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

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This story had much currency. The Island of the Seven Cities was
identified with the island mentioned by Aristotle as having been
discovered by the Carthaginians, and was put down in the early maps about
the time of Columbus, under the name of Antilla.

At the time of the discovery of New Spain, reports were brought to
Hispaniola of the civilization of the country; that the people wore
clothing; that their houses and temples were solid, spacious, and often
magnificent; and that crosses were occasionally found among them. Juan de
Grivalja, being dispatched to explore the coast of Yucatan, reported that
in sailing along it he beheld, with great wonder, stately and beautiful
edifices of lime and stone, and many high towers that shone at a distance.
[365] For a time the old tradition of the Seven Cities was revived, and
many thought that they were to be found in the same part of New Spain.

No. XXVII.

Discovery of the Island of Madeira.

The discovery of Madeira by Macham rests principally upon the authority of
Francisco Alcaforado, an esquire of prince Henry of Portugal, who composed
an account of it for that prince. It does not appear to have obtained much
faith among Portuguese historians. No mention is made of it in Barros; he
attributes the first discovery of the island to Juan Gonzalez and Tristram
Vaz, who he said descried it from Porto Santo, resembling a cloud on the
horizon. [366]

The abbe Provost, however, in his general history of voyages, vol. 6,
seems inclined to give credit to the account of Alcaforado. "It was
composed," he observes, "at a time when the attention of the public would
have exposed the least falsities; and no one was more capable than
Alcaforado of giving an exact detail of this event, since he was of the
number of those who assisted at the second discovery." The narrative, as
originally written, was overcharged with ornaments and digressions. It was
translated into French and published in Paris, in 1671. The French
translator had retrenched the ornaments, but scrupulously retained the
facts. The story, however, is cherished in the island of Madeira, where a
painting in illustration of it is still to be seen. The following is the
purport of the French translation: I have not been able to procure the
original of Alcaforado.

During the reign of Edward the Third of England, a young man of great
courage and talent, named Robert Macham, fell in love with a young lady of
rare beauty, of the name of Anne Dorset. She was his superior in birth,
and of a proud and aristocratic family; but the merit of Macham gained him
the preference over all his rivals. The family of the young lady, to
prevent her making an inferior alliance, obtained an order from the king
to have Macham arrested and confined, until by arbitrary means they
married his mistress to a man of quality. As soon as the nuptials were
celebrated, the nobleman conducted his beautiful and afflicted bride to
his seat near Bristol. Macham was now restored to liberty. Indignant at
the wrongs he had suffered, and certain of the affections of his mistress,
he prevailed upon several friends to assist him in a project for the
gratification of his love and his revenge. They followed hard on the
traces of the new-married couple to Bristol. One of the friends obtained
an introduction into the family of the nobleman in quality of a groom. He
found the young bride full of tender recollections of her lover, and of
dislike to the husband thus forced upon her. Through the means of this
friend, Macham had several communications with her, and concerted means
for their escape to France, where they might enjoy their mutual love
unmolested.

When all things were prepared, the young lady rode out one day accompanied
only by the fictitious groom, under pretence of taking the air. No sooner
were they out of sight of the house, than they galloped to an appointed
place on the shore of the channel, where a boat awaited them. They were
conveyed on board a vessel which lay with anchor a-trip, and sails
unfurled, ready to put to sea. Here the lovers were once more united.
Fearful of pursuit, the ship immediately weighed anchor; they made their
way rapidly along the coast of Cornwall, and Macham anticipated the
triumph of soon landing with his beautiful prize on the shores of gay and
gallant France. Unfortunately an adverse and stormy wind arose in the
night; at daybreak they found themselves out of sight of land. The
mariners were ignorant and inexperienced; they knew nothing of the
compass, and it was a time when men were unaccustomed to traverse the high
seas. For thirteen days the lovers were driven about on a tempestuous
ocean, at the mercy of wind and wave. The fugitive bride was filled with
terror and remorse, and looked upon this uproar of the elements as the
anger of heaven directed against her. All the efforts of her lover could
not remove from her mind a dismal presage of some approaching catastrophe.

At length the tempest subsided. On the fourteenth day, at dawn, the
mariners perceived what appeared to be a tuft of wood rising out of the
sea. They joyfully steered for it, supposing it to be an island. They were
not mistaken. As they drew near, the rising sun shone upon noble forests,
the trees of which were of a kind unknown to them. Flights of birds also
came hovering about the ship, and perched upon the yards and rigging
without any signs of fear. The boat was sent on shore to reconnoitre, and
soon returned with such accounts of the beauty of the country, that Macham
determined to take his drooping companion to the land, in hopes her health
and spirits might be restored by refreshment and repose. They were
accompanied on shore by the faithful friends who had assisted in their
flight. The mariners remained on board to guard, the ship.

The country was indeed delightful. The forests were stately and
magnificent; there were trees laden with excellent fruits, others with
aromatic flowers; the waters were cool and limpid, the sky was serene, and
there was a balmy sweetness in the air. The animals they met with showed
no signs of alarm or ferocity, from which they concluded that the island
was uninhabited. On penetrating a little distance they found a sheltered
meadow, the green bosom of which was bordered by laurels and refreshed by
a mountain brook which ran sparkling over pebbles. In the centre was a
majestic tree, the wide branches of which afforded shade from the rays of
the sun. Here Macham had bowers constructed and determined to pass a few
days, hoping that the sweetness of the country, and the serene
tranquillity of this delightful solitude, would recruit the drooping
health and spirits of his companion. Three days, however, had scarcely
passed, when a violent storm arose from the northeast, and raged all night
over the island. On the succeeding morning Macham repaired to the sea-side,
but nothing of his ship was to be seen, and he concluded that it had
foundered in the tempest.

Consternation fell upon the little band, thus left in an uninhabited
island in the midst of the ocean. The blow fell most severely on the timid
and repentant bride. She reproached herself with being the cause of all
their misfortunes, and, from the first, had been haunted by dismal
forebodings. She now considered them about to be accomplished, and her
horror was so great as to deprive her of speech; she expired in three days
without uttering a word.

Machnm was struck with despair at beholding the tragical end of this
tender and beautiful being. He upbraided himself, in the transports of his
grief, with tearing her from home, her country, and her friends, to perish
upon a savage coast. All the efforts of his companions to console him were
in vain. He died within five days, broken-hearted; begging, as a last
request, that his body might be interred beside that of his mistress, at
the foot of a rustic altar which they had erected under the great tree.
They set up a large wooden cross on the spot, on which was placed an
inscription written by Macham himself, relating in a few words his piteous
adventure, and praying any Christians who might arrive there, to build a
chapel in the place dedicated to Jesus the Saviour.

After the death of their commander, his followers consulted about means to
escape from the island. The ship's boat remained on the shore. They
repaired it and put it in a state to bear a voyage, and then made sail,
intending to return to England. Ignorant of their situation, and carried
about by the winds, they were cast upon the coast of Morocco, where, their
boat being shattered upon the rocks, they were captured by the Moors and
thrown into prison. Here they understood that their ship had shared the
same fate, having been driven from her anchorage in the tempest, and
carried to the same inhospitable coast, where all her crew were made
prisoners.

The prisons of Morocco were in those days filled with captives of all
nations, taken by their cruisers. Here the English prisoners met with an
experienced pilot, a Spaniard of Seville, named Juan de Morales. He
listened to their story with great interest; inquired into the situation
and description of the island they had discovered; and, subsequently, on
his redemption from prison, communicated the circumstances, it is said, to
prince Henry of Portugal.

There is a difficulty in the above narrative of Alcaforado in reconciling
dates. The voyage is said to have taken place during the reign of Edward
III, which commenced in 1327 and ended in 1378. Morales, to whom the
English communicated their voyage, is said to have been in the service of
the Portuguese, in the second discovery of Madeira, in 1418 and 1420. Even
if the voyage and imprisonment had taken place in the last year of king
Edward's reign, this leaves a space of forty years.

Hacluyt gives an account of the same voyage, taken from Antonio Galvano.
He varies in certain particulars. It happened, he says, in the year 1344,
in the time of Peter IV of Aragon. Macham cast anchor in a bay since
called, after him, Machio.

The lady being ill, he took her on shore, accompanied by some of his
friends, and the ships sailed without them. After the death of the lady,
Macham made a canoe out of a tree, and ventured to sea in it with his
companions. They were cast upon the coast of Africa, where the Moors,
considering it a kind of miracle, carried him to the king of their
country, who sent him to the king of Castile. In consequence of the
traditional accounts remaining of this voyage, Henry II of Castile sent
people, in 1395, to re-discover the island.

No. XXVIII.

Las Casas.

Bartholomew Las Casas, bishop of Chiapa, so often cited in all histories
of the New World, was born at Seville, in 1474, and was of French
extraction. The family name was Casaus. The first of the name who appeared
in Spain, served under the standard of Ferdinand III, surnamed the saint,
in his wars with the Moors of Andalusia. He was at the taking of Seville
from the Moors, when he was rewarded by the king, and received permission
to establish himself there. His descendants enjoyed the prerogatives of
nobility, and suppressed the letter u in their name, to accommodate it to
the Spanish tongue.

Antonio, the father of Bartholomew, went to Hispaniola with Columbus in
1493, and returned rich to Seville in 1498. [367] It has been stated by
one of the biographers of Bartholomew Las Casas, that he accompanied
Columbus in his third voyage in 1498, and returned with him in 1500. [368]
This, however, is incorrect. He was, during that time, completing his
education at Salamanca, where he was instructed in Latin, dialectics,
logic, metaphysics, ethics, and physics, after the supposed method and
system of Aristotle. While at the university, he had, as a servant, an
Indian slave, given him by his father, who had received him from Columbus.
When Isabella, in her transport of virtuous indignation, ordered the
Indian slaves to be sent back to their country, this one was taken from
Las Casas. The young man was aroused by the circumstance, and, on
considering the nature of the case, became inflamed with a zeal in favor
of the unhappy Indians, which never cooled throughout a long and active
life. It was excited to tenfold fervor, when, at about the age of
twenty-eight years, he accompanied the commander Ovando to Hispaniola in
1502, and was an eye-witness to many of the cruel scenes which took place
under his administration. The whole of his future life, a space exceeding
sixty years, was devoted to vindicating the cause, and endeavoring to
meliorate the sufferings of the natives. As a missionary, he traversed the
wilderness of the New World in various directions, seeking to convert and
civilize them; as a protector and champion, he made several voyages to
Spain, vindicated their wrongs before courts and monarchs, wrote volumes
in their behalf, and exhibited a zeal, and constancy, and intrepidity
worthy of an apostle. He died at the advanced age of ninety-two years, and
was buried at Madrid, in the church of the Dominican convent of Atocha, of
which fraternity he was a member.

Attempts have been made to decry the consistency and question the real
philanthropy of Las Casas, in consequence of one of the expedients to
which he resorted to relieve the Indians from the cruel bondage imposed
upon them. This occurred in 1517, when he arrived in Spain, on one of his
missions, to obtain measures in their favor from the government. On his
arrival in Spain, he found cardinal Ximenes, who had been left regent on
the death of King Ferdinand, too ill to attend to his affairs. He
repaired, therefore, to Valladolid, where he awaited the coming of the new
monarch Charles, archduke of Austria, afterwards the emperor Charles V. He
had strong opponents to encounter in various persons high in authority,
who, holding estates and repartimientos in the colonies, were interested
in the slavery of the Indians. Among these, and not the least animated,
was the bishop Fonseca, president of the council of the Indies.

At length the youthful sovereign arrived, accompanied by various Flemings
of his court, particularly his grand chancellor, doctor Juan de Selvagio,
a learned and upright man, whom he consulted on all affairs of
administration and justice. Las Casas soon became intimate with the
chancellor, and stood high in his esteem; but so much opposition arose on
every side that he found his various propositions for the relief of the
natives but little attended to. In his doubt and anxiety he had now
recourse to an expedient which he considered as justified by the
circumstances of the case. [369] The chancellor Selvagio and other
Flemings who had accompanied the youthful sovereign had obtained from him,
before quitting Flanders, licenses to import slaves from Africa to the
colonies; a measure which had recently in 1516 been prohibited by a decree
of cardinal Ximenes while acting as regent. The chancellor, who was a
humane man, reconciled it to his conscience by a popular opinion that one
negro could perform, without detriment to his health, the labor of several
Indians, and that therefore it was a great saving of human suffering. So
easy is it for interest to wrap itself up in plausible argument! He might,
moreover, have thought the welfare of the Africans but little affected by
the change. They were accustomed to slavery in their own country, and they
were said to thrive in the New World. "The Africans," observes Herrera,
"prospered so much in the island of Hispaniola, that it was the opinion
unless a negro should happen to be hanged, he would never die; for as yet
none had been known to perish from infirmity. Like oranges, they found
their proper soil in Hispaniola, and it seemed ever more natural to them
than their native Guinea." [370]

Las Casas, finding all other means ineffectual, endeavored to turn these
interested views of the grand chancellor to the benefit of the Indians. He
proposed that the Spaniards, resident in the colonies, might be permitted
to procure negroes for the labor of the farms and the mines, and other
severe toils, which were above the strength and destructive of the lives
of the natives. [371] He evidently considered the poor Africans as little
better than mere animals; and he acted like others, on an arithmetical
calculation of diminishing human misery, by substituting one strong man
for three or four of feebler nature. He, moreover, esteemed the Indians
as a nobler and more intellectual race of beings, and their preservation
and welfare of higher importance to the general interests of humanity.

It is this expedient of Las Casas which has drawn down severe censure upon
his memory. He has been charged with gross inconsistency, and even with
having originated this inhuman traffic in the New World. This last is a
grievous charge; but historical facts and dates remove the original sin
from his door, and prove that the practice existed in the colonies, and
was authorized by royal decree, long before he took a part in the
question.

Las Casas did not go to the New World until 1502. By a royal ordinance
passed in 1501, negro slaves were permitted to be taken there, provided
they had been born among Christians. [372] By a letter written by Ovando,
dated 1503, it appears that there were numbers in the island of
Hispaniola at that time, and he entreats that none more might be
permitted to be brought.

In 1506 the Spanish government forbade the introduction of negro slaves
from the Levant, or those brought up with the Moors; and stipulated that
none should be taken to the colonies but those from Seville, who had been
instructed in the Christian faith, that they might contribute to the
conversion of the Indians. [373] In 1510, king Ferdinand, being informed
of the physical weakness of the Indians, ordered fifty Africans to be
sent from Seville to labor in the mines. [374] In 1511, he ordered that
a great number should be procured from Guinea, and transported to
Hispaniola, understanding that one negro could perform the work of four
Indians. [375] In 1512 and '13 he signed further orders relative to the
same subject. In 1516, Charles V granted licenses to the Flemings to
import negroes to the colonies. It was not until the year 1517, that Las
Casas gave his sanction of the traffic. It already existed, and he
countenanced it solely with a view to having the hardy Africans
substituted for the feeble Indians. It was advocated at the same time,
and for the same reasons, by the Jeronimite friars, who were missionaries
in the colonies. The motives of Las Casas were purely benevolent, though
founded on erroneous notions of justice. He thought to permit evil that
good might spring out of it; to choose between two existing abuses, and
to eradicate the greater by resorting to the lesser. His reasoning,
however fallacious it may be, was considered satisfactory and humane by
some of the most learned and benevolent men of the age, among whom was
the cardinal Adrian, afterwards elevated to the papal chair, and
characterized by gentleness and humanity. The traffic was permitted;
inquiries were made as to the number of slaves required, which was
limited to four thousand, and the Flemings obtained a monopoly of the
trade, which they afterwards farmed out to the Genoese.

Dr. Eobertson, in noticing this affair, draws a contrast between the
conduct of the cardinal Ximenes and that of Las Casas, strongly to the
disadvantage of the latter. "The cardinal," he observes, "when solicited
to encourage this commerce, peremptorily rejected the proposition, because
he perceived the iniquity of reducing one race of men to slavery, when he
was consulting about the means of restoring liberty to another; but Las
Casas, from the inconsistency natural to men who hurry with headlong
impetuosity towards a favorite point, was incapable of making this
distinction. In the warmth of his zeal to save the Americans from the
yoke, he pronounced it to be lawful and expedient to impose one still
heavier on the Africans." [376] This distribution of praise and censure is
not perfectly correct. Las Casas had no idea that he was imposing a
heavier, nor so heavy, a yoke upon the Africans. The latter were
considered more capable of labor, and less impatient of slavery. While the
Indians sunk under their tasks, and perished by thousands in Hispaniola,
the negroes, on the contrary, thrived there. Herrera, to whom Dr.
Robertson refers as his authority, assigns a different motive, and one of
mere finance, for the measures of cardinal Ximenes. He says that he
ordered that no one should take negroes to the Indies, because, as the
natives were decreasing, and it was known that one negro did more work
than four of them, there would probably be a great demand for African
slaves, and a tribute might be imposed upon the trade, from which would
result profit to the royal treasury. [377] This measure was presently
after carried into effect, though subsequent to the death of the
cardinal, and licenses were granted by the sovereign for pecuniary
considerations. Flechier, in his life of Ximenes, assigns another but a
mere political motive for this prohibition. The cardinal, he says,
objected to the importation of negroes into the colonies, as he feared
they would corrupt the natives, and by confederacies with them render
them formidable to government. De Marsolier, another biographer of Ximenes,
gives equally politic reasons for this prohibition. He cites a letter
written by the cardinal on the subject, in which he observed that he knew
the nature of the negroes; they were a people capable, it was true, of
great fatigue, but extremely prolific and enterprising; and that if they
had time to multiply in America, they would infallibly revolt, and impose
on the Spaniards the same chains which they had compelled them to wear.
[378] These facts, while they take from the measure of the cardinal that
credit for exclusive philanthropy which has been bestowed upon it,
manifest the clear foresight of that able politician; whose predictions
with respect to negro revolt have been so strikingly fulfilled in the
island of Hispaniola.

Cardinal Ximenes, in fact, though a wise and upright statesman, was not
troubled with scruples of conscience on these questions of natural right;
nor did he possess more toleration than his contemporaries towards savage
and infidel nations. He was grand inquisitor of Spain, and was very
efficient during the latter years of Ferdinand in making slaves of the
refractory Moors of Granada. He authorized, by express instructions,
expeditions to seize and enslave the Indians of the Caribbee islands, whom
he termed only suited to labor, enemies of the Christians, and cannibals.
Nor will it be considered a proof of gentle or tolerant policy, that he
introduced the tribunal of the inquisition into the New World. These
circumstances are cited not to cast reproach upon the character of
cardinal Ximenes, but to show how incorrectly he has been extolled at the
expense of Las Casas. Both of them must be judged in connection with the
customs and opinions of the age in which they lived.

Las Casas was the author of many works, but few of which have been
printed. The most important is a general history of the Indies, from the
discovery to the year 1520, in three volumes. It exists only in
manuscript, but is the fountain from which Herrera, and most of the other
historians of the New World, have drawn large supplies. The work, though
prolix, is valuable, as the author was an eye-witness of many of the
facts, had others from persons who were concerned in the transactions
recorded, and possessed copious documents. It displays great erudition,
though somewhat crudely and diffusely introduced. His history was
commenced in 1527, at fifty-three years of age, and was finished in 1559,
when eighty-five. As many things are set down from memory, there is
occasional inaccuracy, but the whole bears the stamp of sincerity and
truth. The author of the present work, having had access to this valuable
manuscript, has made great use of it, drawing forth many curious facts
hitherto neglected; but he has endeavored to consult it with caution and
discrimination, collating it with other authorities, and omitting whatever
appeared to be dictated by prejudice or over-heated zeal.

Las Casas has been accused of high coloring and extravagant declamation in
those passages which relate to the barbarities practised on the natives;
nor is the charge entirely without foundation. The same zeal in the cause
of the Indians is expressed in his writings that shone forth in his
actions, always pure, often vehement, and occasionally unseasonable.
Still, however, where he errs it is on a generous and righteous side. If
one-tenth part of what he says he "witnessed with his own eyes" be true,
and his veracity is above all doubt, he would have been wanting in the
natural feelings of humanity had he not expressed himself in terms of
indignation and abhorrence.