The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II)

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Perhaps Ferdinand may really have entertained doubts as to the innocence
of Columbus, with respect to the various charges made against him. He may
have doubted also the sincerity of his loyalty, being a stranger, when he
should find himself strong in his command, at a great distance from the
parent country, with immense and opulent regions under his control.
Columbus, himself, in his letters, alludes to reports circulated by his
enemies, that he intended either to set up an independent sovereignty, or
to deliver his discoveries into the hands of other potentates; and he
appears to fear that these slanders might have made some impression on the
mind of Ferdinand. But there was one other consideration which had no less
force with the monarch in withholding this great act of justice--Columbus
was no longer indispensable to him. He had made his great discovery; he
had struck out the route to the New World, and now any one could follow
it. A number of able navigators had sprung up under his auspices, and
acquired experience in his voyages. They were daily besieging the throne
with offers to fit out expeditions at their own cost, and to yield a share
of the profits to the crown. Why should he, therefore, confer princely
dignities and prerogatives for that which men were daily offering to
perform gratuitously?

Such, from his after conduct, appears to have been the jealous and selfish
policy which actuated Ferdinand in forbearing to reinstate Columbus in
those dignities and privileges so solemnly granted to him by treaty, and
which it was acknowledged he had never forfeited by misconduct.

This deprivation, however, was declared to be but temporary; and plausible
reasons were given for the delay in his reappointment. It was observed
that the elements of those violent factions, recently in arms against him,
yet existed in the island; his immediate return might produce fresh
exasperation; his personal safety might be endangered, and the island
again thrown into confusion. Though Bobadilla, therefore, was to be
immediately dismissed from command, it was deemed advisable to send out
some officer of talent and discretion to supersede him, who might
dispassionately investigate the recent disorders, remedy the abuses which
had arisen, and expel all dissolute and factious persons from the colony.
He should hold the government for two years, by which time it was trusted
that all angry passions would be allayed, and turbulent individuals
removed: Columbus might then resume the command with comfort to himself
and advantage to the crown. With these reasons, and the promise which
accompanied them, Columbus was obliged to content himself. There can be no
doubt that they were sincere on the part of Isabella, and that it was her
intention to reinstate him in the full enjoyment of his rights and
dignities, after his apparently necessary suspension. Ferdinand, however,
by his subsequent conduct, has forfeited all claim to any favorable
opinion of the kind.

The person chosen to supersede Bobadilla was Don Nicholas de Ovando,
commander of Lares, of the order of Alcantara. He is described as of the
middle size, fair complexioned, with a red beard, and a modest look, yet a
tone of authority. He was fluent in speech, and gracious and courteous in
his manners. A man of great prudence, says Las Casas, and capable of
governing many people, but not of governing the Indians, on whom he
inflicted incalculable injuries. He possessed great veneration for
justice, was an enemy to avarice, sober in his mode of living, and of such
humility, that when he rose afterwards to be grand commander of the order
of Alcantara, he would never allow himself to be addressed by the title of
respect attached to it. [101] Such is the picture drawn of him by
historians; but his conduct in several important instances is in direct
contradiction to it. He appears to have been plausible and subtle, as well
as fluent and courteous; his humility concealed a great love of command,
and in his transactions with Columbus he was certainly both ungenerous and
unjust.

The various arrangements to be made, according to the new plan of colonial
government, delayed for some time the departure of Ovando. In the
meantime, every arrival brought intelligence of the disastrous state of
the island, under the mal-administration of Bobadilla. He had commenced
his career by an opposite policy to that of Columbus. Imagining that
rigorous rule had been the rock on which his predecessors had split, he
sought to conciliate the public by all kinds of indulgence. Having at the
very outset relaxed the reins of justice and morality, he lost all command
over the community; and such disorder and licentiousness ensued, that
many, even of the opponents of Columbus, looked back with regret upon the
strict but wholesome rule of himself and the Adelantado.

Bobadilla was not so much a bad as an imprudent and a weak man. He had not
considered the dangerous excesses to which his policy would lead. Rash in
grasping authority, he was feeble and temporizing in the exercise of it:
he could not look beyond the present exigency. One dangerous indulgence
granted to the colonists called for another; each was ceded in its turn,
and thus he went on from error to error,--showing that in government there
is as much danger to be apprehended from a weak as from a bad man.

He had sold the farms and estates of the crown at low prices, observing
that it was not the wish of the monarchs to enrich themselves by them, but
that they should redound to the profit of their subjects. He granted
universal permission to work the mines, exacting only an eleventh of the
produce for the crown. To prevent any diminution in the revenue, it became
necessary, of course, to increase the quantity of gold collected. He
obliged the caciques, therefore, to furnish each Spaniard with Indians, to
assist him both in the labors of the field and of the mine. To carry this
into more complete effect, he made an enumeration of the natives of the
island, reduced them into classes, and distributed them, according to his
favor or caprice, among the colonists. The latter, at his suggestion,
associated themselves in partnerships of two persons each, who were to
assist one another with their respective capitals and Indians, one
superintending the labors of the field, and the other the search for gold.
The only injunction of Bobadilla was, to produce large quantities of ore.
He had one saying continually in his mouth, which shows the pernicious and
temporizing principle upon which he acted: "Make the most of your time,"
he would say, "there is no knowing how long it will last," alluding to the
possibility of his being speedily recalled. The colonists acted up to his
advice, and so hard did they drive the poor natives, that the eleventh
yielded more revenue to the crown than had ever been produced by the third
under the government of Columbus. In the meantime, the unhappy natives
suffered under all kinds of cruelties from their inhuman taskmasters.
Little used to labor, feeble of constitution, and accustomed in their
beautiful and luxuriant island to a life of ease and freedom, they sank
under the toils imposed upon them, and the severities by which they were
enforced. Las Casas gives an indignant picture of the capricious tyranny
exercised over the Indians by worthless Spaniards, many of whom had been
transported convicts from the dungeons of Castile. These wretches, who in
their own countries had been the vilest among the vile, here assumed the
tone of grand cavaliers. They insisted upon being attended by trains of
servants. They took the daughters and female relations of caciques for
their domestics, or rather for their concubines, nor did they limit
themselves in number. When they traveled, instead of using the horses and
mules with which they were provided, they obliged the natives to transport
them upon their shoulders in litters, or hammocks, with others attending
to hold umbrellas of palm-leaves over their heads to keep off the sun, and
fans of feathers to cool them; and Las Casas affirms that he has seen the
backs and shoulders of the unfortunate Indians who bore these litters raw
and bleeding from the task. When these arrogant upstarts arrived at an
Indian village, they consumed and lavished away the provisions of the
inhabitants, seizing upon whatever pleased their caprice, and obliging the
cacique and his subjects to dance before them for their amusement. Their
very pleasures were attended with cruelty. They never addressed the
natives but in the most degrading terms, and on the least offence, or the
least freak of ill-humor, inflicted blows and lashes, and even death
itself. [102]

Such is but a faint picture of the evils which sprang up under the feeble
rule of Bobadilla; and are sorrowfully described by Las Casas, from actual
observation, as he visited the island just at the close of his
administration. Bobadilla had trusted to the immense amount of gold, wrung
from the miseries of the natives, to atone for all errors, and secure
favor with the sovereigns; but he had totally mistaken his course. The
abuses of his government soon reached the royal ear, and above all, the
wrongs of the natives reached the benevolent heart of Isabella. Nothing
was more calculated to arouse her indignation, and she urged the speedy
departure of Ovando, to put a stop to these enormities.

In conformity to the plan already mentioned, the government of Ovando
extended over the islands and Terra Firma, of which Hispaniola was to be
the metropolis. He was to enter upon the exercise of his powers
immediately upon his arrival, by procuration, sending home Bobadilla by
the return of the fleet. He was instructed to inquire diligently into the
late abuses, punishing the delinquents without favor or partiality, and
removing all worthless persons from the island. He was to revoke
immediately the license granted by Bobadilla for the general search after
gold, it having been given without royal authority. He was to require, for
the crown, a third of what was already collected, and one half of all that
should be collected in future. He was empowered to build towns, granting
them the privileges enjoyed by municipal corporations of Spain, and
obliging the Spaniards, and particularly the soldiers, to reside in them,
instead of scattering themselves over the island. Among many sage
provisions, there were others injurious and illiberal, characteristic of
an age when the principles of commerce were but little understood; but
which were continued by Spain long after the rest of the world had
discarded them as the errors of dark and unenlightened times. The crown
monopolized the trade of the colonies. No one could carry merchandises
there on his own account. A royal factor was appointed, through whom alone
were to be obtained supplies of European articles. The crown reserved to
itself not only exclusive property in the mines, but in precious stones,
and like objects of extraordinary value, and also in dyewoods. No
strangers, and above all, no Moors nor Jews, were permitted to establish
themselves in the island, nor to go upon voyages of discovery. Such were
some of the restrictions upon trade which Spain imposed upon her colonies,
and which were followed up by others equally illiberal. Her commercial
policy has been the scoff of modern times; but may not the present
restrictions on trade, imposed by the most intelligent nations, be equally
the wonder and the jest of future ages?

Isabella was particularly careful in providing for the kind treatment of
the Indians. Ovando was ordered to assemble the caciques, and declare to
them, that the sovereigns took them and their people under their especial
protection. They were merely to pay tribute like other subjects of the
crown, and it was to be collected with the utmost mildness and gentleness.
Great pains were to be taken in their religious instruction; for which
purpose twelve Franciscan friars were sent out, with a prelate named
Antonio de Espinal, a venerable and pious man. This was the first formal
introduction of the Franciscan order into the New World. [103]

All these precautions with respect to the natives were defeated by one
unwary provision. It was permitted that the Indians might be compelled to
work in the mines, and in other employments; but this was limited to the
royal service. They were to be engaged as hired laborers, and punctually
paid. This provision led to great abuses and oppressions, and was
ultimately as fatal to the natives as could have been the most absolute
slavery.

But, with that inconsistency frequent in human conduct, while the
sovereigns were making regulations for the relief of the Indians, they
encouraged a gross invasion of the rights and welfare of another race of
human beings. Among their various decrees on this occasion, we find the
first trace of negro slavery in the New World. It was permitted to carry
to the colony negro slaves born among Christians; [104] that is to say,
slaves born in Seville and other parts of Spain, the children and
descendants of natives brought from the Atlantic coast of Africa, where
such traffic had for some time been carried on by the Spaniards and
Portuguese. There are signal events in the course of history, which
sometimes bear the appearance of temporal judgments. It is a fact worthy
of observation, that Hispaniola, the place where this flagrant sin against
nature and humanity was first introduced into the New World, has been the
first to exhibit an awful retribution.

Amidst the various concerns which claimed the attention of the sovereigns,
the interests of Columbus were not forgotten. Ovando was ordered to
examine into all his accounts, without undertaking to pay them off. He was
to ascertain the damages he had sustained by his imprisonment, the
interruption of his privileges, and the confiscation of his effects. All
the property confiscated by Bobadilla was to be restored; or if it had
been sold, to be made good. If it had been employed in the royal service,
Columbus was to be indemnified out of the treasury; if Bobadilla had
appropriated it to his own use, he was to account for it out of his
private purse. Equal care was to be taken to indemnify the brothers of the
admiral for the losses they had wrongfully suffered by their arrest.

Columbus was likewise to receive the arrears of his revenues; and the same
were to be punctually paid to him in future. He was permitted to have a
factor resident in the island, to be present at the melting and marking of
the gold, to collect his dues, and in short to attend to all his affairs.
To this office he appointed Alonzo Sanchez de Carvajal; and the sovereigns
commanded that his agent should be treated with great respect.

The fleet appointed to convey Ovando to his government was the largest
that had yet sailed to the New World. It consisted of thirty sail, five of
them from ninety to one hundred and fifty tons burden, twenty-four
caravels from thirty to ninety, and one bark of twenty-five tons. [105]
The number of souls embarked in this fleet was about twenty-five hundred;
many of them persons of rank and distinction, with their families.

That Ovando might appear with dignity in his new office, he was allowed to
use silks, brocades, precious stones, and other articles of sumptuous
attire, prohibited at that time in Spain, in consequence of the ruinous
ostentation of the nobility. He was permitted to have seventy-two
esquires, as his body-guard, ten of whom were horsemen. With this
expedition sailed Don Alonzo Maldonado, appointed as alguazil mayor, or
chief justice, in place of Roldan, who was to be sent to Spain. There were
artisans of various kinds: to these were added a physician, surgeon, and
apothecary; and seventy-three married men [106] with their families, all
of respectable character, destined to be distributed in four towns, and to
enjoy peculiar privileges, that they might form the basis of a sound and
useful population. They were to displace an equal number of the idle and
dissolute who were to be sent from the island: this excellent measure had
been especially urged and entreated by Columbus. There was also
live-stock, artillery, arms, munitions of all kinds; every thing, in
short, that was required for the supply of the island.

Such was the style in which Ovando, a favorite of Ferdinand, and a native
subject of rank, was fitted out to enter upon the government withheld from
Columbus. The fleet put to sea on the thirteenth of February, 1502. In the
early part of the voyage it was encountered by a terrible storm; one of
the ships foundered, with one hundred and twenty passengers; the others
were obliged to throw overboard every thing on deck, and were completely
scattered. The shores of Spain were strewed with articles from the fleet,
and a rumor spread that all the ships had perished. When this reached the
sovereigns, they were so overcome with grief that they shut themselves up
for eight days, and admitted no one to their presence. The rumor proved to
be incorrect: but one ship was lost. The others assembled again at the
island of Gomera in the Canaries, and, pursuing their voyage, arrived at
San Domingo on the 15th of April. [107]

Chapter IV.

Proposition of Columbus Relative to the Recovery of the Holy Sepulchre.

[1500-1501.]

Columbus remained in the city of Granada upwards of nine months,
endeavoring to extricate his affairs from the confusion into which they
had been thrown by the rash conduct of Bobadilla, and soliciting the
restoration of his offices and dignities. During this time he constantly
experienced the smiles and attentions of the sovereigns, and promises were
repeatedly made him that he should ultimately be reinstated in all his
honors. He had long since, however, ascertained the great interval that
may exist between promise and performance in a court. Had he been of a
morbid and repining spirit, he had ample food for misanthropy. He beheld
the career of glory which he had opened, thronged by favored adventurers;
he witnessed preparations making to convey with unusual pomp a successor
to that government from which he had been so wrongfully and rudely
ejected; in the meanwhile his own career was interrupted, and as far as
public employ is a gauge of royal favor, he remained apparently in
disgrace.

His sanguine temperament was not long to be depressed; if checked in one
direction it broke forth in another. His visionary imagination was an
internal light, which, in the darkest times, repelled all outward gloom,
and filled his mind with splendid images and glorious speculations. In
this time of evil, his vow to furnish, within seven years from the time of
his discovery, fifty thousand foot-soldiers, and five thousand horse, for
the recovery of the holy sepulchre, recurred to his memory with peculiar
force. The time had elapsed, but the vow remained unfulfilled, and the
means to perform it had failed him. The New World, with all its treasures,
had as yet produced expense instead of profit; and so far from being in a
situation to set armies on foot by his own contributions, he found himself
without property, without power, and without employ.

Destitute of the means of accomplishing his pious intentions, he
considered it his duty to incite the sovereigns to the enterprise; and he
felt emboldened to do so, from having originally proposed it as the great
object to which the profits of his discoveries should be dedicated. He set
to work, therefore, with his accustomed zeal, to prepare arguments for the
purpose. During the intervals of business, he sought into the prophecies
of the holy Scriptures, the writings of the fathers, and all kinds of
sacred and speculative sources, for mystic portents and revelations which
might be construed to bear upon the discovery of the New World, the
conversion of the Gentiles, and the recovery of the holy sepulchre: three
great events which he supposed to be predestined to succeed each other.
These passages, with the assistance of a Carthusian friar, he arranged in
order, illustrated by poetry, and collected into a manuscript volume, to
be delivered to the sovereigns. He prepared, at the same time, a long
letter, written with his usual fervor of spirit and simplicity of heart.
It is one of those singular compositions which lay open the visionary part
of his character, and show the mystic and speculative reading with which
he was accustomed to nurture his solemn and soaring imagination.

In this letter he urged the sovereigns to set on foot a crusade for the
deliverance of Jerusalem from the power of the unbelievers. He entreated
them not to reject his present advice as extravagant and impracticable,
nor to heed the discredit that might be cast upon it by others; reminding
them that his great scheme of discovery had originally been treated with
similar contempt. He avowed in the fullest manner his persuasion, that,
from his earliest infancy, he had been chosen by Heaven for the
accomplishment of those two great designs, the discovery of the New World,
and the rescue of the holy sepulchre. For this purpose, in his tender
years, he had been guided by a divine impulse to embrace the profession of
the sea, a mode of life, he observes, which produces an inclination to
inquire into the mysteries of nature; and he had been gifted with a
curious spirit, to read all kinds of chronicles, geographical treatises,
and works of philosophy. In meditating upon these, his understanding had
been opened by the Deity, "as with a palpable hand," so as to discover the
navigation to the Indies, and he had been inflamed with ardor to undertake
the enterprise. "Animated as by a heavenly fire," he adds, "I came to your
highnesses: all who heard of my enterprise mocked at it; all the sciences
I had acquired profited me nothing; seven years did I pass in your royal
court, disputing the case with persons of great authority and learned in
all the arts, and in the end they decided that all was vain. In your
highnesses alone remained faith and constancy. Who will doubt that this
light was from the holy Scriptures, illumining you as well as myself with
rays of marvelous brightness?"

These ideas, so repeatedly, and solemnly, and artlessly expressed, by a
man of the fervent piety of Columbus, show how truly his discovery arose
from the working of his own mind, and not from information furnished by
others. He considered it a divine intimation, a light from Heaven, and the
fulfillment of what had been fortold by our Saviour and the prophets.
Still he regarded it but as a minor event, preparatory to the great
enterprise, the recovery of the holy sepulchre. He pronounced it a miracle
effected by Heaven, to animate himself and others to that holy
undertaking; and he assured the sovereigns that, if they had faith in his
present as in his former proposition, they would assuredly be rewarded
with equally triumphant success. He conjured them not to heed the sneers
of such as might scoff at him as one unlearned, as an ignorant mariner, a
worldly man; reminding them that the Holy Spirit works not merely in the
learned, but also in the ignorant; nay, that it reveals things to come,
not merely by rational beings, but by prodigies in animals, and by mystic
signs in the air and in the heavens.

The enterprise here suggested by Columbus, however idle and extravagant it
may appear in the present day, was in unison with the temper of the times,
and of the court to which it was proposed. The vein of mystic erudition by
which it was enforced, likewise, was suited to an age when the reveries of
the cloister still controlled the operations of the cabinet and the camp.
The spirit of the crusades had not yet passed away. In the cause of the
church, and at the instigation of its dignitaries, every cavalier was
ready to draw his sword; and religion mingled a glowing and devoted
enthusiasm with the ordinary excitement of warfare. Ferdinand was a
religious bigot; and the devotion of Isabella went as near to bigotry as
her liberal mind and magnanimous spirit would permit. Both the sovereigns
were under the influence of ecclesiastical politicians, constantly guiding
their enterprises in a direction to redound to the temporal power and
glory of the church. The recent conquest of Granada had been considered a
European crusade, and had gained to the sovereigns the epithet of
Catholic. It was natural to think of extending their sacred victories
still further, and retaliating upon the infidels their domination of Spain
and their long triumphs over the cross. In fact, the Duke of Medina
Sidonia had made a recent inroad into Barbary, in the course of which he
had taken the city of Melilla, and his expedition had been pronounced a
renewal of the holy wars against the infidels in Africa. [108]

There was nothing, therefore, in the proposition of Columbus that could be
regarded as preposterous, considering the period and circumstances in
which it was made, though it strongly illustrates his own enthusiastic and
visionary character. It must be recollected that it was meditated in the
courts of the Alhambra, among the splendid remains of Moorish grandeur,
where, but a few years before, he had beheld the standard of the faith
elevated in triumph above the symbols of infidelity. It appears to have
been the offspring of one of those moods of high excitement, when, as has
been observed, his soul was elevated by the contemplation of his great and
glorious office; when he considered himself under divine inspiration,
imparting the will of Heaven, and fulfilling the high and holy purposes
for which he had been predestined. [109]