Christopher Columbus and How He Received and Imparted the Spirit of Discovery Part 36

[Sidenote: Columbus and slavery.]

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 rea.s.surance. The prisoners which he had sent by the s.h.i.+ps raised a serious question. It was determined that any transaction looking to the making slaves of them had not been 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 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 justifiableness of such a sale. If we may believe Bernaldez, who pictures their misery, they were subsequently sold in Seville.

Munoz, however, says that he could not find that the trouble which hara.s.sed the theologians was ever decided. Such hesitancy 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 va.s.sals of the Crown, entering upon acts of resistance, should not be subjected to every sort of cruelty. Humboldt wonders at any hesitancy when the grand inquisitor, Torquemada, was burning heretics so fiercely at this time that such expiations of the poor Moors and Jews numbered 8,800 between 1481 and 1498!

[Sidenote: 1495. October. Aguado at Isabella.]

Aguado, with four caravels, and Diego Columbus accompanying him, having sailed from Cadiz late in August, 1495, reached the harbor of Isabella some time in October. The new commissioner found the Admiral absent, 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 intentions of the monarchs. It is not easy to find a definite determination of such a question. It appears that when the instrument 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 directions, and in various ways a.s.sume the functions of a governor. Bartholomew was in no condition to do more than mildly remonstrate. 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.

[Sidenote: Meets Columbus.]

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 meeting a little. When the conference came, Columbus, with a dignified and courteous air, bowed to a superior authority. It has pa.s.sed into history that Aguado was disappointed at this quiet submission, and had hoped for an altercation, 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.

[Sidenote: Accuses Columbus.]

The budget of accusations which Aguado had acc.u.mulated was now full enough, and he ordered the vessels to make ready to carry him back to Spain. The situation 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 Pinzons. 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 s.h.i.+ps. "It is not one of the least singular traits in his history," says Irving, "that after having been so many years in persuading mankind that there was a new world to be discovered, he had almost an equal trouble in proving to them the advantage of the discovery." He himself never did prove it.

[Sidenote: s.h.i.+ps wrecked in the harbor.]

The s.h.i.+ps were ready. They lay at anchor in the roadstead. A cloud of vapor and dust was seen in the east. It was borne headlong before 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 s.h.i.+ps shuddered at their anchorage; cables snapped; three caravels sunk, and the rest were dashed on the beach. The tumult lasted for three hours, and then the sun shone upon the havoc.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SPANISH SETTLEMENTS IN ESPAnOLA.

[From Charlevoix's _L'Isle Espagnole_ (Amsterdam, 1733).]]

There was but one vessel left in the harbor, and she was shattered. It was the "Nina," which had borne Columbus in his western cruise. As soon as the little colony recovered its senses, men were set to work repairing the solitary caravel, and constructing another out of the remnants of the wrecks.

[Sidenote: Miguel Diaz finds gold.]

[Sidenote: Hayna mines.]

[Sidenote: Solomon's Ophir.]

While this was going on, a young Spaniard, Miguel Diaz by name, presented himself in Isabella. He had been in the service of the Adelantado, and was not unrecognized. 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 become 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 Isabella, and lingered in concealment till he learned that his antagonist 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 adventurer's statement. In due time, the party returned, and reported that at a river named Hayna they had found such stores 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 Admiral's imagination was fired. He felt sure that he had come upon the Ophir of Solomon. These ancient mines must have yielded the gold which covered the great Temple.

Had the Admiral not discovered already the course of the s.h.i.+ps which sought it? Did they not come from the Persian gulf, round the Golden Chersonesus, and so easterly, as he himself 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 two caravels were now ready. The Adelantado was left in command, with Diego to succeed in case of his death. Francisco 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 important.

[Sidenote: 1496. March 10. Columbus and Aguado sail for Spain, carrying Caonabo.]

There was a motley company of about two hundred and fifty persons, largely discontents and vagabonds, crowded into the two s.h.i.+ps. Columbus was in one, and Aguado in the other. So they started on their adventurous and wearying voyage on March 10, 1496. They carried about thirty Indians in confinement, and among them the manacled Caonabo, with some of his relatives. Columbus told Bernaldez that he took the chieftain over to impress 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 s.h.i.+pboard.

[Sidenote: 1496. April 6.]

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 pa.s.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, 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 anch.o.r.ed for a while at Marigalante, and then pa.s.sed on to Guadaloupe.

[Sidenote: At Guadaloupe.]

[Sidenote: 1496. June.]

[Sidenote: 1496. June 11. Cadiz.]

He had some difficulty in landing, as a wild, screaming ma.s.s of natives was gathered on the beach in a hostile manner. A discharge of the Spanish arquebuses 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, that she had conceived a pa.s.sion for Caonabo. By the 20th, the s.h.i.+ps again set sail; but the same easterly trades baffled them, and another month was pa.s.sed without much progress. By the beginning of June, provisions were so reduced that there were fears of famine, and it began to be considered whether the voyagers might not emulate the Caribs and eat the Indians. Columbus interfered, on the plea that the poor creatures 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 Columbus 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 lat.i.tude of Cape St. Vincent as the Admiral affirmed. Some of these navigators put the s.h.i.+ps 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 morning, they saw land in the neighborhood of Cape St.

Vincent. On June 11, they entered the harbor of Cadiz.

CHAPTER XV.

IN SPAIN, 1496-1498.

DA GAMA, VESPUCIUS, CABOT.

[Sidenote: 1496. Columbus arrives at Cadiz,]

"The wretched men crawled forth," as Irving tells us of their debarkation, "emaciated by the diseases of the colony and the hards.h.i.+ps of the voyage, who carried 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 a.s.sumption 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.

[Sidenote: and learns the condition of the public mind.]

He found in the harbor three caravels just about starting for Espanola with tardy supplies. It had been intended to send some in January; but the s.h.i.+ps which started with them suffered 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 encounter in Spain. They gave him a sense, more than ever before, of the urgent necessity of making the colony tributary to the treasury of the Crown. It was 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 s.h.i.+ps, 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.

[Sidenote: 1496. June 17. Columbus writes to Bartholomew.]

To this end, the new mines of Hayna must be further explored, and the working of them started with diligence. A port of s.h.i.+pment should be found in their neighborhood, he adds. With such instructions to Bartholomew, the caravels sailed on June 17, 1496. It must have been with some trepidation that Columbus forwarded to the Court the tidings of his arrival. If the two dispatches which he sent could have been preserved, we might better understand his mental condition.

[Sidenote: Invited to Court.]

As soon as the messages of Columbus reached their Majesties, then at Almazan, they sent, July 12, 1496, a letter inviting him to Court, and rea.s.suring him in his despondency 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 fas.h.i.+on that Columbus 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 ornaments 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 festivities 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 identical in time.

The wedding was in fact nine months later, in April, 1497.

[Sidenote: Received by the sovereigns.]

[Sidenote: Makes new demands.]