The First Historian of the New World



Peter Martyr d'Anghera: General Remarks

The documentation of New World native books and their arrival in Europe remains controversial, as does the interpretation of those that may survive in museum and library collections. Part of the controversy is fueled by the unusual nature of native New World writing itself. While some examples are what scholars call "true writing" or "closed writing," tied to systems from which specific languages can be recovered-such as Classic Period Maya inscriptions-many are examples of another technique of writing called "open writing" and bound to no language while containing elements of their mother tongues. These open-writing texts are pictography. They commu-nicate by producing a narrative sequence of juxtaposed static images. Still other Mesoamerican writings seem to combine both systems. Elizabeth Hill Boone recently elucidated this distinction between open and closed writing systems by defining the former as "alternative literacies" written in picto-gram tableaux (2000:28-35).

However, the appearance of these types of native books in Europe was a source of both curiosity and wonder. One of the earliest extensive commen-tators we have on them is Peter Martyr d'Anghera, whose family name is lost and whose town of origin, Anghera in northern Italy, is variously spelled in the literature (ie., Anghiera, Angleria). His biographer and translator, Francis MacNutt (D'Angleria 1912, 1:30), gives his epitaph, wherein is stated that he is from "Mediolanum," the district of modern Milan. Considering that Peter Martyr's work is prototypal, commentary must begin with him and then proceed to a limited number of modern scholars whose work ad- vances this present study.

As was true of Christopher Columbus, the scholar-priest known as Peter Martyr d'Anghera (born February 2, 1457; died September 23 or 24, 1526) was born on the Italian peninsula, lived in Spain, and worked for the Spanish Crown. He was not a martyr but was baptized with the name of the Domi nican Peter the Martyr of Verona (d. 1252), whose cult was popular, even fervent, in Italy at the time of Peter's birth.

In 1511, he was appointed by the Spanish emperor Charles V to the post of historiographer and set about writing the official history of the discovery and conquest of the New World, thus he was substantially the New World's first historian. MacNutt (D'Angleria 1912, 1:17) calls him "the first to herald the discovery of the new world, and to publish the glory of his unknown compatriot [Columbus) to their countrymen." He wrote serially from the documentation of Columbus and then from Hernán Cortés as well as their compatriots. Between 1516 and 1587 (many years after his death), a series of publications of Peter Martyr's work appeared, all broadcasting the achieve-ments of Spaniards and glorifying the triumphs of their empire. Because Peter Martyr addressed the clergy and wrote in Latin, his works were not confined to Spain but found audiences all over Europe. There were at least twelve publications of his volumes, and, therefore, his Of the New World (De orbe novo) was the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries' equivalent of a best-seller. His work literally informed Europe of the New World and advertised its wonders and financial possibilities.

Although Peter Martyr held an ecclesiastical appointment to an institu tion in Jamaica, he never visited the New World, and thus there is a tempta-tion to regard him as an armchair ethnographer or merely as one who culled facts (Moreno Garcia and Torres Santo Domingo 2008:5). Some sources (The Catholic Encyclopedia, 1913; Wikipedia; etc.) remark that although Peter Martyr d'Anghera never visited the New World, he financed construction of the first stone church in Jamaica. He did finance a stone construction on the island, but according to the Jamaica National Heritage Trust:

When the Spanish settlement of Sevilla la Nueva was moved from the coast to higher ground, construction of a cut stone Church was started in 1534 by Abbot Peter Martyr of Angleria, Italy. Only the Church walls were built as in 1534 the Spanish centre of Government was moved to Spanish Town.

We know that Peter Martyr d'Anghera died in 1526, but overlooking that, the church remains unfinished even to this present day. The Jamaica National Heritage Trust (cited above) quotes English historian Hans Sloane as follows:

the Church was not finished.... [It was built of a type of stone between free stone and marble, taken from the quarry about a mile up the hill... the west gate of the church was very fine work and stands entire, standing seven feet wide and as high before the arch began. Over the door in the middle was Our Saviour's head with a crown of thorns.

The unfinished building was known as Peter Martyr Church, and as early as 1770 the British were criticized for allowing the unfinished, high-quality structure to fall into ruins. In 1925, the estate owner deeded title to five acres containing the Peter Martyr Church site to the Roman Catholic bishop. Sub-sequently a fund-raising campaign resulted in a new church building, fin-ished in 1943. Located next to the ruins of the original Peter Martyr Church, the new edifice is named Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church.

As to the cognomen of "armchair ethnographer," Peter Martyr d'An-ghera's Latin prose accounts gave Europeans their first impressions of New World peoples, customs, and events. He vividly described the spectrum of New World discoveries ranging from peoples, to animals, to plants. As well, he records the enslavement of New World indigenous peoples by Christo-pher Columbus, the local beliefs on human origins (1:105), and the Euro-pean introduction of animals such as swine (1:113). As a commentator, Peter Martyr managed to convey the freshness and excitement of the original con-tacts between the Spaniards and the new exotic peoples they encountered.

His accounts of these fascinating new peoples are not demeaning. To him, they were truly "new people" with new customs and offered new ad-ventures and, of course, business opportunities. Peter Martyr decried local customs such as human sacrifice and cannibalism. In short, although ad-dressed to Roman Catholic cardinals and at least one pope, his writings, ini-tially and later, found a wide audience in general consumption. Their assign-ment to Spanish and Roman Catholic royalty added to their luster as official documents.



Peter Martyr d'Anghera on Indigenous New World Writing

The subject of indigenous writing, however, is mentioned only once in Peter Martyr's first volume, in Book X (1:237-238).

A learned lawyer called Corales, who is a judge at Darien, reported that he en-countered a fugitive from the interior provinces of the west, who sought refuge with the cacique. This man, seeing the judge reading, started with surprise, and asked through interpreters who knew the cacique's language, "You also have books? You understand the signs by which you communicate with the absent?" He asked at the same time to look at the open book, hoping to see the same characters used among his people; but he saw the letters were not the same. He said that in his country the towns were walled and the citizens wore clothing and were governed by laws. I have not learned the nature of their religion, but it is known from examining this fugitive, and from his speech, that they are cir cumcised. What, Most Holy Father, do you think of this?

To our point, however, Peter Martyr d'Anghera describes native books in Volume 2, Decade 4, Book VIII, pages 39-41 (addressed to Cardinal Egidio Antonini, Legate of Pope Leo X). The first type of book "on which the natives write was made of thin tree-bark-like palm leaves:

We have already stated that these natives possess books. The messengers sent from the new country of Colhuacan brought a number of these books amongst other presents. The pages on which the natives write are made of the thin bark of trees, of the quality found in the first, outer layer. It may be compared to those scales found not precisely in the willow or the elm, but rather in the edible palm leaves, in which tough filaments cross one another in the upper layer, just as in nests the openings and narrow meshes alternate. These membranes are smeared with tough bitumen, after which they are limbered and given the de sired form: they are stretched out at will and when they are hardened, a kind of plaster or analogous substance is spread over them. I know your Holiness has handled some of these tablets, on which sifted plaster similar to flour was sprinkled. One may write thereon whatever comes into one's mind, a sponge or a cloth sufficing to rub it out, after which the tablet may be again used. The natives also used fig leaves for making small books, which the stewards of im portant households take with them when they go to market. They write down their purchases with a little point, and afterwards erase them when they have been entered in their books. They do not fold the leaves into four but extend them to a length of several cubits: they are square-shaped. The bitumen that holds them together is so tough and flexible that, when bound in a wooden cover, they appear to have been put together by the hand of a skilled binder. When the book is wide open, both pages covered with characters are visible, and these first two pages conceal two others, unless they are pulled out to their whole length: for although there is one single leaf, many such leaves are fas tened together.

Peter Martyr notes that a smaller type of book was employed by stewards of important households to take to market, write down their purchases "with a little point," and afterward erase them when the data were entered into a more permanent record. These were actually seen in Europe, a happenstance both interesting and evocative.

A second description (page 41) seems to indicate two types of books by contents, although Peter Martyr is not careful to distinguish between the two types except by description of use. These other books are not four-folded like napkins as large sheets would be but rather extended "to a length of several cubits: they are square-shaped." It is best to reproduce the description in its entirety instead of fragmenting it. Thus, he continues:

The characters are entirely different from ours, and are in the forms of dice. dots, stars, lines, and other similar signs, marked and traced as we do our let ters. They almost resemble the hieroglyphics of the ancient Egyptians. Among the figures may be distinguished those of men and animals, especially those of kings or great lords. Thus it is permissible to assume that they report the deeds of each king's ancestors. And do we not in our own times see engravers of gen eral histories or fabulous stories draw pictures of what is told in the volume? The natives are also very clever in manufacturing wooden covers for the leaves of these books. When these books are closed, they seem to differ in no respect from our own. It is supposed that the natives preserve in these books their laws, the ritual of their sacrifices and ceremonies, astronomical observations, and the precepts of agriculture.

In this passage, Peter Martyr d'Anghera therefore describes two types of Indian manuscripts. The first kind appears to be larger sheets (he calls them "tablets") and smaller ones used for everyday purposes and easily erased and reused. In fact, according to his text, several had been sent to Europe and examined by Cardinal Antonini. The second type (actually two types by contents) of native books is clearly the well-constructed fanfold histories and augural manuscripts (books of fate). In this latter type, Peter Martyr notes the "dice," which are very likely a series of squares or rectangles with circle-date numbers and other illustrations that are known to be indicative of augural codices, such as those in the Borgia group.

He describes another, fourth type of book also, In Volume 2, Book V, De-cade 10, page 206, he cites Ribera about them:

I have already often said that they have books, of which a number have been brought here. Ribera states that these books are not written to be read, but are various collections of designs the jewelers keep to copy in making ornaments, or decorating coverlets and dresses.... I hardly know what to believe, because of the great variety one observes in these books, but I think they must be books whose characters and designs have a meaning, for have I not seen on the obe-lisks in Rome characters which are considered letters, and do not we read that the Chaldeans formerly had a similar writing.

In summary, then, this popular, busy writer indicates to us that the natives of the Spanish New World had four basic kinds of books: erasable notebooks for daily casual use, augural books, history books, and books of patterns and designs for the trade. Yet even the latter he surmises "must have a meaning."

It was not difficult for Peter Martyr d'Anghera to deduce that the native books he had seen were used to record history; as he has it, "it is permis sible to assume that they report the deeds of each king's ancestors." Slightly more than three hundred years later, the American traveler, diplomat, and author John Lloyd Stephens explored the solemn and mysterious Classic Period Maya city of Copan. His companion artist, Frederick Catherwood, meticulously drew the monuments and architecture they found deep in the Honduran jungle. Catherwood used a camera lucida for accuracy, Stephens recognized that many of the monuments contained hieroglyphic writings, and it was not difficult for him to speculate (correctly) that they recorded the history of the place and the deeds of the great lords and kings there. As he says (1969[1841]:159-160): "One thing I believe, that its history is graven on its monuments. No Champollion has yet brought to them the energies of his inquiring mind. Who shall read them?"

The subject of Native American recording of history, despite support for the concept in the testimonies of two seminal authors widely separated in time, has been controversial. In fact, the very idea of Native American writing was itself fraught with controversy. This subject is revisited in the next chapter on historiography and native history with the presentation of the efforts of a few prominent late-nineteenth through twentieth-century commentators. Their studies deal primarily with fanfold manuscripts called codices, but also with later Colonial Period documents such as the cloth Lienzo de Zacatepec and the paper Map of Teozacoalco.