Christopher Columbus Part 8

The court was settled, at that time, in the north near Valladolid, and thither Columbus went to plead his case. All along the way he displayed his Indians and tropical plants and little golden ornaments, but the inhabitants were less curious than before. In the picture of this greatest and most ill.u.s.trious discoverer trying to gain favor with critical crowds by showing them a few naked savages and a few bits of gold, there is something pitiful. For Columbus knew, and the crowds knew, that he was in disfavor, and he was dejected by the fear of an unfriendly reception.

What a relief it must have been to him when, instead, he found himself graciously received. Not a word did the sovereigns utter of their dissatisfaction, either over the affairs of the colony or the small amount of gold. He told them all about his trip along Cuba and the new islands found; and of course he could not refrain from telling them that just before he left Hispaniola _real_ gold mines had been discovered from which they might "confidently expect large returns."

They thanked him for his new discoveries and showed him many marks of favor. Instead of paying attention to the many complaints which had been made against Bartolome Colon, they told the Admiral that his brother might remain vice-governor for life. A little later they told him they would take his young son Fernando into the royal household and educate him, and after a time they began to make plans for a third voyage. How much better it all turned out than he had been led to expect from Agnado's conduct!

For his next voyage Columbus asked for eight ships and the sovereigns complied. More than three hundred men were to be sent out, paid by the Crown; and as many more, if they would volunteer to go without pay, were promised a third of the gold they got out of the mines, besides a share in other products.

All these fair promises, where he had been expecting disgrace, must have lifted a load from Columbus's mind; but he was soon to find, as in years gone by, that a long time may elapse between promise and fulfillment.

Months and months rolled slowly away and Columbus was still kept waiting in Spain.

It is possible that Ferdinand and Isabella wanted to see what the colony could do without him; or perhaps there really was no other reason than that given, that Spain herself needed every available ship at that time.

First, she was sending a great expedition against Naples; being at war with France also, she needed a fleet to guard her own seacoast. Further, as a brilliant marriage had been arranged between two of the royal children of Spain and two of the royal children of Burgundy, there was extra need of ships to carry these princes, in suitable state, across the Bay of Biscay. Indeed, these various Spanish plans called not only for ships, but money; and yet the government managed finally to set aside six million maravedis for Columbus's use. Before he could begin to spend it, however, Ferdinand took it back again, and under circ.u.mstances that were very mortifying to the waiting Columbus.

Just after the royal treasurer was ordered to put this sum at the Admiral's disposal, word came to court that Pedro Nino had arrived from Espanola with ships laden with gold!

"There now," cried Christopher in glee, "did I not tell you gold was sure to come?"

"Well then," craftily reasoned King Ferdinand, "hasten you to Cadiz with an order to Pedro Nino to pay the government's share over to you for your ships, and I will keep these six million maravedis in my own treasury for war expenses."

But it all turned out to be a sorry joke on the part of Captain Pedro Nino. His ships were full of slaves which, he laughingly declared, he expected to turn into gold in the slave market.

Thus was Columbus, weary with long waiting, left without any appropriation at all; and Bishop Fonseca laughing at him whenever he observed his eagerness to be off!

In this quarter the impatient Admiral found much hindrance and no sympathy. Not only did Fonseca himself exhibit indifference to Columbus's work, but his secretary did the same. Furthermore, contrary to the terms of Columbus's contract, by which he was to have a monopoly of Indian discovery, Fonseca (on royal order, of course) began giving licenses to other navigators, and the intrepid Columbus saw his coveted prize slipping through his hands.

In all matters relating to government and administration, Bishop Fonseca was a far wiser man than the great navigator. Fonseca possessed the best education a man could receive in that day. His training in the great church organization had given him skill in reading character. He soon saw that Columbus had but little ability outside of navigation; and we wish that, instead of despising him, he had been big enough and kindly enough to say: "Good friend, give up all connection with that struggling colony of Hispaniola. Let me send out a more competent man than yourself to handle it, and do you devote your energies entirely to discovery.

That alone shall be your work. Carry it as far as you can, for you are not young and the day will come when you can sail no more."

If a sympathetic, convincing, friendly voice had whispered this good advice to the hara.s.sed governor of Espanola, what a load of trouble it might have lifted from his heart. But Bishop Fonseca, unfortunately, was not the man to help another in his hour of trouble. He merely treated Columbus coldly and put every sort of obstacle in his way.

Ships and men were at last ready to sail from Cadiz on May 30, 1498. It happened that ten days before Vasco da Gama, following the Portuguese track around Africa, had left the coast and gone across the Indian Ocean, reaching the rich mainland of the real India--the brilliant, civilized city of Calcutta. Let us be thankful for poor Columbus's sake that there were no cables in those days to apprise him of the fact, else he might have felt even more keenly what a poor showing his own discovery had made.

His fleet this time consisted of six vessels. They stopped as usual at the Canaries, then went farther south to the Cape Verde Islands. Thus a whole month pa.s.sed before they were ready to cross the Atlantic.

On leaving the Cape Verdes, the Admiral decided to send his best captain with three of the ships due west to Haiti,--this because the Isabella colony was in sore need of provisions. Meanwhile he himself would lead the other three farther south and discover new lands; for he had received a letter in Spain from a gem expert saying, "Go to hot lands for precious stones."

Knowing nothing of currents and calms around the equator in July, he conducted his three ships into such a strong northern ocean current that he had to change his course before ever they reached the equator. Next they lay becalmed for eight days in the most cruel heat imaginable. The provisions were spoiling; the men's tempers were spoiling, too; and so, on the last day of July, judging that they must be south of the Caribbean Islands, Columbus gave up all thought of new investigations and started northwest for Hispaniola. By the new course land was soon sighted, a much larger island than any of the Caribbeans. Out of it rose three imposing mountain peaks; and accordingly it was christened _La Trinidad_ (the Trinity) after the custom of religious naming that prevailed.

Columbus's ships, having shrunken and cracked in the heat of the voyage, were much in need of repair. After cruising around the south and west sh.o.r.e, Looking in vain for a harbor where he could patch up his ships and take on water, he at last found a suitable spot near Point Alcatraz.

Here the necessary repairs were made, and, as the Spaniards worked on their boats, they could look across to a low strip of land in the west-- the coast, did they but suspect it, of an unheard-of continent nearly as large as all Europe!

Thinking it another island, they sailed over to it when the boats were mended. The Admiral was suffering torture with eyestrain (small wonder, one would say who has seen those hundreds of cramped pages he wrote), so he called a reliable man and ordered him to conduct a party ash.o.r.e and take possession in the name of their sovereigns. He himself, he said, would lie down awhile in his dark cabin, for the glare of the tropic sun made his eyes ache cruelly. That is how it happened that, on August 10, 1498, the Admiral lost the chance of putting foot on the vast mainland of South America.

Back came the party from sh.o.r.e after a few hours to report that the natives appeared very intelligent, that their land was called Paria, that they wore a little gold which came (as usual) from "the west," and that they wore strings of pearls that were gathered a little farther south on the Paria coast. At last, pearls! How it must have encouraged our ever hopeful Admiral!

So now, though they did not suspect it, the great continent of South America was discovered. They sailed south along its sh.o.r.e for a time, hoping to find the pearls, but the farther they went the rougher the great waves became,--mountainous, indeed,--forming actual lofty ridges on the surface of the sea. Of this phenomenon Columbus wrote home to the monarchs, "I shuddered lest the waters should have upset the vessel when they came under its bows." The rush, as we now know, was made partly by the delta of the Orinoco River and partly by the African current squeezing itself into the narrow s.p.a.ce between the continent and the southern end of Trinidad, after which it curls itself into the Gulf of Mexico and comes out again as the Gulf Stream.

Columbus, after buffeting these dangerous waters as long as he could, turned north again along Trinidad and emerged out of the Gulf of Paria, leaving the pearls behind him. Instead of landing and looking to see if the natives spoke the truth, he started a hopeful letter to the sovereigns, telling them what rich pearl fisheries he had discovered.

This time, however, Christopher's imagination really ran close to the facts, for at their next landing, on the island of Margarita, north of Venezuela, they actually bartered three pounds of large pearls from the natives! Then they headed northwest for Haiti, reaching it the last of August, 1498.

Nearly two and one half years had pa.s.sed since he and Agnado had left the island in the hands of their successor, Bartholomew Columbus. During that time no change for the better had come to it. The mistakes on the part of officers, and the rebellions on the part of the people, now made a longer list than ever. Not a man among them, from Bartholomew down to the meanest commoner, appeared to know how to build up a well-ordered, self-respecting community. The spirit of cooperation was entirely lacking. No one thought of the common good, only of his own interests; and those in power had not been trained to handle large groups of men who needed wise directing. In those days, and especially in Spain, the general education was not the sort to develop each individual man toward self-reliance, but to make him part of a big organization where he need not think for himself, but need merely obey orders. If, then, those appointed to issue the orders were not men of wisdom and sense, things were bound to go wrong. Bartholomew Columbus, whom the sovereigns had appointed lord lieutenant for life, had not been a very wise governor, as will soon be apparent.

It was only a little while before the Admiral sailed home with Agnado that gold mines had been discovered on the south coast of Espanola.

Bartholomew was therefore instructed to take a certain number of men to the south coast and establish a seaport at the nearest suitable point to the mines. That was how the present town of Santo Domingo (now shortened into San Domingo) came into existence, a town that in time grew to be so important that it gave its name to the whole island.

In order to start building San Domingo, Bartholomew, or, as he should be styled, Don Bartolome, took nearly all the working population out of Isabella. The only ones left were those engaged in building two caravels which the Admiral had started constructing. The men under Don Bartolome appear to have entered into building the new port with fairly good will; for there really was a little gold in the vicinity, and they had been promised payment for their services. If Don Bartolome had stuck to his post, everything might have gone well; but scarcely were the first few houses completed when he decided, most unwisely, to make an expedition far into the west of the island, where there was supposed to be a rich Indian kingdom called Xaragua. Of course when Bartolome reached Xaragua, he found the tribe to be, as usual, a "poor people." He could collect no golden tribute from them, and had to take their offer of produce instead, which, he told them, they must have ready within a certain time. Then he rode off to see how the men left behind at Isabella were getting on.

There, since the day when he had taken away the best (that is, the most industrious) men to work in San Domingo, those remaining had known nothing but misfortune. Many had died; and of those left, many were ill and all were discontented. Unluckily, Don Bartolome was not the man to offer much sympathy or even to stay and put things in order. Instead, he left this first American town to its fate and started on to the second.

All the way across the island to San Domingo he kept demanding tribute from the natives he pa.s.sed. The poor creatures, though they well knew the malignant power of the Spaniards, determined to make one more attempt at resistance. The result was that most of them were killed or taken captive. By this time the tribute of Xaragua was to be ready, and Don Bartolome went after it and did not continue on to the new seaport of San Domingo.

While he was gone, his younger brother Diego was left in command of the eastern part of the island. Diego was far less of a disciplinarian than either Cristobal or Bartolome, and the Spaniards themselves now revolted. In this they were led by a man named Francisco Roldan whom the Admiral had appointed chief-justice. Roldan gathered about him nearly all the well men on the island, taking them from their work in the mines and on the new town. Once banded together, these rebels rode and tramped all over the center of the island, stealing food wherever they could find it. It happened that while they were in the west, near the coast of those same regions of Xaragua where Bartholomew was, along came the three caravels laden with food which Columbus had sent direct from the Cape Verde Islands.

Columbus had instructed the commander of this little fleet to coast along the southern sh.o.r.e till he found the new seaport which Bartholomew was building; but somehow the commander missed it, and sailed much farther west and into the very territory where the Roldan rebels were.

Knowing nothing of their disloyalty, he sent a large number of men ash.o.r.e to inquire for San Domingo. These, as ill luck would have it, fell in with Roldan and his men. We may readily imagine the conversations that ensued.

"Don't go to the town," the malefactors warned the newcomers. "It is nothing but work, work, work, and no pay. We are supposed to be paid out of the gold found, but the amount is so small that not a grain of it ever reaches us! Better stay here and go from one Indian village to another, taking food and golden ornaments from the natives." And the sh.o.r.e party, instead of searching for San Domingo, stayed with Roldan.

The three caravels then continued their search, but never reached San Domingo till a few days after Columbus himself had come up from South America.

CHAPTER XVII

A RETURN IN DISGRACE

What a discouraging state of affairs to greet the returning "Governor- General and Viceroy of all the Lands Discovered in the Western Seas!"

What comfort were all these t.i.tles that Columbus stood out for so obstinately, when half his colonists had joined a rebel leader and the other half were sick and hungry!

By this time Roldan's army was so large that Christopher and his brother had to admit to each other that there was no chance of subduing the insurrection by force. In truth, there was no "force"; for those who were not ill, even the newcomers, were all grumbling against the government. So there was nothing to do but make a treaty with the rebel leader, as if he had been the lawful ruler of a state; and in this treaty he had everything his own way. Columbus had humbly to agree to give two vessels to carry the discontented ones back to Spain; to fill these vessels with ample provisions, and to agree to write a letter to the monarchs stating that Roldan and his men were in no way to blame for the trouble. Here was humiliation indeed! Fancy a high official of the Crown being forced to such an undignified treaty with one who had rebelled against his authority!

But even this did not end the trouble. Columbus could not get the vessels ready in time, and so the malefactors became more vexatious than ever. Later another treaty was made, still more humiliating to the Admiral, for he had to promise, first, that those of Roldan's men who were most anxious to return should be sent to Spain immediately; second, that those who chose to remain should receive gifts of land and houses; third, that he, Columbus, would issue a public proclamation stating that all that had happened had been caused by the false reports of bad men; and fourth, that Roldan the leader should remain chief-justice for the rest of his life! Roldan now condescended to return to San Domingo and sit in the judge's seat.

No sooner was this turbulent leader appeased than another rebel arose.

This time, sad to say, it was the brave Alonzo de Ojeda. Because he had succeeded in taking the chief Caonabo prisoner, Columbus had rewarded and honored him by making him captain of a voyage of discovery among the islands. All this time, no doubt, Ojeda was loyal to his Admiral; but he had recently made a trip home to Spain, where, from his friend Bishop Fonseca, he had learned many things, false as well as true, that poisoned his mind against his great leader. So he in turn gathered the discontented into a threatening band.

"I have word from Spain," he told them, "that our good queen lies dying.

She is the only friend Cristobal Colon has; and you may be sure that the minute she is dead I can easily arrange to have her favorite removed if you will all rally around me." Many, of course, lent ear to his treacherous talk, and these had many a skirmish with the few who were faithful to Columbus.

Ojeda, besides sneering at and opposing the Admiral's authority, wrote letters back to Fonseca telling him all sorts of unfavorable things concerning Columbus and his brothers. All the rebels, in truth, were sending back complaints, for the old and the new world sent little packet ships monthly. What they did not write was told in Spain by those of Roldan's men whom Columbus had sent home. Some indeed went straight to the king himself with their stories, with the result that the queen had to agree with her husband, who had never been much interested in Columbus and his savages, that the whole matter must be thoroughly investigated.

Yet, even after consenting to court-martial Columbus, as it were, the queen delayed the proceeding as long as possible, as if trying to give her viceroy time to straighten out his situation. But sad tales of misrule still kept coming from Espanola, and finally, after more than a year of waiting, the monarchs sent out Don Francisco de Bobadilla (Boba- deel'ya) with a letter that began:--

Don Cristobal Colon, our Admiral of the Ocean:

We have ordered the Comendador Francisco de Bobadilla, the bearer of this, that he speak to you on our part certain things which he will tell you. We pray you give him faith and credence, and act accordingly.