Rivers of Gold : The Rise of the Spanish Empire, from Columbus to Magellan

881 Pages·2013·12.29 MB·English

by  Hugh Thomas

Praise for
RIVERS OF GOLD
“Rivers of Gold has an unflagging narrative, a host of characters and a
way of holding the reader’s attention.”
—Los Angeles Times Book Review
“Magisterial … Rivers of Gold would be an astonishing work by any
author, yet its publication simply affirms Hugh Thomas’s record as one
of the most productive and wide-ranging historians of modern times.”
—The New York Times Book Review
“Written with enormous verve and panache … [Thomas] luxuriates in
the details of people and places that bring his story to life.”
—The New York Review of Books
“Handsomely illustrated and written with verve … This sweeping
narrative of the early years of the Spanish main is quintessential Hugh
Thomas: big, bold, informative and meticulously researched. It is the
kind of ‘history in the grand manner’ for which Thomas … is famous.”
—The Washington Post Book World
“Thomas puts his erudition to fine use … analyzing, with care and
sensitivity, the thirty elastic years that utterly redefined Western
civilization.”
—The Boston Globe
“Engagingly presented, this book clearly shows the author’s passion
for his subject.”
—Booklist
“A fascinating account of man’s conquest of the sea, enabled by his
heroism and unbounded imagination, and caused by his urge to
discover the unknown as well as by his parallel thirst for gold, which
gave rise to his baseness, brutality, and treachery. The author’s
description of men and events is generally marked by acute
observation, many worthful data hitherto ignored, and a rare sense of
objectivity.”
—BENZION NETANYAHU
“No one writes better than Hugh Thomas on the heartbreaking clash
of civilizations that produced the Spanish Empire. This book is an
event in itself, full to the brim with knowledge, color, and deep
understanding.”
—ANN WROE, author of
The Perfect Prince and Pontius Pilate
“Rivers of Gold is history in the grand manner. Hugh Thomas has
written a vivid, dramatic, and compelling narrative of the rise of the
Spanish Empire to world domination.”
—ARTHUR M. SCHLESINGER, JR.
“Hugh Thomas is a scholar not only thoroughly familiar with the
written sources of Spanish history but also one personally acquainted
with the regions where it unfolded. This lends his account of the
discovery of America and of the early contacts with its peoples unique
vividness as well as authority. Rivers of Gold is a masterly account of
what is arguably the most important event in Europe’s millennial
history.”
—RICHARD PIPES,
Baird Professor of History, Emeritus,
Harvard University
“Hugh Thomas has now retold this remarkable story—or at least the
first thirty years of it—in a splendid volume, bold and strong in its
outlines, rich in fascinating details, punctuated by well-chosen
quotations from contemporaries and eyewitnesses, and accompanied
by many maps and excellent illustrations. It is an ambitious project,
magnificently carried out.”
—PAUL JOHNSON

2005 Random House Trade Paperback Edition Copyright © 2003 by
Hugh Thomas All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Random House Trade
Paperbacks, an imprint of The Random House Publishing
Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York RANDOM HOUSE
TRADE PAPERBACKS and colophon are trademarks of Random House,
Inc.
Originally published in hardcover in the United States by Random
House, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a
division of Random House, Inc., in 2004 and in the United Kingdom
by Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London in 2003.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Thomas, Hugh.
Rivers of gold : the rise of the Spanish Empire, from Columbus to
Magellan / Hugh Thomas.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
eISBN: 978-0-80415214-3
1. Latin America—History—To 1600. 2. Latin America—Discovery
and exploration—Spanish. 3. Latin America—Discovery and
exploration—Religious aspects. 4. Spain—History—Ferdinand and
Isabella, 1479–1516. 5. Spain—History—Charles I, 1516–
1556. 6. Spain—Colonies—America—History—16th century. I.
Title.
F1411.T36 2004
980′.01—dc22 2003069316
Random House website address: www.atrandom.com
v3.1
To carry out the conquest of so many countries, to cross so many seas and so many
rivers, valleys, forests and mountains, to travel down the Amazon from its headwaters in
Peru to the Atlantic, as the astonishing Orellana did, to challenge Moctezuma and
Atahualpa in their own countries, as Cortés and Pizarro did, to survive the march along
the banks of the wonderful river Magdalena, some great idea was needed as well as
human will (“human will not calm calculation”), something which focused the mind
was necessary—just as some idea was necessary to sustain the Spaniards in their seven
hundred years’ struggle against Islam.
AMÉRICO CASTRO,
The Structure of Spanish History
How many valleys and how many flowers, simple and delicious! How many sea coasts
with very long beaches and most excellent ports! How many and what vast lakes! How
many fountains both hot and cold, very close, some of them, and others farther
away …!
GONZALO FERNÁNDEZ DE OVIEDO,
Historia general y natural de las Indias
Here I cannot forbear to commend the patient virtue of the Spaniards: we seldom or
never find any nation hath endured so many misadventures and miseries as the
Spaniards have done in their Indian discoveries; yet persisting in their enterprises, with
invincible constancy, they have annexed to their kingdom so many goodly provinces, as
bury the remembrance of all dangers past. Tempests and shipwrecks, famine,
overthrows, mutinies, heat and cold, pestilence and all manner of diseases, both old and
new, together with extreme poverty and want of all things needful, have been the
enemies wherewith every one of their most noble discoverers, at one time or another,
hath encountered.
SIR WALTER RALEIGH,
The History of the World
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Epigraph
List of Illustrations
List of Maps
Introduction
Book One
SPAIN AT THE CROSSROADS
1. “This city is a wife, whose husband is the hill”
2. “The only happy country”
3. “Great tranquility and order”
Book Two
COLUMBUS
4. “Only by monarchs”
5. “For God’s sake, tell me what song you are singing”
6. “A white stretch of land”
7. “Tears in the royal eyes”
8. “They love their neighbors as themselves”
9. “We concede the islands and lands discovered by you”
10. “As if in their own country”
11. “Mainland, no island”
12. “Whether we can sell those slaves or not”
13. “Malevolent jokes of the goddess Fortune”
Book Three
BOBADILLA AND OVANDO
14. “To course o’er better waters …”
15. “The greatest good that we can wish for”
16. “Teach them and indoctrinate them with good customs”
17. “Children must constantly obey their parents”
18. “You ought to send one hundred black slaves”
19. “And they leapt onto the land”
20. “Call this other place Amerige”
Book Four
DIEGO COLÓN
21. “A voice crying in the wilderness”
22. “Infidels may justly defend themselves”
23. “Without partiality, love, or hatred”
Book Five
BALBOA AND PEDRARIAS
24. “They took possession of all that sea”
25. “A man very advanced in excess”
Book Six
CISNEROS
26. “King Fernando! He is dead!”
27. “Go back and see what is happening”
Book Seven
CHARLES, KING AND EMPEROR
28. “The best place in the world for blacks”
29. “It is clear as day …”
30. “I was moved to act by a natural compassion”
31. “For empire comes from God alone”
32. “The new golden land”
Book Eight
NEW SPAIN
33. “I am to pass away like a faded flower”
34. “This land is the richest in the world”
35. “O our lord, thou has suffered”
Book Nine
MAGELLAN AND ELCANO
36. “Go with good fortune”
Book Ten
THE NEW EMPIRE
37. “The new emperor”
38. “From the poplars I come, mama”
APPENDIX A: FAMILY TREES
THE ALBAS AND THE COLUMBUSES
THE SPANISH ROYAL FAMILY
THE MENDOZAS
THE PONCES DE LEÓN
THE FONSECAS