The Spanish colonization of the Americas is full of famous figures: Columbus, Cortes, Alvarado. But there were hundreds of conquistadors exploring the continent at the time, and for every successful conquest there were many failures and retreats. One man, Panfilo de Narvaez, is known for several high-profile expeditions, neither of which turned out in his favor.
Narvaez was born in the Castile region of Spain in 1478. His few existing portraits depict a gruff, bearded man with a hardened face and a natural sneer. Narvaez came of age at an exciting time in Spanish history; Columbus had sailed to Hispaniola in the 1490s, discovering an entirely new continent full of unimaginable treasures. Like other men of prominence and means, Narvaez saw an opportunity for fame, adventure, and wealth across the ocean. His first trip to the New World took place in 1509, when he participated in the Spanish conquest of Jamaica. Two years later, he helped conquer Cuba, fighting under the command of the infamous conquistador Diego Velazquez de Cuellar. A frightfully bloody tactic was taken by Narvaez; he rose to infamy when his soldiers massacred a village full of friendly natives in Caonao. The Dominican friar who'd accompanied Narvaez to Caonao even cursed him to the Devil's grasp.
Hernan Cortes the explorer, sailed to Mexico In 1519, and landed on the shores of what is today Veracruz; his men would eventually conquer the Aztec Empire. Velazquez, now the governor of Cuba, had been suspicious of the conquistador from the start. He knew that the conquest of the mainland would dramatically eclipse all of his work in the Caribbean, and suspected that Cortes would not remain loyal to the governorship. Narvaez was sent to Mexico in 1520 (by Velazquez), with a large contingent of men and simple instructions designed to ruin Cortez: bring Cortes back, dead or alive, and take over the conquest.
Narvaez's party landed at Veracruz and found a small group of Cortes' men, left there to defend the new port. By this time, Cortes had arrived at the Aztec capital city of Tenochtitlan and taken the emperor Montezuma hostage. Upon hearing the news that Narvaez had nine hundred men and instructions to arrest him for mutiny and treason, Cortes left Tenochtitlan in the hands of his second-in-command, and took two hundred and sixty soldiers back to Veracruz to face off against this new army. It was a risky move, as they were massively outnumbered.
But Narvaez's confidence proved to be his undoing. Cortes surprised the 900-man contingent with a nighttime attack, during which he took Narvaez prisoner and recruited most of the surviving men to his side. Narvaez remained a prisoner at Veracruz for roughly two years before being released back to Spain. One of his 900 men, a carrier of smallpox, is thought to have been the primary source of the epidemic which decimated the native population.
Back in Spain, Narvaez was appointed to be the Adelantado, or primary conqueror, of Florida. He took five ships and 600 men, and arrived on the Floridian coast in 1528. The attempt was an abject disaster, and proved to be Narvaez' final undoing; hostile natives attacked the party at every turn and food sources ran precipitously low. The expedition lasted four months before the survivors gave up; they attempted to rejoin with friendly forces by builting rafts to sail across the Gulf to Mexico. Narvaez drowned when a storm hit and sank most of the vessels, leaving a legacy of cruel conquest and ineffectual leadership in his wake.
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