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This Very Famous Conqueror of Mexico
      A RARE Manuscript Document
SIGNED

•  Bernal Díaz, a companion of Cortés in the Conquest of the Aztecs and author of the world famous Historia verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva España, signed his name many times before he died at the advanced age of 88, yet his is one of the most elusive autographs in the world. There are no records of his autograph ever having been offered at auction in England or the United States. Such famous collectors as Phillipps, Heber, Harmsworth, and Sang never owned an example of his handwriting; such famous dealers as Rosenbach, Fleming, Kraus, Maggs Bros., and Quaritch never offered a Bernal Díaz letter or document; and such famous libraries as The Library of Congress, The John Carter Brown, Harvard, Yale, The Bancroft, The Rosenbach Foundation, The Newberry, The Sutro, The University of Texas, and The New York Public do not count his signature among their treasures.

The document we here offer is a cabildo (i.e., town council) act. Bernal Díaz served as a member of the cabildo of Santiago de Guatemala for a number of years, an honor bestowed on him as a conqueror and early settler of the region. In this document the cabildo acknowledges receipt of a royal decree, reads it verbatim into its minutes, and formally agrees to comply. The king writes that he is informed that the post of notary public and "del número" in Santiago is vacant because Juan Núñez de Soria, who held the royal appointment to that position, "is gone to Our kingdoms of Peru." On the advice of the Royal Audiencia (i.e., High Court) the king appoints Juan de Rojas to be notary public and "del número."

•  The document is housed in a red half morocco slipcase with an internal corset. Six small wormholes in each leaf affect one or two letters each, but not the signature of Bernal Díaz.

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Troublesome Deserters

(Discipline — Military).

•  Expediente concerning military discipline. Included are certified copies of original decrees by Secretary of the Army Galvez and portions of royal decrees, as well as a printed document. Specifically detailed are the punishments for first-time deserters, second timers, and third-time or more runways.

•  Very good condition. Sewn.

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Comunero Revolt

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•  Bruno de Zavala, the governor of Buenos Aires (1717–34), ordered Captain of Dragoons Echauri to “destroy the Commune that had fortified itself in the pueblo of Tauapig.” In this document Echauri certifies his orders and the fact that he successfully carried them out with “50 men from the Presidio of Buenos Aires, some others from that of Paraguay, others from Villarica, and 200 Guarani Indians from the missions that are under the care of the fathers of the Society of Jesus.” He destroyed the fortifications, put the comuneros to flight, and captured two canons and their powder.

The Comunero Revolt in Argentina (ca. 1723–35) was a prolonged episode of uprising against the colonial government by residents in northeastern Argentina (Corrientes) and an adjacent part of Paraguay who felt marginalized by the Jesuit domination of the Guarani Indian labor pool and the Society of Jesus’s near monopoly of the yerba mate and tobacco trade with Buenos Aires.

•  Very good condition. Margins a little irregular; paper a little rumpled. Written in a clear, easy to read hand.  (24647)

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Masses, Lands, & Messuages —
    Pray for the Soul of Fr. Domingo

•  In 1747 Pedro Pablo de Riascos, acting with the power of attorney of Dr. José Antonio Navarro, a priest and citizen of Tehuacán, endows a chaplaincy with a 3000-peso mortgage on a hacienda de labor named "Señor San José Nopala" in the region of Tehuacán. The holder of the position was obligated to say 25 masses a year for the soul of Father Domingo del Moral y Beristain, a friend of Dr. Navarro's and the man from whom he inherited the property mentioned above.

This is the file relating to that chaplaincy and its various holders during the first 100 years of its existence. It also contains a detailed listing of the lands and messuages of the hacienda and their value as of March 1748, and a certain amount of information about the development of the hacienda in the years prior to 1748.

•  Sewn, dusty, tattered, incomplete at end. Written in a variety of easy-to-read hands. Some tears. Now housed in a simple phase box.

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Chile, 1593 — AWoman Presses Her Case

•  It is not often that one comes across a document from the 16th century in which a woman presses a criminal case against a government official. But that is precisely what the widow Doña Francisca does here. She had previously initiated the case against Doctor Luis López de Castro, an ex–teniente general, during his residencia hearing. These documents assert her desire to continue those criminal proceedings. Click the image to the left
for an enlargement.

•  Written in a small notarial hand and slightly difficult to read. All edges tattered with some loss of paper and of an occasional word or end of word, not impairing sense.

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He Survived “La Noche Triste” & Much, Much More
   THE CONQUEROR'S REWARD  

Move your mouse over the document above, and click,
to select and view details.

•  Pedro de Villanueva was one of the conquistadores of Mexico.  He was among Cortés's original party, part of the Francisco de Saucedo (also spelled “Salcedo”) contingent, whose ship was delayed in leaving Cuba.  With Saucedo, a friend of Cortés, he arrived at Villarica de Veracruz in July of 1519, shortly after Cortés and his men had destroyed the “idols” at Cempoala.

Villanueva was among the small but grand “army” that marched into Tenochtitlán in the Spring of 1520 and in July of the same year were to flee the western world's largest city fighting for their lives, on the “Noche Triste.”  He survived the hell and slaughter of the causeways and later returned with the greatly augmented force that destroyed the Aztec capital and its empire. Still later he was with Cortés in the exploration and conquest of Pánuco and following that with Nuño de Guzmán in the exploration and conquest of Zacatecas and Jalisco. He and his brother Fernando (also a member of the Saucedo contingent) jointly received an encomienda (Quechula) and settled in Puebla de los Angeles where Pedro served as a regidor on the town council in the 1540s and 1550s.

In the last years of the 1550s Villanueva petitioned the crown for the grant of a coat of arms in recognition of his service to the crown in the conquest of Mexico.  Felipe II honored that request in this impressive document.  He enumerates the Conqueror's deeds, specifically mentioning Don Hernando Cortés and Nuño de Guzmán and the various conquests in which Villanueva participated.  He describes the coat of arms being granted and the significance of the colors and symbols.  The granted arms are beautifully accomplished in many colors within the text of the document, with that text yielding space to the large miniature: Measuring 17.5 x 15 cm (7" x 6"), the arms are painted with a formal frame delimiting their presentation on a red field with corner brackets of gold over blue.  Surmounting the arms is a knight's helm with plumage, trailing from which are decorative “swooshes.”  The new Villanueva arms are quartered, showing a cyphered “M” surmounted by a fleur de lis in the upper left, a crowned lion en passant in the upper right, an arm holding a sword rising out of a flowing river in the lower left, and a castle on a hill in the lower right.

The text of the grant of arms is elegantly indited in a standard court semi-round gothic in sepia ink and is enclosed on the left, right, and top sides by an illuminated and historiated sash-like border.  In the upper left and right corners are miniatures of Justice and Knowledge in sylvan settings.  Running between those two along the top of the document is a decorative panel incorporating flowers, fruits, mythic animals, and cherubs.  Below this, the king's name is accomplished in large letters of gold on a field of red accented with gold, and the “D” of his honorific “Don” is given special treatment.  This is elaborated in an ornate, almost baroque style that comes close to obfuscating the fact of its being a majuscule “d”:  Wrought in gold, the letter at first appears to be merely a “frame” for the royal coat of arms that fills its center.  The king's arms are accomplished in gold, white, black, red, and blue; the whole being laid on a blue field with white accents.

The panels running down the left and right sides of the document are accomplished in red, gold, green, pink, white, red, blue, and brown, many in several shades.  The decoration includes birds of several varieties including a fine owl, animals including a watchful rabbit, strawberries and other fruits, and flowers, ribbons, grotesques, and butterflies.




The document is signed in the king's name by Juana (Joanna Habsburg) de Austria, “princesa de Portugal.”  Married to Prince Juan of Portugal, young Juana (b. 1537) was the regent of the Spanish crown from 1554 until her brother Philip's return to Spain in September of 1559. She had just lost her husband to death and borne his posthumous son, both in January, 1554, when she left Portugal and her child in the Spring of that year to assume the regency throne in Valladolid.



In format and content this document differs dramatically from the cartas executorias de hidalguía that most collectors are familiar with.  Here we have a single large sheet of vellum handsomely engrossed, artfully illuminated, and exquisitely decorated with a composite border containing miniatures.  This is not a bound volume of copies of documents created for storage in the family archive. This was created for display in a prominent place of honor; and it is a magnificent display item.  This is not a grant of nobility nor a confirmation of it based on something that some vague ancestor did; rather it is a grant of a coat of arms to a man who himself performed significant military and other service for the Crown and whom the Crown wishes to honor both publicly and privately.  Only a few hundred of Cortés's men survived the Noche Triste, the reentry into and destruction of Mexico City, and the subsequent conquests in Panuco and elsewhere.  The number of grants such as this to actual members of Cortés's original “army” were few.

And surviving grants to those actual participants in the Conquest are extremely rare, even more so in commerce. This is the only royal grant of a coat of arms to an actual member of Cortés's “army” that we have seen that has ever appeared in the marketplace.  Via published auction records and our extensive archive of dealer catalogues, we trace no instance before this one of the offering for sale of a grant of arms to a Conqueror of Mexico.  Yes, there are examples in various libraries and museums in Mexico and Spain, and probably in the U.S., but such examples seem to have entered their institutional resting places via donation from descendants of Conquerors, not via purchase.

Provenance:  It is awesome to realize that this is no mere retained secretarial copy of Felipe's grant of arms to Pedro de Villanueva.  This gorgeous document not only records the king's rewards to one of Cortés's men, but was that Conqueror's personal property.  It is the copy of the decree sent to him expressly, by the Crown!



•  On Villanueva, see: Icaza, Diccionario autobiográfico de conquistadores y pobladores de la Nueva España, I, 88–89; Thomas, Who's Who of the Conquistadors, 146; Himmerich y Valencia, The Encomenderos of New Spain, 1521–1555, 262; Díaz del Castillo, Verdadera historia de la conquista de la Nueva España, chap. LIII. On Juana de Austria, see: the work of Dr. Kelli Ringhofer.  Overall in very good condition.  Some fold tears, some minor rubbing of small areas of images, stains as visible in our illustrations.  The wax seal and its silk cords no longer present. Text clear, not faded, and colors strong.

To review the pictures of this document more systematically than
“mousing over” the image at our description's top may allow:

The King Aids a Widow

Fernando VII,

•  On 11 February 1815 the king conceded Doña María Josefa d’Alouise, widow of Don Juan Carlos Benavides, the power to attempt recovery of 8356 reales and 6 maravides de velón of annual income from her late husband’s entailed estate (i.e., mayorazgo). He here expands his earlier decree and orders the current holder of the entail to give the said sum annually to her, provided she does not remarry or take religious vows.

•  Written in a very clear hand, with the paper and wax seal below the king’s signature (wax desicated and paper loose, but present). Two blank leaves at end. Very good condition.

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17th-Century Spanish America from anEnglishman’s Perspective
[IN ENGLISH]

•  Manuscript copy in an unknown hand of a portion of New Survey of the West Indies by Thomas Gage (d. 1656). Gage was an English Dominican who served in Spanish America, later abjuring the Catholic Church and returning to England. In his work he gives insights into the Spanish colonies, whose internal life had theretofore been a mystery to most Englishman: Among other matters, the portion presented in this manuscript discusses the tensions between those colonists born in Spain and those born in the New World, the various religious orders working as missionaries in Spanish America, a description of some of Gage’s travels, and a partial account of Cortés’ conquest. Single-click either image for an enlargement.

•  On Gage, see: The Dictionary of National Biography, XX, 353–55. Recent marbled paper over light boards. Second and third blank leaves pasted together. Some light soiling, and some chipping and tears without apparent loss of text. Rubber-stamps from a now-defunct library. The paper here is decidedly blue; the hand is very readable.

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The King & the High Court of Guatemala — A Manuscript
ARCHIVE, 1600-28

•  The audiencia (or high court) was, according to Clarence Haring (the dean, during the 1940s and 1950s, of American scholars of colonial Latin America), "the most important and interesting institution in the government of the Spanish Indies." He rightly points out that "It was the center, the core, of the administrative system, the principal curb upon oppression and illegality of the viceroys and other governors."

The first audiencia was established in Santo Domingo in 1508 with others springing up as the Spaniards discovered and settled North and South America. The Audiencia of Guatemala came into existence on 20 November 1542 through the New Laws and had a troubled and peripatetic beginning: The documents that compose this collection do not deal with things quite as dramatic as either the judicial insanity or the big-time smuggling of those earliest years, but they do, nonetheless, document various unstudied aspects of the presidencies of Dr. Alonso Criado de Castilla (1598-1611), Don Antonio Pérez Ayala Castilla y Rojas (1611-26), and Dr. Diego de Acuña (1626-33). The royal cedulas fall into three broad categories: requests for information, demands for action, and orders ending existing practices.

An example of the Crown's requests for information is a decree of 4 December 1601. The king would sometimes receive complaints that were best handled extrajudicially, often involving political activities of clerics, over whom the civil and criminal courts did not have jurisdiction and with whom, the authorities felt, the ecclesiastical courts would deal ineffectively. In one case, the governor of Honduras had complained to the king that the dean of the church in Comayagua was disrupting attempts to recruit men for the defense of the port of Trujillo: The king, investigating, expects that the audiencia's information will be unbiased because of its physical and emotional distance from Honduras and its local politics and squabbling.

Another, much more ominous, request was handed down on 28 June 1621. The king has "discovered" that "foreigners" are living in the New World. Since they are there illegally, he wants a list of them and correlated inventories of their possessions and land holdings. This was the beginning of the oppression of Portuguese settlers who had moved to the New World during the "Babylonian captivity" of Portugal by Spain.

The royal demands for action were usually grants of royal patronage or largesse. On 10 July 1600 the king orders the audiencia to administer the terms of his decree granting a one-time-only gift of money to the cathedral in Santiago, and on 4 July 1601 he orders the court to give the mission church in Trinidad de Sonsonate a chalice and a bell.

The Crown was fully aware that the physical distance between it and its New World provinces would result in the development of local customs and practices, and to a l arge extent it tolerated these deviations from "the norm." For example, on 31 May 1600, Felipe III officially accepts the local custom of the audiencia's appointing the majordomo of the Royal Hospital. But at other times the Crown felt put upon and ordered the end of "local practices." On 12 December 1619 the king orders the audiencia to stop subdividing encomiendas and parcelling the subsections out as parts of government pensions.

The documents in this remarkable collection are unpublished.  They are an important unused source for the history of the high court during the first quarter of the 17th century. Through them we find out what the "local customs" of patronage and of usurpation of royal prerogative were. Through the reiteration of previously issued decrees we discover which decrees the court was ignoring, using the famous doctrine of "obedezco pero no cumplo." Through these decrees we glimpse royal patronage and royal displeasure.

•  Clarence H. Haring, The Spanish Empire in America, pp. 126, 75-76, and 113-14; Murdo J. MacLeod, Spanish Central America, pp. 390-91, on the audiencia's earliest years. The decrees have been very carefully removed from a bound volume and, now stored in Mylar sleeves, are housed in a blue cloth slipcase with blue morocco spine labels. This major source for the study of the Royal Audiencia of Guatemala is in very good condition.

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The Growth of a Great Estate — A LATIFUNDIUM

Click the images for enlargements.

•  This extensive compilation of documents was undertaken at the end of the 19th century by Luciano Nieto, the then owner of the estate known as the Hacienda San Diego. Situated in the Armadillo Valley of the northern state of San Luis Potosí, a famous silver mining region, the estate had its origin in a 1634 grant from Viceroy Pacheco y Osorio to Diego del Castillo of a sitio for sheep and two caballerias of land for other agricultural purposes; a copy of this is present. As the documents show, successive owners added ever more land to the initial and subsequent holdings so that by the end of the 19th century, the Hacienda San Diego was a great estate, or latifundium.

Vol. I compiles the documentary tale from the 17th through the 18th century, vol. II takes it to the early 20th. In addition to sales transactions and deeds, the documents here include copies of rental agreements, leases, legal documents presented in court cases when land ownership was challenged, and wills (including at least two of women); some accounting for the hacienda's operation is also present. All documents are in Spanish and most are contemporary notarial copies of originals held by notaries or by the estate owners. A few are the original documents, themselves.

One scale schematic on cloth, of the estate and its boundaries as of 1891, is enclosed; this documents Hacienda San Diego as comprising 14,472 hectares, 36 aras. There are additionally four drawings (maps, diagrams, or plans) of portions of the estate, two in color.

In 1902 John A. Wright, a merchant resident in San Luis Potosí, acting on behalf and with the power of attorney ofGeorge W. Brackenridge, a citizen of San Antonio, Texas, bought the estate. In 1905 Brackenridge sold the estate to Edwin Chamberlain for 95,000 pesos. Brackenridge was a prominent citizen of San Antonio, donor of the land that is now Brackenridge Park, and Chamberlain was the president of the San Antonio Loan and Trust Company.

•  Modern sheep in Spanish “Valenciana” style. Bindings and documents in very good condition.  (24697)

The Mining Revival & The Father of
Mexican Independence     

Approximately 350 ff.

•  In 1780 Augustina Velázquez died and her will provided, among other things, for a huge number of masses to be said for her. Subsidy for the masses was spread among the priests in the mining region where she had lived — Real de Bolaños and Aguas Calientes. Those receiving sums of money signed receipts, and among the dozens was a newly ordained minister who signed his receipt "Br. Hidalgo." The young bachiller became famous in 1810 for initiating the uprising that began the eleven-year struggle for Mexican Independence.

This is a fine, extremely early example of Father Hidalgo's signature.

The woman who provided the money for the above mentioned masses was the wife of Antonio de Vivano (also spelled Bibano) Gutiérrez and mother of Antonio Guadalupe de Vivano, the first two Condes de Vivanco. Cambridge scholar David Brading credits Antonio de Vivanco with restoring the mining region of Bolaños to prosperity in the early 1770s, following the region's sharp decline in silver ore production during the first two-thirds of the 18th century — whereby he became very wealthy.

In addition to payment for masses for her soul, Doña Augustina's will provides for large sums of money to be spent on construction work on the chapel of Our Lady of Guadalupe in the bishopric of Guadalajara. The paperwork, including receipts, associated with the distribution of her largesse is weighty and detailed.

Among the collateral documents in this offering are copies of the last wills and testaments of Antonio de Vivanco Gutiérrez (1796), Augustina Velázquez (1780), and Antonio Guadalupe de Vivanco (1800); the inventory of the younger Vivanco's massive estate (1801); and a marvelouscalligraphic manuscript in which the bishop of Guadalajara grants a special privilege to Vivanco the elder. All are notarially certified copies of the originals.

•  All documents in very good condition, sewn, in contemporary vellum bindings.

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TO Part IV . . .

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