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Indians 101: American Indians and Spanish explorers 500 years ago, 1525 [1]
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Date: 2025-01-07
From the Native American perspective, the sixteenth century marked the beginning of the European invasion of their land.The first Europeans to contact the Native nations were explorers, adventurers, soldiers, and missionaries who were seeking personal glory, gold, and souls for their god.
Later, the European myth of the Americas, often written in the form of histories, would describe the continent as a wilderness waiting to be conquered. In reality, there was no wilderness: the Americas were settled lands, populated by people who had been developing the land for thousands of years.
During the sixteenth century, the Spanish invasion of North America involved exploration seeking new riches (gold and slaves), the establishment of a few colonies to govern Indian nations, and missions to convert the Indians to Catholicism. In 1525, Tomas Ortiz, an official in the Dominican order of the Catholic Church, reported that Indians ate human flesh, engaged in sodomy, went naked, and had no respect for love, virginity, or the truth. He said:
“It may therefore affirm that God has never created a race more full of vice and composed without the least mixture of kindness or culture.”
The Spanish came to the Americas with a worldview that classified American Indians as barbarians. This viewpoint guided their interactions with the many different Indian cultures which they encountered. In his book Cycles of Conquest: The Impact of Spain, Mexico, and the United States on the Indians of the Southwest, 1533-1960, Edward H. Spicer writes:
“The concept of barbarian presupposed the concept of civilization. It rested on the idea that the Spaniards enjoyed a way of life which was of a completely different quality from, and of course immeasurably superior to, that of the barbarians. Among the Spaniards, the idea also was tied closely with an obligation to civilize the barbarians. This sense of obligation to change the barbarians was strong at the upper levels of Spanish civil hierarchy and was embodied in the laws and regulations set up to govern relations with the Indians.”
In their chapter in North American Exploration. Volume 1: A New World Disclosed, Dennis Reinhartz and Oakah Jones write:
“Spanish exploration and eventual settlement of North America followed two distinct geographical routes: the expansion from the Caribbean Islands to the Florida peninsula, Guale (Georgia), the Carolina coast, and briefly into Chesapeake Bay; and the advance of the frontier northward from Mexico City into the northern kingdoms and provinces of New Spain.”
In the American Southwest and the Southeast, there were two types of Spanish explorers: pathfinders and explorer-colonizers. In his chapter in North American Exploration. Volume 2: A Continent Defined, Oakah Jones writes:
“Pathfinders were those who explored and discovered the first Native American cultures and marked trails and geographical features across regions previous unexplored.”
Oakah Jones also writes:
“The second group, the explorer-colonizers, generally consisted of those who conducted explorations before or after establishing settlements (temporary or permanent).”
South Carolina
The aboriginal Catawba Nation homeland was in the border region of what is now North Carolina and South Carolina. Like other Indian peoples in the Southeast, the Catawbas were an agricultural people who lived in permanent villages.
In 1521, two Spanish slavers—Pedro de Quejo and Francisco Gordillo—had sailed up the Atlantic coast of North America, penetrating into areas where word of the Spanish had not yet reached the Native American populations. They named the area where they landed Chicora. They forcibly abducted about 60 men and women after enticing them aboard the ships with trinkets. About half of the captives died at sea and the rest were taken to Santo Domingo in the Caribbean as slaves. The Spanish justified their actions by claiming that the Indians were cannibals and sodomites, and thus slavery and warfare against them were justified.
In 1525, the Spanish slaver Pedro de Quejo once again made contact with the Catawbas. With great difficulty he persuaded them that he had no intention of kidnapping them. To overcome their hostility, he provided them with many trade goods and promised them that more goods would be coming to them. Historian Patricia Wickman, in her book The Tree that Bends: Discourse, Power, and the Survival of the Maskóki People, reports:
“The Natives had not forgotten their lost relatives, and they would not forget the lies of the Spaniards, regardless of the ameliorating lure of trade.”
The Catawbas did not become trading partners with the Spanish.
Quejo also made a careful coastal reconnaissance of the area between Florida and Delaware Bay. Dennis Reinhartz and Oakah Jones report:
“Taking bearings and soundings along the coast, he also erected crosses periodically, claiming the area for Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and Spain.”
Maine
A Spanish exploring expedition led by the Portuguese pilot Estévan Gomes landed near the River of Deer in Maine and took 58 Indians captive.
More American Indian histories
Indians 101: American Indians 500 years ago, 1523
Indians 101: The Spanish and the Southeastern Indian nations 500 years ago, 1521
Indians 101: The Calusa Indians and Spanish missionaries in 1549
Indians 301: Canadian First Nations and Jacques Cartier, 1534-1542
Indians 201: Plains Indians and the Spanish in the sixteenth century
Indians 201: Southwestern Indians and Fray Marcos de Niza
Indians 201: Florida Indians and the Spanish, 1513 to 1527
Indians 101: The Zuni and the Spanish in the 16th Century
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