South American Fights and Fighters, Cyrus Townsend Brady [historical books to read TXT] 📗

To

George William Beatty

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PREFACE


The first part of this new volume of the _American Fights and Fighters Series_ needs no special introduction. Partly to make this the same size as the other books, but more particularly because I especially desired to give a permanent place to some of the most dramatic and interesting episodes in our history--especially as most of them related to the Pacific and the Far West--the series of papers in part second was included.

"The Yarn of the _Essex_, Whaler" is abridged from a quaint account written by the Mate and published in an old volume which is long since out of print and very scarce. The papers on the _Tonquin_, John Paul Jones, and "The Great American Duellists" speak for themselves. The account of the battle of the Pitt River has never been published in book form heretofore. The last paper "On Being a Boy Out West" I inserted because I enjoy it myself, and because I have found that others young and old who have read it generally like it also.

Thanks are due and are hereby extended to the following magazines for permission to republish various articles which originally appeared in their pages: _Harper's_, _Munseys_, _The Cosmopolitan_, _Sunset_ and _The New Era_.

I project another volume of the Series supplementing the two Indian volumes immediately preceding this one, but the information is hard to get, and the work amid many other demands upon my time, proceeds slowly.

CYRUS TOWNSEND BRADY.

ST. GEORGE'S RECTORY,

Kansas City, Mo., February, 1910.


CONTENTS


PART I

SOUTH AMERICAN FIGHTS AND FIGHTERS

PANAMA AND THE KNIGHTS-ERRANT OF COLONIZATION

I. THE SPANISH MAIN
II. THE DON QUIXOTE OF DISCOVERERS AND HIS RIVAL
III. THE ADVENTURES OF OJEDA
IV. ENTER ONE VASCO NUÑEZ DE BALBOA
V. THE DESPERATE STRAITS OF NICUESA

PANAMA, BALBOA AND A FORGOTTEN ROMANCE

I. THE COMING OF THE DEVASTATOR
II. THE GREATEST EXPLOIT SINCE COLUMBUS'S VOYAGE
III. "FUROR DOMINI"
IV. THE END OF BALBOA

PERU AND THE PIZARROS

I. THE CHIEF SCION OF A FAMOUS FAMILY
II. THE TERRIBLE PERSISTENCE OF PIZARRO
III. "A COMMUNISTIC DESPOTISM"
IV. THE TREACHEROUS AND BLOODY MASSACRE OF CAXAMARCA
V. THE RANSOM AND MURDER OF THE INCA
VI. THE INCA AND THE PERUVIANS STRIKE VAINLY FOR FREEDOM
VII. "THE MEN OF CHILI" AND THE CIVIL WARS
VIII. THE MEAN END OF THE GREAT CONQUISTADOR
IX. THE LAST OF THE BRETHREN

THE GREATEST ADVENTURE IN HISTORY

I. THE CHIEF OF ALL THE SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE
II. THE EXPEDITION TO MEXICO
III. THE RELIGION OF THE AZTECS
IV. THE MARCH TO TENOCHTITLAN
V. THE REPUBLIC OF TLASCALA
VI. CORTES'S DESCRIPTION OF MEXICO
VII. THE MEETING WITH MONTEZUMA
VIII. THE SEIZURE OF THE EMPEROR
IX. THE REVOLT OF THE CAPITAL
X. IN GOD'S WAY
XI. THE MELANCHOLY NIGHT
XII. THE SIEGE AND DESTRUCTION OF MEXICO
XIII. A DAY OF DESPERATE FIGHTING
XIV. THE LAST MEXICAN
XV. THE END OF CORTES

PART II

OTHER TALES OF ADVENTURE

THE YARN OF THE "ESSEX," WHALER

SOME FAMOUS AMERICAN DUELS

I. A TRAGEDY OF OLD NEW YORK
II. ANDREW JACKSON AS A DUELLIST
III. THE KILLING OF STEPHEN DECATUR
IV. AN EPISODE IN THE LIFE OF JAMES BOWIE
V. A FAMOUS CONGRESSIONAL DUEL
VI. THE LAST NOTABLE DUEL IN AMERICA

THE CRUISE OF THE "TONQUIN"

JOHN PAUL JONES

I. THE BIRTH OF THE AMERICAN NAVY
II. JONES FIRST HOISTS THE STARS AND STRIPES
III. THE BATTLE WITH THE "SERAPIS"
IV. A HERO'S FAMOUS SAYINGS
V. WHAT JONES DID FOR HIS COUNTRY
VI. WHY DID HE TAKE THE NAME OF JONES
VII. A SEARCH FOR HISTORICAL EVIDENCE
VIII. THE JONESES OF NORTH CAROLINA
IX. PAUL JONES NEVER A MAN OF WEALTH

IN THE CAVERNS OF THE PITT

BEING A BOY OUT WEST

PART I

SOUTH AMERICAN FIGHTS AND FIGHTERS

I


Panama and the Knights-Errant of Colonization

I. The Spanish Main


One of the commonly misunderstood phrases in the language is "the Spanish Main." To the ordinary individual it suggests the Caribbean Sea. Although Shakespeare in "Othello," makes one of the gentlemen of Cyprus say that he "cannot 'twixt heaven and main descry a sail," and, therefore, with other poets, gives warrant to the application of the word to the ocean, "main" really refers to the other element. The Spanish Main was that portion of South American territory distinguished from Cuba, Hispaniola and the other islands, because it was on the main land.

When the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea were a Spanish lake, the whole circle of territory, bordering thereon was the Spanish Main, but of late the title has been restricted to Central and South America. The buccaneers are those who made it famous. So the word brings up white-hot stories of battle, murder and sudden death.

The history of the Spanish Main begins in 1509, with the voyages of Ojeda and Nicuesa, which were the first definite and authorized attempts to colonize the mainland of South America.

The honor of being the first of the fifteenth-century {4} navigators to set foot upon either of the two American continents, indisputably belongs to John Cabot, on June 24, 1497. Who was next to make a continental landfall, and in the more southerly latitudes, is a question which lies between Columbus and Amerigo Vespucci.

Fiske, in a very convincing argument awards the honor to Vespucci, whose first voyage (May 1497 to October 1498) carried him from the north coast of Honduras along the Gulf coast around Florida, and possibly as far north as the Chesapeake Bay, and to the Bahamas on his return.

Markham scouts this claim. Winsor neither agrees nor dissents. His verdict in the case is a Scottish one, "Not proven." Who shall decide when the doctors disagree? Let every one choose for himself. As for me, I am inclined to agree with Fiske.

If it were not Vespucci, it certainly was Columbus on his third voyage (1498-1500). On this voyage, the chief of the navigators struck the South American shore off the mouth of the Orinoco and sailed westward along it for a short distance before turning to the northward. There he found so many pearls that he called it the "Pearl Coast." It is interesting to note that, however the question may be decided, all the honors go to Italy. Columbus was a Genoese. Cabot, although born in Genoa, had lived many years in Venice and had been made a citizen there; while Vespucci was a Florentine.

The first important expedition along the northern coast of South America was that of Ojeda in 1499-1500, in company with Juan de la Cosa, next to Columbus the most expert navigator and pilot of the age, and Vespucci, perhaps his equal in nautical science as he {5} was his superior in other departments of polite learning. There were several other explorations of the Gulf coast, and its continuations on every side, during the same year, by one of the Pizons, who had accompanied Columbus on his first voyage; by Lepe; by Cabral, a Portuguese, and by Bastidas and La Cosa, who went for the first time as far to the westward as Porto Rico on the Isthmus of Darien.

On the fourth and last voyage of Columbus, he reached Honduras and thence sailed eastward and southward to the Gulf of Darien, having not the least idea that the shore line which he called Veragua was in fact the border of the famous Isthmus of Panama. There were a number of other voyages, including a further exploration by La Cosa and Vespucci, and a second by Ojeda in which an abortive attempt was made to found a colony; but most of the voyages were mere trading expeditions, slave-hunting enterprises or searches, generally fruitless, for gold and pearls. Ojeda reported after one of these voyages that the English were on the coast. Who these English were is unknown. The news, however, was sufficiently disquieting to Ferdinand, the Catholic--and also the Crafty!--who now ruled alone in Spain, and he determined to frustrate any possible English movement by planting colonies on the Spanish Main.


II. The Don Quixote of Discoveries and His Rival


Instantly two claimants for the honor of leading such an expedition presented themselves. The first Alonzo de Ojeda, the other Diego de Nicuesa. Two more extraordinary characters never went knight-erranting upon the seas. Ojeda was one of the {6} prodigious men of a time which was fertile in notable characters. Although small in stature, he was a man of phenomenal strength and vigor. He could stand at the foot of the Giralda in Seville and throw an orange over it, a distance of two hundred and fifty feet from the earth![1]

Wishing to show his contempt for danger, on one occasion he ran out on a narrow beam projecting some twenty feet from the top of the same tower and there, in full view of Queen Isabella and her court, performed various gymnastic exercises, such as standing on one leg, _et cetera_, for the edification of the spectators, returning calmly and composedly to the tower when he had finished the exhibition.

He was a magnificent horseman, an accomplished knight and an able soldier. There was no limit to his daring. He went with Columbus on his second voyage, and, single-handed, effected the capture of a powerful Indian cacique named Caonabo, by a mixture of adroitness, audacity and courage.

Professing amity, he got access to the Indian, and, exhibiting some polished manacles, which he declared were badges of royalty, he offered to put them on the fierce but unsophisticated savage and then mount the chief on his own horse to show him off like a Spanish monarch to his subjects. The daring programme was carried out just exactly as it had been planned. When Ojeda had got the forest king safely fettered and mounted on his horse, he sprang up behind him, held him there firmly in spite of his efforts, and galloped off to Columbus with his astonished and disgusted captive.


Neither of the voyages was successful. With all of his personal prowess, he was an unsuccessful administrator. He was poor, not to say penniless. He had two powerful friends, however. One was Bishop Fonseca, who was charged with the administration of affairs in the Indies, and the other was stout old Juan de la Cosa. These two men made a very efficient combination at the Spanish court, especially as La Cosa had some money and was quite willing to put it up, a prime requisite for the mercenary and niggardly Ferdinand's favor.

The other claimant for the honor of leading the colony happened to be another man small in stature, but also of great bodily strength, although he scarcely equalled his rival in that particular. Nicuesa had made a successful voyage to the Indies with Ovando, and had ample command of means. He was a gentleman by birth and station--Ojeda was that also--and was grand carver-in-chief to the King's uncle! Among his other qualities for successful colonization were a beautiful voice, a masterly touch on the guitar and an exquisite skill in