The Discovery of America Part 30

[Sidenote: Resume of the genesis of Columbus's scheme.]

[Sidenote: Martin Behaim's improved astrolabe.]

[Sidenote: Negotiations of Columbus with John II. of Portugal.]

[Sidenote: A shabby trick.]

[Sidenote: Columbus leaves Portugal,]

[Sidenote: and enters the service of the Spanish sovereigns, 1486.]

[Sidenote: The junto at Salamanca.]

The genesis of the grand scheme of Columbus has now been set forth, I believe, with sufficient fulness. The cardinal facts are 1, that the need for some such scheme was suggested in 1471, by the discovery that the Guinea coast extended south of the equator; 2, that by 1474 advice had been sought from Toscanelli by the king of Portugal, and not very long after 1474 by Columbus; 3, that upon Toscanelli's letters and map, amended by the Ptolemaic estimate of the earth's size and by the authority of pa.s.sages quoted in the book of Alliacus (one of which was a verse from the Apocrypha), Columbus based his firm conviction of the feasibleness of the western route. How or by whom the suggestion of that route was first made--whether by Columbus himself or by Toscanelli or by Fernando Martinez or, as Antonio Gallo declares, by Bartholomew Columbus,[482] or by some person in Portugal whose name we know not--it would be difficult to decide. Neither can we fix the date when Columbus first sought aid for his scheme from the Portuguese government. There seems to be no good reason why he should not have been talking about it before 1474; but the affair did not come to any kind of a climax until after his return from Guinea, some time after 1482 and certainly not later than 1484. It was on some accounts a favourable time. The war with Castile was out of the way, and Martin Behaim had just invented an improved astrolabe which made it ever so much easier to find and keep one's lat.i.tude at sea. It was in 1484 that Portuguese discoveries took a fresh start after a ten years' lull, and Diego Cam, with the learned Behaim and his bran-new astrolabe on board, was about to sail a thousand miles farther south than white men had ever gone before. About this time the scheme of Columbus was formally referred by King John II. to the junto of learned cosmographers from whom the crown had been wont to seek advice. The project was condemned as "visionary,"[483] as indeed it was,--the outcome of vision that saw farther than those men could see.

But the king, who had some of his uncle Prince Henry's love for bold enterprises, was more hospitably inclined toward the ideas of Columbus, and he summoned a council of the most learned men in the kingdom to discuss the question.[484] In this council the new scheme found some defenders, while others correctly urged that Columbus must be wrong in supposing Asia to extend so far to the east, and it must be a much longer voyage than he supposed to c.i.p.ango and Cathay,[485] Others argued that the late war had impoverished the country, and that the enterprises on the African coast were all that the treasury could afford. Here the demands of Columbus were of themselves an obstacle to his success. He never at any time held himself cheap,[486] and the rewards and honours for which he insisted on stipulating were greater than the king of Portugal felt inclined to bestow upon a plain Genoese mariner. It was felt that if the enterprise should prove a failure, as very likely it would, the less heartily the government should have committed itself to it beforehand, the less it would expose itself to ridicule. King John was not in general disposed toward unfair and dishonest dealings, but on this occasion, after much parley, he was persuaded to sanction a proceeding quite unworthy of him. Having obtained Columbus's sailing plans, he sent out a ship secretly, to carry some goods to the Cape Verde islands, and then to try the experiment of the westward voyage. If there should turn out to be anything profitable in the scheme, this would be safer and more frugal than to meet the exorbitant demands of this ambitious foreigner. So it was done; but the pilots, having no grand idea to urge them forward, lost heart before the stupendous expanse of waters that confronted them, and beat an ignominious retreat to Lisbon; whereupon Columbus, having been informed of the trick,[487] departed in high dudgeon, to lay his proposals before the crown of Castile. He seems to have gone rather suddenly, leaving his wife, who died shortly after, and one or two children who must also have died, for he tells us that he never saw them again. But his son Diego, aged perhaps four or five years, he took with him as far as the town of Huelva, near the little port of Palos in Andalusia, where he left him with one of his wife's sisters, who had married a man of that town named Muliar.[488] This arrival in Spain was probably late in the autumn of 1484, and Columbus seems to have entered into the service of Ferdinand and Isabella January 20, 1486. What he was doing in the interval of rather more than a year is not known. There is a very doubtful tradition that he tried to interest the republic of Genoa in his enterprise,[489] and a still more doubtful rumour that he afterwards made proposals to the Venetian senate.[490] If these things ever happened, there was time enough for them in this year, and they can hardly be a.s.signed to any later period. In 1486 we find Columbus at Cordova, where the sovereigns were holding court. He was unable to effect anything until he had gained the ear of Isabella's finance minister Alonso de Quintanilla, who had a mind hospitable to large ideas. The two sovereigns had scarcely time to attend to such things, for there was a third king in Spain, the Moor at Granada, whom there now seemed a fair prospect of driving to Africa, and thus ending the struggle that had lasted with few intermissions for nearly eight centuries. The final war with Granada had been going on since the end of 1481, and considering how it weighed upon the minds of Ferdinand and Isabella it is rather remarkable that cosmography got any hearing at all. The affair was referred to the queen's confessor Fernando de Talavera, whose first impression was that if what Columbus said was true, it was very strange that other geographers should have failed to know all about it long ago. Ideas of evolution had not yet begun to exist in those days, and it was thought that what the ancients did not know was not worth knowing. Toward the end of 1486 the Spanish sovereigns were at Salamanca, and Talavera referred the question to a junto of learned men, including professors of the famous university.[491] There was no lack of taunt and ridicule, and a whole a.r.s.enal of texts from Scripture and the Fathers were discharged at Columbus, but it is noticeable that quite a number were inclined to think that his scheme might be worth trying, and that some of his most firmly convinced supporters were priests. No decision had been reached when the sovereigns started on the Malaga campaign in the spring of 1487.

[Footnote 482: Gallo, _De navigatione Columbi_, apud Muratori, _Rerum Italicarum Scriptores_, tom. xxiii. col. 302.]

[Footnote 483: Lafuente, _Historia de Espana_, tom. ix, p.

428.]

[Footnote 484: Vasconcellos, _Vida del rey Don Juan II._, lib.

iv.; La Clede, _Histoire de Portugal_, lib. xiii.]

[Footnote 485: The Portuguese have never been able to forgive Columbus for discovering a new world for Spain, and their chagrin sometimes vents itself in amusing ways. After all, says Cordeiro, Columbus was no such great man as some people think, for he did not discover what he promised to discover; and, moreover, the Portuguese geographers were right in condemning his scheme, because it really is not so far by sea from Lisbon around Africa to Hindustan as from Lisbon by any practicable route westward to j.a.pan! See Luciano Cordeiro, _De la part prise par les Portugais dans la decouverte d'Amerique_, Lisbon, 1876, pp. 23, 24, 29, 30. Well, I don't know that there is any answer to be made to this argument. Logic is logic, says the wise Autocrat:--

"End of the wonderful one-hoss shay, Logic is logic, that's all I say."

Cordeiro's book is elaborately criticised in the learned work of Prospero Peragallo, _Cristoforo Colombo in Portogallo: studi critici_, Genoa, 1882.]

[Footnote 486: "Perciocche essendo l' Ammiraglio di generosi ed alti pensieri, volle capitolare con suo grande onore e vantaggio, per lasciar la memoria sua, e la grandezza della sua casa, conforme alla grandezza delle sue opere e de' suoi meriti." _Vita dell' Ammiraglio_, cap. xi. The jealous Portuguese historian speaks in a somewhat different tone from the affectionate son:--"Veo requerer a el rey Dom Joo que le desse algums navios pera ir a descobrir a ilha de Gypango [_sic_] per esta mar occidental.... El rey, porque via ser este Christovo Colom homem falador e glorioso em mostrar suas habilidades, e mas fantastico et de imaginaco com sua ilha de Cypango, que certo no que dezia: davalhe pouco credito."

Barros, _Decada primeira da Asia_, Lisbon, 1752, liv. iii. cap.

xi. fol. 56.]

[Footnote 487: It has been urged in the king's defence that "such a proceeding was not an instance of bad faith or perfidy (!) but rather of the policy customary at that time, which consisted in distrusting everything that was foreign, and in promoting by whatever means the national glory." Yes, indeed, whether the means were fair or foul. Of course it was a common enough policy, but it was lying and cheating all the same. "No foi sem duvida por ma fe ou perfidia que tacitamente se mandon armar hum navio a cujo capito se confiou o plano que Colombo havia proposto, e cuja execucao se lhe encarregou; mas sim por seguir a politica naquelle tempo usada, que toda consistia em olhar com desconfianca para tudo o que era estrangeiro, e en promover por todos os modos a gloria nacional. O capito nomeado para a empreza, como no tivesse nem o espirito, nem a convicco de Colombo, depois de huma curta viagem nos mares do Oeste, fez-se na volta da terra: e arribou a Lisboa descontente e desanimado." Campe, _Historia do descobrimento da America_, Paris, 1836, tom. i. p. 13. The frightened sailors protested that YOU MIGHT AS WELL EXPECT TO FIND LAND IN THE SKY AS IN THAT WASTE OF WATERS! See Las Casas, _Hist. de las Indias_, tom. i. p. 221. Las Casas calls the king's conduct by its right name, _dobladura_, "trickery."]

[Footnote 488: It has generally been supposed, on the authority of _Vita dell' Ammiraglio_, cap. xi., that his wife had lately died; but an autograph letter of Columbus, in the possession of his lineal descendant and representative the present Duke of Veraguas, proves that this is a mistake. In this letter Columbus says expressly that when he left Portugal he left wife and children, and never saw them again. (Navarrete, _Coleccion_, tom. ii. doc. cx.x.xvii. p. 255.) As Las Casas, who knew Diego so well, also supposed his mother to have died before his father left Portugal, it is most likely that she died soon afterwards. Ferdinand Columbus says that Diego was left in charge of some friars at the convent of La Rabida near Palos (_loc. cit._); Las Casas is not quite so sure; he thinks Diego was left with some friend of his father at Palos, or perhaps (_por ventura_) at La Rabida. (_Historia_, tom. i. p.

227.) These mistakes were easy to make, for both La Rabida and Huelva were close by Palos, and we know that Diego's aunt Muliar was living at Huelva. (Las Casas, _op. cit._ tom. i. p.

241; Harrisse, tom. i. pp. 279, 356, 391; tom. ii. p. 229.) It is pretty clear that Columbus never visited La Rabida before the autumn of 1491 (see below, p. 412). My own notion is that Columbus may have left his wife with an infant and perhaps one older child, relieving her of the care of Diego by taking him to his aunt, and intending as soon as practicable to reunite the family. He clearly did not know at the outset whether he should stay in Spain or not.]

[Footnote 489: It rests upon an improbable statement of Ramusio, who places the event as early as 1470. The first Genoese writer to allude to it is Casoni, _Annali della Republica di Genova_, Genoa, 1708, pp. 26-31. Such testimony is of small value.]

[Footnote 490: First mentioned in 1800 by Marin, _Storia del commercio de Veneziani_, Venice, 1798-1808, tom. vii. p. 236.]

[Footnote 491: The description usually given of this conference rests upon the authority of Remesal, _Historia de la prouincia de Chyapa_, Madrid, 1619, lib. ii. cap. vii. p. 52. Las Casas merely says that the question was referred to certain persons at the court, _Hist. de las Indias_, tom. i. p. 228. It is probably not true that the project of Columbus was officially condemned by the university of Salamanca as a corporate body.

See Camara, _Religion y Ciencia_, Valladolid, 1880, p. 261.]

[Sidenote: Birth of Ferdinand Columbus, Aug. 15, 1488.]

[Sidenote: Bartholomew Columbus returns from the Cape of Good Hope, Dec, 1487.]

[Sidenote: Christopher visits Bartholomew at Lisbon, cir. Sept., 1488;]

[Sidenote: and sends him to England.]

[Sidenote: Bartholomew, after mishaps, reaches England cir. Feb., 1490;]

[Sidenote: and goes thence to France before 1492.]

After the surrender of Malaga in August, 1487, Columbus visited the court in that city. For a year or more after that time silken chains seem to have bound him to Cordova. He had formed a connection with a lady of n.o.ble family, Beatriz Enriquez de Arana, who gave birth to his son Ferdinand on the 15th of August, 1488.[492] Shortly after this event, Columbus made a visit to Lisbon, in all probability for the purpose of meeting his brother Bartholomew, who had returned in the last week of December, 1487, in the Dias expedition, with the proud news of the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope,[493] which was rightly believed to be the extremity of Africa; and we can well understand how Christopher, on seeing the success of Prince Henry's method of reaching the Indies so nearly vindicated, must have become more impatient than ever to prove the superiority of his own method. It was probably not long after Bartholomew's return that Christopher determined to go and see him, for he applied to King John II. for a kind of safe-conduct, which was duly granted March 20, 1488. This doc.u.ment[494] guarantees Christopher against arrest or arraignment or detention on any charge civil or criminal whatever, during his stay in Portugal, and commands all magistrates in that kingdom to respect it. From this it would seem probable that in the eagerness of his geographical speculations he had neglected his business affairs and left debts behind him in Portugal for which he was liable to be arrested. The king's readiness to grant the desired privilege seems to indicate that he may have cherished a hope of regaining the services of this accomplished chart-maker and mariner.

Christopher did not avail himself of the privilege until late in the summer,[495] and it is only fair to suppose that he waited for the birth of his child and some a.s.surance of its mother's safety. On meeting Bartholomew he evidently set him to work forthwith in making overtures to the courts of England and France. It was natural enough that Bartholomew should first set out for Bristol, where old shipmates and acquaintances were sure to be found. It appears that on the way he was captured by pirates, and thus some delay was occasioned before he arrived in London and showed the king a map, probably similar to Toscanelli's and embellished with quaint Latin verses. An entry on this map informs us that it was made by Bartholomew Columbus in London, February 10, 1488, which I think should be read 1489 or even 1490, so we may suppose it to have been about that time or perhaps later that he approached the throne.[496] Henry VII. was intelligent enough to see the bearings of Bartholomew's arguments, and at the same time, as a good man of business, he was likely to be cautious about investing money in remote or doubtful enterprises. What arguments were used we do not know, but the spring of 1492 had arrived before any decisive answer had been given. Meanwhile Bartholomew had made his way to France, and found a powerful protector in a certain Madame de Bourbon,[497] while he made maps for people at the court and waited to see if there were any chances of getting help from Charles VIII.

[Footnote 492: Some historians, unwilling to admit any blemishes in the character of Columbus, have supposed that this union was sanctioned by marriage, but this is not probable. He seems to have been tenderly attached to Beatriz, who survived him many years. See Harrisse, tom. ii. pp. 353-357.]

[Footnote 493: The authority for Bartholomew Columbus having sailed to the Cape of Good Hope with Dias is a ma.n.u.script note of his own in Christopher's copy of the _Imago Mundi_: "Nota quod hoc anno de 88 [it should be 87] in mense decembri appulit in Ulixbona Bartholomeus Didacus capitaneus trium carabelarum quem miserat serenissimus rex Portugalie in Guineam ad tentandum terrain. Et renunciavit ipse serenissimo regi prout navigaverat ultra jam navigata leuchas 600, videlicet 450 ad austrum et 150 ad aquilonem usque montem per ipsum nominatum _Cabo de boa esperanca_ quem in Agesimba estimamus. Qui quidem in eo loco invenit se distare per astrolabium ultra lineam equinoctialem gradus 35. Quem viagium pictavit et scripsit de leucha in leucham in una carta navigationis ut oculi visum ostenderet ipso serenissimo regi. In quibus omnibus interfui."

M. Varnhagen has examined this note and thinks it is in the handwriting of Christopher Columbus (_Bulletin de Geographie_, janvier, 1858, tom. xv. p. 71); and M. d'Avezac (_Canevas chronologique_, p. 58), accepting this opinion, thinks that the words _in quibus omnibus interfui_, "in all of which I took part," only mean that Christopher was present in Lisbon when the expedition returned, and heard the whole story! With all possible respect for such great scholars as MM. d'Avezac and Varnhagen, I submit that the opinion of Las Casas, who first called attention to this note, must be much better than theirs on such a point as the handwriting of the two brothers. When Las Casas found the note he wondered whether it was meant for Bartholomew or Christopher, i. e. wondered which of the two was meant to be described as having "taken part;" but at all events, says Las Casas, the handwriting is Bartholomew's:--"Estas son palabras escritas de la mano de Bartolome Colon, no se si las escribio de si o de su letra por su hermano Cristobal Colon." Under these circ.u.mstances it seems idle to suppose that Las Casas could have been mistaken about the handwriting; he evidently put his mind on that point, and in the next breath he goes on to say, "la letra yo conozco ser de Bartolome Colon, porque tuve muchas suyas," i. e. "I know it is Bartholomew's writing, for I have had many letters of his;"

and again "estas palabras ... de la misma letra y mano de Bartolome Colon, la cual muy bien conoci y agora tengo hartas cartas y letras suyas, tratando deste viaje," i. e. "these words ... from the very writing and hand of Bartholomew Columbus, which I knew very well, and I have to-day many charts and letters of his, treating of this voyage." (_Hist. de las Indias_, tom. i. pp. 213, 214.) This last sentence makes Las Casas an independent witness to Bartholomew's presence in the expedition, a matter about which he was not likely to be mistaken. What puzzled him was the question, not whether Bartholomew went, but whether Christopher could have gone also, "pudo ser tambien que se hallase Cristobal Colon." Now Christopher certainly did not go on that voyage. The expedition started in August, 1486, and returned to Lisbon in December, 1487, after an absence of sixteen months and seventeen days, "anendo dezaseis meses et dezasete dias que ero partidos delle." (Barros, _Decada primeira da Asia_, Lisbon, 1752, tom.

i. fol. 42, 44.) The account-book of the treasury of Castile shows that sums of money were paid to Christopher at Seville, May 5, July 3, August 27, and October 15, 1487; so that he could not have gone with Dias (see Harrisse, tom. ii. p. 191).

Neither could Christopher have been in Lisbon in December, 1487, when the little fleet returned, for his safe-conduct from King John is dated March 20, 1488. It was not until the autumn of 1488 that Columbus made this visit to Portugal, and M.

d'Avezac has got the return of the fleet a year too late.

Bartholomew's note followed a custom which made 1488 begin at Christmas, 1487.

In reading a later chapter of Las Casas for another purpose (tom. i. p. 227), I come again upon this point. He rightly concludes that Christopher could not have gone with Dias, and again declares most positively that the handwriting of the note was Bartholomew's and not Christopher's.

This footnote affords a good ill.u.s.tration of the kind of difficulties that surround such a subject as the life of Columbus, and the ease with which an excess of ingenuity may discover mare's nests.]

[Footnote 494: It may be found in Navarrete, _Coleccion de viages_, tom. ii. pp. 5, 6.]

[Footnote 495: The account-book of the treasury shows that on June 16 he was still in Spain. See Harrisse, tom. i. p. 355.]

[Footnote 496: The entry, as given by Las Casas, is "Pro auth.o.r.e, seu pictore, || Gennua cui patria est, nomen cui Bartolomeus || Columbus de terra rubea, opus edidit istud || Londonije: anno domini millesimo quatercentessimo octiesque uno || Atque insuper anno octavo: decimaque die mensis Februarii.

|| Laudes Christo cantentur abunde." _Historia_, tom. i. p.

225. Now since Bartholomew Columbus was a fairly educated man, writing this note in England on a map made for the eyes of the king of England, I suppose he used the old English style which made the year begin at the vernal equinox instead of Christmas, so that his February, 1488, means the next month but one after December, 1488, i. e. what in our new style becomes February, 1489. Bartholomew returned to Lisbon from Africa in the last week of December, 1487, and it is not likely that his plans could have been matured and himself settled down in London in less than seven weeks. The logical relation of the events, too, shows plainly that Christopher's visit to Lisbon was for the purpose of consulting his brother and getting first-hand information about the greatest voyage the world had ever seen.

In the early weeks of 1488 Christopher sends his request for a safe-conduct, gets it March 20, waits till his child is born, August 15, and then presently goes. Bartholomew may have sailed by the first of October for England, where (according to this reading of his date) we actually find him four months later.

What happened to him in this interval? Here we come to the story of the pirates. M. Harrisse, who never loses an opportunity for throwing discredit upon the _Vita dell'

Ammiraglio_, has failed to make the correction of date which I have here suggested. He puts Bartholomew in London in February, 1488, and is thus unable to a.s.sign any reason for Christopher's visit to Lisbon. He also finds that in the forty-six days between Christmas, 1487, and February, 10, 1488, there is hardly room enough for any delay due to so grave a cause as capture by pirates. (_Christophe Colomb_, vol. ii. p. 192.) He therefore concludes that the statement in the _Vita dell'

Ammiraglio_, cap. xi., is unworthy of credit, and it is upon an acc.u.mulation of small difficulties like this that he bases his opinion that Ferdinand Columbus cannot have written that book.

But Las Casas also gives the story of the pirates, and adds the information that they were "Easterlings," though he cannot say of what nation, i. e. whether Dutch, German, or perhaps Danes.

He says that Bartholomew was stripped of his money and fell sick, and after his recovery was obliged to earn money by map-making before he could get to England. (_Historia_, tom. i.

p. 225.) Could all this have happened within the four months which I have allowed between October, 1488, and February, 1489?

Voyages before the invention of steamboats were of very uncertain duration. John Adams in 1784 was fifty-four days in getting from London to Amsterdam (see my _Critical Period of American History_, p. 156). But with favourable weather a Portuguese caravel in 1488 ought to have run from Lisbon to Bristol in fourteen days or less, so that in four months there would be time enough for quite a chapter of accidents. Las Casas, however, says it was _a long time_ before Bartholomew was able to reach England:--"Esto fue causa que enfermase y viniese a mucha pobreza, y estuviese mucho tempo sin poder llegar a Inglaterra, hasta tanto que quiso Dies sanarle; y reformado algo, por su industria y trabajos de sus manos, haciendo cartas de marear, llego a Inglaterra, y, pasados un dia y otros, hobo de alcanzar que le oyese Enrique VII." It is impossible, I think, to read this pa.s.sage without feeling that at least a year must have been consumed; and I do not think we are ent.i.tled to disregard the words of Las Casas in such a matter. But how shall we get the time?

Is it possible that Las Casas made a slight mistake in deciphering the date on Bartholomew's map? Either that mariner did not give the map to Henry VII., or the king gave it back, or more likely it was made in duplicate. At any rate Las Casas had it, along with his many other Columbus doc.u.ments, and for aught we know it may still be tumbling about somewhere in the Spanish archives. It was so badly written (_de muy mala e corrupta letra_), apparently in abbreviations (_sin ortografia_), that Las Casas says he found extreme difficulty in making it out. Now let us observe that date, which is given in fantastic style, apparently because the inscription is in a rude doggerel, and the writer seems to have wished to keep his "verses" tolerably even. (They don't scan much better than Walt Whitman's.) As it stands, the date reads _anno domini millesimo quatercentessimo octiesque uno atque insuper anno octavo_, i.

e. "in the year of our Lord the thousandth, four hundredth, AND EIGHT-TIMES-ONE, and thereafter the eighth year." What business has this cardinal number _octiesque uno_ in a row of ordinals?

If it were translatable, which it is not, it would give us 1,000 + 400 + 8 + 8 = 1416, an absurd date. The most obvious way to make the pa.s.sage readable is to insert the ordinal _octogesimo primo_ instead of the incongruous _octiesque uno_; then it will read "in the year of our Lord the one-thousand-four-hundred-and-eighty-first, and thereafter the eighth year," that is to say 1489. Now translate old style into new style, and February, 1489, becomes February, 1490, which I believe to be the correct date. This allows sixteen months for Bartholomew's mishaps; it justifies the statement in which Las Casas confirms Ferdinand Columbus; and it harmonizes with the statement of Lord Bacon: "For Christopherus Columbus, refused by the king of Portugal (who would not embrace at once both east and west), employed his brother Bartholomew Columbus unto King Henry to negotiate for his discovery. And it so fortuned that he was taken by pirates at sea; by which accidental impediment he was long ere he came to the king; so long that before he had obtained a capitulation with the king for his brother the enterprise was achieved, and so the West Indies by Providence were then reserved for the crown of Castilia."

_Historie of the Raygne of K. Henry the Seventh_, Bacon's _Works_, Boston, 1860, vol. xi. p. 296. Lord Bacon may have taken the statement from Ferdinand's biography; but it probably agreed with English traditions, and ought not to be slighted in this connection.]

[Footnote 497: One of the sisters of Charles VIII. See Harrisse, tom. ii. p. 194.]