To the most excellent and pious Queen Joanna of Castille and King Ferdinand of Aragon

V MARZO ANNO DOMINI MDXII

The past few years have been a rough time for our efforts in the New World, Several calamities have assailed at the colonies, hurricanes, pestilence and war, disasters that threatened the very existence of the colonial project making it known that failure was not an option. Nevertheless, our pioneers are hardy men and our colonies survived these horsemen of the apocalypse, crawling their way into stability and prosperity, building their way into a profitable enterprise. Nevertheless, this vast wealth has remained firmly in the coffers of the conquistadors with only a portion coming back to Spain besides the fact that this wealth came at a great cost to the locals whom the brutality of our men is renowned across the realm. Prominent figures of the Junta de Indias believe that the time is ripe for comprehensive colonial reform with news confirming these allegations, now that our position in the New World has been firmly entrenched.

The Caribbean region is where calls for reform are most pronounced, given that it is where the best developed colonies are located. Throughout 1507 and 1508 the governments of Nicolas de Ovando and Juan Ponce de Leon in Santo Domingo and San Juan Bautista respectively prosecuted their wars with the native tribes towards a conclusive total victory for Spain. The islands were subjugated by the end of the decade and no major resistance to our rule exists in these areas. However, it is here where the wanton slaughter and disregard of the native lives are most keenly evident. The massacres on the western half of La Española forced us to recall Nicolas de Ovando for his failure to control his men and replace him with Admiral of the Ocean Seas Diego Colon to be his succesor. However, even he stooped as low as his predecessor and continued the draconian violence on the pagans. Juan Ponce de Leon proved to be no better and San Juan Bautista was ravaged by war with the natives concluding by the end of the decade. Right now our objectives in the Caribbean is to claim the islands of Cuba and Jamaica for Spain which Diego Colon’s subordinates are already working to bring them into the fold. Perhaps the best success story so far is Alonso de Ojeda’s Santa Lucia de los Halcones which through shrewed administration, turned a depopulated backwater into a prosperous model colony where families from Spain can find fertile grounds to settle and thrive and contribute a stable diversified economy.

Up North in the lands of La Florida and Nueva Galicia we find a far different story. Being struck by multiple large storms, the original settlements of Cabo del Cañaveral and Cabo de San Brendan were all destroyed, While the colonists at San Brendan managed to survive and were able to establish a succesor colony named Santo Refugio on the otherside of the Bahia de la Reina Isabel, the colonists at Cabo del Cañaveral were not so lucky. The pioneers at Nueva Galica enjoyed some level of common cause with the natives under Lucas Vasquez de Ayllon’s good guidance, while Diego de Nicuesa’s returning expedition to Cabo del Cañaveral finds itself in a violent quagmire with the local tribes. It will be a long time until these lands are in a position to expand outwards or establish a economic niche to build itself towards. We can find solace in the fact that the prosletizyng mission by our vassals in the Knights Hospitalier is going swimmingly and that the tobacco production and trade originating from Nueva Galicia is growing sustainably. Vicente Yañez Pinzon was chartered for another exploratory expedition towards finding this elusive grand river in the west, but his failure to return has us believe that he met his fate somewhere out in the west.

South in the lands of Tierra Firme lies a peculiar situation, Rodrigo de Bastidas was succesful in his colonial war with the Añu and Wayuu expanding his territory significantly. With his vendetta against the native tribes that eluded him for so long in the north now satiated, he turns his sights east on the other side of the bay, founding a new settlement “Nueva Madrid” and fighting their way east. At the same time, Alonso de Ojeda’s pearling operations in Nueva Cadiz and the Araya Peninsula continues to remain the most profitable enterprise for the crown. Thus he began expanding his way west in response to Bastidas’s efforts east, claiming a new settlement: “Nueva Barcelona” and moving west. If this situation was not concerning already of this brewing rivalry between Bastidas and Ojeda, we received reports that Bastidas’ lieutenant: Vasco Nuñez de Balboa left to establish his own colony in the settlement of Cartagena west of Bastidas. This abject mess of colonial projects without permission of La Casa is concerning enough for La Junta to further pressure colonial administrative reform on Tierra Firme otherwise we will find ourselves in an expensive legal dispute and conflict between the colonists.

Finally there is Veragua under Pedrarias Davila. The journey to find the Southern Sea was long and arduous, delayed both by the terrain, local resistance and the encountering of gold reserves to be mined. Nevertheless by the end of the decade, Pedrarias Davila at long last found the elusive Southern Sea, claiming it for God and Spain after years of searching and cheating death while in his way. Pedrarias Davila’s primary objective now, is to investigate the mysterious realm to the west of Veragua as mentioned by the survivors of Colon’s last voyage and to construct a settlement on the coast of the Southern Sea.