1 POSO DE LOS MUERTOS A Short Story By George Pararas ...

More documents

Recommendations

Info

in his early sixties who had spent most of his life in the King' s service. They bothhad landed in Cartagena in 1538 with Gonzalo Jimenez de Quesada, who DonCarlos had helped conquer Colombia. But when they begun their conquest andlooting of the native villages there, they were stunned to see emeralds finer andlarger than any ever seen before in Europe. Subsequently, another of Quesada’sofficers, Capitan Pedro Fernandez de Valenzuela, found an emerald mine in theChivor area of the Eastern Andes, near a gap between two peaks from where the“llanas” of Rio Orinoko could be seen. This Chivor mine had been known by thenatives as “Somondoco” or "God of the green gems”.<strong>Short</strong>y after this discovery Quesada assigned to Don Carlos command of themountain district of eastern Boyaca. His job was to keep control of the regionand to oversee emerald mining operations at Chivor and later at Tuzmeque andSogamoso, when new finds of the green stones were made. Additionally, he wasasked to search for the treasure of “El Dorado”.According to a local legend, long before the arrival of the Spaniards and theconquest of Colombia, the local Chibcha Indians had worked these mines ofEastern Boyaca, as emeralds were used for their religious ceremonies. Thelegend held that at the crater lake of Guatavita, an annual ablution rite of "ElDorado" (the Golden One) took place in a dawn ceremony. The Indian chief, “ElDorado”, would cover his body with gold powder prepared with an adhesivemixture, and then he would dive into the water from a large raft in the middle ofthe lake, just as the sun was breaking over the horizon. Emeralds, gold objects,and other valuables were thrown into the lake by the priests of the tribe as anoffering to the gods.Don Carlos allured by the story of "El Dorado," send expeditions in themountains of the region to find this treasure of emeralds and gold. But the localIndians, rather than let their emeralds fall into their enemies' hands, proceeded todestroy the fine stones. Thus, many fine stones were destroyed this way beforeDon Carlos’ soldiers would arrive. The search for the treasure of “El Dorado”turned out to be futile. Nothing was found. The only way to get emeralds was tomine them. Thus, following Quesada’s strict orders, Don Carlos had his menrecruit by force people of the local tribes to work at the mines. The practice wasto imprison the Indians and to cage them in the mine tunnels where they wereforced to produce emeralds in exchange for their meager rations. This went onfor a while, but so many died that the local labor supply was soon exhausted. In avery short time, hundreds of natives died from exhaustion, starvation, andaccidents or by the hands of some unruly Spanish soldiers. Don Carlos did notcare. The King and Jimenez de Quesada wanted emeralds and he had his6
orders. It was a hard life and Don Carlos did not like being isolated in Boyaca,away from his family, who had arrived in Cartagena subsequently. He was veryhappy when, in early 1540, Viceroy Mendoza asked for his transfer to Mexico.El Fuerte and the Northern Territories of Nueva EspañaAntonio Mendoza, prior to being appointed by Emperor Carlos as Viceroy ofNueva España, was known as the Marquis ofMondéjar and as the Count of Tendilla. He had beena good friend of Don Carlos’ family back home inCastille-La Mancha. The Viceroy’s wife, Maria Ana,was a relative of his own wife Isabella. Thus, whenDon Carlos was summoned to Mexico with his wifeand son Alfonso, he was pleased because anythingwould have been better than the damn mountains ofBoyaca. Soon after his arrival in Ciudad de Mexico,Viceroy Mendoza assigned him full command of thenorthern regions of Nueva España. A couple ofmonths later, Don Carlos ended up north in a smalltown in a valley near Rio Fuerte, where he established residence for his family,as well as a military camp for the contingent of about 400 soldiers under hiscommand, which he named El Fuerte. The Viceroy had also given him 20 of thenew small canons, a dozen of which he used to fortify his compound. The resthe sent to the outposts of Chinipas near the mines of Canyon de Cobre and toGuadaloupe y Calvo.In Search of Coronado and the Seven Cities of CibolaRight after Don Carlos established camp in El Fuerte, Viceroy Mendoza sendhim orders to find out about the progress of Coronado’s expedition to the north ofthe New Territories. Earlier that same year, Francisco Vásquez de Coronado, thegovernor of Nueva Galicia, had marched north with 300 conquistadores in searchof the seven cities of Cibola and their purported gold, as well as the conquest ofnew lands. However, there had been no news of his whereabouts and ViceroyMenoza was anxious to know if the expedition was successful, if the gold ofCibola was found and whether he could claim the northern lands to be part ofNueva España.7
Page 2: As much as a ton of silver would be
Page 5: and-conquer strategy of Cortés and
Page 9 and 10: Guadalupe y Calvo and the Rosario M
Page 11 and 12: The “arrastre” he designed,comp
Page 13 and 14: The best he could do was to wait it
Page 15 and 16: “That’s good, that’s very goo
Page 17 and 18: “We’ll find a place to hide it
Page 19 and 20: well. But working Poso Ricco during
Page 21 and 22: than five hundred of the savages at
Page 23 and 24: Immediately, Felipe screamed loud t
Page 25 and 26: The ventilation shaft was humid and
Page 27 and 28: The natives did not move until some
Page 29 and 30: Satisfied that everything had gone
Page 31 and 32: Fuerte”, continued Don Carlos and
Page 33 and 34: him and managed to turn around in t
Page 35 and 36: My own private bathtub on a mountai
Page 37 and 38: Lunch of tortillas and frijoles at
Page 39 and 40: Taking a brief restContinuing on to
Page 41 and 42: My camp near Guadalupe y Calvo offe
Page 43 and 44: It is amazing how quickly one can b
Page 45 and 46: The bandits in these mountains were
Page 47 and 48: At the entrance of the ventilation
Page 49 and 50: Old Maps of Underground Tunnels (mo

1 POSO DE LOS MUERTOS A Short Story By George Pararas ...

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?