Diego de Ordas
Diego de Ordás, also known as Diego de Ordaz or de Ordax, born in Castroverde de Campos, present-day province of Zamora, in 1480, and died during the summer of 1532 on the high seas, en route from Santo Domingo to Spain, he was a Spanish soldier, adelantado and explorer.
His Military Career
The son of Lope de Ordaz and Inés Girón, he arrived in Cuba at a very young age, where he served under Diego de Velázquez and took part in the first explorations of Colombia and Panama. He joined Hernán Cortés in the expedition that he put together for the Conquest of Mexico. On March 25, 1519, in the battle of Centla, near the Grijalva river, in Tabasco, against the Mayan warriors he had an important participation and was one of those who were recognized for the victory obtained.
He was the first European to ascend to the top of the Popocatépetl volcano in the company of two comrades-in-arms, causing a great impression among the natives who accompanied the Cortés expedition. For such a feat and military merits, Emperor Charles V granted him, by decree issued on October 22, 1525, the right to possess a coat of arms with a view of the volcano. This is how Bernal Díaz del Castillo tells it:
The volcano that is next to Guaxocingo cast in that time a lot of fire, from which our captain Cortes and all of us admired it and a captain of ours who were said Diego de Ordás took him greed to go to see what it was (...) and after well seen very joyful the Ordás returned with his companions (...) and when it was Diego de Ordás to Castile he demanded it for weapons (to include the volcano in his coat)Bernal Díaz del Castillo
He participated in the conquest of the Great Tenochtitlan with the rank of captain. On the night of the Spanish defeat, called the Sad Night, he was wounded by Aztec warriors. After the Spanish victory he explored the lands of Oaxaca and Veracruz, and navigated the Coatzacoalcos River.
He was sent to Spain in 1521 to present to the Spanish court the narrative of the conquest of the Aztec Empire and to try to obtain for Cortés the appointment of Governor and Captain General of New Spain.
Díaz del Castillo recalls that Ordaz was a stutterer, and mentions that he lived with an indigenous princess ceded by the inhabitants of Coatzacoalcos as thanks for interceding for them against their Mexica oppressors, although it is unknown if he had children with her.
Back to America
He returned to Mexico around 1525. Despite his recognition as brave and reckless, he also had the fame of a coward, since in this year he was sent by the supporters of Cortés to look for him in Las Hibueras, and found out on the way of the end experienced by Captain Francisco de Medina (the Indians of Xicalanco took him prisoner and sacrificed him in a warrior ritual that consisted of inserting slits of burning resinous torches all over his body so that he could roast little by little) and passage being impossible for another place, he decided to return and not face the Mayans. From Cholula he returned to Mexico and there he said that since it was public and notorious that Cortés had died, there was no need to go looking for him. This is how Antonio de Herrera tells it in his history of the Indies (third decade, book sixth chapter 12): "Captain Diego de Ordás also tried the same thing, but being notified of the event in Medina, he turned back: and because they did not take him for cowardly, he said that Hernando Cortés was dead either because he believed so or because such was the fame”.
Díaz del Castillo adds that Cortés reproached Ordaz for being hasty in declaring him dead, to which Ordaz affirmed that he had never said such a thing and that his letters were misrepresented by Cortés's enemy, Gonzalo de Salazar, who led the campaign in his against. Ordaz continued among Cortés's allies after this incident, and in August 1529 he was granted ownership of the Peñón de los Baños, in the vicinity of Mexico City.
He returned to Spain for the second time and there he witnessed -he was the only conquering captain in New Spain to witness that event- the second and accommodative wedding of Hernán Cortés, held in Béjar in 1529. He arranged his affairs before the authorities reales with fortune because he requested and was granted the right to explore the lands of the mythical El Dorado, which was believed to be inland from what is now Venezuela; that was how he embarked for the third time towards America. In 1531 he arrived at the indigenous town of Uyapari (present-day Barrancas) to explore the Orinoco River and seize all the lands located on its banks, and it is his ambition for power and unbridled search for gold that causes the disappearance of this town, approximately in 1532, where many indigenous people died fighting against the Spanish and others, taking advantage of the darkness and knowledge of the terrain, fled for fear of being killed.
His death
He eventually gave up the search for El Dorado and died at sea in 1532, on a return voyage to Spain.
Acknowledgments
In 1952, Venezuela founded a planned city on the banks of the Orinoco called Puerto Ordaz in honor of Diego de Ordás, which is today one of the main cities in the country.
In the arts and popular culture
Ordaz's ascent to the Popocatépetl volcano is the plot of the film Epitafio (2015), directed by Rubén Ímaz Castro and Yulene Olaizola.
Diego de Ordaz is also one of the main characters in the historical novel by an unknown author Jicoténcal, published in Philadelphia in 1826, attributed to the Cuban philosopher Félix Varela, the Spanish writer Félix Mejía and, in more recent years, the Cuban-Mexican poet José María Heredia.
Used bibliography
- GarcíaCasiano (1952). Life of comedian Diego de Ordaz, discoverer of the Orinoco. Mexico: Jus. OCLC 2724806.
- Herrera, Antonio de (1728). General history of the West Indies or the facts of the Castilians on the islands and land of the ocean. Antwerp: John Baptist Berdussen.
- SimonPeter (1992). Ramos PérezDemetrius, ed. History of Venezuela. Caracas: Ayacucho Library. ISBN 9802762105. OCLC 29891159.
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