subject: The Forgotten Conquistador Panfilo De Narvaez [print this page] History rarely remembers missed opportunitiesHistory rarely remembers missed opportunities. If you came in second place during a school presidency run, you might not make it into the yearbook. In the case of Spanish conquistador Panfilo de Narvaez, the missed chance was huge: he very nearly took control of the Mexican conquest. He is rarely remembered, but his story is fascinating.
Narvaez was born in the Castile region of Spain in 1478. He had a permanent sneer, a hard face and he was a gruff, bearded man from what we can tell from existing portraits of him. Narvaez came of age at an exciting time in Spanish history; Columbus had sailed to Hispaniola in the 1490s, discovering an entirely new continent full of unimaginable treasures. Like other men of prominence and means, Narvaez saw an opportunity for fame, adventure, and wealth across the ocean. He took part in the Spanish conquest of Jamaica after he sailed to the New World in 1509. Two years later, he helped conquer Cuba, fighting under the command of the infamous conquistador Diego Velazquez de Cuellar. A frightfully bloody tactic was taken by Narvaez; he rose to infamy when his soldiers massacred a village full of friendly natives in Caonao. The Dominican friar who'd accompanied Narvaez to Caonao even cursed him to the Devil's grasp.
Hernan Cortes the explorer, sailed to Mexico In 1519, and landed on the shores of what is today Veracruz; his men would eventually conquer the Aztec Empire. Velazquez, now the governor of Cuba, had been suspicious of the conquistador from the start. He knew that the conquest of the mainland would dramatically eclipse all of his work in the Caribbean, and suspected that Cortes would not remain loyal to the governorship. Narvaez was sent to Mexico in 1520 (by Velazquez), with a large contingent of men and simple instructions designed to ruin Cortez: the plan was to take control of the conquest by capturing or killing Cortes.
Narvaez's party landed at Veracruz and found a small group of Cortes' men, left there to defend the new port. By this time, Cortes had arrived at the Aztec capital city of Tenochtitlan and taken the emperor Montezuma hostage. Upon hearing the news that Narvaez had nine hundred men and instructions to arrest him for mutiny and treason, Cortes left Tenochtitlan in the hands of his second-in-command, and took two hundred and sixty soldiers back to Veracruz to face off against this new army. It was a risky move, as they were massively outnumbered.
But Narvaez's confidence proved to be his undoing. Cortes surprised the 900-man contingent with a nighttime attack, during which he took Narvaez prisoner and recruited most of the surviving men to his side. Before being sent back to Spain, Narvaez was a prisoner at Veracruz for approximately two years. One of his 900 men, a carrier of smallpox, is thought to have been the primary source of the epidemic which decimated the native population.
Back in Spain, Narvaez was appointed to be the Adelantado, or primary conqueror, of Florida. He took five ships and 600 men, and arrived on the Floridian coast in 1528. This proved to be Narvaez's final undoing, as the attempt was a total disaster; hostile natives attacked the party at every turn and food sources ran precipitously low. The expedition lasted four months before the survivors gave up; they attempted to rejoin with friendly forces by builting rafts to sail across the Gulf to Mexico. Narvaez drowned when a storm hit and sank most of the vessels, leaving a legacy of cruel conquest and ineffectual leadership in his wake.
