Yesterday’s Today in Virginia: Spanish Spies

One of the overlooked dynamics of the earliest days of Colonial Virginia is the involvement and interest of Spain. Spain, of course, played an integral part in the abandonment of the earliest Virginia colony at Roanoke Island, for it was the war with Spain that prevented Sir Walter Raleigh from dispatching supplies and personnel to replenish them in the New World.

The Spanish Armada was defeated in 1588, and the ephemeral (but violent) conflicts between the two kingdoms ceased with the ratification of the Treaty of London in 1605. But that did not mean the tension was resolved. Spain was not convinced of England’s claim over the North American continent.

The original lines were drawn by Papal Bull in 1494, but England eventually would no longer recognize the authority of the Pope – especially over matters of Geography. After Henry VIII’s protestation, Edward VI chartered the exploration of new lands, disregarding the boundaries set by Pope Alexander VI, which confined England to exploring lands North of 44 degrees latitude (modern-day Bangor, ME, for reference). Under Elizabeth I, tensions heightened between Catholic Spain and Protestant England, and the Virgin Queen granted to Sir Humphrey Gilbert in 1578 the authorization to “discouer, finde, search out, and view such remote, heathen and barbarous lands, countreys and territories not actually possessed of any Christian prince or people.”

Both Spain and England continued to explore the coast line of the North American continent, sometimes engaging in hostilities, always on the lookout for the other. Despite the treaty to restore relations status quo ante bellum, the location for James Fort (Jamestown) was chosen principally for its strategic position to defend against Spanish ships.

Philip_III_of_Spain_(1578_–_1621)_-_Google_Art_Project
Philip III

Philip III maintained a special interest in the goings on of English colonists in the New World. His ambassadors to the court of St. James in England would relay through secret and coded correspondence intelligence back to Spain on Virginia’s development.

On March 12, 1611, Don Alonso de Velasco y Salinas Hurtado de Mendoza (or Don Velasco) sent ciphered correspondence to Philip III of Spain describing the state of affairs of Virginia in its infancy. It provides a valuable and interesting view of the colony from an outside and antagonistic perspective. It is reproduced below:

Sire. Since I have come to this country I have tried to ascertain the condition of the people of Virginia, the reasons which induced the English to continue there and the inconveniences which this might cause Your Majesty’s service. Having found the reports to vary much I have tried to ascertain he truth by means of the persons who have come over in the two ships which have recently arrived through the agency of Guillermo Monson, Admiral of this Strait, who as a person of such high authority among sailors has in secret and with great skill discovered what follows:

That the province is very fertile in all that may be planted and of a good climate – that there is much wild growing fruit and great quantity of grapes, and thus it is believed, that they would try to have vineyards – there is a great abundance of fish along the coast and in the rivers, and good oak timber as well as all the main necessaries for ship building – there is no information of mines of gold or of silver being found, but there are some few of iron.

They have built two forts on the bank of a river [James Fort and Fort Algernon, also known as Point Comfort, now Fort Monroe], and but for these the Indians would have made an end of them, as they are warlike and pursue them continually, so that they cannot come out into the country without great danger, and they would have perished with hunger, if it were not for the swine which they have brought over from Bermuda. It does not appear that they will be able to maintain themselves, unless they bring over so large a number of people that they can make themselves Lords of the Country, as the Indians now are.

Their principal reason for colonizing these parts is to give an outlet to so many idle and wretched people as they have in England, and thus to prevent the dangers that may be feared from them.

They cannot sail from there to the Havana without first touching the Canaries on account of the currents, which follow there the whole coast from the Bahama channel by Florida up to Virginia, which is the way they would have to go, and which are so strong during the whole year that navigation is impossible. Thus I am assured by Monson, who tried it years ago without being able to succeed with it, and he learns the same from those who have after that tried to take that course.

They say also that it is impossible to pass to the South Sea [Pacific Ocean] by the river on which they have erected their two forts. By land it is more than 400 leagues off and many high mountains are there and vast deserts which the Indians themselves never yet have explored. Thus no credit can be given to what the Irishman Francisco Manuel says in the report [June 21, 1610] which Your Majesty commanded to be sent to me.

This King [James] sent last year a surveyor to survey that Province, and he returned here about three months ago and presented to him [King James] a plan or map of all that he could discover, a copy of which I send Your Majesty, whose Catholic Person Our Lord Preserve…

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