Tl1e Narvaez Expedition, 1526-1536
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Ever since Pineda obtained gold from the natives _in the vicinity of the Rio de las Palmas in 1519, the eyes of Spanish conquistadors had been greedily fixed upon this area. Cortes, in 1524, was making active preparations for the formal occupation of this region, encouraged by the accounts given him by Garay. Guzman sent Caniedo in a vain effort to establish a settlement there. The same year that the grant was made to Narvaez, the king ordered that the gold from the Panuco-Rio de las Palmas area should be melted into bars of such purity as the metal found permitted, and that it pass for whatever it was worth and no more, under penalty of death. Warning was given to counterfeiters not to adulterate the gold with baser metals. 8 Cortes still planning to colonize Rio Grande. Ignorant of the grants made to Guzman and Narvaez, Cortes informed the king this same year that he had a number of men enlisted and had made preparations for an expedition to explore the coast from Panuco to Florida and to establish a settlement at the mouth of ·the Rio de las Palmas, where it was said there was a good harbor. "I have also planned," he declared, "and I have a goodly number of people ready, to go to settle at the Rio de las Palmas, which is on the north shores below [above] the Panuco, towards Florida, because I have been informed that it is good land and that there is a port. I do not think that God and Your Majesty will be served less there than in all the other regions because I have much good news concerning that land." But as in 1524, other events, which preoccupied him at this time, prevented him from carrying out his plans. 9 Fat/1er Juan Suarez, Bislzop-elect of Texas, and /zis companions. In the meantime Narvaez was busily engaged in the preparation of his expedition. Father Fray Juan Suarez, of the Order of Saint Francis, one of the twelve Franciscans who had gone to lVIexico at the request of Cortes in 1524, was presented by the king as bishop-elect of the new district. He was joined in Spain by four other Franciscans, among them Juan Palos, a lay brother, who was also one of the twelve apostles of Mexico. Instructions were given to the missionaries, particularly the nandina para el descubrimiento conquista y poblacion de las tierras que hay desde el Rio de las Palmas hasta el Cavo de Ia florida en Granada a 11 de Dizirre de I 526." There are no differences of importance. 8 Herrera, Historia, Dec. iii, Lib. x, Cap. vii; Cortes to the King, October 13, 1524 (Gayangos edition, 1866), 314-315. 9 Cortes to the King, September 3, 1526. Carias y Relacio11es de Hermi11 Cortes ... (Gayangos edition), 491.
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