“Warlike Women”: Amazons in the Americas

Author: Christopher Columbus; Walter Raleigh

Time Period: 1001 CE–1500 CE; 1501 CE–1700 CE

Country or Culture: Greek; Caribbean

Genre: Legend

Overview

Stories of warlike women might be the most persistent and mystifying legends in Western civilization. From ancient Greek civilization to the discovery of the New World, stories of such women, often called Amazons, have done far more than thrill readers: throughout history, prominent writers and explorers have used these Amazon myths to shape Western cultures.

Amazon legends relevant to the Americas include the accounts of European explorers who set out to discover and conquer the New World. Of particular interest are descriptions by the late fifteenth-century Italian explorer Christopher Columbus and Sir Walter Raleigh (or Ralegh), an English courtier and favorite of Queen Elizabeth I. Inheriting a long history of Amazon narratives, both men offer fairly stock descriptions of warlike women. In his letter of March 4, 1493, to Spanish sovereigns Isabella and Ferdinand, Columbus announces his discovery of what he believed were the Indies. This letter, only recently proclaimed to be the most authoritative version, reveals the challenges and goals of Columbus’s journey, including financial information, the beauty and richness of the islands, and the friendliness and innocence of the native people. His description of warrior women and the cannibalistic men who mate with them appear at the letter’s conclusion as part of a catalog of exotic people encountered. After the women mate with the wild men, Columbus claims, they retain female children and send the males to another island once the boys are old enough to feed themselves.

Sir Walter Raleigh echoes Columbus in his narrative The Discovery of Guiana (1596), which recounts his voyage to a land corresponding to modern-day Venezuela, where a native tells him of the Amazon women who dwell there. Like Columbus’s account, Raleigh’s description is brief and focuses on the women’s mating habits, but he is more flamboyant in his account of the women’s lasciviousness, cruelty, and stores of gold.

Originating in ancient Greece and evolving over the centuries, the stock descriptions employed by Columbus and Raleigh are best understood not as historically true but for what they symbolize to the individuals and the cultures perpetuating them. In both ancient Greece and Renaissance Europe, the mythical warrior women represent aspects of the men who encounter or hear of them. At the same time, the Amazons act as foils to the personal and cultural identities the men wish to construct. However, the stories fulfill these functions differently for the Greeks, for Columbus, and for Raleigh. In ancient Greece, the Amazons appear both as a group and as specific characters who play key roles in defining Greek cultural and military dominance. For Columbus and Raleigh, the Amazons are no longer individual characters but function as strategies for the writers to cast themselves as legendary explorers and conquerors. Particularly for Raleigh, who wrote his narrative as part of an effort to regain the favor of Queen Elizabeth I, the Amazon legend bears rich and complex meanings. A symbolic analysis that contextualizes Amazon legends within key narrative histories reveals the stories’ crucial roles in the self-fashioning and cultural conquest enacted by two celebrated New World explorers.

Summary

Columbus’s description of “warlike women” appears at the end of his letter of March 4, 1493, addressed to the Spanish sovereigns Isabella and Ferdinand. The letter begins with Columbus victoriously announcing his discovery of “the Indies” (Zamora 3), a series of islands that he claims to have possessed without opposition; he specifically states that he has given the islands Spanish names and marked each harbor discovered with a large cross. He describes his initial exploration of the islands, his attempts to communicate with the natives he had captured, and some problems he encountered with supplies and his crew. Columbus then proceeds to praise the temperate climate, exotic vegetation, abundant rivers and harbors, and the mostly naked, friendly natives, who have stone tools and only sharp sticks for weapons. The indigenous people appear to share a common language but have no private property or religion, although they seem to understand “that all powers reside in heaven” (5). Believing that Columbus and his crew are divine, the natives venerate the European men.

Columbus then particularly praises the island he has named La Spañola for its fruit, trees, and gold. He thanks God, who enabled him, difficulties notwithstanding, to discover “gold and mines and spicery and innumerable peoples” (6). Columbus reports that he has left on the island of Española some of his crew, with enough weapons and provisions for one year so that they may “subjugate the entire island without danger” (6). He states that the island is rich in gold, pepper, mastic, lignum aloe, cotton, slaves, and possibly rhubarb and cinnamon, and he stresses that he considers the islands to belong to the crown. Moving on to financial matters, Columbus promises to pay Isabella and Ferdinand a sufficient sum to finance the conquest of Jerusalem, “for which purpose this enterprise was undertaken” (7). He encourages all Christians to celebrate the discovery as a divine blessing and emphasizes the ease with which the pagans will be converted to Christianity. Columbus then voices several complaints, declaring that despite his loyalty and sacrifices, he has received no favor, and “nothing of what was promised [him] has been fulfilled” (7). He requests that his sponsors ask the church to endow a cardinalate on his son and that they appoint one of his crew paymaster of the expedition.

At this point, Columbus describes the marvelous women he encountered on the island that lies closest to Spain. This island, he states, is called Matenino and is “populated entirely by women, without a single man, and their comportment is not feminine, but rather they use weapons and other masculine practices” (8). These weapons include bows and arrows, and they use the abundant copper available to them for their “adornments” (8). Columbus then claims that a second island called Caribo is inhabited by a warlike, cannibalistic people feared by all surrounding groups of natives. He confesses that he hopes to capture these cannibals as slaves and declares that they mate with the women of Matenino, who keep the resulting female children but send the males to another island once the boys can feed themselves. Columbus moves on to describe the island known as Cuba, where he has heard that everyone is born with a tail, and Jamaica, where everyone is bald and where there is “gold in immeasurable quantities” (8). He concludes by wishing his royal sponsors the protection of the “Holy Trinity” (8).

“They which are not far from Guiana do accompany with men but once in a year, and for the time of one month, which I gather by their relation to be in April; at that time all the kings of the borders assemble, and the queens of the Amazones, and after the queens have chosen, the rest cast lots for their valentines. This one month they feast, dance, and drink of their wines in abundance.”

Raleigh’s account of warrior women appears early in The Discovery of Guiana in the context of reviewing the explorations of his Spanish predecessors. After briefly recounting the journey from England, Raleigh describes his arrival in Trinidad, the island itself, the Spaniards he encounters, and the pertinent information they provide. He then touches on previous English-Spanish conflicts in the region and reveals his desire to capture a particular Spaniard named Berreo, whom he does eventually apprehend. He introduces his description of “warlike women” as a digression in the context of discussing the gold and other commodities that lie between the Orinoco and Amazon Rivers. Raleigh then states that he inquired of some of the oldest and “best travelled of the Orenoqueponi” indigenous people to learn about the “warlike” women, whose existence is a matter of debate (61). He states that a leader, called a “cacique,” reported to him that the women dwell on the southern parts of the river near provinces called Topago. Raleigh then refers to similar women in ancient Africa (with Medusa as their queen) and Asia, specifically Scythia. He names Lampedo and Marthesia as queens of the ancient “Amazones,” declaring that “in many histories they are verified to have been, and in divers ages and provinces” (61).

Next, he describes the Amazon women said to exist in Guiana chiefly by focusing on their mating habits. The women, he says, “do accompany with men but once in a year, and for the time of one month, which I gather by their relation to be in April” (61). The Amazon queens first choose their mates, and then the other women “cast lots for their valentines” (61). After a month of feasting and mating, the men depart. The women keep the daughters, even sending a gift of thanks to the fathers, who also receive any sons conceived. Raleigh then states that his source refutes the popular notion that the women cut off their right breast. He concludes by stating that the women are reportedly “very cruel and bloodthirsty” (61), both coupling with and murdering prisoners of war. The women are especially cruel to those who attempt to invade their land, and they have “great store of these plates of gold” (61), which they obtain by trading a highly prized green stone. At this point, Raleigh resumes his discussion of Spanish explorations.

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