1460, The rebel of Mercy

The textbook says they came with iron boots,

The Spanish and the Portuguese alike,

Tearing the New World up by all its roots,

With only one command: to rob and strike.

From Magellan down to Torres, it’s the same—

A trail of ashes in the empire's name.

But every rule will find its breaking point,

And history left a crack within the wall.

A man whose mind the gold did not anoint,

Who didn’t care to watch the natives fall.

Born in the year of fourteen-sixty, blind

To all the greed that warped his nation's mind.

Rodrigo de Bastidas. Put his name

Upon the charts where South America bends,

From Brazil’s coast to Ecuador he came,

But built a house of neighbors and of friends.

He walked the mud where Panama would rise,

With something like a conscience in his eyes.

He learned the local tongues, the shifting sounds,

Of Gairas, Tagangas, and all the rest.

He didn’t want to hunt them down like hounds,

Or drive a sword into a brother's breast.

Before his soldiers drew their heavy steel,

He’d beg the tribes to make a peaceful deal.

"Look at my men," he’d say, "the odds are low.

If we must fight, the King will have his way.

The God I serve will deal a heavy blow,

And you will curse the dawn of this dark day.

The blood will be your fault, the grief and pain—

So put your weapons down and loose the rein."

But here’s the turn that made the story bleed:

He told his troops to leave the gold alone.

He wouldn’t feed the white man’s rotten greed,

Or strip the Indian down to skin and bone.

And for that mercy, on a bitter night,

His own men stabbed him out of human sight.

They left the Noblest Conquistador to die,

A peace crusader in a world of wolves.

But truth survives beneath a shifting sky,

Long after every empire dissolves.

_________________________________________

ELENCHUS... A Trial of History"    (7)

PUBLICATION IDENTITY & CREDITS

Original Text & Inspiration:

Panayotis V. Mataragas (Rotterdam)

The foundational vision, drafted at the crossroads of European history.

Language Editing & Adaptation:

Kellene G. Safis (Chicago)

Refining the rhythm and pulse through a definitive American lens.

Digital Editing & Formatting:

Cathy Rapakoulia Mataraga (Piraeus)

The architectural assembly and final form at the Great Port.

______________________________________________________________

* Rodrigo de Bastidas, (1460 – July 28, 1527) was a Spanish conquistador and explorer who mapped the northern coast of South America, discovered Panama, and founded the city of Santa Marta. Rodrigo de Bastidas was a well-to-do notary of the town of Triana, Seville, a suburb of Seville

After sailing with Christopher Columbus during his second voyage to the New World about 1494, Bastidas petitioned the Spanish Monarchy to start his own quest to be financed totally with his own money. In exchange for granting bastidas the right to explore various territories in the New World, the Crown required him to give them one fourth of the net profits he acquired.

The King and Queen issued a charter that is still preserved in the National Archives in Spain. He sailed to the New World from Cádiz in October, 1499, with two ships, the San Antón and the Santa Maria de Gracia. He was accompanied on this voyage by Juan de la Cosa and Vasco Núñez de Balboa.

At the South American coast he sailed westward from Cabo de la Vela, Colombia, in an attempt to reconnoiter the coastline of the Caribbean basin.

He discovered the mouth of a river he named the Magdalena River and the Gulf of Urabá on the Panamanian/Colombian coast.

He reached La Punta de Manzanillo on Panama's upper Caribbean coast before having to abandon his effort. He is acknowledged to be the first European to have claimed that part of the isthmus, and therefore is credited with the discovery of Panama which includes the San Blas region of the Kuna Indians. 
_________________________

to be continued

 ELEGHOS... at history