Pánfilo de Narváez
Spanish conquistador and soldier in the Americas
1478 CE to 1528 CE
Pánfilo de Narváez (1478–1528) is a Spanish conquistador and soldier in the Americas.
Born in Spain, he first embarks to Jamaica in 1510 as a soldier.
He comes to participate in the conquest of Cuba and leads an expedition to Camagüey escorting Bartolomé de las Casas.
Las Casas describes him as exceedingly cruel towards the natives.
He is most remembered as the leader of two failed expeditions: In 1520 he is sent to Mexico by the Governor of Cuba Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar, with the objective of stopping the invasion by Hernán Cortés which had not been authorized by the Governor.
Even though his nine hundred men outnumber those of Cortés by a factor of three to one, Narváez is outmaneuvered and taken prisoner.
After a couple of years in captivity in Mexico he returns to Spain, where King Carlos V names him adelantado with authority to explore and colonize Florida.
In 1527, Narváez embarks for Florida with five ships and six hundred men, among them Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, who will later describe the expedition in his Naufragios.
A storm south of Cuba wrecks several of the ships; the rest of the expedition continues on to Florida, where the men are eventually stranded among hostile natives.
The survivors work their way along the Gulf Coast trying to get to the province of Pánuco.
During a storm Narváez and a small group of men are carried out to sea on a raft and are not seen again.
Only four men survive the Narváez expedition.
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The island of Jamaica had been colonized around CE 650 by the people of the Ostionoid culture, who had likely come from South America.
Alligator Pond in Manchester Parish and …
Pánfilo de Narváez, born in Castile (in either Cuéllar or Valladolid) in 1478, is a relative of Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar, the first Spanish governor of Cuba.
Clergyman Bartolomé de las Casas described him as "a man of authoritative personality, tall of body and somewhat blonde inclined to redness".
Narváez, who had taken part in the Spanish conquest of Jamaica in 1509, had gone to Cuba in 1511 to participate in the conquest of this island under the command of Velázquez de Cuéllar, leading expeditions to the eastern end of the island in the company of las Casas and Juan de Grijalva.
Las Casas observes a number of massacres initiated by the invaders as the Spanish sweep over Cuba, notably the massacre near Camagüey of the inhabitants of Caonao.
As reported by las Casas, who was an eyewitness, Narváez presided over the infamous massacre of Caonao, where Spanish troops put to the sword a village full of some three thousand Indians who had come to Manzanillo meet them with offerings of loaves, fishes and other foodstuffs.
Following the massacre of the Indians, who were "without provocation, butchered", Narváez asks de las Casas, "What do you think about what our Spaniards have done?" to which de las Casas replies, "I send both you and them to the Devil!"
The Spanish have established at least two different settlements on the north coast of Cuba between 1514 and 1519, one of them in La Chorrera, today in the neighborhoods of Vedado and Miramar, next to the Almendares River.
The town that will become Havana finally originates in 1519 adjacent to what is at this time called Puerto de Carenas (literally, "Careening Bay").
The quality of this natural bay, which now hosts Havana's harbor, warrants this change of location.
The city will soon become an important naval and commercial center for the Spanish colonies in the Caribbean.
Pánfilo de Narváez will gave Havana—the sixth town founded by the Spanish on Cuba—its name: San Cristóbal de la Habana.
The name combines San Cristóbal, patron saint of Havana, and Habana, of obscure origin, possibly derived from Habaguanex, a Native American chief who controlled that area, as mentioned by Diego Velásquez in his report to the king of Spain.
Shortly after the founding of Cuba's first cities, the island serves as little more than a base for the Conquista of other lands.
Moctezuma informs Cortés that a much larger party of Spaniards consisting of nineteen ships and fourteen hundred soldiers under the command of Pánfilo de Narváez had arrived.
Narváez had been sent by Governor Velázquez from Cuba to kill or capture Cortés.
Leaving his two hundred "least reliable soldiers" under the command of Pedro de Alvarado to guard Moctezuma in Tenochtitlan, Cortés sets out against Narváez, who has advanced onto Cempoala.
The conquistador Panfilo de Narváez, who had returned to Spain after two years of imprisonment in Mexico by Hernán Cortés, had on December 25, 1526, been commissioned by Charles V to subdue and colonize vast lands from Florida westward along what is now the Gulf Coast of the United States for Spain, with numerous governing titles bestowed on the colonial official.
The contract had given him one year to gather an army, leave Spain, establish at least two towns of one hundred people each, and garrison two additional forts at any point along the coast.
Appointed adelantado of Florida, Narváez, who has had to secure the funding for the expedition, has recruited investors by marketing the promise of riches comparable to those found by Hernán Cortés.
He also calls in many debts owed to him, and uses this money to pay for major expenses of the expedition.
Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, appointed by the Crown as treasurer and sheriff, is to serve as the king's eyes and ears, and is second in command.
He is to ensure the Crown receives five percent of any wealth acquired during the expedition.
Other members include Alonso de Solís as royal inspector of mines, Alonso Enríquez as comptroller, an Aztec prince named by the Spanish as Don Pedro, and a contingent of Franciscan and diocesan priests led by Padre Juan Suárez (sometimes spelled "Xuárez").
Most of the six hundred men are troops, chiefly men from Spain and Portugal, including some of mixed African descent, and some twenty-two from Italy.
The five-ship expedition departs Spain from the port of Sanlúcar de Barrameda at the mouth of the Guadalquivir River on June 17, 1527.
Among the force are about four hundred and fifty troops, officers, and enslaved men.
About one hundred and fifty others are sailors, wives (married men may not travel without their wives to the Indies), and servants.
The first stop on the voyage is the Canary Islands, about a week's journey and eight hundred and fifty miles into the Atlantic.
Here the expedition resupplies such items as water, wine, firewood, meats, and fruit.
The Narvaéz expedition arrives in Santo Domingo (Hispaniola) sometime in August 1527.
During the stay, troops begin deserting.
Although always a problem on such expeditions, the men may also have deserted because of hearing about the recent return of an expedition led by Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón, in which four hundred and fifty of six hundred men had perished.
Nearly one hundred men desert the Narváez expedition in the first month in Santo Domingo.
The expedition stops here to purchase horses, as well as two small ships for exploring the coastline.
Although Narváez is able to buy only one small ship, he sets sail once again.
Florida’s would-be conquistador Panfilo de Narváez, having departed Spain on June 17, 1527, with five ships and about six hundred soldiers, sailors, and colonists, reaches Santo Domingo, where one hundred and forty men desert the expedition.
Panfilo de Narváez’s Florida-bound expedition of conquest, lightened to four hundred and sixty members by the desertions in Santo Domingo, had arrived in Santiago in late September.
As Cuba is the home of Narváez and his family, he has many contacts through whom he can collect more supplies, horses, and men.
After meeting with his wealthy friend Vasco Porcallo, Narváez sends part of the fleet to Trinidad to collect horses and other supplies from his friend's estate.
Narváez puts Cabeza de Vaca and a captain named Pantoja in charge of two ships sent to Trinidad, while he takes the other four ships to the Gulf of Guacanayabo.
On about October 30, the two ships arrive in Trinidad to collect requisitioned supplies and seek additional crew.
A hurricane arrives shortly after they do.
In the storm, both ships sink, sixty men are killed, a fifth of the horses drown, and all the new supplies acquired in Trinidad are destroyed.
Narváez, recognizing the need to regroup, sends the four remaining ships to Cienfuegos under command of Cabeza de Vaca.
Narváez stays ashore in order to recruit men and purchase more ships.