, government official

Conqueror and governor of Cuba, Diego de Velazquez played a pivotal role in the explorations of the Caribbean basin after 1500, including the sponsorship of Hernan Cortes’s expedition to Mexico.

Velazquez was a member of the first generation of coNQUiSTADORes to arrive in the New World. Accompanying Christopher Columbus in 1493, he played a critical role in the exploration of the Greater Antilles. In 1511 Velazquez led the expedition that conquered Cuba, becoming its governor shortly thereafter. He divided the Natives into encomiendas for his friends and supporters, while maintaining the largest grants for himself. Velazquez successfully bred pigs and other livestock on his lands, which he sold to outgoing expeditions at inflated prices. Under his watch colonists discovered substantial deposits of gold on the island. Velazquez naturally took a share of the profits for himself. By 1515 he had become enormously wealthy, and Cuba replaced Hispaniola as Spain’s most valuable colony. During these years Velazquez developed a reputation as an arrogant man of limited capacities who greatly resented his rivals’ successes. Worse for the conquistadores, he frequently attempted to take credit for his underlings’ feats, robbing them of their hard-earned rewards.

As governor Velazquez used his wealth and position to sponsor further explorations of the Caribbean basin, hoping to augment his own landholdings and political prestige. When the remnants of FRANCisco Hernandez de Cordoba’s expedition recounted tales of the wealthy Maya cities of the Yucatan Peninsula, Velazquez organized a new party to explore the region under the command of his nephew, Juan de Grijalva. Grijalva’s voyage was a military disaster, but he brought promising reports of both the Yucatan and Tabasco. Encouraged by these reports, Velazquez sent a third and final expedition to the mainland under the leadership of Cortes. Originally Cortes was only to explore and claim lands in Velazquez’s name. As the party prepared to leave, Velazquez became convinced (rightly) that Cortes was too ambitious to follow these orders and attempted to remove him from command. Cortes anticipated this move and sailed from Cuba before the governor could stop him.

Velazquez apparently seethed for some months at this open act of rebellion, but he waited until Charles V confirmed his governorship of the newly discovered territories of greater Yucatan before he struck back. He then gathered a sizable force of loyal conquistadores to capture Cortes and establish himself as the governor of Mexico. He placed these troops under the command of Panfilo de Narvaez. In Mexico Cortes skillfully brought these troops into his own army by promising them a share of Moctezuma Il’s treasure. Cortes’s subsequent victories against the Aztecs made it difficult for Velazquez to move against him openly, although in 1523 he convinced Cortes’s friend and confidant Cristobal de Olid to break with Cortes and conquer present-day Honduras in Velazquez’s name. Cortes left immediately for Honduras in order to deal with this mutiny, and in his absence Velazquez circulated rumors about him and his loyalty to the Crown. Despite his efforts, Velazquez never achieved the vengeance he so fiercely desired. He died in 1524, one of the wealthiest men in the Americas.

Further reading: Hernan Cortes, Letters from Mexico (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1986); Bernal Diaz del Castillo, The Discovery and Conquest of Mexico (New York: Da Capo Press, 1996); Franklin W. Knight, The Caribbean: The Genesis of a Fragmented Nationalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990).

—Scott Chamberlain