Infortunios de Alonso Ramirez / The Misfortunes of Alonso Ramirez (1690): Annotated Bilingual Edition 9780813593111

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INFORTUNIOS DE ALONSO RAMÍREZ THE MISFORTUNES OF ALONSO RAMÍREZ

s o i n u z t e r r o í f M n i so rA n o l de A

s e n u t r z o e f s r i í M M A r The o s n o ) l 0 9 A (16 of

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g -salgado y n z a usCaglia e ü g   s i J o s é F. b e d l o s s l at e d b y r a b y C and tran edit

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Rutgers University Press New Brunswick, Camden, and Newark, New Jersey, and London

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Sigüenza y Góngora, Carlos de, 1645–1700. | Buscaglia-Salgado, José F., editor. | Sigüenza y Góngora, Carlos de, 1645–1700. Infortunios de Alonso Ramírez. | Sigüenza y Góngora, Carlos de, 1645–1700. Infortunios de Alonso Ramírez. English. Title: Infortunios de Alonso Ramírez = The misfortunes of Alonso Ramírez : (1690) / by Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora; [edición de] José F. Buscaglia. Other titles: Infortunios de Alonso Ramírez. Spanish & English | Misfortunes of Alonso Ramírez Description: [Revised edition]. | New Brunswick, New Jersey : Rutgers University Press, 2018. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2018004706 | ISBN 9780813593081 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780813593074 (pbk. : alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Mexican literature—17th century. | Explorers—History—17th century. | Latin America—History—17th century. Classification: LCC PQ7296.S5 I518 2018 | DDC 863/.3—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018004706 A British Cataloging-in-Publication record for this book is available from the British Library. Infortunios de Alonso Ramírez / The Misfortunes of Alonso Ramírez was first published in Mexico in 1690 and later transcribed and printed in Madrid, Spain, in 1902. This Rutgers edition is based on the editor’s critical edition of the Infortunios published jointly in Madrid by the Spanish High Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) and Ediciones Polifemo in 2011. Translation, critical essay, and scholarly apparatus copyright © 2019 by José F. Buscaglia-Salgado All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. Please contact Rutgers University Press, 106 Somerset Street, New Brunswick, NJ 08901. The only exception to this prohibition is “fair use” as defined by U.S. copyright law. The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48–1992. www.rutgersuniversitypress.org Manufactured in the United States of America

This edition is dedicated to all those peoples of desperate fortunes who, like Alonso Ramírez, one day dared to steal their bodies away from their very own countries to go in search of better opportunities in foreign ones. And to the memory of my dear brother, Rafael E. Buscaglia-Salgado (1965–2016).

Contents

In the Footsteps of Alonso Ramírez: Two Decades in Pursuit of the Most Elusive American Pirate List of Illustrations

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infortunios de Alonso rAMírez Acerca de la transcripción

3

Al excelentísimo señor don Gaspar de Sandoval Cerda Silva y Mendoza

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Aprobación del licenciado don Francisco de Ayerra Santa María, capellán del Rey nuestro señor en su Convento Real de Jesús María de México

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Suma de las licencias

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I. Motivos que tuvo para salir de su patria. Ocupaciones y viajes que hizo por la Nueva España. Su asistencia en México hasta pasar a las Filipinas.

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II. Sale de Acapulco para las Filipinas. Dícese la derrota de este viaje y en lo que gastó el tiempo hasta que lo apresaron ingleses.

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III. Pónense en compendio los robos y crueldades que hicieron estos piratas en mar y tierra hasta llegar a la América.

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IV. Danle libertad los piratas y trae a la memoria lo que toleró en su prisión.

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V. Navega Alonso Ramírez y sus compañeros sin saber dónde estaban ni la parte a que iban. Dícense los trabajos y sustos que padecieron hasta varar en tierra.

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Contents

VI. Sed, hambre, enfermedades [y] muertes con que fueron atribulados en esta costa. Hallan inopinadamente gente católica y saben estar en tierra firme de Yucatán en la Septentrional América.

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VII. Pasan a Tihosuco [y] de allí a Valladolid donde experimentan molestias. Llegan a Mérida. Vuelve Alonso Ramírez a Valladolid y son aquellas [molestias] mayores. Causa por [la] que vino a México y lo que de ello resulta.

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Misfortunes of Alonso rAMírez About the translation

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To the most excellent gentleman don Gaspar de Sandoval Cerda Silva y Mendoza

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Approval of the licentiate don Francisco de Ayerra Santa María, chaplain of the King, our lord, in his Royal Convent of Jesús María in México City

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Summary of licenses

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I. Motives he had for leaving his home country. Jobs [he had] and travels he made through New Spain. His time in México until going over to the Philippines.

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II. He leaves Acapulco for the Philippines. An account of the course followed on this voyage and of how he spent the time until he was captured by the English.

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III. A summary is given of the plundering and cruelties carried out by these pirates on land and sea until arriving in America.

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IV. He is set free by the pirates and he remembers what he endured as their captive.

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V. Alonso Ramírez, and his shipmates, sails without knowing where they were or where they were going. The troubles and frights they suffered until running aground are told.

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VI. Thirst, hunger, disease, and death that aggrieved them on this coast. Unexpectedly, they find Catholic folk and know themselves to be in Yucatán, on the mainland of North America.

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VII. They go to Tihosuco and from there to Valladolid, where they experience hardships. They arrive in Mérida. Alonso Ramírez returns to Valladolid and the hardships are greater. The reason he came to México City and what resulted from it.

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Contents

The History of the First American of Universal Standing: How Alonso Ramírez, a.k.a. Felipe Ferrer, Turned the World on Its Head by Circumnavigating the Globe

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The Discovery of Americanness and the Presage of the End to Empire

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Consummate Impostors Always Tell the Best Piratical Stories

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On Motherhood, Mentoring, and Being the Best at What You Do

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How Ramírez Stole the Name and Reimagined the Character of Felipe Ferrer

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An American Con Man Takes On the English “King of the Sea”

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Lost at Sea, or Sailing the West Indies as an Englishman?

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The Story Comes Together on the Coast of Bacalar

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From Pirate to Slave Owner in Search of Legitimacy

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Putting to Paper What “Will Be Very Advisable for the Printing Press to Eternalize”

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Reader Beware

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If and Only “If ”

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Acknowledgments

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Previous Editions

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Selected Bibliography

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Index

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Illustrations follow page 82

in the Footsteps oF alonso ramírez Two Decades in Pursuit of the Most Elusive American Pirate

The first reprint of the Infortunios de Alonso Ramírez (Misfortunes of Alonso Ramírez) was published in Madrid in 1902 in volume 20 of the “Collection of Rare and Curious Books That Deal with America.”1 It was directly transcribed from the only surviving copy known to date of the original edition printed in México City in 1690 that was then in the possession of Manuel Pérez de Guzmán y Boza, the first Marquis of Jerez de los Caballeros.2 At the time, Guzmán y Boza’s collection of Spanish manuscripts and rare books was second only in importance to that of the National Library in Madrid, and the marquis was negotiating the sale of all its titles to Archer M. Huntington, who would use the more than ten thousand works to establish the library of the Hispanic Society of America in New York City in 1904. That is how, two centuries after its publication in México, this brief pamphlet, scarcely forty pages in length, made its return trip across the Atlantic. Lost among so many crates, the only surviving copy of the Infortunios must have seemed a lackluster piece of an invaluable treasure. At first glance, it was an object of little value, a small pamphlet typical of the countless popularly priced publications that during the seventeenth century came to flood the burgeoning public sphere in cities from Antwerp to Manila with news, oddities, and all sorts of accounts, among which the most popular were, invariably, the stories of travels and discoveries. Moreover, it was printed on low-quality paper with irregular type, showing signs of having been prepared rather hastily. For Huntington and his agents, this brief book could not have compared in value with 1. Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora, Infortunios de Alonso Ramírez, Colección de libros raros y curiosos que tratan de América 20 (Madrid: Imprenta de la viuda de G. Pedraza, 1902). 2. The work was listed as part of the collection in the catalog published in 1898. See Catálogo de la biblioteca del Excmo. Sr. D. Manuel Pérez de Guzmán y Boza, marqués de Jerez de los Caballeros: Primera parte (Seville, 1898), 127.

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the vellum-bound incunabula they had been acquiring during the previous two decades in a systematic search for Spanish patrimony all over Europe. Hence it is not surprising that the work that was already priced in Madrid as rare and curious was disregarded in New York City, where it remained filed away in the library’s collection for almost a century until Estelle Irizarry found it, dusted it off, and had the good sense of publishing it in facsimile as part of her interesting study and special tercentennial edition.3 All the while, the Madrid edition of 1902 gave birth to an entire school dedicated to the study of the little book that some have identified as the founding text in the tradition of the Latin American novel. It was consecrated as such by Antonio Castro Leal, who placed the Infortunios at the head of his monumental survey in two volumes, La novela del México colonial (The novel of colonial México), preceded by a prologue that stated in its first sentence: “This narration can well be considered a novel.”4 To date, there have been at least twentyfive Spanish-language editions of the Infortunios published as interest in the work spread from Spain to México, Argentina to Puerto Rico, Venezuela to the United States, and now, most recently, to Cuba. The book is without a doubt the most widely read work of Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora, who as a writer, mathematician, astronomer, geographer, antiquarian, and philosopher was arguably the most distinguished intellectual of the Novo Hispanic baroque, even if the literary genius of the time was his close friend Juana Inés de la Cruz.5 For this reason, it is obligatory reading in Spanish American colonial literature courses in universities throughout the world. Yet for all the broad distribution of the work in Spanish, until very recently, there have been few deep and critical studies on the Infortunios, while documented research, in terms of both the production of the work as well as the people and events mentioned in it, continues to be scarce. The main obstacle to the study of the text is that even for native Spanish speakers and literary scholars, the work has a fair amount of unintelligible passages. This is partly due to the conditions that resulted in the production of the book as well as to the way the first Madrid edition was subsequently treated in its many reprints during the course of the twentieth century. Most reprints have unknowingly reproduced a series of errors in the 1902 edition. That edition, in turn, was carrying many typographical errors as well as omissions and misplaced references from the original book. Add to this the long technical passages in the work 3. Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora, Infortunios de Alonso Ramírez, ed. Estelle Irizarry (Río Piedras: Editorial Cultural, 1990). 4. Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora, “Infortunios de Alonso Ramírez,” in La novela del México colonial, ed. Antonio Castro Leal, vol. 1 (México, D.F.: Aguilar, 1964), 51. For a discussion of the scholarship concerning the work, see the introduction to one of the most recent editions published in Spain, prepared by José Manuel Camacho Delgado. José Manuel Camacho Delgado, introduction to Infortunios de Alonso Ramírez seguido de Alboroto y motín de los indios de México, by Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora (Seville: Ediciones Espuela de Plata, 2008), 9–54. 5. I use the term Novo Hispanic in the same sense as the Spanish novohispano to denote all that pertains to the former Viceroyalty of New Spain and its society.

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dealing with matters of hydrography and navigation that systematically have been neglected when not altogether overlooked, almost without exception, by editors and critics on both sides of the Atlantic. Still, there is no greater complication in this brief work than the uneasy coupling, seldom in tandem, of two formidable personalities who during the summer of 1690 entered into a dangerous and daring game of vested and cunning interests that they maintain to this day. Consider first that the original text was hastily put together in little less than two months during the early summer of 1690 by Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora, a writer who held it to be a matter of family honor to practice the art of the most ultrabaroque Spanish gongorino-style prose, often flirting with incoherence, as the reader will soon discover. Then imagine what a challenge it was for Sigüenza to attempt to make sense of the story brought to him by Alonso Ramírez, a man of dubious provenance who had a way with words and, arguably, quite a colorful and captivating personality. At the time, Ramírez was skillfully managing his interest to profit from the uncommon exploit of having been the first Spaniard since Juan Sebastián Elcano to have traveled around the world while at the same time trying not to raise any suspicion concerning his exploits during the time he was allegedly being held captive by English pirates in the South Seas. It is obvious, moreover, that Sigüenza used this plot to promote his own personal, class-based interests and that he seems to have been guilty of concealment. In other words, this narrative, laden with the weight of editorial errors and language that drifts between technicality and artifice, is anchored to the very uncertain bottom of a highly unstable and surreptitious tale. As Sigüenza set out to chart that submerged landscape, throwing and pulling up the sound repeatedly, he managed only to turn the waters increasingly murky. In its infinitely complex, delicate, and unstable form, this work will continue to seduce the reader, openly or through deceit, defying all attempts to be fully reduced by reason. The critical study of the Infortunios has been limited until now to the domain of Spanish and Mexican letters. In that realm, it has been handled almost exclusively by literary scholars who, for the most part and until very recently, seemed to be solely concerned with assigning the work to a particular genre within the tradition and debating whether it is a true account.6 Those who have considered it a true 6. Julie Greer Johnson argues for the classification of the work under the Spanish picaresque tradition. See Julie Greer Johnson, “Picaresque Elements in Carlos Sigüenza y Góngora’s Los Infortunios de Alonso Ramírez,” Hispania 64.1 (1981): 60–67. For the case in favor of the historical veracity of the work, see J. S. Cummins, “Infortunios de Alonso Ramírez: ‘A Just History of Fact’?” Bulletin of Hispanic Studies 61.3 (1984): 295–303. Álvaro Félix Bolaños criticizes this debate by stating that “it limits the Infortunios within two models of Renaissance discursive narrative.” See Álvaro Félix Bolaños, “Sobre las ‘relaciones’ e identidades en crisis: El ‘otro’ lado del ex-cautivo Alonso Ramírez,” Revista de crítica literaria latinoamericana 21.42 (1995): 133. Further still, in his Historia de la novela hispanoamericana, Fernando Alegría mentions the Infortunios as a work that borrows certain characteristics from the novel while warning of critics who “ill-at-ease with the lack of novels in the colonial period . . . have taken great care to invent a ‘novelesque tradition’ by giving credit for artistic creation to historical and

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account have ventured into the discussion of authorship to begin exploring the complex interaction between a heavy-handed writer and the transient spokesman who is the protagonist of the story.7 Beyond that, this fascinating tale of a young boy from San Juan, Puerto Rico, who set out to sea in search of fortune and ended up circumnavigating the globe, halfway through his travels suffering a terrible ordeal at the hands of English pirates, remained inaccessible until very recently to a broader Spanish-speaking readership and to everyone unable to access the text in its original language. The first English translation of the Misfortunes, published in México in 1962, was plagued with errors to such a degree as to be completely useless.8 Since 2011, the translation by Fabio López Lázaro has been available to English-language readers. Unfortunately, this version adds much language that is not contained in the original text. It is also full of inaccuracies and errors.9 Now for the first time there is a bilingual edition that corrects the mistakes in all previous Spanish reprints of the original 1690 edition while being the most authoritative and definitive English translation, going far beyond all previous scholarship in documenting Ramírez’s journey and a story that makes an art form out of subterfuge. Having the two versions side by side will also help students in survey courses of Latin American colonial literature as well as Spanish-language readers and scholars in general get greater access to a text that has baffled even the experts due to its ultrabaroque language, technical passages pertaining to nautical knowledge, and the purposeful, deceitful intentions of Ramírez as well as Sigüenza. This Rutgers edition of the Infortunios/Misfortunes is based on my critical edition of the Infortunios published jointly in Madrid by the Spanish High Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) and Ediciones Polifemo in 2011. Then as now, the work aims to explore in depth the blind spots in a century of study in Spanish philology by placing the Infortunios/Misfortunes against the backdrop of historical sources and paying close attention to all matters of hydrography and navigation, ideology and representation. The work at hand aspires to be the authoritative edition of Sigüenza’s most famous work, finally placing the precious pamphlet within reach of a global readership of students, scholars, and the curious at heart. Beyond López Lázaro’s claim that the book describes the “true adventures of a Spanish American with didactical works.” See Fernando Alegría, Historia de la novela hispanoamericana (México City: Ediciones de Andrea, 1974), 11. 7. One of the latest and most significant works in this respect is Estelle Irizarry’s study. It is centered on a computer analysis comparing the Infortunios with other accounts by Sigüenza trying to quantify the number of words and expressions that can be attributed to him or to Ramírez. See Estelle Irizarry, “Análisis por computadora: datos significativos,” in Irizarry, ed., Infortunios de Alonso Ramírez (Río Piedras: Editorial Cultural, 1990), 51–65. 8. Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora, The Misadventures of Alonso Ramírez, trans. Edwin H. Pleasants (México: Imprenta Mexicana, 1962). Starting with the very same title of the work, Pleasants’s is nothing short of a complete mistranslation of the Infortunios. 9. Fabio López Lázaro, The Misfortunes of Alonso Ramírez: The True Adventures of a Spanish American with 17th-Century Pirates (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2011).

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seventeenth-century pirates,” this first bilingual edition uncovers the treasure trove of competing stories gifted to us by a Spanish American pirate who was, as I first proved in my 2009 Cuban edition of Sigüenza’s historical works, the first American to circumnavigate the globe whom we know by name.10 Finally, English speakers will be able to follow closely Ramírez’s exploits from San Juan to Acapulco, Manila, Jakarta, and Chennai, from Australia to Madagascar, rounding off the Cape of Good Hope to head back across the Atlantic Ocean into the Caribbean Sea, bearing witness to the trials of Ramírez as his ship runs aground on the coast of Yucatán and culminating in the castaway’s unlikely audience with Gaspar de la Cerda Silva Sandoval y Mendoza, Count of Galve and viceroy of New Spain. It is our hope that the reader will find in this edition the tools to continue to decipher a fascinating and inexhaustible text that promises to reveal some of the most delicate and unsuspected operations in the early fashioning, evolution, and forging of American subjectivity. Indeed, this work grants us exclusive access to the thinking process of the modern colonial subject and the world view of what in Spanish were known as gente de mar, or “people of the sea,” sailors and expatriates whose lives and legacies have been continuously undervalued in the history of nations. With this in mind, most documentation and explanations have been consigned to the notes in the Spanish transcription and correction of the 1690 edition as well as its English translation. This gives all readers multiple paths for immediate access to the work while also pointing students, scholars, and the curious at large in the direction of further possible research and inquiry. The critical essay is designed to serve as a pilot book of sorts, guiding the reader past the whirlpool that until now has claimed most inquiry on the work and out into the uncharted waters where the story of Alonso Ramírez’s alleged misfortunes is still a journey into the pleasures of the most destabilizing approach to sanctioned forms of power and knowledge in the modern world. Indeed, my aim is to guide the reader’s careful approach to the Infortunios/Misfortunes as a work of ideological piracy. The present edition is the result of two decades of archival research in Spain and México, of a sailing voyage through the Virgin Islands, and of three expeditions to the most remote and inaccessible parts of the Costa Maya in Quintana Roo, México, formerly known as the Bacalar coast in the Yucatán Peninsula. I had conducted a previous and very preliminary investigation on the work at the Archive of the Indies (AGI) in Seville in 1999. The result of those findings appeared in my first book.11 But it was not until the summer of 2003 that I was able to begin a systematic search to establish, once and for all, the historical basis of the story and the possible existence of its protagonist. Keep in mind that, as stated in 10. See José F. Buscaglia-Salgado, introduction to Historias del Seno Mexicano, by Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora, ed. José F. Buscaglia-Salgado and Reynier Pérez Hernández (Havana: Casa de las Américas, 2009), 17. 11. See José F. Buscaglia-Salgado, Undoing Empire, Race and Nation in the Mulatto Caribbean (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003), 128–72.

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one of the latest editions of the Infortunios, published in Spain in 2008, it was still possible until very recently for scholars to say that “although many of the facts that turn up in the Infortunios are apparently true and real, the truth is that they remain uncorroborated. So, for example, it has been impossible to certify to this day the existence of the castaway Alonso Ramírez and, as a consequence, all the adventures he lived through lack the most basic support in truth.”12 A year later, after a decade of tracking the footsteps of my distant and elusive countryman, I was able to declare in my introduction to Historias del Seno Mexicano, published in Havana, that among other significant evidence, in the summer of 2004 I had found not just the site of Alonso Ramírez’s shipwreck on the coast of Bacalar in Yucatán but also, three years later in 2007, his marriage certificate to Francisca Javiera in México City in 1682 (see figures 11 and 6, respectively). Finally, after a century of scholarly speculation, I was able to settle the question of Alonso Ramírez’s existence using direct and irrefutable proof. The path I followed to this major set of discoveries has yielded the wealth of information and new knowledge that we now present to our readers. My first major attempt to tackle the question of Alonso Ramírez’s existence yielded modest results and a growing realization that the book and the person on whose life it was supposedly based were not going to reveal their secrets in a forthcoming way. The research conducted in Seville during a handful of days in the summer of 2003 allowed me to confirm the existence of a good number of secondary characters in the text. I was also able to make some conjectures concerning the still unresolved issue of Ramírez’s paternal ancestry. Yet I was not able to find any mention of Alonso Ramírez or, at least, of the Alonso Ramírez I was searching for. I was convinced that Sigüenza would not have dared to challenge the Inquisition by putting forth as veridic a fictional account dealing with a plebeian character whose misadventures touched on the lives of a plethora of royal and ecclesiastical officials, many of whom he knew personally and on some of whom he was dependent for his livelihood and very subsistence. Hence I began to consider the possibility that the name Alonso Ramírez might have been a pseudonym. In that way, I figured that the real story could have been told and denied all at once, releasing from any obligation all those who could have had any sort of contact with the alleged castaway. Moreover, as his aggressive commandeering of the story might suggest, I figured that this could have been a way for Sigüenza to cut off the oral testimonial from ever being able to push or lay any claim against the written narrative. But if that were the case, how would I ever find the person behind the character? This question forced me to alter the course of the research. Being a sailor, like Ramírez, I took to the sea. Following the very detailed description in the book, I spent that winter constructing a map of the route taken by Ramírez when allegedly navigating without charts or a readable pilot book through the Caribbean 12. Camacho Delgado, introduction, 32–33. This is my translation.

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Sea. In the spring of 2004, I sailed through the Narrows in the Virgin Islands, the very same area where, as described in chapter V, Ramírez found himself “surrounded by islets between two big islands.” There I confirmed that the island of Puerto Rico is within sight of any vessel heading westward from that point. I was always suspicious that there was no mention of Ramírez’s native Puerto Rico in what is otherwise such a precise description of the route that one could sail by it (see map 7). It became immediately clear to me that contrary to what is alleged in the book, Ramírez’s aim was not to return to Spanish territory—at least not immediately or in a direct fashion. But where was he going when he was run aground by a tempest? The answer to that question began to take shape as I set out to examine the prevailing winds and currents in the area as well as the circumstances and reference points cited in the book in relation with that terrible accident. Based on that information, I was able to draw a map of the eastern coast of Yucatán, pinpointing with remarkable exactitude the place where his ship would have run aground after crossing the Chinchorro Reef on a south-by-southwest course. I narrowed down the area of the shipwreck to a five-kilometer stretch of shoreline along the coast of Bacalar. In the summer of 2004, I traveled to the fishing village of Xcalak, the last Mexican settlement on the southeastern coast of Yucatán. I spent three days surveying the entire shoreline by traveling along the lonely dirt road that traverses what has remained a major area of contraband and piracy since Ramírez’s time to the present. There I immediately confirmed the great accuracy of the geographic descriptions given in the book. By the second day, I had found three major landmarks mentioned by Ramírez and was able to prove, without any doubt, that I had identified the precise location of the shipwreck site, lying, as is indicated with remarkable accuracy in chapter VI, almost equidistant, by a length of about four Spanish land leagues, between two bodies of water known today as the Huache and Bermejo Rivers (see figures 15 and 16). I could hardly believe that I was standing on the precise spot where the shipwreck had taken place 315 years before. Looking at the horizon from the broken and very sharp, rocky outcrop of Herradura Point, I imagined the horror experienced the night of the shipwreck as if I had been there, and I was moved by the thought of what it would have been like to be stuck in a place so remote, desolate, and without shelter. By that point, I no longer had any doubt whatsoever that we were dealing with a story that Sigüenza received from somebody else, whether or not the name of that person was Alonso Ramírez. That stretch of coast remained officially uncharted and unexplored until the end of the eighteenth century, when territorial disputes between Spain and England forced both kingdoms to take a closer look at the area that would initially become known as British Yucatán. At the time, these Mayan lands were frequented by pirates based in the area known today as Stann Creek and the Wallace or Belize River. This vast frontier zone was purposefully off-limits to Spanish subjects as part of a

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long-standing strategic plan to protect the Gulf of Campeche by denying English pirates shelter and access to resources, especially roads to penetrate beyond the coast. The Mayans were the only ones who knew the area well, especially the precise location of all fresh-water springs in that vast mangrove forest that is otherwise utterly inhospitable to humans. Indeed, the first detailed Spanish maps of the Bacalar coast, like those of the province of Yucatán circa 1734, lack any definition in the outline of the territory lying between Ascensión Bay and Boca de Cangrejos (near present-day Xcalak), the stretch of coast that the castaways traveled through.13 Therefore, it would have been impossible for Sigüenza, who until then had never ventured far from México City, to give an accurate topographic description of such remote and officially unknown places. In my excitement at the find, I jumped into the water off the very point where, according to the book, the ship had run aground. Over the next two hours, I proceeded to systematically dive in search of any signs of the vessel, looking around the entire tip of the point and thirty meters out to sea primarily for cannons and ordinance on an ocean floor covered completely by rocks and coral. The force of the waves breaking against the sharp rock and the very real solitude of the land and sea all around me made me abandon the search at dusk without finding any single piece of evidence. With a renewed sense of optimism at having precise topographic confirmation of the veracity of the story, I continued looking for Ramírez all over México. I traveled the old royal roads that go from Veracruz, via Perote, to Puebla de los Ángeles and México City. I followed his wanderings through the sierras all the way to the old city of Antequera, today Oaxaca de Juárez, and in Yucatán, I walked the same Mayan road, or sacbe, he followed from Tihosuco to Valladolid and spent time looking for traces of him in the massive Franciscan monastery of Izamal, where he allegedly spent Holy Week of 1689 (see figures 25 to 26). In the National Archives in México City (AGN), I found records of a significant number of military officers named Alonso Ramírez. None of them, however, could have been the subject in question. Then when everything seemed to be heading down a dead end, I found some fascinating and very valuable information dealing with the scandalous Inquisitorial trial of the woman who allegedly was Ramírez’s mother-in-law. This would prove to be key in composing a truer picture of young Alonso’s character and intentions. The following summer, I returned to Seville. I was determined to find the report that should have been sent to Madrid explaining the circumstances surrounding the capture by English pirates of the royal frigate that, according to the text, was under the command of Alonso Ramírez. Midday on the fourth day of the five-day research stint, I located an extensive dossier of documents giving a full account of several acts of piracy perpetrated near Manila and on the island of Mindanao. As I read hurriedly through the hundreds of pages, trying to decide 13. See AGI, MP-México, 119.

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which documents to photocopy before returning home the next day, I almost stopped breathing when I encountered a paragraph with a description of the capture of the royal frigate Our Lady of Aránzazu that was practically identical to the corresponding passage in the Infortunios. As the reader will soon discover, that find yielded many more questions than answers. We now have a precise list for the crew of the frigate, yet the name Alonso Ramírez is not there. The master of Our Lady of Aránzazu was called Felipe Ferrer. In the summer of 2006, I returned once more to Seville, hoping to find the load manifest and passenger lists of the Santa Rosa galleon aboard which Ramírez supposedly sailed from Acapulco to Manila. I was also aiming to locate the itemized notation of the payment allegedly received by Ramírez by order of the viceroy of New Spain as compensation for the mistreatment he claimed to have suffered at the hands of his English captors. Both searches were unsuccessful. Yet I uncovered sufficient documentation on Captain Felipe Ferrer as to conclude that he was a different person from, and much older than, Alonso Ramírez. As I did three years prior when facing a similar impasse in the archival research, I decided to go back to the text and to the coast of Bacalar for answers. This time I prepared for the expedition by mapping the entire path taken along the coast during the fifty–two days that Ramírez and his men were marooned. The book gives a detailed day-by-day account. After carefully adding up all the distance traveled, I was able to estimate that they were rescued in the vicinity of Piedra Point some sixty-three nautical miles north of the shipwreck site (see figure 17). With that information and knowing that their Mayan rescuers guided them to drink fresh water in a nearby building that the text describes in detail, I went looking for the ruins of the structure. The satellite images of that stretch of coast commonly available at the time were of very low resolution. Yet through some circuitous online research, I was able to locate a sports fishing center in a remote point on Pájaros Island, south of Ascensión Bay, where three of my students and I were to be graciously welcomed in March of 2007 and given all the assistance needed to move through the mangrove channels and lagoons by canoe just like Ramírez had done three centuries before. Thanks to the generosity of our hosts, we managed to access and document what today is known as the Tupac ruins and to discover, deep inside the forest and thanks to the clues in the text, the very watering hole where Ramírez and his men quenched their seven-week thirst (see figures 18 to 20). Once again, just as in Herradura Point three years before, I felt that the distance between Alonso and myself had been reduced almost to the point of disappearance. Yet the closer I got, the more he still managed to skillfully elude me. I wasted no time in going straight back to the National Archives in México City. I needed to find the only document that could settle the issue of our real character’s name once and for all. If indeed he married the niece of the dean of the Metropolitan Cathedral in México City, there should have been documentation

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attesting to the fact. I had searched for it before following the timeline in the book and assuming that if he left Acapulco for Manila in 1682, then he must have been married in 1680 or 1681. No records had turned up then. This time I decided to do a line-by-line search of the books containing all the marriages of Spaniards and Spanish Creoles in the cathedral of México City starting in January 1679. As it turned out, the document did exist, but the original at the AGN had been lost. I was able, however, to find the reference and with it a copy in the Historical Archive of the Archbishopric of México City (AHAM). Finally, I had him before me. As stated in the text, Alonso Ramírez was married to Francisca Javiera, the niece of Juan de Poblete (see figure 6). The question of his true name, if not that of his multiple possible identities, had been settled once and for all and so had the issue of his social provenance, as he was officially considered a Spaniard and not a caste. Yet, as with the list of the crew of Our Lady of Aránzazu, there are significant discrepancies between the account and the documents. The ceremony took place on November 8, 1682. Thus Ramírez could not have been aboard the Santa Rosa, as the text reports, since on the day of the wedding, the galleon was in the harbor of San Jacinto in the Philippines and, unable to make the crossing that year, would return to Manila on December 13. As I explain in detail in the essay, further research would show that the book is doubly mistaken on these points. The only galleon that year was the San Antonio de Padua. It left Acapulco on Friday, March 27, seven months prior to Ramírez’s marriage in México City. Given all this information and adding to it the data obtained on site pertaining to distances, topography, climate, prevailing winds, and currents, I now had sufficient material to construct the first accurate timeline of the life and travels of the very real person known as Alonso Ramírez. That timeline became the backbone to the carefully documented Madrid edition that is the foundation of this first bilingual version of the Infortunios/Misfortunes. Still, when Kimberly Guinta offered me the opportunity to publish the bilingual edition with Rutgers University Press, I knew that I had one more major task to fulfill in my search for Alonso Ramírez. I had to go back to the shipwreck site at Herradura Point. For years I had been hesitant to do this out of fear that calling attention to whatever remains could be found would very possibly lead to looting by the locals. I also feared for my safety and that of those around me, as this stretch of coast is still a dangerous frontier zone. Luckily, Dante García Sedano, a former student of mine who is now an archaeologist and a cave-diving master, had just established a company for underwater archaeology research and was able to organize a four-day expedition to Punta Herradura right around the time when the final book manuscript was due. The findings are momentous: nails, fasteners, and European pottery of the exact period; a very long piece of the ship’s hull; and a small cannon. Even though during the entire expedition we faced fifteen- to twenty-knot winds, two-meter-high waves, and a very strong northerly current that did not allow us to dive on the very point, I am confident that we have

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discovered and documented part of the remains of the ship lying close to shore on the north side of Herradura Point. Finally, I had in my hands part of what Alonso Ramírez claimed as his property, and I felt that I was embracing him across time and space, at once welcoming him from his long voyage around the globe and promising him at long last due recognition for such a great feat. I now place before you, dear reader, the abundant loot contained in what is not simply a pirate’s story but, more important, a truly piratical narrative in the most extensive measure of possibility. My hope is that, finally, a wide global readership will be able to enjoy, reflect upon, and study the first narrative based on the life of a true and real subject from the Caribbean Islands whom we now know to be the first American to have traveled around the world. José F. Buscaglia-Salgado y Ramírez Herradura Point, Quintana Roo, México Thursday, February 22, 2018

illustrations

FIGURES 1 Fortress of San Felipe del Morro, San Juan, Puerto Rico 2 Gate of San Juan, or Puerta del Agua, San Juan, Puerto Rico 3 Fortress of the Real Fuerza, Havana, Cuba 4 Arches of the lower gallery in the Fortress of San Juan de Ulúa, Veracruz, México 5 Detail of the volutes and interlocking forms that adorn the walls, pilasters, arches, and vaults of the Chapel of Our Lady of the Rosary in Puebla de los Ángeles, México 6 “[Marriage of] Alonso Ramírez with Francisca Javiera” 7 Map of the harbor and fortifications of Cavite, Philippines 8 Title page of the document describing the events and testimonies given thereof relating to the capture by English pirates of a Spanish frigate under the command of Captain Felipe Ferrer 9 Fortress of Ozama, located on the banks of the Ozama River in Santo Domingo de Guzmán, capital city of the Dominican Republic 10 Fort Cromwell, Port Royal, Jamaica 11 Herradura Point, on the old coast of Bacalar in Yucatán, today Quintana Roo, México 12 Artifacts found on land along the northern shore of Herradura Point 13 Small cannon found at a depth of one meter xxiii

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Illustrations

14 Palm trees on Herradura Point 15 Huache River 16 Bermejo River 17 Rock beside which Ramírez and his men built a tent 18 View of the northeast point of the Tupac watering station, where the shipwrecked crew was taken by their Mayan rescuers 19 Vaulted antechamber of the building at Tupac 20 Watering hole next to the building at Tupac 21 Church of Saint Augustin in Tihosuco 22 Church of Tixcacal 23 Town hall in Valladolid 24 Arco de Dragones Gate, Mérida, Yucatán 25 Atrium and façade of the Franciscan monastery of Saint Anthony of Padova in Izamal 26 Fresco on the entrance to the cloister of the Izamal Monastery 27 Puerta de Tierra Gate, Campeche, México 28 Main courtyard of the convent and hospital of Amor de Dios, México City

MAPS 1 The voyage from San Juan, Puerto Rico, to San Juan de Ulua (Veracruz, México) via Havana, Cuba 2 Routes and places visited by Ramírez in New Spain (México) and Guatemala between September 1675 and March 31, 1684 3 Route followed by the Manila galleon arriving from Guam in search of Cavite as described in the text 4 Routes taken and places visited by Alonso Ramírez in the East Indies and the Gulf of Bengal between September 1684 and March 1687 5 Course followed by the royal frigate Our Lady of Aránzazu from Cavite to Vigan, Ilocos, and the return trip to Manila via the island of Capones and Mariveles Mountain 6 Route taken by the Cygnet from the day of the capture of the royal Spanish frigate Our Lady of Aránzazu near the island of Capones to New Holland (Australia) 7 Course taken by Ramírez/Ferrer through the Caribbean Sea as described in the text

Illustrations

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8 Route taken by Ramírez and his companions along the coast of Bacalar in Yucatán from the day of the shipwreck on September 18 to their rescue fiftytwo days later on Wednesday, November 9, 1689 9 Route taken by Ramírez after his rescue in Piedra Point on November 9, 1689, to his audience with the viceroy of New Spain on Friday, May 5, 1690 10 Route taken by Alonso Ramírez in his circumnavigation of the globe, departing from San Juan, Puerto Rico, in October 1675 and arriving in México City in May 1690 11 Plan of Herradura Point in Quintana Roo, México, showing the location of the principal findings of the underwater archaeology expedition of February 20–22, 2018

ACERCA DE LA TRANSCRIPCIÓN

Esta transcripción es una nueva versión corregida del texto original de 1690, reeditado en Madrid en el 2011. En todo momento he intentado guardar la forma y ser fiel al contenido de la obra y, aunque he hecho correcciones de estilo y puntuación con el fin de dar mayor claridad y soltura a la lectura, he mantenido el uso repetido de la conjunción “y,” utilizada por Sigüenza para recalcar en el lector la idea de que el texto por él escrito proviene del testimonio oral dado por Ramírez. He actualizado la ortografía y los topónimos, señalando en las notas los nombres dados en la primera edición. He corregido también los accidentes tipográficos en el texto de 1690, señalando a su vez los errores de edición, desciframiento e interpretación cometidos en las reediciones, desde 1902 al presente. Uno de estos errores, y el más grave sin duda, ha sido el no incluir en muchas ediciones, y el obviar comentar en todas, la dedicatoria de Sigüenza y la aprobación del censor Ayerra. Creo que estas piezas son partes integrales del texto sin las cuales sería imposible descifrar la lógica interna y medir la relevancia política e ideológica de los Infortunios. Finalmente, cabe señalar que esta es la primera reedición que descubre plenamente la riqueza contenida en la nomenclatura náutica tan tristemente ignorada por el pedestre lector moderno y la primera que traza y cuestiona toda la ruta seguida, inspeccionando cuidadosamente el cuaderno de bitácora y siguiendo de cerca al protagonista por mar y tierra. Todo lo insertado entre corchetes son añadiduras mías para dar mayor soltura y claridad al texto, mientras que lo que se encuentra entre paréntesis en el quinto capítulo son las notas sobre la nomenclatura geográfica que aparecen en la edición original. He decidido mantener intacta en las notas la ortografía de los documentos de archivo por entender que vierte información valiosa sobre el habla y las gentes de la época. He optado, sin embargo, por corregir la puntuación en dichas citas con la intención de hacer los textos más legibles. José F. Buscaglia-Salgado San Juan de Puerto Rico, March 11, 2018

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InfortunIos que

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

AL EXCELENTÍSIMO SEÑOR DON GASPAR DE SANDOVAL CERDA SILVA Y MENDOZA1 Conde de Galve,2 gentilhombre (con ejercicio) de la cámara de su majestad, comendador de Zalamea3 y Ceclavín,4 en la orden y caballería de Alcántara, alcaide perpetuo de los reales alcázares, puertas y puentes de la ciudad de Toledo, y del castillo y torres de la de León, señor de las villas de Tórtola5 y Sacedón,6 virrey, gobernador y capitán general de la Nueva España, y presidente de la real cancillería de México, etc. Si suele ser consecuencia de la temeridad la dicha, y es raro el error a que la7 falta disculpa, sóbranme para presumir acogerme al sagrado8 de vuestra excelencia estos motivos a no contrapesar en mí, para que mi yerro sea inculpable,9 cuantos aprecios le ha merecido a su comprensión, delicada sobre discreta, la Libra astronómica y filosófica, que a la sombra del patrocinio de vuestra excelencia en este mismo año entregué a los moldes. Y si al relatarlos en compendio quien fue el paciente10 1. Gaspar de la Cerda Sandoval Silva y Mendoza (Pastrana, Guadalajara 1653–Santa María, Cádiz 1697) fue el trigésimo virrey de la Nueva España de 1688 a 1696. 2. La villa de Galve de Sorbe está ubicada en la ladera norte de la Sierra del Alto Rey, al Norte de Guadalajara y al Oeste de Sigüenza. Gaspar de Silva y Mendoza fue el octavo conde de Galve y el último de los Mendoza en ostentar el título que había sido conferido por Felipe II a Baltasar Gastón Mendoza y de la Cerda en 1557. Hoy, el título pertenece a la Casa Real y a la de los duques de Alba entre otras familias. 3. Zalamea de la Serena, en Badajoz, está ubicada a medio camino entre las ciudades de Mérida y Córdoba. En la Hispania romana era conocida como Lulipa y en tiempos del Califato de Córdoba como Miknasa al Asnam. 4. El original dice “seclavin”. Pero ha de referirse a la villa de Ceclavín en Cáceres, que yace en la orilla meridional del río Alagón donde este entra en el Tajo. Ya desde 1251 Ceclavín aparecía bajo la tutela del mestre de la orden de Alcántara. 5. Tórtola de Henares, como el nombre lo indica, queda próxima al río Henares, al Norte de la ciudad de Guadalajara. 6. Sacedón, en Guadalajara, queda a orillas del río Tajo, a mitad de camino entre las ciudades de Guadalajara y Cuenca. 7. El original dice “le”. Debe ser un error tipográfico pues si bien son muchos los errores faltos de disculpa, son raros los que se pueden separar de la falta de juicio de que proceden. Debo aclarar que aquí Sigüenza parece querer separar la falta del error y llega incluso a confundir éste con la acción resultante que es el errar y con su resultado que es el yerro. El error, por definición, es la falta o el desacierto de juicio. Tanto Valles Formosa (1967) como Bryant (1984) cambian “le” por “la”. 8. Es referencia al asilo que el perseguido por la justicia podía solicitar de la iglesia. 9. Nuevamente, la culpa no recaería sobre el yerro sino sobre la falta implícita en el error. 10. Ramírez.

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Infortunios de Alonso Ramírez

le dio vuestra excelencia gratos oídos, ahora que en relación más difusa se los represento a los ojos, ¿cómo podré dejar de asegurarme atención igual? Cerró Alonso Ramírez en México el círculo de trabajos con que, apresado de ingleses piratas en Filipinas, varando en las costas de Yucatán en esta América dio vuelta al mundo. Y condoliéndose vuestra excelencia de él cuando los refería, ¿quién dudará el que sea objeto de su munificencia en lo de adelante si no quien no supiere el que, templando vuestra excelencia con su conmiseración su grandeza, tan recíprocamente las concilia que las iguala sin que pueda discernir la perspicacia más lince cuál sea antes en vuestra excelencia: lo grande heredado de sus progenitores excelentísimos, o la piedad connatural de no negarse compasivo a los gemidos tristes de cuantos lastimados la solicitan en sus afanes? Alentado pues con lo que de ésta [munificencia] veo cada día prácticamente, y con el seguro de que jamás se cierran las puertas del palacio de vuestra excelencia a los desvalidos, en nombre de quien me dio el asunto para escribirla,11 consagro a las aras de la benignidad de vuestra excelencia esta peregrinación lastimosa confiado desde luego, por lo que me toca, que en la crisis12 altísima que sabe hacer con espanto mío de la hidrografía y geografía del mundo, tendrá patrocinio y merecimiento, etc. Beso las manos de vuestra excelencia don Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora

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11. Se refiere a Alonso Ramírez. 12. El original dice “crisi”. Es error tipográfico.

APROBACIÓN DEL LICENCIADO1 DON FRANCISCO DE AYERRA SANTA MARÍA,2 CAPELLÁN DEL REY NUESTRO SEÑOR EN SU CONVENTO REAL DE JESÚS MARÍA DE MÉXICO3 Así por obedecer ciegamente al decreto de vuestra señoría en que me manda censurar la relación de los Infortunios de Alonso Ramírez, mi compatriota, descrita por don Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora, cosmógrafo del Rey nuestro señor y su catedrático de matemáticas en esta Real Universidad, como por la novedad deliciosa que su argumento me prometía, me hallé empeñado en la lección de la obra. Y, si al principio entré en ella con obligación y curiosidad, en el progreso, con tanta variedad de casos, disposición y estructura de sus períodos, agradecí como inestimable gracia lo que traía sobrescrito de estudiosa tarea. Puede el sujeto de esta narración quedar muy desvanecido de que sus infortunios son hoy dos veces dichosos. Una, por ya gloriosamente padecidos, que es lo que encareció la musa de Mantua4 en boca de Eneas en ocasión semejante a sus compañeros troyanos: “Forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit”.5 Y otra, porque le cupo en suerte la pluma de este Homero, que era lo que deseaba para su césar 1. Licenciado en derecho canónico. 2. Francisco de Ayerra (San Juan, Puerto Rico, 1630–México, 1708) nació y se crió en San Juan donde su padre, Juan de Ayerra Santa María, capitán y veterano de las campañas de Flandes y Portugal, era sargento mayor de la isla y presidio (ver AGI, Contratación, 5789, L. 1, F. 99–200). Igual que Alonso Ramírez, Francisco de Ayerra abandonó San Juan por México a edad temprana. Allí obtuvo la licenciatura en derecho canónico y fue ordenado. Llegó a ser un poeta de renombre en su tiempo y amigo personal de Sigüenza y de Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. 3. Este era uno de los veintidos conventos que había en la Ciudad de México a finales del siglo XVII. Seis años antes de la publicación de los Infortunios, a petición de las monjas, Sigüenza había publicado una historia del convento. Fundado bajo el patronato de Felipe II más de un siglo atrás, en la época de Sigüenza, la empresa tenía gran necesidad de apoyo fiscal. Ver Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora, Paraíso occidental, plantado y cultivado por la liberal benéfica mano de los muy católicos y poderosos Reyes de España nuestros señores en su magnífico Real Convento de Jesús María de México (México: Juan de Ribero, 1684). 4. Virgilio. 5. “que quizá hasta esto recordaremos un día con gusto”. Virgilio, La Eneida, 1:203. Luego de haber sufrido la ira de la reina de los dioses, Juno, quien instó a Éolo, dios de los vientos, a que provocara una tempestad, las naves troyanas perdieron su curso y solo siete lograron salvarse, yendo a parar a las costas de Libia. Allí, luego de haber cazado siete venados, uno para cada una de las tripulaciones de las naves, Eneas instó a sus camaradas a perseverar. Eventualmente, Eneas alcanzaría el Lacio y fundaría Roma. Es interesante que Ramírez ha de naufragar en la costa de Bacalar con una tripulación de siete hombres.

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Ausonio: “Romanusque tibi contignat Homerus,”6 que al embrión de la funestidad confusa de tantos sucesos dio alma con lo aliñado de sus discursos, y al laberinto enmarañado de tales rodeos halló el hilo de oro para coronarle de aplausos. No es nuevo en las exquisitas noticias y laboriosas fatigas del autor lograr con dichas cuanto emprende con diligencias y, como en las tablas de la geografía e hidrografía tiene tanto caudal adquirido, no admiro que saliese tan consumado lo que con estos principios se llevaba de antemano medio hecho. Bastole tener cuerpo la materia para que la excediese con su lima la obra. Ni era para que se quedase solamente dicho lo que puede servir escrito para observarlo,7 pues esto8 reducido a escritura se conserva y aquello9 con la vicisitud del tiempo se olvida, y un caso no otra vez acontecido es digno de que quede para memoria estampado. “¿Quis mihi tributat ut scibantur sermones mei? ¿Quis mihi det ut exarentur in libro stylo ferreo, vel saltem sculpantur in silice”?10 Para eternizar Job lo que refería deseaba quien lo escribiera, y no se contentaba con menos de que labrase en el pedernal el buril cuanto él había sabido tolerar: “Dura quae sustinet non vult per silentiun tegi,” dice la Glosa, “sed exemplo ad notitiam pertrahi”.11 Este “Quis mihi tributat . . .” de Job halló, y halló cuanto podía desear, el sujeto en el autor de esta relación que, para noticia y utilidad común por no tener cosa digna de censura, será muy conveniente que la eternice la prensa.

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Así lo siento, salvo, etc.

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México, 26 de junio de 1690 don Francisco de Ayerra Santa María

6. Tal como apuntan Cummins y Soons, Ayerra parafraseaba la cita del poeta y hombre de estado galoromano Decimus Magnus Ausonius quien en su epigrama “De Augusto” le escribió al emperador Galieno: “Exulta Aeacide, celebraris vate superbo, rursum Romanusque tibi contingit Homerus” (En estos últimos días te canta un Homero romano). Ver Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora, Infortunios de Alonso Ramírez, ed. J. S. Cummins y Alan Soons (Londres: Tamesis Texts, 1984), 75, nota 9. 7. El original dice “observado”. Es error común de transcripción tomando en cuenta la caligrafía de la época. 8. La narración de Sigüenza. 9. El testimonio de Ramírez. 10. “¡Quién diese ahora que mis palabras fueren escritas! ¡Quién diese que se escribieran en un libro, que con cincel de hierro y con plomo fuesen en piedra esculpidas para siempre!” ( Job 19:23–24). 11. “No quiere esconder en silencio los rigores que soporta, sino traerlos a la atención como ejemplares”. Es cita de la Glosa ordinaria, los comentarios normativos medievales en latín de la Biblia.

SUMA DE LAS LICENCIAS

Por decreto del excelentísimo señor virrey, Conde de Galve, etc., de 26 de junio de este año de 1690, y por auto que el señor doctor don Diego de la Sierra, etc., juez provisor y vicario general de este arzobispado, proveyó este mismo día, se concedió licencia para imprimir esta relación.

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InfortunIos de Alonso rAmírez, etC .

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I Motivos que tuvo para salir de su patria. Ocupaciones y viajes que hizo por la Nueva España. Su asistencia en México hasta pasar a las Filipinas.

Quiero que se entretenga el curioso que esto leyere por algunas horas con las noticias de lo que a mí me causó tribulaciones de muerte por muchos años. Y aunque de sucesos que sólo subsistieron en la idea de quien los finge se suelen deducir máximas y aforismos que entre lo deleitable de la narración que entretiene cultiven la razón de quien en ello se ocupa, no será esto lo que yo aquí intente sino solicitar lástimas que, aunque posteriores a mis trabajos, harán por lo menos tolerable su memoria trayéndolas a compañía de las que me tenía a mí mismo cuando me aquejaban. No por decir esto estoy tan de parte de mi dolor que quiera incurrir en la fea nota de pusilánime y así, omitiendo menudencias que a otros menos atribulados que yo lo estuve pudieran dar asunto de muchas quejas, diré lo primero que me ocurriere por ser en la serie de mis sucesos lo más notable. Es mi nombre Alonso Ramírez y mi patria la ciudad de San Juan de Puerto Rico, cabeza de la isla que, en los tiempos de ahora con este nombre y con el de Borriquén1 en la antigüedad, entre el seno Mexicano2 y el mar Atlántico divide 1. También Boriquén, Borique, Buriquén o Burichena, corrupción castellana del nombre dado a la isla por sus habitantes de lengua arahuaca en tiempos precolombinos. A mediados del siglo XIX comienza a estilarse el uso de Borínquen, término que es hoy de mayor aceptación. Ver Adolfo de Hostos, Diccionario histórico bibliográfico comentado de Puerto Rico (Barcelona: Manuel Pareja, 1976), 181. Cabe notar que el texto se refiere a la isla que los antiguos habitantes llamaban Borriquén con el nombre cristiano de San Juan de Puerto Rico. Colón la llamó San Juan, nombre que luego fue traspasado al asentamiento principal reubicado entre 1519 y 1521 en la punta oeste del islote que guarda la entrada de la gran bahía de bolsa, fondeadero amplio y seguro situado en la costa nordeste de la isla que por sus magníficas condiciones vino a ser descrito comúnmente por marinos y visitantes como el “puerto rico”. Durante el siglo XVI y gran parte del XVII ambos nombres fueron intercambiables. Eventualmente, en el curso del siglo XVIII se produjo un trueque definitivo y algo perplejo en la nomenclatura mediante el cual el nombre dado por Colón a la isla se vino a utilizar exclusivamente para referirse a la ciudad capital, y el nombre común dado a la bahía pasó a designar a la isla entera como Puerto Rico o Puertorrico. La primera vez que se hace mención clara y justificada de este cambio es aquí, en este segundo párrafo de los Infortunios, donde se da el nombre de San Juan de Puerto Rico a la ciudad y se alude directamente a la leyenda de que el nombre de la isla, es decir Puerto Rico, se derivó de los abundantes yacimientos de oro que en ella encontraron los europeos. Aun así, los Infortunios pertenecen a este período de transición. En el tercer párrafo se dice que la madre de Alonso, Ana Ramírez, era natural de la ciudad de Puerto Rico. 2. En los tiempos del virreinato de la Nueva España (1535–1821) el Mar Caribe era conocido como el Seno Mexicano. De igual manera, las islas de las Antillas eran conocidas como el

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términos. Hácenla celebre los refrescos que hallan en su deleitosa aguada3 cuantos desde la antigua navegan sedientos a la Nueva España, la hermosura de su bahía,4 lo incontrastable5 del Morro6 que la defiende, las cortinas y baluartes coronados de artillería que la aseguran, sirviendo aun no tanto esto,7 que en otras partes de las Indias también se halla, cuanto el espíritu que a sus hijos les reparte el genio de aquella tierra sin escasez a tenerla privilegiada de las hostilidades de corsantes.8 Empeño es este en que pone a sus naturales su pundonor y fidelidad sin otro Archipiélago de México. Así aparecen nombradas en el mapa trazado en 1688 por Vicente Coronelli, el entonces “cosmógrafo de la Serenísima República de Venecia”. 3. Se refiere al sitio en la costa occidental de la isla donde las flotas y demás navíos de la Carrera de Indias hacían la primera parada para reabastecerse de agua potable. Aguada y Aguadilla son topónimos que hasta el día de hoy marcan el lugar. Estos pueblos quedan lejos de la ciudad de San Juan, situada en la parte oriental de la isla. 4. La bahía de San Juan. 5. Inexpugnable. 6. San Felipe del Morro es una fortaleza abaluartada que ocupa la punta noroeste del islote de San Juan y guarda la entrada de la bahía. Se construyó durante los siglos XVII y XVIII siguiendo el diseño hecho por el ingeniero Juan Bautista Antonelli en 1589. Ver la figura 1. 7. Entiéndase a su defensa. 8. Ya en 1578 el Consejo de Indias había establecido la Junta de Puertorrico con el propósito de diseñar y construir un sistema de fortificaciones para proteger a los dominios españoles en América de los ataques de piratas y corsantes ingleses, holandeses y franceses. El proyecto, que identificaba a la ciudad de “Puertorrico” como la pieza clave en la defensa de las Indias Occidentales, propuso la erección de obras de defensa elaboradas y a gran escala en San Juan, Santo Domingo, La Habana, Cartagena, Santa Marta, Nombre de Dios, Portobelo y Río Chagre, obras que al día de hoy todavía figuran como el mayor proyecto de construcción jamás realizado por una potencia imperial europea en las colonias. Las obras protegieron el imperio pero no lograron garantizar la seguridad y prosperidad de los moradores de las nuevas plazas fuertes. Todo lo contrario, con la excepción de La Habana y Cartagena, que pasaron a ser puntos importantes en el sistema de extracción de riquezas conocido como la flota, las demás ciudades y pueblos sufrieron por siglos la constante amenaza de ataque sin percibir beneficio alguno. Este fue el caso de la villa y presidio de San Juan de Puerto Rico que antes de nacer Ramírez fue atacada tres veces. El 22 de noviembre de 1595, el corsario inglés Francis Drake al mando de una expedición de ocho galeones, quince navíos de apoyo y mil quinientos hombres bombardeó la ciudad sin lograr desembarcar debido al fuego recibido de las baterías emplazadas en el Morro y en el fuerte de San Jerónimo. Tres años más tarde, el Conde de Cumberland, George Clifford, fue enviado por Isabel I a vengar la derrota de Drake. El 6 de junio de 1598, Cumberland llegó a San Juan al mando de la mayor expedición hasta entonces enviada de Inglaterra. Desembarcó mil hombres y marchó contra la ciudad la cual logró tomar sin mayor oposición dos días más tarde. El ataque y asedio del Morro duró dos semanas. El 21 de junio, el pendón inglés fue levantado sobre el castillo. Dos semanas más tarde, sin embargo, debido a una epidemia de disentería, Cumberland se vio obligado a abandonar la isla de forma poco heroica. Un cuarto de siglo más tarde, el 25 de septiembre de 1625, al servicio de la recién fundada Compañía Holandesa de las Indias Occidentales, Balduino Enríquez logró colar diecisiete navíos pasando frente al Morro y entrar en la bahía de San Juan. Enríquez destruyó la ciudad, comenzando por la catedral, pero luego de cinco semanas de asedio no fue capaz de obtener la rendición del Morro y se vio obligado a abandonar la isla a toda prisa y bajo fuego intenso de artillería el primero de noviembre. La piratería en el Caribe sería legitimada con el surgimiento del imperio británico y con la expansión territorial y militar del país que heredó la tradición de la piratería inglesa en el Caribe, es decir, los Estados Unidos de Norte América. San Juan sería atacada nuevamente en 1797 por los ingleses bajo el mando de Ralph Abercromby quien falló en su intento de

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motivo, cuando es cierto que la riqueza que le dio nombre9 por los veneros de oro que en ella se hallaban,10 hoy por falta de sus originarios habitadores que los trabajen y por la vehemencia con que los huracanes procelosos rozaron los árboles de cacao que a falta de oro aprovisionaban11 de lo necesario a los que lo traficaban y, por el consiguiente, al resto de los isleños, se transformó en pobreza. Entre los que ésta12 había tomado muy a su cargo fueron mis padres, y así era fuerza que hubiera sido porque no lo merecían sus procederes, pero ya es pensión13 de las Indias el que así sea. Llamose mi padre Lucas de Villanueva, y aunque ignoro el lugar de su nacimiento, cónstame, porque varias veces se le oía [decir], que era andaluz.14 Y sé muy bien haber nacido mi madre en la misma tomar la ciudad. En 1898, la ciudad fue sometida a un intenso bombardeo por la armada usoniana al mando del capitán Sampson. Desde ese año, Puerto Rico ha sido colonia del imperio usoniano. En los tiempos de Ramírez la amenaza pirata estuvo muy viva y muy ligada a los intereses de la corona inglesa. El 31 de agosto de 1664, cuando Alonso era menor de dos años, el gobernador de Puertorrico, Juan Pérez de Guzmán, escribió a Felipe IV informándole de “navíos Corsantes que havian salido de Jamayca, y andaban en todas las costas de las Indias, porque tenian arrendados los parajes para piratear que serian hasta veynte fragatas unas de a diez, y otras de a veynte piezas”. Añadió el gobernador en su informe que “en las Islas de Niebes y Antigua que son de las de Barlobento havía quince fragatas de Inglaterra con muchos peltrechos de guerra y yntento de acometer a la Isla de Santo Domingo”. AGI, Santo Domingo, 157, R. 2, N. 51. 9. La isla de Puerto Rico. 10. Este supuesto falso sigue siendo parte integral de la historia “oficial” del país hasta el día de hoy. Sencillamente, el oro extraído durante las primeras décadas de la conquista fue hallado en ríos y quebradas algo distantes de la bahía de Puerto Rico. En todo caso, se encontró muchísimo más oro en La Española y no hay allí lugar alguno denominado como rico. Sí existe allí un Puerto Plata, así nombrado por los yacimientos del preciado metal encontrados en el Monte Plata que se levanta sobre la pequeña bahía. Si la leyenda que se pasa por historia en Puerto Rico fuera cierta, el nombre de la isla fuera Puerto Oro y no Puerto Rico. Evidentemente, resultaría mucho más glorioso para ciertas gentes que el nombre del país hubiera sido dado por los llamados conquistadores que, con nombre y apellido entraron en el Borriquén en busca de riquezas, y no por los marinos y las gentes de mar todas anónimas que venían huyendo de Europa en busca de mejor vida en el Nuevo Mundo. 11. El original dice “provisionaban”. 12. La pobreza. 13. Entiéndase como el precio de vivir en las Indias. 14. Este “se le oía decir” nos hace suponer que Alonso nunca conoció a su padre. No he encontrado documento alguno que haga referencia a un tal Lucas de Villanueva. Sin embargo, sí vivió en el Puerto Rico durante estas fechas un tal Alonso de Villanueva y Segarra, quien fuera nombrado sargento mayor del presido de San Juan el 17 de agosto de 1651 (ver AGI, Contratación, 5789, L. 2, F. 22–24). Villanueva y Segarra había nacido con el siglo y ya en 1616 había servido en las galeras del Marqués de Santa Cruz, sido soldado bajo Diego de Acevedo y, según su relación de méritos y servicios de 1650, asistido en los galeones de la Carrera de Indias. Fue un militar de carrera que actuó en la pacificación de Nueva Granada y ascendió al grado de alférez en la Guyana y Cumaná donde participó en la defensa del territorio, y de la plaza de Santo Tomé, contra el ataque de Walter Raleigh. En la Isla de Margarita, ocupó puestos políticos y militares, siendo nombrado en 1643 capitán de infantería antes de pasar con el gobernador Martín de Mendoza a la Trinidad y ser nombrado capitán de un tercio y más tarde sargento mayor del presidio de San José de Oruña en la cabeza de la isla, puesto que ocuparía hasta el 26 de diciembre de 1648 (ver AGI, Indiferente, 113, N. 140). Alonso

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ciudad de Puerto Rico, y es su nombre Ana Ramírez, a cuya cristiandad le debí en mi niñez lo que los pobres sólo le pueden dar a sus hijos, que son consejos para inclinarlos a la virtud. Era mi padre carpintero de ribera e impúsome en cuanto permitía la edad al propio ejercicio. Pero reconociendo no ser continua la fábrica15 y temiéndome no vivir siempre por esta causa,16 con las incomodidades que aunque muchacho me hacían fuerza, determiné hurtarle el cuerpo a mí misma patria para buscar en las ajenas más conveniencia.17 Valime de la ocasión que me ofreció para esto una urqueta18 del capitán Juan del Corcho,19 que salía de aquel puerto para el de La Habana,20 en que, corriendo el año de 1675 y siendo menos de trece los de mi edad, me recibieron por paje.21 No de Villanueva y Segarra vivió en San Juan unos doce años como el segundo en rango militar luego del gobernador y allí murió en marzo de 1664. Para ese entonces Alonso Ramírez tendría poco más de un año de nacido. Hasta ahora esta es la explicación más factible de quién puede haber sido el padre de Alonso. 15. El trabajo. 16. Empresa. 17. Ver la figura 2. 18. Barco de carga ancho de buque y lento. 19. Se trata, sin duda, del marino de origen corso Giovanni Michele, conocido también como Juan Miguel, Juan Miguel Corso o Juan Corso quien en 1682 poseería patente de corso del gobernador de Yucatán y del de La Habana concediéndole permiso para atacar las embarcaciones de piratas ingleses y franceses y apoderarse de sus cargamentos. Ver César García del Pino, El corso en Cuba. Siglo XVII (La Habana: Editorial Ciencias Sociales, 2001), 189–191. La mención en los Infortunios ubica a Giovanni Michele en las Antillas siete años antes haciendo ya las veces de mercader y trajinante. La real cédula para que se le otorgasen patentes de corso a los vecinos de las Indias Occidentales e Islas de Barlovento había sido dada el 22 de febrero de 1674, casi dos años antes de que Ramírez abandonase su ciudad natal. La misma iba dirigida a frenar la creciente penetración de ingleses y franceses en las Antillas y costas de Tierra Firme: “se deve recelar que en las costas de las Indias donde tienen los franceses diferentes poblaciones haran las Hostilidades que pudieren con grave daño y perjuicio de los havitadores de los Puertos que estan devajo del dominio de esta Corona; y . . . las Piraterías que executan Ingleses en aquellos Mares robando y matando a los vasallos que comercian de unas partes a otras y usurpando el palo de Campeche y otros frutos y generos” (AGI, Indiferente, 430, L. 41, F. 328–329v). En adelante, los corsarios así designados por virreyes y capitanes generales tendrían derecho a un quinto de todas las presas que hiciesen. En una carta del 13 de marzo de 1683, el gobernador de La Habana, Tomás Fernández de Córdoba, hace mención de las presas hechas por “el capitán Juan Corso” (AGI, Santo Domingo, 107, R. 2, N. 41). Cinco años más tarde, en una carta del 7 de noviembre de 1687, el gobernador militar de La Habana se refiere al difunto Juan Corso, “que empleó mucho contra los enemigos que infestan esta ensenada” (AGI, Santo Domingo, 109, R. 2, N. 29). La carta trata del ataque perpetrado contra los franceses en Petit-Goâve, Saint-Domingue, por el hermano de Juan Miguel, Biagio Michele, o Blas Miguel Corso, en agosto de ese mismo año. Ver también AGN, GD100 Reales Cédulas Originales, Vol. 22, Exp. 40, fs. 2. 20. Ver el mapa 1 y la figura 3. La distancia entre San Juan de Puerto Rico y San Cristóbal de La Habana es de aproximadamente mil millas náuticas. Por las pistas que ofrece el texto más adelante en cuanto a su paso por Perote, lo más probable es que Ramírez haya partido de San Juan en algún momento entre agosto y octubre de 1675. 21. Trabajo que conllevaba labores de limpieza y aseo de las embarcaciones. También conocido como paje de escoba que, según el Diccionario Marítimo Español era “el muchacho de ocho a catorce años que se embarcaba en los bajeles de guerra para prender el oficio de marinero”. Timoteo O’Scanlan, Diccionario Marítimo Español (Madrid: Imprenta Real, 1831), 395. Todo

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me pareció trabajosa la ocupación, considerándome en libertad y sin la pensión de cortar madera; pero confieso que, tal vez presagiando lo porvenir, dudaba si podría prometerme algo que fuese bueno habiéndome valido de un corcho para principiar mi fortuna. Mas, ¿quién podrá negarme que dudé bien, advirtiendo consiguientes mis sucesos a aquel principio? Del puerto de La Habana, célebre entre cuantos gozan las Islas de Barlovento, así por las conveniencias que le debió a la naturaleza que así lo hizo como por las fortalezas con que el arte y el desvelo lo han asegurado, pasamos al de San Juan de Ulúa22 en la tierra firme de Nueva España de donde, apartándome de mi patrón,23 subí a la ciudad de la Puebla de los Ángeles habiendo pasado no pequeñas incomodidades en el camino, así por la aspereza de las veredas que desde Xalapa corren hasta Perote como también por los fríos que, por no experimentados hasta allí, me parecieron intensos.24 Dicen los que la habitan ser aquella ciudad inmediata a México en la amplitud que coge, en el desembarazo de sus calles, en la magnificencia de sus templos y en cuantas otras cosas hay que la asemejen a aquélla.25 Y, ofreciéndoseme, por no haber visto hasta entonces otra mayor, que en ciudad tan grande me sería muy fácil el conseguir conveniencia grande,26 determiné, sin más discurso que éste, el quedarme en ella, aplicándome a servir a un carpintero para granjear el sustento en el ínterin que se me ofrecía otro modo para ser rico.

apunta a la posibilidad de que Ramírez haya nacido en el invierno de 1662, es decir, entre noviembre de 1662 y marzo de 1663. 22. La distancia entre La Habana y San Juan de Ulúa es aproximadamente ochocientos cincuenta millas náuticas. El castillo de San Juan de Ulúa fue construido en el cayo de Tecpantlayacatl (1535–1735) para defender la ciudad de Veracruz. Fue el punto de entrada exclusivo de todo el comercio en la costa atlántica de la Nueva España y era aquí donde una vez al año la flota de galeones venía a recoger el tesoro de México y las mercancías adquiridas en las Indias Orientales traídas a Acapulco en el galeón de Manila. Cuando Ramírez llegó, la parte más sobresaliente del castillo era el Muro de las Argollas, un lienzo de muralla de cien metros de largo donde habían empotradas más de veinte pesadas argollas de bronce de casi dos metros de diámetro para amarrar los galeones y buques mercantes. Ver la figura 4. 23. El capitán Juan Miguel Corso. 24. La distancia de San Juan de Ulúa (Veracruz) a Puebla es de aproximadamente trescientos kilómetros. El camino de Veracruz a Xalapa no sería nada novedoso para Ramírez en términos del clima y de la vegetación. Pero la ruta de Xalapa (1.430 metros sobre el nivel del mar) a Perote, que queda a una altura de 2.360 metros, es un ascenso escarpado por un bosque de pinos a un pueblo que queda por encima de las nubes y donde en tiempos de Ramírez hubo una venta para los viajeros. Allí arriba, la vegetación es escasa y se da un cambio de escala significativo. El horizonte es ancho, las vistas largas y el pueblo yace a la falda de un volcán conocido como el Cofre de Perote que se levanta hasta alcanzar una altura de 4.274 metros sobre el nivel del mar. Viniendo de los tórridos puertos de San Juan, La Habana y Veracruz este paisaje y este clima deben haberle parecido muy extraños al joven isleño. Pobre, hambriento y descalzo no cabe duda de que Alonso sufrió mucho por falta de abrigo. 25. Puebla se encontraba entonces en pleno apogeo y era la tercera ciudad más poblada en todo el imperio, luego de Sevilla y de la Ciudad de México. Ver la figura 5. 26. Gran provecho.

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En la demora de seis meses que allí perdí experimenté mayor hambre que en Puerto Rico y, abominando la resolución indiscreta de abandonar mi patria por tierra adonde no siempre se da acogida a la liberalidad generosa,27 haciendo mayor el número de unos arrieros,28 sin considerable trabajo me puse en México.29 Lástima es grande el que no corran por el mundo grabadas a punta de diamante en láminas de oro las grandezas magníficas de tan soberbia ciudad. Borrose de mi memoria lo que de la Puebla aprendí como grande desde que pisé la calzada en que por parte de medio día, a pesar de la gran laguna sobre la que está fundada, se franquea30 a los forasteros.31 Y siendo uno de los primeros elogios de esta metrópoli la magnanimidad de los que la habitan, a que ayuda la abundancia de cuanto se necesita para pasar la vida con descanso que en ella se halla, atribuyo a la fatalidad de mi estrella32 haber sido necesario ejercitar mi oficio para sustentarme. Ocupome Cristóbal de Medina,33 maestro de alarife y de arquitectura, con competente salario, en obras que le ocurrían, y se gastaría en ello cosa de un año.34 El motivo que tuve para salir de México a la ciudad de Oaxaca fue la noticia de que asistía en ella con el título y ejercicio honroso de regidor don Luis Ramírez35 27. Es decir, donde no siempre se encuentra generosidad que proceda del desinterés, o sea, genuina. 28. Sumándose a un grupo de arrieros o carreteros. 29. La distancia entre Puebla y la Ciudad de México es de aproximadamente ciento veinticinco kilómetros. Dada la descripción del frío que pasó en Perote, es justo asumir que Ramírez llegó a Puebla en el invierno de 1675 y que saldría de allí para la Ciudad de México en el verano de 1676. 30. Se da entrada abierta. 31. Se entiende como muestra de la generosidad de sus habitantes y del cabildo de la ciudad el que se dé entrada libre a los forasteros tratándose de obra tan costosa como la calzada erigida sobre la gran laguna. 32. A mi mala suerte. 33. Cristóbal de Medina Vargas Machuca era entonces uno de los principales arquitectos en la Ciudad de México y un colaborador cercano de Sigüenza, pues ambos trabajaron conjuntamente en proyectos hidráulicos para el abastecimiento de aguas a la ciudad y la desecación de su laguna. Había sido nombrado maestro mayor de obras de la Ciudad de México el 12 de junio de 1679. Por los “continuos servicios que ha hecho a esta república en las obras públicas y reales” recibiría confirmación de oficio en 1680 (ver AGI, México, 196, N. 16). Cuando Alonso Ramírez entró a trabajar para Cristóbal de Medina, éste se encontraba en vías de completar su primera gran comisión que fue la capilla del Misterio de la Encarnación (1675–1676), la primera de quince capillas construidas en lo que sería conocida como la Calzada de los Misterios, obra que respondía al creciente culto a la Virgen de Guadalupe. Para más información sobre la vida y obra del maestro mayor ver Martha Fernández, Cristóbal de Medina Vargas y la arquitectura salomónica en la Nueva España durante el siglo XVII (México: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 2002). 34. Ramírez trabajaría con Cristóbal de Medina aproximadamente desde mediados de 1676 hasta mediados de 1677, tiempo en el que cumpliría los catorce años. 35. El 10 de marzo de 1674, el capitán Luis Ramírez de Aguilar fue nombrado alcalde mayor y capitán de Guadalcázar, hoy Santo Domingo Tehuantepec, Oaxaca (AGN, Reales Cédulas, 100, Vol. 30, Exp. 1202, Fojas 314Vta). El 28 de mayo de 1676, tras la renuncia de su padre, heredó el puesto de regidor de Antequera, hoy Oaxaca de Juárez (capital del Estado de Oaxaca), donde ya había servido como alcalde ordinario y procurador general. El rey confirmó su nombramiento un año más tarde, el 20 de marzo de 1677. También fue alcalde mayor de Teotitlán

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en quien, por parentesco que con mi madre tiene, afiancé, ya que no ascensos desproporcionados a los fundamentos tales cuales en que estribaran, por lo menos alguna mano para subir un poco. Pero conseguí después de un viaje de ochenta leguas,36 el que, negándome [éste] con muy malas palabras el parentesco, tuviese necesidad de valerme de los extraños por no poder sufrir despegos37 sensibilísimos por no esperados, y así me apliqué a servir a un mercader trajinante que se llamaba Juan López. Ocupábase éste en permutar con los indios mixes, chontales y cuicatecas38 por géneros de Castilla, que les faltaban, los que son propios de aquella tierra y [que] se reducen a algodón, mantas,39 vainillas, cacao y grana. Lo que se experimenta en la fragosidad de la sierra, que para conseguir esto se atraviesa y huella continuamente, no es otra cosa sino repetidos sustos de derrumbarse por lo acantilado de las veredas, profundidad horrorosa de las barrancas, aguas continuas [y] atolladeros penosos, a que se añaden, en los pequeños calidísimos valles que allí se hacen, muchos mosquitos y, en cualquier parte, sabandijas abominables a todo viviente por su mortal veneno. Con todo esto atropella la gana de enriquecer, y todo esto experimenté acompañando a mi amo, persuadido de que sería a medida del trabajo la recompensa. del Valle y de Macuisochitl. Era propietario de varias haciendas en las inmediaciones de Antequera y por lo menos en una ocasión pidió al rey ser relevado de sus cargos y obligaciones para poder atender sus negocios personales (AGN, Oficios Vendibles, 80, Vol. 5, Exp. 4, Fojas 118–137v). Luis Ramírez alegaba ser descendiente del conquistador Cristóbal Gil y de su esposa Ana Bernal, así como de Rodrigo de Jerez, primer gobernador de Antequera. La relación de servicios del 2 de enero de 1689 traza su parentesco en Antequera por cuatro generaciones a Cristóbal de Aguilar, regidor de la ciudad a finales del siglo XVI, y a su esposa María Ramírez. El hijo de éstos, Luis Ramírez de Aguilar, fue nombrado capitán de infantería de Antequera en 1605. Además, fue corregidor de Teotitlán y Macuisochitl. Su hijo, el capitán Nicolás Ramírez de Aguilar, fue regidor y tres veces alcalde de Antequera, así como también corregidor de Chinantla, Teotitlán y Macuisochitl. Nicolás era esposo de Isabel de Robles Godoy, hija del capitán Antonio de Robles Godoy (AGI, Indiferente, 123, N. 49). Luis Ramírez de Aguilar, hijo de este matrimonio, se casó con Francisca Flores Sierra y Valdés, vecina de la Ciudad de México. De ese matrimonio nacieron veinte hijos. Con tales distinciones y pretensiones de alcurnia americana es fácil aceptar que el regidor negara todo parentesco con el hijo bastardo de una tal Ana Ramírez siendo esta además soltera, indigente y vecina del pobre y olvidado presidio de San Juan de Puerto Rico. 36. Muy probablemente hizo el viaje a mediados de 1677. 37. Desapegos. 38. Desde tiempos precolombinos estos pueblos han ocupado las zonas montañosas que rodean los valles centrales de Oaxaca. Las tierras de los cuicatecos quedan al Noroeste de los valles, a mitad de camino entre las ciudades de Oaxaca y Tehuacán, en el distrito de Cuicatlán. Las de los mixes, al Este, se extienden sobre la Sierra Norte en dirección al Istmo de Tehuantepec, en el distrito Mixe. Y las de los chontales, al Sureste, corren por la Sierra Sur hasta el Golfo de Tehuantepec, en los distritos de Yautepec y Tehuantepec. Todas estas tierras quedan sobre una ancha franja de terreno que comienza a sesenta kilómetros de la ciudad de Oaxaca (antiguamente Antequera) y se extiende por ciento veinte, describiendo un arco de medio punto que rodea a los valles centrales en dirección a Chiapas. 39. Los telares oaxaqueños eran y siguen siendo reconocidos por sus mantas y alfombras de alta calidad. Buen ejemplo de éstas son las producidas en la actualidad en Teotitlán del Valle, pueblo que queda a las afueras de Oaxaca camino de Tehuantepec.

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Hicimos viaje a Chiapa de Indios,40 y de allí a diferentes lugares de las provincias de Soconusco41 y de Guatemala. Pero siendo pensión de los sucesos humanos interpolarse con el día alegre de la prosperidad la noche pesada y triste del sinsabor, estando de vuelta para Oaxaca enfermó mi amo en el pueblo de Tlalixtac42 con tanto extremo que se le administraron los sacramentos para morir. Sentía yo su trabajo y en igual contrapeso sentía el mío, gastando el tiempo en idear ocupaciones en que pasar la vida con más descanso. Pero, con la mejoría de Juan López se sosegó mi borrasca, a que se siguió tranquilidad, aunque momentánea, supuesto que el siguiente viaje, sin que le valiese remedio alguno, acometiéndole el mismo achaque en el pueblo de Cuicatlán,43 le faltó la vida.44 Cobré de sus herederos lo que quisieron darme por mi asistencia45 y, despechado de mí mismo y de mi fortuna, me volví a México. Y, queriendo entrar en esta ciudad con algunos reales intenté trabajar en la Puebla para conseguirlos. Pero no hallé acogida en maestro alguno y, temiéndome de lo que experimenté de hambre cuando allí estuve, aceleré mi viaje.46 Debile a la aplicación que tuve al trabajo cuando le asistí al maestro Cristóbal de Medina por el discurso de un año, y a la que volvieron a ver en mí cuantos me conocían, el que tratasen de avecindarme en México. Y conseguilo mediante el matrimonio que contraje con Francisca Javiera,47 doncella huérfana de doña 40. Hoy Chiapa de Corzo, fue uno de los extremos del Camino Real trazado por los españoles para conectar México con Guatemala. El otro extremo del camino era la ciudad de Antigua, sede de la Capitanía General de Guatemala. 41. La provincia de Soconusco, que desde 1565 perteneció a la Capitanía General de Guatemala, ocupó las tierras de la Sierra Madre de Chiapas sobre la costa del Golfo de Tehuantepec en el extremo suroeste de lo que hoy es México. Desde tiempos precolombinos, fue el eje de la más importante ruta comercial que conectaba el Valle de México con Mesoamérica. 42. El original dice “Talistaca”. Es hoy Santa María Tlalixtac en la tierra de los cuicatecos. 43. San Juan Bautista Cuiclatlán está ubicado en el corazón del territorio cuicateco, casi equidistante entre Oaxaca y Tehuacán. 44. Esto debió haber ocurrido durante los primeros meses de 1682. Para ese entonces, Ramírez había trabajado para Juan López por casi cinco años, desde que tenía catorce hasta cumplidos los diecinueve años de edad. 45. Recompensa dada por la asistencia personal que pudo darle Ramírez a Juan López. 46. Sería entonces el final de la primavera de 1682. 47. El original dice “Francisca Javier”. Según el Índice de Matrimonios de la Parroquia del Sagrario Metropolitano, 1667–1730, el matrimonio quedó registrado en el libro 11, hoja 114 (ver AGN, Distrito Federal, Parroquia del Sagrario Metropolitano, JIT YW 728 [271], 1667–1730, folio 10). El mismo tomó lugar en la catedral de la Ciudad de México el domingo 8 de noviembre de 1682. Ver la figura 6. Este es el único documento oficial hasta ahora encontrado donde se confirma que el nombre de pila del protagonista de los Infortunios fue efectivamente Alonso Ramírez. El acta en su integridad indica: “[Matrimonio de] Alonso Ramírez con Francisca Xaviera. En ocho de Noviembre de mil seiscientos y ochenta y dos años Yo el Doctor Don Francisco Romero de Quevedo Cura Proprietario desta Sancta Yglesia despose por palabras de presente que hizieron verdadero y lexitimo Matrimonio a Alonso Ramirez con Francisca Xaviera. Siendo testigos los Lizenciados Don Juan de Padilla, y Phelipe Manrique, Presbiteros, presentes, y otras personas. Don Francisco Romero de Quevedo.” Archivo Histórico del Arzobispado de México (AHAM), Libro de matrimonio de españoles de esta Santa Iglesia Catedral de México, que empieza el 1ro de abril de 1680 hasta 1688, rollo 14, fs. 114. Este rollo es parte de los documentos en microfilm

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María de Poblete,48 hermana del venerable señor doctor don Juan de Poblete, deán de la Iglesia de los Santos de los Últimos Días (M619649, 1672–1688, 0035269), que aparece a su vez en el AGN, Sagrario Metropolitano, Matrimonio de españoles, OAH 526 (ZD) 11, 1680–1688, donde el rollo está perdido. Francisca Javiera era hija de Juan de Ribera, escribano público que quedó discapacitado por enfermedad a finales de 1648 para morir cinco años más tarde dejando a la viuda, María de Poblete, embarazada de su sexto hijo. Dada la fecha de defunción de su padre el 1 de marzo de 1653, Francisca Javiera era al menos diez años mayor que su esposo quien había cumplido ya los diecinueve años. 48. Amparada por la orden religiosa de Nuestra Señora del Carmen, María de Poblete había adquirido fama de propiciar milagros que inicialmente se habían dado por el afán de curar a su esposo, tullido como estaba de pies y manos y, por consiguiente, incapaz de ejercer su oficio. A causa de la discapacitación de Juan, la familia Ribera Poblete fue amparada en casa del hermano de María, el prominente deán catedralicio Juan de Poblete. Esta situación se tornó permanente tras la muerte de Juan de Ribera el 1 de marzo de 1653. Allí comenzó a concurrir la gente desde principios de 1649 en busca de las propiedades curativas de ciertos panecitos milagrosos u hostias mágicas que María era capaz de producir, según se pensaba, por obra y gracia de Santa Teresa de Jesús. En poco tiempo, el milagro llegó a ser conocido en toda Nueva España y había llegado noticia al Perú y al convento matriz de las teresas en Alba de Tormes (Salamanca). Fue certificado ante notario el 17 de septiembre de 1653 y nuevamente el 19 de octubre de 1673. En 1674, María de Poblete solicitó oficialmente que se declarase milagrosa la formación de unos “panecitos benditos de Santa Teresa de Jesús en la casa del Sr. deán D, Juan de Poblete”. Durante el proceso el procurador Fray Juan de la Ascensión opinó que “para mayor ensalzar la gloria de Dios nuestro señor y de nuestra gloriosa madre Santa Teresa de Jessús y aumento de su devoción combiene al deber de mi sagrada religión . . . que Vuestra Excelencia sirva de calificar un milagro que la magestad divina obra en los panessittos benditos de nuestra bien abenturada madre Santa Teressa de Jessús en cassa del Sr. Doctor Don Juan de Poblete, dean de esta Sancta Iglecia Metropolitana de México, arzobispo electo que fue de la ciudad de Manila en las Islas Filipinas . . .” (Ver AGN, Bienes Nacionales, 14, Vol. 969, Exp. 1, 1674). Aparentemente, María se dedicaba a moler los panecitos con la imagen de la santa que recibía del convento o que le traían a casa los devotos. Entonces echaba la moledura a remojar en una jarra donde milagrosamente se reconstituían las hostias recobrando la forma de Santa Teresa. El milagro se obraba en la sacristía de la casa donde había convenientemente ubicado un depósito para recolectar limosnas. A medida que creció el culto y el negocio, las hostias comenzaron a salir reflejando la iconografía del día en el santoral. Los panecitos fueron declarados milagrosos por el arzobispo de México y virrey de la Nueva España, Payo de Rivera, el 9 de octubre de 1677. El negocio de María de Poblete prosperó hasta la muerte de su poderoso hermano, cómplice y protector, el 8 de julio de 1680. Exactamente a un año y un día de este suceso, el 9 de julio de 1681, el franciscano Diego de Leiva denunciaba ante el Santo Oficio a María de Poblete por incrédula y daba por falsos los testimonios de que los panecitos con la forma de la santa se reintegraban y recobraban la misma imagen y forma en que originalmente “fueron hechos y sellados” luego de que molidos fueran puestos en “un jarro o ollica” de agua (ver AGN, Inquisición, 61, Vol. 520, Exp. 45, Foja 5, 1681). El proceso duró hasta la muerte de María de Poblete el 2 de diciembre de 1686. Subsiguientemente el fiscal falló en su contra por “forjadora de milagros y supersticiones” (ver AGN, Inquisición, 61, Vol. 642, Exp. 4, Foja 108). A pesar de que murió pobre, el negocio de las hostias milagrosas le sirvió a María de Poblete para levantar a su familia go de que su esposo quedara discapacitado. Por casi cuatro décadas, esta viuda, a quien el pueblo mexicano daba por santa, logró capturar la imaginación y mantener en la intriga a toda la sociedad, recibiendo en su casa a gentes de toda procedencia y llegando a tratar a la Santa Teresa y a todos los altos oficiales del reino y del clero de la forma más íntima e informal, teniéndola a aquella supuestamente por confidente secreta y a éstos, por lo menos hasta 1681, por cómplices de lo que más que un gran truco fue toda una fabulosa mentira. Tal fue la suegra de Alonso Ramírez, la casa que sin duda a menudo frecuentó

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de la Iglesia Metropolitana quien, renunciando la mitra arzobispal de Manila por morir como fénix en su patrio nido,49 vivió para ejemplar de cuantos aspiren a eternizar su memoria con la rectitud de sus procederes. Sé muy bien que expresar su nombre es compendiar cuanto puede hallarse en la mayor nobleza y en la más sobresaliente virtud, y así callo, aunque con repugnancia, por no ser largo en mi narración, cuanto me está sugiriendo la gratitud.50 Hallé en mi esposa mucha virtud, y merecile en mi asistencia cariñoso amor. Pero fue esta dicha como soñada, teniendo solo once meses de duración, supuesto que en el primer parto le faltó la vida.51 Quedé casi52 sin ella a tan no esperado y sensible golpe, y para errarlo todo me volví a la Puebla. Acomodeme por oficial53 de Esteban Gutiérrez, maestro de carpintero, y sustentándose el tal mi maestro con escasez, ¿cómo lo pasaría el pobre de su oficial?54 Desesperé55 entonces de poder ser algo y, hallándome en el tribunal de mi propia conciencia no sólo acusado sino convencido de inútil, quise darme por pena de ese delito la que se da en México a los que son delincuentes, que es enviarlos desterrados a las Filipinas. Pasé pues a ellas en el galeón Santa Rosa que, a cargo del general Antonio Nieto y de quien el almirante Leandro Coello era piloto, salió del puerto de Acapulco para el de Cavite el año de 1682.56 y donde quizás pudo haber vivido, y la historia de la cual fue partícipe y cómplice. Para más información ver el bien documentado libro de Martha Lilia Tenorio, De panes y sermones: El milagro de los “panecitos” de Santa Teresa (México: El Colegio de México, 2001). 49. El 23 de abril de 1670 se ordenó a Juan de Poblete ir a gobernar el arzobispado de Manila (ver AGI, Filipinas, 348, L. 5, F. 124r–124v). Murió diez años después en la Ciudad de México, el 8 de julio de 1680. 50. Contrario a lo que pudiera haber opinado Sigüenza, y aquí hay razón para pensar que la alabanza de Poblete viene de su amigo mexicano y no de Ramírez quien nunca lo pudo haber llegado a conocer, el récord demuestra que la explotación de la ganancia de las hostias o panecitos milagrosos de María de Poblete era una operación compleja que se montó con la ayuda, complicidad y protección de su hermano Juan. 51. La muerte de Francisca Javiera debe haber ocurrido a finales de octubre de 1683. No queda claro si el hijo sobrevivió al parto. 52. Debe decir “así”. 53. Esto significa que Ramírez había terminado ya el período de aprendizaje aunque no era todavía maestro. 54. Ramírez debe haber comenzado a trabajar para Gutiérrez a finales del año de 1683. 55. Quiere decir que perdió toda esperanza. 56. El galeón Santa Rosa no estuvo en Acapulco en todo el año de 1682. Su más reciente carrera del Mar del Sur comenzó en Manila el 24 de junio de 1679. Siete meses más tarde, el 22 de enero de 1680, era descargado en Acapulco donde pasaría los acostumbrados dos meses antes de proseguir al viaje de vuelta. El 15 de marzo zarpó de Acapulco rumbo a Manila donde llegó casi siete meses después. Allí permanecería casi dos años. Su próximo viaje no sería hasta el 25 de junio de 1682 cuando salió de Manila al mando del general Antonio Nieto. Ciento ochenta y cinco días después, el Santa Rosa regresaría en arribada a Cavite el día de Navidad. Según informe del Capitán General de las Filipinas, Juan de Vargas Hurtado, el galeón “no pudo apartarse de estas islas ni desembocar por San Bernardino por haber faltado generalmente en ellas los vientos vendavales” (AGI, Filipinas, 11, R. 1, N. 48/1/1). Tampoco estuvo en Acapulco ese año el propio Antonio Nieto. Había llegado a Filipinas al mando del Santa Rosa a principios de julio de 1680. Para octubre del mismo año sería

Infortunios de Alonso Ramírez

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Está este puerto en la altura de 16 grados 40 minutos a la banda del Septentrión,57 y cuanto tiene de hermoso y seguro para las naos que en él se encierran tiene de desacomodado y penoso para los que lo habitan, que son muy pocos, así por su mal temple y esterilidad del paraje como por falta de agua dulce y aún del sustento, que siempre se le conduce de la comarca, y añadiéndose lo que se experimenta de calores intolerables, [y las] barrancas y precipicios por el camino, todo ello estimula a solicitar la salida del puerto.58

enviado por Vargas Hurtado en busca de armas a Macao, trayendo consigo de vuelta en 1681 quinientos arcabuces y mosquetes para el presidio de Cavite. Nieto había solicitado y recibido de Vargas Hurtado licencia para comerciar en Cantón a cambio de costear los gastos de la expedición (AGI, Filipinas, 24, R. 2, N. 11). Nieto y Vargas Hurtado no se habían conocido anteriormente pues éste iba rumbo a Acapulco en el Santa Rosa cuando aquel llegaba a Manila a bordo del galeón San Antonio. Evidentemente ninguno de los dos perdió tiempo en montar negocios juntos, renombrados como llegaron a ser ambos por lucrarse desmedidamente a costa de sus cargos en Filipinas. Apenas transcurrieron dos meses entre la descarga del Santa Rosa y la expedición a Cantón y a Macao. No sería hasta el 22 de junio de 1683 que Antonio Nieto saldría hacia Acapulco nuevamente al mando del Santa Rosa. Allí llegó el 23 de enero de 1684 optando sabiamente por no regresar a las Filipinas y permanecer en aquel puerto como castellano, o gobernador de su castillo. El Santa Rosa saldría para Manila el 31 de marzo sin su capitán de tantos años y llevando consigo al nuevo Capitán General de las Islas Filipinas, Gabriel de Curucelaegui y Arriola, enviado para suplantar al destituido Vargas Hurtado quien sería excomulgado y puesto bajo arresto domiciliario por cuatro años antes de ser enviado a Nueva España. Por su parte Antonio Nieto regresaría a las Filipinas al año siguiente como general del galeón Santo Niño y Nuestra Señora de Guía que partió de Acapulco el 28 de marzo de 1685 (ver AGI, Contaduría, 906B/5/12). Allí seguiría siendo figura importante dentro del aparato burocrático y militar de la Nao de Acapulco sirviendo como alcalde mayor de la Provincia de Camarines y cabo superior del puerto de Solsogón (ver AGI, Contaduría, 1245/18r). Dada la fecha en que sabemos que contrajo matrimonio y la mención del galeón Santa Rosa en el libro, queda claro que Ramírez no pudo haber salido de Acapulco en 1682. El único galeón que salió para Manila ese año fue el San Antonio de Padua que zarpó el viernes 27 de marzo, casi siete meses antes de la boda de Alonso con Francisca Javiera. Puesto que el Santa Rosa tuvo que regresar en arribada a Manila en diciembre de 1682, no hubo galeón en Acapulco el año siguiente. Para compensar por esta pérdida se despacharon dos galeones en 1684. Por tanto, si Ramírez no salió de Acapulco abordo del Santa Rosa junto con Curucelaegui, entonces lo hizo cuatro días después, el 4 de abril, en el San Antonio de Padua cuyo piloto era el almirante Leandro Coello (ver AGI, Contaduría, 906B/2/4). Hasta ahora no he logrado encontrar en el AGI o en el AGN los documentos relacionados con la visita de salida de estas dos embarcaciones. Pero sabemos, por lo que contaría a los piratas según Dampier, que Ramírez partió en el Santa Rosa, como indica en el libro, sólo que no en 1682 sino el 31 de marzo de 1684. Por carecer de experiencia como gente de mar, salvo por haber sido paje en el viaje de San Juan a Veracruz siete años atrás, asumiremos también que no habría podido aspirar a otro puesto que el de grumete o aprendiz de marinero. 57. Es decir, dieciseis grados cuarenta minutos de latitud Norte. 58. Ver el mapa 2.

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II Sale de Acapulco para las Filipinas. Dícese la derrota de este viaje y en lo que gastó el tiempo hasta que lo apresaron ingleses.

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Hácese esta salida con la virazón1 por el Oeste Noroeste o Noroeste, que entonces entra allí como a las once del día. Pero siendo más ordinaria [la virazón] por el Sudoeste, y saliéndose al Sur y Sur Sudoeste, es necesario para excusar bordos2 esperar a las tres de la tarde porque, pasado el sol del meridiano, alarga3 el viento para el Oeste Noroeste y Noroeste y se consigue la salida sin barloventear.4 Navégase desde allí la vuelta5 del Sur, con las virazones de arriba,6 sin reparar mucho en que se varíen las cuartas,7 o se aparten algo del meridiano,8 hasta ponerse en 12 grados (de latitud) o en algo menos. Comenzando ya aquí a variar los vientos desde el Nordeste al Norte, así que se reconoce el que llaman del Este Nordeste y Este, haciendo la derrota al Oeste Sudoeste, al Oeste y [luego] a la cuarta del Noroeste, se apartarán de aquel meridiano quinientas leguas y conviene hallarse entonces en 13 grados de altura. Desde aquí comienzan las agujas [de las brújulas] a nordestear9 y, en llegando a 18 grados la variación,10 se habrán navegado, sin [contar] las quinientas [leguas] que he dicho, mil y cien leguas. Y, sin apartarse del paralelo de 13 grados, cuando se reconozca nordestea11 la aguja solo 10 grados, que será estando apartados del meridiano de Acapulco mil setecientas y setenta y cinco leguas, con una singladura12 de veinte leguas o poco más, se dará con la cabeza del sur de una de las Islas Marianas, que se

1. Viento que sopla de la parte del mar, generalmente de día. 2. Para no tener que bordear, es decir, para no tener que navegar de bolina, alternativamente de una y otra banda, o en bordos sucesivos remontando contra el viento. 3. Cambio en la dirección del viento hacia popa. 4. Bordear o navegar de bolina. 5. Derrota o dirección. 6. Es decir, con la proa hacia sotavento. 7. Cualquiera de los treinta y dos rumbos de la rosa náutica. 8. La salida de Acapulco en galeón que aquí se describe es una maniobra relativamente sencilla pues se entra inmediatamente en mar abierto. Por eso se indica que no ha de importar mucho si no es exacta la marcación (la variación de cuartas) o si la nave se aparta un poco de su curso al navegar por el meridiano hacia el Sur. 9. A declinarse la aguja de la brújula del Norte hacia el Este. 10. Es decir, la declinación del Norte. 11. Con una declinación del Norte. 12. Distancia que navega la nave (generalmente en un día).

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nombra Guam,13 y corre desde 13 [grados] y 5 [minutos] hasta 13 grados y 25 minutos. Pasada una isletilla que tiene cerca,14 se ha de meter de ló15 con bolinas aladas16 para dar fondo en la Ensenada de Umatac que es la inmediata y, dando de resguardo un solo tiro de cañón al arrecife que al Oeste arroja esta isletilla, en veinte brazas17 o en las que se quisiere, porque es bueno y limpio el fondo, se podrá surgir.18 Para buscar desde aquí el embocadero de San Bernardino19 se ha de ir al Oeste cuarta al Sudoeste, con advertencia de ir haciendo la derrota como se recogiere la aguja20 y, en navegando doscientas y noventa y cinco leguas se dará con el Cabo del Espíritu Santo que está en 12 grados y 45 minutos, y si se puede buscar por menos altura es mejor porque si los vendavales se anticipan y entran por el Sur Sudeste o por el Sudeste es aquí sumamente necesario estar a barlovento y al abrigo de la Isla de Bátag21 y del mismo cabo. En soplando brisas se navegará por la costa de esta misma isla cosa de veinte leguas, la proa al Oeste Noroeste, guiñando al Oeste, porque aquí se afija la aguja,22 y pasando por la parte del este del islote de San Bernardino,23 se va en demanda de la isla de Capul24 que a distancia de cuatro leguas está al Sudoeste. Desde aquí se ha de gobernar al Oeste seis leguas hasta la isla de Ticao, y, después de costearla cinco leguas yendo al Noroeste hasta la cabeza del norte, se virará al Oeste Sudoeste en demanda de la bocaina que hacen las islas de Burías y Masbate. Habrá de distancia de una a otra casi una legua, y de ellas es la de Burías la que cae al Norte. Dista esta bocaina de la cabeza de Ticao cosa de cuatro leguas. Pasadas estas angosturas, se ha de gobernar al Oeste Noroeste en demanda de la bocaina de las islas de Marinduque y Bantón, de las cuales ésta está al sur de la otra tres cuartos de legua, y distan de Burías diecisiete. De aquí al Noroeste, cuarta al Oeste, se han de ir a buscar las isletas de Mindoro, Lobo y Calapán.25 Luego, por entre las angosturas de Isla Verde y Mindoro se navegarán al Oeste once o doce leguas hasta cerca de la isla de Ambil, y las catorce leguas que desde aquí se cuentan a 13. Los españoles la llamaron San Juan Bautista de Guam. Ramírez estuvo en Guam a bordo del Santa Rosa del 8 al 12 de junio de 1684. 14. Se refiere a Isla de Cocos, que queda entre Punta Aga y Umatac y que está rodeada de un arrecife coralino que se extiende casi dos kilómetros a su suroeste. 15. Orzar o girar el timón para que la proa de la nave quede hacia barlovento. 16. Velas triangulares que se agregan para navegar a bolina o de cara al viento. 17. Una braza equivale a 1,8288 metros. 18. Fondear o anclar la nave. 19. Estrecho entre las islas de Luzón y Samar en las Filipinas. 20. Es decir, corregir el curso a medida que se reduce la declinación de la aguja. 21. El texto dice erróneamente Palapa, hoy Palapag, que es un puerto en la costa norte de la isla de Samar al Norte del cual queda la isla de Bátag la cual, sin duda, es la referencia correcta. 22. Quiere decir que en adelante no se usará la brújula para navegar utilizando en cambio la tierra de referencia. 23. Islote ubicado en el extremo este del estrecho que lleva su nombre. 24. Capul queda entre la isla de Samar y el Pasaje de Ticao. 25. El original dice “Galván”. Ninguna de éstas es una isleta. Calapán es una ciudad en la costa norte de la isla de Mindoro. Justo al Norte de ésta, al cruzar el Canal de Isla Verde, está el pueblo de Lobo en la costa sur de la isla de Luzón.

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Mariveles, que está en 14 grados y 30 minutos,26 se granjean yendo al Noroeste, Norte y Nordeste. Desde Mariveles se ha de ir en demanda del puerto de Cavite al Nordeste, Este Nordeste y Este como cinco leguas por dar resguardo a un bajo que está al Este Nordeste de Mariveles con cuatro brazas y media de agua sobre su fondo.27 Desengañado en el discurso de mi viaje de que jamás saldría de mi esfera, con sentimiento de que muchos con menores fundamentos perfeccionasen las suyas, despedí cuantas ideas embarazaron mi imaginación por algunos años. Es la abundancia de aquellas islas, y con especialidad la que se goza en la ciudad de Manila, en extremo mucha. Hállase allí para el sustento y vestuario todo cuanto se quiere a moderado precio debido a la solicitud con que por enriquecer los sangleyes lo comercian en su Parián,28 que es el lugar donde fuera de las murallas, con permiso de los españoles, se avecindaron. Esto, y lo hermoso y fortalecido de la ciudad, coadyuvado con29 la amenidad de su río30 y huertas, y lo demás que la hace célebre entre las colonias que tienen los europeos en el Oriente, obliga a pasar gustosos a los que en ella viven.31 Lo que allí ordinariamente se trajina es de mar en fuera,32 y siendo por eso las navegaciones de unas a otras partes casi continuas, aplicándome al oficio de marinero me avecindé en Cavite.33 Conseguí por este medio no sólo mercadear en cosas en que hallé ganancia y en que me prometía para lo venidero bastante logro, sino el ver diversas ciudades y puertos de la India en diferentes viajes.34 Estuve en Madraspatnám,35 antiguamente Calamina o Meliapor, donde murió el apóstol San Tomé,36 ciudad grande 26. El pico de Mariveles se eleva sobre el extremo norte de la boca que da entrada a la bahía de Manila. 27. Ramírez llegó a Manila el 31 de agosto de 1684 tras 153 días de viaje. Tenía entonces veintiún años de edad. Ver el mapa 3. 28. El Parián era la zona de extramuros donde residían los chinos o sangleyes por estarle prohibida la entrada y residencia en intramuros a todos cuantos no fueran españoles o mestizos de filipinos. Es la zona ocupada actualmente por Mehan Gardens, entre el Teatro Metropolitano y el ayuntamiento. 29. Es decir, añadido a. 30. El río Pasig. 31. Quiere decir que todo esto es lo que motiva a la gente de afuera a querer vivir allí. 32. Es decir, que se comercia allí con productos principalmente importados. 33. La plaza de Cavite, entonces protegida por el Castillo de San Felipe Neri, se encuentra en el extremo norte de una estrecha península al Suroeste de Manila. Ver la figura 7. 34. Se trata más bien de las Indias Orientales. Los viajes descritos inmediatamente a continuación tomaron lugar durante un período de dos años y medio, de septiembre de 1684 a marzo de 1687. Ver el mapa 4. 35. El original dice “Madrastapatán”. Se trata de la ciudad de Madrás, hoy conocida como Chennai-Madras, que queda en la Costa de Coromandel al Sureste de la India y es la capital del estado de Tamil Nadu. Fundada en 1639 por Francis Day y Andrew Cogan, quienes mandaron a erigir allí la fortaleza de San Jorge, Madras fue el segundo asentamiento de la Compañía Inglesa de las Indias Orientales y sede de la primera iglesia protestante del Oriente, la de Santa María, consagrada en 1680. 36. Madraspatnám no es Meliapor. Fundada en 1522 por los portugueses bajo el nombre de Santo Tomás de Meliapor (Mylapore), este asentamiento estaba situado cinco kilómetros al Sur del Fuerte de San Jorge. Meliapor se mantuvo bajo la soberanía portuguesa hasta 1662 cuando fue tomada por el ejército chiita de Abd Allah Qutb Shah de Golconda. Los franceses

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cuando la poseían los portugueses [y] hoy un monte de ruinas a violencia de los estragos que en ella hicieron los franceses y holandeses por poseerla. Estuve en Melaka,37 llave de toda la India y de sus comercios por el lugar que tiene en el estrecho de Malasia,38 y a cuyo gobernador pagan anclaje cuantos lo navegan. Son dueños de ella y de otras muchas los holandeses, debajo de cuyo yugo gimen los desvalidos católicos que allí han quedado, a quienes no se permite el uso de la religión verdadera, no estorbándoles a los moros39 y gentiles, sus vasallos, sus sacrificios. Estuve en Batavia,40 ciudad celebérrima, que poseen los mismos en la Java Mayor y adonde reside el gobernador y capitán general de los Estados Unidos de Holanda. Sus murallas, baluartes y fortalezas son admirables. El concurso que allí se ve de navíos de malayos,41 macasareses,42 siameses,43 bugises,44 chinos, armenios,45 franceses, ingleses, daneses,46 portugueses y castellanos no tiene número. Hállanse en este emporio cuantos artefactos hay en la Europa y los que en retorno de ellos le envía la Asia. Fabrícanse allí, para quien quisiere comprarlas, excelentes armas. Pero con decir estar allí compendiado el universo lo digo todo. Estuve también en Macao47 donde, aunque fortalecida de los portugueses que la poseen, no dejan de estar expuestos a las supercherías de los tártaros,48 que dominan en la gran China, los que la habitan. Aún más por mi conveniencia que por mi gusto me ocupé en esto. Pero no faltaron ocasiones en que, por obedecer a quien podía mandármelo, hice lo propio,49 y fue una de ellas la que me causó las fatalidades en que hoy me hallo y que empezaron así:

la tomaron en 1672 y, en septiembre de 1674, la rindieron a los holandeses quienes un mes más tarde la entregaron a los musulmanes. En 1749, pasó a manos de Inglaterra. 37. El original dice “Malaca”. Situada en la costa oeste de la Península de Malaya, entre Kuala Lumpur y Singapur, Melaka fue ocupada por los portugueses entre 1511 y 1641, cuando pasó a los holandeses hasta 1795. 38. El texto original lo llama por el nombre antiguo de estrecho de Syncapura, o Singapur. El estrecho de Malasia une el Océano Índico con el Mar de China. 39. Término peyorativo utilizado en los reinos cristianos de la Península Ibérica para referirse a los musulmanes. 40. Batavia o Nueva Batavia, hoy Yakarta, fue fundada en 1619 y fue el centro de operaciones de la Compañía Holandesa de las Indias Orientales. 41. Habitantes de Malaca. 42. Gentes de Macasar, hoy Ujungpandang en el extremo suroeste de la isla de Sulawesi (Célebes), Indonesia. 43. Procedentes de lo que es hoy Tailandia. 44. Las gentes de habla buginesa habitan las tierras al Norte de Malaca en Sulawesi. 45. Utilizado generalmente para referirse a los cristianos del Asia menor y de la región del Golfo Pérsico. 46. El texto original dice “dinamarcos”. 47. El texto original dice “Macán”. Antiguo emporio en la costa sur la China. Fue colonia portuguesa desde 1557 hasta 1987. 48. Referencia a la dinastía de los Ts’ing o manchúes. 49. Es decir, actuó más por su conveniencia que por gusto.

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Infortunios de Alonso Ramírez

Para aprovisionarse50 de bastimentos que en el presidio de Cavite ya nos faltaban, por orden del general don Gabriel de Curucelaegui,51 que gobernaba las islas, se despachó una fragata de una cubierta a la provincia de Ilocos para que de ella, como otras veces se hacía, se condujesen.52 Eran hombres de mar cuantos allí se embarcaron, y de ella, y de ellos que eran veinte y cinco, se me dio el cargo.53 Sacáronse de los almacenes reales y se me entregaron para que 50. El original dice “provisionarse”. 51. El original dice erróneamente “Cuzalaegui”. Gabriel de Curucelaegui y Arriola, caballero de la Orden de Santiago y regidor de la Ciudad de Sevilla, fue Capitán General de las Islas Filipinas del 24 de agosto de 1684 hasta su muerte el 17 de abril de 1689. 52. Después de varios años de buenas y abundantes cosechas, 1687 fue un año de escasez en Manila. Los fondos documentales dan fe de esto en las repetidas instancias en que se despacharon embarcaciones en busca de arroz para el abasto de la tropa y la marinería en Cavite. Ver AGI, Contaduría, 1244 y 1245. En este caso sabemos que se trataba de la fragata Nuestra Señora de Aránzazu y San Ignacio (AGI, Filipinas, 12, R. 1, N. 60/4/66) que zarpó de Cavite rumbo a Currimao y Lyngayen, en la Provincia de Ilocos, el 30 de enero de 1687. Allí fue cargada de 2.101 cavanes de arroz limpio (veintisiete toneladas), 2.000 mantas de Ilocos y hilo de algodón y de diversa correspondencia, incluyendo un despacho del sargento mayor de Ilocos, Francisco Ramírez Nieto, para el gobernador Curucelaegui. Ver AGI, Filipinas, 12, R. 1, N. 60/2 y 4. Algunos documentos se refieren a la nave como una balandra, lo cual da por sentado que era un buque de un solo palo. 53. El capitán de la nave no se llamaba Alonso Ramírez. En una carta del 27 de diciembre de 1687 el gobernador Curucelaegui informó a la corona que en marzo de ese año, piratas ingleses capturaron “una valandra cargada de arroz de quenta de VM [Vuestra Merced] . . . y con ella a un Capitan que ha sido de la punta y rivera de Cavite llamado Phelipe Ferrer persona que ha servido mucho a VM, y muy inteligente en cosas de mar y que ha de hacer mucha falta, pues se havia encargado de las obras del puerto de Cavite” (AGI, Filipinas, 12, R. 1, N. 60/1/9). Ver la figura 8. Los documentos oficiales incluyen los testimonios de cuatro de los tripulantes de la fragata Nuestra Señora de Aránzazu, y de un soldado, que fueron todos puestos en libertad por los piratas el 7 de marzo, dos días después de la captura, e interrogados en Manila el 13 y el 14 del mismo mes. También incluyen las declaraciones de cinco otros miembros de la tripulación puestos en libertad por los piratas el 12 de octubre de 1687 e interrogados en Manila el 2 de febrero del año siguiente. Dos de los hombres puestos en libertad fijan el número exacto de los tripulantes de la fragata en veinticinco, incluyendo a Ferrer. Los dos documentos en cuestión (AGI, Filipinas, 12, R. 1, N. 60/2 y AGI, Filipinas, 12, R. 1, N. 60/4) nos proporcionan los nombres de la mitad de la tripulación y de sus oficiales: Los oficiales: Felipe Ferrer, capitán Francisco Acosta, contramaestre Antonio de Guevara, alférez, mayor de 60 años Los marineros: Mateo Francisco, de 36 años Bartolomé Luis, de 33 años Diego Vendón, de 29 años José Baltasar, español, de 21 años Luis Ángel, mayor de 20 años José de Valnera El grumete: Alonso de Luna, de 18 años Los criados: Silvestre Mojica, mulato, de 29 años, esclavo de Felipe Ferrer Juan del Pilar, mestizo japonés, de 18 años, siervo de Francisco Acosta

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defendiese la embarcación cuatro chuzos54 y dos mosquetes que necesitaban de estar con prevención de tizones55 para darles fuego por tener quebrados los serpentines.56 Entregáronme también dos puñados57 de balas y cinco libras de pólvora.58 El libro añade ocho nombres adicionales sin mencionar sus rangos, edades u oficios con la sola excepción de Ramírez y de su esclavo: Alonso Ramírez, español de San Juan de Puerto Rico, capitán, 24 años Juan de Casas, español de Puebla Juan Pinto, de Pangasinan Marcos de la Cruz, de Pampanga Francisco de la Cruz, mestizo chino Antonio González, chino Juan Díaz, de Malabar Pedro, de Mozambique, esclavo de Alonso Ramírez Sería de poca utilidad intentar reconciliar los nombres dados en el libro con los que aparecen en los documentos oficiales para tratar de reconstruir la lista de la tripulación. Obviamente más de uno de los nombres en el libro han de ser falsos y es muy probable que algunos de los hombres que acabaron naufragando en la Costa de Bacalar no pertenecieran a la tripulación de Nuestra Señora de Aránzazu. Como he explicado en la introducción, lo importante aquí es que ya Alonso Ramírez había adoptado el nombre y se estaba haciendo pasar por Felipe Ferrer quien, como sabemos, había sido anteriormente contramaestre del galeón Santo Niño y Nuestra Señora de Guía en su viaje inicial de Manila a Acapulco. En él, partió el 1 de julio de 1684. Estuvo en Acapulco del 24 de diciembre del 1684 al 27 de marzo de 1685. Ya para el 12 de octubre de ese mismo año el Santo Niño estaba de regreso en Cavite. Esto lo sabemos por un documento de 1693 en el cual se menciona a Ferrer por no haber pagado el impuesto de la media anata de 1684 y se le da por muerto: “El Capitán Felippe Ferrer difunto Contramaestre que fue de dicho Galeon, deve diez y ocho pesos” (AGI, Filipinas, 33, N. 2/88/2). Queda claro que Felipe Ferrer y Alonso Ramírez no fueron la misma persona puesto que cuando Ferrer zarpó de Manila en el galeón Santo Niño el 1 de julio de 1684, Ramírez navegaba en el Santa Rosa y, habiendo hecho escala en Guam, estaba a dos meses de arribar en aquella ciudad. 54. Palo armado con punta de hierro, generalmente de doble filo, utilizado en las embarcaciones como arma ofensiva o de defensa en la etapa inicial de abordar o ser abordado por la tripulación de la nave enemiga. 55. Es decir, que tenían que ser encendidos con mechas. 56. El serpentín es la pieza giratoria en el disparador de un mosquete, que hace las veces de martillo, en uno de cuyos extremos se coloca la piedra de chispa que enciende la pólvora al soltarse el serpentín con el gatillo. Al tener quebrados los serpentines el mecanismo era inservible y había que detonar los mosquetes a la antigua, viéndose obligados los tripulantes a cargar la mecha entre los dedos o los dientes o, como indica el texto más adelante, haciendo un hombre puntería y otro dándole fuego con una ascua para detonarlo. 57. El original dice “puños”. 58. Las declaraciones de Bartolomé Luis, uno de los marineros a sueldo puesto en libertad por los piratas el 7 de marzo, confirma que la tripulación de Nuestra Señora de Aránzazu disponía de cuatro “pinsotes”, o chuzos, para defenderse. Sin embargo, aunque confiesa no haber tenido “fuerzas de pólvora y balas”, indica que disponían de seis mosquetes y una escopeta, es decir, que tenían cinco armas de fuego adicionales a las que menciona el libro. Ver AGI, Filipinas, 12, R. 1, N. 60/2/9,10. Muy probablemente estas armas adicionales eran propiedad de los marineros, incluyendo al propio Ramírez quien pudo haber adquirido las suyas en Batavia donde, como indica en su testimonio, se fabricaban excelentísimas armas “para quien quisiere comprarlas”.

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Con esta prevención de armas y municiones, y sin artillería, ni aún pedrero59 alguno, aunque tenía portas60 para seis piezas, me hice a la vela.61 Pasáronse seis días para llegar a Ilocos, ocupáronse en el rescate y carga de los bastimentos como nueve o diez, y estando al quinto del tornaviaje, barloventeando con la brisa62 para tomar la boca de Mariveles para entrar al puerto, como a las cuatro de la tarde, se descubrieron por la parte de tierra dos embarcaciones.63 Y presumiendo no sólo yo, sino los que conmigo venían, [que] serían las que a cargo de los capitanes Juan Bautista y Juan de Caraballo habían ido a Pangasinán64 y Panay65 en busca de arroz y de otras cosas que se necesitaban en el presidio de Cavite y lugares de la comarca, aunque me hallaba a su sotavento, proseguí con mis bordos sin recelo alguno porque no había de qué tenerlo. No dejé de alterarme cuando dentro de breve rato vi venir para mí dos piraguas66 a todo remo, y fue mi susto en extremo grande reconociendo en su cercanía ser de enemigos. Dispuesto a la defensa como mejor pude con mis dos mosquetes y cuatro chuzos, llovían balas de la escopetería de los que en ellas67 venían sobre nosotros, pero sin abordarnos. Y tal vez68 se respondía con los mosquetes, haciendo uno la puntería y dando otro fuego con una ascua, y en el ínterin partíamos las balas con un cuchillo para que, habiendo munición duplicada para más tiros, fuese más durable nuestra ridícula resistencia. Llegar casi inmediatamente sobre nosotros 59. Cañón portátil de pequeño calibre que se arma en las bordas incrustando su horquilla en cualquiera de los orificios que para esto se disponen a lo largo de la tapa de regala. Puede disparar una bala de diez a dieciocho libras de peso. 60. Porta cañonera, o abertura cuadrada en los costados de una embarcación, que se abre para disparar la pieza de artillería. 61. Fue el jueves 30 de enero de 1687. 62. Navegando de bolina contra el viento del este. 63. Según los testimonios de la tripulación la fragata Nuestra Señora de Aránzazu partió de Cavite a finales de enero y más específicamente hacia el treinta del mes que ese año cayó jueves. Si seguimos los cálculos del libro, contando regresivamente desde el 4 de marzo, fecha que se dará a continuación, la fragata habría salido de Cavite alrededor del jueves 13 de febrero, es decir, dos semanas más tarde de lo que indican los documentos oficiales. En cuanto al lugar donde ocurrieron los sucesos los documentos indican que no fue en la boca de Mariveles sino cercano a la isla de Capones que queda a unas cuarenta y tres millas marítimas o catorce leguas al Norte. Guillermo Dampier, quien viajaba a bordo del barco pirata, da una distancia intermedia diciendo que la captura ocurrió a siete u ocho leguas de Manila. Ver William Dampier, “A New Voyage Round the World,” en Dampier’s Voyages, ed. John Masefield (Londres: E. Grant Richards, 1906), 1:385. Los documentos y el libro difieren igualmente en cuanto al tiempo. El libro dice que la fragata barloventeaba. Los testimonios todos concuerdan con que el tiempo estaba en calma y que, por tanto, “no podia la fregata haser viage” (AGI, Filipinas, 12, R. 1, N. 60/2/15). La discrepancia en cuanto a la hora no es significativa. Los testimonios de la tripulación fijan el avistamiento a las cuatro y media de la tarde. La discrepancia que sí es de máxima importancia es que todos los testigos en los documentos dicen haber avistado un buque y no dos. 64. Región en la costa occidental de la isla de Luzón, situada entre Ilocos y Manila, en los llanos del litoral del golfo de Lingayen. 65. Isla, al Sur de Luzón, que ocupa el centro del archipiélago de las Filipinas. 66. Embarcación de remo que se construye ahuecando el tronco de un árbol. Dependiendo de su tamaño, puede llevar desde uno hasta más de treinta remeros. 67. Las piraguas. 68. Debiera decir, “a la vez”.

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las dos embarcaciones grandes que habíamos visto, y de donde habían salido69 las piraguas, y arriar las [velas] de gavia70 pidiendo buen cuartel,71 y entrar más de cincuenta ingleses con alfanjes72 en las manos en mi fragata, todo fue en uno. Hechos señores de la toldilla73 mientras a palos nos retiraron a proa, celebraron con mofa y risa la prevención de armas y municiones que en ella hallaron, y fue mucho mayor74 cuando supieron el que aquella fragata pertenecía al rey y que habían sacado de sus almacenes aquellas armas. Eran entonces las seis de la tarde del día martes cuatro de marzo de mil seiscientos y ochenta y siete.75 69. El texto dice salidos. 70. Vela que se larga en el mastelero del palo principal. 71. Es decir, pidiendo clemencia en su rendición. 72. Sable de abordar, más corto que el de caballería. 73. Cubierta que se pone a popa sobre el alcázar y que corre desde la rueda del timón al palo de mesana. Quiere decir que se habían adueñado del timón y apoderado de la nave. 74. La celebración. 75. Ver el mapa 5. Los documentos oficiales confirman que el ataque duró hasta las siete de la noche, una hora más de lo que dice el libro (ver AGI, Filipinas, 12, R. 1, N. 60/4/8). Indican además que en total hubo seis heridos, cuatro de los atacantes y dos los defensores, incluyendo a Antonio de Guevara quien recibió un balazo en el antebrazo izquierdo (AGI, Filipinas, 12, R. 1, N. 60/2/34). Existen otras discrepancias menores en los detalles y en las diferencias en la secuencia de los eventos y en el tono de las dos principales narraciones en castellano que tenemos de un mismo suceso. Compárense los dos párrafos anteriores con el siguiente testimonio del marinero y tripulante Bartolomé Luis: “Dijo que este testigo es uno de los marineros en sueldo del puerto de Cavite y que abra tiempo a lo que se quiere acordar de sinquenta y dos dias que salió de dicho puerto de Cavite en una fregata de su Magestad para la Provincia de Ylocos con otros trece marineros de dicho puerto y dies grumetes y por cavo de dicha fregata [y] araes [sic., arráez] de ella el Capitan Phelipe Ferer a conduzir arros, y otros generos de Su Magestad, para la provicion de los Reales almacenes de este campo. Y haviendo llegado a dicha provincia y cargado en ella dicha fregata con dos mill ciento y un sextos de arroz limpio, y dos mill mantas pocas mas o menos, y un poco de algodon, todo perteneciente as Su Magestad, para dicha provicion, de buelta de viaje el dia martes que se contaron quatro del corriente, como a oras de las quatro y media de la trade en tiempo en calma, de dicha fregata dando avante con una isla que llaman de Capones, distante de esta ciudad dies y ocho leguas, reconosieron un bajel que estava de la parte de tierra de dicha Isla y sercano a ella. Y no reconosiendo que bajel era, ni el tiempo darles lugar a proseguir su viaje, ya serca de la noche este testigo y los demas de dicha fregata vieron venir a ella una piragua que presumieron ser de alguno de los vageles que dejaron en dicho puerto de Cavite de los del comercio de estas Islas. Y abiendo llegado la dicha piragua inmediata a dicha fregata preguntaron a [los] del navio de donde venia o a donde va ese navío, a que respondieron de dicha fregata de la mar. Y a dicha respuesta dixeron ariar las velas y este testigo y los demas de dicha fregata no quisieron arriar diciendo vengan a bordo a ariarlas, a cuias razones la gente de la piragua dieron una carga serrada de escopeteria a la dicha fregata. Y los que en ella venian con cuatro pinsotes, seis mosquetes y una escopeta se defendieron, pelleando hasta que llego el navio que abian visto de donde havia salido dicha piragua. Y la gente de dicho navio comenso a dar gritos a la de dicha fregata diciendoles que amainasen quienes, en conosimiento de no tener fuerzas de polvora y balas ni gente para defenderse, asi del dicho navío como de treinta escopeteras que traya dicha piragua, aunque en la refriega havian herido quatro de ellos, se rendio dicha fregata. Y abiendo entrado en ella los dichos treinta hombres de dicha piragua reconocio este testigo y los demas que yban en la fregata ser ingleses.” AGI, Filipinas, 12, R. 1, N. 60/2/8± 10

III1 Pónense en compendio los robos y crueldades que hicieron estos piratas en mar y tierra hasta llegar a la América.

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Sabiendo ser yo la persona a cuyo cargo venía la embarcación [y] cambiándome a la mayor de las suyas, me recibió el capitán con fingido agrado. Prometiome a las primeras palabras la libertad si le noticiaba cuáles lugares de las islas eran más ricos y si podía hallar en ellos gran resistencia. Respondile no haber salido de Cavite sino para la provincia de Ilocos de donde venía, y que así no podía satisfacerle a lo que preguntaba.2 Instome si en la isla de Capones,3 que a distancia de catorce leguas está al Noroeste Sudeste4 con Mariveles, podría aliñar5 sus embarcaciones y si había gente que se lo estorbase.6 Díjele no haber allí población alguna y que sabía de una bahía donde conseguiría fácilmente lo que deseaba. Era mi intento el que, si así lo hiciesen, los cogiesen desprevenidos, no sólo los naturales de ella sino los españoles que asisten de presidio en aquella isla, y los apresasen.7 Como a las diez de la noche surgieron donde les pareció a propósito, y en estas y otras preguntas que me hicieron, se pasó la noche. Antes de levarse pasaron a bordo de la [nave] capitana mis veinte y cinco hombres.8 Gobernábala un inglés a quien nombraban maestre 1. El original cambia aquí la numeración de los capítulos de números romanos a arábicos. 2. Entiéndase que Ramírez alega haber sido esta su primera travesía en aquellos mares. 3. El texto original dice “Caponiz”. La isla de Capones queda en el Mar de Luzón, en el extremo sur de la provincia de Zambales sobre la entrada a la Bahía de Subic. Ha sido siempre referencia náutica importante en la ruta comercial entre Manila y la China. 4. Debe decir simplemente Noroeste. 5. Abastecer o aprovisionar. 6. Esta hubiese sido una pregunta redundante puesto que todos los testimonios en los documentos oficiales dan fe de que el navío inglés había lanzado su piragua entre la isla de Capones y la costa de Luzón. Por tanto, los ingleses ya habían reconocido la isla. 7. Por lo que se describe en el siguiente párrafo, es difícil concebir que los naturales de una isla de menos de dos kilómetros de largo por poco menos de medio de ancho, y la poca tropa del presidio, hubieran osado hacer frente a ciento cincuenta piratas bien armados. 8. De acuerdo con los testimonios de los tripulantes de Nuestra Señora de Aránzazu que estuvieron abordo, solamente seis de ellos fueron pasados al navío pirata en la noche del martes. Luis Ángel indicó que junto con él pasaron “a el araes Capitan Felipe Ferer y a otros quatro marineros” (AGI, Filipinas, 12, R. 1, N. 60/2/23). Conocemos por las declaraciones oficiales los nombres de otros tres. Fueron ellos, Bartolomé Luis, José Baltasar y un tal “Joseph de Balnerra” (o José de Valnera) a quien sólo Luis Ángel menciona (AGI, Filipinas, 12, R. 1, N. 60/2/24). Se pudiese asumir que el sexto tripulante fue el mestizo de chino Francisco de la Cruz quien, según se alega en el próximo párrafo, fue torturado por los ingleses.

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Bell.9 Tenía ochenta hombres, veinte y cuatro piezas de artillería y ocho pedreros todos de bronce.10 Era dueño de la segunda [nave] el capitán Donkin.11 Tenía setenta hombres, veinte piezas de artillería y ocho pedreros.12 Y en una y otra [nave] había sobradísimo número de escopetas, alfanjes, hachas, arpeos,13 granadas, y ollas llenas de varios ingredientes de olor pestífero. Jamás alcancé, por diligencias que hice, el lugar donde se armaron para salir al mar. Sólo sí supe [que] habían pasado al [Mar] del Sur14 por el Estrecho de le Maire15 y que, imposibilitados de poder robar las costas de Perú y Chile, que era su intento, porque, con ocasión de un tiempo que entrándoles con notable vehemencia y tesón por el Este les duró once días, se apartaron de aquel meridiano más de quinientas leguas y, no siéndoles fácil volver a él, determinaron valerse de lo andado pasando a robar a la India que era más pingüe.16 Supe también [que] habían estado en [las] Islas Marianas17 9. El texto original dice “Bel”. El nombre real del capitán era Juan Read, John Read o “Yandrid” como consta en los documentos oficiales en clara transliteración del inglés (ver AGI, Filipinas, 12, R. 1, N. 60/4/43). Se trataba pues del buque Cygnet, en el cual viajaba Dampier. El navío había zarpado de Londres el lunes 11 de octubre de 1683 (1 de octubre en el calendario juliano) al mando del capitán Carlos Swan, Charles Swan, o “Capiswan”, como se le llama en los documentos españoles (ver AGI, Filipinas, 12, R. 1, N. 60/4/14). Un motín capitaneado por Read había dejado a Swan y a más de treinta hombres en Mindanao el 24 de enero de 1687 (14 de enero en el calendario juliano). Iba por oficial mayor, bajo el mando del Capitán Read, el Capitán Teat, y Henry Moore era su contramaestre (ver Dampier, 1:381). 10. Según John Fitzgerald, irlandés católico y “ladino lo vastante en castellano”, uno de los tripulantes originales del navío quien fue abandonado en Mindanao junto al Capitán Swan, y que a los veinte y ocho años prestó declaración jurada en Manila a principios de septiembre de 1687, el Cygnet era un navío de 136 toneladas y cuando salió de Londres con treinta y dos hombres llevaba catorce piezas de artillería de hasta seis libras de calibre, y dos pedreros (AGI, Filipinas, 12, R. 1, N. 60/3/10; ver también mención de Fitzgerald en Dampier, 1:386–387). Al momento de la captura de la fragata Nuestra Señora de Aránzazu y de acuerdo con los testimonios de su tripulación, en el Cygnet, iban noventa y seis hombres hábiles y más de treinta enfermos, y llevaba dieciséis cañones de acero de a seis y de a ocho libras y cuatro pedreros, además de gran número de escopetas, carabinas y alfanjes (AGI, Filipinas, 12, R. 1, N. 60/2/11–12). Otros tripulantes de la fragata que fueron puestos en libertad en la isla de Ibuhos, al Norte de Luzón, el 12 de octubre de 1687, apuntan a que eran solo sesenta y dos los tripulantes del Cygnet. Esta cifra parece ser más exacta (ver AGI, Filipinas, 12, R. 1, N. 60/4/14). 11. Se trata evidentemente del Capitán Teat. 12. Para ese entonces, los ingleses no tenían otra nave que el Cygnet. 13. Instrumento de hierro que tiene cuatro garfios en un extremo y que sirve para aferrar dos embarcaciones en un abordaje. 14. El Océano Pacífico. 15. El texto original dice “Estrecho de Mayre”. Este paso queda en el extremo sur de la Tierra del Fuego y separa la Península de Mitre de la Isla de los Estados. 16. El Cygnet había recorrido todo lo largo de la costa de América desde Tierra del Fuego hasta Baja California. Entre sus acciones más deplorables se pueden nombrar la quema de Paita, Perú, el 16 de noviembre de 1684; el ataque a Guayaquil un mes más tarde; la quema de Taboga en Panamá el 12 de mayo de 1685; el asalto a la Ciudad de Panamá del 7 al 9 de junio de ese año; la toma de León un mes más tarde y la quema de Realejo el 3 de agosto del mismo año. Dampier hace una descripción extensa de todas estas entradas. 17. Esto indica la posibilidad de que, tal como sugiere Dampier, Ferrer sostuvo un diálogo con los ingleses. Hablando de que el capitán de la presa capturada fue contramaestre de la nao de Acapulco, apunta Dampier: “Fue este hombre quien nos hizo la relación . . . del accidente

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y que, batallando con tiempos desechos y muchos mares, montando los cabos del Engaño y Bojeador,18 y habiendo antes apresado unos juncos19 y champanes20 de indios21 y chinos, llegaron a la boca de Mariveles adonde dieron conmigo. Puestas las proas de sus fragatas, llevaban la mía a remolque, para Capones, comenzaron con pistolas y alfanjes en las manos a examinarme de nuevo y aun a atormentarme. Amarráronme a mí y a un compañero mío al árbol mayor22 y, como no les respondía a propósito acerca de los parajes donde podían hallar la plata y oro por qué nos preguntaban, echando mano de Francisco de la Cruz, sangley mestizo,23 mi compañero, con cruelísimos tratos de cuerda24 que le dieron quedó desmayado en el combés25 y casi sin vida. Metiéronme a mí y a los míos en la bodega, desde donde percibí grandes voces y un trabucazo.26 Pasado un rato, y habiéndome hecho salir afuera, vi27 mucha sangre, y mostrándomela, dijeron ser de uno de los míos a quien habían muerto, y que lo mismo sería de mí si no respondía a propósito de lo que preguntaban. Díjeles con humildad que hiciesen de mí lo que les pareciese porque no tenía que añadir cosa alguna a mis primeras que tuvieron, como es mencionado anteriormente en el capítulo X” (Dampier, 1:385). Se refería Dampier al momento cuando, estando el Cygnet en Guam, llegó a la isla el galeón Santa Rosa procedente de Acapulco con destino a Manila. El gobernador de Guam envió noticia al galeón de que se hallaba allí dando fondo un navío de piratas ingleses. El galeón se retiró tan apresuradamente que acabó encallando en un bajo, tomándole tres días para poder liberar el timón. En el capítulo diez, haciendo referencia a la conversación con Felipe Ferrer, dice Dampier: “Esto de su encallamiento en el banco lo escuchamos después, cuando estuvimos en la Costa de Manila” (Dampier, 1:313). De haber sido capitán de la nave el verdadero Felipe Ferrer éste no hubiera referido el incidente en primera persona puesto que cuando el Santa Rosa tocó fondo en Guam Ferrer estaba en el medio del Océano Pacífico a bordo del Santo Niño. 18. Cabos en el extremo norte de la isla de Luzón que marcan respectivamente su punta este y oeste sobre el Canal de Babuyán. Éstos se encuentran a unos cuatro grados de latitud sobre Manila. 19. Embarcación china de fondo plano, castillo en popa y velas cuadradas utilizada para el comercio marítimo. 20. Tipo de embarcación de origen chino que se utiliza en el sureste asiático para navegar en los ríos, aunque en tiempos buenos también se hacen a la mar. Es un buque largo de tres palos y velas al tercio cuyo casco está compuesto de seis a ocho cajones grandes unidos y bien calafateados de modo tal que, si se deshace, los tripulantes pueden ponerse a salvo en cualquiera de los cajones que queden a flote. 21. Se refiere a los malayos de las Islas Filipinas. 22. Palo mayor. 23. Dícese del mestizo de chino (sangley) y malayo. 24. También conocido como mancuerda o garrucha, el trato de cuerda es un tipo de tormento en el cual la víctima es fuertemente atada de manos, generalmente por la espalda, para levantarla sobre el suelo con una cuerda que pasa por una garrucha o polea. Una vez en alto, el cuerpo es dejado caer de golpe sin que toque el suelo. De esta forma la cuerda corta piel y músculo hasta llegar al hueso. La víctima sufre igualmente al dislocarse las coyunturas de los hombros hasta quedar desmayada. Era típico repetir el lance varias veces, cambiando las ataduras e infligiendo nuevos tipos de cortaduras y dislocaciones. 25. Área en la cubierta superior de una embarcación que queda entre el palo mayor y el castillo de proa. 26. Disparo de trabuco, arma de fuego primitiva, más corta y de mayor calibre que la escopeta. 27. El original dice “vide”. Es arcaísmo.

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respuestas. Cuidadoso desde entonces de saber quien era de mis compañeros el que había muerto, hice diligencias por conseguirlo, y hallando cabal el número, quedé confuso. Supe mucho después [que] era sangre de un perro la que había visto y no pasó del engaño.28 No satisfechos de lo que yo había dicho, repreguntando con cariño29 a mi contramaestre,30 de quien por indio31 jamás se podía prometer cosa que buena fuese, supieron de él haber población y presidio en la isla de Capones que yo había afirmado ser despoblada. Con esta noticia, y mucho más por haber visto, estando ya sobre ella, ir por el largo de la costa dos hombres montados, a que se añadía la mentira de que nunca había salido de Cavite32 sino para Ilocos, y [mi] dar razón33 de la bahía de Capones, en que,34 aunque lo disimularon, me habían cogido, desenvainados los alfanjes, con muy grandes voces y vituperios dieron en mí. Jamás me recelé35 de la muerte con mayor susto que en este instante. Pero conmutáronla36 en tantas patadas y pescozones que descargaron en mí, que me dejaron incapaz de movimiento por muchos días.37 Surgieron en parte de donde no podían recelar 28. El original dice “no peso del engaño”, lo cual no hace sentido. Si se derramó alguna sangre esa noche fue lo más seguro la del Capitán Francisco de Arzaga, o Arzuaga, dueño de un champán que los piratas habían apresado y hundido en la mañana del mismo día martes. De acuerdo con los documentos oficiales el champán transportaba a la familia y las pertenencias del Capitán Alonso del Castillo y “cantidad de gente assi españoles como yndios negros y negras” (AGI, Filipinas, 12, R. 1, N. 60/4/8), incluyendo “tres mugeres con tres hijos de pecho y un criado que son de dicho Capitan Alonso del Castillo” (AGI, Filipinas, 12, R. 1, N. 60/2/5). Las tres mujeres eran “indias las dos y la otra cafra”, o negra (AGI, Filipinas, 12, R. 1, N. 60/2/24). Contrario a lo que indica el texto sobre la supuesta sangre de uno de los hombres de Ramírez, el marinero José Baltasar asegura haber oído decir a los ingleses que habían “muerto a la persona que yba por cavo del chanpan” (AGI, Filipinas, 12, R. 1, N. 60/2/18). 29. “Repreguntar con cariño” quiere decir interrogar con esmero. 30. Oficial encargado del casco, arboladura, aparejo y cabullería de la nave. En una fragata pequeña como la capitaneada por Ramírez, el contramaestre era segundo al mando. 31. Malayo. Sabemos que esto era falso. El contramaestre de Nuestra Señora de Aránzazu era un español llamado Francisco Acosta que tuvo por sirviente a Juan del Pilar. 32. Es decir, que se dieron cuenta de que Ramírez conocía mucho más mar de lo que había querido aparentar. 33. Su descripción de la bahía de Capones. 34. Se refiere a las mentiras en que lo cogieron. 35. Jamás le temí a. 36. La sentencia de muerte. 37. Esta versión no concuerda ni con los documentos oficiales ni con la versión de Dampier. De acuerdo con los testimonios los ingleses interrogaron a los cinco prisioneros que llevaron a bordo del Cygnet en la noche del martes. Ningunas de las confesiones parecen haber sido forzadas. Todos, “usando de astucia” respondieron que la plaza de Manila era prácticamente impregnable (AGI, Filipinas, 12, R. 1, N. 60/2/13). Así pues José Baltasar “dijo que con este testigo estubieron hablando algunos de los enemigos piratas y le preguntaron si esta plaza era como la de Cadis, y si tenia tanta fortalessa como ella, y que artilleria y gente tenia. Y que este testigo les respondio que esta plaza era mas fuerte que la de Cadis y que tenia mucho numero de artilleria y mas de veinte mill hombres, que mucha mas fuerte en todo era Cavite” (AGI, Filipinas, 12, R. 1, N. 60/2/20). En cuanto a la negativa de Ramírez a ofrecerle a sus captores información valiosa a costa de su propia vida, Dampier escribe que fue precisamente el capitán de la nave quien les dio

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insulto38 alguno de los isleños, y dejando en tierra a los indios dueños de un junco de que se habían apoderado el antecedente día al aciago y triste en que me cogieron,39 hicieron su derrota a Pulau Condón,40 isla poblada de cochinchinos41 en la costa de Camboya, donde, tomando puerto, cambiaron a sus dos fragatas cuanto en la mía se halló, y le pegaron fuego [a mi fragata].42 Armadas las piraguas con suficientes hombres fueron a tierra y hallaron [que] los esperaban los moradores de ella sin repugnancia.43 Propusiéronles no querían más que proveerse allí de lo necesario, dándoles lado44 a sus navíos, y rescatarles45 también frutos de la tierra por lo que les faltaba. O de miedo, o por otros motivos que yo no supe, asintieron a ello los pobres bárbaros. Recibían ropa de la que la información más exacta de las defensas de Manila y que, lejos de presentar una imagen de fortaleza, “fue este hombre quien nos hizo la relación de la fuerza que tenía, de cómo nos tenían miedo allí” (Dampier, 1:385). 38. Ataque repentino. 39. Los piratas dejaron a cincuenta y dos personas en Capones, once de las cuales pertenecían a la tripulación de Nuestra Señora de Aránzazu. De acuerdo con Bartolomé Luis estos fueron “seis marinos, quatro grumetes y un muchacho” (AGI, Filipinas, 12, R. 1, N. 60/2/13). Cabe notar que la captura de ambas embarcaciones tuvo lugar el martes 4 de marzo de 1687 en el calendario gregoriano. Los ingleses, como sabemos, utilizaban para entonces el calendario juliano y comenzaban a contar el próximo día a las doce del mediodía. Por tanto, para Dampier y los hombres del Cygnet la captura del champán sucedió en la mañana del día martes 22 de febrero, mientras que la fragata fue capturada esa misma tarde del martes 23. La mención del “antecedente día” en el texto no es cálculo de Sigüenza y nos obliga a considerar el grado de aculturalización al que llegó Ramírez a bordo del barco pirata. Dada la forma en que el calendario estaba ligado al culto podemos preguntarnos también hasta dónde pudo haber llegado Ramírez buscando ajustarse a la mentalidad y adoptando la religión de los luteranos. 40. El original dice “Pulicondon”. Es también Pulo o Pulau Cóndor. Nombre malayo dado a la isla de Con Son (Côn nôn, en vietnamita), la mayor de dieciséis de origen volcánico que forman parte del archipiélago de Con Dao ubicado a ciento ochenta kilómetros al Sureste del delta del río Mekong. Mide veintiún kilómetros de largo y ocho de ancho. 41. Gentes procedentes de la zona del delta del río Mekong donde en 1698 se fundaría la ciudad de Saigón. 42. El Cygnet y Nuestra Señora de Aránzazu anclaron en Pulau Condón el 24 de marzo de 1687 (14 de marzo en el calendario juliano). Anclaron en el puerto de Ben Dam en el extremo sur de la isla. Allí permanecieron hasta el 1 de mayo (21 de abril). Los documentos, y la versión de Dampier, ubican la quema de la fragata cinco semanas después de su llegada a la isla, el domingo 27 de abril (17 de abril), y no al comienzo de su estancia en ella como indica el texto. Según Diego Vendón, “llegados a dicha Isla de Pulo Condor, dicho enemigo dio carena a su navio. Y haviendola dado hiço aguada, leña y lo demas que necesitaba, lo qual hecho, pego fuego a dicha fregata” (AGI, Filipinas, 12, R. 1, N. 60/4/18). Dampier no dice que la fragata fue quemada, pero sí da la fecha: “Habiendo acabado nuestro negocio aquí, abandonamos la fragata tomada en Manila, y casi todo el arroz, sacando de ella lo bastante para nosotros, y en el día 17 nos fuimos de allí para el lugar en donde primero anclamos” (Dampier, 1:385). Dada la descripción hecha por Dampier y la carta marina que aparece en su libro, los restos de Nuestra Señora de Aránzazu deben estar cerca de las siguientes coordenadas: N 8º 39′ 38.7″ y E 106º 33′ 55.9″. 43. Sin hacerles frente. 44. Carenar, o reparar y calafatear un buque reponiendo todo lo que esté podrido. 45. Cambiar una cosa por otra. Es voz americana que tiene su origen en la cultura del contrabando que caracterizó la economía de la isla La Española durante el siglo XVI.

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traían hurtada, y correspondían con brea, grasa y carne salada de tortugas, y con otras cosas. Debe de ser la falta que hay de abrigo46 en aquella isla, o el deseo que tienen [sus habitantes] de lo que en otras partes se hace en extremo mucho, pues les forzaba la desnudez o curiosidad a cometer la más desvergonzada vileza que jamás vi: traían las madres a las hijas, y los mismos maridos a sus mujeres, y se las entregaban con la recomendación de hermosas47 a los ingleses por el vilísimo48 precio de una manta o equivalente cosa. Hízoseles tolerable la estada de cuatro meses en aquel paraje con conveniencia tan fea.49 Pero, pareciéndoles [que] no vivían mientras no hurtaban, estando sus navíos para navegar se bastimentaron50 de cuanto pudieron para salir de allí. Consultaron primero la paga que se les daría a los pulicondones51 por el hospedaje, y remitiéndola52 al mismo día en que saliesen al mar, acometieron aquella madrugada a los que dormían incautos y pasando a cuchillo aun a las que dejaban en cinta.53 Y poniendo fuego en lo más del pueblo, tremolando sus banderas y con grande regocijo vinieron a bordo. No me hallé presente a tan nefanda crueldad, pero con temores de que en algún tiempo pasaría yo por lo mismo, desde la capitana donde siempre estuve oí el ruido de la escopetería y vi el incendio. Si hubieran celebrado esta abominable victoria agotando frasqueras 54 de aguardiente como siempre usan, poco importara encomendarla al silencio.55 Pero habiendo intervenido en ello lo que yo vi,56 ¿cómo pudiera dejar de expresarlo si no es quedándome dolor y escrúpulo de no decirlo? Entre los despojos con que vinieron del pueblo, y fueron cuanto por sus mujeres y bastimentos les habían dado, estaba un brazo humano de los que perecieron en el incendio. De éste cortó cada uno una pequeña presa, y alabando el gusto de tan linda carne entre repetidas saludes57 le dieron fin. Miraba yo con escándalo y congoja tan bestial acción, y llegándose a mí uno con un pedazo me instó con importunaciones molestas a 46. Entiéndase la falta de auxilio, o lo aislada que queda la isla del resto del mundo. 47. Es decir, exaltando su belleza. 48. Bajísimo. 49. Se refiere a la falta de gentileza de los habitantes de la isla en quienes hallaron conveniencia, es decir, de cuyos servicios disfrutaron. El Cygnet regresaría a Pulau Condón el 3 de junio de 1687 y permanecería allí hasta el catorce antes de tratar de regresar a Manila en acecho del galeón. El texto une las dos estancias en la isla para calcular “la estada de cuatro meses”. De todas formas, el final de dicha estadía hubiera llegado el 24 de julio, fecha en la cual el Cygnet navegaba ya próximo a Formosa (Taiwán). 50. Se abastecieron. 51. Los naturales de Pulau Condón. 52. Perdonándose la deuda. 53. Las mujeres que estaban embarazadas con los hijos de los ingleses. Esto ocurrió supuestamente en la madrugada del domingo 27 de abril (16 de abril en el calendario juliano). 54. Caja de madera que sirve para guardar doce botellas o frascos. 55. Olvidar o no dar importancia a la abominable acción. 56. Es decir, habiéndose sucedido el incidente del que fue testigo visual y que narra a continuación. El original dice “vide”. 57. Es decir, deseándose salud mutuamente mientras comían la carne humana.

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que lo comiese. A la debida repulsa que yo le hice me dijo que siendo español, y por el consiguiente cobarde, bien podía para igualarlos a ellos en el valor no ser melindroso. No me instó más por responder a un brindis.58 Avistaron la costa de la tierra firme de Camboya al tercero día, y andando continuamente de un bordo a otro59 apresaron un champán lleno de pimienta.60 Hicieron con los que lo llevaban lo que conmigo y, sacándole la plata y cosas de valor que en él se llevaban, sin hacer caso alguno de la pimienta, quitáronle timón y velas y abriéndole un rumbo lo dejaron ir al garete61 para que se perdiese. Echada la gente de este champán en la62 tierra firme y pasándole a la isla despoblada de Pulau Ubi,63 en donde se hallan cocos y ñame64 con abundancia, con la seguridad de que no tenía yo ni los míos por donde huir, nos sacaron de las embarcaciones para colchar65 un cable.66 Era la materia de que se hizo bejuco verde, y quedamos casi sin uso de las manos por muchos días por acabarlo en pocos. Fueron las presas que en este paraje hicieron de mucha monta aunque no pasaron de tres [naves], y de ellas pertenecía la una al rey de Siam, y las otras dos a los portugueses de Macao y Goa.67 Iba en la primera un embajador de aquel rey 58. Resulta difícil creer en la veracidad de estos hechos dado que los ingleses estarían de regreso en Pulau Condón treinta y tres días más tarde. Es además evidente que para entonces Ramírez y al menos siete de sus hombres habían decidido hermanarse a los piratas. Todos los testimonios de los compañeros liberados más tarde dan fe del supuesto hecho de que los ingleses abandonaron en Pulau Condón “al dicho Capitan Phelipe Ferrer con otras dies y ocho perssonas españoles y Yndios de los que havia apressado en dicha fregata y champan” (AGI, Filipinas, 12, R. 1, N. 60/4/9). Sin embargo, sacando la cuenta de los once tripulantes echados en tierra en Capones y los seis que serían dejados en la isla de Ibuhos más adelante, solamente restan ocho hombres de la tripulación de veinte y cuatro. Ese es el número exacto de personas que según el texto serán puestos en libertad por los piratas ingleses en la boca del Amazonas. 59. Bordear o navegar de bolina alternando de una a otra banda. 60. Esto ocurrió el 31 de mayo de 1687 (21 de mayo en el calendario juliano) cuando, contrario a lo que indica el texto, el Cygnet navegaba de regreso a Pulau Condón. Dampier comenta que era “un gran junco procedente de Palembang, una villa en la isla de Sumatra: iba cargada de pimienta que allí habían comprado, con destino a Siam” (Dampier, 1:398). Lejos de admitir su captura, apunta: “pero como soplaba tan fuerte ella temía entrar en el golfo [de Siam o Tailandia] y, por tanto, se vino a Pulau Condón con nosotros donde ambos anclamos el 24 de mayo” (ibídem). Según Dampier, los piratas dejarían el junco en Pulau Condón llevándose consigo a uno de sus tripulantes, quien era “una especie de portugués bastardo”, “a razón de su conocimiento de las diversas lenguas de estos países” (Dampier, 1:401). Muy probablemente y como de costumbre, quemaron y hundieron el junco antes de partir. 61. Es decir que le pusieron la proa en una determinada dirección y lo dejaron ir a merced del viento y la corriente. 62. El original dice “lo”. 63. El original dice “Puliubi”. Es también Pulo Ubi. Nombre malayo dado a la isla de Hon Khai (Hòn Khoai, en vietnamita), situada directamente al Sur de la punta de Ca Mau en la entrada de la Bahía de Siam. Mide casi cuatro kilómetros de largo y tres de ancho. Allí estuvieron el 3 y el 4 de mayo en ruta a Siam y a su regreso, del 23 al 31 del mismo mes. 64. Planta de raíz tuberculosa parecida a la batata. 65. Torcer cabos para hacer soga o cable. 66. El cable se usa para sujetar el ancla. 67. Aparte del junco cargado de pimienta Dampier menciona dos barcas pequeñas cargadas de arroz y capturadas en Pulau Ubi el 3 de mayo (23 de abril en el calendario juliano), así como

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para el gobernador de Manila y llevaba para éste un regalo de preseas68 de mucha estima y muchos frutos y géneros preciosos de aquella tierra. Era el interés de la segunda mucho mayor porque se reducía a solo tejidos de seda de la China, en extremo ricos, y a cantidad de oro en piezas de filigrana que por vía de Goa se remitía a Europa. Era la tercera del virrey de Goa y iba a cargo de un embajador que enviaba al rey de Siam por este motivo: consiguió un genovés,69 no sé las circunstancias con que vino allí, no sólo la privanza con aquel rey, sino el que lo hiciese su lugarteniente en el principal de sus puertos. Ensoberbecido éste con tanto cargo les cortó las manos a dos caballeros portugueses que allí asistían,70 por leves causas.71 Noticiado de ello el virrey de Goa enviaba [al embajador] a pedirle satisfacción y aún a solicitar [que] se le entregase el genovés para castigarle. A empeño que parece [que] no cabía en la esfera de lo asequible correspondió el regalo que, para granjearle la voluntad al rey, se le remitía. Vide72 y toqué con mis manos una como torre o castillo de vara en alto,73 de puro oro sembrada de diamantes y otras preciosas piedras. Y aunque no de tanto valor, le igualaban en lo curioso muchas alhajas de plata, cantidad de canfora,74 ámbar y almizcle, sin el resto de lo que para comerciar y vender en aquel reino75 había en la embarcación. Desembarazada ésta y las dos primeras [naves] de lo que llevaban les dieron fuego.76 Y dejando así portugueses como a sianes, y a ocho de los míos, en aquella también dos otras embarcaciones pequeñas cargadas de arroz y laca capturadas en Pulau Ubi el 24 de mayo (14 de mayo). Todas eran procedentes de Camboya. 68. Joyas y artículos de lujo. 69. El original dice “ginovés”. 70. Que allí estaban de paso. 71. Cummins y Soons han identificado correctamente a esta persona como Constantino Falcón (1647–1688), el controvertible personaje que llegó a ser el poder detrás del trono en la corte del rey Narai (ver Cummins y Soons, 80). Falcón o Phaulkon, cuyo nombre real era Constantin Géraqui, y que no era genovés sino griego nacido en Cefalonia, hablaba latín, inglés, portugués y además malayo y siamés. Gracias a sus destrezas lingüísticas y a su inteligencia llegó a ser el favorito del rey de Siam, convirtiéndose en la figura política más poderosa del reino de 1683 hasta su muerte a manos de un rival en 1688. El episodio referido ocurrió en 1687. 72. Vi. 73. Una vara son aproximadamente tres pies, o poco menos de un metro. 74. Alcanfor, producto que destilado es blanco y volátil, que se usaba como ungüento con propósitos medicinales pero que, sobre todo, era para entonces ingrediente indispensable en la fábrica de la pólvora. 75. Es decir, Goa. 76. Aunque sea muy difícil de confirmar, la descripción de estas tres presas es sin duda fascinante. El “vi y toqué” de Ramírez contrasta con la falta de mención alguna en Dampier. Lo que sabemos es que los piratas trataron sin suerte de llegar al río de Siam en las inmediaciones de Bangkok. Mateo Francisco, entre otros declarantes en los documentos oficiales, dijo que fueron “en demanda del Rio de Siam con intentos (segun oyo decir este declarante a algunos de dichos enemigos) de apresar y robar un navio que decian estava dentro de dicho Río; y por no haverseles logrado este intento por causa de haver barado dicho navio, haviendose librado de este peligro (en un pueblecillo que estava en aquella costa apressaron un Indio, o mestizo de Siam)” (AGI, Filipinas, 12, R. 1, N. 60/4/9–10). Silvestre Mojica dio fe de que “llegaron a dicha costa de Siam” (ibídem, 48). Dampier escribió que no llegaron más que a unas islas en

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isla sin gente, tiraron la vuelta de las [islas] de Siantán,77 habitadas de malayos cuya vestimenta no pasa de la cintura y cuyas armas son crices.78 Rescataron de ellos algunas cabras, cocos y aceite de éstos para la lantía,79 y otros refrescos. Y dándoles un albazo80 a los pobres bárbaros, después de matar algunos y de robarlos a todos, en demanda de la isla de Tambelán81 viraron afuera.82 Viven en ella macasares, y sentidos los ingleses de no haber hallado allí lo que en otras partes, poniendo fuego a la población en ocasión que dormían sus habitadores, navegaron a la grande isla de Borneo.83 Y por haber barloventeado catorce días su costa occidental sin haber pillaje, se acercaron al puerto de Sucadana84 en la misma isla. la mitad del golfo donde el Capitán Read “encontró un pequeño pueblo de pescadores” (Dampier, 1:397). Este ha de ser el mismo pueblecillo que menciona Mateo Francisco. 77. Son las islas del grupo Anambas, o Kepulauan Anabas, de la cual Siantán, o Pulau Siantan, es la más oriental y la mayor. Para llegar aquí deberían haber tomado rumbo hacia el Sur desde Pulau Ubi, cruzando toda la entrada a la bahía de Siam. Pero sabemos por los documentos y por Dampier que este no fue el curso seguido. Al abandonar Pulau Condón el 14 de junio (4 de junio en el calendario juliano) fueron en demanda de Manila pero el tiempo los apartó de su curso. Al pasar por las islas de Prata decidieron mudar derrota a la isla de San Juan, o Shangchuan Dao, en la costa de Cantón, donde anclaron el 5 de julio (25 de junio) de 1687. Allí pasaron una semana y compraron “algunos marranos, vinos, agua ardiente, y otras cosas y despues . . . cogieron una fregata de Sangleyes que yba de Batavia para Japon” (AGI, Filipinas, 12, R. 1, N. 60/4/20. Ver también Dampier, 1:402–409). A finales del mes llegarían a las islas de Pescadores en Formosa donde permanecerían diez días. Luego tomaron rumbo a las islas Batanes donde carenaron en la isla de Ibuhos. Allí estuvieron del 23 de agosto (13 de agosto) al 13 de octubre (3 de octubre), día en que antes de levar anclas dejaron en tierra nueve prisioneros, incluyendo a los seis tripulantes de Nuestra Señora de Aránzazu que luego prestarían declaración jurada en Manila. A estas alturas queda abundantemente claro que Ramírez, haciéndose pasar por Felipe Ferrer, había decidido permanecer junto a los piratas del Cygnet en vez de regresar a territorio español. De allí corrieron al Sur y a lo largo de la costa este de Luzón y Mindanao, llegando a la costa este de las Célebes el 19 de noviembre (9 de noviembre). A principios de 1688 habían llegado ya a la isla de Timor y el 15 de enero (5 de enero) anclaron en la costa norte de Australia. Este es el único punto geográfico en el que los Infortunios coinciden con los documentos oficiales (que siguen la ruta hasta la isla de Ibuhos) y la historia de Dampier luego de partir de Pulau Ubi. La descripción de la ruta que sigue de aquí en adelante hasta llegar a Australia es producto de la imaginación de Ramírez, sin duda basado en sus viajes previos, y del intento por parte de Sigüenza de trazar ese curso ficticio sobre la carta marina. Sin duda, es también una proyección de las experiencias vividas entre los piratas. De otra forma hubiese sido muy difícil para Ramírez explicar las razones que tuvo para no quedarse con sus hombres en Ibuhos, o para no haber saltado a tierra en Luzón o Mindanao entre mediados de octubre y principios de noviembre de 1687. 78. La cris, entre los malayos, es una espada pequeña que suele ser de hoja serpenteada. 79. Lámpara usualmente compuesta por cuatro mecheros que se coloca dentro de la bitácora o cerca de ésta para iluminar la aguja. 80. Cayendo sobre ellos al alba. 81. El texto dice “Tamburlán”. El grupo Tambelán, o Kepulauan Tambelan, ocupa el centro del Mar Natuna casi a mitad de camino entre la península de Malaya y la isla de Borneo. 82. Tomaron rumbo Sur Sureste hacia la isla de Borneo. 83. El original dice “Borney”. 84. El original dice “Cicudana”. Hasta su destrucción a fines del siglo XVIII fue un importante sultanato que dominó la región del río Kapuas y suministró oro y diamantes a los mercaderes chinos, holandeses e ingleses.

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Hállanse en el territorio de este lugar muchas preciosas piedras y en especial diamantes de rico fondo,85 y la codicia de rescatarlos y poseerlos no muchos meses antes [de] que allí llegásemos estimuló a los ingleses que en la India viven [a que] pidiesen al rey de Borneo, valiéndose para eso del gobernador que en Sucadana tenía, les permitiese factoría86 en aquel paraje. Pusiéronse los piratas a sondar87 en las piraguas la barra88 del río, no sólo para entrar en él con las embarcaciones mayores sino para hacerse capaces89 de aquellos puestos. Interrumpioles este ejercicio un champán de los de la tierra en que se venía de parte de quien la gobernaba a reconocerles. Fue su respuesta ser de nación ingleses y que venían cargados de géneros nobles y exquisitos para contratar y rescatarles diamantes. Como ya antes habían experimentado en los de esta nación amigable trato, y vieron ricas muestras de lo que en los navíos que apresaron en Pulau Ubi les pusieron luego a la vista, se les facilitó la licencia para comerciar. Hiciéronle al gobernador un regalo considerable y consiguieron el que por el río subiesen al pueblo, que dista un cuarto de legua de la marina, cuando gustasen. En tres días que allí estuvimos reconocieron estar [el pueblo] indefenso y abierto por todas partes. Y proponiendo a los sucadanos no poder detenerse por mucho tiempo y que así se recogiesen los diamantes en casa del gobernador donde se haría la feria,90 dejándonos aprisionados91 a bordo y con bastante guarda, subiendo al punto de medianoche por el río arriba y muy bien armados dieron de improvisto en el pueblo y fue la casa del gobernador [sobre] la que primero avanzaron. Saquearon cuantos diamantes y otras piedras preciosas ya estaban juntas, y lo propio consiguieron en otras muchas [casas] a [las] que pegaron fuego como también a algunas embarcaciones que allí se hallaron. Oíase a bordo el clamor del pueblo y la escopetería, y fue la mortandad, como blasonaron92 después, muy considerable. Cometida muy a su salvo93 tan execrable traición, trayendo preso al gobernador y a otros principales se vinieron a bordo con gran presteza,94 y con la misma se levaron95 saliendo a fuera. No hubo pillaje que a éste se comparase por lo poco que ocupaba y su excesivo precio. ¿Quién será el que sepa lo que importaba? Vídele al capitán Bell tener a granel llena la copa de su sombrero de solo diamantes.96 Aportamos97 a 85. Es decir, diamantes gruesos o de gran tamaño. 86. La factoría era un asentamiento europeo con fines comerciales que sirvió en todo momento como antesala a la colonización de una zona o país. 87. Medir con la sonda la profundidad del mar. 88. Banco de arena que se extiende en la entrada de un río. 89. Para reconocer bien el lugar. 90. Donde se haría el trato. 91. Se refiere a Ramírez y a su tripulación. 92. Como hicieron alarde. 93. Cometida con facilidad y sin mayor percance. 94. Prisa. 95. Levar las anclas para zarpar. 96. ¿Pudiera esta descripción estar basada en la estancia de seis días en Calasusung que narra Dampier como visita de cortesía sin incidente alguno? El Cygnet estuvo en Calasusung del 17 al 22 de diciembre de 1687 (ver Dampier, 1:444–445). 97. Tomar puerto.

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la isla de Batu Malang98 dentro de seis días, y dejándola por inútil, se dio fondo en la de Pulau Tiomán99 donde hicieron aguada y tomaron leña. Y poniendo en tierra, después de muy maltratados y muertos de hambre, al gobernador y principales de Sucudana, viraron para la costa de Berhala100 por ser más cursada de embarcaciones, y en pocos días, apresaron dos bien grandes, de moros negros, cargadas de rasos,101 elefantes,102 gasas103 y salampures.104 Y habiéndolas desvalijado de lo más precioso les dieron fuego, quitándoles entonces la vida a muchos de aquellos moros a sangre fría y dándoles a los que quedaron las pequeñas lanchas que ellos mismos traían para que se fuesen. Hasta este tiempo no [se] habían encontrado con navío alguno que se les pudiera oponer, y en este paraje, o por casualidad de la contingencia, o porque ya se tendría noticia de tan famosos ladrones en algunas partes de donde creo había ya salido gente para castigarlos, se descubrieron cuatro navíos de guerra bien artillados, y todos de holandeses a lo que parecía. Estaban éstos a sotavento, y teniéndose de ló105 los piratas cuanto les fue posible, ayudados de la oscuridad de la noche mudaron rumbo hasta dar en Pulau Aur106 y se rehicieron de bastimentos y de agua. Pero no teniéndose ya por seguros en parte alguna y temerosos de perder las inestimables riquezas con que se hallaban, determinaron dejar aquel archipiélago. Dudando si desembocarían por el estrecho de Sunda o de Singapur107 eligieron éste108 por más cercano, aunque más prolijo y dificultoso [para navegar], desechando el otro, aunque más breve y limpio, por más distante, o, lo más cierto, por más frecuentado de los muchos navíos que van y vienen de la Nueva Batavia, como arriba dije. Fiándose pues en un práctico de aquel estrecho que iba con 98. El original dice “Baturiñan”. Sin duda es una referencia a un pequeño promontorio de rocas volcánicas en la costa sur del cayo de Pulau Tulai, al Norte de la isla de Tiomán. Batu significa roca en malayo y Malang quiere decir mala suerte. Como sugiere el nombre, esta roca de la mala suerte, al igual que el cayo de Tulai, es un lugar desprovisto de toda utilidad para el navegante. 99. El original dice “Pulitimán”. Isla situada en la costa oriental de la península de Malaya, al Norte del estrecho de Singapur y a la altura del grupo Anambas. El Cygnet pasó los últimos días de 1687 y los primeros de 1688 navegando muy lejos de estos mares, pasando entre las islas de Pulau Alor y Pulau Atauro, para bojear la isla de Timor el 6 de enero. 100. El original dice “Bengala” pero esto es sin duda un error tipográfico de la imprenta o de transcripción por parte de Sigüenza puesto que la costa del golfo de Bengala está situada del lado oeste de la península de Malaca y los piratas, como se verá, de acuerdo con la versión de Ramírez aún no habían cruzado el estrecho de Singapur. 101. Tejidos de seda. 102. Se sobreentiende que se trata de colmillos de elefantes y no de elefantes como tal. 103. Tela fina de seda o hilo. 104. El original dice “sarampures”. Se trata de una tela de algodón teñida de azul que se fabricaba antiguamente en Madrás. 105. Es decir, orzando, o navegando contra el viento. 106. El original dice “Pulilaor”. Isla situada al Sureste de Tiomán, y sesenta y siete kilómetros al Este de la ciudad de Mersing en la península de Malaca. 107. El original dice “Sincapura”. 108. El de Singapur.

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ellos, ayudándoles la brisa109 y corrientes, cuanto no es decible110 con banderas holandesas,111 y bien prevenidas las armas para cualquier acaso,112 esperando una noche que fuese lóbrega se entraron por él con desesperada resolución113 y lo corrieron casi hasta el fin sin encontrar sino una sola embarcación al segundo día. Era ésta una fragata de treinta y tres codos114 de quilla,115 cargada de arroz y de una fruta que llaman bonga.116 Y al mismo tiempo de acometerla,117 por no perder la costumbre de robar aun cuando huían, dejándola sola, los que la llevaban (y eran malayos) se echaron al mar y de allí salieron a tierra para salvar las vidas. Alegres de haber hallado embarcación en que poder aliviarse de la mucha carga con que se hallaban, pasaron a ella de cada uno de sus navíos siete personas con todas [sus] armas y diez piezas de artillería con sus pertrechos.118 Y prosiguiendo con su viaje, como a las cinco de la tarde de este mismo día, desembocaron.119 En esta ocasión se desaparecieron cinco de los míos, y presumo que, valiéndose de la cercanía a la tierra, lograron la libertad con echarse a nado.120 A los veinte y cinco días de navegación avistamos una isla, no sé su nombre,121 de que por habitada de portugueses, según decían o presumían,122 nos123 apartamos. Y desde allí se tiró la vuelta de la Nueva Holanda,124 tierra aún no bastantemente descubierta de los europeos, y poseída a lo que parece de gentes bárbaras. Y al fin de más de tres meses dimos con ella.125 109. Se refiere al viento del oriente que, en este caso, les entró de popa. 110. Cuanto es reprobable. 111. Todas las reediciones del texto desde 1902, excepto la de Cummins y Soons, desplazan la coma del texto original para que la frase lea “ayudándoles la brisa y corrientes cuanto no es decible”. Yo coincido sin embargo con Cummins y Soons prefiriendo mantener el sentido dado en el original donde es precisamente la frase “cuanto no es decible con banderas holandesas” la que va entre comas. Aunque no suene bien o quede tan claro, es indudable que esta frase fue intencionalmente puntualizada para condenar la práctica de enarbolar banderas falsamente. 112. Suceso imprevisto. 113. Prontitud. 114. Antigua medida usada por los carpinteros de ribera, que consta de treinta y tres partes o dedos y equivale a 45,72 centímetros. La fragata medía pues unos quince metros de eslora. 115. Longitud del buque. 116. Fruto de la palma de areca (Areca catechu). También conocido como “pinang”, se mascaba entonces y se sigue mascando hoy por todo el sureste asiático envuelto en hojas de la planta de betel (Piper betle) y ungido en cal de conchas. 117. Atacarla. 118. Esta es la fragata que acabaría naufragando en la Costa de Bacalar. 119. Salieron del Estrecho de Singapur. 120. Dado que esta es la fragata en la cual Ramírez y sus hombres emprenderán el viaje a Nueva España, es probable que la hubieran recibido como premio a sus servicios y al valor demostrado en la captura de la misma. De haber sido así, puede que los cinco hombres de la tripulación de Nuestra Señora de Aránzazu no hayan huido a nado sino perecido en el asalto a la fragata. 121. Probablemente se trata de la isla de Nicobar en el golfo de Bengala. 122. Los piratas. 123. El original dice “dos”. Es error tipográfico. 124. Hoy Australia. 125. Alonso Ramírez llegó a Australia a bordo del Cygnet el 15 de enero de 1688. Allí pasaría una semana antes de partir y no cuatro meses como se indica a continuación. Ver el mapa 6.

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Desembarcados en la costa los que se enviaron a tierra con las126 piraguas, hallaron rastros antiguos de haber estado gente en aquel paraje. Pero siendo allí los vientos contrarios y vehementes, y el surgidero malo, solicitando lugar más cómodo, se consiguió en una isla de tierra llana.127 Y hallando no solo resguardo128 y abrigo129 a las embarcaciones, sino un arroyo de agua dulce, mucha tortuga y ninguna gente, se determinaron dar allí carena para volver a sus casas.130 Ocupáronse ellos en hacer esto, y yo y los míos en remendarles las velas y en hacer carne.131 A cosa de cuatro meses o poco más estábamos ya para salir a viaje, y poniendo las proas a la isla de Madagascar, o de San Lorenzo,132 con lestes a popa133 llegamos a ella en veinte y ocho días.134 Rescatáronse de los negros que la habitan muchas gallinas, cabras y vacas. Y noticiados de que un navío inglés mercantil estaba para entrar en aquel puerto a contratar con los negros, determinaron esperarlo y así lo hicieron. No era esto, como yo infería de sus acciones y pláticas, sino por ver si lograban el apresarlo. Pero reconociendo cuando llegó a surgir que venía muy bien artillado y con bastante gente, hubo de la una a la otra parte repetidas salvas y [señales de] amistad recíproca. Diéronle los mercaderes a los piratas aguardiente y vino, y retornáronles éstos de lo que traían hurtado, con abundancia. Ya que no por fuerza, que era imposible, no omitía diligencia el capitán Bell para hacerse dueño de aquel navío como pudiese. Pero lo que tenía este de ladrón y de codicioso, tenía el capitán de los mercaderes de vigilante y sagaz. Y así, sin pasar jamás a bordo nuestro, aunque con grande instancia, y con convites que le hicieron y que él no admitía, lo procuraban, procedió en sus acciones con gran recato. No fue menor 126. El original dice “los”. Es error tipográfico. 127. El lugar donde supuestamente fondeó el navío se llama hoy Cygnet Bay, o Bahía Cygnet, y está localizado en la península que guarda la entrada noroeste de la Bahía del Rey, o King’s Sound, en la Australia Occidental. La punta noreste de esa península se llama Punta Swan y hay un cayo en la boca de la Bahía del Rey nombrado Dampier’s Monument o el Monumento a Dampier. Quizás fuera merecido nombrar algún otro paraje en esa geografía en honor a Alonso Ramírez ahora que sabemos a ciencia cierta que fue el primer americano en poner pie en el continente. Si Carlos Swan, capitán del Cygnet previo al motín, tiene una punta nombrada en su nombre cuando éste nunca estuvo allí, seguramente Ramírez merece algo más de reconocimiento. 128. Distancia prudente de la costa, bajos y arrecifes. 129. Fondeadero defendido de los vientos y mares. 130. Pudiera ser la Isla Sunday, que queda a unos veinte kilómetros al Este de la Bahía Cygnet sobre la entrada de la Bahía del Rey. 131. Aquí, tan pronto se decide emprender el viaje de vuelta a casa, Ramírez comienza a distanciarse de los piratas. El párrafo anterior terminaba describiendo como llegaron todos juntos a Australia. Ahora la división del trabajo es clara. Los piratas estaban ocupados dando carena a la nave mientras “yo y los míos” se centraban en “remendarles las velas”. 132. Nombre antiguamente dado por los europeos a la isla de Madagascar. 133. Dejándose llevar por la brisa del este. 134. No fueron veinte y ocho sino ciento noventa y dos los días los que transcurrieron entre la salida de Australia y la llegada a Madagascar. A los ciento diecisiete días del cruce del Océano Índico, el 25 de mayo de 1688, Dampier fue abandonado por el Cygnet en la isla de Nicobar. Casi tres semanas más tarde el Cygnet capturaría una nave portuguesa.

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el [recato] que pusieron Bell y Donkin para que no supiesen los mercaderes el ejercicio en que andaban.135 Y para conseguirlo con más seguro nos mandaron a mí y a los míos, de quien únicamente se recelaban,136 el que pena de la vida no hablásemos con ellos palabra alguna y que, [si se nos preguntaba], dijésemos [que] éramos marineros voluntarios suyos y que nos pagaban. Contravinieron a este mandato dos de mis compañeros hablándole a un portugués que venía con ellos. Y mostrándose piadosos en no quitarles la vida luego al instante, los condenaron a recibir cuatro azotes de cada uno.137 Por ser ellos ciento y cincuenta, llegaron los azotes a seiscientos138 y fue tal el rebenque139 y tan violento el impulso con que los daban que amanecieron muertos los pobres al siguiente día. Trataron de dejarme, a mí y a los pocos [de mis] compañeros que habían quedado, en aquella isla. Pero, considerando la barbaridad de los negros moros que allí vivían, hincado de rodillas y besándoles los pies con gran rendimiento,140 después de reconvenirles141 con lo mucho que les había servido y ofreciéndome a asistirles142 en su viaje como si fuese esclavo, conseguí el que me llevasen consigo.143 Propusiéronme entonces, como ya otras veces me lo habían dicho, el que jurase de acompañarlos siempre y me darían armas.144 Agradeciles la merced, y haciendo refleja145 a las obligaciones con que nací,146 les respondí con afectada humildad147 el que más me acomodaba a servirlos a ellos que a pelear con otros por ser grande el temor que le tenía a las balas. Tratándome de español cobarde y gallina, y por eso indigno de estar en su compañía [aun]que me honrara y valiera mucho, no me instaron más. Despedidos de los mercaderes y bien aprovisionados148 de bastimentos salieron en demanda del cabo de Buena Esperanza en la costa de África, y después de dos meses de navegación, estando primero cinco días barloventeándolo, lo 135. Esto no es cierto. Se trata sin duda del barco negrero procedente de Nueva York capturado por el Cygnet el 25 de agosto de 1688. Esta presa pasó a manos del Capitán Read haciéndose patrón del Cygnet el Capitán Teat. 136. Nuevamente, Ramírez insiste en marcar distancia entre él y los piratas. 137. De cada uno de los piratas. 138. El texto original dice “novecientos”. Es error tipográfico. 139. Látigo de cabo embreado, formado de la unión de tres meollares, que se utilizaba de ordinario en las embarcaciones para castigar. Entiéndase en este caso el azote dado con tal instrumento de tortura. 140. Con gran sumisión. 141. Refutarles o impugnar lo que decían o proponían. 142. Servirles. 143. Esto contradice lo que se alega en el capítulo subsiguiente en cuanto a la propiedad de un esclavo por parte de Ramírez. Su nombre era Pedro y era natural de Mozambique. Toda la evidencia apunta hacia la posibilidad de que Ramírez hubiese adquirido a Pedro en Madagascar, que yace al otro lado del mar, marcando la costa occidental del Canal de Mozambique. ¿Cómo pudo haber comprado un esclavo siendo a su vez esclavo de los piratas ingleses? 144. Y si nunca juramentó, ¿cómo es que acabó en posesión de “una cris y un espadín mohoso” según indica en el capítulo VII? 145. Reflexionando, o considerando seriamente. 146. Se refiere al ser español y católico. 147. Fingiendo con esmero. 148. El original dice “provisionados”.

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montaron.149 Desde allí por espacio de mes y medio se costeó un muy extendido pedazo de tierra firme hasta llegar a una isla que llaman de Piedras,150 de donde, después de tomar agua y proveerse de leña, con las proas al Oeste y con brisas largas,151 dimos en la costa del Brasil en veinte y cinco días. En el tiempo de dos semanas en que fuimos al luengo de la costa y sus vueltas152 disminuyendo altura,153 en dos ocasiones, echaron seis hombres a tierra en una canoa.154 Y habiendo hablado con no sé qué portugueses y comprándoles algún refresco, se pasó adelante hasta llegar finalmente a un río dilatadísimo sobre cuya boca surgieron en cinco brazas y presumo que fue el de las Amazonas si no me engaño.

149. Pasaron por delante y al otro lado del cabo. 150. Seguramente se trata de la isla de Santa Helena, donde hizo escala también Dampier. La única otra isla volcánica en estas latitudes que pudo haber tenido ese apelativo es la de Ascensión. Esta, sin embargo, carece de arroyo o manantial alguno de agua dulce. 151. Viento del este soplando en ángulo abierto con relación a la quilla. 152. En que recorrimos a lo largo de la costa y sus alrededores. 153. Es decir, acercándose al Ecuador desde el sur. 154. Fortaleza y San Luis eran en aquella época las dos ciudades principales a lo largo de esta franja de costa.

IV Danle libertad los piratas y trae a la memoria lo que toleró en su prisión.

Debo advertir,1 antes de expresar lo que toleré y sufrí de trabajos2 y penalidades en tantos años, el que sólo en el condestable3 Nicpat y en Dick, cuartamaestre4 del capitán Bell, hallé alguna conmiseración y consuelo en mis continuas fatigas, así socorriéndome [éstos], sin que sus compañeros lo viesen, en casi extremas necesidades, como en buenas palabras con que me exhortaban a la paciencia. Persuádome a que era el condestable católico sin duda alguna. Juntáronse a consejo en este paraje5 y no se trató otra cosa sino qué se haría de mí y de siete compañeros míos que habían quedado. Votaron unos, y fueron los más, que nos degollasen, y otros, no tan crueles, que nos dejasen en tierra. A unos y a otros se opusieron el condestable Nicpat, el cuartamaestre Dick y el capitán Donkin con los de su séquito,6 afeando7 acción tan indigna a la generosidad8 inglesa. “Bástanos,” decía éste,9 “haber degenerado de quienes somos, robando lo mejor del Oriente con circunstancias tan impías.10 ¿Por ventura no están clamando al cielo tantos inocentes a quienes les llevamos lo que a costa de sudores poseían, a quienes les quitamos la vida? ¿Qué es lo que hizo este pobre español ahora para que la [vida] pierda? Habernos servido como un esclavo en agradecimiento de lo que con él se ha hecho desde que lo cogimos. Dejarlo en este río, donde juzgo no hay otra cosa sino indios bárbaros, es ingratitud. Degollarlo, como otros decís, es más que impiedad. Y porque no [nos] dé voces que se oigan por todo el mundo su inocente sangre,11 yo soy, y los míos, quien los patrocina”. Llegó a tanto la controversia, que estando ya para tomar las armas para decidirla, se convinieron 1. En el sentido de amonestar. 2. Tormentos. 3. Oficial de mar encargado de la artillería de un buque, con sus pertrechos y municiones. 4. El original dice “quartamaestre”. Es un anglicismo procedente del término “quartermaster” que, entre los marinos de habla inglesa, es el rango de un oficial de mar de clase inferior al contramaestre, equivalente al guardián o al contramaestre tercero, y que entre los marinos de esas naciones está encargado del timón, la bitácora y las señales de la nave. 5. En la desembocadura del Amazonas. 6. Entiéndase con los oficiales a su cargo. 7. Tachando. 8. Nobleza o decoro. 9. El capitán Donkin. 10. Con circunstancias tan impías, o mostrando tanta crueldad. 11. Donkin no quiere vivir por el resto de su vida con el remordimiento de haberlos asesinado o dejado abandonados a su suerte.

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en que me diesen la fragata12 que apresaron en el estrecho de Singapur, y con ella la libertad, para que dispusiese de mí y de mis compañeros como mejor me estuviese. Presuponiendo13 el que a todo ello me hallé presente, póngase en mi lugar quien aquí llegare14 y discurra de qué tamaño sería el susto y la congoja con que yo estuve. Desembarazada la fragata que me daban de cuanto había en ella,15 y cambiado [todo ello] a las suyas, me obligaron a que agradeciese a cada uno separadamente la libertad y piedad que conmigo usaban. Y así lo hice. Diéronme un astrolabio16 y [un] agujón,17 un derrotero18 holandés, una sola tinaja19 de agua y dos tercios20 de arroz. Pero al abrazarme el condestable para despedirse me avisó como me había dejado, a excusas21 de sus compañeros, alguna sal y tasajos, cuatro barriles de pólvora, muchas balas de artillería, una caja de medicinas y otras diversas cosas.22 Intimáronme,23 haciendo testigos de que lo oía, el que si otra vez me cogían en aquella costa, sin que otro que Dios lo remediase, me matarían y que para excusarlo gobernase siempre entre el Oeste y Noroeste donde hallaría españoles que me amparasen. Y haciendo que me levase, dándome el buen viaje o, por mejor decir, mofándome y escarneciéndome, me dejaron ir.24 12. Esta fragata, como sabemos, tenía quince metros de eslora y, por lo que se indicará más adelante, se puede deducir que era de dos palos, es decir, que tenía un palo mayor y un palo de trinquete. 13. Dando por sentado. 14. Es decir, póngase en mi lugar quien pueda. 15. Todo “cuanto había en ella”, con la importante excepción de armas, parte del botín y al menos nueve piezas de artillería de hierro, como se indicará más adelante. Dado el precio considerable en que podía cotizarse un cañón en aquella época, y las circunstancias poco favorables bajo las que supuestamente se le dio la libertad a Ramírez y a sus compañeros, cabe sospechar que esta historia encierra más de lo que Ramírez le pudo haber contado a Sigüenza, o lo que Sigüenza decidió pasar por alto. 16. Instrumento utilizado para sacar la altitud de los polos y de los astros usando el horizonte como referencia, logrando así calcular la latitud del navío en relación con el ecuador. 17. Aguja o compás de gran tamaño. 18. Libro que habría de contener una descripción por escrito e información cosmográfica de las costas y mares de la región. 19. Una tinaja contenía normalmente cuarenta y ocho litros. 20. El antiguo tercio mexicano, medida que es sin duda la referida en el texto, equivale a unos setenta y cuatro kilogramos. 21. Con disimulo, es decir, sin que lo supiesen sus compañeros. 22. Las “otras diversas cosas” serán parcialmente enumeradas en el capítulo VI: “Quedáronse en ella y en las playas nueve piezas de artillería de hierro con más de dos mil balas de a cuatro, de a seis y de a diez, y todas de plomo, cien quintales, por lo menos, de este metal, cincuenta barras de estaño, sesenta arrobas de hierro, ochenta barras de cobre del Japón, muchas tinajas de la China, siete colmillos de elefante, tres barriles de pólvora, cuarenta cañones de escopeta, diez llaves, una caja de medicina y muchas herramientas de cirujano.” 23. Le hicieron saber con autoridad. 24. De acuerdo con las fechas que se dan más adelante y asumiendo la veracidad del recuento detallado de los días transcurridos hasta llegar al de su confesión en el pueblo de Tihosuco el viernes 25 de noviembre de 1689, día de Santa Catalina de Alejandría, es posible fijar la fecha de este suceso alrededor del viernes 22 de julio de 1689.

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Alabo a cuantos aun con riesgo de la vida solicitan25 la libertad, por ser ella la que merece, aun entre animales brutos, la estimación.26 Sacónos a mí y a mis compañeros tan no esperada dicha copiosas lágrimas, y juzgo [que] corrían gustosas por nuestros rostros por lo que antes las habíamos tenido reprimidas y ocultas en nuestras penas. Con un regocijo nunca esperado suele de ordinario embarazarse el discurso,27 y pareciéndonos sueño lo que pasaba, se necesitó de mucha refleja28 para creernos libres. Fue nuestra acción primera levantar las voces al cielo engrandeciendo a la divina misericordia como mejor pudimos, y con inmediación,29 dimos las gracias a la que en el mar de tantas borrascas fue nuestra estrella. Creo [que] hubiera sido imposible mi libertad si continuamente no hubiera ocupado la memoria y afectos en María Santísima de Guadalupe de México, de quien siempre protesto30 [que] viviré esclavo por lo que le debo.31 He traído siempre conmigo un retrato suyo, y temiendo que32 lo profanaran los herejes piratas cuando me apresaron, supuesto que entonces, quitándonos los rosarios de los cuellos y reprendiéndonos como a impíos y supersticiosos los arrojaron al mar, como mejor pude se lo quité de la vista, y la vez primera que subí al tope33 lo escondí allí. Los nombres de los que consiguieron conmigo la libertad y habían quedado de los veinte y cinco, porque de ellos en la isla despoblada de Pulau Ubi dejaron ocho, cinco se huyeron en Singapur, dos murieron de los azotes en Madagascar y otros tres tuvieron la misma suerte en diferentes parajes, son: Juan de Casas, español, natural de la Puebla de los Ángeles en Nueva España; Juan Pinto y Marcos de la Cruz, indios, pangasinán34 aquél y éste pampango;35 Francisco de la Cruz y 25. Buscan con afán. 26. Es decir, que la libertad es lo más apreciado, incluso entre las bestias. 27. En otras palabras, que la dicha inesperada suele impedir el uso de la razón. 28. Reflexión, o consideración seria. 29. Inmediatamente. 30. Confesar públicamente la fe. 31. Esta confesión encierra una contradicción curiosa por cuanto le agradece su libertad a la Virgen de Guadalupe haciendo promesa de ser su esclavo por siempre. Evidentemente, Ramírez intentaba esconder las verdaderas contradicciones en su testimonio enfatizando su devoción incuestionable a la fe católica durante su supuesto suplicio. Si se unió a los piratas entonces era a ellos, y no a la Virgen María, a quien debía su libertad. Entonces las partes de la contradicción se hubieran virado por cuanto su libertad hubiera sido consecuencia de haber caído presa de los ingleses. 32. El original dice “no” lo cual es sin duda un error tomando en cuenta el sentido de la oración. 33. Punta más alta de un mástil, en este caso del palo mayor, donde se coloca la veleta. Como explico en la introducción este es un momento de gran importancia simbólica pues supone que el navío de los herejes luteranos, como sin duda serían vistos los piratas ingleses en México y en Madrid, navegó bajo el estandarte de la Virgen de Guadalupe. Pero, si tanta importancia tuvo para él la imagen de la Virgen de Guadalupe, ¿acaso no la hubiere retirado del tope para traerla consigo una vez puesto en libertad por los ingleses? Ciertamente ese escapulario hubiera sido la prueba fehaciente de que decía la verdad. 34. Como se ha indicado anteriormente, Pangasinán es la región del litoral del golfo de Lingayen, situada en la costa occidental de la isla de Luzón, entre Ilocos y Manila. 35. La región de Pampanga ocupa la zona central de la isla de Luzón, sobre el valle del río Pampanga, al Norte de la bahía de Manila.

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Antonio González, sangleyes;36 Juan Díaz, malabar;37 y Pedro, negro de Mozambique, esclavo mío. A las lágrimas de regocijo por la libertad conseguida se siguieron las que bien pudieran ser de sangre por los trabajos pasados, los cuales nos representó luego al instante la memoria, [y que siguen] en este compendio. A las amenazas con que, estando sobre la isla de Capones, nos tomaron la confesión para saber qué navíos y con qué armas estaban para salir de Manila, y cuáles lugares eran más ricos, añadieron dejarnos casi quebrados los dedos de las manos con las llaves38 de las escopetas y carabinas. Y sin atender a la sangre que lo manchaba nos obligaron a hacer ovillos del algodón que venía en greñas39 para coser velas. Continuose este ejercicio siempre que fue necesario en todo el viaje, siendo distribución de todos los días, sin dispensa alguna, baldear y barrer por dentro y fuera las embarcaciones. Era también común a todos nosotros limpiar los alfanjes, cañones y llaves de carabinas con tiestos de loza de China molidos cada tercer día;40 hacer meollar;41 colchar42 cables, saulas y contrabrazas;43 [y] hacer también cajetas, envergues y mojeles.44 Añadíase a esto ir al timón, y pilar el arroz que de continuo comían, habiendo precedido el remojarlo, para hacerlo harina. Y hubo ocasión en que a cada uno se nos dieron once costales de a dos arrobas45 por tarea de un solo día con pena de azotes, que muchas veces toleramos, si se faltaba a ello. Jamás en las turbonadas46 que en tan prolija navegación47 experimentamos aferraron velas.48 Nosotros éramos los que lo hacíamos, siendo el galardón ordinario de tanto riesgo crueles azotes, o por no ejecutarlo con toda prisa o porque las 36. Chinos. 37. Oriundo de Malabar, región del litoral suroccidental de la India. 38. La llave es el mecanismo que sirve para disparar un arma de chispa. Tomando en cuenta el funcionamiento de estas piezas este tormento debe haberse logrado colocando el dedo sobre la cazoleta, o pieza cóncava al oído del cañón donde se depositaba la pólvora, accionando el gatillo para que el pedernal golpease con fuerza contra carne y hueso causando una herida grave. El siempre filoso y puntiagudo pedernal, colocado en la punta del pie de gato o martillo, era impulsado por un muelle de gran potencia. 39. El algodón en su estado rústico, antes de ser despepitado y esponjado. 40. La loza molida se utilizaba como material abrasivo para lijar los metales y quitar el moho. 41. Hacer cordel o trenzas de hilo. 42. Unir y torcer los cordones unos con otros. 43. El cable es utilizado para sujetar el ancla y amarrar la nave en un muelle o fondeadero. La saula es el cabo de uso común compuesto de tres cordones de a tres hilos trenzados. Las brazas son cabos, dobles o sencillos, que sirven para colocar en la dirección deseada las vergas que sujetan, o de donde cuelgan, las velas. 44. La cajeta se hace con trenzas de meollar y es cordel de múltiples usos a bordo de un navío. El envergue es un cabo delgado que sirve para envergar o apagar una vela. El mojel es lo mismo que la baderna, o un pedazo de cajeta de uno o dos metros de largo que entre otros muchos usos se emplea para apagar velas y amarrar el timón. 45. Una arroba equivalía a veinte y cinco libras. Por tanto, eran once sacos de cincuenta libras, o quinientas cincuenta libras (250 kilogramos) de arroz en total por cabeza. 46. Gran chubasco que pasa con brevedad y va generalmente acompañado de rayos, relámpagos, truenos y mucho viento. 47. Larga travesía. 48. Recoger la vela para que no reciba viento.

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velas, como en semejantes frangentes49 sucede, solían romperse. El sustento que se nos daba para que no nos faltasen las fuerzas en tan continuo trabajo se reducía a una ganta50 que viene a ser un almud,51 de arroz, que se sancochaba52 como se podía valiéndonos de agua de la mar en vez de la sal que les sobraba y que jamás nos dieron: menos de un cuartillo53 de agua54 se repartía a cada uno cada día. Carne, vino, aguardiente, bonga ni otra alguna de las muchas menestras55 que traían llegó a nuestras bocas. Y teniendo cocos en grande copia56 nos arrojaban solo las cáscaras para hacer bonote,57 que es limpiarlas y dejarlas como estopa para calafatear,58 y, cuando por estar surgidos59 los tenían frescos, les bebían el agua y los arrojaban al mar. Diéronnos en el último año de nuestra prisión el cargo de la cocina, y no sólo contaban los pedazos de carne que nos entregaban sino que también los medían para que nada comiésemos. ¡Notable crueldad y miseria ésta! Pero no tiene comparación a la que se sigue. Ocupáronnos también en hacerles calzado de lona y en coserles camisas y calzoncillos, y para ello, se nos daban cortadas y medidas las hebras de hilo. Y si por echar tal vez menudos los pespuntes,60 como querían, faltaba alguna, correspondían a cada una [de las hebras] que se añadía veinte y cinco azotes. Tuve yo otro trabajo de que se privilegiaron61 mis compañeros y fue haberme obligado a ser barbero. Y en este ejercicio me ocupaban todos los sábados sin descansar ni un breve rato, siguiéndosele a cada descuido de la navaja, y de ordinario eran muchos por no saber [yo] científicamente su manejo, bofetadas crueles y muchos palos. Todo cuanto aquí se ha dicho sucedía a bordo, porque sólo en Pulau Ubi, y en la isla despoblada de Nueva Holanda, para hacer agua y leña, y para colchar cable de bejuco, nos desembarcaron. Si quisiera especificar [todos los] particulares sucesos me dilatara mucho, y con individuar62 uno u otro se discurrirán63 los que callo. Era para nosotros el día del lunes el más temido, porque haciendo un círculo de bejuco en torno de la

49. Acontecimiento imprevisto y desgraciado. 50. Medida para áridos utilizada en las Filipinas. 51. El almud equivale a 0,8 litros. 52. Sancochar en este caso es cocer al sol en agua de mar. 53. Aproximadamente medio litro. 54. De agua dulce. 55. El original dice “miniestras”. Se trata en este caso de comestibles en general. 56. Abundancia. 57. Filamento que se extrae de la corteza del coco. 58. El bonote es una fibra fuerte y muy duradera que se utilizaba para hacer cables y, embreada, para cerrar las junturas de las maderas en el caso de la nave. 59. En puerto. 60. Labor de costura de doble puntada. 61. De que se libraron. 62. Especificar. 63. Se podrán inferir.

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mesana64 y amarrándonos a él las manos siniestras65 nos ponían en las derechas unos rebenques, y habiéndonos desnudado, nos obligaban con puñales y pistolas a los pechos a que unos a otros nos azotásemos. Era igual la vergüenza y el dolor que en ello teníamos al regocijo y aplauso con que [ellos] lo festejaban. No pudiendo asistir mi compañero Juan de Casas a la distribución del continuo trabajo que nos rendía, [y] atribuyéndolo el capitán Bell a la que llamaba flojera, dijo que él lo curaría y por modo fácil. Perdóneme la decencia y el respeto que se debe a quien esto lee que lo refiera, [pero] redújose éste66 a hacerle beber, desleídos en agua, los excrementos del mismo capitán,67 teniéndole puesto un cuchillo al cuello para acelerarle la muerte si lo repugnase. Y como a tan no oída medicina se siguiesen grandes vómitos que le causó el asco, y con qué accidentalmente recuperó la salud, desde luego nos la recetó,68 con aplauso de todos [los suyos], para cuando por nuestras desdichas adoleciésemos. Sufría yo todas estas cosas porque por el amor que tenía a mi vida no podía más [que hacerlo], y advirtiendo [que] había días enteros que [ellos] los pasaban borrachos, sentía no tener bastantes compañeros de quien valerme para matarlos y, alzándome con la fragata,69 irme a Manila. Pero también puede ser que no me fiara de ellos aunque los tuviera, por no haber otro español entre ellos sino Juan de Casas. Un día que más que otro me embarazaba las acciones70 este pensamiento, llegándose a mí uno de los ingleses que se llamaba Cornelio71 y gastando larga prosa para encargarme el secreto, me propuso si tendría valor para ayudarle con los míos a sublevarse. Respondile con gran recato, pero asegurándome [que] tenía ya convencidos a algunos de los suyos, cuyos nombres dijo, para lo propio,72 consiguió de mí el que no le faltaría llegado el caso, pero pactando primero lo que para mi seguro me pareció convenir. No fue esta tentativa73 de Cornelio sino realidad, y de hecho había algunos que se lo aplaudiesen. Pero por motivos que yo no supe desistió de ello. Persuádome a que él fue sin duda quien dio noticia al capitán Bell de que yo y los míos lo querían matar, porque comenzaron a vivir de allí [en] adelante74 con más vigilancia, abocando75

64. Mástil que se arbola a popa en las embarcaciones de tres palos. 65. Las manos izquierdas. 66. Resolvió el Capitán Bell. 67. Los del Capitán Bell. 68. El Capitán Bell. 69. Llevándome la fragata. 70. Me impedía proceder. 71. Posiblemente Cornelius en inglés, o quizás Cornelis. Pudiera tratarse de Cornelis Corneliszoon Jol, el pirata holandés cuyo padre, del mismo nombre, recibió el apodo en holandés de “Kapitein Houtebeen” o Capitán Pata de Palo (1597–1641) y que era conocido por los españoles simplemente como “el Pirata”. 72. El original dice “proprio”. Es arcaísmo. 73. Aquí “tentativa” tiene el sentido de “intriga”. 74. Es decir, seguido el momento del intercambio entre Ramírez y Cornelio. 75. Apuntando, o colocando la boca de un cañón en una dirección particular.

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dos piezas76 cargadas de munición hacia la proa, donde siempre estábamos, y procediendo en todo con gran cautela. No dejó de darme toda esta prevención de cosas grande cuidado, y peguntándole al condestable Nicpat, mi patrocinador,77 lo que lo causaba, no me respondió otra cosa sino que mirásemos yo y los míos cómo dormíamos. Maldiciendo yo entonces la hora en que me habló Cornelio, me previne como mejor pude para la muerte. A la noche de este día, amarrándome fuertemente contra la mesana comenzaron a atormentarme para que confesase lo que acerca de querer alzarme con el navío tenía dispuesto. Negué [todo] con la mayor constancia78 que pude, y creo que a persuasiones del condestable me dejaron solo. Llegose éste79 entonces a mí, y asegurándome el que de ninguna manera peligraría si me fiase de él, [y] después de referirle enteramente lo que me había pasado, desamarrándome80 me llevó al camarote del capitán. Hincado de rodillas en su presencia dije lo que Cornelio me había propuesto. Espantado el capitán Bell con esta noticia, haciendo primero el que en ella me ratificase con juramento, [y] con amenaza de castigarme por no haberle dado cuenta de ello inmediatamente, me hizo cargo81 de traidor y de sedicioso. Yo con ruegos y lágrimas, y el condestable Nicpat con reverencias y súplicas, conseguimos que me absolviese, pero fue imponiéndome con pena de la vida que guardase secreto. No pasaron muchos días sin que de Cornelio y sus secuaces echasen mano, y fueron tales los azotes con que los castigaron que yo aseguro el que jamás se olviden de ellos mientras vivieren. Y con la misma pena y otras mayores se les mandó el que ni conmigo ni con los míos se entrometiesen. Prueba de la bondad82 de los azotes sea el que uno de los pacientes,83 que se llamaba Enrique,84 recogió cuanto en plata, oro y diamantes le había cabido85 y, quizás receloso de otro castigo, se quedó en la isla de San Lorenzo sin que valiesen cuantas diligencias hizo el capitán Bell para recobrarlo. Ilación86 es, y necesaria, de cuanto aquí se ha dicho poder competir estos piratas en crueldad y abominaciones con87 cuantos en la primera plana de este ejercicio tienen sus nombres. Pero creo el que no hubieran sido tan malos como para nosotros lo fueron si no estuviera con ellos un español que se preciaba88 de sevillano y se llamaba Miguel. No hubo trabajo intolerable en que nos pusiesen, no hubo 76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83. 84. 85. 86. 87. 88.

Piezas de artillería o cañones. Protector. Firmeza. Nicpat. El original dice “deasmarrandome”. Me acusó. Por bien administrados que fueron. Uno de quienes sufriera el castigo. Posiblemente Henry. La parte que le habría tocado en la repartición. Conclusión. El original dice “a”. Que se jactaba de ser.

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ocasión alguna en que nos maltratasen, no hubo hambre que padeciésemos ni riesgo de la vida en que peligrásemos, que no viniese por su mano y su dirección, haciendo [él] gala de mostrarse impío y abandonando lo católico en que nació por vivir pirata y morir hereje. Acompañaba a los ingleses, y era esto para mí y para los míos lo89 más sensible, cuando se ponían de fiesta, que eran las Pascuas de Navidad y los domingos del año, leyendo o rezando lo que ellos en sus propios libros. Alúmbrele Dios el entendimiento para que, enmendando su vida, consiga el perdón de sus iniquidades.90

89. El original dice “los”. 90. Todos los tripulantes de Nuestra Señora de Aránzazu puestos en libertad por los piratas en Ibuhos hablan de Miguel el sevillano en sus testimonios. Al igual que intentaron proteger a su antiguo capitán y a los siete viejos compañeros que siguieron ruta con los piratas, declarando que habían sido abandonados en Pulau Condón, hablaron de Miguel como prisionero de los ingleses y no como pirata y luterano. De hecho, por el tono de los testimonios se comprueba que, lejos de ser el sadista y antiespañol que se pinta en los Infortunios, fue Miguel quien de entre todos los piratas le dedicó mayor tiempo a los hombres de Ferrer. Así pues, Juan del Pilar, quien fuera sirviente del contramaestre Francisco Acosta, indica que “llego a saver de quatro pricioneros que estavan con dicho enemigo, del uno de ellos llamado Miguel, que no supo su apellido, solo si que era sevillano de nacion, y los otros tres naturales que eran del Reyno de Chile llamado el uno tambien Miguel, y el otro Andres, y asi mismo el otro llamado Miguel, con quienes comunico este declarante muchas vezes en el discurso del tiempo que estubo pricionero” (AGI, Filipinas, 12, R. 1, N. 60/4/42).

V1 Navega Alonso Ramírez y sus compañeros sin saber dónde estaban ni la parte a que iban. Dícense los trabajos y sustos que padecieron hasta varar en tierra.

Basta de estos trabajos, que aun para leídos2 son muchos, por pasar a otros de diversa especie. No sabía yo, ni mis compañeros, el paraje en que nos hallábamos ni el término que tendría nuestro viaje, porque ni [se] entendía el derrotero holandés, ni teníamos carta que entre tantas confusiones nos sirviera de algo. Y para todos era aquella la vez primera que allí nos veíamos.3 En estas dudas, haciendo refleja a la sentencia que nos habían dado de muerte si [por] segunda vez nos aprisionaban, cogiendo la vuelta del Oeste me hice a la mar.4 A los seis días, sin haber mudado la derrota, avistamos tierra que parecía firme por lo tendido y alta, y poniendo la proa al Oeste Noroeste me hallé el día siguiente a la madrugada sobre tres islas de poca amplitud.5 Acompañado de Juan de Casas, en un cayuco6 pequeño que en la fragata había, salí a una de ellas donde se hallaron pájaros tabones7 y bobos,8 y trayendo gran cantidad de ellos para cecinarlos,9 me vine a bordo.10 1. Es número arábico en el original. 2. Es decir, para lectores sabios y eruditos. 3. El original usa el arcaísmo “víamos”. 4. Para salir a mar abierto en vuelta del Oeste, Ramírez tendría que haber llegado al Cabo de Orange sobre la Bahía de Olapoque, donde hoy se encuentra la frontera entre Brasil y la Guyana Francesa. De lo contrario, debió haber tomado rumbo al Este Noreste, antes de virar hacia el Oeste y el Noroeste como le habían indicado los ingleses. Aquí, con este “me hice a la mar” en primera persona singular, Ramírez comienza a intentar separase de sus hombres, elevándose y tomando el mando sobre ellos. 5. El original dice “de poca ambitu.” Es error tipográfico por “poca amplitud” y no por “poco ámbito” como indican casi todas las demás ediciones salvo las que no hacen corrección alguna. De una u otra forma, es una referencia a islas pequeñas o de poca extensión. Efectivamente, como señalan Cummins y Soons, se trata de las Islas de la Salud, o Îles du Salut, en la costa de la Guyana Francesa (ver Cummins y Soons, 82). Éstas fueron conocidas originalmente como las Islas del Diablo, pero en 1663 adquirieron su presente nombre de forma tal que solamente una de ellas, la más al Norte, retiene el nombre original y se llama la Isla del Diablo. Las otras dos son Isla Real, o Royal, y la Isla de San José que es la meridional. 6. Canoa pequeña, de remo y sin quilla, que se fabrica ahuecando el tronco de un árbol. 7. Tabón es voz de origen tagalo recogida por Ramírez en Filipinas donde se utiliza para referirse a un ave de tamaño poco menor que un pollo, de plumaje negro y patas largas y amarillas, perteneciente a la familia de los megapodios. Los que vio Ramírez en las Islas de la Salud fueron probablemente del tipo jacana. La utilización del término sugiere que Ramírez pudo haber llegado adquirir cierta destreza en el uso de la lengua tagala y malaya. 8. Se trata del Sula leucogaster, típico de la costa de las Guyanas y de Surinam. 9. Salar y ahumar la carne para conservarla durante la travesía. 10. De este “me vine a bordo” se excluye a Juan de Casas, el único otro español del grupo.

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Arrimándonos a la costa proseguimos, por el largo de ella y a los diez días se descubrió una isla, y al parecer, grande (La Trinidad).11 Eran entonces las seis de la mañana y a la misma hora se nos dejó ver una armada de hasta veinte velas12 de varios portes,13 y echando bandera inglesa, me llamaron con una pieza.14 Dudando si llegaría [hasta ellos], discurrí el que viendo [ellos] a mi bordo cosas de ingleses quizás no me creerían la relación que les diese, sino que presumirían [que] había yo muerto a los dueños de la fragata y que andaba fugitivo por aquellos mares. Y aunque con turbonada que empezó a entrar, juzgando [que] me la enviaba Dios para mi escape, largué las velas de gavia y con el aparejo siempre en la mano,15 cosa que no se atrevió a hacer ninguna de las naos inglesas, escapé con la proa al Norte caminando todo aquel día y noche sin mudar derrota.16 Al siguiente [día] volví la vuelta del Oeste a proseguir mi camino. Y al otro [día], por la parte del Este tomé una isla (El Barbado).17 Estando ya sobre ella se nos acercó una canoa con seis hombres a reconocernos. Y apenas supieron de nosotros ser españoles y nosotros de ellos que eran ingleses cuando, corriendo por nuestros cuerpos un sudor frío, determinamos morir primero de hambre entre las olas que no exponernos otra vez a tolerar impiedades.18 Dijeron que si queríamos comerciar hallaríamos allí azúcar, tinta,19 tabaco y otros buenos géneros. Respondiles que eso queríamos. Y atribuyendo a que era tarde para poder entrar,

11. Esta es la nota número uno, que aparece, como todas las demás en la primera edición, en los márgenes laterales del texto. Trinidad fue colonia de España de 1498 a 1802 cuando pasó a formar parte del imperio británico. 12. De hasta veinte navíos. 13. Tamaños. 14. Con un tiro de cañón. 15. Se entiende por esto que Ramírez tomó el gobierno de la nave directamente en sus manos, encargándose personalmente de templar el aparejo de las velas de gavia para llevarlas de la forma más eficiente en todo momento. Dado que las velas de gavia son las que más alto cuelgan sobre cubierta, esta maniobra es sumamente arriesgada en tiempo de tormenta cuando, por el contrario, se supone que se recojan parcialmente las velas y se mantengan sin arbolar las de gavia. En semejante maniobra se arriesga partir un mástil o dar vuelco al casco haciendo zozobrar la nave. 16. Sin cambiar de rumbo. 17. Esta es la nota número dos en el original. Barbados fue tomada en 1625 por los ingleses quienes comenzaron su colonización en 1627 hasta convertirla a mediados de siglo en su primera gran colonia azucarera. Sin embargo, esta isla queda muy al Norte y a barlovento (este) de Trinidad, lo cual no concuerda ni con la distancia que era posible recorrer en dos días, ni menos con la vuelta hacia el Oeste que se indica en el texto. Más seguramente se trata de la isla de Tobago que fue inicialmente colonizada por los holandeses (1628–1677) y que para ese entonces se disputaba entre colonos ingleses auspiciados por el Duque de Courland, a quien el gobierno británico le había retirado la patente de adelantado, y otras compañías y piratas ingleses. Además, para aquel entonces, Barbados no tenía puerto en la banda occidental de la isla mientras que Tobago lo tuvo desde que los holandeses fundaron Nuevo Flushing (hoy Scarborough) en la Bahía de Lampsins (hoy Bahía de Rockly) en 1564. Es allí donde Ramírez debe haber llegado. 18. Crueldades. 19. Para teñir las telas.

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con el pretexto de estarme a la capa aquella noche,20 y con asegurarles también el que tomaríamos puerto al siguiente día, se despidieron. Y poniendo luego al instante la proa al Este me salí a la mar. Ignorantes de aquellos parajes y persuadidos a que no hallaríamos sino ingleses donde llegásemos, no cabía en mí ni en mis compañeros consuelo alguno, y más viendo el que el bastimento se iba acabando y que, si no fuera por algunos aguaceros en que cogimos alguna, absolutamente nos faltara el agua. Al Este, como dije, y al Este Nordeste, corrí21 tres días. Y después cambié la proa al Noroeste22 y, gobernando a esta parte seis días continuos, llegué a una isla alta y grande, y acercándome a una punta que tiene al Este23 a reconocerla, salió de ella una lancha24 con siete hombres para nosotros. Sabiendo de mí ser español y que buscaba agua y leña, y algún bastimento, me dijeron ser aquella la isla de Guadalupe, donde vivían franceses, y que con licencia del gobernador, que [él] daría sin repugnancia,25 podría aprovisionarme26 en ella de cuanto necesitase, y que si también quería negociación no faltaría forma,27 como no les faltaba a algunos que allí llegaban. Dije que sí entraría [a puerto] pero que no sabía por dónde, por no tener carta ni práctico28 que me guiase, y que me dijesen en qué parte del mundo nos hallábamos. Hízoles notable fuerza29 el oírme esto, e30 instándome [ellos] que de dónde había salido y para qué parte, arrepentido inmediatamente de la pregunta [y] sin responderles a propósito,31 me despedí. No se espante quien esto leyere de la ignorancia en que estábamos de aquellas islas, porque habiendo salido de mi patria de tan poca edad nunca supe, ni cuidé de ello después, qué islas son circunvecinas y cuáles sus nombres. Menos razón había para que Juan de Casas, siendo natural de la Puebla en lo mediterráneo32 20. Ponerse a la capa, o ponerse en facha, es frenar la nave en alta mar mediante el uso de las velas, colocando unas en contra de otras hasta lograr el equilibrio que efectivamente detiene la nave. 21. Aquí el término correr tiene uso general. Se utiliza por navegar y no por navegar en popa, o abierto al viento, como se entiende el vocablo entre los marineros, puesto que los vientos en esta parte son contrarios y le entrarían a la fragata por estribor. 22. Siguiendo ese curso habrían pasado a unos cien kilómetros al Este de la isla de Barbados. 23. Se trata de la Punta de los Castillos o Pointe des Châteaux en el extremo oriental de la Grande-Terre en la isla de Guadalupe, así llamada por ser una punta rocallosa que se asemeja a las ruinas de un castillo o fortaleza. 24. En este caso, se trata de una embarcación de seis remos. 25. Sin resistencia. 26. El original dice “provisionarme”. 27. No faltaría la forma o manera de hacerlo, es decir, no habría impedimento. 28. Hombre de mar o piloto que conoce los accidentes y la entrada a los puertos de la costa que se navega. 29. Expresión de uso entre la gente de mar, como en hacer fuerza de remos o hacer fuerza de velas, que en este contexto significa que la pregunta de Ramírez causó gran impacto a sus interlocutores. 30. El original dice “y”. 31. Sin darles una respuesta clara. 32. En el interior.

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de la Nueva España, supiese de ellas. Y con más razón militaba lo propio33 en los compañeros restantes, siendo todos originarios de la India oriental, donde no tienen necesidad de noticia que les importe de aquellos mares. Pero no obstante bien presumía yo el que era parte de la América en la que nos hallábamos. Antes de apartarme de allí les propuse a mis compañeros el que me parecía imposible tolerar más, porque ya para los continuos trabajos en que nos veíamos34 nos faltaban fuerzas, con circunstancia de35 que los bastimentos eran muy pocos, y que, pues36 los franceses eran católicos, surgiésemos a merced suya en aquella isla persuadidos de que haciéndoles relación de nuestros infortunios37 les obligaría la piedad cristiana a patrocinarnos. Opusiéronse a este dictamen mío con grande esfuerzo, siendo el motivo el que a ellos, por su color [de piel] y por no ser españoles, los harían esclavos, y que les sería menos sensible el que yo con mis manos los echase al mar que ponerse [ellos] en las islas de extranjeros para experimentar sus rigores. Por no contristarlos,38 sintiendo más sus desconsuelos que los míos, mareé39 la vuelta del Norte todo el día, y el [día] siguiente al Norte Nordeste, y por esta derrota a los tres días di vista a una isla (Barbuda).40 Y de allí, habiéndola montado por la banda del sur, y dejando otra [isla] (La Antigua)41 por la de babor, después de dos días que fuimos al Noroeste y al Oeste Noroeste, me hallé cercado de islotes entre dos grandes islas (San Bartolomé y San Martín).42 Costome notable cuidado salir 33. El original dice “proprio”. Entiéndase que había aún más razón para suponer una mayor ignorancia. 34. El original dice “viamos”. 35. Es decir, dado que. 36. En el sentido de “ya que”. 37. Esta es la primera vez que se utiliza el término infortunios en el texto de la narración. 38. Para no afligirlos. 39. Marear es gobernar la nave. 40. Esta es la nota número tres. El texto original dice “La Barbada”. Pero la referencia es incorrecta puesto que, dada la derrota seguida, debieron haber navegado hacia el Oeste, bordeado la costa sur de Basse-Terre en Guadalupe, montado la punta de Vieux-Fort en su extremo suroeste, y corrido “la vuelta del Norte” a lo largo de la costa occidental de la misma isla. Era lógico que luego de rematar la isla mudaran la proa hacia el Norte Nordeste para llegar a Antigua. De haber tomado el mismo curso saliendo por la punta sureste de Guadalupe (la Punta de los Castillos) se hubieran apartado de las islas y entrado en mar abierto. De todas formas, no es posible llegar de Guadalupe a Barbuda siguiendo el curso señalado, sálgase por el lado de Guadalupe que se salga. Antigua fue colonia británica desde 1632. 41. Esta es la nota número cuatro en el original y es, como en el caso de las dos notas anteriores, también error de Sigüenza. Al tomar Antigua por la banda del sur la isla que se deja a babor es Montserrat la cual, al igual que ésta primera, fue colonia inglesa desde 1632. 42. Esta es la nota número cinco en el original. La derrota seguida coincide exactamente con el arco de las Antillas Menores y revela un conocimiento competente de aquellas aguas por parte de Ramírez que contradice lo que se alega anteriormente al principio del capítulo en cuanto a no haber tenido ni carta ni forma de entender el derrotero holandés. Según la descripción dada a Sigüenza por Ramírez, el rumbo Noroeste que tomaron al dejar atrás la isla que, como he indicado en la nota anterior, fue Antigua y no Barbuda, les llevaría en dirección a la isla de San Martín, dejando a babor las de Nieves (Nevis), San

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de aquí por el mucho mar y viento que hacía,43 y corriendo, con sólo el trinquete,44 para el Oeste, después de tres días descubrí una isla (La Española)45 grandísima, alta y montuosa.46 Pero, habiendo amanecido cosa de seis leguas47 sotaventado48 de ella para la parte del Sur, nunca me dio lugar el tiempo49 para cogerla,50 aunque guiñé51 al Noroeste. Gastados poco más de otros tres días sin rematarla,52 [y] reconocidos Cristóbal (Saint Kitts), San Eustaquio y Saba. En San Martín comienza el Canal de Anegada donde no es posible seguir navegando visualmente de isla en isla. Desde allí, la tierra y el abrigo más inmediato para las embarcaciones son las Islas Vírgenes. Para llegar a ellas es necesario, como hizo Ramírez, mudar el rumbo hacia el Oeste Noroeste. Esto concuerda perfectamente con la descripción de hallarse “cercado de islotes” entre dos grandes islas que no son, como supone Sigüenza en su nota, San Bartolomé y San Martín, sino Tórtola y San Juan (Saint John), las cuales quedan, rodeadas de islotes, sobre el extremo oeste del Canal de Sir Francis Drake en lo que hoy son las Islas Vírgenes Británicas. En aquel entonces, y hasta bien entrado el siglo XVIII, las Islas Vírgenes fueron refugio seguro y preferido de piratas. 43. Esta puede ser una referencia al estrecho entre Tórtola y San Juan (Saint John), conocido en inglés como el canal de the Narrows o de las Angosturas. 44. La vela que se enverga inmediatamente sobre cuberita sobre el palo de trinquete, es decir, sobre el palo que se arbola inmediato a la proa. 45. Esta es la nota número seis en el original. Cabe notar que no es posible cruzar de las Islas Vírgenes a La Española sin divisar las costas y montañas de Puerto Rico. Luego de correr todo el Canal de Sir Francis Drake, pasando entre Tórtola y San Juan (Saint John) por el canal de the Narrows, y tomando desde allí rumbo al Oeste, se pasa inmediatamente al Norte de la isla de Santo Tomás (Saint Thomas) desde donde ya se divisa claramente la Isla de Culebra, antiguamente conocida como la Isla del Pasaje y también, desde el siglo XVII, llamada por los ingleses Serpent Island o Isla Serpiente. Si efectivamente Ramírez navegaba sin carta o sin derrotero que le fuera útil, no pudo haber hecho otra cosa que seguir rumbo a Culebra. Una vez allí, hubiera divisado las costas de Puerto Rico y, muy especialmente, el pico del inconfundible Yunque que es la punta más alta (1.080 metros) en el extremo este de la isla y que se divisa igualmente desde Culebra y desde la ciudad de San Juan, que queda poco más cerca de éste por su ladera oeste. De ninguna forma pudo haber pasado Ramírez del extremo norte del arco de las Antillas Menores a la costa sur de La Española sin haber divisado, y reconocido, su patria (ver ilustración 11). Por la descripción que sigue se puede inferir que, habiendo llegado a Culebra, Ramírez debe haber mareado hacia el Suroeste, pasando por el Canal de Vieques, que separa la isla del mismo nombre (antes conocida por los ingleses como Crab Island) de la de Puerto Rico. De allí tomaría entonces la vuelta del Oeste recorriendo de un extremo a otro todo el litoral sur de Puerto Rico para atravesar el Canal de la Mona hasta divisar la costa sur de La Española. Valga señalar que, aunque en aquellos tiempos no había un asentamiento oficial en la isla de Vieques, sí era muy frecuentada por pescadores de Puerto Rico que venían en busca de tortuga marina o carey para vender la carne en el mercado de San Juan. Inevitablemente, Ramírez tuvo que haber entrado en contacto con éstos u otras gentes de la costa, la mayoría de los cuales hablarían español y se darían por católicos. 46. Llena de montes. 47. La legua marina equivale a 5,5555 kilómetros. Por tanto, se encontraban a unos 33 kilómetros de la costa. 48. A sotavento. 49. Esta es una referencia al estado del viento y no un uso del término en su acepción temporal o climatológica. 50. Para llegar a ella. 51. Desviarse o cambiar la proa hacia una dirección determinada. 52. Sin llegar al final de la costa, es decir, al extremo suroeste de la isla.

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dos islotes (Beata y Alto Velo),53 eché al Suroeste. Y después de un día sin notar cosa alguna ni avistar tierra, para granjear lo perdido, volví al Noroeste. Al segundo día de esta derrota descubrí y me acerqué a una isla grande ( Jamaica).54 Vi55 en ella, a cuanto permitió la distancia, un puerto (Puerto Real)56 con algunos cayuelos fuera y muchas embarcaciones adentro. Apenas vi57 que salían de entre ellas58 dos balandras con bandera59 inglesa para reconocerme, cargando todo el paño60 me atravesé61 a esperarlas. Pero por esta acción, o por otro motivo que ellos tendrían, no atreviéndose a llegar cerca, se retiraron al puerto.62 Proseguí mi camino y, para montar una punta que salía por la proa,63 goberné al Sur, y montada muy para afuera. volví al Oeste, y al Oeste

53. Esta es la nota número siete en el original. Beata y Alto Velo son dos islotes al Sur de la Península de Pedernales en el extremo suroeste de lo que es hoy la República Dominicana. Nuevamente resulta extraño el que Ramírez haya encontrado imposible remontar el viento y llegar a tierra. Muy convenientemente para él, y de forma muy poco convincente para los entendidos en la geografía y los mares de las islas, al ir desde las Islas Vírgenes hasta Beata y Alto Velo sin tocar tierra, Ramírez dejó atrás un largo trecho de costa de más de seis ciento kilómetros en longitud que era todo territorio español. Cabe destacar a lo largo de esa costa la ciudad de Santo Domingo que, a pesar de haber venido a menos desde su período de auge en la primera mitad del siglo XVI, era ciudad murada y arzobispado y, por tanto, lugar donde Ramírez hubiera recibido el auxilio y abrigo que supuestamente buscaba. Las murallas de Santo Domingo y, muy particularmente, la torre de homenaje de la Fortaleza Ozama, se hubiesen visto claramente desde el mar a no ser que con toda intención Ramírez estuviera navegando por debajo de la línea del horizonte para evitar ser visto desde tierra. Ver la figura 9. 54. Esta es la nota número ocho en el original. Los ingleses tomaron Jamaica de los españoles en 1655. Después de haber reconocido Beata y Alto Velo, Ramírez pudo haber seguido el largo de la costa de La Española en vez de lanzarse a mar abierto, maniobra esta arriesgada sin carta y sin derrotero. ¿A dónde iba? Resulta muy sospechoso que tomara rumbo al Suroeste desde Alto Velo para luego tornar hacia el Noroeste y dar con Jamaica. Sin carta y sin derrota era una locura salir a mar abierto y hubiera sido prácticamente imposible dar con Jamaica sin saber de antemano su ubicación y tener las indicaciones precisas de cómo llegar a ella. El hecho de que haya llegado a Jamaica, y el curso claro que tomó para llegar allí, nos hace suponer que Ramírez no navegaba a ciegas como se nos quiere hacer creer en el texto. 55. El original dice “vide”. 56. Esta es la nota número nueve en el original. Puerto Real o Port Royal, entonces la principal población de la colonia británica, fue destruida por un terremoto poco tiempo después en 1692. Cuando pasó Ramírez aquel era la ciudad más rica en las islas y el puerto más concurrido, patrocinado principalmente por piratas y por los enemigos de España. Hubiese sido muy peligroso pasar cerca de ella y ser avistado y capturado por piratas a menos que Ramírez no haya tenido cartas de referencia de sus supuestos captores y haya llegado allí en busca de negocio y de placer y dispuesto a observar el culto luterano. Ver la figura 10. 57. El original dice “vide”. 58. De entre las embarcaciones del puerto. 59. Embarcación pequeña de un solo palo. 60. Es decir, recogiendo todas las velas en señal de no beligerancia. 61. Atravesar es colocar el costado de la nave perpendicular al viento. 62. Se hace difícil creer que una embarcación de fabricación malaya haya dejado de resultar presa curiosamente atractiva a los piratas de Puerto Real. Si este contacto fue realizado, Ramírez debe haber entrado a puerto por las buenas o por las malas. 63. Se trata de Punta Portland en el extremo sur de Jamaica.

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Noroeste, hasta que a los dos días y medio llegué a una isla (Gran Caimán),64 como de cinco o seis leguas de largo pero de poca altura, de donde salió para mí una balandra con bandera inglesa. Al punto cargué el paño y me atravesé.65 Pero después de haberme cogido el barlovento,66 reconociéndome por la popa,67 y muy despacio, se volvió a la isla. Llamela disparando una pieza sin bala, pero no hizo caso. No haber llegado a esta isla ni [haber] arrojádome al puerto de la antecedente era a instancias y lágrimas de mis compañeros, a quienes apenas veían68 cosa que tocase a inglés cuando al instante les faltaba el espíritu y se quedaban como azogados69 por largo rato.70 Despechado entonces de mí mismo y determinado a no hacer caso en lo venidero de sus sollozos, puesto71 que no comíamos sino lo que pescábamos y la provisión de agua era tan poca que se reducía a un barril pequeño y a dos tinajas, deseando dar en cualquiera tierra para aunque fuese poblada de ingleses varar en ella, navegué ocho días al Oeste y al Oeste Suroeste. Y a las ocho de la mañana de aquel [día] en que a nuestra infructuosa y vaga navegación se le puso término, por estar ya casi sobre él reconocí un muy bien prolongado bajo de arena y piedra.72 No manifestando el susto que me causó su vista, [y] orillándome73 a él como mejor 64. Esta es la nota número diez. El texto original dice “Caimán Grande”. Las Islas Caimán fueron colonia británica desde 1670. Es de extrañar que Ramírez haya dado con ellas, tal como indica el texto, pues no sólo son pequeñísimas sino que apenas se levantan sobre el horizonte. Si bien hubiera sido muy difícil llegar a Jamaica navegando como alega el texto en pleno desconocimiento de la geografía, hubiera sido casi imposible dar con las Islas Caimán sin carta ni derrotero al encontrarse éstas prácticamente perdidas en el medio del paño occidental del Mar Caribe. Nuevamente cabe suponer que Ramírez tenía información precisa, fuere ésta proporcionada por sus antiguos “amos” piratas o por la gente de la costa en las islas donde, sin duda alguna, debió haber hecho escala en más de una ocasión. 65. Esta fue la misma maniobra que realizó en Puerto Real en señal de no beligerancia. 66. Se entiende que la balandra se acercó por barlovento teniendo así pleno control para maniobrar. 67. Es decir, pasando a popa de la fragata. 68. El original dice “vían”. 69. Inquietos. 70. Es muy probable que, como en otras ocasiones previas donde niega haber cometido alguna falta imperdonable (algunas de las cuales hemos demostrado ser falsas), Ramírez haya entrado en ambos puertos, considerando muy especialmente que para dar tanto con Jamaica como con las Islas Caimán tuvo que tomar la poco aconsejable decisión de apartarse de la tierra sin tener carta o bitácora alguna. 71. El original dice “supuesto”. 72. Se trata del Banco Chinchorro, un gran arrecife de forma ovalada con superficie de ocho cientos kilómetros cuadrados que se levanta súbitamente hacia la superficie desde una profundidad de mil metros. Ubicado a treinta kilómetros de la costa este de la Península de Yucatán, mide cuarenta y seis kilómetros de norte a sur, y quince kilómetros de Este a Oeste. Compuesto principalmente de coral, su flanco oriental es una barrera larga y masiva que presenta un gran peligro y obstáculo a la navegación puesto que su cresta apenas se levanta sobre la superficie del mar y es prácticamente indistinguible hasta que, como indica el texto, es generalmente ya muy tarde para evitar ser arrojado contra ella. 73. Orillar es navegar cercano a la costa o, como en este caso, al borde del arrecife.

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se pudo por una quebrada74 que hacía, lo atravesé75 sin que hasta las cinco de la tarde se descubriese tierra. Viendo su cercanía [y] que, por ser en extremo baja y no haberla por esto divisado era ya mucha,76 antes que se llegase la noche hice subir al tope77 por si se descubría otro bajo de que guardarnos. Y manteniéndome a bordos78 lo que quedó del día, poco después de anochecer di fondo en cuatro brazas79 y sobre piedras.80 Fue esto con sólo un anclote,81 por no haber más, y con un pedazo de cable de cáñamo de hasta diez brazas ayustado82 a otro de bejuco, y fue el que colchamos en Pulau Ubi, que tenía sesenta [brazas].83 Y por ser el anclote, mejor lo llamaría rezón,84 tan pequeño que solo podría servir para una chata,85 lo ayudé con una pieza de artillería entalingada86 con un cable de guamutil87 de cincuenta brazas.88 Crecía el viento al peso de la noche89 y con gran pujanza y, por esto y por las piedras del fondo, poco después de las cinco de la mañana se rompieron los cables. Viéndome perdido mareé todo el paño90 luego al instante por ver si podía mon91 tar una punta que tenía a la vista. Pero era la corriente tan en extremo furiosa que no nos dio lugar ni tiempo para poder orzar,92 con [lo] que arribando93 más y más, y sin resistencia, quedamos varados entre múcaras94 en la misma punta.95 74. Paso estrecho en la barrera coralina. 75. Ramírez debe haber encontrado una apertura en el arrecife, entre Cayo Norte y Cayo Centro. 76. Era ya mucha su cercanía. En esta franja de la costa de Yucatán, que se encuentra entre el Cayo Ambergris (Belice) y la Bahía del Espíritu Santo (México), la tierra se encuentra apenas a un metro sobre el nivel del mar. 77. Mandó un vigía a lo alto del palo mayor. 78. Navegar de bolina cambiando consecutivamente de una banda a otra. 79. Unos siete metros de profundidad. 80. El fondo marino en estas partes está compuesto principalmente de una combinación de roca arenisca y coral que es muy dañina a los cascos de las naves y a los cables de anclaje. 81. Ancla pequeña. 82. Empalmar, o unir dos cabos por sus extremos con un nudo. 83. El cable tendría aproximadamente unos ciento veintiocho metros de largo. 84. Ancla pequeña de cuatro uñas que se utiliza en embarcaciones de poco calado. 85. Pontón o embarcación pequeña de fondo llano. 86. Amarrada. 87. También cable de abacá. Fibra muy resistente a la humedad, extraída de una planta muy parecida al árbol del plátano originaria de Filipinas y otras partes del Sureste Asiático, que hasta el descubrimiento de los materiales sintéticos se utilizó para colchar cables marinos. 88. Unos noventa y un metros de largo. 89. Es decir, a medida que transcurría la noche. 90. Desplegó todas las velas e intentó orientarlas en el ángulo más ventajoso. 91. Pasar por delante. 92. Para girar la proa hacia barlovento. 93. Girando la proa hacia sotavento. 94. Piedras que no velan o sobresalen en la superficie. 95. De acuerdo con mis investigaciones sobre el terreno se trata de Punta Herradura, conocida antiguamente como Punta Suxor (ver AGI, MP-México, 198), que pertenecía a la región de Uaymil, una de las dieciséis subdivisiones de la península de Yucatán en tiempos precolombinos. La ubicación exacta del naufragio es N 18º 32′ 20.53″ y O 87º 44′ 26.37″. Según mis cálculos el hecho ocurrió el domingo 18 de septiembre de 1689. El navío se fue partiendo en pedazos con el tiempo y el embate continuo de las olas o bien fue desguazado por

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Era tanta la mar, y los golpes que daba el navío96 tan espantosos, que no solo a mis compañeros sino aun a mí, que ansiosamente deseaba aquel suceso para salir a tierra, me dejó confuso, y más hallándome sin lancha para escaparlos.97 Quebrábanse las olas, no sólo en la punta sobre [la] que estábamos sino en lo que se veía98 de la costa, con grandes golpes, y a cada uno de los que a correspondencia99 daba el navío pensábamos que se abría y nos tragaba el abismo. Considerando el peligro en la dilación, haciendo fervorosos actos de contrición y queriendo merecerle a Dios su misericordia sacrificándole mi vida por la de aquellos pobres, ciñéndome un cabo delgado para que lo fuesen largando, me arrojé al agua. Quiso concederme su piedad el que llegase a tierra donde lo hice firme,100 y sirviendo [el cabo] de andarivel101 a los que no sabían nadar, convencidos [ellos] de no ser tan difícil el tránsito como se lo pintaba el miedo, conseguí el que, no sin peligro manifiesto de ahogarse dos, a más de media tarde estuviesen salvos.

rescatadores, dispersándose sus restos por una zona de cien metros de extensión. La pieza mayor hallada durante la expedición de febrero de 2018 es una sección del casco de treinta y ocho metros de largo que yace en fondo arenoso a siete metros de profundidad. La misma corre de N 18º 32′ 23.29″ y O 87º 44′ 26.02″ a N 18º 32′ 23.61″ y O 87º 44′ 27.18″. La parte visible tiene una anchura de entre uno y cuatro metros y siete centímetros de espesor. El largo de la pieza es más del doble del tamaño de la nave según el recuento de Ramírez o el recuerdo de Sigüenza. Pero el espesor prueba que el casco del navío era de tres forros. El cañón, de setenta y cuatro centímetros de largo, se halla a menos de un metro bajo el agua incrustado en el coral a N 18º 32′ 21.82″ y O 87º 44′ 28.14″. Los restos de alfarería europea, y los clavos y piezas de amarra hechos a mano se encuentran esparcidos sobre una zona de cinco metros de radio en torno a N 18º 32′ 21.07″ y O 87º 44′ 28.47″. Ver las imágenes 11 a 13 y los mapas 7 y 11. Sin duda, la mayor parte de los restos, incluyendo el lastre, los cañones, las balas de plomo y las barras de cobre, yacen en agua muy baja en torno a la punta a la que no se tuvo acceso durante la expedición debido a los fuertes vientos y corrientes. Mi intención es montar una segunda expedición para documentar todo el hallazgo y construir un pequeño museo en sus inmediaciones. 96. Entiéndase contra el fondo. 97. Para ponerles a salvo llevándolos a tierra. 98. El original dice “via”. 99. A correspondencia de las olas. 100. Donde amarró el cabo firmemente. 101. Cuerda de seguridad en los navíos.

VI1 Sed, hambre, enfermedades [y] muertes con que fueron atribulados en esta costa. Hallan inopinadamente2 gente católica y saben estar en tierra firme de Yucatán en la Septentrional América.

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Tendría de amplitud3 la peña que terminaba [en] esta punta como doscientos pasos y por todas partes la cercaba el mar y aun, tal vez por la violencia con que la hería, se derramaba por toda ella con grande ímpetu. No tenía árbol ni cosa alguna a cuyo abrigo pudiésemos repararnos contra el viento, que soplaba vehementísimo y destemplado.4 Pero haciéndole a Dios Nuestro Señor repetidas súplicas y promesas, y persuadidos a que estábamos en parte [de] donde jamás saldríamos, se pasó la noche. Perseveró el viento y por el consiguiente no se sosegó el mar hasta de allí a tres días.5 Pero no obstante, después de haber amanecido, reconociendo su cercanía nos cambiamos a tierra firme, que distaría de nosotros como cien pasos y no pasaba de la cintura el agua donde más hondo.6 1. Es número arábico en el original. 2. Inesperadamente. 3. El original dice “ambitu”. Quiere decir extensión. 4. Efectivamente, Punta Herradura es un promontorio rocoso que apenas alcanza la elevación de medio metro sobre el nivel del mar y que entra unos doscientos pasos mar adentro. Es así el accidente topográfico más sobresaliente, y la única punta verdaderamente pronunciada a todo lo largo de la costa entre la Bahía del Espíritu Santo y el Cayo Ambergris. Al día de hoy continúa totalmente desprovista de vegetación y es particularmente inhóspita pues toda ella está compuesta de roca calcárea conocida en el Caribe hispanohablante con el nombre de “diente de perro” por lo quebrada y filosa que es su superficie. Esta piedra es hábitat idóneo para los erizos de mar que en Punta Herradura ocupan todos los recesos de su superficie bajo las aguas. Entre lo filoso de la piedra y la cantidad de erizos que moran en ella, debe haber sido verdaderamente horroroso para Ramírez y su tripulación haber tenido que pasar a esa roca en medio de la tempestad. Ver la figura 11. 5. Semejante tiempo apunta hacia la posibilidad de que pasara cerca de allí una tormenta tropical o un huracán, lo cual colocaría a Ramírez en esta parte del Caribe entre agosto y noviembre de 1689. De acuerdo con mis cálculos, siguiendo la descripción detallada día por día dada en el texto y contando regresivamente desde el momento de la confesión de Ramírez en Tihosuco, la cual supuestamente tomó lugar el día de Santa Catalina de Alejandría, el naufragio ocurrió el domingo 18 de septiembre de 1689. 6. Hoy un camino de arena levantado sobre un terraplén pasa entre la roca de Punta Herradura y la antigua playa. Pero a ambos lados del camino es todavía posible identificar la zona de alrededor de cien pasos de ancho que antes separaba la roca de la orilla. El lugar del naufragio se encuentra en el mismo centro de una extensa zona del litoral yucateco, que corre desde la desembocadura del Río Sibún, en lo que es hoy Belice, hasta la margen norte de la Bahía de la Ascensión, y que era entonces zona de piratería, contrabando, y explotación maderera.

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Estando todos muertos de sed, y no habiendo agua dulce en cuanto se pudo reconocer en algún espacio, posponiendo mi riesgo al alivio y conveniencia de aquellos míseros, determiné ir a bordo [del navío]. Y encomendándome con todo afecto a María Santísima de Guadalupe me arrojé al mar y llegué al navío de donde saqué un hacha para cortar y cuanto me pareció necesario para hacer fuego. Hice [un] segundo viaje, y a empellones,7 o, por mejor decir, milagrosamente, puse un barrilete8 en la misma playa. Y no atreviéndome aquel día a [hacer un] tercer viaje, después que apagamos todos nuestra ardiente sed, hice que comenzasen los más fuertes a destrozar9 palmas de las muchas que allí había para comer los cogollos.10 Y encendiendo candela,11 se pasó la noche. Halláronse el día siguiente unos charcos de agua, aunque algo salobre, entre aquellas palmas.12 Y mientras se congratulaban los compañeros por este hallazgo, acompañándome Juan de Casas pasé al navío de donde en el cayuco que allí traíamos, siempre con riesgo por el mucho mar y la vehemencia del viento, sacamos a tierra el velacho,13 las dos velas de trinquete y gavia, y pedazos de otras. Sacamos también escopetas, pólvora y municiones, y cuanto nos pareció por entonces más necesario para cualquier accidente.14 Dispuesta una barraca15 en que cómodamente cabíamos todos, [y] no sabiendo a qué parte de la costa se había de caminar para buscar gente, elegí sin motivo especial la que corre al Sur.16 Yendo conmigo Juan de Casas, y después de haber caminado aquel día como cuatro leguas,17 matamos dos puercos monteses, y 7. Empujones fuertes. 8. Ha de ser el mismo barril pequeño que se menciona en el penúltimo párrafo del capítulo anterior. 9. Cortar en pedazos. 10. También palmitos. A todo lo largo de la Costa de Bacalar, entre la Bahía del Espíritu Santo y el Cayo Ambergris, hay un inmenso manglar separado de la playa por una estrecha franja de tierra que en Punta Herradura está cubierta de palmas de palmito del género Sabal. La punta de estas palmas, de tronco estrecho y escasamente tres metros de altura, es un cogollo de brotes tiernos que se puede arrancar fácilmente con la mano. Ver la figura 16. Como se indicará cuatro párrafos más abajo, Ramírez y sus compañeros tuvieron pocas opciones para comer más allá de los palmitos. Para todos los efectos, esta costa es un desierto verde rodeado de agua salada y salobre. Los manglares detrás de la playa están poblados de caimanes, y toda la zona está infestada de mosquitos que salen a chupar sangre todas las tardes y después de las lluvias. 11. Encender candela es hacer fuego. Es un americanismo típico de las Antillas. 12. Hay lugares entre las palmas donde la roca aflora y donde el agua de lluvia se recoge en sus cavidades. 13. La vela de gavia del trinquete. 14. Ahora nos enteramos de que los ingleses les habían dejado escopetas. ¿Cómo reconciliar esta información con la aseveración de que Ramírez nunca se unió a los piratas y, por tanto, nunca recibió de ellos arma alguna? 15. Albergue rústico construido con las velas. 16. Debemos sospechar de la aseveración puesto que, como propongo en la introducción, Ramírez pretendía llegar al asentamiento inglés de Stann Creek Town, hoy Dangriga, Belice. Ver el mapa 8. 17. La legua terrestre, o legua de veinticinco al grado, equivale a 4,2 kilómetros y es cálculo basado en la distancia que se puede andar en una hora. Por lo tanto, Ramírez debió haber

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escrupulizando18 el que se perdiese aquella carne en tanta necesidad, cargamos con ellos para que los lograsen19 los compañeros. Repetimos lo andado a la mañana siguiente hasta llegar a un río de agua salada cuya ancha y profunda boca nos atajó los pasos.20 Y, aunque por haber descubierto unos ranchos antiquísimos hechos de paja21 estábamos persuadidos a que dentro de breve se hallaría gente, con la imposibilidad de pasar adelante después de cuatro días de trabajo nos volvimos tristes.22 Hallé a los compañeros con mucho mayores aflicciones que las que yo traía, porque los charcos de donde se proveían de agua se iban secando, y todos [sus cuerpos] estaban tan hinchados que parecían hidrópicos.23 Al segundo día de mi llegada se acabó el agua, y aunque por el término de cinco [días] se hicieron cuantas diligencias nos dictó la necesidad para conseguirla, excedía a la de la mar en amargura la que se hallaba. A la noche del quinto día, postrados24 todos en tierra, y más con los afectos25 que con las voces, por sernos imposible el articularlas, le pedimos a la Santísima Virgen de Guadalupe el que, pues era fuente de aguas vivas para sus devotos, compadeciéndose de lo que ya casi agonizábamos con la muerte, nos socorriese como a hijos, protestando no apartar jamás de nuestra memoria, para agradecérselo, beneficio tanto.26 Bien sabéis, Madre y Señora mía amantísima el que así pasó. Antes que se acabase la súplica, viniendo por el Sudeste la turbonada, cayó un aguacero tan copioso sobre nosotros que, refrigerando los cuerpos y dejándonos en el cayuco y en cuantas vasijas allí teníamos provisión bastante, nos dio las vidas.27 Era aquel sitio no sólo estéril y falto de agua, sino muy enfermo. Y aunque así lo reconocían los compañeros, temiendo morir en el camino no había modo caminado por cuatro horas recorriendo unos diecisiete kilómetros. 18. Temiendo. 19. Para que los pudieran comer. 20. El Río Huache, o Uach en maya, queda a unos catorce kilómetros al Sur de Punta Herradura por el camino de la playa, lo cual confirma el cálculo hecho por Ramírez de haber andado poco más de cuatro leguas (de diecisiete a diecisiete kilómetros), sobre todo si se toma en cuenta que el camino se hizo por la arena y fue por esto más lento. Ver la figura 14. Este río ha de medir unos diez metros de anchura promedio y tres de profundidad a lo largo de sus dos kilómetros de sinuoso cauce por medio del manglar, desde la laguna de Huache hasta la playa. Es el primer y único obstáculo de mayor envergadura andando por la playa al Sur de Punta Herradura. De hecho, este lugar era antiguamente conocido como Punta Honda (ver AGI, MP-México, 198). Desde este punto habría que recorrer treinta kilómetros más hacia el Sur para encontrar el próximo gran obstáculo que es la Boca de Bacalar Chico, o la Boca de Cangrejo como se la llamaba entonces (ver AGI, MP-México, 495). 21. Se trata probablemente de un viejo asentamiento en la ribera norte del Río Huache, al otro lado de donde hoy se halla ubicado el pequeño pueblo de Santa Rosa. La referencia a los ranchos de paja apunta a la arquitectura domestica típica del mundo maya. 22. Quiere decir que se regresaron apesadumbrados luego de cuatro días. 23. Que sufre de hidropesía, padecimiento que se caracteriza por la acumulación de líquido debajo de la piel. 24. Exhaustos. 25. Quiere decir con sus quejidos. 26. Es decir, tan gran favor. 27. El milagro, como instrumento retórico, se emplea para dar validez a toda la historia de Ramírez.

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de convencerlos para que lo dejásemos. Pero quiso Dios que lo que no recabaron28 mis súplicas lo consiguieron los mosquitos, que también allí había, con sus molestias. Y ellos eran sin duda alguna los que en parte les habían causado las hinchazones que he dicho con sus picadas. Treinta días se pasaron en aquel puesto comiendo chachalacas,29 palmitos y algún marisco. Y antes de salir de él, por no omitir diligencia, pasé al navío, que hasta entonces no se había escalimado, 30 y cargando con bala toda la artillería, la disparé dos veces. Fue mi intento el que si acaso había gente la tierra adentro, podía ser que les moviese el estruendo a saber la causa y que, acudiendo allí, se acabasen nuestros trabajos con su venida. Con esta esperanza me mantuve hasta el siguiente día, en cuya noche, no sé cómo, tomando fuego un cartucho de a diez31 que tenía en la mano, no sólo me la abrasó, sino que me maltrató un muslo, parte del pecho, toda la cara, y me voló el cabello. Curado como mejor se pudo con ungüento blanco32 que en la caja de medicina que me dejó el condestable se había hallado, y a la subsiguiente mañana dándoles a los compañeros el aliento de que yo más que ellos necesitaba, salí de allí. Quedose, ojalá la pudiéramos haber traído con nosotros aunque fuera a cuestas, por lo que [en] adelante diré, quedose, digo, la fragata que en pago de lo mucho que yo y los míos servimos a los ingleses nos dieron graciosamente. Era, y no sé si todavía lo es, de treinta y tres codos de quilla y con tres forros.33 Los palos y vergas [eran] de excelentísimo pino, [y] la fábrica toda de lindo galibo34 y tanto [así] que corría ochenta leguas por singladura35 con viento fresco. Quedáronse en ella y en las playas nueve piezas de artillería de hierro con más de dos mil balas de a cuatro, de a seis y de a diez, y todas de plomo, cien quintales,36 por lo menos, 28. Lo que no lograron obtener. 29. También chachalaca vetula o Ortalis vetula. Es ave pequeña, cuyo hábitat se extiende desde el norte de México hasta el istmo de Panamá, que vive cerca del agua y es de rica carne. 30. Aventar o perder las estopas que se utilizan al carenar los navíos, colocándose en las costuras o juntas entre los tablones, y cubriéndose con brea caliente para que no entre el agua entre las tablas de forro. Quiere decir que el agua no había penetrado aún el casco de la fragata y que, por tanto, se mantenía seco el pañol o depósito de la pólvora en la bodega. 31. Cartucho para disparar una bala de hierro de diez libras. Esto significa que la fragata estaba artillada con al menos una pieza de calibre intermedio puesto que el calibre de las piezas de uso en embarcaciones durante esta época oscilaba entre las dos y las veinte y cuatro libras. Una pieza de a diez tenía un peso promedio de unas dos mil libras, y el cartucho para disparar la bala unas cinco libras de pólvora. 32. Pomada compuesta de manteca y albayalde, o carbonato de plomo pulverizado, que servía para curar las quemaduras y para secar y cicatrizar heridas. 33. El original dice “aforros”. El forro es el conjunto de tablas con que se cubre o forra el esqueleto de una embarcación. En este caso la fragata era de sólida construcción, dado que el caso tenía un entablado adicional ubicado entre el forro exterior y el interior. 34. De madera bien labrada. Entiéndase de excelente fábrica. 35. Ochenta leguas marinas son 444,48 kilómetros que, en singladura (veinticuatro horas), equivaldría a una velocidad promedio de 18,52 kilómetros por hora, ó 9,99 nudos. En aquellos tiempos esa era la velocidad máxima que podía alcanzar un navío. 36. Mil libras, ó 454 kilogramos.

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de este metal, cincuenta barras de estaño, sesenta arrobas de hierro,37 ochenta barras de cobre del Japón, muchas tinajas de la China, siete colmillos de elefante, tres barriles de pólvora, cuarenta cañones de escopeta, diez llaves, una caja de medicina y muchas herramientas de cirujano. Bien aprovisionados38 de pólvora y municiones, y no otra cosa, y cada uno de nosotros con su escopeta,39 comenzamos a caminar por la misma marina40 la vuelta del Norte, pero con mucho espacio 41 por la debilidad y flaqueza de los compañeros. Y en llegar a un arroyo de agua dulce pero bermeja que distaría del primer sitio menos de cuatro leguas, se pasaron dos días. 42 La consideración de que a este paso sólo podíamos acercarnos a la muerte, y con mucha prisa,43 me obligó a que, valiéndome de las más suaves palabras que me dictó el cariño, les propusiese el que pues ya no les podía faltar el agua y [que], como veíamos,44 acudía allí mucha volatería 45 que les aseguraba el sustento, tuviesen a bien el que acompañado de Juan de Casas me adelantase hasta hallar poblado, de donde protestaba [que] 46 volvería cargado de refresco47 para sacarlos de allí. Respondieron a esta proposición con tan lastimeras voces y copiosas lágrimas que me las sacaron de lo más tierno del corazón en mayor raudal. Abrazándose de mí me pedían con mil amores y ternuras que no los desamparase y que, pareciendo imposible en lo natural poder vivir el más robusto ni aun cuatro días, siendo la demora tan corta, quisiese, como padre que era de todos, darles mi bendición en sus postreras boqueadas48 y que después prosiguiese muy enhorabuena a buscar el descanso que a ellos les negaba su infelicidad y desventura en tan extraños climas. Convenciéronme sus lágrimas a que así lo hiciese. Pero pasados seis días sin que mejorasen [y] reconociendo el que ya yo me iba hinchando y que mi falta les aceleraría la muerte, temiendo ante todas cosas la mía, conseguí el que, aunque fuese muy poco a poco, se prosiguiese el viaje. 37. Mil quinientas libras, ó seiscientos ochenta kilogramos. 38. El original dice “provisionados”. 39. Entre los piratas, las armas eran propiedad de cada individuo y, en la época, las armas personales más caras y presidas eran las armas de fuego. Podemos inferir, por el uso del posesivo en esta aseveración, que cada uno de los hombres traía consigo las armas de su propiedad y que habían llevado consigo desde que se unieron a la tripulación del Cygnet. 40. Por la orilla de la playa. 41. Con mucha lentitud. 42. Se trata del Río Bermejo, el cual es un cauce de mínimo calado que apenas llega a medir un metro de anchura en su desembocadura. La distancia desde Punta Herradura hasta Punta Río Bermejo es diecisiete kilómetros o exactamente cuatro leguas de veinticinco al grado. Aquí levantarían campamento por seis días siendo la localización exacta N 18º 41′ 09.1″ y O 87º 43′ 06.8″ W. Ver la figura 15. 43. El original dice “priesa”. 44. El original dice “viamos”. 45. Muchas aves. 46. Les aseguraba que. 47. Reparo, restaurativos o remedios. Debe entenderse en el sentido de provisiones frescas. 48. En el momento final de sus vidas.

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Iba yo y Juan de Casas descubriendo lo que habían de caminar los que me seguían. Y era el último, como más enfermo, Francisco de la Cruz, [un] sangley a quien desde el trato de cuerda que le dieron los ingleses antes de llegar a Capones le sobrevinieron mil males, siendo el que ahora le quitó la vida dos hinchazones en los pechos y otra en el medio de las espaldas que le llegaba al cerebro.49 Habiendo caminado como una legua hicimos alto. Y siendo la llegada de cada uno según sus fuerzas, a más de las nueve de la noche no estaban juntos porque este Francisco de la Cruz aún no había llegado. En espera suya se pasó la noche y, dándole orden a Juan de Casas que prosiguiera el camino, antes que amaneciese volví en su busca. Hallelo a cosa de media legua50 ya casi boqueando pero en su sentido.51 Deshecho en lágrimas y con mal articuladas razones, porque me las embargaba el sentimiento, le dije lo que para que muriese conformándose con la voluntad de Dios y en gracia suya me pareció a propósito. Y poco antes de mediodía rindió el espíritu. Pasadas como dos horas hice un profundo hoyo en la misma arena y, pidiéndole a la Divina Majestad el descanso de su alma, lo sepulté. Y levantando una cruz hecha con dos toscos maderos en aquel lugar, me volví a los míos. Hallelos alojados adelante de donde habían salido como otra legua, y a Antonio González, el otro sangley, casi moribundo. Y no habiendo regalo52 que poder hacerle ni medicina alguna con que esforzarlo, estándolo consolando, o de triste o de cansado me quedé dormido. Y despertándome53 el cuidado a muy breve rato lo hallé difunto. Dímosle sepultura entre todos el siguiente día, y tomando por asunto una y otra muerte los exhorté a que caminásemos cuanto más pudiésemos, persuadidos a que así sólo se salvarían las vidas. Anduviéronse aquel día como tres leguas,54 y en los tres siguientes se granjearon quince.55 Y fue la causa el que con el ejercicio del caminar, al paso que se sudaba se resolvían las hinchazones y se nos aumentaban las fuerzas. Hallose aquí un río de agua salada muy poco ancho y en extremo hondo. Y aunque retardó por todo un día un manglar muy espeso el llegar a él, reconociendo después de sondarlo faltarle vado, con palmas que cortaron se le hizo puente y se fue adelante, sin que el hallarme en esta ocasión con calentura me fuese estorbo. Al segundo día que de allí salimos, yendo yo y Juan de Casas precediendo a todos, atravesó por el camino que levábamos un disforme56 oso.57 Y no obstante 49. El original dice “celebro”. Entiéndase la cabeza. 50. Media legua al Norte de la Punta Río Bermejo se encuentra la Punta Mahahual, donde hoy está ubicado el poblado del mismo nombre. 51. Consciente. 52. Auxilio o reparo. 53. El original dice “dispertandome”. 54. Aquí estarían a la altura de 18º 50′ 19″ latitud Norte, a la altura de Punta Cajón del Muerto. 55. El avance en estos tres días se ha de haber debido sin duda al hecho de que al Norte de la Punta Cajón del Muerto hay largos trechos rectos de playa abierta. Las quince leguas de recorrido los llevarían hasta pasar Punta Herrero en la boca de la Bahía del Espíritu Santo. 56. Enorme o monstruoso. 57. Suponiendo que hubiesen mantenido el paso de cinco leguas por día, estarían a la altura más o menos de 19º 13′ 23″ latitud Norte, y dentro de la Bahía del Espíritu Santo. Es allí donde se encuentra el bosque de Tzigu.

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el haberlo herido con la escopeta, se vino para mí. Y aunque me defendía yo con el mocho58 como mejor podía, siendo pocas mis fuerzas y las suyas muchas, a no acudir a ayudarme mi compañero me hubiera muerto. Dejámoslo allí tendido y se pasó de largo. Después de cinco días de este suceso llegamos a una punta de piedra de donde me parecía imposible pasar con vida por lo mucho que me había postrado la calentura.59 Y ya entonces estaban notablemente recobrados todos, o por mejor decir con salud perfecta. Hecha mansión,60 y mientras entraban [en] el monte adentro a buscar comida, me recogí a un rancho61 que, con una manta que llevábamos, al abrigo de una peña me habían hecho.62 Y quedó en guarda mi esclavo Pedro. Entre las muchas imaginaciones que me ofreció el desconsuelo en esta ocasión fue la más molesta el que sin duda estaba en las costas de la Florida en la América y que, siendo cruelísimos en extremo sus habitadores, por último habíamos de rendir las vidas en sus sangrientas manos. Interrumpiome estos discursos mi muchacho con grandes gritos, diciéndome que descubría gente por la costa y que venía desnuda.63 Levanteme asustado, y tomando en la mano la escopeta me salí afuera, y encubierto de la peña a cuyo abrigo estaba reconocí dos hombres desnudos con cargas pequeñas a las espaldas y haciendo ademanes con la cabeza como quien busca algo. No me pesó de que viniesen sin armas y, por estar ya a tiro mío, les salí al encuentro. Turbados ellos mucho más sin comparación que lo que yo lo estaba, lo mismo fue verme que arrodillarse, y puestas las manos comenzaron a dar voces en castellano y a pedir cuartel. Arrojé yo la escopeta y, llegándome a ellos, los abracé. Y respondiéndome a las preguntas que inmediatamente les hice, dijeron que eran católicos y que, acompañando a su amo, que venía atrás y se llamaba Juan González y era vecino de Tihosuco,64 andaban por aquellas playas buscando ámbar. Dijeron también el que era aquella costa la que llamaban de Bacalar65 en la Provincia de Yucatán. 58. La culata de la escopeta. 59. No hay duda de que se trata de la que hoy se conoce como Punta Piedra y que queda a N 19º 33′ 26.8″ por O 87º 25′ 00.0″. Esto confirma que, efectivamente, mantuvieron el paso recorriendo unas cinco leguas por día. Punta Piedra es uno de los pocos lugares a lo largo de esta costa donde el arrecife que corre paralelo a la misma rompe la superficie del agua y se une a tierra firme. Su superficie, al igual que la de Punta Herradura, es todo diente de perro y por esto hubiera sido obstáculo casi insalvable para hombres que andaban descalzos y más aún en condición febril como Ramírez. 60. Hacer mansión es hacer un alto en el camino. 61. Un cobertizo improvisado. 62. Allí, donde termina la arena y comienza la llamada Punta Piedra, la peña solitaria mencionada por Ramírez en medio de la superficie rocosa todavía se encuentra a N 19º 33′ 27.1″ por O 87º 25′ 02.7″. Ver la figura 17. 63. La gente iría andando por la playa que queda al Sur de Punta Piedra. 64. El original dice “Tejosuco”, derivado del maya Tixhotzuc. En 1660, Juan González de Ulloa fue teniente a gobernador de Yucatán bajo el mando del gobernador Francisco Bazán (ver AGI, Escribanía, 306A). Más tarde se le confirman dos encomiendas en Chulul y en Mopilá, la primera en las cercanías de Campeche y la segunda entre Mérida y Tihosuco (ver AGI, México, 242B, N. 68, y AGI, México, 245, N. 3). 65. El original dice “Bacalal”.

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Siguiose a estas noticias tan en extremo alegres, y más en ocasión en que la vehemencia de mi tristeza me ideaba muerte entre gentes bárbaras, el darle a Dios y a su Santísima Madre repetidas gracias. Y disparando tres veces, que era [la] contraseña para que acudiesen los compañeros, con su venida, que fue inmediata y acelerada, fue común entre todos el regocijo. No satisfechos66 de nosotros los yucatecos, dudando si seríamos de los piratas ingleses y franceses que por allí discurren, sacaron de lo que llevaban en sus mochilas para que comiésemos. Y dándoles, no tanto por retorno67 cuanto por que depusiesen el miedo que en ellos veíamos,68 dos de nuestras escopetas, no las quisieron. A breve rato nos avistó su amo, porque venía siguiendo a sus indios con pasos lentos. Y reconociendo el que quería volver aceleradamente atrás para meterse en lo más espeso del monte donde no sería fácil el que los hallásemos, quedando en rehenes uno de sus dos indios, fue el otro a persuasiones y súplicas nuestras a asegurarlo. Después de una muy larga plática que entre sí tuvieron vino, aunque con sobresalto y recelo según por el rostro se le advertía y en sus palabras se denotaba, a nuestra presencia. Y hablándole yo con grande benevolencia y cariño, y haciéndole una relación pequeña de mis trabajos grandes, entregándole todas nuestras armas para que depusiese el miedo con que lo veíamos conseguí el que se quedase con nosotros aquella noche para salir a la mañana siguiente a donde quisiese llevarnos. Díjonos, entre varias cosas que se parlaron, [que] le agradeciésemos a Dios por merced muy suya el que no me hubiesen visto sus indios primero y a largo trecho. Porque si teniéndonos por piratas se retiraran al monte para guarecerse en su espesura, jamás saldríamos de aquel paraje inculto y solitario porque nos faltaba embarcación para conseguirlo.

66. No estar convencidos. 67. Entiéndase por retorno, o a cambio de la comida. 68. El original dice “viamos”.

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VII Pasan a Tihosuco [y] de allí a Valladolid donde experimentan molestias. Llegan a Mérida. Vuelve Alonso Ramírez a Valladolid y son aquellas [molestias] mayores. Causa por [la] que vino a México y lo que de ello resulta.

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Si a otros ha muerto un no esperado júbilo, a mí me quitó la calentura, el que1 ya se puede discurrir si sería grande.2 Libre pues de ella, salimos de allí cuando rompía el día. Y después de haber andado por la playa de la ensenada una legua llegamos a un puertecillo donde tenían varada una canoa en que habían pasado.3 Entramos en ella, y quejándonos todos de mucha sed, haciéndonos desembarcar en una pequeña isla, de las muchas que allí se hacen, a que viraron luego, hallamos un edificio al parecer antiquísimo compuesto de solas cuatro paredes, y en el medio de cada una de ellas una pequeña puerta, y a correspondencia4 otra en el medio5 de mayor altura (sería la de las paredes de afuera como tres estados).6 1. Con lo que. 2. Si sería grande el júbilo. 3. Andarían hacia el Sur, unos ocho kilómetros, hasta llegar a la altura 19º 29′ 00.0″ latitud Norte, entre Punta Loria y Punta Tupac, y cruzarían el pequeño brazo de tierra que separa la playa de la Laguna de Santa Rosa. Todavía hoy hay allí un camino de arena que permite el paso de la playa a la laguna y sobre la ribera de ésta un pequeño descampado y un rústico muelle de madera o puertecillo donde depositan sus canoas los que transitan la laguna y el extenso manglar que la rodea. El puertecillo se encuentra a N 19º 29′ 02.6″ por O 87º 26′ 17.1″. 4. Es decir, una puerta en el interior del edificio ubicada en línea con la puerta exterior. 5. En el medio del edificio. 6. El estado era medida longitudinal basada en la altura de un cuerpo humano promedio, unos siete pies castellanos, o 1,9 metros. Es decir, que el edificio medía unos seis metros de altura. Se trata de una estructura de escala menor conocida hoy como las ruinas de Tupac, que está escondida en el manglar, en el extremo sur de la Laguna de Santa Rosa en la Bahía de la Ascensión. Situada casi un kilómetro tierra adentro a la altura de N 19º 29′ 06.8″ y O 87º 26′ 32.2″ es accesible solamente en canoa. Ver las imágenes 18 y 19. El edificio actual es producto de una reconstrucción extensa y reciente que guarda poca relación en forma y escala con la descripción en el texto. Es de planta rectangular, tiene una altura de poco más de cinco metros y entrada solo por la fachada de poniente. Se levanta no sobre una pequeña isla sino sobre una plataforma de piedra también de trazado rectangular que se extiende por el costado oeste hasta encontrarse con un puentecillo que conduce hasta un pozo abierto y circular, de un metro de diámetro y hoy casi completamente cubierto por el mangle, de donde emana continuamente agua fresca. Ver la figura 20. Hemos de asumir que el edificio reconstruido guarda estrecha relación con el que hubo de haber allí cuando Ramírez lo visitó, específicamente porque las columnas gemelas de cuerpo cilíndrico que sostienen el arquitrabe de la entrada de poniente no se repiten en ninguna de las otras tres fachadas las cuales carecen de cualquier tipo de apertura. Esta es la tipología a la que se ajustan las principales estructuras en esta zona del mundo maya, como se puede confirmar

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Vimos también allí cerca unos pozos hechos a mano y llenos todos de excelente agua.7 Después que bebimos hasta quedar satisfechos, admiramos de que en un islote que bojeaba doscientos pasos se hallase agua. Y con las circunstancias8 del edificio que tengo dicho supe el que no sólo éste, sino otros que se hallan en partes de aquella provincia, y mucho mayores, fueron fábrica de gentes que muchos siglos antes que la conquistaran los españoles vinieron a ella. Prosiguiendo nuestro viaje, a cosa de las nueve del día, se divisó una canoa de mucho porte. Asegurándonos la vela que traían, que se reconoció ser de petate o estera, que todo es uno, no ser piratas ingleses como se presumió, me propuso Juan González el que les embistiésemos y los apresásemos. Era el motivo que para cohonestarlo9 se le ofreció el que eran indios gentiles de la sierra10 los que en ella iban y que, llevándolos al cura de su pueblo para que los catequizase, como cada día lo hacía con otros, le haríamos con ello un estimable obsequio, a que se añadía el que habiendo traído bastimento para solo tres, siendo ya nueve los que allí ya íbamos y muchos los días que sin esperanza de hallar comida habíamos de consumir para llegar a poblado, podíamos, y aún debíamos, valernos de los [bastimentos] que sin duda llevaban los indios. Pareciome conforme a razón lo que proponía, y a vela y remo les dimos caza. Eran catorce las personas, sin [contar a] unos muchachos, que en la canoa iban. Y habiendo hecho poderosa resistencia disparando sobre nosotros lluvias de flechas, [estaban] atemorizados de los tiros de escopeta que, aunque eran muy continuos y espantosos iban sin balas porque, siendo impiedad matar a aquellos pobres sin que nos hubiesen ofendido ni aun levemente, di rigurosa orden a los míos de que fuese así. Después de haberles abordado le hablaron a Juan González, que entendía su lengua, y prometiéndole un pedazo de ámbar que pesaría dos libras y cuanto maíz quisiésemos del que allí llevaban, le pidieron la libertad. Propúsome el que, si así me parecía, se les concediese. Y desagradándome el que más se apeteciese el ámbar que la reducción de aquellos miserables gentiles al gremio de la Iglesia Católica, como me insinuaron,11 no vine en ello. Guardose Juan Gonzáles el ámbar. Y amarradas las canoas y asegurados los prisioneros proseguimos nuestra derrota hasta que atravesada la ensenada, ya casi entrada la noche, saltamos en tierra.12 en la pirámide mayor de las muy cercanas ruinas de Chac Mool, de las cuales el refugio de viajeros y ojo de agua de Tupac era una dependencia. La descripción del libro probablemente está basada en lo que conocía Sigüenza de la arquitectura precolombina en el Valle de México. 7. Entiéndase de agua fresca. 8. Es decir, observando el edificio en su conjunto. 9. Para justificar la acción deshonesta. 10. Se trata de la Sierra de Puuc en el centro de la Península de Yucatán. 11. Es referencia al plan original de González. 12. Se trata de la Bahía de la Ascensión. Evidentemente cruzaron la bahía de sur a norte para tomar la antigua ruta comercial de Muyil que conectaba entonces esta zona de la costa con el interior de la península. La ruta da comienzo en la costa Noroeste de la Bahía de la Ascensión en el punto N 19º 47′ 55.3″ N y O 87º 33′ 59.9″.

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Gastose el día siguiente en moler maíz y disponer bastimento para los seis que dijeron habíamos de tardar para pasar el monte.13 Y echando por delante a los indios con la provisión comenzamos a caminar. A la noche de este día, queriendo sacar lumbre con mi escopeta, no pensando estar cargada y no poniendo por esta inadvertencia el cuidado que se debía, saliéndoseme de las manos y lastimándome el pecho y la cabeza,14 con el no prevenido golpe, se me quitó el sentido. No volví en mi acuerdo hasta que cerca de la media noche comenzó a caer sobre nosotros tan poderoso aguacero que inundando el paraje en que nos alojamos y pasando casi por la cintura la avenida, que fue imprevista,15 perdimos la mayor parte del bastimento y toda la pólvora menos la que tenía en mi garniel.16 Con esta incomodidad, y llevándome cargado los indios porque no podía moverme, dejándonos a sus criados para que nos guiasen y habiéndose Juan González adelantado, así para solicitarnos algún refresco como para noticiar a los indios de los pueblos inmediatos a donde habíamos de ir el que no éramos piratas como podían pensar sino hombres perdidos que íbamos a su amparo,17 proseguimos por el monte nuestro camino sin un indio y una india de los gentiles que, valiéndose del aguacero, se nos huyeron. Pasamos excesiva hambre hasta que, dando en un platanar,18 no solo comimos hasta satisfacernos, sino que proveídos de plátanos19 asados se pasó adelante. Noticiado por Juan González el beneficiado20 de Tihosuco, de quien ya diré, de nuestros infortunios,21 nos despachó al camino un muy buen refresco.22 Y fortalecidos con él llegamos el día siguiente a un pueblo de su feligresía, que dista como una legua de la cabecera y se nombra Tilá,23 donde hallamos gente de parte suya que con un regalo de chocolate y comida espléndida nos esperaba. Allí nos 13. En el sentido de bosque, pues no hay grandes elevaciones del terreno en esta parte de Yucatán. 14. Entiéndase que se disparó accidentalmente la escopeta. 15. El original dice “improvisa”. 16. El original dice “graniel”. En todo caso se refiere al frasco donde se lleva la pólvora de la escopeta, pistola o fusil de chispa. 17. Aquí comienza un nuevo párrafo en el original. Estoy de acuerdo con Belén Castro y Alicia Llarena en que es error de impresión. Ver Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora, Infortunios de Alonso Ramírez, ed. Belén Castro y Alicia Llarena (Las Palmas: Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, 2003), 143, nota 136. 18. El original dice “plantanal”. Se trata de un sembradío de plátanos verdes y no bananos. 19. El original dice “plantanos”. 20. El presbítero. 21. Esta es la segunda y última vez que se utiliza el término infortunios en la narración. 22. Alimento o comida para darles fuerza en el camino. 23. Según William G. Bryant se trata de un pueblo pequeño perteneciente a la duquesa de Albuquerque, Ana de la Cueva Enríquez. Ver Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora, “Infortunios de Alonso Ramírez,” en Seis Obras, intro. Irving A. Leonard, ed. William G. Bryant (Caracas: Biblioteca Ayacucho, 1984), 46, nota 93. Pudiera ser el poblado en ruinas conocido hoy como Lalcah, ubicado a unos cinco kilómetros al Sureste de Tihosuco. Ver Luis Alberto Matos López, “Lalcah: Un pueblo olvidado en la selva de Quintana Roo,” Boletín de Monumentos Históricos, tercera época, 7 (mayo–agosto 2016): 2–20.

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detuvimos hasta que llegaron caballos en que montarnos, y rodeado de indios que llegaban a vernos como cosa rara, llegamos al pueblo de Tihosuco como a las nueve del día.24 Es pueblo no sólo grande sino delicioso y ameno.25 Asisten en el muchos españoles y entre ellos don Melchor Pacheco26 a quien acuden27 los indios como su encomendero. La iglesia parroquial se forma de tres naves y está adornada con excelentes altares,28 y cuida de ella como su cura beneficiado el licenciado Cristóbal de Muros29 a quien jamás pagaré dignamente lo que le debo y para cuya alabanza me faltan voces. Salionos a recibir con el cariño de padre y, conduciéndonos a la iglesia, nos ayudó a dar a Dios Nuestro Señor las debidas gracias por habernos sacado de la opresión tirana de los ingleses, de los peligros en que nos vimos por tantos mares y de los que últimamente toleramos en aquellas costas. Y acabada la oración, acompañados de todo el pueblo, nos llevó a su casa. En ocho días que allí estuvimos, a mí y a Juan de Casas nos dio su mesa abastecida de todo, y desde ella enviaba siempre sus platos a diferentes pobres. Acudióseles también, y a proporción de lo que con nosotros se hacía, no sólo a los compañeros sino a los indios gentiles con abundancia. Repartió éstos [indios], después de haberlos vestido, entre otros que ya tenía bautizados de los de su nación para catequizarlos. Y disponiéndonos para la confesión de que estuvimos imposibilitados por tanto tiempo, oyéndonos con la paciencia y cariño que nunca he visto, conseguimos el día de Santa Catalina30 que nos comulgase. En el ínterin que esto pasaba notició a los alcaldes de la Villa de Valladolid, en cuya comarca cae aquel31 pueblo, de lo sucedido. Y dándonos carta así para ellos como para el guardián de la vicaría de Tixcacal,32 que nos recibió con notable amor, salimos de Tihosuco para la villa [de Valladolid] con su beneplácito. Encontronos en este pueblo de Tixcacal un sargento que remitían los alcaldes para que nos condujese. Y, en llegando a la villa y a su presencia les di carta.33 Eran dos estos alcaldes, como en todas partes se usa. Llámase el uno don Francisco de Zelerún, hombre a lo que 24. Ver el mapa 9. 25. Tihosuco era para esta época dependencia del ayuntamiento de Valladolid y el primer pueblo de españoles en la frontera oriental de su jurisdicción. 26. Melchor Pacheco es nombrado en dos documentos de confirmación de su encomienda de Euan en Mérida. Ver AGI, México, 242B, N. 61, y AGI, México, 244, N. 6. 27. A quien rinden tributo. 28. Esto es un error puesto que la iglesia franciscana de San Agustín en Tihosuco, aunque de escala impresionante, tiene una planta basilical de una sola nave. Ver la figura 21. 29. Cristóbal de Muros Montiberos es nombrado en documento del 1684. Ver AGI, Indiferente, 205. 30. El día de Santa Catalina de Alejandría es el 25 de noviembre. 31. El original dice “cae a aquel”. 32. La vicaría franciscana de Tixcacal queda al Oeste de Tihosuco y de Valladolid. El desvío tomado en la ruta responde al protocolo requerido para transferir custodia de los sospechosos de manos de la Iglesia al estado. Ver la figura 22. 33. Ramírez entró en Valladolid el 28 de noviembre de 1689. Ver la figura 23.

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me pareció poco entremetido y de muy buena intención, y el otro don Ceferino de Castro.34 No puedo proseguir sin referir un donosísimo cuento que aquí me pasó. Sabiéndose, porque yo se lo había dicho a quien lo preguntaba, ser esclavo mío el negrillo Pedro, esperando uno de los que me habían examinado a que estuviese solo, llegándose hacia mí y echándome los brazos al cuello, me dijo así: “¿Es posible, amigo y querido paisano mío que os ven mis ojos? ¡Oh, cuántas veces se me han anegado en lágrimas al acordarme de vos! ¡Quien me dijera que os había de ver en tanta miseria! Abrazadme recio, mitad de mi alma, y dadle gracias a Dios de que esté yo aquí”. Preguntele quién era y cómo se llamaba, porque de ninguna manera lo conocía. “¿Cómo es eso,” me replicó, “cuando no tuvisteis35 en vuestros primeros años mayor amigo? Y para que conozcáis el que todavía soy el que entonces era, sabed que corren voces que sois espía del algún corsario, y noticiado de ello el gobernador de esta provincia os hará prender y sin duda alguna os atormentará. Yo, por ciertos negocios en que intervengo, tengo con su señoría relación estrecha, y lo mismo es proponerle yo una cosa que ejecutarla. Bueno será granjearle la voluntad presentándole ese negro, y para ello no será malo el que [antes] me hagáis donación de él. Considerad que el peligro en que os veo es en extremo mucho. Guardadme el secreto y mirad por vos si así no se hace, persuadiéndoos a que no podré redimir vuestra vejación si lo que os propongo, como tan querido y antiguo amigo vuestro, no tiene forma”. “No soy tan simple,” le respondí, “que no reconozca ser vuestra merced un grande embustero y que puede dar lecciones36 de robar a los mayores corsarios. A quien me regalare con trescientos reales de a ocho que vale, le regalaré con mi negro, y vaya con Dios”. No me replicó porque, llamándome de parte de los alcaldes, me quité de allí.37 Era don Francisco de Celerún no solo alcalde sino también teniente,38 y como de la declaración que le hice de mis trabajos resultó saberse por toda la villa lo que dejaba en las playas, pensando muchos el que por la necesidad casi extrema que padecía haría baratas, comenzaron a prometerme dinero porque les vendiese siquiera lo que estaba en ellas y me daban luego quinientos pesos. Quise admitirlos y volver con algunos que me ofrecieron su compañía, así para remediar la fragata como para poner cobro a39 lo que en ella tenía. Pero enviándome a notificar don Ceferino de Castro el que debajo de graves penas no saliese de la villa para las 34. Su tío, Ceferino de Castro y Velasco fue nombrado regidor de Campeche en abril de 1689. Ver AGI, México, 198, N. 50. 35. El original dice “tuvistis”. 36. El original dice “liciones”. 37. El lugar en cuestión es seguramente la celda donde se encerraba a los presos, ubicada bajo las escaleras de acceso a la primera planta del cabildo o ayuntamiento de la villa. Ver la figura 23. 38. Al ser teniente de capitán general, Celerún era nombrado por el gobernador de Yucatán y respondía tanto a éste como al cabildo. 39. Para recuperar.

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playas, porque la embarcación y cuanto en ella venía pertenecía a la Cruzada,40 me quedé suspenso y, acordándome del sevillano Miguel, encogí los hombros.41 Súpose también, cómo al encomendero de Tihosuco don Melchor Pacheco le di una cris y un espadín mohoso que conmigo traía y que por cosa extraña se aficionó, y persuadido42 por lo que dije del saqueo de Sucadana a que tendrían empuñadura de oro y diamantes, despachó luego al instante por él con iguales penas. Y noticiado de que quería yo pedir de mi justicia y que se me oyese,43 al segundo día me remitieron a Mérida. Lleváronme con la misma velocidad con que yo huía con mi fragata cuando avistaba ingleses y, sin permitirme visitar el milagroso santuario de Nuestra Señora de Izamal,44 a ocho de diciembre de 1689 dieron conmigo mis conductores en la ciudad de Mérida.45 Reside en ella como gobernador y capitán general de aquella provincia don Juan José de la Bárcena.46 Y después de haberle besado la mano yo y mis compañeros, y dándole extrajudicial relación de cuanto queda dicho, me envió a las que llaman Casas Reales de San Cristóbal.47 Y a quince,48 por orden suyo, me tomó declaración de lo mismo el sargento mayor Francisco Guerrero y, a siete de enero de 1690, Bernardo Sabido, escribano real, certificó49 de que después de haber salido perdido por aquellas costas me estuve hasta entonces en la ciudad de Mérida. Las molestias que pasé en esta ciudad no son ponderables. No hubo vecino de ella que no me hiciese relatar cuanto aquí se ha escrito, y esto no una sino muchas veces. Para esto solían llevarme a mí y a los míos de casa en casa. Pero a punto de medio día me despachaban todos.50 Es aquella ciudad, y generalmente toda la provincia, abundante y fértil y muy barata. Y si no fue el licenciado don 40. La Cruzada, o Santa Cruzada, es una referencia a la Bula de la Santa Cruzada y a los privilegios concedidos en el siglo XII por el Papa a los reyes cristianos para recaudar fondos en apoyo a la lucha contra los musulmanes y para la propagación de la fe católica en la Península Ibérica. Estos se extendieron a América desde comienzos de la conquista. Aunque comúnmente el impuesto se cobraba mediante la venta de indulgencias, tal parece que en su celo por recaudar fondos para la iglesia, Ceferino de Castro pretendía confiscar todos los bienes del naufragio. Ver Cummins y Soons, 85, nota 228. 41. Sin duda, la intención de Ramírez era pintar a de Castro como un español malvado e injusto. 42. Ceferino de Castro. 43. Deseaba ofrecer testimonio ante un juez. 44. El original dice “Itzamal”. El monumental santuario queda a mitad de camino entre Mérida y Valladolid. 45. Ver la figura 24. 46. Juan José de la Bárcena fue nombrado gobernador de Yucatán en 1683. Ver AGI, Contratación, 5790, L. 3, F. 16v–21v. 47. Hospedería para los viajeros y desamparados en el barrio de San Cristóbal en Mérida. Esta era llevada por indios del Valle Central de México que poblaban el barrio y que habían llegado a Mérida un siglo atrás en apoyo a la conquista de la península por los españoles. 48. De diciembre. 49. El original dice “certificacó”. 50. Se da a entender que los despachaban sin darles de comer el almuerzo.

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Cristóbal de Muros, mi único amparo, un criado del encomendero don Melchor Pacheco que me dio un capote,51 y el ilustrísimo señor obispo don Juan Cano Sandoval,52 que me socorrió con dos pesos, no hubo persona alguna que, viéndome a mí y a los míos casi desnudos y muertos de hambre, extendiesen la mano para socorrerme. Ni comimos en las que llaman Casas Reales de San Cristóbal—son un honrado mesón en que se albergan forasteros—sino lo que nos dieron los indios que cuidan de él, y se redujo a tortillas de maíz y cotidianos frijoles, porque rogándoles una vez a los indios el que mudasen manjar, diciendo que aquello lo daban ellos—pónganse por esto en el catálogo de mis benefactores—sin esperanza de que se lo pagase quien allí nos puso53 y que así me contentase con lo que gratuitamente me daban, callé mi boca. Faltándome los frijoles con que en las Reales Casas de San Cristóbal me sustentaron los indios, y fue esto el mismo día en que dándome la certificación me dijo el escribano54 [que] tenía ya libertad para poder irme donde gustase, valiéndome del alférez Pedro Flores de Ureña, paisano mío, a quien si a correspondencia de su pundonor y honra le hubiera acudido la fortuna fuera sin duda alguna muy poderoso, precediendo información que dieron55 los míos de pertenecerme, y con declaración que hizo el negro Pedro de ser mi esclavo, lo vendí en trescientos pesos con que vestí a aquéllos. Y dándoles alguna56 ayuda de costa57 para que buscasen su vida, permití, porque se habían juramentado de asistirme siempre, [que] pusiesen la proa de su elección donde los llamase el genio.58 Prosiguiendo don Ceferino de Castro en las comenzadas diligencias para recaudar, con el pretexto frívolo de la Cruzada, lo que la Bula de la Cena59 me aseguraba en las playas y en lo que estaba a bordo, quiso abrir camino en el monte para60 conducir a la villa en recuas lo que a hombros de indios no era muy fácil. Opúsosele el beneficiado don Cristóbal de Muros previniendo [que] era facilitarle a los corsantes y piratas que por allí cruzan el que robasen los pueblos de su feligresía hallando camino andable y no defendido para venir a ellos. Llevome la cierta 51. Capa o abrigo largo hecho con mangas. 52. Juan Cano Sandoval fue nombrado obispo de Yucatán por el Papa Inocencio XI en bula de 7 de diciembre de 1682. Ver AGI, Patronato, 6, N. 27. Su retrato cuelga aún de la pared en la sacristía de la iglesia conventual de Izamal. 53. El gobernador y capitán general Juan José de la Bárcena. 54. Se sobreentiende que fue el mismo Bernardo Sabido y era entonces el 7 de enero de 1690. 55. El texto original dice “dicon”. Es error tipográfico. 56. Este adjetivo aparece repetido en el original. 57. Un auxilio monetario. 58. Aquí Ramírez despacha a sus compañeros y pone fin a cualquier reclamo que ninguno de ellos haya podido hacer sobre el botín abandonado en Punta Herradura. Esto ocurrió el lunes 9 de enero de 1690. 59. Ramírez reclamaba sus derechos amparándose en la cuarta sentencia de la Bula de la Cena, promulgada por el Papa Urbano VIII en 1627. Esta condenaba a cualquier persona que se apropiara de los bienes de un cristiano cuya embarcación perdiese su curso o naufragara. Ver Cummins y Soons, 85, nota 240. 60. Esta preposición aparece repetida en el original.

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noticia que tuve de esto a Valladolid.61 Quise pasar a las playas a ser ocular testigo de la iniquidad que contra mí y los míos62 hacían los que, por españoles y católicos, estaban obligados a ampararme y a socorrerme con sus propios bienes. Y llegando al pueblo de Tilá, con amenazas de que sería declarado por traidor al rey, no me consintió el alférez Antonio Zapata el que pasase de allí, diciendo [que] tenía orden de don Ceferino de Castro para hacerlo así.63 A persuasiones y con fomento de don Cristóbal de Muros volví a la ciudad de Mérida. Y, habiendo pasado la Semana Santa en el Santuario de Izamal, llegué a aquella ciudad el miércoles después de Pascua.64 Lo que decretó el gobernador a petición que le presenté fue [que]65 tenía orden del excelentísimo señor virrey de la Nueva España para que viniese a su presencia con brevedad. No sirvieron de cosa alguna réplicas mías. Y sin dejarme aviar,66 salí de Mérida [el] domingo, dos de abril. Viernes, siete, llegué a Campeche.67 Jueves, trece, en una balandra del capitán Peña salí del puerto. Domingo, 16, salté en tierra en Veracruz. Allí me aviaron68 los oficiales reales con veinte pesos. Y saliendo de aquella ciudad a veinticuatro del mismo mes, llegué a México a cuatro de mayo.69 El viernes siguiente70 besé la mano a su Excelencia, y correspondiendo sus cariños afables a su presencia augusta, compadeciéndose primero de mis trabajos y congratulándose de mi libertad con parabienes y plácemes, escuchó atento cuanto en la vuelta entera que he dado71 al mundo queda escrito y [que] allí sólo le insinué a su Excelencia en compendio breve. Mandome, o por el afecto con que lo mira, o quizá porque estando enfermo divirtiese sus males con la noticia que yo le daría de los muchos [males] míos, fuese a visitar a don Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora, cosmógrafo y catedrático de matemáticas del rey nuestro Señor en la Academia Mexicana y capellán mayor del Hospital Real del Amor de Dios de la Ciudad de México, títulos son éstos que suenan mucho y valen muy poco, y a cuyo ejercicio le empeña más la reputación que la conveniencia.72 Compadecido 61. Era miércoles 11 de enero de 1690. 62. Para entonces, Ramírez reclamaba en exclusiva todo lo que se dejó en la playa y en la embarcación, incluida ésta, habiéndose separado de su tripulación dos días antes en Mérida. 63. Ramírez gastó casi dos meses intentando regresar a la embarcación, del 11 de enero al 6 de marzo de 1690, cuando partió de Valladolid hacia Izamal. 64. El miércoles 29 de marzo de 1690. La Semana Santa en el año de 1690 cayó entre el 11 y el 19 de marzo. Ver las imágenes 25 y 26. 65. Es lo más lógico añadir aquí este pronombre relativo pues “fue tenía”, como aparece en el original, no tiene sentido. Lo más lógico, sin embargo, es que se trate de un error de imprenta y que los tipógrafos se hayan saltado una línea del manuscrito al montar las galeras. 66. Sin darle tiempo a prepararse para el viaje. 67. Ver la figura 27. 68. Aquí “aviar” tiene el sentido de recibir una ayuda o dieta para el viaje a la Ciudad de México. 69. El original dice “abril”, pero esto no puede ser posible. 70. El 4 de mayo de 1690 cayó jueves por lo cual debió haber comparecido ante el virrey el 5 de mayo. 71. El original dice “hado”. 72. Ver la figura 28.

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de mis trabajos, no sólo formó esta relación en que se contienen sino que me consiguió, con la intercesión y súplicas que en mi presencia hizo al Excelentísimo Señor Virrey: [un] decreto para que don Sebastián de Guzmán y Córdoba, factor, veedor y proveedor de las Cajas Reales me socorriese como se hizo; otro [decreto] para que se me entretenga en la Real Armada de Barlovento hasta acomodarme; y mandamiento para que el gobernador de Yucatán haga que los ministros que corrieron con el embargo o seguro73 de lo que estaba en las playas y hallaron a bordo, a mí, o a mi podatario, sin réplica ni pretexto lo entreguen todo. Ayudome para mi viático con lo que pudo y, disponiendo [que] bajase a la Veracruz en compañía de don Juan Enríquez Barroto,74 capitán de la artillería de la Real Armada de Barlovento, mancebo excelentemente consumado en la hidrografía, docto en las ciencias matemáticas y, por eso, íntimo amigo y huésped suyo en esta ocasión, me excusó de gastos.

73. En el sentido de rescate. 74. La Real Armada de Barlovento salió de Veracruz el 19 de julio de 1690, dos meses y medio después de que llegara Ramírez a la Ciudad de México. De haber partido con la Armada, como se desprende del texto, Ramírez pasaría la última semana de agosto en La Habana antes de zarpar rumbo a Puerto Rico. Llegaría a San Juan tres meses después, el 26 de octubre, habiendo así cerrado el circuito entero de su viaje alrededor del mundo al arribar al punto originario de donde partió. La Armada regresaría a Veracruz el 10 de marzo de 1691, luego de haber asolado las poblaciones de Guarico (Le Cap) y Limonade que tenían los franceses en la banda norte de La Española.

Figure 1 Fortress of San Felipe del Morro, San Juan, Puerto Rico. “My name is Alonso Ramírez and my home is the city of San Juan in Puerto Rico, capital of the island . . . renowned for the refreshment that those who suffer thirst sailing from Old to New Spain find in its delightful watering station, by the beauty of its bay, the unconquerable Morro Castle that defends it, the walls and bulwarks crowned with artillery that keep it secure.” Figure 2 Gate of San Juan, or Puerta del Agua, San Juan, Puerto Rico. This is where Alonso Ramírez exited his native city to embark on his voyage at the end of the summer of 1675.

Figure 3 Fortress of the Real Fuerza, Havana, Cuba. This was the residence of the governor of Havana and the point where Ramírez arrived aboard the ship captained by the famous privateer Giovanni Michele, also known as Juan Miguel Corso or Juan Corso, and mentioned in the Misfortunes as Juan del Corcho. Figure 4 Arches of the lower gallery in the Fortress of San Juan de Ulúa, Veracruz, México. This was the exclusive port of entry for all commerce on the Atlantic coast of New Spain, and it was here where the galleon fleet would come once a year to pick up the treasure of México and the goods acquired in the East Indies brought to Acapulco in the Manila galleon. Ramírez must have been here during September 1675.

Figure 5 Detail of the volutes and interlocking forms that adorn the walls, pilasters, arches, and vaults of the Chapel of Our Lady of the Rosary in Puebla de los Ángeles, México. The chapel, consecrated on the same year of the publication of the Misfortunes, is often mentioned as the richest and most accomplished example of baroque architecture in the Western Hemisphere.

Figure 6 “[Marriage of] Alonso Ramírez with Francisca Javiera. On the eighth of November of the year one thousand six hundred and eighty two I, father don Francisco Romero de Quevedo, parish priest of this Holy Church, gave the wedding vows that joined Alonso Ramírez to Francisca Javiera in true and legitimate matrimony, having as witnesses the licentiates don Juan de Padilla and Felipe Manrique, priests in attendance, and other people. Don Francisco Romero de Quevedo.” Archivo Histórico del Arzobispado de México (AHAM).

Figure 7 Map of the harbor and fortifications of Cavite showing in red color the sections of the seawall that were to be rebuilt by Felipe Ferrer (Alonso Ramírez). The Fortress of San Felipe Neri is marked by the letter A (Archivo General de Indias, AGI, MP-Filipinas, 180). Ramírez reached Manila on August 31, 1684. He was then twenty-one years old.

Figure 8 Title page of the document describing the events and testimonies given thereof relating to the capture by English pirates of a Spanish frigate under the command of Captain Felipe Ferrer. We know that this was the identity assumed by Ramírez in Manila and the name by which he was known to the English pirates. In a letter dated December 27, 1687, the governor of the Philippines informed the Crown that in March of that year, English pirates had captured “a sloop loaded with rice belonging to Your Grace . . . and with her a Captain who has lived in the point and shore of Cavite named Felipe Ferrer, a person who has served Your Grace a great deal, and very knowledgeable in maritime matters, and who will be sorely missed because he had been in charge of the construction works in the harbor of Cavite” (AGI, Filipinas, 12, R. 1, N. 60/1/9).

Figure 9 Fortress of Ozama, located on the banks of the Ozama River in Santo Domingo de Guzmán, capital city of the Dominican Republic. The walls of Santo Domingo and, most prominently, the high tower of the Ozama Fortress would have been clearly distinguishable from the sea, unless Ramírez was purposely sailing below the horizon to escape detection from shore.

Figure 10 Fort Cromwell, Port Royal, Jamaica. Ramírez sailed close to Jamaica early in September 1689. At the time, Port Royal was the wealthiest city in the islands and the busiest harbor, mostly visited by pirates and by the enemies of Spain. It would have been very dangerous to have passed close enough to be seen and captured by pirates unless Ramírez was carrying letters of reference from his alleged captors and got there in search of business and pleasure and ready to participate in the Lutheran rites.

Figure 11 Herradura Point, on the old coast of Bacalar in Yucatán, today Quintana Roo, México. Ramírez’s ship ran aground here on Sunday, September 18, 1689. The exact location of the shipwreck is 18º 32′ 20.53″ N by 87º 44′ 26.37″ W. “The rock that ended in this point stretched out some two hundred paces and was besieged on all sides by the sea.”

Figure 12 Artifacts found on land along the northern shore of Herradura Point (see map 11). From top to bottom, the first row displays four pieces of European pottery. Judging by their considerable circumference, they were likely water jars. Second row: iron pieces. Third row: large fasteners. Bottom row: assorted, handmade nails, two of which have been bent by the force of the impact as the ship crashed on the rock.

Figure 13 Small cannon found at a depth of one meter. Photograph by Mariano Schaller.

Figure 14 Palm trees on Herradura Point. “After we all quenched our extreme thirst, I made the stronger ones chop down the many palm trees that were there so that we may eat their shoots.”

Figure 15 Huache River. “The next morning we retraced our steps until coming to the mouth of a river of salt water so wide and deep that we could go no further.”

Figure 16 Bermejo River. “And we spent two days getting to a brook of fresh but reddish water that must have been less than four leagues away from the starting place.” They would camp here for six days, October 20–26, 1689. The precise location of the camp was 18º 41′ 09.1″ N and 87º 43′ 05.0″ W.

Figure 17 On November 9, 1689, feverish and exhausted, Alonso Ramírez took cover under a tent improvised by his men on the side of this rock. “Having come to a stop, while they went into the woods in search of food, I took shelter behind a rock under an improvised tent that they made for me with a blanket we were carrying.”

Figure 18 View of the northeast point of the Tupac watering station, where the shipwrecked crew was taken by their Mayan rescuers on Thursday, November 10, 1689. The exact location of this building is 19º 29′ 06.8″ N and 87º 26′ 32.2″ W.

Figure 19 Vaulted antechamber of the building at Tupac.

Figure 20 Watering hole next to the building at Tupac. “We also saw nearby some wells dug out by hand and all filled with excellent water. After we drank to our satisfaction we were amazed that water could be found in an islet that was two hundred paces around.”

Figure 21 Church of Saint Augustin in Tihosuco, where Ramírez and his men were received by the parish priest, Cristóbal de Muros. “He came out to greet us with fatherly affection and, taking us to the church, helped us to give God Our Lord the proper thanks for having delivered us from the tyrannical oppression of the English, from the perils we ran into on the high seas and from the ones we recently tolerated on this coast.” Figure 22 Church of Tixcacal. At the end of November 1689, Ramírez and his men came here during the course of being handed over to the civil authorities by the representatives of the Catholic Church.

Figure 23 Town hall in Valladolid, the main Spanish settlement on the southeastern frontier of Yucatán. Behind the plaque on the right side of the stairs is the chamber that was formerly used as a prison. It was there where Ramírez was interrogated and forcibly kept from returning to the coast to reclaim the valuables left on the ship and on shore. Figure 24 Arco de Dragones Gate, Mérida, Yucatán (today at the intersection of Streets 61 and 50). Alonso Ramírez entered the city of Mérida through this gate on Thursday, December 8, 1689. “Don Juan José de la Bárcena resides there as governor and captain general of the province. And after I and my crew kissed his hand, and having given him an extrajudicial account of all I have stated, he sent me to the Casas Reales de San Cristóbal.”

Figure 25 Atrium and façade of the Franciscan monastery of Saint Anthony of Padova in Izamal. Ramírez alleged to have spent Holy Week here, March 11–19, 1690.

Figure 26 Fresco on the entrance to the cloister of the Izamal Monastery. It depicts a group of four men surrounding a large beast that they are trying to club to death. The beast lies on the ground, and though the entire fresco has faded much, it is still possible to see a large body covered in brown fur that could easily be confused with a bear. Most probably, it is the story of the wolf of Gubbio that Francis of Assisi is said to have tamed.

Figure 27 Puerta de Tierra Gate, Campeche, México. The gate was being built when Ramírez entered the city on Friday, April 7, 1690. Figure 28 Main courtyard of the convent and hospital of Amor de Dios, México City, where Sigüenza was chaplain from 1682 until his death in 1700. In May 1690, Ramírez came here to tell Sigüenza the stories contained in the book.

Map 1 The voyage from San Juan, Puerto Rico (1), to San Juan de Ulua (Veracruz, México) (6) via Havana, Cuba (5), most likely took place between August and October of 1675. Even when the text does not go into detail and given the commercial interest of Captain Juan Miguel Corso, it is very probable that they followed the route that runs along the southern coast of Hispaniola and Cuba. This was the preferred course taken by Spanish seamen, as it connected the principal settlements of these islands. Thus it is to be assumed that Ramírez might have visited Santo Domingo (2), Santiago de Cuba (3), and maybe also Trinidad (4), among other points of commercial interest, legal and otherwise. The map is taken from Joan Blaeu, Insula Americanae (1662).

Map 2 Routes and places visited by Ramírez in New Spain (México) and Guatemala between September 1675 and March 31, 1684: San Juan de Ulúa (1), Xalapa and Perote (2), Puebla de los Ángeles (3), México City (4), San Juan Bautista Cucatlán (5), Tlalixtac (6), Antequera (present- day Oxaca) (7), Mixe nation (8), Chontal nation (9), Chiapa de Indios (10), Soconusco (11), Guatemala (12), and Acapulco (13). The map is taken from Pierre Mariette, Mexicque ou Nouvelle Espagne (1650).

Map 3 Route followed by the Manila galleon arriving from Guam in search of Cavite, as described in the text: Bátag (1), San Bernardino (2), Capul (3), Ticao (4), Masbate (5), Burías (6), Bantón (7), Marinduque (8), Mindoro (9), Calapán (10), Ambil (11), Mariveles (12), and Cavite (13). Ramírez arrived in the Philippines aboard the Santa Rosa galleon on a voyage that started on Friday, March 31, 1684, in Acapulco and finished in Manila exactly five months later on Thursday, August 31, 1684. The map is taken from Pedro Murillo de Velarde, Insulae Philippinae (1734).

Map 4 Routes taken and places visited by Alonso Ramírez in the East Indies and the Gulf of Bengal between September 1684 and March 1687: Cavite (1), Melaka (2), Madras (3), and Batavia (today Jakarta) (4). The map is taken from Phillipe Dezauche, Carte des Indies et de la Chine (1781).

Map 5 The black line marks the course followed by the royal frigate Our Lady of Aránzazu from Cavite (1) to Vigan, Ilocos (2). The white line is the return trip to Manila via the island of Capones (3) and Mariveles Mountain (4). The frigate, with Ramírez as captain under the assumed name of Felipe Ferrer, left Cavite on Thursday, January 30, 1687. It arrived at Vigan a week later, on Thursday, February 6. The trip back to Cavite took twice as long, from February 16 to the day of the capture of the frigate by the Cygnet on March 3. The map is taken from Pedro Murillo de Velarde, Insulae Philippinae (1734).

Map 6 Route taken by the Cygnet from the day of the capture of the royal Spanish frigate Our Lady of Aránzazu near the island of Capones (1) to New Holland (Australia) (13): The first stop was Pulau Condon (Côn Sơn, Vietnam) (2), where they burnt and sunk the royal frigate and careened the Cygnet. They remained in Côn Sơn for four months, until the end of July, when they set sail for the coast of Cambodia (3). Along the way they captured a sampan before arriving at Pulo Ubi (4) on Tuesday, July 29, 1687. There they captured three other ships before escaping to the islands of Siantan (5) and Tambelan (6). Crossing over to Borneo, they sacked the city of Sukadana (7) and fled to Batu Malang (8). From there they set out toward the coast of Berhala (9), capturing two prizes before spotting a Dutch frigate and fleeing to Pulau Aur near Batu Malang (8). Then they ran through the Strait of Singapore (10) and, coming out through its northwestern end, captured the frigate (11) that Ramírez/Ferrer would later sail through the Antilles until running aground on the coast of Bacalar. After this, they made landing on Nicobar Island (12) before heading for Australia, where they arrived on Thursday, January 15, 1688. The map is taken from Robert Wilkinson, The Islands of the East Indies, with the Channels between India, China and New Holland (1806).

Map 7 Course taken by Ramírez/Ferrer through the Caribbean Sea as it is so precisely described in the text: Trinidad (1), Tobago (2), Guadeloupe (3), Antigua (4), Tortola and Saint John (5), Hispaniola (6), Beata and Alto Velo (7), Port Royal (8), Grand Cayman (9), and Chinchorro Bank and Herradura Point (10). This voyage began at the end of July 1689 and came to a sudden end the day of the shipwreck on Sunday, September 18, 1689. The map is taken from Joan Blaeu, Insula Americanae (1662). After running the length of the Sir Francis Drake Channel, passing through the Narrows between Tortola and Saint John (5), and taking from there a westerly course, the island of Saint Thomas comes up to the south, and from there the island of Culebra (also Passage or Serpent Island) is already within clear view. If Ramírez/Ferrer was indeed sailing without a chart or a useful pilot book, he could not have avoided heading toward Culebra. Once there, he would have sighted the coast of Puerto Rico and, most distinctively, the peak of the Yunque Mountain, which is the highest point (1,080 meters) on the eastern end of the island and can be seen both from Culebra and from the city of San Juan, which lies slightly closer to it to the west. There is no possible way that Ramírez could have crossed from the northernmost point of the arch of the Lesser Antilles (5) to the southern coast of Hispaniola (6) without having sighted, and recognized, his native country.

Map 8 Route taken by Ramírez and his companions along the coast of Bacalar in Yucatán from the day of the shipwreck on September 18 to their rescue fifty-two days later on Wednesday, November 9, 1689: Chinchorro Bank (1), shipwreck site on Herradura Point (2), Huache River (3), Bermejo River (4), Tzigú Forest (5), Piedra Point (6), and Tupac watering station (7).

Map 9 Route taken by Ramírez after his rescue in Piedra Point (1) on November 9, 1689, to his audience with the viceroy of New Spain on Friday, May 5, 1690: Tihosuco (2), Valladolid (3), Mérida (4), Izamal (5), Campeche (6), San Juan de Ulúa (7), Xalapa (8), Puebla de los Ángeles (9), and México City (10). The map is taken from Pierre Mariette, Mexicque ou Nouvelle Espagne (1650).

Map 10 Route taken by Alonso Ramírez in his circumnavigation of the globe, departing from San Juan, Puerto Rico, in October 1675 (1) and arriving in México City in May 1690. The map is taken from Rigobert Bonne, L’Ancien Monde et le Nouveau (1780).

Map 11 Plan of Herradura Point in Quintana Roo, México, showing the location of the principal findings of the underwater archaeology expedition of February 20–22, 2018: (A) thirty-eightmeter-long section of the hull at a depth of seven meters, (B) small cannon at a depth of one meter, (C) iron nails, fasteners, and European pottery found on land. All the evidence indicates that the shipwreck occurred near point (D), a very shallow area that due to the winds and currents remained inaccessible to the divers during those three days in February.

ABOUT THE TRANSLATION

This translation is based on my own transcription and correction of the original Spanish edition of 1690 and on my revision of all the subsequent editions in Spanish. At all times, I have proceeded with the translation without first consulting Pleasants’s 1962 English version of the text, which is plagued by grave errors and omissions and is practically unreadable. Neither did I read beforehand López Lázaro’s version, which, contrary to the strict historical research he has conducted on the provenance of the work, is a rather loose translation. I have also included Sigüenza’s “dedication” and the “approval” letter from the censor. I believe that these two pieces are integral parts of the text without which it would be impossible to decipher the internal logic and measure the political and ideological relevance of the Misfortunes. I have tried to remain as close as possible to the original Spanish edition in both content and form. Still, in some passages, I have altered the order of the phrasing and shortened sentences and paragraphs to make the ultrabaroque text more accessible to the modern English-speaking readership. Although I have made corrections to the style and punctuation of the original with the aim of making the reading more clear and less cumbersome, I have not edited out the many instances when the conjunction “and” was used by Sigüenza to reinforce in the reader the idea that the text he wrote proceeded from the oral testimony given by Ramírez. I have actualized the toponyms, citing in the notes the name given to the places in the original edition of 1690. Finally, it bears mention that this is the first edition to fully uncover the richness contained in the nautical nomenclature so sadly ignored by the modern pedestrian reader, and the first to survey and question the entire route taken, carefully inspecting the travel log and following closely behind the protagonist on land and by sea. The bracketed text are additions I have made intending to add to the clarity and flow of the text, while that which is in parenthesis in the fifth chapter are the notes on the geographic nomenclature that appear in the original edition. José F. Buscaglia-Salgado San Juan de Puerto Rico, March 11, 2018

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mIsfortunes1 thAt

Alonso rAmírez, sAn JuAn de P uerto r ICo ,

A nAtIve of the CIty of

suffered , both under the Control of

englIsh PIrAtes who CAPtured hIm In the P hIlIPPIne I slAnds

1 2 3 4 5 6

yuCAtán, In thIs wAy hAvIng mAnAged to trAvel Around the w orld . 2

7 8 9 10

desCrIbed by CArlos de sIgüenzA y góngorA, CosmogrAPher And Professor of mAthemAtICs to the K Ing , our lord , In the m exICAn A CAdemy .

11 12 13 14

[PrInted] under lICense In méxICo by the h eIrs to the w Idow of b ernArdo C Alderón , In the street of sAn Agustín. yeAr of 1690.

15 16 17

As whIle sAIlIng on hIs own And wIthout A Course untIl runnIng Aground on the CoAst of

don

1. Pleasants translated “infortunios” as “misadventures.” I believe that the literal translation “misfortunes” is more correct as Alonso Ramírez sets out in search of advantage, and not adventure. So much is clear as soon as he arrives in the city of Puebla, where he decides to stay “to obtain big advantages” and sets to work in the first job he finds “while [he] figure[s] out another way to become rich.” This is a narrative of mounting adversity and almost continuous disgrace that Ramírez early on attributes to his “dark star”—that is, to his bad luck. As in the Spanish expression “correr fortuna” (to run into a storm), this narrative will unfold by turning into a sailing story about losing course and running aground in a tempest, the event that symbolizes the very essence of unfavorable fortune, or misfortune. Moreover, the term misfortune has the added connotation in English of referring to an illegitimate child, which, of course, was Ramírez’s stigma, a circumstance that gives an added layer of complexity to a story that has as one of its many subplots the search for a father figure and for social legitimacy. 2. See map 10.

TO THE MOST EXCELLENT GENTLEMAN DON1 GASPAR DE SANDOVAL CERDA SILVA Y MENDOZA2 Count of Galve,3 (acting) lord of His Majesty’s Chamber, commander of Zalamea4 and Ceclavín,5 under the knightly Order of Alcántara; governor in perpetuity of the royal palace, gates, and bridges of the city of Toledo and of the castle and towers of [the city of] León; lord of the towns of Tórtola6 and Sacedón;7 viceroy, governor and captain general of New Spain; and president of the royal chancellery of México, etc. If happiness is often the consequence of temerity, and the fault that exculpates the error is rare,8 in order to presume to be taken under Your Excellency’s protection I have abundant motives not to be pretentious— so as not to commit an unpardonable fault—with all the praise that your understanding, more thorough than discrete, has bestowed on the Libra astronómica y filosófica, which under the protection of Your Excellency’s patronage, I handed to the printers this same year. And if Your Excellency graciously lent an ear to the summary given by the direct sufferer,9 now that in a lengthier account 1. A Spanish title of respect formerly reserved for people of the highest social status. 2. Gaspar de la Cerda Sandoval Silva y Mendoza (Pastrana, Guadalajara, 1653–Santa Maria, Cadiz, 1697) was the thirtieth viceroy of New Spain from 1688 to 1696. 3. The town of Galve de Sorbe lies on the northern slope of the Alto Rey Mountains, north of Guadalajara and west of Sigüenza. Gaspar de Silva y Mendoza was the eighth Count of Galve and the last one in the Mendoza family to hold the title bestowed by Philip II on Baltasar Gastón Mendoza y de la Cerda in 1557. Today, the title belongs to the Royal House of Spain and to the House of the Dukes of Alba among other families. 4. Zalamea de la Serena, in Badajoz, is located halfway between the cities of Mérida and Cordova. In Roman Hispania, it was known as Lulipa and in the days of the Cordoba Caliphate as Miknasa al-Asnam. 5. The first edition misspells it as “seclavin.” But this must be a reference to the town of Ceclavín in Cáceres, which lies on the southern shore of the Alagón River where this flows into the Tajo River. Already by 1251, Ceclavín was under the tutelage of the master of the Order of Alcántara. 6. Tórtola de Henares, as the name indicates, is close to the Henares River, north of the city of Guadalajara. 7. Sacedón, in Guadalajara, lies on the Tajo River, in the middle of the road between the cities of Guadalajara and Cuenca. 8. Here Sigüenza fails to make the distinction between the failure in judgment, which is the Spanish “error,” and the result of the action of “errar,” which is the “yerro.” By definition, in Spanish, an error is the very fault in judgment and is different from the action that follows as a consequence of the lapse. 9. Ramírez.

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I represent them before your eyes, how could I fail to procure for myself the same attention? Alonso Ramírez closed in México the cycle of hardships that took him around the world, being captured by English pirates in the Philippines, and stranded on the coasts of Yucatán, here in America. And as Your Excellency felt pity on him as he retold them, who will doubt henceforth of whom might be the recipient of your munificence, if not he who would not know that Your Excellency tempers his greatness with his commiseration in such reciprocal conciliation as to match them, so that not even the clearest perspicacity can discern which [quality] comes first in Your Excellency: the greatness inherited from your most excellent ancestors or the innate piety of not denying compassion to the sorrowful lamentations of all the doleful who anxiously seek it? Thus, encouraged by what I see of this munificence practically every day, and by the certainty that the gates of the palace of Your Excellency are never closed to the destitute,10 in the name of he11 who gave me the subject matter to write about it, I dedicate this pitiful pilgrimage in honor of Your Excellency’s kindness of disposition, trusting, of course, as far as it concerns me, that in the high judgment to which I fearfully know you to submit matters of the world’s hydrography and geography, it will be worthy of your patronage and deemed of merit, etc. I kiss the hands of Your Excellency don Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora

10. Contrary to what López Lázaro argues, there is no textual indication here that Galve extended his charity to Ramírez’s shipmates. The cadence of the sentence and the number agreement clearly separate the mention of Galve’s welcoming attitude toward all the destitute from the source who gave Sigüenza the subject matter to write about—that is, Alonso Ramírez. See López Lázaro, Misfortunes, 179. 11. Ramírez.

APPROVAL OF THE LICENTIATE1 DON FRANCISCO DE AYERRA SANTA MARÍA,2 CHAPLAIN OF THE KING, OUR LORD, IN HIS ROYAL CONVENT OF JESÚS MARÍA IN MÉXICO CITY 3 Both to blindly obey your lordship’s decree in which you order me to censure the account of the Misfortunes of Alonso Ramírez, my countryman, described by don Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora, cosmographer to the King, our lord, and his professor of mathematics in this Royal University, as for the delightful novelty promised by its plot, I found myself engaged in the reading of the work. And if at first I entered into it with [a sense of] obligation and curiosity, in time, with such variety of subjects, temporal arrangement, and structure, I welcomed as a priceless gift what was announced as a studious task. The subject of this narration can be very proud that his misfortunes are today twice fortunate. Once, for being already gloriously suffered, which is what the muse of Mantua4 extolled through Aeneas on a similar occasion as he said to his Trojan comrades: “Forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit.”5 And then, because he was lucky to have [his ordeals retold through] the pen of this Homer—which is 1. Licentiate in canonic law. 2. Francisco de Ayerra (San Juan, Puerto Rico 1630–México City 1708) was born and raised in San Juan where his father, Juan de Ayerra Santa María, a captain in the Spanish Army and veteran of campaigns in Flanders and Portugal, was sergeant major of the island and its fortifications (see AGI, Contratación, 5789, L. 1, F. 99–200). Like Alonso Ramírez, he left San Juan at an early age for México City. There, he earned a degree in canonic law and was ordained. He was a recognized poet in his day and a close friend of both Sigüenza and Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. 3. This was one of the twenty-two convents operating in México City at the end of the seventeenth century. Six years before the publication of the Misfortunes, Sigüenza had published a history of the convent at the request of the nuns. Founded under the patronage of Phillip II more than a century earlier, the entire enterprise was in much need of financial support in Sigüenza’s time. See Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora, Paraíso occidental, plantado y cultivado por la liberal benéfica mano de los muy católicos y poderosos Reyes de España nuestros señores en su magnífico Real Convento de Jesús María de México (México City: Juan de Ribero, 1684). 4. Virgil. 5. “Perhaps even this will be a joy to recall someday.” Virgil, Aeneid, 1:203. After having suffered the wrath of the queen of the gods, Juno, who asked Aeolus, god of the winds, to send them a storm, the Trojan ships were set off course and only seven were spared, coming to land on the coast of Libya. There, after having hunted seven stags—one for each of the crews—Aeneas exhorted his comrades to persevere. Eventually, Aeneas would reach the Latium and found Rome. Interestingly, Ramírez will come to be shipwrecked on the coast of Bacalar with a crew of seven men.

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what Ausonius wished upon his Caesar: “Romanusque tibi contignat Homerus,” who with the good order of his narrations gave life to the undeveloped set of so many dismally confused events and was crowned with applause when he found the golden thread through the labyrinth where such roundabout stories were entangled. It is not the first time that, through his exquisite knowledge and extraordinarily laborious work, the author happily accomplishes what he undertakes with diligence, and as he has acquired a great volume of information on matters of geography and hydrography, I am not surprised that what was already half accomplished under these principles ended up being so fully complete. It was enough for the subject matter to be sufficiently substantive for him to polish it with his file. And it was not a matter of leaving only as hearsay what can be useful to study in writing because this6 consigned to writing is preserved and that7 with the passing of time is forgotten, and it is worth to impress upon memory a case without precedent. “Quis mihi tributat ut scibantur sermones mei? Quis mihi det ut exarentur in libro stylo ferreo, vel saltem sculpantur in silice?”8 Job wished for someone to write what he was relating so as to perpetuate it, and he was not content with anything less than having the chisel engrave on [a surface of] flint all that he had learned to endure: “Dura quae sustinet non vult per silentiun tegi,” the Glossa says, “sed exemplo ad notitiam pertrahi.”9 The subject10 found this “Quis mihi tributat” of Job—and he found all he could have desired—in the author of this broadly informative and useful account that, containing nothing worth censuring, will be very advisable for the printing press to eternalize.

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Thus I judge, clear it, etc.

27 28

México City, 26 of July of 1690 don Francisco de Ayerra Santa María

6. Sigüenza’s narration. 7. Ramírez’s testimony. 8. “Oh that my words were now written! Oh that they were printed in a book, that they were graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock forever!” ( Job 19:23–24). 9. “He does not wish to hide in silence the rigors he endures, but bring them to notice as exemplary.” This is a quote from the Glossa ordinaria, the standard Latin medieval commentaries to the Bible. 10. Ramírez.

SUMMARY OF LICENSES

By decree of the most excellent lord viceroy, Count of Galve, etc., of 26 of June of this year of 1690, and by judicial order given on the same day by the honorable doctor don Diego de la Sierra, etc., diocesan judge and general vicar of this archbishopric, license was granted to publish this account.

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Alonso rAmírez, etC .

30 31 32 33

I Motives he had for leaving his home country. Jobs [he had] and travels he made through New Spain. His time in México until going over to the Philippines.

I want for the curious who might read this for a few hours to be entertained with the news of what caused me deadly afflictions for many years. And although it is common to draw maxims and aphorisms—that amid the delightfully entertaining narration improve the reasoning process of whoever dwells in them—from events that only survived in the idea of he who feigns them, this will not be my intention here but rather to ask for the commiseration that, even when my trials are now over, at least will make their memories tolerable by bringing the pity received into the company of the sorrow I felt when I suffered through them. By saying this, I do not mean to overemphasize my sufferings, giving the wrong impression of lacking courage and thus, leaving aside matters of small import that could give reason for complaint to others who have never experienced as many tribulations as I have, I shall relate the main things I recall since they are the most notable in the series of events that happened to me. My name is Alonso Ramírez, and my home is the city of San Juan in Puerto Rico, capital of the island that, these days under that name and in antiquity under that of Borriquen,1 1. Also Boriquén, Borique, Buriquén, or Burichena, Spanish corruption of the Arawak name given to the island by its pre-Columbian inhabitants. Since the middle of the nineteenth century, the name Borínquen has found greater acceptance. See Adolfo de Hostos, Diccionario histórico bibliográfico comentado de Puerto Rico (Barcelona: Manuel Pareja, 1976), 181. It is worth noting that the text refers to the island named Borriquen by its ancient inhabitants with the Christian name of San Juan de Puerto Rico. Columbus called it San Juan, a name that would later be transferred to the main settlement upon its relocation between 1519 and 1521 on the western point of the inlet that guards the entrance to the great enclosed bay, a broad and secure sound located on the northeastern coast of the island that because of its excellent conditions came to be commonly described by sailors and visitors alike as the “great harbor” or “puerto rico.” During the sixteenth and well into the seventeenth centuries, both names were interchangeable. Eventually, during the course of the eighteenth century, a definite and somewhat perplexing change occurred in the nomenclature whereby the name given to the island by Columbus was used exclusively to refer to the capital city and the common name for the bay used to designate the entire island as Puerto Rico or Puertorrico. The first clear and reasoned enunciation of this change is made here, in the second paragraph of the Misfortunes, where the city is referred to as San Juan de Puerto Rico, and there is a direct allusion to the legend that the name of the island—that is, “wealthy port,” or Puerto Rico—was derived from the rich gold deposits that were found there by the Europeans. Still, the Misfortunes belongs to this period of transition. In the third paragraph, Alonso’s mother, Ana Ramírez, is said to have been born in the city of Puerto Rico.

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separates the Gulf of México2 from the Atlantic sea. The island is renowned for the refreshment that those who suffer thirst sailing from Old to New Spain find in its delightful watering station,3 the beauty of its bay,4 the unconquerable Morro Castle5 that defends it, the walls and bulwarks crowned with artillery that keep it secure, all this that can also be found in other parts of the [West] Indies being of less use [to its defense] than the spirit bestowed upon its children by the peculiar characteristics of that land favored by the hostile actions of privateers.6 This 2. The Gulf of México or “seno Mexicano” was the name given to the Caribbean Sea during the days of the Viceroyalty of New Spain (1535–1821). Similarly, the islands of the Antilles were known as the Mexican Archipelago. They are so named in the map drawn in 1688 by Vicente Coronelli, who was then “cosmographer of the Most Serene Republic of Venice.” 3. This is a reference to the western coast of the island, where the galleon fleets and other vessels that crossed the Atlantic would make first landing to replenish their fresh water supply. To this day, toponyms such as Aguada (Watering Place) or Aguadilla (Little Watering Place) mark the spot. These towns are far away from the city of San Juan, which lies on the eastern side of the island. 4. The bay of San Juan. 5. San Felipe del Morro is the bastioned fortress that sits on the northwestern point of the inlet of San Juan guarding the entrance to the bay. It was built during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries following the plans drawn up by Giovani Battista Antonelli in 1589. See figure 1. 6. Already in 1578, the Council of the Indies had established the Junta of Puertorrico to design and build a system of fortifications to safeguard the Spanish possessions in America from the attacks of English, Dutch, and French pirates and privateers. The project, which identified the city of “Puertorrico” as the key piece in the defense of the West Indies, called for the construction of massive and elaborate defensive works in San Juan, Santo Domingo, Havana, Cartagena, Santa Marta, Nombre de Dios, Portobelo, and Río Chagre, and it remains to this day the greatest construction project ever undertaken by a European imperial power. The works secured the empire but were unable to guarantee the security and prosperity of the inhabitants of the new fortified citadels. On the contrary, with the exception of Havana and Cartagena, which came to be important nodal points in the system of wealth extraction known as the Spanish Galleon Fleet, the other cities and towns suffered for centuries under the constant threat of pirate attacks without receiving any benefit. That was the case of the town and fortified enclave of San Juan, which was attacked three times before Ramírez’s birth. On November 22, 1595, the English privateer Francis Drake, commanding eight galleons, fifteen supporting vessels, and 1,500 men, bombarded the city but was unable to land due to the good aim of the ordinance fired from the Morro Castle and the fort of San Jerónimo. Three years later, the Count of Cumberland, George Clifford, was sent by Elizabeth I to avenge Drake’s defeat. On June 6, 1598, Cumberland reached San Juan at the head of the largest expedition sent from England to that date. He landed a thousand men and marched against the city, which he took without much trouble two days later. The attack and subsequent siege of the Morro Castle lasted two weeks. On June 21, the English colors were raised over the castle. Two weeks later, however, due to an epidemic of dysentery, Cumberland was forced to abandon the island in a less than heroic way. A quarter century later, on September 25, 1625, under contract from the newly established Dutch West India Company, Boudewijn Hendricks was able to sneak seventeen ships in front of the Morro and into the bay of San Juan. Hendricks destroyed the city, starting with the cathedral, but after five weeks of siege was unable to procure the Morro’s surrender and was forced to leave the island in a hurry and under heavy bombardment on November 1. The legacy of piracy in the Caribbean would be legitimated with the rise of the British Empire and with the territorial and military expansion of the country that inherited the English tradition of piracy in the Caribbean—that is, the United States of America. San Juan would be attacked again in 1797 by the English under

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determined disposition responds to no other motive than the pride and loyalty of its natives, since it is true that the wealth that gave name to it7 because of the gold deposits that once existed there8 today, due to the absence of the original inhabitants to work them and because of the force with which the tempestuous hurricanes cleared the cacao trees that in the absence of gold provided those engaged in the business, and consequently, the rest of the islanders, with the bare necessities, has been transformed into poverty. My parents were among those who fell under its grip9 in the strongest manner, and this had to be compelled because their actions were undeserving of it, but such has become the price of [living in] the Indies. My father was named Lucas de Villanueva, and although I do not know his birthplace, I am certain that he was Andalusian because on some occasions he was overheard stating the same.10 Ralph Abercromby, who failed to take the city. In 1898, the city suffered heavy bombardment from the Usonian navy under the orders of Captain Sampson. Since that year, Puerto Rico has been a colony of the Usonian Empire. During Ramírez’s times, the pirate threat was very real and very much tied to the interests of the English Crown. On August 31, 1664, when Alonso was less than two years old, the governor of Puertorrico, Juan Pérez de Guzmán, wrote to Phillip IV informing him of the “privateer ships that had left Jamaica and were roving all over the coasts of the [West] Indies because they had subjected all the places to piracy, being close to twenty frigates, some with ten and others with twenty cannons.” The governor added in his report that “in the islands of Nevis and Antigua that are part of the Windward [Islands] there were fifteen well-supplied English frigates with the intention of attacking Santo Domingo.” AGI, Santo Domingo, 157, R. 2, N. 51. 7. The island of Puerto Rico. 8. This false assumption continues to be an integral part of the “official” history of the country to this day. Simply put, the gold extracted during the first decades of the conquest was found in rivers and streams somewhat distant from the Bay of Puerto Rico. In any event, much more gold was found in Hispaniola, and no place there is named “rich.” There is indeed a Puerto Plata, or “Silver Harbor,” so called because of the deposits of the precious metal found inside the Monte Plata, or “Silver Mountain,” that rises above the small harbor. Evidently, it would be more glorious for certain people if the name of the country had been given by the so-called conquistadors, who with their high-sounding Spanish names entered Borriquen in search of riches, and not by the sailors and the all-anonymous “peoples of the sea” (“gentes de mar,” as they were known then) who came to escape from Europe and in search of a better life in the New World. 9. The grip of poverty. 10. This “he was overheard stating the same” leads us to believe that Alonso never met his father. I have not found any documents that mention one Lucas de Villanueva. Nevertheless, a certain Alonso de Villanueva y Segarra did live in Puerto Rico during this time after he was named sergeant major of the San Juan garrison on August 17, 1651 (see AGI, Contratación, 5789, L. 2, F. 22–24). Villanueva y Segarra had been born at the start of the century and already by 1616 had served in the galleys of the Marquis of Santa Cruz, been a soldier under Diego de Acevedo, and according to the account of his merits and services to the Crown of 1650, worked on the galleons of the Route of the Indies. He was a career officer who participated in the pacification of Nueva Granada and attained the rank of second lieutenant in Guyana and Cumaná, where he took part in the defense of the territory and of the town of Santo Tomé against the attack of Walter Raleigh. On the island of Margarita, he held different political and military posts, being named in 1643 captain in the Spanish Army before going over to Trinidad with Governor Martín de Mendoza to be named captain of

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And I know for a fact that my mother was born in the very city of Puerto Rico, and her name is Ana Ramírez to whose Christian ways during my childhood I owe the only thing that the poor can give their children, which is the advice that predisposes them to virtue. My father was a shipwright, and as soon as I was old enough he taught me the trade. But acknowledging that there was no steady work and fearing not always being able to make a living through this enterprise, added to the hardships that although still a boy I had to suffer, I decided to steal my body away from my very own country to go in search of better opportunities in foreign ones.11 To this end, I seized the opportunity that was offered me by a small store ship12 belonging to Captain Juan del Corcho,13 which was leaving that harbor bound for the port of Havana,14 and where, being the year 1675 and my age less than a regiment and later sergeant major of the garrison of Saint Joseph of Oruña in the capital of the island, a position he would hold until December 26, 1648 (see AGI, Indiferente, 113, N. 140). Alonso de Villanueva y Segarra lived in San Juan for twelve years, holding the second highest military rank after the governor, and there, he died in March of 1664. By then Alonso Ramírez was just over a year old. Until now, this is the most plausible explanation of who could have been Alonso’s father. Other scholars have pointed to this possibility. See López Lázaro, Misfortunes, 180. 11. See figure 2. 12. A transport ship that is broad beamed and slow. 13. This is, no doubt, the Corsican sailor Giovanni Michele, also known as Juan Miguel, Juan Miguel Corso, or Juan Corso, who by 1682 had been granted a privateer license by the governors of Yucatán and Havana with permission to attack English and French pirate ships and seize their cargoes. See César García del Pino, El corso en Cuba. Siglo XVII (Havana: Editorial Ciencias Sociales, 2001), 189–191. The mention in the Misfortunes places Giovanni Michele in the Antilles seven years earlier and already working as a merchant and trader. The royal decree authorizing the bestowal of letters of marque to the inhabitants of the West Indies and the Windward Islands had been given on February 22, 1674, almost two years before Ramírez left his hometown. It was intended to curtail the growing penetration of the English and French in the Antilles and Tierra Firme: “We should be wary that on the coasts of the Indies where the French have different settlements they will perpetrate all manners of hostile acts within their means, resulting in grave harm and damage to the inhabitants of the ports that are under the control of this Crown, and . . . the piratical acts carried [out] by the English in those seas, robbing and killing the vassals who conduct trade from one place to the other and pillaging the Campeche wood and other products and merchandise” (AGI, Indiferente, 430, L. 41, F. 328–329v). Henceforth, the privateers so designated by the viceroys and captain generals would be entitled to one-fifth of all the prices captured. In a letter dated March 13, 1683, the governor of Havana, Tomás Fernández de Córdoba, mentions the prices captured by “Captain Juan Corso” (AGI, Santo Domingo, 107, R. 2, N. 41). Five years later, in a letter of November 7, 1687, the military governor of Havana writes of a deceased Juan Corso, “who served well, fighting the enemies that infest this sound” (AGI, Santo Domingo, 109, R. 2, N. 29). The letter deals with the attack perpetrated by Juan Miguel’s brother, Biagio Michele, or Blas Miguel Corso, against the French in Petit-Goâve, Saint-Domingue, in August of that year. See also AGN, GD100 Reales Cédulas Originales, Vol. 22, Exp. 40, fs. 2. 14. See map 1 and figure 3. The distance between San Juan de Puerto Rico and Havana, or San Cristóbal de La Habana, is approximately one thousand nautical miles. Given the clues subsequently offered by the text concerning his passing through Perote, it is likely that Ramírez left San Juan sometime between August and October of 1675.

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thirteen, I was taken aboard as a younker.15 My occupation did not seem laborious as I considered myself to be free and without the chore of cutting wood; but I confess that, perhaps foretelling what was to come, I doubted if anything good could come from having availed myself of a cork as I set out on my venture.16 Who could deny then that my doubts were well founded, admonishing my future mishaps as the consequence of such a start? From the port of Havana, famous among all who enjoy the Windward Islands,17 both for the advantages with which nature fashioned it and for the fortresses that through art and vigilance have made it secure, we went on to that of San Juan de Ulúa18 on the mainland of New Spain, from where, parting with my skipper,19 I went up to the city of Puebla de los Ángeles having suffered great discomforts along the way due to the rugged trails that run from Xalapa up to Perote and to the cold temperatures that seemed intense because I had not experienced them before.20 Those who live in it speak of that city as being second only to México in size, in the straightness of its streets, in the magnificence of its churches, and in every other aspect that it may be comparable.21 And occurring to me, having not seen until then a bigger one than this, that in such a large city it would be very easy for me to obtain great advantages, I decided, without further thought, to remain 15. This was the first stage on the apprenticeship to becoming a sailor, known in Spanish as “paje de escoba,” or broom boy. The work entailed mostly cleaning and sanitary chores. All indications point to the possibility that Ramírez was born in the winter of 1662—that is, between November 1662 and March 1663. 16. This is a play on Juan del Corcho’s last name, as “corcho” in Spanish means “cork.” 17. In Spanish, the term Windward Islands, or Islas de Barlovento, designates the entire northern chain of the Antilles, running from Cuba to Trinidad. 18. The distance between Havana and San Juan de Ulúa is approximately 850 nautical miles. The castle of San Juan de Ulúa was built on Tecpantlayacatl Cay (1535–1735) to defend the city of Veracruz. It was the exclusive port of entry for all commerce on the Atlantic coast of New Spain, and it was here where the galleon fleet would come once a year to pick up the treasure of México and the goods acquired in the East Indies brought to Acapulco in the Manila galleon. At the time of Ramírez’s arrival, the castle’s main feature was an impressive one-hundred-meter-long wall with more than twenty heavy bronze rings close to two meters in diameter where the galleons and merchant ships were tied. See figure 4. 19. Captain Juan Miguel Corso. 20. The distance from San Juan de Ulúa (Veracruz) to Puebla is approximately three hundred kilometers. From Veracruz to Xalapa, Ramírez had no reason to think himself far from home in terms of climate and vegetation. But the trail from Xalapa (1,430 meters above sea level) to Perote, which lies at an altitude of 2,360 meters, is a steep climb through a pine forest to a village that lies above the clouds where in Ramírez’s day there was an inn for weary travelers. Up there, the vegetation is sparse, and there is a significant change of scale. The horizon is broad, the vistas are long, and the town of Perote lies at the base of a volcano known as the Cofre de Perote that rises to a height of 4,274 meters above sea level. Coming from hot climates in the ports of San Juan, Havana, and Veracruz, this landscape—and this climate—must have seemed very strange to the young island boy. Poor, hungry, and barefoot, there is no doubt that Alonso suffered much for lack of shelter. 21. At the time, Puebla was experiencing a golden age, and it was the third most populous city in the empire, after Seville and México City. See figure 5.

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there, placing myself in the service of a carpenter to make some money while I figured out another way to become rich. In the delay of six months that I wasted there, I suffered more hunger than in Puerto Rico and, abhorring the unwise decision to abandon my country for a land where there is not always room for unselfish generosity, joining a group of muleteers, I arrived in México City without much effort.22 It is a major pity that the great magnificent images of such a splendorous city are not distributed all over the world engraved with a diamond tip on gold plates. What I had perceived as great in Puebla was erased from my memory as soon as I set foot on the paved causeway that, in spite of it being built over a great lagoon, foreigners are allowed to cross during the middle of the day without paying a toll.23 And the magnanimity of its inhabitants being one of the first things worth praising in this city—[magnanimity] that is partly the result of there being plenty there of what is needed to spend life without having to work for a living—I blame my dark star24 for it having been necessary to exercise my trade in order to support myself. I was employed by Cristóbal de Medina,25 master builder and architect, with a good salary, in the commissions he obtained and must have spent about a year doing this.26 The motive I had to leave México City for the city of Oaxaca was the news that there, serving under the title and honorable office of alderman, was don Luis Ramírez27 on whom, being a relative of my mother, I trusted I could depend, if 22. The distance between Puebla and México City is approximately 125 kilometers. Given the description of the cold temperatures experienced in Perote, it is fair to assume that Ramírez arrived in Puebla during the winter of 1675 and that he left for México City in the summer of 1676. 23. Given the costly nature of the works, this is to be understood as a sign of the magnanimity of its inhabitants and of the “cabildo,” or city council. 24. The Spanish text speaks of “la fatalidad de mi estrella,” which should be understood as his bad luck. 25. Cristóbal de Medina Vargas Machuca was at the time one of the most important architects in México City and a close collaborator of Sigüenza, for they worked jointly on a hydraulic project to supply water to the city and drain its lagoon. For the “continuous services that he has provided this republic in the royal and public works,” he would be confirmed in the post of chief architect of public works of México City in 1680 (see AGI, México, 196, N. 16). When Alonso Ramírez came to work for Cristóbal de Medina, he was on the way to completing his first important commission, which was the chapel of the Mystery of the Incarnation (1675–1676), the first of fifteen such chapels built along the Calzada de los Misterios road, a work that owed itself to the growing worship of the Virgin of Guadalupe. For more information on the life and work of the chief architect, see Martha Fernández, Cristóbal de Medina Vargas y la arquitectura salomónica en la Nueva España durante el siglo XVII (México City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 2002). 26. Ramírez would work for Cristóbal de Medina approximately from the middle of 1676 to the middle of 1677, during which time he would turn fourteen years old. 27. On March 10, 1674, Captain Luis Ramírez de Aguilar was named chief justice and captain of Guadalcázar, present-day Santo Domingo Tehunatepec, Oaxaca (AGN, Reales Cédulas, 100, Vol. 30, Exp. 1202, Fojas 314Vta). On May 28, 1676, after his father’s resignation, he inherited the post of alderman of Antequera, today Oaxaca de Juárez (capital of the State of Oaxaca), where he had already served as judge and solicitor general. The king confirmed his appointment a year later, on March 20, 1677. He was also chief justice of Teotitlán del Valle

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not to obtain a promotion disproportionate with whatever reasons could be put forth, at least for a hand to do a little [social] climbing. Instead, all I got after a trip of eighty leagues,28 having him denied all kinship to me using very foul language, was to end up needing to rely on strangers to cope with an indifference that was very grievous because it was unexpected, and so, I applied myself to work under a traveling merchant by the name of Juan López. His business was to trade with the Mixes, Chontales, and Cuicatecans29 Castilian goods—which they lacked—for the ones that are common to that land and which are essentially cotton, blankets,30 vanilla, cacao, and cochineal. What is experienced in the rough mountainous terrain that in order to do this is continually crossed and tread underfoot is nothing but the repeated fear of falling because of the steep paths, the horrendous depth of the ravines, the constant rains, and the formidable obstructions, to which is added, in the small and very hot valleys that are found there, many mosquitoes and, everywhere, vermin abhorred by every living thing because of their deadly venom. All this leads to the discouragement in the longing for wealth, and all this I experienced following my master, convinced that the reward would be and of Macuisochitl. He was the owner of several plantations on the outskirts of Antequera, and at least on one occasion, he petitioned the king asking to be released from his posts and obligations in order to attend to his personal business (AGN, Oficios Vendibles, 80, Vol. 5, Exp. 4, Fojas 118–137v). Luis Ramírez claimed to be a descendant of the conquistador Cristóbal Gil and his wife, Ana Bernal, as well as Rodrigo de Jerez, the first governor of Antequera. His record of service of January 2, 1689, traces his lineage in Antequera back four generations to Cristóbal de Aguilar, alderman of the city at the end of the sixteenth century and to his wife, María Ramírez. Their son, Luis Ramírez de Aguilar, was named captain of the infantry of Antequera in 1605. In addition, he was mayor of Teotitlán and Macuisochitl. His son, the captain Nicolás Ramirez de Aguilar, was alderman and thrice mayor of Antequera, as well as mayor of Chinantla, Teotitlán, and Macuisochitl. Nicolás was married to Isabel de Robles Godoy, daughter of the captain Antonio de Robles Godoy (AGI, Indiferente, 123, N. 49). Luis Ramírez de Aguilar, product of this marriage, was husband to Francisca Flores Sierra y Valdés, a resident of México City. The union produced twenty offspring. With such distinctions and pretentions to an American pedigree, it is easy to accept that the alderman would deny any relation to the bastard child of one Ana Ramírez, being as she was also unwed, indigent, and a resident of the poor and forgotten outpost of San Juan de Puerto Rico. 28. More than likely, he made the trip in the middle of 1677. 29. Since pre-Columbian times, these peoples have occupied the highlands that surround the central valleys of Oaxaca. The lands of the Cuicatecans lay to the northwest of the valleys, halfway between the cities of Oaxaca and Tehuacán, in the Cuicatlán district. Those of the Mixes, to the east, run through the Northern Sierra in the direction of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, in the Mixe district. And those of the Chontales, to the southeast, extend over the Southern Sierra to the Gulf of Tehuantepec, in the Yautepec and Tehuantepec districts. All these territories form a broad band of land that begins 60 kilometers outside of the city of Oaxaca (formerly Antequera) and runs for 120, describing a semicircular arch that surrounds the central valleys in the direction of Chiapas. 30. The looms of Oaxaca were and are still known for their high-quality blankets and rugs. A good example of these are the ones produced today in Teotitlán del Valle, a village that lies on the outskirts of Oaxaca on the road to Tehuantepec.

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proportionate to the pains. We traveled to Chiapa de Indios31 and from there to different places in the provinces of Soconusco32 and Guatemala. But being a common recurrence in human events for the happy day of prosperity to be interrupted by the heavy and sad night full of sorrow, on the way back to Oaxaca, my master fell ill in the town of Tlalixtac33 to the extent that he was given the last rites. I felt his pain, and in the same measure, I felt mine, passing the time thinking of pursuits through which I could spend a more leisurely life. But with the recovery of Juan López, my troubled thoughts went away and I was reassured, but only for a moment, as in the next trip, all cures being inadequate, suffering the same symptoms, he passed away in the town of Cuicatlán.34 I received from his heirs the payment they chose to give me for the aid I provided to him and, displeased with myself and with my bad luck, I went back to México City. And wanting to enter that city with some money, I tried to procure it by finding work in Puebla. But I was not welcomed by a single master and, fearing the hunger that I had already experienced there once before, I hastened my trip.35 I owe the dedication I showed to my work during the year when I was an assistant to master Cristóbal de Medina,36 and to the dedication that my acquaintances came to see in me again, their endeavor to get me settled in México City. And I succeeded in this by getting married to Francisca Javiera,37 a maiden orphaned 31. Today Chiapa de Corzo, it was one of the ends of the Camino Real, or royal road, built by the Spaniards to connect México and Guatemala. The other end of the road was the city of Antigua, seat of the captain generalcy of Guatemala. 32. The province of Soconusco, which since 1565 fell under the jurisdiction of the Captain Generalcy of Guatemala, occupied the lands of the Sierra Madre de Chiapas on the Gulf of Tehuantepec on the southwestern tip of what today is México. Since pre-Columbian times, it was the main commercial corridor linking the Valley of México with Meso-America. 33. Today Santa María Tlalixtac in the land of the Cuicatecans. 34. San Juan Bautista Cuiclatlán lies in the heart of Cuicatecan country, almost equidistant between Oaxaca and Tehuacán. This must have occurred early in 1682. By that time, Ramírez had worked for Juan López for almost five years, from the age of fourteen to the age of nineteen years old. 35. It must have been the end of the spring of 1682. 36. Cristóbal de Medina Vargas Machuca had been named chief architect of public works of México City on June 12, 1679. 37. According to the Index of Marriages (Índice de Matrimonios de la Parroquia del Sagrario Metropolitano, 1667–1730) the marriage was registered in book 11, page 114 (see AGN, Distrito Federal, Parroquia del Sagrario Metropolitano, JIT YW 728 [271], 1667–1730, folio 10). It took place in the cathedral of México City on Sunday, November 8, 1682. See figure 6. This is the only official document found to date confirming that the legal name of the main character in the Misfortunes was indeed Alonso Ramírez. The entire record reads: “[Marriage of] Alonso Ramírez with Francisca Javiera. On the eighth of November of the year one thousand six hundred and eighty-two, I, father don Francisco Romero de Quevedo, parish priest of this Holy Church, gave the wedding vows that joined Alonso Ramírez to Francisca Javiera in true and legitimate matrimony, having as witnesses the licentiates don Juan de Padilla and Felipe Manrique, priests in attendance, and other people. Don Francisco Romero de Quevedo.” Archivo Histórico del Arzobispado de México (AHAM), Libro de matrimonio de españoles de esta Santa Iglesia Catedral de México, que empieza el 1ro de abril de 1680 hasta 1688, roll 14, page 114. This roll is part of the documents in microfilm of the Church of Latter Day Saints (M619649,

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daughter to [the widow] doña María de Poblete,38 sister of the venerable gentleman doctor don Juan de Poblete, dean of the cathedral of México who, refusing the post of archbishop of Manila to die like the phoenix in his home nest,39 led a life of example to all those who may want to aspire to keep their own memory alive forever through the righteousness of their actions. I know quite well that to mention his name is to encompass all that can fit into the greatest nobility and the most outstanding virtue, and thus, I keep to myself so as not to extend my story, though with reluctance, all [the praise] that gratitude is evoking in me.40 I saw much virtue in my wife, and she found my devotion to her deserving of affectionate love. But this happiness was like a dream, lasting only eleven months, since she lost her life delivering our first child.41 Thus I was left without her in such an unexpected and deeply felt blow, and to make everything worse, I went back to Puebla. I found employment as a journeyman42 under Esteban Gutiérrez, master carpenter, and since my so-called master was hardly able to defend himself from poverty, how could his poor journeyman have been expected to get by?43 At that point, I lost all hope of ever amounting to anything and, finding myself both accused and convinced of my guilt of ineptitude in the court of my own conscience, I resolved to give myself the same punishment for that crime that is given in México to those who are delinquents, which is to send them into exile in the Philippines. I went over to them44 in the Santa Rosa galleon that, under the

1672–1688, 0035269), of which there is also a copy in the AGN, Sagrario Metropolitano, Matrimonio de españoles, OAH 526 (ZD) 11, 1680–1688, where that particular roll is missing. Francisca Javiera was the daughter of Juan de Ribera, a notary public who became disabled due to an illness at the end of 1648 and died five years later, leaving his widow, María de Poblete, pregnant with their sixth child. Given the death of her father on March 1, 1653, Francisca Javiera was at least ten years older than her husband, who was already nineteen years old. 38. With the support of the religious order of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, María de Poblete had acquired the reputation of sponsoring miracles. No doubt Ramírez got a firsthand experience in chicanery during his association with the Ribera-Poblete household. For more details, see the section titled “A Holy Imbroglio” in the main essay of this edition. See also the welldocumented book by Martha Lilia Tenorio, De panes y sermones: El milagro de los “panecitos” de Santa Teresa (México City: El Colegio de México, 2001). 39. On April 23, 1670, Juan de Poblete was ordered to leave for Manila to take charge of the archbishopric (see AGI, Filipinas, 348, L. 5, F. 124r–124v). He died ten years later in México City on July 8, 1680. 40. Contrary to what Sigüenza might have thought—and there is reason to believe that here the praise of Poblete is coming from his Mexican friend and not from Ramírez, who could have never gotten to know him—the record shows that the profiteering from María de Poblete’s miraculous hosts was a complex operation that was set up with her brother Juan’s help, complicity, and protection. 41. Francisca Javiera must have died at the end of October of 1683. It is not clear if the child was delivered alive. 42. We are to infer that Ramírez had finished his apprenticeship, though he did not yet possess the qualifications of a master carpenter. 43. Ramírez must have gone to work for Gutiérez near the end of 1683. 44. The Philippine Islands.

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command of General Antonio Nieto and having Admiral Leandro Coello as pilot, left the port of Acapulco for that of Cavite in the year 1682.45 This port is at 16 degrees and 40 minutes latitude north, and for all its beauty and the safety it provides to the ships that are sheltered there, it is inconvenient 45. The Santa Rosa galleon was never in Acapulco during 1682. Its most recent crossing of the Pacific began in Manila on June 24, 1679. Seven months later, on January 22, 1680, it was being unloaded in Acapulco, where it was to spend the usual two months before going on the return trip. On March 15, it left Acapulco for Manila, where it arrived almost seven months later. There, it would remain for almost two years. Its next voyage would not take place until June 25, 1682, when it departed Manila under the command of General Antonio Nieto. One hundred and eighty-five days later, the Santa Rosa would put back into Cavite on Christmas Day. According to the report of the captain general of the Philippines, Juan de Vargas Hurtado, the galleon “was unable to leave these islands nor to exit the San Bernardino [Straits] due to the general lack in them of the gales” (AGI, Filipinas, 11, R. 1, N. 48/1/1). Neither was Antonio Nieto in Acapulco during that year. He had arrived in the Philippines in charge of the Santa Rosa at the beginning of July of 1680. By October of the same year, he would be sent by Vargas Hurtado to Macao in search of weapons, bringing back with him in 1681 five hundred harquebuses and muskets for the Cavite garrison. Nieto had requested and obtained from Vargas Hurtado a license to trade with Canton in exchange for carrying the cost of the expedition (AGI, Filipinas, 24, R. 2, N. 11). Nieto and Vargas Hurtado had no prior relation, since the first was on his way to Acapulco aboard the Santa Rosa when the second was arriving in Manila on board the San Antonio galleon. Evidently, neither of the two wasted any time in going into business together, well known as they both became for enriching themselves excessively on account of their posts in the Philippines. Barely two months went by between the unloading of the Santa Rosa and the expedition to Canton and Macao. It would not be until June 22, 1683, when Antonio Nieto would again take command of the Santa Rosa bound for Acapulco. He arrived there on January 23, 1684, choosing wisely not to return to the Philippines and to remain in that harbor as governor of her castle. The Santa Rosa would depart for Manila on March 31 without her captain of many years and would bring aboard the new captain general of the Philippines, Gabriel de Curucelaegui y Arriola, sent to replace the deposed Vargas Hurtado, who would be excommunicated and placed under house arrest for four years before being sent to New Spain. For his part, Antonio Nieto would return to the Philippines the next year as general in charge of the galleon Santo Niño y Nuestra Señora de Guía, which left Acapulco on March 28, 1685 (see AGI, Contaduría, 906B/5/12). There he would continue to be an important figure in the bureaucratic and military apparatus of the Acapulco ship holding the posts of lieutenant governor of the Province of Camarines and master of the harbor of Solsogón (see AGI, Contaduría, 1245/18r). Given the known date of his wedding and the mention of the Santa Rosa galleon in the book, it is clear that Ramírez could not have left Acapulco in 1682. The only galleon that left for Manila that year was the San Antonio de Padua, which cast off on Friday March 27, almost seven months before Alonso’s marriage to Francisca Javiera. Because the Santa Rosa had to put back to Manila in December of 1682, there was no galleon in Acapulco the next year. To make up for that setback, two galleons were sent in 1684. Thus if Ramírez did not leave Acapulco on board the Santa Rosa with Curucelaegui, then he left four days later, on April 4, aboard the San Antonio de Padua, whose pilot was Admiral Leandro Coello (see AGI, Contaduría. 906B/2/4). So far, I have been unable to locate the loading manifest of these two ships in the AGI or the AGN. But we know, given what he would tell the pirates, as reported by Dampier, that Ramírez left on the Santa Rosa, as it states in the book, although not in 1682 but on March 31, 1684. Given that he had no experience as a sailor, save for having worked as a cabin boy on the voyage from San Juan to Veracruz seven years before, we will also assume that he could not have aspired to any position above that of an apprentice seaman.

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and unpleasant to its inhabitants, which are few, both for its bad atmospheric conditions and the sterility of the landscape as for the lack of fresh water and even food, which is always brought from the outlying region, and adding the intolerable heat that is experienced, [and] the cliffs and precipices along the road, all of which entices [a person] to seek a quick way out of the harbor.46

46. See map 2.

II He leaves Acapulco for the Philippines. An account of the course followed on this voyage and of how he spent the time until he was captured by the English.

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Setting out [from Acapulco] is done with the offshore wind from the westnorthwest or northwest, which comes in around eleven in the morning. But the offshore wind from the southwest being more common, and the way out being to the south and south-southwest, to avoid repeated tacking, it is necessary to wait until three in the afternoon because, after the sun has crossed the meridian, the wind draws aft, changing direction from west-northwest to northwest, and it is then possible to set out without beating.1 Sail out from there turning to the south, running with the offshore winds—without minding too much the slight changes in bearing, or the minor movement away from the course2—until reaching a latitude of 12 degrees or a bit less. Here, the winds begin to shift from northeast to north, until the one commonly known as east-northeast-and-east wind is met, [and] heading west-southwest, west, and [then] to one point northwest, you must travel away from that meridian five hundred leagues, and it is advisable to end up then at 13 degrees of latitude. From this point, the needles [of the compasses] begin to decline to the northeast, and upon reaching 18 degrees of variation, you will have sailed 1,100 leagues without counting the 500 leagues I have mentioned. And without deviating from the thirteenth parallel, when the declination of the needle to northeast gets to be only 10 degrees—which will be when you are 1,705 leagues from the meridian of Acapulco—after a run of 20 leagues or a little more, you will reach the southern tip of one of the Mariana Islands, named Guam,3 which lies between 13 degrees and 5 minutes, and 13 degrees and 25 minutes. Passed an islet that is near to it,4 you must luff and sail close-hauled displaying the studding sails5 to cast anchor in Umatac Bay, which is closest, and keeping away the distance of one single cannon shot 1. Tacking into the wind. 2. Leaving Acapulco in a galleon as explained here is a relatively simple maneuver, since the ship heads out immediately into the open sea. That is why it is pointed out that slight changes in bearing or deviations from a straight course to the south are not to be minded. 3. The Spanish named it San Juan Bautista de Guam. Ramírez was in Guam onboard the Santa Rosa from June 8 to 12, 1684. 4. This is a reference to Cocos Island, which lies between Aga Point and Umatac and is surrounded by a coral barrier that extends out from it almost two kilometers to the southwest. 5. López Lázaro erroneously adds here a distance of one hundred leagues. López Lázaro, Misfortunes, 111.

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from the reef that lies to the west of this islet, you will be able to anchor in twenty fathoms,6 or whatever may be chosen, because the bottom is good and clean. In order to seek from here the entrance of the Strait of San Bernardino,7 you must set out west by one point southwest, careful to correct the course as the declination of the needle diminishes and, after sailing for 295 leagues you will come upon the Cape of Espíritu Santo that lies at 12 degrees and 45 minutes, and it is better if you can seek a more southerly route because if the strong winds that come from the south-southeast or from the southeast come early, it will be extremely important to be to the lee of, and sheltered by, the island of Batag8 and by the cape proper. Once the breezes start to blow, you shall sail along the coastline of this island for about twenty leagues, keeping the bow to the west-northwest, yawing west, because here the compass is no longer needed, and passing to the eastern side of the San Bernardino Cay9 in the direction of the island of Capul,10 which lies four leagues to the southwest. From here, you shall steer west six leagues to the island of Ticao, and, after running up its coast for five leagues in the northwest direction until reaching its northern tip, you will turn to the west-southwest looking for the narrow passage between the islands of Burias and Masbate. There is almost a league between one [island] and the other, and of them, Burias is the one to the north. This narrow passage is about four leagues from the [northern] tip of Ticao. Having passed these dire straits, you shall steer to the west-northwest looking for the narrow passage between Marinduque and Banton Islands, of which the latter is three quarters of a league to the south of the former, and they are both seventeen from Burias. From there, setting out northwest by one point west, you shall go in search of the islets of Mindoro, Lobo, and Calapan.11 Then, [running] through the Passage of Verde Island and Mindoro, you will sail west for eleven or twelve leagues close to the island of Ambil, and the fourteen leagues from here to Mariveles—that lies at 14 degrees and 30 minutes12—are surmounted by heading northwest, north, and northeast. From Mariveles, you shall look for the port of Cavite heading northeast, east-northeast, and east for about five leagues to avoid the shoal that lies to the east-northeast of Mariveles at a depth of four and a half fathoms.13 6. A fathom equals 1.8288 meters. 7. The Strait of San Bernardino is a passage between the islands of Luzon and Samar in the Philippines. 8. The text erroneously states the name of the island to be Palapag, which is a port on the north coast of the island of Samar. The island of Batag lies to the north of Palapag and is no doubt the correct reference. 9. The cay is located on the eastern side of the strait that bears its name. 10. Capul lies between the island of Samar and the Ticao Passage. 11. The original says “Galván” for “Calapán.” Neither of these is an islet. Calapan is a city on the northern coast of the island of Mindoro. Just to the north of this, across the Verde Island Passage, is the town of Lobo on the southern coast of the island of Luzon. 12. The peak of Mariveles rises on the northern end of the entrance to Manila Bay. 13. Ramírez reached Manila on August 31, 1684, after a voyage of 153 days. He was then twenty-one years old. See map 3.

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Having lost all hope during the course of my voyage of ever breaking outside of my social sphere, regretting that many with less merit managed to improve their condition, I dispelled from my imagination all the ideas that for some years had been a hindrance. In those islands, there is plenty of abundance, enjoyed most especially in the city of Manila. All that one may want in the way of food and clothing can be found there at moderate prices due to the diligence with which, eager to enrich themselves, the Chinese14 conduct business in their Parian [neighborhood],15 which is the place beyond the walls where they live with permission of the Spaniards. This, as well as the beauty and the strong fortifications of the city, added to the pleasant character of its river and vegetable gardens, and together with everything else that makes her renowned among the colonies possessed by the Europeans in the Orient, is what makes people glad to have come to live there. The products sold there are generally imported, and because the movement of ships back and forth is there almost continuous, I settled in Cavite16 as a sailor. Through these means, I managed not only to trade in things that I profited from and which promised great returns in the future but also to see several cities and ports in India on several trips.17 I was in Madraspatnam18—in ancient times known as Calamina or Meliapor, where Saint Thomas the Apostle died19—once a great city when it was under Portuguese rule and today a mound of ruins due to the havoc brought upon by the French and the Dutch in their attempt to take possession of it. I was in Melaka,20 key to all India and its commerce for the place it occupies in the Strait of Singapore,21 whose governor collects anchoring 14. The original text uses the archaic term “sangley” for Chinese. 15. Only the Spaniards and mestizos of Spanish and Filipinos were allowed to live inside the walled city. The Parian was located on the site of present-day Mehan Gardens, between the Metropolitan Theater and the City Hall. 16. The town of Cavite, protected at the time by the Castle of San Felipe Neri, is on the northern tip of a narrow peninsula to the southwest of Manila. See figure 7. 17. The geography described is that of the East Indies. The trips mentioned immediately hereafter took place over a period of two and a half years, from September 1684 to March 1687. See map 4. 18. The original says “Madrastapatan.” It is the city of Madras, known today as ChennaiMadras, the capital of the state of Tamil Nadu, located on the Coromandel coast of southeastern India. Founded in 1639 by Francis Day and Andrew Cogan, who ordered the construction there of Fort Saint George, Madras was the second trading post of the English East India Company and seat of the first Protestant church in the East, Saint Mary’s, consecrated in 1680. 19. Madraspatnam is not Meliapor. Founded by the Portuguese in 1522 as Saint Thomas of Meliapor (Mylapore), this settlement was five kilometers south of Fort Saint George. Meliapor remained under Portuguese sovereignty until 1662, when it fell to the Shia Muslim army of Abdullah Qutb Shah of Golconda. The French seized it in 1672 and in September of 1674 surrendered it to the Dutch, who, in turn, a month later surrendered it to the Qutbshahi. In 1749, it fell into English hands. 20. Located on the west coast of the Malay Peninsula, between Kuala-Lumpur and Singapore, Melaka (or Malacca) was occupied by the Portuguese from 1511 to 1641, when it went to the Dutch until 1795. 21. The original text calls it by the older name of “Strait of Syncapura,” or Singapore. Known today as the Strait of Malacca, it connects the Indian Ocean to the South China Sea.

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fees from all who sail through it. It—and many others—belongs to the Dutch under whose yoke suffer the helpless Catholics who have remained there, forbidden to practice the true religion, while the Moors22 and idolaters who are their vassals are not hampered in their rituals. I was in Batavia,23 a most famous city they possess in Java Major, wherein resides the governor and captain general of the United States of Holland. Her walls, bulwarks, and fortresses are worthy of admiration. There is no way of measuring the great number of ships that can be seen there belonging to Malays,24 Macassars,25 Siamese,26 Buginese,27 Chinese, Armenian,28 French, English, Danish, Portuguese, and Castilians. All the manufactured goods from Europe as well as those that, in return for these, are shipped from Asia, can be found in this emporium. Excellent weapons are made there for anyone who may wish to purchase them. I say it all, though, by stating that everything in the world can be found there. I was also in Macao,29 where, although fortified by her Portuguese rulers, her inhabitants are still exposed to the superstitions of the Tartars30 who rule greater China. More than for my pleasure, I was engaged in these affairs out of personal convenience. But there was not a shortage of times when, obeying those who could order me around, I did the same,31 and it was one such occasion that triggered the wretched events that have enveloped me and that began in the following manner: In order to be supplied with the provisions that we were lacking in the citadel of Cavite, by order of the general don Gabriel de Curucelaegui,32 who governed the islands, a single-deck frigate was dispatched to the Province of Ilocos so that, as it had been done before, they could be brought from there.33 All who boarded 22. The original text uses the term “moros,” which is the pejorative appellative historically employed in the Christian kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula to refer to people of the Muslim faith. 23. Batavia, or New Batavia, today Jakarta, was founded in 1619 and was the headquarters of the Dutch East India Company. 24. The people of Malacca. 25. The people from Macassar, today Ujungpandang in the southwestern end of the island of Sulawesi (Celebes), Indonesia. 26. Belonging to what today is Thailand. 27. The Buginese-speaking peoples live in the adjacent lands to the north of Malacca in Sulawesi. 28. Generally used to refer to Christians from Asia Minor and the Persian Gulf region. 29. A former emporium on the southern coast of China, Macao was a Portuguese colony from 1557 to 1987. 30. A reference to the Ch’ing Manchu dynasty of China. 31. That is, he acted more out of convenience than pleasure. 32. The original text erroneously calls him “Cuzalaegui.” Gabriel de Curucelaegui y Arriola, knight of the Order of Santiago and alderman of the City of Seville, was captain general of the Philippine Islands from August 24, 1684, until his death on April 17, 1689. 33. After various years of good and plentiful harvests, 1687 was a year of scarcity in Manila. The documentary sources attest to this in the repeated instances that vessels were sent in search of rice to feed the soldiers and sailors in Cavite. See AGI, Contaduría, 1244 and 1245. In this case, we know that the frigate was named Our Lady of Aránzazu and Saint Ignatius (AGI, Filipinas, 12, R. 1, N. 60/4/66), and it left Cavite for Currimao and Lyngayen, in the

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the ship were men of the sea, and I was given command of her and of them, who were twenty-five.34 From the royal armory I was handed four boarding pikes and Province of Ilocos, on January 30, 1687. There it picked up 2,101 cavanes (127 metric tons) of clean rice, 2,000 Iloco blankets, cotton thread, and mail, including a letter from the sergeant major of Ilocos, Francisco Ramírez Nieto, to Governor Curucelaegui. See AGI, Filipinas, 12, R. 1, N. 60/2 and 4. Some documents refer to the ship as a sloop, establishing the fact that this was a single-mast ship. 34. The captain of the ship was not named Alonso Ramírez. In a letter dated December 27, 1687, Governor Curucelaegui informed the Crown that in March of that year, English pirates had captured “a sloop loaded with rice belonging to Your Grace . . . and with her a Captain who has lived in the point and shore of Cavite named Felipe Ferrer, a person who has served Your Grace a great deal, and very knowledgeable in maritime matters, and who will be sorely missed because he had been in charge of the construction works in the harbor of Cavite” (AGI, Filipinas, 12, R. 1, N. 60/1/9). See figure 8. The official documents include testimonies of four of the crew members of Our Lady of Aránzazu and a soldier, all of whom were released by the pirates on March 7, two days following the capture, and questioned in Manila on March 13 and 14. They also include the testimonies of five other crew members released by the pirates on October 12, 1687, and interrogated in Manila on February 2 of the following year. Two of the men released on March 7 give the precise number of men in the frigate to be twenty-five, including Ferrer. The two documents in question (AGI, Filipinas, 12, R. 1, N. 60/2; and AGI, Filipinas, 12, R. 1, N. 60/4) furnish us with half the list of all crew members and officers: Officers: Felipe Ferrer, captain Francisco Acosta, boatswain Antonio de Guevara, ensign, age 60 or older Seamen: Mateo Francisco, age 36 Bartolomé Luis, age 33 Diego Vendón, age 29 José Baltasar, Spaniard, age 21 Luis Ángel, age 20 or older José de Valnera Apprentice seamen: Alonso de Luna, age 18 Servants: Silvestre Mojica, mulatto, age 29, slave to Felipe Ferrer Juan del Pilar, Japanese mestizo, age 18, servant to Francisco Acosta The book adds eight more names without pointing out their rank, age, or occupations, with the sole exception of Ramírez and his slave: Alonso Ramírez, Spaniard from San Juan de Puerto Rico, captain, age 24 Juan de Casas, a Spaniard from Puebla Juan Pinto, from Pangasinan Marcos de la Cruz, from Pampanga Francisco de la Cruz, Chinese mestizo Antonio González, Chinese Juan Díaz, from Malabar Pedro, from Mozambique, slave to Alonso Ramírez It would be pointless to attempt to reconcile the names in the book with those in the official documents in an effort to come up with a complete list of the crew. Clearly, more than one

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two muskets that needed to be lit with fuses as their hammers were broken.35 They also gave me two handfuls of bullets and five pounds of gunpowder.36 With this supply of guns and ammunition, and without artillery, or even a swivel gun37—even though I had six gun ports—I set sail.38 It took six days to get to Ilocos, nine or ten were taken up in the procurement and loading of the supplies, and on the fifth day of the return trip, tacking with the breeze39 to enter the harbor through the Mariveles Channel, around four in the afternoon, we spied two ships by the shoreline.40 And assuming, not just me but everyone who was with me, of the names given in the book are made up, and it is highly probable that some of the men who ended up being shipwrecked on the coast of Bacalar were not originally crewmembers of the Our Lady of Aránzazu. As I have explained in the introduction, the important thing here is that Alonso Ramírez had already adopted the name and was passing himself off as Felipe Ferrer who, as we know, had been boatswain of the Santo Niño y Nuestra Señora de Guía (Holy Child and Our Lady of Guidance) galleon on its maiden voyage from Manila to Acapulco. In it, he sailed out of Manila on July 1, 1684. He was in Acapulco from December 24, 1684, to March 27, 1685. The Santo Niño was already back in Cavite by October 12 of the same year. We know this from a 1693 document in which Ferrer is mentioned as not having paid the income tax known as the “media anata” in 1684 and was given up for dead: “Captain Felipe Ferrer, deceased boatswain of said galleon, owes eighteen pesos” (AGI, Filipinas, 33, N. 2/88/2). It is clear that Felipe Ferrer and Alonso Ramírez were not the same person, because when Ferrer left Manila on the Santo Niño galleon on June 1, 1684, Ramírez was sailing on the Santa Rosa and, having been in Guam, was two months away from arriving in that city. 35. As their trigger mechanisms were broken, the muskets had to be fired the old way, the crew having to carry the lit fuses between their fingers or teeth or, as it states hereunder in the text, having one man aim while another lit the powder with a hot coal. 36. The testimony of Bartolomé Luis, one of the sailors freed by the pirates on March 7, confirms that the crew of Our Lady of Aránzazu had four pikes with which to defend themselves. However, even though he confesses to having had no “strength of gunpowder and shot,” he indicates that they had six muskets and one shotgun—that is, five additional firearms from the number given in the book. See AGI, Filipinas, 12, R. 1, N. 60/2/9,10. These additional guns were very probably the personal property of the sailors, including Ramírez, who could have acquired his in Batavia, where, as stated in his testimony, excellent weapons were made “for anyone who may wish to purchase them.” 37. Small and portable cannon that is held by a fork that is mounted on any number of sockets on the rails. It can fire a ten- to eighteen-pound ball. 38. This was Thursday, January 30, 1687. 39. Plying windward against the easterly wind. 40. According to the accounts of the crew, the frigate Our Lady of Aránzazu left Cavite at the end of January and more specifically around the thirtieth day, which that year fell on a Thursday. If we follow the calculations in the book, counting back from March 4, the date that will be given shortly hereafter, the frigate would have left Cavite around Thursday, February 13—that is, two weeks after the date given in the official documents. In terms of the place where the event occurred, the documents state that it was not at the entrance of Mariveles but close by the island of Capones, which is some forty-three nautical miles or fourteen leagues to the north. William Dampier, who traveled aboard the pirate ship, provides an intermediate distance, stating that the capture took place seven to eight leagues from Manila. See William Dampier, “A New Voyage Round the World,” in Dampier’s Voyages, ed. John Masefield (London: E. Grant Richards, 1906), 1:385. The documents and the book differ also in terms of the weather. The book states that the frigate was tacking with the breeze. All the testimonies concur in that the wind was calm, and thus “the frigate was unable to sail” (AGI, Filipinas, 12, R. 1, N. 60/2/15). The discrepancy in terms of time is not that significant. The

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that they were the ones that under the command of Captains Juan Bautista and Juan de Caraballo had gone to Pangasinan41 and Panay42 in search of rice and other things that were needed in the citadel of Cavite and other points in the district, even though I was to their lee, I continued on my course without any suspicions because there was none to be had. I could not help to beware when within a short time I saw two piraguas43 rowing fast in my direction, and I got extremely scared when, as they got closer, I recognized them as belonging to the enemy. Ready to take up the defense as best I could with my two muskets and four boarding pikes, bullets rained on us from the repeated gunshots taken by those who approached in them,44 but without boarding us. At the same time, we responded with the muskets, one man doing the aiming and another firing it with a red-hot coal, and in the meanwhile, we were splitting the bullets with a knife so that, having double the munitions for more shots, we could prolong our ridiculous resistance. All at once, we had the two large vessels we had seen before—and from whence the two piraguas had set out—fall upon us almost immediately, and unfurling the topsails, asking for quarter, more than fifty Englishmen cutlasses at hand came into my frigate. Having seized the quarterdeck while forcing us through blows to retreat to the bow, they celebrated with plenty of mockery and laughter the supply of arms and ammunition they found, and it was all the greater [a celebration] when they found out that the frigate belonged to the king and that the weapons had been taken from his armory. It was then six in the afternoon of Tuesday, the fourth day of March of sixteen eighty-seven.45 testimonies of the crew place the sighting at 4:30 in the afternoon. The discrepancy that is indeed of major importance is that all the eyewitnesses in the documents declare to have seen one ship and not two. 41. Region on the northwestern coast of the island of Luzon, located between Ilocos and Manila, on the shores of the Gulf of Lingayen. 42. Island, south of Luzon, that lies in the center of the archipelago of the Philippines. 43. A rowboat made by hollowing out a tree trunk. Depending on its size, it can carry from one to upward of thirty rowers. Also pirogue. Dampier calls it periago. 44. The piraguas. 45. See map 5. The official documents confirm that the attack lasted until seven at night, an hour longer than stated in the book (see AGI, Filipinas, 12, R. 1, N. 60/4/8). They also indicate that altogether there were six wounded men, four attackers, and two defenders, including Antonio de Guevara, who suffered a bullet wound to his left forearm (AGI, Filipinas, 12, R. 1, N. 60/2/34). There are other minor details and differences in the sequence of events and in the tone of the two main narratives in Spanish that we have of the same events. Compare the two paragraphs above to the testimony of the sailor and crewmember Bartolomé Luis: “This witness said that he is one of the salaried sailors of the port of Cavite and that, as far as he is able to remember, he left said port of Cavite fifty-two days ago in a Royal frigate bound for the Province of Ilocos together with thirteen other seamen form said port and ten apprentice seamen and, as master of said frigate and her captain Felipe Ferrer, to transport rice and other products property of His Majesty to supply the Royal Warehouses of this city. And having arrived at said province and loaded in said frigate two thousand one hundred and one baskets of clean rice, and two thousand Iloco blankets more or less, and some cotton, all belonging to His Majesty, for said provisioning, on the way back on Tuesday which was the

III1 A summary is given of the plundering and cruelties carried out by these pirates on land and sea until arriving in America.

Knowing me to be the person in charge of the ship and transferring me to the largest one of theirs, the captain greeted me with insincere pleasantries. With his first words, he promised to set me free if I gave him information on which were the richest places in the islands and if great resistance could be met there. I responded that I had only sailed from Cavite to the Province of Ilocos, wherefrom I was returning and, hence, I could not comply with his request.2 He pressed me to tell him if in the island of Capones,3 which is fourteen leagues northwest4 from Mariveles, he could provision his ships and if there were people there that fourth day of this month [of March], at approximately four thirty in the afternoon and the wind being calm, having in front of us the island named Capones, which is eighteen leagues away from this city, from this frigate we sighted a vessel that was to the land side of said island and close to it. And not recognizing what vessel it was, and the weather preventing them from continuing their voyage, close to nightfall this witness and the rest of them in the frigate saw a piragua coming towards them which they presumed belonged to some of the vessels from the port of Cavite that conduct trade in these islands. And said piragua having arrived next to said frigate they asked the people in the ship where that ship was coming from and where it was heading, to which they replied from said frigate ‘from the sea.’ And at said answer they said to lower sails and this witness and the rest in the frigate did not want to lower them, asking them to come on board and lower them themselves, to which reasons the people of the piragua fired a dense discharge of shot at said frigate. And those who were aboard her, with four pikes, six muskets and one shotgun, defended themselves fighting until the arrival of the ship they had seen, and whence said piragua had come from. And the people in said ship began to shout to the people in said frigate telling them to lower the sails, and said frigate surrendered knowing themselves not to have enough gunpowder and shot, nor [sufficient] people to defend themselves both from the ship and from the close to thirty shotguns that were in said piragua, even though in the battle they had wounded four of them. And said thirty men form said frigate having boarded her, this witness and the others who were in the frigate recognized they were English men.” (AGI, Filipinas, 12, R. 1, N. 60/2/8± 10) 1. In the original, the numeration of the chapters switches here from Roman to Arabic numerals. 2. We are to understand that Ramírez alleged this was his first voyage in those seas. 3. The island of Capones is in the Sea of Luzon, off the southern tip of the Province of Zambales, just north of the entrance to Subic Bay. It has always been an important nautical reference in the commercial route between Manila and China. 4. The original erroneously states northwest by southeast.

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could hamper the task.5 I told him that the island was uninhabited and that I knew of a bay where he could easily get what he wanted. My aim was that, if they were to do as I said, they would be caught off guard and taken prisoners, not just by the natives but by the Spanish soldiers stationed there.6 About ten in the evening, they anchored where they thought best and the night passed while they posed to me these and other questions. Before weighing anchor, they transferred my twenty-five men on board the main ship.7 She was sailed by an Englishman by the name of Master Bell.8 It had eighty men, twenty-four cannons, and eight bronze swivel guns.9 Captain Donkin was master of the second ship.10 It had seventy men, twenty cannons, and eight swivel guns.11 And in both ships there was an excessive number of shotguns, cutlasses, battle axes, grappling irons, grenades, and pots full of various foul-smelling ingredients. Even though I tried hard, I was never able to find out where they were 5. This question would have been redundant given that all testimonies in the official documents state unequivocally that the English ship had launched its piragua between the island of Capones and the coast of Luzón. Thus the English had already surveyed the island. 6. It would have been highly unlikely that, given what is described in the following paragraph, the natives of a small island barely two kilometers long by less than half a kilometer wide and the handful of men in the small garrison would have dared to confront 150 well-armed pirates. 7. According to the testimonies of the crew members of Our Lady of Aránzazu who were aboard, only six of them were transferred to the pirate ship on Tuesday night. Luis Ángel stated that with him were transferred “the master, Captain Felipe Ferrer, and four other sailors” (AGI, Filipinas, 12, R. 1, N. 60/2/23). We know from the official declarations the names of three others. They were Bartolomé Luis, José Baltasar, and one such “Joseph de Balnerra” (or José de Valnera), who is only mentioned by Luis Ángel (AGI, Filipinas, 12, R. 1, N. 60/2/24). It can be assumed that the sixth crew member was the Chinese mestizo Francisco de la Cruz, who, according to what is alleged in the next paragraph, was tortured by the English. 8. The actual name of the captain was John Read, or “Yandrid,” as the name is transliterated in the Spanish documents (see AGI, Filipinas, 12, R. 1, N. 60/4/43). This was thus the Cygnet, in which Dampier was sailing. The ship had left London on Monday, October 11, 1683 (October 1 in the Julian calendar), under the command of Captain Charles Swan, or “Capiswan,” as he is called in the Spanish documents (see AGI, Filipinas, 12, R. 1, N. 60/4/14). A mutiny under Read had left Swan and more than thirty men in Mindanao on January 24, 1687 (14 January in the Julian calendar). The master of the ship, under Captain Read, was Captain Teat, and Henry Moore was his quartermaster (see Dampier, 1:381). 9. According to John Fitzgerald, an Irish Catholic “sufficiently conversant in Castilian,” one of the original crewmembers of the ship who was left in Mindanao with Captain Swan and who at the age of twenty-eight gave sworn testimony in Manila early in September 1687, the Cygnet was a ship of 136 tons, and when it left London with thirty-two men, it carried fourteen cannons of up to six pounds in caliber and two swivel guns (AGI, Filipinas, 12, R. 1, N. 60/3/10; see also the references to Fitzgerald in Dampier, 1:386–387). At the moment of the capture of Our Lady of Aránzazu and according to the testimonies of her crew, there were ninety-six able men and more than thirty sick ones in the Cygnet, and it carried sixteen iron canons of six and eight pounds in caliber and four swivel guns, besides a large number of shotguns, muskets, and cutlasses (AGI, Filipinas, 12, R. 1, N. 60/2/11–12). Other crew members of the frigate who were freed on the island of Ibuhos, north of Luzón, on October 12, 1687, pointed out that the Cygnet had only sixty-two men. This number seems more plausible (see AGI, Filipinas, 12, R. 1, N. 60/4/14). 10. This is undoubtedly Captain Teat. 11. At the time, the English had no other ship but the Cygnet.

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fitted to go out to sea. The only thing I did learn is that they crossed into the South Seas12 through the Le Maire Strait13 and that, kept from pillaging the coasts of Peru and Chile—which was their plan—because a storm hit them from the east with particular vehemence and tenacity at one time for eleven days, blowing them off course more than five hundred leagues away from that meridian, and finding it difficult to return there, they decided to make the best of their position and go rob India, where there was more abundance.14 I also learned that they had visited the Mariana Islands15 and that, battling terrible storms and heavy seas, going around the Capes of Engaño and Bojeador,16 and having previously seized some junks17 and sampans18 belonging to Indians19 and Chinese, they reached the entrance to the Mariveles Channel, where they came upon me. With the bows of their ships facing in the direction of Capones—they were towing mine—pistols and cutlasses at hand, they started to search me again and even to torture me. They tied me and one of my shipmates to the main mast and, since I did not give them any useful information on the places where they could find the gold and silver they were asking about, seizing my shipmate Francisco de la Cruz, a mestizo Chinese,20 they left him unconscious and almost dead on the 12. The Pacific Ocean. 13. The Le Maire Strait runs along the southern tip of Tierra del Fuego. It separates the Mitre Peninsula from Staten Island. 14. The Cygnet had traveled the length of the American coast from Tierra del Fuego to Baja, California. Among its most deplorable actions were the burning of the town of Paita in Perú on November 16, 1684; the attack on Guayaquil a month later; the burning of the town of Taboga in Panamá on May 12, 1685; the attack on Panama City from June 7 to 9 of the same year; the rape of León a month later; and the burning of Realejo on August 3 of the same year. Dampier gives ample descriptions of all these raids. 15. This points to the possibility that, as Dampier suggests, Ferrer had a dialogue with the English. Noting that the captain of the captured prize was boatswain of the Acapulco ship, Dampier points out, “It was this man that gave us the Relation . . . of the accident that happene’d to them, as is before mentioned in the 10th Chapter” (Dampier, 1:385). Dampier was referring to the time when, the Cygnet being at anchor in Guam, the Santa Rosa galleon arrived on the island on the way to Manila from Acapulco. The governor of Guam sent word to the galleon that there was a ship of English pirates anchored there. The galleon sailed away so fast that it ended up running aground on a reef, and it took her three days to free her rudder. In chapter 10, alluding to the conversation with Felipe Ferrer, Dampier states, “This, their striking on the shore, we heard afterward, when we were on the Coast of Manila” (Dampier, 1:313). If the true Felipe Ferrer would have been the captain of the ship, he would not have spoken in the first person of this incident given that when the Santa Rosa ran aground in Guam, Ferrer was in the middle of the Pacific Ocean aboard the Santo Niño. 16. Northernmost capes on the island of Luzon, marking its western and eastern tips, respectively, on the Babuyan Channel. They are at four degrees latitude north of Manila. 17. Flat-bottom Chinese boat with square rigging used in commerce. 18. A vessel of Chinese origin used for river navigation in South East Asia, although it is also seaworthy in fair weather. It is long, with three masts and triangular sails. The hull is made of six to eight large boxes that, should the vessel come apart, can float separately, affording the crew better chances of survival. 19. This is a reference to the Malay peoples of the Philippines. 20. A person of Chinese and Malay ancestry.

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foredeck after submitting him to the cruelest mancuerda.21 They placed me and my crew in the ship’s hold and from there I heard great screams and a shot. After a while, and having taken me on deck, I saw a great deal of blood and, pointing it out to me, they said it was from one of my men whom they had killed and that I should suffer the same fate if I did not give straight answers to their questions. I told them humbly to dispose of me as they saw fit as I had nothing to add to my first responses. Curious to know which of my shipmates had died, I took pains to find out, but realizing that nobody was missing, I became puzzled. Much later, I learned that what I had seen was blood from a dog and it was all a hoax.22 Not satisfied with what I had said and painstakingly cross-examining my boatswain,23 who, being Indian,24 had nothing good to offer, they learned that the island of Capones, which I had declared to be uninhabited, was settled and had a garrison. With this news—and especially after having seen two horsemen riding along the coast as they approached the island, to which was added, even when they pretended not to notice, having caught me in the lie that I had never sailed from Cavite except to go to Ilocos, and my description of the bay in Capones, unsheathed cutlasses at hand, they fell upon me with great shouting and vituperation. Never was I so frightened in my fear of death as in this instant. But they commuted it25 for the many kicks and blows they unleashed on me, such that they left me unable to move for many days.26 They anchored in a place where they could 21. The original text says “tratos de cuerda,” which in Spanish is also known as “la garrucha,” a method of torture in which the victim’s arms are tightly tied with a rope, generally behind the back, and raised above the ground by means of a pulley, or “garrucha.” The rope is then released and the body is allowed to fall abruptly but without hitting the ground. In this way, the rope cuts through skin and muscle until reaching the bone. The victim suffers equally by the disjointing of the shoulders until fainting. It was common to repeat the procedure several times, changing the ropework and causing new types of cuts and dislocations. 22. More than likely, if there was any blood spilled that night, it was that of Captain Francisco de Arzaga, or Arzuaga, owner of a sampan that the pirates had seized and sunk earlier on Tuesday morning. According to the official documents, the sampan was carrying the family and belongings of Captain Alonso del Castillo and “a great deal of people both Spaniards, Indians, black men, and black women” (AGI, Filipinas, 12, R. 1, N. 60/4/8), including “three women with three children of breastfeeding age and a servant, all property of said Captain Alonso del Castillo” (AGI, Filipinas, 12, R. 1, N. 60/2/5). The three women were “Indian the two of them, and the other caffer,” or black (AGI, Filipinas, 12, R. 1, N. 60/2/24). Contrary to what the text points out concerning the alleged blood of one of Ramírez’s men, the seaman José Baltasar was certain to have heard the English say they had “killed the person in charge of the sampan” (AGI, Filipinas, 12, R. 1, N. 60/2/18). 23. Officer in charge of the ship’s rigging, anchors, and cables. In a small frigate, such as the one captained by Ramírez, the boatswain was second in command. 24. Malay. We know this to be false. The boatswain of Our Lady of Aránzazu was a Spaniard by the name of Francisco Acosta who had Juan del Pilar for a servant. 25. The death sentence. 26. This version does not match that of the official documents or Dampier’s version. According to the testimonies, the English questioned the five prisoners they took on board the Cygnet on Tuesday night. None of the confessions appears to be the result of coercion. All of them, “using their wits,” replied that the city of Manila was practically impregnable (AGI, Filipinas, 12, R. 1, N. 60/2/13). Thus José Baltasar “said that the pirate enemies were talking with this

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fear no surprise attack from the islanders, and leaving ashore the Indians who owned the junk they had seized on the day before the unfortunate and sad one in which they captured me,27 they set sail for Pulau Condon,28 an island inhabited by Cochinchinese29 on the coast of Cambodia, where after coming into the harbor, they transferred to their two frigates everything they found on mine and then set it on fire.30 Once the piraguas were manned with sufficient men. they went ashore and found that the inhabitants met them without putting up resistance. They stated their purpose to be nothing more than to provision themselves with the bare necessities, careening their boats, and exchanging the fruits of the land for what they lacked. Be it because of fear, or due to other motives unknown to me, the witness and asked him if that city was like Cadiz and if it was as well fortified and how much firepower and people did it have. And that this witness answered that this city was stronger than Cadiz and had a great number of guns and over twenty thousand men, that Cavite was much stronger in every respect” (AGI, Filipinas, 12, R. 1, N. 60/2/20). Concerning the refusal on Ramírez’s part to surrender any valuable information to his captors at the risk of his life, Dampier writes that it was precisely the captain of the ship who gave them the most detailed information about the defenses of Manila and that, far from putting up a picture of strength, “it was this man that gave us the Relation of what Strength it had, how they were afraid of us there” (Dampier, 1:385). 27. The pirates left fifty-two people in Capones, eleven of whom belonged to the crew of Our Lady of Aránzazu. According to Bartolomé Luis, they were “six seamen, four apprentice seamen, and one servant” (AGI, Filipinas, 12, R. 1, N. 60/2/13). It is worth noting that both ships were captured on Tuesday, March 4, 1687, of the Georgian calendar. As we know, the English back then went by the Julian calendar and began to count the new day at high noon. Thus, for Dampier and the crew of the Cygnet, the capture of the sampan occurred in the morning of Tuesday, February 22, whereas the frigate was captured that same afternoon, on Tuesday, February 23. The mention of “the day before” in the text is not Sigüenza’s calculation and makes us wonder about the degree of aculturalization reached by Ramírez aboard the pirate ship. Given the way the calendar was tied to religious ritual, we can also wonder how far Ramírez went in adopting the mentality and the religion of the Lutherans. 28. The original says “Pulicondon.” It is also Pulo or Pulau Condore, the Malay name given to the island of Con Son (Côn nôn in Vietnamese), the largest of sixteen islands of volcanic origin that are part of the Con Dao Archipelago, situated 180 kilometers to the southwest of the Mekong River delta. It is twenty-one kilometers long and eight kilometers wide. 29. Peoples from the area of the Mekong River delta, where in 1698 the city of Saigon would be established. 30. The Cygnet and Our Lady of Aránzazu anchored in Pulau Condon on March 24, 1687 (March 14 on the Julian calendar). They anchored on the harbor of Ben Dam at the southern end of the island. They remained there until May 1 (April 21). The documents, and Dampier’s version, place the burning of the frigate five weeks after arrival, on Sunday, April 27 (April 17), and not at the start of their sojourn on the island as the text indicates. According to Diego Vendón, “Having arrived at said island of Pulau Condon, said enemy careened his ship. And having done so he took water, firewood, and everything else he needed, which once done, he set fire to the frigate” (AGI, Filipinas, 12, R. 1, N. 60/4/18). Dampier says nothing about the burning of the frigate, but he does give the date: “Our Business being finished here, we left the Spanish Prize taken at Manila, and most of the Rice, taking out enough for ourselves, and on the 17th day, we went from hence to the place where we first anchored” (Dampier, 1:385). Given Dampier’s description and the chart that accompanies it in the book, the shipwreck of Our Lady of Aránzazu must lie close to the coordinates: 8º 39′ 38.7″ N by 106º 33′ 55.9″ E.

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poor barbarians agreed to these terms. They received stolen clothes in exchange for tar, fat and salted meat from sea turtles, and other things. It must be the remoteness of that island, or the way in which her inhabitants covet what in other parts is produced in large quantities, because out of their nakedness or curiosity they were moved to commit the most infamous of shameful acts I ever saw: mothers brought their daughters, and husbands their very own wives, and praising their beauty, they delivered them to the English for the very small price of a blanket or its equivalent. They ended up indulging in a four-month sojourn in that ill-advised place.31 But seeming to them that they had no life when not engaged in robbery, as soon as their ships were ready to sail, they provisioned them with everything they could procure to get out of there. First, they conferred on what they would pay the Pulicondonese32 for their hospitality, and pardoning their own debt on the day they were to go out to sea, that same dawn they fell on them while they slept unwarily and stabbing even those whom they had made pregnant.33 And setting fire to most of the village, waving their flags and with great rejoicing, they came on board. I did not take part in such heinous cruelty, but fearing that sometime the same would happen to me, I heard the gunshot and saw the fire from the flagship where I always remained. If they had celebrated this abominable victory going through cases of rum as they always did, it hardly would be worth noting. But after the incident that I saw, how could I fail to mention it without suffering the pain and the moral unease of concealing it? Among the spoils they brought from the village—and they went to take back all they had given them in exchange for their women and provisions—was a human arm from one of the victims who perished in the fire. Each one cut himself a small piece from it, and praising the taste of such good meat, repeatedly toasting to each other’s health, they finished it off. I looked upon such bestial action with scandal and dismay, when one of them came to me with a morsel urging me with annoying persistence to eat it. Owing to the repulse I showed he told me that, being a Spaniard and consequently a coward, I would do well to match their bravery by not being finicky. He pressed me no further proceeding to respond to a toast.34 31. The Cygnet would return to Pulau Condon on June 3, 1687, remaining there until the fourteenth before attempting to sail back to Manila in search of the galleon. The text brings those two stays together in order to calculate the “four-month sojourn.” In any event, that would have run until July 24, by which time the Cygnet was already sailing close to Formosa (Taiwan). 32. The natives of Pulau Condon. 33. This supposedly occurred in the dawn of Sunday, April 27 (April 16 in the Julian calendar). 34. It is difficult to believe the veracity of these events given that the English were to come back to Pulau Condon thirty-three days later. It is all the more evident that by then Ramírez and at least seven of his men had decided to join the pirates. All the statements of the crewmembers freed later attest to the supposed fact that the English abandoned in Pulau Condon “said Captain Felipe Ferrer with another eighteen people, Spaniards and Indians whom they had captured in said frigate and sampan” (AGI, Filipinas, 12, R. 1, N. 60/4/9). However, a

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They sighted the mainland coast of Cambodia on the third day, and constantly tacking from side to side they captured a sampan loaded with pepper.35 They did the same with her crew as they did with mine, and seizing the silver and other valuables it carried, paying no attention to the pepper, they removed the rudder and sails and set it adrift on a course where it was bound to be lost. Having left the crew of the sampan on the mainland, they went over to the uninhabited island of Pulau Ubi,36 where coconuts and yam can be found in abundance, [and] with the certainty that neither I nor my crew could find a way to flee, they took us off the ships to twist anchoring cable. The material we used was green liana and, having been forced to finish the work in a few, we were left almost unable to use of our hands for many days. The prizes they captured in this spot were worth a lot even when they were only three vessels, and of these, one belonged to the king of Siam and the other two to the Portuguese of Macao and Goa.37 In the first one traveled the king’s ambassador to the governor of Manila, bringing him a gift of jewels and luxury items of high value and many produce and commodities of that land. The business of the second one was much greater as it was exclusively limited to the finest silk textiles from China and to a large quantity of gold filigree that by way of Goa was being sent to Europe. The third one belonged to the viceroy of Goa and was entrusted to an ambassador he was dispatching to the king of Siam for this reason: a certain Genovese—I do not know the details of how he got there—was not only able to obtain the favor of that king but [also] to be named by him as his top deputy in the kingdom’s most important port. Overproud in such high office, he had the hands of two visiting Portuguese gentlemen cut off for minor reasons.38 headcount of the eleven crew members left in Capones and the six who would be set free subsequently on the island of Ibuhos leaves only eight men from the crew of twenty-four. This is the exact number of people that according to the text will be freed by the English pirates at the delta of the Amazon River. 35. This occurred on May 31, 1687 (May 21 in the Julian calendar), when, contrary to what the text indicates, the Cygnet was sailing back to Pulau Condon. Dampier mentions that it was “a great Jonk that came from Palimbam [Palembang], a Town on the Island of Sumatra: she was full laden with pepper, which they bought there and was bound to Siam” (Dampier, 1:398). Far from acknowledging its capture, he adds, “But it [was] blowing so hard, she was afraid to venture into that Bay [Gulf of Siam or Thailand] and therefore came to Pulo Condore with us, where we both anchored on May 24th” (ibid.). According to Dampier, the pirates would leave the junk in Pulau Condon, taking with them one of his crew, “a kind of bastard Portuguese” who was “entertained for the sake of his knowledge in the several Languages of these Countries” (Dampier, 1:401). Most likely, as it was their way, they set fire to the junk before leaving. 36. The original says “Puliubi.” It is also Pulo Ubi, the Malay name given to the island of Hon Khai (Hòn Khoai, in Vietnamese), located due south of Ca Mau Point at the entrance to the Gulf of Siam. It is almost four kilometers long and three kilometers wide. They were there on their way to Siam on May 3 and 4 and on their return trip from May 23 to 31. 37. Other than the junk laden with pepper, Dampier lists two small barks laden with rice and taken at Pulau Ubi on May 3 (April 23 of the Julian calendar) as well as two other small ships laden with rice and lacquer taken at Pulau Ubi on May 24 (May 14). All were from Cambodia. 38. Cummins and Soons correctly identified this person as Constance Phaulkon (1647–1688), the controversial figure who rose to be the power behind the throne in King

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Hearing of this the viceroy of Goa had sent the ambassador to demanded satisfaction and even to request that the Genovese be handed over to him for punishment. In spite of the fact that it did not seem to be in the sphere of what could be procured, the present sent to gain the king’s goodwill was correspondingly large. I saw, and I touched with my own hands, a type of tower or castle about three feet high that was encrusted with diamonds and other precious stones. And even though they were not as high in value, there were equally rare silver jewels, plenty of camphor,39 amber, and musk, not to mention the rest of the goods that were in the vessel for trade and sale in that kingdom.40 Having removed the cargo from this one and the first two ships, they set them on fire.41 And thus leaving the Portuguese and Siamese, and eight of my men, on that deserted island, they turned for the Siantan Islands,42 inhabited by Malays who Narai’s court (see Cummins and Soons, 80). Phaulkon, whose real name was Constantine Heirax, was not Genovese but a Greek from Cephalonia who was proficient in Latin, English, and Portuguese, as well as Malay and Siamese. Through his linguistic skills and cunning, he gained the highest favor of the Siamese king, becoming the most powerful political figure in the kingdom from 1683 to his execution by a rival in 1688. The incident in question occurred in 1687. 39. White and volatile product that was used for medicinal purposes but whose main value then was as a key ingredient in the making of gunpowder. 40. The Kingdom of Goa. 41. The description of these three prizes is no doubt fascinating even if it is very hard to corroborate. Ramírez’s “I saw, and I touched” stands in sharp contrast to the lack of any mention in Dampier. What we know is that the pirates tried unsuccessfully to reach the River of Siam near Bangkok. Mateo Francisco, among other witnesses in the official accounts, said that they went “searching for the River of Siam with the intention (as this witness overheard some of among said enemies state) to capture and pillage a ship that was said to be inside said river; and having not been able to accomplish this on account of having run aground said ship, escaped that danger (they took prisoner an Indian, or a Siamese mestizo, in a small town that lay on that coast)” (AGI, Filipinas, 12, R. 1, N. 60/4/9–10). Silvestre Mojica stated that “they arrived on said Coast of Siam” (ibid., 48). Dampier wrote that they did not go past the middle of the gulf, where Captain Read “found a small Town of Fishermen” (Dampier, 1:397). This must have been the same small town mentioned by Mateo Francisco. 42. These are the islands of the Anambas group, or the Kepulauan Anambas, of which Siantan is the easternmost and largest. To get here they would have had to sail south from Pulau Ubi, cutting across the entrance to the Gulf of Siam. But we know from the documents and from Dampier that this is not the course that was followed. After leaving Pulau Condon on June 14 ( June 4 of the Julian calendar), they went in the direction of Manila but were driven off course by the weather. As they sailed past Prata Island, they decided to change course and head instead for Saint John’s Island, or Shangchuan Dao, on the coast of Canton, where they anchored on July 5 ( June 25), 1687. There, they spent a week and purchased “some pigs, wine, firewater, and other things and then . . . captured a Chinese frigate that was going from Batavia to Japan” (AGI, Filipinas, 12, R. 1, N. 60/4/20; see also Dampier, 1:402–409). By the end of the month, they would be in the Pescadores Islands off Formosa, where they would remain for ten days. Then they set out for the Batanes Islands, where they careened on the island of Ibuhos. There they remained from August 23 (August 13) to October 13 (October 3), on which day, before parting, they set ashore nine prisoners, including the six crew members from Our Lady of Aránzazu who would later give sworn testimony in Manila. By this time, it is abundantly clear that Ramírez, pretending to be Felipe Ferrer, had decided to remain among the pirates of the Cygnet rather than return to Spanish territory.

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go naked from the waist up and who are armed with kerises.43 They traded with them for some goats, coconuts, and palm oil for the binnacle lamp,44 and other goods. And falling on the poor barbarians at dawn, after killing some of them and having stolen from all, they headed out45 in search of the island of Tambelán.46 It is inhabited by Macassars, and the English, resentful at not finding there what they had elsewhere, setting fire to the village while its residents were asleep, sailed to the big island of Borneo. And because they were beating about its western coast for fourteen days without finding plunder, they approached the harbor of Sukadana47 on the same island. All around this place, many precious stones can be found, especially large diamonds, and not too many months before we got there, the greediness to buy and to own them had moved the English who live in India to ask the king of Borneo—through the intercession of the governor he had in Sukadana—for permission to establish a commercial enclave in that spot. The pirates set out in their piraguas to conduct soundings in the bar of the river, not just to [find a way to] enter it in the larger ships but to survey the entire place. They were interrupted in this exercise by a sampan belonging to the people of the land in which they came on behalf of the governing authority to inspect them. They answered that they were English nationals and that they were carrying fine and exquisite goods to do business and trade for diamonds. As they had previously established a friendly rapport with people from this nation, and they were consequently shown and saw abundant proof of the wealth from the ships they had seized in Pulau Ubi, they were given license to trade. They gave the governor a large gift and obtained permission to go upriver to the town, which is a quarter of a league from the shore, whenever they pleased. From there, they sailed south along the length of the eastern coast of Luzón and Mindanao, reaching the east coast of the Celebes on November 19 (November 9). By the first days of 1688, they had already made it to the island of Timor, and on January 15 ( January 5), they anchored on the northern coast of Australia. This is the only geographic point where the Misfortunes coincides with the official documents (as they follow the route to the island of Ibuhos) and Dampier’s story after leaving Pulau Ubi. The description of the route that follows hereafter until the arrival in Australia is the result of Ramírez’s imagination, no doubt partly based on his previous voyages, and of Sigüenza’s attempt to chart the fictitious trip. No doubt, it is also a projection of some of his experiences among the pirates. It would have been very difficult for Ramírez to explain the reasons he had for not staying with his men in Ibuhos or for not having jumped ship in Luzón or Mindanao between the middle of October and the beginning of November of 1687. 43. The keris is a Malay thrusting dagger that generally has a sinuous double edge. 44. A lamp usually composed of a group of four wicks that is placed in or near the binnacle to illuminate the needle. 45. They set a course of south by southeast toward Borneo. 46. The Tambelan group, or Kepulauan Tambelan, is at the center of the Natuna Sea, almost halfway between the Malay Peninsula and the island of Borneo. 47. Until its destruction at the end of the eighteenth century, Sukadana was an important sultanate that ruled the region of the Kapuas River and supplied gold and diamonds to Chinese, Dutch, and English traders.

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In the three days that we spent there, they found the village to be undefended and open on all sides. And proposing to the Sukadanese that [since] they could not stay for long, the diamonds should be collected at the governor’s house, where the business was to be conducted, locking us up on board under heavy guard, going upriver very well armed at the stroke of midnight, they attacked the village by surprise and went directly to the house of the governor. They looted all the diamonds and precious stones that had been collected and did the same in many other houses that they burned down as they did with some ships they found there. The screams of the people and the gunfire could be heard on board and—as they bragged later—the massacre was very large. Having committed such an abhorrent act of treason with total impunity, dragging the governor and other figures as prisoners, they rushed aboard and with the same haste, levied anchor and headed out. No other plunder ever compared to this one given the reduced space it occupied and its excessive price. Who would be the one to know how much it was worth? I saw Captain Bell’s hat filled to the brim with only diamonds.48 After six days, we came upon the island of Batu Malang,49 and as it was barren, we abandoned it to drop anchor in Pulau Tioman,50 where they took water and gathered firewood. And leaving on shore the governor and the main authorities of Sukadana, whom they badly mistreated and who were starving, they turned toward the coast of Berhala,51 as it is frequented by many more ships, and within a few days, they captured two very large ones, belonging to black Moors, filled with satin fabrics, elephant tusks,52 fine linens, and salempores.53 And having robbed them of the most precious [cargo], they set them on fire, thereafter taking the lives of many of those Moors in cold blood and giving back to the remaining ones their own gigs54 in which to leave. Until then, they had not met any vessel capable of opposing them, and in that spot—either purely by chance or because news of such great thieves might have 48. Could this description be based on the six-day stay in Callasusung that Dampier describes as a courtesy visit without any major incident? The Cygnet was in Callasusung December 17 to 22, 1687 (see Dampier, 1:444–445). 49. The original text calls it “Baturiñan.” Batu Malang is a small promontory of volcanic rocks rising above the water south of Pulau Tulai Cay, to the north of the island of Tioman. Batu in Malay means “rock” and Malang “bad luck.” As the name suggests, this rock of bad luck, just as the nearby Tulai Cay, is a place of no value to passing ships. 50. Pulau Tioman is an island off the eastern coast of the Malay Peninsula. It is north of the Strait of Singapore at the same latitude as the Anambas group. The Cygnet spent the last days of 1687 and the first of 1688 sailing far away from these waters, passing between the islands of Pulau Alor and Pulau Atauro, to round the island of Timor on January 6. 51. The original text says “Bengala” but this is no doubt a typographical error or a mistake in Sigüenza’s transcription as the coast of the Bay of Bengal is located on the western side of the Malay Peninsula and, as we will see, according to Ramírez’s version the pirates had not yet crossed the Strait of Singapore. 52. The original text says “elephants.” But it is clear that we are talking about the tusks and not the animals as such. 53. Blue cotton cloth from Madras. 54. Light rowing boats.

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reached some parts where already I believe people had been sent out to punish them—four warships fully appointed with artillery were sighted, and they all seemed to be Dutch. These were to leeward, and the pirates, sailing close-hauled as best they could, helped by the darkness of the night, changed course until reaching Pulau Aur, where they got restocked with water and victuals. But not knowing themselves safe anywhere and fearful of losing the priceless riches in their possession, they decided to leave that archipelago. Doubting whether they would come out through the Strait of Sunda or of Singapore, they chose the latter as closer though longer and more difficult [to navigate], rejecting the other,55 although shorter and safer, as more distant—or, in truth, for being more frequented by the many ships that come and go to New Batavia, as I stated before. Thus placing their trust in a local pilot who was among them, aided by the breeze56 and the currents, shamelessly flying Dutch colors, and with the weapons at the ready for any eventuality, waiting for a dark night, they entered it with extreme swiftness, and they raced through it almost to the end without encountering but one single vessel on the second day. This was a frigate thirty-three cubits57 in length, loaded with rice and with a fruit called bonga.58 And as they attacked it—so as not to lose the habit of robbing even when they were running away—her crew (and they were Malayans) abandoned her, jumping into the sea and swimming ashore to save their lives. Glad to have found a ship on which to unload the great amount of cargo they were carrying, they transferred to her from each one of their ships seven fully armed men and ten cannons with all their munitions and equipment.59 And moving on, at about five in the afternoon of the same day, they came out.60 At that point five of my men disappeared, and I presume that, taking advantage of our proximity to land, they gained their freedom by swimming away.61 Twenty-five days later, we sighted an island—I do not know its name62—that we avoided on account of being inhabited by Portuguese, as they63 said or presumed. And from there we turned toward New Holland,64 a land not yet fully explored by the Euro55. The Sunda Strait. 56. This is a reference to the easterly winds that blew right aft to their vessels. 57. A cubit is a linear measure formerly used by boat builders. It is equivalent to 45.72 centimeters. The frigate was then fifteen meters long. 58. Areca nut, or the nut of the areca palm (Areca catechu). Also known as “pinang,” it was and is still chewed throughout South East Asia rolled inside a leaf of the betel pepper plant (Piper betle) rubbed over with lime. 59. This is the frigate that would end up running aground on the coast of Bacalar. 60. Of the Strait of Singapore. 61. Given that this is the frigate that Ramírez and his crew would sail to New Spain, it is possible for them to have received it in exchange for their services and the courage displayed during her capture. If that was the case, it may be that the five crewmembers of Nuestra Señora de Aránzazu did not jump ship but rather died during the assault on the frigate. 62. This was probably the island of Great Nicobar in the Bay of Bengal. 63. The pirates. 64. Present day Australia.

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peans and belonging, as it seems, to barbarous peoples. And after more than three months, we came upon it.65 Those who were sent on shore aboard the piraguas landed to find ancient vestiges of human presence on that spot. But the winds there being adverse and strong, and the anchorage poor, looking for a better place, it was procured in an island of low-lying land.66 And finding not just wide berth67 and haven68 for the ships but also a small freshwater stream, plenty of sea turtle, and no people, they decided to careen there before heading homeward.69 They were busy doing this while my men and I were mending their sails and curing meat.70 Four months later, or a bit longer, we were ready to set out, and pointing our bows toward the island of Madagascar, or of San Lorenzo,71 with the easterly winds right aft we got there in twenty-eight days.72 They bartered with the blacks that inhabit the island for many hens, goats, and cows. And told that an English merchant ship was soon to enter that port to conduct business with the blacks, they chose to wait for it and so they did. As I inferred from their actions and conversations, this was but to see if they could capture it. But recognizing when it came to anchor that it was well armed and with quite a bit of men, one and the other party fired repeated salvoes and [displayed signs] of reciprocal friendship. The merchants gave the pirates rum and wine and these, in return, gave them plenty of the stolen items they were carrying. Since he could not do it by force—which was impossible—Captain Bell did not fail to try every other mean at his disposal to seize that ship. But as much as he was a thief and a greedy person, the captain of the merchants was 65. Alonso Ramírez reached Australia aboard the Cygnet on January 15, 1688. He would remain there a week and not four months as it is stated hereunder. See map 6. 66. The place where the ship supposedly anchored is named today Cygnet Bay and it is located in the peninsula that guards the northwest entrance to King’s Sound in Western Australia. The northeast point in that peninsula is called Swan Point, and there is a cay on the mouth of the sound named Dampier’s Monument. Perhaps it would be fitting to name some other feature in that geography after Alonso Ramírez, now that we know for certain that he was the first American to set foot in the continent. If Charles Swan, captain of the Cygnet before the mutiny, has a point named after him when he was never there, Ramírez surely deserves a bit more recognition. 67. Prudent distance from the coast, shoals, and reefs. 68. An anchoring sheltered from the wind and the seas. 69. It could be Sunday Island, which lies some twenty kilometers east of Cygnet Bay on the entrance to King’s Sound. 70. Here, as soon as the decision is made to return home, Ramírez begins to distance himself from the pirates. The preceding paragraph had them all landing on Australia. Now the division of labor is clear. The pirates were busily careening the ship while “my men and I were mending their sails.” 71. San Lorenzo, or Saint Lawrence, was the name by which Madagascar was formerly known to the Europeans. 72. It was not 28 but 192 days that passed between leaving Australia and reaching Madagascar. One hundred and seventeen days into the crossing of the Indian Ocean, on May 25, 1688, Dampier was left behind by the Cygnet on Nicobar Island. Almost three weeks later, the Cygnet would capture a Portuguese ship.

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vigilant and sagacious. And thus, never coming aboard our ship—even though they endeavored with great insistence and with invitations they made, which he never accepted—he went about his business with great caution. Bell and Donkin were not less cautious in trying to keep from the merchants the business in which they were engaged.73 And to make sure of this they ordered me and my men—who were the only ones they could not trust74—that under penalty of death we were not to speak to them a single word and, [if asked], we should say that we were their volunteer seamen and that they were paying us. Two of my shipmates contravened this order by talking to a Portuguese who came with them.75 And showing themselves to be merciful by not taking their lives right then and there, they sentenced them to receive four lashes from each one.76 Because there were one hundred and fifty of them, the lashes came to six hundred and the whipping was such, and the ratline77 was administered with such a violent force, that the poor men were dead by dawn of the following day. They tried to leave me, and the few of my shipmates who remained, on that island. But upon considering the barbarity of the black Moors who lived there, falling on my knees and kissing their feet as a sign of total submission after rebutting [their arguments by reminding them] of how much I had been of service to them and offering to tend to them as a slave would, I managed to have them take me along.78 Then they proposed to me, as they had done before, that if I swore to accompany them always they would give me weapons.79 I thanked them for the offer, and reflecting on the obligations I acquired at birth,80 I answered with feigned humility that, because I had a great fear of bullets I much preferred to serve them than to fight with others. Treating me as a coward and a chicken, and thus undeserving of being in their company, though it would bring me honor and be of great worth to me, they did not press me further. Having taken leave from the merchants and well stocked with victuals, they set out for the Cape of Good Hope on the coast of Africa, and after two months of sailing, and five days spent plying to windward, they rounded it off. For a month 73. This is not true. We are dealing no doubt with a New York slave ship captured by the Cygnet on August 25, 1688. This vessel was commandeered by Captain Read, Captain Teat thereby becoming the master of the Cygnet. 74. Again, Ramírez is attempting to put distance between him and the pirates. 75. Who came with the merchants. 76. Each one of the pirates. 77. A three-stranded tarred hemp whip commonly used for corporal punishment onboard ships. 78. This stands in contrast to the revelation made in the next chapter that Ramírez acquired a slave during the voyage. His name was Pedro, and he was from Mozambique. All evidence points to the possibility that Ramírez acquired Pedro in Madagascar, which is across the water marking the eastern shoreline of the Mozambique Channel. How could he purchase a slave if he was himself a slave of the English pirates? 79. If he never swore the oath, how did he end up owning “a keris and a small rusty sword” as related in chapter VII? 80. As a Catholic and a Spaniard.

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and a half thereafter, the continental coast was followed a great distance until reaching an island known as Piedras,81 from where, after filling up with water and getting firewood, with the bows pointing west and the easterly breezes blowing broadside, we arrived at the coast of Brazil in twenty-five days. In the two-week period that we went up the coast and its environs decreasing in latitude,82 twice they sent six men to the shore in a canoe.83 And having spoken with who knows what Portuguese men and having purchased from them some refreshments, we went on until reaching a very broad river at the mouth of which they anchored in five fathoms and I surmise that it was the Amazon if I am not mistaken.

81. Surely it is the island of Saint Helena, where Dampier also made a stop. The only other volcanic island in these latitudes that could have been called by that name is Ascension. However, that one has no freshwater stream or spring. 82. They were approaching the equator from the south. 83. At the time, Fortaleza and Sao Luis were the two main cities along this coast.

IV He is set free by the pirates and he remembers what he endured as their captive.

I must admonish, before revealing the troubles and hardships I endured and suffered for so many years, that only in Master Gunner1 Nicpat and in Dick, quartermaster2 to Captain Bell, did I find any sympathy and consolation in my constant troubles, both as they came to my aid—without being seen by their shipmates—in the time of most need, and as with kind words they used to beg me to have patience. I am convinced that the master gunner was without a doubt a Catholic. They got together in that spot3 exclusively to deliberate what to do with me and with the seven of my remaining shipmen. Some voted—and they were the majority—that we have our throats cut, and others, not so cruel ones, that we be left there. Both groups were opposed by Master Gunner Nicpat, Quartermaster Dick, and Captain Donkin and his officers, finding fault in behavior so unbecoming English decorum. “It is enough,” he4 said, “for us to have degenerated from what we are, plundering the best of the Orient under such merciless terms. By chance, are the many innocent people whose hard-earned possessions we took, whose life we took, not crying out to Heaven? What has this poor Spaniard done now to deserve losing his life? He has served us like a slave being thankful for what has been done with him since we captured him. To leave him in this river, where in my judgment there is nothing but barbarous Indians, is ungrateful. To behead him, as others say, is more than cruel. And so that his innocent blood may not call out to us throughout the world,5 I am—with my followers—their protector.” The controversy went so far that, just when they were about to take up arms to settle it, they agreed to give me the frigate6 they had captured in the Strait of Singapore, together with my freedom, so that I could do with myself and my shipmates as I best saw fit. Given that I was a witness to all that, put yourself in my place if you can, and imagine how big of a scare it was and the anguish in which I found myself. 1. The officer in charge of all guns, their supplies, and ammunition. 2. The petty officer in charge of steering the ship, as well as of the binnacle and signals. 3. In the Amazon River delta. 4. Donkin. 5. Donkin does not want to carry for the rest of his life the remorse of having murdered them or having left them marooned. 6. This frigate, as we know, was fifteen meters long and, according to what will be pointed out further down, it had at least two masts, the main and the foremast.

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Having removed from the frigate they were giving me all that she was carrying,7 and passing it all to their frigates, they forced me to thank each one of them separately for the liberty and mercy they were granting me. And so I did. They gave me an astrolabe8 and a large compass, a Dutch pilot book,9 one single tinaja10 of water, and two tercios11 of rice. But as the master gunner embraced me to bid me farewell, he gave me notice that he had left behind for me, without his shipmates knowing, some salt and cured meat, four barrels of gunpowder, plenty of artillery munitions, a medicine cabinet, and other diverse items.12 They notified me, before witnesses to the fact that I was listening, that if they should run into me again on that coast, only God would be able to prevent them from killing me, and that to avoid this I was to sail west by northwest in which direction I would run into Spaniards that would come to my assistance. And making me weigh anchor, wishing me a good voyage, or rather, mocking and ridiculing me, they let me go.13 I praise those who even risking their life diligently seek freedom, as that is the most precious thing, even among the beasts. Such unexpected good fortune brought copious tears to my eyes and to those of my shipmates, and I believe that they ran agreeably down our faces for before we had held them repressed and hidden in our sorrows. With an unexpected joy, the use of reason is usually hampered, and as what was happening seemed to us to be a dream, it took much reflection to believe that we were free. Our first action was to raise our voices up to heaven extolling the divine Providence as best we could, and immediately, we gave thanks to the one who was our [guiding] star in a sea full of storms. I think that my freedom would have been impossible if I had not continuously devoted my memory and affections to the Most Holy Mary of Guadalupe of México, to 7. “All that she was carrying” except for the major exception of weapons, part of the loot, and at least nine iron canons, as it will be pointed out further down. Given the considerable price that could be fetched for a canon in those days, and the unfavorable conditions under which Ramírez’s men were allegedly set free, there is reason to believe that there was more to the story than what Ramírez might have told Sigüenza, or what Sigüenza might have chosen to withhold. 8. Instrument used to take the altitudes of the poles and the stars measured against the horizon, thus calculating the latitude of the ship relative to the equator. 9. This book would contain a written description of and nautical information on the coasts and seas in the area. 10. The tinaja is a large earthen jar usually containing forty-eight liters or thirteen gallons of liquid. 11. The old Mexican tercio equaled 74 kilograms, or 162 pounds. 12. These “other diverse items” will be partially enumerated in chapter VI: “On board and on the beach we left behind nine iron pieces of artillery with upwards of two thousand cannon balls of four, six, and ten pounds, and all made out of lead, at least one hundred quintals of that metal, fifty bars of tin, one thousand five hundred pounds of iron, eighty copper bars from Japan, many earthen jars from China, seven elephant tusks, three barrels of gunpowder, forty shot-gun barrels, ten gun locks, a medicine cabinet and many surgical instruments.” 13. According to the dates given hereunder and assuming the true nature of the detailed account of the days gone by until their confession in the town of Tihosuco on Friday, November 25, 1689, the day of Saint Catherine of Alexandria, it is possible to set the date of this event around Friday, July 22, 1689.

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whom I publicly confess I will always be a slave for what I owe Her.14 I have always carried with me a portrait of Her, and fearing that it could be desecrated by the heretical pirates when they captured me—since at that time, seizing the rosaries from our necks and chastising us as impious and superstitious, they threw them in the sea—I did my best to hide it from their view, and the first time that I went up the masthead,15 I hid it there. The names of those who obtained their freedom together with me and who remained of the [original] twenty-five—because eight of them were left on the uninhabited island of Pulau Ubi, five fled in Singapore, two died from the lashings in Madagascar, and three others met the same fate in different places—are: Juan de Casas, Spaniard, native of Puebla de los Ángeles in New Spain; Juan Pinto and Marcos de la Cruz, Indians, the former Pangasinese16 and the latter Pampanganese;17 Francisco de la Cruz and Antonio González, Chinese; Juan Díaz, Malabarese;18 and Pedro, a black from Mozambique, my slave. The tears of joy for the freedom attained were followed by ones that could very well have been of blood on account of the hardships suffered, which were instantly brought back to our memory, [and that follow] in this summary. To the threats under which, being on the island of Capones, they took our confession to know what [kind of] vessels were set to sail from Manila and how they were armed, and what were the richest places, they added leaving our fingers practically broken by the locks19 of their shotguns and carbines. And not minding the blood that stained it, they made us roll yarn from cotton wool20 to mend the sails. This we were forced to do whenever it became necessary throughout 14. This confession hides a curious contradiction in that he is promising to be a slave to the Virgin of Guadalupe in eternal gratitude for having granted him freedom. Evidently, Ramírez was attempting to hide the real contradictions in his testimony by emphasizing his unyielding devotion to the Catholic faith during his alleged ordeal. If he joined the pirates, then it was to them, and not to the Virgin Mary, who he owed his freedom on the open seas. Then the parts of the contradiction would have been reversed, as his freedom would be a consequence of his capture by the English. 15. The uppermost point of the mast, in the case of the main mast, where the wind vane is placed. As I explain in the introduction this is a moment of great symbolic importance for it presupposes that the ship of the heretical Lutherans, as the English pirates would have been seen in México City and Madrid, sailed under the banner of the Virgin of Guadalupe. Yet if the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe was so precious to him, would he not have retrieved it from the masthead to bring it with him once freed by the English? Indeed, that token would have proven the veracity of his account. 16. As indicated before, Pangasinan is the coastal region on the Gulf of Lingayen, located on the western shores of the island of Luzon, between Ilocos and Manila. 17. The region of Pampanga lies on the central zone of the island of Luzon, on the valley of the Pampanga River, north of Manila Bay. 18. A native of Malabar, the region of the southwestern coast of India. 19. Given the action on flintlock guns, this would have been done by placing the finger over the pan where the powder is placed at the base of the barrel and pulling the trigger so that the flint would hit flesh and bone causing serious injury. In these guns, the always-sharp and pointed flint was thrown forward by a strong spring at the base of the cock hammer. 20. This is cotton in its raw state, still containing seeds and other impurities.

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the voyage, being daily routine, without exception, to wash and scrub the ships inside and out. It was also our common chore to clean the cutlasses, cannons, and the locks of the carbines with china ground21 every third day; to make spun yarn; to twist cables, lines, and braces;22 and also to make braided cordage, brail, and nippers.23 Add to this being at the helm, and hulling the rice that they continually ate, having soaked it first in water to turn it into flour. And there were times when we were each given eleven fifty-pound sacks24 to hull in one day under penalty of lashings—which we endured on many occasions—if we did not fulfill the task. Never in the sudden squalls that we faced in such a long voyage did they furl the sails. We were the ones who did it, the common reward for taking such a risk being cruel lashings, either for not doing it fast enough or because, as it happens in such trying moments, the sails used to get torn. The ration they gave us to keep up our strength during such continuous work was but a ganta25—which amounts to an almud26—of rice, that we parboiled as best we could27 using sea water instead of salt, of which they had plenty but never gave us any: we each got less than a pint28 of fresh water a day. Meat, wine, rum, bonga, nor any of the many other rations they carried ever reached our mouths. And having a large supply of coconuts, they threw us only the husks to make into coir—done by beating the fibers and making burlap for caulking29—and when at anchor, they had fresh ones, they would drink from them and toss them into the sea. In the last year of our imprisonment, they put us in charge of the galley, and not only did they count the pieces of meat that they handed us but they also weighed them so that we would eat none of it. A remarkable cruelty and misery this was! But it holds no comparison to the following. They also kept us busy making canvas shoes, and in sewing shirts and drawers for them, and to that effect they gave us portions of sewing thread previously cut and measured. And if by doing the backstitching too close, as they wanted it, we ran out of thread, each 21. The crushed and ground china was used as an abrasive to sand metals and remove rust. 22. Cables are used to moor a vessel at anchor. Lines are the ropes most commonly used aboard, composed of three-braided strands. Braces are single or double lines used to swing around the yard from which sails are hung or bent. 23. Braided cordage is made with spun yard and has multiple uses aboard a ship. Brail is a line for gathering the sail in to a yard. Nippers are a type of braided cordage that is usually between one and two meters in length and used for gathering the sails and to set the helm. 24. The measure in the original text is the Spanish “arroba,” which is roughly the equivalent of 225 pounds. The sacks weigh two arrobas, for a total of 550 pounds of rice (250 kilograms) per head. 25. In the Philippines, a unit of measure for dry goods. 26. An almud is the equivalent of 0.8 liters. 27. It is implicit that they were not given firewood and thus had to cook the rice under the sun. 28. About half a liter. 29. Coir is a very strong and durable fiber that was used for making cables and combined with tar to close the gaps in the hull of a ship.

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new portion handed out came with twenty-five lashings. I had an additional task from which my shipmates were spared, and it was to have been forced to be the barber. And they kept me busy in this task every Saturday without respite, each slip of the razor—of which there were many, since I did not know how to wield it scientifically—being followed by cruel slaps to the face and many blows. Everything that has been stated here took place on board, as only in Pulau Ubi, and in the uninhabited island of New Holland, did they bring us ashore to get water and firewood, and to twist anchoring cable out of liana. If I wanted to itemize all the specific events it would take too long, and by singling out one or two it will be possible to infer those that I keep to myself. Monday was the most dreaded day for us because, placing a cable of liana around the mizzenmast30 and tying our left hands to it, they put a ratline on our right hands, and having undressed us, they forced us with daggers and pistols pointed to our chests to flog one another. The shame and pain we felt were matched by the cheer and applause with which they celebrated it. My shipmate Juan de Casas being unable to be present at the apportionment of the continuous work to which we were subjected, and Captain Bell, attributing it to what he called feebleness, he said he would cure him and with a simple remedy. Forgive me for bringing this up given the decency and respect owed to the reader, but he resolved to make him drink his own captain’s excrement dissolved in water, placing a knife to his throat to hasten his death if he showed any reluctance. And since such an unheard-of medicine was followed by great vomiting caused by disgust, and so by accident he regained his health, of course, he31 prescribed the cure to us, with the enthusiastic support of his all his men, for whenever we should suffer from our great afflictions. I suffered all these things because I had to, owing to how much I loved my life, and noting that there were full days when they were drunk, I regretted not having enough shipmates who could help me to kill them and, taking off with the frigate, set out for Manila. But it could also be that I would not have trusted them even if I had enough, since there was no other Spaniard among them but Juan de Casas. One day, when this thought rendered me more impotent than usual, one of the English named Cornelio32 came to me and spoke at length entrusting me with a secret, asking if I would have enough courage to bring my men to his side in a mutiny. I answered him with great prudence, but upon giving me his assurance that he had already won over some of his men—whose names he gave—for the action at hand, he got me to agree that I would not let him down when the time came, but not before negotiating some guarantees for my safety as I saw fit. 30. In three-masted vessels, the one aft. 31. Captain Bell. 32. Possibly Cornelius or maybe Cornelis. This could have been Cornelis Corneliszoon Jol, the Dutch pirate whose father, who went by the same name, received the Dutch nickname of “Kapitein Houtebeen” or Captain Pegleg (1597–1641) and was known to the Spanish simply as “el Pirata,” or the Pirate.

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Cornelio’s scheme was nothing but real, and there were indeed those who backed him up. But for motives that I never learned, he gave up. I have convinced myself that he was without a doubt the one who gave Captain Bell the news that I and my crew wanted to kill him because from that moment on33 they started to go about in a more vigilant way, pointing two loaded cannons toward the bow, where we always were, and going about all their business with great caution. This whole arrangement troubled me greatly, and asking Master Gunner Nicpat, my protector, the reason for it, he only replied that my men and I should be careful while sleeping. Cursing then the hour that Cornelio came to talk to me, I prepared myself for death as best I could. That same night, tying me tight to the mizzenmast they began to torture me so that I would confess to my plan to commandeer the ship. I denied it all in the most unwavering way I could, and I believe that thanks to the intervention of the master gunner they left me alone. He34 then came to me, and assuring me that I would not be in any danger if I trusted him, and after I told him everything that had happened to me, he untied me and took me to the captain’s quarters. Kneeling down before him, I told him what Cornelio had proposed to me. Alarmed by this news the captain first made me confirm it by swearing [that it was true], and threatening to punish me for not having notified him immediately, he charged me with treason and mutiny. With entreaties and tears on my part, and reverences and petitions on the part of Master Gunner Nicpat, we secured from him my absolution, but it was by forcing me to keep quiet under penalty of death. Not many days passed before Cornelio and his followers were apprehended, and the lashings they were given were such that I am certain that they will never forget them for as long as they live. And under threat of the same punishment, and others worst, they were ordered to keep away from me and my crew. Proof of the efficacy of the lashings was that one of the men who suffered them, whose name was Enrique,35 took his share of silver, gold, and diamonds and, perhaps fearful of further punishment, jumped ship on the island of San Lorenzo and was never found even though Captain Bell tried hard to get him back. The necessary conclusion of all that has been stated here is that these pirates can compete in cruelty and abominations with all whose names have made it to the top of the roster in this trade. But I believe they would not have been so bad as they were to us if there would not have been with them a Spaniard who prided himself on being Sevillian and whose name was Miguel. There was no intolerable chore they gave us, there was no single time in which we were mistreated by them, there was no hunger we suffered, nor risk to our lives we endured, that he did not personally administer and supervise, taking pride in showing himself to be merciless and abandoning the Catholic faith into which he was born to live as a pirate 33. That is, from the point of Ramírez’s exchange with Cornelio. 34. Nicpat. 35. Possibly Henry.

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and to die as a heretic. He would join the English—and this was the most regrettable for me and my shipmates—in their festivities, which were on Christmas and on Sundays throughout the year, reading and praying like them out of their own books. May God enlighten his understanding so that, mending his ways, he may attain forgiveness for his unrighteousness.36

36. All the crew members of Our Lady of Aránzazu set free by the pirates in Ibuhos speak of Miguel the Sevillian in their statements. Just as they tried to cover for their former captain and the seven old mates that sailed off with the pirates, by stating instead that they had been abandoned in Pulau Condon, they spoke of Miguel as being a prisoner of the English and not as a pirate and a heretic. In fact, the tone of the testimonies confirms that far from being the Spanish-hater and sadist that he is made out to be in the Misfortunes, it was Miguel who spent the greatest amount of time with Ferrer’s men. Thus Juan del Pilar, who was the servant of the boatswain Francisco Acosta, stated that “he got to know four prisoners who were with said enemy, of one of them named Miguel, whose last name he did not know, only that he was by nation Sevillian, and the other three natives of the Kingdom of Chile, one named also Miguel, and the other Andrés, and the other also named Miguel, all of whom this witness spoke with frequently during the course of the time he was captive” (AGI, Filipinas, 12, R. 1, N. 60/4/41–42).

V1 Alonso Ramírez, and his shipmates, sails without knowing where they were or where they were going. The troubles and frights they suffered until running aground are told.

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Enough said of these troubles, that are too great [to consider] even for the wellinformed reader, and on to others of various kinds. I did not know, neither did my shipmates, the place where we found ourselves or the way in which our voyage would end, because we neither understood the Dutch pilot book, nor did we have a chart that might be of use to us amid such confusion. And it was the first time that any of us was ever there. Amid these doubts, reflecting on the death sentence they had given us should they come to capture us for a second time, taking a turn to the West. I went out to sea.2 On the sixth day, without changing course, we came within sight of what seemed to be the mainland because of its length and height, and setting the bow to the west-northwest, the next day at dawn, I found myself upon three small islands.3 Accompanied by Juan de Casas in a small dugout canoe that was in the frigate, I headed out to one of them where jacana birds4 and brown boobies5 were found, and carrying off with a great quantity of them to make jerk, I returned to the ship.6 1. This is an Arabic numeral in the original. 2. To go out to sea in a westerly direction, Ramírez must have turned Cape Orange and the Bay of Olapoque, at the present boundary between Brazil and French Guyana. Otherwise, he should have headed out, east by northeast, before turning west and northwest as the English had told him to do. Here, with this “I went out to sea” in first person singular, begins Ramírez’s attempt to set himself aside, above, and in command of his men. 3. As pointed out by Cummins and Soons, these are the islands of Salut, or Îles du Salut, off the coast of French Guyana (see Cummins and Soons, 82). These were originally known as the Islands of the Devil, but in 1663, they were renamed in such a way that only one of them, the northernmost, retains the original name of Devil’s Island. The other two are Royal Island and Saint Joseph Island, which is the southernmost. 4. The original uses the Spanish name “tabones,” a term derived from the Tagalog, which Ramírez no doubt picked up in the Philippines, where it describes a bird slightly smaller than a chicken of black plumage and long, yellow legs belonging to the family of the megapodes. The birds Ramírez saw in the Salut Islands were probably wattled jacanas, or Jacana jacana. The use of the term suggests that Ramírez might have acquired some measure of fluency in Tagalog and Malay. 5. This is the Sula leucogaster, which is common to the coast of the Guyanas and Surinam. 6. Juan de Casas, the only other Spaniard in the group, is excluded from this “I returned to the ship.”

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Sailing close to shore, we ran the length of it, and after ten days, we spotted a seemingly large island (Trinidad).7 It was then six in the morning and that same hour we were able to see a fleet of close to twenty warships of various sizes, and hoisting English colors, they hailed me with a cannon shot. Doubting if I should approach them, I thought that upon them seeing English things on board perhaps they would not believe the account I would give them but that instead they would presume that I had killed the masters of the frigate and that I was going as a fugitive in those waters. And in spite of the sudden squall that began to blow, judging that it was sent by God for my escape, I displayed the topsails and taking the rigging in my hand at all times8—which none of the English ships dared to do—I escaped with the bow to north running all day and night without changing course. The following day, I turned back to a westerly course to continue my journey. And the next day, I came upon the eastern side of an island (Barbados).9 Having reached the island, we were approached by a canoe with six men who came to inspect us. And no sooner had they come to know that we were Spaniards and we to know they were English when, breaking out in a cold sweat, we all decided to die of hunger among the waves before running the risk of suffering cruelties once again. They said that, if we wanted to trade, there we would find sugar, dyes, tobacco, and other fine goods. I told them that was what we wanted. And arguing that it was late to come ashore, with the excuse that we would spend the night heaving to,10 and giving them also the assurance that we would enter port the next day, they took leave. And then, immediately setting the bow to the east, I went out to sea. 7. This is note number one, which appears, as all the others in the first edition, set on the outside lateral margins of the text. Trinidad was a Spanish colony from 1498 to 1802, when it became part of the British Empire. 8. It is understood by this that Ramírez took direct control of the ship, personally handling the rigging and trimming the topsails to their most efficient position at all times. Since the topsails are the highest above the deck, this is an extremely risky maneuver during a squall when, on the contrary, the sails are supposed to be partially furled and the topsails are never unfurled. In such a maneuver, there is always a risk of breaking a mast or of capsizing by turning over the vessel. 9. This is note number two in the original. Barbados was claimed in 1625 by the English who began the colonization in 1627, until turning it by mid-century into their first major sugar-producing colony. However, this island is too far to the north and windward (east) of Trinidad, a fact that does not add up either with the distance that could be traveled in two days nor with the turn to the west that is mentioned in the text. It is much more plausible that Ramírez came upon the island of Tobago, which was colonized by the Dutch (1628–1677) and that at the time was being disputed between English settlers under the auspices of the Duke of Courland, whose grant to the land had been revoked by the British government, and other English companies and pirates. Moreover, Barbados did not have then a port on the eastern coast of the island whereas Tobago had one ever since the Dutch established New Flushing (today Scarborough) on Lampsins Bay (today Rocky Bay) in 1564. It is there where Ramírez must have arrived. 10. To trim the sails, alternating between those that face and those that carry the wind, so that they establish equilibrium causing the vessel to stop on the open sea without the use of an anchor.

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Ignorant of our whereabouts and convinced that we would not find but Englishmen wherever we would land, neither I nor my shipmates could find any consolation, especially upon seeing that our provisions were running out and that, were it not for some passing showers when we gathered some, we would be absolutely without water. To the east, as I said, and to the east-northeast, I sailed for three days. And then I moved the bow to the northeast11 and, after steering in that direction continuously for six days, I came upon a high and large island, and approaching it to inspect a point on its eastern part,12 a gig13 with seven men came out of it toward us. Learning from me that I was a Spaniard and that I was in search of water and firewood, and some provisions, they told me that was the island of Guadeloupe, inhabited by Frenchmen, and that with license from the governor—which he would grant without reluctance—I could get there all the supplies I needed, and that if I also wanted to trade, there would be no impediments, as there were none for certain people who landed there. I said I would enter [the port] but that I did not know where for lack of a chart or a harbor pilot who could guide me, and [I asked them] to tell me in what part of the world we found ourselves in. They were very shocked to hear this from me, and as they pressed me to tell them wherefrom I had set out and where I was heading, immediately regretting [having posed] the question and without giving them a straight answer, I took my leave. The reader should not be astonished at the ignorance we showed concerning those islands because having left my country at such an early age I never knew—nor cared to do so later—what were the neighboring islands and their names. There was even less reason for Juan de Casas, being a native of Puebla in the midland of New Spain, to know about them. And there was more reason lending weight to the same14 in the remaining shipmates, all of them being from the East Indies, where they have no need to care for news from those seas. But nevertheless, I was right to surmise that we were somewhere in America. Before parting from there, I proposed to my shipmates that it seemed to me impossible to endure any longer—because already we were running out of strength to deal with the constant troubles we faced—given that our supplies were very low, and that, since the French were Catholics, we should anchor with their favor in that island convinced that giving them an account of our misfortunes,15 they would be obliged out of Christian piety to protect us. They were strongly opposed to my suggestion, the motive being that, not being Spaniards and because 11. Following such a course, they would have passed some one hundred kilometers east of Barbados. 12. This is Castles Point, or Pointe des Châteaux, in the eastern tip of Grande-Terre on the island of Guadeloupe, so called for being a rocky outcrop that resembles the ruins of a castle or fortress. 13. A row boat, in this case, with six oars. 14. The same ignorance. 15. This is the first time that the term misfortunes is used in the story.

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of their [skin] color, they would be made slaves, and that they would find it less grievous if I were to throw them overboard with my own hands rather than to set foot on islands belonging to foreigners to suffer hardships under them. To avoid causing them grief, feeling their afflictions more than my own, I steered north the entire day, and the next one north by northeast, and after three days on that course, I saw an island (Barbuda).16 And from there, having rounded her southern side, and leaving another island (Antigua)17 to port, after we went for two days to the northwest and to the west-northwest, I found myself surrounded by islets between two big islands (Saint Barthelemy and Saint Martin).18 I had to exercise much caution to get out of there because of the high seas and winds blowing,19 and sailing only with the foresail,20 heading west, after three days, I sighted a very big island (Hispaniola),21 high and mountainous. But having 16. This is note number three in the original. But it is an incorrect reference because, given the course taken, they should have sailed west following the southern coast of Basse-Terre in Guadeloupe, rounding Old Fort Point (Point du Vieux-Fort) on its southwestern end, and running to the north along the western coast of the same island. It was logical for them to turn to the north by northeast after reaching the end of the island in order to get to Antigua. Should they have taken the same course setting out from the southeastern point of Guadeloupe—Castles Point—they would have gone away from the islands and into the open sea. In any event, it is not possible to get from Guadeloupe to Barbuda following the course indicated, no matter which side of Guadeloupe one sets out from. Antigua became a British colony in 1632. 17. This is note number four in the original and it is, just as in the two previous ones, an error on Sigüenza’s part. The island that is to port when rounding the southern side of Antigua is Montserrat, which, just like the first, became a British colony in 1632. 18. This is note number five in the original. The course taken coincides precisely with the arch of the Lesser Antilles and reveals a good knowledge of those waters on the part of Ramírez that contradicts what is alleged at the beginning of the chapter concerning not having a chart or a way to understand the Dutch pilot book. According to the description given by Ramírez to Sigüenza, the northwest course they took after leaving behind the island—which, as I have said in the previous note, was Antigua and not Barbuda—would have taken them in the direction of the island of Saint Martin, leaving to portside Nevis, Saint Kitts, Saint Eustatius, and Saba Islands. The Anegada Channel begins in Saint Martin where it is impossible to continue to navigate by sight from one island to the next. From there, the closest land and refuge for ships is the Virgin Islands. To get there, it is necessary to change course to the west northwest just as Ramírez did. This is perfectly in line with the description of finding themselves “surrounded by islets between two big islands” that are not, as Sigüenza assumes in his note, Saint Barthelemy and Saint Martin, but Tortola and Saint John, which lay, surrounded by islets, on the western end of the Sir Francis Drake Channel in what today are the British Virgin Islands. Back then, and well into the eighteenth century, the Virgin Islands was a safe haven preferred by pirates. 19. This could be a reference to the straight between Tortola and Saint John, which is appropriately named the Narrows. 20. The lowermost sail on the foremast—that is, on the mast closest to the prow. 21. This is note number six in the original. It is worth noting that it is impossible to cross from the Virgin Islands to Hispaniola without coming into sight of the coasts and mountains of Puerto Rico. After running the length of the Sir Francis Drake Channel, passing through the Narrows between Tortola and Saint John, and taking from there a westerly course, the island of Saint Thomas comes up to the south and from there the island of Culebra (also Passage or Serpent island) is already within clear view. If Ramírez was indeed sailing without a

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found ourselves at daybreak some six leagues22 to leeward of her southern coast, the wind never allowed me to get there, even when I did yaw23 to the northwest. Having spent a little more than three more days without reaching the end of the coast, and having surveyed two small islands (Beata and Alto Velo),24 I turned to the southwest. And after a day without seeing land or noting anything at all, I turned back to the northwest to make up for the distance lost. On the second day on that course, I spotted and I approached a big island ( Jamaica).25 There I saw, chart or a useful pilot book he could not have avoided heading toward Culebra. Once there he would have sighted the coast of Puerto Rico and, most distinctively, the peak of the Yunque Mountain, which is the highest point (1,080 meters) on the eastern end of the island and can be seen both from Culebra and from the city of San Juan, which lies slightly closer to it to the west. There is no possible way in which Ramírez could have crossed from the northernmost point of the arch of the Lesser Antilles to the southern coast of Hispaniola without having sighted, and recognized, his native country. According to the description given hereafter, it can be inferred that, having gotten to Culebra, Ramírez must have turned to the southwest, passing through the Vieques Channel, which separates the island of the same name (formerly known by the English as Crab Island) from the island of Puerto Rico. From there, he would have turned west running the entire length of the southern coast of Puerto Rico and crossing the Mona Passage until sighting the southern coast of Hispaniola. It is worth noting that even though there was no official settlement on the island of Vieques at the time, it was, however, very much visited by fishermen from Puerto Rico who came in search of sea turtles and who sold the meat in the market in San Juan. Inevitably, Ramírez must have come into contact with these or other people of the coast most of whom must have spoken Spanish and claimed to be Catholics. 22. A nautical league is 5.5555 kilometers. Hence they were some 33 kilometers from the coast. 23. To deviate momentarily from a course. 24. This is note number seven in the original. Beata and Alto Velo are two islets south of the Pedernales Peninsula in the southwestern end of what is today the Dominican Republic. It is once again strange that Ramírez found it impossible to fight the winds and make landing. Very conveniently for him, and in a very unconvincing way for those who know these coasts and waters, in going from the Virgin Islands to Beata and Alto Velo without making landfall, Ramírez left behind a long stretch of coastline—more than six hundred kilometers—that was all Spanish territory. Worth noting above all, along this coast is the city of Santo Domingo that, having decreased significantly in importance since its period of boom during the first half of the sixteenth century, was nevertheless a walled city and archbishopric, and hence, a place where Ramírez would have found the aid and protection that supposedly he was seeking. The walls of Santo Domingo and, most prominently, the high tower of the Ozama Fortress, would have been clearly distinguishable from the sea, unless Ramírez was purposely sailing below the horizon to escape detection from shore. See figure 9. 25. This is note number eight in the original. The British took Jamaica from the Spaniards in 1655. After having sighted Beata and Alto Velo, Ramírez could have continued along the coast of Hispaniola instead of heading out to sea, a risky maneuver without a chart or a pilot book. Where was he going? It is very suspicious that he took the southwestern course after Alto Velo and then turned northwest to come upon Jamaica. It was very unwise to head out to sea without a chart and a pilot book, and it would have been practically impossible to find Jamaica without knowing its bearings beforehand and having precise navigational instructions. The fact that he got to Jamaica, and the clear course he took to get there, makes us think that Ramírez was not sailing without bearings as we are led to believe in the text.

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as far as the distance allowed, a port (Port Royal)26 with some small keys on the outside and many ships inside. No sooner did I see that two sloops27 among them28 with English flags were coming out to inspect me, furling all the sails, I lay to the wind waiting for them.29 But due to this action, or for some other motive they might have had, without daring to come close, they went back inside the harbor.30 I continued my journey, and in order to round off a point31 that came up ahead, I sailed south, and having gone around it well out to sea, I turned back to the west, and to the west-northwest, until two and a half days later, I got to an island (Grand Cayman),32 some five or six leagues in length but very low lying, from where one sloop came toward me flying English colors. I immediately furled the sails and laid to.33 But after it came to me on starboard, inspecting me by passing astern, it went back to the island very slowly. I hailed her by shooting a salvo, but she paid no attention. Not having gone ashore on this island nor having entered the harbor of the previous one responded to the urging and cries of my shipmates who, as soon as they saw anything relating to the English, were instantly disheartened and would become restless for a long time.34 Annoyed with myself and by that point determined not to listen to their sobbing in the future, since we had not eaten but what we fished and the provision 26. This is note number nine in the original. Port Royal, then the main settlement in the British colony, was destroyed by an earthquake shortly thereafter in 1692. When Ramírez went by, it was the wealthiest city on the islands and the busiest harbor, mostly visited by pirates and by the enemies of Spain. It would have been very dangerous to have passed close enough to be seen and captured by pirates unless Ramírez was carrying letters of reference from his alleged captors and got there in search of business and pleasure and ready to participate in the Lutheran rites. See figure 10. 27. A small, single-masted sailing vessel. 28. Among the many anchored in the harbor. 29. This maneuver was intended as a show of nonbelligerence on the part of Ramírez who was placing his frigate at the mercy of the approaching sloops. 30. It is hard to believe that a Malay vessel would not have seemed a curiously attractive prize to the pirates of Port Royal. If this contact occurred, Ramírez must have come into the harbor willingly or not. 31. Portland Point is the southernmost end of Jamaica. 32. This is note number ten in the original. The Cayman Islands became a British colony in 1670. It is strange that Ramírez would have gotten to these islands that, just as the text indicates, are not only very small but very low lying. If it would have been very difficult to reach Jamaica sailing, as the text claims, without any knowledge of the geography, it would have been almost impossible to come upon the Cayman Islands without a chart or pilot book, being as they are practically marooned in the middle of the western Caribbean Sea. Again, it is possible to argue that Ramírez had precise information, whether given to him by his former pirate “captors” or by the people of the coast on the islands, where, very clearly, he must have gone ashore in more than one occasion. 33. This was the same maneuver he carried out in Port Royal as a sign of nonbelligerence. 34. More than likely, as in most of the other occasions where he denies having committed an unpardonable fault (some of which we have proven to be false), Ramírez likely entered both harbors, especially considering that to get to Jamaica as well as to the Cayman Islands he had to take the unadvisable decision to head out to sea without a chart or pilot book.

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of fresh water was so low that it was reduced to a small barrel and two jugs, wishing to make landfall in any place even if it were to be inhabited by the English, I sailed for eight days to the west and to the west-southwest. And at eight in the morning of that day in which our unsuccessful and aimless navigation came to an end, being almost on top of it, I noticed a very long bank of sand and rock.35 Concealing how frightened I was at its sight, sailing close to its edge as best I could manage, I crossed it through a gap without being able to sight land until five in the afternoon. Seeing how close it was and how, being so low lying, we were unable to sight it until we were dangerously close to it,36 before night fell, I sent a man up the main mast to look out for other shoals we should avoid. And repeatedly tacking for what remained of the day, shortly after nightfall, I anchored in four fathoms37 and over rocks.38 This was done only by means of a kedge-anchor,39 for lack of any other one, and with a piece of hemp cable up to ten fathoms in length fastened to one made of liana—and it was the one we twisted in Pulau Ubi—that was sixty [fathoms in length].40 And because the kedge-anchor—I should rather call it a grapnel41—was so small that it would be fit to use only with a pontoon, I helped it out with a cannon clinched to a piece of abaca cable42 fifty fathoms in length.43 The wind blew stronger and with big gusts as the night wore on and, because of this and of the rocks on the bottom, shortly after five in the morning, the cables broke. Seeing that all was lost, I immediately unfurled all the sails to see if I could clear a point that I saw coming up ahead. But the current was so extremely furious that it gave us neither place nor time to come up to the wind, so that falling off44 more and more, and without resistance, we ran aground on the shoals in the very point.45 The sea was so high, and the blows that the ship was taking 35. This is the Chinchorro Atoll, a great oval-shape reef with a surface of eight hundred square kilometers that rises suddenly to the surface from a depth of a thousand meters. Located thirty kilometers from the east coast of the Yucatán Peninsula, it measures forty-six kilometers from north to south, and fifteen kilometers from east to west. Primarily a coral formation, its eastern side is a long and massive wall that poses great peril and is a major obstacle to navigation because its crest is barely above sea level and is practically undistinguishable until, as the text indicates, it is generally too late to avoid running into it. 36. The Yucatán coast is barely a meter above sea level in the area in question, which runs between Ambergris Cay (Belize) and Espíritu Santo Bay (México). 37. Approximately seven meters in depth. 38. The sea bottom in these parts is primarily made up of a combination of sandstone and coral that is very damaging to hulls and anchoring cables. 39. A small anchor. 40. The total length of the cable was approximately 128 meters. 41. A small anchor, generally with four flukes. 42. A water-resistant fiber, taken from a plant similar to the plantain tree that is native to the Philippines and other parts of Southeast Asia, and that until the discovery of synthetic materials was commonly used to twist marine cables. 43. Some ninety-one meters in length. 44. Heading away from the wind. 45. According to my field research, this is Herradura or Horseshoe Point, formerly called Suxor Point (see AGI, MP-México, 198) located within the Uaymil region, one of the sixteen subdivisions of the Yucatán Peninsula in pre-Columbian times.

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against the bottom so horrifying, that not only were my shipmates baffled but so was I, who anxiously had been looking forward to the opportunity to go ashore, especially since I had no gig to bring them to safety. The waves were breaking with great force, not only over the point where we were, but along the length of the coast within sight, and with every wave and corresponding hit that the ship took, we thought it would break open and we would be swallowed by the abyss. Considering the danger of not acting quickly, making earnest signs of repentance and wanting to be worthy God’s mercy by offering my life to Him in exchange for that of those poor people, tying around me a thin rope that they were to let out, I jumped in the water. His mercy made it possible for me to reach land, where I fastened the rope and, using it as a lifeline for those who did not know how to swim, convinced as they were that the crossing was not as difficult as their fear made it out to be, managed to bring them all to safety—not without two of them being in danger of drowning—past the middle part of the afternoon.

The exact location of the shipwreck is 18º 32′ 20.53″ N by 87º 44′ 26.37″ W. According to my calculations, the ship ran aground on Sunday, September 18, 1689. In time, the ship broke apart due to the constant wave action or was taken apart by looters, creating a debris field one hundred meters long. The largest piece found during the expedition of February 2018 is a thirty-eight-meter section of the hull resting on the sandy bottom at seven meters of depth. It runs from 18º 32′ 23.29″ N and 87º 44′ 26.02″ W to 18º 32′ 23.61″ N and 87º 44′ 27.18″ W. The width of the piece that is visible varies in length from one to four meters and it is seven centimeters thick. This length would be over twice what Ramírez reports or Sigüenza recollects. But the thickness of the hull confirms that it had triple planking. The cannon, measuring seventy-four centimeters, is barely above the surface in less than a meter of water incrusted in the corals, located at 18º 32′ 21.82″ N and 87º 44′ 28.14″ W. The European pottery and handmade nails and fasteners were all found on the rock in an area of five meters in radius around 18º 32′ 21.07″ N and 87º 44′ 28.47″ W. See figures 11 to 13 and maps 7 and 11. No doubt, the bulk of the remains, including the ballast, cannons, lead ordinance, and copper bars lie on the shallow area around the point of the rock that remained off limits during the expedition due to the strong winds and currents. My hope is to conduct a full exploration to document the entire site and build a small museum nearby.

VI1 Thirst, hunger, disease, and death that aggrieved them on this coast. Unexpectedly, they find Catholic folk and know themselves to be in Yucatán, on the mainland of North America.

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The rock that ended in this point stretched out some two hundred paces and was besieged on all sides by the sea that, perhaps due to the violence with which it broke, washed all over it with great force. There was no tree or anything on it where we could shelter ourselves from the wind that blew fast and furious.2 But repeatedly calling to God Our Lord and making promises to Him, and convinced that we were in a place from which we could never escape, the night passed. The wind continued to blow and therefore the sea did not calm down for three days.3 However, after daybreak, noticing that it was close, we moved to shore, which was about one hundred paces from us, the water at its deepest not reaching above the waist.4 We were all dying of thirst, and not finding fresh water in the immediate area where we looked, placing the risk to myself second to the aid and comfort of those wretched ones, I decided to go on board the ship. And entrusting myself wholeheartedly to the Most Holy Mary of Guadalupe, I jumped into the sea and 1. This is an Arabic numeral in the original. 2. Indeed, Herradura Point is a rocky outcrop that barely rises a meter above sea level and jots out some two hundred paces. That makes it the most prominent topographic feature and the only truly prominent point along the entire length of coast between Ambergris Cay and Espíritu Santo Bay. To this day, it is still barren and is particularly unwelcoming since it is made up in its entirety of a very sharp and broken limestone surface that is commonly known in the Spanish-speaking Caribbean as “diente de perro,” or “dog’s teeth,” rock. This rock is an ideal habitat for sea urchins that in Herradura Point live in every crevice in its surface below the water. Given the sharp edges of the rock and the number of sea urchins living in it, it must have been truly horrific for Ramírez and his crew to land on this rock in the middle of a storm. See figure 11. 3. Such weather points to the possibility that a tropical storm or hurricane passed nearby, placing Ramírez in that part of the Caribbean between August and November of 1689. According to my calculations, tracking back the precise day-by-day description in the text from the moment of Alonso Ramírez’s confession in Tihosuco, which is said to have happened on the feast of Saint Catherine of Alexandria, the shipwreck occurred on Sunday, September 18, 1689. 4. Today a dirt road on top of an embankment passes between the rock at Herradura Point and the old beach. But it is still possible to identify on both sides of the road the area some one hundred paces wide that once separated the rock from the shore. The site of the shipwreck lies in the very center of a broad stretch of the Yucatán coast, which runs from the mouth of the Sibun River, in what today is Belize, to the northern shore of Ascension Bay, and that at the time was an area of piracy, contraband trade, and timber logging.

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reached the ship, from where I retrieved a chopping ax and all I deemed necessary to make fire. I made a second trip and by pushing and shoving—or, to say it better, miraculously—I placed a small barrel5 right on the beach. And not daring to make a third trip that day, after we all quenched our extreme thirst, I made the stronger ones chop down the many palm trees that were there so that we may eat their shoots.6 And making a fire, the night went by. The following day, puddles filled with fresh water, although somewhat brackish, were found among those palms.7 And while the shipmates were congratulating each other on the finding, joined by Juan de Casas, I went over to the ship, wherefrom in the dugout canoe that we had brought with us— always at peril because of the high seas and the strong winds—we took out and brought on shore the fore-top-sail, the two foresails and topsails, and pieces of the others. We also took out shotguns, gunpowder and ammunition, and everything that at the time we thought more useful in case of any eventuality.8 Having built a tent where we all fit comfortably in, and not knowing which part of the coast we had to walk along to find people, I chose without any special reason the one that runs to the south.9 Joining me was Juan de Casas, and after having walked that day about four leagues,10 we killed two wild pigs, and fearing that the meat could go to waste in the midst of such much need, we carried back the two pigs so that the shipmates could eat. The next morning we retraced our steps until coming to the mouth of a river of salt water so wide and deep that we could go no further.11 And even when on account of having discovered some very 5. This must be the same small barrel mentioned in the second to last paragraph of the preceding chapter. 6. Also heart of palm. Along the Bacalar coast, between Ambergris Cay and Espíritu Santo Bay, there is a vast mangrove forest separated from the beach by a narrow strip of land that in Herradura Point is covered with palmetto palm trees of the Sabal genus. The top of these palms, which have a slender trunk and are barely taller than three meters high, have shoots with a tender growing bud that can be plucked easily by hand. See figure 14. As it will be pointed out four paragraphs down, Ramírez and his men had few other choices of food besides the heart of palm. For all practical purposes, this coast is nothing but a green desert surrounded by salt and brackish water. The mangrove forest behind the beach is inhabited by alligators and the entire area is infested with mosquitoes that come out to bite every afternoon and after every rain. 7. There are places among the palm trees where the rock comes up to the surface and where rainwater collects in its cavities. 8. Here, we learn that the English had given them shotguns. How do we square this information with the assertion that Ramírez never joined the pirates and, hence, was never given weapons? 9. We must be wary of this assertion since, as I argue in the introduction, Ramírez was hoping to reach Stann Creek Town, today Dangriga, Belize. See map 8. 10. The Spanish land league, or league of twenty-five to a degree of the meridian, equals 4.2 kilometers and is a calculation based on the distance that can be walked on foot in an hour. Accordingly, Ramírez must have walked for four hours covering a total distance of seventeen kilometers. 11. The Huache River (Uach in Mayan) is some fourteen kilometers along the beach south of Herradura Point, a fact that confirms the calculations made by Ramírez of having walked

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old straw huts12 we were convinced that we would soon find people, being unable to proceed [past this point], we turned back in disappointment after four days. I found the shipmates in worse condition than I was because the puddles from where they were getting their water were running dry, and all their bodies were so swollen they looked dropsied.13 On the second day after my arrival, the water ran out, and even though five days were spent doing all that we possibly could to get more, the one we found surpassed the sea’s saltwater in its bitterness. On the night of the fifth day, all of us exhausted and laying on the ground—and more with sighs than with speech, being unable to utter words—we asked the Most Holy Virgin of Guadalupe that, since she was a spring of life for those who were devoted to her, taking pity on how we were almost at death’s door, she come to our rescue as Her sons, professing to be always grateful in remembrance of such great a favor. You well know, my most beloved Lady and Mother, that so it happened. Before the plea was over, a sudden squall approaching from the southeast brought such a heavy rain over us that, cooling our bodies down and plentifully filling up the dugout canoe and every pot we had, it gave us back our lives.14 That place was not only barren and devoid of water but very unhealthy. And even though the shipmates recognized it to be so, fearing to die on the road, there was no way of convincing them that we should leave it. But God willed that what my pleas were unable to secure the mosquitoes—that were also there—managed to achieve with their annoyance. And they were without a doubt, through their bites, the ones that in part had caused the swelling I have mentioned. Thirty days were spent in that place eating chachalacas,15 heart of palm, and some shellfish. And before leaving there, wanting to avoid not doing everything I could, I went over to the ship, that until then had not lost the caulking in the seams,16 and packing the guns with cannonballs, I fired all of them twice. a little over four leagues (from seventeen to eighteen kilometers), especially if taking into account that they were walking on sand and thus were traveling slower. See figure 15. This river must measure some ten meters in average width and three in depth along its entire length of two kilometers winding through the mangrove forest, from Huache Lagoon to the beach. It is the first and only major obstacle encountered while walking on the beach south of Herradura Point. In fact, this place was formerly known as Punta Honda, or Deep Point (see AGI, MP-México, 198). From there, one must travel thirty more miles south before encountering the next obstacle, which is the Mouth of Bacalar Chico, or Boca de Cangrejo, as it was then called (see AGI, MP-México, 495). 12. This is probably a reference to an old settlement on the northern shore of the Huache River, opposite to where today the small village of Santa Rosa is located. The reference to the straw huts speaks to the basic typology of Mayan domestic architecture. 13. Suffering from dropsy, an ailment that is characterized by the accumulation of liquid under the skin. 14. The miracle, as a rhetorical device, is intended to validate Ramírez’s entire story. 15. Also plain chachalacas or Ortalis vetula. It is a small, brown bird, native to an area extending from northern México to the Isthmus of Panama, which lives close to water and makes for good eating. 16. Meaning that water had not entered the ship’s hull and thus the powder magazine down in the hold was still dry.

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My aim was that if by chance there were people inland, they would be moved by the noise to find out its cause and that, going there, our trials would end with their arrival. I kept this hope until the next day, when that night—I do not know how—a ten-pound cartridge17 that I was holding in my hand caught fire and not only burned my hand but wounded me in the thigh, part of the chest, the entire face, and blew my hair away. Treating the wounds as best it could have been done with white ointment18 that was found in the medicine cabinet left to me by the master gunner, and giving the shipmates the following morning the encouragement that I needed more so than them, I took leave from there. Left behind—if only we could have carried her with us even if on our shoulders, given what I will say hereunder—left behind, I say, was the frigate that the English graciously gave us as payment for the many services me and my crew rendered them. It was—and I do not know if it is still—thirty-three cubits in length and had an extra layer of planking.19 The masts and yards were made of the finest pine, and she was very well put together, so much so that with a fresh breeze she could run eighty leagues in a single day.20 On board and on the beach, we left behind nine iron pieces of artillery with upwards of two thousand cannon balls of four, six, and ten pounds, and all made out of lead, at least one hundred quintals21 of that metal; fifty bars of tin; 1,500 pounds of iron;22 eighty copper bars from Japan; many earthen jars from China; seven elephant tusks; three barrels of gunpowder; forty shotgun barrels; ten gun locks; a medicine cabinet; and many surgical instruments. With a good supply of nothing but gunpowder and ammunition, and each of us with his own shotgun,23 we began to walk on the shoreline heading north, but very slowly due to the weakness and frailty of the shipmates. And we spent two days getting to a brook of fresh but reddish water that must have been less than

17. A cartridge used in firing a ten-pound cannonball. This means that the frigate was carrying at least one artillery piece of medium size caliber since the caliber of pieces used on ships during that time ranged from two to twenty-four pounds. A ten-pounder had an average weight of some two thousand pounds and the cartridge to fire the ball packed approximately five pounds of gunpowder. 18. Ointment made of lard and white lead, or lead carbonate powder, that was used to treat burns as well as to seal and to cauterize wounds. 19. Also called doubling, the ship had an extra layer of planking between the outer shell and the inner lining. 20. Eighty maritime leagues equal 444.48 kilometers, which for a twenty-four-hour run would average 18.52 kilometers per hour, or a speed of 9.99 knots. At the time, that was the maximum speed that any vessel could attain. 21. One thousand pounds, or 454 kilograms. 22. The equivalent of 680 kilograms. 23. Among pirates, weapons were the property of each individual and, at the time, there were no more precious and cherished personal weapons than firearms. We can infer, by the use of the possessive in this statement, that each of the men were carrying guns of their own property that they had had with them ever since they had joined the crew of the Cygnet.

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four leagues away from the starting place.24 Considering that at this rate we were only approaching death—and rather quickly—I was forced to propose to them, using the kindest words dictated to me by affection, that since they were no longer without fresh water and that, as we could see, many birds flocked there guaranteeing their sustenance, they should approve of me going ahead in the company of Juan de Casas until coming upon a settlement wherefrom, I assured them, I would return with fresh supplies to take them out of there. They replied to this proposal with such pitiful outcries and copious tears that I was moved to cry every bit more than them with tears that came from the bottom of my heart. Embracing me, they endeared themselves to me, lovingly pleading for me not to forsake them and that, since it did not seem humanly possible even for the strongest among them to live more than three days, having so little to wait, as the father I was to all of them, I should wait [until that time] to give them all my blessing upon their last breath and thereafter carry on with Godspeed in search of the help that their unhappiness and bad luck had denied them in such an unwelcoming environment. Their tears convinced me to do as they wished. But after six days passed without any improvement on their part, and realizing that I was also beginning to experience some swelling and that death would come more quickly to them in my absence, fearing my own death above all things, I managed to get them to continue the journey even if at a very slow pace. I went ahead with Juan de Casas reconnoitering the path that those behind us were to follow. And the farthest behind of these, being the sickest, was Francisco de la Cruz, a Chinese who, ever since receiving the mancuerda punishment at the hands of the English before arriving in Capones, suffered a thousand ills, the one that now took his life being two areas of swelling in his breasts and one in the middle of the back that reached all the way to his head. After having walked for about one league, we came to a stop. And since everyone was arriving at the pace that their strength permitted, by nine in the evening, we were still not all together, as said Francisco de la Cruz had not yet arrived. We spent the night waiting for him and, instructing Juan de Casas to push ahead, I went back before daybreak to search for him. I found him about half a league back25 still conscious but almost at his last breath. Weeping inconsolably and unable, due to my emotions, to come up with reasonable explanations, I told him what I thought was appropriate so that he could resign himself to the will of God and receive his grace as he passed away. And just before noon, his spirit gave up. Some two hours later, I dug a deep hole in the sand and, praying to the Divine Majesty for the rest of his

24. This is the Río Bermejo or Red River, a small and very shallow brook that is barely a meter wide at its mouth. The distance between Herradura Point and the Bermejo River Point is seventeen kilometers—that is, exactly four Spanish land leagues. They would camp here for six days, the precise location being 18º 41′ 09.1″ N and 87º 43′ 06.8″ W. See figure 16. 25. Half a league north of Bermejo River Point is Point Mahahual, where today is a small village by the same name.

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soul, I buried him. And raising a cross made with two rough pieces of wood in that place, I returned to my men. I found them quartered about another league beyond the point where they had departed, and Antonio González, the other Chinese, was almost dying. And with no way of aiding him and no medicine to give him strength, due to either sadness or exhaustion, I fell asleep while consoling him. And shortly thereafter, being woken up by [my sense of] diligence, I found him dead. The next day, we all took part in burying him, and pointing to the two fatalities, I urged them to walk as much as we could, convinced that it was the only way to save our lives. That day, we walked about three leagues,26 and in the following three, we covered fifteen.27 And as we walked and perspired, the swelling went down and our strength grew back. We came upon a saltwater river that was very narrow but extremely deep. And even when it took us an entire day of walking through a thick mangrove forest to get to it, realizing after sounding it that it had no ford, a bridge was fashioned out of palms that were cut down, and we moved on, not letting it be a hindrance the fact that at that point I was running a fever. On the second day after we left that place, as I and Juan de Casas walked in front of the rest, a huge bear came across the path we were following.28 And even though I wounded him with the shotgun, it charged toward me. And even when I tried my best to defend myself with the butt [of the gun], my strength being little and his much, I would have died had my mate not come to my assistance. We left it lying there and moved on. Five days after this event, we reached a rocky point beyond which I thought it impossible to proceed given how very weak I was on account of the fever.29 By then all the others had recovered fully or, to be more precise, were in perfect health. Having come to a stop, while they went into the woods in search of food, I took shelter behind a rock under an improvised tent that they made for me with a blanket we were carrying.30 And Pedro, my slave, kept watch over me. Among the many things that occurred to me in that time of distress the most disturbing was that I was without a doubt on the coast of Florida

26. By then they would have been at 18º 50′ 19″ N in Cajón del Muerto Point. 27. The quicker pace during these days was no doubt due to the fact that there are long stretches of open sandy beach north of Cajón del Muerto Point. The fifteen leagues covered would have taken them beyond Punta Herrero at the mouth of the Espíritu Santo Bay. 28. Supposing that they kept covering ground at a rate of five leagues per day, they should have been at around 19º 13′ 23″ N and inside the Bay of Espíritu Santo. Therein lies the Tzigu Forest. 29. There is no question that this is what today is called Punta Piedra or Stone Point, at 19º 33′ 26.8″ and 87º 25′ 00.0″ W. This confirms that, indeed, they kept up the pace, traveling some five leagues per day. Piedra Point is one of the few places along this coast where the reef that runs parallel to the shoreline comes out of the water to meet the land. Like Punta Herradura, it is made of the “diente de perro” limestone, and it would have been almost impassable for men walking barefoot, especially in Ramírez’s feverish condition. 30. There, where the sand ends and Piedra Point begins, the rock mentioned by Ramírez still sits in the middle of the ragged outcrop at 19º 33′ 27.1″ and 87º 25′ 02.7″ W. See figure 17.

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in America and that, as her inhabitants were extremely cruel, we would end up losing our lives at their bloody hands. My boy interrupted these thoughts with loud screams, telling me that he scouted people along the coast and that they were naked.31 I rose up frightened, grabbed the shotgun, and sallied forth, and taking cover behind the rock where I was sheltered, I recognized two naked men carrying small loads on their backs and making gestures with their heads as if looking for something. I did not make much of the fact that they were unarmed and, since they were already within firing range, I went out to meet them. Being far more confused than I was, as soon as they saw me, they fell to their knees and, raising their arms, they began to cry out for quarter in Castilian. I threw down my shotgun and, running up to them, I embraced them. And answering the questions I immediately posed to them, they said that they were Catholics and that they were searching for amber along that coast accompanying their master, who was walking behind them and whose name was Juan González and was a resident of Tihosuco.32 They also said that that was the coast known as Bacalar in the province of Yucatán. This extremely cheerful news—especially when at the height of my sadness I was imagining a death among barbarians—was followed by giving repeated thanks to God and to His Most Holy Mother. And firing three shots, which was the signal for our shipmates to come forth, we all rejoiced at their arrival, which was fast and immediate. Not being convinced of who we were, doubting whether we belonged to the English and French pirates that roamed around in the area, the Yucatecans took out the food that they carried in their packs so that we may eat. And giving them two of our shotguns—not so much in return for the food but to appease the fear we sensed in them—they did not accept them. Shortly thereafter, their master saw us because he was following behind his Indians at a slow pace. And realizing that he meant to return as quickly as possible into the thick of the forest, where it would not be easy for us to find him, keeping one of his two Indians as hostage, the other one went to give him assurances after we pleaded with him and talked him into it. After a very long conversation between them, he came to us, albeit frightened and weary as we could tell by his look and glean in his words. And speaking to him with great kindness and affection, and giving him a brief summary of my great trials, handing over to him all our weapons so that he could put aside the fear we perceived in him, I managed to have him stay that night with us so that the following morning he could take us wherever he wished. He told us, among 31. These people should have been walking along the beach south of Piedra Point. 32. Tihosuco, or Tejosuco, derives from the Mayan Tixhotzuc. In 1660, Juan González de Ulloa was lieutenant governor of Yucatán under Governor Francisco Bazán (see AGI, Escribanía, 306A) Later, he was named as the owner of two encomiendas in Chulul and Mopilá, the first in the vicinity of Campeche and the second between Mérida and Tihosuco. See AGI, México, 242B, N. 68, and AGI, México, 245, N. 3.

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the many things that were said, that we should thank God for His most kind favor at not having allowed his Indians to have seen us first and at a distance. Because if having thought of us as pirates, they should have retreated to seek shelter in the thick of the forest, we would never come out of that wild and deserted place because a boat was needed for that and we did not have one.

VII They go to Tihosuco and from there to Valladolid, where they experience hardships. They arrive in Mérida. Alonso Ramírez returns to Valladolid and the hardships are greater. The reason he came to México City and what resulted from it.

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If others have been killed by an unexpected joy, it made my fever go away, which speaks to how great (a joy) it must have been. Rid of it then, we left there at the crack of dawn. And after having walked along the shore of the cove for one league, we arrived at a very small harbor where they had beached the canoe in which they had come across.1 We boarded it and, all of us complaining of being very thirsty, having us come ashore on a small island—of the many that abound there—to which they then headed, we found a seemingly old building made up of only four walls, and in the middle of each one of them, a small door, and in line with these, another one in the middle2 of a higher height (the outside walls must have been three body lengths high).3 We also saw nearby some wells dug 1. They must have walked some eight kilometers south until reaching a point 19º 29′ 00.0″ N, between Loria Point and Tupac Point, to cut through the narrow strip of land that separates the beach from the Santa Rosa Lagoon. Still today, there is a path through the sand that gives access from the beach to the lagoon and on the edge of this a small open field and a rustic wooden dock or “small harbor” where the people who travel through the lagoon and the extensive mangrove that surrounds it leave their canoes. The small harbor is located at 19º 29′ 02.6″ N and 87º 26′ 17.1″ W. 2. In the middle of the building. 3. The unit of measure used in the original text is the old Spanish “estado,” which equaled 1.9 meters. Thus the height of the building was around six meters. This is a structure of a minor scale, known today as the ruins of Tupac, which lies hidden among the mangroves on the southern edge of the Santa Rosa Lagoon in Ascension Bay. Located almost one kilometer inland at 19º 29′ 06.8″ N and 87º 26′ 32.2″ W, it can only be accessed by canoe. See figures 18 and 19. The present building is the product of a recent and extensive reconstruction that has little relation in form if not in scale with the description in the text. It has a rectangular base, a height of little over five meters, and a single entrance on its western façade. It is built not on an island but on a manmade stone platform also of rectangular shape that runs out from under the building on its western side to meet a bridge that leads to an open circular well, a meter in diameter and today almost completely covered by the mangroves, from whence fresh water springs continuously. See figure 20. We should assume that the reconstructed building is more closely related to what must have been there when Ramírez visited, especially because the twin cylindrical columns that support the architrave of the western entrance are not repeated in any of the other three façades that otherwise lack any sort of opening. This was the typology followed by the main structures in this part of the Mayan world as can be confirmed in the largest pyramid of the nearby ruins of Chac Mool, of which the shelter for travelers and watering hole of Tupac

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out by hand and all filled with excellent water.4 After we drank to our satisfaction, we were amazed that water could be found in an islet that was two hundred paces around. And taking a good look at the building I have described, I learned that not only this one but others much larger that can be found in that part of the province were built by peoples who came to it many centuries before it was conquered by the Spaniards. Continuing on our journey, around nine in the morning, a large canoe was sighted. Assured by the sail they were carrying—which we could see was made of matting or palm fibers, which is one and the same—that they were not English pirates as was presumed, Juan González proposed to me that we should attack and capture them. The motive he put forth to justify the dishonest action was that those on board were pagan Indians from the highlands5 and that, by taking them to his village priest so he could convert them, as he did others daily, we would be giving him a precious gift, and that moreover, having brought provisions for only three, being now a party of nine and facing many days ahead of us before arriving at a settlement without the hope of finding food, we were within our right, and even under the obligation, to take for ourselves the provisions that without a doubt the Indians were carrying. What he proposed seem reasonable to me, and we gave them chase with sail and oars. There were fourteen people in the canoe (without counting a few children). And having put up a strong resistance showering us with arrows, they were frightened by the shots of our guns, which, though continuous and terrifying, were fired without volleys because I gave my men strict orders that it be so since it would have been ungodly to kill those poor men without them having offended us in the least. Once we had boarded them, they spoke to Juan González, who understood their language, and promising him a piece of amber weighing about two pounds and as much of the corn they were carrying as we would want, they asked him to let them go. He proposed to me that, if I agreed, we should grant their request. But being displeased that the amber should be coveted more than bringing those miserable pagans into the fold of the Catholic Church, as they had suggested,6 I did not agree to it. Juan González kept the amber. And with the canoes tied together and the prisoners secured, we resumed our course until having gone all the way across the bay; just before nightfall, we came ashore.7 was a dependency. The description in the book is based more likely on what Sigüenza knew of pre-Columbian architecture in the Valley of México. 4. Fresh water, that is. 5. This is a reference to the Puuc Highlands in the center of the Yucatán Peninsula. 6. A reference to González’s initial plan. 7. Ascension Bay. Evidently they crossed the bay from south to north in order to take the old commercial route of Muyil that at the time linked this area of the coast with the interior of the peninsula. The road begins on the northwestern shore of Ascension Bay at 19º 47′ 55.3″ N and 87º 33′ 59.9″ W.

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The next day was spent grinding corn and putting together the provisions for the six days that they said it was to take us to cross through the forest. And sending the Indians ahead of us with the provisions, we began to walk. In the evening of that day, wanting to get a light from my gun, not thinking that it was loaded and not exercising the due precautions, I lost consciousness with the unexpected blow as it slipped from my hands, wounding me on the chest and head.8 I did not regain my senses until close to midnight, when such a powerful rainstorm fell upon us that it flooded the place where we were sheltered with a rush that reached almost to our waists—which was unforeseen—and we lost most of our supplies and all the gunpowder except that which I carried in my flask. With this inconvenience, and being carried by the Indians because I was unable to move—Juan González leaving us his servants to guide us and carrying on ahead, both to procure some food for us as well as to notify the Indians in the villages that lay along the path we were to follow that we were not pirates as they could think but lost men looking for their protection—we went ahead in our journey through the forest without a single Indian man or woman of the pagan ones who, taking advantage of the rainstorm, fled from us. We went very hungry until running into a grove of plantain trees,9 where not only did we eat to our satisfaction but, with a provision of roasted plantains, were able to move on. Given notice of our misfortunes10 by Juan González, the priest of Tihosuco—of whom I shall speak shortly—sent down the road for us some very good refreshments. And restored by these, the following day, we reached a village in his parish, which is about a league away from the parish church and is named Tilá,11 where we met people sent by him who were waiting for us with a gift of chocolate and splendid food. We remained there until horses arrived for us to mount and, surrounded by Indians who came to look at us as an oddity, we arrived at the village of Tihosuco around nine in the morning.12 This town is not only large but delightful and pleasant.13 Many Spaniards live there and among them don Melchor Pacheco to whom the Indians pay tribute as their encomendero.14 The parish church is made up of three naves and it is 8. We are to infer that the gun went off accidentally. 9. Not to be confused with bananas. 10. This is the second and last time that the term misfortunes is employed in the story. 11. According to William G. Bryant, this was a small village belonging to the Duchess of Albuquerque, Ana de la Cueva Enríquez. See Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora, “Infortunios de Alonso Ramírez,” en Seis Obras, intro. Irving A. Leonard, ed. William G. Bryant (Caracas: Biblioteca Ayacucho, 1984), 46, note 93. It could be the ruins known today as Lalcah about five kilometers southeast of Tihosuco. See Luis Alberto Matos López, “Lalcah: Un pueblo olvidado en la selva de Quintana Roo,” Boletín de Monumentos Históricos, tercera época, 7 (May–August 2016): 2–20. 12. See map 9. 13. At the time Tihosuco was under the control of the city council of Valladolid and was the first Spanish town in the eastern frontier of this jurisdiction. 14. The encomendero holds title to the land and is entrusted with the care and evangelization of the Indians who live in it in exchange for their labor and tribute. Melchor Pacheco is

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adorned with excellent altars,15 and it is cared for by its priest, the licentiate [in canonical law] Cristóbal de Muros,16 whom I will never properly repay what I owe and I am at a loss for words in his praise. He came out to greet us with fatherly affection and, taking us to the church, helped us to give God Our Lord the proper thanks for having delivered us from the tyrannical oppression of the English, from the perils we ran into on the high seas, and from the ones we recently tolerated on this coast. And after the prayers, in the company of the all the townspeople, he took us to his house. In the eight days that we were there, he shared his bountiful table with me and Juan de Casas, and from it, he always sent out dishes to all sorts of people in need. He also went to the aid with largesse—and in the same proportion with which he treated us—not only of the crew but also of the pagan Indians. He distributed these Indians—after giving them clothes to wear—among others from their same nation whom he had already baptized so that they would catechize them. And preparing us for the confession that we were unable to receive for such long a time, listening to us with a patience and love I have never witnessed, we managed to have him give us communion on the day of Saint Catherine.17 Meanwhile, as this was happening, he informed the mayors of the town of Valladolid—in which district that village lies—of what had happened. And giving us letters both for them and for the head of the friary of Tixcacal,18 who received us with much affection, we left Tihosuco for the town of Valladolid with his approval. In this village of Tixcacal, we were met by a sergeant sent by the mayors to be our guide. And upon reaching the town, I personally handed them the letters.19 There were two mayors as it is common everywhere. One was called Francisco de Zelerún—a man who seemed not to be bent on meddling and with very good intentions—and the other one don Ceferino de Castro.20 I cannot continue without recounting a very funny incident that happened to me here. Being known, because I had said so to whomever asked, that the black boy Pedro was my slave, one of those who had interrogated me waited for me to be alone, approached me, and throwing his arms around my neck, spoke to me thus: “Can it be possible, my friend and fellow countryman, that my eyes are named in documents confirming his possession of his encomienda of Euan in Mérida. See AGI, México, 242B, N. 61, and AGI, México, 244, N. 6. 15. This is an error, as the Franciscan church of Saint Agustin in Tihosuco, while impressive in scale, has a basilical plan made up of a single nave. See figure 21. 16. Mention is made of Cristóbal de Muros Montiberos in a document from 1684. See AGI, Indiferente, 205. 17. The day of Saint Catherine of Alexandria is November 25. 18. The Franciscan friary of Tixcacal lies to the west of Tihosuco and Valladolid. The roundabout route taken responds to the protocol of handing over the suspects from church to state custody. See figure 22. 19. Ramírez entered Valladolid on November 28, 1689. See figure 23. 20. His uncle, Ceferino de Castro y Velasco, was named alderman of Campeche on April 1689. See AGI, México, 198, N. 50.

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looking at you? Oh, how many times have they been filled with tears when I have reminisced about you! Who would have said that I was to find you in such misery? Hug me tight, soul mate of mine, and give thanks to God that I am here.” I asked him who he was and what his name was, as I could not in any way recognize him. “How can that be,” he replied to me, “when in your early years you had no better friend? And to prove to you that I am still the one I once was, beware that there are rumors that you are spying for some privateer, and that on hearing such news, the governor of this province will have you arrested and no doubt tortured. Given certain businesses in which I am involved I have a close relationship with His Lordship, and for me to propose something to him and to see it carried out is one and the same thing. It would be good to win his favor by gifting him that black boy, and to that end it would not be unwarranted if you were to hand him to me first. Be advised that I see you in grave danger. Keep my secret and look out for yourself if what I say is not done, knowing that if what I propose to you, as such a dear and old friend of yours, does not materialize, I will not be able to save you from being punished.” “I am not that simple-minded,” I replied to him, “not to recognize your grace to be a great liar and one who can give lessons on stealing to the greatest privateers. I will give my black boy as a present to whomever were to make me a gift of three hundred pieces of eight which is what he is worth, and Godspeed to you.” He did not reply because, being summoned by the mayors, I left that place.21 Don Francisco de Celerún was not only mayor but also lieutenant,22 and since what I left behind on the beach became known throughout the town by the testimony that I gave of my trials, thinking that because of my almost extreme need I would make them a bargain, many began to promise me money and that, if I were to sell them just what was left on shore, they would later give me five hundred pesos. I wished to accept the money and to return with some of them who offered to come along, both to repair the frigate as to recover what I had there. But receiving word from Ceferino de Castro that I was not to leave the town for the coast on pain of serious punishment because the ship and everything in it belonged to the Crusade,23 I was baffled and, recalling the Sevillian Miguel, I shrugged my shoulders.24 It also became known that I gave the encomendero of 21. The place in question was without a doubt the detention cell under the main stairway giving access to the second floor of the village’s town hall. See figure 23. 22. Being lieutenant to the captain general, Celerún was appointed by the governor of Yucatán, and he answered both to him and to the “cabildo,” or town hall. 23. The Crusade, or Holy Crusade, is a reference to the Bulla cruciata and to the privileges granted in the twelfth century by the pope to the Christian kings to raise money to fight the Muslims and to spread the Catholic faith in the Iberian Peninsula. These were made extensive to America since the earliest days of the conquest. Even though the tax was commonly collected through the sale of indulgences, it seems that, in his zeal to collect money for the church, Ceferino de Castro was claiming all the goods aboard the ship. See Cummins and Soons 85, note 228. 24. Ramírez’s intent no doubt was to cast de Castro as an unrighteous and unfair Spaniard.

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Tihosuco, don Melchor Pacheco, a keris and a small rusty sword that I was carrying and for which he developed a strange liking and convinced because of what I had said about the plunder of Sukadana that their handles must have been made of gold and diamonds, he25 sent for them on pain of the same punishment. And notified that I wanted to ask for justice on my behalf and that I wished to be heard by a judge, two days later, I was sent to Mérida. They carried me away at the same speed that I fled with my frigate whenever I spotted the English and, without allowing me to visit the miraculous sanctuary of Our Lady of Izamal,26 on the eighth of December of 1689, my guides brought me to the city of Mérida.27 Don Juan José de la Bárcena resides there as governor and captain general of the province.28 And after I and my crew kissed his hand, and having given him an extrajudicial account of all I have stated, he sent me to the Casas Reales de San Cristóbal.29 And on the fifteenth,30 by his orders, Sergeant Major Francisco Guerrero took down my statement once more, on the seventh of January of 1690, Bernardo Sabido, the royal notary, certified that I had remained in the city of Mérida after having been found wandering about the coast. The troubles that I went through in this city are imponderable. There was no single resident who did not make me recount everything that has been written here, and not only once but many times over. To that end, they would drag me and my crew from house to house. But they would all dismiss us just before noon.31 That city—and the entire province in general—is plentiful and fertile and very inexpensive. And save for my only protector, the licentiate don Cristóbal de Muros; for a servant of the encomendero don Melchor Pacheco, who gave me a cloak; and for the most enlightened gentleman Bishop don Juan Cano Sandoval,32 who came to my aid with two pesos, there was not a single person who, seeing me and my crew almost naked and starving to death, reached out to help me. Nor did we eat in the so-called Casas Reales de San Cristóbal—it is an honorable inn where travelers are lodged—but what the Indians who run it gave us, and it came down to corn tortillas and daily rations of beans, because on one occasion, pleading with the Indians to have them change the menu, saying that they gave us what they did—add them because of this to the list of my 25. Ceferino de Castro. 26. The monumental sanctuary lies half way between Mérida and Valladolid. 27. See figure 24. 28. Juan José de la Bárcena was appointed governor of Yucatán in 1683. See AGI, Contratación, 5790, L. 3, F. 16v–21v. 29. A hospice for the travelers and the homeless kept by the natives by royal order in the San Cristóbal neighborhood in Mérida. 30. Of December. 31. It is understood that they were dismissed just prior to lunchtime. 32. Juan Cano Sandoval was named bishop of Yucatán by Pope Innocent XI on December 7, 1682. See AGI, Patronato, 6, N. 27. His portrait still hangs on a wall in the sacristy of the monastic church of Izamal.

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benefactors—without hope of being paid by the one who sent us there33 and that, as such, I should be happy with what they gave us free of charge, I shut my mouth up. When I no longer had the beans with which I was nourished by the Indians in the Casas Reales de San Cristóbal—and this occurred on the same day when the notary34 certified that I was at liberty to go wherever I pleased—with the help of Lieutenant Pedro Flores de Ureña, my countryman, who, if he had had the wealth to match his honor and integrity would surely be a very powerful person, having previously presented evidence of my ownership backed up by my crew and with the statement given by Pedro the black boy of being my slave, I sold him for three hundred pesos with which I bought clothes for the crew. And giving them some spending money to help them on their way, I allowed them—because they had sworn to follow me always—to set their course freely in whatever direction their talents would point them.35 Carrying through don Ceferino de Castro with the arrangements already under way to recover, under the frivolous claim of the Crusade, what the Bull of the Coena Domini36 granted me of what was on the beach and on board, he wanted to cut a path through the forest to bring to the village by mules what on the shoulders of Indians would not have been easy. The priest don Cristóbal de Muros opposed him envisioning that finding an undefended walking path would make it easy for the privateers and pirates that roam about in those parts to come pillage the towns in his parish. Having confirmed this news, I went to Valladolid.37 My aim was to go to the beach to bear witness to the wickedness being carried out against me and my crew38 by those who, as Spaniards and Catholics, were under the obligation to protect me and come to my aid by their own means. And having arrived in the village of Tilá, under the threat of being declared a traitor to the king, Second Lieutenant Antonio de Zapata did not allow me to go any further saying he had orders from don Ceferino de Castro to do so.39 Pressured by and with the help of don Cristóbal de Muros, I returned to the city of Mérida. And having spent Holy Week in the Sanctuary of Izamal, I 33. Governor and Captain General Juan José de la Bárcena. 34. It is understood that it was the same Bernardo Sabido, and it was January 7, 1690. 35. Here, Ramírez gets rid of his crew and of any claims any of them could have levied on the loot left behind on Herradura Point. This happened on Monday, January 9, 1690. 36. Ramírez was claiming his rights under the fourth censure statement of the Coena Domini Bull as promulgated by Pope Urban VIII in 1627. It condemned any person who should seize the goods of a Christian whose ship lost its course or was shipwrecked. See Cummins and Soons, 85, note 240. 37. It was Wednesday, January 11, 1690. 38. By now, Ramírez was claiming all the items to be salvaged, including the boat, in exclusivity, having parted ways with his crew two days before in Mérida. 39. Ramírez spent almost two months trying to get back to the ship, from January 11 to March 6, 1690, when he must have left Valladolid for Izamal.

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arrived in that city the Wednesday after Easter.40 What the governor resolved after I presented him with a petition was that41 he had orders of the most excellent gentleman the viceroy of New Spain for me to come before him at once. My arguments were completely useless. And without giving me time to prepare, I left Mérida on Sunday, April the second. Friday, the seventh, I arrived in Campeche.42 Thursday, the thirteenth, I left the port in a sloop under the command of Captain Peña. Sunday, the sixteenth, I went ashore in Veracruz. There, I received twenty pesos from the royal officials.43 And leaving that city on the twenty-fourth of the same month, I arrived in México City on the fourth of May. On the following Friday,44 I kissed the hand of His Excellency, and his gentle affection and august presence being equal, taking pity first of my trials and showing satisfaction for my freedom with congratulations and felicitations, he listened attentively to all that has been written about my trip around the entire world and which at the time I only pointed out to His Excellency in a brief summary. He ordered me, perhaps on account of the affection he holds for him, or maybe because being ill he could entertain his afflictions with the account I would give him of the many [afflictions] I suffered, to go visit don Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora, cosmographer and professor of mathematics to the King Our Lord in the Mexican Academy, and main chaplain of the Royal Hospital of Amor de Dios in México City—these are high sounding titles that are worth very little and [positions] that he is compelled to practice more out of prestige than convenience.45 Sympathizing with my trials, he not only put together this account containing them but was able to secure for me, through the mediation and the pleas that before me he made to the Most Excellent gentleman the viceroy: a decree ordering don Sebastián de Guzmán y Córdoba, factor, inspector, and purveyor of the royal coffers to issue a disbursement in my name, as it was done; another decree ordering that I should be assigned to the Royal Fleet of the Windward Islands until I was to find employment; and an order for the governor of Yucatán to force the officials who took part in the embargo or salvaging of what was on the beach or was found on board to turn over everything, either to me or to my agent, without question or discussion. He gave me as much [money] as he could for my trip and, arranging for me to go

40. On Wednesday, March 29, 1690. In 1690, Holy Week fell between March 11 and 19. See figures 25 and 26. 41. Here there seems to be a line missing in the original. Probably the printers skipped a line in the manuscript when preparing the galleys. 42. See figure 27. 43. As a diet to help with the trip to México City. 44. May 4, 1690, fell on a Thursday. Therefore, he must have appeared before the viceroy on May 5. 45. See figure 28.

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down to Veracruz in the company of don Juan Enríquez Barroto46—an artillery captain in the Royal Fleet of the Windward Islands, a young man completely well versed in matters of hydrography, an expert in the mathematical sciences, and, because of this, a close friend of his and his guest on this occasion—he did not allow me to pay for anything.

46. The Royal Fleet of the Windward Islands left Veracruz on July 19, 1690, two and a half months after Ramírez arrived in México City. If he went with the fleet, as the text suggests, Ramírez would have spent the last week of August in Havana before leaving for Puerto Rico. He would have arrived in San Juan three months later, on October 26, having thus come full circle in his voyage around the world by arriving at his original point of departure. The armada would return to Veracruz on March 10, 1691, after having destroyed the towns of Guarico (Le Cap) and Limonade, belonging to the French, on the northwestern coast of Hispaniola.

the history oF the First ameriCan oF universal standing How Alonso Ramírez, a.k.a. Felipe Ferrer, Turned the World on Its Head by Circumnavigating the Globe Neither do I know how a thing can be universally true when perhaps, as he states, it is falsified; nor am I able to fathom how he can employ it as a reason in an attempt to move my understanding when I used it as proof upon which to secure my opinion. —Sigüenza’s response to Eusebio Kino, Libra astronómica y filosófica (1690)1

The finding of the document certifying Alonso Ramírez’s marriage to Francisca Javiera Ribera de Poblete in the Metropolitan Cathedral of México City on Sunday, November 8, 1682, which I first made public in my introduction to the 2009 Cuban edition of Sigüenza’s historical works dealing with the Caribbean, established for the first time, directly and without a doubt, the existence of the protagonist of this account (see figure 6). It also brought to an end a century of debates concerning the possibility that the interwoven histories and conflicting stories collected in the Misfortunes could have been entirely the product of Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora’s imagination. The long-awaited finding of the marriage certificate also places Ramírez boarding the Manila galleon in 1684 and not in 1682, as Sigüenza reports.2 1. Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora, Libra astronómica y filosófica (México: Viuda de Bernardo Calderón, 1690), 33. “Ni se yo como será universalmente una cosa que tal vez, segun afirma, se falsifica; ni tampoco alcanço, como puede servirle de razon para convencer mi sentir lo que a mi me sirvio de prueba para afirmar mi opinion.” 2. See José F. Buscaglia-Salgado, introduction to Historias del Seno Mexican, by Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora, ed. José F. Buscaglia-Salgado and Reynier Pérez Hernández (Havana: Casa de las Américas, 2009). Two years prior, in 2007, Fabio López Lázaro disclosed a momentous finding citing a letter of July 1, 1690, where the Count of Galve, viceroy of New Spain, tells his brother, the Duke of Infantado, that he had met a man by the name of Alonso Ramírez who claimed to have sailed from the Philippines to Yucatán. See Fabio López Lázaro, “La mentira histórica de un pirata caribeño: El descubrimiento del trasfondo histórico de los Infortunios de Alonso Ramírez (1690),” Anuario de estudios americanos 64.2 ( July–December 2007): 100–101. The finding by López Lázaro, while no doubt of the outmost significance, could not be seen as incontrovertible proof of the existence of the protagonist of this story. Like we know now and as the reader will soon find out, Ramírez had taken a different name while in the Philippines. As he refashioned his story to suit his interest at every turn, even with the passing reference in Galve’s letter, there would always remain doubt of whether Alonso Ramírez was the actual name of the protagonist. The finding of the marriage certificate dispelled that doubt once and for all.

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I had located the site of Ramírez’s shipwreck on Herradura Point in 2004 (see figure 11), and after a series of successive expeditions, I was able to carefully document every single step he took while stranded on the old coast of Bacalar, known today as the Costa Maya in Quintana Roo, México (see map 8). My research in the Archive of the Indies in Seville allowed me not only to prove and thoroughly document J. S. Cummins and Alan Soons’s suspicion that Ramírez’s frigate had been captured by the Cygnet of London, the pirate ship where William Dampier figured as an officer3 but also to discover that Alonso Ramírez spent his entire two years and seven months in Manila working as a sailor, master builder, and eventually a sea captain under the alias Felipe Ferrer. In the Mexican archives, I discovered that by marrying into the Poblete family, young Alonso had been an accomplice to the biggest and longest-running scam in the history of colonial México. These and the many other findings that appear in the footnotes to the original work and its translation are overwhelming proof that we have in our hands an account that, though hardly transparent, tells the story of the first American known to have traveled around the world.4 As the reader has already found out, this short narrative—the single surviving original is but a pamphlet—is complex to the point of being almost indecipherable. Sigüenza’s ultrabaroque prose and his own reasons for making the story only partially readable make it a text that has been inaccessible to most native speakers of Spanish. My graduate students have always been confounded by how much they missed or were not able to appreciate upon a first or second reading of the work. Indeed, since the only surviving copy in existence resurfaced in 1902, the work has remained quite a formidable challenge to decipher even for literary experts in the field of Hispanic studies. This rather considerable degree of incommensurability explains why, until now, there has not been a trusted English translation of the Misfortunes. This essay is an attempt to close this gap by explaining the provenance of the stories that come to be intertwined in this work, the motives of the various actors that participated in giving it shape, and the outstanding questions that remain to be answered. My hope is that with the publication of this corrected and thoroughly annotated Spanish version of the Infortunios and its first truly authoritative English translation in the Misfortunes, this essay will place the story of the first American subject of universal standing in the hands of all curious readers. Indeed, I trust that finally, three centuries after its publication in México City, new interest and renewed research in the story of Alonso Ramírez as retold 3. See Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora, Infortunios de Alonso Ramírez, ed. J. S. Cummins and Alan Soons (London: Tamesis Texts, 1984), 6. 4. Keep in mind that at all times I use the term American to refer to the inhabitants of the entire continent, just as Sigüenza did in the very first sentence of the story when he pointed to the location where Alonso Ramírez was “stranded on the coasts of Yucatán, here in America.” To avoid confusion, I prefer to name those Americans from the United States of America with the neologism of Usonians. See José F. Buscaglia-Salgado, Undoing Empire, Race and Nation in the Mulatto Caribbean (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003).

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by Sigüenza may earn the Infortunios/Misfortunes the recognition it deserves in the history of America and of Americanness as it comes to claim the prominent position it is owed in the annals that record the greatest feats of human achievement. What follows is an essay that should help the curious to delve deeper into the many questions that surface upon a first reading of the work. It examines closely all the movements in this complicated narrative on the trials and tribulations of a real person who, as an impostor, turned his own convoluted version of the events into a fictional story that was further manipulated by Sigüenza (and others involved in its publication) to become, among other things, the earliest example of a Latin American novel.5 In turn, the essay should move both initiate and expert to return to the Misfortunes and conduct further and deeper readings and analyses into the unending possibilities for interpretation and conjecture offered by this curious narrative that is both a type of novel as well as some sort of treatise on what was then a novel type of subjective positioning. Indeed, the story of this first American to claim the world as his own is an invitation, in the best tradition of the American spirit of which the Misfortunes is perhaps the earliest example, to trust nothing and to question everything.

THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICANNESS AND THE PRESAGE OF THE END TO EMPIRE The story begins in San Juan de Puerto Rico, from where Alonso, a boy almost thirteen years old, sets out to sea in search of the way “to spend life without having to work for a living.” Bad luck will follow him in México City and all along his tortuous path through New Spain, forcing him in a moment of extreme desperation to exile himself to the Philippines aboard the Manila galleon. There his luck turned around until the day he fell into the hands of English pirates. They would carry him on a path of pillaging, rape, destruction, and alleged cannibalism through the South China Sea, to present-day Vietnam and Taiwan, and into Sulawesi, Timor, and Australia before reaching Madagascar to round the Cape of Good Hope and cross the Atlantic. He would then be set free by his captors to go forth, in the words of Sigüenza in the title of the work, “by sailing on his own and without a course until running aground on the coast of Yucatán, in this way having managed to travel around the World.” The unusual story would reach the viceroy of New Spain, Gaspar de la Cerda Silva Sandoval y Mendoza, Count of Galve, who, wanting a firsthand account, ordered Ramírez to appear before him. Immediately after that audience, the viceroy charged Sigüenza with the task of constructing a written account of Ramírez’s exploits. Since, by definition, all narratives of circumnavigation establish the point of departure and return of its protagonist as a modern omphalos, in the sense 5. See Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora, “Infortunios de Alonso Ramírez,” in La novela del México colonial, ed. Antonio Castro Leal, vol. 1 (México, D.F.: Aguilar, 1964), 51.

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of the Roman imperial notion of the Umbilicus Urbis, or navel of the world, Sigüenza’s text is also the first modern-colonial narrative to displace Europe as the axis mundi, or the point from where all power and knowledge emanate. In 1522, Juan Sebastián Elcano completed the first voyage of circumnavigation, a feat that served to confirm the ambitions to universal rulership of the young King Charles I of Spain, who had just been crowned as the Holy Roman emperor. In 1580, Francis Drake would carry through the second circumnavigation, thereby putting Elizabethan England on the map of imperial contenders on a global scale. Fully aware of these precedents, Sigüenza attempted to commandeer Alonso Ramírez’s figure in the Misfortunes to extol the greatness of American civilization on a planetary scale.6 This should be sufficient proof that this brief work is not to be taken lightly and least of all reduced, as the first reprint of the work in 1902 suggests, to some sort of rare and curious book dealing with America. This is not to say that this work, which is full of intrigues and subversive machinations, is not rare in the context of a burdensome colonial heritage that three centuries after the original publication of the Misfortunes in México City continues to hold sway over vast zones of American subjectivity. Nevertheless, the work should not be treated like an American curiosity—as has been so often the case—to be savored like an exotic fruit guided by the rules of etiquette of the perverse discourses of racialism and alterity. Rather, what is truly curious about the Misfortunes is that it is a critical exercise of clear American provenance while at the same time also the product of a world where what I call the European Ideal had not yet attained the level of universal projection it came to enjoy during the heights of modern North Atlantic imperialism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.7 If the process that would lead to the crowning of the European subject as the measure of all things human was well under way during Ramírez’s times, the truth is that there was then much more room for critical movement and the contestation of the emerging Ideal than there was to be two centuries later or, for that matter, perhaps more than there might be today. Patent proof of this was the extensive treatise published by Sigüenza in January 1690, just six months before the printing of the Misfortunes, responding to the frivolous critique by the Jesuit missionary Eusebio Kino of Sigüenza’s treatise on comets and to the resulting accusation that he was a man incapable of reason. “Never with greater repugnancy than on the present occasion did I grab 6. Barbara Fuchs and Yolanda Martínez-San Miguel find the origins of this tendency to conceive of México City as what they call a “colonial metropolis” already at the start of the seventeenth century with Bernardo de Balbuena’s La grandeza mexicana (1604). See Barbara Fuchs and Yolanda Martínez-San Miguel, “ ‘La grandeza mexicana’ de Balbuena y el imaginario de una ‘metrópolis colonial,’ ” Revista Iberoamericana 75.228 ( July–September 2009): 675–695. 7. For a detailed discussion concerning the notion of the European Ideal and of the movement of what I call mulataje, see Buscaglia-Salgado, Undoing Empire.

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the pen,”8 he stated in the first sentence of the work as he set out to dispel “the prejudice carried by everyone, thinking that only because he had just arrived from Germany to this New Spain the reverend father [Kino] had to be a consummate mathematician.”9 Sigüenza, who was otherwise of the opinion that he had been born in “our Creole fatherland”10 to “Spanish parents by chance,”11 felt that the calumnies of Kino were directed “not only at me, but at my Fatherland and at my Nation,”12 and consequently he was moved to put forth on their behalf his copious argument countering the accusation that he and, by corollary, all his Creole countrymen were inherently people of “unsound judgment.”13 Clearly, Sigüenza considered himself a European born in America more than an American of European lineage. He was proud of his Spanish ancestry and especially so of the Góngora name. Thus he was not contesting the European Ideal but rather denouncing the unilateral manner in which it was being increasingly appropriated and apportioned. When he thought of himself as being born in America “by chance,” he was implicitly denouncing the casual manner and irregular practices of dispensing Europeanness. At this, he was an early critic of racialist ideology. Still, rebutting with all his cosmological knowledge and cosmopolitan spirit Kino’s accusation that American Creoles were people of unsound judgment and thus imperfect individuals for whom the Ideal was unattainable, he was always ready to behave in similar fashion to Kino when looking down upon those around him whom he considered plebeians, blacks, Indians, or mestizos of all kinds.14 Given the intellectual anxiety and sheer passion that the intellectual duel with Kino provoked in him, there is no question that Sigüenza was more than ready to receive the visit of a man—an American Creole Spaniard like him, although not of the same social extraction—who claimed to have completed what only the most capable, daring, and well-financed Europeans since Juan Sebastián Elcano had been able to pull off: a full voyage around the world.15 For this proud Spaniard 8. Sigüenza y Góngora, Libra, 1. “Nunca con mas repugnancia, que en la ocacion presente tomé la pluma en la mano.” 9. Sigüenza y Góngora, Libra, 2. “El perjuyzio en que todos estaban, pensando que solo por ser recien llegado de Alemania a esta Nueva-España el RP havia de ser consumadísimo Mathematico.” 10. Sigüenza y Góngora, Libra, 5. “Nuestra criolla nacion.” 11. In the Libra, Sigüenza is clear when he refers to “we the Americans . . . who from Spanish parents by chance were born in them” (in the countries of America). See Sigüenza y Góngora, Libra, 83. “Nosotros los Americanos . . . los que de padres Españoles casualmente nacimos en ellos.” 12. Sigüenza y Góngora, Libra, 147. “no solo a mí, sino a mi Patria y a mi Nacion.” 13. Sigüenza y Góngora, Libra, 5, 147. “Trabajoso juicio.” 14. For the most poignant example of Sigüenza’s temerity in this regard, see Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora, “Alboroto y motín de los indios de México,” in Don Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora, un sabio mexicano del siglo XVII, by Irving A. Leonard, trans. Juan José Utrilla (México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1984). 15. Juan Sebastián Elcano sailed with Ferdinand Magellan and was captain of the Victoria when it returned to Spain, thereby completing the first circumnavigation of the globe (1519–1522).

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from America, here was a man who could now stand next to Elcano, a peninsular subject from the Basque country, showcasing the greatness of México to the rest of the empire. More important perhaps for this devout Catholic, Ramírez’s story gave Sigüenza firm support to rise to a higher moral ground above the feat, the stock, and the religion of the Protestant pirate Francis Drake, who completed his voyage of circumnavigation a little more than a century before Ramírez in 1580. No doubt, this consummate astronomer received the story retold in the Misfortunes as the most fulminating comet that could ever cross the skies. In the Libra, Sigüenza had stopped short of asking Kino to go back to whence he came, taking his airs of superiority back with him to Germany. In this sense, the arrival of the castaway in México City must have been a dream come true, as Sigüenza came to find in Ramírez the very embodiment of his philosophical argument concerning the universal validity of the American (Spanish Creole) subject. As a Spaniard born in México by chance, which, as we know, was the station where he most fancied to place his person, Sigüenza also found in the captive’s story a way to defend his nation’s honor precisely at the moment of the most obvious and dramatic imperial decadence of Spain. By then, it was clear that Protestant England, perceived in the West Indies and New Spain as a country of sea rovers, looters, and pirates, was rapidly turning into a formidable imperial rival. The quintessential example of this was Henry Morgan, the pirate who had used Spanish priests and nuns as human shields in his sacking of Panama in 1671. For this and many other services to the English Crown, Morgan would be knighted and named, by Charles II of England, lieutenant governor of Jamaica, the Caribbean island that was England’s largest and richest colony at the time. But if he owed his reputation to the rape of Porto Bello in 1668, perhaps the most remarkable thing in his trajectory was that he died in 1688 not as a pirate but as a pirate catcher and a planter owning upward of one hundred slaves. As Morgan’s example clearly showed, looting Spanish treasure had given way to the more profitable business of human trafficking and enslavement, a rapidly expanding economic sector that was to propel the meteoric rise of the British Empire and of the structures of modern capital formation. So it was that Ramírez gave Sigüenza the perfect alibi to set up a carefully plotted moral censure and invective against the English, whom he characterized as a most heretical and barbarous people. More important, based on what Ramírez allegedly witnessed during the rape of Pulau Condon and following in the American tradition of Bartolomé de las Casas, Sigüenza was able to develop a powerful counterdiscourse that threw the much-abused story of the black legend of Spain back upon its principal sponsors by casting the English as the very embodiment of the modern European cannibal: If they had celebrated this abominable victory going through cases of rum as they always did, it hardly would be worth noting. But after the incident that I saw, how could I fail to mention it without suffering the pain and the moral unease of concealing

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it? Among the spoils they brought from the village—and they went to take back all they had given them in exchange for their women and provisions—was a human arm from one of the victims who perished in the fire. Each one cut himself a small piece from it, and praising the taste of such good meat, repeatedly toasting to each other’s health, they finished it off. I looked upon such bestial action with scandal and dismay, when one of them came to me with a morsel urging me with annoying persistence to eat it. Owing to the repulse I showed he told me that, being a Spaniard and consequently a coward, I would do well to match their bravery by not being finicky. He pressed me no further proceeding to respond to a toast.

The seventeenth century had opened in England with the mise-en-scène of The Tempest (1611), allegedly the most original work by William Shakespeare. Through the character of Caliban (whose name is an anagram of cannibal), one of the two inhabitants of the island wherein the shipwreck that gives way to the plot takes place, the comedy projects an image of the inhabitants of the West Indies—and, by extension, of slaves and most colonial subjects—as monsters of deformed bodies and minds. Moreover, Caliban is a character of malicious intentions whose most disturbing desire is to possess Miranda, the female character who is the representative embodiment of human perfection and European beauty.16 Shakespeare’s work is well known, and that characterization has given rise to a broad debate in the twentieth century around the relationship between master and slave, colonizer and colonized. What is practically unknown is that the seventeenth century closed in New Spain with a published eyewitness account of another type of shipwreck. In the Misfortunes (1690), it is a Caribbean islander who describes the English as morally depraved, man-eating pirates.17 It is impossible to obviate that this description paints another type of island world where the rising imperial power of Europe appears as an abnormal and malformed nation that assumes the very shape of dystopia. Taken in the context of Sigüenza’s answer to Kino, the Misfortunes can be read as an early antidote to the detrimental effects that the vision of alterity to the European subject contained in The Tempest has had on the perception of Caribbean subjects and other peoples in the modern-colonial world ever since. A reading in parallel of both texts would show that the invention of the “other-to-the-European” was not the whimsical act of an all-powerful creator or the result of spontaneous generation as some may assume. Here, the Misfortunes is the rare and curious proof 16. In act 2, Ariel wonders at the sight of Caliban: “What have we here? A man or a fish?” only to conclude: “This is no fish, but an islander.” William Shakespeare, The Tempest, 2.2:25–37. Stephano enters into the scene thereafter to protest: “This is some monster of the isle, with four legs, who hath got, as I take it, an ague. Where the devil should he learn our language?” Shakespeare, 2.2:66–68. In act 3, Ferdinand admires Miranda: “But you, O you, so perfect and so peerless, are created of every creature’s best.” Shakespeare, 3.1:46–49. 17. See here the pioneering work of Álvaro Félix Bolaños, “Sobre las ‘relaciones’ e identidades en crisis: El ‘otro’ lado del ex-cautivo Alonso Ramírez,” Revista de crítica literaria latinoamericana 21.42 (1995): 131–160.

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that the process was checked from the very beginning by a movement in the opposite direction, through which the would-be others-to-the-Europeans fashioned and actively redefined the terms of their own approach to the doctrine of the European Ideal, putting forth a critique of the rising power in Europe, and of its expanding mercantilist agenda overseas, as the very embodiment of cannibalism. The implications of this are enormous, as we can state that already in 1690, a vision had emerged in México City that turned on its head the entire compendium of the most fantastic accusations that had been made by European travelers against the peoples of the New World over the previous two centuries. Taking full advantage of the mechanics of discourse in the narratives of circumnavigation and writing from a newfound and all-empowering sense of authority in México City, Sigüenza placed himself as judge of the human condition using Ramírez’s clay to shape the figure of the new “vile race”18 of modernity in the very image and likeness of the English man of action. This is more significant if we consider that the Misfortunes was published three decades before Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (1719), the novel that would give countless generations a bold vision of the colonial enterprise based on the notion of the “white man’s burden,” which placed upon the imperial nations of Northern Europe the supreme obligation to impose their “civilizational” model on a universal scale. Defoe’s work is an apologia of Protestant morality and the mercantilist economy where the English man of action is elevated to the rank of generalissimo19 and master of the ingenio,20 or “sugar mill.” The first title was conferred on the merits of the moral outcry of Crusoe’s character against the Spanish imperial enterprise in the New World. His rabid promotion of the black legend elevates the civilizational standard of the English while hiding the terror-filled practices of enslavement and colonization that propelled England’s own imperial project. The second was bestowed by providence itself and embodied in the figure of Friday, the island cannibal who was Crusoe’s “man,” or servant. The contrast with the Misfortunes demands a parallel reading of both texts. Here Defoe reflects through Crusoe’s character: “That this would justify the Conduct of the Spaniards in all their Barbarities practis’d in America, and where they destroy’d Millions of these People, who however they were Idolaters and Barbarians, and had several bloody and barbarous Rites in their Customs, such as sacrificing human Bodies to their Idols, were yet, as to the Spaniards, very innocent People . . . and as such, as for which the very Name of a Spaniard is recon’d to be frightful and terrible to all People of Humanity, or of Christian Compassion.”21 The circumstances that led to the printing of Sigüenza’s work, as ordered by the viceroy, open two major tracks of critical possibilities. On one side is the 18. 19. 20. 21.

Words used by Miranda to describe Caliban’s kind. See Shakespeare, 1.2:358–359. See Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe (New York: Random House, 2001), 246. Defoe, 259–260. Defoe, 158–159.

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question of the political advantage that could be derived from Ramírez’s story at the royal court in Madrid and that Fabio López Lázaro has thoroughly studied.22 On the other is the matter of the subversive nature of this very complex and indomitable narrative. On this second point, the Misfortunes is in line with earlier critiques of the Spanish Empire in canonical texts of the American tradition, such as Bartolomé de las Casas’s Historia de las Indias (1561) and Guamán Poma de Ayala’s Nueva crónica y buen gobierno (1615). Yet this controversial work also marks a significant departure from tradition by looking well beyond Spain and its overseas dominions. In this way, it was unique in its day as a visionary critique of the hegemonic model of economic expansion and capital accumulation that was then on the rise and that set the foundations of the world economy as we know it today. This portentous book was the product of experiences collected on the margins of society and beyond the limits of empire that were later recounted with certain malice aforethought and assiduously reworked before being dispatched to the royal court in Madrid. In it come together the display of valor and the American craftiness in Ramírez with the defense of Spanish honor and the intelligence of Sigüenza, resulting in a work whose modest size holds no relation to the farreaching critique of colonial modernity that it contains. It is significant enough that by characterizing the English expansionist enterprise as the true measure of anthropophagy, the work is an open challenge to the models of exploitation and vituperation that were being constructed at the time and would come to form the basis of North Atlantic white supremacist ideology. What is more, the account of the trials suffered by Ramírez and his crew when marooned on the coast of Bacalar opens the possibility of exploring the spaces where the European, in his guise as the modern man of action—in this case, Ramírez as a Spanish (Creole) patron and pater familias—is overtaken if not defeated by the realization of the ultimate futility of the colonial project.23 This is, of course, much more than Sigüenza set out to do. The credit for having brought somehow into this narrative the germ of the end of empire goes entirely to Ramírez, whose surreptitious ways gave this story the constitutive versatility and foundational instability that are the source of all its power and ultimate glory. We may never know the details of what exactly happened when by order of the viceroy Sigüenza received Ramírez and, just as he confessed to have done previously with Kino upon his arrival in México City, “I took him to my home, I hosted 22. See Fabio López Lázaro, The Misfortunes of Alonso Ramírez: The True Adventures of a Spanish American with 17th-Century Pirates (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2011). 23. Here, Yolanda Martínez-San Miguel’s reading of “Ramírez’s testimonial as a parody and criticism of the epic hero, a key icon of European imperial imaginaries” is particularly relevant in broadening the interpretative possibilities in the work. See Yolanda Martínez-San Miguel, “Colonial No More? Limits of the Transatlantic Episteme,” in From Lack to Excess: “Minor” Readings of Latin American Colonial Discourse (Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 2008): 146–184.

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him in it, [and] I introduced him to my friends.”24 The story of circumnavigation in the Misfortunes conferred upon México City the title of Umbilicus Urbis. But if México was now the center of the world, the original and very unruly narrative that made it so also set in motion a large number of strange bodies in arguably indescribable orbits around it that the consummate astronomer could not fully calculate. These obscure movements would have mysterious effects on the minds of Ramírez’s interlocutors, on the readers of the Misfortunes, and on the colonial institutions. Both Sigüenza and the censor, Francisco de Ayerra Santa María, would apply themselves with expert curiosity to these mysteries before going through great lengths in trying to conceal them or somewhat naively hoping to bring them under control through the writer’s pen and the censor’s seal of approval.25 A first reading of the Misfortunes reveals that Ramírez’s survey of the most far-flung areas on the map of the enterprise of European colonial expansion gave Sigüenza and the viceroy a way of calling attention to the inability of the Spanish Crown to protect the integrity of its dominions near and far. Everywhere, from San Juan to Manila, English pirates sailed Spanish waters with impunity.26 A deeper reading would show how his testimony also brought back to México City not just the presage of the end of empire, which had become patently obvious during the reign of the last Habsburg king of Spain, Charles II, but also a spirit critical of the social order, the Catholic Church, the military and the political authorities. Keep in mind that we are not dealing here with a confession. Rather, this work is a game of mirrors, a subterfuge set up by a consummate impostor who, as a modern-colonial subject, had grown to become a true master of the confidence trick and also, as an early American, had received by birthright and had been able to cultivate into an art the vocation to subversive intrigue.

CONSUMMATE IMPOSTORS ALWAYS TELL THE BEST PIRATICAL STORIES The first question anyone could have asked of Ramírez upon his return to Spanish territory is why, if he and his crew were captives of and servants to the English, the pirates let them head back home with one of the captured ships instead of 24. Sigüenza y Góngora, Libra, 4. “Lo lleve a mi casa, lo regalé en ella, lo introduge con mis amigos.” 25. Francisco de Ayerra Santa María (1630–1708) was born in San Juan de Puerto Rico and, like Ramírez, abandoned his country for México City at an early age. There, he attended the Royal and Pontifical University of México and was ordained as a priest. He would come to be well known as a poet and become a good friend of Sigüenza who was younger than him by fifteen years. When Ramírez came to México City in 1690, Ayerra was about to turn seventy years of age. 26. This was most evident in Yucatán where the city of San Francisco de Campeche had suffered a devastating attack in September 1685 at the hands of Michel de Grammont, also known as Chevalier de Grammont, and Laurens Cornelis Boudewjin de Graaf, known to the Spaniards as Lorencillo. The rape of Campeche lasted three months. It included the burning of much of the city and the razing to the ground of the nearby town of Lerma. In human costs, it led to the loss of one third of the population of the city, including countless prisoners whom de Grammont summarily and systematically executed while waiting for the ransom.

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throwing them overboard in the middle of the Atlantic during the final passage back to England. A satisfactory answer to this question—that is, an answer that would have saved them from hanging in the middle of the plaza as pirates—is hardly possible if we consider Ramírez’s claim to all that was left back at the shipwreck site. Partially enumerated in the book, the list included nine cannons and more than two thousand cannonballs. Given the considerable price that such ordnance could fetch and the unfavorable conditions under which Ramírez’s men were allegedly set free, there was plenty of reason to believe that Ramírez was lying. This is even more obvious when we consider that Ramírez and all his men were fully armed with blades and shotguns when they were found wandering along the coast of Bacalar. Keep in mind that among pirates, weapons were the property of each individual, and in that line of work, there were no more precious and cherished personal possessions than firearms. We can infer, as any of their contemporaries would have done, that Ramírez and his men were carrying guns of their own property, which they had kept close at hand and carefully cared for ever since joining the pirate crew. In fact, there is clear mention of this possibility in Ramírez’s story when he tells how “they proposed to me, as they had done before, that if I swore to accompany them always they would give me weapons.” Surely in the fifty-two days they were marooned on the coast of Yucatán, Ramírez had plenty of time to think about how to justify himself and settle on a common story with his crew. As I argue in the notes to the original text, it is quite possible that crew members who did not go along with the story or could not be trusted to put on a good performance were murdered by Ramírez’s hand or under his orders. Over the five months that passed from the day of the rescue to his brief audience with the viceroy, Ramírez also had countless opportunities to fine-tune his version of the story, as he was constantly pressed to explain himself. Judging by the characterization made by the censor Ayerra, it seems Ramírez found that making his story as convoluted and unintelligible as possible was the best way to avoid any and all accusation. In the end, the contradictions would cancel themselves out in what Ayerra characterized as a long concatenation “of so many dismally confused events.” After all was said and done, Ramírez’s own survival and the graces he would receive from the Count of Galve are proof that there is no better storyteller than the consummate impostor. Now, for the first time, we have considerable documentary evidence that points to the very real possibility that Ramírez joined the English in their roving and raping ventures through the South Seas. It comes from the statements taken from prisoners of the English pirates, including former members of Ramírez’s original crew, who upon their release were questioned by the Spanish authorities in Manila. There are major inconsistencies among these documents, found in the Archive of the Indies, and Ramírez’s version of the story as reported and quite clearly enhanced by Sigüenza. Central to these discrepancies is the character and person of the pirate Miguel, who is mentioned in the Misfortunes

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as an evil Spaniard from Seville. Ramírez accuses Miguel not only of being a pirate but, worse still, of having committed apostasy by renouncing the Catholic faith to join the English in their Protestant rituals. Indeed, in the Misfortunes, Miguel occupies the very limits of the continuum of loyalty to the Crown and the church opposite Ramírez, who (we are led to believe) suffered through this “pitiful pilgrimage” as a devout Spanish Catholic, molding his life to the three theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity. The description of Miguel’s selfhating and sadist ways is the loudest of all denunciations in the fourth chapter, where Ramírez’s character “remembers what he endured as their captive.” Keep in mind that this chapter details scenes of torture, cannibalism, and even coprophagia. Nonetheless, Miguel’s erred ways, as described in the last paragraph, are presented as the most horrific and impious of all the dealings that ever went on aboard the pirate ship: The necessary conclusion of all that has been stated here is that these pirates can compete in cruelty and abominations with all of those whose names have made it to the top of the list in this trade. But I believe they would not have been so bad as they were to us if there would not have been among them a Spaniard who prided himself on being Sevillian and whose name was Miguel. There was no intolerable chore they gave us, there was no single time in which we were mistreated by them, there was no hunger we suffered, nor risk to our lives we endured, that he did not personally administer and supervise, taking pride in showing himself to be merciless and abandoning the Catholic faith into which he was born in order to live as a pirate and to die as a heretic. He would join the English—and this was the most regrettable for me and my shipmates—in their festivities, which were on Christmas and on Sundays throughout the year, reading and praying like them out of their own books. May God enlighten his understanding so that, mending his ways, he may attain forgiveness for his unrighteousness.

This version stands in sharp contrast to the one offered in the documents. As I explain in the notes to chapter IV, all the crew members in Ramírez’s frigate set free by the pirates in Ibuhos speak of the Sevillian Miguel in their statements. Just as they tried to cover for their former captain and the seven mates who sailed off with the pirates by stating that they had been abandoned in Pulau Condon, they all spoke of Miguel as being a prisoner of the English and not as a pirate and a heretic. In fact, the tone of the testimonies confirms that far from being the Spanish-hater and sadist he is made out to be in the Misfortunes, it was Miguel who spent the greatest amount of time with the crew of the captured frigate. Thus Juan del Pilar, who was the servant of the boatswain Francisco Acosta, stated that “he got to know four prisoners who were with said enemy, of one of them named Miguel, whose last name he did not know, only that he was by nation Sevillian, and the other three natives of the Kingdom of Chile, one named also Miguel, and the other Andrés, and the other also named Miguel, all of whom this witness spoke with frequently during the course of the time he was

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captive.”27 It is clear from the testimonies that the one among these four Spanish speakers who did most of the chatting was precisely the Sevillian. There are repeated references to this, as in the testimony of Diego Vendón, one of the sailors of the Spanish frigate: “And so states this witness that said Miguel told him.”28 Of the many things that Miguel told his fellow Spaniards, the curious and resourceful Ramírez no doubt included, was the story of how the pirates “had sailed from the Kingdom of England but that he did not know when and that it had been on the coasts of Peru to where they had set out laden with merchandise and that they had refused them entry in every harbor in said kingdom.”29 The testimony of Mateo Francisco, an expert seaman, age thirty-six, is quite revealing in this sense: And in the same way he was told by said Miguel that a number of the Englishmen had come from the Darien by land whereupon they set out to sea in small vessels and came to meet with said ship, and having joined them and seeing that they were not received in any harbor in said Kingdom of Peru they tried to commit acts of piracy, and that said ship had always sailed by itself, and that its captain as far as this witness can recall was named Capisuan [sic], and that it carries seventy-two men of the nations mentioned above, and fourteen pieces of artillery of four and six pounds caliber made of iron and four swivel-guns, and many muskets, pistols and cutlasses. And in the same way said Sevillian Miguel and the other three Chilean prisoners told this witness that said ship had been in the Kingdom of Mindanao for six months, and that the captain with other forty-nine men had stayed behind in said kingdom.30 27. “llego a saver de quatro pricioneros que estavan con dicho enemigo del uno de ellos llamado Miguel que no supo su apellido solo si que era sevillano de nacion, y los otros tres naturales que eran del Reyno de Chile llamado el uno tambien Miguel, y el otro Andres, y asi mismo el otro llamado Miguel con quienes comunico este declarante muchas vezes en el discurso del tiempo que estubo pricionero”. AGI, Filipinas, 12, R. 1, N. 60/4/41–42. 28. “Y asi mismo dize este declarante le dijo el dicho Miguel.” AGI, Filipinas, 12, R. 1, N. 60/4/23. 29. “habia salido del Reyno de Ynglaterra pero que no supo quando y que havia estado en las Costas del Peru para donde havian traido su derrota cargado de mercaderias y que no les havian querido admitir en ningun puerto de los de dicho reyno.” AGI, Filipinas, 12, R. 1, N. 60/4/13. 30. “que dicho navio habia salido del Reyno de Ynglaterra pero que no supo quando y que havia estado en las Costas del Peru para donde havian traido su derrota cargado de mercaderias y que no les havian querido admitir en ningun puerto de los de dicho reyno. Y assi mismo le dijo el dicho Miguel que por el andariel [sic] havian venido y passado por tierra numero de Yngleses los quales con embarcaciones pequeñas salieron al mar y se encontraron con este dicho navío, y incorporados con el viendo que no eran rezividos en puerto alguno de dicho Reyno del Peru trataron de piratear, y que siempre havia andado solo dicho navio, y que el Capitan de el a los que se quiere acordar este declarante se llamava Capisuan, y que trae sesenta y dos hombres de las naciones que arriba lleva referidas, y catorce piezas de artillería de fierro de a quatro y seis libras de calibre y quatro pedreros, y mucha escopeteria pistolas y alfanges. Y asi mismo le dijo a este declarante el dicho Miguel sevillano y los otros tres prisioneros chilenos que havia estado dicho navio en el Reyno de Mindanao tiempo de seis meses, y que se avia quedado en dicho Reyno el Capitan Principal de el con otros quarenta y nuebe hombres.” AGI, Filipinas, 12, R. 1, N. 60/4/13–14.

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There is no mention in any of these statements of how Miguel had come to be aboard the pirate ship. If the conversations between the Sevillian and Ramírez’s crew were as cordial as the documents suggest, there is no doubt that one of the first questions any curious Spanish subject would have asked Miguel would have been precisely how and why he had come to be sailing among English pirates off the coast of the very strategically important Spanish city of Manila. Coupled with the fact that all the witnesses expressly stated to have been unable to remember the surname of their gracious interlocutor and host aboard the pirate ship, there is no other option but to conclude that there was a joint attempt on the part of the sailors to conceal from the authorities the true identity of the otherwise renegade Spaniard. How are we to believe that they could recall the last name of Charles Swan, the English captain of the Cygnet who was marooned in Mindanao and whom they never met, but somehow, they had all forgotten that of Miguel, the Sevillian with whom they had been living in close quarters and conversing on a regular basis? Here we find a clear and documented example of what was already by the end of the seventeenth century a well-established culture of universal projections whose mores and institutions had been laid down over the previous century and a half in the struggles of resistance and survival against the encomienda, slavery, evangelization, and forced conversion on the open seas and the frontier world of the Caribbean archipelago. The way in which these sailors protected the identities and actions of both Miguel and Ramírez’s crew speaks of the pact of silence that at the time bound together the gentes de mar, as they were known in Spanish, or “peoples of the sea,” in the mare liberum, or “open seas.”31 That compact was organized around a shared code of loyalty and solidarity that revealed a deepseated suspicion of all land-based powers and authorities. The rise of the British Empire and of nation-states would soon lay down a different law of the seas, reducing those spaces of extralegal solidarity and freedom and turning ships into floating prisons for indentured sailors and a growing number of Africans with the exponential rise of the Atlantic slave trade. Yet even if Ramírez’s men never betrayed the Sevillian, the statement of Mateo Francisco is particularly curious, as it mentions events that occurred well before the English pirates crossed the Pacific Ocean pertaining to the attack on Panama. According to Miguel, they met up with Captain Townley and his 180 men on February 25, 1685. Ten days later, this force would be enlarged by the arrival of 280 men under Captains Groniet and L’Escuyer. In May, Captain Harris would join the group, raising to ten the total number of ships in the squadron. The Battle of 31. For more on the concept of the people of the sea, see Pablo E. Pérez-Mallaína, Spain’s Men of the Sea: Daily Life on the Indies Fleets in the Sixteenth Century, trans. Carla Rahn Phillips (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1889). The original treatise making a case for keeping the seas open to all nations and vessels dates from 1609. See Hugo Grotius, The Freedom of the Seas (New York: Oxford University Press, 1916).

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Panama took place between June 7 and 9. Being able to capture neither the city nor the Spanish fleet, the group dispersed. Miguel the Sevillian was probably present and a willing participant in these actions and in the subsequent rapes and burns of León and Realejo in Nicaragua on July 22 and August 3, respectively. If he was not, he was to join the pirates soon before leaving for the East Indies on April 10, 1686. Regardless of this, the information he disclosed was not the type of thing to be shared with prisoners. Rather, it is one more sign that Ramírez and most of his crew willingly joined the pirates shortly after they came aboard their ship and, through this action, were able to protect the comrades who did otherwise and would choose to stay in Spanish territory. The contrast with the version in the Misfortunes is fascinating. According to this, the first thing that Ramírez did upon being brought aboard the Cygnet was to try to trick the pirates into heading for the island of Capones, where he hoped they would fall into Spanish hands: “My intent was that, if they were to go there they would be caught off guard and taken prisoners, not just by its natives but by the Spanish soldiers stationed there.” This alleged plan had no logic whatsoever. The pirate ship was a floating fortress with more than 150 well-armed men who would have encountered very little resistance from the small garrison in Capones. According to the book, Ramírez paid a high price once the pirates discovered his ploy: Pistols and cutlasses at hand, they started to search me again and even to torture me. They tied me and one of my shipmates to the main mast and, since I did not give them any useful information on the places where they could find the gold and silver they were asking about, seizing my shipmate Francisco de la Cruz, a mestizo Chinese, they left him unconscious and almost dead on the foredeck after submitting him to the most cruel mancuerda. They placed me and my crew in the ship’s hold and from there I heard great screams and a shot . . . unsheathed cutlasses at hand, they fell upon me with great shouting and vituperation. Never was I so frightened in my fear of death as in this moment. But they commuted it [the death sentence] for the many kicks and blows with which they fell on me, such that they left me unable to move for many days.

Clearly Ramírez was telling everyone what they wanted to hear. He told the Spaniards that he never gave up any valuable information to the English and that “even though [he] tried hard, [he] was never able to find out where they were fitted to go out to sea.” Yet we know from the testimonies of his crew taken at Manila that one of the first things they found out from Miguel was that they had left from London. Innumerable alternative readings can be put forth from this point, including a discussion of how the characterization of the Sevillian Miguel in the Misfortunes could be a reflection of Ramírez’s personal insecurities—and also of his own proclivities, as well as possibly being a literal testimony of his actions aboard the pirate ship—and not simply the product of a colorful imagination. In other words, the Miguel described in the Misfortunes could very well speak more

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of Alonso Ramírez’s demeanor aboard the Cygnet than of the Sevillian who is described as talkative and friendly in the Spanish documents. The accusations of cannibalism as well as the allusions to sodomy in the description of the torture he and his men were submitted to every Monday are particularly intriguing in this sense, as are the allegations that Juan de Casas was made to eat Captain Bell’s excrements dissolved in water.32 If he had joined the pirate society, then he must have participated in the rituals of homoerotic sadistic amusement practiced aboard the Cygnet. The descriptions of these, even when preceded by an apology, are among the most striking passages in the Misfortunes to somehow have eluded censorship: Monday was the most dreaded day for us because, placing a cable of liana around the mizzenmast and tying our left hands to it, they put a ratline on our right hands, and having undressed us, they forced us with daggers and pistols pointed to our chests to flog one another. The shame and pain we felt were matched by the cheer and applause with which they celebrated it. My shipmate Juan de Casas being unable to be present at the apportionment of the continuous work to which we were subjected, and Captain Bell, attributing it to what he called feebleness, he said he would cure him and with a simple remedy. Forgive me for bringing this up [in spite of] the decency and respect owed to the reader, but he resolved to make him drink his own captain’s excrement dissolved in water, placing a knife to his throat to hasten his death if he showed any reluctance.

It is worth wondering that if Ramírez participated in these pastimes, he could have also joined his new comrades in their religious practices every week on the day prior to the alleged mutual floggings at knifepoint, as he attributed to and severely condemned in the figure of the Sevillian Miguel. There is evidence in the text that Ramírez failed to convince everyone of not having been a pirate, particularly the first Spanish officials he came upon in the town of Valladolid. Yet his story proved useful not just to him, in the form of the payment and employment he received from the viceroy, but to the Count of Galve himself, who ordered that it be immediately transcribed, printed, and a good number of copies shipped to Madrid. Apparently, the use value of Ramírez’s story rose in an inversely proportional relation to the diminished measure of its credibility. This in turn increased the level of complicity of those who could have expected to gain something from the story, chiefly among them Sigüenza and the censor Ayerra who, faced with the task of making the castaway’s testimony readable in court and thus useful to the viceroy’s agenda, worked furiously to tie all the loose ends in the mariner’s account. In the process, both of them became deeply entangled in the forms of knowledge that Ramírez had engaged in and in the precious know-how he had acquired and brought back from his voyage around the world. 32. I have given some tentative consideration to both the question of sodomy and coprophagy in Undoing Empire, 163–165.

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With the release of this edition, Alonso Ramírez attains the stature of one of the great icons in the history of circumnavigation now that we can corroborate as a well-documented series of events the path he followed in search of fortune. That feat is greater when measured against his clever ways, taking into account the formidable skills he acquired during a voyage full of very real dangers and alleged torments. In contrast to those whose names appear before his in the list of circumnavigators, Ramírez’s voyage was not a well-financed enterprise. Rather, it was a very personal affair in pursuit of a “life without having to work for a living.” Thus the greatness of the feat was owed exclusively to his intelligence and cunning and to what must have been an impressive set of verbal and histrionic skills. Only this explains how, as we shall see, he not only was able to make the most of his captivity by rendering good service to the English pirates but also had no qualms whatsoever to prostrate himself before the viceroy and claim the part of the loot he had obtained while sailing with them halfway around the globe. To explore the ways in which Ramírez managed to profit from the most adverse situations is to begin to reveal the merits and perils of the most beguiling plot of subversive intrigue. In fact, the Misfortunes makes its readers embark on a baroque voyage of continuous turns and counterturns that, on both large and small scales, aim to deactivate reductionist approaches to this otherwise brief narrative by sending them in a roundabout voyage of endless questions and suppositions. In the end, because all stories, by definition, require a fair measure of imposture, only the consummate impostor can tell the best pirate stories. That much could be said of William Dampier’s works but also of Sigüenza’s Misfortunes, insofar as in being ordered to write down Ramírez’s novelized version of his life and times, Sigüenza created a work in which fact and fiction can never be brought into the “good order” that the censor Ayerra rather disingenuously confessed to have found in this narration. As such, Misfortunes is a highly unstable and destabilizing story in the most piratical sense. Given what we know now, it is possible to state without any hesitation that the claim to the European “discovery” of Australia made in México City during the summer of 1690 on behalf of Alonso Ramírez, a native of the city of San Juan on the island of Puerto Rico, predates by seven years the first narrative in English taking credit for the same feat made by the pirate writer William Dampier in A New Voyage Round the World, published in London in 1697. That claim is made all the more pronounced when we consider that, as I can now prove, Ramírez, as a good man of the sea, also withheld from Sigüenza the real names of his alleged captors. This precludes them from getting any type of credit in the 1690 edition, irrespective of whether Ramírez’s intent was to cover his tracks and avoid being associated in any way with the Lutheran sea rovers. Yet Sigüenza knew from the very beginning that this was first and foremost a pirate’s story. Indeed, young Alonso had set out in search of fortune at the age of twelve by sailing with the Corsican captain Giovanni Michele, also known as

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Juan Miguel, Juan Miguel Corso, or Juan Corso. He is mentioned in the text as Juan del Corcho, a trick that more than a pun is intended to hide the obvious fact that we are dealing with a privateer. As I explain in detail later on, the apparent literary license in using Corcho for Corso was meant to throw off track a Spanish peninsular reader who would have taken the pawn as a picaresque frivolity while signaling to a Spanish Creole reader in México City that there was a deeper meaning to this story. The subversive undercurrent that Ramírez brings into the tradition of American letters in the story of his alleged misfortunes has to be first and foremost understood as a product of the culture of the peoples of the sea in the mare liberum—that is, as a reflection of a world where it was still possible to experience a true sense of freedom on the open seas. It is almost impossible to separate the alternative ways and customs of the peoples of the sea from the savoir faire of subjects throughout the colonial and plantation world in the early Caribbean and beyond, as they mirror each other in the same coded language and partly secretive rituals that a careful reading of the Misfortunes can begin to reveal. That particular way of being and knowing, which I call mulataje, has been one of the most important contributions of the Caribbean world to humanity, and it was without a doubt the most valuable—and to some measure, confounding—treasure that Sigüenza found in Ramírez’s booty. As such, even more than a first-person account of a pirate’s life, the Misfortunes is the first piratical and novelized narrative to document the deep impression made by life on the open seas and beyond the confines of empire on the American ideal of liberty.

ON MOTHERHOOD, MENTORING, AND BEING THE BEST AT WHAT YOU DO As I indicate in the notes to the original text, it is likely that Alonso never met his father and that he spent most of his early life looking for such a role model. Given this, we must consider the very significant influence his mother had on him, especially given the emphasis placed on her in the brief passages in chapter I, where she is said to have given young Alonso “the only thing that the poor can give their children, which is the advice that predisposes them to virtue.” After all, he carried Ana Ramírez’s family name and allegedly went from México City to Antequera in search of her mother’s rich and powerful relative. There is reason to suspect that as a poor inhabitant of a forsaken colonial outpost, Ana Ramírez was a formidably resourceful woman who, through her cunning and political skills, managed to put her twelve-year-old son aboard the ship of the most important local businessman of the day in the Spanish Caribbean. In his effort to dispel any suspicions of him having been a pirate and become a Lutheran, Ramírez was quick to emphasize to Sigüenza his devotion to both Ana Ramírez and Our Lady of Guadalupe. In reference to the virgin, he would confess, “My freedom would have been impossible if I had not continuously

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devoted my memory and affections to the Most Holy Mary of Guadalupe of Mexico, to whom I publicly confess I will always be a slave for what I owe Her.” But if we assume that Ramírez might have joined the English pirates not just in the business of pillaging but also in religious worship, it would be plausible to assume that Ramírez was being misleading and quite opportunistic, especially knowing that Sigüenza was one of the most important early promoters of the recently created myth around the religious icon.33 Indeed, by assigning all credit for his virtuous life to his devotion to both his mother and the larger- than-life figure of the Catholic virgin, Ramírez was reducing to a minimum and closing off completely the space that could be occupied by other maternal figures and, most especially, by female mentors and role models. Thus he conveniently avoided any mention of the woman from whom he acquired and through whom he learned to perfect some of the most important social and rhetorical skills that turned him into the ultimate con artist and survivor. Besides professing his love for his late wife, there is no mention whatsoever in the text of María de Poblete, Ramírez’s mother-in-law. Yet we know, as did Sigüenza and Ayerra and quite possibly also the Count of Galve, that Ramírez managed to become an enthusiastic accomplice in the most fascinating intrigue of the day in México City. The longest-running racket in the entire history of colonial México involved the supposedly miraculous hosts with healing powers that were generated inside water jugs in the likeness of Saint Theresa of Jesus through the alleged intercession of the saint. This business was operated in the house of the dean of the Metropolitan Cathedral by his sister, María de Poblete, mother to Francisca Javiera, who, on Sunday, November 8, 1682, married Alonso Ramírez in the Metropolitan Cathedral of México City. María de Poblete had been operating this very profitable home business with the support of the religious order of Our Lady of Mount Carmel for almost three decades prior to Alonso’s arrival in México City. Her relationship with the Carmelites began as an attempt to cure her husband, Juan de Ribera, a notary public who had been crippled by an illness in 1648 that left him unable to walk or use his hands. Due to Juan’s condition, the Ribera-Poblete family was forced to move into the house of Maria’s brother, the prominent Juan de Poblete, dean of the cathedral of México City and a close acquaintance of Sigüenza. This situation became permanent following the death of Juan de Ribera on March 1, 1653. Four years before, in 1649, people began flocking to Poblete’s house in search of the magic or miraculous hosts with healing powers that María was able to produce through the intercession and grace of Saint Theresa. Apparently, María employed herself in grinding the hosts with the image of the saint that she received from the convent or from devotees who came to her. She would then place the powder inside a pot of water, where overnight it would be reconverted miraculously into 33. The early promotion of the cult of the Virgin of Guadalupe began in 1663, even though her apparition is supposed to date back to the sixteenth century.

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the original hosts with the image of Saint Theresa. The strange transmutation took place in the sacristy of the house, where there was conveniently placed a receptacle for collecting alms. As the cult and the business grew, the hosts began to take the shapes of all the images in the calendar of saint’s days. Word of the miracle spread quickly throughout the empire, reaching all the way to Peru and the very home church of the order in Alba de Tormes, Spain. It was notarized on September 17, 1653, and again on October 19, 1673. In 1674, María de Poblete officially requested that the church declare as miraculous the formation of the “blessed hosts of Saint Teresa of Jesus in the house of señor dean don Juan de Poblete.” During the process, the solicitor, Juan de la Ascensión, stated that “in order to extol the glory of God Our Lord and of our glorious Mother Saint Teresa of Jesus, and to help increase the devotion to her, it is in the interest of my sacred religion . . . that Your Excellency deem worthy of being termed a miracle the work that the divine majesty does through the holy hosts of our blessed Mother Saint Teresa of Jesus in the house of señor doctor don Juan de Poblete, dean of this Holy Cathedral of México, archbishop elect that he was of the city of Manila in the Philippine Islands.”34 The hosts were declared miraculous by the archbishop of México City and viceroy of New Spain, Payo de Rivera, on October 9, 1677. María de Poblete’s business thrived until the demise of her powerful brother, accomplice and protector, on July 8, 1680. Exactly a year and one day to that event, on July 9, 1681, the Franciscan friar Diego de Leiva accused María de Poblete before the Holy Office of the Inquisition for being an unbeliever and denounced as false the account that the hosts, if grounded and placed in “a jar or small pot” of water, would reconstitute themselves in the image in which they originally “were fashioned and packaged.”35 The process lasted until the death of María de Poblete on December 2, 1686. Subsequently, the prosecutor ruled against María de Poblete for “making up miracles and superstitions.”36 In spite of dying poor, the business of the miraculous hosts helped María de Poblete raise her children after her husband was crippled. For almost four decades, this very resourceful widow, whom the people thought to be a saint, was able to capture the imagination of the whole of Mexican society. She received in her home persons from all walks of life and is said to have treated all the highranking officials of the kingdom and the clergy in the most intimate and informal ways. She is reported to have done the same with the saint, allegedly having Saint Theresa of Jesus as a secret confidant and all the officials—at least until 1681—as accomplices of what, more than a great act of God, was a very fabulous human fabrication. This was the household that Alonso Ramírez entered sometime in the late spring of 1682, shortly after the opening of the trial of María de Poblete 34. AGN, Bienes Nacionales, 14, Vol. 969, Exp. 1, 1674. 35. AGN, Inquisición, 61, Vol. 520, Exp. 45, Foja 5, 1681. 36. AGN, Inquisición, 61, Vol. 642, Exp. 4, Foja 108.

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on April 24 of the same year. What drove that nineteen-year-old to get himself directly entangled in a public scandal that was truly a holy imbroglio? By the time Alonso married Francisca Javiera, the lucrative scam had been going on for more than three decades. The time he spent with the Pobletes must have given Ramírez a formidable lesson in chicanery. Still, it is possible to assume that despite being poor and holding an entry-level position in the building trade, he must have wooed and skillfully gained the interest of his future mother-in-law in the seven months he spent in the city prior to his marriage, from May to November 1682. Given the complicated circumstances and the fact that the Poblete household was under investigation by the Inquisition, Ramírez would have never obtained the widow’s permission to marry her daughter had she seen him just as an apprentice with some potential. She must have appraised young Alonso also as a smart and discrete accomplice. For his part, Ramírez would not have entered the Poblete household simply as a way to better his social standing by marrying a woman above his station and at least ten years his elder. I would argue that, more than anything, his reasons for walking into a household that was under the scrutiny of the Inquisition responded to him having seen in María de Poblete something of what he identified in his own mother as a predisposition to virtue in the skills required to attain his goal of spending the rest of his life without having to work for a living. The impact of María de Poblete on Alonso Ramírez should not be underemphasized. She was, without a doubt, a formidable character who could move, impress, and manipulate people at will. Her imprint on the public imaginary of the day was unquestionable, and there is reason to believe that it has transcended to our times. Indeed, María de Poblete’s dealings might have given birth to the common popular expression in Spain of being la hostia en bote, literally translated as “the host in a pot.” Keep in mind that reports of the miracles and subsequent scandals quickly made news in Peru and in Castile, where the Teresian Carmelites had a major presence. The expression describes the top or very best in any category, as in the non plus ultra. In the case of the Poblete affair, the original “host in a pot” was the most consummate act of deception. Alonso was a desperate young man of nineteen when he married Francisca Javiera and became entangled in the con to end all cons. Soon he would prove to have been María de Poblete’s best apprentice, and by the time he was to return to México City, thereby “having managed to travel around the World,” he would come to be seen by Sigüenza and his close associates as the most consummate living example, indeed the very non plus ultra, or “the host in a pot,” of the American virtue of resourcefulness against the worst odds.

HOW RAMÍREZ STOLE THE NAME AND REIMAGINED THE CHARACTER OF FELIPE FERRER By all accounts, Alonso Ramírez was a very creative and especially daring person. As evidenced by his rapid acceptance in the Poblete household, he also must have possessed a great deal of grace and charm. No doubt he also was a master of social

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ventriloquism. Evidently, as he fully proved with the Pobletes and later with the pirates, he had a gift for quickly making himself indispensable in any enterprise that could be of convenience or benefit to him. As I can prove now with the documents uncovered in the Archive of the Indies in Seville, this is precisely what he did in Manila under the assumed name Felipe Ferrer. As it happened, Ramírez, posing as Ferrer, made himself particularly useful to none other than the governor of the Philippine Islands, Gabriel de Curucelaegui y Arriola, a man who was known for his intelligence, breadth of knowledge, and superb political skills as a member of the Spanish Council of War and former commander of the Windward Fleet. Even though there is no doubt that the identity theft occurred, I have been unable to pinpoint the precise moment when Alonso Ramírez assumed the alias. Being then a distant penal colony, it was then common practice among the convicts to adopt a new name and identity after crossing to the Philippines in the Manila galleon. Given that Ramírez sent himself there allegedly of his own volition, it is more than likely that he intended to assume a new identity from the start and that, as a good apprentice of María de Poblete, he already had a well-crafted plan to do so. The text makes an allusion to this when, in one of its most moving and seductive passages, Ramírez summons himself before “the court of [his] own conscience.” Far from being a sign of tragic ineptitude, as we are made to believe, Ramírez stands there in self-reflection as a fearless rampant lion: “At that point, I lost all hope of ever amounting to anything and, finding myself both accused and convinced of my guilt of ineptitude in the court of my own conscience, I resolved to give myself the same punishment for that crime that is given in Mexico to those who are delinquents, which is to send them into exile in the Philippines.” His odyssey had begun when, just before turning thirteen, he had “decided to steal my body away from my very own country in order to search for better opportunities in foreign ones.” Now, at the age of twenty-one, he had resolved not just to steal his body away from México but also to steal somebody else’s name and social standing. Perhaps he was not sent to the Philippines on account of being a criminal, a consideration that is still worth pursuing. But the truth is that he left Acapulco intending to perpetrate the craftiest of identity thefts. As it turned out, the name he assumed belonged to a much older man who had been boatswain of the Santo Niño y Nuestra Señora de Guía (Holy Child and Our Lady of Guidance) galleon. On Friday, March 31, 1684, Ramírez was on board the Santa Rosa galleon when it left Acapulco for Manila. It is unlikely that he was already posing as Felipe Ferrer. After crossing the Pacific Ocean, the Santa Rosa remained in Guam from June 8 to 12, where she ran aground and was stuck for three days in peril of falling into the hands of the pirates who were sailing aboard the Cygnet. Governor Curucelaegui reported this even though he never knew the name of the boat in question: On her return trip almost within sight of the Mariana Islands a vessel went out to sea and almost at night told them that laying at anchor in them [the Marianas] were

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two other enemy ships. This was a very singular encounter, as if by an act of divine providence, although it could have been very costly for them because in order to go out towards the southern part their rudder ran aground three times and they were without use of it for three days. And finding themselves almost lost they sent out the launch with twenty-three men to find a course for them to continue their voyage and the wind growing stronger they lost sight of it from the galleon at two hundred and two cables.37 But God helped to put them on their way, and that is how much He looks after these islands, so that they continued on their way to this place and it is not known if some of these enemies might be coming after her or if they are the ones we have sighted over here.38

Recognizing that he obtained the information later off the coast of Manila, Dampier tells the same story: While we lay there, the Acapulco Ship arrived in sight of the Island, but did not come in sight of us; for the Governor sent an Indian Proe, with advice of our being here. Therefore she stood off to the Southward of the Island, and coming foul of the same shole that our Bark had run over before, was in great danger of being lost there, for she struck off her Rudder, and with much ado got clear; but not after three days labour . . . This their striking on the shole we heard afterward, when we were on the Coast of Manila.39

It was a strange coincidence that on the night of Tuesday, March 4, 1687, both Ramírez and Dampier discovered that their respective vessels had been on the verge of facing each other in battle two years and five months before. What Dampier never knew was that Ramírez, now posing as Ferrer, was not boatswain of the galleon and that the real Felipe Ferrer was not aboard the Santa Rosa when the Cygnet was in her pursuit. Thus his assertion that on the night of Tuesday, March 4, 1687, her captain confessed having been “boatswain of the Acapulco Ship which escaped us at Guam, and was now in Manila”40 was the first major lie that the English accepted as fact from Ramírez/Ferrer. Even when we do not know when the identity theft took place, the circumstances that led to that fanciful deception formed a long list of actions that Ramírez had been piling up as he turned his luck around in Manila under the presumed name Ferrer. When he boarded the Santa Rosa in Acapulco, the only experience he had at sea was of having been a cabin boy during the short trip between San Juan and Veracruz almost a decade before. No matter how cunning he may have been, with such qualifications, he never would have been given charge of all the sailors, rigging, cables, and anchors in one of the largest, most expensive, and valuable ships of the day. If he managed to be named captain of Our Lady of Aránzazu three years later, it 37. 38. 39. 40.

They lost sight of each other at a distance of some 3.7 kilometers. AGI, Filipinas, 12, R. 1, N. 50. Dampier, 1:313. Dampier, 1:384.

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was, first of all, on account of being a Spaniard in a place where there were few of them and, second, because of the experience he gained while sailing during those years on the South China Sea. Still then, he was not Felipe Ferrer—or at least, he was not the Felipe Ferrer he claimed to be. The documents certify that Felipe Ferrer was a boatswain of the Santo Niño galleon that sailed from Manila on its maiden voyage on Saturday, July 1, 1684.41 Seventeen days before, Ramírez had left Guam aboard the Santa Rosa, and it would not be until August 31 that he would reach Manila. By then, Ferrer was in the middle of the Pacific Ocean exactly 114 days from Acapulco. For now, we should assume that the real Felipe Ferrer might have died on that voyage or in Manila soon thereafter and that it was then, when he was attempting to make a living in the city, that Ramírez came upon his story and assumed his name and identity. But if Ramírez was not the Felipe Ferrer he was claiming to be, it is also true that the Felipe Ferrer who was boatswain of the Santo Niño never could have been the Felipe Ferrer whom Ramírez ended up being. In a letter dated December 25, 1687, Governor Curucelaegui informs the king of the approval of the repairs to the castle of Saint Phillip Neri in Cavite, a large fortress with a rectangular plan and four bulwarks that guarded the entrance to Manila Bay and was in danger of collapsing because the waves had weakened its foundations. This was a significant undertaking, as the perimeter of the walls was some 860 Castilian varas, or almost 800 meters long (see figure 7). The repair work with stone blocks had been approved with a budget of 100,000 pesos for people and supplies based on a proposal, made the year before, whereby the builder had guaranteed to have the work completed in a year and a half. The builder, as Curucelaegui informed the palace, was named Felipe Ferrer: The repairs to the harbor of Cavite, of which I have informed His Majesty together with the way that they are so needed since the castle is on the verge of falling down and into ruin, would have begun already to be carried on had there not been a change in the way that it should be repaired since, having it been resolved by different committees to take a shortcut and repair it with posts and other materials to avoid greater ruin, a proposal was made by a captain in Cavite named Felipe Ferrer, knowledgeable in the art of architecture, who offered to finish the work with stone blocks in a year and a half if he were to be given the necessary people and materials, personally directing and instructing such work in order to do this service to His Majesty.

The letter goes on to explain that the proposal was presented to the most expert people in Manila and to its highest authorities, including the archbishop 41. In a document dated October 8, 1693, Ferrer appears as one of those accused of not having paid the media anata tax to the royal coffers on the year of 1684 when he was boatswain of the Santo Niño: “Captain Felipe Ferrer, deceased, boatswain he was of said galleon, owes eighteen pesos.” See AGI, Filipinas, 33, N. 2/88/2.

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and the previous governor, Juan de Vargas Hurtado, who was under house arrest due to fiscal irregularities committed during his tenure: All of which forced me to do a new survey by the most expert people who are in these islands who agreed that this work would be much more permanent and necessary than the other for diverse reasons that were discussed, even when this was more expensive for having been budgeted at one hundred thousand pesos. Given this I called the Supreme Council into session and without any dissent from its members, among whom was also Field Marshal don Juan de Vargas, my predecessor, in relation to who I had consulted with the Most Reverend Archbishop of this city to impress upon him that, given his usefulness to His Majesty in such an occasion, his excommunication should be lifted so that given his experience he may attend such and other meetings that could be held, it was agreed that it be done in manner stated and proposed by said Ferrer.

Unfortunately for all the interested parties, before it could commence, the governor was forced to abandon the work when the master builder fell into pirate hands: “And so I was excited to let this project begin until, as I inform His Majesty in the [letter] that deals with pirates, one such took said Captain Ferrer, around March of last year, in a frigate belonging to His Majesty and carried away with him putting an end to this contract.”42 If it is true that Ramírez was totally unfit to be the boatswain of the Acapulco ship when he boarded the Santa Rosa, it is also true that a person who had risen through the years as a sailor to be the boatswain of the galleon would have never had time to become an expert in the building trade. Only Ramírez, who during two separate periods had worked for two and a half years under the direction of Cristóbal de Medina, the most important architect of the day in México City, could have managed to put together such a comprehensive and detailed proposal. By the way, coupled with the fact that he later complained that “we neither understood the Dutch pilot book, nor did we have a chart that might be of use,” it is safe to assume that given the detailed proposal he must have prepared for Curucelaegui, Ramírez was not the illiterate man that has often been presumed. In any event, here was Ramírez at his best, convincing an archbishop, a highly competent administrator and political genius like Curucelaegui, as well as a cunning and corrupt former governor to give him 100,000 pesos, men, and materials to carry forth a very ambitious building project made all the more necessary by the growing state of alarm at the presence of English pirates who were taking aim at the only lifeline that kept the colony prosperous and in Spanish hands: the Manila galleon. Facing such urgent concerns, it would have mattered little what name Ramírez was choosing to go by as he attempted to reconcile his majesty’s interests with his aim to spend the rest of his life without having to work for a living. It remains to be determined what happened to the real Felipe Ferrer. We may assume that Ferrer and Ramírez may have met in Manila and even that they could 42. See AGI, Filipinas, 13, 1/2/4–5.

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have sailed together on some of the trips the latter took before being captured. If that was the case, it is highly probable that Ramírez would have seen in Ferrer the same father figure and example that he found in Juan López, the merchant from Antequera with whom he lived, worked, and traveled for almost five years, when Ramírez was between the ages of fourteen and nineteen. Did he finally find the father and the surname he never had on account of being a bastard, as I allude to in the footnotes to the book? In such a case, he might have taken Ferrer’s name upon the man’s death. But what if Ramírez assumed the old man’s identity after taking his life with his own hands? One way or the other, the Felipe Ferrer whom Dampier came to know was surely the captain of Our Lady of Aránzazu even though he had never been the boatswain of the Acapulco ship.

AN AMERICAN CON MAN TAKES ON THE ENGLISH “KING OF THE SEA” More than likely, Ramírez went by the name Felipe Ferrer when he was allegedly a captive of the English pirates. The fact that Dampier and company had no reason to suspect otherwise, given the detailed account that Ramírez gave the English upon a thorough interrogation on the first night of his alleged captivity, already places Dampier at a major disadvantage in his real and historical relationship with Ramírez. The significance of these findings, first suspected by Cummins and Soons in their 1984 edition of the Infortunios, cannot be overemphasized. To begin with, it is an extraordinary case of poetic justice whereby the alleged victim of a kidnapping can steal the most notable claim to fame from his captors. Strictly speaking, the story of the Misfortunes was published seven years before A New Voyage, technically depriving Dampier of the big headlines and making of his account of circumnavigation and “discovery” of Australia somewhat old news. Then there is the unmasking of Dampier in the Misfortunes as a mutineer and pirate. Even though he is never mentioned by name, Ramírez’s account makes it clear that the pirates were all members of a cohesive community of depraved and cruel men. Dampier generally escapes being characterized as a member of a band of murderers and rapists thanks to the fact that he documented the voyage in a book that contains very valuable intelligence and curious facts and lays claim to the first English landing on Australia. For that, he has always figured as a prominent name in British imperial mythology and its early nationalist imaginary.43 Indeed, Dampier’s feats during his three voyages of circumnavigation laid the propagandistic foundations of Britannia’s claim to ruling over the waves, propelling the doctrine that was to elevate the modern colonial master to the heroic status of great civilizer. We already know that Dampier’s life and works had a great influence on the spirit of the age and upon the literary classics of the times, most prominently 43. See Alex Ruderford and Michael James Preston, A Pirate of Exquisite Mind: Explorer, Naturalist, and Buccaneer (New York: Walker, 2004).

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among these Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe and Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels (1726). Indeed, his books were considered mandatory reading by the likes of Charles Darwin, Captain James Cook, and Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson. Now, for the first time, we have an alternative version of Dampier’s story in the Misfortunes, which places Lord Nelson’s hero much closer to the cannibal than to the gentleman adventurer. This forces us to interrogate the tour de force that has been the basis for considering A New Voyage as one of the first and most fundamental works to serve as a model for, and to project on a universal scale, the English man of action. In fact, in 1703, Dampier led an expedition against the French and Spanish as the captain of the Saint George, a ship with twenty-six cannons and 120 men. The Saint George was accompanied by the Cinque Ports, with sixteen cannons and 63 men under the command of Thomas Stradling. Aboard this second ship was a sailing master by the name of Alexander Selkirk, an impetuous Scot who in October 1704 was left behind in the Juan Fernández archipelago and whose story would be the inspiration for the character of Crusoe. Selkirk would be rescued four years later by Woodes Rogers. Rogers was the financier of the expedition, but the entire “adventure” was planned by Dampier, who at sixty-six years of age was the pilot of the main ship. It is difficult to think of Crusoe without Dampier. But as we shall see, it is also difficult to think of Dampier without Ramírez/Ferrer. Once again, as when read next to The Tempest, the Misfortunes checks, interrogates, and forces us to reevaluate critically and with great political interest canonical works in the ideological tradition that led to the invention of the other-to-the-European and the European as the “monarch of all I survey,”44 a position that Dampier loved to assume and personify. In the taverns of London, where he was seen as a folk hero and a sort of charlatan with class, the sailors called him the “King of the Sea,” a title he informally held half a century before the English, out of rising nationalist and imperialist impulse, made popular the song of Britannia Rules the Waves. This is, in part, the reason the famous King of the Sea of the London taverns is a very important figure in the history of piracy. It could be argued that in symbolic terms, Dampier is the privateer who surrendered the seas to the British Crown. In this regard, the baroque passion for the fugue in the Misfortunes stands in sharp contrast with the linearity and sense of purpose in Dampier’s narrative and with a work that aims to identify markets and factories for an expanding England assuming the form, at times, of a protoscientific and purposefully strategic voyage of data collection. Because of this, and at least to the English, Dampier is the example of what could be called the noble pirate—that is, the moral pirate or the pirate as scientist and patriot. For the Spaniards who captured the Saint George and the Cinque Ports, Dampier and his men were quite the opposite. The documents describe them as the very embodiment of piracy: “One of them named Saint George with twenty-six iron 44. The phrase “I am monarch of all I survey” was coined by William Cowper in the poem titled “The Solitude of Alexander Selkirk.”

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canons, four nine-pounders and the rest six-pounders, and this ship could carry three hundred-and-thirty six tons when it belonged to the merchants. Her captain was William Dampier with one hundred-and-thirty men, all sailors, and each man with one shotgun with twenty-four shots of lead and gunpowder, and they carry four pistols on their waists with their twenty-four shots, and the cutlass at the waist with a bayonet that is placed at the muzzle of the gun.”45 Dampier is described as both a courteous man and a charlatan, while not being indisposed for action and combat. As proof of this, it is pointed out that he had lost the little finger on his right hand during a previous expedition. After the capture by the Saint George of the Spanish vessel Santa Rita, one of her crewmembers testified that “the sea and war captain, chief pilot of the vessel, is named William Dampier, who must be of sixty-four or sixty-six years of age, who has been in this sea on other occasions and in one such lost the little finger on his right hand, who treated this witness and all other passengers aboard said ship with much courtesy.”46 Referring to the departure of the expedition, it is stated that in London, the Duke of Amboise and viceroy of Ireland came aboard the Saint George. It was the War of the Spanish Succession, and the French were entering the Pacific. The viceroy had come to warn him, but the king of the sea replied by saying, “That was not important at all because, unlike the French, he knew the harbors and southern coasts because he had been in the South Sea some eighteen years past.”47 The same document states the total amount in loot that he promised the authorities: “And Captain William Dampier having presented himself before the Parliament in that city it was publicly known that the above mentioned asked Parliament to give him two warships saying that he dared come to this America to take a loot of three million pounds sterling.”48 Dampier got his two warships. But after all the bragging, his last expedition was a complete failure. For this reason, he has been remembered most for the feats of his first voyage around the world and his careful retelling of them in his book. Now we can state unequivocally that there are two very distinct versions of that same “new voyage.” Indeed, the presence on the Cygnet of the crew of Our Lady of Aránzazu, the Spanish frigate captained by Ramírez/Ferrer, places one ship and one story inside another in a tumultuous relationship of continuous turning and overturning of the half-truths and silences in both works as well as in the lives of their respective protagonists: Ramírez and Dampier. We may never be able to ascertain which one of them, Alonso/Felipe or William/Bill, had a greater influence on the other over the fourteen months they spent living in close quarters, from March 4, 1687, when Our Lady of Aránzazu was captured by the Cygnet 45. 46. 47. 48.

AGI, Lima, 484, 5r. Ibid., 138. Ibid., 4. Ibid., 4r–5.

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off the coast of Manila to May 25, 1688, when Dampier was left on Nicobar Island as the Cygnet made sail back to England. But we should not doubt that their insatiable curiosity must have led them to find each other mutually irresistible on account of how wise and clever they both were and because of the secrets and insights that each one could offer the other. If nothing else, the proof about the existence of a relationship that must have been intimate and of great value to both men is that, as good pirates and people of the sea, they keep it secret and well hidden from their respective stories like a prize that the cunning filibuster wishes to claim in exclusivity. A parallel reading of both texts would reveal the great debt that both men owed each other as the last captains of the mare liberum, or the “open seas,” that soon would be brought under the control of the modern nations and empires. For their feats and their respective yet fully interconnected stories, both Dampier and Ramírez come today to share with each other, henceforth and in perpetuity, the title of kings of the open seas. Given Dampier’s assertion that it was Ramírez/Ferrer who gave the pirates a full report on the galleon and about Manila’s fortifications, we can be certain that he was present at his interrogation. Here is how he described the standard procedure during these long sessions: “For they make it their business to examine all Prisoners. . . . And if they have had any former discourse of such places from other Prisoners, they compare one with the other; then examine again, and enquire if he or any of them are capable to be guides to conduct a party of men thither . . . and from thence they afterwards lay their Schemes to prosecute whatever design they take in hand.”49 Being the most intelligent and resourceful of all Spanish speakers aboard, Miguel the Sevillian must have been the one who interrogated Ramírez/Ferrer and the other four crewmembers who were brought aboard the pirate ship on the night of Tuesday, March 4, 1687. We know that Ramírez passed this test with flying colors, no doubt impressing Dampier as a fellow man of “desperate fortunes.”50 Given this, it is highly implausible that Ramírez was ever really a captive of the pirates, least of all a servant who was constantly humiliated and regularly punished and tortured. More likely than not, the English enlisted Ramírez/Ferrer as soon as they found out that he had sailed the waters between Manila and Chennai and had been as far south as Batavia, the base of operations of the Dutch navy that at the time was the enemy most feared by the pirates in those waters. For men who were after Spanish treasure, the knowledge that Ramírez could offer was, without a doubt, much more valuable than the rice and the cotton cloth his ship was carrying. They may not have captured the galleon, but they had its alleged boatswain and his intimate knowledge of the entire operation. In fact, 49. Dampier, 1:58–59. 50. Dampier speaks of the village of Petit-Goâve on the French part of Hispaniola as a “Sanctuary and Asylum of all Peoples of desperate Fortunes.” The expression is, of course, directly related to the concept of misfortune. See Dampier, 1:210.

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given Dampier’s curiosity and Ramírez’s captivating demeanor, it is not hard to imagine the two of them, together with the Sevillian Miguel, sitting at Captain Read’s table that Tuesday night of March 4, 1687, aboard the Cygnet, ready to “lay their Schemes to prosecute whatever design they take in hand.”51 The retellings by both men of the stories that followed are quite different in content but share some important similarities in terms of style. Ideologically speaking, the plot concocted by Ramírez and Sigüenza in the Misfortunes is a carefully planned and forceful commandeering of the Cygnet that speaks of the interest of both men in using the story to their full advantage. In so doing, they left to future generations a most unique example of how an alleged victim, or subordinate in the modern-colonial order, can act proactively and from a sense of self-worth to rewrite history in his favor while turning on its head the belief in superior peoples and cultures that is the colonial mantra. In this respect, there may not be another moment of greater symbolic importance in the text than when we are led to believe that, in a very dangerous act of defiance and yet unbeknownst to the English Protestant pirates, Ramírez forced the Cygnet to sail the Southern Seas under the banner of Our Lady of Guadalupe of Mexico: I think that my freedom would have been impossible if I had not continuously devoted my memory and affections to the Most Holy Mary of Guadalupe of Mexico, to whom I publicly confess I will always be a slave for what I owe Her. I have always carried with me a portrait of Her, and fearing that it could be desecrated by the heretical pirates when they captured me—since at that time, seizing the rosaries from our necks and chastising us as impious and superstitious they, threw them in the sea—I did my best to hide it from their view, and the first time that I went up the masthead I hid it there.

This is not just an early and important moment in the fashioning of the image of the Mexican virgin and the creation of the myth behind it. It is also a most unique iteration of the symbol, as here the mestizo virgin from México is literally elevated above all humanity and carried halfway around the world while secretly reigning supreme above the heads of those who, with the rise of Britannia, are coming to claim the seas and to embody the European Ideal and its future iterations in the notion of the “white man’s burden” and white supremacist ideology. Yet if the stories told by Ramírez/Ferrer and Sigüenza and Dampier seem to be pulling in different directions, there is one way in which both coincide. It is interesting that the manner Ramírez employs to detract attention from any action that could lead to him being accused of piracy or any other censurable act was closely in line with a similar movement in Dampier’s account. As in Ramírez’s “I do not know how” or in his “without any special reason,” Dampier closes the chapter that deals with the Cygnet’s stay in Pulau Condon with a sentence that reads, “There was nothing else of Moment happened while we stayed

51. Dampier, 1:58–59.

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there.”52 Absent from his description is the entire scene described in the Misfortunes giving rise to the accusation of cannibalism as the English set out to burn the town, taking back all they had given the Condonese and murdering everyone in cold blood, including the women who now bore their children in utero. This reading backward of Ramírez’s discourse inevitably leads to the overturning of Dampier’s reputation as a gentleman adventurer and would-be scientist. In the process, we may adopt a more complex and sobering view of his person as well as of the imperial tradition that his exploits came to herald. Moreover, as they seemingly showed a similar proclivity to deceit, it is proof that Dampier and Ramírez/Ferrer must have been very close associates, sharing their exploits and learning much from one another. If this is a tale of two ships, it is also a battle of wills where the Misfortunes clearly shows a very aggressive disposition that aims to seize all moral authority from those described as heretical pirates. In that contest, Sigüenza and Defoe are also entangled in staking the claim to supremacy of their respective faiths and nations as they bear witness to the succession that, with the continued decline of the Spanish Empire, eventually gave rise to the British imperial order. Yet in the very baroque entanglement of curves and countercurves that this engagement generates, the figure of Ramírez—his person and his testimonial—is still the origin of all intrigues and the very point whereupon are balanced, rather precariously and never reaching equilibrium, the interests and calculations of Sigüenza and the viceroy on one side and the stories and secrets of a pirate society that included both Ramírez and Dampier on the other. All the while, the work remains a fugue in full explosion that never seems to reach its closing coda.

LOST AT SEA, OR SAILING THE WEST INDIES AS AN ENGLISHMAN? The protagonist of the Misfortunes arrived in México City “having managed to travel around the World” to tell his story to Galve and Sigüenza before being sent off by the viceroy to join the royal fleet of the Windward Islands in their punitive expedition against the French in Hispaniola. If Alonso Ramírez had just placed México at the center of the world, he could not hold the ground where he had just planted his flag. This, in part, is what has led critics to read the work as a narrative of failure.53 Yet I want to go beyond the discourse of incompetence and inadequacy by suggesting an approach that, seeing it as a veritable imbroglio, values the work as a masterpiece in the art of subterfuge in early colonial modernity. Only then would we be able to access the space beyond Crusoe’s “Christian Compassion,” where Ramírez and his comrades attempted to establish an alternative social order that was based on a strong sense of solidarity and a loose notion 52. Dampier, 1:399. 53. See Beatriz Pastor, Discursos narrativos de la conquista: mitificación y emergencia (Hanover, N.H.: Ediciones del Norte, 1988).

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of egalitarianism that, as a valuable legacy from the peoples of the sea, are the two columns that flank and support the American sense of freedom and our very own notion of liberty. Fifty-three days passed between Ramírez’s arrival in México City on Thursday, May 4, 1690, and the granting of the license for the publication of the book on June 26. By that time, Ramírez would have been already on his way to embarking at Veracruz, and the text that Sigüenza had hurriedly composed in a little more than a month before running it quickly through the censors was being rushed to the printers at the Heirs to the Widow of Bernardo Calderón. Even Sigüenza, who transcribed and reordered Ramírez’s testimony in the first person, adding himself as a character at the end of the story and speaking through Ramírez to ask the viceroy for a monetary gift on his own behalf, would fail to linger in the spot that placed for an instant the center of the world in México City. That place was quickly reclaimed by the Count of Galve, as a function of the European Ideal and in the name of the king, through his patronage of the work and the use he would give to it in the royal court of Madrid. Perhaps it is the close interconnection of form and function in this type of travel narrative that does not allow any other subject but a European male to be the heroic protagonist of an epic of circumnavigation. Being that this work makes an ample description of the things that made México City one of the greatest metropolitan centers of the day and that it raises the Virgin of Guadalupe as the highest symbol of its civilization, it would be possible to explain the antiheroic role of Ramírez’s character as proof of the high price to pay for daring to posit the idea that a colonial enclave could displace Rome, Paris, Madrid, or London as caputi mundi, or “center of the world.” Yet Ramírez is there somewhere, even if, by decree or by choice or both, he does not seem to be occupying the point where all power converges or generates from. His story is thus misplaced, errant, and still to this day, in a permanent state of flight. Here it would be appropriate to ponder whether sailing around the globe was Alonso Ramírez’s greatest accomplishment. Supposedly, it was never his intention to embark on such a voyage as he set out in search of fortune and not fame. In this sense, his interest coincided with Sigüenza’s, as evidenced in the last paragraph of the work, where the writer puts in Ramírez’s mouth a sobering critique of his own social standing by complaining that all his distinctions and positions had “high sounding titles that are worth very little.” But if Ramírez’s apparent intention was not to return to México City to be celebrated as an intrepid mariner and be given as compensation for his ordeal a token sum of money and a military commission from where he was unlikely to come back alive but instead, as is pointed out earlier on in the narration, to be able “to spend life without having to work for a living,” when in the entire voyage is he the closest to attaining that objective? Moving backward in the story from his audience with the viceroy, we would need to go to the place where supposedly his alleged captors set him free. Once

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there, we would need to turn that scene around and ponder the reasons he and the other survivors of his crew were given a well-armed frigate with what can only be described as a substantial part of the loot. Would it not have been more convenient for the pirates, as some of the authorities in Valladolid clearly suspected, to run Ramírez and his men through the sword or, alternatively, to leave them marooned or have thrown them overboard in the high seas before returning home to England? The silence observed upon this momentous feat is quite revealing. Alonso had forsaken his colonial birthright as a ship’s carpenter—the trade that every idle youth in San Juan was obligated by law to learn even when there was no real possibility of obtaining meaningful employment— when before turning thirteen years of age he decided, as Sigüenza states, to “steal his body from his very own country.” Now exactly fourteen years later, in August 1689, he would come to reclaim his inheritance in his own terms—and in the most outrageous fashion—making away with his own country by taking it off the charts and claiming not to have sailed anywhere close to Puerto Rico on his way back to México (see map 7). Yet it is his silence concerning the unavoidable sighting of his patria, or “home country,” of Puerto Rico when sailing through those waters that furnishes all proof against the allegations of having been lost amid the islands. It is impossible to sail out through the Narrows in the Virgin Islands and enter into the Caribbean Sea to come within clear sight of the southern coast of Hispaniola, as the book describes, without running into the eastern end and along the entire southern coast of Puerto Rico. The mariner who sails through the westernmost cays of the Virgin Islands, past Culebra, or Snake Island, always has within view the imposing sight of the Yunque Mountain, which is the tallest peak on the eastern end of Puerto Rico and a landmark that can be seen also from San Juan, Ramírez’s hometown. This peak has been worshiped for centuries as the mythical residence of the supreme Arawak deity of Yucajú-Baguá-Mahorocotí, and it is still considered somewhat of a sacred place to the islanders.54 There is no question that Ramírez

54. Yucajú-Baguá-Mahorocotí was the deity that presided over all land-based life forms (yucajú, was derived from yucca or cassava, the basic staple of the Arawak diet) and those in the sea, or baguá. Mahorocotí is an originary spirit, never begotten or without ancestor. Yucajú-Baguá-Mahorocotí was worshiped as a benevolent deity in opposition to the evildoer Huracán, lord of the wind and hurricane god. Lying on the eastern end of the island, the dwelling place of Yucajú-guamá (Lord Yucajú) on the peak of the mountain, which the Christians came to call el Yunque, was thought to protect Borikén, as the land was known to the Arawaks, from the ferocious winds blowing from the ocean. These beliefs survive in popular lore and are well known today to residents of San Juan and the rest of the island. Given the existence of a large mestizo population in the city and its hinterland when young Alonso lived there during the second half of the seventeenth century, there is plenty of reason to suspect that the story of Lord Yucajú must have been then less of a legend than a living tradition and that it must have been told and retold to the children, including our protagonist, especially during the passing of particularly violent storms.

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would have recognized the Yunque upon first sight, knowing full well that he had at that very moment just completed his circumnavigation of the globe. In a narrative where the protagonist is always disguising his true motives as well as hiding the truth of his whereabouts and deeds, there can be nothing more revealing than his apparent inability to locate the place where he was born. Could this magical act of disappearance be considered also a fascinating moment of selfdiscovery? It could be said that having gone around the world and having been a witness to the rise and fall of modern empires in the Mexican Archipelago and in the new scenario of colonial expansion in the South China Sea, this manipulation could have been an act of empathy and compassion. In this “missing” passage, the Misfortunes operates in reverse fashion to A New Voyage, a text that describes in detail all the possible sites for colonization. If the only piece of information we can hope to own is the one we do not disclose, is this not also a way of claiming a certain kind of ownership over his country by erasing it from the map of the colonial possession of European empires? It is this concrete sense of the possibility of transcending beyond the limits imposed by the colonial order—which in the Caribbean has always been the essence of the liberal trade of contraband—propelled by a pressing need to run away from the authorities that makes of this work the first truly Caribbean narrative in the history of American letters. Here the space of disappearance reveals the biggest fancy of an entirely new social lineage that finds in Ramírez the foremost early exponent of the art of tricking and flouting the authorities as well as an expert tradesman in the contraband of ideas. One way or another, this manipulation was, first and foremost, the most astute way of running around the official checkpoints, where he could have been charged with treason and apostasy. Consequently, we must stop to ask what Ramírez’s secret was and where he was going when his ship ran aground on the coast of Bacalar. The clues to what could have been Ramírez’s ultimate plan after being set free by his alleged captors can be found within the text itself. Again, we must go back to charting his course through the Caribbean Sea (see map 7). Ten days before running aground, on Thursday, September 8, 1689, Ramírez had sailed past the Cayman Islands and allegedly sighted a sloop flying English colors. His men were supposedly frightened at the possibility of falling into English hands again: “Annoyed with myself and by that point determined not to listen to their sobbing in the future, since we had not eaten but what we fished and the provision of fresh water was so low that it was reduced to a small barrel and two jugs, wishing to make landfall in any place even if it were to be inhabited by the English, I sailed for eight days to the west and to the west-southwest.” When we plot the route he followed through the Antilles, as is very carefully described and annotated in the Misfortunes, and consider his lack of mention of his native island as well as the alleged impossibility of making landfall in Hispaniola—which led him to sail past the important city of Santo Domingo, seat

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of the Real Audiencia, or royal appellate court, since 1511—there can be no doubt that Alonso Ramírez was not intent on heading back to Spanish territory, at least not in any direct way. In this regard, the statement as to “wishing to make landfall in any place even if it were to be inhabited by the English” is highly suspicious, as it aims to hide precisely what must have been his true intent. If, as I argue, he clearly knew where he was, then he should have turned north by northwest a day or two after leaving behind the Cayman Islands. That course would have taken him through the Yucatán Channel and into the Gulf of México, where he could have come to safe anchoring in Campeche, Veracruz, or Tampico. Here again, his professed ignorance as to his whereabouts is quite suspect. After all, he had sailed that passage once before when, as a young boy of thirteen, he had stopped in Havana on his way to San Juan de Ulúa (Veracruz). How could he have forgotten the sights of a voyage made at such an impressionable age, especially when that was his first big adventure? Or was it that he knew, given the very suspicious gunship he was piloting, that he would be received in Campeche with heavy cannon fire? Clearly, if his intent was to head back to the grandeur of México City to live without having to work for a living, he could not get there directly. The heading taken just before running aground is mentioned in the text as an arbitrary and insignificant decision. But the fact is that to sail “for eight days to the west and to the west-southwest” of the Cayman Islands is to follow the precise course that must be taken to reach the mouth of the Belize River and, a day’s sail south of that point, what was then the English Puritan “stand,” or trading post, of Stann Creek Town, today the city of Dangriga, Belize. This was a well-known sea route to the English, especially those who, like Dampier, had gone from Port Royal in Jamaica to cut logwood in the extensive swath of coast they called the Bay of Campeachy.55 With the waning of Port Royal as the pirate capital of the Caribbean in the 1680s, the area of the Belize River became the most important center of piracy during the last decade of the seventeenth century. In all likelihood, Ramírez intended to cash out his booty in Stann Creek Town before returning to México. If that was his plan, he was following in the footsteps of his alleged captors. In terms of navigation, Ramírez had followed the exact route favored by English sailors when entering the Caribbean Sea looking for Jamaica and then sailing from Port Royal to Stann Creek Town. We cannot reach any other conclusion but that Ramírez returned to the Leeward Islands where he was born to cross through the arch of the Antilles in the English way. The text may want to emphasize that they were running away from anything that smelled of pirates and Englishmen, but the truth is that the route taken gives them away. The lack of mention of Puerto Rico and the equally suspicious lack of skill that allegedly prevented him from going ashore in Santo Domingo contrast with the fact that aside from Guadeloupe, which was a French 55. Dampier was in Jamaica during 1674 and spent the next two years as a logwood-cutter and pirate on the Yucatán Peninsula.

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colony, every other place he approached (and where he probably went ashore) belonged to the British Crown: Tobago, Antigua, Jamaica, and Grand Cayman. I do not doubt that Alonso passed sufficiently close to one or more of these places to purchase not just food and water but also good tobacco and fine rum. After having spent more than two years among the English and knowing full well of his skills and cunning, it is not difficult to imagine that he might have conducted all his business in the King’s English. My opinion is that he went ashore or at least made direct contact with the colonists in all four places. This is evidenced by the fact that each time he left one of these English enclaves, he headed out to sea. A sailor who was lost without any idea of where he was or chart of any type would have never wanted to lose sight of land. Yet Ramírez headed out into the Atlantic after leaving Tobago and sailed east from Antigua into the largest gap in the islands, which is the Anegada Passage. Later, using the well-known marker of Alto Velo Island, he again headed out on a southwest course straight into the center of the Caribbean Sea before turning toward Jamaica. From Port Royal, he went west by northwest to reach the Cayman Islands, which are very small and barely above sea level. There is little chance that he could have sailed out into open waters to accidentally come straight into islands that he could not have sighted from his departure points or known anything about if he had been truly lost. Obviously, he must have had some help from the local English colonists. Yet in order to have had ready access to such assistance, he would have had to speak English and present himself as a good Protestant, as a good smuggler with something to offer, or both. Once again, upon leaving Grand Cayman, he headed straight out into the open sea on a due-west course. My suspicions concerning Ramírez’s intentions are further supported by the action he took on the second day of having accidentally run aground on account of a powerful storm (see map 8). After making two trips to the shipwreck site to rescue what could be salvaged and having built a tent to shelter his men from the elements, Ramírez decided to set out in search of people with Juan de Casas, who is mentioned in the book as the only other Spaniard besides him in the crew. Once again, as in the last heading taken, the text emphasizes the arbitrary nature of his decision: “Not knowing which part of the coast we had to walk along in order to find people, I chose without any special reason the one that runs to the south.” If he had any general notion of his whereabouts, he surely knew that he was likely to find Spaniards heading north, whereas not far south of the shipwreck site, he was bound to run into the English. In fact, after such a long voyage, Ramírez’s ship had run aground just seventy nautical miles from the mouth of the Belize River. I maintain that this was precisely the distance he was trying to verify when he “chose without any special reason” to head south. Unfortunately for him, four leagues down the shore they encountered the mouth of the Huache River and could not proceed farther in that direction: most sailors at the time purposefully

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would not learn to swim so as to avoid a prolonged agony if their ship were to sink. They were now truly stranded and in need of a new plan. They waited an entire month by the shipwreck in the hopes of being sighted and rescued, more than likely by the English from whom they were allegedly fleeing. But on Tuesday, October 18, 1689, knowing themselves hopelessly lost and facing certain death in that most insalubrious location, they had no choice but to head north.

THE STORY COMES TOGETHER ON THE COAST OF BACALAR Here, as they were forced to face the consequences of heading back into Spanish territory, is where the version of the story that Ramírez gave Sigüenza began to take shape. Foremost in Ramírez’s mind at the time must have been the question of how to claim his share of the loot without being considered a pirate and put to death in the first Spanish town he would come upon. How would he explain the small treasure left behind that included, among other luxury items, seven elephant tusks? Somehow he would manage to deflect most suspicions through his cunning and to reach México City to convince the viceroy that he was the rightful owner of the ship’s contents. After that, he had no qualms about giving a precise inventory of his cargo: “We left behind nine iron pieces of artillery with upwards of two thousand cannon balls of four, six, and ten pounds, and all made out of lead, at least one hundred quintals of that metal, fifty bars of tin, one thousand five hundred pounds of iron, eighty copper bars from Japan, many earthen jars from China, seven elephant tusks, three barrels of gunpowder, forty shot-gun barrels, ten gun locks, a medicine cabinet and many surgical instruments.” Clearly this was no typical merchant vessel. Any competent authority of the day would have identified the contents of the ship as pirate loot. Moreover, the description that Ramírez unabashedly passed along to Sigüenza perfectly matched the type of small, maneuverable, and fast frigate favored by pirates. She was, as described in the book, “well put together, so much so that with a fresh breeze she could run eighty leagues in a single day.” Being the equivalent of ten nautical miles, that was the fastest speed a ship could attain in those days. The most plausible explanation as to how Ferrer/Ramírez and his men acquired the small frigate in which they sailed until running aground along the coast of Yucatán is that they took it on behalf of Captain Read and the rest of the Cygnet’s crew. Under the protocols of the “Law of the Coast,” followed by all Atlantic pirates since the days of the Brotherhood of the Coast in the Caribbean island of Tortuga, the men who captured a prize were entitled to keep it. This would explain why Ramírez and his men were given the ship and the part of the loot that the castaway was now claiming for himself before the Spanish authorities. This explanation is further supported by the fact that the next piece of information given after relating the story of the capture of the small frigate is how, “about five in the afternoon of the same day . . . [f]ive of my men disappeared.”

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Did they actually jump ship, as it is alleged, or were they killed when chasing after or boarding the frigate? My discoveries during the underwater archaeology expedition to the shipwreck site point to the possibility that the frigate in question was not that small. Indeed, the thirty-eight-meter piece of hull found at a depth of seven meters suggests a ship more than twice the size of the frigate described in the book. The larger ship would account for the significant ballast and weight carried and cited as part of the property being claimed by Ramírez. In fact, it is difficult to believe that such an otherwise small frigate could have carried so much weight in iron, lead, tin, and copper. A bigger ship would explain why they sailed without incident across the Caribbean, and it would add weight to the possibility that they made the Atlantic crossing on their own, having parted ways with their English associates back in Madagascar. Yet talk of such a large ship (more than forty meters in length) would have turned all opinions against Ramírez’s claims of having been a captive of the pirates. The whereabouts of Ramírez in relation to his alleged captors after leaving Madagascar are yet to be determined. On August 25, 1688, Captain Read captured a small slave ship from New York and took command of it, leaving Captain Teat in charge of the Cygnet before setting out toward the Red Sea. Teat renamed the Cygnet as Little England before leaving her to Captain Freke and his men on October 25, 1688. By then, its hull was completely eaten up by worms. The famous ship was sunk forty-seven days later in Saint Augustine Bay in Madagascar.56 There is room to speculate that if Ramírez were given command of the captured frigate, he could have parted from the English pirates after their stay in Madagascar when they all disbanded. In that case, Ramírez and his men would have rounded off the Cape of Good Hope and completed the Atlantic crossing on their own, adding to their exploits and undermining the credibility of the story of being lost without chart or log book. Still, Read and Teat left Madagascar on September 6, 1688. A year and twelve days would go by before the shipwreck on Sunday, September 18, 1689. Where was Alonso Ramírez all that time? This is one of the biggest holes in a testimonial that is a veritable strainer of sorts. Ramírez tried to cover that gap by telling Sigüenza that it took the pirates three months to get to New Holland, today Australia, and that they remained there more than four months. We know from Dampier that the route was much shorter and that the Cygnet was anchored there only a week, from January 15 to 22, 1688. The Misfortunes places Ramírez in Australia roughly from mid-October to the beginning of February 1689. Filling all these gaps while putting together the story on the Bacalar coast as they walked up the shoreline, drinking brackish water and eating birds in the mosquito-infested swamps, must not have been an easy task. There is reason to believe that not everyone in the crew was willing to participate in the exercise or, 56. See Dampier, 1:494.

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what is more likely, able to fit into Ramírez’s plan. Just as before, when nonchalantly stating the course taken after passing the Cayman Islands and when explaining how he chose “without any special reason” to head south from the shipwreck site in search of people, the narrative goes to great lengths to hide what very well could have been a mutinous level of discord. It does this by setting up what I have called a “forceful alternative Creole order” symbolically crowned by the image of a “Mexican Pietà.”57 According to the text, four leagues north of the shipwreck site, at the mouth of the Bermejo River, Ramírez tried again to leave his men behind and go forth with Juan de Casas in search of food and rescue. The scene is melodramatic to the extreme. It is hard to think of men who had been through such difficult trials on the high seas as being so weak of mind as to have behaved in the manner described: They replied to this proposal with such pitiful outcries and copious tears that I was moved to cry every bit more than them with tears that came from the bottom of my heart. Embracing me, they endeared themselves to me, lovingly pleading for me not to forsake them and that, since it did not seem humanly possible even for the strongest among them to live more than three days, having so little to wait, as the father I was to all of them, I should wait [until that time] to give them all my blessing upon their last breath and thereafter carry on with Godspeed in search of the help that their unhappiness and misfortune had denied them in such an unwelcoming environment. Their tears convinced me to do as they wished.

Six days later, and thirty-eight after being marooned, they decided to move on and leave the Bermejo River. Two days after that, on October 28, 1689, Francisco de la Cruz died, allegedly in his captain’s arms. Ramírez then proceeded to bury him, being the only witness to his passing. The next day, Ramírez came upon Antonio González, “the other Chinese.” Once again, there were no witnesses, and the narrative clears Ramírez of any direct involvement or complicity in his death: “And with no way of aiding him and no medicine to give him strength, due to either sadness or exhaustion, I fell asleep while consoling him. And shortly thereafter, being woken up by [my sense of] diligence, I found him dead.” Is it a mere coincidence that the two Chinese men in the crew passed away under highly suspicious circumstances given the mechanics of the narrative? Or did Ramírez kill them—or have them killed—suspecting that they could not back up his story? There was yet more to be explained. Apparently, Ramírez’s own appearance gave reason for suspicion. On November 4, 1689, as they crossed the Tzigu forest, “a huge bear came across the path [they] were following.” Ramírez shot it but could not avoid fighting it off with his own hands. There have never been “huge bears” in this part of the continent, only what in Spanish are called osos meleros or osos hormigueros, which are not, as the term oso (bear) would suggest, mammals from the family Ursidae but rather anteaters related to the sloth and 57. See Buscaglia-Salgado, Undoing Empire, 166, 168.

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thus lethargic and otherwise defenseless animals in their contact with humans. The story was clearly made up to explain whatever scars Ramírez might have had. Once again, his alibi was Juan de Casas, the only witness and the only other Spaniard in the crew. It is difficult to make sense of this story outside the context of the times. My own supposition is that Ramírez’s interlocutors would have understood it as a sort of trial faced in his expiatory journey and, quite literally, a battle with the devil. Sigüenza himself may have seen it as an appropriate allegory with moral and political implications, with the Spanish Creole taming the American wilderness. Ramírez might have gotten the idea of including this episode in his narration after visiting the Franciscan monastery of Izamal during Holy Week. There he went to give thanks for his deliverance on March 11, 1690. Recently, a fresco has been uncovered in the monastery at the entrance to the cloister. One of its sections depicts a group of four men surrounding a large beast that they are trying to club to death. The beast lies on the ground, and though the entire fresco has faded much, it is still possible to see a large body covered in brown fur that could easily be confused with a bear (see figure 26). Most probably it is the story of the wolf of Gubbio that Francis of Assisi is said to have tamed. But is it not possible that Ramírez might have found in the Franciscan story a way of explaining his own and very unholy stigmata? The reader might also do well to consider the parallel story told in the last pages of Robinson Crusoe, where Crusoe’s “man,” Friday, taunts and kills a bear. Curiously, in both cases, the encounter with the beast serves to move both Ramírez and Friday ever closer to the European Ideal and away from the associations the characters might have with piracy and cannibalism, respectively. Possible scars aside, apparently Ramírez had also suffered severe burns to his face and torso. Already, twenty-three days before being rescued, a ten-pound cartridge of gunpowder that he was holding in his hand had “caught fire and not only burned [his] hand but wounded [him] in the thigh, part of the chest, the entire face, and blew [his] hair away.” The incident is described with the feigned innocence to which we are accustomed already: “I do not know how.” But if, as alleged in the text, this indeed happened a day before leaving the shipwreck site, on Monday, October 17, 1689, could it have been the result of infighting among the castaways? Otherwise, if we are to take the “I do not know how” in the context of other such attempts at concealing the truth, could this not have been a way for Ramírez to explain wounds and burns he suffered while attacking and boarding ships under Captain Read’s orders? How else could he have acquired such markings if, as he alleged, he spent most of his captivity locked up below deck without being allowed to go ashore? A similar accident allegedly took place on November 11, a full week to the day before entering the first Spanish town and two before receiving the sacrament of confession from the priest of Tihosuco. At the time, Juan González, the Spaniard

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who had rescued them by the beach, had gone ahead “to notify the Indians in the villages that lay along the path [they] were to follow that [they] were not pirates, as they could think, but lost men looking for their protection.”58 Ramírez is said to have lost consciousness in the mishap and not to have regained his senses until a heavy rain fell upon them. The rain could be used here as a rhetorical device to justify the fact that the Mayans who had stayed behind to accompany the castaways had suddenly abandoned them in the forest. The episode begs for a more plausible reading. Could they have not chosen to run away from people who had taken them prisoner and, well armed as they were, could have been moving to dispose of them in the swiftest and most efficient manner when they could no longer prove useful? Also, could there have been some sort of skirmish? Whatever the case, there is reason to suspect that Ramírez’s wounds were not accidentally acquired and that he came up with an elaborate explanation to cover up the truth. In this regard, Ramírez was revisiting the story of the first Spanish castaway in Yucatán, Gonzalo de Guerrero, who was shipwrecked in 1511. Eventually he married a Mayan woman and had children by her, joining his new hosts as a warrior and waging war against the Spaniards. In his Historia verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva España, Bernal Díaz del Castillo paraphrases Guerrero’s words to his former comrade Jerónimo de Aguilar, who originally was stranded with him and who was sent by Hernán Cortés to bring the apparent renegade back to the Spanish side. Those words seem to match perfectly with what surely were Ramírez’s own insecurities concerning the conciliation of his story with the markings on his body: “Go with God, for my face is tattooed and my ears are pierced; what are those Spaniards going to say when they see me like this?”59 Nonetheless, almost two centuries later, here was an American subject who was much more skilled at negotiating and talking through the otherwise most irreconcilable differences. At this point, Ramírez enters an order of universality and humanity much higher than the one he reached by merely going around the world. Here, as he exits the shipwreck, Alonso Ramírez, a.k.a. Felipe Ferrer, truly turns the world on its head by coming up with a highly destabilizing story that can only make sense to those who become complicit in its silences.

FROM PIRATE TO SLAVE OWNER IN SEARCH OF LEGITIMACY There was and still is plenty of complicity to go around, especially in the moment of transition between the rescue of Ramírez and his crew and their arrival at the first town with a priest. On Thursday, November 10, 1689, one day after Ramírez 58. The locals had plenty of reasons to suspect otherwise. After the rape of Campeche in 1685, the Spaniards had conducted a raid on Laurens de Graaf ’s estate in Saint Domingue on February of 1686. De Graaf retaliated by sacking the town of Tihosuco, which he burned to the ground three years before Alonso Ramírez set foot on it. 59. Bernal Díaz del Castillo, Historia verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva España (Madrid: Instituto Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo, 1982), 50.

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and his men had met up with Juan González and his servants, there was an incident that, although presented as a scene of Christian piety, can certainly be seen as an act of piracy. While crossing Ascensión Bay, they sighted a “large canoe” carrying fourteen adults and an unspecified number of children. According to the text, it was Juan González and not Ramírez who proposed giving chase and capturing the vessel, offering a twofold explanation to justify such a belligerent action. First, the crew was thought to be composed of “pagan Indians from the highlands.” González argued, “Taking them to his village priest so he could convert them, as he did others on a daily basis, we would be giving them a precious gift.” Second, “being now a party of nine and facing many days ahead of us before arriving at a settlement without the hope of finding food, we were within our right, and even under the obligation, to take for ourselves the provisions that without a doubt the Indians were carrying.” In this story of conversion and convenience is summarized the entire catalog of reasons that justified the Christian conquest of the New World, ushering in the resulting genocide of the native populations from Hispaniola to Peru and beyond. Yet it is worth noting an important difference: in this case, the captain in charge of the action was not strictly a Spaniard from Europe but an American Creole. There is no question that Ramírez was, quite literally, the person calling the shots aboard the canoe that carried his crew, together with González and his two Mayan servants, even when the day before the castaways had allegedly surrendered to González all their weapons, powder, and munitions: “And having put up a strong resistance, showering us with arrows, they were frightened by the shots of our guns, which, in spite of being very continuous and terrifying, were fired without volleys because I gave my men strict orders that it be so.” The strict orders were not limited to his castaway crew. The text leaves no doubt that Ramírez was the supreme authority at all times: “Once we had boarded them, they spoke to Juan González, who understood their language, and promising him a piece of amber weighing about two pounds and as much of the corn they were carrying as we would want, they asked him to let them go. He proposed to me that, if I agreed, we should grant their request. But being displeased that the amber should be coveted more than bringing those miserable pagans into the fold of the Catholic Church, as they had insinuated, I did not agree to it.” Thus even when the text clears Ramírez from any responsibility in making the decision to board the Mayan canoe, it cannot hide the fact that he was always in control of the action. This is reason to suspect that he not only took the canoe and her crew but also forcibly had taken González and his men captive the day before. Such a reading would confirm that Ramírez and his men had fully adopted the modus operandi of the pirates who had taken them prisoner in the Philippines, for whom, according to Dampier, their “business was to pillage.”60 Ironi60. See Dampier, 1:384.

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cally, then, just as Ramírez’s character states when censuring the capture by the English pirates of the frigate that he would later sail and run aground on the coast of Bacalar, they would have taken González and attacked the highland Mayans “so as not to lose the habit of robbing even when they were running away.” If it was clear to the castaways that they would soon meet people who would have difficulty seeing them as lost men looking for protection, the text goes to great lengths to rid the reader of such suspicions. Similar to the bear encounter, there is a pause in the narration concerning their dealings with the authorities in the town of Valladolid, where Ramírez had to submit to the first official interrogation. The pause is deliberate and forceful to the degree that it accepts the impossibility of proceeding any farther into Spanish territory before offering certain details to the reader: “I cannot continue without recounting a very funny incident that happened to me here.” Apparently, one of the persons involved in the proceedings later approached the castaway in private and, trying to pass as his best childhood friend, offered to intercede before the governor of Yucatán on his behalf. In exchange for the favor, he asked Ramírez to transfer to him ownership of Pedro—allegedly Ramírez’s personal slave—so he could then offer him as a present to the governor. Ramírez did not recognize the man. This prompted the officer to counter, “To prove to you that I am still the one I once was, beware that there are rumors that you are spying for some privateer and that on hearing such news the governor of this province will have you arrested and no doubt tortured.” This is the second and last time in the entire text where the possibility of Ramírez having been a pirate is mentioned directly. It takes the form of an accusation by a person whose name and official position are never mentioned. That is suspicious enough in a work that is otherwise quite precise in pointing out the full names and titles of all other Spanish persons and officials mentioned. Accordingly, this is also good reason to believe that the story was concocted by Ramírez and adopted literally by Sigüenza. It is, after all, the classic disclaimer of the trickster who aims to gain the trust of his interlocutor by pretending to be the victim of someone else’s ruse. Suddenly, all rumors are put to rest in a masterful diversion whose art and grace lie in shifting the burden of proof in furnishing evidence of still being who he once was from Ramírez to a nameless and faceless character. The response of Ramírez’s character to the bribery attempt of the alleged impostor is a delicate balancing act attained through the great craftiness of Sigüenza’s pen: “ ‘I am not that simple-minded,’ I replied to him, ‘not to recognize your grace to be a great liar and one who can give lessons on stealing to the greatest privateers. I will give him my Negro as a gift to whomever were to make me a gift of three hundred pieces of eight, which is what he is worth, and there is nothing more to say.’ ” At no other point in the combining of the oral testimony with its literary recasting are Ramírez and Sigüenza so perfectly aligned with each

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other as in the first sentence of this passage. Ramírez’s response to the extortionist is practically a carbon copy of Sigüenza’s rebuttal of Kino’s allegation concerning the patently “unsound judgment”61 of American Creoles. It is also a sort of colloquial version of the quote that prefaces this essay. This passage is a tour de force in one more sense, as it describes a movement through which a precarious challenge to authority is followed by a forceful act of defiance and exaltation through deception. Initially Ramírez’s position is undermined by the rhetorical maneuver. Who was he to judge that the official could “give lessons on stealing to the greatest privateers”? Taking such a stance always presupposes a certain amount of firsthand knowledge. The reader has little time to pause on this question before being distracted by a major show of force made by the protagonist. Immediately thereafter, the text has Ramírez assuming full authority by claiming Pedro as his rightful property and putting a price on his head. Following the model set by the most notorious pirates of the day and falling in line with the new mechanics of empire-building exemplified in the English case, Ramírez was unequivocally stating that he was not a pirate but a slave owner. Curiously, however, the text thereby parades in front of the reader Ramírez’s most precious possession and the only “item” of real value in the loot that he was able to salvage and carry away from the shipwreck site. How did he acquire a slave from Mozambique while being himself a captive of the English? Once in Mérida, he will sell Pedro for three hundred pesos and use the money to clothe his men before letting them go their own ways. The careful reader could interpret this passage as a metaphor of Ramírez having bought their silence before leaving. But a deeper reading could point to the possibility that Ramírez may have acquired the Mozambican Pedro, quite possibly from Portuguese traders in Madagascar, upon parting ways with his English comrades and knowing full well that the slave could be his most important alibi in New Spain. Clearly a pirate turned slave owner is still a pirate by another name. But Ramírez could have been hoping that being a slave owner would render him a measure of respectability in México, thereby dispelling any accusations of being a marauder.

PUTTING TO PAPER WHAT “WILL BE VERY ADVISABLE FOR THE PRINTING PRESS TO ETERNALIZE” What truly makes this work rare is the complicity among the teller of the story, the writer of the account, and the book’s censor. This relationship is characterized by a triangulation in which the distance between three points and the angles that describe their relationship are constantly changing. Thus a critical reading of the Misfortunes requires us to disturb what Ayerra called “the good order” through which Sigüenza “gave sense and understanding to the undeveloped set of dismally 61. Sigüenza y Góngora, Libra, 5, 147. “Trabajoso juicio.”

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confused events and crowned himself with applause by finding the golden thread to the labyrinth where such roundabout stories were entangled.” As I have explained, there is no truth to the claim that Ramírez and his men sailed across the Caribbean Sea “without knowing where they were or where they were going.” Ramírez’s attempt to conceal the truth from people unfamiliar with those waters and landmarks should not give us much reason to pause. But the fact that Sigüenza, an experienced geographer and cartographer, was an accomplice to the act speaks loudly of what in this story is more the norm than the exception. Keep in mind that it was Sigüenza who added the numbered notes in the margins identifying the islands that Ramírez described but did not name. This means that in his attempt to find the “golden thread to the labyrinth where such roundabout stories were entangled,” the cartographer must surely have set out to chart, compass in hand, the exact route taken by Ramírez. If Ramírez could speak to the readers, through Sigüenza, asking them “not [to] be astonished at the ignorance we showed concerning those islands, because having left my country at such an early age, I never knew—nor cared to do so later—what were the neighboring islands and their names,” the Mexican savant could not hope to receive the same dispensation. Or are we supposed to think that the man who wrote 188 pages carefully rebutting Kino’s perfidy with precise astronomical observations concerning the most confounding celestial bodies of his day could now fail to notice the missing pages in Ramírez’s pilot book as he ran across a geography that was well charted and of which Sigüenza had detailed maps? To complicate matters more, he also had a direct way to corroborate Ramírez’s allegations. His good friend Juan Enríquez Barroto, an experienced navigator and a map maker himself who is described in the Misfortunes as “completely well versed in matters of hydrography,” knew those waters well and was at the time in México City. In fact, as stated in the book, Sigüenza introduced Enríquez Barroto to Ramírez, asking him to accompany the castaway to Veracruz. This leads us to believe that Sigüenza must have hosted both men in his home as he, Enríquez Barroto, and any number of other friends of the writer, including quite possibly Ayerra, asked Ramírez to recount his ordeals yet one more time. Someone at some point in the conversation should have pointed out that the island of Puerto Rico is too large an obstacle to be missed and that the Yunque peak, which is more than a thousand meters above sea level, can be seen on a clear day from a distance of sixty nautical miles. Given the use that the viceroy was to make of the text,62 Sigüenza was no doubt obligated to make the story conform to the opinion of the Count of Galve, which was based on the testimony given by Ramírez in a brief audience on Friday, May 5, 1690. Perhaps the viceroy had been fooled or, more than likely, had found Ramírez’s story sufficiently convincing to be useful. But Sigüenza knew too much to have taken the story at face value. A careful reading of the opening paragraph 62. See López Lázaro, “La mentira histórica,” 100.

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of the first chapter of the book can furnish some proof to that effect when, speaking through Ramírez, Sigüenza tells of “events that only survived in the idea of he who feigns them” (my emphasis) only to state that “I shall relate the main things I recall . . . leaving aside matters of small import.” Yet, as the text indicates quite clearly in its last paragraph, Sigüenza was not only doing his job but also hoping to be the beneficiary of Galve’s munificence. Thus he was in large measure an accomplice to whatever Ramírez intended to hide from the authorities. The gaps, contradictions, and silences in this text and its many technical and obscure passages, not to mention its ultrabaroque prose, make the Misfortunes an almost unreadable text in any profound way. This has invariably led readers to take Sigüenza’s work quite literally or, as has been most often the case among critics, as a capricious invention partly based on a collection of disparate facts. But it is difficult to imagine Sigüenza and the censor Ayerra, and especially Enríquez Barroto, responding to Ramírez’s accounts in any other way than by using the same words that he is supposed to have employed to counter the dubious intentions of the nameless person in Valladolid who, pretending to be his childhood friend, allegedly sought to trick him into signing over possession of his personal slave: “I am not that simple minded . . . not to recognize your grace to be a great liar and one who can give lessons on stealing to the greatest privateers.” The complicity of Sigüenza and Ayerra in covering up whatever was the most plausible story behind the version put forth by Ramírez of his alleged ordeals is openly manifest in the very naming of this work as an account of the misfortunes suffered by the protagonist. There is no question that Ramírez could blame some of his bad luck on his “dark star.” Yet all the evidence points to the possibility that the misfortunes of Alonso Ramírez had little to do with his time among the pirates, as both he and Sigüenza want us to believe, and more to do with the fact of having run aground before reaching the Belize River or Stann Creek Town. The need to comply with the viceroy’s instructions to record the castaway’s story for the benefit that his brother, the Duke of Infantado, could derive from it at the court in Madrid made Sigüenza and Ayerra accomplices to the complex act of deception being perpetrated by Ramírez. Yet if they would have participated in the process unwillingly, Sigüenza could have written a simpler and less enigmatic version of the story that would have presented less of a problem for Ayerra at the time of justifying his approval. Instead, as if dealing with a strange apparition, both men seem to have been captivated not so much by the voyage of circumnavigation as by the person of Ramírez and the way in which, as Ayerra noted in his letter of approval, he was able to make of his story an “undeveloped set of dismally confused events” that was nothing but a Gordian knot of the unintelligible. Here was a strange character, more dumbfounding and unpredictable than any celestial body Sigüenza might have studied, who, by his accidental arrival, had turned his beloved city into the center of the universe. But what kind of an empire was announced by Ramírez’s dark star? His was an aquatic realm

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of islands running from the Caribbean to the Philippines, from Taiwan to Australia to Madagascar and across the Atlantic. It was a geography that reflected the changing fortunes of floating citadels like San Juan, Havana, Veracruz, Acapulco, Manila, Chennai, and Batavia and of countless other communities at the edge of the sea. Above all, it was a world of people of desperate fortunes who had set out to sea in search of the life and livelihood that their homelands failed to provide them. All those histories, otherwise dismissed as peripheral and minor in the context of the rising nations and empires of Europe and the North Atlantic, were now crossing the sky over the Central Valley of México in the summer of 1690 and orbiting around that city that, floating as it was then in the middle of a lagoon midway between Veracruz and Acapulco, Manila and Seville, was now the befitting capital of a global imperial archipelago of sorts. The account might have been tailored for display in the court of Madrid, but its rising tide of representative potential now threatened to displace that landlocked city in the middle of the arid Castilian plain as the head of an expanding realm whose cognitive geography lay well beyond the reach of the most felicitous European imagination. Sigüenza had found in Ramírez a man who had mastered the art of conducting two asymmetrical discourses at once. Here was powerful proof that one could put forth a story that upon first glance could be accepted and valued by a European interlocutor who otherwise would lack access to the deeper layers in which the voice of the American subject was rising with tempestuous force. Here was the very proof Sigüenza might have wanted to have at hand when fighting back Kino’s notion of the universal supremacy of the European intellect. Here we also find an early example of the “deliberate craftiness” that Edouard Glissant finds in Creole language.63 To paraphrase the quote that launches this essay, here was a thing that, although it may not be fathomed, and perhaps it is falsified, can be employed as proof to move toward understanding and secure the opinion of what is known as a universal reason: the existence of an American entelechy. To follow the trail of that which, although it may not be fathomed, perhaps is falsified (or perhaps needs to be falsified in order to be fathomed), it is important to keep in mind that, as shown in the Misfortunes, there is much more to be gained from letting the prey run loose than from trying to catch it. Other readers may want to take a clear shot. Beware not to find yourselves facing the edge of Ramírez’s cutlass, the point of Sigüenza’s pen, or the wick that Ayerra employed to light the book-burning pyre. From the very beginning, this story is bifurcated into a winding path to selfknowledge and another one leading directly to deception. The deviation occurs when Sigüenza puts forth an augury in picaresque tone as Ramírez sets out on his journey: “I confess that, perhaps foretelling what was to come, I doubted if anything good could come from having availed myself of a cork as I set out on 63. See Edouard Glissant, Caribbean Discourse: Selected Essays, trans. and intro. J. Michael Dash (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1992), 126.

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my venture.” This is a play on the surname of the captain with whom young Alonso left his homeland in search of fortune. Corcho in Spanish means “cork.” But it is also a somewhat flagrant attempt to hide from unsuspecting readers, and especially those who might be removed from the Mexican public sphere, the true nature of the complex narrative and the main subject of the book. A cork, of course, never sinks. Similarly, we are to believe, neither will Alonso Ramírez as the unlikely and unhappy survivor of the most terrible misfortunes. But a cork also drifts aimlessly at the pleasure of the currents. Taking such a description at face value and falling for the amusing metaphor would have the reader believe that Ramírez was the innocent victim of circumstance and, consequently, as a Creole subject of unsound reason, also incapable of understanding the significance of his accomplishments and undeserving of the recognition otherwise granted to other circumnavigators—in this case, Europeans from the Old Continent. In this sense, the story of the accidental circumnavigator aimed to empower the Mexican reader while keeping readers from Europe, like Kino, out of the loop. Spanish Creole readers—especially friends of Sigüenza, such as the mariner Enríquez Barroto—would have known that Corcho was a made-up name derived from Sigüenza’s transliteration of the actual surname of a certain Corso. The phony name was not just an attempt to be funny. It also was a clever way to hide from certain readers a major clue in deciphering Ramírez’s true story. Those familiar with the happenings in New Spain would have recognized the reference immediately because a certain Juan del Corso was then a character of renown, from San Juan to Veracruz, as a rising interest in the economy of contraband and piracy on the Spanish Main. As I explain in the notes to the first chapter, this was none other than the Corsican sailor Giovanni Michele, also known as Juan Miguel, Juan Miguel Corso, or Juan Corso. He was a man whose entrepreneurial spirit and expert knowledge of the waters around the Antilles would lead him to obtain in 1682 a privateer license from the governors of Yucatán and Havana. This would allow him to attack and seize the cargoes of all English and French ships in the area. Clearly one nation’s privateer is another nation’s pirate. In this case, however, the clues to this captain’s reputation were literally in his last name: Corso in Spanish means both “Corsican” and “privateer.” Juan Corso was both. Given the appropriateness of this double meaning to the nature of the story at hand, it is worth questioning why Sigüenza went through the trouble of setting up an apparently frivolous pun with the surname by which the Corsican was known. Can there have been any other reason for this but to create the possibility of two very different readings of the same story? The unsuspecting and unknowing reader would have followed the picaresque version as so many critics have done. But a more acclimated reader immediately would have begun to suspect that there was a more complicated story buried in what was otherwise presented as a brief and light account. To access this, that reader simply would have needed to restore

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the proper spelling of Juan’s last name, turning it into an uncapitalized noun, as in Juan del corso. In this way, we have a name that describes Juan as pertaining or relating to privateering—that is, as a privateer. Now we can read the sentence again: “I confess that, perhaps foretelling what was to come, I doubted if anything good could come from having availed myself of a privateer as I set out on my venture.” Such a reading immediately reveals that this is from the start a pirate’s story. This text was thus designed as a bidented instrument. On one end, it seems to have given a voice, some encouragement, and maybe even a certain sense of tranquility to a Creole reader who would have found it easy to sympathize with Ramírez’s frustrations at the impossibility of promoting his interest beyond certain spheres. The complaint of being the native born in a land that offered its bounty to the foreigner almost in exclusivity is clearly enunciated several times in the book. Here is a character whose sufferings reflect the social anxieties of his entire caste even if most of its members never set out to sea under the Jolie Rouge banner of the old Caribbean buccaneers. On the other end, the Misfortunes gave the European reader the illusion of being in control by looking at the work from the perspective of the viceroy and exercising the dubious pleasures of being compassionate and munificent, which, in the exercise of oppression, have always been the inseparable complements to cruelty and abuse. Yet this simple dichotomy hides a far more complex and dynamic movement of forces than in the Libra, whose title was a direct allusion to the weighing balance. The forces at play in the Misfortunes never reach equilibrium. Initially we could say that this is a narrative work where one voice hides behind another and where the word always responds to a sophisticated strategy conceived to mislead the reader and shield the enunciating subject inside a dense cacophony of voices. Similarly, it could be said that this is a work where the writer attempts to cover his own tracks by trampling them under the bustle of a multitude of colliding intentions. All this would imply that the work is always giving a false semblance of itself and that, more than an author, there is an actor behind it. But this is only partially true. We can certainly read the Misfortunes as a simulacrum. Yet we must go even deeper, lest we take away from the merits of all the people involved in the production and publication of the work, unfairly diminishing the abilities of Ramírez as the consummate storyteller he must have been, the sophistication of Sigüenza’s writing, and the sheer boldness of Ayerra as a censor. Even then, we should not set out to make an inventory of the individual qualities of these three figures. Instead, we should explore the mechanics of their relationships, not so much in order to explain how this work managed to come to life, but to understand the dynamics that shaped it. Doing so would begin to reveal a text that addresses the concerns of a politically bilingual subject who, unsuspected by his masters in the structures of power, has learned to speak by always addressing two very distinct audiences at the same time. The imperial dynasties of Europe might have claimed for themselves the icon of the bicephalous eagle as the symbol

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of their aspirations to universal rulership. But here, in the complex assemblage of voices that speaks in the Misfortunes, is the truly multiheaded subject of colonial modernity that, combining Ramírez’s gift for circumlocution and Sigüenza’s passion for ultrabaroque prose, is constantly interlacing its necks into a helix of endless threads of confusion and ultimate intelligibility. Different from Dampier, who was seduced by a “Painted Prince”64 he purchased and carried with him back to England, like Crusoe’s character would do with Friday, Ramírez, who would also come back with a slave, was able to go beyond the vain acquisition of the exotic by bringing back home more than a collection of objects and peoples. It seems that in the Southern Seas he appropriated a particular type of savoir faire he found to be compatible with and complementary to his own worldly education going back to his days in the Poblete household. This is the real treasure that Ramírez brought back to México. That bridge between civilizations, between ancestral traditions and modern ones, is what gives the full measure of the value of this work, and it is what allows us to shift our understanding, using it as the proof on which to secure the opinion that, in terms of ingenuity, Ramírez was the first man to really go on a complete voyage around the world. In this sense, and above all else, for the impact he had on those he came to know upon his return to New Spain, more than an Elcano or a Drake, Ramírez is a sort of Marco Polo of early American modernity and an emissary who already foretold the rise of a globalized world. Luckily for us, Sigüenza was there to record this important discovery and to relate his finding already in the opening sentence of the account, a sentence that enthralls the reader with its magical cadence (more so in Spanish than in translation) and seduces us with its somewhat dishonest proposition: “I want the curious who might read this for a few hours to be amused by the news of what caused me deadly afflictions for many years.” The sentence is carefully crafted to focus all attention on its indirect object. By the time we finish reading it, we are eager to know all about the “deadly afflictions” that Ramírez suffered for so many years. Strategic diversion is one of the most ancient stratagems in the arts of war and deceit, and indeed, it is one of the most formidable weapons in the pirate’s arsenal. Curiously, in this sentence, diversion is easily attained by inciting the reader to participate in one of the most primal and secretly tempting of human divertissements, which is to witness the suffering of other people. Like the matador who skillfully pulls the beast with his cape, maneuvering it around his body to bring it into the desired position for the kill, Sigüenza places the lure with a quick and sinuous line of his pen. Thus, in setting out to discover the details of poor Alonso Ramírez’s plight, we neglect to pay attention to the fact that Sigüenza, speaking through Ramírez, has put in our hands something he has chosen not to describe. What is alluded to and what is contained in the demonstrative pronoun “this” 64. See Dampier, 1:496. See also Geraldine Barnes, “Curiosity, Wonder, and William Dampier’s Painted Prince,” Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies 6.1 (2006): 31–49.

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in the phrase “I want the curious who might read this”? Is it a thing at hand or something more abstract? Whatever this is—a doubt that may be dispelled only by reading further into the text, perhaps—that pronoun is the pivotal point of a sentence that, in its reticence to name both the object at hand and what is at play, is a pronouncement of the strategy of dissimulation and diversion that gives life to the text. Thus the text is described in the least specific way, showing a certain distrust and suspicion of the reader or, rather, of the business at hand, as is patent in the work. Was the character and nature of the work so indescribable to its author that he was unwilling to describe it as a relation or a history? Or was he choosing not to place such burdens on the text to be able to have the broadest leeway in the manipulation of the story brought to him by Ramírez? Judging by the quick and graceful gesture with which we are invited to enter into the story by considering the sufferings of the protagonist and thus discouraged from making any preliminary conclusions concerning the nature and intent of the work, it would seem that the second is more likely the case. Therefore, by the end of the first sentence, the unsuspecting reader has fallen into a trap and has, at the same time, begun to be an accessory in the process of his own intellectual entrapment, falling for the story of the desperate fortunes of the Creole subject. The second sentence is even more revealing, as it attempts to conceal one voice inside another. There is so much feigning in it that it can be seen as the very mask of imposture: “And although it is common to draw maxims and aphorisms—that amid the delightfully entertaining narration improve the reasoning process of whoever dwells in them—from events that only survived in the idea of he who feigns them, this will not be my intention here but rather to ask for the commiseration that, even when my trials are now over, at least will make their memories tolerable by bringing the pity received into the company of the sorrow I felt when I suffered through them.” We are led to believe that we are still listening to Ramírez when he states unequivocally that it shall not be his intention to “draw maxims and aphorisms” that could “improve the reasoning process” of the reader. Yet these cannot be the words of a man who refused to talk straight. According to Ayerra, Ramírez was the very personification of circumlocution. Evidently, this is Sigüenza’s voice. Inserted into a paragraph that heads in the direction of the unavoidable shipwreck, he must have put this sentence together as a life raft of sorts, mindful of his experience with Kino and wishing to avoid going down with the ship should the censors or anybody else detect foul play in the text and accuse him of being the man at the helm. But that still leaves open the question of what Sigüenza was hoping to achieve by hiding behind Ramírez’s figure and speaking through him and, at times, over him in the first person singular. Was he trying to fool the censors by passing undetected and blaming all oversights on Ramírez? Or was he using Ramírez as a shield to battle his own demons and conceal his true complaints and insecurities? And

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what could have been Ramírez’s motives and intentions anyhow? Was Sigüenza ever able to measure them with any degree of mathematical accuracy? Surely he knew enough to be suspicious of them. But did he have sufficient control over the situation, and in the production of this text, to have been able to tell how far he had been moved by the encounter with the globetrotter and crypto-pirate? If in the first sentence “this” is never clear, in the second, there is no way of getting a fix on “he who feigns them.” Faced with such intrigue, the second part of the sentence comes to make a profession of faith, asking the reader “for commiseration so that, bringing the pity received into the company of the self-pity I felt when I was suffering them, the memory of my trials at least will become tolerable.” This is the way in which Sigüenza attempted to dispel any suspicion as to his intentions and also to avoid possible blame as an accomplice to Ramírez. The sentence reveals the uneasiness with which Sigüenza must have approached Ramírez’s accounts, and it shows his determination to bring under control what was clearly a very unsound story that threatened to destabilize not just his retelling of it but the thinking and beliefs of anyone who would come into contact with its Gordian entanglements. If, on the one hand, the sentence implicitly accepts whatever suspicions Sigüenza might have had concerning Ramírez, on the other, it is also a statement of his intention to bring order by the force of reason to a story that otherwise could be approached only through varying degrees of incredulity. Yet if that was his intention, he managed to disguise it as a votive statement that consecrates the work in the name of the third theological virtue: charity. Be that as it may, covered by the religious habit or, as Botticelli’s Venus, protected by the cloak of reason, the truth is that all motives and intentions have been hidden under the excuse of soliciting commiseration from the reader—that is, of course, supposing that it was not Ramírez’s intention to bury the truth from the start, a misdemeanor to which Sigüenza would have had to plead guilty as willing or unwilling accomplice. In any event, the concept of commiseration enunciated here redefines the Christian notion of brotherly love upon which charity is predicated. On a more mundane level, this profession of faith responded to a well-thought-out strategy of asking the viceroy for money and favor. Ramírez might have given Sigüenza a window to the world. It could be argued that he also led him to contemplate the somewhat subversive potential of certain subjective postures that at the time were unknown in México City, at least inside Sigüenza’s circle, and that seemed quite appealing to a Creole subject who was keenly aware of his own worth and ability. No doubt Sigüenza learned the lesson well. But Ramírez also presented him with the opportunity to ask a direct favor of the viceroy. As will be plainly stated in the last paragraph of the Misfortunes, Sigüenza was delighted to be part of the viceroy’s entourage, but he would have been happier to carry his favor in a more concrete manner, monetarily speaking. Here, Ramírez and Sigüenza are inseparably intertwined, and it is impossible to distinguish which of the two is

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truly holding “the golden thread to the labyrinth where such roundabout stories were entangled.” Sigüenza might have used the opportunity to ask for a gift, but we cannot help but see that behind the cunning pen of the Mexican sage lies the piratical craftiness of Ramírez. Moreover, if Sigüenza was hoping to benefit from the pity that Ramírez’s character implored of the reader, most specifically the Count of Galve, how can we fail to read the end of this narrative as a statement, and even as a sort of veiled warning, on behalf of an entire social class that was growing increasingly restless in its wounded pride?

READER BEWARE Indeed, there is much more behind this text than the simple attempt to curry favor in the viceregal court. Already in the first three sentences, one can sense a certain inclination toward the profane—unusual for a work that is pledging full obedience to the doctrines of the church. In those three sentences, a careful reader could discover a special passion for constantly shifting positions. In fact, each of these three sentences describes one of the three principal and complementary movements at work within the text: diversion, feigning, and disguise. Sigüenza claims to be totally disinterested in introducing the maxims and aphorisms that the authorities would find censurable. Yet he is showing his readers how to adopt ways of thinking and of seeing the world that did not fit what was acceptable at the time. Curiously, that special inclination toward shifting positions and imposture, be it as a strategy of survival or as a way to obtain social advancement, reached its highest expression at the time in the maritime practice of changing colors based on convenience—an indispensable weapon in the pirate’s arsenal. As a sort of pirate ship, this text is already breaking with most official protocols. Doing precisely that which it states it will not do, it manages to outmaneuver the authorities in order to “improve the mind” of a Creole reader who is granted entrance into the work through a backdoor. Eventually, as the story reaches its climax in the foretold shipwreck, its subversive character will become increasingly evident. In the end, it is almost impossible not to suspect foul play and to call into question many parts of the story. But it is equally impossible to decline the invitation to become an accomplice to a sort of intellectual act of piracy through which one person’s pen and another person’s tongue managed to evade the harshest of censorships and mock all authorities—even the very faith and religion of Rome. More than anything, in this sense, the Misfortunes can be considered a didactic book, and it can even be read as an informal treatise on American subjectivity. But how is this trap set up, and who is its intended prey? Already in the first paragraph, an economy of complex exchange has been established. First, readers are invited to exercise their curiosity and promise to be entertained for a few hours with the description of the trials suffered by Ramírez over many years. In return for that, Ramírez’s character asks for the reader’s

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sympathy so as to alleviate his suffering. Yet on closer inspection, this last proposition has no validity in the context of the work. Ramírez might well have asked for sympathy, and even for food, every time he retold his trials. Supposedly, he complained to Sigüenza about the many times he was invited to visit households in Mérida, where he was asked to go over his story yet again, only to be sent back into the streets right before a meal. But even when one demands sympathy from the reader, how are those sympathies supposed to be received by the person whom the character represents? In this particular case, by the time the work was placed in the hands of the Count of Galve, and following the precise orders given by him, Ramírez was already on his way out of México, preparing to ship out with the Royal Fleet of the Windward Islands. At that point, only Sigüenza could have hoped to be the beneficiary of any such commiseration, and only then, as the text leads us to believe, in the form of a gift from the viceroy. But what about his other readers in the Mexican public sphere? How did Sigüenza hope to receive from them any pity worth something to him? Perhaps he was intending to provoke a different type of sympathy in the Creole reader. Yet the only other type of sympathy that could be had here is the one derived from the reader’s identification with the character. That form of sympathy is the one that would lead to a good understanding of his state and condition and, thereby, to the reader’s acceptance and identification with the cause or, in this case, with the true misfortunes of Alonso Ramírez and his kind. That is precisely the type of understanding that encourages a reasonable person to construct maxims and aphorisms derived from the experience at hand. Yet those would be precisely the type of sympathies that the censors were charged with repressing by prohibiting the publication of any work that could put into question in whatever way the established social order, the moral supremacy of the church, and the power of the Crown. Such a reading of the Misfortunes would transform the appeal for commiseration into an act of treason and the sense of brotherly love upon which charity is predicated into a call to mutiny. Could this daring stance be the same one that Sigüenza would denounce two years later in his letter to Andrés de Pez scolding himself and calling attention to his entire social class for the “most blamable carelessness with which we live among so many commoners, while at the same time we boast of being formidable”?65 Accepting that possibility is an invitation 65. Hardly two years had passed after Ayerra had granted approval to publish the Misfortunes when, following a series of devastating floods, on the June 8,1692, the poor and the so-called castes in México City revolted against the authorities under the slogan of “Death to the viceroy!” The massive popular uprising, which culminated in the burning down of the Viceregal Palace and of the town hall, brought to the foreground the major internal conflicts in the Novo Hispanic public sphere and shook the very foundations of its society. It also cut short the Conde de Galve’s tenure as viceroy of New Spain and, indeed, it led to severe depression in him, followed by illness, and by the untimely end of his short life. Sigüenza, for his part, was drawn into the streets and witnessed in horror the events as he tried to desperately save from the palace fire books, documents, and precious objects.

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to a reading that would require us to get entangled in the story in the manner of the bicephalous subject, much in the same way as we are already witnessing the complex relationship between Ramírez and Sigüenza in and beyond the book. In the summer of 1690, Sigüenza was no doubt boasting of being formidable. He had just publicly replied to the insults of Kino and found in Ramírez the embodiment of the universal aspirations of the American subject. But how to quantify the extent of his “most blamable carelessness” when facing the seductive figure of Alonso Ramírez? After all, the castaway was never careless to “boast of being formidable” for fear of being judged “most blamable” while he was always able to formidably be free from any blame by boasting to be the king of carelessness. The key to moving beyond this impasse is to ponder the way in which Ramírez’s story and Sigüenza’s aspirations came to be measured against Ayerra’s obligation as a censor. As we know, one of the most significant of Sigüenza’s interventions was to give a linear chronological order to a story that, according to Ayerra, was all confused. Ayerra also states in his statement of approval that Sigüenza inserted into the account passages containing geographic and hydrographic observations that he had prepared before having met Ramírez. But if Ayerra was eager to give up some of the secrets to the construction of the narrative, Sigüenza’s intention was clearly to conceal others. The decision to mask his reorganized, edited, and gildedly rethreaded version of Ramírez’s account, turning it into a testimonial in the first person, did not respond exclusively to aesthetic concerns. It was also On August of the same year, he was to write a letter to his friend Andrés de Pez making an apocalyptic account of the events and describing in all detail the flood of the city, a solar eclipse, and the plague that destroyed the wheat crop. Reading the letter against the backdrop of the Misfortunes shows the weight of the events of the summer of 1692 and the resulting radical readjustments they provoked in the public sphere of New Spain. That contrast is enunciated in the sharpest terms when comparing the two texts in question. If the Misfortunes had been a work somewhat critical of the authorities, written on behalf of a poor Creole Spaniard in an uncharacteristic narrative form that surprisingly managed to get by the censors, the letter was nothing short of a fierce frontal attack on the lower classes and on the incompetence of the ruling elites. This time, Sigüenza, as a member of the Creole elites, came to stand staunchly on the side of the imperial institutions against a populace that he saw as having lost all fear and respect for the law. “I wish that God might want to open our eyes or close theirs from this time henceforward!” Sigüenza wrote after accepting on behalf of the Creole Spaniards the blame for having made evident to their class enemies “the most blamable carelessness with which we live among so many commoners, while at the same time we boast of being formidable.” The Spanish original reads: “del culpabilísimo descuido con que vivimos entre tanta plebe, al mismo tiempo que presumimos de formidables.” See Sigüenza y Góngora, “Alboroto,” 252. I am basing my translation on the pioneering work by Irving A. Leonard. However, he mistranslated the last phrase of the sentence. In his version, the same passage reads, “The exceedingly culpable carelessness with which we live among so great a populace which, at the same time, we suspect of being dangerous.” See Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora, “Letter of don Carlos de Sigüenza to Admiral Pez Recounting the Incidents of the Corn Riot in Mexico City, June 8, 1692,” in Don Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora, a Mexican Savant of the Seventeenth Century, by Irving A. Leonard (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1929), 251.

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part of a calculated movement through which the writer, exercising his role as chronicler, translator, and decipherer, was also attempting to exercise a certain Creole will to reorder the viceregal world by reshaping it in his own image and likeness. In the book, the entire exercise smells of conspiracy as Ayerra intervenes to plug any holes that Sigüenza might have overlooked. Yet, once more, the reader must tread carefully, keeping in mind that Ramírez’s voice might still be the one that speaks more forcefully under the scaffolding placed over it by the letrados, or learned men. Still, is it not also possible to suppose that there might have been a wider conspiracy and that in certain parts of the text, if not running through it as its very backbone, Ramírez, Sigüenza, and Ayerra are one and the same in their aims and objectives? To consider how a particular reader may be purposefully deceived while another is invited to a secret game by the same story is to think of the Misfortunes as a sort of trap whose opening was carefully set by Ayerra according to his own measure as a Creole subject. In his letter of approval, the censor confessed, “If at first I went into it [the narrative] with [a sense of] obligation and curiosity, in time, with such variety of subjects, temporal arrangement, and structure, I welcomed as a priceless gift what was announced as a studious task.” Ayerra had calculated very precisely the value of that priceless gift. He was not only a close friend of Sigüenza but also, as he himself acknowledges in the letter of approval, a fellow countryman of Ramírez. Among the three of them, they saw a world that for the first time they felt confident to claim as their own by staging a fairly stable ruling triumvirate. Ayerra’s proximity to Sigüenza and to Ramírez, which was surely as close in actuality as it is veiled in the text, makes him not only the first reader of Sigüenza’s version but also its first accomplice in the most blamable carelessness. It is a fact that there is no better bond in any complot than complicity. Surprisingly, no critic to date has paid any attention to Ayerra’s letter of approval and the role it plays in the work. Ayerra’s boldness in granting the license for publication, which, as I argue, bordered on a dereliction of his duty in service to the Inquisition, makes the letter a key component of the work. Let it be clear that Ayerra did not just turn a blind eye. His interest in the publication of the Misfortunes went beyond paying back a debt of gratitude to an old friend or complying with an order from the palace. Without question, he is a member in good standing of the triumvirate responsible for the authorship of the work, since we gain access to the text by his grace and careful maneuvering in clearing the manuscript for publication. But it is even more important to recognize that we enter it through his gaze, since he was and will continue to be its first reader and, as is clear in his letter, also the official usher who takes the next reader, and every reader after that, into the narrative with precise instructions that will lead some of them directly into the trap. The letter is one of the three archways the reader must traverse in order to enter into the text in the way that the book wants to be

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read. The other two are Sigüenza’s dedication to the viceroy and the paragraph that begins the account as such. In the letter, Ayerra gives important clues for understanding the narrative. After all, the best accomplices are always careful readers. There, he states that Ramírez’s initial version of the story was an “undeveloped set of dismally confused events” and a “labyrinth where such roundabout stories were entangled” to which Sigüenza found “the golden thread.” This statement already reveals the high probability that Ayerra met Ramírez personally and therefore heard some of his stories. This is not difficult to imagine given his friendship with Sigüenza and the fact that he would have wanted Ayerra to meet his fellow countryman. In every sense, Ayerra would have been better positioned than anybody else to understand Ramírez’s plight and to agree with Sigüenza that the first thing to be explained in the story would have been the very dire circumstances that led young Alonso to abandon his mother and his fatherland. The narration thus opens by placing Ramírez in a geographic and historical context that sets the stage for a strong political denunciation. The protagonist is a native of the city of San Juan de Puerto Rico, a country with a lascasian history. In “antiquity,” the island was called Borriquen by its “original inhabitants.” It is implicit that a new time began with the arrival of the Christians, who found the land to be rich in gold. There was an initial period of prosperity that came to an end with the destruction of the Arawaks who provided the servile labor force. As in Bartolomé de las Casas’s well-known account of the conquest and colonization of Hispaniola in the Historia de las Indias, the collapse of the mining industry forced the colonists or indianos to become farmers. But the second period in the modern history of the island was short-lived due to the “tempestuous hurricanes” that destroyed the cacao plantations. Clearly, the reader is led to believe that this is a land that cannot be exploited with the certainty of the assured profits that promote commitment and enterprise among its inhabitants. It is clear that life in San Juan offered no benefit to the native born. So far, the complaint put forth had little to do with the interest that the viceroy might have wanted to promote in court and much with the principal complaint of the Creoles as expressed jointly by Ayerra, Ramírez, and Sigüenza. In this sense, this book is not just about the misfortunes of Alonso Ramírez but about the misgivings of entire sectors within the Spanish Creole groups across the social classes and physical geography of New Spain. The book then makes a point of stressing the fact that the present economy of the island owed itself exclusively to the defense of empire and of the wealth that could be found elsewhere. As a strategic outpost, Ramírez’s native city is described as a fortified citadel where the only skills worth having are those related to ship repair. Yet there was no steady work even at that. The denunciation is clear though it is couched in careful terms, prompted by “no other motive than the pride and loyalty of its natives.” The situation seems unsustainable. The Spanish subjects in

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San Juan are left holding the fort of El Morro in the most abject poverty and with no hope in sight while, as we are told, they are “invested with the privileged of being the object of the hostile actions of privateers.” Embodied in the figures of Alonso’s parents, the hopeless and most undeserved condition of the inhabitants of San Juan is presented in the book’s opening as the truest symbol of a certain kind of American reality: “such has become the price of [living in] the Indies.” On this second point, the interest of the Count of Galve in showing the court the precarious reality of an imperial frontier that is weak and open coincides in part with the complaints of the Americans. Yet those complaints soon find other motives for expression beyond pride and loyalty. Surely Ayerra must have seen much of himself in the alleged ordeals of his countryman. At a minimum, he was able to identify in the work an interesting relationship between the pursuit of happiness, at a personal and collective level, and the misfortunes of Alonso Ramírez. That is why he chose to compare the desperate fortunes of his compatriot to those of Aeneas as the founder he was of new civilizations. Nevertheless, as a censor, he was also wise enough to compare Ramírez with Job, who is the best biblical embodiment of life as a succession of great misfortunes. Job always chose to accept his lot and to be subservient to the divine order over all personal benefit and convenience. However, Ayerra quotes from the nineteenth book, right at the moment when Job discovers the voice that will speak on his behalf, the voice of his redeemer. That is a moment of unparalleled hope where the otherwise unfortunate Job finds someone to act in his favor by brandishing the sword of judgment against his detractors. Who can deny that behind all appearances there is in the complicit relationship between Ramírez, Sigüenza, and Ayerra, an implicit denunciation and a claim to justice that is carefully enunciated on behalf of an American Creole subject? A reading of the work between the lines can show that Ayerra was in haste when he judged the book to contain “nothing worth censuring.” In any event, what is important here is that Ayerra is practically attesting to the way in which the two main sources of the story came together in a joint enterprise. On one side was Ramírez who seemed to have had a gift for circumlocution, a talent that might have helped him save his life more than once during his long voyage. Of course, Ayerra, as a man of letters, presents the trait as a defect, insinuating that Ramírez was the sort of person who got increasingly entangled the more he tried to explain himself. On another side was Sigüenza who unabashedly set out to reduce the dismally confused events in the life of Ramírez to a narrative order of his own making. The first one, if we are to believe Sigüenza, tried to reach happiness by being reckless. The second one, according to Ayerra, tried by being diligent. Whomever would try to pass through this crossfire would run the grave risk of being out in the open without any cover between the two of them, with Ayerra guarding their backs, they have placed under their sights the entire continuum of human endeavor.

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Given all these considerations, it would be difficult to deny that this text is extremely open and dynamic and that it responds to a complex and very uncommon set of orbital movements. In the book, the story of Ramírez’s voyage will revolve around a conjunction framed between his “dark star” and the limits and possibilities of his willful demeanor. Yet the fluctuations in intensity of the first will not always correspond to the changing speed of displacement in the second, while the vectorial intention of both will be locked into a relationship of inverse proportionality at a symbolic level: the closer Ramírez gets to the great feat of rounding off the globe—and later to the unending recapitulation of the story—the more intense will be the hardships he endures in the realization of what is seen ever more clearly by the reader as the inevitable failure of his enterprise in the attainment of happiness. As those forces encounter each other in a continuous succession of asymmetric maneuvers wanting to convince the reader that poor Ramírez’s star gravitates by being drawn ever closer to misfortune, this voyage of circumnavigation ends in a shipwreck as the title already forewarns. But contrary to what the title may suggest, the book does not end there. Rather, it is at that point where the text begins to offer clues about its own complexities and about the profound contradictions between the story told and whatever might have been the true events that occurred in the life of its protagonist. It is as if the book itself had run aground revealing some of the secrets to its assemblage through the fissures in its binding. If at first the two forces already defined, fortune and willfulness, appeared to conspire to submit Ramírez to the most predestined unhappiness, they would now suffer a radical transformation in their proportions and effects. On the Bacalar coast, Ramírez will be invested with the power of the most radical and outstanding individual action. In the Yucatán, the protagonist of the Misfortunes will attempt to crown the thus far lackluster voyage of circumnavigation by heroically trying to carry the weight of the world upon his shoulders. After having pursued a less than heroic voyage around the world in the last leg of which, from Brazil to Yucatán, we are to believe that his ship drifted aimlessly as a piece of cork through the Caribbean followed by Ramírez’s dark star, the shipwreck on the coast of Bacalar moves the protagonist to reveal a heretofore unknown side of his personality. In a moment of total desperation, Ramírez will take control of his actions and attempt to impose his will not only over his star but also upon the lives of his crew and on an incommensurable, inhospitable, and incomprehensible landscape. This episode thus becomes the mise-en-scène of the Creole’s will to own the country and to control the destinies of all its peoples and socioracial castes. That total transformation in Ramírez should have led the readers of the day, specifically the Creole—if not necessarily the European ones, who would have little interest in the act of insubordination—to realize that they had approached the text with the until then usual American naiveté, literally taking both Ramírez and

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Sigüenza at their word. Thus, in the midst of the shipwreck, the predisposed reader, past and present, is forced to face what Kino called an unsound judgment, coming to question the veracity of the story and wondering what the work is truly about. This revelation will force the reader at that very moment to begin to reread the text, to read it backward from that point and to place everything it says into doubt by turning the story, as it were, upside down. Perhaps never before in colonial letters was there a work that so forcefully entices the reader with the possibility of taking the reins in the interpretation and deciphering of a text. In this sense, the Misfortunes must be considered against the backdrop of Silvestre Mojica’s Espejo de paciencia (1608) that, as the allegedly foundational text of Cuban literature, is a morality tale that chastises piracy from a land-based hegemonic perspective and praises the “colonial virtues” of loyalty (to the Spanish Crown), servility (in a plantation society) and the devotion to the god and saints of Christianity. Being that it cannot be considered the work of a single author but of the Mexican Sigüenza and the two men from San Juan, Ramírez and Ayerra, the Misfortunes is a foundational text of a different sort and, indeed, of a different kind of knowledge developed in the much broader geography of the Mexican Archipelago and the Windward Islands, as well as in the Philippines and the South Seas. We do not have before us a jewel belonging to anyone, at least in what pertains to national and nationalistic literature. If the sea were a country, as José de Espronceda suggested in his “Canción del pirata” (1835), this would be the earliest literary masterpiece of the peoples of the sea in early colonial modernity. Clearly set up as a trap of sorts, the Misfortunes is an unrivaled act of contestation and, as we will see, conceived and underhandedly announced as such from the very beginning in the first line of the dedication to the viceroy. Once caught inside, startled and perhaps with wounded pride, the reader has no choice but to begin reconsidering the true nature of this brief and otherwise seemingly frivolous account. If at the start of the book Sigüenza asked his readers to suspend all judgment, now he is forcing them to reclaim it with a vengeance. As the protoscientist he was, he is placing the viceregal order in their hands as if it were an object that could be submitted to scrutiny and experimentation. “Go ahead, it is yours,” he seems to be saying. Like having between our hands the globe of the world, Sigüenza dares us to give it a spin and, just like Ramírez showed him, to shift at will the orientation of the rotational axis of the Earth in the manner that may seem more interesting or convenient to us. The shipwreck, as we well know, is a literary a trope that finds its limits in the eventual restoration of order. Ultimately, Ramírez’s character will be unable to make his will to power triumph in any permanent or stable way. Yet even when Ramírez, with Sigüenza as his accomplice, is not able to maintain the delicate equilibrium in that world he sets up in the most desolate and apparently unknown spot in America, the shipwreck in the Misfortunes is a very different ruse from that

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of Shakespeare’s The Tempest. Nothing could be more distant from the vigorous promotion of the European Ideal embodied in the character of Prospero, who in the end commands men, nature, and the spirits to exit the shipwreck and return a hero to reclaim the dukedom of Milan. There is no lesser distance in relation with the disingenuous morality tale in Robinson Crusoe, where deliverance from the most expiatory maroonage heralds a new age of prosperity in the economy of plantation slavery. This is especially relevant as Crusoe’s redemption comes to dispel certain English legal and religious anxieties concerning mestizaje or what English law came to call “miscegenation.” This explains the absence of women in the adventures of Crusoe and Dampier, among many other English travelers, which was thought of then as leading to the corruption of “Englishness,” to be understood also as the European Ideal, or to having to bestow a certain degree of “Englishness”—that is, of legal rights, upon the slaves and the peoples considered as “mongrels” and “bastards” within the framework of the British imperial project.66 This is in line with the accusations levied by Ramírez’s character concerning the type of cannibalism that he witnessed in Pulau Condon where the pirates sought to extinguish any possibility of leaving a human trace of their excesses by killing the women who were carrying in their womb the children of those same Englishmen.

66. This is already patently enunciated in one of the earliest accounts of the mechanics of this project in Richard Ligon’s A True and Exact History of the Island of Barbadoes of 1673. In it, Ligon, quite literally a surveyor of colonial possibilities, comes upon a “negro Sambo,” a description that speaks of the man as both a slave and a “mongrel.” In a movement that is akin to Ramírez’s subversion of the internal order of the relation in the Misfortunes, this man approaches Ligon by pretending to be in awestruck by the compass that the Englishman used to survey the land. Ligon makes an attempt to explain to him how the compass works, but the man is allegedly unable to understand. “This point of philosophy was a little too hard for him,” Ligon writes before observing that the entire explanation of how the point of the compass always points to the Magnetic North Pole left him “in a strange muse.” Ligon proceded then to give him a demonstration using the head of his ax to move the needle at will. This put the nameless character “in the greatest admiration that I ever saw a man, and so quite gave over his questions, and desired me, that he might be made a Christian; for, he thought to be a Christian, was to be endued with all those knowledges he wanted.” Here the reader should return to the discussion on adulation and commiseration in the Misfortunes and to the way in which that type of movement serves to manipulate a certain kind of interlocutor. As in the Misfortunes, Ligon falls into a trap, agreeing to go speak to the master on the slave’s behalf. The master’s response is a somewhat baroque yet categorical of the “point of philosophy” that would support the entire framework of the economy and power of coloniality: “But his answer was, That the people of that island were governed by the laws of England, and by those laws, we could not make a Christian a slave. I told him, my request was far different from that, for I desired him to make a slave a Christian. His answer was, That it was true, that there was a great difference in that: But, being once a Christian, he could no more account for him a slave, and so lose the hold they had of them as slaves, by making them Christians; and by that means should open such a gap, as all the planters in the island would curse him.” See Richard Ligon, “A True and Exact History of the Island of Barbadoes,” in English Trader, Indian Maid: Representing Gender, Race, and Slavery in the New World, ed. Frank Felnstein (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999), 68.

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A little over a century before Saturn Devouring His Son (1823), the famous painting by Francisco de Goya, and two before Aimé Césaire’s Hitler in the Discourse on Colonialism (1955), a clear and critical discourse on European expansionism had developed in México foretelling the most infelicitous and devastating failure of that civilizational model.67 In this sense the shipwreck in the Misfortunes is a vision of the end of empire that goes far beyond the calculations and intrigues that the Count of Galve and his brother, the Duke of Infantado, would have wanted or been able to handle in the Madrid court. It is here where that American subject and those peoples of the seas that find their own voice in Ramírez, Sigüenza, and Ayerra, respond to the accusation of having an unsound judgment with the words used by Ramírez to absolve himself in Valladolid: “I am not that simple-minded.” Having gone around the world no doubt led the shipwrecked Ramírez to understand, as did Sigüenza by coming into contact with him and his stories, that such a voyage inevitably results in the most radical transformation of the person and, in this case, of the American colonial subject. As the shipwreck that is announced in the title, Sigüenza designed this reading exercise to run aground the vessel of a passive and unadventurous reader, turning the story that is initially advertised as a “pitiful pilgrimage” into a truly boundless voyage of inquiry and self-discovery. At the same time, the text that Sigüenza describes by a plain “this” remains forever open as an inexhaustible quarry of rereadings any of which would lead to a higher level in challenging all that could be put to the test. Regardless of how many people in México City got to see and read the book—a question that may never be fully answered—the important thing is that here was a very rare invitation to exercise intellectual curiosity as an act of openness and liberation in the colonial public sphere. All this should have been clear to the American reader even if the censors did not perceive it or, what is more likely as seen in the case of Ayerra, decided to ignore or even promote it. What will never be satisfactorily ascertained is precisely that which keeps the book forever open now that we know Ramírez to have been a real person. These are essentially two questions. First, to what degree did Ramírez suffer and tolerate the hardships allegedly brought to him by his star? Second, how far were the events behind the account censored and refashioned by both him and 67. Goya’s painting, which sometimes has been regarded as a critique of the reason for the protracted decadence of Spain and her empire, is above all a direct allusion to Roman mythology and specifically to Saturn’s anthropophagy in disposing of Jupiter to avoid the curse that one of his children would overthrow him. Both interpretations are valid in the context of this critique, as the Misfortunes carries the germ of the end of empire as well as being an exercise in the usurpation of power from a higher authority in the intellectual, social, and political order of coloniality. For Césaire, Adolf Hitler embodied the downfall of “Western, Christian civilization” and heralded the end of empire as “he applied to Europe colonialist procederes which until then had been reserved exclusively for the Arabs of Algeria, the coolies of India, and the blacks of Africa.” See Aimé Césaire, Discourse on Colonialism, trans. Joan Pinkham (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1972), 14.

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Sigüenza, in their attempts to turn their respective versions of the story into an instrument for identifying and redressing, both symbolically and in actuality, the causes of their individual and collective unhappiness? What is clear is that both men were skilled at careening their respective versions of a corky story that never sinks and that like a pirate ship has always managed to surprise, confuse, and deceive more than one reader since its publication in 1690. That is why the Misfortunes has been such a formidable challenge for those who have wanted to read it in a genre-specific way—that is, for those who have approached it as an American curiosity that in the end seems to be bereft of genre and tradition. In terms of use and abuse, the same could be said for a certain academic reading that has tended to see the text as an abnormality of sorts in the literary tradition of Spanish American colonial letters. This work has never surrendered its delights to such readers. But for those who may approach the text without such preconditions, this voyage can prove to be quite a revelation. Indeed, the work can cause great fascination and the sort of fancy and enthusiasm that one feels when being made aware of a well-guarded secret. Approaching the Misfortunes in such a fashion is like looking through a crack in the wall in the edifice of colonial modernity to have a peek into a type of knowledge and subjective demeanor that are at once American and today practically universal within the ebbs and flows of a globalized world. But to get there, we need to let ourselves go, and we need to want to go with those who invite us. The reader should be aware that, more than a chronicle of a foretold shipwreck, this text is an invitation to mutiny and disobedience and maybe even to a certain type of self-cannibalization. As the pirate said to Ramírez during the height of the rape of Pulau Condon, such an enterprise is not becoming of “cowards” such as the “Spaniards” so that the interested reader would do well “by not being finicky”: “I looked upon such bestial action with scandal and dismay, when one of them came to me with a morsel urging me with annoying persistence to eat it. Owing to the repulse I showed he told me that, being a Spaniard and consequently a coward, I would do well to match their bravery by not being finicky.”

IF AND ONLY “IF” The art of imposture had no limits in Ramírez. He was pure ether compared to the assumed permanence, symmetry, and balance of the European Ideal. Duplicity was the measure of all his force and, apparently, nobody could refuse him. If he was able to get Curucelaegui and his supreme council excited, imagine what he could have done for Sigüenza. Indeed, his courage and enthusiasm must have been contagious even if when he was back in México City, he could have been doubtful of ever getting his hands on the treasure he left back at Herradura Point. No wonder that, in the summer following the publication of his Libra and two years before

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the castes were to set the viceregal palace ablaze, Sigüenza came to feel somewhat overwhelmed by Ramírez’s example to such an extent as to be willing to act with temerity thinking of himself and his people as being quite formidable. This is what must have led him to set such a perfect trap in the work precisely at the point of no return where, according to his carefully calculated manipulations in the order and structure of the story, a certain type of reader already would have come to identify with the protagonist on account of his terrible bad luck and to sympathize fully with the supposed anguish and suffering that his station in life brought him. Evidently, regardless of whether the book could have been bound for almost an exclusive debut in the court of Madrid, Sigüenza must have been aware of the unrivaled importance of the story—as was Ayerra in his letter—and as such, he would surely have understood the transcendence it would have with the passing of time. Thus he must have had in mind as an ideal readership an American, and more specifically, a Mexican Creole public. A reading from Europe, or a Europeanizing reading of the text, would have overlooked such interpretative and affective possibilities preferring the secret pleasures of witnessing the suffering of a subordinate in the socioracial hierarchies of the imperial order. Different from an American reading, such an approach would make of this work a sort of divertissement instead of valuing it as a priceless treasure of new and renewable subjective possibilities. Like Ramírez before Curucelaegui or Dampier, Sigüenza must have been counting on precisely such a conditioned response on the part of a peninsular reader, who, according to the protocol of colonial modernity, had to be treated with all deference. That is why the work is dedicated, though not precisely destined, for the viceroy. That is also why the dedication of the work contains some of the most cumbersome passages in the entire book. Beyond paying the bombastic homage that was common at the time, the dedication is carefully crafted with the intention of deviating the attention of a certain reader, and more precisely of the authorities represented by the figure of the viceroy, toward the possible errors that could be contained in the technical descriptions that Sigüenza inserted in the text as useful and complementary information to Ramírez’s account. Mindful of “the high judgment to which I fearfully know you to submit matters,” Sigüenza tries to direct the viceroy’s attention far away from the exercise of turning the world upside down, and from the pleasures of the duplicity with which he is going to entice his Creole readers. Moreover, Sigüenza does not personally dedicate the work to the viceroy. Just in case anyone might find fault with it, he does so “in the name of [the source] who gave me the subject matter to write about it,” that is in the name of Ramírez who, at the time the book was published, supposedly already was on his way to battle the French in Hispaniola.68

68. I have not found any evidence to date proving whether Ramírez ended up going on this expedition.

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This double-play strategy is already at work in the counterpoint unleashed in the two aphorisms that cap the first sentence of the dedication and, thereby, also the book: “if happiness is often the consequence of temerity, and the fault that exculpates the error is rare.” A first reading of this leading line finds Sigüenza approaching the person of the viceroy with caution and reverence. He does not want to err by thinking that the Misfortunes will receive approval simply on account of the praise given by the Count of Galve to his treatise, the Libra astronómica y filosófica, published earlier that same year. It is clear here that Sigüenza is begging the question. All the while, he is trying to err on the side of caution “so as not to commit an unpardonable fault” by trying to outsmart the authorities. As part of his strategy of survival, he is launching himself boldly in search of the viceroy’s munificence hoping to be deserving of it. Here, boldness turns into daring as Sigüenza, lowering his head as a sign of respect and submission, is secretly planning to bite the hand that feeds him. A second reading is already possible. There are sufficient elements in the title to give the reader a good sense of the story, chiefly among these the idea of misfortune as the opposite to the attainment and possession of material goods and social privilege that have been thought as the true measure of happiness and prosperity in the modern world since earliest times, especially in the history of the Indies. Curiously, though not surprisingly given Sigüenza’s training, the phrase that sets the book in motion is constructed as a scientific or mathematical assumption where happiness is measured as a function of temerity. Moreover, it is postulated in conditional terms: “if happiness is often the consequence of temerity.” The reader could approach this statement as a warning. Was Sigüenza, trying to set a moral tone to the work by pointing out to the reader that what follows is precisely an example of temerity leading directly into a tempest and, thus, to the most categorical infelicity? But what if we were to treat this phrase as a challenge? Is it not possible also that Sigüenza might have wanted to incite some of his readers to adopt a temerarious attitude by throwing themselves boldly into the story in search of a new sense of happiness that had eluded them until Ramírez came into the picture? In that case, this text would be asking the intrepid reader to take a leap of faith. In aesthetic terms, even when the work fully takes on the forms of the baroque, we no longer have before us that spirit that, as Eugenio D’Ors so vividly and clearly indicated, “does not know what it wants.” It may very well be the case that like “a certain large figure of an angel, in a certain iron grate in a certain chapel in a certain church in Salamanca,” Sigüenza was aiming at once “to raise the arm and lower the hand.”69 Nevertheless, Sigüenza, who was called by José Lezama 69. My translation. Eugenio D’Ors, Lo barroco, intro. Alfonso E. Pérez Sánchez (Madrid: Editorial Tecnos, 2002), 37. By the way, the large figure of an angel to which D’Ors alluded in this writing from 1920 has never been identified. After a systematic search of all churches in Salamanca, Spain, I found it crowning the iron grate of the chapel that is on the left side of

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Lima the “American Baroque master,” kept to these forms while having already found “the purpose of his symbol” in the evasive genius of Alonso Ramírez and in the vast geography of a universal landscape that was the true impression, scar, or tattoo that decorated the body of this champion upon his return from having gone around the world—and having turned the world around—in the most seemingly unpretentious manner.70 Thus that leap of faith is an invitation to take flight whose most provocative intention is to abandon the gravitation around the Ideal. The precariousness of that weightless moment should not detract from the boldness and wonder of which it speaks. Somehow, this entire work, brief yet monumental, stands on the conjunction from which it is launched, on that capitalized “if ” that, like the fulcrum of a lever, from the very beginning invites the reader to attempt the most delicate balancing act. This is an open door to duplicity in its most complex and inexhaustible remodeling of the subjective possibilities of an American being that is now, at once, particular and universal. In performative terms, this movement acquires concrete shape and forward momentum in the relationship between, and in the continuous rewriting of the narrator, the writer, the censor, and the reader-rereader. Just in case, mindful to avoid all possible repercussions and reprimands, the entire force of so bold an act, and the very essence of the discourse it sets up, is predicated in the most uncertain terms by making all bodies in this work turn around the axis of the subordinating conjunction commonly used to introduce expressions of both desire and surprise. Thus this entire attempt to move our understanding, and the very proof upon which its opinion is secured, stands on the thinnest and sharpest edge of a simple and not so artless “if.”

the nave and under the chorus of the Church of Saint Martin of Tours, located between the Plaza Mayor and the Plaza del Corrillo. 70. José Lezama Lima, “La curiosidad barroca,” in La expresión americana, ed. and intro. Irlemar Chiampi (México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1993), 81, 83. Sigüenza was for Lezama Lima the very embodiment of the baroque spirit in America.

aCknowledgments

It was my colleague Francisco Pabón Flores who in 1997, while I was still a doctoral student, placed in my hands the modest edition of the Infortunios published by the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture in 1967. I treasure and keep that gift, not simply because it was my first reading of a work that was to capture my imagination and leave me with a sense of intellectual restlessness that has only widened with every successive encounter with the story but also because it is in itself now a rare edition containing curious line drawings by famed Puerto Rican master Antonio Martorell. Countless people have shared my interest and passion in my quest for Alonso Ramírez, starting in the first place by my beloved companion, María Luisa Pesquera Salvá, and our wonderful son Javier Alejandro. If it is true that they thoroughly enjoyed coming along on many of the research trips and some of the expeditions that inform this edition, it is also true that many times they found themselves making room for one additional member in our crew. On the good days, they often joked that I was becoming Alonso Ramírez reincarnate. Other times, in not so jovial a context, they knew themselves to be competing for my attention with that imaginary character in my mind. Many students, colleagues, and friends have also happily come along in this search and rescue operation, particularly my disciples in the masters in Caribbean and Latin American studies, a program I founded and directed for almost twenty years in the University at Buffalo. Although they struggled with that very challenging reading during their first semester of studies, they were all invariably infected with “Infortunios fever.” I will never forget how Clorinda Andrade, Michelle Csonka, Marielle Mecca, Robin Smith, Rebecca Stevens, and Miguel Torres Castro, all members of the class of 2005, decided to honor Alonso Ramírez during the graduation ceremony, without me having any prior knowledge of it, by wearing “pirate eye patches” under their caps as they went to receive their 227

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degrees from the university president. I want to specially acknowledge the interest and dedication of Stephanie Bucalo, Patricia Jarnot, and Rosario Malaver from the class of 2009 who, during their graduate studies in Mérida, Yucatán, braved the perilous currents of Ascension Bay and surrendered to the mosquitoes of Pájaros Island to accompany me on the expedition to the Tupac ruins. I am particularly grateful to three research assistants: Theresa Coogan, who helped me during the initial stages of the bibliographical search, Kevin Fricano, who was very helpful in assembling the more dispersed bibliography, and Joshua Newman, who assisted me in checking the English translation against my transcription and annotation of the 1690 edition. Rodrigo del Río Rivas, class of 2014, and Fior García Lara, class of 2015, both residents of Mérida de Yucatán, always paid special interest to this project and have since conducted further research on their own to ascertain the whereabouts of Ramírez in the peninsula. Also in Mérida, I had the constant support and encouragement of my very dear colleagues Diana Arizaga, Francisco Fernández Repetto, and Margaret Shrimpton. It would have been very difficult to reach the Tupac ruins had it not been for Tim Harris and Catherine de Marin, who put me in touch with the people in the Casa Blanca Lodge. There, Lily Ann Prevost and Andrea Solidoro Laguna were very helpful in helping me plan my trip to Pájaro Island. Bobby Settles was extremely enthusiastic about the project and offered to host me, and the three students, in the lodge for two nights free of charge. Once there, Tom Hamilton and Bobby’s son Robert were great hosts. Miguel Ledezma Medrano was also more than kind to us, driving us along the entire length of the coast and showing us the way to the ruins by kayak through the labyrinths of the Santa Rosa Lagoon. Special thanks to Roberto Hernández Ramírez and his family on whose property both the lodge and the ruins are located. I am particularly indebted to my good friend Stephen C. Dunnett, vice provost for international education in the University at Buffalo, whose office helped defray the cost of my travels to Seville in more than one occasion. On the other side of the Atlantic, the great Julia María Rodríguez, director of the Spanish Federation of Associations of Archivists, Librarians, Archeologists, Museum Technicians, and Documentarians (ANABAD) always made sure that I kept current with every development in the world of Spanish archives and documentary sources. Also in Spain, Jesús Raúl Navarro García, director of the school of Hispanic American studies (EEHA), hosted me in Seville by always making sure that I had every resource at my disposal. A good number of friends and colleagues have shared their ideas and opinions with me over the years. I especially want to recognize Reinaldo Funes Monzote with whom I spent a week in Seville working at the Archive of the Indies, sharing and commenting important findings. Reynier Pérez Hernández has been a loyal companion on the long road to discover some of the secrets of Alonso Ramírez and in the program to make his story known to the world. It

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was he who proposed, advocated, and obtained the approval for the publication of the first Cuban edition of the work that we compiled and coedited in 2009. Leonor Taiano has been a long-standing supporter of my work since her days as a doctoral student at the University of Tromso and has since contributed significant scholarship of her own. It was my now dear friend Miguel Ángel Puig-Samper Mulero, then editorial director of the publishing house of the High Council for Scientific Research in Spain who, in one of our first meetings and after a very stimulating exchange, asked me in 2010 to prepare a critical edition of the work to be published in hardcover by Ediciones Polifemo. Ramón Alba, Polifemo’s director, was very generous to include more than thirty full-color illustrations and took great care to personally make sure that every single one of the more than six hundred footnotes would appear on the page directly below the text. I owe a very special debt of gratitude to Arcadio Díaz Quiñones, Yolanda Martínez San Miguel, Ernesto Mercado Montero, and César Salgado, who read the first draft of the introduction and gave me invaluable comments and suggestions. My thanks also go to Martha Malamud for having looked over my translations from Latin in the censor’s letter of approval. A number of colleagues at the Institute of History in Madrid shared their insights on the Spanish Empire and the mare liberum at the end of the seventeenth century as part of the project sponsored by the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (HAR2015–66152-R) entitled “El espacio antillano: génesis, circulación y redistribución de individuos, mercancías, ideas, saberes y modelos (siglos XVIII–XXI).” I wish to thank most especially Consuelo Naranjo Orovio as well as Ana Crespo Solana, Leida Fernández Prieto, María Dolores (Loles) GonzálezRipoll, Carmen Ortiz García, José Luis Peset, and Inés Roldán Montaud. The underwater archaeology expedition to Punta Herradura was made possible by the generous research fund granted by my current dean at Northeastern University, Uta G. Poiger. The expedition was a success thanks to the professional expertise and personal commitment of Eduardo Camarena, Dante García Sedano, and Mariano Shaller of Diverse Archaeology. They took on the challenge with unsurpassed dedication, reading carefully through the Madrid edition of the Infortunios and becoming, in turn, expert commentators on the open questions posed by the work. They also braved the elements, daring to dive in very dangerous conditions in order to make sure that we could certify our findings in time for this publication. Finally, I wish to thank my dear father, the sculptor José Ángel Buscaglia Guillermety, who painted the allegory that emblazons the cover of this edition, and to my beloved mother, Inés Victoria Salgado Nieves, who, just like Alonso said of his mother, Ana Ramírez, I owe “the only thing that the poor can give their children, which is the advice that predisposes them to virtue.”

previous editions

Sigüenza y Góngora, Carlos de. Infortunios que Alonso Ramírez, natural de la ciudad de San Juan de Puerto Rico, padeció, así en poder de ingleses piratas que lo apresaron en las Islas Filipinas, como navegando por si solo, y sin derrota, hasta varar en la Costa de Yucatán: consiguiendo por este medio dar vuelta al Mundo. México City: Herederos de la Viuda de Bernardo Calderón, 1690. ———. Infortunios de Alonso Ramírez. Colección de libros raros y curiosos que tratan de América 20. Madrid: Imprenta de la viuda de G. Pedraza, 1902. ———. “Infortunios de Alonso Ramírez.” In Relaciones Históricas, edited by Manuel Romero de Terreros. México City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1940, 1954, 1972, 1992. ———. “Infortunios de Alonso Ramírez.” In Obras históricas, by Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora, 9–83. México City: Editorial Porrúa, 1944, 1960. ———. Infortunios de Alonso Ramírez. Buenos Aires: Espasa-Calpe, 1951. ———. Infortunios de Alonso Ramírez. Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1951. ———. “Infortunios de Alonso Ramírez.” In Obras históricas, 2nd ed., by Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora, edited by José Rojas Garcidueñas, 1–75. México City: Editorial Porrúa, 1960. ———. The Misadventures of Alonso Ramírez. Translated by Edwin H. Pleasants. México City: Imprenta Mexicana, 1962. ———. “Infortunios de Alonso Ramírez.” In La novela del México colonial, vol. 1, edited by Antonio Castro Leal. México City: Aguilar, 1964, 1965, 1968, 1972, 1986. ———. Infortunios de Alonso Ramírez. Edited by Alba Valles Formosa. San Juan de Puerto Rico: Editorial Cordillera, 1967, 1988. ———. Infortunios de Alonso Ramírez. San Juan de Puerto Rico: Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña, 1967. ———. Infortunios de Alonso Ramírez. México City: Premia Editora, 1978, 1982, 1989. ———. “Infortunios de Alonso Ramírez.” In Seis Obras, by Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora, introduction by Irving A. Leonard, edited by William G. Bryant, 5–47. Caracas: Biblioteca Ayacucho, 1984. ———. Infortunios de Alonso Ramírez. Edited by J. S. Cummins and Alan Soons. London: Tamesis Texts, 1984. ———. Infortunios de Alonso Ramírez. Edited by Lucrecio Pérez Blanco. Madrid: Historia 16, 1988. ———. Infortunios de Alonso Ramírez. Edited by Raúl Crisafio. Milan: Arcipelago Edizioni, 1989.

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———. Infortunios de Alonso Ramírez. Edited by Estelle Irizarry. Río Piedras: Editorial Cultural, 1990. ———. Infortunios de Alonso Ramírez. Edited by Jaime J. Martínez. Rome: Bulzoni, 1993. ———. Peripezie di Alonso Ramírez. Edited by Teresa Cirillo Sirri. Naples: Alfredo Guida, 1996. ———. Infortunios de Alonso Ramírez. México City: Planeta, 2002. ———. Infortunios de Alonso Ramírez. Edited by María José Rodilla. México City: Alfaguara, 2003. ———. Infortunios de Alonso Ramírez. Edited by Belén Castro and Alicia Llarena. Las Palmas: Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, 2003. ———. Infortunios de Alonso Ramírez. Edited by María José Rodillo. México: Alfaguara, 2003. ———. Infortunios de Alonso Ramírez. Introduction by Alvaro Enrigue. Madrid: Luis Vives, 2007, 2008, 2010. ———. Infortunios de Alonso Ramírez seguido de Alboroto y motín de los indios de México. Introduction by José Manuel Camacho Delgado. Seville: Ediciones Espuela de Plata, 2008. ———. “Infortunios de Alonso Ramírez.” In Historias del Seno Mexicano, introduction by José F. Buscaglia-Salgado, edited by José F. Buscaglia-Salgado and Reynier Pérez Hernández. Havana: Casa de las Américas, 2009. ———. Infortunios de Alonso Ramírez. Edited by Asima F. X. Saad Maura. Buenos Aires: Cerostock, 2011. ———. Infortunios de Alonso Ramírez: Edición crítica de José F. Buscaglia. Madrid: Polifemo/ Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 2011. ———. “The Misfortunes of Alonso Ramírez.” In The Misfortunes of Alonso Ramírez: The True Adventures of a Spanish American with 17th-Century Pirates, by Fabio López Lázaro, 99–150. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2011.

seleCted bibliography

Arrom, José Juan. “Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora, relectura criolla de los Infortunios de Alonso Ramírez.” Thesaurus 42.1 (1987): 23–46. Bazarte Cerdán, Willebaldo. “La primera novela mexicana.” Humanismo 7.50–51 (1958): 88–107. Becerra, Eduardo. “Señales desde una biblioteca perdida. Infortunios de Alonso Ramírez: identidad criolla y cuestión barroca.” Edad de Oro 29 (2010): 41–51. Bolaños, Álvaro Félix. “Sobre ‘relaciones’ e identidades en crisis: el ‘otro’ lado del ex-cautivo Alonso Ramírez.” Revista de Crítica Literaria Latinoamericana 21.42 (1995): 131–160. Boyer, Patricio. “Criminality and Subjectivity in Infortunios de Alonso Ramírez.” Hispanic Review 78.1 (2010): 25–48. Buscaglia-Salgado, José F. “The Creole in His Labyrinth: The Disquieting Order of the Being Unbecoming.” In Undoing Empire, Race, and Nation in the Mulatto Caribbean, 128–182. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003. ———. “The Misfortunes of Alonso Ramírez (1690) and the Duplicitous Complicity between the Narrator, the Writer, and the Censor.” Dissidences, Hispanic Journal of Theory and Criticism 1.1 (September 2005). http://www.dissidences.org/SiguenzaMisfortunes.html. Camayd-Freixas, Erik. “Penetrating Texts: Testimonials Pseudo-chronicle in La noche oscura del Niño Avilés by Edgardo Rodríguez Juliá Seen from Sigüenza y Góngora’s Infortunios de Alonso Ramírez.” In A Twice-Told Tale: Reinventing the Encounter in Iberian/Iberian American Literature and Film, edited by Santiago Juan-Navarro and Theodore Robert Young, 169–192. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2001. Carilla, Emilio. “El Robinson Americano.” In Pedro Henríquez Ureña y otros estudios, 131–146. Buenos Aires: TEMPRA, 1949. Castagnino, Raúl H. “Carlos de Siúenza y Góngora o la picaresca a la inversa.” In Escritores hispanoamericanos desde otros ángulos de simpatía, 91–101. Buenos Aires: Editorial Nova, 1971. ———. “Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora o la picaresca a la inversa.” Razón y Fábula 25 (1971): 27–34. Chang-Rodríguez, Raquel. “La transgresión de la picaresca en los Infortunios de Alonso Ramírez.” In Violencia y Subversión en la prosa colonial hispanoamericana, siglos XVI y XVII, 85–109. Madrid: José Porrúa Turranzas, 1982. Costa, Horacio. “Las peregrinaciones en la Nueva España.” Cuadernos Americanos 9.5 (1995): 34–44. Cummins, James S. “Infortunios de Alonso Ramírez: ‘A Just History of Fact’?” Bulletin of Hispanic Studies 61.3 (1984): 295–303.

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Selected Bibliography

———. “The Philippines Glimpsed in the First Latin-American ‘Novel.’ ” Philippine Studies 26.1/2 (1978): 91–101. Fernández del Páramo, Javier. “El androginismo literario en los Infortunios de Alonso Ramírez.” Florida Atlantic Comparative Studies Journal 12 (2008–2009): 17–28. Flesler, Daniela. “Contradicción y heterogeneidad en Infortunios de Alonso Ramírez de Carlos [sic] Sigüenza y Góngora.” Romance Notes 42.2 (2002): 163–169. Fornet, Jorge. “Ironía y cuestionamiento ideológico en Infortunios de Alonso Ramírez.” Cuadernos Americanos 9.1 (1995): 200–211. Gimbernat de González, Ester. “Mapas y texto: para una estrategia del poder.” Modern Language Notes 95.2 (1980): 388–399. González, Aníbal. “Los Infortunios de Alonso Ramírez: picaresca e historia.” Hispanic Review 51.2 (1983): 189–204. Gonzáles, Serafín. “El sentido de la existencia en Los Infortunios de Alonso Ramírez.” Anuario de Letras 28 (1980): 223–243. González Stephan, Beatriz. “Narrativa de la ‘estabilización’ colonial: Peregrinación de Bartolomé Lorenzo (1586) de José de Acosta, Infortunios de Alonso Ramírez (1690) de Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora.” Ideologies and Literature 2.1 (1987): 7–52. Graniela-Rodríguez, Magda. “Of Listeners, Narrative Voices, Readers and Narratees: The Structural Interlock of Infortunios de Alonso Ramírez by Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora.” Readerly/Writerly Texts 1.2 (1994): 127–138. Hernández de Ross, Norma. Textos y contextos en torno al tema de la espada y la cruz en tres crónicas novelescas: Cautiverio feliz, El carnero, Infortunios de Alonso Ramírez. New York: Peter Lang, 1996. Invernizzi Santa Cruz, Lucia. “Naufragios e infortunios: discurso que transforma fracasos en triunfos.” Dispositio 11.28–29 (1986): 99–111. Irrizarry, Estelle. “One Writer, Two Authors: Resolving the Polemic of Latin America’s First Published Novel.” Literary and Linguistic Computing 6.3 (1991): 175–179. Johnson, Julie Greer. “Picaresque Elements in Carlos Sigüenza y Góngora’s Los Infortunios de Alonso Ramírez.” Hispania 64.1 (1981): 60–67. Lagmanovich, David. “Para una caracterización de Infortunios de Alonso Ramírez.” In Historia y crítica de la literatura hispanoamericana, vol. 1, edited by Cedomil Goic, 411–416. Barcelona: Editorial Crítica, 1988. ———. “Para una caracterización de Infortunios de Alonso Ramírez.” Sin Nombre 5.2 (1974): 7–14. López, Kimberle S. “Identity and Alterity in the Emergence of Creole Discourse: Sigüenza y Góngora’s Infortunios de Alonso Ramírez.” Colonial Latin American Review 5.2 (1996): 253–276. López Arias, Julio. “El género en los Infortunios de Alonso Ramírez.” Hispanic Journal 15.1 (1994): 185–201. López Lázaro, Fabio. “La mentira histórica de un pirata caribeño: el descubrimiento del trasfondo histórico de los Infortunios de Alonso Ramírez (1690).” Anuario de estudios americanos 64.2 ( July–December 2007): 87–104. Lorente Medina, Antonio. “Los Infortunios de Alonso Ramírez.” Revista de Literatura Hispanoamericana 32 (1996): 41–46. ———. “Luces y sombras de Alonso Ramírez.” In Rebeldes y aventureros: del Viejo al Nuevo Mundo, edited by Hugo R. Cortés, Eduardo Godoy, and Mariela Insúa, 133–148. Madrid: Iberoamericana, 2008. ———. La prosa de Sigüenza y Góngora y la formación de la conciencia criolla mexicana. México City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1996. Martínez-San Miguel, Yolanda. “Colonial No More? Limits of the Transatlantic Episteme.” In From Lack to Excess: “Minor” Readings of Latin American Colonial Discourse, 142–184. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 2008. Massmann, Stefanie. “Casi semejantes tribulaciones de la identidad criolla en Infortunios de Alonso Ramírez y Cautiverio feliz.” Atenea 495 (2007): 109–125.

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235

Meléndez, Concha. “Aventuras de Alonso Ramírez.” In Obras Completas, vol. 2, 375–394. San Juan de Puerto Rico: Editorial Cordillera, 1970. Mora, Carmen de. “Modalidades discursivas en los Infortunios de Alonso Ramírez de Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora.” In Escritura e identidades criollas: modalidades discursivas en la prosa hispanoamericana del siglo XVII, 249–300. New York: Rodopi, 2001. Moraña, Mabel. “Máscara autobiográfica y conciencia criolla en Infortunios de Alonso Ramírez.” Dispositio 15.40 (1990): 107–117. Peraza-Rugeley, A. Margarita. Llámenme “el mexicano”: los almanaques y otras obras de Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora. New York: Peter Lang, 2013. Pérez Blanco, Lucrecio. “Don Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora, autor de Infortunios de Alonso Ramírez o la fidelidad a la nueva ciencia y a los clásicos.” Cuadernos para la investigación de la literatura hispánica 10 (1988): 39–52. ———. “Infortunios de Alonso Ramírez: una lectura desde la retórica.” Cuadernos Americanos 9.1 (1995): 212–230. ———. “Infortunios de Alonso Ramírez y Periquillo sarniento o la evidencia de una relación ilustrada inter-textual.” Cuadernos para la investigación de la literatura hispánica 11 (1989): 39–54. ———. “Novela ilustrada y desmitificación de América.” Cuadernos Americanos 41.244 (1982): 176–195. Pratt, Dale. “Alonso Ramírez Gives the World a Spin.” Monographic Review / Revista Monográfica 12 (1996): 258–268. Riobó, Carlos. “Infortunios de Alonso Ramírez: de crónica a protonovela americana.” Chasqui 27.1 (1998): 70–78. Ross, Kathleen. “Cuestiones de género en Infortunios de Alonso Ramírez.” Revista Iberoamericana 61.172–173 (1995): 591–603. Sacido Romero, Alberto. “La ambigüedad genérica de los Infortunios de Alonso Ramírez como producto de la dialéctica entre discurso oral y discurso escrito.” Bulletin Hispanique 94.1 (1992): 119–139. Sirri, Teresa Cirillo. “Don Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora: Del Mercurio Volante a Infortunios de Alonso Ramírez.” Annali Instituto Universitario Oreientale 38.2 (1996): 221–266. Soons, Alan. “Alonso Ramírez in an Enchanted and a Disenchanted World.” Bulletin of Hispanic Studies 53.3 (1976): 201–205. ———. “Sigüenza’s Bear (Infortunios de Alonso Ramírez, VI) a Note.” Iberomania 27–28 (1988): 248–251. Torres Duque, Oscar. “El infortunio como valor épico: una aproximación a la dimensión épica de la crónica novelesca. Infortunios de Alonso Ramírez, de Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora.” INTI: Revista de Literatura Hispánica 55–56 (2002): 109–128. Zinni, Mariana. “Infortunios de Alonso Ramírez de Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora: aproximaciones a una geografía poscolonial.” Iberoamericana 9.46 (2012): 57–73.

index

Abercromby, Ralph, 16–17n8, 98–99n6 Acapulco, New Spain, 24, 26, 26n8, 106, 108, 108n2 Africa, 47–48, 127–128 alterity, 164, 167–168 Alto Velo, 62, 62nn53–54, 140, 140nn24–25, 196 Amazon River, 48, 128 American subjectivity, xv, 164, 213 Anegada Passage, 196 Ángel, Luis, 34n8, 116n7 Antigua, 60, 60n40, 60–61n42, 139, 139n16, 139n18 apprenticeship, 18–19, 18–19n21, 24n53, 101, 101n15, 105n42 Arco de Dragones Gate, fig. 24 Arzaga, Francisco de, 37n28, 118n22 Ascensión, Juan de la, 180 audience. See readers Australia, 42n77, 45n125, 112–113n42, 126n65, 198; European “discovery” of, 177, 186; as unexplored, 45–46, 125–126; as uninhabited, 53, 133 Ayerra Santa María, Francisco de, 170, 170n25, 171; complicity of, 176, 204, 206, 216–218; intentions, 215–218 Bacalar, xv–xviii, 67, 72, 145, 150, map 8 Baltasar, José, 34n8, 37n28, 37–38n37, 116n7, 118n22, 118–119n26 Barbados, 58, 58n17, 137, 137n9 Barbuda, 60, 60n40, 139, 139n16 Bárcena, Juan José de la, 79, 79n46, 157, 157n28

Barroto, Juan Enríquez, 82, 160, 205–206 Batavia, Dutch East Indies, 29, 29n40, 111, 111n23 Batu Malang (island), Malaysia, 44, 44n98, 124, 124n49 Bautista, Juan, 32, 114 bear attack, 71–72, 149, 199–200 Beata, 62, 62nn53–54, 140, 140nn24–25 Bell (pirate captain). See Read, John Belize River, 195, 196 Berhala, Indonesia, 44, 124 Bermejo River, 148n24, 42, fig. 16 Bermejo River Point, 70n42, 148n14 Borneo, 42–43, 123–124 Borriquen. See Puerto Rico Brazil, 48, 128 Brotherhood of the Coast, 197 Bulla Coena Domini, 80, 80n59, 158, 158n36 Bulla cruciata, 79n40, 156n23 Cambodia, 40, 121. See also individual islands Campeche, New Spain, 81, 159, 170n26 cannibalism, 39–40, 120, 166–167, 191, 221; metaphorical, 168, 169 Cape of Good Hope, 47–48, 127 Capones (island), Philippines, 34, 34n3, 36, 115, 115n3, 117, 175 caputi mundi. See center of the world Caraballo, Juan de, 32, 114 Carmelites, 179–180, 181 Casas, Juan de, 54, 133, 155, 176; as Ramírez’s alibi, 200; as Ramírez’s companion, 57, 67, 71, 77, 136, 145, 148–149; Spanishness of, 59–60, 138, 196, 200

237

238

Index

Casas Reales de San Cristóbal, 79–80, 157–158 castes, xx, 209, 214–215n65 Castles Point, Guadeloupe, 59n23, 60n40, 138n12, 139n16 Castro, Ceferino de, 78, 155; and shipwreck recovery, 79, 79n40, 80–81, 156, 156nn23– 24, 158 Catholics, 49, 61n45, 81, 129, 139–140n21, 158; and apostasy, 56, 134–135, 172; under Dutch rule, 29, 111; French as, 60, 138; Indians as, 72, 150 Cavite, Philippines, 24–25, 28, 28n33, 30–32, 106–107, 110, 110n16, 111–114, 184, fig. 7 Cayman Islands, 63n64, 141n32, 196 Celerún, Francisco de, 78, 78n38, 156, 156n22 center of the world, 170, 191, 192 Cerda Silva Sandoval y Mendoza, Gaspar de la, 163, 171, 206; as addressee of Misfortunes, 205, 213; agenda, 176; patronage of Misfortunes, 192 Chapel of Our Lady of the Rosary, fig. 5 Charles I (Spain), 164 Charles II (England), 166 Charles II (Spain), 170 Chinchorro Atoll, 63n72, 142n35 Chinese crewmembers, 36, 117–118, 148–149, 199 Chontales, 21, 21n38, 103, 103n29 Church of Saint Augustin, 77, 77n28, 154–155, 155n15, fig. 21 Cinque Ports, 187 circumlocution, 210, 211, 218 circumnavigation: as European, 192; as greatest accomplishment, 192; history of, 164, 177; implications of, 165–166; narratives of, 163–164, 168; route, map 10 Clifford, George, count of Cumberland, 16–17n8, 98–99n6 Coello, Leandro, 24, 24–25n56, 106, 106n45 commiseration, 8, 15, 90, 97, 211, 212–213, 214 coprophagia, 54, 133, 176 Corcho, Juan del. See Michele, Giovanni Cornelio (pirate), 54–55, 133–134 Corso, Juan. See Michele, Giovanni Cortés, Hernán, 201 Count of Galve. See Cerda Silva Sandoval y Mendoza, Gaspar de la Creole language, 207 Creole order, 199

Crusade, 79, 79n40, 80, 156, 156n23, 158 Cruz, Francisco de la, 34n8, 36, 116n7, 117– 118, 175; death, 71, 148–149, 199 Cuicatecans, 21, 21n38, 103, 103n29 Culebra, 61n45, 139–140n21 Cummins, J. S., 10n6, 41n71, 45n111, 57n5, 121–122n38, 136n3, 162, 186 Curucelaegui, Gabriel de, 24–25n56, 30n51, 106n45, 111n32, 182–183, 184–185; commission by, 30, 111 Cygnet, 35nn9–10, 38n42, 39n49, 46n127, 116nn8–9; route, 119–120nn30–31, 173– 175, map 6; sinking of, 198 Cygnet Bay, Australia, 46n127, 126n66 Dampier, William, 32n63, 35–36n17, 38n38, 113–114n40, 117n15, 119n30, 183; as circumnavigator, 177; distancing from piracy, 190–191; influence of, 186–187; as “noble pirate,” 187; relationship with Ramírez, 188–190, 191 dedication, 216, 220, 224–226 Defoe, Daniel, 168 Devil’s Island, 57n5, 136n3 Dick. See Moore, Henry diversion, in storytelling, 203, 210–211 Dominican Republic, 62n53, 140n24 Donkin (pirate captain). See Teat Drake, Francis, 16–17n8, 98–99n6, 164, 166 Elcano, Juan Sebastián, 164, 165n15 England: as barbarous, 166–167; imperial project, 168, 187, 221; rise of, 166, 168, 191 Englishness, 221 Enrique (pirate), 55, 134 Enríquez, Balduino. See Hendricks, Boudewijn entelechy, American, 207 Espejo de paciencia (Mojica), 220 European Ideal, 164, 165, 190, 192; critique of, 168; in The Tempest, 220–221 Europeanness, 165 expansionism, 169, 221–222 Falcón, Constantino. See Phaulkon, Constance Ferrer, Felipe, xix, 30–31n53, 112–113n34, 184–186, 184n41; as father figure, 186; impersonation by Ramírez, 35–36n17, 42n77, 112–113n34, 117n15, 182–184, 186 Fitzgerald, John, 35n10, 116n9 Flores de Ureña, Pedro, 80, 158

Index Fort Cromwell, fig. 10 Francisco, Mateo, 173, 174 Friary of Tixcacal, 77, 77n32, 155, 155n18, fig. 22 frigate, 69–70, 147, 156; capture of, 45, 125, 197; as loot, 197, 198; route, 193, 194–196, 198, map 7; size of, 197–198; transfer to Ramírez, 50, 129–130 Galve, count of. See Cerda Silva Sandoval y Mendoza, Gaspar de la gentes de mar. See peoples of the sea gold, 17, 17n10, 99, 99n8 González, Antonio, 71, 149, 199 González, Juan, 72–73, 72n64, 75, 150–151, 150n32, 153–154, 200–203 Graaf, Laurens Cornelis Boudewjin de, 170n26, 201n58 Grammont, Michel de, 170n26 Grand Cayman, 63, 141 Guadeloupe, 59, 59n23, 60n40, 138, 138n12, 139n16 Guam, 27, 27n13, 108–109, 108n3 Guerrero, Francisco, 79, 157 Guerrero, Gonzalo de, 201 Gulliver’s Travels (Swift), 187 Gutiérrez, Esteban, 24, 105 Guzmán y Córdoba, Sebastián de, 82, 159 happiness, 7, 89, 218–219, 224, 225 Havana, Cuba, 19, 101, fig. 3 Hendricks, Boudewijn, 16–17n8, 98–99n6 Herradura Point, 64–65n95, 67n10, 142– 143n45, 145n6, fig. 11, fig. 14, map 11; expedition to, xx–xxi; geography of, xvii, 66n4, 144n2 Hispaniola, 61–62, 61n45, 62n54, 139–140, 139–140n21, 140n25 homoeroticism, 176 Horseshoe Point. See Herradura Point Huache River, 68n20, 145–146n11, 196, fig. 15 Îles du Salut. See Salut Islands India, 28, 35, 110, 117 Indians, 80, 150–151, 157–158; capture of, 75–77, 153–155, 202–203; evangelization of, 75, 77, 153, 154–155n14, 155, 202–203 Infantado, duke of, 161n2, 206, 222 Infortunios de Alonso Ramírez (Sigüenza). See Misfortunes of Alonso Ramírez, The Inquisition, xvi, 180–181, 216

239

Izamal Monastery, 81, 158, fig. 25; fresco, 200, fig. 26 Jakarta. See Batavia Jamaica, 62, 62n54, 140–141, 140n25 Javiera, Francisca, 22–24, 22–23n47, 104– 105, 104–105n37, 179, 181; death, 24n51, 105n41 Job, 10, 10n10, 92, 92n8, 218 Kino, Eusebio, 164–165, 203–204, 205, 207, 219–220 “Law of the Coast,” 197 Lázaro, Fabio López, 161n2 Leiva, Diego de, 180 Le Maire Strait, 35, 35n15, 117, 117n13 letter of approval, 206, 216–218 Libra astronómica y filosófica (Sigüenza), 161, 164–165, 166, 209 Ligon, Richard, 221n66 López, Juan, 21–22, 22n44, 103–104, 104n34 Lorencillo. See Graaf, Laurens Cornelis Boudewjin de Luis, Bartolomé, 31n58, 33n75, 34n8, 113n36, 114–115n45, 116n7 Lutherans, 38n39, 62n56, 119n27, 141; pirates as, 51n33, 56n90, 131n15, 177, 178 Luzon, Philippines, 36n18, 117n16 Macao, 29, 29n47, 111, 111n29 Madagascar, 46, 46n132, 126, 126n71, 198 Madraspatnam, India, 28, 28n35, 110, 110n18 Magellan, Ferdinand, 165n15 Manila, Philippines, 28, 28n28, 30n52, 110, 110n15, 111–112n33 Manila galleon, 101, 185; route, map 3 mare liberum. See open seas Mariana Islands, 26–27, 35–36, 108–109, 117 Mariveles Channel, 36, 117 marriage certificate, xvi, xx, 22–23n47, 104– 105n37, 161, 161n2, fig. 6 Mary of Guadalupe, 51n31, 68, 131n14, 146, 179n33, 190, 192; devotion to, 51, 67, 130– 131, 144–145, 178–179 Medina, Cristóbal de, 20, 20n33, 102, 102n25, 104n36 Melaka, Malaysia, 29, 29n37, 110, 110n20 Meliapor, India, 28, 28n36, 110, 110n19 mercantilism, 168 Mérida, New Spain, 79–80, 81, 157–158, 159, fig. 24

240

Index

México City, New Spain, 20n33, 22–24, 81, 102n25, 104–105, 159; as center of the world, 170, 191, 192, 206–207; as metropolis, 20, 102, 164n6, 192; revolt in, 214–215n65 Michele, Giovanni, 18–19, 18n19, 100–101, 100n13, 101n16, 177–178, 208 Miguel (pirate), 171–176, 189; portrayal by crew, 56n90, 135n36, 172–173; portrayal by Ramírez, 55–56, 79, 134–135, 156, 171– 172, 175–176 Miguel, Juan. See Michele, Giovanni miscegenation, 221 Misfortunes of Alonso Ramírez, The (Sigüenza): credibility of, xvi, xvii–xviii, xix–xx; as destabilizing, xv, 177, 201; as didactic, 213; as foundational text, 220; language of, xii–xiii, xiv, 85, 206; as narrative of failure, 191; and political advantage, 169; publication history, xi–xiii, xiv; study of, xii–xiv, xiiin6, 216, 223; as subversive, 169, 177–178, 212, 213; translation of, xiv–xv, 3, 85, 87, 162, 215. See also dedication; letter of approval Mixes, 21, 21n38, 103, 103n29 modernity, colonial, 169, 191, 209–210, 220, 223, 224 Mojica, Silvestre, 41–42n76, 122n41 Montserrat, 60n41, 139n17 Moore, Henry, 35n9, 49, 116n8, 129 Moors, 29, 29n39, 44, 111, 111n22, 124; as barbarous, 47, 127 Morgan, Henry, 166 Morro Castle, 16, 16n6, 16–17n8, 98, 98–99nn5–6, fig. 1 mulataje, 178 Muros, Cristóbal de, 77n29, 80–81, 155n16, 158; as Ramírez’s protector, 77, 80, 154– 155, 157 mutiny, plans for, 54–55, 133–134 New Holland. See Australia New Voyage Round the World, A (Dampier), 177, 186, 187, 194 Nicpat (pirate gunner), 49, 50, 55, 129, 130, 134 Nieto, Antonio, 24, 24–25n56, 106, 106n45 Oaxaca, New Spain, 20–21, 21n39, 22, 102– 103, 103n30, 104 open seas, 174, 178, 189 Our Lady of Aránzazu, 30–31nn52–53, 38n42, 111–112nn33–34; burning of, 119, 119n30;

evidence of, xix, fig. 8; route, 32n63, 113– 114n40, map 5 Our Lady of Mount Carmel, 23–24n48, 105n38, 179 Ozama Fortress, 62n53, 140n24, fig. 9 Pacheco, Melchor, 77, 79, 154, 154–155n14, 157 Pedro (Ramírez’s slave), 47n143, 72, 78, 127n78, 149–150, 155–156; as alibi, 204; sale of, 80, 158 peoples of the sea, 174, 174n31, 189, 191– 192, 220 Pérez de Guzmán, Juan, 16–17n8, 98–99n6 Perote, New Spain, 19, 19n24, 101, 101n20 Phaulkon, Constance, 41n71, 121–122n38 Philippines, 27–28, 27n19, 109n7, 109–110. See also individual cities and islands Piedra Point, 72n59, 149nn29–30 Pilar, Juan del, 56n90, 135n36, 172–173 piracy: allegations, against Ramírez, 78, 156, 203–204; Dutch, 16–17n8, 98–99n6; English, 16–17n8, 18n19, 98–99n6, 100n13, 166, 170, 170n26; Spanish, 18n19, 100n13, 208 pirates: abandonment by, 41, 47, 122, 127; attack by, 32–33, 33n75, 114, 114–115n45; capture by, 33, 114; interrogation by, 36, 117, 175; looting by, 42, 43, 123, 124; opposition to, 44, 124–125; at Port Royal, 62n56, 62n62, 141n26, 141n30; punishment by, 37, 47, 52–53, 55, 118, 127, 132–133, 134; release from, 49–50, 56n90, 129–130, 135n36, 192–193; travels with, 34–48, 52–55, 115–128, 131–134, 163. See also privateers Poblete, Juan de, 23–24, 23–24nn48–50, 105, 105nn39–40, 179–180 Poblete, María de, 23, 23–24n48, 24n50, 105, 105n38, 105n40, 179–181 Port Royal, Jamaica, 62, 62n56, 62n62, 141, 141n26, 141n30 privateers, 16–17n8, 18n19, 98–99n6, 100n13, 187, 208–209 Protestants, 166, 168, 172 Puebla de los Ángeles, New Spain, 19, 19n25, 24, 101, 101n21, 105 Puerta del Agua Gate, fig. 2 Puerta de Tierra Gate, fig. 27 Puerto Rico, 15–19, 17n10, 97–101, 99n8; history, 15n1, 16–17n8, 97n1, 98–99n6; Ramírez’s silence about, xvii, 61n45, 139– 140n21, 193–194, 205

Index Pulau Aur (island), Malaysia, 44, 125 Pulau Condon (island), Cambodia, 38n40, 119n28; pillaging of, 190–191; pirates’ return to, 39n49, 40n58, 120, 120–121n34; pirates’ stay at, 38–40, 38n42, 119–120, 119–120nn30–31 Pulau Tioman (island), Malaysia, 44, 44n99, 124, 124n50 Pulau Ubi (island), Cambodia, 40, 40n63, 121, 121n36 racialism, 165 Ramírez, Alonso: as antihero, 192; complicity with pirates, 171, 175, 176, 189–190; dismissal of crew, 80, 80n58, 158, 158n35; distancing from pirates, 46n131, 47n136, 126n70, 127n74, 176, 190; intentions, xiii, 192, 194–196, 209; marriage, xix–xx, 22– 23n47, 22–24, 104–105, 104–105n37, 181; meeting with Sigüenza, 169; name, as pseudonym, xvi, 161n2; remaining with pirates, 40n58, 42n77, 47, 112–113n42, 120–121n34, 127; social ambition, 21, 28, 103, 110, 178, 181, 182, 192, 209; storytelling skill, 170–171, 177, 223 Ramírez, Ana, 15n1, 18, 97n1, 100, 178 Ramírez, Luis, 20–21, 20–21n35, 102–103, 102–103n27 Read, John, 35n9, 46–47, 54–55, 116n8, 126– 127, 134; and coprophagia, 54, 133; ships commanded, 35, 116, 198 readers, 213–214, 216–218, 219–220, 222– 223, 225–226; American, 224; Creole, 213, 219; deception of, 216; European, 219, 224; identification with Ramírez, 214, 224 Real Audiencia, 194 Real Fuerza, fig. 3 Red River. See Bermejo River Ribera, Juan de, 22–23n47, 179 Rivera, Payo de, 180 Robinson Crusoe (Defoe), 168, 187, 200, 221 Rogers, Woodes, 187 Royal Fleet of the Windward Islands, 82, 82n74, 159–160, 160n46, 191 Royal Hospital of Amor de Dios, 81, 159 Sabido, Bernardo, 79, 157 Saint Anthony of Padova Monastery. See Izamal Monastery Saint Barthelemy, 60, 60–61n42, 139, 139n18 Saint George, 187–188 Saint John, 60–61nn42–43, 139nn18–19 Saint Martin, 60, 60–61n42, 139, 139n18

241

Salut Islands, 57n5, 136n3 Sandoval, Juan Cano, 80, 80n52, 157, 157n32 San Juan, Puerto Rico, 15, 97, 163; history, 15n1, 16–17n8, 97n1, 98–99n6, 217–218, figs. 1–2 San Juan de Ulúa, 19, 19n22, 101, 101n18, fig. 4 Santa Rosa, 24, 24–25n56, 35–36n17, 105– 106, 106n45, 117n15, 182–184 Santo Domingo, Hispaniola, 62n53, 140n24, 194 Santo Niño y Nuestra Señora de Guía, 182, 184 Selkirk, Alexander, 187 shipwreck, 64–65, 142–143; abandoned goods, 69–70, 82, 147, 159, 197; abandoned goods, worth of, 78–79, 156, 171; aftermath, 67–73, 144–151, 198–201; artifacts, 64–65n95, 142–143n45, figs. 12–13; date of, 66n5, 144n3; evidence of, xvi, xvii–xviii, xx–xxi, 64–65n95, 142–143n45, 198; location of, 64–65n95, 66n6, 142– 143n45, 144n4, 162; narrative function of, 219; return to, 82, 159–160; as trope, 220 Siantan Islands, 42, 42n77, 122–123, 112–113n42 Sigüenza y Góngora, Carlos de, xii, xvi, 42n77, 112–113n42, 164–165; on class, 214–215, 214–215n65; complicity of, 176, 204–214; as European in America, 165; intentions, xiii, xiv, 164, 211–212, 214, 215–216, 225; and Juan de Poblete, 179; portrayal of English, 168; Ramírez’s meeting with, 81–82, 159; as speaking through Misfortunes, 192, 211, 212–213; writing style, xii–xiii, 162, 203, 210–212, 224, 225 Sir Francis Drake Channel, 60–61n42, 61n45, 139n18, 139–140n21 slavery, 60, 78, 80, 139, 156, 158, 166; as legitimizing, 204 social class, xx, 209, 213, 214, 214–215n65, 224 social order, 170, 191–192, 214 Soons, Alan, 10n6, 41n71, 45n111, 57n5, 121–122n38, 136n3, 162, 186 Spain: as barbarous, 168; decline of, 166, 170, 191 Stann Creek Town, Belize, 195 Stone Point. See Piedra Point Strait of San Bernardino, 27, 27n19, 109, 109n7 Strait of Singapore, 29, 29n38, 44, 110, 110n21, 125 Strait of Sunda, 44, 125

242

Index

subject, 178, 209–210, 215; American, 162, 166, 201, 207, 218, 222; colonial, 167, 222; Creole, 208, 211, 212, 216; European, 164, 167, 192; modern-colonial, xv, 170 subterfuge, 191 Sukadana, Borneo, 42–43, 42n84, 123–124, 123n47 Swan, Charles, 35n9, 46n127, 116n8, 126n66 sympathy, 213–214 Tambelán (islands), Indonesia, 42, 42n81, 123, 123n46 Teat (pirate captain), 35, 35n9, 47, 116, 116n8, 127, 198; mercy of, 49, 49n11, 129, 129n5 Tempest, The (Shakespeare), 167, 167n16, 220–221 Theresa of Jesus, 23–24n48, 179–180 Tihosuco, New Spain, 72n64, 76–77, 77n25, 150n32, 154–155, 154n13, 201n58 Tilá, New Spain, 76–77, 81, 154, 158 Tobago, 58n17, 137n9 Tortola, 60–61nn42–43, 139nn18–19 trade goods, 21, 28, 29, 58, 103, 110, 111, 137; pirate capture of, 40–41, 41–42n76, 44, 121–122, 122n41, 124 transformation, 219, 222 Trinidad, 58, 58n11, 137, 137n7 Tupac ruins, xix, 74–75n6, 152–153n3, figs. 18–20 Umbilicus Urbis, 164, 170. See also center of the world

Valladolid, New Spain, 77, 81, 155, 158, 203 Valnera, José de, 34n8, 116n7 Vargas Hurtado, Juan de, 24–25n56, 106n45, 185 Vendón, Diego, 38n38, 119n30, 173 Veracruz, New Spain, 19n22, 81, 82, 101n18, 159, 160 Villanueva, Lucas de, 17–18, 17–18n14, 99– 100, 99–100n10 Villanueva y Segarra, Alonso de, 17–18n14, 99–100n10 Virgin Islands, 60–61n42, 139n19 War of the Spanish Succession, 188 weapons, 30–31, 32–33, 35, 67n14, 112–113, 114, 116, 145n8; accidents with, 69, 76, 147, 154, 200; mechanics of, 31n54, 52n38, 69n31, 113nn35–37, 131n19, 147n17; as personal property, 70, 70n39, 147, 147n23, 171 “white man’s burden,” 168 Windward Islands, 18n19, 19, 100n13, 101, 101n17 Xalapa, New Spain, 19, 19n24, 101, 101n20 younker. See apprenticeship Yucatán, xv–xviii, 64n76, 72–73, 142n36, 150–151, map 8 Yunque Mountain, 61n45, 139–140n21, 193, 193n54, 205 Zapata, Antonio de, 81, 158 Zelerún, Francisco de, 77–78, 155

about the editor

JOSÉ F. BUSCAGLIA-SALGADO is a professor and chair of the Department of Cultures, Societies, and Global Studies at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts, where he is also the director of the Center for International Affairs and World Cultures and the associate director for the Americas and the Caribbean at the Global Resilience Institute. He is the author of Undoing Empire, Race, and Nation in the Mulatto Caribbean (2003) and the Spanish edition of the Infortunios on which this bilingual edition is based: Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora, Infortunios de Alonso Ramírez: Edición crítica de José F. Buscaglia (2011).