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

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Vespucci does not appear to have received the reward from the king of
Portugal that his services merited, for we find him at Seville early in
1505, on his way to the Spanish court, in quest of employment: and he
was bearer of a letter from Columbus to his son Diego, dated February 5,
which, while it speaks warmly of him as a friend, intimates his having
been unfortunate. The following is the letter:

My Dear Son,--Diego Mendez departed hence on Monday, the third of this
month. After his departure I conversed with Amerigo Vespucci, the bearer
of this, who goes there (to court) summoned on affairs of navigation.
Fortune has been adverse to him as to many others. His labors have not
profited him as much as they reasonably should have done. He goes on my
account, and with much desire to do something that may result to my
advantage, if within his power. I cannot ascertain here in what I can
employ him, that will be serviceable to me, for I do not know what may
be there required. He goes with the determination to do all that is
possible for me; see in what he may be of advantage, and co-operate
with him, that he may say and do every thing, and put his plans in
operation; and let all be done secretly, that he may not be suspected.
I have said every thing to him that I can say touching the business,
and have informed him of the pay I have received, and what is due, &c.
[298]

About this time Amerigo Vespucci received letters of naturalization from
king Ferdinand, and shortly afterwards he and Vincente Yafiez Pinzon were
named captains of an armada about to be sent out in the spice trade and to
make discoveries. There is a royal order, dated Toro, 11th April, 1507,
for 12,000 maravedis for an outfit for "Americo de Vespuche, resident of
Seville." Preparations were made for this voyage, and vessels procured and
fitted out, but it was eventually abandoned. There are memoranda existing
concerning it, dated in 1506, 1507, and 1508, from which it appears that
Amerigo Vespucci remained at Seville, attending to the fluctuating
concerns of this squadron, until the destination of the vessels was
changed, their equipments were sold, and the accounts settled. During this
time he had a salary of 30,000 maravedis. On the 22d of March, 1508, he
received the appointment of principal pilot, with a salary of 70,000
maravedis. His chief duties were to prepare charts, examine pilots,
superintend the fitting out of expeditions, and prescribe the route that
vessels were to pursue in their voyages to the New World. He appears to
have remained at Seville, and to have retained this office until his
death, on the 22d of February, 1512. His widow, Maria Corezo, enjoyed a
pension of 10,000 maravedis. After his death, his nephew, Juan Vespucci,
was nominated pilot, with a salary of 20,000 maravedis, commencing on the
22d of May, 1512. Peter Martyr speaks with high commendation of this young
man. "Young Vesputius is one to whom Americus Vesputius his uncle left the
exact knowledge of the mariner's faculties, as it were by inheritance,
after his death; for he was a very expert master in the knowledge of his
carde, his compasse and the elevation of the pole starre by the
quadrant.... Vesputius is my very familiar friend, and a wittie young man,
in whose company I take great pleasure, and therefore use him oftentymes
for my guest. He hath also made many voyages into these coasts, and
diligently noted such things as he hath seen." [299]

Vespucci, the nephew, continued in this situation during the lifetime of
Fonseca, who had been the patron of his uncle and his family. He was
divested of his pay and his employ by a letter of the council, dated the
18th of March, 1525, shortly after the death of the bishop. No further
notice of Vespucci is to be found in the archives of the Indies.

Such is a brief view of the career of Amerigo Vespucci; it remains to
notice the points of controversy. Shortly after his return from his last
expedition to the Brazils, he wrote a letter dated Lisbon, 4th September,
1504, containing a summary account of all his voyages. This letter is of
special importance to the matters under investigatiod, as it is the only
one known that relates to the disputed voyage, which would establish him
as the discoverer of Terra Firma. It is presumed to have been written in
Latin, and was addressed to Rene, duke of Lorraine, who assumed the title
of king of Sicily and Jerusalem.

The earliest known edition of this letter was published in Latin, in 1507,
at St. Diez in Lorraine. A copy of it has been found in the library of the
Vatican (No. 9688) by the abbe Cancellieri. In preparing the present
illustration, a reprint of this letter in Latin has been consulted,
inserted in the Novus Orbis of Grinaeus, published at Bath in 1532. The
letter contains a spirited narrative of four voyages which he asserts to
have made to the New World. In the prologue he excuses the liberty of
addressing king Rene by calling to his recollection the ancient intimacy
of their youth, when studying the rudiments of science together, under the
paternal uncle of the voyager; and adds that if the present narrative
should not altogether please his Majesty, he must plead to him as Pliny
said to Maecenas, that he used formerly to be amused with his triflings.

In the prologue to this letter, he informs king Rene that affairs of
commerce had brought him to Spain, where he had experienced the various
changes of fortune attendant on such transactions, and was induced to
abandon that pursuit and direct his labors to objects of a more elevated
and stable nature. He therefore purposed to contemplate various parts of
the world, and to behold the marvels which it contains. To this object
both time and place were favorable; for king Ferdinand was then preparing
four vessels for the discovery of new lands in the west, and appointed him
among the number of those who went in the expedition. "We departed," he
adds, "from the port of Cadiz, May 20, 1497, taking our course on the
great gulf of ocean; in which voyage we employed eighteen months,
discovering many lands and innumerable islands, chiefly inhabited, of
which our ancestors make no mention."

A duplicate of this letter appears to have been sent at the same time
(written, it is said, in Italian) to Piere Soderini, afterwards
Gonfalonier of Florence, which was some years subsequently published in
Italy, not earlier than 1510, and entitled "Lettera de Amerigo Vespucci
delle Isole nuovamente trovate in quatro suoi viaggi." We have consulted
the edition of this letter in Italian, inserted in the publication of
Padre Stanislaus Canovai, already referred to.

It has been suggested by an Italian writer, that this letter was written
by Vespucci to Soderini only, and the address altered to king Rene through
the flattery or mistake of the Lorraine editor, without perceiving how
unsuitable the reference to former intimacy, intended for Soderini, was,
when applied to a sovereign. The person making this remark can hardly have
read the prologue to the Latin edition, in which the title of "your
majesty" is frequently repeated, and the term "illustrious king" employed.
It was first published also in Lorraine, the domains of Rene, and the
publisher would not probably have presumed to take such a liberty with his
sovereign's name. It becomes a question, whether Vespucci addressed the
same letter to king Rene and to Piere Soderini, both of them having been
educated with him, or whether he sent a copy of this letter to Soderini,
which subsequently found its way into print. The address to Soderini may
have been substituted, through mistake, by the Italian publisher. Neither
of the publications could have been made under the supervision of
Vespucci.

The voyage specified in this letter as having taken place in 1497, is the
great point in controversy. It is strenuously asserted that no such voyage
took place; and that the first expedition of Vespucci to the coast of
Paria was in the enterprise commanded by Ojeda, in 1499. The books of the
armadas existing in the archives of the Indies at Seville, have been
diligently examined, but no record of such voyage has been found, nor any
official documents relating to it. Those most experienced in Spanish
colonial regulations insist that no command like that pretended by
Vespucci could have been given to a stranger, till he had first received
letters of naturalization from the sovereigns for the kingdom of Castile,
and he did not obtain such till 1505, when they were granted to him as
preparatory to giving him the command in conjunction with Pinzon.

His account of a voyage made by him in 1497, therefore, is alleged to be a
fabrication for the purpose of claiming the discovery of Paria; or rather
it is affirmed that he has divided the voyage which he actually made with
Ojeda, in 1499, into two; taking a number of incidents from his real
voyage, altering them a little, and enlarging them with descriptions of
the countries and people, so as to make a plausible narrative, which he
gives as a distinct voyage; and antedating his departure to 1497, so as to
make himself appear the first discoverer of Paria.

In support of this charge various coincidences have been pointed out
between his voyage said to have taken place in 1497, and that described in
his first letter to Lorenzo de Medici in 1499. These coincidences are with
respect to places visited, transactions and battles with the natives, and
the number of Indians carried to Spain and sold as slaves.

But the credibility of this voyage has been put to a stronger test. About
1508 a suit was instituted against the crown of Spain by Don Diego, son
and heir of Columbus, for the government of certain parts of Terra Firma,
and for a share in the revenue arising from them, conformably to the
capitulations made between the sovereigns and his father. It was the
object of the crown to disprove the discovery of the coast of Paria and
the pearl islands by Columbus; as it was maintained, that unless he had
discovered them, the claim of his heir with respect to them would be of no
validity.

In the course of this suit, a particular examination of witnesses took
place in 1512-13 in the fiscal court. Alonzo de Ojeda, and nearly a
hundred other persons, were interrogated on oath; that voyager having been
the first to visit the coast of Paria after Columbus had left it, and that
within a very few months. The interrogatories of these witnesses, and
their replies, are still extant, in the archives of the Indies at Seville,
in a packet of papers entitled "Papers belonging to the admiral Don Luis
Colon, about the conservation of his privileges, from ann. 1515 to 1564."
The author of the present work has two several copies of these
interrogatories lying before him. One made by the late historian Munoz,
and the other made in 1826, and signed by Don Jose de la Higuera y Lara,
keeper of the general archives of the Indies in Seville. In the course of
this testimony, the fact that Amerigo Vespucci accompanied Ojeda in this
voyage of 1499, appears manifest, first from the deposition of Ojeda
himself. The following are the words of the record: "In this voyage which
this said witness made, he took with him Juan de la Cosa and Morego
Vespuche [Amerigo Vespucci] and other pilots." [300] Secondly, from the
coincidence of many parts of the narrative of Vespucci with events in
this voyage of Ojeda. Among these coincidences, one is particularly
striking. Vespucci, in his letter to Lorenzo de Medici, and also in that
to Rene or Soderini, says, that his ships, after leaving the coast of
Terra Firma, stopped at Hispaniola, where they remained about two months
and a half, procuring provisions, during which time, he adds, "we had
many perils and troubles with the very Christians who were in that
island with Columbus, and I believe through envy." [301]

Now it is well known that Ojeda passed some time on the western end of the
island victualing his ships; and that serious dissensions took place
between him and the Spaniards in those parts, and the party sent by
Columbus under Roldan to keep a watch upon his movements. If then
Vespucci, as is stated upon oath, really accompanied Ojeda in this voyage,
the inference appears almost irresistible, that he had not made the
previous voyage of 1497, for the fact would have been well known to Ojeda;
he would have considered Vespucci as the original discoverer, and would
have had no motive for depriving him of the merit of it, to give it to
Columbus, with whom Ojeda was not upon friendly terms.

Ojeda, however, expressly declares that the coast had been discovered by
Columbus. On being asked how he knew the fact, he replied, because he saw
the chart of the country discovered, which Columbus sent at the time to
the king and queen, and that he came off immediately on a voyage of
discovery, and found what was therein set down as discovered by the
admiral was correct. [302]

Another witness, Bernaldo de Haro, states that he had been with the
admiral, and had written (or rather copied) a letter for the admiral to
the king and queen, designating, in an accompanying sea-chart, the courses
and steerings and winds by which he had arrived at Paria; and that this
witness had heard that from this chart others had been made, and that
Pedro Alonzo Nino and Ojeda, and others, who had since, visited these
countries, had been guided by the same. [303]

Francisco de Molares, one of the best and most credible of all the pilots,
testified that he saw a sea-chart which Columbus had made of the coast of
Paria, _and he believed that all governed themselves by it_.
[304]

Numerous witnesses in this process testify to the fact that Paria was
first discovered by Columbus. Las Casas, who has been at the pains of
counting them, says that the fact was established by twenty-five
eye-witnesses and sixty ear-witnesses. Many of them testify also that the
coast south of Paria, and that extending west of the island of Margarita,
away to Venezuela, which Vespucci states to have been discovered by
himself, in 1497, was now first discovered by Ojeda, and had never before
been visited either by the admiral "or any other Christian whatever."

Alonzo Sanchez de Carvajal says that all the voyages of discovery which
were made to the Terra Firma, were made by persons who had sailed with the
admiral, or been benefited by his instructions and directions, following
the course he had laid down;[305] and the same is testified by many other
pilots and mariners of reputation and experience.

It would be a singular circumstance, if none of these witnesses, many of
whom must have sailed in the same squadron with Vespucci along this coast
in 1499, should have known that he had discovered and explored it two
years previously. If that had really been the case, what motive could he
have for concealing the fact? and why, if they knew it, should they not
proclaim it? Vespucci states his voyage in 1497 to have been made with
four caravels; that they returned in October, 1498, and that he sailed
again with two caravels in May, 1499, (the date of Ojeda's departure.)
Many of the mariners would therefore have been present in both voyages.
Why, too, should Ojeda and the other pilots guide themselves by the charts
of Columbus, when they had a man on board so learned in nautical science,
and who, from his own recent observations, was practically acquainted with
the coast? Not a word, however, is mentioned of the voyage and discovery
of Vespucci by any of the pilots, though every other voyage and discovery
is cited; nor does there even a seaman appear who has accompanied him in
his asserted voyage.

Another strong circumstance against the reality of this voyage is, that it
was not brought forward in this trial to defeat the claims of the heirs of
Columbus. Vespucci states the voyage to have been undertaken with the
knowledge and countenance of king Ferdinand; it must, therefore, have been
avowed and notorious. Vespucci was living at Seville in 1508, at the time
of the commencement of this suit, and, for four years afterward, a
salaried servant of the crown. Many of the pilots and mariners must have
been at hand, who sailed with him in his pretended enterprise. If this
voyage had once been proved, it would completely have settled the
question, as far as concerned the coast of Paria, in favor of the crown.
Yet no testimony appears ever to have been taken from Vespucci while
living; and when the interrogatories were made in the fiscal court in
1512-13, not one of his seamen is brought up to give evidence. A voyage so
important in its nature, and so essential to the question in dispute, is
not even alluded to, while useless pains are taken to wrest evidence from
the voyage of Ojeda, undertaken at a subsequent period.

It is a circumstance worthy of notice, that Vespucci commences his first
letter to Lorenzo de Medici in 1500, within a month after his return from
the voyage he had actually made to Paria, and apologizes for his long
silence, by saying that nothing had occurred worthy of mention, ("e gran
tempo che non ho scritto a vostra magnifizensa, e non lo ha causato altra
cosa ne nessuna salvo non mi essere occorso cosa degna di memoria,") and
proceeds eagerly to tell him the wonders he had witnessed in the
expedition from which he had but just returned. It would be a singular
forgetfulness to say that nothing had occurred of importance, if he had
made a previous voyage of eighteen months in 1497-8 to this
newly-discovered world; and it would be almost equally strange that he
should not make the slightest allusion to it in this letter.

It has been the endeavor of the author to examine this question
dispassionately; and after considering the statements and arguments
advanced on either side, he cannot resist a conviction, that the voyage
stated to have been made in 1497 did not take place, and that Vespucci has
no title to the first discovery of the coast of Paria.

The question is extremely perplexing from the difficulty of assigning
sufficient motives for so gross a deception. When Vespucci wrote his
letters there was no doubt entertained but that Columbus had discovered
the main-land in his first voyage; Cuba being always considered the
extremity of Asia, until circumnavigated in 1508. Vespucci may have
supposed Brazil, Paria, and the rest of that coast, part of a distinct
continent, and have been anxious to arrogate to himself the fame of its
discovery. It has been asserted, that, on his return from his voyage to
the Brazils, he prepared a maritime chart, in which he gave his name to
that part of the mainland; but this assertion does not appear to be well
substantiated. It would rather seem that his name was given to that part
of the continent by others, as a tribute paid to his supposed merit, in
consequence of having read his own account of his voyages. [306]

It is singular that Fernando, the son of Columbus, in his biography of his
father, should bring no charge against Vespucci of endeavoring to supplant
the admiral in this discovery. Herrera has been cited as the first to
bring the accusation, in his history of the Indies, first published in
1601, and has been much criticized in consequence, by the advocates of
Vespucci, as making the charge on his mere assertion. But, in fact,
Herrera did but copy what he found written by Las Casas, who had the
proceedings of the fiscal court lying before him, and was moved to
indignation against Vespucci, by what he considered proofs of great
imposture.

It has been suggested that Vespucci was instigated to this deception at
the time when he was seeking employment in the colonial service of Spain;
and that he did it to conciliate the bishop Fonseca, who was desirous of
any thing that might injure the interests of Columbus. In corroboration of
this opinion, the patronage is cited which was ever shown by Fonseca to
Vespucci and his family. This is not, however, a satisfactory reason,
since it does not appear that the bishop ever made any use of the
fabrication. Perhaps some other means might be found of accounting for
this spurious narration, without implicating the veracity of Vespucci. It
may have been the blunder of some editor, or the interpolation of some
book-maker, eager, as in the case of Trivigiani with the manuscripts of
Peter Martyr, to gather together disjointed materials, and fabricate a
work to gratify the prevalent passion of the day.

In the various editions of the letters of Vespucci, the grossest
variations and inconsistencies in dates will be found, evidently the
errors of hasty and careless publishers. Several of these have been
corrected by the modern authors who have inserted these letters in their
works. [307] The same disregard to exactness which led to these blunders,
may have produced the interpolation of this voyage, garbled out of the
letters of Vespucci and the accounts of other voyagers. This is merely
suggested as a possible mode of accounting for what appears so decidedly
to be a fabrication, yet which we are loath to attribute to a man of the
good sense, the character, and the reputed merit of Vespucci.

After all, this is a question more of curiosity than of real moment,
although it is one of those perplexing points about which grave men will
continue to write weary volumes, until the subject acquires a fictitious
importance from the mountain of controversy heaped upon it. It has become
a question of local pride with the literati of Florence; and they emulate
each other with patriotic zeal, to vindicate the fame of their
distinguished countryman. This zeal is laudable when kept within proper
limits; but it is to be regretted that some of them have so far been
heated by controversy as to become irascible against the very memory of
Columbus, and to seek to disparage his general fame, as if the ruin of it
would add any thing to the reputation of Vespucci. This is discreditable
to their discernment and their liberality; it injures their cause, and
shocks the feelings of mankind, who will not willingly see a name like
that of Columbus lightly or petulantly assailed in the course of these
literary contests. It is a name consecrated in history, and is no longer
the property of a city, or a state, or a nation, but of the whole world.

Neither should those who have a proper sense of the merit of Columbus put
any part of his great renown at issue upon this minor dispute. Whether or
not he was the discoverer of Paria, was a question of interest to his
heirs, as a share of the government and revenues of that country depended
upon it; but it is of no importance to his fame. In fact, the European who
first reached the mainland of the New World was most probably Sebastian
Cabot, a native of Venice, sailing in the employ of England. In 1497 he
coasted its shores from Labrador to Florida; yet the English have never
set up any pretensions on his account.

The glory of Columbus does not depend upon the parts of the country he
visited or the extent of coast along which he sailed; it embraces the
discovery of the whole western world. With respect to him, Vespucci is as
Yanez Pinzon, Bastides, Ojeda, Cabot, and the crowd of secondary
discoverers, who followed in his track, and explored the realms to which
he had led the way. When Columbus first touched a shore of the New World,
even though a frontier island, he had achieved his enterprises; he had
accomplished all that was necessary to his fame: the great problem of the
ocean was solved; the world which lay beyond its western waters was
discovered.

No. XI.

Martin Alonzo Pinzon.

In the course of the trial in the fiscal court, between Don Diego and the
crown, an attempt was made to depreciate the merit of Columbus, and to
ascribe the success of the great enterprise of discovery to the
intelligence and spirit of Martin Alonzo Pinzon. It was the interest of
the crown to do so, to justify itself in withholding from the heirs of
Columbus the extent of his stipulated reward. The examinations of
witnesses in this trial were made at various times and places, and upon a
set of interrogatories formally drawn up by order of the fiscal. They took
place upwards of twenty years after the first voyage of Columbus, and the
witnesses testified from recollection.

In reply to one of the interrogatories, Arias Perez Pinzon, son of Martin
Alonzo, declared, that, being once in Rome with his father on commercial
affairs, before the time of the discovery, they had frequent conversations
with a person learned in cosmography who was in the service of Pope
Innocent VIII, and that being in the library of the pope, this person
showed them many manuscripts, from one of which his father gathered
intimation of these new lands; for there was a passage by an historian as
old as the time of Solomon, which said, "Navigate the Mediterranean Sea to
the end of Spain and thence towards the setting sun, in a direction
between north and south, until ninety-five degrees of longitude, and you
will find the land of Cipango, fertile and abundant, and equal in
greatness to Africa and Europe." A copy of this writing, he added, his
father brought from Rome with an intention of going in search of that
land, and frequently expressed such determination; and that, when Columbus
came to Palos with his project of discovery, Martin Alonzo Pinzon showed
him the manuscript, and ultimately gave it to him just before they sailed.