Chapter 18: Clouds over Barcelona (1516-1525)
As the war was going on in Italy, Hernan Cortés finally had his chance to prove his might. After exploring the Paraná river, tired of his demands for more men to explore further west, the governor of La Plata₁ , Juan Pedro Díaz de Solís, managed to send him back to the Peninsula in the summer of 1525. When he finally arrived to the Peninsula, he found himself shipped with the Tercios that were to reinforce the Hispanic holding of Naples. For a while, Cortés was going to be away of America and thus it fell on Diego de Ordás, who had managed to explore the shores of present day Venezuela and establish a few outposts. However, as Bartolomé de las Casas would write to the king,
"de Ordás seemed to be possesd by the Devil, as he was completely obssesed to exploring further west"; however, de Ordás was luckier than Cortés and for his efforts he was given the command of six ships. It was the beginning of what, eventually, would be the Hispanic conquest of the Inca Empire.
Red: Diego de Ordás (1525-1526); grey: Alonso de Ojeda (1528); lilac: Diego de Almagro (1529-1531); purple: Vasco Núñez de Balboa (1529-1531);
blue: Pedro de Candía (1530-1536); yellow: Francisco Pizarro (1533-1545); green: Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada (1541-1544); pink: Nicolás Federmann (1542-1544)
While Diego de Ordás, Diego de Almagro and Alonso de Ojeda (1525-1531) explored the north and west coast of America, discovering the so-called
"Mar del Sur", that is, the Pacific Ocean, as they were looking for the "Birú", that is, the Inca Empire, which was thorn by a vicious civil war. Thus, when Vasco Núñez de Balboa arrived to what was to become San Mateo de las Esmeraldas, he found a decaying and weak empire that was hardly able to defend itself. Balboa had with him barely 200 mem with him, but they were widely equipped with arquebuses and after a few skirmishes, their firepower deeply impressed one of the Inca pretenders, Huascar, who offered Balboa endless riches to help him in his war against Atahualpa, and dooming the Inca Empire without being aware of it. After a few battles, Atahualpa's forces were terribly mauled and his own men turned against him. Atahualpa was murdered in early 1544. Huascar seemed on the verge of victory, when Balboa turned against him. In the summer of 1545, Balboa, after joining hands with Pizarro, arrested and executed Huascar. However, this left him in control of barely the north of the Inca Empire, which by then it was broken itself into several small kingdoms that kept fighting among them.
However, Balboa's legend was to be somewhat obscured by the European events.
The chronicles claim that the sun began to set upon Eduardo I's realms after the death of his elder son, also called Jaime, in 1523. Jaime was 33 and died in a hunting accident, who was survived by two daughters; Violante and Constanza, so the king wasted no time to declare his second son Eduardo as Prince of Asturias and Duke of Girona. Eduardo, by then, had one son, Alfonso (b. in 1508), who became the future of the house of Barcelona. It is time, also, to take a look on the Hispanic Royal Family. In addition to Eduardo I's son, there were his cousins:
-Pedro, Duke of Palma (1462-1494), and his son and heir, Juan (1481-1514), his son Alfonso (1465-1525) and his daughter María (1470-1560).
-Tomas, Duke of Alcubierre (1440-1505) had two sons, Alfonso (1466-1513) and Enrique (1472-1514 )
-Ramon Berenguer, Duke of Lucena (1441-1502), had two sons, Berenguer (1452-1505), and one daughter, María (b. in 1454-1540), who was married to Pedro III of Urgell (1440-1466), with whom she had a son, Jaime, and two daughters.
The chronicles explain that Juan, the future Duke of Palma, had a tense relations with his cousins Alfonso, the future Duke of Alcubierre, and Enrique, the future Duke of Trastámara, that only went worse with time, until it became a deep hatred when they became grown men. As we shall see, this hatred was to cause a terrible drama.
₁ - PD Argentina