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Atlantic Studies
Global Currents
ISSN: 1478-8810 (Print) 1740-4649 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rjas20
Tenochtitlan and the Aztecs in the English Atlantic
world, 1500–1603
María Fernanda Valencia-Suárez
To cite this article: María Fernanda Valencia-Suárez (2009) Tenochtitlan and the
Aztecs in the English Atlantic world, 1500–1603, Atlantic Studies, 6:3, 277-301, DOI:
10.1080/14788810903265164
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/14788810903265164
Published online: 30 Nov 2009.
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REVIEW
Tenochtitlan and the Aztecs in the English Atlantic world, 1500
1603
Marı´a Fernanda Valencia-Sua´rez*
This article studies sixteenth-century English views of Tenochtitlan, the Aztecs
and the Spanish conquest of Mexico in the framework of the Atlantic world. It
analyses the process by which English scholars and politicians collated, under-
stood, appropriated and used information about Mexico circulating in the rest
of Europe to produce their own interpretations and productions. This was made
with the aim of promoting English exploration and colonial ventures in the New
World, supporting English claims to the Americas, fostering anti-Spanish
sentiments and Protestant solidarity against Spain and satisfying curiosity and
desire for fresh knowledge. Paying especial attention to the investigation of a
water-coloured map of the city of Tenochtitlan, produced in London in 1571, this
article illustrates how the English departed from a pro-Spanish narrative of the
conquest and began to use information about the Aztecs in the framework of
increasing Anglo-Spanish rivalries to criticize the Spanish and to legitimize the
fight against Spain in the Old and New world.
Keywords: Aztecs; Spanish conquest of Mexico; English and European views of
the indigenous peoples; Anglo-Spanish rivalries
In 1520, shortly after the first Mexican treasure and the second letter of Herna´n
Corte´s reached the Spanish court in Valladolid, descriptions of Tenochtitlan, a
sophisticated city ‘‘comparable in size to Seville or Cordoba,’’ and its incredible
riches and wealth, drew much admiration throughout Europe.
1
In England, the news
arrived promptly and the fact that Tenochtitlan, the Aztec centre of power, had been
conquered by Spain and that, as a result, the Spanish crown was filling its coffers
with treasures and increasing its power in Europe and beyond, struck heavy.
2
It would be difficult to deny English concern about Spanish expansion and
profitable conquests, or that the Aztecs, subsequently joined by the Inca, became in
Europe emblematic of the wonders and aberrations of America; they had treasures
and were civilized, but were also idolaters and practiced human sacrifice. Despite the
general acknowledgement of these facts, the historiography on English expansion
and colonisation and on English relations with American indigenous peoples, has
neglected English views of pre-Hispanic Mexico. Most previous studies have been
conducted in terms that suggest that in early modern England there was no
awareness of, or interest in, the city of Tenochtitlan and its inhabitants.
3
This article addresses issues of sixteenth-century English uses of information
about the Aztecs, Tenochtitlan and the Spanish conquest of Mexico through the
analysis of a substantial body of early modern English interpretations of the Spanish
performance in Mexico and of the Aztec’s culture, contained not only in printed
books, but also in handwritten books, pamphlets, sermons, maps and letters of the
Email: mfv21@cam.ac.uk
ISSN 1478-8810 print/ISSN 1470-4649 online
#2009 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/14788810903265164
http://www.informaworld.com
Atlantic Studies
Vol. 6, No. 3, December 2009, 277301
time. Especial attention is given to the production in London in 1571 of a water-
coloured representation of Tenochtitlan, a document largely unknown and absent
from the most important works on early modern European cartography and
representations of Tenochtitlan.
4
I. The arrival in England of the first information about the Aztecs and the Spanish
conquest of Mexico
By 1521, the year in which Corte´s completed the Spanish conquest of Mexico, there
was, in England among those aware of Spain’s rising wealth and its maritime and
geographical expansion towards the West a growing feeling of discontent,
frustration and lost opportunity with relation to the New World. Such feelings
were only reinforced by news of the wealth and magnificence of Tenochtitlan.
5
There
were reasons for assuming that England had had a chance but had lost its
opportunity to claim discovery of the New World. Far from being impervious to
the lure of the Atlantic, English sailors had been setting sail from Bristol to explore
the seas to the west of Ireland for many centuries and with renewed enthusiasm since
at least 1480, eager to find the legendary island of Hy Brasil and in search of rich
virgin fishing grounds.
6
With the acquisition of lands and riches in the New World, Spain was
consolidating its empire and becoming the most powerful European monarchical
state. Spain was extremely covetous of its American lands and riches, and based on
the Papal Bull Inter caetera (1493) of Pope Alexander VI, on the Treaty of Tordesillas
(1494), and on the right of ‘‘first discoverer,’’ it justified its possessions and the
control it exerted over Atlantic trade.
7
In the days of the first Spanish discoveries, Henry VII had been careful to avoid
any direct confrontation with Spain and kept English participation in New World
exploration discreet. Except for John Cabot’s explorations no other major state-
sponsored expeditions were undertaken. Even Cabot’s voyage was restricted by the
king to lands ‘‘not known to Christians,’’ especially avoiding the territory to the
south, which was already claimed by Spain.
8
The scant financial returns of Cabot’s
ventures gave little incentive to English merchants or the crown, and the perception
of North America as a land unlikely to yield economic benefit spread widely among
the English. As David B. Quinn states, English voyages to North America ‘‘had
revealed a land that was unprofitable either because its inhabitants had nothing
worth while with which to trade and showed no great enthusiasm for English goods,
or because the seas were cold, their margins frozen.’’
9
Early news about the Aztecs and the riches obtained by the conquest of
Tenochtitlan arrived promptly at Henry VIII’s court, as he was still on good terms
with Spain and had a Spanish wife. Although there are no records of this first news
in England, it is very likely that information was highly pro-Spanish, as the first
narratives about the conquest were told by the Spanish conquerors themselves.
In any case, information about the Aztecs circulated slowly in England and was
limited to certain circles of English society: groups of merchants and sailors in
London and Bristol, academics in London and in the universities of Cambridge and
Oxford, and of course, groups of royal officers, crown ambassadors and the king.
Some English sailors and merchants heard about the Aztecs from their
continental counterparts, and, in turn, circulated information by word-of-mouth
278 M. Fernanda Valencia-Sua´rez
or through informal manuscript correspondence.
10
In addition, Continental
travellers visiting England brought news of the Spanish conquest of Mexico into
the country, whilst English subjects abroad, living in or visiting Continental Europe,
communicated back to England the news they learnt in printed documents
circulating in Europe, or in the handwritten pamphlets which were promptly and
regularly distributed, sold cheaply or even given gratis, within the Spanish realm to
spread news of Spain’s recent achievements.
11
Letters, dispatches, diplomatic correspondence and handwritten news about
Aztecs circulated among the English political and commercial elite.
12
Foreign books
were imported from the continent and although none of Corte´s’s letters were
translated into English, there is evidence that at least the second and the third arrived
in England very soon after their publication in Europe; copies in Latin and Italian
were held by the library and constituent colleges of the University of Cambridge.
13
Moreover, it might well have been that some Englishmen abroad, particularly those
with access to Habsburg political networks, visited the exhibition of Aztec treasure
that was displayed in Brussels in 1520,
14
or saw the Aztec jugglers and ballplayers
brought to Europe in 1528 to perform before the Spanish king in Toledo, and later
before the Pope in Rome and some noblemen in the Netherlands.
15
Moreover, they
could have seen the coloured drawings of these Aztec acrobats made by Christoph
Weiditz, which although never published in early modern Europe, circulated in
manuscript and ‘‘were very well known in interested circles.’’
16
It is true that the Aztecs remained unknown to the majority of the English
population during the first half of the sixteenth century. However, it is also true that
news about the Spanish conquest of the Aztecs exacerbated the feelings of lost
opportunity, desire and envy among those who had access to such information.
Indeed Robert Thorne, who formed part of a large community of English merchants
and sailors resident in Spain, wrote a letter to Henry VIII in 1527 mentioning, rather
enviously, the gold and treasure that Spain was obtaining from the New World: ‘‘if
only those pioneer ships of the Bristol merchants had followed the coast of
Newfoundland, the land of the Indians from whence all the gold commenth had been
ours.’’
17
Given the date of Thorne’s letter it is likely that the gold and the indigenous
peoples he is referring to are those of Mexico, since it was not until 1532 that
Francisco Pizarro conquered the territory of the Incas and that precious metals from
Peru started to arrive in Spain.
18
Henry VIII was not as careful as his father about maintaining friendly ties with
Spain. He divorced Catherine of Aragon in 1532, rejected papal authority and
challenged Rome. Yet, the king showed little interest in America, Atlantic voyages or
the Aztecs.
19
The English breach with Rome not only ensured that Henry VIII
remained distracted with internal and continental matters, but also brought with it
stricter control by Spain of the flow into England of information about the Spanish
colonies. English eyes momentarily turned away from the Americas, but it is difficult
to believe that England suppressed or forgot its uneasy feelings towards the New
World or that English concern over the increasing power and wealth of Spain simply
dissolved.
In 1551, King Edward VI and his government, aiming to foster English trade and
interested again in extra-European issues, supported the private efforts of Richard
Chancellor, Sebastian Cabot and Sir Hugh Willoughby, and chartered the Company
of Merchant Adventurers. In 1553, Edward’s court also sponsored the translation by
Atlantic Studies 279
Richard Eden (English merchant and government official) of Sebastian Mu
¨nster’s
Cosmographia. This work provided English readers with their first descriptions of the
New World in their own language. However, Eden omitted all references to the
Aztecs or Mexico in his publication.
20
In 1555, Richard Eden found a powerful reason to write, for the first time in
England and in English, about the Aztec civilization and its conquest by Spain: the
marriage of the English Queen Mary Tudor and the Spanish Prince Philip of
Habsburg. In an attempt to demonstrate to English readers the convenience of the
royal union and aiming to create a sense of urgency to follow the Spanish example and
learn from Spain’s deeds in the New World, Eden collated and interpreted Spanish
sources, particularly the accounts of Peter Martyr and Lo´pez de Go´mara. It was not
that England lacked experience in subduing and colonizing people; this was already
taking place in Ireland.
21
Ireland and America were, however, conceived differently.
America was not only geographically distant, but also intimately associated with the
search for riches and treasures, and especially, with the possibility of competing in the
emerging European struggle for power, territories and prestige. Hence, Eden stressed
that ‘‘England in a few years (had) decayed and impoverished’’ whereas Spain had
been enriched by the wealth from across the Atlantic.
22
Neither Mary Tudor nor Richard Eden saw any reason why England should
compete with Spain in the New World. In fact, Eden expected that the Anglo-
Spanish alliance would open a door for the English to American riches, and that the
‘‘marvellous discoveries, conquests and empire of the Spaniards; would now become
the joint heritage of England.’’
23
The information that Eden presented was highly
pro-Spanish and warmly praised the Spanish conquest. In addition, he acclaimed the
riches of the Aztecs and the magnificence of Tenochtitlan. Eden compared the
beauty of the Aztec edifices to those of ancient Greece, and described the Aztecs as
an advanced people, highly civilized, capable of ‘‘writing and reading,’’ wealthy,
refined and easily converted to Christianity.
24
The idolatry of the Aztecs was difficult
to ignore but Eden managed to present even this as a positive feature. In his view, as
the Aztecs were ‘‘for the moste parte Idolatours,’’ they were not ‘‘hytherto corrupted
with any other false religion,’’
25
and therefore, could easily be converted to
Christianity. Claiming that the Spaniards had released the Aztecs from the tyranny
of Satan, Eden justified the subjugation of the Aztec civilization.
26
He argued that
the indigenous peoples had obtained the benefit of Christianity from the conquest, in
return of their lost freedom, treasures and land.
Remarkably, Eden used what he knew about Tenochtitlan and the Aztecs to
emphasize the benefits of discovering and conquering cities and to imply that there
were possibilities for England to increase the riches it was obtaining from the Spanish
marriage with some of its own. Eden claimed that the English could explore North
America, where they would likely find non-Christian peoples who would be happy to
offer their land and treasures in exchange for Christianity.
27
The strongest expectation
was to find a city similar to that of the Aztecs: ‘‘in this lande there are many fayre
and frutefull regions. ... Also cities and towres so wel buylded and people of such
ciuilitie.’’
28
Clearly, Eden sought to construct as attractive a picture of the Aztecs as
possible so as to spur further English exploration in the New World. The Aztecs thus
became the model of what England wanted to find: wealthy and sophisticated cities
inhabited by pagan and idolatrous people, who could be conquered and attracted to
the Christian faith, and whose riches would fill English coffers.
280 M. Fernanda Valencia-Sua´rez
No records exist of how many copies of Eden’s book were published in England,
but it is known that it was handled by four publishers, and that, although the Anglo-
Spanish royal marriage ended with Mary Tudor’s death in 1558, the book was
reprinted in 1577, with a different dedicatory epistle. This suggests that Eden’s reading
public was reasonably large. Eden’s book helped to whet English appetites for Atlantic
ventures and, of course, for associated rewards. In doing so, it also evidenced the
appeal that the information about the Spanish conquest of Mexico and the Aztecs
enjoyed in England and revealed the convenience of using it to promote English
interests.
After Elizabeth succeeded to the throne of England in 1558 and returned the
country to Protestantism, the Anglo-Spanish relationship was never easy. During the
first years, both countries were in a state of qualified amity, but, in less than a
decade, rivalry had led to animosity. By 1570 Elizabeth had been excommunicated by
Pope Pius V, who absolved Catholics from owing allegiance to the English Queen.
29
This furthered fears in England of plots against Elizabeth and increased suspicion of
Spain at the English court. English expeditions to explore North America and to
plunder Spanish galleons and American ports became more frequent, and this,
added to the support being provided by the English crown to Protestant rebels in the
Netherlands against Spain, became an important source of anger and grievance for
Philip II, who retaliated by impounding all English vessels in Spanish harbours, thus
suspending English trade with Spanish territories.
30
Up to this point, information in England about the Aztecs and the Spanish
conquest had been highly pro-Spanish and apologetic of the conquerors. However, in
a framework of growing rivalries with Spain and increasing animosities between
Catholicism and Protestantism, English views of the Aztecs were gradually
transformed. Spanish sources were viewed with suspicion and the English relied
increasingly on Dutch, French, German and Italian sources for information.
II. The English map of Tenochtitlan
In 1572 the first English reproduction of the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan appeared in
an elegant manuscript book, entitled Il Giardino Cosmografico Coltivato, produced in
London by the Italian exile Bartholo Sylva. The book was dedicated to Robert
Dudley, Earl of Leicester and favourite of Queen Elizabeth, and its production
involved a group of distinguished English Protestants, mostly of puritan views, which
included the evangelical preacher Edward Dering, his wealthy and educated wife
Anne, the Italian convert and English informant overseas, Pietro Bizzari, and the
Cooke sisters: Mildred, wife of William Cecil, Lord Burghley; Anne, married to
Nicholas Bacon, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, and mother of the famous Francis;
Elizabeth, widow of Sir Thomas Hoby, Ambassador in France; and Katherine,
married to Sir Henry Killigrew, a distinguished diplomat and veteran of the Marian
exiles. All of them contributed to Il Giardino with epigraphs praising Sylva for his
manuscript.
31
There is little known about Bartholo Sylva. His only appearance in historical
records indicates that he was from Turin, and practiced medicine in London under
the patronage of William Cecil and Robert Dudley.
32
The events that led him to
London are obscure. In his preface, Sylva mentions that he served the Spanish in the
Netherlands as a surgeon, but he does not recount a religious conversion.
33
He must
Atlantic Studies 281
have arrived in London, perhaps as a Protestant refugee, at some point before 1560,
a date that records mention as the year Sylva was first reprimanded for medical
malpractice. He was accused of the same charge in 1570 and sentenced to
imprisonment the following year. However, he was soon released and the charges
were dismissed on the intervention of Cecil and Dudley.
34
His connection with
these two individuals and with the prominent Protestant group is unclear. It might
be the case that he was solely hired to produce the manuscript, but it seems, from
the eulogies of the dedicatory poems in Il Giardino, that he was well-known and
respected by the puritans. The proximity of the date of his imprisonment and release
in December 1571, with that with which he signed the manuscript in May of that
year, may indicate that Sylva had been assisted, either to avoid the interruption of his
work or because the manuscript had gained him the favour of Cecil and Dudley, and
perhaps even of Queen Elizabeth.
35
The book, written in Italian the Queen’s favourite modern foreign language
36
with Greek, French, Latin, English and Spanish epithets, was presented as a
compilation of all extant knowledge of the world. Sylva himself did not claim to be
the author of all that he wrote. Indeed, he admitted not to know if he could ‘‘say
something which had not yet been said.’’
37
The document was not intended to be
innovative, but rather to present already acquired knowledge. The English growing
sense of the value of knowledge, later expressed in Francis Bacon’s‘‘knowledge is
power,’’ is suggested by the opening phrase of Il Giardino:‘‘Chi non conosce il
Mondo, no merita star nel Mondo’’ (He who does not know the world, does not
deserve to live in it).
38
The image of Tenochtitlan was one of the illustrations that
accompanied the book. The picture resembled an average European city and
contained no referents to indigenous culture and none, except the lake, of the
particularities that until then had distinguished Tenochtitlan and the Aztecs in
European minds: temples, idols, human sacrifice, exotic buildings, gardens, and so on
(Figure 1).
In concordance with the modus operandi of many contemporary authors
throughout Europe,
39
Sylva freely collected his information from diverse sources,
none of which he took pains to quote. Fortunately, it is possible to trace the sources
and influences on Sylva’s map of Tenochtitlan and to situate it within the framework
of extant European maps and images of the same city that circulated in Europe
around at the time (Figure 2).
Sylva’s image was an identical copy, in colour, of a map of Tenochtitlan that the
Flemish cartographer Abraham Ortelius had included in his first production, Nova
totius terrarium orbis, printed in Antwerp in 1564.
40
Ortelius’s map of the Aztec
capital appeared in black and white as a small inset in the lower left-hand corner of
the wall-size world’smap.Although Ortelius did not cite his sources, it is possible to
recognize that his map was based on a previous one which Giovanni Battista
Ramusio had used in the third volume of his Navigazioni e Viaggi (Figure 3).
41
Ramusio, in turn, had obtained his map from one included in a letter by the so called
‘‘anonymous conqueror,’’ a Spanish soldier who had accompanied Herna´n Corte´sto
Mexico and who had kept a record of the expedition.
42
The text with which Sylva accompanied the English image of the city of
Tenochtitlan explained, without praising Spain, that the city ‘‘had been conquered in
1521 by Herna´n Corte´s under the orders of Charles V.’’
43
English admiration and
interest in the city were expressed briefly it was the most beautiful and rich in the
282 M. Fernanda Valencia-Sua´rez
whole New World.
44
Although the text was certainly not critical of the Spanish
performance in the New World and did not refer to Spanish cruelties or conversion
practices, it is relevant that Sylva reproduced Ortelius’s map and not any other
available European image of Tenochtitlan. Certainly, the increasing Anglo-Spanish
rivalry and Philip II’s aggressive system of control of the information about Spain’s
American colonies and trade made it very difficult for Englishmen and indeed for
anyone outside the Spanish royal circles to gain access to accurate and current
maps of the City of Mexico, capital of the viceroyalty of New Spain. In fact,
although Tenochtitlan had been conquered in 1521 and the Spanish were rapidly
transforming the city, the images of Mexico circulating in Europe, including those
published with the consent of the Spanish crown, resembled the pre-Hispanic
Tenochtitlan. Ortelius’s map, entitled Messigo Hispaniae Novae Metropolis, could be
regarded as the most accurate and updated available, but that does not seem to have
been an important reason for its reproduction in Il Giardino as the image was entitled
Temistitan metropolitana and described it only in its pre-Hispanic state.
45
It seems
that Ortelius’s world-map and his image of Tenochtitlan circulated widely in Europe,
and there is evidence that a number of copies reached England.
46
Moreover, Ortelius
was a close friend of Pietrus Bizzari, who was associated with the production of Il
Giardino and could have suggested the use of Ortelius’s map and even provided Sylva
with it.
47
Significantly, Ortelius’s map had a peculiar characteristic. In comparison with
other existing representations of Tenochtitlan, it was a neutral image that allowed for
Figure 1. Map of Tenochtitlan by Bartholo Sylva. London, 1571. Reproduced by kind
permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library. Source: MS Cambridge
University Library Ii.5.37.
Atlantic Studies 283
MEXICO-TENOCHTITLAN
Anonymous
conqueror, México,
1519–20*
Hernán Cortés,
México, 1519-20*
Unknown author, Venice
and Nuremberg, 1524
Benedetto Bordone,
Venice, 1528
Sebastian
Münster, Basel,
1550
Antoine du
Pinet, Lyon,
1564 Giulio Ballino,
Venice, 1569
Tomasso Porccachi,
Venice, 1572 Georg Braun,
Antwerp, 1572
Unknown author
(Uppsala map),
México, 1550*
Alonso de
Santa Cruz,
Madrid, 1557
Giovanni Battista
Ramusio, Venice, 1556
Abraham Ortelius,
Antwerp, 1564
Bartholo Sylva,
London, 1571* Gerard de Jode,
Antwerp, 1578
Transmision of
sixteenth- century
European maps of
Tenochtitlan.
Direct observation
Strong influence
Identical copy
*Unpublished
S
I
X
T
E
E
N
T
H
C
E
N
T
U
R
Y
Figure 2. Production and circulation of maps of Tenochtitlan in sixteenth-century Europe.
284 M. Fernanda Valencia-Sua´rez
almost any interpretation. It eliminated Na´huatl names and labels, temples, ‘‘exotic’’
elements, and any trace of the indigenous culture and did not recall the populated,
colourful and imposing Tenochtitlan that European authors had praised, nor the
prosperous city the Spanish claimed to have constructed after the conquest. Instead,
Ortelius’s Tenochtitlan resembled a European city, with a church, market square and
surrounding neighbourhoods. Ortelius’s representation of Tenochtitlan radically
transformed the details and patterns that European mapmakers and engravers had
followed for decades in their depictions of the Aztec capital. The comparison
between the map of Ortelius and other European maps of Tenochtitlan from the
same period illustrates this point.
Take for instance, the famous map of Tenochtitlan, which appeared in Venice
(labelled in Italian) and Nuremberg (in Latin) in 1524 (Figure 4). This map was
presumably based on a sketch drawn by Herna´n Corte´s using indigenous sources.
48
The map was divided into two parts: on the right, depicting the shores of the Gulf of
Mexico and, on the left, presenting the Aztec capital in a circular form, as an
idealized medieval town in which a central square was surrounded by small
European-style houses.
49
The map portrayed Tenochtitlan in the fashion of Venice,
the closest European referent of a city built on water. It showed the palaces of
Moctezuma and Axayaca´tl, the square of Tlatelolco, three causeways across the
water, the aqueduct to the mainland, numerous canals, Moctezuma’s zoo and,
toward the centre of the town, the great temple (Figure 5). The map made clear
reference to the Aztec practice of human sacrifice by representing two skull racks, a
headless figure and the labels (in Italian); ‘‘il templo dove sacrificano’’ (temple where
sacrifices are made) and ‘‘le teste delli sacrificati’’ (sacrificial heads). The Spanish
presence in the city was suggested in the map by an oversized flag with the black
Habsburg eagle in the right lower corner of the lake.
Other maps produced in later years used the 1524 map as a model. In his book
Isolario, published in Venice in 1529, Benedetto Bordone rotated the map, restored
the missing head of the statue and removed the Spanish flag as well as the references
to human sacrifice.
50
Later, in 1555, an exact copy of Bordone’s map was used in
Switzerland in Sebastian Mu
¨nster’sCosmographia and in France in 1564, in Antoine
du Pinet’sPlantz, pourtraitz et descriptions de plesieures villes et fortresses.
51
Later
Giulio Ballino (1569), Tomaso Porcacchi (1672), and Georg Braun and Frans
Hogenberg (1572) used similar images, all depicting bird’s-eye views of the city with a
similar composition and including various indigenous elements: pyramids or
temples, skull racks, the central statue (with the head but in different positions),
and indigenous decorative motifs around the central square. Braun and Hogenberg
even included three Aztecs dressed in traditional costumes on a bigger scale in the
foreground of their map (Figure 6).
52
The map of the ‘‘anonymous conqueror’’ which Ramusio used was more detailed
than any of the maps that used the image of 1524 as a model. It distinguished
between a northern fresh-water lake and a southern salt-water lake and represented,
with big burning fires at the top of the image, the volcanoes that surrounded the
central valley of Mexico. The map, which as stated above was used by Ramusio
without alteration, depicted the central pyramid and showed Na´huatl names for
various locations.
Another detailed map of Mexico-Tenochtitlan was included by Alonso de Santa
Cruz, royal cosmographer of Charles V, in his 1557 Islario general de todas las islas del
Atlantic Studies 285
Figure 3. Comparison of the maps of Ramusio, 1556 (left) and Ortelius, 1564 (right). Both
maps are courtesy of the Syndics of the British Library. Sources: G. B. Ramusio, Navigazioni e
Viaggi, Venice, 1556; A. Ortelius, Nova totius terrarum orbis, Antwerp, 1564.
286 M. Fernanda Valencia-Sua´rez
Figure 3a.
Atlantic Studies 287
Figure 4. Map of Tenochtitlan, Venice, 1524. Reproduced by kind permission of the Syndics of the British Library. Source: H. Corte´s, La preclara
narratione della Nuoua Hispagna del mare Oce´ano, Venice, 1524.
288 M. Fernanda Valencia-Sua´rez
mundo.
53
It was a simplified version of a previous coloured map of the Valley of
Mexico, known today as the ‘‘Uppsala map.’’ This map was produced in Mexico
around 1550 by Spanish and indigenous artists and shipped to Spain for the enjoyment
of the king, who then passed it on to Santa Cruz, the royal cosmographer.
54
The latter’s
Islario circulated in manuscript form andwas not printed until the twentieth century.
55
The text accompanying the map in Santa Cruz’sIslario was highly pro-Spanish. It
claimed that ‘‘Tenuxtitlan, Mexico’’ was an example of the righteous and remarkable
deeds undertaken by the Spaniards in America, arguing that Cortes had freed the
people from the tyranny of Moctezuma and had convinced them to be baptized and to
become good Christians.
56
The Spanish map may be read as offering evidence for the
benefits of the conquest and the success of the colonization and conversion of the
indigenous peoples. It depicts Tenochtitlan in glittering colours as a great European
and Christian city with no temples or idols, only Spanish buildings and churches. The
indigenous peoples are wearing traditional clothes and appear contented as they
practise their daily activities of fishing and canoeing, as if unaffected by the Spanish
conquest (Figure 7).
Figure 5. Detail of the map of Tenochtitlan, Venice, 1524. Source: H. Corte´s, La preclara
narratione della Nuoua Hispagna del mare Oce´ano, Venice, 1524).
Atlantic Studies 289
Given the growing antagonism between England and Spain, it comes as no
surprise that Il Giardino avoided glorifying Spain and the conquest of Mexico. Sylva
and his readers might have found Ortelius’s image much more appealing than others,
particularly as it did not refer to the Aztec practice of human sacrifice. This practice
was frequently evoked by Spanish authors as an argument in favour of the fairness
and holiness of the conquest; avoiding this issue made it easier to question Spanish
right to conquest and destroy the Aztecs.
Although Il Giardino was never printed, it circulated among crown officers,
merchants and scholars; at least among those prominent English noblewomen and
noblemen who contributed to its production with laudatory epigraphs in Greek and
Latin.
57
The handwriting inscription in the last page of Il gardino reads ‘‘Illustrisimo
Carolo Mountioyo, 1599’’ and is presumably by Charles Blount, eighth baron
Figure 6. Mexico, Regia et Celebris by Georg Braun and Frans Hogenberg, 1572.
Reproduced by kind permission of the Syndics of the British Library. Source: G. Braun and
F. Hogenberg, Civitates orbis terrarium, Cologne, 1572.
290 M. Fernanda Valencia-Sua´rez
Mountjoy, favourite of Queen Elizabeth and friend of Robert Cecil. It provides
evidence that the manuscript circulated widely at least until the end of Elizabeth’s
reign. Produced at an important transitional moment in Anglo-Spanish relations
when English privateers were breaching Spanish control of the Atlantic, and English
writers and promoters of colonial ventures were also breaking through the Spanish
monopoly of information of the Americas Sylva’s map illustrates a pivotal moment
in English views of the Spanish conquest of Mexico when the English started to see
Mexico through a less ‘‘Spanish’’ lens. In the following years, the English were to
take control of Spanish narratives of the Aztecs and their conquest and interpret
them to generate an anti-Spanish view emphasising the destruction of indigenous
cultures and on the cruelties of the conquistadores.
Figure 7. Tenuxtitan Mexico by Alonso de Santa Cruz, 1557. Reproduced by kind
permission of the Syndics of the Biblioteca Nacional de Espan
˜a, Madrid. Source: A. Santa
Cruz, Islario general de todas las islas del mundo, Valladolid, 1557.
Atlantic Studies 291
III. English anti-Spanish use of information about the Aztecs
In the second half of the 1570s, Elizabethan printers and authors circulated
information about the Aztecs that was motivated by a growing rivalry and a keen
competition with Spain. Crown officers, among them William Cecil and Robert
Dudley, but also Francis Walsingham, Edward Dyer, Henry Sidney and Christopher
Hatton, made deliberate efforts to encourage and sponsor the production of
materials containing information which served to foster anti-Spanish sentiments,
to promote English exploration and colonial ventures in the New World, and to
support English claims to the Americas.
Given that the Spanish claims to the New World rested, among other things, on
having been the first to discover and conquer the continent, it is hardly surprising
that a legend about a previous Welsh discovery of the Americas appeared in England
at this time and that information about the Aztecs was used by authors such as
George Peckham and David Powel as evidence of the veracity of the story. Peckham,
in his True reporte of the late discoueries (published in 1583) alleged that the Welsh
prince Madoc, a direct ancestor of the Tudor dynasty, had visited the Americas in
the twelfth century, where he had established a realm.
58
Hence, Madoc’s subjects
were ancestors of the Aztecs and Queen Elizabeth had the right to claim legitimate
power over them. The following year Powel substantiated Peckham’s argument in his
Historie of Cambria, providing what he asserted was irrefutable evidence of Madoc’s
visit to Mexico.
59
He claimed that the indigenous languages of Mexico and Wales
were similar and that the Mexicans themselves claimed that ‘‘their rulers descended
from a strange nation that came thither from a farre countrie.’’
60
Peckham lifted
from Lo´pez de Go´mara the speech that Moctezuma gave to his subjects in the
presence of Herna´n Corte´s as proof that the Aztecs had known of, and still
recognized, their subjugation to Prince Madoc:
Our Forefathers came from a farre countrie, and their King and Captaine who brought
them hither, returned againe to his natural countrie, saying, that he would send such as
should rule and gouerne vs, if by chaunce he himselfe returned not.
61
According to Peckham, the speech showed the Aztecs had taken the Spanish to
be their ‘‘forefathers,’’ and had mistaken Corte´s for Prince Madoc. In addition,
Powel argued that Mexico was discovered by the English long before either
Columbus or Americus Vesputius had led the Spanish there.
62
Some crown officers,
predominantly Francis Walsingham, Henry Sidney and William Cecil, were heavily
involved in the production and publication of the Madoc legend, and they not only
sponsored Peckham and Powel, but also provided them with information relevant to
their work. Doubtless, the Madoc legend was seen as a forceful tool of propaganda
and was used to strengthen links between England and Wales, as well as to vindicate
the English right to claim a share of American riches and lands, and to reinforce the
English struggle against Spain. Conscious of its power, Richard Hakluyt, the well-
known translator and editor of travel narratives and advocate for the westward
expansion, included Madoc’s story in his 1589 account of English voyages and
travels.
63
In 1577 two important books were published, A history of travayle in the West
and East Indies, which was a second English edition of Martyr’sDecades by Richard
Willes, and The pleasant historie of the conquest of the West India, now called New
Spain, a translation of Lo´pez de Go´mara’s account of the Spanish conquest, by
292 M. Fernanda Valencia-Sua´rez
Thomas Nicholas.
64
Both helped to consolidate in English minds the idea of
Tenochtitlan and its people as an important source of the glory, power and wealth of
Spain. Additionally, they contributed to reinforce a growing English drive to find
and possess a city comparable to that of the Aztecs so that commensurate power and
prestige could accrue to England. Politicians, travellers and geographers longed to
make such a discovery in the northern lands of the American continent. Their hopes
were fed by Martin Frobisher, who in 1576 claimed to have found gold in North
America and even when the ore turned out to be ‘‘fools gold,’’ hopes persisted.
65
The
very existence of a city such as Tenochtitlan in the Americas, convinced Elizabethan
English minds that it was worth continuing the search for a comparable city, which
was imagined to be called either Mania or Norumbega, and was even marked in
contemporary maps.
66
John Dee described attempts made to question an Eskimo
that Frobisher had taken back to England from one of his voyages in 1577:
Being asked if they in their country had any Gold or Sylver ... he woulde make evident
signe that no such things were to be had in that kingdom ... but all was demanded by
sign to be at Mania: and pointed westerly towards it. Whereby it would appear that the
city or province of Mania is rich, famous and great.
67
Meanwhile, David Ingram who was left in New Spain in 1569 when the English
fleet of John Hawkins was surprised and defeated by the Spaniards at San Juan de
Ulloa claimed to have seen in North America, during his extended flight from
Spanish hands, a city ‘‘with streets larger than any of those in London and
inhabitants who wore hoops of gold and silver ‘garnished with pearls, divers of them
as big as one’s thumb.’’’
68
Ingram’s story, though later recognized as not entirely
accurate, was published by Hakluyt in 1589.
69
Walter Raleigh’s tireless efforts to find
El Dorado, a city such as that of the Aztecs, illustrate the strength of feeling and the
eagerness to believe that such a discovery was possible. In his book, A discouery of
the large, rich and bewtiful empire of Guiana (published in 1595), Raleigh stated that
the English ‘‘shall performe more than euer was done in Mexico by Cortez.’’
70
Francis Drake’s successful circumnavigation of the world (from 1577 to 1580)
increased English ambitions overseas, both in the West and in the East Indies. In this
context, Philip II’s acquisition of the Portuguese throne in 1581, and his consequent
control of Portuguese colonies in South America, India and Africa, only reinforced
English determination to prevent the Spaniards from controlling global trade and its
profits.
71
Rivalries and antagonisms with Spain made it necessary and convenient to
construct a negative image of the enemy. English anti-Spanish opinions and
documents joined other anti-Spanish writings in Europe (particularly in Italy,
Germany and the Netherlands), fuelling what later came to be known as the ‘‘Black
Legend’’ of Spanish cruelty.
72
Within this context of anti-Spanish feelings, English
interpretations of information about the Spanish conquest of the Aztecs proved
useful. The more bitter the accusations against Spain regarding the suffering of the
Aztecs, the more successful the English proved at canvassing support for their
economic, political and religious ideas both at home and abroad. English readers
learnt that before being conquered by Spain, the Aztecs had already developed their
own highly sophisticated civilization, and were living in a prosperous socio-
politically organized city. With the documents produced in the 1580s, it was made
clear that the Spaniards had not only destroyed the Aztec civilization but also had
Atlantic Studies 293
inflicted unnecessary sufferings and cruelties on the indigenous population. In
addition, they had failed to provide them with the true Christian faith.
In 1583, Bartolome´de Las Casas’sBrevı´sima relacio´ n de la destruccio´n de las
Indias appeared in an English translation of the Jacques de Miggrode’s French
version (printed in Antwerp in 1579) under the title The Spanish colonie.
73
The
identity of the English translator, who signed himself ‘‘M.M.S.,’’ is unknown. The
original text was not intended to be anti-colonial or anti-Catholic; on the contrary,
Las Casas aimed to improve further Spanish colonial efforts and make sure that they
would be based on Catholic doctrine.
74
Nevertheless, his work, which contained
information about the destruction of the indigenous peoples of Spanish America,
became, in England and elsewhere, the main source for a political campaign against
Spain and a useful tool with which to inflame patriotic and nationalistic feelings.
‘‘M.M.S.’’ reproduced Las Casas’s denunciation of the ‘‘abhominable tyrannies
commited in the Citie of Mexico’’ and his account of how the Spanish killed
Moctezuma, and ‘‘made an horrible and ghastly butcherie of the Indians, and slue an
infinite of people, and brent alive the great Lords.’’
75
This information about the
Aztecs served to reinforce the warning to all Protestants of what could happen to
non-Catholic civilized peoples when conquered by the Spaniards, and urged the
English to show solidarity with Protestants in the Netherlands in order to stop the
threat inherent in a Spanish victory.
76
Las Casas argued that after the Spanish conquest the Aztecs had been lost as a
people, and he lamented deeply ‘‘the spoile of the spring of their ancient nobilitie.’’
77
English readers of Las Casas very likely considered this the end of Aztec glory, with
the Aztec culture itself facing imminent extinction. In his preface, ‘‘M.M.S.’’ gave
voice to this feeling: ‘‘Places haue in all degrees bin so maruailous & incredible ...
and now lie burie in oblibion ... by the slaughters and murders of these innocent
people.’’
78
It is difficult to establish how genuine English authors were in their
concern for the fate of the Aztec people, but it is likely that a society which believed
itself to be threatened by an all-too-powerful Spain paused to reflect on how quickly
a great civilization had been extinguished by that same power. The unfortunate fate
of the Aztecs was added to the list of atrocities attributed to Spain.
In 1587, Las Casas’s accounts were resurrected for English readers and given even
greater resonance in a pamphlet by William Lightfoot entitled The complaint of
England.
79
No data exists for us to be able to assess Lightfoot’s readership with any
degree of accuracy, but the pamphlet’s very size and price would suggest it reached
segments of the English population that ‘‘M.M.S.’’’s translation of Las Casas
did not.
80
Pamphlets were not only cheaper than books, they were also shorter and
simpler to read, and were therefore in great demand among people from all social
classes, including the middle and labouring poor.
81
The presence of information
about the Aztecs in pamphlets makes clear that English awareness of the Aztecs was
becoming increasingly broad and that such information was used to promote anti-
Spanish and nationalistic feelings.
Lightfoot’s anti-Spanish bias crept in as he exaggerated the Spanish cruelties
depicted by Las Casas. He highlighted Spanish treachery in arresting Moctezuma on
the same day he had welcomed the Spaniards with gifts and hospitality.
82
Then
Lightfoot went so far as to describe the Spanish conquerors as cannibals: ‘‘they
killed and rosted children,’’ ‘‘the curres came & straightwaies deuored the infant [ ...]
cut off his arms, then his legs, casting them to his dogs for liuerie.’’
83
The Spanish
294 M. Fernanda Valencia-Sua´rez
conquest had not only stopped to be seen as a glorious achievement by Spain, but
now it was a shameful event with the conqueror portrayed not as hero but as villain.
Lightfoot exaggerated the inversion still further by challenging the image of the
Spanish conquerors as civilized and Christian, suggesting rather that they were
barbarians, cannibals and idolaters.
In 1588, the fact that Philip II mounted the Armada campaign to invade England
proved, in English eyes, that the Spanish were guilty of all the charges laid against
them; whilst the rapid defeat of the Spanish navy endorsed the idea that England,
and not Spain, enjoyed God’s favour.
84
No sooner had the battle been won than
publications in the form of pamphlets and books began to appear celebrating the
victory and fuelling the accusations against Spain. A number of these documents
referred to the Aztecs, and their sufferings and agonies under Spanish rule were
presented again as evidence of the fate awaiting England had they not defeated the
Armada.
Criticism of Spain was not exclusive to the popular press and entertainment
literature. Publications such as Hakluyt’sPrincipal navigations in 1589, which aimed
to promote English expansion and maritime ventures, also referred to Spanish
cruelties.
85
Although Hakluyt quoted from ‘‘M.M.S.’’’s translation of Las Casas,
86
the most important contribution of his compendium to anti-Spanish literature came
from direct first-hand information about Tenochtitlan, its riches and people after the
conquest. This information was gleaned by the author from four Englishmen who
had been to New Spain and were thus able to provide ‘‘diuers obseruations
concerning the state of the Countrey.’’
87
The four English travellers, Robert Tomson,
John Chilton, Miles Philips, and Henry Hawks, confirmed that ‘‘Indians ... be a
courteous and louing kind of people, ingenious, and of great vnderstanding, and
they hate and abhorre the Spaniardes with all their hearts, they haue vsed such
horrible cruelties against them, and doe still keepe them in such subiection and
seruitude.’’
88
This suggested that English involvement in the Americas was necessary
to prevent the rest of the continent, its peoples and cultures from suffering the same
fate. Hakluyt expressed his concern clearly, noting that without English intervention
‘‘the Spaniards would soone dispatch all the Indians.’’
89
The production and use of information about the Aztecs had given proof of its
own power and had yielded, together with other English efforts, successful outcomes
for the English in the Americas and in the rest of the world. England had broken the
Spanish dominion of the oceans, expanding spectacularly its trade in the Atlantic,
the African coast, the Levant, Russia, and the Indian Ocean, and undertaking its
first efforts to settle permanently along the east coast of North America. The
empathy which the English felt toward the Aztecs in the early years of the 1580s,
which emerged from the perception of sharing the threat of Spanish domination,
waned as England secured her place in Europe after the defeat of the Great Armada.
Thereafter, England’s political, cultural and economic ambitions grew. The irony of
the situation lay in the fact that while Elizabethan England had eulogized the rich
and sophisticated Aztec civilization and had passionately criticized the Spanish
conquest, they later found expediency in the agony and destruction of the indigenous
peoples. The terrible effects of Spanish conquest and the English narrative of the
event saw to it that the Aztecs were now regarded as a people belonging to the past,
dissociated from the indigenous present. The surviving native peoples were
progressively ignored, while the Aztec past was evoked with curiosity and a degree
Atlantic Studies 295
of melancholy: ‘‘Mexico. O wonderfull and lamentable face of things. That
vnmeasurable tracte, and in trueth, another worlde, is wasted and worne away.’’
90
In English minds, the Aztec civilization survived only as a site of ‘‘valuable’’
information, while the suffering of its peoples was reduced to a rhetorical trope.
Evidently, sixteenth-century English interest in the indigenous peoples of Mexico
was grounded more in convenience than in a real concern about indigenous cultures
or about the suffering of peoples.
Notes on contributor
Marı´a Fernanda Valencia-Sua´rez was born in Mexico and worked, from 2001 to 2005, as a
research assistant at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). She
collaborated in the Centre for Research on North America (CISAN) and in projects such
as the Great Books of Latin America and the Clemente Course for Humanities in Morelos,
Mexico City and Chicago, IL. In 2006, she received her M.Phil. in Historical Studies from the
University of Cambridge, UK, where she stayed for the Ph.D. in History. Currently she is
working on her dissertation: ‘‘The rise and fall of the Aztec Empire through the lenses of
English imperial aspirations, 15191713.’’
Notes
1. Corte´s, 5 Letters of Corte´s, xii, 86. Corte´s’sfirst letter to the Emperor, written in 1519,
contained no information about Mexico-Tenochtitlan. It was sent from Veracruz before
Herna´n Corte´s marched towards the Central Valley of Mexico. This first letter was never
made public and its contents have only been reconstructed using other documents that
make reference to it.
2. The term ‘‘Aztec’’ will be used here to refer to the Nahua indigenous peoples, who called
themselves ‘‘Mexica’’ and lived in the area of Mexico-Tenochtitlan in the Central Valley of
Mexico, during and shortly after the Spanish Conquest in 1521. It is true that the name
‘‘Aztec’’ was not used by fifteenth or sixteenth-century indigenous people in Mexico, nor
by early modern English scholars who rather translated and adopted the term
‘‘Mexicanos’’ used by their Spanish contemporaries. It was not until the nineteenth
century that Javier Clavijero, Alexander von Humboldt and William H. Prescott used the
term ‘‘Aztec’’ to name the peoples of pre-Hispanic Mexico-Tenochtitlan and the domain
they extended over their neighbouring peoples. From then on, this meaning of the term
was popularized and adopted widely, particularly after the independence of Mexico in
1810 when it served to distinguish ‘‘modern’’ Mexicans from pre-conquest Mexicans.
There have recently been remarkable efforts from scholars in Mexico and Spain to
substitute ‘‘Aztec’’ with the more accurate term ‘‘Mexica’’; however, this word has not yet
acquired the appeal, the wide international recognition and the secure hold on the
imagination that the term ‘‘Aztec’’ enjoys. Likewise, the option of using the early modern
European designation of the indigenous peoples of the Central Valley of Mexico as
‘‘Mexicans’’ would prove rather confusing since its current usage refers to the citizens of
present-day Mexico, the country. On the controversies and current debates on the term
‘‘Aztec’’ see Leo´n-Portilla, ‘‘Aztecas,’’ 30713; and Barlow, ‘‘Some Remarks,’’ 3459.
3. The only author who has referred specifically to the Aztecs in the context of early modern
England is Benjamin Keen in his book Aztec Image in Western Thought, 16672, 20616.
However, Keen left considerable territory unexplored as well as many questions
unanswered.
4. Apenes, Mapas antiguos; Kagan, Urban Images; and Wolff, America.
5. Arber, First Three English Books, xxi; and Hakluyt, Principal Nauigations, 208. Evidence
of this sentiment can be found in the works of John Rastell and Robert Thorne.
6. Andrews, Trade, Plunder, and Settlement, 47.
7. See Muldoon, Americas in the Spanish World Order; Muldoon, ‘‘Discovery, Grant,
Charter, Conquest, or Purchase’’; and Mackenthun, Metaphors of Dispossession.
296 M. Fernanda Valencia-Sua´rez
8. McFarlane, British in the Americas, 13.
9. Quinn, England and the Discovery of America, 160.
10. McGrath, Bristol and America, 34; and Pieper, Vermittlung einer neuen Welt, 272.
11. Ho
¨fele, ‘‘Introduction,’’ 12; Pieper, ‘‘Me´xico en los medios de comunicacio´n,’’ 76; and
Pieper, Vermittlung einer neuen Welt, 25, 239.
12. Burke, ‘‘Renaissance Translator as Go-Between,’’ 21.
13. Adams, Catalogue of Books, 316. These copies were held at Cambridge University Library,
Clare College and Trinity College.
14. Keen, Aztec Image in Western Thought, 69.
15. Honour, New Golden Land, 589.
16. Hampe ‘‘Introduction,’’ 22. The first publication of Weiditz’s drawings of the Mexican
jugglers appeared in Berlin, in 1927.
17. Hakluyt, Principal Nauigations, 208; and McGrath, Bristol and America, 11.
18. Fritze, New Worlds, 2156.
19. Mancke, ‘‘Negotiating an Empire,’’ 236.
20. McFarlane, British in the Americas, 14; Andrews, Trade, Plunder, and Settlement, 56, 667;
and Mu
¨nster, Treatyse of the Newe India.
21. Canny, ‘‘Ideology of English Colonization,’’ 57598; Pagden, ‘‘Struggle for Legitimacy,’’
34; Armitage, Ideological Origins, 249; and Ohlmeyer, ‘‘Civilizinge of Those Rude Parts,’’
13043. Ireland had been regarded as part of the English realm since the Norman
Conquest. However, England faced problems in effectively reducing and controlling the
Irish. Elizabethan England undertook various attempts of conquest and colonization in
Ireland.
22. Martyr, Decades, 2, 7.
23. Arber, First Three English Books, xxxix.
24. Martyr, Decades,7.
25. Ibid.
26. Ibid., 4.
27. Ibid., 16.
28. Ibid., 17.
29. Williams, American Indian, 153.
30. Andrews, Trade, Plunder, and Settlement, 122.
31. Sylva, Gardino cosmografico, v recto-viii verso.
32. Pelling and White, Physicians.
33. Sylva, Gardino cosmografico, II verso, III recto.
34. Pelling and White, Physicians.
35. Drake, Secret Memoirs, 31. The Secret Memoirs of Robert Dudley mention that it was an
Italian surgeon who, by administering some poison, assisted Dudley, in 1573, in
permanently removing from the scene the husband of his lover, Lady Douglas Sheffield,
who he later secretly married. There is no evidence that Bartholo Sylva was this Italian
doctor, nor is there any evidence that Leicester arranged for Sheffield’s demise. However,
this being true it would explain SylvaDudley’s bond and the protection that the latter
gave to Sylva.
36. Schleiner, Tudor and Stuart Women Writers, 40.
37. Sylva, Gardino cosmografico, iiii recto. (Translation is mine.)
38. Ibid., i recto. (Translation is mine.)
39. Burke, ‘‘The Renaissance Translator as Go-Between,’’ 26.
40. Ortelius, Nova totius terrarum orbis. See detail in left corner of plate 8.
41. Ramusio, Navigazioni e Viaggi, Vol. 3, 307.
42. Bustamante (ed.), Conquistador Ano´nimo, 911.
43. Sylva, Gardino cosmografico, lxxxxi. (Translation is mine).
44. Ibid.
45. Ibid.
46. Shirley, Mapping of the World, 133.
47. Binding, Imagined corners, 126, 255.
48. Mundy, ‘‘Mapping the Aztec Capital,’’ 13.
Atlantic Studies 297
49. Corte´s, Preclara narration, attached map. Scholars have frequently thought the map to be
oriented with the Gulf to the left and Tenochtitlan to the right. However, the map was
displayed as shown here, following the setting of a copy, held by the British Library, which
maintains the original orientation.
50. Bordone, Isolario, Libro I, x recto.
51. Mu
¨nster, Cosmographia Universalis, 1535; and Pinet, Plantz, pourtraitz et descriptions, 297.
The map of Tenochtitlan, included in Mu
¨nster’s original was not incorporated in its
translation into English in 1550.
52. Braun and Hogenberg, Civitates Orbis terrarum, plate after p. 58.
53. Santa Cruz, Islario.
54. Linne´,El valle y la ciudad de Me´xico, 165.
55. Santa Cruz, Islario, 523.
56. Ibid., 5245, 36.
57. Sylva, Gardino cosmografico, v recto, viii verso. Among them were the evangelical preacher
Edward Dering, his wealthy wife Anne, Pietro Bizzari, and the Cooke sisters: Mildred,
wife of William Cecil, Lord Burghley; Anne, mother of the famous Francis Bacon;
Elizabeth, widow of Sir Thomas Hoby, ambassador in France; and Katherine, married to
Sir Henry Killigrew, a distinguished diplomat.
58. Peckham, True Reporte,234.
59. Powel, Historie of Cambria, 229.
60. Ibid.
61. Peckham, True Reporte, 24.
62. Powel, Historie of Cambria, 228.
63. Hakluyt, Principal Nauigations, 134.
64. Martyr, History of Trauayle; and Lo´pez de Go´mara, Pleasant Historie. Willes enlarged
and completed this second edition of Martyr’sDecades after Richard Eden died in 1576
leaving his work unfinished.
65. Parker, Books to Build an Empire, 69; and McCann, English Discovery of America, 155.
66. McCann, English Discovery of America, 159.
67. Taylor, Tudor Geography, 2756.
68. Honour, New Golden Land, 18.
69. Andrews, Trade, Plunder, and Settlement, 192.
70. Raleigh, Discouerie of Guiana, 9.
71. Danvers, Portuguese in India,347; McCann, English Discovery of America, 135; and
Appleby, ‘‘War, Politics and Colonization,’’ 62.
72. Juderı´as, Leyenda negra. Juderı´as, a conservative Spanish crown official, coined this term
in 1917.
73. Las Casas, Brevı´sima relacio´n; and Las Casas, Spanish Colonie.
74. Scanlan, Colonial Writing, 20.
75. Las Casas, Spanish Colonie, 46.
76. Ibid., p. 1; and Andrews, Trade, Plunder, and Settlement, 88, 1245, 2246. The Protestant
revolt started in 1569; the following year, Philip sent troops under the command of the
Duke of Alba to occupy the country. The revolt persisted even after the death of Philip II
in 1598, and was finally crushed in 1621.
77. Las Casas, Spanish Colonie, 45.
78. Ibid., 8.
79. Lightfoot, Complaint of England; and Watt, Cheap Print, 264. Here the word ‘‘pamphlet’’
is understood to be a small, unbound book.
80. Levy, ‘‘How the Information Spread,’’ 15.
81. Watt, Cheap Print, 3.
82. Lightfoot, Complaint of England, 56.
83. Ibid., 578.
84. Maltby, Black Legend in England, 76; and Rowse, Expansion of Elizabethan England, 181.
85. Hakluyt, Principal Nauigations, 174, 44781.
86. Ibid., 174.
87. Ibid., 447.
88. Ibid., 481.
298 M. Fernanda Valencia-Sua´rez
89. Ibid., 468.
90. King, Lectures vpon Ionas, 178.
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