Seville
Remember how in fourth grade your big sister taught you this little ear worm, “In fourteen hundred and ninety two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue . . . “?
Whether through the mechanism of that silly ditty or by encountering it in an actual history book, that year, 1492, is etched in all our brains as the year when Europeans discovered America. My friend, Jesus Campos, born and raised in El Salvador, describes that event as the worst catastrophe ever to befall the native peoples of North and South America. And it was. Beginning with Pizarro and Cortez, Europeans and their descendants killed them off or worked them to death or exposed them to fatal diseases by the hundreds of thousands and the millions, initially at close hand with swords and pikes, more recently at distant remove, through proxies, as in the 1980’s when more sophisticated methods eliminated 75,000 Salvadorans and 100,000 Guatemalans.
Ferdinand and Isabella had no way to foresee those consequences of sponsoring Cristobal Colon’s small fleet of discovery, but make no mistake, profit and domination motivated them. Of course, they were aiming at the riches of China and India, and had no idea until Columbus blundered into it that a continent blocked his way to the East, a continent stuffed with unimagined resources of gold and silver.
The Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria launched from the inland city of Seville and cruised 100 kilometers down the Guadalquivir River before striking the open sea. For the ensuing years and decades the Spanish treasure galleons returned always to Seville and there offloaded their loot directly into a riverside annex of the Royal Treasury called appropriately enough El Torre del Oro — The Tower of Gold. There it stands to this day, the Fort Knox of Renaissance Spain.
As the embarkation point for their treasure fleets the Spanish chose and triple-fortified the harbor at Cartagena, Columbia. First, a fort. Second, a massive wall around the city. Third, a seawall across the mile-wide Boca Grande — the harbor’s Big Mouth to the sea. Construction of that seawall with dishwasher-sized boulders took years and cost the lives of an estimated 30,000 native slave laborers, but it worked. Though Caribbean hurricanes took the occasional galleon, pirates never penetrated the fortifications at Cartagena, nor did the English fleet, nor, later, the American fleet.
With the appropriated wealth of the Americas the Spanish for several centuries dominated Europe as the Caesars and Charlemagne had before them, and Seville flourished as the economic center of Spanish Europe. With their wealth the Sevillanos constructed the Cathedral of Santa Maria, the largest gothic construction in the world and the third largest church in all of Christendom. Right inside the front door of Santa Maria lies the elaborately decorated coffin of old Christopher Columbus himself. Thanks for the ride, Chris. It was great while it lasted.
Alas the Guadalquivir River’s navigable channel silted up and after two centuries of more than lucrative Sevillian monopoly, the Spanish Crown moved its treasure port to Cadiz. Overnight Seville’s splendid economy collapsed but its urban beauty and wide boulevards and elegance remain for all to see . . . and its tapas for all to taste. Oh . . . and did I mention Flamenco dancing? The gypsy people of Seville are credited with inventing Flamenco as an expression of their wild and passionate natures, so if you are interested in watching guitarists accompany very talented dancers engaging in prolonged foreplay with all their clothing on, Seville is the place for you.
El Torre del Oro
Seville
hutch adventure 2 
Really enjoying your blog. Interesting, and thought provoking. You seem to be having an amazing time-so happy for you!!!
See you at the 50th!!!!
Love, Debora
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I hope you also saw the Alcazar across from the cathedral. Probably my favorite site in Andalucia.
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That was an amazing story, wow, thank you! You must do a lot of research…. If you two are ever in Ontario, you must come visit…maybe at our cottage on Lake Huron Lori!
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You folks are brilliant, insightful, serious and so much fun to read. Taking time to re-tell some of the sordid history beyond 1492 is fabulously refreshing — dates glued into our memory so that many have created amnesia around numerous historical events! We recall that date as if it is like a SS number or our birth date — my, oh, my!
I kick myself for quoting “Rush Limbaugh” from a WashPost piece, but your post brought it to mind! He spoke harshly of Michelle Obama for “playing the race card” about the Whitney Museum and its visitors by saying “you don’t want to hear this stuff all the time”!
Yes, it needs to be called out all the time! Thanks for keeping it real! Somehow we readers will give you a reward upon your return for your truth telling on the good and not so good while vacationing joyously in a lush place so full of history. Celebrate your friend Jesus, not the other one, but the one who shared history too. Thank you.
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I’m loving the history lessons. Thanks for sharing.
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Hooray for Jesus. Thanks to him and to you both, we are learning lots!
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If you are going to become my history professor I still think I would prefer multiple choice tests! Your lessons rock!!
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Hey, love the history lesson. But, I like the foreplay comment the best. I bet that with all this writing you do not have time for that. Ha,ha…
Jean
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Love your travel blogs….When I traveled there were no blogs so anyone who wanted to hear my travel had to wait till I returned…..!!!!!!!!!!! I loved Spain….but then I really almost love any and everywhere I have been….My tips were not of history but of sites, and eating places……But I do love history….so blog on
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Thanks for all the info. You guys must really be enjoying everything. wishing you a continued happy and safe journey.
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The ‘journey with you is so uplifting’ minus the wicked early history that reveals human-kind at its lowest level in the quest to acquire wealth.
(I’m just happy with my SS check each month and the freedom to spend it/share it/ donate it as I see fit.)
Your brain must be bursting in AWE at the magnificent sites you are enjoying…. keep the history lessons coming.
Mary
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Thanks for sending your notes on your European vacation
Makes me feel as though I am on the the trip with you guys
I just returned back from my daughter Nicole’s graduation from the College of the Holy Cross. Very emotional and rewarding time for my wife and I.
Hope all is well
John Morris
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Hi Bill –
I am loving your recountings. I was in Seville last fall and then in Peru in April. Your account of the Spanish conquests in the Americas was so true in terms of those they did not kill outright or work to death, they infected with disease. To me the irony is that, as you learn in Andalusia, the Spanish also suffered at the hands of invaders – Muslims, Romans, Christians, and later the French. You would think that they would think twice about carrying on the same way in the New World.
In any case, if you are already in Helsinki, you are really all over the place. Would love to catch up when you return and hear not only about your adventures, but how you planned for them. For the time being, have a great trip and keep entertaining us. And, BTW, if it is too difficult to get your nephew involved, Wink can just keep forwarding these to me.
Be well, Betsy Mertens
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