Lope de Aguirre

A modern-day fictional depiction of Lope de Aguirre

Lope de Aguirre (8 November 1510 – 27 October 1561) was a Spanish conquistador of Basque ancestry[1] who was active in South America. Nicknamed El Loco ('the Madman'), he styled himself "Wrath of God, Prince of Freedom, King of Tierra Firme".[2] Aguirre is best known for his final expedition down the Amazon river in search of the mythical golden King El Dorado. In 1561 Aguirre sent a letter which defied the Spanish monarch Philip II by declaring an independent state of Peru. Aguirre's expedition ended with his death, and in the years since then he has been treated by historians as a symbol of cruelty and treachery in the early history of colonial Spanish America,[3][4] and has become an antihero in literature, cinema and other arts.[5]

In Spain

Aguirre was born around 1510 in the Araotz Valley (a valley and hamlet belonging to Oñati), close to Arantzazu in the province of Gipuzkoa, in the Basque Country of northern Spain.[6] He was the son of a nobleman, possibly from a family of court clerks.[7] Aguirre was in his twenties and living in Seville when Hernando Pizarro returned from Peru and brought back the treasures of the Incas, inspiring Aguirre to follow in his footsteps.

In the New World

Aguirre probably enlisted in an expedition of 250 men chosen to serve under the command of Rodrigo Duran.[8] He arrived in Peru in 1536 or 1537. Aguirre got work "breaking" stallions in Cuzco, the capital of Nuevo Toledo, and was appointed regidor (alderman) of the city.[4] As a conquistador, however, he soon became infamous for his violence, cruelty, and sedition against the Crown.[9]

In 1544, Aguirre was at the side of Peru's first viceroy, Blasco Núñez Vela, who had arrived from Spain with orders to implement the New Laws, suppress the Encomiendas, and liberate the natives from slavery.[10][11] Many of the conquistadors refused to implement these laws, which prohibited them from exploiting the Indians. Aguirre, however, took part in the plot with Melchor Verdugo to free the viceroy (who had been imprisoned on the island of San Lorenzo), and thus turned against Gonzalo Pizarro (the leader of the anti-viceroy/New Laws faction). After the failed attempt, they escaped from Lima to Cajamarca, and started to gather men to help the viceroy. In the meantime, thanks to the oidor Alvarez, the viceroy had escaped to Tumbes and gathered a small military force in the belief that all the country would rise up to defend the Crown under the royal flag. The viceroy's resistance to Pizarro and his deputy Francisco de Carvajal, the infamous "el demonio de los Andes" ("demon of the Andes") would last for two years until he was defeated in Añaquito on January 18, 1546.[12][13]

Aguirre and Melchor Verdugo, a converso Jew, had gone to Nicaragua sailing to Trujillo with 33 men.[14][15] Verdugo had conferred captain's rank on Rodrigo de Esquivel and Nuño de Guzmán, sergeant major rank on Aguirre and contador status on the cleric Alonso de Henao,[16] who would later participate in the expedition of Pedro de Ursúa to Omagua and El Dorado.[4][17] However, in 1551, Aguirre returned to Potosí (then still part of Peru and now part of Bolivia). The judge, Francisco de Esquivel, arrested him and charged him with infraction of the laws protecting the Indians. The judge discounted Aguirre's justifications and his claims of belonging to the Spanish gentry and sentenced him to a public flogging.[18] His pride wounded, Aguirre waited for the end of the judge's mandate to avenge his honor. Fearing Aguirre's vengeance, the judge fled, changing his residence constantly.[14]

Aguirre pursued Esquivel to Lima, Quito and then to Cuzco, missing him at all three places. For three years he trailed Esquivel on foot and without shoes, his soldiers following this obstinate pursuit with interest.[19] Aguirre finally found him in Cuzco, taking a nap in the library of his house, and wearing a coat of chain mail he always wore for fear of Aguirre. Aguirre crept up to the sleeping Esquivel and stabbed him twice with a dagger, but when the mail stopped his blows to the former magistrate's body, he stabbed him in the right temple and killed him.[20][21][22] Protected by friends who had hidden him, Aguirre fled from Cuzco and took refuge with a relative in Huamanga.

In 1554, needing to put down the rebellion of Hernández Girón, Alonso de Alvarado secured a pardon for everyone who had been affiliated with Aguirre and enlisted in his army. Aguirre fought and was wounded by two musket shots at the battle of Chuquinga against Girón, resulting in an incurable limp that would cause his peers to ostracise him.[23]

Search for El Dorado

Together with his daughter Elvira, Aguirre joined the 1560 expedition of Pedro de Ursúa down the Marañón and Amazon Rivers with 300 Spaniards and hundreds of natives;[24] the actual goal of Ursúa was to send idle veterans from the former Peruvian civil wars away, to keep them from trouble-making, using the El Dorado myth as a lure. A year later, Aguirre participated in the overthrow and killing of Ursúa and his successor, Fernando de Guzmán, whom he ultimately succeeded.[25][26] He and his men reached the Atlantic (probably by the Orinoco River), destroying native villages on the way. On March 23, 1561, Aguirre urged 186 officers and soldiers to sign a statement acknowledging him as "Prince of Peru, Tierra Firme and Chile".[14]

In 1561, he seized Isla Margarita and brutally suppressed any opposition to his reign, killing the governor and many innocent people. When he crossed to the mainland in an attempt to take Panama, his open rebellion against the Spanish crown came to an end. He was surrounded at Barquisimeto, Venezuela, where he murdered his own daughter, Elvira,[27] "because someone that I loved so much should not come to be bedded by uncouth people". He also killed several followers who intended to capture him. He was eventually captured and shot to death; his body was beheaded and cut into quarters with pieces being sent to nearby towns as a warning.[28][29]

Popular culture

Aguirre has been represented in film twice: by Klaus Kinski in the allegorical film Aguirre, the Wrath of God in 1972, and by Omero Antonutti in El Dorado in 1988.

Aguirre's ill-fated voyage is the topic of Ramón J. Sender's 1968 Spanish-language novel La aventura equinocial de Lope de Aguirre and of Stephen Minta's 1995 book Aguirre: The Re-Creation of a Sixteenth-Century Journey Across South America, in which Minta retraces the expedition.

Aguirre was also featured in the educational video game The Amazon Trail.

References

  1. ↑ Mari Carmen Ramirez; Tomas Ybarra-Frausto; Hector Olea (24 April 2012). Resisting Categories: Latin American and/or Latino?. Yale University Press. p. 157. ISBN 978-0-300-18715-1.
  2. ↑ Charles Nicholl (23 June 1997). The Creature in the Map: A Journey to El Dorado. University of Chicago Press. p. 27. ISBN 978-0-226-58025-8.
  3. ↑ "Lope de Aguirre". (2010). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved October 08, 2010, from Encyclopædia Britannica Online: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/9899/Lope-de-Aguirre
  4. 1 2 3 Bart L. Lewis (2003). The Miraculous Lie: Lope de Aguirre and the Search for El Dorado in the Latin American Historical Novel. Lexington Books. pp. 7–8. ISBN 978-0-7391-0787-4.
  5. ↑ Thomas Gómez (2009). "Génesis de un antihéroe: Lope de Aguirre entre crónicas, literatura, cine y otras artes". In Guillermo Serés, Mercedes Serna Arnáiz. Los límites del océano: estudios filológicos de crónica y épica en el nuevo mundo. Centro para la Edición de los Clásicos Españoles. pp. 65–74. ISBN 978-84-936665-2-1.
  6. ↑ José Manuel Azcona Pastor (2004). Possible Paradises: Basque Emigration to Latin America. University of Nevada Press. p. 49. ISBN 978-0-87417-444-1.
  7. ↑ Theodoor de Booy (1919). Robertson, James Alexander, ed. "Lope de Aguirre". The Hispanic American Historical Review. Board of Editors of The Hispanic American Historical Review. 2: 639.
  8. ↑ Demetrio Ramos (1958). "Lope de Aguirre en Cartagena de Indias y su primera rebelión" (PDF). Revista de Indias. 18: 519.
  9. ↑ Hugo R. Cortés; Eduardo Godoy; Mariela Insúa Cereceda (2008). Rebeldes y aventureros: del Viejo al Nuevo Mundo. Iberoamericana Editorial. p. 84. ISBN 978-84-8489-390-5.
  10. ↑ Sherwin K. Bryant (2014). Rivers of Gold, Lives of Bondage: Governing Through Slavery in Colonial Quito. UNC Press Books. p. 25. ISBN 978-1-4696-0772-6.
  11. ↑ Lesley Byrd Simpson (1982). The Encomienda in New Spain: The Beginning of Spanish Mexico. University of California Press. pp. 132–133. ISBN 978-0-520-04630-6.
  12. ↑ Indalecio Liévano Aguirre (5 August 2015). Los grandes conflictos sociales y económicos de nuestra historia: Tomo I. Tercer Mundo Editores. p. 44. ISBN 978-1-5078-2237-1.
  13. ↑ Kenneth J. Andrien (2001). Andean Worlds: Indigenous History, Culture, and Consciousness Under Spanish Rule, 1532-1825. University of New Mexico Press. p. 44. ISBN 978-0-8263-2358-3.
  14. 1 2 3 Gabriel Sánchez Sorondo (1 January 2010). Historia oculta de la conquista de América. Ediciones Nowtilus S.L. p. 120. ISBN 978-84-9763-601-8.
  15. ↑ Miguel Otero Silva; Efraín Subero (1 January 1985). Casas muertas: Lope de Aguirre, príncipe de la libertad. Fundacion Biblioteca Ayacuch. p. 128. ISBN 978-84-660-0130-4.
  16. ↑ James Lockhart (18 December 2013). The Men of Cajamarca: A Social and Biographical Study of the First Conquerors of Peru. University of Texas Press. p. 332. ISBN 978-0-292-76117-9.
  17. ↑ Works Issued by the Hakluyt Society. The Society. 1861. p. 35.
  18. ↑ Elsa Eufemann-Barria (16 October 2014). Orellana, Ursúa y Lope de Aguirre: Sus hazañas novelescas por el río Amazonas (siglo XVI)). p. 192. ISBN 978-84-940067-1-5.
  19. ↑ L.E. Elliot (January 1922). "Lope de Aguirre, The Traitor: A Tragedy of Exploration in the Americas". The Pan-American Magazine. XXXIV (1 ed.). Pan_American Magazine. p. 10.
  20. ↑ Evan Connell (1 July 2015). Aztec Treasure House. Counterpoint LLC. p. 202. ISBN 978-1-61902-691-9.
  21. ↑ Robert Silverberg (1996). The Golden Dream: Seekers of El Dorado. Ohio University Press. p. 209.
  22. ↑ Miguel Navarro Viola (1865). Revista de Buenos Aires: Historia Americana, literatura, derecho y veriedades. Mayo. p. 554.
  23. ↑ Americas (English Ed.). Organization of American States. 1963. p. 31.
  24. ↑ Beatriz Pastor; Sergio Callau (1 January 2011). Lope de Aguirre y la rebelión de los marañones. Parkstone International. pp. 1524–1525. ISBN 978-84-9740-535-5.
  25. ↑ William A. Douglass; Jon Bilbao (2005). Amerikanuak: Basques in the New World. University of Nevada Press. p. 84. ISBN 978-0-87417-625-4.
  26. ↑ Elena Mampel González; Neus Escandell Tur (1 January 1981). Lope de Aguirre: Crónicas, 1559-1561. Edicions Universitat Barcelona. p. 132. ISBN 978-84-85411-51-1.
  27. ↑ Elena Mampel González; Neus Escandell Tur (1 January 1981). Lope de Aguirre: Crónicas, 1559-1561. Edicions Universitat Barcelona. p. 273. ISBN 978-84-85411-51-1.
  28. ↑ Lewis 2003, p. 18
  29. ↑ Roberto Gonzalez Echevarría (13 September 1996). The Cambridge History of Latin American Literature. Cambridge University Press. p. 159. ISBN 978-0-521-34069-4.

Bibliography

External links

Wikisource has the text of a 1905 New International Encyclopedia article about Lope de Aguirre.
  1. ↑ https://www.amazon.com/Dos-cr%C3%B3nicas-desconocidas-Lope-Aguirre/dp/8424512618
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