The Life of Columbus Part 11

THE ADMIRAL'S REASONING ABOUT THE CONTINENT.

The discovery of the continent of America by Columbus, in his third voyage, was the result of a distinct intention on his part to discover some new land, and cannot be attributed to chance. It would be difficult to define precisely the train of ideas which led Columbus to this discovery. The Portuguese navigations were one compelling cause. Then the change, already alluded to, which Columbus had noticed in his voyages to the Indies, on pa.s.sing a line a hundred leagues west of the Azores, was in his mind, as it was in reality, a circ.u.mstance of great moment[21] and significance. It was not a change of temperature alone that he noticed, but a change in the heavens, the air, the sea, and the magnetic current.

[Footnote 21: It is the opinion of HUMBOLDT, as mentioned before, that the celebrated division, made by Alexander the Sixth between the Castilian and Portuguese monarchs, was adopted in reference to these phenomena which Columbus had noticed: and, if the line of no variation were a "constant," no better marine boundary could well be suggested.]

In the first place, the needles of the compa.s.s, instead of north-easting, north-wested at this line; and that remarkable phenomenon occurred just upon the pa.s.sage of the line, as if, Columbus says, one pa.s.sed a hill.

Then, the sea there was full of sea-weed like small pine-branches, laden with a fruit similar to pistachio nuts. Moreover, on pa.s.sing this imaginary line, the admiral had invariably found that the temperature became agreeable, and the sea calm. Accordingly, in the course of this voyage, when they were suffering from that great heat which has been mentioned, he determined to take a westerly course, which led, as we have seen, to his discovering the beautiful land of Paria.[22]

[Footnote 22: Las Casas, who had other authentic information about this voyage besides the ma.n.u.scripts of Columbus, says, that the admiral intended to have gone southwards, after he had taken a westerly course, on quitting the place where he was becalmed. Had he done so, which the state of his ships would not permit, he might have been the discoverer of Brazil.]

PECULIAR THEORY OF THE SHAPE OF THE EARTH.

Now Columbus was one of those men of divining minds, who must have general theories on which to thread their observations; and, as few persons have so just a claim to theorize as those who have added largely to the number of ascertained facts (a privilege which they generally make abundant use of), so Columbus may well be listened to, when propounding his explanation of the wonderful change in sea, air, sky, and magnetic current, which he discerned at this distance of a hundred leagues from the Azores.

His theory was, that the earth was not a perfect sphere, but pear-shaped; and he thought that, as he proceeded westwards in this voyage, the sea went gradually rising, and his ships rising too, until they came nearer to the heavens. It is very possible that this theory had been long in his mind, or, at any rate, that he held it before he reached the coast of Paria. When there, new facts struck his mind, and were combined with his theory. He found the temperature much more moderate than might have been expected so near the equinoctial line, far more moderate than on the opposite coast of Africa. In the evenings, indeed, it was necessary for him to wear an outer garment of fur. Then, the natives were lighter coloured, more astute, and braver than those of the islands. Their hair, too, was different.

Then, again, he meditated upon the immense volume of fresh waters which descended into the Gulf of Paria. And, in fine, the conclusion which his pious mind came to, was, that when he reached the land which he called the island of Gracia, he was at the base of the earthly Paradise. He also, upon reflection, concluded that it was a continent which he had discovered, the same continent of the east which he had always been in search of; and that the waters, which we now know to be a branch of the river Orinoco, formed one of the four great rivers which descended from the garden of Paradise.

Very different were the conjectures of the pilots. Some said that they were in the Sea of Spain, others, in that of Scotland, and, being in despair about their whereabouts, they concluded that they had been under the guidance of the Devil. The admiral, however, was not a man to be much influenced by the sayings of the unthoughtful and the unlearned. He fortified himself by references to St. Isidro, Beda, Strabo, St. Ambrose, and Duns Scotus, and held stoutly to the conclusion that he had discovered the site of the earthly Paradise. It is said, that he exclaimed to his men, that they were in the richest country in the world.

Columbus did not forget to claim, with all due formalities, the possession of this approach to Paradise, for his employers, the Catholic Sovereigns.

Accordingly, when at Paria, he had landed and taken possession of the coast in their names, erecting a great cross upon the sh.o.r.e, which, he tells Ferdinand and Isabella, he was in the habit of doing at every headland, the religious aspect of the conquest being one which always had great influence with the admiral, as he believed it to have with the Catholic monarchs. In communicating this discovery, he reminds them how they bade him go on with the enterprise, if he should discover only stones and rocks, and had told him that they counted the cost for nothing, considering that the Faith would be increased, and their dominions widened.

GRACEFUL REARING OF NATIVES; BEAUTY OF THE LAND.

It was, however, no poor discovery of mere "rocks and stones" which the admiral had now made. It will be interesting to see his first impressions of the men and the scenery of this continent which he had now, unconsciously, for the first time, discovered. He says, "I found some lands, the most beautiful in the world, and very populous." The lands in the island of Trinidad he had previously compared to Valencia, in Spain, during the month of March. It is also noticeable that he had observed that the fields were cultivated. Of the people, he says, "They are all of good stature, well made, and of very graceful bearing, with much and smooth hair;" and he mentions that on their heads they wore the beautiful Arab head-dress (called keffeh), made of worked and coloured handkerchiefs, which appeared in the distance as if they were silken.

The description given by Columbus of the natives whom he encounters in his voyages is almost always favourable. Indeed, the description of any man or thing depends as much on the person describing, as on the thing or person described. Those little differences in look or dress, which excite the ready mockery of the untravelled rustic, appear very slight indeed to the man who, like Columbus or Las Casas, has seen many lands, and travelled over many minds. The rude Spanish common soldier perceived a far greater difference between himself and the Indian, than did the most accomplished man who visited the Indies, when he made to himself a similar comparison.

Occasionally, in a narrow nature, however cultivated, the commonest prejudices hold their ground; but, in general, knowledge sees behind and beyond disgust, and suffices to conquer it.

THE EARTHLY PARADISE.

Columbus, however, found the men, the country, and the products, equally admirable. It is somewhat curious that he does not mention his discovery of pearls to the Catholic monarchs, and he afterwards makes a poor excuse for this. The real reason I conjecture to have been a wish to preserve this knowledge to himself, that the fruits of this enterprise might not be prematurely s.n.a.t.c.hed from him. His shipmates, however, were sure to disperse the intelligence; and the gains to be made on the Pearl Coast were, probably, the most tempting bait for future navigators to follow in the track of Columbus, and complete the discovery of the earthly Paradise.

ILLNESS OF COLUMBUS.

Of the delights of this Paradise Columbus himself was to have but a slight and mocking foretaste. He had been constantly ill during the voyage, suffering from the gout and from an inflammation in his eyes which rendered him almost blind. His new colony in Hispaniola demanded his attention, and must often have been the cause of anxious thought to him; and the grave but glowing enthusiast made his way to St. Domingo, and afterwards returned to Spain, to be vexed henceforth by those mean miseries and small disputes which afflicted him for the remainder of his days--miseries the more galling, as they were so disproportionately small in comparison with the greatness of such a man, and with the aims and hopes which they effectually hindered.

CHAPTER X.

SLAVES AND LOGWOOD; PLAN OF SLAVE BARTER.

It was on the 30th of August, 1498, that Columbus arrived at Hispaniola, where he found the state of his colony far from cheering, the defection of Roldan and his followers having put everything into confusion. The admiral supposed at first that the enmity of Roldan's party was chiefly directed against his brother, the Adelantado, and the admiral hoped that, now he had arrived, some agreement would speedily be concluded with Roldan, of which he might inform the catholic sovereigns by the vessels which he purposed to send back immediately to Spain. This was very far, however, from being the case. These vessels, five in number, left the port of St.

Domingo bearing no good news of peace and amity amongst the Spaniards, but laden with many hundreds of Indian slaves, which had been taken in the following manner. Some cacique failed to perform the personal services imposed upon him and his people, and fled to the forests; upon which, orders were given to pursue him, and a large number of slaves were captured and put into these ships. Columbus, in his letters to the sovereigns, enters into an account of the pecuniary advantage that will arise from these slave-dealing transactions, and from the sale of logwood.

He estimates, that "in the name of the sacred Trinity" there may be sent as many slaves as sale could be found for in Spain, and that the value of the slaves, for whom there would be a demand to the number of four thousand, as he calculated from certain information, and of the logwood, would amount to forty cuentos (i. e. forty million maravedis). The number of slaves who were sent in these five ships was six hundred, of which two hundred were given to the masters of the vessels in payment of freight. In the course of these letters, throughout which Columbus speaks after the fashion of a practised slave-dealer, he alludes to the intended adoption, on behalf of private individuals, of a system of exchange of slaves for goods wanted from the mother country. The proposed arrangement was as follows:--The masters of vessels were to receive slaves from the colonists, were to carry them to Spain, and to pay for their maintenance during the voyage; they were then to allow the colonists so much money, payable at Seville, in proportion to the number of slaves brought over.

This money they would expend according to the orders of the colonists, who would thus be able to obtain such goods as they might stand in need of. It was upon the same occasion of writing home to Spain that the admiral strongly urged upon the Catholic Sovereigns that the Spanish colonists should be allowed to make use of the services of the Indians for a year or two until the colony should be in a settled state, a proposal which he did not wait for their highnesses' authority to carry out, and which led to a new form of the repartimiento. But this brings us back to Roldan's story, being closely connected with it.

CONTENTION WITH ROLDAN.

After great trouble and many attempts at agreement, in which mention is more than once made of slaves, the dispute between Roldan's party, rebels they might almost be called, and Columbus, was at last, after two years'

negotiation, brought to a close. Roldan kept his chief-justiceship; and his friends received lands and slaves. It brings to mind the conclusion of many a long war in the old world, in which two great powers have been contending against each other, with several small powers on each side, the latter being either ruined in the course of the war, or sacrificed at the end. The admiral gave repartimientos to those followers of Roldan who chose to stay in the island, which were const.i.tuted in the following manner. The admiral placed under such a caciqne so many thousand matas (shoots of the cazabi), or, which came to the same thing, so many thousand montones (small mounds a foot and a half high, and ten or twelve feet round, on each of which a cazabi shoot was planted); and Columbus then ordered that the cacique or his people should till these lands for whomsoever they were a.s.signed to. The repartimiento had now grown to its second state--not lands only, but lands and the tillage of them. We shall yet find that there is a further step in this matter, before the repartimiento a.s.sumes its utmost development. It seems, too, that in addition to these repartimientos, Columbus gave slaves to those partizans of Roldan who stayed in the island. Others of Roldan's followers, fifteen in number, chose to return to Spain; they received a certain number of slaves, some one, some two, some three; and the admiral sent them home in two vessels which left the port of St. Domingo at the beginning of October, 1499.

THE QUEEN'S ANGER; PARTIAL RELEASE OF SLAVES.

On the arrival in Spain of these vessels, the Queen was in the highest degree angered by the above proceedings, and said that the admiral had received no authority from her to give her va.s.sals to anyone. She accordingly commanded proclamation to be made at Seville, Granada, and other places, that all persons who were in possession of Indians, given to them by the admiral, should, under pain of death, send those Indians back to Hispaniola, "and that particularly they should send back those Indians, and not the others who had been brought before, because she was informed that the others had been taken in just war." The former part of this proclamation has been frequently alluded to, and no doubt it deserves much praise; but from the latter part it is clear that there were some Indians who could justly, according to Queen Isabella, be made slaves. By this time, therefore, at any rate the question had been solved, whether by the learned in the law, theologians and canonists, I know not, but certainly in practice, that the Indians taken in war could be made slaves. The whole of this transaction is very remarkable, and, in some measure, inexplicable, on the facts before us. There is nothing to show that the slaves given to Roldan's followers were made slaves in a different way from those who had been sent over on former occasions, both by the admiral and his brother, for the benefit of the crown. And yet the Queen, whom no one has ever accused of condescending to state craft, seems to deal with this particular case as if it were something quite new. It cannot be said that the crown was favoured, for the question is put upon the legitimacy of the original capture; and to confirm this, there is a letter from the Sovereigns to one of their household, from which it may be inferred, though the wording is rather obscure, that they, too, gave up the slaves which had come over for them on this occasion.

Every body would be sorry to take away any honour from Isabella; and all who are conversant with that period must wish that her proclamation could be proved to have gone to the root of the matter; and that it had forbidden the sending Indians to Spain as slaves, on any pretext whatever.

THE ADMIRAL'S ENEMIES WORKING AT COURT.

To return to the affairs of Hispaniola. Columbus had now settled the Roldan revolt and other smaller ones; he had now, too, reduced the Indians into subjection; the mines were prospering; the Indians were to be brought together in populous villages, that so they might better be taught the Christian faith, and serve as va.s.sals to the crown of Castile; the royal revenues (always a matter of much concern to Columbus) would, he thought, in three years amount to sixty millions of reals; and now there was time for him to sit down, and meditate upon the rebuilding of the temple of Jerusalem, or the conversion of Cathay. If there had been any prolonged quiet for him, such great adventures would probably have begun to form the staple of his high thoughts. But he had hardly enjoyed more than a month of repose, when that evil came down upon him, which "poured the juice of aloes into the remaining portion of his life."

The Catholic sovereigns had hitherto, upon the whole, behaved well to Columbus. He had bitter enemies at court. People were for ever suggesting to the monarchs that this foreigner was doing wrong. The admiral's son, Ferdinand, gives a vivid picture of some of the complaints preferred against his father. He says, "When I was at Granada, at the time the most serene Prince Don Miguel died, more than fifty of them (Spaniards who had returned from the Indies), as men without shame, bought a great quant.i.ty of grapes, and sat themselves down in the court of the Alhambra, uttering loud cries, saying, that their Highnesses and the admiral made them live in this poor fashion on account of the bad pay they received, with many other dishonest and unseemly things, which they kept repeating. Such was their effrontery that when the Catholic king came forth they all surrounded him, and got him into the midst of them, saying, 'Pay! pay!'

and if by chance I and my brother, who were pages to the most serene Queen, happened to pa.s.s where they were, they shouted to the very heavens saying, 'Look at the sons of the admiral of Mosquitoland, of that man who has discovered the lands of deceit and disappointment, a place of sepulchre and wretchedness to Spanish hidalgoes:' adding many other insulting expressions, on which account we excused ourselves from pa.s.sing by them."

SERIOUS DISSATISFACTION.

Unjust clamour, like the above, would not alone have turned the hearts of the Catholic sovereigns against Columbus; but this clamour was supported by serious grounds for dissatisfaction in the state and prospects of the colony: and when there is a constant stream of enmity and prejudice against a man, his conduct or his fortune will, some day or other, offer an opportunity for it to rush in upon him.

COLUMBUS SUPERSEDED.

However this may be, soon after the return of the five vessels from St.

Domingo, mentioned above, which first told the news of the revolt of Roldan, Ferdinand and Isabella appear to have taken into serious consideration the question of suspending Columbus. He had, himself, in the letters transmitted by these ships, requested that some one might be sent to conduct the affairs of justice in the colony; but if Ferdinand and Isabella began by merely looking out for such an officer, they ended in resolving to send one who should take the civil as well as judicial authority into his own hands. This determination was not, however, acted upon hastily. On the 21st of March, 1499, they authorized Francis de Bobadilla "to ascertain what persons have raised themselves against justice in the island of Hispaniola, and to proceed against them according to law." On the 21st of May, 1499, they conferred upon this officer the government, and signed an order that all arms and fortresses in the Indies should be given up to him. On the 26th of the same month, they gave him the following remarkable letter to Columbus:-

"Don Christopher Columbus, our Admiral of the Ocean: We have commanded the Comendador Francis de Bobadilla, the bearer of this that he speak to you on our part some things which he will tell you: we pray you give him faith and credence, and act accordingly.

"I the King, I the Queen, "By their command, "MIGUEL PEREZ DE ALMAZAN,"

HARSH TREATMENT OF COLUMBUS AND HIS BROTHERS

Bobadilla, however, was not sent from Spain until the beginning of July, 1500, and did not make his appearance in Hispaniola till the 23rd of August of the same year. Their Highnesses, therefore, must have taken time before carrying their resolve into execution; and what they meant by it is dubious. Certainly, not that the matter should have been transacted in the coa.r.s.e way which Bobadilla adopted. It is a great pity, and a sad instance of mistaken judgment, that they fixed upon him for their agent. I imagine him to have been such a man as may often be met with, who, from his narrowness of mind and distinctness of prejudice, is supposed to be high- principled and direct in his dealings; and whose untried reputation has great favour with many people: until, placed in power some day, he shows that to rule well requires other things than one-sidedness in the ruling person; and is fortunate if he does not acquire that part of renown which consists in notoriety, by committing some colossal blunder, henceforth historical from its largeness.

COLUMBUS SENT HOME BY BOBADILLA IN CHAINS.

The first thing that Bobadilla did on arriving at St. Domingo was to take possession of the admiral's house (he being at the fort La Concepcion), and then to summon the admiral before him, sending him the royal letter.

Neither the admiral nor his brothers attempted to make any resistance; and Bobadilla, with a stupid brutality, which I suppose he took for vigour, put them in chains, and sent them to Spain. There is no doubt that the Castilian population of Hispaniola were rejoiced at Bobadilla's coming, and that they abetted him in his violence. Accusations came thickly against Columbus: "the stones rose up against him and his brothers," says the historian Herrera, emphatically, The people told how he had made them work, even sick men, at his fortresses, at his house, at the mills, and other buildings; how he had starved them; how he had condemned men to be whipped for the slightest causes, as, for instance, for stealing a peck of wheat when they were dying of hunger. Considering the difficulties he had to deal with, and the scarcity of provisions, many of these accusations, if rightly examined, would probably have not merely failed in producing anything against Columbus, but would have developed some proofs of his firmness and sagacity as a governor. Then his accusers went on to other grounds, such as his not having baptized Indians "because he desired slaves rather than Christians:" moreover, that he had entered into war unjustly with the Indians, and that he had made many slaves, in order to send them to Castile. It is highly unlikely that these latter charges were preferred by a single colonist, unless, perhaps, by some man in religious orders. The probability is, that they came from the other side of the water; and this does give considerable strength to the report, that the displeasure of the court with respect to the Admiral's proceedings against the Indians had to do with his removal from the government of the Indies.