Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2007 with funding from
IVIicrosoft Corporation
http://www.archive.org/details/christophercolumOOwinsuoft
(yy
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS
AND HOW HE RECEIVED AND
IMPARTED THE SPIRIT
OF DISCOVERY
BY
JUSTIN WINSOR
They that go down to the sea in ships,
that do business in great waters, these
see the works of the Lord and his won-
ders in the deep. — Psa/ms, cvii. 23, 24
m
1A
LONDON
SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE & RIVINGTON
,St. Punstan's ftjoust
Fetter Lane, Fleet Street, E. C
The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, U. S. A-
Printed by H. O. Houghton and Company.
V,
To FRANCIS PARKMAN, LL.D.,
The Historian of New Feance.
Dear Parkman : —
You and I have not followed the maritime peoples of western Europe
in planting and defending their flags on the American shores without
observing the strange fortunes of the Italians, in that they have provided
pioneers for those Atlantic nations without having once secured in the
New World a foothold for themselves.
When Venice gave her Cabot to England and Florence bestowed
Verrazano upon France, these explorers established the territorial
claims of their respective and foster motherlands, leading to those con-
trasts and conflicts which it has been your fortune to illustrate as no
one else has.
When Genoa gave Columbus to Spain and Florence accredited her
Vespucius to Portugal, these adjacent powers, whom the Bull of De-
marcation would have kept asunder in the new hemisphere, established
their rival races in middle and southern America, neighboring as in
the Old World ; but their contrasts and conflicts have never had so
worthy a historian as you have been for those of the north.
The beginnings of their commingled history I have tried to relate in
the present work, and I turn naturally to associate in it the name of
the brilliant historian of France and England in North America
with that of your obliged friend.
Cambridge, June, 1890.
CONTENTS AND ILLUSTRATIONS.
CHAPTER I.
PAGE
Sources, and the Gatherers of them 1
Illustrations : Manuscript of Columbus, 2 ; the Genoa Custo-
dia, 5 ; Columbus's Letter to the Bank of St. George, 6 ; Co-
lumbus's Annotations on the Imago Mundi, 8 ; First Page,
Columbus's First Letter, Latin edition (1493), 16 ; Archivo de
Simancas, 24.
CHAPTER II.
Biographers and Portraitists 30
Illustrations : Page of the Giustiniani Psalter, 31 ; Notes of
Ferdinand Columbus on his Books, 42 ; Las Casas, 48 ; Roselly
de Lorgues, 53 ; St. Christopher, a Vignette on La Cosa's Map
(1500), 62 ; Earliest Engraved Likeness of Columbus in Jovius,
63 ; the Florence Columbus, 65 ; the Yanez Columbus, 66 ; a
Reproduction of the Capriolo Cut of Columbus, 67 ; De Bry's
Engraving of Columbus, 68 ; the Bust on the Tomb at Havana,
69.
CHAPTER III.
The Ancestry and Home of Columbus 71
CHAPTER IV.
The Uncertainties of the Early Life of Columbus .... 79
Illustrations : Drawing ascribed to Columbus, 80 ; Benincasa's
Map (1476), 81 ; Ship of the Fifteenth Century, 82.
CHAPTER V.
The Allurements of Portugal ^
Illustrations : Part of the Laurentian Portolano, 87 ; Map of
Andrea Bianco, 89 ; Prince Henry, the Navigator, 93 ; Astro-
viii CONTENTS AND ILLUSTRATIONS.
labes of Regiomontanus, 95, 96 ; Sketch Map of African Dis-
covery, 98 ; Fra Mauro's World-Map, 99 ; Tomb of Prince
Henry at Batalha, 100 ; Statue of Prince Henry at Belem, 101.
CHAPTER VI.
Columbus in Portugal 103
Illustrations : Toscanelli's Map restored, 110 ; Map of Eastern
Asia, with Old and New Names, 113 ; Catalan Map of Eastern
Asia (1375), 114 ; Marco Polo, 115 ; Albertus Magnus, 120 ;
the Laon Globe, 123 ; Oceanic Currents, 130 ; Tables of Regio-
montanus (1474-1506), 132 ; Map of the African Coast (1478),
133 : Martin Behaim, 134.
CHAPTER VII.
Was Columbus in the North ? 135
Illustrations : Map of Olaus Magnus (1539), 136 ; Map of
Claudius Clavus (1427), 141 ; Bordone's Map (1528), 142 ;
Map of Sigurd Stephanus (1570), 145.
CHAPTER VIII.
Columbus leaves Portugal for Spain 149
Illustrations : Portuguese Mappemonde (1490), 152 ; P^re
Juan Perez de Marchena, 155 ; University of Salamanca, 162 ;
Monument to Columbus at Genoa, 163 ; Ptolemy's Map of Spain
(1482), 165 ; Cathedral of Seville, 171 ; Cathedral of Cordoba,
172.
CHAPTER IX.
The Final Agreement and the First Voyage, 1492 .... 178
Illustrations : Behaim 's Globe (1492), 186, 187 ; Doppelmayer's
Reproduction of this Globe, 188, 189 ; the actual America in Re-
lation to Behaim's Geography, 190 ; Ships of Columbus's Time,
192, 193 ; Map of the Canary Islands, 194 ; Map of the Routes
of Columbus, 196 ; of his track in 1492, 197 ; Map of the Agonic
Line, 199 ; Lapis Polaris Magnes, 200 ; Map of Polar Regions
by Mercator (1569), 202 ; Map of the Landfall of Columbus,
210 ; Columbus's Armor, 211 ; Maps of the Bahamas (1601
and modern), 212, 213.
CHAPTER X.
Among the Islands and the Return Voyage 218
Illustration : Indian Beds, 222.
CONTENTS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. ix
CHAPTER XI.
Columbus in Spain again ; March to September, 1493 . . . 243
Illustrations : The Arms of Columbus, 250 ; Pope Alexander
VI., 253 ; Crossbow-Maker, 258 ; Clock-Maker, 260.
CHAPTER XII.
The Second Voyage, 1493-1494 264
Illustrations : Map of Guadaloupe, Marie Galante, and Domi-
nica, 267 ; Cannibal Islands, 269.
CHAPTER XIII.
The Second Voyage, continued, 1494 . . 284
Illustration : Mass on Shore, 298.
CHAPTER XIV.
The Second Voyage, continued, 1494r-1496
Illustrations : Map of the Native Divisions of Espailola, 306
Map of Spanish Settlements in Espanola, 321.
CHAPTER XV.
In Spain, 1496-1498. Da Gama, Vespucius, Cabot 326
Illustrations : Ferdinand of Aragon, 328 ; Bartholomew Co-
lumbus, 329 ; Vasco Da Gama, 334 ; Map of South Africa
(1513), 335 ; Earliest Representation of South American Na-
tives, 336.
CHAPTER XVI.
The Third Voyage, 1498-1500 347
Illustrations : Map of the Gulf of Paria, 353 ; Pre-Columbian
Mappemonde, restored, 357 ; Ramusio's Map of Espanola, 369 ;
La Cosa's Map (1500), 380, 381 ; Ribero's Map of the Antilles
(1529), 383 ; Wytfliet's Cuba, 384, 385.
CHAPTER XVII.
The Degradation and Disheartenment of Columbus (1500) . 388
Illustration : Santo Domingo, 391.
CONTENTS AND ILLUSTRATIONS.
CHAPTER XVIII.
Columbus again in Spain, 1500-1502 407
Illustrations : First Page of the Mundus Novus, 411 ; Map of
the Straits of Belle Isle, 413 ; Manuscript of Gaspar Cortereal,
414 ; of Miguel Cortereal, 416 ; the Cautiuo Map, 419.
CHAPTER XIX.
The Fourth Voyage, 1502-1504 437
Illustrations ; Bellin's Map of Honduras, 443 ; of Veragua,
446.
CHAPTER XX.
Columbus's Last Years. Death and Character 477
Illustrations : House where Columbus died, 490 ; Cathedral at
Santo Domingo, 493 ; Statue of Columbus at Santo Domingo,
495.
CHAPTER XXL
The Descent of Columbus's Honors 513
Illustrations : Pope Julius IL, 517 ; Charles the Fifth, 519 ;
Ruins of Diego Colon's House, 521.
APPENDIX.
The Geographical Results 529
Illustrations: Ptolemy, 530; Map by Donis (1482), 531; Ruysch's
Map (1508), 532; the so-called Admiral's Map (1513), 534; Mun-
ster's Map (1532), 530"; Title-Page of the Globus Mundi, 352 •
of Eden's Treatyse of the Newe India, 537 ; Vespucius, 539 ;
Title of the Cosmographice Introductio, 541 ; Map in Ptolemy
(1513), 544, 545 ; the Tross Gores, 547 ; the Hauslab Globe,
548 ; the Nordenskiold Gores, 549 ; Map by Apianus (1520),
550 ; Schoner's Globe (1515), 551 ; Frisius's Map (1522), 552 ;
Peter Martyr's Map (1511), 557 ; Ponce de Leon, 558 ; his
tracks on the Florida Coast, 559 ; Ayllon's Map, 561 ; Balboa,
663 ; Grijalva, 566 ; Globe in Schoner's Opusculum, 567 ; Ga-
ray's Map of the Gulf of Mexico, 568 ; Cortes's Map of the
Gulf of Mexico, 569 ; the Maiollo Map (1527), 570 ; the Lenox
Globe, 571 ; Schoner's Globe (1520), 572 ; Magellan, 573 ; Ma-
gellan's Straits by Pizafetta, 575 ; Modern Map of the Straits,
676 ; Freire's Map (1546), 578 ; Sylvanus's Map in Ptolemy
(1511), 579 ; Stobnicza's Map, 580 ; the Alleged Da Vinci
CONTENTS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. xi
Sketch-Map, 582 ; Reisch's Map (1515), 583 ; Pomponius Me-
la's World-Map, 584 ; Vadianus, 585 ; Apianus, 586 ; Schoner,
588 ; Rosenthal or Nuremberg Gores, 590 ; the Martyr-Oviedo
Map (1534), 592, 593 ; the Verrazano Map, 594 ; Sketch of Ag-
nese's Map (1536), 595 ; Munster's Map (1540), 596, 597 ; Mi-
chael Lok's Map (1582), 598 ; John White's Map, 599 ; Robert
Thome's Map (1527), 600 ; Sebastian Munster, 602 ; House and
Library of Ferdinand Columbus, 604 ; Spanish Map (1527), 605 ;
the Nancy Globe, 606, 607 ; Map of Orontius Finseus (1532),
608 ; the same, reduced to Mercator's projection, 609 ; Cortes,
610 ; Castillo's California, 611 ; Extract from an old Portolano
of the northeast Coast of North America, 613 ; Homem's Map
(1558), 614 ; Ziegler's Schondia, 615 ; Ruscelli's Map (1544),
616 ; Carta Marina (1548), 617 ; Myritms's Map (1590), 618 ;
Zaltiere's Map (1566), 619 ; Porcacchi's Map (1572), 620 ;
Mercator's Globe (1538), 622, 623 ; Munster's America (1545),
624 ; Mercator's Gores (1541), reduced to a plane projection,
625 ; Sebastian Cabot's Mappemonde (1544), 626 ; Medina's
Map (1544), 628, 629 ; Wytfliet's America (1597), 630, 631 ;
the Cross-Staff, 632 ; the Zeni Map, 634, 635 ; the Map in the
Warsaw Codex (1467), 636, 637 ; Mercator's America (1569),
638 ; Portrait of Mercator, 639 ; of Ortelius, 640 ; Map by Or-
telius (1570), 641 ; Sebastian Cabot, 642 ; Frobisher, 643 ;
Frobisher's Chart (1578), 644 ; Francis Drake, 645 ; Gilbert's
Map (1576), 647 ; the Back-Staff, 648 ; Luke Fox's M^ of the
Arctic Regions (1635), 651 ; Hennepin's Map of .M|, 653 ;
Domina Farrer's Map (1651), 654, 655 ; Buache|||^ory of
North American Geography (1752), 656 ; Ma^^Bering'^
Straits, 657 ; Map of the Northwest Passage, 65S
Index
. 661
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
CHAPTER I.
SOURCES, AND THE GATHERERS OF THEM.
In considering the sources of information, which are original,
as distinct from those which are derivative, we must place first
in importance the writings of Columbus himself. We may
place next the documentary proofs belonging to private and
public archives.
Harrisse points out that Columbus, in his time, acquired such
a popular reputation for prolixity that a court fool of Charles
the Fifth linked the discoverer of the Indies with gj^
Ptolemy as twins in the art of blotting. He wrote P'^o^^^y-
as easily as people of rapid impulses usually do, when they are
not restrained by habits of orderly deliberation. He has left us
a mass of jumbled thoughts and experiences, which, unfortu-
nately, often perplex the historian, while they ol necessity aid
him.
Ninety-seven distinct pieces of writing by the hand of Colum-
bus either exist or are known to have existed. Of His
such, whether memoirs, relations, or letters, sixty- ^^*"^^^-
four are preserved in their entirety. These include twenty-four
which are wholly or in part in his own hand. All of them have
been printed entire, except one which is in the Biblioteca Co-
lombina, in Seville, the Lihro de las Proficias^ written appar-
ently between 1501 and 1504, of which only part is in Colum-
bus's own hand. A second document, a memoir addressed to
Ferdinand and Isabella, before June, 1497, is now in the col-
lection of the Marquis of San Roman at Madrid, and was
printed for the first time by Harrisse in his Christophe Co-
lomh. A third and fourth are in the public archives in Mar
drid, being letters addressed to the Spanish monarchs : one with-
out date in 1496 or 1497, or perhaps earlier, in 1493, and the
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
other February 6, 1502 ; and both have been printed and given
in facsimile in the Cartas de Indias, a collection published by
C
A a». irn*- «4» Viitr • *— /
MANUSCRIPT OF COLUMBUS.
[From a MS. in the Biblioteca Colombina, given in Harrisse's Notes on Columbus.']
the Spanish government in 1877. The majority of the existing
private papers of Columbus are preserved in Spain, in the
hands of the present representative of Columbus, the Duke of
Veragua, and these have all been printed in the great collec-
tion of Navarrete. They consist, as enumerated by Harrisse in
his Columbus and the Bank of Saint George, of the following
pieces : a single letter addressed about the year 1500 to Ferdi-
nand and Isabella; four letters addressed to Father Caspar
Gorricio, — one from San Lucar, April 4, 1502 ; a second from
the Grand Canaria, May, 1502 ; a third from Jamaica, July 7,
1503 ; and the last from Seville, January 4, 1505 ; — a memo-
rial addressed to his son, Diego, written either in Deceml»er,
1504, or in January, 1505 ; and eleven letters addressed also to
Diego, all from Seville, late in 1504 or early in 1505.
Without exception, the letters of Columbus of which we have
j^iiin knowledge were written in Spanish. Harrisse has.
Spanish. conjectured that his stay in Spain made him a better
master of that language than the poor advantages of his early
life had made him of his mother tongue.
SOURCES OF INFORMATION. 3
Columbus was more careful of the documentary proofs of his
titles and privileges, granted in consequence of his ^is
discoveries, than of his own writings. He had more p^^i^egea.
solicitude to protect, by such records, the pecuniary and titular
rights of his descendants than to preserve those personal papers
which, in the eyes of the historian, are far more valuable.
These attested evidences of his rights were for a while in-
closed in an iron chest, kept at his tomb in the monastery of
Las Cuevas, near Seville, and they remained down to 1609 in
the custody of the Carthusian friars of that convent. At this
date, Nuno de Portugallo having* been declared the heir to the
estate and titles of Columbus, the papers were transferred to his
keeping ; and in the end, by legal decision, they passed to that
Duke of Veragua who was the grandfather of the present duke,
who in due time inherited these public memorials, and now pre-
serves them in Madrid.
In 1502 there were copies made in book form, known as the
Codex Diplomaticus, of these and other pertinent
documents, raising the number from thirty -six to mpiomati-
forty-four. These copies were attested at Seville, by '^*"
order of the Admiral, who then aimed to place them so that
the record of his deeds and rights should not be lost. Two
copies seem to have been sent by him through different chan-
nels to Nicolo Oderigo, the Genoese ambassador in Madrid;
and in 1670 both of these copies came from a descendant of
that ambassador as a gift to the Republic of Genoa. Both
of these later disappeared from its archives. A third copy
was sent to Alonso Sanchez de Carvajal, the factor of Colum-
bus in Espaiiola, and this copy is not now known. A fourth
copy was deposited in the monastery of Las Cuevas, near
Seville, to be later sent to Father Gorricio. It is very likely
this last copy which is mentioned by Edward Everett in a
note to his oration at Plymouth (Boston, 1825, p. 64), where,
referring to the two copies sent to Oderigo as the only ones
made by the order of Columbus, as then understood, he adds :
" Whether the two manuscripts thus mentioned be the only
ones in existence may admit of doubt. When I was in Flor-
ence, in 1818, a small folio manuscript was brought to me,
written on parchment, apparently two or three centuries old,
in binding once very rich, but now worn, containing a series of
4 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
documents in Latin and Spanish, with the following title on
the first blank page : ' Treslado de las Bullas del Papa Alex-
andro VI., de la concession de las Indias y los titulos, privile-
gios y cedulas reales, que se dieron a Christoval Colon.' I was
led by this title to purchase the book." After referring to the
Codice, then just published, he adds : " I was surprised to
find my manuscript, as far as it goes, nearly identical in its
contents with that of Genoa, supposed to be one of the only
two in existence. My manuscript consists of almost eighty
closely written folio pages, which coincide precisely with the
text of the first thirty-seven documents, contained in two hun-
dred and forty pages of the Genoese volume."
Caleb Cushing says of the Everett manuscript, which he had.
examined before he wrote of it in the North American Heview,
October, 1825, that, " so far as it goes, it is a much more per-
fect one than the Oderigo manuscript, as several passages which
Spotorno was unable to decipher in the latter are very plain
and legible in the former, which indeed is in most complete
preservation." I am sorry to learn from Dr. William Everett
that this manuscript is not at present easily accessible.
Of the two copies named above as having disappeared from
the archives of Genoa, Harrisse at a late day found one in
the archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Paris.
It had been taken to Paris in 1811, when Napoleon I. caused
the archives of Genoa to be sent to that city, and it was not
returned when the chief part of the documents was recovered
by Genoa in 1815. The other copy was in 1816 among the
papers of Count Cambiaso, and was bought by the Sardinian
government, and given to the city of Genoa, where it is now
deposited in a marble custodia, which, surmounted by a bust of
Columbus, stands at present in the main hall of the palace of
the municipality. This " custodia " is a pillar, in which a door
of gilded bronze closes the receptacle that contains the relics,
which are themselves inclosed in a bag of Spanish leather,
richly embossed. A copy of this last document was made and
placed in the archives at Turin.
These papers, as selected by Columbus for preservation, were
Their ubii ^^^*®^ ^y Father Spotorno at Genoa, in 1823, in a
cation by volumc Called Codice diplomatico Colomho-Ameri-
Spotorno. i t i i i
cajio, and published by authority of the state. There
SOURCES OF INFORMATION.
was an English edition at
London, in 1823 ; and a
Spanish at Havana, in
1867. Spotorno was re-
printed, with additional
matter, at Genoa, in 1857,
SiS La Tavola di Bronzo^ il
pallio di seta, ed il Codice
Colombo americano, nuo-
vamente illustrati per cura
di Giuseppe Banchero.
This Spotorno volume in-
cluded two additional let-
ters of Columbus, not yet
mentioned, and addressed,
March 21, 1502, and De-
cember 27, 1504, to Ode-
rigo. They were found
pasted in the duplicate
copy of the papers given to
Genoa, and are now pre-
served in a glass case, in
the same custodia. A third
letter, April 2, 1502, ad-
dressed to the governors of
the bank of St. George, was
omitted by Spotorno ; but
it is given by Harrisse in
his Columbus
Letters to
and the Bank, of the Bank of
CI ' ^ ry St. George.
bamt hreorge
(New York, 1888). This
last was one of two letters,
which Columbus sent, as
he says, to the bank, but
the other has not been
found. The history of the
one preserved is traced by
Harrisse in the work last
mentioned, and there are
THE GENOA CUSTODIA.
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
Vv^ 7v«^^^^/w/ j»*^-^^/tf *>^»t^;9^/LX> ^^^ '•-f^^^/Cc^;?!^^
>W* 1^r^^^pyi>'-€')nA/i^ac<-ziLn^
COLUMBUS'S LETTER, APRIL 2, 1502, ADDRESSED TO THE BANK OF ST.
GEORGE IN GENOA.
[Reduced in size by photographic process.]
SOURCES OF INFORMATION. 7
lithographic and photographic reproductions of it. Harrisse's
work just referred to was undertaken to prove the forgery of a
manuscript which has within a few years been offered for sale,
either as a duplicate of the one at Genoa, or as the original.
When represented as the original, the one at Genoa is pro-
nounced a facsimile of it. Harrisse seems to have proved the
forgery of the one which is seeking a purchaser.
Some manuscript marginalia found in three different books,
used by Columbus and preserved in the Biblioteca
Colombina at Seville, are also remnants of the auto- "^^*^**^
graphs of Columbus, These marginal notes are in copies of
^neas Sylvius's Historia Rerum uhique gestarum (Venice,
1477) of a Latin version of Marco Polo (Antwerp, 1485?),
and of Pierre d'Ailly's De Imagine Mundi (perhaps 1490),
though there is some suspicion that these last-mentioned notes
may be those of Bartholomew, and not of Christopher, Colum-
bus. These books have been particularly described in Jose
Silverio Jorrin's Varios Autografos ineditos de Cristobal
Colon, published at Havana in 1888. In May, 1860, Jose
Maria Fernandez y Velasco, the librarian of the Biblioteca
Colombina, discovered a Latin text of the letter of Toscanelli,
written by Columbus in this same copy of ^neas Toscaneiu's
Sylvius. He believed it a Latin versioi^ of a letter ^^^^''^
originally written in Italian; but it was left for Harrisse to
discover that the Latin was the original draft. A facsimile of
this script is in Harrisse's Fernando Colon (Seville, 1871),
and specimens of the marginalia were first given by Harrisse in
his Notes on Columbus, whence they are reproduced in part in
the Narrative and Critical History of America (vol. ii.).
It is understood that, under the auspices of the Italian gov-
ernment, Harrisse is now engaged in collating the texts and
preparing a national memorial issue of the writings 3^^.^..^^^,^
of Columbus, somewhat in accordance with a proposi- ^^^^^^^^
tion which he made to the Minister of Public Instruc-
tion at Rome in his Le Quatrieme Centenaire de la Decou-
verte du Nouveau Monde (Genoa, 1887).
There are references to printed works of Columbus which I
have not seen, as a Declaracion de Tabla Navigatoria, ^^^^^^^^,^
annexed to a treatise, Bel Uso de la Carta de Na. pnnted
vegar, by Dr. Grajales ; a Tratado de las Cinco Zo-
nas Habitables, which Humboldt found it very difficult to find.
8 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
Of the manuscripts of Columbus which are lost, there are
His lost traces still to be discovered. One letter, which he
writings. jg^^g^j Q^ ^Yie Canaries, February 15, 1493, and which
^itfota Cnfani Titfitm au lr^oV^'^^^fV^v^-•U^
riifo(ii9i«ui(gcarcDcem.ba W-^-ff— •— ^--j^^-
itofb-anrea inooe * 2^a ^^'T
.^ineac frugea oicc b)>cmi3
.^ bominca . dcpbanrca in
# prtaofbe plonmoa Ibi ...^M^^y .^t^».\-5 jcu,r«rr ,
i dbonea%grtflFe9 ac immefo ^tu^x-nuif »-* T>cr»v^ A*r»'%-i ^/ ^p^
fnpta Datoe magna e- 10 a^ v ♦^rru-.jij.^Vii.ViU^
)la ff! lyrnfl para hahifflht
iprebtcati^uropajeflcma , -^
» propter regionrm fiacba h|n*^f*f-rm
.ijmansmagnuoefccnoea ^.u^v.^.r,^^ J^:
am infenorem feu /iPncaj »t.i;;v v^ '^i?^^//
it9 inou oefccnoit a xro\;ii
JO mon rem AOalra. T regi
i?nunc /lr)?mt>ocacur JOI
.n eycne . x,na fuj^ foini , x^ r rU*, ^, .^ ••
• oocqoanunfcfiroTno.^ l^UfK^-i-r-t^^^.
art in m£Oio babicaridnia "^^ •
jcaoetc fep tecrionc i meri
■moniBponeaa t?iffufa(e Hf^ r-^^y U-vwpjT
'> ralucem in mepto cerre ~ »»wii4) K-rr*-
«e babitabilUm'oTTenDiir'
:-'im*ficutrupraDicaimcfl '^
yilib^lnoie.' CaxtJi.
noialnqjacace 9eDrt
iiirabiliu uaaefacc. fOa
i6lgmn_ouo^ cubtconi^ !?^ ^ ♦^♦^'^U.r ^i^ f,^ ^ ^/
pariiit ocrauo fcndcunc • •ST'^-^v »/"^**»-^ii- '^f**^
lamen Terpen cnm qui ibi f ^*->Ali»j:
aflrobu.ni,aibtto;2 logi »?*^^oU .^c^^hpT^^aj^
(^Bq^etungueaprmmc ?s-f^:f ^r?^.
ro in igne am ore alter al
iqm parcntce cofeccoa J2:.^^Tr'»*^^-»HA.*«i«'r/-|Sfi,^
pum parac a-impiud lu ^ '^^'^^'^^f^^fP^^LS^
ANNOTATIONS BY COLUMBUS ON THE IMAGO MUNDI.
[From Harrisse's Notes on Columbus.'^
SOURCES OF INFORMATION. 9
must have contained some account of his first voya"-e, is only-
known to us from an intimation of Marino Sanuto that it was
included in the Chronica Delphinea. It is probably from an
imperfect copy of this last in the library at Brescia, that the
letter in question was given in the book's third part (a. d.
1457-1500), which is now missing. We know also, from a let-
ter still preserved (December 27, 1504), that there must be a
letter somewhere, if not destroyed, sent by him respecting his
fourth voyage, to Messer Gian Luigi Fieschi, as is supposed,
the same who led the famous conspiracy against the house of
Doria. Other letters, Columbus tells us, were sent at times to
the Signora Madonna Catalina, who was in some way related
to Fieschi.
In 1780, Francesco Pesaro, examining the papers of the
Council of Ten, at Venice, read there a memoir of Columbus,
setting forth his maritime project ; or at least Pesaro was so
understood by Marin, who gives the story at a later day in the
seventh volume of his history of Venetian commerce. As Har-
risse remarks, this paper, if it could be discovered, would prove
the most interesting of all Columbian documents, since it would
probably be found to fall within a period, from 1473 to 1487,
when we have little or nothing authentic respecting Columbus's
life. Indeed, it might happily elucidate a stage in the develop-
ment of the Admiral's cosmographical views of which we know
nothing.
We have the letter which Columbus addressed to Alexander
VI., in February, 1502, as preserved in a copy made by his son
Ferdinand ; but no historical student has ever seen the Com-
mentary, which he is said to have written after the manner of
Caesar, recounting the haps and mishaps of the first voyage,
and which he is thought to have sent to the ruling Pontiif.
This act of duty, if done after his return from his last voyage,
must have been made to Julius the Second, not to Alexander..
Irving and others seem to have considered that this Caesarian
performance was in fact, the well-known journal of ^^^^^
the first voyage; but there is a good deal of difii- of h^&^
culty in identifying that which we only know in an
abridged form, as made by Las Casas, with the narrative sent or
intended to be sent to the Pope.
Ferdinand, or the writer of the Ristorie, later to be men-
10 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
tioned, it seems clear, had Columbus's journal before him,
though he excuses himself from quoting much from it, in order
to avoid wearying the reader.
The original " journal " seems to have been in 1554 still in
the possession of Luis Colon. It had not, accordingly, at that
date been put among the treasures of the Biblioteca Colombina.
Thus it may have fallen, with Luis's other papers, to his nephew
and heir, Diego Colon y Pravia, who in 1578 entrusted them
to Luis de Cardona. Here we lose sight of them.
Las Casas's abridgment in his own handwriting, however, has
come down to us, and some entries in it would seem to
by Las indicate that Las Casas abridged a copy, and not the
original. It was, up to 1886, in the library of the
Duke of Orsuna, in Madrid, and was at that date bought by the
Spanish government. While it was in the possession of Orsuna,
it was printed by Yarnhagen, in his Verdadera Guanahani
(1864). It was clearly used by Las Casas in his own Historia^
and was also in the hands of Ferdinand, when he wrote, or out-
lined, perhaps, what now passes for the life of his father, and
Ferdinand's statements can sometimes correct or qualify the text
in Las Casas. There is some reason to suppose that Herrera
may have used the original. Las Casas tells us that in some
parts, and particularly in describing the landfall and the events
immediately succeeding, he did not vary the words of the origi-
nal. This Las Casas abridgment was in the archives of the
Duke del Inf antado, when Navarrete discovered its importance,
and edited it as early as 1791, though it was not given to the
public till Navarrete published his Coleccion in 1825. When
this journal is read, even as we have it, it is hard to imagine
that Columbus could have intended so disjointed a performance
to be an imitation of the method of Caesar's Commentaries.
The American public was early given an opportunity to judge
of this, and of its importance. It was by the instigation of
George Ticknor that Samuel Kettell made a translation of the
text as given by Navarrete, and published it in Boston in 1827,
as a Personal Narrative of the first Voyage of Columbus to
America., from a Manuscript recently discovered in Spain,
We also know that Columbus wrote other concise accounts of
his discovery. On his return voyage, during a gale, on Feb-
SOURCES OF INFORMATION. 11
ruary 14, 1493, fearing his ship would founder, he prepared a
statement on parchment, which was incased in wax,
put in a barrel, and thrown overboard, to take the «on8"rhi8
chance of washing ashore. A similar account, protect- ^"' ''°^**^*'
ed in like manner, he placed on his vessel's poop, to be washed
off in case of disaster. Neither of these came, as far as is known,
to the notice of anybody. They very likely simply duplicated the
letters which he wrote on the voyage, intended to be dispatched
to their destination on reaching port. The dates and places of
these letters are not reconcilable with his journal. He was ap-
parently approaching the Azores, when, on February 15, he
dated a letter "off the Canaries," directed to Luis de Sant-
angel. So false a record as " the Canaries " has never been
satisfactorily explained. It may be imagined, perhaps, that the
letter had been written when Columbus supposed he would"
make those islands instead of the Azores, and that the place of
writing was not changed. It is quite enough, however, to rest
satisfied with the fact that Columbus was always careless, and
easily erred in such things, as Navarre te has shown. The post-
script which is added is dated March 14, which seems hardly
probable, or even possible, so that March 4 has been suggested.
He professes to write it on the day of his entering the Tagus,
and this was March 4. It is possible that he altered the date
when he reached Palos, as is Major's opinion. Columbus calls
this a second letter. Perhaps a former letter was the one which,
as already stated, we have lost in the missing part of the Chron-
ica Delphinea.
The original of this letter to Santangel, the treasurer of Ara-
gon, and intended for the eyes of Ferdinand and Isa- better to
bella, was in Spanish, and is known in what is thought s*^**"8«^-
to be a contemporary copy, found by Navarrete at Simancas ;
and it is printed by him in his Coleccion, and is given by Ket-
tell in English, to make no other mention of places where it is
accessible. Harrisse denies that this Simancas manuscript rep-
resents the original, as Navarrete had contended. A letter
dated off the island of Santa Maria, the southernmost of the
Azores, three days after the letter to Santangel, February 18,
essentially the same, and addressed to Gabriel Sanchez, better to
was found in what seemed to be an early copy, among - san^i^ez.
the papers of the Colegio Mayor de Cuenca. This text was
12 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
printed by Varnhagen at Valencia, in 1858, as Primer a Epistola
del Almirante Don Cristobal Colon., and it is claimed by him
that it probably much more nearly represents the original of
Columbus's own drafting.
There was placed in 1852 in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana at
Printed Milan, from the library of Baron Pietro Custodi, a
editions. printed edition of this Spanish letter, issued in 1493,
perhaps somewhere in Spain or Portugal, for Barcelona and
Lisbon have been named. Harrisse conjectures that Sanchez
gave his copy to some printer in Barcelona. Others have con-
tended that it was not printed in Spain at all. No other copy
of this edition has ever been discovered. It was edited by
Cesare Correnti at Milan in 1863, in a volume called Lettere
autografe di Cristoforo Colombo., nuovamente stampate., and
was again issued in facsimile in 1866 at Milan, under the care
of Girolamo d'Adda, as Lettera in lingua Spagnuola diretta
da Cristoforo Colombo a Luis de Sant-Angel, Major and
Becher, among others, have given versions of it to the English
reader, and Harrisse gives it side by side with a French version
in his Christophe Colomb (i. 420), and with an English one
in his Notes on Columbus.
This text in Spanish print had been thought the only avenue
of approach to the actual manuscript draft of Columbus, till
very recently two other editions, slightly varying, are said to
have been discovered, one or both of which are held by some,
but on no satisfactory showing, to have preceded in issue, prob-
ably by a short interval, the Ambrosian copy.
One of these newly alleged editions is on four leaves in
quarto, and represents the letter as dated on February 15 and
March 14, and its cut of type has been held to be evidence of
having been printed at Burgos, or possibly at Salamanca. That
this and the Ambrosian letter were printed one from the other,
or independently from some unknown anterior edition, has been
held to be clear from the fact that they correspond throughout
in the division of lines and pages. It is not easily determined
which was the earlier of the two, since there are errors in each
corrected in the other. This unique four-leaf quarto was a few
months since offered for sale in London, by Ellis and Elvey,
who have published (1889) an English translation of it, with
annotations by Julia E. S. Rae. It is now understood to be in
SOURCES OF INFORMATION. 13
the possession of a New York collector. It is but fair to say
that suspicions of its genuineness have been entertained ; indeed,
there can be scarce a doubt that it is a modern fabrication.
The other of these newly discovered editions is in folio of two
leaves, and was the last discovered, and was very recently held
by Maisonneuve of Paris at 65,000 francs, and has since been
offered by Quaritch in London for £1,600. It is said to have
been discovered in Spain, and to have been printed at Barce-
lona ; and this last fact is thought to be apparent from the Cat-
alan form of some of the Spanish, which has disappeared in
the Ambrosian text. It also gives the dates February 15 and
March 14. A facsimile edition has been issued under the title
La Lettre de Christophe Colomh, annon^ant la Dicouverte du
Nouveau Monde,
Caleb Cushing, in the North American Heview in October,
1825, refers to newspaper stories then current of a recent sale
of a copy of the Spanish text in London, for X33 12s. to the
Duke of Buckingham. It cannot now be traced.
Harrisse finds in Ferdinand's catalogue of the Biblioteca
Colombina what was probably a Catalan text of this Catalan
Spanish letter ; but it has disappeared from the col- *®^*'
lection.
Bergenroth found at Simancas, some years ago, the text of
another letter by Columbus, with the identical dates
alreadv sriven, and addressed to a friend ; but it con- found by
*' ° . , • 1 o • 1 Bergenroth.
veyed nothing not known m the pnnted Spanish texts.
He, however, gave a full abstract of it in the Calendar of State
JPapers relating to England and Sjmin.
Columbus is known, after his return from the second voyage,
to have been the guest of Andres Bernaldez, the Cura coiumbus
de los Palacios, and he is also known to have placed Krnir'
papers in this friend's hands ; and so it has been held *^'''
probable by Munoz that another Spanish text of Columbus's
first account is embodied in Bernaldez's Historla de los Reyes
Catolicos. The manuscript of this work, which gives thirteen
chapters to Columbus, long remained unprinted in the royal
library at Madrid, and Irving, Prescott, and Humboldt all used
it in that form. It was finally printed at Granada in 1856, as
edited by Miguel Lafuente y Alcantara, and was reprinted at
Seville in 1870. Harrisse, in his Notes on Columbus, gives an
English version of this section on the Columbus voyage.
14 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
These, then, are all the varieties of the Spanish text of Co-
lumbus's first announcement of his discovery which
Varieties of at-
the Spanish are at present known. When the Ambrosian text
was thought to be the only printed form of it, Varn-
hagen, in his Carta de Cristobal Colon enviada de Lishoa a
Barcelona en Marzo de 1493 (Vienna, 1869 ; and Paris, 1870),
collated the different texts to try to reconstruct a possible
original text, as Columbus wrote it. In the opinion of Major
no one of these texts can be considered an accurate transcript
of the original.
There is a difference of opinion among these critics as to the
Origin of the Origin of the Latin text which scholars generally cite
Latin text. ^^ ^j^jg gj.g^ j^^^^^ ^^f Columbus. Major thinks this
Latin text was not taken from the Spanish, though similar to it ;
while Yarnhagen thinks that the particular Spanish text found
in the Colegio Mayor de Cuenca was the original of the Latin
version.
There is nothing more striking in the history of the years
immediately following the discovery of America than
Transient . /•ipi«i/-^ii
fame of the the transient character oi the tame which Columbus
acquired by it. It was another and later generation
that fixed his name in the world's regard.
Harrisse points out how some of the standard chroniclers of
the world's history, like Ferrebouc, Kegnault, Galliot du Pre,
and Fabian, failed during the early half of the sixteenth cen-
tury to make any note of the acts of Columbus ; and he could
find no earlier mention among the German chroniclers than that
of Heinrich Steinhowel, some time after 1531. There was even
great reticence among the chroniclers of the Low Countries ; and
in England we need to look into the dispatches sent thence by
the Spanish ambassadors to find the merest mention
mentions of Columbus SO early as 1498. Perhaps the refer-
ence to him made eleven years later (1509), in an
English version of Brandt's Shyppe of Fools^ and another
still ten years later in a little native comedy called The New
Interlude^ may have been not wholly unintelligible. It was not
till about 1550 that, so far as England is concerned, Columbus
really became a historical character, in Edward Hall's Chron-
icle.
Speaking of the fewness of the autographs of Columbus
SOURCES OF INFORMATION. 15
which are preserved, Harrisse adds: "The fact is that Co-
lumbus was very far from being in his lifetime the important
personage he now is ; and his writings, which then commanded
neither respect nor attention, were probably thrown into the
waste-basket as soon as received."
Nevertheless, substantial proof seems to exist in the several
editions of the Latin version of this first letter, which
were issued in the months immediately following the S LatL°*
return of Columbus from his first voyage, as well as
in the popular versification of its text by Dati in two editions,
both in October, 1493, besides another at Florence in 1495,
to show that for a brief interval, at least, the news was more or
less engrossing to the public mind in certain confined areas of
Europe. Before the discovery of the printed editions of the
Spanish text, there existed an impression that either the in-
terest in Spain was less than in Italy, or some effort was made
by the Spanish government to prevent a wide dissemination of
the details of the news.
The two Genoese ambassadors who left Barcelona some time
after the return of Columbus, perhaps in August, 1493, may
possibly have taken to Italy with them some Spanish edition of
the letter. The news, however, had in some form reached Rome
in season to be the subject of a papal bull on May 3d. We know
that Aliander or Leander de Cosco, who made the Latin ver-
sion, very likely from the Sanchez copy, finished it probably at
Barcelona, on the 29th of April, not on the 25th as is sometimes
said. Cosco sent it at once to Rome to be printed, and his manu-
script possibly conveyed the first tidings, to Italy, — such is
Harrisse's theory, — where it reached first the hands of the
Bishop of Monte Peloso, who added to it a Latin epigram. It
was he who is supposed to have committed it to the printer in
Rome, and in that city, during the rest of 1493, four editions
at least of Cosco's Latin appeared. Two of these editions are
supposed to be printed by Plannck, a famous Roman printer ;
one is known to have come from the press of Franck Silber.
All but one were little quartos, of the familiar old style, of three
or four black-letter leaves ; while the exception was a small oc-
tavo with woodcuts. It is Harrisse's opinion that this pictorial
edition was really printed at Basle. In Paris, during the same
time or shortly after, there were three editions of a similar ap-
16 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
pearance, all from one press. The latest of all, brought to light
but recently, seems to have been printed by a distinguished
9nruKd'5^^^^^S^9^'n>fuperfnoenti0*BdqtU0perqui/
rmdadoccaiu) anted mmfe dufpfdj6t fit inufctiflimf f emant
di'^(paniarum1legiemffrusfba3t:ad07dgnificumdn^ Tla
pbaelem 8atind:dufdan rfrenifTimi Hcgid IZ^cfaurario mifTat
qtiamnobtUd acltmrame rlr BliandcrdeCofco ab'Difpan^
idtomate in lartnum connerrir : reitf o liaTd £Dai)*97«cccc*jrciii^
ponsitoatosSlcjcandri 0e]^ Bnno pifmo*
QtfonfamfttfcepCfjnoiflntffrmiperftrtammccSftcunini
fteffe gratum ribi fbzc fcio: baa conftiruf cjrarare: qo{ re
rniufcuiufcprd in bocnafh*o ittncre geftf inncntfcp ad/
monf ant: Zriceftmorcrtto die poft$ <&adibtt0 difcefTi in mare
5ndjai peruenirrW plurimae infuiae Innamerls babitatas bof
mf hf bad rtrppertrquarum omntum pzo foelictffmio "Regc noflro
p:f conio celcbzaro % rerilliB erf enffe«>nrradjccnrf mminc pof/
fdTioncm accq>i;pzimfcp earom diui 9aluaro2i0 nomcnjtifpo/^
fm':euiUdfiTru9 aunlio ram ad banc:$ ad c^rerae aliaeperue/
nifnu9*£am *3 Jndi ©uanabanin rocanr •Bliarom ctia warn
quancp nouo nomine nuncupam»<Qmppf alta infulam Sanrtg
ibarif (2I6nccprioni9*aliam f cmandmam • aliam "Dpfabcllam*
filiam ^obanam-T fie de rehquie appellari iufTpODampzimum
f n earn inrulam qua dudum ^obana rocari din appulimuetlu
tt^ eiu3 lirtue occidcnrcm rerfue aliqaanrulum pzoccfTntamcp
cam majna nullo rcpcrro fine inuenirrr non infulam: fed conti
nenf em 0>atal piouinciam cffe crcdidennnnul la tn ridens op/
.pida munidpiauc in maritimie lira confmib^ pzf rcr aliquos ri/
C091 p:edia rufhca.cum qno? incolie loqni nequibam-quarefl
mul acnoavidebanr funipicbanrfiigam«Tpiogrcdiebarrltra:
ecifhmane aliqua me rrbem rtllafueinuennxrumriDemc^ridFd
4> longe admodum progrefTis nibil noui cmcrgebarn bmoi via
no9 ad Scprcnrrionem deferebar:q» ipfcfugErccfoprabSctcms
crenim regnabar b iuma: ad Buftrmncp erat in voto corenderes
FIRST PAGE, COLUMBUS'S FIRST LETTER, LATIN EDITION, 1493.
[From the Barlow copy, now in the Boston Public Library.]
Flemish printer, Thierry Martens, probably at Antwerp. It
SOURCES OF INFORMATION. 17
is not improbable that other editions printed in all these or
other cities may yet be found. It is noteworthy that nothing
was issued in Germany, as far as we know, before a German
version of the letter appeared at Strassburg in 1497.
The text in all these Latin editions is intended to be the
same. But a very few copies of any edition, and only a single
copy of two or three of them, are known. The Lenox, the Car-
ter-Brown, and the Ives libraries in this country are the chief
ones possessing any of them, and the collections of the late
Henry C. Murphy and Samuel L. M. Barlow also possessed a
copy or two, the edition owned by Barlow passing in February,
1890, to the Boston Public Library. This scarcity and the
rivalry of collectors would probably, in case any one of them
should be brought upon the market, raise the price to fifteen
hundred dollars or more. The student is not so restricted as
this might imply, for in several cases there have been modern
facsimiles and reprints, and there is an early reprint by Ve-
radus, annexed to his poem (1494) on the capture of Granada.
The text usually quoted by the older writers, however, is that
embodied in the Bellmn Christianorum Principum of Ro-
bertus Monarchus (Basle, 1533).
In these original small quartos and octavos, there is just
enough uncertainty and obscurity as to dates and printers, to
lure bibliographers and critics of typography into research and
controversy ; and hardly any two of them agree in assigning
the same order of publication to these several issues, order of
The present writer has in the second volume of the P"bii«»*>o°-
Narrative and Critical History of America grouped the varied
views, so far as they had in 1885 been made known. The bib-
liography to which Harrisse refers as being at the end of his
work on Columbus was crowded out of its place and has not ap-
peared ; but he enters into a long examination of the question
of priority in the second chapter of his last volume. The ear-
liest English translation of this Latin text appeared in the
Edinburgh Remew in 1816, and other issues have been va-
riously made since that date.
We get some details of this first voyage in Oviedo, which we
do not find in the journal, and Vicente Yanez Pinzon and Her-
nan Perez Matheos, who were companions of Columbus, are
18 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
said to be the source of this additional matter. The testimony
in the lawsuit of 1515, particularly that of Garcia
sources re- Hemandcz, who was in the " Pinta," and of a sailor
specting the
first voyage, named Francisco Garcia Vallejo, adds other details.
There is no existing account by Columbus himself of his ex-
Second voy- pericnccs during his second voyage, and of that cruise
*^®' along the Cuban coast in which he supposed himself
to have come in sight of the Golden Chersonesus. The Historie
tells us that during this cruise he kept a journal, Lihro del
Segundo Viage, till he was prostrated by sickness, and this
itinerary is cited both in the Historie and by Las Casas. We
also get at second-hand from Columbus, what was derived from
him in conversation after his return to Spain, in the account of
these explorations which Bernaldez has embodied in his Reyes
Catolicos. Irving says that he found these descriptions of Ber-
naldez by far the most useful of the sources for this period, as
giving him the details for a picturesque narrative. On disem-
barking at Cadiz in June, 1495, Columbus sent to his sover-
eigns two dispatches, neither of which is now known.
It was in the collection of the Duke of Veragua that Navar-
coiumbus's ^^*^ discovered fifteen autograph letters of Columbus,
letters. £^^j, q£ ^q^^ addrcsscd to his friend, the Father Gas-
par Gorricio, and the rest to his son Diego. Navarrete speaks
of them when found as in a very deplorable and in parts al-
jnost unreadable condition, and severely taxing, for deciphering
them, the practiced skill of Tomas Gonzalez, which had been
acquired in the care which he had bestowed on the archives
of Simancas. It is known that two letters addressed to Gor-
ricio in 1498, and four in 1501, beside a single letter addressed
in the last year to Diego Colon, which were in the iron chest at
Las Cuevas, are not now in the archives of the Duke of Vera-
gua ; and it is further known that during the great lawsuit of
Columbus's heirs, Cristoval de Cardona tampered with that
chest, and was brought to account for the act in 1580. What-
ever he removed may possibly some day be found, as Harrisse
thinks, among the notarial records of Valencia.
Two letters of Columbus respecting his third voyage are only
Third voy- kuown in early copies ; one in Las Casas's hand be-
*^®* longed to the Duke of Orsuna, and the other ad-
dressed to the nurse of Prince Juan is in the Custodia collection
at Genoa. Both are printed by Navarrete.
SOURCES OF INFORMATION. 19
Columbus, in a letter dated December 27, 1504, mentions a
re-
lation of his fourth voyage with a supplement, which he ^^^^ ^
had sent from Seville to Oderigo ; but it is not known. *8®-
We are without trace also of other letters, which he wrote at
Dominica and at other points during this voyage. We do
know, however, a letter addressed by Columbus to Ferdinand
and Isabella, giving some account of his voyage to July 7, 1503.
The lost Spanish original is represented in an early copy, which
is printed by Navarrete. Though no contemporary Spanish
edition is known, an Italian version w^as issued at Venice in
1505, as Copia de la Lettera per Colombo mandata. This was
reprinted with comments by Morelli, at Bassano, in 1810, and
the title which this librarian gave it of Lettera Rarissima has
clung to it, in most of the citations which refer to it.
Peter Martyr, writing in January, 1494, mentions just having
received a letter from Columbus, but it is not known to exist.
Las Casas is said to have once possessed a treatise by Co-
lumbus on the information obtained from Portuguese
and Spanish pilots, concerning western lands ; and he uses coium-
also refers to Lihros de Memorias del Almirante. "^^p*^""
He is also known by his own statements to have had numerous
autograph letters of Columbus. What has become of them is
not known. If they were left in the monastery of San Gregorio
at Valladolid, where Las Casas used them, they have disap-
peared with papers of the convent, since they were not among
the archives of the suppressed convents, as Harrisse tells us,
which were entrusted in 1850 to the Academy of History at
Madrid.
In his letter to Dona Juana, Columbus says that he has de-
posited a work in the Convent de la Mejorada, in work on the
which he has predicted the discovery of the Arctic A^^ti«P«i«-
pole. It has not been found.
Harrisse also tells us of the unsuccessful search which he has
made for an alleged letter of Columbus, said in Gun- Missing
ther and Schultz's handbook of autographs (Leipzig, ^""'"•
1856) to have been bought in England by the Duke of Buck-
ingham ; and it was learned from Tross, the Paris bookseller,
that about 1850 some autograph letters of Columbus, seen by
him, were sent to England for sale.
20 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
After his return from his first voyage, Columbus prepared a
Columbus's ™^P ^^^^ ^^ accompanying table of longitudes and lati-
™*P^* tudes for the new discoveries. They are known to
have been the subject of correspondence between him and the
queen.
There are various other references to maps which Columbus
had constructed, to embody his views or show his discoveries.
Not one, certainly to be attributed to him, is known, though
Ojeda, Nino, and others are recorded as having used, in their
explorations, maps made by Columbus. Peter Martyr's lan-
guage does not indicate that Columbus ever completed any
chart, though he had, with the help of his brother Bartholomew,
begun one. The map in the Ptolemy of 1513 is said by San-
tarem to have been drawn by Columbus, or to have been based
on his memoranda, but the explanation on the map seems rather
to imply that information derived from an admiral in the ser-
vice of Portugal was used in correcting it, and since Harrisse
has brought to light what is usually called the Cantino map,
there is strong ground for supposing that the two had one pro-
totype.
Let us pass from records by Columbus to those about him.
We owe to an ancient custom of Italy that so much
tariai rec- has bccu prcservcd, to throw in the aggregate no small
amount of light on the domestic life of the family in
which Columbus was the oldest born. During the fourteen
years in which his father lived at Savona, every little business
act and legal transaction was attested before notaries, whose
records have been preserved filed in Jilzas in the archives of
the town.
These ^Zzc?s were simply a file of documents tied together by
a string passed through each, and a fiha generally embraced a
year's accumulation. The photographic facsimile which Har-
risse gives in his Columbus and the Bank of Saint George^ of
the letter of Columbus preserved by the bank, shows how the
sheet was folded once lengthwise, and then the hole was made
midway in each fold.
"We learn in this way that, as early as 1470 and later, Colum-
bus stood security for his father. We find him in 1472 the
witness of another's will. As under the Justinian procedure
SOURCES OF INFORMATION. 21
the notary's declaration sufficed, such documents in Italy are
not rendered additionally interesting by the autograph of the
witness, as they would be in England. This notarial resource is
no new discovery. As early as 1602, thirteen documents drawn
from similar depositaries were printed at Genoa, in some anno-
tations by Giulio Salinerio upon Cornelius Tacitus. Other
similar papers were discovered by the archivists of Savona,
Gian Tommaso and Giambattista Belloro, in 1810 (reprinted,
1821) and 1839 respectively, and proving the general correct-
ness of the earlier accounts of Columbus's younger days given
in Gallo, Senarega, and Giustiniani. It is to be regretted that
the original entries of some of these notarial acts are not now
to be found, but patient search may yet discover them, and
even do something more to elucidate the life of the Columbus
family in Savona.
There has been brought into prominence and published
lately a memoir of the illustrious natives of Savona,
- written by a lawyer, Giovanni Vincenzo Verzellino, ^^^'
who died in that town in 1638. This document was printed at
Savona in 1885, under the editorial care of Andrea Astengo ;
but Harrisse has given greater currency to its elucidations for
our purpose in his Christophe Colomb et Savone (Genoa,
1877).
Harrisse is not unwisely confident that the nineteen docu-
ments — if no more have been added — • throwing light Genoa nota-
on minor points of the obscure parts of the life of Co- "^ records,
lumbus and his kindred, which during recent years have been
discovered in the notarial files of Genoa by the Marquis Mar-
cello Staglieno, may be only the precursors of others yet to be
unearthed, and that the pages of the Giornale Ligustico may
continue to record such discoveries as it has in the past.
The records of the Bank of Saint George in Genoa have
yielded something, but not much. In the state archives ^^^^^^^ ^^
of Genoa, preserved since 1817 in the Palazzetto, we the Bank of
' ^ St. George.
might hope to find some report of the great discovery,
of which the Genoese ambassadors, Francesco Marchesio and
Gian Antonio Grimaldi, were informed, just as they were taking
leave of Ferdinand and Isabella for returning to Italy; but
nothing of that kind has yet been brought to light there ; nor was
it ever there, unless the account which Senarega gives in the
22 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
narrative printed in Muratori was borrowed thence. We may
hope, but probably in vain, to have these public archives deter-
mine if Columbus really offered to serve his native country in
a voyage of discovery. The inquirer is more fortunate if he
explores what there is left of the archives of the old abbey of
St. Stephen, which, since the suppression of the convents in
1797, have been a part of the public papers, for he can find in
them some help in solving some pertinent questions.
Harrisse tells us in 1887 that he had been waiting two years
Vatican ar- ^ ^^ pcrmissiou to scarch the archives of the Vatican.
chives. What may yet be revealed in that repository, the
world waits anxiously to learn. It naay be that some one shall
yet discover there the communication in which Ferdinand and
Isabella announced to the Pope the consummation of the hopes
of Columbus. It may be that the diplomatic correspondence cov-
ering the claims of Spain by virtue of the discovery of Colum-
bus, and leading to the bull of demarcation of May, 1493, may
yet be found, accompanied by maps, of the highest interest in
interpreting the relations of the new geography. There is no
assurance that the end of manuscript disclosures has yet come.
Some new bit of documentary proof has been found
manu- at timcs in places quite unexpected. The number of
Italian observers in those days of maritime excitement
living in the seaports and trading places of Spain and Portugal,
kept their home friends alert in expectation by reason of such
appetizing news. Such are the letters sent to Italy
about Co- by Hanibal Januarius, and by Luca, the Florentine
lumbus. . •If. mi
engmeer, concerning the lirst voyage. Ihere are
similar transient summaries of the second voyage. Some have
been found in the papers of Macchiavelli, and others had been
arranged by Zorzi for a new edition of his documentary collec-
tion. These have all been recovered of recent years, and Har-
risse himself, GargioUi, Guerrini, and others, have been instru-
mental in their publication.
It was thirty-seven years after the death of Columbus before,
Spanish under an order of Charles the Fifth, February 19,
archives. 1543, the archivcs of Spain were placed in some sort
of order and security at Simancas. The great masses of
papers filed by the crown secretaries and the Councils of the
SOURCES OF INFORMATION. 23
Indies and of Seville, were gradually gathered there, but not
until many had been lost. Others apparently disappeared at a
later day, for we are now aware that many to which Herrera
refers cannot be found. New efforts to secure the preservation
and systematize the accumulation of manuscripts were made by
order of Philip the Second in 1567, but it would seem with-
out all the success that might have been desired. Towards the
end of the last century, it was the wish of Charles the Third
that all the public papers relating to the New World simancas
should be selected from Simancas and all other places ^"^^ ^'^^^
of deposit and carried to Seville. The act was accomplished in
1788, when they were placed in a new building which had been
provided for them. Thus it is that to-day the student of Co-
lumbus must rather search Seville than Simancas for new doc-
uments, though a few papers of some interest in connection
with the contests of his heirs with the crown of Castile may
still exist at Simancas. Thirty years ago, if not now, as Bergen-
roth tells us, there was little comfort for the student of history
in working at Simancas. The papers are preserved
in an old castle, formerly belonging to the admirals
of Castile, which had been confiscated and devoted to the uses
of such a repository. The one large room which was assigned
for the accommodation of readers had a northern aspect, and
as no fires were allowed, the note-taker found not infrequently
in winter the ink partially congealed in his pen. There was no
imaginable warmth even in the landscape as seen from the
windows, since, amid a treeless waste, the whistle of cold blasts
in winter and a blinding African heat in summer characterize
the climate of this part of Old Castile.
Of the early career of Columbus, it is very certain that
something may be gained at Simancas, for when Bergenroth,
sent by the English government, made search there to illustrate
the relations of Spain with England, and published his results,
with the assistance of Gayangos, in 1862-1879, as a Calendar
of Letters, Despatches, and State Papers relating to Negotia-
tions between England and Spain, one of the earliest entries of
his first printed volume, under 1485, was a complaint of Ferdi-
nand and Isabella against a Columbus — some have supposed
it our Christopher — for his participancy in the piratical service
of the French.
24
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
SOURCES OF INFORMATION. 25
Harrisse complains that we have as yet but scant knowledge
of what the archives of the Indies at Seville may con-
tain, but they probably throw light rather upon the ^^^'
successors of Columbus than upon the career of the Admiral
himself.
The notarial archives of Seville are of recent construction,
the gathering of scattered material having been first
ordered so late as 1869. The partial examination notarfai
which has since been made of them has revealed some ^^^^^ **
slight evidences of the life of some of Columbus's kindred, and
it is quite possible some future inquirer will be rewarded for
his diligent search among them.
It is also not unlikely that something of interest may be
brought to light respecting the descendants of Columbus who
have lived in Seville, like the Counts of Gelves ; but little can
be expected regarding the life of the Admiral himself.
The personal fame of Columbus is much more intimately con-
nected with the monastery of Santa Maria de las Cue-
XX 1 • • 1 • ^ trf\c\ 1 Santa Maria
vas. Here his remains were transported m loOy ; and de las cue-
at a later time, his brother and son, each Diego by
name, were laid beside him, as was his grandson Luis. Here
in an iron chest the family muniments and jewels were kept,
as has been said. It is affirmed that all the documents which
might have grown out of these transactions of duty and precau-
tion, and which might incidentally have yielded some biograph-
ical information, are nowhere to be found in the records of the
monastery. A century ago or so, when Munoz was working in
these records, there seems to have been enough to repay his
exertions, as we know by his citations made between 1781 and
1792.
The national archives of the Torre do Tombo, at Lisbon,
begun so far back as 1390, are well known to have Portuguese
been explored by Santarem, then their keeper, pri- ToVeTo
marily for traces of the career of Vespucius ; but so '^'''^^'
intelligent an antiquary could not have forgotten, as a second-
ary aim, the acts of Columbus. The search yielded him, how-
ever, nothing in this last direction ; nor was Varnhagen more
fortunate. Harrisse had hopes to discover there the corre-
spondence of Columbus with John the Second, in 1488 ; but the
26 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
search was futile in this respect, though it yielded not a little
respecting the Perestrello family, out of which Columbus took
his wife, the mother of the heir of his titles. There is even
hope that the notarial acts of Lisbon might serve a similar pur-
pose to those which have been so fruitful in Genoa and Savona.
There are documents of great interest which may be yet ob-
scurely hidden away, somewhere in Portugal, like the letter
from the mouth of the Tagus, which Columbus on his return in
March, 1493, addressed to the Portuguese king, and the diplo-
matic correspondence of John the Second and Ferdinand of
Aragon, which the project of a second voyage occasioned, as
well as the preliminaries of the treaty of Tordesillas.
There may be yet some hope from the archives of Santo
Dominffo itself, and from those of its Cathedral, to
Santo Do- ...
mingo trace in some of their lines the descendants of the
Admiral through his son Diego. The mishaps of na-
ture and war have, however, much impaired the records. Of
Columbus himself there is scarce a chance to learn anything
Lawsuit here. The papers of the famous lawsuit of Diego
papers. Colou with thc crowu seem to have escaped the at-
tention of all the historians before the time of Munoz and
Navarrete. The direct line of male descendants of the Ad-
miral ended in 1578, when his great-grandson, Diego Colon
y Pravia, died on the 27th January, a childless man. Then
began another contest for the heritage and titles, and it lasted
for thirty years, till in 1608 the Council of the Indies judged
the rights to descend by a turn back to Diego's aunt Isabel,
and thence to her grandson, Nuno de Portugallo, Count of
Gelves. The excluded heirs, represented by the children of a
sister of Diego, Francisca, who had married Diego Ortegon,
were naturally not content ; and out of the contest which fol-
lowed we get a large mass of printed statements and counter
statements, which used with caution, offer a study perhajis of
some of the transmitted traits of Columbus. Harrisse names
and describes nineteen of these documentary memorials, the
last of which bears date in 1792. The most important of them
all, however, is one printed at Madrid in 1606, known as Me-
morial del Pleyto^ in which we find the descent of the true and
spurious lines, and learn something too much of the scandalous
life of Luis, the grandson of the Admiral, to say nothing of the
SOURCES OF INFORMATION. 27
illegitimate taints of various other branches. Harrisse finds
assistance in working out some of the lines of the Admiral's de-
scendants, in Antonio Caetano de Sousa's Historia Genealogica
da Casa Real Portugueza (Lisbon, 1735-49, in 14 vols.).
The most important collection of documents gathered by in-
dividual efforts in Spain, to illustrate the early his- TheMunoz
tory of the New World, was that made by Juan Bau- «o"ection.
tista Munoz, in pursuance of royal orders issued to him in 1781
and 1788, to examine all Spanish archives, for the purpose of
collecting material for a comprehensive History of the Indies!
Munoz has given in the introduction of his history a clear
statement of the condition of the different depositories of
archives in Spain, as he found them towards the end of the
last century, when a royal order opened them all to his search.
A first volume of Munoz' s elaborate and judicious work was
issued in 1793, and Munoz died in 1799, without venturing on
a second volume to carry the story beyond 1500, where he had
left it. He was attacked for his views, and there was more or
less of a pamphlet war over the book before death took him
from the strife ; but he left a fragment of the second volume in
manuscript, and of this there is a copy in the Lenox Library in
New York. Another copy was sold in the Brinley sale. The
Munoz collection of copies came in part, at least, at some time
after the collector's death into the hands of Antonio de Uguina,
who placed them at the disposal of Irving ; and Ternaux seems
also to have used them. They were finally deposited by the
Spanish government in the Academy of History at Madrid.
Here Alfred Demersey saw them in 1862-63, and described
them in the Bulletin of the French Geographical Society in
June, 1864, and it is on this description as well as on one in
Fuster's Bihlioteca Valenciana, that Harrisse depends, not
having himself examined the documents.
Martin Fernandez de Navarrete was guided in his career as
a collector of documents, when Charles the Fourth ^^^^^^^_
made an order, October 15, 1789, that there should be J?J« ««"««-
such a work begun to constitute the nucleus of a
library and museum. The troublous times which succeeded in-
terrupted the work, and it was not till 1825 that Navarrete
brought out the first volume of his Coleccion de los Yiages y
Descuhrimientos que hicieron por Mar los Espanoles desde
28 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
Fines del Siglo ^F!, a publication which a fifth vohime com-
pleted in 1837, when he was over seventy years of age.
Any life of Columbus written from documentary sources
must reflect much light from this collection of Navarrete, of
which the first two volumes are entirely given to the career of
the Admiral, and indeed bear the distinctive title of JRelaciones,
Cartas y otros Documentos, relating to him.
Navarrete was engaged thirty years on his work in the ar-
chives of Spain, and was aided part of the time by
searches of Mufioz the historiau, and by Gonzales the keeper of
the archives at Simancas. His researches extended
to all the public repositories, and to such private ones as could
be thought to illustrate the period of discovery. Navarrete has
told the story of his searches in the various archives of Spain,
in the introduction to his Coleccion, and how it was while
searching for the evidences of the alleged voyage of Maldonado
on the Pacific coast of North America, in 1588, that he stum-
bled upon Las Casas's copies of the relations of Columbus, for
his first and third voyages, then hid away in the archives of the
Due del Infantado ; and he was happy to have first brought
them to the attention of Munoz.
There are some advantages for the student in the use of the
French edition of Navarrete's delations des Quatre Voyages
entrepris par Colomb, since the version was revised by Navar-
rete himself, and it is elucidated, not so much as one would
wish, with notes by Eemusat, Balbi, Cuvier, Jomard, Letronne,
St. Martin, Walckenaer, and others. It was published at Paris
in three volumes in 1828. The work contains Navarrete's ac-
counts of Spanish pre-Columbian voyages, of the later literature
on Columbus, and of the voyages of discovery made by other
efforts of the Spaniards, beside the documentary material re-
specting Columbus and his voyages, the result of his continued
labors. Caleb Cushing, in his Reminiscences of Spain in 1833,
while commending the general purposes of Navarrete, complains
of his attempts to divert the indignation of posterity from the
selfish conduct of Ferdinand, and to vindicate him from the
charge of injustice towards Columbus. This plea does not find
to-day the same sympathy in students that it did sixty years
ago.
Father Antonio de Aspa of the monastery of the Mejorada,
SOURCES OF INFORMATION. 29
formed a collection of documents relating to the discovery of
the New World, and it was in this collection, now pre-
served in the Academy of History at Madrid, that Klmyof
Navarrete discovered that curious narration of the ^^^''^y-
second voyage of Columbus by Dr. Chanca, which had been sent
to the chapter of the Cathedral, and which Navarrete included
in his collection. It is thought that Bernaldez had used this
Chanca narrative in his Reyes Catolicos.
Navarrete's name is also connected, as one of its editors, with
the extensive Coleccion de Documentos Ineditos para
la Historia de Espana, the publication of which was zheumentos
begun in Madrid in 1847, two years before Navarrete's ^"''^'"''"
death. This collection yields something in elucidation of the
story to be here told ; but not much, except that in it, at a late
day, the Historia of Las Casas was first printed.
In 1864, there was stiU another series begun at Madrid,
Coleccion de Documentos Ineditos relativos al Descuhrimiento,
Conquista y Colonizacion de las Posesiones Espanolas en
America y Oceania, under the editing of Joaquin Pacheco and
Francisco de Cardenas, who have not always satisfied students
by the way in which they have done their work. Beyond the
papers which Navarrete had earlier given, and which are here re-
printed, there is not much in this collection to repay the student
of Columbus, except some long accounts of the Repartimiento
in Espanola.
The latest documentary contribution is the large folio, with
an appendix of facsimile writings of Columbus, Ves- cartas de
pucius, and others, published at Madrid in 1877, by ^'^^'^•
the government, and called Cartas de Indias, in which it has
been hinted some use has been made of the matter accumulated
by Navarrete for additional volumes of his Coleccion,
30
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
•►ss^^
- I ,^ I
^ -§ I .s „
'^* n* —
gr I' .1-
- "~ =^'- f ; .g
i^^ ^^ r\*'
-ci- 2^ St-
j^' *>"i a-
* 2, ?;
2%
^tU"
0
CHAPTER II.
BIOGRAPHERS AND PORTRAITISTS.
We may most readily divide by the nationalities of the writers
our enumeration of those who have used the material which has
been considered in the previous chapter. We begin, naturally,
with the Italians, the countrymen of Columbus. We may look
first to three Genoese, and it has been shown that while they
contempo- ^^cd documcuts apparently now lost, they took nothing
rary notices. ^^^^ ^^^^ which wc caunot get f rom other sources ;
and they aU borrowed from common originals, or from each
other. Two of these writers are Antonio Gallo, the official
chronicler of the Genoese Republic, on the first and second voy-
ages of Columbus, and so presumably writing before the third
was made, and Bartholomew Senarega on the affairs of Genoa,
both of which recitals were published by Muratori, in his great
Italian collection. The third is Giustiniani, the Bishop of
Nebbio, who, publishing in 1516, at Genoa, a polyglot Psalter,
added, as one of his elucidations of the nineteenth psalm, on the
plea that Columbus had often boasted he was chosen to fulfill
its prophecy, a brief life of Columbus, in which the story of the
humble origin of the navigator has in the past been supposed
to have first been told. The other accounts, it now appears,
had given that condition an equal prominence. Giu-
Giustiniani. ... -, i-ii i /-^ii i e r^
stmiani was but a child when Columbus leit (jrenoa,
and could not have known him ; and taking, very likely, much
from hearsay, he might have made some errors, which were re-
peated or only partly corrected in his Annals of Genoa, pub-
lished in 1537, the year following his own death. It is not found,
however, that the sketch is in any essential particular far from
correct, and it has been confirmed by recent investigations. The
English of it is given in Harrisse's JVotes on Columbus (pp.
74-79). The statements of the Psalter respecting Columbus
were reckoned with other things so false that the Senate of
32 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
Genoa prohibited its perusal and allowed no one to possess it,
— at least so it is claimed in the Historie of 1571 ; but no one
has ever found such a decree, nor is it mentioned by any who
would have been likely to revert to it, had it ever existed.
The account in the Collectanea of Battista Fulgoso (some-
times written Fregoso), printed at Milan in 1509, is of scarcely
any original value, though of interest as the work of another
Genoese. AUegetto degli Allegetti, whose Ephemerides is also
published in Muratori, deserves scarcely more credit, though he
seems to have got his information from the letters of Italian
merchants living in Spain, who communicated current news to
their home correspondents. Berg^omas, who had pub-
Bergomas. , o ^ x
lished a chronicle as early as 1483, made additions to
his work from time to time, and in an edition printed at Venice,
in 1503, he paraphrased Columbus's own account of his first
voyage, which was reprinted in the subsequent edition of 1506.
In this latter year Maffei de Volterra published a commentary
at Rome, of much the same importance. Such was the filtering
process by which Italy, through her own writers, acquired con-
temporary knowledge of her adventurous son.
The method was scarcely improved in the condensation of
Jovius (1551), or in the traveler's tales of Benzoni (1565).
Harrisse affirms that it is not till we come down to the
casoni, Annals of Genoa, published by Filippo Casoni, in
1708. 1708, that we get any new material in an Italian
writer, and on a few points this last writer has adduced docu-
mentary evidence, not earlier made known. It is only when we
pass into the present century that we find any of the country-
men of Columbus undertaking in a sustained way to tell the
whole story of Columbus's life. Leon had noted that at some
time in Spain, without giving place and date, Columbus had
printed a little tract, Declaracion de Tahla Namgatoria ; but
no one before Luigi Bossi had undertaken to investigate the
writings of Columbus. He is precursor of all the
modern biographers of Columbus, and his book was
published at Milan, in 1818. He claimed in his appendix to
have added rare and unpublished documents, but Harrisse
points out how they had all been printed earlier.
Bossi expresses opinions respecting the Spanish nation that
are by no means acceptable to that people, and Navarrete not
I
BIOGRAPHERS. 33
infrequently takes the Italian writer to task for this as for his
many errors of statement, and for the confidence which he
places even in the pictorial designs of De Bry as historical
records.
There is nothing more striking in the history of American
discovery than the fact that the Italian people furnished to
Spain Columbus, to England Cabot, and to France Verrazano ;
and that the three leading powers of Europe, following as mari-
time explorers in the lead of Portugal, who could not dispense
with Vespucius, another Italian, pushed their rights through
men whom they had borrowed from the central region of the
Mediterranean, while Italy in its own name never possessed a
rood of American soil. The adopted country of each of these
Italians gave more or less of its own impress to its foster child.
No one of these men was so impressible as Columbus, and no
country so much as Spain was likely at this time to exercise an
influence on the character of an alien. Humboldt has remarked
that Columbus got his theological fervor in Andalusia and
Granada, and we can scarcely imagine Columbus in the garb of
a Franciscan walking the streets of free and commercial Genoa
as he did those of Seville, when he returned from his second
voyage.
The latest of the considerable popular Italian lives of Colum-
bus is G. B. Lemoyne's Colombo e la Scoperta delV America,
issued at Turin, in 1873.
We may pass now to the historians of that country to which
Columbus betook himself on leaving Italy ; but about all to be
found at first hand is in the chronicle of JoSo II. of Portuguese
Portugal, as prepared by Ruy de Pina, the archivist ""'**"•
of the Torre do Tombo. At the time of the voyage of Colum-
bus Ruy was over fifty, while Garcia de Resende was a young
man then living at the Portuguese court, who in his Choronica,
published in 1596, did little more than borrow from his elder,
Ruy ; and Resende in turn furnished to Joao de Barros the
staple of the latter's narrative in his Decada da Asia, printed
at Lisbon, in 1752.
We find more of value when we summon the Spanish writers.
Although Peter Martyr d'Anghiera was an Italian, Munoz
34 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
reckons him a Spaniard, since he was naturalized in Spain.
Spanish He was a man of thirty years, when, coming from
writers. Rome, he settled in Spain, a few years before Colum-
bus attracted much notice. Martyr had been borne thither
Peter OH a rcputatiou of his own, which had commended
Martyr. j^-g jj^gy youug naturc to the attention of the Spanish
court. He took orders and entered upon a prosperous career,
proceeding by steps, which successively made him the chaplain
of Queen Isabella, a prior of the Cathedral of Granada, and
ultimately the official chronicler of the Indies. Very soon after
his arrival in Spain, he had disclosed a quick eye for the
changeful life about him, and he began in 1488 the writing of
those letters which, to the number of over eight hundred, exist to
attest his active interest in the events of his day. These events
he continued to observe till 1525. We have no more vivid
source of the contemporary history, particularly as it concerned
the maritime enterprise of the peninsular peoples. He wrote
fluently, and, as he tells us, sometimes while waiting for dinner,
and necessarily with haste. He jotted down first and uncon-
firmed reports, and let them stand. He got news by hearsay,
and confounded events. He had candor and sincerity enough,
however, not to prize his own works above their true value.
He knew Columbus, and, his letters readily reflect what in-
terest there was in the exploits of Columbus, immediately on
his return from his first voyage ; but the earlier preparations
of the navigator for that voyage, with the problematical char-
acteristics of the undertaking, do not seem to have made any
impression upon Peter Martyr, and it is not till May of 1493,
when the discovery had been made, and later in September, that
he chronicles the divulged existence of the newly discovered
islands. The three letters in which this wonderful intelligence
was first communicated are printed by Harrisse in English, in
his Notes on Columhus, Las Casas tells us how Peter Martyr
got his accounts of the first discoveries directly from the lips of
Columbus himself and from those who accompanied him ; but
he does not fail to tell us also of the dangers of too implicitly
trusting to all that Peter says. From May 14, 1493, to June 5,
1497, in twelve separate letters, we read what this observer has
to say of the great navigator who had suddenly and temporarily
stepped into the glare of notice. These and other letters of
BIOGRAPHERS. 35
Peter Martyr have not escaped some serious criticism. There
are contradictions and anachronisms in them that have forcibly
helped Ranke, Hallam, Gerigk, and others to count the text
which we have as more or less changed from what must have
been the text, if honestly written by Martyr. They have im-
agined that some editor, willful or careless, has thrown this
luckless accompaniment upon them. The letters, however,
claimed the confidence of Prescott, and have, as regards the
parts touching the new discoveries, seldom failed to impress
with their importance those who have used them. It is the
opinion of the last examiner of them, J. H. Mariejol, in his
Peter Martyr d'AngJiera (Paris, 1887), that to read them at-
tentively is the best refutation of the skeptics. Martyr ceased
to refer to the affairs of the New World after 1499, and those
of his earlier letters which illustrate the early voyage have
appeared in a French version, made by Gaffarel and Louvot
(Paris, 1885).
The representations of Columbus easily convinced Martyr
that there opened a subject worthy of his pen, and he set about
composing a special treatise on the discoveries in the New World,
and, under the title of De Orhe JVovo, it occupied his attention
from October, 1494, to the day of his death. For the earlier
years he had, if we may believe him, not a little help from Co-
lumbus himself ; and it would seem from his one hundred and
thirty-five epistles that he was not altogether prepared to go
with Columbus, in accounting the new islands as lying off the
coast of Asia. He is particularly valuable to us in treating of
Columbus's conflicts with the natives of Espanola, and Las
Casas found him as helpful as we do.
These Decades, as the treatise is usually called, formed en-
larged bulletins, which, in several copies, were transmitted by
him to some of his noble friends in Italy, to keep them conver-
sant with the passing events.
A certain Angelo Trivigiano, into whose hands a copy of some
of the early sections fell, translated them into^ easy, ^^^^
not to say vulgar, Italian, and sent them to Venice, in
four different copies, a few months after they were written; and
in this way the first seven books of the first decade feU into the
hands of a Venetian printer, who, in April, 1504, brought out
a little book of sixteen leaves in the dialect of that region,
36 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
known in bibliography as the Libretto de Tutta la Navigation
de Re de Spagna de le Isole et Terreni novamente trovati.
This publication is known to us in a single copy lacking a
title, in the Biblioteca Marciana. Here we have the first ac-
count of the new discoveries, written upon report, and supple-
menting the narrative of Columbus himself. We also find in
this little narrative some personal details about Columbus, not
contained in the same portions when embodied in the larger
De Orbe Novo of Martyr, and it may be a question if some-
body who acted as editor to the Venetian version may not have
added them to the translation. The stoiy of the new discover-
ies attracted enough notice to make Zorzi or Montalboddo — if
one or the other were its editor — include this Venetian version
• of Martyr bodily in the collection of voyages which, as Paesi
novamente retrovati^ was published at Vicentia somewhere about
November, 1507. It is, perhaps, a measure of the interest
felt in the undertakings of Columbus, not easily understood at
this day, that it took fourteen years for a scant recital of such
events to work themselves into the context of so composite a
record of discovery as the Paesi proved to be ; and still more
remarkable it may be accounted that the story could be told
with but few actual references to the hero of the transactions,
" Columbus, the Genoese." It is not only the compiler who is
so reticent, but it is the author whence he borrowed what he
had to say, Martyr himself, the observer and acquaintance of
Columbus, who buries the discoverer under the event. With
such an augury, it is not so strange that at about the same time
in the little town of St. Die, in the Vosges, a sequestered teacher
could suggest a name derived from that of a follower of Co-
lumbus, Americus Vespucius, for that part of the new lands
then brought into prominence. If the documentary proofs of
Columbus's priority had given to the Admiral's name the same
prominence which the event received, the result might not, in
the end, have been so discouraging to justice.
Martyr, unfortunately, with all his advantages, and with his
access to the archives of the Indies, did not burden his recital
with documents. He was even less observant of the lighter
traits that interest those eager for news than might have been
expected, for the busy chaplain was a gossip by nature : he liked
to retail hearsays and rumors ; he enlivened his letters with
BIOGRAPHERS. 37
personal characteristics; but in speaking of Columbus lie is
singularly reticent upon all that might picture the man to us as
he lived.
When, in 1534, these portions of Martyr's Decades were com-
bined with a summary of Oviedo, in a fresh publica- oviedo.
tion, there were some curious personal details added to Ra^^io-
Martyr's narrative ; but as Eamusio is supposed to have edited
the compilation, these particulars are usually accredited to that
author. It is not known whence this Italian compiler could
have got them, and there is no confirmation of them elsewhere
to be found. If these additions, as is supposed, were a foreign
graft upon Martyr's recitals, the staple of his narrative still re-
mains not altogether free from some suspicions that, as a writer
himself, he was not wholly frank and trustworthy. At least a
certain confusion in his method leads some of the critics to dis-
cover something like imposture in what they charge as a habit
of antedating a letter so as to appear prophetic ; while his de-
fenders find in these same evidences of incongruity a sign of
spontaneity that argues freshness and sincerity.
The confidence which we may readily place in what is said
of Columbus in the chronicle of Ferdinand and Isa-
bella, written by Andres Bernaldez, is prompted by his
acquaintance with Columbus, and by his being the recipient of
some of the navigator's own writings from his own hands. He
is also known to have had access to what Chanca and other
companions of Columbus had written. This country curate,
who lived in the neighborhood of Seville, was also the chaplain
of the Archbishop of Seville, a personal friend of the Admiral,
and from him Bernaldez received some help. He does not add
much, however, to what is given us by Peter Martyr, though
in respect to the second voyage and to a few personal details
Bernaldez is of some confirmatory value. The manuscript of
his narrative remained unprinted in the royal library at Madrid
till about thirty-five years ago; but nearly all the leading
writers have made use of it in copies which have been fur-
nished.
In coming to Oviedo, we encounter a chronicler who, as a
writer, possesses an art far from skillful. Munoz laments that
38 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
his learning was not equal to his diligence. He finds him of
little service for the times of Columbus, and largely
because he was neglectful of documents and pursued
uncritical combinations of tales and truths. With all his vaga-
ries he is a helpful guide. " It is not," says Harrisse, " that
Oviedo shows so much critical sagacity, as it is that he col-
lates all the sources available to him, and gives the reader the
clues to a final judgment." He is generally deemed honest,
though Las Casas thought him otherwise. The author of the
Historie looks upon him as an enemy of Columbus, and would
make it appear that. he listened to the tales of the Pinzons,
who were enemies of the Admiral. His administrative services
in the Indies show that he could be faithful to a trust, even at
the risk of popularity. This gives a presumption in favor of
his historic fairness. He was intelligent if not learned, and
a power of happy judgments served him in good stead, even
with a somewhat loose method of taking things as he heard
them. He further inspires us with a certain amount of confi-
dence, because he is not always a hero-worshiper, and he does
not hesitate to tell a story, which seems to have been in circu-
lation, to the effect that Columbus got his geographical ideas
from an old pilot. Oviedo, however, refrains from setting the
tale down as a fact, as some of the later writers, using little of
Oviedo's caution, and borrowing from him, did. His opportu-
nities of knowing the truth were certainly exceptional, though it
does not appear that he ever had direct communication with the
Admiral himself. He was but a lad of fifteen when we find
him jotting down notes of what he saw and heard, as a page in
attendance upon Don Juan, the son of the Spanish sovereigns,
when, at Barcelona, he saw them receive Columbus after his
first voyage. During five years, between 1497 and 1502, he was
in Italy. With that exception he was living within the Span-
ish court up to 1514, when he was sent to the New World, and
passed there the greater part of his remaining life. While he
had been at court in his earlier years, the sons of Columbus,
Diego and Ferdinand, were his companions in the pages' ante-
room, and he could hardly have failed to profit by their ac-
quaintance. We know that from the younger son he did
derive not a little information. When he went to America,
some of Columbus's companions and followers were still living.
BIOGRAPHERS. 39
— Pinzon, Ponce de Leon, and Diego Velasquez, -- and all
these could hardly have failed to help him in his note-taking.
He also tells us that he sought some of the Italian compatriots
of the Admiral, though Harrisse judges that what he got from
them was not altogether trustworthy. Oviedo rose naturally in
due time into the position of chronicler of the Indies, and tried
his skill at first in a descriptive account of the New World. A
command of Charles the Fifth, with all the facilities which
such an order implied, though doubtless in some degree embar-
rassed by many of the documentary proofs being preserved
rather in Spain than in the Indies, finally set him to work on a
Historia General de las Indias, the opening portions of which,
and those covering the career of Columbus, were printed at
Seville in 1535. It is the work of a consistent though not
blinded admirer of the Discoverer, and while we might wish he
had helped us to more of the proofs of his narrative, his recital
is, on the whole, one to be signally grateful for.
Gomara, in the early part of his history, mixed up what he
took from Oviedo with what else came in his way, with an avid-
ity that rejected little.
But it is to a biography of Columbus, written by his youngest
son, Ferdinand, as was universally believed up to jfistoHeaa-
1871, that all the historians of the Admiral have been ge^fnaSd
mainly indebted for the personal details and other Columbus.
circumstances which lend vividness to his story. As the book
has to-day a good many able defenders, notwithstanding the
discredit which Harrisse has sought to place upon it, it is worth
while to trace the devious paths of its transmission, and to meas-
ure the burden of confidence placed upon it from the days of
Ferdinand to our own.
The rumor goes that some of the statements in the Psalter
note of 1516, particularly one respecting the low origin of the
Admiral, disturbed the pride of Ferdinand to such a degree that
this son of Columbus undertook to leave behind him a detailed
account of his father's career, such as the Admiral, though
urged to do it, had never found time to write. Ferdinand was
his youngest son, and was born only three or four years before
his father left Palos. There are two dates given for- his birth,
each apparently on good authority, but these are a year apart.
40 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
The language of Columbus's will, as well as the explicit state-
ments of Oviedo and Las Casas, leaves no reasonable ground
for doubting his illegitimacy. Bastardy was no bar to heirship
in Spain, if a testator chose to make a natural son his heir, as
Columbus did, in giving Ferdinand the right to his titles after
the failure of heirs to Diego, his legitimate son. Columbus's
influence early found him a place as a page at court, and during
the Admiral's fourth voyage, in 1502-1504, the boy accompa-
nied his father, and once or twice at a later day he again visited
the Indies. When Columbus died, this son inherited many of
his papers ; but if his own avowal be believed, he had
Ferdinand ncfflected occasious iu his father's lifetime to question
Columbus. 1A1.1 . 1. iTP 1 .
the Admiral respecting his early lite, not having, as he
says, at that time learned to have interest in such matters.
His subsequent education at court, however, implanted in his
mind a good deal of the scholar's taste, and as a courtier in
attendance upon Charles the Fifth he had seasons of travel,
visiting pretty much every part of Western Europe, during
which he had opportunities to pick up in many places a large
collection of books. He often noted in them the place and date
of purchase, so that it is not difficult to learn in this way some-
thing of his wanderings.
The income of Ferdinand was large, or the equivalent of
what Harrisse calls to-day 180,000 francs, which was derived
from territorial rights in San Domingo, coming to him from the
Admiral, increased by slave labor in the mines, assigned to him
by King Ferdinand, which at one time included the service of
four hundred Indians, and enlarged by pensions bestowed by
Charles the Fifth.
It has been said sometimes that he was in orders ; but Har-
risse, his chief biographer, could find no proof of it. Oviedo
describes him in 1535 as a person of " much nobility of char-
acter, of an affable turn and of a sweet conversation."
When he died at Seville, July 12, 1539, he had amassed a
Bibiioteca coUectiou of books, variously estimated in contempo-
coiombina. ^^^^ accouuts at fi'om twelve to twenty thousand vol-
umes. Harrisse, in his Grandeur et Decadence de la Colom-
bine (2d ed., Paris, 1885), represents Ferdinand as having
searched from 1510 to 1537 all the principal book marts of
Europe. He left these books by will to his minor nephew, Luis
BIOGRAPHERS. 41
Colon, son of Diego, but there was a considerable delay before
Luis renounced the legacy, with the conditions attached. Legal
proceedings, which accompanied the transactions of its execu-
tors, so delayed the consummation of the alternative injunction
of the will that the chapter of the Cathedral of Seville, which
was to receive the library in case Don Luis declined it, did not
get possession of it till 1552.
The care of it which ensued seems to have been of a varied
nature. Forty years later a scholar bitterly complains that it
was inaccessible. It is known that by royal command certain
books and papers were given up to enrich the national archives,
which, however, no longer contain them. When, in 1684, the
monks awoke to a sense of their responsibility and had a new
inventory of the books made, it was found that the collection
had been reduced to four or five thousand volumes. After the
librarian who then had charge of it died in 1709, the collection
again fell into neglect. There are sad stories of roistering
children let loose in its halls to make havoc of its treasures.
There was no responsible care again taken of it till a new
librarian was chosen, in 1832, who discovered what any one
might have learned before, that the money which Ferdinand
left for the care and increase of the library had never been
applied to it, and that the principal, even, had disappeared.
Other means of increasing it were availed of, and the loss of
the original inestimable bibliographical treasures was forgotten
in the crowd of modern books which were placed upon its
shelves. Amid all this new growth, it does not appear just how
many of the books which descended from Ferdinand still
remain in it. Something of the old carelessness — to give it no
worse name — has desjDoiled it, even as late as 1884 and 1885,
when large numbers of the priceless treasures still remaining
found a way to the Quay Voltaire and other marts for old
books in Paris, while others were disposed of in London,
Amsterdam, and even in Spain. This outrage was promptly
exposed by Harrisse in the Revue Critique^ and in two mono-
graphs. Grandeur et Decadence^ etc., already named, and in his
Colomhine et Clement Marot (Paris, 1886) ; and the story has
been further recapitulated in the accounts of Ferdinand and his
library, which Harrisse has also given in his Excerptd Colomr-
hiana: Bihliograpliie de Quatre Cents Pieces Gothiques
42 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
Alma tuum facro Tritonia pcdhxs oL'uo
FudittSC indc fcatct necflar:amoma fluunr*
Xc fouet Aegidium qua: poflfidet Aegida Pallas
In formas tribuens vcrtcrc faxa nouasr^
Aegidos in filices vcrtebat corpora terror;
infoUta ex faxis conficis arte vi ros«
>*cr<./c'»^ io*"jy*^L.to\i^^ a-na. 1 4^i.Cofhi ^ioitii-^, ^•j»«mH.
E/w ntf^ fppo »r^>f\^^Jry¥^^r9 ^¥>v^ fyt (^O^h
^U\ £i^4 ^ ^jV!!:^j^:_ggi^/
SPECIMENS OF THE NOTES OF FERDINAND COLUMBUS ON HIS BOOKS.
[From Harrisse's Grandeur el Decadence de la Colombine (Paris, 1885).]
BIOGRAPHERS. 43
Francaises^ Italiennes et Latines du Commencement du XVI
Siecle (Paris, 1887), an account of book rarities found in that
library.
We are fortunate, nevertheless, in having a manuscript cata-
logue of it in Ferdinand's own hand, though not a complete
one, for he died while he was making it. This library, as well
as what we know of his writings and of the reputation which he
bore among his contemporaries, many of whom speak of him
and of his library with approbation, shows us that a habit,
careless of inquiry in his boyhood, gave place in his riper years
to study and respect for learning. He is said by the inscription
on his tomb to have composed an extensive work on the New
World and his father's finding of it, but it has disappeared.
Neither in his library nor in his catalogue do we find any trace
of the life of his father which he is credited with having pre-
pared. None of his friends, some of them writers on the New
World, make any mention of such a book. There is in the cat-
alogue a note, however, of a life of Columbus written about
1525, of which the manuscript is credited to Ferdi- Perezde
nand Perez de Oliva, a man of some repute, who died ^^^*'
in 1530. Whether this writing bore any significant relation to
the life which is associated with the owner of the library is
apparently beyond discovery. It can scarcely be supposed
that it could have been written other than with Ferdinand's
cognizance. That there was an account of the Admiral's
career, quoted in Las Casas and attributed to Ferdinand
Columbus, and that it existed before 1559, seems to be nearly
certain. A manuscript of the end of the sixteenth century, by
Gonzalo Argote de Molina, mentions a report that Ferdinand
had written a life of his father. Harrisse tells us that he has
seen a printed book catalogue, apparently of the time of Munoz
or Navarette, in which a Spanish life of Columbus by Ferdinand
Columbus is entered ; but the fact stands without any explana-
tion or verification. Spotorno, in 1823, in an introduction to
his collection of documents about Columbus, says that the man-
uscript of what has passed for Ferdinand's memoir of his father
was taken from Spain to Genoa by Luis Colon, the Duke of
Veragua, son of Diego and grandson of Christopher Columbus.
It is not known that Luis ever had any personal relations with
Ferdinand, who died while Luis was still in Santo Domingo.
44 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
It is said that it was in 1568 that Luis took the manuscript to
Genoa, but in that year he is known to have been living else-
where. He had -been arrested in Spain in 1558 for having
three wives, when he was exiled to Oran, in Africa, for ten
years, and he died in 1572. Spotorno adds that the manu-
script afterwards fell into the hands of a patrician, Marini,
from whom Alfonzo de UUua received it, and translated it into
Italian. It is shown, however, that Marini was not living at
this time. The original Spanish, if that was the tongue of the
manuscript, then disappeared, and the world has only known it
in this Italian Ilistorie, published in 1571. Whether
Character Tiiii
of the His- the copy brought to Italy had been m any way
changed from its original condition, or whether the
version then made public fairly represented it, there does not
seem any way of determining to the satisfaction of everybody.
At all events, the world thought it had got something of value
and of authority, and in sundry editions and retranslations,
with more or less editing and augmentation, it has passed down
to our time — the last edition appearing in 1867 — unques-
tioned for its service to the biographers of Columbus. Muiloz
hardly knew what to make of some of "its unaccountable
errors," and conjectured that the Italian version had been made
from "a corrupt and false copy;" and coupling with it the
" miserable " Spanish rendering in Barcia's Historiadores^
Munoz adds that " a number of falsities and absurdities is dis-
cernible in both." Humboldt had indeed expressed wonder at
the ignorance of the book in nautical matters, considering the
reputation which Ferdinand held in such affairs. It began the
Admiral's story in detail when he was said to be fifty-six years
of age. It has never been clear to all minds that Ferdinand's
asseveration of a youthful want of curiosity respecting the
Admiral's early life was sufficient to account for so much reti-
cence respecting that formative period. It has been, accord-
ingly, sometimes suspected that a desire to ignore the family's
early insignificance rather than ignorance had most to do with
this absence of information. This seems to be Irving's infer-
ence from the facts.
In 1871, Henry Harrisse, who in 1866 had written of the
Attacked by book, " It is generally accepted with some latitude,"
Hamsse. made the first assault on its integrity, in his Fer-
I
BIOGRAPHERS. 45
nando Colon, published in Seville, in Spanish, which was fol-
lowed the next year by his Fernand Colomb, in the original
French text as it had been written, and published at Paris.
Harrisse's view was reenforced in the Additions to his Bihlio-
theca Americana Vetustissima, and he again reverted to the
subject in the first volume of his Christophe Colomb, in 1884.
In the interim the entire text of Las Casas's Historia had been
published for the first time, rendering a comparison of the two
books more easy. Harrisse availed himself of this facility of
examination, and made no abatement of his confident disbe-
lief. That Las Casas borrowed from the Historie, or rather that
the two books had a common source, Harrisse thinks satisfac-
torily shown. He further throws out the hint that this source,
or prototype, may have been one of the lost essays of Ferdi-
nand, in which he had followed the career of his father ; or in-
deed, in some way, the account written by Oliva may have
formed the basis of the book. He further implies that, in the
transformation to the Italian edition of 1571, there were en-
grafted upon the narrative many contradictions and anachron-
isms, which seriously impair its value. Hence, as he contends,
it is a shame to impose its authorship in that foreign shape
upon Ferdinand. He also denies in the main the story of its
transmission as told by Spotorno.
So much of this book as is authentic, and may be found to be
corroborated by other evidence, may very likely be due to the
manuscript of Oliva, transported to Italy, and used as the
work of Ferdinand Columbus, to give it larger interest than
the name of Oliva would carry ; while, to gratify prejudices and
increase its attractions, the various interpolations were made,
which Harrisse thinks — and with much reason — could not
have proceeded from one so near to Columbus, so well informed,
and so kindly in disposition as we know his son Ferdinand
to have been.
So iconoclastic an outburst was sure to elicit vindicators of
the world's faith as it had long been held. In counter publica-
tions, Harrisse and D'Avezac, the latter an eminent French au-
thority on questions of this period, fought out their battle, not
without some sharpness. Henry Stevens, an old an-
tas^onist of Harrisse, assailed the new views with his 'Stevens and
. • r\ others.
accustomed confidence and rasping assertion. Oscar
46 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
Peschel, the German historian, and Count Circourt, the French
student, gave their opposing opinions ; and the issue has been
joined by others, particularly within a few years by Prospero
Peragallo, the pastor of an Italian church in Lisbon, who
has pressed defensive views with some force in his L'Auten-
ticitd delle Historie di Fernando Colombo (1884), and later
in his Cristoforo Colombo et sua Famiglia (1888). It is
held by some of these later advocates of the book that parts
of the original Spanish text can be identified in Las Casas.
The controversy has thus had two stages. The first was marked
by the strenuousness of D'Avezac fifteen years ago. The sec-
ond sprang from the renewed propositions of Harrisse in his
Christophe Colombo ten years later. Sundry critics have
summed up the opposing arguments with more or less tendency
to oppose the iconoclast, and chief among them are two Ger-
man scholars : Professor Max Biidinger, in his Acten zur Co-
lumbus' Geschichte (Wien, 1886), and his Zur Columbus Lit-
eratur (Wien, 1889) ; and Professor Eugen Gelcich, in the
Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft fiir Tlrdhunde %u Berlin (1887).
Harrisse's views cannot be said to have conquered a position ;
but his own scrutiny and that which he has engendered in
others have done good work in keeping the Historie constantly
subject to critical caution. Dr. Shea still says of it : " It is
based on the same documents of Christopher Columbus which
Las Casas used. It is a work of authority."
Reference has already been made to the tardy publication of
the narrative of Las Casas. Columbus had been dead
Las Casas. i i • i
something over twenty years, when this good man set
about the task of describing in this work what he had seen and
heard respecting the New World, — or at least this is the gen-
erally accredited interval, making him begin the work in 1527 ;
and yet it is best to remember that Helps could not find any
positive evidence of his being at work on the manuscript be-
fore 1552. Las Casas did not live to finish the task, though he
labored upon it down to 1561, when he was eighty-seven years
old. He died five years later. Irving, who made great use of
Las Casas, professed to consult him with that caution which
he deemed necessary in respect to a writer given to prejudice
and overheated zeal. For the period of Columbus's public life
BIOGRAPHERS. 47
(1492-1506), no other one of his contemporaries gives us so
much of documentary proof. Of the thirty-one papers, falling
within this interval, which he transcribed into his pages nearly
in their entirety, — throwing out some preserved in the archives
of the Duke of Veragua, and others found at Simancas or Sev-
ille, — there remain seventeen, that would be lost to us but for
this faithful chronicler. How did he command this rich re-
source ? As a native of Seville, Las Casas had come there to
be consecrated as bishop in 1544, and again in 1547, after he
had quitted the New World forever. At this time the family
papers of Columbus, then held for Luis Colon, a minor, were
locked up in a strong box in the custody of the monks of the
neighboring monastery of Las Cuevas. There is no evidence,
however, that the chest was opened for the inspectiou of the
chronicler. He also professes to use original letters sent by
Columbus to Ferdinand and Isabella, which he must have found
in the archives at Valladolid before 1545, or at Simancas after
that date. Again he speaks of citing as in his own collection
attested copies of some of Columbus's letters.
In 1550, and during his later years. Las Casas lived in the
monastery of San Gregorio, at Valladolid, leaving it only for
visits to Toledo or Madrid, unless it was for briefer visits to
Simancas, not far off. Some of the documents, which he might
have found in that repository, are not at present in those
archives. It was there that he might have found numerous let-
ters which he cites, but which are not otherwise known. From
the use Las Casas makes of them, it would seem that they
were of more importance in showing the discontent and
querulousness of Columbus than as adding to details of his
career. Again it appears clear that Las Casas got documents
in some way from the royal archives. We know the journal of
Columbus on his first voyage only from the abridgment which
Las Casas made of it, and much the same is true of the record
of his third voyage.
In some portion, at least, of his citations from the letters of
Columbus, there may be reason to think that Las Casas took
them at second hand, and Harrisse, with his belief in the deriv-
ative character of the Historie of Ferdinand Columbus, very
easily conjectures that this primal source may have- been the
manuscript upon which the compiler of the Historie was equally
48
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
dependent. One kind of reasoning which Harrisse uses is this :
If Las Casas had used the original Latin of the correspondence
with Toscanelli, instead of the text of this supposed Spanish
LAS CASAS.
prototype, it would not appear in so bad a state as it does in Las
Casas's book.
If this missing prototype of the Historie was among Ferdi-
nand's books in his library, which had been removed from his
BIOGRAPHERS. 49
house in 1544 to the convent of San Pablo in Seville, and was
not removed to the cathedral till 1552, it may also have hap-
pened that along with it he used there the De Imagine Mundi
of Pierre d'Ailly, Columbus's own copy of which was, and still
is, preserved in the Biblioteca Colombina, and shows the Ad-
miral's own manuscript annotations.
It was in the chapel of San Pablo that Las Casas had been
consecrated as bishop in 1544, and his associations with the
monks could have given easy access to what they held in cus-
tody, — too easy, perhaps, if Harrisse's supposition is correct,
that they let him take away the map which Toscanelli sent to
Columbus, and which would account for its not being in the
library now.
We know, also, that Las Casas had use of the famous letter
respecting his third voyage, which the Admiral ad- Hisoppor-
dressed to the nurse of the Infant Don Juan, and ^""i"^^-
which was first laid before modern students when Spotorno
printed it, in 1823. We further understand that the account of
the fourth voyage, which students now call, in its Italian form,
the Letter a Barissima, was also at his disposal, as were many
letters of Bartholomew, the brother of Columbus, though they
apparently only elucidate the African voyage of Diaz.
In addition to these manuscript sources. Las Casas shows
that, as a student, he was familiar with and appreciated the
decades of Peter Martyr, and had read the accounts of Colum-
bus in Garcia de Resende, Barros, and Castaneda, — to say
nothing of what he may have derived from the supposable pro-
totype of the Historie. It is certain that his personal acquaint-
ance brought him into relations with the Admiral himself, — for
he accompanied him on his fourth voyage, — with the Admiral's
brother, son, and son's wife ; and moreover his own father and
uncle had sailed with Columbus. There were, among his other
acquaintances, the Archbishop of Seville, Pinzon, and other
of the contemporary navigators. It has been claimed by some,
not accurately, we suspect, that Las Casas had also accom-
panied Columbus on his third voyage. Notwithstanding all
these opportunities of acquiring a thorough intimacy with the
story of Columbus, it is contended by Harrisse that the aid af-
forded by Las Casas disappoints one; and that all essential
data with which his narrative is supplied can be found else-
50 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
where, nearer the primal source. This condition arises, as he
Character of thinks, f rom the fact that the one engrossing purpose
his writings. q£ j^^^ Casas — his aim to emancipate the Indians from
a cruel domination — constantly stood in the way of a critical
consideration of the other aspects of the early Spanish contact
with the New World. It was while at the University of Sala-
manca that the father of Las Casas gave the son an Indian
slave, one of those whom Columbus had sent home ; and it was
taken from the young student when Isabella decreed the undo-
ing of Columbus's kidnapping exploits. It was this event
which set Las Casas to thinking on the miseries of the poor
natives, which Columbus had planned, and which enables us to
discover, in the example of Las Casas, that the customs of the
time are not altogether an unanswerable defense of the time's
inhumanity and greed.
As is well known, aU but the most recent writers on Spanish-
American history have been forced to use this work of Las
Casas in manuscript copies, as a license to print such an expo-
sure of Spanish cruelty could not be obtained till 1875, when
the Historia was first printed at Madrid.
Herrera, so far as his record concerns Columbus, simply gives
us what he takes from Las Casas. He was born about
the time that the older writer was probably making
his investigations. Herrera did not publish his results, which
are slavishly chronological in their method, till half a century
later (1601-15). Though then the official historiographer of the
Indies, with all the chances for close investigation which that
situation afforded him, Herrera failed in all ways to make the
record of his Historia that comprehensive and genuine source
of the story of Columbus which the reader might naturally look
for. The continued obscuration of Las Casas by reason of the
long delay in printing his manuscript served to give Herrera,
through many generations, a prominence as an authoritative
source which he could not otherwise have had. Irving, when
he worked at the subject, soon discovered that Las Casas stood
behind the story as Herrera told it, and accordingly the Ameri-
can writer resorted by preference to such a copy of the manu-
script of Las Casas as he could get. There is a manifest
tendency in Herrera to turn Las Casas's qualified statements
into absolute ones.
BIOGRAPHERS. 51
The personal contributions of the later writers, Munoz and
Navarreta, have been already considered, in speaking ^a^^ g ^
of the diversified mass of documentary proofs which ^ writers.
accompany or gave rise to their narratives.
The Colon en Espana of Tomas Rodriguez Pinilla (Madrid,
1884) is in effect a life of the Admiral ; but it ignores much of
the recent critical and controversial literature, and deals mainly
with the old established outline of events.
Among the Germans there was nothing published of any im-
portance till the critical studies of Forster, Peschel, German
and Ruge, in recent days. De Bry had, indeed, by ^^*e"'
his translations of Benzoni (1594) and Herrera (1623), famil-
iarized the Germans with the main facts of the career of Colum-
bus. During the present century, Humboldt, in his
Examen Critique de Vllistoire et de la Geographie du ^^^^^^'
Nouveau Continent^ has borrowed the language of France to
show the scope of his critical and learned inquiries into the
early history of the Spanish contact in America, and has left it
to another hand to give a German rendering to his labors.
With this work by Humboldt, brought out in its completer
shape in 1836-39, and using most happily all that had been
done by Munoz and Navarrete to make clear both the acts and
environments of the Admiral, the intelligence of our own time
may indeed be said to have first clearly apprehended, under the
light of a critical spirit, in which Irving was deficient, the true
significance of the great deeds that gave America to Europe.
Humboldt has strikingly grouped the lives of Toscanelli and
Las Casas, from the birth of the Florentine physician in 1397
to the death of the Apostle to the Indians in 1566, as covering
the beginning and end of the great discoveries of the fifteenth
and sixteenth centuries.
It is also to be remarked that this service of broadly, and at
the same time critically, surveying the field was the work of
a German writing in French ; while it is to an American citi-
zen writing in French that we owe, in more recent years, such a
minute collation and examination of every original source of
information as set the labors of Henry Harrisse, for Henry
thoroughness and discrimination, in advance of any ^*""^^^'
critical labor that has ever before been given to the career and
52 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
character of Christopher Columbus. Without the aid of his
researches, as embodied in his Christophe Colomh (Paris,
1884), it would have been quite impossible for the present
writer to have reached conclusions on a good many mooted
points in the history of the Admiral and of his reputation. Of
almost equal usefulness have been the various subsidiary books
and tracts which Harrisse has devoted to similar fields.
Harrisse's books constitute a good example of the constant
change of opinion and revision of the relations of facts which
are going on incessantly in the mind of a vigilant student in
recondite fields of research. The progress of the correction of
error respecting Columbus is illustrated continually in his se-
ries of books on the great navigator, beginning with the Notes
on Columbus (N. Y., 1866), which have been intermittently
published by him during the last twenty-five years.
Harrisse himself is a good deal addicted to hypotheses ; but
they fare hard at his hands if advanced by others.
The only other significant essays which have been made in
French French have been a series of biographies of Colum-
writers. |^^g^ emphasizing his missionary spirit, which have
been aimed to prepare the way for the canonization of the
Attempted g^cat uavigator, in recognition of his instrumentality
orcow'''' in carrying the cross to the New World. That, in
^^' the spirit which characterized the age of discovery,
the voyage of Columbus was, at least in profession, held to be
one conducted primarily for that end does not, certainly, admit
of dispute. Columbus himself, in his letter to Sanchez, speaks
of the rejoicing of Christ at seeing the future redemption of
souls. He made a first offering of the foreign gold by convert-
ing a mass of it into a cup to hold the sacred host, and he spent
a wordy enthusiasm in promises of a new crusade to wrest the
Holy Sepulchre from the Moslems. Ferdinand and Isabella
dwelt upon the propagandist spirit of the enterprise they had
sanctioned, in their appeals to the Pontiff to confirm their
worldly gain in its results. Ferdinand, the son of the Admiral,
referring to the family name of Colombo, speaks of his father
as like Noah's dove, carrying the olive branch and oil of bap-
tism over the ocean. Professions, however, were easy ; faith is
always exuberant under success, and the world, and even the
Catholic world, learned, as the ages went on, to look upon the
BIOGRAPHERS.
53
spirit that put the poor heathen beyond the pale of humanity
as not particularly sanctifying a pioneer of devastation. It is
the world's misfortune when a great opportunity loses any of
its dignity ; and it is no great satisfaction to look upon a per-
son of Columbus's environments and find him but a creature of
questionable grace. So his canonization has not, with all the
endeavors which have been made, been brought about. The
most conspicuous of the advocates of it, with a crowd ^^^-^^ ^^
of imitators about him, has been Antoine Francois ^<^''g"«8-
Felix Valalette, Comte Eoseliy de Lorgues, who began in 1844
ROSELLT DE LORGUES.
to devote his energies to this end. He has published several
books on Columbus, part of them biographical, and all of them,
including his ChristopJi Colomh of 1864, mere disguised sup-
plications to the Pope to order a deserved sanctification. As
contributions to the historical study of the life of Columbus,
they are of no importance whatever. Every act and saying
of the Admiral capable of subserving the purpose in view are
54 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
simply made the salient points of a career assumed to be holy.
Columbus was in fact of a piece, in this respect, with the age in
which he lived. The official and officious religious profession
of the time belonged to a period which invented the Inquisition
and extirpated a race in order to send them to heaven. None
knew this better than those, like Las Casas, who mated their
faith with charity of act. Columbus and Las Casas had little
in common.
The Histoire Posthume de Colonib^ which Roselly de Lor-
gues finally published in 1885, is recognized even by Catholic
writers as a work of great violence and indiscretion, in its
denunciations of all who fail to see the saintly character of
Columbus. Its inordinate intemperance gave a great advan-
tage to Cesario Fernandez Duro in his examination of De Lor-
gues's position, made in his Colon y la Historia Postuma.
Columbus was certainly a mundane verity. De Lorgues
tells us that if we cannot believe in the supernatural we cannot
understand this worldly man. The writers who have followed
him, like Charles Buet in his Christoplie Colomh (Paris,
1886), have taken this position. The Catholic body has so far
summoned enough advocates of historic truth to prevent the re-
sult which these enthusiasts have kept in view, notwithstanding
the seeming acquiescence of Pius IX. The most popular of the
idealizing lives of Columbus is probably that by Auguste,'Mar-
quis de Belloy, which is tricked out with a display of engrav-
ings as idealized as the text, and has been reproduced in Eng-
lish at Philadelphia (1878, 1889). It is simply an ordinary
rendering of the common and conventional stories of the last
four centuries. The most eminent Catholic historical student
of the United States, Dr. John Gilmary Shea, in a paper on
this century's estimates of Columbus, in the American Catholic
Quarterly Peview (1887), while referring to the " imposing
array of members of the hierarchy" who have urged the beat-
ification of Columbus, added, " But calm official scrutiny of
the question was required before permission could be given to
introduce the cause;" and this permission has not yet been
given, and the evidence in its favor has not yet been officially
produced.
France has taken the lead in these movements for canonizar
tion, ostensibly for the reason that she needed to make some
BIOGRAPHERS. 55
reparation for snatching the honor of naming the New World
from Columbus, through the printing-presses of Saint Die and
Strassburg. A sketch of the literature which has followed this
movement is given in Baron van Brocken's Des Vicissitudes
Posthumes de OhristopJie Colombo et de sa Beatification Pos-
sible (Leipzig et Paris, 1865).
Of the writers in English, the labors of Hakluyt and Pur-
chas only incidentally touched the career of Colum- ^n iish
bus ; and it was not till Stevens issued his garbled ^^*«™-
version of Herrera in 1725, that the English public got the rec-
ord of the Spanish historian, garnished with something that did
not represent the original. This book of Stevens is responsible
for not a little in English opinion respecting the Spanish age
of discovery, which needs in these later days to be qualified.
Some of the early collections of voyages, like those of Churchill,
Pinkerton, and Kerr, included the story of the Historic
of 1571. It was not till Robertson, in 1777, published
the beginning of a contemplated History of America that the
English reader had for the first time a scholarly and justified
narrative, which indeed for a long time remained the ordinary
source of the English view of Columbus. It was, however, but
an outline sketch, not a sixth or seventh part in extent of what
Irving, when he was considering the subject, thought necessary
for a reasonable presentation of the subject. Robertson's foot-
notes show that his main dependence for the story of Colum-
bus was upon the pages of the Historic of 1571, Peter Mar-
tyr, Oviedo, and Herrera. He was debarred the help to be
derived from what we now use, as conveying Columbus's own
record of his story. Lord Grantham, then the British ambas-
sador at Madrid, did all the service he could, and his secretary
of legation worked asssiduously in complying with the wishes
which Robertson preferred; but no solicitation could at that
day render easily accessible the archives at Simancas. Still,
Robertson got from one source or another more than it was
pleasant to the Spanish authorities to see in print, and they
later contrived to prevent a publication of his work in Spanish.
The earliest considerable recounting of the story of Colum-
bus in America was by Dr. Jeremy Belknap, who; jeremy
having: delivered a commemorative discourse in Bos- ^®"™*p-
56 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
ton in 1792, before the Massachusetts Historical Society, after-
ward augmented his text when it became a part of his well-
known American Biography^ a work of respectable standing
for the time, but little remembered to-day.
It was in 1827 that Washington Irving published his Life
Washington ^f Columbus, and he produced a book that has long
^""^^" remained for the English reader a standard biography.
Irving's canons of historical criticism were not, however, such
as the fearless and discriminating student to-day would ap-
prove. He commended Herrera for " the amiable and pardon-
able error of softening excesses," as if a historian sat in a con-
fessional to deal out exculpations. The learning which probes
long established pretenses and grateful deceits was not accep-
table to Irving. " There is a certain meddlesome spirit," he
says, " which, in the garb of learned research, goes prying about
the traces of history, casting down its monuments, and marring
and mutilating its fairest trophies. Care should be taken to
vindicate great names from such pernicious erudition."
Under such conditions as Irving summoned, there was little
chance that a world's exemplar would be pushed from his ped-
estal, no matter what the evidence. The vera pro gratis in
personal characterization must not assail the traditional hero.
And such was Irving's notion of the upright intelligence of a
historian.
Mr. Alexander H. Everett, who was then the minister of the
United States at Madrid, saw a chance of making a readable
book out of the journal of Columbus as preserved by Las Casas,
and recommended the task of translating it to Irving, then in
Europe. This proposition carried the willing writer to Madrid,
where he found comfortable quarters, with quick sympathy of
intercourse, under the roof of a Boston scholar then living
there, Obadiah Eich. The first two volumes of the documen-
tary work of Navarrete coming out opportunely, Irving was not
long in determining that, with its wealth of material, there was
a better opportunity for a newly studied life of Columbus than
for the proposed task. So Irving settled down in Madrid to
the larger endeavor, and soon found that he could have other
assistance and encouragement from Navarrete himself, from the
Duke of Veragua, and from the then possessor of the papers
of Munoz. The subject grew under his hands. " I had no
BIOGRAPHERS. 57
idea," he says, " of what a complete labyrinth I had entangled
myself in." He regretted that the third volume of Navarrete's
book was not far enough advanced to be serviceable ; but he
worked as best he could, and found many more facilities than
Robertson's helper had discovered. He went to the Biblioteca
Colombina, and he even brought the annotations of Columbus
in the copy of Pierre d'Ailly, there preserved, to the attention
of its custodians for the first time ; almost feeling himself the
discoverer of the book, though it was known to him that Las
Casas, at least, had had the advantage of using these minutes of
Columbus. Irving knew that his pains were not unavailing, at
any rate, for the English reader. "I have woven into my
book," he says, " many curious particulars not hitherto known
concerning Columbus ; and I think I have thrown light upon
some points of his character which have not been brought out
by his former biographers." One of the things that pleased
the new biographer most was his discover}^, as he felt, in the
account by Bernaldez, that Columbus was born ten years earlier
than had been usually reckoned; and he supposed that this
increase of the age of the discoverer at the time of his voyage
added much greater force to the characteristics of his career.
Irving's book readily made a mark. Jeffrey thought that its
fame would be enduring, and at a time when no one looked
for new light from Italy, he considered that Irving had done
best in working, almost exclusively, the Spanish field, where
alone " it was obvious " material could be found.
When Alexander H. Everett, pardonably, as a godfather to
the work, undertook in January, 1829, to say in the North
American Review that Irving's book was a delight of readers,
he anticipated the judgment of posterity ; but when he added
that it was, by its perfection, the despair of critics, he was for-
getful of a method of critical research that is not prone to be
dazed by the prestige of demigods.
In the interval between the first and second editions of the
book, Irving paid a visit to Palos and the convent of La Ra-
bida, and he got elsewhere some new light in the papers of the
lawsuit of Columbus's heirs. The new edition which soon fol-
lowed profited by all these circumstances.
Irving's occupation of the field rendered it both easy and
gracious for Prescott, when, ten years later (1837), he published
58 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
his Ferdinand and Isabella^ to say that his predecessor had
stripped the story of Columbus of the charm of novel-
ty ; but he was not quite sure, however, in the privacy
of his correspondence, that Irving, by attempting to continue the
course of Columbus's life in detail after the striking crisis of the
discovery, had made so imposing a drama as he would have
done by condensing the story of his later years. In this Pres-
cott shared something of the spirit of Irving, in composing his-
tory to be read as a pastime, rather than as a study of com-
pleted truth. Prescott's own treatment of the subject is scant,
as he confined his detailed record to the actions incident to the
inception and perfection of the enterprise of the Admiral, to
the doings in Spain or at court. He was, at the same time,
far more independent than Irving had been, in his views of the
individual character round which so much revolves, and the
reader is not wholly blinded to the unwholesome deceit and
overweening selfishness of Columbus.
Within twenty years Arthur Helps approached the subject
Arthur from the point of view of one who was determined, as
Helps. jjg thought no one of the writers on the subject of the
Spanish Conquest had been, to trace the origin of, and respon-
sibility for, the devastating methods of Spanish colonial gov-
ernment ; " not conquest only, but the result of conquest, the
mode of colonial government which ultimately prevailed, the ex-
tirpation of native races, the introduction of other races, the
growth of slavery, and the settlement of the encomiendas^ on
which all Indian society depended." It is not to Helps, there-
fore, that we are to look for any extended biography of Colum-
bus ; and when he finds him in chains, sent back to Spain, he
says of the prisoner, " He did not know how many wretched
beings would have to traverse those seas, in bonds much worse
than his ; nor did he foresee, I trust, that some of his doings
would further all this coming misery." It does not appear from
his footnotes that Helps depended upon other than the obvious
authorities, though he says that he examined the Muiioz col-
lection, then as now in the Royal Academy of History at Ma-
drid.
The last scholarly summary of Columbus's career previous to
„ „ „ . the views incident to the criticism of Harrisse on the
R. H. Major. ,
Historie of 1571 was that which was given by R. H.
BIOGRAPHERS. 59
Major, in the second edition of his Select Letters of Columbus
(London, 1870).
There have been two treatments of the subject by Americans
within the last twenty years, which are characteristic. The
Life and Achievements of the So-called Christopher Colum-
hus (New York, 1874), by Aaron Goodrich, mixes Aaron Good-
that unreasoning trust and querulous conceit which is "*'^-
so often thrown into the scale when the merits of the discover-
ers of the alleged Vinland are contrasted with those of the
imagined Indies. With a craze of petulancy, he is not able to
see anything that cannot be twisted into defamation, and his
book is as absurdly constant in derogation as the hallucinations
of De Lorgues are in the other direction.
When Hubert Howe Bancroft opened the story of his Pacific
States in his History of Central America (San Fran- ^ ^ b^^_
CISCO, 1882), he rehearsed the story of Columbus, but *'''^"-
did not attempt to follow it critically except as he tracked the
Admiral along the coasts of Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa
Rica. This writer's estimate of the character of Columbus con-
veys a representation of what the Admiral really was, juster
than national pride, religious sympathy, or kindly adulation has
usually permitted. It is unfortunately, not altogether chaste in
its literary presentation. His characterization of Irving and
Prescott in their endeavors to draw the character of Columbus
has more merit in its insight than skill in its drafting.
The brief sketch of the career of Columbus, and the exami-
nation of the events that culminated in his maritime risks and
developments, as it was included in the Narrative and Critical
History of America (vol. ii., Boston, 1885), gave
, . . 11 Winsor.
the present writer an opportunity to study the sources
and trace the bibliographical threads that run through an ex-
tended and diversified literature, in a way, it may be, not
earlier presented to the English reader. If any one desires
to compass all the elucidations and guides which a
thorough student of the career and fame of Columbus raphyof co-
would wish to consider, the apparatus thus referred to,
and the footnotes in Harrisse's Christophe Colomh and in
his other germane publications, would probably most essentially
shorten his labors. Harrisse, who has prepared, but not yet
60 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
published, lists of the books devoted to Columbus exclusively^
says that they number about six hundred titles. The literature
which treats of him incidentally is of a vast extent.
In concluding this summary of the commentaries upon the
life of Columbus, the thought comes back that his
mS o? ' career has been singularly subject to the gauging of
opinionated chroniclers. The figure of the man, as he
lives to-day in the mind of the general reader, in whatever coun-
try, comports in the main with the characterizations of Irving, De
Lorgues, or Goodrich. These last two have entered upon their
works with a determined purpose, the Frenchman of making a
saint, and the American a scamp, of the great discoverer of
America. They each, in their twists, pervert and emphasize
every trait and every incident to favor their views. Their nar-
ratives are each without any background of that mixture of in-
congruity, inconsistency, and fatality from which no human be-
ing is wholly free. Their books are absolutely worthless as
historical records. That of Goodrich has probably done little
to make proselytes. That of De Lorgues has infected a large
body of tributary devotees of the Catholic Church.
The work of Irving is much above any such level ; but it has
done more harm because its charms are insidious. He recog-
nized at least that human life is composite ; but he had as much
of a predetermination as they, and his purpose was to create a
hero. He glorified what was heroic, palliated what was un-
heroic, and minimized the doubtful aspects of Columbus's char-
acter. His book is, therefore, dangerously seductive to the
popular sense. The genuine Columbus evaporates under the
warmth of the writer's genius, and we have nothing left but a
refinement of his clay. The Xi/e of Columbus was a sudden
product of success, and it has kept its hold on the public very
constantly ; but it has lost ground in these later years among
scholarly inquirers. They have, by their collation of its narra-
tive with the original sources, discovered its flaccid character.
They have outgrown the witcheries of its graceful style. They
have learned to put at their value the repetitionary changes of
stock sentiment, which swell the body of the text, sometimes,
provokingly.
PORTRAITISTS. 61
Out of the variety of testimony respecting the person of the
adult Columbus, it is not easy to draw a picture that portraits of
his contemporaries would surely recognize. Likeness coiumbus.
we have none that can be proved beyond a question the result
of any sitting, or even of any acquaintance. If we were called
upon to picture him as he stood on San Salvador, we might fig-
ure a man of impressive stature with lofty, not to say coiumbus's
austere, bearing, his face longer by something more ?«"«»•
than its breadth, his cheek bones high, his nose aquiline, his
eyes a light gray, his complexion fair with freckles spotting a
ruddy glow, his hair once light, but then turned to gray. His
favorite garb seems to have been the frock of a Franciscan
monk. Such a figure would not conflict with the descriptions
which those who knew him, and those who had questioned his
associates, have transmitted to us, as we read them in the pages
ascribed to Ferdinand, his son ; in those of the Spanish his-
torian, Oviedo ; of the priest Las Casas ; and in the later re-
citals of Gomara and Benzoni, and of the official chronicler of
the Spanish Indies, Antonio Herrera. The oldest description
of all is one made in 1501, in the unauthorized version of the
first decade of Peter Martyr, emanating, very likely, from the
translator Trivigiano, who had then recently come in contact
with Columbus.
Turning from these descriptions to the pictures that have
been put forth as likenesses, we find not a little difficulty in
reconciling the two. There is nothing that unmistakably goes
back to the lifetime of Columbus except the figure of St.
Christopher, which makes a vignette in colors on the ,
mappemonde, which was drawn in 1500, by one of st. christo-
Columbus's pilots, Juan de la Cosa, and is now pre-
served in Madrid. It has been fondly claimed that Cosa trans-
ferred the features of his master to the lineaments of the saint ;
but the assertion is wholly without proof.
Paolo Giovio, or, as better known in the Latin form, Paulus
Jovius, was old enough in 1492 to have, in later life, jovius's gai-
remembered the thrill of expectation which ran for ^^''^'
the moment through parts of Europe, when the letter of Co-
lumbus describing his voyage was published in Italy, where
Jovius was then a schoolboy. He was but an infant, or per-
haps not born when Columbus left Italy. So the interest of
62
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
ST. CHRISTOPHER.
[The vignette of La Cosa's map.]
PORTRAITISTS.
63
Jovius in the Discoverer could hardly have arisen from any-
other associations than those easily suggestive to one who like
Jovius, was a student of his own times. Columbus had been
dead ten years when Jovius, as a historian, attracted the notice
of Pope Leo X., and entered upon such a career of prosperity
JOVIUS'S COLUMBUS, THE EARLIEST ENGRAVED LIKENESS.
that he could build a villa on Lake. Como, and adorn it with a
gallery of portraits of those who had made his age famous.
That he included a likeness of Columbus among his heroes
there seems to be no doubt. Whether the likeness was painted
from life, and by whom, or modeled after an ideal, more or
less accordant with the reports of those who may haVe known
the Genoese, is entirely beyond our knowledge. As a historian
64 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
Jovius professed the right to distort the truth for any purpose
that suited him, and his conceptions of the truth of portraiture
may quite as well have been equally loose. Just a year before
his own death, Jovius gave a sketch of Columbus's career in his
Elogia Virorum Illustrium, published at Florence in 1551 ;
but it was not till twenty-four years later, in 1575, that a new
edition of the book gave wood-cuts of the portraits in the gal-
lery of the Como villa, to illustrate the sketches, and that of
Columbus appeared among them. This engraving, then, is the
oldest likeness of Columbus presenting any claims to considera-
tion. It found place also, within a year or two, in what pur-
ported to be a collection of portraits from the Jovian gallery ;
and the engraver of them was Tobias Stimmer, a Swiss designer,
who stands in the biographical dictionaries of artists as born in
1534, and of course could not have assisted his skill by any
knowledge of Columbus, on his own part. This picture, to
which a large part of the very various likenesses called those of
Columbus can be traced, is done in the bold, easy handling
common in the wood-cuts of that day, and with a precision of
skill that might well make one believe that it preserves a dash-
ing verisimilitude to the original picture. It represents a full-
face, shaven, curly-haired man, with a thoughtful and somewhat
sad countenance, his hands gathering about the waist a priest's
robe, of which the hood has fallen about his neck. If there is
any picture to be judged authentic, this is best entitled to that
estimation.
Connection with the Como gallery is held to be so significant
of the authenticity of any portrait of Columbus that it is claimed
for two other pictures, which are near enough alike to have fol-
lowed the same prototype, and which are not, except in garb,
very unlike the Jovian wood-cut. As copies of the Como origi-
nal in features, they may easily have varied in apparel. One
of these is a picture preserved in the gallery at Florence, — a
well-moulded, intellectual head, full-faced, above a closely but-
toned tunic, or frock, seen within drapery that falls off the
The Fior- sliouMcrs. It is uot claimcd to be the Como portrait,
ence picture. ^^^ j^ ^^^ ^iB^Ye bccu painted from it, perhaps by
Christofano dell' Altissimo, some time before 1568. A copy
of it was made for Thomas Jefferson, which, having hung for a
while at Monticello, came at last to Boston, and passed into
the gallery of the Massachusetts Historical Society.
PORTRAITISTS.
65
The picture resembling this, and which may have had equal
claims of association with the Jovian gallery, is one now pre-
THE FLORENCE COLUMBUS.
served in Madrid, and the oldest canvas representing Columbus
that is known in Spain. It takes the name of the Yanez por-
66
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
trait from that of the owner of it, from whom it was bought in
TheYanez Granada, in 1763. Representing, when brought to
picture. notice, a garment trimmed with fur, there has been
disclosed upon it, and underlying this later paint, an original.
THE YANEZ COLUMBUS.
close-fitting tunic, much like the Florence picture ; while a fur-
ther removal of the superposed pigment has revealed an inscrip-
tion, supposed to authenticate it as Columbus, the discoverer of
the New World. It is said that the Duke of Veragua holds
it to be the most authentic likeness of his ancestor.
Another conspicuous portrait is that given by De Bry in the
De Bry'8 larger series of his Collection of Early Voyages. De
picture. ;gj.y claims that it was painted by order of King
Ferdinand, and that it was purloined from the offices of the
Council of the Indies in Spain, and brought to the Netherlands,
and in this way fell into the hands of that engraver and editor.
It bears little resemblance to the pictures already mentioned ;
nor does it appear to conform to the descriptions of Columbus's
PORTRAITISTS.
67
person. It has a more rugged and shorter face, with a profu-
sion of closely waved hair falling beneath an ugly, angular cap.
De Bry engraved it, or rather published it, in 1595, twenty
COLUMBUS.
[A reproduction of the so-called Capriolo cut given in Giuseppe Banchero's La Tavola di Bronzo,
(Genoa, 1857), and based on the Jovian type.]
years after the Jovian wood-cut appeared, and we know of no
engraving intervening. No one of the generation that was old
enough to have known the navigator could then have survived,
68
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
and the picture has no other voucher than the professions of the
engraver of it.
These are but a few of the many pictures that have been
other por- made to pass, first and last, for Columbus, and the
traits. Q^Yj ones meriting serious study for their claims. The
American public was long taught to regard the effigy of Co-
lumbus as that of a bedizened courtier, because Prescott se-
DE BRY'S COLUMBUS.
lected for an engraving to adorn his Ferdinand and Isahella
a picture of such a person, which is ascribed to Parmigiano,
and is preserved in the Museo Borbonico, at Naples. Its claims
long ago ceased to be considered. The traveler in Cuba sees
in the Cathedral at Havana a monumental effigy, of
which there is no evidence of authenticity worthy of
consideration. The traveler in Italy can see in Genoa, placed
on the cabinet which was made to hold the manuscript titles
Havana
monument
PORTRAITISTS.
69
of Columbus, a bust by Peschiera. It has the negative merit
of having no relation to any of the alleged portraits ; Peschiera's
but represents the sculptor's conception of the man, ^^^*^-
THE BUST OF COLUMBUS ON THE TOMB AT HAVANA.
guided by the scant descriptions of him given to us by. his con-
temporaries.
If the reader desires to see how extensive the field of research
70 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
is, for one who can spend the time in tracing all the clues con-
nected with all the representations which pass for Columbus,
he can make a beginning, at least, under the guidance of the
essay on the portraits which the present writer contributed to
the Narrative and Critical History of America^ vol. ii.
When Columbus, in 1502, ordered a tenth of his income to
be paid annually to the Bank of St. George, in Genoa, for the
purpose of reducing the tax upon corn, wine, and other provis-
ions, the generous act, if it had been carried out, would have
entitled him to such a recognition as a public benefactor as the
bank was accustomed to bestow. The main hall of the palace of
this institution commemorates such patriotic efforts by showing
a sitting statue for the largest benefactors ; a standing figure for
lesser gifts, while still lower gradations of charitable help are
indicated in busts, or in mere inscriptions on a mural tablet.
It has been thought that posterity, curious to see the great Ad-
miral as his contemporaries saw him, suffers with the state of
Genoa, in not having such an effigy, by the neglect or inatten-
tion which followed upon the announced purpose of Columbus.
We certainly find there to-day no such visible proof of his
munificence or aspect. Harrisse, while referring to this depriva-
tion, takes occasion, in his Bank of St. George (p. 108), to say
that he does not " believe that the portrait of Columbus was
ever drawn, carved, or painted from the life." He contends
that portrait-painting was not common in Spain, in Columbus's
day, and that we have no trace of the painters, whose work
constitutes the beginning of the art, in any record, or authentic
effigy, to show that the person of the Admiral was ever made
the subject of the art. The same writer indicates that the in-
terval during which Columbus was popular enough to be
painted extended over only six weeks in April and May, 1493.
He finds that much greater heroes, as the world then deter-
mined, like Boabdil and Cordova, were not thus honored, and
holds that the portraits of Ferdinand and Isabella, which edi-
tions of Prescott have made familiar, are really fancy pictures
of the close of the sixteenth century.
CHAPTER III.
THE ANCESTRY AND HOME OF COLUMBUS.
No one has mastered so thoroughly as Harrisse the intricacies
of the Columbus genealogy. A pride in the name of The name
Colombo has been shared by all who have borne it or ^^o^^™^-
have had relationship with it, and there has been a not un-
worthy competition among many branches of the common stock
to establish the evidences of their descent in connection, more
or less intimate, with the greatest name that has signalized the
family history.
This reduplication of families, as well as the constant recur-
rence of the same fore-names, particularly common in Italian
families, has rendered it difficult to construct the genealogical
tree of the Admiral, and has given ground for drafts of his
pedigree, acceptable to some, and disputed by other claimants
of kinship.
There was a Gascon-French subject of Louis XI., Guillaume
de Casanove, sometimes called Coulomp, CouUon, Co- ^^6 French
Ion, in the Italian accounts Colombo, and Latinized as <^oio°^bos-
Columbus, who is said to have commanded a fleet of seven sail,
which, in October, 1474, captured two galleys belonging to
Ferdinand, king of Sicily. When Leibnitz published, for the
first time, some of the diplomatic correspondence which ensued,
he interjected the fore-name Christophorus in the references to
the Columbus of this narrative. This was in his Codex Juris
Gentium Diplomaticus^ published at Hannover in 1693. Leib-
nitz was soon undeceived by Nicolas Thoynard, who explained
that the corsair in question was Guillaume de Casanove, vice-
admiral of France, and Leibnitz disavowed the imputation upon
the Genoese navigator in a subsequent volume. Though there
is some difference of opinion respecting the identity of Casa-
nove and the capturer of the galleys, there can no longer be any
doubt, in the light of pertinent investigations, that the French
72 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
Colombos were of no immediate kin to the family of Genoa and
Savona, as is abundantly set forth by Harrisse in his Les Co-
lombo de France et d'ltalie (Paris, 1874). Since the French
■CouUon, or Coulomp, was sometimes in the waters neighboring
to Genoa, it is not unlikely that some confusion may arise in '
separating the Italian from the French Colombos ; and it has
been pointed out that a certain entry of wreckage in the registry
of Genoa, which Spotorno associates with Christopher Columbus,
may more probably be connected with this Gascon navigator.
Bossi, the earliest biographer in recent times, considers that
a Colombo named in a letter to the Duke of Milan as being in
a naval fight off Cyprus, between Genoese and Venetian vessels,
in 1476, was the discoverer of the New World. Harrisse, in
his Les Colombo^ has printed this letter, and from it it does not
appear that the commander of the Genoese fleet is known by
name, and that the only mention of a Colombo is that a fleet
commanded by one of that name was somewhere encountered.
There is no indication, however, that this commander was
Christopher Columbus. The presumption is that he was the
roving Casanove.
Leibnitz was doubtless misled by the assertion of the His-
torie of 1571, which allows that Christopher Columbus had
sailed under the orders of an admiral of his name and family,
and, particularly, was in that naval combat off Lisbon, when, his
vessel getting on fire, he swam with the aid of an oar to the
Portuguese shore. The doubtful character of this episode will
be considered later ; but it is more to the purpose here that this
same book, in citing a letter, of which we are supposed to have
the complete text as preserved by Columbus himself, makes
Columbus say that he was not the only admiral which his family
had produced. This is a clear reference, it is supposed, to this
vice-admiral of France. It is enough to say that the genuine
text of this letter to the nurse of Don Juan does not contain this
controverted passage, and the defenders of the truth of the His-
tories like D'Avezac, are forced to imagine there must have
been another letter, not now known.
Beside the elder admiral of France, the name of Colombo
Junior belonged to another of these French sea-rovers
er French in the fifteenth century, who has been held to be a
nephew, or at least a relative, of the elder. He has
also sometimes been confounded with the Genoese Columbus.
THE ANCESTRY AND HOME OF COLUMBUS. 73
To determine the exact relationship between the various
French and Italian Colombos and Coulons of the fif-
teenth century would be hazardous. It is enouo-h to ^"®*^*^8y.
say that no evidence that stands a critical test remains to con-
nect these famous mariners with the line of Christopher Co-
lumbus. The genealogical tables which Spotorno presents,
upon which Caleb Cushing enlightened American readers at the
time in the North American Review^ and in which the French
family is made to issue from an alleged great-grand-
father of Christopher Columbus, are affirmed by Har- ^^*^°^^™-
risse, with much reason, to have been made up not far from
1583, to support the claims of Bernardo and Baldassare (Bal-
thazar) Colombo, as pretenders to the rights and titles of the
discoverer of the New World.
Ferdinand is made in his own name to say of his father, " I
think it better that all the honor be derived to us from his per-
son than to go about to inquire whether his father was a mer-
chant or a man of quality, that kept his hawks and hounds."
Other biographers, however, have pursued the inquiry dili-
gently.
In one of the sections of his book on Christopher Columbus
and the Bank of Saint George^ Harrisse has shown coiumbus's
how the notarial records of Savona and Genoa have ^^^^^ ""®-
been worked, to develop the early history of the Admiral's
family from documentary proofs. These evidences are distinct
from the narratives of those who had known him, or who at a
later day had told his story, as Gallo, the writer of the His-
tories and Oviedo did. Reference has already been made to
the prevalence of Colombo as a patronymic in Genoa and the
neighboring country at that time. Harrisse in his Christophe
Colomh has enumerated two hundred of this name in Liguria
alone, in those days, who seem to have had no kinship to the
family of the Admiral. There appear to have been in Genoa,
moreover, four Colombos, and in Liguria, outside of Genoa, six
others who bore the name of Christopher's father, Domenico ;
but the searchers have not yet found a single other Christoforo.
These facts show the discrimination which those who of late
years have been investigating the history of the Admiral's fam-
ily have been obliged to exercise. There are sixty notarial acts
74 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
of one kind and another, out of which these investigators have
constructed a pedigree, which must stand till present knowledge
is increased or overthrown.
What we know in the main is this : Giovanni Colombo, the
His grand- grandfather of the Admiral, lived probably in Quinto
father. ^ Marc, and was of a stock that seemingly had been
earlier settled in the valley of Fontanabuona, a region east of
Genoa. This is a parentage of the father of Columbus quite
different from that shown in the genealogical chart made by
Napione in 1805 and later ; and Harrisse tells us that the no-
tarial acts which were given then as the authority for such other
line of descent cannot now be found, and that there are grave
doubts of their authenticity.
It was this Giovanni's son, Domenico, who came from Quinto
(where he left a brother, Antonio) at least as early
as 1439, and perhaps earlier, and settled himself in
the wool- weaver's quarter, so called, in Genoa, where in due
time he owned a house. Thence he seems to have removed to
Savona, where various notarial acts recognize him at a later
period as a Genoese, resident in Savona.
The essential thing remaining to be proved is that the Do-
menico Colombo of these notarial acts was the Domenico who
was the father of Christopher Columbus. For this purpose we
must take the testimony of those who knew the genuine Co-
lombos, as Oviedo and Gallo did ; and from their statements
we learn that the father of Christopher was a weaver named
Domenico, who lived in Genoa, and had sons, Christoforo, Bar-
tolomeo, and Giacomo. These, then, are the test conditions,
and finding them every one answered in the Savona-Genoa
family, the proof seems incontestable, even to the further fact
that at the end of the fifteenth century all three brothers had
for some years lived under the Spanish crown.
It is too much to say that this concatenation of identities
may not possibly be overturned, perhaps by discrediting the
documents, not indeed untried already by Peragallo and others,
but it is safe to accept it under present conditions of knowl-
edge ; though we have to trust on some points to the state-
ments of those who have seen what no longer can be found.
Domenico Colombo, who had removed to Savona in 1470, did
not, apparently, prosper there. He and his son Christopher
THE ANCESTRY AND HOME OF COLUMBUS. 75
pursued their trade as weavers, as the notarial records show.
Lamartine, in his Life of Columbus^ speaking of the wool-card-
ing of the time, calls it " a business now low, but then respect-
able and almost noble," — an idealization quite of a kind with
the spirit that pervades Lamartine's book, and a spirit in which
it has been a fashion to write of Columbus and other heroes.
The calling was doubtless, then as now, simply respectable. The
father added some experience, it would seem, in keeping a house
of entertainment. The joint profit, however, of these two occupa-
tions did not suffice to keep him free from debt, out of which
his son Christopher is known to have helped him in some meas-
ure. Domenico sold and bought small landed properties, but
did not pay for one of them at least. There were fifteen years
of this precarious life passed in Savona, during which he lost
his wife, when, putting his youngest son to an apprenticeship,
he returned in 1484, or perhaps a little earlier, to Genoa, to try
other chances. His fortune here was no better. Insolvency still
followed him. When we lose sight of him, in 1494, the old man
may, it is hoped, have heard rumors of the transient prosperity
of his son, and perhaps have read in the fresh little quartos of
Plaanck the marvelous tale of the great discovery. He lived
we know not how much longer, but probably died before the
winter of 1499-1500, when the heirs of Corrado de Cuneo, who
had never received due payment for an estate which Domenico
had bought in Savona, got judgment against Christopher and
his brother Diego, the sons of Domenico, then of course beyond
reach in foreign lands.
Within a few years the Marquis Marcello Staglieno, a learned
antiquary in Genoa, who has succeeded in throwing ^
much new lierht on the early life of Columbus from house in
the notarial records of that city, has identified a house
in the Vico Dritto Ponticello, No. 37, as the one in which Do-
menico Colombo lived during the younger years of Christopher's
life. The municipality bought this estate in June, 1887, and
placed over its door an inscription recording the associations of
the spot. Harrisse thinks it not unlikely that the great navi-
gator was even born here. The discovery of his father's owner-
ship of the house seems to have been made by carefully tracing
back the title of the land to the time when Domenico owned
it. This was rendered surer by tracing the titles of the ad-
76 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
joining estates back to the time of Nicolas Paravania and An-
tonio Bondi, who, according to the notarial act of 1477, record-
ing Domenico's wife's assent to the sale of the property, lived
as Domenico's next neighbors.
If Christopher Columbus was born in this house, that event
Columbus *o<^^ place, as notarial records, brought to bear by the
^^^- Marquis Staglieno, make evident, between October 29,
1446, and October 29, 1451 ; and if some degree of inference
be allowed, Harrisse thinks he can narrow the range to the
twelve months between March 15, 1446, and March 20, 1447.
This is the period within which, by deduction from other state-
ments, some of the modern authorities, like Munoz, Bossi, and
Spotorno, among the Italians, D'Avezac among the French, and
Major in England, have placed the event of Columbus's birth
without the aid of attested documents. This conclusion has
been reached by taking an avowal of Columbus that he had led
twenty-three years a sailor's life at the time of his first voyage,
and was fourteen years old when he began a seaman's career.
The question which complicates the decision is : When did
Columbus consider his sailor's life to have ended? If in 1492,
as Peschel contends, it would carry his birth back no farther
than 1455-56, according as fractions are managed ; and Peschel
accepts this date, because he believes the unconfirmed statement
of Columbus in a letter of July 7, 1503, that he was twenty-eight
when he entered the service of Spain in 1484.
But if 1484 is accepted as the termination of that twenty-
three years of sea life, as Munoz and the others already men-
tioned say, then we get the result which most nearly accords
with the notarial records, and we can place the birth
1445-1447.
of Columbus somewhere in the years 1445-47, accord-
ing as the fractions are considered. This again is confirmed by
another of the varied statements of Columbus, that in 1501 it
was forty years since, at fourteen, he first took to the sea.
There has been one other deduction used, through which Na-
varre te, Humboldt, Irving, Roselly de Lorgues, Napi-
one, and others, who copy them, determine that his
birth must have taken place, by a similar fractional allowance of
margin, in 1435-37. This is based upon the explicit statement
of Andres Bernaldez, in his book on the Catholic monarchs of
Spain, that Columbus at his death was about seventy years old.
THE ANCESTRY AND HOME OF COLUMBUS. 11
So there is a twenty years' range for those who may be influ-
enced by one line of argument or another in determining the
date of the Admiral's birth. Many writers have discussed the
arguments ; but the weight of authority seems, on the whole, to
rest upon the records which are used by Harrisse.
The mother of Columbus was Susanna, a daughter of Gia-
como de Fontanarossa, and Domenico married her in
the Bisagno country, a region lying east of Genoa, brotheref ""'
She was certainly dead in 1489, and had, perhaps, *°^^'***''-
died as early as 1482, in Savona. Beside Christoforo, this alli-
ance with Domenico Colombo produced four other children, who
were probably born in one and the same house. They were
Giovanni-Pellegrino, who, in 1501, had been dead ten years, and
was unmarried ; Bartolomeo, who was never married, and who
will be encountered later as Bartholomew ; and Giacomo, who
when he went to Spain became known as Diego Colon, but
who is called Jacobus in all Latin narratives. There was also
a daughter, Bianchinetta, who married a cheesemonger named
Bavarello, and had one child.
Antonio, the brother of Domenico, seems to have had three
sons, Giovanni, Matteo, and Amighetto. They were Hisuncie
thus cousins of the Admiral, and they were so far cog- ^^ cousins-
nizant of his fame in 1496 as to combine in a declaration before
a notary that they united in sending one of their number, Gio-
vanni, on a voyage to Spain to visit their famous kinsman, the
Admiral of the Indies ; their object being, most probably, to
profit, if they could, by basking in his favor.
If the evidences thus set forth of his family history be
accepted, there is no question that Columbus, as he Bom in
himself always said, and finally in his will declared, ^®"°*-
and as Ferdinand knew, although it is not affirmed in the His-
tories was born in Genoa. Among the early writers, if we except
Galindez de Carvajal, who claimed him for Savona, there seems
to have been little or no doubt that he was born in Genoa.
Peter Martyr and Las Casas affirm it. Bernaldez believed it.
Giustiniani asserts it. But when Oviedo, not many years after
Columbus's death, wrote, it was become so doubtful where
Columbus was born that he mentions five or six towns which
claimed the honor of being his birthplace. The claim ciaimfor
for Savona has always remained, after Genoa, that ^*''*'°*'
which has received the best recognition. The grounds of such
78 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
a belief, however, have been pretty well disproved in Harrisse's
Christophe Colomh et Savone (Genoa, 1887), and it has been
shown, as it would seem conclusively, that, prior to Domenico
Colombo's settling in Savona in 1470-71, he had lived in
Genoa, where his children, taking into account their known or
computed ages, must have been born. It seems useless to re-
and other hcarsc the arguments which strenuous advocates have,
places. ^^ Qjjg ^jjjjQ Qj, another, offered in support of the pre-
tensions of many other Italian towns and villages to have fur-
nished the great discoverer to the world, — Plaisance, Cuccaro,
Cogoleto, Pradello, Nervi, Albissola, Bogliasco, Cosseria, Finale,
Oueglia, Quinto, Novare, Chiavari, Milan, Modena. The pre-
tensions of some of them were so urgent that in 1812 the Acad-
emy of History at Genoa thought it worth while to present the
proofs as respects their city in a formal way. The claims of
Cuccaro were used in support of a suit by Balthazar Colombo,
to obtain possession of the Admiral's legal rights. The claim
of Cogoleto seems to have been mixed up with the supposed
birth of the corsairs, Colombos, in that town, who for a long
while were confounded with the Admiral. There is left in
favor of any of them, after their claims are critically examined,
nothing but local pride and enthusiasm.
The latest claimant for the honor is the town of Calvi, in Cor-
sica, and this cause has been particularly embraced by the
French. So late as 1882, President Grevy, of the French Ke-
public, undertook to give a national sanction to these claims by
approving the erection there of a statue of Columbus. The
assumption is based upon a tradition that the great discoverer
was a native of that place. The principal elucidator of that
claim, the Abbe Martin Casanova de Pioggiola, seems to have
a comfortable notion that tradition is the strongest kind of his-
torical proof, though it is not certain that he would think so
with respect to the twenty and more other places on the Italian
coast where similar traditions exist or are said to be current.
Harrisse seems to have thought the claim worth refuting in his
Christophe Colomh et La Corse (Paris, 1888), to say nothing
of other examinations of the subject in the Revue de Paris and
the Revue Critique^ and of two very recent refutations, one by
the Abbe Casabianca in his Le Berceau de Christophe Colomh
et la Corse (Paris, 1889), and the last word of Harrisse in the
Revue Historique (1890, p. 182).
CHAPTER IV.
THE UNCERTAINTIES OF THE EARLY LIFE OF COLUMBUS.
The conditiou of knowledge respecting Columbus's early life
was such, when Prescott wrote, that few would dispute his con-
clusion that it is hopeless to unravel the entanglement of events,
associated with the opening of his career. The critical discern-
ment of Harrisse and other recent investigators has since then
done something to make the confusion even more apparent by
unsettling convictions too hastily assumed. A bunch of be-
wildering statements, in despite of all that present scholarship
can do, is left to such experts as may be possessed in the future
of more determinate knowledge. It may well be doubted if
absolute clarification of the record is ever to be possible.
The student naturally inquires of the contemporaries of Co-
lumbus as to the quality and extent of his early edu- gjg g^jy^.^.
cation, and he derives most from Las Casas and the *^°°"
Historie of 1571. It has of late been ascertained that the wool-
combers of Genoa established local schools for the education of
their children, and the young Christopher may have had his
share of their instruction, in addition to whatever he picked up
at his trade, which continued, as long as he remained in Italy,
that of his father. We know from the manuscripts which have
come down to us that Columbus acquired the manual dexterity
of a good penman ; and if some existing drawings are not apoc-
ryphal, he had a deft hand, too, in making a spirited sketch with
a few strokes. His drawing of maps, which we are also told
about, implies that he had fulfilled Ptolemy's definition of that
art of the cosmographer which could represent the cartographic
outlines of countries with supposable correctness. He could do
it with such skill that he practiced it at one time, as is said,
for the gaining of a livelihood. We know, trusting the Histo-
rie, that he was for a brief period at the University of Pavia,
80
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
perhaps not far from 1460, where he sought to understand the
mysteries of cosmography, astrology, and geometry.
Bossi has enumerated the professors in these depart-
At Pavia.
DRAWING ASCRIBED TO COLUMBUS.
ments at that time, from whose teaching Columbus may pos-
sibly have profited. Harrisse with his accustomed distrust.
UNCERTAINTIES OF HIS EARLY LIFE.
81
throws great doubt on the whole narrative of his university
experiences, and thinks
<D
Antilio
i^cla. de BfaxsvtL
isoladeMatn^^
Fint^tera
Cbfrto Ma^un,
"Liconiili
I. dc'^f^rdum
Bracil ^ Cfulfjcc
Chaprtim " Tanker
Poi'lo^'nnto
I. de '^JUtuiera.
0.
I.Dcscrta. '•<
Lde Lancilotta. y.
Pavia at this time of-
fered no peculiar advan-
tages for an aspiring sea-
man, to be compared with
the j^ractical instruction
which Genoa in its com-
mercial eminence could
at the same time have
offered to any sea-smit-
ten boy. It was at Genoa
at this very time (1461),
that Benincasa was pro-
ducing his famous sea-
charts.
After his possible, if
not probable, sojourn at
Pavia, made transient, it
has been suggested but
not proved, by the failing
fortunes of his father,
Christopher returned to
Genoa, and then after an
uncertain interval e n -
tered on his seafaring *
career. If what passes for his own statement be taken he was
at this turn of his life not more than fourteen years
old. Ihe attractions oi the sea at that period or the
fifteenth century were great for adventurous youths. There was
a spice of piracy in even the soberest ventures of commerce.
The ships of one Christian state preyed on another. Private
ventures were buccaneerish, and the hand of the Catalonian and
of the Moslem were turned against all. The news which sped
from one end of the Mediterranean to the other was of fight
and plunder, here and everywhere. Occasionally it was mixed
with rumors of the voyages beyond the Straits of Hercules,
which told of the Portuguese and their hazards on the African
coast towards the equator. Not far from the time when our
vigorous young Genoese wool-comber may be supposed to have
ANDREAS BENINCASA, 147G.
[From St. Martin's Atlas.']
82
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
embarked on some of these venturesome exploits of the great
inland sea, there might have come jumping from port to port,
westerly along the Mediterranean shores, the story of
the death of that great maritime spirit of Portugal,
Prince Henry, the Navigator, and of the latest feats
of his captains in the great ocean of the west.
Prince
Henry, the
Navigator.
SHIP, FIFTEENTH CENTURY.
[From the Isolario, 1547.]
It has been usual to associate the earliest maritime career of
Anjou'sex- ^ur dashiug Genoese with an expedition fitted out in
pedition. (^Q^c)^ by John of Anjou, Duke of Calabria, to re-
cover possession of the kingdom of Naples for his father, Duke
Rene, Count of Provence. This is known to have been under-
taken in 1459-61. The pride of Genoa encouraged the service
of the attacking fleet, and many a citizen cast in his lot with
UNCERTAINTIES OF HIS EARLY LIFE. 83
that naval armament, and embarked with his own subsidiary-
command. There is mention of a certain doughty captain, Co-
lombo by name, as leading one part of this expeditionary force.
He was very likely one of those French corsairs of that name,
already mentioned, and likely to have been a man of importance
in the Franco-Genoese train. He has, indeed, been sometimes
made a kinsman of the wool-comber's son. There is little likeli-
hood of his having been our Christopher himself, then, as we
may easily picture him, a red-haired youth, or in life's early
prime, with a ruddy complexion, — a type of the Italian which
one to-day is not without the chance of encountering in the
north of Italy, preserving, it may be, some of that northern
blood which had produced the Vikings.
The Historie of 1571 gives what purports to be a letter of
Columbus describing some of the events of this campaign. It
was addressed to the Spanish monarchs in 1495. If Anjou was
connected with any service in which Columbus took part, it is
easy to make it manifest that it could not have happened later
than 1461, because the reverses of that year drove the unfortu-
nate Rene into permanent retirement. The rebuttal cf this
testimony depends largely upon the date of Columbus's birth ;
and if that is placed in 1446, as seems well established, Colum-
bus, the Genoese mariner, could hardly have commanded a gal-
ley in it at fourteen ; and it is still more improbable if, as
D'Avezac says, Columbus was in the expedition when it set out
in 1459, since the boy Christopher was then but twelve. As
Harrisse puts it, the letter of Columbus quoted in the His-
torie is apocryphal, or the correct date of Columbus's birth is
not 1446.
It is, however, not to be forgotten that Columbus himself
testifies to the tender age at which he began his sea-service,
when, in 1501, he recalled some of his early experiences ; but,
unfortunately, Columbus was chronically given to looseness of
statement, and the testimony of his contemporaries is often the
better authority. In 1501, his mind, moreover, was verging on
irresponsibility. He had a talent for deceit, and sometimes
boasted of it, or at least counted it a merit.
Much investigation has wonderfully confirmed the accuracy
of that earliest sketch of his career contained in the Giustiniani
Psalter in 1516 ; and it is learned from that narrative that Co-
84 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
lumbus had attained an adult age when he first went to sea, —
and this was one of the statements which the Historie of 1571
sought to discredit. If the notarial records of Savona are cor-
rect in calling Columbus a wool-comber in 1472, and he was of
the Savona family, and born in 1446, he was then twenty-six
years old, and of the adult age that is claimed by the Psalter
and by other early writers, who either knew or mentioned him,
when he began his seafaring life. In that case he could have
had no part in the Anjou-Kene expedition, whose whole story,
even with the expositions of Harrisse and Max Biidinger, is
shrouded in uncertainties of time and place. That after 1473
he disappears from every notarial record that can be found in
Genoa shows, in Harrisse's opinion, that it was not till then
that he took to the sea as a profession.
We cannot say that the information which we have of this
early seafaring life of Columbus, whenever beginning, is de-
serving of much credit, and it is difficult to place whatever it
includes in chronological order.
We may infer from one of his statements that he had, at
some time, been at Scio observing the making of mastic. Cer-
tain reports which most likely concern his namesakes, the French
corsairs, are sometimes associated with him as leading an attack
on Spanish galleys somewhere in the service of Louis XI., or
as cruising near Cyprus.
So everything is misty about these early days ; but the imagi-
nation of some of his biographers gives us abundant precision
for the daily life of the school-boy, apprentice, cabin boy, mari-
ner, and corsair, even to the receiving of a wound which we
know troubled him in his later years. Such a story of details
is the filling up of a scant outline with the colors of an unfaith-
ful limner.
CHAPTER V.
THE ALLUEEMENTS OF PORTUGAL.
Columbus, disappearing from Italy in 1473, is next found in
Portugal, and it is a natural inquiry why an active,
adventurous spirit, having tested the exhilaration of ^*^^'
the sea, should have made his way to that outpost of maritime
ambition, bordering on the great waters, that had for many ages
attracted and puzzled the discoverer and cosmographer. It is
hardly to be doubted that the fame of the Portuguese voyaging
out upon the vasty deep, or following the western coast of Af-
rica, had for some time been a not unusual topic of talk among
the seamen of the Mediterranean. It may be only less probable
that an intercourse of seafaring Mediterranean people with the
Arabs of the Levant had brought rumors of voyages
in the ocean that washed the eastern shores of Africa. enterpSL in
These stories from the Orient might well have induced ^°'''"^*^'
some to speculate that such voyages were but the complements
of those of the Portuguese in their ejfforts to solve the problem
of the circumnavigation of the great African continent. It is
not, then, surprising that a doughty mariner like Columbus, in
life's prime, should have desired to be in the thick of such dis-
cussions, and to no other European region could he have turned
as a wanderer with the same satisfaction as to Portugal.
Let us see how the great maritime questions stood in Portu-
gal in 1473, and from what antecedents they had arisen.
The Portuguese, at this time, had the reputation of being the
most expert seamen in Europe, or at least they divided Portuguese
it with the Catalans and Majorcans. Their fame ««*°^^«b'P-
lasted, and at a later day was repeated by Acosta. These hardy
mariners had pushed boldly out, as early as we have any records,
into the enticing and yet forbidding Sea of Darkness, Expiora-
not often perhaps willingly out of sight of land ; but seTor*^^
storms not infrequently gave them the experience of ^*^^"««8.
86 , CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
sea and sky, and nothing else. The great ocean was an untried
waste for cartography. A few straggling beliefs in islands
lying westward had come down from the ancients, and the fan-
Marino Sa- tastic notions of floating islands and steady lands,
nuto, 1306. upon which the imagination of the Middle Ages
thrived, were still rife, when we find in the map of Marino
Sanuto, in 1306, what may well be considered the beginning of
Atlantic cartography.
There is no occasion to make it evident that the Islands of
The cana- *^® Wcst found by the Phoenicians, the Fortunate
"®^* Islands of Sertorius, and the Hesperides of Pliny were
the Canaries of later times, brought to light after thirteen cen-
turies of oblivion ; but these islands stand in the planisphere of
Sanuto at the beginning of the fourteenth century, to be casu-
ally visited by the Spaniards and others for a hundred years
and more before the Norman, Jean de Bethencourt, in the
beginning of the fifteenth century (1402), -settled himself on one
of them. Here his kinspeople ruled, till finally the rival claims
of sovereignty by Spain and Portugal ended in the rights of
Spain being established, with compensating exclusive rights to
Portugal on the African coast.
But it was by Genoese in the service of Portugal, the fame
The Genoese ^f whosc cxploits may uot havc been unknown to Co-
in Portugal, lumbus, that the most important discoveries of ocean
islands had been made.
It was in the early part of the fourteenth century that the
Madeira group had been discovered. In the Lauren-
tian portolano of 1351, preserved at Florence, it. is
unmistakably laid down and properly named, and that atlas
has been considered, for several reasons, the work of Genoese,
and as probably recording the voyage by the Genoese Pezagno
for the Portuguese king, — at least Major holds that to be de-
monstrable. The real right of the Portuguese to these islands.
rests, however, on their rediscovery by Prince Henry's captains
at a still later period, in 1418-20, when Madeira, seen as a
cloud in the horizon from Porto Santo, was approached in a
boat from the smaller island.
It is also from the Laurentian portolano of 1351 that we
know how, at some anterior time, the greater group
of the Azores had been found by Portuguese vessels
THE ALLUREMENTS OF PORTUGAL. 87
under Genoese commanders. We find these islands also in the
Catalan map of 1373, and in that of Pizigani of the
same period (1367, 1373).
It was in the reign of Edward III. of England that one Bob-
Maps.
£uu it- colomhv«
«:
"^ JrJidt cU cahrtTM,
0
r ->.-i^^*
J. it, hfarmt
^
Jjt^ho marine
OoaJic
PART OP THE LAURENTIAN PORTOLANO.
[From Major's Prince Henry.']
ert Machin, flying from England to avoid pursuit for stealing
a wife, accidentally reached the island of Madeira. Robe^
Here disaster overtook Machin's company, but some ^*<'^"-
of his crew reached Africa in a boat and were made captives by
the Moors. In 1416, the Spaniards sent an expedition to re-
deem Christian captives held by these same Moors, and, while
bringing them away, the Spanish ship was overcome by a Por-
tuguese navigator, Zarco, and among his prisoners was one
88 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
Morales, who had heard, as was reported, of the experiences of
Machin. Zarco, a little later, being sent by Prince Henry of
Porto Santo Portugal to the coast of Guinea, was driven out to sea,
^^ti^m^"^ and discovered the island of Porto Santo ; and subse-
^^^^- quently, under the prompting of Morales, he rediscov-
ered Madeira, then uninhabited. This was in 1418 or 1419,
and though there are some divergences in the different forms
of the story, and though romance and anachronism somewhat
obscure its truth, the main circumstances are fairly discernible.
This discovery was the beginning of the revelations which the
navigators of Prince Henry were to make. A few years later
(1425) he dispatched colonists to occupy the two islands, and
among them was a gentleman of the household, Bar-
streuofam- tolomco PercstrcUo, whose name, in a descendant, we
shall again encounter when, near the close of the cen-
tury, we follow Columbus himself to this same island of Porto
Santo.
It is conjectured that the position of the Azores was laid down
on a map which, brought to Portugal from Venice in
1428, instigated Prince Henry to order his seamen to
rediscover those islands. That they are laid down on Val-
sequa's Catalan map of 1439 is held to indicate the accomplish-
ment of the prince's purpose, probably in 1432, though it took
twenty years to bring the entire group within the knowledge of
the Portuguese.
The well-known map of Andrea Bianco in 1436, preserved
Bianco's "^ ^^^ Bibliotcca Marciana at Venice, records also the
map, 1436. extcut of suppositiou at that date respecting the isl-
and-studded waste of the Atlantic. Between this date and the
period of the arrival of Columbus in Portugal, the best known
names of the map makers of the Atlantic are those of
other maps, y^j^^^^^ (1439), Lcardo (1448, 1452, 1458), Pareto
(1455), and Fra Mauro (1459). This last there will be occa-
sion to mention later.
In 1452, Pedro de Valasco, in sailing about Fayal westerly,
seeing and following a flight of birds, had discovered
the island of Flores. From what Columbus says in
the journal of his first voyage, forty years later, this tracking of
the flight of birds was not an unusual way, in these early ex-
ploring days, of finding new islands.
THE ALLUREMENTS OF PORTUGAL. 89
Thus it was that down to a period a very little later than
the middle of the fifteenth century the Portuguese had been ac-
MAP OF ANDREA BIANCO.
[From Allgem. Geog. Ephemeriden, "Weimar, 1807.]
customing themselves to these hazards of the open ocean. With-
out knowing it they had, in the discovery of FloreS, actually
reached the farthest land westerly, which could in the better
90 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS,
knowledge of later years be looked upon as the remotest out-
post of the Old World.
There was, as they thought, a much larger cosmographical
The African problem lying to the south, — a route to India by a
route to ^ t K c '
India. supposable Aincan cape.
For centuries the Orient had been the dream of the philoso-
pher and the goal of the merchant. Everything in the East was
thought to be on a larger scale than in Europe, — metals were
more abundant, pearls were rarer, spices were richer, plants
were nobler, animals were statelier. Everything but man was
more lordly. He had been fed there so luxuriously that he was
believed to have dwindled in character. Europe was the world
of active intelligence, the inheritor of Greek and Roman power,
and its typical man belonged naturally with the grander ex-
ternals of the East. There was a fitness in bringing the better
man and the better nature into such relations that the one
should sustain and enjoy the other.
The earliest historical record of the peoples of Western Asia
with China goes back, according to Yule, to the sec-
ond century before Christ. Three hundred years later
we find the first trace of Roman intercourse (a. d. 166). With
India China had some trade by sea as early as the fourth cen-
tury, and with Babylonia possibly in the fifth century. There
were Christian Nestorian missionaries there as early as the
eighth century, and some of their teachings had been found
there by Western travelers in the thirteenth and fourteenth cen-
turies. The communication of Ceylon with China was revived
in the thirteenth century.
It was in the twelfth century, under the Mongol dynasty, that
China became first generally known in Europe, under
the name of Cathay, and then for the first time the
Western nations received travelers' stories of the kingdom of
the great Khan. Two Franciscans, one an Italian, Piano Car-
pini, the other a Fleming, Rubruquis, sent on missions for the
Church, returned to Europe respectively in 1247 and 1255. It
was not, however, till Marco Polo returned from his visit to
Kublai Khan, in the latter part of the thirteenth cen-
Marco Polo. ' ,. i • i <• t-«
tury, that a new enlargement of the ideas oi Europe
respecting the far Orient took place. The influence of his mar-
THE ALLUREMENTS OF PORTUGAL. 91
velous tales continued down to the days of Columbus, and when
the great discoverer came on the scene it was to find the public
mind occupied with the hopes of reaching these Eastern realms
by way of the south. The experimental and accidental voy-
agings of the Portuguese on the Atlantic were held to be but
preliminary to a steadier progression down the coast of Africa.
Whether the ancients had succeeded in circumnavigating
Africa is a question never likely to be definitely set-
tled, and opposing views, as weighed by Bunbury in route and*°
his History of Ancient Geography., are too evenly ®*"*'*®°^-
balanced to allow either side readily to make conquest of judi-
cial minds. It is certain that Hipparchus had denied the possi-
bility of it, and had supposed the Indian Ocean a land-bound
sea, Africa extending at the south so as to connect with a south-
ern prolongation of eastern Asia. This view had been adopted
by Ptolemy, whose opinions were dominating at this time the
Western mind. Nevertheless, that Africa ended in a southern
cape seems to have been conceived of by those who r^^ African
doubted the authority of Ptolemy early enough for '^^'^•
Sanuto, in 1306, to portray such a cape in his planisphere. If
Sanuto really knew of its existence the source of his knowledge
is a subject for curious speculation. Not unlikely an African
cape may have been surmised by the Venetian sailors, who,
frequenting the Mediterranean coasts of Asia Minor, came in
contact with the Arabs. These last may have cherished the
traditions of maritime explorers on the east coast of Africa,
who may have already discovered the great southern cape, per-
haps without passing it.
Navarrete records that as early as 1393 a company had been
formed in Andalusia and Biscay for promoting dis- .
coveries down the coast of Africa. It was an effort coast dis-
. , . , covery, 1393.
to secure m the end such a route to Asia as might
enable the people of the Iberian peninsula to share with those
of the Italian the trade with the East, which the latter had
long conducted wholly or in part overland from the Levant.
The port of Barcelona had indeed a share in this opulent com-
merce ; but its product for Spain was insignificant in compari-
son with that for Italy.
The guiding spirit in this new habit of exploration was that
scion of the royal family of Portugal who became famous even-
92 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS,
tually as Prince Henry the Navigator, and whose biography
has been laid before the English reader within twenty
Henry, the years, abundantly elucidated by the careful hand of
Eichard H. Major. The Prince had assisted King
Joao in the attack on the Moors at Ceuta, in 1415, and this
success had opened to the Prince the prospect of possessing the
Guinea coast, and of ultimately finding and passing the antici-
pated cape at the southern end of Africa.
This was the mission to which the Prince early in the fif-
teenth century gave himself. His ships began to crawl down
the western Barbary coast, and each season added to the ex-
capeBoja- *®^* ^^ their explorations, but Cape Bojador for a
dor. while blocked their way, just as it had stayed other
hardy adventurers even before the birth of Henry. " We may
wonder," says Helps, " that he never took personal command
of any of his expeditions, but he may have thought that he
served the cause better by remaining at home, and forming a
centre whence the electric energy of enterprise was communi-
cated to many discoverers and then again collected from them."
Meanwhile, Prince Henry had received from his father the
government of Algaroe, and he selected the secluded promon-
tory of Sagres, jutting into the sea at the southwest-
ern extremity of Portugal, as his home, going here in
1418, or possibly somewhat later. Whether he so organized his
efforts as to establish here a school of navigation is in dispute,
but it is probably merely a question of what constitutes a
school. There seems no doubt that he built an observatory
and drew about him skillful men in the nautical arts, including
a somewhat famous Majorcan, Jayme. He and his staff of
workers took seamanship as they found it, with its cylindrical
charts, and so developed it that it became in the hands of the
Portuguese the evidence of the highest skill then attainable.
Seamanship as then practiced has become an interesting study.
Art of sea- Under the guidance of Humboldt, in his remarkable
manship. work, the Examen Critique^ in which he couples a
consideration of the nautical astronomy with the needs of this
age of discovery, we find an easy path among the intricacies of
the art. These complications have, in special aspects, been
further elucidated by Navarrete, Margry, and a recent German
writer, Professor Ernst Mayer.
THE ALLUREMENTS OF PORTUGAL.
93
It was just at the end of the thirteenth century (1295) that
the Arte de Navegar of Raymond LuUv, or Lullius
1 nil., <. ' LuUy's ^rte
gave mariners a handbook, which, so far as is made <^«^«v«£'«^-
apparent, was not superseded by a better even in the time of
Columbus.
Another nautical text-book at this time was a treatise by
John Holywood, a Yorkshire man, who needs to be a
little dressed up when we think of him as the Latin- ^^''***^*''*'*'-
ized Sacrobosco. His Sphera Mundi was not put into type till
PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.
[From a Chronicle in the National Library at Paris.]
1472, just before Columbus's arrival in Portugal, — a work
which is mainly paraphrased from Ptolemy's Almagest. It
was one of the books which, by law, the royal cosmographer of
Spain, at a later day, was directed to expound in his courses of
instruction.
The loadstone was known in western and northern Europe as
early as the eleventh century, and for two or three The load-
centuries there are found in books occasional refer- ®*°"®*
ences to the magnet. We are in much doubt, however, as to
94 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
the prevalence of its use in navigation. If we are to believe
some writers on the subject, it was known to the Norsemen as
early as the seventh century; Its use in the Levant, derived,
doubtless, from the peoples navigating the Indian Ocean, goes
back to an antiquity not easily to be limited.
By the year 1200, a knowledge of the magnetic needle, coming
Magnetic ffom China through the Arabs, had become common
needle. euough in Europc to be mentioned in literature, and
in another century its use did not escape record by the chroni-
clers of maritime progress. In the fourteenth century, the ad-
venturous spirit of the Catalans and the Normans stretched the
scope of their observations from the Hebrides on the north to
the west coast of tropical Africa on the south, and to the west-
ward, two fifths across the Atlantic to the neighborhood of the
Azores, — voyages made safely under the direction of the
magnet.
There was not much difficulty in computing latitude either by
the altitude of the polar star or by using tables of the
tionsfor suu's dccliuation, which the astronomers of the time
were equal to calculating. The astrolabe used for
gauging the altitude was a simple instrument, which had been
long in use among the Mediterranean seamen, and had been de-
scribed by Eaymond Lullius in the latter part of the thirteenth
century. Before Columbus's time it had been somewhat im-
The proved by Johannes Miiller of Konigsberg, who be-
astroiabe. came better known from the Latin form of his native
town as Regiomontanus, He had, perhaps, the best reputation
in his day as a nautical astronomer, and Humboldt has explained
the importance of his labors in the help which he afforded in an
age of discovery.
It is quite certain that the navigators of Prince Henry, and
Dead cvcu Columbus, practiced no artificial method for as-
reckoning. certainiug the speed of their ships. With vessels of
the model of those days, no great rapidity was possible, and the
utmost a ship could do under favorable circumstances was not
usually beyond four miles an hour. The hourglass gave them
the time, and afforded the multiple according as the eye ad-
justed the apparent number of miles which the ship was making
hour by hour. This was the method by which Columbus, in
1492, calculated the distances, which he recorded day by day in
THE ALLUREMENTS OF PORTUGAL. 95
his journal. Of course the practiced seaman made allowances
for drift m the ocean currents, and met with more or less intel-
ligence the various deterrent elements in beating to windward
Humboldt, with his keen insight into all such problems con-
cerning their relations to oceanic discoveries, tells us These
in his Cosmos how he has made the history of the log ^^^'^^V
a subject of special investigation in the sixth volume of his
THE ASTROLABE OF REGIOMONTANUS.
Examen Critique de VHistoire de la Geographie, which, unfor-
tunately, the world has never seen ; but he gives, apparently, the
results in his later Cosmos,
It is perhaps surprising that the Mediterranean peoples had
not perceived a method, somewhat clumsy as it was, which had
been in use by the Romans in the time of the republic. Though
the habit of throwing the log is still, in our day, kept up on
ocean steamers, I find that experienced commanders quite as
willingly depend on the report of their engineers as to the
number of revolutions which the wheel or screw has made in
the twenty-four hours. In this they were anticipated by these
96 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
republicans of Rome who attached wheels of four feet diameter
to the sides of their ships and let the passage of the water turn
them. Their revolutions were then recorded by a device which
threw a pebble into a tally-pot for each revolution.
REGIOMONTANUS'S ASTROLABE, 1468.
[After an original in the museum at Nuremberg, shown in E. Mayer's Die Hilfsmittel der
Schiffahrtskunde.']
From that time, so far as Humboldt could ascertain, down to
a period later than Columbus, and certainly after the revival
of long ocean voyages by the Catalans, Portuguese, and Nor-
mans, there seems to have been no skill beyond that of the eyes
in measuring the speed of vessels. After the days of Columbus,
it is only when we come to the voyages of Magellan that we find
any mention of such a device as a log, which consisted, as his
THE ALLUREMENTS OF PORTUGAL. 97
chronicler explains, of some arrangements of cog-wheels and
chains carried on the poop.
Such were in brief the elements of seamanship in which
Prince Henry the Navigator caused his sailors to be
instructed, and which more or less governed the in- ^J^'s
strumentalities employed in his career of discovery. ''^™*^'^*
He was a man who, as his motto tells us, wished, and was able,
to do well. He was shadowed with few infirmities of spirit.
He joined with the pluck of his half-English blood — for he was
the grandson of John of Gaunt — a training for endurance de-
rived in his country's prolonged contests with the Moor. He
was the staple and lofty exemplar of this great age of discovery.
He was more so than Columbus, and rendered the adventitious
career of the Genoese possible. He knew how to manage men,
and stuck devotedly to his work. He respected his helpers too
much to drug them with deceit, and there is a straightforward
honesty of purpose in his endeavors. He was a trainer of men,
and they grew courageous under his instruction. To sail into
the supposed burning zone beyond Cape Bojador, and to face the
destruction of life which was believed to be inevitable, required
a courage quite as conspicuous as to cleave the floating verdure
of the Sargasso Sea, on a western passage. It must be con-
fessed that he shared with Columbus those proclivities which
in the instigators of African slavery so easily slipped into
cruelty. They each believed there was a merit, if a heathen's
soul be at stake, in not letting commiseration get the better of
piety.
It was not till 1434 that Prince Henry's captains finally passed
Cape Boiador. It was a strenuous and daring effort
,«» 111 iii«i ^*p® ^oj**
m the lace oi conceded danger, and under the impulse dor passed,
of the Prince's earnest urging. Gil Eannes returned
from this accomplished act a hero in the eyes of his master.
Had it ever been passed before ? Not apparently in any way to
affect the importance of this Portuguese enterprise. We can go
back indeed, to the expedition of Hanno the Carthaginian, and
in the commentaries of Carl Miiller and Vivien de St. Martin
track that navigator outside the Pillars of Hercules, and follow
him southerly possibly to Cape Verde or its vicinity ;. and this,
if Major's arguments are to be accepted, is the only antecedent
venture beyond Cape Bojador, though there have been claims set
98
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
SKETCH MAP OF AFRICAN
DISCOVERY.
up for the Genoese, the Catalans, and the Dieppese. That the
map of Marino Sanuto in 1306, and
the so-called Laurentian portolano of
1351, both of which establish a vague
southerly limit to Africa, rather give
expression to a theory than chronicle
the experience of navigators is the
opinion of Major. It is of course pos-
sible that some indefinite knowledge of
oriental tracking of the eastern coast
of Africa, and developing its terminal
shape southerly, may have passed, as
already intimated, with other nautical
knowledge, by the Red Sea to the Med-
iterranean peoples. To attempt to set-
tle the question of any circumnaviga-
tion of Africa before the days of Diaz
and Da Gama, by the evidence of ear-
lier maps, makes us confront very closely geographical theories
on the one hand, and on the other a possible actual knowledge
filtered through the Arabs. All this renders it imprudent to
assume any tone of certainty in the matter.
The captains of Prince Henry now began, season by season,
to make a steady advance. The Pope had granted to the Portu-
guese monarchy the exclusive right to discovered lands on this
unexplored route to India, and had enjoined all others not to in-
terfere.
In 1441 the Prince's ships passed beyond Cape Blanco, and
Cape Blanco ^^ succcediiig ycars they still pushed on little by little,
passed, 1441. ^^riugiug homc in 1442 some negroes for slaves, the
first which were seen in Europe, as Helps supposes, though
this is a matter of some doubt.
Cape Yerde had been reached by Diniz Dyaz (Fernandez)
in 1445, and the discovery that the coast beyond had
reached, a general easterly trend did much to encourage the
Portuguese, with the illusory hope that the way to
India was at last opened. They had by this time passed be-
yond the countries of the Moors, and were coasting along a
country inhabited by negroes.
In 1455, the Venetian Cadamosto, a man who proved that he
THE ALLUREMENTS OF PORTUGAL,
99
could write intelligently of what he saw, was induced by Prince
Henry to conduct a new expedition, which was led to cadamosto
the Gambia ; so that Europeans saw for the first time '^'^'
the constellation of the Southern Cross. In the following year,
still patronized by Prince Henry, who fitted out one of his
vessels, Cadamosto discovered the Cape Verde Islands, or at
least his narrative would indicate that he did. By capeVerde
comparison of documents, however. Major has made it ^8^^8-
pretty clear that Cadamosto arrogated to himself a glory which
belonged to another, and that the true discoverer of the Cape
Verde Islands was Diogo Gomez, in 1460. It was on this sec-
ond voyage that Cadamosto passed Cape Roxo, and reached
the Rio Grande.
FRA MAURO'S WORLD, 1439.
In 1457, Prince Henry sent, by order of his nephew and
sovereign, Alfonso V., the maps of his captains to FraMauro's
Venice, to have them combined in a large mappe- ^^p^'^^^-
100
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
monde ; and Era Mauro was entrusted with the making of it, in
which he was assisted by Andrea Bianco, a famous cartog-
TOMB OF PRTNT^E HENRY AT BATALHA.
[From Major's Prince Henry. "l
rapher of the time. This great map came to Portugal the year
before the Prince died, and it stands as his final rec-
ord, left behind him at his death, November 13, 1460, Henry dies,
1460.
to attest his constancy and leadership. The pecuni-
THE ALLUREMENTS OF PORTUGAL. 101
ary sacrifices which he had so greatly incurred in his enter-
prises had fatally embarrassed his estate. His death wa^ not
as Columbus's was, an obscura-
tion that no one noted ; his life
was prolonged in the school of
seamanship which he had cre-
ated.
The Prince's enthusiasm in
his belief that there was a great
southern point of Africa had
been imparted to all his follow-
ers. Era Mauro gave it cre-
dence in his map by an indica-
tion that an Indian junk from
the East had rounded the cape
with the sun in 1420. In this
Mauro map the easterly trend
of the coast beyond Cape Verde
is adequately shown, but it is
made only as the northern
shore of a deep gulf indenting
the continent. The more south-
ern parts are simply forced into
a shape to suit and fill out the
circular dimensions of the map.
Within a few years after
Henry's death — though some
place it earlier — the explora-
tions had been pushed to Si-
erra Leone and be- gje^ra Leone.
yond Cape Mezu- <^oi<i coast.
rada. When the revenues of
the Gold Coast were farmed out
in 1469, it was agreed that dis- statue of prince henry at belem.
covery should be pushed a hun- ^^''''^ ^^^°'''' ^^'""^ ^^"^'^
dred leagues farther south annually ; and by 1474, when the
contract expired, Fernam Gomez, who had taken it,
had already found the gold dust region of La Mina,
which Columbus, in 1492, was counseled by Spain to avoid
while searching for his western lands.
102 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
This, then, was the condition of Portuguese seamanship and
of its exploits when Columbus, some time, probably, in 1473,
reached Portugal. He found that country so content with the
rich product of the Guinea coast that it was some years later
before the Portuguese began to push still farther to the south.
The desire to extend the Christian faith to heathen, often on
the lips of the discoverers of the fifteenth century, was never so
powerful but that gold and pearls made them forget it.
CHAPTER VI.
COLUMBUS IN PORTUGAL.
It has been held by Navarrete, Irving, and other writers of
the older school that Columbus first arrived in Portu- D^te of his
gal in 1470 ; and his coming has commonly been con- *"^^»i-
nected with a naval battle near Lisbon, in which he escaped
from a burning ship by swimming to land with the aid of an
oar. It is easily proved, however, that notarial entries in Italy
show him to have been in that country on August 7, 1473. We
may, indeed, by some stretch of inference, allow the
old date to be sustained, by supposing that he really
was domiciled in Lisbon as early as 1470, but made occasional
visits to his motherland for the next three or four years.
The naval battle, in its details, is borrowed by the Historie
of 1571 from the Rerum Venitiarum ah Urhe Condita supposed
of Sabellicus. This author makes Christopher Colum- "^^^i battle.
bus a son of the younger corsair Colombo, who commanded in
the fight, which could not have happened either in 1470, the
year usually given, or in 1473-74, the time better determined
for Columbus's arrival in Portugal, since this particular action
is known to have taken place on August 22, 1485. Those who
defend the Historie^ like D'Avezac, claim that its account sim-
ply confounds the battle of 1485 with an earlier one, and that
the story of the oar must be accepted as an incident of this sup-
posable anterior fight. The action in 1485 took place when the
French corsair, Casaneuve or Colombo, intercepted some richly
laden Venetian galleys between Lisbon and Cape St. Vincent
History makes no mention of any earlier action of similar im-
port which could have been the occasion of the escape by swim-
ming ; and to sustain the Historie by supposing such is a sim-
ple, perhaps allowable, hypothesis.
Rawdon Brown, in the introduction to his volumes of the
Calendar of State Papers in the Archives of Venice^ has con-
104 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
nected Columbus with this naval combat, but, as he later ac-
knowledged to Harrisse, solely on the authority of the Historie.
Irving has rejected the story. There seems no occasion to
doubt its inconsistencies and anachronisms, and, once discarded,
we are thrown back upon the notarial evidence in Italy,
rivailn^ "' by which we may venture to accept the date of 1473-
74 as that of the entrance of Columbus into Portugal.
Irving, though he discards the associated incidents, accepts the
earlier date. Nevertheless, the date of 1473-74 is not taken
without some hazard. As it has been of late ascertained that
when Columbus left Portugal it was not for good, as was sup-
posed, so it may yet be discovered that it was from some earlier
adventure that the buoyancy of an oar took him to the land.
This coming of an Italian to Portugal to throw in his lot
with a foreign people leads the considerate observer to
maritime rcflcct ou the straugc vicissitudes which caused Italy
to furnish to the western nations so many conspicuous
leaders in the great explorations of the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries, without profiting in the slightest degree through terri-
torial return. Cadamosto and Cabot, the Venetians, Columbus,
the Genoese, Vespucius and Verrazano, the Florentines, are, on
the whole, the most important of the great captains of dis-
covery in this virgin age of maritime exploration through the
dark waters of the Atlantic ; and yet Spain and Portugal,
France and England, w^ere those who profited by their genius
and labors.
It is a singular fact that, during the years which Columbus
spent in Portugal, there is not a single act of his life that can
be credited with an exact date, and few can be placed beyond
cavil by undisputed documentary evidence.
It is the usual story, given by his earliest Italian biographers,
Occupation Grallo and his copiers, that Columbus had found his
in Portugal. jj^Qther Bartholomew already domiciled in Portugal,
and earning a living by making charts and selling books, and
that Christopher naturally fell, for a while, into similar occupa-
tions. He was not, we are also told, unmindful of his father's
distresses in Italy, when he disposed of his small earnings. We
likewise know the names of a few of his fellow Genoese settled
in Lisbon in traffic, because he speaks of their kindnesses to
him, and the help which they had given him (1482) in what
would appear to have been commercial ventures.
COLUMBUS IN PORTUGAL. 105
It seems not unlikely that he had not been long in the coun-
try when the incident occurred at Lisbon which led to his
marriage, which is thus recorded in the Hlstorie,
During his customary attendance upon divine worship in the
Convent of All Saints, his devotion was observed bv „.
. J His mar-
one of the pensioners of the monastery, who sought "*^®-
him with such expressions of affection that he easily yielded to
her charms. This woman, Felipa Moniz by name, is said to
• have been a daughter, by his wife Caterina Visconti, of Bar-
tolomeo Perestrello, a gentleman of Italian origin, who is asso-
ciated with the colonization of Madeira and Porto Santo. From
anything which Columbus himself says and is preserved to us,
we know nothing more than that he desired in his will that
masses should be said for the repose of her soul ; for she was
then long dead, and, as Diego tells us, was buried in Lisbon.
We learn her name for the first time from Diego's will, in 1509,
and this is absolutely all the documentary evidence which we
have concerning her. Oviedo and the writers who wrote be-
fore the publication of the Historie had only said that Colum-
bus had married in Portugal, without further particulars.
But the Historic^ with Las Casas following it, does not wholly
satisfy our curiosity, neither does Oviedo, later, nor T^g p^^g.
Gomara and Benzoni, who copy from Oviedo. There ^^^^^^^^
arises a question of the identity of this Bartolomeo PerestreUo,
among three of the name of three succeeding generations.
Somewhere about 1420, or later, the eldest of this line was made
the first governor of Porto Santo, after the island had been dis-
covered by one of the expeditions which had been down the
African coast. It is of him the story goes that, taking some
rabbits thither, their progeny so quickly possessed the island
that its settlers deserted it ! Such genealogical information as
can be acquired of this earliest Perestrello is against the sup-
position of his being the father of Felipa Moniz, but rather
indicates that by a second wife, Isabel Moniz by name, he had
the second Bartolomeo, who in turn became the father of our
Felipa Moniz. The testimony of Las Casas seems to favor this
view. If this is the Bartolomeo who, having attained his ma-
jority, was assigned to the captaincy of Porto Santo in 1473,
it could hardly be that a daughter would have been old enough
to marry in 1474-75.
106 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
The first Bartolomeo, if he was the father-in-law of Colum-
bus, seems to have died in 1457, and was succeeded in 1458, in
command of the island of Porto Santo, by another son-in-law,
Pedro Correa da Cunha, who married a daughter of his first
marriage, — or at least that is one version of this genealogical
complication, — and who was later succeeded in 1473 by the
second Bartolomeo.
The Count Bernardo Pallastrelli, a modern member of the
family, has of late years, in his II Suocero e la Moglie di Cris-
toforo Colomho (2d ed., Piacenza, 1876), attempted to identify
the kindred of the wife of Columbus. He has examined the
views of Harrisse, who is on the whole inclined to believe that
the wife of Columbus was a daughter of one Vasco Gill Moiiiz,
whose sister had married the Perestrello of the Historie story.
The successive wills of Diego Columbus, it may be observed,
call her in one (1509) Philippa Moniz, and in the other (1523)
Philippa Muniz, without the addition of Perestrello. The gen-
ealogical table of the count's monograph, on the other hand,
makes Felipa to be the child of Isabella Moniz, who was the
second wife of Bartolomeo Pallastrelli, the son of Felipo, who
came to Portugal some time after 1371, from Plaisance, in Italy.
Bartolomeo had been one of the household of Prince Henry,
and had been charged by him with founding a colony at Porto
Santo, in 1425, over which island he was long afterward (1446)
made governor. We must leave it as a question involved in
much doubt.
The issue of this marriage was one son, Diego, but there is
no distinct evidence as to the date of his birth. Sun-
Columbus's T . . , 1 1 • 11
son Diego dry incidcnts go to show that it was somewhere be-
tween 1475 and 1479. Columbus's marriage to Dona
Felipa had probably taken place at Lisbon, and not before
1474 at the earliest, a date not difficult to reconcile with the
year (1473-74) now held to be that of his arrival in Portu-
gal. It is supposed that it was while Columbus was living at
Porto Santo, where his wife had some property, that Diego was
born, though Harrisse doubts if any evidence can be adduced
to support such a statement beyond a sort of conjecture on Las
Casas's part, derived from something he thought he remem-
bered Diego to have told him.
The story of Columbus's marriage, as given in the Historie
COLUMBUS IN PORTUGAL. 107
and followed by Oviedo, couples with it the belief that it was
among the papers of his dead father-in-law, Perestrel-
lo, that Columbus found documents and maps which ^^^•
prompted him to the conception of a western passage to Asia.
In that case, this may perhaps have been the motive which in-
duced him to draw from Paolo Toscanelli that famous letter,
which is usually held to have had an important influence on the
mind of Columbus.
The fact of such relationship of Columbus with Perestrello
is called in question, and so is another incident often g^^^ ^^ ^
related by the biographers of Columbus. This is that £"coiuJJ°^
an old seaman who had returned from an adventur- ^"s'shouae.
ous voyage westward had found shelter in the house of Colum-
bus, and had died there, but not before he had disclosed to him
a discovery he had made of land to the west. This story is not
told in any writer that is now known before Gomara (1552),
and we are warned by Benzoni that in Gomara's hands this
pilot story was simply an invention " to diminish the immortal
fame of Christopher Columbus, as there were many who could
not endure that a foreigner and Italian should have acquired
so much honor and so much glory, not only for the Spanish
kingdom, but also for the other nations of the world."
It is certain, however, that under the impulse of the young
art of printing men's minds had at this time become more alive
than they had been for centuries to the search for cosmograph-
ical views. The old geographers, just at this time, were one by
one finding their way into print, mainly in Italy, while the in-
tercourse of that country with Portugal was quickened by the
attractions of the Portuguese discoveries. While Columbus was
still in Italy, the great popularity of Pomponius Mela began
with the first edition in Latin, which was printed at
Milan in 1471, followed soon by other editions in Meia,
Venice. The De Situ Orbis of Strabo had already
been given to the world in Latin as early as 1469, and during
the next few years this text was several times reprinted at Rome
and Venice. The teaching of the sphericity of the earth in the
astronomical poem of Manilius, loner a favorite with
^ 7 o ^ . . Manilius,
the monks of the Middle Ages, who repeated it m p^'^^^*
their labored script, appeared in type at Nuremberg at '
the same time. The Polyhistor of Solinus did not long delay
108 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
to follow. A Latin version of Ptolemy had existed since 1409,
but it was later than the rest in appearing in print, and bears
the date of 1475. These were the newer issues of the Italian
and German presses, which were attracting the notice of the
learned in this country of the new activities when Columbus
came among them, and they were having their palpable effect.
Just when we know not, but some time earlier than this, Al-
Toscaneiii'a fo^so V. of Portugal had sought, through the medium
theory. q£ ^^ mouk Femaudo Martinez (Fernam Martins),
to know precisely what was meant by the bruit of Toscanelli's
theory of a westward way to India. To an inquiry thus vouched
Toscanelli had replied to Fernando Martinez (June 26, 1474),
some days before a similar inquiry addressed to Toscanelli
reached Florence, from Columbus himself, and through the
agency of an aged Florentine merchant settled in Lisbon. It
seems probable that no knowledge of Martinez's correspon-
dence with Toscanelli had come to the notice of Columbus ; and
that the message which the Genoese sent to the Florentine was
due simply to the same current rumors of Toscanelli's views
which had attracted the attention of the king. So in replying
His letter to ^^ Columbus Toscauelli simply shortened his task by
Columbus, inclosing, with a brief introduction, a copy of the let-
ter, which he says he had sent " some days before " to Mar-
tinez. This letter outlined a plan of western discovery ; but it
is difficult to establish beyond doubt the exact position which
the letter of Toscanelli should hold in the growth of Colum-
bus's views. If Columbus reached Portugal as late as 1473-74,
as seems likely, it is rendered less certain that Columbus had
grasped his idea anterior to the spread of Toscanelli's theory.
In any event, the letter of the Florentine physician would
strengthen the growing notions of the Genoese.
As Toscanelli was at this time a man of seventy-seven, and
as a belief in the sphericity of the earth was then not unpreva-
lent, and as the theory of a westward way to the East was a
necessary concomitant of such views in the minds of thinking
men, it can hardly be denied that the latent faith in a westward
passage only needed a vigilant mind to develop the theory, and
an adventurous spirit to prove its correctness. The develop-
ment had been found in Toscanelli and the proof was waiting
for Columbus, — both Italians ; but Humboldt points out how
COLUMBUS IN PORTUGAL. 109
the Florentine very likely thought he was communicating with
a Portuguese, when he wrote to Columbus.
This letter has been known since 1571 in the Italian text as
given in the Hlstorie^ which, as it turns out, was inexact and
overladen with additions. At least such is the inference when
we compare this Italian text with a Latin text, supposed to be
the original tongue of the letter, which has been discovered of
late years in the handwriting of Columbus himself, on the fly-
leaf of an ^neas Sylvius (1477), once belonging to Columbus,
and still preserved in the Biblioteca Colombina at Seville.
The letter which is given in the Historie is accompanied by an
antescript, which says that the copy had been sent to Colum-
bus at his request, and that it had been originally addressed to
Martinez, some time " before the wars of Castile." How much
later than the date June 25, 1474, this copy was sent to Colum-
bus, and when it was received by him, there is no sure means
of determining, and it may yet be in itself one of the factors
for limiting the range of months during which Columbus must
have arrived in Portugal.
The extravagances of the letter of Toscanelli, in his opulent
descriptions of a marvelous Asiatic region, were
safely made in that age without incurring the charge visions of
of credulity. Travelers could tell tales then that were ^ ^ '
as secure from detection as the revealed arcana of the Zuni
have been in our own days. Two hundred towns, whose marble
bridges spanned a single river, and whose commerce could in-
cite the cupidity of the world, was a tale easily to stir numer-
ous circles of listeners in the maritime towns of the Mediterra-
nean, wherever wandering mongers of marvels came and went.
There were such travelers whose recitals Toscanelli had read,
and others whose tales he had heard from their own lips, and
these last were pretty sure to augment the wonders of the elder
talebearers.
Columbus had felt this influence with the rest, and the tales
lost nothing of their vividness in coming to him freshened, as it
were, by the curious mind of the Florentine physician. The
map which accompanied Toscanelli's letter, and which depicted
his notions of the Asiatic coast lying over against that of Spain,
is lost to us, but various attempts have been made to restore
it, as is done in the sketch annexed. It will be a precious
COLUMBUS IN PORTUGAL. Ill
memorial, if ever recovered, worthy of study as a reflex, in more
concise representation than is found in the text of the letter, of
the ideas which one of the most learned cosmographers of his
day had imbibed from mingled demonstrations of science and
imagination.
It is said that in our own day, in the first stages of a belief
in the practicability of an Atlantic telegraphic cable, ^he passage
it was seriously claimed that the vast stretch of its ex- westward.
tension could be broken by a halfway station on Jacquet Island,
one of those relics of the Middle Ages, which has disappeared
from our ocean charts only in recent years.
Just in the same way all the beliefs which men had had in
the island of Antillia, and in the existence of many
another visionary bit of land, came to the assistance of
these theoretical discoverers in planning the chances of a des-
perate voyage far out into a sea of gorgons and chimeras dire.
Toscanelli's map sought to direct the course of any one who
dared to make the passage, in a way that, in case of disaster to
his ships, a secure harbor could be found in Antillia, and in
such other havens as no lack of islands would supply.
Ferdinand claimed to have found in his father's papers some
statements which he had drawn from Aristotle of Carthaginian
voyages to Antillia, on the strength of which the Portuguese
had laid that island down in their charts in the latitude of Lis-
bon, as one occupied by their people in 714, when Spain was
conquered by the Moors. Even so recently as the time of Prince
Henry it had been visited by Portuguese ships, if records were
to be believed. It also stands in the Bianco map of 1436.
There are few more curious investigations than those which
concern these fantastic and fabulous islands of the Sea
1 . , . 1 • 1 Fabulous
of Darkness. They are connected with views which islands of
. - , , . . . , the Atlantic.
were an inheritance in part from the classic times, with
involved notions of the abodes of the blessed and of demoniacal
spirits. In part they were the aerial creation of popular mythol-
ogies, going back to a remoteness of which it is impossible to
trace the beginning, and which got a variable color from the
popular fancies of succeeding generations. The whole subject
is curiously without the field of geography, though entering into
all surveys of mediaeval knowledge of the earth, anjd clepending
very largely for its elucidation on the maps of the fourteenth
112 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
and fifteenth centuries, whose mythical traces are not beyond
recognition in some of the best maps which have instructed a
generation still living.
To place the island of the Irish St. Brandan — whose coming
St. Bran- thcrc with his monks is spoken of as taking place in
^^' the sixth century — in the catalogue of insular enti-
ties is to place geography in such a marvelous guise as would
have satisfied the monk Philoponus and the rest of the credu-
lous fictionmongers who hang about the skirts of the historic
field. But the belief in it long prevailed, and the apparition
sometimes came to sailors' eyes as late as the last century.
The great island of Antillia, or the Seven Cities, already re-
ferred to, was recognized, so far as we know, for the
the Seven first time iu the Weimar map of 1424, and is known
in legends as the resort of some Spanish bishops,
flying from the victorious Moors, in the eighth century. It
never quite died out from the recognition of curious minds, and
was even thought to have been seen by the Portuguese, not far
from the time when Columbus was born. Peter Martyr also,
after Columbus had returned from his first voyage, had a fancy
that what the Admiral had discovered was really the great isl-
and of Antillia, and its attendant groups of smaller isles, and
the fancy was perpetuated when Wytfliet and Ortelius popular-
ized the name of Antilles for the West Indian Archipelago.
Another fleeting insular vision of this pseudo-geographical
Brazil realm was a smaller body of floating land, very incon-
isiand. stant in position, which is always given some form of
the name that, in later times, got a constant shape in the word
Brazil. We can trace it back into the portolanos of the middle
of the fourteenth century ; and it had not disappeared as a sur-
vival twenty or thirty years ago in the admiralty charts of Great
Britain. The English were sending out expeditions from Bris-
tol in search of it even while Columbus was seeking counte-
nance for his western schemes ; and Cabot, at a little later day,
was instrumental in ©ther searches.
Foremost among the travelers who had excited the interest
Travelers in ^f ToscaucUi, and whosc uamcs he possibly brought
the Orient, f^j. ^^^ g^^^ ^:^^^ ^^ ^^^ attention of Columbus, were
Marco Polo, Sir John Mandeville, and Nicolas de Conti.
It is a question to be resolved only by critical study as to
COLUMBUS IN PORTUGAL.
MODERN EASTERN ASIA, WITH THE OLD AND NEW NAMES.
[From Yule's Cathay.']
114
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
what was the language in which Marco Polo first dictated, in
a Genoese prison in 1298, the original narrative of
0 0, j^.^ experiences in Cathay. The inquiry has engaged
EASTERN ASIA, CATALAN MAP, 1375.
[From Yule's Cathay, vol. i.]
the attention of all his editors, and has invited the critical sa-
gacity of D'Avezac. There seems little doubt that it was writ-
ten down in French.
COLUMBUS IN PORTUGAL.
115
There are no references by Columbus himself to the Asiatic
travels of Marco Polo, but his acquaintance with the marvelous
book of the Venetian observer may safely be assumed. The
multiplication of texts of the Milione following upon his first
dictation, and upon the subsequent revision in 1307, may not
indeed, have caused it to be widely known in various manu-
MARCO POLO.
[From an original at Rome.]
script forms, be it in Latin or Italian. Nor is it likely that
Columbus could have read the earliest edition which was put in
type, for it was in German in 1477 ; but there is the interesting
possibility that this work of the Nuremberg press may have
been known to Martin Behaim, a Nuremberger then in Lisbon,
and likely enough to have been a familiar of Columbus. The
fact that there is in the Biblioteca Colombina at Seville a copy
of the first Latin printed edition (1485) with notes, which seem
to be in Columbus's handwriting, may be taken as evidence,
that at least in the later years of his study the inspiration which
Marco Polo could well have been to him was not wanting ; and
the story may even be true as told in Navarrete, that Columbus
y'
<
116 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
had a copy of this famous book at his siae during his first voy-
age, in 1492.
At the time when Humboldt doubted the knowledge of Co-
lumbus in respect to Marco Polo, this treasure of the Colombina
was not known, and these later developments have shown how
such a question was not to be settled as Humboldt supposed, by
the fact that Columbus quoted ^neas Sylvius upon Cipango,
and did not quote Marco Polo.
Neither does Columbus refer to the journey and strange sto-
sir John ^^^^ of Sir Johu Mandcville, whose recitals came to a
Mandevuie. generation which was beginning to forget the stories
of Marco Polo, and which, by fostering a passion for the mar-
velous, had readily become open to the English knight's bewil-
dering fancies. The same negation of evidence, however, that
satisfied Humboldt as respects Marco Polo will hardly suffice
to establish Columbus's ignorance of the marvels which did more,
perhaps, than the narratives of any other traveler to awaken
Europe to the wonders of the Orient. Bernaldez, in fact, tells
us that Columbus was a reader of Mandeville, whose recital
was first printed in French at Lyons in 1480, within a few
years after Columbus's arrival in Portugal.
It was to Florence, in Toscanelli's time, not far from 1420,
Nicoio di *^^^* Nicolo di Conti, a Venetian, came, after his long
conti. sojourn of a quarter of a century in the far East, In
Conti's new marvels, the Florentine scholar saw a rejuvenation
of the wonders of Marco Polo. It was from Conti, doubtless,
that Toscanelli got some of that confidence in a western voyage
which, in his epistle to Columbus, he speaks of as derived from
a returned traveler.
Pope Eugene lY., not far from the time of the birth of Co-
lumbus, compelled Conti to relate his experiences to Poggio
Bracciolini. This scribe made what he could out of the mon-
strous tales, and translated the stories into Latin. In this con-
dition Columbus may have known the narrative at a later day.
The information which Conti gave was eagerly availed of by
the cosmographers of the time, and Colonel Yule, the modern
English writer on ancient Cathay, thinks that Fra Mauro got
for his map more from Conti than that traveler ventured to
disclose to Poggio.
Toscanelli, at the time of writing this letter to Columbus, had
COLUMBUS IN PORTUGAL. 117
long enjoyed a reputation as a student of terrestrial and celes-
tial phenomena. He liad received, in 1463, the dedica- Toscaneui's
tion by Regiomontanus of his treatise on the quadra- ^^^^^ ^^'^^
ture of the circle. He was, as has been said, an old man of
seventy-seven when Columbus opened his correspondence with
him. It was not his fate to live long enough to see his physical
views substantiated by Diaz and Columbus, for he died in
1482.
In two of the contemporary writers, Bartholomew Columbus
is credited with having incited his brother Christopher
to the views which he developed regarding a western co°nfe'?s'JJith
passage, and these two were Antonio Gallo and Gius-
tiniani, the commentator of the Psalms. It has been of late
contended by H. Grothe, in his Leonardo da . Vinci (Berlin,
1874), that it was at this time, too, when that eminent artist con-
ducted a correspondence with Columbus about a western way to
Asia. But there is little need of particularizing other advo-
cates of a belief which had within the range of credible history
never ceased to have exponents. The conception was in no re-
spect the merit of Columbus, except as he grasped a tradition,
which others did not, and it is strange, that Navarrete in quoting
the testimony of Ferdinand and Isabella, of August 8, 1497, to
the credit of the discovery of Columbus, as his own proper
work, does not see that it was the venturesome, and as was
then thought foolhardy, deed to prove the conception which
those monarchs commended, and not the conception itself.
We learn from the Historie that its writer had found among
the papers of Columbus the evidence of the grounds coiumbua
of his belief in the western passage, as under varying J^aso^ for
impressions it had been formulated in his mind. These ^'«b«"«f-
reasons divide easily into three groups : First, those based on
deductions drawn from scientific I'esearch, and as expressed in
the beliefs of Ptolemy, Marinus, Strabo, and Pliny ; second,
views which the authority of eminent writers had rendered
weightier, quoting as such the works of Aristotle, Seneca,
Strabo, Pliny, Solinus, Marco Polo, Mandeville, Pierre d' Ailly,
and Toscanelli : and third, the stories of sailors as to lands
and indications of lands westerly.
From these views, instigated or confirmed by such opinions,
Columbus gradually arranged his opinions, in not one of which
118 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
did he prove to be right, except as regards the sphericity of the
earth ; and the last was a belief which had been the common
property of learned men, and at intervals occupying even the
popular mind, from a very early date.
The conception among the Greeks of a plane earth, which
Sphericity ^as taught in the Homeric and Hesiodic poems, be-
of the earth. ^^^ ^^ g'^g placc to a crudc notion of a spherical form
at a period that no one can definitely determine, though we find
it taught by the Pythagoreans in Italy in the sixth century be-
fore Christ. The spherical view and its demonstration passed
down through long generations of Greeks, under the sanction of
Plato and their other highest thinkers. In the fourth century
before Christ, Aristotle and others, by watching the moon's
shadow in an eclipse, and by observing the rising and setting
of the heavenly bodies in different latitudes, had proved the
roundness of the earth to their satisfaction ; Eratosthenes first
measured a degree of latitude in the third century ; Hipparchus,
in the second century, was the earliest to establish geograph-
ical positions ; and in the second century of the Christian era
Ptolemy had formulated for succeeding times the s^en-
Transmis- ...
sionof the cral scopc of the transmitted belief. During all these
centuries it was perhaps rather a possession of the
learned. We infer from Aristotle that the view was a novelty
in his time ; but in the third century before Christ it began to
engage popular attention in the poem of Aratus, and at about
200 B. c. Crates is said to have given palpable manifestation
of the theory in a globe, ten feet in diameter, which he con-
structed.
The belief passed to Italy and the Latins, and was sung by
Hyginus and Manilius in the time of Augustus. We find it
also in the minds of Pliny, Cicero, Virgil, and Ovid. So the
belief became the heirloom ctf the learned throughout the clas-
sic times, and it was directly coupled in the minds of Aristotle,
Eratosthenes, Strabo, Seneca, and others with a conviction,
more or less pronounced, of an easy western voyage from Spain
to India.
No one of the ancient expressions of this belief seems to have
Seneca'8 cluug more in the memory of Columbus than that in
Medea. ^^^ Medea of Seneca ; and it is an interesting con-
firmation that in a copy of the book which belonged to his son
COLUMBUS IN PORTUGAL. 119
Ferdinand, and which is now preserved in Seville, the passage is
scored by the son's hand, while in a marginal note he has at-
tested the fact that its prophecy of a western passage had been
made good by his father in 1492. Though the opinion was op-
posed by St. Chrysostom in the fourth century, it was taught by
St. Augustine and Isidore in the fifth. Cosmas in the sixth cen-
tury was unable to understand how, if the earth was
a sphere, those at the antipodes could see Christ at °^°^"'
his coming. That settled the question in his mind. The Vener-
able Bede, however, in the eighth century, was not constrained
by any such arguments, and taught the spherical theory. Jour-
dain, a modern French authority, has found distinct evidence
that all through the Middle Ages the belief in the western way
was kept alive by the study of Aristotle ; and we know how the
Arabs perpetuated the teachings of that philosopher, which in
turn were percolated through the Levant to Mediterranean peo-
ples. It is a striking fact that at a time when Spain was bend-
ing all her energies to drive the Moor from the Iberian penin-
sula, that country was also engaged in pursuing those discoveries
along the western way to India which were almost a direct result
of the Arab preservation of the cosmographical learning of
Aristotle and Ptolemy. A belief in an earth-baU had the tes-
timony of Dante in the twelfth century, and it was the well-
known faith of Albertus Magnus, Roger Bacon, and gacon, ai-
the schoolmen, in the thirteenth. It continued to be nus! PiS'
held by the philosophers, who kept alive these more ^'^^y-
recent names, and came to Columbus because of the use of
Bacon which Pierre d'Ailly had made.
The belief in the sphericity of the earth carried with it of
necessity another, — that the east was to be found in the west.
Superstition, ignorance, and fear might magnify the obstacles
to a passage through that drear Sea of Darkness, but in Colum-
bus's time, in some learned minds at least, there was no dis-
trust as to the accomplishment of such a voyage beyond the
chance of obstacles in the way.
It is true that in this interval of very many centuries there
had been lapses into unbelief. There were long periods, indeed,
when no one dared to teach the doctrine. Whenever and
wherever the Epicureans supplanted the Pythagoreans, the be-
lief fell with the disciples of Pythagoras. There had been, dur-
120
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
ing the days of St. Chrysostom and other of the fathers, a de-
cision of the Church against it. There were doubtless,
as Humboldt says, conservers, during all this time, of
the traditions of antiquity, since the monasteries and
ALBERTVS MAGNVS EPI
fcopusRatiiponenlis.
The belief
opposed by
the Church,
M'diu jmum vismiblnQUliqueu
U. QCCXXCIL
ALBERTUS MAGNUS.
[From Reusner's Icones.l
colleges — even in an age when to be unlearned was more par-
donable than to be pagan — were of themselves quite a world
apart from the dullness of the masses of the people. A hundred
COLUMBUS IN PORTUGAL. 121
years before Columbus, the inheritor of much of this conserva-
tion was the Bishop of Cambray, that Pierre d'Ailly whose
Imago Mundi (1410) was so often on the lips of p.
Columbus, and out of which it is more than likely that J'^^y'^
Columbus drank of the knowledge of Aristotle, Strabo, ■^««<**-
and Seneca, and to a degree greater perhaps than he was aware
of he took thence the wisdom of Roger Bacon. It was through
the Opus Majus (1267) of this English philosopher
that western Europe found accessible the stories of the coi^so^
" silver walls and golden towers " of Quinsay as de- ""'"*"
scribed by Rubruquis, the wandering missionary, who in the
thirteenth century excited the cupidity of the Mediterranean
merchants by his accounts of the inexhaustible treasures of east-
ern Asia, and which the reader of to-day may find in the col-
lections of Samuel Purchas.
Pierre d'Ailly's position in regard to cosmographical knowl-
edge was hardly a dominant one. He seems to know nothing
of Marco Polo, Bacon's contemporary, and he never speaks of
Cathay, even when he urges the views which he has borrowed
from Roger Bacon, of the extension of Asia towards Western
Europe.
Any acquaintance with the Imago Mundi during these days
of Columbus in Portugal came probably through report, though
possibly he may have met with manuscripts of the work ; for it
was not till after he had gone to Spain that D'Ailly could have
been read in any printed edition, the first being issued in 1490.
The theory of the rotundity of the earth carried with it one
obiection, which in the time of Columbus was sure
, 1 • 1 TP • Rotundity
sooner or later to be seized upon. If, going west, the and gravita-
ship sank with the declivity of the earth's contour, how
was she going to mount such an elevation on her return voy-
age?— a doubt not so unreasonable in an age which had hardly
more than the vaguest notion of the laws of gravitation, though
some, like Vespucius, were not without a certain prescience of
the fact.
By the middle of the third century before Christ, Eratos-
thenes, accepting sphericity, had by astronomical methods stud-
ied the extent of the earth's circumference, and, ac- size of the
cording to the interpretation of his results by modern ®*^*^-
scholars, he came surprisingly near to the actual size, when he
122 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
exceeded the truth by perhaps a twelfth part. The calculations
of Eratosthenes commended themselves to Hipparchus, Strabo,
and Pliny. A century later than Eratosthenes, a new calcula-
tion, made by Posidonius of Khodes, reduced the magnitude to a
globe of about four fifths its proper size. It was palpably cer-
tain to the observant philosophers, from the beginning of their
observations on the size of the earth, that the portion known to
commerce and curiosity was but a small part of what might yet
^ be known. The unknown, however, is always a terror. Going
north from temperate Europe increased the cold, going south
augmented the heat ; and it was no bold thought for the natu-
y ralist to conclude that a north existed in which the cold was
unbearable, and a south in which the heat was too great for life.
Views like these stayed the impulse for exploration even down
to the century of Columbus, and magnified the horrors which so
long balked the exploration of the Portuguese on the African
coast. There had been intervals, however, when men in the
Indian Ocean had dared to pass the equator.
Therefore it was before the age of Columbus that, east and
Unknown ^^^t aloug the temperate belt, men's minds groped to
regions. ^^^ ^^^ Conditions beyond the range of known habi-
table regions. Strabo, in the first century before Christ, made
strabo and ^^^^ habitable zone stretch over 120 degrees, or a third
^rSzeot ^f *^6 circumference of the earth. The correspond-
the earth. 'j^g. extcusiou of Marinus of Tyre in the second cen-
tury after Christ stretched over 225 degrees. This geographer
did not define the land's border on the ocean at the east, but it
was not unusual with the cosmographers who followed him to
carry the farthest limits of Asia to what is actually the merid-
ian of the Sandwich Islands. On the west Marinus pushed the
Fortunate Islands (Canaries) two degrees and a half beyond
Cape Finisterre, failing to comprehend their real position, which
for the westernmost, Ferro, is something like nine degrees be-
yond the farther limits of the main land.
The belt of the known world running in the direction of the
Ptolemy's equator was, in the conception of Ptolemy, the con-
"'^^^- temporary of Marinus, about seventy-nine degrees
wide, sixteen of these being south of the equatorial line. This
was a contraction from the previous estimate of Marinus, who
had made it over eighty-seven degrees.
COLUMBUS IN PORTUGAL.
123
Toscanelli reduced the globe to a circumference of about
18,000 miles, losing about 6,000 miles ; and the un- loscaneUi'B
tracked ocean, lying west of Lisbon, was about one "^^^^
third of this distance. In other words, the known world
occupied about 240 of the 360 degrees constituting the equato-
rial length. Few of the various computations of this time gave
such scant dimensions to the unknown proportion of the line.
The Laon globe, which was made ten or twelve years later than
Toscanelli's time, was equally scant. Behaim, who figured out
LAON GLOBE.
[After D'Avezac]
the relations of the known to the unknown circuit, during the
summer before Columbus sailed on his first voyage, reduced
what was known to not much more than a third of the whole.
It was the fashion, too, with an easy reliance on their genuine-
ness, to refer to the visions of Esdras in support of a belief in
the small part — a sixth — of the surface of the globe covered
by the ocean.
The problem lay in Columbus's mind thus : he accepted the
theory of the division of the circumference of the views of
earth into twenty-four hours, as it had come down coi"™^"«-
from Marinus of Tyre, when this ancient astronomer supposed
that from the eastern verge of Asia to the western extremity of
Europe there was a space of fifteen hours. The discovery of
124 . CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
the Azores had pushed the known limit a single hour farther
towards the setting sun, making sixteen hours, or two thirds of
the circumference of 360 degrees. There were left eight hours,
or one hundred and twenty degrees, to represent the space be-
tween the Azores and Asia. This calculation in reality brought
the Asiatic coast forward to the meridian of California, obliter-
ating the width of the Pacific at that latitude, and reducing by
so much the size of the globe as Columbus measured it, on the
assumption that Marinus was correct. This, however, he de-
nied. If the Historie reports Columbus exactly, he contended
that the testimony of Marco Polo and Mandeville carried the
verge of Asia so far east that the land distance was more than
fifteen hours across ; and by as much as this increased the dis-
tance, by so much more was the Asiatic shore pushed nearer
the coasts of Europe. ''We can thus determine," he says,
" that India is even neighboring to Spain and Africa."
The calculation of course depended on what was the length
Length of a oi 2i degree, and on this point there was some differ-
degree. eucc of Opinion. Toscanelli had so reduced a degree's
length that China was brought forward on his planisphere till
its coast line cut the meridian of the present Newfoundland.
We can well imagine how this undue contraction of the
size of the globe, as the belief lay in the mind of Columbus, and
as he expressed it later (July 7, 1503), did much to push him
forward, and was a helpful illusion in inducing others to ven-
ture upon the voyage with him. The courage required to sail
out of some Iberian port due west a hundred and twenty de-
grees in order to strike the regions about the great
Chinese city of Quinsay, or Kanfu^ Hangtscheuf u, and
Kingszu, as it has been later called, was more easily summoned
than if the actual distance of two hundred and thirty-one
degrees had been recognized, or even the two hundred and four
degrees necessary in reality to reach Cipango, or Japan. The
views of Toscanelli, as we have seen, reduced the duration of
risk westward to so small a figure as fifty-two degrees. So it
had not been an unusual belief, more or less prominent for
many generations, that with a fair wind it required no great run
westward to reach Cathay, if one dared to undertake it. If
there were no insurmountable obstacles in the Sea of Darkness,
it would not be difficult to reach earlier that multitude of
COLUMBUS IN PORTUGAL. 125
islands which was supposed to fringe the coast of China.
It was a common belief, moreover, that somewhere in . .
this void lay the great island of Cipango, — the goal '^^
of Columbus's voyage. Sometimes nearer and sometimes far-
ther it lay from the Asiatic coast. Pinzon saw in
Rome in 1491 a map which carried it well away from ^'p*"^***
that coast; and if one could find somewhere in the English
archives the sea-chart with which Bartholomew Columbus
enforced the views of his brother, to gain the support of the
English king, it is supposed that it would reveal a somewhat
similar location of the coveted island. Here, then, was a space,
larger or smaller, as men differently believed, interjacent along
this known zone between the ascertained extreme east in Asia
and the accepted most distant west at Cape St. Vincent in
Spain, as was thought in Strabo's time, or at the Canaries, as
was comprehended in the days of Ptolemy. What there was in
this unknown space between Spain and Cathay was the problem
which balked the philosophers quite as much as that other
uncertainty, which concerned what might possibly be found in
the southern hemisphere, could one dare to enter the torrid
heats of the supposed equatorial ocean, or in the northern
wastes, could one venture to sail beyond the Arctic Circle.
These curious quests of the inquisitive and learned minds of the
early centuries of the Christian era were the proto- Spanish and
types of the actual explorations which it was given eJpioS.^^
in the fifteenth century to the Spaniards and Portu- ^^^^
guese respectively to undertake. The commercial rivalry which
had in the past kept Genoa and Venice watchful of each other's
advantage had by their maritime ventures in the Atlantic
passed to these two peninsular nations, and England was not
long behind them in starting in her race for maritime suprem-
acy.
It was in human nature that these unknown regions should
become those either of enchantment or dismay, according to
personal proclivities. It is not necessary to seek far for any
reason for this. An unknown stretch of waters was just the
place for the resorts of the Gorgons and to find the geaof
Islands of the Blest, and to nurture other creations of ^*^''°«««-
the literary and spiritual instincts, seeking to give a habitation
to fancies. It is equally in human nature that what the intellect
126 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
has habilitated in this way the fears, desires, and superstitions
of men in due time turn to their own use. It was easy, under
the stress of all this complexity of belief and anticipation, for
this supposable interjacent oceanic void to teem in men's im-
aginations with regions of almost every imaginable character ;
and when, in the days of the Roman republic, the Canaries were
reached, there was no doubt but the ancient Islands of the Blest
had been found, only in turn to pass out of cognizance, and
once more to fall into the abyss of the Unknown.
There are, however, three legends which have come down to
story of ^s ffom the classic times, which the discovery of
Atlantis. America revived with new interest in the speculative
excursions of the curiously learned, and it is one of the proofs
of the narrow range of Columbus's acquaintance with original
classic writers that these legends were not pressed by him in
support of his views. The most persistent of these in present-
ing a question for the physical geographer is the story of Atlan-
tis, traced to a tale told by Plato of a tradition of an island in
the Atlantic which eight thousand years ago had existed in the
west, opposite the Pillars of Hercules; and which, in a great
inundation, had sunken beneath the sea, leaving in mid ocean
large mud shoals to impede navigation and add to the terrors of
a vast unknown deep. There have been those since the time of
Gomara who have believed that the land which Columbus
found dry and inhabited was a resurrected Atlantis, and geog-
raphers even of the seventeenth century have mapped out its
provinces within the usual outline of the American continents.
Others have held, and some still hold, that the Atlantic islands
are but peaks of this submerged continent. There is no evi-
dence to show that these fancies of the philosopher ever dis-
turbed even the most erratic moments of Columbus, nor could
he have pored over the printed Latin of Plato, if it came in his
way, tiU its first edition appeared in 1483, during his stay in
Land of the Portugal. Neither do we find that he makes any ref-
Meropes. ercuccs to that other creation, the land of the Meropes,
as figured in the passages cited by ^lian some seven hundred
years after Theopompus had conjured up the vision in the
fourth century before Christ. Equally ignorant was Columbus,
Satumian i* would appear, of the great Saturnian continent,
continent, lying fivc days wcst from Britain, which makes a
story in Plutarch's Morals,
COLUMBUS IN PORTUGAL. 127
We deal with a different problem when we pass from these
theories and imaginings of western lands to such rec-
ords as exist of what seem like attempts in the earliest ag^esonthe"
days to attain by actual exploration the secret of this * ^^^^'
interjacent void. The Phoenicians had passed the ^^^
Straits of Gibraltar and found Gades (Cadiz), and very likely
attempted to course the Atlantic, about 1100 years before the
birth of Christ. Perhaps they went to Cornwall for tin. It
may have been by no means impossible for them to have passed
among the Azores and even to have reached the American
islands and main, as a statement in Diodorus Siculus has been
interpreted to signify. Then five hundred years later carthagini-
or more we observe the Carthaginians pursuing their *""•
adventurous way outside the Pillars of Hercules, going down
the African coast under Hanno to try the equatorial horrors, or
running westerly under Hamilko to wonder at the Sargasso sea.
Later, the Phoenicians seem to have made some lodgment in
the islands off the coasts of northwestern Africa. The Romans
in the fourth century before Christ pushed their way
out into the Atlantic under Pytheas and Euthymenes,
the one daring to go as far as Thule — whatever that was — in
the north, and the other to Senegal in the south. It was in the
same century that Rome had the strange sight of some unknown
barbarians, of a race not recognizable, who were taken upon the
shores of the German Ocean, where they had been cast away.
Later writers have imagined — for no stronger word can be
used — that these weird beings were North American Indians,
or rather more probably Eskimos. About the same time, Ser-
torius, a Roman commander in Spain, learned, as already men-
tioned, of some salubrious islands lying westward from Africa,
and gave Horace an opportunity, in the evil days of the civil
war, to picture them as a refuge.
When the Romans ruled the world, commerce lost much of
the hazard and enterprise which had earlier instigated inter-
national rivalry. The interest in the western ocean subsided
into merely speculative concern ; and wild fancy was brought
into play in depicting its horrors, its demons and shoals, with
the intermingling of sky and water.
It is by no means certain that Columbus knew anything of
this ancient lore of the early Mediterranean people. There is
128 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
little or nothing in the early maps of the fifteenth century to
indicate that such knowledsje was current among: those
Knowledge . , •! i .i i • p i /.
of such early who made or contributed to the making oi such of
^™^ ^" these maps as have come down to us. The work of
some of the more famous chart makers Columbus could hardly
have failed to see, or heard discussed in the maritime circles of
Maps xvth Portugal ; and indeed it was to his own countrymen,
^®"*' Marino Sanuto, Pizignani, Bianco, and Fra Mauro,
that Portuguese navigators were most indebted for the broad
cartographical treatment of their own discoveries. At the same
time there was no dearth of legends of the venturesome Genoese,
with fortunes not always reassuring. There was a story, for
Genoese voy- instancc, of somc of thcsc latter people, who in 1291
ages, 1291. -j^^^^ sailed west from the Pillars of Hercules and had
never returned. Such was a legend that might not have
escaped Columbus's attention even in his own country, associ-
ating with it the names of the luckless Tedisio Doria and Ugolino
Vivaldi in their efforts to find a western way to India. Har-
risse, however, who has gone over all the evidence of such a
purpose, fails to be satisfied.
These stories of ocean hazards hung naturally about the sea-
ports of Portugal.
Galvano tells us of such a tale concerning a Portuguese ship,
driven west, in 1447, to an island with seven cities,
where its sailors found the people speaking Portuguese,
who said they had deserted their country on the death of King
Koderigo. This is the legend of Antillia, already referred to.
Columbus recalled, when afterwards at the Canaries on his
first voyage, how it was during his sojourn in Portugal
that some one from Madeira presented to the Portu-
guese king a petition for a vessel to go in quest of land, occa-
sionally seen to the westward from that island. Similar stories
were not unknown to him of like apparitions being familiar in
the Azores. A story which he had also heard of one Antonio
Leme having seen three islands one hundred leagues west of the
Azores had been set down to a credulous eye, which had been
deceived by floating fields of vegetation.
There was no obstacle in the passing of similar reports around
the Bay of Biscay from the coasts of the Basques, and the story
might be heard of Jean de Echaide, who had found stores of
COLUMBUS IN PORTUGAL, 129
stockfish off a land far oceanward, — an exploit supposed to be
commemorated in the island of Stokafixia, which stands far
away to the westward in the Bianco map of 1436. AH these
tales of the early visits of the Basques to what imaginative
minds have supposed parts of the American coasts The
derive much of their perennial charm from associations ^*^"«8-
with a remarkable people. There is indeed nothing improbable
in a hardy daring which could have borne the Basques to the
Newfoundland shores at almost any date earlier than the time
of Columbus.
Fructuoso, writing as late as 1590, claimed that a Portuguese
navigator, Jo^o Vaz Cortereal, had sailed to the cod- Newfound-
fish coast of Newfoundland as early as 1464, but Bar- ^^^2^
row seems to be the only writer of recent times who ^'«**®<*-
has believed the tale, and Biddle and Harrisse find no evidence
to sustain it.
There is a statement recorded by Columbus, if we may trust
the account of the Historie^ that a sailor at Santa
Maria had told him how, being driven westerly in a posed to be
voyage to Ireland, he had seen land, which he then
thought to be Tartary. Some similar experiences were also
told to Columbus by Pieter de Velasco, of Galicia ; and this
land, according to the account, would seem to have been the
same sought at a later day by the Cortereals (1500).
It is not easy to deal historically with long-held traditions.
The furbishers of transmitted lore easily make it re- duWous
fleet what they bring to it. To find illustrations in ^^tny^^"^'
any inquiry is not so difficult if you select what you *^®^-
wish, and discard all else, and the result of this discriminating
accretion often looks very plausible. Historical truth is reached
by balancing everything, and not by assimilating that which
easily suits. Almost all these discussions of pre-Columbian voy-
agings to America afford illustrations of this perverted method.
Events in which there is no inherent untruth are not left with
the natural defense of probability, but are proved by deductions
and inferences which could just as well be applied to prove
many things else, and are indeed applied in a new way by
every new upstart in such inquiries. The story of each dis-
coverer before Columbus has been upheld by the stock intima-
tion of white-bearded men, whose advent is somehow mysteri-
130
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
ously discovered to have left traces among the aborigines of
every section of the coast.
There was another class of evidence which, as the Historie in-
forms us, served some purpose in bringing conviction
western land to the mind of Columbus. Such were the phenomenal
washing ashore on European coasts of unknown pines
and other trees, sculptured logs, huge bamboos, whose joints
could be made into vessels to hold nine bottles of wine, and dead
OCEANIC CURRENTS.
[From Reclus's Amerique Borecae.']
bodies with strange, broad faces. Even canoes, with living men
in them of wonderful aspects, had at times been reported as
thrown upon the Atlantic islands. Such events had not been
unnoticed ever since the Canaries and the Azores had been in-
habited by a continental race, and conjectures had been rife long
before the time of Columbus that westerly winds had brought
these estrays from a distant land, — a belief more comprehensi-
COLUMBUS IN PORTUGAL. 131
ble at that time than any dependence upon the unsuspected fact
that it was the oceanic currents, rather, which impelled these
migratory objects. It required the experiences of later Spanish
navigators along the Bahama Channel, and those of the French
and English farther north upon the Banks of New- ^^
foundland, before it became clear that the currents s*'^^*"-
of the Atlantic, grazing the Cape of Good Hope and whirling
in the Gulf of Mexico, sprayed in a curling fringe in the
North Atlantic. This in a measure became patent to Sir
Humphrey Gilbert sixty or seventy years after the death of
Columbus.
If science had then been equal to the microscopic tasks which
at this day it imposes on itself, the question of western lands
might have been studied with an interest beyond what attached
to the trunks of trees, carved timbers, edible nuts, and seeds of
alien plants, which the Gulf Stream is still bringing to the
shores of Europe. It might have found in the dust settling
upon the throngs of men in the Old World, the shells of animal-
cules, differing from those known to the observing eye in
Europe, which, indeed, had been carried in the upper currents
of air from the banks of the Orinoco.
Once in Portugal, Columbus was brought in close contact
with that eager spirit of exploration which had sur-
vived the example of Prince Henry and his naviga- Portuguese
tors. If Las Casas was well informed, these Portu- upon coium-
guese discoveries were not without great influence upon
the Genoese's receptive mind. He was now where he could
hear the fresh stories of their extending acquaintance with the
African coast. His wife's sister, by the accepted accounts, had
married Pedro Correa, a navigator not without fame in those
days, and a companion in maritime inquiry upon whom Colum-
bus could naturally depend, — unless, as Harrisse decides, he
was no navigator at all. Columbus was also at hand to observe
the growing skill in the arts of navigation which gave the
Portuguese their preeminence. He had not been long in Lis-
bon when Regiomontanus gave a new power in astro- Ephemeri-
nomical calculations of positions at sea by publishing ^^omo^^
his Ephemerides, for the interval from 1475 to 1506, *^""«-
upon which Columbus was yet to depend in his eventful voyage.
132
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
The most famous of the pupils of this German mathematician
was himself in Lisbon during the years of Columbus's sojourn.
,, ^. We have no distinct evidence that Martin Behaim,
Martin ^ '
Behaim. ^ Nurcmbcrgcr, passed any courtesies with the Gen-
oese adventurer, but it is not improbable that he did. His
.Afpeailunjadfolefe-plai
lefas- SolisStplattautSfrte
lit 90 0
■h\lf\ ^
1 ?
0
1
or 1 oc or
or
or
J A 18
A <^|
^ i
0° oD ii|
(
^ 1
X 1
A 1<5
<f IS
'1 1
Ic^W
|^OT7
d<P |0X8
A 10 1
a° 5|%T7$ ^p^
A 1
1
ko$
8 1
a.^ 1 1
1
.fd^m a.
md-rnd^
f d.
Marrius
OM 1 ?) ir
(^ 9 $ <a
1 K 1 ^ > ^
X ^ X ?
1 10 I'll II *}3 ^9.^o \ 9
|o 10 z^)^9 ]Si 99 z'lT-*
2 zi hlzy^lixi^ i 11
lO'lAzK -^ l(SHH Z^ lA
^ 11 1^1 A^2 2j?^o I 33
U «J^28 »A iSRoz^ i^
Adriani
ii|z:5 IX|2I Z2 251 3^ iii6
up Z9 7I 10 ^b 2^ n
^75^ 13I ^-^AliSi^ol 1 ^8
13 1A oS?6 2Z2$J2.^ 8
6 i^l tT,\\9^\i%9.'l\ T-n
1ft- 5? -z. 0
ZSl »S T^ ^
c Perpetu^
a|2^' iz| 3 25^1 25^*101 XIJJ
ISL^O] 3 J«
kS" )i -lH \
82A li iaS6t^^^| z:^a
lV7^|«x8
iB^^i^^S
SAMPLES OF THE TABLES OF REGIOMONTANUS, 1474-1506.
position was one that would attract Columbus, who might never
have been sought by Behaim. The Nuremberger's standing
was, indeed, such as to gain the attention of the Court, and he
was thought not unworthy to be joined with the two royal physi-
cians, Roderigo and Josef, on a commission to improve the as-
trolabe. Their perfected results mark an epoch in the art of
seamanship in that age.
COLUMBUS IN PORTUGAL,
133
I
I
THE AFRICAN COAST, 1478.
[From Nordenskiold's Facsimile Atlas.'\
134
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
It was a new sensation when news came that at last the Por-
tuguese had crossed the equator, in pushing along the
African coast. In January, 1482, they had said their
first mass on the Guinea coast, and the castle of San Jorge da
Mina was soon built under the new impulse to enter-
prise which came with the accession of Jo§lo II. In
1484 they reached the Congo, under the guidance of
Diogo Cam, and Martin Behaim was of his company.
Guinea
coast, 1482.
The Congo
reached,
1484.
MARTIN BEHAIM.
These voyages were not without strong allurements to the
Genoese sailor. He is thought to have been a participant in
some of the later cruises. The Historie claims that he began
to reason, from his new experiences, that if land could be dis-
covered to the south there was much the same chance of like
discoveries in the west. But there were experiences of other
kinds which, in the interim, if we believe the story, he under-
went in the north.
CHAPTER VII.
WAS COLUMBUS IN THE NORTH?
There is, in the minds of some inquirers into the early dis-
covery of America, no more pivotal incident attaching
to the career of Columbus than an alleged voyage S^pS^Sto
made to the vicinity of what is supposed to have been beyond icl
Iceland, in the assigned year of 1477. The incident ^*°^'^*^^-
is surrounded with the confusion that belongs to everything
dependent on Columbus's own statements, or on what is put
forth as such. ^
Our chief knowledge of his voyage is in the doubtful Italian
rendering of the Historie of 1571, where, citing a memoir by
Columbus himself on the five habitable zones, the translator or
adapter of that book makes the Admiral say that " in Febru-
ary, 1477, he sailed a hundred leagues beyond the island Tile,
which lies under the seventy-third parallel, and not under the
sixty- third, as some say." The only evidence that he saw
Tile, in sailing beyond it, is in what he further says, that he
was able to ascertain that the tide rose and fell twenty-six
fathoms, which observation necessitates the seeing of some land,
whether Tile or not.
There is no land at all in the northern Atlantic under 73°.
Iceland stretches from 64° to 67° ; Jan Mayen is too
small for Columbus's further description of the island, cies in the
and is at 71°, and Spitzbergen is at 76°. What Co-
lumbus says of the English of Bristol trading at this island
points to Iceland ; and it is easy, if one will, to imagine a mis-
print of the figures, an error of calculation, a carelessness of
statement, or even the disappearance, through some cataclysm,
of the island, as has been suggested.
Humboldt in his Cosmos quotes Columbus as saying of this
voyage near Thule that " the sea was not at that time covered
with ice," and he credits that statement to the same Tratado
136
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS,
WAS COLUMBUS IN THE NORTH? 137
de las Cinco Zonas Hahitables of Columbus, and urges in
proof that Finn Magnusen had found in ancient historical
sources that in February, 1477, ice had not set in on the south-
ern coast of that island.
Speaking of " Tile," the same narrative adds that " it is
west of the western verge of Ptolemy [that is, Ptole-
my's world map], and larger than England." This ^^^'^*
expression of its size could point only to Iceland, of all islands
in the northern seas.
There are elements in the story, however, not easily reconcil-
able with what might be expected of an experienced mariner ;
and if the story is true in its main purpose, there is little more
in the details than the careless inexactness, which characterizes
a good many of the well-authenticated asseverations of Colum-
bus.
Again the narrative says, " It is true that Ptolemy's Thule
is where that geographer placed it, but that it is now called
Frislande." Does this mean that the Zeni story had been a
matter of common talk forty years after the voyage to their
Frisland had been made, and eighty-four years before a later
Scion of the family published the remarkable narrative in
Venice, in 1558 ? It is possible that the maker of the Historie
of 1571, in the way in which it was given to the TheZeni's
world, had interpolated this reference to the Frisland ^"^^^i-
of the Zeni to help sustain the credit of his own or the other,
book.
A voyage undertaken by Columbus to such high latitudes is
rendered in all respects doubtful, to say the least, from the fact
that in 1492 Columbus detailed for the eyes of his sovereigns
the unusual advantages of the harbors of the new islands which
he had discovered, and added that he was entitled to express
such an opinion, because his exploration had extended from
Guinea on the south to England on the north. It was an occa-
sion when he desired to make his acquaintance seem as wide as
the facts would warrant, and yet he does not profess to have
been farther north than England. A hundred leagues, more-
over, beyond Iceland might well have carried him to the upper
Greenland coast, but he makes no mention of other land being
seen in those high latitudes.
Thyle and Iceland are made different islands in the Ptolemy
138 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
of 1486, which, if it does not prove that Iceland was not then
Thyie and ^^^ samc as Thjlc in the mind of geographers, shows
Iceland. ^j^^^. geographical confusion still prevailed at the north.
It may be further remarked that Munoz and others have
found no time in Columbus's career to which this voyage to the
north could so easily pertain as to a period anterior to his going
to Portugal, and consequently some years before the 1477 of
the Historie,
A voyage to Iceland was certainly no new thing. The Eng-
The English l^^h traded there, and a large commerce was main-
in Iceland, taiucd with it by Bristol, and had been for many
years. A story grew up at a later day, and found expression in
Gomara and Wytfliet, that in 1476, the year before this alleged
voyage of Columbus, a Danish expedition, under the command
of the Pole Kolno, or Skolno, had found in these
Kolno. - .
northern regions an entrance to the straits of Anian,
which figure so constantly in later maps, and which opened a
passage to the Indies ; but there seems to be no reason to be-
lieve that it had any definite foundation, and it could hardly
have been known to Columbus. It is also easy to conjecture
that Columbus had been impelled to join some English trading
vessel from Bristol, through mere nautical curiosity, and even
been urged by reports which may have reached him of the north-
The zeni. ®^^ explorations of the Zeni, long before the accounts
were printed. But if he knew anything, he either
treasured it up as a proof of his theories, not yet to be divulged,
— why is not clear, — or, what is vastly more probable, it never
occurred to him to associate any of these dim regions with the
coasts of Marco Polo's Cathay.
There was no lack of stories, even at this time, of venture-
some voyages west along the latitude of England and to the
northwest, and of these tales Columbus may possibly have heard.
Such was the story which had been obscurely recorded, that
Madoc, a Welsh chieftain, in the later years of the
twelfth century had carried a colony westerly. Nor
can it be positively asserted that the Estotiland and Drogeo
of the Zeni narrative, then lying in the cabinet of an Italian
family unknown, had ever come to his knowledge.
There are stories in the Historie of reports which had
reached him, that mariners sailing for Ireland had been driven
WAS COLUMBUS IN THE NORTH? 139
west, and had sighted land which had been supposed to be Tar-
tary, which at a later day was thought to be the Baccalaos of
the Cortereals.
The island of Bresil had been floating about the Atlantic,
usually in the latitude of Ireland, since the days when
the maker of the Catalan planisphere, in 1375, placed S;"*'
it in that sea, and current stories of its existence re- ^'^'''*'
suited, at a later day (1480), in the sending from Bristol of an
expedition of search, as has already been said.
Finn Magnusen among the Scandinavian writers, and De
Costa and others among Americans, have thought it
probable that Columbus landed at Hualfiord, in Ice- SsS^iTn
land. Columbus, however, does not give sufficient ^"^^^
ground for any such inference. He says he went beyond Thule,
not to it, whatever Thule was, and we only know by his obser-
vations on the tides, that he approached dry land.
Laing, in his introduction to the Heimskringla, says confi-
dently that Columbus " came to Iceland from Bristol, in 1477,
on purpose to gain nautical information," — an inference merely,
— " and must have heard of the written accounts of
the Norse discoveries recorded in " the Codex Flato- SfkfiS^*^'
yensis* Laing says again that as Bishop Magnus is *" *
known to have been in Iceland in the spring of 1477, " it is
presumed Columbus must have met and conversed with him " I
A great deal turns on this purely imaginary conversation,
and the possibilities of its scope.
The listening Columbus might, indeed, have heard of Irish
monks and their followers, who had been found in The Norse in
Iceland by the first Norse visitors, six hundred years ^^'^i*"^-
before, if perchance the traditions of them had been preserved,
and these may even have included the somewhat vague stories
of visits to a country somewhere, which they called Ireland the
Great. Possibly, too, there were stories told at the firesides of
the adventures of a sea-rover, Gunnbiorn by name, who had
been driven westerly from Iceland and had seen a Eric the
strange land, which after some years was visited by ^^'
Eric the Red ; and there might have been wondrous stories told
of this same land, which Eric had called Greenland, ^ , ^
. . Greenland.
in order to lure settlers, where there is some reason to
believe yet earlier wanderers had found a home. There might
140 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
possibly have been shown to Columbus an old manuscript chron-
icle of the kings of Norway, which they called the Helms-
Heims- kringla^ and which had been written by Snorre Stur-
hringia. lasou in the thirteenth century ; and if he had turned
the leaves with any curiosity, he could have read, or have had
translated for him, accounts of the Norse colonization of Green-
land in the ninth century. Where, then, was this Greenland ?
Could it possibly have had any connection with that Cathay of
Marco Polo, so real in the vision of Columbus, and which was
supposed to lie above India in the higher latitudes ? As a stu-
dent of contemporary cartography, Columbus would have an-
Position of swered such a question readily, had it been suggested ;
Greenland. £qj. j^^ would havc knowu that Greenland had been
represented in all the maps, since it was first recognized at all,
as merely an extended peninsula of Scandinavia, made by a
southward twist to enfold a northern sea, in which Iceland lay.
One certainly cannot venture to say how far Columbus may
have had an acquaintance with the cartographical repertories,
more or less well stocked, as they doubtless were, in the great
commercial centres of maritime Europe, but the knowledge
which we to-day have in detail could hardly have been other-
wise than a common possession among students of geography
then. We comprehend now how, as far back as 1427,
be a part of a map of Claudius Clavus showed Greenland as this
peninsular adjunct to the northwest of Europe, — a
view enforced also in a map of 1447, in the Pitti palace, and
in one which Nordenskiold recently found in a Codex of Ptol-
emy at Warsaw, dated in 1467. A few years later, and cer-
tainly before Columbus could have gone on this voyage, we find
a map which it is more probable he could have known, and that
is the engraved one of Nicholas Donis, drawn presumably in
1471, and later included in the edition of Ptolemy published
at Ulm in 1482. The same European connection is here main-
tained. Again it is represented in the map of Henricus Mar-
tellus (1489-90), in a way that produced a succession of
maps, which till long after the death of Columbus continued to
make this Norse colony a territorial appendage of Scandinavian
Europe, betraying not the slightest symptom of a belief that
Eric the Red had strayed beyond the circle of European con-
nections. It is only when we get down to the later years of Co-
WAS COLUMBUS IN THE NORTH f
141
^WPyffl
4
mm^m
CLAUDIUS CLAVUS, 1427.
[From Nordenskiold's Stiidien.']
142
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
WAS COLUMBUS IN THE NORTH? 143
lumbus's life that we find, on a Portuguese chart of 1503, a
glimmer of the truth, and this only transiently, though the con-
ception of the mariners, upon which this map was based, prob-
ably associated Greenland with the Asiatic main, as ^adea
Kuysch certainly did, by a bold effort to reconcile the ^^ ^«ia.^"*
Norse traditions with the new views of his time, when he pro-
duced the first engraved map of the discoveries of Columbus
and Cabot in the Eoman Ptolemy of 1508.
It is thus beyond dispute that if Columbus entertained any
views as to the geographical relations of Greenland, which had
been practically lost to Europe since communication with it
ceased, earlier in the fifteenth century, they were simply those
of a peninsula of northern Europe, which could have no connec-
tion with any country lying beyond the Atlantic ; for it was not
till after his death that any general conception of it associated
with the Asiatic main arose. It is quite certain, however, that
as the conception began to prevail, after the discovery of the
South Sea by Balboa, in 1513, that an interjacent new
world had really been found, there was a tendency, as aKS***®
shown in the map of Thorne (1527), representing cur- ^"'^°^^'
rent views in Spain, and in those of Finseus (1531), Ziegler
(1532), Mercator (1538), and Bordone (1528-1547), to rele-
gate the position of Greenland to a peninsular connection with
Europe.
There is a curious instance of the evolution of the correct
idea in the Ptolemy of 1525, and repeated in the same plate as
used in the editions of 1535 and 1545. The map was originally
engraved to show " Gronlandia " as a European peninsula, but
apparently, at a later stage, the word Gronlandia was cut in the
corner beside the sketch of an elephant, and farther west, as if
to indicate its transoceanic and Asiatic situation, though there
was no attempt to draw in a coast line.
Later in the century there was a strife of opinion between the
geographers of the north, as represented in the Olaus j^tg^ di-
Magnus map of 1567, who disconnected the country ""^^^ '''^'^^•
from Europe, and those of the south, who still united Green-
land with Scandinavia, as was done in the Zeno map of 1558.
By this time, however, the southern geographers had begun to
doubt, and after 1540 we find Labrador and Greenland put in
close proximity in many of their maps ; and in this the editors
144 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
of the Ptolemy of 1561 agreed, when they altered their reen-
graved map — as the plate shows — in a way to disconnect
Greenland from Scandinavia.
It is not necessary to trace the cartographical history of
Greenland to a later day. It is manifest that it was long after
Columbus's death when the question was raised of its having
any other connection than with Europe, and Columbus could
have learned in Iceland nothing to suggest to him that the land
of Eric the Red had any connection with the western shores of
Asia, of which he was dreaming.
If any of the learned men in Iceland had referred Columbus
Discovery of ^^^^ vnovQ to the HeimsJcringla^ it would have been to
viniand. ^^iQ brief entry which it shows in the records as the
leading Norse historian made it, of the story of the discovery of
Viniand. There he would have read, " Leif also found Viniand
the Good," and he could have read nothing more. There was
nothing in this to excite the most vivid imagination as to place
or direction.
It was not tiU a time long after the period of Columbus that,
so far as we know, any cartographical records of the
vian views discovcrics associatcd with the Viniand voyages were
made in the north; and not till the discoveries of
Columbus and his successors were a common inheritance in
Europe did some of the northern geographers, in 1570, under-
take to reconcile the tales of the sagas with the new beliefs.
The testimony of these later maps is presumably the transmitted
view then held in the north from the interpretation of the
Norse sagas in the light of later knowledge. This testimony is
that the " America " of the Spaniards, including Terra Florida
and the " Albania " of the English, was a territory south of the
stephanius's Norsc rcgiou and beyond a separating water, very
map, 1570. j-j^g^^ ^^^^ ^f j)^^.g, Straits. The map of Sigurd
Stephanius of this date (1570} puts Viniand north of the
Straits of Belle Isle, and makes it end at the south in a " wild
sea," which separates it [B of map] from " America." Torfseus
quotes Torlacius as saying that this map of Stephanius's was
drawn from ancient Icelandic records. If this cartographical
record has its apparent value, it is not likely that Columbus
could have seen in it anything more than a manifestation of
that vague boreal region which was far remote from the
WAS COLUMBUS IN THE NORTH?
145
thoughts which possessed him, in seeking a way to India over
against Spain.
Beside the scant historic record respecting Vinland which
has been cited from the HeimsJcringla, it is further Dubious
possible that Columbus may have seen that series of ^^•
sagas which had come down in oral shape to the twelfth cen-
tury. At this period put into writing, two hundred years after
SIGURD STEPHANIUS, 1570.
the events of the Vinland voyages, there are none of the manu-
script copies of these sagas now existing which go back of the
fourteenth century. This rendering of the old sagas into script
came at a time when, in addition to the inevitable transforma-
tions of long oral tradition, there was superadded the roman-
cing spirit then rife in the north, and which had come to them
from the south of Europe. The result of this blending of con-
fused tradition with the romancing of the period of the written
146 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
preservation has thrown, even among the Scandinavians them-
selves, a shade of doubt, more or less intense at times, which
envelops the saga record with much that is indistinguishable
from myth, leaving little but the general drift of the story to be
held of the nature of a historic record. The Icelandic editor
of Egel's saga, published at Keikjavik in 1856, acknowledges
this unavoidable reflex of the times when the sagas were re-
duced to writing, and the most experienced of the recent writers
on Greenland, Henrik Kink, has allowed the untrustworthiness
of the sagas except for their general scope.
Less than a hundred years before the alleged visit of Colum-
Codex ^^s to Thule, there had been a compilation of some of
Fiatoyensis. ^^ early sagas, and this Codex Flatoyensis is the
only authority which we have for any details of the Vinland
voyages. It is possible that the manuscript now known is but
one copy of several or many which may have been made at an
early period, not preceding, however, the twelfth century, when
writing was introduced. This particular manuscript was discov-
ered in an Icelandic monastery in the seventeenth century, and
there is no evidence of its being known before. Of course it is
possible that copies may have been in the hands of learned Ice-
landers at the time of Columbus's supposed voyage to the north,
and he may have heard of it, or have had parts of it read to
him. The collection is recognized by Scandinavian writers as
being the most confused and incongruous of similar records;
and it is out of such romancing, traditionary, and conflicting re-
citals that the story of the Norse voyages to Vinland is made,
Lgjf if it is made at all. The sagas say that it was six-
Erikson. ^^^^ wiutcrs after the settlement of Greenland that
Leif went to Norway, and in the next year he sailed to Vinland.
These are the data from which the year a. d. 1000 has been de-
duced as that of the beginning of the Vinland voyages. The
principal events are to be traced in the saga of Eric the Red,
which, in the judgment of Rask, a leading Norse authority, is
" somewhat fabulous, written long after the event, and taken
from tradition."
Such, then, was the record which, if it ever came to the no-
tice of Columbus, was little suited to make upon him any
impression to be associated in his mind with the Asia of his
dreams. Humboldt, discussing the chances of Columbus's gain-
WAS COLUMBUS IN THE NORTHf 147
ing any knowledge of the story, thinks that when the Spanish
Crown was contesting with the heirs of the Admiral his rights
of discovery, the citing of these northern experiences of Co-
lumbus would have been in the Crown's favor, if there had been
any conception at that time that the Norse discoveries, even if
known to general Europe, had any relation to the geographical
problems then under discussion. Similar views have been ex-
pressed by Wheaton and Prescott, and there is no evidence that
up to the time of Columbus an acquaintance with the Vinland
story had ever entered into the body of historical knowledge
possessed by Europeans in general. The scant references in
the manuscripts of Adam of Bremen (a. d. 1073), of Ordericus
Vitalis (a. d. 1140), and of Saxo Grammaticus (a. d. 1200),
were not likely to be widely comprehended, even if they were
at all known, and a close scrutiny of the literature of pering-
the subject does not seem to indicate that there was «on^of\h?'
any considerable means of propagating a knowledge ^^^'
of the sagas before Peringskiold printed them in 1697, two
hundred years after the time of Columbus. This editor inserted
them in an edition of the Heimshringla and concealed the
patchwork. This deception caused it afterwards to be sup-
posed that the accounts in the Heimshringla had been inter-
polated by some later reviser of the chronicle ; but the truth
regarding Peringskibld's action was ultimately known.
Basing, then, their investigation on a narrative confessedly
confused and unauthentic, modern writers have sought to deter-
mine with precision the fact of Norse visits to British America,
and to identify the localities. The fact that every investigator
finds geographical correspondences where he likes, and quite
independently of all others, is testimony of itself to the confused
condition of the story. The soil of the United States and Nova
Scotia contiguous to the Atlantic may now safely be said to
have been examined by competent critics sufficiently to affirm
that no archaeological trace of the presence of the Norse here
is discernible. As to such a forbidding coast as that of Labra-
dor, there has been as yet no such familiarity with it by tramed
arch^ologists as to render it reasonably certain that some trace
may not be found there, and on this account George Probabm-
Bancroft allows the possibility that the Norse may ''''
have reached that coast. There remains, then, no evidence
148 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
beyond a strong probability that tbe Norse from Greenland
crossed Davis' Straits and followed south the American coast.
That indisputable archaeological proofs may yet be found to
establish the fact of their southern course and sojourn is cer-
tainly possible. Meanwhile we must be content that there is no
testimony satisfactory to a careful historical student, that this
course and such sojourn ever took place. A belief in it must
rest on the probabilities of the case.
Many writers upon the Norseman discovery would do well to
remember the advice of Ampere to present as doubtful what is
true, sooner than to give as true what is doubtful.
" Ignorance," says Munoz, in speaking of the treacherous
grounds of unsupported narrative, "is generally accompanied
by vanity and temerity."
It is an obvious and alluring supposition that this story
Did coium- should have been presented to Columbus, whatever the
the^SI'*'^ effect may have been on his mind. Lowell in a poem
stories? pardonably pictures him as saying : —
" I brooded on the wise Athenian's tale
Of happy Atlantis ; and heard Bjdrne's keel
Crunch the gray pebbles of the Yinland shore,
For I believed the poets."
But the belief is only a proposition. Rafn and other ex-
treme advocates of the Norse discovery have made as much as
they could of the supposition of Columbus's cognizance of the
Norse voyages. Laing seems confident that this contact must
have happened. The question, however, must remain unsettled ;
and whether Columbus landed in Iceland or not, and whether
the bruit of the Norse expeditions struck his ears elsewhere or
not, the fact of his never mentioning them, when he summoned
every supposable evidence to induce acceptance of his views,
seems to be enough to show at least that to a mind possessed as
his was of the scheme of finding India by the west the stories
of such northern wandering offered no suggestion applicable to
his purpose. It is, moreover, inconceivable that Columbus
should have taken a course southwest from the Canaries, if he
had been prompted in any way by tidings of land in the north-
west.
CHAPTEK VIII.
COLUMBUS LEAVES PORTUGAL FOR SPAIN.
It is a rather striking fact, as Harrisse puts it, that we can-
not place with an exact date any event in Columbus's coiumbus's
life from August 7, 1473, when a document shows him oJ^iSs^*''
to have been in Savona, Italy, till he received at Cor- ^*^^-
doba, Spain, from the treasurer of the Catholic sovereigns, his
first gratuity on May 5, 1487, as is shown by the entry in the
books, "given this day 3,000 maravedis," about 118, "to Cris-
tobal Colomo, a stranger." The events of this period of about
fourteen years were those which made possible his later career.
The incidents connected with this time have become the shuttle-
cocks which have been driven backward and forward in their
chronological bearings, by all who have undertaken to study
the details of this part of Columbus's life. It is nearly as true
now as it was when Prescott wrote, that " the discrepancies
among the earliest authorities are such as to render hopeless
any attempt to settle with precision the chronology of Colum-
bus's movements previous to his first voyage."
The motives which induced him to abandon Portugal, where
he had married, and where he had apparently found
T 1 .1 . 1 . • 1 His motives
not a little to reconcile him to his exile, are not ob- for leaving
Portugal.
scure ones as detailed in the ordinary accounts of his
life. All these narratives are- in the main based, first, on the
Historie (1571) ; secondly, on the great historical work Q^iiet
of Joam de Barros, pertaining to the discoveries of Jf^u?"
the Portuguese in the East Indies, first published in ^^^^^«^-
1552, and still holding probably the loftiest position in the his-
torical literature of that country ; and, finally, on the lives of
Joao II., then monarch of Portugal, by Ruy de Pina and by
Vasconcellos. The latter borrowing in the main from the for-
mer, was exclusively used by Irving. Las Casas apparently
depended on Barros as well as on the Historie. It is neces-
150 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
sary to reconcile their statements, as well as it can be done, to
get even an inductive view of the events concerned.
The treatment of the subject by Irving would make it cer-
tain that it was a new confidence in the ability to make long
voyages, inspired by the improvements of the astrolabe as di-
rected by Behaim, that first gave Columbus the assurance to
ask for royal patronage of the maritime scheme which had
been developing in his mind.
Just what constituted the acquaintance of Columbus with
Columbus Behaim is not clearly established. Herrera speaks
and Behaim. ^^ ^^^^ ^^ fricuds. Humboldt thinks some intimacy
between them may have existed, but finds no decisive proof of
it. Behaim had spent much of his life in Lisbon and in the
Azores, and there are some striking correspondences in their
careers, if we accept the usual accounts. They were born and
died in the same year. Each lived for a while on an Atlantic
island, the Nuremberger at Fayal, and the Genoese at Porto
Santo ; and each married the daughter of the governor of his
respective island. They pursued their nautical studies at the
same time in Lisbon, and the same physicians who reported
to the Portuguese king upon Columbus's scheme of westward
sailing were engaged with Behaim in perfecting the sea astro-
labe.
The account of the audience with the king which we find in
the Historie is to the effect that Columbus finally
and the king succccded in iuduciuff Joao to believe in the practica-
of Portugal. , .,. » A . 1 , ,
bility of a western passage to Asia ; but that the
monarch could not be brought to assent to all the titular and
pecuniary rewards which Columbus contended for as emolu-
ments of success, and that a commission, to whom the monarch
referred the project, pronounced* the views of Columbus simply
chimerical. Barros represents that the advances of Columbus
were altogether too arrogant and fantastic ever to have gained
the consideration of the king, who easily disposed of the Gen-
oese's pretentious importunities by throwing the burden of de-
nial upon a commission. This body consisted of the two physi-
cians of the royal household, already mentioned, Roderigo and
Josef, to whom was added Cazadilla, the Bishop of Ceuta.
Vasconcellos's addition to this story, which he derived almost
entirely from Ruy de Pina, Resende, and Barros, is that there
COLUMBUS LEAVES PORTUGAL FOR SPAIN. 151
was subsequently anotlier reference to a royal council, in which
the subject was discussed in arguments, of which that historian
preserves some reports. This discussion went farther than was
perhaps intended, since Cazadilla proceeded to discourage all
attempts at exploration even by the African route, as imperil-
ing the safety of the state, because of the money which was
required ; and because it kept at too great a distance for an
emergency a considerable force in ships and men. In fact the
drift of the debate seems to have ignored the main projects as
of little moment and as too visionary, and the energy of the
hour was centered in a rallying speech made by the Count of
Villa Keal, who endeavored to save the interests of African
exploration. The count's speech quite accomplished its pur-
pose, if we can trust the reports, since it reassured the rather
drooping energies of the king, and induced some active meas-
ures to reach the extremity of Africa.
In August, 1486, Bartholomew Diaz, the most eminent of a
line of Portuguese navigators, had departed on the
African route, with two consorts. As he neared the can voyage]
latitude of the looked-for Cape, he was driven south,
and forced away from the land, by a storm. When he was
enabled to return on his track he struck the coast, really to the
eastward of the true cape, though he did not at the time know
it. This was in May, 1487. His crew being unwilling to pro-
ceed farther, he finally turned westerly, and in due time dis-
covered what he had done. The first passage of the Cape was
thus made while sailing west, just as, possibly, the passes the
mariners of the Indian seas may have done. In De- ^*p®'
cember he was back in Lisbon with the exhilarating news, and
it was probably conveyed to Columbus, who was then in Spain,
by his brother Bartholomew, the companion of Diaz in this
eventful voyage, as Las Casas discovered by an entry made by
Bartholomew himself in a copy of D'Ailly's Imago Mundi.
Thirty years before, as we have seen, Fra Mauro had pre-
figured the Cape in his map, but it was now to be put on the
charts as a geographical discovery ; and by 1490, or there-
abouts, succeeding Portuguese navigators had pushed up the
west coast of Africa to a point shown in a map preserved in the
British Museum, but not far enough to connect with what was
supposed with some certainty to be the limit reached during
152
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
the voyages of the Arabian navigators, while sailing south from
the Red Sea. There was apparently not a clear conception in
the minds of the Portuguese, at this time, just how far from the
Cape the entrance of the Arabian waters really was. It is possi-
ble that intelligence may have thus early come from the Indian
PORTUGUESE MAPPEMONDE, 1490.
[Sketched from the original MS. in the British Museum.]
Ocean, by way of the Mediterranean, that the Oriental sailors
knew of the great African cape by approaching it from the
east. Such knowledge, if held to be visionary, was, however,
established with some certainty in men's minds before Da
COLUMBUS LEAVES PORTUGAL FOR SPAIN. 153
Gama actually effected the passage of the Cape. This con-
firmation had doubtless come through some mission-
aries of the Portuguese king, who in 1490 sent such SSKSb
a positive message from Cairo. *° ^^^^'
But while the new exertions along the African coast, thus
inadvertently instigated by Columbus, were making, what was
becoming of his own westward scheme ?
The story goes that it was by the advice of Cazadilla that the
Portuguese king lent himself to an unworthy device, j^e Portu-
This was a proiect to test the views of Columbus, and f^f^ ^^^
■X. V 7 Oim Sill 6Xp6*
profit by them without paying him his price. An out- foJestaii
line of his intended voyage had been secured from ^^i""^!""-
him in the investigation already mentioned. A caravel, under
pretense of a voyage to the Cape de Verde Islands, was now
dispatched to search for the Cipango of Marco Polo, in the
position which Columbus had given it in his chart. The mer-
cenary craft started out, and buffeted with head seas and angry
winds long enough to emasculate what little courage the crew
possessed. Without the prop of conviction they deserted their
purpose and returned. Once in port, they began to berate the
Genoese for his foolhardy scheme. In this way they sought to
vindicate their own timidity. This disclosed to Columbus the
trick which had been played upon him. Such is the story as
the Historie tells it, and which has been adopted by Herrera
and others.
At this point there is too much uncertainty respecting the
movements of Columbus for even his credulous biog- ^^^^^^^^
raphers to fill out the tale. It seems to be agreed J«^;««f^°^-
that in the latter part of 1484 he left Portugal with
a secrecy which was supposed to be necessary to escape the
vigilance of the government spies. There is beside some rea-
son for believing that it was also well for him to shun arrest
for debts, which had been incurred in the distractions of his
affairs.
There is no other authority than Kamusio for believing with
Muiioz that Columbus had already laid his project supposed
before the government of Genoa by letter, and that he coiumbus to
now went to reenforce it in person. That power was
sorely pressed with misfortunes at this time, and is said to have
154 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
declined to entertain his proposals. It may be the applicant
was dismissed contemptuously, as is sometimes said. It is not,
however, as Harrisse has pointed out, till we come down to
Cassoni, in his Annals of Genoa^ published in 1708, that we
find a single Genoese authority crediting the story of this visit
to Genoa. Harrisse, with his skeptical tendency, does not
believe the statement.
Eagerness to fill the gaps in his itinerary has sometimes
induced the supposition that Columbus made an
visittoven- equally unsuccessful offer to Venice; but the state-
ment is not found except in modern writers, with no
other citations to sustain it than the recollections of some one
who had seen at some time in the archives a memorial to this
effect made by Columbus. Some writers make him at this time
also visit his father and provide for his comfort, — a belief
not altogether consonant with the supposition of Columbus's es-
cape from Portugal as a debtor.
Irving and the biographers in general find in the death of
The death of Columbus's wif 6 a sevcriug of the ties which bound
his wife. jjjj^ ^^ Portugal; but if there is any truth in the
tumultuous letter which Columbus wrote to Doiia Juana de la
Shown to be Torrc iu 1500, he left behind him in Portugal, when
uncertain, j^^ fl^^ '^^^^ Spain, a wifc and children. If there is
the necessary veracity in the Historie, this wife had died before
he abandoned the country. That he had other children at this
time than Diego is only known through this sad, ejaculatory
epistle. If he left a wife in Portugal, as his own words aver,
Harrisse seems justified in saying that he deserted her, and
in the same letter Columbus himself says that he never saw her
again.
Ever since a physician of Palos, Garcia Fernandez, gave his
Convent of tcstimouy iu the lawsuit through which, after Colum-
Rabida. bus's death, his son defended his titles against the
Crown, the picturesque story of the convent of Rabida, and the
appearance at its gate of a forlorn traveler accompanied by a
little boy, and the supplication for bread and water for the
child, has stood in the lives of Columbus as the opening scene
of his career in Spain.
This Franciscan convent, dedicated to Santa Maria de Rar
bida, stood on a height within sight of the sea, very near the
COLUMBUS LEAVES PORTUGAL FOR SPAIN. 155
town of Palos, and after having fallen into a ruin it was
restored by the Duke of Montpensier in 1855. A recent trav-
eler has found this restoration " modernized, whitewashed, and
forlorn," while the refurnishing of the interior is described as
^' paltry and vulgar," even in the cell of its friar, where the vis-
itor now finds a portrait of Columbus and pictures of scenes
in his career.
This friar, Juan Perez de Marchena, was at the time of the
supposed visit of Columbus the prior of the convent, p^;^^ ^^^
and being casually attracted by the scene at the gate, *^^®"*-
where the porter was refreshing the vagrant travelers, and by
PilRE JUAN PEREZ DE MARCHENA.
[As given by Roselly de Lorgues.]
the foreign accent of the stranger, he entered into talk with the
elder of them and learned his name. Columbus also told him
that he was bound to Huelva to find the home of one Muliar,
a Spaniard who had married the youngest sister of his wife.
The story goes further that the friar was not uninformed in the
cosmographical lore of the time, had not been unobservant of
the maritime intelligence which had naturally been rife in the
neighboring seaport of Palos, and had kept watch of the recent
156 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
progress in geographical science. He was accordingly able to
appreciate the interest which Columbus manifested in such
subjects, as he unfolded his own notions of still greater discov-
eries which might be made at the west. Keeping the wanderer
and his little child a few days, Marchena invited to the convent,
to join with them in discussion, the most learned man whom the
neighborhood afforded, the physician of Palos, — the very one
from whose testimony our information comes. Their talks
were not without reenf orcements from the experiences of some of
the mariners of that seaport, particularly one Pedro de Velasco,
who told of manifestation of land which he had himself seen,
without absolute contact, thirty years before, when his ship had
been blown a long distance to the northwest of Ireland.
The friendship formed in the convent kept Columbus there
amid congenial sympathizers, and it was not till some time in the
winter of 1485-86, and when he heard that the Spanish sover-
eigns were at Cordoba, gathering a force to attack the Moors in
Granada, that, leaving behind his boy to be instructed
Columbus . >-< 1 1 1 «. -1 • XX
goes to Cor- m the convent, Columbus started tor that city. He
went not without confidence and elation, as he bore a
letter of credentials which the friar had given him to a friend,
Fernando de Talavera, the prior of the monastery of Prado, and
confessor of Queen Isabella.
This story has almost always been placed in the opening of
the career of Columbus in Spain. It has often in sympathizing
hands pointed a moral in contrasting the abject condition of
those days with the proud expectancy under which, some years
later, he sailed out of the neighboring harbor of Palos, within
eyeshot of the monks of Rabida. Irving, however, as he ana-
lyzed the reports of the famous trial already referred to, was
Doubts quite sure that the events of two visits to Rabida had
vSto^ l^een unwittingly run into one in testimony given
Rabida. after so long an interval of years. It does indeed
seem that we must either apply this evidence of 1513 and 1515
to a later visit, or else we must determine that there was great
similarity in some of the incidents of the two visits.
The date of 1491, to which Harrisse pushes the incidents for-
ward, depends in part on the evidence of one Rodriguez Cobe-
zudo that in 1513 it was about twenty-two years since he had
lent a mule to Juan Perez de Marchena, when he went to Santa
COLUMBUS LEAVES PORTUGAL FOR SPAIN. 157
F^ from Rabida to interpose for Columbus. The testimony of
Garcia Fernandez is that this visit of Marchena took place
after Columbus had once been rebuffed at court, and the words
of the witness indicate that it was on that visit when Juan
Perez asked Columbus who he was and whence he came ; show-
ing, perhaps, that it was the first time Perez had seen Colum-
bus. Accordingly this, as well as the mule story, points to
1491. But that the circumstances of the visit which Garcia Fer-
nandez recounts may have belonged to an earlier visit, in part
confounded after fifteen years with a later one, may yet be not
beyond a possibility. It is to be remembered that the Histo-
rie speaks of two visits, one later than that of 1484. It is not
easy to see that all the testimony which Harrisse introduced to
make the visit of 1491 the first and only visit of Columbus
to the convent is sufficient to do more than render the case prob-
able.
We determine the exact date of the entering of Columbus
into the service of Spain to be January 20, 1486, from 1436 j.^.
a record of his in his journal on shipboard under service^of
January 14, 1493, where he says that on the 20th of ^p*^'
the same month he would have been in their Highnesses' service
just seven years. We find almost as a matter of course other
statements of his which give somewhat different dates by deduc-
tion. Two statements of Columbus agreeing would be a little
suspicious. Certain payments on the part of the Crowns of
Castile and Aragon do not seem to have begun, however, till
the next year, or at least we have no earlier record of such than
one on May 5, 1487, and from that date on they were made at
not great intervals, till an interruption came, as will be later
shown.
In Spain the Christof oro Colombo of Genoa chose to call him-
self Cristoval Colon, and the Historie tells us that he
. - Changes his
sought merely to make his descendants distmct 01 name to
p XT 1 1 1 T) Colon.
name from their remote kin. He argued that the Ko-
man name was Colonus, which readily was transformed to a
Spanish equivalent. Inasmuch as the Duke of Medina-Celi,
who kept Columbus in his house for two years during the early
years of his Spanish residence, calls him Colomo in 1493, and
Oviedo calls him Colom, it is a question if he chose the form of
Colon before he became famous by his voyage.
158 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
The Genoese had been for a long period a privileged people
The Genoese ^^ Spain, dating such acceptance back to the time of
in Spain. g^^ Ferdinand. Navarrete has instanced numerous
confirmations of these early favors by successive monarchs down
to the time of Columbus. But neither this prestige of his birth-
right nor the letter of Friar Perez had been sufficient to secure
in the busy camp at Cordoba any recognition of this otherwise
unheralded and humble suitor. The power of the sovereigns
was overtaxed already in the engrossing preparations which the
Court and army were making for a vigorous campaign against
the Moors. The exigencies of the war carried the sovereigns,
sometimes together and at other times apart, from point to point.
Siege after siege was conducted, and Talavera, whose devotion
had been counted upon by Columbus, had too much to occupy
his attention, to give ear to propositions which at best he deemed
chimerical.
We know in a vague way that while the Court was thus
Columbus withdrawn from Cordoba the disheartened wanderer
in Cordoba, remained in that city, supporting himself, accord-
ing to Bernaldez, in drafting charts and in selling printed
books, which Harrisse suspects may have been publications,
such as were then current, containing calendars and astronom-
ical predictions, like the Lunarios of GranoUach and Andres
de Li.
It was probably at this time, too, that he made the acquaint-
Makes ac- ^^^c of Alouso dc Quintauilla, the comptroller of the
quaintances. finauccs of Castilc. He attained some terms of friend-
ship with Antonio Geraldini, the papal nuncio, and his brother,
Alexander Geraldini, the tutor of the royal children. It is
claimed that all these friends became interested in his projects,
and were advocates of them.
We are told by Las Casas that Columbus at one time gath-
writes out ©red and placed in order all the varied manifestations,
of a western ^^ ^® conccivcd them, of some such transatlantic region
^^^ as his theory demanded ; and it seems probable that
this task was done during a period of weary waiting in Cor-
doba. We know nothing, however, of the manuscript except
as Las Casas and the Historie have used its material, and
through them some of the details have been gleaned in the pre-
ceding chapter.
COLUMBUS LEAVES PORTUGAL FOR SPAIN. 159
These accessions of friends, aided doubtless by some such sys-
temization of the knowledge to be brought to the ques-
tion as this lost manuscript implies, opened the way to ^®"^°^*-
an acquaintance with Pedro Gonzales de Mendoza, Archbishop
of Toledo and Grand Cardinal of Spain. This prelate, from
the confidence which the sovereigns placed in him, was known
in Martyr's phrase as "the third king of Spain," and it could
but be seen by Columbus that his sympathies were essential to
the success of plans so far reaching as his own. The cardinal
was gracious in his intercourse, and by no means inaccessible to
such a suitor as Columbus ; but he was educated in the exclusive
spirit of the prevailing theology, and he had a keen scent for
anything that might be supposed heterodox. It proved neces-
sary for the thought of a spherical earth to rest some time in
his mind, till his ruminations could bring him to a perception of
the truths of science.
According to the reports which Oviedo gives us, the seed
which Columbus sowed, in his various talks with the cardinal,
in due time germinated, and the constant mentor of ^^^3 ^^^ ^
the sovereigns was at last brought to prepare the ^^^l^l'
way, so that Columbus could have a royal audience. Columbus.
Thus it was that Columbus finally got the ear of Ferdinand, at
Salamanca, whither the monarchs had come for a winter's so-
journ after the turmoils of a summer's campaign against the
Moors.
We cannot proceed farther in this narrative without under-
standing, in the light of all the early and late evidence characters
which we have, what kind of beings these sovereigns eiei^sof'
of Aragon and Castile were, with whom Columbus ^p*"^-
was to have so much intercourse in the years to come. Ferdi-
nand and Isabella, the wearers of the crowns of Aragon and
Castile, were linked in common interests, and their joint reign
had augured a powerful, because united, Spain. The student of
their characters, as he works among the documents of the time,
cannot avoid the recognition of qualities little calculated to sat-
isfy demands for nobleness and devotion which the world has
learned to associate with royal obligations. It may be possibly
too much to say that habitually, but not too much to assert
that often, these Spanish monarchs were more ready at perfidy
and deceit than even an allowance for the teachings of their
160 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
time would permit. Often the student will find himself forced
to grant that the queen was more culpable in these respects
than the king. An anxious inquirer into the queen's ways is
not quite sure that she was able to distinguish between her own
interests and those of God. The documentary researches of
Bergenroth have decidedly lowered her in the judgments of
those who have studied that investigator's results. We need
to plead the times for her, and we need to push the plea very
far.
" Perhaps," says Helps, speaking of Isabella, " there is hardly
any great personage whose name and authority are
found in connection with so much that is strikingly
evil, all of it done, or rather assented to, upon the highest and
purest motives." To palliate on such grounds is to believe in
the irresponsibility of motives, which should transcend times
and occasions.
She is not, however, without loyal adulators of her own time
and race.
We read in Oviedo of her splendid soul. Peter Martyr
found commendations of ordinary humanity not enough for her.
Those nearest her person spoke as admiringly. It is the for-
tune, however, of a historical student, who lies beyond the in-
fluence of personal favor, to read in archives her most secret
professions, and to gauge the innermost wishes of a soul which
was carefully posed before her contemporaries. It is mirrored
to-day in a thousand revealing lenses that were not to be seen
by her contemporaries. Irving and Prescott simply fall into
the adulation of her servitors, and make her confessors responsi-
ble for her acquiescence in the expulsion of the Jews and in
the horrors of the Inquisition.
The king, perhaps, was good enough for a king as such per-
sonages went in the fifteenth century ; but his smiles
and remorseless coldness were mixed as few could mix
them, even in those days. If the Pope regarded him from
Italy, that Holy Father called him pious. The modern student
finds him a bigot. His subjects thought him great and glori-
ous, but they did not see his dispatches, nor know his sometimes
baleful domination in his cabinet. The French would not trust
him. The English watched his ambition. The Moors knew
him as their conqueror. The Jews fled before his evil eye.
COLUMBUS LEAVES PORTUGAL FOR SPAIN. 161
The miserable saw him in his inquisitors. All this pleased the
Pope, and the papal will made him in preferred phrase His
Most Catholic Majesty, — a phrase that rings in diplomatic
formalities to-day.
Every purpose upon which he had set his heart was apt to
blind him to aught else, and at times very conveniently so. We
may allow that it is precisely this single mind which makes a
conspicuous name in history ; but conspicuousness and justness
do not always march with a locked step.
He had, of course, virtues that shone when the sun shone.
He could be equable. He knew how to work steadily, to eat
moderately, and to dress simply. He was enterprising in his
actions, as the Moors and heretics found out. He did not ex-
tort money ; he only extorted agonized confessions. He said
masses, and prayed equally well for God's benediction on evil
as on good things. He made promises, and then got the papal
dispensation to break them. He juggled in state policy as his
mind changed, and he worked his craft very readily. Machia-
velli would have liked this in him, and indeed he was a good
scholar of an existing school, which counted the act of outwit-
ting better than the arts of honesty ; and perhaps the world is
not loftier in the purposes of statecraft to-day. He got people
to admire him, but few to love him.
The result of an audience with the king was that the proj-
ects of Columbus were committed to Talavera, to be
. Columbus's
laid by him before such a body of wise men as the views con-
- , . •! T /^ -L sideredby
prior could gather m council. L<as Casas says that Taiavera
the consideration of the plans was entrusted to " cer-
tain persons of the Court," and he enumerates Cardinal Men-
doza, Diego de Deza, Alonso de Cardenas, and Juan Cabrero,
the royal chamberlain. The meeting was seemingly held in the
winter of 1486-87. The Catholic writers accuse Irving, and ap-
parently with right, of an unwarranted assumption of the im-
portance of what he calls the Council at Salamanca, and they
find he has no authority for it, except a writer one ^t Saia-
hundred and twenty years after the event, who men- ™*"*'^-
tions the matter but incidentally. This source was Reraesal's
Historia de Chijapa (Madrid, 1619), an account of ope of the
Mexican provinces. There seems no reason to suppose that
at best it was anything more than some informal conference
162
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
of Talavera with a few councilors, and in no way associated with
the prestige of the university at Salamanca. The registers of
UNIVERSITY OF SALAMANCA.
lEspana, p. 132.]
the university, which begin back of the assigned date for such
Council, have been examined in vain for any reference to it.
The " Junta of Salamanca " has passed into history as a con-
COLUMBUS LEAVES PORTUGAL FOR SPAIN. 163
vocation of considerable extent and importance, and a repre-
sentation of ,t IS made to adorn one of the bas-reliefs of the
Admiral s monument at Genoa. We have, however, absolutely
MONUMENT TO COLUMBUS ERECTED AT GENOA, 1862.
no documentary records of it. Of whatever moment it may
have been, if the problem as Columbus would have presented
it had been discussed, the reports, if preserved, could have
164 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
thrown much light upon the relations which the cosmographical
views of its principal character bore to the opinions then pre-
vailing in learned circles of Spain. We know what the His-
tories Bernaldez, and Las Casas tell us of Columbus's advocacy,
but we must regret the loss of his own language and his own
way of explaining himself to these learned men. Such a paper
would serve a purpose of showing how, in this period of coura-
geous and ardent insistence on a physical truth, he stood man-
fully for the light that was in him; and it would afford a
needed foil to those pitiful aberrations of intellect which, in
the years following, took possession of him, and which were so
constantly reiterated with painful and maundering wailing.
Discarding, then, the array of argument which Irving borrows
from Remesal, and barely associating a little conference, in
which Columbus is a central figure, with that St. Stephen's
convent whose wondrous petrifactions of creamy and reticu-
lated stone still hold the admiring traveler, we must accept
nothing more about its meetings than the scant testimony
which has come down to us. It is pleasant to think how it was
here that the active interest which Diego de Deza, a Dominican
Find favor f I'i^r, finally took in the cause of Columbus may have
with Deza. Yi2idi its beginning; but the extent of our positive
knowledge regarding the meeting is the deposition of Rodri-
guez de Maldonado, who simply says that several learned men
and mariners, hearing the arguments of Columbus, decided
they could not be true, or at least a majority so decided, and
that this testimony against Columbus had no effect to convince
him of his errors. This is all that the " Junta of Salamanca "
meant. A minority of unknown size favored the advocate.
When the spring of 1487 came, and the court departed to
Cordoba, and beg-an to make preparations for the
1487. The ' o l l
Court at campaio^n against Malacca, there was no hope that the
Cordoba. . * . ° i . i , i t • i i i
considerations which had begun in the learned ses-
sions at Salamanca would be followed up. Columbus seems to
have journeyed after the Court in its migrations : sometimes
lured by pittances doled out to him by the royal
Malaga sur- "^ ^ . . . . „ *^
renders, treasurer ; sometimes getting pecuniary assistance from
his new friend, Diego de Deza ; selling now and then
a map that he had made, it may be ; and accepting hospitality
COLUMBUS LEAVES PORTUGAL FOR SPAIN. 165
where he could get it, from such as Alonso de Quintanilla. In
these wandering days, he was for a while, at least, in attendance
on the Court, then surrounded with military parade, before the
SPAIN, 1482.
[From the Ptolemy of 1482.]
Moorish stronghold at Malaga. The town surrendered on Au-
gust 18, 1487, and the Court then returned to Cordoba.
166 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
It was in the autumn of 1487, at Cordoba, that Columbus
fell into such an intimacy as spousehood only can sanc-
1487. Inti- . . , ^ 1 T.. . 1 . .1 1 .
macy of Co- tiou With a pcrsou 01 good coiidition as to birth, but
Beatrix poor iu the world's-goods. Whether this relation had
nriquez. ^^^ sauctiou of the Church or not has been a subject
of much inquiry and opinion. The class of French writers, who
are aiming to secure the canonization of Columbus, have found
it essential to clear the moral character of Columbus from every
taint, and they confidently assert, and doubtless think they
show, that nothing but conjugal right is manifest in this con-
nection, — a question which the Church will in due time have to
decide, if it ever brings itself to the recognition of the saintly
character of the great discoverer. Even the ardent supporters
of the cause of beatification are forced to admit that there is no
record of such a marriage. No contemporary recognition of
such a relation is evinced by any family ceremonies of baptism
or the like, and there is no mention of a wife in all the transac-
tions of the crowning endeavors of his life. As viceroy, at a
later day, he constantly appears with no attendant vice-queen.
She is absolutely out of sight until Columbus makes a signifi-
cant reference to her in his last will,. when he recommends this
Beatrix Enriquez to his lawful son Diego ; saying that she is a
person to whom the testator had been under great obligations,
and that his conscience is burdened respecting her, for a rea-
son which he does not then think fitting to explain. This testa-
mentary behest and acknowledgment, in connection with other
manifestations, and the absence of proof to the contrary, has
caused the belief to be general among his biographers, early
and late, that the fruit of this intimacy, Ferdinand Columbus,
was an illegitimate offspring. He was born, as near
Columbus as can be made out, on the 15th of August, 1488.
orn, . ^^^^ mother very likely received for a while some con-
solation from her lover, but Columbus did not apparently carry
her to Seville, when he went there himself ; and the support
which he gave her was not altogether regularly afforded, and
was never of the quality which he asked Diego to grant to her
when he died. She unquestionably survived the making of
Diego's will in 1523, and then she fades into oblivion. Her
son, Ferdinand, if he is the author of the Historie^ makes no
mention of a marriage to his mother, though he is careful to
COLUMBUS LEAVES PORTUGAL FOR SPAIN. 167
record the one which was indisputably legal, and whose fruit
was Diego, the Admiral's successor. The lawful son was di-
rected by Columbus, when starting on his third voyage, to pay
to Beatrix ten thousand maravedis a year ; but he seems to have
neglected to do so for the last three or four years of her life.
Diego finally ordered these arrears to be paid to her heirs. Las
Casas distinctly speaks of Ferdinand as a natural son, and Las
Casas had the best of opportunities for knowing whereof he
wrote.
While all this suspense and amorous intrigue were perplexing
the ardent theorist, he is supposed to have dispatched coiumbus
his brother Bartholomew to England to disclose his brothe^to
projects to Henry VII. Hakluyt, in his Westerfie ^""s^^
Planting, tells us that it " made much for the title of the kings
of England " to the New World that Henry VII. gave a ready
acceptance to the theory of Columbus as set forth somewhat
tardily by his brother Bartholomew, when escaping Relations of
from the detention of the pirates, he was at last able, fhTSs of
on February 13, 1488, to offer in England his sea- coiumbus.
card, embodying Christopher's theories, for the royal considera-
tion.
William Castell, in his Short Discovery of America, says
that Henry VII. " unhappily refused to be at any charge in
the discovery, supposing the learned Columbus to build castles
in the air." It is a common story that Henry finally brought
himself to accede to the importunities of Bartholomew, but only
at a late day, and after Christopher had effected his conquest
of the Spanish Court. Columbus himself is credited with say-
ing that Henry actually wrote him a letter of acceptance. This
epistle was very likely a fruition of the new impulses to oceanic
discovery which the presence, a little later, of the Ve- ^he cabota
netian Cabots, was making current among the Eng- »°^"k^*° •
lish sailors ; for John Cabot and his sons, one of whom, Sebas-
tian, being at that time a youth of sixteen or seventeen, had,
according to the best testimony, established a home in Bristol,
not far from 1490.
If the report of the Spanish envoy in England to his sover-
eigns is correct as to dates, it was near this time that the Bristol
merchants were renewing their quests oceanward for the islands
168 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
of Brazil and the Seven Cities. We have seen that these
islands with others had for some time appeared on the conjec-
tural charts of the Atlantic, and very likely they had appeared
on the sea-card shown by Bartholomew Columbus to Henry
VII. These efforts may perhaps have been in a measure
instigated by that fact. At all events, any hazards of further
western exploration could be met with greater heart if such
stations of progress could be found in mid ocean. Of the re-
port of all this which Bartholomew may have made to his brother
we know absolutely nothing, and he seems not to have returned
to Spain till after a sojourn in France which ended in 1494.
It was believed by Irving that Columbus, having opened a
correspondence with the Portuguese king respecting a
invited back rctum to the service of that country, had received
from that monarch an epistle, dated March 20, 1488,
in which he was permitted to come back, with the offer of pro-
tection against any suit of civil or criminal nature, and that this
had been declined. We are left to conjecture of what suits of
either kind he could have been apprehensive.
Humboldt commends the sagacity of Navarrete in discerning
that it was not so much the persuasion of Diego de Deza which
kept Columbus at this time from accepting such royal offers, as
the illicit connection which he had formed in Cordoba with
Dona Beatrix Enriquez, who before the summer was over had
given birth to a son.
On the other hand, that the permission was not neglected
seems proved by a memorandum made by Columbus's own
hand in a copy of Pierre d'Ailly's Imago Mundi, preserved in
the Biblioteca Colombina at Seville, where, under date of
December, 1488, " at Lisbon," he speaks of the return of Diaz
from his voyage to the Cape of Good Hope. This proof is
indeed subject to the qualification that Las Casas has con-
sidered the handwriting of the note to be that of Bartholomew
Columbus, but Harrisse has no question of its identity with the
chirography of Columbus. This last critic ventures the conjec-
ture that it was in some way to settle the estate of his wife that
Columbus at this time visited Portugal.
Columbus had ceased to receive the Spanish subsi-
subsidies dics in Juuc, 1488, or at least we know no record of
withheld. , _ ' t- t i i i • • a
any later largess, r erdmand was born to him m Au-
COLUMBUS LEAVES PORTUGAL FOR SPAIN. 169
gust. It was very likely subsequent to this last event that Co-
lumbus crossed the Spanish frontier into Portugal, if Harrisse's
view of his crossing at all be accepted. His stay was without
doubt a short one, and from 1489 to 1492 there is every indica-
tion that he never left the Spanish kingdom.
We know on the testimony of a letter of Luis de la Cerda,
the Duke of Medina-Celi, given in Navarrete, that for u^^e of
, two years after the arrival of Columbus from Portu- Medina-ceii
gal he had been a guest under the duke's roof in Co- coiunTbus.
gulludo, and it seems to Harrisse probable that this gracious
help on the part of the duke was bestowed after the return to
Spain. All that we know with certainty of its date is that it
occurred before the first voyage, the duke himself mentioning
it in a letter of March 19, 1493.
It was not till May, 1489, when the court was again at Cor-
doba, according to Diego Ortiz de Zuiiiga, in his work 1489 co-
on Seville, that the sovereigns were gracious enough oXredt
to order Columbus to appear there, when they fur- <^ordoba.
nished him lodgings. They also, perhaps, at the same time,
issued a general order, dated at Cordoba May 12, in which all
cities and towns were directed to furnish suitable accommoda-
tions to Columbus and his attendants, inasmuch as he was
journeying in the royal service.
The year 1489 was a hazardous but fruitful one. The sover-
eigns were pushing vigorously their conquest of the Moor. Isa-
bella herself attended the army, and may have appeared in the
beleaguering lines about Baza, in one of those suits of ^
armor which are still shown to travelers. Zuniga the siege of
says that Columbus arrayed himself among the com-
batants, and was doubtless acquainted with the mission of two
friars who had been guardians of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusa-
lem. These priests arrived durina: the sies^e, brinsriner
s- ^^ r^ 1 o n r -n i. • ?• ? Friars from
a messae^e from the Grand Soldan of li<2fypt, m which the Hoiy
^1 1 -.1 11 r-ii • • Sepulchre.
that potentate threatened to destroy all Christians
within his grasp, unless the war against Granada should be
stopped. The point of driving the Moors from Spain was too
nearly reached for such a threat to be effective, and Isabella
decreed the annual payment of a thousand ducats to support the
faithful custodians of the Sepulchre, and sent a veil embroidered
with her own hand to decorate the shrine. Irving traces to
170 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
this circumstance the impulse, which Columbus frequently in later
days showed, to devote the anticipated wealth of the Indies to a
crusade in Palestine, to recover and protect the Holy Sepulchre.
The campaign closed with the surrender on December 22 of
Boabdusur- *^® fortrcss of Baza, when Spain received from Muley
D^clmber Boabdil, thc elder of the rival Moorish kings, all the
22, 1489. territory which he claimed to have in his power. In
February, 1490, Ferdinand and Isabella entered Seville in tri-
umph, and a season of hilarity and splendor followed, signal-
ized in the spring by the celebration with great jubilation of
the marriage of the Princess Isabella with Don Alonzo, the heir
to the crown of Portugal. These engrossing scenes were little
suited to give Columbus a chance to press his projects on the
Court. He soon found nothing could be done to get the far-
ther attention of the monarchs till some respites occurred in
the preparations for their final campaign against the younger
Moorish king. It was at this time, as Irving and others have
conjectured, that the consideration of the project of a
views again wcstcm passagc, which had been dropped when events
moved the Court from Salamanca, was again taken up
by such investigators as Talavera had summoned, and again the
result was an adverse decision. This determination was com-
municated by Talavera himself to the sovereign, and it was
accompanied by the opinion that it did not become great princes
to engage in such chimerical undertakings.
It is supposed, however, that the decision was not reached
Dezaim- without somc reservation in the minds of certain of
pressed. ^^^ rcvicwcrs, and that especially this was the case
with Diego de Deza, who showed that the stress of the argu-
ments advanced by Columbus had not been without result.
This friar was tutor to Prince Juan, and it was not difficult for
him to modify the emphatic denial of the judges. It was the
pride of those who later erected the tombstone of Deza, in the
cathedral at Seville, to inscribe upon it that he was the gen-
erous and faithful patron of Columbus. A temporizing policy
was, therefore, adopted by the monarchs, and Columbus was
informed that for the present the perils and expenses
of the war called for an undivided attention, and
that further consideration of his project must be deferred till
the war was over. It was at Cordoba that this decision reached
COLUMBUS LEAVES PORTUGAL FOR SPAIN. 171
Columbus. In his eagerness of hope he suspected that the judg-
ment had received some adverse color in passing through Tala-
CATHEDRAL OF SEVILLE.
[From Parcerisa and Quadrado's Espana.']
vera's mind, and so he hastened to Seville, but only to coiumbus
meet the same chilling repulse from the monarchs pevme; but
themselves. With dashed exi)ectations he left the city, i«^«P«"«^
172
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
feeling that the instrumentality of Talavera, as Peter Martyr
tells us, had turned the sovereigns against him.
CATHEDRAL OF CORDOBA.
[From Parcerisa and Quadrado's Espana.']
Seeks yie
grandees of
Spain.
Columbus now sought to engage the attention of
some of the powerful grandees of Spain, who, though
subjects, were almost autocratic in their own regions.
»
COLUMBUS LEAVES PORTUGAL FOR SPAIN. 173
serving the Crown not so much as vassals as sympathetic
helpers in its wars. They were depended upon to recruit the
armies from their own trains and dependents ; money came
from their chests, provisions from their estates, and ships from
their own marine ; their landed patrimonies, indeed, covered
long stretches of the coast, whose harbors sheltered their con-
siderable navies. Such were the dukes of Medina-Sidonia and
Medina-Celi. Columbus found in them, however, the
same wariness which he had experienced at the doniaand
greater court. There was a willingness to listen ; they
found some lures in the great hopes of Eastern wealth which
animated Columbus, but in the end there was the same disap-
pointment. One of them, the Duke of Medina-Celi, at last
adroitly parried the importunities of Columbus, by averring
that the project deserved the royal patronage rather than his
meaner aid. He, however, told the suitor, if a farther applica-
tion should be made to the Crown at some more opportune mo-
ment, he would labor with the queen in its behalf. The duke
kept his word, and we get much of what we know of his interest
in Columbus from the information given by one of the duke's
household to Las Casas. This differs so far as to make the
duke, perhaps as Harrisse thinks in the spring of 1491, actually
fit out some caravels for the use of Columbus ; but when seek-
ing a royal license, he was informed that the queen had deter-
mined to embark in the enterprise herself. Such a decision
seems to carry this part of the story, at least, forward to a time
when Columbus was summoned from Rabida.
A consultation which now took place at the convent of Rar
bida affords particulars which the historians have coiumbusat
found difficulty, as already stated, in keeping distinct ^^^»'^*'
from those of an earlier visit, if there was such. Columbus, ac-
cording to the usual story, visited the convent apparently in
October or November, 1491, with the purpose of reclaiming his
son Diego, and taking him to Cordoba, where he might be left
with Ferdinand in the charge of the latter's mother. Colum-
bus himself intended to pass to France, to see if a letter, which
had been received from the king of France, might possibly open
the way to the fulfillment of his great hopes. It is represented
that it was this expressed intention of abandoning Spain ^Yhich
aroused the patriotism of Marchena, who undertook to prevent
174 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
the sacrifice. We derive what we know of his method of pre-
vention from the testimony of Garcia Fernandez, the
encourages physician of Palos, who has been cited in respect to
the alleged earlier visit. This witness says that he was
summoned to Rabida to confer with Columbus. It is also made
a part of the story that the head of a family of famous naviga-
tors in Palos, Martin Alonso Pinzon, was likewise drawn into
Talks with ^^^ \itt\Q company assembled by the friar to consider
Pinzon. ^^ j^g^ situation. Pinzon readily gave his adherence
to the views of Columbus. It is claimed, however, that the
presence of Pinzon is disproved by documents showing him to
have been in Rome at this time.
An alleged voyage of Jean Cousin, in 1488, two years and
more before this, from Dieppe to the coast of Brazil,
alleged voy- is here brought in by certain French writers, like Es-
tancelin and Gaffarel, as throwing some light on the
intercourse of Columbus and Pinzon, later if not now. It must
be acknowledged that few other than French writers have cred-
ited the voyage at all. Major, who gave the story careful ex-
amination, utterly discredits it. It is a part of the story that
one Pinzon, a Castilian, accompanied Cousin as a pilot, and this
man is identified by these French writers as the navigator who
is now represented as yielding a ready credence to the views of
Columbus, and for the reason that he knew more than he openly
professed. They find in the later intercourse of Columbus and
this Pinzon certain evidence of the estimation in which Colum-
bus seemed to hold the practiced judgment, if not the know-
and Pinzon's l^dgc, of Piuzon. This they think conspicuous in the
cSSSecti^n yielding which Columbus made to Pinzon's opinion
with It. during Columbus's first voyage, in changing his course
to the southwest, which is taken to have been due to a know-
ledge of Pinzon's former experience in passing those seas in
1488. They trace to it the confidence of Pinzon in separating
from the Admiral on the coast of Cuba, and in his seeking to
anticipate Columbus by an earlier arrival at Palos, on the re-
turn, as the reader will later learn. Thus it is ingeniously
claimed that the pilot of Cousin and colleague of Columbus
were one and the same person. It has hardly convinced other
students than the French. When the Pinzon of the " Pinta "
at a later day was striving to discredit the leadership of Co-
COLUMBUS LEAVES PORTUGAL FOR SPAIN. 175
lumbiis, in the famous suit of the Admiral's heirs, he could
hardly, for any reason which the French writers aver, have
neglected so important a piece of evidence as the fact of the
Cousin voyage and his connection with it, if there had been any
truth in it. So we must be content, it is pretty clear, in
charging Pinzon's conversion to the views of Columbus at Ra-
bida upon the efficacy of Columbus's arguments. This pj^^on aids
success of Columbus brought some substantial fruit <^o^«"^^"»'
in the promise which Pinzon now made to bear the expenses
of a renewed suit to Ferdinand and Isabella.
A conclusion to the deliberation of this little circle in the
convent was soon reached. Columbus threw his cause into the
hands of his friends, and agreed to rest quietly in the convent
while they pressed his claims. Perez wrote a letter of supplica-
tion to the Queen, and it was dispatched by a respectable navi-
gator of the neighborhood, Sebastian Rodriguez. He andRodn-
found the Queen in the city of Santa Fe, which had lanLT^^,^
grown up in the military surroundings before the city ^r toVh^
of Granada, whose siege the Spanish armies were then *i"®®°
pressing. The epistle was opportune, for it reenforced one
which she had already received from the Duke of Medina-Celi,
who had been faithful to his promise to Columbus, and who,
judging from a letter which he wrote at a later day, March 19,
1493, took to himself not a little credit that he had thus been
instrumental, as he thought, in preventing Columbus throw-
ing himself into the service of France. The result was that
the pilot took back to Rabida an intimation to Marchena that
his presence would be welcome at Santa Fe. So mounting his
mule, after midnight, fourteen days after Rodriguez Marchena
had departed, the friar followed the pilot's tracks, ^^"^"^'•
which took him through some of the regions already conquered
from the Moors, and, reaching the Court, presented himself
before the Queen. Perez is said to have found a seconder in
Luis de Santangel, a fiscal officer of Aragon, and in the Mar-
chioness of Moya, one of the ladies of the household. The friar
is thought to have urged his petition so strongly that the Queen,
who had all along been more open to the representa- The queen
tions of Columbus than Ferdinand had been, finally S^bus once
determined to listen once more to the Genoese's ap-
peals. Learning of the poor plight of Columbus, she ordered
176 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
a gratuity to be sent to him, to restore his wardrobe and to
furnish himself with the conveniences of the journey. Perez,
having borne back the happy news, again returned to the
Court, with Columbus under his protection. Thus once more
buoyed in hope, and suitably arrayed for appearing at Court,
Columbus, on his mule, early in December, 1491,
reaches "^ Tode iuto the camp at Santa Fe, where he was re-
Deiembe'r, ccivcd and provided with lodgings by the accountant-
general. This officer was one whom he had occasion
happily to remember, Alonso de Quintanilla, through whose
offices it was, in the end, that the Grand Cardinal of
Quintanilla r>..-^r^ !•• i !•
and Men- bpaiu, Meudoza, was at this time brought into sym-
doza. ■, • t ^ /~\ •
pathy with the (ienoese aspirant.
Military events were still too imposing, however, for any im-
mediate attention to his projects, and he looked on with ad-
miration and a reserved expectancy, while the grand parade
of the final submission of Boabdil the younger, the
younger last of the Moorish kings, took place, and a long pro-
cession of the magnificence of Spain moved forward
from the beleaguering camp to receive the keys of the Alham-
bra. Wars succeeding wars for nearly eight centuries had now
come to an end. The Christian banner of Spain floated over
The Moorish ^^ Moorish palacc. The kingdom was alive in all
wars end. '^g proviuccs. Congratulation and jubilation, with
glitter and vauntings, pervaded the air.
Few observed the humble Genoese who stood waiting the
sovereigns' pleasure during all this tumult of joy; but he was
not forgotten. They remembered, as he did, the promise given
him at Seville. The war was over, and the time was come.
Talavera had by this time gone so far towards an ap-
andcoium- preciatiou of Columbus's views that Peter Martyr
bus.
tells him, at a later day, that the project would not
have succeeded without him. He was directed to confer with
the expectant dreamer, and Cardinal Mendoza became promi-
nent in the negotiations.
Columbus's position was thus changed. He had been a
suitor. He was now sought. He had been persuaded from
his purposed visit to France, in order that he might by his
plans rehabilitate Spain with a new glory, complemental to her
martial pride. This view as presented by Perez to Isabella had
COLUMBUS LEAVES PORTUGAL FOR SPAIN. 177
been accepted, and Columbus was summoned to present his
case.
Here, when he seemed at last to be on the verge of success,
the poor man, unused to good fortune, and mistaking
its token, repeated the mistake which had driven him of'coTum^^^
an outcast from Portugal. His arrogant spirit led him ^"^'
to magnify his importance before he had proved it ; and he
failed in the modesty which marks a conquering spirit.
True science places no gratulations higher than those of its
own conscience. Copernicus was at this moment delving into
the secrets of nature like a nobleman of the universe. So he
stands for all time in lofty contrast to the plebeian nature and
sordid cravings of his contemporary.
When, at the very outset of the negotiations, Talavera found
this uplifted suitor making demands that belonged rather to
proved success than to a contingent one, there was little pros-
pect of accommodation, unless one side or the other should aban-
don its position. If Columbus's own words count for anything,
he was conscious of being a laughing-stock, while he His pre-
was making claims for office and emoluments that would ^'^^^'^'^- 4-
mortgage the power of a kingdom. A dramatic instinct has in
many minds saved Columbus from the critical estimate of such
presumption. Irving and the French canonizers dwell on what
strikes them as constancy of purpose and loftiness of spirit.
They marvel that poverty, neglect, ridicule, contumely, and dis-
appointment had not dwarfed his spirit. This is the vulgar
liking for the hero who is without heroism, and the martyr who
makes a trade of it. The honest historian has another purpose.
He tries to gauge pretense by wisdom. Columbus was indeed to
succeed ; but his success was an error in geography, and a fail-
ure in policy and in morals. The Crown was yet to succumb ;
but its submission was to entail miseries upon Columbus and
his line, and a reproach upon Spain. The outcome to Columbus
and to Spain is the direst comment of all.
Columbus would not abate one jot of his pretensions, and an
end was put to the negotiations. Making up his mind to carry
his suit to France, he left Cordoba on his mule, in the begin-
ning of February, 1492.
/
CHAPTER IX.
THE FINAL AGREEMENT AND THE FIRST VOYAGE, 1492.
Columbus, a disheartened wanderer, with his back turned on
the Spanish Court, his mule plodding the road to Cor-
leaves the doba, offered a sad picture to the few adherents whom
he had left behind. They had grown to have his
grasp of confidence, but lacked his spirit to clothe an experi-
mental service with all the certainties of an accomplished fact.
The sight of the departing theorist abandoning the country,
and going to seek countenance at rival courts, stirred the Span-
ish pride. He and his friends had, in mutual counsels, pic-
tured the realms of the Indies made tributary to the Spanish
fame. It was this conception of a chance so near fruition, and
now vanishing, that moved Luis de Santangel and Alonso de
Quintanilla to determine on one last effort. They immediately
sought the Queen. In an audience the two advocates presented
the case anew, appealing to the royal ambition, to the oppor-
tunity of spreading her holy religion, to the occasions of replen-
ishing her treasure-chests, emptied by the war, and to every
other impulse, whether of pride or patriotism. The trivial cost
and risk were contrasted with the glowing possibilities. They
repeated the offer of Columbus to share an eighth of the ex-
pense. They pictured her caravels, fitted out at a cost of not
more than 3,000,000 crowns, bearing the banner of Spain to
these regions of opulence. The vision, once fixed in the royal
The Queen ^J®' Spread undcr their warmth of description, into
relents. succecding gUmpscs of increasing splendor. Finally
the warmth and glory of an almost realized expectancy filled
the Queen's cabinet.
The conquest was made. The royal companion, the Mar-
chioness of Moya, saw and encouraged the kindling enthusiasm
of' Isabella ; but a shade came over the Queen's face. The
others knew it was the thought of Ferdinand's aloofness. The
THE FINAL AGREEMENT AND FIRST VOYAGE. 179
warrior of Aragon, with new conquests to regulate, with a treas-
ury drained almost to the last penny, would have little heart for
an undertaking in which his enthusiasm, if existing at all, had
always been dull as compared with hers. She solved the diffi-
culty in a flash. The voyage shall be the venture of Castile
alone, and it shall be undertaken.
Orders were at once given for a messenger to overtake Co-
lumbus. A horseman came up with him at the bridge
of Pinbs, two leagues from Granada. There was a broS^t"*
moment's hesitancy, as thoughts of cruelly protracted
and suspended feelings in the past came over him. His deci-
sion, however, was not stayed. He turned his mule, and jour-
neyed back to the city. Columbus was sought once more, and
in a way to give him the vantage which his imperious demands
could easily use.
The interview with the Queen which followed removed all
doubt of his complete ascendency. Ferdinand in turn yielded
to the persuasions of his chamberlain, Juan Cabrero, and to the
supplications of Isabella ; but he succumbed without faith, if the
story which is told of him in relation to the demand for similar
concessions made twenty years later by Ponce de Leon is to be
believed. " Ah," said Ferdinand, to the discoverer of Florida,
*' it is one thing to give a stretch of power when no one antici-
pates the exercise of it ; but we have learned something since
then ; you will succeed, and it is another thing to give such
power to you." This story goes a great way to explain the
later efforts of the Crown to counteract the power which was,
in the flush of excitement, unwittingly given to the new Ad-
miral.
The ensuing days were devoted to the arrangement of details.
The usual story, derived from the Historie^ is that the j^e Queen's
Queen offered to pawn her jewels, as her treasury of ^^^^^^'
Castile could hardly furnish the small sum required ; but Har-
risse is led to believe that the exigencies of the war had already
required this sacrifice of the Queen, though the documentary
evidence is wanting. Santangel, however, interposed. As
treasurer of the ecclesiastical revenues in Aragon, he was able
to show that while Isabella was foremost in promoting the en-
terprise, Ferdinand could join her in a loan from these coffers ;
and so it was that the necessary funds were, in reality, paid in
180 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
the end from the revenues of Aragon. This is the common
story, enlarged by later writers upon the narrative in Las
Casas ; but Harrisse finds no warrant for it, and judges the ad-
vance of funds to have been by Santangel from his private rev-
enues, and in the interests of Castile only. And this seems to
be proved by the invariable exclusion of Ferdinand's subjects
from participating in the advantages of trade in the new lands,
unless an exception was made for some signal service. This
rule, indeed, prevailed, even after Ferdinand began to reign
alone.
There is something quite as amusing as edifying in the osten-
Aimsofthe siblc purposcs of all this endeavor. To tap the re-
expedition. gQurccs of the luxuriaut East might be gratifying, but
it was holy to conceive that the energies of the undertaking were
going to fill the treasury out of which a new crusade for the
rescue of the Holy Sepulchre could be sustained. The pearls
and spices of the Orient, the gold and precious jewels of its
mines, might conduce to the gorgeous and luxurious display of
the throne, but there was a noble condescension in giving Co-
lumbus a gracious letter to the Great Khan, and in
world ap- hoping to scducc his subjects to the sway of a religion
that allowed to the heathen no rights but conversion.
There was at least a century and a half of such holy endeavors
left for the ministrants of the church, as was believed, since the
seven thousand years of the earth's duration was within one
hundred and fifty-five years of its close, as the calculations of
King Alonso showed. Columbus had been further drawn to
these conclusions from his study of that conglomerating cardi-
nal, Pierre d'Ailly, whose works, in a full edition, had been at
this time only a few months in the book stalls. Humboldt has
gone into an examination of the data to show that Columbus's
calculation was singularly inexact ; but the labor of verification
seems hardly necessary, except as a curious study of absurdities.
Columbus's career has too many such to detain us on any one.
On April 17, 1492, the King and Queen signed at Santa Fe
1492. April 3.nd delivered to Columbus a passport to all persons
ment^STh' ^^ uukuowu parts, commending the Admiral to their
Columbus, friendship. This paper is preserved in Barcelona.
On the same day the monarchs agreed to the conditions of a
document which was drawn by the royal secretary, Juan de
THE FINAL AGREEMENT AND FIRST VOYAGE, 181
Coloma, and is preserved among the papers of the Duke of Ve-
ragua. It was printed from that copy by Navarrete, and is
again printed by Bergenroth as found at Barcelona. As formu-
lated in English by Irving, its purport is as follows : —
1. That Columbus should have for himself during his Hfe, and for
his heirs and successors forever, the office of Admiral in all the lands
and continents which he might discover or acquire in the ocean, with
similar honors and prerogatives to those enjoyed by the high admiral
of Castile in his district.
2. That he should be viceroy and governor-general over all the said
lands and continents, with the privilege of nominating three candidates
for the government of each island or province, one of whom should be
selected by the sovereigns.
3. That he should be entitled to reserve for himself one tenth of all
pearls, precious stones, gold, silver, spices, and all other articles of
merchandises, in whatever manner found, bought, bartered, or gained
within his admiralty, the costs being first deducted.
4. That he or his lieutenant should be the sole judge in all causes
or disputes arising out of traffic between those countries and Spain,
provided the high admiral of Castile had similar jurisdiction in his
district.
5. That he might then and at all after times contribute an eighth
part of the expense in fitting out vessels to sail on this enterprise, and
receive an eighth part of the profits.
These capitulations were followed on the 30th of April by a
commission which the sovereiofns sisrned at Granada, i492. Apru
o o ^ '30. Colum-
in which it was further granted that the Admiral and allowed to
his heirs should use the prefix Don. fix Don.
It is supposed he now gave some heed to his domestic con-
cerns. We know nothing, however, of any provision for the
lonely Beatrix, but it is said that he placed his boy Ferdinand,
then but four years of aofe, at school in Cordoba near
*' . . Arranges his
his mother. He left his lawful son, Diego, well pro- domestic
vided for through an appointment by the Queen, on
May 8, which made him page to Prince Juan, the heir apparent.
Columbus himself tells us that he then left Granada on the
12th of May, 1492, and went direct to Palos ; stop- ^^^^ ^^
ping, however, on the way at Rabida, to exchange con- . Reaches
gratulations with its friar, Juan Perez, if indeed he
did not lodge at the convent during his stay in the seaport.
182 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
Palos to-day consists of a double street; of lowly, whitened
Paios houses, in a depression among the hills. The guides
described. point out the fuins of a larger house, which was the
home of the Pinzons. The Moorish mosque, converted into St.
George's church in Columbus's day, still stands on the hill, just
outside the village, with an image of St. George and the dragon
over its high altar, just as Columbus saw it, while above the
church are existing ruins of an old Moorish castle.
The story which Las Casas has told of the fitting out of the
Ships fitted vessels does not agree in some leading particulars with
°"** that which Navarrete holds to be more safely drawn
from the documents which he has published. The fact seems
to be that two of the vessels of Columbus were not constructed
by the Duke of Medina-Sidonia, and later bought by the Queen,
as Las Casas says ; but, it happening that the town of Palos, in
consequence of some offense to the royal dignity, had been
mulcted in the service of two armed caravels for twelve months,
the opportunity was now taken by royal order, dated April 30,
1492, of assigning this service of crews and vessels to Colum-
bus's fateful expedition.
The royal command had also provided that Columbus might
The Pinzons ^^^ ^ third vcsscl, which he did with the aid, it is sup-
aid him. posed, of the Pinzons, though there is no documentary
proof to show whence he acquired the necessary means. Las
Casas and Herrera, however, favor the supposition, and it is of
course sustained in the evidence adduced in the famous trial
which was intended to magnify the service of the Pinzons. It
was also directed that the seamen of the little fleet should
receive the usual wages of those serving in armed vessels, and
be paid four months in advance. All maritime towns were
enjoined to furnish supplies at a reasonable price. All criminal
processes against anybody engaged for the vo3^age were to be
suspended, and this suspension was to last for two months after
the return.
It was on the 23d of May that, accompanied by Juan Perez,
J492. May Columbus met the people of Palos assembled in the
mandstwo church of St. Gcorgc, while a notary read the royal
Palos. commands laid upon the town. It took a little time
for the simple people to divine the full extent of such an order,
— its consignment of fellow-creatures to the dreaded evils of
THE FINAL AGREEMENT AND FIRST VOYAGE
183
the great unknown ocean. The reluctance to enter upon the
undertaking proved so great, except among a few prisoners
taken from the jails, that it became necessary to report the
obstacle to the Court, when a new peremptory order was issued
on June 20 to impress the vessels and crews. Juan
de Penalosa, an officer of the royal household, ap- ^- ve^is
peared in Palos to enforce this demand. Even such »"p«>8S.
imperative measures availed little, and it was not till Martin
Alonso Pinzon came forward, and either by an agreement to
divide with Columbus the profits, or through some other under-
standing, — for the testimony on the point is doubtful, ^j^^ pj^
and Las Casas disbelieves any such division of profits, ^**"'-
— exerted his influence, in which he was aided by his brother,
also a navigator, Vicente Yanez Pinzon. There is a story trace-
able to a son of the elder Pinzon, who testified in the Columbus
lawsuit that Martin Alonso had at one time become convinced
of the existence of western lands from some documents and
charts which he had seen at Eome. The story, like that of his
companionship with Cousin, already referred to, has in it, how-
ever, many elements of suspicion.
This help of the Pinzons proved opportune and did much to
save the cause, for it had up to this time seemed impossible to
get vessels or crews. The standing of these navigators as men
and their promise to embark personally put a new complexion
on the undertaking, and within a month the armament /was
made up. Harrisse has examined the evidence in the matter to
see if there is any proof that the Pinzons contributed more than
their personal influence, but there is no apparent ground for be-
lieving they did, unless they stood behind Columbus in his share
of the expenses, which are computed at 500,000 maravedis,
while those of the Queen, arranged through Santangel, are reck-
oned at 1,140,000 of that money. The fleet consisted, as Peter
Martyr tells us, of two open caravels, " Nina " and " Pinta "
— the latter, with its crew, being pressed into the service, — 4-^
decked only at the extremities, where high prows and poops
gave quarters for the crews and their officers. A large-decked
vessel of the register known as a carack, and renamed by Co-
lumbus the " Santa Maria," which proved " a dull sailer ^nd
unfit for discovery," was taken by Columbus as his flagship.
There is some confusion in the testimony relating to the name
184 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
of this ship. The Historie alone calls her by this name. Las
Casas simply styles her "The Captain." One of the pilots
speaks of her as the " Mari Galante." Her owner was one
Juan de la Cosa, apparently not the same person as the naviga-
tor and cosmographer later to be met, and he had command of
her, while Pero Alonso Nino and Sancho Ruis served as pilots.
Captain G. V. Fox has made an estimate of her dimensions
Character of ^^^^ her rcputcd tonnage by the scale of that time,
the ships. g^jj^ thinks she was sixty-three feet over all in length,
fifty-one feet along her keel, twenty feet beam, and ten and a
half in depth.
The two Pinzons were assigned to the command of the other
caravels, — Martin Alonso to the " Pinta," the larger of the two,
with a third brother of his as pilot, and Vicente Yaiiez to the
" Nina." , Many obstacles and the natural repugnances of sail-
ors to embark in so hazardous a service still delayed the prepa-
rations, but by the beginning of August the arrangements were
complete, and a hundred and twenty persons, as Peter
Tho crews. */ i. >
Martyr and Oviedo tell us, but perhaps the Historie
and Las Casas are more correct in saying ninety in all, were
ready to be committed to what many of them felt were most des-
perate fortunes. Duro has of late published in his Colon y Pin-
zon what purports to be a list of their names. It shows in Tal-
lerte de Lajes a native of England who has been thought to be
one named in his vernacular Arthur Lake ; and Guillemio Ires,
called of Galway, has sometimes been fancied to have borne
in his own land the name perhaps of Rice, Herries, or Harris.
There was no lack of the formal assignments usual in such
important undertakings. There was a notary to record the pro-
ceedings and a historian to array the story ; an interpreter to
be prepared with Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, Coptic, and
Armenian, in the hopes that one of these tongues might serve in
intercourse with the great Asiatic potentates, and a metallurgist
to pronounce upon precious ores. They were not without a
physician and a surgeon. It does not appear if their hazards
should require the last solemn rites that there was any priest to
shrive them ; but Columbus determined to start with all the
solemnity that a confession and the communion could impart,
and this service was performed by Juan Perez, both for him
and for his entire company.
THE FINAL AGREEMENT AND FIRST VOYAGE. 185
The directions of the Crown also provided that Columbus
should avoid the Guinea coast and all other posses- g^ju^j ,.
sions of the Portuguese, which seems to be little more f JomThe
than a striking manifestation of a certain kind of in- ^'^^'^^^^
credulity respecting what Columbus, after all, meant by sailing
west. Indeed, there wa^ necessarily more or less vagueness in
everybody's mind as to what a western passage would reveal,
or how far a westerly course might of necessity be swung one
way or the other.
The Historie tells us distinctly that Columbus hoped to find
some intermediate land before reaching India, to be laiands first
used, as the modern phrase goes, as a sort of base of to*>e sought.
operations. This hope rested on the belief, then common, that
there was more land than sea on the earth, and consequently
that no wide stretch of ocean could exist without interlying
lands.
There was, moreover, no confidence that such things as float-
ing islands might not be encountered. Pliny and Seneca had
described them, and Columbus was inclined to believe that St.
Brandan and the Seven Cities, and such isles as the dwellers at
the Azores had claimed to see in the offing, might be of this
character.
There seems, in fact, to be ground for believing that Colum-
bus thought his course to the Asiatic shores could hardly fail to
bring him in view of other regions or islands lying in the west-
tern ocean. Munoz holds that " the glory of such discoveries
inflamed him still more, perhaps, than his chief design."
That a vast archipelago would be the first land encountered
was not without confident believers. The Catalan Asiatic
map of 1374 had shown such islands in vast numbers, a'^'^^ipeiago.
amounting to 7,548 in all ; Marco Polo had made them 12,700,
or was thought to do so ; and Behaim was yet to cite the latter
on his globe.
It was, indeed, at this very season that Behaim, having re-
turned from Lisbon to his home in Nuremberg, had Behaim's
imparted to the burghers of that inland town those ^^*'^-
great cosmographical conceptions, which he was accustomed to
hear discussed in the Atlantic seaports. Such views were exem-
plified in a large globe which Behaim had spent the summer in
constructing in Nuremberg. It was made of pasteboard cov-
186
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
BEHAIMS GLOBE, 1492.
Note. The curved sides of these cuts divide the Globe in the mid Atlantic.
THE FINAL AGREEMENT AND FIRST VOYAGE. 187
h1.II, W'bra.t, «»a, i.rfuMH 3**m(..fria .1. vrt iTl.toUn..lis
BEHAIM'S GLOBE, 1492.
[Taken from Ernest Mayer's Die Hilfsmittel der Schiffahrtshunde (Wein, 1879).]
188
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
r.duTn/uU
-rTudM^anyaiOv vtriftntrZand-tim
aU^ui ait. dsn. m2e .Qa rtuuiVjt/Jtr
r hut ojidoj orr/mStduToriM^aMi/ii
Scii/f hammsn. . uiO ~haien jl-A-tU oiy"
WLtiUr-m lArZanS lumrntat..
lUt Ajzt iMrm OJinOCam^f uiuL <
'Jjrttsn- 4ut. ^if.
duSck^flauAe misIiOi^Ja S'Jhmniutf
ff^Asn /j^tj^aArsn mit lArtn Sciz^On. its
^oM^it^ jn/tU ffen/utizt- ^a^j^ascaj", qe.
vaknitc/t ut zc Ti^m. tuCi vtnju -yie^iir
An/n ieAj-fTL tn jVt^a^erJt^ featxm. in y
.yfttmalAi/v A£trn. Jcimtitim.vcn. d*s ,^£*r.
aifitM inUtit 9*r /iAmJUck da/il^ata£n.
Jiaa^,inr nb'^Ut.^. ^ '' ■^ '
In/i*27t i^U'oAjtf^jir^/hv.LH^^' £tJUrt. eiCft
Jv.^rzn^r ttftd tn P*r ari^fm ti^l Trau*.
vtlehesiitx an. laJtr jnt/amm temmtn.
yika CJtn/itn u. Aaivn einm :Bt/iA^.
f.^^a/ftUina IS. Te.frtatiiC.-\
AiurjhJ Cirt/'an^Aait.-t'^
n. Srtti^c/t^.
Aatin tun/itjriftit y ett-^VtUu-^^fh^
tk^i/*tin4:x'ffni^racfun.in.wtlcih£nt ^
Ci'tdt^ tr/Lc-Ki..mM:i^^tr,Xamp^,X mIuZT'
^Im- muA y,!Pir,lfan4/ .
At^'-t/rarfitrCtn if»Oen xu J'cAium ?/■ ^vuU.-
i^tlraim.i'MuIn/'iUmix^itUi Jiaat/leuk
Xitn2s/uiuffAxstm.ttLj*i/erJnJ-tJyijl!/j, -
DOPPELMAYER'S ENGRAVING OF
THE FINAL AGREEMENT AND FIRST VOYAGE. 189
I
SiyuZIa-VA ^^tr^ ujij m Jtr/iJiea,
tauA Ttrlal Onaail >^vj.
Java tAjy'pf tiu Kaf- iji^ui^atjrca vf^ke
^aUil.Jer SKcm^ <^*- ■7yiJ ^ ::narKa.id
__ wU iaktf ./^filUr an ■
3ava m^nn- yf- um/anfm litirr Vf2/ikl
^MjJn.und Aat-tn JJir arht1Cimyr£tcJu.
i^m^grg Sprai& mtJ
iftiiit CMfiuxr an.Ja v^.yl-auc/i .jJU
Z»- Srucirtra: m Jan. yjrw^ticA !B^ftman.
ental, <ia- aKwy in tijsfij- ^i^ tardm^i.
' wtd/cltmfla. Xtiim.Jm i
ibr/i Jn/ul CoTufyil imr/at
ma -unJ CViueuran .jtnA^atn-
Jtr kehm Jn^ia S^3ktma*-Zaiulr. lu^tnJ^X
va/i-^^*iv .JLJXt^ Ja» Jtr ,A*ar^trn. tvn I
an^J S^m. f4fi4jjut. Mtartt^a aJM
^anji/u-tiit das Ja/) raUi n iL^fr |
I^/U .^i^ama ^maant kjUf MiUtJiaiftt
J 2iJuu etidk *^ J luault
VJJr.
dUJn/iil^fmaimtXfiaiifus^lijjt^Vi.Otmie I
VrXtnif ii numaxd uraa-AiK . I
BEHAIM'S GLOBE, MUCH REDUCED.
190
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
ered with parchment, and is twenty-one inches in diameter. It
shows the equator, the tropics, the polar circle, in a latitudi-
nal way ; but the first meridian, passing through Madeira, is
the only one of the longitudinal sectors which it represents.
HAJA
AZORES
0
'i-"....
THE ACTUAL AMERICA m RELATION TO BEHAIM'S GEOGRAPHY.
Laon globe.
Behaim had in this work the help of Holtzschner, and the
globe has come down to our day, preserved in the town hall at
Nuremberg, one of the sights and honors of that city. It shares
the credit, however, with another, called the Laon
globe, as the only well - authenticated geographical
spheres which date back of the discovery of America. This
Laon globe is much smaller, being only six inches in diameter ;
and though it is dated 1493, it is thought to have been made
a few years earlier, — as D' Avezac thinks, in 1486.
THE FINAL AGREEMENT AND FIRST VOYAGE. 191
Clements R. Markham, in a recent edition of Robert Hues'
Tractatus de Globis, cites Nordenskiold as considering Behaim's
globe, without comparison, the most important geographical
document since the atlas of Ptolemy, in a. d. 150. " He points
. out that it is the first which unreservedly adopts the existence of
antipodes ; the first which clearly shows that there is a passage
from Europe to India ; the first which attempts to deal with the
discoveries of Marco Polo. It is an exact representation of geo-
graphical knowledge immediately previous to the first voyage of
Columbus."
The Behaim globe has become familiar by many published
drawings.
It has been claimed that Columbus probably took with him,
on his voyage, the map which he had received from Toscaneiii'a
Toscanelli, with its delineation of the interjacent and °^*p*
island-studded ocean, which washed alike the shores of Europe
and Asia, and that it was the subject of study by him and Pin-
zon at a time when Columbus refers in his journal to the use
they made of a chart.
That Toscanelli's map long survived the voyage is known,
and Las Casas used it. Humboldt has not the same confidence
which Sprengel had, that at this time it crossed the sea in the
*' Santa Maria ; " and he is inclined rather to suppose that the
details of Toscanelli's chart, added to all others which Columbus
had gathered from the maps of Bianco and Benincasa — for it
is not possible he could have seen the work of Behaim, unless
indeed, in fragmentary preconceptions — must have served him
better as laid down on a chart of his own drafting. There is
good reason to suppose that, more than once, with the skill
which he is known to have possessed, he must have made such
charts, to enforce and demonstrate his belief, which, though in
the main like that of Toscanelli, were in matters of distance
quite different.
So, everything being ready, on the third of August, 1492, a
half hour before sunrise, he unmoored his little fleet in
1492 Au-
the stream and, spreading: his sails, the vessels passed gust's, co-
^ ® 1 jr lumbus sails.
out of the little river roadstead of Palos, gazed after,
perhaps, in the increasing light, as the little crafts reached the
ocean, by the friar of Rabida, from its distant promontory of
rock.
192
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
The day was Friday, and the advocates of Columbus's canon-
ization have not failed to see a purpose in its choice,
as the day of our Redemption, and as that of the de-
liverance of the Holy Sepulchre by Geoffrey de Bouillon, and
On Friday.
SHIPS OF COLUMBUS'S TIME.
(From Medina's Arte de Navegar, 1545.)
of the rendition of Granada, with the fall of the Moslem power
in Spain. We must resort to the books of such advocates, if
we would enliven the picture with a multitude of rites and
THE FINAL AGREEMENT AND FIRST VOYAGE. 193
devotional feelings that they gather in the meshes of the story
of the departure. They supply to the embarkation a variety
of detail that their holy purposes readily imagine, and place
Columbus at last on his poop, with the standard of the Cross,
the image of the Saviour nailed to the holy wood, waving in the
early breezes that heralded the day. The embellishments may
be pleasing, but they are not of the strictest authenticity.
SHIP, 1486.
In order that his performance of an embassy to the princes of
the East might be duly chronicled, Columbus deter- Keeps a
mined, as his journal says, to keep an account of the J^"™*^-
voyage by the west, " by which course," he says, " unto the
present time, we do not know, for certain, that any one has
passed." It was his purpose to write down, as he proceeded,
everything he saw and all that he did, and to make a chart of
his discoveries, and to show the directions of his track. '
Nothing occurred during those early August days to mar his
194
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
THE FINAL AGREEMENT AND FIRST VOYAGE. 195
run to the Canaries, except the apprehension which he felt
that an accident, happening to the rudder of the " Pin-
ta," — a steering gear now for some time in use, in u" d£°'
phice of the old lateral paddles, — was a trick of two ^^^^^'
men, her owners, Gomez Rascon and Christopher Quintero, to
impede a voyage in which they had no heart. The Admiral
knew the disposition of these men well enough not to be sur-
prised at the mishap, but he tried to feel secure in the prompt
energy of Pinzon, who commanded the " Pinta."
As he passed (August 24-25, 1492) the peak of Teneriffe,
it was the time of an eruption, of which he makes bare Reaches the
mention in his journal. It is to the corresponding ^»"*"68.
passages of the Historie^ that we owe the somewhat sensational
stories of the terrors of the sailors, some of whom certainly must
long have been accustomed to like displays in the volcanoes of
the Mediterranean.
At the Gran Canaria the " Nina " was left to have her
lateen sails changed to square ones ; and the " Pinta," it being-
found impossible to find a better vessel to take her place, was
also left to be overhauled for her leaks, and to have her rud-
der again repaired, while Columbus visited Gomera, another
of the islands. The fleet was reunited at Gomera on Septem-
ber 2. Here he fell in with some residents of Ferro, the wes-
ternmost of the group, who repeated the old stories of land
occasionally seen from its heights, lying towards the setting
sun. Having taking on board wood, water, and provisions,
Columbus finally sailed from Gomera on the morning of Thurs-
day, September 6. He seems to have soon spoken 1492. sep-
a vessel from Ferro, and from this he learned that fe^esOo-
three Portuguese caravels were lying in wait for him ^^^''•
in the neighborhood of that island, with a purpose as he thought
of visiting in some way upon him, for having gone over to the
interests of Spain, the indignation of the Portuguese king. He
escaped encountering them.
Up to Sunday, September 9, they had experienced so much
calm weather, that their procuress had been slow. This
,. .,^ ^ • ' ^ •! Sunday, Sep-
tediousness soon raised an apprehension in the mind tember9,
of Columbus that the voyage might prove too long
for the constancy of his men. He accordingly determined to
falsify his reckoning. This deceit was a large con- Falsifies his
fession of his own timidity in dealing with his crew, '■^ci^o'""?-
Ij^ —
fiV jf.-»
A
1 ftfc r
V
r
^J
y
|%«g
ap'*'
^
^
^ «
^
tx
^
^
1
S -I"
•^
s
^
O
1
c
ii.
•
1
m
\
^'1
^
V.
..^
•sauEi
1 '
fe
198 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
and it marked the beginning of a long struggle with deceived
and mutinous subordinates, which forms so large a part of the
record of his subsequent career.
The result of Monday's sail, which he knew to be sixty-
leagues, he noted as forty-eight, so that the distance from home
might appear less than it was. He continued to practice this
deceit.
The distances given by Columbus are those of dead reckon-
His dead ^^S bcyoud any question. Lieutenant Murdock, of the
reckoning. United Statcs navy, who has commented on this voy-
age, makes his league the equivalent of three modern nautical
miles, and his mile about three quarters of our present estimate
for that distance. Navarrete says that Columbus reckoned in
Italian miles, which are a quarter less than a Spanish mile.
The Admiral had expected to make land after sailing about
seven hundred leagues from Ferro ; and in ordering his vessels
in case of separation to proceed westward, he warned them
when they sailed that distance to come to the wind at nighty
and only to proceed by day.
The log as at present understood in navigation had not yet
been devised. Columbus depended in judging of his speed on
the eye alone, basing his calculations on the passage of objects
or bubbles past the ship, while the running out of his hour
glasses afforded the multiple for long distances.
On Thursday, the 13th of September, he notes that the ships
1492. Sep- w^i^® encountering adverse currents. He was now
temberis. thrcc dcgrccs wcst of Flores, and the needle of the
compass pointed* as it had never been observed before, directly
Reaches ^^ *^® *^^® north. His obscrvatiou of this fact marks
Jariauon^of ^ significant point in the history of navigation. The
the needle, polarity of the magnet, an ancient possession of the
Chinese, had been known perhaps for three hundred years,
when this new spirit of discovery awoke in the fifteenth cen-
tury. The Indian Ocean and its traditions were to impart, per-
haps through the Arabs, perhaps through the returning Cru-
saders, a knowledge of the magnet to the dwellers on.
of the mag- the shorcs of the Mediterranean, and to the hardier
net. .
mariners who pushed beyond the Pillars of Hercules,
so that the new route to that same Indian Ocean was made
possible in the fifteenth century. The way was prepared for it
THE FINAL AGREEMENT AND FIRST VOYAGE. 199
gradually. The Catalans from the port of Barcelona pushed
out into the great Sea of Darkness under the direction of their
needles, as early at least as the twelfth century. The pilots of
Genoa and Venice, the hardy Majorcans and the adventurous
Moors, were followers of almost equal temerity.
A knowledge of the variation of the needle came more slowly
to be known to the mariners of the Mediterranean, variation of
It had been observed by Peregrini as early as 1269,' ^^eneedie.
but that knowledge of it which rendered it greatly serviceable
200
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
in voyages does not seem to be plainly indicated in any of the
charts of these transition centuries, till we find it laid down on
the maps of Andrea Bianco in 1436.
[From Hirth's Bilderbuch, vol. iii.]
It was no new thing then when Columbus, as he sailed west-
ward, marked the variation, proceeding from the northeast
more and more westerly ; but it was a revelation when he came
to a position where the magnetic north and the north star stood
in conjunction, as they did on this 13th of September, 1492.
THE FINAL AGREEMENT AND FIRST VOYAGE. 201
As he still moved westerly the magnetic line was found to
move farther and farther away from the pole as it had before
the 13th approached it. To an observer of Columbus's quick
perceptions, there was a ready guess to possess his
mind. This inference was that this line of no varia- misconcep-
tion was a meridian line, and that divergences from it imeof no^
east and west might have a regularity which would be
found to furnish a method of ascertaining longitude far easier
and surer than tables or water clocks. We know that four
years later he tried to sail his ship on observations of this kind.
The same idea seems to have occurred to Sebastian Sebastian
Cabot, when a little afterwards he approached and ^ervation^of
passed in a higher latitude, what he supposed to be deteSinSig
the meridian of no variation. Humboldt is inclined ^**"8f**"^®-
to believe that the possibility of such a method of ascertaining
longitude was that uncommunicable secret, which Sebastian
Cabot many years later hinted at on his death-bed.
The claim was made near a century later by Livio Sanuto in
his GeograjMa^ published at Venice, in 1588, that Sebastian
Cabot had been the first to observe this variation, and had ex-
plained it to Edward VI., and that he had on a chart placed
the line of no variation at a point one hundred and ten miles
west of the island of Flores in the Azores.
These observations of Columbus and Cabot were not wholly
accepted during the sixteenth century. Robert Hues, in 1592,
a hundred years later, tells us that Medina, the Span- various
ish grand pilot, was not disinclined to believe that ^^^^^'
mariners saw more in it than really existed and that they found
it a convenient way to excuse their own blunders. Nonius was
credited with saying that it simply meant that worn-out mag-
nets were used, which had lost their power to point correctly to
the pole. Others had contended that it was through insufficient
application of the loadstone to the iron that it was so devious
in its work.
What was thought possible by the early navigators possessed
the minds of all seamen in varying experiments for two cen-
turies and a half. Though not reaching such satisfactory re-
sults as were hoped for, the expectation did not prove so chimer-
ical as was sometimes imagined when it was discovered that the
lines of variation were neither parallel, nor straight, nor con-
•202
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
\
I
THE FINAL AGREEMENT AND FIRST VOYAGE. 203
stant. The line of no variation which Columbus found near the
Azores has moved westward with erratic inclinations, ^^^^^ ,,^_
until to-day it is not far from a straight line from ^e^^^^^ood.
Carolina to Guiana. Science, beginning with its crude efforts
at the hands of Alonzo de Santa Cruz, in 1530, has so mapped
the surface of the globe with observations of its multifarious
freaks of variation, and the changes are so slow, that a magnetic
chart is not a bad guide to-day for ascertaining the longitude
in any latitude for a few years neighboring to the date of its
records. So science has come round in some measure to the
dreams of Columbus and Cabot.
But this was not the only development which came from this
ominous day in the mid Atlantic in that September coiumbus
of 1492. The fancy of Columbus was easily excited, '^^H^^
and notions of a change of climate, and even aberra- Sabe^^-^
tions of the stars were easily imagined by him amid <^io"s of stars.
the strange phenomena of that untracked waste.
While Columbus was suspecting that the north star was some-
what willfully shifting from the magnetic pole, now to a dis-
tance of 5° and then of 10°, the calculations of modern astrono-
mers have gauged the polar distance existing in 1492 at 3° 28',
as against the 1° 20' of to-day. The confusion of Columbus
was very like his confounding an old world with a new, inas-
much as he supposed it was the pole star and not the needle
which was shifting.
He argued from what he saw, or thought he saw, that the line
of no variation marked the beginning of a protuber- imagines a
ance of the earth, up which he ascended as he sailed ancron'the
westerly, and that this was the reason of the cooler ®*'"*^"
weather which he experienced. He never got over some no-
tions of this kind, and believed he found confirmation of them
in his later voyages.
Even as early as the reign of Edward HI. of England, Nich-
olas of Lynn, a voyager to the northern seas, is thought ^he mag-
to have definitely fixed the magnetic pole in the Arctic »«*'«p«^«-
regions, transmitting his views to Cnoyen, the master of the
later Mercator, in respect to the four circumpolar islands, which
in the sixteenth century made so constant a surrounding of the
northern pole.
204 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
The next day (September 14), after these magnetic observa-
1492. Sep- tions, a water wagtail was seen from the " Nina," — a
temberi4. ^jj.^ which Columbus thought unaccustomed to fly
over twenty-five leagues from land, and the ships were now, ac-
cording to their reckoning, not far from two hundred leagues
September ^^^^^^ *^® Canaries. On Saturday, they saw a distant
^^- bolt of fire fall into the sea. On Sunday, they had a
drizzling rain, followed by pleasant weather, which reminded
September Columbus of the nightingales, gladdening the climate
^^' of Andalusia in April. They found around the ships
much green floatage of weeds, which led them to think some
islands must be near. Navarrete thinks there was some truth
in this, inasmuch as the charts of the early part of this century
represent breakers as having been seen in 1802, near the spot
where Columbus can be computed to have been at this time.
Columbus was in fact within that extensive prairie of floating-
sargasso seaweed which is known as the Sargasso Sea, whose
^*' principal longitudinal axis is found in modern times
to lie along the parallel of 41° 30', and the best calculations
which can be made from the rather uncertain data of Colum-
bus's journal seem to point to about the same position.
There is nothing in all these accounts, as we have them
abridged by Las Casas, to indicate any great surprise, and cer-
tainly nothing of the overwhelming fear which, the Historie
tells us, the sailors experienced when they found their ships
among these floating masses of weeds, raising apprehension of
a perpetual entanglement in their swashing folds.
The next day (September 17) the currents became favor-
1492. Sep- able, and the weeds still floated about them. The
tember 17. variation of the needle now became so great that the
seamen were dismayed, as the journal says, and the observation
being repeated Columbus practiced another deceit and made it
appear that there had been really no variation, but only a shift-
ing of the polar star ! The weeds were now judged to be river
weeds, and a live crab was found among them, — a sure sign of
near land, as Columbus believed, or affected to believe. They
killed a tunny and saw others. They again observed a water
wagtail, " which does not sleep at sea." Each ship pushed on
September ^^r the advaiicc, for it was thought the goal was near.
The next day the " Pinta " shot ahead and saw
THE FINAL AGREEMENT AND FIRST VOYAGE. 205
great flocks of birds towards the west. Columbus conceived
that the sea was growing fresher. Heavy clouds hung on the
northern horizon, a sure sign of land, it was supposed.
On the next day two pelicans came on board, and Columbus
records that these birds are not accustomed to go 1492 g^
twenty leagues from land. So he sounded with a line ^^^^ ^^^
of two hundred fathoms to be sure he was not approaching
land ; but no bottom was found. A drizzling rain also be-
tokened land, which they could not stop to find, but would
search for on their return, as the journal says. The pilots now
compared their reckonings. Columbus said they were 400
leagues, while the " Pinta's " record showed 420, and the
^'Nina's" 440.
On September 20, other pelicans came on board ; and the
ships were again among the weeds. Columbus was de- 1492. gep.
termined to ascertain if these indicated shoal water and ^^^^"^ 20.
sounded, but could not reach bottom. The men caught a bird
\Vith feet like a gull ; but they were convinced it was a river
bird. Then singing land-birds, as was fancied, hovered about
as it darkened, but they disappeared before morning. Then
a pelican was observed flying to the southwest, and as " these
birds sleep on shore, and go to sea in the morning," the men en-
couraged themselves with the belief that they could not be far
from land. The next day a whale could but be another indica-
tion of land ; and the weeds covered the sea all about. On
Saturday, they steered west by northwest, and got
clear of the weeds. This change of course so far to 22. changes
the north, which had begun on the previous day, was
occasioned by a head wind, and Columbus says that he wel-
comed it, because it had the effect of convincing the
' . ° . Headwind.
sailors that westerly winds to return by were not im-
possible. On Sunday (September 23), they found the wind still
varying ; but they made more westering than before, — weeds,
crabs, and birds still about them. Now there was smooth wa-
ter, which again depressed the seamen ; then the sea geptember
arose, mysteriously, for there was no wind to cause '^'
it. They still kept their course westerly and continued it till
the night of September 25.
Columbus at this time conferred with Pinzon, as to a chart
which they carried, which showed some islands, near where they
206 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
now supposed the ships to be. That they had not seen land,
they believed was either due to currents which had carried them
too far north, or else their reckoning was not correct. At sun-
A earances ^^^ Piuzou hailed the Admiral, and said he saw land,
of land. claiming the reward. The two crews were confident
that such was the case, and under the lead of their commanders
they all kneeled and repeated the Gloria in Excehis. The
land appeared to lie southwest, and everybody saw the appari-
tion. Columbus changed the fleet's course to reach it ;
changes his and as the vessels went on, in the smooth sea, the men
had the heart, under their expectation, to bathe in its
amber glories. On Wednesday, they were undeceived, and
September fouud that the clouds had played them a trick. On
^^- the 27th their course lay more directly west. So they
went on, and still remarked upon all the birds they saw and
1492. Sep- weed-drift which they pierced. . Some of the fowl
tember 27. they thought to bc such as were common at the Cape de
Verde Islands, and were not supposed to go far to sea. On the
September ^^^ September, they still observed the needles of
^- their compasses to vary, but the journal records that
it was the pole star which moved, and not the needle. On
October 1, Columbus says they were 707 leagues from
Ferro ; but he had made his crew believe they were
only 584. As they went on, little new for the next few days
is recorded in the journal ; but on October 3, they
thought they saw among the weeds something like
fruits. By the 6th, Pinzon began to urge a southwesterly course,
in order to find the islands, which the signs seemed to
indicate in that direction. Still the Admiral would
not swerve from his purpose, and kept his course westerly. On
Sunday, the " Nina " fired a bombard and hoisted a
October 7
flag as a signal that .she saw land, but it proved a de-
lusion. Observing towards evening a flock of birds flying to
Shifts his ^^ southwest, the Admiral yielded to Pinzon's belief.
Sow some ^^^ shifted his course to follow the birds. He re-
^^^^^' cords as a further reason for it that it was by follow-
ing the flight of birds that the Portuguese had been so success-
ful in discovering islands in other seas.
Columbus now found himself two hundred miles and more
farther than the three thousand miles west of Spain, where he
THE FINAL AGREEMENT AND FIRST VOYAGE. 207
supposed Cipango to lie, and he was 25^° north of the equator,
according to his astrolabe. The true distance of Ci-.
pango or Japan was sixty-eight hundred miles still ^'p**'^*'-
farther, or beyond both North America and the Pacific. How
much beyond that island, in its supposed geographical position,
Columbus expected to find the Asiatic main we can only con-
jecture from the restorations which modern scholars have made
of Toscanelli's map, which makes the island about 10° east of
Asia, and from Behaim's globje, which makes it 20°. It should
be borne in mind that the knowledge of its position came from
Marco Polo, and he does not distinctly say how far it was from
the Asiatic coast. In a general way, as to these distances from
Spain to China, Toscanelli and Behaim agreed, and there is no
reason to believe that the views of Columbus were in any note-
worthy degree different.
In the trial, years afterwards, when the Fiscal contested the
rights of Diego Colon, it was put in evidence by Relations of
one Vallejo, a seaman, that Pinzon was induced to SeXauge
urge the direction to be changed to the southwest, be- °^ course.
cause he had in the preceding evening observed a flight of par-
rots in that direction, which could have only been seeking land.
It was the main purpose of the evidence in this part of the trial
to show that Pinzon had all along forced Columbus forward
against his will.
How pregnant this change of course in the vessels of Colum-
bus was has not escaped the observation of Humboldt and many
others. A day or two further on his westerly way, and the Gulf
Stream would, perhaps, insensibly have borne the little fleet up
the Atlantic coast of the future United States, so that the ban-
ner of Castile might have been planted at Carolina.
On the 7th of October, Columbus was pretty nearly in lati-
tude 25° 50', — that of one of the Bahama Islands.
Just where he was by longitude there is much more
doubt, probably between 65° and QQ°. On the next day the
land birds flying along the course of the ships seemed October
to confirm their hopes. On the 10th the journal re- ^^^•
cords that the men began to lose patience ; but the Admiral re-
assured them by reminding them of the profits in store for them,
and of the folly of seeking to return, when they had- already
gone so far.
208 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
It is possible that, in this entry, Columbus conceals the story
story of a .which later came out in the recital of Oviedo, with
mutiny. morc detail than in the Historie and Las Casas, that
the rebellion of his crew was threatening enough to oblige him
to promise to turn back if land was not discovered in three
days. Most commentators, however, are inclined to think that
this story of a mutinous revolt was merely engrafted from hear-
say or other source by Oviedo upon the more genuine recital,
and that the conspiracy to throw, the Admiral into the sea has
no substantial basis in contemporary report. Irving, who has
a dramatic tendency throughout his whole account of the voyage
to heighten his recital with touches of the imagination, neverthe-
less allows this, and thinks that Oviedo was misled by listening
to a pilot, who was a personal enemy of the Admiral.
The elucidations of the voyage which were drawn out in the
famous suit of Diego with the Crown in 1513 and 1515, afford
no ground for any belief in this story of the mutiny and the
concession of Columbus to it.
It is not, however, difficult to conceive the recurrent fears of
his men and the incessant anxiety of Columbus to quiet them.
From what Peter Martyr tells us, — and he may have got it
directly from Columbus's lips, — the task was not an easy one
to preserve subordination and to instill confidence. He repre-
sents that Columbus was forced to resort in turn to argument,
persuasion, and enticements, and to picture the misfortunes of
the royal displeasure.
The next day, notwithstanding a heavier sea than they had
1492. before encountered, certain signs sufficed to lift them
October 11. ^^^ ^£ ^q]^ dcspondeucy. These were floating logs,
or pieces of wood, one of them apparently carved by hand, bits
of cane, a green rush, a stalk of rose berries, and other drifting
tokens.
Their southwesterly course had now brought them down ta
about the twenty-fourth parallel, when after sunset on
1492. Octo- , ^w 1 1 i.P 1 1 • 1 1 •!
ber 11. Steer the 11th they shif tcd their course to due west, while
the crew of the Admiral's ship united, with more fervor
than usual, in the Salve Regina. At about ten o'clock Columbus,
Coiumbua peering into the night, thought he saw — if we may
sees a light, bgiigyg ]^\yy^ — ^ moviug light, aiid pointing out the
direction to Pero Gutierrez, this companion saw it too ; but an-
I
THE FINAL AGREEMENT AND FIRST VOYAGE. 209
other, Rodrigo Sanchez, situated apparently on another part of
the vessel, was not able to see it. It was not brought to the at-
tention of any others. The Admiral says that the light seemed
to be moving up and down, and he claimed to have got other
glimpses of its glimmer at a later moment. He ordered the
Salve to be chanted, and directed a vigilant watch to be set on
the forecastle. To sharpen their vision he promised a silken
jacket, beside the income of ten thousand maravedis which the
King and Queen had offered to the fortunate man who should
first descry the coveted land.
This light has been the occasion of much comment, and noth-
ing will ever, it is likely, be settled about it, further than that
the Admiral, with an inconsiderate rivalry of a common sailor
who later saw the actual land, and with an ungenerous assurance
ill-befitting a commander, pocketed a reward which belonged to
another. If Oviedo, with his prejudices, is to be believed, Co-
lumbus was not even the first who claimed to have seen this du-
bious light. There is a common story that the poor sailor, who
was defrauded, later turned Mohammedan, and went to live
among that juster people. There is a sort of retributive justice
in the fact that the pension of the Crown was made a charge
upon the shambles of Seville, and thence Columbus received it
till he died.
Whether the light is to be considered a reality or a fiction
will depend much on the theory each may hold regarding the
position of the landfall. When Columbus claimed to have dis-
covered it, he was twelve or fourteen leagues away from the isl-
and where, four hours later, land was indubitably found. Was
the light on a canoe ? Was it on some small, outlying island,
as has been suggested ? Was it a torch carried from hut to
hut, as Herrera avers ? Was it on either of the other vessels ?
Was it on the low island on which, the next morning, he landed ?
There was no elevation on that island sufficient to show even a
strong light at a distance of ten leagues. Was it a fancy or a
a deceit ? No one can say. It is very difficult for Navarrete,
and even for Irving, to rest satisfied with what, after all, may
have been only an illusion of a fevered mind, making a record
of the incident in the excitement of a wonderful hour, when his
intelligence was not as circumspect as it might have been.
Four hours after the light was seen, at two o'clock in the
210
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
X s
II
THE FINAL AGREEMENT AND FIRST VOYAGE. 211
morning, when the moon, near its third quarter, was in the east,
the "Pinta" keeping ahead, one of her sailors, Rod-
rigo de Triana, descried the land, two leagues away, berl2,ian(i
and a gun communicated the joyful intelligence to *^''*'^®'^® •
the other ships. The fleet took in sail, and each vessel, under
backed sheets, was pointed to the wind. Thus they waited
for daybreak. It was a proud moment of painful suspense for
Columbus; and brimming
hopes, perhaps fears of dis-
appointment, must have ac-
companied that hour of wav-
ering enchantment. It was
Friday, October 12, of the old
chronology, and the little fleet
had been thirty-three days on
its way from the Canaries,
and we must add ten days
more, to complete the period
since they left Palos. The
land before them was seen,
as the day dawned, to be a
small island, "called in the
Indian tongue"
Guanahani. Some
naked natives were descried.
The Admiral and the com-
manders of the other vessels
prepared to land. Columbus
took the royal standard and
the others each a banner of
the green cross, which bore
the initials of the sovereign
with a cross between, a crown surmounting every letter. Thus,
with the emblems of their power, and accompanied by Rodrigo
de Escoveda and Rodrigo Sanchez and some seamen, the boat
rowed to the shore. They immediately took formal possession
of the land, and the notary recorded it.
The words of the prayer usually given as uttered by coiumbua
Columbus on taking possession of San Salvador, when uttersT
he named the island, cannot be traced farther back p'"^>®'"-
Guanahani.
COLUMBUS'S ARMOR.
212
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
THE FINAL AGREEMENT AND FIRST VOYAGE. 213
0 i f^r T*
09
>
X
>
n
z C/)
r-
>
z
a
CO
214 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS,
than a collection of Tahlas Chronologicas^ got together at Va-
lencia in 1689, by a Jesuit father, Claudio Clemente. Harrisse
finds no authority for the statement of the French canonizers
that Columbus established a form of prayer which was long in
vogue, for such occupations of new lands.
Las Casas, from whom we have the best account of the cere-
monies of the landing, does not mention it ; but we find pictured
in his pages the grave impressiveness of the hour ; the form of
Columbus, with a crimson robe over, his armor, central and
grand ; and the humbleness of his followers in their contrition
for the hours of their faint-heartedness.
Columbus now enters in his journal his impressions of the
island and its inhabitants. He says of the land that it bore
The island g^een trccs, was watered by many streams, and pro-
descnbed. (J^ced divcrs fruits. In another place he speaks of
the island as flat, without lofty eminence, surrounded by reefs,
with a lake in the interior.
The courses and distances of his sailing both before and on
leaving the island, as well as this description, are the best means
we have of identifying the spot of this portentous landfall. The
early maps may help in a subsidiary way, but with little pre-
cision.
There is just enough uncertainty and contradiction respecting
the data and aro^uments applied in the solution of this
Identifica- . °^ . i i i , .i,
tionofthe qucstion, to render it probable that men will never
landfall. . i'i/.it-»i • ^ > t
quite agree which oi the Bahamas it was upon which
these startled and exultant Europeans first stepped. Though
Las Casas reports the journal of Columbus unabridged for a
period after the landfall, he unfortunately condenses it for some
time previous. There is apparently no chance of finding geo-
graphical conditions that in every respect will agree with this
record of Columbus, and we must content ourselves with what
offers the fewest disagreements. An obvious method, if we
could depend on Columbus's dead reckoning, would be to see
for what island the actual distance from the Canaries would be
nearest to his computed run ; but currents and errors of the eye
necessarily throw this sort of computation out of the question,
and Capt. G. A. Fox, who has tried it, finds that Cat Island is
three hundred and seventeen, the Grand Turk six hundred and
twenty-four nautical miles, and the other supposable points at
THE FINAL AGREEMENT AND FIRST VOYAGE. 215
intermediate distances out of the way as compared with his com-
putation of the distance run by Cohimbus, three thousand four
hundred and fifty-eight of such miles.
The reader will remember the Bahama group as a range of
islands, islets, and rocks, said to be some three thou- j^e
sand in number, running southeast from a point part ^*^*°^s-
way up the Florida coast, and approaching at the other end the
coast of Hispaniola. In the latitude of the lower
point of Florida, and five degrees east of it, is the isl- do?, o? ctt
and of San Salvador or Cat Island, which is the most,
northerly of those claimed to have been the landfall of Colum-
bus. Proceeding down the group, we encounter Wat- other
ling's, Samana, Acklin (with the Plana Cays), Mari- '8^*"^s-
guana, and the Grand Turk, — all of which have their advo-
cates. The three methods of identification which have
been followed are, firsts by plotting the outward track ; identmca-
second, by plotting the track between the landfall and
Cuba, both forward and backward ; third, by applying the de-
scriptions, particularly Columbus's, of the island first seen. In
this last test, Harrisse prefers to apply the description of Las
Casas, which is borrowed in part from that of the Historie^ and
he reconciles Columbus's apparent discrepancy when he says in
one place that the island was " pretty large," and in another
" small," by supposing that he may have applied these ^ckiin
opposite terms, the lesser to the Plana Cays, as first ^^^^***
seen, and the other to the Crooked Group, or Acklin Island, ly-
ing just westerly, on which he may have landed. Harrisse is
the only one who makes this identification ; and he finds some
confirmation in later maps, which show thereabout an island,
Triango or Triangulo, a name said by Las Casas to have been
applied to Guanahani at a later day. There is no known map
earlier than 1540 bearing this alternative name of Triango.
San Salvador seems to have been the island selected by the
earliest of modern inquirers, in the seventeenth and g^^
eighteenth centuries, and it has had the support of Ir- Salvador.
ving and Humboldt in later times. Captain Alexander Slidell
Mackenzie of the United States navy worked out the problem
for Irving. It is much larger than any of the other islands, and
could hardly have been called by Columbus in any alternative
way a " small " island, while it does not answer Columbus's de-
216 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
scription of being level, having on it an eminence of four hun-
dred feet, and no interior lagoon, as his Guanahani demands.
The French canonizers stand by the old traditions, and find it
meet to say" that " the English Protestants not finding the name
San Salvador fine enough have substituted for it that of Cat,
and in their hydrographical atlases the Island of the Holy Sa-
viour is nobly called Cat Island."
The weight of modern testimony seems to favor Watling's
watiing'8 island, and it so far answers to Columbus's description
Mand. ^^^ about ouc third of its interior is water, correspond-
ing to his " large lagoon." Munoz first suggested it in 1793 ;
but the arguments in its favor were first spread out by Captain
Becher of the royal navy in 1856, and he seems to have in-
duced Oscar Peschel in 1858 to adopt the same views in his
history of the range of modern discovery. Major, the map cus-
todian of the British Museum, who had previously followed
Navarrete in favoring the Grand Turk, again addressed himself
to the problem in 1870, and fell into line with the adherents of
Watling's. No other considerable advocacy of this island, if
we except the testimony of Gerard Stein in 1883, in a book on
voyages of discovery, appeared till Lieut. J. B. Murdoch, an
officer of the American navy, made a very careful examination
of the subject in the Proceedings of the United States Naval
Institute in 1884, which is accepted by Charles A. Schott in
the Bulletin of the United States Coast Survey. Murdoch
was the first to plot in a backward way the track between
Guanahani and Cuba, and he finds more points of resemblance
in Columbus's description with Watling's than with any other.
The latest adherent is the eminent geographer, Clements R.
Markham, in the bulletin of the Italian Geographical Society in
1889. Perhaps no cartographical argument has been so effec-
tive as that of Major in comparing modern charts with the map
of Herrera, in which the latter lays Guanahani down.
An elaborate attempt to identify Samana as the landfall was
made by the late Capt. Gustavus Vasa Fox, in an ap-
pendix to the Report of the United States Coast
Survey for 1880. Varnhagen, in 1864, selected Mariguana,
and defended his choice in a paper. This island fails to satisfy
Grand Turk ^^^ physical couditious in being without interior water.
Island. Such a qualification, however, belongs to the Grand
THE FINAL AGREEMENT AND FIRST VOYAGE. 217
Turk Island, which was advocated first by Navarrete in 1826,
whose views have since been supported by George, Gibbs, and
for a while by Major.
It is rather curious to note that Caleb Gushing, who under-
took to examine this question in the North American BevieiVi
under the guidance of Navarrete's theory, tried the same back-
ward method which has been later applied to the problem, but
with quite different results from those reached by more recent
investigators. He says, " By setting out from Nipe [which is
the point where Columbus struck Cuba] and proceeding in a
retrograde direction along his course, we may surely trace his
path, and shall be convinced that Guanahani is no other than
Turk's Island."
CHAPTER X.
AMONG THE ISLANDS AND THE KETURN VOYAGE.
We learn that, after these ceremonies on the shore, the na^
tives began fearlessly to gather about the strangers.
of Guau^-^^ Columbus, by causing red caps, strings of beads, and
other trinkets to be distributed among them, made an
easy conquest of their friendship. Later the men swam out to
the ship to exchange their balls of thread, their javelins, and
parrots for whatever they could get in return.
The description which Columbus gives us in his journal of
the appearance and condition of these new people is the ear-
liest, of course, in our knowledge of them. His record is in-
teresting for the effect which the creatures had upon him, and
for the statement of their condition before the Spaniards had
set an impress upon their unfortunate race.
They struck Columbus as, on the whole, a very poor people,
going naked, and, judging from a single girl whom he saw, this:
nudity was the practice of the women. They all seemed young,
not over thirty, well made, with fine shapes and faces. Their
hair was coarse, and combed short over the forehead ; but hung
long behind. The bodies of many were differently colored with
pigments of many hues, though of some only the face, the eyes,
or the nose were painted. Columbus was satisfied that they
had no knowledge of edged weapons, because they grasped his
sword by the blade and cut themselves. Their javelins were
sticks pointed with fishbones. When he observed scars on
their bodies, they managed to explain to him that enemies,
whom the Admiral supposed to come from the continent, some-
times invaded their island, and that such wounds were received
in defending themselves. They appeared to him to have no
religion, which satisfied him that the task of converting them
to Christianity would not be difficult. They learned readily to
pronounce such words as were repeated to them.
THE ISLANDS AND THE RETURN VOYAGE. 219
On the next day after landing, Saturday, Columbus describes
again the throng that came to the shore, and was 1492 octo-
struck with their broad foreheads. He deemed it a ^"^ ^^•
natural coincidence, being in the latitude of the Canaries, that
the natives had the complexion prevalent among the natives of
those islands. In this he anticipated the conclusions of the
anthropologists, who have found in the skulls pre-
served in caves both in the Bahamas and in the Ca- «i^uca-*''
naries, such striking similarities as have led to the sup- ^*"^'
position that ocean currents may have borne across the sea
some of the old Guanche stock of the Canaries, itself very likely
the remnant of the people of the European river-drift.
Professor W. K. Brooks, of the Johns Hopkins University,
who has recently published in the Popular Science Monthly
(November, 1889) a study of the bones of the Lucayans as
found in caves in the Bahamas, reports that these relics indi-
cate a muscular, heavy people, about the size of the average
European, with protuberant square jaws, sloping eyes, and
very round skulls, but artificially flattened on the forehead, — ^a
result singularly confirming Columbus's description of broader
heads than he had ever seen.
" The Ceboynas," says a recent writer on these Indians, " gave
us the hammock, and this one Lucayan word is their
only monument," for a population larger than inhabits
these islands to-day were in twelve years swept from the surface
of the earth by a system devised by Columbus.
The Admiral also describes their canoes, made in a wonder-
ful manner of a single tree-trunk, and large enough to
hold forty or forty-five men, though some were so
small as to carry a single person only. Their oars are shaped
like the wooden shovels with which bakers slip their loaves
into ovens. If a canoe upsets, it is righted as they swim.
Columbus was attracted by bits of gold dangling at the nose
of some among them. By signs he soon learned that goW among
a greater abundance of this metal could be found on "'^"'•
an island to the south ; but they seemed unable to direct him
with any precision how to reach that island, or at least it was
not easy so to interpret any of their signs. " Poor wretches ! "
exclaims Helps, " if they had possessed the slightest' gift of
prophecy, they would have thrown these baubles into the deep-
220 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
est sea." They pointed in all directions, but towards the east
as the way to other lands ; and implied that those enemies who
came from the northwest often passed to the south after gold.
He found that broken dishes and bits of glass served
traffic's ^th as well for traffic with them as more valuable articles,
and balls of threads of cotton, grown on the island^
seemed their most merchantable commodity.
With this rude foretaste, Columbus determined to push on
1492. octo- ^^^ *^® richer Cipango. On the next day he coasted
Swards^^^^^ along the island in his boats, discovering two or three
Cipango. villages, where the inhabitants were friendly. They
seemed to think that the strangers had come from heaven, — at
least Columbus so interpreted their prostrations and uplifted
hands. Columbus, fearful of the reefs parallel to the shore,
kept outside of them, and as he moved along, saw a point of
land which a ditch might convert into an island. He thought
this would afford a good site for a fort, if there was need of one.
It was on this Sunday that Columbus, in what he thought
1492. Octo- doubtless the spirit of the day in dealing with heathens,
^r 14. gives us his first intimation of the desirability of using
force to make these poor creatures serve their new masters.
Columbus ^^ returning to the ships and setting sail, he soon
ensfav^the fouud that hc was in an archipelago. He had seized
natives. somc uativcs, who were now on board. These re-
peated to him the names of more than a hundred islands. He
describes those within sight as level, fertile, and populous, and
he determined to steer for what seemed the largest. He stood
1492. Octo- ^^ ^^^ ^^ during the night of the 14th, and by noon
^' ^^' of the 15th he had reached this other island, which
he found at the easterly end to run five leagues north and south,
and to extend east and west a distance of ten leagues. Lured
by a still larger island farther west he pushed on, and skirting
the shore reached its western extremity. He cast anchor there
at sunset, and named the island Santa Maria de la Concepcion.
The natives on board told him that the people here wore gold
bracelets. Columbus thought this story might be a device of
his prisoners to obtain opportunities to escape. On the next
1492. Octo- ^^y» ^6 repeated the forms of landing and taking pos-
^'^^" session. Two of the prisoners contrived to escape.
One of them jumped overboard and was rescued by a native
THE ISLANDS AND THE RETURN VOYAGE. 221
canoe. The Spaniards overtook the canoe, but not till its occu-
pants had escaped. A single man, coming off in another
canoe, was seized and taken on board ; but Columbus thought
him a good messenger of amity, and loading him with presents,
" not worth four maravedis," he put him ashore. Columbus
watched the liberated savage, and judged from the wonder of
the crowds which surrounded him that his ruse of friendship
had been well played.
Another large island appeared westerly about nine leagues,
famous for its gold ornaments, as his prisoners again
declared. It is significant that in his journal, since sees^a^iarge
he discovered the bits of gold at San Salvador, Co- ^^*" '
lumbus has not a word to say of reclaiming the benighted hea-
then ; but he constantly repeats his hope " with the help of our
Lord," of finding gold. On the way thither he had picked up
a second single man in a canoe, who had apparently followed
him from San Salvador. He determined to bestow some favors
upon him and let him go, as he had done with the other.
This new island, which he reached October 16, and called
Fernandina, he found to be about twenty-eight leagues 1492. oc-
long, with a safer shore than the others. He anchored ^^^^^ ^^•
near a village, where the man whom he had set free had already
come, bringing good reports of the stranger, and so the Span-
iards got a kind reception. Great numbers of natives came off
in canoes, to whom the men gave trinkets and molasses. He
took on board some water, the natives assisting the crew. Get-
ting an impression that the island contained a mine of gold, he
resolved to follow the coast, and find Samaot, where the gold
was said to be. Columbus thought he saw some improvement
in the natives over those he had seen before, remarking upon
the cotton cloth with which they partly covered their persons.
He was surprised to find that distinct branches of the same tree
bore different leaves. A single tree, as he says, will show as
many as five or six varieties, not done by grafting, but a nat-
ural growth. He wondered at the brilliant fish, and found no
land creatures but parrots and lizards, though a boy of the com-
pany told him that he had seen a snake. On Wednesday he
started to sail around the island. In a little haven, where they
tarried awhile, they first entered the native houses.- They
found everything in them neat, with nets extended between
222
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
Hammocks.
posts, which they called hamacs^ — a name soon adojited by-
sailors for swinging-beds. The houses were shaped
like tents, with high chimneys, but not more than
twelve or fifteen together. Dogs were running about them,
but they could not bark. Columbus endeavored to buy a bit
of gold, cut or stamped, which was hanging from a man's
nose ; but the savage refused his offers.
INDIAN BEDS.
1492. Oc
tober 19.
The ships continued their course about the island, the weather
not altogether favorable ; but on October 19 they
veered away to another island to the west of Fernan-
dina, which Columbus named Isabella, after his Queen. This
he pronounced the most beautiful he had seen ; and he remarks
on the interior region of it being higher than in the other
islands, and the source of streams. The breezes from the shore
brought him odors, and when he landed he became conscious
that his botanical knowledge did not aid him in selecting such
dyestuffs, medicines, and spices as would command high prices
in Spain. He saw a hideous reptile, and the canonizers, after
their amusing fashion, tell us that " to see and attack him were
the same thing for Columbus, for he considered it of impor-
tance to accustom Spanish intrepidity to such warfare." The
THE ISLANDS AND THE RETURN VOYAGE. 223
reptile proved inoffensive. The signs of his prisoners were in-
terpreted to repeat here the welcome tale of gold. He ^^ ^^^
understood them to refer to a king decked with gold, coiumbus'a
^' I do not, however," he adds, " give much credit to these ^^^ °^^^^-
accounts, for I understand the natives but imperfectly." " I am
proceeding solely in quest of gold and spices," he says 1492 oc-
again. tober2i.
On Sunday they went ashore, and found a house from which
the occupants had recently departed. The foliage was en-
chanting. Flocks of parrots obscured the sky. Specimens
were gathered of wonderful trees. They killed a snake in a
lake. They cajoled some timid natives with beads, and got
their help in filling their water cask. They heard of a very
large island named Colba, which had ships and sail- ^uba
ors, as the natives were thought to say. They had ^'®*'^*^ °*-
little doubt that these stories referred to Cipango. They hoped
the native king would bring them gold in the night ; but this
not happening, and being cheered by the accounts of Colba,
they made up their minds that it would be a waste of time to
search longer for this backward king, and so resolved
to run for the big island. tobe'r24.
Starting from Isabella at midnight on October 24,
and passing other smaller islands, they finally, on Sunday,
October 26, entered a river near the easterly end of October 26.
Cuba.
The track of Columbus from San Salvador to Cuba has been
as variously disputed as the landfall ; indeed, the divergent
views of the landfall necessitate such later variations.
They landed within the river's mouth, and discov-
ered deserted houses, which from the implements within they
supposed to be the houses of fishermen. Columbus observed
that the grass grew down to the water's edge ; and he reasoned
therefrom that the sea could never be rough. He now observed
mountains, and likened them to those of Sicily. He finally
supposed his prisoners to affirm by their signs that the island
was too large for a canoe to sail round it in twenty days.
There were the old stories of gold ; but the mention
. . I . -I Pearls.
of pearls appears now for the first tune m the journal,
which in this place, however, we have only in Las- Casas s
abridgment.
224 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS,
When the natives pointed to the interior and said, " Cuba-
nacan," meaning, it is supposed, an inland region, Columbus
Columbus imagined it was a reference to Kublai Khan ; and
hiErat ^^^ Cuban name of Mangon he was very ready to asso-
^^^'' ciate with the Mangi of Mandeville.
As he still coasted westerly he found river and village, and
• made more use of his prisoners than had before been possible.
They seem by this time to have settled into an acquiescent
spirit. He wondered in one place at statues which looked like
women. He was not quite sure whether the natives kept them
for the love of the beautiful, or for worship.
He found domesticated fowl ; and saw a skull, which he sup-
posed was a cow's, which was probably that of the sea-calf, a
denizen of these waters. He thought the temperature cooler
than in the other islands, and ascribed the change to the moun-
tains. He observed on one of these eminences a protuberance
that looked like a mosque. Such interpretation as the Span-
iards could make of their prisoners' signs convinced them that
if they sailed farther west they would find some potentate, and
so they pushed on. Bad weather, however, delayed them, and
they again opened communication with the natives. They could
hear nothing of gold, but saw a silver trinket ; and learned, as
they thought, that news of their coming had been carried to the
distant king. Columbus felt convinced that the people of these
regions were banded enemies of the Great Khan, and
supposes that he had at last struck the continent of Cathay^
the coast of and was skirting the shores of the Zartun and Quinsay
of Marco Polo. Taking an observation, Columbus
found himself to be in 21° north latitude, and as near as he
could reckon, he was 1142 leagues west of Ferro. He really
was 1105.
From Friday, November 2, to Monday, November 5, two
1492. No- Spaniards, whom Columbus had sent into the interior,
vember2-5. accompauicd by some Indians, had made their way
Cuba unmolested in their search for a king. They had been
explored. entertained here and there with ceremony, and ap-
parently worshiped as celestial comers. The evidences of the
early Spanish voyagers give pretty constant testimony that the
whites were supposed to have come from the skies. Columbus
had given to his envoys samples of cinnamon, pepper, and other
\y
THE ISLANDS AND THE RETURN VOYAGE. 225
spices, which were shown to the people. In reply, his mes-
sengers learned that such things grew to the southeast of them.
Columbus later, in his first letter, speaks of cinnamon as one of
the spices which they found, but it turned out to be the bark of
a sort of laurel. Las Casas, in mentioning this expedition, says
that the Spaniards found the natives smoking small tubes of
dried leaves, filled with other leaves, which they called
tobacos. Sir Arthur Helps aptly remarks on this
trivial discovery by the Spaniards of a great financial resource
of modern statesmen, since tobacco has in the end proved more
productive to the Spanish crown than the gold which Columbus
sought. The Spaniards found no large villages ; but they per-
ceived great stores of fine cotton of a long staple. They found
the people eating what we must recognize as potatoes.
The absence of gold gave Columbus an opportunity to
wish more fervently than before for the conversion of some of
these people.
While this party was absent, Columbus found a quiet beach,
and careened his ships, one at a time. In melting his tar, the
wood which he used gave out a powerful odor, and he pro-
nounced it the mastic gum, which Europe had always got from
Chios. As this work was going on, the Spaniards got from the
natives, as best they could, many intimations of larger wealth
and commerce to the southeast. Other strange stories one-eyed
were told of men with one eye, and faces like dogs, ?^^ed men.
and of cruel, bloodthirsty man-eaters, who fought to cannibals,
appease their appetite on the flesh of the slain.
It was not till the 12th of November that Columbus left this
hospitable haven, at daybreak, in search of a place 1492. No-
called Babeque, " where gold was collected at night "'^'^^'' ^^•
by torch-light upon the shore, and afterward ham- babeque.
mered into bars." He the more readily retraced his track, that
the coast to the westward seemed to trend northerly, and he
dreaded a colder climate. He must leave for another time the
sight of men with tails, who inhabited a province in that direc-
tion, as he was informed.
Again the historian recognizes how a chance turned the
Spaniards away from a greater goal. If Columbus had gone
on westerly and discovered the insular character of Cuba, he
might have sought the main of Mexico and Yucatan, and anti-
226 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
cipated the wonders of the conquest of Cortez. He never was
undeceived in believing that Cuba was the Asiatic main.
Columbus sailed back over his course with an inordinate idea
of the riches of the country which he was leaving. He thought
the people docile ; that their simple belief in a God was easily
Columbus *o be enlarged into the true faith, whereby Spain
som^"^^^ might gain vassals and the church a people. He
natives. managed to entice on board, and took away, six men,
seven women, and three children, condoning the act of kidnap-
ping— the canonizers call it " retaining on board " — by a pur-
pose to teach them the Spanish language, and open a readier
avenue to their benighted souls. He allowed the men to have
women to share their durance, as such ways, he says, had
proved useful on the coast of Guinea.
The Admiral says in his first letter, referring to his captives,
" that we immediately understood each other, either by words
or signs." This was his message to expectant Europe. His
journal is far from conveying that impression.
The ships now steered east-by-south, passing mountainous
1492. No- lands, which on November 14 he tried to approach.
vember 14. ^fter a whilc he discovered a harbor, which he could
enter, and found it filled with lofty wooded islands, some
pointed and some flat at the top. He was quite sure he had
now got among the islands which are made to swarm on the
Asiatic coast in the early accounts and maps. He now speaks
of his practice in all his landings to set up and leave a cross.
He observed, also,, a promontory in the bay fit for a fortress, and
caught a strange fish resembling a hog. He was at this time
embayed in the King's Garden, as the archipelago is called.
Shortly after this, when they had been baffled in their courses,
Pinzon Martin Alonso Pinzon, incited, as the record says, by
deserts. j^-g cupidity to find the stores of gold to which some
of his Indian captives had directed him, disregarded the Ad-
miral's signals, and sailed away in the " Pinta." The flagship
kept a light for him all night, at the mast-head ; but in the
morning the caravel was out of sight. The Admiral takes oc-
casion in his journal to remark that this was not the first act
1492. No- ^^ Pinzon's insubordination. On Friday, November
vember 23. 23, the vcsscls approachcd a headland, which the
Indians called Bohio. The prisoners here began to manifest
THE ISLANDS AND THE RETURN VOYAGE. 227
fear, for it was a spot where the oue-eyed people and the can-
nibals dwelt ; but on Saturday, November 24, the ,492 No-
ships were forced back into the gulf with the many ^«»^ber24.
islands, where Columbus found a desirable roadstead, which he
had not before discovered.
On Sunday, exploring in a boat, he found in a stream " cer-
tain stones which shone with spots of a golden hue ; 1492 -^^
and recollecting that gold was found in the' river member 25.
Tagus near the sea, he entertained no doubt that this was the
metal, and directed that a collection of the stones should be
made to carry to the King and Queen." It becomes notice-
able, as Columbus goes on, that every new place surpasses all
others ; the atmosphere is better ; the trees are more marvelous.
He now found pines fit for masts, and secured some for the
"Nina."
As he coasted the next day along what he believed to be a
continental coast, he tried in his journal to account for the
absence of towns in so beautiful a country. That there were
inhabitants he knew, for he found traces of them on going
ashore. He had discovered that all the natives had a great
dread of a people whom they called Caniba or Canima, and he
argued that the towns were kept back from the coast to avoid
the chances of the maritime attacks of this fierce people. There
was no doubt in the mind of Columbus that these inroads were
conducted by subjects of the Great Khan.
While he was still stretching his course along this coast,
observing its harbors, seeing more signs of habitation, and
attempting to hold intercourse with the frightened natives, now
anchoring in some haven, and now running up adjacent rivers
in a galley, he found time to jot down in this journal for the
future perusal of his sovereigns some of his suspicions, prophe-
cies, and determinations. He complains of the difficulty of
understanding his prisoners, and seems conscious of his fre-
quent misconceptions of their meaning. He says he has lost
confidence in them, and somewhat innocently imagines that they
would escape if they could ! Then he speaks of a determina-
tion to acquire their language, which he supposes to be the same
through all the region. " In this way," he adds, " we can' learn
the riches of the country, and make endeavors to convert these
people to our religion, for they are without even the faith of an
228 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
idolater." He descants upon the salubrity of the air ; not one
of his crew had had any illness, " except an old man, all his life
a sufferer from the stone." There is at times a somewhat amus-
ing innocence in his conclusions, as when finding a cake of wax
in one of the houses, which Las Casas thinks was brought from
Yucatan, he " was of the opinion that where wax was found
there must be a great many other valuable commodities."
The ships were now detained in their harbor for several days,
during which the men made excursions, and found a populous
country ; they succeeded at times in getting into communication
1492. De- with the natives. Finally, on December 4, he left the
cember 4. Puerto Santo, as he called it, and coasting along east-
erly he reached the next day the extreme eastern end of what
Leaves Cuba wc uow kuow to be Cuba, or Juaua as he had named it,
orjuana. after Priucc Juan. Cruising about, he seems to have
had an apprehension that the land he had been following might
not after all be the main, for he appears to have looked around
the southerly side of this end of Cuba and to have seen the
southwesterly trend of its coast. He observed, the same day,
Bohio. land in the southeast, which his Indians called Bohio,
Espanoia. ^^^ ^j^jg ^^^ subscqucutly named Espanola. Las
Casas explains that Columbus here mistook the Indian word
meaning house for the name of the island, which was really in
their tongu© called Haiti. It is significant of the difficulty in
identifying the bays and headlands of the journal, that at this
point Las Casas puts on one side, and Navarrete on the opposite
side, of the passage dividing Cuba from Espanola, one of the
capes which Columbus indicates. Changing his course for this
lofty island, he dispatched the " Nina " to search its shore and
find a harbor. That night the Admiral's ship beat about, wait-
ing for daylight. When it came, he took his observations of
the coast, and espying an island separated by a wide channel
from the other land, he named this island Tortuga.
Finding his way into a harbor — the present St. Nich-
olas — he declares that a thousand caracks could sail about in
it. Here he saw, as before, large canoes, and many natives,
who fled on his approach. The Spaniards soon began as they
went on to observe lofty and extensive mountains, " the whole
country appearing like Castile." They saw another reminder
of Spain as they were rowing about a harbor, which they
THE ISLANDS AND THE RETURN VOYAGE. 229
entered, and which was opposite Tortuga, when a skate leaped
into their boat, and the Admiral records it as a first instance in
which they had seen a fish similar to those of the Spanish
waters. He says, too, that he heard on the shore nightingales
" and other Spanish birds," mistaking of course their identity.
He saw myrtles and other trees " like those of Castile." There
was another obvious reference to the old country in the name
of Espanola, which he now bestowed upon the island. He could
find few of the inhabitants, and conjectured that their towns were
back from the coast. The men, however, captured a handsome
young woman who wore a bit of gold at her nose ; and having
bestowed upon her gifts, let her go. Soon after, the Admiral
sent a party to a town of a thousand houses, thinking the luck
of the woman would embolden the people to have a parley. The
inhabitants fled in fear at first ; but growing bolder came in
great crowds, and brought presents of parrots.
It was here that Columbus took his latitude and found it to
be 17°, — while in fact it was 20°. The journal gives ^^-^^^^^^
numerous instances during all these explorations of fin^s his lat-
the bestowing of names upon headlands and harbors,
few of which have remained to this day. It was a common cus-
tom to make such use of a Saint's name on his natal day.
Dr. Shea in a paper which he published in 1876, in the first
volume of the American Catholic Quarterly, has emphasized
the help which the Roman nomenclature of Saints' saints'
days, given to rivers and headlands, affords to the ^^^^'
geographical student in tracking the early explorers along the
coasts of the New World. This method of tracing the progress
of maritime discovery suggested itself early to Oviedo, and has
been appealed to by Henry C. Murphy and other modern
authorities on this subject.
Finally, on Friday, December 14, they sailed out of the har-
bor toward Tortuga. He found this island to be under 1492. De-
extensive cultivation like a plain of Cordoba. The
wind not holding for him to take the course which he wished
to run, Columbus returned to his last harbor, the Puerto de la
Concepcion. Again on Saturday he left it, and standing across
to Tortus^a once more, he went towards the shore
and proceeded up a stream in his boats. Ihe inhab-
itants fled as he approached, and burning fires in Tortuga as
230 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
well as in Espanola seemed to be signals that the Spaniards
were moving. During the night, proceeding along the channel
between the two islands, the Admiral met and took on board a
solitary Indian in his canoe. The usual gifts were put upon
him, and when the ships anchored near a village, he was sent
ashore with the customary effect. The beach soon swarmed with
people, gathered with their king, and some came on board. The
Spaniards got from them without difficulty the bits of gold
which they wore at their ears and noses. One of the captive
Indians who talked with the king told this " youth of twenty-
one,'* that the Spaniards had come from heaven and were going
to Babeque to find gold ; and the king told the Admi-
ral's messenger, who delivered to him a present, that
if he sailed in a certain course two days he would arrive
there. This is the last we hear of Babeque, a place Columbus
never found, at least under that name. Humboldt remarks that
Columbus mentions the name of Babeque more than fourteen
times in his journal, but it cannot certainly be identified with
Espanola, as the Historic of 1571 declares it to be. D'Avezac
has since shared Humboldt's view. Las Casas hesitatingly
thought it might have referred to Jamaica.
Then the journal describes the country, saying that the land
is lofty, but that the highest mountains are arable, and that the
trees are so luxuriant that they become black rather than green.
The journal further describes this new people as stout and
courageous, very different from the timid islanders of other
\ parts, and without religion. With his usual habit of contradic-
tion, Columbus goes on immediately to speak of their pusilla-
nimity, saying that three Spaniards were more than a match for
a thousand of them. He prefigures their fate in calling them
" well-fitted to be governed and set to work to till the land
and do whatsoever is necessary."
It was on Monday, December 17, while lying off Espanola,
1492. De- th3.t the Spaniards got for the first time something
cember 17. ^^Qrc than rumor respecting the people of Caniba or
the cannibals. These new evidences were certain arrows which
the natives showed to them, and which they said had
Cannibals. m • /•
belonged to those man-eaters. They were pieces of
cane, tipped with sticks which had been hardened by fire.
" They were exhibited by two Indians who had lost some flesh
i
THE ISLANDS AND THE RETURN VOYAGE. 231
from their bodies, eaten out by the cannibals. This the Admiral
did not believe." It was now, too, that the Spaniards found
gold in larger quantities than they had seen it before. They
saw some beaten into thin plates. The cacique — here this
word appears for the first time — cut a plate as big
as his hand into pieces and bartered them, promising *"**"®'
to have more to exchange the next day. He gave the Span-
iards to understand that there was more gold in Tortuga than in
Espanola. It is to be remarked, also, in the Admiral's account,
that while " Our Lord " is not recorded as indicating to him any
method of converting the poor heathen, it was " Our Lord " who
was now about to direct the Admiral to Babeque.
The next day, December 18, the Admiral lay at anchor, both
because wind failed him, and because he would be 1492. De.
able to see the gold which the cacique had promised ^^^^^ ^^^
to bring. It also gave him an opportunity to deck his ships
and fire his guns in honor of the Annunciation of the Blessed
Virgin.
In due time the king appeared, borne on a sort of litter by his
men, and boarding the ship, that chieftain found Columbus at
table in his cabin. The cacique was placed beside the Admiral,
and similar viands and drinks were placed before him, of which
he partook. Two of his dusky followers, sitting at his feet, fol-
lowed their master in the act. Columbus, observing that the
hangings of his bed had attracted the attention of the savage,
gave them to him, and added to the present some amber beads
from his own neck, some red shoes, and a flask of orange-flower
water. " This day," says the record, " little gold was obtained ;
but an old man indicated that at a distance of a hundred
leagues or more were some islands, where much gold could be
found, and in some it was so plentiful that it was collected and
bolted with sieves, then melted and beaten into divers forms.
One of the islands was said to be all gold, and the Admiral
determined to go in the direction which this man pointed."
That night they tried in vain to stand out beyond Tortuga,
but on the 20th of December, the record places the 1492. De-
ships in a harbor between a little island, which Colum- *'«°^^®'^'- •
bus called St. Thomas, and the main island. During the. follow-
ing day, December 21, he surveyed the roadstead, and gt. Thomas
going about the region in his boats, he had a num- ^^^*°'*-
232 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
ber of interviews with the natives, which ended with an inter-
change of gifts and courtesies.
On Saturday, December 22, they encountered some people,
1492. De- sent by a neighboring cacique, whom the Admiral's
cember 22. ^^j^ Indians could not readily understand, the first of
this kind mentioned in the journal. Writing in regard to a
party which Columbus at this time sent to visit a large town
not far off, he speaks of having his secretary accompany them, in
order to repress the Spaniards' greediness, — an estimate of his
followers which the Admiral had not before suffered himself to
record, if we can trust the Las Casas manuscript. The results
of this foray were three fat geese and some bits of gold. As
he entered the adventure in his journal, he dwelt on the hope of
gold being on the island in abundance, and if only the spot
could be found, it might be got for little or nothing. " Our
Lord, in whose hands are all things, be my help," he cries.
" Our Lord, in his mercy, direct me where I may find the gold
mine."
The Admiral now learns the name of another chief officer,
Nitayno, whose precise position was not apparent, but Las
Casas tells us later that this word was the title of one nearest
in rank to the cacique. When an Indian spoke of
a place named Cibao, far to the east, where the king
had banners made of plates of gold, the Admiral, in his eager
confidence, had no hesitation in identifying it with Cipango
and its gorgeous prince. It proved to be the place where in the
end the best mines were found.
In speaking of the next day, Sunday, December 23, Las Casas
1492. De- ^ells US that Columbus was not in the habit of sailing
cember 23. ^^ Sunday, not because he was superstitious, but be-
cause he was pious ; but that he did not omit the opportunity
at this time of coursing the coast, " in order to display the
symbols of Redemption."
Christmas found them in distress. The night before, every-
thing looking favorable, and the vessel sailing along quietly,
Columbus had gone to bed, being much in need of rest. The
helmsman put a boy at the tiller and went to sleep.
Columbus ,_,- PI 1 , 1 ii
ship- Ihe rest oi the crew were not slow to do the same.
The vessel was in this condition, with no one but the
boy awake, when, carried out of her course by the current, she
THE ISLANDS AND THE RETURN VOYAGE. 233
struck a sand bank. The cry of the boy awakened the Admi-
ral, and he was the first to discover the danger of their situa-
tion. He ordered out a boat's crew to carry an anchor astern,
but, bewildered or frightened, the men pulled for the " Nina."
The crew of that caravel warned them off, to do their duty,
and sent their own boat to assist. Help, however, availed noth-
ing. The " Santa Maria " had careened, and her seams were
opening. Her mast had been cut away, but she failed to right
herself. The Admiral now abandoned her and rowed to the
" Nina " with his men. Communicating with the cacique in the
morning, that chieftain sent many canoes to assist in unloading
the ship, so that in a short time everything of value was saved.
This assistance gave occasion for mutual confidences between
the Spaniards and the natives. " They are a loving, uncovetous
people," he enters in his journal. One wonders, with the later
experience of his new friends, if the cacique could have said as
much in return. The Admiral began to be convinced that " the
Lord had permitted the shipwreck in order that he might
choose this place for a settlement." The canonizers go further
and say, " the shipwreck made him an engineer."
Irving, whose heedless embellishments of the story of these
times may amuse the pastime reader, but hardly satisfy the
student, was not blind to the misfortunes of what Columbus at
the time called the divine interposition. " This shipwreck,"
Irving says, " shackled and limited all Columbus's future dis-
coveries. It linked his fortunes for the remainder of his life to
this island, which was doomed to be to him a source of cares
and troubles, to involve him in a thousand perplexities, and to
becloud his declining years with humiliation and disappoint-
ment."
The saving of his stores and the loss of his ship had indeed
already suggested what some of his men had asked for, that
they might be left there, while the Admiral returned to Spain
with the tidings of the discovery, if — as the uncomfortable
thought sprung up in his mind — he had not already been
anticipated by the recreant commander of the " Pinta." Accord-
inerly Columbus ordered the construction of a fort,
• 1 1 T 1 -1 ^ Fort built.
With tower and ditch, and arrangements were soon
made to provide bread and wine for more than a year, beside
seed for the next planting-time. The ship's long-boat could be
234 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
left ; and a calker, carpenter, cooper, engineer, tailor, and sur-
geon could be found among his company, to be of the party
who were to remain and " search for the gold mine." He says
that he expected they would collect a ton of gold in the interval
of his absence ; " for I have before protested to your High-
nesses," he adds as he makes an entry for his sovereigns to read,
" that the profits shall go to making a conquest of Jerusalem."
We know the names of those who agreed to stay on the
Garrison of islaud. Navarrctc discovered the list in a proclama-
LaNavidad. ^'^jj made in 1507 to pay what was due them to their
next of kin. This list gives forty names, though some accounts
of the voyage say they numbered a few less. The company
included the Irishman and Englishman already mentioned.
On the 27th of December, Columbus got the first tidings of
1492. De- t^® " Pinta " since she deserted him ; and he sent a
ceinber27. Spaniard, with Indians to handle the canoe, to a har-
bor at the end of the island, where he supposed Pinzon's ship
to be. Columbus was now perfecting his plans for the fort,
and tried to make out if Guacanagari, the king, was not trying
December ^^ couccal from him the situation of the mines. On
^' Sunday, December 30, the Spanish and native leaders
vied with each other in graciousness. The savage put his crown
upon the Admiral. Columbus took off his necklace and scarlet
cloak and placed them on the king. He clothed the savage's
naked feet with buskins and decked the dusky hand with a sil-
December ^^^ ring. On Monday, work was resumed in prepar-
^^' ing for their return to Spain, for, with the " Pinta "
gone — for the canoe sent to find her had returned unsuccessful
— and the " Nina " alone remaining, it was necessary to dimin-
ish the risk attending the enterprise.
On January 2, 1493, there was to be leave-taking of the
1493. Janu- caciquc. To impart to him and to his people a dread of
"y^* Spanish power, in the interests of those to be left, he
made an exhibition of the force of his bombards, by sending a
shot clean through the hull of the dismantled wreck. It is curi-
ous to observe how Irving, with a somewhat cheap melodramatic
instinct, makes this shot tear through a beautiful grove like a
bolt from heaven !
The king made some return by ordering an effigy of Colum-
bus to be finished in gold, in ten days, — as at least so Colum-
THE ISLANDS AND THE RETURN VOYAGE. 235
bus understood one of his Indians to announce the cacique's
purpose.
Having commissioned Diego de Arana as commander and
Pedro Gutierrez and Roderigo de Escoveda to act as his lieu-
tenants of the fort and its thirty-nine men, Columbus now em-
barked, but not before he had addressed all sorts of good advice
to those he was to leave behind, — advice that did no good, if
the subsequent events are clearly divined. It was not, however,
till Friday, January 4, 1493, that the wind permitted 1493 j^„.
him to stand out of the harbor of the ViUa de Navi- ^^'^ *•
dad, as he had named the* fort and settlement from the fact of
his shipwreck there on the day of the nativity. Two
days later they met the " Pinta," and Pinzon, her ^^^^"^
commander, soon boarded the Admiral to explain his absence,
" saying he had left against his will." The Admiral doubted
such professions ; but did not think it prudent to show active
resentment, as Las Casas tells us. The fact apparently was that
Pinzon had not found the gold he went in search of and so he
had returned to meet his commander. He had been coasting
the island for over twenty days, and had been seen by the
natives, who made the report to the Admiral already mentioned.
Some Indians whom he had taken captive were subsequently
released by the Admiral, for the usual ulterior purpose. It is
curious to observe how an act of kidnapping which emulated
the Admiral's, if done by Pinzon, is caUed by the canonizers,
*' joining violence to rapine."
At this time Columbus records his first intelligence respecting
an island, Yamaye, south of Cuba, which seems to have
been Jamaica, where, as he learned, gold was to be
found in grains of the size of beans, while in Espanola the
grains were nearly the size of kernels of wheat. He was also
informed of an island to the east, inhabited by women only.
He also understood that the people of the continent to the south
were clothed, and did not go naked like those of the islands.
Both vessels now having made a harbor, and the " Nina " be-
ginning to leak, a day was spent in calking her seams. Colum-
bus was not without apprehension that the two brothers, Martin y
Alonso Pinzon of the " Pinta," and Vicente Anez Pinzon who '
had commanded the " Nina," might now witti their adherents
combine for mischief. He was accordingly all the more anxious
236 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
to hasten his departure, without further following the coast of
Espanola. Going up a river to replenish his water, he found on
taking the casks on board that the crevices of the hoops had
gathered fine bits of gold from the stream. This led him to
count the neighboring streams, which he supposed might also
contain gold.
It was not only gold which he saw. Three mermaids stood
hiffh out of the water, with not very comely faces to
Columbus ^ ° , ... , - , T . 1 ,
sees mer- bc surc, but Similar to those or human beino^s ; and he
maids. ,
recalled having seen the like on the pepper coast in
Guinea. The commentators suppose they may have been sea-
calves indistinctly seen.
The two ships started once more on the 10th, sometimes
1493 Janu ^J^^S* *^ ^* uiglit f or f ear of shoals, making and nam-
Bhl l^saiuor ^^^ ^^P® after cape. On the 12th, entering a harbor,
Spain. Columbus discovcrcd an Indian, whom he took for a
January 12. Carib, as he had learned to call the cannibals which
he so often heard of. His own Indians did not wholly
understand this strange savage. When they sent him ashore
the Spaniards found fifty-five Indians armed with bows and
wooden swords. They were prevailed upon at first to hold
communication ; but soon showed a less friendly spirit, and
Columbus for the first time records a fight, in which several of
the natives were wounded. An island to the eastward was now
supposed to be the Carib region, and he desired to capture
some of its natives. Navarrete supposes that Porto Kico is here
referred to. He also observed, as his vessels went easterly, that
he was encountering some of the same sort of seaweed which he
had sailed through when steering west, and it occurred to him
that perhaps these islands stretched easterly, so as really to
be not far distant from the Canaries. It may be observed that
this propinquity of the new islands to those of the Atlantic,
longer known, was not wholly eradicated from the maps till
well into the earlier years of the sixteenth century.
They had secured some additional Indians near where they
had had their fight, and one of them now directed Columbus
towards the island of the Caribs. The leaks of the vessels in-
creasing and his crews desponding, Columbus soon thought it
more prudent to shift his course for Spain direct, supposing at
the same time that it would take him near Matinino, where the
THE ISLANDS AND THE RETURN VOYAGE. 237
tribe of women lived. He had gotten the story somehow, very
likely by a credulous adaptation of Marco Polo, that caribs and
the Caribs visited this island once a year and re- ^"^^ons.
claimed the male offspring, leaving the female young to keep
up the tribe.
In following the Admiral along these coasts of Cuba and
Espanola, no attempt has here been made to identify all his
bays and rivers. Navarrete and the other commentators have
done so, but not always with agreement.
On the 16th, they had their last look at a distant cape of
Espanola, and were then in the broad ocean, with sea- 1493 j^^^.
weed and tunnies and pelicans to break its monotony. ^''^ ^^•
The " Pinta," having an unsound mast, lagged behind, and so
the " Nina " had to slacken sail.
Columbus now followed a course which for a long time, owing
to defects in the methods of ascertaining longitude. Homeward
was the mariner's readiest recourse to reach his port. ^°y*8e.
This was to run up his latitudes to that of his destination, and
then follow the parallel till he sighted a familiar landmark.
By February 10, when they began to compare reckonings,
Columbus placed his position in the latitude of Flores, 1493 y^^^
while the others thought they were on a more southern ^^^^ ^^'
course, and a hundred and fifty leagues nearer Spain. By the
12th it was apparent that a gale was coming on. The next day,
February 13, the storm increased. During the fol-
lowing night both vessels took in all sail and scudded * ^^^
before the wind. They lost sight of each other's lights, and
never joined company. The " Pinta " with her weak mast was
blown away to the north. The Admiral's ship could bear the
gale better, but as his ballast was insufficient, he had
to fill his water casks with sea-water. Sensible of
their peril, his crew made vows, to be kept if they were saved.
They drew lots to determine who should carry a wax taper of
five pounds to St. Mary of Guadalupe, and the penance fell to
the Admiral. A sailor by another lot was doomed to make a
pilgrimage to St. Mary of Lorette in the papal territory. A
third lot was drawn for ajiight watch at St. Clara de Mogues,
and it fell upon Columbus. Then they all vowed to pay their
devotions at the nearest church of Our Lady if only they got
ashore alive.
288 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
There was one thought which more than another troubled
Columbus at this moment, and this was that in case his ship
foundered, the world might never know of his success, for he
was apprehensive that the " Pinta " had already foundered.
Not to alarm the crew, he kept from them the fact that a cask
A narrative which they had seen him throw overboard contained
thr^o^TS 3.n account of his voyage, written on parchment,
board. roUcd in a waxed cloth. He trusted to the chance of
some one finding it. He placed a similar cask on the poop, to
be washed off in case the ship went down. He does not men-
tion this in the journal.
After sunset on the 15th there were signs of clearing in the
west, and the waves began to fall. The next morning
ary 15. at suurisc there was land ahead. Now came the test
January 16. of their rcckouing. Some thought it the rock of Cin-
tra near Lisbon ; others said Madeira ; Columbus de-
cided they were near the Azores. The land was soon made out
to be an island ; but a head wind thwarted them. Other land
was next seen astern. While they were saying their Salve in
the evening, some of the crew discerned a light to leeward.
At the which might have been on the island first seen. Then
Azores. later they saw another island, but night and the clouds
obscured it too much to be recognized. The journal is blank
1493. Feb- ^^^ *^^ \lt\i of February, except that under the next
ruaryis. ^^^^ ^^^ 18th, Columbus rccords that after sunset of
the 17th they sailed round an island to find an anchorage ; but
being unsuccessful in the search they beat out to sea again. In
the morning of the 18th they stood in, discovered an anchor-
age, sent a boat ashore, and found it was St. Mary's of the
Azores. Columbus was right !
After sunset he received some provisions, which Juan de Cas-
teneda, the Portuguese governor of the island, had sent to him.
Meanwhile three Spaniards whom Columbus sent ashore had
failed to return, not a little to his disturbance, for he was aware
that there might be among the Portuguese some jealousy of his
success. To fulfill one of the vows made during the gale, he
now sent one half his crew ashore in penitential garments to a
hermitage near the shore, intending on their return to go him-
self with the other half. The record then reads : " The men
being at their devotion, they were attacked by Casteneda with
THE ISLANDS AND THE RETURN VOYAGE. 239
horse and foot, and made prisoners." Not being able to see the
hermitage from his anchorage, and not suspecting this event,
but still anxious, he made sail and proceeded till he got a view
of the spot. Now he saw the horsemen, and how presently they
dismounted, and with arms in their hands, entering a boat, ap-
proached the ship. Then followed a parley, in which Columbus
thought he discovered a purpose of the Portuguese to capture
him, and they on their part discovered it to be not quite safe
to board the Admiral. To enforce his dignity and authority
as a representative of the sovereigns of Castile, he held up to
the boats his commission with its royal insignia ; and reminded
them that his instructions had been to treat all Portuguese ships
with respect, since a spirit of amity existed between the two
Crowns. It behooved the Portuguese, as he told them, to be
wary lest by any hostile act they brought upon themselves the
indignation of those higher in authority. The lofty bearing of
Casteneda continuing, Columbus began to fear that hostilities
might possibly have broken out between Spain and Portugal.
So the interview ended with little satisfaction to either, and the
Admiral returned to his old anchorage. The next day, to work
off the lee shore, they sailed for St. Michael's, and the weather
continuing stormy he found himself crippled in having but
three experienced seamen among the crew which remained to
him. So not seeing St. Michael's they again bore away, on
Thursday the 21st, for St. Mary's, and again reached 1493 j-eb-
their former anchorage. ^'^^^ ^^"
The storms of these latter days here induced Columbus in his
journal to recall how placid the sea had been among those other
new-found islands, and how likely it was the terrestial paradise
was in that region, as theologians and learned philosophers had
supposed. From these thoughts he was aroused by a boat from
shore with a notary on board, and Columbus, after completing
his entertainment of the visitors, was asked to show his royal
commission. He records his belief that this was done to give
the Portuguese an opportunity of retreating from their belliger-
ent attitude. At all events it had that effect, and the Span-
iards who had been restrained were at once released. It is sur-
mised that the conduct of Casteneda was in conformity with
instructions from Lisbon, to detain Columbus should he' find his
way to any dependency of the Portuguese crown.
240 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
On Sunday, the 24th, the ship again put out to sea; on
1493 Feb- Wednesday, they encountered another gale ; and on
ruary24. ^^iQ foUowiug Sunday, they were again in such peril
that they made new vows. At daylight the next day, some
land which they had seen in the night, not without
e ruary o. gj^^j^y apprchcnsion of being driven upon it, proved
to be the rock of Cintra. The mouth of the Tagus was before
Rock of Gin- them, and the people of the adjacent town, observing
trasfeen. ^j^g peril of the strange ship, offered prayers for its
safety. The entrance of the river was safely made and the
In the Ta- multitude welcomed them. Up the Tagus they went
8"^- to Kastelo, and anchored at about three o'clock in
the afternoon. Here Columbus learned that the wintry rough-
ness which he had recently experienced was but a part of the
general severity of the season. From this place he dispatched
a messenger to Spain to convey the news of his arrival to his
sovereigns, and at the same time he sent a letter to the
to the king king of Portugal, then sojourning nine leagues away.
He explained in it how he had asked the hospitality
of a Portuguese port, because the Spanish sovereigns had di-
rected him to do so, if he needed supplies. He further informed
the king that he had come from the "Indies," which he had
reached by sailing west. He hoped he would be allowed to
bring his caravel to Lisbon, to be more secure ; for rumors of a
lading of gold might incite reckless persons, in so lonely a place
as he then lay, to deeds of violence.
The Historie says that Columbus had determined beforehand
Name of ^^ ^^ whatcvcr land he should discover, India, be-
^"^*** cause he thought India was a name to suggest riches,
and to invite encouragement for his project.
While this letter to the Portuguese king was in transit, the
attempt was made by certain officers of the Portuguese navy in
the port of Rastelo to induce Columbus to leave his ship and
give an account of himself ; but he would make no compromise
of the dignity of a Castilian admiral. When his resentment
was known and his commission was shown, the Portuguese offi-
cers changed their policy to one of courtesy.
The next day, and on the one following, the news of his arrival
being spread about, a vast multitude came in boats from all
parts to see him and his Indians.
THE ISLANDS AND THE RETURN VOYAGE. 241
On the third day, a royal messenger brought an invitation
from the king to come and visit the court, which Co- 1493
lumbus, not without apprehension, accepted. The ^"^^^s.
king's steward had been sent to accompany him and provide for
his entertainment on the way. On the night of the
following day, he reached Val do Paraiso, where the yS^the
king was. This spot was nine leagues from Lisbon, ^°^
and it was supposed that his reception was not held in that
city because a pest was raging there. A royal greeting was
given to him. The king affected to believe that the voyage of
Columbus was made to regions which the Portuguese had been
allowed to occupy by a convention agreed upon with Spain in
1479. The Admiral undeceived him, and showed the king that
his ships had not been near Guinea.
We have another account of this interview at Val do Paraiso,
in the pages of the Portuguese historian, Barros, tinged, doubt-
less, with something of pique and prejudice, because the profit
of the voyage had not been for the benefit of Portugal. That
historian charges Columbus with extravagance, and even inso-
lence, in his language to the king. He says that Columbus
chided the monarch for the faithlessness that had lost him such
an empire. He is represented as launching these rebukes so
vehemently that the attending nobles were provoked to a degree
which prompted whispers of assassination. That Columbus
found his first harbor in the Tagus has given other of the older
Portuguese writers, like Faria y Sousa, in his Europa Portu-
guesa., and Vasconcelles and Resende, in their lives of Joao II.,
occasion to represent that his entering it was not so much in-
duced by stress of weather as to seek a triumph over the Por-
tuguese king in the first flush of the news. It is also said that
the resolution was formed by the king to avail himself of the
knowledge of two Portuguese who were found among Colum-
bus's men. With their aid he proposed to send an armed expe-
dition to take possession of the new-found regions before Co-
lumbus could fit out a fleet for a second voyage. Francisco de
Almeida was even selected, according to the report, to command
this force. We hear, however, nothing more of it, and the
Bull of Demarcation put an end to all such rivalries.
If, on the contrary, we may believe Columbus himself, in a
letter which he subsequently wrote, he did not escape being sus-
242 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
pected in Spain of having thus put himself in the power of the
Portuguese in order to surrender the Indies to them.
Spending Sunday at court, Columbus departed on Monday,
1493. March Marcli 11, haviug first dispatched messages to the
bu8i?rver" King and Queen of Spain. An escort of knights was
the court. provided for him, and taking the monastery of Villa-
f ranca on his way, he kissed the hand of the Portuguese queen,
who was there lodging, and journeying on, arrived at his car-
saiis from ^^cl ou Tucsday night. The next day he put to sea,
the Tagus. ^^^ ^^ Thursday morning was off Cape St. Vincent.
The next morning they were off the island of Saltes, and cross-
ing bar with the flood, he anchored on March 15, 1493,
Paios, March uot far from uoou, where he had unmoored the " Santa
Maria " over seven months before.
" I made the passage thither in seventy-one days," he says in
his published letter ; " and back in forty-eight, during thirteen
of which number I was driven about by storms."
The " Pinta," which had parted company with the Admiral on
the 14th of February, had been driven by the gale
ta's" ex- into Bayona, a port of Gallicia, in the northwest cor-
ner of Spain, whence Pinzon, its commander, had dis-
patched a messenger to give information of his arrival and of his
intended visit to the Court. A royal order peremptorily stayed,
however, his projected visit, and left the first announcement of
the news to be proclaimed by Columbus himself. This is the
story which later writers have borrowed from the Historie.
Oviedo tells us that the " Pinta " put to sea again from the
She reaches Gralliciau harbor, and entered the port of Palos on the
^*^°^' same day with Columbus, but her commander, fearing
arrest or other unpleasantness, kept himself concealed till Co-
Death of lumbus had started for Barcelona. Not many days later
Pinzon. Pinzou died in his own house in Palos. Las Casas
would have us believe that his death arose from mortification
at the displeasure of his sovereigns ; but Harrisse points out
that when Charles V. bestowed a coat-armor on the family, he
recognized his merit as the discoverer of Espanola. There is
little trustworthy information on the matter, and Muiioz, whose
lack of knowledge prompts inferences on his part, represents
that it was Pinzon 's request to explain his desertion of Colum-
bus, which was neglected by the Court, and impressed him with
the royal displeasure.
CHAPTER XL
COLUMBUS IN SPAIN AGAIN ; MARCH TO SEPTEMBER, 1493.
Peter Martyr tells us of the common ignorance and dread
pervading the ordinary ranks of society, before and during the
absence of Columbus, in respect to all that part of the earth's
circumference which the sun looked upon beyond Gades, till it
again cast its rays upon the Golden Chersonesus. During this
absence from the known and habitable regions of the globe,
that orb was thought to sweep over the ominous and foreboding
Sea of Darkness. No one could tell how wide that sea was. The
learned disagreed in their estimates. A conception, far under
the actual condition, had played no small part in making the
voyage of Columbus possible. Men possessed legends of its
mysteries. Fables of its many islands were repeated ; but no
one then living was credibly thought to have tested its glooms
except by sailing a little beyond the outermost of the Azores.
It calls for no stretch of the imagination to picture the public
sentiment in little Palos during the months of anxiety
which many households had endured since that August aroused at
morning, when in its dim light Columbus, the Pinzons, of coium-
and all their companions had been wafted gently out
to sea by the current and the breeze. The winter had been
unusually savage and weird. The navigators to the Atlantic
islands had reported rough passages, and the ocean had broken
wildly for long intervals along the rocks and sands of the penin-
sular shores. It is a natural movement of the mind to wrap the
absent in the gloom of the present hour ; and while Columbus
had been passing along the gentle waters of the new archi-
pelago, his actual experiences had been in strange contrast to
the turmoil of the sea as it washed the European shores. He
had indeed suffered on his return voyage the full tumultu-
ousness of the elements, and we can hardly fail to recognize the
disquiet of mind and falling of heart which those savage gales
244 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
must have given to the kin and friends of the untraceable wan-
derers.
The stories, then, which we have of the thanksgiving and
jubilation of the people of Palos, when the "Nina" was descried
passing the bar of the river, fall readily among the accepted
truths of history. We can imagine how despondency vanished
amid the acclaims of exultation ; how multitudes hung upon the
words of strange revelations ; how the gaping populace won-
dered at the bedecked Indians ; and how throngs of people
opened a way that Columbus might lead the votive procession
to the church. The canonizers of course read between the lines
of the records that it was to the Church of Rabida that Colum-
bus with his men now betook themselves. It matters little.
There was much to mar the delight of some in the house-
holds. Comforting reports must be told of those who were
left at La Navidad. No one had died, unless the gale had sub-
merged the " Pinta " and her crew. She had not been seen
since the " Nina " parted with her in the gale.
The story of her rescue has already been told. She entered
the river before the rejoicings of the day were over, and relieved
the remaining anxiety.
The Spanish Court was known to be at this time at Bar-
The Court at ccloua, the Catalan port ou the Mediterranean. Co-
Barceiona. lumbus's first impulsc was to proceed thither in his
caravel ; but his recent hazards made him prudent, and so dis-
patching a messenger to the Court, he proceeded to Seville to
wait their majesties' commands. Of the native prisoners which
he had brought away, one had died at sea, three were too sick
to follow him, and were left at Palos, while six accompanied
him on his journey.
The messenger with such startling news had sped quickly ;
and Columbus did not wait long for a response to his letter.
The document (March 30) showed that the event had
30. "coium- made a deep impression on the Court. The new do-
monedto main of the west dwarfed for a while the conquests
from the Moors. There was great eagerness to com-
plete the title, and gather its wealth. Columbus was accord-
ingly instructed to set in motion at once measures for a new
expedition, and then to appear at Court and explain to the mon-
archs what action on their part was needful. The demand was
COLUMBUS IN SPAIN AGAIN. 245
promptly answered; and having organized the necessary ar-
rangements in Seville for the preparation of a fleet, he departed
for Barcelona to make homage to his sovereigns. His Indians
accompanied him. Porters bore his various wonders from the
new islands. His story had preceded him, and town after town
vied with each other in welcoming him, and passing him on to
new amazements and honors.
By the middle of April he approached Barcelona, and was
met by throngs of people, who conducted him into the
city. His Indians, arrayed in effective if not accus- in Barce?
tomed ornament of gold, led the line. Bearers of all
the marvels of the Indies followed, with their forty parrots and
other strange birds of liveliest plumage, with the skins of un-
known animals, with priceless plants that would now supplant
the eastern spices, and with the precious ornaments of the dusky
kings and princes whom he had met. Next, on horseback, came
Columbus himself, conspicuous amid the mounted
RccGivGd bv
chivalry of Spain. Thus the procession marched on, the sover-
through crowded streets, amid the shouts of lookers- ^^^^'
on, to the alcazar of the Moorish kings in the Calle Ancha,
at this time the residence of the Bishop of Urgil, where it is
supposed Ferdinand and Isabella had caused their thrones to be
set up, with a canopy of brocaded gold drooping about them.
Here the monarchs awaited the coming of Columbus.
Ferdinand, as the accounts picture him, was a man whose
moderate stature was helped by his erectness and KingFerdi.
robes to a decided dignity of carriage. His expjes- ^^^^'
sion in the ruddy glow of his complexion, clearness of eye, and
loftiness of brow, grew gracious in any pleasurable excitement.
The Queen was a very suitable companion, grave and Queen isa-
graceful in her demeanor. Her blue eyes and auburn ^®"*'
tresses comported with her outwardly benign air, and one looked
sharply to see anything of her firmness and courage in the pre-
vailing sweetness of her manner. The heir apparent, Prince
Juan, was seated by their side. The dignitaries of the Court
were grouped about.
Las Casas tells us how commanding Columbus looked when
he entered the room, surrounded by a brilliant com-
111 1 Columbua
pany of cavaliers. When he approached the royal ^foretbe
dais, both monarchs rose to receive him standing ; and
246 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
when he stooped to kiss their hands, they gently and graciously
lifted him, and made him sit as they did. They then asked to
be told of what he had seen.
As Columbus proceeded in his narrative, he pointed out the
visible objects of his speech, — the Indians, the birds, the skins,
the barbaric ornaments, and the stores of gold. We are told
of the prayer of the sovereigns at the close, in which all joined ;
and of the chanted Te Deum from the choir of the royal chapel,
which bore the thoughts of every one, says the narrator, on the
wings of melody to celestial delights. This ceremony ended,
Columbus was conducted like a royal guest to the lodgings
which had been provided for him.
It has been a question if the details of this reception, which
are put by Irving in imaginative fullness, and are commonly
told on such a thread of incidents as have been related, are
warranted by the scant accounts which are furnished us in the
Historie, in Las Casas, and in Peter Martyr, particularly since
the incident does not seem to have made enough of an impres-
sion at the time to have been noticed at all in the Dietaria of
the city, a record of events embodying those of far inferior inter-
est as we would now value them. Mr. George Sumner carefully
scanned this record many years ago, and could find not the
slightest reference to the festivities. He fancies that the inci-
dents in the mind of the recorder may have lost their signifi-
cance through an Aragonese jealousy of the supremacy of Leon
and Castile.
It is certainly true that in Peter Martyr, the contemporary
observer of this supposed pageantry, there is nothing to warrant
the exuberance of later writers. Martyr simply says that Co-
lumbus was allowed to sit in the sovereigns' presence.
Whatever the fact as to details, it seems quite evident that
this season at Barcelona made the only unalloyed days of happi-
ness, freed of anxiety, which Columbus ever experienced. He
was observed of all, and everybody was complacent to him. His
will was apparently law to King and subject. Las Casas tells
us that he passed among the admiring throngs with his face
wreathed with smiles of content. An equal complacency of
delight and expectation settled upon all with whom he talked of
the wonders of the land which he had found. They dreamed
as he did of entering into golden cities with their hundred
COLUMBUS IN SPAIN AGAIN. 247
bridges, that might cause new exultations, to which the present
were as nothing. It was a fatal lure to the proud Spanish na-
ture, and no one was doomed to expiate the folly of the delusion
more poignantly than Columbus himself.
Now that India had been found by the west, as was believed,
and Barcelona was very likely palpitating with the g ^^^^ ^^
thought, the news spread in every direction. What ^^^e^e^s-
were the discoveries of the Phoenicians to this ? What ques-
tions of ethnology, language, species, migi'ations, phenomena of
all sorts, in man and in the natural world, were pressing upon
the mind, as the results were considered ? Were not these par-
rots which Columbus had exhibited such as Pliny tells us -are
in Asia ?
The great event had fallen in the midst of geographical de-
velopment, and was understood at last. Marco Polo and the
others had told their marvels of the east. The navigators of
Prince Henry had found new wonders on the sea. Regiomon-
tanus, Behaim, and Toscanelli had not communed in vain with
cosmographical problems. Even errors had been stepping-
stones ; as when the belief in the easterly over-extension of
Asia had pictured it near enough in the west to convince men
that the hazard of the Sea of Darkness was not so great after
all.
Spain was then the centre of much activity of mind. " I
am here," records Peter Martyr, " at the source of this
welcome intelligence from the new found lands, and tyr records
as the historian of such events, I may hope to go
down to posterity as their recorder." We must remember this
profession when we try to account for his meagre record of the
reception at Barcelona.
That part of the letter of Peter Martyr, dated at Barcelona,
on the ides of May, 1493, which conveyed to his correspondent
the first tidings of Columbus's return, is in these words, as trans-
lated by Harrisse : " A certain Christopher Colonus, a Ligurian,
returned from the antipodes. He had obtained for that purpose
three ships from my sovereigns, with much difficulty, because
the ideas which he expressed were considered extravagant. He
came back and brought specimens of many precious things, es-
pecially gold, which those regions naturally produce." ' Martyr
also teUs us that when Pomponius Laetus got such news, he
248 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
could scarcely refrain " from tears of joy at so unlooked-for an
event." " What more delicious food for an ingenious mind ! "
said Martyr to him in return. " To talk with people who have
seen all this is elevating to the mind." The confidence of Mar-
tyr, however, in the belief of Columbus that the true Indies had
been found was not marked. He speaks of the islands as ad-
jacent to, and not themselves, the East.
Sebastian Cabot remembered the time when these marvelous
The'news in tidiugs rcachcd the court of Henry VII. in London,
England. ^^^ j^g ^gj^g ^g ^jj^^ j^ ^^g accouutcd a " thing more
divine than human."
A letter which Columbus had written and early dispatched
Columbus's *o Barcelona, nearly in duplicate, to the treasurers of
first letter, ^jj^ ^^^ crowus was promptly translated into Latin, and
was sent to Italy to be issued in numerous editions, to be coj)ied
in turn by the Paris and Antwerp printers, and a little more
sluggishly by those of Germany.
There is, however, singularly little commenting on these
events that passed into print and has come down to us ; and
Influence of ^c may wcll doubt if the effect on the public mind,
the event. bcyoud Certain learned circles, was at all commensurate
with what we may now imagine the recognition of so important
an event ought to have been. Nordenskiold, studying the car-
tography and literature of the early discoveries in America in
his Facsimile Atlas, is forced to the conclusion that " scarcely
any discovery of importance was ever received with so much
indifference, even in circles where sufficient genius and states-
manship ought to have prevailed to appreciate the changes they
foreshadowed in the development of the economical and polit-
ical conditions of mankind."
It happened on June 19, 1493, but a few weeks after the
Pope had made his first public recognition of the dis-
19. "carja- covcry, that the Spanish ambassador at the Papal
Court, Bernardin de Carjaval, referred in an oration
to " the unknown lands, latety found, lying towards the Indies ; "
and at about the same time there was but a mere reference to
the event in the Los Tratados of Doctor Alonso Ortis, pub-
lished at Seville.
While this strange bruit was thus spreading more or less, we
get some glimpses of the personal life of Columbus during these
COLUMBUS IN SPAIN AGAIN. 249
days of his sojourn in Barcelona. We hear of him riding
through the streets on horseback, on one side of the ^ , v -
. , T-j . f Columbus in
King, with Frince Juan on the other. ^*^o^-
We find record of his being awarded the pension of thirty
crowns, as the first discoverer of land, by virtue of
the mysterious light, and Irving thinks that we may freTseekig'
condone this theft from the brave sailor who unques- ^^^^'
tionably saw land the first, by remembering that " Columbus's
whole ambition was involved." It seems to others that his
whole character was involved.
We find him a guest at a banquet given by Cardinal Meu-
doza, and the well-known story of his making an Qg^ ^^ ^j ^^^
stand upright, by chipping one end of it, is associated ^^s:-
with this merriment of the table. An impertinent question of
a shallow courtier had induced Columbus to show a table full of
guests that it was easy enough to do anything when the way
was pointed out. The story, except as belonging to a tradi-
tional stock of anecdotes, dating far back of Columbus, always
ready for an application, has no authority earlier than Benzoni,
and loses its point in the destruction of the end on which the
aim was to make it stand. This has been so palpable to some
of the repeaters of the story that they have supposed that the
feat was accomplished, not by cracking the end of the Qgg^ but
by using a quick motion which broke the sack which holds the
yolk, so that that weightier substance settled at one end, and
balanced the Qgg in an upright position.
So passed the time with the new-made hero, in drinking, as
Irving expresses it, " the honeyed draught of popularity before
enmity and detraction had time to drug it with bitterness."
We find the sovereigns bestowing upon him, on the 20th of
May, a coat of arms, which shows a castle and a lion J493 jj^y
in the upper quarters, and in those below, a group of fcoS^or''**
golden islands in a sea of waves, on the one hand, and *™^
the arms to which his family had been entitled, on the other.
Humboldt speaks of this archipelago as the first map of Amer-
ica, but he apparently knew only Oviedo's description of the
arms, for the latter places the islands in a gulf formed by a main-
land, and in this fashion they are grouped in a blazon of the
arms which is preserved at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at
Paris — a duplicate being at Genoa. Harrisse says that this
250
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
design is the original water-color, made under Columbus's eye in
1502. In this picture, — which is the earliest blazonry which
has come down to us, — the other lower quarter has the five
golden anchors on a blue ground, which it is claimed was ad-
THE ARMS OF COLUMBUS.
[From Oviedo's Cosmica.']
judged to Columbus as the distinctive badge of an Admiral of
Spain. The personal arms are relegated to a minor overlying
shield at the lower point of the escutcheon. Oviedo also says
that trees and other objects should be figured on the mainland.
The lion and castle of the original grant were simply re-
minders of the arms of Leon and Castile ; but Columbus seems,
COLUMBUS IN SPAIN AGAIN. 251
of his own motion, so far as Harrisse can discover, to have
changed the blazonry of those objects in the drawing of 1502
to agree with those of the royal arms. It was by the same ar-
rogant license, apparently, that he introduced later the conti-
nental shore of the archipelago; and Harrisse can find no
record that the anchors were ever by any authority added to his
blazon, nor that the professed family arms, borne in connection,
had any warrant whatever.
The earliest engraved copy of the arms is in the Historia
General of Oviedo in 1535, where a profile helmet supports a
crest made of a globe topped by a cross. In Oviedo's Coronica
of 1547, the helmet is shown in front view. There seems to have
been some wide discrepancies in the heraldic excursions of these
early writers. Las Casas, for instance, puts the golden lion in
a silver field, — when heraldry abhors a conjunction of metals,
as much as nature abhors a vacuum. The discussion of the
family arms which were added by Columbus to the escutcheon
made a significant part of the arguments in the suit, many years
later, of Baldassare (Balthazar) Colombo to possess the Admi-
ral's dignities ; and as Harrisse points out, the emblem of those
Italian Colombos of any pretensions to nobility was invariably a
dove of some kind, — a device quite distinct from those designa-
ted by Columbus. This assumption of family arms by Columbus
is held by Harrisse to be simply a concession to the prejudices
of his period, and to the exigencies of his new position.
The arms have been changed under the dukes of Yeragua to
show silver-capped waves in the sea, while a globe surmounted
by a cross is placed in the midst of a gulf containing only five
islands.
There is another later accompaniment of the arms, of which
the origin has escaped aU search. It is far more familiar than
the escutcheon, on which it plays the part of a motto. His alleged
It sometimes represents that Columbus found for the "^°"*''
allied crowns a new world, and at other times that he gave
one to them.
For Castilla 6 por Leon
Nuevo Miindo halld Colon.
A Castilla, y a Leon
Nuevo Mundo did Colon.
Oviedo is the earliest to mention this distich in 1535. It is
252 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
given in the ffistorie, not as a motto of the arms, but as an
inscription placed by the king on the tomb of Columbus
some years after his death. If this is true, it does away with
the claims of Gomara that Columbus himself added it to his
arms.
But diplomacy had its part to play in these events. As the
Diplomacy Christian world at that time recognized the lights of
of nlma^ the Holy Father to confirm any trespass on the pos-
cation. sessions of the heathen, there was a prompt effort on
the part of Ferdinand to bring the matter to the attention of
the Pope. As early as 1438, bulls of Martin V. and Eugene
IV. had permitted the Spaniards to sail west and the Portuguese
south ; and a confirmation of the same had been made by Pope
Nicholas the Fifth. In 1479, the rival crowns of Portugal and
Spain had agreed to respect their mutual rights under these
papal decisions.
The messengers whom Ferdinand sent to Eome were in-
structed to intimate that the actual possession which had been
made in their behalf of these new regions did not require papal
sanction, as they had met there no Christian occupants ; but that
as dutiful children of the church it would be grateful to re-
ceive such a benediction on their energies for the faith as a con-
firmatory bull would imply. Ferdinand had too much of wili-
ness in his own nature, and the practice of it was too much a
part of the epoch, wholly to trust a man so notoriously perverse
and obstinate as Alexander VI. was. Though Muiios calls
Alexander the friend of Ferdinand, and though the Pope was
by birth an Aragonese, experience had shown that there was
no certainty of his support in a matter affecting the interest
of Spain.
A folio printed leaf in Gothic characters, of which the single
copy sold in London in 1854 is said to be the only
1493. May ^"^ , , ., t i i it i
3. TheBuu one known to bibliographers, made public to the
world the famous Bull of Demarcation of Alexander
VI., bearing date May 3, 1493. If one would believe Hak-
luyt, the Pope had been induced to do this act by his own
option, rather than at the intercession of the Spanish mon-
archs. Under it, and a second bull of the day following, Spain
was entitled to possess, " on condition of planting the Catholic
COLUMBUS IN SPAIN AGAIN.
253
POPE ALEXANDER VI.
[A bust in the Berlin Museum.]
254 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
faith," all lands not already occupied by Christian powers, west
of a meridian drawn one hundred leagues west of the Azores
and Cape de Verde Islands, evidently on the supposition that
these two groups were in the same longitude, the fact being that
the most westerly of the southern, and the most easterly of the
northern, group possessed nearly the same meridian. Though
Portugal was not mentioned in describing this line, it was un-
derstood that there was reserved to her the same privilege
easterly.
There was not as yet any consideration given to the division
which this great circle meridian was likely to make on the other
side of the globe, where Portugal was yet to be most interested.
The Cape of Good Hope had not then been doubled, and the
present effect of the division was to confine the Portuguese to
an exploration of the western African coast and to adjacent
islands. It will be observed that in the placing of this line
the magnetic phenomena which Columbus had observed on his
recent voyage were not forgotten, if the coincidence can be so
interpreted. Humboldt suggests that it can.
To make a physical limit serve a political one was an obvious
Line of no rccoursc at a time when the line of no variation was
variation. thought to bc uuiquc and of a true north and south
direction ; but within a century the observers found three other
lines, as Acosta tells us in his Historia Natural de las Indias,
in 1589 ; and there proved to be a persistent migration of these
lines, all little suited to terrestrial demarcations. Roselly de Lor-
gues and the canonizers, however, having given to Columbus the
planning of the line in his cell at Rabida, think, with a surpris-
ing prescience on his part, and with a very convenient oblivi-
ousness on their part, that he had chosen " precisely the only
point of our planet which science would choose in our day, —
a mysterious demarcation made by its omnipotent Creator,"
in sovereign disregard, unfortunately, of the laws of his own
universe !
Meanwhile there were movements in Portugal which Ferdi-
nand had not failed to notice. An ambassador had
Suspicious - . , . , . . .
movements couic from its kinsT, askiuff permission to buy certain
in Portugal. ., „ iM-fj \\.' £ X£'
articles oi prohibited exportation tor use on an Airican
expedition which the Portuguese were fitting out. Ferdinand
suspected that the true purpose of this armament was to seize
COLUMBUS IN SPAIN AGAIN. 255
the new islands, under a pretense as dishonorable as that which
covered the ostensible voyage to the Cape de Verde Islands, by
whose exposure Columbus had been driven into Spain. The
Spanish monarch was alert enough to get quite beforehand with
his royal brother. Before the ambassador of which mention
has been made had come to the Spanish Court, Ferdinand had
dispatched Lope de Herrera to Lisbon, armed with a concilia-
tory and a denunciatory letter, to use one or the other, as he
might find the conditions demanded. The Portuguese historian
Resende tells us that Joao, in order to give a wrong scent, had
openly bestowed largesses on some and had secretly suborned
other members of Ferdinand's cabinet, so that he did not lack
for knowledge of the Spanish intentions from the latter mem-
bers. He and his ambassadors were accordingly found by Fer-
dinand to be inexplicably prepared at every new turn of the
negotiations.
In this way Joao had been informed of the double mission of
Herrera, and could avoid the issue with him, while he sent his
own ambassadors to Spain, to promise that, pending their nego-
tiations, no vessel should sail on any voyage of discovery for
sixty days. They were also to propose that instead of the papal
line, one should be drawn due west from the Canaries, giving
all new discoveries north to the Spaniards, and all south to the
Portuguese. This new move Ferdinand turned to his own advan-
tage, for it gave him the opportunity to enter upon a course of
diplomacy which he could extend long enough to allow Columbus
to get off with a new armament. He then sent a fresh embassy,
with instructions to move slowly and protract the discussion,
but to resort, when compelled, to a proposition for arbitration.
Joao was foiled and he knew it. " These ambassadors," he said,
" have no feet to hurry and no head to propound." The Span-
ish game was the best played, and the Portuguese king grew
fretful under it, and intimated sometimes a purpose to proceed
to violence, but he was restrained by a better wisdom. We de-
pend mainly upon the Portuguese historians for understanding
these complications, and it is to be hoped that some time the
archives of the Vatican may reveal the substance of these tri-
partite negotiations of the papal court and the two crowns.
Before Columbus had left Barcelona, a large gratuity had
256 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
been awarded to him by his sovereigns ; an order had been
issued commanding free lodgings to be given to him and his
followers, wherever he went, and the original stipulations as to
1493. May. houors and authority, made by the sovereigns at
coiumbuf Santa Fe, had been confirmed (May 28). A royal
confirmed, ggg^j ^^^ jj^^ confidcd to his keeping, to be set to let-
ters patent, and to commissions that it might be found necessary
to issue. It might be used even in appointing a deputy, to act
in the absence of Columbus. His appointments were to hold
during the royal pleasure. His own power was defined at the
same time, and in particular to hold command over the entire
expedition, and to conduct its future government and explora-
May 28. Co- tious. He left Barcelona, after leavetakings, on May
le^es Bar- 28 ; and his instructions, as printed by Navarrete, were
ceiona. signed the next day. It is not unlikely they were
based on suggestions of Columbus made in a letter, without
June. In date, which has recently been printed in the Cartas
seviue. ^g Indias (1877). Early in June, he was in Seville,
and soon after he was joined by Juan Rodriguez de Fonseca,
archdeacon of Seville, who, as representative of the
Crown, had been made the chief director of the prepa-
rations. It is claimed by Harrisse that this priest has been
painted by the biographers of Columbus much blacker than he
really was, on the strength of the objurgations which the His-
torie bestows upon him. Las Casas calls him worldly ; and he
deserves the epithet if a dominating career of thirty years in
controlling the affairs of the Indies is any evidence of fitness in
such matters. His position placed him where he had purposes
to thwart as well as projects to foster, and the record of this
age of discovery is not without many proofs of selfish and dis-
honorable motives, which Fonseca might be called upon to re-
press. That his discrimination was not always clear-sighted
may be expected ; that he was sometimes perfidious may be
true, but he was dealing mainly with those who could be perfid-
ious also. That he abused his authority might also go without
dispute ; but so did Columbus and the rest. In the game of
diamond-cut-diamond, it is not always just to single out a single
victim for condemnation, as is done by Irving and the canon-
izers.
It was while at Seville, engaged in this work of preparation,
COLUMBUS IN SPAIN AGAIN. 257
that Fonseca sought to check the demands of Columbus as re-
spects the number of his personal servitors. That these de-
mands were immoderate, the character of Columbus, never cau-
tious under incitement, warrants us in believing ; and that the
official guardian of the royal treasury should have views of his
own is not to be wondered at. The story goes that the sover-
eigns forced Fonseca to yield, and that this was the offense of
Columbus which could neither be forgotten nor forgiven by
Fonseca, and for which severities were visited upon him and his
heirs in the years to come. Irving is confident that Fonseca
has escaped the condemnation which Spanish writers would
willingly have put upon him, for fear of the ecclesiastical cen-
sors of the press.
The measures which were now taken in accordance with the
instructions given to Columbus, already referred to, to regu-
late the commerce of the Indies, with a custom house at Cadiz
and a corresponding one in Espanola under the control of the
Admiral, ripened in time into what was known as the council for
Council for the Indies. It had been early determined ^^^^'^'^^es-
(May 23) to control all emigration to the new regions, and no
one was allowed to trade thither except under license from the
monarchs, Columbus, or Fonseca.
A royal order had put all ships and appurtenances in the
ports of Andalusia at the demand of Fonseca and j^ew fleet
Columbus, for a reasonable compensation, and com- ei"ipp«<*-
pelled all persons required for the service to embark in it on
suitable pay. Two thirds of the ecclesiastical tithes, the se-
questered property of banished Jews, and other resources were
set apart to meet these expenses, and the treasurer was author-
ized to contract a loan, if necessary. To eke out the resources,
this last was resorted to, and 5,000,000 maravedis were borrowed
from the Duke of Medina-Sidonia. All the transactions relating
to the procuring and dispensing of moneys had been confided
to a treasurer, Francisco Pinelo ; with the aid of an accountant,
Juan de Soria. Everything was hurriedly gathered for the
armament, for it was of the utmost importance that the prepa-
rations should move faster than the watching diplomacy.
Artillery which had been in use on shipboard for more than
a century and a half was speedily amassed. The arquebuse,
however, had not altogether been supplanted by the matchlock,
258
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
©fr?)03tim
Beradi and
Vespucius.
and was yet preferred in some hands for its lightness. Mili-
tary stores which had been left over from the Moorish war and
were now housed
in the Alhambra,
at this time con-
verted into an
arsenal, were op-
portunely drawn
upon.
The labor of an
intermediary in
much of this prep-
aration fell upon
Juonato
Beradi,
a Florentine mer-
chant then settled
in Seville, and it
is interesting to
know that Amer-
i c u s Vespucius,
then a mature
man of two and
forty, was en-
gaged under Be- @uc 2(rmbro(tf r fati mac^ett tc^/
radi in this work jlj^K ©euCert jur icft fTeifliglK^/
of preparation, rsjjjf gtpcc^e/fcfenetDnffem \>m 6urd}J03tl/
^ii S)&tmn obrr @t^d(m pogn/
S3arauff irmbfabn lonD^m @dnncn/
S)ie ntc^e leicfetlicft i|l jutrcnrtcn/
itdxmii mangtt)!^ jumgtel mag fcftie^tt/
rDcr :Runp ©pma m mit^mU^n.
From the fact
that certain horse-
men and agricul-
turists were or-
dered to be in
1493. June Seville
^' on June
20, and to hold
themselves in
CROSSBOW-MAKER.
[From Jost Amman's Beschreibung, 1586.]
readiness to embark, it may be inferred that the sailing of some
portion of the fleet may at that time have been expected at a
date not much later.
The interest of Isabella in the new expedition was almost
COLUMBUS IN SPAIN AGAIN. 259
wholly on its emotional and intellectual side. She had been
greatly engrossed with the spiritual welfare of the In- Isabella's
dians whom Columbus had taken to Barcelona. Their ^"^^'^^st.
baptism had taken place with great state and ceremony, the
King, Queen, and Prince Juan officiating as sponsors. Indians bap-
It was intended that they should reembark with the *^®*^-
new expedition. Prince Juan, however, picked out one of these
Indians for his personal service, and when the fellow died, two
years later, it was a source of gratification, as Herrera tells us,
that at last one of his race had entered the gates of heaven !
Only four of the six ever reached their native country. We
know nothing of the fate of those left sick at Palos.
The Pope, to further all methods for the extension of the
faith, had commissioned (June 24) a Benedictine
monk, Bernardo Buil (Boyle), of Catalonia, to be his
apostolic vicar in the new world, and this priest was to be ac-
companied by eleven brothers of the order. The Queen in-
trusted to them the sacred vessels and vestments from her own
altar. The instructions which Columbus received were to deal
lovingly with the poor natives. We shall see how faithful he
was to the behest.
Isabella's musings were not, however, all so piously confined.
She wrote to Columbus from Segovia in August, requiring him
to make provisions for bringing back to Spain specimens of
the peculiar birds of the new regions, as indications of untried
climates and seasons.
Again, in writing to Columbus, September 5, she urged him
not to rely wholly on his own s:reat knowledge, but to
1 11 .IIP 1 1 • -m Astronomy
take such a skilliul astronomer on his voyage as r ray and naviga-
Antonio de Marchena, — the same whom Columbus
later spoke of as being one of the two persons who had never
made him a laughing-stock. Munoz says the office of astron-
omer was not filled.
Dealing with the question of longitude was a matter in which
there was at this time little insight, and no general agreement.
Columbus, as we have seen, suspected the variation of the
needle might afford the basis of a system ; but he grew to appre-
hend, as he tells us in the narrative of his fourth voyage, that the
astronomical method was the only infallible one, but whether his
preference was for the opposition of planets, the occultations of
260
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS,
stars, the changes in the moon's declination, or the comparisons
of Jupiter's altitude with the lunar position, — all of which were
in some form in ^^ gt^n^r- ^
vogx^e, - does not ^tt ^^Xm<ii^tt.
appear. The
method by convey-
ance of time, so
well known now
in the use of chro-
nometers, seems to
have later been
suggested by
Alonso de Santa
Cruz, — too late
for the recognition
of Columbus ; but
the instrumental-
ity of water-clocks,
sand - clocks, and
other crude de-
vices, like the tim-
ing of burning
wicks, was too
uncertain to ob-
tain even tran- _^ . . . _ __-. _
sient sanction. 3^J> ittac^ebie xtX)StY(tm<^i^r/
The astrolabe, ^txal^tmb ^latimO^UX ^m^WXl
for all the im- ^ott ^tVittti 'gla^ v)rtD f fetttt 9}i^rfatU/
provementsof Be- @uf/ba^ fie|abm \(xnofn 6efrant)t/
haim, was still an CiJiacljaUCf? barjU J^Ul^eit ©C^CU^/
awkward instru- Sarejjtt ic^ (1^ ^^i^^i befcftku^/
Serb Die g^eu^ @ritn/@ratt>/rot t)ff Sfatt)
ascer-
Astrolabe.
ment for
taining latitude,
especially on a
rolling
or pitch-
ing ship, and we
know that Vasco da Gama went on shore at the Cape de Verde
Islands to take observations when the motion of the sea balked
him on shipboard.
THE CLOCK-MAKER.
[From Jost Amman's Beschreibung, Frankfort.]
COLUMBUS IN SPAIN AGAIN. 261
Whether the cross-staff or Jackstaff, a seaboard implement
somewhat more convenient than the astrolabe, was known to
Columbus is not very clear, — probably it was not ; but the
navigators that soon followed him found it more man-
ageable on rolling ships than the older instruments. Jjack.
It was simply a stick, along which, after one end of * * '
it was placed at the eye, a scaled crossbar was pushed until its
two ends touched, the lower, the horizon, and the upper, the
heavenly body whose altitude was to be taken. A scale on the
stick then showed, at the point where the bar was left, the
degree of latitude.
The best of such aids, however, did not conduce to great ac-
curacy, and the early maps, in comparison with modern, show
sometimes several degrees of error in scaling from the equator.
An error once committed was readily copied, and different carto-
graphical records put in service by the professional map-makers
came sometimes by a process of averages to show some sur-
prising diversities, with positive errors of considerable Errors in
extent. The island of Cuba, for instance, early found ^"*"^«-
place in the charts seven and eight degrees too far north, with
dependent islands in equally wrong positions.
As the preparations went on, a fleet of seventeen vessels, large
and small, three of which were called transports, had, according
to the best estimates, finally been put in readiness. Scillacio
tells us that some of the smallest had been constructed of light
draft, especially for exploring service. Horses and domestic
animals of all kinds were at last gathered on board.
Every kind of seed and agricultural implement, stores vessels
of commodities for barter with the Indians, and all the
appurtenances of active life were accumulated. Munoz re-
marks that it is evident that sugar cane, rice, and vines had not
been discovered or noted by Columbus on his first voyage, or we
would not have found them among the commodities provided
for the second.
In making up the company of the adventurers, there was lit-
tle need of active measures to induce recruits. Many Their com-
an Hidalgo and cavalier took service at their own p*°'®^-
cost. Galvano, who must have received the reports "by tradi-
tion, says that such was the " desire of travel that the men were
262 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
ready to leap into the sea to swim, if it had been possible, into
these new found parts." Traffic, adventure, luxury, feats of
arms, — all were inducements that lured one individual or an-
other. Some there were to make names for themselves in their
new fields. Such was Alonso de Ojeda, a daring youth,
expert in all activities, who had served his ambition in
the Moorish wars, and had been particularly favored by the
Duke of Medina-Celi, the friend of Columbus.
We ^nd others whose names we shall again encounter.
The younger brother of Columbus, Diego Colon, had come to
Spain, attracted by the success of Christopher. The father and
LasCasas, uuclc of Las Casas, from whose conversations with
Son^La t^e Admiral that historian could profit in the future,
cosa, etc. Juan Ponce de Leon, the later discoverer of Florida,
Juan de la Cosa, whose map is the first we have of the New
World, and Dr. Chanca, a physician of Seville, who was pen-
sioned by the Crown, and to whom we owe one of the narratives
of the voyage, were also of the company.
The thousand persons to which the expedition had at first been
limited became, under the pressure of eager cavaliers, nearer
1,200, and this number was eventually increased by stowaways
1,500 souls ^^^ other hangers-on, till the number embarked was
^^''^^' not much short of 1,500. This is Oviedo's statement.
Bernaldez and Peter Martyr make the number 1,200, or there-
abouts. Perhaps these were the ordinary hands, and the 300
more were officers and the like, for the statements do not render
it certain how the enumerations are made. So far as we know
their names, but a single companion of Columbus in his first
voyage was now with him. The twenty horsemen, already men-
tioned are supposed to be the only mounted soldiers that em-
barked. Columbus says, in a letter addressed to their majesties,
that " the number of colonists who desire to go thither amounts
to two thousand," which would indicate that a large number
were denied. The letter is undated, and may not be of a date
near the sailing ; if it is, it probably indicates to some degree the
number of persons who were denied embarkation. As the day
approached for the departure there was some uneasiness over a
report of a Portuguese caravel sailing westward from Madeira,
and it was proposed to send some of the fleet in advance to over-
take the vessel ; but after some diplomatic fence between Ferdi-
COLUMBUS IN SPAIN AGAIN 263
nand and JoSo, the disquiet ended, or at least nothing was done
on either side.
At one time Columbus had hoped to embark on the 15th of
August; but it was six weeks later before everything was
ready.
CHAPTER XII.
THE SECOND VOYAGE.
1493-1494.
The last day in port was a season of solemnity and gratula-
Theembar- t^on. Coma, a Spaniard, who, if not an eyewitness,
kation. g^^ -jjjg description from observers, thus describes the
scene in a letter to Scillacio in Pavia : " The religious rites
usual on such occasions were performed by the sailors ; the last
embraces were given ; the ships were hung with brilliant cloths ;
streamers were wound in the rigging ; and the royal standard
flapped everywhere at the sterns of the vessels. The pipers and
harpers held in mute astonishment the Nereids and even the
Sirens with their sweet modulations. The shores reechoed the
clang of trumpets and the braying of clarions. The discharge
of cannon rolled over the water. Some Venetian galleys chanc-
ing to enter the harbor joined in the jubilation, and the cheers
of united nations went up with prayers for blessings on the ven-
turing crews."
Night followed, calm or broken, restful or wearisome, as the
1493. Sep- case might be, for one or another, and when the day
Th^flTef' dawned (September 25, 1493) the note of prepara-
°*^^*' tion was everywhere heard. It was the same on the
three great caracks, on the lesser caravels, and on the light
craft, which had been especially fitted for exploration. The
eager and curious mass of beings which crowded their decks
were certainly a motley show. There were cavalier and priest,
hidalgo and artisan, soldier and sailor. The ambitious thoughts
which animated them were as various as their habits. There
were those of the adventurer, with no purpose whatever but
pastime, be it easy or severe. There was the greed of the spec-
tdator, counting the values of trinkets against stores of gold.
THE SECOND VOYAGE. 265
There was the brooding of the administrators, with unsolved
problems of new communities in their heads. There were ears
that already caught the songs of salvation from native throats.
There was Columbus himself, combining all ambitions in one,
looking around this harbor of Cadiz studded with his lordly-
fleet, spreading its creaking sails, lifting its dripping anchors.
It was his to contrast it with the scene at Palos a little over a
year before. This needy Genoese vested with the viceroyalty
of a new world was more of an adventurer than any. coiumbua's
He was a speculator who overstepped them all in au- character.
dacious visions and golden expectancies. He was an adminis-
trator over a new government, untried and undivined. To his
ears the hymns of the Church soared with a militant warning,
dooming the heathen of the Indies, and appalling the Moslem
hordes that imperiled the Holy Sepulchre.
Under the eye of this one commanding spirit, the vessels fell
into a common course, and were wafted out upon the great
ocean under the lead of the escorting galleys of the Venetians.
The responsibility of the captain-general of the great armament
had begun. He had been instructed to steer widely clear of
the Portuguese coast, and he bore away in the lead directly to
the southwest. On the seventh day (October 1)
they reached the Gran Canaria, where they tarried ber i. ca-
to repair a leaky ship. On the 5th they anchored at
Gomera. Two days were required here to complete some parts
of their equipment, for the islands had already become the
centre of great industries and produced largely. " They have
enterprising merchants who carry their commerce to many
shores," wrote Coma to Scillacio.
There were wood and water to be taken on board. A variety
of domestic animals, calves, goats, sheep, and swine; some
fowls, and the seed of many orchard and garden fruits, oranges,
lemons, melons, and the like, were gathered from the inhabi-
tants and stowed away in the remaining spaces of the ships.
On the 7th the fleet sailed, but it was not till the 13th that
the gentle winds had taken them beyond Ferro and ^^^^ ^^^^
the unbounded sea was about the great Admiral. He ber is. At
bore away much more southerly than in his first voy- .
age, so as to strike, if he could, the islands that were so con-
stantly spoken of, the previous year, as lying southeasterly from
Espanola.
266 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
His ultimate port was, of course, the harbor of La Navidad,
and he had issued sealed instructions to all his commanders, to
guide any one who should part company with the fleet. The
winds were favorable, but the dull sailing of the Admiral's
ship restrained the rest. In ten days they had overshot the lon-
gitude of the Sargossa Sea without seeing it, leaving its floating
weeds to the north. In a few days more they experienced heavy
St. Elmo's tempests. They gathered confidence from an old be-
light. YiQi^ when they saw St. Elmo waving his lambent
flames about the upper rigging, while they greeted his presence
with their prayers and songs.
" The fact is certain," says Coma, " that two lights shone
through the darkness of the night on the topmast of the Admi-
ral's ship. Forthwith the tempest began to abate, the sea to
remit its fury, the waves their violence, and the surface of the
waves became as smooth as polished marble." This sudden gale
of four hours' duration came on St. Simon's eve.
The same authority represents that the protracted voyage had
caused their water to run low, for the Admiral, confident of his
nearness to land, and partly to reassure the timid, had caused it
to be served unstintingly. " You might compare him to Moses,"
adds Coma, " encouraging the thirsty armies of the Israelites in
the dry wastes of the wilderness."
On Saturday, November 2, the leaders compared reckonings.
1493. No- Some thought they had come 780 leagues from Ferro ;
▼ember 2. othcrs, 800. There were anxiety and weariness on
board. The constant fatigue of bailing out the leaky ships had
had its disheartening effect. Columbus, with a practiced eye,
saw signs of land in the color of the water and the shifting winds,
and he signaled every vessel to take in sail. It was a
waiting night. The first light of Sunday glinted on the
top of a lofty mountain ahead, descried by a watch at the Ad-
miral's masthead. As the island was approached, the Admiral
Dominica named it, in remembrance of the holy day, Dominica.
Island. rp^g usual scrvicc with the Salve Regina was chanted
throughout the fleet, which moved on steadily, bringing island
after island into view. Columbus could find no good anchorage
at Dominica, and leaving one vessel to continue the
search, he passed on to another island, which he
named from his ship, Marigalante. Here he landed, set up the
THE SECOND VOYAGE.
267
UPE
aPointel^oi
'delaG^Vigie
LA BASSETERRE
fo VUtucFoft
lesSaintel^ ^C"" '''
T //\<:«^Terped*enlIaut
■^
tP
CMelville
cduCapuci
^«^«- LA DOA/ir
*^*^ (An(?]ete
^F^MulcJrr
C.Cachacrou'
GUADALOUPE, MARIE GALANTE, AND DOMINICA.
[Prom Henrique's Les Colonies Francoises, Paris, 1889.]
royal banner in token of possession of the group, — for he had
seen six islands, — and sought for inhabitants. He could find
none, nor any signs of occupation. There was nothing but a
tangle of wood in every direction, a sparkling mass of leafage.
268 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
trembling in luxurious beauty and giving off odors of spice.
Some of the men tasted an unknown fruit, and suffered an im-
mediate inflammation about the face, which it required remedies
to assuage. The next morning Columbus was attracted
vembers. by the lofty volcanic peak of another island, and, sail-
ing up to it, he could see cascades on the sides of this
eminence.
" Among those who viewed this marvelous phenomena at a
distance from the ships," says Coma, " it was at first a subject
of dispute whether it were light reflected from masses of com-
pact snow, or the broad surface of a smooth-worn road. At
last the opinion prevailed that it was a vast river."
Columbus remembered that he had promised the monks of
Our Lady of Guadaloupe, in Estremadura, to place some token
of them in this strange world, and so he gave this isl-
and the name of Guadaloupe. Landing the next day,
a week of wonders followed.
The exploring parties found the first village abandoned ;
but this had been done so hastily that some young children had
been left behind. These they decked with hawks' bells, to win
their returning parents. One place showed a public square sur-
rounded by rectangular houses, made of logs and intertwined
branches, and thatched with palms. They went through the
houses and noted what they saw. They observed at the entrance
of one some serpents carved in wood. They found netted ham-
mocks, beside calabashes, pottery, and even skulls used for uten-
sils of household service. They discovered cloth made of cot-
ton ; bows and bone-tipped arrows, said sometimes to be pointed
with human shin-bones ; domesticated fowl very like geese ;
tame parrots ; and pineapples, whose flavor enchanted them.
They found what might possibly be relics of Europe, washed
hither by the equatorial currents as they set from the African
coasts, — an iron pot, as they thought it «(we know this from the
Historie), and the stern-timber of a vessel, which they could
have less easily mistaken. They found something to
horrify them in human bones, the remains of a feast,
as they were ready enough to believe, for they were seeking con-
firmation of the stories of cannibals which Columbus had heard
on his first voyage. They learned that boys were fattened like
capons.
THE SECOND VOYAGE.
269
270 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS,
The next day they captured a youth and some women, but
the men eluded them. Columbus was now fully convinced that
he had at last discovered the cannibals, and when it was found
that one of his captains and eight men had not returned to
their ship, he was under great apprehensions. He sent ex-
ploring parties into the woods. They hallooed and fired their
arquebuses, but to no avail. As they threaded their way
through the thickets, they came upon some villages, but the in-
habitants fled, leaving their meals half cooked ; and they were
convinced they saw human flesh on the spit and in the pots.
While this party was absent, some women belonging to the
neighboring islands, captives of this savage people, came off to
the ships and sought protection. Columbus decked them with
rings and bells, and forced them ashore, while they begged to re-
main. The islanders stripped off their ornaments, and allowed
them to return for more. These women said that the chief of
the island and most of the warriors were absent on a predatory
expedition.
The party searching for the lost men returned without suc-
ojeda's ex- ^css, whcu Alonso dc Ojcda offered to lead forty men
pedition. '^^^^ ^j^^ interior for a more thorough search. This
party was as unsuccessful as the other. Ojeda reported he
had crossed twenty-six streams in going inland, and that the
country was found everywhere abounding in odorous trees,
strange and delicious fruits, and brilliant birds.
While this second party was gone, the crews took aboard a
supply of water, and on Ojeda's return Columbus resolved to
proceed, and was on the point of sailing, when the absent men
appeared on the shore and signaled to be taken off. They had
got lost in a tangled and pathless forest, and all efforts to climb
high enough in trees to see the stars and determine their course
had been hopeless. Finally striking the sea, they had followed
the shore till they opportunely espied the fleet. They brought
with them some women and boys, but reported they had seen
no men.
Among the accounts of these early experiences of the Span-
iards with the native people, the story of cannibalism
is a constant theme. To circulate such stories en-
hanced the wonder with which Europe was to be impressed.
The cruelty of the custom was not altogether unwelcome to war-
THE SECOND VOYAGE. 271
rant a retaliatory mercilessness. Historians have not wholly de-
cided that this is enough to account for the most positive state-
ments about man-eating tribes. Fears and prejudices might do
much to raise such a belief, or at least to magnify the habits.
Irving remarks that the preservation of parts of the human
body, among the natives of Espanola, was looked upon as a votive
service to ancestors, and it may have needed only prejudice to
convert such a custom into cannibalism when found
with the Caribs. The adventurousness of the nature *"^**
of this fierce people and their wanderings in wars naturally
served to sharpen their intellects beyond the passive unobser-
vance of the pacific tribes on which they preyed ; so they be-
came more readily, for this reason, the possessors of any passion
or vice that the European instinct craved to fasten somewhere
upon a strange people.
The contiguity of these two races, the fierce Carib and the
timid tribes of the more northern islands, has long caribsand
puzzled the ethnologist. Irving indulged in some ^"^^y*'^^-
rambling notions of the origin of the Carib, derived from ob-
servations of the early students of the obscure relations of the
American peoples. Larger inquiry and more scientific observa-
tion has since Irving's time been given to the subject, still with-
out bringing the question to recognizable bearings. The crani-
ology of the Caribs is scantily known, and there is much yet
to be divulged. The race in its purity has long been extinct.
Lucien de Rosny, in an anthropological study of the Antilles
published by the French Society of Ethnology in 1886, has
amassed considerable data for future deductions. It is a ques-
tion with some modern examiners if the distinction between
these insular peoples was not one of accident and surroundings
rather than of blood.
When Columbus sailed from Guadaloupe on November 10,
he steered northwest for Espanola, though his captives ^^^^ ^^
told him that the mainland lay to the south. He vemberio.
1 '11 xl. Columbus
passed various islands, but did not cast anchor till the leaves Gua-
1 1 1 • C" daloupe.
14th, when he reached the island named by bim banta
Cruz, and found it still a region of Caribs. It was here the
Spaniards had their first fight with this fierce people in trying
to capture a canoe filled with them. The white men rammed
272 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
and overturned the hollowed log ; but the Indians fought in the
water so courageously that some of the Spanish bucklers were
pierced with the native poisoned arrows, and one of the Span-
iards, later, died of such a wound inflicted by one of the savage
women. All the Caribs, however, were finally captured and
placed in irons on board ship. One was so badly wounded that
recovery was not thought possible, and he was thrown over-
board. The fellow struck for the shore, and was killed by the
Spanish arrows. The accounts describe their ferocious aspect,
their coarse hair, their eyes circled with red paint, and the mus-
cular parts of their limbs artificially extended by tight bands
below and above.
Proceeding thence and passing a group of wild and craggy
islets, which he named after St. Ursula and her Eleven Thousand
Virgins, Columbus at last reached the island now called Porto
Rico, which his captives pointed out to him as their
Porto Rico. r r
home and the usual field of the Carib incursions.
The island struck the strangers hj its size, its beautiful woods
and many harbors, in one of which, at its west end, they finally
anchored. There was a village close by, which, by their accounts,
was trim, and not without some pretensions to skill in laying
out, with its seaside terraces. The inhabitants, however, had
fled. Two days later, the fleet weighed anchor and steered for
La Navidad.
It was the 22d of November when the explorers made a level
shore, which they later discovered to be the eastern
1493. No-
vember 22. end of Espafiola. They passed gently along the north-
ern coast, and at an attractive spot sent a boat ashore
with the body of the Biscayan sailor who had died of the poi-
soned arrow, while two of the light caravels hovered near the
beach to protect the burying party. Coming to the spot where
Columbus had had his armed conflict with the natives the year
before, and where one of the Indians who had been baptized
at Barcelona was taken, this fellow, loaded with presents and
decked in person, was sent on shore for the influence he might
exert on his people. This supposable neophyte does not again
appear in history. Only one of these native converts now re-
mained, and the accounts say that he lived faithfully with the
Spaniards. Five of the seven who embarked had died on the
voyage.
THE SECOND VOYAGE, 273
On tlie 25th, while the fleet was at anchor at Monte Christo,
where Columbus had found gold in the river during his 1493 ^^
first voyage, the sailors discovered some decomposed ^e^^^e^'^s-
bodies, one of them showing a beard, which raised apprehensions
of the fate of the men left at La Navidad. The neighboring
natives came aboard for traffic with so much readiness, however,
that it did much to allay suspicion. It was the 27th 1493 -^^
when, after dark, Columbus cast anchor opposite the offLa^:^-
f ort, about a league from land. It was too late to see ^^^^'
anything more than the outline of the hills. Expecting a re-
sponse from the fort, he fired two cannons ; but there was no
sound except the echoes. The Spaniards looked in vain for lights
on the shore. The darkness was mysterious and painful. Before
midnight a canoe was heard approaching, and a native twice
asked for the Admiral. A boat was lowered from one of the
vessels, and towed the canoe to the flag-ship. The natives were
not willing to board her till Columbus himself appeared at the
waist, and by the light of a lantern revealed his countenance to
them. This reassured them. Their leader brought presents
— some accounts say ewers of gold, others say masks orna-
mented with gold — from the cacique, Guacanagari, whose
friendly assistance had been counted upon so much to befriend
the little garrison at La Navidad.
These formalities over, Columbus inquired for Diego de
Arana and his men. The young Lucayan, now Columbus's only
interpreter, did the best he could with a dialect not his own to
make a connected story out of the replies, which was in effect
that sickness and dissension, together with the withdrawal of
some to other parts of the island, had reduced the ranks of the
garrison, when the fort as well as the neighboring village of
Guacanagari was suddenly attacked by a mountain chieftain,
Caonabo, who burned both fort and village. Those of the Span-
iards who were not driven into the sea to perish had j^g gamson
been put to death. In this fight the friendly cacique ^'^^^^'
had been wounded. The visitors said that this chieftain's hurt
had prevented his coming with them to greet the Admiral ; but
that he would come in the morning. Coma, in his account of
this midnight interview, is not so explicit, and leaves the reader
to infer that Columbus did not get quite so clear an apprehen-
sion of the fate of his colony.
2T4 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
When the dawn came, the harbor appeared desolate. Not
a canoe was seen where so many sped about in the previous
year. A boat was sent ashore, and found every sign that the
fort had been sacked as well as destroyed. Fragments of cloth-
ing and bits of merchandise were scattered amid its blackened
ruins. There were Indians lurking behind distant trees, but no
one approached, and as the cacique had not kept the word which
he had sent of coming himself in the morning, suspicions began
to arise that the story of its destruction had not been honestly
given. The new-comers passed a disturbed night with increas-
ing mistrust, and the next morning Columbus landed and saw
all for himself. He traveled farther away from the shore than
those who landed on the preceding day, and gained some confir-
mation of the story in finding the village of the cacique a mass of
blackened ruins. Cannon were again discharged, in the hopes
that their reverberating echoes might reach the ears of those
who were said to have abandoned the fort before the massacre.
The well and ditch were cleaned out to see if any treasure had
been cast into it, as Columbus had directed in case of disaster.
Nothing was found, and this seemed to confirm the tale of the
suddenness of the attack. Columbus and his men went still far-
ther inland to a village ; but its inmates had hurriedly fled, so
that many articles of European make, stockings and a Moorish
robe among them, had been left behind, spoils doubtless of the
fort. Keturning nearer the fort, they discovered the bodies of
eleven men buried, with the grass growing above them, and
enough remained of their clothing to show they were Europeans.
This is Dr. Chanca's statement, who says the men had not been
dead two months. Coma says that the bodies were unburied,
and had lain for nearly three months in the open air ; and that
they were now given Christian burial.
Later in the day, a few of the natives were lured by friendly
signs to come near enough to talk with the Lucayan interpreter.
The story in much of its details was gradually drawn out, and
Columbus finally possessed himself of a pretty clear conception
of the course of the disastrous events. It was a tale of cruelty,
avarice, and sensuality towards the natives on the part of the
Spaniards, and of jealousy and brawls among themselves. No
word of their governor had been sufficient to restrain their out-
bursts of passionate encounter, and no sense of insecurity could
THE SECOND VOYAGE. 275
deter them from the most foolhardy risks while away from the
fort's protection. Those who had been appointed to succeed
Arana, if there were an occasion, revolted against him, and,
being unsuccessful in overthrowing him, they went off with their
adherents in search of the mines of Cibao. This car-
ried them beyond the protection of Guacanagari, and auTcS^^*
into the territory of his enemy, Caonabo, a wandering
Carib who had offered himself to the interior natives as their
chieftain, and who had acquired a great ascendency in the isl-
and. This leader, who had learned of the dissensions among
the Spaniards, was no sooner informed of the coming of these
renegades within his reach than he caused them to be seized
and killed. This emboldened him to join forces with another
cacique, a neighbor of Guacanagari, and to attempt to drive the
Spaniards from the island, since they had become a standing
menace to his power, as he reasoned. The confederates marched
stealthily, and stole into the vicinity of the fort in the night.
Arana had but ten men within the stockade, and they kept no
watch. Other Spaniards were quartered in the adjacent village.
The onset was sudden and effective, and the dismal ruins of the
fort and village were thought to confirm the story.
Other confirmations followed. A caravel was sent to explore
easterly, and was soon boarded by two Indians from the shore,
who invited the captain, Maldonado, to visit the cacique, who
lay ill at a neighboring village. The captain went, and found
Guacanagari laid up with a bandaged leg. The savage told a
story which agreed with the one just related, and on its being
repeated to Columbus, the Admiral himself, with an imposing
train, went to see the cacique. Guacanagari seemed anxious, in
repeating the story, to convince the Admiral of his own loy-
alty to the Spaniards, and pointed to his wounds and to those
of some of his people as proof. There was the usual inter-
change of presents, hawks' bells for gold, and similar reckonings.
Before leaving, Columbus asked to have his surgeon examine
the wound, which the cacique said had been occasioned by a
stone striking the leg. To get more light, the chieftain went out-
of-doors, leaning upon the Admiral's arm. When the bandage
was removed, there was no external sign of hurt ; but the cacique
winced if the flesh was touched. Father Boyle, who was in the
Admiral's train, thought the wound a pretense, and the story
276 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
fabricated to conceal the perfidy of the cacique, and urged Co-
lumbus to make an instant example of the traitor. ^The Admi-
ral was not so confident as the priest, and at all events he
thought a course of pacification and procrastination was the bet-
ter policy. The interview did not end, according to Coma, with-
out some strange manifestations on the part of the cacique,
which led the Spaniards for a moment to fear that a trial of
arms was to come. The chief was not indisposed to try his legs
enough to return with the Admiral to his ship that very evening.
Here he saw the Carib prisoners, and the accounts tell us how
he shuddered at the sight of them. He wondered at the horses
and other strange creatures which were shown to him. Coma
tells us that the Indians thought that the horses were fed on
human flesh. The women who had been rescued from the
Caribs attracted, perhaps, even more the attention of the sav-
DoSaOata- ^g®? ^^^ particularly a lofty creature among them,
^^^' whom the Spaniards had named Dona Catalina. Gu-
acanagari was observed to talk with her more confidingly than
he did with the others.
Father Boyle urged upon the Admiral that a duress simi-
lar to that of Catalina was none too good for the perfidious
cacique, as the priest persisted in calling the savage, but
Columbus hesitated. There was, however, little left of that
mutual confidence which had characterized the relations of the
Admiral and the chieftain during the trying days of the ship-
wreck, the year before. When the Admiral offered to hang
a cross on the neck of his visitor, and the cacique understood
it to be the Christian emblem, he shrank from the visible con-
tact of a faith of which the past months had revealed its char-
acter. With this manifestation they parted, and the cacique
was set ashore. Coma seems to unite the incidents of this in-
terview on the ship with those of the meeting ashore.
There comes in here, according to the received accounts, a
little passage of Indian intrigue and gallantry. A messenger
appeared the next day to inquire when the Admiral sailed,
and later another to barter gold. This last held some talk
^ with the Indian women, and particularly with Cata-
Tlie cacique , ...
^Cata- lina. About midnight a light appeared on the shore,
and Catalina and her companions, while the ship's
company, except a watch, were sleeping, let themselves down
THE SECOND VOYAGE. 277
the vessel's side, and struck out for the shore. The watch dis-
covered the escape, but not in time to prevent the women hav-
ing a considerable start. Boats pursued, but the swimmers
touched the beach first. Four of them, however, were caught,
but Catalina and the others escaped.
When, the next morning, Columbus sent a demand for the
fugitives, it was found that Guacanagari had moved his house-
hold and all his effects into the interior of the island. The
story got its fitting climax in the suspicious minds of the Span-
iards, when they supposed that the fugitive beauty was with
him. Here was only a fresh instance of the savage's perfidy.
Columbus had before this made up his mind that the vicinity
of his hapless fort was not a good site for the town
which he intended to build. The ground was low, abandons
° . . La Navidad.
moist, and unhealthy. There were no building stones
near at hand. There was need of haste in a decision. The
men were weary of their confinement on shipboard. The horses
and other animals suffered from a like restraint. Accordingly
expeditions were sent to explore the coast, and it soon became
evident that they must move beyond the limits of Guacanagari's
territory, if they would find the conditions demanded. Melchior
Maldonado, in command of one of these expeditions, had gone
eastward until he coasted the country of another cacique.
This chief at first showed hostility, but was won at last by
amicable signs. From him they learned that Guacanagari had
gone to the mountains. From another they got the story of
the massacre of the fort, almost entirely accordant with what
they had already discovered.
Not one of the reports from these minor explorations was
satisfactory, and December 7, the entire fleet weighed anchor
to proceed farther east. Stress of weather caused them to put
into a harbor, which on examination seemed favorable for their
building project. The roadstead was wide. A rocky point
offered a site for a citadel. There were two rivers Isabella
winding close by in an attractive country, and capable
of running mills. Nature, as they saw it, was variegated and
alluring. Flowers and fruits were in abundance. "Garden
seeds came up in five days after they were sown," says Coma of
their trial of the soil, " and the gardens were speedily clothed
278 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
in green, producing plentifully onions and pumpkins, radishes
and beets." *' Vegetables," wrote Dr. Chanca, " attain a more
luxuriant growth here in eight days than they would in Spain
in twenty." It was also learned that the gold mines of the
cibao gold Cibao mountains were inland from the spot, at no
mines. great distance.
The disembarkation began. Days of busy exertion followed.
Horses, livestock, provisions, munitions, and the varied mer-
chandise were the centre of a lively scene about their encamp-
ment. This they established near a sheet of water. Artificers,
herdsmen, cavaliers, priests, laborers, and placemen made up
the motley groups which were seen on all sides.
In later years, the Spaniards regulated all the formalities
and prescribed with precision the proceedings in the laying
out of towns in the New World, but Columbus had no such
directions. The planting of a settlement was a novel and un-
tried method. It was a natural thought to commemorate in
the new Christian city the great patroness of his undertaking,
and the settlement bore from the first the name of Isabella.
His engineers laid out square and sti*eet. A site for the church
was marked, another for a public storehouse, another for the
house of the Admiral, — all of stone. The ruins of these three
buildings are the most conspicuous relics in the present soli-
tary waste. The great mass of tenements, which were stretched
along the streets back from the public square, where the main
edifice stood, were as hastily run up as possible, to cover in the
colony. It was time enough for solider structures later to take
their places. Parties were occupied in clearing fields and set-
ting out orchards. There were landing piers to be made at
the shore. So everybody tasked bodily strength in rival en-
deavors. The natural results followed in so incongruous a
crowd. Those not accustomed to labor broke down from its
hardships. The seekers for pleasure, not finding it in the com-
mon toil, rushed into excesses, and imperiled all. The little
lake, so attractive to the inexperienced, was soon, with its night
Sickness in vapors, the sourcc of disease. Few knew how to pro-
the colony. ^^^^ thcmsclves f rom the insidious malaria. Discom-
fort induced discouragement, and the mental firmness so neces-
sary in facing strange and exacting circumstances gave way.
Forebodings added greater energy to the disease. It was not
THE SECOND VOYAGE, 279
long before the colony was a camp of hospitals, about one half
the people being incapacitated for labor. In the midst of all
this downheartedness Columbus himself succumbed, coiumbus
and for some weeks was unable to direct the trying "'^^•
state of affairs, except as he could do so in the intervals of his
lassitude.
But as the weeks went on a better condition was apparent.
Work took a more steady aspect. The ships had discharged
their burdens. They lay ready for the return voyage.
Columbus had depended on the exertions of the little colony
at La Navidad to amass a store of gold and other precious com-
modities with which to laden the returning vessels. He knew
the disappointment which would arise if they should carry little
else than the dismal tale of disaster. Nothing lay upon his
mind more weightily than this mortification and mis-
fortune. There was nothing to be done but to seek to^eektSe*
the mines of Cibao, for the chance of sending more en-
couraging reports. Gold had indeed been brought in to the
settlement, but only scantily ; and its quantity was not suited
to make real the gorgeous dreams of the East with which
Spain was too familiar.
So an expedition to Cibao was organized, and Ojeda was
placed in command. The force assigned to him was but fifteen
men in aU, but each was well armed and courageous. They ex-
pected perils, for they had to invade the territory of Caonabo,
the destroyer of La Navidad.
The march began early in January, 1494 ; perhaps just after
they had celebrated their first solemn mass in a tem-
1494. Jan-
porary chapel on January 6. For two days their prog- uary. First
ress was slow and toilsome, through forests without
a sign of human life, for the savage denizens had moved back
from the vicinity of the Spaniards. The men encamped, the second
night, on the top of a mountain, and when the dawn broke they
looked down on its further side over a broad valley, with its
scattered villages. They boldly descended, and met nothing but
hospitality from the villagers. Their course now lay towards
and up the opposite slope of the valley. They pushed on with-
out an obstacle. The rude inhabitants of the mountains were
as friendly as those of the valley. They did not see nor did
they hear anything of the great Caonabo. Every stream they
280 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
passed glittered with particles of gold in its sand. The natives
had an expert way of separating the metal, and the Spaniards
flattered them for their skill. Occasionally a nugget
was found. Ojeda picked up a lump which weighed
nine ounces, and Peter Martyr looked upon it wonderingly
when it reached Spain. If all this was found on the surface, what
must be the wealth in the bowels of these astounding mountains ?
The obvious answer was what Ojeda hastened back to make to
Gorvaian'B Columbus. A similar story was got from a young cav-
expedition. aij^r, Gorvalau, who had been dispatched in another
direction with another force. There was in all this the foun-
dation of miracles for the glib tongue and lively imagination.
One of these exuberant stories reached Coma, and Scillacio
makes him say that " the most splendid thing of all (which I
should be ashamed to commit to writing, if I had not received
it from a trustworthy source) is that, a rock adjacent to a moun-
tain being struck with a club, a large quantity of gold burst out,
and particles of gold of indescribable brightness glittered all
around the spot. Ojeda was loaded down by means of this out-
burst." It was stories like these which prepared the way for
the future reaction in Spain.
There was material now to give spirit to the dispatch to his
sovereigns, and Columbus sat down to write it. It
writes to the has comc dowu to US, and is printed in Navarrete's
sovereigns. (jQ^gg^iQjj, just as it was pcruscd by the King and
Queen, who entered in the margins their comments and orders.
Columbus refers at the beginning to letters already written to
their Highnesses, and mentions others addressed to Father
Buele and to the treasurer, but they are not known. Then,
speaking of the expeditions of Ojeda and Gorvalan, he begs
the sovereigns to satisfy themselves of the hopeful prospects
for gold by questioning Gorvalan, who was to return with the
ships. He advises their Highnesses to return thanks to God
for all this. Those personages write in the margin, " Their High-
nesses return thanks to God ! " He then explains his embarrass-
ment from the sickness of his men, — the "greater part of all,"
as he adds, — and says that the Indians are very familiar, ram-
bling about the settlement both day and night, necessitating a
constant watch. As he makes excuses and gives his reasons for
not doing this or that, the compliant monarchs as constantly
THE SECOND VOYAGE. 281
write against the paragraphs, " He has done well." Columbus
says he is building stone bulwarks for defense, and when this
is done he shall provide for accumulating gold. " Exactly as
should be done," chime in the monarchs. He then asks for
fresh provisions to be sent to him, and tells how much they
have done in planting. " Fonseca has been ordered to send
further seeds," is the comment. He complains that the wine
casks had been badly coopered at Seville, and that the wine had
all run out, so that wine was their prime necessity. He urges
that calves, heifers, asses, working mares, be sent to them ;
and that above all, to prevent discouragement, the supplies
should arrive at Isabella by May, and that particularly med-
icines should come, as their stock was exhausted. He then re-
fers to the cannibals whom he would send back, and asks that
they may be made acquainted with the true faith and taught
the Spanish tongue. " His suggestions are good," is the mar-
ginal royal comment.
Now comes the vital point of his dispatch. We want cat-
tle, he says. They can be paid for in Carib slaves. Let yearly
caravels conduct this trade. It will be easy, with the coiumbus
boats which are building, to capture a plenty of these Ke S^ *
savages. Duties can be levied on these importa- ^^^^^'
tions of slaves. On this point he urges a reply. The monarchs
see the fatality of the step, and, according to the marginal com-
ment, suspend judgment and ask the Admiral's further thoughts.
" A more distinct suggestion for the establishment of a slave
trade was never proposed," is the modern comment of Arthur
Helps. Columbus then adds that he has bought for the use of
the colony certain of the vessels which brought them out, and
these would be retained at Isabella, and used in making further
discoveries. The comment is that Fonseca will pay the own-
ers. He then intimates that more care should be exercised in
the selection of placemen sent to the colony, for the enterprise
had suffered already from unfitness in such matters. The mon-
archs promise amends. He complains that the Granada lance-
men, who offered themselves in Seville mounted on fine horses,
had subsequently exchanged these animajs to their own personal
advantage for inferior horses. He says the footmen made simi-
lar exchanges to fill their own pockets.
So, dating this memorial on January 30, 1494, the man who
282 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
was ambitious to become the first slave-driver of the New World
1494. Jan- ^^^^ down his quiU, praising God, as he asked his
s?gu8 ws sovereigns to do. The poor creatures who wandered
letter. -j^ ^^^ about among the cabins of the Spaniards were
fast forming their own comments, which were quite as astute
as those of the Admiral's royal masters. Holding up a piece of
gold, the natives learned to say, — and Columbus had given
them their first lesson in such philosophy, — " Behold
Christians' the Christians' God ! " Benzoni, the first traveler
who came among them with his eyes open, and daring
to record the truth, heard them say this. Intrusting his memo-
rial to Antonio de Torres, and putting him in command of the
1494. Feb- twelve ships that were to return to Spain, Columbus
S^rfturns saw the flcct Sail away on February 2, 1494. There
to Spain. would sccm to havc been committed to some one on the
ships two other accounts of the results of this second voyage
up to this time, which have come down to us. One of these is
chanca's ^ narrative by Dr. Chanca, the physician of the col-
narrative. ^^^^ whom Columbus, in his memorial to the mon-
archs, credits with doing good service in his profession at a
sacrifice of the larger emoluments which the practice of it had
brought to him in Seville. The narrative of Chanca had been
sent by him to the cathedral chapter of Seville. The original
is thought to be lost ; but Navarrete used a transcript which
belonged to a collection formed by Father Antonio de Aspa,
a monk of the monastery of the Mejorada, where Columbus is
known to have deposited some of his papers. Major has given
us an English translation of it in his Select Letters of Colum-
hits. Major's text will also be found in the late James Lenox's
English version of the other account, which he gave to scholars
in 1859.
There is a curious misconception in this last document, which
represents that Columbus had reached these new regions by the
African route of the Portuguese, — a confusion doubtless arising
from the imperfect knowledge which the Italian translator.
Coma's nar- Nicholas SciUacio, had of the current geographical de-
*»tive. velopments. A Spaniard, Guglielmo Coma, seems to
have written about the new discoveries in some letters, appar-
ently revived in some way from somebody's personal observa-
tion, which Scillacio put into a Latin dress, and published at
THE SECOND VOYAGE.
283
Pavia, or possibly at Pisa. This little tract is of the utmost
rarity, and Mr. Lenox, considering the suggestion of Ronchini,
that the blunder of Scillacio may have caused the destruction
of the edition, replies by calling attention to the fact that it is
scarcely rarer than many other of the contemporary tracts of
Columbus's voyage, about which there exists no such reason.
We get also some reports by Torres himself on the affairs of
the colony in various letters of a Florentine merchant, verde's
Simone Verde, to whom he had communicated them. ^®"®^^-
These letters have been recently (1875) found in the archives
of Florence, and have been made better known still later by
Harrisse.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE SECOND VOYAGE, CONTINUED.
1494.
The departure of the fleet made conspicuous at last a threat-
ening faction of those whose terms of service had prevented
their taking passage in the ships. This organized discontent
was the natural result of a depressing feeling that all the
Life in isa- drcams of casc and plenty which had sustained them
beua. jjj their embarkation were but delusions. Life in Isa-
bella had made many of them painfully conscious of the lack of
that success and comfort which had been counted upon. The
failure of what in these later days is known as the commissariat
was not surprising. With all our modern experience in fitting
out great expeditions, we know how often the fate of such en-
terprises is put in jeopardy by rascally contractors. Their arts,
however, are not new ones. Fonseca was not so wary, Colum-
bus was not so exacting, that such arts could not be practiced
in Seville, as to-day in London and New York. This jobbery,
added to the scant experience of honest endeavor, inevitably
brought misfortune and suffering through spoiled provisions and
wasted supplies.
The faction, taking advantage of this condition, had two per-
Mutinous sons for leaders, whose official position gave the body
factions. ^ vantage-ground. Bernal Diaz de Pisa was the
comptroller of the colony, and his office permitted him to have
an oversight of the Admiral's accounts. It is said that before
this time he had put himself in antagonism to authority by ques-
tioning some of the doings of the Admiral. He began now to
talk to the people of the Admiral's deceptive and exaggerating
descriptions intended for effect in Spain, and no doubt repre-
sented them to be at least as false as they were. Diaz drew
pictures that produced a prevailing gloom beyond what the
facts warranted, for deceit is a game of varying extremes. He
THE SECOND VOYAGE. 285
was helped on by the assayer of the colony, Fermin Cado, who
spoke as an authority on the poor quality of the gold, and on
the Indian habit of amassing it in their families, so that the
moderate extent of it which the natives had offered was not the
accretions of a day, but the result of the labor of generations.
With leaders acting in concert, it had been planned to seize the
remaining ships, and to return to Spain. This done, the muti-
neers expected to justify their conduct by charges against the
Admiral, and a statement of them had already been
drawn up by Bernal Diaz. The mutiny, however, was schemes dia-
discovered, and Columbus had the first of his many
experiences in suppressing a revolt. Bernal Diaz was impris-
oned on one of the ships, and was carried to Spain for trial.
Other leaders were punished in one way and another. To pre-
vent the chances of success in future schemes of revolt, all
munitions and implements of war were placed together in one
of the ships, under a supervision which Columbus thought he
could trust.
The prompt action of the Admiral had not been taken with-
out some question of his authority, or at least it was held that
he had been injudicious in the exercise of it. The event left a
rankling passion among many of the colonists against what was
called Columbus's vindictiveness and presumptuous zeal. With
it all was the feeling that a foreigner was oppressing them,
and was weaving about them the meshes of his arbitrary am-
bition.
Columbus now determined to go himself to the gold regions
of the interior. He arranged that Diego, his brother,
. -,111 1 J • Columbus
— another f orei2:ner I — should have the command m goes to the
,., T.-. .. r. l^ ' ^°^^ mines.
his absence. Las Casas pictures tor us this younger
of the Colombos, and calls him gentle, unobtrusive, and kindly.
He allows to him a priest's devotion, but does not
^ . - -. . , Diego Colon.
consider him quite worldly enough m his deahngs with
men to secure himself against ungenerous wiles.
It was the 12th of March when Columbus set out on his
march. He conducted a military contingent of about i4<^. March
400 well-armed men, including what lancers he could ^^•
mount. In his train followed an array of workmen, miners,
artificers, and porters, with their burdens of merchandise and
286 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
implements. A mass of the natives hovered ahout the pro-
cession.
Their progress was as martial as it could be made. Banners
were flaunted. Drums and trumpets were sounded. Their
armor was made to glisten. Crossing the low land, they came
to a defile in the mountain. There was nothing before them but
a tortuous native trail winding upward among the rocks and
through tangled forest. It was ill suited for the passage of a
heavily burdened force. Some of the younger cavaliers sprang
to the front, and gathering around them woodmen and
makes a piouccrs, they opened the way ; and thus a road was
constructed through the pass, the first made in the New
World. This work of the proud cavaliers was called El puerto
de los Hidalgos. The summit of the mountain afforded afresh
the grateful view of the luxuriant valley which had delighted
The Vega Ojcda, — royally rich as it was in every aspect, and
^®*^" . deserving the name which Columbus now gave it of
the Vega Real.
Here, on the summit of Santo Cerro, the tradition of the
island goes that Columbus caused that cross to be erected
which the traveler to-day looks upon in one of the side chapels
of the cathedral at Santo Domingo. It stood long enough
Erects a ^^ pcrfomi many miracles, as the believers tell us,
cross. g^jj^ ^g^g miraculously saved in an earthquake. De
Lorgues does not dare to connect the actual erection with the
holy trophy of the cathedral. Descending to the lowlands, the
little army and its followers attracted the notice of the amazed
natives by clangor and parade. This display was made more
astounding whenever the horses were set to prancing, as they ap-
proached and passed a native hamlet. Las Casas tells us that
the first horseman who dismounted was thought by the natives
to have parceled out a single creature into convenient parts.
The Indians, timid at first, were enticed by a show of trinkets,
and played upon by the interpreters. Thus they gradually
were won over to repay all kindnesses with food and drink,
while they rendered many other kindly services. The army
came to a large stream, and Columbus called it the River of
Reeds. It was the same which, the year before, knowing it
only where it emptied into the sea, he had called the River of
Gold, because he had been struck with the shining particles
THE SECOND VOYAGE. 287
which he found among its sands. Here they encamped. The
men bathed. They found everything about them like the dales
of Paradise, if we may believe their rehearsals. The landscape
was very different from that which Bernal Diaz was to tell of,
if only once he got the ears of the Court in Seville.
The river was so wide and deep that the men could not ford
it, so they made rafts to take over everything but the horses.
These swam the current. Then the force passed on, but was
confronted at last by the rugged slopes of the Cibao ^-^^^^ j^^un.
mountains. The soldiers clambered up the defile pain- **""•
fully and slowly. The pioneers had done what they could to
smooth the way, but the ascent was wearying. They could oc-
casionally turn from their toil to look back over this luxuriant
valley which they were leaving, and lose their vision in its vast
extent. Las Casas describes it as eighty leagues one way, and
twenty or thirty the other.
It was a scene of bewildering beauty that they left behind ;
it was one of sterile heights, scraggy pines, and rocky precipices
which they entered. The leaders computed that they were
eighteen leagues from Isabella, and as Columbus thought he saw
signs of gold, amber, lapis lazuli, copper, and one knows not
what else of wealth, all about him, he was content to establish
his fortified position hereabouts, without pushing farther. He
looked around, and found at the foot of one of the declivities
of the interior of this mountainous region a fertile plain, with
a running river, gurgling over beds of jasper and marble, and
in the midst of it a little eminence, which he could portst.
easily fortify, as the river nearly surrounded it like a ^^o"^*^-
natural ditch. Here he built his fort. Recent travelers say
that an overgrowth of trees now covers traces of its founda-
tions. The fortress was, as he believed, so near the gold that
one could see it with his eyes and touch it with his hands, and
so, as Las Casas tells us, he named it St. Thomas.
The Indians had already learned to recognize the Christian's
god. They found the golden deity in bits in the streams. They
took the idol tenderly to his militant people. For their part,
the poor natives much preferred rings and hawks' bells, and so
a basis of traffic was easily found. In this way Columbus got
some gold, but he more readily got stories of other spot^, whither
the natives pointed vaguely, where nuggets, which would dwarf
288 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
all these bits, could be found. Columbus began to wonder why-
he never reached the best places.
The Spaniards soon got to know the region better. Juan de
Country Luxau, who had been sent out with a party to see
examined, ^hat he could find, reported that the region was moun-
tainous and in its upper parts sterile, to be sure, but that there
were delicious valleys, and plenty of land to cultivate, and pas-
turing enough for herds. When he came back with these re-
ports, the men put a good deal of heart in the work which they
were bestowing on the citadel of St. Thomas, so that it was
soon done. Pedro Mar^arite was placed in command
Columbus ' ■% nc • 11 /^Ti
returns to With flity-six mcu, and then Columbus started to re-
Isabella. ^
turn to Isabella.
When the Admiral reached the valley, he met a train of sup-
plies going forward to St. Thomas, and as there were difficulties
of fording and other obstacles, he spent some time in examining
the country and marking out lines of communication. This
Natives of brought him into contact with the villages of the val-
the valley. ^Qj^ and he grew better informed of the kind of peo-
ple among whom his colonists were to live. He did not, how-
ever, discern that under a usually pacific demeanor there was no
lack of vigorous determination in this people, which it might
not be so wise to irritate to the point of vengeance. He found,
too, that they had a religion, perhaps prompting to some virtues
he little suspected in his own, and that they jealously guarded
their idols. He discovered that experience had given them no
near acquaintance with the medicinal properties of the native
herbs and trees. They associated myths with places, and would
tell you that the sun and moon were but creatures of their isl-
and which had escaped from one of their caverns, and that
mankind had sprung from the crannies of their rocky places.
The bounteousness of nature, causing little care for the future,
had spread among them a love of hospitality, and Columbus
found himself welcome everywhere, and continued to be so till
he and his abused their privileges.
On the 29th of March, Columbus was back in Isabella, to
1494. March ^^^ ^^^^ ^^ plautiugs of January were already yield-
Ssin^i^' i»g fruits, and the colony, in its agricultural aspects,
^"*' at least, was promising, for the small areas that had
already been cultivated. But the tidings from the new fort in
THE SECOND VOYAGE. 289
the mountains which had just come in by messenger were not so
cheering, for it seemed to be the story of La Navidad repeated.
The license and exactions of the garrison had stirred up the
neighboring natives, and Pedro Margarite, in his message,
showed his anxiety lest Caonabo should be able to mass the
savages, exasperated by their wrongs, in an attack upon the
post. Columbus sent a small reinforcement to St. Thomas, and
dispatched a force to make a better road thither, in order to
facilitate any future operations.
The Admiral's more immediate attention was demanded by
the condition of Isabella. Intermittent fever and various other
disturbances incident to a new turning of a reeking soil were
making sad ravages in the colony. The work of condition of
building suffered in consequence. The sick engrossed *^® *°'^-
the attention of men withdrawn from their active labors, or
they were left to suffer from the want of such kindly aid. The
humidity of the climate and a prodigal waste had brought pro-
visions so low that an allowance even of the unwholesome stock
which remained was made necessary. In order to provide
against impending famine, men were taken from the public
works and put to labor on a mill, in order that they might get
flour. No respect was paid to persons, and cavalier and priest
were forced into the common service. The Admiral was obliged
to meet the necessities by compulsory measures, for even an
obvious need did not prevent the indifferent from shirking, and
the priest and hidalgo from asserting their privileged rights.
Any authority that enforced sacrifice galled the proud spirits,
and the indignity of labor caused a mortification and despair
that soon thinned the ranks of the best blood of the colony.
Dying voices cursed the delusion which had brought them to
the New World, the victims, as they claimed, of the avarice
and deceit of a hated alien to their race.
Supineness in the commander would have brought everything
in the colony to a disastrous close. A steady progression of
some sort might be remedial. The Admiral's active mind de-
termined on the diversion of further exploration with such a
force as could be equipped. He mustered a little
o r-^ 1 • 1 1 Ojeda sent
army, consisting of 250 men armed with crossbows, tost.
100 with matchlocks, 16 mounted lancemen, and 20 •
officers. Ojeda was put at their head, with orders to lead them
290 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
to St. Thomas, which post he was to govern while Margarita
took the expeditionary party and scoured the country. Navar-
rete has preserved for us the instructions which Columbus im-
parted. They counseled a considerate regard for the natives,
who must, however, be made to furnish all necessaries at fair
prices. Above all, every Spaniard must be prevented from en-
gaging in private trade, since the profits of such bartering were
reserved to the Crown, and it did not help Columbus in his deal-
ings with the refractory colonists to have it known that a for-
eign interloper, like himself, shared this profit with the Crown.
Margarite was also told that he must capture, by force or strat-
agem, the cacique Caonabo and his brothers.
When Ojeda, who had started on April 9, reached the Vega
1494. Keal, he learned that three Spaniards, returning from
April 9. g^ Thomas, had been robbed by a party of Indians,
people of a neighboring cacique. Ojeda seized the offenders,
the ears of one of whom he cut off, and then capturing the
cacique himself and some of his family, he sent the whole
party to Isabella. Columbus took prompt revenge, or made
the show of doing so ; but just as the sentence of execution was
to be inflicted, he yielded to the importunities of another ca-
cique, and thought to keep by it his reputation for clemency.
Presently another horseman came in from St. Thomas, who, on
his way, had rescued, single-handed and with the aid of the ter-
ror which his animal inspired, another party of five Spaniards,
whom he had found in the hands of the same tribe.
Such easy conquests convinced Columbus that only proper
prudence was demanded to maintain the Spanish supremacy
with even a diminished force. He had not forgotten the fears
of the Portuguese which were harassing the Spanish Court
when he left Seville, and, to anticipate them, he was anxious to
make a more thorough examination of Cuba, which was a part
of the neighboring main of Cathay, as he was ready to suppose.
He therefore commissioned a sort of junto to rule, while in
person he should conduct such an expedition by water. His
Diego and brother Diego was placed in command during his ab-
the junto. gencc, and he gave him for counselors, Father Boyle,
Pedro Fernandez Coronel, Alonso Sanchez Carvajal, and Juan
de Luxan. He took three caravels, the smallest of his little
fleet, as better suited to explore, and left the two large ones
behind.
THE SECOND VOYAGE. 291
It was April 24 when Columbus sailed from Isabella, and at
once he ran westerly. He stopped at his old fort, La ^^c^ ^ ^
Navidad, but found that Guacanagari avoided him, Ji,, aSiJXr
and no time could be lost in discovering why. On the ^"^
29th, he left Espanola behind and struck across to the Cuban
shore. Here, following the southern side of that island, he
anchored first in a harbor where there were preparations for
a native feast; but the people fled when he landed, and the
not overfed Spaniards enjoyed the repast that was abandoned.
The Lucayan interpreter, who was of the party, managed after
a while to allure a single Indian, more confident than the rest,
to approach ; and when this Cuban learned from one of a simi-
lar race the peaceful purposes of the Spaniards, he went and
told others, and so in a little while Columbus was able to hold
a parley with a considerable group. He caused reparation to
be made for the food which his men had taken, and then ex-
changed farewells with the astoimded folk.
On May 1, he raised anchor, and coasted still westerly,
keeping near the shore. The country grew more pop-
ulous. The amenities of his intercourse with the i. onthe
feast-makers had doubtless been made known along
the coast, and as a result he was easily kept supplied with fresh
fruits by the natives. Their canoes constantly put off from the
shore as the ships glided by. He next anchored in the harbor
which was probably that known to-day as St. Jago de Cuba,
where he received the same hospitality, and dispensed the same
store of trinkets in return.
Here, as elsewhere along the route, the Lucayan had learned
from the natives that a great island lay away to the south, which
was the source of what gold they had. The informa- ^^^ ^^
tion was too frequently repeated to be casual, and 3. steers for
so, on May 3, Columbus boldly stood off shore, and
brought his ships to a course due south.
It was not long before thin blue films appeared on the
horizon. They deepened and grew into peaks. It was two
days before the ships were near enough to their massive forms
to see the signs of habitations everywhere scattered along the
shore. The vessels stood in close to the land. A native flotilla
hovered about, at first with menaces, but their occupants were
soon won to friendliness by kindly signs. Not so, however,
292 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
in the harbor, where, on the next day, he sought shelter and an
opportunity to careen a leaky ship. Here the shore swarmed
Natives of ^ith painted men, and some canoes with feathered
Jamaica. warriors advanced to oppose a landing. They hurled
their javelins without effect, and filled the air with their
screams and whoops. Columbus then sent in his boats nearer
the shore than his ships could go, and under cover of a dis-
charge from his bombards a party landed, and with their cross-
A dog set ^o^s put the Indians to flight. Bernaldez tells that
upon them. ^ ^^^ ^^g jg^. \qq^q upou the savagcs, and this is the
earliest mention of that canine warfare which the Spaniards
later made so sanguinary. Columbus now landed and took pos-
santiago or scssiou of the islaud under the name of Santiago, but
Jamaica. ^j^^ name did not supplant the native Jamaica. The
warning lesson had its effect, and the next day some envoys of
the cacique of the region made offers of amity, which were
readily accepted. For three days this friendly intercourse was
kept up, with the customary exchange of gifts. The Spaniards
Character of ^0"!^ ^ut obscrvc a marked difference in the character
natives. q£ ^j^jg ^^^^ people. They were more martial and better
sailors than any they had seen since they left the Carib islands.
The enormous mahogany-trees of the islands furnished them
with trunks, out of which they constructed the largest canoes.
Columbus saw one which was ninety-six feet long and eight
broad. There was also in these people a degree of merriment
such as the Spaniards had not noticed before, more docility
and quick apprehension, and Peter Martyr gathered from those
with whom he had talked that in almost all ways they seemed
a manlier and experter race. Their cloth, utensils, and imple-
ments were of a character not differing from, others the explorers
had seen, but of better handiwork.
As soon as he floated his ship, Columbus again stretched his
course to the west, finding no further show of resistance. The
native dugout sallied forth to trade from every little inlet which
was passed. Finally, a youth came off and begged to be taken to
the Spaniards' home, and the Historie tells us that it was not
without a scene of distress that he bade his kinsfolk good-by,
in spite of all their endeavors to reclaim him. Columbus was
struck with the courage and confidence of the youth, and ordered
special kindnesses to be shown to him. We hear nothing more
of the lad.
THE SECOND VOYAGE. 293
Reaching now the extreme westerly end of Jamaica, and find-
ing the wind setting right for Cuba, Columbus shifted coiumbus
his course thither, and bore away to the north. On cubr^***
the 18th of May, he was once more on its coast. The 1494, May
people were everywhere friendly. They told him that ^^"
Cuba was an island, but of such extent that they had never
seen the end of it. This did not convince Columbus that it was
other than the mainland. So he went on towards the west, in
full confidence that he would come to Cathay, or at least, such
seemed his expectation. He presently rounded a point, and saw
before him a large archipelago. He was now at that point
where the Cabo de la Cruz on the south and this archipelago
in the northwest embay a broad gulf. The islands seemed almost
without number, and they studded the sea with verdant spots.
He called them the Queen's Gardens. He could get The Queen's
better seaway by standing further south, and so pass ^^^^^^^^s-
beyond the islands ; but suspecting that they were the very
islands which lay in masses along the coast of Cathay, as Marco
Polo and Mandeville had said, he was prompted to risk the in-
tricacies of their navigation ; so he clung to the shore, and felt
that without doubt he was verging on the territories of the Great
Khan. He began soon to apprehend his risks. The channels
were devious. The shoals perplexed him. There was often no
room to wear ship, and the boats had to tow the caravels at
intervals to clearer water. They could not proceed at all with-
out throwing the lead. The wind was capricious, and whirled
round the compass with the sun. Sudden tempests threatened
danger.
With all this anxiety, there was much to beguile. Every as-
pect of nature was like the descriptions of the East in the trav-
elers' tales. The Spaniards looked for inhabitants, but none
were to be seen. At last they espied a village on one of the
islands, but on landing (May 22), not a soul could be found, —
only the spoils of the sea which a fishing people would be likely
to gather. Another day, they met a canoe from which some
natives were fishing. The men came on board without trepida-
tion and gave the Spaniards what fish they wanted. They had
a wonderful way of catching fish. They used a live fish much
as a falcon is used in catching its quarry. Thi^ fish would
fasten itself to its prey by suckers growing about the head.
294 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
The native fishermen let it out with a line attached to its tail,
and pulled in both the catcher and the caught when the prey
had been seized. These people also told the same story of the
interminable extent westerly of the Cuban coast.
Columbus now passed out from among these islands and
steered towards a mountainous region, where he again landed
1494 and opened intercourse with a pacific tribe on June 3.
June 3. ^j^ qJ^ cacique repeated the same story of the illim-
itable land, and referred to the province of Mangon as lying
farther west. This name was enough to rekindle the imagina-
tion of the Admiral. Was not Mangi the richest of the prov-
inces that Sir John Mandeville had spoken of? He learned
Men with ^Iso that a people with tails lived there, just as that
tails. veracious narrator had described, and they wore long-
garments to conceal that appendage. What a sight a proces-
sion of these Asiatics would make in another reception at the
Spanish Court !
There was nothing now to impede the progress of the cara-
vels, and on the vessels went in their westward course. Every
day the crews got fresh fruits from the friendly canoes. They
paid nothing for the balmy odors from the land. They next
Gulf of came to the Gulf of Xagua, and passing this they
xagua. again sailed into shallow waters, whitened with the
floating sand, which the waves kept in suspension. The course
of the ships was tortuous among the bars, and they felt relieved
when at last they found a place where their anchors would hold.
To make sure that a way through this labyrinth could be found,
Columbus sent his smallest caravel ahead, and then following her
guidance, the little fleet, with great difliculty, and not without
much danger at times, came out into clearer water. Later, he
saw a deep bay on his right, and tacking across the opening he
lay his course for some distant mountains. Here he anchored
to replenish his water-casks. An archer straying into the forest
White-robed camo back Oil the run, saying that he had seen white-
men, robed people. Here, then, thought Columbus, were
the people who were concealing their tails ! He sent out two
parties to reconnoitre. They found nothing but a tangled wil-
derness. It has been suggested that the timorous and credu-
lous archer had got half a sight of a flock of white cranes feed-
ing in a savanna. Such is the interpretation of this story by
THE SECOND VOYAGE. 295
Irving, and Humboldt tells us there is enough in his experience
with the habits of these birds to make it certain that the inter-
pretation is warranted.
Still the Admiral went on westerly, opening communication
occasionally with the shore, but to little advantage in gathering
information, for the expedition had gone beyond the range of
dialects where the Lucayan interpreter could be of service.
The shore people continued to point west, and the most that
could be made of their signs was that a powerful king reigned
in that direction, and that he wore white robes. This is the
story as Bernaldez gives it ; and Columbus very likely thought
it a premonition of Prester John. The coast still stretched to
the setting sun, if Columbus divined the native signs aright, but
no one could tell how far. The sea again became shallow, and
the keels of the caravels stirred up the bottom. The accounts
speak of wonderful crowds of tortoises covering the water, pi-
geons darkening the sky, and gaudy butterflies sweeping about
in clouds. The shore was too low for habitation ; but they saw
smoke and other signs of life in the high lands of the coiumbus
interior. When the coast line began to trend to the ^^'e^sThe^^
southwest, — it was Marco Polo who said it would, — chSne-
there could be little doubt that the Golden Chersonesus ^''^'
of the ancients, which we know to-day as the Malacca penin-
sula, must be beyond.
What next? was the thought which passed through the
fevered brain of the Admiral. He had an answer in his mind,
and it would "make a new sensation for his poor colony at Isa-
bella to hear of him in Spain. Passing the Golden Chersone-
sus, had he not the alternative of steering homeward by which he
by way of Ceylon and the Cape of Good Hope, and rrnt""
so astound the Portuguese more than he did when he ^p*""'
entered the Tagus? Or, abandoning the Indian Ocean and
entering the Red Sea, could he not proceed to its northern ex-
tremity, and there, deserting his ships, join a caravan passing
through Jerusalem and Jaffa, and so embark again on the
Mediterranean and sail into Barcelona, a more wonderful ex-
plorer than before ?
These were the sublimating thoughts that now buoyed the
Admiral, as he looked along the far-stretching cod,st,--or at
least his friend Bernaldez got this impression from his inter-
course with Columbus after his return to Spain.
296 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
If the compliant spirit of his crew had not been exhausted.
His crew ^^ would pcrhaps have gone on, and would have been
rebel. forccd by developments to a revision of his geographi-
cal faith. His vessels, unfortunately, were strained in all their
seams. Their leaks had spoiled his provisions. Incessant la-
bor had begun to tell upon the health of the crew. They much
preferred the chances of a return to Isabella, with all its haz-
ards, than a sight of Jaffa and the Mediterranean, with the un-
told dangers of getting there.
The Admiral, however, still pursued his course for a few
days more to a point, as Humboldt holds, opposite the St.
Philip Keys, when, finding the coast trending sharply to the
southwest, and his crew becoming clamorous, he determined to
go no farther.
It was now the 12th of June, 1494, and if we had nothing but
the Historie to guide us, we should be ignorant of the
12. He turns singular turn which affairs took. Whoever wrote that
back.
book had, by the time it was written, become conscious
that obliviousness was sometimes necessary to preserve the rep-
utation of the Admiral. The strange document which inter-
ests us, however, has not been lost, and we can read it in
Navarrete.
It is not difficult to understand the disquietude of Columbus's
mind. He had determined to find Cathay as a counterpoise to
the troubled conditions at Isabella, both to assuage the gloomy
forebodings of the colonists and to reassure the public mind in
Spain, which might receive, as he knew, a shock by the reports
which Torres's fleet had carried to Europe. He had been forced
by a mutinous crew to a determination to turn back, but his dis-
contented companions might be complacent enough to express
an opinion, if not complacent enough to run farther hazards.
So Columbus committed himself to the last resort of deluded
minds, when dealing with geographical or historical problems,
— that of seeking to establish the truth by building monu-
ments, placing inscriptions, and certifications under oath. He
caused the eis^hty men who constituted the crew of
Enforces an,. i -, oit« •■r\?
oath upon his little SQuadrou — and we find their name in JJuro s
his men r^ i ^ -nf ^ i c -i •
(jolon y JPmzon — to swear before a notary that it
was possible to go from Cuba to Spain by land, across Asia. It
was solemnly affirmed by this official that if any should swerve
THE SECOND VOYAGE. 297
from this belief, the miserable skeptic, if an officer, should be
fined 10,000 maravedis ; and if a sailor, he should receive a hun-
dred lashes and have his tongue pulled out. Such were the
scarcely heroic measures that Columbus thought it necessary to
employ if he would dispel any belief that all these islands of
the Indies were but an ocean archipelago 'after all, and that the
width of the unknown void between Europe and Asia, which he
was so confident he had traversed, was yet undetermined. To
make Cuba a continent by affidavit was easy ; to make
it appear the identical kingdom of the Great Khan, is a con-
he hoped would follow. During his first voyage, so
far as he could make out an intelligible statement from what
the natives indicated, he was of the opinion that Cuba was an
island. It is to be feared that he had now reached a state of
mind in which he did not dare to think it an island.
If we believe the Historie^ — or some passages in it, at least,
— written, as we know, after the geography of the New World
was fairly understood, and if we accept the evidence of the
copyist, Herrera, Columbus never really supposed he was in
Asia. If this is true, he took marvelous pains to deceive others
by appearing to be deceived himself, as this notarial exhibition
and his solemn asseveration to the Pope in 1502 show. The
writers just cited say that he simply juggled the world by giv-
ing the name India to these regions, as better suited to allure
emigration. Such testimony, if accepted, establishes the fraud-
ulent character of these notarial proceedings. It is fair to say,
however, that he wrote to Peter Martyr, just after the return of
the caravels to Isabella, expressing a confident belief in his
having come near to the region of the Ganges ; and divesting
the testimony of all the jugglery with which others have invested
it, there seems little doubt that in this belief, at least, Colum-
bus was sincere.
On the next day, Columbus, standing to the southeast, reached
a large island, the present Isle of Pines, which he 1494. ju^e
called Evangelista. In endeavoring to skirt it on the
south, he was entangled once more in a way that made him aban-
don the hope of a directer passage to Espaiiola that way, and
to resolve to follow the coast back as he had come. He lost ten
days in these uncertain efforts, which, with his provisions rap-
298
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
THE SECOND VOYAGE. 299
idly diminishing, did not conduce to reassure his crew. On June
30, trying to follow the intricacies of the channels 1494 j^^
which had perplexed him before, the Admiral's ship ^•
got a severe thump on the bottom, which for a while threatened
disaster. She was pulled through, however, by main force, and
after a while was speeding east in clear water. They had now
sailed beyond those marshy reaches of the coast, where they were
cut off from intercourse with the shore, and hoped soon to find
a harbor, where food and rest might restore the strength of the
crew. Their daily allowance had been reduced to a pound of
mouldy bread and a swallow or two of wine. It was the 1494
7th of July when they anchored in an acceptable harbor. "^"^^ ^•
Here they landed, and interchanged the customary pledges of
amity with a cacique who presented himself on the shore.
Men having been sent to cut down some trees, a large cross was
made, and erected in a grove, and on this spot, with a crowd of
natives looking on, the Spaniard celebrated high mass. A ven-
erable Indian, who watched all the ceremonials with close atten-
tion, divining their religious nature, made known to the Admiral,
through the Lucayan interpreter, something of the sustaining
belief of his own people, in words that were impressive. Co-
lumbus's confidence in the incapacity of the native mind for
such high conceptions as this poor Indian manifested received
a grateful shock when the old man, grave in his manner and un-
conscious in his dignity, pictured the opposite rewards of the
good and bad in another world. Then turning to the Admiral,
he reminded him that wrong upon the unoffending was no pass-
port to the blessings of the future. The historian who tells us
this story, and recounts how it impressed the Admiral, does not
say that its warnings troubled him much in the times to come,
when the unoffending were grievously wronged. Perhaps there
was something of this forgetful spirit in the taking of a young
Indian away from his friends, as the chroniclers say he did,
in this very harbor.
On July 16, Columbus left the harbor, and steering off shore
to escape the intricate channels of the Queen's Gar- 1494 j^^y
dens which he was now re-approaching, he soon found ^^■
searoom, and bore away toward Espaiiola. A gale coming on,
the caravels were forced in shore, and discovered an- 1494 j„,y
anchorage under Cabo de Cruz. Here they remained ^^-
300 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
for three days, but the wind still blowing from the east, Colum-
bus thought it a good opportunity to complete the circuit of
On the coast Jamaica. He accordingly stood across towards that
of Jamaica, jgiand. He was a month in beating to the eastward
along its southern coast, for the winds were very capricious.
Every night he anchored under the land, and the natives sup-
plied him with provisions. At one place, a cacique presented
himself in much feathered finery, accompanied by his wife and
relatives, with a retinue bedizened in the native fashion, and
doing homage to the Admiral. It was shown how effective the
Lucayan's pictures of Spanish glory and prowess had been,
when the cacique proposed to put himself and all his train in
the Admiral's charge for passage to the great country of the
Spanish King. The offer was rather embarrassing to the Ad-
miral, with his provisions running low, and his ships not of the
largest. He relieved himself by promising to conform to the
wishes of the cacique at a more opportune moment.
By the 19th of August, Columbus had passed the easternmost
1494 extremity of Jamaica, and on the next day he was
August 19. skirting the long peninsula which juts from the south-
western angle of Espafiola. He was not, however, aware of
Espanoia. ^^^ positiou till ou the 23d a cacique came off to the
1494. caravels, and addressed Columbus by his title, with
August 23. some words of Castilian interlarded in his speech. It
was now made clear that the ships had nearly reached their
goal, and nothing was left but to follow the circuit of the isl-
and. It was no easy task to do so with a wornout crew and
crazy ships. The little fleet was separated in a gale, and when
Columbus made the lofty rocky island which is now
known as Alto Velo, resembling as it does in outline
a tall ship under sail, he ran under its lee, and sent a boat
ashore, with orders for the men to scale its heights, to learn if
the missing caravels were anywhere to be seen. This endeavor
was without result, but it was not long before the fleet was re-
united. Further on, the Admiral learned from the natives that
some of the Spaniards had been in that part of the island,
coming from the other side. Finding thus through the native
reports that all was quiet at Isabella, he landed nine men to
push across the island and report his coming. Somewhat fur-
ther to the east, a storm impending, he found a harbor, where
THE SECOND VOYAGE. 301
the weather forced him to remain for eight days. The Admi-
ral's vessel had succeeded in entering a roadstead, but the others
lay outside, buffeting the storm, — naturally a source of constant
anxiety to him.
It was while in this suspense that Columbus took advantage
of an eclipse of the moon, to ascertain his longitude, coiumbus
His calculations made him five hours and a half west ecilpsrof
of Seville, — an hour and a quarter too much, making ^^^ ^°°^-
an error of eighteen degrees. This mistake was quite as likely
owing to the rudeness of his method as to the pardonable errors
of the lunar tables of Regiomontanus (Venice, 1492), then in
use. These tables followed methods which had more or less
controlled calculations from the time of Hipparchus.
The error of Columbus is not surprising. Even a century
later, when Robert Hues published his treatise on the Moli-
neaux globe (1592), the difficulties were in large part uncon-
trollable. " The most certain of all for this purpose," says this
mathematician, " is confessed by all writers to be by eclipses of
the moon. But now these eclipses happen but seldom, but are
more seldom seen, yet most seldom and in very few places ob-
served by the skillful artists in this science. So that there are
but few longitudes of places designed out by this means. But
this is an uncertain and ticklish way, and subject to many diffi-
culties. Others have gone other ways to work, as, namely, by
observing the space of the equinoctial hours betwixt the meri-
dians of two places, which they conceive may be taken by the
help of sundials, or clocks, or hourglasses, either with water or
sand or the like. But all these conceits, long since devised, hav-
ing been more strictly and accurately examined, have been dis-
allowed and rejected by all learned men — at least those of
riper judgments — as being altogether unable to perform that
which is required of them. I shall not stand here to discover
the errors and uncertainties of these instruments. Away with
all such trifling, cheating rascals ! "
The weather moderating, Columbus stood out of the channel
of Saona on September 24, and meeting the other car- 1494 g^p.
avels, which had weathered the storm, he still steered t«"^^'"24.
to the east. They reached the farthest end of Espanola oppo-
site Porto Rico, and ran out to the island of Mona, in the
channel between the two larger islands. Shortly after leaving
302 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. ^
Mona, Columbus, worn with the anxieties of a five months' '
voyage, in which his nervous excitement and high hopes had .:
sustained him wonderfully, began to feel the reaction. His j
near approach to Isabella accelerated this recoil, till his whole
system suddenly succumbed. He lay in a stupor, knowing
little, remembering nothing, his eyes dim and vitality
reaches oozinff. Under other command, the little fleet sorrow-
Isabella
fully, but gladly, entered the harbor of Isabella.
Our most effective source for the history of this striking \
cruise is the work of Bernaldez, already referred to. i
CHAPTER XIV.
THE SECOND VOYAGE, CONTINUED.
1494-1496.
It was the 29th of September, 1494, when the " Nina," with
the senseless Admiral on board, and her frail consorts 1494 g^
stood into the harbor of Isabella. Taken ashore, the cSumbSin
sick man found no restorative like the presence of his ^^abeUa.
brother Bartholomew, who had reached Isabella during the Ad-
miral's absence. Finds Bar-
Several years had elapsed since the two congenial JJSJllS
brothers had parted. We have seen that this brother *^®'^®-
had probably been with Bartholomew Diaz when he discov-
ered the African cape. It is supposed, from the inscriptions
on it, that the map delivered by Bartholomew to Henry VII.
had shown the results of Diaz's discoveries. This chart had
been taken to England, when Bartholomew had gone thither,
to engage the interest of Henry VII. in Columbus's behalf.
There is some obscurity about the movements of Bartholomew
at this time, but there is thought bv some to be
J. 1 T 1 ion /v> . Bartholo-
reason to believe that he finally srot sufficient en- mew's career
rim f in England.
couragement from that Tudor prmce to start for
Spain with offers for his brother. The Historie tells us that
the propositions of Bartholomew were speedily accepted by
Henry, and this statement prevails in the earlier English
writers, like Hakluyt and Bacon ; but Oviedo says the scheme
was derided, and Geraldini says it was declined. Bartholomew
reached Paris just at the time when word had come there of
Columbus's return from his first voyage. His kinship to the
Admiral, and his own expositions of the geographical problem
then attracting so much attention, drew him within the influ-
ence of the French court, and Charles VIII. is said to. have fur-
nished him the means — as Bartholomew was then low in purse
304 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
— to pursue his way to Spain. He was, however, too late to
see the Admiral, who had already departed from Cadiz on this
second voyage. Finding that it had been arranged for his
brother's sons to be pages at Court, he sought them, and in com-
pany with them he presented himself before the Spanish mon-
archs at Yalladolid. These sovereigns were about fit-
^**°' ting out a supply fleet for Espaiiola, and Bartholomew
was put in command of an advance section of it. Sailing from
Cadiz on April 30, 1494, with three caravels, he reached Isa-
bella on St. John's Day, after the Admiral had left for his
western cruise.
If it was prudent for Columbus to bring another foreigner to
his aid, he found in Bartholomew a fitter and more courageous
spirit than Diego possessed. The Admiral was pretty sure now
Hischarac- *^ havc an activc and fearless deputy, sterner, indeed,
*"• in his habitual bearing than Columbus, and with a har-
dihood both of spirit and body that fitted him for command.
These qualities were not suited to pacify the haughty hidalgos,
but they were merits which rendered him able to confront the
discontent of all settlers, and gave him the temper to stand
in no fear of them. He brought to the government of an ill-
assorted community a good deal that the Admiral lacked. He
was soberer in his imagination ; not so prone to let his wishes
figure the future ; more practiced, if we may believe Las Casas,
in the arts of composition, and able to speak and write much
more directly and comprehensibly than his brother. He man-
aged men better, and business proceeded more regularly under
his control, and he contrived to save what was possible from the
wreck of disorder into which his brother's unfitness for com-
mand had thrown the colony. This is the man whom Las Casas
enables us to understand, through the traits of character which
Created ^® dcpicts. Columbus was now to create this brother
Adeiantado. j^jg representative, in certain ways, with the title of
Adelantado.
It was also no small satisfaction to the Admiral, in his present
weakness, to learn of the well-being of his children, and of the
continued favor with which he was held at Court, little antici-
pating the resentment of Ferdinand that an office of the rank of
Adelantado should be created by any delegated authority. Co-
lumbus had pursued his recent explorations in some measure
THE SECOND VOYAGE. 305
to forestall what he feared the Portuguese might be led to
attempt in the same direction, for he had not been unaware of
the disturbance in the court at Lisbon which the papal line of
demarcation had created. He was glad now to learn from his
brother that his own fleet had hardly got to sea from Cadiz, in
September, 1493, when the Pope, by another bull on the 26th of
that month, had declared that all countries of the eastern Indies
which the Spaniards might find, in case they were not already
in Christian hands, should be included in the grant made to
Spain. This Bull of Extension, as it was called, was PapaiBuiiof
a new thorn in the side of Portugal, and time would ^^^^'^^io"-
reveal its effect. Alexander had resisted all importunities to
recede from his position, taken in May.
Let us look now at what had happened in Espaiiola during
the absence of Columbus ; but in the first place, we
must mark out the native division of the island with Espanoia
whose history Columbus's career is so associated. Just absence of
back of Isabella, and about the Vega Real, whose be-
wildering beauties of grove and savanna have excited the ad-
miration of modern visitors, lay the territory tributary to a
cacique named Guarionex, which was bounded south by the
Cibao gold mountains. South of these interior ridges and ex-
tending to the southern shore of the island lay the region (Ma-
guana) of the most warlike of all the native princes, Caonabo,
whose wife, Anacaona, was a sister of Behechio, who governed
Xaragua, as the larger part of the southern coast, westward of
Caonabo's domain, including the long southwestern peninsula,
was called. The northeastern part of the island (Marien) was
subject to Guacanagari, the cacique neighboring to La Navi-
dad. The eastern end (Higuay) of the island was under the
domination of a chief named Cotabanana.
It will be remembered that before starting for Cuba the
Admiral had equipped an expedition, which, when it arrived at
St. Thomas, was to be consigned to the charge of Pedro Mar-
garite. This officer had instructions to explore the mountains
of Cibao, and map out its resources. He was not to harass the
natives by impositions, but he was to make them fear his
power. It was also his business to avoid reducing the colony's
supplies by making the natives support this exploring force.
306
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
If he could not get this support by fair means, he was to use
foul means. Such instructions were hazardous enough ; but
Margarite was not the man to soften their application. He
had even failed to grasp the spirit of the instructions which
had been given by Columbus to ensnare Caonabo, which were
THE SECOND VOYAGE. 307
" as thoroughly base and treacherous as could well be imag-
ined," says Helps, and the reader can see them in Navarrete.
This commander had spent his time mainly among the luxu-
rious scenes of the Vega Real, despoiling its tribes of their pro-
visions, and squandering the energies of his men in sensual
diversions. The natives, who ought to have been his helpers,
became irritated at his extortions and indignant at the invasion
of their household happiness. The condition in the tribes which
this riotous conduct had induced looked so threatening that
Diego Columbus, as president of the council, wrote to Margarite
in remonstrance, and reminded him of the Admiral's instruc-
tions to explore the mountains.
The haughty Spaniard, taking umbrage at what he deemed
an interference with his independent command, read-
ily lent himself to the faction inimical to Columbus.
With his aid and with that of Father Boyle, a brother Catalo-
nian, who had proved false to his office as a member of the
ruling council and even finally disregardful of the royal wishes
that he should remain in the colony, an uneasy party was soon
banded together in Isabella. The modern French canonizers,
in order to reconcile the choice by the Pope of this recusant
priest, claim that his Holiness, or the king for him, confounded
a Benedictine and Franciscan priest of the same name, and
that the Benedictine was an unlucky changeling — perhaps even
purposely — for the true monk of the Franciscans.
In the face of Diego, this cabal found little difficulty in
planning to leave the island for Spain in the ships which had
come with Bartholomew Columbus. Diego had no power to
meet with compulsion the defiance of these mutineers, and was
subjected to the sore mortification of seeing the rebels sail out
of the harbor for Spain. There was left to Diego, however,
some satisfaction in feeling that such dangerous ringleaders
were gone ; but it was not unaccompanied with anxiety to know
what effect their representations would have at Court. A like
anxiety now became poignant in the Admiral's mind, on his re-
turn.
The stories which Diego and Bartholomew were compelled to
tell Columbus of the sequel of this violent abandonment of the
colony were sad ones. The license which Pedro Margarite had
permitted became more extended, when the little armed force
808 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
of the colony found itself without military restraint. It soon
disbanded in large part, and lawless squads of soldiers were
scattered throughout the country, wherever passion or avarice
could find anything to prey upon. The long-suffering Indians
soon reached the limits of endurance. A few acts of vengeance
encouraged them to commit others, and everywhere small par-
ties of the Spaniards were cut off as they wandered about for
food and lustful conquests. The inhabitants of villages turned
upon such stragglers as abused their hospitalities. Houses
where they sheltered themselves were fired. Detached posts
were besieged.
While this condition prevailed, Caonabo planned to surprise
Fort St. Thomas. Ojeda, here in control with fifty
Fort St. men, commanded about the only remnant of the Span-
ish forces which acknowledged the discipline of a
competent leader. The vigilant Ojeda did not fail to get in-
telligence of Caonabo's intentions. He made new vows to the
Virgin, before an old Flemish picture of Our Lady which hung
in his chamber in the fort, and which never failed to encourage
him, wherever he tarried or wherever he strayed. Every man
was under arms, and every eye was alert, when their commander,
as great in spirit as he was diminutive in stature, marshaled
his fifty men along his ramparts, as Caonabo with his horde
of naked warriors advanced to surprise him. The outraged ca-
cique was too late. No unclothed natives dared to come within
range of the Spanish crossbows and arquebuses. Ojeda met
every artful and stealthy approach by a sally that dropped the
bravest of Caonabo's warriors.
The cacique next tried to starve the Spaniards out. His
parties infested every path, and if a foraging force came out, or
one of succor endeavored to get in, multitudes of the natives
foiled the endeavor. Famine was impending in the fort. The
procrastinations of the arts of beleaguering always help the
white man behind his ramparts, when the savage is his enemy.
The native force dwindled under the delays, and Caonabo at
last abandoned the siege.
The native leader now gave himself to a larger enterprise.
Caonabo's His spics told him of the weakened condition of Isa-
league. bcUa, and he resolved to form a league of the princi-
pal caciques of the island to attack that settlement. Wherever
THE SECOND VOYAGE. 309
the Spaniards had penetrated, they had turned the friendliest
feelings into hatred, and in remote parts of the island the re-
ports of the Spanish ravages served, almost as much as the ex-
perience of them, to embitter the savage. It was no small
success for Caonabo to make the other caciques believe that the
supernatural character of the Spaniards would not protect them
if a combined attack should be arranged. He persuaded all of
them but Guacanagari, for that earliest friend of Columbus re-
mained firm in his devotion to the Spaniards. The Admiral's
confidence in him had not been misplaced. He was subjected
to attacks by the other chieftains, but his constancy survived
them all. In these incursions of his neighbors, his wives were
killed and captured, and among them the dauntless Catalina, as
is affirmed ; but his zeal for his white neighbors did not abate.
When Guacanagari heard that Columbus had returned, he
repaired to Isabella, and from this faithful ally the
Admiral learned of the plans which were only waiting and Gua-
further developments for precipitate action. canagan.
Columbus, thus forewarned, was eager to break any confed-
eracy of the Indians before it could gather strength. He had
hardly a leader disengaged whom he could send on the war-
path. It was scarcely politic to place Bartholomew in any
such command over the few remaining Spanish cavaliers whose
spirit was so necessary to any military adventure. He sent a
party, however, to relieve a small garrison near the villages of
Guatiguana, a tributary chief to the great cacique Guarionex ;
but the party resorted to the old excesses, and came near de-
feating the purposes of ,Columbus. Guatiguana was prevailed
upon, however, to come to the Spanish settlement, and Colum-
bus, to seal his agreement of amity with him, persuaded him to
let the Lucayan interpreter marry his daughter. To this dip-
lomatic arrangement the Admiral added the more powerful
argument of a fort, called La Concepcion, which he j-o^
later built where it could command the Vega Real. conception.
It was not long before four ships, with Antonio Torres in
command, arrived from Spain, bringing a new store
» . . , , . . f ° ,. . Torres's
01 provisions, another physician, and more medicines, ships ar-
and, what was much needed, artificers and numerous
gardeners. There was some hope now that the soil could be
made to do its part in the support of the colony.
310 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
To the Admiral came a letter, dated August 16, from Ferdi-
nand and Isabella, giving him notice that all the difficulties
with Portugal had been amicably adjusted. The court of Lis-
bon, finding that Pope Alexander was not inclined to recede
from his position, and Spain not courting any difference that
would lead to hostilities, both countries had easily been brought
to an agreement, which was made at Tordesillas, June
7. TreatJTof 7, 1494, to movc the line of demarcation so much far-
ther as to fall 370 leagues west of the Cape de Verde
Islands. Each country then bound itself to respect its granted
rights under the bull thus modified. The historical study of
this diplomatic controversy over the papal division of the world
is much embarrassed by the lack of documentary records of the
correspondence carried on by Spain, Portugal, and the Pope.
This letter of August 16 must have been very gratifying to
The sover- Columbus. Their Majesties told him that one of the
tcfcoium-^^ principal reasons of their rejoicing in his discoveries
^"^' was that they felt it all due to his genius and perse-
verance, and that the events had justified his foreknowledge and
their expectations. So now, in their desire to define the new
line of demarcation, and in the hope that it might be found to
run through some ocean island, where a monument could be
erected, they turned to him for assistance, and they expected
that if he could not return to assist in these final negotiations,
he would dispatch to them some one who was competent to deal
with the geographical problem.
Torres had also brought a general letter of counsel to the
and to the colonists. Commanding them to obey all the wishes and
colonists. ^^ ^^^ ^Q ^YiQ authority of the Admiral. Whatever
his lack of responsibility, in some measure at least, for the un-
doubted commercial failure of the colony, its want of a product
in any degree commensurate both with expectation and outlay
could not fail, as he well understood, to have a strong effect
both on the spirit of the people and on the constancy of his
royal patrons, who might, under the urging of Margarite and his
abettors, have already swerved from his support.
Reasons of this kind made it imperative that the newly ar-
rived ships should be returned without delay, and with such
reassuring messages and returns as could be furnished. The
fleet departed on February 24, 1495. Himself still prostrate,
THE SECOND VOYAGE. 311
and needing his brother Bartholomew to act during this season
of his incapacity, there was no one he could spare so 1495 ^^^
well to meet the wishes of the sovereigns as his other ST^aSt re-
brother. So armed with maps and instructions, and |p™n,^**
with the further mission of protecting the Admiral's
interest at Court, Diego embarked in one of the caravels. All
the gold which had been collected was consigned to Diego's
care, but it was only a sorry show, after all. There had been a
variety of new fruits and spices, and samples of baser metals
gathered, and these helped to complete the lading. There was
one resource lefto He had intimated his readiness to avail him-
self of it in the communication of his views to the carrying
sovereigns, which Torres had already conveyed to them. ^^*^®*-
He now gave the plan the full force of an experiment, and
packed into the little caravels full five hundred of the unhappy
natives, to be sold as slaves. " The very ship," says Helps,
" which brought that admirable reply from Ferdinand and Isa-
bella to Columbus, begging him to seek some other way to
Christianity than through slavery, even for wild man-devouring
Caribs, should go back full of slaves taken from among the mild
islanders of Hispaniola." The act was a long step in the mis-
erable degradation which Columbus put upon those poor crea-
tures whose existence he had made known to the world. Almost
in the same breath, as in his letter to Santangel, he had sug-
gested the future of a slave traffic out of that very existence.
It is an obvious plea in his defense that the example of the
church and of kings had made such heartless conduct a common
resort to meet the financial burdens of conquest. The Portu-
guese had done it in Africa ; the Spaniards had done it in
Spain. The contemporary history of that age may be coiumbus
said to ring with the wails and moans of such negro *°^ slavery.
and Moorish victims. A Holy Keligion had unblushingly been
made the sponsor for such a crime. Theologians had proved
that the Word of God could ordain misery in this world, if only
the recompense came — or be supposed to come — in a passport
to the Christian's heaven.
The merit which Columbus arrogated to himself was that he
was superior to the cosmogra^hical knowledge of his time. It
was the merit of Las Casas that he threw upon the reeking pas-
sions of the enslaver the light of a religion that was above
312 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
sophistry and purer than cupidity. The existence of Las Casas
is the arraignment of Columbus.
It may be indeed asking too much of weak humanity to be
good in all things, and therein rests the pitiful plea for Colum-
bus, the originator of American slavery.
Events soon became ominous. A savage host began to gather
in the Vega Real, and all that Columbus, now recovering his
strength, could marshal in his defense was about two hundred
foot and twenty horse, but they were cased in steel, and the
natives were naked. In this respect, the fight was unequal, and
the more so that the Spaniards were now able to take
blood- ^ ^ into the field a pack of twenty implacable bloodhounds.
The bare bodies of the Indians had no protection
against their insatiate thirst.
It was the 27th of March, 1495, when Columbus, at the head
of this little army, marched forth from Isabella, to
27. coium- confront a force of the natives, which, if we choose
' to believe the figures that are given by Las Casas,
amounted to 100,000 men, massed under the command of Man-
icaotex. The whites climbed the Pass of the Hidalgos, where
Columbus had opened the way the year before, and descended
into that lovely valley, no longer a hospitable paradise. As
they approached the hostile horde, details were sent to make
the attacks various and simultaneous. The Indians were sur-
prised at the flashes of the arquebuses from every quarter of
the woody covert, and the clang of their enemies* drums and the
bray of their trumpets drowned the savage yeUs. The native
army had already begun to stagger in their wonder and perplex-
ity, when Ojeda, seizing the opportune moment, dashed
the Vega with his mouutcd lancemen right into the centre of
the dusky mass. The bloodhounds rushed to their
sanguinary work on his flanks. The task was soon done. The
woods were filled with flying and shrieking savages. The
league of the caciques was broken, and it was only left for the
conquerors to gather up their prisoners. Guacanagari, who had
followed the white army with a train of his subjects, looked
on with the same wonder which struck the Indians who were
beaten. There was no opportunity for him to fight at all. The
rout had been complete. This notable conflict taking place on
THE SECOND VOYAGE. 313
April 25, 1495, is a central point in a somewhat bewildering
tangle of events, as our authorities relate them, so that 1495 ^^^^
it is not easy in all cases to establish their sequence. ^^*
The question of dealing with Caonabo was still the most im-
portant of all. It was solved by the cunning and dash of Ojeda.
Presenting his plan to the Admiral, he was commanded to carry
it out. Taking ten men whom he could trust, Ojeda boldly
sought the village where Caonabo was quartered, and
with as much intrepidity as cunning put himself in captured by
the power of that cacique. The chieftain was not with- ""^ **
out chivalry, and the confidence and audacity of Ojeda won
him. Hospitality was extended, and the confidences of a mutual
respect soon ensued. Ojeda proposed that Caonabo should ac-
company him to Isabella, to make a compact of friendship with
the Viceroy. All then would be peaceful. Caonabo, who had
often wondered at the talking of the great bell in the chapel at
Isabella, as he had heard it when skulking about the settle-
ment, eagerly sprang to the lure, when Ojeda promised that he
should have the bell. Ojeda, congratulating himself on the suc-
cess of his bait, was disconcerted when he found that the cacique
intended that a large force of armed followers should make the
visit with him. To prevent this, Ojeda resorted to a stratagem,
which is related by Las Casas, who says it was often spoken of
when that priest first came to the island, six years later. Muiioz
was not brought to believe the tale ; but Helps sees no obstacle
to giving it credence.
The Spaniards and the Indians were all on the march to-
gether, and had encamped by a river. Ojeda produced a set of
burnished steel manacles, and told the cacique that they were
ornaments such as the King of Spain wore on solemn occasions,
and that he had been commanded to give them to the most dis-
tinguished native prince. He first proposed a bath in the river.
The swim over, Caonabo was prevailed upon to be put behind
Ojeda astride the same horse. Then the shining baubles were
adjusted, apparently without exciting suspicion, amid the elation
of the savage at his high seat upon the wondrous beast. A few
sweeping gallops of the horse, guided by Ojeda, and followed
by the other mounted spearmen, scattered the amazed crowd of
the cacique's attendants. Then at a convenient gap in the circle
314 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
Ojeda spurred his steed, and the whole mounted party dashed
into the forest and away. The party drew up only when they
had got beyond pursuit, in order to bind the cacique faster in
his seat. So in due time, this little cavalcade galloped into Isa-
bella with its manacled prisoner.
The meeting of Columbus and his captive was one of very
Meets Co- different emotions in the two, — the Admiral rejoi-
lumbus. gjj^g. ^i^g^^ jjig jnost active foe was in his power, and the
cacique abating nothing of the defiance which belonged to his
freedom. Las Casas tells us that, as Caonabo lay in his shackles
in an outer apartment of the Admiral's house, the people came
and looked at him. He also relates that the bold Ojeda was
the only one toward whom the prisoner manifested any respect,
acknowledging in this way his admiration for his audacity. He
would maintain only an indifferent haughtiness toward the Ad-
miral, who had not, as he said, the courage to do himself what
he left to the bravery of his lieutenant.
Ojeda presently returned to his command at St. Thomas,
only to find that a brother of Caonabo had gathered the Indians
for an assault. Dauntless audacity again saved him. He had
brought with him some new men, and so, leaving a garrison in
the fort, he sallied forth with his horsemen and with
tacks the as many foot as he could muster and attacked the ap-
proaching host. A charge of the glittering horse,
with the flashing of sabres, broke the dusky line. The savages
fled, leaving their commander a prisoner in Ojeda's hands.
Columbus followed up these triumphs by a march through
the country. Every opposition needed scarce more than a dash
of Ojeda's cavalry to break it. The Vega was once more quiet
with a sullen submission. The confederated caciques all sued
for peace, except Behechio, who ruled the southwestern corner
of the island. The whites had not yet invaded his territory,
and he retired morosely, taking with him his sister, Anacaona,
the wife of the imprisoned Caonabo.
The battle and the succeeding collapse had settled the fate of
the poor natives. The policy of subjecting men by violence to
Reparti- P^-y the tribute of their lives and property to Span-
SicJmieii''^ ish cupidity was begun in earnest, and it was shortly
***^' after made to include the labor on the Spanish farms,
which, under the names of repartimientos and encomiendas, de-
THE SECOND VOYAGE. 315
moralized the lives of master and slave. When prisoners were
gathered in such numbers that to guard them was a burden,
there could be but little delay in forcing the issue of the slave
trade upon the Crown as a part of an established policy. To
the mind of Columbus, there was now some chance of repelling
the accusations of Margarite and Father Boyle by palpable
returns of olive flesh and shining metal. A scheme of enforced
contribution of gold was accordingly planned. Each native
above the age of fourteen was required to pay every three
months, into the Spanish coffers, his share of gold, measured
by the capacity of a hawk's bell for the common person, and
by that of a calabash for the cacique. In the regions distant
from the gold deposits, cotton was accepted as a substitute,
twenty-five pounds for each person. A copper medal was put
on the neck of every Indian for each payment, and new exac-
tions were levied upon those who failed to show the medals.
The amount of this tribute was more than the poor natives
could find, and Guarionex tried to have it commuted for grain ;
but the golden greed of Columbus was inexorable. He pre-
ferred to reduce the requirements rather than vary the kind.
A half of a hawk's bell of gold was better than stores of grain.
" It is a curious circumstance," says Irving, " that the miseries
of the poor natives should thus be measured out, as it were, by
the very baubles which first fascinated them."
To make this payment sure, it was necessary to establish other
armed posts throua:h the country ; and there were
-,.,,., ^ o ^r 11 . ,1 XT Forts buUt.
speedily built that of Magdalena in the Vega, one
called Esperanza in Cibao, another named Catalina, beside La
Concepcion, which has already been mentioned.
The change which ensued in the lives of the natives was
pitiable. The labor of sifting the sands of the streams The natives
for gold, which they had heretofore made a mere pas- <i«^^««<^-
time to secure bits to pound into ornaments, became a depress-
ing task. To work fields under a tropical sun, where they had
basked for sportive rest, converted their native joyousness into
despair. They sang their grief in melancholy songs, as Peter
Martyr tells us. Gradually they withdrew from their old
haunts, and by hiding in the mountains, they sought to avoid
the exactions, and to force the Spaniards, thus no longer sup-
plied by native labor with food, to abandon their posts and re-
316 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
tire to Isabella, if not to leave the island. Scant fare for them-
selves and the misery of dank lurking-places were preferable
to the heavy burdens of the taskmasters. They died in their
retreats rather than return to their miserable labors. Even the
long-tried friend of the Spaniards, Guacanagari, was made no
exception. He and his people suffered every exaction with the
Guacanagari ^^^st of their couutrymcu. The cacique himself is said
disappears, evcntually to have buried himself in despair in the
mountain fastnesses, and so passed from the sight of men.
The Spaniards were not so easily to be thwarted. They
hunted the poor creatures like game, and, under the goading of
lashes, such as survived were in time returned to their slavery.
So thoroughly was every instinct of vengeance rooted out of the
naturally timid nature of the Indians that a Spaniard might, as
Las Casas tells us, march solemnly like an army through the
most solitary parts of the island and receive tribute at every
demand.
It is time to watch the effect of the representations of Mar-
garite and Father Boyle at the Spanish Court. Columbus had
been doubtless impelled, in these schemes of cruel ex-
interestsin actiou, by tlic fcar of their influence, and with the
hope of meeting their sneers at his ill success with
substantial tribute to the Crown. The charges against Colum-
bus and his policy and against his misrepresentation had all
the immediate effect of accusations which are supported by one-
sided witnesses. Every sentiment of jealousy and pride was
played upon, and every circumstance of palliation and modifica-
tion was ignored. The suspicious reservation which had more
or less characterized the bearing of Ferdinand towards the trans-
actions of the hero could become a background to the newer
emotions. Fonseca and the comptroller Juan de Soria are
charged with an easy acceptance of every insinuation against
the Viceroy. The canonizers cannot execrate Fonseca enough.
They make him alternately the creature and beguiler of the
King. His subserviency, his trading in bishoprics, and his alleged
hatred of Columbus are features of all their portraits of him.
The case against the Admiral was thus successfully argued.
Testimony like that of the receiver of the Crown taxes in re-
buttal of charges seemed to weigh little. Movements having
THE SECOND VOYAGE. 317
been instituted at once (April 7, 1495) to succor the colony by
the immediate dispatch of supplies, it was two days later agreed
with Beradi — the same with whom Vespucius had been asso-
ciated, as we have seen — to furnish twelve ships for Espaiiola.
The resolution was then taken to send an agent to investigate
the affairs of the colony. If he should find the Admiral still
absent, — for the length of his cruise to Cuba had already, at
that time, begun to excite apprehension of his safety, — this same
agent was to superintend the distribution of the supplies which
he was to take. At this juncture, in April, 1495, Torres, arriv-
ing with his fleet, reported the Admiral's safe return, and sub-
mitted the notarial document, in which Columbus had made it
clear to his own satisfaction that the Golden Chersonesus was
in sight. Whether that freak of geographical prescience threw
about his expedition a temporary splendor, and again wakened
the gratitude of the sovereigns, as Irving says it did, may be
left to the imagination ; but the fact remains that the sover-
eigns did not swerve from their purpose to send an Aguado sent
inquisitor to the colony, and the same Juan Aguado *** EspaSoia.
who had come back with credentials from the Admiral himself
was selected for the mission.
There were some recent orders of the Crown which Aguado
was to break to the Admiral, from which Columbus could not
fail to discover that the exclusiveness of his powers ^
was seriously impaired. On the 10th of April, 1495, ^^-^^^ AJ^^^ ^^
it had been ordered that any native-born Spaniard lowed to ex-
'' ^ plore.
could invade the seas which had been sacredly appor-
tioned to Columbus, that such navigator might discover what he
could, and even settle, if he liked, in Espanola. This order
was a ground of serious complaint by Columbus at a later day,
for the reason that this license was availed of by unworthy
interlopers. He declares that after the way had been shown
even the very tailors turned explorers. It seems tolerably cer-
tain that this irresponsible voyaging, which continued till Co-
lumbus induced the monarchs to rescind the order in June,
1497, worked developments in the current cartography of the
new regions which it is difficult to trace to their distinct sources.
Gomara intimates that during this period there were Nameless
nameless voyagers, of whose exploits we have no ^oy'^g®"-
record by which to identify them, and Navarrete and Humboldt
318 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
find evidences of explorations which cannot otherwise be ac-
counted for.
How far this condition of affairs was brought about by the
Enemies of importuuitics of the enemies of Columbus is not clear.
Columbus. Q^i^g surviving Pinzons are said to have been in part
those who influenced the monarchs, but doubtless a share of
profits, which the Crown required from all such private specu-
lation, was quite as strong an incentive as any importunities of
eager mariners. The burdens of the official expeditions were
onerous for an exhausted treasury, and any resource to replen-
ish its coffers was not very narrowly scrutinized in the light of
the pledges which Columbus had exacted from a Crown that
was beginning to understand the impolicy of such concessions.
There was also at this time a passage of words between Fon-
seca and Diego Colon that was not without irritating
and Diego elements. The Admiral's brother had brought some
gold with him, which he claimed as his own. Fonseca
withheld it, but in the end obeyed the sovereign's order and
released it. It was no time to add to the complications of the
Crown's relations with the distant Viceroy.
Aguado bore a royal letter, which commanded Columbus to
reduce the dependents of the colony to five hundred,
tertoco- as a necessary retrenchment. There had previously
been a thousand. Directions were also given to con-
trol the apportionment of rations. A new metallurgist and
master-miner, Pablo Belvis, was sent out, and extraordinary
privileges in the working of the mines were given to him.
Muiioz says that he introduced there the quicksilver process of
separating the gold from the sand. A number of new priests
were collected to take the place of those who had returned, or
who desired to come back.
Such were the companions and instructions that Aguado was
commissioned to bear to Columbus. There was still another
movement in the policy of the Crown that offered the Viceroy
little ground for reassurance. The prisoners which he had sent
by the ships raised a serious question. It was determined that
Columbus 3-ny transaction looking to the making slaves of them
and slavery. -^^^ ^^^^ h^QXi authorized ; but the desire of Columbus
so to treat them had at first been met by a royal order directing
their sale in the marts of Andalusia. A few days later, under
THE SECOND VOYAGE. 319
the influence of Isabella, this order had been suspended, till
an inquiry could be made into the cause of the capture of the
Indians, and until the theologians could decide upon the jus-
tifiableness of such a sale. If we may believe Bernaldez, who
pictures their misery, they were subsequently sold in Seville.
Muiioz, however, says that he could not find that the trouble
which harassed the theologians was ever decided. Such hesi-
tancy was calculated to present a cruel dilemma to the Viceroy,
since the only way in which the clamor of the Court for gold
could be promptly appeased came near being prohibited by
what Columbus must have called the misapplied mercy of the
Queen. He failed to see, as Munoz suggests, why vassals of
the Crown, entering upon acts of resistance, should not be sub-
jected to every sort of cruelty. Humboldt wonders at any hesi-
tancy when the grand inquisitor, Torquemada, was burning her-
etics so fiercely at this time that such expiations of the poor
Moors and Jews numbered 8,800 between 1481 and 1498 !
Aguado, with four caravels, and Diego Columbus accompany-
ing him, having sailed from Cadiz late in August, 1495 q^.
1495, reached the harbor of Isabella some time in Oc- Agu^o at
tober. The new commissioner found the Admiral ab- ^«^^®"*-
sent, occupied with affairs in other parts of the island. Aguado
soon made known his authority. It was embraced in a brief
missive, dated April 9, 1495, and as Irving translates it, it
read : " Cavaliers, esquires, and other persons, who by our orders
are in the Indies, we send to you Juan Aguado, our groom of the
chambers, who will speak to you on our part. We command you
to give him faith and credit." The efficacy of such an order
depended on the royal purpose that was behind it, and on the
will of the commissioner, which might or might not conform to
that purpose. It has been a plea of Irving and others that
Aguado, elated by a transient authority, transcended the inten-
tions of the monarchs. It is not easy to find a definite deter-
mination of such a question. It appears that when the instru-
ment was proclaimed by trumpet, the general opinion did not
interpret the order as a suspension of the Viceroy's powers.
The Adelantado, who was governing in Columbus's absence,
saw the new commissioner order arrests, countermand direc-
tions, and in various ways assume the functions of a governor.
Bartholomew was in no condition to do more than mildly remon-
320 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS,
strate. It was clearly not safe for him to provoke the great
body of the discontented colonists, who professed now to find a
champion sent to them by royal order.
Columbus heard of Aguado's arrival, and at once returned to
Isabella. Aguado, who had started to find him with an escort
of horse, missed him on the road, and this delayed their meet-
Meets co- '^^K ^ little. When the conference came, Columbus,
lumbus. ^j^]^ jj^ dignified and courteous air, bowed to a superior
authority. It has passed into history that Aguado was disap-
pointed at this quiet submission, and had hoped for an alterca-
tion, which might warrant some peremptory force. It is also
said that later he endeavored to make it appear how Columbus
had not been so complacent as was becoming.
It was soon apparent that this displacement of the Admiral
was restoring even the natives to hope, and their caciques were
not slow in presenting complaints, not certainly without reason,
to the ascendant power, and against the merciless extortions of
the Admiral.
The budget of accusations which Aguado had accumulated
Accuses was uow full cuough, and he ordered the vessels to
Columbus, niake ready to carry him back to Spain. The situa-
tion for Columbus was a serious one. He had in all this trial
experienced the results of the intrigues of Margarite and Father
Boyle. He knew of the damaging persuasiveness of the Pin-
zons. He had not much to expect from the advocacy of Diego.
There was nothing for him to do but to face in person the
charges as reenforced by Aguado. He resolved to return in
the ships. " It is not one of the least singular traits in his his-
tory," says Irving, " that after having been so many years in
persuading mankind that there was a new world to be dis-
covered, he had almost an equal trouble in proving to them the
advantage of the discovery." He himself never did prove it.
The ships were ready. They lay at anchor in the roadstead.
A cloud of vapor and dust was seen in the east. It
wrecked in was bomc hcadloug bcforc a hurricane such as the
Spaniards had never seen, and the natives could not
remember its equal. It cut a track through the forests. It
lashed the sea until its expanse seethed and writhed and sent
its harried waters tossing in a seeming fright. The uplifted
surges broke the natural barriers and started inland. The
THE SECOND VOYAGE.
321
ships shuddered at their anchorage ; cables snapped ; three car-
avels sunk, and the rest were dashed on the beach. The tumult
lasted for three hours, and then the sun shone upon the havoc.
There was but one vessel left in the harbor, and she was shat-
tered. It was the " Nina," which had borne Columbus in his
western cruise. As soon as the little colony recovered its senses,
322 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
men were s6t to work repairing the solitary caravel, and con-
structing another out of the remnants of the wrecks.
While this was going on, a young Spaniard, Miguel Diaz by
Miguel Diaz name, presented himself in Isabella. He had been
finds gold, -j^ ^^^ scrvicc of the Adelantado, and was not unrecog"-
nized. He was one who had some time before wounded another
Spaniard in a duel, and, supposing that the wound was mortal,
he had, with a few friends, fled into the woods and wandered
away till he came to the banks of the Ozema, a river on the
southern coast of the island, at the mouth of which the city of
Santo Domingo now stands. Here, as he said, he had attracted
the attention of a female cacique, there reigning, and had be-
come her lover. She confided to him the fact that there were
rich gold mines in her territory, and to make him more content
in her company, she suggested that perhaps the Admiral, if
he knew of the mines, would abandon the low site of Isabella,
and find a better one on the Ozema. Acting on this suggestion,
Diaz, with some guides, returned to the neighborhood of Isa-
bella, and lingered in concealment till he learned that his an-
tagonist had survived his wound. Then, making bold, he entered
the town, as we have seen. His story was a welcome one, and
the Adelantado was dispatched with a force to verify the adven-
turer's statement. In due time, the party returned, and reported
Hayna *^^* ^* ^ rivcr named Hayna they had found such
mines. storcs of gold that Cibao was poor in comparison.
The explorers had seen the metal in all the streams ; they
observed it in the hillsides. They had discovered two deep
excavations, which looked as if the mines had been worked at
some time by a more enterprising people, since of these great
holes the natives could give no account. Once more the Admi-
soiomon's ^^^'^ imagination was fired. He felt sure that he had
ophir. come upon the Ophir of Solomon. These ancient
mines must have yielded the gold which covered the great Tem-
ple. Had the Admiral not discovered already the course of the
ships which sought it ? Did they not come from the Persian
gulf, round the Golden Chersonesus, and so easterly, as he him-
self had in the reverse way tracked the very course ? Here was
a new splendor for the Court of Spain. If the name of India
was redolent of spices, that of Ophir could but be resplendent
with gold ! That was a message worth taking to Europe.
THE SECOND VOYAGE. 323
The two caravels were now ready. The Adelantado was left
in command, with Diego to succeed in case of his death. Fran-
cisco Roldan was commissioned as chief magistrate, and the
Fathers Juan Berzognon and Roman Pane remained behind to
pursue missionary labors among the natives. Instructions were
left that the valley of the Ozema should be occupied, and a fort
built in it. Diaz, with his queenly Catalina, had become im-
portant.
There was a motley company of about two hundred and fifty
persons, largely discontents and vagabonds, crowded into the
two ships. Columbus was in one, and Ao^uado in the
other, bo they started on their adventurous and lo. coium-
, bus and
wearying voyage on March 10, 1496. They carried AguadosaU
about thirty Indians in confinement, and amonff them carrying
I /. 1 . 1 . Caonabo.
the manacled Caonabo, with some of his relatives.
Cohimbus told Bernaldez that he took the chieftain over to im-
press him with Spanish power, and that he intended to send him
back and release him in the end. His release came otherwise.
There is some disagreement of testimony on the point, some
alleging that he was drowned during the hurricane in the
harbor, but the better opinion seems to be that he died on the
voyage, of a broken spirit. At any rate, he never reached
Spain, and we hear of him only once while on shipboard.
We have seen that on his return voyage in 1492 Columbus
had pushed north before turning east. It does not appear how
much he had learned of the experience of Torres's easterly pas-
sages. Perhaps it was only to make a new trial that he now
steered directly east. He met the trade winds and the calms of
the tropics, and had been almost a month at sea when, ^^qq
on April 6, he found himself still neighboring to the ^^"^ ^•
islands of the Caribs. His crew needed rest and provisions,
and he bore away to seek them. He anchored for a while at
Marigalante, and then passed on to Guadaloupe.
He had some difficulty in landing, as a wild, screaming mass
of natives was gathered on the beach in a hostile Atouada-
manner. A discharge of the Spanish arquebuses ^""p^*
cleared the way, and later a party scouring the woods captured
some of the courageous women of the tribe. These were all
released, however, except a strong, powerful woman, who, with a
daughter, refused to be left, for the reason, as the story goes,
324 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
that she had conceived a passion for Caonabo. By the 20th, the
ships again set sail ; but the same easterly trades baffled them,
and another month was passed without much progress.
By the beginning of June, provisions were so reduced
that there were fears of famine, and it began to be considered
wheJier the voyagers might not emulate the Caribs and eat the
Indians. Columbus interfered, on the plea that the poor crea-
tures were Christian enough to be protected from such a fate ;
but as it turned out, they were not Christian enough to be saved
from the slave-block in Andalusia. The alert senses of Colum-
bus had convinced him that land could not be far distant, and
he was confirmed in this by his reckoning. These opinions of
Columbus were questioned, however, and it was not at all clear
in the minds of some, even of the experienced pilots who were
on board, that they were so near the latitude of Cape St. Vin-
cent as the Admiral affirmed. Some of these navigators put
the ships as far north as the Bay of Biscay, others even as far
as the English Channel. Columbus one night ordered sail to
be taken in. They were too near the land to proceed. In the
1496. June Hioming, they saw land in the neighborhood of Cape
11. Cadiz. g|. Yincent. On June 11, they entered the harbor
of Cadiz.
CHAPTER XV.
IN SPAIN, 1496-1498.
DA GAMA, VESPUCIUS, CABOT.
"The wretched men crawled forth," as Irving tells us of
their debarkation, " emaciated by the diseases of the 1496 co-
colony and the hardships of the voyage, who carried ri^ht*"^'
in their yellow countenances, says an old writer, a ^*^'^'
mockery of that gold which had been the object of their search,
and who had nothing to relate of the New World but tales of
sickness, poverty, and disappointment." This is the key to the
contrasts in the present reception of the adventurers with that
which greeted Columbus on his return to Palos.
When Columbus landed at Cadiz, he was clothed with the
robe and girdled with the cord of the Franciscans. His face
was unshaven. Whether this was in penance, or an assump-
tion of piety to serve as a lure, is not clear. Oviedo says it
was to express his humility ; and his humbled pride needed
some such expression.
He found in the harbor three caravels just about starting for
Espaiiola with tardy supplies. It had been intended to send
some in January ; but the ships which started with them suf-
fered wreck on the neighboring coasts. He had only to ask
Pedro Alonso Nino, the commander of this little fleet, for his
dispatches, to find the condition of feeling which he was to en-
counter in Spain. They gave him a sense, more than andieams
ever before, of the urgent necessity of making the SinoTtie
colony tributary to the treasury of the Crown. It was Public mind,
clear that discord and unproductiveness were not much longer
to be endured. So he wrote a letter to the Adelantado, which
was to go by the ships, urging expedition in quieting the life
of the colonists, and in bringing the resources of the island
under such control that it could be made to yield a steady flow
of treasure. To this end, the new mines of Hayna must be fur-
326 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
ther explored, and the working of them started with diligence.
A port of shipment should be found in their neigh-
17. coium- borhood, he adds. With such instructions to Bartholo-
to Barthoio- mcw, the caravels sailed on June 17, 1496. It must
have been with some trepidation that Columbus for-
warded to the Court the tidings of his arrival. If the two dis-
patches which he sent could have been preserved, we might
better understand his mental condition.
As soon as the messages of Columbus reached their Majesties,
Invited to ^^^^ ^* Almazau, they sent, July 12, 1496, a letter in-
court. viting him to Court, and reassuring him in his de-
spondency by expressions of kindness. So he started to join the
Court in a somewhat better frame of mind. He led some of his
bedecked Indians in his train, not forgetting " in the towns "
to make a cacique among them wear conspicuously a golden
necklace.
Bernaldez tells us that it was in this wily fashion that Co-
lumbus made his journey into the country of Castile, — " the
which collar," that writer adds, " I have seen and held in these
hands ; " and he goes on to describe the other precious orna-
ments of the natives, which Columbus took care that the gaping
crowds should see on this wandering mission.
It is one of the anachronisms of the Historie of 1571 that it
places the Court at this time at Burgos, and makes it there to
celebrate the marriage of the crown prince with Margaret of
Austria. The author of that book speaks of seeing the festivi-
ties himself, then in attendance as a page upon Don Juan. It
was a singular lapse of memory in Ferdinand Columbus — if
this statement is his — to make two events like the arrival of
his father at Court, with all the incidental parade as described
in the book, and the ceremonies of that wedding festival iden-
tical in time. The wedding was in fact nine months later, in
April, 1497.
Columbus's reception, wherever it was, seems to have been
„ . ^ ^ gracious, and he made the most of the amenities of the
Received by ^ . ' . • i • i i
thesover- occasiou to picturc, lu his old exaggeratmg way, the
wealth of the Ophir mines. He was encouraged by
the effect which his enthusiasm had produced to ask to be sup-
Makes new plied with another fleet, partly to send additional sup-
demands. -^Wq^ to Espafiola, but mainly to enable him to dis-
IN SPAIN, 1496-1408. 327
cover that continental land farther south, of which he had so
constantly heard reports.
It was easy for the monarchs to give fair promises, and quite
as easy to forget them, for a while at least, in the busy scenes
which their political ambitions were producing. Belligerent
relations with France necessitated a vigilant watch about the
Pyrenees. There were fleets to be maintained to resist, both in
the Mediterranean and on the Atlantic coast, attacks which
might unexpectedly fall. An imposing armada was preparing
to go to Flanders to carry thither the Princess Juana to her
espousal with Philip of Austria. The same fleet was to bring
back Philip's sister Margaret to become the bride of Prince
Juan, in those ceremonials to which reference has already been
made.
These events were too engrossing for the monarchs to give
much attention to the wishes of Columbus, and it was not till
the autumn of 1496 that an appropriation was made ^j^c^ ^„.
to equip another little squadron for him. The hopes new exptdi-
it raised were soon dashed, for having some occasion <^ion ordered.
to need money promptly, at a crisis of the contest which the
King was waging with France, the money which had been in-
tended for Columbus was diverted to the new exigency. What
was worse in the eyes of Columbus, it was to be paid out of
some gold which it was supposed that Nino had brought back
from the mines of Hayna. This officer on arriving at Cadiz
had sent to the Court some boastful messages about his golden
lading, which were not confirmed when in December the sober
dispatch of the Adelantado, which Nino had kept back, came
to be read. The nearest approach to gold which the caravels
brought was another crowd of dusky slaves, and the dispatches
of Bartholomew pictured the colony in the same conditions of
destitution as before. There was no stimulant in such reports
either for the Admiral or for the Court, and the New World
was again dismissed from the minds of all, or consigned to their
derision.
When the spring months of 1497 arrived, there were new
hopes. The wedding of Prince Juan at Burgos was
over, and the Queen was left more at liberty to think spring, co-
• » 1 p ^ • rtM tr • lunibus's
of her patronas'e of the new discoveries. Ihe King- rights reaf-
^ . * , 1 . 1 c firmed.
was growing more and more apathetic, and some 01
328
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
the leading spirits of the Court were inimical, either actively
or reservedly. By the Queen's influence, the old rights bestowed
upon Columbus were reaffirmed (April 23, 1497), and he was
offered a large lahded e-state in Espanola, with a new territorial
title ; but he was wise enough to see that to accept it would
complicate his affairs beyond their present entanglement. He
was solicitous, however, to remove some of his present pecuniary
embarrassments, and it was arranged that he should be relieved
from bearing an eighth of the cost of the ventures of
the last three years, and that he should surrender all
rights to the profits ; while for the three years to come he
New powers.
FERDINAND OF ARAGON.
[From an ancient medallion given in Buckingham Smith's Coleccion."]
should have an eighth of the gross income, and a further tenth
of the net proceeds. Later, the original agreement was to be
restored. His brother Bartholomew was created Adelantado^
giving thus the royal sanction to the earlier act of the Admiral.
In the letters patent made out previous to Columbus's second
IN SPAIN, U96-U98.
329
voyage, the Crown distinctly reserved the right to grant other
licenses, and invested Fonseca with the power to do Fonseca al-
so, allowing to Columbus nothing more than one g^antfu
eighth of the tonnage ; and in the ordinance of June ''^"*^*-
2, 1497, in which they now revoked all previous licenses, the
revocation was confined to such things as were repugnant to the
rights of Columbus. It was also agreed that the Crown should
BARTHOLOMEW COLUMBUS.
[From Barcia's Herrera.']
maintain for him a body of three hundred and thirty gentlemen,
soldiers, and helpers, to accompany him on his new expedition,
and this number could be increased, if the profits of the colony
warranted the expenditure. Power was given to him to grant
land to such as would cultivate the soil for four years ; but all
brazil-wood and metals were to be reserved for the Crown.
330 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
All this seemed to indicate that the complaints which had
been made against the oppressive sternness of the Admiral's
rule had not as yet broken down the barriers of the Queen's
protection. Indeed, we find up to this time no record of any-
serious question at Court of his authority, and Irving thinks
nothing indicates any symptom of the royal discontent except
the reiterated injunctions, in the orders given to him respecting
the natives and the colonists, that leniency should govern his
conduct so far as was safe.
Permission being given to him to entail his estates, he marked
out in a testamentaiy document (February 22, 1498)
ruary 22. thc succcssiou of his hcirs, — male heirs, with Ferdi-
nand's rights protected, if Diego's line ran out ; then
male heirs of his brothers ; and if all male heirs failed, then the
estates were to descend by the female line. The title Admiral
was made the paramount honor, and to be the perpetual dis-
tinction of his representatives. The entail was to furnish
forever a tenth of its revenues to charitable uses. Genoa was
placed particularly under the patronage of his succeeding rep-
resentatives, with injunctions always to do that city service, as
far as the interests of the Church and the Spanish Crown
would permit. Investments were to be made from time to time
in the bank of St. George at Genoa, to accumulate against the
opportune moment when the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre
seemed feasible, either to help to that end any state expedition
or to fit out a private one. He enjoined upon his heirs a con-
stant, unwavering devotion to the Papal Church and to the
Spanish Crown. At every season of confession, his representa-
tive was commanded to lay open his heart to the confessor, who
must be prompted by a perusal of the will to ask the crucial
questions.
It was in the same document that Columbus prescribed the
signature of his representatives in succeeding generations, fol-
lowing a formula which he always used himself.
a
Columbus's • ^ '
signature. . S . A . S .
X. M. Y.
Xpo Ferens.
The interpretation of this has been various : Servus Supplex
Altissimi Salvatoris, Christus, Maria^ Yosep)h^ Christo ferenSy
IN •SPAIN, 1496-1498. 331
is one solution ; Servidor sus Altezas sacras, ChHsto, Maria
Ysahel^ is another ; and these are not all.
The complacency of the Queen was soothing ; her appoint-
ment of his son Ferdinand as her page (February 18, 1498)
was gratifying, but it could not wholly compensate Columbus for
the condition of the public mind, of which he was in
every way forcibly reminded. There were both the 1?" of^co^'"
whisper of detraction spreading abroad, and the out- ^"'''^"''
spoken objurgation. The physical debility of his returned com-
panions was made a strong contrast to his reiterated stories of
Paradise. Fortunes wrecked, labor wasted, and lives lost had
found but a pitiable compensation in a few cargoes of miserable
slaves. The people had heard of his enchanting landscapes,
but they had found his aloes and mastic of no value. Hidal-
goes said there was nothing of the luxury they had been told
to expect. The gorgeous cities of the Great Khan had not
been found. Such were the kind of taunts to which he was
subjected.
Columbus, during this period of his sojourn in Spain, spent
a considerable interval under the roof of Andres Ber-
naldez, and we get in his history of the Spanish kings with Be"™
the advantage of the talks which the two friends had
together. '
The Admiral is known to have left with Bernaldez various
documents which were given to him in the presence of Juan de
Fonseca. From the way in which Bernaldez speaks of these
papers, they would seem to have been accounts of the voyage of
Columbus then already made, and it was upon these documents
that Bernaldez says he based his own narratives.
This ecclesiastic had known Columbus at an earlier day,
when the Genoese was a vender of books in Andalu- Bemaidez's
sia, as he says ; in characterizing him, he calls his op^"'^"«-
friend in another place a man of an ingenious turn, but not of
much learning, and he leaves one to infer that the book-vender
was not much suspected of great familiarity with his wares.
We get as clearly from Bernaldez as from any other source
the measure of the disappointment which the public shared as
respects the conspicuous failure of these voyages of Columbus
in their pecuniary relations.
332 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
The results are summed up by that historian to show that the
cost of the voyages had been so great and the returns so small
that it came to be believed that there was in the new
turns of regions no gold to speak of. Taking the first voyage,
^° * — and the second was hardly better, considering the
larger opportunities, — Harrisse has collated, for instance, all
the references to what gold Columbus may have gathered ; and
though there are some contradictory reports, the weight of tes-
timony seems to confine the amount to an inconsiderable sum,
which consisted in the main of personal ornaments. There are
legends of the gold brought to Spain from this voyage being
used to gild palaces and churches, to make altar ornaments for
the cathedral at Toledo, to serve as gifts of homage to the
Pope, but we may safely say that no reputable authority sup-
ports any such statements.
Notwithstanding this seeming royal content of which the
signs have been given, there was, by virtue of a discontented
and irritated public sentiment, a course open to Columbus in
these efforts to fit out his new expedition which was far from
easy. There was so much disinclination in the merchants to
furnish ships that it required a royal order to seize them before
the small fleet could be gathered.
The enlistments to man the ships and make up the contin-
Difflcuities g^i^t destined for the colony were more difficult still.
the^newT* The alacrity with which everybody bounded to the
pedition. summons on his second voyage had entirely gone, and
it was only by the foolish device which Columbus decided upon
Criminals ^^ opcuiug tlic doors of the prisons and of giving
enlisted. pardou to Criminals at large, that he was enabled to
help on the registration of his company. «
Finding that all went slowly, and knowing that the colony
at Espanola must be suffering from want of supplies, the Queen
was induced to order two caravels of the fleet to sail
caravels at oucc, carly in 1498, under the command of Pedro
Fernandez Coronel. This was only possible because
the Queen took some money which she had laid aside as a part
of a dower which was intended for her daughter Isabella, then
betrothed to Emmanuel, the King of Portugal.
So much was gratifying; but the main object of the new
expedition was to make new discoveries, and there were many
IN SPAIN, U96-1498. 333
harassing delays yet in store for Columbus before he could de-
part with the rest of his fleet. These delays, as we shall see,
enabled another people, under the lead of another Italian, to
precede him and make the first discovery of the mainland. The
Queen was cordial, but an affliction came to distract her, in the
death of Prince Juan. Fonseca, who was now in charge of the
fitting out of the caravels, seems to have lacked heart
in the enterprise; but it serves the purpose of Colum- lack of
bus's adulatory biographers to give that agent of the
Crown the character of a determined enemy of Columbus.
Even the prisons did not disgorge their vermin, as he had
wished, and his company gathered very slowly, and never be-
came full. Las Casas tells us that troubles followed him even
to the dock. The accountant of Fonseca, one Ximeno de Bre-
viesca, got into an altercation with the Admiral, who
knocked him down and exhibited other marks of pas- altercation
sion. Las Casas further tells us that this violence, ca'a account-
through the representations of it which Fonseca made,
produced a greater effect on the monarchs than all the allega-
tions of the Admiral's cruelty and vindictiveness which his
accusers from Espanola had constantly brought forward, and
that it was the immediate cause of the change of royal senti-
ment towards him, which soon afterwards appeared. Colum-
bus seems to have discovered the mistake he had made very
promptly, and wrote to the monarchs to counteract its effect. It
was therefore with this new anxiety upon his mind that he for
the third time committed himself to his career of adventure
and exploration. The canonizers would have it that their
sainted hero found it necessary to prove by his energy in per-
sonal violence that age had not impaired his manhood for the
trials before him !
Before following Columbus on this voyage, the reader must
take a glance at the conditions of discovery elsewhere, for these
other events were intimately connected with the significance of
Columbus's own voyagings.
The problem which the Portuguese had undertaken to solve
was, as has been seen, the passage to India by the caGama's
Stormy Cape of Africa. Even before Columbus had. Site African
sailed on his first voyage, word had come in 1490 to ^^^®'
334
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
encourage King Joao II. His emissaries in Cairo had learned
from the Arab sailors that the passage of the cape was practi-
cable on the side of the Indian Ocean. The success of his
Spanish rivals under Columbus in due time encouraged the
Portuguese king still more, or at least piqued him to new
efforts.
Vasco da Gama was finally put in command of a fleet spe-
p^-^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^y^^ ^^^ y equippec . t
^A^^ y ;k ,, ^^z^/!^y .-^.J^y^j^.^.-i^^^^^^^/^ was now some years
since his pilot, Pero
de Alemquer, had
carried Diaz well off
the cape. On Sun-
day, July 8, 1497,
Da Gama sailed
from below Lisbon,
and on November
22 he passed with
full sheets the for-
midable cape. It
was not, however,
till December 17
that he reached the
point where Diaz
had turned back.
His further j^rogress
does not concern us
here. Suffice it to
say that he cast an-
chor at Calicut May 20, 1498, and India was reached
icutMay 20, ten days bcforc Columbus started a third time to ver-
ify his own beliefs, but really to find them errors.
Towards the end of August, or perhaps early in September,
of the next year (1499), Da Gama arrived at Lisbon on his
return voyage, anticipated, indeed, by one of his caravels,
which, separated from the commander in April or May, had
pushed ahead and reached home on the 10th of July. Portu-
gal at once resounded with jubilation. The fleet had returned
crippled with disabled crews, and half the vessels had disap-
peared ; but the solution of a great problem had been reached.
VASCO DA GAMA.
[From Stanley's Da Gama.']
IN SPAIN, 1496 -U98.
335
The voyage of Da Gam a, opening a trade eagerly pursued
and eagerly met, offered, as we shall see, a great contrast to
the small immediate results which came from the futile efforts
of Columbus to find a western way to the same regions.
There have been students of these early explorers yvho have
contended that, while Columbus was harassed in Spain with
336
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
these delays in preparing for his third voyage, the Florentine
Yespucius, whom we have encountered already as
voyage of helping Berardi in the equipment of Columbus's
fleets, had, in a voyage of which we have some con-
Vespucius,
fused chronology, already in 1497 discovered and coursed the-
northern shores of the mainland south of the Caribbean Sea.
Bernaldez tells us that, during the interval between the sec-
ond and third voyages of Columbus, the Admiral " accorded
permission to other captains to make discoveries at the west,
who went and discovered various islands." Whether we can
IN SPAIN, 1496-14^8. 337
connect this statement with any such voyage as is now to be
considered is a matter of dispute.
This question of the first discovery of the mainland of South
America, — we shall see that North America's mainland had al-
ready been discovered, — whether by Columbus or Ves-
pucius, is one which has long vexed the historian and S^eds^iX'
still does perplex him, though the general consensus '^"'^"*'*^
of opinion at the present day is in favor of Columbus, wh^
pursuing the voyage through which we are soon to follow him.
The question is much complicated by the Uncertainties and con-
fusion of the narratives which are our only guides. The dis-
covery, if not claimed by Yespucius, has been vigorously claimed
for him. Its particulars are also made a part of the doubt which
has clouded the recitals concerning the voyage of Pinzon and
Solis to the Honduras coast, which are usually placed later ; but
by Oviedo and Gomara this voyage is said to have preceded that
of Columbus.
The claim for Vespucius is at the best but an enforced
method of clarifying the published texts concerning claimed for
the voyages, in the hopes of finding something like ^^sp^cius.
consistency in their dates. Any commentator who undertakes
to get at the truth must necessarily give himself up to some sort
of conjecture, not only as respects the varied inconsistencies of
the narrative, but also as regards the manifold blunders of the
printer of the little book which records the voyages. Munoz
had it in mind, it is understood, to prove that Yespucius could
not have been on the coast at the date of his alleged discovery ;
but in the opinions of some the documents do not prove all that
Munoz, Navarrete, and Humboldt have claimed, while the advo-
cacy of Yarnhagen in favor of Yespucius does not allow that
writer to see what he apparently does not desire to see. The
most, perhaps, that we can say is that the proof against the
view of Yarnhagen, who is in favor of such a voyage in 1497,
is not wholly substantiated. The fact seems to be, so far as
can be made out, that Yespucius passed from one commander's
employ to another's, at a date when Ojeda, in 1499, had not
completed his voyage, and when Pinzon started. So supposing
a return to Spain in order for Yespucius to restart with Pinzon,
it is also supposable that the year 1499 itself may have seen
him under two different leaders. If this is the correct view, it
338 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
of course carries forward the date to a time later than the dis-
covery of the mainland by Columbus. It is nothing but plau-
sible conjecture, after all ; but something of the nature of con-
jecture is necessary to dissipate the confusion. The belief of
this sharing of service is the best working hypothesis yet de-
vised upon the question.
If Vespucius was thus with Pinzon, and this latter navigator
did, as Oviedo claims, precede Columbus to the mainland, there
is no proof of it to prevent a marked difference of opinion
among all the writers* in that some ignore the Florentine nav-
igator entirely, and others confidently construct the story of
his discovery, which has in turn taken root and been widely
believed.
A voyage of 1497 does not find mention in any of the con-
temporary Portuguese chroniclers. This absence of
voyage of reference is serious evidence against it. It seems to be
certain that within twenty years of their publication,
there were doubts raised of the veracity of the narratives attrib-
uted to Vespucius, and Sebastian Cabot tells us in 1505 that he
does not believe them in respect to this one voyage at any rate,
and Las Casas is about as well convinced as Cabot was that the
story was unfounded. Las Casas's papers passed probably to
Herrera, who, under the influence of them, it would seem, for-
mulated a distinct allegation that Vespucius had falsified the
dates, converting 1499 into 1497. To destroy all the claims
associated with Pinzon and Solis, Herrera carried their voyage
forward to 1506. It was in 1601 that this historian made these
points, and so far as he regulated the opinions of Europe for a
century and a half, including those of England as derived
through Robertson, Vespucius lived in the world's regard with
a clouded reputation. The attempt of Bandini in the middle
of the last century to lift the shadow was not ver}^ fortunate,
but better success followed later, when Canovai delivered an
address which then and afterwards, when it was reinforced by
other publications of his, was something like a gage thrown to
the old-time defamatory spirit. This denunciatory view was
vigorously worked, with Navarrete's help, by Santarem in the
Coleccion of that Spanish scholar, whence Irving in turn got
his opinions. Santarem professed to have made most extensive
examinations of Portuguese and French manuscripts without
finding a trace of the Florentine.
IN SPAIN, 1496 ~U98. 339
Uiidaiinted by all such negative testimony, the Portuguese
Varnhagen, as early as 1839, began a series of publications
aimed at rehabilitating the fame of Yespucius, against the
views of all the later writers, Humboldt, Navarrete, Santarera,
and the rest. Humboldt claimed to adduce evidence to show
that Vespucius was all the while in Europe. Varnhagen finally
brought himself to the belief that in this disputed voyage of
1497 Vespucius, acting under the orders of Vicente Yanez Pin-
zon and Juan Diaz de Solis, really reached the main at Hondu-
ras, whence he followed the curvatures of the coast northerly till
he reached the capes of Chesapeake. Thence he steered east-
erly, passed the Bermudas, and arrived at Seville. If this is
so, he circumnavigated the archipelago of the Antilles, and dis-
proved the continental connection of Cuba. Varnhagen even
goes so far as to maintain that Vespucius had not been deceived
into supposing the coast was that of Asia, but that he divined
the truth. Varnhagen stands, however, alone in this estimate
of the evidence.
Valentini, in our day, has even supposed that the incomplete
Cuba of the Ruysch map of 1508 was really the Yucatan shore,
which Vespucius had skirted.
The claim which some French zealots in maritime discovery
have attempted to sustain, of Norman adventurers being on the
Brazil coast in 1497-98, is hardly worth consideration.
We turn now to other problems. The Bull of Demarcation
was far from beino- acceptable as an ultimate decision
. T^ 1 T 1 ? . . P , , , . . The English
m England, and the spirit ot her people towards it is expedition
n 1 • 1 TTT rt7 • /• TT 1 1 under Cabot.
well shown in the Westeime l^lanting oi Hakluyt.
This chronicler mistrusts that its " certain secret causes " —
which words he had found in the papal bull, probably by using
an inaccurate version — were no other than " the feare and jel-
ousie that King Henry of England, with whom Bartholomew
Columbus had been to deal in this enterprise, and who even
now was ready to send him into Spain to call his brother Chris-
topher to England, should put a foot into this action ; " and so
the Pope, " fearing that either the King of Portugal might be
reconciled to Columbus, or that he might be drawn into Eng-
land, thought secretly by his unlawful division to defraud Eng-
land and Portugal of that benefit." So England and Portugal
340 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
had something like a common cause, and the record of how they
worked that cause is told in the stories of Cabot first, and of
Cortereal later. We will examine at this point the Cabot story
only-
Bristol had long been the seat of the English commerce with
Iceland, and one of the commodities received in return for
English goods was the stockfish, which Cabot was to recognize
on the Newfoundland banks. These stories of the codfish noticed
by Cabot recalled in the mind of Galvano in 1555,
land fish-" and again more forcibly to Hakluyt a half century
later, when Germany was now found to be not far
from the latitude of Baccalaos, that there was a tale of some
strange men, in the time of Frederick Barbarossa (a. d. 1153),
being driven to Lubec in a canoe.
It is by no means beyond possibility that the Basque and other
fishermen of Europe may have already strayed to these fish-
ing grounds of Newfoundland, at some period anterior to this
voyage of Cabot, and even traces of their frequenting the coast
in Bradore Bay have been pointed out, but without convincing
as yet the careful student.
A Venetian named Zuan Caboto, settling in England, and
thenceforward calling: himself John Cabot, beina: a
John Cabot. . . ° i i i •
man of experience in travel, and havmg seen at one
time at Mecca the caravans returning from the east, was im-
pressed, as Columbus had been, with a belief in the round-
ness of the earth. It is not unlikely that this belief had taken
for him a compelling nature from the stories which had come to
England of the successful voyage of the Spaniards. Indeed,
Ramusio distinctly tells us that it was the bruit of Columbus's
first voyage which gave to Cabot " a great flame of desire to
attempt some notable thing."
When Cabot had received for himself and his three sons —
one of whom was Sebastian Cabot — a patent (March
5. Cabot's 5, 1496) from Henry YII. to discover and trade with
unknown countries beyond the seas^ the envoy of Fer-
dinand and Isabella at the English court was promptly instructed
to protest against any infringement of the rights of Spain
1497. May. ^^ the wcstcm rcgious. Whether this protest was
Cabot sails, accouutablc for the delay in sailing, or not, does not
appear, for Cabot did not set sail from Bristol till May, 1497.
IN SPAIN, U96-1498. 341
It is inferred from what Beneventanus says in his Ptolemy of
1508 that Ruysch, who gives us the earliest engraved ^^y^i^ ^ith
map of Cabot's discoveries, was a companion of Cabot ^***°*"
in this initial voyage. When that editor says that he learned
from Ruysch of his experiences in sailing from the south of
England to a point in 53 degrees of north latitude, and thence
due west, it may be referred to such participancy in this expe-
dition from Bristol. We know from a conversation which is
reported in Ramusio — unless there is some mistake in it —
that Cabot apprehended the nature of what we call great circle
sailing, and claimed that his course to the northwest would open
India by a shorter route than the westerly run of Columbus.
When Cabot had ventured westerly 700 leagues, he found
land, June 24, 1497. There has been some confidence
at different times, early and late, that the date of this 24. cabS^
first Cabot voyage was in reality three years before
this. The belief arose from the date of 1494 being given in
what seem to have been early copies of a map ascribed
Date of the
to Sebastian Cabot, whence the date 1494 was copied voyage, 1494
^ or 1497 ?
by Hakluyt in 1589, though eleven years later he
changed it to 1497. It is sufficient to say that few of the critics
of our day, except D'Avezac, hold to this date of 1494. Major
supposes that the map of 1544, now in the Paris library and
ascribed to Cabot, was a re-drawn draft from the lost Spanish
original, in which the date in Roman letters, VII, may have
been so carelessly made in joining the arms of the V that it
was read IIII ; and some such inference was apparently in the
mind of Henry Stevens when he published his little tract on
Sebastian Cabot in 1870.
The country which Cabot thus first saw was supposed by him
to be a part of Asia, and to be occupied, though no inhabitants
were seen.
Cabot was for over three hundred years considered as having
made his landfall on the coast of Labrador, or at cabot's
least we find no record that the legend of the map of i*"^**"-
1544, placing it at Cape Breton, had impressed itself authorita-
tively upon the minds of Cabot's contemporaries and successors.
Biddle and Humboldt, in the early part of the present century,
accepted the Labrador landfall with little question. So it hap-
pened that when, in 1843, the Cabot mappemonde of 1544
342 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
was discovered, and it was found to place the landfall at the
island of Cape Breton, a certain definiteness, where there had
been so much vagueness, afforded the student some relief ; but
as the novelty of the sensation wore off, confidence was again
lost, inasmuch as the various uncertainties of the document give
much ground for the rejection of all parts of its testimony at
variance with better vouched beliefs. It is quite possible that
more satisfactory proofs can be adduced of another region for
the landfall, but none such have yet been presented to scholars.
It is commonly held now that, sighting land at Cape Breton,
Cabot coursed northerly, passed the present Prince Edward Isl-
and, and then sailed out of the Strait of Belle Isle, — or at
least this is as reasonable a route to make out of the scant rec-
ord as any, though there is nothing like a commonly received
opinion on his track. There is some ground for thinking that
he could not have entered the Gulf of St. Lawrence at all. He
landed nowhere and saw no inhabitants. If he struck the main-
land, it was probably the coasts of New Brunswick or Labra-
dor bordering on the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The two islands
which he observed on his right may have been headlands of
Newfoundland, seeming to be isolated.
He reached Bristol in August, having been absent about
three months. Raimondo de Soncino, under date of
1497. Au-
gust! Cabot the 24th of that month, wrote to Italy of Cabot's re-
turn, and a fortnight earlier (August 10) we find
record of a gratuity of ten pounds given to Cabot in recognition
of this service. It proved to be an expedition which was to
create a greater sensation of its kind than the English had
before known. Bristol had nurtured for some years a race of
hardy seamen. They had risked the dangers of the great un-
known ocean in efforts to find the fabulous island of Brazil, and
they had pushed adventurously westward at times, but always
to return without success. The intercourse of England with
the northern nations and with Iceland may have given them
tidings of Greenland ; but there is no reason to believe that
they ever supposed that country to be other than an extended
peninsula of Europe, enfolding the North Atlantic. Cabot's
telling of a new land, his supposing it the empire of the Great
Khan, his tales of the wonderful fishing ground thereabouts,
where the water was so dense with fish that his vessels were
IN SPAIN, 1496-1498. 343
impeded, and his expectation of finding the land of spices if he
went southward from the region of his landfall, were all stories
calculated to incite wonder and speculation. It was not strange,
then, that England found she had her new sea-hero, as Spain
had hers in Columbus ; that the king gave him money cabotin
and a pension ; and that, conscious of a certain dig- ^''^^^^'^
nity, Cabot went about the city, drawing the attention of the
curious by reason of the fine silks in which he arrayed himself.
Cabot had no sooner returned than Pedro de Ayala, the
Spanish envoy in London, again entered a protest, and gave
notice to the English king that the land which had gpain jealous
been discovered belonged to his master. There is °^ England,
some evidence that Spain kept close watch on the country at the
north through succeeding years, and even intended settlement. .
This Spanish ambassador wrote home from London, July 25,
1498, that after his first voyage, Cabot had been in cabotin
Seville and Lisbon. This renders somewhat probable Seville?
the suspicion that he may have had conferences with La Cosa
and Columbus.
That John Cabot, on returning from his first voyage, pro-
duced a chart which he had made, and that on this and on a
solid globe, also of his construction, he had laid down what he
considered to be the region he had reached, now admit cabot's
of no doubt. Foreign residents at the English court <^^*'^^^'
reported such facts to the courts of Italy and of Spain. In the
map of La Cosa (1500), we find what is considered a reflex of
this Cabot chart, in the words running along a stretch of the
northeast coast of Asia, which announce the waters adjacent
as those visited by the English, and a neighboring headland as
the Cape of the English. Even La Cosa's use of the Cabot map
was lost sight of before long, and this record of La Cosa re-
mained unknown till Humboldt discovered the map in Paris, in
1832, in the library of Baron Walckenaer, whence it passed in
1853 into the royal museum at Madrid. The views of Cabot
respecting this region seem to have been soon obscured by the
more current charts showing the voyages of the Cortereals,
when the Cape of the English readily disappeared in the "Cabo
de Portogesi," a forerunner, very likely, of what we know to-
day as Cape Race.
Such an appetizing tale as that of the first Cabot expedition
344 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
was not likely to rest without a sequel. On the 3d of Febru-
ary, 1497-98, nearly four months before Columbus
1497-98. . .
February. Sailed ou liis third voyage, the English king granted
caboTvoJ- a new patent to John Cabot, giving him the right to
^^^* man six ships if he could, and in May he was at sea.
Though his sons were not mentioned in the patent, it is sup-
posed that Sebastian Cabot accompanied his father. One vessel
putting back to Ireland, five others went on, carrying John
Cabot westward somewhere and to oblivion, for we never hear
of him again. Stevens ventures the suggestion that John Cabot
may have died on the voyage of 1498, whereby Sebastian came
into command, and so into a prominence in his own recollections
of the voyage, which may account for the obscuration of his
father's participancy in the enterprise. One of the ships would
seem to have been commanded by Lanslot Thirkill, of London.
What we know of this second voyage are mentions in later
years, vague in character, and apparently traceable to what
Sebastian had said of it, and not always clearly, for there is an
evident commingling of events of this and of the earlier voyage.
We get what we know mainly from Peter Martyr, who tells
us that Cabot called the region Baccalaos, and from Ramusio,
who reports at second hand Sebastian's account, made forty
years after the event. From such indefinite sources we can
make out that the little fleet steered northwesterly, and got into
water packed with ice, and found itself in a latitude where
there was little night. Thence turning south they ran down to
36° north latitude. The crews landed here and there, and saw
people dressed in skins, who used copper implements. When
they reached England we do not know, but it was after Octo-
ber, 1498.
The question of this voyage having extended down the Atlan-
Extent of ^^^ scaboard of the present United States to the region
this voyage, ^j. pjo^ida, as has been urged, seems to be set at rest
in Stevens's opinion, from the fact that, had Cabot gone so far,
he would scarcely have acquiesced in the claims of Ponce de
Leon, Ayllon, and Gomez to have first tracked parts of this
coast, when Sebastian Cabot as pilot major of Spain (1518),
and as president of the Congress of Badajoz (1524), had to
adjudicate on such pretensions. There are some objections to
this view, in that the results of unofficial explorers as shown in
IN SPAIN, 1496-1438. 346
the Portuguese map of Cantino — if that proposition is tenable
— and the rival English discoverers, of whom Cabot had been
one, might easily have been held to be beyond the Spanish
jurisdiction. It is not difficult to demonstrate in these matters
the Spanish constant unrecognition of other national explora-
tions.
It has also sometimes been held that the wild character of
the coast along which Cabot sailed must have convinced him
that he was bordering some continental region intervening be-
tween him and the true coast of Asia ; that with the " great
displeasure " he had felt in finding the land running north,
Cabot, in fact, must have comprehended the geographical prob-
lem of America long before it was comprehended by the Span-
iards. The testimony of the La Cosa and Ruysch maps is
not favorable to such a belief.
It seems pretty certain that the success of the Cabot voyage
in any worldly gain was not sufficient to move the English
again for a long period. Still, the political effect was to raise
a claim for England to a region not then known to be a new
continent, but of an appreciable acquisition, and Eng-
land never afterwards failed to rest her rights upon rests her
this claim of discovery ; and even her successors, the
American people, have not been without cause to rest valuable
privileges upon the same. The geographical effect was seen in
the earliest map which we possess of the new lands as discov-
ered by Spain and England, the great oxhide map of Juan de
la Cosa, the companion of Columbus on his second voyage, and
the cartographer of his discoveries, which has already been men-
tioned, and of which a further description will be given later.
Why is it that we know no more of these voyages of the
Cabots ? There seems to be some ground for the suspicion that
the " maps and discourses " which Sebastian Cabot left behind
him in the hands of William Worthington may have fallen,
through the subornation by Spain of the latter, into the hands
of the rivals of England at a period just after the publication
(1582) of Hakluyt's Divers Voyages, wherein the possession
of them by Worthington was made known ; at least, g^ant know-
Biddle has advanced such a theory, and it has some c'S'ot*'* *^^
support in what may be conjectured of the history of ^oy^^es.
the famous Cabot map of 1544, only brought to light three hun-
346 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
dred years later. Here was a map evidently based in part o»
such information as was known in Spain. It was engraved, as
seems likely, though purporting to be the work of Cabot, in the
Low Countries, and was issued without name of pub-
mappe- lishcr or place, as if to elude responsibility. Not-
™ " ' withstanding it was an engraved map, implying many
copies, it entirely disappeared, and would not have been known
to exist except that there are references to such a map as
having hung in the gallery at Whitehall, as used by Ortelius
before 1570, and as noted by Sanuto in 1588. So thorough a
suppression would seem to imply an effort on the part of the
Spanish authorities to prevent the world's profiting by the pub-
lication of maritime knowledge which in some clandestine way
had escaped from the Spanish hydrographical office. That this
suppression was in effect nearly successful may be inferred
from the fact that but a single copy of the map has come down
to us, the one now in the great library at Paris, which was
found in Germany by Von Martins in 1843.
There has been a good deal done of late years — beginning
Writers on ^ith Biddlc's Sehastiun Cabot in 1831, a noteworthy
Cabot. book, showing how much the critical sj^irit can do to
uni'avel confusion, and ending with the chapter on Cabot by the
late Dr. Charles Deane in the Narrative and Critical History
of America., and with the Jean et Sebastien Cabot of Harrisse
(Paris, 1882) — to clear up the great obscurity regarding the
two voyages of John Cabot in 1497 and 1498, an obscurity so
dense that for two hundred years after the events there was no.
suspicion among writers that there had been more than a single
voyage. It would appear that this obscurity had mainly arisen
from the way in which Sebastian Cabot himself spoke of his
explorations, or rather from the way in which he is reported to
have spoken.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE THIRD VOYAGE.
1498-1500.
In following the events of the third voyage, we have to
depend mainly on two letters written by Columbus sources.
himself. One is addressed to the Spanish monarchs, Sers^and*
and is preserved in a copy made by Las Casas. J<*"^"^^-
What Peter Martyr tells us seems to have been borrowed from
this letter. The other is addressed to the " nurse " of Prince
Juan, of which there are copies in the Columbus Custodia at
Genoa, and in the Muiioz collection of the Eoyal Academy of
History at Madrid. They are both printed in Navarrete and
elsewhere, and Major in his Select Letters of Columbus gives
English versions.
There are also some evidences that the account of this voy-
age given in the Itinerarium Portugalensium was based on
Columbus's journal, which Las Casas is known to have had,
and to have used in his Historia^ adding thereto some details
which he got from a recital by Bernaldo de Ibarra, one of Co-
lumbus's companions, — indeed, his secretary. The map which
accompanied these accounts by Columbus is lost. We only
know its existence through the use of it made by Ojeda and
others.
Las Casas interspersed among the details which he recorded
from Columbus's journal some particulars which he got from
Alonso de Vallejo. One of the pilots, Hernan Perez Matheos,
enabled Oviedo to add still something more to the other sources ;
and then we have additional light from the mouths of various
witnesses in the Columbus lawsuit. There is a little at second
hand, but of small importance, in a letter of Simon Verde
printed by Harrisse.
348 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
Before setting sail, Columbus prepared some directions for his
Columbus's ^^^^ Diego, of which we have only recently had notes,
son Diego, ^yxch. appearing in the bulletin of the Italian Geo-
graphical Society for December, 1889. He commands in these
injunctions that Diego shall have an affectionate regard for
the mother of his half-brother Ferdinand, adds some rules for
the guidance of his bearing towards his sovereigns and his fel-
low-men, and recommends him to resort to Father Gaspar Gor-
ricio whenever he might feel in need of advice.
Columbus lifted anchor in the port of San Lucar de Barra-
meda on May 30, 1498. He was physically far from
30. coium- being in a good condition for so adventurous an under-
taking. He had hoped, he says to his sovereigns, " to
find repose in Spain; whereas on the contrary I have expe-
rienced nothing but opposition and vexation." His six vessels
stood off to the southwest, to avoid a French — some say a Por-
tuguese — fleet which was said to be cruising near Cape St.
Vincent. His plan was a definite one, to keep in a southerly
course till he reached the equatorial regions, and then to pro-
ceed west. By this course, he hoped to strike in that direction
the continental mass of which he had intimation both from the
reports of the natives in Espanola and from the trend which he
had found in his last voyage the Cuban coast to have. Herrera
tells us that the Portuguese king professed to have some know-
ledge of a continent in this direction, and we may con-
southern ucct it, if wc choosc, with the stories respecting Be-
haim and others, who had already sailed thitherward,
as some reports go ; but it is hard to comprehend that any
belief of that kind was other than a guess at a compensating
scheme of geography beyond the Atlantic, to correspond with
the balance of Africa against Europe in the eastern hemisphere.
It is barely possible, though there is no positive evidence of it,
that the reports from England of the Cabot discoveries at the
north may have given a hint of like prolongation to the south.
But a more impelling instinct was the prevalent one of his time,
which accompanied what Michelet calls that terrible malady
breaking out in this age of Europe, the hunger and thirst for
gold and other precious things, and which associated the pos-
session of them with the warmer regions of the globe.
" To the south," said Peter Martyr. " He who would find
riches must avoid the cold north ! "
THE THIRD VOYAGE. 349
Navarrete preserves a letter which was written to Columbus
by Jayme Ferrer, a lapidary of distinction. This jew- ^^^^^ j.^^.
eler confirmed the prevalent notion, and said that in '^®'"-
all his intercourse with distant marts, whence Europe derived
its gold and jewels, he had learned from their vendors how
such objects of commerce usually came in greatest abundance
from near the equator, while black races were those that pre-
dominated near such sources. Therefore, as Ferrer told Colum-
bus, steer south and find a black race, if you would get at such
opulent abundance. The Admiral remembered he had heard
in Espanola of blacks that had come from the south to that
island in the past, and he had taken to Spain some of the metal
which had been given to him as of the kind with which their
javelins had been pointed. The Spanish assayers had found it
a composition of gold, copper, and silver.
So it was with expectations like these that Columbus now
worked his way south. He touched for wood and
^ . Columbus
water at Porto Santo and Madeira, and thence pro- steers south-
* erly.
ceeded to Gomera. Here, on June 16, he found a
French cruiser with two Spanish prizes, but the three i6. At go-
mera.
ships eluded his grasp and got to sea. He sent three
caravels in pursuit, and the Spanish prisoners rising on the crew
of one of the prizes, she was easily captured and brought into
port.
The Spanish fleet sailed again on June 21. The Admiral had
detailed three of his ships to proceed direct to Espa- „ ^ ,
^ , -^ ^ Sends three
iiola to find the new port on its southern side near the ships direct
*■ , to Espanola.
mines of Hayna. Their respective captains were to
command the little squadron successively a week at a time.
These men were : Alonso Sanchez de Carvajal, a man of good
reputation ; Pedro de Arona, a brother of Beatrix de Henriquez,
who had borne Ferdinand to the Admiral ; and Juan Antonio
Colombo, a Genoese and distant kinsman of the Admiral.
Parting with these vessels off Ferro, Columbus, with the three
others, — one of which, the flagship, being decked, of a hun-
dred tons burthen, and requiring three fathoms of water, —
steered for the Cape de Verde Islands. His stay here coiumbus
was not inspiring. A depressing climate of vapor and Je verde^^
an arid landscape told upon his health and upon that. ^^^'''''^'•
of his crew. Encountering difficulties in getting fresh pro-
350 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS,
visions and cattle, he sailed again on July 5, standing to the
southwest. Calms and the currents among the islands baffled
him, however, and it was the 7th before the high peak of Del
1498. July Fuego sauk astern. By the 15th of July he had
^^' reached the latitude of 5° north. He was now within
the verge of the equatorial calms. The air soon burned every-
thing distressingly ; the rigging oozed with the running tar ;
Calms and *^® scauis of the vcsscls opcucd ; provisions grew
torrid heats, pu^^id, and the wine casks shrank and leaked. The
fiery ordeal called for all the constancy of the crew, and the
Admiral himself needed all the fortitude he could command to
bear a brave face amid the twinges of gout which were prostrat-
ing him. He changed his course to see if he could not run out
of the intolerable heat, and after a tedious interval, with no
cessation of the humid and enervating air, the ships gradually
drew into a fresher atmosphere. A breeze rippled the water,
and the sun shone the more refreshing for its clearness. He
now steered due west, hoping to find land before his water and
provisions failed. He did not discover land as soon as he ex-
pected, and so bore away to the north, thinking to see
31. Trinidad somc of the Carib Islands. On July 31 relief came,
seen. c i •
none too soon, for their water was nearly exhausted.
A mariner, about midday, peering about from the masthead,
saw three peaks just rising above the horizon. The cry of land
was like a benison. The Salve Regina was intoned in every
part of the ship. Columbus now headed the fleet for the land.
As the ships went on and the three peaks grew into a triple
mountain, he gave the island the name of Trinidad, a reminder
in its peak of the Trinity, which he had determined at the start
to commemorate by bestowing that appellation on the first land
he saw. He coasted the shore of this island for some distance
before he could find a harbor to careen his ships and replenish
his water casks. On August 1 he anchored to get
water, and was surprised at the fresh luxuriance of
the country. He could see habitations in the interior, but no-
where along the shore were any signs of occupation. His men,
while filling the casks, discovered footprints and other traces of
human life, but those who made them kept out of sight.
He was now on the southern side of the island, and in that
channel which separates Trinidad from the low country about
THE THIRD VOYAGE. 351
the mouths of the Orinoco. Before long he could see the oppo-
site coast stretching away for twenty leagues, but he ^-^^^^ ^^^
did not suspect it to be other than an island, which Ame^i??S
he named La Isla Santa. ^^*^*'
It was indeed strange but not surprising that Columbus found
an island of a new continent, and supposed it the mainland of
the Old World, as happened during his earlier voyages ; and
equally striking it was that now when he had actually seen the
mainland of a new world he did not know it.
By the 2d of August the Admiral had approached that nar-
row channel where the southwest corner of Trinidad 1493 a„.
comes nearest to the mainland, and here he anchored. ^"^*^-
A large canoe, containing five and twenty Indians, put off to-
wards his ships, but finally its occupants lay upon their paddles
a bowshot away. Columbus describes them as comely in shape,
naked but for breech-cloths, and wearing variegated scarfs about
their heads. They were lighter in skin than any Indians he had
seen before. This fact was not very promising in view of the
belief that precious products would be found in a country in-
habited by blacks. The men had bucklers, too, a defense he
had never seen before among these new tribes. He tried to
lure them on board by showing trinkets, and by improvising
some music and dances among his crew. The last expedient
was evidently looked upon as a challenge, and was met by a
flight of arrows. Two crossbows were discharged in return, and
the canoe fled. The natives seemed to have less fear of the
smaller caravels, and approached near enough for the captain
of one of them to throw some presents to them, a cap, and a
mantle, and the like ; but when the Indians saw that a boat was
sent to the Admiral's ship, they again fled.
While here at anchor, the crew were permitted to go ashore
and refresh themselves. They found much delight in the cool
air of the morning and evening, coming after their experiences
of the torrid suffocation of the calm latitudes. Nature had
appeared to them never so fresh.
Columbus grew uneasy in his insecure anchorage, for he had
discovered as yet no roadstead. He saw the current flowing
by with a strength that alarmed him. The waters seemed to
tumble in commotion as they were jammed together in the nar-
Tow pass before him. It was his first experience of that
352 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
African current which, setting across the ocean, plunges here-
TheGuif abouts into the Caribbean Sea, and, sweeping around
stream. ^j^^ great gulf, passcs north in what we know as the
Gulf Stream. Columbus was as yet ignorant, too, of the great
masses of water which the many mouths of the Orinoco dis-
charge along this shore ; and when at night a great roaring
biUow of water came across the channel, — very likely an un-
usual volume of the river water poured out of a sudden, — and
he found his own ship lifting at her anchor and one of his cara-
vels snapping her cable, he felt himself in the face of new dan-
gers, and of forces of nature to which he was not accustomed.
To a seaman's senses not used to such phenomena, the situation
of the ships was alarming. Before him was the surging flow
of the current through the narrow pass, which he had already
Boca del named the Mouth of the Serpent (Boca del Sierpe).
sierpe. ^^ attempt its passage was almost foolhardy. To re-
turn along the coast stemming such a current seemed nearly im-
possible. He then sent his boats to examine the pass, and they
found more water than was supposed, and on the assurances of
the pilot, and the wind favoring, he headed his ships for the
boiling eddies, passed safely through, and soon reached the
placid water beyond. The shore of Trinidad stretched north-
erly, and he turned to follow it, but somebody getting a taste of
the water found it to be fresh. Here was a new surprise. He
Gulf of h^^ ^^* y^* comprehended that he was within a land-
Paria. lockcd gulf, whcrc the rush of the Orinoco sweetens
the tide throughout. As he approached the northwestern limit
of Trinidad, he found that a lofty cape jutted out opposite a
similar headland to the west, and that between them lay a
second surging channel, beset with rocks and seeming to be
more dangerous than the last. So he gave it a more ferocious
Boca del uamc, the Mouth of the Dragon (Boca del Drago).
Drago. rp^ follow thc oppositc coast presented an alternative
that did not require so much risk, and, still ignorant of the way
in which his fleet was embayed in this marvelous water, he ran
across on Sunday, August 5, to the opposite shore. He now
coasted it to find a better opening to the north, for he had sup-
posed this slender peninsula to be another island. The water
grew fresher as he went on. The shore attracted him, with its
harbors and salubrious, restful air, but he was anxious to get
THE THIRD VOYAGE.
353
into the open sea. He saw no inhabitants. The liveliest crea-
tures which he observed were the chattering monkeys. At
length, the country becoming more level, he ran into the mouth
GULF OF PARIA.
of a river and cast anchor. It was perhaps here that the
Spaniards first set foot on the continent. The accounts are
somewhat confused, and need some license in reconciling them.
They had, possibly, landed earlier.
354 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
A canoe with three natives now came out to the caravel near-
est shore. The Spanish captain secured the men by a clever
trick. After a parley, he gave them to understand he would go
on shore in their boat, and jumping violently on its gunwale,
he overturned it. The occupants were easily captured in the
water. Being taken on board the flagship, the inevitable hawks'
bells captivated them, and they were set on shore to delight
their fellows. Other parleys and interchanges of gifts fol-
lowed. Columbus now ascertained, as well as he could by signs,
that the word " Paria," which he heard, was the name
of the country. The Indians pointed westerly, and
indicated that men were much more numerous that way. The
Spaniards were struck with the tall stature of the men, and
noted the absence of braids in their hair. It was curious to see
them smell of everything that was new to them, — a piece of
brass, for instance. It seemed to be their sense of inquiry and
recognition. It is not certain if Columbus participated in this
intercourse on shore. He was suffering from a severe eruption
of the eyes, and one of the witnesses said that the formal tak-
ing possession of the country was done by deputy on that ac-
count. This statement is contradicted by others.
As he went on, the country became even more attractive, with
its limpid streams, its open and luxuriant woods, its clambering
vines, all enlivened with the flitting of brilliant birds. So he
called the place The Gardens. The natives appeared
to him to partake of the excellence of the country.
They were, as he thought, manlier in bearing, shapelier in frame,
with greater intelligence in their eyes, than any he had earlier
discovered. Their arts were evidently superior to anything he
had yet seen. Their canoes were handier, lighter, and had
covered pavilions in the waist. There were strings of pearls
upon the women which raised in the Spaniards an increased
sense of cupidity. The men found oysters clinging to the
boughs that drooped along the shore. Columbus recalled how
he had read in Pliny of the habit of the pearl oyster to open
the mouth to catch the dew, which was converted within into
pearls. The people were as hospitable as they were gracious,
and gave the strangers feasts as they passed from cabin to
cabin. They pointed beyond the hills, and signified that another
coast lay there, where a greater store of pearls could be found.
THE THIRD VOYAGE. 355
To leave this paradise was necessary, and on August 10 the
ships went further on, soon to find the water growing 1493 ^y_
still fresher and more shallow. At last, thinking it ^"^* ^^•
dangerous to push his flagship into such shoals, Columbus sent
his lightest caravel ahead, and waited her coming back. On the
next day she returned, and reported that there was an inner bay
beyond the islands which were seen, into which large volumes of
fresh water poured, as if a huge continent were drained. Here
were conditions for examination under more favorable circum-
stances, and on August 11 Columbus turned his prow toward the
Dragon's Mouth. His stewards declared the provisions growing
bad, and even the large stores intended for the colony were
beginning to spoil. It was necessary to reach his destination.
Columbus's own health was sinking. His gout had little cessa-
tion. His eyes had almost closed with a weariness that he had
before experienced on the Cuban cruise, and he could but think
of the way in which he had been taken prostrate into Isabella
on returning from that expedition.
Near the Dragon's Mouth he found a harbor in which to pre-
pare for the passage of the tumultuous strait. There seemed no
escape from the trial. The passage lay before him, wide enough
in itself, but two islands parted its currents and forced the boil-
ing waters into narrower confines. Columbus studied their
motion, and finally made up his mind that the turmoil of the
waters might after all come from the meeting of the tide and
the fresh currents seeking the open sea, and not from rocks or
shoals. At all events, the passage must be made. The
wind veering round to the right quarter, he set sail and Boca del
entered the boisterous currents. As long as the wind
lasted there was a good chance of keeping his steering way. Un-
fortunately, the wind died away, and so he trusted to luck and
the sweeping currents. They carried him safely beyond. Once
without, he was brought within sight of two islands to the north-
east. They were apparently those we to-day caU Tobago Tobago and
and Grenada. It was now the 15th of August, and ^''®»*<^*-
Columbus turned westward to track the coast. He came to the
islands of Cubagua and Margarita, and surprised some native
canoes fishing for pearls. His crews soon got into par- cilbaguaand
ley with the natives, and breaking up some Valentia Margarita.
ware into bits, the Spaniards bartered them so successfully that
356 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
they secured three pounds, as Columbus tells us, of the coveted
iewels. He had satisfied himself that here was a new
Pearls
field for the wealth which could alone restore his credit
in . Spain ; but he could not tarry. As he wore ship, he left
behind a mountainous reach of the coast that stretched westerly,
and he would fain think that India lay that way, as it had from
Cuba. At that island and here, he had touched, as he thought,
the confines of Asia, two protuberant peninsulas, or perhaps
masses of the continent, separated by a strait, which possibly
lay ahead of him.
There was much that had been novel in all these experiences.
Columbus felt that the New World was throwing wider open
the gates of its sublime secrets. Lying on his couch, almost
helpless from the cruel agonies of the gout, and sight-
geographicai Icss from the malady of his eyes, the active mind of
the Admiral worked at the old problems anew. We
know it all from the letter which a few weeks later he drafted
for the perusal of his sovereigns, and from his reports to Peter
Martyr, which that chronicler has preserved for us. We know
from this letter that his thoughts were still dwelling on the
Mount Sopora of Solomon, " which mountain your Highnesses
now possess in the island of Espanola," — a convenient step-
ping-stone to other credulous fancies, as we shall see. The
sweetness and volume of the water which had met him in the
Gulf of Paria were significant to him of a great watershed be-
hind. He reverted to the statement in Esdras of the vast pre-
ponderance on the globe of land, six parts to one of water, and
thought he saw a confirmation of it in the immense flow that
argued a corresponding expansion of land. He recalled all that
he recollected of Aristotle and the other sages. He went back
to his experiences in mid-ocean, when he was startled at the coin-
cidence of the needle and the pole star. He remembered how
he had found all the conditions of temperature and the other
physical aspects to be changed as he passed that line, and it
seemed as if he was sweeping into regions more ethereal. He
had found the same difference when he passed, a few weeks
before, out of the baleful heats of the tropical calms. He grew
to think that this line of no variation of magnetism with corre-
sponding marvels of nature marked but the beginning of a new
section of the earth that no one had dreamed of. St. Angus-
THE THIRD VOYAGE,
357
tine, St. Basil, and St. Ambrose had placed the Garden of Eden
far in the Old World's east, apart from the common vicinage of
men, high up above the baser parts of the earth, in a region
PRE-COLUMBIAN MAPPEMONDE, PRESERVED AT RAVENNA, RESTORED BY GRA-
VIER AFTER D'AVEZAC IN BULLETIN I)E LA SOCI^TE NORMANDE, 1888.
bathed in the purest ether, and so high that the deluge had not
reached it. All the stories of the Middle Ages, absorbed in the
speculative philosophy of his own time, had pointed to the dis-
tant east as the seat of Paradise, and was he not now coming to
it by the western passage ? If the scant riches of the soil could
not restore the enthusiasm which his earlier discoveries aroused
in the dull spirits of Europe, would not a glimpse of the' ecstatic
pleasures of Eden open their eyes anew ? He had endeavored
358 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
to make his contemporaries feel tliat the earth was round, and
he had proved it, as he thought, by almost touching, in a west-
ward passage, the Golden Chersonesus. It is significant that
the later Historie of 1571 omits this vagary of Paradise. The
world had moved, and geographical discovery had made some
records in the interim, awkward for the biographer of Co-
lumbus.
There was a newer belief linked with this hope of Paradise.
Paradise ^^1 ^^is woudrous life and salubrity which Columbus
**'""^- saw and felt, if it had not been able to restore his
health, could only come from his progress up a swelling apex of
the earth, which buttressed the Garden of Eden. It was clear to
his mind that instead of being round the earth was pear-shaped,
and that this great eminence, up which he had been going, was
constantly lifting him into purer air. The great fountain which
watered the spacious garden of the early race had discharged its
currents down these ethereal slopes, and sweetened all this gulf
that had held him so close within its embaying girth. If such
were the wonders of these outposts of the celestial life, what
must be the products to be seen as one journeyed up, along the
courses of such celestial streams ? As he steered for Espanola,
he found the currents still helped him, or ho- imagined they did.
Was it not that he was slipping easily down this wonderful de-
clivity ?
That he had again discovered the mainland he was convinced
by such speculations. He had no conception of the physical
truth. The vagaries of his time found in him the creature of
their most rampant hallucinations. This aberration was a potent
cause in depriving him of the chance to place his own name on
this goal of his ambition. It accounts much for the greater im-
pression which Americus Vespucius, with his clearer instincts,
was soon to make on the expectant and learned world. The
voyage of that Florentine merchant, one of those trespassers
that Columbus complained of, was, before the Admiral should
see Spain again, to instigate the publication of a narrative,
which took from its true discoverer the rightful baptism of the
world he had unwittingly found. The wild imaginings of Co-
lumbus, gathered from every resource of the superstitious past,
moulded by him into beliefs that appealed but little to the
soberer intelligence of his time, made known in tumultuous
THE THIRD VOYAGE. 359
writings, and presently to be expressed with every symptom of
mental wandering in more elaborate treatises, offered to his
time an obvious contrast to the steadier head of Ves-
pucius. The latter's far more graphic description and vea-
gained for him, as we shall see, the position of a rec- ^"*''"*
ognized authority. While Columbus was puzzling over the
aberration of the pole star and misshaping the earth, Vespucius
was comprehending the law of gravitation upon our floating
sphere, and ultimately representing it in the diagram which
illustrated his narrative. We shall need to return on a later
page to these causes which led to the naming of America.
For four days Columbus had sailed away to the northwest,
coming to the wind every night as a precaution, before
he sighted Espanola on August 19, being then, as he gust" 19. "'
made out, about fifty leagues west of the spot where sees Espa-
he supposed the port had been established for the
mines of Hayna. He thought that he had been steering nearer
that point, but the currents had probably carried him uncon-
sciously west by night, as they were at that moment doing with
the relief ships that he had parted with off Ferro. As Colum-
bus speculated on this steady flow of waters with that keenness
of observation upon natural phenomena which attracted the ad-
miration of Humboldt, and which is really striking, if we sep-
arate it from his turbulent fancies, he accounted by its
attrition for the predominating shape of the islands tionsof
which he had seen, which had their greatest length in
the direction of the current. He knew that its force would,
perhaps, long delay him in his efforts to work eastward, and so
he opened communication with the shore in hopes to find a mes-
senger by whom to dispatch a letter to the Adelantado. This
was easily done, and the letter reached its destination, where-
upon Bartholomew started out in a caravel to meet the little fleet.
It was with some misgiving that Columbus resumed his course,
for he had seen a crossbow in the hands of a native. It was
not an article of commerce, and it might signify another dis-
aster like that of La Navidad. He was accordingly relieved
when he shortly afterwards saw a Spanish caravel Meets the
approaching, and, hailing the vessel, found that the ^dei*"**''^-
Adelantado had come to greet him.
360 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
/here was much interchange of news and thought to occupy
the t vo in their first conference ; and Columbus's anxiety to
know the condition of the colony elicited a wearisome story,
little calculated to make any better record in Spain than the
reports of his own rule in the island.
The chief points of it were these : Bartholomew had early
carried out the Admiral's behests to occupy the Hayna
Espaiioia couutry. He had built there a fortress which he
absence of had named St. Cristoval, but the workmen, finding par-
ticles of gold in the stones and sands which they used,
had nicknamed it the Golden Tower. While this was doing,
there was difficulty in supporting the workmen. Pro-
Domingo visions were scarce, and the Indians were not inclined
to part with what they had. The Adelantado could go
to the Vega and exact the quarterly tribute under compulsion ;
but that hardly sufficed to keep famine from the door at St.
Cristoval. Nothing had as yet been done to plant the ground
near the fort, nor had herds been moved there. The settlement
of Isabella was too far away for support. Meanwhile Nino had
arrived with his caravels, but he had not brought all the ex-
pected help, for the passage had spoiled much of the lading.
It was by Nino that Bartholomew received that dispatch from
his brother which he had written in the harbor of Cadiz when,
on his arrival from his second voyage, he had discerned the con-
dition of public opinion. It was at this time, too, that he re-
peated to Bartholomew the decision of the theologians, that to be
taken in war, or to be guilty of slaying any of their Majesties'
liege subjects, was quite enough to render the Indians fit sub-
coiumbus j^^ts for the slave-block. The Admiral's directions,
and slavery, therefore, were to be sure that this test kept up the sup-
ply of slaves ; and as there was nobody to dispute the judg-
ment of his deputy, Nino had taken back to Spain those three
hundred, which were, as we have seen, so readily converted into
reputed gold on his arrival.
Bartholomew had selected the site for a new town near the
mouth of the Ozema, convenient for the shipment of the Hayna
treasure, and, naming it at first the New Isabella, it
Domingo soou rcccivcd the more permanent appellation of Santo
Domingo, which it still bears.
Bartholomew had a pleasing story to tell of the way in which
THE THIRD VOYAGE. 361
he had brought Behechio and his province of Xaragua into
subjection. This territory was the region westward xaragua
from about the point where Columbus had touched the <^<>»q"e"^
island a few days before. Anacaona, the wife of Caonabo, —
now indeed his widow, — had taken refuge with Be-
hechio, her brother, after the fall of her husband. fnd^°^^°
She is represented as a woman of fine appearance,
and more delicate and susceptible in her thoughts than was
usual among her people; and perhaps Bartholomew told his
brother what has since been surmised by Spanish writers, that
she had managed to get word to him of her friendly sentiments
for celestial visitors. Bartholomew found, as he was marching
thither with such forces as he could spare for the expedition,
that the cacique who met him in battle array was easily dis-
posed, for some reason or other, perhaps through Anacaona's in-
fluence, to dismiss his armed warriors, and to escort his visitor
through his country with great parade of hospitality. When
they reached the cacique's chief town, a sort of fete was pre-
pared in the Adelantado's honor, and a mock battle, not with-
out sacrifice of life, was fought for his delectation. Peter
Martyr tells us that when the comely young Indian maidens
advanced with their palm branches and saluted the Adelantado,
it seemed as if the beautiful dryads of the olden tales had
slipped out of the vernal woods. Then Anacaona appeared on
a litter, with no apparel but garlands, the most beautiful dryad
of them all. Everybody feasted, and Bartholomew, to ingratiate
himself with his host, eat and praised their rarest delicacy, the
guana lizard, which had been offered to them many times before,
but which they never as yet had tasted. It became after this
a fashion with the Spaniards to dote on lizard flesh. Every-
thing within the next two or three days served to cement this
new friendship, when the Adelantado put it to a test, as indeed
had been his purpose from the beginning. He told the cacique
of the great power of his master and of the Spanish sovereigns ;
of their gracious regard for all their distant subjects, and of the
poor recompense of a tribute which was expected for their pro-
tection. " Gold ! " exclaimed the cacique, " we have no gold
here." " Oh, whatever you have, cotton, hemp, cassava bread,
— anything will be acceptable." So the details were- arranged.
The cacique was gratified at being let off so easy, and the Span-
iards went their way.
362 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
This and the subsequent visit of Bartholomew to Xaragua to
receive the tribute were about the only cheery incidents in the
dreary retrospect to which the Admiral listened. The rest was
trouble and despair. A line of military posts had been built
connecting the two Spanish settlements, and the manning of
them, with their dependent villages, enabled the Adelantado to
scatter a part of the too numerous colony at Isabella, so that
it might be relieved of so many mouths to feed. This done,
Native con- there was a conspiracy of the natives to be crushed,
spiracy. rp^^ q£ ^j^q pricsts had made some converts in the
Vega, and had built a chapel for the use of the neophytes. One
of the Spaniards had outraged a wife of the cacique. Either
for this cause, or for the audacious propagandism of the priests,
some natives broke into the Spanish chapel, destroyed its
shrine, and buried some of its holy vessels in a field. Plants
grew up there in the form of a cross, say the veracious narra-
tors. This, nevertheless, did not satisfy the Spaniards. They
seized such Indians as they considered to have been engaged in
the desecration, and gave them the fire and fagots, as they
would have done to Moor or Jew. The horrible punishment
aroused the cacique Guarionex with a new fury. He leagued
the neighboring caciques into a conspiracy. Their combined
forces were threatening Fort Conception when the Adelantado
arrived with succor. By an adroit movement, Bartholomew
ensnared by night every one of the leaders in their villages, and
executed two of them. The others he ostentatiously pardoned,
and he could teU Columbus of the great renown he got for
his clemency.
There was nothing in all the bad tidings which Bartholomew
Roidan's ^^^ ^^ rchcarsc quite so disheartening as the revolt of
revolt. Roldan, the chief judge of the island, — a man who
had been lifted from obscurity to a position of such importance
that Columbus had placed the administration of justice in his
hands. The reports of the unpopularity of Columbus in Spain,
and the growing antipathy in Isabella to the rule of Bartholo-
mew as a foreigner, had served to consolidate the growing
number of the discontented, and Roldan saw the opportunity of
easily raising himself in the popular estimate by organizing the
latent spirit of rebellion. It was even planned to assassinate
the Adelantado, under cover of a tumult, which was to be raised
THE THIRD VOYAGE. 363
at an execution ordered by him ; but as the Adelantado had par-
doned the offender, the occasion slipped by. Bartholomew's
absence in Xaragua gave another opportunity. He had sent
back from that country a caravel loaded with cotton, as a trib-
ute, and Diego, then in command at Isabella, after unlading the
vessel, drew her up on the beach. The story was busily circu-
lated that this act was done simply to prevent any one seizing
the ship and carrying to Spain intelligence of the misery to which
the rule of the Columbuses was subjecting the people. The
populace made an issue on that act, and asked that the vessel
be sent to Cadiz for supplies. Diego objected, and to divert the
minds of the rebellious, as well as to remove Roldan from their
counsels, he sent him with a force into the Vega, to overawe
some caciques who had been dilatory in their tribute. This
mission, however, only helped Roldan to consolidate his faction,
and gave him the chance to encourage the caciques to join re-
sistance.
Roldan had seventy well-armed men in his party when he
returned to Isabella to confront Bartholomew, who had by this
time got back from Xaragua. The Adelantado was not so eas-
ily frightened as Roldan had hoped, and finding it not safe
to risk an open revolt, this mutinous leader withdrew to the
Vega with the expectation of surprising Fort Con-
ception. That post, however, as well as an outlying neersinthe
fortified house, was under loyal command, and Rol-
dan was for a while thwarted. Bartholomew was not at aU
sure of any of the principal Spaniards, but how far the disaf-
fection had gone he was unable to determine. Although he
knew that certain leading men were friendly to Roldan, he was
not prepared to be passive. His safety depended on resolution,
and so he marched at once to the Vega. Roldan was in the
neighborhood, and was invited to a parley. It led to nothing.
The mutineers, making up their minds to fly to the delightful
pleasures of Xaragua, suddenly marched back to Isa- ^^ jg^beua
bella, plundered the arsenal and storehouses, and
tried to launch the caravel. The vessel was too firmly imbed-
ded to move, and Roldan was forced to undertake the journey
to Xaragua by land. To leave the Adelantado behind was a
sure way to bring an enemy in his rear, and he accordingly
thought it safer to reduce the garrison at Conception, and per-
364 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
haps capture the Adelantado. This movement failed; but it
resulted in Roldan's ingratiating himself with the tributary
caciques, and intercepting the garrison's supplies. It was at
this juncture, when everything looked desperate for Barthol-
omew, shut up in the Vega fort, that news reached him of the
arrival (February 3, 1498) at the new port of Santo Domingo
coroneiar- ^^ *^® advaucc scctiou of the Admiral's fleet, sent
rives. thither, as we have seen, by the Queen's assiduity,
under the command of Pedro Fernandez Coronel.
Bartholomew could tell the Admiral of the good effect which
the intelligence received through Coronel had on the colony.
His own title of Adelantado, it was learned, was legitimated by
the act of the sovereigns; and Columbus himself had been
powerful enough to secure confirmation of his old honors, and
to obtain new pledges for the future. The mutineers soon saw
that the aspects of their revolt were changed. They could not,
it would seem, place that dependence on the unpopularity of the
Admiral at Court which had been a good part of their encour-
agement.
Proceeding to Santo Domingo, Bartholomew proclaimed his
new honors, and, anxious to pacificate the island be-
mew'snew forc the arrival of Columbus, he dispatched Coronel
to communicate with Roldan, who had sulkily followed
the Adelantado in his march from the Vega. Eoldan refused
all intercourse, and, shielding himself behind a pass in the
mountains, he warned off the pacificator. He would yield to
no one but the Admiral.
There was nothing for the Adelantado to do but to outlaw the
rebels, who, in turn, sped away to what Irving calls the
goto^ ^^ "soft witcheries" of the Xaragua dryads. The arch-
^'*^** rebel was thus well out of the way for a time ; but his
influence still worked among the Indians of the Vega, and Bar-
tholomew had not long left Conception before the garrison was
made aware of a native conspiracy to surprise it.
Word was sent to Santo Domingo, and the Adelantado was
Guarionex's Promptly ou the march for relief. Guarionex, who
revolt. jj^^ headed the revolt again, fled to the mountains of
Ciguay, where a mountain cacique, Mayobanex, the same who
had conducted the attack on the Spaniards at the Gulf of Sa-
mana during the first voyage, received the fugitive chief of the
valley.
THE THIRD VOYAGE. 365
It was into these mountain fastnesses that the Adelantado
now pursued the fugitives, with a force of ninety foot, a few
horse, and some auxiliary Indians. He boldly thridded the de-
files, and crossed the streams, under the showers of lances and
arrows. As the native hordes fled before him, he fired their
villages in the hope of forcing the Ciguayans to surrender their
guest ; but the mountain leaders could not be prevailed upon to
wrong the rights of hospitality. When no longer able to resist
in arms, Mayobanex and Guarionex fled to the hills.
The Adelantado now sent all of his men back to the Vega to
look after the crops, except about thirty, and with these he
scoured the region. He would not have had success by mere
persistency, but he got it by artifice and treachery. Both Mayo-
banex and Guarionex were betrayed in their hiding-places and
captured. Clemency was shown to their families and adherents,
and they were released ; but both caciques remained in their
bonds as hostages for the maintenance of the quiet which was
now at last in some measure secured.
Such was the condition of affairs when Columbus 1498 ^^.
arrived and heard the story of these two troubled Cb^a?-**
years and more during which he had been absent. ""^^^^
It was the 30th of August when Columbus and his brother
landed at Santo Domingo. There had not been much to encour-
age the Admiral in this story of the antecedent events. No por-
trayal of riot, dissolution, rapine, intrigue, and idleness could
surpass what he saw and heard of the bedraggled and impov-
erished settlement at Isabella. The stores which he had brought
would be helpful in restoring confidence and health ; but it was
a source of anxiety to him that nothing had been heard of the
three caravels from which he had parted off Ferro.
These vessels appeared not long afterwards, bringing a new
perplexity. Forced by currents which their crews did not un-
derstand, they had been carried westerly, and had wandered
about in the unknown seas in search of Espanola. A few days
before reaching Santo Domingo, the ships had anchored off the
territory of Behechio, where Koldan and his followers ^^^^^ ^^^
alreadv were. The mutineers observed the approach the belated
„,.-, i«i ships.
of the caravels, not quite sure of their character, thmk^
ing possibly that they had been dispatched against their band ;
366 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
but Roldan boldly went on board, and, ascertaining their condi-
tion, he had the address to represent that he was stationed in
that region to collect the tribute, and was in need of stores,
arms, and munitions. The commander of the vessel at once
sent on shore what he demanded ; and while this was going on,
Roldan's men ingratiated themselves with the company on board
the caravels, and readily enlisted a part of them in the revolt.
The new-comers, being some of the emancipated convicts which
Columbus had so unwisely registered among his crews, were not
difficult to entice to a life of pleasure. By the time Eoldan had
secured his supplies and was ready to announce his true charac-
ter, it was not certain how far the captains of the vessels could
trust their crews. The chief of these commanders undertook,
when the worst was known, to bring the revolters back to their
loyalty ; but he argued in vain. The wind being easterly, and
to work up against it to Santo Domingo being a slow process, it
was decided that one of the captains, Colombo, should conduct
about forty armed men by land to the new town. When he
landed them, the insidious work of the mutineers became appar-
ent. Only eight of his party stood to his command, and over
forty marched over to the rebels, each with his arms. The over-
land march was necessarily given up, and the three caravels, to
prevent further desertions, hoisted sail and departed. Carvajal
remained behind to urge Roldan to duty ; but the most he could
do was to exact a promise that he would submit to the Admiral
if pardoned, but not to the Adelantado.
The report which Carvajal made to Columbus, when shortly
afterwards he joined his companions in Santo Domingo, com-
ing by land, was not very assuring. Columbus was too con-
scious of the prevalence of discontent, and he had been made
painfully aware of the uncertainty of convict loyalty. He then
made up his mind that all such men were a menace, and that
1498. Sep- t^Gy were best got rid of. Accordingly he announced
tember 12. ^j^^^ ^^^ ships wcrc ready to sail for Spain and would
take any who should desire to go, and that the passage would
be free.
Learning from Carvajal that Roldan was likely soon to
lead his men near Fort Conception, Columbus notified Miguel
Ballester, its commander, to be on his guard. He also directed
him to seek an interview with the rebel leader, in order to lure
THE THIRD VOYAGE. 367
him back to duty by offer of pardon from the Admiral. As
soon as Ballester heard of Koldan's arrival in the a ,^
Woldan and
neighborhood, he went out to meet him. Roldan, how- ^a^iester.
ever, was in no mood to succumb. His force had grown, and
some of the leading Spaniards had been drawn towards him.
So he defied the Admiral in his speeches, and sent him word
that if he had any further communications to make to him they
should be sent by Carvajal, for he would treat with no other.
Columbus, on receiving this message, and not knowing how far
the conspiracy had extended among those about him, ordered
out the military force of the settlement. There were not more
than seventy men to respond ; nor did he feel much confidence
in half of these. There being little chance of any turn of
affairs for the better with which he could regale the 1495 octo-
sovereigns, Columbus ordered the waiting ships to sail, shipl^^aiS
and on October 18 they put to sea. ^p*"^-
The ships carried two letters which Columbus had written to
the monarchs. In the one he spoke of his new discoveries, and
of the views which had developed in his mind from the new
phenomena, as has already been represented, and promised that
the Adelantado should soon be dispatched with three caravels
to make further explorations. In the other he repeated the
story of events since he had landed at Santo Domingo. He
urged that Roldan might be recalled to Spain for examination,
or that he might be committed to the custody of Carvajal and
Ballester to determine the foundation of his grievances. At the
same time he requested that a further license be given, to last
two years, for the capture and transmission of slaves, coiumbus
It was not unlikely that the case of Roldan and his "^^ *^*''®'^'
abettors was represented with equal confidence in other letters,
for there were many hands among the passengers to which
they could be confided.
The ships gone, the Admiral gave himself to the difficult task
of pacificating the colony. The vigorous rule of the coiumbus
Adelantado had made enemies who were to be propi- ^fiet%*he
tiated, though Las Casas tells us that the rule had ''"^'"'y'
been strict no farther than that it had been necessarily imper-
ative in emergencies. Columbus wrote on October 20 1493 q^.,
an expostulatory letter to Roldan. To send it by Car-' *^«b«'-20-
vajal, as was necessary, if Roldan was to receive it, would be to
368 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
intrust negotiations to a person who was already committed in
some s#t to the rebel's plan, or at least some of the Admiral's
leading councilors believed such to be the case, apparently too
hastily. Columbus did not share that distrust, and Carvajal
was sent. This letter crossed one from the leading rebels, in
which they demanded from Columbus release from his service,
and expressed their determination to maintain independence.
When Carvajal reached Bonao, where the rebels were gath-
ered, — and Ballester had accompanied him, — their
with Roi- joint persuasions had some effect on Koldan and oth-
ers, principal rebels ; but the followers, as a mass, ob-
jected to the leaders entering into any conference except under
a written guaranty of safety for them and those that should
accompany them. This message was accordingly returned to
Columbus, and Ballester at the same time wrote to him that the
revolt was fast making head ; that the garrisons were disaffected,
and losing by desertion ; and that the common people could
not be trusted to stand by the Admiral if it came to war. He
advised, therefore, a speedy reconciliation or agreement of some
sort. The guaranty was sent, and Roldan soon presented him-
self to the Admiral. The demands of the rebel and the prerog-
atives of the Admiral were, it proved, too widely apart for any
accommodation. So Roldan, having possessed himself of the state
1498. No- ^^ feeling in Santo Domingo, returned to his followers,
RoTdST's' promising to submit definite terms in writing. These
terms. ^qyq scnt uudcr date of November 6, 1498, with a de-
mand for an answer before the 11th. The terms were inad-
missible. To disarm charges of exaction, Columbus made pub-
lic proclamation of a readiness to grant pardon to all who should
return to allegiance within thirty days, and to such he would
give free transportation to Spain. Carvajal carried this paper
to Roldan, and was accompanied by Columbus's major-domo,
Diego de Salamanca, in the hopes that the two might yet ar-
range some terms, mutually acceptable.
The messenger found Roldan advanced from Bonao, and be-
sieging Ballester in Conception. The revolt had gone too far,
apparently, to be stayed, but the persuasion of the mediators
at last prevailed, and terms were arranged. These provided
full pardon and certificates of good conduct ; free passage from
Xaragua, to which point two caravels should be sent ; the full
THE THIRD VOYAGE.
369
complement of slaves which other returning colonists had ; liberty
for such as had them to take their native wives, and restoration
of sequestered property. Roldan and his compan- ^^j^^^^^
ions signed this agreement on November 16, and agrees to
agreed to wait eight days for the signature of the
Admiral. Columbus signed it on the 21st, and further granted
370 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
indulgences of one kind or another to such as chose to remain
in Espaiiola.
Under the agreement, the ships were to be ready in fifty days,
but Columbus, in the disorganized state of the colony, found it
impossible to avoid delays, and his self -congratulations that he
had got rid of the turbulent horde were far from warranted.
While under this impression, and absent with the Adelantado,
inspecting the posts throughout the island, and deciding how
best he could restore the regularities of life and business, the
arrangements which he had made for carrying out the agree-
ment with Roldan had sorely miscarried. Nearly double the
Delays in t^^^Q assigucd to the preparation of the caravels had
thragree-""* clapscd, whcu the vessels at last left Santo Domingo
ment. ^^j,. Xaragua. A storm disabling one of them, there
were still further delays ; and when all were ready, the procras-
tination in their outfit offered new grounds for dispute, and it
was found necessary to revise the agreement. Carvajal was still
the mediator. Roldan met the Admiral on a caravel, which had
sailed toward Xaragua. The terms which Roldan now proposed
were that he should be permitted to send some of his friends,
fifteen in number, if he desired so many, to Spain ; that those
who remained should have grants of land ; that proclamation
New agree- should be made of the baseless character of the charges
°^®"*" against him and his accomplices ; and that he him-
self should be restored to his office of Alcalde Mayor. Colum-
bus, who had received a letter from Fonseca in the mean while,
showing that there was little chance of relief from Spain, saw
the hopelessness of his situation, and sufficiently humbled him-
self to accept the terms. When they were submitted to the
body of the mutineers, this assembly added another clause giving
them the right to enforce the agreement by compulsion in case
the Admiral failed to carry it out. This, also, was agreed to in
despair ; while the Admiral endeavored to relieve the mortifica-
tion of the act by inserting a clause enforcing obedience to the
Signed Sep- commauds of the sovereigns, of himself, and of his
tember 28, , , •.!•,• rT\^ •
1499. regularly appointed justices. ihis agreement was
ratified at Santo Domingo, September 28, 1499.
Roldan re- ^^ ^^^ ^^^ ^ pleasant task for Columbus to brook the
instated. prescucc of Roldau and his victorious faction in Santo
Domingo. The reinstated alcalde had no occasion to be very com-
THE THIRD VOYAGE. 371
plaisant after he had seen the Admiral cringe before him. Co-
lumbus endeavored, in making the grants of lands, to separate the
restored rebels as much as he could, in order to avoid the risks
of other mutinous combinations. He agreed with the caciques
that they should be relieved from the ordinary tribute of treas-
ure if they would furnish these new grantees with laborers for
their farms. Thus at the hands of Columbus arose the be^in-
ning of that system of repartimientos, with all its Repartimi-
miseries for the poor natives, which ended in their ex- ®°*^^"
termination. The apologists of Columbus consider that the
exigencies of his situation forced him into these fiend- coiumbus
ish enactments, and that he is not to be held responsible ^^ slavery.
for them as of his free will. They forget the expressions of his
first letter to Santangel, which prefigured all the misery which
fell upon myriads of these poor creatures. The record, unfor-
tunately, shows that it was Columbus who invariably led opin-
ion in all these oppressions, and not he who followed it. His
artfulness never sprang to a new device so exultingly as when
it was a method of increasing the revenue at the cost of the
natives. When we read, in the letter written to his sovereigns
during this absence, of his always impressing on the natives, in
his intercourse with them, " the courtesy and nobleness of all
Christians," we shudder at the hoUowness of the profession.
The personal demands of Roldan under the capitulation were
also to be met. They included restoration of lands Roidan's
which he called his own, new lands to be granted, the <^®"^*"<*«-
stocking of them from the public herds ; and Columbus met
them, at least, until the grants should be confirmed at Court.
This was not all. Roldan visited Bonao, and made one of his
late lieutenants an assistant alcalde, — an assumption of the
power of appointment at which Columbus was offended, as
some tell us ; but if the Historie is to be depended on, the
appointment invited no unfavorable comment from Columbus.
When it was found that this new officer was building a struc-
ture ostensibly for farm purposes, but of a character more like
a fortress, suitable for some new mutiny to rally in, Columbus
at last rose on his dignity and forbade it.
In October, 1499, the Admiral dispatched two car- 1499 oc-
avels to Spain. It did not seem safe for him to em- ve^g aen^*^'
bark in them, though he felt his presence was needed ^p*^*
372 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
at Court to counteract the mischief of his enemies and Roldan's
friends. Some of the latter went in the ships. The most he
Columbus could do was to trust his cause to Miguel Ballester
5tr?o*^' ^^^ Garcia de Barrantes, who embarked as his repre-
8^pp^r^his sentatives. They bore his letters to the monarchs. In
Spain. these he enumerated the compulsions under which he
had signed the capitulation with Koldan, and begged their
Majesties to treat it as given under coercion, and to bring the
rebels to trial. He then mentioned what other assistants he
needed in governing the colony, such as a learned judge and
some discreet councilors. He ended with asking that his son,
Diego, might be spared from Court to assist him.
While Columbus was making these requests, he was ignorant
of the way in which the Spanish Court had already
frmgements made scrious trespasses upon his prerogatives as Ad-
bus's prTvi- miral of the Indies. He had said in his letter to the
^^^^^' sovereigns, " Your Majesties will determine on what is
to be done," in consequence of these new discoveries at Paria.
He was soon to become painfully conscious of what was done.
1499 oe- '^^^ ^^^^ \iQvo of Columbus's sccoud voyage, Alonso de
da's voyage. QjgJa, comcs again on the scene. He was in Spain
when the accounts which Columbus had transmitted to Court of
his discoveries about the Gulf of Paria reached Seville. Such
glowing descriptions fired his ambition, and learning from Co-
lumbus's other letters and from the reports by those who had
returned of the critical condition of affairs in Espanola, he an-
ticipated the truth when he supposed that the Admiral could
not so smother the disquiet of his colony as to venture to leave
it for further explorations. He saw, too, the maps which Co-
lumbus had sent back and the pearls which he had gathered.
He acknowledged all this in a deposition taken at Santo Do-
mingo in 1513. So he proposed to Fonseca that he might be al-
lowed to undertake a private voyage, and profit, for himself and
for the Crown, by the resources of the country, inasmuch as it
must be a long time before Columbus himself could do so. Fon-
seca readily commended the plan and gave him a license, stipu-
lating that he should avoid any Portuguese possession and any
lands that Columbus had discovered before 1495. It was the
purpose, by giving this date, to throw open the Paria region.
THE THIRD VOYAGE. 373
The ships were fitted out at Seville in the early part of 1499,
and some men, famous in these ' years, made part of the com-
pany which sailed on them. There was Americus Ves- vespucius
pucius, who was seemingly now for the first time to ^*^ ^^^^'
embark for the New World, since it is likely that out of this very
expedition the alleged voyage of his in 1497 has been made to
appear by some perversion of chronology. There was ju^n de la
Juan de la Cosa, a famous hydrographer, who was the ^°**'
companion of Columbus in his second Cuban cruise. Irving
says that he was with Columbus in his first voyage ; but it is
thought that it was another of the same name who appears in
the registers of that expedition. Several of those who had re-
turned from Espanola after the Paria cruise of Columbus were
also enlisted, and among them Bartholomew Roldan,
the pilot of that earlier fleet. The expedition of Ojeda 20. ojeda
sailed May 20, 1499. They made land 200 leagues
east of the Orinoco, and then, guided by Columbus's charts, the
ships followed his track through the Serpent's and the Dragon's
Mouths. Thence passing Margarita, they sailed on towards the
mountains which Columbus had seen, and finally entered a gulf,
where they saw some pile dwellings of the natives. They ac-
cordingly named the basin Venezuela, in reference to ^^ ven-
the great sea-built city of the Adriatic. It is note- ®^"®^*"
worthy that Ojeda, in reporting to their Majesties an account of
this voyage, says that he met in this neighborhood some Eng-
lish vessels, an expedition which may have been instigated by
Cabot's success. It is to be observed, at the same time, that
this is the only authority which we have for such an early visit
of the English to this vicinity, and the statement is not cred-
ited by Biddle, Helps, and other recent writers. Ojeda turned
eastward not long after, having run short of provisions. He
then approached the prohibited Espanola, and hoped to elude
notice while foraging at its western end.
It was while here that Ojeda's caravels were seen and tidings
of their presence were transmitted to Santo Domingo. Igno-
rance of what he had to deal with in these intruders ^^^ ^^^
was one of the reasons which made it out of the ques- g?^^f s-
tion for Columbus to return to Spain in the ships ^^^^^^^^f
which he had dispatched in October. Ojeda had ap-
peared on the coast on September 5, 1499, and as succeeding
374 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
reports came to Columbus, it was divulged that Ojeda was in
command, and that he was cutting dyewoods thereabouts.
Now was the time to heal the dissensions of Roldan, and to
Columbus give him a chance to recover his reputation. So the
S^to^in Admiral selected his late bitter enemy to manage the
Ojeda off. expedition which he thought it necessary to dispatch to
the spot. Roldan sailed in command of two caravels on Sep-
tember 29, and, approaching unobserved the place where Ojeda's
ships were at anchor, he landed with twenty-five men, and sent
out scouts. They soon reported that Ojeda was some distance
away from his ships at an Indian village, making cassava bread.
Ojeda heard of the approach, but not in time to prevent Roldan
getting between him and his ships. The intruder met him
boldly, said he was on an exploring expedition, and had put in
for suppli^, and that if Roldan would come on board his ships,
he would show his license signed by Fonseca. When Roldan
went on board, he saw the document. He also learned from
those he talked with in the ships — and there were among them
some whom he knew, and some who had been in Espanola —
that the Admiral's name was in disgrace at Court, and there
was imminent danger of his being deprived of his command
at Espanola. Moreover, the Queen, who had befriended him
against all others, was ill beyond recovery. Ojeda promising
to sail round to Santo Domingo and explain his conduct to the
Admiral, Roldan left him, and carried back the intelligence to
Columbus.
The Viceroy waited patiently for Ojeda's vessels to appear,
and to hear the explanation of what he deemed a flagrant vio-
lation of his rights. Ojeda, having got rid of Roldan, had
accomplished all that he intended by the promise. When he set
sail, it was to pass round the coast easterly to the shore of
Xaragua, where he anchored, and opened communication with
the Spanish settlers, remnants of Roldan's party, who had not
been quite satisfied to find their reinstated leader acting as
an emissary of Columbus. Ojeda, with impetuous sympathy,
listened to their complaints, and had agreed to be their leader
in marching to Santo Domingo to demand some redresses, when
Roldan, sent by Columbus to watch him, once more appeared.
Ojeda declined a conference, and kept on his ship. Roldan had
harbored a deserter from one of Ojeda's fleet, and as he re-
THE THIRD VOYAGE.
375
fused to give him up, Ojeda watched his opportunity and seized
two of Roldan's men to hold as hostages. So the two wary ad-
venturers watched each other for an advantage. After a while,
Ojeda, in his ships, stood down the coast. Roldan followed
along the shore. Coming up to where the ships were anchored,
Roldan induced Ojeda to send a boat ashore, when, by an arti-
fice, he captured the boat and its crew. This game of strata-
gems ended with an agreement on Ojeda's part to leave the isl-
and, while Roldan restored the captive boat. The prisoners were
exchanged. Ojeda bore off shore, and though Roldan heard
of his landing again at a distant point, he was gone when the
pursuers reached the spot. Las Casas says that Ojeda made
for some islands, where he completed his lading of 1500. june.
slaves, and set sail for Spain, arriving at Cadiz in Caches
June, 1500. Cadiz.
While Columbus was congratulating himself on being well
rid of this dangerous visitor, he was not at all aware of the
uncontrollable eagerness which the joyous reports of pearls had
engendered in the adventurous spirits of the Spanish seaports.
Among such impatient sailors was the pilot, Pedro
Alonso Niiio, who had accompanied Columbus on his age to^thT
first voyage, and had also but recently returned from "^^ ^^^ '
the Paria coast, having been likewise with the Admiral on his
third voyage. He found Fonseca as willing, if only the Crown
could have its share, as Ojeda had found him, and just as for-
getful of the vested rights of Columbus. So the license was
granted only a few days after that given to Ojeda, and of sim-
ilar import. Nino, being a poor man, sought the aid Guerra aids
of Luis Guerra in fitting out a small caravel of only ^""•
fifty tons ; and in consideration of this assistance, Guerra's
brother, Cristoval, was placed in command, with a crew, all told,
of thirty-three souls. They sailed from Palos early in June,
1499, and were only fifteen days behind Ojeda on the coast.
They had some encounters and some festivities with the natives ;
but they studiously attended to their main object of bartering
for pearls, and when they reached Spain on their return in
April, 1500, and laid out the shares for the Crown, for Guerra,
and for the crew, of the rich stores of pearls which ' they had
gathered, men said, " Here at last is one voyage to the new
376 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
islands from which some adequate return is got." And so the
first commensurate product of the Indies, instead of saving the
credit of Columbus, filled the pockets of an interloping adven-
turer.
But a more considerable undertaking of the same illegitimate
character was that of Vicente Yaiiez Pinzon, the com-
zon'svoy- pauiou of Columbus on his first voyage. Leaguing
*^^* with him a number of the seamen of the Admiral,
including some of his pilots on his last voyage, Pinzon fitted out
at Palos four caravels, which sailed near the beginning of De-
1499. De- cember, 1499, not far from the time when Columbus
cember. ^^g thinking, because of the flight of Ojeda, that an
end was at last coming to these intrusions within his prescribed
seas. Pinzon was not so much influenced by greed as by some-
thing of that spirit which had led him to embark with Colum-
bus in 1492, the genuine eagerness of the explorer. He was
destined to do what Columbus had been prevented from doing
by the intense heat and by the demoralized condition of his
crew, — strike the New World in the equatorial latitudes. So
he stood boldly southwest, and crossed the equator,
cro^e" the the first to do it west of the line of demarcation.
equa or. jjgpg wcrc ucw coustcllations as well as a new conti-
nent for the transatlantic discoverer. The north star had sunk
out of sight. Thus it was that the southern heavens brought
The south- ^ ^®w difficulty to navigation, as well as unwonted
era sky. stellar groups to the curious observer. The sailor of
the northern seas had long been accustomed to the fixity of the
polar star in making his observations for latitude. The south-
ern heavens were without any conspicuous star in the neighbor-
hood of the pole : and in order to determine such questions, the
star at the foot of the Southern Cross was soon selected, but it
necessitated an allowance of 30° in all observations.
It was on January 20, 1500, or thereabouts, that Pinzon saw a
1500. Janu- ^apc which he called Consolation, and which very likely
cYpTconso- was the modern Cape Sfc. Augustine, — though the iden-
lation. tification is not established to the satisfaction of all, —
which would make Pinzon the first European to see the most
easterly limit of the great southern continent. A belief like
this requires us, necessarily, to reject Varnhagen's view that as
THE THIRD VOYAGE. 377
early as the previous June (1499) Ojeda had made his land-
fall just as far to the east. Pinzon took possession of Coasts
the country, and then, sailing north, passed the mouth °*"^^-
of the Amazon, and found that even out of sight of land he could
replenish his water-casks from the flow of fresh waters, which
the great river poured into the ocean. It did not occur to his
practical mind, as it had under similar circumstances to Colum-
bus, that he was drinking the waters of Paradise !
Reaching the Gulf of Paria, Pinzon passed out into the Carib-
bean Sea, and touched at Espanola in the latter part
of June, 1500. Proceeding thence to the Lucayan pinzonat
Islands, two of his caravels were swallowed up in a ®^*"°*"
gale, and the other two disabled. The remaining ships crossed
to Espaiiola to refit, whence sailing once more, they Reaches
reached Palos in September, 1500. SJTb^r^^^
1500. '
Meanwhile, following Pinzon, Diego de Lepe, sailing also
from Palos with two caravels in January, 1500, tracked jgoo. jan-
the coast from below Cape St. Augustine northward. Se Lep?!**^**
He was the first to double this cape, as he showed in ^<>y*8«-
the map which he made for Fonseca, and doing so he saw the
coast stretching ahead to the southwest. From this time South
America presents on the charts this established trend of the
coast. Humboldt thinks that Diego touched at Espanola before
returning to Spain in June, 1500.
We must now return to the further exploration of the Por-
tuguese by the African route, for we have reached a Portuguese
period when, by accident and because of the revised by^thrAM^
line of demarcation, the Portuguese pursuing that ^'^^^°^^^-
route acquired at the same time a right on the American coast
which they have since maintained in Brazil, as against what
seems to have been a little earlier discovery of that coast by
Pinzon, in the voyage 'already mentioned.
In the year following the return to Lisbon of Da Gama with
the marvelous story of the African route to India, the Portu-
guese government were prompted naturally enough to establish
more firmly their commercial relations with Calicut. They ac-
cordingly fitted out three ships to make trial once more of the
voyage. The command was given to Pedro Alvarez Cabral, and
378 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
there were placed under him Diaz, who had first rounded the
stormy cape, and Coelho, who had accompanied Da Gama. The
1500. March expedition sailed on March 9, 1500. Leaving the
^' Cape de Verde Islands, Cabral shaped his course more
westerly than Da Gama had done, but for what reason is not
satisfactorily ascertained. Perhaps it was to avoid the calms off
the coast of Guinea ; perhaps to avoid breasting a storm ; and
indeed it may have been only to see if any land lay thitherward
easterly of the great line of demarcation. Whatever the motive,
the fleet was brought on April 22 opposite an emi-
covers the ncucc, which rcceivcd then the name of Monte Pascoal,
and is to-day, as then it became by right of discovery,
within the Portuguese limits of South America, the Land of
the True Cross, as he named it. Vera Cruz ; later, however, to
1500. May ^® changed to Santa Cruz. The coast was examined,
^' and in the bay of Porto Seguro, on May 1, formal
possession of the country was taken for the crown of Portugal.
Cabral sent a caravel back with the news, expressed in a letter
drawn up by Pedro Vaz de Caminha. This letter, which is
dated on the day possession was taken, was first made known by
Munoz, who discovered it in the archives at Lisbon. It was not
till July 29 that the Portuguese king, in a letter which is printed
by Navarrete, notified the Spanish monarchs of Cabral's discov-
ery, and this letter was printed in Kome, October 23, 1500.
It seems to have been the apprehension of the Portuguese, if
we may trust this letter, that the new coast lay directly in the
route to the Cape of Good Hope, though on the right hand.
Leaving two banished criminals to seek their chances of life in
the country, and to ascertain its products, Cabral set sail on
May 22, and proceeded to the Cape of Good Hope. Fearful
gales were encountered and four vessels were lost, and his sub-
Cabrai at Ordinate, Diaz, found an ocean grave oiffi the stormy
SJibei'ilt^ cape of his own finding. But Calicut was at last
^^' reached, September 13.
There is a day or two difference in the dates assigned by dif-
ferent authorities for this discovery of Cabral. Ra-
Date of
cabrarsdis- musio, Quotiug a pilot of the fleet fourteen months
covcrv
after the event, says April 24, and leading Portuguese
historians have followed him ; but the letter which Cabral sent
THE THIRD VOYAGE. 379
back to Portugal, as already related, says April 22. The ques-
tion would be a triflinsr one, as Humboldt susfofests,
,1.1 1 . „ . °°, HislandfaU.
except that it bears upon the question oi just where
this fortuitous landfall was made, involving estimates of dis-
tance sailed before Cabral entered the harbor of Porto Seguro.
It is probable that this was at a point a hundred and seventy
leagues south of the spot reached earlier (January, 1500) by
Pinzon and De Lepe. Yet on this point there are some differ-
ences of opinion, which are recapitulated by Humboldt.
The most impartial critics, however, agree with Humboldt
in giving Pinzon the lead, if not to the extent of the cabrai and
forty-eight days before Cabral left Lisbon, as Hum- ^'"^°"-
boldt contends.
If Barros is correct in his deductions, it was not known on
board of Cabral's fleet that Columbus had already discovered in
the Paria region what he supposed an extension of the Asiatic
main. The first conclusion of the Portuguese naturally was
that they had stumbled either on a new group of islands, or
perhaps on some outlying members of the group of the Antilles.
Of course nothing was known at the time of the discoveries of
Pinzon and Lepe.
It has often been remarked that if Columbus had not sailed
in 1492, Cabral would have revealed America in 1500. It is a
striking fact that the Portuguese had pursued their quest for
India with an intelligence and prescience which geographical
truth confirmed. The Spaniards went their way in
Tli6 r6sults
error, and it took them nearly thirty years to find a of the Af-
t/ *» rican route.
route that could bring them where they could defend
at the antipodes their rights under the Bull of Demarcation,
Columbus sought India and found America without knowing it.
Cabral, bound for the Cape of Good Hope, stumbled upon
Brazil, and preempted the share of Portugal in the New World
as Da Gama has already secured it in Asia. Thus the African
route revealed both Cathay and America.
For these voyages commingling with those of Columbus along
the spaces of the Caribbean Sea, we ffet the best in- _ ^ ,
J. . ,, , ' fe ^ ^ TheColum-
lormation, all things considered, from the testimonies busiaw-
of the participants in them, which were rendered in
the famous lawsuit which the Crown waged against the heirs of
382 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
Columbus. The well-known map of Juan de la Cosa posts us
LaCosa's ^^^t ou the cai'tographlcal results of these same voy-
map, 1500. ^g^g ^p ^^ ^^^ summer of 1500.
La Cosa was, as Las Casas called him, the best of the pilots
then living, and there is a story of his arrogating to himself a
superiority to Columbus, even.
As La Cosa returned to Spain with Ojeda in June, 1500,
and sailed again in October with Bastidas, this famous map
was apparently made in that interval, since it purports in an
inscription to have been drafted in 1500. In posting the geo-
graphical knowledge which he had acquired up to that date. La
Cosa drew upon his own experiences in the voyages which he
had already made with Columbus (1493-96), and with Ojeda
(1499-1500). It is to be regretted that we have from his
pencil no later draft, for his experience in these seas was long
and intimate, since he accompanied Bastidas in 1500-2, led ex-
peditions of his own in 1504-6 and 1507-8, and went again
with Ojeda in 1509.
La Cosa, indeed, does not seem to have improved his map on
any subsequent date, and that he puts down Cape St. Augus-
tine so accurately is another proof of that headland being seen
by Pinzon or Lepe in 1500, and that news of its discovery had
reached the map-makers.
The objections to La Cosa's map as a source of historical in-
formation have been that (1) he gives an incorrect
to La Cosa's shapc to Cuba, and makes it an island eight years be-
fore Ocampo sailed around it ; and that (2) he gives
an unrecognizable coast northward from where the Gulf of
Mexico should be. Henry Stevens, in his Historical and Geo-
graphical JVotes, undertakes to answer these objections.
First, Stevens reverts to the belief of La Cosa that he did
Insularity of ^^* imagine Cuba to be an island, because no one ever
Cuba. knew of an island 335 leagues long, as Columbus and
he, sailing along its southern side, had found it to be, taking the
distance they had gone rather than the true limits. Stevens
depends much on the belief of Columbus that the bay of islands
which he fancied himself within, when he turned back, was the
Gulf of Ganges, — supposing that Peter Martyr quoted Colum-
bus, when he wrote to that effect in August, 1495. If Varnha-
gen is correct in his routes of Vespucius, that navigator, in
THE THIRD VOYAGE.
383
1497, making the circuit of the Gulf of Mexico, had established
the insularity of Cuba. Few modern scholars, it is fair to say,
accept Varnhagen's theories. It became a question, after Hum-
boldt had made the La Cosa chart public in 1833, how its maker
had got the information of the insularity of Cuba. Humboldt
was convinced that though a " complacent witness " to Colum-
bus's ridiculous notarial transaction during his second voyage,
La Cosa had dared to tell the truth, even at the small risk of
having his tongue pulled out.
The Admiral's belief, bolstered after his own fashion by sub-
orning his crew, was far from being accepted by all.
384
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
Peter Martyr not long afterward voiced the hesitancy which
was growing. It was beginning to be believed that the earth
was larger than Columbus thought, and that his discoveries had
not taken him as far as Cathay. Every new report veered the
vane on this old gossiper's steeple, and he went on believing
one day and disbelieving the next.
We may perhaps question now if the official promulgation of
the Cuban circumnavigation by Sebastian Ocampo in 1508 was
WYTFLIET'S
much more than the Spanish acknowledgment of its insularity,
when they could no longer deny it. Henry Stevens has claimed
to put La Cosa's island of Cuba in accord with Columbus, or at
least partly so. He finds this western limit of Cuba on the
La Cosa map drawn with " a dash of green paint," which he
holds to be a color used to define unknown coasts. He studied
the map in Jomard's colored facsimile, and trusted it, not hav-
ing examined the original to this end, — though he had appar-
ently seen it in the Paris auction-room in 1853, when, as a com-
THE THIRD VOYAGE.
385
petitor, he had run up the price which the Spanish government
paid for it. He says that the same green emblem of unknown
lands is also placed upon the coast of Asia, where a peninsular
Cuba would have joined it. He seems to forget that he should
have found, to support his theory, a gap rather than a suppos-
able coast, and should rather have pointed to the vignette of
St. Christopher as affording that gap.
Ruysch in 1507 marked in his map this unknown western
CUBA.
limit with a conventional scroll, while he made his north coast
not unlike the Asiatic coast of Mauro (1457) and Behaim
(1492), and with no gap. Stevens also interprets the St. Die
map of 1508-13 as showing this peninsular Cuba in what is
there placed as the main, with a duplicated insular Cuba in
what is called Isabella. The warrant for this supposition is
the transfer under disguises of the La Cosa and Ruysch names
of their Cuba to the continental coast of the St. Did map,
leaving the " Isabella " entirely devoid of names.
386 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
Stevens ventures the opinion that La Cosa may have been on
the first voyage of Columbus as well as on the second, and his
reason for this is that the north coast of Cuba, which Columbus
then coasted, is so correctly drawn ; but this opinion ignores the
probability, indeed the certainty, that this approximate accu-
racy could just as well be reached by copying from Columbus's
map of that first voyage.
It should be borne in mind, however, that Varnhagen, who
had faith in the 1497 voyage of Vespucius as having settled
the insular character of Cuba, interprets this St. Die map quite
differently, as showing a rudimentary Gulf of Mexico and the
Mississippi mouth instead of the Gulf of Ganges.
Second, Stevens grasps the obvious interpretation that La
Cosa simply drew in for this northern coast that of
coast of Asia as he conceived it. This hardly needs elucida-
tion. But his opinion is not so well grounded that the
northern part of this Asiatic coast, where La Cosa intended to
improve on the notions which had come from Marco Polo and
the rest, is simply the northern coast of the Gulf of St. Law-
rence as laid down by the explorations of Cabot. If it be taken
as giving from Cabot's recitals the trend of the coasts found
by him, it seems to show that that navigator knew nothing of
the southern entrance of that gulf. This adds further to the
uncertainty of what is called the Cabot mappemonde of 1544.
That La Cosa intended the coasts of the Cabots' discoveries to
belong to inland waters Stevens thinks is implied by the sea
thereabouts being called Mar instead of Mar oceanus. It is
difficult to see the force of these supplemental views of Stevens,
and to look upon the drawing of La Cosa in this northern re-
gion as other than Asia modified vaguely by the salient points
of the outer coast lines as glimpsed by Cabot.
If the Spanish envoy in England carried out his intention of
sending a copy of Cabot's chart to Spain, it could hardly have
escaped falling into the hands of La Cosa. We have already
mentioned the chance of John Cabot having visited the penin-
sula in the interval between his two voyages.
Columbus The chief ground for believing that Columbus ever
cabo?^ heard of the voyages of the Cabots — for there is
voyages. j^^ plain statement that he did — is that we know
how La Cosa had knowledge of them ; and that upon his map
THE THIRD VOYAGE. 387
the vignette of St. Christopher bearing the infant Christ may
possibly have been, as it has sometimes been held to be, a di-
rect reference to La Cosa's commander, who may be supposed
in that case to have been acquainted with the compliment paid
him, and consequently with the map's record of the Cabots.
Whether La Cosa understood the natives better than Co-
lumbus, or whether he had information of which we have no
record, it is certain that within two years rumor or fact brought
it to the knowledge of the Portuguese that the westerly end of
Cuba lay contiguous to a continental shore, stretching to the
north, in much the position of the eastern seaboard of the
United States. This is manifest from the Cantino T^e cantmo
map, which was sent from Lisbon to Italy before "^*P"
November, 1502, and which prefigured the so-called Admiral's
map of the Ptolemy of 1513. There will be occasion to dis-
cuss later the over-confident dictum of Stevens that this sup-
posed North American coast was simply a duplicated Cuba,
turned north and south, and stretching from a warm region, as
the Spaniards knew it, well up into the frozen north. Cosa's
map seems to have exerted little or no influence on the earliest
printed maps of the New World, and in this it differs from the
Cantino map.
We know not what unexpected developments may further
have sprung from obscure and furtive explorations, which were
now beginning to be common, and of which the record -^^^^^ ^^,
is often nothing more than an inference. Stories of p®**!*^!*'^^-
gold and pearls were great incentives. The age was full of a
spirit of private adventure. The voyages of Ojeda, Nino, and
Pinzon were but the more conspicuous.
CHAPTER XVII.
THE DEGRADATION AND DISHEARTENMENT OF COLUMBUS.
1500.
Columbus, writing to the Spanish sovereigns from Espanola,
said, in reference to the lifelong opposition which he had en-
countered : —
" May it please the Lord to forgive those who have calumni-
ated and still calumniate this excellent enterprise of
Opponents • j i i. J 'j. 1 i.
of coium- mme, and oppose and have opposed its advancement,
without considering how much glory and greatness
will, accrue from it to your Highnesses throughout all the world.
They cannot state anything in disparagement of it except its
expense, and that I have not immediately sent back the ships
loaded with gold."
Was this an honest statement ? Columbus knew perfectly
well that there had been much else than disappointment at the
scant pecuniary returns. He knew that there was a widespread
dissatisfaction at his personal mismanagement of the colony ;
at his alleged arrogance and cupidity as a foreigner ; at his
nepotism ; at his inordinate exaltation of promise,
against and at his errant faith that brooked no dispute. He
knew also that his enthusiasm had captivated the
Queen, and that as long as she could be held captive he could
appeal to her not in vain. If there had been any honesty in
the Queen's professions in respect to the selling of slaves, he
knew that he had outraged them. Even when he was writing
this letter, it came over him that there was a fearful hazard
for him both in the persistency of this denunciation of others
against him and in the heedless arrogance of such perverseness
on his own part.
" I know," he says, " that water dropping on a stone will at
length make a hole." We shall see before long that forebod-
ing cavity.
DEGRADATION AND DISHEARTENMENT, 389
The defection of Roldan turned so completely into servility
is but one of the sti'ange contrasts of the wonderful course of
vicissitudes in the life of Columbus. There presently came a
new trial for him and for Roldan. A young well-born Span-
iard, Fernando de Guevara, had appeared in Espa- coiumbus
nola recently, and by his dissolute life he had created *"^ RoWan.
such scandals in Santo Domingo that Columbus had ordered
him to leave the island. He had been sent to Xa-
ragua to embark in one of Ojeda's ships ; but that
adventurer had left the coast when the outlaw reached tho
port. While waiting another opportunity tq embark, Guevara
was kept in that part of the island under Roldan's eye. This
implied no such restraint as to deny him access to the society of
Anacaona, with whose daughter, Higuamota, who seems to have
inherited something of her mother's commanding Anacaona's
beauty and mental qualities, he fell in love, and found ^*"g^i*«''-
his passion requited. He sought companionship also with one
of the lieutenants of Roldan, who had been a leader in his
late revolt, Adrian de Moxica, then living not far Adrian do
away, who had for him the additional attachment of *^o^i<=*-
kinship, for the two were cousins. Las Casas tells us that
Roldan had himself a passion for the young Indian beauty, and
it may have been for this as well as for his desire to obey the
Admiral that he commanded the young cavalier to go to a more
distant province. The ardent lover had sought to prepare his
way for a speedy marriage by trying to procure a priest to bap-
tize the maiden. This caused more urgent commands from
Roldan, which were ostentatiously obeyed, only to be eluded by
a clandestine return, when he was screened with some asso-
ciates in the house of Anacaona. This queenly woman seems
to have favored his suit with her daughter. He was once more
ordered away, when he began to bear himself defiantly, but soon
changed his method to suppliancy. Roldan was appeased by
this. Guevara, however, only made it the cloak for revenge,
and with some of his friends formed a plot to kill Roldan,
This leaked out, and the youth and his accomplices were ar-
rested and sent to Santo Domingo. This action aroused Rol-
dan's old confederate, Moxica, and, indignant at the way in
which the renegade rebel had dared to turn upon his former asso-
ciates, Moxica resolved upon revenge. To carry it out he started
390 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
on a tour through the country where the late mutineers were set-
Moxica'8 tied, and readily engaged their sympathies. Among
^^ those who joined in his plot was Pedro Riquelme,
whom Eoldan had made assistant alcalde. The old spirit of
revolt was rampant. The confederates were ready for any
excess, either upon Koldan or upon the Admiral. Columbus
was at Conception in the midst of the aroused district, when a
deserter from the plotters informed him of their plan. With a
small party the Admiral at once sped in the night to the un-
Moxica guarded quarters of the leaders, and Moxica and sev-
^*^®^ ei-al of his chief advisers were suddenly captured and
carried to the fort. The execution of the ringleader was at
once ordered. Impatient at the way in which the condemned
man dallied in his confessions to a priest, Columbus ordered him
pushed headlong from the battlements. The French canonists
screen Columbus for this act by making Roldan the perpetrator
of it. The other confederates were ironed in confinement at
Conception, except Riquelme, who was taken later and conveyed
to Santo Domingo.
The revolt was thus summarily crushed. Those who had
escaped fled to Xaragua, whither the Adelantado and Roldan
pursued them without mercy.
Columbus had perhaps never got his colony under better con-
trol than existed aft^r this vigorous exhibition of his
and his col- authority. Such a show of prompt and audacious
energy was needed to restore the moral supremacy
which his recusancy under the threats of Roldan had lost. The
fair weather was not to last long.
Early in the morning of August 23, 1500, two caravels were
1500. An- descried off the harbor of Santo Domingo. The Ad-
Sdiiuar^ miral's brother Diego was in authority, Columbus
"^®^ being stiU at Conception, and Bartholomew absent
with Roldan. Diego sent out a canoe to learn the purpose of
the visitors. It returned, and brought word that a commis-
sioner was come to inquire into the lat« rebellion of Roldan.
Dieffo's messengers had at the same time informed the new-
comer of the most recent defection of Moxica, and that there
were still other executions to take place, particularly those of
Riquelme and Guevai*a, who were confined in the town. As
392 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
the ships entered the river, the gibbets on either bank, with
their dangling Spaniards, showed the commissioner that there
were other troublous times to inquire into than those named in
his warrant. While the commissioner remained on board his
ship, receiving the court of those who early sought to propiti-
ate him, and while he was getting his first information of the
condition of the island, mainly from those who had something
to gain by the excess of their denunciations, it is necessary to
go back a little in time, and ascertain who this important per-
sonage was, and what was the mission on which he had been
sent.
The arrangements for sending him had been made slowly.
They were even outlined when Oieda had started on
Growth of*' c ^ ^ 1 • -t ' ' • -i-rjii
the royal his vovae'c, f or he had, m his interviews with Koldan,
dissatisfac- ,,.-,,. n. t , . , ^ , •
tionwith bliudlv indicated that some astonishment of this sort
Columbus. . -_ nn
was in store. JLvidently ronseca had not allowed
Ojeda to depart without some intimations.
Notwithstanding Columbus professed to believe that nothing
but the lack of pecuniary return for the ffreat outlays
Charges „ _ . t . n i n i • , i
against Co- oi his expcditious could bc alleged against them, he
was well aware, and he had constantly acted as if well
aware, of the great array of accusations which had been made
against him in Spain, with a principal purpose of undermining
the indulgent regard of the Queen for him. He had known it
with sorrow during his last visit to Spain, and had found, as we
have seen, that he could not secure men to accompany him and
put themselves under his control unless he unshackled crim-
inals in the jails. He little thought that such utter disregard
of the morals and self-respect of those whom he had settled in
the New World would, by a sort of retributive justice, open the
way, however unjustly, to put the displaced gyves on himself,
amid the exultant feelings of these same criminals. Such reit-
erated criminations were like the water-drops that wear the
stone, and he had, as we have noted, felt the certainty of direful
results.
How much the disappointment at the lack of gold had to do
with increasing the force of these charges, it is not difficult to
imagine. Columbus was certainly not responsible for that;
but he was responsible for the inordinate growth of the belief
in the profuse wealth of the new-found Indies. His constantly
DEGRADATION AND DISHEARTENMENT. 393
repeated stories of the wonderful richness of the region had done
their work. His professions of a purpose to enrich the His exagger-
world with noble benefactions, and to spend his treas- wea?th°of*^^
ure on the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre, were the *^® lu^ies.
vain boastings of a man who thought thereby to enroll his
name among the benefactors of the Church. He did not per-
ceive that the populace would wonder whence these
. 1 1 <• T Columbus
resources were to come, unless it was by deiraudmo: deceives the
, ^ » . , T , . 1 1 1 .1 Crown.
the Crown oi its share, and by amassing gold while
they could not get any. There is something ludicrous in the
•excuse which he later gave for concealing from the sovereigns
his accumulation of pearls. He felt it sufficient to say that
he thought he would wait till he could make as good a show
of gold! There were some things that even fifteenth-century
Cliristians held to be more sacred than wresting Jerusalem
from the Moslem, and these were money in hand when they
had earned it, and food to eat when their misfortunes had beg-
gared their lives. It was not an uncalled-for strain on their
loyalty to the Crown, when the notion prevailed that the sov-
ereigns and their favorite were gathering riches out of their
despair. There was little to be wondered at, in the crowd of
these hungry and debilitated victims, wandering about the
€Ourts of the Alhambra, under the royal windows, and coiumbus's
clamoring for their pay. There was nothing to be at^inthe*^^
surprised at in the hootings that followed the Ad- ^"^ambra.
miral's sons, pages of the Queen, if they passed within sight
of these embittered throngs.
It was quite evident that Ferdinand, who had never warmed
to the Admiral's enthusiasm, had long been conscious that in
the exclusive and extended powers which had been
given to Columbus a serious administrative blunder confessed
had been made. He said as much at a later day to
Ponce de Leon.
The Queen had been faithful, but the recurrent charges had
given of late a wrench to her constancy. Was it not certain
that something must be wrong, or these accusations would not go
on increasing ? Had not the great discoverer fulfilled his mis-
sion when he unveiled a new world ? Was it quite sure that
the ability to govern it went along with the genius to find it ?
These were the questions which Isabella began to put to her-
394 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
self. She was not a person to hesitate at anything, when con-
viction came. She had shown this in the treatment
gins to of the Jews, of the Moors, and of other heretics. The
conviction that Columbus was not equal to his trust
was now coming to her. The news of the serious outbreak of
Roldan's conspiracy brought the matter to a test, and
to be super- in tlic Spring of 1499 the purpose to send out some
one with almost unlimited powers for any emergency
was decided upon. StiU the details were not worked out, and
there were occurrences in the internal and external affairs
of Spain that required the prior attention of the sovereigns.
Very likely the news of Columbus's success in finding a new
source of wealth in the pearls of Paria may have had some-
thing to do with the delay. When the ships which carried to
Spain a crowd of Roldan's followers arrived, the question took
a fresh interest. Columbus's friends, Ballester and Barrantes,
now found their testimony could make little liead-
againstco- way agaiust the crowd of embittered witnesses on
the other side. Isabella, besides, was forced to see
in the slaves that Columbus had sent by the same ships some-
thing of an obstinate opposition to her own wishes. Las Casas
tells us that so great was the Queen's displeasure that it was
only the remembrance of Columbus's services that saved him
from prompt disgrace. To be sure, the slaves had been sent in
part by virtue of the capitulation which Columbus had made
with the rebels, but should the Viceroy of the Indies be forced
to such capitulations ? Had he kept the colony in a condition
worthy of her queenly patronage, when it could be reported to
her that the daughters of caciques were found among these
natives bearing their hybrid babes? " What authority had my
viceroy to give my vassals to such ends?" she asked.
There were two things in recent letters of Columbus which
damaged his cause just at this juncture. One was his
and the slave petition for a new lease of the slave trade. This Isa-
trade. ^
bella answered by ordering all slaves which he had
sent home to be sought out and returned. Her agents found a
BobadiUa ^^w. The otlicr was the request of Columbus for a
commis-^ j"^g6 to cxaminc the dispute between himself and
sioner. Roldau. This Ferdinand answered by appointing the
commissioner whose arrival at Santo Domingo we have chron-
DEGRADATION AND DISHEARTENMENT. 395
icled. He was Francisco de Bobadilla, an officer of the royal
household.
Before disclosing what Bobadilla did in Santo Domingo, it is
best to try to find out what he was expected to do.
There is no person connected with the career of Columbus
— hardly excepting Fonseca — more generally defamed than
this man, who was, nevertheless, if we may believe Hischarac
Oviedo, a very honest and a very religious man. The ^^'
historians of Columbus need to mete out to Bobadilla what
very few have done, the same measure of palliation which they
are more willing to bestow on Columbus. With this parallel
justice, it may be that he will not bear with discredit a com-
parison with Columbus himself, in all that makes a man's
actions excusable under provocation and responsibility. An
indecency of haste may come from an excess of zeal quite as
well as from an unbridled virulence.
It may be in some ways a question if the conditions this man
was sent to correct were the result of the weakness or inadapta-
bility of Columbus, or merely the outcome of circumstances,
enough beyond his control to allow of excuses. There is, how-
ever, no question that the Spanish government had duties to
perform towards itself and its subjects which made it prop-
erly disinclined to jeopardize the interests which accompany
such duties.
Bobadilla was, to be sure, invested with dangerous powers,
but not with more dangerous ones than Columbus Bobadiua's
himself had possessed. When two such personations p"^®"-
of unbridled authority come in antagonism, the possessor of the
greater authority is sure to confirm himself by commensurate
exactions upon the other. Bobadilla's commission was an im-
plied warrant to that end. He might have been more prudent
of his own state, and should have remembered that a trust of the
nature of that with which he was invested was sure to be made
accountable to those who imparted to him the power, and per-
haps at a time when they chose to abandon their own instruc-
tions. He ought to have known that such an abandonment
comes very easy to all governments in emergencies. He might
have been more considerate of the man whom Spain had so re-
cently flattered. He should not have forgotten, if almost every-
body else had, that the Admiral had given a new world to Spain.
396 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
He should not have been unmindful, if almost every one else
was, that this new world was a delusion now, but might dissolve
into a beatific vision. But all this was rather more than human
nature was capable of in an age like that. It is to be said of
Bobadilla that when he summoned Columbus to Santo Domingo
and prejudged him guilty, he had shown no more disregard of a
rival power, which he was sent to regulate, than Columbus had
manifested for a deluded colony, when he selfishly infected it
with the poison of the prisons. It must not, indeed, be for-
gotten that the strongest support of the new envoy came from
the very elements of vice which Columbus had implanted in
the island. He srrew to understand this, and later he
Columbus PI . 1 . - , .
and the was lorccd to give a condemnation oi his own act
criminals. -y' p a
when he urged the sending of such as are honorably
known, " that the country may be peopled with honest men."
Las Casas tells us of Bobadilla that his probity and disinter-
estedness were such that no one could attack them. If it be
left for posterity to decide between the word of Las Casas and
Columbus, in estimates of virtue and honesty, there is no ques-
tion of the result. When Bobadilla was selected to be sent to
Bobadiua's Espafiola, thcrc was every reason to choose the most
character, upright of pcrsous. Thcrc was every reason, also, to
instruct him with a care that should consider every probable
attendant circumstance. After this was done, the discretion of
the man was to determine all. We can read in the records the
formal instructions ; but there were beside, as is expressly stated,
verbal directions which can only be surmised. Bobadilla was
accused of exceeding the wishes of the Queen. Are we sure
that he did? It is no sign of it that the monarchs
ceedhis Subsequently found it politic to disclaim the act of
powers. ^i^gjj. agent. Such a desertion of a subordinate was
not unusual in those times, nor indeed would it be now.
If Isabella, " for the love of Christ and the Virgin Mary,"
could depopulate towns, as she said she did, by the ravages of
the inquisition, and fill her coffers by the attendant sequestra-
tions, it is not difficult to conceive that, with a similar and con-
venient conviction of duty, she would give no narrow range to
her vindictiveness and religious zeal when she came to deal
with an Admiral whom she had created, and who was not very
deferential to her wishes.
DEGRADATION AND DISHEARTENMENT. 397
A synopsis of the powers confided to Bobadilla in writing
needs to be presented. They begin with a letter of Bobadiiia's
March 21, 1499, referring to reports of the Roldan p°^®''-
insurrection, and directing him, if on inquiry he finds any per-
sons culpable, to arrest them and sequestrate their effects, and
to call upon the Admiral for assistance in carrying out these
orders. Two months later. May 21, a circular letter was
framed and addressed to the magistrates of the islands, which
seems to have been intended to accredit Bobadilla to them, if
the Admiral should be no longer in command. This order gave
notice to these magistrates of the full powers which had been
given to Bobadilla in civil and criminal jurisdiction. Another
order of the same date, addressed to the " Admiral of the ocean
sea," orders him to surrender all royal property, whether forts,
arms, or otherwise, into Bobadiiia's hands, — evidently intended
to have an accompanying effect with the other. Of a date five
days later another letter addressed to the Admiral reads to this
effect : —
" We have directed Francisco de Bobadilla, the bearer of
this, to tell you for us of certain things to be mentioned by
him. We ask you to give faith and credence to what he says,
and to obey him. May 26, 1499."
This is an explicit avowal on the sovereigns' part of having
given verbal orders. In addition to these instructions. His verbal
a royal order required the commissioner to ascertain orders.
what was due from the Crown for unpaid salaries, and to compel
the Admiral to join in liquidating such obligations so far as he
was bound for them, " that there may be no more complaints."
If one may believe Columbus's own statements as made in his
subsequent letter to the nurse of Prince Juan, it had been neg-
lect, and not inability, on his part which had allowed these
arrears to accrue. Bobadilla was also furnished with blanks
signed by the sovereigns, to be used to further their purposes in
any way and at his discretion. With these extraordinary docu-
ments, and possessed of such verbal and confidential directions
as we may imagfine rather than prove, Bobadilla had
•/ O J. ' 1 P^'rWl Tiller
sailed in July, 1500, more than a year after the let- Bobadiua
__. -, i.iii leaves Spain.
ters were dated. His two caravels brought back to
Espaiiola a number of natives, who were in charge df some
Franciscan friars.
398 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
We left Bobadilla on board his ship, receiving court from all
Bobadiua who dcsircd thus early to get his ear. It was not till
So Do- tb® ^6xt day that he landed, attended by a guard of
miugo. twenty-five men, when he proceeded to the church to
This over, the crowd gathered before the church. Bobadilla
ordered a herald to read his original commission of March 21,
gjg^g. 1499, and then he demanded of the acting governor,
mands. Dicgo, who was prcscut, that Guevara, Riquelme, and
the other prisoners should be delivered to him, together with all
the evidence in their cases, and that the accusers and magis-
trates should appear before him. Diego referred him to the
Admiral as alone having power in such matters, and asked for
a copy of the document just read to send to Columbus. This
Bobadilla declined to give, and retired, intimating, however,
that there were reserved powers which he had, before which
even the Admiral must bow.
The peremptoriness of this movement was, it would seem,
uncalled for, and there could have been little misfortune in
waiting the coming of the Admiral, compared with the natural
results of such sudden overturning of established authority in
the absence of the holder of it. Urgency may not, neverthe-
less, have been without its claims. It was desirable to stay the
intended executions; and we know not what exaggerations
had already filled the ears of Bobadilla. At this time there
would seem to have been the occasion to deliver the letter to
Columbus which had commanded his obedience to the verbal
instructions of the sovereigns ; and such a delivery might have
turned the current of these hurrying events, for Columbus had
shown, in the case of Agueda, that he was graciously inclined
to authority. Instead of this, however, Bobadilla, the next
day, again appeared at mass, and caused his other commissions
to be read, which in effect made him supersede the Admiral.
This superiority Diego and his councilors still unadvisedly de-
clined to recognize. The other mandates were read in succes-
sion ; and the gradual rise to power, which the documents
seemed to imply, as the progress of the investigations demanded
support, was thus reached at a bound. This is the view of the
case which has been taken by Columbus's biographers, as nat-
urally drawn from the succiession of the powers which were
DEGRADATION AND DISHEARTENMENT. 399
given to Bobadilla. It is merely an inference, and we know not
the directions for their proclamations, which had been verbally
imparted to Bobadilla. It is this uncertainty which surrounds
the case with doubt. It is apparent that the reading of these
papers had begun to impress the rabble, if not those in author-
ity. That order which commanded the payment of arrears of
salaries had a very gratifying effect on those who had suffered
from delays. Nothing, however, moved the representatives of
the Viceroy, who would not believe that anything could surpass
his long-conceded authority.
There is nothing strange in the excitement of an officer who
finds his undoubted supremacy thus obstinately spurned, and
we must trace to such excitement the somewhat overstrained
conduct which made a show of carrying by assault the
fortress in which Guevara and the other prisoners assaults the
were confined. Miguel Diaz, who commanded the
fort, — the same who had disclosed the Hayna mines, — when
summoned to surrender had referred Bobadilla to the Admiral
from whom his orders came, and asked for copies of the let-
ters patent and orders, for more considerate attention. It was
hardly to be expected that Bobadilla was to be beguiled by any
such device, when he had a force of armed men at his back,
aided by his crew and the aroused rabble, and when there was
nothing before him but a weak citadel with few defenders.
There was nothing to withstand the somewhat ridiculous shock
of the assault but a few frail bars, and no need of the scaling
ladders which were ostentatiously set up. Diaz and one com-
panion, with sword in hand, stood passively representing the
outraged dignity of command. Bobadilla was victorious, and
the manacled Guevara and the rest passed over to new and less
stringent keepers.
Bobadilla was now in possession of every channel of author-
ity. He domiciled himself in the house of Columbus,
took possession of all his effects, including his papers, in fuii pos-
making no distinction between public and private ones, ^^^^' °*
and used what money he could find to pay the debts of the
Admiral as they were presented to him. This proceeding was
well calculated to increase his popularity, and it was still more
enhanced when he proclaimed liberty to all to gather gold for
twenty years, with only the payment of one seventh instead of
a third to the Crown.
400 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
Let us turn to Columbus himself. The reports which
reached him at Fort Conception did not at first con-
hears of vey to him an adequate notion of what he was to en-
counter. He associated the proceedings with such,
unwarranted acts as Ojeda's and Pinzon's in coming with
their ships within his prescribed dominion. The greater au-
dacity, however, alarmed him, and the threats which Bobadilla
had made of sending him to Spain in irons, and the known
success of his usurpation within the town, were little calculated
to make Columbus confident in the temporary character of the
outburst. He moved his quarters to Bonao to be nearer the
confusion, and here he met an ofiicer bearing to him a copy of
the letters under which the government had been assumed by
Bobadilla. Still the one addressed to Columbus, commanding
him to acquiesce, was held back. It showed palpably that
Bobadilla conceived he had passed beyond the judicial aim of
his commission. Columbus, on his part, was loath to reach,
that conclusion, and tried to gain time. He wrote to Bobadilla
an exculpating and temporizing letter, saying that he was about
to leave for Spain, when everything would pass regularly
into Bobadilla's control. He sent other letters, calculated to
create delays, to the Franciscans who had come with
and the him. He had himself affiliated with that order, and
perhaps thought his influence might not be unheeded.
He got no replies, and perhaps never knew what the spirit of
these friars was. They evidently reflected the kind of testi-
mony which Bobadilla had been accumulating. We find
somewhat later, in a report of one of them, Nicholas Glass-
berger, — who speaks of the 1,500 natives whom they had
made haste to baptize in Santo Domingo, — some of the cruel
insinuations which were rife, when he speaks of "a certain
admiral, captain, and chief, who had ill treated these natives,
taking their goods and wives, and capturing their virgin daugh-
ters, and had been sent to Spain in chains."
Columbus as yet could hardly have looked forward to any
such indignity as manacles on his limbs. Nor did he probably
suspect that Bobadilla was using the signed blanks, entrusted
to him by the sovereigns, to engage the interests of- Roldan and
other deputies of the Viceroy scattered through the island.
Columbus, in these uncertainties, caused it to be known that
DEGRADATION AND DISHEARTENMENT. 401
he considered his perpetual powers still unrevoked, if indeed
they were revocable at all. This state of his mind was rudely
jarred by receiving a little later, at the hands of Francisco
Velasquez, the deputy treasurer, and of Juan de Trasierra, one
of the Franciscans, the letter addressed to him bv the
T ^ • 1 -nki^Tn Bobadilla
sovereigns, commanding him to respect what Bobadilla sends tiie ^
should tell him. Here was tangible authority ; and letter to
when it was accompanied by a summons from Boba-
dilla to appear before him, he hesitated no longer, and, with the
little state befitting his disgrace, proceeded at once to Santo
Domingo.
The Admiral's brother Diego had already been confined in
irons on one of the caravels ; and Bobadilla, affecting to believe,
as Irving holds, that Columbus would not come in any compli-
ant mood, made a bustle of armed preparation. There was,
however, no such intention on Columbus's part, nor coiumbus
had been, since the royal mandate of implicit obe- saStoDo-^
dience had been received. He came as quietly as the ^^^"k*'-
circumstances would permit, and when the new governor heard
he was within his grasp, his orders to seize him and throw him
into prison were promptly executed (August 23, 1500).
In the southeastern part of the town, the tower still gustos. Co-
stands, with little signs of decay, which then received imprisoned
1 ,. i*i»i !/•• • n ^^ chains.
the dejected Admiral, and irom its summit all ap-
proaching vessels are signaled to-day. Las Casas tells us of
the shameless and graceless cook, one of Columbus's own house-
hold, who riveted the fetters. " I knew the fellow," says that
historian, " and I think his name was Espinosa."
While the Adelantado was at large with an armed force,
Bobadilla was not altogether secure in his triumph. He de-
manded of Columbus to write to his brother and counsel him
to come in and surrender. This Columbus did, assuring the
Adelantado of their safety in trusting to the later justice of
the Crown. Bartholomew obeyed, as the best authorities say,
though Peter Martyr mentions a rumor that he came in no
accommodating spirit, and was captured while in advance of
his force. It is certain he also was placed in irons, and con-
fined on one of the caravels. It was Bobadilla's purpose to
keep the leaders apart, so there could be no concert of action,
and even to prevent their seeing any one who could inform
402 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
them of the progress of the inquest, which was at once begun.
It seems evident that Bobadilla, either of his own impulse or in
accordance with secret instructions, was acting with a secrecy
and precipitancy which would have been justifiable in the pres-
ence of armed sedition, but was uncalled for with no organized
opposition to embarrass him. Columbus at a later day tells us
that he was denied ample clothing, even, and was otherwise ill
treated. He says, too, he had no statement of charges
against Co- givcu to him. It is a later story, started by Charlevoix,
that such accusations were presented to him in writing,
and met by him in the same method.
The trial was certainly a remarkable procedure, except we
consider it simply an ex parte process for indictment only, as
indeed it really was. Irving lays stress on the reversal by Bo-
badilla of the natural order of his acts, amounting, in fact, to
prejudging a person he was sent to examine. He also thinks
that the governor was hurried to his conclusions in order to
make up a show of necessity for his precipitate action. It has
something of that look. " The rebels he had been sent to judge
became, by this singular perversion of rule," says Irving, " ne-
cessary and cherished evidences to criminate those against
whom they had rebelled." This is the mistake of the apologists
for Columbus. Bobadilla seems to have been sent to judge
between two parties, and not to assume that only one was cul-
pable. Even Irving suspects the true conditions. He allows
that Bobadilla would not have dared to go to this length, had
he not felt assured that " certain things," as the mandate to
Columbus expressed it, would not be displeasing to the king.
The charges against the Admiral had been stock ones for
years, and we have encountered them more than once in the
progress of this narrative. They are rehearsed at length in the
documents given by Navarrete, and are repeated and summarized
by Peter Martyr. It is perhaps true that there was some nov-
elty in the asseveration that Columbus's recent refusal to have
some Indians baptized was simply because it deprived him of
selling them as slaves. This accusation, considering Columbus's
relations to the slave trade which he had created, is as little to
be wondered at as any.
Las Casas tells us how indignant Isabella had been with his
presumptuous way of dealing with what she called her subjects ,-
DEGRADATION AND DISHEARTENMENT. 403
and by a royal order of June 20, 1500, she had ordered, as
we have seen, the return in Bobadilla's fleet of nine- coiumbus
teen of the slaves who had been sold. There was no *"^ slavery.
better way of commending Bobadilla's action to the Queen, ap-
parently, than by making the most of Columbus's unfortunate
relations to the slave trade.
As the accusations were piled up, Bobadilla saw the inquest
leading, in his mind, to but one conclusion, the unnatural char-
acter of the Viceroy and his unfitness for command, — a phrase
not far from the truth, but hardly requiring the extraordinary
proceedings which had brought the governor to a recognition of
it. There is little question that the public sentiment of the
colony, so far at least as it dare manifest itself, commended the
governor. Columbus in his dungeon might not see this with his
own eyes, but if the reports are true, his ears carried it to his
spirit, for howls and taunts against him came from beyond the
walls, as the expression of the hordes which felt relieved by his
fate. Columbus himself confessed that Bobadilla had " suc-
ceeded to the full " in making him hated of the people. All
this was matter to brood upon in his loneliness. He magnified
slight hints. He more than suspected he was doomed to a vio-
lent fate. When Alonso de Villejo, who was to conduct him to
Spain, in charge of the returning ships, came to the dungeon,
Columbus saw for the first time some recognition of his unfor-
tunate condition. Las Casas, in recounting the interview, says
that Villejo was " an hidalgo of honorable character and my
particular friend," and he doubtless got his account of what
took place from that important participant.
" Villejo," said the prisoner, " whither do you take me ? "
" To embark on the ship, your excellency."
" To embark, Villejo ? Is that the truth ? "
" It is true," said the captain.
For the first time the poor Admiral felt that he yet might see
Spain and her sovereigns.
The caravels set sail in October, 1500, and soon passed out
of earshot of the hootings that were sent after the jgQo. octo-
miserable prisoners. The new keepers of Columbus ^^ sentto""
were not of the same sort as those who cast such ^p*^"*
farewell taunts. If the Historie is to be believed, Bobadilla
had ordered the chains to be kept on throughout the voyage,
404 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
since, as the writer of that book grimly suggests, Columbus
might at any time swim back, if not secured. Yillejo was kincl»
So was the master of the caravel, Andreas Martin. They sug-
gested that they could remove the manacles during the voyage ;
but the Admiral, with that cherished constancy which persons
feel, not always wisely, in such predicaments, thinking to mag-
nify martyrdom, refused. " No," he said ; " my sovereigns or-
dered me to submit, and Bobadilla has chained me. 1
will wear these irons until by royal order they are re-
mQved, and I shall keep them as relics and memorials of my
services."
The relations of Columbus and Bobadilla bring before us the
most startling of the many combinations of events in the history
of a career which is sadder, perhaps, notwithstanding its glory,
than any other mortal presents in profane history.
of coium- The degradation of such a man appeals more forcibly
to human sympathy than almost any other event in
the record of humanity. That sympathy has obscured the im-
His letter to P^^* ^^ ^^^^ degradation, and that mournful explana-
PrincS Jua? *i^^ ^^ *^® events, which, either on his voyage or
analyzed. shortly after his return, Columbus wrote and sent to
the nurse of Prince Juan, has long worked upon the sensibili-
ties of a world tender for his misfortunes. We cannot indeed
read this letter without compassion, nor can we read it dispas-
sionately without perceiving that the feelings of the man who
wrote it had been despoiled of a judicial temper by his errors as
well as by his miseries. His statements of the case are wholly
one-sided. He never sees what it pains him to see. He for-
gets everything that an enemy would remember. He finds it
difficult to tell the truth, and trusts to iterated professions to
be taken for truths. He claims to have no conception why
he was imprisoned, when he knew perfectly well, as he says
himself, that he had endeavored to create an opposition to con-
stituted authority " by verbal and written declarations ; " and he
reiterates this statement after he had bowed to royal commands
that were as explicit as his own treatment of them
against had been recalcitrant. Indeed, he puts himself in the
rather ridiculous posture of answering a long series of
charges, of which at the same time he professes to be ignorant*
DEGRADATION AND DISHEARTENMENT. 405
In the course of this letter, Columbus set up a claim that he
had been seriously misjudged in trying to measure his accounta-
bility by the laws that govern established governments rather
than by tiiose which grant indulgences to the conqueror of a
numerous and warlike nation. The position is curiously incon-
sistent with his professed intentions, as the sole ruler of a col-
ony, to be just in the eyes of God and men. The Crown had
given him its authority to establish precisely what he claims
had not been established, a government of laws kindly disposed
to protect both Spaniard and native, and yet he did not under-
stand why his doings were called in question. He had boasted
repeatedly how far from warlike and dangerous the natives
were, so that a score of Spaniards could put seven thousand to
rout, as he was eager to report in one case. The chief of the
accusations against him did not pertain to his malfeasance in
regard to the natives, but towards the Spaniards themselves,
and it was begging the question to consider his companions a
conquered nation. If there were no established government as
respects them, he would be the last to admit it ; and if it were
proved against him, there was no one so responsible for the
absence of it as himself. Again he says : "I ought to be
judged by cavaliers who have gained victories themselves, — by
gentlemen, and not by lawyers." The fact was that the case
had been judged by hidalgoes without number, and to his dis-
grace, and it was taken from them to give him the protection of
the law, such as it was ; and, as he himself acknowledges, there
is in the Indies " neither civil right nor judgment seat." As
he was the source of all the bulwarks of life and liberty in these
same Indies, he thus acknowledges the deficiencies of his own
protective agencies. There is something childishly immature
in the proposition which he advances that he should be judged
by persons in his own pay.
It is of course necessary to allow the writer of this letter all
the palliation that a man in his distressed and dis-
ordered condition might claim. Columbus had in
fact been perceptibly drifting into a state of delusion and ab-
erration of mind ever since the sustaining power of a great
cause had been lifted from him. From the moment when he
turned his mule back at the instance of Isabella's message, the
lofty purpose had degenerated to a besetting cupidity, in which
406
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
he made even the Divinity a constant abettor. In this same
letter he tells of a vision of the previous Christmas, when the
Lord confronted him miraculously, and reminded him of his
vow to amass treasure enough in seven years to undertake his
crusade to Jerusalem. This visible Godhead then comforted him
with the assurance that his divine power would see that it came
to pass. "The seven years you were to await have not yet
passed. Trust in me and all will be right." It is easy to point
to numerous such instances in Columbus's career, and the canon-
izers do not neglect to do so, as evincing the sublime confidence
of the devoted servant of the Lord ; but one can hardly put
out of mind the concomitants of all such confidence. The most
that we can allow is the unaccountableness of a much-vexed
conscience.
CHAPTER XVIIl.
COLUMBUS AGAIN IN SPAIN.
1500-1502.
It was in October, 1500, after a voyage of less discomfort
than usual, that the ships of Villejo, carrying his jgoo q^^^^_
manacled prisoners, entered the harbor of Cadiz. If bus re^cheT"
Bobadilla had precipitately prejudged his chief pris- ^^^^'
oner, public sentiment, when it became known that Columbus
had arrived in chains, was not less headlong in its sympathetic
revulsion. Bobadilla would at this moment have stood a small
chance for a dispassionate examination. The discoverer of the
New World coming back from it a degraded prisoner py^uc
was a discordant spectacle in the public mind, filled h^rX^grada-^
with recollections of those days of the first return to "*^"-
Palos, when a new range had been given to man's conceptions
of the physical world. This common outburst of indignation
showed, as many times before and since, how the world's sense
of justice has in it more of spirit than of steady discernment.
The hectic flush was sure to pass, — as it did.
It was while on his voyage, or shortly after his return, that
Columbus wrote the letter to the lady of the Court ^ ,
c rk ' Colutn-
usually spoken of as the nurse of Prmce Juan, which bus's letter
, . -r» 1 1 ^^ *''® nurse
has been already considered. Before the proceed- ofPrmce
ings of the inquest which Bobadilla had forwarded by
the ship were sent to the Court, then in the Alhambra, Colum-
bus, with the connivance of Martin, the captain of his caravel,
had got this exculpatory letter off by a special messenger. The
lady to whom it was addressed was, it will be remembered. Dona
Juana de la Torre, an intimate companion of the Queen, with
whom the Admiral's two sons, as pages of the Queen, had been
for some months in daily relations. The text of this letter
has long been known. Las Casas copied it in his Historia.
408 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
Navarrete gives it from another copy, but corrected by the text
preserved at Genoa ; while Harrisse tells us that the text in
Paris contains an important passage not in that at Genoa.
While its ejaculatory arguments are not well calculated to
impose on the sober historian, there was enough of fervor laid
against its background of distressing humility to work on the
sympathies of its recipient, and of the Queen, to whom it was
early and naturally revealed. *' I have now reached that point
that there is no man so vile, but thinks it his right to insult
me," was the language, almost at its opening, which met their
eyes. The further reading of the letter brought up a picture
of the manacled Admiral. Very likely the rumor of the rising
indignation spreading from Cadiz to Seville, and from Seville
elsewhere, as well as the letters of the alcalde of Cadiz, into
whose hands Columbus had been delivered, and of Villejo, who
had had him in custody, added to the tumult of sensations
mutually shared in that little circle of the monarchs and the
Thesover- Dofia Juana. If we take the prompt action of the
cfhfnTbus to sovereigns in ordering the immediate release of Co-
be released. Jmui^us, their letter of sympathy at the baseness of
his treatment, the two thousand ducats put at his disposal to
prepare for a visit to the Court, and the cordial royal sum-
mons for him to come, — if all these be taken at their apparent
value, the candid observer finds himself growing distrustful of
Bobadilla's justification through his secret instructions. As the
observer goes on in the story and notes the sequel, he is more
inclined to believe that the sovereigns, borne on the rising tide
of indignant sympathy, had defended themselves at the expense
of their commissioner. We may never know the truth.
That was a striking scene when Columbus, delivered from his
1500. De- irons on the 17th of December, 1500, held his first
cohimbul' interview with the Spanish monarchs. Oviedo was
at Court. ^jj eyewitness of it ; but we find more of its ac-
companiments in the story as told by Herrera than in the
scant narrative of the Historie. Humboldt fancies that it was
the Admiral's son who wrote it. The author of that book had
no heart to record at much length the professions of regret
on the part of the King, since they were not easily reconcil-
able with what, in that writer's judgment, would have been
the honorable reception of Bobadilla and Roldan, had they
COLUMBUS AGAIN IN SPAIN. 409
escaped the fate of the tempests which later overwhelmed them.
When the first warmth of Columbus's reception had subsided,
there would have been no reason to suspect that those absent
servants of the Crown would have been denied a suitable
welcome.
Herrera tells us of the touching character of this interview of
December 17 ; how the Queen burst into tears, and the emo-
tional Admiral cast himself on the ground at her feet. When
Columbus could speak, he began to recall the reasons for which
he had been imprisoned, and rehearsed them with humble and
exculpatory professions. He forgot that in the letter which so
excited their sympathy he had denied that he knew any such
reasons, and the sovereigns forgot it too. The meeting had
awakened the tenderer parts of their natures, and their hearts
went out to him. They made verbal promises of largesses and
professions of restitution, but Harrisse could find no written
expressions of this kind, till in the instructions of March 14,
1502, when they expressed their directions for his guidance
during his next voyage. The Admiral grew confident, as of old,
in their presence. He had always reached a coign of vantage
in his personal intercourse with the Queen. He had evidently
not lost that power. He began to picture his return to Santo
Domingo with the triumph that he now enjoyed. It was a hol-
low hope. He was never again to be Viceroy of the Indies.
The disorders in Espanola were but a part of the reasons
why it was now decided to suspend the patented
rights of the Admiral, if not permanently to deny the suspended
further exercise of them. We have seen how the
government had committed itself to other discoveries, profiting,
as it did, by the maps which Columbus had sent back to
Spain. These discoveries were a new source of tribute which
could not be neglected. Rival nations too were alert, and ships
of the Portuguese and of the English had been found prowling
about within the unquestioned limits allowed to Spain by the
new treaty line of Tordesillas. At the north and at other ex-
the south these same powers were pushing their search, America"
to see if perchance portions of the new regions could ^**®^'^-
not be found to project so far east as to bring them on the
Portuguese side of that same line. Portugal had al-' Portuguese
ready claimed that Cabral had found such territory ^^^^^^-
410 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
under the equator and south of it. An eastward projection of
Brazil at the south, twenty degrees and more, is very common
in the contemporary Portuguese maps.
On the 13th of May, 1501, a new Portuguese fleet of three
ships, under the command of Gon9alo Coelho, sailed
13. coeihJs from Lisbon to develop the coast of the southern
Vera Cruz, as South America was now called, and to
see if a way could be found through it to the Moluccas. In
June, the fleet, while at the Cape de Verde Islands, met Cabral
with his vessels on their return from India. Here it was that
Cabral's interpreter, Gasparo, communicated the particulars
of Cabral's discovery to Vespucius, who was, as seems pretty
clear, though by no means certain, on board this outward-bound
fleet. A letter exists, brought to light by Count
cius on thia BaldcUi Boui, uot, howcvcr, in the hand of Vespucius,
voyage? ... r '
m which the writer, under date of June 4, gave the
results of his note-takings with Cabral to Pier Francisco de
Medici. Varnhagen is in some doubt about the genuineness of
this document. Indeed, the historian, if he weighs all the testi-
mony that has been adduced for and against the participancy
of Vespucius in this voyage, can hardly be quite sure that the
Florentine was aboard at all, and Santarem is confident he was
not. Navarrete thinks he was perhaps there in some subordi-
nate capacitj^. Humboldt is staggered at the profession of Ves-
pucius in still keeping the Great Bear above the horizon at 32°
south, since it is lost after reaching 26°.
With all this doubt, we have got to make something out of
another letter, which in the published copy purports to have
been written in 1503 about this voyage by Vespucius himself,
and from it we learn that his ship had struck the coast at Cape
St. Eoque, on August 17, 1501. The discoverers reached and
named Cape St. Augustine on August 28. On November 1,
they were at Bahia. By the 3d of April, 1502, they had
reached the latitude of 52° south, when, driven off the coast in
a severe gale, they made apparently the island of Georgia,
whence they stood over to Africa, and reached Lisbon on Sep-
tember, 7, 1502. By what name Vespucius called this South
American coast we do not know, for his original Italian text is
lost, but the Mundiis Novus of the Latin paraphrase or version
raised a feeling of expectancy that something new had really
COLUMBUS AGAIN IN SPAIN. 411
queinouomuDoaprmntmpf Co rercmrQmt
XIUWICU9 vdputino Xaurttio pctrt^enle^ido SalutlplurimS ^k^t
' tlpcriottl)^^tcbue^att09n1pktlbi fcnpft C'crcMtiimcoafeno
lUieillidregiontb^quao tcIanc.timpcnils.7man&cto iftiu^
'ftrcn^frtimpoini^tiUfere^ls jjqiufminuiQ ^uwiinmo quafqs
lIollfiT^utt^fiappdlarelicctCill5ooapu^ maio:^© nofiroeitulii) ^clp
liofucri^babitaco0rtitio?i^u^ictttil><'cnib^fttnoulfflmarcc.£timb«:c
optrUongnoftro^anngito^ cpG:Oit,cQ>Ho?? maioi par^ ()icnr\?ltralinc
nmttiui"<>^tial?»^ verms mcri^^cm no dTcptincnre^ feMn^irc rift quo^
atknticfiwcaetf!qwico:0prmcnt2ibicfT€flffirmflitcrQtc3cflcrcrrain
IxibltabilSmultisrJmb^negaiiirfit^cCjbancco^opinlotigcfTcfalfaj
sventati omoptrariatwbanieapmma itatilgatio t>eclarQUit;cO ui pti
lHisiHtftmerlMam0:ptin€ntanmiiaterlm.frequ2no:ib<'popul«j»taia
lib^babltat3»^n>>flramC«ropamrcujafiamvdIlfric5*^infueacr2
nid^dtpanini? aitimn«^tn quauid alia re^onca nob< cognita ptcnt
Infmiie intdUgco^vbifwccUictetantflrci^^xapita fcnbcmuc.ctrce C)t^
tiwic0annotartoi«t'2mcmo:iaqu€amgi!>d«>ifttVgUuJ>it€Uibocnono
iminOofiw€»vdnfrapatd?itt
1Wp«*ocuHii cimYtobcdtfiowSfi^XO^ »Mnd!nto 4ttg(?ii
^ teftmoptimoreccfftmuQ ab (Dl^po ma^Stcpfato rcgccfi
trib^ nawib^ a?> inquircrt^ae nouao f cgfoned ^f^ awltrfi U5
ginttiwmtib' ;Jtincntdrii;iuigauim«oabmrrtot^ Cumonmiigat£toci
c^otaliodtHamgationcftrafuttB infulaofo;mnatao.lk oumMctad
nficafitappcUSmrlnfukmagnecanaric^qucfunt in teraccUmnK.tttt
pfimb^babimtiofi:i{>€ntie 3nbepoccanG totTiUtmoafricfit^ ptect)3i=
optc^curruim^vfqjfltJpzcmontoiilldbiopQ^flcaptbolonKOOtcrtiqS
nQcanoftneappeUat Caput vinv>e,tat> etbiopibuo0cregbu:c.': rcgio
inaman&ingflgraMb'' qiiormo^xrcimmrra rom^ain5onain a iincua
qiitnocrtaUr^rfusScptctnon^clanignogcnb^^ populie baDuamr
3bircfumptio virib^ 2 nccclTar^a noftrcnauigftticntamltiiiuo ancbd
ra0 i:crpaiiMmii0 vdarmtie.tnoftrfitteri^ vaftifftmfi cGanfi ^iri^
«eevdrfiioantartiaimparnper2<HXi^enr^inflarlmiiop\?€»Ttom.qm.
Uwltiirniia Matt st>icqua rcafilmiia a ^icto ptomoHrotio ouO mat:
Itum^ttriil&icrarpadonaHlgaumtusantc^rila terra nobf appara-<:t
3nca a^ltmarioraftltatcqui^ paflifuerimuc ^ naufra^ji pf rlculat^qj
co:gi8inc&mo6aruftiimerimwo^burq5 anrtatib^ ainii lobozaumuiG.
crirtimntioTiicotfirdmqno.qiti multartt rcrticrpmcma opmiicnorQt
^Mltiitcma qucrcrc.?^ an fl finti^totanrceimidtigarc? t?t rno^b6
vnmerfapftrinjiainrdeaq^cpMcb^'fq^agintarcptem quib^* namgaub
itm^pdmioe <Iiua5:a^taqu^tuo:babuini?cIl pUmU.tonirruiQ 2Co
MUNDUS NOVUS, first page.
412 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
been found, distinct from the spicy East. Varnhagen is con-
TheMundus vinced that Yespucius, different from Columbus, had
veJpudis. awakened to the conception of an absolutely new-
quarter of the earth. There is little ground for the
belief, however, in its full extent and confidence. The little
tract had in it the elements of popularity, and in 1504 and 1505
the German and French presses gave it currency in several edi-
tions in the Latin tongue, whence it was turned into Italian,
German, and Dutch, spreading through Europe the fame of
Vespucius. We trace to this voyage the origin of the nomen-
clature of the coast of the South American continent which then
gi^ew up, and is represented in the earlier maps, like that of
Lorenz Fries, for instance, in 1504.
A letter dated August 12, 1507, preserved in Tritemius's
JEpistolarum familiariim lihri duo (1536), has been thought to
refer to a printed map which showed the discoveries
of vespu- of Vespucius down to 10° south. This map is un-
known, apparently, as the particulars given concern-
ing it do not agree with the map of Ruysch, the only one, so
far as known, to antedate that epistle. It is possibly the miss-
ing map which Waldseemiiller is thought to have first made,
and which became the prototype of the recognized Waldsee-
miiller map of the Ptolemy of 1513, and was possibly the one
from which the Cantino map, yet to be described, was
early pcrfcctcd in othcr parts than those of the Cortereal
discoveries. This anterior map may have been merely
an early state of the plate, and Lelewel gives reasons for be-
lieving that early impressions of this map were in the market in
1507.
Thus while Columbus was nurturing his deferred hopes, neg-
lected and poor, and awaiting what after all was but
and Vespu- a tantalizing revival of royal interest, the rival Portu-
guese, acting most probably under the influences of
Columbus's own countryman, this Florentine, were stretching
farther towards the true western route to the Moluccas than the
Admiral had any conception of. Vespucius was also at the
same time unwittingly asserting claims which should in the end
rob the Great Discoverer of the meed of bestowing his name on
the new continent which he had just as unwittingly discovered.
The contrast is of the same strange impressiveness which
COLUMBUS AGAIN IN SPAIN.
413
marks so many of the improbable turns in the career of Co-
lumbus.
Meanwhile, what was going on in the north, where Portugal
was pushing her discoveries in the region already explored by
Cabot ? The Spaniards had been dilatory here. The
monarchs. May 6, 1500, while they were distracted LTpurposes
with the reports of the disquietude of Espanola, had ^**^^"^'^"^-
turned their attention in this direction, and had thought of
sending ships into the seas which " Sebastian Cabot had dis-
covered." They had done nothing, however, though Navarrete
finds that explorations thitherward, under Juan Dornelos and
Ojeda, had been planned.
.59°ao'
Uuest 6^ "a^,
57°20'
52°
STRAITS OF BELLE ISLE, SHOWING SITE OF EARLY NORMAN FISHING
STATION AT BRADORE. [After Reclus's L' Amerique.']
If we may believe some of the accounts of explorations this
way on the part of the Bretons and Normans, they
had founded a settlement called Brest on the Labra- Normans at
dor coast, just within the Straits of Belle Isle, on a •
bay now called Bradore, as early as 1500. It is said that traces
So "^
^ -.-^
n '^
3 ,fe
■So
03
COLUMBUS AGAIN IN SPAIN. 415
of their houses can be still seen there. But there is no definite
contemporary record of their exploits. We have such records
of the Portuguese movements, though not through Spanish
sources. Unaccountably, Peter Martyr, who kept himself alert
for all such impressions, makes no reference to any Portuguese
voyages; and it is only when we come down to Gomara
(1551) that we find a Spanish writer reverting to the narra-
tives. In doing so, Gomara makes, at the same time, some con-
fusion in the chronology.
Portugal had missed a great opportunity in discrediting Co-
lumbus, but she had succeeded in finding one in Da cortereai
Gama. She was now in wait for a chance to mate ^^^y^&^s.
her southern route with a western, or rather with a north-
ern, — at any rate, with one which would give her some warrant
for efforts not openly in violation of the negotiations which had
followed upon the Bull of Demarcation. Opportunely, word
came to Lisbon of the successes of the Cabot voyages, and
there was the probability of islands and interjacent passages at
the north very like the geographical configuration which the
Spaniards had found farther south. To appearances, Cabot had
met with such land on the Portuguese side of the division line
of the treaty of Tordesillas.
King Emanuel had a vassal in Gaspar Cortereai, who at this
time was a man about fifty years old, and he had al- 1500. Gaspar
ready in years past conducted explorations ocean ward, Cortereai.
though we have no definite knowledge of their results. It has
been conjectured that Columbus may have known him ; but
there is nothing to make this certain. At any rate, there was
little in the surroundings of Columbus at Espanola, when he
was subjected to chains in the summer of 1500, to remind him
of any northern rivalry, though the visits of Ojeda and Pinzon
to that island were foreboding. It was just at that time that
Cortereai sailed away from Portugal to the northwest. He
discovered the Terra do Labrador, which he named apparently
because he thought its natives would increase very handily the
slave labor of Portugal. To follow up this quest, Gaspar
sailed again with three ships, May 15, 1501, which is ^^^ ^^^
the date o:iven by Damian de Goes. Harrisse is not so par corte-
, A 'T ct-i ^^ again.
sure, but finds that Gaspar was still in port April 21,
1501. Cortereai ran a course a little more to the west, and
416
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
came to a coast, two thousand miles away, as was reckoned, and
skirted it without finding any end. He decided from the vol-
ume of its rivers, that it was probably a continental area. The
voyagers found in the hands of some natives whom they saw
a broken sword and two silver earrings, evidently of Italian
QuiKancc c'ca'lc et siancc par Miqucl
CoHe-Real.i Mahjs.Ie y aovt tSOt.
c^.
s-A^ ^--)^ e^'V/-
^■€^A>l^'c
MS. OF MIGUEL CORTEREAL.
[From Harrisse's Coriereal, Postscriptum.']
make. The natural inference is that they had fallen among
tribes which Cabot had encountered on his second voyage, if
indeed these relics did not represent earlier visitors. Cortereal
also found in a high latitude a country which he called Terra
Verde. Two of the vessels returned safely, bringing home
some of the natives, and the capture of such, to make good
the name bestowed during the previous voyage, seems to have
been the principal aim of the explorers. The third ship, with
Gaspar on board, was never afterwards heard of.
It so happened that Pasqualigo, the Venetian ambassador in
COLUMBUS AGAIN IN SPAIN. 417
Lisbon, made record of the return of the first of these vessels, in
a letter which he wrote from Lisbon, October 19, 1501 ; and it
is from this, which made part of the well-known JPaesi novamente
retrovati (Vicenza, 1507), that we derive what little knowledge
we have of these voyages. The reports have fortunately been
supplemented by Harrisse in a dispatch dated October 17, 1501,
which he has produced from the archives of Modena,
in which one Alberto Cantino tells how he heard the soufces on
captain of the vessel which arrived second tell the tereai^voy-
story to the king. This dispatch to the Duke of *^^*'
Ferrara was followed by a map showing the new discoveries.
This cartographical record had been known for some years be-
fore it was reproduced by Harrisse on a large scale. It is ap-
parent from this that the discoverers believed, or feigned to
believe, that the new-found regions lay westward from Ireland
half-way to the American coasts. The evidence that they
feigned to believe rather than that they knew these lands to be
east of their limitary line may not be found ; but it was proba-
bly some such doubt of their honesty which induced Robert
Thorne, of Bristol, to speak of the purpose which the Portuguese
had in falsifying their maps. Nor were the frauds Portuguese
confined to maps. Translations were distorted and nar- c^Iihig^iS^"'
ratives perverted. Biddle, in his Life of Cabot, points ^o'^"^*"^"-
out a marked instance of this, where the simple language of
Pasqualigo is twisted so as to convey the impression of a
long acquaintance of the natives with Italian commodities, as
proving that the Italians had formerly visited the region, — a
hint which Biddle supposed the Zeni narrative at a later date
was contrived to sustain, so as to deceive many writers. We
shall soon revert to this Cantino map.
The voyage which Miguel Cortereal is known to have under-
taken in the summer of 1501, which has been con- -^^^ Miguel
nected with this series of northwest voyages, is held co'^*®^^*^-
by Harrisse, in his revised opinions, not to have been to the
New World at all, but to have been conducted against the Grand
Turk, and Cortereal returned from it on November 4, 1501.
To search for the missing Gaspar Cortereal, Miguel, on May
10, 1502, again sailed to the northwest with two or
three ships. They found the same coast as before, guei'corte-
searched it without success, and returned again with-
418 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
out a leader ; for Miguel's ship missed the others at a rendez-
vous and was never again heard of.
The endeavors of the Portuguese in this direction did not
end here ; and the region thus brought by them to the atten-
tion of the cartographer soon acquired in their maps the name
Terre des ^^ TervG des CoHereal, or Terra dos Corte reals, or,
cortereai. ^g Latiuizcd by Sylvanus, Regalis Domus. There is
little, however, to connect these earliest ventures with later his-
tory, except perhaps that from their experiences it is that a
straits of vague cartographical conception of the fabled Straits
Anian. ^^ Auiau coufrouts us in many of the maps of the
latter half of the sixteenth century. No one has made it quite
sure whence the appellation or even the idea of such a strait
came. By some it has been thought to have grown out of Marco
Polo's Ania, which was conceived to be in the north. By Navar-
rete, Humboldt, and others it has been made to grow in some
way out of these Cortereai voyages, and Humboldt supposes that
the entrance to Hudson Bay, under 60° north latitude, was
thought at that time to lead to some sort of a transcontinental
passage, going it is hardly known where. The name does not
seem at first to have been magnified into all its later associations
of a kingdom, or " regnum " of Anian, as the Latin nomen-
clature then had it. Its great city of Quivira did not appear
till some time after the middle of the sixteenth century, and
then it was not always quite certain to the cosmographical mind
whether all this magnificence might not better be placed on the
Asiatic side of such a strait. This imaginary channel was
made for a long period to run along the parallels of latitudes
somewhere in the northern regions of the New World, after
America had begun generally to have its independent existence
recognized, south of the Arctic regions at least. The next stage
of the belief violently changed the course of the straits across
the parallels, prefiguring the later discovered Bering's Straits ;
and this is made prominent in maps of Zalterius (1566) and
Mercator (1569), and in the maps of those who copied these
masters.
It took thirty years for the Cortereai discoveries to work
Spanish their way into the conceptions of the Spanish map-
""^P** makers. Whether this dilatory belief came from lack
of information, obliviousness, or simply from an heroic persist-
COLUMBUS AGAIN IN SPAIN.
419
ence in ignoring what was not their boast, is a question to be
decided through an estimate of the Spanish character. There
seems, however, to have been interest enough on the part of a
single Italian noble to seek information at once, as we see from
the Cantino map; but the knowledge was not, nevertheless,
5
OCEANUS OGCIDENTALIS
^•
.^0
^<. TERRA
^i DEL RfY
-Jj OE
PORTUGU/lLl
/6
HASANTILHAS
o
^^^-^
x^
V^if^l
THE CANTINO MAP.
apparently a matter of such interest but it could escape Ruysch
in 1508. Not till Sylvanus issued his edition of „
, *' Maps of the
Ptolemy, in 1511, did any sisrns of these Cortereal cortereai
^, . 1 discoveries.
expeditions appear on an engraved map.
Only a few years have passed since students of these carto-
graphical fields were first allowed free study of this ^he cantino
Cantino map. It is, after La Cosa, the most inter- "^*P'
1502.
420 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
esting of all the early maps of the American coast as its con-
figuration had grown to be comprehended in the ten years which
followed the first voyage of Columbus.
There are three special points of interest in this chart. The
The corte- ^^^^ ^^ *^^ cvidcnt purposc of the maker, when sending
erieVilTof i* (1502) to his correspondent in Italy, to render it
dema?cJ* clcar that the coasts which the Portuguese had tracked
tion. jjj ^jjg northwest Atlantic were sufficiently protuber-
ant towards the rising sun to throw them on the Portuguese side
of the revised line of demarcation. It is by no means certain,
however, in doing so, that they pretended their discoveries to
have been other than neighboring to Asia, since a peninsula
north of these regions is called a " point of Asia." The ordi-
nary belief of geographers at that time was that our modern
Greenland was an extension of northern Europe. So it does
not seem altogether certain that the Terra Verde of
TcrrOr Vcrdc
Cortereal can be held to be identical with its name-
sake of the Sagas.
The second point of interest is what seems to be the connec-
tion between this map and those which had emanated
and the Can- from the Tcsults of the Columbus voyages, directly
theParia or iudircctly. Columbus had made a chart of his
region. track through the Gulf of Paria, and had sent it to
Spain, and Ojeda had coursed the same region by it. We
know from a letter of Angelo Trivigiano, the secretary of the
Venetian ambassador in Spain, dated at Granada, August 21,
1501, and addressed to Domenico Malipiero, that at that
time Columbus, who had ingratiated himself with the writer of
Columbus *h® letter, was living without money, in great want,
in want. ^^^ ^^^ q£ favor with the sovereigns. This letter-
writer then speaks of his intercession with Peter Martyr to
have copies of his narrative of the voyages of Columbus made,
and of his pleading with Columbus himself to have transcripts
of his own letters to his sovereigns given to him, as well as a
map of the new discoveries from the Admiral's own charts,
which he then had with him in Granada.
There are three letters of Trivigiano, but the originals are
not known. Foscarini in 1752 used them in his Delia Lette-
ratura veneziana^ as found in the library of Jacopo Soranzo ;
but both these originals and Foscarini's copies have eluded the
COLUMBUS AGAIN IN SPAIN 421
search of Harrisse, who gives them as printed or abstracted by
Zurla.
What we have is not supposed to be the entire text, and we
may well regret the loss of the rest. Trivigiano says of the
map that he expected it to be extremely well executed on a
large scale, giving ample details of the country which had been
discovered. He refers to the delays incident to sending to
Palos to have it made, because persons capable of such work
could only be found there.
No such copy as that made for Malipiero is now known.
Harrisse thinks that if it is ever discovered it will be very like
the Cantino map, with the Cortereal discoveries left out. This
same commentator also points out that there are certainly indi-
cations in the Cantino map that the maker of it, in drafting
the region about the Gulf of Paria at least, worked either from
Columbus's map or from some copy of it, for his information
seems to be more correct than that which La Cosa followed.
The third point of interest in this Cantino map, and one
which has given rise to opposing views, respects that
coast which is drawn in it north of the completed coast north
Cuba, and which at first glance is taken with little ques-
tion for the Atlantic coast of the United States from Florida
up. Is it such ? Did the cartographers of that time have any-
thing more than conjecture by which to run such a coast line ?
A letter of Pasqualigo, dated at Lisbon, October 18, 1501,
and found by Von Ranke at Venice in the diary of Marino Sa-
nuto, — a mnning record of events, which begins in 1496, — has
been interpreted by Humboldt as signifying that at this time
it was known among the Portuguese observers of the mari-
time reports that a continental stretch of coast connected the
Spanish discoveries in the Antilles with those of the Portuguese
at the north. Harrisse questions this interpretation, and con-
siders that what Humboldt thinks knowledge was simply a
tentative conjecture. If this knowledge is represented in the
Cantino map, there is certainly too great remoteness in the
regions of the Cortereal discoveries to form such a connection.
It is of course possible that the map is a falsification in this
respect, to make the line of demarcation serve the Portuguese
interests, and such falsification is by no means improbable.
It will be remembered that the La Cosa map showed no hesi-
422 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
tancy in placing the Antilles on the coast of Asia, and put
the region of the Cabot landfall on the coast of Cathay. Con-
sequently, the difference between the La Cosa and the Cantino
The Cantino Diaps for this rcgiou north of Cuba is phenomenal.
m^s^at v^ In these two or three years (1500-1502), something
"*"''®' had come to pass which seemed to raise the suspicion
that this northern continental line might possibly not be Asi-
atic after all, or at least it might not have the trend or contour
which had before been given it on the Asiatic theory. It is an
interesting question from whom this information could have
come. Was this coast in the Cantino map indeed not North
American, but the coast of Yucatan, misplaced, as one conjec-
ture has been ? But this involves a recognition of some voy-
age on the Yucatan coast of which we have no record. Was
it the result of one of the voyages of Vespucius, and was Varn-
hagen right in tracking that navigator up the east Florida
shore ? Was it drawn by some unauthorized Spanish mariners,
who were — we know Columbus complained of such — invad-
ing his vested rights, or perhaps by some of those to whom he
was finally induced to concede the privilege of exploration?
Was it found by some English explorer who answers the de-
scription of Ojeda in 1501, when he complains that people of
this nation had been in these regions some years before ? Was
it the discovery of some of those against whom a royal prohibi-
tion of discovery was issued by the Catholic kings, September
3, 1501 ? Was it anything more than the result of some vague
information from the Lucayan Indians, aided by a sprinkling
of supposable names, respecting a land called Bimini lying there
away ? Eight or nine years later, Peter Martyr, in
'""""* the map which he published in 1511, seems to have
thought so, and certain stories of a fountain of youth in regions
lying in that direction were already prevalent, as Martyr also
shows us. The fact seems to be that we have no Spanish map
between the making of La Cosa's in 1500 and this one of
Peter Martyr in 1511, to indicate any Spanish acquaintance
with such a northern coast.
This map of 1511, if it is honest enough to show what the
Spanish government knew of Florida, is indicative of
tyr'8 map. but the vagucst information, and its divulgence of
that coast may, in Brevoort's opinion, account for the
COLUMBUS AGAIN IN SPAIN. 423
rarity of the chart, in view of the determination of Spain to
keep control as far as she could of all cartographical records of
what her explorers found out.
It is evident, if we accept the theory of this Cantino map
showing the coast of the United States, that we have in it a de-
lineation nearer the source by several years than those which
modern students have longer known in the Waldseemiiller map
of 1508, the Stobnicza map of 1512, the Reisch map of 1515,
and the so-called Admiral's map of 1513, — all which arose,
it is very clear, from much the same source as this of Cantino.
"What is that source ? There are some things that seem to
indicate that this source was the description of Portuguese
rather than of other seamen. This belief falls in with what we
know of the cordial relations of Portugal and Duke Rene, under
whose auspices Waldseemiiller at least worked. Thus it would
seem that while Spain was impeding cartographical knowledge
through the rest of Europe, Portugal was so assiduously helping
it that for many years the Ptolemies and other central and
southern European publications were making known the cos-
mographical ideas which originated in Portugal.
It has been already said that Humboldt in his Examen Cri-
tique (iv. 262) refers to a letter which indicates that in Octo-
ber, 1501, the Portuguese had already learned, or it may be only
conjectured, that the coast from the region of the Antilles ran
uninterruptedly north till it united with the snowy shores of the
northern discoveries. This, then, seems to indicate that it was
a Portuguese source that supplied conjecture, if not fact, to the
maker of the Cantino map. Harrisse's solution of this matter,
as also mentioned already, is that the letter found by Yon Ranke
and the letter which we know Pasqualigo sent to Venice about
the Cortereal voyages were one and the same, and that it was
rather conjecture than fact that the Portuguese possessed at
this time.
The obvious difficulty in the cartographical problem for the
Portuguese was, as has been said, to make it appear that they
were not disregarding the agreement at Tordesillas while they
were securing a region for sovereignty. We have already said
that this accounts for the extreme eastern position found in
the Cantino and the cognate maps of the Newfoundland region,
which, as thus drawn, it was not easy to connect with the coast
424 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
line of eastern Florida. Hence the open sea-gap which exists
between them in the maps, while the evidence of the descrip-
tions would make the coast line continuous.
We have thus suggested possible solutions of this continen-
tal shore above Florida. It must be confessed that the truth
is far from patent, and we must yet wait perhaps a long time
before we discover, if indeed we ever do, to whom this mapping
of the coast, as shown in the Cantino map, was due.
There are evidences other than those of this Cantino map
Was the *h^* *^® Portuguese were in this Floridian region in
coast^* the early years of the sixteenth century, and Lelewel
known ? tried to work out their discoveries from scattered data,
in a conjectural map, which he marks 1501-1504, and which
resembles the Ptolemy map of 1513. The bringing forward of
the Cantino map confirms much of the supposed cartography.
There is one theory which to some minds gives a very easy
solution of this problem, without requiring belief in any know-
ledge, clandestine or public, of such a land.
Brevoort in his Verrazano had already been inclined to the
view later emphasized by Stevens in his /Schoner, and reiterated
by Coote in his editorial revision of that posthumous work.
Stevens is content to allow Ocampo, in 1508, to have been
the earliest probable discoverer of this coast, and Ponce de
Leon as the original attested finder in 1513.
The Stevens theory is that this seeming Florida arose from a
This Cantino Portugucsc miscouccptiou of the first two voyages of
pikiate/"" Columbus, by which two regions were thought to have
^"'^*- been coasted instead of different sides of the same,
and that what others consider an early premonition of Florida
and the upper coasts was simply a duplicated Cuba, to make
good the Portuguese conception. It is not explained how so
strange a misconception of very palpable truths could have
arisen, or how a coast trending north and south so far could
have been confounded with one stretching at right angles to
such a course for so short a distance.
Stevens traces the influence of his "bogus Cuba" in a
long series of maps based on Portuguese notions, in which he
names those of Waldseemiiller (1513), Stobnicza (1512),
Schoner (1515, 1520), Reisch (1515), Bordone (1528), Solinus
(1520), Friess (1522), and Gryn^eus (1532 — made probably
COLUMBUS AGAIN IN SPAIN. ' 425
earlier), as opposed to the Spanish and more truthful view,
which is expressed by Ruysch (1507-8) and Peter Martyr,
(1511).
It is a proposition not to be dismissed lightly nor accepted
triumphantly on our present knowledge. We must wait for
further developments.
The fancy that this coast was Asia and that Cuba was Asia
might, indeed, have led to the transfer to it at one time of the
names which Columbus had placed along the north coast of his
supposed peninsular Cuba ; but that proves a misplacement of
the names, and not a creation of the coast. For a while this
continental land was backed up on the maps against a meridian
scale, which hid the secret of its western limits, and left it a
possible segment of Asia. Then it stood out alone with a north
and southwestern line, but with Asia beyond, just as if it were
no part of it, and this delineation was common even while there
was a division of geographical belief as to North America and
Asia being one.
The fact that Cuba, in the drafting of the La Cosa and Can-
tino maps, is represented as an island has at times cubaanisi-
been held to signify that the views of Columbus re- ^^'
specting its peninsular rather than its insular character were not
wholly shared by his contemporaries. That foolish act by which,
under penalty, the Admiral forced his crew to swear that it was
a part of the main might well imply that he expected his asser-
tions would be far from acceptable to other cosmographers. If
Varnhagen's opinion as to the track of Vespucius in his voyage
of 1497, following the contour of the Gulf of Mexico, be ac-
cepted as knowledge of the time, the insularity of Cuba was ne-
cessarily proved even at that early day ; but it is the opinion
of Henry Stevens, as has been already shown, that the green
outline of the western parts of Cuba in La Cosa's chart was
only the conventional way of expressing an uncertain coast.
Consequently it did not imply insularit3^ If it is to be sup-
posed that the Portuguese had a similar method of expressing
uncertainties of coast, they did not employ it in the Cantino
map, and Cuba in 1502 is unmistakably an island. It is, more-
over, sufficiently like the Cuba of La Cosa to show it was drawn
from one and the same prototype. If the maker of the Cantino
map followed La Cosa, or a copy of La Cosa, or the material
426 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
from which La Cosa worked, there is no proof that he ever
suspected the peninsularity of Cuba.
Columbus, in his hours of neglect, and amid his unheeded
Columbus pleas for recognition, during these two grewsome
irSr^ex- years in Spain, may never have comprehended in
piorations. their full significance these active efforts of the
Portuguese to anticipate his own hopes of a western passage
beyond the Golden Chersonesus ; but the doings of Mendoza,
Cristobal Guerra, and other fellow-subjects of Spain were not
wholly unknown to him.
In October, 1500, and before Columbus knew just what his
1500. octo- reception in Spain was going to be, Rodrigo de Bas-
Ssexp?-^' tidas, accompanied by La Cosa and Vasco Nunez
dition. Balboa, sailed from Cadiz on an expedition that had
for its object to secure to the Crown one quarter of the profits,
and to make an examination of the coast line beyond the bay
of Venezuela, in order that it might be made sure that no
channel to an open sea lay beyond. The two caravels followed
the shore to Nombre de Dios, and at the narrowest part of the
isthmus, without suspecting their nearness to the longed-for
sea, the navigators turned back. Finding their vessels unsea-
worthy, for the worms had riddled their bottoms, they sought
a harbor in Espanola, near which their vessels foundered after
they had saved a part of their lading. A little later, this gave
Bobadilla a chance to arrest the commander for illicit trade
with the natives. This transaction was nothing more, appar-
ently, than the barter of trinkets for provisions, as he was lead-
ing his men across the island to the settlements.
It was while with Bastidas, in 1501-2, that La Cosa reports
Portuguese scciug the Portuguesc prowling about the Caribbean
k^tiSse r? ^^d Mexican waters, seeking for a passage to Calicut,
gions. jt ^^g while on a mission of remonstrance to Lisbon
that La Cosa was later arrested and imprisoned, and remained
till August, 1504, a prisoner in Portugal.
We have seen that in 1499 Ojeda had met or heard of Eng-
lish vessels on the coast of Terra Firma, or professed that he
had. The Spanish government, suspecting they were but pre-
cursors of others who might attempt to occupy the coast, de-
termined on thwarting such purposes, if possible, by anticipating
COLUMBUS AGAIN IN SPAIN. 427
occupation. Ojeda was given the power to lead thither a colony,
if he could do it without cost to the Crown, which reserved
a due share of his profits. He obtained the assistance of Juan
de Vegara and Garcia de Ocampo, and with this back-
ing he sailed with four ships from Cadiz in January, uary. c^je"
1502, while Columbus was preparing his own little * * ^oy*8«-
fleet for his last voyage. It was a venture, however, that came
to naught. The natives, under ample provocation, proved hos-
tile, food was lacking, the leaders quarreled, and the partners of
Ojeda, combining, overpowered (May, 1502) their leader, and
sent him a prisoner to Espanola, where he arrived in Septem-
ber, 1502.
There has never been any clear definition as to who these
Englishmen were, or what was their project, during
these earliest years of the sixteenth century. There th^wesr
is evidence that Henry VII. about this time author-
ized some ventures in which his countrymen were joint sharers
with the Portuguese, but we know nothing further of the
regions visited than that the Privy Purse expenses show how
some Bristol men received a gratuity for having been at the
"Newefounde Launde." There is also a vague notion to be
formed from an old entry that Sebastian Cabot himself again
visited this region in 1503, and brought home three of the
natives, — to say nothing of additional even vaguer suspicions
of other ventures of the English at this time.
In enumerating the ocean movements that were now going on,
some intimation has been given of the tiresome expectancy of
something better which was intermittently beguiling the spirits
of Columbus during the eighteen months that he remained in
Spain. It is necessary to trace his unhappy life in some detail,
though the particulars are not abundant.
Ferdinand had not been unobservant of all these expedition-
ary movements, and they were quite as threatening to
xi r. -1 . .1 TN.T ^Tcr iJ t.- Columbus's
the Spanish supremacy m the JNew World as nis life m Spain.
. 1500-1502.
own personal defection was to the dejected Admiral.
It had become very clear that by tying his own hands, as he
had in the compact which Columbus was urging to have ob-
served, the King had allowed opportunities to pass by which he
could profit through the newly aroused enthusiasm of the sea-
428 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
ports. We have seen that he had, nevertheless, through Fon-
seca sanctioned the expeditions of Ojeda, Pinzon, and others, and
had notahly in that of Nino got large profits for the exchequer.
He had done this in defiance of the vested rights of Columbus,
and there is little doubt that to bring Columbus into disgrace
by the loss of his Admiral's power served in part to open the
field of discovery more as Ferdinand wished. With the Viceroy
dethroned and become a waiting suitor, there was lit-
auows other tie to stay Ferdinand's ambition in sending out other
explorers. His experience had taught him to allow
no stipulations on which explorers could found exorbitant de-
mands upon the booty and profit of the ventures. Anybody
could sail westward now, and there was no longer the courage
of conviction required to face an unknown sea and find an oppo-
site shore. Columbus, who had shown the way, was now easily
cast off as a useless pilot.
It was not difficult for the King to frame excuses when Co-
lumbus urged his reinstatement. There was no use in sending
back an unpopular viceroy before the people of the colony
had been quieted. Give them time. It might be seasonable
enough to send to them their old master when they had forgot-
ten their misfortunes under him. Perhaps a better man than
Bobadilla could be found to still the commotions, and if so he
might be sent. In the face of all this and the King's deter-
mination, Columbus could do nothing but acquiesce, and so he
gradually made up his mind to bide his time once more. It
was not a new discipline for him.
It was clear from the intelligence which was reaching Spain
that Bobadilla would have to be superseded. Freed
ndey ** from the restraints which had created so much com-
Espanoia. pj^'jj^. (j^riug the rulc of Columbus, and even courted
with offers of indulgence, the miserable colony at Espanola
readily degenerated from bad to worse. The new governor had
hoped to find that a lack of constraint would do fpr the people
what an excess of it had failed to do. He erred in his judg-
ment, and let the colony slip beyond his control. Licentious-
ness was everywhere. The only exaction he required was the
tribute of gold. He reduced the proportion which must be
surrendered to the Crown from a third to an eleventh, but he
so apportioned the labor of the natives to the colonists that
COLUMBUS AGAIN IN SPAIN, 429
the yield of gold grew rapidly, and became more with the tax an
eleventh than it had been when it was a third. This inhuman
degradation of the poor natives had become an organized mis-
ery when, a little later. Las Casas arrived in the colony, and he
depicts the baleful contrasts of the Indians and their attractive
island. Gold was potent, but it was not potent enough to keep
Bobadilla in his place. The representations of the agony of
life among the natives were so harrowing that it was decided to
send a new governor at once.
The person selected was Nicholas de Ovando, a man of whom
Las Casas, who went out with him, gives a high char-
acter for justice, sobriety, and graciousness. Perhaps sentV
he deserved it. The sympathizers with Columbus ^^*"°
find it hard to believe such praise. Ovando was commissioned
as governor over all the continental and insular domains, then
acquired or thereafter to be added to the Crown in the New
World. He was to have his capital at Santo Domingo. He
was deputed, with about as much authority as Bobadilla had
had, to correct abuses and punish delinquents, and was to take
one third of all gold so far stored up, and one half of what
was yet to be gathered. He was to monopolize all trade for
the Crown. He was to segregate the colonists as much as pos-
sible in settlements. No supplies were to be allowed to the peo-
ple unless they got them through the royal factor. New efforts
were to be made through some Franciscans, who accompanied
Ovando, to convert the Indians. The natives were to be made
to work in the mines as hired servants, paid by the Crown.
It had already become evident that such labor as the mining
of gold required was too exhausting for the natives, and the
death-rate among them was such that eyes were already opened
to the danger of extermination. By a sophistry which suited a
sixteenth-century Christian, the existence of this poor race was
to be prolonged by introducing the nesrro race from
i». , ,, . T 1.1 Ml 'SegTO slaves
Airica, to talje the heavier burden of the toil, because to be intro-
it was believed they would die more slowly under the
trial. So it was royally ordered that slaves, born of Africans,
in Spain, might be carried to Espanola. The promise of Colum-
bus's letter to Sanchez was beginning to prove delusive. It
was going to require the degradation of two races instead of
one. That was all I
430 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
To assuage the smart of all this forcible deprivation of his
1501. Co- pov/er, Columbus was apprised that under a royal
iTro^erty o^dcr of September 27, 1501, Ovando would see to
restored. |.jjg restitution of any property of his which Bobadilla
had appropriated, and that the Admiral was to be allowed to
send a factor in the fleet to look after his interests
under the articles which divided the gold and treasure
between him and the Crown. To this office of factor Colum-
bus appointed Alonso Sanchez de Carvajal.
The pomp and circumstance of the fleet were like a biting
ovando's sarcasm to the poor Admiral. One might expect he
*®®*' could have no high opinions of its pilots, for we find
him writing to the sovereigns, on February 6, a letter laying
before them certain observations on the art of navigation, in
which he says : " There will be many who will desire to sail to
the discovered islands ; and if the way is known those who
have had experience of it may safest traverse it." Perhaps
he meant to imply that better pilots were more important than
much parade. He in his most favored time had never been
fitted out with a fleet of thirty sail, so many of them large
ships. He had never carried out so many cavaliers, nor so
large a proportion of such persons of rank, as made a shining
part of the 2,500 souls now embarked. He could contrast his
Franciscan gown and girdle of rope with Ovando's brilliant
silks and brocades which the sovereigns authorized him to wear.
There was more state in the new governor's bodyguard of
twenty-two esquires, mounted and foot, than Columbus had ever
dreamed of in Santo Domingo. Instead of vile convicts there
were respectable married men with their families, the guaranty
of honorable living. So that when the fleet went to sea, Febru-
ary 13, 1502, there were hopes that a right method
ruary 3. It of f ouudiug a colony on family life had at last found
favor.
The vessels very soon encountered a gale, in which one
1502. April, ship fouudcrcd, and from the deck-loads which were
Santo Do- throwu ovcr from the rest and floated to the shore
^^go. -^ ^g^g £qj. ^ \ojig time apprehended that the fleet
had suffered much more severely. A single ship was all that
failed finally to reach Santo Domingo about the middle of
April, 1502.
COLUMBUS AGAIN IN SPAIN. 431
Let us turn now to Columbus himself. He had not failed,
as we have said, to reach something like mental quiet in the
conviction that he could expect nothing but neglect for the
present. So his active mind engaged in those visionary and
speculative trains of thought wherein, when his body was
weary and his spirits harried, he was prone to find relief.
He set himself to the composition of a maundering and
erratic paper, which, under the title of Libros de las
proficias^ is preserved in the Biblioteca Colombina at Lib^Tsd^ils
Seville. The manuscript, however, is not in the ^^° ^^^'
handwriting of Columbus, and no one has thought it worth
while to print the whole of it.
In it there is evidence of his study, with the assistance of a
Carthusian friar, of the Bible and of the early fathers of the
Church, and it shows, as his letter to Juan's nurse had shown,
how he had at last worked himself into the belief that all his
early arguments for the westward passage were vain ; that he
had simply been impelled by something that he had not then
suspected ; and that his was but a predestined mission to make
good what he imagined was the prophecy of Isaiah in igaiah»8
the Apocalypse. This having been done, there was P'"op^®<=y-
something yet left to be accomplished before the anticipated
eclipse of all earthly things came on, and that was the
conquest of the Holy Land, for which he was the ap- the Hoiy
pointed leader. He addressed this driveling exposi-
tion, together with an urgent appeal for the undertaking of the
crusade, to Ferdinand and Isabella, but without convincing
them that such a self-appointed instrument of God was quite
worthy of their employment.
The great catastrophe of the world's end was, as Columbus
calculated, about 155 years away. He based his esti- End of the
mate upon an opinion of St. Augustine that the '^*'''^'^'
world would endure for 7,000 years ; and upon King Alfonso's
reckoning that nearly 5,344 years had passed when Christ
appeared. The 1,501 years since made the sum 6,845, leav-
ing out of the 7,000 the 155 years of his belief.
He also fancied, or professed to believe, in a letter which he
subsequently wrote to the Pope, that the present de- Defeated by
privation of his titles and rights was the work of Satan, ^***'''
who came to see that the success of Columbus in the Indies
432 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
would be only a preparation for the Admiral's long-vaunted
recovery of the Holy Land. The Spanish government mean-
while knew, and they had reason to know, that their denial of
his prerogatives had quite as niuch to do with other things as
with a legion of diabolical powers. Unfortunately for Colum-
bus, neither they nor the Pope were inclined to act on any inter-
pretation of fate that did not include a civil policy of justice
and prosperity.
These visions of Columbus were harmless, and served to be-
guile him with pious whimsies. But the mood did not last. He
next turned to his old geographical problems. The
graphical Portuguesc wcrc searching north and south for the pas-
sage that would lead to some indefinite land of spices,
and afford a new way to reach the trade with Calicut and the
Moluccas, which at this time, by the African route, was pouring
wealth into the Portuguese treasury in splendid contrast to the
scant return from the Spanish Indies. He harbored a belief
that a better passage might yet be found beyond the Caribbean
Sea. La Cosa, in placing that vignette of St. Christopher and
the infant Christ athwart the supposed juncture of Asia and
Would seek South AmeHca, had eluded the question, not solved it.
w?Sr Columbus would now go and attack the problem on
(Sbbea?^ the spot. His expectation to find a desired opening in
^^' that direction was based on physical phenomena, but
in fact on only partial knowledge of them. He had been aware
of the strong currents which set westward through the Carib-
bean Sea, and he had found them still flowing west when he
had reached the limit of his exploration of the southern coast of
Cuba. Bastidas, who had just pushed farther west on the main
coast, had turned back while the currents were still flowing on,
along what seemed an endless coast beyond. Bastidas did not
arrive in Spain till some months after Columbus had sailed,
for he was detained a prisoner in Espanola at this time. Some
tidings of his experiences may have reached Spain, however, or
the Admiral may not have got his confirmation of these views
Columbus ^^11 h® found that voyager at Santo Domingo, later.
StoSdJ^the Columbus had believed Cuba to be another main, con-
currents, fining this onward waste of waters to the south of it.
It was clear to him that such currents must find an outlet to
the west, and if found, such a passage would carry him on to
COLUMBUS AGAIN IN SPAIN. 433
the sea that washed the Golden Chersonesus. He indeed died
without knowing the truth. This same current, deflected about
Honduras and Yucatan, sweeps by a northerly circuit round the
great Gulf of Mexico, and, passing out by the Cape G^if
of Florida, flows northward in what we now call the ^*'^®*™-
Gulf Stream.
There is nothing in all the efforts of the canonizers more ab-
surdly puerile than De Lorgues's version of the way in which
Columbus came to believe in this strait. He had a vision, and
saw it ! The only difficulty in the matter was that the poor
Admiral was so ecstatic in his hallucination that he mistook the
narrowness of an isthmus for the narrowness of a strait !
The proposition of such a search was not inopportune in the
eyes of Ferdinand. There were those about the Court
who thought it unwise to give further employment to a nient relief
man who was degraded from his honors ; but to the to send co-
King it was a convenient way of removing a persistent such a
and active-minded complainant from the vicinity of
the Court, to send him on some quest or other, and no one
could tell but there was some truth in his new views. It was
worth while to let him try. So once again, by the royal per-
mission, Columbus set himself to work equipping a
little fleet. It was the autumn of 1501 when he ap- lumbus pre-
peared in Seville with the sovereign's commands, equip hia
He varied his work of preparing the ships with spend-
ing some part of his time on his treatise on the prophecies,
while a friar named Gaspar Gorricio helped him in the labor.
Early in 1502 he had got it into shape to present to
the sovereigns, and in February he wrote the letter ruary. Go-
to Pope Alexander VII. which has already been men- writes to the
tioned.
As the preparations went on, he began to think of Espanola,
and how he mis^ht perhaps be allowed to touch there ;
, - or ,. -,.iT . 1 Forbidden to
but orders were given to him forbidding it on the touchat
outward passage, though suffering it on the return, for
it was hoped by that time that the disorders of the island would
be suppressed. It was arranged that the Adelantado and his
own son Ferdinand should accompany him, and some interpret-
ers learned in Arabic were put on board, in case his -success
put him in contact with the people of the Great Khan.
434 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
The suspension of his rights lay heavily on his mind, and
early in March, 1502, he ventured to refer to the subject once
more in a letter to the sovereigns. They replied, March 14,
in some instructions which they sent from Valencia de Torre,
advising him to keep his mind at ease, and leave such things to
the care of his son Diego. They assured him that in due time
the proper restitution of all would be made, and that he must
abide the time.
He had already taken steps to secure a perpetuity of the
1502. janu- ^Gcord of his houors and deeds, if nothing else could
fumbus'?°' ^^ permanent. It was at Seville, January 5, 1502,
serve* hrs"^^' *^2,t Columbus, appearing before a notary in his own
titles, etc. house, attested that series of documents respecting his
titles and prerogatives which are so religiously preserved at
Genoa. These papers, as we have seen, were copies which Co-
lumbus had lately secured from the documents in the Spanish
Admiralty, among which he was careful to include the revo-
cation of June 2, 1497, of the licenses which, much to Colum-
bus's annoyance, had been granted in 1495, to allow others than
himself to explore in the new regions. We may not wonder at
this, but we can hardly conjecture why a transaction of his
which had caused as much as anything his wrongs, mortifica-
tion, and the loss of his dignities should have been as assidu-
ously preserved. These are the royal orders which enabled
Columbus, at his request, to fill up his colony with unshackled
convicts. This he might as well have let the world forget.
The royal order requiring Bobadilla or his successor to restore
all the sequestered property of Columbus, and the new decla-
ration of his rights, he might well have been anxious to
preserve.
There was one other act to be done which lay upon his mind,
now that the time of sailing approached. He wished to make
provision that his heirs should be able to confer some favor on
his native city, and he directed that investments should be made
Columbus fo^ *h^* purpose in the Bank of St. George at Genoa.
slnk^ofst. He then notified the managers of that bank of his
George. intcution in a letter which is so characteristic of his
moods of dementation that it is here copied as Harrisse trans-
lates it : —
COLUMBUS AGAIN IN SPAIN. 435
High Noble Lords :— Although the body walks about
here, the heart is constantly over there. Our Lord has con-
ferred on me the greatest favor to any one since David. The
results of my undertaking already appear, and would shine
greatly were they not concealed by the blindness of the govern-
ment. I am going again to the Indies under the auspices of
the Holy Trinity, soon to return ; and since I am mortal, I leave
it with my son Diego that you receive every year, forever, one
tenth of the entire revenue, such as it may be, for the purpose
of reducing the tax upon corn, wine, and other provisions. If
that tenth amounts to something, collect it. If not, take at
least the will for the deed. I beg of you to entertain regard for
the son I have recommended to you. Nicolo de Oderigo knows
more about my own affairs than I do myself, and I have sent
him the transcripts of^^ny privileges and letters for safe-keeping.
I should be glad if you could see them. My lords, the King and
Queen endeavor to honor me more than ever. May the Holy
Trinity preserve your noble persons and increase your most
magnificent House. Done in Sevilla, on the second day of
April, 1502.
The chief Admiral of the ocean, Viceroy and Governor-Gen-
eral of the islands and continent of Asia and the Indies, of my
lords, the King and Queen, their Captain-General of the sea,
and of their Council.
S.
.S.A.S.
X M Y
Xpo Ferens.
The letter was handed by Columbus to a Genoese banker,
then in Spain, Francisco de RivaroUa, who forwarded it to
Oderigo ; but as this ambassador was then on his way to Spain,
Harrisse conjectures that he did not receive the letter till his
return to Genoa, for the reply of the bank is dated De- 1502. De-
cember 8, 1502, long after Columbus had sailed. This i^tLL
response was addressed to Diego, and inclosed a letter ""^p^^-
to the Admiral. The great affection and good will of Colum-
bus towards " his first country " gratified them inexpressibly, as
they said to the son ; and to the father they acknowledged the
act of his intentions to be " as great and extraordinary as that
436
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
which has been recorded about any man in the world, consider-
ing that by your own skill, energy, and prudence, you have dis-
covered such a considerable portion of this earth and sphere of
the lower world, which during so many years past and centuries
had remained unknown to its inhabitants."
The letter of Columbus to the bank remained on the files of
that institution — a single sheet of paper, written on one side
only, and pierced in the centre for the thread of the file '■ — undis-
covered till the archivist of the bank, attracted by the indorse-
ment, M D II, Epla D. Admirati Don Xrophori Columbi,
identified it in 1829, when, at the request of the authorities of
Genoa, it was transferred to the keeping of its archivists. It
is to be seen at the city hall, to-day, placed between two glass
plates, so that either side of the paper can be read.
CHAPTER XIX.
THE FOURTH VOYAGE.
1502-1504.
Their Majesties, in March, 1502, were evidently disturbed
at Columbus's delays in sailing, since such detentions 1502. March,
brought to them nothing but the Admiral's continued com"rSinded
importunities. They now instructed him to sail with- *^ **^^'
out the least delay. Nevertheless, Columbus, who had given out,
as Trivigiano reports, that he expected his discoveries on this
voyage to be more surprising and helpful than any yet made,
his purpose being, in fact, to circumnavigate the globe, ^ay 9-11.
did not sail from Cadiz till May 9 or 11, 1502, — the ^*'^"'^-
accounts vary. He had four caravels, from fifty to seventy
tons each, and they carried in all not over one hundred and
fifty men.
Apparently not forgetting the Admiral's convenient reserva-
tion respecting the pearls in his third voyage, their Hisinstruo-
Majesties in their instructions particularly enjoined *^°'^^'
upon him that all goH and other precious commodities which
he might find should be committed at once to the keeping
of Frangois de Porras, who was sent with him to the end that
the sovereigns might have trustworthy evidence in his accounts
of the amount received. Equally mindful of earlier defections,
their further instructions also forbade the taking of any slaves.
Years had begun to rest heavily on the frame of Columbus.
His constitution had been strained by long exposures. The physical
and his spirits had little elasticity left. Hope, to be condS^of
sure, had not altogether departed from his ardent Columbus.
nature ; but it was a hope that had experienced many reverses,
and its pinions were clipped. There was still in him no lack
of mental vitality ; but his reason had lost equipoise,- and his
discernment was clouded with illusory visions.
438 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
There was the utmost desire at this time on the part of their
Majesties that no rupture should break the friendly relations
which were sustained with the Portuguese court, and it had
been arranged that, in case Columbus should fall in with any
Portuguese fleet, there should be the most civil interchange of
courtesies. The Spanish monarchs had also given orders, since
word had come of the Moors besieging a Portuguese post on
the African coast, that Columbus should first go thither and
afford the garrison relief.
It was found, on reaching that African harbor on the 15th,
Columbus t^^t t^^ Moors had departed. So, with no longer de-
Afnca^n *^* ^^J *^^^ *^ cxchauge civilitics, he lifted anchor on the
coast. same day and put to sea. It was while he was at the
Canaries, May 20-25, taking in wood and water, that Columbus
wrote to his devoted Gorricio a letter, which Navar-
AttheCana- rctc prcscrvcs. " Now my voyage will be made in the
name of the Holy Trinity," he says, " and I hope for
success."
There is little to note on the voyage, which had been a pros-
perous one, aiid on June 15 he reached Martinino
15/ Reaches (Martiuico). Hc himself professes to have been but
twenty days between Cadiz and Martinino, but the
statement seems to have been confused, with his usual inac-
curacy. He thence pushed leisurely along over much the same
track which he had pursued on his second voyage, till he steered
finally for Santo Domingo.
It will be recollected that the royal orders issued to him before
leaving Spain were so far at variance with Columbus's wishes
that he was denied the satisfaction of touching at Espaiiola.
There can be little question as to the wisdom of an in-
to ^o to es- junction which the Admiral now determined to disre-
gard. His excuse was that his principal caravel was a
poor sailer, and he thought he could commit no mistake in in-
suring greater success for his voyage by exchanging at that port
this vessel for a better one. He forgot his own treatment of
Ojeda when he drove that adventurer from the island, where,
to provision a vessel whose crew was starving, Ojeda dared to
trench on his government. When we view this pretense for
thrusting himself upon an unwilling community in the light of
his unusually quick and prosperous voyage and his failure to
THE FOURTH VOYAGE. 439
make any mention of his vessel's, defects when he wrote from
the Canaries, we can hardly avoid the conclusion that his deter-
mination to call at Espanola was suddenly taken. His whole
conduct in the matter looks like an obstinate purpose to carry
his own point against the royal commands, just as he had tried
to carry it against the injunctions respecting the making of
slaves. We must remember this when we come to consider the
later neglect on the part of the King. We must remember,
also, the considerate language with which the sovereigns had
conveyed this injunction : " It is not fit that you should lose so
much time ; it is much fitter that you should go another way ;
though if it appears necessary, and God is willing, you may stay
there a little while on your return."
Roselly de Lorgues, with his customary disingenuousness,
merely says that Columbus came to Santo Domingo, to deliver
letters with which he was charged, and to exchange one of his
caravels.
It was the 29th of June when the little fleet of Columbus
arrived off the port. He sent in one of his command-
ers to ask permission to shelter his ships, and the 29. coium-
privilege of negotiating for another caravel, since, as oif santo
he says, " one of his ships had become unseaworthy ^^^^ '
and could no longer carry sail." His request came to Ovando,
who was now in command. This governor had left Spain in
February, only a month before Columbus received his final in-
structions, and there can be little doubt that he had learned from
Fonseca that those instructions would enjoin Columbus not to
complicate in any way Ovando's assumption of command by ap-
proaching his capital. Las Casas seems to imply this. How-
ever it may be, Ovando was amply qualified by his own instruc-
tions to do what he thought the circumstances required. Co-
lumbus represented that a storm was coming on, or rather the
Historie tells us that he did. It is to be remarked that Colum-
bus himself makes no such statement. At all events, word was
sent back to Columbus by his boat that he could not coiumbus
enter the harbor. Irving calls this an "ungracious ente'/th? ***
refusal," and it turned out that later events have op- ^*''^'''"'
portunely afforded the apologists for the Admiral the occasion
to point a moral to his advantage, particularly since Columbus,
if we may believe the doubtful story, confident of his prognosti-
440 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
cations, had again sent word that the fleet lying in the harbor,
ready to sail, would go out at great peril in view of an impend-
ing storm. It seems to be quite uncertain if at the time his
crew had any knowledge of his reasons for nearing Espanola,
or of his being denied admittance to the port. At least Porras,
from the way he describes the events, leaves one to make such
an inference.
This fleet in the harbor was that which had brought Ovando,
ovando's ^^^ ^3,8 now laden for the return. There was on
*®®*- board of it, as Columbus might have learned from his
messengers, the man of all men whom he most hated, Bobadilla,
Bobadiiia, who had graccfuUy yielded the power to Ovando two
ShMToif"^ months before, and of whom Las Casas, who was then
the fleet. fresh in his inquisitive seeking after knowledge re-
specting the Indies and on the spot, could not find that any one
spoke ill. On the same ship was Columbus's old rebellious and
tergiversating companion, Roldan, whose conduct had been in
these two months examined, and who was now to be sent to
Spain for further investigations. There was also embarked, but
in chains, the unfortunate cacique of the Vega, Guarionex, to
be made a show of in Seville. The lading of the ships was
the most wonderful for wealth that had ever been sent from
the island. There was the gold which Bobadilla had collected,
including a remarkable nugget which an Indian woman had
picked up in a brook, and a large quantity which Roldan and
his friends were taking on their own account, as the profit of
their separate enterprises. Carvajal, whom Columbus
factor had had scut out With Ovaudo as his factor, to look after
placed his ,. ., ,, .. i»iji
gold on one his pccuuiary interests under the provisions which the
royal commands had made, had also placed in one of
the caravels four thousand pieces of the same precious metal,
the result of the settlement of Ovando with Bobadilla, and
the accretions of the Admiral's share of the Crown's profits.
Undismayed by the warnings of Columbus, this fleet at once
Ovando's P^* ^^ sca, the Admiral's little caravels having mean-
sealSdTs^^ while crept under the shore at a distance to find such
wrecked ; shelter as they could. The larger fleet stood home-
ward, and was scarcely off the easterly end of Espanola when
a furious hurricane burst upon it. The ship which carried
Bobadilla, Roldan, and Guarionex succumbed and went down.
THE FOURTH VOYAGE, 441
Others foundered later. Some of the vessels managed to re-
turn to Santo Domingo in a shattered condition. A single
caravel, it is usually stated, survived the shock, so that it alone
could proceed on the voyage ; and if the testimony is to be be-
lieved, this was the weakest of them all, but she car- ^ut ship
ried the gold of Columbus. Among the caravels which bu^sgoidb"
put back to Santo Domingo for repairs was one on ^^®^-
which Bastidas was going to Spain for trial. This one arrived
at Cadiz in September, 1502.
The ships of Columbus had weathered the gale. That of the
Admiral, by keeping close in to land, had fared best, coiumbus's
The others, seeking sea-room, had suffered more. They the^the*"
lost sight of each other, however, during the height of the ^*^®*
gale ; but when it was over, they met together at Port Hermoso,
at the westerly end of the island. The gale is a picture over
which the glow of a retributive justice, under the favoring dis-
pensation of chance, is so easily thrown by sympathetic writers
that the effusions of the sentimentalists have got to stand at
last for historic vtrity. De Lorgues does not lose the opportu-
nity to make the most of it.
Columbus, having lingered about the island to repair his ships
and refresh his crews, and also to avoid a second storm, did
not finally get away till July 14, when he steered 1502. juiy
directly for Terra Firma. The currents perplexed iuasSS""^'
him, and, as there was little wind, he was swept west ^^^^'
further than he expected. He first touched at some islands
near Jamaica. Thence he proceeded west a quarter southwest,
for four days, without seeing land, as Porras tells us, when, be-
wildered, he turned to the northwest, and then north. But
finding himself (July 24) in the archipelago near Cuba, which
on his second voyage he had called The Gardens, he soon after
getting a fair wind (July 27) stood southwest, and on ^^^ ^ ^j.
July 30 made a small island, off the northern coast of ^"*"*Ja-
Honduras, called Guanaja by the natives, and Isla de Pinos by
himself. He was now in sight of the mountains of the main-
land. The natives struck him as of a physical type different
from all others whom he had seen. A large canoe,
eight feet beam, and of great length, though made of strange
a single log, approached with still stranger people in
it. They had apparently come from a region further north;
442 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
and under a canopy in the waist of the canoe sat a cacique
with his dependents. The boat was propelled by five and
twenty men with paddles. It carried various articles to convince
Columbus that he had found a people more advanced in arts
than those of the regions earlier discovered. They had with
them copper implements, including hatchets, bells, and the like.
He saw something like a crucible in which metal had been
melted. Their wooden swords were jagged with sharp flints,
their clothes were carefully made, their utensils were polished
and handy. Columbus traded off some trinkets for such speci-
mens as he wanted. If he now had gone in the direction from
which this marvelous canoe had come, he might have thus
early opened the wondrous world of Yucatan and Mexico, and
closed his career with more marvels yet. His beatific visions,
which he supposed were leading him under the will of the
Deity, led him, however, south. The delusive strait was there.
He found an old man among the Indians, whom he kept as a
guide, since the savage could draw a sort of chart of the coast.
He dismissed the rest with presents, after he* had wrested from
them what he wanted. Approaching the mainland, near the
present Cape of Honduras, the Adelantado landed on Sunday,
On the August 14, and mass was celebrated in a grove near
St""^*^ the beach. Again, on the 17th, Bartholomew landed
some distance eastward of the first spot, and here, by
a river (Rio de la Posesion, now Rio Tinto), he planted the Cas-
tilian banner and formally took possession of the country. The
Indians were friendly, and there was an interchange of provisions
and trinkets. The natives were tattooed, and they had other
customs, such as the wearing of cotton jackets, and the distend-
ing of their ears by rings, which were new to the Spaniards.
Tracking the coast still eastward, Columbus struggled against
the current, apparently without reasoning that he might be thus
sailing away from the strait, so engrossed was he with the
thought that such a channel must be looked for farther south.
Seeking a His visious had not helped him to comprehend the
Btrait. sweep of waters that would disprove his mock oaths of
the Cuban coast. So he wore ship constantly against the tempest
and current, and crawled with bewildered expectation along the
shore. All this tacking tore his sails, racked his caravels, and
wore out his seamen. The men were in despair, and confessed
THE FOURTH VOYAGE.
443
one another. Some made vows of penance, if their lives were
preserved. Columbus was himself wrenched with the coiumbus
gout, and from a sort of pavilion, which covered his S^tul^
couch on the quarter deck, he kept a good eye on all ^°"*'
>3clicUe
«iv lUtmnuiniiy dc France
^7
SS
35
BELLIN'S HONDURAS.
they encountered. "The distress of my son," he says, "grieved
me to the soul, and the more when I considered his tender age ;
444 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
for he was but thirteen years old, and he enduring so much toil
for so long a time." " My brother," he adds further, " was in
the ship that was in the worst condition and the most exposed
to danger ; and my grief on this account was the greater that I
brought him with me against his will."
It was fio easy work to make the seventy leagues from Cape
Honduras to Cape Gracios a Dios, and the bestowal of this
name denoted his thankfulness to God, when, after forty days
of this strenuous endeavor, his caravels were at last able to
1502. Sep- round the cape, on September 12 (or 14). A sea-
cape Gra- board strctchiug away to the south lay open before
ciosiDios. jj-jjj^ — jjQ^ known as the Mosquito Coast. The cur-
rent which sets west so persistently here splits and sends a
branch down this coast. So with a " fair wind and tide," as
he says, they followed its varied scenery of crag and lowland
for more than sixty leagues, till they discovered a great flow
of water coming out of a river. It seemed to offer an oppor-
tunity to replenish their casks and get some store of wood.
On the 16th of September, they anchored, and sent their boats
to explore. A meeting of the tide and the river's flow raised
later a tumultuous, sea at the bar, just as the boats were coming
out. The men were unable to surmount the difficulty, and
Loses a ^^® ^^ *^® boats was lost, with all on board. Colum-
boat's crew, y^^^ rccordcd their misfortune in the name which he
gave to the river. El Rio del Desastre. Still coasting onward,
on September 25 they came to an alluring roadstead between
an island and the main, where there was everything
tember25. to cuchaut that vcrdurc and fragrance could pro-
duce. He named the spot The Garden (La Huerta).
Here, at anchor, they had enough to occupy them for a day
or two in restoring the damage of the tempest, and in dry-
ing their stores, which had been drenched by the unceasing
downpour of the clouds. The natives watched them from the
shore, and made a show of their weapons. The Spaniards re-
maining inactive, the savages grew more confident of the pacific
intent of their visitors, and soon began swimming off to the
caravels. Columbus tried the effect of largesses, refusing to
barter, and made gifts of the Spanish baubles. Such gratui-
ties, however, created distrust, and every trinket was returned.
Two young girls had been sent on board as hostages, while the
THE FOURTH VOYAGE, 445
Spaniards were on shore getting watgr; but even they were
stripped of their Spanish finery when restored to their friends,
and every bit of it was returned to the givers. There seem to
be discordant statements by Columbus and in the Historie re-
specting these young women, and Columbus gives them a worse
character than his chronicler. When the Adelantado went
ashore with a notary, and this official displayed his paper and
inkhorn, it seemed to strike the wondering natives as a spell.
They fled, and returned with something like a censer, character of
from which they scattered the smoke as if to dis- <^^e»a*i^e8.
perse all baleful spirits.
These unaccustomed traits of the natives worked on the
superstitions of the Spaniards. They began to fancy they had
got within an atmosphere of sorceries, and Columbus, thinking
of the two Indian maiden hostages, was certain there was a
spell of witchcraft about them, and he never quite freed his
mind of this necromantic ghost.
The old Indian whom Columbus had taken for a guide when
first he touched the coast, having been set ashore at Cape
Gracios a Dios, enriched with presents, Columbus now seized
seven of this new tribe, and selecting two of the most intelli-
gent as other guides, he let the rest go. The seizure was greatly
resented by the tribe, and they sent emissaries to negotiate for
the release of the captives, but to no effect.
Departing on October 5 from the region which the natives
called Cariari, and where the fiame of Columbus is 1502. octo-
still preserved in the Bahia del Almirante, the ex- ^''' ^*"*"'
plorers soon found the coast trending once more towards the
east. They were tracking what is now known as the shore of
Costa Rica. They soon entered the large and island-studded
Caribaro Bay. Here the Spaniards were delighted to find the
natives wearing plates of gold as ornaments. They tried to
traffic for them, but the Indians were loath to part with their
treasures. The natives intimated that there was much q^i^ Bought
more of this metal farther on at a place called Ve- a*^veragua.
ragua. So the ships sailed on, October 17, and reached that
coast. The Spaniards came to a river; but the natives sent
defiance to them in the blasts of their conch-shells, while they
shook at them their lances. Entering the tide, they splashed
the water towards their enemies, in token of contempt. Colum-
BELLINI'S VERAGUA.
THE FOURTH VOYAGE. 447
bus's Indian guides soon pacified them, and a round of barter
followed, by which seventeen of their gold disks were secured for
three hawks' bells. The intercourse ended, however, in a little
hostile bout, during which the Spanish crossbows and lombards
soon brought the savages to obedience.
Still the caravels went on. The same scene of startled natives,
in defiant attitude, soon soothed by the trinkets was repeated
everywhere. In one place the Spaniards found what they had
never seen before, a wall laid of stone and lime, and Columbus
began to think of the civilized East again. Coast peoples are
always barbarous, as he says ; but it is the inland people who are
rich. As he passed along this coast of Veragua, as the name has
got to be written, though his notary at the time caught the Indian
pronunciation as Cobraba, his interpreters pointed out its vil-
lages, and the chief one of all ; and when they had passed on
a little farther they told him he was sailing beyond the gold
country. Columbus was not sure but they were trying to in-
duce him to open communication again with the shore, to offer
chances for their escape. The seeker of the strait could not
stop for gold. His vision led him on to that marvelous land of
Ciffuare, of which these successive native tribes told „.
. . . Ciguare.
him, situated ten days inland, and where the people
reveled in gold, sailed in ships, and conducted commerce in
spices and other precious commodities. The women there were
decked, so they said, with corals and pearls. "I should be
content," he says, " if a tithe of this which I hear is true."
He even fancied, from all he could understand of their signs
and language, that these Ciguare people were as terrible in war
as the Spaniards, and rode on beasts. " They also say that the
sea surrounds Ciguare, and that ten days' journey from thence
is the river Ganges." Humboldt seems to think that in all
this Columbus got a conception of that great western ocean
which was lying so much nearer to him than he supposed. It
may be doubted if it was quite so clear to Columbus as Hum-
boldt thinks ; but there is good reason to believe that Columbus
imagined this wonderful region of Ciguare was half-way to the
Ganges. If, as his canonizers fondly suppose, he had ^t the
not mistaken in his visions an isthmus for a strait, he ^^*^°'"^-
might have been prompted to cross the slender barrier, which
now separated him from his goal.
448 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
On the 2d of November, the ships again anchored in a spa-
1502. No- cious harbor, so beautiful in its groves and fruits,
vember 2. ^^^ ^'^^^ g^^j^ ^^^p ^^^er close to the shore, that Co-
lumbus gave it the name of Puerto Bello (Porto Bello), — an
appellation which has never left it. It rained for
seven days while they lay here, doing nothing but
trading a little with the natives for provisions. The Indians
offered no gold, and hardly any was seen. Starting once more,
Nombre de *^® Spaniards came in sight of the cape known since
^'°*' as Nombre de Dios, but they were thwarted for a while
in their attempts to pass it. They soon found a harbor, where
they stayed till November 23 ; then going on again, they
secured anchorage in a basin so small that the caravels were
placed almost beside the shore. Columbus was kept here by the
weather for nine days. The basking alligators reminded him
of the crocodiles of the Nile. The natives were uncommonly
gentle and gracious, and provisions were plenty. The ease
with which the seamen could steal ashore at night began to be
demoralizing, leading to indignities at the native houses. The
savage temper was at last aroused, and the Spanish revelries
were brought to an end by an attack on the ships. It ceased,
as usual, after a few discharges of the ships' guns.
Columbus had not yet found any deflection of that current
which sweeps in this region towards the Gulf of Mexico. He
had struggled against its powerful flow in every stage of his
progress along the coast. Whether this had brought him to
believe that his vision of a strait was delusive does not appear.
Whether he really knew that he had actually joined his own
explorations, going east, to those which Bastidas had made
from the west is equally unknown, though it is possible he may
have got an intimation of celestial and winged monsters from
the natives. If he comprehended it, he saw that there could
be no strait, this way at least. Bastidas, as we have seen,
was on board Bobadilla's fleet when Columbus lay
exploration off Sauto Domiugo. Thcrc is a chance that Colum-
of this coast. , , i . i i i •
bus s messenger who went ashore may nave seen mm
and his charts, and may have communicated some notes of the
maps to the Admiral. Some of the companions of Bastidas on
his voyage had reached Spain before Columbus sailed, and
there may have been some knowledge imparted in that way. If
Columbus knew the truth, he did not disclose it.
THE FOURTH VOYAGE. 449
Porras, possibly at a later day, seems to have been better
informed, or at least he imparts more in his narrative than
Columbus does. He says he saw in the people of these parts
many of the traits of those of the pearl coast at Paria, and that
the maps, which they possessed, showed that it was to this point
that the explorations of Ojeda and Bastidas had been pushed.
There were other things that might readily have made him
turn back, as well as this despair of finding a strait, coiumbus
His crew were dissatisfied with leaving the gold of *"™^ '^*^^"
Veragua. His ships were badly bored by the worms, and they
had become, from this cause and by reason of the heavy wea-
ther which had so mercilessly followed them, more and more
unseaworthy. So on December 5, 1502, when he 1502. Dg.
passed out of the little harbor of El Retrete, he be- «e°^ber5.
gan a backward course. Pretty soon the wind, which had all
along faced him from the east, blew strongly from the west,
checking him as much going backward as it had in his onward
course. It seemed as if the elements were turned against him.
The gale was making sport of him, as it veered in all direc-
tions. It was indeed a Coast of Contrasts (La Costa de los
Contrastes), as Columbus called it. The lightning streaked
the skies continually. The thunder was appalling. For nine
days the little ships, strained at every seam, leaking at
every point where the tropical sea worm had pierced
them, writhed in a struggle of death. At one time a gigantic
waterspout formed within sight. The sea surged around its
base. The clouds stooped to give it force. It came staggering
and lunging towards the fragile barks. The crews exorcised the
watery spirit by repeating the Gospel of St. John the Evangel-
ist, and the crazy column passed on the other side of them.
Added to their peril through it all were the horrors of an
impending famine. Their biscuit were revolting because of
the worms. They caught sharks for food.
At last, on December 17, the fleet reunited, — for they had,
during the gales, lost sight of each other, — and entered 1502, De-
a harbor, where they found the native cabins built in ""^"^^^^ ^^'
the tree tops, to be out of the way of grifiins, or some other beasts.
After further buffeting of the tempests, they finally Bethlehem
made a harbor on the coast of Veragua, in a river ^''^^^'
which Columbus named Santa Maria de Belen (Bethlehem),
450 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS,
it being Epiphany Day ; and here at last they anchored two of
the caravels on January 9, and the other two on the 10th
(1503). Columbus had been nearly a month in passing thirty
leagues of coast. The Indians were at first quieted in the
usual way, and some gold was obtained by barter. The SjDan-
1503. Jan. iards had not been here long, however, when they
uary24. found themsclvcs (January 24, 1503) in as much
danger by the sudden swelling of the river as they had been
at sea. It was evidently occasioned by continued falls of rain
in distant mountains, which they could see. The caravels were
knocked about like cockboats. The Admiral's ship snapped
a mast. " It rained without ceasing," says the Admiral, re-
tjording his miseries, " until the 14th of February ; " and dur-
ing the continuance of the storm the Adelantado was sent on
a boat expedition to ascend the Veragua River, three miles
along the coast, where he was to search for mines. The party
proceeded on February 6 as far as they could in the boats,
and then, leaving part of the men for a guard, and taking
guides, which the Quibian — that being the name, as he says,
which they gave to the lord of the country — had provided,
they reached a country where the soil to their eyes seemed full
of particles of gold. Columbus says that he afterwards learned
that it was a device of the crafty Quibian to conduct them
to the mines of a rival chief, while his own were richer and
nearer, all of which, nevertheless, did not escape the
mew seeks kccu Spanish scent for gold. Bartholomew made
other excursions along the coast ; but nowhere did it
seem to him that gold was as plenty as at Veragua.
Columbus now reverted to his old fancies. He remembered
that Josephus has described the getting of gold for the Temple
of Jerusalem from the Golden Chersonesus, and was not this
the very spot ? " Josephus thinks that this gold of the Chron-
Minesof ^^^^^ and the Book of Kings was found in the Aurea,"
Aurea. j^^ says. " If it wcrc so, I contend that these mines
of the Aurea are identical with those of Veragua. David in
his will left 3,000 quintals of Indian gold to Solomon, to assist
in building the Temple, and according to Josephus it came
from these lands." He had seen, as he says, more promise of
gold here in two days than in Espanola in four years. It was
very easy now to dwarf his Ophir at Hayna ! Those other
THE FOURTH VOYAGE. 451
riches were left to those who had wronged him. The pearls of
the Paria coast might be the game of the common adventurer.
Here was the princely domain of the divinely led discoverer,
who was rewarded at last !
A plan was soon made of founding a settlement to hold the
region and gain information, while Columbus returned coiumbus
to Spain for supplies. Eighty men were to stay, makel^set-
They began to build houses. They divided the stock *^«'"^*i*-
of provisions and munitions, and transferred that intended for
the colony to one of the caravels, which was to be left with
them. Particular pains were taken to propitiate the natives by
presents, and the Quibian was regaled with delicacies and gifts.
When this was done, it was found that a dry season had come
on, and there was not water enough on the bar to float the
returning caravels.
Meanwhile the Quibian had formed a league to exterminate
the intruders. Columbus sent a brave fellow, Diego
Mendez, to see what he could learn. He found a dezw-^"'
force of savages advancing to the attack ; but this ^ *^^ ^'
single Spaniard disconcerted them, and they put off the plan.
Again, with but a single companion, one Rodrigo de Escobar,
Mendez boldly went into the Quibian's village, and came back
alive to tell the Admiral of all the preparations for war which
he had seen, or which were inferred at least. The news excited
the quick spirits of the Adelantado, and, following a plan of
Mendez, he at once started (March 30) with an armed force.
He came with such celerity to the cacique's village that the
savages were not prepared for their intrusion, and by a rapid
artifice he surrounded the lodge of the Quibian, and ^he QuiWan
captured him with fifty of his followers. The Adelan- **^®"'
tado sent him, bound hand and foot, and under escort, down the
river, in charge of Juan Sanchez, who rather resented any inti-
mation of the Adelantado to be careful of his prisoner. As
the boat neared the mouth of the river, her commander yielded
to the Quibian's importunities to loosen his bonds, when the
chief, watching his opportunity, slipped overboard and
dove to the bottom. The night was dark, and he was
not seen when he came to the surface, and was not pursued.
The other prisoners were delivered to the Admiral. The Ade-
lantado meanwhile had sacked the cacique's cabin, and brought
away its golden treasures.
462 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
Columbus, confident that the Quibian had been drowned,
and that the chastisement which had been given his tribe was
a wholesome lesson, began again to arrange for his departure.
As the river had risen a little, he succeeded in getting his light-
ened caravels over the bar, and anchored them outside, where
their lading was again put on board. To offer some last in-
1503. junctions and to get water, Columbus, on April 6, sent
Apru 6. ^ boat, in command of Diego Tristan, to the Adelan-
tado, who was to be left in command. When the boat got in,
Tristan found the settlement in great peril. The Quibian, who
had reached the shore in safety after his adventure, had
The settle-
ment at- quicklj Organized an attacking party, and had fallen
upon the settlement. The savages were fast getting
their revenge, for the unequal contest had lasted nearly three
hours, when the Adelantado and Mendez, rallying a small
force, rushed so impetuously upon them that, with the aid of a
fierce bloodhound, the native host was scattered in a trice.
Only one Spaniard had been killed and eight wounded, includ-
ing the Adelantado ; but the rout of the Indians was complete.
It was while these scenes were going on that Tristan arrived
in his boat opposite the settlement. He dallied till the affair
was ended, and then proceeded up the river to get some water.
Those on shore warned him of the danger of ambuscade ; but
he persisted. When he had got well beyond the support of
Tristan ^^® Settlement, his boat was beset with a shower of
murdered, javclius from the overhanging banks on both sides,
while a cloud of canoes attacked him front and rear. But a
single Spaniard escaped by diving, and brought the tale of
disaster to his countrymen.
The condition of the settlement was now alarming. The
Indians, encouraged by their success in overcoming the boat,
once more gathered to attack the little group of " encroaching
Spaniards," as Columbus could but call them. The houses
which sheltered them were so near the thick forest that the
savages approached them on all sides under shelter. The woods
rang with their yells and with the blasts of their conch-shells.
The Spaniards got, in their panic, beyond the control of the
Adelantado. They prepared to take the caravel and leave the
river ; but it was found she would not float over the bar. They
then sought to send a boat to the Admiral, lying outside, to pre-
THE FOURTH VOYAGE. 453
vent his sailing without them ; but the current and tide com-
mingling made such a commotion on the bar that no boat could
live in the sea. The bodies of Tristan and his men came float-
ing down stream, with carrion crows perched upon th6m at their
ghastly feast. It seemed as if nature visited them with premoni-
tions. At last the Adelantado brought a sufficient number of
men into such a steady mood that they finally constructed out
of whatever they could get some sort of a breastwork near the
shore, where the ground was open. Here they could use their
matchlocks and have a clear sweep about them. They placed
behind this bulwark two small falconets, and prepared to de-
fend themselves. They were in this condition for four days.
Their provisions, however, began to run short, and every Span-
iard who dared to forage was sure to be cut off. Their ammu-
nition, too, was not abundant.
Meanwhile Columbus was in a similar state of anxiety. " The
Admiral was suffering from a severe fever," he says, " and
worn with fatisrue." His ships were lyins: at anchor
. , , . , c 1 ' IT 1 Columbus at
outside the bar, with the risk oi beinp^ obliged to put to anchor out-
1 «• 1 1 m . 5 side the bar.
sea at any moment, to work oii a lee shore, iristan s
prolonged absence harassed him. Another incident was not less
ominous. The companions of the Quibian were confined on
board in the forecastle ; and it was the intention to take them
to Spain as hostages, as it was felt they would be, for the col-
ony left behind. Those in charge of them had become care-
less about securing the hatchway, and one night they failed
to chain it, trusting probably to the watchfulness of certain
sailors who slept upon the hatch. The savages, finding a foot-
ing upon some ballast which they piled up beneath, suddenly
threw off the cover, easting the sleeping sailors violently
aside, and before the guard could be called the greater part
of the prisoners had jumped into the sea and escaped. Such
as were secured were thrust back, but the next morning it was
found that they all had strangled themselves.
After such manifestations of ferocious determination, Colum-
bus began to be further alarmed for the safety of his bro-
ther's companions and of Tristan's. For days a tossing surf
had made an impassable barrier between him and tlie shore.
He had but one boat, and he did not dare to risk it in an attempt
454 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
to land. Finally, his Sevillian pilot, Pedro Ledesma, offered
Ledesma's ^^ brave the dangers by swimming, if the boat would
exploit. ^^^g Y\\m close to the surf. The trial was made ; the
man committed himself to the surf, and by his strength and
skill so surmounted wave after wave that he at length reached
stiller water, and was seen to mount the shore. In due time he
was again seen on the beach, and plunging in once more, was
equally successful in passing the raging waters, and was picked
up by the boat. He had a sad tale to tell the Admiral. It
was a story of insubordination, a powerless Adelantado, and a
frantic eagerness to escape somehow. Ledesma said that the
men were preparing canoes to come off to the ships, since their
caravel was unable to pass the bar.
There was long consideration in these hours of dishearten-
ment ; but the end of it was a decision to rescue the colony
and abandon the coast. The winds never ceased to be high, and
Columbus's ships, in their weakened condition, were
abandon the only kept afloat by care and vigilance. The loss of
the boat's crew threw greater burdens and strains
upon those who were left. It was impossible while the surf
lasted to send in his only boat, and quite as impossible for the
fragile canoes of his colony to brave the dangers of the bar in
coming out. There was nothing for Columbus to do but to hold
to his anchor as long as he could, and wait.
Our pity for the man is sometimes likely to unfit us to judge
his own record. Let us try to believe what he says of himself,
and watch him in his delirium. " Groaning with exhaustion,"
he says, " I fell asleep in the highest part of the ship, and
Columbus in heard a compassionate voice address me." It bade
heirsT ^^"^ b® ^^ good cheer, and take courage in the ser-
Moses and David would be done for him ! As we read the
long report of this divine utterance, as Columbus is careful to
record it, we learn that the Creator was aware of his servant's
name resounding marvelously throughout the earth. We find,
however, that the divine belief curiously reflected the confi-
dence of Columbus that it was India, and not America, that
had been revealed. " Remember David," said the Voice, " how
he was a shepherd, and was made a king. Remember Abraham,
how he was a hundred when he begat Isaac, and that there
THE FOURTH VOYAGE. 455
is youth still for the aged." Columbus adds that when the
Voice chided him he wept for his errors, and that he heard it
all as in a trance.
The obvious interpretation of all this is either that by the
record Columbus intended a fable to impress the sovereigns,
for whom he was writing, or that he was so moved to halluci-
nations that he believed what he wrote. The hero worship of
Irving decides the question easily. " Such an idea," says
Irving, referring to the argument of deceit, and forgetting the
Admiral's partiality for such practices, " is inconsistent with
the character of Columbus. In recalling a dream, one is uncon-
sciously apt to give it a little coherency." Irving's plea is that
it was a mere dream, which was mistaken by Columbus, in his
feverish excitement, for a revelation. " The artless manner,"
adds that biographer, " in which he mingles the rhapsodies and
dreams of his imagination with simple facts and sound practical
observations, pouring them forth with a kind of Scriptural
solemnity and poetry of language, is one of the most striking
illustrations of a character richly compounded of extraordinary
and apparently contradictory elements." We may perhaps ask,
Was Irving's hero a deceiver, or was he mad ? The chances
seem to be that the whole vision was simply the product of one
of those fits of aberration which in these later years were no
strangers to Columbus's existence. His mind was not infre-
quently, amid disappointments and distractions, in no fit condi-
tion to ward off hallucination.
Humboldt speaks of Columbus's letter describing this vision
as showing the disordered mind of a proud soul weighed down
with dead hopes. He has no fear that the strange mixture of
force and weakness, of pride and touching humility, which
accompanies these secret contortions will ever impress the world
with other feelings than those of commiseration.
It is a hard thing for any one, seeking to do justice to the
agonies of such spirits, to measure them in the calmness of better
days. " Let those who are accustomed to slander and asper-
sion ask, while they sit in security at home. Why dost thou
not do so and so under such circumstances ? " says Columbus
himself. It is far easier to let one's self loose into the vortex
and be tossed with sympathy. But if four centuries have done
anything for us, they ought to have cleared the air of its mirages.
What is pitiable may not be noble.
456 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
The Voice was, of course, associated in Columbus's mind with
The colony ^l^^ good wcathci which followed. During this a raft
embark. ^^^ made of two cauocs lashed together beneath a
platform, and, using this for ferrying, all the stores were floated
off safely to the ships, so that in the end nothing was left be-
hind but the decaying and stranded caravel. This labor was
done under the direction of Diego Mendez, whom the Admiral
rewarded by kissing him on the cheek, and by giving him com-
mand of Tristan's caravel, which was the Admiral's flagship.
It is a strange commentary on the career and fame of Co-
lumbus that the name of this disastrous coast should represent
him to this day in the title of his descendant, the Duke of
Veragua. Never a man turned the prow of his ship from scenes
which he would sooner forget, with more sorrow and relief,
than Columbus, in the latter days of April, 1503, with
1503. April. . J r » »
Columbus his enfeebled crews and his crazy hulks, stood away,
as he thought, for Espanola. And yet three months
later, and almost in the same breath with which he had re-
hearsed these miseries, with that obliviousness which so often
caught his errant mind, he wrote to his sovereigns that " there
is not in the world a country, whose inhabitants are more
timid; .added to which there is a good harbor, a beautiful river,
and the whole place is capable of being easily put into a state
of defense. Your people that may come here, if they should
wish to become masters of the products of other lands, will
have to take them by force, or retire empty-handed. In this
country they will simply have to trust their persons in the
hands of a savage." The man was mad.
It was easterly that Columbus steered when his ships swung
round to their destined course. It was not without fear and
even indignation that his crews saw what they thought a pur-
pose to sail directly for Spain in the sorry plight of the ships.
Mendez, indeed, who commanded the Admiral's own ship, says
" they thought to reach Spain." The Admiral, however, seems
to have had two purposes. He intended to run eastward far
enough to allow for the currents, when he should finally head
for Santo Domingo. He intended also to disguise as much as
he could the route back, for fear that others would avail them-
selves of his crew's knowledge to rediscover these golden coasts.
He remembered how the companions of his Paria voyage had
THE FOURTH VOYAGE. 457
led other expeditions to that region of pearls. He is said also
to have taken from his crew all their memoranda of the voyage,
so that there would be no such aid available to guide others.
" None of them can explain whither I went, nor whence I came,"
he says. " They do not know the way to return thither."
By the time he reached Puerto Bello, one of his caravels had
become so weakened by the boring worms that he had ^^ Puerto
to abandon her and crowd his men into the two re- ^^"°-
maining vessels. His crews became clamorous when he reached
the Gulf of Darien, where he thought it prudent to AttheGuif
abandon his easterly course and steer to the north. °* i^anen.
It was now May 1. He hugged the wind to overcome the
currents, but when he sighted some islands to the westward
of Espanola, on the 10th, it was evident that the cur- 1503 ^^y
rents had been bearing him westerly all the while. ^^'
They were still drifting him westerly, when he found himself,
on May 30, among the islands on the Cuban coast
which he had called The Gardens. " I had reached," the Cuban
coast.
he says in his old delusion, " the province of Mago,
which is contiguous to that of Cathay." Here the ships an-
chored to give the men refreshment. The labor of keeping
the vessels free from water had been excessive, and in a secure
roadstead it could now be carried on with some respite of
toil, if the weather would only hold good. This was not to
be, however. A gale ensued in which they lost their anchors.
The two caravels, moreover, sustained serious damage by colli-
sion. All the anchors of the Admiral's ship had gone but one,
and though that held, the cable nearly wore asunder. After
six days of this stormy weather, he dared at last to crawl
along the coast. Fortunately, he got some native provisions at
one place, which enabled him to feed his famished men. The
currents and adverse winds, however, proved too much for
the power of his ships to work to windward. They were all the
while in danger of foundering. " With three pumps and the
use of pots and kettles," he says, " we could scarcely clear
the water that came into the ship, there being no remedy but
this for the mischief done by the ship worm." He ^^^^ ^
•^ . , \BOZ. June
reluctantly, therefore, bore away for Jamaica, where, 23. Reaches
on June 23, he put into Puerto Buono (Dry Harbor). '
Finding neither water nor food here, he went on the next day
458 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
to Port San Gloria, known in later days as Don Christopher's
Cove. Here he found it necessary, a little later (July 23 and
1503. July, August 12), to run his sinking ships, one after the
Hi^sidps other, aground, but he managed to place them side by
stranded. g'j^^ g^^ ^^^^ ^j^gy could be lashcd together. They
soon filled with the tide. Cabins were built on the forecastles
and sterns to live in, and bulwarks of defense were reared as
best they could be along the vessels' waists. Columbus now
took the strictest precautions to prevent his men wandering
ashore, for it was of the utmost importance that no indignity
should be offered the natives while they were in such hazardgus
and almost defenseless straits.
It became at once a serious question how to feed his men.
Whatever scant provisions remained on board the stranded cara-
vels were spoiled. His immediate savage neighbors supplied
them with cassava bread and other food for a while, but they
had no reserved stores to draw upon, and these sources were
soon exhausted.
Diego Mendez now offered, with three men, carrying goods
Mendez ^o barter, to make a circuit of the island, so that
fS^hrcom- ^G could reach different caciques, with whom he could
P*"^' bargain for the preparation and carriage of food to
the Spaniards. As he concluded his successive impromptu
agreements with cacique after cacique, he sent a man back
loaded with what he could carry, to acquaint the Admiral, and
let him prepare for a further exchange of trinkets. Finally,
Mendez, left without a companion, still went on, getting some
Indian porters to help him from place to place. In this way
he reached the eastern end of the island, where he ingratiated
himself with a powerful cacique, and was soon on excellent
terms with him. From this chieftain he got a canoe with
natives to paddle, and loading it with provisions, he skirted
westerly along the coast, until he reached the Spaniards' har-
bor. His mission bade fair to have accomplished its purpose,
and provisions came in plentifully for a while under the ar-
rangements which he had made.
Columbus's next thought was to get word, if possible, to
Ovando, at Espanola, so that the governor could send a vessel
to rescue them. Columbus proposed to Mendez that he should
attempt the passage with the canoe in which he had returned
THE FOURTH VOYAGE. 459
from his expedition. Mendez pictured the risks of going forty
leagues in these treacherous seas in a frail canoe, and intimated
that the Admiral had better make trial of the courage of the
whole company first. He said that if no one else offered to go
he would shame them by his courage, as he had more than once
done before. So the company were assembled, and Columbus
made public the proposition. Every one hung back
from the hazards, and Mendez won his new triumph, pares togo^
as he had supposed he would. He then set to work ^ ^p^"^*-
fitting the canoe for the voyage. He put a keel to her. He
built up her sides so that she could better ward off the seas, and
rigged a mast and sail. She was soon loaded with the neces-
sary provisions for himself, one other Spaniard, and the six
Indians who were to ply the paddles.
The Admiral, while the preparations were making, drew up
a letter to his sovereigns, which it was intended that Mendez,
after arranoin^ with Ovando for the rescue, should
1 1 • 1^ o • 1 1 r. . A 1^03. July
bear himselt to bpain by the nrst opportunity. At 7. Letter
1 • • 1 11 • p TT 1 11 1 Of Columbus
least it IS the reasonable assumption ot Humboldt that tothesover-
this is the letter which has come down to us dated
July 7, 1503.
It is not known that this epistle was printed at the time,
though manuscript copies seem to have circulated. An Italian
version of it was, however, printed at Venice a year before
Columbus died. The original Spanish text was not known to
scholars till Navarrete, having discovered in the king's library
at Madrid an early transcript of it, printed it in the first volume
of his Coleccion. It is the document usually referred to, from
the title of Morelli's reprint (1810) of the Italian Lattera
text, as the Lettera rarissima di Cristoforo Colombo. ^«''****'"«-
This letter is even more than his treatise on the prophets a sor-
rowful index of his wandering reason. In parts it is the merest
jumble of hurrying thoughts, with no plan or steady purpose in
view. It is in places well calculated to arouse the deepest pity.
It was, of course, avowedly written at a venture, inasmuch as
the chance of its reaching the hands of his sovereigns was a
very small one. " I send this letter," he says, " by means of
and by the hands of Indians ; it will be a miracle if it reaches
its destination."
460 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
He not only goes back over the adventures of the present
expedition, in a recital which has been not infrequently quoted
in previous pages, but he reverts gloomily to the more distant
past. He lingers on the discouragements of his first years in
Spain. " Every one to whom the enterprise was mentioned,"
he says of those days, " treated it as ridiculous, but now there
is not a man, down to the very tailors, who does not beg to be
allowed to become a discoverer." He remembers the neglect
which followed upon the first flush of indignation when he re-
turned to Spain in chains. " The twenty years' service through
which I have passed with so much toil and danger have profited
me nothing, and at this very day I do not possess a roof in
Spain that I can call my own. If I wish to eat or sleep I have
nowhere to go but to a low tavern, and most times lack where-
with to pay the bill. Another anxiety wrings my very heart-
strings, when I think of my son Diego, whom I have left an
orphan in Spain, stripped of the house and property which is
due to him on my account, although I had looked upon it as a
certainty that your Majesties, as just and grateful princes, would
restore it to him in all respects with increase."
" I was twenty-eight years old," he says again, " when I
came into your Highnesses' services, and now I have not a hair
upon me that is not gray, my body is infirm, and all that was
left to me, as well as to my brother, has been taken away and
sold, even to the frock that I wore, to my great dishonor."
And then, referring to his present condition, he adds : " Soli-
tary in my trouble, sick, and in daily expectation of death, I
am surrounded by millions of hostile savages, full of cruelty.
Weep for me, whoever has charity, truth, and justice ! "
He next works over in his mind the old geographical prob-
lems. He recalls his calculation of an eclipse in 1494, when he
supposed, in his error, that he had " sailed twenty-four degrees
westward in nine hours." He recalls the stories that he had
heard on the Veragua coast, and thinks that he had known it
all before from books. Marinus had come near the truth, he
gives out, and the Portuguese have proved that the Indies in
Ethiopia is, as Marinus had said, four and twenty degrees from
the equinoctial line. " The world is but small," he sums up ;
*' out of seven divisions of it, the dry part occupies six, and the
seventh is entirely covered by water. I say that the world is
THE FOURTH VOYAGE. 461
not so large as vulgar opinion makes it, and that one degree
from the equinoctial line measures fifty-six miles and two thirds,
and this may be proved to a nicety."
And then, in his thoughts, he turns back to his quest for
gold, just as he had done in action at Darien, when in despair
he gave up the search for a strait. It was gold, to coiumbus
his mind, that could draw souls from purgatory. He °" ^^^*^-
exclaims : '' Gold is the most precious of all commodities. Gold
constitutes treasure, and he who possesses it has all he needs in
this world, as also the means of rescuing souls from purgatory,
and restoring them to the enjoyment of paradise."
Then his hopes swell with the vision of that wealth which he
thought he had found, and would yet return to. He alone had
the clues to it, which he had concealed from others. " I can
safely assert that to my mind my people returning to Spain are
the bearers of the best news that ever was carried to Spain.
... I had certainly foreseen how things would be. I think
more of this opening for commerce than of all that has been
done in the Indies. This is not a child to be left to the care of
a stepmother."
These were some of the thoughts, in large part tumultuous,
incoherent, dispirited, harrowing, weakening, and sad, penned
within sound of the noise of Mendez's preparations, and dis-
closing an exultant and bewildered being, singularly compounded.
This script was committed to Mendez, beside one addressed
to Ovando, and another to his friend in Spain, Father Gorricio,
to whom he imparts some of the same frantic expectations.
*' If my voyage will turn out as favorable to my health," he says,
" and to the tranquillity of my house, as it is likely to be for the
glory of my royal masters, I shall live long."
Mendez started bravely. He worked along the coast of the
island towards its eastern end ; not without peril, Mendez
however, both from the sea and from the Indians. ^**'^'^'
Finally, his party fell captives to a startled cacique ; but while
the savages were disputing over a division of the spoils, Mendez
succeeded in slipping back to the canoe, and, putting off alone,
paddled it back to the stranded ships.
Another trial was made at once, with larger preparation. A
second canoe was added to the expedition, and the charge of
462 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS,
this was given to Bartholomew Fiesco, a Genoese, who had
Mendez • conunanded one of the caravels. The daring adven-
starts again, ^urers Started again with an armed party under the
Adelantado following them along the shore.
The land and boat forces reached the end of the island with-
out molestation, and then, bidding each other farewell, the
canoes headed boldly away from land, and were soon lost to the
sight of the Adelantado in the deepening twilight. The land
party returned to the Admiral without adventure. There was
little now for the poor company to do but to await the return
of Fiesco, who had been directed to come back at once and
satisfy the Admiral that Mendez had safely accomplished his
mission.
Many days passed, and straining eyes were directed along the
shore to catch a glimpse of Fiesco's canoe ; but it came not.
There was not much left to allay fear or stifle disheartenment.
The cramped quarters of the tenements on the hulks, the bad
food which the men were forced to depend upon, and the vain
watchings soon produced murmurs of discontent, which it
needed but the captious spirit of a leader to convert into the
turmoil of revolt. Such a gatherer of sedition soon appeared.
The revolt There wcrc in the company two brothers, Francisco
ofPorras. ^^ Porras, who had commanded one of the vessels,
and Diego de Porras, who had, as we have seen, been joined to
the expedition to check off the Admiral's accounts of treasures
acquired. The very espionage of his office was an offense to
the Admiral. It was through the caballing of these two men
that the alien spirits of the colony found in one of them at last
a determined actor. It is not easy to discover how far the accu-
sations against the Admiral, which these men now began to
dwell upon, were generally believed. It served the leaders'
purposes to have it appear that Columbus was in reality ban-
ished from Spain, and had no intention of returning thither till
Mendez and Fiesco had succeeded in making favor for him at
Court ; and that it was upon such a mission that these lieuten-
ants had been sent. It was therefore necessary, if those who
were thus cruelly confined in Jamaica wished to escape a linger-
ing death, to put on a bold front, and demand to be led away to
Espanola in such canoes as could be got of the Indians.
It was on the 2d of January, 1504, that, with a crowd of
I
THE FOURTH VOYAGE. 463
sympathizers watching within easy call, Francisco de Porras
suddenly presented himself in the cabin of the weary 1504 j^^^_
and bedridden Admiral. An altercation ensued, in mLdso?^"
which the Admiral, propped in his couch, endeavored ^«"^«-
to assuage the bursting violence of his accuser, and to bring
him to a sense of the patient duty which the conditions de-
manded. It was one of the times when desperate straits seemed
to restore the manhood of Columbus. It was, however, of little
use. The crisis was not one that, in the present temper of the
mutineers, could be avoided. Porras, finding that the Admiral
could not be swayed, called out in a loud voice, " I am for Cas-
tile ! Those who will may come with me ! " This signal was
expected, and a shout rang in the air among those who were
awaiting it. It aroused Columbus from his couch, and he stag-
gered into sight ; but his presence caused no cessation of the
tumult. Some of his loyal companions, fearing violence, took
him back to his bed. The Adelantado braced himself with his
lance for an encounter, and was pacified only by the persua-
sions of the Admiral's friends. They loyally said, "Let the
mutineers go. We will remain." The angry faction seized ten
canoes, which the Admiral had secured from the Indians, and
putting in them what they could get, they embarked for their
perilous voyage. Some others who had not joined in
their plot being allured by the flattering hope of re- of Porras
lease, there were forty-eight in all, and the little flo-
tilla, amid the mingled execrations and murmurs of despair
among the weak and the downcast who stayed behind, paddled
out of that fateful harbor.
The greater part of all who were vigorous had now gone.
There were a few strong souls, with some vitality left in them,
among the small company which remained to the Admiral ; but
the most of them were sorry objects, with dejected minds and
bodies more or less prostrate from disease and privation. The
conviction soon settled upon this deserted community that
nothing could save them but a brotherly and confident determi-
nation to help one another, and to arouse to the utmost what-
ever of cheer and good will was latent in their spirits. They
could hardly have met an attack of the natives, and they knew
it. This made them more considerate in their treatment of
their neighbors, and the supply of provisions which they could
464 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
get from those who visited the ship was plentiful for a while-
But the habits of the savages were not to accumulate much
beyond present needs, and when the baubles which the Span-
iards could distribute began to lose their strange attractiveness,
the incentive was gone to induce exertion, and supplies were
brought in less and less frequently. It was soon found that
hawks' bells had diminished in value. It took several to ap-
pease the native cupidity where one had formerly done it.
There was another difficulty. There were failures on the
part of the more distant villages to send in their
Porras'smeu •*• m • i •
still on the customarv contributions, and it soon came to be
island.
known that Porras and his crew, instead of having
left the island, were wandering about, exacting provisions and
committing indignities against the inhabitants wherever they
went.
It seems that the ten canoes had followed the coast to the
nearest point to Espanola, at the eastern end of the island, and
here, waiting for a calm sea, and securing some Indians ta
paddle, the mutineers had finally pushed off for their voyage.
His voyage ^^^ boats had scarccly gone four leagues from land,
a failure. when the wind rose and the sea began to alarm them.
So they turned back. The men were little used to the manage-
ment of the canoes, and they soon found themselves in great
peril. It seemed necessary to lighten the canoes, which were
now taking in water to a dangerous extent. They threw over
much of their provisions ; but this was not enough. They then
sacrificed one after another the natives. If these resisted, a
swoop of the sword ended their miseries. Once in the water,
the poor Indians began to seize the gunwales; but the sword
chopped off their hands. So all but a few of them, who were
absolutely necessary to manage the canoes, were thrown into the
sea. Such were the perils through which the mutineers passed
in reaching the land.
A long month was now passed waiting for another calm sea ;
but when they tempted it once more, it rose as before, and
they again sought the land. All hope of success was now
abandoned. From that time Porras and his band gave them-
selves up to a lawless, wandering life, during which they cre-
ated new jealousies among the tribes. As we have seen, by
T^E FOURTH VOYAGE. 465
their exactions they began at last to tap the distant sources of
supplies for the Admiral and his loyal adherents.
Columbus now resorted to an expedient characteristic of the
ingenious fertility of his mind. His astronomical tables en-
abled him to expect the approach of a lunar eclipse 1504. ^eb-
(February 29, 1504), and finding it close at hand he Spsfof
hastily summoned some of the neighboring caciques. ^^^ "^°®°*
He told them that the God of the Spaniards was displeased at
their neglect to feed his people, and that He was about to mani-
fest that displeasure by withdrawing the moon and leaving them
to such baleful influences as they had provoked. When night
fell and the shadow began to steal over the moon, a long howl
of horror arose, and promises of supplies w^ere made by the
stricken caciques. They hurled themselves for protection at
the feet of the Admiral. Columbus retired for an ostensible
communion with this potent Spirit, and just as the hour came
for the shadow to withdraw he appeared, and announced that
their contrition had appeased the Deity, and a sign would be
given of his content. Gradually the moon passed out of the
shadow, and when in the clear heavens the luminary was again
swimming unobstructed in her light, the work of astonishment
had been done. After that, Columbus was never much in fear
of famine.
It is time now to see how much more successful Mendez and
Fiesco had been than Porras and his crew. They _
. . *^ The canoe
had accomplished the voyage to Espaiiola, it is true, ypy^i^o*
but under such perils and sufferings that Fiesco could
not induce a crew sufficient to man the canoe to return with
him to the Admiral. The passage had been made under the
most violent conditions of tropical heat and unprotected endur-
ance. Their supply of water had given out, and the tortures of,
thirst came on. They looked out for the little island ^^ xavasa *
of Navasa, which lay in their track, where they thought ^'^^"^•
that in the crevices of the rocks they might find some water.
They looked in vain. The day when they had hoped to see it
passed, and night came on. One of the Indians died, and was
dropped overboard. Others lay panting and exhausted, in the
bottom of the canoes. Mendez sat watching a glimmer of light
in the eastern horizon that betokened the comino^ of the moon.
466 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
Presently a faint glisten of the real orb grew into a segment.
He could see the water line as the illumination increased.
There was a black stretch of something jagging the lower edge
of the segment. It was land ! Navasa had been found. By
morning they had reached the island. Water was discovered
among the rocks ; but some drank too freely, and paid the pen-
alty of their lives. Mussels were picked up along the shore ;
they built a fire and boiled them. All day long they gazed
They see lo^^gi^glj ^^^ ^hc distaut mouutains of Espafiola, which
Espafioia. ^^^.^ jj^ f^^ sight. Refreshed by the day's rest, they
embarked again at nightfall, and on the following day arrived
at Cape Tiburon, the southwestern peninsula of Espaiiola, hav-
ing been four days on the voyage from Jamaica,
lands at They landed among hospitable natives, and having
waited two days to recuperate, Mendez took some sav-
ages in a canoe, and started to go along the coast to Santo Do-
mingo, one hundred and thirty leagues distant. He had gone
nearly two thirds of the distance when, communicating with
the shore, he learned that Ovando was not in Santo Domingo,
but at Xaragua. So Mendez abandoned his canoe, and started
alone through the forests to seek the governor.
Ovando received him cordially, but made excuses for not
Ovando de- Sending relief to Columbus at once. He was himself
rX/to^^"^ occupied with the wars which he was conducting
Columbus, against the natives. There was no ship in Santo
Domingo of sufficient burden to be dispatched for such a res-
cue. So excuse after excuse, and promises of attention unful-
filled, kept Mendez in the camp of Ovando for seven months.
The governor always had reasons for den5ung him permission
to go to Santo Domingo, where Mendez had hopes of procuring
a vessel. This procrastinating conduct has naturall}^ given rise
to the suspicion that Ovando was not over-anxious to deliver
Columbus from his perils ; and there can be little question that
for the Admiral to have sunk into oblivion and leave no trace
would have relieved both the governor and his royal master of
some embarrassments.
At length Ovando consented to the departure of Mendez to
Santo Domingo. There was a fleet of caravels expected there,
and Mendez was anxious to see if he could not procure one of
them on the Admiral's own account to undertake the voyage
THE FOURTH VOYAGE. 467
of rescue. His importunities became so pressing that Ovando
at last consented to his starting for that port, seventy leagues
distant.
No sooner was Mendez gone than Ovando determined to
ascertain the condition of the party at Jamaica without helping
them, and so he dispatched a caravel to reconnoitre. He
purposely sent a small craft, that there might be no excuse for
attempting to bring off the company ; and to prevent seizure
of the vessel by Columbus, her commander was instructed to
lie off the harbor, and only send in a boat, to communicate
with no one but Columbus ; and he was particularly
enjoined to avoid being enticed on board the stranded sends esco-
caravels. The command of this little craft of espion- serve co-
age was given to one of Columbus's enemies, Diego
de Escobar, who had been active as Roldan's lieutenant in his
revolt.
When the vessel appeared off the harbor where Columbus
was, eight months had passed since Mendez and Fiesco had de-
parted. All hopes of hearing of them had been abandoned.
A rumor had come in from the natives that a vessel, bottom
upwards, had been seen near the island, drifting with the cur-
rent. It is said to have been a story started by Porras that its
effect might be distressing to Columbus's adherents. It seems
to have had the effect to hasten further discontent in that
stricken band, and a new revolt was almost ready to make itself
known when Escobar's tiny caravel was descried standing in
towards shore.
The vessel was seen to lie to, when a boat soon left her side.
As it came within hailing, the figure of Escobar was recognized.
Columbus knew that he had once condemned the man to death.
Bobadilla had pardoned him. The boat bumped against the
side of one of the stranded caravels ; the crew brought it side-
wise against the hulk, when a letter for the Admiral was
handed up. Columbus's men made ready to receive a cask of
wine and side of bacon, which Escobar's companions lifted on
board. All at once a quick motion pushed the boat from the
hulks, and Escobar stopped her when she had got out of reach.
He now addressed Columbus, and gave him the assurances of
Ovando's regret that he had no suitable vessel to send to him,
but that he hoj^ed before long to have such. He added that if
468 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
Columbus desired to reply to Ovando's letter, he would wait a
brief interval for him to prepare an answer.
The Admiral hastily made his reply in as courteous terms as
possible, commending the purposes of Mendez and Fiesco to the
governor's kind attention, and closed with saying that he reposed
full confidence in Ovando's expressed intention to rescue his
people, and that he would stay on the wrecks in patience till
the ships came. Escobar received the letter, and returned to
his caravel, which at once disappeared in the falling gloom of
night.
Columbus was not without apprehension that Escobar had
come simply to make sure that the Admiral and his company
still survived, and Las Casas, who was then at Santo Domingo,
seems to have been of the opinion that Ovando had at this time
no purpose to do more. The selection of Escobar to carry a
kindly message gave certainly a dubious ostentation to all ex-
pressions of friendly interest. The transaction may possibly
admit of other interpretations. Ovando may reasonably have
desired that Columbus and his faithful adherents should not
abide long in Espaiiola, as in the absence of vessels returning
to Spain the Admiral might be obliged to do. There were
rumors that Columbus, indignant at the wrongs which he felt
he had received at the hands of his sovereigns, had determined
to hold his new discoveries for Genoa, and the Admiral had
referred to such reports in his recent letter to the Spanish
monarchs. Such reports easily put Ovando on his guard, and
he may have desired time to get instructions from Spain. At
all events, it was very palpable that Ovando was cautious and
perhaps inhuman, and Columbus was to be left till Escobar's
report should decide what action was best.
Columbus endeavored to make use of the letter which Esco-
coiumbus ^3,r had brought from Ovando to win Porras and his
caSrS vagabonds back to loyalty and duty. He dispatched
Porras. mcsscngcrs to their camp to say that Ovando had noti-
fied him of his purpose to send a vessel to take them off the
island. The Admiral was ready to promise forgiveness and for-
getfulness, if the mutineers would come in and submit to the
requirements of the orderly life of his people. He accompanied
the message with a part of the bacon which Escobar had deliv-
ered as a present from the governor. The lure, however, was
THE FOURTH VOYAGE. 469
not effective. Porras met the ambassadors, and declined the
proffers. He said his followers were quite content with the free-
dom of the island. The fact seemed to be that the mutineers
were not quite sure of the Admiral's sincerity, and feared to
put themselves in his power. They were ready to come in
when the vessels came, if transportation would be allowed them
so that their band should not be divided ; and until then they
would cause the Admiral's party no trouble, unless Columbus
refused to share with them his stores and trinkets, which they
must have, peacefully or forcibly, since they had lost all their
supplies in the gales which had driven them back.
It was evident that Porras and his company were not reduced
to such straits that they could be reasoned with, and the mes-
sengers returned.
The author of the Historie^ and others who follow his state-
ments, represent that the body of the mutineers was far from
being as arrogant as their leaders, was much more tractable in
spirit, and was inclined to catch at the chance of rescue. The
leaders labored with the men to keep them steady in their
revolt. Porras and his abettors did what they could to picture
the cruelties of the Admiral, and even accused him of necro-
mancy in summoning the ghost of a caravel by which to make
his people believe that Escobar had reall}^ been there. Then, to
give some activity to their courage, the whole body of the muti-
neers was led towards the harbor on pretense of capturing
stores. The Adelantado went out to meet them with fifty
armed followers, the best he could collect from the wearied
companions of the Admiral. Porras refused all of- Barthoio-
fers of conference, and led his band to the attack.
There was a plan laid among them that six of the
stoutest should attack the Adelantado simultaneously,
thinking that if their leader should be overpowered the rest
would flee. The Adelantado's courage rose with the exigency,
as it was wont to do. He swung his sword with vigor, and one
after another the assailants fell. At last Porras struck him such
a blow that the Adelantado's buckler was cleft and his hand
wounded. The blow was too powerful for the giver of it. His
sword remained wedged in the buckler, affording his enemy a
chance to close, while an attempt was made to extricate the
weapon. Others cajne to the loyal leader's assistance, and
Porras was secured and bound.
mew and his
men con-
front the
Porras mu-
tineers.
470 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
This turned the current of the fight. The rebels, seeing their
Porras leader a prisoner, fled in confusion, leaving the field
**''^"- to the party of the Adelantado. The fight had been
a fierce one. They found among the rebel dead Juan San-
sanchez chcz, who had let slip the captured Quibian, and
killed. among the wounded Pedro Ledesma, who had braved
Ledesma *^^ breakers at Veragua. Las Casas, who knew the
wounded. latter at a later day, deriving some help from him in
telling the story of these eventful months, speaks of the many
and fearful wounds which he bore in evidence of his rebel-
lion and courage, and of the sturdy activity of his assailants.
We owe also to Ledesma and to some of his companions,
who, with himself, were witnesses in the later lawsuit of Diego
Colon with the Crown, certain details which the principal nar-
rators fail to give us.
A charm had seemed throughout the conflict to protect the
Admiral's friends. None were killed outright, and but one
other beside their leader was wounded. This man, the Admi-
ral's steward, subsequently died.
The victors returned to the ships with their prisoners ; and
in the midst of the gratulations which followed on the
20. The next day, March 20, 1504, the fugitives sent in an
pose to address to the Admiral, begging to be pardoned and
received back to his care and fortunes. They acknow-
ledged their errors in the most abject professions, and called
upon Heaven to show no mercy, and upon man to know no
sympathy, in dealing retribution, if they failed in their fidelity
thereafter. The proposition of surrender was not without em-
barrassment. The Admiral was fearful of the trial of their
constancy when they might gather about him with all the
chances of further cabaling. He also knew that his provi-
sions were fast running out. Accordingly, in accepting their
surrender, he placed them under officers whom he could trust,
and supplying them with articles of barter, he let them wan-
der about the island under suitable discipline, hoping that they
would find food where they could. He promised, however, to
recall them when the expected ships arrived.
It was not long they had to wait. One day two ships were
seen standing in towards the harbor. One of them proved to be
a caravel which Mendez had bou^^ht on the Admiral's account,
THE FOURTH VOYAGE. 471
out of a fleet of three, just then arrived from Spain, and had
victualed for the occasion. Having seen it depart from
Santo Domingo, Mendez, in the other ships of this tor^scur^
opportune fleet, sailed directly for Spain, to carry out
the further instructions of the Admiral.
The other of the approaching ships was in command of Diego
de Salcedo, the Admiral's factor, and had been dispatched by
Ovando. Las Casas tells us that the governor was really forced
to this action by public sentiment, which had grown in conse-
quence of the stories of the trials of Columbus which Mendez
had told. It is said that even the priests did not hesitate to
point a moral in their pulpits with the governor's dilatory sym-
pathy.
Finally, on June 28, everything was ready for departure, and
Columbus turned away from the scene of so much 1504 ju^e
trouble. " Columbus informed me afterwards, in ^us ifavS^"
Spain," says Mendez, recording the events, " that in •^^"^^^c^-
no part of his life did he ever experience so joyful a day, for
he had never hoped to have left that place alive." Four years
later, under authority from the Admiral's son Diego, the town
of Sevilla Nueva, later known as Sevilla d' Oro, was founded
on the very spot.
The Admiral now committed himself once more to the treach-
erous currents and adverse winds of these seas. We have seen
that Mendez urged his canoe across the gap between Jamaica
and the nearest point of Espanola in four days ; but it took the
ships of Columbus about seven weeks to reach the haven of
Santo Domingo. There was much time during this long and
vexatious voyage for Columbus to learn from Salcedo
the direful history of the colony which had been Espaiioia
wrested from him, and which even under the enlarged absence of
powers of Ovando had not been without manifold
tribulations. We must rehearse rapidly the occurrences, as
Columbus heard of them. He could have got but the scantiest
inkling of what had happened during the earliest ovando's
months of Ovando's rule, when he applied by messen- '^'^^•
ger, in vain, for admission to the harbor, now more than two
years ago. The historian of this period must depend mainly
upon Las Casas, who had come out with Ovando, and we must
sketch an outline of the tale, as Columbus heard it, from that
472 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
writer's Hlstoria. It was the old sad story of misguided aspi-
rants for wealth in their first experiences with the hazards and
toils of mining, — much labor, disappointed hopes, failing pro-
visions, no gold, sickness, disgust, and a desponding return of
the toilers from the scene of their infatuation. It took but
eight days for the crowds from Ovando's fleet, who trudged off
manfully to the mountains on their landing, to come trooping-
back, dispirited and diseased.
Columbus could hardly have listened to what was said of
suffering among the natives during these two years of his ab-
coiumbus sence without a vivid consciousness of the baleful sys-
and slavery. ^^^^ which he had iutroduccd when he assigned crowds
of the poor Indians to be put to inhuman- tasks by Roldan's
crew. The institution of this kind of distribution of labor had
grown naturally, but it had become so appalling under Boba-
dilla that, when Ovando was sent out, he was instructed to put
an end to it. It was not long before the governor had to con-
front the exasperated throngs coming back from the mines, de-
jected and empty-handed. It was apparent that nothing of the
expected revenue to the Crown was likely to be produced from
half the yield of metal when there was no yield at all. So, to
induce greater industry, Ovando reduced the share of the Crown
to a third, and next to a fifth, but without success. It was too
apparent that the Spaniards would not persist in labors which
brought them so little. At a period when Columbus was flat-
tering himself that he was laying claim to far richer gold fields
at Veragua, Ovando was devising a renewal of the Admiral's
old slave-driving methods to make the mines of Hayna yield
what they could. He sent messages to the sovereigns inform-
ing them that their kindness to the natives was really incon-
siderate ; that the poor creatures, released from labor, were
giving themselves up to mischief ; and that, to make good Chris-
tians of them, there was needed the appetizing effect of health-
ful work upon the native soul. The appeal and the frugal re-
turns to the treasury were quite sufficient to gain the sovereigns
to Ovando's views ; and while bewailing any cruelty to the poor
1503 De natives, and expressing hopes for their spiritual re-
jember2o. Jigf^ their Majcstics were not averse, as they said
of thena- (December 20, 1503), to these Indians being made to
labor as much as was needful to their health. This
THE FOURTH VOYAGE. 473
/
was sufficient. The fatal system of Columbus was revived with
increased enormities. Six or eight months of unremitting labor,
with insufficient food, were cruelly exacted of every native.
They were torn from their families, carried to distant parts of
the island, kept to their work by the lash, and, if they dared to
escape, almost surely recaptured, to work out their period under
the burden of chains. At last, when they were dismissed till
their labor was again required. Las Casas tells us that the pas-
sage through the island of these miserable creatures could be
traced by their fallen and decaying bodies. This was a story
that, if Columbus possessed any of the tendernesses that glowed
in the heart of Las Casas, could not have been a pleasant one
for his contemplation.
There was another story to which Columbus may have lis-
tened. It is very likely that Salcedo may have got all the par-
ticulars from Diego Mendez, who was a witness of the foul deeds
which had indeed occurred during those seven months when
Ovando, then on an expedition in Xaragua, kept that messenger
of Columbus waiting his pleasure. Anacaona, the Anacaona
sister of Behechio, had succeeded to that cacique in ou^sty^^""
the rule of Xaragiia. The licentious conduct and the *'"®^*^^-
capricious demands of the Spaniards settled in this region had
increased the natural distrust and indignation of the Indians,
and some signs of discontent which they manifested had been re-
counted to Ovando as indications of a revolt which it was neces-
sary to nip in the bud. So the governor had marched into the
country with three hundred foot and seventy horse. The chief-
tainess, Anacaona, came forth to meet him with much native
parade, and gave all the honor which her savage ceremonials
could signify to her distinguished guest. She lodged him as
well as she could, and caused many games to be played for his
divertisement. In return, Ovando prepared a tournament cal-
culated to raise the expectation of his simple hosts, and horse-
man and foot came to the lists in full armor and adornment
for the heralded show. On a signal from Ovando, the innocent
parade was converted in an instant into a fanatical onslaught.
The assembled caciques were hedged about with armed ^j^g Indians
men, and all were burned in their cabins. The gen- «ia"ghte^«d.
eral populace were transfixed and trampled by the 6harging
mounted spearmen, and only those who could elude the obsti-
474 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
nate and headlong dashes of the cavalry escaped. Anacaona
was seized and conveyed in chains to Santo Domingo, where,
with the merest pretense of a trial for conspiracy, she was soon
hanged.
And this was the pacification of Xaragua. That of Higuey,
the most eastern of the provinces, and which had not
HfgufyovS-- yet acknowledged the sway of the Spaniards, followed,
^^' with the same resorts to cruelty. A cacique of this
region had been slain by a fierce Spanish dog which had been
set upon him. This impelled some of the natives living on the
coast to seize a canoe having eight Spaniards in it, and to
EsquibePs slaughter them ; whereupon Juan de Esquibel was
campaign. ^^^^ ^^'^j^ ^^^^ hundred men on a campaign against
Cotabanama, the chief cacique of Higuey. The invaders met
more heroism in the defenders of this country than they had
been accustomed to, but the Spanish armor and weapons ena-
bled Esquibel to raid through the land with almost constant suc-
cess. The Indians at last sued for peace, and agreed to furnish
a tribute of provisions. Esquibel built a small fortress, and
putting some men in it, he returned to Santo Domingo ; not,
however, until he had received Cotabanama in his camp. The
Spanish leader brought back to O van do a story of the splendid
physical power of this native chief, whose stature, proportions,
and strength excited the admiration of the Spaniards.
The peace was not of long duration. The reckless habits of
the garrison had once more aroused the courage of the Indians,
and some of the latest occurrences which Salcedo could tell of as
New revolt haviug bccu reported at Santo Domingo just before
in Higuey. ]j-g g^iling for Jamaica were the events of a new re-
volt in Higuey.
Such were the stories which Columbus may have li-stened
to during the tedious voyage which was now, on August 3,.
1504. Au- approaching an end. On that day his ships sailed
KSibus at^°' under the lea of the little island of Beata, which lies
Beata. midway of the southern coast of Espanola. Here he
landed a messenger, and ordered him to convey a letter to
Ovando, warning the governor of his approach. Salcedo had
told Columbus that the governor was not without apprehension
that his coming might raise some factious disturbances among
the people, and in this letter the Admiral sought to disabuse
THE FOURTH VOYAGE. 475
Ovando's mind of such suspicions, and to express his own pur-
pose to avoid every act of irritation which might possibly em-
barrass the administration of the island. The letter dispatched,
Columbus again set sail, and on August 15 his ship 1504 ^^_
entered the harbor of Santo Domingo. Ovando re- faiito^Do-^^
ceived him with every outward token of respect, and '""^g^-
lodged him in his own house. Columbus, however, never be-
lieved that this officious kindness was other than a cloak to
Ovando's dislike, if not hatred. There was no little popular
sympathy for the misfortunes which Columbus had experienced,
but his relations with the governor were not such as to lighten
the anxieties of his sojourn. It is known that Cortes was at
this time only recently arrived at Santo Domingo ; but we can
only conjecture what may have been his interest in Columbus's
recitals.
There soon arose questions of jurisdiction. Ovando ordered
the release of Porras, and arranged for sending him to Spain
for trial. The governor also attempted to interfere with the
Admiral's control of his own crew, on the ground that his com-
mission gave him command over all the regions of the new
islands and the main. Columbus cited the instructions, which
gave him power to rule and judge his own followers. Ovando
did not push his claims to extremities, but the irritation never
subsided ; and Columbus seems to have lost no opportunity, if
we may judge from his later letters, to pick up every scan-
dalous story and tale of maladministration of which coiumbus
he could learn, and which could be charged against a^^^i Ovando.
Ovando in later appeals to the sovereigns for a restitution of
his own rights. The Admiral also inquired into his pecuniary
interests in the island, and found, as he thought, that Ovando
had obstructed his factor in the gathering of his share. Indeed,
there may have been some truth in this ; for Carvajal, Colum-
bus's first factor, had complained of such acts to the sovereigns,
which elicited an admonishment from them to Ovando.
Such money as Columbus could now collect he used in refit-
ting the ship which had brought him from Jamaica, and he
put her under the order of the Adelantado. Securing also
another caravel for his own conveyance, he embarked on her
with his son, and on September 12 both ships started' on their
homeward voyage. They were scarcely at sea, when the ship
476
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
1504. Sep-
tember 12.
Columbus
sails for
Spain.
which bore the Admiral lost her mast in a gale. He trans-
ferred himself and his immediate dependents to the
other vessel, and sent the disabled caravel back to
Santo Domingo. His solitary vessel nov^ went for-
ward, amid all the adversities that seemed to cling
inevitably to this last of Columbus's expeditions. Tempest
after tempest pursued him. The masts were sprung, and again
1504. No- sprung ; and in a forlorn and disabled condition the
ReTch^Vsan littl© haplcss bark finally entered the port of San
Lucar. Lucar on November 7, 1504. He had been absent
from Spain for two years and a half.
CHAPTER XX.
Columbus's last years. — death and character.
1504-1506.
From San Lucar, Columbus, a sick man in search of quiet
and rest, was conveyed to Seville. Unhappily, there
. . 1 r» • 1 • , c ■% ' Columbus in
was neither repose nor peace or mind in store tor him. Sevuie tin
He remained in that city till May, 1505, broken in *^'
spirits and almost helpless of limb. Fortunately, we can trace
his varying mental moods during these few months in a series
of letters, most of which are addressed by him to his Letters to
son Diego, then closely attached to the Court. These ^i^»<^"-
writings have fortunately come down to us, and they constitute
the only series of Columbus's letters which we have, showing the
habits of his mind consecutively for a confined period, so that
we get a close watch upon his thoughts. They are the wails of
a neglected soul, and the cries of one whose hope is cruelly de-
ferred. They have in their entirety a good deal of that hap-
hazard jerkiness tiresome to read, and not easily made evident
in abstract. They are, however, not so deficient in mental equi-
poise as, for instance, the letter sent from Jamaica. This is
perhaps owing to the one absorbing burden of them, his hope
of recovering possession of his suspended authority.
He writes on November 21, 1504, a fortnight after his land-
ing at San Lucar, telling his son how he has engaged 1504. No-
bis old friend, the Dominican Deza, now the Bishop of ^^"^b^^^i.
Paleneia, to intercede with the sovereigns, that justice may be
done to him with respect to his income, the payment of which
Ovando had all along, as he contends, obstructed at Espanola.
He tries to argue that if their Highnesses but knew it, they
would, in ordering restitution to him, increase their own share.
He hopes they have no doubt that his zeal for their interests
has been quite as much as he could manifest if he had par-
478 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
adise to gain, and hopes they will remember, respecting any
errors he may have committed, that the Lord of all judges such
things by the intention rather than by the outcome. He seems
to have a suspicion that Porras, now at liberty and about the
Court, might be insidiously at work to his old commander's dis-
advantage, and he represents that neither Porras nor his brother
had been suitable persons for their offices, and that what had
been done respecting them would be approved on inquiry.
" Their revolt," he says, " surprised me, considering all that I
had done for them, as much as the sun would have alarmed me
if it had shot shadows instead of light." He complains of
Ovando's taking the prisoners, who had been companions of
Porras, from his hands, and that, made free, they had even dared
to present themselves at Court. " I have written," he adds,
" to their Highnesses about it, and I have told them that it
can't be possible that they would tolerate such an offense."
He says further that he has written to the royal treasurer, beg-
ging him to come to no decision of the representations of such
detractors until the other side could be heard, and he adds that
he has sent to the treasurer a copy of the oath which the muti-
neers sent in after Porras had been taken. " Recall to all
these people," he" writes to his son, " my infirmities, and the
recompense due to me for my services."
Diego was naturally, from his residence at Court, a conven-
ient medium to bring all Columbus's wishes to the notice of
those about the sovereigns. The Admiral writes to Diego again
that he hopes their Highnesses will see to the paying of his
men who had come home. " They are poor, and have been
gone three years," he says. " They bring home evidences of
the greatest of expectations in the new gold fields of Veragua ; "
and then he advises his son to bring this fact to the attention
of all who are concerned, and to urge the colonizing of the new
country as the best way to profit from its gold mines. For
a while he harbored the hope that he might at once go on to
the Court, and a litter which had served in the obsequies of
Cardinal Mendoza was put at his disposal ; but this plan was
soon given up.
A week later, having in the interim received a letter of the
1504. No- 15th, from Diego, Columbus writes again, under date
Yember28. ^£ Novcmbcr 28. In this epistle he speaks of the
COLUMBUS'S LAST YEARS. 479
severity of his disease, which keeps him in Seville, from which,
however, he hopes to depart the coming week, and of his dis-
appointment that the sovereigns had not replied to his inqui-
ries. He sends his love to Diego Mendez, hoping that his
friend's zeal and love of truth will enable him to overcome the
deceits and intrigues of Porras.
Columbus was not at this time aware that the impending
death of the Queen had something to do with the delays in his
own affairs at Court. Two days (November 26) before the
Admiral wrote this note, Isabella had died, worn out 1504 ^^
by her labors, and depressed by the afflictions which Queeifis^
she had experienced in her domestic circle. She was ^ei^a*ii«s.
an unlovely woman at the best, an obstructor of Christian
charity, but in her wiles she had allured Columbus to a belief
in her countenance of him. The conventional estimate of her
character, which is enforced in the rather cloying de- Isabella's
scriptions of Prescott, is such as her flatterers drew ^^^^^'^^e^-
in her own times ; but the revelations of historical research
hardly confirm it. It was with her much as with Columbus, —
she was too largely a creature of her own age to be solely judged
by the criteria of all ages, as lofty characters can be.
The loss of her influence on the king removed, as it proved,
even the chance of a flattering delusiveness in the hopes of
Columbus. As the compiler of the Historie expresses it, " Co-
lumbus had always enjoyed her favor and protection, while the
King had always been indifferent, or rather inimical." She
had indeed, during the Admiral's absence on his last voyage,
manifested some new appreciation of his services, which cost
her little, however, when she made his eldest son one of her
bodyguard and naturalized his brother Diego, to fit him for
ecclesiastical preferment.
On December 1, ignorant of the sad occurrences at Court,
Columbus writes again, chiding Diego that he had not 1504 ^e.
in his dutif ulness written to his poor father. " You ^^"^^®^ ^•
ought to know," he says, "that I have no pleasure now but
in a letter from you." Columbus by this time had become,
by the constant arrival of couriers, aware of the anxiety at
Court over the Queen's health, and he prays that the Holy
Trinity will restore her to health, to the end that all that has
been begun may be happily finished. He reiterates what he
480 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
had previously written about the increasing severity of his mal-
ady, his inability to travel, his want of money, and how he had
used all he could get in Espanola to bring home his poor com-
panions. He commends anew to Diego his brother Ferdinand,
and speaks of this younger son's character as beyond his years.
"Ten brothers would not be too many for you," he adds; "in
good as in bad fortune, I have never found better friends than
my brothers."
Nothing troubles him more than the delays in hearing from
Court. A rumor had reached him that it was intended to
send some bishops to the Indies, and that the Bishop of Palen-
cia was charged with the matter. He begs Diego to say to the
bishop that it was worth while, in the interests of all, to con-
fer with the Admiral first. In explaining why he does not write
to Diego Mendez, he says that he is obliged to write by night,
since by day his hands are weak and painful. He adds that
the vessel which put back to Santo Domingo had arrived,
bringing the papers in Porras's case, the result of the inquest
which had been taken at Jamaica, so that he could now be
able to present an indictment to the Council of the Indies. His
indignation is aroused at the mention of it. " What can be so
foul and brutal ! If their Highnesses pass it by, who is going
again to lead men upon their service ! "
Two days later (December 3), he writes again to Diego
1504. De- about the neglect which he is experiencing from him
cembers. ^^^ f rom otlicrs at Court. " Everybody except my-
self is receiving letters," he says. He incloses a memoir ex-
pressing what he thought it was necessary to do in the pres-
ent conjunction of his affairs. This document opens with call-
ing upon Diego zealously to pray to God for the soul of the
Queen. " One must believe she is now clothed with a sainted
glory, no longer regretting the bitterness and weariness of this
life." The King, he adds, " deserves all our sympathy and de-
votion." He then informs Diego that he has directed his
brother, his uncle, and Carvajal to add all their importunities
to his son's, and to the written prayers which he himself has sent,
that consideration should be given to the affairs of the Indies.
Nothing, he says, can be more urgent than to remedy the
abuses there. In all this he curiously takes on the tone of his
own accusers a few years before. He represents that pecuniary
i
COLUMBUS'S LAST YEARS. 481
returns from Espariola are delayed ; that the governor is de-
tested by all ; that a suitable person sent there could restore
harmony in less than three months ; and that other fortresses,
which are much needed, should be built, " all of which I can do
in his Highness's service," he exclaims, " and any other, not
having my personal interests at stake, could not do it so well ! "
Then he repeats how, immediately after his arrival at San Lu-
car, he had written to the King a very long letter, advising
action in the matter, to which no reply had been returned.
It was during Columbus's absence on this last voyage that, by
an ordinance made at Alcala, January 20, 1503, the
famous Casa de Contratacion was established, with aryio. The
authority over the affairs of the Indies, having the tratamon es-
power to grant licenses, to dispatch fleets, to dispose
of the results of trade or exploration, and to exercise certain
judicial prerogatives. This council was to consist of a treasurer,
a factor, and a comptroller, to whom two persons learned in the
law were given as advisers. Alexander VI. had already, by a
bull of November 16, 1501, authorized the payment to the con-
stituted Spanish officials of all the tithes of the colonies, which
went a long way in giving Spain ecclesiastical supremacy in the
Indies, in addition to her political control.
It was to this council that Columbus refers, when he says
he had told the gentlemen of the Contratacion that they ought
to abide by the verbal and written orders which the King had
given, and that, above all, they should watch lest people should
sail to the Indies without permission. He reminded them of
the sorry character of the people already in the New World,
and of the way in which treasure was stored there without pro-
tection.
Ten days later (December 13), he writes again to Diego, re-
curring to his bitter memories of Ovando, charging 1504 ^g.
him with diverting the revenues, and with bearing member 13.
himself so haughtily that no one dared remonstrate. " Every-
body says that I have as much as 11,000 or 12,000 castellanos
in Espanola, and I have not received a quarter. Since I came
away he must have received 5,000." He then urges Diego to
lue the King for a mandatory letter to be sent to Ovarido, for-
cing immediate payment. " Carvajal knows very well that this
ought to be done. Show him this letter," he adds. Then re-
482 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
ferring to his denied rights, and to the best way to make the
King sensible of his earlier promises, he next advises Diego to
lessen his expenses ; to treat his uncle with the respect which is
due to him ; and to bear himself towards his younger brother
as an older brother should. " You have no other brother," he
says ; " and thank God this one is all you could desire. He
was born with a good nature." Then he reverts to the Queen's
death. "People tell me," he writes, "that on her death-bed
she expressed a wish that my possession of the Indies should
be restored to me."
A week later (December 21), he once more bewails the way
1504. De- i^ which he is left without tidings. He recounts the
cember 21. excrtious he had made to send money to his advocates
at Court, and tells Diego how he must somehow continue to get
on as best he can till their Highnesses are content to give them
back their power. He repeats that to bring his companions
home from Santo Domingo he had spent twelve hundred cas-
tellanos, and that he had represented to the King the royal in-
debtedness for this, but it produced no reimbursement. He
asks Diego to find out if the Queen, " now with God, no doubt,"
had spoken of him in her will ; and perhaps the Bishop of Palen-
cia, " who was the cause of their Majesties' acquiring the Indies,
and of my returning to the Court when I had departed," or the
chamberlain of the King could find this out. Columbus may
have lived to learn that the only item of the Queen's will in
which he could possibly have been in mind was the one in
which she showed that she was aroused to the enormities which
Columbus had imposed on the Indians, and which had come
to such results that, as Las Casas says, it had been endeavored
to keep the knowledge of it from the Queen's ears. She ear-
nestly enjoined upon her successors a change of attitude to-
wards the poor Indians.
Columbus further says that the Pope had complained that no
account of his voyage had been sent to Rome, and that accord-
ingly he had prepared one, and he desired Dieffo to
Columbus ^ :: . 1 1 1 T^. -111-1 1
writes to read it, and to let the King and the bishop also peruse
it before it was forwarded to Rome. It is possible
that the Adelantado was dispatched with the letter. The
canonizers say that the mission to Rome had also a secret pur-
pose, which was to counteract the schemes of Fonseca to create
COLUMBUS'S LAST YEARS. 483
bishoprics in Espanola, and that the advice of Columbus in the
end prevailed over the " cunning of diplomacy."
There had been some time before, owing to the difficulty
which had been experienced in mounting the royal cavalry, an
order promulgated forbidding the use of mules in travel, since
it was thought that the preference for this animal had brought
about the deterioration and scarcity of horses. It was to this
injunction that Columbus now referred when he asked Diego to
get a dispensation from the King to allow him to enjoy the
easier seat of a mule when he should venture on his
journey towards the Court, which, with this help, he ruary 23.
hoped to be able to begin within a few weeks. Such allowed to
an order was in due time issued on February 23, 1505.
On December 29, Columbus wrote again. The letter was full
of the same pitiful suspense. He had received no let- 1504 ^g.
ters. He could but repeat the old story of the letters *=«™^'' '^^
of credit which he had sent and which had not been acknow-
ledged. No one of his people had been paid, he said, neither
the faithful nor the mutineers. " They are all poor. They
are going to Court," he adds, " to press their claims. Aid them
in it." He excepts, however, from the kind interest of his
friends two fellows who had been with him on his last voyage,
one Camacho and Master Bernal, the latter the physician of the
flagship. Bernal was the instigator of the revolt of Porras,
he says, " and I pardoned him at the prayer of my brother."
It will be remembered that, previous to starting on his last
voyage, Columbus had written to the Bank of St. coiumbus
George in Genoa, proposing a gift of a tenth of his Bank^o^f st.
income for the benefit of his native town. The letter ^^o'^k^-
was long in reaching its destination, but a reply was duly sent
through his son Diego. It never reached Columbus, and this
apparent spurning of his gift by Genoa caused not a small part
of his present disgust with the world.
On December 27, 1504, he wrote to Nicolo Oderigo, remind-
ing him of the letter, and complaining that while he 1504. De.
had expected to- be met on his return by some confi- ^«^ber27.
dential agent of the bank, he had not even had a letter in re-
sponse. '' It was uncourteous in these gentlemen of St. George
not to have favored me with an answer." The intention was,
in fact, far from being unappreciated, and at a later day the
484 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
promise became so far magnified as to be regarded as an actual
gift, in which the Genoese were not without pride. The pur-
pose never, however, had a fulfillment.
On January 4, 1505, the Admiral wrote to his friend Father
1505 janu- Grorricio, telling him that Diego Mendez had arrived
ary4. from the Court, and asking the friar to encase in wax
the documentary privileges of the Admiral which had been in-
trusted to him, and to send them to him. " My disease grows
better day by day," he adds.
On January 18, 1505, he again wrote. The epistle was in
1505. Janu- somc Small degree cheery. He had heard at last from
ary 18. Dicgo. " Zamora the courier has arrived, and I have
looked with great delight upon thy letter, thy uncle's, thy bro-
ther's, and Carvajal's." Diego Mendez, he says, sets out in
three or four days with an order for payment. He refers with
some playfulness, even, to Fonseca, who had just been raised
to the bishopric of Placentia, and had not yet returned from
Flanders to take possession of the seat. "If the Bishop of
Placentia has arrived, or when he comes, tell him how much
pleased I am at his elevation ; and that when I come to Court
I shall depend on lodging with his Grace, whether he wishes
it or not, that we may renew our old fraternal bonds." His
biographers have been in some little uncertainty whether he
really meant here Fonseca or his old friend Deza, who had
just left that bishopric vacant for the higher post of Archbishop
of Seville. A strict application of dates makes the reference to
Fonseca. One may imagine, however, that Columbus was not
accurately informed. It is indeed hard to understand the pleas-
antry, if Fonseca was the bitter enemy of Columbus that he
is pictured by Irving.
Some ships from Espanola had put into the Tagus. " They
have not arrived here from Lisbon," he adds. " They bring
much gold, but none for me."
We next find Columbus in close communion with a contempo-
rary with whose fame his own is sadly conjoined. Some ac-
count of the events of the voyage which Vespucius
with vespu- had made along the coast of South America with
Coelho, from which he had returned to Lisbon in Sep-
tember, 1502, has been given on an earlier page. Those events
and his descriptions had already brought the name of Vespu-
COLUMBUS'S LAST YEARS. 485
cius into prominence throughout Europe, but hardly before he
had started on another voyage in the spring or early summer of
1503, just at the time when Columbus was endeavoring to
work his way from the Veragua coast to Espanola. The au-
thorities are not quite agreed whether it was on May 10, 1503,
or a month later, on June 10, that the little Portuguese fleet in
which Vespucius sailed left the Tagus, to find a way, if possi-
ble, to the Moluccas somewhere along the same great coast.
This expedition had started under the command of Coelho, but
meeting with mishaps, by which the fleet w^as separated, Vespu-
cius, with his own vessel, joined later by another with which
he fell in, proceeded to Bahia, where a factory for storing Bra-
zil-wood was erected ; thence, after a stay there, they sailed for
Lisbon, arriving there after an absence of seventy-seven days,
on June 18, 1504. It was later, on September 4, that Vespu-
cius wrote, or rather dated, that account of his voyage
which was to work such marvels, as we shall see, in the account of
reputation of himself and of Columbus. There is no ^^ ^''y^^®*
reason to suppose that Columbus ever knew of this letter of
September 4, so subversive as it turned out of his just fame ;
nor, judging from the account of their interview which Colum-
bus records, is there any reason to suppose that Vespucius him-
self had any conception of the work which that fateful letter
was already accomplishing, and to which reference will be
made later.
On February 5, 1505, Columbus wrote to Diego : " Within
two days I have talked with Americus Vespucius, who 1505 ^eh-
will bear this to you, and who is summoned to Court ^^^^y^-
on matters of navigation. He has always manifested a dispo-
sition to be friendly to me. Fortune has not always favored
him, and in this he is not different from many others. His
ventures have not always been as successful as he would wish.
He left me full of the kindliest purposes towards me, and will
do anything for me which is in his power. I hardly knew what
to tell him would be helpful in him to do for me, because I
did not know what purpose there was in calling him to Court.
Find out what he can do, and he will do it ; only let it be so
managed that he will not be suspected of rendering me aid. I
have told him all that it is possible to tell him as to my own
affairs, including what I have done and what recompense I
486 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
have had. Show this letter to the Adelantado, so that he may
advise how Vespucius can be made serviceable to us."
We soon after this find Vespucius installed as an agent of
1505. April t^® Spanish government, naturalized on April 24 as
^U8 natS- ^ Castilian, and occupied at the seaports in superin-
^^' tending the fitting out of ships for the Indies, with an
annual salary of thirty thousand maravedis. We can find no
trace of any assistance that he afforded the cause of Columbus.
Meanwhile events were taking place which Columbus might
well perhaps have arrested, could he have got the royal ear.
Columbus's -^^ order had been sent in February to Espanola to
effects sold, g^jj ^j^^ effccts of Columbus, and in April other prop-
erty of the Admiral had been seized to satisfy his creditors.
In May, 1505, Columbus, with the friendly care of his bro-
1505. May. ^^^^ Bartholomew, set out on his journey to Segovia,
goes to'se- where the Court then was. This is the statement of
govia. j^g^g Qaga^g^ \^y^^ Harrisse can find no evidence of his
being near the Court till August, when, on the 25th,
AtSshis ^^ attested, as will appear, his will before a notary.
^^^^' The change bringing him into the presence of his
royal master only made his mortification more poignant. His
personal suit to the King was quite as ineffective as his letters
had been. The sovereign was outwardly beneficent, and in-
wardly uncompliant. The Admiral's recitals respecting his last
voyage, both of promised wealth and of saddened toil, made lit-
tle impression. Las Casas suspects that the insinuations of
Porras had preoccupied the royal mind. To rid himself of the
importunities of Columbus, the King proposed an ar-
andFerdi- bitcr, and readily consented to the choice which Co-
lumbus made of his old friend Deza, now Archbishop
of Seville ; but Columbus was too immovably fixed upon his
own rights to consent that more than the question of revenue
should be considered by such an arbiter. His recorded privi-
leges and the pledged word of the sovereign were not matters
to be reconsidered. Such was not, however, the opinion of
the King. He evaded the point in his talk with bland counte-
nance, and did nothing in his acts beyond referring the ques-
tion anew to a body of counselors convened to determine the
fulfillment of the Queen's will. They did nothing quite as
easily as the King. Las Casas teUs us that the King was only
COLUMBUS'S LAST YEARS. 487
restrained by motives of outward decency from a public re-
jection of all the binding obligations towards the Admiral into
which he had entered jointly with the Queen.
Columbus found in all this nothing to comfort a sick and
desponding man, and sank in despair upon his couch. He
roused enouerh to have a will drafted August 25, which
1505. Au-
confirmed a testament made in 1502, before starting gust 25. His
on his last voyage. His disease renewed its attacks.
An old wound had reopened. From a bed of pain he began
again his written appeals. He now gave up all hopes for him-
self, but he pleaded for his son, that upon him the honors which
he himself had so laboriously won should be bestowed.
Diego at the same time, in seconding the petition, pleads for
promised, if the reinstatement took place, that he
would count those among his counselors whom the royal will
should designate. Nothing of protest or appeal came oppor-
tuneh^ to the determined King. " The more he was petitioned,"
says Las Casas, " the more bland he was in avoiding any con-
clusion. He hoped by exhausting the patience of the Admiral
to induce him to accept some estates in Castile in lieu of such
powers in the Indies. Columbus rejected all such in-
timations with indignation. He would have nothing fer^of^es-
but his bonded rights. " I have done all that I can
do," he said in a pitiful, despairing letter to Deza. " I must
leave the issue to God. He has always sustained me in ex-
tremities."
" It argued," says Prescott, in commenting on this, " less
knowledge of character than the King usually showed, that he
should have thought the man who had broken off all negotia-
tions on the threshold of a dubious enterprise, rather than
abate one tittle of his demands, would consent to such abate-
ment, when the success of that enterprise was so gloriously es-
tablished."
The Admiral was, during this part of his suit, apparently
at Salamanca, for Mendez speaks of him as being coiumbusat
there confined to his bed with the gout, while he him- saiamanca.
self was doing all he could to press his master's claims to have
Diego recognized in his rights. In return for this service,
Mendez asked to be appointed principal Alguazil of Mendez and
Espaiiola for life, and he says the Admiral acknow- c*'^"™^"^.
488 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
ledged that such an appointment was but a trifling remuneration
for his great services, but the requital never came.
There broke a glimmer of hope. The death of the Queen
had left the throne of Castile to her daughter Juana, the wife
of Philip of Austria, and they had arrived from Flanders to
be installed in their inheritance. Columbus, who had followed
Columbus *^® Court from Segovia to Salamanca, thence to Val-
"e" ve^Sia- l^dolid, was now unable to move further in his decrej>
grelt Philip iti^ide, and sent the Adelantado to propitiate the
and Juana. daughter of Isabella, with the trust that something of
her mother's sympathy might be vouchsafed to his entreaties.
Bartholomew never saw his brother again, and was not privi-
leged to communicate to him the gracious hopes which the be-
nignity of his reception raised.
A year had passed since the Admiral had come to the neigh-
borhood of the Court, wherever it was, and nothing had been
accomplished in respect to his personal interests. Indeed, little
touching the Indies at all seems to have been done. There had
Negroes sent b^cn trial made of sending negro slaves to Espanola
to Espanola. ^^g indicating that the native bondage needed reinforce-
ment ; but Ovando had reported that the experiment was a fail-
ure, since the negroes only mixed with the Indians and taught
them bad habits. Ferdinando cared little for this, and at Sego-
via, September 15, 1505, he notified Ovando that he should
send some more negroes. Whether Columbus was aware of
this change in the methods of extracting gold from the soil we
cannot find.
As soon as Bartholomew had started on his mission the mal-
ady of Columbus increased. He became conscious that the
time had come to make his final dispositions. It was on May
4, 1506, according to the common story, that he signed
4. Codicil a codicil to his will on a blank page in a breviary
which had been given to him, as he says, by Alexan-
der VI., and which had " comforted him in his battles, his cap-
tivities, and his misfortunes." This document has been ac-
cepted by some of the commentators as genuine ; Harrisse and
others are convinced of its apocryphal character. It was not
found till 1779. It is a strange document, if authentic. It
holds that such dignities as were his under the Spanish Crown,
acknowledged or not, were his of right to alienate from the
COLUMBUS'S LAST YEARS. 489
Spanish throne. It was, if anything, a mere act of bravado,
as if to flout at the authority which could dare deprive him of
his possessions. He provides for the descent of his honors in
the male line, and that failing, he bequeaths them to the repub-
lic of Genoa! It was a gauge of hostile demands on Spain
which no one but a madman would imagine that Thought to
Genoa would accept if she could. He bestowed on *>« spurious.
his native city, in the same reckless way, the means to erect a
hospital, and designated that such resources should come from
his Italian estates, whatever they were. Certainly the easiest
way to dispose of the paper is to consider it a fraud. If such, it
was devised by some one who entered into the spirit of the Ad-
miral's madness, and made the most of rumors that had been
afloat respecting Columbus's purposes to benefit Genoa at the
expense of Spain.
About a fortnight later (May 19), he ratified an undoubted
will, which had been drafted by his own hand the year
before at Segovia, and executed it with the customary 19. Ratmed
formahties. Its testamentary provisions were not un-
natural. He made Diego his heir, and his entailed property
was, in default of heirs to Diego, to pass to his illegitimate
son Ferdinand, and from him, in like default, to his own brother,
the Adelantado, and his male descendants ; and all such failing,
to the female lines in a similar succession. He enjoined upon
his representatives, of whatever generation, to serve the Span-
ish King with fidelity. Upon Diego, and upon later heads of
the family, he imposed the duty of relieving all distressed rela-
tives and others in poverty. He imposed on his lawful son the
appointment of some one of his lineage to live constantly in
Genoa, to maintain the family dignity. He directed him to
grant due allowances to his brother and uncle ; and when the
estates yielded the means, to erect a chapel in the Vega of
Espanola, where masses might be said daily for the repose of
the souls of himself and of his nearest relatives. He made
the furthering of the crusade to recover the Holy Sepulchre
equally contingent upon the increase of his income. He also di-
rected Diego to provide for the maintenance of Donna Bea-
trix Enriquez, the mother of Ferdinand, as " a person to whom
I am under great obligations," and "let this be done for the
discharge of my conscience, for it weighs heavy on my soul, —
490
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
the reasons for which I am not here permitted to give ; " and
this was a behest that Diego, in his own will, acknowledges his
failure to observe during the last years of the lady's life.
Then, in a codicil, Columbus enumerates sundry little bequests
to other persons to whom he was indebted, and whose kindness
he wished to remember. He was honest enough to add that his
bequests were imaginary unless his rights were acknowledged.
" Hitherto I neither have had, nor have I now, any positive in-
come." He failed to express any wish respecting the spot of
his interment. The documents were committed at once to a no-
tary, from whose archives a copy was obtained in 1524 by his
son Diego, and this copy exists to-day among the family papers
in the hands of the Duke of Veragua.
This making of a will was almost his last act. On the next
day he partook of the sacrament, and uttering, " Into
20. "coium- thy hands, O Lord, I commit my spirit," he gasped
his last. It was on the 20th of May, 1506, — by
some circumstances we might rather say May 21, — in the city
HOUSE WHERE COLUMBUS DIED.
[From Riige's Geschichte des Zeitalters der Eiitdeckungen.']
of Valladolid, that this singular, hopeful, despondent, melan-
choly life came to its end. He died at the house No. 7 Calle
de Colon, which is still shown to travelers.
There was a small circle of relatives and friends who
COLUMBUS'S LAST YEARS. 491
mourned. The tale of his departure came like a sough of
wind to a few others, who had seen no way to alleviate a misery
that merited their sympathy. The King could have but found
it a relief from the indiscretion of his early promises. The
world at large thought no more of the mournful pro- ^^^ ^eath
cession which bore that wayworn body to the grave '^""<>"<5«<*-
than it did of any poor creature journeying on his bier to the
potter's field.
It is hard to conceive how the fame of a man over whose acts
in 1493 learned men cried for joy, and by whose deeds the ad-
venturous spirit had been stirred in every seaport of western
Europe, should have so completely passed into oblivion that a»
professed chronicler like Peter Martyr, busy tattler as he was,
should take no notice of his illness and death. There have
come down to us five long letters full of news and gossip, which
Martyr wrote from Valladolid at this very time, with not a
word in them of the man he had so often commemorated. Fra-
canzio da Montalboddo, publishing in 1507 some correction of
his early voyages, had not heard of Columbus's death ; nor had
Madrignano in dating his Latin rendering of the same book in
1508. It was not till twenty-seven days after the death-bed
scene that the briefest notice was made in passing, in an official
document of the town, to the effect that " the said Admiral is
dead ! "
It is not even certain where the body was first placed, though
it is usually affirmed to have been deposited in the
Franciscan convent in Valladolid. Nor is there any
evidence to support another equally prevalent story that King
Ferdinand had ordered the removal of the remains to Seville
seven years later, when a monument was built bearing the
often-quoted distich, —
X C A STILL A Y X LEON
NUEVO MUNDO Dl6 COLON,
it being pretty evident that such an inscription was never
thought of till Castellanos suggested it in his Elegias in 1588.
If Diego's will in 1509 can be interpreted on this matter, it
seems pretty sure that within three years (1509) after the
death of Columbus, instead of seven, his coffin had
been conveyed to Seville and placed inside the convent- carried to
Seville.
of Las Cuevas, in the vault of the Carthusians, where
492 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
the bodies of his son Diego and brother Bartholomew were in
due time to rest beside his own. Here the remains were un-
disturbed till 1536, when the records of the convent affirm that
they were given up for transportation, though the royal order
is given as of June 2, 1537. From that date till 1549 there is
room for conjecture as to their abiding-place.
It was during this interval that his family were seeking to
carry out what was supposed to be the wish of the Admiral to
rest finally in the island of Espanola. From 1537 to 154Q the
government are known to have issued three different orders re-
specting the removal of the remains, and it is conjectured the
1541. Re- transference was actually made in 1541, shortly after
So**dC- the completion of the cathedral at Santo Domingo.
mingo. j£ ^j^y record was made at the time to designate the
spot of the reentombment in that edifice, it is not now known,
and it was not till 1676 that somebody placed an entry in its rec-
ords that the burial had been made on the right of the altar.
A few years later (1683), the recollections of aged people are
quoted to substantiate such a statement. We find no other no-
tice till a century afterwards, when, on the occasion of some re-
pairs, a stone vault, supposed in the traditions to be that which
held the remains, was found on " the gospel side " of the chan-
cel, while another on " the epistle side " was thought to contain
the remains of Bartholomew Columbus. This was the suspected
situation of the graves when the treaty of Basle, in 1795, gave
the Santo Domingo end of the island to France, and the Span-
ish authorities, acting in concert with the Duke of Veragua, as
the representative of the family of Columbus, determined on
the removal of the remains to Havana. It is a ques-
removedto tiou which has been raised since 1877 whether the
body of Columbus was the one then removed, and
over which so much parade was made during the transportation
and reinterment in Cuba. There has been a controversy on the
point, in which the Bishop of Santo Domingo and his adher-
ents have claimed that the remains of Columbus are still in
their charge, while it was those of his son Diego which had
been removed. The Academy of History at Madrid have de-
nied this, and in a long report to the Spanish government have
asserted that there was no mistake in the transfer, and that the
additional casket found was that of Christopher Colon, the
494 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
grandson. It was represented, moreover, that those features of
the inscription on the lately found leaden box which seemed to
indicate it as the casket of the first Admiral of the Indies had
Question of ^^^^ fraudulently added or altered. The question has
ofViJ^?e-*^ probably been thrown into the category of doubt,
mains. though the casc as presented in favor of Santo Do-
mingo has some recognizably weak points, which the advocates
of the other side have made the most of, and to the satisfaction
perhaps of the more careful inquirers. The controversial liter-
ature on the subject is considerable. The repairs of 1877 in
the Santo Domingo cathedral revealed the empty vault from
which the transported body had been taken ; but they showed
also the occupied vault of the grandson Luis, and another in
which was a leaden case which bore the inscriptions which are
in dispute.
It is the statement of the Historie that Columbus preserved
Alleged bur- ^lic chaius in which he had come home from his third
cha^ns^with voyage, and that he had them buried with him, or in-
^'™" tended to do so. The story is often repeated, but it
has no other authority than the somewhat dubious one of that
book ; and it finds no confirmation in Las Casas, Peter Martyr,
Bernaldez, or Oviedo.
Humboldt says that he made futile inquiry of those who had
assisted in the reinterment at Havana, if there were any trace
of these fetters or of oxide of iron in the coffin. In the ac-
counts of the recent discovery of remains at Santo Domingo, it
is said that there was equally no trace of fetters in the casket.
The age of Columbus is almost without a parallel, presenting
The age of perhaps the most striking appearances since the star
Columbus, gjj^jj^g ^p^jj Bethlehem. It saw Martin Luther burn
the Pope's bull, and assert a new kind of independence. It
added Erasmus to the broadeners of life. Ancient art was
revivified in the discovery of its most significant remains. Mod-
ern art stood confessed in Da Vinci, Michael Angelo, Titian,
Raphael, Holbein, and Diirer. Copernicus found in the skies
a wonderful development without great telescopic help. The
route of the Portuguese by the African cape and the voyage of
Columbus opened new worlds to thought and commerce. They
made the earth seem to man, north and south, east and west, as
THE AGE OF COLUMBUS.
495
STATUE OF COLUMBUS AT SANTO DOMINGO.
496 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
man never before had imagined it. It looked as if mercantile
endeavor was to be constrained by no bounds. Articles of trade
were multiplied amazingly. Every movement was not only
new and broad, but it was rapid beyond conception. It was
more like the remodeling of Japan, which we have seen in our
day, than anything that had been earlier known.
The long sway of the Moors was disintegrating. The Arab
domination in science and seamanship was yielding to the Wes-
tern genius. The Turks had in the boyhood (1453) of Colum-
bus consummated their last great triumph in the capture of
Constantinople, thus placing a barrier to Christian commerce
with the East. This conquest drove out the learned Christians
of the East, who had drunk of the Arab erudition, and they
fled with their stores of learning to the western lands, coming
back to the heirs of the Romans with the spirit which Rome in
the past had sent to the East.
But what Christian Europe was losing in the East Portugal
and Prince Henry were gaining for her in the great and forbid-
ding western waste of waters and along its African shores. As
the hot tide of Mahometan invasion rolled over the Bosphorus,
the burning equatorial zone was pierced from the north along
the coasts of the Black Continent.
Italy, seeing her maritime power drop away as the naval
Italian dis- Supremacy of the Atlantic seaboard rose, was forced
coverers. ^^ ^Qndi her experienced navigators to the oceanic
ports, to maintain the supremacy of her name and genius in
Cadamosto, Columbus, Vespucius, Cabot, and Verrazano. Those
cosmographical views which had come down the ages, at times
obscured, then for a while patent, and of which the traces had
lurked in the minds of learned men by an almost continuous se-
quence for many centuries, at last possessed by inheritance the
mind of Columbus. By reading, by conference with others, by
noting phenomena, and by reasoning, in the light of all these,
upon the problem of a western passage to India, obvious as it
was if once the sphericity of the earth be acknowledged, he
His growing gradually grew to be confident in himself and trustful
western p*i! ^^ ^^^ agcucy with others. He was far from being
"*^®' alone in his beliefs, nor was his age anything more
than a reflection of long periods of like belief. There was
simply needed a man with courage and constancy in his convic-
THE CHARACTER OF COLUMBUS. 497
tions, so that the theory could be demonstrated. This age pro-
duced him. Enthusiasm and the contagion of palpable though
shadowy truths gave Columbus, after much tribulation, the
countenance in high quarters that enabled him to reach success,
deceptive though it was. It would have been well for his mem-
ory if he had died when his master work was done. With his
great aim certified by its results, though they were far from
being what he thought, he was unfortunately left in the end to
be laid bare on trial, a common mortal after all, the creature of
buffeting circumstances, and a weakling in every ele- Deficiencies
ment of command. His imagination had availed him ^* character.
in his upward course when a serene habit in his waiting days
could obscure his defects. Later, the problems he encountered
were those that required an eye to command, with tact to per-
suade and skill to coerce, and he had none of them.
The man who becomes the conspicuous developer of any great
world-movement is usually the embodiment of the ripened as-
pirations of his time. Such was Columbus. It is the forerun-
ner, the man who has little countenance in his age, who points
the way for some hazardous after-soul to pursue. Such was
Roger Bacon, the English Franciscan. It was Bacon's
lot to direct into proper channels the new surging of con and
the experimental sciences which was induced by the
revived study of Aristotle, and was carrying dismay into the
strongholds of Platonism. Standing out from the background
of Arab regenerating learning, the name of Roger Bacon, linked
often with that of Albertus Magnus, stood for the best know-
ledge and insight of the thirteenth century. Bacon it was who
gave that tendency to thought which, seized by Cardinal Pierre
d'Ailly, and incorporated by him in his Imaqo Muiidi
Pierre d'Ail-
(1410), became the link between Bacon and Colum- ly's imago
bus. Humboldt has indeed expressed his belief that
this encyclopaedic Survey of the World exercised a more im-
portant influence upon the discovery of America than even the
prompting which Columbus got from his correspondence with
Toscanelli. How well Columbus pored over the pages of the
Lnago Mundi we know from the annotations of his own copy,
which is still preserved in the Biblioteca Colombina. It seems
likely that Columbus got directly from this book most that
he knew of those passages in Aristotle, Strabo, and Seneca
498 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
which speak of the Asiatic shores as lying opposite to Hispa-
nia. There is some evidence that this book was his companion
even on his voyages, and Humboldt points out how he trans-
lates a passage from it, word for word, when in 1498 he
embodied it in a letter which he wrote to his sovereigns from
Espaiiola.
If we take the pains, as Humboldt did, to examine the writ-
ings of Columbus, to ascertain the sources which he
quaintance citcd, wc find what appcars to be a broad acquaintance
elder writ- with books. It is to be remembered, however, that
the Admiral quoted usually at second hand, and that
he got his acquaintance with classic authors, at least, mainly
through this Imago Mundi of Pierre d'Ailly. Humboldt, in
making his list of Columbus's authors, omits the references to
the Scriptures and to the Church fathers, " in whom," as he
says, " Columbus was singularly versed," and then gives the
following catalogue : —
Aristotle ; tJulius Caesar ; Strabo ; Seneca ; Pliny ; Ptolemy ;
Solinus ; Julius Capitolinus ; Alf razano ; Avenruyz ; Rabbi Sam-
uel de Israel ; Isidore, Bishop of Seville ; the Venerable Bede ;
Strabus, Abbe of Reichenau ; Duns Scotus ; Franc^ois Mayronis ;
Abbe Joachim de Calabre ; Sacrobosco, being in fact the Eng-
lish mathematician Holy wood ; Nicholas de Lyra, the Norman
Franciscan ; King Alfonso the Wise, and his Moorish scribes ;
Cardinal Pierre d'Ailly; Gerson, Chancellor of the Univer-
sity of Paris ; Pope Pius II., otherwise known as ^neas Syl-
vius Piccolomini ; Regiomontanus, as the Latinized name of
Johann MuUer of Konigsberg is given, though Columbus does
not really name him ; Paolo Toscanelli, the Florentine physi-
cian ; and Nicolas de Conti, of whom he had heard through
Toscanelli, perhaps.
Humboldt can find no evidence that Columbus had read the
travels of Marco Polo, and does not discover why Navarrete
holds that he had, though Polo's stories must have permeated
much that Columbus read ; nor does he understand why Ir-
ving says that Columbus took Marco Polo's book on his first
voyage.
We see often in the world's history a simultaneousness in
the regeneration of thought. Here and there a seer works
on in ignorance of some obscure brother elsewhere. Rumor
COLUMBUS'S LAST YEAR. 499
and circulating manuscripts bring them into sympathy. They
grow by the correlation. It is just this correspondence that
confronts us in Columbus and Toscanelli, and it is not
quite, but almost, perceptible that this wise Floren- andTosca-
tine doctor was the first, despite Humboldt's theory,
to plant in the mind of Columbus his aspirations for the truths
of geography. It is meet that Columbus should not be men-
tioned without the accompanying name of Toscanelli. It was
the Genoese's different fortune that he could attempt as a sea-
man a practical demonstration of his fellow Italian's views.
Many a twin movement of the world's groping spirit thus
seeks the light. Progress naturally pushes on parallel lines.
Commerce thrusts her intercourse to remotest regions, while the
Church yearns for new souls to convert, and peers longingly into
the dim spaces that skirt the world's geography. Navigators
improve their methods, and learned men in the arts supply
them with exacter instruments. The widespread manifesta-
tions of all this new life at last crystallize, and Gama and Co-
lumbus appear, the reflex of every development.
Thus the discovery of Columbus came in the ripeness of
time. No one of the anterior accidents, suggesting a
western land, granting that there was some measure of ness of hia
fact in all of them, had come to a world prepared to
think on their developments. Finland was practically forgotten,
wherever it may have been. The tales of Fousang had never
a listener in Europe. Madoc was as unknown as Elidacthon.
While the new Indies were not in their turn to be forgotten,
their discoverer was to bury himself in a world of conjecture.
The superlatives of Columbus soon spent their influence. The
pioneer was lost sight of in the new currents of thought which
he had started. Not of least interest among them was the cog-
nizance of new races of men, and new revelations in the animal
and physical kingdoms, while the question of their origins
pressed very soon on the theological and scientific sense of the
No man craves more than Columbus to be judged with all
the palliations demanded of a difference of his own Not above
age and ours. No child of any age ever did less to' ^*^*8®-
improve his contemporaries, and few ever did more to prepare
500 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
the way for such improvements. The age created him and the
Claims for ^g® ^^^^ hiin. There is no more conspicuous example
palliation. jj^ history of a man showing the path and losing it.
It is by no means sure, with all our boast of benevolent prog-
ress, that atrocities not much short of those which we ascribe
to Columbus and his compeers may not at any time disgrace
the coming as they have blackened the past years of the nine-
teenth century. This fact gives us the right to judge the in-
firmities of man in any age from the high vantage-ground of
the best emotions of all the centuries. In the application of
such perennial justice Columbus must inevitably suffer. The
degradation of the times ceases to be an excuse when the man
to be judged stands on the pinnacle of the ages. The biogra-
pher cannot forget, indeed, that Columbus is a portrait set in
the surroundings of his times ; but it is equally his duty at the
same time to judge the paths which he trod by the scale of an
eternal nobleness.
The very domination of this man in the history of two hem-
ispheres warrants us in estimating him by an austere sense
of occasions lost and of opportunities embraced. The really
great man is superior to his age, and anticipates its future ;
not as a sudden apparition, but as the embodiment of a long
growth of ideas of which he is the inheritor and the capable
Test of his exemplar. Humboldt makes this personal domina-
character. ^'^j^ ^£ ^^^ kiuds. The ouc comcs from the direct
influence of character ; the other from the creation of an idea,
which, freed from personality, works its controlling mission
by changing the face of things. It is of this last description
that Humboldt makes the domination of Columbus. It is
Notacrea- extremely doubtful if any instance can be found of
tor of ideas. ^ great idea changing the world's history, which has
been created by any single man. None such was created by
Columbus. There are always forerunners whose agency is
postponed because the times are not propitious. A masterful
thought has often a long pedigree, starting from a remote an-
tiquity, but it will be dormant till it is environed by the cir-
cumstances suited to fructify it. This was just the destiny of
the intuition which began with Aristotle and came down to Co-
lumbus. To make his first voyage partook of foolhardiness, as
many a looker-on reasonably declared. It was none the less
COLUMBUS'S LAST YEAR. 501
foolhardy when it was done. If he had reached the opulent
and powerful kings of the Orient, his little cockboats and
their brave souls might have fared hard for their intrusion. His
blunder in geography very likely saved him from annihilation.
The character of Columbus has been variously drawn, almost
always with a violent proiection of the limner's own
His charac-
personality. We find Prescott contending that " what- ter differ-
ever the defects of Columbus's mental constitution, the ^" ^ ^^^^
finger of the historian will find it difficult to point to
a single blemish in his moral character." It is cer-
tainly difficult to point to a more flagrant disregard of truth
than when we find Prescott further saying, " Whether we con-
template his character in its public or private relations, in all
its features it wears the same noble aspects. It was in perfect
harmony with the grandeur of his plans, and with results more
stupendous than those which Heaven has permitted any other
mortal to achieve." It is very striking to find Prescott, after
thus speaking of his private as well as public character, and
forgetting the remorse of Columbus for the social wrongs he
had committed, append in a footnote to this very passage a
reference to his " illegitimate " son. It seems to mark an ob-
durate purpose to disguise the truth. This is also nowhere
more patent than in the palliating hero-worship of
Irving, with his constant effort to save a world's exem-
plar for the world's admiration, and more for the world's sake
than for Columbus's.
Irving at one time berates the biographer who lets " perni-
cious erudition " destroy a world's exemplar ; and at another
time he does not know that he is criticising himself when he
says that " he who paints a great man merely in great and he-
roic traits, though he may produce a fine picture, will never
present a faithful portrait." The commendation which he be-
stows upon Herrera is for precisely what militates against the
highest aims of history, since he praises that Spanish histo-
rian's disregard of judicial fairness.
In the being which Irving makes stand for the historic Co-
lumbus, his skill in softened expression induced Humboldt to
suppose that Irving's avoidance of exaggeration gate a force
to his eulogy, but there was little need to exaggerate merits, if
defects were blurred.
502 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
The learned German adds, in the opening of the third vol-
ume of his Examen Critique^ his own sense of the
Humboldt. . . £ r^ i u T'l, j. •
impressiveness oi l^olumbus. Inat impressiveness
stands confessed ; but it is like a gyrating storm that knows no
law but the vagrancy of destruction.
One need not look long to discover the secret of Humboldt's
estimate of Columbus. Without having that grasp of the pic-
turesque which appeals so effectively to the popular mind in
the letters of Vespucius, the Admiral was certainly not desti-
tute of keen observation of nature, but unfortunately this
quality was not infrequently prostituted to ignoble purposes.
To a student of Humboldt's proclivities, these traits of obser-
viation touched closely his sympathy. He speaks in his Cos-
mos of the development of this exact scrutiny in manifold
directions, notwithstanding Columbus's previous ignorance of
natural history, and tells us that this capacity for noting natural
phenomena arose from his contact with such. It would have
been better for the fame of Columbus if he had kept this scien-
tific survey in its purity. It was simply, for instance, a vitiated
desire to astound that made him mingle theological and physi-
cal theories about the land of Paradise. Such jugglery was
promptly weighed in Spain and Italy by Peter Martyr and
others as the wild, disjointed effusions of an overwrought mind,
and "the reflex of a false erudition," as Humboldt expresses
it. It was palpably by another effort, of a like kind, that he
seized upon the views of the fathers of the Church that the
earthly Paradise lay in the extreme Orient, and he was quite
as audacious when he exacted the oath on the Cuban coast, to
make it appear by it that he had really reached the outermost
parts of Asia.
Humboldt seeks to explain this errant habit by calling it
" the sudden movement of his ardent and passionate soul ; the
disarrangement of ideas which were the effect of an incoherent
method and of the extreme rapidity of his reading ; while all
was increased by his misfortunes and religious mysticism."
Such an explanation hardly relieves the subject of it from
blunter imputations. This urgency for some responsive wonder-
ment at every experience appears constantly in the journal of
Columbus's first voyage, as, for instance, when he makes every
harbor exceed in beauty the last he had seen. This was the
COLUMBUS'S LAST YEAR. 503
commonplace exaggeration which in our day is confined to the
calls of speculating land companies. The fact was that Hum-
boldt transferred to his hero something of the superlative love
of nature that he himself had experienced in the same regions ;
but there was all the difference between him and Columbus
that there is between a genuine love of nature and , a commer-
cial use of it. Whenever Columbus could divert his mind from
a purpose to make the Indies a paying investment, we find
some signs of an insight that shows either observation
of his own or the garnering of it from others, as, for tions of na-
example, when he remarks on the decrease of rain in
the Canaries and the Azores which followed upon the felling of
trees, and when he conjectures that the elongated shape of the
islands of the Antilles on the lines of the parallels was due to
the strength of the equatorial current.
Since Irving, Prescott, and Humboldt did their work, there
has sprung up the unreasoning and ecstatic French
school under the lead of Roselly de Lorgues, who Lorgties and
seek to ascribe to Columbus all the virtues of a saint.
" Columbus had no defect of character and no worldly quality,"
they say. The antiquarian and searching spirit of
Harrisse, and of those writers who have mainly been
led into the closest study of the events of the life of Columbus,
has not done so much to mould opinion as regards the es-
timate in which the Admiral should be held as to eliminate
confusing statements and put in order corroborating facts.
The reaction from the laudation of the canonizers has not pro-
duced any writer of consideration to array such derogatory esti-
mates as effectually as a plain recital of established facts would
do it. Hubert Bancroft, in the incidental mention which he
makes of Columbus, has touched his character not inaptly, and
with a consistent recognition of its infirmities. Even Prescott,
who verges constantly on the ecstatic elements of the adulatory
biographer, is forced to entertain at times " a suspicion of a
temporary alienation of mind," and in regard to the letter
which Columbus wrote from Jamaica to the sovereigns, is
obliged to recognize "sober narrative and sound reasoning
strangely blended with crazy dreams and doleful lamentations."
" Vagaries like these," he adds, " which came occasionally like
clouds over his soul to shut out the light of reason, cannot fail
504 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
to fill the mind of the reader, as they doubtless did those of
the sovereigns, with mingled sentiments of wonder and com-
passion." An unstinted denunciatory purpose, much weak-
AaronGood- ^^^^ % ^^ inconsidcratc rush of disdain, character-
"''^- izes an American writer, Aaron Goodrich, in his Life
of the so-oalled Christopher Columbus (New York, 1875) ;
but the critic's temper is too peevish and his opinions are too
unreservedly biased to make his results of any value.
The mental hallucinations of Columbus, so patent in his last
years, were not beyond recognition at a much earlier age, and
those who would get the true import of his character must trace
these sorrowful manifestations to their beginnings, and distin-
guish acjurately between Columbus when his purpose was lofty
and unselfish and himself again when he became mercenary and
erratic. So much does the verdict of history lodge occasionally
more in the narrator of events than in the character
of them that, in Humboldt's balancing of the baser
with the nobler symptoms of Columbus's nature, he does not
find even the most degraded of his actions other than power-
ful in will, and sometimes, at least, clear in intelligence. There
were certainly curiously transparent, but transient gleams of
wisdom to the last. Humboldt further says that the faith of
Columbus soothed his dreary and weary adversities by the
charm of ascetic reveries. So a handsome euphuism tries to
save his fame from harsher epithets.
It was a faith, says the same delineator, which justified at
need, under the pretext of a religious object, the employment
of deceit and the excess of a despotic power ; a tenderer form,
doubtless, of the vulgar expression that the end sanctifies the
means. It is not, however, within the practice of the better his-
torical criticism of our day to let such elegant wariness beguile
the reader's mind. If the different, not to say more advanced,
condition of the critical mind is to be of avail to a new age
through the advantage gained from all the ages, it is in pre-
cisely this emancipation from the trammels of traditionary bond-
age that the historian asserts his own, and dispels the glamour
of a conventionalized hero-worship.
Dr. Shea, our most distinguished Catholic scholar, who has
Dr. J. G. dealt with the character of Columbus, says : " He
^^®*' accomplished less than some adventurers with poor
COLUMBUS'S LAST YEAR. 505
equipped vessels. He seems to have succeeded in attaching but
few men to him who adhered loyally to his cause. Those under
him were constantly rebellious and mutinous ; those over him
found him impracticable. To array all these as enemies, in-
spired by a Satanic hostility to a great servant of God, is to ask
too much for our belief ; " and yet this is precisely what Irving
by constant modifications, and De Lorgues in a monstrous de-
gree, feel themselves justified in doing.
There is nothing in Columbus's career that these French can-
onizers do not find convertible to their purpose. The French
whether it be his wild vow to raise 4,000 horse and ca^^^^ers.
50,000 foot in seven years, wherewith to snatch the Holy Sepul-
chre from the infidel, or the most commonplace of his canting
ejaculations. That Columbus was a devout Catholic, according
to the Catholicism of his epoch, does not admit of question, but
when tried by any test that finds the perennial in holy acts,
Columbus fails to bear the examination. He had nothing of the
generous and noble spirit of a conjoint lover of man and of
God, as the higher spirits of all times have developed it. There
was no all-loving Deity in his conception. His Lord was one
in whose name it was convenient to practice enormities. He
shared this subterfuge with Isabella and the rest. We need to
think on what Las Casas could be among his contemporaries,
if we hesitate to apply the conceptions of an everlasting
humanity.
The mines which Columbus went to seek were hard to find.
The people he went to save to Christ were easy to exterminate.
He mourned bitterly that his own efforts were ill requited. He
had no pity for the misery of others, except they be his depen-
dents and co-sharers of his purposes. He found a policy worth
commemorating in slitting the noses and tearing off the ears of
a naked heathen. He vindicates his excess by impressing upon
the world that a man setting out to conquer the Indies must
not be judged by the amenities of life which belong to a quiet
rule in established countries. Yet, with a chance to establish a
humane life among peoples ready to be moulded to good pur-
poses, he sought from the very first to organize among them
the inherited evils of " established countries." He converts
talked a great deal about making converts of the podr ^""^ ^'*''®^'
souls, while the very first sight which he had of them prompted
506 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
him to consign them to the slave-mart, just as if the first step
to Christianize was the step which unmans.
The first vicar apostolic sent to teach the faith in Santo Do-
mingo returned to Spain, no longer able to remain, powerless,
in sight of the cruelties practiced by Columbus. Isabella pre-
vented the selling of the natives as slaves in Spain, when Co-
lumbus had dispatched thither five shiploads. Las Casas tells
us that in 1494-96 Columbus was generally hated in Espanola
for his odiousness and injustice, and that the Admiral's policy
with the natives killed a third of them in those two years. The
Franciscans, when they arrived at the island, found the colonists
exuberant that they had been relieved of the rule which Colum-
bus had instituted ; and the Benedictines and Dominicans
added their testimony to the same effect.
The very first words, as has been said, that he used, in con-
He urges en- veying to expectant Europe the wonders of his dis-
nativ"lf?om covcry, suggcstcd a scheme of enslaving the strange
the first. people. He had already made the voyage that of a
kidnapper, by entrapping nine of the unsuspecting natives.
On his second voyage he sent home a vessel-load of slaves, on
the pretense of converting them, but his sovereigns intimated to
him that it would cost less to convert them in their own homes.
Then he thought of the righteous alternative of sending some to
Spain to be sold to buy provisions to support those who would
convert others in their homes. The monarchs were perhaps
dazed at this sophistry ; and Columbus again sent home four
vessels laden with reeking cargoes of flesh. When he re-
turned to Spain, in 1496, to circumvent his enemies, he once
more sought in his turn, and by his reasoning, to cheat the
devil of heathen souls by sending other cargoes. At last the
line was drawn. It was not to save their souls, but to punish
them for daring to war against the Spaniards, that they should
be made to endure such horrors.
It is to Columbus, also, that we trace the beginning of that
monstrous guilt which Spanish law sanctioned under the name
of repartimientos^ and by which to every colonist, and even to
the vilest, absolute power was given over as many natives as his
means and rank entitled him to hold. Las Casas tells us that
Ferdinand could hardly have had a conception of the enormi-
ties of the system. If so, it was because he winked out of sight
COLUMBUS'S LAST YEAR. 507
the testimony of observers, while he listened to the tales
prompted of greed, rapine, and cruelty. The value of the sys-
tem to force heathen out of hell, and at the same time to re-
plenish his treasury, was the side of it presented to Ferdinand's
mind by such as had access to his person. In 1501, we find the
Dominicans entering their protest, and by this Ferdinand was
moved to take the counsel of men learned in the law and in
what passed in those days for Christian ethics. This court of
appeal approved these necessary efforts, as was claimed, to in-
crease those who were new to the faith, and to reward those
who supported it.
Peter Martyr expressed the comforting sentiments of the age :
" National right and that of the Church concede personal lib-
erty to man. State policy, however, demurs. Custom repels the
idea. Long experience shows that slavery is necessary to pre-
vent those returning to their idolatry and error whom the Church
has o|w|gained." All professed servants of the Church, with a
few exceptions like Las Casas, ranged themselves with Colum-
bus on the side of such specious thoughts ; and Las Casas, in rec-
ognizing this fact, asks what we could expect of an old sailor and
fighter like Columbus, when the wisest and most respectable of
the priesthood backed him in his views. It was indeed the
misery of Columbus to miss the opportunity of being wiser than
his fellows, the occasion always sought by a commanding spirit,
and it was offered to him almost as to no other.
There was no restraining the evil. The cupidity of the colo-
nists overcame all obstacles. The Queen was beguiled into giv-
ing equivocal instructions to Ovando, who succeeded Progress of
to Bobadilla, and out of them by interpretation grew ?h7we8t°in-
an increase of the monstrous evil. In 1503, every *^'®^'
atrocity had reached a legal recognition. Labor was forced ;
the slaves were carried whither the colonists willed ; and for
eight months at least in every year, families were at pleasure
disrupted without mercy. One feels some satisfaction in see-
ing Columbus himself at last, in a letter to Diego, December
1, 1504, shudder at the atrocities of Ovando. When one sees
the utter annihilation of the whole race of the Antilles, a thing
clearly assured at the date of the death of Columbus, one wishes
that that dismal death-bed in Valladolid could have had its
gloom illumined by a consciousness that the hand which lifted
The Francis
cans.
508 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
the banner of Spain and of Christ at San Salvador had done
something to stay the misery which cupidity and perverted
piety had put in course. When a man seeks to find and parades
reasons for committing a crime, it is to stifle his conscience.
Columbus passed years in doing it.
Back of Isabella in this spasmodic interest in the Indians
was the celebrated Archbishop of Granada, Fernando
de Talavera, whom we have earlier known as the prior
of Prado. He had been since 1478 the confessor of the Queen,
and when the time came for sending missionaries to the An-
tilles it was natural that they were of the order of St. Jerome,
of which Talavera was himself a member. Columbus, through
a policy which induced him to make as apparent as possible his
mingling of interests with the Church, had before this
adopted the garb of the Franciscans, and this order
was the second in time to be seen in Espanola in 1502. They
were the least tolerant of the leading orders, and had already
shown a disposition to harass the Indians, and were known to
treat haughtily the Queen's intercessions for the poor souls. It
was not till after the death of Columbus that the Dominicans,
coming in 1510, reinforced the kindly spirit of the priests of
St. Jerome. Still later they too abandoned their humanity.
The downfall of Columbus besran when he wrested from the
reluctant monarchs what he called his privileges, and when he
insisted upon riches as the accompaniment of such state and
consequence as those privileges might entail. The terms were
granted, so far as the King was concerned, simply to put a stop
to importunities, for he never anticipated being called upon to
confirm them. The insistency of Columbus in this respect is
in strange contrast to the satisfaction which the captains of
Prince Henry, Da Gama and the rest, were content to find in
^ , ^ , the unpolluted triumphs of science. The mercenary
Columbus's r^ ■, p cr ^ "
mercenary Columbus was forccd to the uttcrauce of Solomon:
impulses.
" I looked upon the labor that I had labored to do,
and behold all was vanity and vexation of spirit." The
Preacher never had a better example. Columbus was wont to
say that gold gave the soul its flight to paradise. Perhaps he
His praise of referred to the masses which could be bought, or to
^^^^' the alms which could propitiate Heaven. He might
COLUMBUS'S LAST YEAR. 509
better have remembered the words of warning given to Baruch :
" Seekest thou great things for thyself ? Seek them not. For,
saith the Lord, thy life will I give unto them for a prey in
all places whither thou goest." And a prey in all places he
became.
Humboldt seeks to palliate this cupidity by making him the
conscious inheritor of the pecuniary chances which every free
son of Genoa expected to find within his grasp by commercial
enterprise. Such prominence was sought because it carried
with it power and influence in the republic.
If Columbus had found riches in the New World as easily as
he anticipated, it is possible that such affluence would have
moulded his character in other ways for good or for evil. He
soon found himself confronting a difficult task, to satisfy with
insufficient means a craving which his exaggerations had estab-
lished. This led him to spare no device, at whatever sacrifice
of the natives, to produce the coveted gold, and it was an ingen-
ious mockery that induced him to deck his captives with golden
chains and parade them through the Spanish towns.
After Da Gama had opened the route to Cathay by the Cape
of Good Hope, and Columbus had, as he supposed, touched
the eastern confines of the same country, the wonder- Nicolas de
ful stories of Asiatic glories told by Nicolas de Conti ^^"*'"
were translated, by order of King Emanuel (in 1500), into
Portuguese. It is no wonder that the interest in the develop-
ment of 1492 soon waned when the world began to compare
the descriptions of the region beyond the Ganges, as made
known by Marco Polo, and so recently by Conti, and the ap-
parent confirmation of them established by the Portuguese, with
the meagre resources which Columbus had associated ^he world's
with the same country, in all that he could say about ^•^^"**
the Antilles or bring from them. An adventurous voyage
across the Sea of Darkness begat little satisfaction, if all there
was to show for it consisted of men with tails or a single eye, or
races of Amazons and cannibals.
When we view the character of Columbus in its influence
upon the minds of men, we find some strange anomalies. Be-
fore his passion was tainted with the ambition of wealth and
its consequence, and while he was urging the acceptance of his
views for their own sake, it is very evident that he impressed
510 CHRIS TOPHER COL [1MB US.
others in a way that never happened after he had secured his
privileges. It is after this turning-point of his life that we
begin to see his falsities and indiscretions, or at least to find
record of them. The incident of the moving light in the night
before his first landfall is a striking instance of his daring
disregard of all the qualities that help a commander in his
dominance over his men. It needs little discrimination to dis-
cern the utter deceitfulness of that pretense. A noble desire
to win the loftiest honors of the discovery did not satisfy a
mean, insatiable greed. He blunted every sentiment
Columbus's - •,iii«i M /•!•
lack of 01 generosity when he deprived a poor sailor oi nis
pecuniary reward. That there was no actual light
to be seen is apparent from the distance that the discoverers
sailed before they saw land, since if the light had been ahead
they would not have gone on, and if it had been abeam they
would not have left it. The evidence is that of himself and a
thrall, and he kept it secret at the time. The author of the Ilis-
torie sees the difficulty, and attempts to vaporize the whole story
by saying that the light was spiritual, and not physical. Navar-
rete passes it by as a thing necessary, for the fame of Colum-
bus, to be ignored.
A second instance of Columbus's luckless impotence, at a
time when an honorable man would have relied upon his charac-
ter, was the attempt to make it appear that he had reached the
His enforced coast of Asia by iuiposiug an oath on his men to that
oathatcuba. Qf^QQ^^ [^ penalty of having their tongues wrenched out
if they recanted. One can hardly conceive a more debasing
exercise of power.
His insistence upon territorial power was the serious mistake
His ambi- ^^ ^^^^ ^i^G. Hc thought, in making an agreement
territorial ^ith his sovcrcigus to become a viceroy, that he was
power. securing an honor ; he was in truth pledging his hap-
piness and beggaring his life. He sought to attain that which
the fates had unfitted him for, and the Spanish monarchs, in an
evil day, which was in due time their regret, submitted to his
hallucinated dictation. No man ever evinced less capacity for
ruling a colony.
The most sorrowful of all the phases of Columbus's
fessedin- character is that hapless collapse, when he abandoned
all faith in the natural world, and his premonitions
COLUMBUS'S LAST YEAR. 511
of it, and threw himself headlong into the vortex of what he
called inspiration.
Everything in his scientific argument had been logical. It
produced the reliance which comes of wisdom. It was a manly-
show of an incisive reason. If he had rested here his claims
for honor, he would have ranked with the great seers of the
universe, with Copernicus and the rest. His successful suit
with the Spanish sovereigns turned his head, and his degra-
dation began when he debased a noble purpose to the level of
mercenary claims. He relied, during his first voyage, more
on chicanery in controlling his crew than upon the dignity of
his aim and the natural command inherent in a lofty spirit.
This deceit was the beginning of his decadence, which ended in
a sad self-aggrandizement, when he felt himself no longer an
instrument of intuition to probe the secrets of the earth, but
a possessor of miraculous inspiration. The man who had been
self-contained became a thrall to a fevered hallucination.
The earnest mental study which had sustained his inquisitive
spirit through long years of dealings with the great physical
problems of the earth was forgotten. He hopelessly began to
accredit to Divinity the measure of his own fallibility. " God
made me," he says, " the messenger of the new heaven and the
new earth, of which He spoke in the Apocalypse by St. John,
after having spoken of it by the mouth of Isaiah, and He
showed me the spot where to find it." He no longer thought
it the views of Aristotle which guided him. The Greek might
be pardoned for his ignorance of the intervening America. It
was mere sacrilege to impute such ignorance to the Divine
wisdom.
There is no excuse but the plea of insanity. He naturally
lost his friends with losing his manly devotion to a Lost Ws
cause. I do not find the beginning of this sur- ^"®"^^-
render of his manhood earlier than in the will which he signed
February 22, 1498, when he credits the Holy Trinity with hav-
ing inspired him with the idea that one could go to the Indies
by passing westward.
In his letter to the nurse of Don Juan, he says that the pro-
phecy of Isaiah in the Apocalypse had found its interpreter in
him, the messenger to disclose a new part of the world. " Hu-
man reason," he wrote in the Proficias., " mathematics, and
512 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
maps have served me in no wise. What I have accomplished
is simply the fulfillment of the prophecy of David."
We have seen a pitiable man meet a pitiable death. Hardly
His pitiable ^ name in profane history is more august than his.
death. Hardly another character in the world's record has
made so little of its oppprtunities. His discovery was a blun-
der ; his blunder was a new world ; the New World is his
monument ! Its discoverer might have been its father ; he
proved to be its despoiler. He might have given its young days
such a benignity as the world likes to associate with a maker ;
he left it a legacy of devastation and crime. He might have
been an unselfish promoter of geographical science ; he proved
a rabid seeker for gold and a viceroyalty. He might have won
converts to the fold of Christ by the kindness of his spirit ; he
gained the execrations of the good angels. He might, like Las
Casas, have rebuked the fiendishness of his contemporaries ;
he set them an example of perverted belief. The -triumph of
Barcelona led down to the ignominy of Valladolid, with every
step in the degradation palpable and resultant.
CHAPTER XXI.
THE DESCENT OF COLUMBUS'S HONORS.
Columbus had left behind him, as the natural guardians of
his name and honors, the following relatives : his jjjg j^j^g.
brother Bartholomew, who in December, 1508, had ^°^^'
issue of an illegitimate daughter, his only child so far as known ;
his brother Diego, who, as a priest, was precluded from hav-
ing lawful issue ; his son Diego, now become the first inher-
itor of his honors ; his natural son, Ferdinand, the most con-
siderable in intellectual habit of all Columbus's immediate kin.
The descent of his titles depended in the first instance on
such a marriage as Diego might contract. Within a j^^ 3^,^
year or two Diego had had by different women two ^'^^°'
bastard children, Francisco and Cristoval, shut off from heir-
ship by the manner of their birth. Diego was at this time not
far from four and twenty years of age.
Ten or twelve days after Diego succeeded to his inheritance,
Philip the Handsome, now sharing the throne of Castile as
husband of Juana, daughter of Isabella, ordered that what was
due to Columbus should be paid to his successor. This order
reached Espaiiola in June, 1506, but was not obeyed promptly ;
and when Ferdinand of Aragon returned from Italy in August,
1507, and succeeded to the Castilian throne, he repeated the
order on August 24.
It would seem that in due time Diego was in receipt of
450,000 ounces of gold annually from the four foun- j^^^^^,,
dries in Espanola. This, with whatever else there may
have been, was by no means satisfactory to the young aspirant,
and he began to press Ferdinand for a restitution of
his inherited honors and powers with all the perti- presses for a
nacity which had characterized his father's urgency. ofCoium-
Upon the return of Ferdinand from Naples, Diego-
determined to push the matter to an issue, but Ferdinand still
s in-
come.
614 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
evaded it. Diego now asked, according to Las Casas and
Herrera, to be allowed to bring a suit against the Crown before
the Council of the Indies, and the King yielded to the request,
confident, very likely, in his ability to control the verdict in the
public interests. The suit at once began (1508), and
against the coutiuucd for scvcral years before all was accom-
plished, and in December of that same year (1508),
we find Diego empowering an attorney of the Duke of Alva
to represent his case.
The defense of the Crown was that a transmission of the
viceroyalty to the Admiral's son was against public policy, and
at variance with a law of 1480, which forbade any judicial office
under the Crown being held in perpetuity. It was further ar-
gued in the Crown's behalf that Columbus had not been the
chief instrument of the first discovery and had not discovered
the mainland, but that other voyagers had anticipated him. In
response to all allegations, Diego rested his case on the con-
tracts of the Crown with his father, which assured him the
powers he asked for. Further than this, the Crown had already
recognized, he claimed, a part of the contract in its orders of
June 2, 1506, and August 24, 1507, whereby the revenues due
under the contracts had been restored to him. It was also
charged by the defense that Columbus had been relieved of his
powers because he had abused them, and the answer to this was
that the sovereigns' letter of 1502 had acknowledged that
Bobadilla acted without authority. A number of navigators in
the western seas were put on the stand to rebut the allegation
of existing knowledge of the coast before the voyages of Co-
lumbus, particularly in substantiating the priority of the voyage
of Columbus to the coast of Paria, and the evidence was suf-
ficient to show that all the alleged claims were simply per-
verted notions of the really later voyage of Ojeda in 1499. It
is from the testimony at this time, as given in Navarrete, that
the biographers of Columbus derive considerable information,
not otherwise attainable, respecting the voyages of Colum-
bus,— testimony, however, which the historian is obliged to
weigh with caution in many respects.
' The case was promptly disposed of in Diego's favor, but not
without suspicions of the Crown's influence to that
Diego wins. ^ ,_ , . , ■, ^ <• -i i • 1 1
end. ihe suit is, indeed, one of the puzzles in the
THE DESCENT OF COLUMBUS'S HONORS. 515
history of Columbus and his fame. If it was a suit to secure
a verdict against the Crown in order to protect the Crown's
rights under the bull of demarcation, we can understand why-
much that would have helped the position of the fiscal was not
brought forward. If it was what it purported to be, an effort
to relieve the Crown of obligations fastened upon it under mis-
conceptions or deceits, we may well marvel at such omission of
evidence.
It was left for the King to act on the decision for restitution.
This might have been by his studied procrastination indefinitely
delayed but for a shrewd movement on the part of Diego, who
opportunely aspired to the hand of Dona Maria de Toledo, the
daughter of Fernando de Toledo. This nobleman was brother
of the Duke of Alva, one of the proudest grandees of Spain,
and he was also cousin of Ferdinand, the King. The
alliance, soon effected, brought the young suitor a ries Maria
powerful friend in his uncle, and the bride's family
were not averse to a connection with the heir to the viceroyalty
of the Indies, now that it was confirmed by the Council of the
Indies. Harrisse cannot find that the promised dower ever
came with the wife ; but, on the contrary, Diego seems to have
become the financial agent of his wife's family. A demand for
the royal acquiescence in the orders of the Council could now
be more easily made, and Ferdinand readily conceded Diego waives
all but the title of Viceroy. Diego waived that for {fS o?
the time, and he was accordingly accredited as gov- ^'^^^^y-
ernor of Espafiola, in the place of Ovando.'
Isabella had indeed, while on her death-bed, importuned the
King to recall Ovando, because of the appalling stories of his
cruelty to the Indians. Ferdinand had found that the gov-
ernor's vigilance conduced to heavy remittances of gold, and
had shown no eagerness to carry out the Queen's wishes. He
had even ordered Ovando to begin that transference of the
poor Lucayan Indians from their own islands to work in the
Espaiiola mines which soon resulted in the depopulation of the
Bahamas. Now that he was forced to withdraw ovando
Ovando he made it as agreeable for him as possible, ^^^^^^^^^i-
and in the end there was no lack of commendation of his ad-
ministration. Indeed, as Spaniards went in those days^ Ovando
was good enough to gain the love of Las Casas, "except for
some errors of moral blindness."
516 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
It was on May 3, 1509, that Ferdinand gave Diego his in-
1509. June structions ; and on June 9, the new governor with
Lis^for ^is noble wife sailed from San Lucar. There went
Espanoia. ^j^j^ Diego, bcside a large number of noble Span-
iards who introduced, as Oviedo says, an infusion of the best
Spanish blood into the colony, his brother Ferdinand, who
was specially charged, as Oviedo further tells us, to found
monasteries and churches. His two uncles also accompanied
him. Bartholomew had gone to Rome after Columbus's death,
with the intention of inducing Pope Julius II. to urge upon the
King a new voyage of discovery ; and Harrisse thinks that this
is proved by some memoranda attached to an account of the
coasts of Veragua, which it is supposed that Bartholomew gave
at this time to a canon of the Lateran, which is now preserved
in the Megliavecchian library, and has been printed by Har-
risse in his Bihliotheca Americana Vetustissima. It was per-
haps on this visit that the Adelantado took to Rome that map
of Columbus's voyage to those coasts which it is usually said
was carried there in 1505, when he may possibly have borne
thither the letter of Columbus to the Pope.
The position which Bartholomew now went with Diego to as-:
sume, that of the Chief Alguazil of Santo Domingo, caused
much complaint from Diego Mendez, who claimed the credit of
Barthoio- bringing about the restitution of Diego's power, and
busTandiH- ^ho had, as he says, been promised both by Columbus
ego Mendez. ^^^ j^y jj'g ^^^ ^j^'g q^^qq g^g recompcnse for his many
services.
The fleet arrived at its destination July 10, 1509. The wife
1509. July o^ *h^ governor had taken a retinue, which for splen-
lekc^ThiB dor had never before been equaled in the New World,
government. ^^^^ '^^ enabled her to maintain a kind of viceregal
state in the little capital. It all helped Diego to begin his rule
with no inconsiderable consequence. There wks needed some-
thing of such attraction to beguile the spirits of the settlers, for,
as Benzoni learned years afterwards, when he visited the region,
the coming of the son of Columbus had not failed to engender
jealousies, which attached to the imposition of another for-
eigner upon the colony.
The King was determined that Diego's rule should be con-
fined to Espanoia, and, much to the governor's annoyance, he
THE DESCENT OF COLUMBUS'S HONORS.
517
parceled out the coasts which Columbus had tracked near the
Isthmus of Panama into two governments, and installed Ojeda
in command of the eastern one, which was called New ojedaand
Andalusia, while the one beyond the Gulf of Uraba, ^i^^^^s^a.
w^iich included Verag-ua, he gave to Diego de Nicuessa, and
called it Castilla del Oro.
IVLIV<y JI TAPA S/^ONENSIS LTGVK
i^I
POPE JULIUS II,
This action of the King, as well as his effort to put Porto
Rico under an independent governor, incited new ex-
postulations from Diego, and served to make his rule
518 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
in the island quite as uncomfortable as its management had
been to his father. There also grew up the same discourage-
Faction of Hieut f rom faction. The King's treasurer, Miguel Pas-
passamonte. gamontc, bccamc the head of the rebellious party, not
without suspicion that he was prompted to much denunciations
in his confidential communications with the King. Reports of
Diego's misdeeds and ambitions, threatening the royal power
even, were assiduously conveyed to the King. The sovereign
devised a sort of corrective, as he thought, of this, by institut-
ing; later, October 5, 1511, a court of appeals, or Audi-
1511. Octo- =» . , . T , . 1 1 . ,1
ber5. Au- enciG^ to whicli the aggrieved colonists could go in
diencia. i • i r- • • . • t
their deiense against oppression or extortion. Its
natural effect was to undermine the governor's authority and to
weaken his influence. He found himself thwarted in all efforts to
relieve the Indians of their burdens, as nothing of that sort could
be done without disturbing the revenues of leading colonists.
There was no great inducement to undo measures by which no
one profited in receipts more than himself, and the cruel devas-
tation of the native population ran on as it had done. He cer-
tainly did not show himself averse to continuing the system of
repartimientos for the benefit of himself and his friends.
Diego, who had been for a while in Spain, returned in 1512
to Espanola, and later new orders were sent out by the King,
and these included commands to reduce the labor of the Indians
one third, to import negro slaves from Guinea as a measure of
further relief to the natives, and to brand Carib slaves, so as to
protect other Indians from harsh treatment intended for the
Caribs alone.
Diego was again in Spain in 1513, and the attempts of Ojeda
and Nicuessa having failed, later orders in 1514 so far rein-
stated Diego in his viceregal power as to permit him to send his
uncle Bartholomew to take possession of the Yeragua
mewcoium- coast. But the life of the Adelantado was drawing to
a close, and his death soon occurring nothing was done.
Affairs had come to such a pass that Diego again felt it
necessary to repair to Court to counteract his enemies' intrigues,
and once more getting permission from the King, he sailed for
1515. Diego Spain, April 9, 1515, leaving the Vice-Queen with a
in Spain. couucil in authority.
Diego found the King open and kindly, and not averse to ac-
THE DESCENT OF COLUMBUS'S HONORS.
519
knowledging the merits of his government. He again pressed
his bonded rights with the old fervency. '' I would bestow them
willingly on you," said the King ; " but I cannot do so without
l^crr £i>roloerrCb2i(lcn1icbTRcTrervnDT\6mg/ Embemogju 0fleiTacb(
<&ergcgju»urgnnBi/aiar6gtb<sn3ucB'«n6t.i4.ja>matij.iroo.<B«r7An4ilpani((lxr2L6mg T.ytbn<art.i?i's.«nt>£it&<5mifd)ft^<5nlg
*».3on«i; mo gf f riin.ii.<D ciobiw.i 71 o.R4mi(<i)tT t-tiia.i^ ^tbruoru.! 5- < o. ^itU ("^xi h" mit J'rtwUin ^(itxlLj aMSmgui !U pon»k>
8d.u.apnli« J f X 6. <5«p«aWmg Ptirt(pparn.ij.tn47 J f » >■ C«m, t eric jOt Oer giiiig ocn (got »i«9im/Sr8/W» tnumpb.
CHARLES THE FIFTH.
intrusting them also to your son and to his successors." " Is it
just," said Diego, " that I should suffer for a son which I may
never have ? " Las Casas tells us that Diego repeated this col-
loquy to him.
520 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
The King found it reasonable to question if Columbus had
really sailed alonsr all the coasts in which Diesfo
1516. Janu- . i i i i i • •
ary23. Fer- claimed a sharc, and ordered an examination of the
dinand died. -i i i • • i
matter to be made. W niie these claims were in abey-
ance, the King died, January 23, 1516.
This event much retarded the settlement of the difficulties.
Cardinal Ximenes, who held power for a while, was not willing
to act, and nothing was done for four years, during part of
Diego again which pcriod Dicgo was certainly in Espaiiola. We
inEspauoia. j^jjow also that he was present at the convocation
of Barcelona, presided over by the Emperor, when Las Casas
made his urgent appeals for the Indians and pictured their
hardships. Finally, in 1520, when Charles Y. was about to em-
1520. Diego bark for Flanders, Diego was in a position to advance
m Spam. ^^ ^^^ Empcror so large a sum as ten thousand ducats,
which was, as it appears, about a fifth of his annual income
from Espanola at this time. This financial succor
Diego par- /• i -r^
tiaiiyrein- Seemed to opcu the way for the Emperor to dismiss
all charges against Diego, and to reinstate him in
qualified authority as Viceroy over the Indies.
This seeming restitution was not without a disagreeable ac-
companiment in the appointment of a supervisor to reside at
his viceregal court and report on the Viceroy's doings. In Sep-
1520. Sep- tember, 1520, Diego sailed once more for his govern-
eg^ret'unS^" Hient, and on November 14 we find him in Santo
to Espauoia. DQ^^ingo, and shortly afterwards engaged in the con-
struction of a lordly palace, which he was to occupy, and which
is seen there to-day. The substantialness of its structure gave
rise to rumors that he was preparing a fortress for ulterior
aims.
Diego soon found that various administrative measures had
not gone well in his absence. Commanders of some of the prov-
inces had exceeded their powers, and it became necessary to su-
persede them. This made them enemies as a matter of course.
The raising of sugar-cane had rapidly developed under the im-
ported African labor, and the revenues now came for the most
^^ part from the plantations rather than from the mines,
slaves in- The ncgrocs so increased that it was not long before
some of them dared to rise in revolt, but the mis-
chief was stopped by a rapid swoop of armed horsemen. The
-f^r^^^
522 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
jealousies and revengeful accusations of Diego's enemies were
not so easily quelled, and before long he was summoned to Spain
to render an account of his doings, for Lucas Vasquez de Ayllon
had presented charges against him. On September 16, 1523,
Diego embarked, and landed at St. Lucar November 5. He
presented himself before the Emperor at Vittoria in January,
1524, and reviewed his conduct. This he succeeded in doing in a
manner to disarm his foes ; and this success encouraged him to
press anew for his inherited rights. The demand ended in the
1523. Diego ^ucstious in disputc being referred to a board ; and
in Spam. Dicgo for two jcars followed the Court in its migrations,,
to be in attendance on the sessions of this commission. His
1526 Febru- ^^^^^^ gavc Way undcr the strain, so that, with every-
dles^' ^'^^° thing still unsettled, he died at Montalvan, February
23, 1526, having survived his father for twenty troub-
lous years. His remains were laid in the monastery of Las
Cuevas by the side of Columbus. Being later conveyed to the
cathedral at Santo Domingo, they were, if one may credit the
quite unproved statements of the priests of the cathedral, mis-
taken for those of his father, and taken to Havana in 1795.
The Yice-Queen and her family were still in Santo Domingo,
and her children were seven in number, four daugh-
ters and three sons. The descent of the honors came
eventually to the descendants of one of these daughters, Isabel,
who married George of Portugal, Count of Gelvts. Of the
Luis Colon thrcc sons, Luis succeeded his father, who was in turn
succeeds. succccdcd by Diego, a son of Luis's brother Cristoval.
The Vice-Queen, after making an ineffectual attempt to colo-
nize Veragua, in which she was thwarted by the royal Audi-
encia at Espailola, returned to Spain in 1529. Her son Luis,
the heir, was still a child, having been born in 1521 or 1522.
For fourteen years his mother pressed his claims upon the Em-
peror, Charles V., and she was during a part of the time in
such distress that she borrowed money of Ferdinand Columbus
and pledged her jewels. She lived till 1549, and died at Santo
Domingo.
Early in 1536 the Cardinal Garcia de Loyasa, in behalf of
1536. The ^^G Couiicil of the Indics, rendered a decision in which
compmmise ^^^ ^^^ Ferdinand Columbus had acted as arbiters,,
with Luis. which was confirmed by the Emperor in September of
THE DESCENT OF COLUMBUS'S HONORS. 523
the same year. This was that, upon the abandonment by Luis
of all claims upon the revenues of the Indies, of the title of Vice-
roy, and of the right to appoint the officers of the New World,
he should be given the island of Jamaica in fief, a perpetual
annuity of ten thousand ducats, and the title of Duke Du^e of
of Veragua, with an estate twenty-five leagues square ^^^^«^-
in that province, to support the title and functions of Admiral
of the Indies. In 1540 Luis returned to Espanola 1540. L^ig
with the title of Captain-General, and in 1542 mar- "^ Espauoia.
ried at Santo Domingo, much against his mother's wish, Maria
de Orozco, who later lived in Honduras and married another.
While she was still living, Luis again espoused at Santo Do-
mingo Maria de Mosquera. In 1551 he returned to Spain.
Whatever remained of the rights which Columbus had sought
to transmit to his heirs had already been modified to coiumbus's
their detriment by Charles, under decrees in 1540, ^JadSy
1541, and 1542 ; and when Charles was succeeded by abridged.
Philip II., early in 1556, one of the first acts of the latter was
to force Luis to abandon his fief of Veragua and to throw up
his power as Admiral. The Council of the Indies took cogni-
zance of the case in July, 1556, and on September 28 following,
Philip II., at Ghent, recompensed the grandson of Columbus,
for his submission to the inevitable, by decreeing to Luis the
honorary title of Admiral of the Indies and Duke of Veragua,
with an income of seven thousand ducats. So in fifty
155G All
years the dreams of Columbus for territorial magnifi- coiumbus's
cence came to naught, and the confident injunctions rights aban-
of his will were dissipated in the air.
Immediately after this, Luis furtiv^ely married, while his
other wives were still living. Ana de Castro Ossorio. unsapo-
The authorities found in these polygamous acts a con- iyg''^™i«*-
venient opportunity to get another troublesome Colon out of
the way, and arrested Luis in 1559. He was held in prison for
nearly five years, and when in 1563 judgment was got against
him, he was sentenced to ten years of exile, half of which was
to be passed in Oran, in Africa. While his appeal was pend-
ing, his scandalous life added crime to crime, and finally, in
November, 1565, his sentence being confirmed, he 15-2. Luis
was conducted to Oran, and there he died February ^'^^'
3, 1572.
THE COLUMBUS PEDIGREE.
Note. Dotted lines mark illegitimate descents ; the dash-and-dot lines mark pretended de-
scents. The heavy face numerals show the successful holders of the honors of Columbus. The
lines aa, b b, and c c join respectively.
Fadrique Enriquez,
Adin. of Castile.
I
Alvarez
de
Toledo
(
Duke of
Alba.
Maria.
I
Fernando.
Maria de
Toledo
J nana = Juan II.
I of Aragon.
Ferdinand
of Aragon
; DIEGO,
2 d.l526.
Isabella of
Castile.
Filipe :
Moniz
CRISTOFORO
1
Beatrix
Henriquez,
living in 1513.
Fernando,
b. 1488,
d. 1539.
Felipa,
nun.
I
Maria
= Sancho
I de Cardona,
A'ini. of
Arngou.
Juana
:= Luis de
la Cueva.
Isabel
= Jorge de Oarvajal
Portogallo.
Luisa de =r LUIS = Maria de
3 I Mosquira.
Cristoval, Luis,
) Maria,
Maria =: Carlos de
Alvaro.
d. s. p.
1583.
s. p.
—. Fr.
de Men-
d. 1G05.
Maria
d. s. p.
Arellano,
d. bef. IGOO.
Jorge
Alberti,
d. 1581.
Juana
= Fr. Pacheco,
I d. 1G05.
James II.
lEnglind.
: Arabella
Churchill.
Duke of
Berwick.
James Stuart,
Dike of Liria,
d. 1738.
Carlos.
Various
lines.
Catarina
Ventura,
d. 1740.
Jacobo Eduardo.
10
Carlos Fernando.
I 11
NUNO DE 5
Portogallo,
establislied in
1G08.
Alvaro 6
Jacinto.
Pedro Nuno. 7
Pedro Manuel. S
I
Oris- Maria,
toval. of the
Convent
of San
Qnirce.
Fi'ipa, c
d. 1577.
I
Pedro Nuno, 9
d. 17oS,
without legitimate
issue.
Jacobo Filipe,
dispossessed
in 1790;
the decree of
ll3l>4 rev rs^< .
\i
Continued to
our day.
DOMENICO
Susanna
Fontauarosa.
Dominico
Colombo, of
Cuccaro.
Bartoiomeo.
nun,
b. 1508.
I
Giovanni
Pelegrino,
d. s. p.
Gia-jomo Blanchiuetta
or Diego, :=. Giacomo
priest. Paravello.
Ana = Cristoval = Magdalena Diego
de I de = Isabel
Pravia Guzman. Justenian.
c = DIEGO,
4 d. s. p,
1578.
Francesca
=: Diego -
I Ortegon.
Josefa
= De Paz de la
I Serra.
Josefa =z Martin de
I Larbeateoci.
Diego.
Francisco,
Pedro Isidore.
Maniano (1790). 13
Pedro. 14
Cristoval. 1 5
Maria
: Luis de
Avila.
Luis de
Avila,
d. 1G33.
Bernardo , Balthazar
Colombo, Colombo,
of Cogoleto. of Cuccaro.
Sonb.
1878.
526 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
Luis left two illegitimate children, one a son ; but his lawful
heirs were adjudged to be the children of Maria de
IS leirs. JViosquera, two daughters, one a nun and the other
Filipa. This last presented a claim for the titles in opposition
to the demands of Diego, the nephew of her father. She de-
clared this cousin to be the natural, and not the lawful,
ter mames SOU of Luis's brotlicr. It was easy enough to forget
Diego, the such imputations in coming to the final conclusion,
when Filipa and Diego took each other in marriage
(May 15, 1573) to compose their differences, the husband be-
coming Duke of Veragua. Filipa died in November,
male line 1577, and her husband January 27, 1578. As they
had no children, the male line of Columbus became
extinct seventy years after his death.
The lawsuit which followed for the settlement of the suc-
The long cession was a famous one. It lasted thirty years. The
itrnmiiy"*^ claimauts were at first eight in number, but they were
contestants, ^educcd to fivc by dcaths during the progress of the
trials.
The first was Francesca, own sister of Diego, the late Duke.
Her claim was rejected ; but five generations later the digni-
ties returned to her descendants.
The second was the representative of Maria, the daughter of
Luis, and sister-in-law of Diego. The claim made by her heir,
the convent of San Quirce, was discarded.
The third was Cristoval, the bastard son of Luis, who
claimed to be the fruit of a marriage of Luis, concluded while
he was in prison accused of polygamy. Cristoval died in 1601,
before the cause was decided.
The fourth was Alvaro de Portogallo, Count of Gelves, a son
of Isabel, the sister of Luis. He had unsuccessfully claimed
the titles when Luis died, in 1572, and again put forth his
claims in 1578, when Diego died, but he himself died, pending
a decision, in 1581. His son, Jorge Alberto, inherited his
rights, but died in 1589, before a decision was reached, when
his younger brother, Nufio de Portogallo, became the claimant,
and his rights were established by the tribunal in 1608, when
he became Duke of Yeragua. His enjoyment of the title was
not without unrest, but the attempts to dispossess him failed.
The fifth was Cristoval de Cardona, Admiral of Aragon, son
THE DESCENT OF COLUMBUS'S HONORS. 527
of Maria, elder sister of Luis. This claimant died in 1583,
while his claim, having once been allowed, was held in abey-
ance by an appeal of his rivals. His sister, Maria, was then
adjudged inheritor of the honors, but she died in 1605, before
the final decree.
The sixth was Maria de la Cueva, daughter of Juana, sister
of Luis, who died before December, 1600, while her daughter
died in 1605, leaving Carlos Pacheco a claimant, whose rights
were disallowed.
The seventh was Balthazar Colombo, a descendant of a Do-
menico Colombo, who was, according to the claim, the same
Domenico who was the father of Columbus. His genealogical
record was not accepted.
The eighth was Bernardo Colombo, who claimed to be a de-
scendant of Bartholomew Columbus, the Adelantado, a claim
not made good.
These last two contestants rested their title in part on the
fact that their ancestors had always borne the name of Co-
lombo, and this was required by Columbus to belong to the
inheritors of his honors. The lineal ancestors of the other claim-
ants had borne the names of Cardona, Portogallo, or Avila.
From Nuno de Portogallo the titles descended to his son
Alvaro Jacinto, and then to the latter's son, Pedro ^^^^ ^e
Nuno. His rights were contested by Luis de Avila fuccSs!**
(grandson of Cristoval, brother of Luis Colon), who Sit"'^^'''^
tried in 1620 to reverse the verdict of 1608, and it '^^^"^^«-
was not till 1664 that Pedro Nuno defeated his adversaries.
He was succeeded by his son, Pedro Manuel, and he by his son,
Pedro Nuno, who died in 1733, when this male line became
extinct.
The titles were now illegally assumed by Pedro Nuno's sister,
Catarina Ventura, who by marriage gave them to her husband,
James Fitz-James Stuart, son of the famous Duke of Berwick,
and by inheritance in his own right, Duke of Liria. When he
died, in 1738, the titles passed to his son, Jacobo Eduardo ;
thence to the latter's son, Carlos Fernando, who transmitted
them to his son, Jacobo Filipe. This last was obliged, by a
verdict in 1790, which reversed the decree of 1664, to yield
the titles to the line of Francesca, sister of Diego, the fourth
528 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
holder of them. This Francesca married Diego Ortegon, and
their grandchild, Josefa, married Martin Larreategui, whose
great-great-grandson, Mariano (by decrees 1790-96), became
Duke of Veragua, from whom the title descended to his son,
Pedro, and then to his grandson, Cristoval, the present Duke,
born in 1837, whose heir, the next Duke, was born in 1878.
The value of the titles is said to-day to represent about eight or
ten thousand dollars, and this income is chargeable upon the
revenues of Cuba and Porto Rico.
In concluding this rapid sketch of the descent of the blood
and honors of Columbus, two striking thoughts are presented.
The Larreateguis are a Basque family. The blood of Colum-
bus, the Genoese, now mingles with that of the hardiest race
of navigators of western Europe, and of whom it may be ex-
pected that if ever earlier contact of Europe with the New
World is proved, these Basques will be found the forerunners of
Columbus. The blood of the supposed discoverer of the west-
ern passage to Asia flows with that of the earliest stock which
is left to us of that Oriental wave of population which inun-
dated Europe, in the far-away times when the races which make
our modern Christian histories were being disposed in valleys
and on the coasts of what was then the Western World.
APPENDIX.
THE GEOGRAPHICAL RESULTS.
There was a struggling effort of the geographical sense of the
world for thirty years and more after the death of Columbus, before
the fact began to be grasped that a great continent was in- p^.^ ^ .
terposed as a substantial and independent barrier in the discovery,
track to India. It took nearly a half century more before men gener-
ally recognized that fact, and then in most cases it was accepted with
the reservation of a possible Asiatic connection at the extreme north.
It was something more than two hundred and twenty years from the
death of Columbus before that severance at the north was incontestably
established by the voyage of Bering, and a hundred and thirty years
longer before at last the contour of the northern coast of the con-
tinent was established by the proof of the long-sought northwest pas-
sage in 1850. We must now, to complete the story of the influence
of Columbus, rehearse somewhat concisely the narrative of this pro-
gressive outcome of that wonderful voyage of 1492. The spirit of
western discovery, which Columbus imparted, was of long continu-
ance.
'' If we wish to make ourselves thoroughly acquainted," says Dr.
Kohl, " with the history of discovery in the New World, we must not
only follow the navigators on their ships, but we must look into the
cabinets of princes and into the counting-houses of merchants, and
likewise watch the scholars in their speculative studies."
There was no rallying point for the scholar of cosmography ence of Ptoi-
in those early days of discovery like the text and influence cSeer"*^ ^"
of Ptolemy.
We know little of this ancient geographer beyond the fact of his
living in the early portion of the second century, and mainly at Alex-
andria, the fittest home of a geographer at that time, since this Egyp-
tian city was peerless for commerce and learning. Here he could do
best what he advises all geographers to do, consult the journals of
travelers, and get information of eclipses, as the same phenomena were
530
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
observed at different places ; such, for instance, as that of the moon
noted at Arbela in the fifth, and seen at Carthage in the second hour.
The precision of Ptolemy was covered out of sight by graphic
fancies among the cosmographers of succeeding ages, till about the be-
ginning of the fourteenth century Italy and the western Mediterra-
nean islands began to produce those atlases of sea-charts, which have
come down to us under the name of " portolanos ; " and still
later a new impetus was given to geographical study by the
manuscripts of Ptolemy, with his maps, which began to be common in
Portolanos.
PTOLEMY.
[From Reusner's Icones.'\
western Europe in the beginning of the fifteenth century, largely
through the influence of communications with the Byzantine peoples.
The portolanos, however, never lost their importance. Nordenskiold
says that, from the great number of them still extant in Italy, we may
deduce that they had a greater circulation during the sixteenth cen-
THE GEOGRAPHICAL RESULTS.
531
tury than printed cartographical works. About five hundred of these
sea-charts are known in Italian libraries, and the greater proportion of
them are of Italian origin.
It is a composite Latin text, brought into final shape by Jacobus
Angelas not far from 1400-1410, which was the basis of the early
printed editions of Ptolemy. This version was for a while circulated in
maiuiscript, sometimes with copies of the maps of the Old World hav-
ing a Latinized nomenclature ; and the public libraries of Europe con-
tain here and there specimens of these early copies, one of which it is
thought was known to Pierre d'Ailly. It is a question if Angelus
supplied the maps which accompanied these early manuscripts, and
which got into the Bologna edition of 1462 (wrongly dated for 1472),
and into the metrical version of Berlingieri. These maps, whether
always the same in the early manuscripts or not, were later superseded
by a new set of maps made by a German cartographer, Nicolaus Donis,
which he added to a revision of Angelus's Latin text. ^ tin text f
These later maps were close copies of the original Greek Ptolemy.
DONIS, 1482.
maps, and were accompanied by others of a similar workmanship,
which represented better knowledge than the Greeks had. In 1478
these Donis maps were first engraved on copper, and were rpj^^ p^^^jg
used in the later editions of 1490, and slightly corrected ™*p^-
in those of 1507 and 1508. The engravers were Schweinheim and
Buckinck, and their work, following copies of it in the edition of
1490, has been admirably reproduced in The Facsimile Atlas of
Nordenskiold (Stockholm, 1889).
Meanwhile, editions of the text of Angelus had been issued at
532
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
Ulm ill 1482, and giving additions in 1486, with woodcut maps, the
same in both issues on a different projection, assigned to Dominus
Nicolaus Germanus, who had, according to Nordenskiold, completed
the manuscript fifteen years earlier. It is significant, perhaps, of the
slowness with which the bruit of Portuguese discoveries to the south
had traveled that there is in the maps of Africa no extension of
Ptolemy's knowledge. But if they are deficient in the south, they are
Greenland remarkable in the north for showing the coming America
in maps. in a delineation of Greenland, which, as we have already
pointed out, was no new object in the manuscript portolanos, even as
far back as the early part of the same century.
AZOKES
9
SWJti
RUYSCH, 1508.
Two years after the death of Columbus, we find in the edition of
1508, and sometimes in the edition of 1507, — there is no difference
between the two issues except in the title-page, — the first engraved
map which has particular reference to the new geographical develo]>
ments of the age.
This Riiysch map shows the African coast discoveries of the Portu-
THE GEOGRAPHICAL RESULTS. 533
guese, with the discoveries of Marco Polo towards the east. In con-
nection with the latter, the same material which Behaim
had used in his globe seems to have been equally accessible Ruyscii
to Ruysch. The latter's map has a legend on the sea be- "^^"
tween Iceland and Greenland, saying that an island situated there
was burnt up in 1456. This statement has been connected by some
with another contained in the Sagas, that from an island in this chan-
nel both Greenland and Iceland could be seen.
We also learn from another legend that Portuguese vessels had
pushed down the South American coast to 50° south latitude, and the
historians of these early voyages have been unable to say who the
pioneers were who have left us so early a description of Brazil.
It is inferred from a reference of Beneventanus, in his Ptolemy,
respecting this map, that some aid had been derived from a map made
by one of the Columbuses, and a statement that Bartholomew Colum-
bus, in Rome in 1505, gave a map of the new discoveries to a canon of
San Giovanni di Laterano has been thought to refer to such a map,
which would, if it could be established, closely connect the coiumbus
Ruysch map with Columbus. It is also supposed to have Ruysch
some relation to Cabot, since a voyage which Ruysch made °^^p*
to the new regions westward from England may have been, and prob-
ably was, with that navigator. In this case, the reference to that part
of the coast of Asia which the English discovered may record Ruysch's
personal experiences. If these things can be considered as reasonably
established, it gives great interest to this map of Ruysch, and connects
Columbus not only with the earliest manuscript map, La Cosa of 1500,
but also with the earliest engraved map of the New World, as Ruysch's
map was.
In speaking of the Ruysch map, Henry Stevens thinks that the
cartographer laid down the central archipelago of America from the
printed letter of Columbus, because it was the only account in print
in 1507 ; but why restrict the sources of information to
1 . . i-r-oi, -11 1 'J Sources of
those m print, when La Cosa s map might have been copied, the Ruysch
or the material which La Cosa employed might have been
used by others, and when the Cantino map is a familiar copy of Portu-
guese originals, all of which might well have been known in the
varied circles with which Ruysch is seen by his map to have been
familiar ?
While it is a. fact that central and northern Europe got its carto-
graphical knowledge of the New World almost wholly from Portugal,
owing, perhaps, to the exertions of Spain to preserve their ^^^^^ ^^^
explorers' secrets, we do not, at the same time, find a single- geography
._, _, , £ ix ' •! ^"^ maps.
engraved Portuguese map of the early years ot this period
of discoverv.
53i
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
A large map, to show the Portuguese discoveries during years then
Portu uese I'^cent, was probably made for King Emanuel, and it has
portoiano. come down to us, being preserved now at Munich. This
chart wholly omits the Spanish work of exploration, and records only
the coasts coursed by Cabral in the south, and by the Cortereals in the
north. We have a further and similar record in the chart of Pedro
Pedro Reinel, which could not have been made far from the same
Reinei. time, and which introduces to us the same prominent cape
which in La Cosa's map had been called the English cape as " Cavo
THE SO-CALLED ADMIRAL'S MAP.
Razo," a name preserved to us to-day in the Cape Race of Newfound-
land.
There is abundant evidence of the non-communicative policy of
Spain. This secretiveness was understood at the time Robert Thorne,
in 1527, complained, as well as Sir Humphrey Gilbert in his
Discoverie, that a similar injunction was later laid by Por-
tugal. In Veitia Linage's Norte we read of the cabinets
in which these maps were preserved, and how the Spanish
Spain and
Portugal
conceal
their geo-
graphical
secrets.
THE GEOGRAPHICAL RESULTS.
535
pilot major and royal cosraographer alone kept the keys. There exists
a document by which one of the companions of Magellan was put
under a penalty of two thousand ducats not to disclose the route he
traversed in that famous voyage. We know how Columbus endeavored
to conceal the route of his final voyage, in which he reached the coast
of Veragua.
MUNSTER, 1532.
In the two maps of nearly equal date, being the earliest engraved
charts which we have, the Ruysch map of 1508 and the so-called Ad-
miral's map of 1507 (1513), the question of a strait leading ^ strait to
to the Asiatic seas, which Columbus had spent so much en- i»<iia-
ergy in trying to find during his last voyage, is treated differently. We
have seen that La Cosa confessed his uncertain knowledge by covering
636
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
€lobU0 mmioi
©eclamtiofiue t)efcrlptio mmtA
cttorius o:bie tcrmnim*globiiIorotttndocomparattTtfpcmfoU
d^i^xnomiQ cm mcdiocritcr&ocfo gdoculuridcrc imm^
tipodes dTctquo?: pcdce noftris oppofrti ftint^fct qualtcer m vna/
qii3q$ ozbi6 parte bommes Titamasere qucunt fatoar&fole fm/
gula tcrrf loa illuff rantcquemincn tcxx^ in vaaio aerc pcndere
videtunfolo t)amimfuilcC3ca.altjfcB pernmlti0t)e quarta orf^i©
icrrarfl parte npperab amcrico reperta*
ob^^v^tW
GLOBUS MUNDI.
the place with a vignette. In the Ruysch map there is left the possibil-
ity of such a passage ; in the other there is none, for the main shore is
that of Asia itself, whose coast Hne uninterruptedly connects with that
.of South America. The belief in such a strait in due time was fixed,
THE GEOGRAPHICAL' RESULTS. 537
C^ tteatpft of
t\)ZmVOC India,Mt\)0tl}ttmVO
caatoatoe as tocfttoaro? , ag t b^P
arefenotoenanOfounlJuit^ere aure
5ape0,after the Dcfcnpdon of^t--
baftian fi^imftcr m fjijaf bofec of bni-
uerfall Cotmograp^iettoijerintbe
Diligcnr traiscr map fee ri}r gooO
(ucceffeanD retoarDe of noble
anU l)oneae enterpjpfes,
Ijp the tp^ttlj^pt onlp tJ0O2U)» •-
(ptpcbcd areobtapnrD,
butalfovSoDisglo-
ftian fai:^btn;
ff tdnflfltcD out of ifflttn into i^i^iit^e . )iar
EDEN.
and lingered even beyond the time when Cortes showed there was no
ground for it. We find it in Schoner's globes, in the Tross gores, and
even so late as 1532, in the belated map of Miinster.
The majD of the Globus Mundi (Strassburg, 1509) has some sig-
nificance as being the earliest issued north of the Alps, re-
cording both the Portuguese and Spanish discoveries ; to show
though it merely gives the projecting angle of the South made north
American coast as representing the developments of the ^* *^® ^^'^^'
west.
It is doubtful if any reference to the new discoveries had appeared
in English literature before Alexander Barclay produced in 1509 a
538 CHHISTOPHEH COLUMBUS.
translation of Brant's Ship of Fools, and for a few years there were
only chance references which made no impression on the
ences to literary instincts of the time. It was not till after the mid-
dle of the century, in 1553, that Richard Eden, translating a
section of Sebastian Miinster's Cosmographia, published it in London
as a Treatyse of the neive India, and English-reading people first saw
a considerable account of what the rest of Europe had been doing in
Richard Contrast with the English maritime apathy. Two years later
Eden. (1555), Eden, drawing this time upon Peter Martyr, did
much in his Decades of the Newe JVorld to enlarge the English con-
ceptions.
But the most striking and significant of all the literary movements
The naming which grcw out of the new oceanic developments was that
of America, whicli gave a name to the New World, and has left a conti-
nent, which Columbus unwittingly found, the monument of another's
fame.
It was in September, 1504, that Vespucius, remembering an old
schoolmate in Florence, Piero Soderini, who was then the
tember. ^^ perpetual Gonfaloniere of that city, took what it is sup-
Vespucius. posed he had written out at length concerning his experi-
ences in the New World, and made an abstract of it in
Italian. Dating this on the 4th of that month, he dispatched it to Italy.
It is a question whether the original of this abridged text of Vespucius
is now known, though Varnhagen, with a confidence few scholars have
shared, has claimed such authenticity for a text which he has printed.
It concerns us chiefly to know that somehow a copy of this con-
densed narrative of Vespucius came into the hands of his fellow-
townsman. Era Giovanni Giocondo, then in Paris at work as an archi-
tect constructing a bridge over the Seine. It is to be allowed that
R. H. Major, in tracing the origin of the French text, assumes some-
thing to complete his story, and that this precise genesis of the narra-
tive which was received by Duke Ren^ of Lorraine is open to some
question. The supposition that a young Alsatian, then in Paris, Ma-
thias Ringmann, had been a friend of Giocondo, and had been the
bearer of this new version to Rend, is likewise a conjecture. Whether
Ringmann was such a messenger or not matters little, but the time
was fast approaching when this young man was to be associated with a
proposition made in the little village of St. Did, in the
Vosges, which was one of those obscure but far-reaching
mental premonitions so often affecting the world's history, without the
backing of great names or great events. This almost unknown place
was within the domain of this same Duke Rend, a wise man, who-
THE GEOGRAPHICAL RESULTS.
539
liked scholars and scholarly tomes,
small college and a printing-press.
His patronage had fostered there a
There had been grouped
around these agencies a number of learned men, or those
Duke Ren»5.
VESPUCIUS.
ambitious of knowledge. Scholars in other parts of Europe, when they
heard of this little coterie, wondered how its members liad congre-
gated there. One Walter Lud, or Gualterus Ludovicus, as they liked
540 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
to Latinize his name, a dependent and secretary of Duke Rend, was
now a man not much under sixty, and he had been the grouper and
manager of this body of scholars. There had lately been brought to
join them this same Mathias Ringmann, who came from Paris with all
the learning that he had tried to imbibe under the tutoring of Dr.
John Faber. If we believe the story as Major has worked it out,
Ringmann had come to this sparse community with all the fervor for
the exploits of Vesjjucius which he got in the French capital from
associating with that Florentine's admirer, the architect Giocondo.
Coming to St. Did, Ringmann had been made a professor of Latin,
and with the usual nominal alternation had become known as Phi-
lesius ; and as such he ajjpears a little later in connection with a Latin
version of the French of Giocondo, which was soon made by another
of the St. Did scholars, a canon of the cathedral there, Jean Bassin
de Sandacourt. Still another young man, Walter Waldseemiiller, had
not long before been made a teacher of geography in the college, and
his name, as was the wont, had been classicized into Hylacomylus.
There have now been brought before the reader all the actors in
this little St. Did drama, upon which we, as Americans, must gaze
back through the centuries as upon the baptismal scene of a continent.
The Duke had emphasized the cosmographical studies of the age by
this appointment of an energetic young student of geography, who
Waidaee- seems to have had a deft hand at map-making. Waldsee-
muiier. miiUer had some hand, at least, in fashioning a map of the
new discoveries at the west, and the Duke had caused the mai3 to be
engraved, and we find a stray note of sales of it singly as early as
1507, though it was not till 1513 that it fairly got before the world in
the Ptolemy of that year. Waldseemiiller had also developed out of
these studies a little cosmographical treatise, which the college press
was set to work upon, and to swell it to the dignity of a book, thin as
it still was, the diminutive quarto was made to include Bassin's Latin
version of the Vespucius narrative, set out with some Latin verses by
Ringmann. The little book called Cosmographice Intro-
grapMce ductio was brought out at this obscure college press in St
Did, in April and August, 1507. There were some varieties
in each of these issues, while that part which constituted the Vespucius
narrative was further issued in a separate publication.
It was in this form that Vespucius's narrative was for the first time,
unless Varnhagen's judgment to the contrary is superior to all others,
brought before the world. The most significant quality of the little
book, however, was the proposition which Waldseemiiller, with his
anonymous views on cosmography, advanced in the introductory parts.
It is assumed by writers on the subject that it was not Waldseemiiller
THE GEOGRAPHICAL RESULTS, 641
alone who was responsible for the plan there given to name that part
of the New World which Americus Vespucius had described after the
voyager who had so graphically told his experiences on its shores.
The plan, it is supposed, met with the approval of, or was the outcome
COSMOGRAPHIAE
INTRODVCTIO
CVM QVIBVS
DAM GEOJyiE
TRIAE
AC
ASTRONO
MTABPRINCIPirSAD
EAM REM NECESSARIIS
Infiipcr quattuor Amend
VcQjucij nauigationeSi^
Vnmerfalis Cofmograplifsc defcnptio tasn
in folido c^plano/eisetiam infcrds
qua? P tholomgo ignota a nu
peris reperta funt»
DISTHYCON
Cum dcus aftra regat/& ten'a! climata Capiat
Nee tellus/neceisfyderamaius habcntv
TITLE OF THE COSMOGRAPHIiE INTRODUCTIO. -
of the counsels of, this little band of St. Di^ scholars collectively. It
is not the belief of students generally that this coterie, any more than
Vespucius himself, ever imagined that the new regions were really dis-
joined from the Asiatic main, though Varnhagen contends that Ves-
pucius knew they were. One thing is certainly true : that there was
542 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS,
no intention to apply the name which was now proposed to anything
more than the continental mass of the Brazilian shore which Vespucius
had coasted, and which was looked upon as a distinct region from
the islands which Columbus had traversed. It had come to be believed
that the archipelago of Columbus was far from the paradise of luxury
and wealth that his extravagant terms called for, and which the de-
scriptions of Marco Polo had led the world to expect, supposing the
regions of the overland and oceanic discoverers to be the same. Fur-
ther than this, a new expectation had been aroused by the reports
which had come to Europe of the vaster proportions and of the bril-
liant paroquets — for such trivial aspects gave emphasis — of the more
southern regions. It was an instance of the eagerness with which
deluded minds, to atone for their first disappointment, grasp at the
Mundiis chances of a newer satisfaction. This was the hope which
Novus. ^yas entertained of this Mundus Novus of Vespucius, —
not a new world in the sense of a new continent.
The Espanola and its neighboring regions of Columbus, and the
Baccalaos of Cabot and Cortereal, clothed in imagination with the de-
scriptions of Marco Polo, were nothing but the Old World approached
from the east instead of from the west. It was different with the
Muiidus Novus of Vespucius. Here was in reality a new life and
habitation, doubtless connected, but how it was not known, with the
great eastern world of the merchants. It corresponded with nothing,
so far as understood, in the Asiatic chorography. It was ready for a
new name, and it was alone associated with the man who had, in the
autumn of 1502, so described it, and from no one else could its name
be so acceptably taken. Europe and Asia were geographically con-
tiguous, and so might be Asia and the new " America."
The sudden eclipse which the name of Columbus underwent, as the
fame of Vespucius ran through the popular mind, was no
Columbus's unusual thing in the vicissitudes of reputations. Factitious
°*'"^' prominence is gained without great difficulty by one or for
one, if popular issues of the press are worked in his interest, and if
a great variety of favoring circumstances unite in giving currency to
rumors and reports which tend to invest him with exclusive interest.
The curious public willingly lends itself to any end that taxes nothing
but its credulity and good nature.
We have associated with Vespucius just the elements of such a suc-
Fame of ^^^^' while the fame of Columbus was waning to the death,
Vespucius. namely : a stretch of continental coast, promising something
more than the scattered trifles of an insalubrious archipelago ; a new
southern heavens, offering other gKmpses of immensity ; descriptions
that were calculated to replace in new variety and mystery the stale
THE GEOGRAPHICAL RESULTS. 548
stories of Cipango and Cathay: the busy yearnings of a group of
young and ardent spirits, having all the apparatus of a press to apply
to the making of a public sentiment ; and the enthusiasm of narrators
who sought to season their marvels of discovery with new delights and
honors.
The hold which Vespucius had seized upon the imagination of Eu-
rope, and which doubtless served to give him prominence in the popu-
lar appreciation, as it has served many a ready and picturesque writer
since, was that glowing redundancy of description, both of the earth
and the southern constellations, which forms so conspicuous a feature
of his narratives. It was the later voyage of Vespucius, and not his
alleged voyage of 1497, which raised, as Humboldt has pointed out,
the great interest which his name suggested.
Just what the notion prevailing at the time was of the respective
exploits of Columbus and Vespucius is easily gathered from
a letter dated May 20, 1506, which appears in a Dyalogus and Vespu-
Johannis Stamler de diversarum gencium seetis, et mundi
regionibus, published in 1508. In this treatise a reference is made to
the letters of Columbus (1493) and Vespucius (1503) as. concerning
an insular and continental space respectively. It speaks of " Cris-
tofer Colom, the discoverer of new islands, and of Albericus Vespu-
cius concerning the new discovered world, to both of whom our age is
most largely indebted." It will be remembered that an early misnam-
ing of Vespucius by calling him Albericus instead of Americus, which
took place in one of the early editions of his narrative, remained for
some time to confuse the copiers of them.
If we may judge from a diagram which Vespucius gives of a globe
with two standing men on it ninety degrees apart, each dropping a
line to the centre of the earth, this navigator had grasped, together
with the idea of the sphericity of the globe, the essential
VcsDucius
conditions of gravitation. There could be no up-hill sailing on gravita-
when the zenith was always overhead. Curiously enough,
the supposition of Columbus, when as he sailed on his third voyage he
found the air grow colder, was that he was actually sailing up-hill, as-
cending a protuberance of the earth which was like the stem end of a
pear, with the crowning region of the earthly paradise atop of all !
Such contrasts show the lesser navigator to be the greater physicist,
and they go not a small way in accounting for the levelness of head
which gained the suffrages of the wise.
AVhen Duke Ren^, upon whom so much had depended in the little
community at St. Di^, died, in 1508, the geographical print- ^g^g ^iukQ
ing schemes of Waldseemliller and his fellows received a ^®"*^ ^'^^^-
544
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
severe reverse, and for a few years we hear nothing more of the edi-
tion of Ptolemy which had been planned. The next year (1509),
Waldseemiiller, now putting his name to his little treatise, was forced.
PART OF MAP IN THE
because of the failure of the college press, to go to Strassburg to have
a new edition of it printed (1509). The proposals for naming the
continental discoveries of Vespucius seem not in the interim to have
THE GEOGRAPHICAL RESULTS.
646
excited any question, and so they are repeated. We look in vain in
the copy of this edition which Ferdinand Columbus bought at Venice
in July, 1521, and which is preserved at Seville, for any marginal pro-
PTOLEMY OF 1513.
test. The author of the Historic, how far soever Ferdinand may have
been responsible for that book, is equally reticent. There was indeed
no reason why he should take any exception. The fitness of the
546 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
appellation was accepted as in no way invalidating the claim of Colum-
bus to discoveries farther to the north ; and in another little tract,
1509 Gi printed at the same time at Griiniger's Strassburg press, the
busMundi. anonymous Globus Mundi, the name " America " is adopted
in the text, though the small bit of the new coast shown in its map is
called by a translation of Vespucius's own designation merely " Newe
Welt:'
The Ptolemy scheme bore fruit at last, and at Strassburg, also, for
here the edition whose maps are associated with the name
strassburg of Waldseemuller, and whose text shows some of the influ-
°^'"^* ence of a Greek manuscript of the old geographer which
Ringmann had earlier brought from Italy, came out in 1513. Here
was a chance, in a book far more sure to have influence than the little
anonymous tract of 1507, to impress the new name America upon
the world of scholars and observers, and the opportunity was not
seized. It is not easy to divine the cause of such an omission. The edi-
tion has two maps which show this Vespucian continent in precisely
the same way, though but one of them shows also to its full extent
the region of Columbus's explorations. On one of these maps the
southern regions have no designation whatever, and on the other, the
" Admiral's map," there is a legend stretched across it, assigning the
discovery of the region to Columbus.
We do not know, in all the contemporary literature which has come
down to us, that up to 1513 there had been any rebuke at the igno-
rance or temerity which appeared in its large bearing to be depriving
Columbus of a rightful honor. That in 1509 Waldseemuller should
have enforced the credit given to Vespucius, and in 1513 revoked it in
favor of Columbus, seems to indicate qualms of conscience of which
we have no other trace. Perhaps, indeed, this reversion of sympathy
is of itself an evidence that Waldseemuller had less to do with the
edition than has been supposed. It is too much to assert that Wald-
seemuller repented of his haste, but the facts in one light would in-
dicate it.
Like many such headlong projects, however, the purpose had passed
The name beyond the control of its promoters. The euphony, if not
gins^to be ^ ^he fitness, of the name America had attracted attention,
accepted. ^^^ there are several printed and manuscript globes and
maps in existence which at an early date adopted that designation
for the southern continent. Nordenskiold {Facsimile Atlas, p. 42)
quotes from the commentaries of the German Coclaeus, contained in
the Meteorologia Aristotelis of Jacobus Faber (Nuremberg, 1512)
a passage referring to the " Nova Americi terra." To complicate
matters still more, within a few years after this an undated edition of
THE GEOGRAPHICAL RESULTS.
547
Waldseemiiller's tract appeared at Lyons, — perhaps without his par-
ticipation, — which was always found, down to 1881, without a map,
though the copies known were very few ; but in that year a copy with
a map was discovered, now owned by an American collector, in which
THE TROSS GORES.
the proposition of the text is enforced with the name America on the
representation of South America. A section of this map is here given
as the Tross Gores. In the present condition of our knowledge of the
matter, it was thus at a date somewhere about 1516-17 that
the name appeared first in any printed map, unless, indeed. First in a
we allow a somewhat earlier date to two globes in the Haus* ™*^"
lab collection at Vienna. On the date of these last objects there is,
548
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
however, much difference of opinion, and one of them has been de-
picted and discussed in the Mittheilungen of the Geographische
Gesellschaft (1886, p. 364) of Vienna. Here, as in the descriptive
texts, it must be clearly kept in mind, however, that no one at this
date thought of applying the name to more than the land which Ves-
THE HAUSLAB GLOBE.
pucius had found stretching south beyond the equator on the east side
of South America, and which Balboa had shown to have a similar
trend on the west. The islands and region to the north, which Colum-
bus and Cabot had been the pioneers in discovering, still remained
a mystery in their relations to Asia, and there was yet a long time to
elapse before the truth should be manifest to all, that a similar ex-
panse of ocean lay westerly at the north, as was shown by Balboa to
extend in the same direction at the south.
This Vespucian baptism of South America now easily worked its
way to general recognition. It is found in a contemporary set of
gores which Nordenskiold has of late brought to light, and was soon
THE GEOGRAPHICAL RESULTS.
649
THE NORDENSKIOLD GORES.
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
APIANUS, 1520.
THE GEOGRAPHICAL RESULTS.
551
adopted by the Nuremberg globe-maker, Schoner (1515, etc.) ; by
Vadiamis at Vienna, when editing Pomponius Mela (1515) ; by Apian
on a map used in an edition of Solinus, edited by Camers (1520) ;
SCHONER GLOBE, 1515.
and by Lorenz Friess, who had been of Duke Rent's coterie and a
correspondent of Vespucius, on a map introduced into the
Griiniger Ptolemy, published at Strassburg (1522), which name first in
also reproduced the Waldseemuller map of 1513, This rs * ** ^™^"
the earliest of the Ptolemies in which we find the name accepted on
its maps.
FRIESS (Frisiu^), IN THE PTOLEMY OF 1522.
THE GEOGRAPHICAL RESULTS. 553
There is one significant fact concerning the conflict of the Crown
with the heirs of Cokimbus, which followed upon the Admiral's death,
and in which the advocates of the government sought to prove that
the claim of Columbus to have discovered the continental shore about
the Gulf of Paria in 1498 was not to be sustained in view of visits by
others at an earlier date. This significant fact is that Vespucius is
not once mentioned during the litigation. It is of course possible, and
perhaps probable, that it was for the interests of both parties to keep
out of view a servant of Portugal trenching upon what was believed to
be Spanish territories. The same impulse could hardly have influ-
enced Ferdinand Columbus in the silent acquiescence which, as a con-
temporary informs us, was his attitude towards the action of the St.
Di^ professors. There seems little doubt of his acceptance of a view,
then undoubtedly common, that there was no conflict of the claims of
the respective navigators, because their different fields of exploration
had not brought such claims in juxtaposition.
Following, however, upon the assertion of Waldseemiiller, that Ves-
pucius had " found " this continental tract needing a name, there grew
up a belief in some quarters, and deducible from the very obscure
chronology of his narrative, which formulated itself in a statement
that Vespucius had really been the first to set foot on any
part of this extended main. It was here that very soon the landed^on
jealousy of those who had the good name of Columbus in ^ainT"*^™
their keeping began to manifest itself, and some time after
1527, — if we accept that year as the date of his beginning work on
the Historie, — Las Casas, who had had some intimate relations with
Columbus, tells us that the report was rife of Vespucius himself being
privy to such pretensions. Unless Las Casas, or the reporters to whom
he referred, had material of which no one now has knowledge, it is
certain that there is no evidence connecting Vespucius with the St.
Did proposition, and it is equally certain that evidence fails to estab-
lish beyond doubt the publication of any map bearing the name Amer-
ica while Vespucius lived. He had been made pilot major of Spain
March 22, 1508, and had died February 22, 1512. We have no chart
made by Vespucius himself, though it is known that in 1518 such a
chart was in the possession of Ferdinand, brother of Charles vespucius's
the Fifth. The recovery of this chart would doubtless ren- ™*p^-
der a signal service in illuminating this and other questions of early
American cartography. It might show us how far, if at all, Vespu-
cius " sinfully failed towards the Admiral," as Las Casas
reports of him, and adds: "If Vespucius purposely gave not privy to
currency to this belief of his first setting foot on the main, ^ na«"ng-
it was a great wickedness ; and if it was not done intentionally, it looks
554 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
like it." With all this predisposition, however, towards an implication
of Vespucius, Las Casas was cautious enough to consider that, after
all, it may have been the St. Did coterie who were alone responsible
for starting the rumor.
It is very clear that in Spain there had been no recognition of the
name '' America," nor was it ever officially recognized by
not used in the Spanish government. Las Casas understood that it had
^*^"* been applied by " foreigners," who had, as he says, " called
America what ought to be called Columba." Just what date should
1541 Mer- attach to this protest of Las Casas is not determinable. If it
catof first ^ras later than the gore-map of Mercator in 1541, which
name to was the first, so far as is known, to apply the name to both
both North ^^^ , i o i * • i • • i
and South Isorth and JSouth America, there is certainly good reason
for the disquietude of Las Casas. If it was before that, it
was because, with the progress of discovery, it had become more and
more clear that all parts of the new regions were component parts of
an absolutely new continent, upon which the name of the first discov-
erer of any part of it, main or insular, ought to have been bestowed.
That it should be left to " foreign writers," as Las Casas said, to give
a name representing a rival interest to a world that Spanish enter-
prise had made known was no less an indignity to Spain than to her
great though adopted Admiral.
It happens that the suggestion which sprang up in the Vosges
worked steadily onward through the whole of central Europe. That
it had so successful a propagation is owing, beyond a doubt, as much
to the exclusive spirit of the Spanish government in keeping to itself
its hydrographical progress as to any other cause. We
the name in have Seen how the name spread through Germany and Aus-
centrai Eu- ^^.j^^ j^ ^^g ^^^^^ ^p ^^ Stobnicza in Poland in 1512, in a
Cracow introduction to Ptolemy ; and many other of the
geographical writers of central and southern Europe adopted the des-
ignation. The New Interlude, published in England in 1519, had
used it, and towards the middle of the century the fame of Ves-
pucius had occupied England, so far as Sir Thomas More and William
Cunningham represent it, to the almost total obscuration of Columbus.
It was but a question of time when Vespucius would be charged
with promoting his own glory by borrowing the plumes of Columbus.
Whether Las Casas, in what has been quoted, initiated such accusa-
tions or not, the account of that writer was in manuscript and could
have had but small currency.
The first accusation in print, so far as has been discovered, came
from the German geographer, Johann Schoner, who, having already
in his earlier globes adopted the name America, now in a tract called
THE GEOGRAPHICAL RESULTS. 555
Opusculum Geographicum, which he printed at Nuremberg in 1533,
openly charged Vespucius with attaching his own name to 1533. scho-
a region of India Superior. Two years later, Servetus, vespuchi^*
while he repeated in his Ptolemy of 1535 the earlier maps J*/ n h?th^^
bearing the name America, entered in his text a protest injustice.
against its use by alleging distinctly that Columbus was earlier than
Vespucius in finding the new main.
Within a little mol'e than a year from the death of Vespucius, and
while the maps assigned to Waldseemiiller were pressed on the atten-
tion of scholars, the integralness of the great southern continent, to
which a name commemorating Americus had been given, was made
manifest, or at least probable, by the discovery of Balboa.
Let us now see how the course of discovery was finding record dur-
ing these early years of the sixteenth century in respect to ^ Carrier
the great but unsuspected barrier which actually interposed suspected.
in the way of those who sought Asia over against Spain.
In the north, the discoveries of the English under Cabot, and of the
Portuguese under the Cortereals, soon led the Normans and Discoveries
Bretons from Dieppe and Saint Malo to follow in the wake in the north.
of such predecessors. As early as 1504 the fishermen of these latter
peoples seem to have been on the northern coasts, and we
owe to them the name of Cape Breton, which is thought to mans and
be the oldest French name in our American geography. It '■®^°°^-
is the " Gran Capitano " of Ramusio who credits the Bretons with
these early visits at the north, though we get no positive cartograph-
ical record of such visits till 1520, in a map which is given by Kunst-
mann in his Atlas.
Again, in 1505, some Portuguese appear to have been on the New-
foundland coast under the royal patronage of Henry VII. jg^g p^^.
of England, and by 1506 the Portuguese fishermen were tuguese.
regular frequenters of the Newfoundland banks. We find in the old
maps Portuguese names somewhat widely scattered on the neighboring
coast lines, for the frequenting of the region by the fishermen of that
nation continued well towards the close of the century.
There are also stories of one Velasco, a Spaniard, visiting the St.
Lawrence in 1506, and Juan de Agramonte in 1511 entered j^^g g
into an agreement with the Spanish King to pursue discov- i*'''*^.
ery in these parts more actively, but we have no definite knowledge of
results.
The death of Ferdinand, January 23, 1516, would seem to have put
a stop to a voyage which had already been planned for Spain by Se-
bastian Cabot, to find a northwest passage ; but the next year (1517)
566 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
Cabot, in behalf of England, had sailed to Hudson's Strait, and thence
1517 sebas- "^^^^ *^ ^^° ^^ ' ^^^^^^ " "^ "^8^* there," and observing
tian Cabot, extraordinary variations of the compass. Somewhat later
there are the very doubtful claims of the Portuguese to ex-
guese. plorations under Fagundes about the Gulf of St. Lawrence
in 1521.
By 1506 also there is something like certainty respecting the Nor-
mans, and under the influence of a notable Dieppese, Jean
g^s cap-"" Ango, we soon meet a class of adventurous marhiers tempt-
tains. .j^^ distant and marvelous seas. We read of Pierre Cri-
gnon, and Thomas Aubert, both of Dieppe, Jean Denys of Honfleur,
and Jean Parmentier, all of whom have come down to us through the
pages of Ramusio. It is of Jean Denys in 1506, and of Thomas Au-
bert a little later, that we find the fullest recitals. To Denys there
^ , has been ascribed a mysterious chart of the Gulf of St. Law-
Denys's , . , . i • i
map. rence ; but if the copy which is preserved represents it, there
can be no hesitation in discarding it as a much later cartographical
record. The original is said to have been found in the archives of the
ministry of war in Paris so late as 1854, but no such map is found there
now. The copy which was made for the Canadian archives is at Ot-
tawa, and I have been favored by the authorities there with a tracing
of it. No one of authority will be inclined to dispute the judgment of
Harrisse that it is apocryphal. We are accordingly left in uncertainty
just how far at this time the contour of the Golfo Quadrago, as the
Gulf of St. Lawrence was called, was made out. Aubert is said to
have brought to France seven of the natives of the region in 1509.
Ten years or more later (1519, etc.), the Baron de Lery is
^^' thought to have attempted a French settlement thereabouts,
of which perhaps the only traces were some European cattle, the de-
scendants of his small herd landed there in 1528, which were found on
Sable Island many years later.
We know from Herrera that in 1526 Nicholas Don, a Breton, was
i5'>6 Nich- fishing off Baccalaos, and Rut tells us that in 1527 Nor-
oias Don. man and Breton vessels were pulling fish on the shores of
Newfoundland. Such mentions mark the early French knowledge of
these northern coasts, but there is little in it all to show any contribu-
tion to geographical developments.
Before this, however, the first serious attempt of which we have
Attempts to incontrovertible evidence was made to connect these dis-
northera ^"^ coveries in the north with those of the Spanisli in the An-
wrthth"^^o£ till^s. As early as 1511 tlie map given by Peter Martyr
the Spanish, had showu that, from the native reports or otherwise, a
Mart ^^^^ notion had arisen of lands lying north of Cuba. In 1512
™ap. Ponce de Leon was seeking a commission to authorize him
THE GEOGRAPHICAL RESULTS.
657
\jr
0
^»
'^^e
'.1
s.wniSr?>-^r^
PETER MARTYK, 1611.
658
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
to go and see what this reported land was like, with its fountain of
1512. Ponce youth. He got it February 23, 1512, when Ferdinand com-
deLeon. missioned him "to find and settle the island of Bimini," if
none had already been there, or if Portugal had not already acquired
PONCE DE LEON.
[From Barcia's Herrera.J
possession in any part that he sought. Delays in preparation post-
poned the actual departure of his expedition from Porto
Rico till March, 1513. On the 23d of that month, Easter
Sunday, he struck the mainland somewhere opposite the Bahamas, and
named the country Florida, from the day of the calendar.
He tracked the coast northward to a little above 30° north
latitude. Then he retraced his way, and rounding the southern cape,
1513.
March.
Florida.
THE GEOGRAPHICAL RESULTS.
659
660 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
went well up the western side of the peninsula. Whether any stray
explorers had been before along this shore may be a question. Pri-
vate Spanish or Portuguese adventurers, or even Englishmen, had not
been unknown in neighboring waters some years earlier, as we have
evidence. We find certainly in this voyage of Ponce de Leon for the
first time an unmistakable official undertaking, which we might expect
would soon have produced its cartographical record. The interdicts
of the Council of the Indies were, however, too powerful, and the old
lines of the Cantino map still lingered in the maps for some years,
though by 1520 the Floridian peninsula began to take recognizable
shape in certain Spanish maps.
Just what stood for Bimini in the reports of this expedition is not
clear; but there seems to have been a vague notion of its
not being the same as Florida, for when Ponce de Leon got
a new patent in September, 1514, he was authorized to settle both
" islands," Bimini and Florida, and Diego Colon as viceroy was di-
rected to help on the expedition. Seven years, however, passed in
delays, so that it was not till 1521 that he attempted to make a settle-
ment, but just at what point is not known. Sickness and loss in en-
counters with the Indians soon discouraged him, and he returned to
Cuba to die of an arrow wound received in one of the forays of the
natives.
It was still a question if Florida connected with any adjacent lands.
Several minor expeditions had added something to the stretch of coast,
1519. Pi- ^"^ *^^ main problem still stood unsolved. In 1519 Pineda
neda. i^^d made the circuit of the northern shores of the Gulf of
Mexico, and at the river Panuco he had been challenged by Cortes as
trenching on his government. Turning again eastward, Pineda found
the mouth of the river named by him Del Espiritu Santo, which
passes with many modern students as the first indication in history of
the great Mississippi, while others trace the first signs of that river to
Cabega de Vaca in 1528, or to the passage higher up its current by
De Soto in 1541. Believing it at first the long-looked-for strait to pass
to the Indies, Pineda entered it, only to be satisfied that it must gather
the watershed of a continent, which in this part was now named Ami-
chel. It seemed accordingly certain that no passage to the west was
to be found in this part of the gulf, and that Florida must be more
than an island.
While these explorations were going on in the gulf, others were con-
ducted on the Atlantic side of Florida. If the Pompey Stone which
has been found in New York State, to the confusion of historical stu-
dents, be accepted as genuine, it is evidence that the Spaniard had
in 1520 penetrated from some point on the coast to that region. In
THE GEOGRAPHICAL RESULTS.
561
1520 we get demonstrable proof, when Lucas Vasquez de Ayllon sent
a caravel under Gordillo, which joined company on the way ^^^
with another vessel bound on a slave-hunting expedition, AyUon.
and the two, proceeding northward, sighted the main coast at a river
which they found to be in thirty-three and a half degrees of north lati-
tude, on the South Carolina coast. They returned without further ex-
ploration. Ayllon, without great success, attempted further explorations
in 1525 ; but in 1526 he went again with greater preparations, and
made his landfall a little farther north, near the mouth of the Wateree
River, which he called the Jordan, and sailed on to the Chesapeake,
THE AYLLON MAP.
where, with the help of negro slaves, then first introduced into this re-
gion, he began the building of a town at or near the spot Spaniards in
where the English in the next century founded Jamestown ; Virginia.
or at least this is the conjecture of Dr. Shea. Here Ayllon died of a
pestilential fever October 18, 1526, when the disheartened colonists,
one hundred and fifty out of the original five hundred, returned to
Santo Domingo.
While these unfortunate experiences were in progress, Estevan
Gomez, sent by the Spanish government, after the close of ^524.
the conference at Badajos, to make sure that there was no Gomez,
passage to the Moluccas anywhere along this Atlantic coast, started in
the autumn of 1524, if the data we have admit of that conclusion as
to the time, from Corunna, in the north of Spain. He proceeded at
once, as Charles V. had directed him, to the Baccalaos region, striking
the mainland possibly at Labrador, and then turned south, carefully
examining all inlets. We have no authoritative narrative sanctioned
by his name, or by that of any one accompanying the expe- chaves's
dition ; nor has the map which Alonso Chaves made to con- ™*p-
562 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
form to what was reported by Gomez been preserved, but the essen-
tial features of the exploration are apparently embodied in the great
1529 Ri- "^^P ^^ Ribero (1529), and we have sundry stray references
bero's map. jn the later chroniclers. From all this it would seem that
Gomez followed the coast southward to the point of Florida, and
made it certain to most minds that no such passage to India existed,
though there was a lingering suspicion that the Gulf of St. Lawrence
had not been sufficiently explored.
Let us turn now to the southern shores of the Caribbean Sea. New
efforts at colonizing here were undertaken in 1508-9. By
the Carib- this time the coast had been pretty carefully made out as
far as Honduras, largely through the explorations of Ojeda
and Juan de la Cosa. The scheme was a dual one, and introduces us
to two new designations of the regions separated by that indentation
Oieda and ^^ *^® coast known as the Gulf of Uraba. Here Ojeda and
Nicuessa. Nicuessa wcrc sent to organize governments, and rule their
respective provinces of Nueva Andalusia and Castilla del Oro for the
period of four years. Mention has already been made of this in the
preceding chapter. They delayed getting to their governments, quar-
reled for a while about their bounds on each other, fought the natives
with desperation but not with much profit, lost La Cosa in one of the
encounters, and were thwarted in their purpose of holding Jamaica as
a granary and in getting settlers from Espanola by the alertness of
Diego Colon, who preferred to be tributary to no one.
All this had driven Ojeda to great stress in the little colony of San
Sebastian which he had founded. He attempted to return for aid to
Espanola, and was wrecked on the voyage. This caused him to miss
his lieutenant Enciso, who was on his way to him with recruits. So
Ojeda passes out of history, except so far as he tells his story in the tes-
timony he gave in the suit 6i the heirs of Columbus in 1513-15.
New heroes were coming on. A certain Pizarro had been left in
command by Ojeda, — not many years afterwards to be
heard of. One Vasco Nunez de Balboa, a poor and debt-
burdened fugitive, was on board of Enciso's ship, and had wit enough
to suggest that a region like San Sebastian, inhabited by tribes which
used poisoned arrows, was not the place for a colony struggling for
existence and dependent on foraging. So they removed the remnants
of the colony, which Enciso had turned back as they were escaping, to
the other side of the bay, and in this way the new settlement came
within the jurisdiction of Nicuessa, whom a combination soon deposed
and shipped to sea, never to be heard of. It was in these commotions
that Vasco Nunez de Balboa brought himself into a prominence that
THE GEOGRAPHICAL RESULTS.
563
ended in his being commissioned by Diego Colon as governor of the
new colony. He had, meanwhile, got more knowledge of a great sea
at the westward than Columbus had acquired on the coast of Veragua
LI Adc La^xtcLdo BAS^ CO NUNE S^ dt
y^ere s Qxit dts^cubrio la -niar del Sitr .
BALBOA. [From Barcia'a ^errera.]
in 1503. Balboa rightly divined that its discovery, if he could effect
it, would serve him a good purpose in quieting any jealousies of his
rule, of which he was beginning to observe symptoms. So on the 1st
of September, 1513, he set out in the direction which the natives had
indicated, and by the 24th he had reached a mountain from the top
664 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
of which his guides told him he would behold the sea. On the
25th his party ascended, himself in front, and it was not
^l^kn<fthe long before he stood gazing upon the distant ocean, the first
South Sea. ^£ gm-^peans to discern the long-coveted sea. Down the
other slope the Spaniards went. The path was a difficult one, and it
was three days before one of his advanced squads reached the beach.
Not till the next day, the 29th, did Vasco Nunez himself join those in
advance, when, striding into the tide, he took possession of the sea
and its bordering lands in the name of his sovereigns. It was on Saint
Miguel's Day, and the Bay of Saint Miguel marks the spot to-day.
Towards the end of January, 1514, he was again with the colony at
Antigua del Darien. Thence, in March, he dispatched a messenger
to Spain with news of the great discovery.
This courier did not reach Europe till after a new expedition had
been dispatched under Pedrarias, and with him went a
e ranas. jmj^ber of followers, who did in due time their part in thrid-
ding and designating these new paths of exploration. We recognize
among them Hernando de Soto, Bernal Diaz, the chronicler of the ex-
ploits of Cortes, and Oviedo, the historian. It was from April till
June, 1514, that Pedrarias was on his way, and it was not long before
the new governor with his imposing array of strength brought the re-
cusant Balboa to trial, out of which he emerged burdened with heavy
fines. The new governor planned at once to reap the fruits of Bal-
boa's discovery. An expedition was sent along his track, which em-
barked on the new sea and gathered spoils where it could. Pedrarias
soon grew jealous of Balboa, for it was not without justice that the
state of the augmented colony was held to compare unfavorably with
the conditions which Balboa had maintained during his rule. But con-
stancy was never of much prevalence in these days, and Balboa's chains,
lately imposed, were stricken off to give him charge of an exploration
of the sea which he had discovered. Once here, Balboa planned new
conquests and a new independency. Pedrarias, hearing of it through
a false friend of Balboa, enticed the latter into his nei^h-
1517. Bal- , , - - . , ' „ ... 11.
boa exe- borhood, and a trial was soon set on foot, which ended in
the execution of Balboa and his abettors. This was in
1517.
It was not long before Pedrarias removed his capital to Panama,
and in 1519 and during the few following years his captains pushed
their explorations northerly along the shores of the South Sea, as the
new ocean had been at once called.
As early as 1515 Pizarro and Morales had wandered down the
,^,^ ^ coast southward to a region called Biru by the natives, and
1515. Biru. Ill c • ^ ^
this was as far as adventure had carried any Spaniard, dur^
THE GEOGRAPHICAL RESULTS. 565
ing the ten years since Balboa's discovery. They had learned here of
a rich region farther on, and it got to be spoken of by the same name,
or by a perversion of it, as Peru. In this interval the town j^^g p^^^
of Panama had been founded (1519), and Pizarro and ma founded.
Almagro, with the priest Luque, were among those to whom allot-
ments were made.
It was by these three associates, in 1524 and 1526, that the expedi-
tions were organized which led to the exploration of the
coasts of Peru and the conquest of the region. The equa-
tor was crossed in 1526 ; in 1527 they reached 9° south. It was not
till 1535 that, in the progress of events, a knowledge of the coast was
extended south to the neighborhood of Lima, which was founded in
that year. In the autumn of 1535, Almagro started south
to make conquest of Chili, and the bay of Valparaiso was
occupied in September, 1536. Eight years later, in 1544, explorations
were pushed south to 41°. It was only in 1557 that expeditions
reached the archipelago of Chiloe, and the whole coast of
South America on the Pacific was made out with some de-
tail down to the region which Magellan had skirted, as will be shortly
shown.
It will be remembered that in 1503 Columbus had struck the coast
of Honduras west of Cape Gracias k Dios. He learned then of lands
to the northwest from some Indians whom he met in a canoe, but his
eagerness to find the strait of his dreams led him south. It was four-
teen years before the promise of that canoe was revealed.
1508.
In 1508 Ocampo had found the western extremity of Cuba, Ocampo
and made the oath of Columbus ridiculous.
In 1517 a slave-hunting expedition, having steered towards the west
from Cuba, discovered the shores of Yucatan ; and the next jgj^ yu-
year (1518) the real exploration of that region began when c**^"^-
Juan de Grijalva, a nephew of the governor of Cuba, led thither an
expedition which explored the coast of Yucatan and Mexico.
When Grijalva returned to Cuba in 1518, it was to find an expedi-
tion already planned to follow up his discoveries, and Her- j^jg
nando Cortes, who had been in the New World since 1504, Cortes.
had been chosen to lead it, with instructions to make further explora-
tions of the coast, — a purpose very soon to become obscured in other
objects. He sailed on the 17th of November, and stopped along the
coast of Cuba for recruits, so it was not till February 18,
1519, that he sunk the shores of Cuba behind him, and in
March he was skirting the Yucatan shore and sailed on to San Juan
de Uloa. In due time, forgetting his instructions, and caring for other
566
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
conquests than those of discovery, he began his march inland. The
story of the conquest of Mexico does not help us in the aim now in
view, and we leave it untold.
.^PITAN ]^^
GRIJALVA. [From Barcia's Herrera.']
It was not long after this conquest before belated apostles of the
belief of Columbus appeared, urging that the capital of Mon-
tezuma was in reality the Quinsay of Marco Polo, with its
great commercial interests, as was maintained by Schoner in his Opus-
culum Geographicum in 1533.
We have seen how Pineda's expedition to the northern parts of the
1520. ^"^* ®^ Mexico in 1519 had improved the knowledge of
Garay. ^\^^^^ shore, and we have a map embodying these explora-
tions, which was sent to Spain in 1520 by Garay, then governor of
Quinsay.
THE GEOGRAPHICAL RESULTS.
567
Jamaica. It was now pretty clear that the blank spaces of earlier
maps, leaving it uncertain if there was a passage westerly q^u ^f
somewhere in the northwest corner of the gulf, should be Mexico.
GLOBE GIVEN IN SCHONER'S OPUSCULUM GEOGRAPHICUM, 1533.
filled compactly. Still, a belief that such a passage existed some-
where in the western contour of the gulf was not readily abandoned.
Cortes, when he sent to Spain his sketch of the srulf, which
. . o ' 1524. Cor-
was published there in 1524, was dwelling on the hope that tes's Guif of
some such channel existed near Yucatan, and his insular
568
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
delineation of that peninsula, with a shadowy strait at its base, was
eagerly grasped by the cartographers. Such a severance finds a
place in the map of MaioUo of 1527, which is preserved in the Am-
brosian library at Milan. Grijalva, some years earlier, had been
Yucatan as '^®^*' ^® ^® have Seen, to sail round Yucatan ; and though
an island. there are various theories about the origin of that name, it
seems likely enough that the tendency to give it an insular form arose
from a misconception of the Indian appellation. At all events, the
island of Yucatan lingered long in the early maps.
S
TlERflA FIKME.
GULF OF MEXICO. 1520.
1523.
Cortes.
In 1523 Cortes had sent expeditions up the Pacific, and one up the
Atlantic side of North America, to find the wished-for pas-
sage ; but in vain.
Meanwhile, important movements were making by the Portuguese
beyond that great sea of the south which Balboa had dis-
Spanishand i r^^^ t i i i i
Portuguese Covered, Ihese movements were little suspected by the
nvanes. Spaniards till the development of them brought into con-
tact these two great oceanic rivals.
The Portuguese, year after year, had extended farther and farther
their conquests by the African route. Arabia, India, Malacca, Suma-
THE GEOGRAPHICAL RESULTS.
569
tra, fell under their sway, and their course was still eastward, until in
1511 the -coveted land of spices, the clove and the nutmeg, jgu ^^^
was reached in the Molucca Islands. This progress of the ^"ccas.
Portuguese had been watched with a jealous eye by Spain. It was a
question if, in passing to these islands, the Portuguese had not crossed
the line of demarcation as carried to the antipodes. If they had,
territory neighboring to the Spanish American discoveries had been
%?<^3tutt> k
f^qoKj^^
GULF OF MEXICO, BY CORTES.
appropriated by that rival power wholly unconfronted. ' This was
simply because the Spanish navigators had not as yet succeeded in
finding a passage through the opposing barrier of what they were be-
ginning to suspect was after all an intervening land. Meanwhile, Co-
lumbus and all since his day having failed to find such a passage by
way of the Caribbean Sea, and no one yet discovering any a western
at the north, nothing was left but to seek it at the south. goJghTat
This was the only chance of contesting with the Portuguese *^® ^°"'^-
the rights which occupation was establishing for them at the Moluccas.
670
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
On the 29th of June, 1508, a new expedition left San Lucar under
Pinzon and Solis. They made their landfall near Cape St.
zon and *° Augustine, aud, passing south along the coast of what had
^^^^' now come to be commonly called Brazil, they traversed the
opening of the broad estuary of the La Plata without knowing it, and
Mare indicom
MARE OCfANUM
MAIOLLO MAP, 1527.
went five degrees beyond (40° south latitude) without finding the
sought-for passage.
There is some reason to suppose that as early as 1511 the Portu-
ici. « . guese had become in some degree familiar with the coast
1511. Portu- V T-,. , T •
guese at Rio about Rio de Janeiro, and there is a story of one Juan de
de Janeiro. -p) ^-x. i • .i . i •. . -, , t
±Sraza settling near this striking bay at this early day. It
THE GEOGRAPHICAL RESULTS. 571
was during the same year (1511) that Ferdinand Columbus
prepared his Colon de Concordia, and in this he main- Columbus
tained the theory of a passage to be found somewhere be- Western pas-
yond the point towards the south which the explorers had ^*^^"
thus far reached.
DE COSTA'S DRAWING FROM THE LENOX GLOBE.
A few years later (1516) the Spanish King sent Juan Diaz de Solis
to search anew for a passage. He found the La Plata, and
for a while hoped he had discovered the looked-for strait.
Magellan, who had taken some umbrage during his Portuguese ser-
vice, came finally to the Spanish King, and, on the plea that the Moluc-
1516. Solis.
572 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
cas fell within the Spanish range under the line of demarcation, sug-
1519 Ma- g^sted an expedition to occupy them. He professed to be able
geiian to reach them by a strait which he could find somewhere to
the south of the La Plata. It has long been a question if Magellan's
SCHONER'S GLOBE, 1520.
anticipation was based simply on a conjecture that, as Africa had been
found to end in a southern point, America would likewise be discovered
to have a similar southern cape. It has also been a question if Ma-
gellan actually had any tidings from earlier voyages to afford a ground
THE GEOGRAPHICAL RESULTS.
573
for believing in such a geographical fact. It is possible that other
early discoverers had been less careful than Solis, and had been misled
by the broad estuary of the La Plata to think that it was really an in-
teroceanic passage. Some such intelligence would seem to have insti-
gated the conditions portrayed in one early map, but the general
notion of cartographers at the time terminates the known coast at Cape
MAGELLAN,
Frio, near Rio de Janeiro, as is seen to be the case in the Ptolemy map
of 1513. There is a story, originating with Pigafetta, his historian,
that Magellan had seen a map of Martin Behaim, showing a southern
cape ; but if this map existed, it revealed probably nothing more
than a conjectural termination, as shown in the Lenox and earliest
Schoner globes of 1515 and 1520. Still, Wieser and Nordenskiold
are far from being confident that some definite knowledge of such a
cape had not been attained, probably, as it is thought, from private
commercial voyage of which we may have a record in the Newe Zei-
674 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
tung and in the Luculentissima Descriptlo. It is to be feared that
the fact, whatever it may have been, must remain shadowy.
Magellan's fleet was ready in August, 1519. His preparation had
been watched with jealousy by Portugal, and it was even hinted that
if the expedition sailed a matrimonial alliance of Spain and Portugal
which was contemplated must be broken off. Magellan was appealed
to by the Portuguese ambassador to abandon his purpose, as one likely
to embroil the two countries. The stubborn navigator was not to be
persuaded, and the Spanish King made him governor of all countries
he might discover on the " back side " of the New World.
In the late days of 1519, Magellan touched the coast at Rio de Ja-
neiro, where, remaining awhile, he enjoyed the fruits of its equable
climate. Then, passing on, he crossed the mouth of the La Plata, and
soon found that he had reached a colder climate and was sailing along
a different coast. The verdure which had followed the warm currents
from the equatorial north gave way to the concomitants of an icy flow
from the Antarctic regions which made the landscape sterile. So on
he went along this inhospitable region, seeking the expected strait.
His search in every inlet was so faithful that he neared the southern
goal but slowly. The sternness of winter caught his little barks in a
harbor near 50° south latitude, and his Spanish crews, restless under
the command of a Portuguese, revolted. The rebels were soon more
numerous than the faithful. The position was more threatening than
any Columbus had encountered, but the Portuguese had a hardy cour-
age and majesty of command that the Genoese never could summon.
Magellan confronted the rebels so boldly that they soon quailed. He
was in unquestioned command of his own vessels from that time for-
ward. The fate of the conquered rioters, Juan de Carthagena and
Sanchez de la Reina, cast on the inhospitable shore of Patagonia in
expiation of their offense, is in strong contrast to the easy victory
which Columbus too often yielded to those who questioned his author-
ity. The story of Magellan's pushing his fleet southward and through
the strait with a reluctant crew is that of one of the royally courageous
acts of the age of discovery.
On October 21, 1520, the ships entered the longed-for strait, and on
1520, Octo- the 28th of November they sailed into the new sea ; then
lan'enS^^ stretchiug their course nearly north, keeping well in sight of
the strait. ^^g coast till the Chiloe Archipelago was passed, the ships
steered west of Juan Fernandez without seeing it, and subsequently
gradually turned their prows towards the west.
It is not necessary for our present purpose to follow the incidents of
the rest of this wondrous voyage, — the reaching the Ladrones and the
Asiatic islands, Magellan's own life sacrificed, all his ships but one
THE GEOGRAPHICAL RESULTS.
575
MAGELLAN'S STRAITS BY PIZAFETTA.
[Tke north is at the bottom.]
576
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
abandoned or lost, the passing of the Cape of Good Hope by the " Vic-
toria," and her arrival on September 6, 1522, under Del Cano, at the
Spanish harbor from which the fleet had sailed. The Emperor bestowed
on this lucky first of circumnavigators the proud motto, in-
way die- *™ scribed on a globe, " Primus circumdedisti me." The Span-
*'°'®'* ' iards' western way to the Moluccas was now disclosed.
The South Sea of Balboa, as soon as Magellan had established its
Pacific extension farther south, took from Magellan's company the
Ocean. name Pacific, though the original name which Balboa had
MAGELLAN'S STRAIT.
applied to it did not entirely go out of vogue for a long time in those
portions contiguous to the waters bounding the isthmus and its adja-
cent lands.
For a long time after it was known that South America was severed,
North Amer- ^^ Magellan proved, from Asia, the belief was still com-
hSd to be ^* monly held that North America and Asia were one and con-
*>°®- tinuous. While no one ventures to suspect that Columbus
had any prescience of these later developments, there are those like
Varnhagen who claim a distinct insight for Vespucius ; but it is by no
means clear, in the passages which are cited, that Vespucius thought
the continental mass of South America more distinct from Asia than
Columbus did, when the volume of water poured out by the Orinoco
convinced the Admiral that he was skirting a continent, and not an isl-
and. That Columbus thought to place there the region of the Biblical
paradise shows that its continental features did not dissociate it from
Asia. The New World of Vespucius was established by his own testi-
mony as hardly more than a new part of Asia.
In 1525 Loyasa was sent to make further examination of Magellan's
1525. Strait. It was at this time that one of his ships, com-
Loyasa. manded by Francisco de Hoces, was driven south in Febru-
THE GEOGRAPHICAL RESULTS, bll
ary, 1526, and discovered Cape Horn, rendering the insular character
of Tierra del Fuego all but certain. The fact was kept
secret, and the map-makers were not generally made aware discovers
of this terminal cape till Drake saw it, fifty-two years later. *^® °™*
It was not till 1615-17 that Schouten and Lemaire made clear the
eastern limits of Tierra del Fuego when they discovered the passage
between that island and Staten Island, and during the same interval
Schouten doubled Cape Horn for the first time. It was in 1618-19
that the observations of Nodal first gave the easterly bend to the south-
ern extremity of the continent.
The last stretch of the main coast of South America to be made out
was that on the Pacific side from the point where Magellan turned
away from it up to the bounds of Peru, where Pizarro and his follow-
ers had mapped it. This trend of the coast began to be understood
about 1535 ; but it was some years before its details got
into maps. The final definition of it came from Camargo's
voyage in 1540, and was first embodied with something like accuracy
in Juan Freire's map of 1546, and was later helped by explorations
from the north. But this proximate precision gave way in 1569 to a
protuberant angle of the Chili coast, as drawn by Mercator, which in
turn lingered on the chart till the next century.
We need now to turn from these records of the voyagers to see
what impression their discoveries had been making upon cartograph-
the cartographers and geographers of Europe. icai views.
Bernardus Sylvanus Ebolensis, in a new edition of Ptolemy which
was issued at Venice in 1511, paid great attention to the
changes necessary to make Ptolemy's descriptions corre- ptoiemy.
spond to later explorations in the Old World, but less atten-
tion to the more important developments of the New World. Nor-
denskiold thinks that this condition of Sylvanus's mind shows how
little had been the impression yet made at Venice by the discoveries
of Columbus and Da Gama. The maps of this Ptolemy are wood-
cuts, with type let in for the names, which are printed in red, in con-
trast with the black impressed from the block.
Sylvanus's map is the second engraved map showing the new dis-
coveries, and the earliest of the heart-shaped projections. It has in " Re-
galis Domus " the earliest allusion to the Cortereal voyage in a printed
map. Sylvanus follows Ruysch in making Greenland a part of Asia.
The rude map gores of about the same date which Norden- j^orden-
skiold has brought to the attention of scholars, and which skioid gores.
he considers to have been made at Ingolstadt, agree mainly with this
map of Sylvanus, and iiv respect to the western world both of these
678
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
maps, as well as the Sch5ner globe of 1515, seem to have been based
on much the same material.
We find in 1512, where we might least expect it, one of the most
remarkable of the early maps, which was made for an introduction
to Ptolemy, published at this date at Cracow, in Poland,
niczamap. by Stobnicza. This cartographer was the earliest to in-
^NTOMIO
ROE SJULIANO.
0 BOqutlRAON 00 ^ACALHAIS.
FREIRE'S MAP, 1546.
troduce into the plane delineation of the globe the now palpable divi-
sion of its surface into an eastern and western hemisphere. His
map, for some reason, is rarely found in the book to which it be-
longs. Nordenskiold says he has examined many copies of the book
in the libraries of Scandinavia, Russia, and Poland, without finding a
copy with it ; but it is found in other copies in the great libraries at
Vienna and Munich. He thinks the map may have been excluded
FAVO
OCCIDENS
STLVANUS'S PTOLEMY OF 1511.
680
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
STOBNICZA'S MAP.
THE GEOGRAPHICAL RESULTS. 581
from most of the editions because of its rudeness, or " on account of
its being contrary to the old doctrines of the Church." Its importance
in the growth of the ideas respecting the new discoveries in the west-
ern hemisphere is, however, very great, since for the first time it gives
a north and south continent connected by an isthmus, and represents
as never before in an engraved map the western hemisphere as an en-
tirety. This is remarkable, as it was published a year before Balboa
made his discovery of the Pacific Ocean. It is not difficult to see
the truth of Nordenskiold's statement that the map divides the waters
of the globe into two almost equal oceans, " communicating only in the
extreme south and in the extreme north," but the south communica-
tion which is unmistakable is by the Cape of Good Hope. The ex-
tremity of South America is not reached because of the marginal scale,
and because of the same scale it is not apparent that there is any con-
nection between the Pacific and Indian oceans, and for similar reasons
connection is not always clear at the north. There must have been in-
formation at hand to the maker of this map of which modern scholars
can find no other trace, or else there was a wild speculative spirit
which directed the pencil in some singular though crude correspond-
ence to actual fact. This is apparent in its straight conjectural lines
on the west coast of South America, which prefigure the discoveries
following upon the enterprise of Balboa and the voyage of Magellan.
If Stobnicza, apparently, had not dared to carry the southern ex-
tremity of South America to a point, there had been no such hesitancy
in the makers of two globes of about the same date, — the little copper
sphere picked up by Richard M. Hunt, the architect, in an The Lenox
old shop in Paris, and now in the Lenox Library in New globe.
York, and the rude sketch, giving quartered hemispheres separated on
the line of the equator, which is preserved in the cabinet of Queen
Victoria, at Windsor, among the papers of Leonardo da -^^ yj^^.^
Vinci. This little draft has a singular interest both from g^obe.
its association with so great a name as Da Vinci's, and because it bears
at what is, perhaps, the earliest date to be connected with such carto-
graphical use the name America lettered on the South American
continent. Major has contended for its being the work of Da Vinci
himself, but Nordenskiold demurs. This Swedish geographer is rather
inclined to think it the work of a not very well informed copier work-
ing on some Portuguese prototype.
It is worthy of remark that, in the same year with the discovery of
the South Sea by Balboa, an edition of Ptolemy made popular a map
which had indeed been cut in its first state as early as 1507, but which
still preserved the contiguity of the Antilles to the region of the
Ganges and its three mouths. This was the well-known " Admiral's
582
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
map,
usually associated with the name of Waldseemiiller, and if this
same cartographer, as Franz Wieser conjectures, is respon-
iSii's sible for the map in Reisch's Margarita philosophica
™*^' (1515), a sort of cyclopaedia, he had in the interim awaked
to the significance of the discovery of Balboa, for the Ganges has dis-
appeared, and Cipango is made to lie in an ocean beyond
Reuijh's the continental Zoana Mela (America), which has an unde-
"^P" fined western limit, as it had already been depicted in the
Stobnicza map of 1512.
THE ALLEGED DA VINCI SKETCH.
ICombination.']
It was in this Strassburg Ptolemy of 1513 that Ringmann, who had
been concerned in inventing the name of America, revised the Latin
of Angelus, using a Greek manuscript of Ptolemy for the purpose.
First mod- Nordenskiold speaks of this edition as the first modern atlas
em atlas. ^f i]^q world, extended so as to give in two of its maps —
that known as the " Admiral's map," and another of Africa — the
results following upon the discoveries of Columbus and Da Gama.
This " Admiral's map," which has been so often associated with Co-
lumbus, is hardly a fair representation of the knowledge that Colum-
bus had attained, and seems rather to be the embodiment of the dis-
coveries of many, as the description of it, indeed, would leave us to
THE GEOGRAPHICAL RESULTS.
583
infer ; while the other American chart of the volume is clearly of
Portuguese rather than of Spanish origin, as may be inferred by the
lavish display of the coast connected with the descriptions by Vespu-
TYPV5VNIVERSAtS TERREIVXTAMO
REISCH, 1515.
cius. On the other hand, nothing but the islands of Espanola and
Cuba stand in it for the explorations of Columbus. Both of these
maps are given elsewhere in this Appendix.
We could hardly expect, indeed, to find in these maps of the Ptolemy
584
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
of 1513 the results of Balboa's discovery at the isthmus ; but that the
maps were left to do service in the edition of 1520 indicates that the
discovery of the South Sea had by no means unsettled the pubhc
mind as to the Asiatic connection of the regions both north and south
^
■;■•$■':'
T\
Asiatic con- of the Antilles. "Within the next few years several maps
North" °* indicate the enduring strength of this conviction. A Por-
America. tuguese portolano of 1516-20, in the Royal Library at Mu-
nich, shows Moslem flags on the coasts of Venezuela and Nicaragua.
A map of Ayllon's discoveries on the Atlantic coast in 1520, pre-
THE GEOGRAPHICAL RESULTS.
585
served in the British Museum, has a Chinaman and an elephant delin-
eated on the empty spaces of the continent. Still, geographical opin-
ions had become divided, and the independent continental masses of
Stobnicza were having some ready advocates.
lOACHiMrvrs yadianvs MEiyt
fht&hhuitiirermnsimdicaffudiojk^artks
m j>. nt
VADIANUS.
There was at this time a circle of geographers working at Vienna,
reediting the ancient cosmographers, and bringing them into ^^^^^^^ gg.
relations with the new results of discovery. Two of these ographers.
686
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
early writers thus attracting attention were Pomponius Mela, whose
PomponiuB Cosmogvaphia dated back to the first century, and Solinus,
^^'*- whose Folyhistor was of the third. The Mela fell to the
SoUnuB. ^2kve of Johann Gamers, who published it as De Situ Orbis
at Vienna in 1512, at the press of Singrein ; and this was followed in
1518 by another issue, taken in hand by Joachim Watt, better known
under the Latinized name of Vadianus, who had been born
anus. .^ Switzerland, and who was one of the earlier helpers in
popularizing the name of America. The Solinus, the care of which
API ANUS. [From Reusner's Icones.l
was undertaken by Gamers, the teacher of Watt, was produced under
these new auspices at the same time. Two years later (1520) both of
1520. these old writers attained new currency while issued to-
Apianus. gether and accompanied by a map of Apianus, — as the
German Bienewitz classicized his name, — in which further iteration
THE GEOGRAPHICAL RESULTS. 687
was given to the name of America by attaching it to the southern
continent of the west.
In this map Apianus, in 1520, was combining views of the western
hemisphere, which had within the few antecedent years found advo-
cacy among a new school of cartographers. These students repre-
sented the northern and southern continents as independent entities,
disconnected at the isthmus, where Cohimbus had hoped to
find his strait. This is shown in the earliest of the Schoner the isthmus
globes, the three copies of which known to us are preserved, ° anama.
one at Frankfort and two at Weimar. It is in the Luculentissima
Descriptio, which was written to accompany this Schoner jgjg
globe of 1515, where we find that statement already re- Schoner.
ferred to, which chronicles, as Wieser thinks, an earlier voyage than
Magellan's to the southern strait, which separated the " America " of
Vespucius from that great Antarctic continent which did Antarctic
not entirely disappear from our maps till after the voyage continent.
of Cook.
It is a striking instance of careless contemporary observation, which
the student of this early cartography has often to confront, that while
Reisch, in his popular cyclopaedia of the Margarita Philosophica
which he published first in 1503, gave not the slightest intimation of
the discoveries of Columbus, he did not much improve matters in
1515, when he ignored the discoveries of Balboa, and reproduced in
the main the so-called "Admiral's map " of the Ptolemy of 1513. It
is to be observed, however, that Reisch was in this repro- j^jg
duced map of 1515 the first of map-makers to offer in the Reisch.
word " Prisilia " on the coast of Vespucius the prototype of the mod-
ern Brazil. It will be remembered that Cabral had sup-
posed it an island, and had named it the Isla de Santa Cruz. ™^ '
The change of name induced a pious Portuguese to believe it an insti-
gation of the devil to supplant the remembrance of the holy and
sacred wood of the great martyr by the worldly wood, which was com-
monly used to give a red color to cloth !
In 1519, in the Suma de Geographia of Fernandez d'Enciso, pub-
lished later at Seville, in 1530, we have the experience of one of
Ojeda's companions in 1509. This little folio, now a scarce book, is
of interest as first formulating for practical use some of the Theories of
new theories of seamanship as developed under the long seamanship,
voyages at this time becoming common. It has also a marked interest
as being the earliest book of the Spanish press which had given con-
sideration at any length to the new possessions of Spain.
"We again find a similar indisposition to keep abreast of discovery,
so perplexing to later scholars, in the new-cast edition of Ptolemy in
588
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
1522, which contains the well-known map of Laurentias Frisius. It
J502 is called by Nordenskiold, in subjecting it to analysis in
Frisius. j^jg Facsimile Atlas, " an original work, but bad beyond
all criticism, as well from a geographical as from a xylographical point
of view." One sees, indeed, in the maps of this edition, no knowledge
of the increase of geographical knowledge during later years. We
observe, too, that they go back to Behaim's interpretation of Marco
SCHONER.
Polo's India, for the eastern shores of Asia. The publisher, Thomas
Ancuparius, seems never to have heard of Columbus, or at least fails
to mention him, while he awards the discovery of the New World to
Vespucius. The maps, reduced in the main from those of the edition
of 1513, were repeated in those of 1525, 1535, and 1541, without
change and from the same blocks.
The results of the voyage of Magellan and Del Cano promptly
THE GEOGRAPHICAL RESULTS. 689
attained a more authentic record than usually fell to the lot of these
early ocean experiences.
The company which reached Spain in the " Victoria " went at once
to Valladolid to report to the Emperor, and while there a pupil and
secretary of Peter Martyr, then at Court, Maximilianus Transylvanus
by name, got from these men the particulars of their discoveries, and,
writing them out in Latin, he sent the missive to his father, the Arch-
bishop of Salzburg, — the young man was a natural son ^^^^ ^^ ^j
of this prelate, — and in some way the narrative got into lan's .yoyage
print at Cologne and Rome in 1523.
Schoner printed in 1523 a little tract, De nuper . . . repertis insulis
ac regionibus to elucidate a globe which he had at that time ^523,
constructed. It was published at Timiripse, as the imprint Schoner.
reads, which has been identified by Coote as the Grecized form of
the name of a small village not far from Bamberg, where Schoner was
at that time a parochial vicar. When a new set of engraved gores
were first brought to light by Ludwig Rosenthal, in Munich, Rosenthal
in 1885, they were considered by Wieser, who published an s^^^^-
account of them in 1888, as the lost globe of Schoner. Stevens, in
a posthumous book on Johann Schoner, expressed a similar belief.
This was a view which Stevens's editor, C. H. Coote, accepted. The
opinion, however, is open to question, and Nordenskiold finds that the
Rosenthal gores have nothing to do with the lost globe of Schoner, and
puts them much later, as having been printed at Nuremberg about 1540.
The voyage of Magellan had reopened the controversy of Spain
with Portugal, stayed but not settled by the treaty of Tor-
desillas. Estevan Gomez, a recusant captain of Magellan's pects of Ma-
fleet, who had deserted him just as he was entering the ?oyage!
straits, had arrived in Spain May 6, 1521, and had his own
. . , . • i> 1 r 1 Gomez.
way for some time in making representation 01 the tool-
hardiness of Magellan's undertaking.
On March 27, 1523, Gomez received a concession from the Em-
peror to go on a small armed vessel for a year's cruise in the north-
west, to make farther search for a passage, but he was not to trespass
on any Portuguese possession. The disputes between Portugal and
Spain intensifying, Gomez's voyage was in the mean time put off for
a while.
Gomara tells us that, in the opinion of his time, the Spaniards had
gained the Moluccas, at the conference at Tordesillas, by
yielding to the demands of the Portuguese, so that what the moIuc-
Portugal gained in Brazil and Newfoundland she lost in
Asia and adjacent parts. The Portuguese historian, Osorius, viewed
590
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
it differently ; he counted in the American gain for his country, but
he denied the Spanish rights at the antipodes. So the longitude of
the Moluccas became a sharp political dispute, which there was an at-
ROSENTHAL OR NUREMBERG GORES.
Congress at t^mpt to Settle in 1524 in a congress of the two nations that
Badajos. ^^g convened alternately at Badajos and Elvas, situated on
opposite sides of the Caya, a stream which separates the two countries.
THE GEOGRAPHICAL RESULTS. 591
Ferdinand Columbus, by a decree of February 19, 1524, had been
made one of the arbiters. After two months of wrangling, each side
stood stiff in its own opinions, and it was found best to break up the
congress. Following upon the dissolution of this body, the Spanish
government was impelled to make the management of the Indies
more effective than it had been under the commissions council of
which had existed, and on August 18, 1524, the Council the indies.
of the Indies was reorganized in more permanent form.
An immediate result of the interchange of views at Badajos was a
renewal of the Gomez project, to examine more carefully the eastern
coast of what is now the United States, in the hopes of yet discovering
a western passage. Of that voyage, which is first mentioned in the
Sumario of Oviedo in 1526, and of the failure of its chief Qo^ez's
aim, enough has already been said in the early part of this voyage,
appendix.
It has been supposed by Harrisse that the results of this voyage
were embodied in the earliest printed Spanish map which we have
showing lines of latitude and longitude, — that found in a joint edi-
tion of Martyr and Oviedo (1534), and which is only known in a copy
now in the Lenox Library.
The purpose which followed upon the congress of Badajos, to pene-
trate the Atlantic coast line and find a passage to the western sea, was
communicated to Cortes, then in Mexico, some time before the date of
his fourth letter, October 15, 1524. The news found him already
convinced of the desirableness of establishing a port on the great sea
of the west, and he selected Zucatula as a station for the fleets which
he undertook to build.
Other projects delayed the preparations which were planned, and it
was not till September 3, 1526, that Cortes signified to the ^526. Cortea
Emperor his readiness to send his ships to the Moluccas. !®'l^^^^''^^
After a brief experimental trip up the coast from Zucatula, luccas.
three of his vessels were finally dispatched, in October, 1527, on a dis-
astrous voyage to those islands, where the purpose was to confront the
Portuguese pretensions. It so happened, meanwhile, that Charles V.
needed money for his projects in Italy, and he called Ferdinand Co-
lumbus to Court to consult with him about a sale of his rights in the
Moluccas to Portugal. Ferdinand made a report, which has not come
down to us, but a decision to sell was reached, and the Por-
-tT' 1 1 • p 1 T nf\ "^^^ Moluc-
tuguese King agreed to the price 01 purchase on J une Z\j, cas sold to
1530. Thus the Moluccas, which had been so long the goal ^^ "^* *
of Spanish ambition, pass out of view in connection with American
discovery.
There is some ground for the suspicion, if not belief, that the Por-
692
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
tuguese from the Moluccas had before this pushed eastward across the
Pacific, and had even struck the western verge of that continent which
separated them from the Spanish explorers on the Atlantic side.
MARTYR-OVIEDO
We come next to some further developments on the eastern coast of
North North America. A certain French corsair, known from his
America, t-m • i • •
east coast. Florentme birth as Juan Florin, had become a terror by
preying on the Spanish commerce in the Indies. In January, 1524,
THE GEOGRAPHICAL RESULTS.
593
he was on his way, under the name of Verrazano, in the expedition
which has given him fame, and has supplied not a little „
=» . , T o ^ Verrazano.
ground for contention, and even for total distrust of the
MAP, 1534.
voyage as a fact. He struck the coast of North Carolina, turned
south, but, finding no harbor, retraced his course, and, making several
landings farther north, finally entered, as it would seem from his de-
scription, the harbor of New York. The only point that he names
THE VERRAZANO MAP.
THE GEOGRAPHICAL RESULTS.
595
is a triangular island which he saw as he went still farther to the east,
and which has been supposed to be Block Island, or possibly Mar-
tha's Vineyard. At all events, the name Luisa which he gave to it
after the mother of Francis I. clung to an island in this neighborhood
in the maps for some time longer. So he went on, and, if his land-
ings have been rightly identified, he touched at Newport, then at some
place evidently near Portsmouth in New Hampshire, and then, skirt-
ing the islands of the Maine coast, he reached the country which he
recognized as that where the Bretons had been. He now ended what
he considered the exploration of seven hundred leagues of an unknown
AGNESE, 1536.
land, and bore away for France, reaching Dieppe in July, whence,
on the 9th, he wrote the letter to the King which is the source of our
information. Attempts have been made, especially by the late Henry
C. Murphy, to prove this letter a forgery, but in the opinion of most
scholars without success.
Fortunately for the student, Hieronimo da Verrazano made, in 1529,
a map, still preserved in the college of the Propaganda at ^j^^ ygj^^
Rome, in which the discoveries of his brother, Giovanni, zanomap.
are laid down. In this the name of Nova Gallia supplants that of
Francesca, which had been used in the map of Maiollo (1527), sup-
posed, also, to have some relation to the Verrazano voyage.
The most distinguishing feature of the Verrazano map is a great
596
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
MUNSTER,
THE GEOGRAPHICAL RESULTS.
597
SSStPi
s:i(ii.fivj
mm.
mfMm
1540.
inland expanse of water, which was taken to
be a part of some western ocean, and which
remained for a long while in some form or
other in the maps. It was made to approach
so near the Atlantic that at one point there
was nothing but a slender isthmus connecting
the discoveries of the north with the country
of Ponce de Leon and Ayllon at the south.
It is in the Sumario (1526) of Oviedo that
we get the first idea of this sea of Verrazano,
as Brevoort contends, and we see it in the
MaioUo map of the next year, called j,^^ ^^^ ^^
" Mare Indicum," as if it were an Verrazano.
indentation of the great western ocean of Bal-
boa. It was a favorite fancy of Baptista
Agnese, in the series of portolanos associated
with his name during the middle of the cen-
tury, and in which he usually indicated sup-
posable ocean routes to Asia. As time went
on, the idea was so far modified that this in-
dentation took the shape of a loop of the Arc-
tic seas, or of that stretch of water which at
the north connected the Atlantic and Pacific,
as shown in the Miinster map in the Ptolemy
of 1540, — a map apparently based on the
portolanos of Agnese, — though the older form
of the sea seems to be adopted in the globe
of Ulpius (1542). This idea of a Carolinian
isthmus prevailed for some years, and may
have grown out of a misconception of the Car-
olina sounds, though it is sometimes carried far
enough north, as in the Lok map of 1582, to
seem as if Buzzard's Bay were in some way
thought to stretch westerly into its depths.
The last trace of this mysterious inner ocean,
so far as I have discovered, is in a map made
by one of Ralegh's colonists in 1585, and pre-
served among the drawings of John White in
the De Bry collection of the British Museum,
and brought to light by Dr. Edward Eggleston.
This drawing makes for the only time that I
have observed it, an actual channel at " Port
Royal," leading to this oceanic expanse, which
$98
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
MICHAEL LOK, 1582.
THE GEOGRAPHICAL RESULTS.
599
was later interpreted as an inland lake. Thus it was that this geo-
graphical blunder lived more or less constantly in a succession of maps
for about sixty years, until sometimes it vanished in a large lake in
Carolina, or in the north it dwindled until it began to take a new lease
of life in an incipient Hudson's Bay, as in the great Lake of Tade-
nac, figured in the Molineaux map of 1600, and in the Lago Dago-
lesme in the Botero map of 1603.
Norumbega.
It was apparently during the voyage of Verrazano that an Indian
name which was understood as " Aranbega " was picked up along the
northern coasts as designating the region, and which a little
later was reported by others as " Norumbega," and so passed
into the mysterious and fabled nomenclature of the coast with a good
deal of the unstableness that attended the fabulous islands of the At-
lantic in the fancy of the geographers of the Middle Ages. As a defi-
nition of territory it gradually grew to have a more and more restricted
^
^ »' * - •• •- — — — — - — r/ — — —
-tf^TAlSJ . ,4-, -
ROBERT THORNE, 1527.
THE GEOGRAPHICAL RESULTS. 601
application, coming down mainly after a while to the limits of the later
New England, and at last finding, as Dr. Dee (1580), Molineaux
(1600), and Champlain (1604) understood it, a home on the Penobscot.
Still the region it represented contracted and expanded in people's
notions, and on maps the name seemed to have a license to wander.
During this period the English also were up and down the coast, but
they contributed little to our geographical knowledge. Slave- ^j^^ English
catching on the coast of Guinea, and lucrative sales of the °^ *^® ^''*^*-
human plunder in the Spanish West Indies and neighboring regions,
seem to have taken William Hawkins and others of his ^-^^^^
countrymen to these coasts not infrequently between 1525 Hawkins.
and 1540.
There is some reason to believe that John Rut, an Englishman, may
have explored the northeast coasts of the present United
States in 1527, a proposition, however, open to argument,
as the counter reasonings of Dr. Kohl and Dr. De Costa show. It is
certain that at this time Robert Thorne, an English merchant living in
Seville, was gaining what knowledge he could to promote English en-
terprise in the north, and there has come down to us the map which
in 1527 he gave to the English ambassador in Spain, Edward Leigh,
to be transmitted to Henry VIII.
It was in 1526 when the Spanish authorities thought that the time
was fitting for making a sort of register of the progress of
discovery and of the attendant cartographical advances, maritime
Nordenskiold says that " from the beginning of the print-
ing of maps the graduations of latitude and longitude were marked
down in most printed maps, at least in the margin ; " the most conspic-
uous example of omitting these being, perhaps, in the work of Sebas-
tian Miinster, at a period a little later than the one we have now
reached.
In 1503 Reisch for the first time settled upon something like the
modern methods of indicating latitude and longitude in the
map which he annexed to his Margarita philosophica at andiongi-
Freiburg, though so far as climatic lines could stand for
latitudinal notions, Pierre d'Ailly had set an example of scaling the
zones from the equator in his map of 1410. The Spaniards, how-
ever, did not fall into the method of Reisch, so far as published maps
are concerned, till long afterwards (1534).
Up to the time when the Strassburg Ptolemy was issued, in 1513,
the chief activity in map-making had been in Italy. The j^aiian
cartographers of that country got what they could froni "^*ps-
602
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
Spain, but the main dependence was on Portuguese sources, though
the rivals of Spain were not always free in imparting the know-
ledge of their hydrographical offices, since we find Robert Thome, in
1527, charging the Portuguese with having falsified their records.
It is worthy of remark that no official map of the Indies was pub-
lished in Spain till 1790.
SEBASTIAN MtJNSTER.
[From Reusner's Icones, 1590.]
After 1513, and so on to the middle of the century, it was to the
Cartographi- north of the Alps that the cosmographical students turned
north*o?the ^^^ *^® latest light upon all oceanic movements. The ques-
■'^ips- tion of longitude was the serious one which both naviga-
tors and map-makers encountered. The cartographers were trying all
Map pro- sorts of experiments in representing the converging meri-
jections. dians on a plane surface, so as not to distort the geography,
and in order to afford some manifest method for the guidance of ships.
THE GEOGRAPHICAL RESULTS. 603
These experiments resulted, as Nordenskiold counts, in something like
twenty different projections being devised before 1600. For the sea-
man the difficulty was no less burdensome in trying to place his ship
at sea, or to map the contours of the coasts he was following. The
navigator's main dependence was the course he was steering and an
estimate of his progress. He made such allowance as he could for his
drift in the currents. We have seen how the imperfection of his in-
struments and the defects of his lunar tables misled Colum- Lunar ob-
bus egregiously in the attempts which he made to define serrations.
the longitude of the Antilles. He placed Espanola at 70° west of
Seville, and La Cosa came near him in counting it about 68°, so far
as one can interpret his map. The Dutch at this time were begin-
ning to grasp the idea of a chronometer, which was the de- chronome-
vice finally to prove the most satisfactory in these efforts. ^^'■^•
Reinerus Gemma of Friesland, known better as Gemma Frisius, be-
gan to make the Dutch nautical views better known when he suggested,
a few years later, the carrying of time in running off the longitudes,
and something of his impress on the epoch was shown in the stand
which a pupil, Mercator, took in geographical science. The Sjpieghel
der Zeevaardt of Lucas Wagenaer, in 1584 (Leyden), was EarUest sea-
the first sea-atlas ever printed, and showed again the Dutch **i*s-
advance.
There were also other requirements of sea service that were not for-
gotten, among which was a knowledge of prevalent winds and ocean
currents, and this was so satisfactorily acquired that the return voyage
from the Antilles came, within thirty years after Columbus, to be
made with remarkable ease. Oviedo tells us that in 1525 two cara-
vels were but twenty-five days in passing from San Domingo to the
river of Seville.
Two of the duties imposed by the Spanish government upon the
Casa de la Contratacion, soon after the discovery of the New World,
were to patronize invention to the end of discovering a process for
making fresh water out of salt, and to improve ships' pumps, — the
last a conception not to take effective shape till Ribero, the royal cos-
mographer, secured a royal pension for such an invention in 1526.
It was in the midst of these developments, both of the practical
parts of seamanship and of the progress of oceanic discovery, that in
1526 there was held at Seville a convention of pilots and
cosmographers, called by royal order, to consolidate and piioKr°
correlate all the cartographical data which had accumulated
up to that time respecting the new discoveries.
Ferdinand Columbus was at this time in Seville, engaged in com-
604
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
pleting a house and library for himself, and in planting the park about
^ .. . them with trees brought from the New World, a single one
Ferdinand ° °
Columbus, of which, a West Indian sapodilla, was still standing m
1871. It was in this house that the convention sat, and Ferdinand
HOUSE AND LIBRARY OF FERDINAND COLUMBUS.
Columbus presided over it, while the examinations of the pilots were
conducted by Diego Ribero and Alonso de Chaves.
There have come down to us two monumental maps, the outgrowth
THE GEOGRAPHICAL RESULTS.
605
of this convention. One of these is dated at Seville, in 1527, purporting
to be the work of the royal eosmographer, and has been 1527.29.
usually known by the name of Ferdinand Columbus ; and ^*ps-
the other, dated 1529, is known to have been made by Diego Ribero,
also a royal eosmographer. These maps closely resemble each other.
SPANISH MAP, 1527.
[After sketch in E. Mayer's Die Entwieklung der Seekarien (Wien, 1877).]
The Weimar chart of 1527, which Kohl, Stevens, and others have
assigned to Ferdinand Columbus, has been ascribed by Harrisse to
Nuno Garcia de Toreno, but by Coote, in editing Stevens on Schbner,
it is assigned to Ribero, as a precursor of his undoubted produc-
tion of 1529.
606
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
new conti-
nent
ing.
We have seen how, succeeding to the belief of Columbus that the
new regions were Asia, there had grown up, a few years after his death,
in spite of his audacious notarial act at Cuba, a strong presumption
Idea of a among geographical students that a new continent had been
sm-id- found. We have seen this conception taking form with
more or less uncertainty as to its western confines immedi-
ately upon, and even an-
ticipating, the discovery
of the actual South Sea
by Balboa, and can fol-
low it down in the maps
or globes of Stobnicza
and Da Vinci, in that
known as the Lenox
globe, in those called the
Tross and Nordenskiold
gores, the Schoner and
Hauslab globes, the Ptol-
emy map of 1513, and in
those of Reisch, Apianus,
Laurentius Frisius, Mai-
ollo, Bordone, Homem,
and Miinster, — not to
name some others. In
twenty years it had come
to be a prevalent belief,
and men's minds were
turned to a consideration
of the possibility of this
revealed continent hav-
ing been, after all, known
to the ancients, as Glare-
anus, quoting Virgil, was
the earliest to assert in
1527.
About 1525 there came
a partial reaction, as if
the discovery of Balboa
had been pushed too far
in its supposed results.
Reaction in ^® ^"^ ^^^^ taking form in 1526, in an identification of
the monk North America with eastern Asia in a map ascribed to the
Franciscus. i t-< • i -i ^ i .
monk i^ranciscus, while South America is laid down as a
THE NANCY
THE GEOGRAPHICAL RESULTS.
607
continental island, separated from India by a strait only. The strait
is soon succeeded by an isthmus, and in this way we get a solution of
the problem which had some currency for half a century or more.
Orontius Finaeus was one of these later compromisers in cartog-
raphy, in a map which he is supposed to have made in orontius
1531, but which appeared the next year in the Novus Orhis finaeus.
(1532) of Simon Gry-
naeus, and was used in
some later publications
also. We find in this
map, about the Gulf of
Mexico, the names which
Cortes had applied in
his map of 1520 min-
gled with those of the
Asiatic coast of Marco
Polo. We annex a
sketch of this map as
reduced by Brevoort to
Mercator's projection.
A map very similar to
this and of about the
same date is preserved
in the British Museum
among the Sloane manu-
scripts, and the same
bold solution of the diffi-
culty is found in the
Nancy globe of about
1540, and in the globe
of Gaspar Vopel of 1543.
There is a good in-
stance of the instability
of geographical know-
ledge at this time in the
conversion of Johann
Schoner from ^^^^^^
a belief in an Schoner.
insular North America,
to which he had clung
in his globes of 1515 and 1520, to a position which he took in 1533,
in his Opusculum Geographicum, where he maintains that the city
of Mexico is the Quinsay of Marco Polo.
GLOBE.
ORONTIUS FIN^US, 1532.
[After Cimelinus's Copperplate of 1566.]
610
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
Previous to Cortes's departure for Spain in 1528, he had, as we
have seen, dispatched vessels from Tehuantepec to the Moluccas, but
The Pacific nothing was done to explore the Pacific coast northward till
explored. ^ig return to Mexico. In the spring or early summer of
1532 he sent Hurtado de Mendoza up the coast ; but little success at-
tending the exploration, Cortes himself proceeded to Tehuantepec and
constructed other vessels, which sailed in October, 1533. A gale
drove them to the west, and when they succeeded in working back and
CORTES.
California.
making the coast, they found themselves well up what proved to be
the California peninsula. They now coasted south and
developed its shape, which was further brought out in detail
by an expedition led by Cortes himself in 1535, and by a later one
sent by him under Francisco de UUoa in 1539. Cortes had supposed
THE GEOGRAPHICAL RESULTS.
611
the peninsula an island, but this expedition of 1539 demonstrated the
fact that no passage to the outer sea existed at the head of the gulf,
which these earliest navigators had called the Sea of Cortes. The
conqueror of Mexico had now made his last expedition on the Pacific,
and his name was not destined to be long connected with this new
iield of discovery, unless, indeed, it was a prompting of Cortes —
hardly proved, however — which attached to this peninsular region
the euphonious name of California, and which, after an interval when
the gulf was called the Red Sea, was applied to that water also. The
views of UUoa were confirmed in part, at least, by Castillo in 1540,
who has left us a map of the gulf.
/, CtuUJ JT^arikmn.
V — ,
f^Ws.
CASTILLO'S CALIFORNIA.
The outer coast of the peninsula as far north as 28° 30' had been
established in 1533. It was ten years later, in 1543, that Cabrillo,
making his landfall in the neighborhood of 33°, just within the south-
612 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
ern bounds of the present State of California, coasted up to Cape
Mendocino, and perhaps to 44°, or nearly, to that spot, in the present
State of Oregon. If Cabrillo, who had died January 3, 1543, did
not himself go so high, the credit belongs to Ferrelo, his chief pilot.
Late in 1542 Mendoza sent an expedition under Ruy Lopez de
Villalobos, across the Pacific, and if a map of Juan Freire, made in
1546, is an indication of his route, he seems to have gone higher up
the coast than any previous explorer.
While this development of the northwest coast of North America
The Atlantic ^as going on, there were other discoverers still endeavor-
North'^* ing on the Atlantic side to connect the waters of the two
America. oceans.
In April, 1534, Jacques Cartier, a jovial and roistering fellow, as
j53^ Father Jouon des Longrais, his latest biographer, makes
Cartier. hina out (Jacques Cartier, Paris, 1888), and who had led
the roving life of a corsair in the recent wars of France, was now
turning his energy to solve the great problem of this western passage.
He sailed from St. Malo, and for the first time laid open, by an offi-
cial examination, the inner spaces of the St. Lawrence Gulf, which
might have been, indeed, and probably were, known earlier to the
hardy Breton and Norman fishermen. We are deficient in a know-
ledge of the early frequenting of these coasts because the charts of
such fishermen, and of those who visited the region for trade in pelti'ies,
have not come down to us, though Kohl thinks there is some likelihood
of such records being preserved in a portolano of the British Museum.
The track of Cartier about the Gulf of St. Lawrence has caused
some discussion and difference of opinion in the publications of Kohl,
De Costa, Laverdiere, and W. F. Ganong, the latter writer claiming,
in a careful paper in the Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada
for 1889, that in the correct interpretation of Cartier's first voyage
we find a key to the cartography of the gulf for almost a century.
The Rotz map of 1542 seems to be the earliest map which we
know to show a knowledge of Cartier's first voyage. The Henri II.
map of 1542 still more develops his work of exploration.
The chance of further discovery in this direction induced the French
king once more to commission Cartier, October 30, 1534, and early
in 1535 his little fleet sailed, and by August, after some discourage-
ments, not lessened when he found the water freshening, he began to
ascend the St. Lawrence River, reaching the site of Montreal. No
map by Cartier himself is preserved, though it is known that he made
such. Thenceforward the cartography of this northeastern region
showed the St. Lawrence Gulf in a better development of the earlier
THE GEOGRAPHICAL RESULTS.
613
so-called Square Gulf and of the great river of Canada. It is of rec-
ord that Francis I., in commissioning Cartier, considered that he was
dispatching him to ascend an Asiatic river, and the name of Lachine
even to-day is preserved as evidence of the belief which Cartier en-
tertained that he was within the bounds of China.
John Rotz's Bake of Idiography — a manuscript of 1542, preserved
in the British Museum — shows, in his drawing of the re- j^^^^ Rotz'a
gion about the Gulf of St. Lawrence, certain signs, as Kohl °^^p-
thinks, of having had access to the charts of Cartier, and Harrisse
traces in them the combined influence of the Portuguese and Dieppe
navigators.
The Cartier voyages seem to have made little impression outside
of France, and we find for some years few traces of his discoveries
614
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
in the portolanos of Italy and in the maps of the rest of Europe. It
was only when the expedition of Roberval, in 1540-41, excited at-
tention that the rest of Europe seemed to recognize these French
efforts.
The later voyages of Cartier, in 1541 and 1543, revealed nothing
more of general geographical interest. Indeed, the hope of
a western passage in this direction had been abandoned in
effect after Cartier's second voyage, although the pilot
AUefonsce, who accompanied a later expedition, had been
detailed to explore the Labrador coast to that end, and had
been turned back by ice. After this he seems to have gone south into
a great bay, under 42°, the end of which he did not reach. This may
have been the large expanse partly shut in by Cape Sable (Nova
Cartier's
later
voyages.
AUefonsce.
THE GEOGRAPHICAL RESULTS.
615
ZIEGLER'S SCHONDIA.
016
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
Scotia) and Cape Cod, now called in the coast survey charts the Gulf
of Maine ; or perhaps it may conform, taking into account his regis-
tered latitude, to the inner bight of it called Massachusetts Bay. At
all events, Allefonsce believed himself on coasts contiguous to Tar-
tary, through vrhich he had hopes to find access to the more hospitable
orient (Occident) farther south. He apparently had something of the
same notion regarding the westerly stretch of water which he found
below Cape Cod, extending he knew not where, along the inclosure of
the present Long Island Sound.
In the years both before and after the middle of the century,
French vessels were on this coast in considerable numbers for purposes
of trade or for protecting French interests, but we know nothing of
any accessions to geographical knowledge which they made.
Allefonsce speaks of the Saguenay as widening, when he went up,
till it seemed to be an
arm of the sea, and '' I
think the same," he adds,
*' runs into the Sea of
Cathay ;" and so he
draws it on one of his
maps, — an idea made
more general in the map
of Homem in 1558, where
the St. Lawrence really
becomes a channel,
locked by islands, border-
ing an Arctic Sea. Ramusio, in 1553, has inferred from such reports
as he could get of Cartier's explorations, that his track had lain in
channels bounded by islands, and a similar view had already been ex-
pressed in a portolano of 1536, preserved in the Bodleian, which Kohl
associates with Homem or Agnese. The oceanic expansion of the
Saguenay is preserved as late as the Molineaux map of 1600.
It is to the work of Allefonsce that we probably owe another con-
fusion of this northern cartography in the sixteenth century. What
River of ^® ^^^ know as Penobscot Bay and River was called by
Norumbega. hj^ tj^g ^vvev of Norumbega, and he seems to have given
some ground for believing that this river connected the waters of the
Atlantic with the great river of Canada, just as we find it later shown
upon Gastaldi's map in Ramusio, by Ruscelli in 1561, by Martines in
1578, by Lok in 1582, and by Jacques de Vaulx in 1584.
While this idea of the north was developing, there came in another
that made the peninsular Greenland of the ante-Columbian maps
grow into a link of land connecting Europe with the Americo- Asiatic
NUEVA
RUSCELLI, 1544.
THE GEOGRAPHICAL RESULTS.
617
main, so that one niiglit in truth perambulate the globe Greenland
dryshod. We find this conception in the maps of the Bava- J^g and^"
rian Ziegler (1532), and in the Italians Ruscelli (1544) and America.
C A. 3^T L
M A iCI
CARTA MARINA, 1548.
Gastaldi (1548), — the last two represented in the Ptolemies of those
years published in Italy. But these Italian cosmographers were by no
means constant in their belief, as Ruscelli showed in his Ptolemy of
1561, and Gastaldi in his Ramusio map of 1550.
618
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
As the Pacific explorations were stretched northward from Mexico,
and the peninsula of California was brought into promi-
America ncncc, there remained for some time a suspicion that the
lighter Tati-^ western ocean made a great northerly bend, so as to sever
*** North America from Asia except along the higher latitudes.
MYRITIUg, 1590.
We find this northerly extension of the Pacific in a map of copper pre-
served in the Carter-Brown library, which seems to have been the
work of a Florentine goldsmith somewhere about 1535 ; in the Carta
Marina of Gastaldi in 1548 ; and it even exists in maps of a later date.
THE GEOGRAPHICAL RESULTS.
619
like that of Paolo de Furlani (1560) and that of Myritius (1587). This
map of Myritius, which appeared in his Opiisculum Geographicum,
published at Ingolstadt in 1590, is the work of, perhaps, the last of
r^vxr«'
the geographers who did not leave more or less doubt about the con-
nection of North America with Asia. So it took about a full century
for the entanglement of the coasts of Asia and America,
which Columbus had imagined, to be practically eradicated ment of the
from the maps. Not that there were not doubters, even and Asiatic
very early, but the faith in a new continent grew slowly ^°*®*^^-
and had many set-backs ; nor did the Asiatic connection fade entirely
out, as among the possibilities of geography, for considerably more
than a century yet to come. The uncertainties of the higher latitudes
620
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
kept knowledge in suspense, and even the English settlers on the
northerly coasts of the United States were not quite sure. Thomas
Morton, the chronicler of a colony on the Massachusetts shores, felt
it necessary, so late as 1636, to make a reservation that possibly
the mainland of America bordered on the land of the Tartars. In-
deed, no one could say positively, though much was conjectured, that
there was not a terrestrial connection in the extreme northwest,
1728. under arctic latitudes, till Bering in 1728, two hundred
Bering. ^mdi thirty-six years after Columbus offered his prayer
at San Salvador, passed from the Pacific into the polar waters. This
became the solution of the fabled straits of Anian, an inheritance
from the very earliest days of northern- exploration, which, after the
THE GEOGRAPHICAL RESULTS. 621
middle of the sixteenth century, was revived in the maps of Martines,
Zaltiere, Mercator, Porcacchi, Furlani, and Wytfliet, prefiguring the
channel which Bering passed. Much in the same way as the southern
apex of South America was a vision in men's minds long before Ma-
gellan found his way to the Pacific.
But we have anticipated a little. Coincident with the efforts of
Cartier to discover this northern passage we mark other navigators
working at the same problem. The Spaniard Alonso de ^^q
Chaves made a chart of this eastern coast in 1536 ; but we Choves.
only know of its existence from the description of it written by Oviedo
in 1537. In the earliest map which we have from the hand j^gg
of Gerard Mercator, and of which the only copy known was Mercator.
discovered some years ago by the late James Carson Brevoort, of New
York, we find the northern passage well defined in 1538, and a broad
channel separating the western coast of America from a parallel coast
of Asia, — a kind of delineation which is followed in some globe-gores
of about 1540, which Nordenskiold thinks may have been j^^ jj^j.^
the work of George Hartmann, of Nuremberg. This map "^^"" g'^'"^^-
is evidently based on Portuguese information, and that Swedish
scholar finds no ground for associating it with the lost globe of Scho-
ner, as Stevens has done. A facsimile of part of it has already been
given.
Sebastian Munster, in his maps in the Ptolemy of 1540-45, makes
a clear seaway to the Moluccas somewhere in the latitude of i54o_45.
the Strait of Belle Isle. Munster was in many ways anti- Miinster.
quated in his notions. He often resorted to the old device of the
Middle Ages by supplying the place of geographical details with fig-
ures of savages and monsters.
We come now to two significant maps in the early history of Amer-
ican cartography.
Columbus had been dead five and thirty years when a natural
result grew out of those circumstances which conspired to name the
largest part of the new discoveries after a secondary pathfinder. We
have seen that there seemed at first no injustice in the name of
America being applied to a region in the main external to the range
of Columbus's own explorations, and how it took nearly a half cen-
tury before public opinion, as expressed in the protest of Schoner in
1533, recognized the injustice of using another's name. Whether
that protest was prompted by a tendency, already shown, to give
the name to the whole western hemisphere is not clear ; but certainly
within eight years such a general application was publicly made, when
Mercator, in drafting in 1541 some gores for a globe, divided the
622
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
name AME — RICA so that it covered both North and South Amer-
J54J ica, and qualified its application by a legend which says
Mercator. ^jjg^^ ^jjg continent is " called to-day by many, New India."
Thus a name that in the beginning was given to a part in distinction
MERCATOR'S
merely and without any reference to the entire field of the new explo-
rations, was now become, by implication, an injustice to the great first
discoverer of all. The mischief, aided by accident and by a not unac-
THE GEOGRAPHICAL RESULTS.
623
countable evolution, was not to be undone, and, in the singular muta-
tions of fate, a people inhabiting a region of which neither Columbus
nor Vespucius had any conception are now distinctively known in the
world's history as Americans.
GLOBE OF 1538.
These 1541 gores of Mercator were first made known to scholars a
few years ago, when the Belgian government issued a facsimile edi-
tion of the only copy then known, which the Royal Library at Brus-
624
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
sels had just acquired ; but since there have been two other copies
brought to light, — one at St. Nicholas in Belgium, and the other in
the Imperial library at Vienna.
There are some indications on Spanish globes of about 1540, and
Henry II. ^^ *^® Desceliers or Henry II. map of 1546, that the Span-
uiap. • ish government had sent explorers to the region of Canada
not long after Cartier's earliest explorations, and it is significant that
the earliest published map to show these Cartier discoveries is the
1544 Cabot ^^^^^ ^^ t^^® ^"^^ maps already referred to, namely, the
™ap- Cabot mappemonde of 1544, which has been supposed a
Spanish cartographical waif. Early publications of southern and mid-
dle Europe showed little recognition of the same knowledge.
MUNSTER, 1545.
The Cabot map has been an enigma to scholars ever since it was
discovered in Germany, in 1843, by Von Martius. It was deposited
the next year in the great library at Paris. It is a large elliptical
world-map, struck from an engraved plate, and it bears sundry eluci-
dating inscriptions, some of which must needs have come from Se-
bastian Cabot, others seem hardly to merit his authorship, and one
acknowledges him as the maker of the map. There is, accordingly, a
composite character to the production, not easily to be analyzed so as
to show the credible and the incredible by clear lines of demarcation.
We learn from it how it proclaimed for the first time the real agency
of John Cabot in the discovery of North America, confirmed when
Hakluyt, in 1582, printed the patent from Henry VII. There is an
unaccountable year given for that discovery, namely, 1494, but we
seem to get the true date when Michael Lok, in 1582, puts down " J.
Cabot, 1497," against Cape Breton in his map of that year. As this
last map appeared in Hakluyt' s Divers Voyages, and as Hakluyt tells
us of the existence of Cabot's maps and of his seeing them, we may
^ fKtun PathagoniCum'
MERCATOR, 1541. [Sketched from his gores.]
THE GEOGRAPHICAL RESULTS. 627
presume that we have in this date of 1497 an authoritative statement.
We learn also from this map of 1544 that the land first seen was the
point of the island now called Cape Breton. Without the aid of this
map, Biddle, who wrote before its discovery, had contended for Lab-
rador as the landfall.
We know, on the testimony of Robert Thorne in 1527, if from no
other source, that it was a settled policy of the Spanish government to
allow no one but proper cartographical designers to make scarcity of
its maps, " for that peradventure it would not sound well to ^fjji'^1^
them that a stranger should know or discover their secrets." ^^p^-
This doubtless accounts for the fact that, in the two hundred maps
mentioned by Ortelius in 1570 as used by him in compiling his atlas,
not one was published in Spain ; and every bibliographer knows that
not a single edition of Ptolemy, the best known channel of communi-
cating geographical knowledge in this age of discovery, bears a Span-
ish imprint. The two general maps of America during the sixteenth
century, which Dr. Kohl could trace to Spanish presses, were that of
Medina in 1545 and that of Gomara in 1554, and these were not of
a scale to be of any service in navigating.
There seem to be insuperable objections to considering that Se-
bastian Cabot had direct influence in the production of the map now
under consideration. It is full of a lack of knowledge cabot'scon-
which it is not possible to ascribe to him. That it is based the*map^f ^
upon some drafts of Cabot is most probably true ; but they i^^-
are clearly drafts, confused and in some ways perverted, and eked
out by whatever could be picked up from other sources.
That the Cabot map was issued in more than one edition is inferred
partly from the fact that the legends which Chytraeus quotes from it
differ somewhat from those now in the copy preserved in Paris ; and
indeed Harrisse finds reason to suppose that there may have been four
different editions. That in some form or other it was better known
in England than elsewhere is deduced from certain relations sustained
with that country on the part of those who have mentioned the map,
— Livio Sanuto, Ortelius, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, Richard Willes,
Hakluyt, and Purchas.
Whoever its author and whatever its minor defects, this so-called
Cabot map of 1544 may reasonably be accepted as the earliest really
honest, unimaginative exhibition of the American continent which had
been made. There was in it no attempt to fancy a northwest pas-
sage ; no confidence in the marine or terrestrial actuality of the region
now known to be covered by the north Pacific ; no certainty about the
entire western coast line of South America, though this might have
been decided upon if the maker of the map had been posted to date
628
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
for that region. The maker of it further showed nothing of that pre-
sumption, which soon became prevalent, of making Tierra del Fuego
merely but one of the various promontories of an immense Antarctic
continent, which later stood in the planispheres of Ortelius and Wytfliet.
MEDINA, 1544.
This map of Cabot was the last of the principal cartographical mon-
Geographi- uments made north of the Alps in this early half of the six-
^Sred *®6nth century. The centre of geographical study was now
to Italy. transferred to Italy, where it had begun with the opening of
THE GEOGRAPHICAL RESULTS.
629
the interest in oceanic discovery. For the next score years and more
we must look mainly to Venice for the newer development.
In the Venice Ptolemy of 1548, we have for the first time a series
of maps of the New World by Gastaldi, which were simply enlarged
MEDINA, 1544.
by Ruscelli in the edition of 1561, except in a few instances, 1543 q^
where new details were added, like the making of Yucatan ^^i'^^-
a peninsula instead of the island which Gastaldi had drawn. They
were repeated in the edition of 1562.
630
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
Meanwhile the most popular sea manuals of this period were Span-
ish ; but they studiously avoided throwing much light on
Sea manuals.
the new geography.
WYTPXIET, 1597.
That of Martin Cortes was the first to suggest a magnetic pole as
distinct from the terrestrial pole. Its rival, the Arte de Navegar of
Pedro de Medina, published at Valladolid in 1545, never reached the
same degree of popularity, nor did it deserve to, for his notions were
in some respects erratic.
THE GEOGRAPHICAL RESULTS.
631
The English in their theories of navigation had long depended on
the teachings of the Spaniards, and Eden had translated the chief Span-
ish manual in his Arte of Navigation of 1561.
WYTFLIET, 1597.
A great advance was possible now, for a new principle had been de-
vised, and an estimate of the progress of a ship was no longer depen-
dent on visual observation. The log hkd made it possible
to put dead reckoning on a pretty firm basis. This was the ' "^ * ^'
great new feature of the Regiment of the Sea, which the Englishman,
632
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS
William Bourne, published in 1573 ; and sixteen years later, in 1589,
another Englishman, Blunderville, made popularly known the new in-
strument for taking meridian altitudes at sea, the cross-staff, which had
•very early superseded the astrolabe on shipboard.
The inclination or dip of the needle, showing by its increase an
approach to a magnetic pole, was not scaled till 1576, when Robert
Norman made his observations, and it is not without some service
to-day in that combination of phenomena of which Columbus noted
the earliest traces in his first voyage of 1492.
t'loile
THE CROSS-STAFF.
It is significant how large a part in the cardinal discoveries of the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries was taken by Italian navigators, sea-
itaiian dis- iw^n, shipwrights, mathematicians, and merchants, whether
coverers. [^ Portugal or Spain, France or England. It is curious, too,
to observe how, when the theoretical work and confirmatory explora-
tions were finished, and the commercial spirit succeeded to that of sci-
ence, England embarked with her adventurous spirit. The death of
English dis- Q^een Mary in 1558 was the signal for English exertion,
coverers. ^ud that exertiou became ominous to all Europe in the reign
of Elizabeth, accompanied by an intellectual movement, typified in
Bacon and Shakespeare, similar to that which stirred the age of Co-
lumbus and the Italian renaissance.
John Hawkins and African marauders of his English kind were
John Haw- Selling negro slaves in Espanola in 1562 and subsequent
kins. years, and from them we get our first English accounts
of the Florida coast, which on their return voyages they skirted.
THE GEOGRAPHICAL RESULTS. 633
America had at this time been abandoned for a long while to Spain
and France, and the latter power had only entered into competition
with Charles V., when Francis I., as we have seen, had sent out Verra-
zano in 1521 to take possession of the north Atlantic coasts. Out of
this grew upon the maps the designation of New France, j^^^
which was attached to the main portion of the North Amer- France.
ican continent. And this French claim is recognized in the maps,
painted about 1562, on the walls of the geographical gallery in the
Vatican. So the French stole upon the possession of Spain in the
West Indies ; and the English followed in their wake, when the death
of Mary rendered it easier for the English to smother their inherited
antipathy to France. This done, the English in due time joined the
French in efforts to gain an ascendency over Spain in the Indies, to
compensate for the loss of such power in Italy. The Span- g ^nish set-
iards, though they had attempted to make settlements along *l^^®"*^ 1^
the Chesapeake at different times between 1566 and 1573,
never succeeded in making any impression on the history of this north-
ern region.
The cartography of the north was at this period subject to two new
influences ; and both of them make large demands upon the credulity
of scholarship in these latter days.
Attempts have been made to trace some portion of the development
of the coasts of the northeastern parts of the United States ^^^^6
to the publications of a mendacious monk, Andre Thevet. Thevet,
He had been sent out to the French colony of Rio de Janeiro in 1555,
where he remained prostrated with illness till he was able to reem-
bark for France, January 31, 1556. In 1558 he published his Singu-
laritez de la France Antaretique, a descriptive and conglomerate work,
patched together from all such sources as he could pillage, professing
to follow more or less his experiences on this voyage. He says noth-
ing in it of his tracking along the east coast of the present United
States. Seeking notoriety and prestige for his country, he pretends,
however, in his Cosmographie published in 1575, to recount the ex-
periences of the same voyage, and now he professes to have followed
this same eastern coast to the region of Norumbega. Well-equipped
scholars find no occasion to believe that these later statements were
other than boldly conceived falsehoods, which he had endeavored to
make plausible by the commingling of what he could filch from the
narratives of others.
It was at this time also (1558) that there was published at Venice
the strange and riddle-like narrative which purports to give the expe-
634
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
riences of the brothers Zeni in the north Atlantic waters in the four-
The Zeni tecnth century. The publication came at a time when, with
story. the transfer of cartographical interest from over the Alps
to the home of its earliest growth, the countrymen of Columbus were
seeking to reinstate their credit as explorers, which during the fifteenth
THE ZENI MAP.
century and the early part of the sixteenth they had lost to the peoples
of the Iberian peninsula. Anything, therefore, which could empha-
size their claims was a welcome solace. This accounts both for the
bringing forward at this time of the long-concealed Zeni narrative, —
granting its genuineness, — and for the influence which its accompa-
THE GEOGRAPHICAL RESULTS.
635
The Zeni
map.
nying map had upon contemporary cartography. This map professed
to be based upon the discoveries made by the Zeni brothers, and
upon the knowledge acquired by them at the north in the fourteenth
century. It accordingly indicated the existence of countries called Es-
totiland and Drogeo, lying to the west, which it was now easy to iden-
tify with the Baccalaos
of the Cabots, and with
the New France of the
later French.
" If this remarkable
map," says Norden-
skiold, " had not re-
ceived extensive circu-
lation under the sanc-
tion of Ptole-
my's name,"
for it was copied in the
edition of 1561 of that
geographer, "it would
probably have been
soon forgotten. During
nearly a whole century
it had exercised an in-
fluence on the mapping
of the northern coun-
tries t o which there
are few parallels to be
found in the history of
cartography." It is
Nordenskiold's further
opinion that the Zeni
map was drawn from
an old map of the north
made in the thirteenth
century, from which the
map found in the War-
saw Codex of Ptolemy
of 1467 was also drawn.
He further infers that some changes and additions were imposed to
make it correspond with the text of the Zeni narrative.
The year 1569 is marked by a stride in cartographical science, of
which we have not yet outgrown the necessity.
THE ZENI MAP.
636
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
The plotting of courses and distances, as practiced by the early
explorers, was subject to all the errors which necessarily
cator'spnj- accomnany the lack of well-established principles, in repre-
jection. senting the curved surface of the globe on a jjlane chart.
|Jn«fg|itMir{^l*2^fl^»lm«»
cnr<»roi(lneinQeimnoa.&t)H
THE WARSAW CODEX, 1467;
Cumbrous and rude globes were made to do duty as best they could ;
but they were ill adapted to use at sea. Nordenskiold {Facsimile
Atlas, p. 22) has pointed out that Pirckheimer, in the Ptolemy of 1525,
had seemingly anticipated the theory which Mercator now with some
sort of prevision developed into a principle, which was applied in his
great plane chart of 1569. The principle, however, was not definite
THE GEOGRAPHICAL RESULTS.
637
enough in his mind for the clear exposition of formulas, and he seems
not to have attempted to do more than rough-hew the idea. The hint
was a good one, and it was left for the Englishman Edward Wright to
put its principles into a formulated problem in 1599, a century and
f^^hMcmr<:
after NordenskiSld.
more after Columbus had dared to track the ocean by following lati-
tudinal lines in the simplest manner.
It has been supposed that Wright had the fashioning of the large
map which, on this same Mercator projection, Hakluyt had included
in his Principall Navigations in 1599. Hondius had- also adopted
a like method in his mappemonde of the same year.
638
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
In 1570 the publication of the great atlas of Abraham Ortelius
showed that the centre of map-making had again passed
Theatrum of from Italy, and had found a lodgment in the Netherlands.
The Theatrum of Ortelius was the signal for the downfall
of the Ptolemy series as the leading exemplar of geographical ideas.
tjjm\i
.....^^"'•"•-^
MERCATOR, 1569.
The editions of that old cartographer, with their newer revisions, never
again attained the influence with which they had been invested since
the invention of printing. This influence had been so great that Nor-
DecKne of denskiold finds that between 1520 and 1550 the Ptolemy
Ptolemy. maps had been five times as numerous as any other. They
had now passed away ; and it is curious to observe that Ortelius seems
to have been ignorant of some of the typical maps anterior to his
time, and which we now look to in tracing the history of American
cartography, like those of Ruysch, Stobnicza, Agnese, Apianus, Vadi-
anus, and Girava.
THE GEOGRAPHICAL RESULTS.
639
It has already been mentioned that when Ortelius published his
Theatrum, and gave a list of ninety-nine makers of maps
whom he had consulted, not a solitary one of Spanish make
was to be found among them. It shows how effectually the Council
of the Indies had concealed the cartographical records of their office.
MERCATOR.
It was eighty years since the English under John Cabot had under-
taken a voyage of discovery in the New World. The inter- ^^^^ ^^^
val passed not without preparation for new efforts, which Jj^^i^expiora-
had for a time, however, been extended to the northwest
rather than to the northeast. In 1548 Sebastian Cabot had i548 Sebas-
1 n L ^ ' "U t'^i^ Cabot.
returned to his native land to assume the farst place m her
maritime world. His influence in directing, and that of Richard
Eden in informing, the English mind prepared the way for the advent
of Frobisher, the younger Hawkins, and Drake.
640
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
Frobisher's voyage of 1576 was the true beginning of the arctic
search for a northwest passage, all earlier efforts having been
in lower latitudes. He had sought, by leaving Greenland
1576. Fro
bisher.
ORTELIUS.
on the right, to pass north of the great American barrier, and thus
reach the land of spices. He congratulated himself on having found
the long-desired strait, when, naming it for himself, he returned to
THE GEOGRAPHICAL RESULTS.
641
England. Frobisher attempted to add to these earlier discoveries by
a voyage the next year, 1577, but he made exploration ^r^j-j^^^
secondary to mining for gold, and not much was done. A Frobisher.
ORTELIUS, 1570,
third voyage in 1578 brought him into Hudson's Straits, which he
entered with the hope of finding it the channel to Cathay. But in all
his voyages Frobisher only crossed the threshold of the arctic north.
It was one of the results of Frobisher's voyages that they served to
642
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
The z ni in- "^pl^^^^ ^'^ ^^® minds of the cartographers of the northern
fluence. waters the notions of the Zeni geography, and aided to
SEBASTIAN (JABUT.
give those notions a new lease of favor. It is conjectured that Fro- ^
bisher had the Zeni map with him, or its counterpart in one of the re- j
TEE GEOGRAPHICAL RESULTS.
643
cent Ptolemies. This map Lad placed the point of Greenland under
66° instead of 61°, and under the last latitude this map had shown
the southern coast of its insular Frisland. Therefore, when Frobisher
saw land under 61°, which was in fact Greenland, he supposed it to
be Frisland, and thus the maps after him became confused. A ' like
FROBISHER.
mischance befell Davis, a little later. When this navigator found
Greenland in 61°, he supposed it an island south of Greenland, which
he called " Desolation," and the fancy grew up that Frobisher's route
must have gone north of this island and between it and Greenland, and
so we have in later maps this other misplacement of discoveries.
While Frobisher was absent, Drake developed his great jg^-^ j-j.^^,
scheme of following in the southerly track of Magellan. ^^^ Drake.
644
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
Four years before (1573), being at Panama, he had seen from a tree-
top the great Pacific, and had resolved to be the first of the English
to furrow its depths. In 1577, starting on his great voyage of circum-
navigation, he soon added a new stretch of the Pacific coast to the
better knowledge of the world. When he returned to England, he
proved to be the first commander who had taken his ship, the " Peli-
can," later called the " Golden Hind " wholly round the globe, for Ma-
gellan had died on the way. Passing through Magellan's Strait and
Drake sees entering the Pacific, Drake's ship was separated from its
Cape Horn, companions and driven south. It was then he saw the Cape
J €X%/i. Tf^^iTr
1^^ Civ «r^^r.^"^'/aTv'fe^
M^%U£
Canada "^
((cS of
XCC(S
^ — ^'' J^ ~\ — ^>^. J "^^^ —
FROBISHER, 1578.
Horn of a later Dutch navigator, and proved the non-existence of that
neighboring antarctic continent, which was still persistently to cling to
the maps. Bereft of his other ships, which the storm had driven apart,
Drake, during the early months of 1579, made havoc among the Span-
ish galleons which were on the South American coasts.
In March, 1579, surfeited with plunder, he started north from the
coast of Mexico, to find a passage to the Atlantic in the upper lati-
tudes.
In June he had reached 42° north, though some have supposed that
In the north ^® Went several degrees higher. He had met, however, a
Pacific. rigorous season, and his ropes crackled with the ice. The
change was such a contrast to the allurements of his experiences
farther to the south that he gave up his search for the strait that
would carry him, as he had hoped, to the Atlantic, and, turning south,
he reached a bay somewhere in the neighborhood of San Francisco,
THE GEOGRAPHICAL RESULTS.
64§
where he tarried for a while. Having placed the name of New Al-
bion on the upper California coast, and fearing to run the hazards of
the southern seas, where his plundering had made the Spaniards alert,
FRANCIS DRAKE.
he sailed westerly, and, rounding the Cape of Good Hope, reached
England in due time, and was acknowledged to be the earliest of Eng-
lish circumnavigators.
It is one of the results of Drake's explorations in 1579-80 that
we get in subsequent maps a more northerly trend to the -California
coast.
646 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
Shortly after this, a great confusion in the maps of this Pacific region
fusi nin ^^^^ ^^' From what it arose is not very apparent, except
the Pacific ^ii^t absence of direct knowledge in geography opens a wide
raphy. field for discursiveness. The Michael Lok map of 1582 in-
dicates this uncertainty. It seemed to be the notion that the Arctic
Sea was one and the same with that of Verrazano ; also, that it came
down to about the latitude of Puget Sound, and that the Gulf of Cali-
fornia stretched nearly up to meet it.
Francisco Gali, a Spanish commander, returning to Acapulco from
Francisco China in 1583, tried the experiment of steering northward
^a^i- to about 38°, when he turned west and sighted the Ameri-
can coast in that latitude. At this point he steered south, and showed
the practicability of following this circuitous route with less time than
was required to buffet the easterly trades by a direct eastern passage.
His experiment established one other fact, namely, the great width of
water separating the two continents in those upper latitudes ; for he had
Proves the found it to be 1200 leagues across instead of there being a
great width narrow strait, as the theorizing geographers had supposed,
fie. Gali seems also to have shown that the distance south from
Cape Mendocino to the point of the California peninsula was not more
than half as great as the maps had made it. His voyage was a signifi-
cant source of enlightenment to the cartographers.
Eastern '^^ return to the eastern coasts. An English vessel under
coast of Simon Ferdinando spent a short season in 1579 somewhere
North Amer- ^^
ica. about the Gulf of Maine, and was followed the next year by
1579. The another under John Walker, and in 1593 by still a third
linghsh on ' ^
the coast. under Richard Strong.
For eighty years England might have rested her claim to North
America on the discoveries of the Cabots ; but Queen Elizabeth first
gave prominence to these pretensions when she granted to Sir Hum-
phrey Gilbert in 1578 the right to make a settlement somewhere in
these more northerly regions. Gilbert's first voyage accomplished
nothing, and there was an interdict to prevent a second, since Eng-
land might have use for daring seamen nearer home. " First," says
Robert Hues, " Sir Humphrey Gilbert, with great courage and forces,
attempted to make discovery of those parts of America which were
yet unknown to the Spaniards; but the success was not
phrey GU- answorable." The effort was not renewed till 1583, when
Gilbert took possession of Newfoundland and attempted to
make settlements farther south ; but disaster followed him, and his ship
foundered off the Azores on his return voyage.
THE GEOGRAPHICAL RESULTS.
647
It was at this time that Sir Walter Ralegh came into prominence
in pushing English colonization in America. He had been gj^. ^
associated with his half-brother, Gilbert, in the earlier move- Raiegh.
ments, but now he was alone. In 1584 he got his new charter, partly
'3L^ff_
=5C^
GILBERT'S MAP, 1576.
by reason of the urgency of Hakluyt in his Westerns Planting. Ra-
legh had his eye upon a more southern coast than Gilbert had aimed
for, — upon one better fitted to develop self-dependent colonization.
He knew that north of what was called Florida the Spaniards had but
scantily tracked the country, and that they probably maintained no
settlements. Therefore to reach a region somewhere south of the
648
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
Chesapeake was the aim of the first company sent out under Ralegh's
inspiration. These adventurers made their landfall where they could
find no good inlet, and so sailed north, searching, until at last they
reached the sounds on the North Carolina coast, and tarried awhile.
Satisfied with the quality of the country, they returned to England :
and their recitals so pleased Ralegh and the Queen that the country
was named Virginia, and preparations were made to dispatch a colony.
It went the next year, but its history is of no farther importance to
our present purpose than that it marks the commencement of English
colonization, disastrous though it was, on the North American conti-
nent, and the beginning of detailed English cartography of its coast,
in the map, already referred to, which seems to open a passage, some-
where near Port Royal, to an interior sea.
English
SoUil
In 1585-86 John Davis had been buffeting among the icebergs of
1585-86. Greenland and the north in hopes to find a passage by the
John Davis, northwest ; on June 30, 1587, he reached 72° 12' on the
Greenland coast, and discovered the strait known by his name, and in
1595 when he published his World's Hydrograiohical Description^ he
maintained that he had touched the threshold of the northwest pas-
fie tells us that the globe of Molineaux shows how far he went.
Seamanship owes more to Davis than to any other Englishman. In
1590, or thereabout, he improved the cross-staff, and giving
manship. somewhat more of complexity to it, he produced the back-
sta£^. This instrument gave the observer the opportunity of avoiding
the glare of the sun, since it was
used with his back to that lumi-
nary ; and when Flamsteed, the
first astronomer royal at Green-
wich, used a glass lens to throw
reflected light, the first approach
to the great principle of taking
angles by reflection was made,
which was later, in 1731, to be
carried to a practical result in
Hadley's quadrant.
The art of finding longitude
still in an uncertain state.
Gemma Frisius, as we have noted,
had as early as 1530 divined the
method of carrying time by a
watch ; but it was not till 1726
that anything really practicable
BACK-STAPF.
THE GEOGRAPHICAL RESULTS. 649
came of it, in a timekeeper constructed by Harrison. This watch
was continually improved by him up to 1761, when the method of
ascertaining longitude by chronometer became well established ; and
a few years later (1767) the first nautical almanac was published,
affording a reasonably good guide in lunar distances, as a means in
the computations of longitude.
In 1676 the Greenwich observatory had been founded to attempt
the rectification of lunar tables, then so erroneous that the
calculations for longitude were still uncertain. In 1701 Ed-
mund Halley had published his great variation charts. These dates
will fix in the reader's mind the advance of scientific skill as applied
to navigation and discovery. It will be well also to remember that
in 1594 Davis published his Seaman's Secrets, the first manual in the
English tongue, written by a practical sailor, in which the principles of
great circle sailing were explained.
The first marine atlas had been printed at Leyden in 1583-84;
but the Dutch had not at that time taken any active part in j583_84
the development of discovery in the New World. Their ^^g'^jf^r*'
longing for a share in it, mated with a certain hostile inten-
tion towards the Spaniards, instigated the formation of the west India
West India Company, which had first been conceived in the ^°'"P^"y-
mind of William Usselinx in 1592, though it was not put into execu-
tion till twenty-five years later. It was claimed by the Dutch that in
1598 the ships of their Greenland Company had discovered
the Hudson River, though there can be little doubt that
the French, Spanish, and perhaps English had been there much ear-
lier. It is also claimed that the straits shown in Lok's map in 1582
had instigated Heinrich Hudson to his later search. But the truth in
all these questions which involve national rights is very much per-
plexed with claim and counter-claim, invention and perversion, in
which historical data are at the beck of political objects.
By the end of the sixteenth century the Dutch began to appear on
the coasts of the Middle and New England States, and the jrjgg r^^^
cartography of those regions developed rapidly under their R"*^^ *'!i
observation ; but it was through the boating explorations of American
Captain John Smith in 1614 that it took a shape nearer the
truth. It is to him that the northerly parts owe the name ^^® English.
of New England, which Prince Charles confirmed for it. The reports
from Hudson, May, and others instigated a plan marked out in 1618,
but not directly ordered by the States General till 1621, which led to
the Dutch occupation of Manhattan and the neighboring regions, intro-
ducing more strongly than before a Dutch element into the maps.
650 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
When the seventeenth century opened, the English had come well to
The English the front in maritime explorations. A large-minded and
marftim" patriotic man, Sir Thomas Smith, did much in his capacity
discovery. ^^ governor of the " merchants trading into the East In-
dies " to direct contemporary knowledge into better channels. Dr.
Richard Thomas Hood gave public lectures in London on the im-
Hakiuyt. provements in methods of navigation. Richard Hakluyt,
the historiographer of the new company, had already shown that he
had inherited the spirit of helpful patronage which had characterized
the labors of Eden.
We find the peninsula made by the St. Lawrence and the Atlantic
insularized from the beginning of the seventeenth century,
the transverse channel being now on the line of the Hudson,
The search then of the Penobscot, then of the St. Croix, and when the
era passage Seventeenth century came in, it was not wholly determined
at the north, ^jjg^^ ^.j^g longed-for western passage might not yet be found
somewhere in this region. On July 24, 1601, George Waymouth, a
navigator, as he was called, applied to the London East India Com-
1601 George V^^Y *^ ^® assisted in making an attempt to discover a
Waymouth. nortliwcst passage to India, and the company agreed to his
proposition. The Muscovy Company protested in vain against such
an infringement of its own rights ; but it found a way to smother its
grief and join with its rival in the enterprise. Through such joint
action Waymouth was sent by the northwest "towards Cataya or
China, or the back side of America," bearing with him a letter from
Queen Elizabeth to the Emperor of " China or Kathia." The attempt
failed, and Waymouth returned almost ignominiously.
In 1602, under instructions from the East India Company, he again
sailed, and now pushed a little farther into Hudson's Strait than
Hudson at ^^Y ^^® ^^^ heeii before. In 1609 Hudson had made some
the north. explorations, defining a little more clearly the northern
coasts of the present United States ; and in 1610 he sailed again from
England to attempt the discovery of the northwest passage, in a small
craft of fifty-five tons, with twenty-three souls on board. Following
the tracks of Davis and Waymouth, he went farther than they, and
revealed to the world the great inland sea which is known by his
name, and in which he probably perished.
In 1612-13 Sir Thomas Button developed more exactly the outline
Hudson's ^" P^^** ^^ *^^^ great bay, and in 1614 the Discovery, under
^^y- Robert Bylot and William Baffin, passed along the coasts of
Hudson's Strait, making most careful observation, and Baffin took
for the first time at sea a lunar observation for longitude, according to
a method which had been suggested as early as 1514. It was on a
THE GEOGRAPHICAL RESULTS.
651
voyage undertaken in the next year, 1615, that Baffin, exceeding the
northing of Davis, found lying before him the great expanse j^j^ g^f_
of Baffin's Bay, through which he proceeded till he found a ^^'s ^ay-
northern exit in Sir Thomas Smith's Sound, under 78°. Baffin did
all this with an accuracy which surprised Sir John Ross, who was the
next to enter the bay, two centuries later. It was in these years of
Hudson and Baffin that Napier invented logarithms and simplified the
processes of nautical calculations.
LUKE FOX, 1635.
The voyage of Luke Fox in 1631 developed some portions of the
western shores of Hudson's Bay, and he returned confident, ^^^ ^uke
from his observation of the tides farther north, that they ^o^-
indicated a western passage ; and in the same year Thomas Thomas
James searched the more southern limits of the great bay ^"^®^*
with no more success. These voyages put a stay for more than a
hundred years to efforts in this direction to find the passage so long
sought.
652 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
Up to 1602 the explorations of our northern coasts seem to have
been ordinarily made either by a sweep northerly from Europe, strik-
ing Newfoundland and then proceeding south, or by a southerly sweep
1602 Gos following the Spanish tracks and coasting north from Flor-
noid. i(la. In this year, 1602, the Englishman Gosnold, without
any earlier example that we know of since the time of Verrazano,
stood directly to the New England coast, and in the accounts of his
voyage we begin to find some particular knowledge of the contour of
this coast, which opens the way to identifications of landmarks. The
explorations of Pring (1603), Champlain (1604), Way mouth (1605),
Popham (1607), Hudson (1609), Smith (1614), Dermer (1619), and
others which followed are of no more importance in our present sur-
vey than as marking further stages of detailed geography. Even
Dermer was dreaming of a western passage yet to be found in this
region.
We must now turn to follow the development during the seventeenth
century of the discoveries on the Pacific coast.
DiscovGvics
on the Pa- Sebastian Viscaino, in his voyage up the coast from Aca-
c coas , p^j^Q 'j^ 1602, sought the hidden straits as high as 42°, and
1602. Vis- one of his captains reporting the coast to trend easterly at
camo. ^^o^ j^ig story confuscd the geogi'aphy of this region for
many years. This supjDosed trend was held to indicate another pas-
sage to the Gulf of California, making the peninsula of that name an
island, and so it long remained on the maps, after once getting pos-
session, some years later (1622), of the cartographical fancy.
Some explorations of the Dutch under De Vries, in 1643, were the
1643. D3 source of a notion later prevailing, that there was an inter-
Vr;e8. jacent land in the north Pacific, which they called " Jesso,"
and which was supposed to be separated by passages both from Amer-
ica and from Asia ; and for half a century or more the supposition, con-
nected more or less with a land seen by Joao da Gama, was accepted in
some quarters. Indeed, this notion may be said to have not wholly
disappeared till the maps of Cook's voyage came out in 1777-78, when
the Aleutian Islands got something like their proper delineation.
In fact, so vague was the conception of what might be the easterly
Confused ge- extension of the northern sea in the latitudinal forties that
nSfons of a ^^^ notion of a sea something like the old one of Verrazano
western sea. ^^s evefi thought in 1625 by Briggs in Purchas, and again
in 1651 in Farrer's map of Virginia, to bathe the western slope of the
Alleghanies.
Early in the eighteenth century, even the best cartographers ran
1700. wild in their delineations of the Pacific coast. A series of
THE GEOGRAPHICAL RESULTS.
65a
multifarious notions, arising from more or less faith in the alleged
explorations of Maldonado, Da Fuca, and De Fonte, some
of them assumed to have been made more than a century Da Fuca, Se
earlier, filled the maps with seas and straits, identified some- ^*'"^®'
times with the old strait of Anian, and converting the northwestern
parts of North America into a network of surmises, that look strangely
to our present eyes. Some of these wild configurations prevailed even
after the middle of the century, but they were finally eliminated from
the maps by the expedition of that James Cook who first saw the light
in a Yorkshire cabin in 1728.
JESSO. [After Hennepin.]
In 1724 Peter the Great equipped Vitus Bering's first expedition,
and in December, 1724, five weeks before his death, the 1^24. Ber-
Czar gave the commanding officer his instruction to coast ^^•
northward and find if the Asiatic and American coasts were continu-
ous, as they were supposed to be. There were, however, among the
Siberians, some reports of the dividing waters and of a great land be-
yond, and these rumors had been prevailing since 1711. Peter the
Great died January 28, 1725 (old style), just as Bering was
beginning his journey, and not till March, 1728, did that
navigator reach the neighborhood of the sea. In July he spread his
sails on a vessel which he had built. By the middle of August he had
654
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
DOMINA FARRER'S
THE GEOGRAPHICAL RESULTS.
655
■lUfff mriiii km um iMi'll km
Jb*
<A tnapp ofVivginia JifcouweA toy J
in its L titt^: J'v o ttv Sf dej:i<. t J
ThrldastO'fl.tle^g: honn^/j- of -new Z
MAP, 1651.
The geographical results.
657
passed beyond the easternmost point of Asia, and was standing out
into the Arctic Ocean, when he turned on his track and sailed south.
Neither in going nor in returning did he see land to the east, the
mists being too thick. He had thus established the limits of the
Russian Empire, but he had not as yet learned of the close proximity
of the American shores. His discoveries did not get any cartographi-
BERING'S STRAITS.
cal record till Kiriloff made his map of Russia in 1734, using the map
which Bering had made in Moscow in 1731. The follow- ^^32.
ing year (1732), Gvosdjeff espied the opposite coast ; but it j^^j 3^^..
was not till 1741 that Bering sailed once more from the ^"»-
Asiatic side to seek the American coast. He steered southeast, and
soon found that the land seen by Da Gama, and which the Delisles
had so long kept on their maps, did not exist there. Thence sailing
northward, Bering sighted the coast in July and had Mount St. Elias
658 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. '
before him, then named by him from that saint's day in the calendar.
Aleutian ^^^ ^^^ return route some vague conception of the Aleutian
Islands. Islands was gained, the beginning of a better cartography,
in which was also embodied the stretch of coast which Bering's asso-
ciate, Chirikoff, discovered farther east and south.
In 1757 Venegas, uninformed as to these Russian discoveries, con-
Northern fesscd in his California that nothing was really known of the
Pacific. coast line in the higher latitudes, — an ignorance that was
the source of a great variety of conjectures, including a large inland sea
of the west connecting with the Pacific, which was not wholly discarded
till near the end of the century, as has already been mentioned.
The search for the northwest passage to Asia, as it had been begun
The search V ^^^ English under Cabot in 1497, was also the last of all
for the t}jg endeavors to isolate the continent. The creation of the
northwest
passage. Hudson Bay Company in 1670 was ostensibly to promote
" the discovery of a new passage into the South Sea," but the world
knows how for two centuries that organization obstinately neglected,
or as far as they dared, the leading purpose for which they pretended
to ask a charter. They gave their well-directed energies to the amass-
ing of fortunes with as much persistency as the Spaniards did at the
south, but with this difference : that the wisdom in their employment of
the aborigines was as eminent as with the Southrons it was lacking.
It was left for other agencies of the British government successfully to
accomplish, with the aid of the votaries of geographical science, what
the pecuniary speculators of Fen Church Street hardly dared to con-
template.
The spirit of the old navigators was revived in James Cook, when
1779. James ^" 1779 he endeavored to pass eastward by Bering's Straits ;
Cook. tjyt; it was not till forty years later that a series of arctic
explorations was begun, in which the English races of both continents
have shown so conspicuous a skill and fortitude.
While the English, French, and Spaniards were dodging one another
in their exploring efforts along this upper coast, a Boston
the||Coium- ship, the " Columbia," under Captain Kendrick, entered the
Columbia River, then named ; and to these American explo-
rations, as well as to the contemporary ones of Vancouver, the geo-
graphical confusion finally yielded place to something like an intelligi-
ble idea.
It had also been the aim of Vancouver in 1790-95 " to ascertain
1790-95. ^^® existence of any navigable communication between the
Vancouver. North Pacific and the North Atlantic Oceans," and the cor-
respondence of the British government leading to this expedition has
660 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
only been lately printed in the Report of the Dominion archivist,
Douglas Brymner, for 1889.
The names of Barrow, Ross, Parry, and Franklin, not to mention
. ,. ^ others of a later period, make the story of the final sever-
piorers. ancc of the continent in the arctic seas one of conspicuous
interest in the history of maritime exploration. Captain Robert L.
McClure, in the " Investigator," late in 1850 passed into Bering's
1850 Mc- Straits, and before September closed his ship was bound in
ciure finds the icc. In October McClure made a sledge iourney east-
the north- ,i, i-,
west pas- erly over a frozen channel and reached the open sea, which
thirty years before Parry had passed into from the Atlantic
side. The northwest passage was at last discovered.
We have seen that within thirty years from the death of Columbus
the outline of South America was defined, while it had taken nearly
two centuries and a quarter to free the coast lines of the New World
from an entanglement in men's minds with the outlines of eastern
Asia, and another century and a quarter were required to complete
the arctic contour of America, so that the New World at last should
stand a wholly revealed and separate continent.
Nor had all this labor been done by governments alone. The pri-
vate merchant and the individual adventurer, equipping ships and sail-
ing without national help, had done no small part of it. Dr. Kohl
strikingly says, " The extreme northern limit of America, the desolate
peninsula Boothia, is named after the English merchant who fitted out
the arctic expedition of Sir John Ross ; and the southernmost strait,
beyond Patagonia, preserves the name of Le Maire, the merchant at
whose charge it was disclosed to the world ! "
INDEX.
AoKLiN Island, 215.
Adam of Bremen, 147.
Adda, G. d', 12.
Admiral's map, 534, 546, 581. See
Waldseemiiller.
Africa, circumnavigations of, 91 ; dis-
coveries along- its coast, 91, 151 ;
early maps, 133 ; Ptolemy's map of
its southern part, 335.
Agnese Baptista, his maps, 595, 597-
Aguado, Juan, sent to Espaflola, 317 ;
his conduct, 319.
Ailly, Pierre d', Be Imagine Mundi,
7, 8, 121, 180, 497 ; his map (1410),
601.
Alhertus Magnus, 497 ; portrait, 120.
Aleutian Islands, 652, 658.
Alexander VI., letter to, from Colum-
bus, 9 ; pope, 252 ; his bull of demar-
cation, 252 ; his bust, 253.
Alfonso V. (Portugal), 108.
Aliacus. See Ailly.
Allefonsce, 614.
Allegetto degli AUegetti, Epkemerides,
32.
Almagro, 565.
Alto Velo, 300.
Alva, Duke of, 514, 515.
Amazons, 235, 237.
America, mainland first seen by Colum-
bus, 351 ; gradually developed as a
continent, 529, 606, 619, 660 ; history
of its name, 538, 621 ; earliest maps
bearing the name, 547-552 ; the name
never recognized in Spain, 554 ; ear-
liest on maps, 581 ; was it known to
the ancients ? 606. See North and
South America.
Anacaona, 305 ; entertains Bartholomew
Columbus, 361 ; captured, 473.
Ancuparius, 588.
Angelus, Jacobus, 531.
Ango, Jean, 556.
Anian, Straits of, 418, 620.
Antarctic continent, 628, 644.
Antillia, belief in. 111, 112, 128.
Apianus, his map (1520), 550, 587;
portrait, 586.
Archipelago on the Asiatic coast, 190.
Arctic explorations, 640, 658, 659, 660.
Asia, as known to Marco Polo, etc.,
map, 113, 114.
Aspa, Ant. de, his documents, 29.
Astrolabe, 94-96, 132, 150, 260, 632.
Atlantic Ocean, early cartography of,
86, 88; floating islands in, 185; its
archipelago, 185 ; as defined by Be-
haim compared with its actual con-
dition, 190 ; early voyages on, 603.
Atlantis, story of, 126.
Aubert, Thomas, 556.
Audiencia, 518.
Avila, Luis de, 527.
Ayala, Pedro de, 343.
Ayllon, Lucas Vasquez de, 561 ; and
Diego Colon, 522 ; his map, 561, 584 ;
settlement on the Potomac, 561.
Azores discovered, 86, 88.
Babeque, 225, 230, 231.
Baccalaos, 344.
Back-staff, 648.
Bacon, Roger, Opus majus, 121, 497.
Badajos, congress at, 590.
Baffin, Wm., 650.
Baffin's Bay, 651.
Bahamas, Herrera's map, 212 ; modern
map, 213 ; character of, 215 ; their
peoples, 218 ; depopulated, 515.
Balboa, 562 ; portrait, 563 ; discovers
the South Sea, 564, 606 ; executed,
564.
Ballester, Miguel, 366, 372.
Bancroft, H. H., on Columbus, 59, 503.
Bank of St. George, and its records, 21,
70.
Barclay, Alex., translates Brant, 537.
Barlow, S. L. M., his library, 17.
Barrentes, Garcia de, 372.
Barros, Joao de. Decada, 33, 149, 241.
Bastidas, Rodrigo de, on the South
American coast, 426, 528.
Basques on the Atlantic, 128 ; fisher-
men, 340.
Baza, siege of, 169.
Behaim, Martin, in Lisbon, 132 ; im-
662
INDEX.
proves the astrolabe, 132 ; at sea, 134 ;
portrait, 134 ; and Columbus, 150 ;
his globe, 185-188, 538.
Behechio, 305, 361.
Belknap, Dr. Jeremy, on Columbus, 55.
Belloy, Marquis de, life of Columbus,
54.
Beneventanus, 533.
Benincasa, maps, 81.
Benzoni, 32, 51.
Beradi, Juonato, 258, 317.
Berg-enroth, Calendar, 13, 23.
Bergomas, his chronicle, 32.
Bering's Straits, 418, 657.
Bering, his discoveries, 529, 620, 653.
Bernaldez, Andres, friend of Columbus,
13, 331 ; Historia, 13, 18, 37.
Berwick, Duke of, 527.
B^thencourt, Jean de, 86.
Bianco, Andrea, his map, 88, 89 ; helps
Fra Mauro, 100.
Bienewitz. See Apianus.
Bimini, 422, 558, 560.
Birds, flight of, 88.
Blanco, Cape, passed, 98.
Bloodhounds, 312.
Blunderville, 632.
Bobadilla, Francisco de, sent to Santo
Domingo, 390 ; his character, 395 ;
his instructions, 396, 397 ; reaches
Espaiiola, 398 ; his acts, 398 ; their
effect upon Columbus, 400; arrests
Bastidas, 426 ; his rule in Santo Do-
mingo, 428 ; superseded, 429 ; to re-
turn to Spain, 440 ; lost, 440.
Bohio, 228.
Bojador, Cape, passed, 97.
Bordone, map, 142.
Bossi, L., on Columbus, 32.
Bourne, Wm., The Begiment of the Sea,
631.
Boyle. See Buil.
Brandt, Shyppe of Fools, 14.
Brazil coast visited by Cabral, 378 ;
early explorers, 533.
Brazil, island of, 112, 139.
Breton explorations, 555, 556.
Breviesca, Ximeno de, 333.
Brevoort, J. C, 597, 607, 621.
Briggs in Purchas, 652.
Bristol, England, and its maritime expe-
ditions, 342.
Brocken, Baron van, Colomb, 55.
Brymner, Douglas, 660.
Buache, his map, 656.
Biidinger, Max, Aden zur Columbus
Geschichte, 46 ; Zur Columbus Litera-
tur, 46.
Buet, C, Colomb, 54.
Buil, Bernardo, sent to the New World,
259.
Bull of demarcation, 22, 252, 339.
Bull of extension, 305.
Button, Sir Thomas, 650.
Bylot, Robert, 650.
Cabot, John, in England, 167, 340 ; sails
on a voyage of discovery, 340 ; earli-
est engraved map of his discoveries,
341 ; great circle sailing, 341 ; dis-
covers land, 341 ; question of his land-
fall, 341; returns to Bristol, 342;
question of his going to Seville, 343 ;
his second voyage, 344 ; its extent,
344 ; lack of knowledge respecting
these voyages, 345 ; authorities on,
346 ; was his voyage known to Colum-
bus ? 386 ; and the Ruyseh map, 533 ;
his explorations, 624.
Cabot, Sebastian, his observation of the
line of no variation, 201 ; on Colum-
bus's discovery, 248 ; his participancy
in his father's voyages, 344 ; his pa-
pers, 345 ; alleged voyage, 427 ; voy-
ages, 555; his mappemonde, 341, 345,
624, 626, 627; returns to England,
639 ; portrait, 642.
Cabral, Pedro Alvarez, on the South
American coast, 377.
Cabrero, Juan, 161.
Cabrillo, 611.
Cacique, 231.
Cadamosto, his voyage, 98.
Cado, Fermin, 285.
California, peninsula of, 610 ; its name,
611 ; map, 611 ; mapped as an island,
652 ; Drake on the coast, 644, 645.
Cam, Diogo, 1.34.
Camargo on the coast of Chili, 577.
Camers, Johann, 585.
Canaries, their history, 86 ; map of, 194.
Cannibals, 225, 227, 230, 268, 270, 281.
Canoes, 219.
Cantino, Alberto, 417 ; Cantino map,
387 ; sketched, 419 ; its traits ex-
amined, 420 ; its relation with Colum-
bus, 421.
Caonabo, 305 ; attacks LaNavidad, 273,
275 ; attacks St. Thomas, 308 ; forms a
league, 308 ; captured, 313 ; dies, 323.
Cape Blanco, 98.
Cape Bojador, 97.
Cape Breton, 627.
Cape of Good Hope discovered, 151.
Cape Horn discovered, 577; seen by
Drake, 644.
Cape Race, 5.34.
Cape Verde Island discovered, 199.
Cardenas, Alonso de, 161.
Cardona, Cristoval de, Admiral of Ara.-
gon, 524, 526, 527.
Caribs, 236, 271, 323.
Carpini, Piano, 90.
Carthaginians as voyagers, 127.
Cartier, Jacques, his explorations, 612,
624.
INDEX.
663
Carvajal, Alonso Sanchez de, factor of
Columbus, 430.
Carvajal, Bernardin de, 248.
Casa de Contratacion, 481.
Casaneuve. See Colombo the Corsair.
Casanove, 71.
Casoni, F., annals of Genoa, 32, 154.
Castefieda, Juan de, 238.
Castellanos, Elegias, 491.
Castillo, 611.
Catalan seamanship, 94.
Catalina, Doila, 9, 276.
Cathay, 224, 4.57 ; early name of China,
90; map of, 113, 114; as found by
the Portuguese, 509.
Cazadilla, 150.
Chanca, Dr., his narrative, 29; goes to
the new world, 262, 282.
Charles V., portrait, 519.
Chaves, Alonso, his map, 561, 621 ; at
the Seville Conference, 604.
Chesapeake Bay, Spaniards in the, 633.
Chili discovered, 565, 577.
China, early known, 90. See Cathay.
Chronica Delphinea, 9, 11.
Chronometers, 260, 603.
Chytraeus, 627.
Cibao, 232 ; its mines visited by Ojeda,
279.
Ciguare, 447.
Cipango, 125 ; map, 113.
Circourt, Count, 46.
Clavus, Claudius, 140, 141.
Clemente, Claudio, Tablas, 214
Climatic lines, 601.
Codex Flatoyensis, 146.
Coelho's voyage, 410.
Colombo, Balthazar, 525, 527.
Colombo, Bernardo, 525, 527.
Colombo, Corsair, 71, 72, 83, 84.
Colon, Cristoval (bastard son of Luis,
grandson of Columbus), 526.
Colon, Diego (brother of Columbus),
born, 77 ; in Spain and in Colum-
bus's second expedition, 262 ; his
character, 285 ; placed by Columbus
in command at Isabella, 290 ; goes
to Spain, 311 ; quarrels with Fonseca,
318.
Colon, Diego (son of Columbus), 106;
page to the Queen, 181 ; at Court,
478, 479 ; receives letter from Colum-
bus, 478 ; his illegitimate children,
513 ; receives what was due to his fa-
ther, 513; urges the King to restore
his father's privileges, 513 ; his suit
against the Crown, 514, 553 ; wins,
515 ; marriage, 515 ; denied the title
of Viceroy, 515 ; Governor of Espa-
fiola, 515, 516 ; in Spain, 519 ; lends
money to Charles V., 520; his in-
come, 520 ; Viceroy, 520 ; builds a
palace, 520 ; its ruins, 520 ; in Spain
pressing his claims, 522 ; dies, 522 ;
his children, 522.
Colon, Diego (great-grandson of Co-
lumbus), marries and becomes Duke
of Veragua, 525, 526 ; his connection
with the Historie of 1571, 44.
Colon, Luis (grandson of Columbus),
succeeds his father, 522 ; makes com-
promise with the Crown, 522 ; holds
Jamaica, 523; made Duke of Vera-
gua, 523 ; governs Espaiiola, 523 ; his
marriages, 523 ; imprisoned and dies,
523 ; his children, 526.
Colon. See Columbus.
Columbia River, 658.
Columbus, Bartholomew (brother of
Columbus), born, 77 ; in Portugal,
104 ; affects Columbus's views, 117 ;
with Diaz on the African coast, 151,
303 ; sent to England, 167, 303, 3.39 ;
in France, 168, 303 ; reaches Espa-
iiola, 303 ; made Adelantado, 304 ; left
in command by Columbus, 323 ; con-
firmed by the Crown as Adelantado,
328 ; portrait, 329 ; attacks the Qui-
bian, 451 ; sees Columbus for the last
time, 488 ; survives him, 513 ; goes
to Rome, 516 ; takes a map, 516, 533 ;
goes to Espanola, 516 ; dies, 518 ; re-
puted descendant, 527.
Columbus, Christopher, sources of
information, 1 ; biographers, 30 ; his
prolixity and confusion, 1 ; his writ-
ings, 1 ; Libro de las Prqficias, 1 ;
facsimile of his handwriting, 2 ; his
private papers, 2 ; letters, 2, 5 ; writ-
ten in Spanish, 2 ; his privileges, 3 ;
Codex Diplomaticus, 3 ; the Custodia
at Genoa, 4, 5 ; Bank of St. George,
5 ; marginalia, 7 ; Declaracion de Ta-
hla navigatoria, 7, 32 ; Cinco Zonas, 7 ;
lost manuscripts, 8 ; MS. annotations,
8 ; missing letters, 9, 18, 19 ; missing
commentary, 9 ; journal of his first voy-
age, 9, 193 ; printed in English, 10 ;
letters on his discovery, 10 ; printed
editions, 12 ; Catalan text, 13 ; Latin
text, 14 ; his transient fame, 14 ; in
England, 14 ; autographs, 14 ; edition
of the Latin first letter, 15 ; facsimile
of a page, 16; libraries possessing
copies, 17 ; bibliography of first let-
ter, 17 ; other accounts of first voyage,
17 ; lawsuits of heirs, 18, 26, 514 ;
account of his second voyage, 18, 264 ;
Libro del Segundo Viage, 18, 264 ; let-
ters owned by the Duke de Veragua,
18 ; accounts of his third voyage, 18,
347 ; of his fourth voyage, 19 ; Let-
tera rarissima, 19; Libros'de memo-
rias, 19 ; work on the Arctic Pole, 19;
his maps, 2') ; Memorial del Fleyto,
664
INDEX.
26 ; Italian accounts of, 30 ; influenced
by his Spanish life, 83; Portuguese
accounts, 33 ; Spanish accounts, 33 ;
documents preserved by Las Casas,
47 ; canonization, 52 ; English ac-
counts, 55 ; life by Irving, 50 ; bibli-
ography, 59 ; his portraits, 61-70 ; his
person, 61 ; tomb at Havana, 69 ; his
promise to the Bank of St. George,
5, 70 ; ancestry, 71 ; early home, 71 ;
name of Colombo, 71 ; the French
family, 71 ; professes he was not the
first admiral of his name, 72 ; spurious
genealogies, 73, 74 ; prevalence of the
name Colombo, 73 ; his grandfather,
74 ; his father, 74 ; life at Savona,
75 ; Genoa, 75 ; his birth, 76 ; dis-
puted date, 76 ; his mother, 77 ; her
offspring, 77 ; place of his birth, 77 ;
many claimants, 78 ; uncertainties of
his early life, 79 ; his early education,
79 ; his penmanship and drawing, 79 ;
specimen of it, 80 ; said to have been
at Pavia, 79 ; at Genoa, 81 ; in An-
jou's expedition, 83 ; his youth at sea,
83 ; drawn to Portugal, '^Q, 102 ; liv-
ing there, 103 ; alleged swimming
with an oar, 103 ; marries, 105 ; sup-
posed interview with a sailor who had
sailed west, 107 ; knew Marco Polo's
book, 116; Mandeville's book, 116;
the ground of his belief in a western
passage, 117 ; inherits his views of
the sphericity of the earth, 119 ; of
its size, 123 ; his ignorance of the
Atlantis story, etc. , 126, 148 ; learns
of western lands, 129 ; in Portugal,
131 ; in Iceland, 135 ; Tratado de las
Cinco Zonas, 137 ; and the Sagas, 146 ;
his first gratuity in Spain, 149 ; diffi-
culty in following his movements,
149 ; interviews the Portuguese king,
150 ; abandons Portugal, 149, 153 ;
did he lay his project before the au-
thorities of Genoa ? 153 ; did he pro-
pose to those of Venice ? 154 ; did he
leave a wife in Portugal ? 1 54 ; enters
Spain, 154, 157, 169 ; at Rabida, 154,
173 ; calls himself Colon, 157 ; re-
ceives gratuities, 157, 168; sells books
and maps, 158 ; writes out his proofs
of a new world, 158 ; interview with
Ferdinand of Spain, 159 ; his monu-
ment at Genoa, 163 ; at Malaga, 165 ;
connection with Beatrix Enriquez,
166; his son Ferdinand born, 166;
his views in England, 167 ; invited
back to Portugal, 168 ; lived in Spain
with the Duke of Medina-Celi, 169;
at Cordova, 169; at Baza, 169; his
views again rejected, 170; at Santa
F^, 176 ; his arrogant demands, 177 ;
starts for France, 177 ; recalled and
agreed with, 179; his passport, 180;
the capitulations, 181 ; allowed to use
Don, 181; at Palos, 181; his fleet
fitted out, 182 ; expenses of the first
voyage, 183 ; his flag-ship, 183 ; her
size, 184; hopes to find mid-ocean
islands, 185 ; sails, 191 ; keeps a jour-
nal, 193; the "Pinta" disabled, 195;
sees Teneriffe, 195 ; at the Canaries,
195 ; falsifies his reckoning, 195 ;
map of the routes of his four voyages,
196 ; of the first voyage, 197 ; his
dead reckoning, 198 ; his judgment
of his speed, 198 ; observes no varia-
tion of his needle, 198 ; watches the
stars, 203 ; believed the earth pear-
shaped, 203 ; meets a west wind, 205 ;
thinks he sees land, 206 ; follows the
flight of birds, 206 ; pacifies his crew,
207 ; alleged mutiny, 208 ; claims to
see a light, 208 ; receives a reward for
first seeing land, 209, 249; map of
the landfall, 210 ; land actually seen,
211 ; land taken possession of, 211 ;
his armor, 211 ; question of his land-
fall, 214; trades with the natives,
218, 220 ; first intimates his intention
to enslave them, 220 ; finds other isl-
lands, 220 ; eager to find gold, 221 ;
reaches Cuba, 223 ; mentions pearls
for the first time, 223 ; thought him-
self on the coast of Cathay, 224 ;
takes an observation, 224 ; meets with
tobacco, 225 ; with potatoes, 225 ;
hears of cannibals, 225 ; seeks Ba-
beque, 225 ; difficult communication
with the natives, 226, 227 ; in the
King's Garden, 226 ; deserted by Pin-
zon, 226 ; at Espaflola, 228 ; takes his
latitude, 229 ; entertains a cacique,
231 ; meets with a new language, 232 ;
seeks gold, 232 ; shipwrecked, 232 ;
builds a fort, 233 ; names it La Na-
vidad, 235 ; hears of Jamaica, 235 ;
of Amazons, 235 ; fears the Pinzons,
235 ; sees mermaids, 236 ; sails for
Spain, 236 ; meets a gale, 237 ; sepa-
rates from the " Pinta," 237 ; throws
overboard an account of his discov-
eries, 238 ; makes land at the Azores,
238 ; gets provisions, 238 ; his men
captured on shore, 139 ; again at sea,
240 ; enters the Tagus, 240 ; reason
for using the name Indies, 240 ; goes
to the Portuguese Court, 241 ; leaves
the Tagus, having sent a letter to the
Spanish Court, 242; reaches Palos,
242; the " Pinta " aiTives the same
day, 242, 244 ; his Indians, 244, 259,
272 ; summoned to Court, 244 ; at
Barcelona, 245 ; reception, 245 ; his
life there, 246, 247, 249, 256; his
first letter, 248; scant impression
INDEX.
665
made by the announcement, 24S ; the
egg story, 249 ; receives a coat-of-
arms, 249, 550 ; his family arms,
251 ; his motto, 251 ; receives the
royal seal, 256 ; leaves the Court,
256 ; in Seville, 256 ; relations with
Fonseca begin, 256 ; fits out the sec-
ond expedition, 257, 258, 261 ; em-
barks, 263 ; sails, 264 ; his character,
265 ; at the Canaries, 265 ; at Domi-
nica, 266 ; at Marigalante, 266 ; at
Guadaloupe, 268 ; fights the Caribs,
at Santa Cruz, 271 ; reaches Espanola,
272 ; arrives at La Navidad, 273 ; finds
it destroyed and abandons it, 275,
277; disembarks at another harbor,
278 ; founds Isabella, 278 ; grows ill,
279; expeditions to seek gold, 279,
280 ; writes to the sovereigns, 280 ;
the fleet leaves him, 282 ; harassed
by factions, 284 ; leads an expedition
inland, 285 ; builds Fort St. Thomas,
287 ; returns to Isabella, 288 ; sends
Ojeda to St. Thomas, 289 ; sails to
explore Cuba, 290 ; discovers Jamaica,
291 ; returns to Cuba, 293 ; imagines
his approach to the Golden Chersone-
sus, 295 ; exacts an oath from his men
that they were in Asia, 296 ; doubts as
to his own belief, 297 ; return voyage,
299 ; on the Jamaica coast, 300 : cal-
-culates his longitude on the Espanola
coast, 301 ; falls into a stupor, 302 ;
reaches Isabella, 302 ; finds his brother
Bartholomew there, 303 ; learns what
had happened in his absence, 304 ;
receives supplies, 309 ; sends the fleet
back, 310 ; sends Diego to Spain, 311 ;
sends natives as slaves, 311 ; battle of
the Vega Real, 312 ; oppresses the
natives, 315 ; his enemies in Spain,
318 ; receives a royal letter by Agua-
do, 319; the fleet wrecked, 321;
thinks the mines of Hayna the Ophir
of Solomon, 322 ; sails for Spain, 323 ;
reaches Cadiz, 324 ; lands in the garb
of a Franciscan, 325 ; proceeds to
Court, 326 ; asks for a new fleet,
326 ; delays, 327 ; his rights reaf-
firmed, 328 ; new proportion of prof-
its, 328 ; his will, 330 ; his signature,
330 ; lives with Andres Bernaldez,
331 ; his character drawn by Bernal-
dez, 331 ; enlists criminals, 332 ; his
altercation with Fonseca' s agent, 333 ;
had authorized voyages, 336 ; the
third voyage and its sources, 347 ;
leaves directions for his son Diego,
348 ; sails from San Lucar, 348 ; his
course, 348 ; letter to him from Jayme
Ferrer, 349 ; captures a French prize,
349 ; at the Cape de Verde Islands,
349 ; at Trinidad, 350 ; first sees main-
land, 351 ; touches the Gulf Stream,
352 ; grows ill, 355, 356 ; his geo-
graphical delusions, 356; compared
with Vespucius, 358 ; observations of
nature, 359 ; meets the Adelantado,
359 ; reaches Santo Domingo, 365 ;
his experience with convict settlers,
366, 392,^396, 434; sends letters to
Spain, 367 ; treats with Roldan, 368,
370 ; institutes repartimientos, 371 ;
sends other ships to Spain, 371 ; his
prerogatives as Admiral infringed,
372 ; sends Roldan against Ojeda,
374 ; did he know of Cabot's voyage ?
386 ; his wrongs from furtive voyagers,
372-387 ; opposition to his rule in the
Antilles, 388 ; his new relations with
Roldan, 389 ; quells Moxica's plot,
390 ; Bobadilla arrives, 390 ; charges
against the Admiral, 392, 402, 404 ;
his deceiving the Crown, 393 ; re-
ceives copies of Bobadilla's instruc-
tions, 400 ; reaches Santo Domingo,
401 ; imprisoned and fettered, 401 ;
sent to Spain in chains, 403 ; his let-
ter to Prince Juan's nurse, 404, 405,
407 ; his alienation of mind, 405 ;
reaches Cadiz, 407 ; his reception,
408, 409 ; suspended from power,
409 ; his connection with the Cantino
map, 420, 421 ; his destitution, 420 ;
his vested rights invaded, 428 ; his
demands unheeded, 428 ; sends a fac-
tor to Espaiiola, 430 ; Libros de las
Prq/icias, 431 ; his projected con-
quest of the Holy Land, 431 ; de-
feated by Satan, 431 ; dreams on a
hidden channel through the new
world, 432 ; still seeking the Great
Khan, 433 ; his purposed gift to Ge-
noa, 434 ; writes to the Bank of St.
George, 435 ; his fourth voyage, 437 ;
his mental and physical condition,
437 ; at Martinico, 438 ; touches at
the forbidden Santo Domingo, 438 ;
but is denied the port, 439 ; his ships
ride out a gale, -Ml ; on the Hondu-
ras coast, 441 ; meets a large canoe,
442 ; says mass on 'the land, 442 ; on
the Veragua coast, 445 ; touches the
region tracked by Bastidas, 448 ; sees
a waterspout, 449 ; returns to Vera-
gua, 450 ; finds the gold mines of
Solomon, 450 ; plans settlement at
Veragua, 451 ; dangers, 451 ; has a
fever, 453 ; hears a voice, 454 ; the
colony rescued, 456 ; sails away, 456 ;
abandons one caravel, 457 ; on the
Cuban coast, 457 ; goes to Jamaica,
457 ; strands his ships, 458 ; sends
Mendez to Ovando, 458, 461 ; writes
a letter to his sovereigns, 459 ; Lettera
rarissima, 459; his worship of gold,
666
INDEX.
461 ; the revolt of Porras, 462 ; Por-
ras sails away, 464; but returns to
the island and wanders about, 464 ;
predicts an eclipse of the moon, 465 ;
Escobar arrives, 467 ; and leaves, 46<S ;
negotiations with Porras, 468 ; fight
between the rebels and the Adelan-
tado, 469 ; Porras captured, 469 ; the
rebels surrender, 470 ; Mendez sends
to rescue him, 470 ; leaves Jamaica,
471 ; learns of events in Espanola
during his absence, 472 ; reaches Santo
Domingo, 475 ; relations with Ovan-
do, 475 ; sails for Spain, 475 ; arrives,
476; in Seville, 477; his letters at
this time, 477 ; his appeals, 477 ; fears
Porras, 478, 479 ; appeals to Mendez,
479 ; his increasing malady, 480 ;
sends a narrative to Rome, 482 ; suf-
fered to ride on a mule, 483 ; relations
with the Bank of St. George in Ge-
noa, 483 ; his privileges, 484 ; doubt-
ful reference to Fonseca, 484 ; later
relations with Vespucius, 484; his
property sold, 486 ; goes to Segovia,
486 ; Deza asked to arbitrate, 486 ;
makes a will, 487 ; at Salamanca, 487 ;
at Valladolid, 488; seeks to propi-
tiate Juana, 488 ; makes a codicil to
his will, 488 ; its doubtful character,
488 ; ratifies his will, 489 ; its pro-
visions, 489; dies, 490; his death
unnoticed, 491 ; later distich pro-
posed for his tomb, 491 ; successive
places of interment, 491 ; his bones
removed to Santo Domingo, 492 ; to
Havana, 492 ; controversy over their
present position, 492 ; his chains, 494 ;
the age of Columbus, 494 ; statue at
Santo Domingo, 495 ; his character,
his dependence on the Imago Mundi^
497 ; on other authors, 498 ; relations
with Toscanelli, 499 ; different delin-
eations of his character, 501 ; his ob-
servations of nature, 502 ; his over-
wrought mind, 502 ; hallucinations,
503, 504 ; arguments for his canoniza-
tion, 505 ; purpose to gain the Holy
Sepulchre, 505 ; his Catholicism, 505 ;
his urgency to enslave the Indians,
505, 506 ; his scheme of repartimientos
506 ; adopts garb of the Franciscans,
508 ; mercenary, 508, 509 ; the mov-
ing light of his first voyage, 510 ; in-
sistence on territorial power, 510 ;
claims inspiration, 511 ; his heirs, 513 ;
his discoveries denied after his death,
514, 520; his territorial power lost
by his descendants, 523 ; table of his
descendants, 524, 525 ; his male line
becomes extinct, 526 ; lawsuit to es-
tablish the succession, 526 ; female
line through the Portogallos fails.
527; now represented by the Lar-
reategui family, 528; present value
of the estates, 528; the geographi-
cal results of his discoveries, 529;
connection with early maps, 533,
534 ; his errors in longitude, 603 ; his
observations of magnetic influence,
632..
Columbus, Ferdinand (bastard son of
Columbus), 480, 482 ; his Historie, 39 ;
doubts respecting it, 39 ; his career,
40 ; his income, 40 ; his library, 40 ;
its catalogue 42; English editions of
the Historie, 55 ; his birth, 166 ; at
school, 181 ; made page of the Queen,
331 ; his ability, 513 ; goes with Di-
ego to Espafiola, 515; aids his bro-
ther's widow, 522; an arbiter, 522;
owns Ptolemy (1513), 545 ; his disre-
gard of the claims urged for Vespu-
cius, 553 ; his Colon de Concordia,
571 ; arbiter at the Congress of Bada-
jos, 591 ; advises the King, 591 ; his
house at Seville, 603 ; at the Seville
Conference, 604; map inscribed to
him, 605.
Coma, Guglielmo, 282.
Conti, Nicolo di, 116, 509.
Cook, James, voyage, 633, 658.
Cordova, Cathedral of, 172.
Coronel, Pedro Fernandez, 332, 364.
Correa da Cunha, Pedro, 106, 131.
Correnti, C, 12.
Corsairs, 71.
Corsica, claim for Columbus's birth in^
77.
Cortereal discoveries, 577.
Cortereal, Gaspar, manuscript, facsimile,
414 ; his voyage to Labrador, 415.
Cortereal, Joao Vaz, 129.
Cortereal, Miguel, his handwriting, fac-
simile, 416 ; his voyages, 417.
Cortes, Hernando, in Santo Domingo,
475 ; sails for Mexico, 565 ; his map
of the Gulf of Mexico, 567, 569, 607 ;
his exploring expeditions, 568 ; plan-
ning to explore the Pacific, 591 : his
Pacific explorations, 610 ; his portrait,
610.
Cortes, Martin, 630.
Cosa, Juan de la, 426 ; goes to the new
world, 262 ; his charts, 343, 345, 380-
382 ; with Ojeda, 373.
Cosco, Leander de, 15.
Costa Rica, map, 443.
Cotabanama, 305, 474.
Coulorap, 71.
Cousin, Jean, on the Brazil coast, 174.
Crignon, Pierre, 556.
Criminals enlisted by Columbus, 332.
Crossbows, 258.
Cross-staff, 261 , 632, 648. See Back-staff.
INDEX.
667
Cuba, reached by Columbus, 223 ; be-
lieved to be Asia, 22G ; named Juana,
228 ; its southern coast explored, 291 ;
insularity of, 384 ; Wytfliet's map,
384-85 ; its cartography, 424 ; Co-
lumbus's views, 425 ; circumnavi-
gated, 505.
Cubagua, 355.
Gushing, Caleb, on the Everett MS.,
4 ; on Navarrete, 28 ; on Columbus's
landfall, 217.
Darien, isthmus, map, 446.
Dati, versifies Columbus's fii*st letter, 15.
D'Avezac on the Historie, 45.
Davis, John, in the north, 643, 648 ; his
Seaman's Secrets, 649.
Dead reckoning, 94.
De Bry, 51 ; his engraving of Colum-
bus, 66, 68.
Degree, length of, 124.
Del Cano, 576.
Demarcation. See Bull of.
Demersey, A., on the Mufloz MSS., 27.
Denys, Jean, 556.
Deseeliers (or Henri II.) map, 612, 624.
Deza, Diego de, 161, 164, 170 ; asked to
arbitrate between Columbus and the
King, 486.
Diaz, Bart., on the African coast, 151.
•Diaz, Miguel, 322, 399.
Diaz de Pisa, Bernal, 284.
Dogs used against the natives, 292, 312.
Dominica, 266.
Dominicans in Espaftola, 508.
Don, Nicholas, 556.
Donis, Nicholas, his map, 140, 531.
Drake, Francis, sees Cape Horn, 577 ;
his voyages, 643 ; portrait, 645, 654.
Drogeo, 635.
Duro, C. F., Colon, etc., 54.
Dutch, the, their American explora-
tions, 649.
Earth, sphericity of, 118; size of, 121 ;
how far known before Columbus,
122.
East India Company, 650.
Eden, R., Treatyse of the Newe India,
537, 538 ; Decades, 538 ; Arte of Navi-
gation, 631 ; influence in England,
639.
Eden (paradise), situation of, 357.
Eggleston, Edward, 597, 599.
Enciso, Fernandes d', Geographia, 587.
Encomiendas, 314.
England, reception of Columbus's news
in, 167 ; earliest mention of the Span-
ish discoveries, 537 ; see-manuals in,
631 ; effects on discovery of her com-
mercial spirit, 632 ; her explorations,
639 ; beginning of her colonization,
648 ; her later explorations, 650 ; her
seamen in the Caribbean Sea, 373,
426, 427 ; on the eastern coast of
North America, 601.
Enriquez, Beatrix, connection with Co-
lumbus. 166 ; noticed in Columbus's
will, 489.
Equator, crossed by the Portuguese,
134 ; first crossed on the American
side, 376.
Eric the Red, 139, 140, 144, 146.
Escobar, Diego de, sent to Jamaica by
Ovando, 467. ^
Escobar, Roderigo de, 451.
Escoveda, Rodrigo de, 235.
Espaftola, discovered and named, 228,
229 ; its divisions, 305 ; Charlevoix's
map, 306 ; Ramusio's map of, 369 ;
Ovando recalled, 515; Diego Colon
governor, 515 ; sugar cane raised, 520.
Esquibel, Juan de, 474.
Estotiland, 635.
Evangelista, 297.
Everett, A. H., on Irring's Columbus,
56.
Everett, Edward, possessed a copy of
Columbus's privileges, 3.
Faber, Jacobus, Meteorologia, 546.
Faber, Dr. John, 540.
Fagundes, 566.
Faria y Sousa, Europa Portuguesa, 241.
Farrer, Domina, her map, 652, 654, 655.
Ferdinand of Spain, his character, 159 ;
his unwillingness to embark in Co-
lumbus's plans, 178 ; his appearance,
245 ; grows apathetic, 327 ; his por-
trait, 328 ; his distrust of Columbus,
393, 427, 479, 486 ; sends BobadiUa
to Santo Domingo, 394 ; dies, 520,
555.
Ferdinando, Simon, 646.
Fernandina, 221.
Ferrelo, 612.
Ferrer, Jayme, letter to Columbus, 349.
Fieschi, G. L., 9.
Fiesco, B., 462.
Finaeus, Orontius, his map, 607-609.
Flamsteed, 648.
Floating islands, 190.
Flores discovered, 88.
Florida coast early known, 424 ; dis-
covered, 558 ; English on the coast,
632.
Fonseca. Juan Rodriguez de, relations
with Columbus begin, 256 ; his char-
acter, 256, 257, 316 ; quarrel with
Diego Colon, 318 ; allowed to grant
licenses, 329; lukewarm towards the
third voyage of Columbus, 333 ; made
bishop of Placentia, 484.
Fontanarossa, G. de, 77.
Fonte, de, 653.
Fort Concepcion, 309.
668
INDEX,
Pox, G. A., on Columbus's landfall,
214, 216.
Fox, Luke, his map, 651.
France, her share in American explora-
tions, 633.
Francisciis, monk, his map, 606.
Franciscans in Espaflola, 508.
Freire, Juan, his map, 577, 578, 612.
Friess. See Frisius.
Frisius, Laurentius, his map (1522), 552,
588.
Frisland, 137, 145.
Frobisher, his voyages, 640; portrait,
643 ; his map, 644.
Fuca, Da, 653.
Fulgoso, B., Collectanea, 32.
Furlani, Paolo de, 619.
Fuster, Bihl. Valenciana, 27.
Gali, Francisco, 646.
Gallo, Ant., on Columbus, 30.
Gama, Joao da, 652.
Gama, Vasco da, portrait, 334 ; his voy-
age, 334.
Ganong, W. F., 612.
Garay, 566 ; his map, 568.
Gastaldi, his map, 616-618, 629.
Gelcieh, E., on the Historie, 46.
Gemma Frisius, nautical improvements,
603, 648.
Genoa, records, 21 ; Columbus's early
life in, 75, 77 ; citizens of, in Spain,
158 ; Columbus's monument, 163 ;
favored in Columbus's will, 330 ;
Bank of St. George, 435, 483; her
citizens in Portugal, 86 ; on the At-
lantic, 128.
Geraldini, Antonio, 158.
Gilbert, Sir Humphrey, his voyages,
646 ; his map, 647.
Giocondo, 538.
Giovio. See Jovius.
Giustiniani, his Psalter, 30, 83 ; his An-
nals of Genoa, 30.
Glareanus on the ancients' knowledge
of America, 606.
Glassberger, Nicholas, 400.
Globus Mundl, 536, 537, 546.
Gold mines, 232 ; scant returns, 332.
Gomara, the historian, 39.
Gomera (Canaries), 195.
Gomez, Estevan, on the Atlantic coast,
561, 589, 591 ; cartographical results,
591-593.
Gonzales, keeper of the Spanish archives,
28.
Goodrich, Aaron, Columbus, 59, 60, 504.
Gorricio, Gaspar, 433, 484; friend of
Columbus, 18 ; adviser of Diego Colon,
348.
Gorvalan, 280.
Gosnold on the New England coast, 652
Granada, siege of, 175.
Grand Turk Island, 216.
Great circle sailing, 341, 649.
Great Khan, letter to, 180.
Greenland, 139, 140 ; held to be a part
of Europe, 140, 145, 152; part of
Asia, 143 ; a link between Europe
and Asia, 616 ; delineated on maps
(Zeni),634, 643; (1467), 636 ; (1482),
531, 532; (1508), 532; (1511), 577;
(1513), 544; (1527), 600; (1576), 647;
(1582), 598.
Grenada, C55.
Grimaldi, G. A., 21.
Grijalva, 565 ; portrait, 566.
Gronlandia, 145. See Greenland.
Grothe, H., Da Vinci, 117.
Grynaeus, Simon. Novus Orbis, 607.
Guacanagari, the savage king, 234, 273,
275, 277; faithful, 309; maltreated,
316.
Guadaloupe, 268, 323.
Guanahani, seen by Columbus, 211.
Guarionex, 305, 309 ; his conspiracy,
362, 364 ; embarked for Spain, 440 ;
lost, 440.
Guelves, Count of, 524, 526.
Guerra, Luis, 375.
Guevara, Fernand de, watched by Rol-
dan, 389.
Gulf Stream, 131, 352, 433.
Gutierrez, Pedro, 208.
Hadley's quadrant, 648.
Hakluyt, Richard, Principall Naviga-
tions, 637 ; Western Planting, 647 ; his
interest in explorations, 650.
Hall, Edw., Chronicle, 14.
Halley, Edmund, his variation charts,
649.
Hammocks, 219, 222.
Hanno, the Carthaginian, 97.
Harrison's chronometer, 649.
Harrisse, Henry, his works on Colum-
bus, 7, 51 , 52 ; on the Biblioteca Co-
lombina, 41 ; attacks the character of
the Historic of 1571, 44 ; his Fernando
Colon, 45 ; Les Colombo, 71 ; Bank of
St. George, 73.
Hartmann, George, his gores, 621.
Hauslab globes, .547, 548.
Hawkins, John, 632.
Hawkins, Wm., 601.
Hayna mines, 322.
Hayna country, 360.
Hayti. See Espaflola.
Heimskringla, 140, 147.
Helleland, 145.
Helps, Arthur, on the Spanish Conquest
and Columbus, 58.
Henry the Navigator, Prince, death,
82, 100 ; his navigators, 88, 97 ; his
relations to African discovery, 91 ; his
school, 92 ; his portrait, 93 ; his char-
INDEX.
669
acter, 97 ; his tomb, 101 ; his statue,
102.
Henri II., map. See Desceliers.
Herrera, the historian, 50 ; map of Ba-
hamas, 212.
Higuay, 805 ; conquered, 474.
Hispaniola. See Espanola.
Hoees, F. de, discovers Cape Horn, 576.
Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem, 169; Co-
lumbus's purpose to rescue it, 170,
180.
Holywood, John, Sphera Mundi, 93.
Homem's map, 614, 616.
Hondius, 637.
Honduras, early voyag-es to, 337, 339 ;
map, 443 ; coast explored, 562.
Hood, Dr. Thomas, 650.
Hvidson's Bay, 650.
Hudson Bay Company, 658.
Hudson River, 649.
Hudson, Heinrich, his voyages, 649, 650.
Hues, Robert, Tractatus, 191, 201, 301.
Humboldt, Alex, von, Exam. Critique,
51 ; on Columbus, 502, 504.
Ibarra, Bernaldo de, 347.
Iceland, Columbus at, 135 ; early map,
136.
India, African route to, 90 ; strait to,
sought, 535, 555, 567, 569, 587, 591 ;
discovered at the south, 576.
Indies, name why used, 240.
Irving, W., Columbus, 55, 60 ; his his-
torical habit, 233, 234 ; on Columbus,
501, 505.
Isabella of Spain, her character, 159,
479 ; yields to Columbus's views, 178 ;
her appearance, 245 ; her interest in
Columbus's second voyage, 258 ; her
faith in Columbus shaken, 393, 396,
409; dies, 479; her will about the
Indians, 482.
Isabella (island), 222.
Isabella (town) founded, 278.
Italy, her relations to American discov-
ery, 33 ; her conspicuous mariners,
104, 632 ; and the new age, 496 ; car-
tographers of, 601, 628.
Jack-staff, 261.
Jacquet Island, 111.
Jamaica, possibly Babeque, 230 ; called
Yamaye, 235 ; discovered by Colum-
bus, 291 ; again visited, 300 ; Colum-
bus at, during his last voyage, 457.
Januarius, Hanibal, 22.
Japan, supposed position, 207. See Ci-
pango.
Jayme, 92.
Jesso, 652, 653.
John of Anjou, 82, 84.
Jorrin, J. S., Varios Autografos, 7.
Jovius (Giovio) Paulus, his biography.
32; his picture of Columbus, 61, 63;
Elogia, 64.
Juana. See Cuba.
Julius II., Pope, portrait, 517.
Kettell, Samuel, 10.
Khan, the Great, 90, 224.
King's Garden, 226.
Kolno (Skolno), 138.
Kublai Khan, 90, 224.
Labrador coast, Normans on, 413 ; Por-
tuguese on, 415.
Lachine, 613.
Lafuente y Alcdntara, 13.
Lake, Arthur, 184.
Lamartine on Columbus, 75.
La mina (Gold coast), 101.
Laon globe, 123, 190.
Larreategui family, representatives of
Columbus, 528.
Las Casas, B., his abridgment of Colum-
bus's journal, 10 ; his papers of Co-
lumbus, 19, 47 ; his Historia, 45, 46 ;
his career, 47 ; his portrait, 48 ; his
pity for the Indians, 50 ; his father
goes to the new world, 262 ; at Santo
Domingo, 429 ; appeals for the In-
dians, 520; on the respective merits
of Columbus and Vespucius, 553.
Latitude, errors in observing, 261.
Latitude and longitude on maps, 601,
602.
Laurentian portolano (1351), 87.
Ledesma, Pedro, 454, 470.
Leibnitz, Codex, 71.
Leigh, Edward, 601.
Lemoyne, G. B., Colombo, 33.
Lenox globe, 571.
Lepe, Diego de, on the South American
coast, 377.
L^ry, Baron de, 556.
Liria, Duke of 527.
Lisbon, naval battle near, 103 ; Genoese
in, 104.
Loadstone, its history, 93. See Magnet.
Log, ship's, 95, 96, 631.
Lok, Michael, map (1582), 597, 598,
616, 624, 646.
Long Island Sound, 616.
Longitude, methods of ascertaining, 259 ;
difficulties in computing, 602, 648^
650. See Latitude.
Longrais, Jouon des, Cartier, 612.
Lorgues, Roselly de, on Columbus, 53,
60,503,505. '
Loyasa, 576.
Luca, the Florentine engineer, 22.
Lucayans, 218, 249, 271; destroyed,
219, 515.
Lud, Walter, 439.
Lully, Raymond, Arte de Navegar, 93.
Luxan, Juan de, 288.
670
INDEX.
Machin, Robert, at Madeira, 87.
McClure, R. L., 660.
Madeira discovered, ^Q., 88.
Madoc, 138.
Magellan's voyage, 571, 589; his por-
trait, 572 ; compared with Columbus,
574 ; maps of his straits, 575, 576.
Magnet, its history, 93 ; use of, 198 ;
needle, 632; pole, 203, 630. See
Needle.
Magnus, Bishop, 139.
Maguana, 305.
Maine, Gulf of, 616, 646.
MaioUo map (1527), 570, 595, 597.
Major, R. H., on Columbus, 58 ; on the
naming of America, 538.
Malaga, Columbus at the siege of, 165.
Maldonado, Melchior, 277, 653.
Mandeville, Sir John, his travels, 116.
Mangon, 224, 294.
Manhattan, 649.
Manicaotex, 312.
Manilius, 107.
Mappemonde, Portuguese (1490), 152.
Maps, fifteenth century, 128 ; projections
of, 603. See Portolano.
Marchena, Antonio de, 259.
Marchena, Juan Perez de, 155 ; por-
trait, 155 ; intercedes for Columbus.
175.
Marchesio, F., 21.
Margarita, 355.
Margarite, Pedro, at St. Thomas, 288 ;
his career, 307.
Mari^jol, J. H., Peter Martyr, 35.
Marien, 305.
Marigalante, 266.
Mariguana, 216.
Marin, on Venetian commerce, 9.
Marine atlases, 649.
Markham, Clements R. , his Hues, 191.
Markland, 145.
Martens, T., printer, 16.
Martines, his map, 616.
Martinez, Fernando, 108.
Martyr, Peter, has letters from Colum-
bus, 19 ; account of, 34 ; knew Colum-
bus, 35 ; his letters, 34 ; De Orhe Novo,
or Decades, 35 ; on Isabella, 160 ; on
Columbus's discovery, 247 ; his map,
(1511), 422, 5.56, 557 ; fails to notice
the death of Columbus, 491.
Massachusetts Bay, 616.
Mastic, 225.
Matheos, Hernan Perez, 347.
Mayobanex, 364.
Mauro, Fra, his world map, 99, 101,
116.
Medina, Pedro de. Arte de Navegar,
630 ; map, 628, 629.
Medina-Celi, Duke of, 173 ; entertains
Columbus, 169.
Medina-Sidonia, Duke of, 173.
Mela, Pomponius, 107 ; his world-map,
584 ; Cosmographia, 5S5.
Mendez, Diego, his exploits, 451, 452,
456, 458 ; sails from Jamaica for
Espailola, 461 ; arrives, 466 ; sends to
rescue Columbus, 470 ; goes to Spain,
471 ; appealed to by Columbus, 479,
487 ; denied office by Diego Colon,
516.'
Mendoza, Hurtado de, 610, 612.
Mendoza, Pedro Gonzales de, 159, 176.
Mercator, Gerard, pupil of Gemma,
603 ; his earliest map, 621-623 ; his
globe of 1541, 554, 621, 625 ; his pro-
jection, 636 ; his map (1569), 638 ; por-
trait, 639.
Mercator, R., his map of the polar
regions, 202.
Mermaids, 236.
Meropes, 126.
Mississippi River discovered, 560.
Molineaux, his map, 616, 648.
Moluccas occupied by the Portuguese,
569; dispute over their longitude,
590 ; sold by Spain to Portugal, 591.
Moniz, Felipa, wife of Columbus, 105;
her family, 106.
Monte Peloso, Bishop of, 15.
Moon, eclipse of, 465.
Morton, Thos., New English Canaan,
620.
Mosquito coast, 444.
Moxica, Adrian de, 389.
Moya, Marchioness of, 175, 178.
Miiller, Johannes, 94.
Mufloz, J. B., his labors, 27 ; his H'lsto-
ria, 27.
Munster, Seb., his maps, 621, 624 (1532) ;
535, 537 (1540) ; 596, 597 ; portrait,
602.
Muratori, his collection, 30.
Murphy, Henry C, 595 ; his library, 17.
Muscovy Company, 650.
Myritius, his map, 618.
Nancy globe, 606, 607.
Napier, logarithms, 651.
Nautical almanac, 649.
Navasa, island, 465.
Navarrete, M. F. de, his Coleccion, 27;
the French edition, 28 ; criticised by
Caleb Gushing, 28.
Navidad, La, destroyed,273.
Navigation, art of, 131 ; Columbus's
method, 237, 260.
Needle, no variation of the, 198, 254 ;
its change of position, 199, 206, 2.54.
See Magnet.
Negroes, first seen as slaves in Europe,
98 ; early introduced in Espafiola, 429,
488.
New Albion, 645.
New England, named, 649.
INDEX.
671
Newfoundland banks, early visits, 129,
340.
Newfoundland, visited by Gilbert, 646.
New France, ()33.
Nicaragua, map of, 443.
Nicuessa, Diego de, in Castilla del Oro,
517, 562.
Niiio, Pedro Alonso, 825 ; on the pearl
coast, 375.
Nombre de Dios, Cape, 448.
Nordenskiold on Columbus's discovery,
248; his Facsimile Atlas, 531, 532,
546, 548, 573, 577, 578, 581, 582, 588,
589, 635, 636, 638; map gores dis-
covered by him, 549.
Norman seamanship, 94; explorations,
5.55, 556.
Norman, Robt., 632.
North America held to be continuous
with Asia, 576, 584. See America.
Northwest passage, the search for, 529,
640, 648, 650-652, 658 ; mapped, 659.
Norumbega, 599, 616, 633.
Notarial records in Italy, 20 ; in Spain,
25 ; in Portugal, 26.
Nuremberg, Behaim's globe at, 191.
Ocampo, 565.
Oceanic currents, 130, 603.
Odericr.s Vitalis, 147.
Oderigo, Nieolo, 483.
Ojeda, Alonso de, in Columbus's second
expedition 262, 270 ; at St. Thomas,
289 ; attacked by Caonabo, 308 ; cap-
tures Caonabo, 313 ; fired by Colum-
bus's experiences in Paria, 372 ; is per-
mitted by Fonseca to sail thither, 372 ;
reaches Venezuela, 373 ; at Espaiiola,
373 ; returns to Spain, 375 ; voyage
(1499), 514; his (1502) voyage, 427;
in New Andalusia, 517, 562.
Oliva, Perez de, on Columbus, 43, 45.
Ophir of Solomon, 322.
Orient, European notions of, 90, 109.
Ortegon, Diego, 528.
Ortelius, his Theatrum, 627, 638 ; por-
trait, 640 ; his map of America, 641.
Ortis, Alonso, Los Tratados, 248.
Ovando, Nicholas de, sent to Santo Do-
mingo, 429 ; receives Mendez, 4:Q6 ;
his rule in Espaiiola, 466, 471 ; sends
a caraval to Jamaica to observe Co-
lumbus, 467 ; sends to rescue him,
471 ; receives him at Santo Domingo,
475 ; recalled from Espaiiola, 515.
Oviedo, on the first voyage, 17 ; as a
writer, 38 ; his career, 38 ; Historia,
39 ; on Isabella, 160 ; on the arms of
Columbus, 251 ; on his motto, 251.
Oysters, 354.
Pacheco, his Coleccion, 29.
Pachcco, Carlos, 527.
Pacific Ocean named, 576 ; explorations,
618; Drake in the, 644; sees Cape
Horn, 644 ; Gali's explorations, 646 ;
discoveries, 652 ; wild theories about
its coast, 652, 656, 658.
Paesi novamente retrovati, 417.
Palos, 182.
Panama founded, 565.
Papal authority to discover new lands,
252.
Paria, Gulf of, map, 353 ; land of, 354.
Parmentier, Jean, 556.
Passamonte, Miguel, 518.
Pavia, university at, 80.
Pearls, 354.
Pedrarias, 564.
Peragallo, Prospero, Historie di F. Co-
lombo, 46.
Perestrello, Bart., 88.
Perestrello family, 105.
Peringskiold, 147.
Peru discovered, 564, 565.
Pesaro, F., 9.
Peschel, Oscar, on the Historie, 46.
Peter the Great, 653.
Pezagno, the Genoese, 86.
Phoenicians as explorers, 127.
Philip II., of Spain, 523.
Philip the Handsome, 513.
Pineda, 560.
Pinelo, Francisco, 257.
Pinilla, T. R., Colon en Espana, 51.
Pinzon, Martin Alonso, at Rabida, 174 ;
engages with Columbus, 183 ; deserts
Columbus, 226 ; returns, 235 ; reaches
Palos and dies, 242.
Pinzon, Vineente Yailez, with Columbus,
183 ; his voyage (1494) across the
equator, 376 ; sees Cape St. Augus-
tine, 376 ; at Espaiiola, 377.
Pinzon and Solis's expedition, 570.
Piracy, 81.
Pirckheimer, 6.36.
Pizarro, 562, 564.
Plaanck, the printer, 15.
Plato and Atlantis, 126.
Plutarch's Saturnian Continent, 126.
Polar regions, map of, 202.
Polo, Marco, 90, 498; annotations of
Columbus in, 7 ; in Cathay, 114 ; his
narrative Milione, 114; his portrait,
115 ; known to Columbus, 115.
Pompey stone, 560.
Ponce de Leon, Juan, 179, 556 ; goes to
the New World, 262 ; portrait, 558 ;
his track, 559.
Porcacchi, his map, 620.
Porras, Francois de, 437; his revolt,
462 ; ended, 470 ; at court, 478.
Porto Bello, 448.
Porto Rico, 236, 272, 517.
Porto Santo discovered. 88, 105, 106.
Portolanos, 530. See Maps.
672
INDEX.
Potatoes, 225.
Portog-allo, Alonso de, Count of Guelves,
526.
Portogallo, Nuiio de, becomes Duke of
Verag-ua, 524, 526.
Portugal, archives, 25 ; attractions for
Columbus, 85 ; spirit of exploration
in, 86 ; her expert seamen, 86, 92 ;
Genoese in her service, 86 ; discovers
Madeira, SQ ; and the Azores, 'i^Q ; Co-
lumbus in, 103, 149 ; the King sends
an expedition to anticipjite Columbus's
discovery, 153 ; Columbus's second
visit, 168 ; the bull of demarcation,
254 ; negotiations with Spain, 255 ;
her pursuit of African discovery,
334; establishes claims in South
America, through the voyage of Ca-
bral, 377; sends out Coelho (1501),
410; settlements on the Labrador
coast, 415 ; maps in, falsified, 417 ;
the spread of cartographical ideas,
423 ; earliest maps, 533, 534 ; denies
them to other nations, 534 ; her sea-
men on the Newfoundland coast, 555,
556 ; push the African route to the
Moluccas, 569 ; on the coast of Brazil,
570 ; on the Pacific coast, 592 ; carto-
graphical progress in, 602.
Prado, prior of, 508.
Prescott's, W. H., Ferdinand and Isa-
bella, 57 ; on Columbus, 501, 503.
Ptolemy, influence of, 91, 529, 638 ; por-
trait, 530 ; maps in, 530, 531, 627 ;
editions, 108; (1511), 577; (1513),
544, 545, 546, 582, 584 ; (Stobnicza),
578 ; (1522), 588 ; (1525), 588; (1535),
555, 588 ; (1541), 588.
Queen's Gardens, 293, 299.
Quibian, 450 ; his attacks, 451 ; cap-
tured, 451 ; escapes, 451.
Quinsay, 121, 124, 566, 607.
Quintanilla, Alonzode, 158, 165, 176,
178.
Eabida, Convent of, 154 ; at what date
was Columbus there ? 155, 173.
Eae, J. E. S., 12.
Ralegh, Sir Walter, his American pro-
jects, 647.
Ramusio on Columbus, 37.
Regiomontanus, 94, 301 ; his astrolabe,
95,96; Ephemerides, 131.
Reinel, Pedro, his map, 534.
Reisch, il/ar^fanVa Phil., 582, 587, 601;
map, 583, 587.
Remesal's Chyapa, 161.
Rene, Duke of Provence, 82, 538, 543.
Repartimientos, 314, .506, 507, 518.
Resende, Garcia de, Choronica, 33.
Ribero, map of the Antilles, 383 ; map
(1529), 562, 605; invents a ship's
pump, 603 ; at the Seville conference^
604.
Ringmann, M., 538.
Rink, Henrik, 146.
Riquelme, Pedro, 389, 390.
Robertson, Wm., America, 55.
Robertus Monarchus, Bellum Christia-
nor'um Principum, 17.
Roberval, 614.
Rodriguez, Sebastian, 175.
Roldan revolts, 362, 366; reinstated,
370 ; sent to confront Ojeda, 374 ;
watched by Moxica, 389; sails for
Spain, 440 ; lost, 440.
Romans on the Atlantic, 127.
Roselly de Lorgues, his efforts to effect
canonization of Columbus, 53, 60 ;
503, 505.
Ross, Sir John, 651.
Rotz, map, 612 ; Boke of Idiography,
613.
Roxo, Cape, passed, 99.
Rubruquis, 90, 121.
Ruscelli, his map, 616, 617.
Rut, John, 601.
Ruy de Pina, archivist of Portugal, 33^
149.
Ruysch, map, 143, 532 ; Ptolemy, 341.
Sabellicus, 103.
Sacrobosco. See Holywood.
Sagas, 146.
Saguenay River, 616.
St. Brandan's Island, 112.
St. Di^, college at, 538.
St. Jerome, monks of, 508.
St. Lawrence, Gulf of, 612.
St. Thomas (fort), 287.
St. Thomas (island), 231.
Saints' days, suggest geographical
names, 229.
Salamanca, council of, 161, 164; Uni-
versity, 162.
Salcedo, Diego de, goes to Jamaica^ 471.
Samaot, 221.
San Jorge da Mina, 134.
San Salvador, 211, 215.
Sanarega, Bart., 21, 30.
Sanchez, Gabriel, letter to, 11.
Sanchez, Juan, 4.51 ; killed, 470.
Sanchez, Rodrigo, 209.
Sandacourt, J. B. de, 540.
Santa Cruz, Alonso de, 203.
Santa Cruz (island), 271.
Santa Maria de la Concepcion, 220.
Santa Maria de las Cuevas, 25.
Santangel, Luis de, 11, 175, 178.
Santo Domingo, archives, 26 ; f ounded^
360 ; cathedral at, 492, 493.
Sanuto, Livio, Geographia, 201.
Sanuto, Marino, his diary,. 421 ;. cartog-
rapher. 86.
Sargasso Sea, 204.
INDEX.
673
Savona, records of, 20; the Colombos
of, 74.
Saxo Gramniaticus, 147.
Schoner, Johann, his globe, 551, 572 ;
his charges against Vespucius, 554 ;
Opusculum geographicum, 555, 567,607;
Luculentissima descriptio, 587 ; por-
trait, 588 ; De insulis, 589 ; his alleged
globe, 589, 590 ; his variable beliefs,
607.
Schouten defines Tierra del Fuego, 577.
Sea-atlases, 608.
Sea of Darkness, 86, 243 ; fantastic isl-
ands of, 111.
Sea-manuals, 630.
Seamanship, early, 92.
Seneca, his Medea, 118.
Servetus, his Ptolemy, 555.
Seven Cities, Island of. See Antillia.
Se villa d' Oro, 471.
Seville, archives at, 2.3 ; cathedral of,
171 ; cartographical conference at,
603.
Shea, J. G., on the Historic, 46; on the
canonization of Columbus, 54 ; on
Columbus, 504.
Ships (fifteenth century), 82 ; speed of,
94; of Columbus's time, 192, 193.
Sierra Leone discovered, 101.
Silber, Franck, the printer, 15.
Simancas, archives, 22, 23 ; view of the
building, 24.
Skralingeland, 145.
Slavery, efforts of Columbus to place
the Indians in, 220, 230, 281, 282,
311, 314, 318, 327, 331, 360, 367, 371,
394, 402, 403, 429, 437, 472, 482, 505,
506 ; after Columbus's time, 518, 520.
Smith, Captain John, his explorations,
649.
Smith, Sir Thomas, 630.
Solinus, 107.
Soria, Juan de, 257.
Sousa, A. C. de. Hist. Geneah, 27.
South America, earliest picture of the
natives, 336 ; earliest seen, 352 ; its
coast nomenclature, 412 ; supposed
southern cape, 573. See America.
Southern cross first seen, 99, 376.
Spain, archives of, 22 ; publication of,
28, 29 ; Cartas de Indias, 29 ; Colum-
bus in, 154 ; the Genoese in, 157 ; map
of (1482), 165 ; powerful grandees,
172 ; the bull of demarcation, 254 ;
suspicious of Portugal, 254 ; council
for the Indies, 257 ; plans expedition
to the north, 413 ; her authority in
the Indies, 481 ; the Crown's suit with
Diego Colon, 514, 553 ; King Ferdi-
nand dies, 520; Charles V., .523;
Philip II., 523 ; her secretiveness
about maps, .534, 554, 560, 627, 639 ;
earliest accounts of America, 587 ;
her seamen in the St. Lawrence re-
gion, 555 ; on the Atlantic coast, 560 ;
council of the Indies instituted, 591 ;
failure to publish map in, 602 ; Casa
de la Contratacion, 603 ; her sea-man-
uals, 630.
Spotomo, Father, Codice diplom. Co-
lom. Americano, 4 ; La Tavola di
Bronzo, 5.
Square Gulf, 613.
Staglieno, the Genoese antiquary, 21,
75.
Stamler, Johannis, 543.
Stephanius, Sigurd, his map, 144, 145.
Stevens, Henry, 533 ; on the Historicy
45 ; on La Cosa's map, 385 ; his
Schoner, 424.
Stevens, edition of Herrera, 55.
Stimmer, Tobias, 64.
Stobnicza's introduction to Ptolemy, 578;
his map, 580, 581, 585.
Stockfish, 128, 340.
Strabo, 107.
Straits of Hercules, voyages beyond,
81.
Strong, Richapd, 646.
Sumner, George, 246.
Sylvanus, his edition of Ptolemy first
gave maps of the Cortereal discover-
ies, 419; edits Ptolemy, 577; his
map, 579.
Sylvius, ^neas, Historia, 7.
Talavera, Fernando de, 156, 608; and
Columbus's projects, 161, 176.
Teneriffe, 195.
Terra Verde, 416, 420.
The vet, Andr^, his stories, 633.
Thorne, Robt., map (1527), 600-602.
Thyle, 135.
Ticknor, George, 10.
Tobacco, 225.
Tobago, 355.
Tordesillas, treaty of, 310.
Torre do Tombo, archives, 25.
Torres, Antonio de, returns to Spain in
command of fleet, 282, 317.
Tortuga, 228, 229.
Toscanelli, Paolo, 499 ; his letters, 7,
107-109 ; his map, 49, 109, 110, 191 ;
dies, 117.
Triana, Rodrigo de, 211.
Trinidad, 350.
Tristan, Diego, his fate, 452, 453.
Tritemius, Epistolarum lihri, 412.
Trivigiano, A., translates Peter Martyr,
35 ; Libretto, 36 ; his letters, 420.
Tross gores, 547.
Ulloa, Francisco de, 610.
Ullua, Alfonso de, 44.
Ulpius globe, 597.
Usselinx, W., 20, 649.
674
INDEX.
Vadianus, portrait, 585.
Vallejo, Alonso de, 347.
Valsequa's map, 88.
Vq.ncouver, 658.
Variation. See Needle.
Varnhagen on the first letter of Colum-
bus, 14; and the early cartography,
.382, 386.
Vasconcellos, 149.
Vatican archives, 22 ; maps, 633.
Vaulx, 616.
Velasco, Pedro de, 156.
Vega Real, 286 ; its natives, 288.
Venegas, California, 658.
Venezuela, named by Ojeda, 373.
Venice, cartographers of, 629.
Veradus, 17.
Veragua, map, 446 : characteristics of
its coast, 447 ; its abortive settle-
ment, 456; Duke of, title given to
Columbus's grandson, 523.
Verde, Simone, 283, 347.
Verde, Cape, reached, 98.
Verrazano on the Atlantic coast, 592,
593 ; map, 594 ; his voyage disputed,
595 ; his so-called sea, 596, 646 ; dis-
coveries, 6.33.
Verzellino, G. V., his memoirs, 21.
Vespucius, Americus, and the naming
of America, 36 ; engaged in fitting
out the second expedition of Colum-
bus, 258; supposed voyage (1497),
336 ; controversy over, 338 ; his char-
acter as a writer. 359 ; his first voy-
age, 373 ; in Coelho's fleet, 410 ; his
Mundus Novus, 410, 411, 542 ; rela-
tions to the early cartography, 412 ;
his name bestowed on the New World,
36, 412, 538-555; personal relations
with Columbus, 484 ; his narrative,
485 ; writes an account of his voyage,
538 ; portrait, 539 ; his narrative pub-
lished, 540 ; his discoveries compared
with those of Columbus, 542, 543;
miscalled Albericus, 54.3 ; suspects
gravitation, 543; not called in the
Columbus lawsuit, 553 ; charged with
being privy to the naming of Amer-
ica, 553, 554 ; pilot major, 553 ; dies,
553 ; his map, 553 ; his fame in Eng-
land, 554.
Vienna, geographers at, 585.
Villalobos, 612.
Vinci, Leonardo da, his map, 581, 582.
Vinland, 144, 146.
Virginia, named, 648 ; map, 654, 655.
Viscaino, Sebastian, 652.
Vopel, Caspar, his globe, 607.
Volterra, Maffei de, 32.
Vries, De, 652.
Wagenaer, Lucas, his Spieghel, 603.
Waldseemiiller, his career, 540 ; Cosmo-
graphice Introduction 540; its title,
541 ; edits Ptolemy, 546, 582 ; his map,
412.
Walker, John, 646.
Warsaw codex (Ptolemy), map, 635-
637.
Watling's Island, 216.
Watt, Joachim. See Vadianus.
Waymouth, George, 650.
West India Company, 649.
White, John, his map, 597, 599.
Winsor, Justin, America, 59.
Wright, Edw., improves Mercator's pro-
jection, 637.
Wytfliet, his maps, 630, 631.
Xaragua, 305 ; made subject, 361, 473.
Ximenes in power, 520.
Yucatan, 629 ; discovered, 565, 567.
Zarco, 87.
Zeni, the, 138, 634; their map, 634,
635 ; their influence, 642.
Ziegler, Schondia and its map, 615, 617.
Zoana mela, 582, 583.
Zorzi or Montalboddo, Paesi novamente
retrovati, 36.
Zuiiiga, Diego Ortiz de, on Seville, 169.
t)
University of Toronto
Library
DO NOT
REMOVE
THE
CARD
FROM
THIS
POCKET
Acme Library Card Pocket
LOWE-MARTIN CO. LIMITED
Live Music Archive
Librivox Free Audio
Metropolitan Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Internet Arcade
Console Living Room
Books to Borrow
Open Library
TV News
Understanding 9/11