CHAPTER II
THE NARVAEZ EXPEDITION, 1526-1536
Previous career of Narvaez. Hardly had Guzman set out from Spain in 1526, accompanied by Luis Ponce de Leon, the newly appointed Juez de Residencia, when Pamfilo de Narvaez obtained a grant from the king to all the territory from the Rio de las Palmas to Florida. It should be remembered that it was this same Narvaez who had gone to Mexico in 1520, as the representative of Diego Velazquez, with the intention of taking Cortes a prisoner, but who had been so outgeneraled by the shrewd conqueror of New Spain that he not only lost his army and one eye in the first encounter he had, but his liberty as well. When three years later the boastful Garay arrived in Mexico without a single follower and virtually a prisoner, the two vanquished conquistadors had many oppor- tunities of talking over their misfortunes, their past experiences, and their future plans. It is said that Garay interceded with Cortes for the ultimate release of Narvaez, but it is more likely that this was the result of the efforts of his virtuous and industrious wife, who had remained in Cuba, and in his absence had not only improved his estate but had saved for him more than fifteen thousand pesos in gold. 1 Released by Cortes either at the close of 1523 or the early part of 1524, he seems to have gone first to Cuba, where he stayed for a short while, from where he proceeded to Spain. It was his purpose to lay his grievances against Cortes before the king and to ask, as compensation for the services to His Majesty, for a grant to the lands which Garay had vainly tried to settle. Just when he arrived in Cuba or Spain is not known, but by 1525 he was already in Toledo, where the king was holding court. Here he complained bitterly against the injustice he had suffered at the hands of Cortes, whom ·he wished to engage in single combat. 1 While denouncing the envied rival in Mexico, however, he pressed his suit for a royal grant to the former lands of Garay. 3 In vain did Oviedo 1 Herrera, Historia, Dec. ii, Lib. ix, Caps. xvii-.xxi; Lib. x, Caps. i-iv; Dec. iii, Lib. x, Cap. i; Bernal Diaz del Castillo, Historia Verdadera, II, 184-187 (Garcia edition); Oviedo, Historia, III, 579-581. 2 0viedo, Historia, III, 580; G6mara, Cronica de la N11eva Espa,ia, I 70. 3 "Petitions of Narvaez to the King of Spain, with notes of concessions made to him by the Council of the Indias for the conquest of Florida." Buckingham Smith,
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